Antitheism

[Rhiannon]

Rhi,

But why stop there in the face of such an ineluctable contradiction to his claims about "God"?

All I can tell you from my time as a believer is that if you experience God as real then you can't reason your way out of it. As you probably know, Welby lost his baby daughter in a car accident - the car was driven by his wife I think. In the face of that suffering god remained real to him.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I think certain people are building up a CV of a capricious God here. But even if they are not it is timely to remind people that Christianity proposes the suffering God who suffers that which all of us should suffer i.e. what we inflict on ourselves.

Therefore if one is suffering God is the go to in this case.

God does not only grant us a measure of free will he has granted the universe a measure of aseity, to build and rebuild itself. Therefore life and death are merely stages in the process.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Rhi,

All I can tell you from my time as a believer is that if you experience God as real then you can't reason your way out of it. As you probably know, Welby lost his baby daughter in a car accident - the car was driven by his wife I think. In the face of that suffering god remained real to him.

I didn't know that - how awful. Many I think would have lost their faith faced with that tragedy, so no amount of reason is likely to do so now. In a way it would be gittish even to have the conversation perhaps: if the notion of "heaven" is comforting in these circumstances, what kind of scumbag would want to take that away?

[Gonnagle]

Dear Blue,

But why would this "morally good" god of yours give us the illnesses in the first place and then sit back while he waited to see whether we could cure them? I

Did he ( using he because I am lazy ) what I see is humanities race to the bottom, but then maybe God truly has left the building, God has thought, you think your so smart, work it out for yourself, if I can use a very human analogy, sometimes a father can only do so much but then has to cut the tie and say son you are big enough and ugly enough to make your own decisions, but from experience a father still hangs around to offer solace and advice when he can.

We certainly do have within our power, us little gods to reverse suffering, make it a thing of the past, but we stumble along thinking we know better, God gave us a world to enjoy, not destroy.

Gonnagle.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Rhi,

I didn't know that - how awful. Many I think would have lost their faith faced with that tragedy, so no amount of reason is likely to do so now. In a way it would be gittish even to have the conversation perhaps: if the notion of "heaven" is comforting in these circumstances, what kind of scumbag would want to take that away?

Post of the week.
I take my hat off to you Sir.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Reification fallacy:

"Definition: When an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete, real event or physical entity -- when an idea is treated as if had a real existence."

[Stranger]

God does not only grant us a measure of free will...

And for an encore, tells a true lie, makes two plus two equal to pi and runs off to hide in the corner of a sphere...

Logical absurdities all.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

And for an encore, tells a true lie, makes two plus two equal to pi and runs off to hide in the corner of a sphere...

Logical absurdities all.

Nobody is claiming that 2+2=Pi or that spheres have corners or that lies are true........

[Shaker]

Yes, at least Welby came up with 'I don't know, I don't understand' when asked about suffering.

Though not a theist, the Dalai Lama also has a (to some, disarming) habit of saying "I don't know" when he doesn't know.

[Stranger]

Nobody is claiming that 2+2=Pi or that spheres have corners or that lies are true........

     I realize that Vlad.

However, you were claiming that we could have free will from god's point of view, which is equally illogical. That being my point...

[Walt Zingmatilder]

    I realize that Vlad.

However, you were claiming that we could have free will from god's point of view, which is equally illogical. That being my point...

I think you need more data for your argument.
Mine is foreknowledge is not foreordination.

[Stranger]

I think you need more data for your argument.
Mine is foreknowledge is not foreordination.

Here we go again. Perhaps you could do better than last time (when you just gave up answering)?

Everything that happens, including our decisions, is either the result of deterministic processes or (possibly) randomness (or a combination). Logically, there is nothing else; to the extent something isn't determined, it is random (not determined being what random means).

Our consciousness is clearly intractably complex and, for all practical purposes (from the human point of view) we have freedom to do as we wish. From an omni-god's point of view, however,  the whole process would not only be clear and visible but, since it would have designed everything that influences our choices, entirely under its control. It might be, of course, that god has introduced some genuinely random element, but that wouldn't our responsibility either.

The whole idea of an omni god judging us is illogical drivel.

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

That is a good question but a lousy conclusion.

But you have no answer.

Take our last exchange on the subject:

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=12055.150

If we live in a world initiated by the tri-Omni God the this is it! He is entirely responsible for all that happens. Whether or not we have free-will is irrelevant. He was the creator. He pressed go. At that point he became responsible for everything that happened.

As I have said before, if you created a robot with "free-will" and knew what it's future "free" choices were, and it went on to kill someone, you would (hopefully) be held to account for it's actions.

[Udayana]

...
As I have said before, if you created a robot with "free-will" and knew what it's future "free" choices were, and it went on to kill someone, you would (hopefully) be held to account for it's actions.

If it killed another "robot" in its simulated universe, why care one way or the other?

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

If it killed another "robot" in its simulated universe, why care one way or the other?

If the other robot belonged to someone then that person would obviously care in the same way that if Vlad's robot smashed up their car.

If the robot was sentient then we (well me anyway) would car in the same way that we would if it killed any other sentient creature.

Regardless  of if anyone cares or not, Vlad would still be ultimately responsible for his robots actions.

[Udayana]

Ah ... like some of the spats between Poseidon and Athene ... or between the other gods. Nevertheless, isn't it clear that "responibilty" is another of those man-made fictions?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Udayana,

If it killed another "robot" in its simulated universe, why care one way or the other?

Because if we're all "robots", caring is what we'd have been designed to do. It's not a choice (except maybe for that faulty batch that came off the production line that Friday afternoon when the parts bin had run out of caring chips who became the sociopaths).

