I do find it kind of interesting that most of the arguments tend to only apply when looking at it strictly from Christianity/monotheistic religions typically.
Well, if you look at the title, you'll note that the subject of the thread is Christianity.
The burden on god is much higher than needing to have a reason for any particular instance of suffering. In order for god to fit his definition, he has to select and create the world with minimal net suffering out of all possible worlds. This means that there cannot be even a single moment across all of time and space where any being could have felt even the tiniest fraction less pain or anguish without there being a negative trade-off, and furthermore, that any instance of suffering must yield the largest possible return in any greater-good trade off.
No, I'm not buying that definition in the slightest.
Primarily because I create unnecessary suffering for myself on a regular basis. That's not God's fault, it's my own.
Not saying that's equivalent to the fawn thing, but it still presents a problem with what you're arguing.
Seems a bit unlikely. Extremely unlikely, in fact. So, we should regard the nature of our universe and our existence, which seems extremely unlikely to be optimal in this regard, as extremely strong evidence (though not proof) against the existence of god.
Wait, when was it ever claimed that the nature of our universe or our existence was optimal? That's certainly not what Christianity claims.
No, I'm not buying that definition in the slightest.
Primarily because I create unnecessary suffering for myself on a regular basis. That's not God's fault, it's my own.
You only have that opportunity because of choices god made in the design and creation of the universe. God could have instead created a slightly different universe where your action that causes you unnecessary suffering would have had a different, less harmful result.
Wait, when was it ever claimed that the nature of our universe or our existence was optimal? That's certainly not what Christianity claims.
If god is omnibenevolent, he must select and create the universe which minimizes net suffering and evil. Otherwise, it will be the case that he had a choice between two potential universes, and chose the one with more net suffering and evil. This clearly is in direct conflict with the definition of omnibenevolence.
You only have that opportunity because of choices god made in the design and creation of the universe.
In the sense that God gave me (A) existence and (B) free will, yes, this is true.
God could have instead created a slightly different universe where your action that causes you unnecessary suffering would have had a different, less harmful result.
But that's beside the point. If God put me in a better universe, I would still find ways of getting in my own way and making irresponsible choices. I'm not talking about the consequences of my actions, I'm talking about the choices I make personally. Often do I act against myself — I think that's something we can say for all of us — and that is a source of suffering.
And that's my own doing. I have the full capacity to act in a different way, I just choose not to.
If god is omnibenevolent, he must select and create the universe which minimizes net suffering and evil. Otherwise, it will be the case that he had a choice between two potential universes, and chose the one with more net suffering and evil. This clearly is in direct conflict with the definition of omnibenevolence.
I don't believe that it is for a second.
The questions we must ask are why do we suffer, and why is there evil?
Which can only really be answered after defining what evil is, and what suffering is. We can, at least loosely, define evil as immorality. Suffering is a significantly harder to define. We can look at the Wikipedia definition, which defines it as, "an experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual." This seems like a good starting point.
But I dislike this definition for three reasons. One is that one can suffer without necessarily experiencing pain or fear in the form of malaise or ennui. The second is that we can suffer without necessarily knowing we suffer. The third is that if we were reprogrammed to feel great joy instead of aversion at the experience of pain or danger, we would all die out as a species, and while we could say that this unfortunate version of the human race "died without suffering," but we can also say that the human race suffered greatly due to the lack of suffering. This makes suffering quite difficult to define, as one can suffer without suffering.
Which kind of segues into a major problem I have with your argument. You are arguing that any instance in which God chooses a situation with more suffering and evil over a world in which there would be less suffering and evil, he is behaving in an evil way. I do not believe this logically follows, and indeed, the biggest problem I have with this is that by your logic, God would necessarily have to choose the universe in which there is no suffering and no evil, for there is no positive number less than zero.
But are these preferable? You seem to be arguing for the inherent preferability (is that a word?) of these scenarios, which I don't agree with.
In fact, I think you have it totally backward. I think the fact that God choosing a world in which we have suffering and malevolence demonstrates God's benevolence over the alternative.
[In the sense that God gave me (A) existence and (B) free will, yes, this is true.
It has nothing to do with whether you have free will. Free will is the method by which you make your choices, not the outcomes that those choices result in.
But that's beside the point. If God put me in a better universe, I would still find ways of getting in my own way and making irresponsible choices. I'm not talking about the consequences of my actions, I'm talking about the choices I make personally. Often do I act against myself — I think that's something we can say for all of us — and that is a source of suffering.
And that's my own doing. I have the full capacity to act in a different way, I just choose not to.
Free will is not want grants you the capacity to suffer. Suffering is a result of your choices, not the choice itself.
I don't believe that it is for a second.
The questions we must ask are why do we suffer, and why is there evil?
Which can only really be answered after defining what evil is, and what suffering is. We can, at least loosely, define evil as immorality. Suffering is a significantly harder to define. We can look at the Wikipedia definition, which defines it as, "an experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual." This seems like a good starting point.
But I dislike this definition for three reasons. One is that one can suffer without necessarily experiencing pain or fear in the form of malaise or ennui. The second is that we can suffer without necessarily knowing we suffer. The third is that if we were reprogrammed to feel great joy instead of aversion at the experience of pain or danger, we would all die out as a species, and while we could say that this unfortunate version of the human race "died without suffering," but we can also say that the human race suffered greatly due to the lack of suffering. This makes suffering quite difficult to define, as one can suffer without suffering.
Which kind of segues into a major problem I have with your argument. You are arguing that any instance in which God chooses a situation with more suffering and evil over a world in which there would be less suffering and evil, he is behaving in an evil way. I do not believe this logically follows, and indeed, the biggest problem I have with this is that by your logic, God would necessarily have to choose the universe in which there is no suffering and no evil, for there is no positive number less than zero.
But are these preferable? You seem to be arguing for the inherent preferability (is that a word?) of these scenarios, which I don't agree with.
In fact, I think you have it totally backward. I think the fact that God choosing a world in which we have suffering and malevolence demonstrates God's benevolence over the alternative.
I said NET suffering. I think we all agree that suffering is allowed if it is the option that causes the largest amount of offsetting greater good. Thus, if choosing between the empty universe and a universe with a little suffering and a lot of happiness, God should choose the latter.
It has nothing to do with whether you have free will. Free will is the method by which you make your choices, not the outcomes that those choices result in.
Perhaps I've not made myself clear. I'm saying a person can act in a manner to get in his own way, whether it be through action, word, or thought, and that in itself can be a source of suffering. You have replied to this by saying that God could somehow manipulate the consequences of actions to something less injurious, but that doesn't address the main issue. It is, as I said, besides the point.
Free will is not want grants you the capacity to suffer. Suffering is a result of your choices, not the choice itself.
I completely disagree there. Suffering does not solely stem from the consequences of one's actions.
I said NET suffering. I think we all agree that suffering is allowed if it is the option that causes the largest amount of offsetting greater good. Thus, if choosing between the empty universe and a universe with a little suffering and a lot of happiness, God should choose the latter.
But you just contradicted yourself. There is far greater net suffering in the latter universe than in the empty void universe, as there is zero suffering in the empty void universe and a positive amount of suffering in the latter universe.
Yes, God should choose the latter universe, but it isn't because of "net suffering," whatever that even means.
Perhaps I've not made myself clear. I'm saying a person can act in a manner to get in his own way, whether it be through action, word, or thought, and that in itself can be a source of suffering. You have replied to this by saying that God could somehow manipulate the consequences of actions to something less injurious, but that doesn't address the main issue. It is, as I said, besides the point.
I don't think I'm understanding what you mean here.
I completely disagree there. Suffering does not solely stem from the consequences of one's actions.
Can you give an example?
