Should a Deist pray? Response to jar's idea of God.

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As best I understand jar's position, he believes in a omnipotent, omniscient God who can create the universe, the laws of nature (including evolution), fully understanding that this will lead to sentient beings.
As best I understand randman's position, it is that God is an incompetent bungling fool who keeps screwing up and has to repeatedly "poof" new creatures into existence in an attempt to correct the mistakes He made in His previous go arounds.

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As an Agnostic, I find it rather incredible that any believer has any pretension at all to knowing and understanding the least, tiny little thing about the nature of God.What God is like, what God can do...how can any puny human being with their tiny, limited brain even begin to comprehend an omnicient, omnipotent being?It is the height of conceit and pride.

If the complete quote changes nothing, in your view, why did you choose to truncate the quote in the first place? The "managed" quote presumes nothing and, in fact, deliberately left the door open for you to point out the effects of the Fall as you see them. This you didn't do until the disingenuity of your quoting was pointed out.I have no problem with you evoking the Fall as the explanation. As you know, the problem with invoking the Fall doesn't really cut the mustard when someone doesn't believe that everything was once perfect on Earth.

Why should he not expect God to answer his prayers? Deism is not a term that can be given to people by others. Deists must proclaim Deism, Randman. A Believer need not be an absolutist Protestant...as this topic is defined. One question: Is Mankind created in Gods imagination? Did not God imagine everything in the Beginning? Why is an evolutionistic model excluded from the Divine imagination? Just a thought. Then, from across the pond, comes my boy Wiz: It appears that Mike is advocating a belief in a personal way with God. Randman apparantly cannot understand how God can be personal in regards to prayer and aloofish and uninvolved in the process of creation.As for me? I dont care how stuff got here! I know God, and I have prayed to Him, talked with Him, and received answers from Him. I suppose that my question is this:
Why does creationism mean so much to ones belief paradigm? Can we not relate to God irregardless of HOW it all happened?This message has been edited by Phat, 12-26-2005 04:25 PM

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Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.

Because I wanted you to realize what you stated. The managed part or anything after that point is not germane. You have an opinion on what God would do, period.

Phat, I understand. That's not the point. The point is there is some inconsistency in thinking non-intervention is a rule and then asking for intervention.Elaborating further, there is inconsistency in believing God would never create poor designs, but he would create a system predicated on poor designs competing with one another.

i think you meant Bullheadicus atheisticus the slightly more intelligent cousin of Bullheadicus christicus.

You can't get any clearer than that.But I don't recall anyone asserting a Prime Directive for God; no rule has been defined. ABIUJB*, God set things in motion, and then did not intervene in the process of creation set in motion, but now can and will answer prayers. Different times, different actions: not a rule, simply beliefs about God's actions at two different times and places--based on study and thought, ABIUJB.At any rate, indeed there would be an inconsistency in binding God with a rule in one place and not another, but the basic flaw would be applying rules to God at all, and you, ABIUYB, seem closer to that position than jar.*As Best I Understand Jar's BeliefsThis message has been edited by Omnivorous, 12-29-2005 07:55 PMThis message has been edited by Omnivorous, 12-29-2005 07:59 PM

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What I refuse to accept is your insistence that your beliefs about your beliefs constitute evidence in support of your beliefs.

Maybe people could discuss jar's beliefs on the debate thread where he stated his beliefs.http://< !--UB EvC Forum: Creation Debate - Jar and Randman - 12-24-2005 -->http://EvC Forum: Creation Debate - Jar and Randman - 12-24-2005Edited to fix linkThis message has been edited by AdminJar, 03-07-2006 11:12 AM

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No, randman, I have an opinion of what God can do, not what God would, should or might do. How can you state with any integrity that the verb in the sentence isn't germane to what I'm saying. This is a laugh a minute! In case you have forgotten a verb is a "doing" word and describes an action, therefore the sentence makes no sense without it. You actually state in your reply Confirms that you are attempting justify messing around with a "doing" word, since you actually use the word "do".
The term "would" in the sentence is, IIRC, a modal verb - it modulates the "doing" word of the sentence. For example, using a modal verb along with another verb, I can get all sorts of different meanings.1. He had managed - looks like the guy was successful
2. He would have managed - oops, sounds like he screwed up
3. He should have managed - oops screw up again.In future, randman, if you want to quote something I've said, so it in full, don't make ommissions of the parts that don't suit your purpose and don't then try to defend the indefensible.Misquoting someone deliberately in a debate is a no-no. It is not debating in good faith, it is disingenuous and it makes debate with the culprit impossible and extremely unpleasant. I also believe it is against the forum guidelines. Maybe an Admin could tell us? Then again, maybe they couldn't. Ho hum.

