No, he wouldn’t. The other people in your pilot simulation don’t suffer or die for losing. In the real world, where people’s lives, health, or suffering are at stake, computer programmers don’t try to make their programs or what they control exciting. They try to make them safe and effective.
I don’t CARE what your supernatural tyrant’s motives are. Assuming he even exists, all I know is the results of his supposed actions, which are enough to condemn him as a monster.
I DO know better. That’s why we live in a civilization, filled with technology. Because we can do better, much better, than what we were supposedly provided with by your “benevolent” creator.
In a hostile world with almost no resources or knowledge. An evil act.
Yes, it does. Which is why it is such an evil viewpoint. It eliminates all morality, all sympathy, all concern for consequences
Faith is insane. The intellectual equivalent of gouging out your own eyes.
Nope, not quite. Imagine the simulation as you described it, but lets make some changes to make it more like this world.
First, occasionally, the game that you paid for would just end. You’d get a little message like ‘structural failure, game over’. Sometime it would happen quickly, with little to no warning, but more often it happens slowly, with little bits falling off and sensors & guages inside the cockpit failing.
Second, other players, some of whom have much better planes, much bigger guns, and lots of friends, sometimes just come over and kill you. There are some areas of this game where this is the norm, with all the upgrades in the hands of a few. Getting out of these areas is almost impossible, because the exits and means of transportation are carefully controlled.
Third, in some areas of the game there isn’t enough fuel, or the fuel is outrageously expensive, or your fuel gets stolen. So you could be in the middle of a mission and then your fuel runs out and you die. Or you could be stuck on the ground unable to play because you have no fuel.
Fourth, there is no manual, and asking for help in game gets you a variety of answers. There are many factions in the game that think they know how the game works, and tell everyone what they think. Advice ranges from useful to instantly fatal with most of it somewhere in the middle. Some factions persist in their solutions even when it has been shown that their advice is useless or dangerous. Some factions have gained so much power that they enforce their version of the rules in their location, and make war on other factions who do things differently.
All of these things are out of your control. They are part of the game, and much more common than people think. Would you play this game? I wouldn’t, the programming sucks. Recognize disease, oppressive regimes, poverty & ignorance? The programmer put all of these things in, and humanity has been slogging through them since it stopped flinging poop. Adversity that leads to advancement or gain is one thing, but suffering and misery for no reason is quite another.
Besides the changes you mentioned, the consequences are REAL. You get strafed with gunfire, the simulator punctures you, hurting or killing you. The plane crashes in a simulated fireball, a nearby flamethrower immolates you. You crash in simulated enemy territory, some big guys drag you out of your seat, beat you up, pull out your toenails.
This is one game that would have a really small market.
Are you sure? Even in our human bodies we are able to put past events behind us. People go through painful experiences and can laugh and love afterwards. One of my more significant experiences related to this. I went from great pain and anguish to great peace and serenity overnight.
Sure, but the cells would still have to play their roles in the body. White cells would still fight infection and die in the process. We sometimes push our bodies to a point of pain intentionally for gain. Is that necessary? Depends on the what it is we are striving for doesn’t it?
I’d like to note that shared consciousness is a part of many religious traditions although usually cloaked in other terms. In the body analogy the head knows what the body parts do not. If I had to escape a burning building I might have to risk or injure parts of my body to save the whole. From their individual perspectives the individual parts might feel unnecessarily punished or punished for no reason.
choices small and great come together to shape our world. The drunk driver scenario is not just interaction between the driver and victim. Their choices, influenced by the choices of others, brought them together at that moment. We can’t take in the complexity of it all but god can.
Sure there is. You interact with your insurance agent. Then you interact with your wife to tell her you forgot to pay the premium and it lapsed. Then you interact with her lawyer.
I’m not sure I’d say irrelevant. Certainly not while we’re experiencing it. If you’re asking why as spiritual beings we’re here experiencing this world of duality in which we can observe or experience such suffering, I sure don’t know. Perhaps it’s just a cosmic thrill ride, or role playing game.
