Consent only comes into play once free-will is established. Your consent was not violated. Every act that you willingly do, you consent to. Whether that act is good or evil, is another matter. If it is evil, then you are in effect consenting to being evil, and therefore making it perfection for you to suffer in Hell. If it is good, then you are in effect consenting to being good, and therefore making it perfection for you to be happy in heaven. Where has your consent been violated?
‘Possibility’ can refer to physical possibility, or logical/conceptual possibility. Physical possibility is a more narrow. (E.g., It is conceptually possible to imagine an apple that defies gravity and falls upwards, but that is physically impossible).
Premise #5 is extremely dubious, and weak, and problematic for you when you disambiguate ‘possibility’. Assuming it was strong, it would support only the conclusion that “omnipotence” is “conceptually possible” but “physically impossible”. But why would anyone want to support that conclusion
This is usually a problem with ontological arguments that start from premises about what you can conceive of. --They end with conclusions only about what you can conceive of, not what actually exists or doesn’t.
You have no control over what happens to you despite the appearance of things suggesting otherwise. You cannot harm or benefit yourself an atom’s weight. At all times, you are at the mercy of the Omnipotent. It’s not Omnipotent if its power is not absolute. So long as God is not evil, God is Perfect. Is your consent being violated an imperfection?
All you do, is consent to what you want to be in terms of good and evil. Every instance wherein which you choose something, you literally choose. You literally consent to it. Where something happens to you that you did not want to happen to you, it does not matter if you consented to it or not. What matter is whether it was perfectly deserved or not. Everyone getting what they truly/perfectly deserve, is perfection and necessarily true of Existence/God. If what happened to you was perfectly deserved, then that’s perfection (even if you did not want it to happen to you or consent to it).
I think I understand where you’re coming from. I will try to convey to you where I’m coming from. Do you agree with the following:
Existence = Actually/truly infinite. Since Existence is Infinite, there is infinite time, space, and potential available for all hypothetical possibilities to come to pass. If something is hypothetically impossible, then it’s not a hypothetical possibility. Thus Existence has to be truly infinite for all hypothetical possibilities to be truly hypothetically possible. If Existence was not truly Infinite, then an infinite number of items of thought or hypothetical possibilities could not exist.
That which can do all that is doable. That which can bring about all hypothetical possibilities. This is a semantical component of God/Existence/Omnipotence
Perfection = that which no greater than can be conceived of. There is nothing better than a perfect existence. Your ‘perfect’ life is made better by existing in a perfect existence as opposed to an imperfect existence. Thus perfection is only true of a perfect existence and there is nothing better or greater than a perfect existence.
If an existence is such that not everyone gets what they truly/perfectly deserve, then that existence is imperfect. Only an Infinite, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent towards good, and Omnimalevolent towards evil Existence/God can guarantee that everyone gets what they truly/perfectly deserve (including Itself). Thus, Perfection is impossible without God/Existence.
Perfection = that which no greater than can be conceived of = a perfect existence = God existing
Perfection = a perfect existence = God existing
Perfection = God existing
God exists is a semantical component of Perfection just as being three sided is a semantical component of triangle.
A perfect existence is not perfect if it’s not existing. Thus existing is a semantical component of Perfection.
The semantics of Existence, Perfection, good, and evil. All semantics are the way they are because Existence is the way It is. We are in Existence and we have access to these semantics. Thus, Existence says good deserves good and evil deserves evil.
Let’s say evil = that which is unfair/absurd and that that which is unfair/absurd treats x differently to how x ought to be treated. For example, if you treat a triangle like a square, then you are absurd because pure reason dictates triangles have three sides and squares have fours sides. You going against reason is you being unfair to Existence or absurd in relation to Existence.
So, if pure reason dictates Existence is Perfect (which it does) then it is absurd to treat or view Existence as anything other than Perfect. If you think x is a good person, you would not degrade x or treat as anything other than a good person (unless of course you are evil). So when pure reason (pure reason is higher in authority than empirical observations) dictates that Existence is Perfect, it takes evil/absurdity/unfairness to view It or treat It as other than that.
I am concerned by your belief that existence is paradoxical. How can you reason in a paradoxical existence? To say that you can reason in a paradoxical existence is to be absurd. I cannot reason with that which is absurd/paradoxical/irrational. None can do this. Not even you.
Some of this is salvageable. Unfortunately zero sum realities (with winners and losers) are by definition imperfect. (Since you think semantics are perfect).
It’s possible (and I know this for a fact) for existence to be constructed so that everyone can manifest their desires without harming anyone in any way shape or form.
Win/Lose realities are our current system. I’m on the project of a better system. I’ve pointed out abysmal flaws in win/lose realities elsewhere on this board, and to be perfectly honest, I’ve barely scratched the surface of it here.
For example (per your argument): if god is the only being who knows what’s good or bad, and can be the ONLY being who knows this, then everyone else (by definition) is ignorant relative to God. If they knew what your hypothetical god knew, none of them would ever do stupid shut - EVER!
How exactly do you punish mentally regarded people… talk about ABSURD! (Which you just defined as evil) - therefor (by your own words) you just contradicted yourself
What matters is that everyone gets what they truly deserve. It doesn’t matter if this is joy or misery. So long as it’s truly deserved, then that existence is perfect. So long as good people are the winners and evil people are the losers, then it’s all good.
Also consider this:
It’s perfection for everyone to get what they truly deserve. It’s perfection for good to be good. It’s perfection for evil to be evil.
In a perfect existence, it’s evil for evil people to be evil because evil people end up being on the receiving end of evil (misery, suffering, etc. all of which are evil for evil people because it harms them against their will and against their best interest).
