Here's a hypothetical scenario. Let's say God does something - or a series of things - to prove his own existence. Whatever standard of proof you wish, whatever actions God would have to take to prove he exists and that he is indeed omnimax.
Then, he points at various conservative Evangelical figures - Tim LaHaye, Pat Robertson, etc - and says: "These guys basically have it correct. Gay is not ok, I like libertarian economics but whatever, I do think abortion is murder, and oh yeah, if you don't accept Jesus as your savior you will go to hell. Jews, Muslims et al take note. The rapture is going to happen in a few days, it's time to make a choice." Add whatever conservative evangelical positions you wish to this list.
What would you do?
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
Believe in god, reject him.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
I should have said this in the first post. I forgot. Strider, I don't mean to ambush you, I meant to put my cards on the table before anyone responded.
I don't think rejecting this God is a valid choice (When I say God in this post, I specifically mean this hypothetically-existing-Pat-Robertson God).
Opposing this God would be a genuinely lost cause. If you reject this God, you change nothing - all that happens is that you end up in hell. No goal will be reached, no one will be helped; the only thing one would achieve by defying this God would be the purity of their soul/identity/ego.
There would be no other possible benefits; only the preservation of the purity of one's soul. It is the ultimate example of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face, isn't it?
There are two parts to anyone's answer to the OP question. 1) What do you say you would do and 2) What would one actually do.
I think that saying one would pursue the lost cause - at the cost of an eternity of suffering in hell - is a stakeless moral claim; it is signaling one's own purity.
Secondly, actually defying God would be nothing other than a defense of one's own purity. Purity that serves nothing and no one.
So why would it be worth it?
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
If this did happen, would God also start taking more proactive measures in correcting the things he views as evil? I.e, turning gay people straight, stopping unwanted pregnancies, etc? Or would he just damn gay people from the get go, even though he presumably created them with that "flaw"?
Obviously believe in God. Accept him as my savior... I dunno. I'm not sure what's more important - my integrity, or my not burning forever. Can we get saved and still have dissenting opinions? Because traditional Christianity pretty much just requires you to accept the Nicene Creed (which I have no problem with) in order to be saved, it doesn't add any extra bits about not being gay or democrat or anything.
Posted by Shanna (Member # 7900) on :
I kind of worry about what good heaven would be if its ruled by a hateful God and populated by Pat Robertson and his ilk.
The eternal torture in hell would suck, but the company would be infinitely better.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
I find it amusing to contemplate the idea.
Also, I find it funny that you might have an inkling of an idea that framing your hypothetical like this might actually make the case for god legitimate. As an atheist, I am not merely unconvinced by god. I am not waiting for a sign. I *know* there won't be one, in the way that I know the sun will rise tomorrow and that winter will be cold. Radical events would not shake my confidence in the reasoning behind my knowledge.
Posted by Emreecheek (Member # 12082) on :
If such happened, I would think God was testing everybody. People who rejected that message would be the ones who ended up in heaven.
This presents theodological issues, but fewer than the beliefs that God is proposing in this hypothetical scenario.
Posted by Marlozhan (Member # 2422) on :
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: I find it amusing to contemplate the idea.
Also, I find it funny that you might have an inkling of an idea that framing your hypothetical like this might actually make the case for god legitimate. As an atheist, I am not merely unconvinced by god. I am not waiting for a sign. I *know* there won't be one, in the way that I know the sun will rise tomorrow and that winter will be cold. Radical events would not shake my confidence in the reasoning behind my knowledge.
So, hypothetically speaking, if you were to die and arrive in God's presence and look him in the face, would you assume that it was some sort of deception, no matter how convincing his presence was? Are you saying that your knowledge could never be changed no matter what, or something else?
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
I would demand god sit down with me and explain, to my satisfaction, why I should accept him and Jesus as my lord and savior given the myriad of problems I have with religion. I'd ask him about the errors and contradictions in the bible, I'd ask him to defend moral claims that I disagree with, I'd ask him to explain the suffering and evil in the world, etc...and if he could convince me that I had been mistaken all these years about my ethical stances, then I guess I'd have no choice but to accept Jesus right? But if he couldn't do that, I think I'd have to stick with my morals, and choose not to submit myself to a being I consider not worthy of my support.
Just because I accept that this deity created the universe, and that some specific religion is the most accurate description of this deity's wishes and commands for his creation, doesn't mean I accept that this deity is in fact worth following.
"But god is all knowing and all powerful and all good!"
"But how do we know that?"
"Well it says it in the bible."
"But how can we trust the bible?"
"Well, god dictated it, and since he's right here, you can even ask him!"
"Yup, he's right, I said those things."
"Okay...but I still haven't been given a good reason to believe them. I've only been given good reason to believe this deity exists, but the traits attributed to him are still unsubstantiated."
There are plenty of lost causes that are still worth fighting for.
Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
It's a contradiction.
For God to prove Him/Herself to my satisfaction would require that They prove Themself perfectly benevolent. If this supposed God gave me a shopping list of things found in conservative evangelical Christianity such as a litmus test of accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior for passage into heaven, they couldn't prove themself to be God to me. This being may have created the universe, demonstrated great power, and is capable of banishing me to Hell in the rapture, but I reject the notion that moral rightness would come from such a being. In other words, it is impossible for this being to prove themself God and then say this sort of thing to me.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Marlozhan:
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: I find it amusing to contemplate the idea.
Also, I find it funny that you might have an inkling of an idea that framing your hypothetical like this might actually make the case for god legitimate. As an atheist, I am not merely unconvinced by god. I am not waiting for a sign. I *know* there won't be one, in the way that I know the sun will rise tomorrow and that winter will be cold. Radical events would not shake my confidence in the reasoning behind my knowledge.
So, hypothetically speaking, if you were to die and arrive in God's presence and look him in the face, would you assume that it was some sort of deception, no matter how convincing his presence was? Are you saying that your knowledge could never be changed no matter what, or something else?
I'm not waiting for a certain burden of proof to be fulfilled, is what I am saying. I am very confident that my conclusions about the world, as I observe it, are consistent. Should I die, and should something new be revealed to me at that point, I would expect that revelation to be at least as internally consistent. That rather obviates the possibility of evangelical Christianity actually being true, in my estimation. I have strong confidence in that conclusion.
So, no, my knowledge is changeable, but my reasoning is less elastic- it being reinforced on a continuing basis by observation, and surviving, very handily, such challenges as are offered by, of all things, evangelical Christian doctrine.
The problem with the hypothetical, as I pointed out, was that getting me to admit that under unrealistic circumstances, my "beliefs" might change, does not allow for the fact that my conclusions about the universe are not based on an unwillingness to believe, but on more solid premises. My view of the universe is inherently more defensible, partly because it is divorced from my own personal desires. Religion requires devotion- science only requires understanding.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Vadon: It's a contradiction.
For God to prove Him/Herself to my satisfaction would require that They prove Themself perfectly benevolent. If this supposed God gave me a shopping list of things found in conservative evangelical Christianity such as a litmus test of accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior for passage into heaven, they couldn't prove themself to be God to me. This being may have created the universe, demonstrated great power, and is capable of banishing me to Hell in the rapture, but I reject the notion that moral rightness would come from such a being. In other words, it is impossible for this being to prove themself God and then say this sort of thing to me.
I find that to be well reasoned on philosophical grounds. It is the basic objection, philosophically, that I have to god. No god could be powerful, benevolent, and comprehensible at the same time. But this makes sense: we caste god in the image of human beings mostly because we aspire to be god-like. We envisage god as basically a perfect human, forgetting or choosing to ignore the fact that the human condition trends toward, but does not ever actually approach ultimate power over everything. We get more and more power, and our horizons recede- god occupies only the next farther horizon- once we get to it, we don't find god there.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
I've had similar discussions elsewhere on the net over the last few years, and it is remarkable how many people claim they would brave the eternal flames of hell in the name of their own moral sense.
That is an extraordinarily strong statement, right? We are talking about the flames of hell which would never be quenched. And some of you claim you would go there in the name of your consciences.
So... I'm curious. With all these people willing to defy god - the very flames of hell, divine wrath, the whole bit - in the name of their own moral conscience. . . why on Earth isn't the world completely different?
Are all the people that say they would submit to infinite divine punishment in order to defy a god they consider unjust perfectly ok with the world as it is? I'm assuming most of us here are living comfortable lives, to varying first world standards. So, why? You're willing to trade eternity to defy Pat Robertson's god; but you're not willing to make much weaker gestures here in our actually existing world?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
That's an excellent question, Foust, especially since you've established that there's nothing gained by opposing this God besides a) a certain eternity of agony and b) some degree of self-satisfaction.
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
I don't work for a certain person with ties to international smuggling, I could make a lot of money doing easy/violent jobs right here in the U.S. and seeing as this person may or may not have been doing his business successfully for several decades I could work under his employ with little to no risks. Instead I work in a convenience store on the grave-yard shift, where my car has been egged twice this month and I have been threatened with a knife this week.
Me and my morals, I am not the solution but I do my best to not be the problem.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust: I've had similar discussions elsewhere on the net over the last few years, and it is remarkable how many people claim they would brave the eternal flames of hell in the name of their own moral sense.
It's less that, for me, than it is that I can't lie to myself. I can't convince myself to feel a certain way if I don't actually feel that way.
Could I pretend to follow this god? Could I make outward showings of worshiping it? Certainly. Could I actually worship it or think it was right? No.
And unless this god is unable to read minds, I'm going to hell either way. So why try to fake it?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
One also has to consider that we don't actually know (as in have experienced) just what this hell fire is all about.
Sure there'd be tons of people who would just accept God whatever he wants, I mean look at North Korea? We've had totalitarian governments before where you just learn to live with it. And God can't be deposed. But for some people they'd probably say "I'll go to hell" and then once they've gotten there want to do an about face.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Vadon: It's a contradiction.
For God to prove Him/Herself to my satisfaction would require that They prove Themself perfectly benevolent. If this supposed God gave me a shopping list of things found in conservative evangelical Christianity such as a litmus test of accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior for passage into heaven, they couldn't prove themself to be God to me. This being may have created the universe, demonstrated great power, and is capable of banishing me to Hell in the rapture, but I reject the notion that moral rightness would come from such a being. In other words, it is impossible for this being to prove themself God and then say this sort of thing to me.
Yep.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:Originally posted by Foust: I've had similar discussions elsewhere on the net over the last few years, and it is remarkable how many people claim they would brave the eternal flames of hell in the name of their own moral sense.
It's less that, for me, than it is that I can't lie to myself. I can't convince myself to feel a certain way if I don't actually feel that way.
Could I pretend to follow this god? Could I make outward showings of worshiping it? Certainly. Could I actually worship it or think it was right? No.
And unless this god is unable to read minds, I'm going to hell either way. So why try to fake it?
Also, yep. I, sadly, would probably obey for all the good it does me, but obeying some powerful being is different from believing it is God. Of course, most people who are not the captain of the Enterprise will, after enough torture, see five lights and love Big Brother so, given an eternity of torture all bets are off. But asking us what a person would do when their mind is not their own is kind of a pointless question.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:One also has to consider that we don't actually know (as in have experienced) just what this hell fire is all about.
Well, we're talking conservative Christian theology here, so it is something very akin to literal fire.
quote:Could I pretend to follow this god? Could I make outward showings of worshiping it? Certainly. Could I actually worship it or think it was right? No.
And unless this god is unable to read minds, I'm going to hell either way. So why try to fake it?
What if all this god wants is the outward actions? Remember what Pascal said: if you want to believe but can't, go through the motions and your mind will eventually change. A few hours a week at church, stop having gay or extra marital sex, etc.
quote:I find that to be well reasoned on philosophical grounds. It is the basic objection, philosophically, that I have to god. No god could be powerful, benevolent, and comprehensible at the same time.
Well, you can refuse to accept the hypothetical situation if you want. But hey, theologians have been churning out answers of varying quality to exactly this problem for hundreds of years. What if you watch a glowing being snap his fingers and poof a cold fusion reactor into existence and say that you don't understand natural and special revelation? You're going to stick with your reasoning?
Either way, refusing the hypothetical is not the same as answering it.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust: ... What if you watch a glowing being snap his fingers and poof a cold fusion reactor into existence ...
Kind of a lame bar though.
That would be child's play for a Q or an ascended ancient and the last thing you'd want to do is accidentally do something like this.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Foust, I think that you may be mistaking what would be considered proof of God. For me, God would need to prove goodness, not power.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Yeah- if simple incredulity is the bar god has to meet, then the bar is lower the more credulous one happens to be. a glowing being who snaps his fingers and produces something is not, in my estimation, beyond the realm of plausible events. Moreover the meer *appearance* of such power is barely beyond our current tech level, in relative terms to our history.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
See now, the church I went to as a teenager taught hell was part of God's mercy... a place for those who cannot or will not accept God to dwell outside of his presence in peace. Or maybe not in peace, since they don't think true peace can come without the presence of Christ, but at any rate, with only their own troubles to bother them.(at least until they choose to accept him - C.S. Lewis took a similar approach in The Great Divorce) Of course, that church also taught peace and love thy neighbor and was strongly concerned with social justice and gave half it's income directly to various charities in the city.
Actually, almost all the Christians I actually know belong to those sorts of quiet, actually Christlike churches. And their voice gets completely drowned out by the guy in a business suit at the huge mega church in the suburbs...
I really, really can't stand fundamentalists.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
And again, yep. "Hell" as we teach it, is the chosen absence of God so torture with hellfire would be another proof "against" that creature being God.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust:
quote:Could I pretend to follow this god? Could I make outward showings of worshiping it? Certainly. Could I actually worship it or think it was right? No.
And unless this god is unable to read minds, I'm going to hell either way. So why try to fake it?
What if all this god wants is the outward actions? Remember what Pascal said: if you want to believe but can't, go through the motions and your mind will eventually change. A few hours a week at church, stop having gay or extra marital sex, etc.
I do not accept Pascal's words as fact.
Nor am I interested in pretending to worship something for eternity just to avoid punishment. I might keep it up for a while, but eventually I'd either give it up or slip up, in which case I'd go to hell anyway.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:Foust, I think that you may be mistaking what would be considered proof of God. For me, God would need to prove goodness, not power.
