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Crowsbeak posted:When did I say that suffering was caused because you were evil? I said evil as a whole causes suffering to befall mankind. Another notch on my Athiest bingocard, misrepresentation. You don't think evil causes suffering but you think suffering causes evil to happen. What? I'm having a lot of trouble following you.
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Jun 20, 2016 03:39
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OwlFancier posted:You don't think evil causes suffering but you think suffering causes evil to happen. Suffering comes from evil. Man as a whole commits evil.
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Jun 20, 2016 03:57
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O...kay... I'm still not sure I follow but it still doesn't really seem to address the question of why God, who we know has the capacity to prevent suffering, permits it to happen. Like even if he fixes it later down the line it would be a lot better for the people experiencing it to... not experience it.
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Jun 20, 2016 04:10
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Crowsbeak posted:Suffering comes from evil. Man as a whole commits evil. So what about bone cancer in children? Seems like God could have very easily made a world without that little gift in it. And don't get started on evil, really. If God knows everything, then he knew before he made a serial killer how that serial killer would use their free will. They still had the free will, but he knew how they would go with it. Then he went on to make them anyway. You have no reason, I said this before in my previous post itt.
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Jun 20, 2016 04:12
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Rakosi posted:So what about bone cancer in children? Seems like God could have very easily made a world without that little gift in it. Ah yes, so the Serial killer would have always murdered right? You know the argument that they have no compulsion could be used to suggest we shouldn't be angry when they murder right? ALso it seems like your arguing God should turn us into slaves. Its always funny when Athiests admit what they really want is God to just turn them into unthinking drones. OwlFancier posted:O...kay... I'm still not sure I follow but it still doesn't really seem to address the question of why God, who we know has the capacity to prevent suffering, permits it to happen. I always love it when you get down to it that the Atheists in these threads want God to turn them into Pleasure drones.
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Jun 20, 2016 04:19
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Crowsbeak posted:Ah yes, so the Serial killer would have always murdered right? You know the argument that they have no compulsion could be used to suggest we shouldn't be angry when they murder right? ALso it seems like your arguing God should turn us into slaves. Its always funny when Athiests admit what they really want is God to just turn them into unthinking drones. I don't think you really parse what I said. Okay, so does God know everything, including our futures and what we will go on to accomplish/fail at and poo poo?
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Jun 20, 2016 04:24
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Crowsbeak posted:Ah yes, so the Serial killer would have always murdered right? You know the argument that they have no compulsion could be used to suggest we shouldn't be angry when they murder right? ALso it seems like your arguing God should turn us into slaves. Its always funny when Athiests admit what they really want is God to just turn them into unthinking drones. Well, yes actually ideally we shouldn't be angry when people murder, and Jesus absolutely would agree with that. Tt's certainly difficult to avoid it but people are not individuals, they're products of systems and environments which are beyond their control. Even if we believe they have agency and free will, they very manifestly don't have complete free will. A person can only make decisions within the environment of their minds, their information, their learned behaviours, and so on. We can desire that people do not murder but that doesn't require us to hate them and it definitely doesn't require us to believe that murder or other destructive acts are predominantly moral faults. People act according to their learned inclinations, which are a product of their environment and their environment is overwhelmingly beyond their control. People already are unthinking drones to the extent that what they think more of a multiple choice than complete freedom. If we trust that a God exists then God created the landscape that shapes people and is largely responsible for their actions. Further, I'm going to need to you justify why the limited human capacity for free will, or even hypothetical absolute free will, justifies suffering, because I don't take that as granted. Crowsbeak posted:I always love it when you get down to it that the Atheists in these threads want God to turn them into Pleasure drones. You seem to be suggesting that he's going to do that eventually anyway. Personally I would be quite happy with some fairly basic and immediate improvements to the world. The question hardly has to be absolute. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Jun 20, 2016 |
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Jun 20, 2016 04:26
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We all know that flesh-eating amoeba that contaminate some lakes, waiting for a hapless teen to go swimming in them, is a beautiful part of creation that we totally could not have done without. Thanks God.
