This quote would give me reason to hope you never have any. However, I trust you’re only being callous or sarcastic. If not, then I pray your ignorance will evaporate in time to save any progeny you might have in the future.
As far as the problem of evil and your indignance at the irrationality of Christians, a Christian (some, not all) might look at you and wonder why you’re so rational.
im aware that the state and structure of things is irrational.
O- Are we also not things as well?
that doesnt mean we are irrational
O- Yes it does. Does it not baffle you that so many people speak of “me”, “you” or “I”? As if any of these was in some way a rational idea in their minds. For you (at the time and date you read the present) and I (writing at 20:47 31 Oct 2006) such a thing as a “centered self” that can serve as signified for the signifier does not exist blah, blah, blah…
that we are justified to act irrationally.
O- We eat the bread as if we know that it is not poisoned, and play billiards under the error that the balls will move when hit.
we are biological computers.
O- Who is our programmer? Getting very close to theism here… Computers have no feeling, therefore we are quite unlike them, because, in the prescense of feelings and passions, our judgment varies in a way that is absent in computers. We’re pattern seekers, but that does not tie the patterns to any logic or rationality, only the desires determine that.
our logic is how we make meaning.
[b]O- Logic has nothing to do with meaning. Logic is the study of arguments. Logic is infused with meaning that we give to it, not that it has in itself. What I mean is that logic is whatever the debater brings to it. The theologian, like St Augustine or Luther, is quite logical. Their argument is logically valid.
For example, you have taken the POE as impossible to defeat. let me present a logical position.
Luther and Calving were believers in Predestination. God created some people for great things others for destruction. So when we see suffering in the world, what we then see is in accordance with God’s choosing and freewill. Some suffer and the rest prosper. It has nothing to do with what the good fellas do or what the victims did. It is all God’s eternal plan and his freedom as creator- what right does the creature possess to reprimand the creator? So God is omnipotent- that is logically verifiable by looking at the state of the earth.
But is God also good? If so then why would he make children and innocent people suffer? The logician says: “Innocent in the judgment of whom? Do you know all that God knows? Then perhaps God sees what is beyond your sight. Our sense of good is limited and His unlimited so no one is innocent- none is righteous, no one!. God’s grace alone saves the unworthy siner”
Now, where is the Problem of Evil. Is God not good, in that even when we all deserved death, every men, women and child deserved death by Adams sin, still God, in his mercy decided to save for himself a remnant, not because of what they had done or could do, but by God’s simple choice which requires no more good deeds on the part of the elect. If you decide to do good, it is solely to convince yourself that you’re one of the elect, but it has no effect on your status other psychologically.
Point of my disertation on Calvinism? Logic is not absent in religion. Logic is an instrument, and despite it’s study of argumentation, it does not established why the propositions of the arguments are taken as true of not.[/b]
so in that sense hope is the value of irrationality?
O- No. In the survival of those who hope.
i understand that. i dont think that justifies religion or contradictions. i can understand how a world without irrationality could look bleak and give people a lack of hope but i dont think it would. a rational person would recognize the value of it and use it.
O- Hmm. Look at the 20th century. The death of God is followed by the murder of men. I love a passage in Orwell’s 1984 novel where the hero, Winston, facing his torturer tries to be rational and to present his argument that what is being done is wrong. O’Brien, his torturer, asks him if he believes in God, he responds “no”, taking away from him any means he could have to appeal to an outside authority. If was as if to say:“What is Truth but what we agree it is.” And indeed that was his point.
also when faced with contradictions rational people change their beliefs.
O- Religious folks do that too. Look at Bob, or Uccisore, or Luther and Calvin. They do not mirror their ages in general, but are progressions of hope.
though again as you said there is faith. why its placed in the irrational instead of a God though as youre saying is pointless.
[/quote]
[quote]
We have faith in many things, cba, not just God. You believe in your self, even if rationally considered, it is irrational to believe in it. You believe in the uniformity of the universe, a theistic idea conserved in Einstein:" God does not play dice"-- but you have no reason to hold that position which is itself is not tautological. You believe many things, and in some degree, they all resemble a faith, they are all a form of hope. The issue here is not rationality or irrationality, for these attributes are found in atheism as in theism. The issue here is God itself. As Michael Shermer would say, he has little problem with an impersonal God. It is with the personal God that he has a problem with, and I think that in a way the same is true for you. Maybe I am wrong; maybe you’re just blind to the metaphysics laying around you and think that you’re rational, an attribute you hold dear, while theists are irrational, when in fact that is not an issue really, because, after Hume, we find that irrationality is all around us and that there is nothing we can do about it without ceasing to live as we do.
Atheism will not save you from irrationality. It is a characteristic of highly developed beings and rooted in language.
I will not tell you that the POE is not a great hurddle, or that it is not the illuminator of many selfish assumptioms about the theistic nature of the universe. But the problem is a subjective one and not an objective one and that it does not mean that the POE is undefeatable. It only requires that one modifies the attributes of God a bit to maintain what is most important to the particular believer. In Erasmus, the most important attribute was God’s mercy, therefore he down played God’s omnipotence and accentuated men’s freedom. For Luther, God’s omnipotence was most important, for his particular taste, and so he did the reverse, comforting himself with ignorance of God in-itself…I don’t need to point out how this influenced later philosophers.
how did you figure out i was being sarcastic?
thats your answer as to why im so rational. it actually works.
ill get to this tomorrow i didnt forget… in the future though… brevity would be awesome.
The irony I see is that while evil cannot be used to disprove the existence of God,
goodness in the world does seem to prove the existence of God.
Without God as a grounding, ethics and morals tend to become relativistic.
“If no God then no ethics” implies “If ethics exists, then God exists.”
This reminds me of someone’s post I read earlier, and I have forgotten where it was. Someone posted that there is no kindness in the universe. And I wished to respond that as long as there is kindness in man, man being part of the universe, there is kindness in the universe.
my real name
O- That starting position cripples your understanding, and worse, it keeps you blind as to thge metaphysics that lay all around you. Metaphysics is just a necessity for the living. Instead of spending all your time and energy in the devaluation of the irrational and the illogical, you could take a more sympathetic view which might reveal how life is conducted with the upmost irrationality, underneath all rationality. The goal of the day is seized by him who committed the fallacies which logicians warn about.
like i said before… i dont agree. i dont believe in metaphysics. i believe theoretical sciences and shit that doesnt make sense. that i believe in. i believe in the random and the irrational. i dont believe that any of that applies to how humanity views the world though. i dont look out at space and say… shit that stuff is MADNESS. i think im going to go attack someone with flowers.
O- Yes it does. Does it not baffle you that so many people speak of “me”, “you” or “I”? As if any of these was in some way a rational idea in their minds. For you (at the time and date you read the present) and I (writing at 20:47 31 Oct 2006) such a thing as a “centered self” that can serve as signified for the signifier does not exist blah, blah, blah…
what?
O- We eat the bread as if we know that it is not poisoned, and play billiards under the error that the balls will move when hit.
rational assumptions. billiard balls i dont know what the hell youre talking about.
O- Who is our programmer? Getting very close to theism here… Computers have no feeling, therefore we are quite unlike them, because, in the prescense of feelings and passions, our judgment varies in a way that is absent in computers. We’re pattern seekers, but that does not tie the patterns to any logic or rationality, only the desires determine that.
i dont know who the programmer is. it doesnt mean it has to be god… no feeling? do your computers have buttons? or do you mean emotions? by that i think you mean swirly chemicals and nuerons firing with electrical pulses exactly the same as a computer has. but what determines our rationality i have no idea. i dont think emotions have anything to do with it though.
