God

[Anders Hallin]

Hmm, hope I haven't done this before...
I was wondering what God was to everyone. Personally, that is. I don't give a damn about if you're in an organized religion or something, just what God means to you. So it isn't really about religion, as such (to it is certainly very influenced by religion). So please keep it cool with scripture quoting to prove how wrong someone's view of God is, or the paradoxical of having a certain view of God while being of a certain religion.

Personally, I reject the notion of God. Not the existence, because that could always be proven or disproven and it doesn't matter. I reject the notion of a superior being that we are supposed to praise and bow down to. Though I guess if one sees God as simply being the sum of the entire Universe, I could find a reason to praise it, though just as I don't offer prayers or the like to the trees in the forest or the seas or the sky, I don't think it would be that absurd for me to do so.
My perspective is grounded in the opinion that individuals must chart their own path through life, inferior and superior to no other individual.

Would be nice if people would like to share.

[cyborg]

God is a construct of man.

[Mike Cathcart]

This should have been a poll. "Got God? -Yes -No"

I vote no.

[Kalle]

The notion of god keeps man down. Reading up on Feuerbach's criticism of christianity a couple of months ago really opened my eyes to this. The more value you put into the image of the divine, the less value do you put in humanity. Even as I write this I realise that I can't do Feuerbachs arguments justice. Debating philosophy in English is not something I am normally willing to do, as I do not feel my grasp of the language is adequate.



If you're interested, you can find Feuerbachs work "The essence of Christianity" online here (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/feuerbach/works/essence/index.htm).

[Tyjenks]

Debating philosophy in English is not something I am normally willing to do, as I do not feel my grasp of the language is adequate.

You and me both, brother.

I was raised a son and grandson of a minister. Neither were particularly good family men and my parents divorced when I was 5. All of my friends that kept me in line growing up and have helped me to this day are regular attendees at church. They are good people who are intelligent and successful.

Reading books and listening to other learned people who do not "believe" can easily pull me in their direction. A little common sense seems to go a long way when reasoning away a supreme being's existence.

I, honestly, struggle with this almost daily. This thread will most assuredly confuse me further. :)


EDIT: As I typed this, a song was playing by a group called Manmade God. Is that not just a little freaky?

[quatoria]

We created god to rule us, and judge us, and punish us. I think the far more interesting question is - why did we need God? Do we still?

[Tyjenks]

We created god to rule us, and judge us, and punish us. I think the far more interesting question is - why did we need God? Do we still?

Isn't that question answered perfectly in the movie Contact? :wink:

[Tyrion Lannister]

God may exist, or it may not. Neither assumption should change an individual morality - which should be firmly focussed on caring for others and trying to improve your immediate environment and that of the people you interact with, without harming others.

If God exists, various religous scriptures indicate that this behaviour will please it. If God doesn't you still come out ahead, because you will have improved your life.

Organised religion is a human construct, and critically flawed.

[XPav]

Isn't that question answered perfectly in the movie Contact? :wink:

Or you could read the book.

[Jason McCullough]

Being a good person solely because you think a god is watching is a bit like, oh, not murdering people just because the cops are watching.

[Tyjenks]

Being a good person solely because you think a god is watching is a bit like, oh, not murdering people just because the cops are watching.

It doesn't make sense, but I really believe it is all that works for some people.

[Murph]

Being a good person solely because you think a god is watching is a bit like, oh, not murdering people just because the cops are watching.

But being a good person because you strive to please a God you love is akin not shoplifting because it's against the law.

Not that I'm trying to stir up a debate.

I have a very Biblical view of God. I'll leave it at that.

[Tyjenks]

There cannot be much discussion from the believers corner regarding this because belief in God requires faith. Faith is not something you can really debate and if you try to discuss it, I would imagine, at least here, it would be like painting a big bullseye on your stomach, back, and forehead.

[Murph]

Been down that road -- and most people were pretty cool about it -- but it's not worth treading down a second time.

My faith is something that I will not hide, but I don't try and flaunt it, either. And debating it is generally pointless...A hundred times moreso online.

[Jason McCullough]

Faith is great and all, I just don't see how being a good person strictly because you fear god's wrath is a morally admirable option. Not that everyone does it for this reason, of course, but there's quite a few.

[Murph]

<tiptoe>
In the strictly Biblical sense, "being good" is not done in an attempt to avoid God's wrath, but rather to honor Him for what He's done for you. Christianity isn't as much about actions as it is about beliefs, anyway. Good actions are just the ideal result of Christian faith.
</tiptoe>

Still -- you're right, Jason. The majority of people who claim the title Christian (and we won't get into how many people claim to be Christian but don't really have the first clue what that means) follow their faith strictly for the sake of, as we say 'round here, "fire insurance." And that sucks, because they're missing the point.

[Kalle]

There are different kinds of faith though. Knowing how faithful people think they can reach god is fascinating. Kierkegaard (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/) really opened my eyes to this. Personally I think Kierkegaard is a masochist, his life certainly seems to tell of him revelling in his own emotional suffering, but he is a fascinating character nonetheless.

[XPav]

Its possible to be a good person with or without believing in God.
Its possible to be a bad person with or without believing in God.

I'm more concerned with the "good person" part, and if God helps you be a good person, then great!

I have no problem with God -- I have problems with certain churches, and the way that religion is often used as a club to beat other people into submission and obedience.

[Alan Au]

I'm with XPav on this one. I believe it's possible to be spiritual without embracing the trappings of a formal religion.

As for God? Reply hazy; try again later.

- Alan

[Tyjenks]

I have no problem with God -- I have problems with certain churches, and the way that religion is often used as a club to beat other people into submission and obedience.

Precisely. I would amend "certain churches" to "lots of churches". :)


I believe it's possible to be spiritual without embracing the trappings of a formal religion.

Yeppers on this as well, but I have a hard time finding a way to "get to" or experience that spirituality in my daily comings and goings. Sitting around thinking happy thoughts is not really working out for me.

That is where church would come in handy if it was not wrapped up in its own political hair splitting and often time lack of focus on what is really important. There is plenty of lip service paid to what the church is and does, but in practice, there are more arguements over salaries, programs, leaders within the church going on and everyone involved ends up looking like hypocrites.

[Murph]

That is where church would come in handy if it was not wrapped up in its own political hair splitting and often time lack of focus on what is really important. There is plenty of lip service paid to what the church is and does, but in practice, there are more arguements over salaries, programs, leaders within the church going on and everyone involved ends up looking like hypocrites.

Which is a shame, because a "church" is just supposed to be a gathering of believers to share scripture and pray. In a lot of ways, it might be better if we went back to the days where ministers weren't professional "preachers," but just passionate people with a word to share.

The administration levels start to get in the way of the point of a church, which is way too bad. (The church I attend -- when I don't have to work -- isn't too bad in this way, but I know that's a rarity.)

[Dirt]

God is a little kid and we are his/hers/it's science project.

[voltaic]

God is the origin of all things material and otherwise. The creator of the universe existing outside of the frame of reference of spacetime, he is in all places and all times at once. God is one in essence and three in personality, usually called Father, Son/Jesus, and Holy Spirit. He is a conscious, literal being who still pays attention to our tiny lives. And he doesn't send people to hell because they aren't "good" during their lives. The Bible, which reveals God to man, makes very clear that eternal salvation comes simply by an act of faith in the saving work of Jesus on the cross and has nothing to do with what a person can "do" to "achieve" salvation.

That's God. :)


There cannot be much discussion from the believers corner regarding this because belief in God requires faith. Faith is not something you can really debate and if you try to discuss it, I would imagine, at least here, it would be like painting a big bullseye on your stomach, back, and forehead.
True, but I think Anders framed the original post pretty well. He asked for everyone's personal thoughts on "what is god to you?" and suggested a reasonable request to avoid debates.


Being a good person solely because you think a god is watching is a bit like, oh, not murdering people just because the cops are watching.
Or not grabbing that extra bag of cookies from the 7-11 because the cameras are on. Not every example has to be as xxx-treme as murder, dude. That just adds emotional baggage to the argument. I think most people wouldn't murder others anyways, but aren't nearly as opposed to extra cookies. Everyone likes cookies.


Isn't that question answered perfectly in the movie Contact? :wink:
Great movie. Better book.

[Tyjenks]

There cannot be much discussion from the believers corner regarding this because belief in God requires faith. Faith is not something you can really debate and if you try to discuss it, I would imagine, at least here, it would be like painting a big bullseye on your stomach, back, and forehead.
True, but I think Anders framed the original post pretty well. He asked for everyone's personal thoughts on "what is god to you?" and suggested a reasonable request to avoid debates.

Yeah, I got that, but it is hard to express your true feelings without coming across as preachy (although you did a pretty good job) and many may not post at all to avoid that. I was just guessing that the "there is no God" replies were going to outnumber the "God to me is...." replies.

[Kitsune]

Are you asking for thoughts on specifically the Christian God or just gods/god/God in general, Anders?

I believe in the Christian God, the guy who shares His spirit with the Holy Spirit and Jesus, as the supreme creator and ruler of everything he has made, that's no problem. But apparently, you can only believe in him if you believe just in him, which creates a contradiction for me that I haven't clearly worked out yet, since I can never give up my Buddhist and Shinto convictions, which are very, very deeply rooted in how I live.

Other than the God of the Bible, I believe gods are spirits of a different kind of life than can be accessed by humans, but can still be felt in a variety of ways. They are bound in a different realm, and deserve our greatest respect and cooperation, just like animals should not be slaughtered willy-nilly, neither should gods be disrespected. They are the ultimate in detached from the illusions of the world and whether or not you can become like them is up for debate but you can pass higher into their way of understanding by becoming enlightened and purging desire and thus, suffering and attachment to it from your life.

Gods are to be worshipped primarily by the goodness of your actions as a tribute to their purity, by maintaining a balance with other people and by respecting their boundaries and coming to understand and following their ways, mostly through meditation and the perception of you move/function/interact. Some gods are nastier than others, some are nicer and the consequences for actively setting oneself up against a cooperative communion with them reach from failed endeavors to bad luck to sickness, though this is in part of course simply an extension of how the world works as well, augmented by spiritual matters. Though they can bless you and help you subtlely as well.

Since they also have a strong effect on material matters and the environments around them as well as the afterlife, proper reverence toward the dead is an absolute must. Purity, cleanliness and absolute preservation of nature are important traits of respecting gods as well.

Sorry if that sounded preachy, I did try my best to be clear without being condescending, and its hard to write it in English and try to get my concept of God/gods without invoking all the sentiments of "freaky New Age-y blah blah" that Eastern religions usually invoke in people...

-Fox

[Bub, Andrew]

"God is a concept we use to measure our pain"

[Anders Hallin]

Are you asking for thoughts on specifically the Christian God or just gods/god/God in general, Anders?
By God, I do not limit myself to Christianity, though I don't think "gods" (as in pantheons or religions which have gods in trees and the like) are applicable to my question. Though the definition is hard to make. I guess you could also term it "your position on faith to that which is theoretically 'above' us" or something, though the "above"-part would introduce a problem.
So anyway, do with the question what you will, it's not that important. Your post was very interesting, Kitsune.


I am currently reading Notes of a Native Son, by James Baldwin, where I read a passage that made me think of something. I believe it to be a fact that it's impossible to really know someone else, and that most people are very aware of this. The question is not "who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men?" but rather "who knows what goodness lurks in the heart of men?" and the answer is no one. There is no one alive who knows all your motivations, and all that which you really strive for and what inhibits you and the limits put upon you. And that is quite fearsome, to me. Because there is a wish within me, which I think is in most, if not everyone (though not exactly termed thus), to do what is good and right, while people can only measure that which I achieve. To only be seen as a tiny part of all that is me, the vast complex of the mind of the individual, to never be more than that single aspect that people see, could easily feel like a tragedy to me. It would be a comfort to know that once your race is run, someone will be there and say "I understand, I know what you tried to do."

That doesn't change my reservations towards "God", however.

[Brad Grenz]

Faith is great and all, I just don't see how being a good person strictly because you fear god's wrath is a morally admirable option. Not that everyone does it for this reason, of course, but there's quite a few.

Well, unfortunately not everyone in the world is a morally evolved as you and me. That being the case I'd rather have people doing the right thing out of fear of punnishment (by the state, by God, whatever) than doing the wrong thing because they have nothing to fear and no other moral guidelines. We all pass through this stage, and some never get past it. Just because you look down your nose at such creatures is no reason to deny them something they might need.


The notion of god keeps man down. Reading up on Feuerbach's criticism of christianity a couple of months ago really opened my eyes to this. The more value you put into the image of the divine, the less value do you put in humanity.

It only keeps you down if you believe it does. There's nothing inate in the concept of god that diminishes Humanities accomplishments, or even hinders progress. The idea that God is "The Man" and is "keeping you down" is the Man-made construct.


I believe humanity's belief in God may be a sort of evolutionary imparative, a defense mechanism for the self aware intellect to protect us against the loneliness of existence. It's comforting to think there's something more to existence than being an elaborate genetic perpetuation machine. I don't think that precludes God's existence, perhaps it's a matter of biology accomodating some sort of metaphysical reality, maybe it's just that God created us that way, or maybe it's just some Darwinian slight of hand. I don't know, and no one can say.

[ElRavager]

god is the concept behind religion, and historically religion has been a bastion of badness. There's a need to "believe" people (the people who introduce you to religion, the people who wrote the bible, your local preacher). My problem is, the number of people I truly believe and trust can be counted on one hand. One of my good friends was a preacher, and he was the worst drinker/philanderer/troublemaker as I've ever seen. Empirically, the only reason for me to believe in a "god" is fear of the unknown. I don't disbelieve or believe in anything that I'm not exposed to first-hand.

[Kalle]

The notion of god keeps man down. Reading up on Feuerbach's criticism of christianity a couple of months ago really opened my eyes to this. The more value you put into the image of the divine, the less value do you put in humanity.

It only keeps you down if you believe it does. There's nothing inate in the concept of god that diminishes Humanities accomplishments, or even hinders progress. The idea that God is "The Man" and is "keeping you down" is the Man-made construct.



Have you read Feuerbach then? I won't argue this, I don't have the vocabulary to debate this in English, nor do I feel my command of the language is adequate for the careful phrasing needed.

[Brian Koontz]

I suppose I'll chime in...

Gods exist as abstract ideals. Here are a couple examples...

#1) A Fertility god. A statue is erected and rituals take place regarding the statue and the god. Its a teaching tool for one thing... a social recommendation and a social value. Things are sacrificed to the god in honor of what the god gives back.

People can always talk about fertility on a case-by-case basis, but as an abstraction, as a generalization and as a symbol a god is very valuable.

#2) God. Even the capitalized g shows a kind of arrogance... all other gods use the lower-case.

Again, as with all other gods, God stands as a teaching tool... a social recommendation and a social value. Its an abstract concept... an idealization.

To attack or support or defend the Fertility god describes what you think of Fertility. Likewise for God.

Fertility gods are easy to honor. One of the interesting aspects to God is how *removed* it is from what humans are capable of. The Greek and Roman gods had this feature to a lesser extent.

[Anders Hallin]

Holy crap, no more writing stuff late at night. That was all stunningly obvious and didn't make much sense as I wrote it :(

[Machfive]

Holy crap, no more writing stuff late at night. That was all stunningly obvious and didn't make much sense as I wrote it :(

If I had a nickel for every time I said that to myself, regarding things I wrote myself and then woke up the next day and realized I wrote, I'd...

Fuck.

*throws a nickel in his change jar*

[Robert Sharp]

Being a good person solely because you think a god is watching is a bit like, oh, not murdering people just because the cops are watching.

Wow. I actually agree with Jason on something. Let's go get a beer together now!

[Jason McCullough]

:mrgreen:

Not much in the way of drunken smilies.

[Murph]

Grrr....

(Edited for bad picture.)

[Murph]

(Ditto)

[quatoria]

Thank you.

(edited for no longer needing to yell at murph for bad picture)

[Murph]

Well, that sucked. I was trying to find a good drunken smiley. I know they're out there...I've seen them.

Sorry.

[King Lupid]

I won't comment on everyone else's religion(s). I will just answer the question. I don't know what G(g)od is, but I know there is something there. I feel it in my life, just as real as I feel the sun on my skin. Its a good feeling, of happiness and peace. If you can't feel it, I'm sorry. I wish I could tell you how, but you just have to find it on your own, I guess.

Ok, that totally makes me sound like I am in a cult, or something. :twisted:

[Anders Hallin]

Holy crap, no more writing stuff late at night. That was all stunningly obvious and didn't make much sense as I wrote it :(
Holy crap, I meant it made sense as I wrote it but due to a "typo" (wrote an entire sentence the wrong way) didn't make much sense as I read it today.

[Brad Grenz]

Being a good person solely because you think a god is watching is a bit like, oh, not murdering people just because the cops are watching.

Wow. I actually agree with Jason on something. Let's go get a beer together now!

If we can agree that that's still one more good person, and one less murder, I'll join you too. But make mine a Root Beer.

[ydejin]

god is the concept behind religion, and historically religion has been a bastion of badness. There's a need to "believe" people (the people who introduce you to religion, the people who wrote the bible, your local preacher). My problem is, the number of people I truly believe and trust can be counted on one hand. One of my good friends was a preacher, and he was the worst drinker/philanderer/troublemaker as I've ever seen. Empirically, the only reason for me to believe in a "god" is fear of the unknown. I don't disbelieve or believe in anything that I'm not exposed to first-hand.

Interesting. I've had more or less the opposite experience. I consider myself an evangelical Christian, so I may be biased, however, politically I am much more closely aligned with the liberal secular humanist movement than the conservative Christian movement. I have friends on both sides of the spectrum (both politically and in terms of religion/atheism). What I discovered was that while most of my liberal secular friends talked a good talk about improving the lot of the poor and working on racial reconciliation, they went on to work for Wall Street or tech startups. In contrast my Christian friends were the ones who ended up working in the inner city really trying to make a difference. Many of them did things that I consider dangerous and would not have attempted (regularly bringing food to street people in South Central Los Angeles, for example). Their faith gave them strength and a sense of purpose that was much deeper than that of my secular liberal friends.

I am sure you are correct in that there are many who call themselves Christian but who show by their actions that they do not follow Christ. (I was pretty shocked, for example, to see Cleve proclaiming his faith). There is power in religion and power draws the corrupt and wicked to it. However, I have quite a number of Christian friends who truly live a life of faith sharing God's love both in their words and in their deeds.

When you say "historically religion has been a bastion of badness" I think you may be glossing over the good works done by people of faith. For example, when I went to India, I was shocked to discover how many hospitals there had been started by Western missionaries. Religious abuse is much more obvious than the quiet good works done by people of faith -- and much more likely to be recorded in the historic record. The Borgias Popes make a much more interesting story than Mother Theresa.

[bmulligan]

I consider myself an athiest, although I do have a concept of an omnipresent 'force' in the universe. Call it a prime mover or origin of existence or the grand unified theory, your choice. A personal god is to me is akin to an imaginary friend to a 3 year old and ascribing a morality to it as good or evil and beyond my own judgement is not part of the equation. Things just are what they are and I don't need a personal reminder that someone loves me and is watching over me 24/7.

I'm trying to be gentle here, but believing in an all powerful christian god who:

- punnishes man for acquiring knowledge of good and evil
- implies that you are your brother's keeper
- proclaims that self sacrifice is the basis for morality
- requires you to submit your will to achieve salvation

is a way to control a people, and contradicts one's own nature of behavior,
not to mention the 'problem of evil', or why god allows terrible things to happen to nice people.

[cyborg]

'God's plan' is the ultimate answer to any criticism of Christian morality.

[Kalle]

Interesting. I've had more or less the opposite experience. I consider myself an evangelical Christian, so I may be biased, however, politically I am much more closely aligned with the liberal secular humanist movement than the conservative Christian movement. I have friends on both sides of the spectrum (both politically and in terms of religion/atheism). What I discovered was that while most of my liberal secular friends talked a good talk about improving the lot of the poor and working on racial reconciliation, they went on to work for Wall Street or tech startups. In contrast my Christian friends were the ones who ended up working in the inner city really trying to make a difference. Many of them did things that I consider dangerous and would not have attempted (regularly bringing food to street people in South Central Los Angeles, for example). Their faith gave them strength and a sense of purpose that was much deeper than that of my secular liberal friends.

I am sure you are correct in that there are many who call themselves Christian but who show by their actions that they do not follow Christ. (I was pretty shocked, for example, to see Cleve proclaiming his faith). There is power in religion and power draws the corrupt and wicked to it. However, I have quite a number of Christian friends who truly live a life of faith sharing God's love both in their words and in their deeds.

When you say "historically religion has been a bastion of badness" I think you may be glossing over the good works done by people of faith. For example, when I went to India, I was shocked to discover how many hospitals there had been started by Western missionaries. Religious abuse is much more obvious than the quiet good works done by people of faith -- and much more likely to be recorded in the historic record. The Borgias Popes make a much more interesting story than Mother Theresa.

Comparing good deeds to bad deeds done in the name of religion would be an interesting tally. The good things might indeed outnumber the bad. But that still leaves us with the question if these deeds have been done under false pretenses. Your friends have done charity because they believe that there is a god. Would they value their charity work the same if they had not had that faith? Being a good and charitable person is a wondrous thing, but being good because someone is watching you, or because you aim to please someone still does not sit quite right to me. Maybe because it speaks of the need of outer gratification, doing good in itself does not seem to be enough motivation.

[Murph]

Being a good and charitable person is a wondrous thing, but being good because someone is watching you, or because you aim to please someone still does not sit quite right to me.

I can understand the idea of being good "because someone is watching you" sitting ill with you, but the idea of doing good deeds because they honor and please God...Well, I just don't see your problem with it. (Not meant as an attack. I'm still not trying to stir up trouble.) I would think one of the noblest goals a person can have is trying to honor and please the Creator.

And if there is no God (or god), then how does one determine good/bad, right/wrong? What makes stealing wrong, if not that it offends the Creator? Might makes right, right?

[Kalle]

Being a good and charitable person is a wondrous thing, but being good because someone is watching you, or because you aim to please someone still does not sit quite right to me.

I can understand the idea of being good "because someone is watching you" sitting ill with you, but the idea of doing good deeds because they honor and please God...Well, I just don't see your problem with it. (Not meant as an attack. I'm still not trying to stir up trouble.) I would think one of the noblest goals a person can have is trying to honor and please the Creator.

Doing good only to please someone as opposed to doing good for the sake of doing good? Of course, if you accept the idea of god then I suppose they are much the same, but for the sake of argument there is a slight difference.



And if there is no God (or god), then how does one determine good/bad, right/wrong? What makes stealing wrong, if not that it offends the Creator? Might makes right, right?

I'm pretty sure Anders had this very argument about relativistic morals and all that in another thread a while back. I'll just say that if you think the only thing that makes rape and murder wrong is that it offends god then your morality really has nothing in common with mine.

[Murph]

I'm not talking about rape and murder. I'm talking about the more "petty" offenses -- many of which I would consider gray even with a Christian outlook. Something along the line of a starving person stealing food (granted, probably not something that happens these days, what with welfare and all), or "little white lies."

I guess I'm just curious about the foundation for morality if there is no god. That's what I don't get.

[Jason McCullough]

I'm not talking about rape and murder. I'm talking about the more "petty" offenses -- many of which I would consider gray even with a Christian outlook. Something along the line of a starving person stealing food (granted, probably not something that happens these days, what with welfare and all), or "little white lies."

I guess I'm just curious about the foundation for morality if there is no god. That's what I don't get.

Philosophy has done a bit of work in this department.

[Murph]

It just seems so subjective. Still, I don't want to derail the topic, or start a huge debate, so I'll apologize to all for the divergence and let it go. Sorry.

[Kalle]

I guess I'm just curious about the foundation for morality if there is no god. That's what I don't get.

There is none. Each individual has to make up his mind about it on his own. Society and culture play a part, but once god is removed from the equation morality is left solely in the hands of the individual. The morality with which you judge others as well as the morality with which you judge yourself.

Of course, this is just one take on morality sans god. The only significant other one I know of though, one that could possibly offer a solid foundation for morality, is utilitarianism.




It just seems so subjective. Still, I don't want to derail the topic, or start a huge debate, so I'll apologize to all for the divergence and let it go. Sorry.

