quote:Not if god was omnipotent. If he wasn't, only to the extent that Hitler might have been justified because he had a higher purpose in mind which the rest of the world couldn't comprehend.
Again I approach omnipotence from the angle of, "All that can be done," not, "Can do anything." Hitler is not a good example because he did not (IMO) have a good reason that could be articulated to anyone at anytime for his Final Solution.
quote: In order for you to justify god's moral crimes, you would have to state precisely what consequences he was avoiding, and how the genocide helped to avoid them. Otherwise an appeal to god's infinite wisdom holds about as much water as Goebbels talking about the way his fuhrer is some kind of Übermensch creating a better world by cleansing it of inferiors.
I don't think this is entirely true. I will say that asking me to read the mind of God and demand an answer that I could then write in this forum is not something within the realm of current possibilities. God says it was necessary, God's understanding of the universe surpasses mine by infinite degrees of magnitude, God has told me that he does only those things that will maximize the happiness of mankind. I believe God, if God is capable of dishonesty I am screwed anyway as God obviously does what he wants and has more power then me.
Anyone can approach God for understanding and instruction. His invitation for men to come to him for wisdom is the most commonly found scripture in the entirety of the cannon*
quote: But for me, a necessary evil would be for example, allowing evil to exist as it is necessary for righteousness.
Why is that the case?
quote:Scriptures state that without the ability to make evil choices human beings could not really make righteous choices.
Do you have any evidence for this, other than scripture?
Personal experience? Do you have evidence that this is not so? Lets pretend that good and evil are embodied in the concepts of left and right. Lets eliminate the concept of left completely, it does not exist, we cannot perceive it, we cannot describe it, the idea of leftness does not even begin to enter our minds. Now, if an understanding and mentality of rightness is a requisite for happiness, is it possible to to achieve that without an understanding of its opposite? Shoot take any opposite, is pleasure understood without experiencing pain? Is happiness understood without sorrow? Is vice understood without virtue? I honestly do not believe they can be, anymore then we could say we understand what light would look like had we lived in darkness eternally.
quote:That last sentence is what I find most crucial and true in Objectivist ethics. There should be no higher purpose than life on earth, and a religious code of morality places the will of an imaginary entity above it.
And were I to phrase things your way from my POV, "There should be no higher purpose then eternal progression, and a secular code of morality places an undue emphasis on mortality.
By eternal life I mean a life patterned after the existence that God enjoys. And mortality as the incredibly brief period of time that men live on the earth.
But hey I understand that you do not accept my POV and I of course do not accept yours. Just thought I'd point out that the assumption that man has only this time on earth to exist to me is a false and unprovable one.
quote: However, I'll never change my mind about the fact that the purpose of morality is life and happiness. I don't live to please god or anyone else, and neither should you.
And if God's goal is the exact same thing, does it not follow that he would have a better idea of how to obtain that ideal, and help us work towards it? If so we are not living to please God, but the effort to live righteously will please him anyway.
I do believe we as God's creations owe him our loyalty, but he has given us the ability to choose and rationalize for ourselves, and thus I take full advantage of that gift. God created me so that I could live, not so that he could live through me.
*Claim based on the Mormon Canon, I am not positive it that holds true for just the Bible.
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I've only been casually following this thread, so I admit, my point may have already been covered.
There are a lot of evil vile things in the Old Testament, far more than the New Testament, and of course, there are some good moral lessons too. Yet, certain individuals can and will take the evil and the vile aspects of the Bible to justify their own evil and vile actions.
It seems that you must already know the difference between right and wrong to be able to draw moral guidance from anything.
We all know the story of how the Jews heroically escaped from Egypt (parting of the Red Sea and all that), and there long journey through the desert, yet how many of us have heard the story of the Jews coming out of the desert? Why haven't we heard this particular story in its gory detail? Because it's not a pretty picture. The Jews went from village to village slaughtering every living thing; taking the lives of innocent men, women, and children. Only when they came to cities where it was impossible to kill every living thing did they relent and allow the remaining local people to live amoung them as slaves and aliens.
Evil men can find justification for their evil in the Old Testament. Good men can find justification for their goodness in the Old Testament. So, I say it is not the book, but the man that determines the validity of moral justification.
We can look at the rank and file Islam today and see good people living quiet moral lives, yet we can see extremest Islam taking the same foundation of religion and choosing the evil as their moral guidance.
It's the man who makes the book, not the book that makes the man. In a sense, the Bible doesn't dictate your moral essense, it merely confirm what you have already decided.
quote:Originally posted by Euripides: That last sentence is what I find most crucial and true in Objectivist ethics. There should be no higher purpose than life on earth, and a religious code of morality places the will of an imaginary entity above it.
It can, I suppose. But it needn't. Your statement presupposes "imaginary", and it supposes that life on earth is all there is. What if it isn't, and what if He's not?
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Euripides: ...a religious code of morality places the will of an imaginary entity above it.
Lisa: Your statement presupposes "imaginary",... What if it isn't,...
I don't think the existence or non-existence of an Entity, imaginary or real, is at issue here. The central question is whether you can draw moral guidance from the Old Testament?
A vast majority of humanity 'imagines' that there is a reasonable and somewhat universally acceptable moral standard. They 'imagine' it, not in the sense that it is false, but in the sense that they visualize and conceive of what is right and wrong, then they write it down in the framework of their personal belief system. But the validity or reality of their personal belief system, is independant of the moral standard that that belief system professes from a practical perspective.
Does that make sense? I guess a short version is, independant of whether God exists or not, the general moral guidance given by this alledge God is true and valid even if the God himself is not.
Being a 'good' person is a good thing, and being a 'bad' person is a bad thing. Now certain people can delude themselves into believing that being bad is what God wants us to do, and therefore justify their badness by claiming God's sanctions. But the greater part of society will see this for the fraud that it is.
As I said, you already need an internal sense of right and wrong to draw valid guidence from any source. Just as the Radical Islamic draw on God to justify Evil, many many Christians have done the same things thoughout history. But a great majority of people see this evil for what it is.
I can, on a personal level, justify immoral behavior by citing the Old Testement, but I would be citing things in isolation. You need to look in the broad and general context to see the true light, not at hand pick specifics.
So, independant of whether God exists, the moral guidance across the broad and general context of the Bible or other religious text is valid.
quote:In order for you to justify god's moral crimes, you would have to state precisely what consequences he was avoiding, and how the genocide helped to avoid them. Otherwise an appeal to god's infinite wisdom holds about as much water as Goebbels talking about the way his fuhrer is some kind of Übermensch creating a better world by cleansing it of inferiors.
I don't think this is entirely true. I will say that asking me to read the mind of God and demand an answer that I could then write in this forum is not something within the realm of current possibilities. God says it was necessary, God's understanding of the universe surpasses mine by infinite degrees of magnitude, God has told me that he does only those things that will maximize the happiness of mankind. I believe God, if God is capable of dishonesty I am screwed anyway as God obviously does what he wants and has more power then me.
I have no doubt that from your point of view, the Hitler example and the Yahweh example are qualitatively different. But this gets back to my point on faith.
In the absence of any sound empirical evidence for a god, you have faith in him and his omniscience, just as many Nazis had faith in their leader's moral superiority and the righteousness of their race as the master race. It's because of this faith in god that you're willing to assume that there must have been a good reason to encourage genocide; you self-professedly don't know what the reason actually is, and are content to guess that there was some justification for that great evil. This is part of why faith can be so dangerous.
Many Nazis believed Hitler was guided by providence with a capital P, that they were cleansing the world's genetic pool. There was counter-evidence galore to suggest that Hitler was far from infallible or morally righteous, and that the Germans were not the master race, or even Aryan, sure; but if you accept the truth of scripture even in a loose sense, there is plenty of evidence that Yahweh is not omniscient or good, too.
I want to be clear. When I said that genocide is potentially justifiable, I meant that strictly in a theoretical sense; that there is a 0.00000[more zeroes]1% chance that it could be justified; just as there is a chance that god exists. In the absence of an Ender's Game scenario where it's just us or them and nothing in between, the probability of genocide being justified is comparable to the probability of the air molecules in a balloon coincidentally concentrating in a volume 2 cm cubed, at the top of the balloon. It's possible, but so unlikely that in normal conversation I can firmly say that genocide simply can't be justified.
quote:Personal experience? Do you have evidence that this is not so? Lets pretend that good and evil are embodied in the concepts of left and right. Lets eliminate the concept of left completely, it does not exist, we cannot perceive it, we cannot describe it, the idea of leftness does not even begin to enter our minds. Now, if an understanding and mentality of rightness is a requisite for happiness, is it possible to to achieve that without an understanding of its opposite? Shoot take any opposite, is pleasure understood without experiencing pain? Is happiness understood without sorrow? Is vice understood without virtue? I honestly do not believe they can be, anymore then we could say we understand what light would look like had we lived in darkness eternally.
What personal experience?
If left was inconceivable and we therefore didn't use our metaphorical left hand, the implication is that we don't do evil. If no one is doing evil, what's the point of a moral system? We don't need to define good and evil anymore if good is all there is.
Your analogy also has more to do with the limits of the human imagination than it does with what's possible in reality.
The analogy presumably is hinting at the possibility that our ignorance of the idea of evil might make the concept of good impossible to conceive. First of all, I don't know if that would be the case. And second, why would god create us in such a way that our imaginations can't conceive of good without examples of evil? And why is there so much of it (evil)? So the Rwandan massacres, the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, all the evil humanity has perpetrated; that is the cost we must pay in order to gain knowledge of what is good?
The defence that evil had to be created for there to be good is an example of sophistic rhetoric. We have opposites to virtually everything because we notice qualities which exist in certain places but don't in others. They are words and concepts we've created to aid us in apprehending the world in simpler terms; darkness for example is not literally the 'opposite' of light, but the absence of light.
quote:And were I to phrase things your way from my POV, "There should be no higher purpose then eternal progression, and a secular code of morality places an undue emphasis on mortality.
I think the latter part is better worded as 'places an undue sense of finality on mortality', because in my experience and from what I've read, it's theists who expend more time and effort thinking about and discussing mortality. Atheists tend to emphasize life as we know it, and making the most of it while we have it.
quote:But hey I understand that you do not accept my POV and I of course do not accept yours. Just thought I'd point out that the assumption that man has only this time on earth to exist to me is a false and unprovable one.
The onus isn't on me to disprove the hypothesis, but for you to prove it. There's a possibility, but in the absence of any evidence it's a very slim chance.
I actually find an animistic theory of the afterlife marginally more plausible. There is really no good reason to discriminate between homo sapiens and all other species of animal, which presumably according to Christianity don't earn an afterlife.
quote:And if God's goal is the exact same thing, does it not follow that he would have a better idea of how to obtain that ideal, and help us work towards it? If so we are not living to please God, but the effort to live righteously will please him anyway.
What makes you believe that the life and happiness of humans is his goal?
quote:I do believe we as God's creations owe him our loyalty, but he has given us the ability to choose and rationalize for ourselves, and thus I take full advantage of that gift. God created me so that I could live, not so that he could live through me.
Yet you urge us to lean on god's understanding about how to achieve our own happiness.
Lisa,
quote:
quote:That last sentence is what I find most crucial and true in Objectivist ethics. There should be no higher purpose than life on earth, and a religious code of morality places the will of an imaginary entity above it.
It can, I suppose. But it needn't. Your statement presupposes "imaginary", and it supposes that life on earth is all there is. What if it isn't, and what if He's not?
Yes, it does presuppose that. I don't think that Objectivism and your particular views on Judaism conflict by principle; but as an atheist I'm inclined to think that you've made a serious error in examining the evidence for god's existence or non-existence.
To answer your question; in those circumstances, it would be in our rational self-interest to get into god's good books, yes.
Steve,
In many cases I think you're right. But unfortunately religion and honest belief in religion have in fact been the direct cause of much violence and harm. Hence Weinberg's statement, "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
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Thank you for taking the time to reply so extensively and politely Euripides,
quote: In the absence of any sound empirical evidence for a god, you have faith in him and his omniscience, just as many Nazis had faith in their leader's moral superiority and the righteousness of their race as the master race.
