Over at WEIT, reader Ben Goren asks: “Why doesn’t Jesus call 911?”

DillyGill @384 that should really be 'all seen evolution happen' '(which could just be adaptation and devolution) ' [oh I feel inadequate using such a holy word as evolution it means so many things to so many people] DillyGill

Ben comes across as standing on a rock of logic and truth, luckily he his backed up by thousands, ney tens of thousands of scientists (witnesses) who have all seen evolution happen. However when you dig deeper you find that it is built on out and out lies (Piltdown man anyone) and over exaggerated truth claims about how complex information arises from nothingness with fervored imaginings by his very own high priests about what the scientific evidence means. It is such a giant pile of stinking crap that very few can be bothered to wade through it anymore and keep these people honest. So he knows already (I hope) that his entire belief system is crooked to the core and yet he wants to criticize the Bible for use of witness testimony from people under threat of death and still testified to that which they believed to be true. Your very own religion Ben is built on nothing but the shifting sands of mans pride against God. I certainly won't be wading in your bs bible of philosophical materialism with you. The scientism priests have lost the ability to distinguish where the evidence stops and their imaginations take off. There is no hope for them and so they abuse and torture the general population with their truth claims to try to comfort themselves about their own idiotic belief system. DillyGill

Ben Goren @ 136 I too am a fan of the Matrix. I would like to offer an frame of interpretation for your consideration the next time you watch it. That is that Agent Smith is in fact Jesus, and Neo is the Anti-Christ. The battery area is the spiritual captivity area that the satanists see as Gods' holding pen for our spirits as we duke out this life business with the final battle being held over Zion (of all places) and there being a secret weapon (something like cern) with which Neo and his crew hope to win the final battle. You are theologically sound so I am sure you will see the significance of this frame of interpretation (even with neo storming the gates of heaven at the end!) Understand that it was most likely made by (non honest non confessing) Satanists in the whole Hollywood agenda (witches wands are made from such material) They see God as the evil one Just an interesting way of looking at the characters, for your consideration. DillyGill

Interesting points, and so was my very quick look at the Talbott site. I've got a whole backlog of projects today, but I may entice myself into writing more later. :-) Aleta

Thank you Aleta. I don't quite understand your position. You acknowledge the elephant in the room — *why in the blue blazes do elementary particles organize into functional wholes?* — which you would like to tackle :) with evolutionary theory, a little Kauffman and some of your own thoughts about neo-Taoism, meanwhile keeping things within the realm of utterly blind purposeless physical processes. Maybe one day you will elaborate on this. // edit: Again, Stephen Meyer on Kauffman:

In 2007, I participated in a private meeting of evolutionary biologists and other scientists who shared the conviction that a new theory of biological origins is now needed. In attendance were several prominent advocates of the self-organization approach. During the meeting, these scientists presented intriguing analogies from physics and chemistry to show how order might have arisen “for free”—that is, without intelligent guidance—in the biological realm. Yet the order they described in these analogies seemed to have no direct relevance to the complexity—indeed the specified complexity—of genes or cell membranes or animal body plans. Other scientists at the conference challenged the advocates of self-organization to cite known processes that could produce biologically relevant form and information. Near the end of the meeting one advocate of self-organization privately acknowledged to me the validity of these critiques, admitting that, for now, “self-organization is really more of a slogan than a theory.” Stuart Kauffman, perhaps attempting to make a virtue of the necessity of accepting this explanatory deficit, has recently celebrated the self-organizational perspective for embracing what he calls “natural magic.” In a lecture at MIT, he concluded: “Life bubbles forth in a natural magic beyond the confines of entailing law, beyond mathematization.”45 He went on to explain that one benefit of the self-organizational perspective is that it allows us to be “reenchanted” with nature and to “find a way beyond modernity.”46

Box

OK, sounds like I do understand your position, and I appreciate the points you made about Barnham, Shapiro, and Kaufman. As I said, I don't agree or disagree with Kaufman (and know very little about his current position), and am not convinced that the problem they see exists. But I'm not interested in pursuing the whole origin of life/evolution issue, so I think I'll leave things as they stand. Thanks for the civil discussion. Aleta

Aleta:

Aleta: If I understand you correctly, I think this is a key difference: I believe that the physical processes that take place in me do function as a whole, and that as such I am an agent of my own. You believe, I think, in a dualism whereby a human being has to have an additional, non-physical component to provide the agency and coherency that makes the physical processes a whole. I don’t think such an agent exists, nor is necessary to explain the functioning of the “organism as a whole.” (Please correct me if you mean something else by “agent.”

You have accurately summarized my position.

Aleta: To some extent, perhaps, I think you have an overly reductionistic view of the physical world. The atoms in my body are made of elementary parts, the molecules made of atoms, my cells made of molecules, and I am made of cells. The fact that elementary particles are the basis of all this does not prevent those particles from organizing into functional wholes at a “higher level”.

Why would they do that? Why would elementary particles organize into functional wholes? Why? And once the parts have miraculously done that, what force prevents them from falling apart? Those are my key questions.

Aleta: Your quote from Barnham is interesting, but I think only the first paragraph is from Barnham, and the other paragraphs are from you – is that correct?

Correct. Here is a link to Barnham’s article.

Aleta: I ask for clarification here in part because Barnham is, or at least was 10 years ago, a “naturalist” (materialist), (…) With that said, the big question – one of the elephants always in the room, is how did organisms come to be organized wholes. I believed they evolved to be that way, and I know that the residents of this site believe we were designed.

We need an explanation for why elementary particles organize into functional wholes. Barnham is an admirer of Shapiro who is the inventor of the concept of "natural genetic engineering"; which refers to the cells' ability to "reprogram" their genomes as necessary —that is to say, purposefully — in order to meet changed environmental conditions. IOW Shapiro proposes that the cell can adjust it parts — true downward causation from the level of the whole. How Shapiro (and Barnham) squares that concept with naturalism is beyond me. The only naturalistic part of Shapiro’s concept is in the name he assigned to it. Here Shapiro argues that something as basic as cell division cannot have a bottom-up (mechanistic) explanation and something else must be involved:

Shapiro: (…) it is hard to consider the entire integrated cell cycle-checkpoint system purely mechanical. This is because the network is capable of responding to completely unpredictable events, such as external damage or experimental interventions. It displays reliability enviable in any complex human manufacturing process. Note that a dividing cell has far more components than any man-made device.

Exactly when Shapiro talks about “the network is capable of responding to completely unpredictable events”, he rules out a mechanistic and an evolutionary explanation for the cell’s response ability. This responsiveness to new obstacles is pervasive in nature and is an important point to appreciate and an important argument against your position. Stephen Talbott puts it like this:

S.L.Talbott: Scientists can damage tissues in endlessly creative ways that the organism has never confronted in its evolutionary history. Yet, so far as its resources allow, it mobilizes those resources, sets them in motion, and does what it has never done before, all in the interest of restoring a dynamic form and a functioning that the individual molecules and cells certainly cannot be said to “understand” or “have in view”. We can frame the problem of identity and context with this question: Where do we find the context and activity that, in whatever sense we choose to use the phrase, does “have in view” this restorative aim? Not an easy question. Yet the achievement is repeatedly carried through; an ever-adaptive intelligence comes into play somehow, and all those molecules and cells are quite capable of participating in and being caught up in the play. [my emphasis]

Aleta: This is not a topic I want to debate. What I want to say is that, following Barnham somewhat, and congruent with my own thoughts about neo-Taoism, the possibility exists that life is “designed” by some as-of-now unidentified forces or principles (along the lines of thought of people like Kaufman) and still be thoroughly and completely embedded in physical processes. That is, design in this sense does not necessarily imply or require a dualistic, supernatural agent in order in order to create wholeness.

If Stuart Kauffman could indeed come-up with some materialistic self-organizing principle relevant to biology, then organisms could still be "thoroughly and completely embedded in physical processes". However, this is not the case. Meyer on Kauffman:

S.Meyer: Self-organizational theories have clearly failed to provide a vera causa for the origin of biologically relevant forms of “order”—the functional complexity and specified information present in living systems. Instead, they either beg the question as to the ultimate origin of biological information or point to physical and chemical processes that do not produce the specified complexity that characterizes actual animals. Viewed in this light, Kauffman’s recent discussion of natural magic and calls for a “reenchantment” with nature sound less like a bold new initiative to reconcile science and spirituality (which is what he intended) than a tacit admission that self-organizational theories have failed to identify known physical and chemical processes capable of generating the form and information present in actual living systems. Indeed, after years of attempting to solve the problem of the origin of form, Kauffman’s recent ruminations about “natural magic” sound a lot like an admission that a profound mystery remains.

Thank you. Box

Hi Box - thanks for returning to this discussion. I think I will find it useful to both hear your thoughts (it already has been) and to articulate my own. We won't agree on some key points, I think, but clarifying our respective perspectives will most likely be instructive. You write,

The point I’m trying to make is that if there is indeed nothing over and beyond physical processes than there is just parts and no whole.

, and later you say,

My postion is that when we encircle things in this sense we have to include an agent

I believe this is a key place where we differ. A biological organism functions for the sake of itself, not for some other purpose, and a biological organism is an agent. For instance, focusing on human beings, I, as a biological organism, am an agent. I am constantly acting in ways that further my purposes and needs, from basic survival needs to activities (such as writing this post, caring for my grandchildren, working at a service-oriented job, etc.) that meet higher order needs, some of which I share with other organism and some of which are unique to human beings. If I understand you correctly, I think this is a key difference: I believe that the physical processes that take place in me do function as a whole, and that as such I am an agent of my own. You believe, I think, in a dualism whereby a human being has to have an additional, non-physical component to provide the agency and coherency that makes the physical processes a whole. I don't think such an agent exists, nor is necessary to explain the functioning of the "organism as a whole." (Please correct me if you mean something else by "agent." To some extent, perhaps, I think you have an overly reductionistic view of the physical world. The atoms in my body are made of elementary parts, the molecules made of atoms, my cells made of molecules, and I am made of cells. The fact that elementary particles are the basis of all this does not prevent those particles from organizing into functional wholes at a "higher level". Your quote from Barnham is interesting, but I think only the first paragraph is from Barnham, and the other paragraphs are from you - is that correct?

James A. Barham:How can living systems be so robust (dynamically stable), when they consist of thousands of chemical interactions that must all be coordinated precisely in time and space? From the point of view of physics, cells (not to speak of more complex organisms) should not exist, and yet they do. How is that possible?.

and then I think you added,

By “from the point of view of physics”, Barham means, IMO, that a purely bottom-up explanation — causality only upwards from the level of the parts — cannot explain that things don’t fall apart, as they in fact do at the moment of death. In order to make sense of functionally subservient behavior of parts we need a whole that compels the parts to be so. The whole needs to have real existence and real (downward) causal power to make sense of it all.

I ask for clarification here in part because Barnham is, or at least was 10 years ago, a "naturalist" (materialist), In 2005, at the Kansas "Science Hearings", he said,

On the one hand, we use the word naturalism to mean that the natural world, the universe as a whole is complete and that we should not look outside of it to some transcendent realm for a causal explanation in short. Naturalism is opposed contrastably with the supernatural, theism. ... I myself am a naturalist in [this] sense.

I like Barnham's statement, and would probably consider myself a naturalist in that sense. He, like some others (Stuart Kaufman, for instance) believe that there are organizing principle in the material world that add structure. I neither agree nor disagree with this - it's interesting theory, but I don't think Barnham woud agree with you that "if there is indeed nothing over and beyond physical processes than there is just parts and no whole." With that said, the big question - one of the elephants always in the room, is how did organisms come to be organized wholes. I believed they evolved to be that way, and I know that the residents of this site believe we were designed. This is not a topic I want to debate. What I want to say is that, following Barnham somewhat, and congruent with my own thoughts about neo-Taoism, the possibility exists that life is "designed" by some as-of-now unidentified forces or principles (along the lines of thought of people like Kaufman) and still be thoroughly and completely embedded in physical processes. That is, design in this sense does not necessarily imply or require a dualistic, supernatural agent in order in order to create wholeness. In summary, I, and all other other organism, am a biological whole consisting of organized physical processes, and I see no need to posit some additional agent "that compels the parts to be so ... [that has] real existence and real (downward) causal power to make sense of it all." [To quote your very good description of your position.] Thanks, Aleta Aleta

//warning: OFF-TOPIC conversation// Aleta,

Aleta:

Box: Please, define “whole organism” under materialism/physicalism. Are the parts of the organism functionally subservient to the interests of the “whole organism”, as you suggest? Is “the whole organism” something over and beyond the physical processes which constitute it? If so, what is it? If not, then there is nothing but parts that cannot possibly “work together in the interests of the whole organism” because there is no such thing. IOW if there is no whole that causes the parts to behave as they do, then the functional subservience of the parts has no explanation in the whole.

“Whole organism" just means the totality of my biological being, yes the parts are subservient to the whole (but not in the way you imply in your last sentence), and no, there is nothing beyond physical processes. This is standard biology.

The point I’m trying to make is that if there is indeed nothing over and beyond physical processes than there is just parts and no whole. In what sense is there a whole when we consider a watch? From a purely materialistic view there are just parts. However the functions of those parts are subservient to the function of the watch which is to tell you the time. In #355 you correctly point out that — opposite to an organism — a watch doesn’t function for the sake of itself. IOW we cannot encircle the watch and say: “this is a functionally coherent whole thing”, because the function of a watch refers to something outside itself. My postion is that when we encircle things in this sense we have to include an agent. Similarly the letters you read here and now are functionally subservient to words, which in turn are subservient to sentences, which in turn are subservient to the “whole post”. However, we did not reach a point labeled “last stop” — again we cannot encircle anything yet — , because obviously there is in reality not something like a “whole post” that wants to tell you something. The agent who attached meaning and functionality to the post you are reading is over and beyond the letters, words, sentences and the “whole post” — obviously I’m referring to myself.

Aleta #355: The difference I see is that a living organism is functioning for the sake of itself – it is breathing, digesting, moving, etc. in order to keep on living. It has an internal, self-sufficient purpose – it is acting for the benefit of itself. The watch is not like that.

I couldn't agree more. And I think this means we can draw a circle around an organism, since it is functionally coherent — which means there is no functional reference to something outside the organism.

Aleta: What I gather is your view is that there is something, the whole, that is somehow separate from the parts and causes the parts to function for the benefit of the whole. That doesn’t seem to me to need to be the case.

When we encircle an organism does that mean that an agent is included — similar to a watch and any post on this forum? I believe this must indeed be the case. If the organism “wants to keep on living”, as you mentioned, then its parts — the atoms, the molecules — cannot be all there is, because they don’t have the organism in mind and don’t give a hoot about it being alive or not. IOW if there are just parts, there is nothing that compels those parts to be functionally subservient to a non-existing whole. Barnham puts it like this:

James A. Barham: How can living systems be so robust (dynamically stable), when they consist of thousands of chemical interactions that must all be coordinated precisely in time and space? From the point of view of physics, cells (not to speak of more complex organisms) should not exist, and yet they do. How is that possible?.

By “from the point of view of physics”, Barham means, IMO, that a purely bottom-up explanation — causality only upwards from the level of the parts — cannot explain that things don’t fall apart, as they in fact do at the moment of death. In order to make sense of functionally subservient behavior of parts we need a whole that compels the parts to be so. The whole needs to have real existence and real (downward) causal power to make sense of it all.

Aleta: Let’s think of a simpler animal – say a bird (although we could easily pick something much simpler than that). The various parts of the bird work together in order for the bird to go about the business of being a bird: to find food, to reproduce and raise young, to escape predators, etc.

I hope that my question "what is the bird?" makes sense to you now. Box

Vaal and Ben Goren, I'll make a quick final comment regarding a question you both raised regarding St. Joseph of Cupertino's levitations. Vaal, you wrote:

If you were to go through all the claims for Sai Baba and pile on naturalistic upon naturalistic explanation, his devotees will make the SAME type of responses you will make to atheists “You are exhibiting a clear bias in rejecting a mass of eyewitness testimony to miracles.” More important, you will necessarily start undermining all sorts of Christian apologetics for your miracles. “Legends of resurrections don’t arise so soon after the death of a religious figure.” “People don’t just become convinced they’ve seen a bodily resurrection.” Except, oops, they do – with indian God men. The more miracles you explain away for the God-men, the more you simply high-light the gullibility, the tendency toward error, of purported “eyewitness testimony” and so appealing to that very type of evidence is shown to be dubious... This is the NATURE of eyewitness testimony – unreliable, and never more so than when it comes to extraordinary claims. It doesn’t matter HOW impressive some claims sound, when you have direct access to the people making the claims – when you can actually cross-examine them – stories begin to falter and change. Why do you think this happens in court all the time? And worse, when you get direct access to the figure at the centre of supernatural claims, he/she doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

1. What you don't seem to understand is that my position is half-way between yours and that of the credulous believer in Sai Baba. Like you, I accept that extraordinary evidence. Unlike you, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is, and say exactly how extraordinary the evidence has to be. If the combined probability that the eyewitnesses were mistaken is below 1 in 10^120, then we can accept the miracle report as credible. What I've tried to show is that the miracles of St. Joseph of Cupertino meet this standard, while the miracles of Sai Baba don't. 2. In any case, your argument is self-defeating. If eyewitnesses to an event can be mistaken, even on repeated occasions, then we can't trust reports about the results of scientific experiments, either. And claiming that these experiments can be replicated completely misses the point. The whole purpose of replication is to reduce the probability of self-deception and other forms of error. By the same token, the miracles of St. Joseph of Cupertino were performed at many different locations over a period of thirty years and had thousands of witnesses. The miracles of Benny Hinn were due to obvious fraud: the Wikipedia article on his life says that quadriplegics and people with muscular dystrophy are never allowed on stage. There was no way to fake a levitation at a height of several meters, over a period of several hours, in the seventeenth century. Got to go now. Thanks for the exchange. vjtorley

Axel @370. Thanks for your comment. StephenB

rtkufner, since you are such a church library hound, perhaps you would like to reference the specific ancient manuscripts that substantiate this outlandish claim of yours? "compilation edited by an order of serial child rapists from Rome!" Personally, I think you should be banned from UD for making such a outlandish remark about the Church fathers who gave us the new testament. Hopefully Mr. Arrington sees it and does so. bornagain77

Oh no, I got my information about christianity from the Roman Catholic Church, you may have heard of it... You know, oldest and largest christian organization in the world, whose leader is said to be the vicar of Jesus Christ on earth and whose founder is said to be Peter, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. Why watch random YouTube videos when anyone can easily research the history of the development of the christian biblical canon by themselves just by visiting the nearest church library. Get off YouTube and try it sometime. Just don't forget to make sure you're over 14 years of age before going there, to be on the safe side. rtkufner

"And listen up people: you can all trust StephenB on this – he got the info first hand from a 1600 years old semitic mythology compilation edited by an order of serial child rapists from Rome!" Says the man who apparently gets most of his mis-information about Christianity from youtube comments from his fellow militant atheists

Werner Heisenberg vs. the New Atheists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzu8as5sanY Why I Am a Christian (David Wood, Former Atheist) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DakEcY7Z5GU

bornagain77

"God has created a moral universe of soul making. That is one of many reasons why He decided to work through people as the primary means of achieving his purposes. Accordingly, He has dialed 9-1-1 millions of times to those creatures of His who wield worldly power, commanding them to serve the needs of those less privileged. For the most part, the former group has failed the test of love and will, someday, have to pay for their hardness of heart. By contrast, those who suffer without mercy in this world will find peace in the next." And listen up people: you can all trust StephenB on this - he got the info first hand from a 1600 years old semitic mythology compilation edited by an order of serial child rapists from Rome! rtkufner

An eloquent, 'no nonsense' apologia, Stephen. And a beautifully apt epilogue. What could be more compelling than the very beauty of the Beatitudes? There are more things in heaven and on earth than were ever dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio Vaal. Axel

Ben Goren, As a tribute to a thread created in your name, I will make my final response to you very brief. God has created a moral universe of soul making. That is one of many reasons why He decided to work through people as the primary means of achieving his purposes. Accordingly, He has dialed 9-1-1 millions of times to those creatures of His who wield worldly power, commanding them to serve the needs of those less privileged. For the most part, the former group has failed the test of love and will, someday, have to pay for their hardness of heart. By contrast, those who suffer without mercy in this world will find peace in the next. "Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted." StephenB

Vaal

All the purported “virtues” you want to ascribe to “agape love” are there by understanding “love” and “Morality” separately, for all the reasons I’ve already given.

To practice agape love is to practice all the virtues, including humility, courage, prudence, justice, and temperance. When St Maximilian Kolbe stepped forward in a Nazi prison camp to offer up his life for another inmate, his act of agape love would have impossible had it not been tied to other virtues: the courage to sacrifice his life, the humility to put someone else first, the prudence to know that it was not a simple reckless act, .and the love of God to fortify his will.

Love is a good thing to be promoted to the extent anyone can experience it, as love is not only a good in of itself, but also increases moral behavior.

No question about it.

All the purported virtues you are trying to claim for your “agape love” are there with my description. EXCEPT my description does not make the mistake of entangling moral prescription WITH love and entailing peril and evil as being necessary FOR LOVE. This is where you went off the rails, and haven’t gotten back on

Feelings” of love can exist in the absence of virtue. Agape love cannot exist in the absence of virtue.

On my understanding, if I’m experiencing love just by being with my family, that is a completely legitimate concept of love – one accepted by the majority of people. And IF my family is put in peril, both my love and my understanding of morality will compel me to sacrifice for their safety if necessary.

Feelings of love can exist in the absence of virtue. Agape love cannot exist in the absence of virtue. If your family is in peril, and if you are willing to endure pain of lay down your life for their sake, then you have the virtue of courage and, are to that extent, capable practicing agape love. Without those virtues, you will not endure and overcome the pain. On this earth, real love (agape) is inseparable from suffering. There is no way around it. When Adam Walsh’s son was missing, he suffered terribly. After discovering that his son had been murdered and decapitated, he suffered more. If he had no children to love, he would not have suffered in exactly that way. He had the virtue of courage and patience, but he increased in virtue by learning not to hate in spite of his feelings. Love cannot be divorced from morality. Indeed, the first moral commandment is to love, not necessarily to have loving feelings, although that is great, but to perform loving acts no matter how you feel. In the next word, love can exist without suffering. That is one of the reasons you ought to strive for heaven and dispense with your nonsensical atheism. .

Whereas your conception takes the FURTHER implication that sacrifice/peril/evil are NECESSARY for love – that it MUST be demonstrated in such situations in order to be “real” love.

Of course. Love is as love does. It is the action that counts, not the sentiment. You can feel love for the starving children in Africa all day long, but if you don’t send them any money, you don’t love them.

THIS, as I’ve shown when applied to my family situation, is based on no principle you have been able to actually establish. When it is tested against our morality for consistency, as in my family example, it results in contradicting what we’d actually, morally accept. It suggests my wife and child MUST be put in peril or my love is not demonstrable or genuine. And that is monstrous.

That is not an accurate account of what we are discussing. Of course, you can have agape love in the absence of peril or suffering. That is not the point, which is this: If you do love, then you will experience peril and suffering, and will be required to face it and overcome--it in a moral context. If you fail to act, you fail the test of love. The moral test of love cannot be avoided.

Not to mention you still are unable to answer the free will arguments we’ve given. You claim it’s a contradiction for God to grant free will, but then interfere with it.

Yes, and my argument is unassailable. It is not logically possible to grant free will and take it away at the same time.

But I have pointed out that it’s logically possible for God to create nobler creatures with free will whose nature it is to choose The Good far more reliably than we do.

And I have already pointed out that, according to Christianity, God already did create nobler creatures than we are, whose free will had not been compromised as ours have been. Nevertheless, they failed to pass the test of love. As a result, we suffer. Every sin produces a debt of suffering and guilt. Now, we are being tested again. Will we cooperate with God to find our way back? Or, will we fail the test of love once again?

You replied God did this, but that now we aren’t so noble.

Precisely.

But never resolved that contradiction – why did noble creatures with the nature of choosing the good choose to sin, and if so how does this make sense of their nature not to sin????

I explained that as well. If free will cannot be misused, that is, if it automatically chooses God, that is, if it is not subjected to the temptation of choosing self and embracing worldly values at the exclusion of God, then it cannot choose love of God over love of self. In other words, one cannot choose to love God unless the alternative choice is available. There is no charm in a yes unless a no is possible.

You also fail to answer the problem of heaven. In heaven apparently we are morally relevant beings who have free will but who don’t sin. God Himself is also this way. Therefore free will is NOT logically necessary for goodness.

Again, I have already answered this.

You can’t say “but it IS necessary to pass the test to get into heaven” but you can’t establish that as anything but an arbitrary rule because heaven itself UNDERMINES any claim to the necessity of evil for free will.

How can heaven itself undermine the conditions for entering heaven? That isn’t even a rational statement. Just because something is not necessary in heaven doesn’t mean that it is not necessary on earth.

I don’t expect you to provide a cogent answer anytime soon; I’ve seen Christians try in every way possible and never get there.

I try to answer all your questions in a timely way. I think I have made a successful case against your anti-Christian claims. StephenB

Quantum processes have been invoked by all sorts of people trying to explain mystical, theistic, occult New-Age, and other types of phenomena. All of these are making huge and unwarranted leaps from phenomena which can be teased out in experiment to unsupported metaphysical assertions. Quantum processes show that the world is, at it's most basic level, probabilistic, and that we can't know what it is "really" like because measuring the phenomena causes it to become certain, in our eyes, which is different than it was before the measurement. This is all fascinating, but thus declaring that "materialism is dead" and "In the Beginning was the Word" is true is exploiting the science in order to try to support religious dogma. The world is not at all the way we used to think it was, and it is really beyond our comprehension to imagine what it might be like from a non-human perspective, but that doesn't mean there is a god that is behind it all - it's still just the world, as it is. Perhaps some day people will conclusively, verifiably show a relationship between quantum processes and consciousness, either ours or at the cosmic level ... but, as Aragorn said, today is not that day. However, if they do, my money would be on a cosmic consciousness such as is conceived by the eastern religions, not the active, willful God of Christianity. Aleta

daveS, that you, an atheist who won't even defend neo-Darwinism or clearly state what his alternative to neo-Darwinism is, constantly try to find mathematical technicalities to imply that you are smarter than ID proponents gets very old (i.e. a one trick pony) and is very disingenuous and dishonest to the evidence at hand. The evidence from quantum mechanics is unambiguous in its refutation of reductive materialism. That you would try to take away from that development in science with your stupid game makes you a intellectual jerk on par with Krauss in my book. i.e. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O-QqC9yM28 bornagain77

Aleta, it is clear you have no clue what quantum mechanics implies or is about.