It is subjective. Think of it like this, with god you have someone to show you a path. Without him you have to find your own path.

But you are correct that we should not derail the topic. This issue in particular is one of the biggest reasons I got interested in philosophy in the first place, and I could debate it for quite a while otherwise.

[Jason McCullough]

It just seems so subjective. Still, I don't want to derail the topic, or start a huge debate, so I'll apologize to all for the divergence and let it go. Sorry.

Dude, if you want to talk subjective.....

[Charles]

"We are all atheists, some of us just believe in fewer gods than others. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

[Robert Sharp]

I guess I'm just curious about the foundation for morality if there is no god. That's what I don't get.

There is none. Each individual has to make up his mind about it on his own. Society and culture play a part, but once god is removed from the equation morality is left solely in the hands of the individual. The morality with which you judge others as well as the morality with which you judge yourself.

Of course, this is just one take on morality sans god. The only significant other one I know of though, one that could possibly offer a solid foundation for morality, is utilitarianism.



Then you have a lot of reading to do. Try Kant, Plato, and Seneca for starters ;)

[Nellie]

Not sure at this time of night I can explain myself fully so I guess I will just say that I do not believe in one (or many) omnipotent entities looking over us, creating us and whatnot, especially not in todays world.

[voltaic]

Kantian ethics is, IMHO, about the only worthwhile non-theological basis for "good" around. And even then it's basically selfish.

[Brad Grenz]

Doing good only to please someone as opposed to doing good for the sake of doing good? Of course, if you accept the idea of god then I suppose they are much the same, but for the sake of argument there is a slight difference.

No, they engage in charity because they know it is good and right. They know being good and right honors God, enriches their life and honors themselves. It's all pretty pedantic if you consider the anecdote we've just been given. Motive doesn't matter much when the religious people are actually doing the work and the atheists are all talk. Maybe their motives would be more "pure" but that's meaningless if they never do anything. OK, so anedotal evidence doesn't mean a whole lot either, but I would be curious to see numbers of secular vs religious private charity (could you count government welfare projects? Can they be legitimately claimed as secular considering the religious pay in just the same?).

And it's absurd to call religion a bastion of badness. Humanity is a bastion for evil and religion being a human institution is not immune. But religion has no monopoly on bad behavior. How many have died as the result of policies in communist regimes? Religion is often the justification for violence, but I would say it is rarely the reason for it.

[ydejin]

Comparing good deeds to bad deeds done in the name of religion would be an interesting tally. The good things might indeed outnumber the bad. But that still leaves us with the question if these deeds have been done under false pretenses. Your friends have done charity because they believe that there is a god. Would they value their charity work the same if they had not had that faith? Being a good and charitable person is a wondrous thing, but being good because someone is watching you, or because you aim to please someone still does not sit quite right to me. Maybe because it speaks of the need of outer gratification, doing good in itself does not seem to be enough motivation.

I don't think they did good things because they believed there was a God and expected some reward. What I would say is that they were able to take far greater risks because they believed God was there. They didn't do good things because they feared God's wrath, rather they did them because they knew God's love and wanted to share it.

I would argue that a belief in God provides greater comfort and strength to do good than a belief in a personal/human-based value system. If I think there is no God, but that it is only my personal values that tell me to do good, then my value system is only as strong as I am. A humanist, relativistic moral system seems inherently weak. We all struggle between altruism and selfishness. If I have a choice between doing something good that requires sacrifice and doing something for myself, and if I ultimately believe that all values are man-made and relative, it will be much easier for me to compromise my altruistic "beliefs". In contrast a belief in God provides me with an absolute value system (which makes it harder for my selfish side to talk myself into a compromise) and provides me with spiritual support to carry out my task.

Consider, for example, this quote from a sermon by Martin Luther King Jr. shortly after he had been jailed in Montgomery Alabama where he had been threatened by the Klan and after he had received a number of calls including one where he was told "Nigger, we are tired of you and your mess now. And if you aren't out of this town in three days, we're going to blow your brains out, and blow up your house." Here's what Reverend King said:


I prayed out loud that night. I said "Lord I'm down here trying to do what's right. I think I'm right. I think the cause that we represent is right. But Lord, I must confess that I'm weak now. I'm faltering. I'm losing my courage.

... And it seemed at that moment that I could hear an inner voice saying to me, "Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world." ... I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No never alone. No never alone. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.

Here's another quote, this one is from the speech he gave the night he was assassinated.


Like anybody I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned with that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land.

I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.

So I'm happy tonight. I'm no worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

What I think is clear from both these quotes is that Reverend King was scared. He had been threatened and he knew that those threats were real. But he trusted in God and found strength in God. Because of Reverend King's faith, he was able to go on despite the threats. He was able to go on, knowing he might very well die. Could an atheist have done the same thing? Yes, but it would have been much harder to make those sacrifices. Did Reverend King do these things because he was trying to earn brownie points with God? No, but nevertheless his faith was a very important component of what he did.

In fact I would go so far as to conjecture that almost all the truly great moral leaders we see are people of deep faith. I'm not saying that they are Christians, but that they are deeply spiritual people. It is simply too hard to be a Reverend King, a Ghandi, an Aung San Suu Kyi, or a Mother Teresa without having a belief in the transcendent, without having a powerful spiritual component.

Edit
Brad, just saw your post after I'd written mine. I agree with you completely on both your points. Your first point is similar to what I'm trying to say here, but you've brought it across in far fewer words than my post ... :) Kudos.

[Brad Grenz]

No, I think you put it well as well. Your MLK example is precient. In the individualize secular view of morality doing right begins and ends with you. Itt is, I would think, far easier to give up in such a situation. Belief that you have God as your ally, and belief that his strength can and will augment your own, whether or not that's objectively true, is a potent incentive to endure even the most terrible of trials in ones moral struggle.

I think in general you are absolutely right about risk taking for the religious. I the belief in an afterlife, particularly, encourages risk taking and sacrifice. I think that's why the religious are often more willing to go to war over moral convictions than atheists who rely on humanism. If you don't believe in God and an afterlife, then for you death is the end, this life is all you have. For the religious, soldiers who give their life fighting a just war will be rewarded for their noble sacrifice in the next, innocent casualties will also be comforted in the afterlife. But, again, this is the kind of belief system that is terrifying to atheists as it can be perverted towards evil as well, something readily apparent in the culture of martyrdom amongst terrorists (I guess they didn't get the memo about suicide being not counting. When I learned what a martyr was it meant someone who was killed for their beliefs, not someone who killed themself to try and kill as many other people for their beliefs. If they're right about being a martyr is a one way ticket to heaven then there are fourty-odd more since tuesday, but none of them had a bomb strapped to their body when they died.).

[Tyjenks]

Wow. Great points by both Brad and ydejin. AS Brad said, the MLK quotes in particular. Anything I would try to add here would be especially lame.

[Anders Hallin]

I would like to assume that unquestionably giving away the interpretative rights of one's actions to a despot (benevolent and creator of all though that despot may be) is not so much a weakness of human nature as a habit.
I am not too high on the idea that humans are too weak to move forward for the good of all on their own volition, but need some strong superior being to aid them.

[Kalle]

Then you have a lot of reading to do. Try Kant, Plato, and Seneca for starters



I had forgotten about Kant. :oops: But Plato's take on morality wasn't exactly secular, if I remember correctly.


Kantian ethics is, IMHO, about the only worthwhile non-theological basis for "good" around. And even then it's basically selfish.

But Kantian ethics are basically subjective. What constitutes means and ends differs from person to person, and upon the situation on which you base your choice.



No, they engage in charity because they know it is good and right. They know being good and right honors God, enriches their life and honors themselves. It's all pretty pedantic if you consider the anecdote we've just been given. Motive doesn't matter much when the religious people are actually doing the work and the atheists are all talk. Maybe their motives would be more "pure" but that's meaningless if they never do anything. OK, so anedotal evidence doesn't mean a whole lot either, but I would be curious to see numbers of secular vs religious private charity (could you count government welfare projects? Can they be legitimately claimed as secular considering the religious pay in just the same?).

But motive does matter, unless you consider that the ends justifies the means. It has to do with how much you value truth and ideals over pure results. Mankind might be better off thanks to the work of religious people, but if these religious people have been working for a belief that does not exist, does that or does that not lessen their accomplishments? That is the question

[Shawn Metcalf]

God is a crutch.

I don't mean that in a cruel or disparaging way. Honest. Some folks need a crutch to walk, and I'm glad that those people have crutches. In those situations a crutch is a wonderful thing. But I don't need one, and I'm not going to use one.

ydejin, Brad, if you and others cannot imagine behaving in a decent manner simply in order to produce the kind of world you want to live in, and instead derive your strength and courage from the idea that there's a God out there keeping an eye out for you, terrific. I've known plenty of such people throughout my life, and they absolutely gained strength from their faith.

But there are those of us who realize that committing rape, murder (and also lesser crimes like theft etc) makes the world a crappier place, and we realize that without needing God telling us it's wrong.

And since we're keeping it polite, could you two quit implying that atheists are cowards, or that we have less courage than religious people? Because this is about as ignorant an assertion as I've seen in quite some time.

[Tyjenks]

God is a crutch.

..........

And since we're keeping it polite, could you two quit implying that atheists are cowards, or that we have less courage than religious people? Because this is about as ignorant an assertion as I've seen in quite some time.

Here we go.

Well, Anders. This was a pleasant discussion for longer than I thought it would be. :)

[Shawn Metcalf]

Here we go.

Yeah, I know. I feel bad about it too. However, the recent trifecta of posts - concluding that because MLK was brave and religious, bravery must come from religion - was a little much to take.

Not looking to go on and on (or, even worse, bring Koontz further into this). Just saying my piece. Carry on.

[Tyjenks]

Here we go.

Yeah, I know. I feel bad about it too. However, the recent trifecta of posts - concluding that because MLK was brave and religious, bravery must come from religion - was a little much to take.

Not looking to go on and on (or, even worse, bring Koontz further into this). Just saying my piece. Carry on.

I did not see their posts as being that over the line, obviously, as I reacted positively to them. Your opinions are just as valid, it just seems like an escalation in the tone of the posts is imminent after your reply.

Atheists sure are touchy. You aren't Canadian by any chance, are you Shawn? :wink:

[Shawn Metcalf]

You aren't Canadian by any chance, are you Shawn? :wink:

Dude, don't call me Canadian. Let's not go saying things we can't take back. :) <-- Rare exception to no-emoticon policy.

[voltaic]

I am not too high on the idea that humans are too weak to move forward for the good of all on their own volition, but need some strong superior being to aid them.
The idea may suck but history shows it is pretty much true. Whereas people say I'm too much of an idealist in my political thoughts, you're certainly an idealist in human goodness. That's not a bad thing, just a statement.


But Kantian ethics are basically subjective. What constitutes means and ends differs from person to person, and upon the situation on which you base your choice.
Yes, which is why I said that Kantian ethics are still basically selfish. And if the strongest set of secular ethics developed in 6000 years by philosophy rests on a slightly shaky foundation, I'm not personally convinced that that is good enough.

[Doug Erickson]

I'd say it's harder to be an atheist/agnostic, and that it takes a crazy level of courage to commit one's self to a life of skepticism.

[Gav]

Just an empirical note: my wife has pointed out to me in the past that there are studies which show a direct correlation between religion (with whatever the measurement was) and money/time given to charity. I don't have a source, so don't bother asking, and feel free to dismiss it. Part of it might be that many religions have some sort of tithing rule.

Does this balance out the absolutely horrible things done in the name of religion? I dunno. Although it's probably worth noting that there are some non-religious people (Pol Pot, Stalin) who've done awful things, too. It just goes to show that any -ism can be perverted.

As far as this question of "doing good because God is watching", it's not as if it's a new question. There's a section of the mishnah (a Jewish religious text) called "Ethics of the Fathers", in which the rabbis talk about doing good for its own sake, but that some people need to start with the idea of doing it to avoid punishment, and then mature to a stage of doing good b/c it's the right thing to do.

In some religious thought, we have a portion of God in us, so doing good is a way for us to reach our fullest potential as human beings, and we're cheating ourselves by not doing good. That's a far cry from the simplistic "God as the ultimate policeman" views I've seen on this thread.

BTW, if it matters, I myself am not particularly religious, so don't flame me.

Gav

[Jason McCullough]

U R ALL BIAS

[Robert Sharp]

But Kantian ethics are basically subjective. What constitutes means and ends differs from person to person, and upon the situation on which you base your choice.
Yes, which is why I said that Kantian ethics are still basically selfish. And if the strongest set of secular ethics developed in 6000 years by philosophy rests on a slightly shaky foundation, I'm not personally convinced that that is good enough.

Seriously guys. Either read him or don't talk about him. To say Kant's ethics are subjective and/or selfish is ridiculous. Selfish? He actually believes that one way that you know you are doing the right thing is if your actions bring you pain (assuming you know they will and are doing it because reason told you to) because then you know you haven't followed your own desires. He thought morality could NEVER be based on desires and could only be based on purely objective reason. Whether he is right about that is another story, but he certainly was not using subjective or selfish principles.

People around here are going to be using your views in discussions. We all know everyone gets their education from the net ;)

[Brad Grenz]

Although it's probably worth noting that there are some non-religious people (Pol Pot, Stalin) who've done awful things, too. It just goes to show that any -ism can be perverted.

Exactly, you can kill God, but it just gets replaced by something else. Without religion people will worship something else, The State, your dictator, or a political ideal as is so often tha case with communism. I think the danger is thinking you can abolish this phenomonom by telling yourself you've evolved beyond a need to God and religion, because your not. All you ever do is shift the particular drive or faculty or whatever it is that makes religion go, to something else.


As far as this question of "doing good because God is watching", it's not as if it's a new question. There's a section of the mishnah (a Jewish religious text) called "Ethics of the Fathers", in which the rabbis talk about doing good for its own sake, but that some people need to start with the idea of doing it to avoid punishment, and then mature to a stage of doing good b/c it's the right thing to do.

No kidding. This is something they'll to you the first week of your first psyche class. The absurd assumption being made by many here is that further development along ones personal morality and having religious convictions is mutually exclusive. That's just BS.


In some religious thought, we have a portion of God in us, so doing good is a way for us to reach our fullest potential as human beings, and we're cheating ourselves by not doing good. That's a far cry from the simplistic "God as the ultimate policeman" views I've seen on this thread.

And this is what I've been getting at. It's hard to debate, though, because those arguing against religion have absolutely no experince or conception of the other side. They've made their choices and have closed themselve of from the possibilities on the other side. It's the same thing when you simply argue if God exists and people dismiss faith. If you can cast it aside so easily then you have no real knowledge of personal religious experiences that can be profound. And they have no chance of gaining that knowledge, so in the end they argue against something that they just don't understand.


but if these religious people have been working for a belief that does not exist, does that or does that not lessen their accomplishments? That is the question

If God doesn't exist they what the hell does it matter, and why the hell do you care? And if God doesn't exist then motive is meaningless as well and ultimate judgement is simply moot. In whose eyes is it diminished? The people they help? It only matters to people like you who look down at them as if you were better. From the sounds of it you worship humanity, have you taken a look around? Who's got a better deity?


I am not too high on the idea that humans are too weak to move forward for the good of all on their own volition, but need some strong superior being to aid them.

I didn't say that, I said that belief allows them to acheive the fullest of their own inborn strength. All other things being equal, who will win a fight between a religious fanatic fighting for his God and a humanist just trying to stay alive? Religion is empowering, I didn't say one can't be empowered in other ways, but you can't deny how powerful religion is.


ydejin, Brad, if you and others cannot imagine behaving in a decent manner simply in order to produce the kind of world you want to live in, and instead derive your strength and courage from the idea that there's a God out there keeping an eye out for you, terrific.

But there are those of us who realize that committing rape, murder (and also lesser crimes like theft etc) makes the world a crappier place, and we realize that without needing God telling us it's wrong.

You are putting words in our mouths. I essentially agree that God is a crutch to some, but it is not a crutch for all. I did not say decency can not be acheived by atheists. Since we're making sweeping generalizations now, is this true of all atheists? What do the atheists who have not made it passed the negative feedback stage of moral evolution do when operating outside the bounds of law?

[Jason McCullough]

The absurd assumption being made by many here is that further development along ones personal morality and having religious convictions is mutually exclusive.

No one said this, Brad.

[voltaic]

[Seriously guys. Either read him or don't talk about him. To say Kant's ethics are subjective and/or selfish is ridiculous. Selfish? He actually believes that one way that you know you are doing the right thing is if your actions bring you pain (assuming you know they will and are doing it because reason told you to) because then you know you haven't followed your own desires. He thought morality could NEVER be based on desires and could only be based on purely objective reason. Whether he is right about that is another story, but he certainly was not using subjective or selfish principles.
It is impossible to pare anything as complex as a system of ethics down into a word or two for the sake of brevity. I said Kantian ethics is basically selfish reflecting on two points:

That a person is the ends to which all means are directed. Actions and non-persons are all means to the ends.

That a person can only perform an action for reasons to which he has subjugated himself. Any action which a person performs, by definition, are done so to achieve some end for that person.

Thus is your system for morality. All people living in this Kantian world perform actions for their own reasons (the idea of freewill comes in here) and for their own ends. This would lead to an "emergent behavior" in which people realize the benefit of having similar "reasons" to act for their own benefit (which conveniently increases the benefit of others).

For example, I choose to act "do not kill" because it benefits you, but this in turn benefits me as you also choose to act "do not kill" which benefits me. Thus I have acted in a moral ethical fashion for my own (selfish) ends.

"Selfish" was a poor choice of word, I grant you.

[Brad Grenz]

The absurd assumption being made by many here is that further development along ones personal morality and having religious convictions is mutually exclusive.

No one said this, Brad.

I take it back then.

[Chris Nahr]

Thus is your system for morality. All people living in this Kantian world perform actions for their own reasons (the idea of freewill comes in here) and for their own ends. This would lead to an "emergent behavior" in which people realize the benefit of having similar "reasons" to act for their own benefit (which conveniently increases the benefit of others).

That's a popular misunderstanding of Kantian ethics. "Do unto others..." is one rule that follows from his theory but it's not its foundation. Kant's ethics are designed to be entirely objective, as Robert said. You are supposed to guide your actions by principles that could be universal laws, according to the judgement of pure reason, regardless of whether or not you face any potential repercussions from a particular action.

[Idar Thorvaldsen]

Then you have a lot of reading to do. Try ... Seneca for starters



Which one of his works would you recommend beginning with?

[Shawn Metcalf]

ydejin, Brad, if you and others cannot imagine behaving in a decent manner simply in order to produce the kind of world you want to live in, and instead derive your strength and courage from the idea that there's a God out there keeping an eye out for you, terrific.

But there are those of us who realize that committing rape, murder (and also lesser crimes like theft etc) makes the world a crappier place, and we realize that without needing God telling us it's wrong.

You are putting words in our mouths. I essentially agree that God is a crutch to some, but it is not a crutch for all. I did not say decency can not be acheived by atheists.

Brad, I'm just going from your posts on this topic. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what people are saying.

ydejin said:


I would argue that a belief in God provides greater comfort and strength to do good than a belief in a personal/human-based value system. If I think there is no God, but that it is only my personal values that tell me to do good, then my value system is only as strong as I am. A humanist, relativistic moral system seems inherently weak.
Okay, so ydejin thinks secular people have inherently weak moral systems. Then you say to him:


No, I think you put it well as well. Your MLK example is precient. In the individualize secular view of morality doing right begins and ends with you. Itt is, I would think, far easier to give up in such a situation.

So you agree with ydejin that secular moral systems are weak, but you're not saying that atheists can't be decent? I don't understand how those statements match up. Secular people are weak morally but they can be decent? Is that really your point?

[Jason McCullough]

For what it's worth, I thought Kant was just densely-written Christian apologism.

[Chris Nahr]

For what it's worth, I thought Kant was just densely-written Christian apologism.

He did try to stuff God in somewhere but that's hardly the whole extent or merit of his philosophy...

[MathGoddess]

Both my parents are ministers, and I grew up when they were going through seminary (I've heard WAY too many sermons!) I was out of the church for around a decade (once I hit college & didn't HAVE to go, I didn't), but since we've had a child, we're back in a church because I want my son to grow up having faith. I want him to believe in something greater than himself and believe in an afterlife. As an adult, if he chooses not to believe, that's fine with me, but I think it's going to be easier on him if he gets a grounding in belief.

I like Andrew Greeley's descriptions of God best - a God of Love - and I particularly like his description (paraphrased poorly here) where he talks of God as a lover - the love between husband and wife - when you are so fully in love with another you get a hint (just a hint) of the love that created the universe.

That's what I'm hoping to give my son - and we'll avoid the thorny issues of religion until he's much older!

[Alan Au]

I dunno, I don't like to think of religion as something you give to people.

- Alan

[MathGoddess]

I dunno, I don't like to think of religion as something you give to people.

- Alan

Better than as something you get - like catching a cold ...
"Oh no, he's caught religion!"

In college I had a friend tell me that over the summer they "became a Christian". I didn't say anything, but my immediate thought was "Oh, what a shame" because the people who loudly proclaim themselves to be Christian tend to be the ones who frighten me most (televangelists etc).

[Kalle]

Seriously guys. Either read him or don't talk about him. To say Kant's ethics are subjective and/or selfish is ridiculous. Selfish? He actually believes that one way that you know you are doing the right thing is if your actions bring you pain (assuming you know they will and are doing it because reason told you to) because then you know you haven't followed your own desires. He thought morality could NEVER be based on desires and could only be based on purely objective reason. Whether he is right about that is another story, but he certainly was not using subjective or selfish principles.

People around here are going to be using your views in discussions. We all know everyone gets their education from the net ;)

I'll just dig up Sartre's take on morality from Existentialism is a Humanism and be done with it. Interesting take on both Christian and Kantian morality.


I will refer to the case of a pupil of mine, who sought me out in the following circumstances. His father was quarrelling with his mother and was also inclined to be a ?collaborator?; his elder brother had been killed in the German offensive of 1940 and this young man, with a sentiment somewhat primitive but generous, burned to avenge him. His mother was living alone with him, deeply afflicted by the semi-treason of his father and by the death of her eldest son, and her one consolation was in this young man. But he, at this moment, had the choice between going to England to join the Free French Forces or of staying near his mother and helping her to live. He fully realised that this woman lived only for him and that his disappearance ? or perhaps his death ? would plunge her into despair. He also realised that, concretely and in fact, every action he performed on his mother?s behalf would be sure of effect in the sense of aiding her to live, whereas anything he did in order to go and fight would be an ambiguous action which night vanish like water into sand and serve no purpose. For instance, to set out for England he would have to wait indefinitely in a Spanish camp on the way through Spain; or, on arriving in England or in Algiers he might be put into an office to fill up forms. Consequently, he found himself confronted by two very different modes of action; the one concrete, immediate, but directed towards only one individual; and the other an action addressed to an end infinitely greater, a national collectivity, but for that very reason ambiguous ? and it might be frustrated on the way. At the same time, he was hesitating between two kinds of morality; on the one side the morality of sympathy, of personal devotion and, on the other side, a morality of wider scope but of more debatable validity. He had to choose between those two. What could help him to choose? Could the Christian doctrine? No. Christian doctrine says: Act with charity, love your neighbour, deny yourself for others, choose the way which is hardest, and so forth. But which is the harder road? To whom does one owe the more brotherly love, the patriot or the mother? Which is the more useful aim, the general one of fighting in and for the whole community, or the precise aim of helping one particular person to live? Who can give an answer to that a priori? No one. Nor is it given in any ethical scripture. The Kantian ethic says, Never regard another as a means, but always as an end. Very well; if I remain with my mother, I shall be regarding her as the end and not as a means: but by the same token I am in danger of treating as means those who are fighting on my behalf; and the converse is also true, that if I go to the aid of the combatants I shall be treating them as the end at the risk of treating my mother as a means. If values are uncertain, if they are still too abstract to determine the particular, concrete case under consideration, nothing remains but to trust in our instincts. That is what this young man tried to do; and when I saw him he said, ?In the end, it is feeling that counts; the direction in which it is really pushing me is the one I ought to choose. If I feel that I love my mother enough to sacrifice everything else for her ? my will to be avenged, all my longings for action and adventure then I stay with her. If, on the contrary, I feel that my love for her is not enough, I go.? But how does one estimate the strength of a feeling? The value of his feeling for his mother was determined precisely by the fact that he was standing by her. I may say that I love a certain friend enough to sacrifice such or such a sum of money for him, but I cannot prove that unless I have done it. I may say, ?I love my mother enough to remain with her,? if actually I have remained with her. I can only estimate the strength of this affection if I have performed an action by which it is defined and ratified. But if I then appeal to this affection to justify my action, I find myself drawn into a vicious circle.

