Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[devans99]

God is coerced into being good rather than evil I argue below.

Even God cannot know if there is another greater god than him in existence somewhere. If God ever meets a greater god, the outcome is as follows:

1. Greater god is Good, our God is Evil -> Our god Punished
2. Greater god is Good, our God is Good -> Our god Rewarded
3. Greater god is Evil, our God is Good -> Our god Punished
4. Greater god is Evil, our God is Evil -> Our god Punished

The only satisfactory outcome is [2] above so God is coerced to goodness.

[Spectrum]

If a greater God is assumed then yes, your logic works.

But note the ultimate God is the ontological God, i.e.

• "God is a being than which none greater can be conceived" St. Anselm.
  
  "Certainly, the idea of God, or a supremely perfect being, is one that I find within me just as surely as the idea of any shape or number." Descartes

With the above, there can be no greater god other than 'God' which no greater can be conceived.

Since God is the absolute greatest, therefore God quality must be the greatest good without equal or greater good. This is supported by the Moral Argument.

However, my ultimate argument is while the above is logically possible but in reality God is an impossibility to be real.
God is an Impossibility.
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=15155

Nevertheless, whilst God is an impossibility in reality, it is a critical necessity for humans to believe in an illusory false God because DNA wise humans are hardwired to believe in a God or some other deities due to some primal psychological impulses driven by a 'zombie parasite' [evolutionary side effect] in the brain/mind.

Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?
viewtopic.php?t=15174

[devans99]

I don’t buy into the idea of an omnipotent god; a god is bound by natural laws seems more plausible. Possibly we are disagreeing on the nature and scope of God; for me he’s strictly a creator and he has imperfections.

[Spectrum]

I don’t buy into the idea of an omnipotent god; a god is bound by natural laws seems more plausible. Possibly we are disagreeing on the nature and scope of God; for me he’s strictly a creator and he has imperfections.

An imperfect God as I had argued is not a rational and wise God.

Point is if a theist do not claim his/her God to be 100% absolute perfect nor the greatest that no greater can be conceived, then it leaves room for others to claim their God is greater and more perfect than your inferior God.
The debate and yearning for whose God is greater has been going on for thousands of years and it has culminated to a ceiling idea no others can surpass.

Given the majority [especially Muslims and Christians] are of the instinctively unsecured types they will claim your inferior God will be dominated by their greatest God and thus subservient. Some arrogant believers [especially many Muslims] believe their God is the greatest such that their God can command your inferior God to eat sh:t or kiss the God's ass.

Therefore the most rational, wise and secure position is to claim one's God as the ontological God, i.e. a God than which no greater god can be conceived. This is so easy, it only take one to have a switch in thinking, a mental thought and claim for it.

A God that is bounded by natural laws is an obvious empirical impossibility. Natural Laws are conditioned by the human mind[s] and thus such a natural bounded God is a human-made God.

An ontological God is at least a logical possibility but definitely an empirical impossibility.

Either way, God is a impossibility to be real, the only consolation is the ontological God is at least a logical possibility.

The final point is, the idea of God is an logical emergence out of some psychological existential crisis. Deal with this crisis and one will not be so obsessed with God or one can do away with the idea of God and its loads of negative baggage within humanity.

[devans99]

I think we are disagreeing on the definition of God here. I limit the definition to creator of the universe.

I don’t care too much if there is another more perfect god; they are all bound by the logic which I started this thread.

When I say god is bound by natural laws I mean boundary by the underlying reality of the natural laws not the human approximations we’ve developed.

God is not a reaction to some ‘psychological existential crises’; it’s a reaction to scientific findings:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe

[Spectrum]

If you don't view your God as an ontological God you are actually insulting your God, i.e. accepting and allowing your god to be inferior to another superior God.

The idea of God can be argued to have arisen during the paleolithic age of mankind. However the idea of God can be easily be traceable back to > 10,000 years ago and the idea of a greater being to 100,000 years ago when the primitive religions emerged. Since then the idea of God has evolved to the ceiling limit of the ontological God.

There are lots of studies that linked the idea of God to psychology and existential elements.

Re your link to fine-tuning,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe
This concept appeared only in 1913.

The concept of the fine-tuned Universe is heavily grounded on scientific theories. Re Popper, scientific theories at best are merely polished conjectures by humans which is way too weak to support the idea of God the creator of the universe which is supposed to be finely tuned to near-perfection or perfection as claimed by many.

[Eduk]

Devans99 your God sounds basically human? As in an ant might consider a human to be a sort of God (not in those terms obviously but you get my point).
So the question, I think, is are humans compelled to be good? Your argument is basically Pascal's wager, which many people don't find convincing. So I don't think this concept of a God consistently coerce's good behaviour. Personally I think most humans are good because they are good. But you could argue that reality coerce's humans into being good.

