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Ok, hell!
Topic Started: Mar 29 2009, 10:35 PM (3,370 Views)
Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
Moonbat
Apr 1 2009, 03:41 AM
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And once again, I invite Moonbat to go back and consider what I asked him to, and to offer his thoughts regarding a possible answer.


So we assume that there is an uber uber mind who created everything, and then we ask why did this uber uber mind create everything?

Well one can come up with as many hypothetical motives as there are atoms in the universe. Maybe he was having a laugh, maybe it was an accident, maybe he really likes black holes swallowing stuff up, maybe he loved the music of Bob Dylan so he created a universe where Bob Dylan occured, maybe he created every possible universe and we're just one, maybe he liked the beginning bit with all the massively exploding space and matter and then the rest is just boring and he doesn't really care about it, maybe the whole thing is designed to calculate pi to a insane degree of accuracy, and we're all just part of the computation.

All one can do is rule out descriptions that don't fit, the thing is that the mainstream religions include descriptions that don't fit. They call God all caring/loving etc. but they also call him omniscient and omnipotent and as Ax points out you can't have all three (if one assumes the usual meaning of the words) and have the universe we find ourself in. You have to give something up.
With this non-answer, you've shown that you don't really want to think about precisely what it is that you're spending so much effort to dispute. That's fine, if that's your choice, but I suggest that you're wasting an awful lot of your time.

You want to talk about infinite possibilities now. Earlier, you made specific comments about a specific theological position. You asked some questions about that position, but you have continued to refuse to consider the implications of your own question. Since I know you're far too intelligent to not understand what I'm saying, I can only assume that for some reason, you don't want to intellectually pursue that theological line of thought any further - you'd rather fall back on the same comfortable, canned arguments that keep you on familiar ground, and that keep you from considering discomforting possibilities.
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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Klaus
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Moonbat
Apr 1 2009, 04:07 AM
If you are in hideous pain and it's gradually gradually improving you are not happy.

If you feel great about your life and your world and that isn't changing then you are happy.

So i don't see how the derivative idea can really work.

Edit: not that one's perspective on the future is completely irrelevant, far from it. It's just that it can't be everything.
Person A lives in a quite poor village in a poor country. His parents leave him nothing. But he manages, by hard and diligent work, to become one of the most wealthy and influential persons of the village.

However, even then he only owns a tiny fraction of what Person B has - he lives in a rich country and inherited a fortune from his father. However, his friends' parent's are even richer, and he realizes that, for the rest of his live, he will ony live from money that others earned.

Who is happier? A or B?


Or, take a much simpler example:

Person C has been sentenced to 10 years in jail. However, after 1 year, due to unexpected circumstances, he learns that he will be released in two years already.

Person D has just been sentenced to 1 year in jail.

Although C has twice the amount of time in jail ahead, I bet he is still happier than D.
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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Moonbat
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I don't disagree with any of that.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Moonbat
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With this non-answer, you've shown that you don't really want to think about precisely what it is that you're spending so much effort to dispute.


How was that a non-answer? You asked me for a possible answer i gave you a bunch. What were you looking for?

Quote:
 

You want to talk about infinite possibilities now. Earlier, you made specific comments about a specific theological position. You asked some questions about that position, but you have continued to refuse to consider the implications of your own question. Since I know you're far too intelligent to not understand what I'm saying, I can only assume that for some reason, you don't want to intellectually pursue that theological line of thought any further - you'd rather fall back on the same comfortable, canned arguments that keep you on familiar ground, and that keep you from considering discomforting possibilities.


What discomforting possibilities am I not considering? I'm quite happy to consider the possibility of the kind of ultimate dictator type God that you present.

What I object to is the invocation of "free will" as a solution to the problem of evil and the description of an entity that is assumed to have created universe as tri-omni because it's contradicted by the universe that we observe (i.e. one that includes bad stuff).

Your question is asking me what I think the motivations of a designer that I don't think exists are. So first I pretend that there is some kind of designer who created the observable universe and then I try and think about motivations and I realise immediately that I'm in no position to claim that any out of the zillions of possibilities is more likely than the others.

