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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted July 21, 2009 04:35 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 04:39, 21 Jul 2009.
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I've sort of given up on these religion threads because the quote-fests have frankly ruined all semblance of intelligent discourse. Nevertheless, Mytical posits an interesting question which hasn't really been answered yet.
Quote:
Why do you believe what you believe?
Beliefs are not innate. That is, we are not born with them. They are not physical attributes that can be determined through genetics. Epistemological philosophers since the time of Aristotle have argued over whether we are born with knowledge or whether it comes through experience - nature vs. nurture. The Tabula rasa idea, popularized but not invented by John Locke, has admittedly been challenged by philosophers (e.g., Hobbes), writers (e.g., William Golding) and modern scientists/psychologists (e.g., Steven Pinker). Though, it must be said that evolutionary psychologists challenge the idea of tabula rasa on the basis of the mind being hard-wired through evolution to exhibit tendencies/cabailities, rather than hardwired for specific content. That is, while we may be hardwired to hold beliefs because such a capability offers a distinct biological survival advantage, the exact content of those beliefs is not determined through genetics.
(To illustrate what I mean, consider language. An evolutionary psychologist like Pinker would probably argue that humans are hardwired - that is, born with the capability - to use and understand language, as this obviously offers us a distinct biological advantage. However, nobody is hardwired to use and understand English.)
My guess is that Mytical is asking about where our specific belief content comes from rather than our basic ability to hold a belief, though the latter would be an interesting discussion as well. (Well it would be, if not for the near certainty that such a discussion would be polluted by nauseous line-by-line religious rhetoric at the hands of one or two obtuse posters). Anyway, it seems pretty clear that, generically speaking, specific belief content comes from two sources which I'll call conditioning and experience, although they're really not totally distinct, unrelated things.
I. Conditioning.
I would define conditioning as beliefs essentially fed to us by our parents or other role-models during childhood. Whether as a response to overt instruction or through simple imitation, children acquire the beliefs and attitudes that their parents have. Just as English-speaking parents raise English-speaking children (down to the same regional accents and dialects), so do Christian parents give rise to Christian children or Muslim parents to Muslim children. In short, parents pass along beliefs to their children in the same way they pass simple knowledge, and to children, it must be emphasized (and in fact, to many adults - ahem), there is no distinction between the two. To children - and young children especially - parents are infallible authority figures. What they say is truth, no questions asked. The parent may be aware of the difference between a fact and an opinion or belief, but the child does not have the intellectual capacity to distinguish one from the other, and every piece of transferred information gets thrown into the same giant of information. Undeveloped brains, not sufficiently developed to exhibit abstract thinking skills, also tend towards the literal. Thus, if the parent believes god created man from dirt, then the child will believe that god created man from dirt, and that is fact, with no room for alternative ideas or for any thoughts about what, exactly, is the actual meaning of "dirt" or “created”. This may be fact to the parent, too, which doesn't really help the child learn to process fact from belief or to understand the power of metaphor and interpretation. (Bad habits are cyclical - no wonder why there are so many idiots around.) Again I stress that this is not always a conscious process on the part of the parent or the child. Children learn from actions and behaviors as well as speech, and they will tend to emulate their parents both by echoing actions they observe, but also by transcribing those observations into knowledge/beliefs.
Another important point here is that while our beliefs DO change during the course of our lives (vide infra), and no starting point prohibits any ending point, our conditioning does bias our individual belief-journeys. This happens in three ways.
First, what (and how) we've been taught during the conditioning phase can affect our life-long receptiveness to new ideas. Like the motion of physical objects, change in human beliefs is subject to inertia and resistive forces. The inertia is related to our ability to distinguish facts from beliefs, our ability to use logic to connect facts with projections, our willingness to incorporate those projections into our existing belief system, our receptiveness to alternative viewpoints, and our desire to question the Nature of Things. Our conditioning influences these traits.
Second, our conditioning does influence the environment (including other people) that we are likely to surround ourselves with during the course of our lives. Again I'll use a physics analogy here - motion is subject to forces; the stronger the forces, the larger the potential displacement - subject to inertia and resistance. In terms of the motion of beliefs, we can think of the forces as the environment around us. If the people around us have similar beliefs to those that we have, there will be less of a pressure differential between our own personal beliefs and those around us, and so our belief system is less likely to change. Our conditioning will affect this environment, and so conditioning does bias the magnitude of our potential belief-motion (and, possibly, the direction of motion as well) during our lives.
The final way that conditioning influences our path to a "final" (adult) belief system is simply a matter of proximity: given some limit to velocity, there is only so far one can travel in a set amount of time. If you are limited to travelling by horse and you are born in New York, where you ultimately settle down to live your life (geographically) is likely going to be different than someone born in San Francisco. Certainly, if a New Yorker has a really fast horse, or is determined to travel a lot during his life - or has friends who've been to Washington - he may end up in Seattle, but chances are a New Yorker is going to end up near New York or, at least, somewhere on the east coast. So, while conditioning doesn't uniquely determine our ultimate belief-system as adults, it does define a starting point AND can affect how far we're likely to travel during the course of our lives.
II. Experience.
As we grow, two things happen which directly impact our belief-forming process. First, our brains develop to the point where we can critically think for our selves. (Well most peoples' brains do, anyway.  ) Second, our individual "spheres of influential people" gradually extends beyond our parents. These changes to our respective universes have a profound influence on our respective belief systems. Where previously we had exposure to really only one set of "facts" - given to us by our parents - now we become exposed to the viewpoints of many people, and it doesn't take too long before we are given "facts" (beliefs) that are in conflict with each other, or in conflict with the doctrine provided at home. This requires the development of information processing skills, and our "single vat" from before gets changed into multiple barrels with different labels. Even if only by small degrees, we find our conditioned beliefs being challenged, which provides the necessary forces to potentially overcome belief inertia. Depending on the frequency and intensity of these challenges, the changes during the course of our lives may be large or small scale, and it should be no surprise that people who are more educated tend to have larger scale changes during the course of their lives than those who are less educated, just because of the number of alternative viewpoints to which they are exposed. People not inclined or encouraged to seek out their own understanding may learn to just dismiss alternative views. Some people may not change their views in response to challenge but become more confident in the beliefs they’ve always held. More educated people are also more adept at information processing, although a lot of that capability also has to do with native intelligence, which in turn is probably a combination of genetics and good parenting.
It is worth mentioning that experience-motivated belief motion is not (generally) random, because the forces in question are themselves not random. Belief forces also tend to be attractive. Consider, for example, socioeconomic beliefs. Most people, when born, tend to subscribe to the political philosophies of their parents. However, when children go to college, they often gravitate towards toward left-wing beliefs, much to the chagrin of right-leaning parents, because that is what they tend to be exposed to in universities. The professors (more authority figures – we never quite lose the need to listen to authority figures) tend to hold these beliefs, and thus most students, susceptible to suggestion because their critical thinking skills are still in development, also tend to follow suit without really thinking about it. Another way that beliefs are nonrandom is that people tend to believe in what most benefits them. Beliefs are rarely evaluated on a wider, more general level. And why should they, if capability for belief arose through evolution? It is no surprise, then, that poorer people tend to believe in left-wing economic philosophies and richer people tend to believe in right-wing philosophies. Younger people, already predisposed toward left-wing philosophies because of collegiate atmospheres that promote it, also tend to not have much money, which reinforces those beliefs. As people age and gain their own source of income, and see how much they lose in taxes each month, they gradually move to a more conservative belief system. Big surprise, huh? So, belief motion isn't usually random. It's motivated by outside (usually attractive) forces.
Note, however, I said, "usually". Some random events in our lives are momentous enough to have a profound impact on our beliefs. An atheist is in a terrible car accident but miraculously survives, makes the deduction that only divine intervention could be responsible, and converts to Christianity. A Christian man is in a terrible car accident, he survives but the rest of his family dies, and he makes the deduction that no loving God could ever let such a thing happen, thereby losing his religion. Etc. Insofar as these events are random, we can see that belief-motion, while typically slow, plodding, and directional, can also be quite random at times when unexpected life events get in the way. I don't pretend to understand why people react the way they do to such traumatic or significant events, and I'm not sure it's possible to generalize people and their responses in that way. Point is that belief can be a funny, irrational thing, but it's important to realize that belief is also personal. A car-accident victim who changes his whole belief system on the spur of the moment is doing it for selfish reasons, not out of some universal philosophical conviction. Belief is about what affects ME? What do *I* want? People don't believe in God because it's good for the guy next door. They believe in God because it's good for THEM. Eternal life for THEM. It's all very selfish.
One last point worth mentioning. I alluded a couple times to a "Final" belief system attained by a person. Well, we know there's no such thing. Beliefs are always changing. The degree of motion and the belief-motion inertia that resists it may change as life progresses, but there's always motion. Or resistance to motion. One of the reasons I like visiting on-line forums and reading other viewpoints is because it's a great, non-random, anonymous way to test my own beliefs. The best way to feel confident in one's beliefs is to constantly evaluate them to make sure there aren't better ones around the corner. How better to do this than putting one’s beliefs up against other beliefs that are out there and seeing which one shines brighter? A belief has more value when it is battle tested. Because belief motion is influenced by people we interact with and because our conditioning biases what people we're likely to expose ourselves to, our real life does not often offer good opportunities to explore our beliefs and gain enlightenment. The internet forum offers a unique opportunity for exposure to random beliefs not biased by our own conditioning or social circles, and which are also not biased by the presence of potentially disingenuous authority figures or friends/family members that we're afraid to offend or disagree with. You people reading this are "random people" who have a lot of unique ideas about a number of topics that I find interesting. This exposure is mostly anonymous, and I know that the viewpoints I will encounter here are essentially random. I don't come here for the sole purpose of entertainment. I come here to prove that my opinion is right, but I'm not trying to prove it to you. I'm trying to prove it to myself. Through discussion with you, I find myself thinking about my beliefs in new ways, sort of like having someone proofread a manuscript because I know they will catch problems I'll never see, and though it may not come across the screen, I find myself tweaking my beliefs a lot in response to your challenges, your ideas, and your beliefs. Or at least, reinforcing my beliefs with the knowledge they've survived the battle. For that, I am grateful. I only wish that everyone here had the same motivation, but I get the feeling some people, particularly these days, only come around to compare penis sizes and prove to everyone else how enlightened they think they are.
Alright, that's my general answer to Mytical's question. Now to my specifics.
First, what do I believe? Since this is the religion/philosophy thread, I'll stick to that, although by now my beliefs should be evident to everyone here.
