Water cannot be transformed into good wine

[greylorn]

Greylorn, I believe the statements made by benedictus2 (and others) are relevant to this thread discussion. Here’s why…

I have been following this thread from the beginning and have read your various statements, including the brief overview of your cosmological concept (and if you prefer a different term then let me know).

The title you chose for this thread emphatically states that “water cannot be transformed into good wine.” In Post #39 you explained the purpose of this thread in the following way:

“My water into wine example was intended to illustrate an absurd application of mindless faith, a miracle so complex that it cannot be performed by God Himself. Yet, I have no problem whatsoever accepting the belief that Christ touched the retinas of some blind guys with his mind, maybe cleared out a blood clot here and there, bypassed some blocked nerves, or rebalanced some internal parts to restore the eyes’ normal chemistry. Faith must be balanced against alternative possibilities, else it is utterly mindless. Does mindless faith honor God? I hope not.”

It should also be noted that this discussion is taking place on a forum that is designated by Catholic Answers as “Discussion of philosophy, with an emphasis on Catholic contributions” (see the sub-heading description at the top of the Apologetics Page).

The expectation, therefore, is that something presented in this thread is going to be critiqued through the lens of Catholicism in an intellectual debate. Naturally, that does not mean that your position has to be in tune with Catholic teaching. You stated (in Post #96) that your concept of God and miracles is different from the concept found within Catholicism, and there is nothing wrong with someone posting material from such a viewpoint. But while critiquing the validity of your assessment of the water into wine miracle in your OP, you should naturally expect us to critique the validity of your cosmology as well, seeing as it is the basis of your statement that such a miracle cannot be performed, even by God. And yet when benedictus2 (and others) attempt to examine your cosmology in greater detail, you tend to act as if such a venue is off-topic.

(Continued in my next post)

I’ve had a number of go-arounds with b2 and have come to the conclusion that discussing any of my ideas with him will be as useful as explaining them to the fly in my bathroom. That is a personal assessment, based upon experience. He comes entirely from dogma. His reading skills are limited to the things he can understand from his dogmatic perspective. Therefore he repeats questions I’ve already addressed.

His posts are disingenuous, and I’ve no interest in replying to him further.

However I am willing, and delighted to discuss any of my ideas with those whose curiosity is genuine.

For the record, while I believe absolutely that our universe is created, my cosmological concepts (great term, by the way— thank you!) are not consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church. However, they seem to be consistent with the teachings of Christ as found in translations which seem close to the Greek, and entirely consistent with Coptic texts and the banned writings of Mary Magdalene, who IMO was a brilliant philosopher.

My specific conceptual differences have been proposed on previous threads, which have all been sandbagged by dogmatists like b2. I’m close to finishing my book, and that seems more profitable than explaining ideas to dogmatists whose brains cannot do anything but reject them, because that is what their church programmed them to do (as it programmed my brain).

IMO the notion of omnipotence is logically untenable. Omniscience implies that God cannot think. And the notion that something can be created from nothing is as absurd when it comes from religious doctrine as when Morgan Freeman intones, “from a time of no when, a place of no where,” on the atheistic Science Channel.

 

[benedictus2]

I’ve had a number of go-arounds with b2 and have come to the conclusion that discussing any of my ideas with him will be as useful as explaining them to the fly in my bathroom.

Naah, you are incapble of discussing it at all. So you descend to the gutter. Do you know that tha sort of discourse displays a lack of mental acuity.

That is a personal assessment, based upon experience. He comes entirely from dogma.

Which you have actually not proven. Whereas I have actually shown that you come entirely from illogicality. If you will only polish your thinking you might end being more coherent. As it is, you make some terrible conclusions and when they are pointed out your go on personal attack mode. Maybe you are hoping that that will hide the fact the you have no rational rebuttal.

His reading skills are limited to the things he can understand from his dogmatic perspective. Therefore he repeats questions I’ve already addressed.

If that were so, would that mean that your reading skills are non-existent?