What other answer could I possibly give you?

Your rather egocentric answer that a God designed the universe so that we would be created so that we would love him doesn't avoid the arguments I presented. This anthropomorphic designer doesn't seem to mind that some of the creatures he creates in order to fulfil his need to be loved suffer horribly. In fact lots of them clearly don't love him so the whole thing falls apart.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Klaus
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Moonbat
Apr 1 2009, 04:57 AM
I don't disagree with any of that.
OK, with that you've finally convinced me. You are right and I am wrong :wave:


Edit: I just read your post again and noticed that you wrote "don't disagree" instead of "don't agree", which I expected. This is confusing. Please don't agree with me again without prior warning.
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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Moonbat
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Quote:
 

Please don't agree with me again without prior warning.


Apologies.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
:lol2:

It was only an April Fool joke, Klaus. Even now he's crafting his scathing rebuttal.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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Klaus
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Mikhailoh
Apr 1 2009, 06:13 AM
:lol2:

It was only an April Fool joke, Klaus. Even now he's crafting his scathing rebuttal.
I don't know. A few days ago, Moonbat also allowed me to have the last word in a thread. I am concerned.
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Klaus
Apr 1 2009, 03:37 AM
Moonbat
Apr 1 2009, 03:23 AM
3) Death isn't a form of suffering any more than it's a form of joy. Death is just the end.
The process of dying can certainly involve suffereing, and the death itself usually means suffering for relatives.
Death is a loss, both personally and for others. Loss is a cause of suffering. You can stoically look into the face of death (since stoicism is a deliberate intent to override emotions), but that does not mean that there is not real suffering in death.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Moonbat
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Death is a loss, both personally and for others. Loss is a cause of suffering. You can stoically look into the face of death (since stoicism is a deliberate intent to override emotions), but that does not mean that there is not real suffering in death.


I'm not convinced the prospect of one's own death is necessarily something that causes suffering. However, in our world, I accept that in general death is indeed a cause of suffering. Which is why we need to banish it, or at least greatly ameliorate the loss associated with it.

In any case I don't think that has any bearing on the question of hell and choice and the putative beneficence of an omniscient intelligent creator.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
Moonbat
Apr 1 2009, 09:51 AM
However, in our world, I accept that in general death is indeed a cause of suffering. Which is why we need to banish it, or at least greatly ameliorate the loss associated with it.
I think that's a horrible idea. Religious views put totally aside, we need to be able to die and what's more, suffering needs to result from death, hands down. I wouldn't want to live in a world where we live forever, or where death carries with it no emotional attachment.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Moonbat
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I was thinking along the lines of Peter F Hamiltons Edenian society (which the bastard clearly stole from me despite thinking of several years before I did). I think that's something that would be very good, and I think it's something we will actually do if we last long enough.

Being a Catholic i would have thought that you believed in an eternal after life of some kind. That doesn't necessarily contradict your statement but I'd expect that most theists quite like the idea that everyone lives on forever and you never really lose anyone permanently.

I certainly agree with you that if you take the world as it is today and you could just push a magic switch that meant people never died that would be bad news. And I also agree that if you could push a magic switch that stopped people caring about one another (which would mean death carried no emotional attachment) that would also be a pretty dire world.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Moonbat
Apr 1 2009, 09:51 AM
Quote:
 

Death is a loss, both personally and for others. Loss is a cause of suffering. You can stoically look into the face of death (since stoicism is a deliberate intent to override emotions), but that does not mean that there is not real suffering in death.