O- Logic has nothing to do with meaning. Logic is the study of arguments. Logic is infused with meaning that we give to it, not that it has in itself. What I mean is that logic is whatever the debater brings to it. The theologian, like St Augustine or Luther, is quite logical. Their argument is logically valid.
For example, you have taken the POE as impossible to defeat. let me present a logical position.
Luther and Calving were believers in Predestination. God created some people for great things others for destruction. So when we see suffering in the world, what we then see is in accordance with God’s choosing and freewill. Some suffer and the rest prosper. It has nothing to do with what the good fellas do or what the victims did. It is all God’s eternal plan and his freedom as creator- what right does the creature possess to reprimand the creator? So God is omnipotent- that is logically verifiable by looking at the state of the earth.
But is God also good? If so then why would he make children and innocent people suffer? The logician says: “Innocent in the judgment of whom? Do you know all that God knows? Then perhaps God sees what is beyond your sight. Our sense of good is limited and His unlimited so no one is innocent- none is righteous, no one!. God’s grace alone saves the unworthy siner”
Now, where is the Problem of Evil. Is God not good, in that even when we all deserved death, every men, women and child deserved death by Adams sin, still God, in his mercy decided to save for himself a remnant, not because of what they had done or could do, but by God’s simple choice which requires no more good deeds on the part of the elect. If you decide to do good, it is solely to convince yourself that you’re one of the elect, but it has no effect on your status other psychologically.
Point of my disertation on Calvinism? Logic is not absent in religion. Logic is an instrument, and despite it’s study of argumentation, it does not established why the propositions of the arguments are taken as true of not.
you cant use ultimate good to refute evil. i mean fuck we dont even punish criminals to the extent that god does. even if we arent innocent we dont deserve this. or why create free will in the first place. if thats the root of our evil then we were damned because of him anyway. or a million other examples. youre playing right into the trap and whether you are going to admit it or not rationally the arguement for this theism is bullshit. the only way around it was the way you were going… that rationality isnt everything. which can be refuted with practicality. that may dilute the arguement a little but still logic is still quite potent and can be easily brought to power again. and what right do i have to attack a creator? i dont know… what right do you have to attack your parents or any elder/creator for that matter? im sure we can justify it logically through practical applications. which none of those definitions of good or evil or Gods wisdom you define have any use.
O- Hmm. Look at the 20th century. The death of God is followed by the murder of men. I love a passage in Orwell’s 1984 novel where the hero, Winston, facing his torturer tries to be rational and to present his argument that what is being done is wrong. O’Brien, his torturer, asks him if he believes in God, he responds “no”, taking away from him any means he could have to appeal to an outside authority. If was as if to say:“What is Truth but what we agree it is.” And indeed that was his point.
no… why does everyone think that morality is founded in irrationality. you can base a moral system on anything else in the world. fuck the godlen rule has no religious connotations except that idiots thing jesus created it. pain and respect for empathy has no religious connotation. i mean you look to the east and they didnt create huge metaphysical religous structures to prop up how to deal with each morally and confuscious believed in the golden rule. this stupid shit is a huge bias against atheism created by western religion. truth is what we agree it is. why is that bad though? its not like we magically create what we agree on. its an understanding of how it effects us. how we feel about it. and no thats not a contradiction of what i said about computers because you can easily disable the sense of touch in a human and keep the brain. feel as in touch. thats where i classify emotions also. you must understand that because its critical to the materialistic atheist. the outside authority is the biological machinery of the human being. appeal to that if your being tortured. say ow this fucking hurts thats why its bad.
O- We have faith in many things, cba, not just God. You believe in your self, even if rationally considered, it is irrational to believe in it. You believe in the uniformity of the universe, a theistic idea conserved in Einstein:" God does not play dice"-- but you have no reason to hold that position which is itself is not tautological. You believe many things, and in some degree, they all resemble a faith, they are all a form of hope. The issue here is not rationality or irrationality, for these attributes are found in atheism as in theism. The issue here is God itself. As Michael Shermer would say, he has little problem with an impersonal God. It is with the personal God that he has a problem with, and I think that in a way the same is true for you. Maybe I am wrong; maybe you’re just blind to the metaphysics laying around you and think that you’re rational, an attribute you hold dear, while theists are irrational, when in fact that is not an issue really, because, after Hume, we find that irrationality is all around us and that there is nothing we can do about it without ceasing to live as we do.
Atheism will not save you from irrationality. It is a characteristic of highly developed beings and rooted in language.
the difference between my faith and a theists faith is logic and the flexibility to change when better information becomes available. its an entirely different beast all together and really deserves its own word. its not a source of hope or security. its a source of understanding.
O- I will not tell you that the POE is not a great hurddle, or that it is not the illuminator of many selfish assumptioms about the theistic nature of the universe. But the problem is a subjective one and not an objective one and that it does not mean that the POE is undefeatable. It only requires that one modifies the attributes of God a bit to maintain what is most important to the particular believer. In Erasmus, the most important attribute was God’s mercy, therefore he down played God’s omnipotence and accentuated men’s freedom. For Luther, God’s omnipotence was most important, for his particular taste, and so he did the reverse, comforting himself with ignorance of God in-itself…I don’t need to point out how this influenced later philosophers.
granted it depends on how you look at god. alls i was saying is that how christians look at god is entirely irrational which is what the problem of evil says also. youre not even denying it youre saying that its true but that im equally irrational which ive pointed out is not true. im assuming you do this because you believe the arguement that says atheist is theism but reversed which is flat out wrong. ive even given an arguement as to why which presents a better understanding of life. debate better if you want… i dont want to. thats not important to me.
[quote=“cba1067950”]
— [b]like i said before… i dont agree. i dont believe in metaphysics. i believe theoretical sciences and shit that doesnt make sense.
O- “Theoretical science” is an euphenism for non-traditional metaphysics, in my opinion.
— that i believe in. i believe in the random and the irrational.
O- So why do you crusade against the christian who believes in his God despite the contradiction and irrationality of such belief in light of the POE?
—i dont believe that any of that applies to how humanity views the world though. i dont look out at space and say… shit that stuff is MADNESS. i think im going to go attack someone with flowers. [/b]
O- What?
— rational assumptions. billiard balls i dont know what the hell youre talking about.
O- David Hume, son, the greatest of the sceptics.
— [b]i dont know who the programmer is. it doesnt mean it has to be god… no feeling? do your computers have buttons? or do you mean emotions? by that i think you mean swirly chemicals and nuerons firing with electrical pulses exactly the same as a computer has.
O- Let’s suppose that you had insight as to the exact manner in which I react in a fit of passion. That is, that you new the exact state of my brain during a feeling. That does not mean that you would know if and how I was feeling. You would not even be able to connect the two, info, data, with feeling without my account of it. Because we’re quite different, we may give diverse accounts each time and even change our own feeling about something given the same conditions. Have a computer try that.
— [b]you cant use ultimate good to refute evil.
O- Logically, you can. Ultimate good, as you call it, would outbalance finite evil.
— i mean fuck we dont even punish criminals to the extent that god does.
O- That God does? How do you know what God does or does not do? We give life-sentences without the possibility of parole. If we were dealing with eternal souls rather than mortal bodies, then that would mean a virtual Hell, as you suppose God to have.
— even if we arent innocent we dont deserve this.