Written by a guy who doesn't know a bra from a ket. lol daveS

Aleta, it is clear you have no clue what quantum mechanics implies or is about. Materialism is dead. Your ignorance as to the state of evidence is not evidence to the contrary. Perhaps you would actually like to overturn the Leggett's (or Wheeler's) experiments with actual scientific evidence to the contrary instead of spouting your ignorance of the situation? "hidden variables don’t exist. If you have proved them come back with PROOF and a Nobel Prize. John Bell theorized that maybe the particles can signal faster than the speed of light. This is what he advocated in his interview in “The Ghost in the Atom.” But the violation of Leggett’s inequality in 2007 takes away that possibility and rules out all non-local hidden variables. Observation instantly defines what properties a particle has and if you assume they had properties before we measured them, then you need evidence, because right now there is none which is why realism is dead, and materialism dies with it. How does the particle know what we are going to pick so it can conform to that?" per Jimfit https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/mathematician-planck-data-disappoints-multiverse-claims/#comment-548632 Of note: That is my absolute last reply to you personally in this thread. I will only expose you for the benefit of others. bornagain77

ba77 writes,

Aleta, as was pointed out to you and you, since you are a dogmatic atheist, completely ignored, quantum mechanics is not compatible with materialism. You need a non-local, beyond space and time, cause to explain quantum entanglement/information in molecular biology.

The fact that quantum processes (and relativity) have caused us to revise our classical Newtonian and Cartesian notions of space and time doesn't mean that quantum processes are not material processes. In the modern world, when we speak of a "material world" we are referring to all our understandings about how elementary particles work, which includes quantum and relativistic phenomena. We now know the material world has properties that we never dreamed of in our classical world view, and that force us to realize that our macroscropic sense of space and time doesn't apply at the most elemental level, but we are still talking about properties of the material world. So I think you are wrong to say that "quantum mechanics is not compatible with materialism." Aleta

Stephen, I'll leave all y'all with this summary. Your god created us defective, condemns us for our imperfections, abandons us to our misery, and taunts us with a perfect alternative that could have been ours had he wished but that we can't possibly be found deserving of -- and then has the nerve to disclaim all responsibility because he dangles his invisible carrot infinitely beyond our reach. Your god is pure evil -- the very definition of ultimate evil. I couldn't possibly design a more over-the-top cartoon caricature of an evil supervillain if I tried. Its only saving grace is its nonexistence, its purely imaginary nature. You deserve great credit for being, best I can tell from where I sit, a decent person despite your devotion to an imaginary monster. But you would be a much more fruitful contributor to society, and, I think, far happier personally, were you to abandon persistence in this immature fantasy. I don't expect to have convinced you with this exchange. But I do hope that you'll question why you're so eager to apply double standards to your gods -- why your expectations are inversely proportioned to their abilities, when it should be the opposite. We expect the least from the least of us, the most from the most of us...and, yet, your gods are greater than any whilst doing the least of all. Never mind winning debates; to thine own self be true. To tie it all back to the beginning, I asked a simple question: Why doesn't Jesus call 9-1-1? Pair it with a similar question, a favorite of Christians: What would Jesus do? And, its parallel: What would you do? Would you really call 9-1-1 in a crisis? If so, you are a far better person than Jesus. When you understand why you would call 9-1-1 but Jesus not only wouldn't but doesn't, you'll understand why you have no business calling yourself a Christian. To be a slave to an evil alien god such as Christ is something deserving of shame, not pride -- and your actions are not even remotely a mirror of those of Christ (which, again, is a very, very, very good thing). You do act in a crisis and you do try to make this world a better place -- and that's this world, not some imaginary fantasy in another dimension, but this very world we all share for our whole existence. For that at least I thank you, and again commend you for doing so despite your devotion to the Christ daemon. Thanks for the discussion, and may reason prevail. Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Vaal (and other atheists) "This is what the atheist is saying: IF Yawheh existed as depicted in the bible THEN he would be immoral. IF a being created this world, THEN he would be evil or at least amoral." I say: IF God exists THEN you cannot fathom his behavior IF God doesn't exist THEN there is no need to guess his behavior IF you are not sure God exists THEN you have to cover your insecurities with lots of talk I think you atheists are not confident, you are not real atheists. Maybe 90% confident atheists? Eugen

Aleta, as was pointed out to you and you, since you are a dogmatic atheist, completely ignored, quantum mechanics is not compatible with materialism. You need a non-local, beyond space and time, cause to explain quantum entanglement/information in molecular biology. I have a beyond space and time cause to appeal to. You, as a reductive materialist, don't. John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Aleta, since it is clear you are not really interested in seeking truth but only in playing stupid games to maintain your atheism, I will limit my responses to simply exposing you as a liar whenever you interact with Box or any other ID commentator. I have much better things to do than waste my time on dogmatists Other than that have a nice weekend. bornagain77

to ba77: When I asked, "Does the bird, and perhaps all living things, have “something over and beyond the physical processes which constitute it”?, you answered, "Yes!", and then went on to discuss quantum processes such as quantum entanglement. My response: quantum processes, including entanglement, are just a deeper level of the physical processes that make up a living organism. I don't see how invoking quantum mechanics removes you from describing life in materialistic terms. Aleta

Moreover, I hold quantum computation to solve the enigma of protein folding:

Physicists Discover Quantum Law of Protein Folding – February 22, 2011 Quantum mechanics finally explains why protein folding depends on temperature in such a strange way. Excerpt: To put this in perspective, a relatively small protein of only 100 amino acids can take some 10^100 different configurations. If it tried these shapes at the rate of 100 billion a second, it would take longer than the age of the universe to find the correct one. Just how these molecules do the job in nanoseconds, nobody knows.,,, Their astonishing result is that this quantum transition model fits the folding curves of 15 different proteins and even explains the difference in folding and unfolding rates of the same proteins. That’s a significant breakthrough. Luo and Lo’s equations amount to the first universal laws of protein folding. That’s the equivalent in biology to something like the thermodynamic laws in physics. http://www.technologyreview.com/view/423087/physicists-discover-quantum-law-of-protein/

That ‘non-local’ quantum entanglement, which conclusively demonstrates that ‘information’ in its ‘quantum form’ is completely transcendent of any time and space constraints (Bell, Aspect, Leggett, Zeilinger, etc..), should be found in molecular biology on such a massive scale, in every DNA and protein molecule, is a direct empirical falsification of Darwinian claims, for how can the ‘non-local’ quantum entanglement ‘effect’ in biology possibly be explained by a material (matter/energy) cause when the quantum entanglement effect falsified material particles as its own causation in the first place? Appealing to the probability of various ‘random’ configurations of material particles, as Darwinism does, simply will not help since a timeless/spaceless cause must be supplied which is beyond the capacity of the material particles themselves to supply!

Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012 Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php Closing the last Bell-test loophole for photons – Jun 11, 2013 Excerpt:– requiring no assumptions or correction of count rates – that confirmed quantum entanglement to nearly 70 standard deviations.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-06-bell-test-loophole-photons.html etc.. etc..

In other words, to give a coherent explanation for an effect that is shown to be completely independent of any time and space constraints one is forced to appeal to a cause that is itself not limited to time and space! Put more simply, you cannot explain an effect by a cause that has been falsified by the very same effect you are seeking to explain! Improbability arguments of various ‘special’ configurations of material particles, which have been a staple of the arguments against neo-Darwinism, simply do not apply since the cause is not within the material particles in the first place! Besides providing direct empirical falsification of neo-Darwinian claims as to the generation of information from a materialistic basis, the implication of finding ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, and ‘conserved’ quantum information in molecular biology on a massive scale is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious:

Quantum Entangled Consciousness – Life After Death – Stuart Hameroff – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjpEc98o_Oo Does Quantum Biology Support A Quantum Soul? – Stuart Hameroff – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIyEjh6ef_8

Verse and Music

Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ROYAL TAILOR – HOLD ME TOGETHER https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbpJ2FeeJgw Royal Tailor - Make A Move https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbELfw2H_Xc

bornagain77

Aleta, you are completely failing to grasp the enormity of the question being asked of you by Box. To bring the question into sharper focus for you it is good to point out that the human body is conservatively estimated to be composed of something like a billion-trillion protein molecules.

HOW BIOLOGISTS LOST SIGHT OF THE MEANING OF LIFE — AND ARE NOW STARING IT IN THE FACE - Stephen L. Talbott - May 2012 Excerpt: “If you think air traffic controllers have a tough job guiding planes into major airports or across a crowded continental airspace, consider the challenge facing a human cell trying to position its proteins”. A given cell, he notes, may make more than 10,000 different proteins, and typically contains more than a billion protein molecules at any one time. “Somehow a cell must get all its proteins to their correct destinations — and equally important, keep these molecules out of the wrong places”. And further: “It’s almost as if every mRNA [an intermediate between a gene and a corresponding protein] coming out of the nucleus knows where it’s going” (Travis 2011),,, Further, the billion protein molecules in a cell are virtually all capable of interacting with each other to one degree or another; they are subject to getting misfolded or “all balled up with one another”; they are critically modified through the attachment or detachment of molecular subunits, often in rapid order and with immediate implications for changing function; they can wind up inside large-capacity “transport vehicles” headed in any number of directions; they can be sidetracked by diverse processes of degradation and recycling... and so on without end. Yet the coherence of the whole is maintained. The question is indeed, then, “How does the organism meaningfully dispose of all its molecules, getting them to the right places and into the right interactions?” The same sort of question can be asked of cells, for example in the growing embryo, where literal streams of cells are flowing to their appointed places, differentiating themselves into different types as they go, and adjusting themselves to all sorts of unpredictable perturbations — even to the degree of responding appropriately when a lab technician excises a clump of them from one location in a young embryo and puts them in another, where they may proceed to adapt themselves in an entirely different and proper way to the new environment. It is hard to quibble with the immediate impression that form (which is more idea-like than thing-like) is primary, and the material particulars subsidiary. Two systems biologists, one from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Germany and one from Harvard Medical School, frame one part of the problem this way: "The human body is formed by trillions of individual cells. These cells work together with remarkable precision, first forming an adult organism out of a single fertilized egg, and then keeping the organism alive and functional for decades. To achieve this precision, one would assume that each individual cell reacts in a reliable, reproducible way to a given input, faithfully executing the required task. However, a growing number of studies investigating cellular processes on the level of single cells revealed large heterogeneity even among genetically identical cells of the same cell type. (Loewer and Lahav 2011)",,, And then we hear that all this meaningful activity is, somehow, meaningless or a product of meaninglessness. This, I believe, is the real issue troubling the majority of the American populace when they are asked about their belief in evolution. They see one thing and then are told, more or less directly, that they are really seeing its denial. Yet no one has ever explained to them how you get meaning from meaninglessness — a difficult enough task once you realize that we cannot articulate any knowledge of the world at all except in the language of meaning.,,, http://www.netfuture.org/2012/May1012_184.html#2

Aleta, exactly what is the organizing principle that keeps those billion-trillion protein molecules focused on the singular task of keeping your temporal body alive for precisely a lifetime?

The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings - Stephen L. Talbott - 2010 Excerpt: Virtually the same collection of molecules exists in the canine cells during the moments immediately before and after death. But after the fateful transition no one will any longer think of genes as being regulated, nor will anyone refer to normal or proper chromosome functioning. No molecules will be said to guide other molecules to specific targets, and no molecules will be carrying signals, which is just as well because there will be no structures recognizing signals. Code, information, and communication, in their biological sense, will have disappeared from the scientist’s vocabulary. ,,, the question, rather, is why things don’t fall completely apart — as they do, in fact, at the moment of death. What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer? Despite the countless processes going on in the cell, and despite the fact that each process might be expected to “go its own way” according to the myriad factors impinging on it from all directions, the actual result is quite different. Rather than becoming progressively disordered in their mutual relations (as indeed happens after death, when the whole dissolves into separate fragments), the processes hold together in a larger unity. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-unbearable-wholeness-of-beings picture - What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer? http://cdn-4.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/harvardd-2.jpg

Aleta, What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer? Flippant answers and brushing it off as 'standard biology' is totally disingenuous to the question being asked of you by Box! Aleta, you simply have no evidence whatsoever that the singular form/shape of an organism, that is maintained for 'precisely a lifetime', is reducible, and/or explainable, to a reductive materialistic basis. In fact, it is now empirically shown, directly contrary to the neo-Darwinian thought that you champion, that the 3-Dimensional shape of an organism is not reducible to the sequential information on DNA, (or to any other conceivable materialistic basis for that matter). https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/human-evolution/latest-evo-theory-features-shoulder-not-hand/#comment-580688 If you were concerned with the scientific evidence, instead of just maintaining your atheism no matter what the evidence says to the contrary of your atheism, that evidence should make you drop neo-Darwinism in an instant. Aleta, you then go on to ask:

Does the bird, and perhaps all living things, have “something over and beyond the physical processes which constitute it”?

Yes! In fact, years ago Erwin Schrodinger speculated that quantum mechanics plays an organizing role in life.

“To paraphrase, (Erwin Schrodinger in his book “What Is Life”), he says at the molecular level living organisms have a certain order. A structure to them that’s very different from the random thermodynamic jostling of atoms and molecules in inanimate matter of the same complexity. In fact, living matter seems to behave in its order and its structure just like inanimate cooled down to near absolute zero. Where quantum effects play a very important role. There is something special about the structure, about the order, inside a living cell. So Schrodinger speculated that maybe quantum mechanics plays a role in life”. Jim Al-Khalili – Quantum biology – video (6:52 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOzCkeTPR3Q

And indeed, Erwin Schrodinger's speculation about quantum mechanics playing an organizing role in biology has now been empirically verified. Quantum mechanics, specifically quantum entanglement, is now found to be in molecular biology on a far more massive scale than Jim Al-Khalili highlighted in his video. In fact, Quantum Entanglement is now found to be in every DNA and protein molecule:

Quantum entanglement holds together life’s blueprint – 2010 Excerpt: When the researchers analysed the DNA without its helical structure, they found that the electron clouds were not entangled. But when they incorporated DNA’s helical structure into the model, they saw that the electron clouds of each base pair became entangled with those of its neighbours. “If you didn’t have entanglement, then DNA would have a simple flat structure, and you would never get the twist that seems to be important to the functioning of DNA,” says team member Vlatko Vedral of the University of Oxford. http://neshealthblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/quantum-entanglement-holds-together-lifes-blueprint/ Classical and Quantum Information in DNA – Elisabeth Rieper – video (Longitudinal Quantum Information along the entire length of DNA discussed at the 19:30 minute mark; at 24:00 minute mark Dr Rieper remarks that practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it) https://youtu.be/2nqHOnVTxJE?t=1176 Classical and Quantum Information Channels in Protein Chain – Dj. Koruga, A. Tomi?, Z. Ratkaj, L. Matija – 2006 Abstract: Investigation of the properties of peptide plane in protein chain from both classical and quantum approach is presented. We calculated interatomic force constants for peptide plane and hydrogen bonds between peptide planes in protein chain. On the basis of force constants, displacements of each atom in peptide plane, and time of action we found that the value of the peptide plane action is close to the Planck constant. This indicates that peptide plane from the energy viewpoint possesses synergetic classical/quantum properties. Consideration of peptide planes in protein chain from information viewpoint also shows that protein chain possesses classical and quantum properties. So, it appears that protein chain behaves as a triple dual system: (1) structural – amino acids and peptide planes, (2) energy – classical and quantum state, and (3) information – classical and quantum coding. Based on experimental facts of protein chain, we proposed from the structure-energy-information viewpoint its synergetic code system. http://www.scientific.net/MSF.518.491

Of related note: quantum information and quantum entanglement are basically equivalent:

Quantum Entanglement and Information Quantum entanglement is a physical resource, like energy, associated with the peculiar nonclassical correlations that are possible between separated quantum systems. Entanglement can be measured, transformed, and purified. A pair of quantum systems in an entangled state can be used as a quantum information channel to perform computational and cryptographic tasks that are impossible for classical systems. The general study of the information-processing capabilities of quantum systems is the subject of quantum information theory. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-entangle/

bornagain77

Ben

Still missing the point, Stephen. You’ve now just agreed that Free Will is, in fact, not the cause of evil on Earth;

Sorry, but it is you that is missing the point. Also, you are, again, misrepresenting what I say. Contrary to your claims, I said the very opposite. It is the misuse of free will that introduced sin, pain, and guilt into the world. It is the misuse of free will that adds to the pain that is already there.

now, you’re blaming temptation in its place.

No, I am not. Man can use his free will to resist temptation, primarily through the help of God, and on a natural level, through the practice of virtue.

But your god is also the one who created both the temptations themselves and our desire to partake of them —

No, God is not the author of temptation. Why would a good God tempt man to do bad things. That makes no sense at all. Temptation comes from uncontrolled appetites and passions, unhealthy influences in the world, and adversarial spirits.

ot to mention that it absented itself from us, removing (so you claim) the prime motivation to disregard temptation.

God never absents himself. God is present to every living human being at every hour of the day. That is what prayer is all about. You are confusing God's presence with God's unwanted intrusion.

There’s a term for the type of vindictive petty games you’re describing your god as playing with us: NIGYSOB, an initialism for, “Now I’ve Got You, you SOB.” Google it for details. Psychopaths play that game all the time; sane people don’t.

Nothing I have said comes even remotely close to that hateful characterization of God. For some reason, you feel the need to read into my comments your own anger and frustration, rather than to read out of them what is there. You are practicing what is known as eisegesis, "which is the interpretation of a passage based on a subjective, non-analytical reading." It is the act of reading "into" a passage what you want to find there. What you should be striving for is exegesis, which reads "out of" the text what is really there. Exegesis is concerned "with discovering the true meaning of the text, respecting its grammar, syntax, and setting." StephenB

An interesting question, Box, and here's a quick answer: The difference I see is that a living organism is functioning for the sake of itself - it is breathing, digesting, moving, etc. in order to keep on living. It has an internal, self-sufficient purpose - it is acting for the benefit of itself. The watch is not like that. And a quick question for you. Does the bird, and perhaps all living things, have "something over and beyond the physical processes which constitute it"? Or is only human beings to which that would apply? We can discuss later, but a quick answer would be something for me to be thinking about. Aleta

StephenB, All the purported "virtues" you want to ascribe to "agape love" are there by understanding "love" and "Morality" separately, for all the reasons I've already given. Love is a good thing to be promoted to the extent anyone can experience it, as love is not only a good in of itself, but also increases moral behavior. So we can have moral reasons for promoting love. And morality supplies us with reasons for acting "good" even when we do not love. All the purported virtues you are trying to claim for your "agape love" are there with my description. EXCEPT my description does not make the mistake of entangling moral prescription WITH love and entailing peril and evil as being necessary FOR LOVE. This is where you went off the rails, and haven't gotten back on. On my understanding, if I'm experiencing love just by being with my family, that is a completely legitimate concept of love - one accepted by the majority of people. And IF my family is put in peril, both my love and my understanding of morality will compel me to sacrifice for their safety if necessary. This allows for just the type of moral behaviour you want to claim. And it also is CONSISTANT with our everyday moral intuitions, and moral reasoning. Whereas your conception takes the FURTHER implication that sacrifice/peril/evil are NECESSARY for love - that it MUST be demonstrated in such situations in order to be "real" love. THIS, as I've shown when applied to my family situation, is based on no principle you have been able to actually establish. When it is tested against our morality for consistency, as in my family example, it results in contradicting what we'd actually, morally accept. It suggests my wife and child MUST be put in peril or my love is not demonstrable or genuine. And that is monstrous. Not to mention you still are unable to answer the free will arguments we've given. You claim it's a contradiction for God to grant free will, but then interfere with it. But I have pointed out that it's logically possible for God to create nobler creatures with free will whose nature it is to choose The Good far more reliably than we do. You replied God did this, but that now we aren't so noble. But never resolved that contradiction - why did noble creatures with the nature of choosing the good choose to sin, and if so how does this make sense of their nature not to sin???? You also fail to answer the problem of heaven. In heaven apparently we are morally relevant beings who have free will but who don't sin. God Himself is also this way. Therefore free will is NOT logically necessary for goodness. You can't say "but it IS necessary to pass the test to get into heaven" but you can't establish that as anything but an arbitrary rule because heaven itself UNDERMINES any claim to the necessity of evil for free will. I don't expect you to provide a cogent answer anytime soon; I've seen Christians try in every way possible and never get there. (I'm with Ben, fading out...my last night here...) Vaal

Aleta, thank you for your reply and questions. I will address them, but I probably won't have time until Sunday. One quick question though: A watch also has parts working "subservient to the whole". However do we agree that in reality there "is" no whole? When we speak of a watch as an entity we do this metaphorically, right? Now my question: is there any difference between a watch and an organism in this sense? Is an organism something else than a watch with respect to being a "whole"? What do you think? Box

But worse, it's just a flat out naiveté about human psychology to think this way. The scientific method arose because NO ONE IS UNIMPEACHABLE when it comes to our beliefs or claims. We know that biased thinking is so ingrained that the most honest scientist in the world can and will bias the results if that bias isn't accounted for. And this is the other thing you have just not addressed: the vast gulf between understanding and accepting the necessary skeptical methods of science when applied to empirical claims, especially incredible hypotheses that would alter our understanding of reality! You know very well the case you try to present to establish levitation would fail the crucibles of science MISERABLY. On St. Joseph's miracles you'd claimed: "The probability that they were all hallucinating is infinitesimal – much lower than the alleged improbability of a miracle (which, for a cosmos in which 10^120 events have taken place, could not be any lower than 1 in 10^120, on Laplace’s sunrise argument.)" and St. Joseph’s canonization, comprise 13 volumes, which are kept in the Vatican Library. For Catholics, this is our star exhibit. The evidence is as clear-cut as you could possibly get. Great, and you'll be presenting your case to the scientific community for scrutiny…when? No one is holding his breath on this. Because, if you are rational, you know it will fail to be ratified. You could cry "they are biased against my hypothesis" when it happens…and join every other kook who said the same thing when their extraordinary claims didn't pass the muster. And isn't a coincidence that it's the Catholic Church "documenting and ratifying" catholic miracles. Like the Mulsim's document theirs, the Mormon's theirs, the Hindus theirs, the Indian Mystic's theirs, the astrologers theirs, the homeopaths theirs….and on and on. Science has taught us that empirical claims we want to be confident about can not just past parochial, biased investigation: it has to pass the crucible of SKEPTICAL investigation, using hypothesis testing, directly accessible empirical evidence, results repeatable by other groups employing the same skeptical method, etc. We can't demand this for hypotheses like Einstein's, or the Higgs Boson, or drug therapies…and then just make some big exception for your Catholic Miracles, lowering the bar to accept resurrections, levitations etc. This is wildly inconsistent and irrational. And that's where I'll end my input here. Thanks again for hosting this dialogue. Vaal

Box, let's take your questions in two parts: first the "organism as a whole" You write,

Please, define “whole organism” under materialism/physicalism. Are the parts of the organism functionally subservient to the interests of the “whole organism”, as you suggest? Is “the whole organism” something over and beyond the physical processes which constitute it? If so, what is it? If not, then there is nothing but parts that cannot possibly “work together in the interests of the whole organism” because there is no such thing. IOW if there is no whole that causes the parts to behave as they do, then the functional subservience of the parts has no explanation in the whole.

"Whole organism just means the totality of my biological being, yes the parts are subservient to the whole (but not in the way you imply in your last sentence), and no, there is nothing beyond physical processes. This is standard biology. Let's think of a simpler animal - say a bird (although we could easily pick something much simpler than that). The various parts of the bird work together in order for the bird to go about the business of being a bird: to find food, to reproduce and raise young, to escape predators, etc. Some of that occurs automatically: the heart beats, the lungs process oxygen, the gut digests food. Some of that includes a perceptual component: the bird sees an insect and many parts of the bird work respond together to try to catch the insect. All this works together to make the bird the unique bird that it is. It is a "whole organism." Question #1. Is it not true that the parts are working together here for the benefit of the bird? Is not the bird a "whole organism" in which and for which the parts work together to accomplish the major tasks of being alive as a bird? How do you see it? Question #2. Does the bird have something beyond physical processes going on it? Or is a bird purely material? What do you think? Interestingly, you say "[the] parts that cannot possibly “work together in the interests of the whole organism” because there is no such thing. IOW if there is no whole that causes the parts to behave as they do, then the functional subservience of the parts has no explanation in the whole." What I gather is your view is that there is something, the whole, that is somehow separate from the parts and causes the parts to function for the benefit of the whole. That doesn't seem to me to need to be the case. The whole is what it is because of the way all the parts work together, but there is no extra-material entity, the whole, that makes the parts do that. The bird is the sum of its parts, each contributing to the existence of a unified, distinct being - that particular bird. Does any of this make sense to you? What parts do you or do you not agree with? Aleta

As I said: the CLOSER we get to the "evidence" of supernatural/miracle claims, the more publicly available and closer to the source we can get, the more unimpressive the miracles become. Take this description: There was a figure in modern times who has astounded crowds by channelling the divine. He showed astounding powers, healing the sick of all sorts of incurable diseases, changing the fortune of their lives. Further, he could channel Divine invisible power, that would lay people out with a touch, and in fact cause whole crowds to fall, flip, faint as if hit by an invisible wave, with a flip of his hand or coat without even touching them! These numbers of eyewitnesses to these miracles were not merely in the handful. Or even a thousand. This figure regularly travelled the world wielding his miracles in front of packed sports stadiums, resulting in witnesses numbering in the TENS OF MILLIONS per year. How in the world could one discount so many witnesses to the miraculous? Sound impressive? Except I'm describing Benny Hinn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lvU-DislkI And once you have actual access to the figure at the bottom of those amazing claims, things aren't as impressive, are they? He looks like an obvious charlatan, and to the extent his "miracle cures" have been investigated, people who swore they were cured weren't cured. The question we can't answer is, despite the amazing claims for your Saint, WHAT would he look like if we had video footage as we do for Benny Hinn and Sai Baba? What would it look like if we could actually, skeptically examine his "levitation" ourselves? The inductive case against the miracles not holding up to the eyewitness's beliefs is huge, given all the Benny Hinns and Sai Baba's and other supernaturalists we can list who have failed scrutiny in the face of amazing claims. This is the NATURE of eyewitness testimony - unreliable, and never more so than when it comes to extraordinary claims. It doesn't matter HOW impressive some claims sound, when you have direct access to the people making the claims - when you can actually cross-examine them - stories begin to falter and change. Why do you think this happens in court all the time? And worse, when you get direct access to the figure at the centre of supernatural claims, he/she doesn't hold up to scrutiny. You get Sai Baba. You get Benny Hinn. You get (in the cases of psychics) Sylvia Brown. You get Uri Gellar. Nothing that ever holds up, once you have direct access instead of anecdote. You can't rely on purported eyewitness claims to miracles! This is why claims of testimonies from "unimpeachable witnesses" are utterly unconvincing. First, we don't have direct access to cross examine these people and are left to take just some other person's word they are "unimpeachable." We have hearsay. Vaal

Vjtorley, You have completely missed the point I've been making and in fact not answered the challenge. OF COURSE once you will find the evidence level for Sai Baba's miracles underwhelming. That is the point! It's the premise I started out with: he's an unimpressive huckster. AND YET…thousands upon thousands of people have been convinced they have witnessed him perform miracles! And the miracles attributed to him include resurrecting the dead, controlling the weather, bi-location (appearing to people simultaneously hundreds of miles apart)…and a great many other miracles. So challenge I put to you isn't "show me why we shouldn't be impressed with Sai Baba" the challenge was, GIVEN Sai Baba is so unimpressive, explain how people came to believe they witnessed such miracles from him. For instance in the book Sai Baba: Man Of Miracles the author purports to have detailed many eyewitness testimonies to Sai Baba's miracles, including levitation. You won't take up the actual challenge because if you start going through all the miracle claims for Sai Baba and say "Here's how people could have believed Sai Baba levied…here's how people could have falsely believed he appeared in different places at the same time…here's how people could have been mistaken he controlled the weather…here's how people could have believed they witnessed Sai Baba resurrect their dead relative…here's how they could have come to believe Sathya say Baba…and Shirdi Sai Baba…gave bodily resurrection appearances…etc. If you were to go through all the claims for Sai Baba and pile on naturalistic upon naturalistic explanation, his devotees will make the SAME type of responses you will make to atheists "You are exhibiting a clear bias in rejecting a mass of eyewitness testimony to miracles." More important, you will necessarily start undermining all sorts of Christian apologetics for your miracles. "Legends of resurrections don't arise so soon after the death of a religious figure." "People don't just become convinced they've seen a bodily resurrection." Except, oops, they do - with indian God men. The more miracles you explain away for the God-men, the more you simply high-light the gullibility, the tendency toward error, of purported "eyewitness testimony" and so appealing to that very type of evidence is shown to be dubious. Vaal

Still missing the point, Stephen. You've now just agreed that Free Will is, in fact, not the cause of evil on Earth; now, you're blaming temptation in its place. But your god is also the one who created both the temptations themselves and our desire to partake of them -- not to mention that it absented itself from us, removing (so you claim) the prime motivation to disregard temptation. There's a term for the type of vindictive petty games you're describing your god as playing with us: NIGYSOB, an initialism for, "Now I've Got You, you SOB." Google it for details. Psychopaths play that game all the time; sane people don't. b& Ben Goren

Box @345, thanks very much for the comment. I have always found you to be open-minded and thoughtful. StephenB

If free will doesn’t lead to misbehavior in Heaven, it can’t do so here, either.

