A Couple Of Questions For Christians

[mwc]

Paul S, you are NOT allowed simply to quote the Bible on this website as though it offers evidence of anything.

What??? The bible isn't self-supporting even if you reference multiple books within it?

 

It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't simply assertions with naked references. I'm pretty sure that saying "Well...nuh uh (bible book (chapter:verse))" really isn't a (counter)argument but I could be wrong.

 

mwc

[Turgonian]

The question asked in the opening post was a good question. Short, simple and poignant.

 

But as the poster might have suspected, a good answer is long, complicated and philosophical.

 

However, if anyone is truly interested, they might take a look at the $64,000 question (that's a link).

[mwc]

Sorry, the $64,000 question simply addresses the age old question of "Why is there evil?" or "Why does this particular god allow evil?" While I think this is related to the OP I do not think it answers the question at all.

 

You might try using the answer from the (rather long winded essay) that placing the tree, while "evil" allowed for a greater good but simply not placing the tree at all would have been the greatest good. It's easy if you play a fill in the blanks game. Allowing humans the free will to choose to eat from the tree allowed "evil" into this world. However, it allowed salvation through "Jesus" into the world. Sounds terrific doesn't it? Until you realize that ALL people had unity with YHWH in the garden and ALL people would have had it for all time IF the tree wouldn't have been there in the first place. No evil. No need for salvation. It's like working for thousands of years JUST to get back to the STARTING POINT. In addition, in this version we're currently living billions go into a fiery pit while in the alternate version zero do. So, the "tree" + "jesus" is not BETTER than not having them at all. It is inferior because of the lost souls and time wasted. This current "plan" does not add up.

 

Given the two versions, that this god could have chose from, which is the BETTER version?

 

The choice is simple.

 

mwc

[Turgonian]

Ah, we have an omniscient one in our midst!

 

It's rather simple. If God doesn't exist, all the fuss here is meaningless. If He does, He is omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent, and would have His reasons for allowing the Fall. Sometimes greater good can only be acquired through suffering (read The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien, which remains a masterful book)!

[mwc]

Now, how does using simple reasoning make me omniscient (unless, of course, that is how you define it)?

 

The garden was, supposedly, perfect. Man and god were in union with one another. YHWH walked among humans. Then there was a "fall" and that union was no more. To regain that union (which is supposed to be regained at the end of Revelation) we need jesus. So the bible spells it out. We are supposed to have restored at the end of the story (Revelation) what we had at the beginning of the story (Genesis). How do we achieve this? Jesus.

 

There's no omniscience required here. So, without the Tree of Knowledge, all the rest becomes irrelevant since we would already have what we are trying so hard to restore which is that union with this god. The difference being the time lost and the souls being sent to eternal damnation.

 

Now where have I gone wrong here?

 

It's rather simple. If God doesn't exist, all the fuss here is meaningless. If He does, He is omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent, and would have His reasons for allowing the Fall. Sometimes greater good can only be acquired through suffering (read The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien, which remains a masterful book)!

God? Which god? You're too vague in your argument.

 

As for life being meaningless. That's sad for you. What you should say is "If my god doesn't exist then my life is meaningless." Because that statement is only true for you.

 

If a god does exist you can't simply assume his properties as you do. It's nice that you try but it's quite impossible. You leave out all the possibilities that this god had some help (a pantheon for example). Argue a monotheism all you like but I've seen the path this takes and it usually eventually heads down the watchmaker path. Have you seen a watchmaker shop? One with many watchmakers? I have. So one watchmaker or ten. It's all plausible once you buy that argument.

 

As for good only coming through suffering. That's a human argument. I read your other essay. The soldier falling on the grenade. Hit rewind on that. Now there's no war. There's no need for him to fall on a grenade at all now is there? The conflict that starts the war is a human issue. Hit rewind a little more. Now that conflict doesn't spark the war but is resolved a different way. You see? It can all be resolved differently if you try. There can be multiple paths. Your argument maintains that there MUST be suffering. I maintain that if this god is so perfect and does not want suffering that it can avoid it. We cannot since we don't have that ability. But I am not arguing that. I never will. We will fail that task. So hit rewind to the very beginning. To before there was a human. To before there was a garden. Now this god is planting trees. One tree. Two trees. A thousand. It doesn't matter. Now it gets to the Tree of Knowledge. It knows it will cause billions to go to damnation and a schism between us and it. So instead of planting the tree it simply makes it "go away" *poof*. Now, everything simply continues. We still have free will since we can do whatever we like. And this god can be among us. It's the end game without all the stuff in the middle.

