Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

That was a quick idea on my part, Immanuel. I immediately thought of
The Handmaid's Tale and His Dark Materials that I enjoyed last night on television. Then I thought of the Sea of Faith movement , and The Jesus Seminar, and popular culture once you get past the moaning and groaning about sexual frustration.

Hmmm...

That's a bit like saying, "Y'know, since Herr Hitler took over, we've had the most wonderful cartoons showing big-nosed Jews stealing money and big-lipped people of colour saying foolish, semi-articulate things; it's been a real art renaissance."

I'm sure things looked different if you were a Jewish person or from a visible minority yourself.

Everybody has a different story and all are necessary to the whole, but some stories are truer than others.

That doesn't mean anything, B.

"The whole" of what?

And what difference does it make that people "have a different story" if at least some of the stories are lies?

We might also ask, "What special grace or value does being 'truer' lend to a situation in which 'truth' is not even seen as objective?"

[Harbal]

You’ll embarrass yourself.

If you think that, you don't know me at all.

[Alexis Jacobi]

“Now there’s a moral nihilist!”
_______________________

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

[Gary Childress]

I guess I tend to think crazy things like someone who loves us wouldn't allow great suffering to happen to us if they could help it.

Let me ask the question a different way, then, Gary.

Do you think it's plausible that, if God knew a greater good was possible, it would be justifable for Him to allow some suffering in order to produce that "good"?

I'm not saying "Would it be okay for Him to allow ALL the suffering," or "Would it be okay for Him to allow as much suffering as we, in fact, see?" I'm just asking if a greater good could give God sufficient justification to allow ANY suffering. Any, at all.

Like, let's suppose God knew that the character development in becoming a triathlete was exceedingly good for human beings. That becoming such an athlete gave them fortitude, discipline, courage, persistence, and other wonderful character qualities; but that in order for people to be triathletes, they were going to have to learn to sweat, to have sore muscles, to have the experience of shortness of breath; and that in order for them to have the elation of winning, they were going to also have to learn the pain of losing.

If God knew all that, would he be justified in making people become traithletes? Or would the presence of the pain involved in their training and sport imply that God could never have a good enough reason to want them to go through that? Does the presence of pain automatically mean "bad" is all that's happening?

What do you think? Just as a speculation. I'm not making more of this than my present question, and I don't mean anybody but triathletes; so don't feel you have to get ahead of me on that. Just tell me what you decide.

The whole idea of triathletes is steeped in ideals of competition and struggle; winning and losing, rooted in survival instincts from roaming the Savannah many thousands of years ago. I can think of few better examples of social Darwinism where the strong and fit get to brandish their strength and the weak must either marvel like sheep at the prowess of their betters or else look down on themselves with contempt or feelings of inadequacy. It's mostly fun and games for the majority of spectators who can marginally participate in the fantasy of sportsmanship taking place in front of them but for the weakest, it's an exercise in despair and humility. Life progressively sucks more and more the closer one is to the bottom of the esteem chain.

[tillingborn]

There is no shortage of data

Yeah, there is.

No there isn't, there is only a shortage of data for the nonsense objections you raise:

...there had to be two first-modern-humans, one male, one female.

There is no evolutionary reason that there should be an 'original mating pair'. The only data for the original mating pair of human beings you insist on is a few chapters in an ancient book.

In almost every case, evolution is supposed to eliminate, not add, features to a creature.

That is really daft. Nobody claims we evolved by subtracting features from amoebas. Presumably even you recognise how ridiculous that is, because here you claim the exact opposite:

If "survival of the fittest" is what drives forward evolution, then whatever is "selected for" can only be a feature that makes the organism "more fit" than its rivals. That means it has to be something important, something functional for survival, and something complete...instantaneously.

Which you then contradict with this:

There are nowhere near the transitional forms we ought to expect...

There is no requirement for 'transitional forms' if change happens "instantaneously".
This is wrong too:

...nor is there any way at all to describe how things like complex, multi-species symbiosis can develop by progressively.

Perhaps none that you can imagine or will entertain, but to anyone who understands evolution, there are clear ways that symbiosis develops.

And that's just a start.

