We had to talk about St. Thomas Aquinas in my Classic and Medieval European History class. St. Augustine too, and he happens to be the topic of my "reporting" in class. LOL
edited 30th Mar '15 8:35:16 AM by entropy13
I'm reading this because it's interesting. I think. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, over.I have a quote of Saint Augustine on my page. It's in Latin, though.
I remember having to learn all the arguments for the existence of God in philosophy. The class as a whole just went "nope" for the ontological argument. Even this one really devout Christian disagreed with its logic.
edited 30th Mar '15 9:03:43 AM by TenebrousGaze
Then God rreally did find a flaw in the ontological argument.
edited 30th Mar '15 1:26:36 PM by petersohn
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to us."Even this one really devout Christian disagreed with its logic."
This one does too. There are no "proofs" of God.
Every time we find one, he deletes it from our memories.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."I associate him mostly with the idea of spontaneous generation, myself.
"Can we all agree that trying to prove the existence or non-existence of an eldritch abomination beyond space and time such as God is ultimately an interestingly futile exercise?"
Well I can say that calling God an Eldritch abomination is almost hilariously offensive.
edited 31st Mar '15 11:01:38 AM by Joesolo
I'm baaaaaaackI'd ask why it's offensive but it'd probably launch an ultimately pointless derail. If you want to PM me why you don't think it's OK to talk about religion in the same terms as (other) fiction I'd be interested in your point of view but it's probably better not to start that in the thread.
edited 31st Mar '15 11:10:18 AM by BestOf
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.Well, speaking as a Catholic, I mostly call God an eldritch abomination in order to not take things too seriously when in a discussion involving religion. It's a defuse/humourous mechanism, in a certain way.
edited 31st Mar '15 11:27:25 AM by Quag15
Abomination generally has extremely negative connotations, but meh. And I guess derailing this into why it's not fiction(our own pages classify religion separately) would probably get messy.
Oh, interesting thing from the other day, I was at the Stevens Institute in Hoboken and their school newspaper actually prints web comics there, including XKCD. Any of you guys seen that else where?
edited 31st Mar '15 11:24:52 AM by Joesolo
I'm baaaaaaackI wholeheartedly agree with you. Not in calling God an eldritch abomination but in not taking things too seriously. I myself am not religious, but I personally find if offensive when people are offended at other people's religiousness (or lack of that). For example, if a televangelist wanted to "save my soul" by trying to convert me to their religion, I would just laugh at him, and if they became rude, I would be offended of their rudeness, not their religion. Or there are those who want to ban people talking about their religion publicly because it "may offend non-religious people". Why? Democracy and freedom of speech don't mean that everybody has to think the same way.
Anyway, it may be appropriate to call God "eldritch", given that he fulfills several of the requirements.
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to us.EDIT -Eldritch sure. Abomination, less so.
I posted more than this before but we've got other threads for this.
edited 31st Mar '15 12:01:33 PM by Joesolo
I'm baaaaaaackGiven some of the things He did in the Old Testament, including scolding His chosen people for not being thorough enough in their genocide, I'm sure you'll find some who agree on both words.
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."Being mean is not the same as being impossible to understand. Though that doesn't seem out of line with much of Christian philosophy in general either.
{nods} I think that the central argument is that it's potentially incendiary, like referring to President Obama as a "black barbarian". Sure, he's black, and I'm sure you could find people who'd argue that he's barbaric in his proposed policies, but I think all parties involved would agree that it's trying to raise tempers. Perhaps "Alien Intelligence" would work a bit better to indicate that we, as human beings, really cannot fathom what a being with omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence would be like?
Not omniscient, Genesis made that clear.
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."The common reading is as that of a parent who sees a baseball, a broken lamp, and only one child in the room, and asks what happened. It's obvious what happened, you just want to give the child the chance to confess.
Fresh-eyed movie blogThat was more due to God failing a spot check (or giving the impression of doing so, in order to make Adam and Eve submit to a Secret Test of Character). It happens to the best of the eldritch entitiesnote
I also originally said that God was an eldritch abomination in the sense of being unfathomable and beyond mere human logic (and being awesome, in the 'worthy of awe' sense). Besides, eldritch abomination is just the trope name, since there are eldritch beings that could be considered to be good or neutral through human eyes (after all, the contrast between Old Testament God and New Testament God does look jarring at first).
edited 31st Mar '15 1:07:44 PM by Quag15
It's not that you're wrong from that perspective, it's that people rarely focus on that aspect when thinking of eldritch abominations. Plus, abomination is a pretty loaded term. I don't think people really understand that trope very well, including writers.
He's only an eldritch abomination if you are on the other side...
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."He did. She didnt listen.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."On the other hand, given the value of salt back then, she could take some cold comfort in being worth more dead than alive...
I bring that up as an example because the kind of Supreme Being that would turn someone who disobeys it into a pillar of salt is utterly inscrutable to us.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Yeah, pretty much.
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.