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Post by nucleusofswarm on Jul 29, 2017 0:00:31 GMT
For those who consider themselves of the religious persuasion, or at least have an active interest in the field, how do you reconcile the idea of an all-loving deity, whatever he or she may be, with a being that doesn't stop atrocities or abuses from happening?
This is not intended to tread on toes, merely an exercise in perspectives.
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Post by charlesuirdhein on Jul 29, 2017 0:04:39 GMT
For those who consider themselves of the religious persuasion, or at least have an active interest in the field, how do you reconcile the idea of an all-loving deity, whatever he or she may be, with a being that doesn't stop atrocities or abuses from happening? This is not intended to tread on toes, merely an exercise in perspectives. If there is a god of that type then I see them as a parent, and maybe it's time the children grew the hell up and stopped causing all the atrocities and abuses in the first place. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2017 0:16:11 GMT
The get-out is "Well, he gave us free-will" which is, I think, a cop-out and also massively not the God I remember being told about in the old-testament where he was sticking his nose in whenever it suited. He certainly that fussed about being so objective and hands off when killing Egyptian kids was he?
But hey, I've had faaaaar too many political arguments on here to get religion into it to. I'll only say I'm team Dawkins/Hitchens but I'm inclined to think if there is a God, his name is Henrik Larsson.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2017 0:42:47 GMT
In philosophy, it's known as the Problem of Evil and the logical paradigm is as follows:
The variation that applies to animals, follows like this:
Or as Charles Darwin put it: "The sufferings of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time, are apparently irreconcilable with the existence of a creator of 'unbounded' goodness."
Logically, the deity under scrutiny is either not all-knowing, not all-powerful or not all-loving. It gets even more complicated when you really look at the argument that "without evil there would be no understanding of good," because that would mean that humanity also has a duty to maintain evil in the world. That's pretty horrific on an ethical and moral level. So how do we reconcile this? Well, if we look at gods who are not all-loving, the first that immediately come to mind are the Greek pantheon. All their infighting squabbling and derring-do could explain away their inaction. Why have they not interfered? They're busy. However, that still leaves the all-powerful criterion out in the wind. Because if they are still all-powerful, then they are still not choosing to help. Therefore, I think the most likely of those three criteria to be exaggerated is the "all-powerful" one.
I think it was Terry Pratchett who suggested the idea (in Small Gods, from memory) that deities are all-powerful, precisely because of the worship given unto them by their followers. It's a very democratic way of looking at the whole exchange: a deistic figure is only so powerful as his flock. When acolytes loose faith and follow other beliefs instead, the powers of that particular deity are diminished. My philosophy instructor referred to it as the Tinkerbell Principle, which made it sound rather pretty. Thus, the Problem of Evil, in this case, is due to theistic gerrymandering from gods like Sutekh. The "one true God" concept is consequently more like Highlander's "There can be only one," with the Game of Immortals than "There is only one."
In which case, power to the people. Deities are cosmic champions sponsored by faith. If you want to believe, then it's an existential Patreon. You don't feel like supporting them, your spirituality can be channelled into something more secular.
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Post by mrperson on Aug 3, 2017 21:22:04 GMT
For those who consider themselves of the religious persuasion, or at least have an active interest in the field, how do you reconcile the idea of an all-loving deity, whatever he or she may be, with a being that doesn't stop atrocities or abuses from happening? This is not intended to tread on toes, merely an exercise in perspectives. I'm not religious, but I can give one answer, which has been part of my thinking all along. It has to do with the philosophy of good samaritanism. A human can only affect its surroundings in space-time, whether by its own actions or through actions of its technology. Either way, its ability to affect reality is severely curtailed. Therefore, when it decides whether or not to pull a baby that is face-down in a puddle out of that puddle, it only affects that baby and the space-time possibilities branching off from the act of saving, not saving, of waiting, etc.f The single-deity God is held to be all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present. Meaning there is nothing it cannot do (another philosophical rabbit hole), nothing it does not know (even unthings), and that it exists at all points in space-time and in all points outside of spacetime. It is truly infinite. Therefore, I see two possibilities for this deity*: 1. It decides not to intervene anywhere in the universe of space-time. It does not stop Genghis Khan from destroying 1/4 of the world's population, it does not stop Hitler, it does not stop Stalin, and it does not save your loved relative from that curable disease. It does nothing. I see this option as the only option a deity could take unless it intended reality to be its game of dolls. Why? 2. Because this point. Because this deity exists across all realities, unrealities, possibilities, and impossibilities, its decision to intervene at X number of points in space-time (and elsewhere) would necessarily be a decision not to intervene at all other points in space-time.