Round Table on Morality, Theology, and Ethics
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| Author | Topic: Round Table on Morality, Theology, and Ethics |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Thursday, February 22 2007 12:26
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Garrison: I'd term your position atheist, not agnostic. Disbelief in God until proven otherwise is disbelief; agnosticism is believing that the existence of God is unknowable. Kel: It gets worse. What if we accept the many-world interpretation and say that God created an infinite or nearly infinite number of branching universes? (Yes, we're mixing physics and God. Both will survive.) The many worlds cover the spectrum from completely good to completely evil. What does that mean? I've always found it most personally satisfying to believe that somehow our understanding of good and evil is too limited to be meaningful to God, but I'll admit that I don't lose sleep over it and that if I were losing sleep I'd probably look for a better answer. Dintiradan: That's actually one of the hypotheses for the evolution of altruistic behavior, emotions of obligation and shame, and other socially necessarily but individually unhelpful traits. We're programmed to work together with anyone who will work together with us, and to some extent we're programmed to assume good faith. In other words, genetics are a lot like Wikipedia. —Alorael, who agrees that religion is groupthink. He's just not sure that groupthink is inherently evil and destructive. Benevolent dictatorship is the best form of government except in practice, so why can't religion be the best form of faith when managed as no real religions are? Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Thursday, February 22 2007 15:35
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quote:It seems to me that calling a "choice" that isn't consciously made a "choice" at all is twisting the meaning of the word almost beyond recognition. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Agent
Member # 2820
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written Thursday, February 22 2007 16:39
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quote:Unfortunately, there are two general definitions for agnosticism whose differences actually matter in this case. I might be using it in a frowned-upon way, but for me agnosticism always signifies intense skepticism over the existence of god, which leads directly to the weak theological ambivalence that is characteristic of so many of us noncommittal types. I do not want to muddle the definitions even further, but I do want to point out that I believe it is impossible to know that there is no god. -------------------- Thuryl: I mean, most of us don't go around consuming our own bodily fluids, no matter how delicious they are. ==== Alorael: War and violence would end if we all had each other's babies! ==== Drakefyre: Those are hideous mangos. Posts: 1415 | Registered: Thursday, March 27 2003 08:00 |
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By Committee
Member # 4233
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written Thursday, February 22 2007 17:26
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quote:An absolute what? Natural law? Even if you believe (there's that word again) that it can be arrived at rationally, it's still ultimately a fiction - an optimistic fiction, but a fiction nonetheless. Fortunately, it seems to be a fiction that most of society has been willing to accept, and has been the basis for many modern constitutional forms of government. Unfortunately, it doesn't always jive well with certain religious traditions which aren't content to live and let live. EDIT: As for groupthink, I don't think that it is necessarily inherently evil, but in the same way that I don't think tobacco is inherently evil. I do think using either, however, is a bad idea. Groupthink frequently results in a lack of perspective, which all too often has lead to hubris, then ate, and then inevitable, soul-crushing nemesis. And no one likes that. [ Thursday, February 22, 2007 17:31: Message edited by: Drew ] Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Thursday, February 22 2007 17:45
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quote:Apparently the age-old question that I was addressing wasn't clear. I wasn't trying to speak to, "If God cares about us and wants us to do good things, why do good people suffer?" I was addressing, "If God exists, do we have truly free will beyond God's choices?" The answer is definitely no, under the usual constraints, but that only shows how absurd the usual constraints are, and a probabilistic universe is the easiest way out of this problem. quote:The ability to make a decision not controlled by God. With "controlled," I am referring to being compelled into our decision by God's conscious choice, whether we know that we are compelled to do so or not. quote:What does it mean? What does it have to do with anything? quote:This leads to another one of those awful questions: If we, as you then say, cannot truly understand good and evil, can we truly sin? It seems unacceptable to damn a person for sin committed in ignorance, but God seems perfectly capable of doing things that seem unacceptable if we reason along these lines. quote:This is one of the choices as to answer this far more difficult question ("Why do good people suffer?"), of course: simply giving up. I dislike the idea that there are things in the universe that humans in principle cannot understand, but I don't have any rigorous proof that no such things can exist. I find this answer totally unacceptable, but I can't give any good reasons why. I find, "We don't know right now, so let's stop thinking about it at the moment," much better than, "We can't ever know, so let's never think about it again." I should add to all of this that I don't actually believe in "God," just for the record. I much prefer my own take on religion, which is loosely influenced by modern humanism and loosely influenced by traditional Greco-Roman religion (in which "belief" was simply not an issue). But these would be my objections, were I a theology student centuries ago. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Thursday, February 22 2007 18:21
