A Meeting with the Almighty

[barrie]

I'll see you
tomorrow,
I said.

I'll be there,
but you won't,
came the retort.

What makes you say that?

I know everything,
I made it so.

If you're saying it's all preordained,
then I'll prove you wrong.

I knew you'd say that,
so I moved you forward
by a day.
You never showed up.

How do you know,
you've been here all the time.

I'm omnipresent and omniscient.

You're a cheat.

Just omnipotent.

Do you exist, then?

Why,
asked God,
do you need proof?

[BenJohnson]

I love the idea, but for some reason this doesn't quite work for me. it is fine up to and including

I knew you'd say that,
so I moved you forward
by a day.
You never showed up.

I'm not sure what the change is from there on. but it stops working for me. The quoted section is a highlight for me a great humorous moment in the discussion, God as a cheat, proving you wrong.

[David]

Phew. God's existence. Freewill. Foreknowledge and all that. You pick all the easy subjects, don't you.

This reminded me of something I read years ago, possibly in The Thousand and One Nights, which seems to have been summarised quite well here:

There is a merchant in Baghdad who sends his servant to buy provisions from the market. The servant soon returns trembling with fear and says: ‘Master, as I was going with the jostling crowds in the market, there was a push from behind. I turned and saw a woman. She was death. Now master, give me your horse. I shall go to Samarra and save myself.’ The master gave him his horse. The servant climbed it and dug his spurs in its flanks, and as fast as the horse could run he went. In the evening the Master went to the market and asked the woman: ‘Why did you threaten my servant?’ She said, ‘I was surprised to see him in Baghdad, for I have an appointment with him in Samarra.’

You'll have read that before, I'm sure, but I found the resemblance to your poem quite striking. Or am I barking up completely the wrong tree again?

Cheers

David

[Ros]

Ah, well, it reminded me of the story about the man in prison due to be hanged within the week but not when he expects it. So he reasons that it can't be Friday, because that's the last day and so he'd expect it, and so it can't be Thursday, for the same reason...so he works this through for the week and reasons that they can't hang him any day. Then they hang him.

But I digress...

One obscure bit: Is it the human saying

If you're saying it's all preordained,
then I'll prove you wrong.

I think it must be, though it wasn't immediately obvious.

The argument: God would know whether the person was going to be there or not anyway, without having to move him in time. So I'm not sure about the logic of that bit. And I guess if you're omnipotent, perhaps you're in charge of the rules and so it's never cheating...

I do love a bit of ontological theorizing, Gromit...

[R. Broath]

A Christmas entertainment to make the cream curdle after all those mince pies, barrie.

My only problem was the last Godly question. Is it,

'Why? Do you need proof?'

or

'Why do you need proof?'

Whichever it is I suspect it isn't the sort of read to wake to on a hungover morning. Not that I have those (much) nowadays.

Jimmy

[barrie]

Thanks Ben - I get some strange ideas, so it's not surprising when they don't strike chord - I blame God.

Thanks David - Yes, I know the story, it's a good one, but the poem wasn't written with that in mind. The idea came from Thoke and his topic in Any Other Business on determinism - I'm more for indeterminism. I can't prove it though.

Thanks Ros - The N and God take each verse in turn to speak, so it was the N trying to disprove preordination.

The argument: God would know whether the person was going to be there or not anyway, without having to move him in time. So I'm not sure about the logic of that bit. And I guess if you're omnipotent, perhaps you're in charge of the rules and so it's never cheating...

- Ah, the logic - Well, God would know, but the N wouldn't. God also knows that every effect has a cause, so the cause of the N missing the meeting was that God moved him through time.
The N (not me) calls God a cheat , and God replies - just omnipotent.

Just a lighthearted look at determinism, or preordainment for the religious minded.


Thanks Jimmy - I'm glad you asked that question. That's why I split the question with "asked God". If I'd put "asked God" at the end, then the comma, or lack of one, would have left you without a choice - I'd sooner you choose which question it is.

Cheers all

Barrie

[juliadebeauvoir]

If you're saying it's all preordained,
then I'll prove you wrong.

I knew you'd say that,
so I moved you forward
by a day.
You never showed up.

How do you know that God did not determine indeterminism? Mmmmmhhhh...
The above verse was the pillar of the poem and a perfect chess move.

How do you know,
you've been here all the time.

I'm omnipresent and omniscient.

You're a cheat.

Just omnipotent.

Do you exist, then?