Incidentally, I did reply a while back to your post to me lest you think I'd ignored you.

[Khatru]

If the supreme cosmic mega-being has endowed us with free will then I wonder just whose benefit that is for.

Perhaps it was for the creator's benefit so that we could pander to his ego with spontaneous outbursts of love.

What's more, rather than programming humanity to treat each other with love and kindness, the supreme cosmic mega-being chose to give us free will.  That way he could ensure that we had warfare, murder, rape, theft, fraud, etc

Perhaps we should have been programmed.  Then we could have had our love and we would have avoided the excess baggage of death, destruction and suffering that seems to go hand-in-hand with free will.

Whatever enjoyment the supreme cosmic mega-being gets from the love of a minority group of humans, it comes at a terrible cost to mankind.

[Udayana]

Udayana,

Because if we're all "robots", caring is what we'd have been designed to do. It's not a choice (except maybe for that faulty batch that came off the production line that Friday afternoon when the parts bin had run out of caring chips who became the sociopaths).

Yes, the  robots might care, if that is part of their programming or something developed out of it. Or, in a slightly different analogy, a character in a novel may suffer terribly, but outside of that context it's of no consequence; it's not considered real.

In our little human world we have invented all sorts of ideas, from concepts such as "ownership", "responsibility", "rights" even morality itself, that don't have existence outside patterns formed in our brains. Gods and spirits and so on are part of this fiction we have created, added to try and make life feel as if it had some kind of consistency and meaning or justification.
   

Incidentally, I did reply a while back to your post to me lest you think I'd ignored you.

I saw msg #131, thanks. Although I don't have the same view of theism/anti-theism as you I was happy with your explanations for yours - except maybe the idea of "default settings" - as if we actually were some kind of designed robots.

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Ah ... like some of the spats between Poseidon and Athene ... or between the other gods. Nevertheless, isn't it clear that "responibilty" is another of those man-made fictions?

Well yes, I would agree it is man made (well maybe other sentient creatures also have ideas about it. Not sure what that has to do with whether it is fictional or not?  Clearly we are the responsible agent for our actions, if I was to punch you on the nose then I would be the agent responsible for you bleeding nose. to what extent I can be held responsible in terms of what sanctions may be applied to me is a different question though.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Udayana,

Yes, the  robots might care, if that is part of their programming or something developed out of it. Or, in a slightly different analogy, a character in a novel may suffer terribly, but outside of that context it's of no consequence; it's not considered real.

In our little human world we have invented all sorts of ideas, from concepts such as "ownership", "responsibility", "rights" even morality itself, that don't have existence outside patterns formed in our brains. Gods and spirits and so on are part of this fiction we have created, added to try and make life feel as if it had some kind of consistency and meaning or justification.

Well, I'm not so sure that these two things aren't in different categories. "Ownership", "responsibility" are "real" in that they are testable concepts with practical use in the conduct of intersubjective experience. They are behaviours or attitudes that demonstrably work.

"God", "spirits" etc on the other hand are claims of objective, "our there" fact that some think they have identified as facts for the rest of us too, and moreover that supposedly exist whether or not we exist at all. While belief in the claimed facts may be useful sometimes - for example, to comfort the grieving - I see that objective fact nature of the claim as fundamentally different from the functional facts of "ownership" etc. 
   

I saw msg #131, thanks. Although I don't have the same view of theism/anti-theism as you I was happy with your explanations for yours - except maybe the idea of "default settings" - as if we actually were some kind of designed robots.

I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure I'd have said default "position" rather than "settings". The altruistic position would have been arrived at by evolutionary processes; settings on the other hand - as you say - imply a programmer or similar to do the setting, which I do not think to be the case.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

But you have no answer.

Take our last exchange on the subject:

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=12055.150

If we live in a world initiated by the tri-Omni God the this is it! He is entirely responsible for all that happens. Whether or not we have free-will is irrelevant. He was the creator. He pressed go. At that point he became responsible for everything that happened.

As I have said before, if you created a robot with "free-will" and knew what it's future "free" choices were, and it went on to kill someone, you would (hopefully) be held to account for it's actions.

Nope...... if we are capable of responsibility then we are responsible
I think your idea of a human is more robotic than the Robot you propose is human.

You have succumbed to the temptation to ''think drone''.

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Nope...... if we are capable of responsibility then we are responsible
I think your idea of a human is more robotic than the Robot you propose is human.

You have succumbed to the temptation to ''think drone''.

Rubbish.

If we are created to be responsible then the being who created us is still responsible overall.

Remember he initiated everything knowing how it would turn out. 

[Stranger]

I think you need more data for your argument.
Mine is foreknowledge is not foreordination.

Here we go again. Perhaps you could do better than last time (when you just gave up answering)?

Everything that happens, including our decisions, is either the result of deterministic processes or (possibly) randomness (or a combination). Logically, there is nothing else; to the extent something isn't determined, it is random (not determined being what random means).

Our consciousness is clearly intractably complex and, for all practical purposes (from the human point of view) we have freedom to do as we wish. From an omni-god's point of view, however,  the whole process would not only be clear and visible but, since it would have designed everything that influences our choices, entirely under its control. It might be, of course, that god has introduced some genuinely random element, but that wouldn't our responsibility either.

The whole idea of an omni god judging us is illogical drivel.

Guess that's a 'no'...

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Rubbish.

If we are created to be responsible then the being who created us is still responsible overall.

Remember he initiated everything knowing how it would turn out.

It hasn't turned out yet.
Foreknowledge is not foreordination. In any case we don't exactly know in what fashion God foresees.