HAHA, doing philosophy by using ‘every-day words’…which means…defining words as you like, when you like, as you like and being able to constantly forget, re-define, re-call…PEASANTRY ROLLING IN MUD SQUEEKING LIKE THE MORONS AT KTS PRAISING SOPHISTRY AND MEANNESS!!!
HAHA, doing philosophy by using ‘every-day words’…which means…defining words as you like, when you like, as you like and being able to constantly forget, re-define, re-call…PEASANTRY ROLLING IN MUD SQUEEKING LIKE THE MORONS AT KTS PRAISING SOPHISTRY AND MEANNESS!!!
You still haven’t answered my questions. Also, if something is paradoxical, it is contradictory. I’ve commented on your point about consent extensively. x knows what it is to be evil. x chooses/consents to being evil.
I will do it again, for the last time. There will be repetition: God creates free-willed beings. Free-willed beings have hearts and minds. They can distinguish good from evil. Rational from irrational. They do not become good or evil, until they themselves choose to respond to good or evil. They were not programmed to be evil. A robot can be programmed to kill millions. It is not free-willed, therefore it is not evil. For x to be evil, x himself is required to choose to be evil. He cannot become evil independently of himself choosing this. x consents/chooses/wants to be evil. It’s x’s decision. God wanted x to decide/choose this way, otherwise God would never have initiated x. This takes nothing away from the fact that x decided to be this way.
Again, as I’ve already said, it’s perfection for everyone to get what they truly deserve. This encompasses evil getting what it truly deserves. For God to omit this, is for God to do imperfectly. Hell is an aspect of Perfection. If you’re good, it’s something that should make you happy. Why? Because you cannot be good if you do not hate evil. How can you be good after you have been raped and your attitude towards your rapist is not one of seeking retribution when your rapist takes pride in what he has done, ignores all warnings of repenting and reforming, embraces all signs that he is truly evil, and will choose to rape you again and again? And how can you hate evil if you do not want to see it suffer? How can you not love the purpose of Hell? You cannot, unless you are evil or embracing of evil (which amounts to the same thing).
Free-willed beings can either choose to respond to goodness and reason, or they can choose to respond to irrationality and evil. The root of all evil is the rejection of Existence being Perfect. Unless you have something new to offer to this discussion, I think this is where our discussion end. If I will you have offered something new that I have not addressed, I will reply. If not, I will not reply.
Don’t you have your own threads to shit in?
Here’s one very obvious practical purpose: If you genuinely believe that the Existence that you exist in is Perfect, you feel much better about existing in it. What can compel me to believe in such a thing? Pure reason. I do not want to believe in that which is absurd/paradoxical/contradictory, thus I believe in Existence Being Perfect. What can compel you to believe in such a thing? Its psychological benefits (if you want pure practicality). What should compel you to believe such a thing? Pure reason.
See above.
I have no idea why you are saying this or what I’m supposed to do with it. Pure reason is pure reason. If x is contradictory/paradoxical, x is wrong. Any philosophy, serious or otherwise, or any thing (serious or otherwise) will acknowledge this if it adheres to reason. Yes, people sometimes joke, but they know their joking. They do not take their jokes as truths.
Perfection = that which no greater than can be conceived of. There is nothing better than a perfect existence. Now you tell me how this is an instance of me “distorting or forgetting what words actually mean in everyday use.”
shit in? a bit of a strong and unequivocal moral judgment for a subjectivist such as yourself???
shit in? a bit of a strong and unequivocal moral judgment for a subjectivist such as yourself???
I think you would have a really hard time making that one evident. 
If they can, and they choose what is irrational/evil, then they’re at fault. If they can’t then they’re not at fault. There are people who know they are being irrational or evil, but choose to persist anyway.
CR,
I’m just going to cut right to the chase here.
God already knows in advance before creating us what we’ll actually choose … you’ve defined god earlier in this thread as the only being in existence who actually has choice and informed consent.
But let’s take a step back.
Let’s assume that god made us to freely choose between good and evil. Wouldn’t it be evil to make a heart that can choose evil in the first place??
Let’s look at god for a moment here…
Here’s gods mind: “well… there’s this shit called evil that I can create for people to choose, or I can give people freewill and not be able to choose it… hmm… I’m a sadistic, bored, psychopath, so I’ll choose an existence where nobody but me has the ability to not do evil and then I’ll send them all to hell forever… BUT everyone besides me is ignorant of what evil is besides me… hmm… this is a tough one, that would make them all innocent. Which means any punishment is immoral… hmm… let me think on this, because I definitely want to punish all my creations forever.