But... I only asked the question because I know this god would appear immoral to you. The question is a boring one if I say "Hey, what if a super duper nice and perfectly wonderful glowing being that puts Mothers Teresa to shame snapped its fingers and created a cold fusion reactor..."
I already know what the most common answer would be; that is why I did not ask that question.
quote:Yeah- if simple incredulity is the bar god has to meet, then the bar is lower the more credulous one happens to be. a glowing being who snaps his fingers and produces something is not, in my estimation, beyond the realm of plausible events.
Really? Your world, as it stands, has room for the spontaneous, genuinely ex nihilo creation of a cold fusion reactor? Ok... but anyways, I didn't originally list any examples of what god could do because the hypothetical is that this being convinces you that it is the omnimax creator of the universe.
I don't mean to be getting away from my real point of curiosity here: how could someone who says they would choose hell over submission to this god accept the world as it is now, and live a first world style life? It baffles.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Episcopalian Dogbreath? They are my fave Christians.
Here's a problem similar to what others have said...the underlying contradiction: God shows up and says, "I am all knowing and powerful, all loving and if you don't do what I say, I'll torture you FOREVER!"
I'm sorry, but I don't negotiate with terrorists.
Foust, what you don't seem to comprehend is that people (rightfully) would not believe, despite obvious proof that the god in your hypothetical exists, is decent and worthy of praise. Or to put it another way, any being that holds a giant cosmic gun to your head and demands obedience doesn't also get to claim to be loving. Mutually exclusive.
So basically, your hypothetical is this: If god was a giant hypocrite, and was threatening you, would you submit or suffer?
I would suffer...you can force me to lie, but not to believe those lies.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
Javert, I still don't think that is an answer to the hypothetical but rather a refusal of it.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust:
quote:Foust, I think that you may be mistaking what would be considered proof of God. For me, God would need to prove goodness, not power.
But... I only asked the question because I know this god would appear immoral to you. The question is a boring one if I say "Hey, what if a super duper nice and perfectly wonderful glowing being that puts Mothers Teresa to shame snapped its fingers and created a cold fusion reactor..."
I already know what the most common answer would be; that is why I did not ask that question.
But that is why your question doesn't make sense? Some being trying to prove that it is God by power without goodness may just as well try to prove it is God by being really pink. If you are asking would I crumble and obey some being that had power over me? Sure, probably. I am no stronger than most. But that is true of any one that has the power to torture me. God has nothing to do with it.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:Are all the people that say they would submit to infinite divine punishment in order to defy a god they consider unjust perfectly ok with the world as it is? I'm assuming most of us here are living comfortable lives, to varying first world standards. So, why? You're willing to trade eternity to defy Pat Robertson's god; but you're not willing to make much weaker gestures here in our actually existing world?
I don't see how any of this follows from your premises. You're also making a lot of assumptions about what we're okay with and the kinds of behaviors we engage in.
No, I'm not okay with the world the way it is. And yes, I do donate to charity and volunteer my time to try to address what I feel are some of the injustices in the world today. Are you saying that because I say I'd be willing to take an eternity of hellfire in opposition to god's perceived immorality, I should be willing to give up every bit of my "comfortable" life and devote every waking moment to righting the wrongs of the world?
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
I don't think your "real" question is at all related to your hypothetical.
Living in a first world country isn't a sin, and doesn't mean that you are stepping on the necks of others.
Plenty of people sponsor children, give to charity, live wholesome and generous lives, and to assume otherwise simply because we live in the USA or western Europe is crap.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
Again, theologians have been offering answers to that underlying contradiction for a long, long time now. I agree the answers are not satisfactory - but are you really going to hold to your logic in the face of some impossible display of power?
Stone Wolf, people do believe what you are saying they would not believe. They just want to phrase it differently. Lots of Christians say Jesus is fire insurance (also more than that). You're going to insist on your logic in the face of a guy who looks up at the moon and etches his name in massive canyons upon it?
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
In a word: yes.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:But that is why your question doesn't make sense?
Conflicting with your beliefs != not making sense. If something has to agree with your beliefs in order to be logically possible, then there is no point in discussing this with you.
quote:You're also making a lot of assumptions about what we're okay with and the kinds of behaviors we engage in.
Motivations are irrelevant. I'm not curious about the personal motivations of people who would choose hell live the way they do, merely in the fact that they live that way.
quote:Are you saying that because I say I'd be willing to take an eternity of hellfire in opposition to god's perceived immorality, I should be willing to give up every bit of my "comfortable" life and devote every waking moment to righting the wrongs of the world?
Not suggesting anything, but it's true that taking the craziest and costliest steps that any of us can think of to try and make the world better are completely trivial next to going to hell.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
In more then a word, power, even unlimited power, while massively impressive, isn't a valid argument, it doesn't generate trust, or make something that is untrue become any less of a lie, no matter how many names are etched on how many moons. This is the point you can't seem to understand: might does not make right.
You can't be God and be wrong. You can have god like power and be wrong, but if God really does exist He is uninterested in bullying me into his evil beliefs.
Posted by LargeTuna (Member # 10512) on :
My own set of morals and ideals are essentially what make me who I am.
So if god rejects those principles then I continue living my life not caring what he thinks.
I have no plans on being ruled by guilt or fear. I'm just going to be the best person I can.
So yeah, in this hypothetical scenario not much has really changed for me except I may run into a whole lot of crazy people lying to themselves trying to fit in or capitalize on the situation.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
And back around to my first point: what's to be gained by not giving this being what it wants? Like I said: no gay marriage, no fornication, no drugs, a few hours in church, libertarian-ish economics, etc.
Why do people take satisfaction in the belief they would defy this being?
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
To answer my own question - the belief that one would defy this being has more to do with polishing one's halo, a spite shine for one's soul, then with actual behavior.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust: ... I didn't originally list any examples of what god could do because the hypothetical is that this being convinces you that it is the omnimax creator of the universe.
I think that this is part of the issue because the way in which this god "convinces" is so integral to the reaction that it would generate that you simply cannot gloss over it.
Especially when you provide amateur hour stuff like
quote:Originally posted by Foust: ...in the face of a guy who looks up at the moon and etches his name in massive canyons upon it?
that wouldn't even require as much as your previous example, but could be faked by some enterprising Ferengi out for a scam.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Might I suggest, if you are going to ask a question, then reject the answers people give, then answer the question yourself...you can skip the part where you post the question on the internet.
It is not that hard to force people to act the way you want, especially if you have unlimited powers. It is impossible to make them believe what you want them to unless they choose to, no matter the perks, not matter the threats.
So, if your question was: "Would you give lip service to an unjust God to get out of hell?" you are likely to get 99.99% yes. If your question is about people's really real beliefs, then you will need to accept that no amount of arm twisting or threats of eternal torment are enough.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Foust, perhaps you are conflating two different questions. If you are trying to ask why people who believe don't do more of what we believe God asks of us the question about belief gets in the way.
I think the first could be interesting but, in the end, probably comes down to human frailty. We are often able to overcome huge, immediate obstacles while simple inertia blocks us from doing all we should.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
Those of you that are atheists, haven't you ever had a discussion where someone asked you what it would take to make you believe in god? If your answer is "nothing," then this hypothetical isn't worth talking about, now is it?
If your answer is X, then just imagine this being did X.
Being the omnimax creator of the universe has no logically necessary connection to being good; the hypothetical assumes you think this being is not good.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust: Being the omnimax creator of the universe has no logically necessary connection to being good; the hypothetical assumes you think this being is not good.
Are you positing that the creator of the universe is not God?
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:So, if your question was: "Would you give lip service to an unjust God to get out of hell?" you are likely to get 99.99% yes.
Yes, that is what I'm asking, if by lip service you mean taking Pat Robertson's advice.
Posted by LargeTuna (Member # 10512) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust: And back around to my first point: what's to be gained by not giving this being what it wants? Like I said: no gay marriage, no fornication, no drugs, a few hours in church, libertarian-ish economics, etc.
In fact, that's not all that different than my lifestyle right now, so I would probably find myself doing those things most of the time especially in a society where that is the norm.
However, I won't be turning my back on people who still partake in those activities. I won't be trying to convert them. And there's no way I could actually believe you need to do these things to be a good person.
If this god is against free clinics for the poor and food stamps and other similar economic programs I would be quite confused.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
Again, conflicting with your beliefs != logically contradictory. There is no logical necessity to an omnimax creator being anything like what you or I would consider moral. You're refusing the hypothetical, not answering it. And I'm bored with pointing that out.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
I'm afraid I'm much too unfamiliar with Pat Robertson's advice to take your meaning.
I'm married, with children, don't drink or do drugs...I don't go to church, but I'm not an atheist.
Unfortunately your saying that "just imagine this being doing X" doesn't work, as God is widely accepted as a moral construct, that is, you can't simply say "just divorce the ethics from the concept of God"...I mean, the thesaurus has "godliness" as a synonym for "morals".
Most people's "X" includes proof of goodness and universal love.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust: Again, conflicting with your beliefs != logically contradictory. There is no logical necessity to an omnimax creator being anything like what you or I would consider moral. You're refusing the hypothetical, not answering it. And I'm bored with pointing that out.
Fine. If I were a different person and believed entirely different things about God then my actions would be different. But you may as well ask your hypothetical question of hypothetical people.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Who was your last post pointed at Foust? It seems like it was aimed at LargeTuna, but if so, where do they even mention a logical contradiction?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust: If your answer is "nothing," then this hypothetical isn't worth talking about, now is it?
The answer isn't nothing. The answer is that it would be complex and many of the sub-claims involve so much rewiring of reality, history, and science that there is a problem with the "just" in
quote:If your answer is X, then just imagine this being did X.
.
In other words, you can't just propose a few simple parlour tricks. Just for *one* of the subclaims, that this God says that libertarian economics is workable would require a huge re-writing of history and of human nature. Humans would fundamentally act differently in such a world and history would be very different.
Or evolution for example would require explanations for why all the mountains of evidence we have are either incorrect or faked by the god in question. Plus, you'd probably have to rewrite reality to explain why the various medicines and software tools we've based on this evidence works, or rather seem to work.
The answers to these questions would have large consequences on how we would treat such a god, but these answers are also required to explain how we were convinced there is such a god. These are answers that cannot be simply glossed over.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:I'm afraid I'm much too unfamiliar with Pat Robertson's advice to take your meaning.
You're unfamiliar with Pat Robertson? Here you go.
quote:But you may as well ask your hypothetical question of hypothetical people.
Well, let's say I'm asking my hypothetical of hypothetical people who will, hypothetically, answer the hypothetical rather than refusing it.
Hypothetically.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Might I suggest, if you are going to ask a question, then reject the answers people give, then answer the question yourself...you can skip the part where you post the question on the internet.
I'm going to have to agree.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust:
If your answer is X, then just imagine this being did X.
X would necessarily include the opposite of those things you suggest that your hypothetical being does.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
Mucus, the question is not "what would convince you this being was god." The question is "if you were already convinced..."
You want an answer for evolution? God did it to test your faith. You say that's immoral? god says so what, or, if you want the long version, [i]"I am only capable of acting out of my nature, which is perfectly good; it only appears evil to you because you are fallen." You say "But philosophical argument Y!" And god again says "so what, bow or go to hell."
So, if anyone wants to answer the hypothetical, go ahead, but I'm not going to answer anymore questions trying to dodge it. (I'm not even sure why anyone would want to dodge it, just ignore it in the first place)
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust: You want an answer for evolution? God did it to test your faith. You say that's immoral? god says so what, or, if you want the long version, [i]"I am only capable of acting out of my nature, which is perfectly good; it only appears evil to you because you are fallen." ...
That's precisely what I mean though. You're postulating a god that is as good at explaining things as the guy holding up a cardboard sign at the side of the road and preaching about the end of the world.
A god that is incapable of providing convincing answers and answers wouldn't have convinced me. So there's a big problem here. How do I reason about being convinced by an unconvincing god?
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
quote:I am only capable of acting out of my nature, which is perfectly good
≠
quote:bow or go to hell.
Whether you like or accept the answers is one thing, but people have been answering your question.
I'll try again:
I would rather rot in hell forever and keep a false hope that God is not the lame Ahole you describe then to have to accept that "goodness" includes coercion and torture.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
It's not a matter of "I'd seek to defy this God." It's just, this God would be a jerk. I'd accept that he exists, but I wouldn't change my morality. Not out of spite, but because I CAN'T. At least not without deliberately trying to brainwash myself.
Essentially the question is equivalent to "if a powerful dictator takes over your town and said that anyone who doesn't dye their clothes pink is immoral and will be put to death." The dictator is powerful so I pretty much have to do what he says, but I can't actually change my belief that dying clothes pink is a perfectly okay thing to do.
In the God example I'd accept that there's a very powerful being hanging around, impacting the world. I might try to appease the being or I might speak out against him if I thought doing so could help anyone, but I wouldn't actually change my beliefs about right and wrong.
[ November 14, 2011, 01:10 PM: Message edited by: Raymond Arnold ]
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust: Javert, I still don't think that is an answer to the hypothetical but rather a refusal of it.
No. I've answered your hypothetical. I just haven't arrived at the answer you seem to think I would.
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust: Here's a hypothetical scenario. Let's say God does something - or a series of things - to prove his own existence. Whatever standard of proof you wish, whatever actions God would have to take to prove he exists and that he is indeed omnimax.
Then, he points at various conservative Evangelical figures - Tim LaHaye, Pat Robertson, etc - and says: "These guys basically have it correct. Gay is not ok, I like libertarian economics but whatever, I do think abortion is murder, and oh yeah, if you don't accept Jesus as your savior you will go to hell. Jews, Muslims et al take note. The rapture is going to happen in a few days, it's time to make a choice." Add whatever conservative evangelical positions you wish to this list.
What would you do?
If you'd kindly grant me some assumptions - I imagine this God would clarify and expound upon the current teachings and views within modern Christianity once He (I use "He" because, traditionally, that's the gender of the Christian God) has arrived. Meaning, "gay" is not ok because of X, I don't make gay people straight because of Y, and libertarian economic principles are superior because of Z. Such reasons (X,Y,Z)) would likely be derived from the God's purpose in creating this universe and, therefore, our existence.
