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Post by SleepyTemplar on May 20, 2003 20:59:03 GMT -5
Oops. You apparently didn't see the outline for my paper on gratuitous suffering. 1. Suffering exists. 2. If an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being exists, there can be no gratuitous suffering. 3. If an omnipotent being exists, it can resolve any problem without the need for suffering. 4. Therefore, any suffering is gratuitous suffering. 5. Therefore, an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent cannot exist (or one must deny omnipotence or omnibenevolence to maintain that it exists). I suppose at the least I can say I try to keep emotionalism out of the discussion and shoot for a position based upon logic.
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Atolmazel
RPG Townie
"That's one spicy tamale"
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Post by Atolmazel on May 20, 2003 21:05:48 GMT -5
Oops. You apparently didn't see the outline for my paper on gratuitous suffering. 1. Suffering exists. 2. If an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being exists, there can be no gratuitous suffering. 3. If an omnipotent being exists, it can resolve any problem without the need for suffering. 4. Therefore, any suffering is gratuitous suffering. 5. Therefore, an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent cannot exist (or one must deny omnipotence or omnibenevolence to maintain that it exists). I suppose at the least I can say I try to keep emotionalism out of the discussion and shoot for a position based upon logic. I'll read it if you link me/send me 1. Suffering exists 2. God is omnipotent and omnibonevelent. 3. Free will is a neccesary aspect of a world created by an omnibonevelent God. 4. Pain and suffering is an aspect of free will. 5. Because free will has to exist in the world of a bonevelent God, so too has pain and suffering. Aditionally 1. Suffering exists. 2. We define suffering by contrast with pleasure 3. In order for pleasure to exist (and some form of human emotion spectrum), suffering must exist.
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Post by SleepyTemplar on May 20, 2003 22:10:08 GMT -5
In the outline here rpgtown.proboards2.com/index.cgi?board=debates&action=display&n=1&thread=4144 I outlined why the free will objection doesn't work. First, you have to show that free will does indeed exist. As a determinist, I don't hold this. More to the point, the idea of free will is incompatible with the idea of an omniscient AND omnipotent God. Merely knowing the events that'll occur would lead us to think that such alone would negate free will, but the counter-example to such is that going into the future, observing all your actions, and then writing them down for you to read after you've done them does not negate your "free will". After all, in the situation I did not control the cirumstances leading to your choices. However, if you hold to an omnipotent creator figure, as Christianity does, then you cannot defend free will. By laying claim to an omnipotent, omniscient creator figure, a Christian must say that when God created the world, it set in motion a world with full knowledge of all actions that would occur. Because all actions, and therefore your actions, are already known in advance, you are not free to act otherwise. Secondly, by laying claim to an omnipotent God, you must also hold that God controls all circumstances of your life and that of others as well. And if you do so, you've walked right into the determinist camp, which is based upon the idea that all human behavior is the result of casual laws (whether natural or divine). Hence, I contest premise 3 on the basis of not having free will in the first place, however, I also contest premise 3, but in doing so I also contest premise 4. Your argument could stand as a defense against my argument only if premise 4 read "Pain and suffering is a NECESSARY aspect of free will". If that was the case, and you demonstrated free will, then the free will objection could stand. However, without this premise, your objection fails. The premise of my argument that is most oft denied is premise 3: "If an omnipotent being exists, it can resolve any problem without the need of suffering". If pain and suffering are not necessary aspects of free will, then God could make it where free will can exist without them, in which case, premise 3 of my argument (which your counter-example addresses) still stands, as does my argument. Perhaps, however, you did mean to say pain and suffering is a necessary aspect of free will, and if you did mean so, I would like a defense of such. Your argument boils down to "It is impossible for God to create a world of free-willed creatures and without evil, pain, and suffering." Only if one is defending ABSOLUTE free will can this be true, but defending such is untenable. We have physical limits on our choices for one, and if we have limits at all on free will, then it is possible to limit free will in the realm of moral actions and still maintain it. One's choice of coffee or milk in the morning would be an example of a free-willed choice without moral consequences (under the presumption of a free-willed world, since such actions are accountable in determinism), to which one could maintain that God could have created a world of free-willed creatures that could only choose good choices. With such an example, this would mean pain and suffering are not necessary aspects of free will, to which premise 3 of my argument remains strong. I don't hold this dualist position either. Pleasure and suffering correlate to internal feelings that are quite independent of the other. Suppose on Twin Earth there is no pleasure at all, yet Jones still experiences conditions that mirror that of suffering on Earth. Are you going to say Jones doesn't suffering because there is not anything resembling pleasure on Twin Earth?
