Problem of Incoherence

[GhostAnime]

I think tim the turtle argues my point better than me.

Hell isn't a thing created in of itself. It is the consequence that exists because of our action.

All of these things (to me) point to a single reality: that we live in a system in which all parts must exist for the system to exist in perfection and logic. Just like my quote before, where fire cannot exist without a thing to burn or currupt, the perfection of the system also requires the "evils" to exist, and a perfect outcome for eternity can't exist without the other end of the spectrum to provide perfection to the system.

So are you talking about the world or Hell? Because you've demonstrated how corruption and power need to exist, but why should HELL exist? All of this can be done without Hell.

But in any case, knowledge of the punishment doesn't negat our ability to choose.

Sure it does. If someone held you at gun point, would you give them your money as opposed to a 5-year-old asking you to give you your money?

Are you sure coercion doesn't affect free will at all? Well, maybe not you specifically, but you'll be damned to prove humans aren't more likely to do things in a reward/punishment scenario. This is a well known psychology phenomenon. It's called Operant Conditioning. In fact, our brains are so used to it due to it being evolutionarily necessary for survival.

And guess who created a world where Operant Conditioning works? God. Why would he make it that way? To better obey him. Where's the free will in that?

but you are still attributing it to God as being the creator of it.

But he IS the creator of it. Who else is?

Is it not logically possible to disband Hell?

 

[Tim the turtle]

Hell isn't a thing created in of itself. It is the consequence that exists because of our action.

Uh, ok...

In the simplest of terms, if you are given the choice of "Do A or do B," each path has a result. If they both lead to the same, A and B are meaningless because it doesn't matter what you do. If they both lead to C, there is no distinct consequence for either A or B. If you want a consequence to exist, it is necessary that not obtaining that consequence must also exist.

Keep going...

Also, there must be an ultimate end to all of our actions.

Aaaand stop right there! Why? What possible reason do you have for believing this apart from wishful thinking?

All things we do are means to an end, but those ends are never ends in of themselves but means to other things. You build a bridge to get to the other side, you want to get to the otehr side to aid commerce, on and on and on. They all point to a finality which has to exist, and with that finality there must exist a final outcome. Otherwise existence would have no final meaning.

Why should existence have some final meaning? It's not good logic to say "I do things for ends, therefore everything does everything for an end." You might very well do things towards some end that you yourself have set out but that does not point to any "finality" as you put it, and it certainly doesn't tell us what "finality" would be achieved. You seem to be arbitrarily assuming that the final end of all your actions is to get into heaven, and therefore heaven must exist. It's an absolutely horrendous abuse of logic. Stop it now.

All of these things (to me) point to a single reality: that we live in a system in which all parts must exist for the system to exist in perfection and logic. Just like my quote before, where fire cannot exist without a thing to burn or currupt, the perfection of the system also requires the "evils" to exist, and a perfect outcome for eternity can't exist without the other end of the spectrum to provide perfection to the system.

Even if I granted that that might be the case, you're assuming, with absolutely no good reason that the system is perfect. How do you possibly justify such a conclusion? Perhaps I'll agree with you, that heaven needs must have a hell in order to exist... that doesn't help you at all. It doesn't actually add to the argument, it doesn't show the system to be any more real than without such concepts, and it certainly doesn't show that human souls which are good go to heaven and human souls which are bad go to hell.

I didn't say actions were totally free of consequences and that's my point. Hell is the result, the consequence, of certain actions. It is just a finality consequence that exists for the perfection of the system, a consequence that exists because of our free will and choice (not because God directly made it).

How are you bridging the gap? There seems to be a massive disconnect between your assertions that heaven and hell exist because they are demanded (for some utterly bizarre reason) by your "perfect" system... and between the idea that they result from our actions. The actions of humans. The somehow human action results in the "finality" of hell. A place of perpetual torment and suffering.

How is free will an oxymoron because of the existence of consequences? That is the only way free will can exist. It is the exact opposite of your statement. Your will and choices would NOT be free and would always be set if there was only one possible outcome. It would render everything involuntary.

Whilst I'll agree with you that some consequence is needed to make free actions possible, you must also admit that too many consequences or too powerful consequences also make freedom of will impossible. And heaven and hell most certainly fall into the latter category.

We can't choose conseqeunces. We choose actions. And again, hell is a consequence, not a choice in of itself or an action.

This... somehow makes it okay? This excuses it? The fact that we can avoid if we try hard, and miraculously pick the right God to worship, somehow allows God to remain moral whilst banishing souls to everlasting torture. You keep saying that "God hasn't created hell" but I'm afraid that he has. He really has. If hell is a necessary facet of this "perfect" system you have dreamed up and God created the system then he has willingly given rise to this atrocity. You system seems based on an idea of cosmic and moral equilibrium, but equilibrium is possible in many systems without going to the extremes of heaven and hell. God most certainly has created heaven and hell and that makes him complicit in the most immoral of crimes and the most vile of abuses.

The choice we make is not to go to hell, but to commit mortal sin. Hell is the consequence of the choice to commit mortal sin.

Hell is the most disproportionate punishment in the history of sin. Just as (I might add) heaven is the most disproportionate, underserved, unfair reawrd in the history of thought.

I may want to think that I will survive a fall from the top of the empire state building, but whether I think that or not won't chance the actual consequence. And the consequence will happen if I choose the action, in this case to jump.

That doesn't somehow make the consequence moral. I can tell you, quite comprehensively, all the terrible things I will do to you if you say the word "Bubbles". You, rightly, would think this unfair, absurd and immoral of me. In fact, just to be contrary, to exercise the free will you were given by God and the freedom of speech granted to you by the constitution (don't know if your from the U.S, just run with it if you're not) and you say "Bubbles." When I proceed to torture you your choice to say the word makes not one iota of difference to how utterly vile and immoral my proceeding actions are.

It does exist and it's there for you to choose to believe it exists or not.

Thats... not actually an argument.

We may not be able to conceptualize it fully, but we aren't left without any detail whatsoever. My understanding of Heaven, while admittedly incomplete, is the result of logic and reason based upon the system around us.

Don't be dishonest here. Your conception of heaven is based mainly on what you were taught in Bible class or what you read or heard from scripture. There might be some logic to heaven (Plato made a good stab at it) but your attempts at proving the necessity of heaven and hell have absolutely no basis on your conception of what they are and why people are subjected to them.

Again, if finality exists, than a final outcome must exist. An enternal opportunity at rehabilitation will lead to a meaninglessness of consequences and meaningless of finality.

Why would an eternal opportunity at rehabilitation lead to a meaningless of finality? I mean, the mortal world we inhabit now is seen as the most transient one of all. In cosmic time our lives here are utterly insignificant, here today gone tomorrow affairs. Why should our actions in this brief life has more of a bearing on "finality" than all the eons we spend suffering for it? Surely the time we spend in hell is actually going to be more important than the time we spend here. There is ever so much more of it down there as preachers are so eager to tell us.

The point was that we have volition and choice even though we reasonably know what the consequences are. The child that disobeys knows that he will be punished if he was caught, but does it anyway. Even though the punishment exists, we can still choose to perform an action. It could be that we don't care about hte punishment. It could be that we think we'l lget away with it. But in any case, knowledge of the punishment doesn't negat our ability to choose.

Except that by increasing the severity and amount of consequences it does prevent us from exercising our volition. A small punishment that someone can easily shrug off, sure, that's not going to affect us much, but a big one? Tell the child (and make it believe) that you'll kill it. The kid won't dare commit the action unless it had a death wish. Now I know what you're going to say, that the kid could still do the action and live (or not) with the punishment. But this is not considered a moral choice. It is essentially forced coersion. The more undesirable the outcome, the less free someone is to choose that action.

It is the most despicable of concepts, but you are still attributing it to God as being the creator of it. Like he sat at his work bench and dreamed up the most horrible thing possible.

Yes, I most certainly am. That is what scripture suggests, as does logic if you assume that God is the creator of all things.

It is the punishment that exists for mortal sin, of which we choose to act.

Why is that the punishment for mortal sin? How is that in anyway a justified response to mortal sin? It isn't. It really, really isn't.

We need freedom of will to fully understand the universe and concepts around us. We need to fully udnerstand the universe and concepts around us to truly and actively participate in it. We need to be able to fully and actively participate in it to fully be able to particpate in and appreciate the good. And, thusly, we can't fully participate in and appreciate the good without all of the previous things in the system existing.

Oh you've got to be kidding me. That's your big proof? Your logical finale? I'm so dissapointed.

First things first:

We need freedom of will to fully understand the universe and concepts around us

I will accept this. I don't see it as being necessarily true but it's okay.

We need to fully udnerstand the universe and concepts around us to truly and actively participate in it.

We need to be able to fully and actively participate in it to fully be able to particpate in and appreciate the good.

No. No we don't. Do you know how I know this? Because we don't fully understand the universe around us. We know next to nothing of what there is to know. We know less than 0.01% of what can be known throughout the universe, and that's me using "we" to mean the human species as a whole. Individually we know so little of what could be known, and understand such a pitiful amount of what we do think we know that by this logic we would be utterly incapable of participating in the world around us. And yet... we do participate in the universe. In our own small, insignificant, fleeting manner. We raise families and we have friends and we love and laugh and occasionally we hate and we war and then we make jokes about it and then we war again or love again and then we die and our children do the same things as we did and then they die and their children carry on and we understand nothing and we know so little all the while. If that's not participating in the universe and understanding (in our own little ignorant way) the good then I don't know what is.

And, thusly, we can't fully participate in and appreciate the good without all of the previous things in the system existing.

But even ignoring all of the above, what I don't get is how you seem to think we can contemplate the absolute good and evil that we're discussing. Think about it, you know as well as I do that our knowledge of the universe is woeful. It really is. That's a result of our biology, our society and our technology but ofwhat could be understood, we understand a very small amount of it. Now, with this in mind... what makes you think that simply by worshipping God, or even simply by being nice, we somehow attain the highest good after death. Even if heaven and hell did exist, necessarily in order for your system to work, even if I granted you that (which I won't), how do you arrive at the conclusion that we can know them, that we can experience them. Even worse, how do you arrive at the conclusion that we should know or experience them? It either comes from extreme arrogance in the case of heaven, or unbelievable cruelty in the case of hell.