But you just contradicted yourself. There is far greater net suffering in the latter universe than in the empty void universe, as there is zero suffering in the empty void universe and a positive amount of suffering in the latter universe.
Yes, God should choose the latter universe, but it isn't because of "net suffering," whatever that even means.
Perhaps "net suffering" is not a good term, as I don't think you're reading it in the way I intended. What I mean is to capture the idea that suffering can be balanced out by greater good. We would both agree that it is preferable to have a little bit of suffering but a lot of joy than it is to have none of either. The "net suffering" in the first case is negative - there is more joy and happiness than there is suffering.
When God is presented with the choice between all possible universes, he should not choose the one with no suffering, he should choose the one which comes out the most ahead in the suffering vs happiness/joy/whatever tradeoff. This will be the action of maximal benevolence. If god does not choose that universe to create, it means he instead created a universe with more suffering and less happiness.
Further, the granularity that god is offered in this choice of universes is pretty fine. He could create a universe that is exactly like ours except that one tiny, insignificant amount of suffering was just the smallest bit less intense. He could alternatively create a universe which is entirely alien to ours, full of beings that experience suffering and happiness in a completely different manner which makes the tradeoff between the two extremely one-sided. God could have created the universe exactly as described in Genesis, complete with a literal Garden of Eden, but left out the tree. In order for God to be omnibenevolent it must be the case that every one of these options would have resulted in more suffering/less happiness than our universe as it is.
I don't want to delay my response forever so I am just going to throw out some more things. Of course I will not be able to say everything in regards to a topic in one or two posts anyway.
I'll leave what I said in regards to the problem of evil for now. I would like to stress though that I think my most relevant point is that we should not expect to know God's purpose in permitting suffering. We certainly seem to agree that God could have a purpose in allowing some suffering (i.e. Plantinga), and, as I said, if we were only to consider suffering in the world I would think that we should be agnostics. However, this is certainly not the only thing to consider when considering the existence of God.
As for God's omniscience and knowing the future I will have to admit that this is not a topic I have looked at enough. Free-will is probably one of the more complicated philosophical topics even if it is discussed not in the context of religion.
However, if it is necessary to take my layman mind to the topic I would take a guess and say that freewill is the ability to do something you want to do without being compelled or forced to do so.
In this sense, it would seem possible to me for God to know the future and yet still we have freewill. We would have freewill because we are doing what we want to do. For example, if an apple is in front of me and a cow liver, I would pick the apple as this is what I like better. I was not compelled to do anything, and therefore I freely chose the apple. Therefore, I had freewill. However, if someone stuck a gun to my head and told me to eat the liver, I would not in that moment be exercising freewill in choosing the liver. However, there is enough freewill in this life to make human beings develop moral character… even among prisoners and captives.
2. Can an omnibenevolent being choose to do evil?
2a. If not, does God have freewill?
2b. If not, is anything god chooses to do praiseworthy?
Under the definition I gave (which I happen to think is a pretty solid one), this would not be a violation of God's freewill as God would never want to do evil. If freewill means the freedom to choose what you want, God would have freewill provided he chooses what he wants so even if he couldn't choose to sin it wouldn't be a violation of his freewill as he has the freedom to do what he pleases to do.
As for Plantinga's view that humans must not be programmed only to do good, that you summed up I would have to confess that I haven't gone through his book and don't know exactly what he would say. I think though, that God, just has humans, has the "capacity" to do evil in the sense that he has the means to do so… For example, if God wished to throw down lighning bolts and hit people for no reason at all he definitely has the power to control the weather. However, He would never do that, not because he has no capability, but because he would never have the will to do so. And under the definition of freewill I gave, he would still have freewill as he isn't being compelled not to sin, he doesn't want to sin and so compelling never comes into the picture.
Right, but I'm asking how can we objectively decide which of you (if anyone) is right? Certainly, we can subjectively decide anything we want - but what about objectively?
If everything is equal in regards to how you each feel subjectively about each of your Gods, experienced the same thing with respect to each of your Gods, and all of your reasons for believing in each of your gods, how can someone who is undecided on which (if any) God, is objectively the correct God? I don't really think you can, so I don't think that picking one god over another god that has the same equal grounds as all the others can be more rational than the other. If all things are equal, then all beliefs in differing gods with regards to personal experience must be equally rational or equally irrational. I think you are left with two choices here, you have to concede that all personal experiences with regards to a God are equally valid as evidence for the existence of all of these gods and belief in each of them is rational - no matter how God is defined or you have to concede that all personal experiences with regards to a God are equally not valid for the existence of all of these gods and that making a decision on which one to believe in based on personal experience is irrational.
Who is deciding? Society as a whole? Or individual persons? For religion, I don't think society as a whole has the ability to objectively decide which religion is true. However, an individual person can have a personal experience that they can use objective means to evaluate. For example, I can question myself to see if I have had such an experiences with other beliefs (in fact I have had many experiences and have been a part of different religions and I have never experienced anything like I have with Christian belief. Everything else appears a quite literally a shadow of the real thing. A terrible attempt to imitate the real thing… much like a counterfeit appears obvious when compared to the real thing). I can question myself to ask if I am believing for bad reasons. Am I believing only because I want this to be true? Am I believing because of some other bad motives? These questions are a way for a person to use objective means to evaluate personal experience. And as I have shown in other posts, just because something cannot be proven doesn't mean it cannot be rationally believed. I think your whole case here relies upon assuming that when someone looks at the matter from the outside no conclusion can be reached. However, obviously personal experience is not accessible from the outside. It is something that has to be experienced to be known. And you are in no position to say simply from looking from the outside that all religious experience is equal and it is irrational to believed based upon it.
Right, but I think Blinking Spirit addressed this pretty well already in a couple of posts.
I'll add my thoughts here as well though, I find myself agreeing with him, not all experiences are equal and I think that each of us can experience the same thing and have very different thoughts and feelings about the experience.
Suppose, You and I have the exact same experience, you conclude that this experience is divine and is definitive proof that the God you believe in is real, while I decide that the experience doesn't prove any God's existence because it was likely just a hallucination.
Perhaps Blinking Spirit also has the exact same experience and was atheist at first, but now is unsure and has decided that the experience has left him more open to the idea of God's existence but not quite enough to fully believe it was actually God and not a hallucination.
Perhaps Bakgat also has the exact same experience and was atheist at first but decides that the experience is divine and decides that there must be a God out there, but is unsure which God it was that he experienced.
Perhaps Highroller also has the exact same experience and is theist, but decides that perhaps this was a different God than the one he believes in and converts and now worships this particular God.
Perhaps Verbal also has the exact same experience and is also theist as well and decides that this experience wasn't actually the same God he believes in, but some other malevolent spirit meant to shake his beliefs in his God.
In a sense, it's no different than if all of us watched a movie, read a book, saw a play, an action etc. and all had different thoughts, opinions, and feelings about what it is that we experienced while experiencing it. So then if this is the case, how can this be reliable from an objective point of view about reality? If we all experienced the same thing, yet think differently about the experience, form different opinions about the experience, and have different feelings about the experience, why shouldn't we just brush these off as just merely subjective experiences and not objective truths about reality as Blinking Spirit pointed out?
I'm not sure what blinking spirit said that you are referring to, so you are going to have to quote it if you find it was that relevant. To respond to what you said here, you seem to be operating under a number of assumptions I would not share. First you say that all these people have the exact same experience. However, I would disagree that experiences among religious people of different religions are all the same. As I mentioned in this post I have been a follower of different religious beliefs in my life and nothing compares to the experience I have had in Christianity. I think what you gave is more of a stereotype of religious experience than what it actually is. However, say that we have five people who actually experience God and only one of them accepts God. (perhaps this isn't an accurate representation of what usually happens, or perhaps this never happens, I don't know) Does that mean that the other four, who have in their mind that this was the Muslim God or something, have experienced something vague? Not at all. Human beings are quite apt to misinterpret things. Even with the example of a movie, there are instances where some people can be objectively right and some objectively wrong, even if it is unprovable.
