|
|
|
Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 06/11/2011 : 22:05:45 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by KingDavid8
Originally posted by marfknox
To use your programmer analogy, I think KingDavid is saying that God creates the program knowing it will fuck up, and planning beforehand that he'll go in and change it part of the way through later. Which I suppose is possible, but it seems pretty dumb. Like God is just making things harder and more complicated for no reason. I guess he's bored up there with all that eternity. These are the sort of mental gymnastics KingDavid has to do to try to make his beliefs make sense.
|
I think a better programmer analogy is this -
Suppose I am an omnipotent, omniscient computer programmer, and I've created a program that can create truly random numbers. Most of the time, I want my program to create truly random numbers. I don't WANT to decide what those numbers will be, but want the computer to decide. Being omniscient, I will know ALL of the truly random numbers my computer will ever create, even though, since they are truly random, I don't control what number comes out. I just KNOW what numbers they will be.
Thus I am still both an omnipotent and omniscient computer programmer, even though the numbers that my computer creates are outside of my direct control, outside of my will. (this is like God being omnipotent and omniscient, though we still have free will)
But for some reason, I want the 100th number it creates to be "50". Being omniscient, I will know whether the 100th number it creates will be a "50", and, if it's not, I can (being omnipotent) cause the computer's 100th number to be a "50" instead. Let's say I know, being omniscient, that the 100th random number would have been "89" if left to randomness. Instead, I turn that "89" into a "50".
Then, in this one case, it creates a "50" instead of a truly random number. In this one case, I over-rode its randomness and inserted something purposeful. But this doesn't mean that the first 99 numbers it created (and numbers 101+) weren't truly random.
None of what happens suggests that I am not omniscient or omnipotent. None of what happens suggests that there is anything I am not able to control, or not able to know. None of what happens suggests that the computer is generally able to create truly random numbers. All it means is that I can take away the randomness when I so desire.
|
More of the same with different nouns. Just face the fact that if you know in advance what every number will be, before they are generated, then as far as you are concerned the numbers are not random, they are the specific numbers that you programed your computer to generate. They appear random only to those who lack your knowledge.
Same for free will, those who lack omnipotence just think they have free will if there really is an omnipotent creator.
You have lost this argument. It isn't even entertaining trying to keep up with your inane verbosity any longer. The only conclusions left are that you really don't understand the conversation, that you are suffering massive cognitive dissonance that prevents you from acting rationally, or that you are intentionally lying to defend the distorted worldview you have invested so much in.
It is impossible to have any rational conversation with a person who blatantly rejects common definitions of words. Your rejection of the definition of omnipotence, and/or your adamant refusal (or ignorance) to admit that your and Descarts version of the word is not reconcilable with logic, renders this an exercise in futility.
So lets just back it up to where it really belongs: Your entire worldview and belief in any deity is unjustified. You can not produce a single shred of real evidence to support a single claim made by your religion (with regard to god/jesus/whatthefuckever).
I'm sure you have some pre-prepared answer from your internet missionary handbook, but really, give it a fucking rest.
How about you and the mythicists get the fuck on with your "debate"? Nothing I like better than a good "debate". And yes, like you with "omnipotence", I have a different definition of "debate" for this particular circumstance. It would offend you and the mythy people though, so I'll keep it to myself for the moment.
|
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
|
 |
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2011 : 00:37:09 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by KingDavid8
No, God told them not to eat of the tree and what the consequences would be (Genesis 3:3) |
And whaddaya know? God was lying to them about dying (even in a "spiritual" sense). Eve knew god had lied to her as soon as she touched the fruit. Worse than that, you don't teach a dog or a child obedience by telling them that disobedience will cause them to die. The idea that this is a good model for teaching morality is sheer stupidity.