 

Oh, but there's a GREATER good to be had. What's that? Oneness with this god is the ultimate, is it not? That is the goal. Once you achieve the goal there isn't a better goal. So, there's no lessons to be learned by having separation and reuniting with god. We won't appreciate god more. You can't like perfection any better. Only Adam and Eve could truly understand this anyway this they are the only ones that HAD experienced this god, lost it, and would have it restored. No one else ever experienced this union and lost it. We've all lived without it so it's not like all this pain and suffering will make us appreciate this god any more and, if it does, then something was lacking in this god to begin with that we needed to suffer in order to appreciate it more.

 

And cite books all day long if you like, but unless Tolkien leaps back to life and joins this debate then I could care less about it. However, if the book has something within it that supports something you're trying to say then, by all means, quote it. But I'm not going out and reading a book in order to understand you or so I can make another posting. That's not going to happen.

 

mwc

[♦ ficino ♦]

The gist of the 64,000 dollar question essay, as I understand it, is that we do not know that God didn't have a viable purpose for going ahead with the Plan (i.e. creation, fall, sin, damnation, redemption, etc.). That's not an argument for the truth of the Christian claims. It's an attempt to shut up doubters by telling them that when the going gets tough for a christian doctrine, we should accept it anyway because our knowledge is limited and there are mysteries of God we cannot know.

 

This is exactly what the Zen priest Shosan opposed so eloquently in the passages translated by Jun the last few days on the Rants and Replies section (Crushing Christianity).

 

Turgonian, your sarcasm against mwc, calling him "omniscient" is consistent with the thinking of someone who buys into the strategy of the essay you linked. We can figure out and know a lot of things, including that Christianity is bogus. That doesn't require any of us to be omniscient. It does require enough analysis to see that the biblical writers did a flawed job of putting together a series of texts about a purportedly perfect being. If all the stuff in those texts is true, then discourse is annihilated, because there are contradictions in there - so all statements would be true if A and not-A are both true under the same set of relations.

 

Turgonian, you speak about a greater good coming from suffering. You content yourself in that sentence with using all abstract terms. You neglect the "for whom". Put some individuals in there. Then there's a difference between my saying, it's a greater good for me that I should learn and develop through suffering, and my saying, it's a greater good for me that someone else should suffer in hell for not learning the right lesson from his/her suffering. That becomes something like: it's a greater good for the saints in heaven that there should be suffering, which includes the eternal torment of those predestined to be in hell. Calvinist theologians generally hold that position, in fact, which shows their logical acumen, given their premises. Turgonian, do you think it's a greater good for you that mwc and ficino, who think christianity is false and defend their position in public, should suffer in hell, as opposed to a creation scenario where no one would be separated from the creator?

 

Turgonian, I used to have a weight lying on me as a christian when I wondered why my salvation, my unity with christ through his sacrifice, entailed a set-up where others would be eternally tormented. Sometimes I used to wonder whether it wouldn't be most compassionate for a christian to offer his/her salvation in place of someone else's torment, but I always knew that's not supported by any doctrine or theological reasoning. I think my question does point to a problem, though. The arguments like those you reference held me for a long time until I started to confront other issues, like unanswered prayer, contradictions in the bible, injustices approved in the bible, etc. Eventually when I stopped believing, I was glad to jettison my beliefs about hell. I found that the world as it is can be explained with fewer problems if I don't pull God into the explanation.

 

Consider this view, that it's better for everyone if some people suffer in hell, because the other end of the coin, union with christ through his redemptive sacrifice, produces a great aggregate of good - or to be vaguer, there's some justification for it known to God but not to us. Isn't that a little like saying, it's better for everyone that the top one percent - or even, fewer than that - of the wealth curve have a tax structure that reduces their taxes, while everyone else either has higher taxes (e.g. alternative minimum tax) or pays more for formerly public benefits that more than offset the small tax reductions they get? I don't wonder that Christians who support George Bush don't think Bush's economic policies are unjust. Bush's "take from the many to give huge benefits to the few" strategy is like the christian "make many suffer so that the elect can have a special tie-in with God."