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quote:If you really want to stretch coincidence that you can have both of these be true. Moses hears voices and as a result of knowledge on how to perform "magic" that he learned as an Egyptian prince and random events like a volcanic eruption he convinces the Egyptians to let the Jews go. Everything that Moses "hears from God" are either ideas he has or learned. Enough of the events from Exodus have natural explanations that there maybe no supernatural interventation. Over that much time we can determine what really happened since there is no other record of events. It's possible to make a case either way that both axioms are true or mutually exclusive. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Thursday, February 22 2007 20:19
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quote:Here's a good reason: such a philosophy makes all human thought and action entirely purposeless. If all that matters is what God wants us to do, and it's impossible in principle for us to know the mind of God, then there's absolutely no way of knowing that any one course of action is better than any other. We can try to do what God has supposedly told us to do, but since we don't understand the mind of God, for all we know God may actively want us to disobey him. In fact, if God's motives and desires are unknowable, it seems that the most sensible thing to do is act exactly as we would if God didn't exist, since if there is a God that's just as likely as anything else to be what God wants us to do (and in fact, if there is an omnipotent and omniscient God, we are very likely to end up doing exactly what God wants us to do whether we know it or not), and if there isn't a God then it's only reasonable to act accordingly. (And if you think I just used a version of Pascal's Wager to argue for atheism, you're probably right.) [ Thursday, February 22, 2007 20:23: Message edited by: Cryptozoology ] -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 4153
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written Friday, February 23 2007 07:38
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quote:I thought that looked familiar... well done, Thuryl. Yeah, that pretty much sums up how I feel about it all. No self-respecting God would care about things like professional athletes' careers, or rappers getting awards... as SoT mentioned with the Job example, (s)he's got better things to do. In the end, I just hope that even if I end up being wrong about the whole God thing, (s)he isn't a complete tool... otherwise, I'm burning. :D -------------------- Gamble with Gaea, and she eats your dice. I hate undead. I really, really, really, really hate undead. With a passion. Posts: 4130 | Registered: Friday, March 26 2004 08:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 6670
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written Friday, February 23 2007 13:22
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By Thuryl: quote:Um... okaaay. There's really not much more to be said. By Eph: quote:True, I agree that there's better things for apologists to do than protest salaries or awards. But as far as I can tell, saying that God doesn't concern himself with athletes or rappers is saying that morality is not a factor in these things. Remember, omnipotence is a characteristic of most deities; they don't ignore things because they 'have better things to do'. ;) EDIT: Spellitg. -------------------- All the plants in my house are dead---I shot them last night. I was teasing them by watering them with ice cubes. - Steven Wright [ Friday, February 23, 2007 13:22: Message edited by: Dintiradan ] Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Friday, February 23 2007 20:29
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quote:If you're going to argue that God can do what he wants and there's nothing we can do about it, you have to take the "there's nothing we can do about it" part seriously. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, February 24 2007 09:09
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quote:Hmmm; a good point. I was taking 'choice' to mean a logically arbitrary selection, as opposed to a rational conclusion. This is one standard usage of the term, not a twisting; I think it's the choice in the Axiom of Choice, for instance. Also, many of what I call unconscious choices can become conscious, if they are analyzed. Every now and then I stop and think about why I just assume the sun will rise tomorrow. And insofar as I understand why, I see a lot of choice based on pragmatic factors apart from evidence. Finally, my basic point is the standard non-foundationalist line, that nothing is ever entirely rational, and everything requires some amount of assumption. From a rational point of view, the tiniest amount of leaven leavens the whole lump; one can't really be mostly rigorous. So the notion that one is simply convinced by evidence, or not, seems to me inadequate to account for how we reach even the most trivial conclusions. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, February 24 2007 09:27
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quote:One doesn't necessarily have to stop thinking about it. We may never attain God's perspective, but that doesn't mean we can't get anywhere towards it. Partial understanding is a very difficult concept to pin down; it's not easy to avoid the conclusion that one either understands something, or one does not. But I'm convinced that partial understanding does somehow hold water as a concept; I'm sure that there is some sense in which one can have some truth despite not having it all. And as a Christian I hold the hope that I might eventually understand, in another world; though a theologian I know has pointed out that this hope, although common among Christians, is not really based on anything in the Bible or Christian tradition. Certainly there are many awful things whose justification I don't expect to understand in this life, and that does suck. My inability to understand sucks very much less, however, than the fact these awful things exist. It's not even all that high on the list, really, of tough things that I expect to have to deal with in life. So what I take to be the Biblical answer to the problem of evil is perhaps an answer as opposed to a solution. By no means does it make evil okay, or even, in itself, make it much easier to bear. To me at least, though, it does make faith in God possible, despite evil. [ Saturday, February 24, 2007 09:34: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Saturday, February 24 2007 12:27