Don't sell religion so shortly. God is not some invisible force that randomly reveals itself to people. At least according to the Christian tradition if you seek God you will find him. Ask from Him and you will receive. In my case I took God up on it and did not find the promise wanting. It is that that separates God from Hitler. God is omnipotent and has provided a means for us to contact Him. Hitler never claimed to be a God or possessed of superior reasoning skills then everyone else. So it follows that he was a person just as we all are.
quote: What personal experience?
If left was inconceivable and we therefore didn't use our metaphorical left hand, the implication is that we don't do evil. If no one is doing evil, what's the point of a moral system? We don't need to define good and evil anymore if good is all there is.
Your analogy also has more to do with the limits of the human imagination than it does with what's possible in reality.
The analogy presumably is hinting at the possibility that our ignorance of the idea of evil might make the concept of good impossible to conceive. First of all, I don't know if that would be the case.
Can you demonstrate why that wouldn't be the case? Back to my opposing examples, virtue/vice, pain/pleasure, etc. Or what of things that must be defined by what they are not? Take salt for example, how would you describe to me what salt tastes like assuming I have NEVER tasted it before. Not sweet? Not sour? Salty?
quote: And second, why would god create us in such a way that our imaginations can't conceive of good without examples of evil? And why is there so much of it (evil)? So the Rwandan massacres, the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, all the evil humanity has perpetrated; that is the cost we must pay in order to gain knowledge of what is good?
Because human beings are not God, we are embryos. Part of being a human being is deciding what direction you want to take your existence. To clarify, God not to create us and say, "Off you go start sinning so you can know how bad it is and what goodness is." He put us on earth and said, "Here is what you must do to be happy, doing otherwise will make you less happy or potentially unhappy, but I know you will make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, change your ways, and in time you will be as happy as I am." Mortality is not an isolated experiment, human beings are social creatures and I imagine we always will be.
VERY IMPORTANT. Remember that from a Mormon's perspective God did not create the concepts of good or evil, those concepts are eternal in nature and have no beginning or end. God merely understands them perfectly and embodies all that is good, and reveals to us what good and evil is as a means to assist us.
quote: think the latter part is better worded as 'places an undue sense of finality on mortality', because in my experience and from what I've read, it's theists who expend more time and effort thinking about and discussing mortality. Atheists tend to emphasize life as we know it, and making the most of it while we have it.
Your version of my words works just fine. Theists don't discard mortality as important or even say not to live life to the fullest. We do guard against, "Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." Such a philosophy is damaging and contrary to the truth.
quote: The onus isn't on me to disprove the hypothesis, but for you to prove it. There's a possibility, but in the absence of any evidence it's a very slim chance.
I actually find an animistic theory of the afterlife marginally more plausible. There is really no good reason to discriminate between homo sapiens and all other species of animal, which presumably according to Christianity don't earn an afterlife.
Firstly I was not attempting to place the onus on anyone. I leave proving God's existence to God, his format for proving it has satisfied me completely, and I am convinced that were you to attempt the same experiment you would find identical results.
Also, according to Mormon theology it is not true that animals have no afterlife, they have a duty and purpose as God's creation just as we do, if they fulfill it, they will be happy.
quote: What makes you believe that the life and happiness of humans is his goal?
Because He has told me, and I have seen it in my life and the lives of many others.
quote: I do believe we as God's creations owe him our loyalty, but he has given us the ability to choose and rationalize for ourselves, and thus I take full advantage of that gift. God created me so that I could live, not so that he could live through me.
Yet you urge us to lean on god's understanding about how to achieve our own happiness.
I am not sure what you are getting at. I didn't say lean perpetually on God's arms and just forget about trying to think. If you are in algebra class would you disagree with me if I said look to the teacher for instruction on algebra? You could consult other students and likely you would get some truth but just as likely misconception and inaccuracy. You could try the text book (assuming you somehow had it without the teacher giving it to you) but more then likely you would just be confused and draw incorrect conclusions from the text. Leaning on God is not a forfeiture of rational thought, its a test to see if he can teach us things we do not know. To God, the mysteries of the universe are open to him, he can teach us anything that is good for us should we desire it of him. I'd only suggest leaning on God continually if you find that by so doing, your understanding is consciously increasing.
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quote:Thank you for taking the time to reply so extensively and politely Euripides,
And likewise thank you.
quote:
quote:In the absence of any sound empirical evidence for a god, you have faith in him and his omniscience, just as many Nazis had faith in their leader's moral superiority and the righteousness of their race as the master race.
Don't sell religion so shortly. God is not some invisible force that randomly reveals itself to people. At least according to the Christian tradition if you seek God you will find him. Ask from Him and you will receive. In my case I took God up on it and did not find the promise wanting.
What do you mean by 'find him'? The way you use the phrase 'seek god' or 'ask and you will receive', it seems as though I have to approach the problem with faith to begin with.
quote:It is that that separates God from Hitler. God is omnipotent and has provided a means for us to contact Him. Hitler never claimed to be a God or possessed of superior reasoning skills then everyone else. So it follows that he was a person just as we all are.
But he claimed in his speeches to be guided by God and Providence, and many Nazis believed him. Many believed also that the persecution (and if they knew about it, the systematic genocide) of the Jews was moral because of some higher principle embodied by Hitler.
If Hitler was shown to be a genius with reasoning skills far beyond what was thought humanly possible, would you begin to doubt the immorality of the Holocaust?
quote:
quote:The analogy presumably is hinting at the possibility that our ignorance of the idea of evil might make the concept of good impossible to conceive. First of all, I don't know if that would be the case.
Can you demonstrate why that wouldn't be the case?
Using your thought experiment/analogy with the left and right, let's imagine again that left is a concept we find ourselves unable to conceive of. Nothing is left, we have no idea what left would mean.
Does that mean that right and centre are meaningless too? Say that we are driving a car, and a passenger tells a driver to follow his nose or to turn right. Those directions would still have meaning, because while right can't be compared with left, it can be compared with centre; if you like, in a metaphorical sense, the absence of rightness.
So if evil was inconceivable, there is still a valid comparison between what is good and what is the absence of good. One could go out of his way to help someone, or he might not. Depending upon the circumstances, the latter need not be evil. Like there are intensities of light, there are degrees of good, and it doesn't seem necessary to have an actual negative value to compare it with; just a zero point, or at least a range of degrees.
We could give ourselves a headache by arguing about whether centre is just the left of right, but really; if evil did not exist and we therefore couldn't conceive of it, what's the point of a moral system? To maximise good? How is that aided by the existence of so much evil?
quote:Back to my opposing examples, virtue/vice, pain/pleasure, etc. Or what of things that must be defined by what they are not? Take salt for example, how would you describe to me what salt tastes like assuming I have NEVER tasted it before. Not sweet? Not sour? Salty?
The issue with tastes and smells is that we lack the mental machinery to revisit smells through long term memory, and our language is ill equipped to accurately describe such qualia.
With pleasure, I wouldn't define it as 'not pain' or even the 'opposite of pain'. I'd describe it as 'feeling good'.
quote:
quote:And second, why would god create us in such a way that our imaginations can't conceive of good without examples of evil? And why is there so much of it (evil)? So the Rwandan massacres, the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, all the evil humanity has perpetrated; that is the cost we must pay in order to gain knowledge of what is good?
Because human beings are not God, we are embryos. Part of being a human being is deciding what direction you want to take your existence. To clarify, God not to create us and say, "Off you go start sinning so you can know how bad it is and what goodness is."
Why is it necessarily a 'part of being human'? What does that mean?
According to Christian doctrine, man's natural impulses are base. Correct me if I'm wrong on Mormon doctrine, but that's from the bible.
quote:He put us on earth and said, "Here is what you must do to be happy, doing otherwise will make you less happy or potentially unhappy, but I know you will make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, change your ways, and in time you will be as happy as I am." Mortality is not an isolated experiment, human beings are social creatures and I imagine we always will be.
So god created creatures which are so flawed that they would do things like go on crusades and jihads, wage world wars and commit genocide, so that they might learn from their mistakes?
Learning from one's mistakes is rather difficult too, when one is in hell and is doomed to spend eternity there.
quote:VERY IMPORTANT. Remember that from a Mormon's perspective God did not create the concepts of good or evil, those concepts are eternal in nature and have no beginning or end. God merely understands them perfectly and embodies all that is good, and reveals to us what good and evil is as a means to assist us.
Thanks for the reminder. I sometimes get carried away with a post and forget who I'm writing it to.
quote:
quote:I think the latter part is better worded as 'places an undue sense of finality on mortality', because in my experience and from what I've read, it's theists who expend more time and effort thinking about and discussing mortality. Atheists tend to emphasize life as we know it, and making the most of it while we have it.
Your version of my words works just fine. Theists don't discard mortality as important or even say not to live life to the fullest. We do guard against, "Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." Such a philosophy is damaging and contrary to the truth.
Few atheists say that. Living life to the fullest doesn't mean living like there's no tomorrow, and it certainly doesn't mean behaving amorally to suit yourself (something I've inferred from the 'drinking' part, though I personally don't see drinking as immoral - it makes the advise seem even worse, because usually you get a hang-over the next morning). One should still work to achieve the long-term happiness that only achieving your deepest aspirations will offer. Living life to the fullest can mean bringing up a family, it can be loving someone, being great at your job, or taking pride in yourself and your integrity for being morally upstanding. Happiness involves more than the physical pleasures of a good meal, the giddiness of inebriation, and the enjoyment of a dance.
quote:I leave proving God's existence to God, his format for proving it has satisfied me completely, and I am convinced that were you to attempt the same experiment you would find identical results.
What is the experiment? Is it something I can try without approaching it with a faith in god to begin with?
quote:Also, according to Mormon theology it is not true that animals have no afterlife, they have a duty and purpose as God's creation just as we do, if they fulfill it, they will be happy.
I didn't know that. Thanks.
quote:
quote:What makes you believe that the life and happiness of humans is his goal?
Because He has told me, and I have seen it in my life and the lives of many others.
Is that through scripture, or in a more personal sense?
quote:
quote:
quote:I do believe we as God's creations owe him our loyalty, but he has given us the ability to choose and rationalize for ourselves, and thus I take full advantage of that gift. God created me so that I could live, not so that he could live through me.
Yet you urge us to lean on god's understanding about how to achieve our own happiness.
I am not sure what you are getting at. I didn't say lean perpetually on God's arms and just forget about trying to think. If you are in algebra class would you disagree with me if I said look to the teacher for instruction on algebra? You could consult other students and likely you would get some truth but just as likely misconception and inaccuracy. You could try the text book (assuming you somehow had it without the teacher giving it to you) but more then likely you would just be confused and draw incorrect conclusions from the text.
Leaning on God is not a forfeiture of rational thought, its a test to see if he can teach us things we do not know. To God, the mysteries of the universe are open to him, he can teach us anything that is good for us should we desire it of him. I'd only suggest leaning on God continually if you find that by so doing, your understanding is consciously increasing.
You said that god's goal is the happiness and life of humans, and that as an omniscient being he would know the best way to achieve this goal. So where our understanding and his differ, we should just follow god. In fact, since god's goal is also our own, we should just listen to what he commands and that would be the same as living to achieve happiness.
quote:What do you mean by 'find him'? The way you use the phrase 'seek god' or 'ask and you will receive', it seems as though I have to approach the problem with faith to begin with.
Keeping an open mind to the question of God already demonstrates faith, at least enough faith to consider that possibility. Hoping that there is a God who can tell us what is going on is a step up from there. If you can go that far, I think more often then not God will knock on your door.
quote: But he claimed in his speeches to be guided by God and Providence, and many Nazis believed him. Many believed also that the persecution (and if they knew about it, the systematic genocide) of the Jews was moral because of some higher principle embodied by Hitler.
If Hitler was shown to be a genius with reasoning skills far beyond what was thought humanly possible, would you begin to doubt the immorality of the Holocaust?
That is the beauty of Christianity, nobody can claim exclusive communication with God, a person who really has spoken with God will always encourage others to ask God for themselves if what has been told them is right.