For example, imagine they disagree about what the author of the script intended to communicate by killing off the main character. In this instance there may be an objective answer to the question. We might be able to even ask the author what is intent was and he may say something like, "I intended to portray the main character as a noble martyr, therefore I had to kill him off." However, say that someone thinks his intent was to portray the main character as a person that died because he got what he deserved (being a bad guy). That would be an objectively wrong interpretation of the author's intent even if the author didn't ever publicly say why he killed off the main character.
As for knowledge I would be happy to agree that what matters is rational and justified belief. (though I would avoid using the word, "knowledge" altogether as I think it is misleading since it implies certainty).
However, I don't think that all experiences and reasons are equal with regards to knowledge, so we should have a standard for what constitutes as knowledge. For example, let's suppose I just have an experience and I conclude that my experience was such that there was no other way than to conclude that my experience was divine in nature. In this experience, God spoke to me and told me tomorrow the world is going to end. Is it rational to believe that the world will end tomorrow? After all, I had an experience you couldn't possibly know - because you didn't experience it, only I experienced it and I firmly believe that my experience was divine and the words spoken to me were truthful. Is it rational for me to believe that tomorrow the world is going to end?
In this example you say that "my experience is such that there was no other way than to conclude that it my experience was divine in nature." Under the premise of your experience, I would absolutely think that you should believe it from God. Since in such an undeniable experience you would have been told that the world is going to end tomorrow, you would definitely have the right to believe that this is so. However, me from the outside, I cannot judge if you did experience God truly or not. Publically, we cannot say either way whether you experienced God or are mistaken. You might be either. But you, privately, if you have done everything you can to ensure you are not crazy or to ensure that you are not mistaken, you would definitely be rational in believing something that you have so much private evidence for.
It may not always be possible to judge whether or not something is or is not the case publicly. However, that doesn't mean you are never able to trust in things which cannot be publicly proven. (as in many examples I have given in past posts)
Thanks again for a stimulating discussion. I cannot promise it wont take me a week or so sometimes to respond as this takes quite a lot of time.
Surely just as you feel you have had more significant religious experiences within Christianity than other religions you previously investigated, there are also those who converted away from Christianity and found more profound and significant experiences in their new religions.
What objective method can one apply that would lead these people to conclude that they are mistaken and should return to Christianity, but would not lead you to the same conclusion that you should return to one of your former religions? It seems to me that the methods you list could not accomplish this. What value are these methods if they cannot distinguish between the person who has found the correct religion and the person who has converted away from it?
I don't think I'm understanding what you mean here.
You seem to think that one can only cause suffering to oneself through one's actions and the consequences that follow from them. I disagree with that. I really disagree with that.
Can you give an example?
To give an example from me, I've dealt with cripplingly low self-esteem for a number of years. It took me a long time to accept myself as a person. Still working on that.
So I understand the concept of a person getting in his own way, and that definitely caused me all kinds of emotional pain and turmoil. So that's a form of suffering that isn't necessarily caused by actions. It didn't matter what I was doing, I was harming myself from the thoughts in my head. And this is what I mean when I say that this is a form of suffering that I inflict upon myself that has nothing to do with God. I'm doing it on my own. God's not working against me. I am choosing to work against myself.
Incidentally, that's also a form of suffering that doesn't really correspond to a "greater good" transaction. There's absolutely nothing beneficial about that kind of suffering. There's no meaning or higher purpose for it. It's totally unnecessary. It's happening because I choose to inflict totally unnecessary suffering on myself.
Perhaps "net suffering" is not a good term, as I don't think you're reading it in the way I intended.
Well, actually what i think you meant is "net happiness," and I think I am reading it the way you intended, I just disagree with what you're saying because...
What I mean is to capture the idea that suffering can be balanced out by greater good. We would both agree that it is preferable to have a little bit of suffering but a lot of joy than it is to have none of either. The "net suffering" in the first case is negative - there is more joy and happiness than there is suffering.
But that's the thing, I don't believe that suffering is some sort of "negative happiness." I don't believe it's a matter as simple as taking total happiness, subtracting the suffering, and then getting the net happiness. I don't think it works that way.
Let me try to explain where I'm going with this: I think there's something very astute about how Buddhism perceives suffering. See, in Buddhism it's not about a great conflict of good versus evil, or humanity being sinful. Rather, it's a matter of human beings suffering. That's the fundamental problem, that people suffer. And the reason why people suffer is because of our attachments to that which is temporary, fleeting, and evanescent.
And I think that's profound, and very true. I agree that it is our attachments to things that are temporary that cause us suffering. But where I disagree with that is I don't believe we are supposed to stop suffering. Rather, I believe we are supposed to suffer. I think instead that we are meant to embrace it. Not that I believe that suffering is the goal, butt I believe it is inevitable, and it is not necessarily something we should avoid, because I believe suffering naturally arises with forming attachments.
If I hear someone died that I didn't know, a person who had no real presence in my life, I won't suffer because of it, because I didn't know that person. I wouldn't enjoy that person dying, mind you, and I might feel a little bit bad for the people who cared about that person, but I'm not going to feel much of anything. I won't suffer. But a person who cared about that person would suffer. Depending on how much they cared, they might suffer greatly.
Now it's easy to see a remedy to end the suffering. Just live our lives without attachments. But I don't think we want to do that.
Nobody goes around thinking, "Man, I hope I feel tremendous emotional anguish today." Not anyone sane at any rate. But I believe it is a gift to feel sad, to feel deeply miserable. It means something matters to you. A movie called "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" comes to mind. In it, a heartbroken character decides he wants to forget his ex-girlfriend because she hurt him that badly, but realizes that this is a terrible mistake.
I think we want pain, at least some, in our lives.
I don't think suffering necessarily brings us meaning, but I do think that meaning allows us to bear suffering willingly, or even enthusiastically. Think of all the athletes in the world who feel satisfaction at what they've accomplished in spite of the difficulty, or the people who endure great sacrifice for a cause they believe in, and who regard the hardships they endured with great pride.
It is true that suffering is not necessarily what we want. Nobody believes that cruelty is good. But I don't believe that suffering is the opposite of what we want either.
When God is presented with the choice between all possible universes, he should not choose the one with no suffering, he should choose the one which comes out the most ahead in the suffering vs happiness/joy/whatever tradeoff. This will be the action of maximal benevolence. If god does not choose that universe to create, it means he instead created a universe with more suffering and less happiness.
Well, take for example Brave New World. Brave New World is about happiness without suffering. Soma offers highs without side effects, people do not attach themselves to meaningful relationships and therefore are never disappointed, scarcity has been eliminated and sex is freely offered so the base biological urges are fulfilled, people are desensitized to death so that the sight of someone dying becomes banal (at least not most of the time, to say more would be a spoiler warning), and of course the media remains bland and unchallenging to not evoke any real controversy, thought, or emotion.
What's missing? Passion. Passion is missing in that society, which becomes a problem when they go out and bring a savage with them. The savage, John, sees the society and its manufactured bliss as hollow and empty, because it completely lacks any meaning.
And I think that's what we're seeking, beyond anything else. I think we're seeking meaning, purpose, fulfillment, moreso than happiness.
Think about it: people give up their own happiness voluntarily for the sake of others all of the time. People will even risk death for another person's well-being. Why? It must give them something. And I don't think it's happiness, because I don't think anyone particularly likes being shot at, or going into a burning building, or having to defuse a bomb.
