Reply
Mon 22 Jun, 2015 09:57 am
Context:
Of course, people of all faiths regularly assure one another that God is not responsible for human suffering. But how else can we understand the claim that God is both omniscient and omnipotent? This is the age-old problem of theodicy, of course, and we should consider it solved. If God exists, either He can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities, or He does not care to. God, therefore, is either impotent or evil. You may now be tempted to execute the following pirouette: God cannot be judged by human standards of morality. But we have seen that human standards of morality are precisely what you use to establish God's goodness in the first place. And any God who could concern Himself with something as trivial as gay marriage, or the name by which He is addressed in prayer, is not as inscrutable as all that.
@oristarA,
Yeah, a mental stunt, i.e. mental gymnastics, cognitive dissonance.
@InfraBlue,
Thanks.
Is it still in common use?
@oristarA,
Pirouette? No, that's a pretty original metaphor.
Literally a ballet term: "an act of spinning on one foot, typically with the raised foot touching the knee of the supporting leg". Metaphorically an act of great agility, physical or mental.