EDIT: Damn, sorry. I really didn't want to get into a wall of quotation/quick reply style post. Next time I'll try to avoid it.

 

[Dragoon952]

So are you talking about the world or Hell? Because you've demonstrated how corruption and power need to exist, but why should HELL exist? All of this can be done without Hell.

No, it can't.

Let's just imagine for a moment that we basnih Hell from existence as a consequence to action and everything else remains the same (which would assume everything else abotu God and his nature is correct and agreed upon). What is the final consequence? There is only one at this point.

If only that one said consequence existed, then no action has any moral consequence whatsoever. Hitler would end up with the same finality as Mother Teresa. There is no other final consequence, so all actions are meaningless. And, if there is no morality or meaning to action, evil doesn't exist either in a complete form and the system isn't perfect.

Hell is repugnant concept. Shouldn't it be?

Sure it does. If someone held you at gun point, would you give them your money as opposed to a 5-year-old asking you to give you your money?

Are you sure coercion doesn't affect free will at all? Well, maybe not you specifically, but you'll be damned to prove humans aren't more likely to do things in a reward/punishment scenario. This is a well known psychology phenomenon. It's called Operant Conditioning. In fact, our brains are so used to it due to it being evolutionarily necessary for survival.

No it doesn't. If a gun is held to your head, you still have the choice to comply or not. If you didn't, you would involuntarily hand over your money any time you were presented with a dangerous situation like that. You wouldn't even be able to think about it.

Free will and choice isn't about control of outcomes or circumstances, but rather being able to freely choose within the circumstances around you by plannign a cource of action that leads to the outcome you THINK will make you "happiest" in the end. So, if you choose to hand over the money, it's because you decide it isn't worth risking your life. If you choose not to, perhaps you think you can fend him off. Or maybe you don't think he has the balls to shoot you. In any case, the choice is yours.

And guess who created a world where Operant Conditioning works? God. Why would he make it that way? To better obey him. Where's the free will in that?

Operant Conditioning is dependant upon the certainty of the reward or punishment. But, again, rewards and punishments are outcomes, and singularity of outcome removes any sense of choice.

We still have the choice to obey God or not. My choice is based upon my reason and logic, not because of getting a goody at the end of the day.

Just like anything else, there are degrees of understanding amongst believers. Some people only know the basics and they are ok with that. Other people like to dive as deep as they can. But in all cases there is a fundamental acknowledgement that there is a certain order to the universe. And that understanding leads to the faith and belief.

But he IS the creator of it. Who else is?

Is it not logically possible to disband Hell?

Like I said earlier, there are indirect consequences to the creation of certain things. For instance, fire couldn't exist if there was not something to burn. Lions couldn't exist without meat to eat. For eternal splendor, free choice, and full understanding and participation in the good, the opposite would necessarily come into place.

God intended for the good to be made, and permitted evil to exist in order for the good to be comprehended and participated in. If it did not, there is no way we could comprehend and fully participate in the good.

 

[The Director]

Ah, I see where we are having trouble. There is a difference between "exists," "can be conceived of," and "able to be described by words." Those three properties can overlap, but the latter ones do not guarantee the former ones. Words convey meaning, not existence.

But I would say, "able to describe by words"= "can be conceived of"
and "can be conceived of"="existence"

And as they define here, http://www.answers.com/topic/concept
They describe it as a general idea or thought.
Now that is only one meaning and there are loads of other meanings, but with this definition the concept of such things do exist.

Although it wouldn't nescessarily exist in the we think of it has.
e.g. I'm thinking of a cube, that cube exists as atoms and such in my brain. Therefore it exists, therefore everything we think about exists, not nescessarily in the form we may ascribe to it (if we do ascribe a form).

We've simply denied your first premise, namely that everything itself can be conceived. Contradictions can be described, not conceived. It's what "contradiction" means.

That sounds like the conceot of a contradiction is a contradiction. :L

Your mistake is a simple one. In order to claim notA, A must be defined. If A is undefined, then notA is undefined, which means it cannot be defined as A ... or not... A. (Wow @_@)

And furthermore, in the stick example, "x" is defined. It is the length of the stick. Since "x" is defined as "length of the stick," "notx" would necessarily be defined as "not the length of the stick," and so your assertion that they are the same thing fails. Whatever length that stick is, it is precisely that length. That is the definition.

That first bit does sound a bit mad :L.

Yes, to claim notA as a defined number, then I would have to define A. But if A is undefined so too is notA.
It's like a rolling dice, any face could come up, but any face might not come up. Of course when it stops rolling it becomes defined.
You may be able to give it limits, but it is still undefined.

As for the stick, if the length is undefined, then not that length is undefined as well. Even though length is a definition of a measurement, length itself can still be undefined.
"That stick is as long as itself."
"How do you know? It maybe logical, but logic is not proof."


Oh and TFP here is an example of a text being translated several times. You wouldn't really get it though in business, for simplicity sake a translator usually gives the gist of what one says.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_War#Sources_and_translations

As for the light question, I think it probably isn't either, but acts like it is.

The point I think I was making is that, anyones opinion is as valid as anyone elses, as even "evidence" can be misconstrued. Evidence just helps people accept their opinion, as it seems to prove it true.

 

[GhostAnime]

No, it can't.

Let's just imagine for a moment that we basnih Hell from existence as a consequence to action and everything else remains the same (which would assume everything else abotu God and his nature is correct and agreed upon). What is the final consequence? There is only one at this point.

If only that one said consequence existed, then no action has any moral consequence whatsoever. Hitler would end up with the same finality as Mother Teresa. There is no other final consequence, so all actions are meaningless. And, if there is no morality or meaning to action, evil doesn't exist either in a complete form and the system isn't perfect.

Hell is repugnant concept. Shouldn't it be?

I didn't say remove punishment. I said remove Hell. Hell is eternal punishment. The only thing gained from eternal punishment is sadistic value.

Just like anything else, there are degrees of understanding amongst believers. Some people only know the basics and they are ok with that. Other people like to dive as deep as they can. But in all cases there is a fundamental acknowledgement that there is a certain order to the universe. And that understanding leads to the faith and belief.

It's nice to say why you believe, but this phenomenon is too widespread. I guarantee you religion wouldn't have as many followers if there were no reward or punishments but you kept the same concepts of morality.

Fact is, coercion makes a difference. That's all that's necessary to prove that free will isn't fully "free will". Free will is about freedom. If my choice is influenced by a threat, then it is not freedom; especially in a world where we are psychologically conditioned to change our choices based on reward/punishment. You can shrug this whole point off by giving me some deep reason to believe in god, but if that's the case, why couldn't he give us the complete freedom if he thought everybody would believe the same reason you do?

In fact, to a god with that much knowledge, you'd get much more true believers if you found good people who choose to be good for the better of everyone rather than reward and punishment. It just makes no sense to me. Why does he want to put us in a world where we are VULNERABLE to operant conditioning, and lays down a "free will" to follow him when he already made us CONDITIONED to do so?

That isn't free will.

Like I said earlier, there are indirect consequences to the creation of certain things. For instance, fire couldn't exist if there was not something to burn. Lions couldn't exist without meat to eat. For eternal splendor, free choice, and full understanding and participation in the good, the opposite would necessarily come into place.

God intended for the good to be made, and permitted evil to exist in order for the good to be comprehended and participated in. If it did not, there is no way we could comprehend and fully participate in the good.

I do not understand one thing about these paragraphs. Hell is eternal punishment. Eternal punishment is not required to teach evil. Do you think your god is so incompetent that he can't lay down the foundations of morality without eternally punishing someone?

You and me both know that if you want to teach children that doing something is wrong, you do not spank them eternally in the pit of paddles and rulers. You do not send them to the corner of death for eternity. You do it for 30 minutes!

You would just as easily call these things abuse. Why can't God get that same scrutiny? All you can tell me is that "There are indirect consequences of certain things."

So.. what lead to Hell to exist exactly? Can you be more specific? I'm not asking for fire to disappear or evil to disappear. I'm asking for eternal torture to disappear.

 

[CSolarstorm]

You know, I just remembered; as a casual Mormon, I'm not supposed to believe in hell! =D I'm supposed to believe everyone reunites with Christ eventually, not just the elect. Then again...Mormons don't believe in caffeine either, and here I am amped up. But then again, what does it matter if I'm not going to hell for it? *rhetorical snarky question*

It would make sense to me that like the natural world, the divine afterlife has got to have some natural laws as well. If you touch fire in this world, you burn yourself. Likewise, you die or do something abhorrable, you separate yourself from a luxurious afterlife because that is the effect of your action. Now, Tim's point that Christians believe were punished for our free will by a god who was using his free will was compelling. I wonder though, did these events not happen in close synchronicity? God exercised the free will to let humans suffer at the same time that humans did; and if humans are derivative of God, in is image, perhaps God and humanity are going through the same conflict.

If so, does God continue to be a tyrant if he is suffering too, if he is allowing himself through infinite power to be vulnerable? In Christianity, especially Mormonism, there's that whole coming of God's son and the sacrifice of him. Perhaps as God chooses not to take away all of our suffering, God suffers as well and does so in the idea that it will give God and us an enriched frame of reference, and create something richer than what was before.

I'm just exploring ideas here.

 

[Dragoon952]

I didn't say remove punishment. I said remove Hell. Hell is eternal punishment. The only thing gained from eternal punishment is sadistic value.

I tried to explain that. Hell is the final punishment. If you remove it, there is no final punishment and the only punishment that would exist would be purely temporal in nature (i.e. they end eventually).

I was trying to point out that, if you remove one of the two final ends, you are left with only one final end. And if there is only one final end, it is the final end for all regardless of what we choose or do. And if we can't freely choose to reach that end, the end is essentially meaningless and we all eventually march to it like automatons. Just on different paths.

This "sadism" argument doesn't really apply. It assumes God is the punisher, like he is the one personally attending to the punishment. If hell is complete separation from God as a result of you actively choosing to oppose him, then he gains nothing from said eternal punishment.

To me, the thing gained from finality of outcomes between the two extremes is the ability to freely choose within our will.

