"Hard-Wired" for God: Take 2
by JoyVery interesting theologian Mahanoy has posted a very excellent blog post over at one of my haunts – Street Prophets – taking a different tack on the NYT article "Darwin's God" that Mike discusses in his blog post.
Mahanoy asks, Are Humans "Hard-Wired" for God? Herein is my response to that question, mixing a little science with a little sociopolitical reality, put into the blender with some icy chunks of perceptive experience. A mid-afternoon smoothie, and an opportunity to take a look at different implications from whether people can actually commit their lives to a formalized misconception (which they do all the time).
I heartily recommend reading the Street Prophets post by Mahanoy for theological context, (or his cross-post to the DKos Main Page where this post appears as comment along with a host of others), and invite you to follow me below the fold for my own thoughts on the matter…
I don't think we're hardwired to believe in any particular god concept, as religion is a sociopolitical institution established for specific (or, at one time specific) functions in society. Governance, education, socialization. As these functions have been steadily transferred to more inclusive secular institutions, religions end up mostly with tradition – maintenance of the social mythology, cohesion for sub-groups, and 'works' in the world.
But we are in fact neurologically hardwired for whole classes of experience underpinning and long associated with religions. These are subjective qualia, some of which can even be stimulated artificially by probing particular areas of the brain. One notable quale is the experience of separation of consciousness [a.k.a. Out-Of-Body or OOB], found to be associated to neurons at the very top of our brains that coincide strikingly with most religions' head fetishes (anointing with oil, covering the top/crown of the head, etc.). The Hindu mystics designate this as the Sahasrara, or "crown chakra."
Another quale is the experience of direct insight into the minds of others [a.k.a. ESP, etc.], found to be activated upon stimulation of the frontal lobes precisely where Eastern mystics have placed the "Third Eye." Hindu mystics call this the Ajna, or "brow chakra."
So yes, we are hardwired for spiritual experience. And this experience tends to translate through our cognition into the apprehension that there's more going on in the totality of reality than just that which our sensory circuits are able to provide as subject-object interaction (perception of the material world outside ourselves).
Personally, I am of the not-writ-in-stone opinion that as the products of evolution that seems firmly tied to practical abilities, we have to develop 'extra' abilities step by step on the substrate of all that came before. All that has come before is limited to 3 spatial dimensions and 1 direction of time. Like the rather spectacular development of trichromatic vision (seeing red) in higher mammals, a new dimension of perception has been added to our toolkit and we learned how to use it very well to our survival advantage.
But our lives are short, and we don't get evolutionary developments inside of it. The toolkit we're born with must serve us all our lives, and it often takes that long just to figure out how best to use it. I view the innate hardwiring for spiritual experience as the necessary precondition for development of means to directly perceive one or more real extra dimensions of spacetime that are all around us all the time right now (but we can't see it).
Or, as the generations go forward in time, more and more babies will be born who actually do perceive more than 3+1 dimensions, just as they once were increasingly born able to see the world in trichrome distinctions. Whether or not the consciousness that 'normally' inhabits those dimensions actually qualify as gods/God is still an open question. But it's not unreasonable to presume the pre-perception of them via this brain hardwiring might lead to that cognitive conclusion.
Of course, I'm a born synesthete who has always received more information from my perceptual equipment than others – so you can pay me no mind. §;o)
March 5th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Thank you Joy,
I am not sure I can understand all that you are saying, but my sense of it and my belief is that we have this natural spiritual sense which does contact or contemplate realities which are beyond us or deeper that us. Communicating this is difficult. The religions of history put some specific content onto this sense and thru them allow us to experience those deeper dimensions. The actual nature of these depths is unknown to us. But, the reality of these dimensions is a part of most persons experience. This understanding fits my "position" as a telic agnostic. Something is there. It's deep and beyond-even mysterious.
In this manner, one can respect all the religious and spiritual philosophies that abound. One thing I like about this understanding is it eliminates the exclusivity and inexorable pride that develops in fundamentalisms. It encourages respect and tolerance. And surely, as time goes by a common understanding of the practical every day best and highest ethic for living arises.
Comment by bj — March 5, 2007 @ 3:17 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
bj:
You're onto something, I think! This is why I spend some of my time looking into the several mystical traditions that form the basis of Huxley's "Perennial Philosophy" [Huston Smith has a fine overview of this in his book Beyond the Postmodern Mind]. There is something very real – on the 'given' qualia end – going on here. What does it tell us about what's real?
If you ever get the opportunity – and mine came at a teeny tiny used book store sidewalk sale in Little Switzerland off the Blue Ridge Parkway one day years ago) to get hold of the 2-volume set of The Nature and Destiny of Man by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, go for it big time. In volume I [Human Nature] he does some really deep delving into the ultimate sin of pride, and how it so stubbornly attaches itself to religions and religious leaders. Our own human manifestation of the "Tragic Contradiction" that so well illustrates the dichotomous mission and sacrifice of Christ.
The reality of our hard-wiring for spiritual experience is that the 'New Atheist' God-haters can't ever win. If their goal was to get to the core of humanity's diverse religious traditions, they might have a prayer of causing a sociopolitical "evolutionary leap" that would well serve the modern world. But their abject denial that there's anything in existence that they can't poke, prod, measure or put under a microscope puts them into a gilt cage of their own design that they'll never escape from.
And despite all my disagreements with Sam Harris' views on many things, this is one of the areas in which I find myself in basic agreement with him. There's something going on, and the examination of universal human mysticism is a good place to begin.
Comment by Joy — March 5, 2007 @ 3:49 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
(Christian) theologically speaking, I would argue that we are hardwired against God"”i.e., original sin. No one seeks God (Rom. 3:11). Of course, that doesn't rule out that fallen man has a genetic predisposition to seek a false god or a false religion or spirituality.
Comment by David Heddle — March 5, 2007 @ 4:08 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Joy,
At your suggestion, I did buy and am wading through Huxley. I will get the Niebuhr volumes you suggest. In the recent past, after years of doubt, I have rejected the literal approach to the world's sacred scriptures, in my case Christianity, as a reliable avenue to truth. Some in this position, take to criticism and hostility against religion. Not me. For I can't escape what seems to be an innate wondering and reaching into something beyond. It won't go away.
Beyond that, is the magnificent application of Christian teachings in the lives of so many around me. The simple goodness and humility that I find in these lives. It, too, calls deeper. This religion, as I believe others do, reaching into the depths and producing levels of moral character that are compelling. I am willing, of course, to admit the evils of religion. But, it's the examples of compelling goodness in the lives of the common man and woman that strike me. So, I have to believe we are onto something.
If we are correct, then you are right. The atheist cause is hopeless. Going against the very nature of life itself. Yet, the dangers of prideful religion need their counter, and perhaps this is a useful role in the scheme of things for the philosophy to occupy. I see the same traits in the fundamentalist practitioniers of both religion and atheism. Checkmate??
Comment by bj — March 5, 2007 @ 4:14 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Hi, David. While "original sin" is used by Christian theologians to explain our existence in a decidedly imperfect world, it honestly doesn't do much speaking of worth to me. I didn't commit that sin, the archetypes supposedly did – and I get punished for it. How just is that?
So while the concept does serve a trivial purpose of explaining conditional circumstances which are so very much at odds with the omni-whatever of the God who supposedly set the archetypes up for such a monumental fall, I've got plenty of sins of my own to live with and/or feel personally responsible for. That's enough to keep me plenty busy shedding tears and trying to atone.
The "false gods" are just our inability to conceptualize in semantic terms something that we can actually experience. All mystics claim that describing the ineffable is impossible, and they represent every human language ever spoken or written. This reminds me a lot of Plato's cave-shadows. We can only construct for ourselves a grand puppet stage, and it's always less than perfect, practically and conceptually. Yet we do it anyway, I suspect because we do innately know the ineffable is out there (or maybe in here)…
See how hard that is to describe? From there, per our sociopolitical formalizations and institutionalizations, people with will-to-power are drawn to that which offers them power. And the corruption proceeds.
Rust never sleeps, you know.
Comment by Joy — March 5, 2007 @ 4:38 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Joy,
That is (in my opinion) a common misunderstanding of original sin–that is certainly not how Augustine formulated it. It is not: we are charged with Adam's sin as if we committed it. That would indeed be unjust. It is actually much worse: Adam's sin has left the human race so corrupted that in our natural state we are in total rebellion against God and cannot choose not to sin. (No one seeks God"¦) So our condition is a result of Adam's sin, but the sins with which we are held accountable are all our own.
Comment by David Heddle — March 5, 2007 @ 4:52 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
David,
That sounds very Calvinistic. I believe the human state is very similar, potentially (depending on the individual) to what Paul described was his condition, which was that he desired to do good, but his body of flesh (his sinful nature, the inherited corruption and corrupting influence) caused him to fail, to sin. (See Romans 7:15-25.) Man can "will to do good" – it is just not in his power to do that which is good, as the sin "that dwells in" him or her "wars against" his mind (again, depending on the individual), bringing him or her "into captivity to the law of sin". Jesus called Nathaniel "an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit" – and this was before Nathaniel had believed on Jesus or received the Holy Spirit. Man has the freedom to choose right or wrong, to sin or not to sin – else, God's judgment for their evil choices would not hold, as their choices would not really have been choices.
I agree.
Comment by Douglas — March 5, 2007 @ 5:10 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
David:
And being a result of the archetype's mistake, we all have to live and die with it despite the atonement of Christ. Hence: Tragic Contradiction. He didn't get out of here alive either (had to die first, in a particularly ugly way). No Christian who ever lived and believed with all his/her heart that s/he would be among the few who will never die ever got out of here alive. We dig their bones up all the time and graveyards all over the world are filled to the brim with them.
I have sought God all the days of my life that I can recall, and I am the same "me" – with oddly the very same ways of thought and wonder – in my twilight as I was when I was a child.
To me, it seems a lot more rational to just go ahead and accept reality, because my death is going to find me one of these days just as sure as I'm born. If I'm wrong about that I'll be pleasantly surprised, but I can't live my life as though I don't have to die. I've seen way too much of it, among the most innocent of human beings.
My mortality is actually my friend – it informs me that my time is limited, and that I must always try to make the best of it. In service to a future that I will never see or know. This veil of tears is a journey – an adventure. All adventures include tragedy, or the treasure sought and quested for has no ultimate value.
Doesn't mean I don't believe consciousness survives in some form or other (or no real form). Just means my material nature has to stay behind. I don't mind, and I don't need Adam's pity for his wife's mistake to justify it for me. That's all.
Comment by Joy — March 5, 2007 @ 5:19 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Whether it's a matter of neurological 'hard-wiring' or sociological 'soft-wiring', I believe religion is as natural to human beings as friendship or family.
Possibly my single favorite passage of the bible is Acts 17:16-31, in which Paul preaches to the philosophers at Athens:
God appointed the places and times for all nations of men, such that we might reach out and find him; though he is not far from us, because it is in him that we live, and move, and have our being.
Comment by BenK — March 5, 2007 @ 5:46 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Hi, Dave
That doesn't mean that we don't have a built-in spiritual sense, though, and an awareness of the transcendent. Quite the contrary, it is premised on the idea that we do – You can't rebel against something that you have no connection to.
It also doesn't mean that sinful man doesn't have a longing to be right with God, in some sense. Most everybody wants to have a good relationship with their wife, or their family members, or whomever, broadly speaking. Most everybody wants to be a "good person" too, broadly speaking. However, we also want to do stuff that keeps us from achieving these desires. Our unwillingness to set aside our personal pride, and to submit our immediate desires, prevents us from reaching these goals.
Comment by Deuce — March 5, 2007 @ 6:00 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Well there is some debate on that I topic. I personally believe that be born-again is to recieve a new nature, i.e. a new spirit.
Comment by Jehu — March 5, 2007 @ 6:38 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
David:
Foolishly (and I am a professional fool…) thinking scientifically about spiritual things, what if there was a broader reason for that awful set-up in the Garden?
For a moment, imagine that there are more than 3+1 dimensions in the totality of reality, and that consciousness – in some form or no discernable form – exists in all of them. Then imagine that a being existing in all dimensions at once decides to create something amazing… form in which consciousness can manifest for experiential (and educational) purposes. Sort of like a grand experiment by the Ultimate Scientist.
Imagine that this being has previously created lesser, not-quite chained in form beings, for his/her/its/their purposes but lacking the 'extra' quality breathed into the new creation – freedom of will. Then he/she/it/them 'tests' the new creation by giving it a specific choice to make. One which he/she/it/they bets itself they WILL make (given the new degree of freedom). Despite fair warning to the subjects that the choice has serious consequences that cannot be undone. Then he puts a snake into the Garden, to conduct the test.
Think about WHY Adam would doom himself (since we are told the choice that really counted was his, not Eve's) and his progeny forever. He understood the boundary he should never cross. He knew the creator would execute the consequences, according to his promise/warning. He is thus a responsible agent of the choice.
Then ask yourself how Love entered into physical manifestation. Do non-responsible agents (the created beings who have no freedom of will) know love? Are they really capable of manifesting such a quality? Then consider that Adam's choice (not Eve's, as she was set up from the git-go by design) was to live – and die – with his love. Share her fate, because he loved her, and love makes people do things they shouldn't do.
Voila! The new creation "falls" into physical manifestation (pre-created, and evolutionarily fit to host). Puts itself into lesser dimensions and explores the limits as well as the hopeful horizons of life in 3+1. Love and hatred and jealousy and fear and the always-doomed struggle to survive.
Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.
Just an exercise in metaphor, since metaphor is used to explain our "fallen" (into physical nature, where all life struggles and dies) condition. It also could explain our indirect perception that there's MORE than the strict limitations of our physical condition.
Would such an experiment please an omni-powerful consciousness representing the Ultimate Scientist? Would such an all-present (in all existing dimensions) being leave room for his new creation's ascension toward him/her/its/them self "the hard way?" As something more valuable to him/her/it/them than mere choice-less robots?
I of course don't know the relative truth or value of such speculations, and don't claim to know. It's just something that occurred to me once upon a miracle that had no explanation at all. And it pleased ME, for whatever that's worth… §;o)
Comment by Joy — March 5, 2007 @ 6:41 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Someone could always claim that the apparently designed appearance of, say, the Empire State building, is an illusion, and that in fact its construction happened entirely through the interaction of various natural material organisms (human brains, hands, etc), acting solely in accordance with the laws of physics. Indeed, a thoroughgoing materialism is committed to such a reductionist account. For hard-core materialists, mind is just a particular configuration of matter, and the 'intelligent design' of, say, the Empire State building is nothing more than an aggregation of purely natural motions of matter-energy. Ditto the emergence of species, the building of the pyramids, manned spaceflights, etc.
Adducing all the evidence for evolution is like examining an architect's brain and noting that all of its physical properties and operations can all be explained without reference to an invisible designing mind. But no one really denies the claim that the Empire State Building was designed by minds. So it seems that some material processes license inferences to the existence and agency of minds.
Why do some material processes license the claim that 'minds designed the Empire State building' while (allegedly) no material processes license the claim that at least one mind designed my cat?
It seems that the naturalist holds some principle such that no designing minds are to be postulated unless we can associate a spatially locatable material mind-producing organ with each putative mind.
But how can science justify this principle? It seems to be saying that no matter what we might find anywhere in the universe, nothing will count as licensing inference to minds unless it is part of a causal chain to material organs. Thus, if every day starting in 2010, verses from the Bible appeared in the sky all over the world, no inference to a mind would be licensed because of these verses in the sky unless they could be shown to be causally linked to a material organ somewhere in the universe.
Thus, God could do nothing visible in the universe that would license a human inference to the reality of God's mind, because God has no material organ associated with his mind.
This seems odd. The opponents of ID demand that ID conform to scientific rigor. But there seems to be an a priori principle held by these opponents that nothing counts as a mind at work unless it is associated with a mind-causing material thing somewhere in the universe.
Comment by stunney — March 5, 2007 @ 7:50 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
David, Joy, et. al.
(Not surprisingly) I have my own take on Original Sin and the Fall.
Which is, that the fall and the notion of original sin represents the birth of self-conscious individuality.
At a certain point in human evolution, there arose the idea of "me" and a self, separate from the universe. With that idea comes duality, the possibility of good and evil, which is why the fruit is from the tree of the knowlege of good and evil. That ultimately erroneous idea of and belief in separation is the original sin, which casts us out of our true wholeness and creates a feeling of fear, danger, desire and suffering.
This same arising of the self and the sense of separation can be seen in each (apparent) person as he or she develops. It occurs somewhere around age two, and the birth of this sense of individuality, personal will, and a sense of separation is aptly known as the "terrible twos".
The good news is that there is a salvation from this incomplete, flawed, imperfect sense of self. Because, in fact, that self is not real, it is only a story, and this can be seen when the self is looked for directly. In reality, there is only God / Consciousness, reflecting through apparent individuality and apparent separation. And this can be seen, although not by any person (because the idea of our actual identity being a separate person is itself the prison).
Comment by MatthewCromer — March 5, 2007 @ 8:07 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
stunney:
Yeah but… that's only because they've reduced themselves into nothingness. How in the world can we expect any big-t or little-t 'truths' from mindless zombies? §;o)
Comment by Joy — March 5, 2007 @ 8:25 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Excellent point. There is a hard-core materialist assumption behind that whole position, and behind all the "who designed the designer" nonsense.
Comment by MatthewCromer — March 5, 2007 @ 8:42 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Yes, they demand evidence for the reality of a universe-transcending mind, and then they rule out in advance anything counting as such evidence.
But if science in principle is aimed at knowledge of the whole of reality, and if any universe-transcending non-material mind is real, then the a priori ruling out of anything counting as evidence for non-material mind(s) being real is at odds with science.
Alternatively, science is not in fact aimed at knowledge in principle of the whole of reality.
The question to be asked of the scientific atheist is, 'Which is it to be?'
Comment by stunney — March 5, 2007 @ 10:02 pm
March 5th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Joy asks:
Joy,
I've already explained to you that materialists do not believe we are "mindless zombies".
Comment by keiths — March 5, 2007 @ 11:14 pm
March 6th, 2007 at 4:46 am
joy,
Enoch. Elijah.
Comment by Douglas — March 6, 2007 @ 4:46 am
March 6th, 2007 at 8:46 am
Enoch and Elijah were Christians? §;o)
Comment by Joy — March 6, 2007 @ 8:46 am
March 6th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Joy, I don't think you want to take that tack. If the nonmaterial world can be detected by the material brain, through physical characteristics acquired via evolution, then the "spiritual" world is part of the material world, subject to all kinds of hypotheses, testing and so forth. As no such evidence has been found, one might think that you'd be better off keeping your explanation for an unseen world strictly on an unseen level, rather than tying it to something falsifiable.
(And really–"extra dimensions of spacetime" Are not space and time the bedrock of the material universe?)
Comment by grendelkhan — March 6, 2007 @ 8:58 am
March 6th, 2007 at 9:26 am
This doesn't follow. It begs the question on several different levels and also assumes that we have clear criteria for what constitutes "material"
Comment by bipod — March 6, 2007 @ 9:26 am
March 6th, 2007 at 9:55 am
grandelkhan:
And…
Hmmm… which is it? What's a "bedrock" of a universe – is it something made of matter or energy? Has it been established that a "mind" is matter and/or energy, or was that just the brain it manifests through?
While I admit my speculations are both silly (didn't I tell you I'm a fool?) and imprecise, my terms were chosen on purpose.
Imagine… that's a nifty word. It speaks directly to mind, and is a fully creative, volitional and immaterial act. Imagine there's a totality of reality that includes more than our 3+1 dimensions, and that there is consciousness that exists in all of them at once. For my purpose:
"¢ Mind = Consciousness (or, perhaps just its higher creative attributes)
"¢ Dimension = parameter of manifestation
Was there RED before life developed the physical sensors to detect its presence? Have you ever read Flatland (A romance of many dimensions)?
I admit that it's probably impossible for any human to precisely describe the totality of reality (if it indeed includes More than we are equipped to perceive directly). The attempt can be fairly approximate, metaphorically or allegorically speaking.
Here in 3+1, matter and energy do their complex dance. We do not know if matter and energy dancing in 3+1 is the entirety of everything 'real', or is a shadow, a projection, or a reflection of an "uber-dance" being choreographed from St. Elsewhere (whatever that might be). The possibility is as ancient as human perception of a 'spirit world' and the illusionary Maya of experience, and was philosophically formalized in Western terms at least 1500 years ago.
So I haven't exactly invented these speculations of whole cloth. I borrowed too. It's just an exercise in creative thought, a pondering of facts and inferences to see if they may point to something More. In such an exercise it's a mistake to confuse the finger pointing to the moon with the moon it's pointing to.
Comment by Joy — March 6, 2007 @ 9:55 am
March 6th, 2007 at 10:10 am
grandelkhan:
And…
Hmmm… which is it? What's a "bedrock" of a universe – is it something made of matter or energy? Has it been established that a "mind" is matter and/or energy, or was that just the brain it manifests through?
While I admit my speculations are both silly (didn't I tell you I'm a fool?) and imprecise, my terms were chosen on purpose.
Imagine… that's a nifty word. It speaks directly to mind, and is a fully creative, volitional and immaterial act. Imagine there's a totality of reality that includes more than our 3+1 dimensions, and that there is consciousness that exists in all of them at once. For my purpose:
"¢ Mind = Consciousness (or, perhaps just its higher creative attributes)
"¢ Dimension = parameter of manifestation
"¢ Totality of reality – all that exists, seen or unseen, on any level of description
Was there RED before life developed the physical sensors to detect its presence? Have you ever read Flatland (A romance of many dimensions)?
I admit that it's probably impossible for any human to precisely describe the totality of reality (if it indeed includes More than we are equipped to perceive directly). The attempt can be fairly approximate, metaphorically or allegorically speaking.
Here in 3+1, matter and energy do their complex dance. We do not know if matter and energy dancing in 3+1 is the entirety of everything 'real', or is a shadow, a projection, or a reflection of an "uber-dance" being choreographed from St. Elsewhere (whatever that might be). The possibility is as ancient as human perception of a 'spirit world' and the illusionary Maya of experience, and was philosophically formalized in Western terms at least 1500 years ago.
So I haven't exactly invented these speculations of whole cloth. I borrowed too. It's just an exercise in creative thought, a pondering of facts and inferences to see if they may point to something More. In such an exercise it's a mistake to confuse the finger pointing to the moon with the moon it's pointing to.
Comment by Joy — March 6, 2007 @ 10:10 am
March 6th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Actually, a great deal of such evidence has been found, both anecdotal (including a myriad of unimpeachable accounts), and scientific.
Here's an example of a well-designed study showing strong evidence for the survival of consciousness (or alternatively psi abilities).
Comment by MatthewCromer — March 6, 2007 @ 10:12 am
March 6th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Matthew – when my post disappeared I went looking to see if it got waylayed to moderation for some unexplainable reason. Nope. I found it (twice!) in the spam filter file. Also found your post above, so sent 'em both on through. Don't know what the issue is, so this is a test…
Comment by Joy — March 6, 2007 @ 10:21 am
March 6th, 2007 at 10:41 am
stunney says:
This is true. And completely absurd.
We only know of the brain and any other external material object through the senses. Senses are translations. This means that the external world we know is a simulation. The brain is not responsible for the simulation because it is a part of it. It is phoenomena, not nomena. So there is no such thing as a mind-producing organ any more than there is a language-producing word.
Oh, and one more thing. Even dissregarding everything I stated above, how does one spatially locate an object that 'produces' the frame of reference in which it's location is defined?
Comment by Mertens — March 6, 2007 @ 10:41 am
March 6th, 2007 at 10:59 am
While I do agree that it is unfair to a certain extent, I think of the original sin as an extension of the concept of inheritance. Is it fair that some babies are born into rich families and others into poor families? How fair is that? I never worked for any of the things my parents gave to me after I was born, but I still get it anyway. So why should this concept only be reserved for the inheritance of good things?
I think due to the original sin we inherited God's condemnation – that we should all die, physically, at least. I don't think it applies to the spiritual judgement.
I know the original sin sounds unfair, but I think it makes alot of sense when I think of it this way.
Comment by WinglesS — March 6, 2007 @ 10:59 am
March 6th, 2007 at 11:27 am
I think the original sin concept was a best guess of one ancient culture, and probably not just one. Maybe we should consult Joseph Campbell on this. We all find ourselves beset with urges and drives which can lead us into destructive paths and outcomes. I think of it as a result of our evolutionary-developed nature. We are animals subject to animal drives. Underlying our consciousness is our animal nature. Our genetic system is quite a mixed bag. In some ways we are mysteries even to ourselves. The ancients experienced this reality and generated their own understanding expressed through stories and myths. We do otherwise with our present understanding of life's development. Our spiritual capacities allow us to channel these drives into more productive avenues. Yet, that channeling is imperfect-call it sin if you like. The better we get at it, the more pleasant and productive are our lives and our contribution to society.
Comment by bj — March 6, 2007 @ 11:27 am
March 6th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Wow. You've solved the mind-body problem!
Or perhaps not. Someone (Bishop Berkeley, for instance) might rephrase what you've said: "If the material world can be detected by your mind, through consciousness awareness and rational understanding of its mathematically ordered design, then the material world is part of the mental world that includes such conscious mental activities as forming hypotheses, testing and so forth."
In 1999, the Los Angeles Times ran a series of articles on the latest developments in physics. One piece was entitled something like, 'Space, Time Obsolete in New View of the Universe'.
It was a very interesting piece, and similar in content to part of what I'd read in Brian Greene's excellent intro to string physics for the lay reader, The Elegant Universe.
Comment by stunney — March 6, 2007 @ 11:35 am
March 6th, 2007 at 11:51 am
WinglesS:
How does this translate to the admonition that the children are not to be punished for the sins of the man (or woman)? If even us terminally 'condemned' and sin-prone humans can manage to enshrine this principle in our decidedly imperfect systems of justice, does it make us better and more moral/ethical than god/God?
Makes more sense to me as an experiment in free will and the infusion of love in the world. Humans were supposedly created 'a little lower' than the angels, but with more value to the creator. Of course, what human (besides Enoch and Elijah, h/t Douglas) is so 'good' as human that s/he is a pleasing companion to god/God?
Looks like kindergarten to me, these material 3+1 chains. Certain things to learn (or feel, or do) before we're qualified for first grade. I've never seen a literalist able to adequately address the obvious set-up in the Garden. What the heck was a snake doing right there under the forbidden trees? Why was its hissed temptation aimed at the tree of knowledge and not the tree of life? And why then was Eve's sin not the one to condemn us to matter, but Adam's? Because his choice was between Eve and God? Because he loved Eve more than he loved his 'unique' (but obviously inferior and dumb) status with God?
And how the heck did this strange interpretation get assigned to material life's Prime Directive (reproduce – sex) as 'original sin', by an orthodoxy that used it to justify their own misogynous tendencies to demonize women in general, when Eve was apparently not responsible (the snake was – as agent of the scam)? Only to then turn into centuries' worth of mass genocides against gnostics whose interpretation to the ultimately evil status of matter itself obviously followed quite naturally from the dogmatic premise?
The Fall purports to explain why we're living and dying in material chains in a reality where we can never succeed in the Prime Directive's first commandment: Survive. The reason supposedly has everything to do with our knowledge – or desire to know – good and evil. It seems to me that in this allegory God is far more "guilty" than any of the actors in the play he scripted on purpose. Which looks, if indeed there was reason for a 'special creation' of free beings (in his image), like a desirable (to him) consequence of that gift.