As others have stated, this God would have to prove himself the creator of the universe and justify the reason for creating us, to the point that inhabitants of this world have an absolute certainty as to the veracity and justification of these claims. This is critically important because belief in the omnibenevolece of this Being really comes down to the belief that this Being is the origin of all the moral laws that govern this universe. An omniscient being would have the power to explain the "how" and the "why" or at least expand our understanding and mental capacity so that we might accomplish this on our own.
As for those who claim they would change little were this hypothetical true - I find that highly unlikely, unless, of course, God showed up, said, "What's up? I'm here. It's Me", then kicked back and chilled - which isn't what the hypothetical states. I find that claim to be unlikely because the proven existence of God would change the entire context of discussion concerning morality. You can't add or modify variables and expect the same results. Moral values are tied to what one perceives as the "purpose" of this existence. If a God came along it would upset the entire premise that there is no identifiable and universal reason to live or behave in a "moral" manner. If this being showed, for example, the existence of a life after this life, not only do I think strongly entrenched moral positions would be modified, I would expect them to be.
Still, I'm not saying this Being would be deserving of adoration or worship but this hypothetical comes with a whole list of unarticulated givens that should have more bearing on the direction of the discussion as well as the responses given.
Posted by Marlozhan (Member # 2422) on :
quote: 1. Faith being the first principle in revealed religion, and the foundation of all righteousness, necessarily claims the first place in a course of lectures which are designed to unfold to the understanding the doctrine of Jesus Christ.
2. In presenting the subject of faith, we shall observe the following order —
3. First, faith itself — what it is.
4. Secondly, the object on which it rests. And,
5. Thirdly, the effects which flow from it.
6. Agreeable to this order we have first to show what faith is.
7. The author of the epistle to the Hebrews, in the eleventh chapter of that epistle and first verse, gives the following definition of the word faith:
8. "Now faith is the substance (assurance) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
9. From this we learn that faith is the assurance which men have of the existence of things which they have not seen, and the principle of action in all intelligent beings.
10. If men were duly to consider themselves, and turn their thoughts and reflections to the operations of their own minds, they would readily discover that it is faith, and faith only, which is the moving cause of all action in them; that without it both mind and body would be in a state of inactivity, and all their exertions would cease, both physical and mental.
11. Were this class to go back and reflect upon the history of their lives, from the period of their first recollection, and ask themselves what principle excited them to action, or what gave them energy and activity in all their lawful avocations, callings, and pursuits, what would be the answer? Would it not be that it was the assurance which they had of the existence of things which they had not seen as yet? Was it not the hope which you had, in consequence of your belief in the existence of unseen things, which stimulated you to action and exertion in order to obtain them? Are you not dependent on your faith, or belief, for the acquisition of all knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence? Would you exert yourselves to obtain wisdom and intelligence, unless you did believe that you could obtain them? Would you have ever sown, if you had not believed that you would reap? Should you have ever planted, if you had not believed that you would gather? Would you have ever asked, unless you had believed that you would receive? Would you have ever sought, unless you had believed that you would have found? Or, would you have ever knocked, unless you had believed that it would have been opened unto you? In a word, is there anything that you would have done, either physical or mental, if you had not previously believed? Are not all your exertions of every kind, dependent on your faith? Or, may we not ask, what have you, or what do you possess, which you have not obtained by reason of your faith? Your food, your raiment, your lodgings, are they not all by reason of your faith? Reflect, and ask yourselves if these things are not so. Turn your thoughts on your own minds, and see if faith is not the moving cause of all action in yourselves; and, if the moving cause in you, is it not in all other intelligent beings?
I am not athiest, but I agree with those in this thread who expect God to be able to prove both his omnipotence and his perfection in every other manner, namely, goodness, mercy, justice, etc.
quote: 2. We here observe that God is the only supreme governor and independent being in whom all fullness and perfection dwell; who is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient; without beginning of days or end of life; and that in him every good gift and every good principle dwell; and that he is the Father of lights; in him the principle of faith dwells independently, and he is the object in whom the faith of all other rational and accountable beings center for life and salvation.
I would not exercise faith in a being that was not perfect in every attribute. Absolute power is not just enough in my mind. How could I trust in a being that has the potential to make mistakes? I could never be sure that he was 100% correct, therefore, he could lead me or others astray. If a god had absolute power, but was not perfect in love, justice, mercy, compassion, wisdom, etc., I would view such a being as among the most dangerous of beings: like giving a terrorist a nuclear bomb...they have great power, but they would definitely not use it for good.
quote: 2. Let us here observe, that three things are necessary in order that any rational and intelligent being may exercise faith in God unto life and salvation.
3. First, the idea that he actually exists.
4. Secondly, a correct idea of his character, perfections, and attributes.
5. Thirdly, an actual knowledge that the course of life which he is pursuing is according to his will. For without an acquaintance with these three important facts, the faith of every rational being must be imperfect and unproductive; but with this understanding it can become perfect and fruitful, abounding in righteousness, unto the praise and glory of God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I think too many Christians, particularly fundamentalists, have an elementary and immature view of God and perfection. They view power as simply owning a giant wand in which God can wish whatever he wants into existence. They view faith as something along the lines of..."if you are powerful enough, then I have to have faith in you because you said so." This is not real faith. At first, we exercise faith based on the belief that something might work, just like you trust your college professor the first day of class, even though you have not had a chance to test his theories or logic.
If your professor is a good professor, his teachings will line up with reality. If he is lying to you, you will stop having faith in him once you start to realize what he tells you to do isn't working as it should.
God gave us the ability to reason. Just as fundamental, God gave us the power to say NO to Him. Why is there so much suffering in the world? Because God gave us the power to make choices. If he robbed us of the ability to make bad choices, then we wouldn't have free will at all. It is not God's fault that there is evil in this world. It is the fault of His creations who He gave free will to. God is trying to teach us to become like Him, and He is a being who has the ability to choose and who knows how to make the perfect choice in every scenario, thus He has all power and perfection. He is trying to teach us how to make choices that reap good results.
So, though I am Christian, I do not expect others to believe in God just because they might go to hell otherwise. I expect them to test what God says and see what works, just as the gardener must learn, through trial and error, the best ways to make specific plants grow.
Joseph Smith taught that you can't exercise true faith unless you have true knowledge. If you have false knowledge and try to exercise faith in it, it won't work...kind of like trying to water your plants with gasoline just because your neighbor told you to. You may believe your neighbor, but it still won't work.
I have never understood the rift between science and God. God is the perfect and ultimate scientist. He knows all of the laws of existence and He doesn't violate any of them. He puts the universe into existence by perfectly exercising the laws of existence. Mortal scientists are discovering what God already knows every year. I believe in evolution and many other scientific ideas, but I only believe them as long as they hold up. Every one of our laws our subject to change, because we don't have a perfect understanding of them. The discovery of quantum physics and how it changed Newtonian physics is a good example. If evolution turns out to be a fact, not just a theory, I am not going to be like, "ZOMG, God must not be real!"
I don't understand why many people find it so hard to believe that God must not be God if you discover all of the scientific laws by which He operates. We worship Him because He perfectly understands the laws behind physics, nature, emotion, psychology, relationships, etc. We worship Him because He is the guide to helping us learn these laws one step at a time.
God only expects people to truly worship Him when they understand that His ways are perfect in every way. He does not need our worship. He wants us to worship, because by modeling Him, we learn how to progress in understanding the correct laws behind all things. This is a motivation that comes from love. God doesn't need minions. He wants His creations, whom He loves, to be happy.
The Book of Mormon says this: "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy."
quote: 2. Let us here observe, that the real design which the God of heaven had in view in making the human family acquainted with His attributes, was that they, through the ideas of the existence of His attributes, might be enabled to exercise faith in Him, and through the exercise of faith in Him, might obtain eternal life; for without the idea of the existence of the attributes which belong to God, the minds of men could not have power to exercise faith in Him so as to lay hold upon eternal life. The God of heaven, understanding most perfectly the constitution of human nature, and the weakness of men, knew what was necessary to be revealed, and what ideas must be planted in their minds in order that they might be enabled to exercise faith in Him unto eternal life.
The true God would do nothing that does not lead to our ultimate eternal joy. Is there pain along the way to that ultimate goal? Yes, because other beings around us have free will, and also because growth comes with pain. God will never rob people of their right to choose, and this proves that He is not interested in minions. In fact, LDS doctrine teaches that Satan was the spirit in God's presence that wanted to have God's power and to have dominion over all of us, precisely because he lusted after power. Satan used the argument that it was too dangerous to come to this world of free choice, and that we should just be robbed of free choice so that we could "play it safe" here, so to speak. God cast Satan out, because he understood that to rob us of our free will, just to play it safe, would rob us of our very identity. It would turn us into minions, not independent beings who can learn to be happy by making good and bad choices along the way. God loved us enough to not take away our free will, so he fought for us.
Yet, because God is a perfect being and therefore cannot tolerate any imperfection, He needed to send His Son to give us grace while we learn. God knew we would learn through our mistakes, and the only way to keep this growth process from preventing us from living in a perfect kingdom was to send His perfect Son to pay the price for our sins. Thus, God maintains both His perfect justice and His perfect mercy. He will never violate any of the laws of perfection, because to do anything else would rob Himself and us from having perfect joy.
quote:20. But secondly; unless He was merciful and gracious, slow to anger, long-suffering and full of goodness, such is the weakness of human nature, and so great the frailties and imperfections of men, that unless they believed that these excellencies existed in the divine character, the faith necessary to salvation could not exist; for doubt would take the place of faith, and those who know their weakness and liability to sin would be in constant doubt of salvation if it were not for the idea which they have of the excellency of the character of God, that He is slow to anger and long-suffering, and of a forgiving disposition, and does forgive iniquity, transgression, and sin. An idea of these facts does away doubt, and makes faith exceedingly strong.
21. But it is equally as necessary that men should have the idea that he is a God who changes not, in order to have faith in him, as it is to have the idea that He is gracious and long-suffering; for without the idea of unchangeableness in the character of the Deity, doubt would take the place of faith. But with the idea that He changes not, faith lays hold upon the excellencies in His character with unshaken confidence, believing He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and that His course is one eternal round.
22. And again, the idea that He is a God of truth and cannot lie, is equally as necessary to the exercise of faith in Him as the idea of His unchangeableness. For without the idea that He was a God of truth and could not lie, the confidence necessary to be placed in His word in order to the exercise of faith in Him could not exist. But having the idea that He is not man, that He cannot lie, it gives power to the minds of men to exercise faith in Him.
23. But it is also necessary that men should have an idea that He is no respecter of persons, for with the idea of all the other excellencies in His character, and this one wanting, men could not exercise faith in Him; because if He were a respecter of persons, they could not tell what their privileges were, nor how far they were authorized to exercise faith in Him, or whether they were authorized to do it at all, but all must be confusion; but no sooner are the minds of men made acquainted with the truth on this point, that He is no respecter of persons, than they see that they have authority by faith to lay hold on eternal life, the richest boon of heaven, because God is no respecter of persons, and that every man in every nation has an equal privilege.
24. And lastly, but not less important to the exercise of faith in God, is the idea that He is love; for with all the other excellencies in His character, without this one to influence them, they could not have such powerful dominion over the minds of men; but when the idea is planted in the mind that He is love, who cannot see the just ground that men of every nation, kindred, and tongue, have to exercise faith in God so as to obtain eternal life?
Wow, that turned out to be longer than I thought. Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I'm not sure what the purpose of your question is Faust. An all powerful being, by definition, would have the power to persuade me that doing anything he asked was good. But that pretty much renders the scenario ridiculous. If we were all persuaded that everything this being asked was in fact good, why would any one choose eternal torment rather than submit?
So I'm presuming that your question is really more, if you were convinced of the existence of an all powerful being that you believed was bad, would you worship him just to avoid eternal punishment.
Which then begs the question, what does it mean to worship? Is it sufficient to go through the motions or does it require sincere reverence? I could go through the motions but I don't think I could ever sincerely revere a being that wanted me to obey just because it had the power to punish me.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
At some point you have to submit to overwhelming force; if I were sufficiently convinced of the existence and power of the god in question, I would not go to hell deliberately. On the other hand it's an interesting question whether you actually can submit, in this case, as a deliberate act of will. Is it enough to just say the words, "I accept Jesus as my Saviour", and so on? Or do you have to genuinely believe that you need a saviour?
Posted by Traceria (Member # 11820) on :
It seems to me that you're just trying to fabricate a situation where free will is pushed out the window.
I know not all Christians subscribe to it, but if the ones that do are the ones that believe in this being you've presented, I think you would not be accounting for the fact that individual humans have choice.
Posted by Graeme (Member # 12543) on :
For wisdom, we must, as always, look to Star Trek.
In the episode entitled "Devil's Due" (ST:TNG, Season 4, Episode 14), the Enterprise assists a planet threatened with extinction unless it yields to an entity claiming to be that planet's version of the Devil. Of course, the entity, called Varda, is not really the Devil, but rather a fraud using relatively advanced tech to appear supernatural. The Enterprise exposes the fraud -- naturally -- countering with some tech of its own.
Now, if a being were to do works and wonders to convince me that it was God, I would continue to have a small voice reminding me: well, perhaps this entity is no more than a first-rate Varda, equipped with excellent tech. (Cf Arthur Clarke: "Any sufficiently technology is indistinguishable from magic.")
This is the central problem with your hypothetical, Foust: it might well be impossible for me ever to be "convinced" that the entity was God, no matter the works and wonders it showed.
Now, it won't really matter for my personal fortune, in the near term, whether the entity is a Varda or actually the omnipotent creator of the universe. In either case, my goose is cooked unless I tow the party line. If there is truly no hope of appeal, I would yield. But then again ... If the entity is a Varda, maybe some "Enterprise" will come along and save me; or maybe I can eventually overcome it on my own. So I'm right back where I started from: I can't be sure this entity is unstoppable, so I may well continue to fight it.
This is also why many people insist on "conflating" the attributes of Benevolence and Omnipotence in their conception of God. To them, God can only be benevolent. Any being that lacked it, but appeared omnipotent in every respect, would be construed as nothing more than an entity with some very heavy tech. Whether to obey it or not is the same question as whether to obey Hitler, Stalin, or Kim Jong-il.
So, when you, Foust, ask us to imagine being convinced that an entity is God, you are asking for the impossible. We don't know there is a God. We believe there is a God. And that act of believing includes a list of necessary qualities, such as benevolence.