But they still do it. So there's got to be something, something that makes them keep doing it. And I think that thing is a sense of purpose or meaning. Fulfillment. (EDIT: Eudaimonia seems to be the word I'm looking for.)
Does what I'm saying make sense? I tend to ramble.
I've had to repeat myself too often in this post to take this claim seriously.
This is why I haven't continued discussing with you. I don't find it helpful to discuss with someone when they are accusing me personally. I'm not upset about it, but I thought you deserved an explanation. I am all about getting into depth as I am with Foxblade, I just feel no one is benefitted when people are having a contentious argument.
[You seem to think that one can only cause suffering to oneself through one's actions and the consequences that follow from them. I disagree with that. I really disagree with that.
Well, for an expansive definition of "actions".
To give an example from me, I've dealt with cripplingly low self-esteem for a number of years. It took me a long time to accept myself as a person. Still working on that.
So I understand the concept of a person getting in his own way, and that definitely caused me all kinds of emotional pain and turmoil. So that's a form of suffering that isn't necessarily caused by actions. It didn't matter what I was doing, I was harming myself from the thoughts in my head. And this is what I mean when I say that this is a form of suffering that I inflict upon myself that has nothing to do with God. I'm doing it on my own. God's not working against me. I am choosing to work against myself.
Incidentally, that's also a form of suffering that doesn't really correspond to a "greater good" transaction. There's absolutely nothing beneficial about that kind of suffering. There's no meaning or higher purpose for it. It's totally unnecessary. It's happening because I choose to inflict totally unnecessary suffering on myself.
Is mental illness really someone choosing to inflict unnecessary suffering on themselves? I don't think it is.
But that's the thing, I don't believe that suffering is some sort of "negative happiness." I don't believe it's a matter as simple as taking total happiness, subtracting the suffering, and then getting the net happiness. I don't think it works that way.
Let me try to explain where I'm going with this: I think there's something very astute about how Buddhism perceives suffering. See, in Buddhism it's not about a great conflict of good versus evil, or humanity being sinful. Rather, it's a matter of human beings suffering. That's the fundamental problem, that people suffer. And the reason why people suffer is because of our attachments to that which is temporary, fleeting, and evanescent.
And I think that's profound, and very true. I agree that it is our attachments to things that are temporary that cause us suffering. But where I disagree with that is I don't believe we are supposed to stop suffering. Rather, I believe we are supposed to suffer. I think instead that we are meant to embrace it. Not that I believe that suffering is the goal, butt I believe it is inevitable, and it is not necessarily something we should avoid, because I believe suffering naturally arises with forming attachments.
If I hear someone died that I didn't know, a person who had no real presence in my life, I won't suffer because of it, because I didn't know that person. I wouldn't enjoy that person dying, mind you, and I might feel a little bit bad for the people who cared about that person, but I'm not going to feel much of anything. I won't suffer. But a person who cared about that person would suffer. Depending on how much they cared, they might suffer greatly.
Now it's easy to see a remedy to end the suffering. Just live our lives without attachments. But I don't think we want to do that.
Nobody goes around thinking, "Man, I hope I feel tremendous emotional anguish today." Not anyone sane at any rate. But I believe it is a gift to feel sad, to feel deeply miserable. It means something matters to you. A movie called "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" comes to mind. In it, a heartbroken character decides he wants to forget his ex-girlfriend because she hurt him that badly, but realizes that this is a terrible mistake.
I think we want pain, at least some, in our lives.
I don't think suffering necessarily brings us meaning, but I do think that meaning allows us to bear suffering willingly, or even enthusiastically. Think of all the athletes in the world who feel satisfaction at what they've accomplished in spite of the difficulty, or the people who endure great sacrifice for a cause they believe in, and who regard the hardships they endured with great pride.
It is true that suffering is not necessarily what we want. Nobody believes that cruelty is good. But I don't believe that suffering is the opposite of what we want either.
Well, take for example Brave New World. Brave New World is about happiness without suffering. Soma offers highs without side effects, people do not attach themselves to meaningful relationships and therefore are never disappointed, scarcity has been eliminated and sex is freely offered so the base biological urges are fulfilled, people are desensitized to death so that the sight of someone dying becomes banal (at least not most of the time, to say more would be a spoiler warning), and of course the media remains bland and unchallenging to not evoke any real controversy, thought, or emotion.
What's missing? Passion. Passion is missing in that society, which becomes a problem when they go out and bring a savage with them. The savage, John, sees the society and its manufactured bliss as hollow and empty, because it completely lacks any meaning.
And I think that's what we're seeking, beyond anything else. I think we're seeking meaning, purpose, fulfillment, moreso than happiness.
Think about it: people give up their own happiness voluntarily for the sake of others all of the time. People will even risk death for another person's well-being. Why? It must give them something. And I don't think it's happiness, because I don't think anyone particularly likes being shot at, or going into a burning building, or having to defuse a bomb.
But they still do it. So there's got to be something, something that makes them keep doing it. And I think that thing is a sense of purpose or meaning. Fulfillment. (EDIT: Eudaimonia seems to be the word I'm looking for.)
Does what I'm saying make sense? I tend to ramble.
I'm afraid I don't really follow how this relates to the question at hand. Are you saying you reject entirely the notion that benevolence is found in minimizing suffering?
I was accusing you of making claims which had already been responded to. The complaint is not personal; it's dialectic. No one is benefited when people are having a repetitive argument.
And you're doing the same thing to FoxBlade and Tiax. Read Tiax's newest post very carefully. It's the most succinct statement of the problem with your reasoning that we've been trying to get you to address since this discussion started. When you respond, don't just repeat some variation on "I believe my religious experiences and interpretations thereof are more reliable than other people's", because that does not resolve the problem - it is the problem.
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I was accusing you of making claims which had already been responded to. The complaint is not personal; it's dialectic. No one is benefited when people are having a repetitive argument.
And you're doing the same thing to FoxBlade and Tiax. Read Tiax's newest post very carefully. It's the most succinct statement of the problem with your reasoning that we've been trying to get you to address since this discussion started. When you respond, don't just repeat some variation on "I believe my religious experiences and interpretations thereof are more reliable than other people's", because that does not resolve the problem - it is the problem.
I am not just repeating myself. I am really trying to answer people's objections and I am reading their posts and responding to their newest points as best I can. Fruitful discussion requires mutual charity and if you are going to accuse me of not responding to something point out what I am not responding to and I will respond directly to it. I enjoy answering difficult questions. (Tiax's post I was already planning to respond to today) I also want to make clear that I don't intend to argue that Christianity is true because I believe I have experienced God… and I hope that is not your understanding.
Surely just as you feel you have had more significant religious experiences within Christianity than other religions you previously investigated, there are also those who converted away from Christianity and found more profound and significant experiences in their new religions.
What objective method can one apply that would lead these people to conclude that they are mistaken and should return to Christianity, but would not lead you to the same conclusion that you should return to one of your former religions? It seems to me that the methods you list could not accomplish this. What value are these methods if they cannot distinguish between the person who has found the correct religion and the person who has converted away from it?
Tiax, I appreciate the question... I found it quite intellectually stimulating to answer. I don't know that there is some formula or method to discover what is a true experience of God and what is not. But that doesn't mean that the experience of God could not be trusted. After all, if there is indeed a God, He is quite capable of giving one an experience that brings confidence of His existence. Why think that a method would be necessary to discover His existence? Why think that God can be discovered through mankind's reason? Western thought in the Enlightenment thought that you could use method to discover all truth. However, in the hundreds of years since then that view is no longer the consensus in philosophy. For example, Descartes attempt to rest all knowledge on reason (I think, therefore I am), is no longer taken seriously, for, if nothing is being assumed, it should only be concluded something like, "there is thought." There is no objective method to discern whether or not we are currently in some kind of dream, whether or not we are in a sort of matrix, whether something is morally right or wrong, whether or not we are in love, etc… I am not even sure that there is an objective method we can apply to know when to trust someone. It seems more of an intuitive experience, telling when someone is trustworthy.
