The Dumplin' Dumbash Page

How To Be Incompetent, Part 463

Poor Dumplin' Dumbash. Nothing is EVER his fault, but for some reason people keep blaming him for things that just aren't that bad. Poor Dumpy whines that I made a "big deal" out of his mistake of attributing one of Miller's articles to me and for not getting my view of hell right. Fer sure. This from a guy who puts himself off as some sort of watchdog keeping a weather eye on apologetics ministries to make sure they're not fooling poor, gullible Skeptics into converting. As usual, Dumplin' is just a pathetic little 2 year old who can't just admit his mistakes and instead blames Mommy for putting the cookie jar where he can reach it. Then, to be sure his readership of 17 people is kept from making too much of his ineptness at noticing detail, he repeats the standard red herring whine-whine that is his flag: "God doesn't show up in real life. Waaaah." Oh yes: And it is OK if HE makes mistakes because he's not a theologian; he doesn't have to be infallible. Huh?

Beyond this, Dumplin' once again cries that I didnt read him right, which is nothing more than his usual backpedal when he has been caught with his pants down advocating a ridiculous position, namely, that of God isn't erasing all evil right NOW, when Dumplin' says He should, there's a problem. "Waaah," Dumplin' says, "that's not what I said! My point is that God doesn't show up doing anything at all!"

Oh really? Yes, that IS one of Dumplin's canards, again -- one we have rousted with notice to the patronage model he is too ignorant to understand, since there aren't coloring books on it -- but it's a plain old lie that Dumplin' isn't demanding a do-it-all-now God. He says clearly: "Not just that evil exists at all (though that is a serious problem), but that we live in a world where a genuine, omnipotent, and benevolent deity could do a tremendous amount of good, and yet we do not see God doing any such things. Warning us of imminent disasters or crimes, for instance, or giving clear, unmistakable doctrinal instruction to thwart the rise of heresies and destructive cults. Things God could do (if the Gospel were true) and yet very plainly does not do."

Please, Dumplin'! Don't pretend you weren't asking for repeated, personalized silver-tray service to the human race here. This alone demands service on a micro-level only last heard of from spoiled children like YOU. "God, please cover my stupidity. I know that I didn't study up on Mormons before joining, but you could at least have warned me they were heretics. Thank you."

But like a spoiled brat, Dumplin' thinks that it isn't HIS responsibility to help prevent disasters or crimes, or to study doctrine; God should take care of it, and He should hurry up, too. He also misses the point when I note that by the logic of this argument, people who are not preventing disasters, etc. 24/7 are "incorrigibily evil." He misses it first because he thinks I say HE claimed that a failure to stop evil made you "incorrigibly evil," -- no, Dumplin', get your face out of the cookie jar for 5 minutes and pay attention; it is not that you "claimed" such a thing, but that this is the unavoidable conclusion to your putrid logic that if God doesn't act the way you want him too, He either doesn't have the power to stop evil (perhaps because He doesn't exist, or is not omnipotent) or does not want to stop it (is evil Himself). More than that: YOU, to evade this argument, have to do ALL in your power, every moment, to stop evil. Not just a stint with the Peace Corps over the weekend. Not just handing that bum a $5 bill. It doesn't matter than you're not perfect -- you STILL could do more, and yet you don't. So that means one of the options YOU apply to God has to apply to you:

1. Dumplin' doesn't exist -- obviously this one won't work
2. Dumplin' is not powerful enough -- he's not omnipotent (he isn't even particularly bright), but he does have SOME power, and bottom line is, he isn't using it 24/7 to stop evil. Therefore:
3. Dumplin' is evil.

Of course, the actual answer is, "Dumplin's argument is just plain stupid." God isn't required to answer to him or to erase evil when Dumplin' wants it done. Nor is God required to play nursemaid to ignoramuses like Dumplin' who build their houses in the shadow of known volcanoes, or who spend money on nukes instead of of tsunami warning systems, or who join cults without cracking opening anything more useful than Where's Waldo? and spending evenings watching reruns.

Following this trip on his guilt, Dumplin' "answers" the issue of omnipotence not having anything to do with logic by, uh....changing the subject. (His Useful Idiot jogaba is not so smart; he comments that logic CAN be affected by power, can too can too can too, because HE defines it as able to do so.) First he claims this has "interesting implications for the Fine Tuning argument, since it means it’s no longer a given that God would be capable of changing the fundamental laws that make things work out such that the universe has the characteristics we need to exist." I don't know that any advocate of that argument argues for changes in laws or logic; and unfortunately, Dumplin' doesn't quote any argument from such an advocate that would be affected, but that isn't required for him to claim a problem, since the burden of actual research and justification of his position isn't something he's willing to give up watching championship wrestling for. Then Dumplin' makes a fool of himself with a hackneyed version of atonement:

This leaves one last problem: if God can’t just forgive sins, if the "epistemic realities" compel even God to exact punishment for sins committed, we still have the problem of the Gospel claiming that God can and does forgive sins. The Bible doesn’t say that God just "paid the fine" and let the laws of Reality take their course, it says that God actively forgives. It's a volitional act, which implies that He has some choice in the matter, and is not bound by some exterior laws over which He has no control. Then again, the people who wrote the Bible never read Miller, so maybe they were just mistaken, eh?

No, Dumplin', you're just stupid again is all. One of these days maybe you'll learn about patronage, but what it boils down to is that God didn't "just" forgive sin, which is what you demanded that He ought to do -- he forgave it of those who entered into His patronage and became His pledged servants. Try reading Miller instead of Wikipedia for a change. That is also why, by the way, "God does not apply the benefits of that sacrifice to all of His children..." His "children" have to make their own volitional act to accept it. The benefit does apply to all, but it isn't up to God (no matter how mucha spoiled brat like you insists on it) to deliver it into our mouths with a silver spoon. Tough cookies, sucker.

Dumplin' thinks it's wrong that people are not saved because they are not "willing to believe whatever men tell them about God in His absence." Please note that this is a guy who has been positing grade-school objections to Christianity and once put Jesus in the Bronze Age before I corrected him. This is also a guy who got the authorship of an article wrong and makes excuses for it, and who declines any comment on patronage; to what I say of that, he says: "Commentary on this remark is left as an exercise for the reader."

Yep. Pass the juice and cookies, then it is time for Dumpy's nap.