Certainly some people will be convinced that the works and wonders emanate from the Supreme Being. But those who know their Trek will merely recognize another Varda and look to the stars for a better alternative.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Are you saying that because I say I'd be willing to take an eternity of hellfire in opposition to god's perceived immorality, I should be willing to give up every bit of my "comfortable" life and devote every waking moment to righting the wrongs of the world?
I think Foust is, rather, asking whether this is the case. Is it rational to posit that you would be willing to suffer an eternity of torment to defy -- to no measurable purpose -- an authority figure when you are clearly not willing to suffer a life of torment to defy other authority figures to perhaps more measurable good?
My own answer to this is that having God as an obvious target of that defiance actually produces an interesting distinction, in which the point of the act becomes the defiance itself; that the defiance is meaningless makes it easier, on one level, than if the defiance were just one tiny step towards changing some larger, complex system.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I think what Foust is really asking is whether we'd rather suffer eternal torment than admit Pat Roberson was right. I must admit, its a very difficult choice.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:My own answer to this is that having God as an obvious target of that defiance actually produces an interesting distinction, in which the point of the act becomes the defiance itself; that the defiance is meaningless makes it easier, on one level, than if the defiance were just one tiny step towards changing some larger, complex system.
Which supports my contention that you aren't really so much an unbeliever as you are bitter and angry believer.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Rabbit, I am not sure how that supports your contention. I agree that it is easier to believe something no matter what than to actually make the constant efforts to do uncomfortable or even tedious things.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
A little from column Tom, and a little from column Rabbit. They have the right of it.
King of Men, under this hypothetical it is enough to act and speak like a conservative Christian.
A lot of people are flatly asserting that there is a logically necessary connection between God and morality that is acceptable to 21st century American liberals. As if, when I say that this hypothetical god is uninterested in said contemporary morality, I am speaking nonsense. Like I am speaking about a square circle. These assertions are deeply myopic, but if they are insisted on I have nothing else to say.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Yeah, Rabbit, I'm not sure how "it is more personally satisfying to rebel pointlessly against a hypothetical God than it is to rebel pointlessly against a complex system" can be considered useful evidence for belief. Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Foust: A lot of people are flatly asserting that there is a logically necessary connection between God and morality that is acceptable to 21st century American liberals. As if, when I say that this hypothetical god is uninterested in said contemporary morality, I am speaking nonsense. Like I am speaking about a square circle. These assertions are deeply myopic, but if they are insisted on I have nothing else to say.
The issue is declarative. My definition of God requires not just omnipotence and omniscence, but omnibenevolence. I'm not trying to appeal to the problem of evil objection, but I would say that God should be compatible, if not the source, of morality. If the being you describe were to claim things (ala Pat Robertson) as moral truth, they cannot prove themself God to me. It's not that I don't think a Pat Robertsonesque God would be bad (though I do), and it's not that I'm claiming such a being shouldn't be God (though I think they shouldn't), it's that by my definition of what it takes to prove Themself God, They cannot represent something immoral.
For your hypothetical to work, I'd need to be convinced by this being that they're right about Pat Robertson in order for them to sufficiently prove themself as God. If you leave it open for disagreement (God proves Themself, then They claim something about morality you disagree with) they haven't proved themself God. It's a contradiction.
The fact that we don't have a proof of God is what allows for competing interpretations of morality. If there were a proof for God, it would be logically impossible for me to disagree with them. If I'm allowed to disagree, they haven't proven themself and it remains a matter of faith.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Faust, you asked what we would do. How is it a meaningful question without taking into consideration what we believe about the nature of God? Otherwise, you are just asking if we think we would cave under torture from some being that has the power to torture us.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:Mucus, the question is not "what would convince you this being was god." The question is "if you were already convinced..."
I think that the two are linked. As Traceria said:
quote:It seems to me that you're just trying to fabricate a situation where free will is pushed out the window.
God, being omnipotent, could very easily convince anything of whatever he wanted to, simply by moving a few molecules of neurotransmitter or perhaps a few synapses. I've referred to this in the past as the "God bit." Once the God bit is flipped, a whole cascade of logic would naturally and unavoidably follow. It doesn't really matter how the bit is flipped, whether through supernatural means or shear unassailable logic, the effect would be to render free will moot.
Now, I've talked to fundamentalist Christians that don't believe in free will. They believe that I am an atheist because God made me that way, and that unless God offers me his grace (that is, makes me believe), I will go to hell. They have no problem with that, because it's part of God's plan. If this is the God that convinces me he's real, then I don't have free will anyway and he can damn well convince me of anything else he wants.
But if an essential part of the "Pat Roberston God" includes free will, then if he flips my God bit, he violates my free will. Thus a contradiction, and this God can't exist.
So we're left with possible Gods that aren't omnipotent.
What you're asking is similar to asking if you were being held captive and tortured, would you do what your captors tell you to do, simply because they are powerful. But it's not merely a matter of "doing what they tell you to do." I have no intention of having or performing an abortion in the next few days, I'm not gay, and I have no intention of cheating on my wife, etc. What am I supposed to do differently, in order to get myself raptured? What's being asked here is not to do something different, but to believe something that I don't believe.
This gets to another aspect of free will. Can you choose to believe something that you don't believe? Well, there are brainwashing techniques. Are you suggesting that I try these on myself in order to gain God's favor? Does this God not want me to be true to myself?
There are also those (and I think Pat Robertson does) who say they "Fear God" as though that were a positive thing. If the Pat Robertson God convinced me he existed, I guess I would fear him. Does that count? Is the question you are asking really: If you were afraid enough, would you do or say whatever it takes to prevent yourself from enduring the agony of Hell?
In that case, all I can say is: I don't know. I've never been that afraid.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:King of Men, under this hypothetical it is enough to act and speak like a conservative Christian.
Oh. I guess that answers my question. So we're in Pascal's wager territory.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:How is it a meaningful question without taking into consideration what we believe about the nature of God?
It doesn't matter to his hypothetical. In this hypothetical, "God" is an all-powerful and all-knowing being who created the Universe and gets to determine what happens to you in the afterlife, and moreover claims to be an arbiter of morality. Whether you accept such a being as "God" or not is completely irrelevant to the question, which is: do you believe you would refuse to cooperate with an all-powerful being, thus suffering an eternity of agony for no concrete reason -- and if so, how do you reconcile that with not acting more passionately against injustice here in the real world?
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:How is it a meaningful question without taking into consideration what we believe about the nature of God?
It doesn't matter to his hypothetical. In this hypothetical, "God" is an all-powerful and all-knowing being who created the Universe and gets to determine what happens to you in the afterlife, and moreover claims to be an arbiter of morality. Whether you accept such a being as "God" or not is completely irrelevant to the question, which is: do you believe you would refuse to cooperate with an all-powerful being, thus suffering an eternity of agony for no concrete reason -- and if so, how do you reconcile that with not acting more passionately against injustice here in the real world?
Yes, thank you for putting it so clearly.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
And Glenn, I'm not making a Pascal's wager argument; in this world, it is a sure thing that there is an omnimax creator. This is not a stealth argument for belief in God; I am a convinced atheist.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
It seems to me, then, that the question is rather, "Given a gun pointed at your head, would you behave a certain way?" It has nothing to do with belief in a god, in some sense; just in the gun. And then the answer is simple: Unless the Hatrack demographic is exceedingly unusual, 99% of it would indeed cave under such a threat. Keep your head down, don't rock the boat, go along to get along - this is what all but the most unusual humans actually do, in such circumstances. Stanford prison experiment, girl getting run over in China, the obvious Godwin - take your choice. Tying the question up in definitions of 'God' is not useful.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
So how does c,aving to whatever being is powerful enough to torture me not cover it? Why does belief or God have anything to do with it.
Faust, I never suspected you would be anything but an atheist.
Edit: cross posted with KoM.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
King, I am using God because it clears out any possibility of benefit or change. If you refuse to participate in a Milgram experiment type situation, you could be saving another person a great deal of pain. or, your moral stand might make the person ordering the torture feel ashamed enough to stop. There is no such possibility with this hypothetical god.
And Kmb, surprising numbers of people have insisted they would not cave when I have asked in the past. So I continue to be curious about other people's responses.
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Whether you accept such a being as "God" or not is completely irrelevant to the question
It's entirely relevant. Why do you insist on dismissing this fact? I'll attempt to explain below..
quote:Originally posted by Foust: A lot of people are flatly asserting that there is a logically necessary connection between God and morality that is acceptable to 21st century American liberals. As if, when I say that this hypothetical god is uninterested in said contemporary morality, I am speaking nonsense.
A few of us have pointed out that the Being described in the hypothetical isn't "God" if He lacks certain qualities and attributes. Why would one "refuse to cooperate with an all-powerful being"? If it's because you are intransigent on your moral values, and believe your values to be superior to those of an omnibenevolent creator, who, as Tom stated, is the arbiter of morality, then such actions wouldn't be rational. That's like a child telling their mom that a hot stove won't burn them when they touch it. The child is flat-out wrong. By introducing a God-figure, you're establishing a very clear moral structure (rights/wrongs/dos/don'ts) which is whatever He/She/They/It decide that structure to be.
You can't claim this hypothetical God has no interested in the behavior of His subjects then say that the subjects will be punished for behaving in a certain way.
How could an all-powerful God not be interested in the moral nature of His universe? A God would be interested in morality by default, or else He is not the all-powerful creator He claims to be. I don't believe anyone thinks you're speaking nonsense, but what you desire as a response is unclear.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
Cap, a not insignificant number of Americans already believe this God exists. A major part of the hypothetical is that this god is interested in morality and the behavior of his subjects; the point is that this God's morality is at odds with contemporary American liberal morality.
[ November 14, 2011, 10:37 PM: Message edited by: Foust ]
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:How could an all-powerful God not be interested in the moral nature of His universe? A God would be interested in morality by default, or else He is not the all-powerful creator He claims to be.
You commit the fallacy does-not-follow. Great power does not imply great moral interest. If I set up an ant farm, I have in effect creator powers over the universe of the ants; I am reasonably omnipotent within it. Does it follow that I have to take an interest in the doings of individual ants, and judge their disputes, whatever disputes ants might have? I think not.
Posted by Graeme (Member # 12543) on :
KOM: But you probably would have an interest in how the ants functioned. Some of their actions would please you, and others not so much. Some actions would entertain you, some wouldn't. After all, why did you create the ant farm in the first place? So you'd likely start steering the ants in one way or another. Through incentives. Punishments. Little ant-sized tablets given from on high. You would, in fact, almost certainly take a moral interest in their actions -- "moral" in the sense that you'd rather see one action over another. It's hard for me to imagine a creator that didn't have some such interest over its creation, though I certainly concede that the two activities -- creation and moral interest -- are logically distinct.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Episcopalian Dogbreath? They are my fave Christians.
Non-denominational, actually. The pastors who started the Church back in 2003 came from the Wesleyan and Baptist traditions, respectively, and were both dissatisfied with the denominations in which they had been ordained. They spent about a year and half reading the Bible, praying, and studying various theologians (Bonhoeffer was major influence) as well as visiting various churches, carefully trying to design a church that actually followed the teachings of Christ and the example of the early church set forth in Acts, and carry out the words of Christ: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord." They take the words of Christ and the apostles pretty literally - they meet in each other's houses and eat together, they share resources, they give money and food and clothes to the poor. The church has about 200 members, but they've had a very strong, positive (though quiet) impact on their city. (You can read about them on their website if you so desire. The language is a little post modern cliche for my tastes, but not everyone can be a great writer, eh?)
I myself haven't attended church in several years, and can't really call myself an anything. I love Christianity - I think the image of a God so loving he humbles himself and dies for his own creation is beautiful and powerful. But I can't actually bring myself to believe some of the absurdities - I'm a pretty logical person. So maybe you could say I'm a Jesus fan?
And for the same reasons I love Christ, and despise fundamentalism. It's a disease eating away at the soul of Christianity. It takes a deep and complex and mysterious religion and reduces it to a 2 page tract - like turning a rare steak dinner into a stale box of Little Debbie treats. It takes a God who became flesh to live among and minister to the poor and despised into a God who blesses those who rise to richness and power on the backs of the poor. (prayer of Jabez my ass) A God whose closest friends were fishermen and a tax collector and a prostitute is turned into a God who hates gays and damns people for not growing up in the right faith.
It's an infantile, bully, twisted religion that takes away free choice and spiritual growth and replaces them with a handful of trite, meaningless songs and sayings.
Posted by Jiminy (Member # 7917) on :
The whole bit about God and hellfire is mostly just confusing the issue. The meat of the thing is this:
Skeletor finds a way to make He-Man suffer pain beyond imagining for all eternity. He captures He-Man and gives him a choice: kneel before Skeletor, or suffer forever. We'll take Skeletor's actions here to be evidence of his evil-ness.
If you were in He-Man's place, would you kneel, or would you suffer?
If you say you would kneel, then, okay, great, so would everyone else.
If you say you would suffer, then why haven't you converted your net-worth into liquid cash and used it to feed starving children or fund cancer research? It's certainly a smaller measure than burning for the rest of time.
It's a hypothetical, people. Play the game or don't.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: It takes a deep and complex and mysterious religion and reduces it to a 2 page tract - like turning a rare steak dinner into a stale box of Little Debbie treats.
Great analogy.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by capaxinfiniti: How could an all-powerful God not be interested in the moral nature of His universe? A God would be interested in morality by default, or else He is not the all-powerful creator He claims to be.
It's actually not only possible, but fairly easy, to envision an all-powerful creator who is completely disinterested and/or uninvested in human morality.
You could go all Solaris on the issue and posit a hypothetical complete and utter irrelevance of human moral structures to a creator.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
I often wonder if, for example, I would have the guts to hide people from a government/army/regime that wanted them dead in a dire situation.
If God is willing to have me burn alive for all eternity for simply wanting gay people to have the same rights as me then it's not as simple as gay people having rights, it's becomes about extreme torture.
If a regime bans reading on pain of eternal torture, it's not the banning of the reading that makes them totally evil (although I would oppose such an action), it's the fact that they regard a just punishment for either reading or not hating people who read to be eternal torture.
If God was okay with me and others experiencing torture for eternity because I was either gay or in support of other people who were gay, I would oppose him not only on the grounds of his assertion about gay people but on the grounds of his punishment of me and others by eternal torture.