I do not believe in any god, Christian or others, at least not as portrayed in any formal religious dogma. On the other hand, I recognize that I do not know for sure. Nay, cannot know for sure. The nature of science and the supernatural forbids such observation. I find every attempt at justifying god, particularly with my scientific toolkit in consideration, completely underwhelming. But who knows what lies beyond the horizon of empirical possibility? To be honest, I find ruminating on that fairly uninteresting, as no answer can or will be found. I do not exclude the possibility of some extra-cosmic entity or force, but I find the possibility unlikely, as it poses more questions than it answers. I don't really have much of a hard belief on the matter either way because I don't really care. I certainly don't subscribe to most of the frankly ridiculous fairy-tale narratives in the Bible, nor do I believe that morality extends from any supernatural source, nor do I believe any post-life depends on what we do here. So, not so sound glib, but: who cares about whether a god or gods exists, whatever their nature? Frankly, there are much more interesting philosophical topics to discuss. My interest in religion extends only to its impact of history, current events, human consciousness, and the human condition, both past and future.
Where did this belief come from?
I was raised in a Christian household, so I was effectively Christian until around the time I went to college. Although, children aren't really aware enough of their own beliefs (or, at least, they have no context) to really be considered anything. I "believed" in God and the Bible because that's what I was taught, but I also believed in Santa Claus for the same reason. Thus, those beliefs didn't have much value. My parents weren't super devout. Church was something we did each Sunday for an hour, usually under duress - my parents had to bribe us with Sunday brunch in order to get us to go with a minimum of complaining. My brother and I would slouch in our pews and count the minutes until the dreadfully boring hour was over. We said grace at dinner. Sometimes we prayed before bedtime. I was Confirmed when I was a teenager. But that's about the extent of the role religion played in my life. To this day, it's not something my family discusses, not out of an active avoidance of the topic, but just because there are more interesting things to talk about. I don't really know my parents' real beliefs and how strong their religious convictions truly are, and I'm pretty certain they don't know mine. I should probably have that conversation with them, but I'm afraid of the way the conversation might go. It's easier just to avoid the topic altogether than to open up a potential can of worms. Given a few arguments I've had with them peripheral to the subject of religion that I'd rather not go into, I suspect that my parents hold some fairly deep-set religious beliefs, but you wouldn't know it from normal, every day interaction with them.
The important thing is that religion, though present in my life, didn't really define me. It was there, but it was something I never really thought about. It was just sort of one of those axiomatic truths. Religion was like the rain, or the blue color of water. I didn't really know the details - I knew they were there, a part of my reality, but I never really even thought to question it at all. It just was. If someone asked me why the ocean was blue, I would have probably given the same answer as if someone asked me why I believed god existed: "duh.......". Frankly, I think religion is like that for a lot of people. The average person doesn't know why the ocean is blue, and probably doesn't care. They just know that it's blue, and that's good enough. I think that’s kind of sad, but, well, it is what it is.
I don't know when the change occurred for me, but I know it was gradual. And because religion was never really that important (particularly as my family went to church less and less frequently as I grew older), it was fairly easy for me to discard it. As I went through high school, I became interested in science. I always did very well in mathematical subjects, probably in because of the way my parents educated me as a very young child, and it seemed a natural fit. In college, I majored in Chemistry/Physics, but I also took a lot of philosophy classes and almost minored in history. The combination of science and history/philosophy really set the stage for me to question the reality that had been defined for me as a child, and to do it from the perspective of rigorous logic and empirical observation. Needless to say, such a perspective does not jive well with the blind acceptance of dogma required of a religious world-view.
As I progressed in my studies, completing a PhD and beyond, I found that the more I understood of the physical universe, the less confident I was in a religious Explanation of Things. All physical phenomena just started to make sense, and I found that I could understand the existence of all things from a scientific perspective, from elementary particles through complex organisms. Chemical reactions and statistical thermodynamics seemed sufficient to explain living matter, a major blow to the "God was needed to create life" foundation of the Christian religion I was brought up with. It was around this point that I really started to look at those axiomatic truths and question them for the first time. I progressed through a "Well God started the ball rolling, science did the rest." sort of viewpoint, but even this gradually became unsatisfactory, and I found that I was including god in my beliefs just because god had always been there, and I admit to feeling a little guilt at the admittedly appalling thought of rejecting everything I believed as a child. There’s that inertia again. You never quite lose the feeling that your parents are Omniscient Authority Figures, and it's uncomfortable to come to the conclusion that they might have been wrong on something so fundamental, so important. It took me a long time to get over that, but the evidence was just too overwhelming to keep up the pretense, even to myself. In addition to studying science, I started reading books by the great philosophers, thinkers and historians in order to see religion from other perspectives, and that was the final nail for me. Principles like Occam's Razor, put in a scientific context, were just completely incompatible with religious belief. Examining the history of organized religion just made it appear that much worse.
It's extremely difficult to be devoutly religious and be a scientist at the same time, particularly a scientist with a diverse expertise like myself. A number of scientists are able to play both sides of that field, and I don't really know how they do it. For me, the equations just don't add up. Most widespread religious beliefs simply violate everything I've learned through my professional education as well as my own personal journey through philosophy and history. Because I'm well read in philosophy, I know that there is a distinction between what is observable and what is real, and so I do have a touch of agnosticism to my beliefs. Basically realizing that science and logic has its limits. But if there is a god that exists beyond those limits, it has to be very different from the caricature that is portrayed in most organized religions. In essence, if there is a god, we can never know him, and he plays no role in our lives, has no interest in our actions or deeds, and thus is of limited relevance to me.
Blaise Pascal, eminent scientist and mathematician, amateur philosopher, once suggested (now known as Pascal’s Wager) that any reasonably intelligent person should believe in God and behave accordingly, despite the dearth (nay, impossibility) of evidence in support of such a belief, because if you do and you end up being wrong, you’ve lost nothing, but if you don’t, and you’re wrong, the potential loss is humongous. I don’t see it that way at all. My own Wager (Corribus’ Wager, if you will) is that if you lead a good, virtuous life, and the whole Christian deal turns out to be true, the God I grew up knowing would reward me with the benefits of everlasting life whether I believed he existed or not. And if God does not exist, then I’ve lost nothing, as I’ve led a good life and (hopefully) left a lasting positive imprint on the world. For the God that I grew up with would care more about me being a good, virtuous person than doing pointless lip-service to a simple name and aged tome with a bunch of archaic, irrelevant rules in it. In that sense, my belief is that believing in Good is more important than believing in God, and if that’s true, the rest will take care of itself.
Well, you asked, Mytical. That's my long, short answer.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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JollyJoker
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posted July 21, 2009 08:40 AM |
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Right, the question is this: Why believe something in the first place?
This was certainly different in earlier times. Knowing nothing at all, not having any real idea about the place people lived in - what it actually was, how big it was, how it was constructed, what was "above" it and so on, it seems pretty natural to start guessing. To survive, to adapt, it's necessary to be able to make predictions. Predictions about what the animals do, how the weather is changing, what your surroundings are made of and so on.
Moreover, developing "explanations" for WHAT things are and WHY they are help as well, since "explanations" tend to nurture a feeling of security: you feel a lot more comfortable in something you "know" than in something that is alien and strange to you.
Life was completely different in earlier times. Life spans were a lot shorter, even in cities. Illnesses, desasters, reavers, wars. Slavery, wild animals. Fever. Death at birth, both children and mothers. With conschious thought - and as soon as speech is there, conscious thought is there as well - that's all difficult to swallow, isn't it? Life is just hard and unpredictable. People work, and then a desaster hits. Everything is peachy - but then a daughter dies at birth, a son is bitten by a snake or falls ill and dies or some wild clan attacks your village, killing the men, robbing the women. Gods? Fate? Evil? Did they do something to deserve all this or is life simply unjust? Is life so fickle that we can just be dead and gone from one moment to the next?
So there is lots that isn't understood, and lots to be afraid of. And there is a need to fill the blanks. Fill it with something that can be understood easily, even by the goat herders. So humans end up forming the world in their image to make themselves feel comfortable and at home there. They arrange themselves with their surroundings and try and find their place in it.
If beliefs and religions have been kind of an imagination of how the world looks beyond the radius of dim light in the immediate vicinity of people, it's clear that things backfire the moment they start to fight over these imaginations. On the other hand, sharing the same imaginations has never been a guarantee for peace, understanding, and unity either.
There can be no doubt that in earlier times and initially religion and beliefs served the people, not the other way round. Once it gets the other way round - that people serve beliefs - things have always taken a turn to the worse. For example, just look at the magnificent buildings people (and not only Christians, oh no) build for their gods, while the builders themselves lived virtually in filth and poverty. Being philosophically about it, you might say, everything religion or believing in something imaginary gave to the people in earlier times it took back later - with interest.
However, the need to believe has waned with time; we ARE comfortable and at home now, the light shines a lot farther and brighter, and we can see a lot more - so much more, in fact, that you have to ask yourself why you would believe something in the first place.
One reason may be the confrontation with something (seemingly) unexplainable. That certainly hasn't changed. While it may not be pressing business, finding explanations for the unexplainable may still be something people yearn for - less for some, more for others. People still want to know about things, if it's not out of necessity, then it's out of curiosity, and that's a good thing as well: people should be curious.
Another may be (still) fear. Fear about the unknown. The future. Death. Dying. Losing dear and beloved persons. Pain. The idea that evil may triumph, the idea that there may be no justice, no fairness, no order except that we make ourselves. Fear to take responsibility instead of following commands. Having something to believe in, will definitely help to master that fear.
(Of course here we are at education again and what children learn from their parents.)
Can a belief be actually "right" and can it be important to believe "the right thing"? I agree with Corribus here. There is of course some uncertainty; sure, it may be possible, and I can't even say anything about chances or whether it is indeed possible or not. But isn't the more important question, why making the right guesses should be important and if it WAS important what that would mean for the world?
Go a couple of centuries back, let's say a millennium. I don't know that much about Chinese history, but a lot about European, so: how many people could read? A scare few. On what was their faith based? On the things their priests told them - those who COULD read. If they believed the wrong thing - how can they be made accountable for that?
So, logically spoken, living a "good" life, trying to be fair, not taking advantage of others and so on, should not only suffice, it should do more than that, since it's still the actions that count, not what people supposedly believe.
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Mytical
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Chaos seeking Harmony
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posted July 21, 2009 09:37 AM |
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After examining Corribus' through post, and responding to some of the things Jolly has brought up..I've decided that I need to expound on why I believe what I believe. It will require a lot of personal information, so if you do not wish to know about that, read no further (Disclaimer). Much of what I posted formally skimmed over some very important details, which are very personal in nature. So .. here goes. ((PS IT IS VERY LONG. Everything has a relivence, but it may take some time and understanding to understand that relivence))
My parents are NOW religious, but they were not the ones who first initiated going to church. I was. At one time my father was an alcoholic, and prided himself on not only cheating on my mom (also he was married once before) but with underage women. My mom, before she married my father was a 'street walker' (her words). We grew up on a farm and my dad was kinda abusive (especially to my mother and older sister).
I was always a bit of the odd person out. At the time I needed something to give it all meaning. So I started to go to church, on my own. My parents wouldn't even drive me there, I had to walk (Not that it was far). I think the first time I went I was like 8 years old. Nobody forced me to, heck most thought it was a waste of my time. Still, I went.
