Father Doogle

M

munkey

I luuurve Bananas
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Whipsnade
Once while watching a particularly good episode of Father Ted, Doogle turned to Father Ted and said "If there is a God, why does he make bad things happen?". Father Ted turned to Doogle and told him to go to sleep.

I have been an atheist ever since.

Can anyone save me from eternal damnation by answering Doogles question???
 
To make even the best omelette, eggs have to be broken along the way.

Your comment suggests that even as an athiest you are in fear of eternal damnation, which seems a conflict in itself.

I wouldnt lose too much sleep about it.
 
Many of the greatest philosophical minds throughout history have lost sleep over this one, CH.
 
Originally posted by Channel Hopper
To make even the best omelette, eggs have to be broken along the way...
Click to expand...

…so the end justifies the means?

And unless the eggs were fertilised (and if bought from Tesco it’s unlikely) that’s a bit like saying to build a house you have to break some bricks
 
so the end justifies the means?

For the omnipotent, it makes perfect sense

there are probably an infinite number of ways to do something, and a few solutions would probably be painless.

But if there is option limitation, (speed of completion - the ubiquitous 7 days, resources - laws of physics/relativity, human mentality without intervention), then somethings got to give.

But then if you are an athiest then none of the above should worry you
 
@ Munkey

The problem with this issue is that it's not a legitimate question. The fear of eternal damnation hinges on the belief that there might be a God. You might as well ask: 'If there are men on Mars and they come to Earth, will they be friendly?' Or how about debating how many angels may sit on the head of a pin? Or did Christ own the clothes he wore?

An hypothesis based on a false premise gives, at best, a nonsensical answer. At worst, it gives an incorrect or misleading one.

Unfortunately, the world is full of people who want to turn superstition into organised religion with which they can hold us all in awe (and, thereby, keep us all quiet and biddable). The Theists love such sophistry, because it allows them to present 'expanations' of contradictions which any thinking person finds incompatible with rational thought.

If you apply Occam's Razor (the simplest explanation is the one most likely to be true) and work from the starting point of there being no God (after all, there is no evidence for such a belief), then Dougal's question has no meaning. If it has no meaning, you can explain the hoorors of the world as chance or the result of the folly and brutality of individuals.

My advice is to continue with the atheism, take responsibility for your own actions, read some of Stephen Dawkins' books and sleep easy. The evils of this world are not visited on us by a supernatural power and we won't be called to account for not believing in such a preposterous construct.

:cool:
 
what profession is an apologetic ?
 
It's not a profession, it's a nationality. You've surely heard of Apologia?

:rolleyes:
 
Dont believe you

From the site searches it looks like soemthing Christian (well at least Catholic) but from then on I start trawling through illogical reasoning for the existence of such a job.

Can anyone enlighten me (in the non religeous sense) ?
 
One of my sisters is a born-again Christian. Actually, she doesn't describe herself as "born-again", merely as Christian. I use the term as it is a convenient label to describe someone who has been your typical go-to-church-if-my-hangover's-not-too-bad kind of Christian but has through some mystical process of enlightenment suddenly becomes a real one.

Anyhooo... such beasts sincerely believe in all kinds of astonishing stuff, such as that the earth is only six thousand years old. This conclusion is reached by tracing all the begets and begats back through the Old testament to the point in time at which God went through his famous 7 day workaholic phase. In fact, their entire worldview is based around a literal interpretation of the Bible.

One consequence of the earth being only six thousand years old is that the fossil record must be fabricated. My sister, and many Christians, believe that to be the work of the Devil (does He deserve a capital... oh, go on then). Indeed, not only is Beelzebub responsible for planting dinosaur and trilobyte fossils to frustrate mankind and lead us from the path of rightiousness, but He is in fact responsible for all things that would otherwise seem to confound religious faith. Why do six million people die each year from malaria? Lucifer. Why were 27 million Russians slaughtered in World War II? Old Nick again.

This is such a powerful construct it makes you wonder why all Christians don't believe in the Devil. No more struggling with questions like "if God exists then why....", since there's a ready-made answer: the Devil did it.

Of course, one can then go on to ask why the Devil is able to get away with such splendid naughtiness if God is supposedly omnipotent. The answer to that one is presumably that God lets it happen. Is God then compliant in the evil?

Ah, see what a contrived tangle this all is. Good old Occam. Glory be to atheism.