[devans99]

The definition of god I use most is a ‘benevolent creator(s) of the universe’. So some sort of intelligent being(s). Probably a lot smarter than us but all intelligent beings probably share some basic cognitive traits so human-like traits I would expect.

Thanks for pointing me to Pascal’s wager; that’s it except I’m applying the logic to the creator of the universe rather than a potential worshipper.

[Thinking critical]

• "God is a being than which none greater can be conceived" St. Anselm.

Anselm's ontological argument defeats itself. I'm sure we all know the argument, for God to be the greatest thing concievable he must exist in some worlds, therefore all worlds, including this world, therefore god exists.
Problem is, the greatest being I can concieve can create a world without the sort of pain and suffering I have personally witnessed and experience. Because that world does not exist, either the greatest being conceivable does not exist or god is not maximumly great ......either way god doesn't exist.

[devans99]

I’m sorry to here that.

I define god as benevolent but impotent to our day to day suffering. He is not omnipotent and universe is a big place. We suffer because society is in a non-satisfactory transitory state.

Society improves with time and in the limit reaches perfection (think 100,000 years time). So one could argue that, on average, over the entire lifetime of the universe, God’s decision to create the universe is vindicated - total happiness should vastly outweigh suffering. Sadly not the case for us as we are still savages...

[Thinking critical]

I’m sorry to here that.

I define god as benevolent but impotent to our day to day suffering. He is not omnipotent and universe is a big place. We suffer because society is in a non-satisfactory transitory state.

Society improves with time and in the limit reaches perfection (think 100,000 years time). So one could argue that, on average, over the entire lifetime of the universe, God’s decision to create the universe is vindicated - total happiness should vastly outweigh suffering. Sadly not the case for us as we are still savages...

No need to be sorry, I have no need nor any impulse to have the existence of gods present in my daily life. Definitions of gods will continue to evolve as our species does, in the end faith in god is all that keeps the idea itself alive.

[Spectrum]

• "God is a being than which none greater can be conceived" St. Anselm.

Anselm's ontological argument defeats itself. I'm sure we all know the argument, for God to be the greatest thing concievable he must exist in some worlds, therefore all worlds, including this world, therefore god exists.
Problem is, the greatest being I can concieve can create a world without the sort of pain and suffering I have personally witnessed and experience. Because that world does not exist, either the greatest being conceivable does not exist or god is not maximumly great ......either way god doesn't exist.

Note the original idealization of a God;

• 1. The emergence of the idea of a God emerged millions of years ago from a terrible existential crisis [psychology].
  2. In their experience of the terrific forces of nature, humans infer some being greater than themselves.
  3. Then this greater being was anthropomorhized as some sort of deity than God.
  4. The natural one-up [mine better than yours] instinct kicked in and inevitably the idea of God will end up with the ontological God where no one can claim whose is greater than the other.
  5. This inevitable ontological God is the only way out if one resort to the idea of God to deal with the fundamental psychological issue.

You are right, i.e. the ontological god is self-defeating because it is at best a logical possibility and never an empirical reality nor possibility.
Thus the idea of God is merely a falsehood and a necessary lie to deal with a fundamental psychological issue.

If one choose a lesser than perfect God i.e. not an ontological god, then such a God is subject to derison by others who claim their God to be perfect.
If one God is a lesser empirical God, then one will have to bring empirical proofs which is not likely.

So yes, either way, God doesn't exist. I have insisted with logical proofs, it is an impossibility for God to be real.

As I have stated above the initial impulse towards a belief in a God was fundamentally a psychological impulse of an existential crisis driven by a zombie parasite.

The solution to a psychological problem therefore should be psychological [as the Buddhists and other Eastern religion has done] rather than merely logical thinking or faith of the Abrahamic theists.

[Dark Matter]

Note to Spectrum:

I don’t think we need take too seriously the European existentialists’ exclusive harping on dread, on anguish, on despair and the like, for which their only remedy seems to be to keep a stiff upper lip. This high I.Q. whimpering on a cosmic scale occurs whenever an external source of values fails to work. They should have learned from the psychotherapists that the loss of illusions and the discovery of identity, though painful at first, can be ultimately exhilarating and strengthening. -- Abraham Maslow

[Spectrum]

Note to Spectrum:

I don’t think we need take too seriously the European existentialists’ exclusive harping on dread, on anguish, on despair and the like, for which their only remedy seems to be to keep a stiff upper lip. This high I.Q. whimpering on a cosmic scale occurs whenever an external source of values fails to work. They should have learned from the psychotherapists that the loss of illusions and the discovery of identity, though painful at first, can be ultimately exhilarating and strengthening. -- Abraham Maslow

I don't agree with 'exclusive harping' as well.
The point is we must recognize and acknowledge the facts of life and seriously do something about it like what most Eastern philosophies are doing [researching] and practicing.

[Dark Matter]

Well, we all have myths that guide us.