Imperefct God

[Zarathustra]

Many philosophers offer solutions to the problem of evil while maintaining that God is perfect. They reconcile evil with an all-powerful and all-good God by such concepts as free will, uniformity of nature, and that this is the best possible evolutionary world.
However we can also explain evil with an imperfect God. Evil exists because God is not all-powerful, not all-good, or both. But philosophers cannot accept an imperfect God. God must be perfect. Why? Can you accept an imperfect God, like those in Greek mytholgy?

Problem with accepting imperfect God is, that then anyone can become God, pretend or claim that they are God. If you say how can you prove that? And they will say, I am imperfect, but have been accepted as God.

[henry quirk]

My morals are Xian, Henry.

Meaning do unto others... and worry about the log in your own eye..., yeah?

Without Christ as the undergirding, aren't those just a bit superficial?

Mebbe you mean sumthin' different by Xian morals.


I also believe in live and let live ---let it be.

Me too, as long as everyone is on the same page about mindin' their own business and keepin' their hands to themselves. It's insane to say, for example, I'm gonna tolerate slavers cuz different strokes for different folks. By definition: the slaver does not live and let live. Not seein' why I have to tolerate him or turn a blind eye to him.


I obey laws of my collective and so I am not a criminal.

I don't (cuz, as I reckon it, the laws of my collective are immoral), so I am a criminal.


I hope that my collective, the UK, will behave a little more wisely than has been the case and that it will stop interfering with people who prefer different moral and judicial systems.

I hope mine embraces the principles it touts (freedom [individual self-direction & -responsibility]; life, liberty, and property) and -- at the very least -- refuses to have truck with slavers and slaver states or -- at the most -- delivers hellfire to 'em.

[Immanuel Can]

Immnuel Can, my "metric" is right for me and the Taliban's "metric" is right for the Taliban.

Well, B., if that were a sufficient answer, you'd have to decide that it was okay for the Taliban to kindnap and rape women and children, and to murder everybody who fell morally short of their metric. But I don't think you're ready to concede that, are you? So what metric will you use to show you're right to stand against that sort of action, and they're wrong to do it?

[Lacewing]

My standard is that I do what feels like the right thing to do ....

Exactly what does a, "feeling," that a thing is, "right," feel like? I mean, the feeling itself. Where do you, "feel," it? How is it different from other feelings? How do you know when you have that feeling it means what you associate with it is right?

I know you cannot make someone else know what your actual conscious experience is, but I would be interested in how you would describe the feeling as best you can. Is it pleasant, unpleasant, tingly, soft, etc.? Of course I cannot even guess what it would be like, which is why I am asking, just in case I ever have such a feeling.

Perhaps a better word would be "sense". I sense it. Do you not sense when something is just right or wrong, and then the outcome/results verify what you sensed? How does anything in nature just know what to do? Creatures are born having awareness of what to do for their particular make-up and needs. They do not struggle with it like humans do, because humans develop a sense of self that becomes distorted by all sorts of things. But if you can quiet that distortion, and listen and be aware, you can sense all sorts of things that you wouldn't otherwise. There's more clarity in that... and the results show it.

[Belinda]

Immnuel Can, my "metric" is right for me and the Taliban's "metric" is right for the Taliban.

Well, B., if that were a sufficient answer, you'd have to decide that it was okay for the Taliban to kindnap and rape women and children, and to murder everybody who fell morally short of their metric. But I don't think you're ready to concede that, are you? So what metric will you use to show you're right to stand against that sort of action, and they're wrong to do it?

The Taliban was not raping and kidnapping until Russia, and subsequently the US and the UK , interfered with the tribal system of governance. Afghan tribespeople are even more traditional than you and your co- religionists!

You should look up the history of the British Raj as it affected the NE Territory and frontier.

[Immanuel Can]

The Taliban was not raping and kidnapping until Russia...

So your theory is that the Taliban arrived with Russia, the UK invented Sharia, and the US made rape the standard practice in an Islam that hitherto had been as benign as Bambi? The child brides and bacha bazi boys were Western inventions?

That's a version of history I've just got to hear.

[Belinda]

The Taliban was not raping and kidnapping until Russia...

