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View Poll Results: Why do you accept the proposition that a deity exists?
I know God through reason, science, etc. 3 7.89%
I accept God through belief or personal revelation 11 28.95%
Other 12 31.58%
I am an atheist but want to vote in this poll because polls are dope 12 31.58%
Voters: 38. You may not vote on this poll

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  #217  
Old August 27th, 2018, 10:27 PM
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Re: Food for Thought: A Discourse on Deities

Everybody has "Others." Perhaps countless ones, for every person. Those from a different social group; a different religious group; any one of countless different cultural upbringings. It's not bad to have them; it's human nature. Even if I traveled to Hawaii and spent the rest of my days there, I'm sure I'd be perceived as an "Other" to the natives and I'd see them as something different for me to try to empathize with, as well.

All I advocate for is to be mindful and respectful when taking steps that address those differently from yourself (again, not you personally). I'm not even saying I do a good job; I'm just saying I try to be mindful.

As for you personally, Aldin, I believe I specifically wrote above that you have always conducted yourself respectfully in these threads, and have always been respectful of honestly held differences of opinion. I've never felt like you were trying to sell me something I didn't want. On the contrary, we have the rare opportunity of open conversations here, where we can exchange ideas respectfully.

Regardless, we can be done. I apologize (again) if any of my words stung. I didn't intend them to, but I know these are very delicate subjects, among the most delicate, and I may not have been as careful as I should have been.

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  #218  
Old August 27th, 2018, 10:32 PM
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Re: Food for Thought: A Discourse on Deities

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper View Post
All I advocate for is to be mindful and respectful when taking steps that address those differently from yourself
Agreed. Peace, my friend.

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  #219  
Old September 2nd, 2018, 11:16 AM
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Re: Food for Thought: A Discourse on Deities

@Aldin

I want to touch on this first quote, before I tackle the preceding paragraphs.

Quote:
For me, I accept that it is different people being different and I respect their right to make those choices without it forcing any sort of judgment from me about who they are as a person. And make no mistake, that is the result of the method you propose. If everyone is either more or less rational than you, you are making value judgments about how "good" of a person someone is based on their decisions relative to your understanding of them. You make yourself the ultimate adjudicator of right and wrong. Seems like an awfully heavy burden to me. I prefer to accept others as my full equals even when I disagree with decisions they have made.
Of course, I accept the proposition that people make different choices than me, based on past experience and knowledge. When you say right and wrong though, or how good a person is, these terms by no means are applicable to moral standards (although I do believe by nature morality is subjective).


That said, I am making judgement calls based on objective standards, which yes, does allow me to determine how "good" someone is at a specific task. In the same way I can judge someone for being worse than me at riding a bike, or reciting the alphabet based on objective standards, so can I make a judgement call based on objective standards that someone is not making as rational decisions as I am.

This doesn't necessarily entail that a person is "better" or "worse" as a whole, merely that in the given subject matter someone is better than the other.

The final sentence I agree with in terms of morality, the ability for intellectual growth and so forth, but it's not useful when discussing the prowess one possesses in a given subject. Take a computer programmer and a pediatrician disagreeing on the diagnosis of a child. I would, as I am sure you would as well, take the authority of the pediatrician over that of the programmer as they do not have equality in the same field of expertise. Likewise, some people are better at rational process, and some people are worse. But just like the computer programmer and the pediatrician, where the pediatrician excels in pediatrics, the programmer excels elsewhere. Is one superior to the other? I would say not on the whole of it, but one is superior in one respect to the other, and vise-versa.

Quote:
Doesn't that do a pretty good job of describing the world you see around you - lots of people who are fully capable of living their lives making a bunch of decisions that are different from the ones you would make? Does it seem more likely to you that it is a function of everyone being either more or less rational than you, or does it seem more likely it is simply the result of different people being different?
Well, yes, it is people being different than me. But what is the difference? The difference is some people are more or less rational in a given subject, and others are not. I am agreeing there is a difference, the difference is the ability to reason through something. Some of my friends can reason through mathematics phenomenally well, whereas I'm lucky I passed calc. That said, when it comes to other subjects, I can grasp the subject matter and process is more firmly and quickly than they can. The difference is the ability to process and reason things in a superior or inferior way.