All you are doing is throwing mud at the wall to see if anything sticks, and yes, I don't suppose you will stop; but you haven't demonstrated any reason not to believe in evolution, other than you don't want to.

...it's not even clear that modern humans are the maximally "adaptive" version of the humanoid form...

Then why should we suppose we are made in God's image?
Almost everything you say about evolution is nonsense. As I said; every living organism is an argument for evolution: every symbiotic relationship, every competition between prey and predator, every ecological niche filled; every feature of every creature evolved.

But as I say, there's no payoff in that argument, anyway. It has very little if any significance for theology.

It has if your theology insists that human didn't evolve, which I presume is why you resist it so. Try again Immanuel Can: give us one good reason to doubt evolution.

[iambiguous]

Again: given what particular context? And the Christian God, said to be both omniscient and omnipotent, where the hell is He when the truly innocent suffer terribly? Children for example.

"Each day, 25,000 people, including more than 10,000 children, die from hunger and related causes. Some 854 million people worldwide are estimated to be undernourished, and high food prices may drive another 100 million into poverty and hunger." United Nations

It's often just plain laughable encountering the excuses some Christians will give to explain things like this away. Given that they insist in turn that this omniscient and omnipotent Christian God is also "loving just and merciful"!

All that I can say is that I am not a person who'd describe himself as 'atheist' in the sense of rejecting the notion of divinity or a supreme originator, but I most certainly do not, and cannot accept, the Christian picture. So I am forced to do something that I do not particularly relish: undermine that god-picture. The reason this makes me uncomfortable is because I know that people require a 'structure' through which to live. If they have it, why should I take action to take it from them?

Again: what one believes about a divine or a supreme originator is one thing, what one can actually demonstrate about him another thing altogether. Also, that what one does believe about God and religion is, in many profound ways, the existential embodiment of dasein out in a particular world historically, culturally and experientially.

As to your particular problem, which seems to arise in reaction to a false-picture about god -- shown to be false by the simple fact that god refuses to act in a Christian manner! -- I can only say that I never had this problem to deal with, because I never had that particular god-picture installed in me.

Okay, fair enough. But whatever someone does believe about God and religion, I ask them to connect the dots between that and this:

"...an endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events...making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages..."

It's not for nothing that many religious faiths deal with this in the only way that they can: God works in mysterious ways...ways that mere mortals can know nothing of. Either this or Deism or Harold Kushner.

So when I said earlier that there are *alternatives* to what I understand as your own expressed despondency (in the sense of loss of confidence) in the Christian picture of god, there are definitely others who have explored other territories. But they are not easy-of-access intellectually.

But we're all in the same boat. The gap between what we believe "in our head" about the Christian God and human suffering and what we are able to demonstrate as in fact true. I can't demonstrate that it is not as a result of His mysterious ways and the Christians here can't demonstrate that it is. This would entail that they demonstrate that He does in fact exist. Then we are back to those like IC here.

There is another part of this as well. I think it fair to say that Christianity in our modernity has been, perhaps, coopted into a general progressivism and certainly an ideology of egalitarianism. Even you when you refer (essentially) to god's 'cold heart' in the face of child suffering seem invested in this idea of god as some sort of sentimental entity who must have *concern* for created beings and must show remorse for the cruel things he has allowed to occur in this bizarre world.

But what if that entire idea is done away with?

"Invested in the idea"?!!! Please. There are those 10,000 infants and babies and utterly innocent children that an omnipotent God allows to dies in agony from starvation each and every day according to the United Nations.

That's not an "idea", that's an appalling reality. Meanwhile on Christmas Day millions of Christian children in the rich nations will be wallowing in tons of gifts on Christmas morning!!!

Mysterious ways. indeed.

[Belinda]

Hmmm...

That's a bit like saying, "Y'know, since Herr Hitler took over, we've had the most wonderful cartoons showing big-nosed Jews stealing money and big-lipped people of colour saying foolish, semi-articulate things; it's been a real art renaissance."

I'm sure things looked different if you were a Jewish person or from a visible minority yourself.

Everybody has a different story and all are necessary to the whole, but some stories are truer than others.

That doesn't mean anything, B.

