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04:52
@Alypius and @fredsbend this is a classic example of why Truth questions and answers are off-topic, and why the site guidelines are useful. The only thing that can come from a post like this is debate, which is appropriate for a discussion forum, not a StackExchange site.
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A: The real question of the Holocaust is not ‘where was God?’, but ‘where was man?'

k0pernikusAssuming that by "God" you mean an omnipotent, benificent and all-knowing supernatural entity, this question boils down to a rephrasing of the classic problem of "evil". And I think it was argued by Epicur quite sufficently thousand of years ago: Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? ...

05:09
@DavidStratton Thank you for the info and pointers. You don't mean to show that my answer here is a Truth answer, do you?
No. I'm answering the meta post. Give me a few minutes.
k cool
05:26
I changed my mind. It's a new user, and I've always felt they deserve some leeway and guidance. I'm voting to reopen, even if I think it's borderline. Part of the problem was just it seemed like a pointless question in addition to the reason I cited, but who am I to judge?
@Alypius I disagree any parable can be about anything. In your Hindu example it would be perfectly acceptable to use that story to teach a lesson that is unrelated to the story being fact or not. That is what a parable is meant to do.
In fact, having it based on fact detracts from the lesson because, as you have done here, you will draw conclusions from it that have nothing to do with the lesson.
@fredsbend no, it would not (!!!) be acceptable to ever have such a story in the Bible
@DavidStratton Thank you David. I appreciate your change of heart. I hope it wasn't just because you didn't want to type a rebuttal.
@Alypius Why? It is a parable. Not meant to be taken as fact by definition. Only meant to teach a lesson unrelated to the actual story. That is one reason they are difficult to understand.
@fredsbend do you think it would be acceptable to have a story in which God is not benevolent in order to teach something?
@Alypius As long as the lesson was in accord with doctrine.
That doesn't matter is my point. I know the story of a parable is not meant to be fact.
The lesson is. Assuming it is from the bible or Jesus
05:35
There is a difference between "facts that happened", and "how reality works"
the facts that happened in a parable don't matter
but how reality works in the parable does matter
@Alypius I mean it the same here. A parable is allegorical, not real, based on fantasy, ... a story. It does not need to reflect reality to accomplish its purpose: Teach morality, a spiritual truth, or illuminate something that is fact, such as the Abraham, Lazarus one.
That fact being that some will not believe no matter what.
You have lessons you want to teach. Then you have the stories that you can use to teach them. Then you have the "realities" that the stories work under.
I'm gonna take a look at the other parables and see if I can find that any teach something heretical. Doubt I can but worth a go. That's gonna take a day or two. Will get back to you then.
Imagine this story: the boy ate a lot of spinach. He ate so much, and became so strong, that even God was not stronger than him. The end. Heresy.
What's the lesson there?
@Alypius You tell me. It's your parable.
Seems like there should be more to it,
Perhaps it could be added that he ended up taking over some of God's duties and did a really bad job. Many people suffered because of his negligence and lack of Godly wisdom. Not a great parable but the lesson is somewhere along the lines that even with God's abilities none can do at good as God because they have no wisdom that compares.
I would not call the parable a heresy.
btw, 4 re-opens on this. I guess my meta post is working.
05:57
The lesson in that "parable" was that eating spinach made you really strong.
The way that it was phrased, however, implied that it was possible to be stronger than God.
It is not. Honestly, I feel uncomfortable even typing the "parable" out, and saying "possible to be stronger than God".
@fredsbend Part of your lesson involves the idea that someone can have God's abilities (nobody can, only God), and also that God's "abilities" can be separated from each other (omnipotence becomes separated from omniscience and benevolence), or that God has abilities (God is simple!)
07:04
@Alypius And ... what's your point? It is a story meant to teach that none have wisdom that compares with God.
@Alypius That makes it a bad parable. It does not teach morality, spiritual truth, or even fact because eating spinach alone will not make you strong.
@Alypius You seen Bruce Almighty? Just like that. Is it heretical?
07:44
Al ... most ... there. Al ... most ... there.
10 points if you can name the movie.
 
2 hours later…
09:19
@DanO'Day When I looked at that article, something struck me as oddly familiar. On a hunch, I clicked the "Essays" button on the side, and sure enough, I've seen it before. A few years ago, I think. I haven't read very much though.
 
4 hours later…
13:17
@fredsbend awe come on. all too easy.
 