His posts are disingenuous, and I’ve no interest in replying to him further.

Which yet again, you will be hard pressed to prove. For a science buff, you are rather short on facts.

However I am willing, and delighted to discuss any of my ideas with those whose curiosity is genuine.

Wonderful, I will follow your conversation with Eric.

For the record, while I believe absolutely that our universe is created, my cosmological concepts (great term, by the way— thank you!) are not consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church.

And that we already know.

However, they seem to be consistent with the teachings of Christ as found in translations which seem close to the Greek,

And that requires proof.

and entirely consistent with Coptic texts and the banned writings of Mary Magdalene, who IMO was a brilliant philosopher.

If you will study a little bit of history, you will realize why the Gospel of Mary Magdalene was banned. And FYI, Mary Magdalene did not write it.

My specific conceptual differences have been proposed on previous threads, which have all been sandbagged by dogmatists like b2.

Here’s the thing, if it is true it will stand up to any sandbagging. That it has collapsed is a testament to its absurdity.

You see, it if is intellectually robust, you would be able to defend it no matter the amount of sand bags thrown at you.

I’m close to finishing my book, and that seems more profitable than explaining ideas to dogmatists whose brains cannot do anything but reject them, because that is what their church programmed them to do (as it programmed my brain).

You mean the fact that you are unable to prove them.

IMO the notion of omnipotence is logically untenable.

And such opinion you have not been able to prove

Omniscience implies that God cannot think.

Huh! There goes another neat piece of non-logic. Why would omniscience preclude the ability to think?

And the notion that something can be created from nothing is as absurd when it comes from religious doctrine as when Morgan Freeman intones, “from a time of no when, a place of no where,” on the atheistic Science Channel.

And you got to the end of your reply and you still have not addressed the problem with your tenet that God created the universe from energy.

 

[Catholic80]

God created everything out of nothing. If He wants to turn water into wine, so be it.

What exactly is the argument here? … that the Creator who creates from “nothing” suddenly needs to bend to our pathetic understanding of science?
Raising people from the dead isn’t scientifically possible either.

 

[benedictus2]

God created everything out of nothing. If He wants to turn water into wine, so be it.

What exactly is the argument here? … that the Creator who creates from “nothing” suddenly needs to bend to our pathetic understanding of science?
Raising people from the dead isn’t scientifically possible either.

But that is far too logical to be comprehensible for some.

 

[CEM5]

Have you had your I.Q. checked lately? It could be getting dangerously low.

It would behoove you to view your reflection when making such an impudent statement.

Your genre of writing demonstrates a true lack of the use of that grey matter encased in your cranium and consequently reveals you view yourself in such grandiose and lofty esteem, while treating others not only disrespectfully but disdainfully as well.

I observe it as nothing but pathetic braggadocio on your part that is pitiful indeed, albeit, this is usually attributed to persons who feel the need to make vain attempts to belittle others in order to endeavor to elevate themselves.

Careful…one day you’ll fall off that lofty perch of yours.

 

[benedictus2]

It would behoove you to view your reflection when making such an impudent statement.

Your genre of writing demonstrates a true lack of the use of that grey matter encased in your cranium and consequently reveals you view yourself in such grandiose and lofty esteem, while treating others not only disrespectfully but disdainfully as well.

I observe it as nothing but pathetic braggadocio on your part that is pitiful indeed, albeit, this is usually attributed to persons who feel the need to make vain attempts to belittle others in order to endeavor to elevate themselves.

Careful…one day you’ll fall off that lofty perch of yours.

So very eloquently put!

I think he may have already fallen off which may account for the problem with the cranium and its resident grey matter.

 

[CEM5]

When you can provide an answer to the question below you will have the answer to the question above:

How does “Nothing” turn into an atom?

P.S. For the Catholics out there, my favorite explanation is that the water blushed when it saw Jesus!

 

[Credo_in_Deum]

I’m still confused as to what the purpose of this thread actually is. I mean to an extend both parties actually agree if you think about it.