 

Don't try to say that the inhabitants of hell may be an empty set. Don't try to say that the damned are just suffering through their own fault. The system was predestined to include their torment. dont say, the human mind cannot plumb the mysteries of predestination. We're all aware that we're not omniscient, but we are responsible for the ideas that we agree to connect into a system. the christian system contains too many paradoxes and problems for repeated recourse to "it's a mystery" to serve as an adequate defensive strategy, given christianity's aggressive incursions into the lives of people who don't agree with it.

[Turgonian]

mwc: We are supposed to have restored at the end of the story (Revelation) what we had at the beginning of the story (Genesis). How do we achieve this? Jesus.

 

There's no omniscience required here. So, without the Tree of Knowledge, all the rest becomes irrelevant since we would already have what we are trying so hard to restore which is that union with this god. The difference being the time lost and the souls being sent to eternal damnation.

 

Now where have I gone wrong here?

 

It's not merely a laborious, useless detour. The existence of evil does not disprove God. If He doesn't exist, you can hardly talk about 'evil', since the adjective becomes meaningless. If He does exist, He will have a good reason for permitting evil. The 'difference' is much greater than time and souls. It is also lives, people, experience, art, devotion, and much more.

 

mwc: As for life being meaningless. That's sad for you. What you should say is "If my god doesn't exist then my life is meaningless." Because that statement is only true for you.

 

In fact I was talking about this discussion, not about life in general. However, if God and the metaphysical do not exist, life has no inherent meaning either. Isn't that what we mean when we talk about 'meaninglessness'?

 

The problem of evil is treated in Greg Welty's theodicy.

 

On what basis do you claim that 'evil' exists?

 

ficino: Turgonian, your sarcasm against mwc, calling him "omniscient" is consistent with the thinking of someone who buys into the strategy of the essay you linked. We can figure out and know a lot of things, including that Christianity is bogus. That doesn't require any of us to be omniscient.

 

It might require someone to start refuting theistic philosophers, rather than make unsubstantiated claims. If you want a list of those active on the web, see here.

 

ficino: If all the stuff in those texts is true, then discourse is annihilated, because there are contradictions in there - so all statements would be true if A and not-A are both true under the same set of relations.

 

Give me an example of such a 'contradiction'.

 

ficino: Turgonian, do you think it's a greater good for you that mwc and ficino, who think christianity is false and defend their position in public, should suffer in hell, as opposed to a creation scenario where no one would be separated from the creator?

 

I wasn't talking about 'greater good for me'.

I see suffering in Hell as being more about shame than about pain, but anyway -- yes, because I believe God has shown Himself to be reliable and loving in the Incarnation, I trust He has a morally compelling reason to allow humans to choose hell. It's not about a greater good for me, but the world in general.

Like I said, hell is more like quarantine than a medieval torture chamber. As such, it is a little like imprisonment. We put criminals in jail because it will serve a greater good, the good of the society. Is it a greater good for me that, say, the murderer of Pim Fortuyn is in prison right now? Not really for me, since he would never have targeted me. But it is a greater good for society at large. And besides, there must be justice.

 

ficino: I found that the world as it is can be explained with fewer problems if I don't pull God into the explanation.

 

I doubt it. Do you still believe in something metaphysical? If not, how do you explain logic?

 

ficino: Don't try to say that the damned are just suffering through their own fault. The system was predestined to include their torment.

 

It remains their own fault. They would not believe in God. Was your turning away from Christianity a choice or not?

[NotBlinded]

It remains their own fault. They would not believe in God. Was your turning away from Christianity a choice or not?

You confuse God with the story about God in the Christian religion. God belongs to no story. Was your turning away from Islam a choice or not? Will you suffer the consequences of hell because of that choice? Of course not...just as no one else will suffer from the choice of turning away from Christianity.

 

Let me take your signature line here:

 

"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." (CS Lewis)

 

If you don't think that God's glory can be diminished by refusing to worship It, how can you think that it matters what religion you follow, if any?