[Kalle]

but if these religious people have been working for a belief that does not exist, does that or does that not lessen their accomplishments? That is the question

If God doesn't exist they what the hell does it matter, and why the hell do you care? And if God doesn't exist then motive is meaningless as well and ultimate judgement is simply moot. In whose eyes is it diminished? The people they help? It only matters to people like you who look down at them as if you were better. From the sounds of it you worship humanity, have you taken a look around? Who's got a better deity?


Truth matters to me. Knowledge matters to me. From the sound of it I guess it doesn't to you. A beautiful lie is still a lie, while a harsh unforgiving truth will always be true. I believe in humanity, though not so arrogantly that I worship it, because humanity is true, humanity exists and humanity is all around me every day each day. That is a profound truth. God is a profound "maybe". If you have enough belief to gamble your life on a maybe than more power to you.

[Enidigm]

Forgive me for not exactly reading every post, but this topic is so adept a fishing lure ive just not the stamina to tackle it as it pops up every 10min. in one or another forum.

As a child to me God's absence was self evident. Adults however can blind themselves easily into seeing whatever they wish into the world around them, but everyone here is way past 'debating the facts'; that God is not corperal, is not self evident, is beyond debate. So, where else can God reside?

God can reside, perhaps, where human means come to an end. Divine karma expressed through loading chance. Think of a chicken's pully-bone (breast bone), or the locked wheels of Ben Hur's and Masala's chariots in the movies. God could also reside in the afterlife as some supreme measurement of justice. But clearly if God is not simply a human ideal un-manifested his rapport with the indvidual is at best indirect in the physical world and ambiguous and wrapped in mysticism in the personal.

But what does the absence of God say about his expectations for humanity, our views upon divinity and its relation to ourselves, and the attainment of the knowledge of 'universal' perfection through inferrence?
Could it be that God actually -wants- humanity to disbelieve, or maybe better, grow out of belief in him, and why?

I no longer, as an adult, enjoy vitriolic, blanket condemnations of religions in general any longer, although admittedly i would have been an enthusiastic champion of that world view as a boy, because so much good has come out of religion that can be measured against the bad. Indeed, modern capitialism might well be called secularlized Prodestantism. But in the end can we ever escape the circular rationalization of 'natural law' which invariably refers unto itself?

The whole moral guidance debates are often condecending by both sides to human capacity. For me the importance of the ethics of theologies are how they shape societies and grant individuals mental discipline. Or can humanity develop as a species beyond needing a vengeful, lighting wielding imperator, and is that the point? In those thousands of years since Gilgamesh, Moses, Plato, the Greco-Romans, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel and all the rest, what have we accomplished besides ever more insightful description of the myriad and elaborate system we practice. Have we actually advanced the path of the individual? And if we have or have not, does this make God (or the idea) any less relevent?

[ydejin]

Hey guys. I'm away for the weekend and only have limited Internet access, so I'll try to keep this short (which I'm sure will keep many -- perhaps most??? -- happy).

I think some of you have misinterpreted my earlier post, so let me try again. I'm not saying that atheists are weak or that they are somehow not as good as people who are not atheists. In fact, I think you can argue that, at least in America, being an atheist requires a certain courage as it goes against mainstream culture. What I am trying to say is that because an atheist believes that his viewpoint/ethics are only his viewpoint/ethics and not some universal standard, he needs more self-discipline and a stronger sense of self than someone who believes in some kind of divine power. As I said previously


If I think there is no God, but that it is only my personal values that tell me to do good, then my value system is only as strong as I am.

If I have a strong sense of self then I stay true to my value system. If I'm weak then I will be in trouble. The same effect occurs with a "divine" based value system of course, but I believe the effect is much more pronounced in an atheist value system, particularly one which states that a particular person's values are only that person's values and ultimately no more or less correct than any other person's values. If that's what I believe, and I come into a situation where there is something I want but the means of getting it is in "minor" conflict with my "values", what's to stop me from changing my values so that I can get what I want? Note we're talking about "minor" conflicts -- things somewhat in the gray areas -- I'm not arguing an atheist is any more likely than anyone else to go rape or murder people. To prevent myself from making these small shifts in values, I need strong internal discipline and good self-awareness. Some are capable of this, but many are not.

A relativist value system seems inherently "squishy" with room for movement. You can argue that that's a good thing or that it's a bad thing. It has advantages (witness the Catholic church's inability to accept birth control -- or for that matter their struggle to accept the earth revolving around the sun -- for an example of why a squishy system might have and advantage) but a squishy system also has disadvantages as it requires more internal discipline to maintain.

I still hold that for a typical person, performing a difficult moral task will be easier if that person has a divine-based value system. Would Martin Luther King have been able to continue his work had he been an atheist? Perhaps, but I think it's unlikely given what he himself wrote. That doesn't mean that there isn't an atheist out there who is stronger and who would have been able to carry out Dr. King's tasks, but for Dr. King, he needed that divine inspiration. Similarly Gandhi habitually rose early each morning and read from the Hindu and Christian scriptures. Would he have found similar strength had he read atheist writers? Shawn argues that religion is a "crutch". Perhaps it is (none of us will know with complete certainty this side of death), but the point of a crutch is that it allows you to do something you can't do without it. A belief in God provides comfort in dark places. Carrying out difficult moral tasks sometimes requires people to go through dark places. That belief in God, crutch or not, can help get people through that dark valley allowing them to complete their tasks.

As far as Kalle's point on whether the end justifies the means, I think the tasks speak for themselves. Would the fact that Dr. King found strength in the divine somehow reduce the glory of his achievement if there is no God? For me it does not.

[bmulligan]

God is a profound "maybe". If you have enough belief to gamble your life on a maybe than more power to you.

Could this be the first QT3 reference to Pascal's Wager?

[Brad Grenz]

but if these religious people have been working for a belief that does not exist, does that or does that not lessen their accomplishments? That is the question

If God doesn't exist they what the hell does it matter, and why the hell do you care? And if God doesn't exist then motive is meaningless as well and ultimate judgement is simply moot. In whose eyes is it diminished? The people they help? It only matters to people like you who look down at them as if you were better. From the sounds of it you worship humanity, have you taken a look around? Who's got a better deity?


Truth matters to me. Knowledge matters to me. From the sound of it I guess it doesn't to you. A beautiful lie is still a lie, while a harsh unforgiving truth will always be true. I believe in humanity, though not so arrogantly that I worship it, because humanity is true, humanity exists and humanity is all around me every day each day. That is a profound truth. God is a profound "maybe". If you have enough belief to gamble your life on a maybe than more power to you.

You can't prove truth exists any easier than I could prove od exists through reason and logic. You can't simultaneously expoud personal morality as ultimately subjective and then turn around and tell me absolute truth exists. I believe in truth as well and I think we've discovered what God is to you, Truth.


So you agree with ydejin that secular moral systems are weak, but you're not saying that atheists can't be decent? I don't understand how those statements match up. Secular people are weak morally but they can be decent? Is that really your point?

I'm having trouble understanding where you think the intersection is. Both of us were talking about the psychological effect of the belief in God on those undergoing severe hardships and struggling to endure great pain. That in no way speaks to the moral potentiality of all atheists. Between his and my clarifications, do you see what we are talking about?

[Kalle]

You can't prove truth exists any easier than I could prove od exists through reason and logic. You can't simultaneously expound personal morality as ultimately subjective and then turn around and tell me absolute truth exists. I believe in truth as well and I think we've discovered what God is to you, Truth.

Honestly, I have not read enough on logic that I even want to touch the issue of what can be proven and what can not, what exists for that matter? Truth is a belief I have, among others, that makes the world go round. I may not understand it, but I know it's there. 2+2=4, after all. A lie that makes people do wonderful things will always be a lie and should be exposed as such.


Would the fact that Dr. King found strength in the divine somehow reduce the glory of his achievement if there is no God? For me it does not.

Doing wonderful things influenced by a lie does not lessen the accomplishment, but it lessens the one who accomplished them. If Dr. King let himself be decieved, and found strength in his own deception, and I say if, because I'll never know for sure, then that reduces his glory.

[Robert Sharp]

Then you have a lot of reading to do. Try ... Seneca for starters



Which one of his works would you recommend beginning with?

If you really want to read Stoicism, I would recommend The Hellenistic Philosophers, put together by Long and Sedley. It's kind of a Bible of Hellenistic philosophy. It also has Epicureanism, which is not the same as utilitarianism, but has many similar ideas. I would say Epicureanism is more sophisticated and better thought out than utilitarianism, but that's debatable obviously.

[Robert Sharp]

For what it's worth, I thought Kant was just densely-written Christian apologism.

He did try to stuff God in somewhere but that's hardly the whole extent or merit of his philosophy...

Right. Actually, Kant didn't need God at all. His ideas lead to a similar place to Christian morality, but gets there in a VERY different way. It also has different conclusions, especially in WHY you should do things. Kant's way makes room for free will, though some would say his version isn't what they would mean by freedom at all.

Personally, I would place Kant among the top 5 most intelligent people of all time. I don't agree with much of what he says, but it is pure genius. Christoph is right to point out that strictly speaking Kant's view is not about getting something out of others. In fact, it's about treating others with the same respect you would treat your own rational being. Not because they will do the same for you...it doesn't matter at all what they do, but because they deserve it as rational beings (with freedom and ability to create and follow the moral law). Kant's second version of the categorical imperative is often misinterpreted as suggesting a do unto others type rule, but that's misleading. In fact, the Golden Rule itself should NOT be interpreted as suggesting that you should do unto others as you want them to do you (as if that's the reason why you are doing it...to get something in return). The Golden Rule says as you would have them do unto you...there's a big difference. You are supposed to treat others with the same respect that you would treat yourself because they are just like you (because they are created by God or are rational beings, or whatever). so the Golden Rule isn't a selfish rule at all. It isn't about moral commerce. It's about how you should treat other people, no matter how they treat you.

What voltaic is pointing out (and I think it is important to do so) is that Kant can be interpreted as suggesting something selfish. i.e. that you should do these things in order to be free or in order to have a better world for you to live in...etc. But that misrepresents his view. What voltaic may have been pointing out is that Kant's system can be dangerous because people will misinterpret it and act selfishly. If that is what he meant, I agree. Kant is very hard to read (he isn't a very good writer, despite his brilliant thinking).

[Anders Hallin]

Personally, I would place Kant among the top 5 most intelligent people of all time. I don't agree with much of what he says, but it is pure genius. Christoph is right to point out that strictly speaking Kant's view is not about getting something out of others. In fact, it's about treating others with the same respect you would treat your own rational being. Not because they will do the same for you...it doesn't matter at all what they do, but because they deserve it as rational beings (with freedom and ability to create and follow the moral law). Kant's second version of the categorical imperative is often misinterpreted as suggesting a do unto others type rule, but that's misleading. In fact, the Golden Rule itself should NOT be interpreted as suggesting that you should do unto others as you want them to do you (as if that's the reason why you are doing it...to get something in return). The Golden Rule says as you would have them do unto you...there's a big difference. You are supposed to treat others with the same respect that you would treat yourself because they are just like you (because they are created by God or are rational beings, or whatever). so the Golden Rule isn't a selfish rule at all. It isn't about moral commerce. It's about how you should treat other people, no matter how they treat you.
Very interesting, and it has by coincidence become what I often base arguments on (ie. "it doesn't matter what sort of punishment I think they deserve, it has to do with that we as individuals deserve better than to commit such deeds", or similar).
Maybe I should actually sit down and read books one of these days, instead of just making up a point on the spot. Though I usually get upset (well, not really) that people have already written down what it took me some time to figure out (and therefore making everything I think of seem blatantly obvious and not worth talking about).

Ack! My thousandth post! It came and went, and I forgot to do something special :(

[Gav]

(About truth) I may not understand it, but I know it's there. 2+2=4, after all.

How do you know? There are lots of axioms that have turned out not be true, like Euclid's 5th axiom.



A lie that makes people do wonderful things will always be a lie and should be exposed as such.

Leaving aside the question of how one would know that God is a lie, why should it be exposed as a lie? Who benefits? The person who's been thinking that there's some purpose to their lives, and now feels like a fool? The person who they were helping out, but who now no longer receives their charity? You, because you get to feel superior for straightening them out?


Doing wonderful things influenced by a lie does not lessen the accomplishment, but it lessens the one who accomplished them. If Dr. King let himself be decieved, and found strength in his own deception, and I say if, because I'll never know for sure, then that reduces his glory.
I just don't get that. Maybe because I'm a pragmatist at heart, but I don't care why someone helps or hurts me; I care that they do it. If someone punches me in the nose because he thinks God told him to do it, my nose hurts just as much as if he punched me because he thought it'd be fun. And if someone helps me out because he believes God told him to, I'm just as well off as if he did because he's just an ethical atheist.

In any case, some very smart people have argued back & forth over proofs of God's existence for centuries, so declaring that you somehow have a lock on the "truth" seems a tad presumptuous to me.

Gav

[Idar Thorvaldsen]

Then you have a lot of reading to do. Try ... Seneca for starters



Which one of his works would you recommend beginning with?

If you really want to read Stoicism, I would recommend The Hellenistic Philosophers, put together by Long and Sedley. It's kind of a Bible of Hellenistic philosophy...

Well, I really just wanted to read Seneca, and I found some of his stuff (http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/sen.html) lying around the web. Are there any good annotated works of Seneca (latin texts, english annotations(?)) around?

[Brad Grenz]

Kalle, my point is that believing in Truth is as much a leap of faith as believing in God. You can't prove Truth exists, but based on your experience you've decided it does. This is no different than what a person who believes in God does. It takes a leap of faith in both cases. It therefore is patently hypocritical to admonish someone for their foolish belief in God based on your own beliefs which may be just as foolish.

[MathGoddess]

(About truth) I may not understand it, but I know it's there. 2+2=4, after all.

How do you know? There are lots of axioms that have turned out not be true, like Euclid's 5th axiom.


Um... that's a bit different than arithmetic - forget who it was who said "God created the integers, everything else is man-made"

The "truths" would be the theorems... the axioms are your starting points - and the parallel postulate isn't false - it just applies in a limited environment (negation of it giving us elliptic & hyperbolic geometries)

[voltaic]

(About truth) I may not understand it, but I know it's there. 2+2=4, after all.
How do you know? There are lots of axioms that have turned out not be true, like Euclid's 5th axiom.
It's true in simple geometries.

Besides, an axiom is more like a definition than a conclusion of truth. I can define anything to be whatever I want. It may only be useful in some models (like Euclid's fifth) or may not be useful at all, that's a separate issue.

[bmulligan]

...believing in Truth is as much a leap of faith as believing in God. You can't prove Truth exists, but based on your experience you've decided it does.

Truth is the keyboard you are using to type this message. Truth is the sun above your head and the Earth beneath your feet. It is self evident. It exists regardless of your faith or belief. Of course you can't prove it, you don't have to.......it just is.

Does a newborn baby have to 'decide' on faith that the world is all around him?

[cyborg]

Truth != Interpretation.

[Gav]

(About truth) I may not understand it, but I know it's there. 2+2=4, after all.
How do you know? There are lots of axioms that have turned out not be true, like Euclid's 5th axiom.
It's true in simple geometries.

Besides, an axiom is more like a definition than a conclusion of truth. I can define anything to be whatever I want. It may only be useful in some models (like Euclid's fifth) or may not be useful at all, that's a separate issue.

If you look at the post I was reposing to, Kalle was pretty clearly talking about axiomatic truths (I can't prove them, but I know they're true). I was just pointing out the some axiomatic, self-evident truths just aren't. The parallel postulate is just such an example--it seems true, and it's true in limited areas, and you can do useful things with it, but it's not universally true.

You can come up with algebras where 2+2<>4. (Like modulus arithmetic).

So it seems to me that if it's so hard to even work out the truth of simple stuff, then the hard stuff (like the (non)existence) is very hard to claim that you know aximatically.

Gav

[Kalle]

A lie that makes people do wonderful things will always be a lie and should be exposed as such.

Leaving aside the question of how one would know that God is a lie, why should it be exposed as a lie? Who benefits? The person who's been thinking that there's some purpose to their lives, and now feels like a fool? The person who they were helping out, but who now no longer receives their charity? You, because you get to feel superior for straightening them out?

I don't know if god is a lie. I never will. My whole reasoning here is a thought experiment on the lines of "if X belief is false what then?" However, assuming that this belief is false, you ask why it should be exposed? My simple line of reasoning is this. People should know as much as possible in order to make informed decisions about their life. Not because I get to feel superior, but because people deserve to know. I could ask you, if you knew that a belief was false, who are you to decide that people would be best served by hearing lies?




Doing wonderful things influenced by a lie does not lessen the accomplishment, but it lessens the one who accomplished them. If Dr. King let himself be decieved, and found strength in his own deception, and I say if, because I'll never know for sure, then that reduces his glory.

I just don't get that. Maybe because I'm a pragmatist at heart, but I don't care why someone helps or hurts me; I care that they do it. If someone punches me in the nose because he thinks God told him to do it, my nose hurts just as much as if he punched me because he thought it'd be fun. And if someone helps me out because he believes God told him to, I'm just as well off as if he did because he's just an ethical atheist.

In any case, some very smart people have argued back & forth over proofs of God's existence for centuries, so declaring that you somehow have a lock on the "truth" seems a tad presumptuous to me.

Gav

Motive does not matter to you at all? Curious. Would you be willing to give to a charity organisation that worked in Africa with the implicit purpose of improving conditions in Africa so that Africans did not have to emigrate and taint more civilized countries, if that organization achieved very good results?

Anyway, I don't think I have claimed to have a lock on the truth, certainly not when it comes to the divine. I will never know, plain and simple.



Kalle, my point is that believing in Truth is as much a leap of faith as believing in God. You can't prove Truth exists, but based on your experience you've decided it does. This is no different than what a person who believes in God does. It takes a leap of faith in both cases. It therefore is patently hypocritical to admonish someone for their foolish belief in God based on your own beliefs which may be just as foolish.
Truth is the keyboard you are using to type this message. Truth is the sun above your head and the Earth beneath your feet. It is self evident. It exists regardless of your faith or belief. Of course you can't prove it, you don't have to.......it just is.

Does a newborn baby have to 'decide' on faith that the world is all around him?


I can't believe I'm doing this...but I agree with mulligan. To a point. Faith in the divine is mostly taught, sunday school and all that. The leap of faith associated with acknowledging that your senses tells you there's a world out there is not a leap at all. It is faith, yes, but it does not require any reasoning to find out.

[Shawn Metcalf]

Shawn argues that religion is a "crutch". Perhaps it is (none of us will know with complete certainty this side of death), but the point of a crutch is that it allows you to do something you can't do without it.

That's the point I made as well ("Some folks need a crutch to walk, and I'm glad that those people have crutches"), so I guess we're in agreement after all. That seems as good a time as any to bow out of this discussion.

[Anders Hallin]

Keep an open mind about everything, but always hold most trust in your truth. Because really, there is no other.

[Brad Grenz]

I can't believe I'm doing this...but I agree with mulligan. To a point. Faith in the divine is mostly taught, sunday school and all that. The leap of faith associated with acknowledging that your senses tells you there's a world out there is not a leap at all. It is faith, yes, but it does not require any reasoning to find out.

Epistomology is a significant branch of philosphy which debates whether or not it's possible to every really have knowledge of anything. It's not as cut and dry a question as mulligan makes it out to be. To be clear, I believe in an absolute Truth as well, but it's not a sure thing. And I'd argue that humans have a natural proclivity to believe in some supernatural power that is greater than themselves. Belief in current popular incarnations of religious doctrine, sure that's learned, but I think in a religious vaccum humanity still has a natural tendency to create divine beliefs. Not something easily proved, I grant you.

[cyborg]

[quote]And I'd argue that humans have a natural proclivity to believe in some supernatural power that is greater than themselves.

I'd argue that some don't have any natural proclicity to believe in some supernatural power at all. In fact there has been some study on the 'God spot' of the brain that does in fact indicate that some people are more 'wired' for God than others.

[quatoria]

Conclusive proof: God is brain damage.

[voltaic]

I'd argue that some don't have any natural proclicity to believe in some supernatural power at all. In fact there has been some study on the 'God spot' of the brain that does in fact indicate that some people are more 'wired' for God than others.
Link?

[benj]

I didn't read one post, but I have to say this...

God is non-existent. There is no God.

People only say that they believe in God because there afraid to die. Me... I could care less. I'm not afraid to face the end. Hell.. I won't have to worry about paying the bills and working my ass off to make ends meet. My cofin can be my little pad when I die. So that's that.

End of discussion. :)

[quatoria]

I think that's an oversimplification, Benj. There are reasons beyond fear driving belief in God - you should try to be less dismissive.

[Tyjenks]

My biggest problem with this whole discussion is that, in the past, I tried to pry open the minds of my "religious" friends with regards to their closely held beliefs that their God is the only one and their way is the right way to live. Now I see that many atheists/non-believers/wiccans are just as rigid and closed-minded in their belief that there is absolutely no god and not even the possibility of one.

[Jason McCullough]

If God comes down and starts kicking me in the nuts, I'll agree. Until then, you can't prove a thing either way.

[Murph]

If God comes down and starts kicking me in the nuts, I'll agree.

Then you're more open-minded than a lot of non-believers!

[cyborg]

I'd argue that some don't have any natural proclicity to believe in some supernatural power at all. In fact there has been some study on the 'God spot' of the brain that does in fact indicate that some people are more 'wired' for God than others.
Link?

I'm afraid I do not have one - I saw this on a TV documentary.

[bmulligan]

It's not as cut and dry a question as mulligan makes it out to be. To be clear, I believe in an absolute Truth as well, but it's not a sure thing.

But some things are cut and dry, the truth that is all around us and is the basis for epistimology. How can you believe in an absolute truth but not have it be a sure thing? The evidence is all around you, unless we're all living in the Matrix or something.

Now I know the physics nuts will argue that everything around us is just empty space, comprised of particles of charge and no matter whatsoever. Or that the material world is simply a pool of trapped energy all connected by the relationship to space and time. It doesn't change the fact that my corn flakes get soggy in milk after 122.4 seconds -- every time!

I think this belief in god thing boils down to 2 camps:

Those that believe nature's rules are immutable
Those that believe natures rules are malleable

[voltaic]

I think this belief in god thing boils down to 2 camps:

Those that believe nature's rules are immutable
Those that believe natures rules are malleable
What does that have to do with God?

[bmulligan]

Even the scientists and athiests believe in laws of nature and the existence of reality. Rigid laws allow the Deists to drop 'god' out of the equation.

Changable rules imply a belief in 'miracles' performed by a supernatural source.

[Brad Grenz]

Believing in miracles isn't a prerequisit for belief in God, nor does belief in rigid physical laws preclude it. You are allowing yourself to be unduly influenced by "traditional" concepts of God. Surely there are those as you describe, who believe God pulls a fast one on the universe every once in a while, but it's not a uniform belief. And God doesn't "drop" off the equasion, people choose to remove him. It can't be proven that God doesn't exist, so it can't be proven that an absense of God is the naturally assumed state.


But some things are cut and dry, the truth that is all around us and is the basis for epistimology. How can you believe in an absolute truth but not have it be a sure thing? The evidence is all around you, unless we're all living in the Matrix or something.

The same way I can believe in a God knowing I can't prove his existence. And whether we are all jacked into the Matrix is the real question. We come to rely on a certain degree of knowledge which we trust to be sufficiently reliable. We trust our senses, that they aren't lying to us.

It's actually another interesting question, at least in my mind. If we are trapped in the Matrix, if our senses are being manipulated, what does that matter? It's similar to the "if God doesn't exist, what does it matter?" question. If this is the Matrix and we have no possibility of escaping, then all that we can ever accomplish will be within this shared hallucination. Given that it is all we have, then it's all that matters.

