The teacher, the kids, and the atheist lobby
A high school philosophy teacher tackles Richard Dawkins for impressionable young people:
If we claim that God is the creator of the material universe, the creator of all material things that exist in space and time, then it should be obvious that God will not be subject to the limits of space and time. If God imparts existence, then God does not receive existence. If He did, He wouldn’t be God, but a contingent creature (created, limited, possessing existence and able not to exist). Hence, God is not a contingent being.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster is of course a product of the creative imagination, but it is a product made up of characteristics of contingent beings. We have a flying being, thus a thing that moves in space. If it moves in space, it exists in space and is thus subject to the limits of space. We have “spaghetti”, which is a delicious pasta, thus we have a creature that eats, one that desires a certain kind of food. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a contingent being, albeit a fictional being. Certainly, if someone claims that God is a limited contingent being who can be the subject of empirical proof, he will have to provide evidence; for one cannot reason to the existence of a contingent being precisely because it is contingent, for it would have the potentiality to be or not to be, like you and me.
Labels: Doug McManaman, Richard Dawkins