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Jun 20, 2016 04:29
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I've been thinking about this, Wouldn't it be more relevant to ask Christians why do you believe in Jesus? But, Re this question of evil and suffering business. In another thread I posted this: It's an interpretation of revelations, a bad one. Here's how understand what's really behind that particular book. Listen to this song http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2hBkeX3k48M That anger, that, we have been wronged by and hurt by the powerful. Someday they'll be judged for what they did. That's what is going on in Revelations, just in the genre of apocalyptic literature that was big at the time. So how is that relevant to this suffering and evil stuff? The new testament is a collection of apocalypses. All these books are written by groups of people and individuals confronting confronting the end, death and suffering. These different apocalypses have different resolutions. Revelations has its angry justice. But the one that I believe in resolves suffering and evil with an example of human love for others. There is suffering and evil and death in the world. "Why?" is not the important question. Theocidy is allways garbage. The really important question is "What the gently caress do we do about it?" Trying to follow the example of the life of Jesus is a response to that question.
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Jun 20, 2016 04:35
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Crowsbeak posted:Yeah when did I say that God appeared to me in a vision? Good to see the Atheists here are also resorting to strawmanning. There were multiple other posters that talked about having a "religious experience" as a factor of their belief in God and your post that I quoted was part of long chain of replies talking about whether people's religious experiences are delusions, or not. Can you not even follow a discussion that you're actively participating in?
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Jun 20, 2016 04:38
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OwlFancier posted:Well, yes actually ideally we shouldn't be angry when people murder, and Jesus absolutely would agree with that. Tt's certainly difficult to avoid it but people are not individuals, they're products of systems and environments which are beyond their control. Even if we believe they have agency and free will, they very manifestly don't have complete free will. A person can only make decisions within the environment of their minds, their information, their learned behaviours, and so on. So you're perfectly fine when people ill others. Also people "act according to their moral faults". That doesn't mean they cannot correct their faults and need to know their are in fact consequences. I guess accoding to you their should beno consequences. Also how does free will justify suffering? I mean unless your suggesting someone would just be programmed to be deliberetley mean to others and can't decide to be nice ever. But then I guess we must as always be drones.
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Jun 20, 2016 04:40
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It's a fairly important question if you believe in an all powerful and just creator. If your concept of religion is that Jesus existed, had magic powers, and was an all around excellent person to base your life off of, that's consistent. But if you believe in an actually omnipotent and ethical god, it does make said being somewhat inherently contradictory. To an atheist or to a theist who doesn't believe in an absolutely powerful and good god then it's not a hugely important question because it can be answered broadly by "because nobody has enough power to stop it" but it's quite relevant to most denominations of Christian I would think.
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Jun 20, 2016 04:41
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OwlFancier posted:I'm having a lot of trouble following you. Based on his posts, he is actually, for real, stupid. Let's stop engaging him.
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Jun 20, 2016 04:41
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Crowsbeak posted:So you're perfectly fine when people ill others. Also people "act according to their moral faults". That doesn't mean they cannot correct their faults and need to know their are in fact consequences. I guess accoding to you their should beno consequences. Also how does free will justify suffering? I mean unless your suggesting someone would just be programmed to be deliberetley mean to others and can't decide to be nice ever. But then I guess we must as always be drones. You absolutely have no reason, ability to follow a discussion, to concede any point or contribute one that make sense. I think we get that you don't like Atheists already, you can stop posting now.