Growing up weird things happened around me all the time. I've seen spirits, seen the future, and I know a lot of people won't believe it even healed people. I never had broken bones, illnesses (until much older), not as much as a scrape on my knee even when not being a Christian. Most of the things I witnessed or did most people would consider me a mental patient if I tried to explain it to them.
Anyhow..my siblings started to follow me to church, and the church I went to started calling me the 'little preacher'. I knew the bible inside and out, upside and down, every last word. It may sound like pride, but it is just a statement of fact. Also when I preached, people were moved either to tears or with rapture. I believed with every fiber of my being, and it was obvious to any who heard me.
Then one of those 'miricles' happened. My parents started going to church. Maybe because they wanted to see what all the fuss was about. They became christians. I swear on all that I hold dear that, although it was not overnight, the following happened. My father stopped drinking, and started treating us better. Both he and my mom stopped their 'cheating' on each other. We grew very close as a family.
Me and my siblings joined the choir, and it looked like my family would become a fully christian family. Only..I hold myself to a tougher standard then I do most others. Something happened. One of our church members went through a rough time. We called him Brother Joe. He became an alcoholic, lost his wife/job/etc. When he needed the church the most...they turned their back on him. I was crushed. The bible I read said you don't turn your back on somebody who needs you.
So everything I believed got turned on it's ear. I couldn't comprehend what the heck was going on. At the time I didn't understand what I understand now. They were people, not the religion. God didn't turn his back on Brother Joe, MAN did. But I couldn't see that then. I litterally (for a time) hated god.
So I went the opposit way. Yes, I got involved in the Occult. Thing is, nothing changed. I could still heal people, see spirits, etc. Only now I could also hurt people if I chose. I did. Too many. Something I will NEVER be able to make up for.
Then came the accident. Which changed my personality. I was no longer so .. hateful. So I turned away from the Occult, but had not yet learned to distance religion from the people in that religion. So I started to research. Since I had seen things that led me to believe that there was something beyond this life, I knew in my heart that there was a 'higher power'. Not because some book said so, but because I had SEEN things.
Time passed and I learned as much as I could. Sometimes I did not comprehend, but I always strove to. Yet nothing really sits well with me. Everything is 'We are the only way, everybody else is wrong/evil/or stupid'. Very narrow minded in my eyes. Don't get me wrong, I can be just as bad..but I honestly try to keep an open mind.
I've been told my beliefs are 'out there', and I am ok with that. I am 'out there' in a LOT of ways. Now I know that the religion and the people who follow it are two seperate things. Most are good, decent, honest folks who (while not perfect) try to do the right thing. There are those on the fringe who use it toward their own agenda though.
I still have a bit of a 'inner light' and still have a bit of the 'little preacher' left. If I preach to you, I appologise. Live and let live. Treat others as you want them to treat you..those are my mottos. Sometimes I let my emotions cloud those, but I am only human.
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Message received.
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JollyJoker
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posted July 21, 2009 10:05 AM |
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Mytical, the thing about religion and people, and that there people on the fringes who use it to their own purpose - don't you think that works both ways?
Example: You live in a village, and somehow everyone lives with the belief that at some place in the North, not that far away, but hidden, is a big lake with water, that will nurture the village should water become a scarce commodity in times of extreme dryness.
With that belief the village lives well, content and secure in what is supposed to be quite reassuring "knowledge".
Now, what happens, however, if hunters come with the news that a tribe is on the move, from the East to the North, into the area where the secret lake is supposed to be? Is it so far-fetched to react on that "threat" and go to war against that tribe?
In other words: if religion is GIVING the people something (or IS TO GIVE people something), then are people not bound to give religion something as well, sooner or later?
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Mytical
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Chaos seeking Harmony
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posted July 21, 2009 10:15 AM |
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They do or at least try to. That is why you have to do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Personally I say never take the word of MAN (no matter how it is done, book or otherwise). You have to make up your own mind.
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Message received.
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JollyJoker
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posted July 21, 2009 10:23 AM |
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I certainly agree with that one.
But wouldn't that spell death for organized religions, if people would heed that advice?
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Mytical
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Chaos seeking Harmony
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posted July 21, 2009 10:32 AM |
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Well I am not really fond of 'organized' religions. Sorry, but it's true. To me, what is between a person and the god they believe in is between that person and that god they believe in PERIOD. While gathering with like minded people is fine, for whatever reason, that is their thing. They can do theirs, I'll do mine. I believe in the three fold rule, and the motto "An it harm none, do as thou will."
I have nothing against organized religion either. To thine own self be true, even if that means being in an organized religion. Also, organized can be good. A lot of people have been helped because one religion or another has organized food drives, blood drives, money donations. Everything I have ever learned and believe, however, says you don't follow man. Not preachers, not popes, not tv evangelists. You follow YOUR light, wherever that leads you, and if you believe in a higher power follow IT not some guy who says they are the voice of that higher power.
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Message received.
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JollyJoker
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posted July 21, 2009 10:47 AM |
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In the last consequence - or thought to the end -, wouldn't that mean that everyone would have to "rediscover" belief or religion for themselves? I mean, if religion WAS a personal thing, and organized religion like, umm, let's say a dead language like Latin and so on, in these times, wouldn't people simply live without any religion, except if they - like you - stumbled upon things there was no explanation for?
I don't want to judge that in any way, I'm simply asking for the effect that would probably have.
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Mytical
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Chaos seeking Harmony
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posted July 21, 2009 11:07 AM |
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No, I do not believe so, or rather I would hope not. Assuming that for some reason my message was heard, understood, and spread..organized religion would indeed probably become less prominant. People would, while celebrating the differences that make people unique, not CARE as much about the differences.
Searching for answers, of any kind, is always a good thing. Even if they are not easy answers. People fear the unknown, however. Which to me is kinda sad. Anyhow, STS, will try to get back on topic.
It is easy to say "We don't need religion, because we have the morals now." but I disagree. As long as a single ? mark remains out there (and there are a WHOLE lot of them) we should all keep looking for the answers. Not just throw our hands up, say "It's too hard." and quit. Religion can start us on the path to finding those answers. People just have to realise it is not the destination, but the journey that is important.
IF you are happy with who you are, that is a wonderful thing. I am happy with who I am. Yet striving to be better is also a great thing, and I will constantly strive to be better. Religion (or in this case spirituality which is not really that different) has helped me to understand that. So, it has relivence, even if only to my life. It may not have relivence to you, or your life, but don't make the mistake to think that is ALL that matters.
I've been faced with my mortality not once, but twice. While the first time didn't come to pass, and there is certainly a chance the second time wont (for some time), it does cause one to ponder things that most people don't. Am I right? Time will tell.
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Message received.
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted July 22, 2009 02:08 PM |
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I have read an (for me) interesting article refering to the existance of God (written by Chad Docterman).
I will quote it here and see what happens 
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Introduction
Christians consider the existence of their God to be an obvious truth that no sane man could deny. I strongly disagree with this assumption not only because evidence for the existence of this presumably ubiquitous yet invisible God is lacking, but because the very nature Christians attribute to this God is self-contradictory.
Proving a Universal Negative
It is taken for granted by Christians, as well as many atheists, that a universal negative cannot be proven. In this case, that universal negative is the statement that the Christian God does not exist. One would have to have omniscience, they say, in order to prove that anything does not exist. I disagree with this position, however, because omniscience is not needed in order to prove that a thing whose nature is a self-contradiction cannot, and therefore does not exist.
I do not need a complete knowledge of the universe to prove to you that cubic spheres do not exist. Such objects have mutually-exclusive attributes which would render their existence impossible. For example, a cube, by definition, has 8 corners, while a sphere has none. These properties are completely incompatible: they cannot be held simultaneously by the same object. It is my intent to show that the supposed properties of the Christian God Yahweh, like those of a cubic sphere, are incompatible, and by so doing, to show Yahweh's existence to be an impossibility.
Defining YHWH
Before we can discuss the existence of a thing, we must define it. Christians have endowed their God with all of the following attributes: He is eternal, all-powerful, and created everything. He created all the laws of nature and can change anything by an act of will. He is all-good, all-loving, and perfectly just. He is a personal God who experiences all of the emotions a human does. He is all-knowing. He sees everything past and future.
God's creation was originally perfect, but humans, by disobeying him, brought imperfection into the world. Humans are evil and sinful, and must suffer in this world because of their sinfulness. God gives humans the opportunity to accept forgiveness for their sin, and all who do will be rewarded with eternal bliss in heaven, but while they are on earth, they must suffer for his sake. All humans who choose not to accept this forgiveness must go to hell and be tormented for eternity.
One Bible verse which Christians are fond of quoting says that atheists are fools. I intend to show that the above concepts of God are completely incompatible and so reveal the impossibility of all of them being true. Who is the fool? The fool is the one who believes impossible things and calls them divine mysteries.
Perfection Seeks Even More Perfection
What did God do during that eternity before he created everything? If God was all that existed back then, what disturbed the eternal equilibrium and compelled him to create? Was he bored? Was he lonely? God is supposed to be perfect. If something is perfect, it is complete--it needs nothing else. We humans engage in activities because we are pursuing that elusive perfection, because there is disequilibrium caused by a difference between what we are and what we want to be. If God is perfect, there can be no disequilibrium. There is nothing he needs, nothing he desires, and nothing he must or will do. A God who is perfect does nothing except exist. A perfect creator God is impossible.
Perfection Begets Imperfection
But, for the sake of argument, let's continue. Let us suppose that this perfect God did create the universe. Humans were the crown of his creation, since they were created in God's image and have the ability to make decisions. However, these humans spoiled the original perfection by choosing to disobey God.
What!? If something is perfect, nothing imperfect can come from it. Someone once said that bad fruit cannot come from a good tree, and yet this "perfect" God created a "perfect" universe which was rendered imperfect by the "perfect" humans. The ultimate source of imperfection is God. What is perfect cannot become imperfect, so humans must have been created imperfect. What is perfect cannot create anything imperfect, so God must be imperfect to have created these imperfect humans. A perfect God who creates imperfect humans is impossible.
The Freewill Argument
The Christians' objection to this argument involves freewill. They say that a being must have freewill to be happy. The omnibenevolent God did not wish to create robots, so he gave humans freewill to enable them to experience love and happiness. But the humans used this freewill to choose evil, and introduced imperfection into God's originally perfect universe. God had no control over this decision, so the blame for our imperfect universe is on the humans, not God.
Here is why the argument is weak. First, if God is omnipotent, then the assumption that freewill is necessary for happiness is false. If God could make it a rule that only beings with freewill may experience happiness, then he could just as easily have made it a rule that only robots may experience happiness. The latter option is clearly superior, since perfect robots will never make decisions which could render them or their creator unhappy, whereas beings with freewill could. A perfect and omnipotent God who creates beings capable of ruining their own happiness is impossible.
Second, even if we were to allow the necessity of freewill for happiness, God could have created humans with freewill who did not have the ability to choose evil, but to choose between several good options.
Third, God supposedly has freewill, and yet he does not make imperfect decisions. If humans are miniature images of God, our decisions should likewise be perfect. Also, the occupants of heaven, who presumably must have freewill to be happy, will never use that freewill to make imperfect decisions. Why would the originally perfect humans do differently?
