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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[Bohandas]

All codes of morality are arbitrary.  Many people choose to promote the moral code of "Whatever our God mandates".  Or notably, "Whatever a certain book says our God mandated".  Is that any less valid than maximizing happiness while minimizing suffering?  Perhaps also valuing liberty, and/or the survival of the species?  Not really.

I think serving an alien being as defined by ancient texts is a frightening moral system compared to *any* combination of the above.  But it's valid.  So when they say God is tautologically good, they're technically right.  It doesn't mean God is at all nice, it's a meaningless and misleading tautology, but it's true by their moral code.

Admittedly I'm the one being the stickler now, but part of the issue is that the trait is almost always specifically listed as "omnibenevolence" and "benevolent" (and therefore "Omnibenevolent") is a much more specific and technical term than "moral" or "good". "Benevolent" is the accepted polar opposite of "Malevolent" and therefore denotes a desire to aid and protect.

[Rolan7]

Yeah, good point.

Christmas just ended an hour ago here by the way - hope everyone had a nice day!  Mine was a bit rough, but not for reasons of religion, and was better than expected.  Lots of pleasant surprises.

[Rolepgeek]

Merry Christmas!

I get that, Bohandas, but there's the objection of arguing by semantics. Which applies to both cases, but from what I know, most ideas of the Christian god define 'good' as 'close to god'. What he says, you do. That is good, by definition. Which is bizarre to us, but not necessarily to them. Or in other words; [what it looks like from outside is] we're using a word we picked out/that's meant as short-hand, not as literal description to describe someone else's belief system and god, and then complaining when they don't fit that word.

A far stronger argument, in my opinion, is that an omniscient, omnibenevolent God wants to maximize the end-utility of the world. If 'omnipotent' does not actually mean 'able to break the way reality works'; that is to say, God cannot undo himself, or make a square circle, or bypass cause->effect. If you take this view of it, then it's essentially the 'all part of God's plan'. Things can have consequences so far reaching and unknowable that only God can nudge them in just such a way as to both allow us to believe ourselves free willed (if we didn't, we'd all go insane, I wager), and yet it will still result in the greatest good overall. Evil can exist, but it does so in the service of a greater good.

I mean, the argument that 'glorification of god' is a crappy greater good is an entirely separate issue. But internal consistency can be had, particularly if you apply the Principle of Charity.

Speaking of which, since religion and spirituality aren't all that divorced from philosophy, and for atheists/agnostics they fill the same role, what are people's opinions about wireheading? Is it genuine happiness to be hooked up to a machine that continually stimulates your pleasure centers, all of your physical needs taken care of? Or to go into a perfect virtual reality, but you never actually interact with other human beings, just simulations of them (you cannot tell the difference from within the machine, of course), and is a paradise for you?

[wierd]

I'll bite.

as near as we can tell, humans do not actually experience the real. They experience an absract rendering of the real, processed inside the brain, from inputs given by faulty sensory aparatus.

With that in mind, the "real" of the mind is not objective, but subjective. If somebody is stimulating your pain nerves, does that make the pain unreal? I would say no. the pain is still felt, and thus subjectively real.

the question of deep brain stimulation being real happiness or not is a bad question. the sensation is real. the type of sensation does not equate with natural sensation however.

compare: is saccharine sweet? yes.  does it taste like sugar? no.

[Frumple]

Is it genuine happiness to be hooked up to a machine that continually stimulates your pleasure centers, all of your physical needs taken care of? Or to go into a perfect virtual reality, but you never actually interact with other human beings, just simulations of them (you cannot tell the difference from within the machine, of course), and is a paradise for you?

The latter pretty much definitely would be genuine happiness, providing it didn't have notable downsides and was either indefinite or consensual. If you can't (and, perhaps more importantly, won't be able to) tell a difference, insofar as you're concerned there is no difference.