Non-Catholic: Did you know it’s not physically possible to trun water into wine, or good wine for that fact. :dts:

Catholic: Yeah I do.

Non-Catholic: Well then why to you believe in Christ’s miracle at Cana?

Catholic: Because as you stated above it is not physically possible, so if it happened then it must be supernatural.

Non-Catholic: Wait so your telling we both agree that it’s not physically possible?

Catholic: Uh yeah, I mean if it was physically possible it wouldnt have been a miracle silly. :doh2:

Non-Catholic: Wait so I made a mistake by thinking this was news to you?

Catholic: Yep, but hey dont worry we still love you. :console:

 

[vera_dicere]

We shouldnt waste our time on responding to either of them: our timed be more productively spent elsewhere.
Theyre not going to take any notice of anything we say. Were just feeding them.

I like pies.

 

[FurtherSuntime]

Just going over my thought provoking post and want to add in brackets …so I don’t send a
message to myself that somehow controls my future …anyway… and not that I’m ever really thinking about these things

…it would seem logical that mortal sin would comprise an absolute willfully maintained rejection of all common sense available to a given individual. …(adding) where for example… a menace to society like idi amin or a hugely self centered user of others, lives for total selfish reasons.
its obvious that being reasonably considerate is the idea in being a good person.

 

[benedictus2]

Then I would add, are the inventions of our minds which are original to us, original in an absolute sense? I believe that this is possible, yet my experience says otherwise. Upon first developing some of the ideas which I’ve expressed on CAF, I did nothing with them, figuring that someone else had long ago come to the identical conclusions and published them. They seemed so obvious and logical to me that I could not imagine otherwise. Yet I’ve not found them anywhere.

(I am certain that if I publish them to some measure of success, the woodwork will explode with others claiming my notions for themselves. If my presentation fails, we won’t hear a peep, twitter, or scraping of cockroach legs from the same smarmy lot.)

History shows us many examples of duplicate complex ideas— Newton and Leibniz both discovering calculus, Darwin and Wallace getting a similar handle on critter changes.

This raises the arcane question, where is the stuff we discover? The automobile exists in physical space, but in mental space, the Egyptians or some other old culture invented it. We simply added an extra pair of wheels, moved the horses under a cabinet at the front, replaced the reins with steering gear, and added seats.

I now believe that it is possible for any mind to invent a concept which has not been previously invented by another mind. This appears to be true if the number of possible concepts is infinite, as I suspect. Yet I don’t think that there are answers to the question, but it certainly raises other questions.

For example, I believe in a Creator, and as a consequence that this Creator is either directly or indirectly responsible for the biological machine through which I explore and interpret the universe, the planet providing its support system, the atoms from which it is constructed.

Hey I actually like your ponderings here.

However, a question arises. You say that the Creator is responsible for the atoms from which it (the universe ) is constructed.

But earlier you said that God created the world out of energy. So I asked you, did God also create the energy or is energy co-eternal with God?

Like many others I’d like to learn more about the workings of these things, but rather than take the scientific approach of trying to figure them out by ripping them apart, I believe that a better approach is to understand their workings by reinventing them. This would involve, in effect, the discovery of something which already exists in mind-space.

And, since the Creator in Whom I believe is not omniscient, I can, and have adopted the conclusion that even I can think of things which He, She, It, or They have not yet thought of.

So why is the Creator you believe in not Omniscient? What is it that precludes Omniscience in the the One who - according to you - created everything?

This is not a big deal. I assume, with one exception, that most of the innovations I might discover are there for discovery only because greater minds neglected them.

Or the possibilty that the Creator you speak of has not deemed it time yet to allow its discovery then; that all these move according to the Time of the Creator of time. There is that possibility you know.

While we commonly speak of the theory of prime numbers, do we not really mean, The Theory of Prime Integers? Of course I would not expect a theory of integers to apply to fractions, complex numbers, or vectors.