In a perfect existence, it’s good for good people to be good because good people end up being on the receiving end of good (joy, happiness etc. all of which are good for good people)
In an imperfect existence, it’s not necessarily evil for evil people to be evil because evil people may end up being better off by being evil (which implies it was good to be evil…which is like saying it was round to be square). This literally suggests that there may be nothing evil about being evil and that it may be good to be evil. The semantics of good and evil, clearly only hold true in a perfect existence. In no other existence can they hold true.
When x rapes a woman and steals from her, if he knows he is harming the woman against her will and against her best interest, then he knows he is consenting to being evil. He knows he is committing evil. God knows he is committing evil too. The rapist doesn’t need to know what God knows. He just needs to know what it is to be evil. If he consents to being evil, then he consents to being put on the receiving end of that which is against his will and against his best interest all things considered.
You don’t. If a being is not aware that it is unjustly harming another being against its will and against its best interest, then that being is by definition, not evil. A robot that attacks people, is not evil. A person that knows what evil is and still commits to being it, is evil. You only punish evil. You try and punish a robot, then you’re either a child, mentally handicapped, or an actual idiot.
Just out of curiosity, if there ever is any actual substantial proof that an omnipotent being does in fact exist, I would appreciate someone bringing it to my attention.
In other words, something considerably more substantive than an omnipotent being being defined or deduced into existence in a world of words.
That’s like saying if they were God, they would not do imperfectly or be imperfect. Or if they were omniscient, they would not do stupid things. I’m not denying that. But what’s that got to do with it being perfection for evil to suffer? Evil knows that it’s choosing to be evil. It’s not unknowingly evil. It doesn’t need to be omniscient to know that it is being evil. It’s not a robot. It consents to being evil whilst being aware of the semantics of justice and perfection. Evil can’t blame anyone other than itself for being evil because it chose to be evil knowingly. Freewill is a necessary semantical component to good and evil beings. An efficient robot is good in the sense that it is efficient. It is not morally good because it does not know what it is to choose to be good.
If you read all the posts in the link I provide without bias and prejudice, and with enough passion and sincerity for truth, I think you’ll have your proof.
Actually, there are 2 problems with your reply here:
1.) most people think they’re good people, even the most heinous people
2.) tons of people have obsessions and compulsions that cause them to be out of control… the phinneus (sp?) gage example is classic.
I’m actually quite frightened by your mind that you think punishment for or from an omnipotent being is reasonable, or “perfectly correct”.
Omnipotent beings have WAY more at their disposal than your ‘perfect justice mentality’.
Besides, it can’t be perfect justice if people aren’t informed. And then you conveniently say, circularly, that it’s impossible for them to be informed, because there’s only ONE possible being who has consent in all of existence (your ‘proofs’), but even though you ‘prove’ that only one being has informed consent forever, that punishment is always perfect.
You know what I say to that bullshit. Do some real work with justice instead of assuming that someone’s doing all the work for you (and it’s always perfect), this is spiritually lazy. It’s a fantasy of yours to comfort and console you in a fierce existence, and, quite frankly, it’s quitting.
The problem with the OP first off is around the idea of possibility. There is an equivocation between
‘what seems possible to us’ and ‘what could exist’. Those two are not the same. IOW for all we know there are reasons there cannot possibly be a unicorn. You cannot attribute potential to the universe (it can and might produce unicorns) based on our
Not being able to rule something out.
The second problem is to say ‘we understand humans and unicorns.’ I don’t think that sentence is true or even makes sense. We know some stuff about humans. We have qualities we attribute to unicorns. None of this is complete NOR does it count as ‘we understand’ these creatures. Every month, for example, we find out more about the human brain and body and human behavior. To say we understand humans is to make a binary (and hallucinated) distinction. One understands or does not understand humans and unicorns. On or off.
Nope.
WE have built up knowledge of one – humans – but our understanding is more than incredibly likely incomplete and any single one of us, even any multi-disciplinary teams of experts, will have incomplete understanding of humans. This is even more true for unicorns, since we haven’t dissected, tested, interviewed, experienced, training or lived near, observed……and many other verbs….unicorns. At least most of us.
So the whole OP rests on equivocation between two meaning of possibility and an use of ‘understanding’ that is 1) incorrect since it presents understanding as binary and 2) is actually not even the correct word, certainly in relation to unicorns. We have drawn (radically incomplete) images of unicorns. We have a very simple definition of unicorns with variations. Neither of these an understanding of unicorns. First off we can compare even the most detailed painting of a unicorn with ALL the physiological, psychological, anatomical, behavior, cross-sectional representational investigations of humans and it is simply ludicrous to say we ‘understand unicorns’ especially since, as I argue above, such a flat binary description of our knowledge is false in relation to humans, where we know vastly more things and vastly more experience. But then also because it is simply the wrong word for whatever it is we [very] in relation to unicorns.
I do not understand omnipotence, for reasons give above and they are several and I am not alone in this. No one understands omnipotence. We know what the word means, but again compare our no doubt utterly incomplete understanding of humans (whom we are) with what we know about omnipotence, something none of us has experienced, none of us knows how it plays out in a universe or even if it is possible.
Again conflating ‘I can’t rule it out’ with it could exist.
Conflating my lack of knowledge that something can be ruled out with it being possible. A complete conflation or two quite different things. All one has to do to see the difference is to look at things that people in the middle ages could not rule out as possible and we can. It wasn’t possible that the world was flat and water ran off the edges. They couldn’t rule this out, but it was not possible. It was not possible to have a planet like that here.
Perfection falls to the same confusions, equivocations and wrongheaded binary thinking.