[Anders Hallin]

My biggest problem with this whole discussion is that, in the past, I tried to pry open the minds of my "religious" friends with regards to their closely held beliefs that their God is the only one and their way is the right way to live. Now I see that many atheists/non-believers/wiccans are just as rigid and closed-minded in their belief that there is absolutely no god and not even the possibility of one.
I really don't care if God exists or not, and won't, until I stand there in slack-jawed amazement asking St. Peter "I have to do WHAT now? This totally isn't fair!"

The important thing is that if God exists, I would reject the idea of being supplicant to that God, and in extension judged by God.

I wouldn't find it that strange if I did find out that God exists.

[Jason McCullough]

Yeah, forgot to mention that: if the literal God of Jerry Falwell existed, one would be morally obligated to go to hell.

[Pjerrot]

God!
Does it matter if he exists or not?

What about the big question of co-existing of people of different beliefs?

As a truly non-believer I have difficulty keeping a honest relationship when a friend suddenly 'sees the light' - she became a widow.

Yes, I don't care if God exists or not, because I'm not in doubt.
But how to respect different beliefs and keeping the relationship honest?

On an inpersonal level like the net, it's not hard. But in 'real' life - friends, family - it's damn hard!

I can't tell someone newly widowed there aren't any afterlife - could you?

[Tyjenks]

OK. Good responses. However, after 5 pages, I still have no idea what to think. Not that I was going to consult this board for personal guidance. I think I will continue to ride the fence. Just in case. :wink:

[Murph]

I can't tell someone newly widowed there aren't any afterlife - could you?

Why should you?

For that matter, what if she's right? It's just as likely that she's right as it is that you are, really.

If she's right, then about 75% of the earth's population are in a lot of trouble when they die.

If you're right -- she was still a good person based on her belief, and she's lost nothing. Why would you try to dissuade her?

And, for the record -- witnessing a few miracles and feeling the presence of God (yes, you can all think I'm crazy, though most of you probably do already) makes it nigh impossible to not believe. I know, firsthand. It seems crazy to me to know that some people can not believe, based on what I've experienced.

[quatoria]

I've been near death on multiple occasions. I've had my guts ripped from my belly in a horrible ATV (all terrain vehicle) crash, and had to stagger home, bleeding, holding them in my hands. At no time did I feel any kind of presence helping me, or urging me on. I felt nothing except cold, and stunned, and scared. I've been trapped underneath a vehicle, only my helmet keeping it from crushing my skull. There was nothing there but me. I've frozen with fear when my feet started to slide out from underneath me, halfway up the side of a cliff I decided to climb. I felt no safe warm presence making me feel that it would be alright. I've been T-Boned in my car, a pickup truck ramming into my door at full speed, rupturing discs in my spine. I felt no loving father figure in my mind, reassuring me that everything would be okay.

Where is this presence you speak of? In all these occasions, I've seen nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing but myself.

[JeffL]

FWIW. I'm a scientific person - Ph.D. in chemistry, strong training and experience in physics, biochem, and a couple of other fields. I also believe in God. Completely, fully. As do quite a few of my coworkers with the same type of scientific background. Just so that people don't have some belief that scientists and God can't co-exist.

Purely FWIW.

[Murph]

Where is this presence you speak of? In all these occasions, I've seen nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing but myself.

You're gonna think this is a total cop-out, and I admit that it sounds this way, but...Well, God is with His children. Those who don't follow Him will never feel his presence, because He's not there for them.

He doesn't necessarily going around trying to "prove Himself" to change people's minds. He wants you to believe, but if He proved Himself...Well, then it wouldn't be faith, would it?

[quatoria]

I see. So, since I'm not a Christian, God has no interest in supporting me through times of pain or trauma. He reserves his love exclusively for those of his creations who have joined His Special Club. Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.

[Machfive]

I've been near death on multiple occasions. I've had my guts ripped from my belly in a horrible ATV (all terrain vehicle) crash, and had to stagger home, bleeding, holding them in my hands. At no time did I feel any kind of presence helping me, or urging me on. I felt nothing except cold, and stunned, and scared. I've been trapped underneath a vehicle, only my helmet keeping it from crushing my skull. There was nothing there but me. I've frozen with fear when my feet started to slide out from underneath me, halfway up the side of a cliff I decided to climb. I felt no safe warm presence making me feel that it would be alright. I've been T-Boned in my car, a pickup truck ramming into my door at full speed, rupturing discs in my spine. I felt no loving father figure in my mind, reassuring me that everything would be okay.

Where is this presence you speak of? In all these occasions, I've seen nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing but myself.

Maybe God's trying to tell you something: JUST DIE ALREADY.

[Machfive]

I see. So, since I'm not a Christian, God has no interest in supporting me through times of pain or trauma. He reserves his love exclusively for those of his creations who have joined His Special Club. Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.

Must be this "Old Testament God" he's talking about.

And actually, Pascal's wager is a sucker's bet.

Statistically, odds are great that your religion is wrong, whether you have one or not. This goes on the assumption that the odds of a religion being correct are the same, therefore, out of the hundreds (thousands?) of religions, on 1/x can be correct.

Choosing the right religion is like winning $50 bucks in a scratch-off lottery ticket. Odds are 1/1000, purchase necessary.

At least atheists can claim they weren't taking sides, if they end up being wrong.

[Ar]

I see. So, since I'm not a Christian, God has no interest in supporting me through times of pain or trauma. He reserves his love exclusively for those of his creations who have joined His Special Club. Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.

Hello all, Im new here, and havent read all this thread yet (poor way to start posting, I know :wink:), but just have to add a line here and now.

Premitted Im a believer, not because of what I have been teached, but my own riflessions, experiences and feelings.

To the point: it doesnt matters if you are Christian or not.
You cant buy a divine intervention with xxx hours of church presence, neither are ignored for calling Him with a different name.

Suffering doesnt grant you a blessing.
His children, as Murph said, are the people who sincerely love Him and act accordingly.
Regardless of which church they are affilated to.

About the odds of finding the "right" religion, I have no doubt that many of the world so-called different religions are in fact the same, partially disguised under the different words used to best suit the needs of specific listeners, and by different wrong interpretations.

[Murph]

So, since I'm not a Christian, God has no interest in supporting me through times of pain or trauma. He reserves his love exclusively for those of his creations who have joined His Special Club.

Oi. I can't let this go unanswered, but I really didn't want to stir anything up.

According to the Bible, which I choose to believe, everyone is tainted by sin. Those who have accepted the gift that Jesus offered by dying on the cross and accepting Him into their lives have had that sin erased by His blood.

Here's why there's a difference: Those who are still "covered in sin" cannot ever enter into God's presence. It's not that He doesn't love you, or want to be with you. He wants everyone to experience His presence on earth, and join Him in heaven. But those who do not accept His gift of forgiveness cannot, because they are still covered in sin, and sin cannot be in His presence.

It's not that He didn't want to help you through your trials. It's that you wouldn't let Him. He won't violate your free will, but if you will not accept his forgiveness, He can't help you, because the sin is "in his way".

[Mark Asher]

That version of God is kind of a dick. He won't let a peaceful Buddhist monk into heaven because the monk didn't accept Christ as his savior. That's just not right.

[Murph]

He won't let a peaceful Buddhist monk into heaven because the monk didn't accept Christ as his savior. That's just not right.

See, I don't see it that way.

A.)God created the universe.
B.)God told man not to do ONE THING.
C.)When man did that one thing, God gave him the law to make up for it.
D.)When man couldn't abide by the law, God had his son die, basically saying "Since you guys obviously can't follow my rules, here is salvation where you don't have to do anything. Just take my gift and say thank you."

He's basically bending over backwards to get people into Heaven. If they don't accept, then it's totally their own doing, not His.

Now, if people legitimately never hear about any of this...Well, the Bible's pretty gray about that. But those people are becoming fewer and fewer with every passing month.

[Ar]

Cant agree with that version.
While I believe in Jesus, I dont agree with all the today's church interpretation of the bible.
It sure is convenient to think that your sins will be erased as easily as is to ask forgiveness to a priest, but doesnt make much sense.

A man of saintly life who lived maybe a million years before Jesus, and all other men who lived before him, should then be punished for not having had the chance to "accept Jesus's gift" - since he wasnt born here yet?

A good and extremely poor man living in a third world country, or maybe a children who dies right after being born, are punished for not having had the chance to know the Christian teachings?

An assassin who gets to see a priest right before dying goes in heaven, while a good man who made a single minor mistake but lives far away from churches and had no means to get there gets punished for it?

I wouldnt say that calling God with a name rather than another means accepting ot refusing forgiveness.
I dont think that forgiveness is so easily handed out either, or that man is born "covered with sin" for some crime he didnt even commit personally.

There are better interpretations if you ask me - but would take some time for even a poor expositon here.

[Mark Asher]

He's basically bending over backwards to get people into Heaven. If they don't accept, then it's totally their own doing, not His.

God is being a fucktard by your definition. The nicest, kindest, most generous person on earth can't get into heaven unless he accepts Christ. That is just a horrible way to run the heaven racket. Being nice, kind, and generous should be more than enough to get you into heaven.

Jack Chick has a comic strip that points out the absurdity of it, though that wasn't his intention of course. An elderly missionary couple and an ex-convict are on a flight. The missionaries have devoted their lives to helping others, but haven't accept Christ as their savior. The ex-con has. The plane crashes and everyone dies, but the missionaries don't get admitted to heaven while the former pedophile-murderer-rapist does -- ok, I made up his crimes, but it could still happen that way.

C'mon, that is so fucked up!

[Murph]

I never meant to imply that one was forgiven through a church. Forgiveness comes from Christ Himself.

And I do believe that children, before they're old enough to understand, are...um, exempted.


The nicest, kindest, most generous person on earth can't get into heaven unless he accepts Christ.

I will say that absolutely, without a doubt, anyone who has been told about God and Jesus, and Christ's sacrifice for their sake, and then doesn't accept it, has rejected Jesus, God, and all that they've done. And you think that they should be allowed to heaven because they were nice?

Those who are too young to understand are not viewed the same way. Of course, all babies go to heaven. Likewise, though who were born before Jesus came to earth can't be held to the same standard.

Those who, for one reason or another, never hear anything about God, Jesus, or the Bible...I don't know.

I do, however, find it odd that so many people think that you should be able to totally reject God and all that He's done, and still get into heaven. That's crazy.

[Edited to add]

The whole point of Christ dying, though, is that people can't be good enough to get into heaven. They tried that in the Old Testament, under the law, and it didn't work. Nobody could follow it well enough to make it into heaven.

If you think that people can just "be nice" and get into heaven, then that's totally trivializing everything that Christ did and was. Living a sinless life and dying so that others can make it to heaven -- pretty much the ultimate sacrifice.

[Jason McCullough]

It's not rejecting God, Murph, it's rejecting kissing the brass ring. A literal reading of the Bible paints him as a narcissistic, praise-demanding asshole.

The traditional apologism on this is "God has different standards," which is a perfectly reasonable defense. You can't expect people to swallow it without distaste, though.

[Jason Levine]

Those who are too young to understand are not viewed the same way. Of course, all babies go to heaven. Likewise, though who were born before Jesus came to earth can't be held to the same standard.

Those who, for one reason or another, never hear anything about God, Jesus, or the Bible...I don't know.



Interesting. This is one place, among others, where it falls apart for me. You believe in the Bible, but your beliefs about those who never heard of Christ certainly don't come from the Bible. Cities like San Francisco, LA, and San Diego were established by Christians who, going by the Bible, believed they had to carry the Word to the ignorant lest the ignorant burn in Hell due to their ignorance.

I have a friend and neighbor who is a fundamentalist, Church of Christ, minister. In the parlance of that church, he's their Evangalist. On matters of faith, we pretty much agree to disagree. But I do admire his consistency. For him, the Bible, in toto, is the inspired Word of God, so Everything, capital "E", in it, ipso facto, must be the Truth. He believes this to the point of claiming that radioactive carbon dating has been discredited. The thing I find interesting though, is that on the point of knowledge of Christ, he would agree with Murph, in that you have to be mature enough to be able to consciously accept Christ. Thus, his church does not baptize children. But where in the Bible does it say that?

[quatoria]

He won't let a peaceful Buddhist monk into heaven because the monk didn't accept Christ as his savior. That's just not right.

See, I don't see it that way.

A.)God created the universe.
B.)God told man not to do ONE THING.
C.)When man did that one thing, God gave him the law to make up for it.
D.)When man couldn't abide by the law, God had his son die, basically saying "Since you guys obviously can't follow my rules, here is salvation where you don't have to do anything. Just take my gift and say thank you."


Pardon me. I didn't do that ONE THING. I didn't eat any fucking apple. I didn't kill his son. I don't kill, I don't steal, I don't covet anything of my neighbors, and I treat others as I want to be treated. And yet according to you, I am as guilty as a psychotic fuck who rapes and tortures little children, because ADAM fucking sinned? Do you get how insane and ridiculous that is? There is no "man". MAN is not one discrete entity, and God of ALL entities should know that, since he CREATED US ALL. The idea that all men and women must be punished because TWO of them disobeyed is utterly insane. And even beyond that - god is Omnipotent and Omnipotent. He created everyone, and he knows what each individual will do before they do it. Everything that any person does, god wanted them to do. It is impossible to defy his will. The god you're describing has intentionally created a word wherein the vast majority of his "children", human beings, will suffer for all time in a burning pit for DOING WHAT HE CREATED THEM TO DO.

How can you not see the insanity of such a belief? Why would you want to worship such a being?

[Murph]

Everything that any person does, god wanted them to do. It is impossible to defy his will.

I don't see how you get from here to there.

If I flipped a coin, and could somehow (bear with me here) know that it was going to land heads-up, does that mean that I made it to land heads-up, or that I wanted it to lands heads-up? How does God knowing what choices people are going to make mean that He wanted them to do it? How can you not defy His will? God told Jonah to go to Ninevah, and Jonah elected not to. Jonah definitely did not do what God wanted him to do. The fact that God knew what choice Jonah was going to make beforehand doesn't change that one bit.


I didn't kill his son. I don't kill, I don't steal, I don't covet anything of my neighbors, and I treat others as I want to be treated.

The fact remains that those with sin in their lives cannot be in the presence of God, because sin cannot be in the presence of God. You can live a good life -- more power to ya -- but only one person, ever, has been able to live his life without ever sinning. Therefore, if the rest of us want to make it to heaven, we have to get there by the grace of the one who was good enough to make it in on His own.


The idea that all men and women must be punished because TWO of them disobeyed is utterly insane.

I would agree. The fact of the matter is that when Adam and Eve ate of the apple, it gave them (and everyone after them) the knowledge of right and wrong, and therefore, when we do wrong, we are held accountable. Without the eating of the apple, it would be a non-issue, because then, if we did wrong, it would be without our own knowledge, and we would not be held accountable.

[Ar]

What does it means "accepting it" (Jesus)?
Sure I have been told of Jesus. And of Buddha, Krishna, and others.
They all essentially teached the same values, and depending from where fate made you born, you might have been teached to consider any of them as the "true" saviour.
I dont think that, on top of doing the things they commonly said, in order to receive God's grace man must try his luck in the Divine Lottery and call him by the "right" name.
This sectarism is creation of man.

To be clear, and brutally simplistic to explain it faster, I believe that Jesus, Buddha, krishna and other great souls are all similiarly manifestations of God.
That God, the "first and last", is the only existing soul, and all creation originated by him, so is part of him.
Men's separated consiousnesses and souls are sparkles of the single consciousness of God; like a man may dream of different places and peoples out of his single mind, God creates the "dream" of his exsistance as multiple separated beings, which can thus considered his childrens.
Destiny of man's soul is ultimately to evolve back to his original state and merge again with Him; religious injuctions are given for man's benefit, and contain the knowledge to accelerate this evolution.
Jesus and the other great ones are men who, by their effort, evolved and merged again in God.

A note on the apple: it can be figuratively seen as the knowledge of sense pleasures and identification with the body, which caused man to forget his true nature as soul, thus made him unable to merge back in God.

There are also many similiarities between different scriptures pointing to this; Im doing a fast search now to point some less obvious ones:
The "single eye" mentioned in the Bible, which will make your body full of light, (translated as "pure eye" from priests who didnt really know how to interpreter it) - and the luminous single spiritual eye located on the forehead mentioned in oriental religions, seen in deep meditation and gate to subtler planes.
The seven chandelabra of the Bible, and the corresponding seven chakras.
About the Amen:
"heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet" (Revelation 1:10).
"These things said the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God" (Revelation 3:14).
Should make you think of the oriental Aum (or OM), considered the sound emanating from the higher planes (beginning) of the creation, proof (witness) of God, decribed as a roaring sound (trumpet) heard originating from a point in the back of the head (behind me) in meditation.

Therte is a lot that could be said, but Im not good to give exausthive explanations; maybe this will sparkle your curiosity at least.
There are many common points between the teachings of different religions, is easy to interpeter them as different expositions of the same one truth.

[Murph]

The thing I find interesting though, is that on the point of knowledge of Christ, he would agree with Murph, in that you have to be mature enough to be able to consciously accept Christ. Thus, his church does not baptize children. But where in the Bible does it say that?

I don't know that it does, per se, but it does often speak of children as innocent, and it does say that those who believe are to be baptised (not the other way around) as an outward sign of your faith. When the Bible refers to baptism, it always says "believe and be baptised" or "accept and be baptised," indicating that baptism (the outward, physical symbol for salvation) should take place after the conscious decision.

[Jason Levine]

Baptism discussion aside, I mentioned that my Evangalist friend believes that the entire Bible is the inspired Word. I like his explanation of that: "If you believe in God and the Bible, you have to believe in the entire thing. How can you selectively say, "This passage is inspired and that one isn't? What are your criteria?"

I think he has a good point, there. Of course, where we part is that there's no way I can accept the Bible, in its entirety, as The Truth. Since I don't see how any rational, knowledgeable person can accept the Genesis story, e.g., the Earth being created before the Sun, never mind the 7 days. How do you accept the rest of it, when the very beginning of the story is hooey?

[Murph]

How do you accept the rest of it, when the very beginning of the story is hooey?

I don't see it as hooey.

Either a.)Some (possibly a lot) of it is metaphoric -- though I don't know what your friend would think about that -- or b.)God, being the all-powerful, supreme being he is did all these things, exactly as described in Genesis, before he set to work the laws that govern nature today. Who's to say that God couldn't create the world in one day. He spoke, and it was. (How do we measure a day, anyway, before the sun is created? I presume, because God said "This is one day.")

I can easily accept either explanation as true, though, personally, I lean toward the latter.

I think it's funny that people think that any god (or God) who can create an entire, expansive universe, with thousands of forms of life on just this planet, get caught up on what the Bible claims that He did in one day. "There's no way he could create the earth and make light in one day!" I can totally accept the Biblical explanation as being truth, just as described. I say that's all totally within God's power.

[cyborg]

Minor point: it was unspecified fruit, not an apple, that was on the tree of knowledge.

Other than that the conept of God as a fucktard is one that I have to agree with if you interpet the Bible in a literal way. In fact as I pointed out in an earlier thread one of the big problems I have Christianity is the plethora of interpretations some of which are wholely incompatable. You have to do more than convince me about God and Jesus - you have to convince me your particular perspective is the right one too.

[Ben Sones]

Isn't that an actual branch of the church? "Church of Christ, Fucktard."

Do I get extra points on the Koontz list for combining obscenity with blasphemy?

[Ergo]

Murph--

Are you saying that you believe the Adam and Eve myth as the literal truth? That you're not just being a devil's advocate for the sake of discussion? If so, I find it mind-boggling.

[Murph]

I do believe, yes, that Adam and Eve were the first two created. The Bible seems to indicate that others may have been created after that, and obviously all of mankind is subject to the knowledge of right and wrong.

So, if you want a mind-boggling, here: I believe that the Bible is the literal truth, and that God's hand was upon it over the eons, protecting it from corruption in spite of the numerous times that mankind had its hands in the mix. As was said before, I can't believe some of it and not believe it all, so I take all of it on faith.

I can't always explain everything, or know how some of the details are worked out, but yes -- I take the Bible, on faith, to be the actual, factual truth.

[Murph]

Minor point: it was unspecified fruit, not an apple, that was on the tree of knowledge.

That's true.

[Murph]

In fact as I pointed out in an earlier thread one of the big problems I have Christianity is the plethora of interpretations some of which are wholely incompatable.

Which is largely why I choose to take the Bible at fact value. So many churches "interpret" too much. I think the important things, most churches have right, but personally try to attend the church that I believe takes the Biblical approach. I have yet to find any contradictions, going that route.

[XPav]

How do you reconcile the 2 stories of creation then?

[Ergo]

Yes, but even you're interpreting it. Your version of the "literal" truth may not be the same as another's.[/b]

[Dave Markell]

Everything that any person does, god wanted them to do. It is impossible to defy his will.

I don't see how you get from here to there.

If I flipped a coin, and could somehow (bear with me here) know that it was going to land heads-up, does that mean that I made it to land heads-up, or that I wanted it to lands heads-up? How does God knowing what choices people are going to make mean that He wanted them to do it? How can you not defy His will? God told Jonah to go to Ninevah, and Jonah elected not to. Jonah definitely did not do what God wanted him to do. The fact that God knew what choice Jonah was going to make beforehand doesn't change that one bit.

Ah, but it does. An omniscient, omnipotent creator must by definition have made the world and everything in it exactly the way He wanted to. Using Christian theology, God knew in advance that Adam and Eve would fail to obey, that Jonah wouldn't listen, that Satan would fall, etc etc etc. He could have created them differently, but chose not to and is therefore directly responsible for all their actions. This is refered to as "the Problem of Evil" in most theology texts, and endless reams of paper have been wasted trying to rationalize it away.

The only logical answers to the problem of evil are unacceptable to a fundamentalist Christian: a) God does not exist or b) God is not simultaneously omniscient/omnipotent/omnibenevolent. If there are limits on the creator's power, knowledge, or goodness, paradox disappears. The vast majority of religions have never claimed their creator was all 3 of the omni's, and thus avoid the problem entirely. It's pretty much a Judeo-Christian/Muslim debate.

[Murph]

I disagree.

God allows our environment and our upbringing to mold us into who we eventually become. He gives us the freedom to make our own choices.

Just because He knows the outcome does not mean He controls us.


He could have created them differently, but chose not to and is therefore directly responsible for all their actions.

That's way off base. Had he created us only to do what he wanted, that would have been violating our free will. He gave us free will to choose to do what we will. Claiming that that makes him responsible for our actions is ludicrous.

[Dave Markell]

I disagree.

God allows our environment and our upbringing to mold us into who we eventually become. He gives us the freedom to make our own choices.

Just because He knows the outcome does not mean He controls us.


He could have created them differently, but chose not to and is therefore directly responsible for all their actions.

That's way off base. Had he created us only to do what he wanted, that would have been violating our free will. He gave us free will to choose to do what we will. Claiming that that makes him responsible for our actions is ludicrous.

And that is the typically ludicrous fundamentalist response. A creator who knew, in advance, everything that would ever happen could have created things differently so that they turned out differently. By creating the cosmos the way He did, God foreordained the outcome of each and every thing in it. "Free will" only matters if a deity that isn't omniscient starts the ball rolling.

[Murph]

How do you reconcile the 2 stories of creation then?

I don't. There was originally nothing, and then there was something. That had to be God's doing. Maybe there was a "bang." It doesn't contradict. It doesn't gel 100%, but I think it's close enough to be able to accept both. I assume that God made "the universe" (perhaps minus the sun), populated the earth, added the sun. There's no way scientists can say 100% that because the sun is at the center of the universe now, then it absolutely had to be there all along. It obviously wasn't at one point. Maybe the "addition" of the sun is the reason that the universe is now expanding at a slower rate than it once was.

Science has never, and will never, be able to give me an explanation as to how we go from "no life on earth" to "life on earth." Life doesn't just happen.

[Ergo]

Science has many logical and fact-based explanations for life. You just choose not to accept them, and it's your right to do so.

[Ben Sones]

Life doesn't just happen.

Why not? I'm honestly curious why you think so. I don't pretend to understand nearly enough about the nature of the universe that we live in to make such broad, axiomatic statements.

[Murph]

I have yet to hear anything reasonable that science has had to say about it. I'm sure I've not heard every theory out there, but I haven't heard anything that even almost made sense. Even for evolution, there has to be starting point. Rocks and dirt don't suddenly become life, even over millions of years.


