Philosophy Discussion Forums

It seems clear beyond doubt that conversations on the God topic are experienced as engaging, entertaining and meaningful for a great many people, given that such dialogs have been going on around the world for thousands of years. Having agreed to that without reservation, the next question for philosophers should be...

Where is the evidence that God debates ever accomplish anything else?

No, I'm not trying to shoot down the thread, as I am participating in it too. What I am trying to do is to get my fellow members to do philosophy for once. We are supposed to be using logic here, which typically involves the examination of evidence. Before we spend the next 1,934 pages debating the "does God exist" question in all it's many forms, why don't we first look for evidence that such a time investment will yield anything but more of the same old pattern.

And I don't mean just us on this little forum, but our entire culture and it's thousands of years of God talk and debate. What issues have been settled, either within the religious communities, or in dialog with the non-religious? Is it rational, is it philosophy, is it evidence based, to keep going endlessly round and round and round on the same old questions when there is no evidence that any of the questions will ever be settled no matter how long they are discussed?

Should we stop talking? No. We're clearly interested in the God topic, or we wouldn't be here in this thread. So let us talk. But let us talk productively for once, a process which might begin by discarding all the usual issues which have long ago proven to be going nowhere.

Burning ghost:

If you do not believe in god or the bible as anything other than a book then no point in replying to OP.

It is not a matter of believing or not believing. The Bible is not a single book about a single god and gives a single answer to the question of how to live. If it were a matter of belief then it would be believing what Whitedragon believes, but is not the same as what others who believe in god and the Bible believe.


Whitedragon:

Fooloso4, the thread is about whether the Lord offended us, revealing himself in different ways is not an offence.

On the one hand you attribute differences in belief to differences in the way god reveals himself, but on the other when those beliefs run counter to your own you claim that those who hold these beliefs are lost. Would you agree with a Muslim who says that god revealed himself to them? Arius and Athanasius make very different claims about Jesus and could not both have been right. Even though Arius’ position was based much more closely on scripture he was labelled a heretic. You put yourself in a position of authority as to what does and does not count as the Lord revealing himself. Ironically, by doing this you ignore the advice given in the passage from Proverbs you reference below

There were many occasions where the Son referred to himself as a deity.

Where does Jesus say that he is God? If you mean references to son of god then that is question begging. Paul speaks of many of his followers as sons or children of God. (Romans 8:14, Galatians 3:26)

You might also try reading this verse, Proverbs 30:4.

You might first try reading Proverbs 30:1-3.

I have not learned wisdom, nor have I attained to the knowledge of the Holy One. (30:3)

He is addressing men. The point is that no man has done these things. The same point is made in Job, when he questions God. In verse 30:3 he acknowledges the limits of his own understand and then in 30:4 challenges others to do the same.

To Fooloso4: It is a question of revelation. Many make their voice heard, but not all are trustworthy. By studying different religions, we learn their narratives, they are stories; some are metaphors, some are true, though many hold, there is more truth in metaphors, due to the breaking down of boundaries they provide. They call the Son the Logos, perhaps, poetically a living story. When looking up the different meanings for Logos, we find some interesting definitions: “The word by, which the inward thought is expressed: also, the inward thought or reason itself. Something said, (e.g. word; saying; message, teaching; talk, conversation.” (Source, Oxford Greek lexicon Lidell and Scott, and The New Greek Testament dictionary section, Forth addition).

When the Word became a human being, he said, “Who saw me saw the Father” and “I have not come to remove any of the old teachings, but to bring them to their full meaning.” There is only one way to get to know someone and that is to listen to their “logos;” personally it is far more appealing to have a divine force, willing to sacrifice his Son, rather than other gods, who cannot come down to our level. We may never know what that sacrifice really meant or entailed, even if it was a metaphor, he meant to express some sacrifice that he made to evoke an emotional response to help understand in comparison to what the Lord really did for us. Metaphor or not, why repay grace with contempt?

Whitedragon wrote:Hi, Burning Ghost

How is it we can have a philosophical conversation about our dissatisfaction about the Lord, but when one asks to define those issues it is not philosophical?