Shit! I don’t know a way around this! Certainly real defines me as the only possible being who actually knows what good and evil is, unless certainly real claims to me me LOL! Silly certainly real. But I really need to send all the beings I made to hell forever… oh, I have a plan for this!! I’ll make them to all believe, like certainly real does, that everything they do is evil and I’m the only being in existence who is never evil. That should send them all to hell forever. And if they argue against me and certainly real, I’ll send them to hell for the blasphemy of contradicting me!! Great plan!! Sorry certainly real, you still have to go to hell, but I love you unconditionally, just like everyone I created”
So exactly how are you helping? They are already either innocent or guilty. Why are you arguing with them?
Ayyyy, we’re moving forward swimmingly!
So this bit is the current barrier to break.
The question must here arise: how do we know it is indeed God, about which these certain things we “can and do understand right now”?
This is where the contradiction yet again comes into play:
We’re faced with our limited human conception indeed encompassing these certain things that we can and do understand right now, without the ability to even suggest verifying anything beyond our human conception (else it would be within our human conception) so as to conceive that “the rest” of “these certain things that we can and do understand right now” does indeed extend to that which we can know as God. Is there any extension beyond this at all? How can we know one even exists when it’s by definition beyond our human conception? And yet the only way we can confirm there is more and that it is of “God” is to circumvent this necessary contradiction, which by definition we logically cannot. If only we could conceive beyond our human conception, so as to access the crucial elements that God must have in order to be God, and confirm that they’re there, and that they are the rest of what we can see that is merely mundane and within our conception. The only bit we need is the only bit we can’t get!
This is why I playfully called my proof the “Epistemological Argument”, because of this epistemological conundrum.
I think we touched on this one before - with “that of which no greater can be conceived” being, to us, relating to human conception.
If you want to discuss “that of which no greater can be conceived by anything at all whatsoever”, regretably you’ll find any discussion and thought remains within human conception regardless.
So “perfect existence” ends up just being words that necessarily constrain to translate as “the most perfect existence” of which humans can conceive: a relative arbitration, which in practice always seems to be both subjective and variable, as well as embedded in some degree of imperfection (much like the Buddhist Yin and Yang) - as would be expected by the imperfect bounds of human conception.
Sure, the most perfect thing of which we could conceive is at least three-dimensional, and vast in terms of time, space and potentiality etc. To some degree we can even conceive of the natural universe itself, and some even argue a multiverse. But where’s the God bit? That “more” than merely natural, which is required of the divine, beyond human conception, such that whatever we experience within the natural universe that is said to be an immanent part of God can be confirmed to extend to the transcendent part, which is the divine part that proves to us that the whole entirety is in fact God?
I agree that you certainly can have a human conception of what you think perfection could be. To you, it can indeed seem to be of perfection that cannot be greater. But how can it be perfect enough when it is within a limited human conception? Even if you evolved to know what a 20th sense is like, would it be perfect enough then? Indeed your understanding of perfection cannot be complete. You can talk about it as though it were meaningful and objective, by all means. The limits of what humans can conceive of perfection does definitely seem to us to allow some pretty perfect perfection, I agree. I do worry that God might be a bit peed off with you if you can’t even talk about him in terms of a 20th sense though, whilst still claiming that you are talking about him. Obviously he’s supposed to be pretty forgiving and merciful, but one of the 10 commandments does warn against worshipping false idols 
I am being a bit tongue in cheek here, but I mean no offense as we’re all subject to human limitations and I’m no different. Just trying out a little humour so that we may laugh at ourselves and be humble.
So hopefully what I’ve said above clarifies why we can’t have any more than 0 understanding of God, thereby making even the subject of that sentence itself rather meaningless.
You can describe what you wrote about as something other than God/Perfection, because you have been doing so this whole time. There’s just a logical issue with the word choice due to the definitions involved.
CR,
Just to back up silhouette here… god is not any ordinary existent we are going to talk about; when you bring god up, you shouldn’t expect an ordinary conversation.
You continue to avoid answering the questions I asked of you, and continue to fail to address the points that I have made.
No. I didn’t. On more than one occasion now you have accused me of saying that which I have not said.