It also seems to me that to ask for a method as to whether an experience is from God is to put faith on the foundation of doubt. Try in your relationships to doubt everyone, it has actually caused me quite a bit of difficulty in my own personal life. Imagine a scenario. Imagine God really did give someone an experience of Him that was clear enough such that the person should believe that this was from God. Now, if this person who has already been given a clear experience tries to apply a method to find out whether or not the experience is from God, is he not doubting what God has made clear to him? Is he not then doubting God? Why should God make relationship with Him have doubting God Himself as a necessary part of the relationship and what brings a person close to God? In fact, doubting communication from God seems to be thought of as one of the greatest sins in the bible. (i.e. Moses doubting God would bring water out of the rock during the exodus) Why should God put one of the greatest sins as a necessary condition to know that God is communicating? Thankfully God is gracious to those who doubt (such as myself… everyday), but my point is that to expect a method to "find out" if an experience is from God might be fundamentally a flawed way to reason.
This strategy will and has led a large number of people to trust that they have experienced other, false Gods. Is that acceptable for a means of justifying our knowledge? Surely not.
This strategy will and has led a large number of people to trust that they have experienced other, false Gods. Is that acceptable for a means of justifying our knowledge? Surely not.
My whole point is that there was no method or strategy. I wrote a long post, I would think you would take my points in detail and respond to them.
Yes, I understood your point. My response to it is that if there is no method or strategy, people have no means to avoid believing in false Gods. If those members of other religions follow the advice and reasoning you gave here, they will stay with their false religions just as you stay with your religion. While this might be fine and dandy for you if you have lucked into the correct God, it puts those who believe in other religions in a bizarre situation. They have followed the same process as you, and use the same approach to faith and knowledge, and yet they are stuck believing in false Gods. Does this not imply that your approach is unsatisfactory? It certainly does not serve those other believers well. Why should we then suspect it serves you well?
It's not disbelievers job to prove God doesn't exist. It's a Christian's job to prove he does.
Seeing as proving or disproving something that people tend to be very closed-minded about, despite what side of the fence upon you sit, agreeing to disagree is about as far as we're likely to get to a consensus.
Imagine God really did give someone an experience of Him that was clear enough such that the person should believe that this was from God. Now, if this person who has already been given a clear experience tries to apply a method to find out whether or not the experience is from God, is he not doubting what God has made clear to him? Is he not then doubting God? Why should God make relationship with Him have doubting God Himself as a necessary part of the relationship and what brings a person close to God? In fact, doubting communication from God seems to be thought of as one of the greatest sins in the bible. (i.e. Moses doubting God would bring water out of the rock during the exodus) Why should God put one of the greatest sins as a necessary condition to know that God is communicating? Thankfully God is gracious to those who doubt (such as myself… everyday), but my point is that to expect a method to "find out" if an experience is from God might be fundamentally a flawed way to reason.
Alice undergoes a religious experience.
Maybe it's from God, maybe it's not.
If it's from God, the Bible says she shouldn't doubt it.
If it's not from God, the fundamental truth imperative* says she should doubt it (as, for what it's worth, does the Bible - no false idols, right?).
How is she to determine whether she should doubt it or not?
In order to make that determination, she has to find out whether the experience is from God.
Which you have defined as doubt.
She has to doubt God in order to determine that she shouldn't doubt God.
And if she tries to escape this trap by not doubting the experience from the outset, then she may be worshiping a false idol, and she has no way to tell.
This scenario only works out well for Alice if you assume from the outset that her experience is from God. Which is blatantly begging the question.
On another note, any doctrine that tells us "do not think critically about this doctrine" is throwing up a huge red flag. Anyone can get away with anything using that line. How many dictators over the ages have told their subjects, "Do what I say, and don't question it"? Surely a God who is actually omniscient and omnibenevolent would have nothing to hide, and confidence that his perfect commandments could stand up to any level of critical scrutiny. Furthermore, teaching his followers to think critically about their experiences would help them greatly in avoiding those false idols. Galileo: "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
*"Believe true propositions and disbelieve false propositions."
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I am not just repeating myself. I am really trying to answer people's objections and I am reading their posts and responding to their newest points as best I can. Fruitful discussion requires mutual charity and if you are going to accuse me of not responding to something point out what I am not responding to and I will respond directly to it. I enjoy answering difficult questions.
Well, you didn't respond to any objection I raised in this post.
No, you were talking about actions as acts taken that can result in consequences. C'mon, let's not play word games here.
Is mental illness really someone choosing to inflict unnecessary suffering on themselves? I don't think it is.
No, but that's also not what I was saying.
I'm saying people can get in their own way through thoughts and attitudes, and that's a result of their own choosing, not their actions happening to have terrible consequences.
Are you saying you reject entirely the notion that benevolence is found in minimizing suffering?
I'm saying that's not necessarily true.
I will draw your attention back to something I said:
Quote from Highroller »
It is true that suffering is not necessarily what we want. Nobody believes that cruelty is good. But I don't believe that suffering is the opposite of what we want either.
No, you were talking about actions as acts taken that can result in consequences. C'mon, let's not play word games here.
No, but that's also not what I was saying.
I'm saying people can get in their own way through thoughts and attitudes, and that's a result of their own choosing, not their actions happening to have terrible consequences.
Perhaps I don't understand what you mean by "get in their own way".
Suppose that Bob suffers from social anxiety, and therefore chooses to live alone and does not seek out relationships. Bob ends up lonely and sad. Now, it's not as if Bob pressed the "no friends" button that God had cruelly set up. The only reason Bob is alone is because of Bob's own internal feelings and choices. Is this an example of Bob "getting in his own way"?
I'm saying that's not necessarily true.
I will draw your attention back to something I said:
It is true that suffering is not necessarily what we want. Nobody believes that cruelty is good. But I don't believe that suffering is the opposite of what we want either.
It sounds like what you're saying is that although suffering is bad, we need some of it because it seems to come as a package with other desirable things. I'm pretty sure we're on the same page on that. Am I reading you right?
It's not disbelievers job to prove God doesn't exist. It's a Christian's job to prove he does.
Seeing as proving or disproving something that people tend to be very closed-minded about, despite what side of the fence upon you sit, agreeing to disagree is about as far as we're likely to get to a consensus.
I don't think that discussion is pointless if that is what you are implying. Personally I used to be an atheist, and finding that there were rational responses to objections was helpful in my journey to become a Christian. Also, were you agreeing with the quote from Jay? I wasn't sure. If so, I have a response.
Alice undergoes a religious experience.
Maybe it's from God, maybe it's not.
If it's from God, the Bible says she shouldn't doubt it.
If it's not from God, the fundamental truth imperative* says she should doubt it (as, for what it's worth, does the Bible - no false idols, right?).
How is she to determine whether she should doubt it or not?
In order to make that determination, she has to find out whether the experience is from God.
Which you have defined as doubt.
She has to doubt God in order to determine that she shouldn't doubt God.
And if she tries to escape this trap by not doubting the experience from the outset, then she may be worshiping a false idol, and she has no way to tell.
It seems to me that you might be assuming from the outset that her experience is ambiguous or unreal. For if it was both unambiguous and real, it seems that it wouldn't be irrational to accept it without doubting it.
This scenario only works out well for Alice if you assume from the outset that her experience is from God. Which is blatantly begging the question.
