Debate : 28032


Off-Topic / Debate / 28032	28031 \| 28033

Subject:	Re: The Brick Testament - More Teachings of Jesus
Newsgroups:	lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date:	Mon, 13 Nov 2006 06:13:40 GMT
Viewed:	5041 times

In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Brendan Powell Smith wrote:

Alright, where were we... let’s see...

In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:

BINGO.

You seem to think you’ve “nailed me” on this point because I have admitted that I have had and may still have some nonrational beliefs. I don’t get it.

Not at all. I’m just seeing common ground.

Ah, OK. It’s silly how things can be taken the wrong way in a written debate that would be cleared up in an instant if we were speaking in person. But then again, I’m not much for debating in person. I find I need much more time to compose my thoughts than normal conversation allows, and I like to read over what I’ve written a few times to make sure I’m making a modicum of sense, sharpen arguments, and clear up any ambiguous wordings.

Yes, the medium is cumbersome, but at least it allows for a dialog with people with whom you might not normally engage. For me it is very time consuming, and many times I’ve left an interesting discussion because suddenly work pops up and I never get back into it. Like last week I got bombed at work-- so sorry for this late reply!

But you will probably always be irrational though you strive to be rational. You are a closet Vulcan! :-)

Too true. I will probably always be wasteful, though I try not to be, always be more inconsiderate than I mean to be, and always be mortal, though it would be nice if I could do more about that.

But just because it’s difficult not to be somewhat irrational doesn’t speak in favor of irrationality any more than it does in favor of wastefulness, inconsiderateness, mortality, or (from the previous post’s example) racism.

What I am trying to get you to realize is that we both strive to be rational; that should be a given. But in irrational matters, that is, things that go beyond the peruse of science, you take a “shrug” position and I take XYZ position.

Right, the main difference here seems to be that you denigrate the so-called “shrug” position, while I (and others who have joined in on this topic) staunchly defend withholding belief in absence of evidence as the only rational position. The only position it makes sense to take.

If you don’t want to make sense, you are welcome to believe whatever you like, but one of the main points I’ve been trying to make is that you should not expect other people to take your irrational beliefs seriously, nor to treat with any intellectual dignity arguments you make that uses an irrational belief as a premise.

I don’t “know” if my belief is correct, and I can’t prove it rationally, either. But I’ve at least taken the leap (and freely admit it). You, OTOH, just sit on the fence and don’t commit one way or the other

Again, you are painting in a positive light this “leap” into irrationality that I think hardly deserves praise, and at the same time you paint me (and others who have chimed in) as if we are intellectually lazy by not just making something up out of thin air and believing it with entirely unwarranted certitude.

Not intellectually lazy, but intellectually dishonest. What I am saying is that instead of trying to explain something that cannot be explained rationally, you all simply are mute. This is a convenience.

I also think you are setting up a false dichotomy by saying we “don’t commit one way or the other” as if the question of the the origin of the universe has a single potential answer that one either believes in or doesn’t. This ignores all sorts of possibilities about the origin of the universe (many of which have been mentioned here already, including ones that don’t include a creator), and goes to show that simply picking an irrational belief and running with it can close your mind to other completely valid possibilities.

There are no rational explanations for the origin of the universe. And there can’t ever be. This is my whole point. But Science pretends that someday there might be one one day, when we “know” enough. It is a canard.

I find the question of our origin VERY compelling, and my mind (using a mixture of rationality and irrationality) tells me that it is the work of a Creator.

But anybody could come up with anything based on a “mixture of rationality and irrationality”. That is why conclusions arrived at in that fashion will never be rationally compelling to anyone else (and why you should not expect them to be).

But what could possibly be the purpose of “proclaiming the Good News” if it is not intended to convince people of anything?

Well, it is, but that’s not MY job. I proclaim, the HS does the rest.

But the proclaiming doesn’t actually accomplish anything, right? The HS just comes by and actually convinces (or doesn’t convince) people when you’re done proclaiming, right?

Honestly I don’t know.

So it’s kind of like when a boat has a fake captain’s wheel at the front. God tells you to go “steer” the boat by vigilantly manning that captain’s wheel, but the wheel actually does nothing. The HS is up in the captain’s deck using the actual boat controls to steer things. You were just given busy work to stay out of trouble, right? :)

Maybe; then again, maybe not.

The point is to help people live better; to give them direction; to give them purpose and meaning for their lives.

I am curious how you can even know what the point is? Is this something you deduced rationally, or another “leap”?

“I have come that they might have life, and have it in abundance.” John 10:10

I guess some people really do need busy work to give their life direction, purpose, and meaning. And perhaps in the big scheme of things, we’re all just doing various busy work to fill out our lives. But I’d certainly much rather figure out my own busy work and come up with my own meaning and purpose for life than to do the bidding of an irrational being as interpreted through an ancient book.