A grand experiment, that must please the operative scientist even though he is said to have very nearly scrapped the whole thing early on because freedom turned all-but universally to evil.
But of course I could be totally wrong.
Comment by Joy — March 6, 2007 @ 11:51 am
March 6th, 2007 at 11:58 am
If evolutionary biology is to explain morality, it must show the link between morality and adaptive behavior. The trouble with this is that a very large range of human behavior is agreed to be immoral, while evolution has to hold that nearly all behavior derives from the adaptive features of our genetic makeup. From this it would follow that much, perhaps even all, immoral behavior is adaptive. But then adaptiveness cannot be that in terms of which moral (as against immoral) behavior is defined, or that from which specifically moral (as against immoral) behavior springs.
Some naturalists are prepared to bite the bullet about this. That is, they are ready to say that there is no such thing as morality in any robust sense. There are just human wants and human inclinations to talk a certain way about them. Morality, if the term is to be retained at all, simply refers to whatever happens to be the majority of, or most commonly possessed, sets of dispositions and ways of speaking with regard to inter-human conduct.
The problem with this view is that it falls foul of naturalism's most basic starting point—human experience. Naturalism privileges science as a form of knowledge because it relies on the most immediate data yielded by our consciousness of the world. Among these data are most certainly the deliverances of our sensory and perceptual abilities. We experience a patch of green and call it grass. We hear a sound and interpret it as indicating a wave is moving at a certain speed through a large body of air molecules. We look at a dial and determine by its measurement the mass of a subatomic particle. Etc.
But these are not the only kind of data of consciousness. There is also the utter conviction that shooting defenceless innocent children as they attempt to escape the Beslan massacre is something we are morally bound to condemn—that it is objectively prohibited to act thus, whether anyone (the killers, for example) subjectively wants to or not. There is the absolute certainty we find our conscious mind giving us that leaving a man to die of thirst in the desert while driving off in a full water-tanker is an abhorrent act of callousness that violates an ineluctable moral obligation (unless one is racing to save the lives of others who would die if you stopped to help—in that case one's obligation is different–saving the others–but it's still an obligation).
In other words, naturalism rests its case on the sheer force and given-ness of sensory experience. But that force and given-ness is at least, if not more, present in the case of people's consciousness with respect to major moral duties and moral values. One is more ready to attribute an experience of green to optical illusion or bodily malfunction (such as color-blindness) than to give up as 'illusory' the idea that one must not kill kids or leave dying men in the desert. One is more ready, in a laboratory, to attribute the position of the dial to a random electrical disturbance, than one is to attribute the notion that we should not rape our grandmothers to an adaptive illusion, or a merely contingent lack of desire to do so.
Naturalism, in order to dismiss morality as a projection or illusion with no real objective claim upon us, ends up having to deny the validity of the only thing that would even render itself (naturalism) plausible in the first place—the ineluctable deliverances and character of the subjective conscious experiences of human beings.
Comment by stunney — March 6, 2007 @ 11:58 am
March 6th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Thanks Joy.
It seems that my recent comments are all being delayed, perhaps you've found the reason why. . .
Comment by MatthewCromer — March 6, 2007 @ 12:37 pm
March 6th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Joy:
Simply put, you can't pass on what you don't have. Just because you are innocent does not mean you won't suffer due to other people's actions. The punishment you are refering to is eternal destruction which Christ's sacrifice makes possible to avoid. Because of that provision that principle of justice holds true.
Comment by Mertens — March 6, 2007 @ 12:47 pm
March 6th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
grendelkhan:
There's something more about this I should clarify. First, our consciousness uses our physical brains to formulate understandings of ourselves and our world, based on what our brains are physically capable of processing and formulating. The recently identified experiential wiring for the brow and crown chakras indicates that there is something to be experienced, but does NOT tell us the 'true' nature of what is experienced.
The hard-wiring has already been subjected to testing and confirmation, hypotheses have already been offered. Hard-wiring consists of neurons and dendrites and synapses forming specific parts of our brains, which we rely upon to process all of our thoughts and imaginings and reckonings and experiences and incoming sensory data.
For all practical purposes, I would presume that the hard-wired experiential perception that consciousness is separable from matter indicates that consciousness is separable from matter, at least in a projective sense (stimulation of these neurons allows projection). I would also presume that the hard-wired ability to link with an exterior consciousness not my own indicates that consciousness is intrinsically 'link-able' through stimulation of these neurons for that ability.
Metaphysical materialists are in a bind here. In order to claim that consciousness projection and linking are obviously NOT 'real' because we are hardwired for projection and linking, they would have to also claim that all other faculties of experiential consciousness and perception are not 'real' either because we are hardwired for experience and perception.
At which point we can dispense with any notion of reliability in either our sensory or our processing abilities, as we cannot reach any conceivable 'true' conclusions about the ourselves or our world derived from those. Making their pronouncements on the matter totally dismissible.
Which means – to paraphrase Nitshze – Science Is Dead. I don't think you want to go with that tack.
Comment by Joy — March 6, 2007 @ 1:32 pm
March 6th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Matthew, I found another and released it. Apparently today was the day the filter got automatically 'cleaned' of its hundreds of drug and erectile dysfunction treatment announcements and I missed it the first time. Should be fine now that I've informed the filter that neither you nor I suffer from erectile dysfunction… §;o)
Comment by Joy — March 6, 2007 @ 1:42 pm
March 6th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Well we don't judge a child for the sins of his parents. However, by jailing or executing his parents, we do indirectly punish the child. That is how I see it. God does not judge us spiritually for the sins of Adam. However he did punish Adam and we inherited this punishment indirectly. Well, I could be wrong, but it's the way I see things currently.
We can't get more ethical than God this way, unless you mean that a child's parents should not be punished, which imo is injustice.
Comment by WinglesS — March 6, 2007 @ 2:02 pm
March 6th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Oh, Joy. Nietzsche! I know it's German, but that's no excuse.
Comment by thechristiancynic — March 6, 2007 @ 2:08 pm
March 6th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
LOL!!! Why don't we do to these guys what we did to Native Americans with unpronouncable names when they signed up in the army – assign 'em a 'Smith' or a 'Jones'!
Comment by Joy — March 6, 2007 @ 2:11 pm
March 6th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Joy:
Aren't neurons, dendrites and synapses the end result of sensory translation? How can they be relied on to process sensory data when they are the result of such a process?
Comment by Mertens — March 6, 2007 @ 4:02 pm
March 6th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Mertens:
??? Huh. I was always under the impression that they're the processing machinery. That which processes the sensory data (coming in from remote sensors – eyes, ears, nose, skin, tongue), analyzes and cross-references the data with stored material in the data banks, and turns the report in to consciousness. Which experiences the whole event, and sometimes acts volitionally on it.
Comment by Joy — March 6, 2007 @ 6:05 pm
March 6th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
i`ll try to clarify what i mean tomorrow.
Comment by Mertens — March 6, 2007 @ 7:09 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 4:48 am
(From Wikipedia…)
Nitshze: Nitshze. Singly-named, not-quite-famous disciple of Confuse-us. First to declare "Science is Dead!", right before accidentally detonating too much Chinese gun-powder during an experiment.
Comment by Douglas — March 7, 2007 @ 4:48 am
March 7th, 2007 at 6:50 am
That sounds very Pelagian.
Vivid
Comment by Vividbleau — March 7, 2007 @ 6:50 am
March 7th, 2007 at 9:20 am
Douglas,
When Paul wrote about himself, he was writing about a regenerated man. Such a person does indeed have the ability to choose either to sin or not to sin. It is unregenerate man who cannot choose not to sin. Regeneration and belief do not have to happen at the same time, and in general they will not. We have no idea if Nathanael had been given a heart of flesh prior to meeting Jesus. Furthermore, I'd venture to say that Jesus was speaking in broad terms of Nathanael's character"”saying that here is an honest man"”which of course applies to many unregenerate people as well. (Nethanael, more than the others, voiced doubts about Jesus: "Can anything good come from Nazareth?""”and Christ commends him for his inquisitive mind and lack of guile"”another sign that scientific investigation is good!) What the classic view of original sin would argue is that even honesty among the unregenerate is sinful, for it is not with the intent of glorifying God.
Comment by David Heddle — March 7, 2007 @ 9:20 am
March 7th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Joy:
My take is slightly diffrent. I'm under the impression that the physical world we observe is a mental construction based on read functions (the remote sensors you speak of). We don't actually see the translation devices as they really are, only their representations after the translation has taken place. Whereas you say that we rely on various organelles of the brain to processes our experiences, imaginings and so forth, I say that these organelles are the end result of such a process as they are only known through the picture presented to us. Of course, to effect the organalles is to effect our experience but only because of what they represent.
Comment by Mertens — March 7, 2007 @ 9:38 am
March 7th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Mertens:
Well, there are some out-there physical extrapolations that postulate such things as manifestation in 3-space being a pure function of time, as 'instantons' measure time as movement in 3-space on the Planck level. IOW, all of creation is "recreated" instant to instant when it jumps from one coordinate location in 3-space to the next (the units are small, so a lot of it's merely matter's habit to be in this moment what it was the moment before).
This would have physical reality as a construct of the personal or impersonal 'observer' necessary to collapse wavefunctions by measurement (the coordinates in 3-space having moved, and that movement measured by the system).
So your impression has some theoretical validity if you want to go all the way down to point-space (nondimensional). This isn't really something we can empirically establish, however. So FAPP [For All Practical Purposes], I tend to be a realist. We, along with all other life forms along the scale of relative consciousness, do have material bodies gifted to us by nature and evolution. I've had children – their bodies were grown of material substance for nine months, meaning I had to supply the necessary ingredients via my intake of food (or the process taking nutrients from my physical body). Matter and energy doing a matter/energy dance in 3+1. Real, if anything is real.
Now, our understanding of the physical world is indeed a construct fed to consciousness as the end result of processing of sensory data and cross-references to memory, stored data and sometimes colored with added dollops of emotion. We (our 'higher', analytical and volitional consciousness) experience consciousness as a steady stream of 'moments' that are actually much, much longer – one to another – than instantons represent.
It takes our processors awhile to forward-feed the product to consciousness. IOW, there's a real-time delay, and I attribute this to the processing functions. They're really fast, but not instantaneous (beyond global entanglement of the processors themselves). Cross-connections and analysis using biochemical triggers proceeds in nanoseconds, but that includes further subprocessing).
It is true that all we know of the world is what we perceive of the world. That may not be an entirely accurate representation (it's just data), but it 'works' pretty well toward our physical survival in the physical world. And since our sensory equipment and processors are generally alike, we can agree about the definitions of what we can each perceive. We agree upon colors, and divvy them across the spectrum of light frequency. We agree upon shapes, textures, tastes, etc. too, but mostly because we learn to label the distinctions conventionally after we are born.
IOW, nobody has any real idea if what we call "red" is really the same color for you as for me, we've just agreed that 'this' color (point to it, give the kid a crayon) is "red," and all things that color are "red." We could as easily have called it "booga" and we'd all agree it's "booga." Then our quale of experience would be "booga-ness."
Bottom line – our sensors are designed to sample data from the world and input it to our processors, which process them and 'tell' us what is out there. I think you are confusing what is presented to consciousness after processing of the data – our representation (thus our understanding) of the world with the world itself. A finger-moon issue, IMO.
Comment by Joy — March 7, 2007 @ 10:53 am
March 7th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
There has been a lot of talk on this thread about original sin. However, I think that it would be more fruitful to talk about God' original intent and man's original state. According to the biblical account man was created as morally innocent yet granted the freedom to make signifigantly free moral choices. I think this is something that critics of the "free wiil defense" fail to take into account (of course they reject even an allegorical interpretation of Genesis). Of course the world today is different as the result as man's moral falleness but that is not the way that God originally created him, indeed the Biblical account says that man was placed in an idyllic environment. So what do we fault God for? Creating man in the first place? Giving him freedom and opportunity to seek and find interesting adventures? To begin to explore and learn about God's creation? Are those cruel and evil things? I don't think so. God's intention was good. The state into which he placed man was good. But, he also granted man free moral choice. It was man who made the choice which was not good. Of course the history of man since then has been primarily a history of poor moral choices. God has allowed that but also offers forgiveness. Is that something bad?
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — March 7, 2007 @ 12:30 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
John, I agree it was man who made the 'bad' moral choice (as judged). Which means it wasn't woman God was overly concerned about (just a rib, we can make more…). Obviously a set-up, and I do think that needs to be considered per what the allegory of these archetypes is trying to tell us.
If the Garden was so 'ideal', what the heck was a trash-talking snake doing in the midst of it?
Did the snake have super god-fooling powers to sneak in under the fence? Did God create evil in the snake (thus placing evil in the Garden)? Did the snake have free will, and if not, how is he capable of evil? Was he there at the behest of the creator? Was he co-equal to the creator, so put himself under the tree when God wasn't looking (so much for omniscience)? This snake character needs some careful examination, I think.
So… because the 'lesser' creation Eve was set up to be tempted by a very shady character with no 'good' intentions, the man is literally forced into an entirely different KIND of choice. His choice was between walking around in the evenings with God and naming things, or sharing Eve's inevitable fate of fall into matter (complete with mortality, suffering, etc.).
IOW, Adam's choice apparently meant more (to God) than Eve's did. Which is fair if you examine the context, since an omniscient deity would have known the snake was there and what would happen.
I'm guessing here that Eve was a lot more of an attraction to Adam than a talking snake would'a been, which is why she had to take the first bite. So the temptation (or pity, or desire to share Eve's fate because he loved her) would work on Adam.
Then God curses humanity in a monumental fit of rage, complete with flaming-sword cherubim enforcers. And Eden (somewhere near future Babylon) vanishes into the mists of history just like Avalon, never to be seen or heard from again.
If we can't reasonably explain the presence of a talking snake with a serious anti-god attitude and amazing powers of persuasion in what was advertised as a perfect paradise, then blaming either Adam or Eve is not something I think warrants imposing forever-suffering on the whole of humanity. Which, also according to that book, were wiped all the way down to 7 individuals and some critter pairs early on because God couldn't stand 'em living (and dying) outside the Garden either. Still had a big mad on.
Sure, 'good' and 'evil' are forever at war here in this non-idyllic world, and death always wins in the end. But the allegory looks to me like it was Love that got us here (Adam's love for Eve, not God's love for either of them), and most humans still think love is a good enough reason to stay for awhile. And it doesn't look to me like God ever figured out what real love is, or he'd have known he couldn't just demand it by edict and threats. Fear, awe, terror… these come easy. Love is something else.
The books say he incarnated a couple of millennia ago to check it out for himself (and simplify things down to bedrock), but that just got him killed, after suffering a little of what humans have been suffering at the hands of their evil kin ever since that day in the Garden. Have things changed yet?
I realize the allegory is very ancient. Thus it's formalized in a certain way with respect to cosmology of its origin. It was God's experiment. He/she/it/they (the plural is used in the plotting stage, so that's why the snake is so suspicious) supposedly conducted it on purpose. A tale…
For insight, see Job.
Comment by Joy — March 7, 2007 @ 2:54 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Joy,
Nice post. It's nice of you to try and actually put some meaning into the Genesis myth. So much of the discussion becomes a war about it's historicity and thus the reliability of the literal meanings of the Hebrew writings. If you treat it as you would one of the fables of olden time and search for it's lessons, you have a man giving up everything and then suffering everything for the one he loves. The God of the myth then acts, typically, in the extravagance of a jilted suitor.
If you poll most of us, and ask us just what is the most compelling experience of this life, all the wise will say "love". The pursuit of love which seeks the best interest of the beloved is really the ballgame. Some spend a lifetime running away from that truth. Others learn along the way and prosper as their days grow shorter. We may not know much, but we do know this. For all the rest we have Mastercard.
Comment by bj — March 7, 2007 @ 3:17 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Joy, Thanks for the long thought provoking response. Let me briefly respond to a couple of things you wrote about. (Tonights bowling night so I don't have the time to respond as I would like… Gota go bowling with my buddies!) You said:
Was that snake just a myth? Is Satan just a myth? Is Evil just a myth?
If there is anything that I have learned from my study of history is that there is a very real, very cruel, unnatural evil running amok in our world. Think of the last 100 yrs think of Hitler, think of the Nazis, thinkd of the concentration camps. Evil is very real. We make a mistake when we think of "the Fall" happening way back then. Every time man succumbs to evil he commits the same mistake that occurred at the so called Fall. The Fall Keeps happening over and over again. That's what we need to understand. We especially need to understand why good men often fail to do anything to resist Evil till it's often too late. What's lost in the mists of history is, well, lost.
Second,you said:
But, what about the story of the good samaritan? What is that about? And who was it that tryed to teach us that lesson? The world does need love, but it is more than love of a man for a woman.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — March 7, 2007 @ 3:58 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Joy:
A very good question. It's interesting that you brought up the book of Job. If you consider the 1st chapter and cross reference it with the Eden account in Genesis as well as John 8:44 the snake's identity becomes much clearer. Of course this is coming from a historical perspective instead of the allegorical one you take.
As for the other topic:
To the contrary, I wholehartedly agree that our representation is not the same as the world as it is, if you can even call it that. It's just that everything physical including the brain is part of the representation.
BTW I have no doubt you know alot more about counciousness models than me. I've read some by Stuart Hammerhoff, Jack Sarfatti and others (still a bit over my head). What do you think of these and is there anything you can recommend to me?
Comment by Mertens — March 7, 2007 @ 4:04 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Joy:
To the contrary, I wholehartedly agree that our representation of the world is not the same as the world itself, if you can even call it that. It's just that the physical world including our bodies (and the brain) is part of the representation.
BTW, I seems that you are in the know about current theories of mind. I've read a couple like Penrose and Hamerhof's Orch-Or reduction or Jack Sarfatti's Post-quantum back action (Just trying to understand concepts, my math ends with integral calculus with imaginary numbers). What do you think about these and could you recommend anything you find interesting?
Comment by Mertens — March 7, 2007 @ 4:21 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Sorry about the double post. Didn't know if the first one went through due to the delay.
Comment by Mertens — March 7, 2007 @ 5:12 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
bj:
LOL!!! Well, some do.
John:
Yes, there is evil in human beings, who can imagine the worst of horrors and then make them real – even enjoy it. Who denies it?
I've mostly challenged the literalists with these observations and questions, because they don't really seem to have thought out their stance clearly. Besides, I got my questions and interpretations from Jews, whose origin cosmology Genesis *is*. Who don't tend to take it literally. They do continually try to fathom what it means.
Literalists don't need meaning – they read it flat, and don't seem to notice the tragic contradictions in the story, which present themselves over and over and over again in all the so-carefully preserved all-too-human stories that follow, in all the books. Repeated themes in Holy Writ usually mean they're concepts that need particular attention. The God of the Garden does not appear to be omniscient. The God in the Cain-Abel story showed a definite fondness for bloody death, before humans had ever committed murder or even tasted meat. The God of the Flood is way, way overboard vindictive. And the God of Job is just plain evil.
Per the beginnings and struggles of Genesis (including a very strange tale of finally granting an elderly couple the child they yearned so long for, then ordering Abraham to slit his throat), one might suspect it's an entirely different god from the one Jesus called His [loving] Father. Maybe there's more than one god. Or maybe the one god finally grew up. I don't claim to know, I just see the issues and can grok why so many in the modern world aren't impressed.
Comment by Joy — March 7, 2007 @ 5:27 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Mertens:
Are you saying that the 'personification' of evil predates humans? That human evil is not human, but the work of a demigod? Who was God's best friend, if Job is to be taken as literally as Genesis. I know, I know. You'll tell me about Satan's great fall too. Was that before or after human evil? Or *is it* human evil?
And just an aside, Adam never met the snake.
I like the Penrose-Hameroff model pretty well, even though it's a bit weak on the actin-connection as well as the fact that I'm not all that fond of quantum gravity. Of course, if I were to mention massless extremals with hedgehog vectors collapsing through an 8-dimensional spacetime (so alignment comes in stages, as it must), somebody out there would scream "Monopoles!" and suspect that I think it's all magnetic or something… §;o)
J.J. McFadden has a fairly interesting field theory of consciousness, but it's got a few problems too. They all do. Limitations are mostly to physical correlates, operational mechanics, lack of definition for the property[ies] at issue, and of course, the embedded presence of professional nay-sayers (metaphysical materialists guarding the turf) who insist there's no such thing. Penrose's series on the human mind is good, and not too difficult to fathom.
We're obviously having some issues with the spam filter. It grabbed me yesterday and today. Should be rectified soon (I hope!).
Comment by Joy — March 7, 2007 @ 5:51 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
John:
Until the appearance and mission of Christ, where was love ever displayed by God to man? Oh, we hear it a lot "God loved [whoever]", but mostly to describe someone exceptionally handsome, or wealthy, or lucky, or successful in battle, etc. Your basic "favored by the gods" that's been around forever. And a lot of the notable OT moral failings of God could be the same sort of attributions – assigning to God what were in fact just really nasty political wars and amazing natural disasters.
Maybe creation was an act of love, but Genesis doesn't describe it so. Everything thereafter – before Christ and after Christ (and in His name) has been pretty ugly.
Human love comes in a number of forms. From the exclusivity of man-woman (after polygamy became unpopular) to the multiplications of parent-child, sibling-sibling, the rest of family ties, friends, communities, nations, humankind in general… humans don't seem to have trouble expressing love, any more than they have trouble expressing evil. Seems as if we 'know' them both. So, apparently, does God (if we go ahead and credit Christ with a monumental display of love that God hasn't shown before or since to the whole world).
Just ruminations. Y'all can pay me no mind, as I make no claims to knowledge or truth.
Comment by Joy — March 7, 2007 @ 6:12 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Joy,
Amen. I have marveled and respected how some have gone to this OT book and found solace given the actions of the deity toward this good man. If you can, more power to you. I shuddered when reading it, even while healthy, hoping I never had to come back to it during sickness.
Well, so much for the charge that all IDists are Christian fundamentalists.
Comment by bj — March 7, 2007 @ 6:16 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Job didn't think so.:wink:
Comment by chunkdz — March 7, 2007 @ 6:54 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Joy channels Richard Dawkins:
I just thought it was worth commenting that Joy agrees wholeheartedly with Richard Dawkins on this one.
Just to add a few points, the OT God is also forgetful, can be negotiated with, and makes mistakes that he regrets later.
Not much like the God that modern Christians worship, yet most of them insist they are one and the same. Why is that?
Comment by keiths — March 7, 2007 @ 7:10 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Joy wrote:
chunkdz replied:
Chunk,
If God had just finished doing to you what He did to Job, wouldn't you say what you thought He wanted to hear? Anything to avoid setting Him off again.
Comment by keiths — March 7, 2007 @ 7:13 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
bj:
Strangely enough, Job is one of my favorite books of the Bible. I've always been rather drawn to it, maybe just because every time I read it, I learn something new that seems 'important'. Holy Writ is of course that way through and through, and the Biblical authors were exceptionally clever (as well as inspired). Sometimes Job seems almost a comedy of errors, but you'd have to appreciate really biting satire.
My Dad was horrified to find me reading Job in the days after my son died. Tried hard to convince me to go to the Gospel of John (quite beautiful, that) instead. John's for when I'm feeling mystical, which I certainly wasn't feeling at that time. It always seemed to me that in the last discourse, when God is boasting so petulantly of all his great and terrible powers, that he sounds like a child there, too. Job is nobody, and knows it. This super-being has targeted him just to win a bet with Satan, and then has to stomp his feet and pound his chest for Job's insignificant attention – while NOT answering any of Job's pointed questions?
To which Job says yep, you're even badder than I thought! Let me just cover myself in ashes here…
Job won the debate hands down. And never does this 'Almighty' God seem to understand that obedience, terror and overwhelming awe are not love. Maybe he had to be human first. Do a little atoning both ways.
Comment by Joy — March 7, 2007 @ 7:21 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
keiths:
Well, the tragic contradiction(s) are not that difficult to see, are they? Notice, however, that I have said all this without calling anyone a moron, idiot, child abuser, or any other of the colorful epithets Dawkins and his hate-consumed 'friends' like to throw at other people, as if they were all wannabe OT godlings.
I think it doesn't hurt to question. Perhaps it's because – as noted in the OP – we really are hard-wired for God. If we don't question (seek) and reason (use our minds), how will we ever learn anything? [Yes, I know you believe that religious people are not allowed to question or reason, but that's not a general truth, is a bigoted misconception].
Because that's what Jesus told us. §;o)
Comment by Joy — March 7, 2007 @ 7:39 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Joy, your first paragraph would have been more convincing if you'd refrained from the strawman argument in the second. I've never seen Keith argue that religious people are barred from rationality, however vehemently he argues against specific religious beliefs.
Comment by Mesk — March 7, 2007 @ 8:02 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Joy,
Thanks for the take on Job
My background in scripture is literalistic until I just couldn't do it anymore. I am aware of other ways of finding meaning therein, but I am just not practiced in such.
Comment by bj — March 7, 2007 @ 8:15 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Mesk:
By golly, you're probably right. I too tend to assign certain well-publicized and oft-repeated prejudices of the EA crowd across the board.
keiths – If indeed you do believe that religious people are allowed to question and reason about their interpretations, I apologize for an assumption I should not have made.
Comment by Joy — March 7, 2007 @ 9:04 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
keiths wrote
Is that what you've gleaned from reading Job? I must say you make exegesis look easy. It's almost as if you didn't even have to read the book to make a judgement about it.
But since you've asked – if God brought me through a trial like that, then blessed me with twice what I had before, and I lived to be 140, and all my friends and neighbors came and gave me lots of gold and stuff, and I had oodles of children and grandchildren… well let's just say I'd consider myself a blessed man, and perhaps a better man for having gone through a trial of that magnitude.
How about you?
Comment by chunkdz — March 7, 2007 @ 10:32 pm
March 7th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
Mesk wrote:
Mesk,
Thanks for pointing that out to Joy.
Joy wrote:
Indeed I do, although the degree to which they are allowed to reason and question obviously varies with the group to which they belong. As far as I can tell, almost anything goes, belief-wise, in a Unitarian/Universalist congregation, including atheism. Other groups are less lenient (just ask Spinoza or Bruno).
Anyway, I appreciate and accept the apology.
Comment by keiths — March 7, 2007 @ 11:37 pm
March 8th, 2007 at 12:14 am
chunkdz asks:
Actually, I read Job two or three times as a Christian and probably five or six times after leaving the faith. It makes a lot more sense to me now that I view it like any other piece of ancient literature.
If my ten children had been killed because of what amounted to a bar bet between God and Satan, then no, I wouldn't feel particularly blessed, even if God gave me ten more kids and a bunch of gold. You can't replace a dead child.
And knowing that God could experience another mood swing at any time and take it all away again is not really conducive to a serene life.
Comment by keiths — March 8, 2007 @ 12:14 am
March 8th, 2007 at 12:21 am
If you read opening chapters of the book, it is quite clear who did these horrible things to Job.
Comment by inunison — March 8, 2007 @ 12:21 am
March 8th, 2007 at 12:23 am
sorry opening chapters should read opening verses
Comment by inunison — March 8, 2007 @ 12:23 am
March 8th, 2007 at 12:46 am
Why would you need to replace a dead child?
Comment by stunney — March 8, 2007 @ 12:46 am
March 8th, 2007 at 1:04 am
For those given to moral criticism aimed at Job's God, a question:
Where do you get your moral intuition about this from, and what justifies it?
