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Judaism

0 (0%)

Christianity

17 (23.3%)

Islam

1 (1.4%)

Hinduism

0 (0%)

Taoism

0 (0%)

Buddhism

0 (0%)

Scientology

2 (2.7%)

Other (please tell)

7 (9.6%)

Athiest

35 (47.9%)

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Agnostic

10 (13.7%)

Total Members Voted: 70

[martinuzz]

though granted, looking at the world and the kinds of things in it, let alone the universe in general, "sadist" would be a very apt description of any intelligence that had any hand in it's creation.

About as sadistic as the average DF !!SCIENTIST!!

[wierd]

I disagree with "sadist" as a descriptor.

Sadists ACTiVELY engage their playthings. A sadistic god would purposefully create arbitrary, but inescapable cirumstances that maximize and prolong pain or suffering-- such as forcing his victims to make the conscious decision to feel pain, in order to continue living. (See for instance, the actions of the antagonist in the Saw movies.)


Do not confuse sadism, an active trait, with gross indifference, a passive trait.

The natural world exhibits gross indifference. It really has no consideration, *AT ALL* for human sensibilities like "fairness", or "good", or "bad" or "pain", or "pleasure."

An indifferent god just does not care about you, and does not think about you, at all, no matter what your plight. (Compare: You are practically god-like to the ants in an anthill already. Do you really give any number of shits about them, their yearly struggles against competing fungus in their larders threatening them with starvation? How they sometimes get infected with a mold that makes them into morbid zombies? The mass-massacres they suffer when an ant-eater pays their colony a visit? You COULD take an active hand in any of these things, but yet, you do not. Why? because you do not care for them, or about them, in any way. If they worshipped you, would you notice or care? If they tried to implore you to help them, would you even notice?)

Given the extreme lack of any evidence to suggest a god interacts with our universe, we can pretty safely presume that any god that might exist is an indifferent one, who does not really care about the natural consequences of our universe, and how those things play out in regards to the quality of life that humans enjoy. It simply does not care about either us, or the universe, in any meaningful way.

(If it did care, it would interact with it, and there would then be evidence. So either no gods exist, as the atheists claim, or the god exists, and just does not give any fucks. A sadist god is a god who cares, just not in the way you WANT them to.)

[Starver]

Final point: any creator being worthy of worship would have to be one that, having created you and your faculties of thought and consideration, would not punish you for using those faculties and arriving at the "wrong" conclusion, based on the facts of the universe as understood at the time you were alive. After all, not only did this being create the facts, they also created the you that looks at the facts and they created how you would piece them together [...]

Extend that to assume, without any foreknowledge of course, that there is a God Of Critical Thinking.

His criteria for damnation is that His creations do not exhibit rationality in examining the universe He created in the form of a Godless universe. Belief in any God (including Him!) would be a damnable offence.

Though all observations made so far (discounting virtually all non-secular interpretations of those observations) would agree with such a Divine Being being there, naturally I do not believe this to be the case... 


(And there's also Next Tuesdayism, so it might not matter.)

[TD1]

And if such a god attempted to imagine a being more intelligent than it?

Presumably it could do so, but in a way that maintained its other characteristics. So, the 'God' has infinite intelligence, and can imagine something of greater intelligence. Ergo it becomes that being of greater intelligence, because it can imagine greater intelligence and thus understand it, and so ergo he was always intelligent enough to do so, and was infinitely intelligent. And so on ad infinitum.

Or it may have a pact with itself to never try thinking of something more intelligent than itself, and therefore prove itself intelligent enough to avoid the whole dilemna.

[Dunamisdeos]

Final point: any creator being worthy of worship would have to be one that, having created you and your faculties of thought and consideration, would not punish you for using those faculties and arriving at the "wrong" conclusion, based on the facts of the universe as understood at the time you were alive.

I don't agree with that. That's like saying that your parents, knowing the world they were bringing you into, cannot morally punish you for doing whatever the you think makes you relevant in the time you were born into. I'm responsible for my own actions whether I live in 2017 or 217, and if we do exist on a larger scale than earthly, material existence, that responsibility is great indeed.

If a God created us initially then it absolutely has the same intrinsic rights over us that our parents do when we are children, that being of experience and natural authority. If, as many religions claim, we ascend to a higher place upon death, then this is comparable to entering adulthood. The euphemism of humans as "children of [X]" is accurate indeed, as the things we do here decide our aptitude for entering true society in the "afterlife".