The point remains: the presence of imperfections in the universe disproves the supposed perfection of its creator.
All-good God Knowingly Creates Future Suffering
God is omniscient. When he created the universe, he saw the sufferings which humans would endure as a result of the sin of those original humans. He heard the screams of the damned. Surely he would have known that it would have been better for those humans to never have been born (in fact, the Bible says this very thing), and surely this all-compassionate deity would have foregone the creation of a universe destined to imperfection in which many of the humans were doomed to eternal suffering. A perfectly compassionate being who creates beings which he knows are doomed to suffer is impossible.
Infinite Punishment for Finite Sins
God is perfectly just, and yet he sentences the imperfect humans he created to infinite suffering in hell for finite sins. Clearly, a limited offense does not warrant unlimited punishment. God's sentencing of the imperfect humans to an eternity in hell for a mere mortal lifetime of sin is infinitely more unjust than this punishment. The absurd injustice of this infinite punishment is even greater when we consider that the ultimate source of human imperfection is the God who created them. A perfectly just God who sentences his imperfect creation to infinite punishment for finite sins is impossible.
Belief More Important Than Action
Consider all of the people who live in the remote regions of the world who have never even heard the "gospel" of Jesus Christ. Consider the people who have naturally adhered to the religion of their parents and nation as they had been taught to do since birth. If we are to believe the Christians, all of these people will perish in the eternal fire for not believing in Jesus. It does not matter how just, kind, and generous they have been with their fellow humans during their lifetime: if they do not accept the gospel of Jesus, they are condemned. No just God would ever judge a man by his beliefs rather than his actions.
Perfection's Imperfect Revelation
The Bible is supposedly God's perfect Word. It contains instructions to humankind for avoiding the eternal fires of hell. How wonderful and kind of this God to provide us with this means of overcoming the problems for which he is ultimately responsible! The all-powerful God could have, by a mere act of will, eliminated all of the problems we humans must endure, but instead, in his infinite wisdom, he has opted to offer this indecipherable amalgam of books which is the Bible as a means for avoiding the hell which he has prepared for us. The perfect God has decided to reveal his wishes in this imperfect work, written in the imperfect language of imperfect man, translated, copied, interpreted, voted on, and related by imperfect man.
No two men will ever agree what this perfect word of God is supposed to mean, since much of it is either self- contradictory, or obscured by enigmatic symbols. And yet the perfect God expects us imperfect humans to understand this paradoxical riddle using the imperfect minds with which he has equipped us. Surely the all-wise and all-powerful God would have known that it would have been better to reveal his perfect will directly to each of us, rather than to allow it to be debased and perverted by the imperfect language and botched interpretations of man.
Contradictory Justice
One need look to no source other than the Bible to discover its imperfections, for it contradicts itself and thus exposes its own imperfection. It contradicts itself on matters of justice, for the same just God who assures his people that sons shall not be punished for the sins of their fathers turns around and destroys an entire household for the sin of one man (he had stolen some of Yahweh's war loot). It was this same Yahweh who afflicted thousands of his innocent people with plague and death to punish their evil king David for taking a census (?!). It was this same Yahweh who allowed the humans to slaughter his son because the perfect Yahweh had botched his own creation. Consider how many have been stoned, burned, slaughtered, raped, and enslaved because of Yahweh's skewed sense of justice. The blood of innocent babies is on the perfect, just, compassionate hands of Yahweh.
Contradictory History
The Bible contradicts itself on matters of history. A person who reads and compares the contents of the Bible will be confused about exactly who Esau's wives were, whether Timnah was a concubine or a son, and whether Jesus' earthly lineage is through Solomon or his brother Nathan. These are but a few of hundreds of documented historical contradictions. If the Bible cannot confirm itself in mundane earthly matters, how are we to trust it on moral and spiritual matters?
Unfulfilled Prophecy
The Bible misinterprets its own prophecies. Read Isaiah 7 and compare it to Matthew 1 to find but one of many misinterpreted prophecies of which Christians are either passively or willfully ignorant. The fulfillment of prophecy in the Bible is cited as proof of its divine inspiration, and yet here is but one major example of a prophecy whose intended meaning has been and continues to be twisted to support subsequent absurd and false doctrines. There are no ends to which the credulous will not go to support their feeble beliefs in the face of compelling evidence against them.
The Bible is imperfect. It only takes one imperfection to destroy the supposed perfection of this alleged Word of God. Many have been found. A perfect God who reveals his perfect will in an imperfect book is impossible.
The Omniscient Changes the Future
A God who knows the future is powerless to change it. An omniscient God who is all-powerful and freewilled is impossible.
The Omniscient is Surprised
A God who knows everything cannot have emotions. The Bible says that God experiences all of the emotions of humans, including anger, sadness, and happiness. We humans experience emotions as a result of new knowledge. A man who had formerly been ignorant of his wife's infidelity will experience the emotions of anger and sadness only after he has learned what had previously been hidden. In contrast, the omniscient God is ignorant of nothing. Nothing is hidden from him, nothing new may be revealed to him, so there is no gained knowledge to which he may emotively react.
We humans experience anger and frustration when something is wrong which we cannot fix. The perfect, omnipotent God, however, can fix anything. Humans experience longing for things we lack. The perfect God lacks nothing. An omniscient, omnipotent, and perfect God who experiences emotion is impossible.
The Conclusion of the matter
I have offered arguments for the impossibility, and thus the non- existence, of the Christian God Yahweh. No reasonable and freethinking individual can accept the existence of a being whose nature is so contradictory as that of Yahweh, the "perfect" creator of our imperfect universe. The existence of Yahweh is as impossible as the existence of cubic spheres or invisible pink unicorns.
Should any Christian who reads this persist in defending these impossibilities through means of "divine transcendence" and "faith," and should any Christian continue to call me an atheist fool, I will be forced to invoke the wrath of the Invisible Pink Unicorn:
"You are a fool for denying the existence of the IPU. You have rejected true faith and have relied on your feeble powers of human reason and thus arrogantly denied the existence of Her Divine Transcendence, and so are you condemned."
If such arguments are good enough for Yahweh, they are good enough for Her Invisible Pinkness.
As for me and my house, we shall choose reality.
____________
Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 22, 2009 03:08 PM |
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Right. While this certainly encompasses a lot of what I would say as well, you have to be extremely careful not to make wrong conclusions.
All-knowing and all-powerful is not mutually exclusive - if you was you could will yourself to "forget" something, and likewise will yourself to remember again. It's imperative not to mistake semantics for logic and vice versa. Likewise, all-powerful means that you can will yourself not to be all-powerful anymore, but will yourself in that state to become all-powerful again if you desire so. While this LOOKS like a paradox it is none.
It's like having a hammer (all-powerful) that you can put away, but take up again if you want to.
So it's not THAT simple.
The Perfection thing is basically the same. "Perfect" is a generic word that lacks substance: what exactly does perfect mean: It cannot get better - oops, isn't that a flaw already? It cannot get better? How would that be perfect? In that case it couldn't change either, because it would lose perfection. But how can something that cannot change be perfect? So "perfect" defined THAT way is problematic. A perfectly perfect being WOULD obviously HAVE to be able to change without losing perfection which seems to be paradoxical as well - but imagine a perfect((ly) spherical) still sphere and now a perfect((ly) spherical) but rotating sphere...
In short, you have to be careful, if you give god an attribute, not to make it a FORCED one. God being all-powerful doesn't mean god MUST be ALWAYS and NECESSARILY BY FORCE all-powerful.
Anyway. As it is, our reality is strange enough, in the infinitely small and in the infinitely big, and quantum logic isn't easily understandable, so I'd be quite careful here to tackle the existance of that god with logic.
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted July 22, 2009 04:19 PM |
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Quote:
I have read an (for me) interesting article refering to the existance of God (written by Chad Docterman).
He is wrong on many "proofs" of contradiction, like most.
Quote:
Perfection Seeks Even More Perfection
What did God do during that eternity before he created everything? If God was all that existed back then, what disturbed the eternal equilibrium and compelled him to create? Was he bored? Was he lonely? God is supposed to be perfect. If something is perfect, it is complete--it needs nothing else. We humans engage in activities because we are pursuing that elusive perfection, because there is disequilibrium caused by a difference between what we are and what we want to be. If God is perfect, there can be no disequilibrium. There is nothing he needs, nothing he desires, and nothing he must or will do. A God who is perfect does nothing except exist. A perfect creator God is impossible.
Flawed concept. When there's no time, there's no "action" as we know it, nothing as we know it.
Quote:
Perfection Begets Imperfection
But, for the sake of argument, let's continue. Let us suppose that this perfect God did create the universe. Humans were the crown of his creation, since they were created in God's image and have the ability to make decisions. However, these humans spoiled the original perfection by choosing to disobey God.
What!? If something is perfect, nothing imperfect can come from it. Someone once said that bad fruit cannot come from a good tree, and yet this "perfect" God created a "perfect" universe which was rendered imperfect by the "perfect" humans. The ultimate source of imperfection is God. What is perfect cannot become imperfect, so humans must have been created imperfect. What is perfect cannot create anything imperfect, so God must be imperfect to have created these imperfect humans. A perfect God who creates imperfect humans is impossible.
Actually, anything perfect can create something imperfect. If it couldn't, it wouldn't be perfect anymore.
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The Freewill Argument
The Christians' objection to this argument involves freewill. They say that a being must have freewill to be happy. The omnibenevolent God did not wish to create robots, so he gave humans freewill to enable them to experience love and happiness. But the humans used this freewill to choose evil, and introduced imperfection into God's originally perfect universe. God had no control over this decision, so the blame for our imperfect universe is on the humans, not God.
Here is why the argument is weak. First, if God is omnipotent, then the assumption that freewill is necessary for happiness is false. If God could make it a rule that only beings with freewill may experience happiness, then he could just as easily have made it a rule that only robots may experience happiness. The latter option is clearly superior, since perfect robots will never make decisions which could render them or their creator unhappy, whereas beings with freewill could. A perfect and omnipotent God who creates beings capable of ruining their own happiness is impossible.
Second, even if we were to allow the necessity of freewill for happiness, God could have created humans with freewill who did not have the ability to choose evil, but to choose between several good options.
Third, God supposedly has freewill, and yet he does not make imperfect decisions. If humans are miniature images of God, our decisions should likewise be perfect. Also, the occupants of heaven, who presumably must have freewill to be happy, will never use that freewill to make imperfect decisions. Why would the originally perfect humans do differently?
The point remains: the presence of imperfections in the universe disproves the supposed perfection of its creator.
Because He doesn't want, not that He can't.
By the way, it is easy to say "why not create robots that 'feel happiness'" when you have absolutely no idea how it works.
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All-good God Knowingly Creates Future Suffering
God is omniscient. When he created the universe, he saw the sufferings which humans would endure as a result of the sin of those original humans. He heard the screams of the damned. Surely he would have known that it would have been better for those humans to never have been born (in fact, the Bible says this very thing), and surely this all-compassionate deity would have foregone the creation of a universe destined to imperfection in which many of the humans were doomed to eternal suffering. A perfectly compassionate being who creates beings which he knows are doomed to suffer is impossible.
