I must confess that I haven’t missed arguing with intellectual lightweights on social media. I especially haven’t missed their silly, sophomoric argument about God and logical impossibility that some people actually believe is a clever argument, but in reality it is remarkably stupid: Can a supernatural creator-God create a rock so large that He couldn’t lift it?
The idea is that the atheist has presented an unresolvable dilemma to the theist by posing this question, because if God can’t create such a rock, then He can’t be described as omnipotent but then if He actually could create a rock too big to lift, it puts a constraint on His power so either way, God can’t be all powerful. When I used to bother responding to these silly arguments I would counter that God can arguably be given credit for not one, but two logical impossibilities: the origin of our universe from nothing, and the animation of dead matter into living organisms. Making a big rock is literally child’s play compared to creating a vast universe that contains galaxies, planets, and solar systems. Not only are the creation of the universe and origin of life logically “impossible,” they are extraordinarily improbable in statistical terms as well.
Another so-called logical impossibility that atheists like to mention during the course of these conversations is the concept of the “married bachelor.” Bachelors are single, not married, so the term itself is a conundrum, meaning a logical contradiction. Could God create a married bachelor? Can God make fire cold instead of hot? The point of such juvenile, ridiculous questions seems to be to put some sort of artificial limits or constraints on our already fuzzy and poorly conceived concept of what God is.
Quite ironically, some of the very same people in our secular society who might offer this sort of uninspired, infantile argument to challenge the concept of a creator God may turn around and argue that married bachelors actually do exist.
According to a website called Page Six, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is “New York City’s hottest bachelor” in spite of the fact he’s been married for 39 years–not because he looks like Brad Pitt, but because he’s worth more than 13 billion dollars. Schmidt is apparently nothing more than a serial philanderer who happens to possess a great deal of personal wealth.
His female paramours can’t be described as victims either, because it’s not a secret that he’s married and has no intention of divorcing his wife. Based on the photo above, I seriously doubt that his mistresses find his physical appearance irresistible, but his bank account certainly is.
Eric Schmidt is a sugar daddy with an almost unlimited supply of sugar.
To be crystal clear, these women are well compensated for their time and effort– their “reward” for sleeping with a married man might be anything from a spontaneous trip to Paris for dinner to a gift of expensive jewelry, but it’s still basically a business transaction. At least to Schmidt’s credit (unlike Jeffrey Epstein), his girlfriends are apparently old enough to know better, but nevertheless have chosen to have a sexual relationship with a married man for nice travel perks and a few expensive trinkets.
This sordid little scenario reminds me of an old joke I’ve most often seen attributed to George Bernard Shaw: he’s at a party, and makes the claim that most people will do just about anything for the right price. A woman challenges the claim, so Shaw allegedly asks her: “Would you sleep with me for a million pounds?” She acknowledges that she probably would. He then says, “Okay, how about for ten shillings?” The lady gets upset and replies indignantly, “What do you take me for, a prostitute?” He absolutely skewers her with his response: “We’ve already established what you are. Now we’re in negotiations.” Or something to that effect. The message was clear enough.
There is no such thing as a married bachelor. Only amoral adulterers and their concubines exist.
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