That would explain quite much about how you interact with people, I suppose. It’s too bad you don’t participate in the Pit because Fred Phelps could use some support from time to time.
Which is far more subtle than most of what we see in the Bible - but I certainly can’t argue with this.
Dr. Pangloss, I presume? 
Sorry, I don’t buy that an omnipotent God couldn’t construct a somewhat friendlier earth without violating any natural laws or falling into logical contradictions. Mars lost its atmosphere due to its size. We don’t float on the molten core, we’re a bit above that. Is the movement of plates really necessary? Couldn’t God have put down some really big anchors? Even for our natural disasters, would God have been violating anyone’s freewill by making the tsunami go somewhere else, or by making the Lisbon Easter earthquake wait until mass was over?
Buying into the spirit game for the sake of argument, I agree that the body not following the spirit is not a measure of morality. But what of others harmed due to this? If it is not the fault of the person, isn’t it the fault of the body that God gave that person? The alternative is that the body is assigned more or less randomly. That’s fine for me, as an atheist, but how does assigning a good soul a body that cause him to do what looks like evil to others furthers his free will?
What you’re saying here is exactly what I was talking about upthread. I’d start with the assumption that we are naturally “good”, turned “bad” by our bodies, but I think for the sake of this discussion that’s not a lot different from a good spirit.
Perhaps there are bad spirits forced to do good by their bodies? That would be interesting.
It’s probably neither here nor there, but I don’t agree that sociopaths lack free will.
Not that it’s necessarily here nor there, but I don’t agree that sociopaths lack free will. If anything, they seem to have more enacted free will in that they aren’t bound by social conventions or moral responsibility in their view.
Edit: Oops, my computer did a double take sorry about that!
Ah, yes, Fred Phelps. Just as comparing people to Hitler was a classic method of deflecting criticism and demonizing posters without having to actually argue with them, now it’s Phelps. I’m supposed to crawl away whimpering in shame because you compared me to a minor and rather harmless Christian loon. Well, I won’t. In fact, I regard your tactic as evidence of how foolish your own position is; you don’t have any better arguments. You wander from thread to thread squealing “Phelps ! Phelps !” as if that was a decisive argument.
And as far as Phelps goes, he’s in your camp not mine. He bases his morality on God and spirits, not real world things; just as you say we should. And he’s scum, just as I say is the result of such an attitude.
And as far as hatred always being wrong, is it evil to hate the Nazis ? The HIV virus ? Someone who raped your sister ? There’s plenty of things that deserve to be hated, and need to be stopped or destroyed, and hatred is a great motivator.
But for what? One has to be yanked into the “man is essentially flesh” model in order for that to become an issue. We’re all dying in some way. I’m not sure why a merciful sudden death by earthquake isn’t indeed preferable to a slow death by old age or disease. Me, I’m dying basically by suffocation (although treatments have been somewhat helpful). But you’re dying too, maybe just in a slower way. And in general there is a certain entropic principle afoot in the biological sphere. So again, while death is an emotional and physical tragedy, it is also a spiritual awakening. It really is important not to trivialize physical pain and suffering. Jesus understood this, of course, which is why He healed people rather than making them sick. But it is also important not to trivialize the eternal reality.
I think it would be even more suffering. Imagine wishing to do things that edify people but being incapable of it. I think the person would be frustrated terribly, almost like a physical handicap. But since the aesthetics model measures the will of the spirit and not the will of the body, it doesn’t really matter. Fault only matters in an ethical model. For all we know, God has assigned the very best spirits to the very worst bodies, which we’ve seen for example in the case of our grandson whose brain tumor left him physically hideous and helpless, but whose spirit continues to touch the lives of many people.
I think there may be numerous examples of that. But then, who am I to judge. 
If you’re a person of faith, I do not have to reveal.
I’m sure your Google finger is ready to click,
but to prove Atheists don’t like to point fingers and
blame ALL the time, I’m ain’t tellin’.
But it was the late '80s, and it was in Northern New Jersey.