It's not germane at all in the context of your quote, and there is absolutely no misquoting or mispresentation of your post at all, not inthe slightest.

How can including the actual words of my quote NOT be germane to quoting my words?You removed the actual meaning of what I was saying in order to make it say something else that suited your purpose.Let's try again, randman.If we are talking about "doing" then the "doing" word is exceedingly important. Without the "doing" word, we can't really talk about the "doing", can we?Your arguments here are disingenuous and dishonest. Your quoting here was disingenuous and dishonest.I will add that I am not calling you disingenuous or dishonest, but your arguments. I point this out in unequivocal terms so that you can't again deliberately misquote me and attempt admin action for a non-existent ad hominem.

Randman and Trixie, Your prolonged disagreement is not advancing the discussion.I reviewed the posts involved starting with Message 59.Randman, Trixie clarified the intent of her statement in Message 85 which she stated dealt with God's actions not his thoughts. After reading her statements and yours, I agree that her opinion concerning Vitamin C is dealing with God's actions and not his thoughts.IMO, in prolonging this disagreement, both of you are steering towards rule #10.I'm sure you've heard the old idiom: Two wrongs don't make a right.Please discontinue this line of discussion. IMO, satisfaction will not be achieved by continuing.Please direct any comments concerning this warning to the appropriate link listed below.

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Usually, in a well-conducted debate, speakers are either emotionally uncommitted or can preserve sufficient detachment to maintain a coolly academic approach.-- Encylopedia Brittanica, on debate

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If that truly is Randman's or anyone else's position on God's intelligence I ask how it could be done differently? How could any two opposing forces be perfect? Take for example rabbits and hawks (For the sake of the discussion let's say hawks are rabbits' only predators and hawks only eat rabbits). If rabbits are perfectly designed, they would be capable of completely avoiding hawk predation. On the contrary, if hawks were perfectly designed, they would catch a rabbit with each try. How could a rabbit be caught everytime while avoiding being caught everytime? Perhaps in a world where organisms did not feast on eachother every organism would be capable of perfection. However, since life feeds on life this idea of perfect harmony is sheer contradiction and cannot be achieved.

I was challenging randman, expecting him to correct what I attributed to him. Instead, he just said I'm wrong.The thread was itself started by randman, who was challenging jar's beliefs.In any case, you are right that there are some philosophical problems with omnipotence and omniscience, unless you are very careful how to define them. I seem to remember an old song "If an irresistable force meets an immovable object, something's gotta give, somethings gotta give, soemthings gotta give". You have have lots of fun with such ideas.However perfection is possible. You asked the wrong person about that. I'm a mathematician, and mathematicians create their own mathematical perfection. It doesn't work that way in the real world, but if you are into it, mathematics can be enjoyable.

I won't pretend to be talking for either Faith or Randman, but one prediction I have as to how they will address this issue will be to claim "The Fall". Prior to The Fall, everything was perfect and nothing died. It was only after The Fall that them darned ole hawks started eating them cute little bunnies. Of course, we should never question such a ridiculous claim by pointing out that prior to The Fall, even if everything was a vegetarian...plants still died. Unless that is, randman (or Faith) want to additionally claim that plants aren't really living things anyway. We also need to ignore the rather elaborate rearrangement of parts needed to be instantly converted from a plant diet to a meat diet. Plus, we need to somehow or another wrap our head around the concept that somehow this omnificent, omnipotent God didn’t see this one (The Fall) coming.
However, what I actually think will happen is nothing at all. Randman will ignore your post completely.