theodicy

[Belinda]

Why would I need to read that? I've read him.

I didn't disparage you in the slightest. That's all in your imaginings. Unless disparaging your fallacious statement is disparaging you.

Show me.

The thing is, Martin, it is not possible to make a fallacious statement about oneself except when one tells a lie. In other words I have privileged access to my own mind and feelings, into which you have no access whatsoever.

How was this about you Belinda?

Mark Twain here was discussing the Problem of Evil. The only moral way to disappear the Problem of Evil is to divest God of the attribute of omnipotence.

Sans the attribute of omnipotence God personifies the best of humanity, and sans omnipotence God can not be weaponised by tyrants.

And how was my response ad hominem?

He certainly doesn't personify anywhere near the best of humanity. He personifies some of the absolute worst, including in the NT.

Your response was ad hominem because I know my own mind better than you do. My account of my own personal God was calm and showed no sign of emotional stress, neither could you see me of hear me and consider maybe I was deceiving myself.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

The thing is, Martin, it is not possible to make a fallacious statement about oneself except when one tells a lie. In other words I have privileged access to my own mind and feelings, into which you have no access whatsoever.

How was this about you Belinda?

Mark Twain here was discussing the Problem of Evil. The only moral way to disappear the Problem of Evil is to divest God of the attribute of omnipotence.

Sans the attribute of omnipotence God personifies the best of humanity, and sans omnipotence God can not be weaponised by tyrants.

And how was my response ad hominem?

He certainly doesn't personify anywhere near the best of humanity. He personifies some of the absolute worst, including in the NT.

Your response was ad hominem because I know my own mind better than you do. My account of my own personal God was calm and showed no sign of emotional stress, neither could you see me of hear me and consider maybe I was deceiving myself.

I don't, can't understand you, Belinda. I'll have to ask ChatGPT what you could mean and why.

[Belinda]

How was this about you Belinda?



And how was my response ad hominem?

Your response was ad hominem because I know my own mind better than you do. My account of my own personal God was calm and showed no sign of emotional stress, neither could you see me of hear me and consider maybe I was deceiving myself.

I don't, can't understand you, Belinda. I'll have to ask ChatGPT what you could mean and why.

The Sea of Faith stance is that there is no entity usually called 'God'. God is actually an individual's internalised attitude to what is good and true and where one orients oneself to.
Where IC may say I am a sinner , that would imply my attitude is wrong or bad . To say my attitude is false is like what a psychiatrist may say to her patient who is deceiving herself. Martin, you may have replied to me that your attitude towards of God is unlike mine, or that my notion makes no sense, and those would be your own opinion and quite okay. However you cannot claim it's a fact that my attitude makes no sense to me myself.

Martin , you wrote "He certainly doesn't personify anywhere near the best of humanity. He personifies some of the absolute worst, including in the NT." I had already explained I was referring to my own concept of God, not to some attitude or belief held by unidentified others.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

Your response was ad hominem because I know my own mind better than you do. My account of my own personal God was calm and showed no sign of emotional stress, neither could you see me of hear me and consider maybe I was deceiving myself.

I don't, can't understand you, Belinda. I'll have to ask ChatGPT what you could mean and why.

The Sea of Faith stance is that there is no entity usually called 'God'. God is actually an individual's internalised attitude to what is good and true and where one orients oneself to.
Where IC may say I am a sinner , that would imply my attitude is wrong or bad . To say my attitude is false is like what a psychiatrist may say to her patient who is deceiving herself. Martin, you may have replied to me that your attitude towards of God is unlike mine, or that my notion makes no sense, and those would be your own opinion and quite okay. However you cannot claim it's a fact that my attitude makes no sense to me myself.

Martin , you wrote "He certainly doesn't personify anywhere near the best of humanity. He personifies some of the absolute worst, including in the NT." I had already explained I was referring to my own concept of God, not to some attitude or belief held by unidentified others.

Where had you done that?

And no way are you a sinner with a wrong, bad, false attitude. Where, how on Earth, do I claim it's a fact that your attitude makes no sense to yourself?!

Not my counter Belinda.

[Belinda]

I don't, can't understand you, Belinda. I'll have to ask ChatGPT what you could mean and why.