This is the logic… consider a possible scenario (doesn't have to be actual). Alice does have a genuine experience of God which is clear enough such that doubting it is like doubting that killing innocent people for fun is wrong (something else quite possible to do). Would she, in that instance, need to, or be rationally obligated to try to figure out something is real that she has already seen is actually real?
Of course I cannot assume in this discussion that God exists or such people like Alice exist who have such experiences. I don't think I am using circular logic. I am only saying that it could be that such people like Alice exist and that they would be rational if they did. And it seems clear that you disagree with that.
On another note, any doctrine that tells us "do not think critically about this doctrine" is throwing up a huge red flag. Anyone can get away with anything using that line. How many dictators over the ages have told their subjects, "Do what I say, and don't question it"? Surely a God who is actually omniscient and omnibenevolent would have nothing to hide, and confidence that his perfect commandments could stand up to any level of critical scrutiny. Furthermore, teaching his followers to think critically about their experiences would help them greatly in avoiding those false idols. Galileo: "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
Interestingly Galileo was a believer in the Christian God and I think I recall reading that essay where that quote comes from. I am not saying, "don't question anything." In fact, I question pretty much everything everyday… much to the annoyance of people around me sometimes. I am saying that I think it is possible for someone to have an experience that is clear enough that doubting it is irrational just as doubting one's existence as Descartes tried to only led to the collapse of his theories. Perhaps questioning is ok, but doubting a different thing. I guess we might have to get into more detail before I have my views set on this.
So let's say two people, Alice and Bob, have two competing religious experiences. Both feel that their experience is genuine and clear. Alice's is real, but Bob's is not. You say that it is irrational for Alice to doubt hers, but surely it cannot be irrational for Bob to doubt his. So what can Bob do? And how can one know if they've had an Alice experience or a Bob experience?
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No, I'm not buying that definition in the slightest.
Primarily because I create unnecessary suffering for myself on a regular basis. That's not God's fault, it's my own.
Not saying that's equivalent to the fawn thing, but it still presents a problem with what you're arguing.
Wait, when was it ever claimed that the nature of our universe or our existence was optimal? That's certainly not what Christianity claims.
You only have that opportunity because of choices god made in the design and creation of the universe. God could have instead created a slightly different universe where your action that causes you unnecessary suffering would have had a different, less harmful result.
If god is omnibenevolent, he must select and create the universe which minimizes net suffering and evil. Otherwise, it will be the case that he had a choice between two potential universes, and chose the one with more net suffering and evil. This clearly is in direct conflict with the definition of omnibenevolence.
But that's beside the point. If God put me in a better universe, I would still find ways of getting in my own way and making irresponsible choices. I'm not talking about the consequences of my actions, I'm talking about the choices I make personally. Often do I act against myself — I think that's something we can say for all of us — and that is a source of suffering.
And that's my own doing. I have the full capacity to act in a different way, I just choose not to.
I don't believe that it is for a second.
The questions we must ask are why do we suffer, and why is there evil?
Which can only really be answered after defining what evil is, and what suffering is. We can, at least loosely, define evil as immorality. Suffering is a significantly harder to define. We can look at the Wikipedia definition, which defines it as, "an experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual." This seems like a good starting point.
But I dislike this definition for three reasons. One is that one can suffer without necessarily experiencing pain or fear in the form of malaise or ennui. The second is that we can suffer without necessarily knowing we suffer. The third is that if we were reprogrammed to feel great joy instead of aversion at the experience of pain or danger, we would all die out as a species, and while we could say that this unfortunate version of the human race "died without suffering," but we can also say that the human race suffered greatly due to the lack of suffering. This makes suffering quite difficult to define, as one can suffer without suffering.
Which kind of segues into a major problem I have with your argument. You are arguing that any instance in which God chooses a situation with more suffering and evil over a world in which there would be less suffering and evil, he is behaving in an evil way. I do not believe this logically follows, and indeed, the biggest problem I have with this is that by your logic, God would necessarily have to choose the universe in which there is no suffering and no evil, for there is no positive number less than zero.
But are these preferable? You seem to be arguing for the inherent preferability (is that a word?) of these scenarios, which I don't agree with.
In fact, I think you have it totally backward. I think the fact that God choosing a world in which we have suffering and malevolence demonstrates God's benevolence over the alternative.
It has nothing to do with whether you have free will. Free will is the method by which you make your choices, not the outcomes that those choices result in.
Free will is not want grants you the capacity to suffer. Suffering is a result of your choices, not the choice itself.
I said NET suffering. I think we all agree that suffering is allowed if it is the option that causes the largest amount of offsetting greater good. Thus, if choosing between the empty universe and a universe with a little suffering and a lot of happiness, God should choose the latter.
I completely disagree there. Suffering does not solely stem from the consequences of one's actions.
But you just contradicted yourself. There is far greater net suffering in the latter universe than in the empty void universe, as there is zero suffering in the empty void universe and a positive amount of suffering in the latter universe.
Yes, God should choose the latter universe, but it isn't because of "net suffering," whatever that even means.
I don't think I'm understanding what you mean here.
Can you give an example?
Perhaps "net suffering" is not a good term, as I don't think you're reading it in the way I intended. What I mean is to capture the idea that suffering can be balanced out by greater good. We would both agree that it is preferable to have a little bit of suffering but a lot of joy than it is to have none of either. The "net suffering" in the first case is negative - there is more joy and happiness than there is suffering.
When God is presented with the choice between all possible universes, he should not choose the one with no suffering, he should choose the one which comes out the most ahead in the suffering vs happiness/joy/whatever tradeoff. This will be the action of maximal benevolence. If god does not choose that universe to create, it means he instead created a universe with more suffering and less happiness.
Further, the granularity that god is offered in this choice of universes is pretty fine. He could create a universe that is exactly like ours except that one tiny, insignificant amount of suffering was just the smallest bit less intense. He could alternatively create a universe which is entirely alien to ours, full of beings that experience suffering and happiness in a completely different manner which makes the tradeoff between the two extremely one-sided. God could have created the universe exactly as described in Genesis, complete with a literal Garden of Eden, but left out the tree. In order for God to be omnibenevolent it must be the case that every one of these options would have resulted in more suffering/less happiness than our universe as it is.
I'll leave what I said in regards to the problem of evil for now. I would like to stress though that I think my most relevant point is that we should not expect to know God's purpose in permitting suffering. We certainly seem to agree that God could have a purpose in allowing some suffering (i.e. Plantinga), and, as I said, if we were only to consider suffering in the world I would think that we should be agnostics. However, this is certainly not the only thing to consider when considering the existence of God.
As for God's omniscience and knowing the future I will have to admit that this is not a topic I have looked at enough. Free-will is probably one of the more complicated philosophical topics even if it is discussed not in the context of religion.
However, if it is necessary to take my layman mind to the topic I would take a guess and say that freewill is the ability to do something you want to do without being compelled or forced to do so.
In this sense, it would seem possible to me for God to know the future and yet still we have freewill. We would have freewill because we are doing what we want to do. For example, if an apple is in front of me and a cow liver, I would pick the apple as this is what I like better. I was not compelled to do anything, and therefore I freely chose the apple. Therefore, I had freewill. However, if someone stuck a gun to my head and told me to eat the liver, I would not in that moment be exercising freewill in choosing the liver. However, there is enough freewill in this life to make human beings develop moral character… even among prisoners and captives.
Under the definition I gave (which I happen to think is a pretty solid one), this would not be a violation of God's freewill as God would never want to do evil. If freewill means the freedom to choose what you want, God would have freewill provided he chooses what he wants so even if he couldn't choose to sin it wouldn't be a violation of his freewill as he has the freedom to do what he pleases to do.