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Atolmazel
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"That's one spicy tamale"
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Post by Atolmazel on May 21, 2003 6:28:12 GMT -5
Didn't you say a few weeks ago that you were an existentialist/humanist? Now you're a determinist? However, if you hold to an omnipotent creator figure, as Christianity does, then you cannot defend free will. By laying claim to an omnipotent, omniscient creator figure, a Christian must say that when God created the world, it set in motion a world with full knowledge of all actions that would occur. Because all actions, and therefore your actions, are already known in advance, you are not free to act otherwise. There is a difference between knowing what will take place and making something take place. And the fact that God created the world wouldn't change this, given his omnipotent nature. Could not an omnipotent being seperate himself from his creation if he so wished, thereby allowing it to act on its own volition? I disagree that an omnipotent God neccesarily has to control every circumstance. You're right that if he did it would be deterministic, but this would not be the case with an omnipotent, omnibonevelent God. Surely a God who is all-powerful has the power to control his own power. (sorry for overuse of the word power but it emphasised my point). I thought that's what I implied by saying it was a part of free will. Should have made myself more clear. Pain and suffering are a neccesary aspect of free will. I don't see why it needs to be absolute free will, actions inclusive. When we refer to free will we are talking about mental freedom in our thoughts (which lead to actions). This is absolute free will in the sense of the mind and does not need to include that of the body metamorphasis. If our minds are free, which in turn leads to actions, then there will be evil and suffering. If all Jones had ever experienced was suffering then his concept of pleasure and suffering would follow the spectrum of the amount of suffering he had had at different points. For example, lets say that Jones has never not felt pain (i.e. there is solidly negative feelings 100% of the time) if once he was stabbed through the arm with a pike and later he was cut in the plam of his hand with a needle we would regard the latter as 'less suffering than the first one' but only because we had felt the pleasures of never feeling any pain. To him, the latter would be pleasurely compared to the former. I'm argueing mainly from a psychological POV here, and as a determinist you should be concuring here.
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Post by SleepyTemplar on May 21, 2003 12:21:41 GMT -5
I don't quite recall saying such. I've been a determinist for about 7 months (due to an in-class lecture over compatibilism... a funny place for a switch).
The time travel example made that clear. Which is why the additional quality of omnipotence coupled with omniscient makes free will incompatible.
Do you agree that when God created the world, he knew every chain of events that would occur upon him creating all things? Was God the "First Cause" that set EVERY subsequent action in motion with full knowledge of its occurrence? If you claim God is an omnipotent, omniscient creator figure, then you must answer "yes", in which case you must agree that God *HAS* made events take place by willing that chain of events to be by creating in the first place.
Your question seems to ask "Can God separate himself from his own omnipotence?" Please correct me if wrong. If this is what you do mean, then you are basically going with the idea that God can violate his own nature, in which God can be self-contradictory. If God's nature contains omnipotence, but he can will omnipotence off, then suddenly God isn't God anymore.
However, God must lack the power to violate his own nature (unless you say God can do the logically impossible, which is something you really don't want to claim), otherwise he is self-contradictory. Other than the previous First Cause example for a determinist is the idea that God is an active force in the world- whether you hold this idea of a "Sustaining First Cause" is dubious at the moment, which makes it weaker than the first example. As you likely do not, I won't speak more on it for the time.