Priests? Pallotine, Roman Catholic, Irish.
*Quote:
Originally Posted by Voyager
Sorry, I don’t buy that an omnipotent God couldn’t construct a somewhat friendlier earth without violating any natural laws or falling into logical contradictions. Mars lost its atmosphere due to its size. We don’t float on the molten core, we’re a bit above that. Is the movement of plates really necessary? Couldn’t God have put down some really big anchors? Even for our natural disasters, would God have been violating anyone’s freewill by making the tsunami go somewhere else, or by making the Lisbon Easter earthquake wait until mass was over?
Originally Posted by Liberal
But for what? One has to be yanked into the “man is essentially flesh” model in order for that to become an issue. We’re all dying in some way. I’m not sure why a merciful sudden death by earthquake isn’t indeed preferable to a slow death by old age or disease. Me, I’m dying basically by suffocation (although treatments have been somewhat helpful). But you’re dying too, maybe just in a slower way. And in general there is a certain entropic principle afoot in the biological sphere. So again, while death is an emotional and physical tragedy, it is also a spiritual awakening. It really is important not to trivialize physical pain and suffering. Jesus understood this, of course, which is why He healed people rather than making them sick. But it is also important not to trivialize the eternal reality.*
I’m not going to spend a great deal of time on this one because Voyager’s point is really pretty self-evidently valid and the whole defense seems remedial to me; also, I personally don’t have trouble with the sin-based cause for evil that my version of xianity taught when I accepted it, but nonetheless:
Does physical suffering matter?
Yes.
Could god eliminate suffering?
Yes, but then you wouldn’t have free will.
Okay, could god eliminate suffering not caused by free will?
Yes.
Then why doesn’t he?
Why would he?
Umm…because physical suffering hurts. And it matters, as you said.
Death is a spiritual awakening.
What? Can we keep it earthbound and physical-bound for the moment please since we’re talking about physical suffering?
Oh, let’s not get stuck on the ‘physical’ world, besides we’re all dying and suffering.
But you do believe that a sudden death would be more merciful than a slow, lingering death?
Yes.
So…then god could cause nature to give us all sudden, merciful deaths right?
Not without violating free will.
The free will of what, the volcano?
Life is a cookie.
Etc.
What does having faith have to do with knowing where you went to school? Catholic teaching hardly incorporates divination or clairvoyance.
And I had no desire to go Google the school’s name; I was wondering if it included “Pius X” in the name, as a lot of those folks have some rather odd views of the Catholicism they profess.
Frankly, your anecdotes sounded much more like some of Jack Chick’s “Alberto Rivera” tales than anything I have encounterd in the Church. Having associations, (some direct, some collateral) with several Catholic colleges including four seminaries, I would have to note that your stories would have been the object of derision at all of them. No instructor would have ever told a student to avoid studying the discrepancies in the bible or the historical periods when the church fell into error. As for seeing images on pastries, those are officially repudiated by the RCC and the couple of times I saw a student raise the issue, the instructor patiently explained what a “coincidence” was and noted that the church does not consider such events to be anything else.
Numbering the Commandments differently occurs, but there is no separate set of Commandments (in Italky or elsewhere) that is totally different than any others.
Now, it is possible that there are small groups of Catholics who buy into such stories? Sure. But IF those events actually happened, they are examples of clearly non-mainstream Catholicism.
I hope this isn’t a high jack but I wonder of what a spirit is composed ?
What is the difference between life and soul?
These I believe are some of the reasons people become defensive: it may send a bit of doubts on their beliefs.
Monavis
I don’t think it’s a hijack. If I understand **Liberal ** correctly, he is saying that the self, the real person, is the soul, which is separate from the body, and is also immaterial–not physical, but spiritual.
As I have alluded to a couple of times, I think that both philosophical and scientific considerations show that this form of substance dualism is false, but I didn’t argue the point.
Yes, you’ve understood me correctly. Thanks.