 

Does the sun belong to the understanding of the lunatic? Will it glow brighter if the lunatic worships it?

[mwc]

mwc: We are supposed to have restored at the end of the story (Revelation) what we had at the beginning of the story (Genesis). How do we achieve this? Jesus.

 

There's no omniscience required here. So, without the Tree of Knowledge, all the rest becomes irrelevant since we would already have what we are trying so hard to restore which is that union with this god. The difference being the time lost and the souls being sent to eternal damnation.

 

Now where have I gone wrong here?

 

It's not merely a laborious, useless detour. The existence of evil does not disprove God. If He doesn't exist, you can hardly talk about 'evil', since the adjective becomes meaningless. If He does exist, He will have a good reason for permitting evil. The 'difference' is much greater than time and souls. It is also lives, people, experience, art, devotion, and much more.

Alright, first of all, you keep trying to reframe the discussion which was, as I recall, basically "Why did the Tree of Knowledge get planted?" You're trying to turn it into "The existence of evil does not disprove God." Have I made any attempt to argue that point? Since this is a rather slow moving discussion I honestly don't remember doing so. The only reason I can think of is because I don't believe there is a god, evil or not. If one happens by then I'll reconsider by position. An all-good god, with the existence of evil, cannot exist, but see my previous statement about that.

 

Now, what I am arguing, is the story in a book. The one in Genesis. The one about a tree. I've explained it many times but you have this amazing ability to overlook what I have to say about the actual topic and continue with your agenda.

 

Let's try this again.

 

We start in Genesis with a tree. Things are perfect. Things go bad. The goal is to get back to this perfect point. How do we do that? This part doesn't really matter. So stuff is done and we do get back to this initial point. And they lived happily ever after. Does that sound about right? That's rhetorical since I know it is.

 

So will you be the one to stand up to any of those in eternal damnation and tell them that they have been traded for "It is also lives, people, experience, art, devotion, and much more?" Is one soul worth this? Ten? A hundred? A million? How many? I say it's zero. Even if God appeared to me right now and told me that I could accept Him and go to Heaven but that it would be on the backs of others, I would NOT do it. It would be tempting, sure, but could I go through eternity with the knowledge that others were in eternal suffering for ANY reason? None of this is worth ETERNAL damnation when it could have been so easily avoided. The Apocalypse of Peter at least gets this right. There are many ways to do things. For an omnipotent being an INFINITE number of ways. You focus on one way since you only can identify one way that makes sense to you. I say that way doesn't make sense and since I know, for a fact, that an omnipotent being has an infinite number of ways to accomplish its goals and since this one method is barbaric that it had an infinite number of alternatives to choose from.

 

In fact I was talking about this discussion, not about life in general. However, if God and the metaphysical do not exist, life has no inherent meaning either. Isn't that what we mean when we talk about 'meaninglessness'?

No. This is not what we mean. This is what you mean. This is sad for you. Truly that you require magic and the supernatural to have purpose is a tragedy.

 

My purpose is to live and to die. It is to possibly have children during that time. It is the same purpose other living creatures have. If during that time I wish to augment my existence by doing other things then that is my choice.

 

The problem appears to be that some look at what I said and ask "Is this all there is?" and drudge on through life. While others read what I said and ask "Is this all there is?" and appreciate each moment they have on this planet. The funny thing about these two people is the former look forward to yet another life while the latter expects nothing beyond the one they have. Think about it.

 

The problem of evil is treated in Greg Welty's theodicy.

 

On what basis do you claim that 'evil' exists?

I've read enough of your essays. I've said it before but apparently it didn't sink in. I'm not debating those people, I am debating you. If you wish to cite them then please do so but I'm tired of reading these long winded, go nowhere, essays about evil and such. I really don't care. I get it. God (the one true God YHWH, who made heaven and earth and his son Jesus Christ who was begotten not made) allows evil so that we can learn a lesson that cannot otherwise be learned without the presence of evil within our lives. However, the purpose of that lesson may not be immediately clear to us nor may it ever be made clear to us during our human existence. I sooooooooo get it. I used to say it with my own mouth.