Removing our ability to make that wrong choice would at worst be akin to extreme totalitarianism shown in abusive parents. At best, it would turn us as a species into one that is completely removed from the consequences of our own actions. What equitable alternate "punishment" from entering a positive afterlife can there possibly be aside from not entering that positive afterlife? That's not cruelty or even punishment in truth, that's consequences.

[TD1]

For an all intelligent God, limited only by its own ability to think of a greater self, imagination would stretch to complete understanding and therefore being capable of the greater intelligence.

You may conceive of a greater intelligence than yourself; this, however, is only partial and conceptual understanding. All-intelligence would have complete understanding.

Indeed. For an all intelligent being, there is always a greater one to imagine, and it has always achieved it.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Objection. Parents do not have intrinsic rights over their children, they have practical control over them. In societies where children are valued, this is articulated as a burden of caretaking, such as one has over a very disabled person. And it also means that parents take responsibility for the influence they have. If someone teaches their child that other people are worthless and you ought to take from them if you can get away with it, and said child becomes a rapist as a teenager, fault is not solely upon the teenager. They hold some responsibility for their actions, but we are all well aware that when a person knows nothing else they are likely to take whatever path is placed before them.

When exacerbated to the level of divinity, it is clear that any failings in humanity are the ultimate fault of divinity for not providing guidance or a reality where certain negative behaviors are not encouraged (this is further proof that there is no God, by the way. The world looks like one where our virtues and vices are all based in evolutionary development rather than universal principles.).

[Dunamisdeos]

Your argument is such that a human parent would be required to force behavior by any means necessary that does not comply with it. You can't have free will without the possibility of failure. To remove our ability to produce a failing result would be to make us simple creatures of animal instinct.

You cannot have "some fault lies with the perpetrator" and "when taken further it is clear that no responsibility lies with the perpetrator" true at the same time.

If a parent sets forth guidelines on how to avoid negative outcome from your actions, and the child willfully refuses them for short-term gain, then that child is fully responsible for it's own action. There is no leading religion involving a supreme and perfect creator where guidelines are not set, or the consequences are not made clear. Your model wants to be rewarded for proper behavior while being relieved of the eventual responsibility of failure.

I also must assert that a parent exercises practical control over their children because the have intrinsic rights over them and therefore the responsibility that comes with them. They are not mutually exclusive.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Your argument is such that a human parent would be required to force behavior by any means necessary that does not comply with it. You can't have free will without the possibility of failure. To remove our ability to produce a failing result would be to make us simple creatures of animal instinct.

You cannot have "some fault lies with the perpetrator" and "when taken further it is clear that no responsibility lies with the perpetrator" true at the same time.

This is not a binary decision. A god can take some responsibility for their role in the relationship in much the same way that a parent can provide both guidance and liberty. Which is what a good parent does provide for their children.

If a parent sets forth guidelines on how to avoid negative outcome from your actions, and the child willfully refuses them for short-term gain, then that child is fully responsible for it's own action. There is no leading religion involving a supreme and perfect creator where guidelines are not set, or the consequences are not made clear. Your model wants to be rewarded for proper behavior while being relieved of the eventual responsibility of failure.

This goes back to the Mafia boss comparison. He TOLD you what the consequences would be if you decided not to buy protection...why are you complaining? For humans there's a difference between natural and moral evils because we lack control over some things. Yet if we developed a weather control system and didn't stop hurricanes from hitting poor countries, or gouged those countries for profit, then hurricanes would move from natural to moral evil. An almighty god controls the entire universe and is responsible for its creation and continuation, it can thus be judged for what happens in the natural world in the same way we can judge the Mafia boss for establishing a system of protection racketeering.

The leading religions all typically get around this by degrigating humanity, but then they would. Gotta have something to sell to the public.

I also must assert that a parent exercises practical control over their children because the have intrinsic rights over them and therefore the responsibility that comes with them. They are not mutually exclusive.

A distinction without a difference. There's no reason to make a dimension of "muh rights" about this other then rhetorical justification if I accept your argument.

[Dunamisdeos]

I also must assert that a parent exercises practical control over their children because the have intrinsic rights over them and therefore the responsibility that comes with them. They are not mutually exclusive.

A distinction without a difference. There's no reason to make a dimension of "muh rights" about this other then rhetorical justification if I accept your argument.

