Gary's Corner

[Immanuel Can]

Resentment and rebellion often come from some kind of traumatic situation. It often involves being unable to reconcile what happened with the idea of a benevolent God.

That is often the case.

I don't blame atheists, given the world we live in.

Well, I wouldn't blame a child for having a child's level of understanding. If "Atheist" meant "child," I'd agree with you, because children can have simplistic ideas like, "If the world is bad, it must have been made that way by somebody who hates me." But I would blame an adult for failing to think more deeply, and for refusing to entertain the realization that the world could also be the way a good God did not wish it to become. If the Atheist simply refuses to entertain that thought, then it's decidedly his own fault, for weak thinking. We all need to grow up sometime.

But I can't blame the religious for hoping that everything will be fine or work out in the end either.

Well, hope comes in degrees. One can say, "I hope to win the lottery." That's one kind of hope. Then there's the kind of hope one means when one says, "I hope to be in Boston on Sunday." That's quite different, because the latter is based on reasonable expectation, and the former only on wild speculation. It's the latter that is the kind of hope that a person ought to have, if God has already spoken on the matter. And that hope is also called "faith."

Maybe an atheist doesn't believe in God because he can't reconcile a tragic event that happened to him.

Yes, but "reconcile" it with what?

Is it only with the simplistic supposition that whatever happens can only be God's fault? But why should we suppose that? Why can't we suppose that the world is out of kilter and not morally in step with a good God? Doesn't it seem obvious that it is? And why can't he think outside that childish paradigm?

That could be seen as a credit to God, a refusal to think a supreme being would design such a world or allow such to happen.

Well, only if he's also open to the idea that God doesn't want the world to be in this state -- which is exactly what the Bible also says is the case.

God is ultimately responsible for everything if God created all that is.

Would you rather God created a world of robots or a world of free agents? If He created a world of free agents, and some of them have used their freedom to choose the wrong, then is that God's fault, or theirs?

At the very least, s/he/it could have also prevented

Yes, He could have prevented it; but only by preventing them from having free will, too. So again, which one would you want: a world of good robots, or a world of free agents, real persons, individuals, capable of relationship and choice? Which is the genuinely good world?

it unless perhaps God isn't omnipotent and omniscient. Or maybe God had to design the universe in a particular way because somehow God is limited to what God can do. But that begs the question of who or what then created those limitations.

Yes. None of those would be coherent suppositions. To say "The Supreme Being and Creator of all is limited" would be a contradiction, surely. And it would mean that the limitations themselves were actually the Supreme Being, since they would impose a restriction on God. So I agree...that idea isn't coherent.

But neither does it follow that if the world contains evil, then God must be incompetent or evil. The world may well not be what God desired the world to be, but be rather the habitation of free agents. And though God does want free agents, He has no desire they should use their freedom in all the ways they sometimes do. But preventing them would also prevent them from being free agents. And the creating of genuine individuals, genuine persons, genuine souls, is the surpassing good that relativizes the temporary triumphs of evil.

[Immanuel Can]

...God also bears responsibility for allowing the victims to be victims when God could have intervened.

But if He did, and if He did He would destroy all human freedom, would you accept that price?

[Immanuel Can]

...why bother giving them free choice? What's the point?

Don't you want to be a free individual? Don't you want to be a real person? Don't you want to be a self, a soul, a chooser?

[Fairy]

I guess it just sucks to be some of the victims of the more horrendous ways to die.

But by your own admission no one chooses to be victims of the most horrendous ways to die.

Because No one chose life.

Of course, probably no one chooses to be a victim of the most horrendous ways to die. I would be surprised if there is any rhyme or reason to who suffers most and who doesn't. Seems like a crap shoot to me.

It might be a crap bum deal being alive, but at least life was thoughtful enough to grant you the gift of death, it cuts you some slack now and again, gives you a break so to speak.

Don’t you think that’s a fair deal ?

[Gary Childress]

...God also bears responsibility for allowing the victims to be victims when God could have intervened.

But if He did, and if He did He would destroy all human freedom, would you accept that price?

OK. If that's God's best excuse, I'll consider it. However, that doesn't make it not the case that God didn't intervene or that God created conditions that are conducive to natural disasters when he had the ability to do otherwise. If God wants to stand by and watch people suffer due to his creation and not intervene in order to preserve this "free will" so he can judge us later, then every time God does that, it's God's choice. Unfortunately, it rules out the possibility that God is benevolent. Maybe not malevolent but not benevolent either.

And, having "free will" doesn't mean that there must be malevolence in the world. I would accept a world where there is no other desirable alternative than to do a right thing so long as we also enjoy doing the right thing. If we don't, then that goes back to God creating us in such a way that we don't enjoy doing the right thing. There is no such dichotomy between free will and living in a benevolent world. They are not mutually exclusive.

[Immanuel Can]

...God also bears responsibility for allowing the victims to be victims when God could have intervened.

But if He did, and if He did He would destroy all human freedom, would you accept that price?

OK. If that's God's best excuse, I'll consider it.