I think believers think there is a good reason and that’s the suggestion I’m making.
Ok,
It seems to me the argument is about purpose. Why would suffering be included? Non believers are saying that since they can’t fathom any reason that makes sense to them there must not be one. Maybe there isn’t. I’m suggesting that if we’re supposing god creator and sustainer of the universe then we might imagine that being sees a much bigger picture than we do and sees the purpose of this complex web of events that we cannot.
I’m suggesting the journey itself, the experience of our mortal selves with all it’s risks is part of that purpose. That means although we can say an omnipotent god could allow us to bypass the experience, we’re back to purpose. I can save myself from falling off a bike by never getting on but if I want to learn to ride a bike I have to get on.
OKay, god could just make me able to ride. If the purpose is the experience of learning how then why would he? Is it an act of love to help me avoid that experience or is it an act of love to allow me to experience it.
An example of how bad things can be explained not to be bad - however I do not accept that that one example implies that there are good ‘answers’ for the myriad of other forms of suffering. Which negates its usefulness as an example.
There are two answers to this: first that not everyone seems to get over it, and second, that it probably wasn’t fun while it lasted, either.
Right. This implies several things: that god cares less about us than his objectives, that god is not omnipotent (or else he’d find less painful ways to solve his problems), and that every form and type of suffering, large and small, serves a greater good, which seems pretty unlikely if you don’t restrict your thinking to a small set of examples for which obvious explanations can be proposed, and further it implies that the amount of suffering we endure is the best way to accomplish whatever it accomplishes, unless god is not omniscient.
Are you really conceding all that? I know most christians wouldn’t. (And the one they would accept doesn’t stand up well to rational scrutiny.)
I can take in a lot of complexity, thanks. And I’m still unsold on the idea that mere interaction is the point of it all, even to the point of justifying painful interaction.
(And the “the lord works in mysterious ways” argument from imagined ignorance will recieve from me the derisive sneer it deserves. You’re getting perilously close to it so watch your step.)
:rolleyes: Take fifteen seconds and think of your own example of an accident where interaction doesn’t occur then. It’s not exactly hard.
Well, I’m all on board for the thrill ride and role playing game explanations, since in those the short answer is that God doesn’t grieve for our suffering as mere characters in the game; he doesn’t care or even revels in it. You don’t see many theists who take this approach, though.
Well, why is the process of learning of any value at all in this? What purpose could it possibly serve?
Even if given that there is a purpose, why wouldn’t God just give you that experience? He’s omnipotent, right? Why not just create you with all those things learned? With someone who is omnipotent, there’s really no need to actually go through with the process. You can make them believe they’ve already been through the process.
For that matter, if there is a guiding purpose (i.e. learning to ride a bike, never give up, etc.), then what’s the consistency of it? What lesson is an infant who dies asphyxiated under the body of his shot-to-death mother learning?
And finally, what about any of this makes God loving, just, or fair? Just because someone, somewhere pontificated that God must have a higher purpose for us? That that’s why there’s suffering in the world? It seems like the teeming millions might need a better answer than that.
HOW??? when your morality, sympathy, and concern for consequences are what count when you leave the “life” simulation for the after-life? I was saying that if an afterlife exists, then life can be likened to a training sim for it, just like a fighter pilot sim can be training for becoming a fighter pilot. How could you not see the analogy? It matters what you do in the fighter pilot sim. It determines if they EVER let you in a fighter jet. How is this a hard concept? If an afterlife exists, it still matters what you do in life.
it’s almost as if he didn’t read the rest of my statement. (you know, the part that explains the statement, but that he left out.)
hmm, he left the explanation out and quoted the two statements around it, and implied that training sims don’t impart any skills that carry on after you leave them.
I’m trying to see how it is he seems to be implying that morality is only possible in a world without a creator or afterlife. I just don’t follow that at all.
