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Rappaport posted:A being of infinite wisdom and infinite resources would hold petty grudges and resentments, mete out infinite punishments for finite transgressions? This is what you wish to venerate and hold dear? I pity you. If such a being exists, wouldn't you kinda have to do so? There wouldn't be much, if anything, to do to fight against them.
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Nov 26, 2014 18:36
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Nintendo Kid posted:If such a being exists, wouldn't you kinda have to do so? There wouldn't be much, if anything, to do to fight against them. Seems pointless. A being that amuses itself by inventing eternal torments for the majority of its creations and allows thousands of false religions to exist and lead people astray into everlasting fire is probably villainous enough to toss you into the volcano for kicks no matter how much you abase yourself. But I guess if such a being were shown to exist you may as well try the rear end-kissing and hope for the best.
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Nov 26, 2014 18:43
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Nintendo Kid posted:If such a being exists, wouldn't you kinda have to do so? There wouldn't be much, if anything, to do to fight against them. You could defy them and die knowing you were vindicated in your moral superiority.
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Nov 26, 2014 18:44
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Nintendo Kid posted:If such a being exists, wouldn't you kinda have to do so? There wouldn't be much, if anything, to do to fight against them. If god exists, would god send himself to hell? Oh wait, he probably asked forgiveness.
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Nov 26, 2014 18:48
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VitalSigns posted:Seems pointless. A being that amuses itself by inventing eternal torments for the majority of its creations and allows thousands of false religions to exist and lead people astray into everlasting fire is probably villainous enough to toss you into the volcano for kicks no matter how much you abase yourself.
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Nov 26, 2014 18:48
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Where do you draw the line between worshipping God the wrong way and worshipping a false God? Are Jews worshipping the same God? Mandaens? Baha'is? Mormons? Muslims?
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Nov 26, 2014 18:51
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CommieGIR posted:If god exists, would god send himself to hell? the true purpose of jesus uncovered itt
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Nov 26, 2014 18:52
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CommieGIR posted:If god exists, would god send himself to hell? Christian doctrine holds that He did send Himself to the abode of the dead, as is expressed in the Apostle's Creed. "For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead that, though condemned in the flesh in human estimation, they might live in the spirit in the estimation of God."
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Nov 26, 2014 19:24
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rudatron posted:Do you understand why I'm asking you questions? It's because I'm trying to get you to make your case, make an argument that we can talk about, rather than just have it as 'you need a right' ie- claim and counter-claim. Okay, if you dispute an assumption, if you think it's loaded, then dispute it, but make your case. It's not enough to say "you're misinterpreting me", and then be silent as to the point behind the questions. Where exactly is a 'right' necessary in the logic of a 'judgement'? Is that abstract enough to answer, and if not, why not? To be clear, I did actually explain my reasoning earlier. But since you think further explanation is necessary, I'll try again. My argument was and remains that a right is necessary for a judgment. Most of the time people don't even think about it unless their right is questioned. An example might be when someone says "what right do you have to question this artist/athlete/etc., you think you could do better?" Often someone who is questioned will attempt to justify themselves with something that basically amounts to "I'm a member of this community, and therefore have a right to make demands, or offer criticism and so on." You've already stated your objection to this line of reasoning earlier in the thread: quote:You don't need a position to judge. Positions are necessary for a judgement to be respected by a group of people, but again, that's political. As a subject, each person has the capability to reach their own judgements - no 'position' required. Your argument, if I've understood it correctly, is: The individual forms his judgments prior to and cognitively independent of any social response it might receive if it was to be expressed openly. If the judgment is afterwards rejected by others, that doesn't somehow make it retroactively non-existent. To explain my perspective I'll use an example. Imagine there's a trial and the judge says to the defendant: "I find you guilty of X and sentence you to Y." The defendant replies: "Well i find you guilty of being an rear end in a top hat and sentence you to suck my dick from the back." Now, in legal terms, one of these statements constitutes a verdict and the other doesn't. One of them will be executed by the institutions of the legal system, while the other will at most lead to further punishment for the one who made it. This is obviously because the judge has the right and the defendant doesn't. The judge owes this right to his position in a certain legal and political system, which will function for as long as the people (or at least enough of them) involved in and subject to it are willing and able to uphold it. Then you say (and correct me if I'm misrepresenting your position here): But that's exactly what I was talking about! It's a matter of politics, none of that transforms the judgment made by the defendant into a non-judgment. He's free to do so even if no-one is going to enforce his "verdict." Here I think we have arrived at the core of the problem, the reason our discussion has been so confused. You are (if I'm allowed to presume) coming from a humanistic-individualistic position, and that (I assume) is why my argument is not