Hitler being smart does not make the holocaust more acceptable. I believe the devil is an exceptionally cunning and clever being, but he is still purely evil. The difference is that God were he to allow his creation to die or actively kill them does so in part as an act of mercy, and always to accomplish greater happiness. What happens if God allows his creation to live in gross sin? He must allow his children to be born into those societies, living lives of misery and iniquity. Better to end that terrible evil existence and bring them to a plane of existence where they can actually learn what existence is all about. (Not happy with the composition of that last sentence btw)
quote: Using your thought experiment/analogy with the left and right, let's imagine again that left is a concept we find ourselves unable to conceive of. Nothing is left, we have no idea what left would mean.
Does that mean that right and centre are meaningless too? Say that we are driving a car, and a passenger tells a driver to follow his nose or to turn right. Those directions would still have meaning, because while right can't be compared with left, it can be compared with centre; if you like, in a metaphorical sense, the absence of rightness.
correct, but by adding the concept of the "center" you are inadvertently presenting concepts that deal with leftness. As evil is the absence of good, the absence of right is the substance of left. I cannot tell you WHY good must exist with evil, I cannot tell you the nature of why things are this way in the first place, I suppose God MIGHT have the answer, but my guess would be that God would say, "It has always been thus from eternity to eternity, and will always be so."
quote: So if evil was inconceivable, there is still a valid comparison between what is good and what is the absence of good.
Understanding is only part of the problem. Can you really say, "I have chosen the good and happiness" if you have never given evil a chance to offer you a well thought out proposal? You know how they say, "What a person does when they have 15 minutes of spare time says alot about that person?" In same token spending a lifetime on the earth without God playing Big Brother says alot about who you are as a person. God already knows the choices we will make, He is allowing us to discover for ourselves just who we are.
quote: We could give ourselves a headache by arguing about whether centre is just the left of right, but really; if evil did not exist and we therefore couldn't conceive of it, what's the point of a moral system? To maximise good? How is that aided by the existence of so much evil?
Again, I do not know why both exist in the first place, I only know that it is so.
quote: Why is it necessarily a 'part of being human'? What does that mean?
According to Christian doctrine, man's natural impulses are base. Correct me if I'm wrong on Mormon doctrine, but that's from the bible.
Mormons believe something similar to that, from the Book of Mormon, "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." If I had to say my POV I would say that God did not intentionally make us flawed, but that is the nature of all human beings, we have an infinite capacity for good or an infinite capacity for evil. God cannot create us in his likeness and still omit that capacity for choosing evil, and like I said if we could not choose evil, we could not truly say we had chosen the good on its own merits. Anyone who thinks there is nothing attractive in evil action is deluding themselves.
quote: Learning from one's mistakes is rather difficult too, when one is in hell and is doomed to spend eternity there.
Again Mormon theology does not support the idea that once you are in hell or heaven, thats it, game over, nothing more to do. There is some Biblical support of this view as well.
quote:So god created creatures which are so flawed that they would do things like go on crusades and jihads, wage world wars and commit genocide, so that they might learn from their mistakes?
That's alittle backwards isn't it? God created human beings knowing that WE of our own volition would choose to do those things, but in spite of those evils, many of us would embrace the light more fully and choose to walk the path God does.
Are you upset with God that human beings by nature have a capacity for evil? Remember, God did not create himself, (Mormon theology), he too knows what it is like to be human and experience temptation. He chose to the path of righteousness and knows its results.
quote: Few atheists say that. Living life to the fullest doesn't mean living like there's no tomorrow, and it certainly doesn't mean behaving amorally to suit yourself (something I've inferred from the 'drinking' part, though I personally don't see drinking as immoral - it makes the advise seem even worse, because usually you get a hang-over the next morning). One should still work to achieve the long-term happiness that only achieving your deepest aspirations will offer. Living life to the fullest can mean bringing up a family, it can be loving someone, being great at your job, or taking pride in yourself and your integrity for being morally upstanding. Happiness involves more than the physical pleasures of a good meal, the giddiness of inebriation, and the enjoyment of a dance.
I was not suggesting that atheists cannot feel a sense of morality. I believe all human beings have some of God's light, and are partially accountable insofar as they know what they are doing.
quote: What is the experiment? Is it something I can try without approaching it with a faith in god to begin with?
Why do you think having ANY faith automatically corrupts the results? Do you apply that same standard to all truth in that you think if anyone hoped the results would be thus we must reject the results if they then are?
quote: Is that through scripture, or in a more personal sense?
Both
quote: You said that god's goal is the happiness and life of humans, and that as an omniscient being he would know the best way to achieve this goal. So where our understanding and his differ, we should just follow god. In fact, since god's goal is also our own, we should just listen to what he commands and that would be the same as living to achieve happiness.
How is that not a forfeiture of rational thought?
Because God actively educates you as to the excellency of his ways. He doesn't just tell us to blindly obey, but he does say take a few steps into the unknown darkness and see if you find the way suddenly illuminated a few more steps.
God constantly commands and then reveals the truth, he does not ALWAYS do it in that order. But the revelation of something we did not know makes our trust in God wax stronger. The more something delivers on its promised results the more we trust it, is that not so? Is that not rational?
So no, you can't just summon God because that does neither you or Him any good. But anyone can seek to acquaint themselves with God and if they are honest in their intentions, they will find Him.
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But your assertion is that one of the reasons we exist is to be exposed to temptation. What if there are temptations you've missed that you really need to experience?
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: But your assertion is that one of the reasons we exist is to be exposed to temptation. What if there are temptations you've missed that you really need to experience?
Again they will all find me eventually. Especially the ones I show a weakness towards.
edit: One of the reasons we live on earth yes is to be exposed to temptation.
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I dunno. There are temptations that you would never feel if you didn't deliberately expose yourself to situations where they'd be likely to arise.
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I'm afraid most of the more esoteric "temptations" that spring easily to mind aren't ones that I could describe in detail here.
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quote:What do you mean by 'find him'? The way you use the phrase 'seek god' or 'ask and you will receive', it seems as though I have to approach the problem with faith to begin with.
Keeping an open mind to the question of God already demonstrates faith, at least enough faith to consider that possibility. Hoping that there is a God who can tell us what is going on is a step up from there. If you can go that far, I think more often then not God will knock on your door.
I think we might be using the word 'faith' differently here. When I concede that god is a possibility, I don't consider that to be a sign of my (weak) faith; I'm conceding it because I have no evidence that precludes all possibility of a god. I define faith as belief unsupported by empirical evidence.
You seem to have replaced the usual 'faith' with 'hope' in that sentence. You know, I really would prefer that there was a benevolent entity willing to explain how this universe works. I'd really like that, and I hope it's true. But god hasn't knocked on my door. What am I doing wrong?
Also, what do you really mean when you say 'knock on your door'? In the context of your post it seems to indicate something personal rather than externally verifiable; like an experience of revelation?
quote:Hitler being smart does not make the holocaust more acceptable.
Glad we agree there.
quote:I believe the devil is an exceptionally cunning and clever being, but he is still purely evil. The difference is that God were he to allow his creation to die or actively kill them does so in part as an act of mercy, and always to accomplish greater happiness.
I made the Hitler analogy for an illustrative purpose. Obviously I know that you wouldn't condone the Holocaust, and that's what makes the illustration work.
The thing is, if a fervent Nazi believes that A) Hitler is morally superior for whatever reason (let's just say that he has faith - belief unsupported empirically) and B) is also convinced that Hitler is capable of normally humanly impossible reasoning, it would follow that from that Nazi's perspective, Hitler would do what is morally righteous, and in a way that is more effective than if the Nazi tried to do it for himself.
There are parallels with god in the genocide scenario. There is no empirical evidence for him or his benevolence, let alone omniscience. Yet you are going to assume that there is a greater happiness to be gained through the genocides god condoned or commanded.
quote:What happens if God allows his creation to live in gross sin? He must allow his children to be born into those societies, living lives of misery and iniquity. Better to end that terrible evil existence and bring them to a plane of existence where they can actually learn what existence is all about. (Not happy with the composition of that last sentence btw)
I'm really not sure what you're trying to get at here. Could you please clarify?
quote:As evil is the absence of good, the absence of right is the substance of left.
I don't necessarily agree that evil is the absence of good; I used the example of light to illustrate the point that good on its own can exist in degrees, without there being an opposite. The closest thing to an absence of good is amorality, not immorality; but as soon as amorality results in an immoral circumstance, the concept of evil will most likely be born.
However I do think the 'Is there good without evil?' question is one which philosophers have been trying to answer for millennia and haven't come to a consensus on.
quote:
quote:So if evil was inconceivable, there is still a valid comparison between what is good and what is the absence of good.
Understanding is only part of the problem. Can you really say, "I have chosen the good and happiness" if you have never given evil a chance to offer you a well thought out proposal?
Why does that matter if the end result is that everyone behaves morally anyway?
quote:You know how they say, "What a person does when they have 15 minutes of spare time says alot about that person?"
I've never heard that before, but okay.
quote: In same token spending a lifetime on the earth without God playing Big Brother says alot about who you are as a person. God already knows the choices we will make, He is allowing us to discover for ourselves just who we are.
How is god not playing Big Brother? I think that's exactly what he's doing. Big Brother in the true 1984 sense constantly observes everyone through cameras and microphones, and tends to know what potential rebels are thinking or will be thinking (the thought police are experts in behaviourist psychology, and have plenty of precedents to study).
Why is it important that we learn this about ourselves, and why through first hand experience? Is that the purpose of our lives? Just to find out what kind of people we are?
quote:
quote:Why is it necessarily a 'part of being human'? What does that mean?
According to Christian doctrine, man's natural impulses are base. Correct me if I'm wrong on Mormon doctrine, but that's from the bible.
Mormons believe something similar to that, from the Book of Mormon, "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." If I had to say my POV I would say that God did not intentionally make us flawed, but that is the nature of all human beings, we have an infinite capacity for good or an infinite capacity for evil.
But god created the 'nature of human beings', did he not?
quote:God cannot create us in his likeness and still omit that capacity for choosing evil, and like I said if we could not choose evil, we could not truly say we had chosen the good on its own merits.
I'm not familiar with Mormon teachings. When you say god's capacity to choose evil, do you mean Jesus being tempted by Satan etc.? Also, what leads you to believe that god would be incapable of creating humans without the inclination to sin?
quote:Anyone who thinks there is nothing attractive in evil action is deluding themselves.
I didn't say that evil was not attractive. I just don't believe that human impulses are naturally or necessarily immoral, as the bible suggests. I'm referring for example to Christianity in a broad sense equating materialism, promiscuity, and even many forms of consumption with sin.
quote:Again Mormon theology does not support the idea that once you are in hell or heaven, thats it, game over, nothing more to do. There is some Biblical support of this view as well.
What can one do to redeem oneself in hell?
Could you point me to the supporting biblical passages?
quote:
quote:So god created creatures which are so flawed that they would do things like go on crusades and jihads, wage world wars and commit genocide, so that they might learn from their mistakes?
That's alittle backwards isn't it? God created human beings knowing that WE of our own volition would choose to do those things, but in spite of those evils, many of us would embrace the light more fully and choose to walk the path God does.
Aren't you just affirming what I said? Sure, we did it out of our own volition, but we ultimately owe that volition and the built-in temptations to god. Did he condone humanity's evil behaviour because it would help others "embrace the light more fully"? If that was god's justification for allowing the Rwandan genocide to happen, I'd find him reprehensible to say the least.
Are you suggesting that such evil exists in order to give Christians a chance to come closer to god? I would find that argument disgusting and highly presumptuous, to be honest.
quote:
quote:What is the experiment? Is it something I can try without approaching it with a faith in god to begin with?
Why do you think having ANY faith automatically corrupts the results? Do you apply that same standard to all truth in that you think if anyone hoped the results would be thus we must reject the results if they then are?
I didn't suggest that having faith in a certain outcome necessarily corrupts the results; so long as the data from the experiment is subjected to thorough scientific scepticism.
What I'm getting at is; if I need faith to initiate the experiment, I've already decided to believe in a certain outcome, and there wouldn't be much need for an experiment any more.
It also makes available to theists a convenient trick to use against opponents; a 'You can't see the evidence because your eyes are clouded by scepticism' argument.
quote:
quote:Is that through scripture, or in a more personal sense?
Both
Could you show me which parts of scripture suggest this?
quote:The more something delivers on its promised results the more we trust it, is that not so? Is that not rational?
Which promised results are we talking about here?