An "excuse" is something one offers an accuser, perhaps. I don't think you'll find God ever makes "excuses." However, reasons are reasons. There is, by definition, no such thing as a predetermined free agent. That idea makes no more sense than a square circle or a married bachelor. It's merely a logical absurdity, a contradiction, and hence, nonsense. And as C.S. Lewis has so pointedly put it, "Nonsense is still nonsense, even when one applies it to God."

If God wants to stand by and watch people suffer due to his creation and not intervene in order to preserve this "free will" so he can judge us later, then every time God does that, it's God's choice. Unfortunately, it rules out the possibility that God is benevolent.

But you've missed a very important element, perhaps.

Let's consider this: what if God Himself made a way whereby all this could be changed. If people freely chose it, they could be restored to Him, and all the ill effects of sin in this world could be reversed and banished. What if He could create true justice, true peace, and ultimate happiness? Would it then be okay to say that God had made a genuinely benevolent choice?

And, having "free will" doesn't mean that there must be malevolence in the world.

Actually, it does...at least for a time.

To choose means having an option to "do otherwise," so to speak. To have the power to choose the good entails that we are also able to choose the evil. It need not always be that way, but for some definite period of time, we must have genuine freedom as to whether we want to love God and choose God, or hate God and choose evil. That's what free will requires, as a very minimum.

But what is God to do with those who freely choose evil? What to do with those who reject Him? Can He override their free will, deny their choices, refuse their personal wills, and force them to Heaven? John Locke didn't believe God could consistently do that. If the choice God gave them were genuine, it would have to entail the confirmation and fulfillment of that which they had chosen. There's no speaking of a "choice" where only one possibility is even present. So what is to be done, when a man says, "I hate God. I want nothing to do with Him. I choose my own way." What does honouring that choice entail?

There is no such dichotomy between free will and living in a benevolent world. They are not mutually exclusive.

Not so long as for some period of time, the nature of the world has allowed the malevolent option. If it has not, then the offer was never genuine, there was never any freedom, nobody was actually able to make his or her own choice, and the game was rigged from the start. But if, for some period of time, there were people who could choose between malevolence and benevolence, or between good and evil, and a world suitable to such choices, so that nature did not force that choice to be only one thing, then freedom can be genuine.

And that, oddly enough, is exactly the kind of world we clearly live in. Have you not, Gary, for some time, had the freedom to think or choose what you wanted to in regard to God? And hasn't the world been open to that malevolence, even if it didn't make you happy? And isn't the promise of God that it will not forever be that way? And aren't you, right now, being faced with a free choice of what your reaction will be? And won't that choice be made effective and honoured, one way or the other? And aren't you a self? And yet, hasn't God offered you another way?

So really, what's out of the expected here?

[phyllo]

However, in a world of free beings, what kind of world allows them to have free choice? It must be one in which consequence and the moral status of the experiencer are not inextricably bound -- in other words, it must be a place in which "good" things can happen to "bad" people, and "bad" things can happen to "good" people, and all without any evident cause-effect relation.

Otherwise, the world itself would be like a reward/punishment conditioner that would force people always to do what is good, out of fear of the inevitable consequences, or out of being paid-off for it immediately. And that isn't a world for free chosers. So we have to have exactly the kind of environment in which we find ourselves, because we are the kind of beings (free agents) who can only be volitionally free in such a world...for now.

That reasoning appears to fail in at least 3 ways :

1. When Jesus says that sinners will go to hell, he is forcing people to do good out of fear of the "inevitable consequences". Jesus is a reward/punishment conditioner.

2. The elimination of diseases does not take away anyone's free will. The world could be created where nobody gets cancer and they still have free-will. It's not like free-will depends on the existence of tape worms or diphtheria or brain tumors.

Alternatively, cures and diseases could both exist. Medical treatments and antibiotics would be known and easily available to people who get a disease. Nobody loses free-will in that case. And millions of people and especially children would not have to die.

3. Awareness of consequences does not negate free-will. Anyone would still freely choose to take the negative consequences.

[Gary Childress]

But if He did, and if He did He would destroy all human freedom, would you accept that price?

OK. If that's God's best excuse, I'll consider it.

An "excuse" is something one offers an accuser, perhaps. I don't think you'll find God ever makes "excuses." However, reasons are reasons. There is, by definition, no such thing as a predetermined free agent. That idea makes no more sense than a square circle or a married bachelor. It's merely a logical absurdity, a contradiction, and hence, nonsense. And as C.S. Lewis has so pointedly put it, "Nonsense is still nonsense, even when one applies it to God."

If God wants to stand by and watch people suffer due to his creation and not intervene in order to preserve this "free will" so he can judge us later, then every time God does that, it's God's choice. Unfortunately, it rules out the possibility that God is benevolent.

But you've missed a very important element, perhaps.

Let's consider this: what if God Himself made a way whereby all this could be changed. If people freely chose it, they could be restored to Him, and all the ill effects of sin in this world could be reversed and banished. What if He could create true justice, true peace, and ultimate happiness? Would it then be okay to say that God had made a genuinely benevolent choice?

And, having "free will" doesn't mean that there must be malevolence in the world.

Actually, it does...at least for a time.