I might be to weak to oppose God because, as I said, I often wonder if I would have the guts to hide Anne Frank in the attic when it came down to it. But I would want to and I would know clearly where the side of good was (hint: not with the eternal torture).
To be fair, there's nothing more uniting than a common enemy. And there's nothing less attractive in a supernatural faith-based being than not requiring faith any more.
If God wasn't going to torture me or anyone else eternally, I would still oppose his views on various things as laid down in the Old and New Testaments and I would probably be in trouble with human groups who decide to side with God and now have tons of power. Fun!
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Graeme: KOM: But you probably would have an interest in how the ants functioned. Some of their actions would please you, and others not so much. Some actions would entertain you, some wouldn't. After all, why did you create the ant farm in the first place? So you'd likely start steering the ants in one way or another. Through incentives. Punishments. Little ant-sized tablets given from on high. You would, in fact, almost certainly take a moral interest in their actions -- "moral" in the sense that you'd rather see one action over another.
Perhaps; but to call this a 'moral' interest is to twist the word out of all recognition. If I make the ants do X instead of Y because it's more amusing that way, this has nothing to do with morality - mine or theirs.
There's also the point that I might initially have some interest in the ants, but lose it later on. Our ant farm, the Universe, seems to run fairly autonomously, without the creator (so far as we can tell) dropping by every so often with new supplies of ant food; or then again, perhaps the original intention was not to end everything in maximum entropy. Perhaps after a few months of poking about, I'd stuff the ant farm on a back shelf and then forget about it. Or, to extend the analogy, if I set up a zoo, I might care about the doings of the monkeys but not about the flies that buzz about the piles of elephant dung. It's a big universe; we might be the equivalent of the intestinal flora of the mites that feed on chimpanzee eyebrows. Or maybe the interesting stuff happened six billion years ago in a completely different galaxy, and we just haven't noticed that we've been stuffed on a back shelf with no supply of negentropy yet, because it takes a while to run down.
[ November 15, 2011, 03:57 PM: Message edited by: King of Men ]
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Shades of Sandkings.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
quote:I'm not making a Pascal's wager argument; in this world, it is a sure thing that there is an omnimax creator. This is not a stealth argument for belief in God; I am a convinced atheist.
I'm don't understand what an "omnimax creator" is. It would help to have an understandable description.
And as for Pascal's wager, I was referring to the "fake it if you don't really believe" part.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
I prefer Fight Club: I am the all singing, all dancing crap of the universe.
Posted by Graeme (Member # 12543) on :
quote:KOM wrote: to call this a 'moral' interest is to twist the word out of all recognition.
I disagree. A moral interest is a preference for one choice over another: some things are right, others are wrong. Though we often associate morality with the emotional experience of feeling a twinge of conscience, morality is not limited to that experience. Entities express moral preferences whenever they value one choice over another.
As to your second point, while it's true you may lose interest in one of your zoo animals, you as a non-omni kind of being only have so much attention to spare. An omniscient creator, on the other hand, knows exactly what's going on everywhere and at all times. Though it's hard for us to imagine when we consider analogies, such a being would be aware of all of its creations at all times, simply because there would be no cost to its mental processing faculties.
So again, I think it likely that such a being would have an interest in how things behaved. After all, why did it create the universe in the first place? Perhaps it simply wanted to set up an experiment and see what would happen. But why? For such an omni-being, a thought experiment is as good as the real thing. (Iluvatar's theme is all that would be needed. No need for the Ainur to sing it nor for Iluvatar to bring it into existence.)
The decision to create a universe filled with entities must have some value in itself to the creator. This interest is a preference, a choice for one thing rather than another; it is a moral interest.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: I prefer Fight Club: I am the all singing, all dancing crap of the universe.
Nobody's ever used that line on the internet before...
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:I disagree. A moral interest is a preference for one choice over another
No. This is not what morality means in any ordinary use of the English language. When I prefer vanilla over chocolate, that is not a moral choice.
quote: some things are right, others are wrong.
Yes, exactly. But it is not right or wrong for an ant to go this way instead of that way; it is more or less to my taste, like the vanilla.
Posted by Graeme (Member # 12543) on :
quote:KOM: This is not what morality means in any ordinary use of the English language.
I'll grant you that. But this isn't exactly an ordinary conversation. We're philosophizing about a hypothetical scenario that involves fine distinctions; specifically, whether an omnipotent being must necessarily have a moral agenda. In such a case, I think it's legitimate to more rigorously define a term.
As to whether it's right or wrong for an ant to go this way or that (and this is starting to sound like a Dr. Seuss poem to me), I think it can be right or wrong. For example, in one direction lies a food source; that is the right direction for the ant to go; that is the good choice; that is the moral choice. Of course, it depends on how the universe is set up (viz., the laws of nature, which determine what is beneficial or not), but since the creator set up the universe, it obviously has a big say in the matter.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
Graeme, do you think a creator would take an interest in whether a meteor hits the northern or southern hemisphere of Mars? If so, is that a moral distinction?
So far, you've only made a case for why a creator might hold some interest in what happens in creation - the important word being might. Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
While I think morality is intrinsic to human's definition of God, I have to disagree with Graeme's proposed idea that an all powerful creator would automatically have an interest in the actions of its creations.
I was also going to disagree about a deity's preference = morality, but in writing my dissension I rethought my position...take for instance a yarmulke. Those of Jewish faith believe (as far as I know, that is) that it is immoral to have an uncovered head because of God's preference. Those who do not share that belief obviously wouldn't consider the state of someone's head to be a moral issue. But consider if you were invited to a friend's Jewish wedding, then it would be a moral issue if your head was uncovered, as it would offend your friend.
Posted by Graeme (Member # 12543) on :
Foust, the toughest thing about this kind of exercise is to imagine the motivations of a being so unlike ourselves that it's almost impossible to do so. I concede that it is possible that an omni-being could create the universe and not care one whit for what happens in it. In that case, it created the universe on a whim. But the moment I concede that, I think of the following:
Why would it create the universe in the first place? (Again, I'm falling back on a human model of motivation, which may well be totally inappropriate for an entity with no restrictions.)Even if it were because of a whim, a whim is a desire, albeit a spontaneous and unpremeditated one. This desire suggests interest; it's hard for me to get rid of this association.
Second, the omni-being created the universe with certain properties at the exclusion of others. What determined which properties were included in the creation? Perhaps the being snapped its fingers and said, "Let there be randomness." But here again, when I think of this possibility, I'm struck by the fact that an omniscient being would know all the possibilities: nothing could be truly random for it. (Or at least it has a perfect conception of every combinatorial set, and the being is okay with any of them. This would also be a preference.) So the act of creation itself seems to include preferences, which I hold to be at least a subset of morality.
It would be a whole lot easier if this being stopped being hypothetical, created a hatrack account, and put this issue to bed.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
Maybe this being was absolutely fascinated by the movement of hydrogen atoms, the upper atmosphere of gas giant planets and the composition of sheep skat, and everything else is just "there" and of zero interest.
Or to put it in better terms: we might not be that interesting.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:It's not that I don't think a Pat Robertsonesque God would be bad (though I do), and it's not that I'm claiming such a being shouldn't be God (though I think they shouldn't), it's that by my definition of what it takes to prove Themself God, They cannot represent something immoral.
Note: Eric James Stone's That Leviathan Whom Thou Hast Made has an interesting treatment of this-- an alien that claims to be God, and demands that all creatures of its race worship it and only it.
Problems arise when a converted Mormon alien refuses to do so.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
By the way, you can get That Leviathan... for free on Amazon right now.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Or to put it in better terms: we might not be that interesting.
Could god make moral dilemmas so boring, He would never be arsed to consider them?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:As to whether it's right or wrong for an ant to go this way or that (and this is starting to sound like a Dr. Seuss poem to me), I think it can be right or wrong. For example, in one direction lies a food source; that is the right direction for the ant to go; that is the good choice; that is the moral choice.
You confuse is and ought; instrumental and terminal. Food is a means to an end, in this case presumably the survival of the ant colony. To get food is good only to the extent that it promotes a good cause. Is the survival of an ant colony good? Why should it be? What if it means the death of a thousand snails (who might, indeed, be the food source in question)? What makes the ants' survival good and the snails' not, or at any rate expendable? These are moral questions that have absolutely nothing to do with the efficiency of the ant as a food collector.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Foust, the toughest thing about this kind of exercise is to imagine the motivations of a being so unlike ourselves that it's almost impossible to do so.
I'm not sure why its motivations would matter.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Or to put it in better terms: we might not be that interesting.
Could god make moral dilemmas so boring, He would never be arsed to consider them?
Had to look up "arsed"...but yes. Like, the moral choice of adultery is a huge deal here, but think of it more like, does it matter which ant in the ant farm fertilizes the eggs (assuming that's how it's done)? It is entirely possible that all this crap we worry about so much is completely below the radar of a supreme being. Sure, it matters to us, but so does matching outfits and small yappy purse dogs with pink rhinestone collars (to some of us) or which platform to buy Skyrim on.
Posted by Graeme (Member # 12543) on :
KOM:
quote:You confuse is and ought; instrumental and terminal.
Please elaborate. That is, I understand the distinction between means and end, but I'm not clear on how you think I'm confusing is and ought.
Tom:
quote: I'm not sure why its motivations would matter.
The omni-being's motivation matters insofar as its reason for creating the universe is ipso facto proof of its interest in the creation. And, if it has an interest in the creation, I claim that it has some set of preferences, or moral judgments, for creation.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
You continue to equate preferences with moral judgments, and I'm not sure that's defensible.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Graeme, are you suggesting that whatever the omni-being prefers is, in this hypothetical universe, by definition moral?
Being preferences=morality?
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
quote:The omni-being's motivation matters insofar as its reason for creating the universe is ipso facto proof of its interest in the creation. And, if it has an interest in the creation, I claim that it has some set of preferences, or moral judgments, for creation.
I'm not sure if this follows anyway. If he's omni, then when he created the universe, he already knew at the time the entire future behavior of every being that will ever live in this universe. Hell, he even knows the future behavior of every single sub-atomic particle (I presume omniscience overrides the Heisenberg uncertainty principle).
If he already knew exactly what will happen, then whatever occurs is precisely what he wanted to occur. If it was not, he would have created the universe in a different way.
So to me, it looks like an Omnimax creator cannot have an active set of preferences except for us to do exactly what he already knows we are going to do.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
I rather thought that was bollix too, but, when you are discussing omnipotent beings, their preference is reality. If it pleases an all powerful being that we sacrifice sheep, or trim off the extra bits of our penis or wear a hat or only marry people of the opposite gender or face east and pray twice daily, or marking our doors so our sons don't get killed it seems plausible that not offending said all powerful being -is- moral.
I mean, morality without omnimax is basically how our actions effect other people/our selves. What makes something wrong morally is if it harms someone, but the idea behind an all knowing all powerful being is that they are uniquely qualified to judge us. That and they made everything, so, unless they are patently unfair, i.e. it made people gay and then orders people to go against their nature just for fun, they really would know what is best.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
I don't buy that it automatically means that if an all powerful being created a system that means they control every part of it. It could be that the being made a floor and a top and then spun it with no clear control over which way the top spun or where it would end up.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
If you are Omni, you not only control the laws of physics that decide which way the top spins, but you already know exactly where it is going to end up because you are ALL KNOWING. Neh?
If your omnipotent/omniscient being is able to create a system where it doesn't know something, then we're entering "a rock so big even he can't lift it" territory.
Edit: A common way to weasel out of this paradox seems to be to redefine omniscient to "knowing all that can be known" and presume things like future human behavior are somehow not in this category. Or positing a willful limiting of omniscience to allow for free will. If either of these are in play, I guess I'll bow out. Both those ideas seem pretty lame to me, and we are no longer talking about an omniscient being.
[ November 16, 2011, 05:06 PM: Message edited by: Xavier ]
Posted by Shawshank (Member # 8453) on :
Why does defining omniscience as 'knowing all that can be known' destroy omniscience?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Graeme: [QB] KOM:
quote:You confuse is and ought; instrumental and terminal.
Please elaborate. That is, I understand the distinction between means and end, but I'm not clear on how you think I'm confusing is and ought.
You appear to be reasoning thusly: If the ant zigs, it will find food (a factual is statement), therefore it is good if it zigs (a moral ought statement). Your therefore rests on a premise you haven't supported, or even mentioned: That it is good if the ant eats. Why should that be good? It certainly has nothing to do with the factual, the is, that a zig will lead it to food; but this is the only premise you gave in support of your assertion that a zig is the right and good thing for the ant to do.
Posted by Graeme (Member # 12543) on :
Even though an omni-being will know what will happen, it created a specific creation to begin with. It chose one form of creation over another; that's a value judgment.
KM, yes, I am suggesting that. Because even the judgments that humans would make would derive from a nature that itself was ultimately created, through whatever intermediary chain of events, by the creator.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
quote:Why does defining omniscience as 'knowing all that can be known' destroy omniscience?
Not sure if you caught me mid edit (took a few tries to get it to a point where I'd stop touching it). It's more that adding human behavior into the category of "things that can't be known" that seems lame to me.
Posted by Graeme (Member # 12543) on :
KM: Thanks for the clarification.
You're right that additional premises are needed; I omitted them to shorten my previous posts. The missing premise is that a creature's continued existence is desirable, from that creature's POV. From the creator's POV, the continued existence may or may not be desirable. But at the very least, the initial existence of the creation was found desirable by the creator, else the creator wouldn't have created it.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
If you create a creature and give it free will, thus making its actions unpredictable, you void the warranty of your all knowing status?
I don't buy it. Nor do I buy that it is lame.
How about this: He can see the future past our free will, but chooses not to.
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
Culture metabolizes the in(de)finite.
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
Some run hot, some cold.
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
Depends on the environment.
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
Somewhere in between 10Ghz and paleological eons lies Worldplay.
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
wordplays lie
Posted by PMH (Member # 12495) on :
(Sorry for not necroing this thread. ;-)
Finally, after 2+ pages, we managed to get to:
quote:Originally posted by Foust:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:How is it a meaningful question without taking into consideration what we believe about the nature of God?