Cuz Ben Goren sez so! Free will doesn't lead to misbehaviour. It just allows for it. Free will is predicated on choices and choices are predicated on attractions. Different sets of choices on Earth and in Heaven. Virgil Cain

StephenB, thank you for your very informative presentation of Christian "Agape love"; especially post #306. I'm very much impressed by the concept. Box

Ben Goren

Yes, and I’ve already addressed the irrelevancy of this. Never mind that it demonstrates that your god is not only less than all-powerful but,......"

It doesn't demonstrate any such thing. The law of non-contraction applies to all of reality, God included. God cannot create a boulder so heavy that He cannot lift it. God cannot establish a love relationship with a creature who will have it. God cannot give free will and not give it at the same time. The fact that God cannot contradict himself does not, in any way, challenge his omnipotence. Also, notice that I didn't say God cannot prevent humans from using their free will. I said that He cannot grant it and take it away at the same time. That logical fact has nothing to do with His infinite power. ...

indeed, incompetent at what should be its specialty; your claim is contradicted by the Christian Heaven. If free will doesn’t lead to misbehavior in Heaven, it can’t do so here, either.

That is incorrect. On this earth, there are temptations to misuse free will. In heaven, there are no such temptations. First, there are no evil humans or spirits to do the tempting. Second, there is no potential to be tempted since no happiness can surpass the experience of being in God's direct presence. Third, the will has already passed the test of love and formed itself permanently by habitually refusing to place undue value on earthly things.

Again again again, we’re again re-re-treading the same ground, so you’ll forgive me if I fade away….

I will forgive you for fading away, but I will not support your false claim that we have gone over this before. StephenB

I already explained that God cannot grant free will and, at the same time, prevent His creatures from misusing it.

Yes, and I've already addressed the irrelevancy of this. Never mind that it demonstrates that your god is not only less than all-powerful but, indeed, incompetent at what should be its specialty; your claim is contradicted by the Christian Heaven. If free will doesn't lead to misbehavior in Heaven, it can't do so here, either. If there's no free will in Heaven, then it's not only not needed here but its deliberate infestation in us is itself an act of evil. And if there's both free will and evil in Heaven, what's the point of Heaven? Again again again, we're again re-re-treading the same ground, so you'll forgive me if I fade away.... b& Ben Goren

Aleta: Nonsense. Of course I’m a real person. You have a very cartoonish view of the perspectives you want to criticize. “I” am not a “neuronal illusion” – I’m an integrated biological organism whose parts work together in the interests of the whole organism.

Please, define “whole organism” under materialism/physicalism. Are the parts of the organism functionally subservient to the interests of the “whole organism”, as you suggest? Is “the whole organism” something over and beyond the physical processes which constitute it? If so, what is it? If not, then there is nothing but parts that cannot possibly “work together in the interests of the whole organism” because there is no such thing. IOW if there is no whole that causes the parts to behave as they do, then the functional subservience of the parts has no explanation in the whole.

Aleta: My conscious experience, and the role it plays in my life, is part of who I am, but so are all sorts of other biological processes. I don’t see how I could be much more real than that! The fact that I am made of matter surely doesn’t take away the reality of who I am.

If blind physical processes — which are not in the least interested in reason — produce your reason, then your reason cannot be under “your” control. This simple fact does take away the reality of who you are as a rational person.

Reppert: . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as [C S] Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions.

Box

Ben Goren

Stephen, you seem to have missed the part where you yourself claimed that Christian Agape demands action, yet this whole discussion began with my own observation that Christ doesn’t act when simple responsibility — never mind love — demands trivial, banal, unremarkable action.

I already explained that God cannot grant free will and, at the same time, prevent His creatures from misusing it. Nor can he, at the same time, release them from the principle of cause and effect, whereby they use their free will to sin and pay the inevitable price of suffering and guilt, absorbed either by themselves or someone else. If you have an answer, I will listen respectfully. However, to simply claim that God should intervene, presumably because you want him to abrogate his decision to create humans with the faculty of will and the consequences for misusing it, does not really address the issue. Then, of course, when He does intervene, you shrug off documented reports of the miracles as superstitious nonsense. It isn't as if God didn't become man, suffer and die to reverse the process of destruction caused by His own creatures. So, there seems to be at least a bit of truth in the observation that God cannot win with you.

If you don’t recognize that as a refutation — or, for that matter, at the very least an attempt at one, even if you consider it invalid — then I’m afraid you simply don’t understand the meaning of the term.

I do, indeed, accept it as an attempted refutation. As indicated, I don't think it is a successful refutation. However, I apologize if I overstated the case.

Do you really want people to think that Christians are that obtuse, whether honestly or mendaciously? Shouldn’t you be holding yourself to an higher standard, for Jesus’s sake and that of the yet-to-be-Saved if for no other?

Well, if you are going to take that tack, you should have at least read my refutation to Vaal, whose objection was essentially the same as yours. I did address the issue, and I have not yet received a rational response to it. StephenB

Vaal

With respect, I don’t care that you can simply describe your concept of Christian Agape Love; I care whether you can argue for why I ought to ACCEPT this notion of love.

Because it is a virtue to cultivate and practice agape love. There is no virtue in following your feelings, unless they just happen to take you in the direction of virtue. Indeed, some feelings of love will prompt you to commit vice and harm people. To practice virtue is to move in the direction of the good, to love in the way you were designed and intended to love by your Creator. To be an atheist is to deny the very existence of virtue, which depends on the existence of good. (Then, there is the not so small problem that you discount so frivolously: You could lose your soul).

I’ve given reasons not to accept it, including that we already have a generally understood concept of love (dictionaries report to us what most people mean by the word), which does fine work and to replace it would require a very strong argument for doing so.

So your argument against agape love is that the dictionary defines love in a different way? That sounds like a very strange argument to me. "Honey, why did you betray my trust and sleep with your brother's wife? I thought you loved me." "Because, my dear, the dictionary defines love as a "feeling," and I have loving feelings for other women."

But more important given this began as a debate about the problem of suffering, the concept of Agape Love as you are presenting it smuggles in premises that I am challenging. Therefore you have to not just state “this is what Christians believe about love” but argue for why I ought to accept it!

Do you mean the premise that love on this earth always involves suffering? It isn't a mere premise; it is a fact of life. To the extent that you love someone, you will suffer when they suffer. To the extent that you love truth, you will suffer when others lie. To the extent that you are good, you will suffer when bad people persecute you. Evil always persecutes good.

I have pointed out that your concept of Agape Love seems to entangles morality/obligation/requirement INTO the concept of Love.

Certainly, agape love is tied to morality. Morality defines what it means to be good. In order to be good, you must love the right things so that you will act in the right way. Bad people have feelings of love for the wrong things. If you love the wrong things, you will acquire bad habits and destroy yourself. Feelings that have not been subjected to a moral test, can destroy you. You don't become a good person by simply following your feelings.

And that there are dubious consequences, better reasons to understand “love” as being distinct from such obligations.

I don't think there are any dubious consequences for following agape love. There are certainly no dubious consequences for tying love to morality, unless you think that you don't have a moral obligation to continue loving your wife when the feelings of love fade. I certainly would not want to be married to someone who loves me only when she feels like it. StephenB

Ben Goren:

Box: HOWEVER atheists are somehow totally convinced by some argument that God does not exist.

I’ve yet to meet any atheists for whom that would be an accurate characterization of their positions. Most atheists are simply utterly unconvinced by the arguments of theists.

That’s weird … there are many atheists of the “strong” persuasion attending this forum. But you never met them?

Ben G: I personally fall into a much smaller set of atheists, those convinced that there aren’t any gods.

So, in a sense, you never met yourself?

Ben G: But, as with most of those like me, it’s not because of any argument against the gods; (...)

Ok, that’s a very honest answer. You simply admit that your view on God has no basis whatsoever in positive argument. Wow! This is exactly what I expected. Allow me to quote myself: "HOWEVER atheists are somehow totally convinced by some argument that God does not exist. And after all these years I haven’t found out what that argument is. Maybe I have missed something. Are there any positive arguments for the strong “there is no God” position? If so, what are they?"

Ben Goren: (…) it’s because the gods themselves are presented by the theists as self-contained contradictions.

So you base your conviction that God cannot possibly exist on perceived inconsistencies in the depiction of God by others? Well that’s simply crazy Ben … it doesn’t follow at all. But hey ... don’t sweat it, not everyone is a logician. Box

Vaal

But this notion depends on the idea people can “make themselves love” and you’ve already admitted the obvious point of how readily people fail at this. Why? Because we aren’t in enough control of our emotions, we can’t just be “commanded to love” and then love. So my previous objection stands.

On the contrary, we often do, with God's help, have to "make ourselves" rise about mere feelings of love to practice real acts of love. You may have "feelings" of love for your brother's wife, but to act on those feelings is to refuse to love your own wife, even if you also have feelings of love for her.

(That is, if you wish to retain anything of the common notion of “love” within your concept, that is strong affectionate feelings toward another.

Love usually does involve good feelings, but not always. If I choose to love my enemies, it is not because I feel like loving them. The irony is that good feelings usually follow acts of love that were not there in the first place. I have actually had that experience. I have come to like people I once had to decide to love in the name of Christian discipline. If I had depended on my feelings, my distaste for that person would have persisted. Indeed, I can attest to the fact that making sacrifices for someone will cause you to love him/her just as surely as loving that person will prompt you to make sacrifices. The dictionary definition of love as feeling cannot begin to probe this mystery.

But if what you mean by “agape love” did not appeal to any such feelings, but only denoted some form of moral obligation, then again: I see no reason to take on terms that simply confuse two already existing, useful terms: “love” and “morality.”

Agape love can, indeed, begin with feelings. They key point is that it doesn't have to, and is even more heroic when it does not. That is because it involves overcoming the temptation to hate, which doesn't happen when you already have feelings of love to begin with. StephenB

Sorry, but I’m endeavoring to make this my last post in this discussion, as I suspect all others will be on the same merry-go-round and I’d like to address Mr. Torley before I go. I truly do appreciate the dialogue, thank you.

Yeah...I've got some three score replies of my own in this thread, and the more recent ones are restatements of points I've already made. Time to wind it down. In case there's nothing else that I should reply to directly...thanks all, especially Vincent, for the discussion. Cheers, b& Ben Goren

StephenB, "You say that feelings of love will “predict” acts of love. Notice, that you didn’t say that they guarantee acts of love." I don't have to notice it; that is precisely WHY I used the words "predict." (Insofar as "acts of love" equates to behaviors we'd expect from someone in love). All we have are probabilities in predicting behaviour. I doubt you deny this, so…? "That is because feelings can mislead us and even cause us to be very unloving. On a daily basis, those feelings of love are in competition with many other feelings that can be even more compelling. If those other feelings win the day, then feelings of love fail to produce acts of love. " Yes! And that's the point for separating "love" from "moral obligation/requirement." You can not control it, and if moral obligation becomes entangled with/dependent upon those feelings, then moral obligation becomes less sure. E.g. if you are to do "good" only if you can feel love, then in a great many instances you would not do good where you should have! You are making my point quite well. "In other words, feelings of love, undisciplined by the conviction that other feelings must be suppressed, will lead to unloving actions. Thus, agape love will, through decision and discipline, supported by grace, will conquer those other destructive feelings, It is only by deciding to love in spite of our feelings, that we can perform loving Actions." But this notion depends on the idea people can "make themselves love" and you've already admitted the obvious point of how readily people fail at this. Why? Because we aren't in enough control of our emotions, we can't just be "commanded to love" and then love. So my previous objection stands. (That is, if you wish to retain anything of the common notion of "love" within your concept, that is strong affectionate feelings toward another. If you maintain that within your concept, you get the problems I've raised. But if what you mean by "agape love" did not appeal to any such feelings, but only denoted some form of moral obligation, then again: I see no reason to take on terms that simply confuse two already existing, useful terms: "love" and "morality." ) Like I said, it makes all the sense in the world to see love as a good thing. To promote it. To encourage it as much as possible. But it is better to recognize that it makes no sense to build in REQUIREMENT TO LOVE into our concept of love, if this is not possible. And therefore it makes more sense to encourage love to the extent anyone can manage, but to understand that obligations come from moral reasons, which give reasons to do good EVEN WHEN WE CAN'T SUMMON LOVE. I'm sorry, but if I find a lost dog I can't summon "love" for someone (the owner) whom I've never met. But I can access reasons to return the dog, nonetheless. And further, I have shown that entangling "choices to do evil' "tests that must be passed" "suffering" etc as necessary components of love results in monstrous moral ideas, such that I could not satisfy such a definition by merely loving my family conventionally, but it would demand they be put in harm's way, or in a position of evil, in order to ratify this notion of love. You never dug yourself out of that hole I'm afraid. Sorry, but I'm endeavoring to make this my last post in this discussion, as I suspect all others will be on the same merry-go-round and I'd like to address Mr. Torley before I go. I truly do appreciate the dialogue, thank you. Vaal

StephenB, With respect, I don't care that you can simply describe your concept of Christian Agape Love; I care whether you can argue for why I ought to ACCEPT this notion of love. I've given reasons not to accept it, including that we already have a generally understood concept of love (dictionaries report to us what most people mean by the word), which does fine work and to replace it would require a very strong argument for doing so. But more important given this began as a debate about the problem of suffering, the concept of Agape Love as you are presenting it smuggles in premises that I am challenging. Therefore you have to not just state "this is what Christians believe about love" but argue for why I ought to accept it! I have pointed out that your concept of Agape Love seems to entangles morality/obligation/requirement INTO the concept of Love. And that there are dubious consequences, better reasons to understand "love" as being distinct from such obligations. So here we go again…(hopefully for my last time)... Vaal

So how do the atheists posting here explain our existence? My bet is it will fail the criteria for acceptance. Virgil Cain

Andre, Whoa pard'ner, slow down…:-) If you had been following the full conversation - and I'm inferring you haven't - then you likely wouldn't be so confused. In the course of a POE debate where StephenB has been asked for reasons to accept his premises, one of his premises has been that "love isn’t love until it consciously chooses good over evil," and "“That is why love must be tested in order to determine if it is real. Hence, it is necessary to choose good over evil in order to prove that love is really present." Since this concept of love smuggles in EXACTLY the dubious free-will-type claims I am challenging, clearly it is not one I ought to simply accept! I have asked for reasons to accept that premise. Any case made for why I ought to accept this notion of "love" will necessarily have to show consistency with other accepted principles - e.g. is it more cogent, coherent with human experience, does it rest upon other accepted/acceptable principles, or come into contradiction with other principles we hold, e.g moral principles? Etc. So in debate, we say: ok if we accept your concept of love, what are the consequences, are they acceptable? And visa versa. Obviously I am saying that *the arguments* put forward by StephenB for accepting this concept of love* fail this criteria for acceptance, and result in unacceptable moral ideas when the principles are tested. Whereas my arguments for an alternate concept of love is both more generally consistent with accepted concepts of "love" and, in keeping it distinct from moral obligation, results in more consistency with our moral principles. I have continually given the principles on which I'm rejecting StephenB's account and supporting mine, and shown these are not special pleading principles but ones we accept elsewhere. Hence, showing consistency. StephenB thus far has not been able to lift his arguments out of inconsistency, special pleading, question-begging etc. Hope that helps :-) Vaal Vaal

Stephen, you seem to have missed the part where you yourself claimed that Christian Agape demands action, yet this whole discussion began with my own observation that Christ doesn't act when simple responsibility -- never mind love -- demands trivial, banal, unremarkable action. If you don't recognize that as a refutation -- or, for that matter, at the very least an attempt at one, even if you consider it invalid -- then I'm afraid you simply don't understand the meaning of the term. Do you really want people to think that Christians are that obtuse, whether honestly or mendaciously? Shouldn't you be holding yourself to an higher standard, for Jesus's sake and that of the yet-to-be-Saved if for no other? b& Ben Goren

to Stephen at 329: That was not the heart of Ben's argument. A stronger point is that you and Ben both agree all other religions, from the world's great religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. to all the countless little religions that have existed, are all imaginary and wrong. Obviously, human beings have a strong propensity to make up religions. Why, therefore, should one believe that a real god, years after people started making up religions, would show up and tell the truth about the one and only real religion? The much more solid conclusion is that Christianity is just like all the rest, and all the defenses and rationales about why Christianity is "really true" are no different than similar defenses others have made about their religions over the millenia. Aleta

bornagain77, I've made plain the type of evidence I need to take seriously your claim that cognition involves something more than the physical workings of the brain: build a perpetual motion machine using the same principles. And why shouldn't you? You'd become the most famous scientist in all history, you'd win multiple Nobel prizes in multiple categories, you'd get stupid stinking rich, and you'd have the most amazing platform ever from which to preach the Gospel. But it really would take that kind of evidence to overturn something as fundamental as the conservation laws. So, since you clearly don't, continued silence from you would, indeed be wise; you won't keep contributing to the evidence that a disproportionate number of Christians don't understand basic science and instead latch on to irrelevant poetic parallels between dogma and reality to support sophistry. Vincent's Matrix-style conspiracy theory is at least within the realm of possibility. Superbly unlikely and woefully under-evidenced, but that's okay; 100% of new ideas start out that way -- and, to be sure, 99 44/100% of them end up that way, too. But your brains-as-perpetual-motion-machines theory is pure snake oil, flat Earth, chupacabra, alien pyramid grade-A bunk. The sooner you stop arguing it, the better for everybody -- you, for the embarrassment you cause yourself; and the rest of us for the empathetic embarrassment we experience on your behalf when you put it forth. That's especially the case for your fellow Christians, many of whom I'd imagine really would rather not get tarred with your brush.... Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Ben

Stephen, I was asked for my personal motivations, not for refutations of the irrational superstitions of theism. For the latter, you’ll have to look to other posts of mine here.

Ben, I couldn't find any refutations. I did notice that you made several unsubstantiated claims to the effect that Christianity is not unique because, as you would have it, miracles occur all over the place. Apparently, you prefer the sobriety of science over the mysticism of religion, unless a Hindu trickster claims to defy the laws of gravity. In keeping with that point, I find no evidence that you have confronted, or even considered, the rational arguments for the existence of God. The essence of your argument appears to be this: The world can be a hard place to live, therefore God doesn't exist. StephenB

ba77 writes,

Aleta, but alas by your own admission ‘you’ are not ‘you’ but ‘you’ are ‘made of matter’.

I admitted no such thing, You seem to think that unless there a non-material something inhabiting a body made of matter, there is no "you." I disagree, and I explained my position. Being made of matter and having an identity as "I" are not contradictory ideas. Aleta

bornagain77, that there is substantial resilience in brains should hardly be surprising. You've got two kidneys, after all. Remove one and you might not notice. Remove them both and you die a slow, agonizing death. And you've got two lungs; same deal, save death comes much quicker if you remove both. You're fond of videos. Try this one and then tell us how the brain is irrelevant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obiARnsKUAo Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Ben Goren, I'm more than satisfied that you are just another atheistic dogmatist without a real clue what you are talking about. Thus I will take my leave and respond to your silliness no further. I simply have much better things to do today than put up with your atheistic nonsense. Especially since it is clear you have no intention of ever being fair to the evidence. bornagain77

bornagain77, you seem to have missed the point that both Quantum and Relativistic Mechanics reduce to Newtonian Mechanics at macro scales. And human bodies are smack dab in the middle of the macro realm. Do you observe yourself diffracting every time you walk through a doorway? If you stand against a solid wall, do you sometimes become unsure of your position and discover yourself on the other side? Have you ever observed humans spontaneously pop into existence from nowhere for no reason, and vanish similarly? No? Then why do you think anything else counterintuitive from Quantum Mechanics applies to you personally? b& Ben Goren

Aleta, but alas by your own admission 'you' are not 'you' but 'you' are 'made of matter'. So Aleta if I remove your arm will you be less of a person? Your Legs? How about half your brain aleta? Would you be less of a 'person' then? How much less? Exactly what is the correspondence of amount of mass to amount of personhood? If the mind of a person were merely the brain, as materialists hold, then if half of a brain were removed then a 'person' should only be ‘half the person’, or at least somewhat less of a 'person', as they were before, but that is not the case. The ‘whole person’ stays intact even though the brain suffers severe impairment:

Miracle Of Mind-Brain Recovery Following Hemispherectomies - Dr. Ben Carson - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zBrY77mBNg Dr. Gary Mathern - What Can You Do With Half A Brain? - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrKijBx_hAw Removing Half of Brain Improves Young Epileptics' Lives: - 1997 Excerpt: "We are awed by the apparent retention of memory and by the retention of the child's personality and sense of humor,'' Dr. Eileen P. G. Vining,, Dr. John Freeman, the director of the Johns Hopkins Pediatric Epilepsy Center, said he was dumbfounded at the ability of children to regain speech after losing the half of the brain that is supposedly central to language processing. ''It's fascinating,'' Dr. Freeman said. ''The classic lore is that you can't change language after the age of 2 or 3.'' But Dr. Freeman's group has now removed diseased left hemispheres in more than 20 patients, including three 13-year-olds whose ability to speak transferred to the right side of the brain in much the way that Alex's did.,,, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/19/science/removing-half-of-brain-improves-young-epileptics-lives.html

In further comment from the neuro-surgeons in the John Hopkins study:

"Despite removal of one hemisphere, the intellect of all but one of the children seems either unchanged or improved. Intellect was only affected in the one child who had remained in a coma, vigil-like state, attributable to peri-operative complications." Strange but True: When Half a Brain Is Better than a Whole One - May 2007 Excerpt: Most Hopkins hemispherectomy patients are five to 10 years old. Neurosurgeons have performed the operation on children as young as three months old. Astonishingly, memory and personality develop normally. ,,, Another study found that children that underwent hemispherectomies often improved academically once their seizures stopped. "One was champion bowler of her class, one was chess champion of his state, and others are in college doing very nicely," Freeman says. Of course, the operation has its downside: "You can walk, run—some dance or skip—but you lose use of the hand opposite of the hemisphere that was removed. You have little function in that arm and vision on that side is lost," Freeman says. Remarkably, few other impacts are seen. ,,, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-when-half-brain-better-than-whole

bornagain77

There you have it folks, no evidence, no nothing, but pure unadulterated dogmatism. As to conservation, Conscious minds violate conservation of information all the time. Yet undirected material processes never violate conservation of information. Moreover, if you look into the details of quantum teleportation where a photon is destroyed upon measurement (i.e. conscious observation), yes 'destroyed' upon measurement, you will find that conservation of energy is violated so that the conservation of information, which is foundational to quantum theory, remains unviolated.

