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Theological Signficance of the Jewel Wasp.


JayB

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Well, you've read the bible, haven't you Jay? That old testament god was a right nasty evil bastard.

 

Tried when I was a kid but never got beyond the infinite regress of begats.

 

Might explain the sense of befuddlement I experienced when encountering Deuteronomy, the book of revelations, Job, Lot, Jonah, and various other highlights.

 

For some reason that reminds me of a lab-mate of mine from India that had only vaguely heard of Jesus and knew nothing of the scriptures when he arrived in the US, and encountered Jehovah's witnesses at his door. Listening him recreate the interaction, where he (sincerely) played the earnest straight-man while they shared their message with him was priceless.

 

"So - I am sorry? You are here at my home knocking on my door to tell me about this Mr. Jesus fellow?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Why is it important that I should know about this Mr. Jesus."

 

"Because he died for your sins"

 

"But this Mr. Jesus is has been dead for an extremely long time. Yes?"

 

"Yes - he died on the cross over two thousand years ago."

 

"If that is the case, then this statement of yours about this Mr. Jesus is making no sense to me. If this fellow died over two thousand years ago, there is clearly no manner in which he could have even the slightest notion that I would ever exist, much less that I would commit engage in any shameful acts..."

 

From what I can recall they touched on the Garden of Eden and a couple of other highlights before moving on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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the lord moves in mysterious ways. sort of like gitmo. who would have though he had that in him/her/it?

 

The omniscient/omnipotent makes even the stuff humans do to each other problematic, but seems much more difficult to overlook earthquakes, genetic disorders, plagues, tsunamis, etc. Hell, even the prevalence of the peanut-allergy should raise some troubling questions.

 

"Ooooh - dang! Er, sorry about that one Jimmy. I was busy tweaking the binding kinetics of this highly-specific neurotoxin in this one species of parasitoid wasp and forgot to get rid of that epitope on the peanut protein. My bad."

 

After the Tsunami I was amazed to learn that there were actually (lots of) adults that had seemingly never grappled with some of the more basic implications of the creeds that they'd ostensibly dedicated their lives to abiding by and spreading.

 

 

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I've always wanted Jehova's Witnesses or some Mormons to come to my door so I can debate theology with them but so far they've stayed away. With my luck I'll probably get the high pressure meat sales guy.

 

Combine the high-pressure meat sales with Scientology and you'll have yourself a cash-machine that'll make Amway look like a lemonade stand...

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the lord moves in mysterious ways. sort of like gitmo. who would have though he had that in him/her/it?

 

The omniscient/omnipotent makes even the stuff humans do to each other problematic, but seems much more difficult to overlook earthquakes, genetic disorders, plagues, tsunamis, etc. Hell, even the prevalence of the peanut-allergy should raise some troubling questions.

 

"Ooooh - dang! Er, sorry about that one Jimmy. I was busy tweaking the binding kinetics of this highly-specific neurotoxin in this one species of parasitoid wasp and forgot to get rid of that epitope on the peanut protein. My bad."

 

After the Tsunami I was amazed to learn that there were actually (lots of) adults that had seemingly never grappled with some of the more basic implications of the creeds that they'd ostensibly dedicated their lives to abiding by and spreading.

 

 

Yeah, right, no person of faith has *ever* contemplated such questions. :rolleyes:

 

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No, no - lots of people have. I'd argue that the majority of people that believe in an omniscient/omnipotent deity have considered them, and I'm sure there are folks that have spent years or decades either composing treatises that parse these questions in minute detail, studying them, or both.

 

It's just that when there was an occasion for folks to toss around these questions in public, like the Tsunami, I was just surprised at the sheer number of folks who evidently hadn't done so.

 

 

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A fundamental marker of a most base elementary definition/notion for "God" is that God must meet the constraint of a person's determination of Good, let alone that of one culture.

 

If God must meet all of almost 7 billion persons belief of Good, wouldn't that pretty much cover all notions of Bad, as well.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, I almost spilled the Patchouli... that'd be bad.

 

 

 

or, would it?

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Que? (For Ponderosa).

 

Short summary:

 

-Wasp injects cockroach's abdomen with venom A, paralyzing its forelimbs.

-Wasp injects paralyzed cockroach's brain with venom B, reversing the original paralysis but turning it into a zombie.

-Wasp bites off cockroache's antenna, drinks a bit of cockroach's blood to revive itself.

-Wasp bites antenna, and pulls on it to lead cockroach back to its den.

-Wasp lays eggs on 'roach, then seals roach in den.

-Wasp larvae eat their way into the living zombie roach, then selectively feast on its organs to keep the zombie roach alive while they grow.

-Larvae hatch, roach dies.

-Repeat.

 

 

 

 

 

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and jay, i can't believe a man w/ your immense capacity for reading mind-booglingly long-winded and obscure crap couldn't complete the big B! dude, read dude-er-ronomy or leviticus - seriously - you'd :lmao: the most

 

Read bits of Deuter after listening to a Hitchens debate. What's in Leviticus?

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and jay, i can't believe a man w/ your immense capacity for reading mind-booglingly long-winded and obscure crap couldn't complete the big B! dude, read dude-er-ronomy or leviticus - seriously - you'd :lmao: the most

 

Read bits of Deuter after listening to a Hitchens debate. What's in Leviticus?

-instructions on how to slaughter fattened lambs/doves/oxen/bunnies/geckoes/etc

- when it's permissible to fuck your slaves/daughters/enemies/livestock

- when you can kill your neightors for wearing funny clothes/looking at you the wrong way/looking at your stuff/etc.

 

seriously, the bible is a critical bathroom book - always entertaining, conducive to getting your business done and getting the fuck out of there, and great in the case of a variety of emergencies

Edited by ivan
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The way I understand it from that perspective is that there's something called 'collective' karma or 'collective' retribution, so that even if you're a good fella you can get caught up in some catastrophic event that does not distinguish between good people and evil people.

 

I suppose though in our contemporary thoughts of justice we do not generally believe in the idea of collective punishment although we saw just that, for example, in the assault on Fallujah or in the bombing of Gaza.

 

Maybe justice is merely an ideal construct whereas the will of the stronger is the operative rule.

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God, if he exists, is simply a fuck up, and he probably doesn't give a shit, either...

this would be tracking right w/ the whole "me being made in His image" thang :)

 

If religion had sold a more realistic incompetent God, I might have hung on to my faith a bit longer.

 

Like, a couple of more weeks, maybe.

 

Fuck that fairyland shite. Good riddance.

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Que?

Your original challenge seemed to infer that the habits of the Jewel Wasp should be repugnant to a "God". IOW, their habits would be considered Bad to a normal God. My post questions - by whose standard? If God must be Good in accordance with the whims of belief of all people, if all peoples' notion of Good were accounted for (including those with values in direct opposition to others), Good being contrary to Bad, then, God will also be Bad in one regard nearly as often as God is Good by another.

 

Your lab-mate-from-India's reckoning of implausibility due to linear time constraint, failed to consider Omnipotence in a nontemporal realm, part of God's 'hood, which has always included the complete, unabridged, Unifying Theory, including one dimension w/o Time, minimally.

 

easy

Edited by Ponderosa
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