To choose means having an option to "do otherwise," so to speak. To have the power to choose the good entails that we are also able to choose the evil. It need not always be that way, but for some definite period of time, we must have genuine freedom as to whether we want to love God and choose God, or hate God and choose evil. That's what free will requires, as a very minimum.

But what is God to do with those who freely choose evil? What to do with those who reject Him? Can He override their free will, deny their choices, refuse their personal wills, and force them to Heaven? John Locke didn't believe God could consistently do that. If the choice God gave them were genuine, it would have to entail the confirmation and fulfillment of that which they had chosen. There's no speaking of a "choice" where only one possibility is even present. So what is to be done, when a man says, "I hate God. I want nothing to do with Him. I choose my own way." What does honouring that choice entail?

There is no such dichotomy between free will and living in a benevolent world. They are not mutually exclusive.

Not so long as for some period of time, the nature of the world has allowed the malevolent option. If it has not, then the offer was never genuine, there was never any freedom, nobody was actually able to make his or her own choice, and the game was rigged from the start. But if, for some period of time, there were people who could choose between malevolence and benevolence, or between good and evil, and a world suitable to such choices, so that nature did not force that choice to be only one thing, then freedom can be genuine.

And that, oddly enough, is exactly the kind of world we clearly live in. Have you not, Gary, for some time, had the freedom to think or choose what you wanted to in regard to God? And hasn't the world been open to that malevolence, even if it didn't make you happy? And isn't the promise of God that it will not forever be that way? And aren't you, right now, being faced with a free choice of what your reaction will be? And won't that choice be made effective and honoured, one way or the other? And aren't you a self? And yet, hasn't God offered you another way?

So really, what's out of the expected here?

The Bible is a morally disgraceful book. It's a shame people are still indoctrinated in it as though it was written just yesterday hot off the press.

[Immanuel Can]

The Bible is a morally disgraceful book.

You're talking nonsense, Gary. You can't even explain what makes something objectively "disgraceful," so you're in no position to tell anybody anything they have any reason to believe is true about that.

[Walker]

The Bible is a morally disgraceful book.

You're talking nonsense, Gary. You can't even explain what makes something objectively "disgraceful," so you're in no position to tell anybody anything they have any reason to believe is true about that.

Perhaps “objectively disgraceful” is when the “ethic of responsibility” fails to match the “ethic of conviction.”

Those terms are discussed at this link, in light of Chompsy’s shenanigans.
https://www.americanthinker.com/article ... emony.html

The point is not that Chomsky caused CRT. It is that he helped legitimize a moral architecture in which America is presumptively guilty, power is presumptively corrupt, and Western institutions are structurally suspect.

Perhaps Chomsky's view is the source of all the irrational, presumptive anti-Americanism.

The question is, is presumptive bias such as Chomsky's disgraceful to objectivity?

[Immanuel Can]

The Bible is a morally disgraceful book.

You're talking nonsense, Gary. You can't even explain what makes something objectively "disgraceful," so you're in no position to tell anybody anything they have any reason to believe is true about that.

Perhaps “objectively disgraceful” is when the “ethic of responsibility” fails to match the “ethic of conviction.”

Maybe. But what informs us that ANY ethic has to be followed? What has Chomsky got to explain that?

There are no moral condemnations an Atheist can launch, without thereby defying his own worldview suppositions. Morality is not a real thing in his world: it's just a feeling, with nothing more behind it than a feeling of "being watched" when one isn't. There isn't any objective moral truth allowed in his universe.

So how does he show anything at all to be "disgraceful"? He can't.

[Gary Childress]

The Bible is a morally disgraceful book.

You're talking nonsense, Gary. You can't even explain what makes something objectively "disgraceful," so you're in no position to tell anybody anything they have any reason to believe is true about that.

The Bible is disgraceful by it's own moral standards. Worship it if that gets your rocks off.

[Immanuel Can]

The Bible is disgraceful by it's own moral standards.

You've forgotten, Gary. You don't believe there ARE any objective moral standards. So even if what you were saying were true (and it's certanly not), it would not be wrong.

You've got no basis to criticize, if you deny the existence of any objective moral standards. You're just puffing wind, by your own account.

[Gary Childress]

The Bible is disgraceful by it's own moral standards.

You've forgotten, Gary. You don't believe there ARE any objective moral standards. So even if what you were saying were true (and it's certanly not), it would not be wrong.

You've got no basis to criticize, if you deny the existence of any objective moral standards. You're just puffing wind, by your own account.

No. I don't know if there are any objective moral standards. You've forgotten that I'm agnostic. You're the idiot who thinks the Bible is a message from a loving God from beyond this world. Not me. If the Holy Babble is your idea of religion, then knock yourself out.

[Immanuel Can]

The Bible is disgraceful by it's own moral standards.

You've forgotten, Gary. You don't believe there ARE any objective moral standards. So even if what you were saying were true (and it's certanly not), it would not be wrong.

You've got no basis to criticize, if you deny the existence of any objective moral standards. You're just puffing wind, by your own account.

No. I don't know if there are any objective moral standards. You've forgotten that I'm agnostic.

Then you don't know whether you have any point or not. And you're not even a step closer to being able to prove that morality can be objective. So you're still puffing wind.