USViking

Yes, on the evidence of our hectacombs of broken hearts.
The same evidence points to a God who is either omnicient,
omnipotent and satanic, or to a God who is limited in His powers
or interests.




I think the reasoning is the same: No benevolent God would
create humans knowing they were to suffer during life as well
as in the afterlife.






Two objections occur to me which attack the reasonableness
of the premise.

1. The incoherence of a God who makes stringent rules
for human beings, and exempts Himself from these rules.
It is morally incumbent on humans to minimize suffering.
Clearly not so with God.

2. It is instinctual for human parents to minimize suffering
in their children. I believe God would have to be the parent
of all humans in much more than a merely metaphorical sense.
It is no less incohernet that he should lack the instinct to
safeguard all of us.

(I have always liked cats and dogs. I hope kitty gets well soon)




I had not thought of Occam. I am not sure offhand why a
pernicious God would be simpler than an unfathomable one.
What I meant was that the transcendence argument seems
essential to explain only this particular otherwise inexplicable
aspect of God's behavior.




I am afraid I'm losing you here. Could you rephrase it?

__________________
From the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord deliver us.

drgoodtrips

Well, to be fair, "evidence" and "logical preclusion" are horses of a much different color. Consider that there is virtually limitless evidence to suggest that Newtonian Mechanics are all we need in the realm of physics, and yet logic and proof have demonstrated otherwise. We may see plenty of "evidence of broken hearts" that "points to a God who is ... omniscient, omnipotent, [and] satanic", but this positive evidence does not logically preclude a benevelont God. To be flip, "if the glove does not fit, you must acquit" - logical proof calls for a much higher standard than "reasonable certainty" or "positive evidence".

Well, then throw out "hell" for a moment (and assume that we can understand "divine reasonability"). Would a "reasonable" God create humans that would suffer through the trials and trevails of life, only to be "promoted" to an invariably better place? It would be like telling your son that he has to sit through church, but afterward he can have an ice cream sundae

I shall offer my thoughts on each

What evidence do we have for God making any rules, besides religious talismans such as the Bible that claim to be "His Word"? All of God's "rules" could well be the "rules" of men (with such antiquated traditions as not mixing dairy with meat, not eating pork, sending women away when they're on the rag, not allowing men to shave, etc) that have become tradition and well outlived their practicality. We have only the testimony of men to impart "God's wisdom" to us, and, as such, we have no evidence that God has broken any of His own rules.

Well, playing devil's advocate, this one is easy... We can just re-hash my "kitten" example. Your parents likely made you do any number of tasks that you considered terrible at the time, but turned out to be invaluable later.

He's doing much better, thank you We've finally weaned him off the medicine and he's doing well. Now, once we move out of this apartment and into the home I'm planning to buy next summer, we can get the dog(s) that I've been wanting for the last few years - one or two big labs...

Let me reload here. It seems to me that your argument is this (forgive me if I oversimplify - I'm not doing it to build a strawman, but rather to be concise):

"There is a lot of suffering in the world, and, if God exists and is omnipotent/omniscient, then he could stop it. Ergo, in this case, he is not benevolent. However, if God exists and is benevolent, then the only reason that he does not prevent wordly suffering is that he is powerless to do so."

Now, my contention is that this dichotomy need not be true. God might be benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent. It may be true that, in spite of all of our wordly suffering, God-logic somehow allows all three conditions to coexist, even though we cannot logically fathom how they could.

So, my comment about a "drop in the bucket" was meant to convey that if we allow ourselves to assume the existence of God in the first place (an enormous and inherently irrational assumption), then it's hardly a stretch to accept that God could defy our logic. It'd be kind of like saying, "If we assume that eight legged, four nosed, horned, and angry aliens from the planet Utubanar exist, we can assume that one of their legs might be colored either red, yellow, blue, green, orange, brown or black."

USViking

I did not mean to give the impression I was trying to prove
any kind of God cannot exist. I am trying to demonstrate that
certain kinds of God can only be justified by special pleading,
and are incoherent.

I am not sure the example you give from the history of science
rebuts my view.

When discovered, the precession of the perihelion of Mercury
contradicted Newtonian Mechanics. Scientists approached this
problem not with special pleading, but with tentative explanations
in accord with accepted theory, such as the existence of an
additional planet inside Mercury's orbit. General Relativity provided
another solution which has passed all tests of falsification.