The Sea of Faith stance is that there is no entity usually called 'God'. God is actually an individual's internalised attitude to what is good and true and where one orients oneself to.
Where IC may say I am a sinner , that would imply my attitude is wrong or bad . To say my attitude is false is like what a psychiatrist may say to her patient who is deceiving herself. Martin, you may have replied to me that your attitude towards of God is unlike mine, or that my notion makes no sense, and those would be your own opinion and quite okay. However you cannot claim it's a fact that my attitude makes no sense to me myself.

Martin , you wrote "He certainly doesn't personify anywhere near the best of humanity. He personifies some of the absolute worst, including in the NT." I had already explained I was referring to my own concept of God, not to some attitude or belief held by unidentified others.

Where had you done that?

And no way are you a sinner with a wrong, bad, false attitude. Where, how on Earth, do I claim it's a fact that your attitude makes no sense to yourself?!

Not my counter Belinda.

"It sounds like for you God is a single fixed idea — but for me, it’s personal and subjective. I don’t subscribe to any canonical beliefs. For me personally, God belief is not about a supernatural being or religious authority."

[Belinda]

I don't, can't understand you, Belinda. I'll have to ask ChatGPT what you could mean and why.

The Sea of Faith stance is that there is no entity usually called 'God'. God is actually an individual's internalised attitude to what is good and true and where one orients oneself to.
Where IC may say I am a sinner , that would imply my attitude is wrong or bad . To say my attitude is false is like what a psychiatrist may say to her patient who is deceiving herself. Martin, you may have replied to me that your attitude towards of God is unlike mine, or that my notion makes no sense, and those would be your own opinion and quite okay. However you cannot claim it's a fact that my attitude makes no sense to me myself.

Martin , you wrote "He certainly doesn't personify anywhere near the best of humanity. He personifies some of the absolute worst, including in the NT." I had already explained I was referring to my own concept of God, not to some attitude or belief held by unidentified others.

Where had you done that?

And no way are you a sinner with a wrong, bad, false attitude. Where, how on Earth, do I claim it's a fact that your attitude makes no sense to yourself?!

Not my counter Belinda.

It sounds like for you God is a single fixed idea — but for me, it’s personal and subjective. I don’t subscribe to any canonical beliefs. For me personally, God belief is not about a supernatural being or religious authority

[Martin Peter Clarke]

The Sea of Faith stance is that there is no entity usually called 'God'. God is actually an individual's internalised attitude to what is good and true and where one orients oneself to.
Where IC may say I am a sinner , that would imply my attitude is wrong or bad . To say my attitude is false is like what a psychiatrist may say to her patient who is deceiving herself. Martin, you may have replied to me that your attitude towards of God is unlike mine, or that my notion makes no sense, and those would be your own opinion and quite okay. However you cannot claim it's a fact that my attitude makes no sense to me myself.

Martin , you wrote "He certainly doesn't personify anywhere near the best of humanity. He personifies some of the absolute worst, including in the NT." I had already explained I was referring to my own concept of God, not to some attitude or belief held by unidentified others.

Where had you done that?

And no way are you a sinner with a wrong, bad, false attitude. Where, how on Earth, do I claim it's a fact that your attitude makes no sense to yourself?!

Not my counter Belinda.

It sounds like for you God is a single fixed idea — but for me, it’s personal and subjective. I don’t subscribe to any canonical beliefs. For me personally, God belief is not about a supernatural being or religious authority

Nope. Not fixed. Apart from just normally constrained, not metaphoric for personal use, like Einstein's. He just meant nature. And he didn't mean pantheism or anything on the way to it like Gaia. There is no emergence above us. God would be the intentional ground of (all) being. Mine is transcendant Love; cool, competent, impossible, intrinsically disproven, denied, negated.

[Belinda]

Where had you done that?

And no way are you a sinner with a wrong, bad, false attitude. Where, how on Earth, do I claim it's a fact that your attitude makes no sense to yourself?!

Not my counter Belinda.