O- Is it not logical to say that that is from a finite perspective but that from an infinite perspective, such as God’s, our punishment is all but justice in action? I am not saying it is, but I am playing you the rational answer a theologian could give you.
— or why create free will in the first place.
O- Just a little bit ago you made us equivalent to computers, and made a convincing, for some, case for determinism. Now you seek shelter in freewill? Decide first what humans are, and then make your argument based on that. But, let me play the theologian: As long as God exist man is not and cannot be fully free. God may create the illusion of freewill in us and even let us run on auto-pilot, so to speak, but with the reservation due to the controller of the creation, to impose His will upon us.
— if thats the root of our evil then we were damned because of him anyway.
O- Calvinism says that our fate was in His hands from the beginning. So yes, we’re damned because of Him anyway. As Paul remarked, God loved Jacob and hated Esau before they were born, before freewill was even an issue.
— youre playing right into the trap
O- Trap set by whom? You?
— and whether you are going to admit it or not rationally the arguement for this theism is bullshit.
O_ You have no reasonable argument to demonstrate that. Your opinion on this matter is irrational. The rationality of the theology, as I have here presented it, is flawless. Calvinism can be proven to be absurd but for other reason s and you’re not bright enough it seems to follow the rabbit hole to see just how deep it goes.
— the only way around it was the way you were going… that rationality isnt everything.
O- Rationality is not everything…for the true believer.
— which can be refuted with practicality.
O- Again, belief in God is not meant to be practical. belief in ideas is quite an impractical pursuit.
— that may dilute the arguement a little but still logic is still quite potent and can be easily brought to power again.
O- Logic is a tool used by both camps; those who seek to demonstrate God and those who seek to refute it.
— and what right do i have to attack a creator? i dont know… what right do you have to attack your parents or any elder/creator for that matter? im sure we can justify it logically through practical applications.
O- Be clear. What would those practical applications be?
— which none of those definitions of good or evil or Gods wisdom you define have any use. [/b]
O- Let’s be clear. When talking about God we are talking about an idea of God, since neither you or I has seen this Being. True? My use of “God”, “good”, “evil” or wisdom, is done with a formal sense, not an applied sense. All these words are ideas of the mind. No action, in itself is good or evil, but requires a judgment of one that says it is one or the other. Same with God. It is a popular idea that expands continents, but between the ideas of this “god” there are great differences and it is again up to the judgment of a person as to what constitutes as “god” and what does not. As such is the case, logic is used here without any practicality, but solely formality. We are relating no ideas of public objects but ideas of other ideas, or best put, “ideals”. So release yourself from this illusion that discussing the POE and the contradictions it brings for christianity that we are being in any way shape or form, “practical”.
— [b]no… why does everyone think that morality is founded in irrationality.
O- Why should I be moral? Why should I follow a moral code?
— you can base a moral system on anything else in the world. fuck the godlen rule has no religious connotations except that idiots thing jesus created it.
O- The golden rule? Why should I treat others as I would wish others to treat me? Why should I not simply do as I wish, as what benefits me the best. Why should I not lie, kill and worse, if it benefits me? Because I would not want the same done to me? I could say that I would expect others to do the same and in fact, like Machiavelli, I could consider men mendacious murdering bastards, fickle and worse. If that is my opinion, and in truth, the history of humanity and the news of the day supports this position, then I would be a fool to be moral in such a world.
— pain and respect for empathy has no religious connotation.
O- Empathy is religious. How do you know what the other person is feeling without a little bit of faith?
— this stupid shit is a huge bias against atheism created by western religion.
O- You sound like a theist when you defend atheism from criticism. In any case, you were the one who opened here the critique of religious belief in an irrational-- in your unsympathetic opinion-- God in light of the POE. But don’t think of me as an enemy of atheism. If expressed as Obw does, then atheism is simply the most rational of positions. But you want to make it absolutely rational or super rational and christianity and other theistic movements as absolutely irrational, when the truth lies, as usual, in the middle and you find irrationality and rationality in both because that is just what life is like. Atheism and theism are simply ways of looking at the same earth.
— truth is what we agree it is. why is that bad though? its not like we magically create what we agree on. its an understanding of how it effects us.
O- So truth is conditioned by the consequences of it’s acceptance? that is a fallacy in reasoning.
— how we feel about it.
O- 2+2=4 regardless of how I feel about it or how much I wish it equaled 5.
— and no thats not a contradiction of what i said about computers because you can easily disable the sense of touch in a human and keep the brain.
O- I did not mean “feeling” as “touching”, but as being in a happy or angry mood, for example. Is your computer a happy computer?
— the outside authority is the biological machinery of the human being. appeal to that if your being tortured. say ow this fucking hurts thats why its bad. [/b]
O- [i]Let me play O’Brien:
— [b]the difference between my faith and a theists faith is logic and the flexibility to change when better information becomes available.
O- The theologian is quite logical as well, so that leaves you only the second- flexibility. But since you have the reformations and the US alone claims over 2000 denominations, it is obvious that your second assertion can also be made by the religious, only, only, only, that a religious man changes his position not so much because of new information-- that was true of the Hebrew prophets down to Jesus-- but because of a new interpretation of scripture; except for Joseph Smith Jr. of course.
— its an entirely different beast all together and really deserves its own word. its not a source of hope or security. its a source of understanding. [/b]
O- An understanding does not give you hope and security?
— [b]granted it depends on how you look at god. alls i was saying is that how christians look at god is entirely irrational which is what the problem of evil says also. youre not even denying it youre saying that its true but that im equally irrational which ive pointed out is not true.
O- The Pope also tells me that he is not irrational. To themselves, no one is…
— im assuming you do this because you believe the arguement that says atheist is theism but reversed which is flat out wrong.
O- It does have many of the same fanatical tendencies. Nietzsche Madman walks in and declares that God is dead and that we have killed Him and despairs as to our condition now in a godless universe, but more importantly he wonders what we shall replace God with to be worthy of the deed. Shall we not become gods ourselves. The true believer does not need God. In fact, for the most part it is not about God. I have said again and again that it is not. Gos is a means to an end. No God does not mean an end to faith or even a new faith or a better faith, as you seem to imply, and if you read a bit of the history of godless countries, communist countries etc, you will find the same faith wrapped around a future not yet here, just like a heaven. In fact, a classless society is like heaven for the socialist.
In the end, since I think you’re tired here, just remember that the POE may prevent you from believing in the christian God, or in God as believed by the christians, but cannot lead you to atheism, but to another version of the faith perhaps.
random and irrational can exist. i dont think they should be practiced. like i said i dont care if things are irrational around the world. its not an excuse to go around acting irrationally.
O- Logically, you can. Ultimate good, as you call it, would outbalance finite evil.
i know… thats the problem of evil
O- That God does? How do you know what God does or does not do? We give life-sentences without the possibility of parole. If we were dealing with eternal souls rather than mortal bodies, then that would mean a virtual Hell, as you suppose God to have.
i mean a life full of evils. the punishment was the life he created. not in the melodramatic sense but you said something along the lines of how do we know if were not the evil ones. and i said even if we are hes created a world far removed from rational discipline.
O- Is it not logical to say that that is from a finite perspective but that from an infinite perspective, such as God’s, our punishment is all but justice in action? I am not saying it is, but I am playing you the rational answer a theologian could give you.
im not infinite. i can only relate to things from a human perspective. i suppose time would dull the perspective that the punishment is severe but that does nothing for the fact that there is evil in the first place.