How Teleportation Will Work - Excerpt: In 1993, the idea of teleportation moved out of the realm of science fiction and into the world of theoretical possibility. It was then that physicist Charles Bennett and a team of researchers at IBM confirmed that quantum teleportation was possible, but only if the original object being teleported was destroyed. — As predicted, the original photon no longer existed once the replica was made. http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/teleportation1.htm Quantum Teleportation – IBM Research Page Excerpt: “it would destroy the original (photon) in the process,,” http://researcher.ibm.com/view_project.php?id=2862 Quantum Teleportation Of A Human? – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfePpMTbFYY Will Human Teleportation Ever Be Possible? As experiments in relocating particles advance, will we be able to say, "Beam me up, Scotty" one day soon? By Corey S. Powell - Monday, June 16, 2014 Excerpt: Note a fascinating common thread through all these possibilities. Whether you regard yourself as a pile of atoms, a DNA sequence, a series of sensory inputs or an elaborate computer file, in all of these interpretations you are nothing but a stack of data. According to the principle of unitarity, quantum information is never lost. Put them together, and those two statements lead to a staggering corollary: At the most fundamental level, the laws of physics say you are immortal. http://discovermagazine.com/2014/julyaug/20-the-ups-and-downs-of-teleportation Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html Quantum no-deleting theorem Excerpt: A stronger version of the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem provide permanence to quantum information. To create a copy one must import the information from some part of the universe and to delete a state one needs to export it to another part of the universe where it will continue to exist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_no-deleting_theorem#Consequence Black holes don't erase information, scientists say - April 2, 2015 Excerpt: The "information loss paradox" in black holes—a problem that has plagued physics for nearly 40 years—may not exist.,,, This is an important discovery, Stojkovic says, because even physicists who believed information was not lost in black holes have struggled to show, mathematically, how this happens. His new paper presents explicit calculations demonstrating how information is preserved, he says. The research marks a significant step toward solving the "information loss paradox," a problem that has plagued physics for almost 40 years, since Stephen Hawking first proposed that black holes could radiate energy and evaporate over time. This posed a huge problem for the field of physics because it meant that information inside a black hole could be permanently lost when the black hole disappeared—a violation of quantum mechanics, which states that information must be conserved. http://phys.org/news/2015-04-black-holes-dont-erase-scientists.html+/

bornagain77

ba77: "Aleta, since you really don’t exist as a real person..." Nonsense. Of course I'm a real person. You have a very cartoonish view of the perspectives you want to criticize. "I" am not a "neuronal illusion" - I'm an integrated biological organism whose parts work together in the interests of the whole organism. My conscious experience, and the role it plays in my life, is part of who I am, but so are all sorts of other biological processes. I don't see how I could be much more real than that! :-) The fact that I am made of matter surely doesn't take away the reality of who I am. Aleta

bornagain77, again again, I'm not claiming I can explain consciousness -- and I'm most emphatically not claiming that consciousness doesn't exist. What I am doing is rejecting outright, with prejudice, any suggestions that consciousness violates conservation. Life's far too short to waste on that sort of crank nonsense. If your consciousness can cause your muscles to contract and thereby do work, then either consciousness is an entirely physical phenomenon or it's violating conservation. Demonstrate for us your consciousness-powered perpetual motion machine and we'll talk; until then, you're just another Pons and Fleischmann at best. Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Ben Goren to say your evidence-free refutation of the hard problem of consciousness lacks substance would be an insult to Aether theories. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/over-at-weit-reader-ben-goren-asks-why-doesnt-jesus-call-911/#comment-580769 Moreover Ben Goren, as I asked Aleta, since you really don't exist as a real person, but are, given materialistic premises, merely an illusion, why should I care one iota what your opinion is? https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/over-at-weit-reader-ben-goren-asks-why-doesnt-jesus-call-911/#comment-580722 Another solid proof that atheism is false is that it is impossible for atheists to live consistently within their worldview:

The Heretic - Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him? - March 25, 2013 Excerpt:,,,Fortunately, materialism is never translated into life as it’s lived. As colleagues and friends, husbands and mothers, wives and fathers, sons and daughters, materialists never put their money where their mouth is. Nobody thinks his daughter is just molecules in motion and nothing but; nobody thinks the Holocaust was evil, but only in a relative, provisional sense. A materialist who lived his life according to his professed convictions—understanding himself to have no moral agency at all, seeing his friends and enemies and family as genetically determined robots—wouldn’t just be a materialist: He’d be a psychopath. http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/heretic_707692.html?page=3 Darwin's Robots: When Evolutionary Materialists Admit that Their Own Worldview Fails - Nancy Pearcey - April 23, 2015 Excerpt: Even materialists often admit that, in practice, it is impossible for humans to live any other way. One philosopher jokes that if people deny free will, then when ordering at a restaurant they should say, "Just bring me whatever the laws of nature have determined I will get." An especially clear example is Galen Strawson, a philosopher who states with great bravado, "The impossibility of free will ... can be proved with complete certainty." Yet in an interview, Strawson admits that, in practice, no one accepts his deterministic view. "To be honest, I can't really accept it myself," he says. "I can't really live with this fact from day to day. Can you, really?",,, In What Science Offers the Humanities, Edward Slingerland, identifies himself as an unabashed materialist and reductionist. Slingerland argues that Darwinian materialism leads logically to the conclusion that humans are robots -- that our sense of having a will or self or consciousness is an illusion. Yet, he admits, it is an illusion we find impossible to shake. No one "can help acting like and at some level really feeling that he or she is free." We are "constitutionally incapable of experiencing ourselves and other conspecifics [humans] as robots." One section in his book is even titled "We Are Robots Designed Not to Believe That We Are Robots.",,, When I teach these concepts in the classroom, an example my students find especially poignant is Flesh and Machines by Rodney Brooks, professor emeritus at MIT. Brooks writes that a human being is nothing but a machine -- a "big bag of skin full of biomolecules" interacting by the laws of physics and chemistry. In ordinary life, of course, it is difficult to actually see people that way. But, he says, "When I look at my children, I can, when I force myself, ... see that they are machines." Is that how he treats them, though? Of course not: "That is not how I treat them.... I interact with them on an entirely different level. They have my unconditional love, the furthest one might be able to get from rational analysis." Certainly if what counts as "rational" is a materialist worldview in which humans are machines, then loving your children is irrational. It has no basis within Brooks's worldview. It sticks out of his box. How does he reconcile such a heart-wrenching cognitive dissonance? He doesn't. Brooks ends by saying, "I maintain two sets of inconsistent beliefs." He has given up on any attempt to reconcile his theory with his experience. He has abandoned all hope for a unified, logically consistent worldview. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/04/when_evolutiona095451.html [Nancy Pearcey] When Reality Clashes with Your Atheistic Worldview - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0Kpn3HBMiQ podcast - Are Humans Simply Robots? Nancy Pearcey on the “Free Will Illusion” http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2015/08/are-humans-simply-robots-nancy-pearcey-on-the-free-will-illusion/#more-30001 Existential Argument against Atheism - November 1, 2013 by Jason Petersen 1. If a worldview is true then you should be able to live consistently with that worldview. 2. Atheists are unable to live consistently with their worldview. 3. If you can’t live consistently with an atheist worldview then the worldview does not reflect reality. 4. If a worldview does not reflect reality then that worldview is a delusion. 5. If atheism is a delusion then atheism cannot be true. Conclusion: Atheism is false. http://answersforhope.com/existential-argument-atheism/

bornagain77

Andre @294

Subjective is the opposite of objective, which refers to things that are more clear-cut. That Earth has one moon is objective — it’s a fact. Whether the moon is pretty or not is subjective — not everyone will agree. Facts are objective, but opinions are subjective.

Isn't "objective" any entity that exists independently of what any person (or group of persons) could know or think about it? Wouldn't that include the characteristics associated with such entity? If that's the case, then wouldn't "subjective" be everything else, i.e. whatever isn't "objective"? Before I started to read your interesting comments in this website, I did not know anything about your existence. Did that mean you did not exist? Your existence is an objective reality, isn't it? However, if someone tells you that as a child I was ugly and my mom used to dress me up kind of funny, would that be subjective? Did I get this right? Please, correct me if I'm off track on this. Thank you. Dionisio

Stephen, I was asked for my personal motivations, not for refutations of the irrational superstitions of theism. For the latter, you'll have to look to other posts of mine here. Cheers, b& P.S. Harry Potter's triumph over Voldemort was foretold before his birth, too; it's right there in the text. b& Ben Goren

Vincent, I'm sure Vaal will have a more thorough reply, but I just wanted to chime in that I think you're missing his point. He agrees with you and me that the evidence for Sai Baba is laughable. But your evidence for levitation in Cupertino a third of a millennium ago is no better, and your defenses of said evidences are indistinguishable from those of Sai Baba's followers. Take a step back for a moment. Let's agree for the sake of argument that Joe really could reliably levitate, that he wasn't just doing the same fakery as any third-rate stage magician can pull off today. Are we really to believe that nobody in the centuries since has managed to figure out how he did it? That no other Catholic, even, has been deemed worthy by Christ? And think of the practical applications; if Michelangelo could have levitated, he'd have had a much easier time painting the Sistine Chapel than with all that scaffolding. Cathedrals could have been built within the lifetimes of the architects. All would know the Catholics as the blessed deserving of the heavenly power of flight and would have no doubt as to the authenticity of their claim as heirs of Peter's rock. And the church could fund all the charity and evangelization and what-not that it could ever dream of by selling its levitation services to railroad operators and the like. None of that is the case, of course. So, if you want to convince me (and, I'm guessing, Vaal), you'll have to offer an explanation of why Joe could levitate but nobody else, including Sai Baba, can. Or you could just cut to the chase and demonstrate your own ability to levitate. I can drop my apple and time it with a stopwatch. If you jump off the table at the same time as I drop my apple from the table, will I need to use the lap function on my stopwatch to tell the difference between the times each reaches the ground? Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Ben Goren

The world will be a much better place once they [Christians] stop worshipping at the altar of a made-up death god dressed up as a love god.

Is that supposed to refute the rational arguments for the existence of God?

I’d much rather live in a world where kids aren’t taught bad faery tales in place of science, where bigots can’t hide behind the authority of a love god to deny lovers the right to marry,

Is that supposed to tell us where rights come from or why humans deserve to have them?

...where medical ethics policy is set by sound evidential reasoning rather than ancient superstition, and so on.

Is that supposed to justify the act of using one's lower digestive tract for a sex organ?

Disabusing Christians of their self-deceptions is the most effective means I’m aware of at my disposal to bring that about.

Is that supposed to change the fact that detailed accounts of Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection, were foretold a thousand years before His birth? StephenB

Ben Goren at 300, Hmmmm, hello, hard problem?

bornagain77, I don't need to explain consciousness to know that the explanation doesn't involve over-unity perpetual motion physics as part of its explanation. That's a concept that I've noticed a lot of theists have trouble with. Just because you don't know the answer to something doesn't mean that any answer you pull out of your hindquarters is therefore valid, even if you've got some laughable excuse of a pretense at evidence and reasoning to pretend to support your answer. "I don't know" isn't merely a perfectly valid answer, but it's the only honest one when you truly don't know. I have good reason to suspect that consciousness is the result of recursive application of structures like mirror neurons that monitor internal brain states. I'd even bet you a cup of coffee or a beer or other suitable beverage that that'll be conclusively demonstrated within a decade from now. But do I know that that's the case? No. I don't know. But, just because I don't know doesn't mean I'm going to waste my time with nonsense about phantasmagorical ectoplasmic spooks in the astral plane pulling our puppet strings. Cheers, b& Ben Goren

HOWEVER atheists are somehow totally convinced by some argument that God does not exist.

I've yet to meet any atheists for whom that would be an accurate characterization of their positions. Most atheists are simply utterly unconvinced by the arguments of theists. You know how you're utterly unconvinced by the arguments of Muslims or Hindus or Wiccans or the rest? Christianity is equally unconvincing to everybody else, too -- and not just atheists, but the Muslims and Hindus and Wiccans. Most atheists don't see any need to take it farther than that. Present them with a convincing case and they'll be convinced -- but all the cases presented by all the religions are (as, again, you yourself would agree with a lone exception), frankly, laughable. If you really want to convince them, you'll need evidence and argument on the scale of what we've got for gravity. I can drop the apple and time its fall any time I might doubt gravity; what tests do you have to verify the voices of your gods aren't just in your heads? I personally fall into a much smaller set of atheists, those convinced that there aren't any gods. But, as with most of those like me, it's not because of any argument against the gods; it's because the gods themselves are presented by the theists as self-contained contradictions. I don't need any argument to know that there aren't any married bachelors or that there's nowhere north of the North Pole; so, too, do I not need any argument to know that there aren't any entities that can perform impossible miracles. As that ability, in one form or another, is the defining characteristic of a god, all gods are absurd. (Of course, they do do the impossible...but only within the contexts of their respective myths. In that sense, gods are as real as any other class of stock fictional character or plot device.) Hope that helps you understand where we're coming from. Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Ever heard of a very simple thing called cause and effect, foundational to this universe

Hate to break it to you, Andre, but Aristotelian causality is a primitive superstition with as much bearing on reality as the Four Elements and the demonic possession theory of infectious disease. It can still serve a very limited utility in certain narrow contexts at macro scales, but it's not even worng, as they say, at quantum and relativistic scales. There's nothing causing a radioisotope to decay at a particular moment in time...and Einstein's big epiphany was that two observers moving at sufficient relative velocity will see the same set of events occur in reverse sequences -- and that both have equal claim as to which is the "right" order. Never mind the special pleading painfully obvious in the Ontological Argument and its variations; this is why we know they're as relevant as those of Flat Earthers demanding we explain why people in Australia don't fall off the bottom of the Earth. Cheers, b& Ben Goren

There are no colors (and other qualia) in the brain.

And yet, physical manipulation of the brain in various ways can reliably induce or otherwise alter the sensation of color. A major project I've been working on for some time is accurate color reproduction with digital photography. To my surprise, I'm actually doing some cutting-edge innovative work, and achieving results that are on a par with the best using equipment that's not supposed to be capable of that level of accuracy. And to do so I've obviously had to learn an awful lot about color and light and spectroscopy and all those sorts of things. There're those who've forgotten more than I'll ever learn about the subject, but I already know far more than enough to have superb confidence that color is the physiological phenomenon of the brain's perception of light, exactly as everybody else who knows anything about the subject would tell you. I would heartily encourage you to learn the same for yourself. It's been an absolutely amazing educational experience. And if you've never seen for yourself wide-area diffuse monochromatic light.... b& Ben Goren

What’s the point of your presence here at UD, if there is any?

Mung, I've already explained. Christians, by and large, are good people not because of but in spite of their religion. The world will be a much better place once they stop worshipping at the altar of a made-up death god dressed up as a love god. I'd much rather live in a world where kids aren't taught bad faery tales in place of science, where bigots can't hide behind the authority of a love god to deny lovers the right to marry, where medical ethics policy is set by sound evidential reasoning rather than ancient superstition, and so on. Disabusing Christians of their self-deceptions is the most effective means I'm aware of at my disposal to bring that about. Not just Christians, of course -- all the other gods are equally made up, and the other popular god these days, Muhammad, is a war god dressed in peace god clothing. You can imagine why that's far worse than the case with Christianity...but I live in America, and our population is overwhelmingly Christian with a negligible number of Muslims. b& Ben Goren

Vaal, After reading your post (#245), I decided to check out Sai Baba's miracles. I was utterly underwhelmed. I'll let viewers judge for themselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1m1bJpyZGE (post-mortem images of Sai Baba on temple walls) http://www.saibabaofindia.com/4_stories.htm (four miracle stories) http://www.saibabaofindia.com/hislop_sai.htm (alleged resurrections by Sai Baba) http://www.saibabaofindia.com/matrz.html (materialized objects) http://www.saibabaofindia.com/materializationofjewels.htm (materialization of jewels) http://www.saibabaofindia.com/aura_of_sai.htm (testimony of a professor who saw Sai Baba's aura) http://www.saibabaofindia.com/Shirdi_Sai_Baba_%20open_eye_miracle.htm (Sai Baba idol opens one eye) No doctors' certificates like you'd find at Lourdes, no independent committees for investigating alleged cures and sifting the wheat from the chaff, no sworn testimonies, no statements signed by multiple eyewitnesses, and no devil's advocate trying to debunk the cures before they are officially proclaimed miraculous. All of these procedures are par for the course in the Catholic Church, and none of them are present here. Really, Vaal, is this what you call evidence???

(I have been putting up the Sai Baba challenge to Christians for years and years and no one has ever taken up the challenge of explaining how the eyewitness claims could have arisen through non-miraculous events. Again, it’s not that their explanations fail... it’s that when they even begin trying they quickly get to “uh-oh” land for their own miracle claims, and suddenly have better things to do).

"Uh-oh"??? Vaal, I'm trembling in my boots (NOT!) If this is your best answer to St. Joseph of Cupertino, then I'll go with the testimony relating to the 17th century Italian saint any day. By any criterion, it's much better authenticated than the anecdotal rubbish relating to Sai Baba. vjtorley

Algorithmic Information Theory, Free Will and the Turing Test - Douglas S. Robertson Excerpt: Chaitin’s Algorithmic Information Theory shows that information is conserved under formal mathematical operations and, equivalently, under computer operations. This conservation law puts a new perspective on many familiar problems related to artificial intelligence. For example, the famous “Turing test” for artificial intelligence could be defeated by simply asking for a new axiom in mathematics. Human mathematicians are able to create axioms, but a computer program cannot do this without violating information conservation. Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information. http://cires.colorado.edu/~doug/philosophy/info8.pdf Evolutionary Computing: The Invisible Hand of Intelligence - June 17, 2015 Excerpt: William Dembski and Robert Marks have shown that no evolutionary algorithm is superior to blind search -- unless information is added from an intelligent cause, which means it is not, in the Darwinian sense, an evolutionary algorithm after all. This mathematically proven law, based on the accepted No Free Lunch Theorems, seems to be lost on the champions of evolutionary computing. Researchers keep confusing an evolutionary algorithm (a form of artificial selection) with "natural evolution." ,,, Marks and Dembski account for the invisible hand required in evolutionary computing. The Lab's website states, "The principal theme of the lab's research is teasing apart the respective roles of internally generated and externally applied information in the performance of evolutionary systems." So yes, systems can evolve, but when they appear to solve a problem (such as generating complex specified information or reaching a sufficiently narrow predefined target), intelligence can be shown to be active. Any internally generated information is conserved or degraded by the law of Conservation of Information.,,, What Marks and Dembski prove is as scientifically valid and relevant as Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem in mathematics. You can't prove a system of mathematics from within the system, and you can't derive an information-rich pattern from within the pattern.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/06/evolutionary_co_1096931.html

Goren, to remove all doubt that he is a drunken college freshman trying to impress his sophomore brethren, then states the "And yet it moves" phrase from Galileo:

You can offer all the incredulity you like…eppur si muove.

And so it does move Goren. Perhaps when you sober up tomorrow you would like to tell us exactly how 'it' moves?

A Professor's Journey out of Nihilism: Why I am not an Atheist - University of Wyoming - J. Budziszewski Excerpt page12: "There were two great holes in the argument about the irrelevance of God. The first is that in order to attack free will, I supposed that I understood cause and effect; I supposed causation to be less mysterious than volition. If anything, it is the other way around. I can perceive a logical connection between premises and valid conclusions. I can perceive at least a rational connection between my willing to do something and my doing it. But between the apple and the earth, I can perceive no connection at all. Why does the apple fall? We don't know. "But there is gravity," you say. No, "gravity" is merely the name of the phenomenon, not its explanation. "But there are laws of gravity," you say. No, the "laws" are not its explanation either; they are merely a more precise description of the thing to be explained, which remains as mysterious as before. For just this reason, philosophers of science are shy of the term "laws"; they prefer "lawlike regularities." To call the equations of gravity "laws" and speak of the apple as "obeying" them is to speak as though, like the traffic laws, the "laws" of gravity are addressed to rational agents capable of conforming their wills to the command. This is cheating, because it makes mechanical causality (the more opaque of the two phenomena) seem like volition (the less). In my own way of thinking the cheating was even graver, because I attacked the less opaque in the name of the more. The other hole in my reasoning was cruder. If my imprisonment in a blind causality made my reasoning so unreliable that I couldn't trust my beliefs, then by the same token I shouldn't have trusted my beliefs about imprisonment in a blind causality. But in that case I had no business denying free will in the first place." http://www.undergroundthomist.org/sites/default/files/WhyIAmNotAnAtheist.pdf Aquinas’ First Way – (The First Mover – Unmoved Mover) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qmpw0_w27As Aquinas’ First Way 1) Change in nature is elevation of potency to act. 2) Potency cannot actualize itself, because it does not exist actually. 3) Potency must be actualized by another, which is itself in act. 4) Essentially ordered series of causes (elevations of potency to act) exist in nature. 5) An essentially ordered series of elevations from potency to act cannot be in infinite regress, because the series must be actualized by something that is itself in act without the need for elevation from potency. 6) The ground of an essentially ordered series of elevations from potency to act must be pure act with respect to the casual series. 7) This Pure Act– Prime Mover– is what we call God. http://egnorance.blogspot.com/2011/08/aquinas-first-way.html

Or to put it much more simply:

"The ‘First Mover’ is necessary for change occurring at each moment." Michael Egnor – Aquinas’ First Way http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/09/jerry_coyne_and_aquinas_first.html

And in confirmation of this ancient ‘first mover’ argument, in the following video Anton Zeilinger, whose group is arguably the best group of experimentalists in quantum physics today, ‘tries’ to explain the double slit experiment to Morgan Freeman:

Quantum Mechanics - Double Slit Experiment. Is anything real? (Prof. Anton Zeilinger) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayvbKafw2g0

Prof. Anton Zeilinger makes this rather startling statement in the preceding video that meshes perfectly with the ‘first mover argument’::

"The path taken by the photon is not an element of reality. We are not allowed to talk about the photon passing through this or this slit. Neither are we allowed to say the photon passes through both slits. All this kind of language is not applicable." Anton Zeilinger

If that was not enough to get his point across, at the 4:12 minute mark in this following video,,,

Prof Anton Zeilinger Shows the Double-slit Experiment - video http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgt69p_prof-anton-zeilinger-shows-the-double-slit-experiment_tech

Professor Zeilinger states,,,

"We know what the particle is doing at the source when it is created. We know what it is doing at the detector when it is registered. But we do not know what it is doing in-between." Anton Zeilinger

And if that was not enough to get the ‘unmoved mover’ point across, in Quantum Electrodynamics, arguably the most stringently, and accurately, tested theory in science today, we have these following comments

Quantum Electrodynamics The key components of Feynman's presentation of QED are three basic actions.[1]:85 *A photon goes from one place and time to another place and time. *An electron goes from one place and time to another place and time. *An electron emits or absorbs a photon at a certain place and time. These actions are represented in a form of visual shorthand by the three basic elements of Feynman diagrams: a wavy line for the photon, a straight line for the electron and a junction of two straight lines and a wavy one for a vertex representing emission or absorption of a photon by an electron. These can all be seen in the adjacent diagram. It is important not to over-interpret these diagrams. Nothing is implied about how a particle gets from one point to another. The diagrams do not imply that the particles are moving in straight or curved lines. They do not imply that the particles are moving with fixed speeds. The fact that the photon is often represented, by convention, by a wavy line and not a straight one does not imply that it is thought that it is more wavelike than is an electron. The images are just symbols to represent the actions above: photons and electrons do, somehow, move from point to point and electrons, somehow, emit and absorb photons. We do not know how these things happen, but the theory tells us about the probabilities of these things happening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_electrodynamics#Introduction

Verse:

Acts 17:28 For in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as also certain of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’

bornagain77

Ben Goren at 300, Hmmmm, hello, hard problem?

David Chalmers on Consciousness (Philosophical Zombies and the Hard Problem) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo

Ben Goren at 300, claims the hard problem of consciousness is no problem at all because of,,,

bornagain77, everything you wrote about how the mind can’t possibly be the product of the brain was rendered moot with the invention of beer…and became completely insupportable when that railroad spike shot through Phineas Gage’s head.

Well I guess that does it folks. You guys heard it from Ben Goren himself. Railroad spikes and beer explains the hard problem of consciousness, i.e. explains the mind, i.e. explains 'you'. But something tells me that Ben Goren is missing something very important in trying to explain away the hard problem of consciousness with railroad spikes and beer. (Moreover, I think that perhaps Ben Goren should have stayed away from the all night beer parties in college where he apparently learned most of his current debating techniques). As to the tired chestnut of Phineas Gage’s railroad spike, that chestnut is refuted at the 7:00 minute mark of the following video:

The Case for the Soul (Neuroscience) - video https://youtu.be/oBsI_ay8K70?t=420

As well, 4:03 minute mark of the preceding video, and completely contrary to materialistic thought, 'Brain Plasticity' to a person's focused intention has now been firmly established by Jeffrey Schwartz, as well as among other researchers. Moreover, completely contrary to materialistic thought, mind has been now been shown to be able to reach all the way down and have pronounced effects on the gene expression of our bodies:

Scientists Finally Show How Your Thoughts Can Cause Specific Molecular Changes To Your Genes, - December 10, 2013 Excerpt: “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that shows rapid alterations in gene expression within subjects associated with mindfulness meditation practice,” says study author Richard J. Davidson, founder of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds and the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Most interestingly, the changes were observed in genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs,” says Perla Kaliman, first author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona, Spain (IIBB-CSIC-IDIBAPS), where the molecular analyses were conducted.,,, the researchers say, there was no difference in the tested genes between the two groups of people at the start of the study. The observed effects were seen only in the meditators following mindfulness practice. In addition, several other DNA-modifying genes showed no differences between groups, suggesting that the mindfulness practice specifically affected certain regulatory pathways. http://www.tunedbody.com/scientists-finally-show-thoughts-can-cause-specific-molecular-changes-genes/

Despite Goren's self assurance that railroad spikes and beer explains (away) the hard problem of consciousness, no one, and I repeat no one, not even drunken college freshmen and sophomores, have a clue how anything material can possibly be consciousness. Massachusetts Institute of Technology neuroscientist Sebastian Seung makes this clear in his book “Connectome,” saying:

“Every day we recall the past, perceive the present and imagine the future. How do our brains accomplish these feats? It’s safe to say that nobody really knows.”

There is simply no direct evidence that anything material is capable of generating consciousness. As Rutgers University philosopher Jerry Fodor says,

"Nobody has the slightest idea how anything material could be conscious. Nobody even knows what it would be like to have the slightest idea about how anything material could be conscious. So much for the philosophy of consciousness. Regardless of our knowledge of the structure of the brain, no one has any idea how the brain could possibly generate conscious experience."

As Nobel neurophysiologist Roger Sperry wrote,

"Those centermost processes of the brain with which consciousness is presumably associated are simply not understood. They are so far beyond our comprehension at present that no one I know of has been able even to imagine their nature."

From modern physics, Nobel prize-winner Eugene Wigner agreed:

"We have at present not even the vaguest idea how to connect the physio-chemical processes with the state of mind."

Contemporary physicist Nick Herbert states,

"Science's biggest mystery is the nature of consciousness. It is not that we possess bad or imperfect theories of human awareness; we simply have no such theories at all. About all we know about consciousness is that it has something to do with the head, rather than the foot."

Physician and author Larry Dossey wrote:

"No experiment has ever demonstrated the genesis of consciousness from matter. One might as well believe that rabbits emerge from magicians' hats. Yet this vaporous possibility, this neuro-mythology, has enchanted generations of gullible scientists, in spite of the fact that there is not a shred of direct evidence to support it."

But alas, what could they possibly know, railroad spikes and beer explains it all! Just ask Ben Goren. :) The ever wise Ben Goren goes on to inform us that,,,

"And everything we now know about physics and information theory only confirms it; for cognition to be anything else, all of physics would have to be thrown out."

That statement is so wrong that it is, sans Pauli, 'not even wrong'. If anything, everything we now know about physics and information theory now confirms the primacy of consciousness to reality.