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Jun 20, 2016 04:45
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OwlFancier posted:It's a fairly important question if you believe in an all powerful and just creator. Well it is ethical to not turn humans into drones. I mean would you put a shock collar around your dog or cat for whenever they do bad? Or maybe if you could literally rewire their brain so they only did exactly as you said all the time? Rakosi I don't like the Atheists like you who are assholes. Sorry if I don't always tun the other cheek to assholes. Subyng posted:
Crowsbeak fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Jun 20, 2016 |
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Jun 20, 2016 04:49
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WHY CAN"T HE JUST LET US CALL HIM DELUSIONAL, AND RESPECT US WHILE WE SAY HE HAS A MENTAL ILLNESS
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Crowsbeak posted:So you're perfectly fine when people ill others. Also people "act according to their moral faults". That doesn't mean they cannot correct their faults and need to know their are in fact consequences. I guess accoding to you their should beno consequences. Also how does free will justify suffering? I mean unless your suggesting someone would just be programmed to be deliberetley mean to others and can't decide to be nice ever. But then I guess we must as always be drones. No, again, as I said, we can desire to stop a thing without experiencing an emotional response to it. Jesus is quite clear about this, you should not hate or take vengeance on those who wrong you but you should work to reduce wrongdoing where you can. And again, destructive behavior is not, primarily, a moral fault. Moral faults assume that the person themselves is wrong and at fault and is the sole cause of their actions, which ignores the social nature of humans. We are products of our environments, and everything which creates that environment has a small hand in the resulting evil. Even if we believe humans have free will we can't reasonably ignore cumulative responsibility. If someone commits murder because they were raised in a violent household and because they were fired from their job, got drunk, got in a fight, and killed someone in the process then the reason that happened is the cumulative effect of all of those factors. The person, who taught them violence in youth, the person who fired them, the person who sold and produced the alcohol, the person who fought them, as well as the person themselves all contribute to the murder. We may reasonably place a little extra individual blame on the person performing the action but the lion's share should probably be assigned to their environment. It would be much easier to just say "oh the person who committed murder was evil and that's why they did it" but it doesn't really bear up to scrutiny. Free will doesn't justify suffering as far as I'm concerned but you seem to be suggesting that free will is why suffering exists, so God has the choice between letting humans suffer so they can have free will which would require free will to justify suffering, or taking away free will so that humans don't suffer, which you seem to be against. Crowsbeak posted:Well it is ethical to not turn humans into drones. I mean would you put a shock collar around your dog or cat for whenever they do bad? Or maybe if you could literally rewire their brain so they only did exactly as you said all the time? If we believe free will is good then yes, preserving free will is, in a vacuum, an ethical thing. But, this then creates the quandary, if free will is the cause of human suffering, is preserving it more ethical than simply eliminating both it and human suffering. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Jun 20, 2016 |
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Jun 20, 2016 04:51
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I am saying people choose to use their free will to cause suffering. Also yes actually choosing to harm others is a moral fault. Someone hurting others suggest they need to be corrected not told that they can't help being destructive. Also lol at the "well its their environment". Yes we shouldn't let people live in filth and in horrible conditions, but just because more people when they do live in bad situations resort to bad actions, doesn't mean all do. We cannot let a person off the hook just because they had a lovely upbringing, because the argument that that is what we should primarily care about suggests they never ever had a choice. All people have the choice to do harm, if they didn't there would be no people who growing up in bad circumstances who could be peaceful.
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Jun 20, 2016 04:58
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Crowsbeak posted:I am saying people choose to use their free will to cause suffering.
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Jun 20, 2016 05:03
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Rhjamiz posted:Except that not all suffering is the result of human action. Disasters, disease, parasites, famine. No moral fortitude on the part of man would prevent these things and yet they exist. Brain deformities exist that give humans uncontrollable compulsions to kill. This is not a moral failing, this person had no choice. Really so your saying that all these killers just cannot help it ever? That there are no others who stop themselves?