Quote:
Do I think my choice of God is better than choosing "not God"? Absolutely. But that doesn't make me better, smarter, cleverer, more clear-headed, or anything than the person who chooses "not God". They have their reasons and I respect that. Given the opportunity, I am happy to discuss those differences with the hope of showing them how wonderful the choice of God is, but that isn't the same thing as rejecting their ability to reason because they are in a different place from me with respect to that belief.
So to be clear, you do not see your set of beliefs as rationally superior to another set of beliefs?

Existential belief, as I define it, relates to the belief in the existence of a thing in a non-abstract manner. One has or lacks existential belief in their wife, one has or lacks existential belief in god, one has or lacks existential belief in the universe. The reason I exclude abstract concepts for my definition is that a unicorn exists abstractly, but not in reality. Existential belief is not a choice.

On to Lucifer and the angels -- So do you hold that it is entirely possible that Lucifer and the fallen angels where created without freewill, and instead were forced into hell not of their own accord, but by god? I think to deny angels freewill (which you haven't explicitly done, but haven't rejected either) leads to a number of problems pertaining to the concept of hell, suffering, the intellect as defined by Aristotle and Aquinas.

Finally, I retract my example of the avalanche, as you have rightly identified -- where I had failed to -- that the avalanche is correlation and not causation. (Oh boy. Maybe we should go into Hume and causation now )

Quote:
I'm really not entirely clear on where you were going with these. It seems you may be allowing for non-deterministic choice, but I'm not certain. Can you clarify?
The first one is simple, if you agree Satan and his angels had freewill, then your argument that god revealing himself to humans would hinder our freewill becomes inconsistent. God, by his nature is unable to hinder freewill, yet we know god revealed himself to the angels, so if they have freewill and if he revealed himself, then knowledge does not hinder choice, it merely informs it.

I do not believe I am allowing for non-deterministic knowledge. Non-deterministic choice I think is fine. I have been arguing that knowledge is not a choice, but rather a set of givens we use to inform choice. So choice is non-deterministic, but knowledge is deterministic (e.g. we know or do not know if god exists without choice, but given the knowledge of his existence, we can choose to love him).

For my argument, I am granting that knowledge once obtained is not a choice. Choices are informed by knowledge.

That said, I can also accept a purely deterministic worldview, as that just invalidates freewill all together and takes god down as well. But the argument I am presenting grants freedom of choice. Without freedom of choice the argument is no longer necessary as the god presented by most monotheistic religions becomes irrelevant.

~JS
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  #220  
Old September 4th, 2018, 11:09 AM
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Re: Food for Thought: A Discourse on Deities

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph Sweeney View Post
In the same way I can judge someone for being worse than me at riding a bike, or reciting the alphabet based on objective standards, so can I make a judgement call based on objective standards that someone is not making as rational decisions as I am.
Reciting the alphabet is an interesting way to approach this idea. First, I want to claim there is no such thing as a fully objective standard for doing so. There may be more or less agreed upon subjective standards, but there certainly isn't an objective one beyond, perhaps, "all the letters and in the proper order" (though I think you could easily make an argument that the proper order is not necessary, and depending on the purpose of the recitation, possibly not even all of the letters).

Spoiler Alert!


We tend to accept the ability to recite the alphabet of those who are capable of meeting the minimum requirement without insisting that there is a single superior way to do so. I might prefer the sing-song way of reciting while someone else might prefer to simply state the letters without any associated rhythm. Someone might recite more quickly or slowly and with various regional accents without any of those reciting being "better" or "worse" than others at reciting the alphabet.