“No, I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” Max Planck (1858–1947), the originator of quantum theory, The Observer, London, January 25, 1931 “Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.” (Schroedinger, Erwin. 1984. “General Scientific and Popular Papers,” in Collected Papers, Vol. 4. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences. Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig/Wiesbaden. p. 334.) "It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness." Eugene Wigner (1902 -1995) from his collection of essays "Symmetries and Reflections – Scientific Essays"; "It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality" - Eugene Wigner - (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) 1961

Eugene Wigner laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963. Moreover, his insights into quantum mechanics are now driving a 'second quantum revolution':

Eugene Wigner – A Gedanken Pioneer of the Second Quantum Revolution - Anton Zeilinger - Sept. 2014 Conclusion It would be fascinating to know Eugene Wigner’s reaction to the fact that the gedanken experiments he discussed (in 1963 and 1970) have not only become reality, but building on his gedanken experiments, new ideas have developed which on the one hand probe the foundations of quantum mechanics even deeper, and which on the other hand also provide the foundations to the new field of quantum information technology. All these experiments pay homage to the great insight Wigner expressed in developing these gedanken experiments and in his analyses of the foundations of quantum mechanics, http://epjwoc.epj.org/articles/epjconf/pdf/2014/15/epjconf_wigner2014_01010.pdf

Thus, since Wigner’s insights into the foundational role of the ‘conscious observer’ in Quantum Mechanics are bearing fruit with a ‘Second Quantum Revolution’, then that is certainly very strong evidence that his ‘consciousness’ insights are indeed true. As well, Dean Radin, who spent years at Princeton testing different aspects of consciousness, recently performed experiments testing the possible role of consciousness in the double slit. His results were, not so surprisingly, very supportive of consciousness’s central role in the experiment:

Consciousness and the double-slit interference pattern: six experiments – Radin – 2012 Abstract: A double-slit optical system was used to test the possible role of consciousness in the collapse of the quantum wavefunction. The ratio of the interference pattern’s double-slit spectral power to its single-slit spectral power was predicted to decrease when attention was focused toward the double slit as compared to away from it. Each test session consisted of 40 counterbalanced attention-toward and attention-away epochs, where each epoch lasted between 15 and 30 s(seconds). Data contributed by 137 people in six experiments, involving a total of 250 test sessions, indicate that on average the spectral ratio decreased as predicted (z = -4:36, p = 6·10^-6). Another 250 control sessions conducted without observers present tested hardware, software, and analytical procedures for potential artifacts; none were identified (z = 0:43, p = 0:67). Variables including temperature, vibration, and signal drift were also tested, and no spurious influences were identified. By contrast, factors associated with consciousness, such as meditation experience, electrocortical markers of focused attention, and psychological factors including openness and absorption, significantly correlated in predicted ways with perturbations in the double-slit interference pattern. The results appear to be consistent with a consciousness-related interpretation of the quantum measurement problem. http://www.deanradin.com/papers/Physics%20Essays%20Radin%20final.pdf Psychophysical (i.e., mind–matter) interactions with a double-slit interference pattern - Dean Radin, Leena Michel, James Johnston, and Arnaud Delorme - December 2013 Abstract: Previously reported experiments suggested that interference patterns generated by a double-slit optical system were perturbed by a psychophysical (i.e., mind–matter) interaction. Three new experiments were conducted to further investigate this phenomenon. The first study consisted of 50 half-hour test sessions where participants concentrated their attention-toward or -away from a double-slit system located 3 m away. The spectral magnitude and phase associated with the double-slit component of the interference pattern were compared between the two attention conditions, and the combined results provided evidence for an interaction,,,. One hundred control sessions using the same equipment, protocol and analysis, but without participants present, showed no effect,,,. The second experiment used a duplicate double-slit system and similar test protocol, but it was conducted over the Internet by streaming data to participants’ web browsers. Some 685 people from six continents contributed 2089 experimental sessions. Results were similar to those observed in the first experiment, but smaller in magnitude,,,. Data from 2303 control sessions, conducted automatically every 2 h using the same equipment but without observers showed no effect. Distance between participants and the optical system, ranging from 1 km to 18,000 km, showed no correlation with experimental effect size. The third experiment used a newly designed double-slit system, a revised test protocol, and a simpler method of statistical analysis. Twenty sessions contributed by 10 participants successfully replicated the interaction effect observed in the first two studies. http://deanradin.com/evidence/RadinPhysicsEssays2013.pdf

Shoot 3-D material reality, as we experience it, does not even exist without conscious observation:

Reality doesn’t exist until we measure it, (Delayed Choice) quantum experiment confirms - Mind = blown. - FIONA MACDONALD - 1 JUN 2015 Excerpt: "It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it," lead researcher and physicist Andrew Truscott said in a press release. http://www.sciencealert.com/reality-doesn-t-exist-until-we-measure-it-quantum-experiment-confirms New Mind-blowing Experiment Confirms That Reality Doesn’t Exist If You Are Not Looking at It - June 3, 2015 Excerpt: The results of the Australian scientists’ experiment, which were published in the journal Nature Physics, show that this choice is determined by the way the object is measured, which is in accordance with what quantum theory predicts. “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” said lead researcher Dr. Andrew Truscott in a press release.,,, “The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behavior was brought into existence,” he said. Thus, this experiment adds to the validity of the quantum theory and provides new evidence to the idea that reality doesn’t exist without an observer. http://themindunleashed.org/2015/06/new-mind-blowing-experiment-confirms-that-reality-doesnt-exist-if-you-are-not-looking-at-it.html

As to information theory, and Goren's drunken college freshman claim that information theory somehow explains consciousness, all I can say is, Goren, please step away from the beer keg nozzle.

Sentient robots? Not possible if you do the maths - 13 May 2014 Over the past decade, Giulio Tononi at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his colleagues have developed a mathematical framework for consciousness that has become one of the most influential theories in the field. According to their model, the ability to integrate information is a key property of consciousness. ,,, But there is a catch, argues Phil Maguire at the National University of Ireland in Maynooth. He points to a computational device called the XOR logic gate, which involves two inputs, A and B. The output of the gate is "1" if A and B are the same and "0" if A and B are different. In this scenario, it is impossible to predict the output based on A or B alone – you need both. Crucially, this type of integration requires loss of information, says Maguire: "You have put in two bits, and you get one out. If the brain integrated information in this fashion, it would have to be continuously haemorrhaging information.",,, Based on this definition, Maguire and his team have shown mathematically that computers can't handle any process that integrates information completely. If you accept that consciousness is based on total integration, then computers can't be conscious. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25560-sentient-robots-not-possible-if-you-do-the-maths.html#.U3LD5ChuqCe

bornagain77

Vaal

I have described the typical Christian conception of heaven correctly. Christians are to love God/Jesus with all their heart, and in heaven will be joined with this God Of Love in an eternal relationship. As opposed to this wretched earth full of sin, our affections and thoughts contaminated by sin and base impulses, joining God in His realm is generally held to be a vastly higher, more desirable level of existence, of bliss, joy, love. Being in Heaven is the end game, this is purportedly the BEST POSSIBLE STATE OF AFFAIRS to be in, and that state of affairs is one in which love exists without suffering, evil and peril.

Of course No one has said otherwise. Certainly not me.

You HAVE made the claim that God requires us to pass a “test” to get into heaven, and that on this view love is something that must “pass this test” through demonstrations of peril and sacrifice.

That is absolutely correct.

But I’ve been QUESTIONING that premise on the grounds of everyday, moral consistency! So you can’t just assert it as if it makes your position compelling or coherent.

TThere is no inconsistency about it at all.

As I said, I’ve explained why, appealing to our moral sentiments on earth, this demand is actually screwed up and leads to immoral ideas – e.g. that my being in love with my family can not suffices as “love” or be good in of itself – that you or your God demand it be accompanied by peril, suffering, sacrifice. That’s screwed up big time and I see every reason to reject it.

This demand is inherent in every human act. This world is full of temptations to do evil things. Your notions of love are unrealistic because they do not take that fact into account. You say that feelings of love will "predict" acts of love. Notice, that you didn't say that they guarantee acts of love. That is because feelings can mislead us and even cause us to be very unloving. On a daily basis, those feelings of love are in competition with many other feelings that can be even more compelling. If those other feelings win the day, then feelings of love fail to produce acts of love. In other words, feelings of love, undisciplined by the conviction that other feelings must be suppressed, will lead to unloving actions. Thus, agape love will, through decision and discipline, supported by grace, will conquer those other destructive feelings, It is only by deciding to love in spite of our feelings, that we can perform loving Actions. Thus, we are tested every moment of the day. Will we do the right thing, or will our feelings win the day. We can win that fight only by overcoming evil, which requires suffering. Agape love is inseparable from suffering. Feelings of love are easy. They come and go. Those who live by their feelings will not overcome their evil instincts, which means that they will fail at love, in this life---and the next.

(BTW, I’m feeling like I’ve spent enough time here and likely will be on my way….) Thank you.

I believe our last round was more fruitful than the preceding rounds. Thank you. StephenB

Vaal

Nor can we be, on this view, “morally obligated to love.” Because as anyone knows, love (again as the word is commonly used) is not something one is entirely in control of, and you can not just “love” someone – feel deep affection – on command. Love can be encouraged, to the extent anyone can widen their affection for others. But to command as obligatory something that is not possible for us, is irrational and incoherent. Moral obligation, on the other hand, gets across this problem as it directs us to moral action, and acting for the welfare of others *whether we can summon feelings of love while we do it or not.*

What you have described is not agape love, which is, by definition, self sacrificial in nature. Agape love is something we can, with moral exertion, control because it is based on the power of decision. Recall, that we are discussing the notion of Christian love, not the dictionary definition of love as a “feeling.” Christian love is not based on feelings. Your definition of love requires no moral exertion and is easy to practice. Christian love is not easy to practice. No one feels like loving their enemies. No one feels like taking care of their elderly, at least not at first. No one feels like saying no to illicit sexual behavior. No one feels like suppressing anger. No one feels like avoiding gossip. In every case, it requires moral exertion to practice agape love. Yet Christian love entails all these things and more. The Son of God did not allow himself to be mocked, scourged, and crucified because he felt like it. Nevertheless, these were profound acts of love that were not prompted by any kind of a “moral obligation.” You have come here to criticize Christianity, yet you appear to know little about it. According to the Christian doctrine, we can decide to love people that we don’t like or those for whom we do not have good feelings. Not every Christian lives up to that standard, of course, but that is irrelevant because you are criticizing Christianity as a world view. Thus, you are obligated, for purposes of clarity, to use the Christian vocabulary of love, not the dictionary definition. StephenB

Vaal: I appreciate the link. However, it leads me to all the same old arguments that I have never found to be convincing. (I’m around 30 years or so into my interest in philosophy, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science etc, so it’s rare to encounter a new argument, though I love it when it happens).

Atheists, such as yourself, are capable of extraordinary skepticism. Only in the last couple of weeks I have witnessed several atheists expressing their doubts about the validity of law of identity — the first of the three classical laws of thought: "A=A". HOWEVER atheists are somehow totally convinced by some argument that God does not exist. And after all these years I haven't found out what that argument is. If successful, the argument from evil proves that (the Christian) God is not a thoroughly nice guy, but doesn't prove His non-existence. For me the argument from evil — uttered by people who according to their position cannot ground a single bit of morality — contrasted with the evidence in favor of God, isn't impressive at all. Moreover, by not being a Christian, I don't see how concerns wrt to "hell" and "omnibenevolence" and so forth are related to the existence of God. So why is it so convincing for atheists who are more prone to skepticism than I? Maybe I have missed something. Are there any positive arguments for the strong “there is no God” position? If so, what are they? Box

Ben

Of course, there are some powerful incentives to care.

List them please? Andre

Ben Goren

Andre, why should I need a reason to care? Is it not enough simply that I do?

No its not, what makes you care? Ever heard of a very simple thing called cause and effect, foundational to this universe...... What caused you to care? Don't you want to know?

Vaal, I, too, give some thought for leaving the world a better place than I found it.

Does the world care about you? Why would you care about something that has no interest in you? Andre

Goren:

bornagain77, everything you wrote about how the mind can’t possibly be the product of the brain was rendered moot with the invention of beer…and became completely insupportable when that railroad spike shot through Phineas Gage’s head.

I'm a Christian and I fully agree that there can't be no mind without a brain. The brain is what provides the actual intelligence. Although it is not sufficient for mind. There are no colors (and other qualia) in the brain. Claiming otherwise is pseudoscience. BA77 has been preaching his doctrine of the mind being 100% non-physical but it's a false doctrine, one that originates from medieval Catholic thinkers and others.

And everything we now know about physics and information theory only confirms it; for cognition to be anything else, all of physics would have to be thrown out.

Physics may explain the brain but not the entire mind. Mapou

Ben Goren: why should I need a reason to care? Is it not enough simply that I do? What's the point of your presence here at UD, if there is any? Why should you need a reason. You don't need a reason. Mung

bornagain77, everything you wrote about how the mind can't possibly be the product of the brain was rendered moot with the invention of beer...and became completely insupportable when that railroad spike shot through Phineas Gage's head. And everything we now know about physics and information theory only confirms it; for cognition to be anything else, all of physics would have to be thrown out. You can offer all the incredulity you like...eppur si muove. b& Ben Goren

Vaal, I, too, give some thought for leaving the world a better place than I found it. If nothing else, it seems only fair. But once I've drawn my last breath, It'll be somebody else's problem. I can do my best while I live, but there's no point in worrying past that. b& Ben Goren

Why do you care? If there is no rhyme or reason for the universe your caring about it is what’s incoherent. Can you give me a single reason for your caring?

Andre, why should I need a reason to care? Is it not enough simply that I do? Of course, there are some powerful incentives to care. If I just lay in bed paralyzed from existential angst, I'll be miserable and starve. If I commit suicide, I'll miss out on an awful lot of really neat stuff. What's the point in either? And, for better or ill, we are each the product of billions of generations of organisms that survived; as such we wouldn't be here were there not something in our ancestry that drove individuals towards survival -- the ones who lacked such a drive didn't survive to have descendants. But, again; all that's moot. I'm eager to find out what comes next. What more could I possibly need, even in theory? b& Ben Goren

Aleta: Religious beliefs are stories. So? People say the same thing about scientific explanations, especially evolutionary ones. Mung

Vaal

I appreciate the link. However, it leads me to all the same old arguments that I have never found to be convincing. (I’m around 30 years or so into my interest in philosophy, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science etc, so it’s rare to encounter a new argument, though I love it when it happens).

Really the evidence is not convincing? What would make it convincing? Andre

Vaal

"I’m not particularly a fan of “eternity” so I would prefer the option to opt out should I desire.

Newsflash sugar! That is exactly why you are here, to opt in or opt out! As we say in our daily prayer "Thy will be done" God will say to you one of these days "Thy will be done" Andre

Vaal

Each time I show why my version is more coherent and morally consistent than yours

In the absence of any objective love how is subjective love more consistent? This has got to be the most incoherent illogical and unreasonable statement I've ever read from an atheist, proclaim that subjective morals are consistent..... Do you even know what subjective means? meaning; Subjective is the opposite of objective, which refers to things that are more clear-cut. That Earth has one moon is objective — it's a fact. Whether the moon is pretty or not is subjective — not everyone will agree. Facts are objective, but opinions are subjective. So please help me here how on Gods green earth is your subjective love more consistent than objective love? The puniness of the atheist logic is breathtaking! Andre

Box, I appreciate the link. However, it leads me to all the same old arguments that I have never found to be convincing. (I'm around 30 years or so into my interest in philosophy, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science etc, so it's rare to encounter a new argument, though I love it when it happens). "Would you like ‘another’ God to exist? Can you think of a God that would be ‘ideal’?' I can imagine a different God existing that I would much prefer existed vs the Abrahamic God. I don't need to be able to come up with the "ideal" version to be able to image a better more desirable version IMO. Off the top of my head, I'll propose a rather modest version of God with features I'd prefer if He existed: A God who substantially reduces suffering in the world by ridding us of earthquakes, major catastrophic diseases, birth defects, cancer etc. Basically, all the things humans are working on reducing or combatting because we agree life would be better for more people without them. Providing a world where we are not distracted from our flourishing by such horrors and afflictions. (And before someone wants to say "but if you remove X then it may have bad unintended effects on the ecosystem or whatever, I am talking about a God powerful enough to do anything logically possible. Those would be contingent facts under his control and hence God could achieve these good results without contingently-based compromises). God would be actually fair and Just and compassionate, without fits of murderous, avenging pique. Heaven would be an option for anyone who desire it (and if it's great up there, surely everyone will desire it). God would be EVIDENT to all and available for consultation or consolation, rather than the hidden peek-a-boo Christian God who has left the world in religious confusion, and cries of "where is God?" when people pray into the emptiness. I'm not particularly a fan of "eternity" so I would prefer the option to opt out should I desire. That kind of God would be immediately better than the Christian God IMO. (BTW, I decided to contemplate how this God would change the world as we find it, vs talking of a world that such a God might originally have created). Vaal

Ben, The way I like to put it is that life after death is indistinguishable from life before birth. If you’re not distressed at the fact that you weren’t alive for the first baker’s dozen billion years after the Big Bang, you shouldn’t be any more distressed at the fact that you won’t be alive either for the next baker’s dozen billion years and more. b& Ben, not that I can tell you what type of thoughts console you. But for me the logic of that has never really worked to address the real worries about death. (Putting aside for now the worries about the pain of dying) True, if speaking only of the states of our non existence before and after death, they are equivalent. But they are not equivalent to us NOW while we are alive, and it is the distress NOW while we are alive that we are looking to alleviate. And from the perspective while we are alive, death has significantly different implications than before we existed. Before we existed, we never had any desires feelings or goals. NOW we do. And death will mean that some of our desires and goals may/will go unfulfilled. For instance I hope to live long enough to see my kids at least become independent and to be able to leave some substantial money to contribute to their well being after I'm gone. Dying early threatens the fulfillment of those goals. That's entirely different than before I was born and had no goals to fulfill. To say "but when you are dead, even if you leave your kids destitute you won't be bothered then about it any more than before you were born" would miss the point. We are talking about what thoughts ought to console us NOW while we are alive, and the thought that I will feel nothing when dead does nothing to console whatever worries I have NOW about dying and it's implications for my kid's future, etc. (I think there are ways to be somewhat accepting about death, but that particular meme doesn't do it for me). Cheers, (See folks, us atheists aren't in lock step agreement on everything). Vaal

StephenB, Re Heaven being a place where love is experienced in the absence of peril Now that I have explained to you three times that the Christian view of heaven is not like that, and that my view is not like that, Not the case. I have described the typical Christian conception of heaven correctly. Christians are to love God/Jesus with all their heart, and in heaven will be joined with this God Of Love in an eternal relationship. As opposed to this wretched earth full of sin, our affections and thoughts contaminated by sin and base impulses, joining God in His realm is generally held to be a vastly higher, more desirable level of existence, of bliss, joy, love. Being in Heaven is the end game, this is purportedly the BEST POSSIBLE STATE OF AFFAIRS to be in, and that state of affairs is one in which love exists without suffering, evil and peril. You can not deny this as substantially accurate characterization of the Christian heaven. You've even said yourself there will be no moral dilemmas or temptations in heaven…and yet there will be love. You HAVE made the claim that God requires us to pass a "test" to get into heaven, and that on this view love is something that must "pass this test" through demonstrations of peril and sacrifice. But I've been QUESTIONING that premise on the grounds of everyday, moral consistency! So you can't just assert it as if it makes your position compelling or coherent. As I said, I've explained why, appealing to our moral sentiments on earth, this demand is actually screwed up and leads to immoral ideas - e.g. that my being in love with my family can not suffices as "love" or be good in of itself - that you or your God demand it be accompanied by peril, suffering, sacrifice. That's screwed up big time and I see every reason to reject it. (BTW, I'm feeling like I've spent enough time here and likely will be on my way....) Thank you. Vaal

StephenB, I'm afraid you are not reading me carefully enough, and this is leading you to continually re-assert the same false dichotomy, strawmanning my position while adding question begging. Remember: we are debating the nature of love at the moment. I'm thus far rejecting your concept of love, and arguing for mine. (Each time I show why my version is more coherent and morally consistent than yours). Therefore when you demand this: "Please take one position or the other: Agape love requires action or Agape love does not require action."… you are begging the question - taking the position that Love must be your concept of "agape" love, when that is EXACTLY what I'm arguing against. Ok, on to putting out the fire in the straw man. "You are in self-contradiction: Your position is: [a] Love requires action: [b] Love does not require action. The first is your premise, not mine. Neither premise captures specifically what I've argued. Look more carefully at what I wrote. I'll add emphasis: Vaal: I’m saying that Love (X) has implications for possible scenarios (Y) of loved ones being in peril – e.g. it predicts certain outcomes/actions IF scenario Y occurred. But the fact of my love does not entail the existence of Y – the actualization of my loved ones coming into peril. See those carefully chosen words "implications for" and "predicts?" Notice they do not say "obligate" or "require?" Remember my appeal to the common usage of "love" (dictionary definitions) as describing an emotional, mental disposition toward another person? Notice how they do not mention "require" and other such language of obligation? See where you are drawing false assumptions in your claim of spotting a contradiction? If I need to lay this out further… I have explicitly rejected that love "requires" action in the form of "physical peril and sacrificial action. " And I reject the concept that love "requires" action in the sense of an obligation. Love, in my view is not moral obligation. It is a mental attitude i.e. "an intense feeling of deep affection." It therefore has implications for - PREDICTS - how someone in love would likely act in various situations, but it is not itself a form of "requirement" or "obligation." That I love my wife suggests, predicts, I would save her in peril. But it is itself not the obligation (the obligation comes from morality). Just as someone being scared of snakes may predict their behavior when in the presence of snakes, but it is not an "obligation" that they act that way in the presence of snakes. Nor can we be, on this view, "morally obligated to love." Because as anyone knows, love (again as the word is commonly used) is not something one is entirely in control of, and you can not just "love" someone - feel deep affection - on command. Love can be encouraged, to the extent anyone can widen their affection for others. But to command as obligatory something that is not possible for us, is irrational and incoherent. Moral obligation, on the other hand, gets across this problem as it directs us to moral action, and acting for the welfare of others *whether we can summon feelings of love while we do it or not.* These are some of the reasons to keep the concept of "love" carefully distinguished from moral obligation. From conjoining it to moral-like "demands for action." It is good to love because love will motivate moral action, but it is not the obligation itself. Again: Morality will recommend action to help someone *whether someone can summon feelings of affection/love or not!" (Which is one of several reasons I'm giving to reject your concept of love). So you have still got it wrong. I do not say love requires action in the sense of obligation. And I reject that love requires the SPECIFIC types of actions or scenarios we've been discussing. It does NOT require the loved one to be put in physical peril in order for love to exist or be demonstrated. Love only *predicts* such actions because you care for a person and wouldn't want them to suffer. But "requirement/obligation" is the domain of morality. Vaal

Aleta, Christianity is the only 'religion', i.e. metaphysical worldview, which brought forth the modern scientific revolution. Thus the success of modern science is in fact strong evidence that the Christian worldview is true:

Science and Theism: Concord, not Conflict* – Robert C. Koons IV. The Dependency of Science Upon Theism (Page 21) Excerpt: Far from undermining the credibility of theism, the remarkable success of science in modern times is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of theism. It was from the perspective of Judeo-Christian theism—and from the perspective alone—that it was predictable that science would have succeeded as it has. Without the faith in the rational intelligibility of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern science would never have been possible, and, even today, the continued rationality of the enterprise of science depends on convictions that can be reasonably grounded only in theistic metaphysics. http://www.robkoons.net/media/69b0dd04a9d2fc6dffff80b3ffffd524.pdf The Threat to the Scientific Method that Explains the Spate of Fraudulent Science Publications - Calvin Beisner | Jul 23, 2014 Excerpt: It is precisely because modern science has abandoned its foundations in the Biblical worldview (which holds, among other things, that a personal, rational God designed a rational universe to be understood and controlled by rational persons made in His image) and the Biblical ethic (which holds, among other things, that we are obligated to tell the truth even when it inconveniences us) that science is collapsing. As such diverse historians and philosophers of science as Alfred North Whitehead, Pierre Duhem, Loren Eiseley, Rodney Stark, and many others have observed, and as I pointed out in two of my talks at the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC), science—not an occasional flash of insight here and there, but a systematic, programmatic, ongoing way of studying and controlling the world—arose only once in history, and only in one place: medieval Europe, once known as “Christendom,” where that Biblical worldview reigned supreme. That is no accident. Science could not have arisen without that worldview. http://townhall.com/columnists/calvinbeisner/2014/07/23/the-threat-to-the-scientific-method-that-explains-the-spate-of-fraudulent-science-publications-n1865201/page/full Several other resources backing up this claim are available, such as Thomas Woods, Stanley Jaki, David Linberg, Edward Grant, J.L. Heilbron, and Christopher Dawson. The War against the War Between Science and Faith Revisited - July 2010 Excerpt: …as Whitehead pointed out, it is no coincidence that science sprang, not from Ionian metaphysics, not from the Brahmin-Buddhist-Taoist East, not from the Egyptian-Mayan astrological South, but from the heart of the Christian West, that although Galileo fell out with the Church, he would hardly have taken so much trouble studying Jupiter and dropping objects from towers if the reality and value and order of things had not first been conferred by belief in the Incarnation. (Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos),,, Jaki notes that before Christ the Jews never formed a very large community (priv. comm.). In later times, the Jews lacked the Christian notion that Jesus was the monogenes or unigenitus, the only-begotten of God. Pantheists like the Greeks tended to identify the monogenes or unigenitus with the universe itself, or with the heavens. Jaki writes: Herein lies the tremendous difference between Christian monotheism on the one hand and Jewish and Muslim monotheism on the other. This explains also the fact that it is almost natural for a Jewish or Muslim intellectual to become a pantheist. About the former Spinoza and Einstein are well-known examples. As to the Muslims, it should be enough to think of the Averroists. With this in mind one can also hope to understand why the Muslims, who for five hundred years had studied Aristotle’s works and produced many commentaries on them failed to make a breakthrough. The latter came in medieval Christian context and just about within a hundred years from the availability of Aristotle’s works in Latin,, If science suffered only stillbirths in ancient cultures, how did it come to its unique viable birth? The beginning of science as a fully fledged enterprise took place in relation to two important definitions of the Magisterium of the Church. The first was the definition at the Fourth Lateran Council in the year 1215, that the universe was created out of nothing at the beginning of time. The second magisterial statement was at the local level, enunciated by Bishop Stephen Tempier of Paris who, on March 7, 1277, condemned 219 Aristotelian propositions, so outlawing the deterministic and necessitarian views of creation. These statements of the teaching authority of the Church expressed an atmosphere in which faith in God had penetrated the medieval culture and given rise to philosophical consequences. The cosmos was seen as contingent in its existence and thus dependent on a divine choice which called it into being; the universe is also contingent in its nature and so God was free to create this particular form of world among an infinity of other possibilities. Thus the cosmos cannot be a necessary form of existence; and so it has to be approached by a posteriori investigation. The universe is also rational and so a coherent discourse can be made about it. Indeed the contingency and rationality of the cosmos are like two pillars supporting the Christian vision of the cosmos. http://www.scifiwright.com/2010/08/the-war-against-the-war-between-science-and-faith-revisited/

bornagain77

Ben Guron Why do you care? If there is no rhyme or reason for the universe your caring about it is what's incoherent. Can you give me a single reason for your caring? Andre

Aleta, do you think consciousness, specifically your conscious experience of 'you', is emergent from a material basis? i.e. That your mind is merely your brain? If so, you must hold that 'you', as you consciously experience yourself, and which is the most sure thing a person can know about reality, must be a 'neuronal illusion'. There simply is no other alternative given the materialistic premises that 'you' prefer to be true.