In your previous post, this was your basis for as to why a parent (and therefore a divine being) must take responsibility for their child's actions. It absolutely either applies or it does not. Either it was his job to stop us from taking negative actions and therefore removing free will, or it was not. You can't have half a free will.

If a parent sets forth guidelines on how to avoid negative outcome from your actions, and the child willfully refuses them for short-term gain, then that child is fully responsible for it's own action. There is no leading religion involving a supreme and perfect creator where guidelines are not set, or the consequences are not made clear. Your model wants to be rewarded for proper behavior while being relieved of the eventual responsibility of failure.

This goes back to the Mafia boss comparison. He TOLD you what the consequences would be if you decided not to buy protection...why are you complaining? For humans there's a difference between natural and moral evils because we lack control over some things. Yet if we developed a weather control system and didn't stop hurricanes from hitting poor countries, or gouged those countries for profit, then hurricanes would move from natural to moral evil. An almighty god controls the entire universe and is responsible for its creation and continuation, it can thus be judged for what happens in the natural world in the same way we can judge the Mafia boss for establishing a system of protection racketeering.

The leading religions all typically get around this by degrigating humanity, but then they would. Gotta have something to sell to the public.

There no profit going to a divine being that they are raking from us. There is no "mafia protection", and it is not a parents' job to shield their child from all harm. Was it the God's fault for not stopping us from building New Orleans in a remarkably stupid place where thousands died? We built it there so we could gain in short term from trade, and then people died. Should God have physically stopped us from setting up exploitative governments that value money and comfort over human life? From setting up pleasant bungalows in hurricane zones, or providing no food for it's populace when it is clearly within our means as a society to do so?

A parent is not a parent when they save you from your mistakes and a mafia boss when they let your actions have consequences. That's like saying "your house is on fire, please evacuate" and your response being "what, are you threatening me".

Every argument that God is responsible for our ills logically coincides with the idea that he needs to solve the problems that we create for ourselves or that we are unwilling to solve. We got ourselves where we are all on our own as a society and as a race of thinking, self-aware  people.

[Descan]

Final point: any creator being worthy of worship would have to be one that, having created you and your faculties of thought and consideration, would not punish you for using those faculties and arriving at the "wrong" conclusion, based on the facts of the universe as understood at the time you were alive.

I don't agree with that. That's like saying that your parents, knowing the world they were bringing you into, cannot morally punish you for doing whatever the you think makes you relevant in the time you were born into. I'm responsible for my own actions whether I live in 2017 or 217, and if we do exist on a larger scale than earthly, material existence, that responsibility is great indeed.

If a God created us initially then it absolutely has the same intrinsic rights over us that our parents do when we are children, that being of experience and natural authority. If, as many religions claim, we ascend to a higher place upon death, then this is comparable to entering adulthood. The euphemism of humans as "children of [X]" is accurate indeed, as the things we do here decide our aptitude for entering true society in the "afterlife".

Removing our ability to make that wrong choice would at worst be akin to extreme totalitarianism shown in abusive parents. At best, it would turn us as a species into one that is completely removed from the consequences of our own actions. What equitable alternate "punishment" from entering a positive afterlife can there possibly be aside from not entering that positive afterlife? That's not cruelty or even punishment in truth, that's consequences.

You went in the wrong direction than I was going, I was never talking about ethics (I mean, besides the basic immorality of any infinite punishment (or "consequence") for a finite crime) I was talking about the basic facts of what reality *is.* If a god exists and does not provide any inkling of their existence, and in fact provides evidence *against* their existence (from the vast number of equally-plausible religions to the in-your-face levels of This Is A Natural Process that the universe screams) AND provides us with the, individual or species, tendencies toward logic, reason, and basic A -> B -> C, 2 + 2 = 4, how is it in any way just or moral to punish us for putting two and two together and getting four? The rules of reality that that being created *force* it to be four.

At any rate, comparing a deity to a parent ignores the next point which is *the most important one* (thanks for removing that, btw), which was that any creator deity *knows* you. Intimately. More than you know yourself, more than you *can* know yourself. They created you the way an artist creates a sketch, or an engineer creates an engine, but ever more so. They know exactly what your proclivities are. With rudimentary AI, humanity is able to predict individual people to a disconcerting degree; such as Target sending baby-item coupons to people who don't even know that they are pregnant, because they use AI processes to examine shopping habits and picked up on the unconscious shopping habits of people who are going to have a baby.