only unacceptable to you, but basically unintelligible. What I am saying is that there is an ultimate Law. One that is not subject to the approval of those it applies to. You are part of this "legal system" whether you like it or not, but you have no influence over it. You say that you are free to judge the, uh, "judge" in this system. You are not. You can say "God is evil!" if you want to, but this is no more a judgement of Him than the statement made by the defendant was a legal verdict. Is my argument clear? I'm saying there's a law that applies to and defines everything that we do, one that isn't subject to any of the limitations that apply to the laws of men or those responsible for enforcing them. I hope you'll allow me a colorful example to illustrate this: one might as well poo poo in the ocean or howl at the moon and call that judgement. As I said, this is where I think the problem lies. The existance of such an "objective standard" (for lack of a better term) that determines the nature of our actions is both abhorrent and nonsensical to you. quote:And I'm not going to make your case for you on, for example, standards. If you believe that omniscience and omnipotence must necessarily imply a special standard of moral judgement, you must say why. It does not logically follow that omni-whatever gives you a free pass on moral judgment, any more than being blue or tall, or it at least does not immediately follow. You must fill in the gaps, if they can be filled. Because I think imposing that limitation on an otherwise "perfect" being is arbitrary and nonsensical. Assuming god is all-powerful, how could there exist a moral standard that is independent of him and contrary to his will? This makes no sense to me. And why would this god create literally everything except moral rules fit for his purpose? Unless, of course, the purpose is to allow his creations to present valid judgments concerning his infinite capacity for evil. That would be a very strange god to me. This brings us back to the very beginning of our discussion. When people assume that god exists for the sake of argument, they include just enough to allow them to criticize him. But what remains after their arbitrary mutilation can no longer be called God. And they seem to choose which parts to include on the basis of the argument they're trying to make. That, I think, is cheating. They imagine not God but an angry man who lives in the clouds. He apparently has the power to kill and torture, but none to prevent them from exposing truthfully his unspeakable evil, according to standards as valid as his own. That is why I think it makes sense for an atheist to say "God does not exist" (even if I disagree), but not "God is evil."
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Nov 26, 2014 19:28
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VitalSigns posted:Seems pointless. A being that amuses itself by inventing eternal torments for the majority of its creations and allows thousands of false religions to exist and lead people astray into everlasting fire is probably villainous enough to toss you into the volcano for kicks no matter how much you abase yourself. Pointless yes, but clearly the capricious rear end in a top hat god accepts bribes in the form of pretending like you love him to other people. If you're certain that loving with him means he gets to gently caress with you forever you simply gotta play by his rules. It'd be the only rational decision left. Who What Now posted:You could defy them and die knowing you were vindicated in your moral superiority. And then since the afterlife is real you get to have your memory of that victory erased by the all powerful rear end in a top hat god just before your eternal torture. Doesn't really get you out ahead. He loved big brother indeed.
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Nov 26, 2014 19:39
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Nintendo Kid posted:If such a being exists, wouldn't you kinda have to do so? There wouldn't be much, if anything, to do to fight against them. Echoing what others have said, but even if that creature is not just, we can strive to be just ourselves, because that is the "right" thing to do based on my (completely arbitrary) value system. Additionally, given that value system, I could not make myself really love or worship such a monstrosity, and given that the creature can see into my mind, I could not deceive it. I guess one could try undergoing some sort of intense Jesus Camp where they attempt to program you into loving the creature, but this kind of programming has not been 100% successful even in authoritarian societies.
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Nov 26, 2014 19:57
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Sakarja posted:Because I think imposing that limitation on an otherwise "perfect" being is arbitrary and nonsensical. Assuming god is all-powerful, how could there exist a moral standard that is independent of him and contrary to his will? This makes no sense to me. And why would this god create literally everything except moral rules fit for his purpose? Unless, of course, the purpose is to allow his creations to present valid judgments concerning his infinite capacity for evil. That would be a very strange god to me. This brings us back to the very beginning of our discussion. If God decrees that murder and torture is evil, this is an absolute moral standard. However if God murders and tortures, this is not considered by believers to be evil. So either murder and torture is absolutely wrong, and therefore god is evil for committing such acts, or murder and torture are permissable in certain situations (it's ok if god does it), meaning morality/the rule against torture and murder is not an absolute. quote:When people assume that god exists for the sake of argument, they include just enough to allow them to criticize him. But what remains after their arbitrary mutilation can no longer be called God. And they seem to choose which parts to include on the basis of the argument they're trying to make. That, I think, is cheating. They imagine not God but an angry man who lives in the clouds. He apparently has the power to kill and torture, but none to prevent them from exposing truthfully his unspeakable evil, according to standards as valid as his own. To be fair, literally every theist I've discussed this with disagrees with each other on the exact details of how god operates. God is a pretty ill-defined concept in a lot of ways.
