{"id":2687,"date":"2012-01-06T10:28:20","date_gmt":"2012-01-06T15:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2687"},"modified":"2012-01-06T10:28:20","modified_gmt":"2012-01-06T15:28:20","slug":"perfection-in-relation-to-sentient-beings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2687","title":{"rendered":"Perfection In Relation to Sentient Beings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was talking with a liberal Christian recently and she was talking about how human beings aren\u2019t perfect and how we God loves us anyway. As our conversation continued, I asked why it matters that we aren\u2019t perfect and what that even means. What does \u201cperfect\u201d mean in relation to sentient beings\u2026 God included?<\/p>\n<p>When we are doing a task which has a known final outcome, I can understand what perfect mean. For example, when doing a puzzle if we are able to put all the puzzle pieces in the correct spots, we can say we did the puzzle perfectly. But people are a little different. There is no single final outcome. This means that there is no real perfect in relation to people.<\/p>\n<p>Sure we can always strive to be better people. We can understand what that means. It means that we observe that certain traits make us happy and make others happy. Certain traits lead to a better quality of life for all involved. Being a better person would entail maximizing those traits for the wellbeing of ourselves and others. But is there a perfect way to maximize those traits? Are there perfect traits to be maximized?<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t think so and if there are, we as a society have not yet identified them yet. We don\u2019t know what perfect is or even if there is a perfect. We do know that we are not perfect. We make mistakes all the time. But that isn\u2019t a bad thing necessarily. It can be part of the learning process.<\/p>\n<p>The character of God as he is thought about in Christianity and other religions is deeply flawed. He\u2019s flawed because he is alleged to be perfect. God can\u2019t learn. He can\u2019t progress. The flaw is that his journey is over.<\/p>\n<p>God can\u2019t love us despite our flaws. In fact, he can\u2019t love at all. Love is a journey; it changes and there is no room for change in perfection.<\/p>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=ea9510f2-45c7-4b16-a935-6aed781980ed\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2687\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was talking with a liberal Christian recently and she was talking about how human beings aren\u2019t perfect and how we God loves us anyway. As our conversation continued, I asked why it matters that we aren\u2019t perfect and what that even means. What does \u201cperfect\u201d mean in relation to sentient beings\u2026 God included? When [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[589,1192,12,166,1581],"tags":[278,2215,11,2216,1355,1264],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2688,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687\/revisions\/2688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}