That level of prediction is with human failings, limited data, and a rudimentary AI. Any divinity who could create reality would necessarily be able to do at least that much, and more. And even if that deity did not choose to exercise that predictive ability, they would still be responsible for our actions, because *they could have*. They could have seen what we would do as they created us, seen that we would behave in ways they don't like, and change how they were going to create us. Which would no more go against free will than the mere act of creation in the first place goes against free will, since the only difference is what proclivities they are giving us; the ACT of CREATION is still the same, and it is still them setting the dominoes up.

To go back to the ball example: I drop the ball. I get angry that it hit the ground. I *could* have reached out and grabbed it; that is within my ability. But I did not do so, because I wanted to give the ball "free will." It's still going to hit the ground regardless of any will it might have, because of forces set in motion that it has no control over. (to ground the metaphor, I'm talking about the human species tendencies and our own particular tendencies; I'm not getting into determinism explicitly here, but it is a factor too.)

I can no more blame the ball for hitting the ground after abstaining from interfering than otherwise; I am still in control. And a god is ever more so in control; I might be able to grab that ball? A god would be able to just stop gravity in that area. More control, just because of what that deity is, whether it exercises that control or not. My point is that a deity, by it's very nature, already "turn us as a species into one that is completely removed from the consequences of our own actions." That's intrinsic to the mere concept of a creator deity capable of creating our universe and us in particular.

As for afterlife = adulthood. For one, kids can see adults. They see that Being An Adult is a thing that actually occurs, they can more or less understand how it works ("I get bigger and smarter and eventually Adulting Occurs") If you told a group of children (by way of indirect books you left around) who had never seen an adult, have no idea what an adult looks like, who once they become adults they never return. If you told them that an adult is "You, but bigger and smarter and better," they'd be well within their right to think that is entirely incorrect.

Like I'm kind of repeating myself here but I don't think you understand a god *is not* comparable to a parent. A God is a God, it Knows, whereas a parent is just a human, it thinks. It guesses. It believes. It may have a very good reason to believe something! But there is *always* the chance of being wrong. A god Knows; it does not have that chance of being wrong.

[Descan]

it is not a parents' job to shield their child from all harm.

But it is a parents job to *not harm* the kid.

Was it the God's fault for not stopping us from building New Orleans in a remarkably stupid place where thousands died[hurricanes]?

No, it's God's fault for *making hurricanes exist*.

Should God have physically stopped us from setting up exploitative governments that value money and comfort over human life?

No, it's God's fault that that's a Thing we Do. He gave us the tendency to exploit each other, even when it's detrimental to everyone. He could have not. He didn't not, but instead he did.

Or he *doesn't exist,* and it's just evolutionary processes Doing What They Do based on the laws of physics, making us prone to short-term gain at long-term cost.

Every argument that God is responsible for our ills logically coincides with the idea that he needs to solve the problems that we create for ourselves or that we are unwilling to solve. We got ourselves where we are all on our own as a society and as a race of thinking, self-aware  people.

I'm not even going to disagree with you all that much here, because that last sentence? Is exactly what I believe, I'm actually pretty optimistic about humanity and it's trajectory, because I trust in our faculties and our ability to improve our faculties where they fail.

What I *do* disagree with is the idea that there can BE a God, *and* still have them not have ALL responsibility for the domino blocks of a universe they set up. Like before, it's not god's fault that we build in hurricane prone areas; It's God's fault that hurricane prone areas even *exist* in the first place. Hurricanes are because of natural processes and natural laws; if God exists, *they made those laws,* and they could have *not* chosen those laws to govern reality.

It's not "God needs to fix our shit because He's Ultimately Responsible!" It's "God needs to stop making the Breaking of the Shit inevitable because He's Ultimately Responsible." (Like, in the old sense of the word, Ultimate. There can be, intrinsically, no more responsible of a being.)

Ball: I throw a ball at your face. Should I be held responsible for your face being in the Ball Prone Area? It's not my fault you were there, I'm not responsible for where your face is! The hurricane is just a really fuck-off huge ball.

[Dunamisdeos]

Yeah, see, that would be the thrower's fault because they chose to throw a ball at someone's face. The difference is that one is centered on hurting another person for the sake of hurting another person, whereas the other one isn't actually centered around us at all.