It doesn't matter to his hypothetical. In this hypothetical, "God" is an all-powerful and all-knowing being who created the Universe and gets to determine what happens to you in the afterlife, and moreover claims to be an arbiter of morality. Whether you accept such a being as "God" or not is completely irrelevant to the question, which is: do you believe you would refuse to cooperate with an all-powerful being, thus suffering an eternity of agony for no concrete reason -- and if so, how do you reconcile that with not acting more passionately against injustice here in the real world?
Yes, thank you for putting it so clearly.
...and:
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: ... "Given a gun pointed at your head, would you behave a certain way?" ...
...so now we can discuss that:
In the context of un-resistable force and an alternative of infinite pain, the only people who would not comply .. (in order to not besmirch their soul or whatever)
..are those who see morality as divorced either from reality or from the issue of the connection between their choices and the outcomes of those choices as experienced by them ..
..ie, either an unquestioning True Believer.. (ie, who thinks that morality comes from "god")
..or a liberal/progressive/altruist. (ie, who doesn't understand that morality is for guiding one's own life, constrained only by respecting the equal rights of others)
...so the question becomes
"Why would a rational person allow injustice to exist in the world? (w/o exhausting an arbitrary amount of his resources - including his happiness - in order to combat it)?
And the answer to that is that people would do well to realize that the injustices of the universe are not claims on them or their time or wealth.
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
There is no concept of force without the concept of resistance.
Infinite pain is no longer pain (in the way you intend it). Pain is only meaningful, as a concept, if we posit a beginning and, more importantly, an end of it. Otherwise it's just a "life".
A universe is neither just nor unjust. It simply is.
Rationality is an attitude, not a belief--and neither allows nor forbids anything (other than the principle of non-contradiction)
Humans exist, justice is a word for an act.
Every single unjust act, even the smallest, is a claim made on what it is to be human.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
quote:And the answer to that is that people would do well to realize that the injustices of the universe are not claims on them or their time or wealth.
Ah, Randians. Experts at confusing throats with Gordian knots.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
I asked on the previous page:
Graeme, do you think a creator would take an interest in whether a meteor hits the northern or southern hemisphere of Mars? If so, is that a moral distinction? Posted by Graeme (Member # 12543) on :
Foust, In this hypothetical universe, all individual events that occur are part of the sum total of creation. The omni-being created all of it, including asteroids and their collisions. Because the creator made the creation in one particular way and not another, that preference manifests a value judgment. Also, as I mentioned, because the omni-being's awareness is unlimited -- unlike that of human beings, who must ration their focus -- it isn't unreasonable to assume that the creator would take an interest in everything that passes in its creation. As the author of Hebrews says, "Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." (Hebrews 4:13, KJV).
So to specifically answer your question, yes. The creator would take an interest and it would reflect a moral distinction. As an omni-being, it already knows which hemisphere will be struck. It determined which one, as the creator. That reflected a choice among alternatives, hence a value judgment.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
But you're skimming over the second question.
I agree that preference for X over Y indicates a value judgement, but value judgements and moral judgements are not identical. I make value judgements when I choose clothing: long sleeve button ups and cotton pants over t-shirts and cut-off jean shorts. I value one kind of clothing over another.
How do you jump from that to moral judgements?
And, to re-iterate a point from earlier in the thread, there is no logically necessary connection between a creator and specifically moral judgements of any sort (as opposed to value judgements akin to what shirt I will wear today) let alone any specific version of morality.
Not to mention that a creator creating does not even necessarily indicate a value preference. The creator could be akin to Spinoza's god, who creates and expresses itself because that is what it does, and could do nothing else.
Posted by Graeme (Member # 12543) on :
FOUST wrote:
quote: I agree that preference for X over Y indicates a value judgement, but value judgements and moral judgements are not identical. I make value judgements when I choose clothing: long sleeve button ups and cotton pants over t-shirts and cut-off jean shorts. I value one kind of clothing over another.
How do you jump from that to moral judgements?
It's not so much a jump as a slide along a spectrum. It's hard for me to think of moral judgments as anything other than value judgments. True, in everyday speech we call wearing one color over another a preference, but choosing to tell the truth rather than lie a moral choice. (Although, as Stone Wolf pointed out, in some cultures the choice of clothing is an explicit moral choice.) But they both reflect our value judgments, our sense of what is best. Their scope differs, certainly, but not their essential character.
Let me ask what you think, though: what is a moral judgment other than a value judgment?
Posted by Graeme (Member # 12543) on :
I'm not familiar with Spinoza's god, but from your description it seems to be essentially the same as what we call the universe: an autonomous entity that exists and functions according to certain laws because that's just the way it is. I don't think such an entity fits into the present hypothetical of an omni-being that chooses to make a specific creation.
I do agree that moral judgments presuppose choice, though; Spinoza's god wouldn't be making either.
Posted by PMH (Member # 12495) on :
quote:Originally posted by deerpark27: There is no concept of force without the concept of resistance.
maybe in Physics, but not in the context of this thread
If a guy points a gun at you & demands all your money, you can perfectly well choose to (not resist but) comply.
So I see this comment as out of context.
quote:Infinite pain is no longer pain (in the way you intend it). Pain is only meaningful, as a concept, if we posit a beginning and, more importantly, an end of it. Otherwise it's just a "life".
Where did you get that?
First off, there are no concrete (ie, not abstract, as is mathematics) infinities.. ..so we are (surprise!) debating in fairy land.
2nd: The concept of pain arises from direct perception of internal states; one cannot, eg, be wrong if he thinks he's in pain.
...so the concept of pain doesn't require anything of the (your) sort.
Perhaps you're arguing that the perception of pain would diminish over time.
I don't recall having heard of such.
...and anyway, I would think that the experience over the time of its diminishing would be roughly as terrible as "infinite" pain.
..but I'm getting sucked in to fairy land. :The problem with Foust's hypothetical is that morality is for guiding one's life in actual reality - in more or less the normal course of events (eg, as opposed to "lifeboat situations") -- which is thoroughly not the case for any hypothesizing about "god"(s), infinite carrots & sticks, etc.
quote:A universe is neither just nor unjust. It simply is.
Yes; sorry: I fell into hyperbole.
...but, OTOH, what I was referring to was, obviously, Foust's ~injustice(s) in the world~.
(& so, again, out of context)
quote:Rationality is an attitude, not a belief--and neither allows nor forbids anything (other than the principle of non-contradiction)
Rationality is a practice.
Non-contradiction tends to affect quite a lot of other things.. ..although it gives one only coherence, not correspondence.
For anything you want to allow or forbid, you can construct a faith that will accomplish that. (and find people who will believe it)
quote:Humans exist, justice is a word for an act.
I can't figure out why you said this.
quote:Every single unjust act, even the smallest, is a claim made on what it is to be human.
Sure: that humans can be unjust.
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
"What is a moral judgment other than a value judgment?"
What is the opposite of a moral judgement? An immoral judgement
What is the opposite of a value judgement? A value judgement
That's the difference.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
For those that don't know:
I'm not sure deepark enters conversations to engage them, so much as write poetry that's tangential to the topic being discussed. So...interacting with him means participating in a kind of virtual performance art.
For what it's worth, he's shown some talent as far as poetry goes. It's not my thing, but I understand other people enjoy it.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
I think it's quite entertaining to watch someone try to respond to deerpark. Posted by PMH (Member # 12495) on :
Thank you, ScottR!
I thought his reply of 22:10 (my time) ydy was substantial enf to respond to; not sure about his of 09:22 today (nor to whom it was addressed).
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by advice for robots: I think it's quite entertaining to watch someone try to respond to deerpark.
*pops corn and sits back*
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
quote:Originally posted by PMH: I can't figure out why you said this.
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
[Someone types: Memory neither, it wouldn't have any. No pain and no memory. Nothing existential.]
++ (Vaguely addressing the horizon) Blown apart, out here in the open (opens his arms wide) with our presuppositions of transcendence (looks up) ghosts in the machine of the monotheistic religions (points at the pigeons) buttressed by the hegemony of infinitesimal mathematics (points at the setting sun), where there is no longer any space for finitude, for the ontologically determinate (scratches his crotch) the absolutely valid, out here among....
-- (Interrupting) The pigeons. Among the pigeons. All the dust (waving arms in dust).
++ I remember (searches his canvas bag) how it went, the real Greek, it was all counting, to be counted, like later on, when it might matter.
-- Dust's unbelievable under here.
++ (Pulling "Ideas" book from bag) It's the birds. Birdshit. Your dust. Evidently, we've zigged instead of zagging, the horizon beckoning, and now and now and now something's wrong.
-- It's too dry. You're obsessed with the bloody pigeons. It's all flakes.
++ (Reading from book, but obviously upside-down) "So when he says that the universal is the object of science he is not contradicting himself, for he has not denied that the universal has some objective reality but only that it has separate existence. It is real in the individual: it is not..." (Stops and squeezes eyes in deep concentration)
-- (Mimics) It's snot, an effervescence of the demiurge, to whom we owe our fleeting passage in this underworld...(searches pockets)..nary a carrot nor a candy to twist our fickle fates (pulls out an old broken cellphone and flips it open)...Beam Me Up, Yahweh!
++ (Opening his eyes) Transcendence. Not communion. Utterance.
-- (Holding out finger) Pull my finger.
++ Wait.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
Now he's just emboldened.
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
I'm not sure how long I can keep this up for.
The omni-actual vs. the omni-potential, that is.
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
The problem with the original question is that it is asked in a way that serves a predetermined agenda. In asking, you've only allowed one possible or acceptable answer.
Let's be more neutral about this, what if God come back to earth and says, these religious leaders are hucksters and frauds who are trading on my name for power and money.
My commandments were clear (New Testement), you are to love one another, be charitable, and be compassionate, and you are to leave the judgement to me.
What if God says that the religious people were simply following a false God, a morally corrupt set of self-serving lies, and only the atheists are truly worth of heaven because the lived their lives honestly and followed no false God. They will be judged on their character, not whether they bowed down to one religious fanatic or another, or one controlling dogma or another?
What then?
I think my scenario is just as valid as the original premise. I think God and Jesus are appalled at the corruption that humans have perpetrated in their name.
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man, especially a rich man of allegedly God, to get into heaven.
Not everyone who says to me(Jesus)"Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Heavenly Father. When the day comes, many will say to me(Jesus), "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and in your name perform many miracles?" Then I will tell them plainly, "I never knew you. Out of my sight; your deeds are evil?" (Mathew 7)
That's what I see happening on judgement day. The self-righteous will be doomed, and those who lived their quiet lives morally, with compassion and charity, will be the favored ones independent of any religious dogma that may have been force or was attempted to be forced upon them.
I believe in God, but I absolutely and fervently do not believe in "God, Inc.".
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I think my scenario is just as valid as the original premise.
No, it's a completely different premise. The moral hingepoint in yours is a very different thing.
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
Further, why does God have to prove himself to the world?
I think it far more intriguing if humans somehow prove the existance of God by finding the "God Particle" or proving the existance of the Spiritual World, of life after death.
I also find O.S.Card's version of God (in a sense) in the 3rd and 4th books of the Ender series in the concept of "Outside", meaning the source of all life for every atom, cell, particle, animal, and being.
I think this non-personified 'God' as being far more likely than the hyper-personified God we have in virtually all religion.
The problem is, in the original post, it was asked, what if God proved his existance and said all the money grubbing, power mad, judgmental televangelists are right, and that, as an example, gay is not OK.
But that is not actually a question, it is a statement.
Now I ask, what if the existance of God is proven, and he say exactly the opposite of what we find in the original post.
It is conceivable, that Christians will be doomed for perverting the real message, while atheists will be saved for living good lives. Though neither in totality.
The original post lays out a core question, then rather than let us address that core question, he/she give a preferred answer, and asks us what we think about their preferred outcome.
Well my reactions is that exactly the opposite is just as likely.
[ November 21, 2011, 02:59 AM: Message edited by: BlueWizard ]
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:I think my scenario is just as valid as the original premise.
No, it's a completely different premise. The moral hingepoint in yours is a very different thing.
Oddly, I have a nit to pick. I can accept you saying -
It is a completely different premise.
because it is after all a completely different premise.
But, I object to the 'NO' at the beginning. That implies that NO, my premise isn't valid, and I think it is valid. But, as you said, the moral hinge-point and the core premise are the opposite of the original. Opposite but still equally valid to an objective mind.
It is possible that by worshiping Jesus, rather than being saved, you are instead doomed. I personally think that Jesus would be appalled at how his name and message are being used.
I'm not dictating that as reality, merely saying it is as likely as any scenario.
It is equally possible that atheists are more likely to get into heaven than religious people, within the framework that I previously laid out. Again, I'm not saying it is true, just that it is as likely as any other scenario, and just as valid a philosophical point to be discussed.
What if Christians have it completely backwards?
My personal belief is NOT in a hyper-personified God, but rather in a universal undying perpetual spiritual essence that plays neither judge nor jury, nor does it favor some over others, nor seek vengeance or retribution.
Again, more akin to O.S.Card's "Outside".
The OP is saying what if God proves his existance, and confirm existing religious Dogma?
What I am saying is, what if God proves himself, and denies and condemns existing religious Dogma?
I think that is just as valid a question to ask and the original question.
But then, that's just my opinion.
[ November 21, 2011, 03:24 AM: Message edited by: BlueWizard ]
Posted by Marlozhan (Member # 2422) on :
Why does being omniscient preclude the possibility of his creations having free will? I don't agree that having omniscience means you must control all that happens. You can be aware of what humans will choose, without forcing them to do so. This makes sense if God values what WE gain by exercising our free will, not what he gains from it.
While God can allow humans to have free will, he can arrange the circumstances of the universe, because he knows all that will be chosen, so that his purposes are not frustrated. He doesn't force individuals to make choices, but he can prevent individuals for ruining things for everyone else in the long run, by using this omniscience to arrange circumstances.
i.e., God says, "I know Person A is going to murder Person B before they have learned all that they could learn in life. I am not going to force Person A to not make the choice to murder. If I did, my creations no longer have free will. But I can arrange circumstances so that the lessons Person B was robbed of will be provided in some other way. I knew this would be the case from the beginning, but rather than rob free will, I allowed free will and provided alternate means."