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quote:The issue with tastes and smells is that we lack the mental machinery to revisit smells through long term memory, and our language is ill equipped to accurately describe such qualia.
I can easily "revisit" both smells and tastes, by which I mean call to mind remembered smells and tastes and it is as if I am actually smelling or tasting them. The same with touch. However I have very crappy visual memory. I cannot summon up a remembered visual and see it "in my mind's eye."
I agree that language is ill equipped in this area. I have hypothosized that that is because so few people can revisit (or pre-imagine) smells and tastes compared to those that can do it with vision. We talk about people "having visions" -- what do you call an equivelant experience that is not visual but olfactory, tangible, or taste-based?
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I have summarized all moral code into 6 short words; actually two phrases of three words each.
"Do no harm."
"Do some good."
It is important though that you do both. To live a passive life in which you simply 'do no harm' is not good enough; it is a half-live. To be truly good, you must go out into the world and make a difference, even if it is only a small difference.
Equally, it is a half-life if you think you can do harm and offset it my doing 'some good'.
To live a truly moral life, regardless of religious or non-religious associations, you must both 'do no harm' and 'do some good'.
Personally, I think too many people put way too much emphasis on Jesus. I think Jesus would be very disappointed that we have ignored his message and put all our emphasis on him as the central Idol in a pagan religion.
Jesus said -
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes to the Kingdom but by me."
Yet, he spoke those words in a context, and I think the context was -
"I am showing you the Way, I am showing you the Truth, and I am showing you the Life. No man come to the Kingdom but by these things that I am showing you."
We, in my view, seem to have greatly ignored the message, while deifying the messenger. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily denying the 'divinity' of Christ. I am simply saying the Jesus would be very disappointed in how we have interpreted his message; with all the emphasis on the messenger and so little emphasis on the message.
Others have suggested that it would be infinitely unfair of God to condemn countless people simply because they haven't accept one aspect of one specific religion. I think the roads to God are many and diverse, each as valid as the other when practiced within the guidelines of -
Right. There was another part of this little rant that I was going to add but forgot. Obviously, life is not perfection. You must genuinely TRY to do no harm, and you must genuinely TRY to do some good. Being human we will obviously fail on both counts, but the fact that we realize what we must do, and try-try-try to do that is what counts.
Those convinced of their own sainthood, and with visions of a perfect life, are most certainly bound to be disappointed.
God doesn't expect us to BE saint, but he does expect us to try and be saints.
I can easily "revisit" both smells and tastes, by which I mean call to mind remembered smells and tastes and it is as if I am actually smelling or tasting them. The same with touch. However I have very crappy visual memory. I cannot summon up a remembered visual and see it "in my mind's eye."
I can't imagine what that would be like. All I remember after eating something delicious is my impression of it as being delicious/sweet/etc.
quote:We talk about people "having visions" -- what do you call an equivelant experience that is not visual but olfactory, tangible, or taste-based?
I see the problem. Having a smell indicates BO or having a whiff of something, while having a taste would mean taking a bite out (or trying out a shot of heroin?).
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quote:You seem to have replaced the usual 'faith' with 'hope' in that sentence. You know, I really would prefer that there was a benevolent entity willing to explain how this universe works. I'd really like that, and I hope it's true. But god hasn't knocked on my door. What am I doing wrong?
If you put a loaf of bread in the oven do you say "What am I doing wrong?" when it has been there but a few minutes? If I trust your description of your mindset completely I do not think you are doing anything wrong, just continue to keep an open mind, and continue considering the existence of God in your mind. Live your life as best you can and you will be blessed, of this I am sure. But I cannot postulate what God's will concerning you is
quote:There are parallels with god in the genocide scenario. There is no empirical evidence for him or his benevolence, let alone omniscience. Yet you are going to assume that there is a greater happiness to be gained through the genocides god condoned or commanded.
I agree there are parallels, but not enough to make them synonymous. You are right I cannot summon God to appear before everyone and say that what he does is just and right.
But I can encourage you or anyone else to seek a communique from God about the matter, and I fully expect a personal revelation to be within the realms of possibility.
quote: I'm really not sure what you're trying to get at here. Could you please clarify?
I'm attempting to a degree to shed some light on why genocide of an evil populace could be justified on a basis of minimizing suffering and maximizing happiness.
quote: I don't necessarily agree that evil is the absence of good; I used the example of light to illustrate the point that good on its own can exist in degrees, without there being an opposite. The closest thing to an absence of good is amorality, not immorality; but as soon as amorality results in an immoral circumstance, the concept of evil will most likely be born.
However I do think the 'Is there good without evil?' question is one which philosophers have been trying to answer for millennia and haven't come to a consensus on.
quote: Why does that matter if the end result is that everyone behaves morally anyway?
Well, 1: People are not behaving morally, they are acting morally without any say on the matter.
2: If I am coerced into doing good I am not acting morally, as it is immoral to force someone to act in any fashion.
If you do not know how to ride a bicycle and I offer to ride with you tangent, and I ride in the front and you just sit in the back and watch or at best mimic my peddling motion do you truly learn how to ride a bicycle?
God is trying to give us an experience in good and evil. He wants us to learn for ourselves what the results of right living and evil living are.
quote: How is god not playing Big Brother? I think that's exactly what he's doing. Big Brother in the true 1984 sense constantly observes everyone through cameras and microphones, and tends to know what potential rebels are thinking or will be thinking (the thought police are experts in behaviourist psychology, and have plenty of precedents to study).
I don't want to just say you are wrong, but I think if God was really trying to play big brother he would be doing alot more direct interfering with what you do on a day to day basis. As it is, if I chose here and now to do my very best to convince you to disbelieve in the existence of a God and try to undermine the religion I currently believe is the truth, I have virtually no doubt that God would let me be your stumbling block.
But more realistically if I inadvertently say something that offends you to the point that you never want to hear about Mormonism again, I again doubt God would stop that. He would likely do something to soften your heart again, but no guarantees that it will happen soon or even in this life.
quote:Why is it important that we learn this about ourselves, and why through first hand experience? Is that the purpose of our lives? Just to find out what kind of people we are?
Well yes, and to realize that our potential is limitless, but there are principles that must be obeyed if we are to be happy and progress. As we obtain knowledge and abide by it we are entrusted with greater knowledge ad infinitum.
quote: I'm not familiar with Mormon teachings. When you say god's capacity to choose evil, do you mean Jesus being tempted by Satan etc.? Also, what leads you to believe that god would be incapable of creating humans without the inclination to sin?
When I say God's capacity to choose evil I mean it in a literal sense. If I were to speculate, I would say that were God to sin, the entire universe would cease to exist. God is not unable to sin, he simply chooses not to, as he has himself faced temptation of increasing degrees until he has conquered all of it and firmly planted his feet on the path of righteousness.
Jesus is a real world example of this process. He was tempted (and if he were incapable of sin why would Satan have bothered in the first place?) and yet he yielded not to temptation. Mormon scripture helps shed some light on this principle, when Jesus speaks in the NT he says, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect." In the Book of Mormon Christ says after his crucifixion and resurrection, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as I or your father in heaven is perfect."
Christ lived a life of perfection from start to finish, and crushed the serpents head, thus obtaining a perfect state. He is the perfect example of what we should all strive to emulate.
I believe Christ is still capable of sin, but he has conquered all temptation and there is nothing that could entice him away from righteousness.
quote: What can one do to redeem oneself in hell?
Could you point me to the supporting biblical passages?
I am not sure what one can do to redeem themselves, but since I believe that human experience shows that somebody is either progressing or its opposite, I do not believe one dies and eternally remains static in their condition. As for scriptural passages, consider 1Peter, where Peter mentions what Christ was doing for the 3 days he was dead and not yet resurrected, 1Peter 3:18-20
quote: Aren't you just affirming what I said? Sure, we did it out of our own volition, but we ultimately owe that volition and the built-in temptations to god. Did he condone humanity's evil behaviour because it would help others "embrace the light more fully"? If that was god's justification for allowing the Rwandan genocide to happen, I'd find him reprehensible to say the least.
I can agree that God is in a sense responsible for the evil that humankind will commit as he allows Satan to tempt us. But God does not tempt us himself, temptation is a part of existence. But just because some people will refuse to be educated, or even use education towards evil ends, that in of itself is not a good enough reasons to keep everyone in ignorance and educate nobody.
quote: Are you suggesting that such evil exists in order to give Christians a chance to come closer to god? I would find that argument disgusting and highly presumptuous, to be honest.
When did I say just Christians? I think everyone in the world has opportunities to live and grow. Christians may have an advantage in that they IMO are in possession of more truth then many others, that is not even close to a get out of jail free card. Not to mention that the more truth you have, the more condemnation you stand to receive if you sin against it. Jesus himself says that many who profess to follow him will find the gates of heaven shut.
quote: What I'm getting at is; if I need faith to initiate the experiment, I've already decided to believe in a certain outcome, and there wouldn't be much need for an experiment any more.
It also makes available to theists a convenient trick to use against opponents; a 'You can't see the evidence because your eyes are clouded by scepticism' argument.
You can have a hope that a result is true and still keep your skepticism intact. I would not suggest you profess loyalty to God until you yourself are convinced of his presence. I do not believe skepticism in of itself deadens your senses to God. It like anything else must be used in moderation, like when you start asking for visual manifestations of God's power before you will profess belief. Skepticism can become hard heartedness, just as somebody who is, " too believing" can be lead astray.
quote: Could you show me which parts of scripture suggest this?
Thanks for your reply, and for being patient and reasonable with me in the other thread.
quote:If you put a loaf of bread in the oven do you say "What am I doing wrong?" when it has been there but a few minutes? If I trust your description of your mindset completely I do not think you are doing anything wrong, just continue to keep an open mind, and continue considering the existence of God in your mind. Live your life as best you can and you will be blessed, of this I am sure. But I cannot postulate what God's will concerning you is
Okay, I'll do that. I'll let you know if I hear from Him.
quote:But I can encourage you or anyone else to seek a communique from God about the matter, and I fully expect a personal revelation to be within the realms of possibility.
Has god spoken to you about that particular genocide? Did he explain why it was necessary?
quote:I'm attempting to a degree to shed some light on why genocide of an evil populace could be justified on a basis of minimizing suffering and maximizing happiness.
We are still talking about the genocide of the Midianites in the book of Numbers, right? What made them "an evil populace" apart from worshipping other gods like Baal, and for some of the women, seducing Israelite men?
quote:
quote:Why does that matter if the end result is that everyone behaves morally anyway?
Well, 1: People are not behaving morally, they are acting morally without any say on the matter.
2: If I am coerced into doing good I am not acting morally, as it is immoral to force someone to act in any fashion.
I'm not sure if it's coercion if god simply defined the 'nature of humanity' as basically good.
quote:God is trying to give us an experience in good and evil. He wants us to learn for ourselves what the results of right living and evil living are.
Okay, but the way this world runs, it seems like a very inaccurate way to teach people the results of right living and evil living.
quote:But more realistically if I inadvertently say something that offends you to the point that you never want to hear about Mormonism again, I again doubt God would stop that. He would likely do something to soften your heart again, but no guarantees that it will happen soon or even in this life.
That kind of precludes any method I could use to deny it, doesn't it? Couldn't I say that at some point in the future but not necessarily in this life, Allah or an invisible pink unicorn will visit you in your dreams?
quote:Jesus is a real world example of this process. He was tempted (and if he were incapable of sin why would Satan have bothered in the first place?) and yet he yielded not to temptation.
That's a great question, which I'd like to ask anyone who believes in the trinity but also that god is incapable of sin.
quote:
quote:What can one do to redeem oneself in hell?
Could you point me to the supporting biblical passages?
I am not sure what one can do to redeem themselves, but since I believe that human experience shows that somebody is either progressing or its opposite, I do not believe one dies and eternally remains static in their condition. As for scriptural passages, consider 1Peter, where Peter mentions what Christ was doing for the 3 days he was dead and not yet resurrected, 1Peter 3:18-20
I see. The Harrowing seems to be a one-off event though. Otherwise scripture is rather insistent that a sinner's term in hell is eternal.
quote:
quote:Aren't you just affirming what I said? Sure, we did it out of our own volition, but we ultimately owe that volition and the built-in temptations to god. Did he condone humanity's evil behaviour because it would help others "embrace the light more fully"? If that was god's justification for allowing the Rwandan genocide to happen, I'd find him reprehensible to say the least.
