If there were a God, don't you think he would've made him or her self known by now?

[cosmosdan]

@9thFloor

I’ve been following this thread from the first and I just have to say it’s refreshing to see that there are still human beings left on the planet that can and do discuss things with what seems to be a genuine interest in increasing understanding through sincere attempts at clear communication of disparate beliefs. Almost makes a person want to believe in god. Almost, but not quite for me.

As a former Xian myself, I’ve got a question for cosmosdan (I used to perceive things the way you seem to, from what I can tell, and no longer do – either because I’m backslidden and/or now ‘smug’ from the Xian perspective, or because I’m not ‘brainwashed’ anymore from some ex-believer’s perspectives). Nonetheless, I find your explanation of that perspective to be very coherent.

Thank God! I sometimes wonder if I am expressing myself coherently.
Welcome!! A little background. I am also a former Christian. Now I am independent but still count myself as a believer. I believe no religion is the correct religion, but they all may be an expression of our desire to know the truth and to relate to that transcendent other we sometimes experience. One analogy I use is pouring the purest water {the spirit of God} through an impure filter {mortal humans} What ever comes out will contain some of the impurities of the filter.

I believe people should pursue whatever they perceive to be true for themselves. It’s in honestly seeking what is true and looking within we progress. So, that means good people who are honest atheists seeking the truth have the same goal as I do even though our approach may be different. I respect that. I use “smug” only because of the tone I often find here. There tends to be a hand wave dismissal of believers sometimes as if “that’s all a load of crap and it should be obvious to any thinking person”
The truth is none of us know for sure.

So here’s my question (though I’m torn as to whether this should be a new thread since the posts have started to get a little removed, in my view, from the original question of whether or not god’s lack of making himself plain is reasonable evidence of his non-existence): Do you believe your god is omnipotent?

Yes

Here’s what I mean by the question:

This parent/child analogy seems to be one that you’re pretty attached to as a reasonable way to explain the nature of god as you posit it/him. I know that it was always employed my Xians when I was growing up, so I don’t have much of a difficulty with the concept; and I think it’s an excellent one to employ even secularly insofar as teach a man to fish, etc. type of things. I also think most people would have to agree, from human experience, that there is something more to ideal interactions with other humans than to just help or not help; whole philosophies, obviously, are borne out of this concern like Ayn Rand’s, for example.

I’ll attempt to explain my answer.

Being a parent myself the parent child analogy is useful in discussing certain aspects of God but limited as well. When I hear the “how could a heavenly father be so cruel?” I tend to use it.
Another analogy I like is the one in the Bible about us all being part of the same body. Humans are made up of essentially the same stuff. IMHO we are all connected to God and each other and many of our problems come from not realizing and not living that truth. So, would we say the hand is the child of the head. Not really. Both analogies are only attempts to understand aspects of God. My son and daughters share my DNA and in fact all humans are essentially the same and the differences we see in height, body, shape skin color, are extremely minor when considering our physical make up. That reflects our spiritual reality. We are all the same stuff. Drops of the same ocean. Cells in the same body. When we don’t realize that and act as if that’s not true, we create many of our problems.

But one of the things that, as I read it, seems to be a sticking point of several of the ‘non-believers’ that have posted earlier is their contention that god, were he truly omnipotent, could create a reality in which the universe didn’t work that way.

They also assume that the reality they propose is a better one and if they can think of a better one then obviously God should be able to make one. I usually find that the reality they propose only works if free will and personal effort towards growth is compromised. What I see is that we have the power to create a better reality and only make half hearted efforts in order to pursue our own interests or because we believe that our efforts will not be enough.

We were taught, by the way, that god isn’t omnipotent in the strict sense of the word; that he operates “within” a universe that has its own realities (such as the teach a fish thing, parent/child analogue matrix for how people grow, etc.) that he couldn’t change even if he wanted to and within which he has to operate; hence the death of jesus is a “winning the game within the existing rules” type of thing, given that one of the rules is that sin leads to death.

The fact that sin leads to death was taught to us as an immutable fact and reality of the universe over which god has no control.

I don’t see it that way. I tend to think as part of God we are co creators of this physical reality which is only a temporary reflection of the spiritual. We can change it and create something new with God if we simply put forth the effort. It may be that we as spiritual beings agreed to come here and play out this physical role. To me “the wages of sin is death” is not about us being punished. It means that if we continue to choose the illusion that this physical life is our primary reality, if we continue to deny the truth of our connection to each other, if we continue to place too much value on the things that moth and rust corrupts, we will continue to deal with the consequences of those choices. Namely, separation from God and each other.

The only other option, it seems, is to say that god is playing within these rules because he wants to (if he’s omnipotent) for some greater end or purpose as some would say is explained in the bible, or as you posited about coming to earth to live as human for a while, etc.

So – do you think god is **able **to change the matrix of the universe so that humans, for example, don’t have to learn by growing and striving, having faith, etc. in the first place?

And, just so we don’t get sidetracked and I’m not misunderstood, I’m not talking about violating current free will as it exists by forcing a change in man’s existing nature with an omnipotent imposition of force; I’m talking about having designed the entire universe in the first place differently.

Do you think he created free will and the universe, or operates within its constraints?

I tend to think the universe exists within God in a similar way our dreams exist within us. I don’t see God as a separate all powerful being that decides how to interact with us. I see God as the sum of what we are all a part of. How it all works together is beyond me for now.

On free will. In the myth of Adam and Eve they were in paradise with a knowledge of God but with no knowledge of good and evil. Once they gained that knowledge everything changed and they had to leave paradise. Yet the decision to experience choice by knowing good and evil was in itself a choice.

without that choice and some concept of good and evil there was nothing to choose so we couldn’t experience free will, and everything that goes with it.
I suspect that free will and the duality we choose from is part of the illusion but here I am so I’m working with it. We have to act in this physical world to reflect our inner selves. What we value most is reflected in our choices.
I guess that’s a different discussion so I’ll end there.

[cosmosdan]

@the PC apeman

This is lunacy. The analogy is humans “can’t conceive” God’s knowledge and motivations for remaining elusive just as cats “can’t conceive” human knowledge and motivations. There is no reference to choice in the analogy. It is a flat out, unasterisked “can’t”. That is the flaw you see in it. You want to talk about choice so you graft it in a futile attempt to rehabilitate the analogy.