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The existence of evil makes more sense if there is a God Who: A) Is actually sovereign and in control of the bounds of the experience of humankind (it will not be permitted to go too far.) B) Has brought humankind into existence to have experience, learn lessons, grow up, and be prepared for something even more meaningful yet to come. C) Has purposes for each soul beyond this current, solitary physical life. D) Relegates no one to some permanent fixed fate merely because their heart stopped beating. E) Makes good on the promises God made that all things will be made new, filled with God, will come to know God, will live in harmony and peace. -If this present experience isn't the end of the matter, and God is a God of rebirth, redemption, and transformation ultimately, then evil and death have no ultimate power. There is suffering, yes. There is no absolute victory of evil over life and truth though. Perhaps the biggest problem with the present Christian portrayal of God is that He is not really omnipotent, and that Christianity has invited in the formerly pagan concepts of a fiery, punitive afterlife into its language, either adopting it errantly, or permitting its symbolic spiritual imagery to be dragged down to literal processes. There is a scripture that states, "Our God is a consuming fire." Sounds ilke if you want to enter into this God, you are going to step into fire. But who said that is supposed to be a terrible thing on a spiritual level? -S- -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 4153
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written Saturday, February 24 2007 15:25
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You see, I see the point of that, but B) and C) just get me thinking "Why wouldn't an omniscient and omnipotent God just make people to fit those specifications from the get-go?" If I'm wrong and there is a god or gods, I'm sure that their only real purpose for humanity is the entertainment value. -------------------- Gamble with Gaea, and she eats your dice. I hate undead. I really, really, really, really hate undead. With a passion. Posts: 4130 | Registered: Friday, March 26 2004 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Saturday, February 24 2007 15:36
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There's something incomparable to gaining a thing and learning a thing by experience. The most popular love story formula is: boy meets girl, boy loves girl, boy loses girl, boy wins back girl, boy and girl find love together. There is something richer about having to struggle and fight and work for our goal than just have it handed to us. We don't comprehend or appreciate its quality and value the same without having lost or lacked it for a time. The idea is that God's pleasure is also for our fulfillment, not merely God wanting to fashion something amusing and pleasing for Godself. God's nature seems to be to endless expansion and myriad facets of expression, seen in the uniqueness of each individual and the ever-expanding family of humanity. Also, if humans are all a part of God and infused and linked with a part of the spirit that is said to be God, then God is having experience through us and as us as well. -S- -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Saturday, February 24 2007 16:11
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You are trying to ascribe human motives to God with the idea that learning is better than being born with the knowledge. The idea of an afterlife is a pagan concept that was adapted by Christianity. It medival times it allowed the church to convince the lower classes that they should obey their betters in order to achieve a reward in the afterlife instead of torment. It was a great way to keep the masses in line and even the nobles since the Catholic church could excommunicate them. The whole Henry VIII becoming head of his own church to gain control of his afterlife and be able to do what he wanted in this life. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Saturday, February 24 2007 16:30
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I won't disagree with you about Christian history. The King James version of the Bible was translated into English under political auspices and contained some 10, 000 documented translational errors initially. There is great power in words and concepts. "Hell" itself is an old English word that originally meant a hidden place. To "hell your potatoes" meant to hoe them under the earth out of sight. Now the word hell through popular assocation with the Bible has a horrific implication. Randomizer said: quote:I am operating in this view of God under the assumption or belief that humankind is created with a link to the Divine and a nature that reflects the nature of God (our heart and drive and what fulfills us is akin somehow to the heart and drive and fulfillment of God.) The suggestion is an intimate link between God and us. In knowing ourselves, we know a lot about God. I'm suggesting that it is God's wisdom that there is a purpose in experience, and what we gain through it, over merely being immediately placed into some ideal position. Moreover, because this view of God suggests there is no end to experience and expansion, and therefore learning, it is the very nature of the whole reason we are here: to grow up perpetually and take on more and more, better and better in doing so. This is by nature an endlessly experiential and learning process. I like to think of evil as the lack of thing, rather than an opposite/negative thing, just as darkness isn't a thing, but just the absence of light. Evil exists by default where there is a lack of light (vision/clarity/truth/real being in a spiritual sense.) Evil can be likened to the Biblical meaning of the word "sin" which is an archery term meaning to "fall short of the mark." Evil is what we naturally wind up doing when we don't yet know what we are doing and do things less than ideally. If we still operate out of fear, a sense of lack, and under false perceptions, we do foolish, selfish, and hurtful things. -S- -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Saturday, February 24 2007 18:49