Things like hurricanes and wildfires and the like exist for other reasons than to ruin our towns and lives. A creator in that case isn't specially throwing bad things at you when those things happen and sitting back to gloat. It would not be their "fault" for setting up a self-sustaining ecosystem that does not cater solely to our safety. Unless we do literally decide to build in a flood plain or in a swamp it's not our "fault" either. A creator does not owe us an existence free from risk, and to be honest I don't think anyone would want that out of life.

God didn't give us a "tendency" that somehow forces us to take negative action where we otherwise would not, God gave us the ability to choose. We cannot have free will without that concept. A "perfect" existence, ergo one free of pain and risk, is not compatible with the idea of self-determination.

Therefore the existence of negativity in our world is not evidence of a cruel/nonexistent creator in and of itself, only of one that wants us to be able to choose. Understand I'm not trying to argue for the existence of God per se, only that the idea that dangerous/negative/bad things exist is not a logical argument against it. There are many real-world examples on why this is the case.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

In your previous post, this was your basis for as to why a parent (and therefore a divine being) must take responsibility for their child's actions. It absolutely either applies or it does not. Either it was his job to stop us from taking negative actions and therefore removing free will, or it was not. You can't have half a free will.

Facts not in evidence. There's no reason to believe that it either applies totally or not at all. Some people even doubt that our "free will" exists, and our actions as intelligences are based heavily in our biology and evolutionary needs. I mean christ, in large part we do things just because we suddenly feel vague urges to do them. Does that sound like libertarian free will to you? And your cognition cannot freely choose to be like that of a dog, or an insect, or your computer, nor can it accomplish some of the things those intelligences can. We are not as special as we like to think we are.

There no profit going to a divine being that they are raking from us. There is no "mafia protection", and it is not a parents' job to shield their child from all harm. Was it the God's fault for not stopping us from building New Orleans in a remarkably stupid place where thousands died? We built it there so we could gain in short term from trade, and then people died. Should God have physically stopped us from setting up exploitative governments that value money and comfort over human life? From setting up pleasant bungalows in hurricane zones, or providing no food for it's populace when it is clearly within our means as a society to do so?

A parent is not a parent when they save you from your mistakes and a mafia boss when they let your actions have consequences. That's like saying "your house is on fire, please evacuate" and your response being "what, are you threatening me".

Every argument that God is responsible for our ills logically coincides with the idea that he needs to solve the problems that we create for ourselves or that we are unwilling to solve. We got ourselves where we are all on our own as a society and as a race of thinking, self-aware  people.

As Descan noted, a monotheistic god is not a nanny state. When you define the parameters of a universe in a creative sense, then you're choosing to establish those parameters for the inhabitants of that universe. Which is a way greater "violation of free will" than, say, not creating any of the myriad of genetic diseases which afflict humans.

You know, in DnD settings there aren't any atheists. Even if someone hates the gods, it's silly for them to believe there are no gods. Their gods intervene on their behalf, sometimes heal their sickness, sometimes invade them with demons. That's what a world with gods looks like, even at its most basic.

So what does it say about ours that the entire practice of theology is pretty much dedicated to the soothing of doubt about our various deities?

[Dunamisdeos]

... I feel like when you start citing DnD as real-world theological precedent, the conversation has in fact derailed neatly. There is no reason to suspect that if a divine creator exists it would mirror a fictional universe. (Did I miss a joke?)

I also think saying that we are not as special as we think are and then turning around to claim that the very creation of the universe is a violation of our free will, as if our will is somehow of the same intrinsic value as the concept of existence, is a bit of a contradiction. Regardless of our definition of free will, we have the ability to knowingly choose between net positive and net negative action. People can and do choose to hurt another person or not to for their own benefit. The idea that we have this ability and that we are not naturally the central meaning of all existence immediately precludes as a concept that we are not responsible for our own actions. I do not find the  two ideas to be reconcilable.

Also, no, I don't think it's actually true that we do things for no literal reason. There is always a cause. We don't just feel like a coke, even if we say it or believe it. Behind that is the fact that we just had a sprite yesterday, or think we that it pairs well with our pizza, or even that we are just thirsty. There is always reason, however illogical it may be. Frankly if a person is simply acting on "vague urges" without further consideration they are either a very small child or clinically insane.

The only way God can be held directly responsible in any way for our ills is if we hold to the idea that he is somehow at fault for not building the universe with us at the exact center of all happenings. That's the very height of hubris. To me what that says about the state of our Theology is that people will do absolutely anything to avoid the idea of being held responsible for our own adult actions.