O- Just a little bit ago you made us equivalent to computers, and made a convincing, for some, case for determinism. Now you seek shelter in freewill? Decide first what humans are, and then make your argument based on that. But, let me play the theologian: As long as God exist man is not and cannot be fully free. God may create the illusion of freewill in us and even let us run on auto-pilot, so to speak, but with the reservation due to the controller of the creation, to impose His will upon us.
i dont believe in free will. im just arguing the point. im not about to broaden this topic further. its already too long.
O- Trap set by whom? You?
The POE
O_ You have no reasonable argument to demonstrate that. Your opinion on this matter is irrational. The rationality of the theology, as I have here presented it, is flawless. Calvinism can be proven to be absurd but for other reason s and you’re not bright enough it seems to follow the rabbit hole to see just how deep it goes.
please… personal insults arent going to convince me that skeptics are rational.
O- Again, belief in God is not meant to be practical. belief in ideas is quite an impractical pursuit.
didnt you say earlier that it was a means to an end? how impractical you make it sound.
O- Logic is a tool used by both camps; those who seek to demonstrate God and those who seek to refute it.
by created irrationality you give up on logic. the two cannot coexist. things are either logical in the sense that they follow on off solutions or they are irrationl in the sense that they follow no comprehensive solution. things that arent important to us because we dont understand them.
O- Be clear. What would those practical applications be?
i didnt want to that was the point. if a creator imposes ideas that have no practical value then you have a right to criticize. by that i mean logical ideas.
O- Why should I be moral? Why should I follow a moral code?
fine dont. tell me where you live so i can blow you up.
O- The golden rule? Why should I treat others as I would wish others to treat me? Why should I not simply do as I wish, as what benefits me the best. Why should I not lie, kill and worse, if it benefits me? Because I would not want the same done to me? I could say that I would expect others to do the same and in fact, like Machiavelli, I could consider men mendacious murdering bastards, fickle and worse. If that is my opinion, and in truth, the history of humanity and the news of the day supports this position, then I would be a fool to be moral in such a world.
the reason we created rules and morality in the first place is so we can have a system that makes life easier. if you dont want to follow the rules and make the life of the general public harder then you die. its machiavelli to a T. what he didnt count on was mob rule. if you want to break the law by all means go ahead but understand that the idea of punishment is to inflict pain on you.
and empathy is not religious.
O- You sound like a theist when you defend atheism from criticism. In any case, you were the one who opened here the critique of religious belief in an irrational-- in your unsympathetic opinion-- God in light of the POE. But don’t think of me as an enemy of atheism. If expressed as Obw does, then atheism is simply the most rational of positions. But you want to make it absolutely rational or super rational and christianity and other theistic movements as absolutely irrational, when the truth lies, as usual, in the middle and you find irrationality and rationality in both because that is just what life is like. Atheism and theism are simply ways of looking at the same earth
what the hell is super rational? theres either rational as in you can logically prove things or irrational as in you can not logically prove things. religion you can not logically prove things. thats what god is. an irrational entity that has no proof in his existence. rational on the other is making no claims at all. god damn. use a dictionary or something.
O- So truth is conditioned by the consequences of it’s acceptance? that is a fallacy in reasoning.
explain.
O- 2+2=4 regardless of how I feel about it or how much I wish it equaled 5.
how efficiently our brain can process pain or information varies from person to person. yes 2+2=4 now go measure pain thresholds in every human being compare it to ethics and make a mathmatical formula. i gurantee that you can.
O- I did not mean “feeling” as “touching”, but as being in a happy or angry mood, for example. Is your computer a happy computer?
i dont know… is drug enduced euphoria happiness?
O- Let me play O’Brien:
exactly. the reason its good for him is because its in agreement with his party. its creating pleasure for him. if it was creating pain for him it would be bad. so clearly we can equate pain to bad. pleasure to good. you dont have to be able to convince other people to not inflict pain on you. if they do that theyre breaking the trust of the victim and of the other parties invovled. if they dont see that theyre stupid. if pain doesnt scare them then theyre stupid and dont belong in any society because they put everyone at risk. we trascended primative social structures because we grasped empathy. thats humanities biggest achievement and involves the most recently developed part of the human brain. the part that we develop latest in our maturing process. the ability to comprehend something through assuming the role of someone else using just your mind.
O- An understanding does not give you hope and security?
depends on how well you understand it.
O-In the end, since I think you’re tired here, just remember that the POE may prevent you from believing in the christian God, or in God as believed by the christians, but cannot lead you to atheism, but to another version of the faith perhaps.
i said that in the fucking beginning you bastard. i said why dont they change their god? and then 5 pages later… oooooo damn you pain in the ass.
— i mean a life full of evils.
O- I enjoy my cappucino and a good book without any “evil”. I would even say that it is good. I would not consider my life full of good but I can say that it is not just full of evil. that is just an exageration that is irrational.
— the punishment was the life he created. not in the melodramatic sense but you said something along the lines of how do we know if were not the evil ones. and i said even if we are hes created a world far removed from rational discipline.
O- A world far removed from rational discipline? Another gross exageration. If it was so then theoretical science and physics, and astronomy…hell throw all rational study and science… would be worthy of defenestration.
— im not infinite. i can only relate to things from a human perspective.
O- I know; that is the point.
— i suppose time would dull the perspective that the punishment is severe but that does nothing for the fact that there is evil in the first place.
O- But you again exagerate and forget that if we judge evil it is only an implication of the good, so that evil cannot be absolute. It is not time that is a factor. If you were happy the entire time and knew of no pain you’ll soon loose the vitality of your happiness. People who travel marvel at the beauty of the country while those who live there just shrug their shoulders.
— please… personal insults arent going to convince me that skeptics are rational.
O Now sceptics are irrational too? First the christians, now the sceptics; where will it end?
— didnt you say earlier that it was a means to an end? how impractical you make it sound.
O- I said that God was a means to an end but that does not mean that God is a practical, demonstrable, idea. God is a speculation, a theory, a belief that facilitates another belief- life eternal; life never-ending. The end, thus, is as impractical as the means to get it.
— if a creator imposes ideas that have no practical value then you have a right to criticize. by that i mean logical ideas.
O- Go ahead criticize. every one is a critic. God might say that the critic is he who criticizes what he himself could never hope to do. Non-artistical critics are often those criticizing the artist.
— fine dont. tell me where you live so i can blow you up.
O- I am waiting for the metaphysics-free morality here.
— the reason we created rules and morality in the first place is so we can have a system that makes life easier.
O- Easier for whom? Life woould be a lot easier if I did not have to tell the truth, not just easier for me but for the entire society, for they would be spared of my commentaries. besides the system preceedes the moral rule.
— if you dont want to follow the rules and make the life of the general public harder then you die.
O- We kill people who are immoral? That is news to me. I though that we punished people for what they have done, not because they were immoral. Suppose I have sexual feelings towards married women. Certainly that makes me immoral, but as long as I don’t do a thing no action is taken against me. These days killing a baby is immoral and punishable by the law, but in Sparta no such morality existed and writers of the times in fact lament the loss of this most moral of practices. So what is immoral? The act itself or what we decide is?
— its machiavelli to a T. what he didnt count on was mob rule. if you want to break the law by all means go ahead but understand that the idea of punishment is to inflict pain on you.
O- Machiavelli would simply say that you should follow the law or rule so long as you have to and never to your own detriment. It is important to look as if we are moral, but of no importance if that is a total farce. Morality, then, is but an illusion. Further. What is good for the people might not be good for the prince, but the only measure the prince ought to consider is the benefits he gains. Machiavelli did count on the mob, and was one of the first sociologist that I know of, in the modern sense.