It's nice to say why you believe, but this phenomenon is too widespread. I guarantee you religion wouldn't have as many followers if there were no reward or punishments but you kept the same concepts of morality.

Fact is, coercion makes a difference. That's all that's necessary to prove that free will isn't fully "free will". Free will is about freedom. If my choice is influenced by a threat, then it is not freedom; especially in a world where we are psychologically conditioned to change our choices based on reward/punishment. You can shrug this whole point off by giving me some deep reason to believe in god, but if that's the case, why couldn't he give us the complete freedom if he thought everybody would believe the same reason you do?

Coercion makes a difference in the set of circumstances you are presented, but you are still freely able to choose your action. Different sets of circumstances may lead to different choices being made, but at no point are you no longer able to choose.

If you are held up by a guy with a rock, you can give him your money or not. If he has a gun, you can still give him your money or not. If it's ten guys with guns, you can still give them your money or not. Would it be stupid to choose not to? Maybe. But people make stupid choices every day, and it was their stupid choice to make.

Free will isn't about the freedom to control the circumstances of the situations you are presented, and even in the presence of coercion we choose our actions. Every single course of action could lead to really sucky results, but you stil lget to choose which sucky result you want to move toward.

In fact, to a god with that much knowledge, you'd get much more true believers if you found good people who choose to be good for the better of everyone rather than reward and punishment. It just makes no sense to me. Why does he want to put us in a world where we are VULNERABLE to operant conditioning, and lays down a "free will" to follow him when he already made us CONDITIONED to do so?

That isn't free will.

My point is that free choice can't possibly exist without outcomes to choose from. If only one outcome existed, we aren't free in what we choose at any point along the way because we are all ending up at the same place.

To me, it is necessary to have freedom of choice to be able to fully understand the good. The person who chooses a path of his own volition better appreciates what he is doing and what is around him than the person who has no choice and jsut has to do it. Without free choice, we would all "just do it" and wouldn't get the full knowledge and appreciation of good. That's why God chose to create us with free will and choice.

I do not understand one thing about these paragraphs. Hell is eternal punishment. Eternal punishment is not required to teach evil. Do you think your god is so incompetent that he can't lay down the foundations of morally without eternally punishing someone?

You and me both know that if you want to teach children that doing something is wrong, you do not spank them eternally in the pit of paddles and rulers. You do not sent them to the corner of death for eternity. You do it for 30 minutes!

You would just as easily call these things abuse. Why can't God get that same scrutiny? All you can tell me is that "There are indirect consequences of certain things."

So.. what lead to Hell to exist exactly? Can you be more specific? I'm not asking for fire to disappear or evil to disappear. I'm asking for eternal torture to disappear.

If this was easy to udnerstand we would all agree and be done with it.

I tried to sum it up earlier, but we have to focus on the point and purpose of God's creation (assuming God exists). If the goal is to create humanity with the full ability to understand the good and participate in it, then it becomes necessary to ask how we can fully understand the good. We can only fully understand the good with the freedom to make our own choices. However, we can only have the freedom of our own choices if there are opposing outcomes to our choices. For the choices to have meaning, there has to be a finality (whatever that may be) where all of our actions point towards; an end in of itself that is a means to nothing else. And if finality is to have meaning, then we have to be able to get there by our own choices. It is here where the finality of outcome can't be fully appreciated without the finality at the other end. If there were no hell or final punishment, final "reward" would be meaningless because everyone gets it no matter what they do, which eliminates any purpose of virtue or morality.

All of these cogs need to be present for the system (i.e. a system of humanity created with free wil land choice) to work "perfectly." You can't have morality, or free choice, or good, or virtue, etc. without all cogs being present. And, therefore, in order to create humanity with the full ability to understand the good and participate in it (the active part of creation), he permits the other cogs to be present fo that system to work.

It is evident again that all evil is essentially negative and not positive; i.e. it consists not in the acquisition of anything, but in the loss or deprivation of something necessary for perfection. Much like how cold is the absence of heat and not necessarily a thing in of itself. So hell, much like evil, is negative: a loss of the presence of God. It is a negative that arises from the creation of humanity with free choice that can come to the presence of God through full understanding.

It's insanely hard to describe. It's even harder to explain. So I apologize if tha'ts all wordy and hard to get at.

EDIT: Tim the Turtle, I will try my best to get to your posts. Maybe bit by bit. It's hard to have a long drawn out discussion with a million topics floating around, but I'll do my best at some point.

 

[Tim the turtle]

I tried to explain that. Hell is the final punishment. If you remove it, there is no final punishment and the only punishment that would exist would be purely temporal in nature (i.e. they end eventually).

I was trying to point out that, if you remove one of the two final ends, you are left with only one final end. And if there is only one final end, it is the final end for all regardless of what we choose or do. And if we can't freely choose to reach that end, the end is essentially meaningless and we all eventually march to it like automatons. Just on different paths.

But you are assuming, without any justification whatsoever, the existence of some metaphysical, spiritual end (Ironically, you posit one that itself has no end). On what grounds do you base this assumption that there is some final end that we can end up in, be it heaven or hell? I have heard your argument that to know good and evil such things are necessary, but that is actually not the case. One could quite easily imagine a world where the concepts of good and evil exist simply as intellectual ideas. This would allow for us to know good and evil (as much as we can know good and evil) and would not posit some nebulous "finality" that you are so enamoured of.

Further to that: on what grounds do you base you belief that not only do heaven and hell exist, but that they are the resting place of souls that have quit this mortal coil? And, finally, what possible means do you have of knowing how one might end up there?

I must say that your concept of "finality" appears to be nothing more than wishful thinking, as I have found no basis for it in sound logic from any ofyour posts.

This "sadism" argument doesn't really apply. It assumes God is the punisher, like he is the one personally attending to the punishment. If hell is complete separation from God as a result of you actively choosing to oppose him, then he gains nothing from said eternal punishment.

To me, the thing gained from finality of outcomes between the two extremes is the ability to freely choose within our will.

Te sadism argument does apply. It applies when you realise that God still views himself as love. God presents himself as the most fatherly, loving, caring being that could possibly exist. Either he is a deluded psychopath or genuinely feels that he is doing good and loving you by condemning you to eternal agony. It is safe to assume in the case of the latter that God enjoys (as much as being such as he can enjoy) being loving and caring, or he would not make it a point of his entire deluded being. So yes, God sends people to hell and he loves it, as much as he loves everything that exists and loves all his children in his insane, psychotic fugue.

Coercion makes a difference in the set of circumstances you are presented, but you are still freely able to choose your action. Different sets of circumstances may lead to different choices being made, but at no point are you no longer able to choose.

If you are held up by a guy with a rock, you can give him your money or not. If he has a gun, you can still give him your money or not. If it's ten guys with guns, you can still give them your money or not. Would it be stupid to choose not to? Maybe. But people make stupid choices every day, and it was their stupid choice to make.

Free will isn't about the freedom to control the circumstances of the situations you are presented, and even in the presence of coercion we choose our actions. Every single course of action could lead to really sucky results, but you stil lget to choose which sucky result you want to move toward.

But if the influence of the outside circumstances do not inhibit our free will then why does God not simply make it obvious, through divine revelation, what will happen if we sin and if we don't? Why not reveal to us the realities of heaven and hell, and the majesty of his being, if such circumstances will not inhibit free will in any way? Then God could have his cake and eat it. He could give us free will, he would be worshipped, and he wouldn't have to send any of us to hell. Either he has not done so because he, and heaven and hell do not exist to be revealed, or he really is the cruel, sadistic madman that I believe him to be.

If the goal is to create humanity with the full ability to understand the good and participate in it, then it becomes necessary to ask how we can fully understand the good.

That might just be the biggest assumption you've yet made. For the sake of argument we'll agree that some sort of God exists. Some sort of power. Now you deign to tell me his purpose. But okay, we'll assume this for the sake of argument.

We can only fully understand the good with the freedom to make our own choices.

Alright, we'll roll with this.

However, we can only have the freedom of our own choices if there are opposing outcomes to our choices.

I'm still not at all convinced by your argument for this, but again I'll assume for the sake of argument.

For the choices to have meaning, there has to be a finality (whatever that may be) where all of our actions point towards; an end in of itself that is a means to nothing else.

Hang on... what? Okay, so I agreed to accept the whole "meaning" thing for sake of argument. But why does meaning have to be a "finality". Meaning is a nebulous enough term as it is, now you're arbitrarily stating that it's a "finality". Why can meaning not be found in a means to something? Why is meaning linked to a "finality".

Whatever, let's see where you go with this.

And if finality is to have meaning, then we have to be able to get there by our own choices.

Alright.

It is here where the finality of outcome can't be fully appreciated without the finality at the other end. If there were no hell or final punishment, final "reward" would be meaningless because everyone gets it no matter what they do, which eliminates any purpose of virtue or morality.

Oh, wow. So with all the assumptions you've made so far, you make one final whopper. The meaning of life is to be... rewarded or punished. That's it? That's your grand meaning that everything was leading up to? Why does the meaning of our lives even need to actually affect us.

Why can't our lives have meaning after we're gone? Why do we need to be punished or rewarded for what we do beyond what happens in the mortal world? Let me guess, "So morals can exist." Please don't tell me you're going to go down that line. Not everyone is punished for what they do, or rewarded in the same manner. It's a shame, but it happens. That doesn't mean that people's actions can't be moral or immoral though. Not even close.

 

[Profesco]

But I would say, "able to describe by words"= "can be conceived of"
and "can be conceived of"="existence"

And as they define here, http://www.answers.com/topic/concept
They describe it as a general idea or thought.
Now that is only one meaning and there are loads of other meanings, but with this definition the concept of such things do exist.

But see, this is a mathematical, linguistic, as well as reason untruth. Being able to express the meaning of a thing with words simply isn't equal to the thing of which you're trying to express the meaning being able to be conceived. I mean, for crying out loud: "the inconceivable." I have just expressed a meaning with words, but what I have expressed is, literally, not able to be conceived. It's the definition of not being able to be conceived. If you argue that you have conceived of it, then whatever you have conceived of isn't it, because its inconceivability is inherent in its definition. So with contradictions.

I will say it again, words grant meaning, not existence.

That first bit does sound a bit mad :L.

