But then I get to thinking what do they mean by perfect, or that everything is “necessary”. Because from where I sit nothing is necessary. Stuff happens but it doesn’t need to happen. It just doesn’t. That’s why I don’t think anything is necessary or perfect, it just is. The world isn’t perfect as is, it just IS.
I wouldn’t know how god sees it and I doubt he does either. But trying to debate it with him seems pointless. I tried it on his website before but after they hit me with radical skepticism I didn’t know what else to do .
When someone says this, check your pocket to make sure your wallet is still there.
Let’s say we have a conception of a perfect world. I’m not sure I buy that, but let’s say. The world being what it is, the odds of the world matches our conception of a perfect world are infinitesimally small. Not to mention that another person’s concept Given that, and given that we can change the world why not? And since other people are changing it to make it less perfect for us, that is a good enough reason to be active.
Here’s my problem with it - a perfect world would not require you to refrain from making judgements, it would pass all judgements, with flying colors. It’s true that without making judgements you can’t detect the imperfections in the world, however that doesn’t mean they’re not there, it just means you’re ignorant of them.
At best, one could say that they can successfully pretend that the world is perfect via a massive and sustained campaign of self-delusion. Which might be some people’s bag, but I prefer to recognize that no, sadly, one cannot happily stroll across the freeway without a care in the world.
Here’s the thing: you can’t call something perfect without judging it. (Well, not without being confused or stupid.) Calling something perfect is a value judgement itself, which can’t honestly be made without actually judging its values.
One can jam their fingers in their ears and say that they don’t hear anything wrong, and while that’s kind of silly it’s not technically wrong. But to jam your fingers in your ears and say that there’s beautiful music playing because you don’t hear anything wrong is 1) lying, and 2) idiotic.
And that’s what you get if you say the world is perfect because you (for no clear reason) aren’t qualified or supposed to judge it.
I’ll just agree with you on “that doesn’t make sense”.
I understand how I survive: sometimes I visit a restaurant, and sometimes I order a sandwich; and I’ve been known to say “wow, that looks perfect” when a waiter comes through. But if a waiter ever brings me a sandwich, and then produces a black bottle with a skull-and-crossbones emblem just under big lettering that spells out POISON, and then maintains eye contact while pouring some poison all over that sandwich, and then smacks the bottom of the bottle a few times for good measure, I’d then judge that sandwich to be — um, imperfect?
“Hey,” one might say, “I sure do wish you’d stopped adding stuff that sandwich a bit sooner: it was, apparently, fit for human consumption; and, now, seems to me that it’s not; am I right? Wasn’t it — if you will — a perfectly good sandwich: the sort that a guy might (a) pay money for and then (b) judge to be worth the price? And isn’t it now a sandwich that a reasonable guy would judge to have an imperfection?”
What would you say? “There is no imperfection; there is only what you judge to be imperfection; I shall now shrug, and then eat, because, hey, why not?”
Look, it’s very clear that these dudes you listen to are making a ton of judgements and assessments about reality (or rather, their deluded hallucinations about reality). That’s what their blogs are full of; assertions about reality and how you should think about it. So if they tell you it’s bad to make judgements about reality they’re being lying hypocrites. Specifically lying hypocrites who use obfuscating language and don’t bother differentiating imagination and speculation from reality.