Comment by stunney — March 8, 2007 @ 1:04 am
March 8th, 2007 at 1:06 am
Why would you need to replace a dead child?
Comment by stunney — March 8, 2007 @ 1:06 am
March 8th, 2007 at 1:08 am
Why would you need to replace a dead child?
Comment by stunney — March 8, 2007 @ 1:08 am
March 8th, 2007 at 1:29 am
inunison wrote:
And those same chapters make it quite clear who allows and encourages Satan to do those things to Job, not once but twice:
Job 1:8-12
Job 2:3-8
Comment by keiths — March 8, 2007 @ 1:29 am
March 8th, 2007 at 1:44 am
stunney asks:
You wouldn't, because as I said earlier, you can't.
Comment by keiths — March 8, 2007 @ 1:44 am
March 8th, 2007 at 4:30 am
keiths wrote:
First you claim "mood swinging" God did it because Job set Him off. When challenged you changed your story and claim that God "allows and encourages Satan to do these things to Job." So now tell us how did God encouraged Satan to hurt Job?
On the short note without going into theological treatise, God is not the originator of evil, but He has accepted responsibility for it in Christ. He is able to use it in the fulfillment of His purpose without being its cause. And He is able to exterminate it from the universe.
Comment by inunison — March 8, 2007 @ 4:30 am
March 8th, 2007 at 8:22 am
inunison wrote:
I didn't claim that Job set Him off. It was clearly Satan's taunts that did that. I said that if I were Job, I'd do whatever I could to avoid setting Him off again.
Same story. God is responsible for what happens to Job. He's omnipotent and omniscient. When he hands Job over to Satan, He knows exactly what the results will be. (In any case, it doesn't exactly take omniscience to figure out that Satan isn't going to coddle Job).
If a man hands his daughter over to a known serial molester, saying "Do whatever you want with her, as long as you don't kill her," wouldn't that count as encouragement? Would you defend the father as blameless? How is this different from what God does to Job?
And by the way, if you read the story carefully, you'll see that it is God who starts the whole thing by boasting about Job, and God is the one who suggests that Satan have a go at testing Job.
You may think that this sort of God is worthy of worship, and of course that is your right. But don't be surprised to see the rest of us shuddering at the thought.
Comment by keiths — March 8, 2007 @ 8:22 am
March 8th, 2007 at 11:50 am
keiths:
"Worthy" isn't the real issue, at least not for those who do worship this God – including Job. Worship does not necessarily entail love, particularly where love is apparently not reciprocal to begin with. In the matter of what had long been conceived as an all-powerful, very ill-tempered, jealous and bloodthirsty deity who demands complete submission and obedience, 'The Fear of God' is quite enough to justify covering one's self wish ashes.
My issue is more to note the difference between the Terrible and Fearsome God so well acquainted with evil done to man, and the Loving Father God of Christ. Just examine Job's sophistication *as* a morality tale. The monologues of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar highlight the misconception that misfortune is always a divine punishment, therefore Job must be responsible for his plight.
The OT is rife with this misconception, and promotes it overtly. The Book of Job questions it very pointedly – biting satire. In the end, God condemns Job's friends for their misconceptions and affirms that Job indeed understood better than they that he had done no wrong to deserve such suffering. Whether there was ever a real Job is of course debatable, many seeing it as a prophetic parable – a fine-point distinction between God's confidence and wrath and a prelude to love later expressed in Christ.
What I have called the 'childishness' of the early OT God probably reflects more the immaturity of the culture and people involved, having perhaps very little to do with the actual nature of God and a lot to do with how the early Hebrews understood their terrible God. There is progressive sophistication through the historical books. As mentioned, the NT is positively hellenic in its sophistication.
IOW, it's not God who 'grew up', it was humanity.
Comment by Joy — March 8, 2007 @ 11:50 am
March 8th, 2007 at 11:55 am
The bible is pretty clear here that God brought all the evil upon Job.
But Stunney hit the bullseye:
Job was smart enough to realize that he didn't have nearly enough understanding of God to pass judgement on him or question his morality.
When I was a youngster and got my shots from the doctor, I was absolutely convinced that my dad was evil for allowing such horror to happen to me. With time, (and a box of popsicles) I was reassured that my dad did love me. I still didn't understand the shot thing, and my butt still hurt, and I still feared the doctor, but I knew deep down that my dad had my best interests at heart – It was just way beyond my understanding.
Keiths and Joy should understand that painful and evil circumstances say little about the motives of the one who inflicts them. It's what happens after the heartache that reveals the true nature of God.
Comment by chunkdz — March 8, 2007 @ 11:55 am
March 8th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
I agree Stunney has made a real good point. I've tryed to raise this issue before, most recently with Keiths on another thread: if you have a morality that is superior to to God's then please tell how how that morality could help change the awful mess that everyone including Christians agree that we are in on this planet? Furthermore, explain to me what the rational purpose of the contempt and hatred thrown at people of faith by Richard Dawkin's, P.Z. Meyers et al. is supposed to accomplish? Is it meant to try to get religious people to repent? Is there a compassionate purpose behind the apparent hatred? Is there any thing justified by this kind of hatred?
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — March 8, 2007 @ 12:38 pm
March 8th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Joy says:
I was showing that from a scriptual perspective, Satan is not 'the personification of evil' but the first fallen angel who used the serpent as a means of deception. I'm afraid I don't get your point concerning God's best friend.
Well, what was the point of Christ's mission and how does that relate to God's promise to Abraham?
Joy:
Keiths:
If God can prove Man's intregity and completely undo any suffering it caused through eventual resurrection, what's the beef?
Comment by Mertens — March 8, 2007 @ 2:47 pm
March 8th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Both questions raise many other pertinent questions regarding the way people like Dawkins use the term morality.
They believe that our moral system is a product of the evolutionary process because morality had some selective advantages. i.e. our genes for altruism were selected. Morover, they speak as though this naturally evolved moral system is so perfect that it can be used as a precise universal reference point to judge almost everything including gods. i.e. not only our naturally evolved moral system has played an important role in survival of our race but also it has been evolved so perfectly that it can decide how a hypothetical god should or should not behave!
If our evolutionary process had taken a different path on a different planet then certainly we would have a totally different moral system. So from a naturalistic point of view our moral values is one of those infinite possible moral values that might have been evolved naturally in our universe. When there is a possibility for many alternative moral systems, terms such as "truth", "evil" and "good" become empty words with no real meaning. Which moral values should a God be subjected to? Moral values of human or moral values of the Klingons?
It demonstrates the circular deadlock in naturalistic way of reasoning when it comes to moral values.
Comment by Farshad — March 8, 2007 @ 3:01 pm
March 8th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
chunkdz:
Actually, Job WAS questioning the morality of God. His friends in turn offer their admonitions to the goodness, justice, mercy, favoritism, etc. of God.
"God has wronged me, and surrounded me with his net," he responds to Bildad. This is a charge against the morality his friends keep insisting belongs to God (thus Job must have offended). But Job knows he is innocent, and by the introduction we also know he's right. He demands that God answer (explain why he has done all this evil to a mere man of dust).
God finally does show up in a whirlwind, but how does he answer Job?
"Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me."
God goes on about all his stupendous powers, etc., ending with
"Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? He who rebukes God, let him answer it."
Oh I get it just fine, thanks. It's the old "because I say so" defense I've used myself many a time when dealing with children challenging my power and questioning my edicts. As your father did with the shots, though it sounds like you submitted easier than my kids ever did! Took three corpsmen to hold my 4-year old son down for shots, and only after they'd chased him halfway across the hospital first and carried him back kicking and screaming.
You are right about the 'moral of the story', and this is the standard response to theodicy – God is All-knowing and All-powerful, you don't know anything. Except, of course, that Job DID know he was blameless and was right to say so to his friends and to God.
Job finds that God – in whom he'd believed and feared by faith – is even badder (more powerful and terrifying) in person! Fine, never mind, let me just disappear now…
Yet there was God Himself, appearing in answer to Job's demand that He do so – "I know my redeemer lives!" – even if the response was just to proclaim all-mightiness, something Job had never doubted in the first place. I'm sure the friends were amazed to find that Job could command the presence of God, even in his pitifully fallen state.
God defends Job's blamelessness to the ill-comforting friends, orders sacrifice (atonement) from them and disappears. Big sigh of relief, Job lives happily ever after.
This comports nicely with the NT idea that suffering can glorify God, and thematically foreshadows the coming of the Redeemer. What it does not do is excuse or even explain God's role in the evil done to Job. Nor does it in any way indicate that God isn't perfectly capable of generating evil.
Comment by Joy — March 8, 2007 @ 3:52 pm
March 8th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Sounds about right, Joy.
But nothing you've just said is an indictment against God as being "evil", any more than a child can say that his pediatrician is "evil" with any authority. Purposefully causing pain and suffering might hurt real bad, but we are in no position to attribute "evil" to the pain giver. The child doesn't know what a vaccine is and we don't know what God might have in mind.
That's why doctors give lollipops, moms and dads give ice cream, and God gave Job long life and a full quiver of children.
Comment by chunkdz — March 8, 2007 @ 4:22 pm
March 8th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Mertens:
Yet this begs the very questions I asked – what was a talking snake doing in the midst of the Garden, and did God know about it? Though I have to admit that as a woman, the deception would easier have been carried out by an angel (apparently the most beautiful one, too) than a snake. But what do I know? §;o)
In Judaic tradition Satan isn't the scapegoat for human evil that Christians (or, some of them) like to think. He's "The Adversary" with charge over the earth (like a principality) and a very bad opinion of humans. Which he no doubt earned from his dealings with them.
Now, if God did know the snake was in the Garden and let it be, and felt compelled to wager His most trusting servant to prove something to Satan (though we aren't told how Satan paid off on that wager), these characters – and I say 'character' because I think both stories are archetypal allegory – reflect a certain nature you could easily find in a couple of elderly Jewish 'best friends' whose whole life revolves around arguing about Mishna or Talmudic fine points in any orthodox or Hassidic neighborhood.
Just what it conjures for me. If it's all about "knowing good and evil" then evil must exist and be knowable.
Mertens to keiths:
Why do we punish murder?
Farshad:
Well, perhaps God said it best:
"Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? He who rebukes God, let him answer it."
The only answer we'll get from Dawkins & Co. is that they don't believe this God exists. I don't know about you, but I can't command God's presence to take these guys on, so I'll have to be content to let God do it Himself if he's a mind to. I sure don't expect they care about any argument I could offer.
Comment by Joy — March 8, 2007 @ 6:01 pm
March 8th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Joy:
Yet God's role in the evil done to Job is explained at the very beginning. God allows Job to suffer in order to give a reply to his cheif accuser. This is the same one who told Eve that she was being lied to in order to keep her from her rightful place as God's moral equal. Now, by accusing Job, Satan is arguing that Mankind is inherently flawed; our intregity is based on bribes and not on actual love. IOW, we are incapable of giving to God what he asks from us. Obviously we have diffrent opinions regarding the worth of answering such charges given the amount of human misery this calls for.
Comment by Mertens — March 8, 2007 @ 6:09 pm
March 8th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
I think I see your point. If God can undo the results of evil and suffering does that excuse us, and him, from allowing it to happen in the first place? And if it doesn't excuse us, then why would it be any diffrent for Him? Well, if motives are irrelvant then we're all condemned…
Comment by Mertens — March 8, 2007 @ 6:32 pm
March 8th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
If the Genesis account is taken as is apart from any further development in later scripture then it's hard to answer your question. The account doesn't say if the snake was intended by God or not. It also doesn't say if he knew about it before Eve's sin. I would say this: what do we know about God at this point? Which answers to these questions would best match his revealed personality?
Comment by Mertens — March 8, 2007 @ 6:54 pm
March 8th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Joy, I like the child metaphor. The child must develop and mature, it's a gradual process. Humanity must be prepared for the definitive sign that God will give it. This is why I find it a little silly that people would judge the OT stories on the basis of a mind morally enlightened from thousand of years of Christianity. It's like an adult taking issue with a child for not being an adult. And yet the child does foreshadow the adult he will be.
Job is a "type" of Christ, who will repeats the whole story in the New Testament. Christ is the ultimate "just" man who is left to the power of Satan to do his worst. Is Christ's Father not as mad and terrible as the OT God? Pope Benedict once described the crucifixion of Christ as "God turning against Himself". This "Father" of Christ is just as mad as the OT God, just as jealous for man's love. So much so that he is willing to "turn against himself" to save men. It's the madness of God's love for humanity. A love which, as Pope Benedict keeps emphasizing, is both "eros" and "agape". So I don't find the God of the OT and NT so discontinuous as others, I consider it part of the divine madness of God's passionate love for humanity.
Comment by Brian Killian — March 8, 2007 @ 7:06 pm
March 8th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Mertens:
As indeed we are… unless we accept the offered gift – that 'other' tree.
Well I sure don't know. They're just questions to ponder. I do like the 'scientist' scenario though, because it tends to justify a "special" creation possessed of free will, as well as special status in a special place [Garden, apart from the world]. And the presence of the two forbidden trees.
Now, maybe the snake was guarding just the one tree [knowledge of good and evil], to make sure that a particular choice would be made. The reaction of the "We" [Elohim/plural god, with whom the snake may have been associated] seems to indicate that the tree of life was a serious concern to them even during the course of the experiment. Or maybe there was something equally mystical guarding the other tree [unicorn? §;o)] that couldn't talk, so Eve wasn't tempted by it.
Had she eaten that fruit (and convinced Adam to eat too, so they could live forever together), maybe they'd have remained servants in the Garden forever and we never would have heard about any of it.
The only thing that seems clear is that if God is all that He is purported to be, he knew the snake was there, gave it a specific job, and things went from there. Perhaps to ever be adequate companions to such a being, we DO need to know both good and evil. It gives our choices some real meaning.
Comment by Joy — March 8, 2007 @ 7:43 pm
March 8th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Brian Killian:
Oh, there's enough foreshadowing going on throughout the collection to demonstrate the common theme. Over and over again, throughout ages of development from tribes to strangers in a strange land, to 40 years of desert wandering and lawgiving, to conquest, civilization, judges, kings, wealth, power, and dozens of scribes, authors, chroniclers and… and along come a spate of prophets in a crucial period of judgment on the pride of the nations [Israel, Judah]. Scraggly, barefoot holy men with bizarre habits and words, with their increasingly urgent underlying thematic… Messiah Is Coming. The long-awaited Redeemer.
How the Jews managed that – along with its themes-within-themes, encoded super-themes and such while painting huge panoramas of life in so few words, no one can say. As if words committed to papyrus and parchment were something most precious and inspired, while spoken words are so cheap. There is something breathtaking here. In its original language, in ours, in everyone's. Never ceases to amaze me, and I'm not too easily amazed.
But in truth, I think the increasing maturity of the message reflects the increasing maturity of the people who lived it, not really of the God who inspired it.
Comment by Joy — March 8, 2007 @ 7:58 pm
March 9th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Jesus' parable is another take on the Fall of man. In the parable the younger son of some unamed man demands his inheritance so he can take off for Vegas (or some place like that) and pursue his hedonistic desires: women, drinking, gambling… (some thing never change!) Now why does the father let him go in the first place? Is that truly loving? The father, afterall, has the power to do so; all he has to do is with hold his son's inheritance. I think the first point of the story is that love, to be true love, cannot be coercive. No one including an omnipotent creator/father like the God of the Bible can coerce love. What happens when humans try to coerce love? The result is never good; too often it is tragic. When God created man he created him with the capacity to give and recieve love; between God and man, between woman and man, and man and man etc. God is as limited in this regard as man. His power is limited by his goodness. Coercion would destroy the love he seeks. Like the father he can only sit and wait and hope that his son will come to his senses and voluntarily and humbly return to him seeking his forgiveness. In a nutshell that is the whole point of Bible. In a nutshell that is why He created mankind. And, of course, that is why he sent us his Son.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — March 9, 2007 @ 12:36 pm
March 9th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I forgot the title of the parable in the posting above. Of course it is the "Parable of the Prodigal Son". Below is a quote from Alvin Plantinga which I think is relevant:
Freedom is obviously intricately related to love. One must have freedom to truly love.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — March 9, 2007 @ 3:45 pm
March 9th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Joy
Surely, this is close to the truth. The idea that we can actually understand these deeper realities is quite presumptuous, in my opinion. But, movement in the world's theologies toward the practice of love rather than the abusive use of authority as seen in Job is a step in the right direction. In my view the underlying realities are unknowable, but that doesn't mean we can't make progress. We are headed somewhere and our individual responsibility to do our part is enough for now.
Comment by bj — March 9, 2007 @ 4:49 pm
March 10th, 2007 at 6:33 am
An omnibus reply…
stunney asked:
It doesn't matter, because the moral precepts by which I judge Job's God are part of Christian morality. If Job's God is the Christian God, then it is up to Christians to explain why He doesn't honor his own precepts in that story.
Joy wrote:
Of course, which is why it is so amazing to watch the painful contortions some Christians go through in order to defend the idea that the Old and New Testament are both true descriptions of the same unchanging God.
chunkdz wrote:
Yes, it is theoretically possible that God has inflicted all of the evil and suffering in the world on us in pursuit of a higher good. Being fallible beings with limited information, we cannot absolutely rule out that possibility. But by the same logic, we cannot absolutely rule out the possibility that God is evil and has only "inflicted" goodness and happiness on us in order to bring about a greater evil in the long run.
Here are some of the possibilities:
1. God is good, and evil and suffering are necessary byproducts.
2. God is evil, and goodness and happiness are necessary byproducts.
3. God is good, but cannot overpower the forces of evil.
4. God is evil, but cannot overpower the forces of good.
5. God is neither purely good nor purely evil.
6. There is no God.
Since certainty is not possible, we pick the alternative which seems most probable given the information available to us. Option #1 is definitely not the most probable, especially since nobody has come up with a plausible explanation of how natural evil leads to a greater good.
bj wrote:
The idea that we would ever determine the chemical composition of stars seemed presumptuous to Comte.
If God is subject to logic, as most theologians believe, then we can reason about Him based on evidence gleaned from his creation. If God transcends logic, then all bets are off — and on. He could be evil and not evil at the same time, and good and not good. He could exist and not exist. All of which is quite acceptable in some eastern religions, but not to most Christians.
Comment by keiths — March 10, 2007 @ 6:33 am
March 10th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
The greatest commandment according to Jesus is to love God with all one's heart, strength and mind—one might say totally and unconditionally. A good case could be made that this is what Job does, and what Job's God teaches him.
From the point of view of life, plate tectonics are a good thing. Pain is a good thing, or at least adaptively advantageous. And we could go on from there…
Once you specify some complete alternative mathematically coherent physical science of a hypothetical different universe with different natural laws, and you calculate its total physical consequences, then we can compare it to the consequences of the physics of the actual world and see which is better.
Comment by stunney — March 10, 2007 @ 2:34 pm
March 10th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
stunney,
And he teaches Job this by torturing him. Come on. The more you try to explain this, the deeper the hole you dig. Far better to believe that Israel's understanding of the nature of God grew up in time. That way you get to keep the loving Father of Jesus and leave the God of Job where he belongs-a relic of ancient history-an anthropological curiosity.
Comment by bj — March 10, 2007 @ 2:58 pm
March 10th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
keiths:
So what? Individuals in most of the first world have the liberty to believe as they choose to believe, for their own reasons. No one need justify their beliefs to you or me, or to Richard Dawkins, the Pope, the Dalai Lama or Osama bin Laden. Complaining about the rights of others doesn't abrogate their rights, it calls into question whether you actually value your own rights.
You can't force people to believe as you believe. Live and let live works pretty well for most situations, I've found.
Comment by Joy — March 10, 2007 @ 6:03 pm
March 10th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
No, I won't 'come on' with your tendentiously perverse interpretation.
Caring for a spouse with terminal cancer isn't a pleasure-garden. But it is a school of love in a way that a pleasure garden can never be.
The same goes for Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross. "Into your hands I commend my spirit". Quite Job-like really, when you think about it. So the attempt by keiths to draw a moral chasm between the Book of Job and the New Testament doesn't hold water.
Comment by stunney — March 10, 2007 @ 6:30 pm
March 11th, 2007 at 1:45 am
Joy wrote:
Joy, I have three requests:
1. Show me one place where I've said that people should not have the right to believe whatever they want.
2. Explain how it is, according to you, that when I argue a point, I'm trying to force it on people, but when you do so you're practicing "live and let live."
3. When you get the urge to hurl an accusation, figure out if it's true beforehand. If it isn't, drop it.
Comment by keiths — March 11, 2007 @ 1:45 am
March 11th, 2007 at 8:24 am
stunney wrote:
stunney,
If you're arguing that we can't judge whether the world is good or bad, optimal or not, then why do you assume its creator is good?
Really?
1 John 4:8
Exodus 21:20
Leviticus 24:10
Deuteronomy 13:6
Deuteronomy 25:11
Comment by keiths — March 11, 2007 @ 8:24 am
March 11th, 2007 at 11:07 am
keiths:
Why do you assume that the indictments of God lobbed by someone who takes all of scripture more literally than the vast majority of Christians AND doesn't believe any of it will succeed in convincing Christians (and Jews) to abandon their scriptures and their beliefs?
Very strange.
Comment by Joy — March 11, 2007 @ 11:07 am
March 11th, 2007 at 11:26 am
keiths, you wrote
My reply was aimed at your use of the word 'definitely' which, in the absence of your specifying the complete physics and their consequences for any putative and superior alternative universe-design, is obviously unwarranted.
Your 'really' was followed by a one-verse reference to the New Testament and by no references to Job.
Not very impressive or even relevant as a rebuttal, thus revealing your 'really' to be quite inane, and puerile. Not to mention that I'm not a Biblical fundamentalist, and so am sternly unmoved by simplistic quote-mining from either believers or unbelievers as an argumentative strategy.
Comment by stunney — March 11, 2007 @ 11:26 am
March 11th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Keith, the literary form of Job is poetry, with prose prologue and epilogue, which many scholars believe were probably added later. Some trace it to the Midian area of Sinai (supported by references to mining), or a southern Arabian morality tale sung in the oral traditions. And perhaps picked up by Moses from Jethro, his father-in-law. Kept for its beauty, its forever pertinence, and its educational value in regards the obvious question of evil.
There is poetry in the Bible and I can't think of any believer, no matter how literalist about Genesis, not knowing you can't read poetry that way. Poetry is all about metaphor, allegory and deeper meanings. They reach for and sometimes touch a mystic sense. The Song of Songs [Song of Solomon] is particularly racy… and among the most beautiful (I'd say the most beautiful) love songs ever written in any language, in any age. Do you take it as literally as you take Job?
As you have been told here, the lesson of Job isn't hard to discern – bad things happen to good people – and the deeper lessons are there to learn if you wish to see. Its conception of the final cause (the wager with Satan in the prologue) could only have been added after the concept of The Adversary was formalized, and that was in the last half of the first millennium bc, around the time of the Babylonian exile when the Jews were exposed to Zoroastrianism.
And on top of the history, there's the variation on a theme. Which has also been mentioned to you in this thread. The Bible, written by various authors and kept sacrosanct over two thousand years before its last chapter, is rife with repeating themes. All of which lead to a certain denouement. If you doubt the accuracy of transmission during the two thousand years since, Google "Dead Sea Scrolls" and check the comparisons.
To assert a literal-ness that most Christians who have studied scripture don't adhere to, as an argument against the texts' value to the believer of its depths of meaning, is somewhat insulting. Not just to beliefs, but to intelligence. All it can do is illustrate your childish understanding of the text and its nature, to explain why YOU don't believe any of it. It cannot be expected to sway the beliefs of anyone who knows better.
In my experience, believers believe there are rational reasons to believe. The fact that we are hard-wired to sense something we can call "God" leads people naturally to seek knowledge about God, and value knowledge gained with their lives. All the insults in the world won't change that.
Comment by Joy — March 11, 2007 @ 1:05 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 12:16 am
stunney wrote:
stunney,
Probability is always gauged based on the information at hand. Based on the information we have about our world, option #1 — the idea that God is perfectly good, and evil and suffering are necessary byproducts of that greater good — is definitely not the most probable of the alternatives I listed. (Not "probably not the most probable," as you seem to think I should have said).
I quoted Job earlier in the thread here. Those verses were sufficient to show that the God of Job does evil. The additional verses from Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers show that the problem is not confined to Job, but pervades the Old Testament.
I'm glad to hear you're not a fundamentalist. What criteria do you use to decide which parts of the Bible should be ignored, and which should be taken seriously?
And again, I would ask — if you contend that we are not equipped to judge whether creation is optimal, then why do you assert God's goodness rather than acknowledging that God might be good, might be bad, or might be something in between?
Comment by keiths — March 12, 2007 @ 12:16 am
March 12th, 2007 at 1:02 am
Joy asks:
Joy, it seems that you're having a lot of trouble with this concept, so let me go slowly here.
You do not have to accept a position yourself in order to argue that it leads to an inconsistency.
Even though I do not take the book of Job literally, I am still able to argue against taking it literally by showing what happens when you do. It's called "assuming for the sake of argument".
When I show that taking Job literally leads to the conclusion that God is capable of doing evil, it is not that I personally believe that God and Satan placed a childish bet on the behavior of a nomadic tribesman. I do not, but I wish to show that those who do take Job literally are led to the conclusion that God instigates evil. If they believe that God is wholly good, and most do, they are confronted with an inconsistency. If they don't succeed in sweeping the contradiction under the rug, they end up thinking about it, which is a good thing.
Whether you intend it or not, you are insulting the many believers who do take Job, and the rest of the Bible, literally — meaning that they believe Job really existed, that there really was a bet between Satan and God, and that the story actually transpired as narrated. They believe this, whether you think they are intelligent or not, and whether or not you think it is "obvious" that Job should not be taken literally.
Again, if you don't believe me, get out and meet more Christians, especially evangelicals. Ask them yourself, instead of insisting, with no evidence, that I must be wrong.
Comment by keiths — March 12, 2007 @ 1:02 am
March 12th, 2007 at 10:21 am
keiths:
I made that same "sake of argument" argument, acknowledging that I can grok the horror and disgust with which EA literalists like yourself view it. I also mentioned that Job is one of my favorite books, for its depth and levels of meaning, taking into overall consideration its context and themes.
Every aware person I've ever known (religious or not) already knows that bad things happen to good people. Juxtaposing this with Job's God who instigates and/or tolerates evil for his own reasons isn't that difficult a projection. The theme is that suffering of innocents can accomplish divine ends. Job can be – and often is – found comforting.
You ask stunney above how s/he decides which parts of the Bible "should be ignored, and which should be taken seriously." As if for you, all of scripture *must* be taken in the same literal fashion in order to be taken 'seriously'. Throughout this thread you've been informed by people who DO take scripture seriously (but not necessarily literally) that this is not the way it works.
Yet you make the assertion still, as if the whole discussion went right over your head. I don't need to ask 'them' if your belief about 'them' applies. I already know it does not, beyond a particular scarecrow you have fixed in your own mind and want to project onto the people here. It's probably best to accept what people say for themselves rather than keep trying to impose your misconceptions on them.
Comment by Joy — March 12, 2007 @ 10:21 am
March 12th, 2007 at 11:14 am
I read through this entire thread and it seems to me that keith and joy are saying the same thing; the argument which has developed baffles me.
Comment by onething — March 12, 2007 @ 11:14 am
March 12th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Based on the information you think we have at hand, it's definitely not the most probable. But your estimate about the information we have at hand is not definitely accurate. In fact, I think your estimate is probably very inaccurate.