It sounds like for you God is a single fixed idea — but for me, it’s personal and subjective. I don’t subscribe to any canonical beliefs. For me personally, God belief is not about a supernatural being or religious authority

Nope. Not fixed. Apart from just normally constrained, not metaphoric for personal use, like Einstein's. He just meant nature. And he didn't mean pantheism or anything on the way to it like Gaia. There is no emergence above us. God would be the intentional ground of (all) being. Mine is transcendant Love; cool, competent, impossible, intrinsically disproven, denied, negated.

So would you try to make it clear as to what exactly you are opposed to about God and Christianity. Is it the established canon for instance ? Or siding with the poor and despised? Or God's past as a bronze age tribal deity?

I don't know what"the intentional ground of all being" means. I understand "intentional" but "ground of all being" puzzles me. Does it mean creator of all?

Is your personal God what is normally called agape?


Your use of English is hard for me to follow. For instance your digression about Einstein , could that be said simply like "I am not a pantheist" ?

When you say "emergence above us" do you refer to a supernatural way of being?

[Martin Peter Clarke]

It sounds like for you God is a single fixed idea — but for me, it’s personal and subjective. I don’t subscribe to any canonical beliefs. For me personally, God belief is not about a supernatural being or religious authority

Nope. Not fixed. Apart from just normally constrained, not metaphoric for personal use, like Einstein's. He just meant nature. And he didn't mean pantheism or anything on the way to it like Gaia. There is no emergence above us. God would be the intentional ground of (all) being. Mine is transcendant Love; cool, competent, impossible, intrinsically disproven, denied, negated.

(a) So would you try to make it clear as to what exactly you are opposed to about God and Christianity. Is it the established canon for instance ? Or siding with the poor and despised? Or God's past as a bronze age tribal deity?

(b) I don't know what"the intentional ground of all being" means. I understand "intentional" but "ground of all being" puzzles me. Does it mean creator of all?

(c) Is your personal God what is normally called agape?


(d) Your use of English is hard for me to follow. For instance your digression about Einstein , could that be said simply like "I am not a pantheist" ?

(e) When you say "emergence above us" do you refer to a supernatural way of being?

(a) All the evil. All the inadequacy. All the incompetence. All the Lovelessness.

(b) I believe I've referred you to Tillich before. It does. Within themselves of course. They create with purpose. And no trace whatsoever. They create as if they didn't. There is no way of telling the difference whether they ground being or not.

(c) They would be, yes. But they obviously aren't. There is no trace of Love.

(d) Einstein talked about God. He didn't mean God. He meant physics. From the Greek for nature.

(e) There is no supernatural, including more emergent layers, entities above us in complexity, in nature, let alone above it. There are no Gaias, is no collective unconscious, no group selection operating in evolution, no noosphere (pantheism). No Fred Hoyle Black Clouds, no Stanisław Lem Solares, no gestalts. We are not neotenous sexualy mature larvae about to metamorphose. There is no super natural (with more bells and whistles, Doctor Who stuff) within, between nature, in its 'gaps', let alone truly, transcendentally supernatural.

[Belinda]

Nope. Not fixed. Apart from just normally constrained, not metaphoric for personal use, like Einstein's. He just meant nature. And he didn't mean pantheism or anything on the way to it like Gaia. There is no emergence above us. God would be the intentional ground of (all) being. Mine is transcendant Love; cool, competent, impossible, intrinsically disproven, denied, negated.

(a) So would you try to make it clear as to what exactly you are opposed to about God and Christianity. Is it the established canon for instance ? Or siding with the poor and despised? Or God's past as a bronze age tribal deity?

(b) I don't know what"the intentional ground of all being" means. I understand "intentional" but "ground of all being" puzzles me. Does it mean creator of all?

(c) Is your personal God what is normally called agape?


(d) Your use of English is hard for me to follow. For instance your digression about Einstein , could that be said simply like "I am not a pantheist" ?

(e) When you say "emergence above us" do you refer to a supernatural way of being?

(a) All the evil. All the inadequacy. All the incompetence. All the Lovelessness.

(b) I believe I've referred you to Tillich before. It does. Within themselves of course. They create with purpose. And no trace whatsoever. They create as if they didn't. There is no way of telling the difference whether they ground being or not.

(c) They would be, yes. But they obviously aren't. There is no trace of Love.