"The whole" of what?

And what difference does it make that people "have a different story" if at least some of the stories are lies?

We might also ask, "What special grace or value does being 'truer' lend to a situation in which 'truth' is not even seen as objective?"

By "the whole" and as you rebut "the whole of what?" I refer to what may be called God's perspective or the prospect from eternity. This is whole as contrasted with relating solely to times and places.

The stories that can usefully be called lies are told from fear but not from love. For instance if I told my life story with the intention of protecting my own interests or safety that would be a story told from fear not from love. Sometimes we can't tell what are the intentions of the story teller but then very often we learn the intentions of the story teller by what they do.

As for stories that are lies, the liar who is unable to admit their own weaknesses and failures harms themself.

Truth, together with goodness and beauty, is always an objective. Self deception stops progress towards truth.

[Immanuel Can]

I guess I tend to think crazy things like someone who loves us wouldn't allow great suffering to happen to us if they could help it.

Let me ask the question a different way, then, Gary.

Do you think it's plausible that, if God knew a greater good was possible, it would be justifable for Him to allow some suffering in order to produce that "good"?

I'm not saying "Would it be okay for Him to allow ALL the suffering," or "Would it be okay for Him to allow as much suffering as we, in fact, see?" I'm just asking if a greater good could give God sufficient justification to allow ANY suffering. Any, at all.

Like, let's suppose God knew that the character development in becoming a triathlete was exceedingly good for human beings. That becoming such an athlete gave them fortitude, discipline, courage, persistence, and other wonderful character qualities; but that in order for people to be triathletes, they were going to have to learn to sweat, to have sore muscles, to have the experience of shortness of breath; and that in order for them to have the elation of winning, they were going to also have to learn the pain of losing.

If God knew all that, would he be justified in making people become traithletes? Or would the presence of the pain involved in their training and sport imply that God could never have a good enough reason to want them to go through that? Does the presence of pain automatically mean "bad" is all that's happening?

What do you think? Just as a speculation. I'm not making more of this than my present question, and I don't mean anybody but triathletes; so don't feel you have to get ahead of me on that. Just tell me what you decide.

The whole idea of triathletes is steeped in ideals of competition and struggle;

Well, that’s nothing to do with my actual question. Regard it as a pure “thought experiment,” because nobody’s suggesting God’s going to make everybody triathletes.


Given that, let’s answer the question. Could God have sufficient reason for allowing SOME amount of discomfort, struggle, pain and suffering, IF there were some very valuable goods in view? Or is all suffering automatically evil?

[Immanuel Can]

But as I say, there's no payoff in that argument, anyway. It has very little if any significance for theology.

It has if your theology insists that human didn't evolve, which I presume is why you resist it so. Try again Immanuel Can: give us one good reason to doubt evolution.

I do insist that humans did not evolve. But whether or not lower animals did is a separate question. It has no theological implications worth anything, so I can’t be bothered to argue with you, even though you’re clearly wrong about there being no serious problems with evolutionary theory in lower animals. It just isn’t an argument I need to bother having with you.

Or, prove otherwise.

[Immanuel Can]

Everybody has a different story and all are necessary to the whole, but some stories are truer than others.

That doesn't mean anything, B.

"The whole" of what?

And what difference does it make that people "have a different story" if at least some of the stories are lies?

We might also ask, "What special grace or value does being 'truer' lend to a situation in which 'truth' is not even seen as objective?"

By "the whole" and as you rebut "the whole of what?" I refer to what may be called God's perspective or the prospect from eternity. This is whole as contrasted with relating solely to times and places.

“The whole that God knows” does not imply that He “knows” every viewpoint human beings can have is rational, correct or true. If it did, you’d have to think that “the whole” included such delusions as misogyny, misandry, Fascism, Satanism, etc.

What God “knows” about those things is that they are deceptions.

The stories that can usefully be called lies are told from fear but not from love.

Like Fascism is?

As for stories that are lies, the liar who is unable to admit their own weaknesses and failures harms themself.

Well, and other people, too.

But what’s that to the point? All it means is exactly what I’ve said: that God knows that some ideologies are deceptions, lies, folly, delusions, half-truths, distortions, etc.

