Philosophy Now Forum

Then what happened?!?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 1:00 am Then what happened?!?

I was resurrected...in the master suite of the Playboy mansion...for all eternity.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 10:31 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 10:29 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 10:23 pm

Then God created mankind thus that some live in misery by no fault of their own and some do not by no fault of their own.

That doesn't follow at all. If mankind was given a world that was good, and then rejected it along with his rejection of God, on whom does this "fault" of yours fall? Not on the Creator, of course, but on those who have chosen to go a different way.

I give up. You're deluded. And no one can reason with a deluded person. So pardon my frustration.

You can see I'm right about that, Gary. There's plenty of evidence that at least the majority of human misery is a product of nothing other than human beings. As for the rest -- the earthquakes, hurricanes and stuff like that -- I may believe they are a product of a fallen Creation.

But meanwhile, the Atheist or secular skeptic has no explanation at all for either why they happen or whether or not they can even be regarded as "evil." After all, if they're just accidental products of the natural universe, and the universe itself is a place in which there is no objective moral reality, then such disasters are neither unexpectable nor immoral.

So the whole possibility of arguing about whether or not God is good to allow them becomes impossible if Atheism is true. Disasters are just...disasters...and no more can be said.

In order to criticize God for allowing any of this, you have to appeal to some objective moral standard. But absent God, there is no objective moral standard. So the irony is that in order to accuse God, you have to believe not only that God exists but also that His moral standard is objective, and can be applied to the reality we live in.

How do you want to roll with that?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 10:31 pm

AJ: ...the Genesis story is a mythic tale and in that sense similar to the Platonic myths. The meaning that the myth reveals, however, I regard as real (or perhaps potent, valuable -- meaningful).

IC: And what is that meaning?

Excellent question. I’d say there are numerous levels. Personally, I take the myth of a Perfect Garden to be a sort of memory of something, a state perhaps, in which we lived before. I see our incarnation here (moving from spiritual being into a physical being) as being interpreted as a fall. The memory is of something lost. And yes, perhaps or likely through a mistake, or something analogous to disobedience.

Oh. You're a Gnostic.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 1:25 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 10:31 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 10:29 pm
That doesn't follow at all. If mankind was given a world that was good, and then rejected it along with his rejection of God, on whom does this "fault" of yours fall? Not on the Creator, of course, but on those who have chosen to go a different way.

I give up. You're deluded. And no one can reason with a deluded person. So pardon my frustration.

You can see I'm right about that, Gary. There's plenty of evidence that at least the majority of human misery is a product of nothing other than human beings. As for the rest -- the earthquakes, hurricanes and stuff like that -- I may believe they are a product of a fallen Creation.

Why do you wish to blame people (even yourself presumably) over earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. It doesn't make them go away. Christians are just as likely as anyone else to be victims in them. What do you think you're accomplishing by blaming us?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 1:27 am Oh. You're a Gnostic.

That is not quite right, or precisely accurate. I am describing a modernist, or the outcome of Modernist perspective, who has a mystical link to (in my case) Catholic traditionalism.

Oh! that my mother had not bore me!

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 1:29 am Why do you wish to blame people (even yourself presumably) over earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.

I don't "wish." I just go with the most reasonable explanation.

Atheism and secular skepticism have no answer. We can take that as a starting point. If you want to have any answer at all, it's going to have to involve the Supreme Being and the choices mankind makes. But you may prefer no answer. Okay.

Christians are just as likely as anyone else to be victims in them.

Well, possibly...but what makes you think so? I think we can fairly say this much, though: natural disasters don't seem to pick-and-choose victims on the basis of their personal moral standing. That much seems very clear. However, what would you expect in a Creation that is also alienated from God? Would you expect it to behave predictably, morally, according to pure deserving? Or would it be likely to be a place of injustice, unequal outcomes, and tragedies?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 1:42 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 1:27 am Oh. You're a Gnostic.

That is not quite right, or precisely accurate. I am describing a modernist, or the outcome of Modernist perspective, who has a mystical link to (in my case) Catholic traditionalism.

Oh! that my mother had not bore me!

A Gnostic, then, but with modernist and Catholic sprinkles on top.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 1:49 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 1:29 am Why do you wish to blame people (even yourself presumably) over earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.

I don't "wish." I just go with the most reasonable explanation.

Atheism and secular skepticism have no answer. We can take that as a starting point. If you want to have any answer at all, it's going to have to involve the Supreme Being and the choices mankind makes. But you may prefer no answer. Okay.

Christians are just as likely as anyone else to be victims in them.

Well, possibly...but what makes you think so? I think we can fairly say this much, though: natural disasters don't seem to pick-and-choose victims on the basis of their personal moral standing. That much seems very clear. However, what would you expect in a Creation that is also alienated from God? Would you expect it to behave predictably, morally, according to pure deserving? Or would it be likely to be a place of injustice, unequal outcomes, and tragedies?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 1:56 am A Deducktion by IC.png

A very funny scene. I've always liked that one.

Well, back to the main topic, I suppose...

Anybody got anything else to say about Nihilism?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 2:08 am Well, back to the main topic, I suppose...

Anybody got anything else to say about Nihilism?

