Family dies holding hands, praying

[_Chap]

If God hadn't meant for man to fall, then he wouldn't have put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden to begin with.

Gosh, that is impeccable logic.

The general form of the proposition is "If God hadn't meant for X to happen, he would not have made available Y (which was a means essential for achieving X)".

So, for instance, if God hadn't meant for this to happen:



he would not have made chainsaws available in "Tools-R-us"

[_Dr. Shades]

That way of saying the opposite of what one means is, I believe, known as 'irony'.

Actually, it's known as "sarcasm," not irony, but that's okay.

[_Chap]

That way of saying the opposite of what one means is, I believe, known as 'irony'.

Actually, it's known as "sarcasm," not irony, but that's okay.

I differ from you on that point, although you may have experienced different usages of these words from the ones I have met.

I think you will find too that formal definitions of these terms suggest that while sarcasm can use ironical statements, by no means all irony is sarcasm. But formal definitions only attempt to record usage, not to legislate for it, and any differences we may have probably do not merit our spending much time discussing them.

[_Hoops]

I think you have failed to notice that I am addressing Tobin in my comment on the Romans passage.

I noticed.

That way of saying the opposite of what one means is, I believe, known as 'irony'.

Strangely, I picked up on that to.

[_Hoops]

I differ from you on that point, although you may have experienced different usages of these words from the ones I have met.

I think you will find too that formal definitions of these terms suggest that while sarcasm can use ironical statements, by no means all irony is sarcasm. But formal definitions only attempt to record usage, not to legislate for it, and any differences we may have probably do not merit our spending much time discussing them.

Seriously....?

[_Chap]

I think you have failed to notice that I am addressing Tobin in my comment on the Romans passage.

I noticed.

That way of saying the opposite of what one means is, I believe, known as 'irony'.

Strangely, I picked up on that to.

Sorry. I thought that your post was based on a misapprehension. Now it is clear that it was simply pointless. Thanks for the clarification.

[_Hoops]

Sorry. I thought that your post was based on a misapprehension. Now it is clear that it was simply pointless. Thanks for the clarification.

Your thought that you find it pointless is exactly why I made the point.

[_harmony]

Death has always been the enemy. That is why medical science exists.

ETA---Frankly, that is why religion exists. Man has tried to combat the enemy of death in many ways...including befriending it.

True. However, death isn't the enemy, if the person isn't of the "the life is all we have" camp.

On the other hand, living for death (and the after life) is truly wasteful. And we all know what happens to the wasteful servant (they're fired).

[_Buffalo]

[_Panopticon]

I haven't posted yet on this thread, but will do so quickly to add that I believe that God does intervene in the affairs of humankind, but only on very, very rare occasions.

I sometimes think God follows his own version of the Prime Directive.

Beam me up!

--Consiglieri

ETA--And sometimes when God does intervene, it may be over something as insignificant as sparing the life of a kitty cat. It may be God does not place human life on a higher plane when it comes to his choice of interventions.

Hi consig,

Can you point to a specific incidence when you believe God has intervened in this life (during our lifetime)?

I was going to ask the same thing. I suspect many believers point to pivotal events in history, such as George Washington at the Battle of Long Island. They would argue that God created the dense fog to allow Washington to escape. Had the fog not occurred, we would be living in a very different country that we are today.

What believers overlook is that the area where the battle was fought averages 12 foggy days in the month of August. The fog usually starts overnight and lingers into the morning hours. Accordingly, the odds of Washington experiencing the "miracle" of the fog is nearly 2/5. Pretty good odds. Hardly a miracle.

Hoops pointed to the recent story of someone's house surviving as an example of God's Providence. Considering that the average width of a tornado is 375 feet, and the average path length is 1 mile, the averaged destroyed area is .26 sq. miles. The urbanized zone of Oklahoma City, which is in the heart of Tornado Alley, is 244 sq miles, so if a tornado happened to enter Oklahoma City (very low odds given the size of Oklahoma), the odds of it affecting you are less than 1 in 1000. So the fact that your house wasn't destroyed by a tornado is hardly a miracle.

The bottom line is that people ascribe "miracles" to God that are fully explainable by chance.