How do you know that? How do you know that this life has anything to do with your afterlife? From everything I’ve heard, you’re supposed to lose a lot of those things that made you who you were when you go to heaven. I have no interest in singing or playing musical instruments, but I’ve heard that that’s all I will be doing in heaven. I won’t have a body, so I won’t have the ability to taste or feel, no pain or pleasure, nothing. This world certainly doesn’t sound like training for anything that’s supposed to come after.
I propose that the afterlife is like Disneyland as if it were run by Larry Flynt, and Viagra is produced naturally just like adrenalin. It is run by a co-op consisting of the Greek, Indian and Norse gods, and sinners are thrown into an eternal Republican or Democratic primary(depending on what you were while you were alive. Independants will have to listen to an eternal debate between Ralph Nader and H. Ross Perot.
My view of the afterlife is just as valid as anyone elses’.
Except that there’s not the slightest shred of evidence for an afterlife, much less the qualifications for entering it. So, if that’s what you base your morality on, any atrocity you feel like is justifiable. Because the qualifications you are basing your behavior one are simply made up, and can therefore be used to justify anything; and your dismissal of the real world as real means you can also ignore the real consequences of you own actions. If you are right, there’s no reason not to torture or kill a billion people for any reason, or no reason at all, except the supposed qualifications for the afterlife - which are whatever you say they are.
Once again. In order to have a meaningful moral code, it has to be relevant to the real world, and the real people it affects. Not some fantasy. There is no God; there is no afterlife; therefore, any morality based on them is only going to be “moral” by sheer luck, because it is based on fantasy.
When someone is acting according to the arbitrary dictates of a delusion, he isn’t being moral. When someone ignores real suffering because of a self indulgent fantasy about an afterlife, he isn’t being moral. AT BEST, he’s irrational.
It was used to demonstrate perspective and remains useful for that.
No it wasn’t. I don’t see the point.
What I believe it showed me is that we are co creators of this world with conscious and unconscious choices and that the path to peace and serenity remains open and available. It also showed me that much of our suffering comes from our own choices and our own limited perspective.
I realize this doesn’t answer questions about more egregious suffering and what appears to be the needless suffering of innocents but IMO it’s a piece of the puzzle. If I as one among many can go from anguish to serenity in that small example then it demonstrates to me that other answers may exist and are worth pursuing.
since I believe we are connected I think that makes our objectives the same. The issue as I see it is becoming more conscious of that connection and that objective and taking the necessary steps.
This is often presented as the obvious conclusion but IMO it it just isn’t. We can see in milder examples that hardships can teach us but when we try to extrapolate that to a timeless being who sees and comprehends all creation in a way we cannot then phrases like “that doesn’t make any sense” is supposed to have weight. They don’t for me. “It doesn’t make any sense to me” is a statement of fact that has no conclusions or answers in it.
It could mean that the spectrum of experience is the way that we have chosen to experience this temporary physical existence.
I’m unclear what it is you think I’m conceding. I don’t hold with a lot of traditional Christian beliefs.
Thats clear.
OOO a warning. I’d better be careful.
Your approach seems to be that when I make a suggestion about one thing you assume it should apply equally in all cases and then show me that it doesn’t.
Your assuming something I never asserted. I’ve never claimed that each point I’m making applies equally in all scenarios. Creation, the universe and our consciousness is always interacting in some way. We are in constant motion. In this case, there is no accident where interaction does not occur.
I reject that god not caring is the natural assumption of this concept.
Perhaps having the temporary spectrum that duality provides helps us to appreciate love in a way we couldn’t in any other way. Regardless, the subject is exhausted for me for the time being.
As useful as the fact that a clock is correct at 12 midnight and 12 noon is as showing us that the clock isn’t stopped. Especially in the absence of other examples of it being correct besides those special cases.
However, if you are unwilling to recognize that an unusual case does not a generic argument make, I am uninterested in arguing the point further. I think I’ve pointed out the problem for any third party party observer and that’s enough for me.