But they're not sufficient to determine whether this gives anyone a reason to interpret them literally. Elsewhere in the Bible, God is described as a rock. You don't even have to have an advanced education in Scripture studies to know it's unlikely that this is meant to imply that God is a hard material object of finite size.
In any case your reading of Scripture with regard to Job and other parts of the Old Testament is unlikely to impress most mainstream Christian or Jewish Biblical scholars. In fact I know it would strike them as hopelessly naive.
I'm afraid no short answer by way of a blog comment can do justice to this question, but I never said and don't think it's true that any part of the Bible should simply be ignored–at least not if you want to understand the Bible as a whole.
The field of modern Biblical studies is large and sophisticated. Your question sounds to my ears like a high school student asking which parts of English literature should be ignored and which parts taken seriously. The question simply betrays a wildly simplistic view of the subject-matter. And incidentally, I would certainly not advocate 'ignoring' the Book of Job just because I'm not inclined to think it is to be interpreted literally, any more than an English literature professor would likely advocate 'ignoring', say, Hamlet even though the play is not a literal portrayal of any Danish prince.
I assert God's goodness for basically two types of reason.
One is in the category of philosophical reasoning about the metaphysical basis of value and normativity in general, including moral value and normativity, and I am persuaded by that reasoning that classical theism gives the least inadequate account we have.
The other type of reason stems from a couple of profound personal experiences of God which I've had in my life.
Comment by stunney — March 12, 2007 @ 11:31 am
March 12th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Joy wrote:
I tried to make this point on the "The Proper View Of a Teleologist" thread. Matters of faith are as much a practical matter as they are a theoretical one. Joy, you said earlier that you saw some discontinuity between the OT and NT, but many Christians including myself do not agree with this asssessment. Jesus for example built his ethical teaching on the Old Teastament as did Paul. The writer of the Hebrews (Paul?) in the "great faith chaper" (Heb 11) cites example after example of OT saints who lived by faith. When I have I doubts about my faith, however, it is not so much the great stories of the Bible that bring me back but people I know and have known living in the here and now that makes me do an about face. For example, I know of a number of modern day "Jobs", really good Godly people who have gone through some very difficult, somteimes horrific, experiences. What inspires me is the unselfish way that they continue to live lives of integrity and commitment. Rather thean "curse God and die" they continue living in a life affirming way, even if it is now a little, maybe alot, harder. It is interesting when I've talked to some of these people and asked them why God let this happen, they very reluctant to speculate "why" They have simply accepted it very graciously and humbly as part of their life. Not a lesson, not a punishment, but simply a very real part of lif is this world. They are not any more special or deserving than anyone else… Isn't that the lesson of Job?
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — March 12, 2007 @ 11:35 am
March 12th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Job's God doesn't do evil, he permits it. It's an important moral distinction.
Comment by Brian Killian — March 12, 2007 @ 12:05 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Brian Killian wrote:
Doing and permitting are the same thing for an omnipotent, omniscient God.
In any case, permitting can certainly be immoral, as in my earlier example of a father who allows his daughter to be abused by a serial molester. Would you defend such a father as "righteous"
Comment by keiths — March 12, 2007 @ 2:28 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
It's interesting that so many here find the book of Job to be so troubling. In my own Bible blogging project, I have found it to be a lens which helps me interpret the whole of the Old Testament.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 12, 2007 @ 2:38 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
John:
The apparent discontinuity is in the portrayal of deity, which I've also said seems to suggest an increasing sophistication of the writers widely separated in time and circumstance. Now, much of the OT is the history of persons and peoples, drawn with few strokes but generationally epic in scope. One of the first things the Hebrews did once they had the 'absolute' law in-hand was to pick judges to decide matters situationally. That reflects an (increasingly) sophisticated sociopolitical grasp of the practicalities of law on the human level. It is perhaps no accident that Jesus reflected this practicality specifically throughout his mission, always colored by his understanding of deity as loving father.
Loving father is not how the OT writers conceived of deity or his/her/its/their interventions in human history (usually by means of spectacularly un-natural cosmic displays, at least in the early stages (ancient pre-Hebrews through the conquest of Canaan). I've no doubt that the pre-history (the oral traditions from which Genesis was drawn) recants real, very impressive physical events. A great flood, an unlikely man from Ur and his wife and family, and a great second wave of disasters (natural or un) that struck the ME (and other places, if ancient records are to be believed) around the time that separates the Middle and New Kingdoms of Egypt.
But as the books go forward in time, the emphasis moves steadier toward the people, and away from [un]natural disasters of Biblical Proportion. Either the deity is getting more interested in the consciousness and experience of humans, or the consciousness and experience of humans is finding more interior connections to deity that don't require mass extinction events to be significant. The sociology changes, and with it the conception of deity. The NT is New because it brings this process to fruition. The Law of Love is not book upon book of 'absolute' law parsed by committee down to a million shades of application. The Law cannot justify anyone.
Yet there's a bunch of Prophets in there after the traditions, after the law, after the histories and geneologies, after the Books of Wisdom (to which Job belongs) – and these guys were an odd lot. They speak in terms of the deity of tradition, whose judgments are environmentally apocalyptic in scope, but they apply to sociopolitical situations, wholly human-oriented wars and conquests and exiles and such. Into an apocalyptic 'style' for purposeful application, such as the NT's Revelation (also present in gnostic/essene writings of the period). Following the repeating themes from beginning to end through all the periods and relative sociological developments paints a panoramic landscape. A history of people, a people, and of humanity (because that applies too) as a relationship with deity. I do not think it hurts to approach the Bible that way.
It can be and FAPP *is* the same God all the way through. It's not the same people all the way through. Thus of course a believer should be able to recognize this. It's not hidden under layers of hermetic coding and shades of meaning. A non-believer will note the striking differences in the portrayal of deity and wonder how anyone can believe it's the same deity. Because they are more literalist than any Christian or Jew I've ever known.
I suspect this is because most atheists I've met came to their final doubts (if not their final stand) in their early teens. Maybe they encountered a contradiction on their own, more likely s/he encountered a standard atheist argument to these literalisms somewhere. And they never bothered to ask a religious authority, or the explanations offered were terminally shallow.
It doesn't hurt them to know that their childish literalism isn't how a believer or an involved scholar approaches the material. Or, not most of them. The arguments are ineffective.
Comment by Joy — March 12, 2007 @ 2:43 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
This is worth repeating
Noteworthy is the fact that Job never complained about Satan.
There is a popular misconception of God as the Good guy, constantly challenged and opposed by Satan the Bad guy – as if God constantly has to defend his heavyweight title against his rival.
A truer picture is of Satan as a created being and God as an infinite all powerful creator of the universe. Satan's power is infinitely less than a flea against a supernova.
If any evil was done to Job, it was done at God's behest and command.
Anybody who thinks this makes God an evil person necessarily makes that judgement from a very disadvantageous perspective, and from an enourmous deficit of understanding.
Comment by chunkdz — March 12, 2007 @ 2:54 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
onething wrote:
Hi onething,
It's bizarre, isn't it? I guess I've gotten so used to Joy that it doesn't surprise me any more when this happens.
I went back and reread the thread to watch the pattern develop:
1. We start out in agreement (including Richard Dawkins, no less).
2. Joy makes a false accusation.
3. Mesk responds in my defense.
4. Joy apologizes.
5. I accept her apology.
6. We're back to agreeing.
7. Joy makes another false accusation.
8. I challenge her to back up her accusation.
9. Joy ignores my challenge and changes the subject.
10. Joy makes yet another false accusation.
11. I respond.
12. Joy drops the accusation.
Definitely a pattern there.
Comment by keiths — March 12, 2007 @ 3:36 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
chunkdz wrote:
And by that logic, anybody who thinks God is a good person necessarily makes that judgment from a very disadvantageous perspective, and from an enormous deficit of understanding.
If we can't render a negative judgment due to a "deficit of understanding", we can't render a positive judgment either.
Comment by keiths — March 12, 2007 @ 3:54 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
JOHN_A_DESIGNER wrote:
John,
We can all be inspired by the example of people who continue to live life fully in the face of cruel and arbitrary adversity, but why should this reaffirm our belief that God is good?
Comment by keiths — March 12, 2007 @ 4:04 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
That's why biblical exegesis must be done in wide context, not just a few disparate quotes. Understanding comes from getting the biggest picture within the greatest context. Anything less is usually just self justification.
Comment by chunkdz — March 12, 2007 @ 4:07 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Keiths:
What is the father's motive for letting his daughter be abused by a serial molester? What was God's motive for allowing Satan to test Job's intregity? Do you really think these two are the same?
As for the OT verses you quoted, they only show that love is not sentimentality or mere affection. This is shown quite well at Romans 5:6-8:
"For, indeed, Christ, while we were yet weak, died for ungodly men at the appointed time. For hardly will anyone die for a righteous man; indeed, for the good man, perhaps, someone even dares to die. But God recommends his own love to us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
Those laws you despise are just a few which allowed the Hebrews to function as a nation for thousands of years so that the event mentioned above could happen. That seems pretty loving to me.
Comment by Mertens — March 12, 2007 @ 4:19 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Wonders for Oyarsa wrote:
Hi WFO,
On your blog, you write this regarding challenges to the book of Job:
We also weren't there when Jibreel dictated the Qur'an to Muhammad. Aren't we then obligated to give it the same credence we accord the Bible?
What about the Guru Granth Sahib, or the Bhagavad Gita?
Comment by keiths — March 12, 2007 @ 4:34 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Speaking as a devout Christian, I think a substantial portion of of Keith's point need be granted – that one must be able to judge the nature of God by the works of God. One must also affirm the sovereignty of God – that he can not get "off the hook" by blaming created agents. One must also resist the temptation to justify horrible things in an attempt to justify God.
Chunkdz's retort was a good one. The problem with deconstructing the acts of God, is that, without deconstructing ourselves, and sizing up what we really do know in relationship to what there is to be known, we are acting in unbelievable hubris. It is only when we look at the picture as a whole – the entire narrative of redemption – that we can begin to see the value of the individual parts. Otherwise, we are indeed just engaging in "self justification".
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 12, 2007 @ 4:36 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
keiths,
I'm writing from the inside of a narrative; within the context of a story. You do not see yourself in terms of this narrative, and thus cannot be expected to identify with the "we" I spoke of.
With regard to the other we's that you refer to – as you are no Muslim or Hindu, I don't particularly want to debate them with you as their spokesman. As someone who has shown some desire to respect the viewpoints of others, surely you understand…
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 12, 2007 @ 4:43 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
keiths,
Just to clarify – I do not at all resent your efforts to empathize with what we Christians think, and argue by assuming our premises. I would try to be every bit as fair and consistent with you. What I don't want to do is use the beliefs of Muslims or Hindus as rhetorical clubs. I think it safe to say that neither of us understand them enough to do this with anything resembling integrity.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 12, 2007 @ 4:53 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
stunney wrote:
Indeed, most mainstream scholars are unimpressed with a literalist interpretation of Scripture, yet we have millions of Christians who continue to take the Bible literally. I hope you'll do your part to discourage this practice.
I wrote:
stunney replied:
Okay, then here's a simpler question: on what basis do you reject the accounts of God's evil in Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Job, etc., while continuing to accept other portions of the Old Testament as accurate reflections of God's nature?
Even if you assume our values and norms come from God, why assume that He follows the same norms which He has instilled in us?
Comment by keiths — March 12, 2007 @ 5:01 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
This looks to me like bare unsupported assertion. And it seems to imply that no agents other than God are ever the true authors of any action , which is prima facie implausible.
Permitting can certainly be immoral. But not always. A 14-year-old daughter may be habitually having consensual but illegal sex with her 19-year-old boyfriend, and I can imagine circumstances in which a parent may rightly decide to let it happen, such as when putting a stop to it carries a serious risk of the daughter then committing suicide.
But in any case, your thought-experiment suffers from regarding God as a cause among other causes, specifically as a moral agent among other moral agents. What if instead we regard God as the creator of a universe in which autonomous moral agency regularly occurs? It would defeat the purpose of creating such a universe if its creator constantly prevented morally significant agency from actually occurring whenever the creator's moral attitudes conflicted with the outcomes of such agency.
Similarly, it would be irrational to create a rationally intelligible and enduring physical world and also constantly act in violation of that world's nature.
Notice that materialists in the philosophy of mind think that any thinking thing necessarily is a material thing. And not just any old material thing will do. A single electron cannot consciously understand quantum mechanics, for instance. In other words, it is plausible that there is no possible world in which something is just an electron and it consciously understands quantum mechanics.
With this thought in mind, it is possibly the case (and maybe even plausibly the case) that no material thing can understand quantum mechanics (or morality) unless it has a brain-like organ at least as sophisticated as that found in humans. And if so, there is no possible world in which a material thing has such understanding but no such organ. And it might well also be the case that the existence of such organs requires laws of physics identical or nearly so to the laws of physics that obtain in the actual world. And if so, it might well be the case that at least the general type of physical harms and dangers to be found in the actual world are a necessary concomitant of the existence of material organs capable of generating understanding of such things as quantum mechanics and morality.
I don't think it's the concept of omnipotence that's the main issue, per se, in talking about the problem of natural evils. It's that we don't have perfect knowledge of what is, and what isn't, logically (or metaphysically) possible when it comes to mental states in relation to physical entities. And of course, if an omnipotent being as defined as not being bound by logic, then such a being could make it the case that the conclusion of the anti-theism argument from evil doesn't follow from its premises. So better to regard omnipotence as being bound by the limits of logical possibility.
Can a piece of glass be in love? My intuition says no, and says, hence an omnipotent God cannot make a lovesick piece of glass, any more than he can make a square circle, etc.
My intuition also says that it might well be impossible for any physical things to be conscious unless they're endowed with brains like those of humans or animals, and it might well be impossible for such brains to exist unless the laws of nature are as they are in our world.
Electrons can't understand quantum mechanics, and pieces of glass can't be in love because they don't have brains. I think that's plausibly a necessary truth. And if so, it's possibly because it's also a necessary truth that all brainless matter can't, and only living brain matter can, possess mental states (at least within the domain of material being]. And it's possible that living brain matter cannot exist unless the physical laws of our universe obtain, (or something nearly identical with them).
If non-brain matter can be conscious, then this is a) something that no-one has ever shown, and b) far from obvious.
Similarly, if living brain matter can exist with different physical laws in place, then this is a) something that no-one has ever shown, and b) far from obvious.
Given that we really don't know what is the case about this modal landscape, appeals to divine omnipotence when considering the problem of natural evils are beside the point.
Notice that two atheists could disagree over whether there could be a better world.
One is a determinist and holds that the laws of nature couldn't have been otherwise than they are, but exist of necessity. The other holds that another universe, with better laws of nature, is possible.
How could this argument be settled?
At the very least, the supposed better laws of nature would have to be completely specified, and their total consequences calculated. But even this wouldn't be enough to settle the issue of whether a better world is possible, because to compare the two worlds, we'd have to know much more than we do about the actual world. It might be the case that our universe contains billions upon billions of planets inhabited by trillions of tremendously happy beings.
Frank Tipler and Brian Greene are a couple of well-known physicists who have speculated that the actual laws of physics are uniquely logically possible, either tout court, or at least with respect to generating sentient physical life. Susskind, Rees, and others have noted that physical laws and constants such as the ones obtaining in our universe are so finely tuned and essential for life that they feel driven to posit a Multiverse to explain their occurrence. In other words, there may be very little logical room to play with if a creator wants to create an interesting universe, given the mathematics that must underlie and constrain any intelligible physical nature.
So I think it legitimate to read the Book of Job as saying that God knows a lot more about such matters than Job. If creating a world with significant room for autonomous moral agency and with valuable physical forms of life is a good thing–as most people believe—then Job's complaints may be thoroughly understandable, but insufficient to prove any negative moral judgement against God.
Comment by stunney — March 12, 2007 @ 5:11 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
For your simpler question–though I demur at the use of the phrase, 'God's evil'—I'll provide a simpler answer.
I rely on my nous, as informed by my education, both formal and informal, plus deferral to reputable scholars in the field. I find this approach works tolerably well for most intellectual questions in which I'm interested.
You seem to think that the issue you raise must or ought to cause terrible, intractable difficulty for thinking Jews and Christians. I regard such a belief as terribly ill-informed and wrong-headed. Perhaps an analogy might illustrate why I think this.
I don't understand how the age of the universe can be uniquely determined given Einsteinian theories of time's relativity. But I'm sure the experts know what they're talking about and wouldn't be fazed by my lack of knowledge and naive questions about it. Which I wouldn't be foolish enough to keep pressing in a hostile way, I hope.
Comment by stunney — March 12, 2007 @ 5:43 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Wonders for Oyarsa wrote:
WFO,
If it is hubristic to "deconstruct" the acts of God, why is it not hubristic to interpret the "entire narrative of redemption" Indeed, why is it not hubristic to assert that the Bible is the word of God? We are only human, after all — who are we to judge?
Which gets us to the topic of other holy books. You, as a devout Christian, do not accept the Qur'anic view that Jesus was merely a prophet of God. I don't need to be a "spokesman" for Islam to tell you that most Muslims accept the Qur'anic view as absolute — I have read it many places, and have been told this by many Muslims (I live in the SF Bay Area, so I have friends, acquaintances and coworkers of many faiths).
If a Muslim challenged you with the same challenge you presented in your blog entry —
What would your reply be? And how can you even make a reply, without hubristically asserting that your book is the word of God, but not his?
The fact is that we come into this world as fallible humans, and we leave this world as fallible humans. Anything we learn in between is filtered through our own, fallible intelligence. Even those who, like Muhammad, believe that Truth is being dictated to them directly, are doing so on the basis of what their fallible senses and fallible brains are telling them.
If it is hubristic to challenge a holy book, then it is certainly hubristic to assert its holiness in the first place.
Comment by keiths — March 12, 2007 @ 5:59 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
stunney wrote:
You're essentially saying "if it's good enough for the experts, it's good enough for me." The problem is that the experts don't agree. There isn't anything remotely approaching a consensus among religious scholars on these issues.
Secondly, the scholars themselves are deeply troubled by the issue. Otherwise, why do you think so much ink has been spilled over the centuries, from Augustine to Plantinga, on the problem of evil?
Now compare this fuzziness and lack of consensus to the overwhelming support among cosmologists for the Big Bang model, and you'll see why it can be appropriate to trust the experts on the age of the universe, but not on the goodness of God (or on his mere existence).
Of course, if either issue is important to you, the best approach is to learn enough about it to render your own judgment while carefully considering opinions, evidence, and arguments on both sides of the issue.
We're all ultimately responsible for our positions. If we base them on the opinions of experts, it is up to us to ensure that our faith in those experts is well-placed. Given the number of experts on both sides of the God debate, I find that we have to do a lot of the work for ourselves.
By the way, to answer your earlier question, the reason that the age of the universe can be stated confidently despite the fact that time is relative to motion is that there is actually is a preferred reference frame from which the age can be measured.
The reference frame in which the expansion of the universe is equally fast in all directions is taken as the starting point. In that reference frame, the age of the universe is estimated as 13.7 billion years.
Incidentally, our own galaxy is not stationary with respect to that reference frame. We are moving at about 350 miles per second in one direction. However, that speed is so slow relative to the speed of light that it makes only a tiny difference in the apparent age of the universe.
Comment by keiths — March 12, 2007 @ 6:39 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Perhaps because when it comes to making sense of the moral-spiritual dimension of human existence, one finds it to be the least inadequate narrative one has come across.
One could substitute 'narrative of evolution' for 'narrative of redemption' in your question and ask why it's not hubristic to regard it as a valid approach to the origin of species. And one could answer that question (so modified) by saying that one finds it to be the least inadequate relevant narrative one has come across.
Comment by stunney — March 12, 2007 @ 6:48 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
It could be that morality in general, and morality as it applies to God, are intrinsically more difficult subject matter than physical cosmology and Einsteinian relativity and so a greater degree of expert consensus is to be expected in the latter areas of rational inquiry.
Then again, the interpretation of quantum mechanics is another area where there is a lot of disagreement among the experts. But this fact wouldn't be a sufficiently cogent objection, by itself, to any one expert's interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Also, to return to the topic of time, not all the experts are agreed about the physical meaning or nature of time. In a previous post I linked Huw Price's important work as an example of this.
http://www.usyd.edu.au/time/price/
Comment by stunney — March 12, 2007 @ 6:58 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
He would be rather silly to challenge me with such a statement, as I look at the world through a different story. Just as I would be silly to make such a statement to you. Follow?
Grant my premise (Christian theism), for sake of argument, and I will do my best to show you that it is internally consistent and, indeed, stunningly beautiful. Refuse to do this, and we need to be having a different discussion.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 12, 2007 @ 7:04 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
I wrote:
stunney replied:
stunney,
Actually it follows straightforwardly from logic. If God is omniscient, then he knew everything that would happen when He created this world — including what each agent would do, whether free or not. Being omnipotent, He could choose to create this world, any other world, or no world at all. He chose to go ahead and create this world. Therefore He is ultimately responsible for everything that happens within it.
Only if you believe that an action can only ever have one "true author." I find that questionable.
Agreed. If God is not bound by logic, then he could be both evil and not evil, and both of our opinions could be wrong and right simultaneously.
True, Job's complaints are insufficient to prove that God is evil (although I would say that if the book is correct in saying that God did what he did because of a bet with Satan, it was evil). But by exactly the same standards, we cannot prove that God is good. We have to make our best judgment based on the information available to us.
We have no explanation of how torturing Job leads to a greater good, but we can all see how it is morally better not to torture people. It makes perfect sense to conclude that the God described in Job is morally wrong, not with absolute certainty (which is rarely if ever available to us anyway), but beyond a reasonable doubt.
Comment by keiths — March 12, 2007 @ 7:09 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Joy said,
I'm glad to see that so openly stated. I find that even though most Christians are not quite literalists, neither do they dismiss (or know how to dismiss) the many disturbing elements in the OT. Is it possible that the reason the nonbeliever can so easily see the discrepancy is because they are able to admit it without inner turmoil?
But I quite agree that many atheists have a shallow and somewhat immature understanding, which never seems to deepen.
What sorrows and amazes me is the contortions Christians go through, simply because they cannot entertain that scripture, especially OT scripture, is a mixed bag and not all equal. It is one thing to state the truth that we are small and cannot comprehend the big picture, but quite another to use that to justify the many words and actions of Jehovah which are attributed as coming from the God of the universe – no matter how bad. If it is the case that Jehovah can engage in actions, repeatedly, that are absolutely evil when performed by humans in any other context and yet we excuse it, then this means we must turn on its head the very conscience that I was always told we are innately equipped with and that comes from God. If God can defy every moral teaching of every religion or even common decency and it is excused, then we have no moral compass at all, and no basis upon which to accept spiritual teachings.
It sorrows me because I think it is obvious that Jesus tried to free his people from the very negative and erronious confines that were cemented by their scriptures, and I think in that he failed. I think he came to bring good news, but it was trampled underfoot. He did not only come to bring salvation at death but to bring abundant life and freedom on earth.
Jesus gave lip service to scripture, without specifying which scripture, but he quoted it seldom. He quoted those parts which seemed to show he was the messiah, and he certainly quoted this to the pharisees:
"Go and learn what this means, 'I will have mercy and not sacrifice." (from Hosea)
But he also often said, "You have heard it said—-, but I say unto you—-" and gave them an OUT from following the scripture/law.
I think Jesus picked and chose from among the scriptures, and its about time people began to have enough confidence to do the same thing. For if we do not, then we are locked in to what may be grevious error with no way out.
A wonderful avatar comes and teaches directly, soul to soul (from the real to the real) the truth of the Father. That it does away with much in the old documents is meant (IMHO) to be obvious and could not be safely stated openly. But if people cling to words on a page that were written long ago and by many different people during very different circumstances (it can be argued that for many centuries the Jews, like everyone else in that age, believed their God belonged to them and that other peoples had their own gods) when they have a living teacher before them, then how can you help such people? And again, Jesus noted that very thing when he said, "You search the scriptures for you think in them to find the words of life, but you have one here before you about whom they speak." (paraphrase)
As I read through the gospels, I see that Jesus attempted to ignite a love for the Father, but even without literalism the tone of many (not all) scriptures in the OT are overwhelmingly negative and in direct opposition to everything Jesus said and taught by example. Direct opposition. It is so clear! and the tragedy is, that by denying that the still small voice is shushed within, and it's the only way to really know God. We don't know God by reading about Him, or by believing doctrines and dogmas. But if we hold negative and contradictory ideas of the nature of God, it shackles the spirit.
All you who believe in Satan, could anything make him more successful? than for people to believe slanderous falsehoods about the God of this universe?
Jesus tried to undo the slander.
I believe it is time for scriptures to be reexamined in light of our intuition and conscience. Why did the early church decide to swallow the entire package whole? They minutely examined all the newer documents before putting them in the NT, and rejected the majority.
I just can't emphasize enough how important the moral compass is. It is the whole game really. How can this be so hard to choose between a contradictory book of many authors, versus that which lives and is the image of God within us, our conscience?
How can Christains take Satan so seriously yet never wonder if he has had his way with them?
Comment by onething — March 12, 2007 @ 7:13 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Wonders for Oyarsa wrote:
No, I don't follow. Both stories purport to be about the real world. You believe that your story is correct in asserting that a real Jesus is really God in our real world. The Qur'anic story says that the real Jesus was only a prophet of God in our real world. At most, one of the two stories is correct about this.
You defend your story by claiming that it is hubristic for anyone to challenge the truth of what you regard as God's word. Why, then, is it acceptable for you to challenge what Muslims regard as God's word?
Internal consistency has never been sufficient to distinguish truth from fiction. Necessary, yes, but not sufficient. External consistency — correspondence to observations of the real world — is also necessary.
Comment by keiths — March 12, 2007 @ 7:26 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
onething,
Earlier in the thread you wrote:
I answered here, but it took a while for my comment to show up because it was held in the moderation queue.
Comment by keiths — March 12, 2007 @ 7:31 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Keiths,
The simple fact of the matter is that if a Muslim walked into the room, he and I would agree on a great deal more than you do with either of us – at least on the notion of God and revelation. I have no problem with the Muslims holding a holy book with high esteem – although I do think they are mistaken on some key issues. The issue of the nature of who Jesus is, happens to be one of them. But you don't agree with either us, so why bring it up? It's just a distraction from the fact that you and I have disagreements.
I do not do this at all. I've denied that you are engaging in hubris twice – you first need to believe in God's existence to then have the hubris to think you know can tell God a thing or two about how he ought to have created the universe. I don't know why you have such trouble with this point.
This is absolutely true. However, as far as I can tell, it is not the discussion I was engaging in. You were presenting the story of Job, and saying, given this story, God cannot be called good. I disagree. This is a debate on internal consistency, or at least that's how I took it.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 12, 2007 @ 7:36 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Mertens wrote:
Mertens,
Perhaps you can explain why it was essential for the Hebrews to cut off a woman's hand if she touched another man's genitals while defending her husband. "Show her no pity," the verse says. What dire fate would have befallen the Hebrew nation had they not honored this law?
Comment by keiths — March 12, 2007 @ 7:47 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Wonders for Oyarsa wrote:
Because it shows that the "argument from hubris" is not a valid defense of the Bible, since it can just as easily be applied to the Qur'an.