— and empathy is not religious.
O- It is faith-based. It is based on the hope that other minds are like your own.
— theres either rational as in you can logically prove things or irrational as in you can not logically prove things.
O- And you can prove a negative? It is irrational and undemonstrable to say that God exist or that he does not exist. If it is in relation with the POE, then it is an irrationality, a contradiction given certain assumptions. Under the belief of predestination, there is no contradiction.
— religion you can not logically prove things.
O- can you logically prove that you’re not a brain in a vat? Can you logically prove that the universe is regular, that has always been so and always will be? Can you logically prove, prove, any scientific law? Can you even logically prove that the sun will come up tomorrow?
— thats what god is. an irrational entity that has no proof in his existence.
O- You mean other than the universe as we see it?
— rational on the other is making no claims at all. god damn. use a dictionary or something.
O- That does not seem to be helping you any.
— how efficiently our brain can process pain or information varies from person to person. yes 2+2=4 now go measure pain thresholds in every human being compare it to ethics and make a mathmatical formula. i gurantee that you can.
O- No, I’ll lety you do that. It is too stupid and perhaps the best way to make you see the light. Try, on your leisure time to devise an experiment by which you could measure mathematically the pain tresholds of differnt people objectively.
— i dont know… is drug enduced euphoria happiness?
O- Depends on your judgment. Is your computer doing drugs? Ask it if it is happy.
— exactly. the reason its good for him is because its in agreement with his party. its creating pleasure for him. if it was creating pain for him it would be bad. so clearly we can equate pain to bad. pleasure to good.
O- Strict hedonism huh? So much for morality…
— we trascended primative social structures because we grasped empathy.
O- You mean the ability to immagine that all minds are like hours that when someone says: “Arrgh” That means pain as I feel pain? Well then that is just another logical fallacy of infering, psychologically projecting onto other feelings which are only necessary within your own mind and believing in the truthful recount of the inner state of the person who says: “Arrgh”.
— thats humanities biggest achievement and involves the most recently developed part of the human brain. the part that we develop latest in our maturing process. the ability to comprehend something through assuming the role of someone else using just your mind.
O- Yet it is not logical.
O-In the end, since I think you’re tired here, just remember that the POE may prevent you from believing in the christian God, or in God as believed by the christians, but cannot lead you to atheism, but to another version of the faith perhaps.
— i said that in the fucking beginning you bastard. i said why dont they change their god? and then 5 pages later… oooooo damn you pain in the ass.
O- Listen, buddy, I told you already before: Religion has moved on. Fuck, son. I even presented the change in Calvin via Luther who eliminated the rational possibility for a POE to emerge at all.
Never mind dude.
There is no hope for you.
Sorry, I didn’t read the replies, but:
Here is the contradiction. God is all-good, it is inherent in the definition of good that he would prevent or not create evil, there is evil. To say there is no contradiction is to say one of three things:
God isn’t all-good.
There is no evil.
A desire to minimize evil is not inherent in the definition of Good.
I think Ucci chose the last one.
my god what have you done…
not only are we debating ethics youre constantly pushing proofs of god into the arguement. i dont want to do this. this isnt even remotely on topic. i hate debating theology. i had a very simple question… why do people continue to believe in a god that has obvious contradictions? and so how ethical connotations and the proof of his existence plays into the reason for belief? im going to finish this in a non religious forum under a different topic name.
ill address the points that i find interesting though.
O- I am waiting for the metaphysics-free morality here.
i gave you one based on pain. what do you think?
O- Easier for whom? Life woould be a lot easier if I did not have to tell the truth, not just easier for me but for the entire society, for they would be spared of my commentaries. besides the system preceedes the moral rule.
for you yes maybe. but for everyone else no. which in the end would make your life harder right? you ever fuck with a bunch of people? they tend to make youre life a little harder. it may make your thoughts simpler but it doesnt make your life easier. and being weve evolved these great animalistic defying brains (our brain has natural suppressents to keep us acting on a different level than other animals. things like alcohol and drugs take these away thats why you act like an ape when youre drunk). i think we are in a flux between animalistic tendancies and super human capabilities were just too stupid to continuously think things out fast enough to be effective. ever get that “man i wish i thought of that earlier” feeling? better computers in our head and we will. give us another couple thousand years and maybe our body will grow enough to be able to rationally talk through conflicts.
O- Machiavelli would simply say that you should follow the law or rule so long as you have to and never to your own detriment. It is important to look as if we are moral, but of no importance if that is a total farce. Morality, then, is but an illusion. Further. What is good for the people might not be good for the prince, but the only measure the prince ought to consider is the benefits he gains. Machiavelli did count on the mob, and was one of the first sociologist that I know of, in the modern sense.
i shouldve said democracy not mob. ive been reading too much american history though. the only way for a leader to survive in a democracy is to do exactly what they want. look at feudal japan. the shogun or daimyo couldve slaughtered the emperor any time they wanted. they exploited the shit out of him because of mobs. or america under the articles of confederation. no one gave the federal government money and to hell with who ever tried to stop them despite large debts to society and other problems.
killing a baby is comparable to aborting a fetus. if you wanted to take that step.
my point is this. what is to your own detriment is entirely up to the rest of the people. killing mass amounts of people for your survival may not at all be to your best interest. ruling with an iron fist may not be in your best interest. things tend to work out better if you have the cooperation of thte people. the way you get that is by keeping them safe and happy. the way you get that is laws. it doesnt matter what the laws are. for simplicity sake people put faith into their government so they dont have to kill each other risking their lives all the time.
O- It is faith-based. It is based on the hope that other minds are like your own.
the rational assumption that its like your own based on comparisons and by the simple ability that youre able to communicate and do the same things. convincing people that they can draw or play music is incredibly hard. but we know that the human brain in a normal person is capable of computing that information and coordinating their fingers to perform. thats like saying we assume that a computer with a 4gig processor is the same speed as another with a 4gig processor but base it on faith. no… it was made that way in a factory much the same way your brain was made in its organic factory.
O - Can you logically prove, prove, any scientific law? Can you even logically prove that the sun will come up tomorrow?
yes.
O- No, I’ll lety you do that. It is too stupid and perhaps the best way to make you see the light. Try, on your leisure time to devise an experiment by which you could measure mathematically the pain tresholds of differnt people objectively.
im saying its possible not that i can do it.
O- Depends on your judgment. Is your computer doing drugs? Ask it if it is happy.
ask a new born infant if its happy. just because it doesnt understand language or certain sensations and programs dont exist doesnt mean its different than human beings. cars and cell phones at this point can communicate better with you than a new born. if you can admit to yourself that computers will one day emulate human traits youre on the exact same wave length as i am. you may not have applied it all the way through but you are. and believe me im taking materials into consideration. humans are not machines. i know that. im saying they have almost identical properties.
O- Strict hedonism huh? So much for morality…
in my opinion thats the origin of morality. combined with empathy and respect and you have modern day morals. my only problem is creating a perfect connection between the three. such as why respect and why empathize? aside from greasing the gears of society ive got nothing.
O- Yet it is not logical.
were working on it though. its a tool and under certain circumstances it can be used logically. check out psychics or mark(marc) salem, or poker players… the body betrays the mind, the mind is literally readable to some extent.
O- Listen, buddy, I told you already before: Religion has moved on. Fuck, son. I even presented the change in Calvin via Luther who eliminated the rational possibility for a POE to emerge at all.
Never mind dude.