Truth is truth. The “bidding of an irrational being” is simply to help others find truth and meaning.

The gift of free will. We have been given total freedom (as far as we know) to do with our lives what we will.

I’ve never found this to be a compelling argument, though I can see how it might look like a promising lead for the theist who desperately wants to his beliefs in God to somehow square with the state of the world (when they obviously otherwise would not).

The idea, as I understand it, is that God wants us all to be maximally happy, but that desire is overridden by his stronger desire that we have total free will.

I suppose the immediate question is: what’s so good or important about total free will? Certainly we humans do not treat total free will as some sort of ultimate good, so why would you imagine God does? We humans limit free will all the time because even we (with our puny intellects) can see that it is better to limit free will in cases where it will destroy people’s happiness and/or cause avoidable suffering.

But you are talking about self-control. Freedom is about being able to make that choice for ourselves, not by some oppressive government or other person for us.

I’ve observed that theists often like to draw analogies between the God/humankind relationship and the parent/child relationship. Well, just think of how much parents limit their children’s free will. And they do it because they love their children, and because they are trying to maximize their happiness and minimize their suffering (or the suffering of others).

Now, you might reply that a parent is simply teaching a child how to exercise their free will properly. If that’s the case, you would then expect God as the ultimate parent to teach every single human ever to perfectly exercise their free will so as to maximize happiness and avoid suffering.

But of course, this is not what we find to be the case. And truth be told, we don’t even have total free will. Our options are always limited by our circumstances, and everyone is in different circumstances. So we all have different amounts of free will in practice. What could possibly explain this arbitrarily-assigned endowment of limited free will?

Of course, to anyone not encumbered by the mental albatross of irrational axiomatic belief in an all-powerful, all-good God, the amounts of suffering and happiness in this world (not to mention the fact of people being born into wildly varying circumstances that drastically affect their happiness, suffering, and actual amount of freedom) are no longer quite so bedeviling a mystery. Thanks to science, now have a good (and ever improving) body of knowledge of about how natural selection has lead humans to have natural impulses both to help and to harm, to be kind and to be cruel.

You are not talking “science” here, Brendan. We no longer are being naturally selected; quite the opposite I believe. We have somehow forsaken instinct and grow more independent of it (which is what I believe becoming fully human means). We rely less and less on “impulses”, and more and more on intellect.

But the onus is on you to rationally explain how a universe suddenly just came into being.

I don’t see why. Clearly the onus is on someone who posits the existence of a supernatural being to make the case for its existence, but what am I positing that needs defense? I have not even said that the universe “suddenly came into being”. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe it has always existed.

Illogical.

What is illogical about something having always existed?

Simply that you can’t explain it logically, that’s all.

Would it be illogical to posit that the universe will continue on forever?

Yes, because you couldn’t prove it.

If not, and the universe can head infinitely in the future direction of time, I see no reason why it could not extend infinitely in the past direction as well.

If you care to be rational, then you must restrict yourself to rational suppositions. But again, you slip into the irrational when it is convenient to do so.

But that’s mere speculation on my part. My understanding is closer to what DaveE was saying about the question really not being framed properly. Over the past 100 years scientists have come to think of time quite differently, and it would now seem that time simply did not exist before the big bang.

This isn’t a rational conclusion.

Right. It’s unknowable. And yet here it is. So how are you going to explain the unexpainable?

But why on Earth do I have to have that answer?

Because the universe exists!

I feel like we’re talking past each other here, John. Yes, the universe exists, and yes, I cannot explain why. I do not see any reason to think that simply making up an explanation (especially an internally inconsistent one) and holding to it, could somehow be seen as a positive instead of a negative. It would seem especially misguided and dangerous if such ad-hoc explanations became grounds on which to base your major life decisions. It would seem as dangerous as tossing a dart at a cork board full of random beliefs that could drastically affect how you would conduct your life.

What I am trying to get you to realize is that your explanations of how the universe began are just as irrational as mine.

What are you suggesting must be true if I don’t have that answer?

That the answer is irrational, illogical, and unknowable. Just like God.

Just like an infinite number of supernatural beings you might posit whose attributes are internally inconsistent.

I do not accept on your word that science cannot explain the origin of the universe (if there can be said to be one). But even if I did accept that, it would still in absolutely no way, shape, or form lend support to the existence of the internally inconsistent supernatural being you call God.

I never claimed such.

In fact, an internally inconsistent supernatural being is one of the few theories we could safely rule out as an explanation for the origin of the universe, because the idea literally makes no sense.

Merely because we can’t understand or comprehend something doesn’t necessarily negate it. See the Hypercube.

He gives us life and free will and says, “enjoy it.”

Even to those babies who live a matter of hours, suffer, and then die? What free will do they have the chance to exercise, and how could “enjoy it” be taken as anything but a sadistically ironic sentiment for them?