If the argument from hubris meant that we should accept the truth of the Bible, it would also mean that we should accept the truth of the Qur'an. But then we would have to believe that Jesus both is, and is not, God — a contradiction. Therefore the argument from hubris is invalid.
Comment by keiths — March 12, 2007 @ 8:04 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
No it does not.
What you need to show is that God is morally responsible for the free actions of any morally autonomous agents God creates. You've asserted that God is so responsible, but you're an awful long way from logically demonstrating any such thing. By your argument, any would-be human parent would be morally responsible for any bad deeds their offspring might perpetrate, provided the would-be parent had a well-founded belief that all human offspring are liable to perpetrate at least some bad deeds if they enjoy average life expectancy. Such an argument is mind-bogglingly facile.
Well, your finding it questionable is only very mildly interesting to me.
Exactly.
I'll go slowly. I do not accept the premise of your argument that torture by God occurred. Nor do I accept that the Job story is best interpreted as having any point to it along the lines that it's ok for God to torture anyone. In my previous lengthy post I argued that the moral and natural harms that occur to people are plausibly to be explained by the value of created morally significant autonomous moral agency and by plausible hypotheses concerning the physics and metaphysics of physical-mental modal facts. I really don't think you've addressed my argument in any substantive way.
Thus I do not accept that it's anywhere near 'beyond a reasonable doubt' that the God portrayed in the Book of Job is morally guilty of anything at all, given the understanding available to us through rational inquiry of the nature of morality and of the logical modalities and value of physical nature.
Comment by stunney — March 12, 2007 @ 8:41 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Ahhh – I see the disconnect. There is a difference between what I was saying on my blog and my statement above. Since my post immediately followed yours, it appeared that I was responding to it (though in fact you hadn't said I word to me when I was writing it). The fact that I coincidentally used the word "hubris" twice only made it more confusing.
So – to clarify – Keiths, I was not writing to convince someone with your philosophical views on my post "Fighting with the Bible." The part you quoted was in the context of showing how Job's story helps us who are living in this narrative interpret the whole. For those who are not, it perhaps is interesting for them to hear what I think the Bible is trying to say to us. If they are not interested, presumably they won't be reading my blog.
Now, I will defend this statement, which was made in relation to what you were saying:
You replied,
It has to do with what you do with the knowledge you have, and the scope of the judgment you make relative to that. If all I knew of God was the story of Moses' atrocities in Numbers 31, (assuredly the most horrific passage in the entire Bible…not sure why people look instead to Job for ammo against Christianity) I would indeed conclude that the God of Israel is terribly cruel and utterly uninterested in treating individuals (besides his favorites) with any sort of justice or mercy.
But this is akin to labelling someone (say a foreign visitor to America) who cuts me off in traffic a "jerk" and an "idiot" and continuing to hold on to that opinion solely on the basis of that experience even after getting to know them on a personal level. It is hubris to say "I know how they really are, and don't need to hear any more. Foreigners who cut people off in traffic are idiots and jerks" – especially when you might find with a little conversation that that day his wife was in labor and they were rushing to the hospital.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 12, 2007 @ 8:55 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Keith,
But I saw your earlier answer on time.
Oyarsa,
I would really like to know how you answer my points I made a little earlier, about the moral compass. To restate it a little, the book of Job alone isn't nearly enough to take the position that I do, but when you see the stark wickedness attributed to Jehovah, (who I consider an imposter, and by no means is he God) and when you compare Christianity to say, Buddhism, which never dips so low, nor does Hinduism, and then when you see this contortion
How are we supposed to think that the future one true religion can have required laws as make decent people recoil in horror in order to bring this most sublime of all religions to the world?
Comment by onething — March 12, 2007 @ 10:48 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
We're not.
Your wording, 'future one true religion can have required laws' gives the game away.
This would be like saying that the 'future Constitution of the United States' (uttered before the 14th Amendment) at one time required slavery.
It's best, I think, to regard God's self-revelation via the Bible as being something that was necessarily only gradually and imperfectly comprehended by the Biblical authors and their readers (to this day, doubtless) because of the moral and intellectual obtuseness of said authors and readers. But that given that God's self-revelation, whether via the Bible or otherwise, to humans cannot but be apprehended by merely fallible and sinful human recipients, this is only to be expected, and follows from the nature of the case.
Comment by stunney — March 12, 2007 @ 11:48 pm
March 12th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Onething,
I think there is a sense in which I agree with Mertens in the bit you quoted above, though I would say it rather differently. Of course I see the objection. I certainly wouldn't expect you or anyone to buy into a "the end justifies the means" explanation for modern atrocities. But if we stop for a moment and look at the story the Bible is telling, we see things in a fairly different light.
One theme you see from the outset in Genesis is that of God sizing up what to do with his spoiled creation. Forget for a moment the analogies of a father letting his daughter get gang-raped or whatever, and think of an artist who had high hopes for a painting, but after struggling with it for far too long finally decides to trash the thing. He has given up on us; the artist grips the canvas to tear it to shreds.
And then he sees one tiny corner of the painting that really did embody the vision he had when he started the project. Everything else is a mess, every other bit is absolute garbage, but the artist takes a deep breath, and resolves to give the painting another try, though it means reworking everything but that tiny corner.
For a moment, suspend disbelief and ignore the issues of a perfect creator and how he shouldn't be having these problems. Step into the mythology, if only for a moment. The picture we see is God constantly in doubt of whether there is even enough good in the world for him to work with. He is tempted over and over to trash it and start from scratch. But the drama of the Bible comes from the decision not to do this – to instead work within the confines of the problem God has landed himself with. He's going to work within history, within these fickle violent unruly cruel creatures that men have become. And, especially in the opening stages, things aren't going to look pretty.
So what do I do with all this? What I don't do is condone, say, the near genocide of Midianite cities as good moral behavior in the abstract. Hardly any Christians really do this – we hate these nasty parts of the Bible. But what I also don't do is throw the book away, or even cut the nasty bits out like good ol' Thomas Jefferson. It's God's story, and ours. It's where we've come from.
The problem with many of us modern western people is that we don't understand where we've come from. We stand historically upon two-thousand years of the Judeo-Christian ethic – even those who hate Christianity, for instance, generally feel mercy and compassion to be virtues, with love as the highest of all. One of the things I love about HBO's new Rome miniseries is that it gives us a glimpse of the ancient world, self-consciously stripping out this ethic. It's wonderful to see how both recognizable and alien the ancient world stands in relation to us.
So what I suppose is that, within the confines of working with humanity as he is, and not as he ought to be, God needed to choose his battles. And lesson number one is not "share your toys and play nice." It isn't "love every human soul for the intrinsic value it has." This is true, moral, and good – but something else is needed before this can take hold. The lesson is, rather, "there is a creator to whom you are accountable, and he is not something you can tailor to your fancy. You need to be in communication with him, and not worship idols you create to fit in with your friends."
It's like raising a child. You need the child to know what is – who you are, that you love him, and that you need to be obeyed. From that platform, you can then teach the child about more abstract morality. And the first years, though sweet and full of wonder, are often frustrating and harsh. The child has to be physically restrained from walking into the street, even when he throws a fit for two hours over it. But the hard work pays off in the long run.
This is far too long winded an answer to such a question, but its not an easy one to answer without saying something you don't mean. If you're interested, I'll be blogging about these issues in the Bible for the next three years or so – and I love intelligent criticism and debate!
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 12, 2007 @ 11:55 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Here's a question.
If we polled the entire human population (not just the Jobs among us) on whether on balance it is better that this world with its natural laws and full array of life-forms exists than that it not exist,and a substantial majority said it is better that it exists, what would it even mean to say that they were wrong? I mean, they'd simply be registering a preference.
And if the substantial majority has such a preference, why would it be wrong for God to share that preference?
It seems to me that the Problem of Evil proponents are in the position of holding that both this hypothetical majority and God are mistaken (a stronger claim by far than merely not sharing the preference). But how can it be shown that the hypothetical majority and God are both mistaken? It doesn't seem to me that it's possible (or even intelligible) to demonstrate such a conclusion. It would be like saying most people are mistaken in preferring, oh, shoes to going barefoot.
And the thing is, the hypothetical majority is plausibly a real and genuine majority.
Imagine parents who lose a child in a tragic accident. How typical is it for such parents to prefer that their child had never lived?
Perhaps the Problem of Evil proponents would insist that the poll be restricted to 'ideal observers' and should not be undertaken with the human population as it stands, with its biases, inadeqauate information, and its sundry irrational thought processes (among which the skeptics would presumably include religious beliefs). But then, assuming God's existence for a moment, isn't God the ideal observer par excellence? And isn't God's vote already known?
Let me try a different tack, however.
What is the Kantian account of why murder is wrong? It is roughly that one cannot consistently will the non-existence of another (innocent) person to be a universal action-guiding law, for if it were, one own's existence, and thus one's own murderous willing, and one's general capacity to will anything at all, would be threatened by such a law. (We can bracket the question of immortality for now.)
From this, it seems that willing the non-existence of every human being would be seriously immoral at least on a Kantian account of morality. (It might well also be immoral on a Utilitarian view too, of course).
But willing the non-existence of every human person is, apparently, what the proponent of the Problem of Evil argument believes God morally ought to have willed (or ought to atemporally will). At least, that's the case for those atheists who believe that God is not justified, or is wrong, in choosing to create this world rather than not to create at all. Which seems to be most POE-oriented atheists, if not all of them.
But this means that on the POE-oriented atheist view, God morally ought to will something which no human being morally ought to will. And on the Kantian view of morality (which governs the willing of all possible rational beings), such a conclusion is at the very least decidedly odd.
At this point the atheist may reply, I can consistently will to be a universal law the non-existence of any person (and animal) whose level of misery exceeds a certain level, call it E. But the problem that immediately arises is that actual judgements about what the appropriate level E is are likely to be varied, to involve incommensurable components, and to be irreconcilable. Some choose to cling to life despite apparently atrocious pain. Others choose to commit suicide over unrequited teenage love.
A fair way of proceeding, then, may be the hypothetical global poll previously mentioned. But such a poll does not look likely to favor the atheist point of view either, imo.
Nor, I think, would an animal poll.
Comment by stunney — March 13, 2007 @ 12:12 am
March 13th, 2007 at 12:46 am
Keith,
I tend to agree in fact I dont see how it can be any other way. If God exists nothing happens unless God wills it to be so.
This is not to say that secondary causation is obviated by agents like ourselves. I find stunney's observations to be very insightfull in this regard.
Vivid
Comment by Vividbleau — March 13, 2007 @ 12:46 am
March 13th, 2007 at 2:34 am
stunney wrote:
Human parents are neither omniscient nor omnipotent. They have little control (as of 2007) over how their children turn out genetically, and almost no knowledge of the lives they will lead. Since most people do more good than evil in the world, a parent is justified in bringing a child into the world under ordinary circumstances, with the expectation that the world is likely to be at least slightly better because of it. Some parents will have the misfortune of bringing future Hitlers, Pol Pots or Ann Coulters into the world, but if they don't recognize this in advance, and they do a reasonable job of parenting, they can't be held responsible for it.
Imagine for a moment that Hitler's parents had known, with certainty, what kind of a man he would become. Wouldn't you fault them for not abstaining on that particular occasion?
Now ponder the omniscient, omnipotent Christian God who knew, at the moment of creation, every detail of every life of every creature who would ever exist. Given such a God, then Auschwitz, the Indian Ocean tsunami, Stalin's genocide, the Crusades, animal predation, the Irish Potato Famine, cancer, the killing fields, etc., were all known in advance and intentional. God chose this world to create, and He knew it would contain all of these things. The only excuse for all of this is if it somehow, mysteriously, contributes to a greater good which more than compensates for the evil and suffering these things represent.
Right now we have no explanation of how these things could contribute to a greater good. Theists (at least those who believe in an omnipotent and good God) cling to the hope that there is some as of yet unknown explanation of how all of this is really optimal. But this is merely a hope. The evidence runs strongly against it.
Then you should have an easy time refuting it. Why isn't that happening?
Comment by keiths — March 13, 2007 @ 2:34 am
March 13th, 2007 at 4:29 am
Wonders for Oyarsa wrote:
The difference is that when we judge other humans morally, we're placing them on a continuum from good to evil. No person is perfectly good or completely evil. As you point out, a single incident of cutting someone off in traffic, even with evil intent, is not sufficient to place someone well into the "evil" range of the continuum.
The claim, however, is that God is perfectly good. Perfection is not a continuum. A single true incident of gratuitous evil is enough to shatter the illusion of perfection, and we have story after story after story of carnage, injustice, evil and suffering in the Bible. We also have a world that is full of suffering and evil.
As I've said before, the only way to reconcile all of this with the concept of an omnipotent, perfectly good God is to posit that this is somehow the best of all possible worlds. But as I said in my reply to stunney, we have no evidence that is the case.
We have no more evidence that this is the best of all possible worlds than we do that it is the worst of all possible worlds, that God is evil, and that he has reluctantly allowed some good into the world to optimize the evil elsewhere.
Interestingly, nobody on this thread has responded to my challenge and explained how, given the evidence, it's any more likely that God is perfectly good versus perfectly evil.
I have somewhat more prosaically imagined God as a fallible Engineer who is trying to design a universe. Our world is a beta release, full of bugs. The only reason it hasn't been rebooted yet is that the Engineer wants to find as many bugs as possible first so that He can fix them in the next revision.
This is fine as a story, but as truth it simply makes no sense unless you envision God as a fallible, imperfect being.
But if it is God's story, then why deny that God has done evil? Why not imagine that God is learning as He goes, much like we are? There are other reasons for giving up the concept of God, of course, but if you insist on believing in a God, why not at least choose one who is somewhat plausible, given the evidence we see around us?
Not surprising, since those virtues predate both Judaism and Christianity, and are easily understood and appreciated in a non-Christian context.
But what you don't do is order your child to stone other children to death, or cut off their hands, or pillage a neighboring playground, killing everyone but the virgin girls. What moral lesson was God imparting to his children via these bloodthirsty commands?
Comment by keiths — March 13, 2007 @ 4:29 am
March 13th, 2007 at 5:48 am
Then you should have an easy time refuting it. Why isn't that happening?
It happened. You're just not grasping that it happened. So, given that your adoption of a yet another shrill pose of sneering intellectual condescension once again fails to conceal the frailty and obtuseness of your argumentation, it's perhaps time that you dropped it.
A would-be parent with a modicum of average intelligence and common sense has a well-founded belief that should they procreate offspring who survive to moral autonomy, such offspring will perpetrate some morally bad deeds. The belief is, in other words, rationally justified. How bad such misdeeds will be is unknown but irrelevant, because we're simply investigating whether any of the moral responsibility for any bad deed by offspring necessarily extends or is attributable to their procreators by the mere fact of their being would-be procreators who have the relevant justified belief and the power to choose not to procreate (i.e. not be drugged, raped etc).
The would-be parent also has a choice over whether to procreate in the ordinary case. And all future immorality beyond a certain date could be avoided if all people simply stopped procreating henceforth. Thus with respect to preventing all such future immorality, present would-be human procreators are in effect collectively omnipotent, and individually omnipotent with respect to the future immorality of any of their own offspring.
Lack of omniscience is irrelevant. All one needs to have is a justified belief that some bad deed will be perpetrated by future offspring if any are procreated and survive to morally autonomous maturity. And this is a justified belief we indeed have.
But the standard moral intuitions we also have are that
1) we are morally justified in procreating, even though we have moral certainty that our offspring will perpetrate some bad deeds
and
2) we are not morally responsible for the autonomous moral choices of our offspring
Nothing in your argument shows that even if we had perfect predictive power about our offspring's moral choices, we would thereby become morally responsible for them in any degree.
Try another thought experiment. Let's say you're a bad person, I can tell the future, and I have a loaded gun while in your presence. I can tell you're either going to rob a bank tomorrow or punch your sister on the nose if I don't shoot you today. I actually don't shoot you. How does this prove that I am morally responsible for your bank robbery or your punching your sister?
It doesn't, because the very concept of morally autonomous agency excludes such inter-personal transitivity of moral responsibility. That, in other words, is part of what we mean by moral responsibility. Moral agents are responsible for their own immoral acts, and not responsible for the immoral acts of other people. And this is so even if one agent is causally responsible for another agent's being able to act immorally.
For example, it may be, and I may even come to know, that you mistreat your spouse by getting abusively drunk on the wages I pay you. Am I morally obliged to withold your wages or fire you? By causally enabling you to get drunk, am I morally responsible for the way you treat your spouse? If the courts held this, then they'd be flooded by lawsuits by abused spouses against their partners' employers. But the courts don't hold this, by virtue of longstanding and rationally weighty analyses of the principles of assigning moral responsibility for wrongdoing.
I know darn well that if I don't assassinate Bush, he'll go on waging an immoral war. I know that if I tried hard enough I could assassinate Bush. But even if I don't assassinate Bush, I know that I'm not morally responsible for his continued waging of an immoral war. Maybe you feel differently about this case, however, in which case don't let my posts prevent you from doing what you perceive as your solemn duty.
Comment by stunney — March 13, 2007 @ 5:48 am
March 13th, 2007 at 7:19 am
A single true incident of gratuitous evil would only shatter the illusion of God's perfection if God was morally responsible for it. You've not come remotely close to showing that God is morally responsible for any such incident. There's a large and very sophisticated philosophical literature on this question, and I think it's fair to say that it's inconclusive. If you think you have an argument to conclude it, then submit it to one of the better journals.
Most philosophers who in recent years have treated the notion of the best of all possible worlds regard it as a logically incoherent notion, and thus irrelevant to the problem of reconciling theism with the existence of evil.
Most philosophers who write about the problem of evil, both theists and atheists, don't think we need such evidence to acquit God of the charge of immorality.
Nonsense. We have lots of evidence that the world is not maximally bad, if only because we know that we often refrain from inflicting evil that would be within our power to inflict.
The only reasons we could have for thinking God is evil would involve showing that God is morally responsible for some evil. In fact, however, there is no consensus within the professional philosophical community that it has ever been demonstrated that God is morally responsible for any evil at any time.
This is not true. If you read back over some of my previous contributions, you'll see that I've given a variety of arguments defending God's creation of morally autonomous physical creatures as morally justified.
Comment by stunney — March 13, 2007 @ 7:19 am
March 13th, 2007 at 7:33 am
Stunney writes:
That in turn requires demonstrating that people lack free will and that there can be no broader purpose served by natural disasters.
Comment by Bradford — March 13, 2007 @ 7:33 am
March 13th, 2007 at 7:50 am
The fact that most people appreciate being alive, and choose to remain alive, and the fact that most spiritual experiences convey great joy and peace and love, rather than lovecroftian horror. . .
Comment by mcromer — March 13, 2007 @ 7:50 am
March 13th, 2007 at 8:06 am
stunney wrote:
stunney,
We need to create an emoticon with steam coming out of its ears, so you can use it with comments like that. Um… do you think you might be taking this thread just a little bit too seriously?
Moving on, here's a thought experiment which I think will highlight the differences between our positions:
Scenario A:
You and your spouse decide to have a child. You learn from an infallible source, whom you know to be infallible, that if you and your spouse make love on Monday, the child you conceive will grow up to murder 200 fellow students in high school. If you wait until Tuesday, the child you conceive will live a normal, productive life. Which do you choose? Which, if either, is the moral choice? Why?
Scenario B:
You're the janitor at a school, so you have access to the building at night. Your hobby is robotics, so you build a robot, equipped with a machine gun, which you plan to leave in a janitorial closet. The robot is designed to "wake up" the next day when the school is full of children, leave the closet, and gun down as many children as possible. You know, having tested the design, that the robot is likely to succeed in its sinister task. You are ready to activate the robot. Do you do so? Is the moral choice to activate it, or not, or neither? Why?
1. In both scenarios you have to make a decision.
2. In both scenarios, one choice leads inexorably to the death of innocent children, and the other does not.
3. In both scenarios, you know with full certainty which is which.
4. In both scenarios, the cost to you of making the choice that will leave the children alive is minimal.
Now present these scenarios, with the questions, to separate groups of randomly selected people.
My prediction is that almost everyone will answer the questions the way I do, which is that in both scenarios, you should choose the option that leaves the children alive, and that doing so is the moral choice, because failing to pay such a minor cost in order to save hundreds of children would in fact be immoral.
You, on the other hand, wrote that
You also wrote that
If you truly believe that, then the two choices in scenario A are morally equivalent. You can choose Monday with no guilt whatsoever because, after all, you are not responsible in any way for the fact that hundreds of children end up dead.
If you really do believe that, please remind me to get in somebody else's raft when the ship goes down.
Comment by keiths — March 13, 2007 @ 8:06 am
March 13th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Well, the subject matter (if not the participants) could hardly be taken too seriously – surely you must grant that, Keiths…
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 13, 2007 @ 8:17 am
March 13th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Keiths, you make a good case for the terminator; able to go back in time and exceute mass muderers. Might even become governor of California some day. But how are your scenarios in any way morally relevant to the real world?
Comment by Bradford — March 13, 2007 @ 8:21 am
March 13th, 2007 at 8:46 am
onething:
A person would be ill advised to expect me to justify acts of God. Why, I don't harbor the opinion that belief in God even requires justification. Some beliefs about God might benefit from closer examination, but only for the person who might benefit from such examination. For whom, I dare say, my opinions should mean precisely zip. People believe what they believe for reasons that are meaningful to them, in their own lives. Most consider their reasons rational, and behave accordingly. I've never been a fan of mind control, so the notion that people have liberty to believe as they choose is reason enough for tolerance.
There are plenty of justifiable reasons to define and promote the best possible sociological basis for morality/ethics. Even in a pluralistic, officially secular society. I didn't get my morality or ethics from the OT God-model. As you say, it's not a very good source if actions speak louder than words. I got it by being a human in a family of humans, interacting with humans, and empathizing with others. I don't like to be hurt, so I shouldn't hurt others. This golden rule stuff actually works quite well. It would work much better if everyone actually practiced it.
Whose gods/God you worship doesn't significantly affect your ability to behave morally/ethically toward your fellow humans in a sociopolitical system of liberties constrained by laws. A sociopolitically adequate moral/ethical structure can be humanistic.
Since the OT God isn't my moral role model, stories about God's actions do not affect my moral compass. Thus my moral foundation is not upset by stories about God's actions that are viewed as 'immoral' from 2500-3500 years distant in time and civilization. I need not judge God from this distance – it would affect him/her/it/them at all, and wouldn't change a thing about what is or is not 'real' and 'true'. God doesn't need any justifications from me in order to be whatever he/she/it *is*.
Comment by Joy — March 13, 2007 @ 8:46 am
March 13th, 2007 at 8:58 am
I think these separate, though related issues. On the one hand you have the picture of God from the Old Testament in tension with what we see to be just and loving – hallmarks of what we see as the good. On the other hand, we know that evil exists in our world at all, and we presume that a "perfect" creator would be able to make a better one.
The former question is the one I'm interested in at the moment. The latter is deeply philosophical, and we quickly begin talking about intrinsic possibilities with matter and sentient beings, and weighing existence against non-being, and whether free-will can exist without the genuine freedom to choose evil, and whether experiential "happiness feelers" are the highest sorts of created beings, and whether these sorts of struggles are intrinsic to the creative process, and all sorts of things that show that we don't really know what we're talking about.
What I focus on is the picture the Bible paints about the world we live in. While I think the picture we see in the Old Testament essential to a rich understanding of who we are and who God is, I grant that it is often crude and incomplete. Part of that crudeness is due to the stage of the process God was dealing in. Part of it most certainly comes from the fact that the authors themselves were writing in the said stage (and I'm very hesitant to say which is which). But I grant that the picture of God in Genesis is not perfectly presented as a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth – certainly not by our standards.
Again, its crude, but I do think the root holds. You ask what is the point of the atrocities in Moab, and I hate this sort of question, because in no way do I want to justify atrocities like we are doing today in Darfur (heck, or what they did in Moab). But in the text, the point is that the people of Israel are chosen to be the prototype for God's redemption of his created work. If they simply succumb to the religious life of their culture (and the Baal-worship of ancient near eastern culture is about as bad as it gets), then the project itself is hosed.
But what about individual justice rather than collective punishment? What about loving the sinner and hating the sin? What about seeing even your enemies as also God's children? All this is to come, the seeds of it are gloriously present in the Mosaic law. But it must grow on the essential core of an acceptance of their vocation as the chosen people of God, and a willingness to break away from the idolatry of their own hearts. This is the consequence of the choice to work within history, despite our preference for God to somehow zap them into enlightened 21-st century Americans. It is on this foundation that we are finally given the ultimate vision of God, whose tearful incarnate face is bruised and crowned with thorns, dying at the hands of his creatures to give life and renewal to his beloved creation.
It's not too interesting, Keiths – one can hardly argue everything at once. I think the answer fairly obvious, given the direction the story moves. With your permission, I will use my limited time to address your more interesting points.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 13, 2007 @ 8:58 am
March 13th, 2007 at 9:20 am
I wrote:
keiths replied
First, the question is not whether we are responsible in any way for what happens. The question is whether we are morally responsible for what happens.
Second, your thought experiment in scenario B doesn't involve the creation of a morally autonomous agent, so it's not germane.
Third, your scenario A is written up in such a way as to minimize the cost of choosing Tuesday instead of Monday for sex. But that doesn't tell us anything about the relative costs of the moral choices that may be involved in creating a world of morally autonomous creatures in general. If you ask most people, they're glad the human race exists and that human nature includes the power of significant moral autonomy, and prefer this over no such world existing, even though they're well aware that one consequence of such a world existing has been lots of wicked behavior. In other words, in the real world, in which millions have been brutally treated and killed, it's not the human consensus that it would have been better for this world not to have come into being. The cost—the loss of moral value–of not creating the actual world with its actual degree of moral autonomy is not seen by most people as minor at all. Anything but, in fact. Most people would recoil in moral horror at the thought of their own moral freedom being significantly compromised. And there is a well-known Kantian argument that if you will no diminishment of your own moral autonomy, then you can't morally will any diminishment of the moral autonomy of other rational agents in general. I alluded to this argument in a prior post on this thread, and showed why it creates a severe problem for the atheist proponent of the argument from evil.
So your minimal cost thought experiment begs the key questions.
Comment by stunney — March 13, 2007 @ 9:20 am
March 13th, 2007 at 9:32 am
160 comments and counting. For an ostensibly ID blog, it's amazing how much interest religion gets.
Comment by Mesk — March 13, 2007 @ 9:32 am
March 13th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Mesk:
True, but your ostensibly descriptor is misleading. The religion bait is a distracting tactic utilized by anti-IDers in an attempt to avoid more substantive issues, in some cases. In others it reveals motives not according with "objective" analysis of scientific data but rather with a visceral reaction to secondary implications that can be made from design.
Comment by Bradford — March 13, 2007 @ 9:46 am
March 13th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Yeah, Keiths is just a creationist in a cheap tuxedo…
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 13, 2007 @ 9:47 am
March 13th, 2007 at 9:52 am
One more thing Mesk. There are two blog entries referencing the ideas of researchers with PhDs in different scientific disciplines and years of work to boot. Where is the focus of critics? Does that tell you anything?