You seem genuine in wanting an answer to this question. Fine, I’ll reply, despite there already being enough material for you to acknowledge that it’s perfection for evil to suffer:
God gave us the hearing, the eyesight, and the mind. Also, because you like to use the word heart, God also gave us our hearts. You use your eyes to see with. Of course, you can choose to close your eyes and not see. Alternatively, God can blind you and you will no longer be able to see perhaps against your will. You use your mind to distinguish the rational from the irrational. You can choose to ignore your mind (which is irrational), you can choose the irrational, you can also choose the rational.
If God had programmed you into doing x (doing ‘rationally’ or ‘irrationally’), then you’d have no choice in the matter and reason (doing rationally or irrationally) and morality (being good or evil) would be irrelevant to you. You have to choose. It’s just the way freewill and self-awareness is. You make the choice. Thus, you claim the responsibility for that choice that you made. It’s always your neck on the line when you choose.
Because you seem to like the word heart in relation to good and evil, I will feed you the following: You use your heart to distinguish good from evil. Your heart tells you what is evil and what is good (something I think the mind does, but I do not deny there being some additional element/instinct that tells me x is good or evil. Let’s call this the heart). You can choose to ignore your heart and commit to nothing, you can choose to follow your heart with regards to what it tells you is good, you can also choose to follow your heart with regards to what it tells you is evil. Notice that it has to be you who chooses and not God? There is no programming or additional element that pre-determines you or enslaves you into harming or benefitting others. If there was, you are not freewilled. You are a robot.
If you are free-willed, then you are free to choose. Whatever you choose, you choose. If you didn’t choose, then you’re neither going to Heaven nor Hell, because you are not a free-willed being. You are a robot. So your suggestion that God makes x evil and then God puts x in Hell, is wrong. The following is a correction of that: God makes x. x chooses to be evil knowingly. God warns x of retribution and vengeance from Itself if x does not willingly/genuinely repent and reform. x persists in choosing to be evil. God puts x in Hell. God knew all of this would happen in advance. God did nothing wrong by making all this happen. In other words, God did not wrong Itself by doing all this. x wronged himself by choosing to be unrepentantly evil.
By your reasoning, if x is morally useless and y is morally great, we should treat them both the same. x sits at home contributing nothing to y despite y showing x kindness and contributing to the relationship. If x was like a robot or a toy, then y is an idiot. But x is a free-willed agent. So it’s not that it’s hypothetically impossible for x to choose to contribute to the relationship. It’s that he chooses not to commit to a morally better alternate hypothetical possibility whilst being aware of the morally better alternative hypothetical possibility. Who is at fault for this? x and only x. Why should anyone else be blamed? x could do what was better but x chose not to. x was not programmed not to. x was not without choice in the matter.
y should not care why x chooses to be this way. y should only verify that x knows how to be better and can be better but chooses not to. If x had no choice in the matter (he was crippled in such a way that he literally couldn’t), then y should not dislike or hate x. If y could read x’s soul and y could see that despite all the good that it has done for x, x would still rape it as soon as he thought he’d get the chance, y should try to get x to change. How could y forgive x for x choosing to be this way? Where x shows that he is unwilling to change (despite being able to), and then further commits to raping y, y should seek vengeance. Where x does not repent, and x does not suffer Hell, that would be imperfection.
x blames God for x choosing to be evil. x argues since God created me, I am not at fault for being the way I am. Like the pedophile priest who decides he can commit evil in the name of God. He too would argue God made me this way. Even if we say God cursed him with such a disease, it was within the pedophile’s means to choose to not rape children. It was within the pedophile’s means to commit to goodness and God, as opposed to commit to himself. Devotion to anything that compromises one’s devotion to God, warrants punishment.
At any given point in time, or at any decisive moment where x had to decide, could x have chosen not to be evil? If no, then x had no choice in the matter, which makes x not evil and not worthy of Hell. If yes, then who is at fault for being evil?
If you think people have no free-will in what they choose (which is clearly contradictory), then the following does not apply to them: It’s perfection for everyone to get what they deserve.
I think there is enough (if not more than enough) in the above to address your question, which seemed sincere to me. You can either choose to put time and effort into understanding the above, or choose not to.
I’ll hopefully reply to everyone else tomorrow or another day.
You don’t get the point at all.
God can make it so that we ALL have freewill, yet, are incapable of choosing evil.
God created evil, and that makes god perfectly evil.
Let’s look at this further from the perspective of your argument:
God is the ONLY possible perfect being forever; which means that anyone besides god is infinitely imperfect.
They’re all equally (infinitely) evil.
What’s god supposed to do with all these infinitely (by definition) evil people?
