Gee, I thought those Dickensian beatings ended long ago.
When I was asked something on a paper or test in Catholic School that
I disagreed with, I would say the answer you want is---
I don't agree with that because---- I think the true answer is-----.
Got marked down in theology class in college once for that, but never
high school or grade school.
Actually, I think the shove it down your throat thing is excellent practice
in resisting pressure, and figuring out what is wrong or illogical with
Catholic theology is excellent mental training. After all the best minds
worked on this stuff for millenia, literally.
Of course most people for most of history thought that the gods were limited
in scope, altho they were usually immortal. The first gods were most likely
goddesses, but that is a topic to be dealt with at some other time. Some
of those gods were not pleasant at all. All of them were capricious. Well,
fortune is capricious.
When I was in religion/theology class, I thought that the godlings were silly,
and it only made sense that God was all powerful, all this and all that. Now
I think that those earlier thinkers really did have something going. Some places
are so beautiful that they seem magic, so assigning a godling/sprite/nymph/elf
to them is lovely and poetical. Also, if a forest is deemed sacred, it is liess likely
to be cut down, which can be a really good thing.
Likewise, the thought that the sun might not rise the next day is terrifying. So
terrifying to the Aztecs that they had to make sure someone (or a lot of someones)
were sacrificed each day to make sure the next day would happen.
Even so, did they sacrifice fewer innocents than the
spanish Inquisition did? Not much to chose from between the Aztecs and the
Conquistodores. All in all, I'd rather be slaughtered by having my heart torn
out than by burning. I imagine the former is over in a few seconds, but burning. .
shudder.
It may be that a bigger, more powerful god makes for bigger more powerful people
running things, or vice versa.
Also, some of this has something to do with the science/math of the time the idea
of the particular god was being developed. For example, there was a time before
the idea of infinity was invented. You weren't going to have an infinite Ggod if
you don't have the idea of infinity.
Likewise, before the idea of mechanical clocks, you aren't going to have a clockwork
universe, which is precise, and ideally at least knowable, by someOne who is all
knowing. You can be as powerful as heck, but if you are not all knowing, there is
some wiggle room for various concepts, and a bit less pride for the religious types.
Now, what I tried to say previously, is that we are now beyond the clockwork universe.
At certain scales it breaks down and is wrong. We are in a universe of uncertainty.
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle sez that as you get down to the very very small
you cannot know both hmmmm, the speed and direction is it of a paricle? If you stick
a probe in there, you alter things. (My quantum physics is 40 years old, so please forgive
me if I don't have this exactly right.) If you add that to chaos theory, which I don't pretend
to understand very much, you have very small changes having very big consequence. A much
fuzzier universe.
(Chaos theory began when a scientist--I think a weather scientist --was running a program
which drew out some nice curves or ovals. He ran it for a while and then something happened
and he had to run the program again. Because he was lazy, or he didn't think it would matter,
he cut off the imputs at 4 decimal places. Like having to worry about .00009 cents instead of
worrying about .0001 cents. Well, surprise, surprise. Some of his future runs were just an eensy
weensy amount off. But some of them were 'way 'way 'way off. And so a new science was
born. Hence the idea of a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon ultimately causing a typhoon
in Burma, maybe.)
Add the 2 together, and worries about free will vs an omnipotent god kinda go away.
The world becomes as radically uncertain as it used to be before the mechanical
clocks. If any theologians are worrying about this I don't know about it.
So if God did exist and chose to cause an earthquake because of say, gay marriage in Calfornia,
or better yet a tornado centering itself in the white house, and chose to do it by making a very
very small intervention, s/he might not get it right!! It might not be theoretically possible. Nobody,
not even God, can make a circle square or one and one make 16. The intervention might have
to be big enough that we mortals might notice!! I personally haven't witnessed any miracles,
but I am willing to concede that somebody else might have.
Maybe tomorrow, if we all can stand it, a few more thoughts on evil. Heck, one debating point.
If you could go back in time and strangle Hitler in his cradle, would you? A Catholic type I know
said he wouldn't, because the future could've been even worse without him. I said I would, in
a heartbeat.