* In other words, you could still have a deity aligning with certain human conceptions of goodness if, and only if, that deity spurred self-conscious beings but did nothing to intervene in events resulting from their decisions. If it intervened but once, it would function as a decision not to intervene despite being able to intervene in all the other events. One single intervention would negate free will. Would negate meaning. Would negate the point of anything. * This contrasts with the all-powerful notion. An all-powerful being could not be limited. That's another debate, perhaps. Or perhaps not. So despite not being religious, I also recognize that there is no empirical proof OR disproof possible as to this deity. When I read of a tragedy, I might think "how dare you allow this?!" But then, I remind myself: no, if a deity prevented that tragedy but not another, he'd be playing dolls with us. I would condemn that deity. How could I not condemn a deity who chose to save a drowning child but stayed its hand as something like the Holocaust played out? I could only respect a deity that did not intervene in its creation. The problem with all this, of course, is that we have supposed an all-powerful deity. It makes little sense to declare what it could and could not do, what it must and must not do. How could a mortal use logic to bind such an incomprehensible being? Back to square one, or do I have a point? |
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Post by mrperson on Aug 3, 2017 21:27:41 GMT
And as for the goodness point, the response too would be simple: mortal conceptions of good and evil have no claim on a truly omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being.
That we would simply be wrong about what is and is not benevolent.
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Post by Timelord007 on Aug 12, 2017 7:18:10 GMT
Don't believe in god, i endured to much trauma to believe there is a higher power, i believe in today & what i can see around me, more wars have been started over religion than any other topic so no i don't believe & never have never will.
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Post by jasonward on Aug 12, 2017 10:52:54 GMT
For those who consider themselves of the religious persuasion, or at least have an active interest in the field, how do you reconcile the idea of an all-loving deity, whatever he or she may be, with a being that doesn't stop atrocities or abuses from happening? This is not intended to tread on toes, merely an exercise in perspectives. That view of god comes from Abrahamic religions, outside of that form of religion gods take on very different personas. The question is best addressed to those who believe in one of the Abrahamic religions, not at the religious in general.` Most other religions do not limit themselves to "one god" and it is the "one god" (monotheism) principle that gives rise to the paradox you mention, since that one god has to be the source of everything, although the earliest writings of the Abrahamic religions show their polytheistic roots. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2017 1:37:00 GMT
For those who consider themselves of the religious persuasion, or at least have an active interest in the field, how do you reconcile the idea of an all-loving deity, whatever he or she may be, with a being that doesn't stop atrocities or abuses from happening? This is not intended to tread on toes, merely an exercise in perspectives. That view of god comes from Abrahamic religions, outside of that form of religion gods take on very different personas. The question is best addressed to those who believe in one of the Abrahamic religions, not at the religious in general.` Most other religions do not limit themselves to "one god" and it is the "one god" (monotheism) principle that gives rise to the paradox you mention, since that one god has to be the source of everything, although the earliest writings of the Abrahamic religions show their polytheistic roots. Yep. A religion like Shinto, for example, is tied to the native practitioners' language in a very curious way, since Japanese doesn't distinguish between the singular or plural. It is one and it is many, both at the same time. Modern Paganism likewise is polytheistic but believes that higher powers exist as archetypes in the collective unconsciousness and that the universe is a manifestation of those beings. They're in the trees, the rocks, the cats, the candy wrappers, everything. I'm not religious (not in the traditional sense, at least), but I find spirituality an intriguing subject to cover. For me personally, I don't really believe that organised religion has a monopoly on untangling the reason of our being. It's one way certainly, but human philosophy appeals to me more personally. I'm more from the camp of people who are secular, but not anti-religious. I've been talked to both by strong believers in the Christian God and those who vehemently oppose him and discovered something really interesting... The same knowing, almost pampering tone is employed by both sides whether they're saying "You know, he's just looking out for you," or "You know, he doesn't really exist." Two sides, two radically opposing ideologies, identical means of expression. It's absolutely fascinating. |
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Post by fingersmash on Aug 16, 2017 14:05:45 GMT