I think this evades the issue of the gratuitousness of inflicting
such pain as has clearly been inflicted at least by omission by God.
It is another example of special pleading. God is good, for reasons
we cannot know because of His transcendence, even though He
requires you to suffer before He gives you your ice cream.




My argument does not apply to a God who has no
moral element. If, however, you believe that God is
good, then isn't His morality necessarily insinuated,
talismans or no talismans?




The pain described by these examples is so trivial compared
to so much other pain, not to mention death, that I do not think
it introduces a real comparison, although it does introduce a
further case of special pleading. In the kitten example, it is
obvious the kitten's temporary discomfort is for his own good.
But if the kitten died, the gratuitousness of his early death
can only be expalined by saying God had some purpose for
it which we cannot know because it is transcendent.




I'm glad to hear you like both dogs and cats. I have never
understood how anyone could dislike either. If kitty is grown
up and you get the labs as puppies he's gonna boss them around!


Now, I have had to do enough hard thinking for the time being.

I will get back to your other thoughts after I have relaxed for
a while with other subjects less profound. Maybe the sports
section, and/or a few beers.

__________________
From the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord deliver us.

Ygorl

I CAN find you thousands of books and other texts referencing fantasy animals and lifeforms created for entertainment (reading, movies etc.) purposes. This is another issue of judgement. There are no dragons there are no hobbits. There aren't 23 hot, horny beautiful women living in a utopian dwelling at the center of the moon waiting for ME (what ? You thought they'd be waiting for YOU ? You with your lack of good judgement ? ( I HAD to LOL ))


Originally Posted by Scruff:
So basically you're dismissing the logical parallels of the argument simply because one seems like a less feasible concept to you from a totally subjective standpoint?




Oh, I'M the one basing nonsense on "subjective opinion" am I ? You and another are very good at basing nonsensical subjective opinion(s) using poor judgement and covering it with false "logical analysis".


Here's what I said in an earler discussion on God and dragons:


The dragon/God thing (you can fill in Hobbit or Gnome or sprite or faerie for dragon) actually stops at the very beginning stages. It frustrates comparison at the beginning.

Dragon = Fantasy lifeform -> has elements assigned by those creating it for a story or fable -> existence has BEEN disproven


God = hypothesized being -> has unknown elements -> existence cannot be proven or disproven due to unknown elements


This boils down to an issue of judgement. You're judgement is poor or "off" or misguided in some respect(s). That you beleive this comparison can be soundly and logically applied shows a lack of judgement in ONE way or another. It doesn't work.


First off, there are no dragons. They exist in fantasy stories written by creative authors for entertainment reading. Dragon = fantasy lifeform


Secondly, God is a hypothesized being that by definition is beyond our direct observation. A hypothesized being that is directly tied to the existence of this universe and that which resides in it. We can lose any need for this hypothesized being when you or ANYONE can explain the existence of the universe beyond saying "It just is." That just leads to another simple question: "Why ?" Which can be answered by "It just is."

Then we can go back to arguing/discussing circles :-)

Judgement, judgement, judgement. I'll not allow your lack of judgement to fill MY mind with doubt or garbage. You may find other takers, but I'm not one :-)

Back to them hot, horny women waiting for me IN the moon . . . Hmmmm... I can't prove they're not THERE so, they MIGHT be and well ....

http://www.usandworldpolitics.com/fo....html#post8823

drgoodtrips

Hmm... while I do enjoy a good mention of astro-physics, I'm not sure that the same sort of logic can be applied to the existence of God. Many would say that postulating on the nature of God is irrational (which, I suppose it is). I prefer to think of it as "a-rational", meaning that it exists outside of the bounds of logical consideration. The existence of God cannot be proven or disproven (I can actually prove this ), and so citing the revision of theory may be good for presenting an analogy for the purpose of clarity, but I don't think it's directly applicable.

Any and all understanding that we have of God isn't really subject to the same sort of revision process as scientific theory. All of our excercises in logical thinking, are, essentially, irrelevant when considering an entity that exists outside of the bounds of human logic. All we can do is guess.

But the point (as argued by proponents of the point, of which I am decidedly agnostic) is that all of our suffering may be part of a lesson and necessary in the "grand scheme of things". Keep in mind that I am only playing devil's advocate, but if a child does not understand why he must go to church (and we assume that he later does understand), why is it a stretch to say that we don't understand our suffering but will, at a later point (such as when we're throwing down shots with St. Peter at the Pearly Gates)?

Hmm... I don't know. I see no logical reason that God being "good" mandates God imparting His definition of "good" to us in terms that we understand.