I’m not interested in your nitpicking to create a meaningless discussion. The analogy didn’t speak to choice at all It didn’t address the ability to choose or the lack of it. You stressing the word can’t is just senseless nitpicking. The analogy was made to address only the distance between our knowledge and understanding and God’s. To consider your issue of design flaw we must go beyond that one aspect.

However, grafting choice onto the analogy is problematic. If you introduce the idea that humans can understand God if they really, really want to on one side of the equation then you must do so on the other as well. Failure to do that destroys all analogic value. You’d be better off rejecting the analogy and starting over since adding choice it to both side would mean you think cat’s could understand humans if only they really, really wanted to. What you are doing is either intellectual dishonesty or lunacy.

This is ridiculous. You’re trying to force an issue that doesn’t exist and I’m not going to participate. Analogies aren’t intended to be accurate about every detail and you insist on focusing on one detail that is irrelevant to the point. Try someone else. I’m not playing that game.

[9thFloor]

@cosmosdan

Thank God! I sometimes wonder if I am expressing myself coherently.
Welcome!! A little background. I am also a former Christian. Now I am independent but still count myself as a believer. I believe no religion is the correct religion, but they all may be an expression of our desire to know the truth and to relate to that transcendent other we sometimes experience. One analogy I use is pouring the purest water {the spirit of God} through an impure filter {mortal humans} What ever comes out will contain some of the impurities of the filter.

I believe people should pursue whatever they perceive to be true for themselves. It’s in honestly seeking what is true and looking within we progress. So, that means good people who are honest atheists seeking the truth have the same goal as I do even though our approach may be different. I respect that. I use “smug” only because of the tone I often find here. There tends to be a hand wave dismissal of believers sometimes as if “that’s all a load of crap and it should be obvious to any thinking person”
The truth is none of us know for sure.

Yes
I’ll attempt to explain my answer.

Being a parent myself the parent child analogy is useful in discussing certain aspects of God but limited as well. When I hear the “how could a heavenly father be so cruel?” I tend to use it.
Another analogy I like is the one in the Bible about us all being part of the same body. Humans are made up of essentially the same stuff. IMHO we are all connected to God and each other and many of our problems come from not realizing and not living that truth. So, would we say the hand is the child of the head. Not really. Both analogies are only attempts to understand aspects of God. My son and daughters share my DNA and in fact all humans are essentially the same and the differences we see in height, body, shape skin color, are extremely minor when considering our physical make up. That reflects our spiritual reality. We are all the same stuff. Drops of the same ocean. Cells in the same body. When we don’t realize that and act as if that’s not true, we create many of our problems.

They also assume that the reality they propose is a better one and if they can think of a better one then obviously God should be able to make one. I usually find that the reality they propose only works if free will and personal effort towards growth is compromised. What I see is that we have the power to create a better reality and only make half hearted efforts in order to pursue our own interests or because we believe that our efforts will not be enough.
I don’t see it that way. I tend to think as part of God we are co creators of this physical reality which is only a temporary reflection of the spiritual. We can change it and create something new with God if we simply put forth the effort. It may be that we as spiritual beings agreed to come here and play out this physical role. To me “the wages of sin is death” is not about us being punished. It means that if we continue to choose the illusion that this physical life is our primary reality, if we continue to deny the truth of our connection to each other, if we continue to place too much value on the things that moth and rust corrupts, we will continue to deal with the consequences of those choices. Namely, separation from God and each other.
I tend to think the universe exists within God in a similar way our dreams exist within us. I don’t see God as a separate all powerful being that decides how to interact with us. I see God as the sum of what we are all a part of. How it all works together is beyond me for now.

On free will. In the myth of Adam and Eve they were in paradise with a knowledge of God but with no knowledge of good and evil. Once they gained that knowledge everything changed and they had to leave paradise. Yet the decision to experience choice by knowing good and evil was in itself a choice.

without that choice and some concept of good and evil there was nothing to choose so we couldn’t experience free will, and everything that goes with it.
I suspect that free will and the duality we choose from is part of the illusion but here I am so I’m working with it. We have to act in this physical world to reflect our inner selves. What we value most is reflected in our choices.
I guess that’s a different discussion so I’ll end there.

Well, wow. LOL

That’s quite a mouthful (not that mine wasn’t!), but let me see if I can re-center myself to the main question I’m asking; sorry if I missed the answer in your post:

Did god create free will?

That’s really all I’m asking (for now )

True, I think routinely non-believers implicitly – or explicitly! – state that they feel, as you said that they “…assume that the reality they propose is a better one and if they can think of a better one then obviously God should be able to make one.”

But I’m not doing that here, I’m just asking whether or not god created the universe to function in a way that operates on free will in the first place. I understand the implications that go along with that if we’re operating within that premise, but I’m just wondering if it’s your belief that he created free will.

But, I must admit, as you mentioned a few other points there, I can’t resist replying to those as well:

On smugness, I get you; I wasn’t actually even referring to your use of the term (I guess you used it now that I look back). I was referring to the fact that it’s a routine and common term used by Xians in referring to non-believers, you hear it all the time and I certainly heard it constantly (it goes along with a beatific, condescending smile and a generous offer to ‘pray’ for the smug and deluded atheists speaking; they think of non-believers as smug and anything the non-believer says is safely irrelevant since they’re already ‘wrong’ and you can’t ‘out-logic’ godliness since all such discussions can just be dismissed with ‘god works in mysterious ways, so shut up’ – which, by the way, is what I think someone earlier was referring to with that god works in mysterious ways expression being used – it’s understood to be a blow off. I’m not saying any of that is true of you one way or the other though, I was just speaking to the term and its common use in that way; and yes, the ‘smugness’ that Xians routinely refer to is understandable given that the ‘other side’ often is, in fact, smug. But that’s not an excuse for dismissing everything they say out of hand as is often done by both sides although I will admit I suspect open-mindedness to be a smidgen more likely in non-believers than believers, but I have no citations ).