1) God isn't just compassionate but also just.
2) This argument assumes a subjective definition of compassion, obviously (as it is anyway, but I'm saying it's a weak argument)
3) "Knowing the future" concept is flawed. I doubt this guy has any experience with a virtual simulation, which is at least, much closer to "being a God" than pure speculations. See below.
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Infinite Punishment for Finite Sins
God is perfectly just, and yet he sentences the imperfect humans he created to infinite suffering in hell for finite sins. Clearly, a limited offense does not warrant unlimited punishment. God's sentencing of the imperfect humans to an eternity in hell for a mere mortal lifetime of sin is infinitely more unjust than this punishment. The absurd injustice of this infinite punishment is even greater when we consider that the ultimate source of human imperfection is the God who created them. A perfectly just God who sentences his imperfect creation to infinite punishment for finite sins is impossible.
Nope. It's more like not being able to change. You can't just "be sorry" for your sins because you don't like the punishment, you have to MEAN it. I mean, LOL if this guy takes into account that God is all-knowing, shouldn't it ring a bell He already knows what you think and when you lie?
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Belief More Important Than Action
Consider all of the people who live in the remote regions of the world who have never even heard the "gospel" of Jesus Christ. Consider the people who have naturally adhered to the religion of their parents and nation as they had been taught to do since birth. If we are to believe the Christians, all of these people will perish in the eternal fire for not believing in Jesus. It does not matter how just, kind, and generous they have been with their fellow humans during their lifetime: if they do not accept the gospel of Jesus, they are condemned. No just God would ever judge a man by his beliefs rather than his actions.
They can easily accept him once they meet him. And they'll probably be honest about it, rather than sinners who really don't care about their sins. You can't lie to God saying "I'm sorry for my sins" thinking "Damn, I don't wanna go to Hell even though I like my sins, so I'll lie to God saying I'm sorry for them".
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Perfection's Imperfect Revelation
The Bible is supposedly God's perfect Word. It contains instructions to humankind for avoiding the eternal fires of hell. How wonderful and kind of this God to provide us with this means of overcoming the problems for which he is ultimately responsible! The all-powerful God could have, by a mere act of will, eliminated all of the problems we humans must endure, but instead, in his infinite wisdom, he has opted to offer this indecipherable amalgam of books which is the Bible as a means for avoiding the hell which he has prepared for us. The perfect God has decided to reveal his wishes in this imperfect work, written in the imperfect language of imperfect man, translated, copied, interpreted, voted on, and related by imperfect man.
No two men will ever agree what this perfect word of God is supposed to mean, since much of it is either self- contradictory, or obscured by enigmatic symbols. And yet the perfect God expects us imperfect humans to understand this paradoxical riddle using the imperfect minds with which he has equipped us. Surely the all-wise and all-powerful God would have known that it would have been better to reveal his perfect will directly to each of us, rather than to allow it to be debased and perverted by the imperfect language and botched interpretations of man.
Right, because Bibles are published and printed by God himself...
(same for the below)
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The Omniscient Changes the Future
A God who knows the future is powerless to change it. An omniscient God who is all-powerful and freewilled is impossible.
I'm sorry but this is just plain ridiculous.
If you make a virtual simulation, you can predict anything in the future given initial conditions. Of course, you can change or not change it if you want... and no one inside would even know you did.
Isn't that just a tiny bit more reasonable way of thinking than a pure speculation based on a view of "the world" I'm not aware of (and can't logically design it either).
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The Omniscient is Surprised
A God who knows everything cannot have emotions. The Bible says that God experiences all of the emotions of humans, including anger, sadness, and happiness. We humans experience emotions as a result of new knowledge. A man who had formerly been ignorant of his wife's infidelity will experience the emotions of anger and sadness only after he has learned what had previously been hidden. In contrast, the omniscient God is ignorant of nothing. Nothing is hidden from him, nothing new may be revealed to him, so there is no gained knowledge to which he may emotively react.
We humans experience anger and frustration when something is wrong which we cannot fix. The perfect, omnipotent God, however, can fix anything. Humans experience longing for things we lack. The perfect God lacks nothing. An omniscient, omnipotent, and perfect God who experiences emotion is impossible.
Same ridiculous argument as above. Just because you can, if you want, predict the future (like in any virtual simulation where you are God), doesn't mean you can't experience emotions.
For the laymen, consider watching a movie. Suppose the movie is a "world" and the people in it are real. Of course, you can fast forward and see the future, and even if you do, that doesn't mean you won't have emotions the next time you watch it. Of course with God it is different (He doesn't have "time" to fast forward and re-watch it, it happens outside of time or instantaneously or whatever), but it's similar concept.
What does this guy base this on? I never heard of such a thing.
I mean it's fine not to believe and I acknowledge there's no proof, but what actually I don't get are people who find God's attributes (not whether they're true or not!) as flawed when they make perfect sense, from a virtual simulation programming point of view.
____________
The above post is subject to SIRIOUSness.
No jokes were harmed during the making of this signature.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted July 22, 2009 06:51 PM |
bonus applied by angelito on 22 Jul 2009. |
Edited by Corribus at 20:45, 22 Jul 2009.
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Regarding the article posted by Angelito:
I find that attempts to logically disprove God are as problematic as attempts to logically prove God. Most people just don’t seem to understand that God, by definition, cannot be evaluated logically. God has no place in empirical observation or descriptions of the physical universe. You see a lot more attempts by the religious than by the atheists to subject God to logical justification, and typically the atheists are more subtle in their errors, but they are there nonetheless. The article provided by Angelito is a nice illustration of how good logical arguments are often ruined by false premises – by atheists as well as the religious.
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Proving a Universal Negative
It is very difficult if not impossible to prove a universal negative, because to do so requires infinite knowledge about the system (in this case, the universe). Easier, for example, to prove that life exists beyond Earth than to prove it doesn’t. To prove it does, you only need to find one example. To prove it doesn’t, you’d have to have information about every volume element in the universe, a practical impossibility. We can investigate some fraction of the universe and, having found no life, make some conclusion about the likelihood of life existing elsewhere. But prove? No. Prove is a very strong, often misunderstood word. We can use science to try to prove impossibilities universally, but scientific predictions are only as good as the theories that make them, and theories are based on limited sources of data. Anyway, I don’t want to delve too deeply into science philosophy, but suffice it to say that you should be immediately wary when people start throwing around the infinitive “to prove”.
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I do not need a complete knowledge of the universe to prove to you that cubic spheres do not exist. Such objects have mutually-exclusive attributes which would render their existence impossible.
The author is right, but there’s a problem with the author’s approach to the problem, and in fact the author of the article points it out and then completely ignores it throughout the rest of his article. We can prove that a cubic sphere doesn’t exist because “cubic sphere” is an oxymoron. It’s nonsense. The word “cube-shaped” cannot apply to the word “sphere” because the former violates the basic definition of the latter. The reason we can call it nonsense is because we can precisely define the respective attributes of a cube and a sphere and show, with no doubt, that they are mutually exclusive. A cubic sphere cannot, mathematically, exist. Obviously.
The important point is that the author’s analogy does not apply well to his premise of proving the non-existence of God. The author wants to prove the impossibility of God by showing that the concept of God violates its own definition. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to do this because of the difficulty of defining God.
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Defining YHWH
The author faces a fundamental problem here. Unlike a cube, which has a precise, mathematical definition that involves a few, very simple criteria, God is a nebulous concept, and you’re likely to get a number of unique definitions equal to the number of people you query about it. This certainly makes obtaining a universal proof – or disproof, as it happens – on the basis of the author’s logic very difficult. Given the previous section, it is clear that the author is going to attempt to disprove God by showing that the definition of God violates itself. Or, rather, the definition of God conflicts with various actions that God is purported to have taken. While I agree with that approach in principle, and indeed there are a number of such apparent logical inconsistencies between the idea of “omnipotence” and “potential actions” (such as the classical “Can God create a stone he cannot lift?” question), the problem as it pertains to the attainment of Universal Truth is in defining God. Insofar as the definition of God is at best a moving target, this approach, while a fun academic exercise that might lead to some personal enlightenment, is unlikely to convince anyone not inclined to adhere to whatever formal definition you apply to God. Particularly when you’re dealing with an ”object” which, for most people, doesn’t have to follow the rules of science; logical inconsistencies are easily hand-waved away with claims that the nature of God transcends physical law. So while these thought experiments may be useful to help formulate one's personal beliefs on the matter, they are not going to lead to any fundamental, philosophical truth, not to mention a widely accepted one. In other words, the logic is sound, but the underlying premise is a matter of faith, faith in your definition of God. God is not a mathematical or scientific object or theory, and so rigorous logical analysis is impossible. Thus, the argument used for a “cubic sphere” is, sadly, of little absolute value here.
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Perfection Seeks Even More Perfection
The topic discussed in this section is an interesting (though not original) one. The author says, basically, that he cannot conceive of a motive for God to create the Universe; and that any potential motive violates the “perfect” nature of God. Unfortunately, we can’t disprove something on the basis of potential motive. It’s sort of like saying the following: “John cannot be a murderer because I cannot conceive a motive powerful enough to cause John to murder. John isn’t the type of person to murder. Therefore, John is not a murderer.”
One major problem with this logic is that we cannot know John’s mind perfectly; just because we cannot imagine a motive powerful enough to cause John to murder doesn’t mean that such a motive can’t exist, or even that a satisfactory (logical) motive is required. This is really just a reformulation of the definition problem above. A person is not a cube, with a simple definition and a set of well known, widely accepted attributes. If we see a three dimensional shape with seven sides, we immediately know it’s not a cube because the simple definition is violated by such an observation. Not so with a person. We cannot know all of John’s attributes; another person’s mind is unknowable. We may, through years of interaction, come to think we know John, and may even become comfortable predicting his habits, personality attributes and likely actions. But, like any complex system, if we do not know all the rules, we cannot know all of the potential observables that such a system might exhibit. The attributes of a murderer may not, to our knowledge, match with the attributes of John – John’s attributes may appear to us to violate the definition of a murderer. But insofar as we cannot precisely define John – or the generalized personality attributes of a murderer, for that matter – it is impossible to prove that John is or is not a murderer, especially based on physical/personality characteristics alone. In fact, no matter the preponderance of evidence in support of the conclusion that John – or anyone – is a murderer, the only person who knows for sure is the accused himself. And knowing the mind of God is even more problematic. Essentially, the problem here is, again, the infinite knowledge requirement for a universal negative proof.
Beyond the problem of motive, we have the issue of perfection. It certainly does seem like a conundrum that a perfect being would need or want to do anything. Action implies a goal, and a goal implies motion, and motion, human motion at least, implies improvement of personal condition. Because perfection needs no improvement, we appear to have a contradiction. Problem is, we don’t really know what the definition of “perfect” is – that’s pretty open to interpretation. This is a similar type of argument as the one about God lifting a stone. But we can’t really define “perfection” any better than we can define “omnipotent”. Based on some definitions, be can certainly point out logical contradictions. But this isn’t mathematics and perfection isn’t a geometrical object.