Comment by Bradford — March 13, 2007 @ 9:52 am
March 13th, 2007 at 10:19 am
True, very true, Bradford. But 160 is a lot. The philosophical literature on the problem of evil is vast. For those interested one could pursue it a bit more using texts available at the following links, though this is just scratching the surface:
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~howardd/
http://www.amazon.com/Problem-Evil-Lectures-Delivered-University/dp/0199245606/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-2107794-6039836?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173798687&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/God-Freedom-Evil-Alvin-Plantinga/dp/0802817319/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/103-2107794-6039836?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173798724&sr=1-3
A recently begun blog devoted to the topic is:
http://www.problemofevil.blogspot.com/
But I think I'm done with this thread.
Comment by stunney — March 13, 2007 @ 10:19 am
March 13th, 2007 at 10:27 am
It seems to me that there are some very long posts here that just don't ever really answer the points raised. Although the POE is interesting, what we are really discussing here is whether the Father Jesus talked about can be reconciled with the Johovah of the OT, and he absolutely cannot. Let's try, What would Jesus do?
Would Jesus lead people into jihad as Jehovah did? would he call himself a man of war as Jehovah did? Would he condone ripping babies out of wombs as Jehovah did?
If Christianity wants to pose as the world's one true religion, or even best religion, or even decent religion, it must clean house.
It doesn't seem like much of a sacrifice – to examine whether some of the historical records of the Hebrew people could have been carried out while they were being led by a false prophet, for example. Jesus seemed to find the people in a lot of error, yet they were scripture obsessed. Were some of their scriptures detrimental and not of God?
Here's what I wrote earlier:
If it is the case that Jehovah can engage in actions, repeatedly, that are absolutely evil when performed by humans in any other context and yet we excuse it, then this means we must turn on its head the very conscience that I was always told we are innately equipped with and that comes from God. If God can defy every moral teaching of every religion or even common decency and it is excused, then we have no moral compass at all, and no basis upon which to accept spiritual teachings.
Christians say that the whole epic of old and new testaments are one long record of God's redemption of mankind. If God wanted to redeem mankind why would he confuse us by acting in ways that are unjust, cruel, genocidal and misogynistic? There are plenty of teachings in this world that are higher and more consistent – how can that be?
Why would moral truths of God be negotiable from age to age?
stunney,
How so? I was responding to the person who said that without those horrible laws the Jewish people could not have lived to bring forth Jesus.
Did those laws make them "a light unto the gentiles"
Comment by onething — March 13, 2007 @ 10:27 am
March 13th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Soo much to discuss, so little time(at work anyway). Keiths and others, I do plan on addressing the unanswered questions addressed to me as well as those I find relevant. But for now a few new questions:
1. What exactly is evil?
2. Is it determined by action or intention or both?
3. Can the concept exist apart from teleology?
Comment by Mertens — March 13, 2007 @ 10:47 am
March 13th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Onething,
Was my rather long reply to you too boring to read?
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 13, 2007 @ 10:49 am
March 13th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Keiths,
You have had some fun posing hypothetical questions to the literalist Christians in this thread.
Now I'm going to pose some hypotheticals to you:
1) Is it immoral for a writer or a movie maker to create a movie where the characters suffer, and/or some of them commit evil?
2) Is it immoral for an actor playing a "bad guy" to get completely identified with the character he is playing where he actually feels the anger, thirst for revenge, greed, etc.? Think "method acting".
3) Have you ever gotten so engrossed in a movie or book that you identified with one or more of the characters, felt their fears, sorrows, triumpths, and joys?
4) If life is the ultimate story/ play / movie, and that God / Consciousness is experiencing every apparently separate character and creature within it, doesn't that put a different spin on your whole theodicy complaint against God?
Comment by mcromer — March 13, 2007 @ 11:12 am
March 13th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Hah, your 4) is an interesting answer to my 1.: Evil is nature at war with itself.
Comment by Mertens — March 13, 2007 @ 12:36 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Oyarsa,
I'm sorry about that. Your post seemed to me a long windy way of dreaming up excuses to justify that which cannot be justified. And humans are very good at this. You paint a dismal picture of a God who is stumbling along, trying to decide what to do (and I happen to think it is entirely possible that God learns and is not omniscient). Nonetheless, I simply cannot swallow that the ancient Hebrews were the only fragments of humanity of any worth and through which God could bring an avatar (incarnation of God). Then, deciding that only those people in that time would do, you go on to decide that they simply had to go along with the worst acts that civilized man has ever done – but of course they could not follow the local religions. Yet they could follow slavery and stoning and so forth. If this was such a great and unique project, why didn't he start right out teaching them to avoid war, to not take slaves, and not to engage in merciless actions? How is this recncilable with a long-range plan to teach total compassion? And how can this be reconciled with the fact that Buddha, in 600 BC taught compassion for all sentient beings? How come it could be taught over there but not in the middle east?
There was lots of unclaimed land back then. Why didn't God lead the Jews to a relatively unpopulated area, and lead them to a great society that would have been the admiration of the world?
You describe God as constantly unsure. If that is the case, then surely he might not have made the best decisions each time. Which means, to me, that he could have made a far better plan for bringing the savior into the world, as I said above. but I don't mind that so much. What I do expect from God is moral consistency. It's as if God 3,000 years ago had not even the wisdom of any of many dozens of historical people we could think of.
Isn't is sad that Christians have 'nasty parts' of the Bible that they hate? Wouldn't it be great to have a magnificent God with consistent teachings? Isn't spiritual progress hard enough even without confusion?
I dont advocate throwing out any parts of the Bible for several reasons, but I also haven't seen an answer to my querry of whether it was wise for the church to take in the whole thing, all the documents as if they were equal.
The idea that the best way to bring up humanity is by first using tyranical techniques just doesn't hold water.
Comment by onething — March 13, 2007 @ 1:49 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Hello Joy,
Boy it would be helpful if posts were numbered.
From you, I wasn't expecting justifications. And of course it's fine for people to believe as they wish. What bothers me, though, is that in general people are led to their beliefs by perceived authorities. And that *is* a form of mind control. There are underlying paradigms in societies. When 'the church' teaches certain ideas, it isn't necessaryily without consequence. For example, the OT was used to justify slavery. To be sure, better Christian ideas won out, at much cost, but wouldn't it be nice if Jehovah had come out 3,000 years ago against slavery as a travesty against the image of God that he had created in every man?
Why is that too much to expect from the real God?
But for many, many centuries, and now in many Islamic countries, those types of laws and the precedent for them did not exist. My argument is not with your way of dealing with it, but with what the results such dismal ideas have produced for people. And our modern life was won by struggle and concession from organized religion, not because of it.
However, even that is not the crux of my argument. I am simply adressing whether it is logically or morally possible for the Jehovah character to be identified as the true God.
Comment by onething — March 13, 2007 @ 2:13 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
onething,
Your view seems to be the absolute embodiment of what I consider to be the opposite extreme to slavish literalism that I wrote about in Fighting with the Bible. The obvious response to me seems that Jesus himself stood firmly on the Old Testament scriptures, and saw his vocation as the embodiment of YHWH's return to Zion. I don't think we can legitimately honor Jesus while trashing what he himself honored supremely – and maligning the one he called "Father".
You call my thinking mere rationalization. But I think what you're doing is analogous to the leaves of a tree telling the roots that they don't need them (since they have a clear view of the sun, while the roots lie in darkness). We can indeed see much that the cultures of the ancients were blind to, and I think have a much better perception of who God is. But we see this by standing on their shoulders.
You constantly propose better ways that YHWH might have executed his plan. But I think you miss the point of the plan. It's not ultimately to "teach us compassion", but to restore the entire cosmos. Humanity has had no shortage of good advice throughout his history, and we've never really followed much of it. It's not so much about what concepts God meant to teach the Jews, but rather what he was making out of them.
And no, he didn't choose this people because "were the only fragments of humanity of any worth" – in fact it explicitly often says the opposite. Jacob was the younger brother after all. No, it couldn't work in isolation – the furnace of the location of Israel – where they were conquered again and again by ancient empires – was the forge which turned what was perhaps the most fickle and irritating group of people ever into the most loyal and resilient people of all mankind. The Jews really are amazing.
Again, you may think this rationalization. But my attempt is to read the Bible within the context it was written, and not to constantly judge it by the standards of modern morality. Read the story that it is telling, and you find the part where our own morality, our own fuller revelation of who God is, rises out of it.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 13, 2007 @ 2:26 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Well, Oyarsa, this just doesn't address why God acting within human history necessitated him having such negotiable morals. Doesn't address why he was not consistent and did not bring forth ideas that were better than the lowest ones around, was not an example in any way. Just doesn't add up.
Why use a phrase like 'modern morality' when it is the behavior of the eternal God we are discussing?
And I certainly take issue with the idea that I malign the Father. I do not. It is religion which does that. I happen to believe that the Father is far better than he is portrayed by religion. I agree Jesus felt his vocation strongly and stood on some scriptures for that. But he also refuted the laws and customs of his day, and openly taught of a Father that was at odds with scripture.
They didn't even have books with bindings back then. The scriptures were a mass of separate scrolls.
Humans cannot have been fundamentally different back then. Albeit there have indeed been better and worse times in history.
Comment by onething — March 13, 2007 @ 6:10 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
stunney,
I see that you changed the subject to avoid answering the questions raised by my thought experiment.
I'll pose them again. In each of the two scenarios, A and B:
1. What choice would you make?
2. Which of the two options is the moral choice?
3. Why?
Most important of all, do you really regard both choices in scenario A as morally equivalent, as your statements regarding moral responsibility would indicate?
If so, how do you justify this?
Comment by keiths — March 13, 2007 @ 6:53 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Keiths,
Why not set a good example for stunny by answering my questions.
If you examine them closely, they are basically an extended paraphrase of Eastern religions as well as philosophers like Plato.
Comment by mcromer — March 13, 2007 @ 7:49 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
mcromer wrote:
Patience, Grasshopper… Both you and Mertens shall receive the answers you seek.
Comment by keiths — March 13, 2007 @ 8:40 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
onething wrote:
Exactly. Or why He was obsessed with menstruation and dietary laws, but couldn't be bothered to mention that slavery was a bad thing.
The Old Testament is a clear example (repeated many times across the world) of a society shaping God in its image, rather than vice-versa.
Comment by keiths — March 13, 2007 @ 9:11 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Keiths:
This assumes that 'evilness' and 'goodness' can exist independent of God. This conflicts with the nature of God as the one who defines what is good and evil. If we are made in his image then his definition is also our definition. The possibility you advocate is one in which God tries to create the maximum amount of his own displeasure. If God is evil then he is inconsistent and so is our standard by which we delcare him evil.
Keiths:
Remember that this was a culture in which child rearing was of very great importance. So much so that it in certian cases a barren woman would give her maidservant as a concubine to her husband so that there would be an heir for him. Another example of the importance of child rearing is found at Deuteronomy 25:5. Considering how crimes were punished based on the law of equality(Deuteronomy 19:21) this exception wherein a woman purposefully crushes a man's testicles with her hands preserved her and her husband's right to have childern and continue the family name. The severity of the punishment underscored the sacredness of the reproductive organs and life. It was also extremely easy to avoid.
Keiths:
You contradict yourself. You say that parents are justified in having children based on the hope that they would accomplish more good than evil implying that this hope is based on evidence. Then you present a list of tragedies in an attempt to show how society as a whole has more evil than good. If this is the case, then parents are not justified in bringing children into the world. You cannot have evidence that most people do more good than evil in the world while also showing evidence that the society they form contains more evil than good.
Keiths and others, if your goal was to get people thinking you've succeded with at least one person. I hope I have too.
Comment by Mertens — March 13, 2007 @ 9:16 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Keiths:
Sure. Anyone can see that the beatitudes and their author were really the end product of that society shaping their God. You know how that society was: suffering and dying for justice sake, turning one cheek after being slapped on the other. All you have to do to appreciate this is review the fierce history of Jewish resistance to the Romans and how underlying attitudes shaped the concept of Christ.:roll:
Comment by Bradford — March 13, 2007 @ 9:23 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
I suggest that much (not all, but much) of what repulses the modern reader of the Old Testament is common to the ancient world. The slavery, the implacable brutality, the severe laws – this was just the cultural mosaic of more or less the entire world back then. I would recommend traveling back in time, and entering the world of the ancients as if you were living in a foreign country today – with your eyes wide open. When you travel abroad, you don't immediately assume that the other culture is inferior just because they do things differently, or in a way that seems worse to you. Rather, you recognize that you need to reserve judgment until you can truly understand this alien world.
So, I recommend you read the Enumma Elish, the Epic of Gilgamesh, The Iliad, the Odyssey, and any other primary ancient text that grabs your interest. Enter into a world where gods rule and mortals tremble, where immortals withhold the gift of eternal life tauntingly out of the grasp of men, and then crush them for their hubris. It is a dramatic and colorful, and yet inescapably tragic world. The gods are pitiless and cold – yes having a few favorites – but utterly merciless toward those who displease them. Ultimately, the gods are in it for themselves and their pleasures – and mortals are at best a fun curiosity, and more often are terrified slaves. Religion has little to do at all with morality, and entire civilizations worship gods whose images are made to look as horrible as the artists can imagine – while the blood of human sacrifices flows down the alter, or screaming babies are cast into roaring fires.
And then read the Bible. Here is a god who creates the world, not out of the castration of his own divine father, but out of nothing by his own command. Here is a god who makes man, not out of the blood of a rival, not as a slave or curiosity, but from his own image – his own stamp on creation. Here is a god who cares about justice – who refuses to tolerate filth and evil even if it is directed towards his own worship. Here is a god who, in the same breath of cursing man for his typical rebellion, promises redemption and refuses to abandon him. Here is a god who chooses a people not because of how great and vast their cities are to build him beautiful temples and wonderful sacrifices, but because he sees within them a faith that will allow him to use them to bless the entire race of man, whom he loves dearly – longingly – passionately. Here is a god who, even when his people reject him to worship other gods, abandons them only as a father disciplines his children – even in the act of punishment planning their redemption. Here is a god, who, unlike Palas Athena, in preparing to destroy a wicked pagan city – sees their repentance and has mercy on them – thinking even of their cattle. Here is a god, finally, whose incarnate face is that of a man mocked, crowned with thorns, and strung up on a cross – dying to give life to his beloved and rebellious people.
It is only after wrestling with this stark contrast, and being amazed at the intense love of the god of the Old Testament, that you can even begin to fairly critique the ugly parts. Otherwise I fear prejudice and cynicism will blind you to the wonder and beauty that is right before your eyes.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 13, 2007 @ 9:29 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 9:38 pm
My point Keith is that the parts of the Old Testament that are simply common to the ancient world carry far less weight than those that are unique to the Old Testament. And it is precisely these unique elements running through the entire story that ring most true today.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 13, 2007 @ 9:38 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
It was an observation, not a criticism. I just find it fascinating that even on (probably) the most secular ID-friendly blog on the web, threads on religion attract vastly more attention than anything on ID. This just emphasises how much religion is tied up in the concept of ID. And while interest in religion is admittedly found on both sides of the debate, the religious discussions here are in fact driven largely by pro-ID posters.
I find it interesting that you describe the emphasis on religion as being driven purely by the anti-IDers. In fact, the first seventeen posts in this thread are all by ID-sympathetic posters. keiths chimes in with the eighteenth post with a very brief and perfectly valid correction of a point made by Joy. The next forty-one posts are from ID supporters discussing religious beliefs.
So I'm sorry, Bradford, but in fact your argument here is complete rubbish. This thread wasn't a "bait… utilized by anti-IDers in an attempt to avoid more substantive issues", and the discussion of religion in this forum isn't driven entirely, or even primarily, by anti-IDists – it's driven mainly by interest in religious topics among ID-sympathetic posters.
I am not saying that ID = religion. I'm simply pointing out that even amongst non-creationist IDists, religion is a major point of interest – and that even in this highly non-creationist forum, interest in religion among IDists swamps interest in directly ID-related topics.
Could you link to these posts, please? There certainly have been some strong science-related posts recently, but I'm finding it hard to locate the ones you're referring to amongst the posts on rabbits, humorous posts about Mike's allegedly upcoming book, and attacks on Dawkins and the New Atheists.
And looking back through those science-related posts, I see a lack of interest not just from anti-IDists, but also from ID-sympathetic posters (who do, after all, dominate this forum in terms of numbers). Where is the discussion of the implications of these findings to ID amongst ID supporters? Where are they when Guts posts an excellent entry about epigenetic inheritance? I'll tell you where they are – they're debating the pitfalls of atheism and the interpretation of "original sin".
Comment by Mesk — March 13, 2007 @ 9:44 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Hey Guts,
Any suggestions on avoiding the moderation queue? Should I just avoid putting links in my comments? Or is it related to length?
Comment by Mesk — March 13, 2007 @ 9:58 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Mertens asks:
Like most English words, 'evil' has multiple senses. A good working definition for the purposes of our discussion would be that evil amounts to immoral intent. One shortcoming of this definition is that it fails to encompass what we mean by "necessary evil."
The word can be used in both senses. I try not to use it where intention is absent. As an adjective, it certainly applies to someone with evil intent. Imagine a powerless entity who fully intends to inflict excruciating torment on every sentient being, if he ever gets a chance. Despite being feckless, such a being is surely evil.
In common usage, yes, though I try not to use the term that way. That's why I, as an atheist, don't see volcanos and tsunamis as instances of evil. They only become evil if Someone intends them and is responsible for them.
Comment by keiths — March 13, 2007 @ 10:01 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Hi Mesk,
From experience, I know that there is a limit on the number of links, though I don't know the exact figure.
My experience in this thread suggests that it's greater than two, but less than or equal to twelve.
Comment by keiths — March 13, 2007 @ 10:08 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Mertens wrote:
Good — that's the most I was hoping for.
Yes. As you can see from my reply above, your questions made me think carefully about how, precisely, I would define evil.
Comment by keiths — March 13, 2007 @ 10:14 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Mesk:
If your post has more than 10 links you will go to the moderation queue. Also try to avoid these words (the word you wrote that triggered the moderation queue was seventeen, since that is a common word I'm going to remove it from the list.
-online
4u
adipex
advicer
ambien
baccarrat
blackjack
bllogspot
booker
byob
car-rental-e-site
car-rentals-e-site
carisoprodol
casino
casinos
chatroom
cialis
credit-report-4u
cwas
cyclen
cyclobenzaprine
dating-e-site
day-trading
debt-consolidation-consultant
discreetordering
duty-free
dutyfree
fioricet
flowers-leading-site
freenet-shopping
freenet
gambling
health-insurancedeals-4u
holdem
holdempoker
holdemsoftware
holdemtexasturbowilson
hotel-dealse-site
hotele-site
hotelse-site
incest
insurance-quotesdeals-4u
insurancedeals-4u
jrcreations
levitra
macinstruct
mortgage-4-u
online-gambling
onlinegambling-4u
ottawavalleyag
ownsthis
palm-texas-holdem-game
paxil
pharmacy
phentermine
poker
poker-chip
poze
rental-car-e-site
slot-machine
slot
soma
taboo
texas-holdem
thorcarlson
top-site
top-e-site
tramadol
trim-spa
ultram
valeofglamorganconservatives
viagra
vioxx
xanax
zolus
Comment by Guts — March 13, 2007 @ 10:33 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
mcromer asks:
There is a difference between fictional evil and actual evil, if that's what you're asking.
Yes, if he acts on those feelings in the real world. Otherwise, no.
Yes, but never to the extent that I felt as strongly as I would had those things actually been happening to me.
Sure. It raises some interesting questions about God and sadomasochism.
More seriously, I'll make the same point I made to you earlier. Each of us experiences our own pain and pleasure differently from the pain and pleasure of others, even those with whom we identify strongly.
So even if, as you propose, we are all part of some larger Consciousness, the fact remains that our individual sufferings are still morally significant.
If someone took you and me, stripped away our relatively comfortable existences, and planted us in Darfur as refugees, their action would have (negative) moral significance, even if you try to argue that we are in some way all part of a single larger Entity.
Comment by keiths — March 13, 2007 @ 10:38 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Bravo, Mesk. Trenchant and germane, as usual.
Comment by keiths — March 13, 2007 @ 10:48 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Reread what I wrote. I did not claim the "thread" was bait, which by my understanding, would include the TT blog and all subsequent comments. I referred to a distracting tactic which is very much in evidence. Claim that ID is a front for religion while making religious arguments against ID. What have those arguments been? Look at the references to the OT, the God of the OT, the alleged immorality of God etc.
It is driven by interest in religious topics- yes. Although IDers, contrary to the popular meme, do distinguish between a religious argument and hard data. To some of the commenters on this blog religious arguments are seen as pertinent to debunking ID. They are not.
Comment by Bradford — March 13, 2007 @ 10:51 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Bradford wrote:
You're the one bringing up time travel.
I didn't think I needed to spell it out, but okay.
We've been discussing whether God's treatment of Job was evil. One of the arguments in God's defense was that it was Satan, not God, who tormented Job.
My counterargument was that God, being omniscient, knew perfectly well what would happen when he placed Job in Satan's hands (not that it took omniscience to figure out that Job wasn't about to enjoy an all-expenses-paid vacation to the Costa del Sol).
My scenarios A & B parallel this situation and give us a vantage point from which to judge the morality of the Biblical account.
I wrote:
Bradford's response:
Um, Bradford… the beatitudes and "turn the other cheek" come from the New Testament.
Comment by keiths — March 13, 2007 @ 11:05 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Hi Mesk,
The most common expression of teleology is religion. Since ID is a teleological perspective, it is not surprising that religious people would be drawn to it. Sociological observations are always interesting, and often worthy of commentary, but it doesn't detract from the simple fact that ID neither presupposes nor concludes a religious point of view.
That's the blogosphere (internet). Hop over to "scienceblogs.com" and count the number of science postings compared to postings about politics, religion, atheism, Bush, etc. Or go to the #1 Science Blog and check out posts tagged "˜godlessness' vs. those tagged "˜science' and count the comments. Or go to PT. Right now, a post on Game Theory and Net Neutrality has yet to receive a comment, but Nick's anti-ID letter gets over 50 comments. And this is from the self-described "pro-science" crowd. It's not really fair to single us out as if we have some unique problem.
For that matter, go to any university and determine what % of students major in science. Better yet, ask them about "epigenetic inheritance" and see how many get interested.
I take a more optimistic perspective. Over the years, I have seen numerous non-scientists on the web actually go out and buy science textbooks or read science papers. And it's all because of their interest in ID and this debate.
Comment by MikeGene — March 13, 2007 @ 11:14 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Um Keiths, your claim was a broad one, i.e. society repeatedly "many times across the world" shapes God in its image. That makes no sense with regard to Jesus and the society in which he lived. A highly relevant example given the obsession with Christianity.
Comment by Bradford — March 13, 2007 @ 11:16 pm
March 13th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
:raises hand:
Comment by Rob R. — March 13, 2007 @ 11:25 pm
March 14th, 2007 at 12:03 am
Same here. This debate led me to choose RNA folding simulation as part of my computer science research.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 14, 2007 @ 12:03 am
March 14th, 2007 at 12:15 am
What is the difference? The person who plays "you" in your dreams believes that he is in a real world, not a fictional / dream world. Why is that dream "you" not real, while the waking "you" is real?
But what if this is not the "real world" What if everyone you see, including yourself, is a dream-character appearing within impersonal Consciousness?
Sure. The dream world is usually less engagaging, engrossing and "real" than our ordinary waking world. And when we get caught up in a movie, there is still usually close to hand the ability to remember that we are watching a movie.
Probably the best example of a true engrossment is some of the interactive networked role-playing games. People can get so sucked into those virtual worlds that they retreat from and ignore their physical lives, sometimes losing jobs, friendships, even marriages.
Can I assume that you only read stories about fluffy bunnies?
You are assuming that God is suffering. I am stating that mental suffering is a kind of "optical illusion" of consciousness. And it is possible for such suffering to come to an end.
Here are a couple of counter-indications from my own life.
1) At the exact moment my brother killed himself, my stepmom fell into an excruciating pounding headache with no warning. She was not given to such headaches.
2) One day I was sitting on a bed, talking to my wife about seeing an odd character (let's call him Mr. E.) who had been my teacher twenty years ago. He was driving in a car filled up with papers and books stacked to the ceiling.
I started to tell my wife that she should write a novel about this man. As I was about to speak on what her fiction book could do with his character, we were interrupted by my son. He proceeded to say exactly what I was about to speak. That this character would drive his car to the local nuclear plant, and that the papers and books stacked in his car would fall over on him, precipitating a vehicle accident crashing into the reactor which would end up causing a nuclear blast.
This was precisely what I was about to say to my wife.
What's more, I remembered that this man's life mission was to defeat nuclear power, that he had personally taken me and the other children to this nuclear plant before its opening and propagandized us to fear nuclear power. So the story idea made perfect sense, coming from me. My son knew none of these facts, having been born 10 years after I last saw Mr. E., and I had never discussed him with my son or the rest of my family before. And yet, my son was able to enunciate my thoughts precisely.
These is not an isolated events. There are millions of stories like them from people of all walks of life. Sometimes, thought and sensation is clearly not limited to one particular person.
You are taking an object (the "Me" / "separate individual" idea) and believing erroneously that it is a subject.
In reality, there is only Awareness. Awareness does not belong to any person, rather, people are objects within Awareness, as are bodies, thoughts, emotions, and sensations.
You are not "part of" Awareness, you are Awareness, watching the "Keiths" perspective reading these words over "there", and watching the "Matthew" awareness writing these words over "here".
This is exactly what mysticism shows, what deep introspection into the question "who is asking this question, really",
I am not arguing that we are all part of a larger entity.
I am arguing that there are no entities. Only Awareness in which the appearance of entities arises.
Comment by mcromer — March 14, 2007 @ 12:15 am
March 14th, 2007 at 1:24 am
Hmmm I think your right certainly Harris and Dawkins come to mind. Oh and how about that non belief conference and the new atheist movement?
Mesk IMO much of the debate is as much about metaphysics and world views as anything else so it is not surprising that religion would garner a lot of interest.
Vivid
Comment by Vividbleau — March 14, 2007 @ 1:24 am
March 14th, 2007 at 1:25 am
keiths opined:
keiths,
I'll take this as an admission that, as I've already observed, your thought experiment begs the key questions and so is actually pretty useless to productive debate, but you're stubbornly determined to pretend otherwise.
Even if your thought experiment wasn't so blatantly question-begging, I would, like any prudent and conscientious real-world moral reasoner, try to gain more information before answering your contrived questions, such as whether Monday's child would, after committing the crime, go on to have a profound moral conversion, eventually leading to his/her being instrumental in establishing world peace and becoming the hero who discovers a comprehensive cure for cancer. Or maybe a surviving relative of one of those killed becomes the instrument of peace and discoverer of cancer, out of his/her moral response to the tragedy, but would otherwise have lived a completely unheroic life. Would you say, in that case, that the imaginary parent was morally responsible for not ensuring millions of lives would be saved from war and cancer by having sex on Tuesday or was morally responsible for the 200 victims by having sex on Monday? And if you answer 'yes' to moral responsibilty in both cases, would this mean that the imaginary parents would be morally responsible for the deaths of innocents regardless of whichever night they chose to have sex, and if so would this render them morally evil no matter what they did?