It really does! I guess that's just one of the things that makes this sort of discussion amusing.

Yes, to claim notA as a defined number, then I would have to define A. But if A is undefined so too is notA.
It's like a rolling dice, any face could come up, but any face might not come up. Of course when it stops rolling it becomes defined.
You may be able to give it limits, but it is still undefined.

As for the stick, if the length is undefined, then not that length is undefined as well. Even though length is a definition of a measurement, length itself can still be undefined.

In your analogy, one specific die can have six specific, different faces. However, one specific stick cannot have six specific, different lengths. The analogy is not apt. If you... well, if you roll a stick, there is no possibility of it... coming up... with six possible lengths. Oh good grief. XD

See, the problem is, as I mentioned in the first paragraph above, we are dealing with something's exact definition. Not something's possible set of values, as was the case with your dice analogy.

The stick that is as long as itself has a defined length, a defined value: namely, "itself." Itself is not undefined, for it is itself. Stick is stick. A is A. To claim that a stick is not as long as itself, you are saying that the stick is not itself. That A is not A. To do this, you claim that A (or the stick's length) is undefined. But you see, it is defined. It is A (or the stick's length). Those are not representations of some as-yet unnamed numerical value. Those are the definitions. A is A, not "A means 2, or 34, or -517." There is no other possibility, no other sides of a die, no other length of the stick.

We are dealing, quite simply and very explicitly, with the statement "A is A." Not "A could mean anything." Definitions be darned. A is defined as A. Whatever you want it to represent, it can represent that, but once it does, it only represents that and nothing else. A stick could be of a billion different lengths, but a stick is of only one length.

"It maybe logical, but logic is not proof."

Heathen!

Director, if you'd like to continue this discussion, please send your response to me via PM. I'm afraid we're spending too much threadspace on this, relevant thought it may indirectly be, one small topic. >_>;

It applies when you realise that God still views himself as love. God presents himself as the most fatherly, loving, caring being that could possibly exist.

Are you sure it's God holding these views and making these presentations? I would argue that it's the vocal believers of any given idea of Him, or at least those who contributed to the Bible and those who adhere closely to the Bible, who are trying to depict God in these ways.

Maybe it's not God who is the delusional psychopath.

 

[Tim the turtle]

Are you sure it's God holding these views and making these presentations? I would argue that it's the vocal believers of any given idea of Him, or at least those who contributed to the Bible and those who adhere closely to the Bible, who are trying to depict God in these ways.

Maybe it's not God who is the delusional psychopath.

That's a given. The only "evidence" we have for what God thinks (and I use evidence in the loosest poosible term because it's really nothing more than guesswork) is what religions say about him.

 

[Dragoon952]

Before I respond, let me just say one thing. You can't effectively have a discussion if you keep moving the goalposts all over the field. It makes it impossible to discuss anything when you continually change the premises the conversation is based upon.

Most of the things I've been saying is a response to the question of why hell exists or why it needs to be there. That presupposes a lot of things, including that there is in fact a God and hell does in fact exist. So, when I'm trying to philisophically set out the argument, you turn around and start yelling that I haven't proven that hell exists and insinuate that I haven't proved that God exists either. I wasn't aware that that was what was being discussed.

Also, let me start right off the bat as well by saying your hyperbole is unnecessary. You can make your points in a civil way without the childish language.

But you are assuming, without any justification whatsoever, the existence of some metaphysical, spiritual end (Ironically, you posit one that itself has no end). On what grounds do you base this assumption that there is some final end that we can end up in, be it heaven or hell? I have heard your argument that to know good and evil such things are necessary, but that is actually not the case. One could quite easily imagine a world where the concepts of good and evil exist simply as intellectual ideas. This would allow for us to know good and evil (as much as we can know good and evil) and would not posit some nebulous "finality" that you are so enamoured of.

Further to that: on what grounds do you base you belief that not only do heaven and hell exist, but that they are the resting place of souls that have quit this mortal coil? And, finally, what possible means do you have of knowing how one might end up there?

I must say that your concept of "finality" appears to be nothing more than wishful thinking, as I have found no basis for it in sound logic from any ofyour posts.

Do you think Aristotle doesn't use sound logic? Because the notion of a final end is what he lays out in Nicomachean Ethics, and he uses the argument I'm using.

But before I get into that, you are COMPLETELY reading too much into what I am saying and misconstruing it. And you are again jumping around like crazy. Where was I ever asked to prove where souls go? Or that heaven exists? Again, I was being asked to address why hell exists and why it needs to be there, then you run around like a chicken with your head cut off screaming that I haven't proven that hell exists which wasn't even the point of the discussion. Focus.

Anyway, what I was attempting to show with "finality" is that there is an ultimate end to which all of our actions point to. Aristotle pointed out that everything we do is a means to an end. But those ends aren't ends in of themselves, but rather means to other ends. So, he logically points to the fact that there must be an ultimate end, and end that is wanted in of itself and is not a means to anything else. He comes to the conclusion that this end is happiness, and then sets out to define happiness. In the context of why hell exists, I was trying to show how this Aristotlean philosophy is a basis to show why hell must exist in a system where God exists and heaven exists as well, as well as good and evil.

So, don't flip your lid that I didn't prove that heaven exists or souls go to certain places. I wasn't asked to do that.

Te sadism argument does apply. It applies when you realise that God still views himself as love. God presents himself as the most fatherly, loving, caring being that could possibly exist. Either he is a deluded psychopath or genuinely feels that he is doing good and loving you by condemning you to eternal agony. It is safe to assume in the case of the latter that God enjoys (as much as being such as he can enjoy) being loving and caring, or he would not make it a point of his entire deluded being. So yes, God sends people to hell and he loves it, as much as he loves everything that exists and loves all his children in his insane, psychotic fugue.

I've already addressed this numerous times and we're just going around in circles. Again, if yo uare going to argue about the nature of God, then it presupposes God exists in the first place.

I've tried to show that, in order to make a creature with free choice that can fully participate in the good, that all of these pieces are necessary. If that is true, it isn't that hell is a sadistic creation, it is that it is impossible (much like a square circle) to not have these pieces together if a creature with free choice that can participate in the good exists. If all of that is true, then hell isn't sadistic, it is necessary. We couldn't exists as humans with our capacity without it.

So it isn't sadistic. It's a piece of the puzzle that needs to be there for us to exist in our state at all. To create something with the capacity to participate with God and appreciate it wit hfree choice, there has to be a separation and non-participation that goes along with that free choice.

But if the influence of the outside circumstances do not inhibit our free will then why does God not simply make it obvious, through divine revelation, what will happen if we sin and if we don't? Why not reveal to us the realities of heaven and hell, and the majesty of his being, if such circumstances will not inhibit free will in any way? Then God could have his cake and eat it. He could give us free will, he would be worshipped, and he wouldn't have to send any of us to hell. Either he has not done so because he, and heaven and hell do not exist to be revealed, or he really is the cruel, sadistic madman that I believe him to be.

He DOES make it obvious. Again, right up front, we are presupposing God exists. In Christianity, we believe he has divinley revealed these things through scripture and nature through Christ. Believe it or not if you want, but it's all right there. I also see the majest of his being by just looking around me every day and seeing hte order of things. But, people choose not to believe it.

If you look at other things I have said, I talk a lot about a fullness and appreciation of the choice we make. If God slapped us in the face and said "Check it out, I'm God," how deep of an appreciation for your belief would you have if you chose to believe what you saw? Christ himself was mocked to come down off of the cross to prove he was the Son of God, but he didn't for a completenes of hs sacrifice to take place.

Can you know what it feels like to have beaten a drug addiction if you have never been addicted to drugs? It isn't the easiest thing to grasp, but we can come to a fullness of appreciation if we realize ourselves we are sinful and repent and come to God through our own free choice. (EDIT: and that is the only way we can get the fullest appreciation of it. Even if God slapped us in the face we'd still have the choice to follow, but we wouldn't have the same appreciation and understanding of our own choice that we would if we were allowed to come to it more fully through our own reasoning and faculties).

I have to go, but I'll leave it there for now. If you want to keep discussing, please set the premises up and allow them to continue or change the subject, because it's hard to have a discussion when you re all over the map.

 

[Tim the turtle]

If you feel that I'm moving the goal posts then I apologise, but I shall not apologise for any of language that I have used, which I feel is perfectly acceptible.

Do you think Aristotle doesn't use sound logic? Because the notion of a final end is what he lays out in Nicomachean Ethics, and he uses the argument I'm using.

Aristotle does not use the argument you are using. He basis his argument on the real world, his means that we're seeking is earthly happiness and his argument is far more effective because of this. But that's an aside, in answer to your question, yes. Yes of course I think Aristotle uses bad logic. There's no doubt about it that Aristotle was an incredibly observant and clever man, but he lived over 2000 years ago, and was working in an extremel underdeveloped field. One can't fault him for using bad logic, but he still made mistakes anyway.

But before I get into that, you are COMPLETELY reading too much into what I am saying and misconstruing it. And you are again jumping around like crazy. Where was I ever asked to prove where souls go? Or that heaven exists? Again, I was being asked to address why hell exists and why it needs to be there, then you run around like a chicken with your head cut off screaming that I haven't proven that hell doesn't exist which wasn't even the point of the discussion. Focus.

So now let me ask you this: do you think that Plato used faulty logic? The argument I present was based in his, from the Republic; I was hardly "running around like a headless chicken" when I claimed that you're presupposing what hell and heaven are (or rather, what the highest good and lowest evil are). You are doing that. I know what you're trying to claim, why hell must exist, it's because you think it necessary for us to know and participate in the good. To criticise that is hardly moving the goalposts, it's the very essence of the debate we're having. I was suggesting a way that we could do that without having the actual (spiritual) places of heaven and hell and all the nastiness they bring with them. The only thing in your argument then that would need revising is the "finality" part, but that was never a presumption on our part. It's not something that can just be assumed for the sake of this debate.

Anyway, what I was attempting to show with "finality" is that there is an ultimate end to which all of our actions point to. Aristotle pointed out that everything we do is a means to an end. But those ends aren't ends in of themselves, but rather means to other ends. So, he logically points to the fact that there must be an ultimate end, and end that is wanted in of itself and is not a means to anything else. He comes to the conclusion that this end is happiness, and then sets out to define happiness. In the context of why hell exists, I was trying to show how this Aristotlean philosophy is a basis to show why hell must exist in a system where God exists and heaven exists as well, as well as good and evil.