Because I regard philosophy as more than semantics and religious hermeneutics.

I am not stopping you from having a theological discussion ... but it is still a theological discussion.

Defining "wrong" is more important to me than defining "God". Rationally there is no wrong/right in an ethical sense. Meaning we depend upon absolute antonyms to frame what is correct/incorrect, as in math. But in ethics this division is much more fuzzy yet poses as distinct in order for us to frame understanding through language.

Like I said, if you think we have something to discuss then present it. If not it doesn't really matter. I don't see how I can give you anything of value regarding the OP.

Whitedragon:

… personally it is far more appealing to have a divine force, willing to sacrifice his Son, rather than other gods, who cannot come down to our level.

There you go. It is at bottom not a matter of your own preferences. You now seem to be in agreement with what I said in my first post:

When people talk about God they are not talking about something that has objective independent existence that we are able to know and thereby make claims about that can be objectively determined to be true or false.

Burning Ghost, when you talk about right and wrong do you have a problem with feeling? If so, why are we okay about having feelings about certain things we are all comfortable with, whereas when it comes to morality, it is not. Is this not yet another paradox, we want to know for sure what is right and wrong, but it seems the only way we can, is if someone else, or a higher power tells us. So are we not saying in anyway, we do not know what is right and wrong until we get that knowledge from some other source? So far, few have acknowledged any source at all, so what do we need?

As said before in the thread, the Lord is more practical than we think. Every “sin” has a base explanation, so much, that we can virtually do away with the abstract. Before continuing however, please share what “rights/wrongs” you mean.

-- Updated December 12th, 2016, 1:07 pm to add the following --

Fooloso4 If the Lord were to act in true objectivity with us, according to his true being, no one would ever be able to understand him. Are you saying you are happy or unhappy with a subjective deity?

Yes, Felix, that sounds about right. As said, he cannot remove what is natural in a universe of opposites, without creating a paradox. Is mortality a misdeed by him, or rather an honest portrayal of nature, at least in a finite universe?

That would be part of the "alibi" for the suffering of temporal creation which I alluded to, i.e., a finite mortal existence will have certain unavoidable parameters, but if one is both mortal (in body) and immortal (in soul), the apparent Divine transgression can be explained.

Felix, would you explain it in light of the paradise story? If so, we can assume that we had a corporeal existence free of suffering. Despite the mythological element, some see it as old or convoluted history. Clearly, the narrative is attempting to convey some exultant past of the universe, what could have happened to change that?

Whitedragon -

Sorry, I don't understand. Problems with "feeling"? Morality is not "confortable"?

We certainly pursue answers to questions. If the question is framed in an absolute sense (abstractly) we can reach an answer. This is how logic works. I don't see what "someone else" or some "higher power" has to do with this?

We possess a general sense of right and wrong through "empathy". Empathy being our ability to place ourselves in someone, or somethings, shoes. Right and wrong are personal things just like likes and dislikes. Generally speaking there are some things we can agree on being "wrong", such as causing harm to others merely for pleasure.

The source of "wrong" and "right" is me. I feel something as wrong/right. Is that what you are asking?

I was trying to highlight, as I have been elsewhere, that cold logic is used to help frame emotional bias not to shut it out completely. The operation is essentially judgement based, or gut instinct, where the delineation between the morality of choices is indistinct. We deal with the unknown by using more tangible variables because we cannot physically weigh good againsy bad.

Hi WD, Some consider the Garden of Eden story to be a metaphor for the evolution of human consciousness. The clues are all there: Adam and Eve "ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," whereupon they knew shame ("became aware of their nakedness"), fear and anxiety (they are now "cursed" to "work by the sweat of their brow"), pride, etc.

So presumably prior to that they were like the other animals, conscious but not self conscious (or not entirely so). The garden's "serpent" is a logician.

I must agree with Felix here.
As an anti-Biblical literalism Christian, I view God as an entity that created, and interacts with the universe. I believe he created humans because he wanted our souls manifested in an earthly "adventure", if you will.