There is only one sort of stuff, namely, matter-the physical stuff of physics, chemistry, and physiology-and the mind is somehow nothing but a physical phenomenon. In short, the mind is the brain. Daniel Dennett "that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.” Francis Crick - "The Astonishing Hypothesis" 1994

David Chalmers is semi-famous for getting the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness across to lay people in a very easy to understand manner:

David Chalmers on Consciousness (Philosophical Zombies and the Hard Problem) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo

Supplemental note:

“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter”. J. B. S. Haldane ["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209. Materialism Ought to be Judged as Much by the Ignorance It Demands as by the Knowledge It Purports to Afford - Michael Egnor - December 6, 2014 Excerpt: Materialism, properly understood, purports to afford knowledge, but its salient contribution to modernity is the ignorance it demands. Materialism is a denial of reality. It's an impoverished superstition, hardly more than magical thinking. Materialism is an amalgam of unexamined presuppositions, delusions of explanatory relevance, smug scientism, self-refuting pretense, and witless non-sequiturs posing as "scientific" conclusions. The fact is that the world is plainly more than atoms in the void and man is plainly more than an evolved meat machine. Our beliefs and judgments and insight -- all that make us human -- are immaterial, and it is obvious that transcendent purpose permeates nature.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/materialism_oug091771.html

bornagain77

to ba77: I don't know anything about what Dawkins, Coyne, and Rosenberg (whoever he is) think that the self "I" is, but "neuronal illusion" is certainly not a phrase I would use. Aleta

Religious beliefs are stories. The Spanish philosopher Santayana said something to the effect that religion is sacred literature. People since before the dawn of history have made up overarching stories for several purposes: to explain the mysteries of things we don't understand or know about, to provide a worldview structure for social cohesion, and so on. Through the process of socialization, each generation buys into those stories as true. However, the truth of religious stories is one of affirmation, not confirmation - people essentially say, more or less explicitly, I commit to seeing the world this way, and to believing these things. Religious beliefs are not confirmed "scientifically", or by empirical evidence in general. They are affirmed by the members of the society as a shared agreement about how to see the world, and how to act in the world. They are not empirically true. Aleta

Aleta: Metaphysics can’t be proven scientifically... So? "Scientifically" can’t be proven scientifically. Mung

Well Aleta, thanks for your evidence-free 'personal' belief. By the way, do 'you' think the person of 'you' is a neuronal illusion like Dawkins, Coyne, Rosenberg, and other militant atheists think? If so, why should I care one iota what 'you' believe since 'you' are not real but are merely an illusion?

"What you’re doing is simply instantiating a self: the program run by your neurons which you feel is “you.”" Jerry Coyne https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/04/04/eagleton-on-baggini-on-free-will/ The Confidence of Jerry Coyne - January 6, 2014 Excerpt: But then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant: But more on that below.) Prometheus cannot be at once unbound and unreal; the human will cannot be simultaneously triumphant and imaginary. http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?_r=0

at 37:51 minute mark of following video, according to the law of identity, Richard Dawkins does not exist as a person: (the unity of Aristotelian Form is also discussed) i.e. ironically, in atheists denying that God really exists, they end up denying that they themselves really exist as real persons.

Atheistic Materialism – Does Richard Dawkins Exist? – video Quote: "It turns out that if every part of you, down to sub-atomic parts, are still what they were when they weren't in you, in other words every ion,,, every single atom that was in the universe,, that has now become part of your living body, is still what is was originally. It hasn't undergone what metaphysicians call a 'substantial change'. So you aren't Richard Dawkins. You are just carbon and neon and sulfur and oxygen and all these individual atoms still. You can spout a philosophy that says scientific materialism, but there aren't any scientific materialists to pronounce it.,,, That's why I think they find it kind of embarrassing to talk that way. Nobody wants to stand up there and say, "You know, I'm not really here". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVCnzq2yTCg&t=37m51s

bornagain77

I should make it clear that my working belief is that we don't have any non-material spirit that survives, even of the Buddhist kind that Alan Watts describes. When we're dead, we're dead. That's it. I like the Buddhist story better than those of other religions, but that's essentially a literary preference, not a statement about truth. Aleta

"Metaphysics can’t be proven scientifically" Well 'proof' is in the eye of the beholder, but regardless of that, science, as I have shown, can certainly strongly support one worldview over another. Or do you deny even that self evident truth because of your atheistic bias? If you do, then it will simply be even more evidence that atheists are severely and unfairly biased towards atheism no matter what the evidence says to the contrary. bornagain77

Metaphysics can't be proven scientifically, neither yours nor any that I might like. That's why I wrote, "If I were to commit ...", not "I believe ..." Aleta

Aleta, actually your comment is rather embarrassing in itself. You act as if worldviews are not decided by what is true scientifically, but by what is preferable personally. As far as I can tell, atheists constantly let there personal preferences dictate what worldview they are willing to believe is true. They never allow the scientific evidence to have its fair say. Atheists claim to be rational and scientific, but I have found that that is the complete opposite of the truth. Their personal preference and desire for an atheistic worldview is always, no matter what the evidence says to the contrary, given primary consideration over the evidence. Which really is quite a shame, since science is suppose to primarily be about the unbiased pursuit of truth:

1. Naturalism/Materialism predicted time-space energy-matter always existed. Theism predicted time-space energy-matter were created. Big Bang cosmology now strongly indicates that time-space energy-matter had a sudden creation event approximately 14 billion years ago. 2. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that the universe is a self sustaining system that is not dependent on anything else for its continued existence. Theism predicted that God upholds this universe in its continued existence. Breakthroughs in quantum mechanics reveal that this universe is dependent on a ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, cause for its continued existence. 3. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that consciousness is an ‘emergent property’ of material reality and thus should have no particularly special position within material reality. Theism predicts consciousness precedes material reality and therefore, on that presupposition, consciousness should have a ‘special’ position within material reality. Quantum Mechanics reveals that consciousness has a special, even a central, position within material reality. - 4. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the rate at which time passed was constant everywhere in the universe. Theism predicted God is eternal and is outside of time. – Special Relativity has shown that time, as we understand it, is relative and comes to a complete stop at the speed of light. (Psalm 90:4 – 2 Timothy 1:9) - 5. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the universe did not have life in mind and that life was ultimately an accident of time and chance. Theism predicted this universe was purposely created by God with man in mind. Scientists find the universe is exquisitely fine-tuned for carbon-based life to exist in this universe. Moreover it is found, when scrutinizing the details of physics and chemistry, that not only is the universe fine-tuned for carbon based life, but is specifically fine-tuned for life like human life (R. Collins, M. Denton).- 6. Naturalism/Materialism predicted complex life in this universe should be fairly common. Theism predicted the earth is extremely unique in this universe. Statistical analysis of the hundreds of required parameters which enable complex organic life to be possible on earth gives strong indication the earth is extremely unique in this universe (G. Gonzalez; Hugh Ross). - 7. Naturalism/Materialism predicted it took a very long time for life to develop on earth. Theism predicted life to appear abruptly on earth after water appeared on earth (Genesis 1:10-11). Geochemical evidence from the oldest sedimentary rocks ever found on earth indicates that complex photosynthetic life has existed on earth as long as water has been on the face of earth. - 8. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the first life to be relatively simple. Theism predicted that God is the source for all life on earth. The simplest life ever found on Earth is far more complex than any machine man has made through concerted effort. (Michael Denton PhD) - 9. Naturalism/Materialism predicted the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Theism predicted complex and diverse animal life to appear abruptly in the seas in God’s fifth day of creation. The Cambrian Explosion shows a sudden appearance of many different and completely unique fossils within a very short “geologic resolution time” in the Cambrian seas. - 10. Naturalism/Materialism predicted there should be numerous transitional fossils found in the fossil record, Theism predicted sudden appearance and rapid diversity within different kinds found in the fossil record. Fossils are consistently characterized by sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record(disparity), then rapid diversity within that group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. - 11. Naturalism/Materialism predicted animal speciation should happen on a somewhat constant basis on earth. Theism predicted man was the last species created on earth – Man (our genus ‘modern homo’ as distinct from the highly controversial ‘early homo’) is the last generally accepted major fossil form to have suddenly appeared in the fossil record. (Tattersall; Luskin)– 12. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that the separation of human intelligence from animal intelligence ‘is one of degree and not of kind’(C. Darwin). Theism predicted that we are made in the ‘image of God’- Despite an ‘explosion of research’ in this area over the last four decades, human beings alone are found to ‘mentally dissect the world into a multitude of discrete symbols, and combine and recombine those symbols in their minds to produce hypotheses of alternative possibilities.’ (Tattersall; Schwartz). Moreover, both biological life and the universe itself are found to be ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis. 13. Naturalism/Materialism predicted much of the DNA code was junk. Theism predicted we are fearfully and wonderfully made – ENCODE research into the DNA has revealed a “biological jungle deeper, denser, and more difficult to penetrate than anyone imagined.”. - 14. Naturalism/Materialism predicted a extremely beneficial and flexible mutation rate for DNA which was ultimately responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. Theism predicted only God created life on earth – The mutation rate to DNA is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever. (M. Behe; JC Sanford) - 15. Naturalism/Materialism predicted morality is subjective and illusory. Theism predicted morality is objective and real. Morality is found to be deeply embedded in the genetic responses of humans. As well, morality is found to be deeply embedded in the structure of the universe. Embedded to the point of eliciting physiological responses in humans before humans become aware of the morally troubling situation and even prior to the event even happening. 16. Naturalism/Materialism predicted that we are merely our material bodies with no transcendent component to our being, and that we die when our material bodies die. Theism predicted that we have minds/souls that are transcendent of our bodies that live past the death of our material bodies. Transcendent, and ‘conserved’, (cannot be created or destroyed), ‘non-local’, (beyond space-time matter-energy), quantum entanglement/information, which is not reducible to matter-energy space-time, is now found in our material bodies on a massive scale (in every DNA and protein molecule).

As you can see when we remove the artificial imposition of the materialistic philosophy (methodological naturalism), from the scientific method, and look carefully at the predictions of both the materialistic philosophy and the Theistic philosophy, side by side, we find the scientific method is very good at pointing us in the direction of Theism as the true explanation. - In fact it is even very good at pointing us to Christianity:

The overturning of the Copernican Principle and the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead as the correct solution for the 'theory of everything': https://docs.google.com/document/d/17u0srH9x3kUiei43aOHoKolLsRERhPpUfI9WNhxyLrE/edit

bornagain77

What a silly comment. Your dislike for me is causing you to embarrass yourself. Aleta

Aleta,

If I were to commit myself to a metaphysical belief, I could go with this.

The arrogance implicit in this statement is breathtaking. Aleta speaks as if all of the competing metaphysical claims are waiting for him, all atwitter, breathlessly hoping "pick me! oh please pick me!" Barry Arrington

Aleta, you have believed a lie. There is far more observational evidence that the 'you', the 'you' that is the unified individual soul that constitutes 'you' as a 'person', continues on after death than there is observational evidence for Darwinian evolution:

Near-Death Experiences: Putting a Darwinist's Evidentiary Standards to the Test - Dr. Michael Egnor - October 15, 2012 Excerpt: Indeed, about 20 percent of NDE's are corroborated, which means that there are independent ways of checking about the veracity of the experience. The patients knew of things that they could not have known except by extraordinary perception -- such as describing details of surgery that they watched while their heart was stopped, etc. Additionally, many NDE's have a vividness and a sense of intense reality that one does not generally encounter in dreams or hallucinations.,,, The most "parsimonious" explanation -- the simplest scientific explanation -- is that the (Near Death) experience was real. Tens of millions of people have had such experiences. That is tens of millions of more times than we have observed the origin of species , (or the origin of life, or the origin of a protein/gene, or a molecular machine), which is never.,,, The materialist reaction, in short, is unscientific and close-minded. NDE's show fellows like Coyne at their sneering unscientific irrational worst. Somebody finds a crushed fragment of a fossil and it's earth-shaking evidence. Tens of million of people have life-changing spiritual experiences and it's all a big yawn. Note: Dr. Egnor is professor and vice-chairman of neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/near_death_expe_1065301.html

In the following study, researchers who had a bias against NDEs being real, set out to prove that they were merely hallucinations by setting up a questionnaire that would prove that the memories of NDEs were merely hallucinatory in nature. They did not expect the results that they got:

'Afterlife' feels 'even more real than real,' researcher says - Wed April 10, 2013 Excerpt: "If you use this questionnaire ... if the memory is real, it's richer, and if the memory is recent, it's richer," he said. The coma scientists weren't expecting what the tests revealed. "To our surprise, NDEs were much richer than any imagined event or any real event of these coma survivors," Laureys reported. The memories of these experiences beat all other memories, hands down, for their vivid sense of reality. "The difference was so vast," he said with a sense of astonishment. Even if the patient had the experience a long time ago, its memory was as rich "as though it was yesterday," Laureys said. http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/09/health/belgium-near-death-experiences/

Don Piper, whose movie on his experience, '90 Minutes In Heaven', was just released last Friday, made the following rather startling comment:

"More real than anything I've experienced since. When I came back of course I had 34 operations, and was in the hospital for 13 months. That was real but heaven is more real than that. The emotions and the feelings. The reality of being with people who had preceded me in death." - Don Piper - "90 Minutes in Heaven," 10 Years Later - video (2:54 minute mark) https://youtu.be/3LyZoNlKnMM?t=173

This following video interview of a Harvard Neurosurgeon, who had a Near Death Experience (NDE), is very interesting. His NDE was rather unique from typical NDEs in that he had completely lost brain wave function for 7 days while the rest of his body was on life support. As such he had what can be termed a ‘pure consciousness’ NDE that was dramatically different from the ‘typical’ Judeo-Christian NDEs of going through a tunnel to a higher heavenly dimension, seeing departed relatives, and having a life review. His NDE featured his ‘consciousness’ going outside the confines of space/time, matter/energy altogether to experience ‘non-locally’ what he termed ‘the Core’, i.e to experience God. It is also interesting to note that he retained a ‘finite sense of self-identity’, as Theism would hold, and did not blend into the infinite consciousness/omniscience of God, as pantheism would hold.

A Conversation with Near Death Experiencer Neurosurgeon Eben Alexander III, M.D. with Steve Paulson (Interviewer) - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ASWnPJSf7o

Here is a neat quote that I like:

"I think death is an illusion. I think death is a really nasty, bad lie. I don’t see any truth in the word death at all" – Pam Reynolds Lowery (1956 – May 22, 2010) http://christopherlovejoy.com/2011/03/20/who-you-really-are/

Supplemental note:

The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings - Stephen L. Talbott Excerpt: Virtually the same collection of molecules exists in the canine cells during the moments immediately before and after death. But after the fateful transition no one will any longer think of genes as being regulated, nor will anyone refer to normal or proper chromosome functioning. No molecules will be said to guide other molecules to specific targets, and no molecules will be carrying signals, which is just as well because there will be no structures recognizing signals. Code, information, and communication, in their biological sense, will have disappeared from the scientist’s vocabulary. ,,, the question, rather, is why things don’t fall completely apart — as they do, in fact, at the moment of death. What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer? Despite the countless processes going on in the cell, and despite the fact that each process might be expected to “go its own way” according to the myriad factors impinging on it from all directions, the actual result is quite different. Rather than becoming progressively disordered in their mutual relations (as indeed happens after death, when the whole dissolves into separate fragments), the processes hold together in a larger unity. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-unbearable-wholeness-of-beings picture - What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer? http://cdn-4.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/harvardd-2.jpg

bornagain77

When you die, it’s like throwing a drop of water back into the ocean.

The way I like to put it is that life after death is indistinguishable from life before birth. If you're not distressed at the fact that you weren't alive for the first baker's dozen billion years after the Big Bang, you shouldn't be any more distressed at the fact that you won't be alive either for the next baker's dozen billion years and more. b& Ben Goren

Alan Watts (google him if you don't know who he was) once wrote, and I paraphrase,

When you die, it's like throwing a drop of water back into the ocean.

This has stuck with me for over 40 years. In this view, individuality is a property of a living biological organism, not a property of the spirit that lies within. When we die, that spirit goes back to being an indistinguishable part of the unified cosmic spirit. No individual "I" goes on after death even though the essential spark of the divine that dwelt within me does continue as an undifferentiated part of the one spirit that animates the world. I like this. If I were to commit myself to a metaphysical belief, I could go with this. Aleta

Ben Goren:

…but infinite anything is my idea of Hell.

Yes, please turn off the respirator, unplug the electricity and let me sleep. Forever. Daniel King

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while

Dylan, "Visions of Johanna" Aleta

I’m no member of an established religion. I simply believe that there is a God, because there is excellent evidence for it. For me it’s perfectly clear that, without a God, — without life after death — life is meaningless.

Yes. Your life has no meaning other than whatever meaning you give to it. I'm sorry that this makes you feel uncomfortable, but the fact that it is true remains. No matter how hard you clap your hands, Tinkerbell does not live; she remains a fictional character in a faery tale, in the same Neverland as all the gods ever invented.

Let’s say that you are going to die tomorrow and on your deathbed are given a choice: ‘lights out’ or heaven, you would choose ‘lights out’ because you “have no reason to want anything more”?

If wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets. And, frankly, I have no desire whatsoever to spend an infinite amount of time in the company of the sort of petty, vindictive, heartless, childish incompetent as are all the gods being advertised in this thread. For that matter...all who claim to look forward to eternal life have no clue what that actually entails. Even the most incomprehensibly spectacular orgasmic bliss is going to get boring after the first few hundred trillion years -- and you still haven't made it across the lobby yet; the opening act is infinitely far away, and the curtain is never coming down on the show. Sure, I'd love more -- much more, even -- than the few score years I'm likely to have...but infinite anything is my idea of Hell. Let me check out on my own schedule, whenever I've decided I've had enough. b& Ben Goren

Vaal: It’s not that I “refuse” to believe, it’s that I don’t believe because I find arguments for God unconvincing.

The arguments for atheism pale in comparison. In order to see this, here — an article by WJMurray — may be a good place to start.

Vaal: I both don’t believe the Christian God exists and wouldn’t want it to be true that the Christian God exists (..)

Would you like 'another' God to exist? Can you think of a God that would be 'ideal'?

Aleta: I appreciate that I have this life to lead, and I accept the arc of human life as it goes from birth to death – I have no reason to want anything more, or to believe that there is anything more.

Let's say that you are going to die tomorrow and on your deathbed are given a choice: 'lights out' or heaven, you would choose 'lights out' because you "have no reason to want anything more"? If you have to make this choice for your loved ones, would you make the same decision? Box

SB: “Well, you need to make your mind. Love either implies action or it does not. If it does, then it is not limited to a feeling. You can’t have it both ways. Love either requires loving actions or it does not.” Vaal

I have already explained why that is a false dichotomy. Simply re-stating the false dichotomy is not a rebuttal.

No, you haven't. A statement cannot be true and false at the same time. Law of Non-Contradiction. Please take one position or the other: Agape love requires action or Agape love does not require action. What is your answer?

This is IF/THEN reasoning.

I know how it works. It appears that you do not. I am using If/Then reasoning to rebut your claims.

You may argue against this, but I am not in self contradiction.

You are in self-contradiction: Your position is: [a] Love requires action: [b] Love does not require action. My question persists: Are you loving your wife [agape love] if you abandon her and put her in a nursing home at her hour of greatest need on the grounds that having feelings of love are enough. Are you loving her if you refuse to pay the price of sacrificing your time? Or, it is enough to have "feelings" of love for her when you abandon her? SB: “Christians are permitted to define love as agape love and the Christian God is the one you are presuming to scrutinize. When I use the term “love,” therefore, I mean Christian love.”

Sure. But remember you are supposed to be able to give an argument for why another rational person – i.e. me – ought to accept your premises.

Of course. That is why I am asking you rational question grounded in my argument. I am asking you to show that you are a rational person by giving me an honest answer to my questions. SB: That tells us nothing about how you will act when things are not going so well.

Sure it does. As I’ve already said, if you love someone it would have implications for various *possible* scenarios, but that doesn’t entail those scenarios must occur for there to be actual love.

Implications? Possible scenarios? I want to know if you really believe what you say? If you love your family, does love require you to come to their rescue if they are being abused in the way you described? Or, would that not be a requirement and simply be a "possible scenario?" ----"I know how I feel about my wife and what I’d do if she was in peril. But if you hold that is NOT GOOD ENOUGH and that rather, you must put my wife in peril so I can demonstrate my care for my wife to you or some other observers, or that you must put her in harm’s way or else my love really isn’t valid, then you are demonstrating a monstrous moral vision that no one actually accepts put to real life."--- Nope. I didn't say that. You are putting words in my mouth. I asked you if love requires you to perform loving acts or if you think it is enough to simply have feelings of love even as you refuse to perform loving acts. So far, you have taken both sides of the issue. This is a contradiction.

And, again, the concept of Christian Heaven shows this – Christians think the best state of love is one in which it is felt without the existence of peril, evil and suffering.

Now that I have explained to you three times that the Christian view of heaven is not like that, and that my view is not like that, I can only assume that you are so desperate that you feel the need to say something that you know isn't true. Why would you knowingly make a false statement? Is that your idea of good faith dialogue? Again, there is no need to prove love or to suffer in heaven. The proving is over and the suffering is over. Is it necessary for me to explain this to you yet a fourth time. SB: The question is this: Are you going to rescue your family (or try) from the torturers, or are you going to say, “I have feelings of love for my family and that is enough.”

So here you are, actually adopting the morality of the evil guy in my story. I tell you I love my wife and kid, but that’s not enough. It’s “nonsense” UNLESS it is demonstrated by putting my family in peril and forcing the sacrifice upon me.

So, again, you appear afraid to answer a simple question. Clearly, you do not have much confidence in your position. You come here trying to scrutinize the Christian religion, but when your scrutiny is put under scrutiny, your attitude seems to change. StephenB

Thanks, Box. You write,

I simply believe that there is a God, because there is excellent evidence for it. For me it’s perfectly clear that, without a God, — without life after death — life is meaningless.... “No God” is an unspeakable sad state of affairs. So I do understand sad atheists. I understand the atheist who says: of course I want there to be God and a heavenly hereafter, but I cannot believe it is so. What I don’t understand is the willful atheist, who doesn’t want there to be a God.

It may be perfectly clear to you that "without a God, — without life after death — life is meaningless", but I definitely do not believe my life is meaningless because it will come to an end at my death, and I am definitely not sad that there is no God and attendant life after death. I don't "want there to be God and a heaven thereafter." I appreciate that I have this life to lead, and I accept the arc of human life as it goes from birth to death - I have no reason to want anything more, or to believe that there is anything more. That's why I don't think "refusing to believe" applies to me. Aleta

Aleta,

I don’t think you’d say that, but then I don’t know why you’d say I was willfully refusing to believe in the Christian God.

Box has seen you operate here at UD. And from that observation he has concluded that you frequently fail to act in good faith. For example, you pointed to the fact that 2+2=4 does not work when one is adding velocities, all the while knowing (as a math teacher) that 2+2=4 is meant to work only in the context of adding sets each with a cardinality of two to arrive at a set with a cardinality of four. To use the map/territory metaphor you are so found of, you pointed to Arizona and hooted about how a map of Texas is insufficient to describe it. Now if you were a mathematics layman like me, I might pass this off as a mistake. But any competent math teacher would know better. I infer, therefore, that you were not acting in good faith. Therefore, it is only natural to infer that you did not engage in a good faith evaluation of the evidence for Christianity. Thus, Box's statement. Barry Arrington

Box, "My question for those people “who willfully refuse to believe” is: Why?" I personally don't know any atheist who fits that description so I'm guessing you'll be waiting a long time for an answer. It's not that I "refuse" to believe, it's that I don't believe because I find arguments for God unconvincing. I both don't believe the Christian God exists and wouldn't want it to be true that the Christian God exists, just as I don't believe ISIS have a Doomsday Device but certainly wouldn't want it to be true they had one. I"m inferring from the Nagel quote that he is describing a similar mind set about the Christian God. So I don't think Nagel is expressing the idea his disbelief in God is due to an act of "willful disbelief" rather than reasoned assessment of the arguments. No atheist I've ever met thinks like that, and I'm sure Nagel is far too smart to endorse such a mind-set. Vaal

Ben Goren: Box, why do you willfully refuse to believe in Krishna, or Allah, or Zeus, or (...) or trolls…or…? My lack of belief in the Christian pantheon is no different from your lack of belief in any other pantheon. When you understand why you reject all other gods but your own, you will understand why I reject yours as well.