That seems to make a good point.

My sense of things is far more basic. I believe that minds naturally discover certain basic mathematical concepts. So far as I know, even primitive societies of men know how to count. I also believe that the same concepts we are so proud of discovering have been found by more advanced beings, long ago because they are available for discovery.

Hmmm that almost dovetails nicely (except for the more advanced beings part) with my proposition that there is no such thing as inventions, only discoveries.

 

[FurtherSuntime]

Benedictus… your forgetting music and all the different creative melodies…the newly experienced moment inspires & creates something never thought of , because its like a fingerprint in original experience…so the experience is discovered and then expressed
in an inventive creative new original never heard in the cosmos, new to the airwaves combination of notes which give to creation rather than take. this is one of my fav etude…this man plays it better than anyone since Chopin… …horowitz rubenstein included…youtube.com/watch?v=1WD0U8-rcRE… enjoy:thumbsup:

 

[Spock]

If you know what the Church teaches, but reject it, it is a mortal sin (unless you repent). There are some exceptions - such as you living in a vastly different culture - but I doubt you personally qualify for any of them.

How cute. Of course it leads to another problem. According to yet another teaching of the Church, one’s own conscience must be the guiding line - but only if it happens to agree with what the Church says. Just like Henry Ford, who assured that the customer can get a car of ANY color, provided he wants a black car. And you are surprised that I discard the teaching of the Church as absurd? Either my conscience “counts” even if it disagrees with the Church, or does not. Can’t have your cake and eat it, too.

I can see that you THINK it is a contradiction, but it’s not. Justice sometimes entails somebody getting hurt. Suck it up. If you think God can be more “merciful” you are just inserting hyper-pacifist views of justice on God.

You don’t understand at all. I am talking about a logical contradiction - not some bleeding-heart pacifist excuse. A just sentence means that the punishment precisely equals the deed - after taking all the mitigating and aggravating circumstances into consideration. A merciful sentence means that the punishment is less than deserved. A sentence can either be just or merciful - but can NEVER be both. At best you could say that God is sometimes just and other times merciful - which is not what “perfect” justice and mercy means.

Why is it the believer’s burden to prove God stopping the disaster then and there was not the best method?

Because you have a positive assertion.

Why do skeptics not have a burden to go on a case-by-case basis and prove there is one way which is faster and better for each case?

Because the skeptic does not have any assertions. And you are mistaken. For the skeptic it is sufficient to show ONE instance where the applied method could be “improved” upon, where the pain could be lessened just a teeny-weeny little bit.

Do you have a more intelligent response to the “greater good” response, or are you just throwing out what you don’t like?

It is your resposibility to provide an answer.

I can provide multiple instances where God’s not direct intervening was the best option, all considered.

Cool. Show me the result of your omniscience. Be specifc and consider ALL things. I can hardly wait.

Obviously there is SOME emotion in the issue. But the whole issue cannot ride solely on emotion as its means of concluding the Christian God and evil in the world are mutually exclusive. The least you could do is present a deductive form of the “problem”, which you, like 3 others I challenged, didn’t do.

A deduction needs a starting point. Mine is: “benevolence cannot allow even one instance of unnecessary suffering, if the being has the power to prevent it - all else being equal.” And all the sufferings of all the animals due to some natural disaster fall into this category.

The answer, of course, is that there is no evil in that happening. Cockroaches cannot feel severe pain beyond a tingle (at best) and have no sense of awareness, no sense of life and death, no sense of purpose and nihilism, nothing by which any suffering could be brought about by the “problem” you list.

Another cop-out. Even insects feel pain. And they don’t like it. Try to hold a burning match close to an insect and see if it “likes” the experience. The fact that they do not have awareness is totally irrelvant. If their pain does not lead to some obvious greater good, it was unnecessary. It is your responsibilty to show that there is a greater good, and it was “worth” to inflict that pain on the insect and all the animals. I specifically use the animals as examples, because according to the church they do not have “immortal souls”, and as such there is no “afterlife” for them - so you cannot say that “maybe” they will be compensated in heaven.