Because I’ve committed sins in life, and then failed to immediately reconcile in line with pure reason. It took multiple signs for me to reconcile. So, despite believing action x to be what is good and rational, I did not commit to it. But with enough signs and with me not fully embracing a “I’ve completely decided not to do x now such that nothing will change my mind” attitude, I eventually came around. The signs were from God. I’d like to be appreciative such that if God feeds me, I try and feed others that I feel are in need of feeding. I cannot clearly see myself as worthy of being fed, if I am unwilling to feed others when I am able to.
If I believed I was arguing with robots, then I’d be wasting my time and that would be my sin. But I have reason to assume that I’m arguing with humans and I am not yet sure that they have taken a 'Ive completely decided not do x now such that nothing will change my mind" attitude regarding this matter of pure reason and morality. Given the above, and, given the Perfection of Existence, I’m not helping them. I’m helping myself. To me, karma is precise. It is brutal and utterly damning if you are evil, and utterly glorious if you are good.
We don’t have to call that which we are talking about god. This is particularly useful in this discussion if you take god to mean that which is beyond perfect. I do not understand beyond perfect or beyond infinity. Not only that, I understand beyond perfect/infinity to be absurd. There is no such thing. None should try to prove absurdities exist. We are, however, talking about that which is Perfect (which is not absurd). I’m fine with calling It Existence, or simply Perfect.
Perfection or that which is Perfect, is not wholly beyond human conception. That which is beyond perfect, is wholly absurd. It is not beyond the conception of anyone. It is just absurd. See above with regards to the label of god regarding our discussion.
Yes, I wholly agree. But, human conception is such that it objectively recognises the following:
Triangles are three sided. Perfection = that which no greater than can be conceived of. Perfection = a perfect existence. I can then go on to meaningfully write a book about what objectively constitutes a perfect existence. I have also written a paragraph in my previous reply to you. None of this is outside of human conception. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s not call that which is Perfect god. Let’s just call it that which is Perfect. The Perfect. If you say to me you have no idea what is Perfect, then you’d have a point. But both you and I have a conception of Perfection and Perfect. This is within our human conception and our conception of it does not make it any less Perfect. Granted, our conception of It is not complete, it is still such that our rejection of our conception of It is paradoxical.
In your opinion, which rational person would argue with the objectivity of the following outlines: In a perfect existence, everyone gets what they truly/perfectly deserve. It’s objectively perfection for everyone to get what they truly/perfectly deserve. A finite or incomplete existence is not perfect. That which is Perfect is wholly complete and infinite.
The above outlines are as objectively clear as the outline of triangles being three-sided. There are additional facts about triangles, and there are additional facts about the Perfect. But the above outlines cannot be contradicted when talking about the Perfect, just as the outline of triangle = three-sided cannot be contradicted when talking about triangles.
Not just to me. To every rational being (including the Perfect) this outline holds true. It may be that a super sentient alien has more info regarding this matter. The Perfect certainly has more info regarding this matter. But none of the info that It has, can contradict the outlines that I am aware of regarding Perfection. It cannot be the case that the Perfect has info that contradicts the following: Perfection = that which no greater than can be conceived of = a perfect existence. Which encompasses everyone getting what they truly perfectly deserve (amongst other things).
Take idol worship to mean devotion or worship or the serving of anything other than a perfect existence. If you really thought about this and unpacked its logical implications in line with Existence Being Perfect, you’d see why committing to or serving anything other than a perfect existence, is truly damning.
I try to assume the best in people. I did not take offence. Laughter is certainly good under the right circumstances. Humility is appropriate/right/justified for us as we are imperfect beings.
Hopefully if we remove the label god from our discussion, and focus purely on that which is Perfect (which we have clear objective outlines of) we can progress in our discussion by better understanding one another.
You cannot serve a perfect existence willingly if there was no alternative choice for you to make. Thus, God cannot make it so that we ALL have freewill, yet, are incapable of choosing evil. It would be like God trying to create the non-free-willed free-willed being. Or the non-good good being. Or the square circle.
God created imperfect beings. Some choose to be evil, some choose to be good. Triangles are triangles. Evil beings are evil. Good beings are good. Perfect beings are perfect (of which there is only one). God Is Perfect to all, at all times (including Itself) because God Is Perfect.
Already covered this extensively
Again, there are imperfect beings. Some are good, some are evil. Some have yet to be determined. God is supposed to treat all these beings perfectly. Again, it’s perfection for everyone to get what they truly deserve.