 

Now that's out of the way I will continue with what I see as your digression. Evil. Evil is relative. You can graph it on a line. On one end is good and on the other is evil. Some people and/or societies see good and evil slightly differently on the line. Different things register differently that others. Murder is usually seen as evil universally but it doesn't have to since some people commit murder. However, to discuss each and every nuance of this would take considerable time and space. It should be clear that evil is something that is simply "not good." It is not handed down from above but agreed upon. Each person for themselves, each family and up through each social unit. It is often enforced in the other direction (when a smaller unit comes into opposition with a larger unit the larger unit often imposes it's values onto the smaller, or less powerful, unit).

 

mwc

[♦ ficino ♦]

ficino: Turgonian, your sarcasm against mwc, calling him "omniscient" is consistent with the thinking of someone who buys into the strategy of the essay you linked. We can figure out and know a lot of things, including that Christianity is bogus. That doesn't require any of us to be omniscient.

 

It might require someone to start refuting theistic philosophers, rather than make unsubstantiated claims. If you want a list of those active on the web, see here.

 

I've posted a lot on here over the last two and a half years in which I tried to refute theistic positions, as have many others.

 

 

ficino: If all the stuff in those texts is true, then discourse is annihilated, because there are contradictions in there - so all statements would be true if A and not-A are both true under the same set of relations.

 

Give me an example of such a 'contradiction'.

 

Ditto, have posted much about this as have many others.

 

 

ficino: Turgonian, do you think it's a greater good for you that mwc and ficino, who think christianity is false and defend their position in public, should suffer in hell, as opposed to a creation scenario where no one would be separated from the creator?

 

I wasn't talking about 'greater good for me'.

I see suffering in Hell as being more about shame than about pain, but anyway -- yes, because I believe God has shown Himself to be reliable and loving in the Incarnation, I trust He has a morally compelling reason to allow humans to choose hell. It's not about a greater good for me, but the world in general.

Like I said, hell is more like quarantine than a medieval torture chamber. As such, it is a little like imprisonment. We put criminals in jail because it will serve a greater good, the good of the society. Is it a greater good for me that, say, the murderer of Pim Fortuyn is in prison right now? Not really for me, since he would never have targeted me. But it is a greater good for society at large. And besides, there must be justice.

 

I repeat that abstractions need to be made specific. If you're convinced that the torment of those in hell serves a greater good, is the greater good for you not included therein? I think it has to be about a greater good for the elect that the damned are tormented - the general good in God's plan can't result in no good for any particular one of the saints. To say "besides, there must be justice" begs the question, since on this thread the position has been maintained that the torments of those in hell, as orthodox Christianity tells it, are not just.

 

ficino: I found that the world as it is can be explained with fewer problems if I don't pull God into the explanation.

 

I doubt it. Do you still believe in something metaphysical? If not, how do you explain logic?

 

I believe in something metaphysical in the sense that metaphysics is A. philosophical inquiry into what is, and B. "first philosophy" in Aristotle's sense of philosophical inquiry into the foundations of sciences in general, i.e. into what makes a science a science. The first principles of logic in my view are axiomatic; we use them in all discourse, so there are no further principles "behind" them to which we appeal to justify them. You use the fundamental laws of thought already in any rational attempt to justify those laws of thought. I find that some Christians try to say that logic has no foundation unless you posit God, or that we can't trust logic unless some omniscient mind guarantees its validity. I think this rests on several mistakes. It is notable that Bertrand Russell showed rather lucidly, in my view, that many metaphysical claims break down to confusions of logic. He cleared away a lot.

 

 

ficino: Don't try to say that the damned are just suffering through their own fault. The system was predestined to include their torment.

 

It remains their own fault. They would not believe in God. Was your turning away from Christianity a choice or not?

 

 

We might both find it wearisome to debate the old God's omnipotence/man's responsibility chestnut. But I think it's a pseudo-question.

[♦ ficino ♦]

I'm tired of reading these long winded, go nowhere, essays about evil and such. I really don't care. I get it. God (the one true God YHWH, who made heaven and earth and his son Jesus Christ who was begotten not made) allows evil so that we can learn a lesson that cannot otherwise be learned without the presence of evil within our lives. However, the purpose of that lesson may not be immediately clear to us nor may it ever be made clear to us during our human existence. I sooooooooo get it. I used to say it with my own mouth.

mwc

 

Brilliant, old chum.