Everything we do might be a means to some end, but it's an earthly end. More to the point, it seems to be an end that we make for ourselves. Aristotle says that it's happiness, but he also muddles it up with talk of virtue and intellectual delights and confates those with happiness. I believe instead that people can achieve happiness in all sorts of ways (let's not forget that Aristotle cliamed that an ugly or stupid person would never reach the goal of happiness) and that there is not one single "finality" if there is one at all. Anyways, there's no actual logic to saying that there is an ultimate, spiritual end, whether claimed by Aristotle or you, merely because we see ourselves as doing things towards that end. We might simply all be deluded, it's not a pleasant thought but it is a possible and pressing one.

So I feel that this "finality" is not necessary to your system, one can have free will without having a goal to strive for. I am not very convinced of your argument that by having only one possible outcome (let's say death) that suddenly all choice is moot because having only one possible end does not deny the fact that the consequences of actions still exist in the present. So I feel that "finality" is not necessary, and that heaven and hell are also not necessary. I find no contradiction at all in God creating a world where we know good and evil without having to punish or reward us in some metaphysical realm afterwards for eternity. Thus ifGod has set up such a system then I charge him crimes against humanity of the most monstrous kind.

I've already addressed this numerous times and we're just going around in circles. Again, if yo uare going to argue about the nature of God, then it presupposes God exists in the first place.

I don't know why you bring that up where you did. I never claimed, in my sadism argument, that God did not exist. I merely said that if he did is a sadistic torturer and a deluded psychopath. I stand by this description.

I've tried to show that, in order to make a creature with free choice that can fully participate in the good, that all of these pieces are necessary. If that is true, it isn't that hell is a sadistic creation, it is that it is impossible (much like a square circle) to not have these pieces together if a creature with free choice that can participate in the good exists. If all of that is true, then hell isn't sadistic, it is necessary. We couldn't exists as humans with our capacity without it.

I don't think you have effectively shown that. Even granting your argument that we need to have the concepts of good and evil in order to participate in the good it only means a necessity of concepts, not of actual rewards and punishments. I think that it's perfectly plausible to have good and evil as paradigmatic ideals or concepts. That would allow for humans to know of good and evil and to participate in the good.

Even with your argument from "finality" it would not change this. You seem to be assuming what the "final" end of humans is, and that it is reward or punishment. I do not see that as being a necessary state of affairs. Maybe Aristotle was right and that humans only do things for the sake of happiness and that the end lies in death and nothing else beyond that. Just because humans strive for a finality it does not mean that they are logically bound to reach it, or even that it logically does exist. That's far too anthropocentric, and strikes me as rather arrogant if I'm quite honest.

I believe therefore that there is a different option, that God could have set up the world up with concepts in mind of good and evil and still have us with free will. If he chose not too, it's because he is cruel.

He DOES make it obvious. Again, right up front, we are presupposing God exists. In Christianity, we believe he has divinley revealed these things through scripture and nature through Christ. Believe it or not if you want, but it's all right there. I also see the majest of his being by just looking around me every day and seeing hte order of things. But, people choose not to believe it.

I think you are misrepresenting how "obvious" this is. When I look at scripture and so called divine revelations I find myselfshaking my head, wondering how anyone could be thick enough to believe in them. I'm sorry if that offends you, but it is true. That is what I feel. So saying that it is obvious merely comes across as deluded if you were to ask me, or pretty much any atheist for that matter, and as far as I'm aware if you count global population, atheists are the second largest "religious" group on the planet after the Catholic Church... so no, no it isn't obvious and my point still stands.

If you look at other things I have said, I talk a lot about a fullness and appreciation of the choice we make. If God slapped us in the face and said "Check it out, I'm God," how deep of an appreciation for your belief would you have if you chose to believe what you saw? Christ himself was mocked to come down off of the cross to prove he was the Son of God, but he didn't for a completenes of hs sacrifice to take place.

Honestly, I don't really get what you're saying here. Care to elaborate further? It sounds to me like a platitude rather than an argument I'm afraid to say but maybe I'm missing something.

Can you know what it feels like to have beaten a drug addiction if you have never been addicted to drugs? It isn't the easiest thing to grasp, but we can come to a fullness of appreciation if we realize ourselves we are sinful and repent and come to God through our own free choice.

My point was that going by what you said coercion does not influence free will in the slightest. You admitted that, so this is not a counter to my point, as we would still be coming to a decision based on our own free will.

 

[GhostAnime]

This "sadism" argument doesn't really apply. It assumes God is the punisher, like he is the one personally attending to the punishment. If hell is complete separation from God as a result of you actively choosing to oppose him, then he gains nothing from said eternal punishment.

Calling it separation from God doesn't make it any less sadistic. Right now, I consider myself "separated" from God. Putting me in eternal torture isn't just separation; it is pain and suffering. Changing the language of the punishment doesn't make it any less of a punishment. If I send my child to the corner for eternity and call it "not punishing him, because I didn't do anything", you would still call it child abuse.

My point is that free choice can't possibly exist without outcomes to choose from. If only one outcome existed, we aren't free in what we choose at any point along the way because we are all ending up at the same place.

To me, it is necessary to have freedom of choice to be able to fully understand the good. The person who chooses a path of his own volition better appreciates what he is doing and what is around him than the person who has no choice and jsut has to do it. Without free choice, we would all "just do it" and wouldn't get the full knowledge and appreciation of good. That's why God chose to create us with free will and choice.

This doesn't say, "free will wouldn't exist." This says, "free will would be abused."

This exists in today's life and works. Think of video games. There is only one ultimate end. There is no end where the game permanently ends and punishes you by not allowing you to play anymore. We die, get game over, and may even get frustrated; however, we start over and try again. Eventually, we complete the game and get rewarded. Do people not use free will when playing video games now?

You can still get the full knowledge without eternal punishment. In fact, that's the last way to give someone knowledge. People can learn from their mistakes unless you think that's impossible?

Also, you still didn't address that fact that we are conditioned to choose the better choice based on how he created us.

 

[ShinySandshrew]

Objection Your Honor! (Whoever He Is...)

Everything we do might be a means to some end, but it's an earthly end....Anyways, there's no actual logic to saying that there is an ultimate, spiritual end, whether claimed by Aristotle or you, merely because we see ourselves as doing things towards that end. We might simply all be deluded, it's not a pleasant thought but it is a possible and pressing one.

That claim is not supported by fact. Do you have first-hand knowledge of what happens after we die? Do you know that there is no after-life and that our destiny is not determined by our earthly actions? What factual evidence are you going on?

Thus ifGod has set up such a system then I charge him crimes against humanity of the most monstrous kind.

On what grounds? Did God make anyone sin or do evil? Do you not bear the blame for your wrong-doing and receive the praise for your good deeds? God is not the one to blame for punishing people that have done things wrong. One thing that you might want to consider is this: all sins are sins against God. Because God is holy, He cannot let sin go unpunished. Would you want your government to let everything go unpunished? Even you would admit that there are some things that must be punishable.

And as GA said, we're conditioned to choose the good, not the bad. So considering that, why does anyone do something wrong? Even if everyone knew that they would go to Hell for doing wrong and go to Heaven for doing good (not saying that's what happens, just using that as for the sake of argument), there would still be people who would choose to murder, rape, steal, etc. Why? Because we are sinners! Even with "conditioning," we still don't always do what is right all the time!

I merely said that if he did is a sadistic torturer and a deluded psychopath. I stand by this description.

The definition of the word "sadistic" is that the person who inflicts the pain gets pleasure from inflicting pain. How do you know that God gets pleasure from sending someone to Hell? Have you hook electrodes up to the mind of God to measure how He feels when He sends someone to Hell? No? Didn't think so. On the contrary, God does not like to send someone to Hell. Ezekiel 33:11 says, "Say to them, `As I live!' declares the Lord GOD, `I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?'" (Ezekiel 18:23,32 are very similar in what they say.)

2 Peter 3:9 reiterates this same idea: "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance."

And about the delusional psychopath part, do you know the mind of God? What if the the things that look like madness to us actually have a purpose? From the standpoint of Jesus' disciples, Jesus' death looked like the end of Jesus' life and His teaching. But God had something else in mind... Since I love definitions, let's take a look at what the word "psychopath" means, shall we? If you take MerriamWebster.com's word, it means, "a mentally ill or unstable person; especially: a person affected with an antisocial personality disorder." If God's aim was to get people to love and worship Him...hasn't He achieved that? So in what way is He delusional and psychopathic?

I think you are misrepresenting how "obvious" this is. When I look at scripture and so called divine revelations I find myselfshaking my head, wondering how anyone could be thick enough to believe in them. I'm sorry if that offends you, but it is true. That is what I feel. So saying that it is obvious merely comes across as deluded if you were to ask me, or pretty much any atheist for that matter, and as far as I'm aware if you count global population, atheists are the second largest "religious" group on the planet after the Catholic Church... so no, no it isn't obvious and my point still stands.

Well, if we assume that God exists (for the sake of argument), then there are some very obvious verses. Take John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him should not perish but have everlasting life." The phrase "should not perish," indicated that without Jesus, people will perish. Now take Romans 6:23: The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life." You don't have to read anything into the verse, or do a fancy analysis to determine what they mean. These verses use plain language.

And about those religion statistics, you might want check your facts.

According to this site, atheism, which was also paired with people who were secular, non-religious, and agnostic, ranks third in total number of people. If you look at this site, atheists by themselves are 7th. So, gather from that what you will.

 

[Profesco]

That claim is not supported by fact. Do you have first-hand knowledge of what happens after we die? Do you know that there is no after-life and that our destiny is not determined by our earthly actions? What factual evidence are you going on?

I think Tim was making a negative statement about the existence/implications of the Christian notions of the afterlife. If I'm right, then the factual evidence for his suggestions might have been the fact of the lack of factual evidence for any and all specific descriptions of what happens after death, Christian or otherwise.