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I think your definition of evil leaves out acts like genocide where the action is not out of ignorance, but a deliberate action to achieve an end that is destructive. There you are not falling short of a goal, but chosing a goal that has negative effects. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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Canned
Member # 7704
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written Sunday, February 25 2007 04:15
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Can't we have faith in life Instead having faith in an idol or a god. Why the need of a religion of many people? Can't we belive in our selves insed of others? Religion comes from the word RELIGAS : to BINE the PEOPLE. To Bine an empire where people have a commun ground. [ Sunday, February 25, 2007 04:22: Message edited by: upon mars ] -------------------- You can jump off a bridge, fire a gun in your mouth, drink poison,or going in to the tiger's pit but you will still end up dead it's a mater of time and how . Posts: 312 | Registered: Sunday, November 26 2006 08:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 5360
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written Sunday, February 25 2007 07:56
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Because that ideal has very little popular appeal. It is more comforting to believe in an idol or higher power than to believe that you must depend on yourself, and that you are to blame for the things you did. -------------------- May the fires of Undeath burn in your soul, and consume it. Posts: 1636 | Registered: Wednesday, January 5 2005 08:00 |
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Councilor
Member # 6600
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written Sunday, February 25 2007 08:07
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Originally by Upon Mars: quote:Eventually, you're going to massively screw up, and then what are you going to do? And if you do it with the wrong attitude, well, nobody likes an egomaniac. Dikiyoba would like to know exactly how you define "faith in life." Is it just the belief that everything will work out okay or what? Posts: 4346 | Registered: Friday, December 23 2005 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Sunday, February 25 2007 08:21
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quote:Hrm. This interested me, so I looked it up, and the Oxford English Dictionary (on the English side) notes that the etymology is somewhat doubtful but probably from religare (to bind), or alternatively (and less likely) from relegere (to read again). The Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary (on the Latin side) gives the same thing, but also notes that, for example, "law" comes from the same "bind" root. As far as I can tell by the original Latin definition, religio had nothing to do with binding an empire together and much more to do with being constrained by the rules of right and wrong. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 4153
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written Sunday, February 25 2007 10:55
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Upon, I kind of agree... but I think it's more worthwhile to have a sort of faith in both ourselves and others. One of the things about hardcore conservative Christianity and the like is that it seems to depend on faith in a being that we seemingly cannot relate to outside of the religion itself, and whose existence we cannot be sure of. Thus, I prefer to believe in people, since we can be fairly certain of their existence, and it seems a bit more productive. (For the record, I acknowledge this sort of stuff, I just think it's not a very productive argument, though the brain in a vat concept is kind of funny.) quote:This is rather comforting, honestly. So yet again, it seems like religion as a concept falls into the category of "Seemed like a much better idea at the time." -------------------- Gamble with Gaea, and she eats your dice. I hate undead. I really, really, really, really hate undead. With a passion. Posts: 4130 | Registered: Friday, March 26 2004 08:00 |
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Canned
Member # 7704
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written Monday, February 26 2007 02:32
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Faith in life is to not to realize that you're standing on thin air or to acknowledge and realize the fact that you are on thin air (which is better than nothing) without blaming any one for it and that you're in an alien world without possible exit than death and the people around you are helpless since they are falling. About religare well law is for what it is to make people follow one line instead of running loose and wild but it is to secure people that leaders invented laws bine people create an empire to bind people so they are secure but security creates a problem the more you are secure the less you have rights. Law is there for control so it takes freedom of doing any thing you want. Well first it doesn't matter which side you go until you experience life in any way . We don't know how life ends so what about doing what you want to do while you're at it . If you want to be not social and go on drugs, go a head we don't care. It's your life mess it up as you want to . Kill hundreds,millions, every one. But don't cry when you'll have consequences from life. [ Monday, February 26, 2007 02:56: Message edited by: upon mars ] -------------------- You can jump off a bridge, fire a gun in your mouth, drink poison,or going in to the tiger's pit but you will still end up dead it's a mater of time and how . Posts: 312 | Registered: Sunday, November 26 2006 08:00 |
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Councilor
Member # 6600
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written Monday, February 26 2007 07:29
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Originally by Upon Mars: quote:Hmm. That's not how Dikiyoba would define "faith in life", but as long as it works for you... Posts: 4346 | Registered: Friday, December 23 2005 08:00 |