By the way, on free will as it relates to the story of Adam and Eve unless I misread or misunderstood your take on that – you’re not saying that eating from the tree gave them free will, are you? Because they would have needed free will to choose to eat from the tree in the first place, no? I assume I misunderstood since that seems like something of a remedial point (no disrespect intended). It is, however, something I’ve always found wonderfully telling and compelling. Ironically, I happen to believe a lot of the ‘morals’ of the tales of the bible such as that one but I just come to radically different conclusions about it all, but **that’s **definitely a discussion for another thread too.

[Sevoulian]

I believe it all depends on how you define God. The god(s) of of theistic religions are a construct or projection of the human mind. Although it could be stated that any concept of god, regardless of theistic connotations, are created by man. However, I don’t necessarily believe that that negates the existence of such a presence. To me, that means God can only exist within the bounds of our comprehension of what God can be. Our current inability to conceptualize very large numbers or current findings in quantum physics or even the puzzling nature of space-time leaves us with only a basic approximation of what god could be. If the evolve to the extent where we could eventually conceptualize these roadblocks of understanding then, undoubtedly, our defintion of god will change as well. I think the problem arises from trying to conceive of god as something outside of ourselves and the universe. It is my belief, if there is a god, that he exists within as opposed to without and his presence would be evident by the order, design, and self-organization of life and the universe.
No matter how much we dispute god’s existence, the truth is that in our present time there is simply no way to prove or disprove it’s existence. It is true that terrible things happen in the world today and sometimes it is hard to understand that if there is a god he would let these things persist. However, we are creating our own world and our own global consciousness far removed from a hypothetical god. We must also consider the need for balance and whatever implications this may have. Creation and destruction are two seamless yet very distinguishable and necessary properties of life and the universe. They manifest in strange and sometimes cruel ways, so we must acknowledge and accept them for what they are. Maybe one day we will find the answers but I believe we’ll be questioning it to our graves.

[cosmosdan]

@9thFloor

Well, wow. LOL

That’s quite a mouthful (not that mine wasn’t!), but let me see if I can re-center myself to the main question I’m asking; sorry if I missed the answer in your post:

Did god create free will?
That’s really all I’m asking (for now )

I’m sorry. I tend to ramble on. My poor kids know. I’ll attempt to be brief.

Yes I think God created free will. I’d like to add that I don’t see it as something that was forced upon his unwilling and helpless creation. As part of God I think we hand a hand in that choice. We agreed to it.

True, I think routinely non-believers implicitly – or explicitly! – state that they feel, as you said that they “…assume that the reality they propose is a better one and if they can think of a better one then obviously God should be able to make one.”

But I’m not doing that here, I’m just asking whether or not god created the universe to function in a way that operates on free will in the first place. I understand the implications that go along with that if we’re operating within that premise, but I’m just wondering if it’s your belief that he created free will.

Answered I hope.

But, I must admit, as you mentioned a few other points there, I can’t resist replying to those as well:

On smugness, I get you; I wasn’t actually even referring to your use of the term (I guess you used it now that I look back). I was referring to the fact that it’s a routine and common term used by Xians in referring to non-believers, you hear it all the time and I certainly heard it constantly (it goes along with a beatific, condescending smile and a generous offer to ‘pray’ for the smug and deluded atheists speaking; they think of non-believers as smug and anything the non-believer says is safely irrelevant since they’re already ‘wrong’ and you can’t ‘out-logic’ godliness since all such discussions can just be dismissed with ‘god works in mysterious ways, so shut up’ – which, by the way, is what I think someone earlier was referring to with that god works in mysterious ways expression being used – it’s understood to be a blow off. I’m not saying any of that is true of you one way or the other though, I was just speaking to the term and its common use in that way; and yes, the ‘smugness’ that Xians routinely refer to is understandable given that the ‘other side’ often is, in fact, smug. But that’s not an excuse for dismissing everything they say out of hand as is often done by both sides although I will admit I suspect open-mindedness to be a smidgen more likely in non-believers than believers, but I have no citations ).

I agree with your assessment here. I would call Christians being so sure they are correct and God is on their side another form of smugness. I was just commenting on and responding to the posts in this thread.

By the way, on free will as it relates to the story of Adam and Eve unless I misread or misunderstood your take on that – you’re not saying that eating from the tree gave them free will, are you? Because they would have needed free will to choose to eat from the tree in the first place, no? I assume I misunderstood since that seems like something of a remedial point (no disrespect intended). It is, however, something I’ve always found wonderfully telling and compelling. Ironically, I happen to believe a lot of the ‘morals’ of the tales of the bible such as that one but I just come to radically different conclusions about it all, but **that’s **definitely a discussion for another thread too.

I’m saying that at some point in order for there to be free will there has to be something to choose between. If I go to a restaurant with only one item on the menu you can say I have free will to choose anything on the menu , but realistically how much free will do I have?

So Eve chose to eat the apple and share it with Adam, but before then they really didn’t know any other alternatives, having no knowledge of any duality like good and evil. I was only pointing out that they chose to gain that knowledge. Often it’s pointed out that God must be cruel to force his creations to suffer the tribulations of being human. I’m only suggesting that perhaps we chose that.
there…that’s not too long.

[9thFloor]

Hmm. It seems to me then (but this isn’t taking into account the other part of your thought that we chose it, which I’ll respond to in a moment) that if god created free will then he’s responsible for all the suffering in the world.

I say that in that overarching, simplistic way to get the thought out clearly.

Now, to dissect: I’m not saying one way or the other that suffering is a bad thing per se or that it can’t have a higher moral purpose or be part of a plan or that it can’t be analogous to telling your children not to touch a hot stove.

All that may very well be (within this construct), but I think logically if god’s omnipotent and omniscient and created free will then any choices any humans make within that free will matrix would have been foreseen by god, including those that would result in suffering so he’s ultimately responsible for creating the predicament in the first place by designing the universe in that manner.

Unlike the analogy with your children, you didn’t make the world work that way.

Again, not that that’s a bad thing. But in terms of logical authorship and ultimate responsibility, I don’t see how one can get around that.

To me, it’s like creating a dilemma and giving people choice within it. Yes, they are responsible for their choices and they can choose one or the other and it helps them grow to struggle through that and that may be just as it should be. But one, it seems to me, would have to concede that the ultimate responsibility for the entire situation existing in the first place within which they had to make a choice is the responsibility of the entity that created the dilemma. That’s the god problem.