*shrug* But we'll see what he says, I guess. I don't want to step on any toes. =P

And about the delusional psychopath part, do you know the mind of God? What if the the things that look like madness to us actually have a purpose? From the standpoint of Jesus' disciples, Jesus' death looked like the end of Jesus' life and His teaching. But God had something else in mind... Since I love definitions, let's take a look at what the word "psychopath" means, shall we? If you take MerriamWebster.com's word, it means, "a mentally ill or unstable person; especially: a person affected with an antisocial personality disorder." If God's aim was to get people to love and worship Him...hasn't He achieved that? So in what way is He delusional and psychopathic?

This got me to thinking (which has terrible consequences for all involved, usually), and it's actually sort of amusing that we can really attribute some qualities of "psychopathy" to the Judeo-Islamic-Christian conception of God.

If we're using the Bible as a trustworthy source for accounts of His behavior, then we can certainly place God comfortably under the definition of unstable; the typical bipolar comparison of the Old Testament's wrathful God to the New Testament's more paternal version ought to be sufficiently indicative of that. As far as mentally ill goes, I'd have to wonder about handfuls of little recommended practices and forbidden things, like sacrifice, slavery, stoning, and not eating certain foods on certain days. The food rules make me think of OCD, actually.

And many of the symptoms fitting a diagnosis of antisocal personality disorder can be ascribed to God as well: A tendency toward aggression, cruelty or indifference to animals, inadequate control of temper, a tendency to violate the rights and boundaries of others, parental neglect or abuse of children, consistent irresponsibility, the ability to charm or influence others, a grandiose sense of self, extreme arrogance or boastfulness, and so on and so forth.

Mind you, of course, that I'm not saying any of this as actual claims on God or His nature; since it has been argued that we do not know the mind of God, and indeed cannot considering He is fully excused from all applications of our mortal logic and experience, all discussions and interpretations of Him necessarily must work from our human perceptions and definitions of things. And here we have a conundrum where some of our perceptions and definitions of God's behaviors and motivations happen to be consistent with some of our perceptions and definitions of instability, mental illness, and antisocial personality disorder - outright psychopathy. This just seems an amusing observation, an eyebrow-raiser.

 

[Tim the turtle]

That claim is not supported by fact. Do you have first-hand knowledge of what happens after we die? Do you know that there is no after-life and that our destiny is not determined by our earthly actions? What factual evidence are you going on?

Profesco is correct. No where did I state what definitiely happens after we die. I phrased my comment as such, with words like "might" to give another possibility. When I said we do things as a means for an earthly end I wasn't stating that as fact, rather I was replying to the point about what Aristotle believed, because he most certainly did believe in an earthly end.

So I'm going on no "factual" evidence, although my point that it is not a logical necessity to claim what Dragoon claims is a perfectly reasonable one.

On what grounds? Did God make anyone sin or do evil?

This is irrelevent. One might have qualms with the death penalty but that does not mean that those sentenced did not commit whatever crimes they happened to be accused of. Similarly one might (and I should say must) be against torture of all kinds as a punishment, but that does not mean that those suffering by it were not responsible for their actions. So no, God did not make anyone do certain kinds of evil... well, you know, except for all the expressedly permitted acts of evil that does allow and even commands in his holy books (whichever one you choose to believe).

Do you not bear the blame for your wrong-doing and receive the praise for your good deeds? God is not the one to blame for punishing people that have done things wrong. One thing that you might want to consider is this: all sins are sins against God. Because God is holy, He cannot let sin go unpunished. Would you want your government to let everything go unpunished? Even you would admit that there are some things that must be punishable.

Yes you do (mostly) bear the blame for your wrongdoing. Yes, it would be wonderful if everyone was rewarded for their good deeds and punished for their evil ones. Yes, it would also be wonderful if the judge of these deeds is infallible and good and thus it is guaranteed that people recieve their just reward or their just punishment. Shame God clearly does not fit into that final category. If Hell is what it is claimed to be in the Bible and by most (though thankfully not all) Churches then it is the most disgustingly unjust punishment possible. It is an eternity of suffering. No sin commitable on Earth can possibly warrant such a punishment. Not even the Holocaust, tragic and lamentable as it is, not even that (considered rightly to be among the worst crimes in the history of our race) deserves an eternity of pain and suffering! I would be horrified if someone were to punish a shop lifter by mutilation. Indeed, that happens often in the Islamic world and it is vile and immoral. I am sure that you, ShinySandshrew, would be horrified to see the stoning of a woman or man of Islam for apostasy (I hope with every fibre of my being that that would shock and disgust you). We are shocked by these punishments because they appear to be far, far too severe for the crime committed. Hell is too severe for any crime that it is even possible to commit. I claim the continued stoning of Islamic apostates to be a crime against humanity, thus I charge the sentencing of people to Hell as a similar (though far, far more monstrous) crime against humanity.

And as GA said, we're conditioned to choose the good, not the bad. So considering that, why does anyone do something wrong? Even if everyone knew that they would go to Hell for doing wrong and go to Heaven for doing good (not saying that's what happens, just using that as for the sake of argument), there would still be people who would choose to murder, rape, steal, etc. Why? Because we are sinners! Even with "conditioning," we still don't always do what is right all the time!

I'm sorry Sandshrew but I really don't see what this has to do with the debate. I'm arguing over the morality of Hell itself, I'm not arguing that people don't do bad and evil things. Anyway, if you're saying what I think you're saying then I believe my above point covers it as well.

The definition of the word "sadistic" is that the person who inflicts the pain gets pleasure from inflicting pain. How do you know that God gets pleasure from sending someone to Hell? Have you hook electrodes up to the mind of God to measure how He feels when He sends someone to Hell? No?

Well my sadistic comment was based upon the often held idea that God is, or at least presents himself as, love. Omnibenevolence and all that. If God seriously thinks that he is omnibenevolent then he must love (misguidedly I should say) everything that he himself does (indeed one would question why God would do something that he does not want to do if he can avoid doing so). So I would say that loving whatsoever he does would necessitate loving sending people to Hell.

On the contrary, God does not like to send someone to Hell. Ezekiel 33:11 says, "Say to them, `As I live!' declares the Lord GOD, `I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?'" (Ezekiel 18:23,32 are very similar in what they say.)

2 Peter 3:9 reiterates this same idea: "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance."

God says that, but since I have already charged God with being deluded then whatever he says must be taken with a heavy pinch of salt. But okay, maybe God really does not like sending people to Hell. That of course necessitates the question of why he does it. I do not think Dragoons argument that it is necessary is very convincing so why does God send people to Hell, which I believe is fundamentally immoral, and then not like doing it but choose to do it anyway? Maybe he's not a sadist, maybe he's just completely insane.

And about the delusional psychopath part, do you know the mind of God? What if the the things that look like madness to us actually have a purpose? From the standpoint of Jesus' disciples, Jesus' death looked like the end of Jesus' life and His teaching. But God had something else in mind... Since I love definitions, let's take a look at what the word "psychopath" means, shall we? If you take MerriamWebster.com's word, it means, "a mentally ill or unstable person; especially: a person affected with an antisocial personality disorder." If God's aim was to get people to love and worship Him...hasn't He achieved that? So in what way is He delusional and psychopathic?

I must say that Profesco answered this magnificently. Absolutely wonderful Profesco, I am tempted to print that out and frame it

I might just add one last thing however: Your last point is very interesting. If God's aim was to get people to love him and he has accomplished that, in what way is he delusional and psychopathic? Well, what I will say to this is that it sounds awfully like the excuse one might make for Stalin or Mao or any other dictator with a cult of personality. I would say that much of the "love" for God is based on fear and the indoctrination of children. That God seems satisfied with this state of affairs (you seem to think he's satisfied with it or you would not make the claim that you did) then he must be at least as immoral and deluded as those same dictators, and in fact the Churches themselves actually mirror those regimes in awful proximity. The silencing of disenters, the use of torture and fiery rhetoric. The more one thinks about God and religion the more one is reminded of Stalin and the terror of his regime (and I tell you now that to claim that Stalin is an atheist would be to raise the most heinous of strawmen, as it does not actually have anything to do with what I am claiming).

Well, if we assume that God exists (for the sake of argument), then there are some very obvious verses. Take John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him should not perish but have everlasting life." The phrase "should not perish," indicated that without Jesus, people will perish. Now take Romans 6:23: The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life." You don't have to read anything into the verse, or do a fancy analysis to determine what they mean. These verses use plain language.

Simply quoting more Bible verses intirely misses my point. for something to be obvious it has to be believable. Bible verses are not believable. You can believe in them, that's fine, it's a matter of personal faith. More power to you. But it is ludicrously hard to justify belief in the Bible. I don't really want to drag this debate off topic into another Bible: real or not debate, but I think you get my point. The Bible is no more an obvious proof for something than any other holy book, or for that matter, any other book of stories.

And about those religion statistics, you might want check your facts.

According to this site, atheism, which was also paired with people who were secular, non-religious, and agnostic, ranks third in total number of people. If you look at this site, atheists by themselves are 7th. So, gather from that what you will.

Saying I might want to check my facts is apparently going to be rather difficult if surveying religious groups is so difficult to do that we end up with discrepancies as wide as third largest to seventh largest. Anyways, being third is still a large enough percentage to make my point. Also as to the second link you gave, I was maybe using atheism in too broad a sense, I simply meant people who do not believe in God, so it was a catch all term. If you were then to add the atheism and non-religious sections together as I was doing then that would also point to it being third. So my facts might have been a little bit off but not majorly so, and I'd be willing to bet that if one divided Islam into its different denominations than non-religious people would outnumber each of those seperate sects easily.

Besides, since you do like definitions so much I shall provide one:

Obvious
adjective
easily perceived or understood; clear, self-evident, or apparent:
unemployment has been the most obvious cost of the recession
[with clause] :
it was obvious a storm was coming in

http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0572360#m_en_gb0572360

The simple fact of the matter is that with only a third of the worlds population being Christian, the Bible is apparently not an obvious truth of Gods word. Especially as rates of Christianity are dropping, and that many of thoise who are Christian are because they are raised to be so. So no, it's not at all obvious that heaven and hell exist and my point still stands.