As for Plantinga's view that humans must not be programmed only to do good, that you summed up I would have to confess that I haven't gone through his book and don't know exactly what he would say. I think though, that God, just has humans, has the "capacity" to do evil in the sense that he has the means to do so… For example, if God wished to throw down lighning bolts and hit people for no reason at all he definitely has the power to control the weather. However, He would never do that, not because he has no capability, but because he would never have the will to do so. And under the definition of freewill I gave, he would still have freewill as he isn't being compelled not to sin, he doesn't want to sin and so compelling never comes into the picture.
Who is deciding? Society as a whole? Or individual persons? For religion, I don't think society as a whole has the ability to objectively decide which religion is true. However, an individual person can have a personal experience that they can use objective means to evaluate. For example, I can question myself to see if I have had such an experiences with other beliefs (in fact I have had many experiences and have been a part of different religions and I have never experienced anything like I have with Christian belief. Everything else appears a quite literally a shadow of the real thing. A terrible attempt to imitate the real thing… much like a counterfeit appears obvious when compared to the real thing). I can question myself to ask if I am believing for bad reasons. Am I believing only because I want this to be true? Am I believing because of some other bad motives? These questions are a way for a person to use objective means to evaluate personal experience. And as I have shown in other posts, just because something cannot be proven doesn't mean it cannot be rationally believed. I think your whole case here relies upon assuming that when someone looks at the matter from the outside no conclusion can be reached. However, obviously personal experience is not accessible from the outside. It is something that has to be experienced to be known. And you are in no position to say simply from looking from the outside that all religious experience is equal and it is irrational to believed based upon it.
I'm not sure what blinking spirit said that you are referring to, so you are going to have to quote it if you find it was that relevant. To respond to what you said here, you seem to be operating under a number of assumptions I would not share. First you say that all these people have the exact same experience. However, I would disagree that experiences among religious people of different religions are all the same. As I mentioned in this post I have been a follower of different religious beliefs in my life and nothing compares to the experience I have had in Christianity. I think what you gave is more of a stereotype of religious experience than what it actually is. However, say that we have five people who actually experience God and only one of them accepts God. (perhaps this isn't an accurate representation of what usually happens, or perhaps this never happens, I don't know) Does that mean that the other four, who have in their mind that this was the Muslim God or something, have experienced something vague? Not at all. Human beings are quite apt to misinterpret things. Even with the example of a movie, there are instances where some people can be objectively right and some objectively wrong, even if it is unprovable.
For example, imagine they disagree about what the author of the script intended to communicate by killing off the main character. In this instance there may be an objective answer to the question. We might be able to even ask the author what is intent was and he may say something like, "I intended to portray the main character as a noble martyr, therefore I had to kill him off." However, say that someone thinks his intent was to portray the main character as a person that died because he got what he deserved (being a bad guy). That would be an objectively wrong interpretation of the author's intent even if the author didn't ever publicly say why he killed off the main character.
As for knowledge I would be happy to agree that what matters is rational and justified belief. (though I would avoid using the word, "knowledge" altogether as I think it is misleading since it implies certainty).
In this example you say that "my experience is such that there was no other way than to conclude that it my experience was divine in nature." Under the premise of your experience, I would absolutely think that you should believe it from God. Since in such an undeniable experience you would have been told that the world is going to end tomorrow, you would definitely have the right to believe that this is so. However, me from the outside, I cannot judge if you did experience God truly or not. Publically, we cannot say either way whether you experienced God or are mistaken. You might be either. But you, privately, if you have done everything you can to ensure you are not crazy or to ensure that you are not mistaken, you would definitely be rational in believing something that you have so much private evidence for.
It may not always be possible to judge whether or not something is or is not the case publicly. However, that doesn't mean you are never able to trust in things which cannot be publicly proven. (as in many examples I have given in past posts)
Thanks again for a stimulating discussion. I cannot promise it wont take me a week or so sometimes to respond as this takes quite a lot of time.
Cheers,
- Jeff
What objective method can one apply that would lead these people to conclude that they are mistaken and should return to Christianity, but would not lead you to the same conclusion that you should return to one of your former religions? It seems to me that the methods you list could not accomplish this. What value are these methods if they cannot distinguish between the person who has found the correct religion and the person who has converted away from it?
To give an example from me, I've dealt with cripplingly low self-esteem for a number of years. It took me a long time to accept myself as a person. Still working on that.
So I understand the concept of a person getting in his own way, and that definitely caused me all kinds of emotional pain and turmoil. So that's a form of suffering that isn't necessarily caused by actions. It didn't matter what I was doing, I was harming myself from the thoughts in my head. And this is what I mean when I say that this is a form of suffering that I inflict upon myself that has nothing to do with God. I'm doing it on my own. God's not working against me. I am choosing to work against myself.
Incidentally, that's also a form of suffering that doesn't really correspond to a "greater good" transaction. There's absolutely nothing beneficial about that kind of suffering. There's no meaning or higher purpose for it. It's totally unnecessary. It's happening because I choose to inflict totally unnecessary suffering on myself.
Well, actually what i think you meant is "net happiness," and I think I am reading it the way you intended, I just disagree with what you're saying because...
But that's the thing, I don't believe that suffering is some sort of "negative happiness." I don't believe it's a matter as simple as taking total happiness, subtracting the suffering, and then getting the net happiness. I don't think it works that way.
Let me try to explain where I'm going with this: I think there's something very astute about how Buddhism perceives suffering. See, in Buddhism it's not about a great conflict of good versus evil, or humanity being sinful. Rather, it's a matter of human beings suffering. That's the fundamental problem, that people suffer. And the reason why people suffer is because of our attachments to that which is temporary, fleeting, and evanescent.
And I think that's profound, and very true. I agree that it is our attachments to things that are temporary that cause us suffering. But where I disagree with that is I don't believe we are supposed to stop suffering. Rather, I believe we are supposed to suffer. I think instead that we are meant to embrace it. Not that I believe that suffering is the goal, butt I believe it is inevitable, and it is not necessarily something we should avoid, because I believe suffering naturally arises with forming attachments.
If I hear someone died that I didn't know, a person who had no real presence in my life, I won't suffer because of it, because I didn't know that person. I wouldn't enjoy that person dying, mind you, and I might feel a little bit bad for the people who cared about that person, but I'm not going to feel much of anything. I won't suffer. But a person who cared about that person would suffer. Depending on how much they cared, they might suffer greatly.
Now it's easy to see a remedy to end the suffering. Just live our lives without attachments. But I don't think we want to do that.
Nobody goes around thinking, "Man, I hope I feel tremendous emotional anguish today." Not anyone sane at any rate. But I believe it is a gift to feel sad, to feel deeply miserable. It means something matters to you. A movie called "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" comes to mind. In it, a heartbroken character decides he wants to forget his ex-girlfriend because she hurt him that badly, but realizes that this is a terrible mistake.
I think we want pain, at least some, in our lives.
I don't think suffering necessarily brings us meaning, but I do think that meaning allows us to bear suffering willingly, or even enthusiastically. Think of all the athletes in the world who feel satisfaction at what they've accomplished in spite of the difficulty, or the people who endure great sacrifice for a cause they believe in, and who regard the hardships they endured with great pride.
It is true that suffering is not necessarily what we want. Nobody believes that cruelty is good. But I don't believe that suffering is the opposite of what we want either.
Well, take for example Brave New World. Brave New World is about happiness without suffering. Soma offers highs without side effects, people do not attach themselves to meaningful relationships and therefore are never disappointed, scarcity has been eliminated and sex is freely offered so the base biological urges are fulfilled, people are desensitized to death so that the sight of someone dying becomes banal (at least not most of the time, to say more would be a spoiler warning), and of course the media remains bland and unchallenging to not evoke any real controversy, thought, or emotion.
