I have just done a 19 hour day. I was out at like 8 this morning and it’s now 3 am. I had uni all day (plus we got in a bowling session between lectures :p) then I was shooting a movie with film making society between 6 and 10:30. Followed by myself heading over to DEC-10 until gone 1am to do some coding and general socialising as Michelle and Sarann were still in there.
Finally got the bus back and arrived home at 1:45 to spend an hour debating with the Christians again. It’s fun :D. Although sometimes you feel you are just going round in circles. They probably feel the same way although I try my best not to put forward the same argument twice.
While I have absorbed a lot of what they have said tonight it might take a while for it to be fully processed. Still, that is why I blog. Tonight’s main topic was the parodoxes in God and indeed Christianity as a whole. Such as why did God create us to sin if he hates sin, how can God be all powerful and all loving, and so on.
One of the guys, Adam, said that he was quite happy not fully understanding everything as he knew that he was going to understand it all in the next life. His perspective I guess but it’s one I disagree with. What other subject of study could this viewpoint be applied to? Why should religion consider itself exempt from the normal rules of the search for understanding? Even if a Christian chooses to disregard these I am sure they must be able to see why the non-religious of us do not. Religion bares no special significance to us over any other subject and therefore is subject to the same rational inspection that forms part of the study of any area of knowledge.
The girl I was chatting to, Dot (she was cool in that like me, she would phase out every now and then for brief period to mediate on a specific thought) put forward some interesting arguments, although not particuarly revolutionary she seemed to be more open to her own thoughts than the standard Christian defence “it’s God’s plan.” While I would agree with those who say atheists can often be found to relying on the same arguments, that is because they hold scientific merrit even with someone who is religious (at least as a general rule). The former statement does not without accepting the presumptions of religious doctrine.
Back to the paradoxes of God. One point I do believe is that if God was all powerful he could make everyone perfectly happy. The Christian defence to this is that this would remove free will and God chooses to give us free will. However I don’t see any reason why if he is all powerful he couldn’t give us both perfect happyness and free will. By Adam’s own admission, when he goes to Heaven (hypothetically from my point of view of course) he will both have free will and be perfectly happy.
So yeah, I think that pretty much sums up tonight’s discussion. It’s the last night the CU will be putting something on as everyone is moving out this weekend (well, a lot of people). Indeed, I am too, I am moving out at 9am on Saturday morning and I have yet to start packing so tomorrow is going to be mad. I should probably get some sleep.
Don't have time to check my blog? Get a weekly email with all the new posts. This is my personal blog, so obviously it is 100% spam free.
This entry was posted on Friday, March 24th, 2006 at 3:03 am and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.