 

[Dragoon952]

If you feel that I'm moving the goal posts then I apologise, but I shall not apologise for any of language that I have used, which I feel is perfectly acceptible.

You are moving the goalposts. It's not just me "feeling" it.

Aristotle does not use the argument you are using. He basis his argument on the real world, his means that we're seeking is earthly happiness and his argument is far more effective because of this. But that's an aside, in answer to your question, yes. Yes of course I think Aristotle uses bad logic. There's no doubt about it that Aristotle was an incredibly observant and clever man, but he lived over 2000 years ago, and was working in an extremel underdeveloped field. One can't fault him for using bad logic, but he still made mistakes anyway.

Yes, he in fact does. Quit putting words in my mouth saying that I think Aristotle was arguing that the ultimate end was heaven. What I'm saying is that he was arguing that an ultimate end does exist, with an ultimate end being where all actions point to and the end is a thing that is wanted in of itself. I was trying to show that as a proof of finality, not what that finality is. Which is opposed to what you are saying. If we can't agree on finality of human action then we're not going to agree on the nature of heaven/hell, if that's what we are even discussing anymore.

I didn't say Aristotle was perfect or didn't make mistakes, but much of his logic pursuits are the very basis of modern philisophical thought. He was of great importance to Thomas Aquinas and Augustine.

If there are universal truths out there, it doesn't make a difference if he lived 2,000 years ago.

So now let me ask you this: do you think that Plato used faulty logic? The argument I present was based in his, from the Republic; I was hardly "running around like a headless chicken" when I claimed that you're presupposing what hell and heaven are (or rather, what the highest good and lowest evil are). You are doing that. I know what you're trying to claim, why hell must exist, it's because you think it necessary for us to know and participate in the good. To criticise that is hardly moving the goalposts, it's the very essence of the debate we're having. I was suggesting a way that we could do that without having the actual (spiritual) places of heaven and hell and all the nastiness they bring with them. The only thing in your argument then that would need revising is the "finality" part, but that was never a presumption on our part. It's not something that can just be assumed for the sake of this debate.

Again, focus here. If we are presupposing hell exists and asking why, why are you complaining that I am presupposing that hell exists?

Look, you ARE presuming hell exists if you are asking me why it is necessary. That IS a presumption on your part. It IS assumed because YOU are making the assumption when you are asking me about the nature of hell. It's not that your criticizing my viewpoint, it's that you are setting the parameters when asking the question, and then you are pointing the finger for using the parameters you yourself set up.

If you are asking me to prove that hell even exists in the first place, why should we sit here and debate the nature of it? Is the essence of the debate whether or not hell exists, or that hell as a concept would be against the concept of a benevolent God (i.e., if hell exists, then God is sadistic).

Everything we do might be a means to some end, but it's an earthly end. More to the point, it seems to be an end that we make for ourselves. Aristotle says that it's happiness, but he also muddles it up with talk of virtue and intellectual delights and confates those with happiness. I believe instead that people can achieve happiness in all sorts of ways (let's not forget that Aristotle cliamed that an ugly or stupid person would never reach the goal of happiness) and that there is not one single "finality" if there is one at all. Anyways, there's no actual logic to saying that there is an ultimate, spiritual end, whether claimed by Aristotle or you, merely because we see ourselves as doing things towards that end. We might simply all be deluded, it's not a pleasant thought but it is a possible and pressing one.

I happen to agree with Aristotle's view of happiness, I just take it one step further. I don't think he muddled it up.

So now you are agreeing with me that there is a finality in human action? Even if you think it's an earthly one, that was all I was trying to get at with that point: that finality in action exists. Then, concepts of heaven and hell can be put in that context. I was just trying to get past step one when you asked me about the nature of hell using that logical path. Wasn't saying Aristotle said it proved an afterlife. Wasn't saying that it proves an afterlife at all. Just saying it helps explain the concept of hell in the context of our discussion.

If people can achieve happiness numerous ways, that's great. But, it doesn't change the fact that happiness is the end that each "path" is moving towards. The definition of happiness, and it being the thing wanted for it's own sake, stays the same even if there are different ways to get there. Aristotle said the same thing. He said that it was obtaining virtue and using it, but he never said there was only one action that was virtuous.

And, again, are you complaining that I am presupposing that hell exists when you are asking me why it needs to be there?

So I feel that this "finality" is not necessary to your system, one can have free will without having a goal to strive for. I am not very convinced of your argument that by having only one possible outcome (let's say death) that suddenly all choice is moot because having only one possible end does not deny the fact that the consequences of actions still exist in the present. So I feel that "finality" is not necessary, and that heaven and hell are also not necessary. I find no contradiction at all in God creating a world where we know good and evil without having to punish or reward us in some metaphysical realm afterwards for eternity. Thus ifGod has set up such a system then I charge him crimes against humanity of the most monstrous kind.

All choices are moot if there is only one possible outcome. If we are talking about finality, then we have to ask if the decision one makes has affected the final outcome. In your example, if death was the end result and outcome of human life, everything you do in that life is meaningless. The serial killer's life ends in death. The guy that went to med school and had a great career saving lives ends in death. Both paths are exactly the same because they both achieve the same exact result in finality. Their choices in life have no bearing on their final outcome, which is that they are both dead and rotting in the ground. And, likewise, you are predestined to that fate no matter what you choose in life.

I don't know why you bring that up where you did. I never claimed, in my sadism argument, that God did not exist. I merely said that if he did is a sadistic torturer and a deluded psychopath. I stand by this description.

My fault that I misread your statement. I'l ldeal with you and Profesco's description in a bit.

I don't think you have effectively shown that. Even granting your argument that we need to have the concepts of good and evil in order to participate in the good it only means a necessity of concepts, not of actual rewards and punishments. I think that it's perfectly plausible to have good and evil as paradigmatic ideals or concepts. That would allow for humans to know of good and evil and to participate in the good.

Even with your argument from "finality" it would not change this. You seem to be assuming what the "final" end of humans is, and that it is reward or punishment. I do not see that as being a necessary state of affairs. Maybe Aristotle was right and that humans only do things for the sake of happiness and that the end lies in death and nothing else beyond that. Just because humans strive for a finality it does not mean that they are logically bound to reach it, or even that it logically does exist. That's far too anthropocentric, and strikes me as rather arrogant if I'm quite honest.

I believe therefore that there is a different option, that God could have set up the world up with concepts in mind of good and evil and still have us with free will. If he chose not too, it's because he is cruel.

Honestly, I don't really get what you're saying here. Care to elaborate further? It sounds to me like a platitude rather than an argument I'm afraid to say but maybe I'm missing something.

I'll try to address this together.

I don't think you could be just instilled with understanding of good and evil. Would you have the full choice between the two after you were instilled with such knowledge? If we were created with the knowledge of both, but only the capacity to participate in the good in the end, then do you really have free choice?

You have to get to the heart of what "good" and "evil" are as concepts. In the end, they both require one thing: judgment. To label anything as good or evil, someone or something needs to judge it as such. If it isn't universal, than all morality, good, and evil are completely relative. While you may be hung up on the "punishment/reward" part of it, punishment and reward are not the sole defining aspect of judgment. And, furthermore, judgement is meaningless if there is no end result of the judgment. Would a jury's guilty verdict mean anything if everyone just packed up and left after that point? Likewise, could you have a full understanding of good without a conclusion that can be drawn from it? And if there is finality, wouldn't judgment need to exist to label the finality as either good or evil?

When I'm talking about a full apreciation of your free choice and full participation of the good, judgment is needed for you to fully apreciate it. I was addressing your point as to why God doesn't just come down and tell us he's God if it doesn't violate free choice. I was trying to point out that you can choose in any case, but the quality of your decision can be different depending on the circumstances surrounding your choice. It's why there are times where we can be certain we made the right choice when looking back, and times where we aren't sure. So, what I was trying to point out is that the person who comes to God through all of his own faculties and reason rather will have a fuller and greater appreciation of his choice than the person who had God completely appear to him. Christ even pointed this out to Thomas in John 20:29 "Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed."" Notice Thomas believed because of what he saw, but Christ pointed out how the people who believe and did not see are the ones who are blessed. Both still believed, but the latter have the fuller appreciation of their belief.

In essence, you can't have concepts of things that are judgments without having actual judgment, and if there is no judgment there is no meaning to the word and it is simply a relativistic adjective. You can't have a full knowledge of good by just being instilled with knowledge of good, you have to know why it is judged as good and what the result of the judgment is to be able to understand it fully. And the results of the judgment need to be real for you to have any kind of appreciation for them, or else those judgments are indeed meaningless platitudes.

Trying to picture paradigms of good and evil without some kind of judgment is like trying to picture a stick logner than itself. You can say that it is possible, but I don't see how it is. A judgment of what is called good requires the ability to judge what good isn't. And an end result of that judgment declaring something as good, whatever it may be, needs a notion of a judgment of what is not good to be able to grasp it. A paradigm can't exist without it.

I think you are misrepresenting how "obvious" this is. When I look at scripture and so called divine revelations I find myselfshaking my head, wondering how anyone could be thick enough to believe in them. I'm sorry if that offends you, but it is true. That is what I feel. So saying that it is obvious merely comes across as deluded if you were to ask me, or pretty much any atheist for that matter, and as far as I'm aware if you count global population, atheists are the second largest "religious" group on the planet after the Catholic Church... so no, no it isn't obvious and my point still stands.

Again, you are changing the premise. If you are presupposing God exists and asking why he doesn't reveal himself and explain these things, I'm arguing that God has, and every major religion believes in divine revelation. Now you are going around with what seems to be your typical hyperbole in language because it doesn't prove God exists. Who cares how many atheists there are? You are presupposing God exists in your premise when asking me why he doesn't reveal himself.

I'm sorry, but it gets quite maddening when you jump around like this.

My point was that going by what you said coercion does not influence free will in the slightest. You admitted that, so this is not a counter to my point, as we would still be coming to a decision based on our own free will.

Again, it deals with your appreciation of the decision you are making. You can't come to the fullest appreciation of your decision if God knocks at your door and shakes your hand. All things work together to give us the greatest possible ability to participate in the good.

This got me to thinking (which has terrible consequences for all involved, usually), and it's actually sort of amusing that we can really attribute some qualities of "psychopathy" to the Judeo-Islamic-Christian conception of God.