Now, that’s an extreme example (but one which your view would still need to explain), but everyone else can be seen as falling somewhere on the very wide spectrum between that wretchedly cruel existence and someone born into a life of opportunity and ease.

I don’t claim to understand it; I just know that that is how it is. But I trust that it is somehow good, or will be good someday.

But my overall question about free will remains: why would God allow us enough free will to harm others when not even a half-decent human parent would allow their child such leeway.

Is it so hard to imagine a world your God could have created in which people get even more freedom than in this world (say, by never having people be born into limiting circumstances), and yet where God could still protect us from the harm our freely willed choices might otherwise cause (such as when a parent sees their child about to hit another child and grabs their arm, or stops their child as he’s running into the street so he doesn’t get hit by the Ice Cream truck)?

And once again, if you are positing an all-powerful being with such motivations, and even I can think of a more efficient way for that being to bring about his goals more completely, that seems to strongly imply that this being does not exist, or that you are mistaken about the being’s powers or motivations.

I think that things are more complicated that you and I could ever imagine. There is something quite arrogant about supposing that one could create a better scenario than God.

But really, what are you saying here? You acknowledge that wishful thinking about an afterlife does nothing to increase the chances of their being an afterlife. Are you suggesting that people should try to make themselves believe in an afterlife anyway for the misguided hope it provides?

For the hope it provides. How do you know (rationally) that this hope is misguided? If hope is a comfort and a source of strength and meaning, how can you rationally deny it?

On what basis? Don’t you hold the Creator to be the ultimate source of moral authority? How do you morally judge a belief in a Creator that leads someone to commit mass murder without already having a belief in a Creator in the first place?

I don’t follow. You could both be peaceful and still be wrong, or you could both be violent and yet both be right.

If you judge beliefs by the actions that come of them, how did you originally judge your Christian beliefs approvingly if your morals also derive from your religious beliefs?

Truth is truth. God is Absolute Morality. You can learn it from the Bible, or from someone who learned it from the Bible, or from someone who knew someone, etc. God is the source of Good.

I only wish their demise because they wish mine.

An eye for an eye, a wished demise for a wished demise. So you don’t buy into the whole “love your enemies” or “turn the other cheek” thing?

I am a sinner. If you were about to kill my wife, and I had the opportunity, I would kill you first. Justified? I don’t know, but I’d do it anyway.

They wish my demise because they can’t tolerate me as I am.

But as you are = peaceful because you believe that’s how God wants you to be. By the same token, as they are = violent because that’s now they believe God wants them to be. So they can’t tolerate you how you are, and you can’t tolerate them how they are.

And so we fight.

As long as they are peaceful and respectful to all, I have no problem with them.

Peace, or else BLAMMO!

No, it’s “My Way, or BLAMMO!” (THEIR words)

That’s pretty much what Jesus said, right?

If you mean to imply that Islamo-fascists are acting against Jesus’ teachings, then I completely agree. I hope that they are acting against Mohammad’s teachings, but I don’t know for sure. This war on terror SHOULD be a CIVIL WAR within Islam IMO. Why isn’t it? Why aren’t peaceful Muslims acting out against the violent ones?

Even if it is necessarily true that without God or any “moral authority” we are lost in a sea of relative morality, this would still make it 0% more likely that God actually exists. Again to posit that would be an argument from wishful thinking.

I don’t offer any proofs of God’s existence, because I believe there to be none.

It’s not an argument that God necessarily exists, but more that he needs to exist. We need an authority to which we can all defer, and that authority is Goodness. I call it “the ideal” at it’s most secular, and “God” in religious terms.

But just as wishful thinking doesn’t bring things into existence, neither does your perceiving a need for them. And really, all that can be said is that you perceive a use. There may well be no authority to which we can all defer. If that’s just how things are, that’s just how they are. You might wish it were different, but that doesn’t make it so.

Upon what can all people find common ground? This is my answer.

All I meant to point out is that you seem to sometimes not recognize the diversity of Christian beliefs when you make monolithic statements about God, religion, or Christianity.

Okay, well, when I state my beliefs, know that they are mine and mine alone. Again, beliefs are secondary in my book. It’s the fruit.

OK, but if you were in a 2-D universe and saw a cube passing through, it would still not make sense for you to describe it in inconsistent terms. For example, if you described it as a “square circle”, that would not make sense. It would still not make sense even in a 3-D, 4-D, or 84,000-D universe.

Not at all. You’d say, “It’s this strange kind of square that consists of a pile of triangles and quadrangles.” The point is that no matter how you would describe it, it wouldn’t make sense. It couldn’t make sense.

Just because your definition of God makes no sense in our world does not mean there’s some higher plain where hoohoos and your God can happily exist and make perfect sense despite their having inconsistent definitions.