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Nov 26, 2014 19:57
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Sakarja posted:Because I think imposing that limitation on an otherwise "perfect" being is arbitrary and nonsensical. Assuming god is all-powerful, how could there exist a moral standard that is independent of him and contrary to his will? This makes no sense to me. And why would this god create literally everything except moral rules fit for his purpose? Unless, of course, the purpose is to allow his creations to present valid judgments concerning his infinite capacity for evil. That would be a very strange god to me. This brings us back to the very beginning of our discussion. When people assume that god exists for the sake of argument, they include just enough to allow them to criticize him. But what remains after their arbitrary mutilation can no longer be called God. And they seem to choose which parts to include on the basis of the argument they're trying to make. That, I think, is cheating. They imagine not God but an angry man who lives in the clouds. He apparently has the power to kill and torture, but none to prevent them from exposing truthfully his unspeakable evil, according to standards as valid as his own.
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Nov 26, 2014 20:04
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Rappaport posted:Echoing what others have said, but even if that creature is not just, we can strive to be just ourselves, because that is the "right" thing to do based on my (completely arbitrary) value system. Additionally, given that value system, I could not make myself really love or worship such a monstrosity, and given that the creature can see into my mind, I could not deceive it. I guess one could try undergoing some sort of intense Jesus Camp where they attempt to program you into loving the creature, but this kind of programming has not been 100% successful even in authoritarian societies. Being a capricious evil god, it clearly would not care whether you really loved it, just that you presented yourself to the world as loving it. Seriously if you knew for a fact such a thing existed, there'd be no way to meaningfully oppose it and "win", as it has the power to remove any memory of you "winning" from you at any time it pleases. And if you can't bring yourself to profess to love it then you know you're screwed forever. That's why I brought up the end of 1984, as the Party presents the same effective abilities. Blisster posted:If God decrees that murder and torture is evil, this is an absolute moral standard.
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Nov 26, 2014 20:14
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Nintendo Kid posted:Pointless yes, but clearly the capricious rear end in a top hat god accepts bribes in the form of pretending like you love him to other people. If you're certain that loving with him means he gets to gently caress with you forever you simply gotta play by his rules. It'd be the only rational decision left. Well, He says that He accepts bribes in the form of self-abasement, but if He's a capricious rear end in a top hat God, He may just as well enjoy loving with people by offering out hope then sending the faithful to Hell anyway just for kicks. Maybe He actually likes a fighter and only rewards the SedanChairs of the world who call Him a little bitch. If we assume a malevolent sadistic deity, there is no rational way to behave because there's no way to predict what might get you out of Hell, if anything, especially if Divine lying is all part of the fun.
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Nov 26, 2014 20:14
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VitalSigns posted:Well, He says that He accepts bribes in the form of self-abasement, but if He's a capricious rear end in a top hat God, He may just as well enjoy loving with people by offering out hope then sending the faithful to Hell anyway just for kicks. Maybe He actually likes a fighter and only rewards the SedanChairs of the world who call Him a little bitch.
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Nov 26, 2014 20:21
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Nintendo Kid posted:Being a capricious evil god, it clearly would not care whether you really loved it, just that you presented yourself to the world as loving it. Seriously if you knew for a fact such a thing existed, there'd be no way to meaningfully oppose it and "win", as it has the power to remove any memory of you "winning" from you at any time it pleases. And if you can't bring yourself to profess to love it then you know you're screwed forever. Like VitalSigns said, there's really no way of telling what the creature would do; a child raised in a society devoted to it would probably perceive it differently and behave accordingly, either out of fear, hope or whatever, but as a person raised without religion I perceive the hypothetical creature as a monstrosity. Any citizen of Best Korea tries to abide by the insane society they've been cast into, but if Jong-Un could actually tell who was honest in their love of him and who was not, the situation would be far more dire than it is now. And it's pretty drat dire. If you're relatively certain you can't kow-tow to the monstrous deity, why even bother trying? As you say, anyone not pleasing to the monster would go down the memory hole and/or get tortured eternally. The threat of eternal torture would sway many, perhaps including me, but history has shown that people are capable of great sacrifice in defense of their own values. I could not appease the monster, so I might as well spend my life trying to adjust to the idea of eternal tortures, since the monster has created me with the properties that condemn me to said torture no matter what I do. Or at best leaves me incapable of knowing beforehand whether the eternal torture awaits me.