If we're using the Bible as a trustworthy source for accounts of His behavior, then we can certainly place God comfortably under the definition of unstable; the typical bipolar comparison of the Old Testament's wrathful God to the New Testament's more paternal version ought to be sufficiently indicative of that. As far as mentally ill goes, I'd have to wonder about handfuls of little recommended practices and forbidden things, like sacrifice, slavery, stoning, and not eating certain foods on certain days. The food rules make me think of OCD, actually.

And many of the symptoms fitting a diagnosis of antisocal personality disorder can be ascribed to God as well: A tendency toward aggression, cruelty or indifference to animals, inadequate control of temper, a tendency to violate the rights and boundaries of others, parental neglect or abuse of children, consistent irresponsibility, the ability to charm or influence others, a grandiose sense of self, extreme arrogance or boastfulness, and so on and so forth.

Mind you, of course, that I'm not saying any of this as actual claims on God or His nature; since it has been argued that we do not know the mind of God, and indeed cannot considering He is fully excused from all applications of our mortal logic and experience, all discussions and interpretations of Him necessarily must work from our human perceptions and definitions of things. And here we have a conundrum where some of our perceptions and definitions of God's behaviors and motivations happen to be consistent with some of our perceptions and definitions of instability, mental illness, and antisocial personality disorder - outright psychopathy. This just seems an amusing observation, an eyebrow-raiser.

There really is a logical problem with attributing these things (like sadism) to God (presupposing God exists). Much like the stick longer than itself, could an omnipotent, omniscient being create a creature that has greater moral character than himself? To create a creature that can judge him rather than the other way around? So, I think it's more of a sign of hubris to believe in a creator God and think we can stand in judgment of him.

The Bible, just as an example, gives no information as to the motivation of why he does certain things. For instance, if my view stands and is assumed to be ok, then would he have been better off not creating human beings in the first place rather than creating us knowing the consequences? Why did he choose one over the other? Not sure. But he did, and we can't possibly know what it would be like if he didn't.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding in this notion that God is different in both parts of the Bible. He isn't. There is no personality change. He is judge in the old testament, and he is judge in the new testament. He is "compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness" in several descriptions in the old testament, and is described the same way in the new (to the point that Christ died on the cross). Actually, it's kind of funny we're having a conversation about hell but then say judgments in the old testament are of a vengeful God that isn't present in the new testament. The old and new testaments are meant to tell different parts of the whole story and need to be taken together.

Also, your diagnosis is kind of silly. Not because it isn't well thought out, but I just don't understand how yo ucan use terms that define interaction between humans in the same vein as interactions between an omnipotent, omniscient, all seeing god and his creation.

Anyway, taking too much time in this discussion. I know I haven't changed your minds, and if I could answer all of these questions easily I could make a lot of money. But I hope I at least gave you something to think about, as you have given me things to think about. These questions are common, and it is important to be questioned. I always say, anything not worth questioning is not worth believing.

 

[GhostAnime]

And as GA said, we're conditioned to choose the good, not the bad. So considering that, why does anyone do something wrong? Even if everyone knew that they would go to Hell for doing wrong and go to Heaven for doing good (not saying that's what happens, just using that as for the sake of argument), there would still be people who would choose to murder, rape, steal, etc. Why? Because we are sinners! Even with "conditioning," we still don't always do what is right all the time!

You misinterpreted what I said. We are conditioned to choose good; not in a right or wrong sense but rather what makes us happier. Obviously choosing pleasure over pain is what makes us happier. This argument was also more about free will than anything.

And stop using Bible verses. This argument rests on what the world appears to be. If I was mass murdering human beings and put in a book that I really loved them, you would believe that I really loved them. That's essentially how irrelevant the Bible is in this debate when deciding God's motives. There's not even PROOF I wrote the "book", either.

 

[Tim the turtle]

I had a really long post written out and then my internet went and crashed. I'm currently waiting to see if it will come back and I'll be able to post what I had originally written, if not I suppose I'll just have to knuckle down and do it all again later (I don't have a lot of time on my hands)... but in the meantime there's one thing that I really, really want to address before I go out.

Again, you are changing the premise. If you are presupposing God exists and asking why he doesn't reveal himself and explain these things, I'm arguing that God has, and every major religion believes in divine revelation. Now you are going around with what seems to be your typical hyperbole in language because it doesn't prove God exists. Who cares how many atheists there are? You are presupposing God exists in your premise when asking me why he doesn't reveal himself.

I'm sorry, but it gets quite maddening when you jump around like this.

you know, when you first started accusing me of moving the goalposts and jumping around I was very upset and thought I'd made a mistake and been discurteous as an opponent. Now however I'm pretty sure you're either sorely mistaken or you're trying a subversive ad-hominem to discredit me.

Think about how this little facet of our debate started. I began by saying that heaven and hell interferred with free will because they were coercions and thus could not be used to morally evaluate decisions (In the same way as someone who forces you to do something by putting a gun to your head). You then came back and claimed that coercions do not actually affect free will because you still have some sort of choice (whether to pay heed to the coercion or not). I then asked the obvious question:

But if the influence of the outside circumstances do not inhibit our free will then why does God not simply make it obvious, through divine revelation, what will happen if we sin and if we don't? Why not reveal to us the realities of heaven and hell, and the majesty of his being, if such circumstances will not inhibit free will in any way? Then God could have his cake and eat it. He could give us free will, he would be worshipped, and he wouldn't have to send any of us to hell.

You then replied to this that:

He DOES make it obvious. Again, right up front, we are presupposing God exists. In Christianity, we believe he has divinley revealed these things through scripture and nature through Christ. Believe it or not if you want, but it's all right there. I also see the majest of his being by just looking around me every day and seeing hte order of things. But, people choose not to believe it.

the problem with this is the fact that it's obvious is an empirically false assertion, which I proved by showing the number of non-religious (heck, even non-christians would work just as well) people in the world alongside a definition of the word obvious which includes being self-evident and easily percieved, thereby showing that unless a massive amount of the worlds population (with their professorships and university education in many cases) is utterly bone numbingly retarded, it cannot be classed as obvious. If it is not actually obvious, then my point that only a cruel god would keep such a status quo is justified (or perhaps a non-existant one).

You then backtracked and said that outside circumstances like coercion do indeed affect our free will. If I get my original post back you'll see what I have to say as a reply in there.

But I think that by reading this it has been made absolutely clear that I in no way moved any sort of goalpost in this area of the debate. I made an assertion, that a non-cruel god would make heaven and hell obvious, based upon your own arguments, and I then countered your argument that it already was so with empirical evidence showing that such is not the case (as well as my own personal testimoney for what it's worth).

 

[Dragoon952]

I had a really long post written out and then my internet went and crashed. I'm currently waiting to see if it will come back and I'll be able to post what I had originally written, if not I suppose I'll just have to knuckle down and do it all again later (I don't have a lot of time on my hands)... but in the meantime there's one thing that I really, really want to address before I go out.

you know, when you first started accusing me of moving the goalposts and jumping around I was very upset and thought I'd made a mistake and been discurteous as an opponent. Now however I'm pretty sure you're either sorely mistaken or you're trying a subversive ad-hominem to discredit me.

Think about how this little facet of our debate started. I began by saying that heaven and hell interferred with free will because they were coercions and thus could not be used to morally evaluate decisions (In the same way as someone who forces you to do something by putting a gun to your head). You then came back and claimed that coercions do not actually affect free will because you still have some sort of choice (whether to pay heed to the coercion or not). I then asked the obvious question:


You then replied to this that:


the problem with this is the fact that it's obvious is an empirically false assertion, which I proved by showing the number of non-religious (heck, even non-christians would work just as well) people in the world alongside a definition of the word obvious which includes being self-evident and easily percieved, thereby showing that unless a massive amount of the worlds population (with their professorships and university education in many cases) is utterly bone numbingly retarded, it cannot be classed as obvious. If it is not actually obvious, then my point that only a cruel god would keep such a status quo is justified (or perhaps a non-existant one).

You then backtracked and said that outside circumstances like coercion do indeed affect our free will. If I get my original post back you'll see what I have to say as a reply in there.

But I think that by reading this it has been made absolutely clear that I in no way moved any sort of goalpost in this area of the debate. I made an assertion, that a non-cruel god would make heaven and hell obvious, based upon your own arguments, and I then countered your argument that it already was so with empirical evidence showing that such is not the case (as well as my own personal testimoney for what it's worth).

I promised myself I wouldn't waste time posting again, but I just have to clear this up.

Just follow the thread, tim. I know you're confident in your ability to debate, but take it from my perspective. It isn't meant as an ad hominem, it's jsut readily apparent from how you are responding.

You: "Heaven and hell violate free will because they are coercion."
Me: "You still have free will and choice no matter if coercion is present."
You: "So if God exists, why doesn't he reveal the truths of heaven and hell in an obvious way?"
Me: "(If God exists) He does through divine inspiration."
You: "You are thick if you buy that."

Can't you see the problem there? Who cares how many atheists there are? You are already presupposing that God exists in the second part of the argument, so why does it matter what atheists think?

It wasn't like you told me to prove God exists or heaven or hell exist (again), you were basically asking why, if there is a God, he doesn't divinely reveal himself. And I said that every major religion believes he has. How does any number of atheists prove that people who BELIEVE God exists do believe in divine inspiration of some sort? You are already segmenting the discussion by talking about people who believe in God (presuppsoing God exists), but then want to throw atheists back into the mix. Any number of atheists doesn't prove anything in regards to philospohy of divine inspiration among people that believe in God.

So, you can label your own thoughts as empirical evidence all you want. And it would be good evidence, if I somehow was trying to say that atheists were some small minority or that the Bible in of itself is some great proof that can change minds instantly. But it is a meaningless statistics when we are already discoutning atheism from the get go by presupposing God exists.

Also, read again. I said coercison can affect how you view or appreciate your choice, but you still freely choose. If your free choice was taken away, your action would always be involuntary and you would only choose one thing because there was only one option.

I'm sorry your well thought out response got eaten up, and I will assuredly read it if you post it because it is only fair to do so. Just saying I probably won't respond this time around because I have to waste my time on other things