Along those lines, there's a big difference between telling and showing. God never showed them how obedience would benefit them or how disobedience would harm them. And the snake (who was never human, and so was never given free will in the first place) told them different. Who should they have believed? Neither party demonstrated anything, they just told. If you're going to claim that that should have been enough for proper moral discrimination, you're going to have to back it up with some serious sociological data.| The author failed, by ensuring that the story is actually about how much of a total jerk god is, by creating an environment in which his newly minted people were sure to fail, and punishing them when they did. |
No, they chose to eat of the tree (Genesis 3:6-7). The story is clear about that. |
The story is idiotic. The story is about how god created two people utterly lacking in the skills necessary to make moral choices (by denying them the "knowledge of good and evil"), and then he punishes them and all their progeny for all time because they failed to make a proper moral choice. It's no different than if I had the ability to strip you of all your math skills, and then punished you for not being able to tell me the tenth prime number after an accomplice of mine tells you, "seriously, the answer is 18."| He let Adam and Eve run around in the Garden committing an evil act (nudity) without punishing them at all. |
Where does it say their nudity was evil? |
You must be kidding me. Genesis 3 details how it was only after eating the fruit that Adam and Eve discovered that being naked was shameful, something to be hidden away. Obviously, those aren't good feelings, so given the name of the tree, we can conclude they were evil. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2011 : 06:18:28 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by KingDavid8
| You also seem to think that people have the right to exist before they exist. I may have the right to exist now that I do, but before that happened, I was just a possibility. So like I said, Tom and Barbara represent all the people who could have existed who would have make all good decisions, opposed to the people who do exist who are flawed. A perfect god would have made Tom and Barbara (figuratively speaking) not Adam and Eve. |
I've gotta say that preventing all of those who won't choose "all good" strikes me as a way of limiting free will. It would be practically the same as giving us free will, but not allowing us to choose the bad. It might make for a more comfortable world, but I'd say God prefers us to make the choices for ourselves. |
I don't get you. Just a few posts ago, you seemed perfectly fine with the idea of having your free will somewhat limited, for the glory of God when he imposes his will on us. How is preventing us to do purely evil things any different? There are plenty of other choices that we can still make out of our free will.
| So those who do a lot of good, but a little bad, won't be created? Then He'd be getting rid of a lot of good, but only a little bad. I don't see that as a net gain. |
You obviously don't get what I've been saying. God would not be getting rid of any good. He'd be creating more good and zero evil. |
No, if He got rid of those who do a lot of good, but a little bad, then He'd be getting rid of good. I get that you're saying He'd essentially be replacing these people with people who will only choose good, but only creating those who will only do good still strikes me as a violation of our free will. |
But for the greater good.
|
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
|
|
|
Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2011 : 09:13:22 [Permalink]
|
kingdavid8 said:
No, if He got rid of those who do a lot of good, but a little bad, then He'd be getting rid of good. I get that you're saying He'd essentially be replacing these people with people who will only choose good, but only creating those who will only do good still strikes me as a violation of our free will. |
bolding mine
You do realize that you just admitted that you were wrong, right? If creating only people who god knows will choose good is a violation of free will, then you have two possible reasons. Good violates free will or an omnipotent creator violates free will. Since it would be absurd to suggest that a nebulous and subjective character trait/quality negates free will, that leaves you with only the omnipotent creator.
There is no difference between an omnipotent creator picking only those he knows will choose good, and regular humans, in terms of free will. Neither of those two created examples could have free will.
|
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
|
|
|
|
marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2011 : 10:23:37 [Permalink]
|
KingDavid wrote: | But for some reason, I want the 100th number it creates to be "50". Being omniscient, I will know whether the 100th number it creates will be a "50", and, if it's not, I can (being omnipotent) cause the computer's 100th number to be a "50" instead. Let's say I know, being omniscient, that the 100th random number would have been "89" if left to randomness. Instead, I turn that "89" into a "50". |
Yes, this is exactly the type of mental gymnastics I'm talking about. The problem with this very elaborate scenerio you have just created is that there is an infinite number of possible random numbers that could be generated. For example, if God ran the program twice, the second time the random numbers generated would be totally different from the first time. If he ran it a thousand times, he'd get a thousand different results. But being this all-powerful and all-knowing being, he can actually pre-select the random generator will randomly select 50 as the 100th number. This would be a much simpler way to do it. So in order to make your beliefs make sense, you need to come up with this incredibly complicated explanation. It just isn't believable!
The random number selector that will randomly select 50 as the 100th number is like my hypothetical "Tom and Barbara", or the people who could have been created who would have, by their very inherent natures, always chosen good over evil. You have yet to resolve this problem. If God doesn't want evil in the world, then there would be no evil in the world. And if God is all-good, he wouldn't want evil in the world. It doesn't make sense. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
|
|
|
|
KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2011 : 19:14:56 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by changingmyself
What I am saying is that your god never gave us the freewill to begin with.