For instance, in the next section, the author writes:
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If something is perfect, nothing imperfect can come from it.
That sounds great, but upon careful analysis I don’t see any justification for this statement. It’s taken as an axiomatic truth, but why is it so? The implication is that if God is perfect and the Universe is imperfect, and the author’s statement is true, there is no way could God have created the Universe (and the author then makes a total leap in logic to suggest that this means God cannot exist at all – but that’s beside the point). Unfortunately, I don’t know what “perfect” means, and I don’t know what “Imperfect” means. Is the universe imperfect? Some people might say so, but that's based on a subjective value judgment. What does it mean for the universe, or anything, to be imperfect? If the universe does exactly what it was designed to do, doesn’t that mean it’s perfect? Does perfection really have any relationship with quality? Some might say that imperfection implies that a machine, for instance, has some fundamental flaw that interrupts its function. But I submit that function is connected with intent and purpose. If I design a wheel that bursts after two days, we’d probably all say that the wheel was not perfect. In fact, all wheels break eventually, so we’d probably further say that no wheel is perfect. But, what if I construct a wheel that is purposely designed to break after two days? Doesn’t that, then, mean that the wheel that burst after two days is a perfect design, because it is doing exactly what it is meant to do? So, perfection is a subjective term that depends on purpose. Just because the world appears “flawed” to us doesn’t mean that it wasn’t designed that way. So perhaps the Universe is, indeed, perfect. If God designed the Universe to contain evil, and it does, isn’t that a perfect design? Certainly if God designed the world to have evil, and it did not, or vice-versa, we wouldn’t say that is was a perfect design. So the vital thing to know is not only what the Universe is, but what did God design it to be? And the answer is: Who knows? The point is that, again, due to the vagaries of definition – and the fact that the above quoted statement is meaningless and completely unjustified - the author’s argument doesn’t work. We cannot know God’s motives any more than we know John the potential murderer’s motives and so we cannot evaluate the perfection or imperfection of his supposed design, assuming we could all agree on a definition for those two terms in the first place.
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The Freewill Argument
Free Will is a philosophical quagmire. You could argue about it until you die without even mentioning God at all. The problems the author has in this section are similar (actually, identical) to those he has in the previous section, so I won’t belabor the point. The basic idea espoused by the author is the following: (A) God is perfect, God gives humans free will, (some) humans choose evil, thus humans and the universe is imperfect. However, (B) imperfection cannot arise from choices made by a perfect creator. Therefore (C) God cannot be perfect. First, the author again never makes it clear how the conclusion in (C) is related to the overall premise of the article that God does not exist. Second, we see the same unjustified and possibly erroneous premise in B and part of A (that the universe is imperfect because there is evil in it). Same issues as above. The author sprinkles the section with the concept of omniscience, but only to the extent that God should have known the outcome of his design, and this is used to reinforce the notion of that God can therefore not be perfect. It’s still fundamentally based on an unjustified assumption.
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All-good God Knowingly Creates Future Suffering
This section and the following section deal with the idea of omnibenevolence and the problem of an “all-loving” God creating humans which suffer, feel pain, etc. and subjecting them to “infinite” suffering for “finite” sin.
Unfortunately, while compelling, this argument ultimately fails, logically, for the same reasons as above. We have more problems with definition (What is “compassion”? what is “suffering”? What is “omnibelevolence? What is “love”?) which make it impossible to logically conclude that God violates his own definition, and we have the same issue of perfection described a few sections ago. Omniscience, omnibenevolence, etc., are just facets of perfection.
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Belief More Important Than Action
I totally sympathize, and I have used the author’s argument here on numerous occasions – hell, in my long post at the top of this page – to explain the origins of my own beliefs. But the fact that God would condemn billions of nonbelievers to eternal torment is not logically connected with his existence at all. Even if you could agree on an absolute definition of benevolence or perfection or justice, the best you could hope for is to show that God is none of these or that the Bible is erroneous in its portrayal of God or his laws. It certainly wouldn’t show that there is no God at all. Which is what I thought the point of this article was.
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Perfection's Imperfect Revelation
The next several passages deal with the Bible, and argue that a perfect God wouldn’t instruct us through a “this imperfect work [the Bible], written in the imperfect language of imperfect man, translated, copied, interpreted, voted on, and related by imperfect man.” Yeah, seems kind of silly, doesn’t it? Nothing new to add here, though – same problems as above. Plus, the argument assumes God personally wrote the Bible and is responsible for its various editions and interpretations, which not everyone believes.
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The Omniscient Changes the Future
A God who knows the future is powerless to change it. An omniscient God who is all-powerful and freewilled is impossible.
Assumes that God is bound by time. Not necessarily a good assumption. The issue of time itself brings in a whole boat-load of logical problems and paradoxes that would make your head spin. But it doesn’t lead to any conclusion except that it’s unlikely a proof one way or the other could be elegantly expressed in a few simple sentences, as the author and many others try so hard to do.
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The Omniscient is Surprised
A God who knows everything cannot have emotions. The Bible says that God experiences all of the emotions of humans, including anger, sadness, and happiness.
What the Bible says and what is reality are not necessarily the same. Again, just a problem of definition. Certainly, if you assume that the Bible is The Truth, then this argument is reasonable, but a logical argument is only as good as the premise(s) on which it is based. An argument can be wrong and logical at the same time. Essentially, the argument assumes that “The Christian God” and “The Christian God portrayed in the Bible” (ignoring even that there are countless versions of scripture and thus countless portrayals of God) are the same thing, and by “disproving” the latter, you have effectively “disproved” the possibility of the former. That’s not really a good logical position, though. Even if you assume that all Christians believe that the Bible is 100% correct, the God described in the Bible could still exist even if the Bible was 100% wrong on the details.
Think of it this way. Say someone writes a biography on Abraham Lincoln that gets every damn detail wrong – he was born in Honolulu, his father was an anteater, he was the first Confederate President, he was killed by a stray bullet in the Battle of the Bulge, whatever. You could go through and prove that every single detail in that book was wrong, using exhaustive research. And the only thing you’d have proven when it was all said and done was that the book was wrong. You wouldn’t have proven that Abraham Lincoln never existed, just that his portrayal in that one version of his life story was incorrect. In fact, when you get down to it, an analysis of textual materials, personal accounts, beliefs, etc., can really tell you nothing. Can you prove that Abraham Lincoln existed at all? Can you prove that he didn’t? Even if you could see him with your own eyes, could you prove it? After all, don’t you have to make the assumption that your sense of sight is yielding truth?
That may sound like a spurious argument based on abstract philosophy, but it’s important to point out that “prove” is a dangerous word. You can’t prove God. You can’t disprove God. You can’t prove Abraham Lincoln. You can convince yourself that he probably existed given enough evidence. But prove? Nuh-uh. See the difference?
Anyway, that’s about the end of the article.
Look, I have a lot of problems with the Christian notion of sin, Hell, etc. The Bible contains numerous inconsistencies, a lot of horribly outdated sociological advice, and enough supernatural fairy-tale mumbo-jumbo to last anyone a lifetime. I personally find it hard to believe in a God who would sentence someone to eternal torment because they sleep with someone of the same gender, or have sex before marriage. That stuff just doesn’t make any sense to ME and it’s not something I’ve chosen to base my life upon. I don’t believe morality extends from any supernatural being, and I find other explanations for reality more compelling than those which are offered in various religious texts. And so I’ve come to hold the belief that most religious dogma is bunk, valuable only for a few moral lessons but no more so than other nonreligious works of literature. To that extent, I totally sympathize with the author’s point of view here.
That said, we’re talking about universal truths and logical arguments, which is a different ball game. Certainly there are logical problems with numerous theological arguments, but such logical problems depend to a large extent on definition. They also have little to do with proving absolute reality. So while I may certainly feel that the notion of an omnipotent, perfect God has some internal inconsistencies, it all depends on what exactly “omnipotent” and “perfect” mean. In addition, even if I could logically show that the God as portrayed in the Bible is impossible because of such conflicts of definition, my conclusion would only be valid for God as portrayed in the Bible. It’s would still be entirely possible for there to be a God/Creator out there who is imperfect, who has limits to his power, or what have you. Do you see the difficulty now in proving a universal negative? Or proving anything at all? You need infinite knowledge of infinite precision, and you need universal, absolute definitions. That in itself is a logical inconsistency.
EDIT: By the way, Angelito, where did you find this article?
EDIT2: Grammar fixes, etc.
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted July 22, 2009 06:58 PM |
bonus applied by angelito on 22 Jul 2009. |
Edited by Elodin at 19:02, 22 Jul 2009.
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Wow, that is a rather long article you posted and it has some misrepresentations/misperceptions and illogical arguments.
I really wish instead of copy and pasting someone else's article you would have discussed the arguments that you felt were compelling since you obviously want others to comment on it. Anyways, below are my thoughts on the article.
I have stated what the Bible teaches but not provided many scriptures because of the extreme length of the post. And the author of the article had set out to prove positions so the burden of proof was on him. If you desire Scripture backup for a few things I will provide them assuming I have the time. I'll be going out of town early Friday morning however.
Introduction
In one sense, yes, the existence of God is obvious.
When a child begins to speak it does not take him too long before he begins to ask, "Why." His experiences even at that young age have taught him that there is a reason for everything. In order for there to be a second cause or a third cause there had to first be a first cause. That is something that every human being (unless he has a learning disability) learns at a young age.
Aside from the observances of a child we can find that the laws of thermodynamics make it clear that something cannot come from absolute nothing with absolutely no cause.
(Edit: The first cause, the uncaused cause, had to be transcendent and eternal. God.)
Proving a universal negative
Yes, in order to prove God does not exist you would have to have omniscience. You would have to have all knowledge of space and time and knowledge of every minute location. You would have to have knowledge of everything "outside" the creation/universe/multiverse. No dimension could escape your scrutiny and your measurements and observations must be flawless.
Unfortunately for the author of the article he does not have those abilities. And he has been unable to prove what he set out to prove about there being contradictions in the conception of the Christian God that the Bible teaches. His understanding of God and and his logic are flawed.
Defining Yahweh
First, the author claims Christians have endowed God with certain attributes. This is false. Christians did not create God. God has given mankind our attributes. And of course individual people have developed their attributes to a greater or lesser degree.
No, the Bible does not teach that people must suffer in this world because of individual sins. Humans are "evil" in the context that they have gone against the will of God. But humans are not "evil" in the sense of being baby rapers and axe-murderers unless they have committed those type of horrendous offenses. So the author's use of the word "evil" is misleading if not properly understood.
No, the Bible does not teach that we must "suffer for his sake" unless the author is saying that believers in Jesus must suffer at the hands of men because we preach the truth. I do not think that is the idea the author intended to convey so I think he used the phrase "suffer for his sake" deceptively.