There is no hope for you.
that quote by calvin did nothing. it works itself into the POE just like the rest of christian religions. its founded on that belief of god. most of them anyway. old testament… is another story.
— not only are we debating ethics youre constantly pushing proofs of god into the arguement.
O- Proofs of God? Where? Show me where I have produced a single proof for God? Where? I have eliminated your pitiful objections to a believer, because his belief is irrational and then I went to show you how you and all of humanity lives on irrational stuff as well, so that the poor christian is not an aberration of humanity but a rule in our condition. Now, if you take that as proving God then YOU have problems.
— this isnt even remotely on topic. i hate debating theology.
O- Then why open up the post to begin with, which can only be an invitation to the theologian? If you hate theology then don’t even post on the forum at all and stick to the others.
— i had a very simple question… why do people continue to believe in a god that has obvious contradictions?
O- What contradictions are there if you’re a believer in Predestination?
— and so how ethical connotations and the proof of his existence plays into the reason for belief?
O- They don’t. But the point, my callous friend is that ethical/moral considerations and even science is done with recourse to metaphysics. That a little faith peppers existence wherever you look.
— im going to finish this in a non religious forum under a different topic name.
O- Wonderful.
— i gave you one based on pain. what do you think?
O- Hedonism is hardly moral. In fact many immoralities are due to selfish pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. The reverse stands true, that moral actions may require our privation of a pleasure, such as sweet revenge, and enduring some form of pain. In fact, what is moral, is often moral simply on the fact that it is not easy to do. O’Brien torturing Winston, even if sanctioned by his Party and enjoyed terribly by him, does not make torture moral and if it is moral in your system or any other system of morals, that morality is worthy of defenestration as well. I can see that ethics is another one of those subjects you don’t like to discuss…
— for you yes maybe. but for everyone else no.
O- No. Me telling lies is good for me and those around me. If I find a person unworthy of life itself, a complete moron, a waste of flesh etc, etc, I am sure that they would rather not be told of it. As the saying goes, “Ignorance is bliss…”
— and being weve evolved these great animalistic defying brains (our brain has natural suppressents to keep us acting on a different level than other animals.
O- I’ll let Mastriani give you a piece of his mind on that.
— things like alcohol and drugs take these away thats why you act like an ape when youre drunk).
O- Brutal and bestial acts are not solely committed by drug addicts and drunks. I did not see the person doing the beheading holding on to a bottle of Jack Daniels. Your theory is weak.
— give us another couple thousand years and maybe our body will grow enough to be able to rationally talk through conflicts.
O- Oh, so it is not drugs that has our world messed up but lack of evolutionary development? I wonder what evolutionary pressure will impel that change, now that we pretty much done away with any real physical hardships.
— killing a baby is comparable to aborting a fetus. if you wanted to take that step.
O- Abortion, for years was considered immoral and even now, the jury still out on whether it is moral. Some are we even trying to get rights to unborn fetuses, so that an abortion would be murder.
— what is to your own detriment is entirely up to the rest of the people. killing mass amounts of people for your survival may not at all be to your best interest. ruling with an iron fist may not be in your best interest. things tend to work out better if you have the cooperation of thte people.
O- How many dictators got rich and then retired to Spain? How many others died in their sleep? How many rule alone and have no problem with the people, even if there are social problems. How come Pince Saud could abuse his people and the terrorist could only strike at the Great Satan and not at their true oppressor?
— the way you get that is by keeping them safe and happy.
O- Machiavelli would say that it is better to be feared than to be loved, and better to be feared but not hated.
— the way you get that is laws.
O- machiavelli would say that no good laws can exists where there are not also good arms. The moral of the story is that you must first impose yourself upon the people and then, after asserting your dominance and quenching the opposition, you can pass laws that can be tolerated, that will make people fear you perhaps, but not hate you.
— the rational assumption that its like your own based on comparisons and by the simple ability that youre able to communicate and do the same things.
O- What comparassions can you make? You interpret this or that, but no direct observation exists of another mind. You cannot justify the belief, logically speaking, that I feel pain because I said “Arrgh”. My pain threshold can be greater, but I may fool you by screaming even when it does not really hurt me. I may have a lower treshold and scream at inputs that you could have well tolerated. If you decide to do a CATscan, all you receive is data that must then be associated to a testimony- the patient’s-- that would then make you associate like readings to the description of a feeling by the patient. I cannot emphazise the incredible amount of credulity that must be injected into this research. It requires not only that I believe the machine, your testimony, but also that you believe and I believe in your (the patient’s) capacity to tell uniformly when he feels the onset of pain.
— yes.
O- Then prove to me that the sun will rise tomorrow.
— im saying its possible not that i can do it.
O- I already told you why it cannot be done. We have no direct link to a mind and no universal standard where such and such reading mean and can only always mean such and such. We rely on probability and testimony and hope and faith in what the sensors in the machines are picking up the actual thing you think they are picking. For all you know neural activity at this point or that in the brain could well be just unrelated phenomena, that you take as the actual because they simply explain the most- because they fit the best with your original assumption/theory.
But don’t get me wrong. I love neurology and the prospects it brings to the table. I just point out that it’s effectiveness is not without risk and cannot answer anything unless we have a bit of faith.
— ask a new born infant if its happy. just because it doesnt understand language or certain sensations and programs dont exist doesnt mean its different than human beings. cars and cell phones at this point can communicate better with you than a new born.
O- Not really. A new born smiles and cries. It presents us with the two most important pieces of informations we as parents and adults may need. It let’s us know when it is comfortable and when it is not.
Cell phones and cars can tells us only what the people that make them, made them to communicate. However, a baby’s smile is a human smile and therefore, since I too smile, I make a simple inference to get the information the baby is putting out. With a car, a little light might come on, but just what the hell it means is a mystery unless I read the owner’s, the maker’s manual. I don’t need that with the baby.
— if you can admit to yourself that computers will one day emulate human traits youre on the exact same wave length as i am.
O- Oh, they could imitate, but that does not mean that they will ever be conscious.
— im saying they have almost identical properties.
O- But differ in the most important of things. For example, an organism could evolve, that is change on it’s own depending on enviromental pressures. In that sense, if computers were like us, they would not need IBM to make them. After the first model came out, under the theory that we are the same, then all subsequent models with advanced hardware would have been evolved by the computer on it’s own.
In the future perhaps they will give computers nothing but vast amounts of possible connections for it’s memory, but with no purpose of goal as to what to put there. What will happen? Will they develop a religion? The traits that makes us human, the traits that first appeared that marked the dawn of the human mind, the trait that separated us from animals-- in some way-- was not language as we use it today. It was ritual. It was the habit of putting our dead on the ground. It was the appreciation of that which is needless-- that is, art. An elephant is more human than any computer I have worked with.
— in my opinion thats the origin of morality.
O- Morality is an idealization of common (not universal) behaviour. But that does not mean that every one had the same goals. Our interests conflict, and it is from the willing privation of our pleasure and the incurence of duties to others which might be unpleasant, that we gain a morality and perhaps even a society. what was favoured was then moral and what was shunned or avoided became immoral. That is different that just calling moral what gives me pleasure and immoral what gives me pain.
— combined with empathy and respect and you have modern day morals. my only problem is creating a perfect connection between the three. such as why respect and why empathize? aside from greasing the gears of society ive got nothing.
O- I disagree that hedonism plays a part. In fact, I thing that society exists by the repression of pleasure. It might be that we repress our total pleasure because we empathize with a social group, such as our family, so you’re on the right tract, but I believe respect has nothing here to contribute. Respect can be explained by a deeper cause and emotion, like fear.