I'm not convinced the prospect of one's own death is necessarily something that causes suffering.
It's not necessarily something that causes suffering -- clearly the Christian martyrs and other examples of heroism in war and people sacrificing their lives to save their loved ones shows that there are higher goods for some than death. But I suspect you've never been faced with your own mortality such as having a gun shoved in your face, or such. The survival mechanism in humans is basically to hold on to life as a good, and the fear of loss (which is to avoid suffering a loss) is triggered by the anticipation of such a loss.
Quote:
 

In any case I don't think that has any bearing on the question of hell and choice and the putative beneficence of an omniscient intelligent creator.
Nor do I. You were the one trying to make the case that death by disease, pain, suffering, earthquakes, etc somehow called into question the putative beneficence of an omniscient intelligent creator.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Moonbat
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But I suspect you've never been faced with your own mortality such as having a gun shoved in your face, or such. The survival mechanism in humans is basically to hold on to life as a good, and the fear of loss (which is to avoid suffering a loss) is triggered by the anticipation of such a loss.


I have in fact had a gun shoved in my face. I was certainly shaken up (though not really afraid - it happened too fast). I'm quite happy to accept people can suffer in anticipation or fear of death (though i don't think it's logically inevitable) and that people suffer when they lose their loved ones.

Quote:
 

Nor do I. You were the one trying to make the case that death by disease, pain, suffering, earthquakes, etc somehow called into question the putative beneficence of an omniscient intelligent creator.


Well it does, it completely contradicts it. Your statements haven't detracted from that. If i designed a virus that horribly damaged lots of people then i wouldn't be benificient. If I created a simulation where the agents in my simulation experienced their simulation world but i chose that simulation such that some had horrifically awful experiences and then I took agents I designed who did not meet a certain criteria (I knew with certainty before hand that they would not meet that criteria, I made them such that they wouldn't meet that criteria), and I make them suffer in an extra specially awful way, possibly for eternity then I am not beneficent. At the very best I'm completely uncaring, at worst I am an awful tyrant, a vindictive malicious one compared to whom every human villain pales in comparison.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Aqua Letifer
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Moonbat
Apr 1 2009, 10:20 AM
I was thinking along the lines of Peter F Hamiltons Edenian society (which the bastard clearly stole from me despite thinking of several years before I did). I think that's something that would be very good, and I think it's something we will actually do if we last long enough.
Ah okay. While I don't consider that ideal I can at least see where you're coming from now.

Quote:
 
Being a Catholic i would have thought that you believed in an eternal after life of some kind. That doesn't necessarily contradict your statement but I'd expect that most theists quite like the idea that everyone lives on forever and you never really lose anyone permanently.


Yes, I believe in an eternal life of some kind but since I believe that eternal life to be a better existence than here, I think that our mortality is ultimately a good thing.

I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Frank_W
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Resident Misanthrope
Okay. I'm convinced. I'm converting to Christianity. Southern Baptist.
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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Renauda
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HOLY CARP!!!
Frank you're far too much a mythos person to buy into all that logos truck.
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Frank_W
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Dang... My April Fool's joke, already busted... :lol2:
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Moonbat
Apr 1 2009, 11:34 AM

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Nor do I. You were the one trying to make the case that death by disease, pain, suffering, earthquakes, etc somehow called into question the putative beneficence of an omniscient intelligent creator.


Well it does, it completely contradicts it. Your statements haven't detracted from that. If i designed a virus that horribly damaged lots of people then i wouldn't be benificient. If I created a simulation where the agents in my simulation experienced their simulation world but i chose that simulation such that some had horrifically awful experiences and then I took agents I designed who did not meet a certain criteria (I knew with certainty before hand that they would not meet that criteria, I made them such that they wouldn't meet that criteria), and I make them suffer in an extra specially awful way, possibly for eternity then I am not beneficent. At the very best I'm completely uncaring, at worst I am an awful tyrant, a vindictive malicious one compared to whom every human villain pales in comparison.
It only contradicts it if there is nothing else such as eternal beatitude which is a greater good than any human suffering, or love itself which is worth the price of suffering.

By analogy (and this must of course all be spoken of in analogy), people all the time procreate yet knowing that their children are doomed to suffer and die. Why does that not make them evil and malicious? Why do you not likewise ascribe evil motives to them? Because we all know that love and life itself and relationship is a greater good than suffering and death.

