Romanoffia
Garde à l'eau!
flemingovia:
I was thinking more along the Deistic lines of Hume in reference to Deus Ansconditus as it relates to and differs from Deus Ex Machina, as opposed to the literary/dramatic usage.
The way I was using the term "Deus Ex Machina" was along the lines of Hume in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion:
Of course in this context, Hume is somewhat replacing Deus Absconditus with Deus Ex Machina to justify the concept of Providence as a means for God to mould history, etc., without actually having to intervene. I tend to prefer the 18th Century variety of Deism which largely sees little justification of the existence of a personal God - essentially that God is like a watchmaker: God created the universe, so to speak, wound it up like a watch, and then hung out the cosmic "Out to Lunch" sign and then sat back and observes (or not) with an attitude of stercus accidit, so to speak.
If one has had any discourse with Catholic Priests or the Protestant equivalents, they always tend to pose, sooner or later, the question "what if I could absolutely prove to you the existence of a personal God?"
When posed with that question, my stock answer is always, "what, then, would the purpose of faith be?"
Taking such a Deistic stance would tend to justify your claim that miracles are not necessary, and that proof would negate faith and, as Douglas Adams noted in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, God would simply say, "I didn't think of that", vanish in a puff logic.
However, you, in your role of Flemingovia God have in the past claimed various miracles, which if were to be actual miracles would have caused you to have also vanish in a puff of logic. Thus, since you are still here after alleged proof of your miraculous divinity through various miracles means that either your miracles are not miracles and therefore you are not God, or that simply you are not God because you are still here as proof of your existence would negate faith and you would go poof in an existential flash.
Great Bights Mum:
That would be a terrible dilemma indeed!
And think of all those incredibly drunk whales at the bottom of the ocean, being at the bottom not because they are drunk but due to the simple physics that alcohol is substantially less dense than water rendering it absolutely impossible for a whale to swim in it. And not to mention the fact that the lower density of alcohol in comparison to water would make the buoyancy of a boat a somewhat precariously unstable proposition.
This can be illustrated by a simple Buoyancy Equations of: Buoyancy Force (B) = ? V g (B) = ? V g in which p=the density of the fluid in question; V=displaced Volume; and g=9.8 (gravitational coefficient for this equation).
Ergo, any whale attempting to swim in a sea of 80 proof or higher Rum would plummet straight to the bottom of the sea, state of intoxication not withstanding.
That said, if a whale could swim in a sea of rum without plummeting to bottom of the sea due to lack of buoyancy, that indeed could possibly be construed as a miracle tantamount to a human walking on water. A human walking on rum would be an even greater miracle but would pose some severe problems as to how that human could efficiently consume rum of a physically impossible density.
Also, not to mention the potential damage to the rum production economy of The North Pacific if the quantity rum were suddenly to become relatively unlimited.
And, of course, everyone would stop drinking rum because whales piss in it. What a horrifying proposition!