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Nov 26, 2014 20:28
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Nessus posted:If he hardened Pharaoh's heart, we can't even trust our own emotional reactions to things. Oh right I forgot about that poo poo. I don't even know if we can trust the Adam & Eve story or Noah's Ark after that. "Oh poo poo, the humans are being too obedient to justify My righteous and terrible wrath" *starts flipping switches to SIN* "there we go, O behold THEY HAVE SINNED IN THE SIGHT OF GOD AND WILL SUFFER MY TORMENTS!"
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Nov 26, 2014 20:29
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VitalSigns posted:Oh right I forgot about that poo poo. How dare I harden the Pharoah's heart. Better kill the first borns. Oh, chosen people? Make sure you slaughter some animals and spread their blood over your doors. Fair warning.
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Nov 26, 2014 20:30
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CommieGIR posted:How dare I harden the Pharoah's heart. Better kill the first borns. Well bear in mind, Yahweh didn't kill all the firstborn himself. He dispatched the Angel of Death on a mission of semi-discriminate child murder and gave the Chosen a tag to keep them off this malevolent spirit's poo poo list.
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Nov 26, 2014 20:37
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CommieGIR posted:How dare I harden the Pharoah's heart. Better kill the first borns. Checking for cut dicks before you murder someone is too much effort. I need like a big sign, cuz if I have to traipse through your smelly slave hovel looking for Egyptians I'm just going to loving kill you while I'm there.
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Nov 26, 2014 20:37
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BrandorKP posted:I would argue that much of early Christianity was mortalist. And mortalist largely because of the greek influence. "The Greeks called themselves "the mortals" because they experienced that which is immortal." What is athanatos gnosis? What is immortality? What do people copying sections of Greek and Roman stories to put into their own account of a deity (as previously discussed happens in Luke), in what way do they think? Probably like Greeks. What is immortality for Achilles? The people that the whole concept of Word is taken from (the Stoics), what do they think is immortality? When the first death in Jesus movement happens and the resurrection of the body doesn't happen immediately happen what types of conclusions is that going to lead people to. Sounds like a bunch of blathering bullshit to me Brandor. What Christianity may or may not have been at it's start is utterly irrelevant in the face of how it is perceived and practiced by billions of people today. If you want to get rid of Greek and Roman influence, then you're going to have to throw out like all of the New Testament. paragon1 fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Nov 26, 2014 |
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Nov 26, 2014 20:42
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paragon1 posted:Sounds like a bunch of blathering bullshit to me Brandor. What Christianity may or may not have been at it's start is utterly irrelevant in the face of how it is perceived and practiced by billions of people today. Brandir has a near-autistic inability to comprehend that his definitions and conceptions of things bear little to no relation to those held by anyone else
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Nov 26, 2014 20:47
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VitalSigns posted:Well, He says that He accepts bribes in the form of self-abasement, but if He's a capricious rear end in a top hat God, He may just as well enjoy loving with people by offering out hope then sending the faithful to Hell anyway just for kicks. Maybe He actually likes a fighter and only rewards the SedanChairs of the world who call Him a little bitch. It's really just Pascal's Wager, except that somehow you've been informed that deity actually does exist and what's unknown is what the real criteria are.
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Nov 26, 2014 20:50
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Nintendo Kid posted:It's really just Pascal's Wager, except that somehow you've been informed that deity actually does exist and what's unknown is what the real criteria are. That destroys the logic of Pascal's argument though, because he assumes the criteria are known, so you might as well do them just in case since the reward is infinite if He exists and there's no punishment if He doesn't. If the criteria are unknown, then any choice you make carries some unknowable risk of infinite punishment so there is no rational way to choose.
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Nov 26, 2014 20:56
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VitalSigns posted:That destroys the logic of Pascal's argument though, because he assumes the criteria are known, so you might as well do them just in case since the reward is infinite if He exists and there's no punishment if He doesn't. If the criteria are unknown, then any choice you make carries some unknowable risk of infinite punishment so there is no rational way to choose. We must combine Pascal's wager with Russell's Teapot
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Nov 26, 2014 21:03
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VitalSigns posted:That destroys the logic of Pascal's argument though, because he assumes the criteria are known, so you might as well do them just in case since the reward is infinite if He exists and there's no punishment if He doesn't. If the criteria are unknown, then any choice you make carries some unknowable risk of infinite punishment so there is no rational way to choose. The expected value of doing what it says is higher than not doing it, and there's no way to opt out entirely. It's pretty much like dealing with Hitler.