---

But now going on to the specifics of a couple things you said (which, as I said, wasn’t taken into account with the above thought and which would negate what I just said if it were true):

@cosmosdan

Yes I think God created free will. I’d like to add that I don’t see it as something that was forced upon his unwilling and helpless creation. As part of God I think we hand a hand in that choice. We agreed to it.

So Eve chose to eat the apple and share it with Adam, but before then they really didn’t know any other alternatives, having no knowledge of any duality like good and evil. I was only pointing out that they chose to gain that knowledge. Often it’s pointed out that God must be cruel to force his creations to suffer the tribulations of being human. I’m only suggesting that perhaps we chose that.
there…that’s not too long.

That’s an astonishing statement. (to quote Guliani’s response to Ron Paul’s 9/11 comment LOL)

But it’s astonishing, to me, in logical terms because to say we chose to have choice boggles the mind. We would’ve had to be able to choose in the first place in order to be able to choose choice, right? So who empowered us to be able to do that?

I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t see how a being that lacks free will can be truly said to have chosen free will.

And if a being doesn’t lack free will in the first place, then what’s it choosing that it doesn’t already have?

And, finally, just as you said that it’s rather a technically correct but rather pointless thing to say that you have ‘choice’ if there’s one item on a menu wouldn’t it also be technically correct but rather pointless to say that Adam and Eve ‘chose’ to have choice? I mean was eating from that tree a good or a bad thing?

It couldn’t be good or bad since they didn’t have knowledge of either, right? So that means they had free will without the existence of evil. So it’s possible.

Or, they chose to do it even though god told them not to, thereby deliberately choosing to disobey/do evil. But then that creates the untenable position of holding them responsible for choosing evil before they had free will.
So, to summarize a couple if/thens: If we **didn’t **choose to obtain free will (a concept whose negation boggles my little mind), then wouldn’t you say that god’s ultimately responsible for all the suffering in the world – whatever the ultimate moral good of it might be?

If, on the other hand, we **chose **to obtain free will…then doesn’t that mean we would have logically already had free will with which to make that choice? If not, it can’t be described as a freely made choice in any meaningful way, can it?

[the_PC_apeman]

@cosmosdan

I’m not interested in your nitpicking to create a meaningless discussion. The analogy didn’t speak to choice at all It didn’t address the ability to choose or the lack of it. You stressing the word can’t is just senseless nitpicking. The analogy was made to address only the distance between our knowledge and understanding and God’s. To consider your issue of design flaw we must go beyond that one aspect.

This is ridiculous. You’re trying to force an issue that doesn’t exist and I’m not going to participate. Analogies aren’t intended to be accurate about every detail and you insist on focusing on one detail that is irrelevant to the point. Try someone else. I’m not playing that game.

Ridiculous? Here’s what I think is worthy of ridicule:(Post 147) You suggested my question to lekatt should have been “Whose choice was that?”

(149) I pointed out that I was discussing a particular analogy that did not involve human choices.

(150) “Not the way I read it” you responded. (Here you also mistakenly introduce the idea of a flaw in design. In the argument I was making, human shortcomings would not be a flaw but intentional limitations from the designer.)

(167) I summarize the discussion so far to support my position that analogy in question does not involve human choice.

(175) You seem to understand and respond “perhaps you’re right.” You then present an alternative solution that centers on choice. (You also hint that cats might eventually evolve to understand us. But this won’t resolve the OP’s question which is clearly about us here now.)

(177) I explain that I’m not interested in discussing the alternative solution. I assume we’re done.

(187) You say you’re not “fond” of the analogy and then present your alternative solution again.

(188) I again explain that I’m not interested in discussion of choice as a solution to the OP. My participation in this thread only was to address the analogy in question. I again think we’re done.

(189) But no, this is where I get boggled by your response and sucked back in. You say “ok, I just think that was the point of the analogy in question.” What could “that” refer to here if not choice? No, choice is not the point of the analogy in question.

(190) I can believe we’re talking about the same analogy so I look for confirmation.

(192) You press your “choice” solution again and say “I think that is what [the analogy] is speaking to”. No, it clearly isn’t.

(193) I explain how the analogy in question is not about choice. The analogy is cats are to humans as humans are to God in this one respect: ability to conceive the knowledge and motivations of the other.

(196) You seem to disagree.

(200) Though stunned at you disagreement, I explain how the analogy cannot be about choice.

(202) You accuse me of nitpicking and finally admit that “[t]he analogy didn’t speak to choice at all” (your bolding).

Great! You reverse position unannounced and blame the whole thing on me as you walk out the door? That is what is worthy of ridicule. Good day, Sir.

[cosmosdan]

@9thFloor

Hmm. It seems to me then (but this isn’t taking into account the other part of your thought that we chose it, which I’ll respond to in a moment) that if god created free will then he’s responsible for all the suffering in the world.

I say that in that overarching, simplistic way to get the thought out clearly.

Now, to dissect: I’m not saying one way or the other that suffering is a bad thing per se or that it can’t have a higher moral purpose or be part of a plan or that it can’t be analogous to telling your children not to touch a hot stove.

All that may very well be (within this construct), but I think logically if god’s omnipotent and omniscient and created free will then any choices any humans make within that free will matrix would have been foreseen by god, including those that would result in suffering so he’s ultimately responsible for creating the predicament in the first place by designing the universe in that manner.

Unlike the analogy with your children, you didn’t make the world work that way.

Again, not that that’s a bad thing. But in terms of logical authorship and ultimate responsibility, I don’t see how one can get around that.

To me, it’s like creating a dilemma and giving people choice within it. Yes, they are responsible for their choices and they can choose one or the other and it helps them grow to struggle through that and that may be just as it should be. But one, it seems to me, would have to concede that the ultimate responsibility for the entire situation existing in the first place within which they had to make a choice is the responsibility of the entity that created the dilemma. That’s the god problem.

I understand the logic and don’t disagree with it. The problem is the flaws in the analogy and trying to use them to grasp something that we don’t truly know about yet.

If we are and have always been a part of God, and not fully separate beings what does that do to saying the suffering in the world is God’s responsibility? I don’t know. If we are the drops in the ocean how do we dispense responsibility to the ocean? That doesn’t even approach the issue of timelessness.

