Having just seen the preview for The Brothers Grimm, I can only wonder that nobody ever suspected Matt Damon would make such an excellent hobbit.

thanks for all the kind words about the nephew. i think i'm gonna print out everyone's comments here and in my lj and give them to him. he needs some good in his life.

my aunt is doing alright. my mom and i just got back from visiting her. her face is still supremely swollen and she doesn't really look like herself. they had to cut some of her hair because it was so charred. her arms and hands aren't really burned at all. just one place on her left arm. the left side of her face is the worst.

she's going quite a while without needing the pain meds, but she's still coughing quite a bit. it sounds really painful. so keep sending that ~ma in her direction, please.

In summation: I do not feel you need an object to be loving, and I don't believe that there's anything inherently loving in creating an object.

Why do you think it needs to be inherent? I would have thought that you have to argue that it can't be loving to make your point here.

Huh. Isn't your argument, though, that a loving god would necessarily create the universe. Hence, creating the universe is a loving thing to do. That seems to fit "inherent" to me.

If creation is not inherently good, is the act something less than perfectly loving?

If it is conceivable for creation to loving, then an ALAPG would create in that fashion instead of any non-loving alternative.

But what about loving alternatives? Why does non-creation = non-loving? Or does it?

Huh. Isn't your argument, though, that a loving god would necessarily create the universe. Hence, creating the universe is a loving thing to do. That seems to fit "inherent" to me.

No, that it would necessarily create a universe. If there is no conceivable way to create a universe as an act of love, then obviously an ALAPG wouldn't do so. I find that to be a very ambitious position to argue. Not that anyone's done so, but it's required for this particular objection to have legs.

Whether this universe provides evidence for the existence of such a God is relevant to the second conditional probability, i.e. the probability of an ALAPG given the universe. What I've done is posit that the first conditional probability, the probability of a universe given Swinburne's (well, Christianity's) ALAPG, is 1. It may just be me who thinks the amount of opposition to such a notion is remarkable, but then my mother always said I shared with my grandfather the ability to think I was right and the rest of the world was wrong.

But what about loving alternatives? Why does non-creation = non-loving? Or does it?

You're stepping outside the conditional of that sentence, i.e. given that an ALAPG is creating, it will do so in a loving fashion. Taking your sentence on its own, my response is pretty much all my previous posts.

continued -ma for your aunt, tiggy. I hope that they're just sending her home because of worries of hospital infections. I've often heard that the hospital is the worst place for people who might be at high risk for infection. I hope the swelling goes down soon and the scarring is minimal.

mom said the doctors told...whoever that they were just keeping her there because they were concerned about her lungs. they weren't overly concerned with the burns. when her lungs cleared they decided to release her. she doesn't even have a follow-up appointment until september 1st. it's just so bizarre to me that they aren't more worried about the burns and her recovery from them.

tiggy, I hope your aunt will be ok.

it's just so bizarre to me that they aren't more worried about the burns and her recovery from them.

Hopefully, that's an indication that they're not as serious as they may look (and burns look scary).

Evening everybody. It's been a while since I looked or even lurked around here (and I do lurv to lurk). But I'm taking a break from homework to make my brain to other things than think for a little while.

Tiggy, my best wishes to you and yours. I wish everybody a healthy recovery.

Metaphysical God-talk, just reading it is making my brain hurt, I want my chicken basted in salsa. That's all the love I need.

...maybe everybody left... how's that for timing...