Well, assuming that death for us is a transition into another form of "life" (which is the lynchpin of most belief in God), then we are like the kitten and what seems horrific to us may be God giving us our metaphorical medicine. We may not understand why we have to witness our friends and family dying, as the kitten does not understand why a tube is being jammed down his throat, but, in the end, in our "transition", it will make sense and benefit us. That is to say, on a Divine level, the pain of being tortured or watching your family members being tortured may be, as you describe, "trivial".

Looking forward to it, my friend I grew up in a house with both dogs and cats, so I'm with you. I don't understand people who say "I'm a dog person" or "I'm a cat person." I'm an animal lover, and I see no reason that these two statements should be mutually exclusive.


I can relate. I spent my entire day studying for the grad school class I'm taking, in which I have a final next week. I'm posting now after watching part of the Bulls game, having a few Vodka-cokes, and relaxing for an hour or so...

Cheers

drgoodtrips

Hmmm...

(Wow, that argument doesn't work very well, does it )

By the way, thousands of books on the subject of entertainment still don't prove a negative. You have no valid frame of reference to "prove" that dragons don't exist somewhere in the universe.

{Shrug} Who is this "other" you keep talking about?


lol There's nothing like a good old fashioned discussion of God and dragons...


(1) You can't "disprove" the existence of dragons (or any other silly creature) in the technical sense of the word. Logically, proving a negative isn't possible. Obviously, we can state, for all practical purposes that dragons do not exist, but we can't prove it.

(2) You are correct that the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven, but the exact same logic could be applied to the existence of dragons. You are biased toward the existence of God because many other people believe in it, which fallaciously lends it credibility in your eyes, and because it is more personally appealing to you. If you step back and examine the situation with cold-hearted objectivity, the only difference between dragons and God is that one is commonly accepted and one is commonly rejected.

(3) An interesting side note that could lead to a whole new thread - you state that belief in dragons is absurd because men created them as figments of imagination for entertainment purposes. What leads you to believe that God is any different?


Meh... this "judgement" argument sounds like you trying to make an end-run around logical discourse. You're selling, but I ain't buying.


Hmm... your argument looks pretty in the shop, but let's see how she does on a test drive:

Remarkable! Your argument loses none of its effect when applied to dragons, instead of God. The bad news for you is that this effectively demonsrates that your arguments are not logically viable.

Judgement is exactly what you've got, instead of logical arguments. Judgement is inherently subjective and not applicable to any objective arguments. So, I'll concede that point - you have your judgement. And, your judgement is exactly what is preventing you from making logical and objective arguments, and exactly what is compelling you to make arguments with no more substance than your own personal superstitions.

USViking

This is an accurate summary of my position.



This is what I have been attacking as ad hoc,
special pleading, incoherent, and making excuses
for God under the guise of His transcendence.




One can assume the existence of God, and that He
can take on any attribute. It is satisfying to some
to use some construction on the term "transcendent"
to explain His unfathomable morality. I find this term
no more satisfactory than "abracadabra". If others are
happy with what amounts to an incantation utterly
divorced from analytical human sentience, then fine,
as long as are tolerant of other opinions.

__________________
From the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord deliver us.

USViking

I agree the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven,
and that He might be beyond human analysis.




I believe the evidence of human history, and the impact of
natural history on humans (e.g. smallpox, the plague, famine,
etc.) provide more than a guess. There is no escape for God
except through the one device of asserting His transcendence.




I mentioned earlier that I do not think this approach
is satisfactory in dealing with the gratuitous nature of
suffering. It is just another escape hatch provided for
God under the heading of transcendence.




This position necessitates some good somehow arising from
Auschwitz and Gulag, certainly not within the realm of human
comprehension. Opponents may in fairness ridicule the notion
of the Great God of concentration camps, while conceding:
Well, no, there is no way of disproving God might still be good.




I realize there might be two billion people in the world who hold so
in some form. It may be, it may not be. It is yet another way of
expressing the transcendence argument.




Amen.




You gonna hit the books tonight, or hit the juice and the Bears game?

__________________
From the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord deliver us.

Scruff

No joke, when you hit enter every so many words or whatever you do, I thought I was scrolling through poetry. I didn't realize it was something I might have to go back and read.

USViking

Sometimes I insert others' great poems into my posts.
It might be best to attribute them by setting them apart
with punctuation marks, italics, and parenthasis, like this:

"...hectacombs of broken hearts."

(Promethius Unbound, Shelly)

__________________
From the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord deliver us.