By creating the cosmos the way He did, God foreordained the outcome of each and every thing in it. "Free will" only matters if a deity that isn't omniscient starts the ball rolling.

I've often heard that we don't really have free will, because God already knew what we would do. Unless I'm misunderstanding you, you're saying that already knowing the outcome is essentially the same thing as deciding the outcome for yourself. I just don't see that.

In a very broad sense, God could either choose to create people who would follow Him absolutely, or people who had the choice to choose not to follow Him. Had he opted for the former, the "worship" would have been hollow, as the worshippers had no choice, would it not? So, the other choice is to allow people to choose not to follow him all of the time -- which leads to some people not following Him, but makes the worship of those who choose to follow Him so much sweeter.


A creator who knew, in advance, everything that would ever happen could have created things differently so that they turned out differently.

But only by taking away my ability to sit here right now and type this, or not, depending on which I choose. God could either let people choose for themselves, or not. He chose the former, and therefore is not the cause of people's own decisions.

The only way for there to have been no evil would have been for God to have not given people the ability to choose things for themselves. But just because he knew the outcome beforehand doesn't mean that He's controlling everything. I don't see how anyone can think that.

[Murph]

Why not? I'm honestly curious why you think so. I don't pretend to understand nearly enough about the nature of the universe that we live in to make such broad, axiomatic statements.

There are strict laws that govern our universe, right? Gravity, and the like. When one of them is broken, there has to be a cause for that. I accept that people can believe that God is not the cause for those laws to be broken, but I personally don't see how they can believe that. The idea that life can come from nonlife, and eventually evolve into sentient creatures like humans are today, seems so ludicrous.

Though, now that you've called me on it, Ben, I can't find the words to express why that seems so crazy. Let me get back to you. :-)

[Dave Markell]

Sigh. You're not listening, Murph. I'll try one more time. It's the combination of being the creator and being omniscient that is the problem. Knowing the outcoming is indeed the same thing as deciding the outcome for yourself if you are the creator. You could create things differently, after all.

It's like me building a robot programmed to go beserk and slay everyone it meets at 10AM next Tuesday--and then blaming the robot for the murders. I could have built it differently. I could have built it to love and respect people instead. I didn't. I knew what would happen before it happened and built the machine that way anyway. I am to blame, not the robot. Saying that we have "free will" is a cop out that blames the robot for its creator's mistakes. An omniscient, omnipotent deity could have easily created a cosmos in which evil never came into being.

Again, there are 2 easy ways out: atheism, or belief in a creator that isn't at least one of the 3 omni's. A deity that's not omniscient doesn't know for sure how things are going to turn out, and therefore free will and choice are real. A deity that isn't omnipotent does the best it can with less than complete power but makes some errors. Finally, a deity that isn't omnibenevolent is AOK with there being evil in the world.

[Murph]

I guess, then, it's the omnibenevolent part that's tripping me up. I've never heard God called that, and I'm not so sure that He is.

Essentially, "evil" is doing what God doesn't want you to do. So, God can choose to create a universe where there is no evil, but nobody can really choose anything for themselves, because they're all doing exactly what God wants them to do, equalling no free will anywhere in the universe. (As I sit here and type this, I'm sure that there is something God would rather have me doing. So while me typing this isn't conventially "evil," it's not what God would choose for me, I'm quite sure.) But, if that were the case, and nobody could choose to do anything except what God wanted them to do, there would be no point to their worship.

So, the other choice was to give them the choice to choose not to follow Him all of the time, knowing that would introduce evil into the world, but knowing that people would be able to choose things for themselves.

It's paradoxical of you to say "God could have created a world where people could do whatever they want, but everybody was always nice to each other," because that's limiting their free will. I am listening to you, Dave, and I think we're both becoming frustrated because we obviously don't agree, and my frustration, I think, is making it difficult for me to get my meaning across exactly.

I just don't see how you can say that God could give us free will without letting us choose to do what He doesn't want us to do -- which is, after all, the truest definition of "evil," though there are varying degrees. He knew in the end that there would be evil if He let us choose for ourselves, but He also gave us the knowledge of right and wrong so that the "evil" is our fault, not His. But the only other choice -- and this is really my point -- would be to not give people free will, and God isn't about that. There are enough mindless animals in the world. He let us think, reason, and choose our actions for ourselves. But there was no other way for Him to give us free will.

[Ben Sones]

I've often heard that we don't really have free will, because God already knew what we would do. Unless I'm misunderstanding you, you're saying that already knowing the outcome is essentially the same thing as deciding the outcome for yourself.

Correct. And I think that's what Dave is trying to say (though I guess I'll just let Dave say it for himself). Free will and omniscience--at least in the sense that god knows everything that everyone will do--are mutually exclusive. You can't say that Dave can choose to either reply to your post or not, but god knows which he will do before he decides. Logically, both of those statements cannot be true. It's sort of like saying "the sun might be orange or yellow; the sun is yellow." If the sun is yellow, then it isn't orange. If the sun might be orange, then you can't say with any certainty that it is yellow.


It's the combination of being the creator and being omniscient that is the problem.

Actually, it's a problem even if he's not the creator.

[Murph]

Free will and omniscience--at least in the sense that god knows everything that everyone will do--are mutually exclusive.

This is the line of reasoning that I don't follow. If I offer my dog two types of food, and he chooses one type every time, so that I know when I make the offer what he's going to choose, that doesn't mean that he doesn't have a choice.

God knowing what choice I'm going to make doesn't mean that I'm not making the choice myself.

[Ben Sones]

This is the line of reasoning that I don't follow. If I offer my dog two types of food, and he chooses one type every time, so that I know when I make the offer what he's going to choose, that doesn't mean that he doesn't have a choice.


The break in your reasoning is the fact that you don't know that your dog will choose that food. You suspect that he will, and you have data to support your theory. But if the dog has free will, then he might surprise you and choose a different food.

If you are arguing that god can guess what we might do, but doesn't actually know, that's another matter. But I didn't think that was what you were arguing.


God knowing what choice I'm going to make doesn't mean that I'm not making the choice myself.

Yes, it does. Free will means that you (or any free agent) can choose A or B. To follow the sun example, saying that you have free will but god knows the outcome of your choices is like saying "A or B; B." That is a logical contradiction. If the outcome of your choice = B, then you can't say that it might be A. If god knows what you will decide, then your decision is predetermined. Free will, of necessity, is an illusion.

[Dave Markell]

Thanks for speaking for me, Ben :)

And thanks for trying to understand my viewpoint, Murph. Believe me, I do understand yours. I was raised as a fundamentalist and only rejected it after long study and much thought.

To continue with my somewhat silly (but also somewhat useful) robot analogy, picture a courtroom where I'm on trial for multiple murders committed by a robot that I designed and built with the "Free Will 1.0" operating system installed:

Prosecutor: So, Mr. Markell, you admit to the creation of the robot in question?

Me: That's correct

Prosecutor: And you also agree that said robot went beserk and committed the homicides specified in the complaint against you?

Me: Also true

Prosecutor: Then why should this court not find you responsible for its actions?

Me: Because this robot used the "Free Will 1.0" operating system. Its choices were its own. It was not programmed to kill.

Prosecutor: So you had no inkling that this OS could go bad? You had no idea that this particular robot would become dangerous?

Me: No, in fact I knew in advance that it would kill all those people.

Prosecutor: And yet you installed the OS anyway?

Me: Yes

Prosecutor: With no safeguards?

Me: Yes

Prosecutor, incredulously: And yet you claim not to be responsible even though you KNEW IT WOULD KILL?!?

Me: Yes. It's all the robot's fault

Judge: Give that man the chair!

Me: But I'm innocent. Blame the robot! Blame the robot!

The same arguments can be applied to an omniscient deity just as easily. To quote Job, can man be more just than his creator? Well, maybe...I'd prefer to believe in a less-than-omniscient, less-than-omnipotent god instead.

[Smaugbelly]

because the sun is at the center of the universe now.

Uh, the center of the universe? Was this a typo, or do you believe the earth is flat as well?

Elliott

[Smaugbelly]

Since they also have a strong effect on material matters and the environments around them as well as the afterlife, proper reverence toward the dead is an absolute must. Purity, cleanliness and absolute preservation of nature are important traits of respecting gods as well.


What you mean like burning shitloads of paper on every street and footpath during the Hungry Ghost festival? Burnt paper ash blowing all over the place doesn't equate to purity, cleanliness and absolute preservation of nature to me. Or is it just that the Chinese (mainly Hokkien here) and the Japanese are totally different?

Elliott (in Singapore)

[Murph]

Uh, the center of the universe? Was this a typo, or do you believe the earth is flat as well?

Typo, I assure you.

At this point, I'll agree to disagree with all in question, as we're clearly not going to say anything that hasn't already been said.

And guys -- thanks for keeping it civil. I hope I did, too -- my blood was boiling for awhile, Dave. :-)

I see the point you guys were making, but still don't agree. I will always believe that my choices are my own to make, even though God knows what choice I'm going to make. And I'm sure you guys will always believe that I'm wrong. :-)

Anyway, I'm going back to the games forum. I think that Half-Life 2 is really going to suck...

[quatoria]

Everything that any person does, god wanted them to do. It is impossible to defy his will.

I don't see how you get from here to there.

If I flipped a coin, and could somehow (bear with me here) know that it was going to land heads-up, does that mean that I made it to land heads-up, or that I wanted it to lands heads-up? How does God knowing what choices people are going to make mean that He wanted them to do it? How can you not defy His will? God told Jonah to go to Ninevah, and Jonah elected not to. Jonah definitely did not do what God wanted him to do. The fact that God knew what choice Jonah was going to make beforehand doesn't change that one bit.

Yes, it does. God created every human being, individually, yes? If God has aforeknowledge of what a person is going to do, that means that there is no other possible outcome. They can ONLY do what he knows they will do, meaning, if there is a hell, that God has created certain humans with the desire to make them go to hell. He has, having absolute power and absolute knowledge, created a vast number of humans that will live, die, and then go to hell - all according to his will. If He is all powerful and all knowing, then there is no free will, and everything that happens, happens according to His will.

[Machfive]

Life doesn't just happen.

For a fascinating theory on how life did, indeed, just happen, read "The Selfish Gene."

You can supplement that with "The Blind Watchmaker."

[bmulligan]

I love the fact that fundamentalist christians cannot reconcile the problem of evil. their arguments always short circuit into "free will" or "it's not god's fault".

If god created all things and evil exists, then he created evil.
What's wrong with a god who plays with both? Maybe god is neither. Maybe it's man who decides what is good, and what is bad.

This idea cripples the faithful who clutch at the belief in a benevolent god, who cares for them in times of need and pain. ask the innocent man in prison for a crime he did not commit where god is. Or the woman who was raped in a back alley in LA yesterday. Obviously their god makes mistakes, and erases them with the agony and misery of his creations. How many times has the old man wiped the slate and started over? He must not be perfect after all.

[Brad Grenz]

God may have created all things relevent to our existence, but who's to say there aren't natural orders that supercede him?

And Murph, you might as well give up arguing with these guys because they're obviously hung up on their personal defenitions of omniscient. This often happens in these kinds of debates, like assuming God is "infinitely benevolent" and then extrapolating that this would prevent him from letting bad things happen. Well, the problem is people who believe in God don't believe in his "infinitely benevolence" the way these people choose to define it. Dave and Ben are choosing to interpret omniscience in a way that precludes the possibility of free will. Hell, lots of people don't think free will exists, so it's useless to argue with them about it. But I will say that in my interpretation of God's omniscience, and I suspect Murph's, God doesn't see what exactly is going to happen before it happens, he can see all possibilities based on the choices people make of their own free will.

But like I said, these arguments are very complicated because the opposing camps rarely agree on the fundemental premises, such as is free will possible, is the truth ever really knowable?

[quatoria]

God may have created all things relevent to our existence, but who's to say there aren't natural orders that supercede him?

And Murph, you might as well give up arguing with these guys because they're obviously hung up on their personal defenitions of omniscient. This often happens in these kinds of debates, like assuming God is "infinitely benevolent" and then extrapolating that this would prevent him from letting bad things happen. Well, the problem is people who believe in God don't believe in his "infinitely benevolence" the way these people choose to define it. Dave and Ben are choosing to interpret omniscience in a way that precludes the possibility of free will. Hell, lots of people don't think free will exists, so it's useless to argue with them about it. But I will say that in my interpretation of God's omniscience, and I suspect Murph's, God doesn't see what exactly is going to happen before it happens, he can see all possibilities based on the choices people make of their own free will.

But like I said, these arguments are very complicated because the opposing camps rarely agree on the fundemental premises, such as is free will possible, is the truth ever really knowable?

Er. What agreement does there need to be? The definitions for omniscience and omnipotence are plainly laid out. If you disagree with them, you disagree with the english language. If "natural orders" supercede God, God, by definition of the term, cannot be omnipotent. His power would have limitations. Limited power is not infinite.

If God can only see what MAY happen, without knowing what WILL happen, then God is not omniscient. There are limits to his knowledge. By definition, if his knowledge is subject to any limits, it is not infinite, and he is not omniscient.

[Murph]

My last post on this topic, I swear:

I don't quarrel the definition of omniscient. I argue your interpretation of "free will." I still claim, and will always, that knowing the outcome of an event is not the same as controlling the event. If I could see into the future so that I knew exactly what Ben was next going to type on his keyboard before he typed, that would *not* mean that every keystroke Ben made was not made by his own choice or free will. He would still make the conscious decision to strike each key. Because it might be known beforehand, by God, or by a psychic (if that's possible), or whatever, which choice a person is going to make at a given crossroad doesn't mean that that person didn't have a choice in the matter. It was still their conscious decision. The fact that God knew which shirt I was going to wear today does not alter the fact that I consciously chose which shirt to wear -- he simply knew the outcome before the fact.

But I'm done -- for real this time. I should've dropped this awhile ago, as Brad said...And I knew it at the time. I know that I won't convince anyone here, anyway. Likewise, my mind is firmly made up. An omnipotent God and mankind with free will can (and, I believe, do) happily coexist.

Good points made by all. And good night.

*Edited for a typo*

[cyborg]

You're either omniscient and omipotent or you're not - there are no half measures.

[quatoria]

My last post on this topic, I swear:

I don't quarrel the definition of omniscient. I argue your interpretation of "free will." I still claim, and will always, that knowing the outcome of an event is not the same as controlling the event. If I could see into the future so that I knew exactly what Ben was next going to type on his keyboard before he typed, that would *not* mean that every keystroke Ben made was not made by his own choice or free will. He would still make the conscious decision to strike each key. Because it might be known beforehand, by God, or by a psychic (if that's possible), or whatever, which choice a person is going to make at a given crossroad doesn't mean that that person didn't have a choice in the matter.

Murph, you're not comprehending the signifigance of knowing the future. If the future can be known, that means the future is already decided. Set in stone. If anyone, God or Mortal, can KNOW, without possibility of error, every action that a person will take in the future, that means, logically, that those actions can be known - which means that person has no real choice in the matter. His will is not free, because there is no possibility for him to act in a matter other than that which was pre-ordained. If his will is genuinely free, and the outcomes are not preordained, then there can be no omniscience. Sit down and seriously think about the nature of omniscience, and what it would mean if it existed, and you will see the error in your thinking.

[Ben Sones]

I don't quarrel the definition of omniscient. I argue your interpretation of "free will." I still claim, and will always, that knowing the outcome of an event is not the same as controlling the event. If I could see into the future so that I knew exactly what Ben was next going to type on his keyboard before he typed, that would *not* mean that every keystroke Ben made was not made by his own choice or free will.

Yes, it would. If you can see into the future and know what I am going to do, then the future is already written, and I have no choice in the matter. It doesn't mean that you have decided my future for me, but it does mean that my future has been decided for me. Dismissing all the bad science that goes along with the popular concept of time travel, the very idea of "looking into the future" implies that the future is already there, predetermined, like skipping ahead in a book. If my future actions are already written, then I cannot choose to do something different. By definition, I lack free will.


Because it might be known beforehand, by God, or by a psychic (if that's possible), or whatever, which choice a person is going to make at a given crossroad doesn't mean that that person didn't have a choice in the matter. It was still their conscious decision.

No, it's not. It may seem like it was to them, but in reality their choice is predetermined. If the person thinks they have the choice between A and B, but god knows with certainty that they will choose B, then where is their option to choose A? If the person has free will, then they might choose A or B. If they don't, they will choose B. You can't have both, simultaneously.

[Machfive]

Leading to one of my favorite quotes, "Omniscience and free will don't even coexist in a perfect vacuum, at absolute zero."

[Kalle]

Got into an argument with a philosophy professor two years ago concerning omniscience and free will. Coincidentally, that was right after I had sat through a lecture by him explaining that as far as logical philosophy is concerned all evidence points towards that we have no free will (action->reaction in an endless chain and all that). Anyway, his take on omniscience was that of Murph. Omniscience did not, according to him, preclude free will. I did not understand his reasoning, nor do I remember it very well, but Murph's position, mindboggling as it is, apparently has support from a most unexpected quarter.

Of course, this is merely anecdotal evidence, but it does have some weight of authority behind it. I am sure there are hundreds of other philosophy professors who disagree, but for some reason I do not yet understand the situation does not seem as clear cut as I had thought.

[Dave Markell]

I think that there is an inherent conflict between an omniscient creator and free will, but more importantly, I see a conflict between the combination of omnscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence. This is the "Problem of Evil" that has been debated by theologians for centuries. It is only relevant to monotheistic religions that believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing, totally good deity. Let's combine both discussions:

An omniscient, omnibenevolent creator that isn't omnipotent does the best that it can with limited power. The cosmos that results isn't perfect and evil exists, but the alternatives would have been even worse. This god knows some things are going to go wrong in advance, before creation, but cannot do a better job. Free will is an illusion--everything is predetermined by choosing to create things in this particular way--but The "Problem of Evil" is avoided.

An omniscient, omnipotent creator that isn't omnibenevolent intentionally creates things that are or become evil because he's partially evil himself. The "Problem of Evil" is avoided again, and free will does not exist.

An omnipotent, omnibenevolent creator that isn't omniscient doesn't know how things are going to turn out. He hopes for the best, but there are no certainties. Free will is real. Once again, no "Problem of Evil." To me, this is by far the most appealing of the 3 notions. Of course, one can also argue that God is none of the 3 omnis, or that he doesn't exist at all, which likewise solves the Problem.

Everyone keeps focusing on omniscience and ignoring omnipotence/omnibenevolence. Christianity creates conflicts with its "my God can beat up your god" claims of absolute power/knowledge/goodness. The resulting paradoxes are just that, paradoxes, and they cannot be resolved logically.

[Kitsune]

Well, there's also the stance if you believe like I do, Kalle. Ready? Set? Mindtwist! That, all knowledge of all things only resembles a cursory familiarity with the letters that make up the words than the words themselves. That you can't know the true meaning, but all you can see is the illusion and this world isn't real anyway. Therefore, the truth of terms like omniscience, omnipotent and free will aren't accessible even though in their real state, there may be truth. But then, there is no real state either, and no truth, because all things simultaneously are and are not, exist and do not exist. To learn how to perceive though and then how your perception is faulty is key, according to the sutras. :wink: Yeah, no wonder it takes most people most of their lives to figure that one out! :lol:

Of course, you could always just say human beings cannot understand omnipotence or omniscience because they cannot practice or experience them, so they also can't define the terms and leave it at that. It isn't purely logical, but it makes a good deal of sense. Of course, I don't have a great deal of respect for logic in the first place, so works for me.

Just so its understood. I'm not arguing anything here, don't reply and expect me to back up more. I'm not interested in arguing, got it? Just stating some interesting things and conversing. And if you read the first paragraph, then you know why I'm not interested in arguing.

And that's ultimately the reason why I'm replying, other than to refill my popcorn bucket, to say that that core of belief doesn't have much to do with the festival Smaugbelly mentioned and that arises more out of a conjunction of different beliefs and sects and interpretations, each of which differ on how to treat it, so I can't just give you one canned answer.

Mine would be though, that the ash and paper are cleaned up afterwards anyway. :P Okay, to be a little more concrete, when I said absolute preservation of nature, the god's nature, not all nature, since its impossible to be human without someone sullying some part of nature. But that probably didn't come across well. Anyway, I mean preserving Shinto shrines, forests, lakes and rocks with torii and keeping them clean and not defecating those shrines. Buddhist temples support an entirely different thing, don't they? Though with death and all that, traditions can be quite close. The support of cleanliness does not mean you never intentionally get dirty, its a support of gods' nature again, not an actual physical requirement, because you can never be as clean and pure as a god, but you can show that you have respect for the concept.

That festival is for an entirely different thing that doesn't correspond with such Shinto concepts, so obviously, naturally, you're right, Japanese and Chinese really do differ quite a bit. But I'm more responding to our own similar festivals like Obon or the Fire God festival, that do similar things with releasing ash into the air.

That and the very last thing, that contradictions are a sign that one is getting closer to the truth. Either way, any way I describe these isn't going to be as good as if I said it in Japanese, because there will be meanings in the words I type that I have no idea resinate in certain ways, where the Japanese word, wouldn't. So if this doesn't make any sense, perhaps you'd better off asking someone else. Though, of course, you probably won't get the same answer. I just know its one way of approaching the issue.

But I suspect you didn't ask that because you wanted to make some sense of it.

BTW, quatoria, I'm sorry to hear you've been through so many atrocious incidents. My eyes practically bugged out when you were listing that stuff.

Now then, where'd my popcorn go? Oh yeah, I was trying to refill the bucket. Be right back, tell me what I miss.

-Kitsune

[Dave Markell]

Yup, Eastern religions avoid many of the core conflicts that plauge the Judeo-Christian/Muslim tradtion. Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, Jain, etc--none of them have to address either the Problem of Evil or the free will vs. determinism debate, because both are completely irrelevant to their philosophies. I do not doubt that this lies at the heart of their appeal to many westerners who encounter them for the first time.

[JeffL]

I always vow to not jump into these arguments, but I will say that the biggest problem man has with God is that we cannot accept that all dimensions of God may not be conceivable or knowable within the limits of our brains and experience. I.e., if I cannot make God fit within the laws of nature and what I can understand, then he cannot be. As a simple example: what if God is not constrained by the dimension of time? Say (and I'm not arguing this is how I think it is, just trying to make a point) that he exists outside of the constraints of time as we know it - so even though we have complete free will, he can look and see everything in the past and future as a form of "now". The struggle man has is that we are so convinced of the completeness of our ability to understand and comprehend everything that it is unacceptable to us that God may have parts of him that exists outside the ability of our limited brains to grasp. We are pretty arrogant as a species that way - if I can't comprehend it it cannot exist.

Heck, by that definition I don't believe the universe exists. I've seen and read the explanations, worked through the math and physics, "understand" it at the level of a scientist, but the concept of either an infinite universe or a finite universe (with a defined "nothing" beyond that) is still beyond my ability to grasp.

Just a FWIW comment.

[Tyjenks]

I predict this thread will go on until the internet is no more or Al Gore takes the internet away and goes home.

I know Lackey is just a regular guy, but does anyone else get the feeling that he is working off community service by posting here. It would seem that he is too intelligent and too reasonable and has too much common sense to bother with internet forums.

My biggest problem is that I stumble through a point and he makes it for me after I post it and much more clearly or he makes my point before I can work it out in my head and I end up saying, "What Lackey said."

I used to want to be Michael Jordan when I grow up, now its Jeff Lackey.

:wink: :!:

[Ben Sones]

I readily accept that I know very little, in relative terms, of the world that I live in. But the "we don't know everything" argument is a pretty weak defense for an argument based on a logical contradiction. Given the choice between an explanation that makes sense and one that doesn't, I'm inclined to choose the one that makes sense. If you asked me to tell you the sum of 2+2, I wouldn't say 37 on the off-chance that there is some unknowable and incomprehensible rule of math that somehow makes it so. If you want to debate logical impossibilities on the grounds that logic is meaningless in the context of god, then debate is meaningless as well, because there can be no meaningful debate without logic.