3 hours later…
16:42
@waxeagle ...aw great. You've got me thinking fredsbend was quoting Star Wars, and I don't remember that quote from any Star Wars movie. And I call myself a Star Wars fan. :P
@El'endiaStarman he is.
that's Gold leader on the first death star trench run.
(and no, he doesn't have an actual name, he's just "Gold Leader")
check that, that was Dutch, maybe it was Red Leader that didn't have a name :(
blast it, no, Red Leader has a name too now :(. Been too long since I nerded out on this stuff
@waxeagle Hehe. Red Leader was Wedge.
And I remember the scene now.
16:57
@El'endiaStarman nope, Red 2
I believe Wedge was Red Leader at Endor, but not until then
Huh. I know it wasn't Corran...and that's the only other Red Squadron name that I remember (besides Luke). :P
...and now I'm not sure if he was in Red Squadron at the time of the Battle of Yavin.
It's been too long since I read the X-Wing Squadron books. :P
...fine, Wookieepedia time. Garven Dreis
17:17
I want to know when he finally got a name :). He didn't have one when SWCCG was published...
17:29
@waxeagle This was published in 2002, so between 1995 and 2002.
17:39
@waxeagle lol. Just wanted to see who the true nerds were here.
@El'endiaStarman ^^^
@fredsbend I'm far more of an EU nerd than a movie nerd, as evidenced by my collection of something like 115 Star Wars novels.
@El'endiaStarman !!!! That's a lot of nerd sitting on a shelf there. I'm more of a stargate fan. Then Star wars then Star Trek for a close third.
Halo is probably my second-most SciFi nerd area. I've read like half the books and played all the games except Halo 4 (and Halo Wars if you want to count that), yet I don't own any except Halo 1 and 2.
christianity.stackexchange.com/users/4155/derfder Why suspension. I think he was trying. It shows in the comments.
@El'endiaStarman I'm reasonably well read on EU, at least I was 5ish years ago...
@fredsbend can't talk about specifics, but sometimes folks need to have the brakes put on.
17:55
@waxeagle It's probably been about that long since I read some or many of those books.
is it possible to see which questions have been marked the duplicates of a question?
@Alypius I don't think so
@fredsbend The movie or script for Bruce Almighty would have no hope whatsoever of making it into the Bible.
@Alypius ...I doubt it, because I can't think of how to do that.
you could search for the Id of the question
but I don't know how well that will work
nope that doesn't work
18:07
We could probably do it with the Data Explorer if we were out of beta.
(And we're releasing on time...)
@El'endiaStarman they've been good about htat lately, like every day :)
@waxeagle We just need to throw some of them into an incinerator to speed things up. :)
(And think of all the things we'll learn!)
(For the people who are...still around!)
google.com/… works with the wildcard replacing "here", but why not as it is...
18:56
@Alypius only put quotes around "has an answer here" there is probably some html after that text before the next line
The * should ignore all that though.
"has an answer here * can a christian" works
But not: site:christianity.stackexchange.com "has an answer * Are Christians bound" -intitle:hottest
@Alypius I think that's because no question has been closed as a duplicate of that one.
"possible duplicate: Are christians bound" works. christianity.stackexchange.com/…
19:12
@Alypius Oh, right. The duplicate notice changed recently.
I think it does one or the other based on... something or other, which is unfortunate.
@Alypius Duplicate questions used to have "[closed]" in their title when they were closed. This was recently changed to "[duplicate]", and the post notice at the top changed as well. So questions before that change will have the old version and questions after have the version we see now.
Oh, strange. So it places the notice directly into the question.
@fredsbend ...so...I took a look at that Wikipedia article, and I read it...and I find that the problem I had with the beginning of time was essentially exactly Kant's first antinomy. Thanks for the link! :P :)
> 2013-02-06: The auto inserted text for questions closed as duplicates has been changed to "This question already has an answer here:" followed by link to the other question and the number of answers it has. The text is no longer edited into the original question but rather displayed externally. [...] Questions closed as duplicate prior to this change still have the old "Possible Duplicate:" text in them.
347
Q: Recent feature changes to Stack Exchange

devinbThis is an unofficial list of new features and various changes to Stack Overflow and the Stack Exchange network. It is maintained by the community. RSS feed for this question Return to FAQ index

 
3 hours later…
22:34
@Alypius I agree, however, I don't think you can argue with the Truth of its lesson. Same that I don't think you can argue with the Truth of the lesson in the parable I made.
23:14
@El'endiaStarman Yeah, the article really only hints lightly on antinomy and how it has been used in certain aspects. For Kant, he used it to argue that some things should just not be argued because it is pointless. For Calvin, he used it often to simply not explore different views. He would define antinomy as an observation of two facts that are seemingly irreconcilable, yet both undeniable.
On a different note, I disagree with Kant, because I can simply say one is true or not for the sake of an argument. I freely admit I don't know that it is. So what I do instead is explore both. I tried a similar thing in this answer and this answer
I think it is bad science to not hypothesize because 'assumables' cannot be known. Just explore different assumables and see if the answers are the same.

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