Where was 'god' before 'he' created the universe?

[thedoc]

Ned, look into this and tell me what you think.

http://www.declineandfallofallevil.com/

I'm not promoting the book, in fact if you can get a copy for free, I would recommend you do that rather than spending money on it.

"Anything for free, Is worth what you pay for it."

[Ned]

No person takes the same kind of responsibility for wild animals, they take care of themselves.

doc, I wasn't talking only about what humans do to animals (it is only a small part of it) but what animals are doing to each other as well. If you consider the amount of fear, pain and suffering that is a direct consequence of a predatory 'design' you will understand Alfred Lord Tennyson's (In Memoriam A. H. H., 1850.)

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

Again, god being omnipotent, the buck stops right at his feet.

[Ned]

Ned, look into this and tell me what you think.

http://www.declineandfallofallevil.com/

I looked into it. One review states: "Lessans states that free will does not exist. "

Most contemporary neuroscientists would agree. On one level I agree too, even though I live as if I did have free will. However, every time I make a decision, I wonder what made me do it? Cause-and-effect chains are not always obvious, but they exist nonetheless.

[thedoc]

No person takes the same kind of responsibility for wild animals, they take care of themselves.

doc, I wasn't talking only about what humans do to animals (it is only a small part of it) but what animals are doing to each other as well. If you consider the amount of fear, pain and suffering that is a direct consequence of a predatory 'design' you will understand Alfred Lord Tennyson's (In Memoriam A. H. H., 1850.)

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

Again, god being omnipotent, the buck stops right at his feet.

I agree that from a human point of view nature seems cruel indeed, but after seeing the failures of human intervention in nature, I would be more inclined to just let it as it is. I really don't believe that humans could improve on nature. I also am not ready to accept that God designing nature differently would have been better from anyone's point of view.

[Ned]

I also am not ready to accept that God designing nature differently would have been better from anyone's point of view.

It would have been from the point of view of the antelope!

[Immanuel Can]

No, Immanuel, the supreme being, by the act of creating a humane world, with humane humans in it, removed the desire to strike another person.

If He did, you'd be back to the world without free will. And we have already considered the plausibility that a world without free will is not a genuinely "good" world. So now are you saying you don't believe freedom is an important value, and that a world without it would be better?

And on the flip side, if you're not, and you still think freedom matters, then you'd be irrational for objecting to God making such a world as contains freedom, would you not?

I still could feel completely free to do anything I desire, because I never desire to hurt anyone. Many of us are like that already (evolved a bit further than some) which proves my point that it is possible.

More are not so "evolved" as you suggest: they clearly desire "bad" things. So still, you must ask yourself in an amoral universe, why this would be, and why it would be "bad."

But even more interestingly, are you now taking the position that Evolution, far from being an impersonal, scientific force, is instead a MORAL force? It now makes people good?

How interesting. Well, then, you must ask why it is that an impersonal, natural force would be so coded as to regulate for "goodness." Why doesn't in regulate -- as Darwin claimed it did -- for survival of the fittest or some other non-moral property?

Now you're starting to sound like someone with a religious idea about Evolution.

[Ned]

If He did, you'd be back to the world without free will.

Immanuel, you misunderstand. As I said before, if god designed human beings with no desire to do harm, but able to exercise their 'free will' in any other way, then how is free will compromised? Again, I ask: why is it so important to be able to want to do harm? Are we sadistic bastards, who would suffer enormously if this one ability to wish to hurt other living things (out of countless others) was never implemented by the designer?

But even more interestingly, are you now taking the position that Evolution, far from being an impersonal, scientific force, is instead a MORAL force? It now makes people good?

Huh??? Where did this come from? We were talking about god's design. Evolution is a natural process, following the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, etc. It is not a conscious entity possessing a will to 'force' us to anything. It just is.

[thedoc]

Ned, look into this and tell me what you think.

http://www.declineandfallofallevil.com/

I looked into it. One review states: "Lessans states that free will does not exist. "

Most contemporary neuroscientists would agree. On one level I agree too, even though I live as if I did have free will. However, every time I make a decision, I wonder what made me do it? Cause-and-effect chains are not always obvious, but they exist nonetheless.

Yes, the idea of free will is difficult if not impossible to demonstrate empirically. It's been debated for a very long time and will probably be debated for a long time to come. From a practical standpoint, it really doesn't matter what people decide or believe, either humans have it or they don't, and deciding which isn't going to change the reality of the way things are, though Peacegirl and Lessans believe that knowledge will change the way people act.

[thedoc]

I also am not ready to accept that God designing nature differently would have been better from anyone's point of view.

It would have been from the point of view of the antelope!

I would suggest that the lion would prefer it's existing point of view.

[Ned]

I also am not ready to accept that God designing nature differently would have been better from anyone's point of view.

It would have been from the point of view of the antelope!

I would suggest that the lion would prefer it's existing point of view.

No doubt, as things stand today. However, as I was told by a Jehova's witness that in the garden of Eden the lion was also a vegetarian.

"29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food.
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food: and it was so."

So, it says in the bible that all creatures were vegetarians at the beginning.

It would be interesting to learn how the lion's digestive system changed at the expulsion!!!

[Ned]

PS. ...and why was it the antelope's fault that Eve ate the apple? How did the poor thing deserve to become prey?