I'm no member of an established religion. I simply believe that there is a God, because there is excellent evidence for it. For me it's perfectly clear that, without a God, — without life after death — life is meaningless. VJTorley's quote of Russell is very much to the point:

“That man is the product of causes that had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins- all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. “Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”

"No God" is an unspeakable sad state of affairs. So I do understand sad atheists. I understand the atheist who says: of course I want there to be God and a heavenly hereafter, but I cannot believe it is so. What I don't understand is the willful atheist, who doesn't want there to be a God. Box

Ok, I see Box, and I appreciate your willingness to discuss this. 1. As I asked earlier, what happens to those people who grow up in other religious cultures and perhaps have never even heard of Christianity, or little Buddhist kids too young to even really know about religious beliefs, or devout followers of other religions who are just as committed to theirs as you are to yours. What happens to them when they die? If they don't go to hell, is heaven the only other choice? I would really like to know what Christian belief about this is. 2. I know a great deal about Christianity, and don't believe any of it. Why would you want to sayI am "willfully refusing" to believe and not just "I don't believe." As Ben said, are you willfully refusing to believe in Krishna? I don't think you'd say that, but then I don't know why you'd say I was willfully refusing to believe in the Christian God. Can you explain further? Aleta

StephenB Everyone in heaven had to pass a test of love to qualify for eternal life. Why? What consistent justification can you provide showing I ought to accept that principle? See, this is what Christians so steeped in their mythology and theodicies don't seem to notice. You assert your theological claims as if they solve the moral issues, when they only further RAISE the moral issues being debated. You haven't explained anything here. The question is whether the moral reasoning you present on behalf of Christianity/yahweh, is coherent and consistent with morality and goodness as we apply anywhere else. God could make up any "test" or demand he wanted for people to get into heaven - he could demand everyone rape or murder at least twice to pass a test to get into heaven: that doesn't answer whether the demand is a MORALLY CONSISTENT one. What you have to do is show how demanding that love is only accepted as "real love" if it is conjoined with peril and suffering is a consistently moral notion. So far, you have failed to show this - I've applied your principles to real life and shown they would result in monstrous demands. There are no moral dilemmas in heaven because there are no temptations to evil. There are no moral tests to pass. There is no more virtue to be attained. It has already been attained. Again, if our ultimate destiny, and the ultimately good state of affairs is a realm where moral dilemmas DO NOT occur, and this is in fact THE BEST state of affairs to be in, and love is most fully realized in a state where there is no peril….why in the world do we need another realm of existence of suffering and peril? You want to say "but love requires a test to get into heaven." But you have not established this as anything but arbitrary. You want to attach the necessity of peril-choosing to "real love" but then have to admit the ultimate state of affairs is love in the absence of peril-choosing! So there goes that principle. This is a blatant inconsistency on your part. Further, if love for another REQUIRES the peril of the one we love in order to give us the opportunity to demonstrate and justify our love, how can we truly fulfill a love for a heavenly God who is All Powerful and will never be in peril? So, again, on no level have I found you have made a case for your claims. Vaal

StephenB, "Well, you need to make your mind. Love either implies action or it does not. If it does, then it is not limited to a feeling. You can’t have it both ways. Love either requires loving actions or it does not." I have already explained why that is a false dichotomy. Simply re-stating the false dichotomy is not a rebuttal. I'll explain again. Here's the principle: That X has implications for Y does not entail that Y is necessary for the existence of X. This is IF/THEN reasoning. Examples of principle: 1. Light - electromagnetic radiation exists, for instance in the form of my flashlight. One can bring in other scenarios for which this has implications - e.g. IF there were a dark room you can't see into and you shine the light into it THEN the nature of light implies you will light the room and will be able to see there. But the fact light has implications for dark rooms doesn't mean that electromagnetic radiation REQUIRES dark rooms for light itself to fully exist. 2. If I'm enjoying an episode of Breaking Bad and wouldn't want to watch Big Bang Theory, then my affection for the show has implications for the proposition of "changing the channel to Big Bang Theory." IF someone changed the channel my affection for Breaking Bad implies my action of changing the channel back to that show. But that in no way entails that such a scenario of "changing the channel" has to be actualized in order for my affection for Breaking Bad to exist and be fully real. Acknowledging that X has implications for possible scenario Y does NOT entail that X is dependant upon scenario Y. Therefore I am not having to choose between love implying action or not. I'm saying that Love (X) has implications for possible scenarios (Y) of loved ones being in peril - e.g. it predicts certain outcomes/actions IF scenario Y occurred. But the fact of my love does not entail the existence of Y - the actualization of my loved ones coming into peril. You may argue against this, but I am not in self contradiction. "Christians are permitted to define love as agape love and the Christian God is the one you are presuming to scrutinize. When I use the term “love,” therefore, I mean Christian love." Sure. But remember you are supposed to be able to give an argument for why another rational person - i.e. me - ought to accept your premises. To do so you'll have to show consistency with principles and manners of behavior you and I accept elsewhere. If your version of "love" ends up having implications so inconsistent with what I and most people understand as "loving" or with generally accepted moral behavior, then your argument fails on consistency, whatever you happen to re-name as "love" or "agape love." That tells us nothing about how you will act when things are not going so well. Sure it does. As I've already said, if you love someone it would have implications for various *possible* scenarios, but that doesn't entail those scenarios must occur for there to be actual love. I know how I feel about my wife and what I'd do if she was in peril. But if you hold that is NOT GOOD ENOUGH and that rather, you must put my wife in peril so I can demonstrate my care for my wife to you or some other observers, or that you must put her in harm's way or else my love really isn't valid, then you are demonstrating a monstrous moral vision that no one actually accepts put to real life. And, again, the concept of Christian Heaven shows this - Christians think the best state of love is one in which it is felt without the existence of peril, evil and suffering. "Nonsense. The question is this: Are you going to rescue your family (or try) from the torturers, or are you going to say, “I have feelings of love for my family and that is enough.” (It isn’t necessary to write all those words.)" So here you are, actually adopting the morality of the evil guy in my story. I tell you I love my wife and kid, but that's not enough. It's "nonsense" UNLESS it is demonstrated by putting my family in peril and forcing the sacrifice upon me. My god…do you really want to pursue this line of reasoning? Vaal

Aleta, it is more than a matter of credence on the part of the Christian, anyway, (never mind the credulity atheists would claim). As James remarked in his epistle, 'The devils believe and tremble.' Faith is proved, as well as by credence, by an ongoing commitment to Charity, a generous, self-denying love. The description of the Last Judgment in Matthew 25 is the son of God's own description of what comprises our passport to heaven, qua our 'faith', and is the only one in the whole of scripture. It seems clear, however that this sine qua non of charity - in fact, what gives value to all the virtues, each of which latter has a counterfeit simulacrum - may not be consciously exercised by an individual 'sheep', the indwelling Holy Spirit of supernatural grace animating his actions without his even being aware of its nature and provenance. He/she just sees some poor soul 'up against it', and is moved by compassion, like the good Samaritan, to do what he can to help the suffering person, unaware that, in doing so, in some strange supernatural way, it is Christ that he is seeking to rescue from his travails. We are all of us, especially via baptism, kind of clones of the god-man, Jesus. The church teaches us to see him most clearly in those who suffer. We are branches of the true vine, which is Christ, himself, as he teaches us in the Gospel. As regard wishful thinking, yes, undoubtedly it is wishful thinking, but why would it not accord with the reality, since that same theological virtue (with Faith and Charity) of Hope is inspirited in us by the same indwelling Holy Spirit, who adopts us, if we are willing, for all eternity. Indeed, why should the truth be something not to be wished for, not to be hoped for, undesirable? That 'cold, hard reason' nonsense is a fantasy of the naive realists, as the reality is that it is both personal and dynamic, as quantum physics loudly proclaims. Indeed, 'wisdom is proven by her children', and this is exactly what has transpired. Physics has proved with irrefragable certainty the truth not merely of theism by a multiplicity of most cogent indicators, but Christianity, itself, via the miraculous Shroud of Turin. As regards intelligent design, alone, the fact that matter finally reduces to information definitively confirms it as the primordial reality ('In the beginning was the word..'), if one were so wilfully blind as not to see it throughout the whole of nature without the aid of physics. Axel

Andre, Christians are the one who blame Jesus's incompetence on free will. For me, it's a moot point; Jesus is a fictional character, and free will is an incoherent self-contained contradiction -- what a married bachelor might practice in spartan luxury north of the North Pole. I personally couldn't give a flying flip what excuses Christians make for why their imaginary Superman doesn't fly in and rescue Gotham from Lex Luthor. None of it has even the slightest bearing in reality. I do care that Christians are deceiving themselves, wasting a lot of their lives, and espousing some very dangerous positions -- though, to be fair, most simply speak in favor of profound evil even whilst being positively horrified at the mere notion of actually doing anything about it. Right up front, Vincent himself reassured us that he'd do the right and honorable thing, and alert the proper authorities if he even so much as suspected child abuse...even at the same time as he was trying to explain why such inaction is only to be expected from an entity infinitely more loving and able than he. All y'all have so much to contribute to our efforts to make an Heaven of our own here on Earth, and I hate to see such waste and so much that's counterproductive coming out of your fantasies and wishful thinking. And that's why I'm trying to point out the incoherence of the fantasies. I'm hoping that, by pointing out that Lex Luthor doesn't exist, doesn't have a doomsday machine, the earthquake just happened for no reason, and we would have expected Superman to have stopped Lex just in time before the city was destroyed if the stories were true...I'm hoping to get Christians to stop begging Superman to carry them away to Krypton with him, and to help me build some new homes that're up to code so they won't collapse and burn when the next quake hits. Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Perhaps John 3:16 should be amended to read "whoever believes wants to believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life". daveS

My question for those people “who willfully refuse to believe” is: Why?

Box, why do you willfully refuse to believe in Krishna, or Allah, or Zeus, or Thor...or Santa or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Faery...or the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot or the Chupacabra...or Leprechauns or unicorns or trolls...or...? My lack of belief in the Christian pantheon is no different from your lack of belief in any other pantheon. When you understand why you reject all other gods but your own, you will understand why I reject yours as well. Yes, you insist that your gods are special, completely unlike all the other gods. But the Muslims say the same thing about Muhammad and Allah, the Hindus the same about Krishna and Brahma, the ancient Egyptians the same about Horus and Ra, and on and on and on. From where I sit, Jesus and Jehovah are cut from the exact same cloth. Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Aleta: What is the difference between just “not believing in God” and “willfully refusing to believe in God”?

In post #236 VJTorley writes:

I might add that Pope Francis himself has said that even atheists may be saved, if they follow their consciences. Hell is for people who willfully refuse to believe, as opposed to people who want to believe, but cannot. The Bible nowhere says that people in the latter group go to Hell.

Do you not understand which distinction is being made here? - - - - I do not understand ppl who don't want to believe. I honestly do not. Hence my question. Box

And all I hear Ben Goren say is "Damn you Jesus for giving me free will, damn you!!!! I want you to be a big brother so I won't have to be responsible for the things I do! Damn you Jesus!" Andre

Box, I don't quite know what you mean when you write,

My question for those people “who willfully refuse to believe” is: Why?

What is the difference between just "not believing in God" and "willfully refusing to believe in God"? There are many reasons why I don't believe that God exists, and I see no reason why I should believe he does. Am I "willfully refusing" to believe in him? Or does "willingfully refusing" mean that I accept his existence, but refuse to accept him as my God, which would be an entirely different thing (and one that doesn't apply to me.) can you explain more? Aleta

Ben said "Jesus is a monster in a fairy tale" Yeah, I didn't expect much more, that's how your basic idea and worldview looks unwrapped. You don't need to hide it behind the smoke screen of verbosity. We are happy to help you understand that, you are welcome. But for you and your friends - Jerry Coyne's Boot worshipers there is no problemo, being that doesn't exist cannot be monster so you can sleep peacefully. You can get back to playing your trumpet. Eugen

Aleta: His response was the very reasonable point that what we want concerning meaning and death is irrelevant – we have to accept and live with what is in fact the case.

I know. Everyone knows. It's a perfectly irrelevant glaring truism. My question was not: do you hold that you can change the foundations of reality by wanting something? I cited Thomas Nagel for clarity: "It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that." Why don't you e-mail Thomas Nagel and tell him your great insight that his wanting there to be no God doesn't change anything? My question for those people “who willfully refuse to believe” is: Why? Box

For my part, I am describing love in terms of Christian charity, which means generous actions, or, if you like, Agape love, which means self-sacrificial love. [...] No, it isn’t. Everyone knows that morality refers both to intentions and actions. Yes. Love (Christian) must be tested by evil in order to prove itself. [...] You can’t have it both ways. What is your decision? Does love (agape) require action or not?

Christian, heal thyself. If Vaal's love for his wife requires the action he care for her even when she is old and senile, then Jesus's Agape for all humanity requires the action that he alert local authorities when his own priests start a serial rape spree. Vaal already has, and, I'm confident, will continue to demonstrate his love for his wife. Jesus has already failed and will assuredly continue to fail to demonstrate his Agape for the children of his own priests's flocks. b& Ben Goren

Box, I believe Ben was responding to you, who wrote,

I have a question for those people “who willfully refuse to believe”. Why? Why do you want a universe without meaning? Why do you want death to be the end?

His response was the very reasonable point that what we want concerning meaning and death is irrelevant - we have to accept and live with what is in fact the case. If one wants life to go on after death but in fact life doesn't, then accepting the truth about death is better than nursing wishes which are not true. Aleta

Ben Goren: Whether or not I want the universe to have meaning, whether or not I want death to be the end…my wishes on the matter no more give nor deny meaning to the universe or create or obliterate life after death than my desire to fly to the Moon gives me wings.

Why do you offer this glaring truism? No one has made the claim that your wants are capable of changing the foundations of reality — I certainly didn't. Box

SB: [it is necessary to choose good over evil in order to prove that love is really present. According to traditional Christianity, everyone in heaven had to pass the test of love by overcoming evil.” Vaal

I see no reason to accept your claim. First let me clarify: I certainly don’t deny that loving someone has implications for behavior. Of course it does, that’s one reason why I conclude a Good God doesn’t exist.

Well, you need to make your mind. Love either implies action or it does not. If it does, then it is not limited to a feeling. You can’t have it both ways. Love either requires loving actions or it does not. With respect to the official definition, I will address that issue now: For my part, I am describing love in terms of Christian charity, which means generous actions, or, if you like, Agape love, which means self-sacrificial love. However, if you do not want me to use the term love as synonymous with these things, then I will simply use the word Agape love or Christian love each time. However, that seems a little unwieldy, don’t you think?

:No one is obligated to accept your version without very good reasons to do so. And here is why you’ve supplied no such good reasons:

I think I have now provided good reasons. So, are we in agreement that Christian love, or agape love (self-sacrificial love) goes beyond the dictionary definition. Christians are permitted to define love as agape love and the Christian God is the one you are presuming to scrutinize. When I use the term “love,” therefore, I mean Christian love.

Your claim that love requires testing in the face of evil to show it exists, or be real deep or legitimate, is inconsistent with normal moral reasoning.

No, it isn’t. Everyone knows that morality refers both to intentions and actions. Yes. Love (Christian) must be tested by evil in order to prove itself.

Example from real life: Recently I was on vacation with my family, sitting by a pool reading, and also watching my son play in the pool with my wife. Taking in scenes like that, especially without other distractions, is when I most feel, am most in tune with, the experience of “love” for my family.

That tells us nothing about how you will act when things are not going so well. It is a completely meaningless scenario. The question persists: will you continue to love your wife when she is 90 years old and begs you not to put her in a nursing home, even though, it will cost you 12 hours a day to care for her? Or, will you say, “I feel good things for my and wife, but that is good enough.”

So let’s say at one point I looked up from my magazine and my wife and child were gone. As panic rises in me, a man approaches and says “We saw the way you were looking at your family. It seemed to indicate your affection. But we aren’t sure and have to be sure. Further, even if you were feeling that love, it’s not legitimate unless it has been deeply tested. Therefore, to help out, we have kidnapped your wife and child. Currently we are torturing them in an undisclosed location. If you love them you’ll want us to release them from torture. But you must demonstrate it to objective observers by making a significant sacrifice. We’ll release your family upon a demonstration of your willingness to sacrifice for them. We will accept your cutting off a hand, arm, or foot. After this is over, others can be satisfied your love was demonstrated, and you will have met the requirements of making your love truly real.” That isn’t the question. You are, again, writing many words and saying very little. The question is very simple: Is it enough to “feel” for them, or must you do something. Now, this gentlemen would appear to exemplify just the logic you expect me to accept about love – this is what “real love” demands, or perhaps what God demands for “real love.” And yet, I, and every normal person (including you no doubt) would recoil in horror and see this as insane. Your logic does not stand up to real life consistency.

Nonsense. The question is this: Are you going to rescue your family (or try) from the torturers, or are you going to say, “I have feelings of love for my family and that is enough.” (It isn't necessary to write all those words.) You can’t have it both ways. What is your decision? Does love (agape) require action or not?

The problem of Heaven. Most of Christianity subscribes to the concept of Heaven as a realm where one experiences constant bliss and love WITHOUT peril and “tests” of the sorts you imply.

I have already addressed that issue. Everyone in heaven had to pass a test of love to qualify for eternal life. Please stop asking me to explain things two or three times.

In other words, the value of Heaven as depicted by most Christianity is being about a state of mind, state of feeling, NOT ACTIONS choosing between evil or saving loved ones from evil. And this state of being is seen as the Ultimate State Of Being – the one of highest desire and value.

There are no moral dilemmas in heaven because there are no temptations to evil. There are no moral tests to pass. There is no more virtue to be attained. It has already been attained.

Therefore your claims that for Love to be real or significant it must be accompanied by tests of evil and peril is in contradiction to Heaven, where the ultimate form of love is does not require this.

Only love that has proven itself qualifies for heaven. It doesn’t need to prove itself again. So my point stands. Please try to make your points more concisely and please stay on topic. We were not discussing heaven. StephenB

I have a question for those people “who willfully refuse to believe”. Why? Why do you want a universe without meaning? Why do you want death to be the end?

Box, just because you wish the world were different doesn't make it so. Whether or not I want the universe to have meaning, whether or not I want death to be the end...my wishes on the matter no more give nor deny meaning to the universe or create or obliterate life after death than my desire to fly to the Moon gives me wings. Wouldn't you want to fly to the Moon and bounce on its craters? Swim through the Great Red Spot on Jupiter? See what it's like out amongst the stars? I sure would. So where are our wings? If you don't have wings, it must be because you don't really care what space is like. But then why would you want to be such a dull, unimaginative person? Where your own wings are, that's where you'll find my belief in your gods. b& Ben Goren

VJ writes,

Hell is for people who willfully refuse to believe, as opposed to people who want to believe, but cannot. The Bible nowhere says that people in the latter group go to Hell.

Is that the orthodox position? What happens to those people who grow up in other religious cultures and perhaps have never even heard of Christianity, or little Buddhist kids too young to even know about religious beliefs. What happens to them when they die? I would really like to know what Christian belief about this is. Aleta

Vincent, why should we bother with the words of Swiftian flappers interpreting Jesus for us, when we can read what we are to believe is his official authorized biography for ourselves? Did Jesus not describe Hell as a place of fire and torment and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth? Or was Luke in error when he wrote verses such as 13:28? Or perhaps Luke's original text has not been faithfully preserved? If I should wish to understand the words of the person who is said to have the greatest possible insight into the human condition, I'll consider his actual words long before I let somebody else of inferior intellect, quite possibly with an agenda, tell me what the great man really meant to say but couldn't quite phrase correctly. ...which, of course, is why interpreters such as Lewis are necessary in the first place. It's instantly obvious to anybody who reads the actual Bible, as opposed to an heavily annotated Cliff's Notes redaction of the Bible, that Jesus is far from being a love god and is, instead, the over-the-top archvillain of the story. So, if, for whatever reason, you wish to maintain the fiction that Jesus is a love god, you've got to put words in his mouth and hope nobody reads nor remembers passages like Luke 19:27 or Matthew 5:27-32 or Matthew 10:34.

I don’t think atheism offers people a meaningful view of life.

Of course it doesn't! Not believing in the Loch Ness Monster, or Santa, or the faeries at the foot of the garden doesn't offer a meaningful view of life, either. Nor does accepting the discoveries of science as having a very high probability of being reasonably accurate offer a meaningful view of life. If it's meaning you want -- and who doesn't? -- it's up to you to make it for yourself. That's part of what it means to grow up, to embrace adulthood. Do you want to be an astronaut? Would adventure give your life meaning? Maybe you want to be a firefighter, and make your meaning by giving other people a second chance? Perhaps you could make stuff and give your life meaning through your own creations? Be a scientist and make your meaning the discovery of the meanings of your surroundings? It's all up to you. Which, of course, is frightening at first...and then most exhilarating, once you embrace it.

To be sure, many atheists are loving people who are deeply devoted to their families, but at the back of their heads, they continually have to keep away the thought that ultimately, life is absurd.

Of course life is absurd. Haven't you noticed!? Incredibly, powerfully absurd. So? As with everything else, just because you wish it were otherwise, merely because you can't bear to admit it is so...well, tough titties. Reality is that which persists even when you wish it wouldn't.

I cannot fathom why atheists like yourselves are not in the least curious about checking out the evidence for these miracles.

As the saying goes, we've got the T-shirt. You know why you're not convinced by today's Indian mystics, despite their massive and sophisticated PR campaigns? We're even less impressed by your centuries-old unsophisticated minor PR campaigns. Again, you can prove for yourself that gravity is real; just grab that apple and a stopwatch. But there's absolutely no doubt whatsoever in anybody's mind that each and every miracle you cite couldn't even withstand the slightest attempt at critical objective evaluation -- any more than the Indian mystics, any more than the Gypsy card readers, any more than the stage magicians, any more the Uri Geller, any more than any such performer, whether honest or avaricious. Were these phenomena real, and as readily available as one must conclude from their widespread belief...well, don't you think we'd be putting them to better use than getting people to toss a few pennies in the hat when it gets passed around? Billions of dollars have been spent on superconducting magnetic levitation for use in rail transport. Wouldn't it be so much cheaper to hire a few yogis, one for each car in the train? Cheers, b& Ben Goren

vjtorley "Finally, regarding miracles: none of the quoted testimonies on Sai Baba relate to levitations performed over a period of hours, under normal lighting conditions, with Sai Baba floating several meters above the ground, in the presence of dozens or even hundreds of witnesses. To compare the levitations of St. Joseph of Cupertino with those of Sai Baba is intellectually lazy." On the contrary, it's being intellectually consistent, and I submit, cheekily and respectfully, if anything the laziness is on the other foot :-) I'm applying consistent skepticism. The tendency of humans to create false supernatural claims - as shown by the many contradictions found in these claims, and from the prosaic "evidence" we find whenever they can be thoroughly investigated - cautions strongly against the reliability of "eyewitness claims" for the supernatural. (Heck, eyewitness claims for mundane, accepted phenomenon like "He started the fight" or "He was shot while he was trying to give himself up to the police" are held to high skepticism and cross-examination). I'm being consistent with our most fully realized account of how to vet empirical claims: science. For any claim that would go against, or significantly expand our understanding of how the universe operates - e.g. perpetual motion machines, people levitating or rising from the dead - we rationally hold these to our HIGHEST levels of scrutiny. Again, look at all the work demanded simply to verify something like a Higgs Boson, something that actually fits in with current theoretical understandings of physics, let alone forces that DON'T fit in or contradict our understanding of what is possible. Your case for someone levitating hundreds of years ago would, as you well know, not remotely pass muster if presented to the scientific community, for all the good, justified reasons for why science is so successful in vetting claims in the first place. So I'm being consistent across the board with rational skepticism. On the other hand: You are presenting purported eyewitness claims to a miracle - levitation. All you are presenting is the claims about the purported BELIEFS of a number of people. Your argument is the suggestion that, unless one could explain how people could come to those beliefs without appeal to the reality of the miracle, then they should be compelling evidence for the reality of the miracle. I've simply asked that you demonstrate consistency by appling the same logic to OTHER claims of miracles. It doesn't matter whether Sai Baba did "an exactly similar miracle" (Sai Baba after all did many other miracles your Saint did not achieve!). The point is that amazing miracles have been ascribed to Sai Baba, and other God men, and by your logic if you can not come up with non-miraculous explanations, the truth of those miracle claims remains the best conclusion. So, please be my guest and apply your same argument to the miracles of Sai Baba, explaining them away. How could eyewitnesses come to believe Sai Baba altered the course of a river? Controlled the weather at will? Resurrected people from the dead? Appeared simultaneously to different people 600 miles apart? How could followers (and non followers!) of Sai Baba of Shirdi come to believe they had seen bodily post-mortem appearances? How could current followers of Sai Baba come to believe they have seen him after death as well? The point is if you actually attempt to come up with non-miraculous explanations to explain the belief of their devotees, it will have clear implications for the miracles of Jesus and your flying Saint as well. Which is one reason I probably shouldn't expect any such attempt on your part in the first place. (I have been putting up the Sai Baba challenge to Christians for years and years and no one has ever taken up the challenge of explaining how the eyewitness claims could have arisen through non-miraculous events. Again, it's not that their explanations fail…it's that when they even begin trying they quickly get to "uh-oh" land for their own miracle claims, and suddenly have better things to do). Vaal

vjtorley wrote: "Believing in God is a matter of the heart as well as the head." That is silly. It's all in your head. Imagine you were an atheist/polytheist/pseudotheist/demitheist/oligotheist who suddenly had a sublime experience that overwhelmed your entire being with both the feeling and the certainty of Yahweh's existence and love towards his creation (something that has happened several times, to be sure) - and because of that you wholeheartedly converted to christianity. Now imagine suffering an injury to the brain two hours later, one that permanently affected an area upon which recollection of recent memories depends (which happens quite frequenly). Now, when you wake up you will have no recollection of the sublime experience that lead to your conversion, nor the conversion itself. It will be as if you were never a christian. THAT is how significant believing in gods and other supernatural being is. Completely dependant on the recollection and reinforcement of the fuzzy feeling in the belly from when you were certain Yahweh loved you. This is also what takes people to churches, temples, mosques, religious organizations, meetings and websites. The strangest thing of all, though, is that even though no religious person will refrain from saying that their faith is what matters, that they feel in their hearts such and such, some still go to lengths in the completely futile (by their own implicit admission) endeavor of concocting excuses and rationalizations for conclusions they did not arrive at rationally in the first place. It would be much, much more honest to just drop the post-hoc excuses and say outright "STFU atheist, god exists because I want it to, GTFO my faiths." rtkufner

VJ, Isn't it 4:00 AM there? Do you ever sleep? Barry Arrington

VJTorley: Hell is for people who willfully refuse to believe, as opposed to people who want to believe, but cannot. The Bible nowhere says that people in the latter group go to Hell.

I have a question for those people "who willfully refuse to believe". Why? Why do you want a universe without meaning? Why do you want death to be the end?

Thomas Nagel: It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.