And just because you cannot explain something rationally doesn’t mean that there isn’t some irrational explanation.

It is irrational and illogical for something to suddenly just exist, wouldn’t you agree?

When it comes to the universe as a whole, I don’t know.

Be honest! Use the Laws of Conservation of Matter! Be rational.

If the laws of physics did not become laws until after the big bang, I would not know how to judge the likelihood of things just coming into existence in the absence of any laws of physics.

And from where would “the laws of physics” originate? You are speaking completely irrationally!

And yet at some point in time, this universe DIDN’T exist. How is that rationally possible?

As stated earlier in this post, I’m still not sure why it’s not a possibility that the universe has simply always existed.

Because you can’t prove it scientifically.

And it may not make any sense to posit a time at which the universe did not exist if time itself began with the big bang.

OK, so God is undefinable, unknowable, and impossible to understand through rational thought, but revelation can make God a snap to understand.

Is that how it appears today-- that God is a snap to understand? Doesn’t appear that way to me.

Well, a lot of people certainly claim to know a lot of things about God the Unknowable, so I guess revelation does makes things a snap to some degree.

A lot of people are fools, too. We ALL are, to some degree!

OK, so not only am I convinced that God exists, but also that I have an immaterial soul that somehow “inhabits” my body and could exist as some sort of immaterial consciousness outside of my body as well? Just trying to work this out.

Why did God create you? Not sure; but He did, and not only that, He gave you a free will to do whatever you want with your life.

Free will limited by my arbitrary circumstances, but OK.

He wants you and everyone else to get the most out of life, and so He provides clues as to how to do that. The clues are somewhat mysterious, because part of the wonder of life is the mystery of it and He didn’t want to be heavy-handed in telling you how to live your life.

OK, so not only are the clues mysterious, I don’t even know what God means by the phrase “get the most out of life”. It seems entirely plausible that, just as two different people could have wildly different ideas of what it means to “get the most out of life”, so might God and I. And in that case, who’s right? Who’s the better authority on what it means to get the most out of my life, me or God?

Let’s say God does, since He created you.

I think I would also find it very difficult not to resent God’s being coy, especially if he’s withholding knowledge that would absolutely improve my life. It would be very difficult to trust such a being.

He’s not. “Be good”. We all know that admonition. But many want to live their lives their way. And that’s fine with God. Your life, your perogative. But your consequences, too. And consequences for me and others, for that matter.

His plan is that everyone would live together in harmony with each other, helping each other to make the most out of their lives by exploring the mystery of it.

That sounds so vague!

It’s better that way!

And this existence is only the beginning, but what lies beyond it is yet another mystery.

Great. Could be heaven, could be hell. It’s a mystery! Isn’t that much more fun?

What if I said that it’s YOUR choice? We can define “hell” as “separation from God”. BTW, read a great little book by CS Lewis (if you haven’t already): The Great Divorce.

But the point is to make the most of THIS existence.

But what does that mean?

Live life to it’s fullest. Enjoy it. Help others to enjoy it. Make the world a better place.

So I ask: how would you react to a scenario such as this?

I guess I’d spend a lot of time wondering why God is so into being mysterious and vague. As for forming my opinion about God, I suppose I could only do so by judging his actions or lack of them.

I still don’t see a compelling reason why I should want what God wants from my life, especially if it conflicts with what seems right and good to me, or if it seems like God doesn’t know what he’s doing.

How would you tweak it to make it more tolerable? (assuming that you begin with the Creator Entity Guy)

Oh, it sounds quite tolerable. :) At least you don’t make this God out to be some sort of malicious being who would make life awful. He sounds well-intentioned, if maybe a bit misguided in execution.

I’m not sure what my options are for “tweaking” things. Can I tweak anything? Do I have god-like powers to change anything in this scenario (except for the Creator God’s existence)? I’m not really sure what I’d do with such power!

I guess I’d tweak God to actively drastically lessen the amounts of suffering in the world. That’d be a good start. And then he can explain his own existence. :)

But if He interferred, He’d be limiting free-will. And given the slippery slope of intervention; wouldn’t free-will soon be history?

He is the Hypercube. You can’t comprehend His existence in this world. Maybe in the next....? :-)

JOHN

Message has 1 Reply:

		Re: The Brick Testament - More Teachings of Jesus
(...) You have now many times asserted that there can be no rational explanations for the origin of the universe, but mere repeated assertion has done nothing to convince me (or others who have chimed in) you're right about this. Even if we suppose (...) (18 years ago, 14-Nov-06, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:

		Re: The Brick Testament - More Teachings of Jesus
Alright, where were we... let's see... (...) Ah, OK. It's silly how things can be taken the wrong way in a written debate that would be cleared up in an instant if we were speaking in person. But then again, I'm not much for debating in person. I (...) (18 years ago, 31-Oct-06, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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