I had to make sure, as I outlined the consequences of what happens if that isn't what you meant. However, I did ask you to defend this, as I provided a counter-example against this idea that suffering, pain, and evil are necessary conditions for free will. The example of a decision between milk or coffee in the morning is, under a belief in free will, a free-willed choice without evil, pain, and suffering resulting. In which case, pain and suffering CANNOT be a necessary condition of free will, and if that is the case, then your free will objection fails for the reasons I outlined in the previous post.
I think we have different definitions of free will. Free will is defined as the ability for an agent at a set time to choose between action 1 or action 2 without influence of causal factors. While mental freedom is necessary (and in order for such to occur it cannot be causally influenced, which I have my doubts you can show) for free will, we are limited through physical and logical means. We cannot will an effect to alter our set natures, nor choose to have a stone hover in the air. Likewise, as I stated before, it is possible to limit our free will in the realm of moral choices and still be free-willed. For example, the ability to choose only between several good choices would simultaneously allow free will and remove pain and suffering.
I disagree based upon equivocation. In your case, you're using a relativist idea of suffering and pain, whereas I am saying that pain and suffering correlate to certain conditions that cause them.
In this example, the conditions for pleasure do not exist (and masochists likewise do not exist on Twin Earth), whereas the conditions for suffering do exist. Assuming that Jones suffering changes (and if it doesn't- suppose the pike continually pokes him until he dies to where you can't use your relativist bit- does suffering cease to exist on Twin Earth because Jones is incapable of feeling pleasure?), unless he experiences conditions which invoke pleasure (which do not exist on Twin Earth), he does not feel pleasure at all. Whether there is a time he suffers less or not at all, he is physically incapable of feeling pleasure, in which case, once again, does suffering cease to exist on Twin Earth?
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Atolmazel
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"That's one spicy tamale"
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Post by Atolmazel on May 21, 2003 14:46:46 GMT -5
I don't quite recall saying such. I've been a determinist for about 7 months (due to an in-class lecture over compatibilism... a funny place for a switch). A humanist then? Perhaps I'm mistaken. Sartre would say being a determinist is running from responsibility for your actions. Of couse, that criticisms about as logical as 'God doesn't exist because he's a positive thing and that mean's you invented him' (and don't tell me you have a thesis set up to prove that) To say that God created the world is to say that all things are contingent upon him. This is not to say that when he created the world he also created breakfast cereals and apple crumble; he created the raw materials that led to us synthesising two or more raw components to make something. Its like with evolution; some christians argue, as you know, that God triggered evolution. To say that he triggered it does not mean that he was present, determining every step of the way. To say that something is all powerful is not the same as saying something has to control everything. Yes, he has the ability to control everything but that does not mean he chooses to do so. Surely you've heard of the deist. No, God cannot seperate himself from his nature, but as I said abov, to have power does not mean to use it. All choices can have any number of effects un beknown to us. The choice of coffee may or may not seem to effect much, but perhaps someone who needed coffee to wake up in the morning and had a meeting very early found that you had taken the remaining powder then the moral implication is that if you hadn't taken the coffee then the person would have arrived on time for the meeting. On the other hand, if you believe that (if morals exist) it is the intention not the outcome that counts, then you would be right in saying there are choices outside the moral sphere. But there are still choices within the moral sphere which humanity would face if there was free will regardless of any non-moral based choices. You're right, we do have different definitions. Casual factors are certainly an influence when regarding decision of a free nature, one of these influences being the self, the other being the self's experiences: there is not a choice that can be made on an inexplicable caprice. A world with a God contains a spiritual level, interactions with other beings, etc. Basically, the moral sphere is unavoidable in a world with an all loving God. All the decisions you have given to me are trivialties, which I don't consider choices at all, rather as basic human reactions to thirst, and favoured tastes (i.e. coffee and tea example). There is suffering in the sense that nerve cells react, but not in the sense that he actually sees it as anything different from the norm (and therefore a negative). The proof of this is in personal experience. When you have spent a week off work doing nothing, lying in your bed, perhaps watching TV the 'pleasure' will not last long. Spend the day week, however, then return home and lie on the bed and the experience would be twice as relaxing due to the juxtaposition with the hardship of work. Humans naturally 'get used to' certain conditions and so the balance of pleasure to pain is changed.
