Re: Alabama Governor calls for prayer

If I prayed for rain every day my prayers would be answered - occasionally.

For the most part I have given up trying to post here since, most of the time, my posts don't show up. Every now and them I'll try again.

Allan Adler wrote:
"Bill M" <wmech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

"RonnHammonn" <ronnhammonn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:46853790.399F@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
This is just too silly.
"I, Bob Riley, Governor of Alabama, do hereby encourage citizens of
Alabama to pray daily for rain."
There are a thousand different gods. Which one does he want us to pray too?

Where to start?
(1) How do you get "a thousand"?
(2) Most of us here think the number is 0, unless maybe you mean something
different by "are". ("It depends on what the meaning of 'is'
is..." -- Bill Clinton)

Some medieval philosopher (Aquinas, I think, in his "Concerning Being and
Essence") wrote, according to my dim recollection: "Being, in itself
(ens per se) is said to be taken in two modes," and here he is describing
Aristotle's point of view. In the first mode, he continues, something which
exists is subject to the various classifications described in Aristotle's
"Categories". In the second mode, something exists by virtue of signifying
the truth of some proposition, i.e. a hypothetical existence in order to
make sense of some statement.

Thus, if one says that a unicorn has one horn, the unicorn has a
conditional existence in the context of making sense of the statement,
but not a real existence.

It seems that Bill M is asserting the existence of a thousand gods in the
second sense, but not very explicitly, since he hasn't indicated the
statement whose truth is signified by the hypothetical existence of these
thousand gods. Let us try to remedy this omission. I think the omitted
statement is something along the lines of, "There are a thousand gods
that have some worshippers," but that reconstruction is only a first
approximation.

What I am not clear on is what the status of existence is when the
second sense is intended in a proposition that is false even if one
hypothetically allows the existence. For in that sense, there are way
more than 1000. My understanding is that there are, e.g., 2 or 3
million minor gods in Shintoism. Do they all have worshippers? If
not, how do we reformulate the omitted statement to take due account
of the demographics of their respective followers?

Actually, I wonder how one arrives at the figure of 2 or 3 million Shinto
gods. At least in Greek mythology, there are stories about the gods and they
have names. What kind of census has ever been taken of the Shinto gods?

I think we have to ask another pertinent question in this thread, which
was started months ago: how many times has it rained in Alabama since
the governor asked everyone to pray for rain? If we keep returning to
the problem of rain in Alabama every few months, maybe we should ask
for a grant to study it.

And, since one of the premises of the original poster (whose postings I
no longer read) seems to have been that they are all Baptists in Alabama,
in spite of there being a group of Alabama Atheists, it is also appropriate
to ask: does it rain equally on the Baptists and on the Atheists alike and,
when it doesn't rain, don't they both suffer equally?

Oh, and one further question: is this really all we have to talk about?


--
Steve Kelley

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Alabama Governor calls for prayer
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    (soc.atheism)
  • Re: Alabama Governor calls for prayer
    ... "I, Bob Riley, Governor of Alabama, do hereby encourage citizens of ... Alabama to pray daily for rain." ... There are a thousand different gods. ...
    (soc.atheism)
  • Re: Alabama Governor calls for prayer
    ... Alabama to pray daily for rain." ... "Alabama Governor Bob Riley, who led a successful if short-lived effort ...
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  • Re: Alabama Governor calls for prayer
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    (soc.atheism)