Fine. Change my initial sentence to "then so can something else". Doesn't change the underlying argument. In addition, it's an entirely arbitrary (and unargued-for) assertion, that only minuscle changes that aren't susceptible to human intervention in some direct or indirect way are capable of "butterflying" a tornado a few hundred yards. Needless to say, there wasn't any positive argument for why butterflys are particularily suited to sway tornados, so at this point, we're basically arguing over the extend a certain metaphor for chaos theory is susceptible to a certain counter-argument or not.

Isn't the bigger problem here that fretelöo has misread DS's (somewhat cack-handed) point about the butterfly effect? i.e. DS is claiming that a divine intervention would not be detectable due to tornadoes being chaotic systems, not that God could divinely intervene using a butterfly? I mean, the entire OP is kinda silly, but arguing over exactly what causes tornadoes to be chaotic is not even on topic imo.

I got that. However, it's not detectable since in a chaotic system, a small (divine) cause can have massive (earthly) effect. At least that's what I took his OP to drive at. Roughly speaking: "I get that god might have problems to blatantly interject in natural order, but HERE would be a point where god really wouldn't risk being exposed. So what's stopping him?" I realize that its not about whether butterflies or caterpillars can cause/sway tornados. (thx for the vote of confidence in my reading comprehension, though. )

This really doesn't fix anything, but i acknowledge that the nittery may be about a point that isn't particularly relevant so clarification/resolution may be unnecessary.

Why not? I really have no idea about chaos theory except some soundbites from (probably) hollywood movies, so I don't mind some further info.

I'm assuming the butterfly in the proverbial butterfly effect simply stands for "minuscle cause". If so, DS gets his original argument - some minuscle, potentially undetectable cause, triggered by divine intervention, could prevent a tragedy - but I don't see how it prevents me from claiming that other minuscle causes, triggered by human action, could constantly thwart gods intentions of changing course of the tornado.

If you want to go ahead and assert now that indeed all possible minuscle tornado-redirecting causes that could be employed in a butterfly-effect scenario are only susceptible to divine intervention, I think the burden of proof has shifted.

"Butterflies can cause tornadoes" = A
"sneezes can cause tornadoes" = B
"cars can cause tornadoes" = C
"other manmade causes can cause tornadoes" = D

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You said "If we assume A, then B, C and D" , your correction didn't fix the initial issue since it only replaced B/C/D with a generic X, ala if A then X.

Its just a bit of technical nittery, you probably meant "If we assume A, then we should also assume B, C and D" which would be fine.

ie, you can't use A to show the others as true, but you are just suggesting they are similar as justification for making an assumption of their truth.

It would look like OT times when God didn't seem to have an issue with being known.

"Dr Sattler, is she spoken for? I'm always on the lookout for the next ex Mrs Malcolm."

"How do you know the dinosaurs are all female? Do you go around the park lifting up their skirts?"

"That is a big pile of ****."

etc.

It's a UNIX system. I know this

Clever girl

The Problem of evil...classic!

It seems that if 'evils' such as tornadoes to exist, and for God to be good to a created person, God must guarantee her a life that is a great good to her on the whole and one in which participation in horrors is defeated within the context of her own life, thus when an innocent person is killed God removes all the horrendous evils in our lives and thus allows evils to be permissible.