I'm not sure if this is an original thought, but if it isn't I don't remember the source...
OK - The originator of the idea was kind enough to point it out to me - Thanks Hypatia!
So there I was this morning, laying in bed, after rather a rough night with the 3 year old and just prior to my alarm going off for the fourth or fifth time.
Through a series of thoughts, my mind was cast back to a teacher I had in High School. He was a little portly Jewish fellow by the name of Epstein. Mr. Eppy Epstein if memory serves correctly. He was the guy who busted me for smoking - a rather interesting story, and the guy who told my glass that the members of the band, Queen, had adopted a young boy so Freddie Mercury could have a kid to molest on his birthday. That final though may have been what brought the man to mind earlier today.
One day in our Guidance class, which Mr. E taught, he posed a question to us...
Can God destroy himself, and then he took it a step further by saying... Can God create a box he cannot get out of?
The result of the discussion was the idea that no super-being can destroy themselves.
OK, but back to this morning...
One of the teachings I remember as a kid, and I'm not sure if this is official Mormon doctrine, standard Christian doctrine, or just the opinion of the people I've heard it from, but I was told, that God is subject to natural law.
It would seem then, that natural law is a higher power than God, and if that is indeed the case wouldn't that mean that the natural order of things is more worthy of worship than a god who is subject to them?
Can God create a box he cannot get out of?
ReplyDeleteOr a rock so big that he can't lift it?
One of the teachings I remember as a kid, and I'm not sure if this is official Mormon doctrine, standard Christian doctrine, or just the opinion of the people I've heard it from, but I was told, that God is subject to natural law.
That's Mormon doctrine (imo, of course), but I think most Christians believe that god created natural law as well, so he isn't "subject to it."
It would seem then, that natural law is a higher power than God...
The box and the rock paradoxes suggest that god can't do something that is logically impossible, so one could argue that logic is more powerful than god as well.
Wise words Kuri!
ReplyDeletePerhaps I should say that I worship at the feet of both the Natural Law or Science and Logic.
Have you read anything by Carl Sagan or that group? I just started Cosmos and he makes some interesting off-hand comments about this concept.
ReplyDeleteWelcome back Sarah!!
ReplyDeleteI've read a couple of Carl Sagan quotes that I really, really liked and I know he was a pretty prominent pantheist.
I'm in need of a good book to read, so perhaps I'll see if the library has it in...
Koda! I totally agree. I wrote a little about this as well here:
ReplyDeletehttp://seekingdesideratum.blogspot.com/2010/01/mormon-god-and-thoughts-on-nothingness.html
And you should definitely read the Varieties of Scientific Experience by Sagan. I'm reading it now and it's such good food for my mind and heart.
Oooops!
ReplyDeleteSo I read you're post a week or two back, when you first posted it. I used to do the nothingness thing a lot as a kid, and I was relating to that part of the post so much, I don't think I ever consciously ingested the last paragraph, although apparently subconsciously it went in just fine... I swear I wasn't plagiarizing - at least not intentionally.
Of course with that said, I only know what pantheism is, because you've talked about it a lot recently, and so I've been reading up on it.
It makes a lot more sense to me than other theistic approaches, so thanks!
Koda- lol. It's totally ok. I think we get a long with a lot of people here on the blogosphere because we are all in similar wavelengths as it were. You are totally fine. ;)
ReplyDelete