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Jun 20, 2016 05:05
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Crowsbeak posted:I am saying people choose to use their free will to cause suffering. Also yes actually choosing to harm others is a moral fault. Someone hurting others suggest they need to be corrected not told that they can't help being destructive. Also lol at the "well its their environment". Yes we shouldn't let people live in filth and in horrible conditions, but just because more people when they do live in bad situations resort to bad actions, doesn't mean all do. We cannot let a person off the hook just because they had a lovely upbringing, because the argument that that is what we should primarily care about suggests they never ever had a choice. All people have the choice to do harm, if they didn't there would be no people who growing up in bad circumstances who could be peaceful. Well, yes, that's exactly correct, we should primarily care that people generally don't have much choice. Obviously everyone can choose to just roll over and die at any time without ever committing an evil act (unless you think that itself is evil) but that's a very poor choice. It is not justice for one person to have to choose to live ethically in the face of overwhelming adversity while others simply have to try not to be excessively indulgent. No righteous judge should assign the full weight of the fault at the feet of someone who does evil under crushing pressure from their environment to do so, and nobody concerned with ending evil in the world should rationally say "you just need to try harder" instead of first focusing on the environmental pressures which drive people to be destructive. And the question still remains, if free will results in suffering, is free will more important than ending human suffering?
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Jun 20, 2016 05:05
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OwlFancier posted:Well, yes, that's exactly correct, we should primarily care that people generally don't have much choice. Obviously everyone can choose to just roll over and die at any time without ever committing an evil act (unless you think that itself is evil) but that's a very poor choice. It is not justice for one person to have to choose to live ethically in the face of overwhelming adversity while others simply have to try not to be excessively indulgent. No righteous judge should assign the full weight of the fault at the feet of someone who does evil under crushing pressure from their environment to do so, and nobody concerned with ending evil in the world should rationally say "you just need to try harder" instead of first focusing on the environmental pressures which drive people to be destructive.
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Jun 20, 2016 05:09
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Crowsbeak posted:Really so your saying that all these killers just cannot help it ever? That there are no others who stop themselves? I noticed you just ignored everything you didn't have an answer for, but sure. Those who truly have that compulsion? Sure, some manage to keep themselves under control, presumably. But some cannot, for whatever reason. It is almost unfathomably hard to fight against your own brain, when parts of you are so miswired that it affects your thinking. I cannot blame a person for that. They had no choice.
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Jun 20, 2016 05:20
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Crowsbeak posted:Uh actually yes, some evil is just that evil, I mean if you knew others who raped and then were caught raping then the judge should jsut give you a year right? I mean you obviously couldn't help that you raped that women? Also being that people can choose to live ethically suggests a person could have but chose to instead do evil to others. Also I just argued for improving environment. But that doesn't mean that you absolve some thug of their crimes. Also yes free will is more important I would say then becoming a drone that just has their pleasure center turned on at all times. The judge should do what they have to to prevent the commission of further crime. More holistically, every individual should desire systemic change to prevent rape throughout society. Punishment alone obviously is not sufficient, nor rehabilitative, and again, ignores the environmental pressure which contributes overwhelmingly to evil acts. A rapist is not merely an individual choosing to rape, they are the society which minimizes the evil of rape and denigrates women, they are the people who failed to instill the proper understanding of sex and consent in the rapist. The fault lies in many places, not merely an individual deciding out of nowhere to just be evil. I would like you please to articulate why allowing humans free will justifies, say, the holocaust. What does it contribute which justifies that particular evil? You can pick other evils if you like but I will keep increasing the barrier because, ultimately, we are dealing with the problem of all evil here.