 

[FurtherSuntime]

I want to make it clear that I’m not here to argue only jot down my perspective which is the exercise in a way. All the mysteries which the church relies on for myself are not really acceptable. The primary purpose of RC is to promote unity among men and encourage a positive in all ways. I can’t sweep things under the carpet and so have tried to join the dots.

Having enjoyed the presence of insects and animals Ive noticed that they are obviously perfectly behaved critters.(by and large) They basically accept their difficult lives and sing in the tree’s. Therefore these creations are an example to mankind. Now…the soul I have devised in another perspective which is logical is a thing of measure. These little creatures would certainly have a personality of some kind and it would be insane to think our friends sharing the same setting would simply endure, survive, accept , obey, provide example and be snuffed out , while man
augments himself with a puffed up everlasting thought of creation acceptance. Therefore I submit to my mind that these little critters are not rejected in their little personality and all comprise the necessary end in their respective manner, the product of the this massive undertaking called creation. Nothing would have been created for the purpose of alternate means like a doormatt…this is NOT the God I know and was told was all loving…so thats my deal and Ive joined quite a few of the dots which have not even yet been considered in the lack
at CAF.

This idea is popular , the non-interfering God in say…the holocost…My conviction or thought to myself on this is logical…A little perfect and joyful child cannot for a second comprehend the
hatred, need for hatred, lack of reason and so forth…it is not possible and there is zero in self experience to relate to…therefore God cannot relate either. God is all knowing, all loving
…IN…the all loving God nature. In my books I will make a note, God does not comprehend
hatred-negativism. As such God does not know the hater and the hater does not know God.
the act is an expression of the mind…in the act, Gods acceptance is maintained with the abused as though a sickness. God is with the sick and the poor. and can only accept the
goodness which radiates from man…its all he knows…the all knowing is true but the adverse material in the reality of our existence is our reality, not Gods God did not create calamity we did…its our baby…so FS…thats me, the God is the God of your faith and meets the fundamental purpose of the faith. …

natural pain and suffering is an expression of our human bodies which are not made of absolute God material…only if God made more gods could we have what we have without…a deviation from dis-order. This disorder has a self healing mechanism built in through unity in the consolation of good sadness and concern of others…it feels much better when someone says…ah thats too bad, instead of oh well , glad its not me ( make a note FS) unity is our saving tool to escape the difficulties in our physical and social disorder…all we really know is we are not perfect and if theres a God, (which i believe) this love idea is not
an interrupted device…but rather like a wheel in motion. The motion must be greater than the whole night sky…so therefore it is reasonable to say, it is consistent and just pours out in its known nature…ok good…go over it tom

 

[benedictus2]

Benedictus… your forgetting music and all the different creative melodies…the newly experienced moment inspires & creates something never thought of , because its like a fingerprint in original experience…so the experience is discovered and then expressed
in an inventive creative new original never heard in the cosmos, new to the airwaves combination of notes which give to creation rather than take. this is one of my fav etude…this man plays it better than anyone since Chopin… …horowitz rubenstein included…youtube.com/watch?v=1WD0U8-rcRE… enjoy:thumbsup:

My connection is terribly slow so will pay the link a visit when I am back on cable instead of this darn mobile internet.

Yes, I had not thought of music but then again I would not call new melodies inventions. I would still classifiy it as discoveries of harmonies that work

BTW what exactly is your religion. Some might think it means Roman Catholic but I somehow don’t think so.

 

[benedictus2]

I want to make it clear that I’m not here to argue only jot down my perspective which is the exercise in a way. All the mysteries which the church relies on for myself are not really acceptable. The primary purpose of RC is to promote unity among men and encourage a positive in all ways. I can’t sweep things under the carpet and so have tried to join the dots.