Is this divine justice?

[Immanuel Can]

As I said before, if god designed human beings with no desire to do harm, but able to exercise their 'free will' in any other way, then how is free will compromised?

You'll need to think about the Christian conception of God, not merely whatever "god" may mean in a vague, unfocused and undefined way. The God of the Bible is the Source of all moral good and the Generator of all good gifts as well. He is, we might say, entirely good. This means that to choose Him is, of course, to choose the ultimate Good; but it is also true that to do anything good is a gesture in His direction. It is God-seeking to do good, and God-rejecting to choose evil. At least, that is how Christianity sees the equation.

If, then, all good is God's, ultimately, then what sort of a choice is possible that is anti-God? I can be nothing other than that which is foul, dark, deadly, cruel, cold, selfish...etc. For all purity, light, life, health and so on are elements of goodness.

Now, you might object, "Why didn't God let us just choose among different good options?" The answer is that whatever you chose would still be nothing but good. And the choice God wants is the choice of relationship with Him...He wants you to be able to decide if you want anything to do with Him at all, and whether you will choose to love Him not because you have no option, but because you genuinely see who He is and embrace that option. Then true friendship is possible; forced, it never will be.

If you can only choose good things, then there is no choice BUT the good. And that means that it is not possible for you to reject God. You are forced to do His will. You are not free. But if you do have the power to reject the Good, and yet choose instead to embrace the good, then you have made a genuine choice...and genuine interpersonal relationship becomes possible.

Freedom and choice have a price. Conceptually, they entail that you MUST have an alternate option. If you do not, you are not free. And the freedom in question must pertain to the item which God considers most important...your right to love freely.

Thus free will is indeed compromised by the absence of choice of evil. And a world without free will is not as good a world as one with it.

[Ned]

And the choice God wants is the choice of relationship with Him...He wants you to be able to decide if you want anything to do with Him at all, and whether you will choose to love Him

Why would I want to love a god who is ultimately responsible for all the horror we see around us and through all human history? If I believed in his existence, I would really hate his guts!

But let us assume that he exists and he wants me to love him.

Why should I?

How did he earn it?

I love my wife, I love my kids, I love my friends, I love my animal friends, I love all living creatures. I have empathy. It seems that god is a narcissistic insecure infant who wants unearned love from his victims!

Following your argument: I make choices to be good, not because of god, but because I am aware and I have compassion and I have empathy. I have a choice, so I am a vegetarian. I reject factory farms, slaughterhouses, industrial fishing, chicken-horror-chambers, because they are cruel and cause untold suffering. So it seems I am a better christian than those who eat meat. But I have a choice and I exercise it.

What choice does the lion have?

Whose fault is it?

[Ned]

PS.

As they say: “the truth is in the pudding”.

The pudding, in this case, is the track record of miserable human history, past and present.

The genocides, the wars, the exploitation, the crime, the corruption, are all the results of god’s creation.

Now, if I write a good book, or come through with a breakthrough in physics, I am proud of the result.

So how proud is god of his creation?

If I were in his shoes, I would walk around with a paper bag over my head and pretend that I never designed this world.

We should sue him for malpractice!

[Immanuel Can]

Why would I want to love a god who is ultimately responsible for all the horror we see around us and through all human history?

Because He's not. He gave us freedom...what we did with it is on us. We possess no moral high ground from which to call down to God. In the last century, we killed 148 million human beings in non-religious wars. Who's that on?

How did he earn it?

"Earn" is not the right word. One only "earns" a thing when it has value exceeding that which is "owed." Otherwise, the debt is on the other side...

In any case, absent a God, no one "owes" anyone anything -- not even to be nice. It's like Dostoevsky pointed out, "If God is dead, everything is permissible." You can be just as cruel, carnivorous, violent, salacious or base as fancy may dictate...and none of it is "wrong." Like all facts in a Godless universe, it is simply a contingent fact, not a moral one. There is no morality. For morality, then, just as Nietzsche thought, is no more than a phony imposition by the weak against the strong. And the brave, amoral person will ignore it and get, as he put it, "beyond good and evil." And if so, your defiance would be a mere gesture, a misunderstanding on your part -- that you think something is moral when it's actually amoral -- like all facts in the universe.

So "earn"? No one would owe it to anyone to earn anything.

But if God does exist, then we would "owe" Him for our existence, in the first place, and then we would "owe" others to treat them according to the best outcomes for which He created them. Likewise with the natural world...it would ultimately be His, and ours only derivatively, not a thing for us to dispose of as we pleased. We would "owe" Him to treat it rightly.

If that's all God had done, it would surely be enough. But it is not all. If God cared enough to intervene in this world on our behalf, and to rescue us from the mess we created for ourselves, then we would "owe" Him gratitude and love as a rescuer, just as we would "owe" anyone who had been unspeakably kind to us at great expense. And failing to be grateful would be a crime in proportion to the size of the favour He had done us, and which we were slighting.

So He's done plenty to "earn" what you "owe" Him. But we might ask, what have we returned to Him for His Creation and His salvation gifted to us?

What choice does the lion have?

None, of course. They are mere creatures of instinct, and do not make spiritual choices. But they are part of a world that is out of its right relationship to God, and which will never be right -- anymore than we will be -- until that relationship is fully restored.