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Post by SleepyTemplar on May 21, 2003 15:57:42 GMT -5
As a determinist, I don't hold to moral responsibility in the sense that we can choose between actions, but rather than consequences of morality provide an incentive to follow or not follow (coupled with beliefs and desires shaped which can cause an override of morality), and that punishment for immorality provides a deterrent (and instills a desire not to act in an immoral fashion).
Funny idea, but that's baloney (regarding the "God doesn't because ...").
Of course I'm aware of the deist position. That why I clearly stated that the "Sustaining First Cause" argument would probably not be a position you held. However, you have not addressed the first part, the basic "First Cause" argument.
Yes, I believe in objective morality. I am also a consequentialist.
For the example, assume you live alone, and therefore the only one affected by your choice of drink is you (or if you want the big family situation, everyone else has already left for their jobs/school). There is still no pain or suffering that results from your decision, and yet it is still a choice (which under a free-will position, constitutes free will). As it is possible to have a free will choice without pain and suffering, it still supports that pain and suffering are not necessary aspects of free will.
If there are no moral decisions with free will then to say there would be moral decisions is a contradiction. Perhaps I simply misread what you said.
You've moved into a compatibilist position then, also known as "soft determinism". At least you've reminded me I need to get a book over compatibilism. Perhaps you might explain how, being causally influenced to act certain ways you still maintain any resemblance of free will and moral responsibility in an actual "can choose between two choices" kind of way?
Is there immorality in heaven, then?
The examples I gave meet the conditions of being choices, and if you want to suddenly alter the conditions of such, then one can easy do the same (i.e. labelling moral decisions as mere "preferences", and therefore cannot be considered choices), which makes us unable to discuss this matter at all. Whether trivial or not, all I must show is that pain and suffering are not necessary aspects of free will, and if done then your objection fails.
The first sense was all I was looking for.
In your example, Jones has no feelings of pleasure while lying in bed at all. He can neither feel pleasure in the subjective sense, nor from his nerves in any means. Jones feels nothing as he lies in bed, as the lack of suffering is not pleasure. Even in the relativist sense, Jones, even without feeling pleasure, can understand suffering simply be identifying the state from the experience. Whether it is the norm or not has no factor in identifying it, as we identify ourselves as alive, experience such, and understand such without needing to personally experience death to do so.
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Atolmazel
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"That's one spicy tamale"
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Post by Atolmazel on May 21, 2003 18:16:38 GMT -5
Of course I'm aware of the deist position. That why I clearly stated that the "Sustaining First Cause" argument would probably not be a position you held. However, you have not addressed the first part, the basic "First Cause" argument. What are you reffering to? How about if the coffee powder is made in a third world country by slaves. Then you would be funding an immoral company - moral implications. Or how about coffee itself - a class C drug that people become reliant upon - 'the body is the temple of the holy spirit'. Doesn't that have moral implications? Whether you knowingly act or unknowingly act in a certain way, morals become involved somewhere down the line. In this way, every action has an effect that is moral. You did. I haven't 'moved' anywhere. What I say is what I thought from the start of this debate. Because one of those influences is yourself. True, there are other influences (such as your experiences of others and society in general). Influence does not have to be absolute: and free will to overcome outside influences is always an option. As I said previously, all choices eventually have moral implications whether intentional or unintentional. Therefore, all choices are within the moral sphere and will cause some form of suffering (or lack of) at one point in time. Wrong, he may feel the the soft sensation on his skin, it has become empty due to lack of contrast. Jones has felt suffering and pleasure before in the past and therefore is able to compare his current state with previous feelings as well as identify the state from the experience. However, the case is that he is in the same postion he was minutes ago, yet feels differently. Why should he feel less pleasure than he did when he was in bed a minute earlier even though he is receiving the same sense data on his nerve cells? The norm is lowering - his standards are raising.