— were working on it though.
O- Fine and nice, but the point is that christians could tell you the same, or at least the theist. I do know that some religions have made such absolute claims that they are stuck in contradictions, but so will any science or any other endeavour you take. the more solid you make your system, the more you leave it open for contradictions with the world. But in order to say anything worthwhile at all, we must take risks. A bit of agnosticism and all is cured. A simple “I believe” instead od “we know” saves a great deal of theories. The POE, just like Heisenberg, has simply made us scale down on our sweeping meta-narrations.
— its a tool and under certain circumstances it can be used logically. check out psychics or mark(marc) salem, or poker players… the body betrays the mind, the mind is literally readable to some extent.
O- So you’re a Freudian after all…
— that quote by calvin did nothing.
O- There is no hope…
— it works itself into the POE just like the rest of christian religions.
O- How? There is no freaking way. There are other consequences why one should reject calvin and to some extent Luther, but they are immune of the contradictions made by the POE.
— its founded on that belief of god. most of them anyway. old testament… is another story.
O- We are talking logic, and under logic you must still allow the possibility for God to exist. As it is this is an analytical proble. We are relating ideas. We’re, so to speak, doing formal logic. Given this proposition, and that proposition then we must conclude that such and such is true. That is all the POE is. Formal logic. If we accept that God is X and also Z, but there is E in the world then one of the previous two propositions cannot be true, or the conclusion itself is questionable. that is all.
O- Not really. A new born smiles and cries. It presents us with the two most important pieces of informations we as parents and adults may need. It let’s us know when it is comfortable and when it is not.
Cell phones and cars can tells us only what the people that make them, made them to communicate. However, a baby’s smile is a human smile and therefore, since I too smile, I make a simple inference to get the information the baby is putting out. With a car, a little light might come on, but just what the hell it means is a mystery unless I read the owner’s, the maker’s manual. I don’t need that with the baby.
what does smiling mean to a different animal? the manual says different things for different animals. youre a human you would know what a smile means from an infant. but according to you you have no idea if youre right or not. but again as ive said a million times already youre adding touch which computers dont have an understanding of what is damaging to their survival. im talking about energy. all energy wants to exert itself.
O- But differ in the most important of things. For example, an organism could evolve, that is change on it’s own depending on enviromental pressures. In that sense, if computers were like us, they would not need IBM to make them. After the first model came out, under the theory that we are the same, then all subsequent models with advanced hardware would have been evolved by the computer on it’s own.
In the future perhaps they will give computers nothing but vast amounts of possible connections for it’s memory, but with no purpose of goal as to what to put there. What will happen? Will they develop a religion? The traits that makes us human, the traits that first appeared that marked the dawn of the human mind, the trait that separated us from animals-- in some way-- was not language as we use it today. It was ritual. It was the habit of putting our dead on the ground. It was the appreciation of that which is needless-- that is, art. An elephant is more human than any computer I have worked with.
making a computer that can upgrade itself isnt that hard. and as we both agreed computers can make useless shit too. youre only arguing against the fact that its not evolving the same way.
O- Morality is an idealization of common (not universal) behaviour. But that does not mean that every one had the same goals. Our interests conflict, and it is from the willing privation of our pleasure and the incurence of duties to others which might be unpleasant, that we gain a morality and perhaps even a society. what was favoured was then moral and what was shunned or avoided became immoral. That is different that just calling moral what gives me pleasure and immoral what gives me pain.
how come every culture fears death and pain then if morality isnt universal?
O- I disagree that hedonism plays a part. In fact, I thing that society exists by the repression of pleasure. It might be that we repress our total pleasure because we empathize with a social group, such as our family, so you’re on the right tract, but I believe respect has nothing here to contribute. Respect can be explained by a deeper cause and emotion, like fear.
respect is difficult to define but id say its similar to that of fear. id go with fear though.
O- So you’re a Freudian after all…
freud said a lot of shit. most of it was ridiculous.
O- We are talking logic, and under logic you must still allow the possibility for God to exist. As it is this is an analytical proble. We are relating ideas. We’re, so to speak, doing formal logic. Given this proposition, and that proposition then we must conclude that such and such is true. That is all the POE is. Formal logic. If we accept that God is X and also Z, but there is E in the world then one of the previous two propositions cannot be true, or the conclusion itself is questionable. that is all.
i told you i dont care if god exists. im saying its logically impossible for a god to have those characteristics.
— what does smiling mean to a different animal?
O- I am not Dr Doolittle, so how could I know. I can speculate about human behaviour cause I’m human. Let other animals speculate on their own species.
— the manual says different things for different animals. youre a human you would know what a smile means from an infant. but according to you you have no idea if youre right or not.
O- That is correct. I am making an informed guess.
— making a computer that can upgrade itself isnt that hard. and as we both agreed computers can make useless shit too. youre only arguing against the fact that its not evolving the same way.
O- I am saying that if it was not that hard then I should not have to buy a faster computer every 3 years. It should get faster by itself. It should never become obsolete, if indeed it can upgrade itself.
— how come every culture fears death and pain then if morality isnt universal?
O- Dying is not morality. Now perhaps you mean to say that most societies, for example, would agree that murder is wrong-- that murder is almost universally immoral. I would allow that. It is descriptive of our own nature. But morality is not about the prohibition of killing. God said Thou shalt not kill, only to later committ his chosen people in genocide. So killing in itself is not immoral and not universally prohibited. The question is for morality is whom should we kill? We should not kill our neighbor, but a stranger is free game. That murder is in our nature as well as our abstinence from killing our allies is clear because even in the absence of all thesim, murder continues to be carried out. The propensity is there to murder. If we do not kill or murder it is because we have identified those as us in an us/them division. So, some tendencies are universal, yes, but a moral code is distinctive and particular. In many aspects that have to do with the preservation of the clan or the family, universalities appear, but moral codes also must contend with most trivial of things, such as marriage and adultery. Is it immoral to have many wives? is it immoral to marry your niece? No universal answer can be given.
O- So you’re a Freudian after all…
freud said a lot of shit. most of it was ridiculous.
O- One of the scraps ofcrap he did said was basically: “the body betrays the mind, the mind is literally readable to some extent”. Ever heard of a freudian slip?
— i told you i dont care if god exists. im saying its logically impossible for a god to have those characteristics.
O- That is saying the same damn thing. Let’s not revisit this. If it is impossible for a god to have those characteristics then that god cannot possibly exist. Is that clear enough now?
exactly. so computers may or may not be happy.
a robot that can take its own ram or processor or hard disk out and replace it with another would be really easy to do. its not what you want to justify life though. its not thinking. you could make a program that tells it to plug itself into a wall at all costs thus keeping it “alive” but that wouldnt work for you either. eventually itll happen though. when youre program feels bad about the program of a computer i think thats when everyone will realize its alive.
im almost positive you can link pain to morality. im not exactly sure how you would do it but all moral guides can be in some way shown to be connected to some form of pain.
yea but to freud it was because you were thinking about sex all the time.
i know i just meant a god can exist just not that god. in my opinion but youre right i dont want to do this over anymore.
— exactly. so computers may or may not be happy.
O- How is that guess educated? Seems like you’re just pleading for our common ignorance. That is not what I meant. A dog may wiggle his tail at times and at other not. I can make an educated guess based on observed changes in his behavior. The computer which I use does not express anything at all. It breaks down every now and then, that’s it. Am I to take this as it feeling “bad”? Ridiculous.