[voltaic]

Prologue: Prepare for a long one, folks. I've been offline for three days during which I've missed the last three pages of this thread. I've got about 12 copies of Mozilla open to the most interesting or important points IMHO and I will copy-and-paste each into this reply window (with as little duplication as possible, i.e. I won't reply to all 20 items about free will). The idea is for me to have one long post instead of 20 short ones Tyjenks style. (Chet, please don't ban me for mentioning post counts!)

Also let me apologize in advance if I quote one person but accidently list someone else's name there. I have so many windows open and sometimes alt-tab doesn't go back to the "last used". Please do correct me if I attribute something to someone in error.

In advance, I'm more closely on "Murph's side". Just to prepare all y'all for the onslaught. Heheh. :lol:


God is being a fucktard by your definition. The nicest, kindest, most generous person on earth can't get into heaven unless he accepts Christ. That is just a horrible way to run the heaven racket. Being nice, kind, and generous should be more than enough to get you into heaven.
Why? What basis of morality says so? What disqualifies someone? Where is the line between not kind enough and kind enough to get into heaven? What if someone is nice for a year, then one day beats up a poor elderly widow and gets hit by a car? Does his years of kindness outweigh his last act? What about Mafioso who are kind and generous to their neighbors and charities but not to the competition or to so-called "lowlifes"? What about a prison guard or a Marine sniper who has to put some smack down defending the laws of the land in a non-kind, non-generous way?

I prefer the absolute, unchanging, non-meritorious standard, thanks.


It's not rejecting God, Murph, it's rejecting kissing the brass ring. A literal reading of the Bible paints him as a narcissistic, praise-demanding asshole.
Link or cite? FWIW there's about a hojillion Protestants who reject kissing brass rings as well, just for the record.


What does it means "accepting it" (Jesus)?
Salvation comes from God through no work or deed of our own. "Accepting it" means that simply by believing that Christ died for the sins of the world, you are saved. That's all. No deeds, actions, words, expressions, or physical manifestations are necessary (for a number of reasons). A non-meritorious act of faith insures one's salvation.


I don't know that it does, per se, but it does often speak of children as innocent, and it does say that those who believe are to be baptised (not the other way around) as an outward sign of your faith. When the Bible refers to baptism, it always says "believe and be baptised" or "accept and be baptised," indicating that baptism (the outward, physical symbol for salvation) should take place after the conscious decision.
Prepare for divergence, Murph. :) Baptism is simply an illustration of salvation but is not required. Example: the robber on the cross next to Christ. When the Bible says "and be baptised" it is referring to the baptism of the spirit which occurs at salvation. IOW it is not "first you must believe, then you must be baptised", it is "once you believe, then you will have become baptised".

It's like me telling people to "play Tron 2.0 and be satisfied". Satisfaction in that awesome game comes as a result of the playing, it is not a second thing to be done after the playing.


Since I don't see how any rational, knowledgeable person can accept the Genesis story, e.g., the Earth being created before the Sun, never mind the 7 days. How do you accept the rest of it, when the very beginning of the story is hooey?
This is because creation was not done in 7 (or 6) days. For those who ever followed talk.origins, this is called "Old Earth Creationism". Isaiah clearly talks about a time when the angels and the universe existed before man. Genesis 1:2 is poorly translated as "the earth was formless and void", but is better translated "the earth had become formless and void".

Put it all together: first, God made everything. This is all the Bible says on the topic, so Big Bang or not doesn't matter. Then a parenthesis during which the fall of Satan and other things occured. There is no length of time given for this parenthesis, so I'm more than happy to accept the age of the earth as 4 billion years old.

Then Genesis 1:2, "the earth had become formless and void". Then in 6 days things were re-created. The ice age was ended, the sun was unblocked, great upheavels of land occured, etc. In fact, that the sun did already exist demonstrates that the 7 days were not metaphorical, but literal 24 hour periods. Obviously, this was a miracle.

Discuss.


You're either omniscient and omipotent or you're not - there are no half measures.
Define omnipotent. For example, God does not have the ability to lie. I have now listed at least one thing God cannot do, hence, he is not omnipotent the way you are using the word. This is not meant to call you stupid or anything but to illustrate that arguing over the subtext and all possible extrapolations of a word are really quite a waste of time.

Define omniscient. I have previously mentioned that God could trivially be called a 5-D being outside the confines of spacetime (in a layman scientific sense). Any being outside the constraints of time not only has no beginning or end (another paradox solved) but also is able to view all points inside all locations in spacetime. Add a good SQL backend with powerful queries and you have omniscience. But you do not have causality.


If god created all things and evil exists, then he created evil.
Who said God created all things? The Bible says he created the heavens and the earth and all the living shit within. It doesn't say he created plastic but we obviously have plastic. He didn't create the Internet but it's here (Al Gore jokes aside). He did create free will and autonomous thought. I don't see where the problem is. Now you might make the argument that since God created man and man created plastic, therefore God created plastic but that's retarded.


You could create things differently, after all.
Einstein didn't think so. Nor does Stephen Hawking. Perhaps God had no choice but to create the universe the way it is. Perhaps the very laws of matter and energy and mathematics he created restricted his further actions within. Anything outside of those restrictions are miracles which are the exception, not the rule (and of which there have been none in at least 2000 years).


The only logical answers to the problem of evil are unacceptable to a fundamentalist Christian: a) God does not exist or b) God is not simultaneously omniscient/omnipotent/omnibenevolent. If there are limits on the creator's power, knowledge, or goodness, paradox disappears. The vast majority of religions have never claimed their creator was all 3 of the omni's, and thus avoid the problem entirely. It's pretty much a Judeo-Christian/Muslim debate.
See my above rant on the "omnis", although what is omnibenevolent? Never heard of it. So I'd rather hear like a definition or something before I go on and on about it. :wink:


Heck, by that definition I don't believe the universe exists. I've seen and read the explanations, worked through the math and physics, "understand" it at the level of a scientist, but the concept of either an infinite universe or a finite universe (with a defined "nothing" beyond that) is still beyond my ability to grasp.
What is "outside" of the universe or an infinite unverise has boggled me since I can remember. It recalls to mind a few lines from The Neverending Story where the dragon-dog is telling Atrayu about the nothing: "It wasn't a hole, a hole would be something. This... was nothing!"

Best I can do is look at goofy 4D items like a Klein bottle and figure that the universe is like that (infinite on the inside), but without me on the outside looking in. Hope that helps! Hahahah... whew!

[MikeJ]

I readily accept that I know very little, in relative terms, of the world that I live in. But the "we don't know everything" argument is a pretty weak defense for an argument based on a logical contradiction.

I would agree, except that the concept of free will is connected to consciousness, and we don't really understand consciousness.

It's not appropriate to use the 'we don't know everything' argument on a problem that is actually well understood, but free will is within a stone's throw of a subject that is clearly not understood. Therefore it's easier to believe that our notion of free will may be somehow incomplete or inconsistent.

[Ben Sones]

It's not appropriate to use the 'we don't know everything' argument on a problem that is actually well understood, but free will is within a stone's throw of a subject that is clearly not understood. Therefore it's easier to believe that our notion of free will may be somehow incomplete or inconsistent.

Semantics. Free will and predetermination are antithetical, by definition. You can't explain that away by saying "If we define free will as something other than free will, then it might operate by different rules." That's like saying that the sun can be both yellow and orange if we redefine orange to mean yellow. You can argue that the concept of free will is not an accurate representation of reality, but I'm not going to accept an argument that it is something other than what it is.

[JeffL]

Semantics. Free will and predetermination are antithetical, by definition. You can't explain that away by saying "If we define free will as something other than free will, then it might operate by different rules." That's like saying that the sun can be both yellow and orange if we redefine orange to mean yellow. You can argue that the concept of free will is not an accurate representation of reality, but I'm not going to accept an argument that it is something other than what it is.

I agree that free will and predetermination are antithetical. So one question is whether it is possible for us to have free will and God still know - with us still having complete free will - what will happen. Not a good guess, based on "He knows you better than you know yourself" - but absolutely know. For that to be true would beyond pour ability to reconcile based on our brainpower. The question is whether a person can accept that something that he or she cannot understand, that is beyond the limits of man's ability to comprehend, can be true. For some people the answer is no - they either cannot or they refuse to accept anything that is beyond their ability to grasp. For others, it is acceptable and I guess that's what they call faith.

[Kalle]

Jeff, not to be offensive, but accepting that there are things beyond our ability to grasp is one thing, making what is at best educated guesses on what we cannot know and betting your (after)life on it is something very different.

[Ar]

What does it means "accepting it" (Jesus)?
Salvation comes from God through no work or deed of our own. "Accepting it" means that simply by believing that Christ died for the sins of the world, you are saved. That's all. No deeds, actions, words, expressions, or physical manifestations are necessary (for a number of reasons). A non-meritorious act of faith insures one's salvation.

I dont believe that forgiveness is handed out that easily; I believe in karma, or that every action will soon or later reflected to the creature who did it: good for good and bad for bad.
And that man will have to destroy every last of his earthly desires before being allowed to reside in "heaven" (term used loosely here) forever.

Aside that, my point was that it seems silly to give forgiveness to who believes in Jesus, and not to who believes in Buddha, or the opposite.
After all, how can a man know for sure which is the "real" saviour?
There are ancient scriptures that peruse for both of them; there is a history of saints with miracolous powers who believed in both; there are cultures that believe in both.

In other words, a common man cant know which of them is the "right" saviour; picking the right one is a matter of pure luck (and realistically, most peoples simply blindly follow whoever the people around him adore).
Doesnt sound terribly wrong of a supposedly fair God to choose who goes to Hell or Heaven by a standard that is essentially random?
As I said, thats like a Divine Lottery: God asks man to pick the "right" saviour without giving him any proof of which the right saviour his, thus man choose blindly, then God burns who made the wrong choice (out of luck) and rewards who made the right choice (against by luck).
Now, can you prove, or give any evidence, that Jesus is the right saviour and Buddha isnt, or of the opposite? You cant, anything a cammon man will say on regard is based on unproved conjecture.

This idea of judgement is, essentially, really unfair.
Would be also really unfair to send an assassin that believes in Jesus in Heaven, and a charitable man who instead decided to believe in Krishna in Hell.

Repeating myself, I have no doubt that both Jesus and Buddha -and many others- were similiarly enlightened.
Is not a matter to pick the right one, but to live according to the principles that both expressed.

[Anders Hallin]

In the issue of free will and predeterminism, I have in fact been known to assume the "it's predetermined, based on our free will", though of course a completely god-less version of it. I wouldn't actively argue for it though..

[JeffL]

Einstein didn't think so. Nor does Stephen Hawking. Perhaps God had no choice but to create the universe the way it is. Perhaps the very laws of matter and energy and mathematics he created restricted his further actions within. Anything outside of those restrictions are miracles which are the exception, not the rule (and of which there have been none in at least 2000 years).


Heh heh... Well, I have seen at least one occurance that sure seemed like a miracle to me. I had an Uncle that was having what felt like severe back pains for a long time, and then it got really bad all over. He was one of these old fashioned men that refused to go to the doctor. He went - he had bone cancer, and it had metastized (sp) throughout his body. I went down to visit him in the hospital because he was really a favorite uncle of mine. I talked to the doctor at the hospital and he told me that the xray and MRIs and whatever pictures they take showed cancer in just about every organ and piece of his body. Aunt Dorothy said she saw the pictures and it was "horrible". They sent the photos to a couple of major cancer centers to see if there was any reason to send him, and everyone said this was a no-hope case - he was given 3 months, maybe six months (but much more likely 3 months.) Aunt Dorothy told me that he was accepting of what was going to happen - he was so far progressed they weren't doing anything but giving him pain meds. She said that he said he just wished he'd had a year to go back to his family home in Virginia to see all of his old friends and famly members and have one last time to sit and eat and talk with them and walk around the old family farm. Dorothy said she and he prayed and he said "God, I know this is way too much to ask, but I sure wish I had a year to go visit the old home and all of the family ,etc."

Edie and I went home and expected to hear that he had died in a few weeks - he looked really bad and was on so much medication we couldn't talk to him very much. A month later my Mom called and said "a miracle happened." I thought she was going to tell me that my Dad made it through a round of golf without kicking his ball back into the fairway, but she said Clarence (my uncle) was home. The doctor said his Xrays, etc. were completely clear. They were totally baffled, redid all of the pictures and tests, etc. I went back down there about a month later, and Clarence looked good - a lot less weight but good. He laughed, we talked, and he said he didn't think he was completely healed, in spite of what the doctors were seeing (or not) but he was grateful God had given him this time. He and Dorothy went to his old home, he visited with all of his family, walked the farm, saw old friends, etc.

Almost exactly a year later he told Dorothy he thought the cancer was back, they went to the hospital, and the doctor said yep, it's back. I went back down to see him and talked to a couple of the doctors again - they said they had never seen anyone with their body completely ravaged with cancer just overnight have it all dissapear. Clarence told me very calmly that he didn't know why God gave him that time but he was grateful. He died about 6 weeks later.

Maybe it wasn't a miracle - I'm sure we could come up with explanations like "the body has odd ways that it can deal with disease" etc. But it sure seemed like one to me. And no, I have no answer to "well, why would God say yes to this and no to that, etc."

FWIW.

[Dave Markell]

Einstein didn't think so. Nor does Stephen Hawking. Perhaps God had no choice but to create the universe the way it is. Perhaps the very laws of matter and energy and mathematics he created restricted his further actions within. Anything outside of those restrictions are miracles which are the exception, not the rule (and of which there have been none in at least 2000 years).


If God "had no choice" but to create the universe a certain way, and if that "restricted his further actions within," then you just proved my point. A deity that has to observe limits of any kind is, by definition, no longer omnipotent. There are things beyond its power.

Like I've said before, get rid of one of the omni-whatevers conventionally applied to God, and paradox vanishes.

[Anders Hallin]

You know what this thread just reminded me of? Utena.
I think I'm a bit obsessed.
It was the "miracle" stuff that did it.

[Ar]

Also why would an omniscent God create imperfect men, which He knew He would soon have to throw in eternal Hell according to His own (supposed) rules?
Sounds kind of perverted, like giving poisoned food to your cat: you know he will eat it (and evermore an omniscent God knows how humans will behave), you know that he doesnt have the intelligence to realize the danger of eating it and avoiding the wrong action (as man doeant have the knowledge to pick the "right" saviour among many), yet you set the deadly trap; not a very compassionate action.

If you believe in karma and reincarnation, in man being a part of God, then this and many other questions are logically explained: it was man, by his own free will, who choose to entangle himself with the good and bad of the creation and its limitations, in a remote and forgotten past.
Man is stuck coming back to this plane because he has desires that belong to it.

Edit: Spelling. Nice being a board noob, I get a new title with every post!

[Jason McCullough]

Can I just point out that an omniscient God can define free will to mean whatever he wants? Seeing how he has absolutely no constraints on his power, why can't he create a universe where man has "free will", but is incapable of disobeying him? Apparently he enjoys fucking with us.

[MikeJ]

You can argue that the concept of free will is not an accurate representation of reality, but I'm not going to accept an argument that it is something other than what it is.

I agree that in the accepted definitions of the terms, omniscience implies predetermination which precludes free will. (Since I don't believe anything is omniscient, I don't really care about the conclusion one way or the other)

As you say, the only way I can see to avoid this conclusion is to suggest that the set of concepts we use to reach the conclusion do not reflect reality.

However, I think this is somewhat more respectable than arbitrarily redefining terms because I believe that there probably *is* something seriously wrong with our concepts in this area. Will and consciousness in general are not well understood. If our concepts such as free will, consciousness and time don't come close to 'carving nature at the joints', then it's possible the whole question of free will versus determinism will end up looking silly. Not that some don't already see it that way...

[Grifman]

Can I just point out that an omniscient God can define free will to mean whatever he wants?

Not really, or language has no meaning. God is logical, though you may not think so :)


Seeing how he has absolutely no constraints on his power, why can't he create a universe where man has "free will", but is incapable of disobeying him? Apparently he enjoys fucking with us.

No, wrong again. You can't have free will and have no choice. There are things God cannot do. He cannot do that which is logically impossible. He can't make a square circle, he can't make a married bachelor. And he can't create people with free will that have only one choice - to obey him. This is pretty simple philosophy, so the only person fucking with you is yourself :)

Grifman

[Grifman]

A deity that has to observe limits of any kind is, by definition, no longer omnipotent. There are things beyond its power.

Like I've said before, get rid of one of the omni-whatevers conventionally applied to God, and paradox vanishes.

No, as I pointed out, there are things that God cannot do - he can't create a rock so heavy he can't lift it, he can't create a married bachelor, he can't create a round circle. These are things that are logical impossibilities. Yet no philosopher would say that these word games mean that God cannot be omnipotent.

The same can be said of the POE (Problem of Evil). It can be argued that it is logically impossible for God to create a world in which free choice exists and evil does not. Hence given that God has created a world of free will, it's existence does not necessarily violate his omniscience, omnibenevolence or omnipotence, given his decision to create such a world.

Frankly, people claim too much for POE. It no longer has the weight in philosophical circles it once did:

"It used to be widely held that evil--which for present purposes we may identify with undeserved pain and suffering--was incompatible with the existence of God: that no possible world contained both God and evil. So far as I am able to tell, this thesis is no longer defended" Peter Van Imwagan, Christian philosopher

"Some philosophers have contended that the existence of evil is logically inconsistent with the existence of the theistic God. No one, I think, has succeeded in establishing such an extravagant claim. Indeed, granted incompatibilism, there is a fairly compelling argument for the view that the existence of evil is logically consistent with the existence of the theistic God" William Rowe, atheist philosopher

"I agree with most philosophers of religion that theists face no serious logical problem of evil" Paul Draper, agnostic philospher

Here's the standard form of the argument:

a. God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good, and therefore should have the will and the ability to eliminate evil and/or suffering.

b. Such a god would be obligated by His/Her/Its/Their ethics to eliminate evil and suffering (i.e. there is no adequate reason for it to be allowed to eventuate/continue);

c. Evil and suffering ostensibly occur.

Therefore, the god described in proposition A does not, in fact, exist.

The problem is that the person arguing this position cannot prove the parenthetical clause in b - that there is no adequate reason for evil to be allowed. It is impossible to come up with all the possible reasons that might justify evil - and if you can't come up with such a list, then you can't prove the argument. Just because you or I don't know, doesn't mean that someone else, including God :), doesn't. You can't carry this argument on these grounds.

Grifman

[Grifman]

Ah, but it does. An omniscient, omnipotent creator must by definition have made the world and everything in it exactly the way He wanted to. Using Christian theology, God knew in advance that Adam and Eve would fail to obey, that Jonah wouldn't listen, that Satan would fall, etc etc etc. He could have created them differently, but chose not to and is therefore directly responsible for all their actions. This is refered to as "the Problem of Evil" in most theology texts, and endless reams of paper have been wasted trying to rationalize it away.

Sorry, but you haven't proved your point here. You stated that God could have created them differently, but you haven't stated how. It's up to you to prove that given a world in which God wanted free will to exist, that he could have "created them" differently.

That said, you also ignored that fact that God may have had a reason for allowing evil. It is entirely possible that that a greater good could be accomplished, one whose goodness outweighs all the evil that occurred. Again, once this greater good were identified, it would be up to you to prove that God could achieve it another way.

Grifman

[Grifman]

And that is the typically ludicrous fundamentalist response. A creator who knew, in advance, everything that would ever happen could have created things differently so that they turned out differently. By creating the cosmos the way He did, God foreordained the outcome of each and every thing in it. "Free will" only matters if a deity that isn't omniscient starts the ball rolling.

I'm not certain what your argument here is - whether is it with free will, or how God created things. But you continually assert that God could have created the world differently (which wouldn't have changed his foreknowledge so I'll assume that's not the issue) so that things would have turned out differently.

Well, there are a number of problems here. First off, what do you mean by differently? I presume you really mean "better" since clearly God could have made the world differently - no Mt Everest, or no Great Lakes, no mosquitoes, maybe :) But you assert much, but much is left unproven. So tell us, just how could God have made the world differently, or better, as I am guessing? And can you prove your world is better? Again, God may have a very good reason for allowing the evil that he does - unless you can prove that he doesn't, or until you can identify that reason to compare your world to, then I don't know how you can be sure your world is going to be "better".

Grifman

[Grifman]

Sigh. You're not listening, Murph. I'll try one more time. It's the combination of being the creator and being omniscient that is the problem. Knowing the outcoming is indeed the same thing as deciding the outcome for yourself if you are the creator. You could create things differently, after all.

I'm not certain what you mean here. If God knows all outcomes, then how can him creating things differently solve the problem? He still knows the outcome. But even so, you still run into the problem - God might not be able to create things differently given his purposes. Until you can identify those purposes and assess them, then how do you know he could do it differently and still achieve those purposes?


It's like me building a robot programmed to go beserk and slay everyone it meets at 10AM next Tuesday--and then blaming the robot for the murders. I could have built it differently. I could have built it to love and respect people instead. I didn't. I knew what would happen before it happened and built the machine that way anyway. I am to blame, not the robot. Saying that we have "free will" is a cop out that blames the robot for its creator's mistakes. An omniscient, omnipotent deity could have easily created a cosmos in which evil never came into being.

I don't think that is very good analogy. The robot doesn't have free will, you created it to kill - of course you're responsible for it because you programmed it. You knew what it would do, not because you are omniscient but because you created it to kill. On the other hand God created men but gave them the choice to kill or not kill - he didn't create robots nor did he program us. I say blaming God for our choices is a cop out :)

As for your last statement, you haven't proven this, nor have you proven that this would be a better world than this one. While I would agree that God could have created a different world, I don't think that you can prove that any world you can think of would necessarily be better.

Grifman

[Machfive]

The ONLY explanation that I will accept as LOGICAL regarding the POE has to do with computing.

Kinda.

It goes like this:

Imagine a processor. Now imagine you have another processor, identical, running at a clock speed double that of the other.

The second processor computes the same thing twice as fast. Essentially, time is slowed for the second processor - One second for the other processor is two seconds for the latter processor.

Now imagine a computer infinitely faster than either. For this processor, an infinite amount of time isn't even a fraction of a second in relation to the other processors.

Now, imagine that infinite processor is God's brain. And he's thinking of creating the perfect world, and imagining all sorts of fun and bizarre scenarios.

Our world, our universe, our existence, is simply one of those ideas. To him, it lasts a fraction of a second, and never really occured, it was merely a thought.

However, to those of us who exist in this thought, time is, well, quite slow by comparison.

So there is nothing to do to help us, or make our world better, because we don't really exist except in a thought going on, right now, in God's brain.

And after this thought finishes, he may have figured out the perfect world. Of course, none of us will get to see it.

There's where I chuckle at the beauty of this answer.

And for the record, I don't believe in God. I merely find relating our existence to computers in some way to be an amusing pasttime.

[Machfive]

I don't think that is very good analogy. The robot doesn't have free will, you created it to kill - of course you're responsible for it because you programmed it. You knew what it would do, not because you are omniscient but because you created it to kill. On the other hand God created men but gave them the choice to kill or not kill - he didn't create robots nor did he program us. I say blaming God for our choices is a cop out :)

As for your last statement, you haven't proven this, nor have you proven that this would be a better world than this one. While I would agree that God could have created a different world, I don't think that you can prove that any world you can think of would necessarily be better.

Grifman

That doesn't solve the question: Why did he create us with the capacity to kill?

Asimov's Three Laws, but in human form, hard-coded into our brains.

[voltaic]

I dont believe that forgiveness is handed out that easily; I believe in karma, or that every action will soon or later reflected to the creature who did it: good for good and bad for bad.
It is certainly an attractive idea: that goodness is what earns one's way into heaven/paradise/whatever. But it isn't very fair. What chance does a 15 year old have of purging himself of all worldy desires?


If God "had no choice" but to create the universe a certain way, and if that "restricted his further actions within," then you just proved my point. A deity that has to observe limits of any kind is, by definition, no longer omnipotent. There are things beyond its power.

Like I've said before, get rid of one of the omni-whatevers conventionally applied to God, and paradox vanishes.
So basically you didn't read anything I wrote except the few sentences you quoted. For your convenience: God cannot lie, hence there is something he cannot do, hence he is not omnipotent in the way you are saying it. That doesn't prove your point so much as demonstrate that your definition is flawed.

I also asked for a definition of the third omni, "omnibenevolence" and you didn't offer one.