Do you or your grandchild deserve suffering? Not by any metric I can think of. Does a Mafia leader who order the deaths of many deserve to die in bed of a heart attack with no pain? I’m just a person, who doesn’t get god’s will I suppose.
I can see goodness being independent of actions. I don’t buy it, but I can understand the argument. This has nothing to do with free will, though. If giving a person a body that will do bad things despite the spirit’s goodness doesn’t violate free will, how then does giving a person a body which refuses to commit mass murder violate it. The spirit will still be evil, or whatever, but innocents won’t be harmed.
I understand that you think that in the long run only the spirit matters. Then why have rules at all? We could all be like Jessica Rabbit, and say we’re not bad, our bodies are made that way. God will sort out our basic goodness no matter what we do.
Personally, I’m just drawn that way.
Not totally, of course, but do you think a mass murderer is always making informed moral choices? Aren’t there some things that you just couldn’t bring yourself to do? I’m not saying they are robots, but that their choices are limited. The reason I bring this up is that a God could limit our choices in a good way while preserving a good chunk of our free will. Since we are constrained, by whatever cause, why not be constrained in a good way?
Hmm…‘informed moral choice’? That’s a tricky one, I don’t know…if their choices are limited, I suspect they’re not limited by a genetic lack of free will but by the same things that limit my choices in any given scenario where I have to decide. I’m just limited by the perspective I’m taking, knowledge, experience, intelligence, and my emotional disposition, I think. So if they’re not making ‘informed’ decisions (for that part of it), then what would be lacking is just information…brings to mind the tree of the knowledge of good and evil actually.
Ah, I see where you’re going. To me, the notion of free will is absolute I guess; either it’s completely free or it’s not totally free. Obviously, god could do anything by (my) definition of what god is. But semantically and logically speaking, I don’t think free will could be constrained and still be free will. But then I don’t think a sociopath is an example of a somewhat-constrained will so I guess that example wouldn’t work for me as an example of a case where there is less free will.
Perhaps in someone mentally retarded?
The problem I have with the suffering/free will argument is those cases where suffering is caused by something that doesn’t affect free will like natural disasters and the fact that I can’t imagine death with suffering vs. death without suffering makes the ‘gateway-opening/entry to the afterworld’ part of death any more valuable by having to suffer on the way there.
I don’t think anybody deserves suffering, but that’s not the nature of suffering. I mean, it isn’t something earned or merited. It’s just something that comes with bodies and organs and an amoral universe. (For the benefit of people who use amoral to mean immoral, amoral here means “without morality; i.e., neither good nor evil”: a-moral, just like a-theist.) My grandson didn’t get brain cancer because he deserved it, and my new grandson was not spared from brain cancer because of deserving not to get it.
On the physical level — the physical level — people are just like planets and asteroids. In the physical world, shit happens. One galaxy collides with another, not because either deserved it, but because of physical law. Whatever it is that causes cancer caused my grandson’s. There’s no blame because there was no moral intent on the part of anyone or anything.
Just as an irrelevant aside (but this being the SDMB and all), I think a heart attack is very painful. Maybe a cardiac arrest.
I appreciate your understanding very much, but until you understand (as Sophistry and Illusion does) that the view from here is that man is a dual creature, you will not understand these matters of free will. You’re asking me the questions, and so you need to take the context along with the answers. You might disagree with the duality I’m talking about, but that has nothing to do with whether you can comprehend it. You can. It’s just that you keep forgetting about it. And so this whole notion of innocents being harmed — while it holds up in your model, it doesn’t hold up in mine. So the question is which of us is right? I will say I am, and you will say you are, and hopefully we’ll respect one another still because we understand where each other is coming from.
The same argument is often made about atheism, though, and suffers the same flaw. It can be argued that if there is no God and no eternal accounting for actions, there is nothing intrinsically stopping you from plowing over whomever you need to, to get what you can while you can. Nothing other than your own scruples that you decide are important.