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Nov 26, 2014 21:04
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Nintendo Kid posted:The expected value of doing what it says is higher than not doing it, and there's no way to opt out entirely. It's pretty much like dealing with Hitler. No it's not because we don't know the probabilities involved and can't even guess at them unless we just add more arbitrary knowledge to the scenario like "You know God exists, that a particular church is the right one, and that following it has a 60% chance of success, roll a d10"
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Nov 26, 2014 21:08
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VitalSigns posted:No it's not because we don't know the probabilities involved and can't even guess at them unless we just add more arbitrary knowledge to the scenario like "You know God exists, that a particular church is the right one, and that following it has a 60% chance of success, roll a d10" I don't know man it sure seems like it's more likely to be a lawful evil god to me. At least, that's what an actually evil version of abrahamic god reads like, given that before he got a facelift in the new testament he was quite fond of playing by the arbitrary rules set out.
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Nov 26, 2014 21:39
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You know there are like what four very different versions of God in the OT right?
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Nov 26, 2014 21:42
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So which one is the Real Christian God? "All of them" and "none of them" are not acceptable answers.
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Nov 26, 2014 21:43
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BrandorKP posted:You know there are like what four very different versions of God in the OT right? God's a schizo? Either way, he doesn't have a great legacy as a 'kind and loving' god.
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Nov 26, 2014 21:47
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BrandorKP posted:You know there are like what four very different versions of God in the OT right? I'm just rolling with the assumption of a certain group of people that "if christian god is real, he would be evil" is true. It's a thought exercise.
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Nov 26, 2014 21:49
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CommieGIR posted:God's a schizo? Either way, he doesn't have a great legacy as a 'kind and loving' god. It's just weird for you to interpret the bible in the way fundamentalists do, El, Elohim and Yahweh are all pretty different, and the change over time is a pretty important thing.
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Nov 26, 2014 21:53
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Nintendo Kid posted:I don't know man it sure seems like it's more likely to be a lawful evil god to me. At least, that's what an actually evil version of abrahamic god reads like, given that before he got a facelift in the new testament he was quite fond of playing by the arbitrary rules set out. Hardening Pharaoh's heart to make him break the rules so he could be punished was neutral evil at best. And anyway a liar god is obviously capable of writing the bible to say whatever He wants it to say if tricking mortals is His thing. Plenty of actual Jews and Christians don't even think the stories were literally true anyway.
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Nov 26, 2014 21:53
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VitalSigns posted:Hardening Pharaoh's heart to make him break the rules so he could be punished was neutral evil at best. And anyway a liar god is obviously capable of writing the bible to say whatever He wants it to say if tricking mortals is His thing. Plenty of actual Jews and Christians don't even think the stories were literally true. Egyptians were already outside his favor for worshipping other gods. That's against his rules already. So clearly Pharoah was hosed no matter what.
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Nov 26, 2014 21:55
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BrandorKP posted:It's just weird for you to interpret the bible in the way fundamentalists do, El, Elohim and Yahweh are all pretty different, and the change over time is a pretty important thing. So how does that work into a monotheistic system? God just changed his mind after committing multiple genocidal crimes? Does that leave Hitler in the clear if he said: "Hey guys, I know I killed millions, but I'm better now, honest" 
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Nov 26, 2014 21:55
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Nintendo Kid posted:Egyptians were already outside his favor for worshipping other gods. That's against his rules already. So clearly Pharoah was hosed no matter what. He made Pharaoh a deal to stop the plagues ed exchange for freeing the Jews. Pharaoh delivered so God mind-controlled him into reneging so He could have fun with more plagues. If He'd just hosed up Pharoah on general principles that'd be one thing, but lying about it makes Him untrustworthy. Now for all we know, neutral-evil Yahweh might, after a lifetime of piety and service, flip my switch while I'm on my deathbed so I drat myself by denying Him with my last breath.
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Nov 26, 2014 22:03
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CommieGIR posted:Does that leave Hitler in the clear if he said: "Hey guys, I know I killed millions, but I'm better now, honest" Yes? That's like Christianity 101 dude.
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Nov 26, 2014 22:04
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VitalSigns posted:Yes? That's like Christianity 101 dude. No more Genocidal floods. I swear you guys, just this one time.
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Nov 26, 2014 22:08
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