That doesn't solve the question: Why did he create us with the capacity to kill?
Don't know. I'll ask when I see him. :wink:

[Rywill]

I agree with Lackey and, to a lesser extent, Murph (although I think Murph arrives at the right result by flawed reasoning). There is no logical contradiction in an omniscient God but us having free will, if you accept a version of God that exists outside time. Ben's problem is not exactly that God can't know what choice I will make about something--it's that God can't know my choice before I make it. Obviously Ben would have no problem with God knowing my choice for certain after it's made.

The problem there is that God does not exist "before" or "after" my choice the way I do or Ben does or Jeff Lackey does. God, in this construct, exists "outside time" like someone looking down at a filmstrip of all that has ever happened or (from our temporal point of view) will ever happen. Murph's other points--about Genesis being literally true and God holding us responsible because of, but not for, Adam and Eve's sins--are also internally consistent. In other words, if you accept his premises, his conclusions logically follow (although that's not too difficult when your premises involve omnipotent but ineffable beings).

Is that logically possible? I think it is. A completely separate question, though, is "Is that likely?" I think it is vastly unlikely. Several people way up earlier said "You can't say there's no God because you can't prove He doesn't exist" and similar things, as if the inability to conclusively disprove something means all things are equally likely. In my experience, that is not at all true. The simplest explanations, while not always the right ones, are true much more often than the more complex ones. Only when a more complex explanation better accounts for the facts should it be accepted over a simpler explanation. God is vastly more complex than the "It's all basically chance and evolution" theory, and I therefore find it monumentally unlikely that there is a Christian God.

On a couple of other points: I find Murph's and Gav's thought that a happy lie is better than a harsh truth abhorrent. I also find Murph's idea of God--someone who would condemn people to Hell because they are "stained" with sin and haven't accepted Christ given the chance--to be terribly unjust. Obviously Murph will think God is just by His own lights, which is all that matters, and that's fine as Murph's opinion. In my opinion, by my standards and values, that God is unjust to the point of being evil, and if He exists, I'm glad I don't worship Him. I reject Him utterly and will happily stand in Hell among the others who share my values.

[Grifman]

I don't think that is very good analogy. The robot doesn't have free will, you created it to kill - of course you're responsible for it because you programmed it. You knew what it would do, not because you are omniscient but because you created it to kill. On the other hand God created men but gave them the choice to kill or not kill - he didn't create robots nor did he program us. I say blaming God for our choices is a cop out :)

As for your last statement, you haven't proven this, nor have you proven that this would be a better world than this one. While I would agree that God could have created a different world, I don't think that you can prove that any world you can think of would necessarily be better.

Grifman

That doesn't solve the question: Why did he create us with the capacity to kill?

Asimov's Three Laws, but in human form, hard-coded into our brains.

Actually, that wasn't the question :) But to go back, the capacity to kill is inherent in giving man free will - take away that capacity and you don't have free will. And as much as free will is a source of great evil, it is also a source of great good.

Grifman

[Machfive]

*snip*

Thank you, Dr. Arroway. ;)

[Machfive]

Actually, that wasn't the question :) But to go back, the capacity to kill is inherent in giving man free will - take away that capacity and you don't have free will. And as much as free will is a source of great evil, it is also a source of great good.

Grifman

I know it wasn't the question, I wanted to go off on a tangent.

Why couldn't you call it free will? I mean, you're limited to exert your will based on the laws of nature, physics, etc, correct? You can't will a spoon to bend, but that doesn't mean you don't have free will.

What if the ability to consciously decide to kill someone was simply an impossibility due to the laws of nature?

Given, there would be a whole lot of carnivorous animals that would've never made it through evolution, but I'm sure they're be exempt from that law of God just as they seem to be all the others. I don't see Lions worrying about living in sin because they're shagging a lioness premaritally.

[Dave Markell]

If God "had no choice" but to create the universe a certain way, and if that "restricted his further actions within," then you just proved my point. A deity that has to observe limits of any kind is, by definition, no longer omnipotent. There are things beyond its power.

Like I've said before, get rid of one of the omni-whatevers conventionally applied to God, and paradox vanishes.
So basically you didn't read anything I wrote except the few sentences you quoted. For your convenience: God cannot lie, hence there is something he cannot do, hence he is not omnipotent in the way you are saying it. That doesn't prove your point so much as demonstrate that your definition is flawed.

I also asked for a definition of the third omni, "omnibenevolence" and you didn't offer one.


Voltaic, I read everything you wrote. I quoted only the most relevant section of it.

As for the definition of omnibenevolence, simple enough: perfect, total goodness and love. Not a trace of evil.

Finally, it's not mydefinition that's flawed, it's calling God "omnipotent" and simultaneously putting limits on his power that's flawed. I don't believe in an omnipotent creator. I have no problem with coming up with long lists of things God can't do. It's the defenders of the omni-everything God that have problems with that.

[Murph]

Nice of you guys to finally show up. I'm not alone in this debate. Yay!


Prepare for divergence, Murph. Baptism is simply an illustration of salvation but is not required. Example: the robber on the cross next to Christ. When the Bible says "and be baptised" it is referring to the baptism of the spirit which occurs at salvation. IOW it is not "first you must believe, then you must be baptised", it is "once you believe, then you will have become baptised".

Actually, no divergence. Clearly, Jesus asked to be physically baptised as an outward symbol, but I never intended to imply that it realistically has any part in salvation itself.

I really like Jeff's (or was it voltaic's) explanation of how God can exist outside our reference of time. That's what I've always assumed, and I guess that's why I have no problem believing that he can see what's going to happen with us still having the option to choose at every juncture. I don't think the future is "written" or "pre-determined" in any sense at all -- it's just that God exists outside our conceptions of time, and can look at any point in our existence -- or all of them simultaneously -- like they're now, to us. Some people (prophets, or, on the other side, psychics) may occasionally be able to tap into that and get glimpses, but that doesn't mean that the whole future is already written, thus totally violating free will.

I take omnibenevolent to mean "all-good," as they're using it. If God is completely good, then anything that goes against His choice is evil. In a world with free will, evil will exist as any choice that is not 100% God's will.

I can't believe that nobody has objected to the idea of God as "infinte." If he's always been, and will always be, then obviously time, as we conceive it, has no relavence to Him. Why is it so unbelievable than an infinite Creator, who exists outside our reference of time, can see the future without affecting our free will? Past, present, future -- God exists outside these, I think. Ben (just picking on you for example) doesn't have a problem with the idea of Him being infinite (assuming, of course, that He does in fact exist), but can't accept that He can see the future without violating our free will. That doesn't seem like a huge jump to me. Time has no meaning to God.

[Dave Markell]

A deity that has to observe limits of any kind is, by definition, no longer omnipotent. There are things beyond its power.

Like I've said before, get rid of one of the omni-whatevers conventionally applied to God, and paradox vanishes.

No, as I pointed out, there are things that God cannot do - he can't create a rock so heavy he can't lift it, he can't create a married bachelor, he can't create a round circle. These are things that are logical impossibilities. Yet no philosopher would say that these word games mean that God cannot be omnipotent.

The same can be said of the POE (Problem of Evil). It can be argued that it is logically impossible for God to create a world in which free choice exists and evil does not. Hence given that God has created a world of free will, it's existence does not necessarily violate his omniscience, omnibenevolence or omnipotence, given his decision to create such a world.

Frankly, people claim too much for POE. It no longer has the weight in philosophical circles it once did:

"It used to be widely held that evil--which for present purposes we may identify with undeserved pain and suffering--was incompatible with the existence of God: that no possible world contained both God and evil. So far as I am able to tell, this thesis is no longer defended" Peter Van Imwagan, Christian philosopher

"Some philosophers have contended that the existence of evil is logically inconsistent with the existence of the theistic God. No one, I think, has succeeded in establishing such an extravagant claim. Indeed, granted incompatibilism, there is a fairly compelling argument for the view that the existence of evil is logically consistent with the existence of the theistic God" William Rowe, atheist philosopher

"I agree with most philosophers of religion that theists face no serious logical problem of evil" Paul Draper, agnostic philospher

Here's the standard form of the argument:

a. God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good, and therefore should have the will and the ability to eliminate evil and/or suffering.

b. Such a god would be obligated by His/Her/Its/Their ethics to eliminate evil and suffering (i.e. there is no adequate reason for it to be allowed to eventuate/continue);

c. Evil and suffering ostensibly occur.

Therefore, the god described in proposition A does not, in fact, exist.

The problem is that the person arguing this position cannot prove the parenthetical clause in b - that there is no adequate reason for evil to be allowed. It is impossible to come up with all the possible reasons that might justify evil - and if you can't come up with such a list, then you can't prove the argument. Just because you or I don't know, doesn't mean that someone else, including God :), doesn't. You can't carry this argument on these grounds.

Grifman

Ah, but Grifman, "B" is stated incorrectly. An omniscient, omnipotent creator God with perfect foreknowledge and complete power is directly responsible for the existence of evil. If he never made the Serpent, Man never falls. If he never made Satan, no war in heaven. Etc ad nauseum. The existence of evil isn't some random factor. It was intentionally brought in to being.

Those philosophers who restate the problem to sweep it under the rug are engaged in intellectual whitewashing. But I can see why they do it--after roughly 1500 years of unresolved debate, there is little new that can be said on the topic.

[Murph]

I also find Murph's idea of God--someone who would condemn people to Hell because they are "stained" with sin and haven't accepted Christ given the chance--to be terribly unjust.

God is nothing if not just.

Anyone who is told "God created you, and gave you everything, to the point that He sent His son to die so that you could be with Him, and all He asks is that you believe that and say thank you," and says no, either a.)doesn't believe in God, or b.)has just completely spit in God's face, so to speak. You think either of these people deserve to go to heaven, to be with God? How to you consider that "just?"


Finally, it's not mydefinition that's flawed, it's calling God "omnipotent" and simultaneously putting limits on his power that's flawed.

I don't think there are limits to God's power. I think there are limits to our comprehension. The classic "Can God make a rock that He can't pick up?" does not invalidate God's omnipotence, whether the answer is yes or no.

[Machfive]

Actually, I do spit in God's face. While I don't like wasting my time thinking about how I believe he doesn't exist, if he does, I'd like a chance to meet him, if not to tell him about how big of a fuckup his whole creation was.

And if this God can make me understand, all the better.

But I don't think our world had any intelligent thought put into it.

[Rywill]

Murph and Griff, the problem with your arguments is that they assume at the beginning that God exists and all things are defined in reference to God. For example, "just" is defined to mean "what God wants," therefore clearly God is just. But when I use "just" I mean by human lights. Similarly, it's logically complete, but not at all compelling, to say "If there is evil, it's because God has some greater plan that you can't know" or "Good means whatever God is, therefore God is good." What we want to know is why God isn't good as we define it. You may think God did all these terrific things for me, and I'm spitting in his face by not saying "Thank you." I say that I see no reason to believe God did any of those things or that he exists at all, and if He expects me to believe in things for which there is no evidence and no reason to believe them, that's unreasonable of Him--and if He wants to condemn me to Hell because I won't make some wild and totally unlikely assumption about the world, that's His business, but I stand by my principles. If He were a reasonable, just being, He wouldn't have set up such an unfair system.

[Rywill]

*snip*

Thank you, Dr. Arroway. ;)
Who is Dr. Arroway?

EDIT: Never mind, she's the fictional astronmer from Contact. I actually admired her character in the movie--one of the few things about the movie that I admired--so I guess I'll accept that :lol:

[Machfive]

I called you that because you paraphrased Occam's Razor in your post. ;)

I like that razor, btw. It's almost as good as my Mach3.

[ydejin]

If I could attempt to move the thread back to more "practical" considerations. Earlier in the thread I mentioned that there were quite a number of very well regarded moral leaders all of whom found inspiration in religion. These include Reverend Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Mother Teresa. Are there equivalent moral leaders who have found inspiration in atheism? If not why not?

The closest I can think of off hand are the "great" communist leaders. I haven't studied them closely but from what I've read, while many of them started off trying to help the poor, most of them ended up as power-mongers.

I think it's interesting comparing the path of these two groups. The spiritual/religious leaders started off weak and grew stronger as they spent time studying their various religious scriptures. I've already cited Reverend King earlier in the thread. Ghandi and Mother Teresa followed similar paths, with their actions becoming more "courageous" as they matured in their faith. In contrast the communists appear to have gone the opposite direction. They became more corrupt as they grew older and lost their moral way.

I haven't spent a lot of time studing atheism, so I may be missing some very inspiring atheists. I would be interested in hearing some counter-examples.

[Brad Grenz]

Good question, I can't think of any either.

[cyborg]

If I could attempt to move the thread back to more "practical" considerations. Earlier in the thread I mentioned that there were quite a number of very well regarded moral leaders all of whom found inspiration in religion. These include Reverend Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Mother Teresa. Are there equivalent moral leaders who have found inspiration in atheism? If not why not?

1) There are a lot less atheists.
2) It's still widely unacceptable to be one. Hence 1.
3) Pleanty of religious people have been abhorent people too.


The closest I can think of off hand are the "great" communist leaders. I haven't studied them closely but from what I've read, while many of them started off trying to help the poor, most of them ended up as power-mongers.

The difference being these people ended up in positions of power whilst Martin Luther King was assasinated, Ghandi did not enter into a position of power in India, Mother Teresea remained a nun until she died and Aung San Suu Kyi doesn't have power yet.

It's easy to be moral in opposition - the litmus test is to see whether they stay moral in power.

[Ar]

I dont believe that forgiveness is handed out that easily; I believe in karma, or that every action will soon or later reflected to the creature who did it: good for good and bad for bad.
It is certainly an attractive idea: that goodness is what earns one's way into heaven/paradise/whatever. But it isn't very fair. What chance does a 15 year old have of purging himself of all worldy desires?

I dont see the unfairness, or why does age matter.
Everyone who has earthly desires will spend time on earth to try satisfy them, until he had enough or become disillusioned and gives them up in name of the superior joy to be experienced in higher planes of existance.
The pleasant or unpleasant experiences he goes thru in this life have been self created with his past desires, thoughts and actions.
And any 15 years old who doesnt have an overwhelming bad, sufference attracting (but also self created, thus fair) karma, will usually feel glad of his existance in this earth.

Maybe you meant the situation of someone dying too young to have time to attain liberation, but in this case must remember that the theory of karma goes along with that of reincarnation.
All the people who die with earthly desires, and dont get rid of them at the other world either, will soon or later be attracted back on earth by their desires.
Someone dying early probably did something in the past to deserve such fate, but will have more chances to improve and evolve himself: in successive earhly lives, or in his temporary existence in the planes where souls live between physical reincarnations.

Edit: if anything, the Christian church interpretation is what doesnt sounds fair, in regard of someone dying young.
So whats the fate on someone dying right after birth?
Hell for not having had chance to know and thus believe in Jesus? Unfair, since it wasnt due his will.
Heaven? Unfair to those who have had longer lifes. He got a free pass to eternal Heaven without being put to the test of earthly temptations like most others.
Unless you assume that man has still chance to redeem - and also damn - himself with his thoughts and actions after his physical death, which actually makes sense, but I dont know (or care much either, since will rather think for myself) whats the church official stance on this.

If you dont believe in reincarnation and karma, would also seem terribly unfair how God let some people be born in healthy and intelligent bodyes, while others weak, ill and retarded.
Unless, again, their souls did something different before their latest physical birth, to deserve such different destiny.

Also sounds unfair how a God who told his children to always forgive each other would NOT forgive them Himself, and rather punish their sins which are limited in time and effect with an unlimited and eternal damnation.
The belief of karma again gives a more satisfing answer: damnation is "eternal" only as long as a soul doesnt repent, in other words if eternally insists in wrong actions.

[ydejin]

If I could attempt to move the thread back to more "practical" considerations. Earlier in the thread I mentioned that there were quite a number of very well regarded moral leaders all of whom found inspiration in religion. These include Reverend Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Mother Teresa. Are there equivalent moral leaders who have found inspiration in atheism? If not why not?

1) There are a lot less atheists.
2) It's still widely unacceptable to be one. Hence 1.
3) Pleanty of religious people have been abhorent people too.

That's only true in the US. In the communist countries it was far, far more acceptable to be an atheist than to be a Christian or a member of any religious faith. Yet probably the best known moral leader to arise from the USSR was Alexandr Solzhenitsyn who became a Christian in the gulags and who presents another example of a moral leader who started weak and gained in moral power as his faith depened.

As far as point 3 goes, no arguments from me. In fact it's a basic tenant of the Christian faith that we are all sinners. Moreover the Christian Bible suggests that those with the deepest moral struggles and moral failings are most likely to be drawn to Christ. Not that the others don't need him, just that it's harder for them to see that they need him. So it stands to reason that there are many deeply flawed spiritual people out there (myself included :? ). The conversion from being an "abhorrent" person to a Mother Teresa is long and difficult, and, of course, most of us never reach that level in this lifetime. Also as I mentioned earlier in this thread, you'll need to separate out those who are "part of the church" for reasons of power rather than reasons of spirituality.



The closest I can think of off hand are the "great" communist leaders. I haven't studied them closely but from what I've read, while many of them started off trying to help the poor, most of them ended up as power-mongers.

The difference being these people ended up in positions of power whilst Martin Luther King was assasinated, Ghandi did not enter into a position of power in India, Mother Teresea remained a nun until she died and Aung San Suu Kyi doesn't have power yet.

It's easy to be moral in opposition - the litmus test is to see whether they stay moral in power.

But it's a central tenant of most religions that true power isn't in political leadership -- at least not in the Stalin/Maoist sense. The spiritual leaders, for the most part, didn't want that kind of power. Ghandi didn't want to be prime minister. I don't believe Mother Teresa ever wanted to do anything other than care for the poor. True spiritual leaders lead by changing people's hearts not by taking political power. I would argue this is a central difference between a spiritual view of the world and an atheist view of the world. The spiritual view believes in a transcendence outside of the physical world and says that that is where the key changes are needed -- in people's hearts and in their spirits. The atheist view focuses on the here and now and on the physical. This gives them a much greater tendency to focus on physical political power. Even when a true spiritual leader ends up with political power, I would argue that it's easier for them to give it up, as they know they can continue to work on the transcendent in or out of office.

[Rywill]

I think that's an unfair question, or at least unfair the way it's worded. Atheism does not inspire people because atheism is simply an acknowledgement that God either cannot exist, or is so unlikely to exist that one should assume He doesn't exist until evidence proves otherwise. In other words, it's basically a negative. It would be like me saying, "Many astronauts have been inspired by the concept of going into space. But who has ever been inspired by the thought of not going into space, of staying on Earth? Nobody." With the implication being--as it is in your question--that the thought of going into space is therefore noble, and anyone who doesn't want to go into space must be ignoble by comparison. But that's simply not true. People who aren't inspired by going into space may be inspired by other things that are equally or even more noble than the inspiration to go into space.

Put another way, although perhaps nobody is inspired by atheism, there are certainly great men and women in history who were inspired by things other than religion. Socrates and Aristotle, for example. Einstein and Hawking. Lincoln. I could go on and on.

[voltaic]

Voltaic, I read everything you wrote. I quoted only the most relevant section of it.

As for the definition of omnibenevolence, simple enough: perfect, total goodness and love. Not a trace of evil.

Finally, it's not mydefinition that's flawed, it's calling God "omnipotent" and simultaneously putting limits on his power that's flawed. I don't believe in an omnipotent creator. I have no problem with coming up with long lists of things God can't do. It's the defenders of the omni-everything God that have problems with that.
OK fair enough. Then I reject the notions of "omnipotent" that you have previously read or been exposed to. And if that rejection weakens one of the 3 omni's, well there ya go. It won't work for the 700 Club, but it's fine with me.

[voltaic]

Edit: if anything, the Christian church interpretation is what doesnt sounds fair, in regard of someone dying young.
So whats the fate on someone dying right after birth?
Hell for not having had chance to know and thus believe in Jesus? Unfair, since it wasnt due his will.
Good question, and one which I failed to address in my previous uber-post. All people are born with their names in the Book of Life, on the list of people who will be in heaven after death. When someone dies, if they did not accept Christ by faith, their name is blotted out. IOW everyone starts on the list.

When a baby or mentally retarded person dies without having had the ability to make the choice, his name is not blotted out. Because he was not able to choose for or against Christ, the default applies.


Also sounds unfair how a God who told his children to always forgive each other would NOT forgive them Himself, and rather punish their sins which are limited in time and effect with an unlimited and eternal damnation.
This is a common misunderstanding of Christianity. No one goes to Hell for their sins and failings. Sin is not an issue with us, because Christ paid the penalty for those sins and God forgave those since based on the work that He did. This is the saving Grace that people try to replace by doing their own good deeds. But how can a flawed person do enough "good deeds" to pay for all of his sins? He can't, so Christ paid for all of the sins of all man for all history.

The only remaining issue is an act of faith: do you believe in Christ's saving work? It doesn't require you to perform any deeds or actions, does not depend on some scale of goodness, has nothing to do with human morality, how much money you send to Jerry Falwell, or anything else. A quadripelegic negro woman serf in the Middle Ages has the exact same barrier to entering heaven as a genetically healthy, rich white guy living in Manhattan.

THAT is the kind of across-the-board fairness that God provides and which allows me to so easily reject the idea of "being nice" or "doing charity work" as the price for entering heaven. Faith alone in Christ alone.

[cyborg]

That's nice - I can be a bastard and get away with it if I accept Christ as my saviour.

[Kalle]

That's nice - I can be a bastard and get away with it if I accept Christ as my saviour.

Why do you think Mafia members are devout catholics? Confession and last rites and all is forgiven. :roll:

Something that crossed my mind. If god is forever beyond human perception we cannot understand him/it period. Trying to please a being that is beyond our comprehension would seem to be destined to fail because we really would not know what would please or displease deities.

[Anders Hallin]

The only remaining issue is an act of faith: do you believe in Christ's saving work? It doesn't require you to perform any deeds or actions, does not depend on some scale of goodness, has nothing to do with human morality, how much money you send to Jerry Falwell, or anything else. A quadripelegic negro woman serf in the Middle Ages has the exact same barrier to entering heaven as a genetically healthy, rich white guy living in Manhattan.
Except, for some of us, to sell out our principles.

[Ar]

All people are born with their names in the Book of Life, on the list of people who will be in heaven after death. When someone dies, if they did not accept Christ by faith, their name is blotted out. IOW everyone starts on the list.

When a baby or mentally retarded person dies without having had the ability to make the choice, his name is not blotted out. Because he was not able to choose for or against Christ, the default applies.

Which doesnt address the point that would be unfair that some peoples get a "free" pass to Heaven without having to pass the earthly test, while others have to pass it.
Is also a poor selection: a baby who dies at birth may have grown in an evil man, but by "luck" of an early death is instead assured Heaven.

And there is still the whole issue that this is a random selection as long as individual merit is involved, since common men cant know who is the "right" saviour between Jesus or Buddha or anyone else.
You dont know for sure if Jesus is the real son of God and nor Buddha, do you? Thus might turn out that you were wrong and choose the wrong one. By your idea of God's "fairness", this mistake should cost you an eternal punishment in Hell.
Can you tell with a straight face that you would think to deserve this punishment, for such a mistake caused from ignorance and not evil will?
That a loving God should act this way?
I find this an absurd interpretation of the Christian church.
I expect something subtler from the Lord who created this complex universe, than such a simple and approssimative judgement.

If a human dictator forced everyone to answer a question to which they cant know the answer, and sent to torture all who replied wrongly, he would be considered a crazy sadic.
Do you think that the Jesus you believe into would have approved the deeds of such a man?
Still you think a God can do the same (ask man to guess who is his "true" son or prophet, and send to Hell whoever makes the wrong guess) and be considered a loving and fair being?
If that was the case, would be admirable of man to rise against this evil God.



Also sounds unfair how a God who told his children to always forgive each other would NOT forgive them Himself, and rather punish their sins which are limited in time and effect with an unlimited and eternal damnation.
This is a common misunderstanding of Christianity. No one goes to Hell for their sins and failings. Sin is not an issue with us, because Christ paid the penalty for those sins and God forgave those since based on the work that He did. This is the saving Grace that people try to replace by doing their own good deeds. But how can a flawed person do enough "good deeds" to pay for all of his sins? He can't, so Christ paid for all of the sins of all man for all history.

