What would you ask God?

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Why haven't I got my period yet? (another south park reference)

WHY is the one interrogative that is rarely satisfactorily answered.

Who, what, where, when, how - in scientific inquiry and social intercourse we find our way into those fairly well.

But - the image of the little kiddy querying its parents - you can strip away a hundred layers of WHY and not reach bottom. Teachers like me short circuit it by saying "because" - the ultimate reason is simply not withing reach

Teachers like Jake - no, not JakobVirgil, a totally different Jake I happen to know - spout a party line "reason" and refuse to explain WHY the authority said that.

WHICH is why [you should pardon it] WHY is THE question for the One who Knows - once we are freed from our restrainsts so as to hold the answer.

"Why" is the question that continually insists on slipping intent into the dynamics of nature and intent is nowhere apparent except in the minds of people romantically entranced with an imaginary and undetectable shadow figure moving the puppets of their imagined universe.

You are really pathetic. Why CAN be construed as motivation, but it is perfectly compatible with a mechanistic causation..

If you look closely, you will observe that many and many see this or that theory not sinmply as description, but as explication. Evolutionary theory is not merely HOW, it is also one step in the WHY chain. The problem for the materialist - including the theistic materialist - is that the end of a WHY chain is not within range of a shortsighted look.

I am terribly sorry, I refuse to get involved with your personal attacks. My point was perfectly valid as a generality. If you include yourself in any aspects of my comment, you will simply have to deal with it.
For a linguist to not comprehend the implications of the word "why" and how it undermines rational discourse indicates something rather striking.

Replying with only "Because" is both totally frustrating and the least satisfactory answer. If you don't know why, then say so.

Hast thou not seen - I have a tendency to be wordy?

Please do not to think that I stopped at "because" - at least not till I had worked it several times on the same class.

One goes on to say that any explanation involves centuries of language use in interaction which - even if we knew all the factors - cannot be effectively enumerated.

The moment of frustration is designed to focus the attention on the serious point.

Of course, hunmanity being what it is, no teaching technique satisfies or is effective withh all comers.

Asking "Why?" undermines rational discourse?
Sand, you should be writing propaganda for a dictator.

That was not obvious from your post. You seemed to be advocating stopping at 'because'.


If they are asking "why", then it is probably because they don't understand the serious point. If they don't understand the point and all they explanation they get is "because I say so" then it will lead to resentment, and resentment doesn't lead to obdience.[/quote]

You obviously do not understand either the context or the nature of that simple word. There are situations where it is appropriate and situations where it requires the admission of intent where no intent has been ever observed.That unconscious admission of that inappropriate word so prejudices any free discussion as to make irrelevant whole huge areas of speculation which are basic to good sense.

In the context of this thread wherein God is assumed, the question "why" demands of God a justification of His decisions to freely disperse what can, from humanity's viewpoint, be characterized as both great good and horrific evil. But it must be understood that it questions God's absolute authority and judgement and can be considered blasphemous. Faith, in general, abjures questioning God's judgment and the question alone indicates a lack of faith. It is not within human powers to comprehend a superbeing.

[/quote]

The "serious point" is that the WHY is not available.

The explanation they get from me was not - and is not, though I am not in the classroom - "because I say so" - that is what my friend Jake and his ilk tend to do.

I do not [check out a few of my posts] appeal to authority. nor set myself as authority. I hand out data, and if asked will state explicitly that the WHY behind the what is not available from where we sit.

I do NOT get what you mean by "resentment doesn't lead to obedience". I sometimes looked for obedience from Number 1 Son. Parents will do that. But even with him, and even more in theclassroom, I look for, hope for NOT obedience and NOT conformity but understanding.

What I want is a student who looks at how I handle a problem, does it differently, and gets better results.

A teacher has authority over their class while they are teaching that class, firstly because they are the expert in the room, and secondly because if somebody misbehaves, it is up to the teacher to prevent it getting out of control. On a good day, they won't need to assert that authority, but on a bad day they will.

If people like your friend Jake meet questions with only "Because" then over time it breeds resentment. A resentful class is less likely to behave well. I'm not criticising you personally, just pointing out that "because" is only a temporary fix at best. If you don't employ that attitude, then great!

From a linguistic point of view, there are many words in English that stand sufficiently alone as an answer to a query. There are yes, no, maybe, interesting, great, awful, and a host of others. "Because" is not in that category since it is merely the first word of an uncompleted explanation. In a stand-alone use it becomes synonymous with "Harrumph!", "Shaddup", "Don't know and won't admit it", "Don't bother me." and a few others. If emitted by a teacher it teaches something about the teacher, not the subject in question.

You were not there. Thank God. No, you would not have liked my teaching style. You would have joined the student who complained I did not use he/she, the student who complained that in a Linguistics course I talked about grammar, the student who resented that neither I nor my first language Arabic speaking assistant would tell him how to go straight to the right page of an Arabic dictionary, and espdecially the student who glared resentfully at me from the first to the final day of the semester.

For the record - though it has already been stated, I cannot expect you either to read or to try to understand anything you did not write - it was not so synonymour.

Yes, it says something about the teacher. And obstinate voluntary incomprehension says a lot about the student, or in this case the reader.

Sand
Firstly, the fact that I disagree with you does not mean I "obviously do not understand". That statement is dismissive and arrogant.

As to the matter of questioning God's "absolute authority", I disagree. If I ask my neighbor why he painted his house purple, it doesn't mean that I question his authority to do so. Similarly, asking God why he made the sky blue (or whatever the question) doesn't mean I don't think he had the right.

Regarding a "lack of faith", I'm not sure what you mean. A lack of faith that God exists? As I am hypothetically having dinner with him, that can't be the case. Further, the fact that I am asking Him why he does things implies that I have faith He does them. So if I believe He's God and does the things He claims to, what is that in which I do not have faith? Perhaps a lack of faith that his motives are for good? That could be true, but it would depend on the question being asked. Certainly not every question that started with "why" would fall into that category.

As to a human's ability/inability to comprehend God's answers, I don't see how that matters. I can think of questions I'd enjoy asking Stephen Hawking or Albert Einstein, even though I probably wouldn't understand the answers. Besides, if He turns out to be the Christian God then I'm sure he'll have a nice parable ready to help me out. Something involving fish or a vineyard, most likely.

I find the assumption that he reason only said that you obviously do not understand because you disagree with you to be dismissive and arrogant.