No, I don't think believers overall are fond of quoting the verse that says atheists are fools. The author has presented no evidence and that is not my experience as a Christian who has been around thousands of believers in my lifetime.
The writer calls Christians fools and says we believe impossible things. It is unfortunate that he could not present his arguments without resorting to attacking those with whom he has differences in ideas.
Perfection Seeks Even More Perfection
Well, of course no one knows what God did before he created this creation. Did he create others? The author seems to assume that God could not have created anything before he created what now exists. However, he offers no evidence for this assumption.
Further the author seems to think that God needs other beings to keep him from being bored. He offers no evidence for his assumption.
Yes, God is perfect and needs nothing. However, the author states that a perfect being can't desire anything. Where is the evidence for that statement? It does not follow that a perfect being can't have desires.
I also take issue with the author's clam that humans engage in activities because we are seeking perfection. I find in actuality that relatively few humans are pursuing perfection. Frankly most humans are pursuing self-gratification rather than perfection in my humble opinion.
Also, the author states that a perfect being will "do" nothing. He offers no proof and frankly that concept seems very silly to me to say the least. Why does he claim that a perfect being would only exist? It makes no sense that if there were a perfect man that he would just lay in his bed all day.
Perfection begets imperfection
The author stated that the Bible says man was created man as a perfect being. That is incorrect. God created man as an innocent being, untainted by sin. Not as a perfect being, according to the Bible. The author's misunderstanding of the Bible lead him to an erroneous conclusion.
The Freewill Argument
The Bible does not state that God gave man free will for man's happiness and love. God gave man free will in order that man would not be a robot and would be able to chose his path. God wanted beings who would be capable of fellowshipping with him. A robot can't fellowship with anyone.
Sometimes making the "good" choice with free will will bring temporal suffering. One may preach even though the state command you not to and be imprisoned and beaten for it. That experience won't be pleasant even though you did the right thing.
The author's misunderstanding again leads him to a false conclusion..
A perfect and omnipotent God can certainly create a creature with free-will who chooses to sin. The author of the article has not proven otherwise.
The author says well, God could have chosen to create only good options to chose from. But the concept of free will means that a man is capable of doing good or evil. Obeying God or rebelling against God. Rebellion against God is evil according to the Bible.
The author makes the unsupported claim that because God does not make imperfect decisions he must have no free will. He bases his claim on the fact that man sinned. But man was not a perfect being. Man was a being untainted by sin, innocent. God is a perfect being according to the Bible. Further, even if man had been perfect in the beginning it does not follow that because a perfect man sinned that a perfect God must sin.
The author seems also to be unaware that the Bible teaches that one-third of the angels did sin and were kicked out of heaven. Although he for some reason assumes that just because one supposedly perfect man (who was actually innocent, not perfect) sinned that perfect angels would have to sin. Oh, when believers go to heaven they are perfected.
Also, the author again assumes that the purpose of free will is to make man happy. That is not the case.
The author makes the statement that the presence of imperfection in the universe disproves the perfection of its creator. However, he has presented no evidence and it does not follow that a perfect creator would have to create a perfect universe. Indeed, as I said earlier, man was created as an innocent being, not a perfect being.
All-good God knowingly Creates Future Suffering
The author makes a statement that a perfectly compassionate being who creates beings which he knows are doomed to suffer is impossible. The author offered no evidence.
The Bible teaches that the sufferings of fallen man in this present world helps to draw us to God. We cry out for help. We look for answers. We recognize that we are not self-sufficient to conquer everything. There are things that we have no answers for.
The Bible also says that much of the suffering in the world is due to evil people abusing their free will to do evil things. In order for a man to be free to rape his victim must be rapable. Sometimes the innocent suffer because of the actions of others.
Infinite Punishment for Finite Sins
The author claims that a finite sin does not warrant unlimited punishment. By whose standards? The author's? The opinion of the author is subjective. God is not subject to the subjective opinion of the author or the author would be the source of objective morality.
Further, the Bible says that God gives light to every man. He draws every man. He seeks to bring every man to repentance. And what is more, the God of the Bible became a man and allowed himself to be slapped around and tortured to death to sacrifice himself for our sins. How can a person who refuses to respond to the light God gives and refuses to repent think that God is unjust for not allowing him in heaven? Such an attitude would seem arrogant to me.
Belief More Important Than Action
A man goes to needs to be saved because of his own sins according to the Bible. The Bible says all have sinned. It also says no man has any excuse for his sins.
The author claims it is wrong for God to send anyone to hell for not believing that Jesus is God. The author offers no proof. Again, the beliefs of the author are subjective. If God were subject to the subjective opinion of the author of the article. the author would be the source of objective morality.
In the Bible "belief" and action go hand in hand. There is no faith where there is no action. I already mentioned that God gives light to every man so I'll not go into that again.
Perfection's Imperfect Revelation
The author claims that God caused problems and provided a solution. He offers no proof.
The author claims God offered an indecipherable amalgam of books to us. The author offered no proof that the Bible is indecipherable.
The author claims that the Bible is a means for avoiding hell. That is false. Repenting of sin and remaining in obedience to the gospel of Christ brings one the new birth and keeps one in the Light. People were born again before the Bible was ever written. The Bible however, can make one wise unto salvation if the person is a diligent seeker of truth.
The author claims the Bible is imperfect. He offers no proof. The Bible teaches the original autographs were inspired by the Spirit of God. The fact is we have many thousands of manuscripts. Many many many more than of any other ancient manuscript. We know from textual criticism that we have the original words of the Bible to 99.9% accuracy. The minor differences are such things as spelling errors and word order that were made by a scribe copying by hand.
The author makes further unproven claims about the Bible being self-contradictory and obscured by enigmatic symbols. I have not found this to be the case. The fact that the author is unable to understand parts of the Bible does not mean that it can't be understood or that it contradicts itself. In my experience when someone points out a "contradiction" he is taking a verse out of context.
No two believers agreeing on every single sentence in the Bible does not imply that the Bible is imperfect. The Bible states that man is to seek after God. A man grows in spiritual understanding just as he grows in say mathematical knowledge as he studies and matures in the field. Understanding and wisdom take time and certainly it would be ludicrous to say that every believer is at at the same stage of development.
Contradictory Justice
The author makes a lot of false statements and cites no verses for his claims. I'll not address the issues because frankly I'm not going to write 8 or 10 more paragraphs on his unproven and uncited allegations.
Contradictory History
**sigh** Once again false allegations and no citations. No proof, only false claims.
The author makes an allegation of hundreds documented historical contradictions but offers no proof.
Unfulfilled prophecy
The author claims that Isaiah 7 prophecies are misapplied in Matthew 1. He offers no proof. Further he does not even say what verses supposedly contradict each other. I know what verses he is refering to and his claims show an ignorance of the meaning of the verses.
Isa 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Mat 1:23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
The author seems to be unaware of the meaning of the word "Immanuel"/Emmanuel (Hebrew/Greek) or else seems to claim to know the mind of God that the prophecy does not refer to Jesus. Immanuel means "God with us."
The fact is that Isa 9:6 said a son would be born who would be the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father himself and is a furthur elaboration on 7:14. Verse 9:7 says he will be the Christ (seated on the throne of David.)
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Isa 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Isa 9:7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.
The author claims that he knows the prophecy has been misapplied, maybe by divine revelation since he offered no proof. He also seems to be ignorant of the fact that prophetic scriptures often have several different applications in Scripture. One to an immediate event and another to a more distant event.
The Omniscient Changes the Future
The author has a misunderstanding of what omnipotence means. Bear in mind that omnipotence is not a word used in the Bible. It is a fancy theological word coined to express an idea that the Bible teaches. The Bible indicates that God has the power to accomplish whatever he wants to do.
But that does not mean that something can be tall and short at the same time. That makes no sense. But that is the type of argument the author presents.
In the same way that something can't be both tall&short (unless you are talking about comparisons to 2 different objects) and can't be both red&blue the future can't have two different states in the same reality at the same time. That just makes no sense.
The author has once again failed to prove his point and has committed logical errors..
The omniscient is Suprised
The author strangely claims that a God who knows everything can't have emotions.
He says humans experience emotions as a result of new knowledge. Well, sure we may. But that is not the only reason we experience emotions. We experience emotions due to our relationships with others for example.
The author seems to think that because God has all knowledge that he doesn't live each moment of time. But while God fills and transcends time and space, the Bible teaches that God does actually "experience" relationships. When we repent at a particular moment in time God at that moment will be "happy" that we chose to repent. Foreknowledge of an event does not mean that God can't experience emotions when the event occurs.
The Conclusion of the Matter
Unfortunately the author insults believers again by saying they are unreasonable and not free thinking and not living in reality. He gloats thinking he has proved his case. Unfortunately he did not.
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted July 22, 2009 07:01 PM |
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Edited by angelito at 19:16, 22 Jul 2009.
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@ Corribus
On "evilbible.com" here.
Edit:
Gave a +qp to Corribus and Elodin.
This is how a post full of arguments should look alike. Reasonable, for others understandable arguments for or against specific points made by a poster before.
The OSM, and even those religious topics would probably look much better if replies would always look more like that.
Maybe others should take these 2 posts as an example.
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 22, 2009 10:56 PM |
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Well, I think Corribus and Elodin give the article more credit with their answers as the article actually deserves - which does of course do nothing to diminish their posts, I just think that it's a case of shooting birds with cannons.
The good thing is, we seem to agree on the fact that logic based on semantics, flawed definitions and wrong assumptions hasn't much value.
Rather than trying to disprove the existance of good, a more practical question was, why you would acknowledge the existance of a being you don't agree with - on general principle, that is, not on some small fish - or simply that you don't like. Jahwe isn't really likable, not for me, so why acknowledge something that MIGHT exist, but will probably make for a rather unpleasant afterlife. No, make probably CERTAINLY.
Hell can't be a nice place, if indeed you are tortured in it into all eternity, but heaven won't be all that nice either. First of all it will be a pretty empty place since a lot of people will be suffering, either eternally or for a long time. Secondly, I'd think that most people there will be pretty boring. Thirdly, there is no freedom of opinion there - could you ask him to close that burning place, let's forget the past and just have a good time for all the troubles people had?
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Anyway, an interesting addition to the question of fanatism which was discussed where it didn't belong.
Christian belief says that it is paramount to repent the sins before you die to save your soul. Of course this is not only in theory of consequence, but has indeed been so.
Today, someone on death row is simply asked before execution whether they wish a priest or not - this is of course to give an opportunity for confession which is seen as a prerequisite for repenting (I'm not sure, though, of factual sin confession is a prerequiste for repenting in all Christian groupings).
In earlier, harsher times the church would take a lot more care into making sinners confess - and I don't mean that cynically. The inquisition didn't torture people because they had fun doing it. If someone had the bad luck to be suspicious of being a witch or posessed by a demon, it wasn't the LIFE of the accused, but the SOUL (or ETERNAL life) that was at stake, and consequently the ministrations of the inquisition - the torture in many cases - simply had the purpose to make the suspect confess, so that his or her soul could be saved. But not only there, torture was used with more norml cases as well and people were not so dumb they didn't know people were likely to confess everything under the torture.