Why,
asked God,
do you need proof?

Then ending left me scratching my head but these are weighty thoughts so early in the morning. Its never explained why God is not always around or everywhere--just all powerful. Wouldn't he be omniscient if He moved the N ahead one day? Oh the theology....
I enjoyed this one. Wouldn't a question mark come after

How do you know,
you've been here all the time.

Or maybe you have already gone back a day and put it in...

Cheers,
Kim

[Danté]

You certainly come up with some varied poems that explore religion and death.
This is very entertaining and also interesting to ponder, enjoying the humour along the way.

Yes, I have a bottle open, and the bubbly is in the appropriate bucket.

All the best for the coming year, Cheers, and thanks

Tim

[dogofdiogenes]

'I made it so'

am I the only sad puppy who was reminded of Captain Jean-Luc Picard? Doh!


dogbyday

[twoleftfeet]

Wow! A real brain-twister!
My head hurts and I HAVEN'T been drinking..

The absence of a question mark after "Why" at the end is a nice touch.

Next time you have a word with Big G, Barrie, ask him if female bishops are pre-ordained.

Geoff

[barrie]

Thanks Kim & Tim.

'I made it so'

am I the only sad puppy who was reminded of Captain Jean-Luc Picard?

- Never saw it 'til you mentioned it - he always gave the instruction. Now that you have mentioned Picard, I can imagine the poem being a dialogue between him and Q.

Next time you have a word with Big G, Barrie, ask him if female bishops are pre-ordained

- Mention female bishops - Do you want to see me thunderbolted??

Cheers everyone

Barrie

[beautifulloser]

Freakin' Jesus, Baz. Admire how much brain ache you've crammed into realtively few lines. Fave part was the ending, which has already been commented on but further thumbs up from me. My brain now needs massaging, fanning and sweet nothings whispered to it by naked virgins . . . .

big love
x

[barrie]

Thanks beau - Can't help you with virgins I'm afraid, I dont know any.

cheers

Barrie

[Nigel]

hmm . . . I can't help feeling that the metaphysics behind this poem couldn't have been handled more imaginatively. I found the dialogue rather lack lustre and the reasoning somewhat dubious. Sorry but this poem simply doesn't have enough about it to make me want to look into its mechanics further.

[barrie]

Thanks for the honest reponse, Nigel. There isn't much in the way of mechanics to look into and the metaphysics should be read more tongue-in-cheek. Like I said in an earlier post, it's just a light-hearted response to the idea of determinism, a thread that was started in Any Other Business by Thoke - Something I don't subscribe to, nor do I believe in God.

cheers

Barrie

[Sharra]

I've finally had a chance to reply to this one. I wanted say I thought was great and made me chuckle.
It reminded me of a quote from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy;

The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn´t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don´t. QED." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn´t thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

[camus]

BUMP.

[twoleftfeet]

Thanks for the honest reponse, Nigel. There isn't much in the way of mechanics to look into and the metaphysics should be read more tongue-in-cheek. Like I said in an earlier post, it's just a light-hearted response to the idea of determinism, a thread that was started in Any Other Business by Thoke - Something I don't subscribe to, nor do I believe in God.

cheers

Barrie

I hope you are wrong, Barrie, because I am missing you already

[Travis]

No offence to anyone else, but our loss here has made me realize how often I would wonder what Barrie would think of this or that. Much more so than most other people. I had great intellectual respect for the man. Huh, "had". The finality of this makes me a little angry. That may very well be a selfish thing to say coming from a stranger in the proverbial night, considering that as such I know little more than most of you, if anything more at all. But I have to wonder, and I don't mind doing it out loud, if perhaps happiness intead should be in order if whatever it was that overtook the beating heart of this place was such that death would be a reprieve. But enough of that. I don't want to invite any discussion on the matter. It's cheap and ultimately unimportant. He's gone and we loved him in our own ways and that's that.

I miss you too. Would you have thought such a thing? Beyond moderator civility I mean. Well, I do. The line between Newfoundland and PG has been blurred. You've left an emotional bruise as palpable as any I've known. Just thought you should know, in case It does exist. I'm agnostic myself.

[dedalus]

Yes, it is a kind of puzzled anger ... an "emotional bruise". Thanks for that, Sam. You've spoken up for many of us.

Bren

[emuse]

"Do you exist, then?

Why,
asked God,
do you need proof?"

Did you ever find out?

Miss you Barrie.

E