(d) Einstein talked about God. He didn't mean God. He meant physics. From the Greek for nature.

(e) There is no supernatural, including more emergent layers, entities above us in complexity, in nature, let alone above it. There are no Gaias, is no collective unconscious, no group selection operating in evolution, no noosphere (pantheism). No Fred Hoyle Black Clouds, no Stanisław Lem Solares, no gestalts. We are not neotenous sexualy mature larvae about to metamorphose. There is no super natural (with more bells and whistles, Doctor Who stuff) within, between nature, in its 'gaps', let alone truly, transcendentally supernatural.

Martin, do you think your replies help me to understand your points of view? I ask, because they don't. The receiver of your transmission has certain needs that get to be addressed if the discussion is to continue.

[Belinda]

(a) So would you try to make it clear as to what exactly you are opposed to about God and Christianity. Is it the established canon for instance ? Or siding with the poor and despised? Or God's past as a bronze age tribal deity?

(b) I don't know what"the intentional ground of all being" means. I understand "intentional" but "ground of all being" puzzles me. Does it mean creator of all?

(c) Is your personal God what is normally called agape?


(d) Your use of English is hard for me to follow. For instance your digression about Einstein , could that be said simply like "I am not a pantheist" ?

(e) When you say "emergence above us" do you refer to a supernatural way of being?

(a) All the evil. All the inadequacy. All the incompetence. All the Lovelessness.

(b) I believe I've referred you to Tillich before. It does. Within themselves of course. They create with purpose. And no trace whatsoever. They create as if they didn't. There is no way of telling the difference whether they ground being or not.

(c) They would be, yes. But they obviously aren't. There is no trace of Love.

(d) Einstein talked about God. He didn't mean God. He meant physics. From the Greek for nature.

(e) There is no supernatural, including more emergent layers, entities above us in complexity, in nature, let alone above it. There are no Gaias, is no collective unconscious, no group selection operating in evolution, no noosphere (pantheism). No Fred Hoyle Black Clouds, no Stanisław Lem Solares, no gestalts. We are not neotenous sexualy mature larvae about to metamorphose. There is no super natural (with more bells and whistles, Doctor Who stuff) within, between nature, in its 'gaps', let alone truly, transcendentally supernatural.

Martin, do you think your replies help me to understand your points of view? I ask, because they don't. The receiver of your transmission has certain needs that get to be addressed if the discussion is to continue.Maybe i am too stupid to understand you but the the onus remains with you to be comprehensible. My questions were very simply stated in plain English.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

It sounds like for you God is a single fixed idea — but for me, it’s personal and subjective. I don’t subscribe to any canonical beliefs. For me personally, God belief is not about a supernatural being or religious authority

Nope. Not fixed. Apart from just normally constrained, not metaphoric for personal use, like Einstein's. He just meant nature. And he didn't mean pantheism or anything on the way to it like Gaia. There is no emergence above us. God would be the intentional ground of (all) being. Mine is transcendant Love; cool, competent, impossible, intrinsically disproven, denied, negated.

So would you try to make it clear as to what exactly you are opposed to about God and Christianity. Is it the established canon for instance ? Or siding with the poor and despised? Or God's past as a bronze age tribal deity?

I don't know what"the intentional ground of all being" means. I understand "intentional" but "ground of all being" puzzles me. Does it mean creator of all?

Is your personal God what is normally called agape?


Your use of English is hard for me to follow. For instance your digression about Einstein , could that be said simply like "I am not a pantheist" ?

When you say "emergence above us" do you refer to a supernatural way of being?

All the merely human bad stuff. The damnationism. The misanthropy.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

[iambiguous]

Excusing God
Raymond Tallis highlights the problem of evil.

For Goff and some theologians, the explanation is to be found in the idea that the deity, though benevolent, has limited power. So, as much as God would wish to eradicate suffering, it lies beyond his capacity to do so.

Then back to what I construe to be the beauty of it all for some: the fact that all they need do is to believe in Him, is to have faith in Him. Why? Because that is what makes it true. And that includes any number of truly conflicting accounts and assessments of a God, the God.