It's always been a point of transition, an inflection point. Ergo, it has a function...an indispensable one.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 1:25 am There's plenty of evidence that at least the majority of human misery is a product of nothing other than human beings. As for the rest -- the earthquakes, hurricanes and stuff like that -- I may believe they are a product of a fallen Creation.

The creator of a fallen creation is 'thought'.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 1:25 amBut meanwhile, the Atheist or secular skeptic has no explanation at all for either why they happen or whether or not they can even be regarded as "evil." After all, if they're just accidental products of the natural universe, and the universe itself is a place in which there is no objective moral reality, then such disasters are neither unexpectable nor immoral.

''Evil'' is a 'thought'

A 'thought' is not Actuality, a 'thought' is a fiction.

Reality is unconditionally Actual, there's nothing making Actual reality happen, and there's nothing that can make Actual reality unhappen. If there was something, then that 'SOMEthing'' is wholly responsible for what's happening, and would be in a prime position to adjust what's happening accordingly to align as a perfect match to it's objective moral standard.

''Evil'' is a 'thought' influenced by personal beliefs or feelings. So nothing in reality is actually evil, rather, the thought 'evil' is just a fictional representation, and not actual reality.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 1:25 am Disasters are just...disasters...and no more can be said.

That's right, happening is just happening, and nothing is making it happen, or can make it unhappen....and no more can be said.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 1:25 amIn order to criticize God for allowing any of this, you have to appeal to some objective moral standard. But absent God, there is no objective moral standard.

God is definitely absence in all this so called claimed ''objective moral standard'' as it implies there is an agent who is impartial, unbiased without opposition. Such an 'objective moral standard' is still contingent upon a conditional baseline of reasoning. It's never going to be unconditional as long as their is the belief I am human, which again is just a ''thought''

''I think therefore I AM'' - I AM therefore I think'' ....is a recursive phenomena that nothing is making happen, and nothing can make unhappen.
Try it...see if you can make your ''thoughts'' unhappen.

God. (a belief) on the other hand is claimed to be unconditional in his forgiveness and love. So it's really ok to have a sense of self-bias, to be for or against something. Human's could not have operated any other way, if their beliefs is real and true, humans are mental phenomena / they are thinking beings identified with their 'thoughts' that are believed to be real.

If anything is to make sense here, it is that YOU ARE YOUR BELIEFS. .and there is nothing BUT belief. Think about that. No belief, no story, no character, no anything. But there is something, so You are simply writing your own story book.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 1:25 am So the irony is that in order to accuse God, you have to believe not only that God exists but also that His moral standard is objective, and can be applied to the reality we live in.

How do you want to roll with that?

One cannot roll without a side to roll to. < Conditional. Two sides to every story.

Then there's Actual Truth. That no man or woman can access because 'man' and 'woman' are just 'thoughts'

Access to 'thought' is denied.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 5:57 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 11:29 am Belinda:But I don't think you actually believe of your God that he makes fun of any of his poor little creatures.

Actually, you should read Psalm 2. You'd quickly realize that it depends on which side you've decided to be on.

My God is love in all its manifestations.

Which god is that? Aphrodite?

I can claim, despite the Holocaust ,that our souls are good because it is weakness of soul that causes atrocities.

So it's man's fault, a product of his/her "weakness" that the Holocaust happened? Then the blame is on mankind. And you can call it "weakness" or you can call it "wickedness," and the outcome is the same.

So why blame God?

P.S. -- Did you figure out the answer you want to give to my question about how you would want God to act?

P.P.S. -- Existentialism begins with Kierkegaard, and secular Existentialism with perhaps Nietzsche, but certainly Sartre and Camus. It's impossible for anything earlier to be "Existentialist."

Regarding Psalm 2 , modern Zionism is the inspiration of a certain sect of bad men. Please read The Bible as a historian reads it. You seem to idolise a mere book written and edited by men .


Aphrodite pertains to Greek polytheism within which Agape was Aphrodite's sister.

I don't blame the existential version of God for the Holocaust but your essentially all-powerful God that can work miracles by intervening in history is to blame, however that version of God is a superstition . The blame for the Holocaust is on mankind and I have tried several times to tell you that men should shoulder responsibilities and blame where blame is due. That is what we tried to do at Nuremberg.

Nazism deprived German children and some adults of access to their souls and substituted a cynically manufactured lie. Trump is doing the same today in the USA.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Oct 26, 2024 1:27 am

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 10:31 pm

AJ: ...the Genesis story is a mythic tale and in that sense similar to the Platonic myths. The meaning that the myth reveals, however, I regard as real (or perhaps potent, valuable -- meaningful).

IC: And what is that meaning?

Excellent question. I’d say there are numerous levels. Personally, I take the myth of a Perfect Garden to be a sort of memory of something, a state perhaps, in which we lived before. I see our incarnation here (moving from spiritual being into a physical being) as being interpreted as a fall. The memory is of something lost. And yes, perhaps or likely through a mistake, or something analogous to disobedience.

Oh. You're a Gnostic.

I view the Garden of Eden as state of primal innocence. From this state of primal innocence , natural curiosity inspired Eve to eat the apple , which had the unhappy effect of giving her the idea that mankind can make his own way in the world with or without any reference to God's primal innocence, as he choses. This was the Genesis myth that describes man's freedom apart from all the rest of creation to make terrible mistakes. Genesis does not threaten or prescribe, but it truly describes the human condition.