— a robot that can take its own ram or processor or hard disk out and replace it with another would be really easy to do.
O- And who built the upgrade hardware?
— its not what you want to justify life though. its not thinking.
O- Life is not about thinking. Being human has such an attribute, but grass does not “think”. A robot is an imitation of life, at best, and a satire of humanity at worst.
— you could make a program that tells it to plug itself into a wall at all costs thus keeping it “alive” but that wouldnt work for you either.
O- No, because YOU make a program that orders it to do such and such.
— eventually itll happen though. when youre program feels bad about the program of a computer i think thats when everyone will realize its alive.
O- ??? What does this mean?
— im almost positive you can link pain to morality. im not exactly sure how you would do it but all moral guides can be in some way shown to be connected to some form of pain.
O- I’ll leave you to prove it.
— yea but to freud it was because you were thinking about sex all the time.
O- But the point is that you agree that what is in our heads displays itself externally and that we can know how and when.
You may difer on the thought, but agree on the possibility of gnosis.
Here I wrote this a few months ago:
"-The Problem of Evil-
-When believing in God
One of the leading arguments in atheism today is the problem of evil. If we do have such a loving God, why he is allowing or causing these natural disasters? Why is he allowing people to kill our loved ones?
I think one must first answer, what is good? Then you can say, this is evil. It seems to be a comparison more than anything. I think this is obvious however. But, whats maybe not always obvious is God’s good and our good. Sometimes our good is sin, or selfish desires that take our focus off of him. In Genesis God scattered the people of Babel, and confused their languages, right when they started to become unified, God destroys it. To us at first, this seems selfish of God. But God is God, and he wants our attention on him, he wills us to love him and want him, probably because he knows best if he is God, which he is or I would not be talking about this God. Another question we never seem to ask, “If God, why pleasure?”- Ravi Zacharias
We have finite minds, we can not understand God’s purpose, but we must trust.
Free will- this can answer the problem of evil actions, evil people.
Just God- Natural disasters- Then I think we can tie in God’s plan here as well.
The problem with Evil is that there really isn’t a problem. It’s not some error in the system, because everything serves a purpose. It almost seems apparent to me that everything excluding from the Trinity can be adjusted to fit some evil.
—If you don’t believe in God, why call it a problem?
“If Chance be the father of all flesh; disaster is his rainbow in the sky.” --Steve Turner
I hope this has been beneficial for you to read. I will end in saying, I do like the experience of a warm drink when cold, if you catch my drift."
Not sure how relevant this is the the discussion as of now, but this should help.
Hello Club:
— I think one must first answer, what is good?
O- Very good. But it does open the door for nihilism.
— But, whats maybe not always obvious is God’s good and our good.
O- A bit of agnosticism undoes the problematic part in the POE. But there is a price to pay then…
— Sometimes our good is sin, or selfish desires that take our focus off of him.
O- Sometimes nothing but our selfish desires make us even think of him.
— But God is God, and he wants our attention on him
O- What about those that die in order to get our attention? Is our attention worth the death of millions of men, women and children?
— he wills us to love him and want him, probably because he knows best if he is God, which he is or I would not be talking about this God.
O- Interesting. You start with “probably” and then “if”, and then, as if you caught yourself just in time, you declare that “he is”. But, if He is as you say He is, omnipotent, if He wills our love then that’s is how it should be: We would love him period. So why is there any need for what some consider “evil” to take place? What if God could simply will in us attention, without any further fire works made of human suffering?
— We have finite minds, we can not understand God’s purpose, but we must trust.
O- The price for loving God is our self-willed ignorance.
— Free will- this can answer the problem of evil actions, evil people.
Just God- Natural disasters- Then I think we can tie in God’s plan here as well.
O- No we can’t. Any attempt to more clearly define and describe God ends us in creating the need for further rationalizations.
— The problem with Evil is that there really isn’t a problem. It’s not some error in the system, because everything serves a purpose.
O- Is that what you tell a girl born without a face? Is that what you could have told those in concentration camps as they waited for the poison gas pills to drop down into their chamber? You could, but would you?
Not sure how this first one opens the door for nihilism? I feel I know the answer to this question, it’s biblical.
Not sure if I follow you here on your second one. I think us as philosphers always expect the fellow reader to see us at the end of the street when we’ve just given them a match a mile away.
Selvish desires take our focus off of him, because it should all be about him, not us. Let’s not let autonomy creep in here, I did write this for a Christian audience. If our selvish desires make us think of him then how is that bad? We think of him then we stop with the selfish desires out of rememberance.
People do die at a certain point right? Maybe there is some purpose you are unaware of. Plus, you can’t say why that’s morally wrong of God because only through him can you have a moral law but this is what you are trying to disprove.
I don’t necessarily see what train of thought you’ve gotten on thinking that God kills people for our attention, and if he does it’s wrong. He already suffered more than any one man if you won’t to talk within context as I was referring to here with this statement.
The girl without a face? How do you know it’s not better to be blind, maybe then you don’t have to see ugly things, yes no beautiful things, but then maybe it equals out. Maybe this girl is much happier than those girls with faces who have surgerys to try to improve what they have. Maybe we really never are happy with what we got because something else is better, maybe not haven’t such qualities at all is more satisfying. How can you be hungry if you have no stomach?
Hello Club:
— Not sure how this first one opens the door for nihilism? I feel I know the answer to this question, it’s biblical.
O- It is not clear whether God is good or if the Good is god. If you question whether we truly know what is good now, that is, if you beging to doubt that what we hold generally as good is the real good, and present a deeper good, you may believe that you have resolved the situation, but the question persist why is this good any more real than our previous conception. If we doubt once we can doubt again and again…And if we ask once, we can ask again and again, leaving no position quite permanent anymore without our hope in it to support it.
— Selvish desires take our focus off of him, because it should all be about him, not us.
O- Do you hope for heaven? Is being near God good? Then it is selfish of you to be a christian. Our focus on Him comes iremedially along with our focus on ourselves. God, if for the christian, a saviour, and so belief in Him is a means towards our self-preservation.
— If our selvish desires make us think of him then how is that bad?
O- It is bad Faith. God is the means and not the end.
— We think of him then we stop with the selfish desires out of rememberance.
O- Do not understand. Could you please explain.
People do die at a certain point right?
O- Death comes to all things but not suffering, pain and misery, for which death is a release.
— Maybe there is some purpose you are unaware of.
O- Like I said, a little agnosticism saves us from the problem of evil. It unravels the logic that drives us inexorably towards a contradiction as cba pointed.
— Plus, you can’t say why that’s morally wrong of God because only through him can you have a moral law but this is what you are trying to disprove.
O- Why is something “moral”, in your opinion? Is it because God said that it is, or does God say it is because it is moral? What I mean is that an action is not necessarly moral solely and only because God says it is, because in which case you can conclude that might makes right. But another view is that what is moral is independently moral and that thus God simply endorses what already is in accordance with His nature.
— I don’t necessarily see what train of thought you’ve gotten on thinking that God kills people for our attention, and if he does it’s wrong.
O- I was just following your train of though. I did not say that is the case but argued that your premiises lead to absurd conclusion therefore must be redrawn.
— He already suffered more than any one man
O- A single heretic in 15th century Spain could have outdone the punishment received by Christ as desceribed in the Bible.
— if you won’t to talk within context as I was referring to here with this statement.
O- I like to make sure that you understand the magnitude of the POE. You were not yet appreciative and got sidetracked by the euphenistic qualities of the philosophical question. I simply wanted to point you to the ugly roots of the matter.