And what then seems crucial here is this: that when those who act on what they merely believe about God and religion, it can precipitate dire consequences for those who either believe in No God or the wrong God [religious/spiritual path].

In other words [and I cite human history to date] the more things change here the more they stay basically the same.

This defence is not persuasive. It seems unlikely that a being capable of creating a universe out of nothing, and setting in motion those processes by which life in all its astonishing variety emerged from lifeless stuff, and by which conscious life woke up out of insentient life, should be unable to meet the seemingly lesser challenge of making life pain-free, or of adjusting the order of things such that its crowning glory – human beings – should be universally kind, thoughtful, and truthful, committed to making life better for their fellows. Is it really easier to make a universe out of a void than making a pain-free life, or consistently good people?

Of course, you can go from one denomination to another here and encounter any number of conflicting assessments of what their own God is either capable of or incapable of. But then, alas, how exasperating that can be for those like me with so much at stake on both sides of the grave.

Then the truly mysterious part [for me] where God is connected to the universe. In fact, some embrace the assumption that the universe itself is God. Only that gets tricky because which came first, the laws of matter "somehow" evolving into God, or God creating the laws of matter.

Finally, the part where the human brain itself is either capable or incapable of pinning this all down ontologically and teleologically.

[MikeNovack]

Although technically theodicy mainly applicable to monotheism, the problem of evil also troubled those without monotheism (who did not include an evil god among their pantheon) << if there is an evil god, no problem needing an explanation for evil >>

The most interesting solution I have seen are the Native American traditions that have two brothers as the creators. Both have all the necessary power, but differ in competence. One brother is competent, what he creates turns out good. But a good brother must share, can't hog it all to himself, When he lets his brother have a turn, well that brother is trying to create something good like his brother just did, but his skills are lacking, so what he ends up adding not one of the good things. They go back and forth taking turns till creation is finished, and that's why evil exists.

The myth is conveying a message "good relations and sharing between brothers a higher value than optimal results". Also, having a power not the same as being able to use it correctly. A neat solution to the problem of good (moral sense) creators but still evil exists. Unfortunately, this solution not going to be available to us monotheists.

EXCEPT --- In the Bible, the first description of creation, it says god created X, and then AFTER creating X, looked at X and saw that it was good. WHY? If god able to know before or during the act of creation, why the need to look afterwards? Is the text saying "even omnipotence and omniscience can't determine the goodness of something that did not yet exist. What do you think? There is an argument that X must exist before it could be said to have ANY property.

[iambiguous]

Excusing God
Raymond Tallis highlights the problem of evil.

The problem of suffering sits on a deeper problem: the mystery of sentience. Why would a benign God create a universe that ultimately generated entities susceptible to endless, sometimes unbearable, distress, inflicted on them by nature or by their fellows?

Also: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/offbeat/ ... 2ec9&ei=28

On the other hand, we appear to be hardwired in turn to "think up" one or another set of distinctions made between those deemed to be "one of us" and those deemed to be "one of them". And, historically, this has resulted in any number of God and No God conflagrations. Suffering on a ghastly scale.

It's just that with God and religion so much more is at stake: moral commandments, immortality and salvation.

Goff’s God may not be omnipotent, but he surely must have been able to anticipate these consequences of his act of creation. And if this future were not foreseeable, one might still expect the Creator to have some insight into the limits of his knowledge, and be prudent enough to mobilise the precautionary principle, and so hold back on the creation of conscious creatures, given that, with embodied consciousness, there comes at least the possibility of suffering.

On the other hand, what does it really mean for mere mortals to speculate about God? For any number of true believers there is nothing at all that would make them change their minds. Why? Because God and religion are the only source for attaining moral commandments, immortality and salvation.

Unless, perhaps, there is a philosophical or scientific alternative here that I keep missing.

Or did he have no insight even into the limitations of his knowledge? Has he been surprised and disappointed by how things have turned out?

I'm figuring there are only three ways here to react to that:

1] you'll die and that's it...oblivion and the return to star stuff
2] you'll die and go to any particular denomination's rendition of Heaven or Hell
2] Jesus [or His equivalent given other denominations] returns and sets things straight

Otherwise it is all just sheer speculation.