The point being that this argument of “You’ll get over it” is dismissive of suffering, which hasn’t seemed too impressive in other contexts.
I think your extrapolation is unjustified; as above you’re presuming that various other puzzle pieces will fit the same as the example puzzle piece you have experience with, ignoring that these other puzzle pieces don’t all seem to have the same shape. This may be good enough for you, but I will never take that leap, for the reason I think it’s unjustified extrapolation.
I don’t believe there’s a single consistent ‘connection’ to chase down; there’s ample evidence that people can connect to any god or ideology that they can think up or be convinced about. So this sounds like we should just chase whichever tale we can personally come up with.
But, while we’re all chasing our tales, how can we be sure that our particular chosen tale will provide believable objectives that justify our suffering? What if we’re ideologically opposed to taking lots of things on faith?
Actually, “that doesn’t make any sense” is a statement of a proof by contradition. If you fail to make things make sense, then your nonsensical position is shown, in conclusion, to be wrong.
And presuming that god isn’t omnipotent is one solution, but not the obvious one. It’s actually a rather generous one. The obvious solution is that, if there’s a god at all, it isn’t benevolent.
What is this, blaming the victim? I also see hints of of stating this existence (and it’s suffering) is irrelevent, to be dismissed. A double-play!
Clearly. However, as far as I can see, you’re trying to have your cake and eat it too, just like the christians do. I was just checking whether you wanted to concede some secondary issue (omnipotence, onmitience, whichever) in order to free up the possibility for your position to be more readily plausible. It seems not.
Arguments by example are proofs by cases with delusions of grandeur. If you can’t cover all the cases, especially if there are large categories of cases that you can’t address with more than ‘trust me’-type handwaving, then you haven’t got a credible position.
No interaction between people, you mean? So there’s nobody who nobody cares about who is wounded, dies, and is never is found, ever, anywhere in the world?
…Admittedly, this is a smaller case; I can hardly expect you to cover it if you’re not in the market for covering any case where people die miserable and diminished by their suffering.
Have you ever played a video game? How consumed with grief were you when you killed a goomba, or even when Mario, your own avatar, died?
Perhaps having the temporary spectrum that duality provides helps us to relax by letting us kill things viciously without remorse. Regardless, there is no need to argue if you have exhausted your interest in defending your position. Objectively speaking, if you are satisfied with your beliefs, it should not bother you if every other person on earth, much less a handful of people on a message board, thinks they’re incorrect.
Maybe its the difference in our styles. It seems to me that you keep drawing conclusions about my points that have little to do with what I’m actually saying.
such as, this
or this
which is far removed from the point I was trying to make.
It’s more that I’m aware that I don’t have enough pieces of the puzzle together to see what the whole picture is and I’m okay with that. All I’m doing here is guessing at what the picture might be. So is everyone else.
Except it seems to me that in pursuing this connection mankind has made some small progress. Maybe it’s just evolution. Maybe not.
We can’t be sure but we still have to move forward. Whether what I’m proposing is close or completely false we still have to deal with what’s before us and see what happens next.
I don’t think that applies to the subject at hand but you’re welcome to think so.
I am critically limited in that I am forced to work only with the words you have written, and not the ideas you are trying to describe. Also, I occasionally have a sufficiently powerful reaction to the words written that I post my response to that, without drying to dig past the overt meaning of the words to the underlying one.
I’ve also noticed that we’ve got to the point of dividing up each other’s posts into lists of clips averaging a sentence long, or even less, and trading responses to those. That can’t be good for communication.
And, as noted, the difference perhaps most barring to agreement between us here is the differing levels of information from which we’re willing to start extrapolating, and the creativity we’re willing to apply in the extrapolation process.
Actually that progress is from neither religion nor evolution; it’s from science / invention. Most notably medicine, indoor plumbing, the printing press, and toilet paper.
No disagreement there. Though that being the case, I do keep wondering why various people seem to prefer trying to deal with what will happen in far-flung times after they die.