Having enjoyed the presence of insects and animals Ive noticed that they are obviously perfectly behaved critters.(by and large) They basically accept their difficult lives and sing in the tree’s. Therefore these creations are an example to mankind. Now…the soul I have devised in another perspective which is logical is a thing of measure. These little creatures would certainly have a personality of some kind and it would be insane to think our friends sharing the same setting would simply endure, survive, accept , obey, provide example and be snuffed out , while man
augments himself with a puffed up everlasting thought of creation acceptance. Therefore I submit to my mind that these little critters are not rejected in their little personality and all comprise the necessary end in their respective manner, the product of the this massive undertaking called creation. Nothing would have been created for the purpose of alternate means like a doormatt…this is NOT the God I know and was told was all loving…so thats my deal and Ive joined quite a few of the dots which have not even yet been considered in the lack
at CAF.

This idea is popular , the non-interfering God in say…the holocost…My conviction or thought to myself on this is logical…A little perfect and joyful child cannot for a second comprehend the
hatred, need for hatred, lack of reason and so forth…it is not possible and there is zero in self experience to relate to…therefore God cannot relate either. God is all knowing, all loving
…IN…the all loving God nature. In my books I will make a note, God does not comprehend
hatred-negativism. As such God does not know the hater and the hater does not know God.
the act is an expression of the mind…in the act, Gods acceptance is maintained with the abused as though a sickness. God is with the sick and the poor. and can only accept the
goodness which radiates from man…its all he knows…the all knowing is true but the adverse material in the reality of our existence is our reality, not Gods God did not create calamity we did…its our baby…so FS…thats me, the God is the God of your faith and meets the fundamental purpose of the faith. …

natural pain and suffering is an expression of our human bodies which are not made of absolute God material…only if God made more gods could we have what we have without…a deviation from dis-order. This disorder has a self healing mechanism built in through unity in the consolation of good sadness and concern of others…it feels much better when someone says…ah thats too bad, instead of oh well , glad its not me ( make a note FS) unity is our saving tool to escape the difficulties in our physical and social disorder…all we really know is we are not perfect and if theres a God, (which i believe) this love idea is not
an interrupted device…but rather like a wheel in motion. The motion must be greater than the whole night sky…so therefore it is reasonable to say, it is consistent and just pours out in its known nature…ok good…go over it tom

Hmmm, interesting. I will comment when I have better internet connection. Probably over the weekend.

 

[Spock]

No, I can’t. As human beings, all we can come up with **on our OWN merits and using nothing but our OWN brains, is IMPERFECT justice and IMPERFECT mercy concepts. **

Not true. Both justice and mercy are very simple and fully secular concepts. They are not “imperfect” in any way. Their application might be imperfect with a human justice (because we lack the omniscience to know all the details), but the principle is perfect. There is no separate “human” justice and “divine” justice.

We speak of a just sentence when the judge takes all the circumstances into consideration (both the mitigating and the aggravations ones), and then delivers a sentence which is precisely commensurate to the deed. If the sentence is less than deserved then there was some “mercy” applied - which is unjust, and if the sentence is too harsh, it is unjust again. As such these two categories are mutually exclusive. If you cannot see this, then you are totally irrational, and as such I am not intersted in your comments.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

According to yet another teaching of the Church, one’s own conscience must be the guiding line - but only if it happens to agree with what the Church says. Just like Henry Ford, who assured that the customer can get a car of ANY color, provided he wants a black car. And you are surprised that I discard the teaching of the Church as absurd? Either my conscience “counts” even if it disagrees with the Church, or does not. Can’t have your cake and eat it, too.

Both a compass and the stars can help someone navigate – provided that the compass is working properly. When a compass gives a different heading then the stars, it is the compass that is in error, not the stars.

So – all ought to follow their conscience. And all have a duty to make sure it is a well-formed one.

It doesn’t seem absurd to me.

 

[Spock]

I’m delighted to find someone who regards this kind of topic as worth discussion, and is equipped to discuss it. Let us enjoy this. I put a libation in hand before replying and propose that you do the same, using your mind to create a world in which we are sitting in some form of body around a campfire in the autumn woods, imbibing a fine cognac and smoking Cuban cigars to keep the mosquitoes and women away.