And what this shows–and what your thought experiment contrives to ignore–is that we can't know what moral gains and costs really attach to the alternative world-scenarios facing an omniscient world creator and hence are not in a position to know which ones such a creator would be morally justified in creating, and hence would not be immoral in choosing, even though the creator would be causally responsible for all the consequences of whichever world was instantiated. But as I said already, causal responsibiliity is not per se a determinant of moral responsibility. Which is one reason I'm not morally responsible for war deaths in Iraq even if I don't assassinate Bush. And if I was the creator of a good and justifiable world in which the worst thing that ever happened was that someone had a bad toothache caused by freely-willed dental neglect, I wouldn't consider myself an immoral dental torturer simply in virtue of being causally responsible for creating that world.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with the intractable complexities surrounding the issues of consequentialist versus deontological ethics, like is it morally right to torture a teenager to gain information about the location of a terrorist bomb, and if you don't torture and the bomb goes off killing dozens, are you morally responsible and blameworthy for those deaths, given the causal role your choice of action played in the actual chain of events? And so on.
Simplistic thought experiments are of very little value in deciding the truth about such questions. They're more useful as a parlor game, and perhaps for discovering whether your ethical intuitions tend to be consequentialist or deontological or, like most people's, a confusing mixture of both. But they don't do what you need them to do to convict God of immorality.
PS–there is more discussion of the problem of evil in the light of the consequentialist v deontological controversy just now over at http://www.problemofevil.blogspot.com/
Comment by stunney — March 14, 2007 @ 1:25 am
March 14th, 2007 at 1:40 am
Bradford wrote:
Broad but not universal. There is an important difference between the words "many" and "all".
Bradford, the topic was the Old Testament, not the New, as my statement clearly indicated. Not everything said about the Old Testament applies to the New. Not everything said about the New Testament applies to the Old. They are distinct, and they differ.
Besides, the "turn the other cheek" ethic is by no means unique to Christianity:
Islam:
Judaism:
Sikhism:
Buddhism:
And my favorite, from Zen Buddhism:
That one still gives me goosebumps when I read it.
Comment by keiths — March 14, 2007 @ 1:40 am
March 14th, 2007 at 2:33 am
I wrote to stunney:
stunney responded:
Hi stunney,
I thought you'd be back.
Taking my statement as an "admission" is about as perverse as running a chainsaw through a dictionary.
Why are you afraid of answering my questions, which are straightforward questions about moral choices, and reconciling your answers with your own previous statements about moral agency and responsibility?
There is nothing arcane about these questions. Try presenting these scenarios to people, and you'll see that they do not struggle to make a choice in either case.
Why do you find it so difficult? Is it really that hard for you to decide whether the children should live or die in each scenario, and to justify your choice?
The default assumption is ceteris paribus, as is customary for thought experiments. If it weren't, no thought experiment would ever make sense.
Yes, if they were omniscient. Since most actions have both positive and negative repercussions, an omniscient moral agent must sum up the consequences in order to make a moral decision.
No. In fact, if they chose so as to minimize the resulting evil, then they acted morally. This is precisely what I was getting at when I referred to "necessary evil" in my discussion with Mertens above.
Comment by keiths — March 14, 2007 @ 2:33 am
March 14th, 2007 at 3:13 am
That's why they're also indecisive and question-begging. Especially in this case. Which makes your stubborn pressing of your thought experiment all the more silly of you. As I've duly noted.
I asked:
You replied:
I wouldn't agree with how you're using the notion of being morally responsible for innocent deaths in that first sentence, since in ordinary usage that typically implies moral blameworthiness–but I'll return to that in a moment. But I agree with your second sentence (which indeed is the heart of the matter, and shows why your thought experiment is useless for deciding the heart of the matter).
I asked:
You replied:
As already noted, you said that in both cases they would be morally responsible (if omniscient) for the resulting deaths. But you now qualify that attribution by saying that in one case their moral responsibility wouldn't amount to moral wrongdoing. And presumably, therefore, wouldn't amount to a reason for assigning to them moral guilt or blameworthiness in that case (the one which results in lesser harm).
I hope you can now see that you're admitting causal responsibilty for bad consequences doesn't translate ipso facto to any personal moral responsibility for moral wrongdoing, even for an omniscient agent.
QED.
Comment by stunney — March 14, 2007 @ 3:13 am
March 14th, 2007 at 5:53 am
Mesk wrote:
Vividbleau responded:
Vivid,
Considering that you already gave the farm away, it's probably best if you don't try to downplay ID's religious connections.
Comment by keiths — March 14, 2007 @ 5:53 am
March 14th, 2007 at 7:33 am
stunney wrote:
Yes, but there's nothing new about it. That's been my position throughout the entire thread, which is why, for example, I wrote this:
stunney again:
Again, that's been my position from the beginning of the discussion.
The difference between us is that you say that the parents, even if omniscient, are not responsible to any degree, under any circumstances, for the actions of their offspring:
I say that the omniscient parents are morally responsible, but that we naturally don't blame them if they make choices which minimize the evil done, just as we don't blame a battlefield surgeon when triage leads to unavoidable deaths.
Your position leads to the absurd conclusion, in scenario A, that both choices — the one that leads to the death of 200 children, and the one that does not — are equally moral.
For me, the choice that saves the children's lives is the morally correct choice in each scenario.
I think you realize that yours is an absurd conclusion, which is why you so adamantly refuse to answer the questions regarding the two scenarios. You know that the principle you stated earlier requires you to assert that the two choices are equally moral, but at the same time you recognize that it is impossible to justify this given that the cost of saving the children is so small. So you avoid the issue and try to change the subject.
Since you like my thought experiments so much, here is another one which illustrates the problem without invoking omniscience:
You are in a small third-world country on vacation. You plan to hire a taxi and driver for a day of sightseeing. At the taxi stand, you learn that a disaster has befallen part of the country, and that buses, vans, and taxis are urgently needed to help evacuate victims from the area. You already know, as a foreigner, that you will not be allowed into the disaster area and cannot help in any direct way. Your driver, a prosperous businessman who owns a small fleet of taxis, tells you that the government has offered him an extra 50% over his usual rate to help with the evacuation, but that he is willing to drive you around instead if you give him an extra 75%. If you don't hire him, he will accept the government's offer. Do you accept his offer and enjoy a day of sightseeing, or do you decline so that his car is available to help with the evacuation?
Recall what you wrote earlier:
The driver is the one making the decision about what to do with the car for the day. According to you, he, as a moral agent, is solely responsible for his decision to take you sightseeing. Your willingness to hire him has caused his car to be unavailable for the evacuation, but according to you, you are in no way responsible for any consequences this has for the victims of the disaster. It was his decision, not yours.
I find this absurd, and argue that if you place your desire for a pleasant day of sightseeing above the country's need for emergency transportation, you are responsible for the consequences.
Comment by keiths — March 14, 2007 @ 7:33 am
March 14th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Guts,
Thanks – I've bookmarked your list so I can consult it if I fall into the evil clutches of the moderation queue again.
Bradford,
Perhaps I misread you, but you certainly did appear to be making a general argument that discussions of religion on ID blogs were usually sparked as a distraction by anti-ID posters. Either way, my post (and this entire thread) stand as a good argument against that claim, should it be made again.
Mike,
I don't disagree with any of this – as you know, I don't see ID as necessarily religious, although it is clear that most IDists do in fact hold religious beliefs.
The point of my comment was to address the perceived claim that religious discussions on ID forums are driven largely by ID critics seeking to distract their opponents from more ID-relevant topics. Bradford has denied making that claim, and on re-reading his comment I see that his wording does not unambiguously support my interpretation – so I'm happy to let that particular argument go for the moment.
That's not what I said – in fact I completely agree with you that this is the case for both sides (I said in my post, "interest in religion is admittedly found on both sides of the debate"; I should have clarified that said interest is often greater than is the case for dry science). I've gone on the record before stating that "my side" has some unfortunate habits, and the sycophantic, juvenile religion-bashing comments threads on Pharyngula are a wonderful illustration of this.
And I wasn't criticising Telic Thoughts specifically. I was simply responding to the perceived claim that the heavy interest in religion on this blog is due to "baiting" by anti-IDists. That simply isn't the case, as the pattern of comments on this thread and others readily demonstrates.
Comment by Mesk — March 14, 2007 @ 9:30 am
March 14th, 2007 at 10:11 am
onething:
Tribes were working toward nationhood and 'civilization' within the milieu of their times. I think it's quite obvious that this is a process, and that the process includes a certain amount of translation from exterior (the milieu, the actions and pronouncements of gods conceived as being "out there" rather than "in here," etc).
I have already stated my opinion that the imposition from 'authority' of the Jehovah-related God-concepts and edicts toward forming these disparate peoples into a civilized nation reflect the state of the hard-wiring in human consciousness circuits at the given times. I'd go further to say I think it began with isolated people (shamen, healers, the 'spirit-walkers' and holy men who were different in this way from their fellows), and that over time began to be more common in the population. Just like evolutionary 'inventions' are said to spread in populations.
So what you get is the bare percepts of cause behind great natural disasters and really impressive events "out there" being explained by 'authority' (the holy ones) to the people, and ever so slowly over time the internalization of such percepts of God in direct experience – "in here."
Hanging on to outdated methodologies long past their prime per the process being instantiated is of course foolish. I expect that the leftovers of this authoritarian phase will eventually bite the dust, but not because we so-civilized First-Worlders go with guns and bombs to their nations and attempt to impose our authoritarian edicts (or our 'democracy') on them. But that's political, not evolutionary. Peoples have to do this mostly for themselves, IMO. If it's to take root, that is.
I don't know. I'd suggest that it *is* the same God all the way through, because that is what the writers tell us (and they should know more than we do). Again, I have said the collection describes a process of an externalization being internalized. It took a couple of thousand years, but there is a straight(ish) line from beginning to end, even as the concepts become more refined and personalized.
Comment by Joy — March 14, 2007 @ 10:11 am
March 14th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Mesk:
Hi, Mesk. This thread is entirely my fault. The title of course invites discussion of this "hard-wiring" and what it means, as well as how it pertains to the books most here are familiar with and beholden to in one degree or another. I have allowed it to go on without interference because these types of discussion are rare on this blog, and I find people's understandings and willingness to discuss very interesting.
If you don't find it interesting, there are many other threads in which the discussion of beliefs are not found. You are welcome to click on any of them, and will get response to your posts.
But I don't think interest "swamps" interest in ID – which is why we are ALL here, is it not? It's just an odd thread that allows exploration of interest in religious things. I know that you and your classmates on the anti-ID 'side' think it's very strange for people to have an interest, but in reality both sides of these debates are obsessed with religion. A civil discussion of issues including a variety of views demonstrates fairly well that 1) believers here are not afraid to discuss their views, and 2) non-believers tend to be stuck on simplistic, child-like misunderstandings of why human beings find religion to be important in their lives.
Quite refreshing and revealing, but you are of course free to ignore.
First, I am not a biologist. And I have little to contribute to a discussion of epigenetics even though it's one of the things that demonstrates how bereft of explanatory power the NDS truly is. Though I'll gladly take a look and post to that thread if there's anything I could contribute.
Comment by Joy — March 14, 2007 @ 10:14 am
March 14th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Vividbleau:
You're right, Vivid. The motivation and often 'hidden' depth of most all the arguments pro and con in these debates are your basic Dueling Metaphysics, a perennial pastime of human beings since time immemorial. Mesk doesn't find the discussion interesting, but I do. And so do others, apparently! §;o)
keiths:
You're extrapolating beyond your depth, keith. First, I don't care what readers and commenters to this or any other thread believe per their particular religious or non-religious affiliations. Because individual's beliefs do not affect what's true about life and design. So there is no religious litmus test anyone here must pass before being allowed to join in any topic's discussion, and I am not the least bit surprised that there are religious people reading and commenting in this thread.
And since you are one of the most prolific contributors to this thread (in your assumed role of Devil's Advocate), the complaint doesn't hold water. I am disappointed, however, that you have taken attempts here to respond to your questions and demands and indictments of God to somehow "prove a point" that exists nowhere but in your own mind.
This thread is about humans being "hard-wired for God." My post expands on another blogger's take of the NYT article "Darwin's God," who happens to be a theologian. If you are uninterested in the discussion of this subject, you can always click on a different thread. I won't mind.
Comment by Joy — March 14, 2007 @ 10:19 am
March 14th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Joy,
I cannot figure out what you are trying to say.
You wrote:
Of course there isn't, and there shouldn't be.
Neither am I. Why are you bringing all of this up?
What complaint??
What point are you talking about?
The extent of my participation should make it obvious that I am interested in the issues raised in this thread.
At least this part I understand. You never have been particularly welcoming to those who disagree with you.
Comment by keiths — March 14, 2007 @ 10:33 am
March 14th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Bradford,
Jesus was not in the Old Testament. But also, the Old Testament contains many wonderful things. But it is also filled with rot. That, IMHO is why Jesus tried to bring reform. Now, just because people have made God in their image, does not mean that great teachers never come along and clear up errors.
Oyarsa,
You made some good points about the overall theme of the OT, but actually, much of the time the relationship of Jehovah in the OT is very similar to the one you describe between the gods of the ancient world and the people.
As to his obsession with menstruation, that is obvious. Women are unclean, not only while they menstruate but for 12 days. And when does a woman become fertile? At about 14 days on average. And what does forbidden fruit do to the mind? Makes it very desirable. And what would a 'man of war' want from the women? As many babies as possible.
By the way Mesk, I don't see this thread as having anything to do with ID. Topics of religion and God are of interest to all sides because ID and NDE are about origins, and God, should she exist, must necessarily be the source of all existence, so it does relate.
Mcromer,
Small comfort if you are a mare strapped immobile for 7 months out of every year, and your doomed foal is taken from you at birth, with process repeated until your sad death, in the making of premarin. The idea that there is no one who suffers seems like a dangerous one. This same argument was what started off the live vivisection of dogs. Was it Descartes? who argued essentially that since they didn't have souls (who says!?) that there really was no one home anyway. Not quite the same reason as the eastern enlightenment philosophy (to which I am very sympathetic by the way) but if it takes hold in society it can be used to allow much suffering.
I rather think, that the goal should be to avoid nightmares, and have good dreams.
Joy,
Your post is filled with good sense of course. What I long for is that people feel free to think for themselves as you have done. I do think that religion often has been used by the elite to prevent that very thing, by manipulation of certain emotions such a fear, disapproval, loyalty and so forth. Left to their own devices, most people come to good conclusions methinks; being an optimist, I see that people are inherently good.
I would say that there is a difference between not taking the Bible literally, as in finding the Genesis story allegorical, versus the much greater freedom that you use. Not quite sure how to articulate the difference.
Comment by onething — March 14, 2007 @ 12:07 pm
March 14th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Keith asked and aswered do I have to hold your hand? Your basic premise as I see it is that ID is all about God. Yet you are the one constantly bringing God ie the supernaturalinto the discussions…its your favorite topic.
Ergo If ID is all about God and you always bring God up according to you this makes you an ID'st. thus my question.
Oh well back to the store.
Vivid
Comment by Vividbleau — March 14, 2007 @ 12:12 pm
March 14th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
I think this overstates things, but the crux of my point is that we shouldn't blame the Bible for the things it shares with the rest of the ancient world. We should focus on the distinctions it was trying to make within the ancient world.
Take slavery, for instance. Slavery was probably the second most common institution in the world – second only to the family (with even government and state religion lower on the list). It was the equivalent of our modern industrialization and technology – slaves were how things got done. Now, the Mosaic law, as any law code of the time, made allowance for slavery. But contained within the torah is the root from which the modern abolitionist movements (both of early Christendom and the 19th century) grow – the idea of the fatherhood of God, the imago dei, making all men equal in intrinsic value before him. And the controlling story of the entire Old Testament is that of slaves being set free – and this theme echoes even in the 20th century in the great speeches of MLKII.
I don't think this an immoral way for God to work in history. Rather than re-design a people from scratch, he took one out of the many of the time, and front-loaded them with something that would change the world.
Somehow I missed the obsession with menstruation in my recent trek through Leviticus. What about his obsession with semen? What about his obsession with infectious skin diseases? What about his obsession with dead carcases? The common theme is an obsession with cleanliness – both on a physical and spiritual level. Again, we can get hung up on how ancient cultures shock our sensibilities, but the theme of cleanliness is really what is trying to be communicated here.
Anyway, I've found this discussion quite helpful and challenging. I'm actually right at Numbers 31 in my Bible blogging project, and my post on that will definitely reflect our conversation here. I don't want to be presumptuous, but if you want to continue it over at my place when this thread dies down, you are most welcome.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 14, 2007 @ 12:39 pm
March 14th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Thanks to all for contributing to this thread. I have found it very interesting and helpful.
I think that we are all metaphysicians first, and IDists or non-IDists second, third, fourth or whatever.
Comment by bj — March 14, 2007 @ 12:46 pm
March 14th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Keiths,
It's stuff like this that makes me loathe bringing other modern religions into the discussion if we don't actually have representatives present. In some of your quotes, you are comparing edge cases with central teachings, obscure stories with pivitol scriptures, average cases with best cases, etc. And all without cultural or textual context.
I have a great deal of respect for Islam, but I respect them enough to understand where they themselves would insist they differ from my own faith. And probably the most central difference between Islam and Christianity is the fact that Mohammed achieved domination and established the kingdom of God by force of arms in his lifetime. Jesus, on the other hand, died on a Roman cross. It was through their conviction that his resurrection showed that death was actually a trojan-horse style victory that led his followers to build the kingdom of God by their willingness to forgive and suffer. It is very telling that Muslims do not believe that Jesus was even crucified.
So I recognize the quote you give for Islam as misleading – seeing that exercising God's vengeance on his enemies is so central to the Koran. To act as if this one quote is equivalent to the cross of Christ being the central symbol of the entire Christian faith… well… misleading isn't a strong enough word. Muslims today tend to fault us for our tolerance of evil in the west, rather than our lack of practicing the forgiveness and "turning the other cheek" that we both apparently hold in highest esteem.
And if I can see that this picture is misleading in the cases where I do have some knowledge, what do I do with your other quotes – of eastern religions I anticipate spending a lifetime trying to understand (I do intend to move to the East) with any depth? But here you have them – world religions all together in separate columns, each with a checkbox in the "turn the other cheek" row. Sorry – I'm not convinced. Perhaps I'll tell you what I think about them in 20 years.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 14, 2007 @ 1:13 pm
March 14th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
onething:
Perhaps some background may clarify. First, I am a born synesthete. My perceptions have never quite coincided with what I hear is considered 'normal' among human beings. And throughout my life, whenever I lapse in the strict guarding of my communications about perception, I have been viewed with great suspicion and even fear (my parents just called me "special"). Why, when I first introduced the subject over at ARN (toward a hoped-for thread about consciousness), I was quickly descended upon by the juvenile delinquent-types from Infidels who haunt that forum, and pronounced "brain damaged."
Worse, I may suppose that my "hard-wiring for God" is also more pronounced and intertwined with my physical world perceptual processing machinery as well. Because the existence of a "More" with personality-type attributes has always been entirely obvious to me. Deal is, I've never been very fond of religion, even though I do see and appreciate its functions for most people.
I didn't get strict sectarian training as a child – I'm a military brat, and for the first 12 years of my life there was just a building on base that Jews got to use on Saturdays, Catholics got to use early Sunday morning, and Protestants got to use late on Sunday morning. Your basic worship service, zero training in details. Plus, my Godparents were both Jews (who had lost their entire families in the camps during WW-II), as were all my friends when I was in kindergarten and first grade (DC 'burb). That 'burb was pretty multi-cultural in general (though predominantly Jewish) because it's where high-level gub'ment functionaries lived. My 'boyfriend's' father (gosh, Ira was so darned cute!) was head of Radio Free Europe, for instance. And this was the time that my friends WERE receiving sectarian instruction in Torah school.
So I was introduced from the git-go to the fact that different people have different beliefs about God. Since they were all real people who I liked a lot, I rather quickly came to the conclusion that how people perceive or project their deity isn't all that important. Though I of course did mistakenly assume everybody believed in God. I was an adult before I met my first real atheist.
As that young adult beginning a new life with my husband and producing children we intentionally raised differently from how we were raised, I did go exploring among the many alternative religious traditions (and no religious traditions), primarily due to a bad reaction to a dogma that intruded on my life when Mother-in-Law insisted I get the kids sprinkled so they wouldn't go to hell if they died. Whoa! That one burned me ten ways to sideways, and I was flat-out shocked that the little church I attended with all the nice people really believed something so outrageous.
Buddhism seemed way to esoteric for my tastes, having a good deal of experience with a personal deity. Sikhism was appealingly philosophical, but too authoritative for my tastes. I actually kind of liked Hinduism once I got past the subdivisions of demigods and focused only on the Avatar (Krishna), but then I found that the guru believed not even Krishna's 40,000 wives could actually escape the wheel, because they were female. I need not explain why that burned me up big time.
I checked around some shamanistic traditions too, and they're very interesting in an anthropological sort of way. Don Juan was my favorite, and when finishing up my physics training it was the whole turning into a crow thing that finally impressed an important concept in my mind (Matter Is Cheap). Yet in the end I came home to the Bible. Perhaps it's because it was most familiar to me, or because it's benefitted from the most explanation from elders, or maybe it's because in Jesus the final connection to my humanity was made. I don't really know.
All this experience has allowed me to view the various socio-political formalizations we know as religion from a different, perhaps broader point of view. It seems still clear to me that there is More. It also seems clear to me that human socio-political formalizations all suffer from the all-too human shortcomings of those doing the formalization.
I believe it's a mistake to view the human shortcomings of socio-political formalizations as necessary shortcomings of deity. That's focusing on the wrong thing – or asking the wrong questions. If indeed there is More, then there will of course be a wide variety of ways individuals (and groups) define it. I am often surprised at how often staunch atheists make this mistake, and use it to beat believers about the head. Very strange, from people who pride themselves so greatly on their supposed intellectual superiority.
Anyway, hope that helps. I never joined a church, never got sprinkled or dunked, never signed off on anybody's "Going to Heaven" roll. In fact, if heaven is the exclusive gated community some of the worst sectarian offenders claim it is, I'd personally rather go to hell. It will be a lot more fun and interesting! §;o)
Comment by Joy — March 14, 2007 @ 1:18 pm
March 14th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Yes that's the goal of the dream-character. No doubt about that. And that natural movement continues even when the dream-character is not being mistaken as who you are.
That is a consequentialist argument. I am pointing at reality, and you are arguing that the consequences of reality are unpleasant.
In most cases the ego, the personality, the striving away from pain and towards pleasure all continue, more or less as they always have. "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water". No one is suggesting that clear seeing means sitting on your hands and watching animal and human cruelty with indifference.
The only difference is the belief that who we are is that "me" and its particular contingencies is lost.
Comment by mcromer — March 14, 2007 @ 1:27 pm
March 15th, 2007 at 12:29 am
Oyarsa,
You've got a clever way of mixing valid points with unfounded conclusions.Sure, we should be cautious and respectful in evaluating religions we aren't very knowledgeable about. And it's true that Islam seems to be filled with a lot of negativity – probably even more than the OT. But the koran does have some gems, like this one "Let there be no compulsion in religion."
Nonetheless, we do have some knowledge of other religions, and the golden rule is not unique nor was Jesus the first Jew to speak of it (probably Rabbi Hillel). I've got a whole book that compares the sayings of Buddha with Jesus and there is uncanny similarity. Did Buddha promote slavery? Did Krishna? These religions can be very favorably compared with Christianity or Judaism.
Was Jehovah obsessed with cleanliness? Sure, he definitely had the inside scoop on sanitation, and knew when newborns could be safely circumcised, but is it really concern over cleanliness that made him restrict sex for an entire week after a woman stops menstruating? That seems positively neurotic! Or could it be? A little animal(human) husbandry was going on?
I certainly resent him turning women into livestock.
Mcromer,
Well, hadn't that oughtta tell you somethin'?
Or, if I am not mistaken as to who I am, then that means I am someone.
But you said no one suffers. So why not. Especially if "In most cases the ego, the personality, the striving away from pain and towards pleasure all continue, more or less as they always have"
So why not take advantage of others? There is no one to suffer, and yet isn't it perfectly natural to strive toward pleasure anyway?
If there are no entitites, then there is no reincarnation.
I rather think, that something with this picture is wrong. I haven't achieved abiding nondual awareness, so who am I to say? But I think there is an error here. I have heard one person use the expression "expansion of the sense of self" rather than "there is no ego." It may be that when the awareness breaks through the narrow ego confines they get a little lost in the vastness and mistakenly think they are not an entity. It may be that as entities we lack inherent existence. It may be that we are a bunch of overlapping, intermingling subentities of the one entity. Since I am a monist, that is what I think. But there is always this paradox and mysterious interplay between the many and the one.
It may be that there is only awareness, but what happens with individual lives is that you have this ego-membrane, and it's like a semipermeable biologic membrane, and it holds some of that universal awareness captive, and in that condition it is capable of suffering.
Comment by onething — March 15, 2007 @ 12:29 am
March 15th, 2007 at 5:01 am
Mertens wrote:
Hi Mertens,
There are serious problems with the idea that God defines goodness. True, it resolves the problem of God's atrocious behavior in the Old Testament by redefining it as good, but at what cost? Our moral intuitions and consciences become completely useless.
If you have a rebellious teenage son, you wouldn't dream of stoning him to death. Your conscience wouldn't allow it. Indeed, most of us would not consider stoning anyone to death, even for vile crimes. Yet in Deuteronomy, God tells parents that they must stone a rebellious son to death. According to you, that command is good, since God defines good. But it forces you to ignore what you know in your own conscience to be right.
It simply can't be, because we wouldn't even consider stoning a son to death for rebelliousness. Our morality conflicts sharply with the morality of the God of the Old Testament.
If you believe that God's actions define good, then He can't do evil, no matter how vile his actions seem to us. On the other hand, if you believe that morality is defined separately from God's actions, then he can do evil. But this doesn't make the standard inconsistent, it makes God inconsistent for proclaiming the standard and not following it. Similarly, just because humans don't adhere perfectly to their own morals does not, in itself, make those morals inconsistent. So we do have a moral basis from which to judge God's actions, just as we can judge the actions of Zeus, or Hamlet, or Paris Hilton.
I'm not arguing that the Bible's morality is consistent. It's not. I'm just saying that morality doesn't disappear just because God does something evil.
It's an interesting attempt to defend God, though. Imagine the courtroom scene:
I asked Mertens:
Mertens replied:
In all of the thousands of cultures that have ever existed in the world, can you think of a single one which was extinguished, or even merely set back, because of a outbreak of testicle-crushing among its women?
If a society fails to cut off women's hands for this infraction, does it follow that child-rearing is unimportant to them?
Mertens, do you realize that you just defended the practice of cutting off a woman's hand for grabbing a man's genitals in defense of her husband?? If it's such a good thing, should we return to this practice?
At some point you have to stop and ask: What has happened to me? How has it become so important to me to believe that a particular Book is correct, from cover to cover, that I am willing to condone the stoning of one's own children and the cutting off of women's hands for defending their husbands?
Believers like to ask atheists what they will say if they come face-to-face with God, after death, and he asks them "Why didn't you believe in me?"
Let me ask you a similar question. What will you say, when you die, if God asks you "Did you really think it mattered to me if someone touched the skin of a menstruating woman? Did you really think I wanted people to stone rebellious sons, and to cut off the hands of women who defended their husbands? What kind of a God did you think I was? And why did you hold this book in such high esteem that you were willing to ignore what your own conscience told you about what was right and wrong?"
How will you answer?
Comment by keiths — March 15, 2007 @ 5:01 am
March 15th, 2007 at 7:22 am
Wonders for Oyarsa wrote:
That is a perfectly fine defense of ancient Hebrew society, or of the Bible as literature. There are good and bad parts, beautiful and ugly parts, all of which must be taken into account before rendering a judgment on the whole.