The former almost certainly wouldn't be -- there's more to happiness than raw pleasure and met survival requirements. Social needs, improvement/accomplishment needs, etc., etc. It might be a good basis to build off of, though -- if not necessarily a infinite pleasure tap, something for explicit management of emotional states would probably be an absolutely incredible (if obviously abusable) tool for improving lives and helping people be happy. It's basically what most non-recreational psychoactive drugs are trying to do, after all, and those help out a lot of folks pretty tremendously.

[Graknorke]

Wronger than wrong is the kind of expression I usually see to describe idea's that are even impossible to proof false. I don't really see how it applies here.

In fact wronger than wrong is a term that I would apply to the statement that there is a god, because it is literally impossible to proof false when that god is placed outside the known universe by the person making the claim.

It's from an article that Isaac Asimov wrote for a magazine, and it goes as follow:

John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

What I kind of got out of what you said is that believing anything is unreasonable because you're probably not perfectly right.

[Antioch]

Wronger than wrong is the kind of expression I usually see to describe idea's that are even impossible to proof false. I don't really see how it applies here.

In fact wronger than wrong is a term that I would apply to the statement that there is a god, because it is literally impossible to proof false when that god is placed outside the known universe by the person making the claim.

It's from an article that Isaac Asimov wrote for a magazine, and it goes as follow:

John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

What I kind of got out of what you said is that believing anything is unreasonable because you're probably not perfectly right.

On the contrary, we should strife to adjust our views to the best information possible. However any form of dogma should be subjected to scrutiny and if unsupported by evidence it should be rejected.

I am for example an atheist because I perceive a lack of evidence for the existence of a god, not because it is a dogmatic belief.

[Bohandas]

Christmas just ended an hour ago here by the way

Happy St.Stephen's Day!

[Calidovi]

Wronger than wrong is the kind of expression I usually see to describe idea's that are even impossible to proof false. I don't really see how it applies here.

In fact wronger than wrong is a term that I would apply to the statement that there is a god, because it is literally impossible to proof false when that god is placed outside the known universe by the person making the claim.

It's from an article that Isaac Asimov wrote for a magazine, and it goes as follow:

John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

What I kind of got out of what you said is that believing anything is unreasonable because you're probably not perfectly right.

On the contrary, we should strife to adjust our views to the best information possible. However any form of dogma should be subjected to scrutiny and if unsupported by evidence it should be rejected.

If course, this is dependent on the assertion that everything is logical, which is the exact opposite of what religion is based on. You can argue that that's the only way to look at things, but it's generally unhelpful in criticizing religion to a theist's face unless you purely seek to reaffirm your own viewpoint.

[Antioch]

If course, this is dependent on the assertion that everything is logical, which is the exact opposite of what religion is based on. You can argue that that's the only way to look at things, but it's generally unhelpful in criticizing religion to a theist's face unless you purely seek to reaffirm your own viewpoint.

I would say that is an assumption. A lot of people say that religion and logic go together just fine. Doesn't the (partial) rejection of logic undermine the principle of argumentation itself?

[Fenrir]

If course, this is dependent on the assertion that everything is logical, which is the exact opposite of what religion is based on. You can argue that that's the only way to look at things, but it's generally unhelpful in criticizing religion to a theist's face unless you purely seek to reaffirm your own viewpoint.

I would say that is an assumption. A lot of people say that religion and logic go together just fine. Doesn't the (partial) rejection of logic undermine the principle of argumentation itself?

Laptisen seems to be ignoring 100s of years of sophisticated apologetics that attempt to use logic to support religion.

Hell, presuppositional apologetics argues that faith is a prerequisite for logic.

[Graknorke]

The supernatural defies logical analysis by its nature, otherwise it would just be natural.

[TD1]

I would go far as to say "otherwise it would exist," but I have a feeling such a move wouldn't be popular with some...

[Orange Wizard]

Laptisen seems to be ignoring 100s of years of sophisticated apologetics that attempt to use logic to support religion.

No, religious people ignore them too.

[Rolan7]

Apologists argue that the Bible isn't actually self contradictory when properly interpreted, and they argue that God is necessary for humans to remain happy and civilized. I've seen few cases for the Bible being true. Mostly "It's technically possible, and we're better off believing it".