So there are very plausible other answers than your facile "uncaring or vindictive malicious tyrant" model that you keep trying to convince us of.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Moonbat
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It only contradicts it if there is nothing else such as eternal beatitude which is a greater good than any human suffering, or love itself which is worth the price of suffering.


What does love have to do HIV and alzheimers, and being tortured to death?

What is the benefit of these things? And bear in mind of course that God is omnipotent so whatever this supposed benefit is he could have created a universe with this benefit but without the the alzheimers and the torture and the paralysis victims and all the other very real horrors that are in our world. That we are working so hard to try and reduce.

Quote:
 

By analogy (and this must of course all be spoken of in analogy), people all the time procreate yet knowing that their children are doomed to suffer and die. Why does that not make them evil and malicious? Why do you not likewise ascribe evil motives to them? Because we all know that love and life itself and relationship is a greater good than suffering and death.


The parents aren't Gods. I dearly hope that on balance life is worth it and the terrible things don't outweigh the good stuff (though for certain individuals I doubt that's true) But the key is that parents don't have infinite knowledge and infinite power. If a parent knew with certainty their child was going to turn into a mass murderer then yeah it would be evil and irresponsible to the have that child. If the parent has complete control and infinite knolwedge and chooses to make their child suffer a terrible disease or a horrific attack then they are not benificient. Think about two uber engineers that can design a child however they wish. One of them designs the child such that child will be miserable and tormented the other one designs the child knowing that it will be happy and content and live a good life. The former is malcious the latter benficient. The god that you proclaim to believe has designed killers and rapists, he has created people who's lives are so awful they end it with their own hand. He designed people to get early onset alzheimers he designed diseases that make people eyelids grow into their eyes.

All-good? Entirely beneficient?

You've got to be joking right?
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Renauda
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HOLY CARP!!!
No teh Big Kahuna is just testing our faith. After all he has never been too certain as to just how faithful and obedient we are in our fallen, depraved state of designed unworthiness.
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Systemically, there is no difference between Alzheimer's and a tiger eating you and you eating a cheeseburger. Systemically, here is no difference between someone having the ability to torture another and someone having the ability to defend oneself against a tiger and someone having the ability to hug a baby or make a cure for cancer.

You are arguing against nothing, Moonbat. Paralysis? If God did not make the nervous system incapable of being damaged then he is evil or he does not exist? If God did not make life based on cells and some cells do chemical things that we don't like then he is evil or he does not exist? What about stubbing our toes? That must surely be an argument against an omniscient and loving God.

Of course paralysis and HIV and Alzheimer's and tigers eating us and people doing all sorts of nasty things like torturing others are bad -- that is why they are called evil. But they are all systemic and intertwined. You want a body that can't be paralyzed? Great. Noble. Invent one. Free will works both ways -- oops! You want a world without torture, where no one is capable of torturing another. Sorry -- no invention for you.

Again, you don't get off because parents are not omniscient. Even common knowledge shows that kids are born to suffer and die. They get colds and break bones and have heartaches and lose jobs and become orphans and stub their toes -- all sorts of bad things. So parents must be evil to bring children into the world KNOWING that they will have stubbed toes.

God cannot be good if people stub toes. That is your basic argument.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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John D'Oh
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ivorythumper
Apr 1 2009, 03:38 PM
Systemically, there is no difference between Alzheimer's and a tiger eating you and you eating a cheeseburger.

[snip]

God cannot be good if people stub toes. That is your basic argument.
On the other hand, he destroyed Sodom but leaves McDonalds relatively untouched.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Renauda
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ivorythumper
Apr 1 2009, 03:38 PM

Of course paralysis and HIV and Alzheimer's and tigers eating us and people doing all sorts of nasty things like torturing others are bad -- that is why they are called evil.
I beg to differ.

One might very well call people doing nasty things to one another evil acts. Paralysis, HIV infection, Alzeimers and being eaten by a tiger are simply either misfortune or negligence.
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Frank_W
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Depends on whose point of view. Has anyone asked the tiger how he felt about it? :devilgrin:
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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