The flaw is the same for theists who reason that they can do as they please and be forgiven by a merciful God at juuuuuust the last minute, kinda like jumping up just before the elevator hits the bottom. The fact is that ethical behavior isn’t a matter between a person and his God (for the theist) or conscience (for the atheist). Ethical matters are between a man and his fellow man. That is what differentiates ethics (like law and stuff) from morality (like religion and stuff). At least, that’s how I think of it.
But the thing about God sorting things out doesn’t apply in my case because I believe that God judges no one. At least, that’s what Jesus teaches. He teaches that the Father has given the son all power and right to judge. He further teaches that the Son chooses to judge no one. And so, what remains? If we are not judged by God, then we judge ourselves simply by our moral choices. Our judgment is itself a moral (read: aesthetical) judgment. How much do we value goodness? If it is something of great value to us, we will gravitate toward it. If it is worthless to us, we will walk away.
And so that is how the judgment will come about. A man, whatever he has done in his life, will see God. If he likes what he sees, he will be drawn to Him. But if, just as in life, he detests what he sees, he will run away from Him. For the good man, God will appear as something beautiful and wonderful. For the evil man, God will look like a steaming pile of shit. We will judge ourselves by His standard. And many will be mightily surprised at what they see because He will not resemble what religious politicians have said about Him.
ETA: Note that this gives atheists just as much of an “in” with God as Christians are said to have. There is no reason you wouldn’t value goodness just as much as I do. All that other stuff is just labels: theist, atheist — same same morally.
Finally, I want to clear up again that I’m not saying that an action can never be the result of an immoral decision. It can. And maybe it usually is. I’m just saying that we can’t know. That’s a different thing. Usually, we judge ourselves by our intentions, and others by their behavior. You just can’t know what’s in a man’s heart no matter how wonderful or horrible he may seem to behave.
I guess the real problem is whether it would be morally permissible for God to create an amoral universe in the first place. Suppose I always personally displayed love toward my daughter, but set up our household in a way that displayed indifference to her welfare–not hostility or concern, but simply lack of concern, similar to **Liberal’s ** amoral universe. So poisons weren’t kept out of reach; they were just put wherever I found it most convenient to put them. I didn’t make any effort to make sure there weren’t heavy appliances or pieces of furniture she could pull over on herself, etc. Suppose one day she touches an exposed live wire I never bothered to cap and is killed. Now, can I mourn her death, and at the same time disclaim all responsibility for it? Of course not. I am responsible for not making her environment safe; amorality or indifference isn’t good enough. Then why should God be allowed to disclaim responsibility for all the tragedy and suffering caused by the amorality of the universe, when He chose to make the universe this particular way, with these laws of nature and physical constants, etc.?
A ‘problem’ of the first order which, I think, is pretty unsolvable when you go back to the first place of how the universe was created which pretty much seems to end in a god works in mysterious ways in the religion I was raised in. Actually, we were implicitly taught that god operated within the universe and was actually not its master but had to operate within its constraints. Don’t ask. 
I’ve always seen the issue as being whether we actually make choices, or that our conscious mind thinks it is choosing something determined by our subconscious based on our genes, environment, and upbringing.
I think of it as navigating a network of roads. Can we freely do this even if a few roads have roadblocks, or bridge out signs? I’d say that’s still free navigation, if not totally free. On the other hand, if our car is actually being driven by a GPS system, which also tells us where to go and lets us pretend we’re steering, then we don’t.
Does a person with a limited range of choices still have free will? You don’t have to be retarded. I’m tone deaf, and while most people can choose to learn to play the piano if they wished to, I can’t, practically speaking. When my daughter was little and took lessons, I tried to help her, but I could only tell if she was playing the right notes by looking at her fingers. That road is blocked to me.
The reason I bring up natural evil is that one can make the argument that human caused suffering is an inevitable byproduct of free will, and that free will is worth it. That doesn’t work for natural suffering, and theists are left with the “best of all possible worlds” argument, or the “suffering is trivial” argument, both of which we’ve seen.