You completely dodged the point, ie that is not an act worth of a misericordous and forgiving being, thus not a believable interpretation of the Bible, that the same God who professes forgiveness would give eternal punishments - evermore to give eternal punishments for the actions a man did in a limited timeframe of an earthy existance.
Seems a disproportionately hard punishment from a supposed misericordious and loving God; no second chance to be redeemed.

And not to be disrespectful, but what did exactly Christ do to erase the sin of the whole humanity? Dying on a cross?
Other men were crucifixed, still when they suffering means absolutely nothing to your interpretation of the Divine Law, and is not even enough to save themselves, while Jesus same fate means so much to affect the destiny of every man in history? Someone seems to be playing favorites.
An innocent being crucifixed is a terrible fate, but worse things happened to other people.

Your interpretation also pretty much belittles everything Jesus did, imo.
He devoted his life to give an example of righteousness, to teach morals and right behaviour.
Suddenly it all doesnt matter, behaviour doesnt matter, it was all of secondary importance, all that really matters is believing; I dont think so.

While I do believe in Jesus, I dont believe in the first of the many man-made Bible interpretations that was put to my sight, or the most widely accepted in the area I live in, or the most convenient - and going to Heaven regardless of your actions simply for believing in Jesus is one of the most convenient interpretations imaginable.
Im pointing issues in your interpretation to encourage not giving up your faith, but considering to read the bible in a different and imho more logical way.

There is no guarantee that the church's interpretation is correct.
I think the curch has been wrong in the past, at the time of Jesus; didnt he call the priests of the time hipocrytes?
Its interpretation of Gods's word might be wrong again today, as it was wrong and corrupted before.

edit: some of the bad spelling

[Dave Markell]

Ar's point is a solid one. After all, most people follow whatever religion their parents tell them is correct. Yes, some (like myself) reject their upbringing and consider other teachings, but the vast majority are quite content to stay the course. If you're born in rural South Carolina, the odds of you not being a Christian are nearly zero; if you're born in the Empty Quarter, the odds of you not being a Muslim are likewise just about zero.

Since every mainstream religion claims exclusive possession of the truth, and since the religion most people follow is the result of random chance, then everyone who follows the wrong church and is damned for it is being condemned most unfairly. Simply hearing about other religions isn't going to change most minds. How many mosques are there in rural South Carolina, after all? How many Imans roam the back roads of Montana? But Islam could be the True Faith, and US Christians who reject it on the basis the skewed perceptions provided by the media might spend eternity roasting in hell because of a accident of birth.

Fair? No way.

[Gav]

I'll just throw in my 2 cents worth:

First, it's fairly easy to read the bible and come away from it without feeling that God is omniscient in the way people are describing. God changes His mind, which an omniscient being couldn't do. (See, frex, then end of chapter 3 of Jonah, where God changes his mind about destroying Nineveh).

Second, about the criteria for getting into heaven. The Jewish perspective is that you don't have to be Jewish to get into heaven; you have to abey 7 laws which God handed out to everyone--this makes things a lot less arbitrary (they're standard stuff like "don't murder", "establish some sort of justice system", and so on).

To Dave Markell, it may be true that Eastern religions avoid the POE, but they have other problems. Buddhism, for example, can seem to say, "life is tough, so deal with it," and so there are a bunch of sects which end up adding things that make it as arbitrary as an religion you could point to. For instance, there's a sect (can't remember the name, and I'm too lazy to look it up) which says that if you say the Amida Buddha's name with enough fervency you'll end up in Nirvana. And then some of them end up having Buddha turn into effectively a God-figure, with foreknowledge and everything.

Gav

[Dave Markell]

To Dave Markell, it may be true that Eastern religions avoid the POE, but they have other problems. Buddhism, for example, can seem to say, "life is tough, so deal with it," and so there are a bunch of sects which end up adding things that make it as arbitrary as an religion you could point to. For instance, there's a sect (can't remember the name, and I'm too lazy to look it up) which says that if you say the Amida Buddha's name with enough fervency you'll end up in Nirvana. And then some of them end up having Buddha turn into effectively a God-figure, with foreknowledge and everything.

Gav

Totally true, Gav. It amazes me how the majority of "Buddhists" belong to sects that have nothing except the name "Buddha" in common with his teachings. Fascinating religious history, if you're in to that sort of thing. And yes, even the purest Buddhism has what I perceive as serious problems--but not the PoE :)

After more than 2 decades of intermittent research and soul-searching, I'm an agnostic. I would dearly love to find a religion/sect/cult that I could believe in, but that hasn't happened as yet. The absurdities and inconsistencies that I find in all religions prevents me from adopting them wholeheartedly--and what I can't do whole heartedly, I don't do at all.

[bmulligan]

The only remaining issue is an act of faith: do you believe in Christ's saving work? It doesn't require you to perform any deeds or actions, does not depend on some scale of goodness, has nothing to do with human morality, how much money you send to Jerry Falwell, or anything else.

Sorry, I have to take issue with your and others' statements that salvation doesn't require any action or deed. Obtaining your 'salvation' requires you to commit the action of submission. The act of relinquishing your own will, judgement, and self to a being on faith is the most destructive 'act' one can perform.

If you believe in a god who asks you to be thatnkful for the gift of life, then sacrificing your own life for him is contradictory act. You cannot be thankful for your life if it is not your own.

And for you bible literalists out there: God walked among adam and eve in the garden of eden before and after the eating of the fruit. Why are we not able to see him now, in human form, walking among us? Why is he 'unknowable' or 'beyond' human comprehension or understanding? From what I read we were created in his own image so his image must be somewhat recognizable to us, or at least within the realm of our perception. Has anyone here actually talked to god? Adam and eve did, why can't we?

[cyborg]

The answer bmulligan is obvious to anyone who does not assume God exists - the concept of what God is has changed from its first inception. The conclusion one draws is that God did not tell man what he is - man told God what he is.

Genesis has two different stories based on source hundreds of years apart - the Adam myth being older and has a less etherial concept of God and creation than the first myth. It is also painfully clear as the Bible progresses that the concept of God has changed from being a tribal God who enabled the Jews to defeat to other people's false Gods to being a universal God.

The Bible really only makes sense when you stop assuming it really is the word of a supreme being whos had a universal plan from time index 0 and start looking at it from the perspective of the men who actually wrote it over many hundreds of years. We don't assume people who come up with new religious material to be inspired by God so it only seems fair to apply the same scrutiny to the Biblical authors.

[bmulligan]

We don't assume people who come up with new religious material to be inspired by God so it only seems fair to apply the same scrutiny to the Biblical authors.

Yeah, sure, WE don't assume, but ask most any Christian and they will tell you it's THE WORD, inspired by god directly to the scribes hand, period, no arguments please.

How could he be a 'tribal' god and then become a 'universal' god? I think you'd get a lot of arguments against that one too from both literalists and figurativists alike. I guess what I'm really digging for is to know from the bible thumpers out there is if any of them have actually had the big chief speak to them like he did daily to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc. What kind of evidence led you to the epiphany that god is out there and cares about you?

[voltaic]

Whew! Another big one. Hopefully I am at least answering someone's questions to some positive effect. If someone has 10 objections to some idea and 9 of them turn out to be ill-conceived, well maybe that person will at least rethink their position as a whole.


That's nice - I can be a bastard and get away with it if I accept Christ as my saviour.
Yes. It is both nice and fair.


Something that crossed my mind. If god is forever beyond human perception we cannot understand him/it period. Trying to please a being that is beyond our comprehension would seem to be destined to fail because we really would not know what would please or displease deities.
Unless he gave us a notion of what He is about. Like, say, a book. Let's call it "the Bible". No one with an ounce of common sense claims to know everything or most things or very many things at all about God. But we can know at least the few things He has told us.


Except, for some of us, to sell out our principles.
How can I respond to this? Yes if sometime in your life you hear something which does not agree with your preconceived notions, you may find yourself reviewing them. Maybe stem-cell research will cause you to review your principles about it. Perhaps euthanasia will have some compelling argument in a direction against your current position which gives you pause and the need to ruminate.

You call it "selling out", I call it "you may not have been right the first time and it doesn't hurt to re-examine it". This isn't a record contract for your favorite garage band finally going to MTV we're talking about.


Which doesnt address the point that would be unfair that some peoples get a "free" pass to Heaven without having to pass the earthly test, while others have to pass it.
The Bible doesn't require any earthly tests to get into Heaven. Your ideas about Karma and such do. It doesn't address the point because it does not make the point in the first place.


And not to be disrespectful, but what did exactly Christ do to erase the sin of the whole humanity? Dying on a cross? Other men were crucifixed, still when they suffering means absolutely nothing to your interpretation of the Divine Law, and is not even enough to save themselves, while Jesus same fate means so much to affect the destiny of every man in history? Someone seems to be playing favorites.
An innocent being crucifixed is a terrible fate, but worse things happened to other people.
It isn't disrespectful, you are asking perfectly reasonable questions in a thread that was setup for something related to this purpose. :)

Yes other innocent people were crucified during history. So what did Christ do in particular that paid the price for all man's sin? Well Christ was born without sin in him. Unlike all other humanity who receives sin because of Adam. Since Jesus did not have a human father, he did not receive the "sin gene" (a phrase for which I expect to get some flak, but which works as a metaphor). Since he did not have any sin in him from birth, and since he did not commit any sin during his life, his death satisfied God's righteous need to judge human's sin.

Think of sin as the chains of slavery (a metaphor the Bible uses also). A person born into slavery cannot buy himself out of it. However, someone outside the bonds of slavery can buy the freedom of a slave within. Christ was the only sinless person not bonded by slavery to din and his death satisfied the purchase price. This is why sin is no longer an issue for us: his death paid the price for all of mankind's sins. To extend the metaphor, by believing in his saving work, you are "taking off" the bonds of slavery which everyone is free to do.


There is no guarantee that the church's interpretation is correct. I think the curch has been wrong in the past, at the time of Jesus; didnt he call the priests of the time hipocrytes? Its interpretation of Gods's word might be wrong again today, as it was wrong and corrupted before.
Yes he did. They were claiming to be following the commands of God but weren't. It didn't have to do with their interpretation: they were knowingly keeping a money and power base by claiming to be members of the cloth. See: money-grubbing televangelist. I'm not claiming that you should believe in Christ because a guy with a 1-800 donation line claims to do so.


Sorry, I have to take issue with your and others' statements that salvation doesn't require any action or deed. Obtaining your 'salvation' requires you to commit the action of submission. The act of relinquishing your own will, judgement, and self to a being on faith is the most destructive 'act' one can perform.
Well having faith is "an act" if you are going to be hardcore about it being a verb or something. However it is a non-meritorious act. Anyone can so it, regardless of their physical abilities or makeup. It is "an act of faith".

However, believing in something has nothing to do with relinquishing your will. In fact, the Bible does not claim that you must "give your heart to Jesus" or something to go to heaven (Kubrick films notwithstanding). You can believe in, say, time travel without relinquishing your free will or destroying your personal judgment. Now if you become a zealot and start running airplanes into buildings because of time travel, then I suppose you have relinquished your will, but it isn't required by the Bible.


If you believe in a god who asks you to be thatnkful for the gift of life, then sacrificing your own life for him is contradictory act. You cannot be thankful for your life if it is not your own.
Our lives are not our own. That aside, the Bible does not require one to be thankful for the gift of life to get into heaven either.


And for you bible literalists out there: God walked among adam and eve in the garden of eden before and after the eating of the fruit. Why are we not able to see him now, in human form, walking among us? Why is he 'unknowable' or 'beyond' human comprehension or understanding? From what I read we were created in his own image so his image must be somewhat recognizable to us, or at least within the realm of our perception. Has anyone here actually talked to god? Adam and eve did, why can't we?
I'm inclined to ask if English is your first language. Not to be a dick, but because sometimes it appears you have a tenuous grasp of it. For example, a previous thread in which you interpreted the commandment "no gods before me" as meaning "before in time" instead of the obvious "before in priority".

God walked among them and spoke with them because that was what went on back then. There was no Bible. How would God have communicated his business to creation? Miracles, dreams, prophecies, and the gradual writing of the various parts of the Bible were how. Things like this all ended when the Bible was finished around 90 AD (although some finished before that).

The stuff outside of our physical scientific universe is, by definition, beyond our understanding. And yet it is there. So can God be.


Genesis has two different stories based on source hundreds of years apart - the Adam myth being older and has a less etherial concept of God and creation than the first myth.
What's the second story?


It is also painfully clear as the Bible progresses that the concept of God has changed from being a tribal God who enabled the Jews to defeat to other people's false Gods to being a universal God.
His plan changed but he did not. Jesus himself said that he had fulfilled the Mosaic Law and therefore it was no longer the standard by which his children were to live (although the third of it which contains the Ten Commandments still has some decent ideas in it such as no killing or commiting perjury).

He was always a universal God but the ways in which he was worshipped have changed. Important distinction, I think.

[quatoria]

Funny, in all of that, Voltaic didn't address the most pertinent question. How in the hell are any of us supposed to know which religion is True? Does a Muslim born in Pakistan deserve eternal damnation for following the religion of his parents? Does a Jew, born in Israel? Had you been born and raised in a different faith, would YOU deserve endless and unimaginable suffering?

For that matter, does it seem just to you that the Creator would condemn ANY of his creations to eternal suffering, for any reason? Is suffering without hope of reprieve EVER just?

[bmulligan]

The stuff outside of our physical scientific universe is, by definition, beyond our understanding. And yet it is there. So can God be.


Things outside of our physical universe do not exist. I'm inclined to ask whether this is your first attempt at reality because you seem to have a tenuous grasp of it. Actually, you must have no grasp of it at all since your life does not belong to you in the first place. Sorry to be a dick, but anyone who leads a sentence with "not to be a dick" followed by an insult is being a dick. You should look up the definition of the words 'before' and 'priority' and realize they both can mean precedence in time or preferential in rating or position.


Think of sin as the chains of slavery (a metaphor the Bible uses also). A person born into slavery cannot buy himself out of it. However, someone outside the bonds of slavery can buy the freedom of a slave within.

I couldn't have described it better myself: slavery=control. What a terriffic way to indoctrinate someone into being guilty simply for existing. Sounds like an AA meeting where you have a disease that is beyond your control and you must admit you have a problem and are helpless to correct it yourself. A born sinner, who can only be 'cleaned' by denying his own existence for the sake of those who would speak for him on Sunday.

And what about women? Are they without sin? Aren't they all descendants of Adam too, and therefore, born with the gene? If yes then we have a problem with Mary and the fruit of her womb, Jesus, for he would be a 1/2 sinner. Unless god is sperm and egg in one holy package! I only remember reading about the seed being god's, not the egg. Not, to be a dick and all.......

[voltaic]

Funny, in all of that, Voltaic didn't address the most pertinent question.
Give me some credit here, dude. I'm replying to a half-dozen or more posts at a time and I've been on my parents' dial-up account for the last six days! It's not easy waiting for this godawful site to load up 10-12 windows so I can copy and paste each one into a main reply window (then try to remember to copy the finished product to the clipboard in case the phone line barfs before the form submits to the server).


How in the hell are any of us supposed to know which religion is True? Does a Muslim born in Pakistan deserve eternal damnation for following the religion of his parents? Does a Jew, born in Israel? Had you been born and raised in a different faith, would YOU deserve endless and unimaginable suffering.
I believe you are using "deserve" as a loaded word here, and I'll explain. Do I, as a living human, think that some other single living human "deserves" eternal suffering? Of course not. However, I do believe in God who cannot be associated with sin in any way because of his infinite perfection. And I do believe that He has created the most simple way for any human to remove the "sin problem" thereby allowing him to associate with infinitely perfect God in heaven, for all eternity. This method is freely given, without any need or desire for the human to do any work, perform any deeds, or achieve any level of merit.

Every decade archaeology and history uncover startling "new" truths, such as that there were all kinds of people here on the American continents besides the Indians and before Columbus, such as the Chinese and Scandinavians. I believe these discoveries demonstrate that ancient people were well-travelled, versed in dozens of languages, and far far more open to communicating ideas than we are today. These small bits of evidence plus a helping of faith give me cause to believe that God's message of salvation was available for all people during all periods of history.

So to be concise, yes I believe that a muslim born in Pakistan or a Jew in Israel will have the same opportunity to hear the message of salvation as anyone else. If he rejects the message than he has not given God any choice, as infinite perfection cannot associate with sin (note to reader: another thing God cannot do).


Things outside of our physical universe do not exist.
That's a fairly strong assertion, and people working in the field (physicists and so on) haven't been so bold as to make it. Do you have any information on that I could read up on? Any site which Cleve Blakemore would not read is acceptable.


I couldn't have described it better myself: slavery=control. What a terriffic way to indoctrinate someone into being guilty simply for existing. Sounds like an AA meeting where you have a disease that is beyond your control and you must admit you have a problem and are helpless to correct it yourself. A born sinner, who can only be 'cleaned' by denying his own existence for the sake of those who would speak for him on Sunday.
Actually, until your last sentence, that was a very good analogy. "Slavery=control", just like sin attempts to control everyone and permeates every aspect of our existance. "Helpless to correct it yourself...", exactly right. How can a condemned man save himself or a slave purchase his own freedom?

The last sentence though was an unfortunate distortion of what I believe. There is no denial, no asceticism, and no requirements on Sundays. There is only an act of faith. You are equating something as fair, free, and simple as "I believe that Jesus died to pay the penalty for my sins" with "I believe in Jesus and must now spend all my Sundays doing such and such and I must continually abase my personality and I must deny my existance and..."

This is part of the lie which unfortunately permeates what many people have heard about Christianity. There is no requirement to "do" or "change" anything. Saying it over and over in your replies to me is not going to make it true: God does not need our assistance or advice in his plan, so whatever you or I (or anyone) have to offer is worthless. The work has been done.


And what about women? Are they without sin? Aren't they all descendants of Adam too, and therefore, born with the gene? If yes then we have a problem with Mary and the fruit of her womb, Jesus, for he would be a 1/2 sinner. Unless god is sperm and egg in one holy package! I only remember reading about the seed being god's, not the egg.
Yes, women too are sinful (although they are as easily saved by God's work through nothing more than an act of faith; equal rights long before suffrage!). However, "Adam's sin" does not pass from mother to child, it passes from father to child.


Not, to be a dick and all.
Did you know you typed that (or variations on that) four times in your post?

[Jackstar]

WWJP?

[quatoria]

Voltaic: You avoided the primary question. As a Christian, it is obvious to you that yours is the one true faith. In what manner is it obvious to someone raised in an entirely different culture, schooled from birth to believe that THEIR religion is the one true faith, however? What is there to make them believe that Jesus is Lord, aside from the sincere testimony of the faithful? Or do you believe that is all that should be needed?

[quatoria]

And further: If the only reason to deny access to heaven is that "god cannot be near sin" (as ludicrous a concept as that is), why condemn the ''sinners" to an eternity of unendurable torment? That's far more than just exile, that's the most severe punishment imaginable. All for picking the wrong religion?

[Anders Hallin]

Except, for some of us, to sell out our principles.
How can I respond to this? Yes if sometime in your life you hear something which does not agree with your preconceived notions, you may find yourself reviewing them. Maybe stem-cell research will cause you to review your principles about it. Perhaps euthanasia will have some compelling argument in a direction against your current position which gives you pause and the need to ruminate.

You call it "selling out", I call it "you may not have been right the first time and it doesn't hurt to re-examine it". This isn't a record contract for your favorite garage band finally going to MTV we're talking about.
This certainly isn't about a favourite garage band. This is about whether I'm willing to give up the notion that I'm subject of no one on the threat of force? And to give up the notion that I, as a creature of free will, am responsible for my own actions and that there is no one who can in my mind justly judge or condemn me based on a moral code I do not agree with. I have examined it, again and again, and I will likely do so again when faced by the threat of eternal suffering. But as it stands, I would not want to submit based on such trite means. It may very well be true that God created the world and man, but in the end, I am who I am, and I am no more subject to God as Creator than I am subject to my parents as creators of me. Grateful, certainly, but not subject or supplicant. Created a being of free will, no one is ever right to condemn me. Some, like God, might have the power to do so, but I will not accept that as being right.

[quatoria]

Why on earth would anyone be against Stem Cell research? You aren't killing babies for research purposes, the cells come from already those already aborted. Are you against organ donation? It seems baffling that you'd want to shut down a line of research with the potential to cure so much suffering and misery simply because the idea of extracting cells from corpses makes you feel squeamish. If you were that aborted child, dead whether stem cell research is legal or not, which idea would you find more comforting - contributing to the eradication of hideous disease and the curing of horrible injury, or being incinerated/thrown in the trash?

[Ar]

I have a couple replies almost ready, but for now a different comment:

Someone said:

"is better to be in Hell with a saint that in Heaven with 10 fools; the company of a saint will make of Hell a Heaven, while 10 fools would make a Hell of Heaven"

It gives a good idea of how absurd is to send peoples in Hell of Heaven regardless of their actions, just due their faith.
Heaven would become filled by rendom selfish and perverted bastards, who would make it a terrible place where to spend eternity.
And the charitable souls who ended in Hell might be numerous enough to make it a nice place, just like man changed this earth according to his desires.

Seems somene assumes that after death, man's free will or power of action are revoked.
That in Heaven man will be forced to act nicely againts their will, or maybe will be tied up and unable to act at all, or brainwashed, to prevent the inevitable disarmonhy consequent a selection of its habitants ignoring their good or evil desires and habits.
And in Hell man is forced to suffer idly without means to improve his condition, forever, just because of what he did in maybe 60 years on earth.

I find the whole idea of eternal reward and punishment absurd, not only because is inappropiate that finished earthly actions may have unfinished eternal consequences, but cause I believe that further actions took by man after death will also have their effects, and power to modify his destiny.

Is a weird idea that of a Heaven where souls are free to act bad and torture each other as much as they want without consequence, because they have already been granted an eternal permanence there, and men in Hell are similiarly bound to be tortured regardless of their post-death repentance and good thoughts and actions.

Edit:
Man is created with free will and power of action, and granted those powers for his short earthly existance (just long enough to give him chance to misuse them and earn successive eternal torment!), then they are taken away from him for the rest of eternity? Doesnt click togheter.

Besides, Heaven would be an ugly place, upon such premise that every bastard can enter it if he believes; either all the evil peoples in Heaven will annoy others for eternity, or they are lobotimized/tied and unable to will and act freely; in both cases Id not want to be there 8)

[cyborg]

And what about women? Are they without sin? Aren't they all descendants of Adam too, and therefore, born with the gene? If yes then we have a problem with Mary and the fruit of her womb, Jesus, for he would be a 1/2 sinner. Unless god is sperm and egg in one holy package! I only remember reading about the seed being god's, not the egg. Not, to be a dick and all.......

That, and a lot of Biblical sexual laws, only makes sense when you acknowledge the biological ignorance of the people of the time.

Man was seed, woman is soil. The emphasis is placed on the man. That is why wasting seed is considered sinful by Catholics and Jews today. The fact that the male 'seed' is wasted even in sucessful reproduction - with the HUGE over production of sperm the idea that you can ever avoid wastage is ludicrous - that makes it a sin that it TOTALLY unavoidable for a man.

So in the view at the time Mary would merely be the soil that God planted his seed in - Mary is basically an inert receptical.

They didn't know about eggs and sperm. They didn't have a clue. God however should have. The fact that he's bioloigcally ignorant too doesn't make a strong case for his omniscience - however you're going to define it.


Yes. It is both nice and fair.

You've sold me on Christianity - congrats!

I'll stop being a reasonably nice atheist and I'll do what I've always wanted as a Christian.

I'll rape a few kids, slap a few bitches, smoke crack, kick dogs, shit in public and have a killing spree - and I'll do it in the name of our Lord and Saviour! Hallelujah! Heaven here I come!


What's the second story?

The creation of the world in 7 days. I don't understand how Christains can't see that God creates man twice. It's fucking there in black and white from ch1 to ch2 of Genesis.


His plan changed but he did not.

I fail to see why he should need to change his plan - being God can't he just get the plan from day 0? Does he need to make up a new plan? I don't think so if he knows all that is to occur.


He was always a universal God but the ways in which he was worshipped have changed. Important distinction, I think.

The important point here is that you see it from that perspective because you believe in God, whilst I see it from the other perspective because I only see the men.