But as a defense of a morally perfect God, it falls flat. Perfect Gods don't play favorites. Perfect Gods don't command people to stone their children to death, or to cut off women's hands for ridiculous reasons. Yes, the God of the Old Testament shows love at times, but he doesn't act like a perfect God.
We must acknowledge that God is not perfect, or that the Bible is an inaccurate reflection of a perfect God, or that God doesn't exist at all. But to claim that God is perfect, yet did all of the horrible things attributed to Him in the Old Testament, is perverse — unless, as I've said before in this thread, you can come up with an explanation of how all of this evil was really necessary in the service of a higher good.
You're right that as a piece of ancient human literature, the Bible should not be singled out for blame. You'd expect it to have the same faults as other literature of that era. Humans have progressed since then.
But if you turn around and claim that the Bible is the inspired word of God, the bar is raised far higher.
Do you really believe that a perfect God can do no better than "any law code of the time"
And do you recognize that Southerners in the U.S. offered exactly the same rationalization of slavery? "Our economy depends on it. It's how we get things done. Without slavery, our society would degenerate into chaos."
Could you look a slave in the eye and say, "The reason I'm free and you're a slave is that slavery is how we get things done. It's for the good of society"
WYO, do you realize that you are defending slavery?? Isn't it time to stop and ask yourself, how did I become so enamored of this flawed book, the Bible, that I am willing to defend this atrocity? There's something wrong with this picture.
Do you know of any societies that have perished because people didn't want to have enough sex?
The common theme is a superstitious obsession with ritual, not actual, cleanliness, much like a child's obsession with "cooties." Why else sequester women during menstruation?
And speaking of cleanliness, here's how God recommends testing for adultery (Numbers 5:11):
If the temple dust causes her abdomen to swell and her thigh to waste away, she's guilty. Very modern, scientific and hygienic. Just what you would expect from the inspired word of God.
Again, the issue is not whether ancient cultures shock our sensibilities. We expect them to. What we don't expect is for the inspired word of a perfect God to contain such nonsense.
I wrote:
… and gave examples from Islam, Sikhism, Judaism, Buddhism, and Zen Buddhism.
Wonders for Oyarsa wrote:
God's vengeance on His enemies is central to the Bible, as well. What he did to the Midianites wasn't exactly turning the other cheek, was it?
You can't highlight the good parts of the Bible while discounting the good parts of other holy books.
How hard is it to understand the example of the Zen master and the thief? Are you telling me that you don't see the "turn the other cheek" ethic in that story? Or are you pretending not to see it so that you don't have to admit that "turn the other cheek" is not the exclusive property of Christianity?
Comment by keiths — March 15, 2007 @ 7:22 am
March 15th, 2007 at 7:44 am
onething wrote to mcromer:
onething,
I have a feeling that if Matthew had to trade places with, say, a political prisoner in Myanmar, the self wouldn't seem so illusory to him. He'd be wanting to get his self out of there, ASAP.
Comment by keiths — March 15, 2007 @ 7:44 am
March 15th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Nice, Keiths – I like your placement of the ellipse in your quotation of me above. Makes it seem like my last sentence was referring to the practice of slavery, rather than the process of its abolition. Way to reinforce your argument…
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 15, 2007 @ 9:17 am
March 15th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Wonders for Oyarsa wrote:
WYO,
I certainly didn't intend to mislead. I took your statement — "I don't think this an immoral way for God to work in history" — to refer to the entire process, from condoning slavery initially to eventually encouraging its abolition.
After all, you were defending the allowance for slavery in the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law comes from God, doesn't it? And my interpretation was that you would be unwilling to call God's condoning of slavery immoral. Am I mistaken? If not, then my entire criticism stands as written.
Comment by keiths — March 15, 2007 @ 9:49 am
March 15th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Apparently, having my nearest brother blow his brains out with a shotgun, finding out my mother was raped in the trailer where we lived at the time while I was at school, watching her be committed to a mental institution three times, and everything else that has come up in my life story isn't good enough for you. . . I have to be shackled and chained in a gulag before I am deemed worthy to comment on the nature of reality. . .
Perhaps you will listen to a man who was a political prisoner who was tortured, poisoned and in captivity for most of his life, and here is what he had to say. . .
… the wayfarer cometh to the Valley of Unity and drinketh from the cup of the Absolute, and gazeth on the Manifestations of Oneness. In this station he pierceth the veils of plurality, fleeth from the worlds of the flesh, and ascendeth into the heaven of singleness.
. . .He beholdeth in his own name the name of God; to him, "all songs are from the King," and every melody from Him. He sitteth on the throne of "Say, all is from God," and taketh his rest on the carpet of "There is no power or might but in God." He looketh on all things with the eye of oneness, and seeth the brilliant rays of the divine sun shining from the dawning-point of Essence alike on all created things, and the lights of singleness reflected over all creation.
. . .
O friend, till thou enter the garden of such mysteries, thou shalt never set lip to the undying wine of this Valley. And shouldst thou taste of it, thou wilt shield thine eyes from all things else, and drink of the wine of contentment; and thou wilt loose thyself from all things else, and bind thyself to Him, and throw thy life down in His path, and cast thy soul away. However, there is no other in this region that thou need forget: "There was God and there was naught beside Him."
Comment by mcromer — March 15, 2007 @ 10:00 am
March 15th, 2007 at 10:05 am
The trouble with pantheism is that it can never seriously wrestle with the problem of evil. As such, it is not a solution to it, but simply a denial of the problem.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 15, 2007 @ 10:05 am
March 15th, 2007 at 10:13 am
No, you are the impersonal witnessing of everything. . .
The consciousness in which all phenomena unfold. But not a "someone". A six month old baby is aware, but is not a "someone". The sense of being "someone" is a conceptual thought pattern, but what you really are is that which perceives all thoughts, emotions, sensations.
Of course within this Awareness is a body, a personality, the duality of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, and all of that. But that is not who you really are, just what is on TV right now. . .
Comment by mcromer — March 15, 2007 @ 10:13 am
March 15th, 2007 at 10:29 am
And didn't all of those things make you suffer? Yet I didn't feel your suffering. In fact, I didn't even know those things had happened to you until you told me. We are separate selves. Your suffering is not mine, and vice-versa.
Now, I agree that we make too much of the idea of selfhood, and that there are illusory aspects to it, but I think you go way too far in claiming that there is only one unitary Awareness.
Comment by keiths — March 15, 2007 @ 10:29 am
March 15th, 2007 at 10:33 am
There will be some who take advantage of others. At the level of human society, we will defend ourselves against those, just as we wash our hands to defend ourselves against bacteria.
But it is not necessary to take advantage of others in order to experience pleasure. In fact often quite the opposite.
Having a loving and compassionate personality is its own reward.
At the same time, all the striving for pleasure and running away from pain will not lead to a deep peace. Only a recognition that you already are everything you think you are seeking will do that. And an end to the constant stream of self-centered thinking.
In any event, most of us aren't going to acheive perfect, glowing, absolutely positive "selves". Realizing that perfecting the personality is not needed for a deep realization of peace is enormously freeing. And once that peace is allowed to emerge, the wounds in the personality tend to heal themselves. Self-centered thinking is much like an auto-immune disease, causing irritation and inflammation throughout the personality. When those kinds of thoughts are ignored instead of being taken absolutely personally and seriously, the personality becomes much lighter, more transparent, more joyful. It is the compulsion of ego and self-centered thinking that drives most human pathologies and "evils".
Comment by mcromer — March 15, 2007 @ 10:33 am
March 15th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Very well put. You said it better than I did. Keith, there is really no way for anyone who believes the entire Bible is inspired by God to answer your last couple of posts. It can't be done.
That is why I say that Christianity must clean house or give up its pretensions.
Oyarsa says he is moving to the east. Why do I suspect he is going to be a missionary?
But of course I didn't say the Hebrews would have died out for lack of sexual desire. I said that making people abstain until exactly when a woman is the most fertile is highly suspicious behavior coming from a warlord god, and it would give a slight edge in reproductivity. An average couple can have unprotected sex for several months and not get pregnant. Most young couples probably would want to have sex shortly after the woman finishes her period. They might even sate themselves and end up missing those couple of days when she is fertile. But by making them wait a little longer, they are virtually guaranteed to be having sex when she's fertile as often as possible.
Comment by onething — March 15, 2007 @ 10:34 am
March 15th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Yes, they did make "me" suffer. The me that I believed myself to be.
But it turns out that "me" was never real.
This realization has happened to many people who have gone through great suffering. At some point, the focus of awareness changes and a deep peace is felt. Even some people who have been in concentration camps.
It is the peace that comes when identification with self-centered thinking is dropped.
Usually this happens when the believed-in self is suffering intensely, and "gives up", and the underlying peace is then perceived.
Here is a good example of what I am referring to:
ET: I was unhappy, depressed and anxious. I was not trying to become enlightened or anything like that. I was looking for some kind of answer to the dilemma of life, but I had been looking to the intellect for the answer; philosophy, religion and intellectual inspiration. The more I was looking on that level, the more unhappy I became. I reached a point where the phrase came into my head—and this is in the book "The Power Of Now"—"I can't live with myself any longer." That part of my self—that entity became so heavy and painful.
Suddenly I stepped back from myself, and it seemed to be two of me— The "I", and this "self" that I cannot live with. Am I one or am I two? And that triggered me like a koan. It happened to me spontaneously. I looked at that sentence—"I can't live with myself". I had no intellectual answer. Who am I? Who is this self that I cannot live with? The answer came on a deeper level. I realized who I was.
When I'm speaking about it now, it becomes intellectualized because I'm using words, but that realization was beyond words. What "I" as consciousness had identified with was a very heavy mental and emotional form consisting of thought and accompanied by an energy field. At that moment the identification with that mind structure was withdrawn. It collapsed, and what remained was a spacious, peaceful consciousness. The identification was broken, and because of that, the mental/emotional structure—the psuedo self collapsed. My sense of identity broke down and was replaced by something that is very hard to put into words. Awareness. Consciousness. The words only came a few years later. I couldn't even talk about it. I had been anxious and depressed for years and suddenly I was deeply at peace.
JM: Do you think your transformation had less to do with achieving peace than letting go of the anxiousness and the worry?
ET: Yes. It wasn't really the achievement of anything; it was the realization by letting go of the identification. Something suddenly was there that actually had always been there but had been obscured continuously by identification with the heavy mind structure. As I came to work with other people, I realized every human being already has that dimension. No matter how anxious, depressed, disturbed and fearful they may be. That dimension is already in there, in every human being.
Comment by mcromer — March 15, 2007 @ 10:43 am
March 15th, 2007 at 11:08 am
onething:
Sure it can. The authors both collected the 'inspired' deific origin mythologies of the people, and attuned to their god-connection 'hard-wiring' to interpret events in terms of the people's relationship with God. This isn't difficult at all.
Perhaps what you really wish to denounce is the belief that all the books are "infallible" and directly authored by God via some form of spiritualistic trance-state automatic writing. Inspiration is something human beings tap into all the time – it motivates painters and sculptors and writers and musicians and scientists and… holy ones. It isn't the least bit strange or foreign to our cognitive retinue. Even if only a few humans in any given generation express it well enough to gain general recognition *for* their inspiration.
Comment by Joy — March 15, 2007 @ 11:08 am
March 15th, 2007 at 11:08 am
One night you might dream of living in Paris in a mansion, another night you might dream of being chased by the police in your hometown. That doesn't mean that in reality those two dream characters are separate selves.
Also, you didn't address my anecdote demonstrating that sometimes people know exactly what someone else is thinking.
A related and very interesting phenomena sometimes occurs in the deeper near-death experiences, where a person is able to experience exactly what it was like to be on the receiving end of there more "negative" choices.
In fact, many near-death experiencers relate seeing for the first time that we are in reality one with God and everyone else:
Comment by mcromer — March 15, 2007 @ 11:08 am
March 15th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Probably a better way to say it is that there are entities, but they are part of the content of awareness. They are contingent, changeable, ultimately objects and not subjects.
They are not what you really are.
You are the Awareness itself, not any of the entities that unfold within it. The essence of what you are what is constant, what never changes. The perceiving awareness in which all of "your" thoughts, feelings, and sensations unfold.
Comment by mcromer — March 15, 2007 @ 11:15 am
March 15th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Are you honestly saying that with a straight face to someone whose brother committed suicide? Whose mother was raped? Whose school classmate was a passenger on Flight 11 when it slammed into the North Tower? That I haven't seriously wrestled with the problem of evil and suffering? Is that what you believe?
Comment by mcromer — March 15, 2007 @ 11:20 am
March 15th, 2007 at 11:35 am
I'm not saying you haven't at all. I'm saying that the philosophy you've chosen is ultimately a denial of the problem. It helps you cope with evil, surely – and that is indeed powerful.
But what it doesn't do is give you motivation for the fight against evil. You may call HIV evil because it kills people, but you might just as well call researchers evil because they kill HIV. From this perspective this is all illusion. So there is no "evil", only confusion. Seeing that evil does not exist, it need not be abolished.
If you indeed want to work for the destruction of evil and suffering in our world, it seems to me that you would have to draw motivation for this quest from a philosophy other than the one you've consciously chosen.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 15, 2007 @ 11:35 am
March 15th, 2007 at 11:49 am
Oyarsa,
Not sure where the pantheism bit came from, but in my case it may be fair enough. So how does Christianity solve evil? First of all, they absolve God of authorship of the whole totality and all it contains. Then they sequester beings that they have labeled evil forever into a situation of great suffering. this makes the whole cosmic plan one of utter tragedy. The teachings go back and forth between having the people harangued from the pulpit about how they will feel no pity for their loved ones in hell – and they will be able to see them! – to the more recent and subdued one of saying they will not know about it. The latter raises a whole host of logical absurdities. then there is the minority solution of having all bad souls destroyed. Now, that is very nice. Better than having little children burning in red hot ovens (taken from a Catholic children's primer) but I can say that for myself, my own horror of death is not about the body, but the very thought of my consciousness ceasing makes me ill. All in all, a very dismal cosmic worldview. Evil cannot be overcome, it is stronger than God.
The eastern religions, on the other hand, expect all souls to have all the time needed to purify themselves. They equate evil for the most part with ignorance. Ignorance can be overcome. An uplifting and ultimately hopeful worldview that also increases the personal sense of responsibility rather than helplessness and nonresponsibility.
Mcromer,
I really don't disagree with anything you say – and you do say it well. It's an issue I struggle to understand. So I guess my assessment is that you can realize who you really are – and all the freedom that comes with it – but at the same time it is being experienced through the vessels that we find ourselves in. and definitely, purification of the vessel is a byproduct and very much needed. And that's the fun part. Making the impersonal personal. Variety.
By the way, the word phenomenon is the singular, and phenomena is plural.
So yeah, Keith, you might want to consider that your not knowing about something does not mean that you lack capacity to know it. We might have a lot of capacity that is blocked in one way or another. In fact, we already know that the brain filters our a tremendous lot of things just to keep us functioning at our little animal level here. One person says, there is no God because I don't feel it. But it is a matter of awareness. Awareness (little a) can increase and decrease.
So that's why I use the membrane metaphor. We are all one like the cells in your body are one – and there is great intercommunication and interpenetration – but there is still these individualities going on. Each little system is enfolded into the next larger system, and the universe is the body of God.
But I've got more learning to do, 'cause I'm still scared to die.
But Joy,
I did specify that the problems are unsolvable only for those who consider it the word of God. But that even includes those who are not really literalists. Yes, I agree that inspiration comes to us all and that some people are rather pure, have somewhat reliably good inspiration, and these people's works have been elevated to scripture. However, when the words are frankly viscious and reinforce the absolute worst that humans sometimes do, I have a problem with stretching the inspiration idea to include it.
Comment by onething — March 15, 2007 @ 11:49 am
March 15th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
I think we've all had quite enough of that mindset over the past 6000 years of recorded history, thank you very much!
Time to turn on some lights, instead of raging and battling against the darkness. . .
Comment by mcromer — March 15, 2007 @ 12:03 pm
March 15th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
I know that, but the part of me that was typing apparently forgot.
Comment by mcromer — March 15, 2007 @ 12:05 pm
March 15th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
On what grounds do you say this? Why is light better than darkness? Is not this too God?
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 15, 2007 @ 1:18 pm
March 15th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
This is why I don't like to bring Eastern religions into the discussion – because I would be ashamed to misrepresent them with such caricatures as people are so quick to paint of my own faith.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 15, 2007 @ 3:36 pm
March 15th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Wonders,
That doesn't read like a misrepresentation of "salvation" flavors of Christianity to me. Those look like the same doctrines I have seem discussed by those groups, and the same answers I have read. And generally I find those groups are not very happy about those beliefs, but that they "have to" believe them or risk their own salvation. The only thing I believe most evangelical Christians would disagree with is the last line (although I see Onething's point).
Perhaps you might address specifically where Onething has distorted the truth?
Comment by mcromer — March 15, 2007 @ 3:53 pm
March 15th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Some of those things I do acknowledge. Let me lay out my point more fully:
1 – I believe the Bible to be inspired by God, but let me be clear on what that means. I mean that even though it is a book written by various authors with their own flawed agency, the work as a whole is no less than the very word of God. It is the story of God working the redemption of creation intentionally using autonomous, imperfect and unruly instruments, and the story itself is composed as part of the process by these agents.
So yes, you could certainly say that parts of it are an inaccurate reflection of a perfect God. The Christian view has always been that it is ultimately through Jesus that we know who God is, and otherwise what we see is like looking through cloudy glass.
2 – I think the traditional statement that "God is a Spirit, Infinite, Eternal and Unchangeable in his Being, Wisdom, Power, Holiness, Justice and Truth" to be a helpful and accurate one, though perhaps not perfect.
The Torah certainly paints a picture that (by itself) falls short of this statement (God changing his mind, God not working justice on an individual level, God not being omniscient). Yet, when compared with its contemporary works (such as the Enuma Elish), the Torah is an arrow pointing decisively in the direction of the traditional statement. It becomes even more clear in the prophets, especially the book of Jonah.
3 – I believe that it is impossible to talk of human beings in any meaningful way without talking of their culture, history, and community. For God to engage humanity in the context of history, he needs to do it in the context of our particular identity and culture. Thus it is silly to decry the fact that God didn't immediately instruct the ancient Hebrews in modern science and hygienics, or to get too huffy about them in general acting like ancient people.
So, don't mistake me for someone who is insistent about the literal inerrancy of every little statement/census/myth/story in the Bible. But also don't mistake me for someone who doesn't have a high view of the Bible as the inspired word of God.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 15, 2007 @ 4:28 pm
March 15th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Keiths (and Onething in principle) wrote:
Keiths, as you've made clear through your own comments, goodness can only be understood in relation to goals and intentions. Just as letters are meaningless apart from the ideas they represent, so actions are meaningless apart from the goals and intentions they express. I think you'll agree that the goal toward which we all strive is ultimately Universal Happiness. It is with reference to this ultimate goal that we are able to determine with limited success weather a person's behavior is good or bad. Remember that in the Christian view, God is not a fellow creature with god-like powers like Q from Star Trek; He is the source of the laws that makes our existence possible. If God is our creator then our moral intuitions and consciences that we use to seek happiness must come from him. If they do not, then it doesn't matter in the least how you feel about His behavior since you are not using the same standards. There is simply no way for you to validly judge his actions. Moral Nihilism reigns. Now, I understand that you and Onething think the OT God is evil; you're confident that he defies his own standard through actions you call atrocious. The point I was trying to make is that we and God are seeking the same thing, ultimate happiness. Happiness for him is happiness for his creation. But if God's actions really are evil as you beleive then God is acting in a way so as to offend himself. If God is evil then God is masochistic. Now just because we share the same standard doesn't mean we don't run into contradictions. Actions can and will be misinterpreted when we don't share the same frame of refrence by which they are judged. I believe this is the point that stunney and oyarsa were trying to make. In the end, do you think your frame of reference allows you to determine the value of God's actions with reference to Universal Happiness?
Keiths:
I wouldn't dream of it as long as I had hope that he could turn around. That hope would run very deep. How you feel about your childern is how they felt about theirs. Also, it was up to the parents to decide if their child was unreformable and even then, they had to present their case to the judges. But that's beside the point. What did the law accomplish when applied? What must be the case for parents who love their children as much as you do to seek this out?
Keiths:
No, I can't. Then again I never said that this particular law was the only one standing in the way of a society's downfall.
Not at all. But this says nothing about the fact that this law was an exception to 'the golden rule in reverse' in order to respect the woman's right to have childern.
Really? I thought I was defending a law that showed respect for procreation and life while teaching that self-defense does not excuse someone from unnessesary viciousness. It was a good thing at the time but as a Christian, I'm not bound by the Mosaic Law. I do try to follow the priniples behind it though.
There are particluar things about this book which have led me to currently believe that it's inspired. Every account you mentioned in this thread I already know of, including alot more that you would probably despise. The thing is, there is a central theme being developed throughout the whole collection showing how God's actions, however hard to stomach for us, are directed towards bringing about Universal Happniess as mentioned at the beginning of this response. Because of this I see no diffrence between the God of the OT or NT. I simply see Jehovah doing what is nessessary to ensure the happniess of his creation.
Comment by Mertens — March 15, 2007 @ 5:45 pm
March 15th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Hmmm. I see that there are parents today who bash their six-months-old infant's head in because they won't stop crying.
I'm not sure that those parents are feeling the same way about their kids that I would want the right to execute your children enshrined in a religious legal code.
Keiths and Onething are right: the Jehovah of much of the old testament is a tyrannical, abusive, murderous tribal deity. So is the "God" many Christians believe in who would roast his children in eternal hellfire because they displease him. . .
Comment by mcromer — March 15, 2007 @ 7:39 pm
March 15th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
I just finished my rationalization of Israel's atrocities toward Midian. For those of you who are interested, I present to you In Defense of Genocide.
Thanks to Keiths and onething for your help.
Comment by Wonders For Oyarsa — March 15, 2007 @ 11:35 pm
March 16th, 2007 at 12:25 am
So Merten would only stone his son as a last resort. Of course people do love their children. People in the middle east love their children, and yet they kill them, daughters at least, on a regular basis. They have no choice, you see. It has to be done. Too bad this isn't a Christian country. Then we too could do that.
At long last I am too upset to continue. I just didn't realize the situation could be this bad. That people could cling to a book even when it means ignoring the living God within. In Jesus' time the Hebrews were the people with the only religion inspired by God, and there were these pharisees, and they were great followers of scripture. But yet Jesus said that they behaved as if the devil were their father. They had no conscience.
Now how could that be?
Comment by onething — March 16, 2007 @ 12:25 am
March 16th, 2007 at 12:33 am
Oh, and let me not forget one of my favorite quotes from the Old Testament (didn't I say it had some good?):
Woe to them who call evil good, and good evil.
Comment by onething — March 16, 2007 @ 12:33 am
March 16th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Mcromer:
I always thought of Tyrants as people who seize and abuse power. 'Man dominating man to his injury'. Taking something that does not rightfully belong to them. But I don't think this applies to God when we consider his relationship to Mankind and his intent towards them within the Christian viewpoint (Ezekiel 18:4, Romans 3:23-26, Acts 24:14-15).
But as far as people burning eternally in hell for finite crimes, that's another discussion altogether. I'll simply say that I think it to be a false teaching for various reasons…
Comment by Mertens — March 16, 2007 @ 11:25 am
March 16th, 2007 at 11:44 am
onething:
But you're engaging in a mental form of retrocausation here. And you may be right that literalists and 'inerrantists' are also engaging in this exercise. My view of scripture is admittedly shaped by my understandings of the material itself, along with historical and cultural peculiarities I accept as presented by the 'scientific' study of history and cultures. It comes from long association with papyrologists focused finely on the texts, and whose extrapolations are always colored by historical and cultural contingencies. Because I have an interest, and have sought out these associations.
There are several specific literary styles reflected in entire eras of "The Writings," both scriptural and apocryphal. Some are purely political, some reflect actual states-of-mind in general of historical cultures. I approach the texts in this way because I think it's the best way to understand them.
If I saw the great natural disasters and blatant miracles described in the early histories of the Bible, it's also likely I would have suffered great loss in those events. Not being Job, I would have to either interpret them as merely natural events that cause serious loss and suffering, or believe the 'authority' of my leadership in how THEY interpret it. Where my suffering is mere "collateral damage" of a much greater and long term plan. And if I were to understand it that way, then my inspiration in translating those events to the bigger picture would require that cognitive process underlie it.
Insurance companies to this very day describe tornadoes and hurricanes and earthquakes and volcanoes, etc., *as* "Acts of God." Most of them also define nuclear war *as* "Acts of God" too, so you'll have to figure that one out for yourself! Money is involved, so apparently these definitions are somewhat fluid to that issue. The same thing was true in ancient times, though what was at stake was something more vitally important than mere filthy lucre.
I do not think this is all so difficult to understand or to credit for what it is. Really. Why not admit that you can't judge the relativities present for humans actually in that time and place, from your comfortable middle-class American status in the 21st century? This seems so petty and silly to me. I do not think it's a very effective debunking of that which has been held Holy for thousands of years before you were ever a twinkle in your daddy's eye.
Comment by Joy — March 16, 2007 @ 11:44 am
March 16th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Joy wrote:
Joy,
Do you condemn the present-day practice of stoning in the Islamic world?
I guess you can't. After all, who are we to judge the "relativities" of the Islamic world from our comfortable middle-class American status?
Does the international outcry over modern-day stoning seem "petty and silly" to you?
Comment by keiths — March 16, 2007 @ 2:13 pm
March 16th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
keiths:
Absolutely not. But the "rest of us" are 1500 years more advanced than the average ME Muslim. Why, the sectarian assimilation of so many Muslim immigrants in first world nations speaks pretty well to their ability to catch up in record time. Problem is, the first world isn't the second/third world. Life on the ground there is often no different at all than it was 1500 years ago. Only part of that is our fault (Iraq, for instance).
I don't know what the 'proper' answer is per how to deal with the medieval tendencies of camel-riders and dirt-scratchers in what's really the 'forgotten world' more than second or third world. We left them behind. Maybe on purpose, maybe because they wanted to get left behind.
But we can't expect them to change overnight, even though we've input tons of gold and paper money into cultures where neither count very much. A Rolls may be more comfortable than a camel, but not really more efficient. We Are The Arabs. What movie was that from?…
If I had power, and I do not, I'd sadly sign off on their total isolation. Find other resource sources and change my focus, leave them alone to figure it out for themselves. Don't let 'em on airplanes, don't sell 'em cars, don't let them in the country. Just don't. Then, if any of their nations finally do figure out that they have to play our game in order to play at all, we'll talk.
Harsh? Yes. Car bombs, suicide bombers, flying airplanes into buildings, cutting the heads off journalists and aid workers… they're not civilized. They don't WANT civilization at the present time, so isolate them until they either kill each other off or do want to participate. I don't care what they do with their barbaric scriptures to make that happen – it's up to them entirely. And while this will hurt those of good faith, they will be needed to change things inside the restriction zone.
Maybe they'll grow up, maybe they'll inherit the world when we end up killing ourselves off. Who knows? What I do know is that I have zero patience for Islamic radicalism, which has amply proven itself a lot more dangerous than Christian radicalism. I'm glad I don't have power so I don't get to make such policies. Because if I did, I would.
Comment by Joy — March 16, 2007 @ 3:20 pm