Saying that God controls all human choices, because he is omniscient, is like saying an omniscient chess player (A) only wins because he controls his opponent's (B) choices. An omnsicient chess player can win every time, without interfering with the other player's choices, simply by knowing what choices to make to win. Player B may often rejoice when he takes Player A's queen or castle, thinking he has gotten an advantage. Yet, Player A worries not at all, because allowing his queen or castle to be taken is exactly what needed to happen to work towards him winning. However, Player B has retained his free will. Sure, Player B's options became more limited with each turn, as he moved closer to defeat, but his ability to choose was never robbed or infringed on. Only the circumstances were controlled by Player A. Player A did not control Player B's choices. Assuming there is a God, the very fact that we can ask ourselves whether or not we would agree with God when he appears shows that He allows us to retain free will.
Thus, Player A can always make sure his purpose in winning is never frustrated, while allowing Player B to remain a sentient being with free will.
Now why would God create beings with free will, even though these beings would often make choices that were contrary to God's purposes? Why wouldn't he make humans unable to choose against His will, to make things run smoother? Love for human beings seems to be the only motivation that makes sense. This must be His top priority. If His top priority was order, or control, or power, or popularity, then it would make sense to create beings that were all subservient without will. But if He loves us humans and wants us to have the same joy that He has in being a free individual, then He would organize circumstances in a way that allows each of us to be truly free, while at the same time making sure one person's choices did not rob another person of eternal joy.
Just as chess player B thought he was winning when he took the queen, we often think things aren't working the way they "should" in this life, because of our limited perspective. But in the end, if God is omniscient and omnipotent, then everything must work toward His purposes, which include each of us retaining free will, while also receiving perfect mercy and justice.
It is the ultimate juggling act to both allow free will for His creations, and also prevent the choices of some ruining it for everyone else.
If God couldn't do this, then there would only be two other alternatives: 1) Free will with the resulting chaos ruining God's plans, thus preventing Him from being omnipotent/omniscient; OR 2) Free will would be taken away to maintain order, thus making our choices nothing more than an illusion meant to please a being who likes to watch his elaborate creations function (similar to a man who invents an intelligent robot and enjoys interacting with it, even though he knows its interactions are all an illusion based on preprogramming).
I can see God sitting up there and watching anyone who opposes Him saying, "Ha! I did this terrible thing, what are you going to do about it?", and God saying, "I knew you would choose that, which is why I made this other choice to deal with your choice,"...and the other person saying, "Yeah, well I have a plan to foil that, too," and God saying, "I have always known that, and have taken that into account too," etc.
Thus, those who try to oppose God can only hurt themselves, because they can't foil God, and those who follow God still retain their free will and can, in essence, mutually win the chess game right along with God.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:But, as you said, the moral hinge-point and the core premise are the opposite of the original. Opposite but still equally valid to an objective mind.
*sigh* No. You have missed the point of the question completely. It is not "hey, wouldn't it be funny if it turned out that God was a jerk?" It is, rather, "I expect that many of you would say that you would refuse to accept the status quo were it revealed that God is a jerk. Why, then, do you accept the status quo now?"
------------------------
quote:However, Player B has retained his free will. Sure, Player B's options became more limited with each turn, as he moved closer to defeat, but his ability to choose was never robbed or infringed on.
Player B never made a meaningful choice, and was robbed of the ability to do so. Ergo, he had no free will.
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: [QB]
quote:But, as you said, the moral hinge-point and the core premise are the opposite of the original. Opposite but still equally valid to an objective mind.
*sigh* No. You have missed the point of the question completely. It is not "hey, wouldn't it be funny if it turned out that God was a jerk?" It is, rather, "I expect that many of you would say that you would refuse to accept the status quo were it revealed that God is a jerk. Why, then, do you accept the status quo now?" ...
Well then I guess I did miss the point. The original question paraphrased was - What if God confirmed his own existance, and further confirmed that the hate-mongering televangelist are right. What would you do?
Well I would think he was a pretty poor God, and doubt the 'proof' significantly.
But I ask, what if good proved his existance, and told those tied to religious dogma, hate, fear mongering. power, and greed that they are wrong?
I'm not saying the original question is necessarily a wrong philosophical point. I merely saying that the opposite philosophical point it just as valid to argue.
What if they are right?
Well, what if they are wrong?
I think the title question is far more interesting than the follow up question.
What if God proved his own existance?
To which I added -
What if WE prove God existance, or at least the existance of the afterlife?
That seem a fair philosophical question. But whether Religious Dogma is right seems to me a question that demands an agreement with dogma.
Personally, I think the certainty with which religious dogma is presented, in and of itself, pretty much proves it wrong.
But then ... that's just my opinion.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlueWizard: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man, especially a rich man of allegedly God, to get into heaven.
Just real quick: "The eye of the needle" is a phrase that means the small gap in a walled city through which only one person at a time could enter, or one unburdened camel.
This is the danger in translating from one language and culture to another. This phrase means: A rich man my only get to heaven after unburdening himself of his worldly goods.
And in looking for a quote or reference to support the above, I find I am wrong wrong wrong...oh well. Ignore the above.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:prove the existance of God by finding the "God Particle"
Agh. I hope you are not referring to the Higgs boson, here? This is exactly why scientists should stick to neutral language. The Higgs boson, if it exists, is field that gives the mass property to other fields through its interaction with them. It is no more mysterious, godly, or spiritual than the electron, which is also an excitation in a field. Why couldn't whichever idiot coined this phrase have called it the "King Particle" (not that that would make much more sense since it in no sense rules the other particles) and avoided the instant "scientists confirm existence of God" meme? Or if that was not democratic enough, how about "President Particle"? Better still, flatter the agency that gives us funding and call it the "Congress Particle". Actually that would even make a slight amount of sense since 'congress' is another word for 'interaction' and it is the interaction that makes the Higgs field important.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
How about the "Gold at the end of the rainbow particle"?
Posted by Marlozhan (Member # 2422) on :
quote:
quote:However, Player B has retained his free will. Sure, Player B's options became more limited with each turn, as he moved closer to defeat, but his ability to choose was never robbed or infringed on.
Player B never made a meaningful choice, and was robbed of the ability to do so. Ergo, he had no free will.
Define meaningful. Does meaning mean the choices you make result in the outcome you desire? I see people all the time try to make choices that simply will never work, like continually demanding that others trust them, despite the fact that they choose to act untrustworthy. Their choice to act untrustworthy while expecting trust to follow is a meaningless choice. Just like a person who chooses to step off a cliff because he believes he can defy gravity. Nobody forced him to take the step but his choice to fly will not yield the outcome he desires because his choices don't have the power to change laws. For example, if my free will does not allow me to change the laws of physics simply through the act of willing it, does that mean I have no free will?
But I can use my free will to find ways to fly, which don't require me to break natural laws through willpower.
If we say that God is the governor of all the laws in the universe, then we have the choice to follow those laws and reap the benefits, or choose to defy those laws and reap the futility of it.
[ November 21, 2011, 05:31 PM: Message edited by: Marlozhan ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Does meaning mean the choices you make result in the outcome you desire?
No. It means that the choices you make alter the outcome.
quote:If we say that God is the governor of all the laws in the universe, then we have the choice to follow those laws and reap the benefits, or choose to defy those laws and reap the futility of it.
And that is the point of the original poster's question. Opposition to a jerkwad God is futile -- but is it meaningless?
quote:For example, if my free will does not allow me to change the laws of physics simply through the act of willing it, does that mean I have no free will?
No, that's silly. But if someone presents you with a choice between a lady and tiger, but has always arranged to put the tiger behind the door you pick, your choice is meaningless.
Posted by BlueWizard (Member # 9389) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:prove the existance of God by finding the "God Particle"
Agh. I hope you are not referring to the Higgs boson, here? ...
No, I guess I have heard the Higgs Boson referred to as the "God Particle", but in the sense I'm speaking of, I merely mean science finding some means of determining that a substantial and real 'God' does exist.
Short of that, confirming that there is a spiritual essence in the world in which the physically dead live on.
As I also pointed out, I reject the hyper-personified God of most religions. That seem more like man making God in his own image, than the opposite.
Hyper-personified God also allows the assignment of spiteful vengeful attributes that I seriously doubt any God worth a salt would be likely to have.
Hell wasn't created by God, it was created by men to control other men. It is easy to blackmail people into blind obedience, when the rejection of that obedience is a lake of fire.
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
"No, that's silly. But if someone presents you with a choice between a lady and tiger, but has always arranged to put the tiger behind the door you pick, your choice is meaningless." (TomD)
This is the very hinge of faith.
Exchange "tiger" with "death" in your door-opening ceremony and you'll see how the death-tiger operates. Meaning, like free will, is a human construct.
The way one chooses to lead one's life.
[ November 21, 2011, 09:56 PM: Message edited by: deerpark27 ]
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlueWizard: Hell wasn't created by God, it was created by men to control other men. It is easy to blackmail people into blind obedience, when the rejection of that obedience is a lake of fire.
Why don't you 'get' that regardless of the Machiavellian strategy you feel you've "seen through", it is all and always, of course, merely part this sort of God's plan?! That's the way "he" implements "Hell" for that sort of people (i.e., rhetorically e.g., for the Middle Ages etc.) Just as today, Hell's now isomorphic implementation over top of our world(somewhat paradoxically I would agree) makes it conceptually invisible (the excellent folk version of this theme is in the movie "The Matrix" .....or in that old commercial for Palmolive dish detergent "Madge, you're soaking in it!"!
Posted by Marlozhan (Member # 2422) on :
I think part of the problem of this discussion is how we define omnipotence. I see two alternatives for omnipotence:
1) Having the power to do anything that is doable.
2) Having the power to do anything that can be fathomed by an omniscient being.
A) In the first example, there are certain laws of existence upon which reality is based, and the omnipotent being understands all of reality in its entirety, and therefore has power to exercise those laws to the fullest and absolute extent.
B) In the second example, there are no laws of existence. There are only laws that this omnipotent being imagines up. Absolutely everything in existence can be changed in absolutely anyway by this being.
A) In the first example, there are certain laws that an omnipotent being can't do, like make the society of heaven operate based on hatred and selfishness, or force the devil to become good by nature.
B) In the second example, this omnipotent being can do whatever the hell it pleases. It can make a reality where everyone hates each other and they actually enjoy this way of life. It can take one individual and literally make this individual become someone else, i.e. make YOU suddenly become Bill Clinton both in body and in spirit, thus obliterating your eternal identity.
A) In the first example, this being knows how to live according to the laws of reality in a way that brings infinite happiness, perfect relationships, power to create anything that is creatable, knowledge of all things, etc.
B) In the second example, this being makes reality according to "whatever feels good", because there are no laws of reality. There is only this being that makes reality whatever it feels like. The only reality is this being's desires.
A) The first being is God because all things in existence obey this being, because of its perfect understanding of reality and how to live in reality in a way that is perfectly fulfilling. This being creates humans, gives them free will, and allows them the opportunity to learn what he knows, so they can learn to live with the same happiness that this being has. If they choose to ignore this God, they suffer not because this God willed it so, but because they refuse to follow the laws of reality. God is saying, "Look, here is how you live to enjoy existence to the fullest extent. If you choose to ignore this, you aren't going to be as happy. I want you to be happy, but you can't be truly happy unless you choose it for yourself. This is why I gave you free will, because if I take away your free will, you can't really be happy because I am forcing you."
B) The second being is God because it wanted to be and everything that worships this God does so because he said so. There is no free will. Everything exists because he willed it to be that way, and he can change it at any time. This means this God created evil, the devil, war, etc. It must be this way, because if he truly hated evil and war, then he would just will them out of existence. To obey this being is meaningless because this God willed it that way at the moment of creation. To disobey is meaningless, because this God willed it that way. Our very existence as human beings is nothing more than a representation of this being's whims.
A) The first being is the God I believe in, and the God that can allow free will in human beings. This is a God that finds joy in teaching us how to be perfectly happy.
B) I believe this second being is the God that Tom and others are referring to. I don't believe this kind of God can exist. If such a God did exist, choosing to disagree with him means nothing, because he made me disagree with him. I agree with Tom that this kind of God prevents free will. This God can't find joy in teaching us how to be happy. There is no teaching. Such a God would just put ideas into our heads through sheer willpower, and our thoughts are not our own. We are extensions of this God's mind. We are its imaginations.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
THE EVOLUTION OF GOD:
1) Incomprehensible phenomena exist. 2) People assume the existence of gods who cause the incomprehensible phenomena. 3) People want their gods to be stronger than someone else's god. Pretty quickly, we get the concept of kings of gods. 4) Not long after that, we get the concept of an omnipotent god. 5) Not too long after that, we invent omnipotent gods who love us and want us to be happy. 6) For some reason, it takes a while for people to notice that despite the hypothesized existence of omnipotent beings who want us to be happy, most of us are not perfectly happy. We begin coming up with excuses. 7) Oddly, the first excuse is that it's our fault, and that these omnipotent gods only reluctantly permit our unhappiness. This is a logical carryover from the pre-omnipotent days, but doesn't make much sense. 8) The next popular excuse is that we only appear unhappy for some finite span, and that this will all pay off as part of some longer-range plan that leads to infinite happiness. A frequent corollary is that we're simply not smart enough to understand the complexities of this plan, and that even the apparent deaths of innocent babies serve some greater good. 10) Some people decide that, hey, a truly omnipotent God doesn't make sense, so they say, "Hey, God exists and He's doing what He can for us, but what He can do isn't all that much."
Posted by Corwin (Member # 5705) on :
You so wanted to have step 10 that you skipped 9?
Other than that I think your post is extremely quotable.
Posted by Zotto! (Member # 4689) on :
Quotable and completely ahistorical, relying on Frazerian evolutionary assumptions about religion which haven't been taken seriously in the academy in decades, but hey.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
I'ld imagine we would nuke heaven. For god to exist he must be interacterable, and if he is interacterable then he is killable. God is a jealous, petty, genocidal, narrowminded, ignorant, bigoted, racist, thug and should be dispatched with as soon as possible.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:For god to exist he must be interacterable, and if he is interacterable then he is killable.
By interactable, do you me, "Capable of having interactions with?"
If so, I'm not sure how you conclude that God's killable just because we can interact with Him.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:For god to exist he must be interacterable, and if he is interacterable then he is killable.
No. Interactable does not imply killable.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
For example, I interact with TomDavidson all the time. There are times when I want to hit him with a banana creme pie.