I can agree that God is in a sense responsible for the evil that humankind will commit as he allows Satan to tempt us. But God does not tempt us himself, temptation is a part of existence. But just because some people will refuse to be educated, or even use education towards evil ends, that in of itself is not a good enough reasons to keep everyone in ignorance and educate nobody.
But what of the people who were actually killed in those genocides? I'm sure many if not the vast majority of them were decent people.
quote:
quote:Are you suggesting that such evil exists in order to give Christians a chance to come closer to god? I would find that argument disgusting and highly presumptuous, to be honest.
When did I say just Christians? I think everyone in the world has opportunities to live and grow. Christians may have an advantage in that they IMO are in possession of more truth then many others, that is not even close to a get out of jail free card. Not to mention that the more truth you have, the more condemnation you stand to receive if you sin against it. Jesus himself says that many who profess to follow him will find the gates of heaven shut.
But if Christianity is the truth, then religions like Hinduism would be less close to god than say, Judaism, right?
I'm not sure how including more than just Christians makes this much better. Genocides and rape happen because it causes others who are close to god to come closer to him?
quote:You can have a hope that a result is true and still keep your skepticism intact.
I guess I'm not quite doing that.
That is, I hope that there is a god that can tell me the truth and is benevolent and watches over me, but I wouldn't want to meet anyone like Yahweh, if we take scripture as truth.
quote:I would not suggest you profess loyalty to God until you yourself are convinced of his presence.
Oh, good.
quote:
quote:Could you show me which parts of scripture suggest this?
The power of the Holy Ghost is no small thing, as I have learned from experience.
That verse doesn't indicate that god's goal is human life and happiness. It says that god is happy to grant wisdom to those who honestly seek it from him and are faithful; but will not grant it to the "wavering" (I think religious sceptics fall under that category).
quote:
quote:Which promised results are we talking about here?
Actual personal communication from God to you.
In your experience, what form does this personal communication take?
It's a leading question; sorry. As you know, from my perspective any claim to personal revelation has to be treated with extreme scepticism. There are so many more plausible explanations for these experiences that are grounded in science and psychology.
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quote:Originally posted by Euripides: We are still talking about the genocide of the Midianites in the book of Numbers, right? What made them "an evil populace" apart from worshipping other gods like Baal, and for some of the women, seducing Israelite men?
It wasn't exactly a case of "some women". It was a national decision, and the women who did it were acting as agents of all of them.
Had it been up to me, every single member of the Nazi Party -- every single person who fought on the Nazi side in WWII -- would have been put to death. That's pretty close to genocide, no? But it would have been justified. When a nation attempts to destroy you, the only sane thing to do is to destroy them. The idea of war as some sort of Marquis of Queensbury game is horrible.
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Thanks for your reply, and for being patient and reasonable with me in the other thread.
Likewise thank you for being so enjoyable to discuss things with.
quote:Has god spoken to you about that particular genocide? Did he explain why it was necessary?
I have not personally asked for a detailed justification of that particular genocide TBH. As I said before, I believe God to be good, and all he does is just, not because he defines what is just but because he knows what is just. I do expect to fully understand why such drastic measures were taken, as it stands I think I have some ideas, but nothing that I think stands up completely.
quote: We are still talking about the genocide of the Midianites in the book of Numbers, right? What made them "an evil populace" apart from worshipping other gods like Baal, and for some of the women, seducing Israelite men?
Again I can only speculate. Remember the Israelites at this point had left Egypt only 40 years ago, and they had wandered those 40 years because the openly revolted against God who had done so much for them right before their eyes. Now that they were finally being given the promised land they are found mingling with the Canaanites and worshiping their Gods. I detailed in a previous page the evils of Canaanite God worship. We should also consider that at the time the Midionites were actively seeking ways they could destroy Israel, such as soliciting the help of Balaam the prophet hoping to curse Israel.
Try also to consider that the Midianites were not all wiped out in this incident. We see them back in business oppressing a wicked Israel when we read in Judges 6.
quote: I'm not sure if it's coercion if god simply defined the 'nature of humanity' as basically good.
I do not think God can do that. It might interest you to know that according to some of our scriptures, Satan fell from grace to demonic status because he posed a plan in opposition to God's plan. His plan was in effect to control all of humanity during their time on earth and force them into doing only good by taking away their agency. His mistaken rationale was that, "Not one soul would be lost." God rejected that plan, and Satan got angry and rebelled, as well as convincing a sizable number of God's unborn spirit children to rebel with him.
Obviously we will have to disagree on whether human beings can truly accept righteousness with or without evils existence. The logic makes sense in my head, and I believe God when he says righteousness must exist as must wickedness.
quote: Okay, but the way this world runs, it seems like a very inaccurate way to teach people the results of right living and evil living.
You are welcome to pose a better plan.
quote: That kind of precludes any method I could use to deny it, doesn't it? Couldn't I say that at some point in the future but not necessarily in this life, Allah or an invisible pink unicorn will visit you in your dreams?
You could, but I did not say anything about dreams. God has myriad ways of contacting us. I suspect he would use a means that would be perceived by you, possibly only you. Also again, I leave it to God to explain to you why he made you wait until you were dead to explain things.
How about this, if you and I die and God has no good explanation for you, you can come find me and tell me off.
quote: I see. The Harrowing seems to be a one-off event though. Otherwise scripture is rather insistent that a sinner's term in hell is eternal.
What of, Psalms 16:10 General consensus is this Psalm was written after David murdered Uriah and Nathan the prophet condemned him. David was guilty of murder, and yet we find that he does not believe that he will abide eternally in hell.
Also realize that Mormon scripture in detail explains that scriptures stating, "eternal punishment" or "eternal damnation" do not literally mean "forever." If you are interested in reading some of these explanations that God himself gives just say so and Ill link some.
quote: But what of the people who were actually killed in those genocides? I'm sure many if not the vast majority of them were decent people.
Do you have any proof? But disregarding that, remember death is not so bad when there is the possibility of a better existence in the next. Plenty of babies come into the world and die either at or soon after birth.
quote: But if Christianity is the truth, then religions like Hinduism would be less close to god than say, Judaism, right?
I'm not sure how including more than just Christians makes this much better. Genocides and rape happen because it causes others who are close to god to come closer to him?
Not necessarily, but "close to God" is sorta vague. I personally believe that Prince Siddhartha was likely inspired by God. In addition I found it often much more difficult to do missionary work with other Christians then certain Buddhists. Christians were certain that I was the cultist and they had the real Jesus.
quote: I'm not sure how including more than just Christians makes this much better. Genocides and rape happen because it causes others who are close to god to come closer to him?
I'm alittle lost, how did I say that genocides bring people closer to God? At best it demonstrates the horrors of evil, and shows us the folly of choosing evil.
quote: I guess I'm not quite doing that.
That is, I hope that there is a god that can tell me the truth and is benevolent and watches over me, but I wouldn't want to meet anyone like Yahweh, if we take scripture as truth.
Well the scriptures do not pretend to tell the whole tale.
quote: That verse doesn't indicate that god's goal is human life and happiness. It says that god is happy to grant wisdom to those who honestly seek it from him and are faithful; but will not grant it to the "wavering" (I think religious sceptics fall under that category).
Sorry I thought you were requesting a scripture that indicates God will provide us with personal experiences wherein he speaks the truth to us. There are many scriptures where God says his goal is our happiness, Ezekiel 18:23
from Mormon scripture, God's description of his purpose, "39 For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." and, "Men are that they might have joy."
I earnestly do not think "wavering" is the equivalent of "skeptical." You yourself said you hope that a good God is a reality, I should think wavering would be a hesitancy to commit to follow God should he reveal himself to you. Faith is important because it helps us to prepare to make the commitment that should God reveal his will to us, that we will obey.
Thomas' problem was that he did not even hope the disciples were telling the truth. If he had been paying attention to what Jesus had said more earnestly Christs resurrection should have been expected, and his faith that the disciples were telling the truth would have increased. Thomas clearly either did not realize this, or would not realize this.
That I think is why Jesus says, "Blessed are those who have not seen me and yet believe."
quote: In your experience, what form does this personal communication take?
It's a leading question; sorry. As you know, from my perspective any claim to personal revelation has to be treated with extreme scepticism. There are so many more plausible explanations for these experiences that are grounded in science and psychology.
And you are right to be careful, I too believe that for whatever means God uses to contact people Satan has a similar counterfeit means of doing so. Almost nothing is more dangerous then a person who has been convinced by Satan to believe that God has commanded them to do something evil. Like I said previously, make sure you do not have an overabundance of skepticism. Its hard for me to detail my own experiences as I hold them sacred to me. Conversely I do not want to just say, "When it happens, you will know." There are guidelines that God operates within, but there is not a set manner in which he reveals himself to us. But I will say that when God uses the Holy Ghost to communicate with men it is more convincing and powerful then any single sense confirming the same truth.
I guess I could suggest that you continue to cultivate a personality that were God to speak with you, that it would be to your blessing not detriment. To whatever degree you are comfortable study the supposed writings that describe God and the universe, and decide what seems right and what seems wrong.
I have always felt that God cares not so much about where on the path of righteousness we are, but more what direction we are facing.
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quote:Had it been up to me, every single member of the Nazi Party -- every single person who fought on the Nazi side in WWII -- would have been put to death. That's pretty close to genocide, no? But it would have been justified. When a nation attempts to destroy you, the only sane thing to do is to destroy them. The idea of war as some sort of Marquis of Queensbury game is horrible.
I'm very happy you weren't in charge of the Occupation.
BlackBlade,
quote:
quote:We are still talking about the genocide of the Midianites in the book of Numbers, right? What made them "an evil populace" apart from worshipping other gods like Baal, and for some of the women, seducing Israelite men?
Again I can only speculate. Remember the Israelites at this point had left Egypt only 40 years ago, and they had wandered those 40 years because the openly revolted against God who had done so much for them right before their eyes. Now that they were finally being given the promised land they are found mingling with the Canaanites and worshiping their Gods. I detailed in a previous page the evils of Canaanite God worship. We should also consider that at the time the Midionites were actively seeking ways they could destroy Israel, such as soliciting the help of Balaam the prophet hoping to curse Israel.
The latter point is more important I think, because mosaic law in practice, while an improvement over other religious practices, was still very heavy-handed and IMO evil. I'm also wary of pre-emptive wars, and strongly doubt that a genocide was necessary to stop them or cause them to reconsider.
And if they weren't superstitious, they wouldn't have feared Balaam; but of course we judge them by the standards of their times.
quote:Try also to consider that the Midianites were not all wiped out in this incident. We see them back in business oppressing a wicked Israel when we read in Judges 6.
This is true. Yet what we call genocides in history have rarely if ever been complete. Further, the cause of their oppression and hostility to Israel was at least partially grounded in the genocide they suffered in the book of Numbers.
quote:
quote:Okay, but the way this world runs, it seems like a very inaccurate way to teach people the results of right living and evil living.
You are welcome to pose a better plan.
Well, don't you know good people who nevertheless suffer both physically and psychologically?
quote:How about this, if you and I die and God has no good explanation for you, you can come find me and tell me off.
Um, yeah. Okay.
quote:
quote:I see. The Harrowing seems to be a one-off event though. Otherwise scripture is rather insistent that a sinner's term in hell is eternal.
What of, Psalms 16:10 General consensus is this Psalm was written after David murdered Uriah and Nathan the prophet condemned him. David was guilty of murder, and yet we find that he does not believe that he will abide eternally in hell.
To be fair though, that's what David believed. And even if he didn't remain in hell, there are a long list of verses impressing upon bible readers that hell is a place one goes for eternity. Matthew 18:8-9 for example, or Mark 9:43-48, or 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9.
quote:Also realize that Mormon scripture in detail explains that scriptures stating, "eternal punishment" or "eternal damnation" do not literally mean "forever." If you are interested in reading some of these explanations that God himself gives just say so and Ill link some.
If you don't mind, that would be great.
quote:
quote:But what of the people who were actually killed in those genocides? I'm sure many if not the vast majority of them were decent people.
Do you have any proof? But disregarding that, remember death is not so bad when there is the possibility of a better existence in the next. Plenty of babies come into the world and die either at or soon after birth.