I would propose that rationality is the same. Within the accepted basics of being rational, there can be variations which do not make those involved "more" or "less" rational based on those variations. If you were to subjectively claim that the recitation of the alphabet without intonation is superior to a sing-song recitation, you should realize that is subjective and I should be allowed to disagree without your claiming an objective judgment. It is the same with rational decisions. In my view, you are supplying subjective judgment against others based on whether or not they make decisions the way you do.

On to knowledge!

I kinda agree that you either know something or you don't. At the same time, I kinda reject the idea that you either know something or you don't. It seems to me that it is useful for us in our decision making process to know things. We tend not to leave a lot of things up in the air as "well, maybe" when we can determine what seems most likely, call it knowledge, and proceed from there.

For example, I know I'm not in a computer simulation of some sort. Except I don't, not really. I couldn't prove to you that this is not some sort of elaborate simulation based on any sort of evidence. I observe reality and choose to "know" that my experiences are real. It isn't completely a matter of knowing whether or not this is reality, it is also a matter of needing not to regularly evaluate my actions on the basis of the possibility this is all some sort of simulation.

We regularly assign things to the "known" column because it is not useful for us to constantly re-evaluate them. Given new information, many people will reevaluate those things (though some don't), but without new information it isn't useful. I used to know Pluto was a planet. Even after it was declared to not be so, I still knew Pluto was a planet for a while until I took the time to look at the new information and decide I needed to update what I "knew". In any case, it is not useful to me in general to think about whether or not Pluto is a planet and so I don't spend much energy putting my decision about it into the "known" section of my understanding. And in the question of things known, Pluto is interesting as an example because there are still any number of people who "know" it is a planet, while there are others who "know" it is not.

Like I said - with the angels, I don't know. I do think you are anthropomorphizing them. Without being able to make an equivalency between people and angels, I don't believe any of the rest of your argument holds. Also, please note that I do not believe that God is unable, by His nature, to limit free will. I believe that He is generally unwilling to do so with regard to humans because of the relationship He desires to share with us.

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  #221  
Old September 7th, 2018, 05:56 PM
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Re: Food for Thought: A Discourse on Deities

Not to be rude, but to be completely honest, why do people even bother with this debate? It has been going on for thousands of years, and there is still not even a remote basis for a consensus.

However, whether or not God exists, and whether or not people believe in him, or it, or whatever, "God" might be, seems to bear little meaning in the course that the world takes. People have shown again and again that they will believe in a God that fits THEIR interests, so what is the point of even believing in God? If a member of religion x gave you a solid argument for their God y, but said you had to abide by ridiculous rules a-z for the rest of your life, would you bother becoming a member of religion X? Highly unlikely, but you might take their argument into consideration and form a personal belief in God that is convenient for you and your life, personally.

Ultimately, people just try to enjoy life in their own ways. And on occasion we need to have at least a few beliefs to rationalize our existence. So be it.

However, actively arguing and debating about God in this life is about as ridiculous as logging on to your favorite video game server and then, instead of playing the game, spend the next hour debating with all the other players whether or not there is an active admin online.

Why does it matter? Just play the game. It is the same for life.

This is coming from someone who spent a few years absolutely drowning in philosophy, scientific inquiry, and every other imaginable pursuit during a search for meaning and truth. Even if you are a genius, eventually you just throw up your hands and say "screw it."

And that is the exact moment you become locked in a certain ideology for (probably) the rest of your life. So be careful when and where you make that digression, I guess.
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  #222  
Old September 7th, 2018, 09:46 PM
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Re: Food for Thought: A Discourse on Deities

Quote:
Originally Posted by DoomCarrot View Post
If a member of religion x gave you a solid argument for their God y, but said you had to abide by ridiculous rules a-z for the rest of your life, would you bother becoming a member of religion X? Highly unlikely, but you might take their argument into consideration and form a personal belief in God that is convenient for you and your life, personally.
I think you answered your question right there.

Also, at least in my opinion, philosophical discussions are downright fun. Fun is the reason we joined HeroScapers, right?

(I've been uncomfortably busy in that whole "real life" thing, but before the month is through I'll probably post several paragraphs here and attempt to respond to everything I have a response to that I like.)

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