The media over which I am able to interact with him-- the only one available to me-- is incapable of carrying a wrath-inspired banana creme pie.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Quotable and completely ahistorical, relying on Frazerian evolutionary assumptions about religion which haven't been taken seriously in the academy in decades, but hey.
There's an academy for made-up crap? Or do you mean the Academy? In which case I have to admit that I haven't really cared since The English Patient.
---------
I just realized why Blayne is discomfited by that slowly increasing population counter. Every time that creeps upward, it represents an increase in the number of killable people.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:There's an academy for made-up crap?
Hey, didn't you study semiotics?
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit:
quote:For god to exist he must be interacterable, and if he is interacterable then he is killable.
No. Interactable does not imply killable.
It kinda does, there is for example, an angel described as taking 500 years to walk across, this would imply a size larger than our sun. Such beings cannot exist in our universe with our laws, as such for them to exist, they must conform to our laws and if they do then they are by definition interactable and thus killable.
And especially if god cannot secure all of us an afterlife then we should take it with force.
quote: I just realized why Blayne is discomfited by that slowly increasing population counter. Every time that creeps upward, it represents an increase in the number of killable people.
It's a hard job but someone's gotta do it.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:It kinda does, there is for example, an angel described as taking 500 years to walk across, this would imply a size larger than our sun. Such beings cannot exist in our universe with our laws, as such for them to exist, they must conform to our laws and if they do then they are by definition interactable and thus killable.
You engage in the fallacy non-sequitur, that-does-not-follow, which disguises the further fallacy of begging the question. First you assert that something cannot exist under some particular set of laws, and that, if they do exist, they must follow those laws. That doesn't follow. Then you assert that if they follow those laws, they are by definition interactable, which perhaps is true, "and thus [therefore] killable"; but whether interactableness implies killableness was the very question in dispute. In other words you have done nothing more than to re-assert that interactability means killability, with the assertion obscured by an irrelevant example contaiing a further fallacy. You did nothing to engage with Scott R's example of a form of interaction that does not imply killability, although it would not have been that hard to shoot it down. In short, your argument is nonsense and babble from one end to the other.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Zotto!: Quotable and completely ahistorical, relying on Frazerian evolutionary assumptions about religion which haven't been taken seriously in the academy in decades, but hey.
"in the academy?"
Knowing you, I really, really have to know what this academy is.
Posted by Marlozhan (Member # 2422) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: THE EVOLUTION OF GOD:
1) Incomprehensible phenomena exist. 2) People assume the existence of gods who cause the incomprehensible phenomena. 3) People want their gods to be stronger than someone else's god. Pretty quickly, we get the concept of kings of gods. 4) Not long after that, we get the concept of an omnipotent god. 5) Not too long after that, we invent omnipotent gods who love us and want us to be happy. 6) For some reason, it takes a while for people to notice that despite the hypothesized existence of omnipotent beings who want us to be happy, most of us are not perfectly happy. We begin coming up with excuses. 7) Oddly, the first excuse is that it's our fault, and that these omnipotent gods only reluctantly permit our unhappiness. This is a logical carryover from the pre-omnipotent days, but doesn't make much sense. 8) The next popular excuse is that we only appear unhappy for some finite span, and that this will all pay off as part of some longer-range plan that leads to infinite happiness. A frequent corollary is that we're simply not smart enough to understand the complexities of this plan, and that even the apparent deaths of innocent babies serve some greater good. 10) Some people decide that, hey, a truly omnipotent God doesn't make sense, so they say, "Hey, God exists and He's doing what He can for us, but what He can do isn't all that much."
Your premise is based on the assumption that the only reason to believe in God is to explain the unexplainable. It disregards personal experiences with a higher power as an alternate reason to believe. My experiences are undeniable to me, but patently unprovable to anyone else. Experience by nature cannot be proven. It can be shared so that others can test for themselves to gain experience for themselves. This is why I disagree with people who say you have to believe their spiritual beliefs just because they say so.
But then again, in my experience, the people who insist that others agree with them, or else, are the ones who believe because they are "supposed to", instead of believing due to personal experiences. People who believe based on experience let others learn life through their own experiences, without shaming them. Fanaticism and self righteousness stem from underlying insecurity and blind obedience.
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
quote:Originally posted by Marlozhan: [QUOTE]Originally posted by TomDavidson: [qb] THE EVOLUTION OF GOD:
1) Incomprehensible phenomena exist. 2) People assume the existence of gods who cause the incomprehensible phenomena. 3) People want their gods to be stronger than someone else's god. Pretty quickly, we get the concept of kings of gods. 4) Not long after that, we get the concept of an omnipotent god. 5) Not too long after that, we invent omnipotent gods who love us and want us to be happy. 6) For some reason, it takes a while for people to notice that despite the hypothesized existence of omnipotent beings who want us to be happy, most of us are not perfectly happy. We begin coming up with excuses. 7) Oddly, the first excuse is that it's our fault, and that these omnipotent gods only reluctantly permit our unhappiness. This is a logical carryover from the pre-omnipotent days, but doesn't make much sense. 8) The next popular excuse is that we only appear unhappy for some finite span, and that this will all pay off as part of some longer-range plan that leads to infinite happiness. A frequent corollary is that we're simply not smart enough to understand the complexities of this plan, and that even the apparent deaths of innocent babies serve some greater good. 10) Some people decide that, hey, a truly omnipotent God doesn't make sense, so they say, "Hey, God exists and He's doing what He can for us, but what He can do isn't all that much."
10) Are there such things as incomprehensible phenomena -- or just an incomprehensible phenomenon? After all, if you can discern one incomprehensible thing from another one, then you've comprehended something about them, haven't you?
9) The notion of something's existing at all, but particularly as distinct from a 'perceiver', is itself another facet of a nascent comprehension.
8) The typically sterile debate concerning the perplexities of defining the indefinite. The fascination with the resultant paradoxes (the imputation of cause)
7) The merciless tyranny of materiality and the obfuscation of the real power of Kings. Generalized groaning from the infinitely painful, but otherwise very finite pains of the torture chambers etc.
6) The merciless tyranny of the Ideal and the obfuscation of the real power of Leaders. Generalized moaning from the definitely painful but otherwise very indefinite pain of hearing the screams of others in the torture chambers...
5) The Computer
4) The Network
3) The Reality of the Virtual
2) The digitization of the generalized screaming of everyone for everyone else.
1) Incomprehensibility
[ November 22, 2011, 09:34 PM: Message edited by: deerpark27 ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: It disregards personal experiences with a higher power as an alternate reason to believe.
Yes, it does. Unless you believe that the earliest myths are in fact responses to personal experiences with a higher power.
--------------
deerpark: Very nice. But you should have skipped #9. Posted by Corwin (Member # 5705) on :
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:You did nothing to engage with Scott R's example of a form of interaction that does not imply killability, although it would not have been that hard to shoot it down.
It was designed that way. Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:It kinda does, there is for example, an angel described as taking 500 years to walk across, this would imply a size larger than our sun. Such beings cannot exist in our universe with our laws, as such for them to exist, they must conform to our laws and if they do then they are by definition interactable and thus killable.
You engage in the fallacy non-sequitur, that-does-not-follow, which disguises the further fallacy of begging the question. First you assert that something cannot exist under some particular set of laws, and that, if they do exist, they must follow those laws. That doesn't follow. Then you assert that if they follow those laws, they are by definition interactable, which perhaps is true, "and thus [therefore] killable"; but whether interactableness implies killableness was the very question in dispute. In other words you have done nothing more than to re-assert that interactability means killability, with the assertion obscured by an irrelevant example contaiing a further fallacy. You did nothing to engage with Scott R's example of a form of interaction that does not imply killability, although it would not have been that hard to shoot it down. In short, your argument is nonsense and babble from one end to the other.
Not at all, I was observing that if we took the mythology at face value it is clear that we only have two options, either write it off as uninteractable such as the "aether" was in the days of old or have to rationalize it to fit with the rules of our universe.
If it cannot interact with our universe, if the rules it consists of are incompatible with ours, then there's nothing. We cannot interact with it and it cannot interact with us.
But if we can interact with it, then it can interact with us, and if it can interact then by definition it must follow physical laws and if it follows physical laws then by definition it is also understandable and if we can understand it then we can eventually kill it. Clearly I was in error to ommit this crucial step but it should make my point clear.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:But if we can interact with it, then it can interact with us, and if it can interact then by definition it must follow physical laws and if it follows physical laws then by definition it is also understandable and if we can understand it then we can eventually kill it.
I'm impressed. Every single one of those does not actually logically follow.
In other words: it is not necessarily true that anything we can interact with can interact with us. It is not necessarily true that anything which can interact must follow some physical law. It is not necessarily true that everything which follows physical law is understandable. And it is not necessarily true that everything we can understand can be killed.
I mean, seriously, every single step of that argument is completely false. It's sort of amazing.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:But if we can interact with it, then it can interact with us, and if it can interact then by definition it must follow physical laws and if it follows physical laws then by definition it is also understandable and if we can understand it then we can eventually kill it.
What do you mean "physical laws?"
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:It is not necessarily true that anything we can interact with can interact with us.
I think it is, actually; this is the meaning of 'interact'. If the word had been 'affect', I would agree; we can affect any number of things that can't affect us.
quote:It is not necessarily true that anything which can interact must follow some physical law.
Well. It depends on what you mean by physical law, I think. Nothing can be more random than complete entropy; and total randomness is still describable by mathematical laws. If it has any order to it, then again that order must follow some law - that's what order means. Of course there's no rule saying that the laws have to be the ones we know currently, or even the same kind of laws.
quote:It is not necessarily true that everything which follows physical law is understandable.
Indeed, most people don't even understand quantum mechanics. Physical law can be arbitrarily complicated, although the ones we know about are relatively simple. And humans are only so bright; at some point the brain just can't hold the information anymore and we can no longer understand the complexity. The point is clearer if you consider chimpanzees: The brightest chimpanzees are perhaps as smart (though not as verbal) as the most retarded humans (disregarding coma patients and such); but to say that because electrons follow physical law, a chimpanzee can eventually understand it, is clearly not correct.
quote:And it is not necessarily true that everything we can understand can be killed.
Yep. We understand evolution pretty well, but let's see you kill it.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:It is not necessarily true that everything which follows physical law is understandable. Indeed, most people don't even understand quantum mechanics.
Indeed, most people don't even understand themselves.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
'understand' in the scientific sense, to use an example in the book Children of the Mind we at first couldn't understand the desclocoda, but we could, through our understand of evolution study it and gain an understanding from which we could interact with it and then eliminate it as a threat. Throughout this entire process it understood us and interacted with us on a biological level. Even if say as a virus it had no effect on humans at all (hypothetically) it would still be interacting with us on some level.
God's existence according to most theology is by definition indescribable by science, empiricalism or rationalism. It is "above" the laws, interpretations that say "even god follows the laws" then leave open the possibility to scrutiny and study.
You are left with two options either you have god who can be studied and understood, in which case it is inevitable he can be annihilated through superior firepower (preferably nuclear tipped anti ship missiles) or he cannot be studied and understood and in which case by definition he cannot be interacted with, and he cannot interact with us.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Blayne: Why is it we either can understand God completely given enough time, or else we can comprehend nothing?
A God who is omnipotent by definition could control what you are permitted to know about them. You couldn't steal data or observations from them.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
quote:It is not necessarily true that anything we can interact with can interact with us.
I think this depends a great deal on how you define interact. One definition I found was
quote:To act reciprocally, to act on each other....
By that definition, it is necessarily try that anything we can interact with can interact with us.
A second definition I found was
quote:Act in such a way as to have an effect on another.
By this definition, its not clear. For physical interactions, Newton's 3rd law would still dictate both things being capable of interacting with each other. But that isn't true for all types of the interactions, such as communications for example. Shakespeare is able to communicate with me through his plays and poems but I am incapable of communicating with Shakespeare. He is able to influence my mental state. I can not influence his.
quote:Indeed, most people don't even understand quantum mechanics. Physical law can be arbitrarily complicated, although the ones we know about are relatively simple.
Feynman said "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't". I agree with him. No one actually understands quantum mechanics well enough to use the theory to predict more than the very simplest cases. Its one of the great frustrations of modern chemistry. We are all completely convinced that Schrodinger's wave equation accurately describes the behavior of complex chemical process but its simply too difficult to solve for it to be useful for understanding most chemical problems.
quote:You are left with two options either you have god who can be studied and understood, in which case it is inevitable he can be annihilated through superior firepower.
This simply does not follow. There are far more than two options. There can be a God who can be studied but never fully understood. There can be a God that can be understood but not annihilated. There can be a God that can be interacted with but never scientifically studied.
Finally, you keep saying that if it can be understood, it can be killed. That's simply not true. For example, energy can be studied and understood but not destroyed. Ideas can be studied and understood but not destroyed.
[ November 23, 2011, 06:19 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
You are left with two options either you have god who can be studied and understood, in which case it is inevitable he can be annihilated through superior firepower (preferably nuclear tipped anti ship missiles) or he cannot be studied and understood and in which case by definition he cannot be interacted with, and he cannot interact with us.
I would have to agree with Blayne on this, except in the weapon and the historical vicinity.
God (as many have already said) was annihilated by something like scientific thinking a long time ago. The "god" invoked here is merely a token, like a playing card, a role-playing game.
Now, this doesn't preclude religious behaviour...a sort of reflex activity....but there's not much left to kill except a simulacrum.
Dontchya think?
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
Option #3: use a flyswatter.
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
Fliegenschlagen.
Trapped between the glass and the world.
(tap.tap.tap.)
Doin' the old timeless time-step.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:either you have god who can be studied and understood, in which case it is inevitable he can be annihilated through superior firepower
I still don't follow this logic, Blayne. Why do you believe that it's possible to destroy whatever can be understood?
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
Because you're standing under it, you can drop it.
Posted by deerpark27 (Member # 2787) on :
Captain's log, supplemental.
Two hours after the blast that annihilated God the crew receives a well-deserved break from collecting the scattered endless debris.
Posted by Jeff C. (Member # 12496) on :
To answer the original question...
I'd believe and accept God's will. He's God, after all, and I would rather not end up in Hell for the rest of eternity simply because I disagreed with him on something like abortion or homosexuality. Honestly, if God came to me and said, "no more straight sex for you", I'd stop having sex. It would be the same if I was gay.
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