AND
The only thing that your god did is to take away the freewill that we were born with. |
Sorry, but you need to explain to me how it's possible for God to take away something that you don't seem to believe we ever had.
|
|
|
|
KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2011 : 19:28:14 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Dude
More of the same with different nouns. Just face the fact that if you know in advance what every number will be, before they are generated, then as far as you are concerned the numbers are not random, they are the specific numbers that you programed your computer to generate. They appear random only to those who lack your knowledge. |
No, in my scenario they are truly random. If you're saying that my computer isn't generating truly random numbers, then you're trying to change the scenario to something it isn't. In my scenario, it's generating truly random numbers.
| You have lost this argument. It isn't even entertaining trying to keep up with your inane verbosity any longer. |
Then feel free to stop. Believe me, I'm fine with us agreeing to disagree, and won't pound my chest in victory if that's where it ends.
| How about you and the mythicists get the fuck on with your "debate"? |
Talk to ChangingMyself and Teched about that. They're supposed to go first. |
|
|
|
KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2011 : 19:47:35 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Dave W.
And whaddaya know? God was lying to them about dying (even in a "spiritual" sense). Eve knew god had lied to her as soon as she touched the fruit. |
I'm sorry, but where are you getting this?
| God never showed them how obedience would benefit them or how disobedience would harm them. |
Sure, and when I taught my kids not to touch a hot stove burner, I didn't show them what a hot burner would do to human skin.
| Neither party demonstrated anything, they just told. If you're going to claim that that should have been enough for proper moral discrimination, you're going to have to back it up with some serious sociological data. |
How about the simple fact that much of our teaching others about the consequences of their actions involves simply telling them. How do you suppose that God would show them how eating the fruit would lead to their spiritual deaths? Create two more people, and have Adam and Eve watch while they eat of the tree?
| The story is about how god created two people utterly lacking in the skills necessary to make moral choices (by denying them the "knowledge of good and evil"), and then he punishes them and all their progeny for all time because they failed to make a proper moral choice. |
Again, it wasn't about making a proper moral choice, but about simple obedience and disobedience.
| It's no different than if I had the ability to strip you of all your math skills, and then punished you for not being able to tell me the tenth prime number after an accomplice of mine tells you, "seriously, the answer is 18." |
No, it's definitely different than that.
| Where does it say their nudity was evil? |
You must be kidding me. Genesis 3 details how it was only after eating the fruit that Adam and Eve discovered that being naked was shameful, something to be hidden away. |
No, it was only then that they felt shameful. Obviously it wasn't shameful for them prior to that, since they didn't feel shameful about their nudity. And shameful doesn't equal evil. Shameful is far more of a personal judgment. A person who is nude in a nudist colony may or may not feel shameful. It doesn't mean that if they feel shameful, they're committing an act of evil, and if they don't feel shameful, they're not. And on the same note, a person can commit an act of evil without feeling shameful for doing so (he probably SHOULD, but that doesn't mean he DOES).
|
|
|
|
KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2011 : 20:08:54 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
I don't get you. Just a few posts ago, you seemed perfectly fine with the idea of having your free will somewhat limited, for the glory of God when he imposes his will on us. How is preventing us to do purely evil things any different? There are plenty of other choices that we can still make out of our free will. |
Because that's a far more severe limitation.
Also, "good" and "evil" are contrasts, just like "up" and "down" are. If, hypothetically, God used whatever means to get rid of all of the evil in the world, then the contrast would be gone. The world would be what we in this world see as exclusively good, but from within that world, there would seem to be neither good nor evil. Meaning there would be no evil, but also no good.
In fact, I'm going to say something that you may find shocking, coming from a Christian. God is not good...except from the perspective of those who view Him as such, which obviously includes myself. I certainly see Him as one heck of a lot more "good" than I am (and for those of you who see Him as evil, that's also a matter of perspective - without good or evil, you wouldn't be able to make any such judgment). But if I had no comprehension of anything less than absolute good, then even I wouldn't be viewing Him as good. If God never made us, or never made anyone except those who were morally just as good as He is, no one would be saying "Wow, God is good!". God would be just as morally righteous as everyone else, no more no less. You might view such a world as more "good" than this one. But you're only able to do so because you are able to contrast good and evil.