What's missing? Passion. Passion is missing in that society, which becomes a problem when they go out and bring a savage with them. The savage, John, sees the society and its manufactured bliss as hollow and empty, because it completely lacks any meaning.
And I think that's what we're seeking, beyond anything else. I think we're seeking meaning, purpose, fulfillment, moreso than happiness.
Think about it: people give up their own happiness voluntarily for the sake of others all of the time. People will even risk death for another person's well-being. Why? It must give them something. And I don't think it's happiness, because I don't think anyone particularly likes being shot at, or going into a burning building, or having to defuse a bomb.
But they still do it. So there's got to be something, something that makes them keep doing it. And I think that thing is a sense of purpose or meaning. Fulfillment. (EDIT: Eudaimonia seems to be the word I'm looking for.)
Does what I'm saying make sense? I tend to ramble.
This is why I haven't continued discussing with you. I don't find it helpful to discuss with someone when they are accusing me personally. I'm not upset about it, but I thought you deserved an explanation. I am all about getting into depth as I am with Foxblade, I just feel no one is benefitted when people are having a contentious argument.
Well, for an expansive definition of "actions".
Is mental illness really someone choosing to inflict unnecessary suffering on themselves? I don't think it is.
I'm afraid I don't really follow how this relates to the question at hand. Are you saying you reject entirely the notion that benevolence is found in minimizing suffering?
And you're doing the same thing to FoxBlade and Tiax. Read Tiax's newest post very carefully. It's the most succinct statement of the problem with your reasoning that we've been trying to get you to address since this discussion started. When you respond, don't just repeat some variation on "I believe my religious experiences and interpretations thereof are more reliable than other people's", because that does not resolve the problem - it is the problem.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I am not just repeating myself. I am really trying to answer people's objections and I am reading their posts and responding to their newest points as best I can. Fruitful discussion requires mutual charity and if you are going to accuse me of not responding to something point out what I am not responding to and I will respond directly to it. I enjoy answering difficult questions. (Tiax's post I was already planning to respond to today) I also want to make clear that I don't intend to argue that Christianity is true because I believe I have experienced God… and I hope that is not your understanding.
Tiax, I appreciate the question... I found it quite intellectually stimulating to answer. I don't know that there is some formula or method to discover what is a true experience of God and what is not. But that doesn't mean that the experience of God could not be trusted. After all, if there is indeed a God, He is quite capable of giving one an experience that brings confidence of His existence. Why think that a method would be necessary to discover His existence? Why think that God can be discovered through mankind's reason? Western thought in the Enlightenment thought that you could use method to discover all truth. However, in the hundreds of years since then that view is no longer the consensus in philosophy. For example, Descartes attempt to rest all knowledge on reason (I think, therefore I am), is no longer taken seriously, for, if nothing is being assumed, it should only be concluded something like, "there is thought." There is no objective method to discern whether or not we are currently in some kind of dream, whether or not we are in a sort of matrix, whether something is morally right or wrong, whether or not we are in love, etc… I am not even sure that there is an objective method we can apply to know when to trust someone. It seems more of an intuitive experience, telling when someone is trustworthy.
It also seems to me that to ask for a method as to whether an experience is from God is to put faith on the foundation of doubt. Try in your relationships to doubt everyone, it has actually caused me quite a bit of difficulty in my own personal life. Imagine a scenario. Imagine God really did give someone an experience of Him that was clear enough such that the person should believe that this was from God. Now, if this person who has already been given a clear experience tries to apply a method to find out whether or not the experience is from God, is he not doubting what God has made clear to him? Is he not then doubting God? Why should God make relationship with Him have doubting God Himself as a necessary part of the relationship and what brings a person close to God? In fact, doubting communication from God seems to be thought of as one of the greatest sins in the bible. (i.e. Moses doubting God would bring water out of the rock during the exodus) Why should God put one of the greatest sins as a necessary condition to know that God is communicating? Thankfully God is gracious to those who doubt (such as myself… everyday), but my point is that to expect a method to "find out" if an experience is from God might be fundamentally a flawed way to reason.
My whole point is that there was no method or strategy. I wrote a long post, I would think you would take my points in detail and respond to them.
Seeing as proving or disproving something that people tend to be very closed-minded about, despite what side of the fence upon you sit, agreeing to disagree is about as far as we're likely to get to a consensus.
Maybe it's from God, maybe it's not.
If it's from God, the Bible says she shouldn't doubt it.
If it's not from God, the fundamental truth imperative* says she should doubt it (as, for what it's worth, does the Bible - no false idols, right?).
How is she to determine whether she should doubt it or not?
In order to make that determination, she has to find out whether the experience is from God.
Which you have defined as doubt.
She has to doubt God in order to determine that she shouldn't doubt God.
And if she tries to escape this trap by not doubting the experience from the outset, then she may be worshiping a false idol, and she has no way to tell.
This scenario only works out well for Alice if you assume from the outset that her experience is from God. Which is blatantly begging the question.
On another note, any doctrine that tells us "do not think critically about this doctrine" is throwing up a huge red flag. Anyone can get away with anything using that line. How many dictators over the ages have told their subjects, "Do what I say, and don't question it"? Surely a God who is actually omniscient and omnibenevolent would have nothing to hide, and confidence that his perfect commandments could stand up to any level of critical scrutiny. Furthermore, teaching his followers to think critically about their experiences would help them greatly in avoiding those false idols. Galileo: "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
*"Believe true propositions and disbelieve false propositions."
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
No, you were talking about actions as acts taken that can result in consequences. C'mon, let's not play word games here.
No, but that's also not what I was saying.
I'm saying people can get in their own way through thoughts and attitudes, and that's a result of their own choosing, not their actions happening to have terrible consequences.
I'm saying that's not necessarily true.
I will draw your attention back to something I said:
Perhaps I don't understand what you mean by "get in their own way".
Suppose that Bob suffers from social anxiety, and therefore chooses to live alone and does not seek out relationships. Bob ends up lonely and sad. Now, it's not as if Bob pressed the "no friends" button that God had cruelly set up. The only reason Bob is alone is because of Bob's own internal feelings and choices. Is this an example of Bob "getting in his own way"?
It sounds like what you're saying is that although suffering is bad, we need some of it because it seems to come as a package with other desirable things. I'm pretty sure we're on the same page on that. Am I reading you right?
I don't think that discussion is pointless if that is what you are implying. Personally I used to be an atheist, and finding that there were rational responses to objections was helpful in my journey to become a Christian. Also, were you agreeing with the quote from Jay? I wasn't sure. If so, I have a response.
It seems to me that you might be assuming from the outset that her experience is ambiguous or unreal. For if it was both unambiguous and real, it seems that it wouldn't be irrational to accept it without doubting it.
This is the logic… consider a possible scenario (doesn't have to be actual). Alice does have a genuine experience of God which is clear enough such that doubting it is like doubting that killing innocent people for fun is wrong (something else quite possible to do). Would she, in that instance, need to, or be rationally obligated to try to figure out something is real that she has already seen is actually real?
Of course I cannot assume in this discussion that God exists or such people like Alice exist who have such experiences. I don't think I am using circular logic. I am only saying that it could be that such people like Alice exist and that they would be rational if they did. And it seems clear that you disagree with that.
Interestingly Galileo was a believer in the Christian God and I think I recall reading that essay where that quote comes from. I am not saying, "don't question anything." In fact, I question pretty much everything everyday… much to the annoyance of people around me sometimes. I am saying that I think it is possible for someone to have an experience that is clear enough that doubting it is irrational just as doubting one's existence as Descartes tried to only led to the collapse of his theories. Perhaps questioning is ok, but doubting a different thing. I guess we might have to get into more detail before I have my views set on this.