A medieval question for you, if you believe in god....

by snare&racket 55 Replies latest jw friends

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  humbled

  Snare,

  Poor St. Thomas was stuck with a mind that fed on Aristotle and had to regurgitate it as theology.

  He was caught in the crushing bind of having to accept a popular belief that even the Pope bought into: the Immaculate Conception of Mary

  You know, that idea was not that Jesus was immaculately conceived (that's the Virgin Birth)--He had to swallow that Mary was sactified almost instantaneously after conception so as not to be born with original sin. Most Holy Mother of God.

  There were many that held that she wasn't ever stained by "original sin"-- But Thomas' mind knew that ALL had sinned and needed redemption--that why Jesus had to be born and die, of course. So he had to reconcile the crazy idea that God could work a personal redemption before Jesus died?

  Talk about a mind-%$#&!

  If God could do that in the case of Mary--sort of erase the possibility of her being able to sin in the first place--I wonder why he didn't do the same for Adam and Eve?

  Or, hell--why didn't he do it for everyone else?

  At one point Thomas is said to have remarked of all his theological writings"It is all straw".

  Personally, I think that is the truth.
• 

  zound

  "This is a thought exercise nothing to do with weight lifting for gods."

  Lol. If he spent some time in the gym and really sweated it out - putting small incremental weight increases each workout, training progressivelly, and not neglecting eating a nutritious high protein diet, I'm sure he could lift that stone eventually.

  He'd look pretty ripped also as a bonus.
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  prologos

  The question has it's own build-in fallacy. god trying to compete with himself to create something bigger than he can minipulate, while at the same time respecting the applicable laws.

  bac to basic physics, bodies resist movement because of their mass. Only in the presence of gravity do bodies have weight, resist LIFTING. to have gravity you have to be near a mass, so there has to be not just the newly made impossible-to-lift rock, and another one that gives gravity, attraction, WEIGHT.

  prying the apart would be easy, just rotate them and wthey will fly apart eventually.

  a body (or two) can be rotated by applying a small force for a long time, acceleration always. No super giant power needed. just persistence.

  besides the scriptures says the only thing that god can not do,- is lie, and nowhere have I read him bragging about impossib;le illogical tasks confronting him,

  except human building towers, having novel sexual experiences with the beyond. then he would act.
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  snare&racket

  You are missing the target again....

  lets take god out of the equation been as it is so personal to some.... "Can an all powerful ANYTHING make a rock so heavy they cant lift it?"

  It isn't a personal attack on anyone's god, the concept of 'all powerful' or omnipiotent is flawed.

  As for Thomas Aquinas. He did not come up with this, he just openly discussed it. Avoid the conflict by talking about everything but the obvious if you wish, So far only one person has recognised the illogic belief in omnipotence.

  it's not personal, relax....
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  prologos

  words fail me to define the absurdety of following through on this proposition, so I resorted to these possibilities. We have to assume that thsi is not just about abstract thoughts but has a link, if ever so tenious to reality. but

  It is comocal to think of anything struggling to outdo itself.
• 

  snare&racket

  A theological paradox outlining the flawed concept of omnipotence, is neither absurd or comical. It is enlightening. Next time a Christian induces magic to explain away the impossible, remember this paradox.
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  prologos

  yes, the mistake is to treat theology as one would physics. and some are trying by tieing the very old gravity waves to god.
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  snare&racket

  It has nothing to do with physics...faceplam...No offence, but I am not going to spend a week explaining the paradox to you. You have missed the point repeatedly he he.

  Could an omnipotent being write a maths equation he could not solve?

  Could an omnipionet being create a being more powerful than himself?

  These are all examples of showing the illogical and flawed concept of ANYTHING that is all powerful, omnipotent. There is no answer Prologos, it is highlighting the issue of giving anything ultimate power. It simply isnt possible and makes no sense in reality.

  Drop it prologos, it is flying over your head like a jumbo jet ;) come back after you have done some more sudoku :P xxx

  Snare
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  Pistoff

  How many angels can dance on the head of a pin, that's what I want to know.
• 

  KateWild

  Could an omnipotent being write a maths equation he could not solve?-snare

  He could, but his intellect would stop him, as there is no purpose in doing so. To philosophise over omnipotence is like philosophising over a infinite being. What an omnipotent being can do is not necessarily what he would do, but I get your point snare.

  Kate xx