Our pain and struggles, no matter how intense, are temporary; they are a natural part of existence. To exist without pain would be to exist in a static, stagnant state, which would be hardly to exist at all. To go back to Andrian's post (#6), if God were to intervene and save the victim of a crime any time a crime happens, there would be no need for morality. Humans would be forced to be mindless drones, always in a pseudo-happy, pseudo-moral state of being. In a dystopia much like that of The Giver, our lives would have no depth and meaning.

I don't think God has done anything wrong, at least not in this topic. By giving us pain, he gave us humanity. By allowing us to harm others, he gave us morality. By not allowing us to have all the answers, he gave us philosophy. All of this together gives us a soul. If the choice is between A) giving his creations worldly pleasure (or happiness, a chemical state that happens only in our brains, something limited to mortal life) or B) giving his creations meaning (or souls, free will, the ability to exist as a moral agent, something not limited to mortal life), I think it makes perfect sense that God would choose to give us B) pain and suffering.

I don't think God's goal is, or ever was, to keep us "safe". If we have afterlives, we have no need for safety as a mortal. Our pains in this life do not affect our souls in a negative way, they are merely challenges. Picture it like a video game- would you play a game where your character is always safe, never having to defend himself, completely unable to fail at the challenges? Where your character just advances from one level to the next with no struggle? It would be perfectly easy, and your character would never experience hardship. Sounds like a really fun game, right? That's life. If the world never experienced pain, if it didn't ever seem like God was giving us the middle finger, if it was never difficult, the world would be void of meaning, and thus, God's creation would be pretty boring.

Burning ghost wrote:Whitedragon -

Sorry, I don't understand. Problems with "feeling"? Morality is not "confortable"?

We certainly pursue answers to questions. If the question is framed in an absolute sense (abstractly) we can reach an answer. This is how logic works. I don't see what "someone else" or some "higher power" has to do with this?

We possess a general sense of right and wrong through "empathy". Empathy being our ability to place ourselves in someone, or somethings, shoes. Right and wrong are personal things just like likes and dislikes. Generally speaking there are some things we can agree on being "wrong", such as causing harm to others merely for pleasure.

The source of "wrong" and "right" is me. I feel something as wrong/right. Is that what you are asking?

I was trying to highlight, as I have been elsewhere, that cold logic is used to help frame emotional bias not to shut it out completely. The operation is essentially judgement based, or gut instinct, where the delineation between the morality of choices is indistinct. We deal with the unknown by using more tangible variables because we cannot physically weigh good againsy bad.

Bringing up the comparison between oneself and others was the plan, so let us expand on that. It seems to solve our problem of morality for the most part. You are also right in saying that we are the source of knowing what is right and wrong, but then we do not know everything about our environment or ourselves.

Cold logic should actually be a good thing, as you say, since it is a personal belief that it would rather elevate complex allegory of ancient writings than detract from it. In fact, it is more likely that allegory has distracted people from the message and hampered its personalization. Things have changed over the last few millennia and by understanding the origin and intention of those scriptures, we can improve its use. It is as if people are walking with blindfolds, having tunnel vision. So forgive the nagging repetition, but there is a logical construct and function in the creation of terminology and use of words such as “sin, right and wrong.” If we can get behind what those things true intention were, we will not only be able to understand it, but bring it up to date with what is going on in the world today.

-- Updated December 12th, 2016, 2:36 pm to add the following --

Andrian wrote:

Whitedragon wrote:So the question in this thread is, what has the Lord actually done wrong, since his main goal was always to keep us safe.

If God's goal has always been to keep us safe, then He is doing a REALLY lousy job of it (if He even exists at all).

Let me illustrate this with a hypothetical example. Let's say that some wicked person has kidnapped an 8-year-old little girl, intending to torture and rape her. He takes her into a room where there is a very strong, well-trained martial artist, who is not restrained or incapacitated in any way, and then proceeds to do these horrible things to the girl while the martial artist stands by and watches. Is the martial artist doing something wrong by standing by and watching the girl get tortured and raped? The martial artist could easily overpower the wicked person and set the little girl free, but does not do so. I would argue that in such a case, the martial artist is in fact doing something wrong by not intervening to save the little girl. The martial artist is an accomplice in the wicked person's crimes, because the martial artist has the ability to very easily prevent her suffering, and does not do so.