Now to clarify, I'm NOT saying that God created free will (thus indirectly creating both good and evil) in order to make Himself look good. He just wanted us, His creations, to have a choice. Until free will came to us, there was no such thing as good or evil. Thus God Himself was neither. He was just God. |
| Edited by - KingDavid8 on 06/12/2011 20:24:15 |
|
|
|
KingDavid8
Skeptic Friend
USA
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2011 : 20:17:19 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by marfknox
Yes, this is exactly the type of mental gymnastics I'm talking about. The problem with this very elaborate scenerio you have just created is that there is an infinite number of possible random numbers that could be generated. For example, if God ran the program twice, the second time the random numbers generated would be totally different from the first time. If he ran it a thousand times, he'd get a thousand different results. But being this all-powerful and all-knowing being, he can actually pre-select the random generator will randomly select 50 as the 100th number. This would be a much simpler way to do it. |
I think just substituting the 100th number is the simpler method, personally.
| So in order to make your beliefs make sense, you need to come up with this incredibly complicated explanation. It just isn't believable! |
The problem is that I'm not the one who came up with this incredibly complicated explanation. Mine was far simpler than that and gets the job done just as easily.
You have yet to resolve this problem. If God doesn't want evil in the world, then there would be no evil in the world. And if God is all-good, he wouldn't want evil in the world. It doesn't make sense.
|
Where I disagree is in the statement that "if God is all-good, he wouldn't want evil in the world". You're basically saying that God wouldn't want there to be anything that is unlike Himself. I find that no more convincing than saying "if God is a spiritual being, he wouldn't want physical beings in the world". Without good and evil, there is no moral contrast. With good and evil, there is moral contrast. I'd say that God wants there to be moral contrast. |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2011 : 20:20:30 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by KingDavid8
Originally posted by Dave W.
And whaddaya know? God was lying to them about dying (even in a "spiritual" sense). Eve knew god had lied to her as soon as she touched the fruit. |
I'm sorry, but where are you getting this? |
Genesis 3:3, the passage you cited. God tells them not to even touch the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, or "surely you will die." It was a bald lie.| God never showed them how obedience would benefit them or how disobedience would harm them. |
Sure, and when I taught my kids not to touch a hot stove burner, I didn't show them what a hot burner would do to human skin. |
No, you don't need to show you child everything, but you do show them lots of things, and they learn to apply those lessons to things simply told. Adam and Eve never got that chance. God never showed them anything about obedience or disobedience.| Neither party demonstrated anything, they just told. If you're going to claim that that should have been enough for proper moral discrimination, you're going to have to back it up with some serious sociological data. |
How about the simple fact that much of our teaching others about the consequences of their actions involves simply telling them. |
"Much of" doesn't mean "all," which is what Adam and Eve got.| How do you suppose that God would show them how eating the fruit would lead to their spiritual deaths? Create two more people, and have Adam and Eve watch while they eat of the tree? |
How do you suppose god could have taught them the benefits of obedience without them being able to know good from evil?| Again, it wasn't about making a proper moral choice, but about simple obedience and disobedience. |
So you're saying that I can be disobedient towards god without it being a moral failing? I think that runs contrary to most, if not all, of the Old Testament. Besides which, the punishment for their failure was extreme (to say the least) if "be obedient to god" isn't the moral lesson we're supposed to learn from the story.| It's no different than if I had the ability to strip you of all your math skills, and then punished you for not being able to tell me the tenth prime number after an accomplice of mine tells you, "seriously, the answer is 18." |
No, it's definitely different than that. |
How so? God prohibited them from learning how to make moral choices, and then set things up so that they would have to make one, and then punished them for making the wrong one.| No, it was only then that they felt shameful. Obviously it wasn't shameful for them prior to that, since they didn't feel shameful about their nudity. And shameful doesn't equal evil. |
The idea that nudity was something to be ashamed of was locked away in the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I don't see how you can rationally dispute this. It's an important part of what we're supposed to get out of the story.