So your theory is that the Taliban arrived with Russia, the UK invented Sharia, and the US made rape the standard practice in an Islam that hitherto had been as benign as Bambi? The child brides and bacha bazi boys were Western inventions?

That's a version of history I've just got to hear.

Interfering imperialists destabilised a traditional culture. It was the tribes' own business to modernise if they wanted to do so.

[Immanuel Can]

The Taliban was not raping and kidnapping until Russia...

So your theory is that the Taliban arrived with Russia, the UK invented Sharia, and the US made rape the standard practice in an Islam that hitherto had been as benign as Bambi? The child brides and bacha bazi boys were Western inventions?

That's a version of history I've just got to hear.

Interfering imperialists destabilised a traditional culture. It was the tribes' own business to modernise if they wanted to do so.

Ah. So it's the tribes' own business to rape their female children and small boys if they want to? That's your claim? Because, you say, "interfering" would be evil?

No. That point of view is what is truly evil.

[Belinda]

My morals are Xian, Henry.

Meaning do unto others... and worry about the log in your own eye..., yeah?

Without Christ as the undergirding, aren't those just a bit superficial?

Mebbe you mean sumthin' different by Xian morals.


I also believe in live and let live ---let it be.

Me too, as long as everyone is on the same page about mindin' their own business and keepin' their hands to themselves. It's insane to say, for example, I'm gonna tolerate slavers cuz different strokes for different folks. By definition: the slaver does not live and let live. Not seein' why I have to tolerate him or turn a blind eye to him.


I obey laws of my collective and so I am not a criminal.

I don't (cuz, as I reckon it, the laws of my collective are immoral), so I am a criminal.


I hope that my collective, the UK, will behave a little more wisely than has been the case and that it will stop interfering with people who prefer different moral and judicial systems.

I hope mine embraces the principles it touts (freedom [individual self-direction & -responsibility]; life, liberty, and property) and -- at the very least -- refuses to have truck with slavers and slaver states or -- at the most -- delivers hellfire to 'em.

It would take too long to describe my own total set of ethics. I am not unusual ; most people hereabouts are post- Xian in their morality. And yes, the Golden Rule is a main ethic.

The Atlantic slave trade was part of the same economic culture as that of good kind people who hated cruelty and oppression. Something had to give way. But we can't really judge all cultures by the same moral system or what has been called the same "metric". Sure if some people try to take us over with their tribal, cruel, culture we should resist them with armed might if necessary. Otherwise we should leave them alone, except for refugees such as fled from the Nazis who we should care for and resettle in safety.

Henry do you not see that

I hope mine embraces the principles it touts (freedom [individual self-direction & -responsibility]; life, liberty, and property) and -- at the very least -- refuses to have truck with slavers and slaver states or -- at the most -- delivers hellfire to 'em.

delivers hellfire to 'em is inconsistent with individual self-direction and responsibility?

[henry quirk]

Henry do you not see that

I hope mine embraces the principles it touts (freedom [individual self-direction & -responsibility]; life, liberty, and property) and -- at the very least -- refuses to have truck with slavers and slaver states or -- at the most -- delivers hellfire to 'em.

delivers hellfire to 'em is inconsistent with individual self-direction and responsibility?

It's seamlessly consistent. It's no different (except in scale) than my walkin' in on some brute rapin' a child. Should I turn away and close the door behind me, or, go to town on the pedo's head?

We ought not tolerate slaver states. When we do, we abet them. If we can't starve them to death, we ought to end them properly with hellfire.

[henry quirk]

It would take too long to describe my own total set of ethics.

I think that's a problem. A morality -- or ethics, if you prefer -- ought not be, isn't, a complicated thing. If it is: you miight wanna rethink it.

Here's one to consider as replacement...

A person belong to himself; his life, liberty, and property are his; his life, liberty, or property are only forfeit, in part or whole if he knowingly, willingly, without just cause, deprives, in part or whole, another of life, liberty, or property.

Test it. It has no holes. It works.

[Belinda]

Henry do you not see that

I hope mine embraces the principles it touts (freedom [individual self-direction & -responsibility]; life, liberty, and property) and -- at the very least -- refuses to have truck with slavers and slaver states or -- at the most -- delivers hellfire to 'em.

delivers hellfire to 'em is inconsistent with individual self-direction and responsibility?