To some that may sound like I’m trying to avoid the issue. I’m not.

But now going on to the specifics of a couple things you said (which, as I said, wasn’t taken into account with the above thought and which would negate what I just said if it were true):

That’s an astonishing statement. (to quote Guliani’s response to Ron Paul’s 9/11 comment LOL)

But it’s astonishing, to me, in logical terms because to say we chose to have choice boggles the mind. We would’ve had to be able to choose in the first place in order to be able to choose choice, right? So who empowered us to be able to do that?

I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t see how a being that lacks free will can be truly said to have chosen free will.

And if a being doesn’t lack free will in the first place, then what’s it choosing that it doesn’t already have?

And, finally, just as you said that it’s rather a technically correct but rather pointless thing to say that you have ‘choice’ if there’s one item on a menu wouldn’t it also be technically correct but rather pointless to say that Adam and Eve ‘chose’ to have choice? I mean was eating from that tree a good or a bad thing?

It couldn’t be good or bad since they didn’t have knowledge of either, right? So that means they had free will without the existence of evil. So it’s possible.

Or, they chose to do it even though god told them not to, thereby deliberately choosing to disobey/do evil. But then that creates the untenable position of holding them responsible for choosing evil before they had free will.
So, to summarize a couple if/thens: If we **didn’t **choose to obtain free will (a concept whose negation boggles my little mind), then wouldn’t you say that god’s ultimately responsible for all the suffering in the world – whatever the ultimate moral good of it might be?

If, on the other hand, we **chose **to obtain free will…then doesn’t that mean we would have logically already had free will with which to make that choice? If not, it can’t be described as a freely made choice in any meaningful way, can it?

I didn’t exactly say we chose to have free will. I said we chose to have duality. We chose to have a concept of good and evil.

I’d like to study the creation myths from other religions but I haven’t yet. The Genesis myth paints eating the apple as disobeying God. Yet if we hold the consideration that we, and Adam and Eve are a part of God, then that choice is neither good or bad. It simply is a choice to experience duality, and a perception of good and evil we didn’t have before. What if what we created together was just the perception of good and evil.

Is the head more responsible than the body for our actions or are all parts ultimately equally responsible.

The big question for me is why any of it? Why create duality? To gain perspective? Is it merely a cosmic thrill ride? Don’t know and in the moment it doesn’t matter.

[cosmosdan]

@the PC apeman

Ridiculous? Here’s what I think is worthy of ridicule:(Post 147) You suggested my question to lekatt should have been “Whose choice was that?”

(149) I pointed out that I was discussing a particular analogy that did not involve human choices.

(150) “Not the way I read it” you responded. (Here you also mistakenly introduce the idea of a flaw in design. In the argument I was making, human shortcomings would not be a flaw but intentional limitations from the designer.)

(167) I summarize the discussion so far to support my position that analogy in question does not involve human choice.

(175) You seem to understand and respond “perhaps you’re right.” You then present an alternative solution that centers on choice. (You also hint that cats might eventually evolve to understand us. But this won’t resolve the OP’s question which is clearly about us here now.)

(177) I explain that I’m not interested in discussing the alternative solution. I assume we’re done.

(187) You say you’re not “fond” of the analogy and then present your alternative solution again.

(188) I again explain that I’m not interested in discussion of choice as a solution to the OP. My participation in this thread only was to address the analogy in question. I again think we’re done.

(189) But no, this is where I get boggled by your response and sucked back in. You say “ok, I just think that was the point of the analogy in question.” What could “that” refer to here if not choice? No, choice is not the point of the analogy in question.

(190) I can believe we’re talking about the same analogy so I look for confirmation.

(192) You press your “choice” solution again and say “I think that is what [the analogy] is speaking to”. No, it clearly isn’t.

(193) I explain how the analogy in question is not about choice. The analogy is cats are to humans as humans are to God in this one respect: ability to conceive the knowledge and motivations of the other.

(196) You seem to disagree.

(200) Though stunned at you disagreement, I explain how the analogy cannot be about choice.

(202) You accuse me of nitpicking and finally admit that “[t]he analogy didn’t speak to choice at all” (your bolding).

Great! You reverse position unannounced and blame the whole thing on me as you walk out the door? That is what is worthy of ridicule. Good day, Sir.

For someone who wasn’t interested you sure got awfully pissy about it.
I thought we were done a couple of times to but you continued to post responses. Nobody forced you to respond to something you weren’t interested in.
I did not reverse my position although I understand how it seemed that way. I did not blame anything on you I simply gave an honest opinion about what I thought you were doing. Isn’t that what you’ve done?
I’m not concerned in the least about what you think is intellectual dishonesty, lunacy, or worthy of ridicule. I agree it’s best we move on.

[9thFloor]

"I understand the logic and don’t disagree with it. The problem is the flaws in the analogy and trying to use them to grasp something that we don’t truly know about yet."

What flaws? Maybe there are no flaws and the reality just isn’t as you think. Aren’t there only flaws because they don’t comport to your pre-existing idea? Maybe I’m missing something, I’m not sure what analogy you’re referring to that you’re saying is flawed. It doesn’t sound to me like you’re avoiding the issue as much as diluting it into broader themes. What analogy did I make that’s flawed?

**“If we are and have always been a part of God, and not fully separate beings what does that do to saying the suffering in the world is God’s responsibility? I don’t know. If we are the drops in the ocean how do we dispense responsibility to the ocean? That doesn’t even approach the issue of timelessness.” **

And if we were not and are not a part of god in the way that you conceive (which made picking duality a mutual decision), and god is understood in the traditional sense of being a completely separate being that created us, then logically god would be responsible for the world’s suffering, right? Can you concede that?

(He’d be responsible insofar as he’s not an ocean but a knowing intelligent being that willfully, intentionally, and omnisciently created the reality of free will and the matrix of the universe in that manner, knowing in advance what we humans – not a part of god – would choose. Just refreshing on the traditional idea of god.)

"I didn’t exactly say we chose to have free will. I said we chose to have duality. We chose to have a concept of good and evil. "

So that view shows that it is possible to have free will and no knowledge of evil. That world can exist, and it did in that view. (I trust you’re not going to say they had knowledge of evil before they had knowledge of evil.)