Now let's consider the fact that in the real world little girls are kidnapped, tortured, and raped on a regular basis. If your God is real, and can see everything that happens and is the most powerful being in existence, then He must be standing by and watching every time a little girl is tortured and raped. He is clearly not intervening. God (if He exists) is an accomplice in literally every crime ever committed. God is responsible for every murder, every theft, every rape, and every fraud ever committed throughout the entirety of human history. He knew they were going to happen, He had the power to stop them from happening, and He did nothing. That's what He's actually done wrong.

Hi Andrian. Say your eight-year-old girl’s parents get drunk every night and many other parents do similar irresponsible things, what kind of life would we be living if we had an army of martial artists running around having to clean up after us all the time? How would the world change if an interfering deity were cleaning up our mess all the time? Warding off paedophiles, helping this drunk guy or girl over the street all the time, or just catching a ride home with the divine lackey? Disliking the Lord or being an atheist is one thing, but if he interfered with the world all the time, we all, including you would be a Christian. At the very least, we all would know he exists, but still pay no heed to him and dislike him all the same. What would a world look like where the Lord is playing fairy all the time and what would it say about our character if we never improve it? We already had a prefect life in Genesis and threw that away. We have not stopped since.

-- Updated December 12th, 2016, 2:41 pm to add the following --

We will do our best, Ormond.

-- Updated December 12th, 2016, 2:42 pm to add the following --

Ozymadias, thank you for your input.

Whitedragon wrote:So many debates gravitate around the degrading of the Lord. In our attempts to disprove him or discredit him, we find some satisfaction. These questions and accusations bring us to a new question, what has he actually done wrong?

When we look at an imperfect world and all the pain and sorrow that goes along with it; we often say then he cannot exist. Looking at the story of Adam and Eve, we find why our world is broken. If we go from that story, we find that things were perfect, but that we were not satisfied enough with it. Somehow, we managed to not only doom that perfection, but also put continuity in it. In a world that is doomed, should it not be strange when something goes right, rather when something goes wrong?

One of the fundamental truths in Buddhism is the existence of 'duhkha' which more or less translates into pain and suffering in our language. However it also means pain/suffering that comes from our world being imperfect. While there may be reasons for an all powerful good 'God to create an imperfect world it is counter intuitive that he would want to do so just as it would be for a good carpenter to build a terrible house when he could just as easily built a proper house. While there may be a reason for 'God' doing such a thing it goes against everything we know; at least for those of us who do not believe in 'God' through 'faith'.

It isn't necessarily 'wrong' whatever it is that 'God' has done in order to do whatever that needed to be done or whatever his will was when he did it; it is just that there has NEVER been an explanation from any religion (Abrahamic or otherwise) why he did whatever he did, why he does it, or whatever his wishes are. All we have are some best guesses (from the people that mediated on such things or thought God was talking to them) as to what 'God' might be and what he may want from us.

If we have no knowledge of "God's" will or what he/she/it is then it stands to reason that we would either have to guess at what he wants if he exists (which is almost a given to not be the same thing as what he wants), assuming a 'God' does exist. OR we can try to act in a way that we believe might be 'good' regardless of whether or not there is a 'God'; assuming there is a 'good' way to live.

As someone that is partial to nihilism, I believe both knowing whatever is 'good' (or even if it exists) is a non-trivial problem as well as knowing whatever 'God' is and whatever is will is are both non-trival problems. Since we don't know either of these things, I say that morality is for us at best a combination of hedonistic calculus and game theory and to pretend it is anything more than that (such as saying it is the will of 'God') is merely lying to ourselves.

Whitedragon wrote: Mainly, the Bible tells us how to live our lives right. It is concerned with our safety and protection and seemingly, that is what the crux of the book is. Despite this good intention, (of a book that is looking out for us), we are so unsatisfied with the Lord and the book, that we find it necessary to degrade and attack both. Why do we reward good intentions with anger and disbelief?

