awwwww.....

it's otay Bryan.

Sorry Justin. We accidentally your nice Beethoven thread.

I love imaginary philosophers.
however, I must confess that I much prefer imaginary logicians.

http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~norman/J...Professor.html

The Naturalist in me insists that no reaction is more absolutely human than the instinctual categorization of everything we come in contact with as either us or them, and believes your "making sense" can go shove it.
He's on-and-off friends with the reptile brain, who would very much like the Prime Cause (and the sky boom-lights, and the big big water) to be in his tribe.
---
If it is only after that we understand what has come before, then we understand nothing. Thus we will define the soul as follows: that which precedes everything.

it never makes sense to personify that which is not human.

firstly because: that's the nature of personification. identifying qualitative attributes to that which arguably should not be qualified in the first place.

secondly because: humans are not logical creatures to begin with, thus to attribute either behavioral, philosophical, or predictive characteristics upon anything that is not human is to make it "illogical" in ones mind.

thirdly: because we are empirically incapable of perceiving and acknowledging anything that remotely "resembles" god the father, as is sometimes described by western theosophist.

two things that continue to intrigue me:

the first paradigm
the unmoved mover

The problem is, I think, is that Lysis is completely removing Gods (and sadistic rat-starving artists) from the equation. He only needs Leplace's Demon to make his case, and the demon lacks motivations, morals, and costs/benefits... dragging the particular advertised nature of the Christian God in to the debate does not - I think - accurately address his point.

If he thought on it, I'm relatively certain that Lysis would conclude that no God can have free will. This conclusion demolishes virtue ethics (skirts the second half of your post) and - as deontological approaches to God's ethics lead to tautologies - leaves only Utilitarianism... thus for God to possibly be omni-benevolent, this must be the best of all possible worlds (and that's a hard sell to an atheist).

not argument.

logical thinking.

:3

Because I'm so very clearly a master of written argument?

I'll do what I can though; link away.

but now I forgot the question. =B

crap what was i going to request........
poop.
oh I was going to have you maybe help me check some logical jumps in a recent post, if you find that agreeable.
I'm not sure if it made sense or not (it was kinda a brain-vomit type post.)

Good to see you, Mr. E, and sorry I missed ya this morning.

If I didn't miss some window of opportunity, then request away.

actually I have a question and a request, to be precise.

I like your new custom rank.

:3

Would you mind if I ask you a question?

good morning Mr. Pie.

heh, that's interesting.

What I took from it is that God was pissed off that humans thought they could build a tower into heaven.

So he punished them for being stupid. =B

My prime facie reaction to Genesis 11 - and I don't think I'm alone in this - was that the confusion of languages was collateral. God takes issue with man as "one people" and introduces nationalism (through mechanisms of geographic and linguistic separation) to compensate.

Both Lewis and Stephenson bring language more to the forefront. In That Hideous Strength, Merlin's action imply that language confusion is a major weapon of God while in Snow Crash (again trying not to spoil) language confusion saves the Sumerians from an enormous danger inherent to their method of communication. Pre-Babel linguistics (in and of itself) is either so powerful or so dangerous that deities need to step in deal with it.

I've read that hideous strength, actually

:3

been ages though, bit fuzzy on the details.

As a novel? It has its ups and downs. I've argued that the first two chapters have the most solid writing, but I'm half-convinced that I'm just more comfortable with their style, which is closer to Stephenson's later work.

As a sci-fi re-interpretation of Sumerian and Canaanite folklore? It definitely captured my curiosity. I won't spoil it... but how about the opposite perspective. Read That Hideous Strength?

I have not, actually.

Last thing I read which touched upon Religion from a humanistic viewpoint was Ishmael, actually.

Did you enjoy Snow Crash?