(Of course, the dumbest part is where god can't find Adam and Eve. For an omnipotent being, "where are you?" is a really stupid question.)| Shameful is far more of a personal judgment. A person who is nude in a nudist colony may or may not feel shameful. It doesn't mean that if they feel shameful, they're committing an act of evil, and if they don't feel shameful, they're not. |
Duh. They felt shame because they knew they were doing something wrong by being naked. That's one of the many things eating the fruit taught them.| And on the same note, a person can commit an act of evil without feeling shameful for doing so (he probably SHOULD, but that doesn't mean he DOES). |
Wow. You've gone all the way to talking about real-life psychopaths in order to distract away from the fact that the story of Adam and Eve is really a story about a tiny, petty god playing with his creation like a kid pulling the wings off flies. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2011 : 20:26:24 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by KingDavid8
If, hypothetically, God used whatever means to get rid of all of the evil in the world, then the contrast would be gone. The world would be what we in this world see as exclusively good, but from within that world, there would seem to be neither good nor evil. Meaning there would be no evil, but also no good. |
No, there would be only good, we just wouldn't understand it as such. How would be being totally ignorant of evil be a bad thing?| But you're only able to do so because you are able to contrast good and evil. |
Yes, and now you need to explain how being able to make such a contrast is itself intrinsically good.| Now to clarify, I'm NOT saying that God created free will (thus indirectly creating both good and evil) in order to make Himself look good. |
You got it backwards. God created evil before he created people. The tree of knowledge of good and evil was in the garden before god created Adam and Eve.| He just wanted us, His creations, to have a choice. Until free will came to us, there was no such thing as good or evil. |
That statement is falsified by a plain reading of Genesis. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2011 : 20:28:17 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by KingDavid8
Without good and evil, there is no moral contrast. With good and evil, there is moral contrast. I'd say that God wants there to be moral contrast. |
Why is "moral contrast" a good thing, and not evil? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2011 : 20:33:46 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by KingDavid8
Originally posted by changingmyself
What I am saying is that your god never gave us the freewill to begin with.
AND
The only thing that your god did is to take away the freewill that we were born with. |
Sorry, but you need to explain to me how it's possible for God to take away something that you don't seem to believe we ever had.
|
What I am saying is thatYOUR GODnever gave us freewill. It is YOUR BELIEF stemming fromYOUR RELIGIONthat he did. But there is absolutely NO PROOF OR EVIDENCE that your god created us or even existed, but there is proof that we evolved.
So do I think we have freewill? Yes.
Do I think that your god gave it to us? NO, because there is no proof that your god ever existed except in the mind of those that created gods. So how can a god that never existed give us anything?
All we have is a mythological story book, no different than that of the Pyramid Texts or Rg Veda, that claims that your god created us, then took away freewill at random to come to the conclusion that he wanted. But that is not proof that he actually exists or existed any more than it proves that Horus or Krishna existed.
I only entertained the bible verses to show you that the bible itself does not support your claim of an omniscient-freewill giving god. Instead, what the bible does show is that your god was a tyrant that had people killed and tortured that did not bow down to him, that is not freewill. Your god sounds more like Jim Jones and Marshall Applewhite than an freewill giving, omniscient god.
Sorry for the caps people.
|
"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts"
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
|
| Edited by - changingmyself on 06/12/2011 20:50:37 |
|
|
|
changingmyself
Skeptic Friend
USA
122 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2011 : 20:39:39 [Permalink]
|
Originally posted by KingDavid8
Originally posted by Dude
More of the same with different nouns. Just face the fact that if you know in advance what every number will be, before they are generated, then as far as you are concerned the numbers are not random, they are the specific numbers that you programed your computer to generate. They appear random only to those who lack your knowledge. |
No, in my scenario they are truly random. If you're saying that my computer isn't generating truly random numbers, then you're trying to change the scenario to something it isn't. In my scenario, it's generating truly random numbers.
| You have lost this argument. It isn't even entertaining trying to keep up with your inane verbosity any longer. |
Then feel free to stop. Believe me, I'm fine with us agreeing to disagree, and won't pound my chest in victory if that's where it ends.
| How about you and the mythicists get the fuck on with your "debate"? |
Talk to ChangingMyself and Teched about that. They're supposed to go first.
|
I have already posted the information but the mods are reformatting it so it is more readable.
|
"The gospels are not eyewitness accounts"
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
The Mythicist position