Reading the Word correctly is what is important. History is not instruction, but rather like drama, which we can choose not to adopt in our lives; yet people see everything in it as instruction, rather than life lessons to learn. They take the worse things out of context, rather choosing to focus on the story and so losing the message.

So the question in this thread is, what has the Lord actually done wrong, since his main goal was always to keep us safe. He is practical in all things, there does not seem to be anything abstract when it comes to sin, but we can always rather find some logical explanation why any sin is “wrong.” “Sin” and “wrong,” seem to be outdated words, which need reforming in order to demonstrate its practical value. So again, what has the Lord actually done wrong?

I think you misunderstand atheist and some agnostics actual position. They are not saying that the bible or 'God' are necessarily 'bad', they are saying that the rules and way we live our lives shouldn't be completely based on what Abrahamic religions and the bible tell us to do. We are upset on the dominance of Abrahamic religions have in Western society and their evangelical/aggressive nature in general, and we are just trying to push back on their efforts to influence our lives and our societies way of thinking.

If Abrahamic religions know nothing about 'God' more than any of us than all of their posturing about what God wants us to do is just a lie to try and control us. If the people who wrote the bible used something like hedonistic calculus and game theory to guess what 'God' wants then it shouldn't make much of a difference if we use hedonistic calculus and game theory ourselves to figure what is best for us.

Just like in the story of the king who wore no clothes, it is easy to see that the church doesn't know anything more about 'God' than the rest of us. Yet we like to believe we live in a universe where there is someone looking after us, even if we know we have no evidence of such a being. The problem boils down to some of us somehow manage to still believe through 'faith' and others see the universe and accept they and everyone knows nothing about 'God' or his/her/it's will. Since I didn't believe in 'God' from the first time I heard about him, which was before I went to preschool, it is next to impossible for me to image that the church and the bible are really talking about a real 'God' when they reference him; and he is about as fictional to me as cartoon characters that are drawn up for TV. Of course that is just my position.

dclements said :

and he is about as fictional to me as cartoon characters that are drawn up for TV. Of course that is just my position.

Hi, dclements. Some cartoons and movies influence thinking. If you have an important message to communicate, what do you do? People buy pirate DVDs in parking lots, and often chuck fliers into bins. The voice of narrative speaks loader than mundane words about life. Thanks for your post, btw, what movie are you watching this weekend, or do you prefer to read? Do you read fiction or fact all the time? Just curious.

Dclements: One of the fundamental truths in Buddhism is the existence of 'duhkha' which more or less translates into pain and suffering in our language. However it also means pain/suffering that comes from our world being imperfect. While there may be reasons for an all powerful good 'God to create an imperfect world it is counter intuitive that he would want to do so just as it would be for a good carpenter to build a terrible house when he could just as easily built a proper house.

Right, but the Buddhists think the world is a finite mistake, and therefore the only reasonable solution it to attempt to escape from it - into nirvana. Other more progressive religious sects, including certain Christian denominations, believe otherwise. They think that the world is a work in progress, a trail of tears but also a path to ultimate salvation, i.e., Divine knowledge.

To use your carpentry analogy, the Buddhists have little appreciation of the house they live in, and no interest at all in learning how to construct houses, they just want to abandon their current home, which they believe cannot be renovated, and find a more comfortable prefabricated one. Progressive Christians, Hindus, et. al., think the house has promise, it can be remodeled, but it will take a lot of work (it has many mansions), both physical and spiritual/moral to do it.

Dclements: It isn't necessarily 'wrong' whatever it is that 'God' has done in order to do whatever that needed to be done or whatever his will was when he did it; it is just that there has NEVER been an explanation from any religion (Abrahamic or otherwise) why he did whatever he did, why he does it, or whatever his wishes are.

There have been many explanations, which vary in credibility, but to understand them and sift the true from the false, one must understand the language in which they are spoken, otherwise they appear to be mere babble. This is to be expected.