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Jun 20, 2016 05:22
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Crowsbeak posted:
Apparently your definition of rear end in a top hat is "person who responds with reasoned arguments". You have no actual response when I confronted you with a fact that contradicted your belief, just like the rest of your worldview. Lol. Subyng fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Jun 20, 2016 |
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Jun 20, 2016 05:23
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Subyng posted:Apparently your definition of rear end in a top hat is "person who responds with reasoned arguments". Yeah if you and Rakosi think you've been presenting reasoned arguments, I hate to see what you think arguing in bad faith is. Also I see you edited your comment and actually ended up proving my point further, thank you. OwlFancier posted:The judge should do what they have to to prevent the commission of further crime. More holistically, every individual should desire systemic change to prevent rape throughout society. Punishment alone obviously is not sufficient, nor rehabilitative, and again, ignores the environmental pressure which contributes overwhelmingly to evil acts. A rapist is not merely an individual choosing to rape, they are the society which minimizes the evil of rape and denigrates women, they are the people who failed to instill the proper understanding of sex and consent in the rapist. The fault lies in many places, not merely an individual deciding out of nowhere to just be evil. Really how does free will, say numerous people deciding they want to scapegoat another group for their problem and wanting to murder them, in the belief that they;ll solve their problems from mass murder explained by free will? The problem of evil is mans choice to commit evil against their fellow men. Also as I said earler na bad upbringing never justifies bad actions. Yes we should endeavor against evil that infects a society but that doesn't mean we excuse others who hurt. We should never excuse that. Yes we should endeavor to reform when we can but their are certain actions that are very hard to forgive. Rhjamiz posted:I noticed you just ignored everything you didn't have an answer for, but sure. Well if they can't help they kill people we should just let them off the hook right? Also if there are others with the compulsion but who do not act it suggests that they could help it but chose actively to not, so they are using free will.
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Jun 20, 2016 05:33
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Crowsbeak posted:Really how does free will, say numerous people deciding they want to scapegoat another group for their problem and wanting to murder them, in the belief that they;ll solve their problems from mass murder explained by free will? The problem of evil is mans choice to commit evil against their fellow men. Also as I said earler na bad upbringing never justifies bad actions. Yes we should endeavor against evil that infects a society but that doesn't mean we excuse others who hurt. We should never excuse that. Yes we should endeavor to reform when we can but their are certain actions that are very hard to forgive. I really shouldn't be better at forgiving than a Christian. Vengeance isn't productive. It may be viscerally enjoyable but it isn't useful, and doesn't form a sensible basis for social policy. I don't understand your first sentence, can you rephrase it?
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Jun 20, 2016 05:36
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What about people who cause suffering because the being Christians worship told them to? This is something many people who cause suffering claim, and is also something christian scripture agrees that their god sometimes does, including demanding things like the murder of one's own children as a test of one's faith. I see no particular reason why the christian deity would not continue to communicate with its followers in the modern era, so the idea that it might continue to make such demands does not seem unreasonable if you accept that past instances of such things happening are indeed historically true. I mean, the way I see it unless you believe the thing Christians worship isn't real, then you have to either believe that it's at least possible it really does still speak to people and tell them to kill others, or that christian scripture is wrong about such things having happened in the past, or that it is not all good, or that it is not the real god. Personally these are all reasons when I began to believe in God that I could not accept she was the creature worshiped by Christians, as I was left with the stark impression from reading the bible that the deity itself appeared to be the worst christian in it.
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Jun 20, 2016 05:41
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Crowsbeak posted:Well if they can't help they kill people we should just let them off the hook right? Also if there are others with the compulsion but who do not act it suggests that they could help it but chose actively to not, so they are using free will. This statement is so wrong it's hard to fathom where to even begin. No, we don't "let them off the hook", that is neither here nor there. It is not a matter of choice, it is a matter of strength. They do not choose to kill so much as are forced to kill through some horrible quirk of biochemistry in the grey matter. They do not choose it in the same way that I do not choose to shoot a man if someone takes my hand and tries to force me to pull the trigger and I am simply not strong enough to stop him. Do you believe sufferers of OCD freely choose to, say, wash their hands exactly 52 times, to the point where their skin becomes raw, and thus have free will to stop themselves from doing so?
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Jun 20, 2016 05:47
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Don't get sucked into his rabbit hole of the nature of evil and all that snaz, it's a different debate. The guy just completely ignores any question he has no answer for anyway.