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Post by The Jacket on May 21, 2003 22:55:21 GMT -5
Sl..Sleepy is debating with another Townie? . . I THOUGHT WHAT WE HAD WAS SPECIAL!!! ;D School is nearly out, so it won't be too long before I can get back to regular posting in Debates. I've missed a rather large chunk of this debate, so I may have to sit this one out all together.
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Atolmazel
RPG Townie
"That's one spicy tamale"
Posts: 650
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Post by Atolmazel on May 22, 2003 13:17:22 GMT -5
Sl..Sleepy is debating with another Townie? . . I THOUGHT WHAT WE HAD WAS SPECIAL!!! ;D School is nearly out, so it won't be too long before I can get back to regular posting in Debates. I've missed a rather large chunk of this debate, so I may have to sit this one out all together. I debated with Sleepy back in the ancient days... Arrr was a collosal fight. Anyway, if you ever get the time to read, I'd love to hear your input.
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Post by guitarfreak14 on Jun 24, 2003 16:46:04 GMT -5
SleepyTempler just to point this out, if you are so against the Bible and the Christian beliefs, then why do you qoute Bible verses? I dont want to sound mean here, just pointing it out.
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Post by SleepyTemplar on Jun 25, 2003 0:36:24 GMT -5
If you notice, I only use Bible verses when in a discussion over the Bible. After all, if one is going to discuss the Bible, it certainly helps to quote what's in it, don't you think? Would you go to your classes without reading your books and being able to say what's in them?
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Post by zumbum - The Screen Monster on Jun 27, 2003 12:36:12 GMT -5
I don't believe in "God", but I mean there has to be something... Oh, and for a nice view on God, read Vampire: The Masquerade, The Book of Nod.
I agree that christianity is narrow minded, but a lot of Christians I've met seem to take the opposite view, a lot I know, believe that we all get a second chance...
Of course Christianity denies the dinosaurs, so I'll be leaving now...
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Post by SleepyTemplar on Jun 27, 2003 17:14:34 GMT -5
There is. Existence. Never read it. Summary? I don't think Christianity, on its truth claims, is being narrow-minded. Truth by nature is exclusive, and so if Christianity is true, then it follows that other positions that differ from Christianity's truth claims are false. If, of course, you use narrow-minded in the sense of moral aspects (i.e. the standard Christian view on homosexuality or hell), then I do agree that Christianity's position doesn't mesh with their concept of god. Of course, the second chance bit is part of liberal positions that has no biblical basis. I don't know of any Christian group that denies dinosaurs. You're probably thinking of Young-Earth Creationists, and even then you're misrepresenting their position. Their claim is that the earth is 6,000 years old, and that dinosaurs lived alongside mankind, only to die out (which I believe they claim Noah's Flood as the cause). Of course, fire-breathing dragons are another matter...
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Post by zumbum - The Screen Monster on Jun 28, 2003 2:31:23 GMT -5
Well, if you want a quick summary I'll give you it...
Basically, when time first began, Adam and Eve sowed their seeds, and had to beautiful boys, Caine and Abel. These two boys grew up to two different jobs. Abel worked the animals, and Caine worked the land. One fine day, God said to the two, bring me a sacrifice, worthy of me. So the next day, when they both had prepared their sacrifice. God appeared, and spoke, "Give unto me your sacrifice" Abel stepped forward, and killed a goat, then presented its blood to God. God was happy with this sacrifice. Caine came forward, and produced a lush offering of what the land had to offer. God was not happy with this, and then told Caine to sacrifice to him the thing he most loved. Caine, sacrificed his brother, out of love, it is said. God was angry for this and exiled Caine into the land of Nod. Caine asked a God- "What have I done, I sacrificed the thing I most loved, and you exile me for following your order?" He got no answer.
There's more, but I can't be bothered to write it all...
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