I was referring to Rwanda at the time.
The belief that death is not so bad; that's one of the more frightening conclusions of religious belief.
quote:
quote:I'm not sure how including more than just Christians makes this much better. Genocides and rape happen because it causes others who are close to god to come closer to him?
I'm alittle lost, how did I say that genocides bring people closer to God? At best it demonstrates the horrors of evil, and shows us the folly of choosing evil.
Well, you said that evil is permitted to exist because it encourages people to reject it and come closer to god.
quote:There are many scriptures where God says his goal is our happiness, Ezekiel 18:23
from Mormon scripture, God's description of his purpose, "39 For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." and, "Men are that they might have joy."
Okay, thanks.
Doesn't the bible also say things like "the Lord is a man of war" (Exodus 15:3), and why does god choose the Israelites, and clear Canaan of its inhabitants to make way for them? Where all the Canaanites irredeemable? And what to make of Matthew 10:14-15?
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posted
I apologize that this took me so long to respond to, honestly I forgot about the thread
quote: The latter point is more important I think, because mosaic law in practice, while an improvement over other religious practices, was still very heavy-handed and IMO evil. I'm also wary of pre-emptive wars, and strongly doubt that a genocide was necessary to stop them or cause them to reconsider.
And if they weren't superstitious, they wouldn't have feared Balaam; but of course we judge them by the standards of their times.
Apparently our mileage varies. I was not suggesting that Balaam could have succeeded in cursing Israel, indeed by his own admission he could do no more or less then what God commanded him to say. I was merely using Balaam as an example of what the Midianites were planning.
quote: This is true. Yet what we call genocides in history have rarely if ever been complete. Further, the cause of their oppression and hostility to Israel was at least partially grounded in the genocide they suffered in the book of Numbers.
But do we have evidence that genocide took place or was even attempted? Would we call Japan's invasion of China a genocide? Millions of Chinese were killed, but I think were we to call that a genocide it would become synonymous with, "Waging war with one ethnic group."
Is it possible that the Israelites did not wage war with all of Moab and simply stopped fighting the Midianites when the ones they had issue with were defeated/slain?
I agree the Midianites were probably not endeared to the Israelites after the events of numbers.
quote: Well, don't you know good people who nevertheless suffer both physically and psychologically?
Yes, Jesus.
quote: To be fair though, that's what David believed. And even if he didn't remain in hell, there are a long list of verses impressing upon bible readers that hell is a place one goes for eternity. Matthew 18:8-9 for example, or Mark 9:43-48, or 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9.
quote:Also realize that Mormon scripture in detail explains that scriptures stating, "eternal punishment" or "eternal damnation" do not literally mean "forever." If you are interested in reading some of these explanations that God himself gives just say so and Ill link some.
If you are interested continue reading and Christ describes the exquisiteness of the pain that constitutes, "God's Punishment" that he himself experienced on behalf of humanity in the garden of Gethsemane.
quote: The belief that death is not so bad; that's one of the more frightening conclusions of religious belief.
It can also be one of our more wonderful tenants. Its only frightening insofar as we say to ourselves, "Killing this man is not as bad as its not as if I am wiping out his existence." Or if we say, "Murder ought not to be punishes as seriously as it is." Indeed within Christianity harsh measures are suggested to punish murderers regardless of intent.
Look at the Sanhedrin procedure in criminal cases. It took ALOT to convict somebody to death, and there were many small things that could prevent a death sentence from being passed.
Just because we believe that when somebody dies that they may be going on to a better place or even at worst, that they still exist does not mean we do not hold life precious.
quote: Well, you said that evil is permitted to exist because it encourages people to reject it and come closer to god.
"Permitted to exist" may not be the phrase I want to use. Speaking for myself I do not believe God can force evil into a jar and hide it in the pantry. Evil has its territory and bounds, just as righteousness does. I cannot pretend to even begin to comprehend the full nature of evil, where it came from, and where it exists in the universe. I imagine that will be more understood after I have thrown off its influence on me entirely.
God is not in the business of sending us to earth on vacation, he is trying to make us perfect like he is, and that includes making decisions and living with the consequences. God should not hide the evil or the consequences of sin from us, else how could we possibly recognize evil for what it is? You may think, "Alright already I get it, evil bad, righteous good!" But that does not prevent you from succumbing to your own weaknesses. God does not have weaknesses, or vices. He is perfect and thus, perfectly happy.
quote: Doesn't the bible also say things like "the Lord is a man of war" (Exodus 15:3), and why does god choose the Israelites, and clear Canaan of its inhabitants to make way for them? Where all the Canaanites irredeemable? And what to make of Matthew 10:14-15?
God is certainly capable of war, and will certainly assist the righteous in their wars against the wicked. That does not mean he is some sort of God of War that must be prayed to specifically at the start of any conflict to ensure victory. Good and Evil are constantly at war. God's stance on war as far as I can tell is a very complicated one. I too have alot of questions about the topic. In some instances God seems like he allows his followers to go to war for their own self preservation, but in others he points out the virtues of refusing to fight and trusting in his power. All I can really suggest is continued study for enlightenment, I do not have a satisfactory answer for war in all respects. I do know that if everyone follows God's will, war amongst human beings would cease.
God chose the Israelites over the Canaanites because the Canaanites according to God were evil and to the point that they could not be saved. For Mormons we believe the American continents to be a chosen land. It is believed that if we reject God he will scourge us and drive us from the land until we repent. I am having trouble recalling the verse but God says to the Israelites in effect, "Do you think I would have allowed you to drive the Canaanites out of their land if they had been righteous? Why do you think you are inherently better then them?"
Your Matthew verse is a very complicated concept but Ill do my best to explain it. Remember these instructions were given to the Apostles by Jesus, so its not as if Jesus is saying, "Missionaries must all use this procedure." Apostles are Jesus' official messengers, and represent Him in a more literal way then your average Christian. If they are turned away at a home, they are to leave. If an entire city rejects their message then they dust off their feet as a demonstration that they have fulfilled their responsibilities as witnesses of Christ to that city. If the gospel is true, then an entire city rejecting it would have to be an uncommon demonstration of moral decadence.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Would we call Japan's invasion of China a genocide? Millions of Chinese were killed, but I think were we to call that a genocide it would become synonymous with, "Waging war with one ethnic group."
Bad example. I'd certainly call what happened at Nanking genocide. It certainly fits under the internationally recognized definition of genocide at the UN.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Would we call Japan's invasion of China a genocide? Millions of Chinese were killed, but I think were we to call that a genocide it would become synonymous with, "Waging war with one ethnic group."
Bad example. I'd certainly call what happened at Nanking genocide. It certainly fits under the internationally recognized definition of genocide at the UN.
If you don't mind, could you enlighten me on what the UN's definition of genocide is?
The Rape of Nanjing stands as one of the worst atrocities committed in WW2 perhaps even one of the worst atrocities of history entire. But does that incident alone make the entire invasion a genocide? Again Japan was invading China, they were trying to subjugate them, they certainly were not trying to kill them all, aside from the fact such a feat would have been impossible IMO. Look at Taiwan who quickly succumbed. The Japanese went to work trying to make them Japanese, and erase their Chinese heritage. But there was no mass slaughter.
Again when you are only fighting the Chinese, can we really call it genocide? Look at how the Japanese utilized Pu Yi and the puppet state of Manchukuo. Why all these attempts to correct and supervise the "Sick old man of Asia?" The Japanese even described China as, "Big Brother" and themselves as, "Little Brother." I really do not think Japan either in intention or accomplishment waged a war of genocide. They certainly acted barbarously and beyond contempt.
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posted
Article two is probably the most relevant. link
I was really more talking about the massacre itself being a genocide. The problem is that the massacre is such a dominant part of the invasion that two become intertwined. Nanking no more makes the Japanese invasion as a whole genocide, then the Holocaust makes German expansion in WWII as a whole genocide. But in both cases, the two are so interrelated that its well ... a bad example.
In any case, the massacre itself definitely fits the definition.
In addition, your example of Taiwan would fit c)
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posted
I will have to reevalutate how I use genocide then as I limit it to ethnic groups and do not include religions. I think the key element in genocide is, "intent to destroy."
I don't think Taiwan falls under C. The Japanese did not destroy crops or salt fields or even impose conditions that made life impossible. They simply required Chinese children to learn Japanese, learn Japanese culture and practices. I am not saying it was OK, it was terrible, but attempting to destroy a culture is not the same thing as trying to destroy a people.
As an interesting side note, if you go to Taiwan today and meet very old folks, it is not uncommon for them to still know how to speak Japanese or even watch Japanese television. Strangely enough there is also a craze amongst the younger generation for everything Japanese, many of them choose to learn the language as a hobby.
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posted
I guess its semantics in a way. As I see it, you had Chinese people in Taiwan, the Japanese invaded and then put in place conditions of life designed to destroy the Chinese as a group and convert them to the Japanese. If they were successful, there would no longer be Chinese people in Taiwan. That to me seems to be intent to destroy that group. This also seems to be the spirit of the convention especially when you look at the intent behind e).
Even if the Japanese invaded without killing a single person, but abducted and brainwashed all the Chinese children into becoming model Japanese citizens, it would still be covered.
The key element is "intent to destroy" but the convention does not necessarily limit the methods to violence and death. The Japanese were also quite clear that they intended to do the same thing in Taiwan and Manchukuo to all Chinese people, a national and ethnic group under that definition. It definitely fits.
As for the rest, it is an interesting and a very human tendency to fall into this characteristic love-hate relationship.
Ironically, the Japanese were first when China was strong, they copied huge swaths of Chinese culture. But underneath it all was a hatred, a burning inferiority complex that came to surface during the Nanking Massacre. Centuries of being looked down on, the Japanese leapt at a chance to look down on and dehumanize the Chinese in turn.
Of course the Japanese had a similar relationship with America when they were "opened" by Commodore Perry. Look up to the Americans and Europeans, copy them. Look down on their crimes in colonialism (which was their pretext for invading a number of Asian countries) but then have a burning desire to eclipse them in the same as a new colonial power under their "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" Its all very contradictory.
The same thing happens in China now. Japanese culture, anime, Hello Kitty, all that stuff is immensely popular (along with American stuff like McDonalds) because it symbolises the good prosperous life, because its a part of the life they want to have. At the same time, the same people (and I literally mean the very same people, successful middle-class university students are a good example) are just as likely to demonstrate and protest when the slightest provocation comes from Japan (see the Japanese visit to their Shinto (war criminal) shine) or from the US (spy plane incident, bombing in Belgrade). Its a love-hate relationship mixed with a inferiority complex.
quote:Originally posted by dkw: We talk about people "having visions" -- what do you call an equivalent experience that is not visual but olfactory, tangible, or taste-based?
quote:I apologize that this took me so long to respond to, honestly I forgot about the thread
No problem.
quote:Apparently our mileage varies. I was not suggesting that Balaam could have succeeded in cursing Israel, indeed by his own admission he could do no more or less then what God commanded him to say. I was merely using Balaam as an example of what the Midianites were planning.
We might have to agree to disagree on this matter. I think that genocide, 99.99999999[add more nines]% of the time can not be justified and is always a moral abomination. You believe that the genocides Yahweh helped to orchestrate or otherwise condoned were either justified, or examples of god letting human agency take its course. Am I right?
quote:But do we have evidence that genocide took place or was even attempted?
Aren't we talking about the Bible on the premise that it's true, since you believe it is?
quote:Would we call Japan's invasion of China a genocide? Millions of Chinese were killed, but I think were we to call that a genocide it would become synonymous with, "Waging war with one ethnic group."
Well, there are grey areas in defining the word, but as Mucus pointed out, the massacre at Nanjing probably fits the definition. And how about those instances where advancing Japanese troops burned Chinese villages to the ground, killed the men and children, and (gang-)raped the women repeatedly and then killed them; I don't know if that fits the technical definition of genocide, but for the sake of moral evaluation it's just as abominable. Unfortunately people have been doing those things for centuries during times of war. Since genocide is a fairly new word (at least only popularized recently), we don't often think of applying it to say, Mediaeval times.