I've been raised Catholic and it's something that's been so instilled in me from an early age that I have a hard time saying I don't believe, but the universe had to be created somehow and there's too many coincidences for it to just be an accident. So I believe SOMETHING out there exists and would rather it be a flawed but mostly benevolent God than the Greek gods who nutted every time they saw a hot person or the Aztec gods who demanded human sacrifice to bring rain. Of course, who is to say that they don't all exist in communion with the Abrahamic God? I could see Jesus, Buddha, and Thor getting together on Thursday nights for a pint.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 16, 2017 19:39:43 GMT
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Post by mrperson on Aug 20, 2017 21:43:19 GMT
I've been raised Catholic and it's something that's been so instilled in me from an early age that I have a hard time saying I don't believe, but the universe had to be created somehow and there's too many coincidences for it to just be an accident. So I believe SOMETHING out there exists and would rather it be a flawed but mostly benevolent God than the Greek gods who nutted every time they saw a hot person or the Aztec gods who demanded human sacrifice to bring rain. Of course, who is to say that they don't all exist in communion with the Abrahamic God? I could see Jesus, Buddha, and Thor getting together on Thursday nights for a pint. I'm curious about the bolded. Doesn't it, in its way, presume a knowledge at least on par with the knowledge that would necessarily be had by such a creator? That is, to know how many coincidences are too many for creation to be an accident, one would have to know as much as the author of the creation about which one speaks. That seems like flawed reasoning to me. If there is such a creator, then we have no reason to suppose we have sufficiently equal knowledge so as to be able to discern what is and is not specifically created by that creator. (This happens to be my main line of attack on "intelligent design": to know what is and is not designed, one must have the knowledge of the designer one supposes. Is this not a sort of hubris if one truly believes in the designer's existence?). We have no basis for making a logical determination about what are an acceptable level of coincidences and what constitutes enough coincidences so as to require a deity. The way I see it, there is no reason to assume any limits on "coincidence". In fact, if the Hartle-Hawking no boundary proposition is true regarding the Big Bang, it is actually a logical error to speak of the universe "being created." This is because, at the Big Bang, there was no temporal dimension, no time. Without time, there is no causation, no tense. Yet there was the Big Bang. There was time. And only from the point at which "there was time" is a true statement can we speak of a thing being created - of the relation between a point in which the statement "the thing exists" is false and the point at which it is true. In short, we've managed our first stabs in the dark at understanding reality, probably will never understand it entirely (for that would seem to require an outside observer-free view that is impossible to us), and that this should not bother us. That requires being comfortable with uncertainty. The universe is, as far as our senses tell us. We may not get all that much farther than that. Only time can tell. We certainly do not have enough knowledge to be able to judge what is possible without a deity versus what requires a deity because, again, to be able to make that judgment would require knowledge on par with that deity's knowledge. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2017 22:27:05 GMT
In short, we've managed our first stabs in the dark at understanding reality, probably will never understand it entirely (for that would seem to require an outside observer-free view that is impossible to us), and that this should not bother us. That requires being comfortable with uncertainty. The universe is, as far as our senses tell us. We may not get all that much farther than that. Only time can tell. We certainly do not have enough knowledge to be able to judge what is possible without a deity versus what requires a deity because, again, to be able to make that judgment would require knowledge on par with that deity's knowledge. It's the great paradox of impartial observation any scientific experiment in that, well... It's actually impossible as any meaningful interpretation of the experiment relies inherently upon the cognitive biases of the observer; i.e. the squishy human who documented it. It's why things like gravity are separated out into the Law of Gravity which describes the attraction between two separate objects and also the Theory of Gravity that stipulates why this may happen in the first place. I've been raised Catholic and it's something that's been so instilled in me from an early age that I have a hard time saying I don't believe, but the universe had to be created somehow and there's too many coincidences for it to just be an accident. So I believe SOMETHING out there exists and would rather it be a flawed but mostly benevolent God than the Greek gods who nutted every time they saw a hot person or the Aztec gods who demanded human sacrifice to bring rain. Of course, who is to say that they don't all exist in communion with the Abrahamic God? I could see Jesus, Buddha, and Thor getting together on Thursday nights for a pint. Just as an aside, there's an interesting tradition practiced at Shambalha Mountain called "mindful drinking". It doesn't view alcohol as a means of escape, but instead a means of quietening the ego. One never drinks to a stupor, they merely use it as a means of further appreciating the sublime without pride, self-importance or human vanity getting in the way of it. That's largely an exception though, I believe that Buddhists are teetotal and to refrain from potables that impede the development of the mind and self-reflection. As with all things though, I'm not sure if that's a hard and fast rule. |
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