It's seamlessly consistent. It's no different (except in scale) than my walkin' in on some brute rapin' a child. Should I turn away and close the door behind me, or, go to town on the pedo's head?

We ought not tolerate slaver states. When we do, we abet them. If we can't starve them to death, we ought to end them properly with hellfire.

I do sympathise with these feelings of course I do! I am actually quite ignorant about Afghanistan and also about evidence for western atrocities. What I mean is that an amalgamation of tribes should have been left alone and not interfered with by imperialists or even religious missionaries.

However that was bound to happen to Afghan tribes, the imperialist powers being what they were and are. I can't see how we can possibly help Afghanistan people now apart from getting the needy ones out to safety.

[henry quirk]

Henry do you not see that

delivers hellfire to 'em is inconsistent with individual self-direction and responsibility?

It's seamlessly consistent. It's no different (except in scale) than my walkin' in on some brute rapin' a child. Should I turn away and close the door behind me, or, go to town on the pedo's head?

We ought not tolerate slaver states. When we do, we abet them. If we can't starve them to death, we ought to end them properly with hellfire.

I do sympathise with these feelings of course I do! I am actually quite ignorant about Afghanistan and also about evidence for western atrocities. *What I mean is that an amalgamation of tribes should have been left alone and not interfered with by imperialists or even religious missionaries.

However that was bound to happen to Afghan tribes, the imperialist powers being what they were and are. *I can't see how we can possibly help Afghanistan people now apart from getting the needy ones out to safety.

*As I say elsewhere, in-forum: we shoulda never plunked ourselves down there.

**As I say elsewhere, Smokin' Joe deserves a for the withdrawal; the execution of that withdrawal, however, is another thing entirely...

6D3C7838-086A-4FA9-80D6-12DAB6C7D637.png

[gaffo]

To remain " neutral" in an equally-balanced conflict, for example, might be fine. But it wouldn't be, if, for example, one side were Hitler and the other were the Allies. Or to remain "neutral" which children or starved and women are assaulted...how is that good?

per ww2 its not good to be neutral, but prudent if you are a swede or swiss and next door is hitler - as the US would have ben neutral if she geographically found herself to be next door to Hitler..

so i give credit where its due - and credit the swiss and sweds for being neutral when it would ahve been easier to just go axis. and would assume too much to demand they be allied under the reality of ww2 and where they were geographically.

Is it not the case that the good person takes up the good cause?

sure in a black white world - but sadly we have a gray one - where i can me the "good persons" does right - where there is no cost to do so - and the "bad" does wrong where the cost doing right is high.

in that case the "Bad" person might be more good that the "Good" one.

But if a person chooses simply to remain neutral in the face of evil, doesn't that tell you that they are amoral,

sometims maybe, but more apt it measn they are good cowards, and choose neutrality out of fear knowing they are weak, the threat real - and hopefully they convict themselves later for thier cowardice out of a good conscience.

and lack any compass, at the very least; or at the worst, that they like the evil, or are too personally cowardly to confront it?

I personally think most folsk that do evil are good - but cowards to to evil out of the threat o - like a white lie, I was pure once and told the truth to one that soon died - if given a remake i oulwd ahve lied to her. in that instance i was "pure" (maybe i was Harvey Kitel via that movie the Duelist - valuing priciple over decency) - anyway the world is complex, not b-w. I'm old and wiser now thankfully.

[gaffo]

Evolution is the authority to make man the moral animal via servival of the fitest!!!!!! (man is "here" due to being a moral animal due to being a social animal via insttinct)

If you want "survival of the fittest" extended to the human race, then you're a Social Darwinist. But there are serious moral faults in that. One is that it means that the weak have to die, and helping them to survive is unnecessary and contra-Darwinian. Another is that the more "fit" should maximize their advantage at the expense of the "less fit," so the procreation rate turns out in favour of the "fit." That's a rationale for eugenics, which was Hitler's program.

blah blah - whatver - dob't pigeon hole me IC. my conscince would not allow me to kill the "unworhty" - and yet i still affirm evolution and man as a moral animal- if you cca;t square that box its your prob not mine.

Most people regard that as immoral, not just amoral. And I think they're right to do so, don't you?

I do.