I wonder, if the imperial Japanese weren't so convinced of their racial superiority and the divinity of their emperor, if they would have applied more rational thinking to their atrocious occupation policies in all territories. Not only was it inhumane, but it was so utterly opposed to what was in their rational self-interest considering their goals at the time. Take Indonesia for example. In places they were greeted as liberators, and offered gifts of rice. What do the soldiers do? Slap the Indonesians around, enforce harsh curfews, silence trouble makers, et cetera. They also destroyed a lot of infrastructure in oil rich nations, doing a great job of alienating the local workforce (e.g. see Myanmar, or Burma at the time); something that would bite them later, when the Japanese merchant marine was virtually non-existent, and even the homeland was starved of supplies. You'll recall that the Yamato, which, along with her sister ship was the largest battleship ever built (think how many planes the steel could have made), was beached and used as an artillery platform because it ran out of oil.
It's not just cruelty. It's utter stupidity as well.
Apologies for the tangential rant.
quote:Is it possible that the Israelites did not wage war with all of Moab and simply stopped fighting the Midianites when the ones they had issue with were defeated/slain?
Well sure. According to their god, they had issue with everyone but the virgin girls.
That's genocide.
quote:I agree the Midianites were probably not endeared to the Israelites after the events of numbers.
If you are interested continue reading and Christ describes the exquisiteness of the pain that constitutes, "God's Punishment" that he himself experienced on behalf of humanity in the garden of Gethsemane.
Thanks. And I'm reading the Bible cover to cover now. One of these days, after the Torah and the Qur'an and the Bhagavad Gita, I'll get to the LDS texts.
quote:
quote:The belief that death is not so bad; that's one of the more frightening conclusions of religious belief.
It can also be one of our more wonderful tenants. Its only frightening insofar as we say to ourselves, "Killing this man is not as bad as its not as if I am wiping out his existence." Or if we say, "Murder ought not to be punishes as seriously as it is." Indeed within Christianity harsh measures are suggested to punish murderers regardless of intent.
It could also be reprehensible when say, a person is encouraged to rough out hardships on Earth and forego certain worldly ambitions and pleasures in the name of the afterlife.
quote:Look at the Sanhedrin procedure in criminal cases. It took ALOT to convict somebody to death, and there were many small things that could prevent a death sentence from being passed.
Yep, rivka pointed that out to me a while ago.
quote:Just because we believe that when somebody dies that they may be going on to a better place or even at worst, that they still exist does not mean we do not hold life precious.
But honestly, it would mean that you hold life on Earth as less precious than someone who believes that it is the sum total of life, wouldn't it?
quote:I do know that if everyone follows God's will, war amongst human beings would cease.
Sure, if everyone adopted the same religion and the same denomination, with exactly the same interpretation of what god wants and condones, and remains that way forever, I agree.
quote:God chose the Israelites over the Canaanites because the Canaanites according to God were evil and to the point that they could not be saved. For Mormons we believe the American continents to be a chosen land. It is believed that if we reject God he will scourge us and drive us from the land until we repent. I am having trouble recalling the verse but God says to the Israelites in effect, "Do you think I would have allowed you to drive the Canaanites out of their land if they had been righteous? Why do you think you are inherently better then them?"
Do you believe that every single Canaanite was wicked?
quote:Your Matthew verse is a very complicated concept but Ill do my best to explain it. Remember these instructions were given to the Apostles by Jesus, so its not as if Jesus is saying, "Missionaries must all use this procedure." Apostles are Jesus' official messengers, and represent Him in a more literal way then your average Christian. If they are turned away at a home, they are to leave. If an entire city rejects their message then they dust off their feet as a demonstration that they have fulfilled their responsibilities as witnesses of Christ to that city. If the gospel is true, then an entire city rejecting it would have to be an uncommon demonstration of moral decadence.
So if a missionary (a special one, who has a very close relationship to god) preaches at a city but fails to impress its inhabitants (would the Athenians count among them?), the city deserves a fate worse than that of Sodom and Gomorrha?
Mucus,
quote:The key element is "intent to destroy" but the convention does not necessarily limit the methods to violence and death. The Japanese were also quite clear that they intended to do the same thing in Taiwan and Manchukuo to all Chinese people, a national and ethnic group under that definition. It definitely fits.
And Indonesians, and Filipinos, and the Vietnamese, and...
quote:Ironically, the Japanese were first when China was strong, they copied huge swaths of Chinese culture. But underneath it all was a hatred, a burning inferiority complex that came to surface during the Nanking Massacre. Centuries of being looked down on, the Japanese leapt at a chance to look down on and dehumanize the Chinese in turn.
I think this is true, but I wouldn't draw a straight line from pre-Feudal Japan to Nanjing. China's less than sterling performance against the British, and Japan's own success in holding its own against the West--and defeating Russia, considered at least partly a European and certainly a Western power, in 1905; a complete shock to the rest of the world--not only gave the Japanese an opportunity to usurp Middle Kingdom status, but also confirmed its general racial superiority complex. The treatment of the Chinese by Japanese troops was probably among the worst, but the treatment of other occupied peoples wasn't much of an improvement.
quote:Of course the Japanese had a similar relationship with America when they were "opened" by Commodore Perry. Look up to the Americans and Europeans, copy them. Look down on their crimes in colonialism (which was their pretext for invading a number of Asian countries) but then have a burning desire to eclipse them in the same as a new colonial power under their "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" Its all very contradictory.
Indeed. The GEACPS has to be one of the most disgusting euphemisms ever engineered.
quote:At the same time, the same people (and I literally mean the very same people, successful middle-class university students are a good example) are just as likely to demonstrate and protest when the slightest provocation comes from Japan (see the Japanese visit to their Shinto (war criminal) shine) or from the US (spy plane incident, bombing in Belgrade).
It's unfortunate; since these are the people who are most likely to define Chinese policy, aren't they?
Also, the shrine you're referring to is Yasukuni shrine, which, among other war dead, houses the tombs/memorials of known war criminals. Shinto is Japan's native animistic religion; during WWII the official religion. You no doubt know this already; just want to correct the record.
quote:Its a love-hate relationship mixed with a inferiority complex.
This is the way I see it too. Just to be clear, I wasn't disagreeing with you above; just wanted to expand it a bit from my Japanese perspective. It was an interesting read. Thanks.
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quote:Just because we believe that when somebody dies that they may be going on to a better place or even at worst, that they still exist does not mean we do not hold life precious.
But honestly, it would mean that you hold life on Earth as less precious than someone who believes that it is the sum total of life, wouldn't it?
Nope. It's not a zero-sum game.
Bad analogy (sorry, Shabbos starts soon so I don't have time to come up with a better one): You and I both agree that gold is valuable, and even agree on precisely how the value is assigned. I think rubies are also valuable; you think they are pretty but essentially worthless.
If we are both assessing the value of a ruby-and-gold ring, it is true that as a fraction of the ring's total value, I would count the gold less than you would. But since the amount of gold present is the same, and we agree on the per ounce value, is it not patently true that we both assign the actual value of the gold band the same?
Just because I think there is a World to Come does not make this one any less valuable. (To the contrary. Since it is only in this world that we have the power to act and to make choices, every second, every moment, every BREATH in this world is precious beyond measure.)
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I stand corrected; my conclusion doesn't follow as a necessary corollary.
Yet if by an atheist's definition life is here on Earth, and by a theist's definition it is potentially eternal, but both value life on Earth equally; then the theists must value what they consider 'life' as more important than an atheist would regard 'life', wouldn't they?
Considering our history though, I doubt this is usually the case (the Jains would be a good counterexample, I think), especially taking into account that the murdered wicked were often believed to be destined for hell.
I'll admit that my reasoning gets muddled up in the fact that many theists of the Abrahamic tradition believe that life in its totality isn't something that another human can terminate.
quote:Since it is only in this world that we have the power to act and to make choices, every second, every moment, every BREATH in this world is precious beyond measure.
One's agency is limited in heaven?
I suppose god can't have people going around killing each other in his kingdom. I've often wondered about the workability of heaven.
quote: We might have to agree to disagree on this matter. I think that genocide, 99.99999999[add more nines]% of the time can not be justified and is always a moral abomination. You believe that the genocides Yahweh helped to orchestrate or otherwise condoned were either justified, or examples of god letting human agency take its course. Am I right?
Yes.
quote: But do we have evidence that genocide took place or was even attempted?
Aren't we talking about the Bible on the premise that it's true, since you believe it is?
This was more a question of whether genocide fits the Numbers/Midianites affair.
quote: Apologies for the tangential rant.
As Mr. Card himself said to me, "If we can't digress, why bother conversing in the first place?"
quote: Well sure. According to their god, they had issue with everyone but the virgin girls.
Everyone is a bit misleading, I don't think we can say with accuracy that EVERY Midianite was present at the battle. If God had really wanted every Midianite dead, he would have commanded the Israelites to continue until they were all dead.
quote: Thanks. And I'm reading the Bible cover to cover now. One of these days, after the Torah and the Qur'an and the Bhagavad Gita, I'll get to the LDS texts. [Wink]
Good for you! If you are not through the OT yet might I suggest 2 things. 1: When you read the parts in Numbers where they list #s of animals and items donated by each head of each family of each tribe, just skip over it 2: Isaiah is pretty rough to comprehend, I pretended the first time that a Shakespearean actor was monologuing the words to me in my head so that I would not get bored. I was reading the King James Version so it just seemed like a good idea. Read it slowly, don't give into the temptation to just skip, there is so much that is precious in that book. But don't worry, if you get to the Book of Mormon there is a good chunk dedicated to explaining the writings of Isaiah.
quote: It could also be reprehensible when say, a person is encouraged to rough out hardships on Earth and forego certain worldly ambitions and pleasures in the name of the afterlife.
It would be if there was no order to it. I did not suggest that somebody go out and seek hardship, there are plenty that will come our way naturally. But ambition is not an end unto itself. Sometimes what we want for ourselves is not what is best. In high school, my parents planned a trip to Cambodia over Christmas break, this may shock you but I refused to go. Why? Because I had been to plenty of places growing up and it felt like I spent all my holidays traveling and I was tired of it. I wanted to spend my vacation playing video games, hanging out with friends, and frankly my family had gotten on my nerves. I was spoiled, what else can I say? My parents pleaded and begged me to come, they even bought a ticket and held on to it, hoping I would change my mind and they ate the cost of the ticket for holding on to it beyond the date of refund. That holiday ended up being the worst of my life. My friends were not able to hang out with me, I found that even reading or video games under certain conditions are not fun. I found out that I cannot stand the feeling of being alone, I need the presence of other people I love or enjoy being with. I spent the week feeling miserable and close to tears. My family returned and of course rubbed in the fact that I had missed out on a wonderful trip, I looked at all their pictures and especially the family photos and saw that I was not there, it was as if I was dead. I knew I belonged there, in every photo there was a place I could picture myself being in, next to my mom or my sisters. But those photos would never let me in them. Ill never know what memories I could have obtained by going to Cambodia. Today I beg my parents to let me go on trips with them, but I just can't afford plane tickets right now, and I cannot expect them to foot the bill, I am an adult now. My parents knew, that I should go to Cambodia with them, but they did not force me along for the ride. Who knows I might have come around, but I also might have resented that infringement on my agency.
quote: But honestly, it would mean that you hold life on Earth as less precious than someone who believes that it is the sum total of life, wouldn't it?
I don't think so. Rivka presented an interesting analogy. Couldn't I make the same false argument that atheists then do not hold their lives to as high a standard as I do as they do not believe in the afterlife? I believe a crucial part of mortality and eternal happiness is seeking out a companion and raising a family. Can I look at the man or woman who decides, "My career comes first" and say their way leads to equal happiness?
If a man points a gun at me and another person and says, "I WILL kill one of you, the other I will spare." If me and the other person are equal in everything but belief in the afterlife, I would volunteer myself to be killed. I could not justify pleading for the other man's death to save my own. I fail to see why the atheist would argue that he must die while I must live. I would be interested in hearing rationale for it. Arguing that the atheist could not live with my death on his conscience is not valid as you are then basically calling his life after the gun incident the afterlife and he does not wish to enter it on bad terms. I would allow myself to be shot not because I don't want to feel guilty in the afterlife but because I believe the atheist could go on, possibly touched by that event, and find better things.
quote: Do you believe that every single Canaanite was wicked?