It was, what is this miserable life compared with eternal life at god's side? So IF someone was suspicious on "strong" evidence (strong for those times, not for ours), then, if he was NOT guilty and executed he'd have still eternal life, but if he was guilty he had to be made to confess so that there would at least be a chance on eternal life for him. A win-win situation in favor of making people confess, no matter what, as soon as there was "enough" evidence, which means a win-win situation pro torture.
Well, actually this isn't funny.
But it illustrates fanatism.
But note that the dilemma is a genuine one: would you have the duty as a Christian to do everything in your power to save eternal souls? And where is the limit for your efforts?
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted July 22, 2009 11:37 PM |
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Edited by TheDeath at 23:38, 22 Jul 2009.
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Hell can't be a nice place, if indeed you are tortured in it into all eternity, but heaven won't be all that nice either. First of all it will be a pretty empty place since a lot of people will be suffering, either eternally or for a long time. Secondly, I'd think that most people there will be pretty boring. Thirdly, there is no freedom of opinion there - could you ask him to close that burning place, let's forget the past and just have a good time for all the troubles people had?
I disagree completely about the Heaven part. It won't matter that there are few people, you wouldn't want to be near sinners anyway once you are there, after all that's what keeps Heaven "pure" of sins and blissful: the ABSENCE of the sinners, not automagically everyone becomes happy or whatever.
If you think that is boring, it means you enjoy sins. I mean on the same line, some serial killer can come and say Heaven would suck since he couldn't kill anyone. But that's fine, I mean he wouldn't be able to get there anyway, not that he wants...
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The above post is subject to SIRIOUSness.
No jokes were harmed during the making of this signature.
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted July 23, 2009 04:37 AM |
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Edited by Elodin at 04:42, 23 Jul 2009.
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@JJ
You asked why I would acknowledge the existence of a being that I don't agree with on general principle or don't like. Quite simply because my approval or disapproval of a being has no bearing on whether or not it exists. Unless it can be shot with a shotgun maybe. 
Yahweh is very likable to me. I think you have a misunderstanding of his nature and his actions. While you may be certain that an afterlife with God will be boring and unpleasant I'm certain of the opposite. My life with God in this life is not boring or unpleasant so I have no reason to think that it would be so in the next.
In fact, If I may quote a few verses from the Bible describing the "next" life in the presence of God:
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Rev 21:3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
Rev 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
Rev 21:5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.
1Co 13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
1Co 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
1Jn 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
I think an eternity of no death or pain or suffering will be pretty cool. Not to mention that believers will know God as fully as God knows us. Sounds pretty nifty to me. But if you are into masochism, maybe it is not for you.
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No, most denominations don't have confession and teach one to confess directly to God rather than to a human priest.
What the Bible teaches is repentance. Repentance is a saying what God says about sin and attempting to change your ways with the help of God. If a person who says "Oh, I'm sorry for stealing" on Sunday but then goes out and steals every day of the week he has not repented.
In fact, the Bible says that anyone who professes to be a Christian but is living in sin is an enemy of Christ and will go to hell. Mere words is not mere Christianity.
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Tit 1:16 They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.
Php 3:18 (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:
Php 3:19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)
Jesus Christ said to love, pray for, and do good to even our enemies. Now you know that the Inquisition was neither Christian in nature nor carried out by Christians. Such things are carried out by fanatical enemies of Christ according to the Bible.
We find no Christian doing any torture (or advocating any) in the New Testament records. We do see Christians being tortured and murdered.
Of course we could talk of fanatical atheist tyrants who killed lots more people than the fanatical enemies of Christ did in the Inquisition or witch hunts. But I'd prefer not to focus on the destructive fanatics.
Often someone will call another a fanatic just because he doesn't understand the point of view of the other person. If he understood the beliefs of the other, the person's beliefs and actions would be quite reasonable.
A Christian who cares deeply about serving God and humanity may be called a fanatic by others who attach negativity to the term when in fact the person's zeal is a good thing. Mother Theresa's life was devoted to serving others and serving God as best she knew. Others who don't share her viewpoint would call her a fanatic. Maybe she was. A good fanatic. (I'm not Catholic.)
So I guess some fanatics are to be watched to be learned from and some are to be watched from wariness.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted July 23, 2009 05:24 AM |
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@Angelito
I thank you for the nice compliment and for the star. I will check out the website you linked. Tried to do so from work but my ISP there blocked it for some reason.
@JJ
Sadly I don't have time to reply to your post carefully, but I'd just like to respond quickly to this:
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why you would acknowledge the existance of a being you don't agree with - on general principle, that is, not on some small fish - or simply that you don't like.
Well I disagree with just about every word that comes out of Barack Obama's mouth, yet I still acknowledge his existence.
Seriously, though: Whether or not I like something doesn't have any bearing on whether it exists or not. The Truth, whatever it is, doesn't care about what you want or don't want. The Truth is the Truth. So, I'm not really sure what your point is supposed to be. That we should only believe in what we like? I'm sure I missed something here because I'm pretty sure that's not what you're advocating.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 23, 2009 08:25 AM |
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@ Corribus and in a way Elodin, and Death as well
Option 1 is obviously, the whole thing is untrue, half-true, twisted, concocted. Since a couple of details are very important in determining your fate, it's either believing the whole deal as it is, or it's guesswork (which is what a lot of people do who seem to think the Bible is something like a menu in a pizza-hut where you can pick what you like and leave the rest). Whether you believe nothing or only some hand-picked morsels, it's more like believing what you are prepared to believe.
Option 2 is, it's true, to the letter. In that case it means you either have to accept the terms for entering one area - or you will automatically transferred into the other area and that other area doesn't look rather enticing.
Let's put it this way, the deal has all the ear-marks of a scam. The main point or term for entering is that you do something on trust and faith HERE and NOW, and that is BELIEVING (behaving, repenting and so on is necessary, but the main point is BELIEVING); if you believe, you are promised something supposedly good, if not you are promised something supposedly bad. If it was important only how you lived, morally and so on, belief wouldn't matter. However, it DOES matter, so this term has to be really important for one reason or other, and I can for the eternal life of it not figure out why that should be so important.
Do I like that deal? NOT ONE BIT. It would go a bit far to name everything I do not like, but to make it short - what do we actually know about "heaven"? The Bible says we will we animated IN THE FLESH (Death, that's for you), it's not like we would all be incorporeal spirits floating though high spheres to the sound of harp music. What will we do all eternity? Why wouldn't it be possible to beg for mercy for people you dearly loved, but doesn't make it? Say, your parents didn't believe - why can you not try and save them, after all, you have an eternity of time... Why wouldn't we even try to storm the gates of hell and change their fate?
You see what I mean? Why would we accept - deliberately - a fate we (and if not we then certainly lots of fellow people) do not agree with?
Which leads us to the question: Why believe in something that demands faith, but does deliver something that I find extremely flawed? Call me picky, but I don't like it.
I mean, why believe in dying a cruel, early or gruesome death? Sure, you know you will die, and there ARE people who die early and cruel and gruesome and in pain, but why believe it beforehand?
Suppose someone says to you: Either you believe in death with 65, 3 weeks of intense pain and sickness before that, no guarantees about parents, children and beloved ones, or you'll be sick your whole life starting age 40, and suffer extreme pains for an undetermined rest of your life. Why would you make that deal?
The question is - since there is no way to determine the reality behind things beforehand - why would you deliberately believe in an unpleasant future? Desperation? Eternal life is granted anyway, the question is only where, and the supposedly good option is no option I really look forward to. Am I really supposed to believe in the grace of a being who'll let so many people suffer so much?
@ Elodin
About the fanatics thing. I have to interpret the answer to the dilemma. Do you think the duty of a Christian stops at using force in order to save the soul of someone?
And that those who believe in being Christians, but go too far in their zeal (the fanatics) are in fact no Christians?
But aren't then THEY the enemy? The corrupters? I mean, those who are openly and obviously evil are not the problem, because everyone can see it, aren't the real problem the wolves disguised as sheep, the preachers of violence in the name of god?
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@ Everyone
Coming nack to that article and the paradoxons for a moment: all those absolute terms, "all-powerful", "all-knowingly" and so on, including free will go back to the Russell-Paradoxon, which I want to explain here.
Imagine a set of things, like the set of all red things. What about the set itself, as an element: is it part of that set? Nope, it's not red.
Now imagine the set of all things that are NOT red. What about THAT set as an element: is it part of the set? Yep. It's not red.
Now imagine the set of all SETS not containing itself as an element. This would be a set consisting of the set of all things red, the set of all things square and so on. What about that set itself? Is it an element of the set or not? Per definition it IS an element if it is NOT an Element, and if it is NOT an element it IS an element. So here we have a contradiction and the reason for the contradiction is that the set is ill-defined.
The popular version is this: a barber is defined as someone who shaves ONLY those who don't shave themselves. What about the barber? If he shaves themselves he cannot shave himself, and if he does not shave himself, well, he doesn't.
I capitalized ONLY because that's where the definition mistake is - it's too restrictive a condition.
Now look at the attribute all-powerful and see it - as it is describing a wealth of possible actions - as sets (possible actions) and god as the set that contains all those sets. Is god an element or not? The problem is the same: if god IS an element than he may basically be a victim of his own power; if he's not it's against the definition of ALL-powerful, since his power stops at himself.
Which means that the definition is too restrictive to make sense, same problem as with the Russell-paradoxon. The solution here is to make the condition less restrictive. Yes, god may be that but doesn't have to at all costs. It's important to say that "free will" is part of this because here the question is as well, is god element or not in combination with the term all-knowing: does god know his future (all-knowing) or does he have free will? Same answer: condition too restrictive.
A second group of problems are ill-defined words that are contradictory in itself (for different reasons), mostly when abstract ideas are termed. "Nothingness", for example is a word for an idea where the word as such contradicts the idea. It's a paradox, because it cannot be imagined - if it is imagined, it's not nothingness anymore. So the semantic of the word poses a problem, and if you use logic on such a word the semantics of this word will lead to contradictions and strange result.
"Perfect" is another such word. It may be used in a relative way (perfect for a certain occasion or purpose), which is no problem, since then purpose and occasion define what exactly IS perfect, or in an absolute sense, and now you HAVE a problem - because suddenly there is no purpose or occasion anymore that would define what perfect is. There has to be something to MEASURE perfection on, and this something can - in this case - be only god itself. This in turn means, that god is perfect because he's god: perfect for the occasion and the purpose to be so.
There are of course other words or terms that pose problems. "Infinity" (or inifinite) Mathematics knows different levels of infinity, which makes this problematic because ut would suggest that there may be different kinds of infinities. "Eternity" (or eternal).
All in all it should be clear that you cannot twist reality by using logic on TERMS. TERMS are not the things they name and vice versa. Ideas have no reality just because they are thought They have to be WELL-defined otherwise logic can't be used on them.
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