2old
 
@ Channel Hopper.

Sorry, I was just being facetious. I had no idea that there is such a thing as an apologist. However, now I come to think, is there not a mention of such a being in Umberto Eco's 'The Name of the Rose'? I'm damned if I'm going to read it again just to find the reference (if it really does exist) but you can if you want. Quite a good read if you have the time.

And whilst we're on apologies, it's RICHARD Dawkins, not Stephen. I must have been thinking of Steve Jones at the same time and transposed the names.

@ 2Old.

According to Christian dogma, the existence of God/Christ presupposes the existence of Satan/Antichrist. Therefore, a belief in Christ requires a belief in the Devil. For Good to exist, there must also be Evil. I suppose a nuclear physicist would recognise the same phenomenon in sub-atomic particles.

Another anecdote about the age of the earth and religion. In another incarnation, I managed a countryside project and was required to give talks to all sorts ot organisations, including schools. On one occasion, I spoke at a local authority Jewish school about the coal mining history of the Bury/Salford area and dwelt some time on the formation of the Coal Measures, about 350 million years ago. After the lecture, the headmaster (who for a reason still not clear to me was actually a devout Christian) took me into his study in a state of high anxiety. Apparently, Orthodox Jews also believe that the earth was created about 6,000 years ago and he was concerned that he was going to get letters of complaint for his alowing me to preach heresy in the classroom. It all turned out well, however as, by chance, I'd said 'Some people BELIEVE that the Coal Measures were formed 350 million years ago', meaning that there was a debate about whether the age was 350m or 375m or 325m or whatever, rather than that the Creationist 'theory' may hold true. So he won on a tecnicality, but I never got an invitation to go back................

:D
 
So fossil fuels must be a creation of the Devil then

With all the present interest in 'liberating oppressed nations' going on in the Middle East with more than a hint of the black stuff in the bedrock, I didnt click until now that its for the greater good that its tapped off as soon as possible .

There might be something in this religous babble after all

Dont know how to tell my fellow classmates that did geology at Cambourne School of Mining that its all been a scam though.

Beelzebub seems to have been quite busy in Wales, I always did worry about the popularity ofTom Jones among young impressionable women in the 70s
 
Since the orthodox dogma of the Christian faith (and Jewish and no doubt many others too) is that the act of creation took place 6000 years ago, that means that not just the earth, but the firmament itself is only 6000 years old. This not only necessitates explanations for fossils, fossil fuels, the residual radioactivity in ancient rocks, and a whole host of other anthropological and geological data to boot, but it also presents challenges for a number of universal phenomena.

For example, no matter or radiation can exceed the finite speed of light. This places limits on how big our universe can be. If it is only 6000 years old, then the universe can only be a maximum of 12000 light years in diameter. This is a huge problem cosmologically speaking, not least because it would mean that the entire universe is less than a sixth of the diameter of our own galaxy! So presumably either the disciplines of physics & cosmology are based on false premises, or the Devil somehow took God's creation and contrived to re-distribute matter and energy in such a way as to mischievously present us with this conundrum. Or perhaps God is supposed to have created it like that in the first place, though then I would ask why those same fundamentalists do not similarly claim that God created the fossil record. In any event, someone (God or Devil) is assumed to have set all these things up in just the right way to confound us.

And it gets worse. God or Devil must even have created radiation such that as it arrives at the earth now, six thousand years later, it appears to have originated from sources which are much more than six thousand light years distant (for example, quasar light is masively redshifted).

In short then, God/Devil must have created a mathematically and physically consistent framework which left alone for several billions of years would give exactly the universe we see today, but rather than doing that have decided for some nefarious reason to bring it into being at an already matured state.

This all becomes a contrivance of such magnificent proportions that one can only stand agog at the strength of faith of those who genuinely believe it.

2old
 
And not content with crazy, fundamentalist Americans teaching 'Creationism' in some of their schools, we Brits have within our midst nutters who've begun the same process in State-funded schools - and get good OFSTED reports on the strength of it.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

:( :(
 
talkin of father ted whats ya favourate bit?????

i quite enjoyed the kicking of bishop brennan up the arse!!!

the the clincher for me was the large picture outside his house!!!

LOL :)
 
another Father Ted fan here!

Problem of evil vs God's love is "theodicy", best treatment i know is theologian John Hick's book Evil And The God Of Love. Like all these things, worth looking at if you're interested.
 
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