Of course not, Ruth the ancestor of Jesus being a perfect example of a virtuous Canaanite.
quote: So if a missionary (a special one, who has a very close relationship to god) preaches at a city but fails to impress its inhabitants (would the Athenians count among them?), the city deserves a fate worse than that of Sodom and Gomorrha?
Not exactly. The key there was not a closeness with God but a calling to the apostleship. As well as the indispensable fact of whether God wills it or not. Lets say I as a missionary attempted to teach to the Athenians. Lets say I encountered much rejection and became depressed because of it. My depression causes me to be far less effective as a missionary as God does not mope about depressed as he does his work. My ineffectiveness causes the rest of the people of Athens to reject my message completely. If I dusted my feet off and condemned the city I doubt God would honor that condemnation.
And rejection in of itself is not a good enough reason to condemn a city. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints does not send missionaries to certain countries such as China, Saudi Arabia, or Indonesia because we expect to be rejected through no direct fault of the people. In China it is illegal to proselyte and if we ignored their laws we would probably close many ears to the gospel because we had no respect for the culture/society of the Chinese people.
We are allowed to have missionaries in Malaysia for example because we have made agreements with the Muslim community not to proselyte with them for the time being. Muslims law places strict provisions on how to respond to a Muslim who attempts to convert, many would refuse to even entertain the missionaries having that fact on their minds. Would we be justified in condemning either countries to hell? It makes more sense to wait patiently for God to help open the doors, and especially in China's case restriction are being lifted slowly but constantly.
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quote:I fail to see why the atheist would argue that he must die while I must live. I would be interested in hearing rationale for it. Arguing that the atheist could not live with my death on his conscience is not valid as you are then basically calling his life after the gun incident the afterlife and he does not wish to enter it on bad terms.
I allowed someone to be shot to death in front of me rather than die myself. I was not an atheist at the time.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Tom, I'm not sure how I should respond. The burden you carry must be heavy.
Were you in the service? I'm still not familiar with everyone's biographical details; please let me know if this is something you'd rather not talk about.
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quote:Aren't we talking about the Bible on the premise that it's true, since you believe it is?
This was more a question of whether genocide fits the Numbers/Midianites affair.
Yep, and since we're discussing the matter on the basis that the Bible is essentially true, we can say that the incident in the book of Numbers was a war crime which definitely fits the modern definition of genocide.
quote:
quote:Apologies for the tangential rant.
As Mr. Card himself said to me, "If we can't digress, why bother conversing in the first place?"
Wise words.
quote:
quote:Well sure. According to their god, they had issue with everyone but the virgin girls.
Everyone is a bit misleading, I don't think we can say with accuracy that EVERY Midianite was present at the battle. If God had really wanted every Midianite dead, he would have commanded the Israelites to continue until they were all dead.
Well, the Israelites killed the Midianite kings and razed all their cities. The implication is that they would have gotten most of the population.
Thanks for the Bible reading pointers.
quote:Sometimes what we want for ourselves is not what is best.
Sorry to hear about your vacation; I can imagine how crumby it must have been for you.
My point though, is that religious people frequently make sacrifices large and small for their faith and their belief that they will some day enter heaven or the like. It's a cornerstone of most religions; abstinence is frequently associated with piety, material goods are explicitly devalued, worldly ambitions are devalued (but in fact, when I say 'worldly ambitions' I mean to include raising a family).
There is no empirical basis for that faith, so from my perspective, the resources, time, effort, and blood that goes into religion has all been for naught.
Of course that's a generalisation. Churches and religious organisations do good things too, such as aid work or fostering community spirit.
To illustrate my point, I'm thinking of a Medieval village of peasants living destitute lives and owing the products of their labour automatically to their Christian lords. They produce the food and goods which made the lives of the knights possible; they're tempted to incite rebellion. But all over Europe, clergymen are preaching the virtue of frugality, even poverty, of abstaining from luxury, of faithfully serving one's Christian masters; appeasing the pennyless and downtrodden with promises of an afterlife. The peasants are encouraged not to revolt, and not to ask for more.
You could replace 'peasants' with 'workers' and it would still apply for much of Industrial Age Europe.
In the above cases, religion is used as an insidious method of crowd control and a way of keeping the means of production under the control of the established hierarchy. It's one example of what I mean when I say that religion can have reprehensible moral consequences beyond encouraging or justifying war and violence.
Here's another very simple example: masturbation.
Doesn't harm the person doing it, doesn't harm anyone else. Why the prohibition? Teens wrestle with a moral dilemma, or adopt a feeling of guilt because they indulge in it. The more seriously a person takes religion, the more likely s/he is to take the prohibition to heart and feel that the natural urge is immoral. To draw an extreme example, in some English boarding schools, boys' hands were tied down to their beds when they went to sleep at night.
The idea that it corrupts or debases the mind is also fallacious; in fact, worrying or thinking about it too much is what sends the mind into a spiral of guilt and temptation.
I'm reminded of a Zen parable:
quote:Tanzan and Ekido, two monks, were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was falling.
Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross a large mud puddle stretching across the road.
"Come on, girl," said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud.
Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple, then he no longer could restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females", he told Tanzan, "especially not young, lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?"
"I left the girl there", said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?"
But I digress.
quote:
quote:But honestly, it would mean that you hold life on Earth as less precious than someone who believes that it is the sum total of life, wouldn't it?
I don't think so. Rivka presented an interesting analogy. Couldn't I make the same false argument that atheists then do not hold their lives to as high a standard as I do as they do not believe in the afterlife?
It wouldn't be the equivalent. It would presuppose that both the theist and the atheist value material life to be as valuable, which is not always the case. That's kind of the problem.
quote:I believe a crucial part of mortality and eternal happiness is seeking out a companion and raising a family. Can I look at the man or woman who decides, "My career comes first" and say their way leads to equal happiness?
Being an atheist doesn't mean screwing up one's priorities.
quote:If a man points a gun at me and another person and says, "I WILL kill one of you, the other I will spare." If me and the other person are equal in everything but belief in the afterlife, I would volunteer myself to be killed. I could not justify pleading for the other man's death to save my own. I fail to see why the atheist would argue that he must die while I must live. I would be interested in hearing rationale for it. Arguing that the atheist could not live with my death on his conscience is not valid as you are then basically calling his life after the gun incident the afterlife and he does not wish to enter it on bad terms.
I don't understand this line of reasoning.
If it was up to me, I'd choose myself because I couldn't live with the idea of having terminated someone else's life in order to prolong my own, and because my morality prohibits me from taking a life or anything from someone in order to advance my own interests.
How does that make my life after the incident an 'afterlife'?
quote:And rejection in of itself is not a good enough reason to condemn a city.
quote:Since it is only in this world that we have the power to act and to make choices, every second, every moment, every BREATH in this world is precious beyond measure.
One's agency is limited in heaven?
I suppose god can't have people going around killing each other in his kingdom. I've often wondered about the workability of heaven.
I can only speak for Jewish beliefs. (My understanding is that Mormons believe otherwise, and I don't know about others.) And I don't like the word "agency" -- mostly because I don't know what it's supposed to mean. Also, "heaven" (and the Jewish concept is VERY different that the Christian concept you seem to be citing) is not a physical place, with physical rules.
That said, no, souls in the World to Come are not able to harm -- or help -- others.
Ruth was not a Canaanite. She was a Moabite.
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quote: Ruth was not a Canaanite. She was a Moabite.
I was under the impression that all Moabites were Canaanites but not all Canaanites were Moabites. Wasn't Moab the country of the Midianites?
Edit:
Tom: Although you may not wish to elaborate on the experience, it sounds potentially terrible, if you wish to cite it as evidence that I am wrong, I'd have to hear more details, such as why you did nothing, why was the other man shot, etc. I am not sure how to proceed from here though, I would not be surprised if you did not wish to elaborate or relive the experience.
Euripides: Ill try to get to your remarks as soon as I can. Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote: Ruth was not a Canaanite. She was a Moabite.
I was under the impression that all Moabites were Canaanites but not all Canaanites were Moabites. Wasn't Moab the country of the Midianites?
None of the above. Nether Moav nor Midian were part of Canaan -- they were neighboring countries. And while there were points at which the Moabites and Midianites were allies, they certainly did not come from the same country.
The seven tribes that are referred to collectively as Cana'anim (Canaanites): Emori (Amorites), Chiti (Hittites), Prizi (Perizites), Cana'ani (Canaanites), Girgashi (Girgashites) -- who actually picked up and left prior to the conquering of the Land, Chivi (Hevites), Yevusi (Jebusites).
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:That last sentence is what I find most crucial and true in Objectivist ethics. There should be no higher purpose than life on earth, and a religious code of morality places the will of an imaginary entity above it.
It can, I suppose. But it needn't. Your statement presupposes "imaginary", and it supposes that life on earth is all there is. What if it isn't, and what if He's not?
Yes, it does presuppose that. I don't think that Objectivism and your particular views on Judaism conflict by principle; but as an atheist I'm inclined to think that you've made a serious error in examining the evidence for god's existence or non-existence.
We were talking the other day about the movie 2001: A Space Oddysey. Someone actually wrote a book about this movie and what the reaction of people who saw it says about the evidence for God.
I don't know if you've seen it, but the main thing, at least in the first part of the movie, was that astronauts on the moon found a huge black monolith there. Perfectly rectangular. Very obviously an artifact. And this threw everyone into a tizzy, because it was the first actually proof of alien life.
But was it? Why was it so obviously an artifact? I mean, the chances of a huge, perfectly formed rectangular monolith forming on the moon over the time the moon has existed are actually much greater than the chances of the world coming into existence as it is, with the complexity of the human body and other organisms, but I'm willing to bet that not a single person walked away from the movie 2001 shaking his head and saying, "But that's dumb. So there was a big rectangular block on the moon. What does that prove?"
There's a story like this in the Talmud, as well. A Roman was arguing with Rabbi Meir (I think it was Rabbi Meir) about whether God existed or not. While he was in Rabbi Meir's office, he noticed an exquisite line drawing, and asked who the artist was. Rabbi Meir said, "Oh, that. The other day, I spilled some ink by accident. I thought the mess looked nice, so I put it up on the wall." The Roman was like, "Very funny. That picture is extremely detailed. There must have been an artist." Rabbi Meir pointed out how the Roman was being inconsistent. "If this drawing implies a creator, how much more does the world around us?"
I don't see the "world as accident" view as plausible. Even if we knew nothing about God, the world itself is evidence that there's a creator.
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"I mean, the chances of a huge, perfectly formed rectangular monolith forming on the moon over the time the moon has existed are actually much greater than the chances of the world coming into existence as it is, with the complexity of the human body and other organisms, "
Are you sure about this? How are you calculating the odds of each?
"I don't see the "world as accident" view as plausible. Even if we knew nothing about God, the world itself is evidence that there's a creator."
And how are you defining "accident?" At best, I think you have a false dilemna going here.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: "I mean, the chances of a huge, perfectly formed rectangular monolith forming on the moon over the time the moon has existed are actually much greater than the chances of the world coming into existence as it is, with the complexity of the human body and other organisms, "
Are you sure about this? How are you calculating the odds of each?
I think it's a reasonable claim. A single regularly shaped object, as opposed to the world of complexity we live in?
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And what are the chances of a creator sufficiently complex to create everything we see coming into being 'by accident'?
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quote: Ruth was not a Canaanite. She was a Moabite.
I was under the impression that all Moabites were Canaanites but not all Canaanites were Moabites. Wasn't Moab the country of the Midianites?
None of the above. Nether Moav nor Midian were part of Canaan -- they were neighboring countries. And while there were points at which the Moabites and Midianites were allies, they certainly did not come from the same country.
The seven tribes that are referred to collectively as Cana'anim (Canaanites): Emori (Amorites), Chiti (Hittites), Prizi (Perizites), Cana'ani (Canaanites), Girgashi (Girgashites) -- who actually picked up and left prior to the conquering of the Land, Chivi (Hevites), Yevusi (Jebusites).
Color me corrected! I made a mistake in that Balak king of Moab petitioned Balaam the prophet to curse the Isrealites. Later, Balaam is slain along with the kings of the Midianites and so I associated Moab with the Midianites. Ill have to be more careful in my OT study!
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