Now what was the point of free will without any knowledge of good and evil again? This whole thread has been about free will having to do with analogues to raising children and being about the growth one can derive from having to make choices between good and bad things. Without good and evil, what’s the point of free will?

In that view, Adam and Eve either did or did not know what choosing duality would entail and all the suffering it would cause them and future generations, right? Because obviously god wouldn’t make a decision like that without knowing what would happen? And since humans are part of god as you said and chose it together then did that make the humans omniscient as well or just the god part?

If they did know, then you’ve left the planet of christianity altogether which is fine by me but a completely different discussion; plainly, Adam and Eve are ejected from the garden for disobeying god as a punishment and they obviously didn’t choose to be banished as an experiment in good and evil knowing in advance that it would play out that way or else they wouldn’t have been surprised and lied, etc.

And if they did not know, then it’s a rather cruel hoax to offer someone a choice of duality when you know they don’t have any concept of duality before choosing it so they don’t really know what they’re choosing. It’s literally uninformed.

Either you know what duality is about before choosing it or you don’t. It’s literally the knowledge of good and evil. You have that knowledge or you don’t have it.

And there the whole thing breaks down.

We’ve just substituted ‘duality’ for ‘free will’ but the point remains the same: how can you choose free will without already having it and/or how can you choose duality without already having a concept of duality, in which case you don’t need to choose it because you already know about it?

And, once again, I still don’t know if you agree that god created free will (he did that part without the humans, right? you said that humans and god – together, as one unit – chose duality. Surely you don’t also think that humans and god together chose to have free will? Isn’t that impossible?)

[9thFloor]

@cosmosdan

Is the head more responsible than the body for our actions or are all parts ultimately equally responsible.

The big question for me is why any of it? Why create duality? To gain perspective? Is it merely a cosmic thrill ride? Don’t know and in the moment it doesn’t matter.

Oh yeah, and in regards to that: the head is responsible. My head tells my body what to do, so it’s responsible. Even if you insist, for reasons that seem to be bordering on ideological intransigence to me, that the whole is ultimately equally responsible then that means you’re conceding that god is equally responsible for the suffering in the world, right? I’ll take my part of the blame if he takes his.

As to the second part there, who said anything about ‘creating’ duality?

Is this another very, very loosely based postmodern Xian concept? Duality already existed, right? So it was chosen by eating the apple, so to speak. But it had to already exist for it to be chosen. Who created it, sitting there on a tree?

This blended god/human concept, forgive me, sounds like retroactive reasoning to justify a belief system that’s starting to sound to me at least a slight bit logically challenged. Which is fine since I know logic means nothing in religion, but logic is part of the premise upon which I’m having the discussion unfortunately.

One thing I can say, logically speaking, is that it couldn’t possibly have been to gain perspective since we’d have already had that perspective in our minds and known what it was about in order to have been able to make the informed choice to choose duality. Which is where the logic falls apart for me.

[begbert2]

@cosmosdan

The big question for me is why any of it? Why create duality? To gain perspective? Is it merely a cosmic thrill ride? Don’t know and in the moment it doesn’t matter.

Life is actually just a huge RPG. We (call us spirits, angles, misplaced particles of God, whichever) are just screwing around down here for fun, playing to try to maximize our score. As is customary in games, the player in-game avatar is unaware of both the scoring system and the fact that they are in a game at all, and of course the player does not actually experience all the painful things that happen to his avatar.

Several hints of this truth about our reality have been leaked via one religion or another; for example:

There is a leaderboard, typically referred to as “the highest placement” or “the heavens”. It is reserved for avatars that get the highest score.

Players may, if they desire, resume the game with a new avatar after the prior one dies. Which character class they incarnate with is dependent on their previous score.

There was originally planned to be an ingame help system, which would be accessed by putting yourself in an altered mental state through actions like meditating, praying, or communal spiritualism. However, at the last minute it was discovered that the admins who actually create and manage the system had no desire whatsoever to be bothered by constant player questions and requests, so the help system was somewhat hastily rewired to connect the the avatar’s ‘subconscious mind/dreamstate’ process instead. This was done so as to avoid the help interface accidentally connecting to anything foreign, that might convince the players’ avatars that they were communicating with an external entity.

Ghosts are the artifacts of hackers in the system; however, if they ever start to attract too much scientific attenion from the in-game avatars, the admins usually notice and shut the hacker down. Similarly they are careful to prevent the use of cheat codes and features where they will effect the flow of the game too much.

Out-of-body experiences do not happen; the only way a player can interface with the game world is via the “physical” in-game avatar. However, NDE events occasionally do occur, when there is a glitch in the avatar “death” system. These are not nearly as common as they are reported, though, and of course the avatar (being a purely in-game phenomenon, except when promoted to the leader board) does not experience the realm in which the actual players and admins reside. Any “memories” the avatar’s may have of the experience are actually just a dump from the help system.

All obstacles in the game are contained entirely within the simulation. For a while there was an admin would sit in and pick a player to deliberately torture using admin control of the game, but this “sit in” administrator no longer engages in that activity.

Players who achieve the optimum victory score exit the game immidiately and are put directly on the high score list. This has only been achieved a handful of times; nonetheless if this doesn’t happen to you, you are technically a loser.

This simluation actually did start in the game-year 6012 BC. All seemingly prior history and artifacts were carefully simulated and included as backstory. There are also occasional system crashes, from which the game world is recreated from a backup and restarted. The last such crash was last thursday.

Jesus was an admin who was likes playing the game himself. His intimate knowledge of the system allowed him to exploit loopholes to do various ‘tricks’ in the gameworld, perhaps the most spectacular of which was subverting the replay-incarnation system to allow players, including himself, to reassume control over ‘dead’ avatars. Soon after he achieved the optimum victory score.

Black cats, mirror breakages, four leaf clovers and most other sorts of ‘superstition’ events actually do effect your ‘luck’ variable, which in turn your outcome in random and near-random events. It’s worth noting that the number 13 actually gives you good luck though; what happened was that when the in-game superstition was developing, it was usually the other guy who had gotten lucky.

Astrology, on the other hand, is bollocks. Though occasionally admins do tweak things to make newspper horoscopes accurate, for laughs.

The admin who played the “Jesus” character still plays now and again. The last time he played he was one Mr Presley, and still makes appearances in-game with that avatar now and then, though his current primary avatar is a haberdasher in Toledo.

Oh, and perhaps most relevant: the reason the admins don’t reveal themselves and the rules to the players because that would spoil the fun. Even the Jesus player did not reveal the actual objectives of the game; he was just role-playing.

[Clothahump]

@guizot

The whole point of having a God is faith: belief. If you can believe in something of which there is no evidence, then you can get through all of the other shit that this world confronts us with. Even the personal misery that so many on the planet experience.

The whole point of having a God is faith: belief. If you can believe in something of which there is no evidence, then you can get fleeced by the people who run the religion.

[cosmosdan]

@9thFloor

"I understand the logic and don’t disagree with it. The problem is the flaws in the analogy and trying to use them to grasp something that we don’t truly know about yet."

What flaws? Maybe there are no flaws and the reality just isn’t as you think. Aren’t there only flaws because they don’t comport to your pre-existing idea? Maybe I’m missing something, I’m not sure what analogy you’re referring to that you’re saying is flawed. It doesn’t sound to me like you’re avoiding the issue as much as diluting it into broader themes. What analogy did I make that’s flawed?

I guess analogy is the wrong term but what I’m referring to is looking at God as just another being. As if God is a person only omnipotent. I’m perfectly comfortable admitting reality may not be as I think. I wouldn’t even say I’m asserting this as true. It’s just ideas under discussion.

**“If we are and have always been a part of God, and not fully separate beings what does that do to saying the suffering in the world is God’s responsibility? I don’t know. If we are the drops in the ocean how do we dispense responsibility to the ocean? That doesn’t even approach the issue of timelessness.” **

And if we were not and are not a part of god in the way that you conceive (which made picking duality a mutual decision), and god is understood in the traditional sense of being a completely separate being that created us, then logically god would be responsible for the world’s suffering, right? Can you concede that?

well I’m not sure God being a “completely” seperate is the traditional belief but for the sake of discussion I’ll concede that. If God is something I don’t believe him to be then yes, he could be completely responsible for all suffering. I’m not sure I see the point. We’re venturing into a lot of if’s.

(He’d be responsible insofar as he’s not an ocean but a knowing intelligent being that willfully, intentionally, and omnisciently created the reality of free will and the matrix of the universe in that manner, knowing in advance what we humans – not a part of god – would choose. Just refreshing on the traditional idea of god.)

okay…why is that?

"I didn’t exactly say we chose to have free will. I said we chose to have duality. We chose to have a concept of good and evil. "

So that view shows that it is possible to have free will and no knowledge of evil. That world can exist, and it did in that view. (I trust you’re not going to say they had knowledge of evil before they had knowledge of evil.)

Well it did if the garden of eden was a part of earth.

Now what was the point of free will without any knowledge of good and evil again? This whole thread has been about free will having to do with analogues to raising children and being about the growth one can derive from having to make choices between good and bad things. Without good and evil, what’s the point of free will?

I don’t know and have already said as much. The thread was about being in the world where good and evil are recognized.

In that view, Adam and Eve either did or did not know what choosing duality would entail and all the suffering it would cause them and future generations, right? Because obviously god wouldn’t make a decision like that without knowing what would happen? And since humans are part of god as you said and chose it together then did that make the humans omniscient as well or just the god part?

Once again…don’t know.

If they did know, then you’ve left the planet of christianity altogether which is fine by me but a completely different discussion; plainly, Adam and Eve are ejected from the garden for disobeying god as a punishment and they obviously didn’t choose to be banished as an experiment in good and evil knowing in advance that it would play out that way or else they wouldn’t have been surprised and lied, etc.

And if they did not know, then it’s a rather cruel hoax to offer someone a choice of duality when you know they don’t have any concept of duality before choosing it so they don’t really know what they’re choosing. It’s literally uninformed.

Either you know what duality is about before choosing it or you don’t. It’s literally the knowledge of good and evil. You have that knowledge or you don’t have it.

lost me

And there the whole thing breaks down.

We’ve just substituted ‘duality’ for ‘free will’ but the point remains the same: how can you choose free will without already having it and/or how can you choose duality without already having a concept of duality, in which case you don’t need to choose it because you already know about it?

And, once again, I still don’t know if you agree that god created free will (he did that part without the humans, right? you said that humans and god – together, as one unit – chose duality. Surely you don’t also think that humans and god together chose to have free will? Isn’t that impossible?)

This is starting to go in circles and I’m losing track.

[9thFloor]

Brilliant

@begbert2

Life is actually just a huge RPG. We (call us spirits, angles, misplaced particles of God, whichever) are just screwing around down here for fun, playing to try to maximize our score. As is customary in games, the player in-game avatar is unaware of both the scoring system and the fact that they are in a game at all, and of course the player does not actually experience all the painful things that happen to his avatar.

Several hints of this truth about our reality have been leaked via one religion or another; for example:

There is a leaderboard, typically referred to as “the highest placement” or “the heavens”. It is reserved for avatars that get the highest score.

Players may, if they desire, resume the game with a new avatar after the prior one dies. Which character class they incarnate with is dependent on their previous score.

There was originally planned to be an ingame help system, which would be accessed by putting yourself in an altered mental state through actions like meditating, praying, or communal spiritualism. However, at the last minute it was discovered that the admins who actually create and manage the system had no desire whatsoever to be bothered by constant player questions and requests, so the help system was somewhat hastily rewired to connect the the avatar’s ‘subconscious mind/dreamstate’ process instead. This was done so as to avoid the help interface accidentally connecting to anything foreign, that might convince the players’ avatars that they were communicating with an external entity.

Ghosts are the artifacts of hackers in the system; however, if they ever start to attract too much scientific attenion from the in-game avatars, the admins usually notice and shut the hacker down. Similarly they are careful to prevent the use of cheat codes and features where they will effect the flow of the game too much.

Out-of-body experiences do not happen; the only way a player can interface with the game world is via the “physical” in-game avatar. However, NDE events occasionally do occur, when there is a glitch in the avatar “death” system. These are not nearly as common as they are reported, though, and of course the avatar (being a purely in-game phenomenon, except when promoted to the leader board) does not experience the realm in which the actual players and admins reside. Any “memories” the avatar’s may have of the experience are actually just a dump from the help system.

All obstacles in the game are contained entirely within the simulation. For a while there was an admin would sit in and pick a player to deliberately torture using admin control of the game, but this “sit in” administrator no longer engages in that activity.

Players who achieve the optimum victory score exit the game immidiately and are put directly on the high score list. This has only been achieved a handful of times; nonetheless if this doesn’t happen to you, you are technically a loser.

This simluation actually did start in the game-year 6012 BC. All seemingly prior history and artifacts were carefully simulated and included as backstory. There are also occasional system crashes, from which the game world is recreated from a backup and restarted. The last such crash was last thursday.

Jesus was an admin who was likes playing the game himself. His intimate knowledge of the system allowed him to exploit loopholes to do various ‘tricks’ in the gameworld, perhaps the most spectacular of which was subverting the replay-incarnation system to allow players, including himself, to reassume control over ‘dead’ avatars. Soon after he achieved the optimum victory score.

Black cats, mirror breakages, four leaf clovers and most other sorts of ‘superstition’ events actually do effect your ‘luck’ variable, which in turn your outcome in random and near-random events. It’s worth noting that the number 13 actually gives you good luck though; what happened was that when the in-game superstition was developing, it was usually the other guy who had gotten lucky.

Astrology, on the other hand, is bollocks. Though occasionally admins do tweak things to make newspper horoscopes accurate, for laughs.

The admin who played the “Jesus” character still plays now and again. The last time he played he was one Mr Presley, and still makes appearances in-game with that avatar now and then, though his current primary avatar is a haberdasher in Toledo.

Oh, and perhaps most relevant: the reason the admins don’t reveal themselves and the rules to the players because that would spoil the fun. Even the Jesus player did not reveal the actual objectives of the game; he was just role-playing.

[begbert2]

Thanks!

[9thFloor]

Sorry to lose you.

Simply, if an omnipotent, omniscient god created free will then he’s ultimately responsible for everything since he made the universe operate on that principle.

---

I’ll skip all the other points for the sake of clarity and dealing with one thing at a time.

[cosmosdan]

@begbert2

Life is actually just a huge RPG. We (call us spirits, angles, misplaced particles of God, whichever) are just screwing around down here for fun, playing to try to maximize our score. As is customary in games, the player in-game avatar is unaware of both the scoring system and the fact that they are in a game at all, and of course the player does not actually experience all the painful things that happen to his avatar.

{Snipped to shorten post. }

Kudos This is pretty dam good. Save it. I’m sure it will come in handy again.

[cosmosdan]

@9thFloor

Sorry to lose you.

Simply, if an omnipotent, omniscient god created free will then he’s ultimately responsible for everything since he made the universe operate on that principle.

---

I’ll skip all the other points for the sake of clarity and dealing with one thing at a time.

This is not a new point to me. Sure if we look at God as a totally separate omnipotent being who created the universe and remaining separate, controls everything in it, then that being would be responsible for the way it operates. I don’t. I see the language that maintains that kind of concept to be detrimental to our growth. If the kingdom of God is within then that’s where we’d better be looking. Even at that saying “we don’t get the big picture” may be an unsatisfying answer but not necessarily an inaccurate or illogical one.

I repeat, I believe we are connected in a very real way that we don’t fully comprehend. Furthermore I think this can be seen and grasped on the physical level, meaning, dealing with issues of suffering and poverty, striving for justice and lasting peace, should be the goals of the believer and the non believer. If the believer feels that God is helping and the atheist doesn’t believe that, so what?

All the conjecture eventually leads back to “Why are we here at all?” to which the believer and the non believer must ultimately admit…I don’t know. But here we are and we have to choose how we go forward.

I find that the kind of religion that divides us, “we’re God’s children, you’re not” “We’re saved, you’re not because you don’t believe the proper things” is hurting us, and frankly missing the real point of what most spiritual leaders like Jesus were trying to say.

OTOH, I don’t think dismissing all aspects of religion as foolishness is the way to go either and since I happen to be on the SDMB, I often respond to posts of that tone. {not calling yours that}
I realize this may be a tangent. I just wanted to clarify that I’m not defending religion or claiming belief is superior to non belief.

[cosmosdan]

@9thFloor

Oh yeah, and in regards to that: the head is responsible. My head tells my body what to do, so it’s responsible. Even if you insist, for reasons that seem to be bordering on ideological intransigence to me, that the whole is ultimately equally responsible then that means you’re conceding that god is equally responsible for the suffering in the world, right? I’ll take my part of the blame if he takes his.

Right , your head tells your body what to do and your body if operating correctly, does it. Where the analogy has problems and becomes hard to wrap our minds around, is the body having a will of it’s own.

That’s why Jesus said, “whatever you do to others you do to me” or , whatever you do to each other you do to yourselves.

Taking responsibility is definitely a good thing. Acting on that responsibility is where mankind struggles.

As to the second part there, who said anything about ‘creating’ duality?

I think it was me

Is this another very, very loosely based postmodern Xian concept? Duality already existed, right? So it was chosen by eating the apple, so to speak. But it had to already exist for it to be chosen. Who created it, sitting there on a tree?

Don’t know.

This blended god/human concept, forgive me, sounds like retroactive reasoning to justify a belief system that’s starting to sound to me at least a slight bit logically challenged. Which is fine since I know logic means nothing in religion, but logic is part of the premise upon which I’m having the discussion unfortunately.

It lacks logic why? Because I can’t answer all the questions and explain everything? I hope I never get so arrogant to pretend I can. The fact is there is much we don’t know and don’t understand. It’s impossible to logically explain something that is still beyond our ability to grasp. We use stories like the creation myth and analogies that will always be imperfect. It was never my aim to explain this to your or anybody else’s satisfaction. I’m not trying to convert anybody.

One thing I can say, logically speaking, is that it couldn’t possibly have been to gain perspective since we’d have already had that perspective in our minds and known what it was about in order to have been able to make the informed choice to choose duality. Which is where the logic falls apart for me.

Did we already have the experience itself? I meant perspective in more than a mental understanding way. You don’t gain the experience of scuba diving by reading a book on it.