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Jun 20, 2016 05:57
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Rakosi posted:Don't get sucked into his rabbit hole of the nature of evil and all that snaz, it's a different debate. The guy just completely ignores any question he has no answer for anyway.  Rhjamiz posted:This statement is so wrong it's hard to fathom where to even begin. Do OCD people kill people?'
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Jun 20, 2016 06:03
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BrandorKP posted:I've been thinking about this, Wouldn't it be more relevant to ask Christians why do you believe in Jesus? Yeah but to me that only answers the question "why do you want to believe in Jesus?" Of course you want to believe in Jesus, he's a great guy. But the real question we want the answer to, concerns that last little rejection of the need to understand whether what you believe is real; that's the gap I still have to cross in getting to understand a Christian's mindset. If you feel compelled to follow Jesus, well hell; most atheists have already gotten that far with Jesus, I certainly have. They're western liberals like you and me. Following Jesus already forms the infrastructure of our lives, it defines what makes us proud or guilty, what kinds of injustice make us angry. As much as there are other frameworks, chances are that if you're a humane person in America, and whether you came to it as a WASP, or Korean, or in a government Indian school, being socialized to in some sense "follow Jesus" probably had a lot to do with it.
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Jun 20, 2016 06:07
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Crowsbeak posted:Do OCD people kill people?' I'm asking if you think compulsion exists. Your position suggests that OCD people are choosing to be ill. Either they are, and thus so too are those compelled to kill, or they have no choice, and so neither do those same killers. Whether or not OCD people kill is irrelevant.
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Jun 20, 2016 06:11
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Rhjamiz posted:I'm asking if you think compulsion exists. Your position suggests that OCD people are choosing to be ill. Either they are, and thus so too are those compelled to kill, or they have no choice, and so neither do those same killers.
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Jun 20, 2016 06:19
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Crowsbeak posted:Considering most of those killers can at times keep their instincts off, and they don't always kill they must have the ability to occasionally not kill. This is generally not how compulsions operate. Mental illness is varied and diverse. Answer the question. Rhjamiz posted:Do you believe sufferers of OCD freely choose to, say, wash their hands exactly 52 times, to the point where their skin becomes raw, and thus have free will to stop themselves from doing so?
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Jun 20, 2016 06:25
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Rhjamiz posted:This is generally not how compulsions operate. Mental illness is varied and diverse. Probably depends on the time and place. But then they are not committing evil.
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Jun 20, 2016 06:53
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Goffer posted:Atheist here, so I'm not really super qualified to buy in, but in my flirtations with religion and based on some stories in this thread, I'd like to put forward a phenomenon that happens when things are poo poo and you have no control, which I have as a pet theory for why some people believe: I'd like a bunch more info on these tests. Like perhaps the second group was told they were wrong when they said they saw no pattern many times. If they were told over and over again that they were incorrect that there was no pattern that could help to explain why they were more likely to see a pattern in the white noise.
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Jun 20, 2016 07:37
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The Butcher posted:I sometimes like to privately say a "prayer" of sorts to the universe. I think that's a good attitude but I also pray for other people and myself, though. I don't think my prayer will cure someone or that God will say "Well I planned to make X happen but now that I heard technotronic's prayer, I'll do Y". It's more like a meditation that tunes me in to things that are really important. It's better to go to bed thinking about my parents or a sick friend or my long term goals, than being upset about an email from work or that I lost 4 DOTA games in a row.
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Jun 20, 2016 08:39
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Crowsbeak posted:Probably depends on the time and place. But then they are not committing evil. So why did God create or allow psychosis to happen, a thing that pretty much eliminates free will?
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Jun 20, 2016 09:58
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Alhazred posted:So why did God create or allow psychosis to happen, a thing that pretty much eliminates free will? Really all people with psychosis has no control at all over their lives?
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Jun 20, 2016 10:01
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Crowsbeak posted:Really all people with psychosis has no control at all over their lives? Who said all? Just admit that there are plenty who don't have enough, and answer the drat question.
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Jun 20, 2016 10:06
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