From: Robert Owen (rowen@technologist.com)
Date: Sat Oct 09 1999 - 15:51:11 MDT
Bryan Moss wrote:
> John K Clark wrote:
>
> > The religious correctly conclude that if Evolution is true and God exists
> > then He's a sadistic monster.
>
> God can still be good even if we mortals interpret his actions as evil and
> sadistic. That's the reason you worship Him, so he'll be impressed by your
> faith and maybe take a little pity on your arrogant mortal needs.
Christian mystics have always, in one way or another, affirmed
as an epistemological caveat a "doctrine of ignorance". C.f.
Jacob Boehme, Angelus Silesius, and Meister Eckhart. Of course
the Scholastic philosopher believed that God can be known to
some extent by means of axiomatic deduction -- St. Thomas
Acquinas.
If we assume the being of a "hypertranscendental" or "super-
natural" object whose properties are omniscence, omnipresence,
and omnipotence, then I suppose the human dualities of "good-
evil", "loving-sadistic" and so on cannot, by definition, have
the slightest relevance to the essence of this object. In this
sense, Bryan, it is also inappropriate to say "God is Good".
Spinoza said simply that God is sui generis, and Moses used
the term "jahweh" rather than "eloi" when reporting God's
self-definition to humans: "I am what I am" is what "jahweh"
means in Hebrew. Parenthetically, Jesus on the cross used
another tradition when he said "Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?"
or "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" in Aramaic.
=======================
Robert M. Owen
Director
The Orion Institute
57 W. Morgan Street
Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA
=======================
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