Hero Professor In Hell Right Now

[NotReady]

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2 Kings 2:23-24:


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Try Tektonics. Let me know.

[ChrisV]

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2 Kings 2:23-24:


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Try Tektonics. Let me know.

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I had another look using Google, rather than the site's search engine, and dug up this. Wow. This is horribly unconvincing. It runs like this:

1. They may not have been "children" but rather "youths", ie 14 or 15.
2. Maybe there was more to their mocking than baldness. But in any case, no sin is trivial in the eyes of God.
3. Maybe they were criminals in other ways.

1 is irrelevant. 2 and 3 are pure speculation and as such unanswerable. You can justify anything by simply making up additional details that are nowhere present or even implied in the original story. The idea that the youths were "roving criminals" is however rather implausible since the verse records them coming "out of the town". If they were thieves, presumably they would be unwelcome in the town.

In any case, you haven't answered my central point. Why are Tektonics trying to alter this story? The story records an action of God. God is infinitely just, and there is no yardstick by which to judge his actions. If you really believe that doctrine then there is no impediment to believing that this story represents justice in action, and you should not have any motive to try and alter it.

[Lestat]

This is a most excellent post.

[Lestat]

<font color="blue"> Librescu is simply dead and some might say he made a -EV </font>

Why is it necessarily -EV? He possibly saved many bright young students with much life ahead of them. If one of them goes on to find a cure for cancer, do you still view it as -EV?

[chezlaw]

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<font color="blue"> Librescu is simply dead and some might say he made a -EV </font>

Why is it necessarily -EV? He possibly saved many bright young students with much life ahead of them. If one of them goes on to find a cure for cancer, do you still view it as -EV?

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He means -ev from Librescu's pov, being dead he gains nothing from the future.

Dead is zero happiness. The calculation is just whether he would have +ev or -ve future happiness from being alive when he believes he should have tried to save the students.

We can stick some probabilites in if we want to state that more precisely.

Edit: I missed out the very important factor that it may be +ev now to be the sort of person who would behave in that way if the situation came up.

chez

[Lestat]

Plus it could be +EV if someone he saved goes on to develop a cure for something that saves one of the professor's descendants.

But I agree the main thing is how troubled he would be in all likelihood, if he did nothing. The guy was a true hero. Those theists that can't understand such actions without the existence of a God, shows they can be a pretty shallow and selfish lot.

[chezlaw]

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Plus it could be +EV if someone he saved goes on to develop a cure for something that saves one of the professor's descendants.

But I agree the main thing is how troubled he would be in all likelihood, if he did nothing. The guy was a true hero. Those theists that can't understand such actions without the existence of a God, shows they can be a pretty shallow and selfish lot.

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I think the main factor is the one I forgot and added with the edit. Although this case is extreme I think in generally +ev if we are the sort of people who don't always put ourselves above others . We gain so much from living in a community of such people.

As Utah and others will point out it may be even more +ev to fake it and defect in exteme circumstaces but insincerity is tough.

I think any half-decent god would be far more impressed with heroes who don't believe in god and expect no reward.

chez

[Justin A]

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about the revelations passage, some may say that the passage in the NT about no one can come to father but through me(jesus) has some effect upon my argument. I can only say that I have not code plead out that "but through me" passage so I'm not exactly sure what that means. However, the revelations passage is pretty straightforward.

So we have a pretty straightforward passage vs. an ambiguous one, so it seems to me a no brainer at this point.

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An ambiguous passage in the Bible? Say it ain't so...

[PLOlover]

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An ambiguous passage in the Bible? Say it ain't so...

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you might not be aware that the bible explicitly states that it is written so that most people will not be able to understand it.

[Justin A]

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An ambiguous passage in the Bible? Say it ain't so...

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you might not be aware that the bible explicitly states that it is written so that most people will not be able to understand it.

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So what are the people who cannot understand it supposed to do, guess?