Sounds good, though I prefer a good 18 years old Laphroiag and I don’t smoke any more (unfortunately).

Then I would add, are the inventions of our minds which are original to us, original in an absolute sense? I believe that this is possible, yet my experience says otherwise.

Why not? Look at all the fairy tales and you will see creatures “who” are simply the product of our imagination. Of course they are still rooted in some real world object to a certain extent. We invented fire-breathing, seven headed dragons, seven-league-boots etc… We invented starships which travel faster than the speed of light, even though we know that it is a physical absurdity. But our imagination is limitless.

History shows us many examples of duplicate complex ideas— Newton and Leibniz both discovering calculus, Darwin and Wallace getting a similar handle on critter changes.

Except for the word “discovered” I agree. The geometry of Euclides was firmly held as “true” for a very long time. As you said, about the same time a few people started to ponder, and the new geometries were “born”, or invented - not discovered!

This raises the arcane question, where is the stuff we discover? The automobile exists in physical space, but in mental space, the Egyptians or some other old culture invented it. We simply added an extra pair of wheels, moved the horses under a cabinet at the front, replaced the reins with steering gear, and added seats.

I think it is quite simple. We discovered (not ivented) a long time ago that round objects can be moved along by rolling them and that lead to the concept of the wheel, which was truly revolutionary and which was invented, not discovered.

I now believe that it is possible for any mind to invent a concept which has not been previously invented by another mind. This appears to be true if the number of possible concepts is infinite, as I suspect. Yet I don’t think that there are answers to the question, but it certainly raises other questions.

Sure, why not? Shakespeare invented Hamlet, not just “discovered” a hitherto unknown prince. Beethoven created the Ninth Sympony and created it “ex nihilo”. We already agreed that the idea of “abstract objects” is nonsense, and thus we hold that these ideas were not “discovered”, they were created.

For example, I believe in a Creator, and as a consequence that this Creator is either directly or indirectly responsible for the biological machine through which I explore and interpret the universe, the planet providing its support system, the atoms from which it is constructed. And, since the Creator in Whom I believe is not omniscient, I can, and have adopted the conclusion that even I can think of things which He, She, It, or They have not yet thought of.

Even though I do not agree about the existence of a creator as you described it, I see nothing problematic about it. I simply see no reason for that assumption. A self-sustained universe is perfectly sufficient for me. But your creator is at least without contradictions, without nonsensical attributes - and as such it may exist - unlike the Christian God, who cannot exist.

While we commonly speak of the theory of prime numbers, do we not really mean, The Theory of Prime Integers? Of course I would not expect a theory of integers to apply to fractions, complex numbers, or vectors.

Of course. The numbers I mentioned are a new kind of integers, since the values of “a” and “b” are integers. And if “b” happens to be zero, we get back to the old, well-known, garden-variety integers. Those numbers are just one possible generalization of the “good old integers”. I am so glad I do not have to worry about your lack of knowledge of vectors and matrices, complex numbers and the like. All those are simple extensions of the original “number line”. They did not “exist” anywhere until they were created. Now they exist as part of our minds. If, for some unfortunate reason the Sun would go nova, and would extinguish the human race and all of its achievements, then they would cease to exist, along with Hamlet, the Ninth Symphony and all the beautiful, different inventions (not discoveries) we happend to come up with.

 

[Spock]

Both a compass and the stars can help someone navigate – provided that the compass is working properly. When a compass gives a different heading then the stars, it is the compass that is in error, not the stars.

Excellent observation. But it only applies to the stars and the navigation, not the moral problems. As such, even though your analogy is nice, it is simply not applicable.

So – all ought to follow their conscience. And all have a duty to make sure it is a well-formed one.

And the church’s definition is that the “well-formed” conscience always parrots what the church says… it stays absurd.