kmoney

Didn't have any big plans. Bought a couple of books that I started.

School is going fine. Going to write a paper soon, on Merold Westphal's response to Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity. Should be interesting. I'm quite excited about that course, they have brought in experts on each atheist critic, so on tuesday an expert on Nietzsche will lecture on him.

Had a nice weekend?

:e4e:

This tea is actually brewed at a relatively cool temperature, at around 60 degrees celsius/140 degrees fahrenheit. Not exactly iced tea though :chuckle:

Can't remember what kind of insects, they use it in tacos in Mexico if I am not mistaken.
Yeah, shrimps are basically aquatic insects, they certainly do not look much more pleasant :eek:

Well, look on the bright side. It would be better than when H&G made you a "Snake surprise" for your birthday party:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MgyRO3c870#t=25s :Plain:

:e4e:

He found his teachers notion that he should structure his day within the context of class activity to be profoundly ill considered and contrary to his good reason.

Now he mostly just wants to make it to recess and the playground.

The driving went good. Drove for almost 6 hours that day

Now I am in tea heaven. Ordered some fine Gyokuro (high grade green tea) from Japan, it arrived yesterday. This is really delicious. How is your tea adventure going?

What did you think about Hart's take on consciousness?

Eating insects fascinates me. I kind of want to try it, incorporated in a real dish of course. I have a friend that is normally quite skeptical of trying and liking new foods, but he tried it in Mexico and said it was quite good.

:e4e:

Sounds good...Jack went into the chair of shame on his first day, but he's made his first non family pal and loves it so far. At three he won't so much talk about it as inadvertently comment on some particular as the latter part of our day progresses.

It's a bit like someone whistling a tune that's playing in their head, but in bits and pieces as they work at something else.

Football....:cheers:

I responded to your NFL post.
Your family must be so proud of you. lain:
Hope you are doing well.
Better when the heat breaks, but passably. You?

And on the rest...should be a really interesting year, with everyone chasing Florida State toward the first playoff...we should talk about that committee at some point...why they didn't use the old rating system to pick the teams is anyone's annoying guess.

I think Hart's analysis agrees with mine.

I think I'm on 4 or 5. I just posted on the last lecture. The bit on Locke was interesting, and very relevant for the foundations of the U.S. :e4e:

http://i2.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article825471.ece/alternates/s615/Fed-up-neighbours-put-the-brakes-on-a-boy-racer-after-months-of-being-driven-barking-by-his-antics--by-hoisting-his.jpg

Probably shouldn't have let Frank try driving at the ice simulation track... :Plain:

Oh, that's a long day. Yep.... I don't think just tea is gonna do the job. You'll need something industrial-strength. :chuckle:

:chuckle: I picture you yelling at H&G, who are obviously wearing their own tool belts, while heading to the car after having been asked to leave.

Weekend was alright. Have one of those long lasting driving courses tomorrow lain:

You?

:e4e:

Hi kmo. We didn't feel it down here in the south, but I have a relative who lives in San Francisco and he's fine. Thanks for your good wishes.

Have a good week, once you get through the Monday part.

:chuckle: Well, let us just say that the reason segways were illegal here for so long was a wooly one... lain:

The prophetic literature is very much a criticism of a religious system that has entirely become merely cultic as well as what you could call the religion of kings and the powerful that oppress the poor.

Gotten any further in the Hart book?

:e4e:

I think the claim is analogous to the spatial claim. As creator and sustainer of things that exist in space, God is present to them. As creator and sustainer of time or the realities from which time arises, God is present to each moment in time.

To be honest though, I am not aware of a traditional property that runs parallel to omnipresence. This is because time was not traditionally thought to have an existence of its own. So it really depends on your view of time. If time is a positive entity, then it owes its existence to God who is present to all times.

Okay, but you didn't say why and I provided an argument for the analogy. Either way it is a strawman to deny that an atemporal being could be essentially present at two different times. No one is claiming that. I posted in the theology group. :e4e:

On that point you're begging the question in favor of time as something like ontologically necessary. If I recall, you drew an analogy between time and space. If we said that space is "ontologically necessary" in the sense that it applies to all being, then omnipresence would be similarly unintelligible, for no such thing as a-spatial (i.e. immaterial) could exist, and thus God could not be such.

Given God's immateriality, by omnipresence we mean God's sustaining power in which everything is bathed--the participation of everything in His Being which the Orthodox call the divine energies. It is God's continuous act of creation which has as its subject all things in existence. Temporal points require the same sort of explanation, and claiming that the a-temporal exists essentially at two different times is just as erroneous as claiming that the a-spatial exists essentially at two different locations. :e4e:

The first lecture was just an overview of what the course will be. Seems quite interesting. There will be a variety of different lecturers. So we will for example have relevant experts deal with some of the main figures, like Nietzsche for example. I do have a fairly good overview of that criticism of religion already though, what interests me the most is the criticism of religion that comes from within the religious traditions, both Christian and Islamic. Much of the prophetic literature in the Bible is a sort of criticism of religion, I think that is a very interesting strand of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

I've been following your conversation with Sela for some time. I think classical theism can be fruitfully juxtaposed with Mormonism, which is an extreme form of theistic personalism. The talk of God "experiencing" things is characteristic of that Mormon-like anthropocentric theology. For the classical theist, God is the creator. The significance of this is undermined by all forms of theistic personalism. Everything that exists is created by God. God isn't thrown into a world like we are, he doesn't experience creation like we do. This is perhaps the characteristically radical idea of Judaism and Christianity that crystallizes in classical theism. Once you truly understand how different God is from us much of the conversation falls away. :idunno: (A classical theist would be utterly confused by your inquiry into God's mode of experience) That said, you are right to say that God's ongoing activity in creation does not imply intrinsic change in Him.

For a contingent being, like us, I would say that our experience can and do change our character. In process theology (or other various forms of open theism), God's character remains unchanged even if what God experiences changes. God's goodness and love is not affected by experience. Of course the "reponse" depends on what God experiences, but it will always be the perfectly good and loving "response". A process thinker could say something like that God experiences everything, including the suffering of the world, but seeks to transform the world in light of that experience (in process thought by presenting new initial aims relative to that experience).

That's surprising, isn't it? :think:

Maybe the car inspectors will find the crude and somewhat illegal turbo that H&G installed... lain: