I agree that the argument “if god exists, why does he let X happen?” (where x is something bad) is stupid; no atheist worth his salt uses that agument.
Here’s a much better one:
“God, if you’re up there, strike me down now!”
“hmm, nothing yet”
“still waiting…”
“well if he is up there, I ain’t dead yet. Whatever, my boss is yelling at me to get back to work and stop standing on the table.”
Libertarian, what part of “I DID NOT assert that a sphere would look the same to him as would a line segment” do you not understand?
Pay attention this time, because I’m not going to explain it again. Your original statement was “To Mr. Flatlander, a sphere appears to be an endless line.” That’s wrong. It appears to be a very finite line segment to Mr. Flatlander. Notice that I do not say Mr. Flatlander thinks it is a line segment, or that it follows his expectations for a line segment. I’m saying that, from every angle he views the intersection of the sphere with his plane (result = circle), it looks like a line segment would look to him if his line of sight was perpendicular to it, the same way that a sphere looks like a filled circle to you or I when viewed from any angle with one eye shut.
Excellent! Now explain your view of that relationship and we’ll get back to a discussion that is relevant to the thread!
Well, if you’re an atheist, sure. But if you believe that God created the universe, then he is morally responsible for natural disasters, even though no one can do anything about it. If pldennison builds his doomsday device with the Heisenberg trigger, I’d hold him responsible if it went off, even if he was out of the country when it happened. In fact, I’d say he was acting immorally even if it didn’t go off. Why should God get a pass?
The more I read here, the more I think that when it comes to addressing the Problem of Evil, “mysterious ways” is the only game in town. I’m not saying it’s invalid, just that there aren’t viable alternatives.
You know, questions like this make me think maybe I am nothing more than a Deist, because only that would adequately make logical sense to me.
In my recent searches through various religious beliefs, I have come to a conclusion: All religions try and answer this question to a degree (all that I have seen anyway).
Hell, even the likes of my dad (A David B-type who acts atheistic even though he’s really a strong agnostic) will react to tragic events, “Why did this happen?”
That’s called being HUMAN, I think.
We all want to know “Why.” Some people just feel the need to apologize for it on behalf of the one they call God, and others content themselves by answering “Because” and leaving it at that.
Yer pal,
Satan
TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
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Lib, I’m going to be a bit blunt with you here.
I know a lot of people have found your occasional tangential remark to be annoying. However, I personally don’t find that even half as annoying as your repeated insistence on redefining commonly-used words to suit your own beliefs.
Let’s take a look at the most recent example.
You had said: “There is no life in the atoms.”
I responded: “There is if you put enough of 'em together in the right way.”
You replied:
Now, somebody has already quoted to you about death. I’m going to quote about life, because it is apparent that once again you are using something other than the standard usage of the word.
From Webster’s New World Dictionary’s definition of life: “1 that property or quality of plants and animals that distinguishes them from inorganic matter or dead organisms; specif., the cellular biochemical activity or processes of an organism, characterized by the ingestion of nutrients, the storage and use of energy, the excretion of wastes, growth, reproduction, etc.” (italics added by me)
Now, there are other definitions, of course, but they are variations on this theme.
If you want to say something about a soul or a spirit or whatever it is you are trying to talk about, then fercryingoutloud, say it. Don’t type in these cryptic little notes and then argue when it’s pointed out that it’s wrong by the standard use of that word!
David
Thanks for your bluntness. I’m going to be blunt with you, too.
Is this a thread about nature, or is it a thread about God? I had presumed the latter, since “mysterious ways” are seldom assigned to nature, especially by atheists.
If we are talking about the supernatural, then life does not mean electrochemical activity. Dammit. Stop jumping on me for not equivocating, that is, not using terms that have different meanings in another context as though they had those meanings here.
That’s just like when you jumped on me about using the term “heart” to mean the essence of a thing, when it was clear to anyone without blinders that I was not talking about an organ that pumps blood.
Your insistence on speaking of life in spiritual matters as though the Spirit eats atoms and reproduces biologically, is ridiculous. You might not believe the Spirit exists, but a man of your great intellect ought at least to know that in speaking of spiritual things, physical things are mere analogies.
My remarks are not cryptic in this context. Rather, they are clarifying. If I say there is no life in the atoms, that there is life only in the Spirit, in the context of a thread on metaphysics, I am utterly confounded by your reaction that I have done something awful. Now, stop it, please.
Satan
Religion is faith turned into politics. That’s why God despises religion. His Goodness becomes something that religion leaders dispense, much like governments that presume to dispense rights.
On Life, etc.
Assuming God exists for the sake of argument (otherwise, how can we argue about His “mysterious ways”), whatever happens in the great morality play is necessarily God-centric. To query God’s nature outside a supernatural metaphysic is intellectually disingenuous.
What we might see as suffering on a physical level might be edifying on a spiritual level. And vice-versa.
That is why I am always careful to differentiate Life (of the Spirit) from life (of the atoms). God is a different kind of Life from that in the cells.
IMHO, I think the “all-benevolent” quality might be the hang up here. From a more traditional Christian perspective, I’d agree with all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good deity, but not all-merciful. An enormous amount of mercy, yes, but not unlimited if He will send souls to Hell or even allow us to suffer here. (I am uninformed what perspective other religions have on this…)
If indeed the more contemporary belief is correct, that all souls end up in Heaven anyways, then the good v. evil struggle seems to lose all meaning; suffering in this life would be pointless. I would hazard a guess that the “all-merciful” quality might be mutually exclusive to the “all-good” quality–a good judge might have to punish those who do wrong at the expense of being merciful. I am not trying to personify God as a petty tyrant, but rather a truly good and just entity that must see evil punished. Sure, you may think this sounds like a “divine weasel”, but perhaps God cannot control His nature much more than we can change ours.
I realize “mysterious ways” isn’t exactly a satisfying explanation for many people, but as limited intelligence beings attempting to comprehend an potentially all-knowing one, I think it does come down to a matter of faith, pure and simple.
Hmm… To clarify a bit, I did not intend to imply that natural disasters and the like are God’s punishment, but rather they in some way might be working for ultimate good at the expense of mercy.
Lib, I would submit to you that your comments were cryptic, as witnessed by the many people who said (paraphrased), “WTF?” If you had simply said, “the life of the Spirit is not in the atoms,” I think your comments would have been a bit clearer. We have new people coming on the board all the time who may not be familiar with your particular definitions, and there are also regs who may object to words being redefined beyond rather limited parameters. For most of the world, unless you explicitly redefine it, “life” refers to cellular biochemical activity.
If the flatlander has two “eyes”, like us, and thus “depth perception”, then he sees(knows) that it is in fact a circle before him (although he can’t see all the way around it of course). Unless the sphere enters the plane tangentially, in which case he sees a point, which someone mentioned already.
I apologize for that.
PeeQueue
Gaudere
You’re right. Good point. Thanks.
Well, then he would percieve an arc. As he traversed the circle (assuming the intersection of his plane with the sphere was static), the arc would appear to always turn to face him. Of course, the illustrations of A. Square (Mr. Flatlander) that I remember all show only one eye.
In any case, let’s assume the intersection of the sphere with his plane of existence caused the displacement and destruction of A. Square’s house (a very nice Colonial polygon). He has been left homeless, and not only that, has lost all of his possessions. Is this the act of a benevolent God? I believe that A. Square can sum up the possibilities as follows:[ul][]God is omnibenevolent, and this catastrophe will benefit A. directly in some unforeseeable manner (Lib’s “spiritual edification” perhaps).[]God is benevolent, but has a higher purpose for A. Sphere’s visitation, which has sacrificed A. Square’s good for some greater good.[]God is malevolent and/or capricious.[]God is good but does not intervene without cause or invitation.[]God is dead/absent/disinterested/on holiday.[]There is no God.[/ul]Now, A. Square can make any of these evaluations, but I submit that none of these possibilities should in any way effect the way he lives his life, having no bearing on either his physical or metaphysical well-being.
The “catastrophe” is amoral.
Whether A. will “benefit” depends entirely on A (i.e., his own moral interpretation of, or reaction to, the amoral event). But unforeseeable? Why that qualification? What is unforeseeable about it? Nothing could be more clearly foreseen. Did you mean ineffable perhaps?
Lib said:
Taking the argument you quoted (God is omnibenevolent, etc.), then the catastophe must be under God’s control, since one “omni” implies the other omni’s (omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent; otherwise, “omnibenevolence” can’t be done). If the catastrophe was by God’s direct hand, it cannot be amoral, God being the source of morality (if we assume the truth of the argument). Whatever A.'s moral interpretation of the occurence, the benefit(s) to him are not necessarily foreseeable to him. Even “spiritual edification” may not coincide with A.'s realization that the destruction of his house was a stroke of the Gentle Father’s hand.
If you wish to take the argument that God is good but takes no action without invitation, then the catastrophe must be considered “amoral”, but the benefit to A. of appealing to God is still not foreseeable to A. (I would think G’s actions could range anywhere from the gift of calm acceptance to a miraculous rebuilding of A.'s abode.)
sorry about the formatting…
You got it x, an arc - that’s what I meant (which is why I put know in parenthesis).
Incidentally, I’m sorry about the double post, although I swear I didn’t press the button twice.
PeeQueue
xenophon 41 said
I originally thought this, too, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that Deism doesn’t get God off the hook either. If God chooses not to intervene without invitation, that is a moral decision, and God is still ultimately responsible for the suffering, since he set up the universe.
As I see it, if God doesn’t respond to unnecessary suffering, there are three possibile explanations why (excluding Mysterious Ways, for the moment): either (1) he can’t, in which case he is not omnipotent; he won’t, in which case he is not omnibenevolent; or, he would and could, but isn’t aware of the suffering, in which case he is not omniscient.
I know that this question was troubling enough to cause some Protestant theologians to begin to consider the possibility of a limited God. But my layman’s understanding is that God must be unlimited by definition. If one of the omni’s is missing, then you’re not talking about God anymore. Maybe one of the more Judeo-Christian posters can clarify this point. Polycarp? Libertarian?
Dumb Ox said:
Of course, God may still then be considered “good” in the sense of a good parent who equips His/Her children with the resources and abilities to take care of themselves, and then lets them live their own lives as they choose, holding Him/Herself available for advice and support. If we choose to ignore His/Her loving guidance, that’s our free will.
I don’t buy this particular argument, but there it is.