[tillingborn]

I do insist that humans did not evolve.

Then give us one good reason to believe that. As I have already said:

Your only evidence that a process that manifestly applies to every organism on Earth doesn't apply to a creature which has a fossil record and close relatives to show that it does, is a book written over two and a half thousand years ago.

You insist because it is what you choose to believe. You even went so far as to say why you choose to believe it:

You're not alone.
Life is hard, but it's not the end of everything. There's hope.
God doesn't hate you.
God wants you to know Him, and with that,...
There are better things ahead.

What wouldn't be "good" about that?

I don't happen to believe it, but none of it is contradicted by evolution, nor any other field of science. I don't wish to disabuse you or anyone else who takes comfort from the above, but you are a fool to attach your hope to an unremarkable version of a creation myth that was common around the Mediterranean before the Old Testament was written. Do you believe that God created the "original mating pair" like this?
"The Lord God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being...
So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was asleep, he took part of the man’s side and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the part he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man."

[Belinda]

That doesn't mean anything, B.

"The whole" of what?

And what difference does it make that people "have a different story" if at least some of the stories are lies?

We might also ask, "What special grace or value does being 'truer' lend to a situation in which 'truth' is not even seen as objective?"

By "the whole" and as you rebut "the whole of what?" I refer to what may be called God's perspective or the prospect from eternity. This is whole as contrasted with relating solely to times and places.

“The whole that God knows” does not imply that He “knows” every viewpoint human beings can have is rational, correct or true. If it did, you’d have to think that “the whole” included such delusions as misogyny, misandry, Fascism, Satanism, etc.

What God “knows” about those things is that they are deceptions.

The stories that can usefully be called lies are told from fear but not from love.

Like Fascism is?

As for stories that are lies, the liar who is unable to admit their own weaknesses and failures harms themself.

Well, and other people, too.

But what’s that to the point? All it means is exactly what I’ve said: that God knows that some ideologies are deceptions, lies, folly, delusions, half-truths, distortions, etc.

The idea that there is a being who knows whether or not you are telling lies or telling your truth is an idea that supports mental health, otherwise known as the soul. This being knows why an individual is a saint, fascist, rapist, thief, misogynist and so forth---as we agree, this being is omniscient. When you give an account of yourself to this being you know it's impossible to deceive the being. Public prayers, are usually ritualistic,some private prayers are ritualistic, and there is an important difference between a ritualistic prayer and an authentic prayer.
The authentic private prayer is a narrative told to an imaginary listener who understands everything. The practical point of all this is an individual who introspects with courage and sincerity loves their own soul and by extension, others' souls.

[Harbal]

So maybe we start talking about the part on which we agree, yes? You are thinking about human evils, and about malice. What are you thinking about them?

I think of the word “evil” as an indicator of extreme behaviour, such as extremely cruel or sadistic behaviour. Any excessive behaviour that falls within the category of malicious. It is only a word I would use informally, and certainly never if precision of meaning were called for.

When someone asks, “why is there evil in the world?”, it suggests to me that they think of evil as a malignant presence, or force, that is capable of infecting people with a desire to inflict suffering on others. The word has strong religious and biblical connotations, which is mostly why I have an aversion to it, but it is also why I think you are in a much better position than I am to explain exactly what evil is.

[Belinda]

So maybe we start talking about the part on which we agree, yes? You are thinking about human evils, and about malice. What are you thinking about them?

I think of the word “evil” as an indicator of extreme behaviour, such as extremely cruel or sadistic behaviour. Any excessive behaviour that falls within the category of malicious. It is only a word I would use informally, and certainly never if precision of meaning were called for.

When someone asks, “why is there evil in the world?”, it suggests to me that they think of evil as a malignant presence, or force, that is capable of infecting people with a desire to inflict suffering on others. The word has strong religious and biblical connotations, which is mostly why I have an aversion to it, but it is also why I think you are in a much better position than I am to explain exactly what evil is.

I prefer to think of evil as absence of good.

[Harbal]

I prefer to think of evil as absence of good.

If IC is also happy with that definition, or mine, it will certainly mean a lot less work for me when I come to reply to his response.