Box

Vaal, Sastra and Ben Goren: Summing up: it seems that the differences that divide us ultimately boil down to epistemology. I have a few questions I'd like you all to ponder. 1. How would you rate the prior probability of a miracle? I'd like an actual number, please. I've already given you my estimate of 1 in 10^120, based on Seth Lloyd's calculations of the number of discrete events that have taken place during the history of the observable universe, and on Laplace's famous "sunrise argument." If you don't like that figure, what's your alternative? 2. I can understand your reluctance to believe in an omnibenevolent Being, given the suffering in the world. But why aren't you investigating the possibility that a Designer may exist, but that He's the God of Spinoza (i.e. not a Being Who is interested in us personally)? Or why aren't you having a look at Jewish physicist Gerard Schroeder's book, The Hidden Face of God, in which he argues for a Creator who is finite and who makes mistakes? Surely these are hypotheses worth considering. Why are you interested in only two alternatives: materialism or an infinitely loving God? 3. Why do you keep bringing up the Bible, Heaven and Hell, as if the only kind of infinitely loving God would have to be the Judeo-Christian one? 4. If you are convinced that inference to the best explanation makes the notion of an infinitely loving God unlikely, then why do you object to Intelligent Design arguments that cosmological fine-tuning, combined with solid scientific arguments against the multiverse and calculations by evolutionary biologist Dr. Eugene Koonin showing that abiogenesis is astronomically unlikely, are best explained by the hypothesis of a Designer Who created life and the cosmos? It's the same kind of reasoning. For that matter, you might combine the two inferences and conclude that there's a Designer, but He/She/It isn't infinitely loving. But you seem to think that the argument from evil outweighs the argument from design, despite the fact that the latter argument is rigorously quantitative while the former is not. Why? Well, I've contributed long enough to this thread, and I think I'll leave it there. If you want a handy summary of the various strands of evidence for God's existence, please see here, and good luck to you all with your search for truth. I would like to thank you for your patience and courtesy, and I'll leave the last word to you. vjtorley

StephenB Re why couldn't God have created more noble creatures, with a greater tendency toward choosing The Good? "That’s easy. According to classical Christianity, which is what I am arguing, God did create creatures (humans) more noble and more inclined toward the good. They are not as noble as they once were." Ok, glad it's easy. But I can't imagine you think your response suffices as an answer to the problem. You'd have to answer: Why aren't we as noble as we once were? Is it because the original noble creatures chose to sin? If so, that contradicts the claim of their nobility - their tendency not to choose sin. I look forward to your making a coherent argument for this problem. Vaal

StephenB Sorry, I hadn't seen your new reply to me when I posted my last one to you. "If your notion of love is limited to a feeling, it is superficial in the extreme." "That is why love must be tested in order to determine if it is real. Hence, it is necessary to choose good over evil in order to prove that love is really present. According to traditional Christianity, everyone in heaven had to pass the test of love by overcoming evil." I see no reason to accept your claim. First let me clarify: I certainly don't deny that loving someone has implications for behavior. Of course it does, that's one reason why I conclude a Good God doesn't exist. IF someone you love is in peril, of course you will want them to be safe, and if that required your action you'd take it. But that is different from saying that the existence of real love REQUIRES such scenarios of peril. That is where I find you to go off the tracks. 1. First, dictionaries display what most people refer to by the term "Love," and you can look at any number of dictionary definitions and see that they describe certain states of mind, feelings - e.g. "to have a profoundly tender, passionate affection for (another person)." So your claim as to the nature of love, with it's additional claims that the dictionary meaning is insufficient, is already in competition the normal use of the word "love." No one is obligated to accept your version without very good reasons to do so. And here is why you've supplied no such good reasons: 2. Your claim that love requires testing in the face of evil to show it exists, or be real deep or legitimate, is inconsistent with normal moral reasoning. Example from real life: Recently I was on vacation with my family, sitting by a pool reading, and also watching my son play in the pool with my wife. Taking in scenes like that, especially without other distractions, is when I most feel, am most in tune with, the experience of "love" for my family. But on your logic, this is not good enough. This is love…without test. So let's say at one point I looked up from my magazine and my wife and child were gone. As panic rises in me, a man approaches and says "We saw the way you were looking at your family. It seemed to indicate your affection. But we aren't sure and have to be sure. Further, even if you were feeling that love, it's not legitimate unless it has been deeply tested. Therefore, to help out, we have kidnapped your wife and child. Currently we are torturing them in an undisclosed location. If you love them you'll want us to release them from torture. But you must demonstrate it to objective observers by making a significant sacrifice. We'll release your family upon a demonstration of your willingness to sacrifice for them. We will accept your cutting off a hand, arm, or foot. After this is over, others can be satisfied your love was demonstrated, and you will have met the requirements of making your love truly real." Now, this gentlemen would appear to exemplify just the logic you expect me to accept about love - this is what "real love" demands, or perhaps what God demands for "real love." And yet, I, and every normal person (including you no doubt) would recoil in horror and see this as insane. Your logic does not stand up to real life consistency. 3. To elaborate on 2 toward another point: Situations of well being are more conducive to the experience of "love" than ones of peril. I love my son, but when he was young and for a short while we couldn't find him after school (eventually found) what I experienced was distress, fear, panic. Yes I experienced those because I love him, but it certainly was not REQUIRED for me to love my son! Love is a positive feeling. Putting my son in peril actually has the effect of being overruled by horrible, negative feelings of panic and fear. Which brings us to…. 4. The problem of Heaven. Most of Christianity subscribes to the concept of Heaven as a realm where one experiences constant bliss and love WITHOUT peril and "tests" of the sorts you imply. In other words, the value of Heaven as depicted by most Christianity is being about a state of mind, state of feeling, NOT ACTIONS choosing between evil or saving loved ones from evil. And this state of being is seen as the Ultimate State Of Being - the one of highest desire and value. Therefore your claims that for Love to be real or significant it must be accompanied by tests of evil and peril is in contradiction to Heaven, where the ultimate form of love is does not require this. In fact, this is related to point #3. Christians realize that situations of peril and evil and "tests" are NOT the optimal scenario for experiencing love. That is why their ultimate fantasy is a place where one can simply feel love WITHOUT these tests and threats to our loved one's well-fare. So, I find your reasoning about love fails on virtually every count. It fails, by making unjustified additional conditions, in terms of being consistent with how the word is normally understood. It fails in being inconsistent with principles of moral reasoning as we apply them in real life. It fails as a psychological understanding of love. And it fails in being inconsistent with the concept of Heaven which acts as a counter example to your claims. Hence…I reject your claim. Cheers, Vaal

Here's more from Michael Grosso's article:

It is impossible to suppose that all the stories about levitation were part of a Church plot to use miracles to control the mind of the masses. It wasn’t like that at all. The only way to make sense of the Church’s treatment of Joseph is to assume that he possessed these strange abilities in such abundance that there was talk of a new messiah arising. Joseph’s response to his Inquisitor’s was humble and honest. He had to explain that he enjoyed these “consolations” but that he was not proud or pleased with himself for having them. Nevertheless, the Church progressively tried to make him retreat to the most obscure corners of the Adriatic coast, ending finally under virtual house arrest in a small monastic community at Osimo. There was no decline effect in Joseph’s strange aerial behaviors; during his last six years in Osimo he was left alone to plunge into his interior life; the records are unanimous in saying that the ratti (raptures) were in abundance right up until his dying days. The cleric in charge of the community swore that he witnessed Joseph levitate to the ceiling of his cell thousands of times. The surgeon Pierpaolo was cauterizing Joseph’s leg shortly before his death when he realized the friar was insensible and floating in the air. He and his assistant both deposed that they bent down and looked beneath Joseph’s horizontal body, to be sure they weren’t dreaming. To repudiate the evidence for Joseph’s levitations would be to repudiate thirty-five years of history because the records of his life are quite detailed and entangled with other lives and documented historical events. We would have to assume colossal mendacity and unbelievable stupidity on the part of thousands of people, if we chose to reject this evidence. We would be forced to believe that when the duchess of Parma wrote in a letter that Joseph was the “prodigy of the century”, she was romancing or totally deluded.

Definitely worth checking out. vjtorley

Continued... Finally, regarding miracles: none of the quoted testimonies on Sai Baba relate to levitations performed over a period of hours, under normal lighting conditions, with Sai Baba floating several meters above the ground, in the presence of dozens or even hundreds of witnesses. To compare the levitations of St. Joseph of Cupertino with those of Sai Baba is intellectually lazy. I cannot fathom why atheists like yourselves are not in the least curious about checking out the evidence for these miracles. As I said, the testimonies, which were collected from persons of unimpeachable integrity who were testifying under oath during the inquiry into St. Joseph's canonization, comprise 13 volumes, which are kept in the Vatican Library. For Catholics, this is our star exhibit. The evidence is as clear-cut as you could possibly get. Why aren't you sending someone to the Vatican to check out the manuscripts? I would be, if I were in your shoes. I'd like to quote from a blog article titled, Why Levitation? by Michael Grosso (October 8, 2013), who has done extensive research on the saint:

By chance, on a trip to Italy some years ago I acquired a 1722 biography of St. Joseph of Copertino. I had read accounts of St. Joseph’s levitations in a scholarly essay by Eric Dingwall and also in Herbert Thurston’s book, The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism. Eventually I began to read Domenico Bernini’s biography of Joseph, which Dingwall had cited as being rich in sworn eyewitness testimonies of the saint’s phenomena, which included more than levitation. I delved into the critical literature and assembled my own thoughts on the subject in a forthcoming book, The Strange Case of St. Joseph of Copertino: Ecstasy and the Mind-Body Problem (Oxford University Press). Joseph’s performances were never dubious sightings; they were show-stoppers, and his reputation as miracle mystic man spread all over Italy and then Europe…. The records show at least 150 sworn depositions of witnesses of high credentials: cardinals, bishops, surgeons, craftsmen, princes and princesses who personally lived by his word, popes, inquisitors, and countless variety of ordinary citizens and pilgrims. There are letters, diaries and biographies written by his superiors while living with him. Arcangelo di Rosmi recorded 70 incidents of levitation; and then decided it was enough. Streams of inexplicable events surrounded the black-bearded friar. Driven by malicious curiosity, even Joseph’s inquisitors observed him in ecstatic levitation during Mass. Their objection to him was not the fact that he levitated; they were concerned with where the power was coming from, God or the Devil?

vjtorley

Vaal and Ben Goren, A couple of quick responses re God, Hell, Heaven and miracles. Re finding God, I strongly urge you both to read these two excellent articles by ex-atheist Jennifer Fulwiler, who writes far more eloquently on the subject than I do: http://jenniferfulwiler.com/2007/04/suppressing-soul/ http://jenniferfulwiler.com/2009/04/finding-rest/ Believing in God is a matter of the heart as well as the head. Vaal, you argued that the Bible supports the view that Hell is a place of torture. I suggest that you take a look at the following article by Christian apologist Glenn Miller, which is highly informative: http://christianthinktank.com/gr5part2.html In a nutshell, Miller argues that C.S. Lewis's view of Hell has better Biblical support than Dante's view of Hell as a place of torture. Instead, the dominant Biblical image is one of everlasting shame, bitter regret, and "weeping and gnashing of teeth." C.S. Lewis held that God ultimately honors our decisions. In The Problem of Pain, Lewis writes: "I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of Hell are locked on the inside." I might add that Pope Francis himself has said that even atheists may be saved, if they follow their consciences. Hell is for people who willfully refuse to believe, as opposed to people who want to believe, but cannot. The Bible nowhere says that people in the latter group go to Hell. Re Heaven and the meaning of life: St. Augustine summed it up best when he wrote, "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you." Heaven is a place of everlasting and unconditional love. I find it hard to imagine that anyone would not want that. I don't think atheism offers people a meaningful view of life. To be sure, many atheists are loving people who are deeply devoted to their families, but at the back of their heads, they continually have to keep away the thought that ultimately, life is absurd. In Bertrand Russell's words:

"That man is the product of causes that had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins- all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. "Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built."

Jennifer Fulwiler's article at http://jenniferfulwiler.com/2009/04/finding-rest/ illustrates how atheism can harm people's mental health. (Jennifer Fulwiler grew up in an atheist family.) To be continued... vjtorley

According to classical Christianity, which is what I am arguing, God did create creatures (humans) more noble and more inclined toward the good. They are not as noble as they once were.

Stephen, that's simply not coherent. Abandoning nobility is not an act of nobility. Noble people don't abandon nobility. At best, ignoble people might abandon the pretenses of nobility, but that's something else entirely. So the creatures your god created couldn't have been noble to begin with. And we're somehow to blame for an ignoble god imperfectly creating us in its own ignoble image? I suppose there is a certain consistency in that, after all. Tyrants don't care about nobility, only its pretense. So of course a tyrant would fault its creation for its own failing. But then why should you wish to worship at the altar of an (imaginary, to be sure) tyrant? If you're going to go looking for a god to worship, why not go with one that actually is noble, rather than one that simply puts on airs? b& Ben Goren

Vaal

That’s fine by me. The longer version rebutting your various claims is up there for others who wish to read it

Vaal, you didn't rebut anything. You simply filled the air with words. I am now breaking these comments down. Vaal

Sorry, but again, on whose say so? What definition of “love” are you using and why ought I agree with that definition? I see no reason that love could not exist absent evil. I’ll appeal to actual, accepted definitions of love (Googles definition of Love):

If your notion of love is limited to a feeling, it is superficial in the extreme. We are not discussing the feelings of love; we are discussing the actions of love. If you feel love for someone, but you don’t have the courage to protect them from harm, even at some cost to yourself, then you don’t really love that person. Real love is not simply a feeling. The Greeks discussed three levels of love, eros (based on feeling), philia (brotherly love) and Agape (self sacrificial love). Only the latter category qualifies as Christian love. That is why love must be tested in order to determine if it is real. Hence, it is necessary to choose good over evil in order to prove that love is really present. According to traditional Christianity, everyone in heaven had to pass the test of love by overcoming evil. Only then can one love exist in an environment absent of suffering and evil.

Love: 1. An intense feeling of deep affection.

As indicated, that is a superficial definition, though accurate as far as it goes, which is not very far.

When I look at my wife or my son I feel love. I don’t feel myself struggling with or even thinking about evil. The simple experience of deep affection quite sufficiently entails I love them. So your assertion that “love” requires consciously choosing good over evil is thus far just that: an unsupported claim.

Again, I find this expression extremely superficial. Do you really mean to say that you love your wife if you allow someone to rape her in your presence on the grounds that love doesn’t have to express itself in action? Indeed, you have now contradicted yourself, since you indicated earlier that loving people “intervene.” You can’t have it both ways (love is a feeling—love must act) How do you resolve this inconsistency?

And on the subject of human-born evil and suffering and the free will defense: please explain why an All Powerful, All Good Being could not have, and would not have, created creatures more noble and more inclined toward the good than us?

That's easy. According to classical Christianity, which is what I am arguing, God did create creatures (humans) more noble and more inclined toward the good. They are not as noble as they once were. Now, will you respond to my comments.

That is why (Which would plausibly result in a world with far less people harming one another)

Of course. I agree. You are repeating yourself.

Surely there are logically possible free willed creatures with less base desires impulses, better impulse control, less bias, greater access to reasons for good behaviour, than many human beings.

Of course. You are, again, repeating yourself and agreeing with me most aggressively.

If you wish to deny this possibility, I believe you will get into some of the problems I already indicated in the post you didn’t want to read. But we can get there :-)

I haven't denied the point. I made the point. You are repeating yourself yet again. Now will you address my points. I will be happy to answer any question that you may have, but I cannot help you if you will not answer my points. StephenB

StephenB, That's fine by me. The longer version rebutting your various claims is up there for others who wish to read it :-) I'll repeat this short part: “Man, not God, created suffering.” Well that’s weird. I don’t remember myself, or anyone else, causing the existence of rabies. Or malaria. Or Ebola. Or earthquakes. Or tornadoes. Or cancerous rays from the sun. Or predators, poisonous snakes, genetic defects, or any of the countless natural afflictions. I’m afraid I see no reason to accept that statement. And on the subject of human-born evil and suffering and the free will defense: please explain why an All Powerful, All Good Being could not have, and would not have, created creatures more noble and more inclined toward the good than us? (Which would plausibly result in a world with far less people harming one another). Surely there are logically possible free willed creatures with less base desires impulses, better impulse control, less bias, greater access to reasons for good behaviour, than many human beings. If you wish to deny this possibility, I believe you will get into some of the problems I already indicated in the post you didn't want to read. But we can get there :-) Cheers, Vaal Vaal

Since you are b) shouldn’t we first clear whether such being exists or not so that way we clear the more important issue.

Eugen, you desire brevity. So: Jesus is a monster in a faery tale. b& Ben Goren

Stephen, we must be using the language differently. To claim that the father of all, the moral lawgiver, should deny responsibility for his charges...well, that's the very definition of irresponsible. What kind of platoon leader fails to accept responsibility for the actions of his troops? What kind of boss sanctions incompetence, or throws his subordinates under the bus? What kind of President declares that the buck does not stop at his desk? Irresponsible ones, no? An irresponsible person who fails to demonstrate a proper acceptance of responsibility. And if you're going to claim the title of ultimate moral authority...that job, as with any other, comes with commensurate moral responsibility. So, either your God, Vincent's Jesus, the Pope's Trinity, the Islamic Muhammad and Allah...either they have ultimate moral authority and are shirking their responsibilities, or there is no responsibility associated with authority and no justifiable reason to hold anybody accountable. Including, it must be noted, no reason for the gods themselves to hold us accountable.

The Christian God, which is apparently the God you disdain, does not “need” or depend on anything.

Then why did it create the world and humanity in the first place? It must have wanted us for something. You don't go around intentionally creating things you have no desire for, do you? Do you know anybody who does? Can you even formulate how that could be coherently expressed? And if Jesus doesn't want us to follow his teachings, why'd he come and sacrifice for us in the first place? I must admit, it seems utterly bizarre to me, bordering on incomprehensible, for you to so vehemently dismiss the notion that Jesus needs something from us. Aren't we constantly bombarded with messages for how Jesus needs our help with prayers here and money there? Isn't love itself, at least in part, a desire for the wellbeing of another? There are infantile needs, of course, and your previous post certainly identified one in Jesus. But to throw that baby out with the bathwater and declare that Jesus couldn't possibly have any needs at all...well, the only people who don't need anything are the dead. Are you trying to tell us that Jesus is dead? Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Jerry wrote: "Thus, God would never intervene is an obvious way because once the intervention was obvious, free will disappears. There would be no calls to 911." You can't really influence people's freedom of will through 911, though. At best, you may influence their freedom of ACTION. If Yahweh or Jesus Christ made an anonymous call to 911, it would not affect anyone's freedom of will AT ALL. All Ben Goren's argument requires as evidence for the existence of an omniscient benevolent deity that does not influence free will is a PHONE CALL. He is in no way asking for the use of psychoactive substances, hypnosis or Jedi mind tricks. So, sorry to spoil the party, but "the problem of evil", even in its human form, cannot be dispelled by the "but free will" gambit. rtkufner

But if you want boundless love, then I’m curious as to why you think the prospect of eternal happiness with God doesn’t qualify as a manifestation of infinite love on God’s part.

But of course that's not boundless! We've already identified the boundary, and you and I and everybody else in this world, especially those enduring intolerable suffering, are on the other side of it. And if all this suffering is irrelevant in the face of infinite bliss, then our lives are worthless, meaningless, pointless. If our suffering matters not to the gods, how could our bravery matter either? Christians claim all are sinful and saved only by the grace of Jesus, right? So sin is irrelevant; go and sin much more. If Jesus can forgive the finite sin of stepping on an ant, he can certainly forgive the sin of murdering millions; both pale in significance to the infinitude of the afterlife -- so sin is meaningless, too. Don't you see? Your gods don't give your life meaning and purpose; they rob you of it. That's your entire argument: no horror is too much, for it's irrelevant compared with heaven eternal. And no history of noble deeds is sufficient, either. None of it matters. You've made clear that that's not how you actually live your life. So why should you be so dismissive of your true values and put forth fake meaningless nonsense that renders it irrelevant? Isn't it important to you that you're a good person? Wouldn't it still be important to you even without Jesus? Why persist in believing in a faery tale that diminishes who you are, that dismisses your entire life as an irrelevancy? You're not a better person because of it; you're a decent person in spite of it. What, then, do you gain by this gullibility and self-deception? An excuse to pretend that you're not going to die? Do you engage in similar wishful thinking that you won't have to pay taxes? b& Ben Goren

SB: It isn’t love until it consciously chooses good over evil, Vaal

Sorry, but again, on whose say so? What definition of “love” are you using and why ought I agree with that definition? I see no reason that love could not exist absent evil. I’ll appeal to actual, accepted definitions of love (Googles definition of Love):

(I will discuss one or two issues with you at a time, since I don’t want exchanges in the thousands of words, as I indicated. I seek depth, not breath. If we settle one point, we can move on to the next since all my points are logically connected). If your notion of love is limited to a feeling, it is superficial in the extreme. We are not discussing the feelings of love; we are discussing the actions of love. If you feel love for someone, but you don’t have the courage to protect them from harm, even at some cost to yourself, then you don’t really love that person. Real love is not simply a feeling. The Greeks discussed three levels of love, eros (based on feeling), philia (brotherly love) and Agape (self sacrificial love). Only the latter category qualifies as Christian love. That is why love must be tested in order to determine if it is real. Hence, it is necessary to choose good over evil in order to prove that love is really present. According to traditional Christianity, everyone in heaven had to pass the test of love by overcoming evil. Only then can one love exist in an environment absent of suffering and evil.

Love: 1. An intense feeling of deep affection.

As indicated, that is a superficial definition, though accurate as far as it goes, which is not very far.

When I look at my wife or my son I feel love. I don’t feel myself struggling with or even thinking about evil. The simple experience of deep affection quite sufficiently entails I love them. So your assertion that “love” requires consciously choosing good over evil is thus far just that: an unsupported claim.

Again, I find this expression extremely superficial. Do you really mean to say that you love your wife if you allow someone to rape her in your presence on the grounds that love doesn’t have to express itself in action? Indeed, you have now contradicted yourself, since you indicated earlier that loving people “intervene.” You can’t have it both ways (love is a feeling—love must act) How do you resolve this inconsistency? Once we resolve this issue, I will take you to the next step. StephenB

Jerry, Just quickly: "5 But why couldn’t this world be hunky dory and have no suffering? .....Why, because such a world would be so vanilla that it would have no meaning. Can I assume then you will be disabusing your fellow Christians of the idea of "heaven?" - a place of eternal bliss and no sin? And purported to be the ultimate state of existence? Looks like they have it all wrong. When are you starting your own church ;-) ? Vaal

vjtorley, "Re Hell, you are assuming that people in Hell would prefer annihilation to being in Hell. I doubt that. People in Hell are there because of excessive self-attachment, and nothing you could do for them could get them into Heaven. People have to choose God. However, I believe God is not a sadist. The suffering of Hell is eternally bitter, but I don’t believe it is one everlasting scream of pain." The approach of Christians with a more sensitive conscience has been to soft-peddle the depiction of hell. I'm afraid scripture does not seem to be on your side: http://www.openbible.info/topics/hell It's not for nothing so many Christians have warned so strongly of the perils of hell. You really have to do quite a bit of cherry-picking and biased interpretation to start to make Hell look anything less than a place of horrible torment. An ETERNITY of torment. There's also, as I think I see implied in what you wrote, the attempt by many Christians to get the blame for hell off God and on to us. "No, God doesn't send us to hell (forget all the passages depicting this!). We send ourselves to hell! And we keep ourselves there…for eternity. It's your CHOICE." This to me is preposterous and depends on some sort of cartoon conception of people, like evil-doers who can not think anything but selfish, evil thoughts. I'm an unbeliever and the bible says I will end up in hell. And I strongly disagree with the morality of the Biblical God. Now, am I in torment now? No. Not at all. I don't torment myself. I'm not "bitter." The only way this will change is if GOD changes this scenario, and sends me somewhere I will be in torment. I can tell you in no uncertain terms, I would not CHOOSE eternal torment if I really were presented with the choice, and sure as hell wouldn't continually desire my own eternal torment if I found myself there. To think this even possible is just turning real people into cartoons, so the Christian can turn his empathy and sense of justice off, so he himself can be on God's good side. "All fine by me God, I get it, they chose eternal suffering, I buy that! Just open those pearly gates for me please." No decent, loving Being would be so spiteful as to allow people to endure eternal conscious torment. If I had the power for such decisions, and even if it were the case some people hated me I sure wouldn't say "Ok, eternal torment for you!" Would YOU do that? I hope not. I'd say something more like: Ok, if you don't want to hang out with me I'm not going to send you to a place you'll be tormented forever. Instead I've provided another place where you can be comfortable, and where you can't hurt others. I'll continue to make my case, let you be aware of the benefits of being with Me, and make sure the opportunity for changing your mind is always available. If that doesn't sound more like love, wisdom, compassion to you than the one way ticket to eternal damnation, I don't know what to say. Except that Christianity often interferes with people's ability to reason morally about God. (Once you've bought into His existence, it's rather frowned upon to judge God, given the dire consequences of judging against Him). The fact it is so easy to think in morally superior ways to the God of the Bible is reason enough to dismiss it's claims of an All Good inspiration. Vaal

vjtorley "I have to say that you are a noble-minded soul, Vaal," I don't think so at all, not especially. It seems like a pretty obvious moral conclusion to me. I went to church when I was young, I've been interested in philosophy/religion for going on 40 years, I've contemplated eternal suffering and to me doing so makes the choice trivially easy. There is literally nothing worse than *eternal* suffering. It strikes me that any morally sane person who contemplates it should find themselves reeling at the horror of it. No finite, earthly amount of pleasure I could have could compare in gravity to it. And even the idea that an eternity of bliss for me would come at the cost of an eternity of suffering for another soul (because God has put in motion a system guaranteeing some will end in hell, some in heaven) makes the eternity of bliss morally disgusting. I'm telling you right now in all honesty IF I had the choice of eternal bliss while another suffered eternal torment, vs the choice of having no eternal life at all to save the person from torment, it frankly strikes me as an easy choice to choose no afterlife. To me the Christian moral calculus never ceases to amaze. To Christians the Bible is the Good News. For me, and many atheists, there would be scarcely anything worse for humanity if the Yahweh of the Bible existed - that we have an eternal fate over which that character had control! (And I think this recoiling at the idea is a much more morally consistent conclusion). This isn't, as Christians usually crow, simply because atheists "don't want to have their actions judged." We are fine having our actions judged - by sane, moral contemporaries. We are judged all the time. What we recoil from is the concept of having our actions judged by a morally crazy Being who thinks sending people to eternal torment is acceptable behavior. Vaal

A summary of my position on God and His interaction with this world.

1. There must be a creator.

The science overwhelmingly points to a creator of massive intelligence. The fine tuning indicates both a creator and one of incredible intelligence We know very little about this creator from the creation but we do know some things. We do not know if the creator is infinite or benevolent or all knowing but we can look at what He created and deduce some things that are likely.

2. Besides the universe there are several other origins that can not be explained by naturalistic means and require a vast intelligence for their explanation.

Some of these are life, the complex organization of not only the simple cell but even more so the increases in complexity since the first cells have appeared. Another is conscious thought especially among humans which are qualitatively and quantitatively more complex than other life forms. Then there is earth which like the universe is incredibly fine tuned.

3. This creator seems to have chosen to communicate with us about His nature.

There have been tens of thousands of different views of what this creator is since the beginning of time. For billions, one theme stands out. That the creator is mono-theistic and He has inspired/communicated with many with information about what His nature is, what His plans are. These people have then written down these communications and there seems to be an ongoing communication. Now, many do not believe this but if one is going to argue against the creator based on what these people believe then they must not assume what they want but deal with what the communication actually is and is interpreted. But first of all they must assume there is a creator with massive intelligence.

4. This will not go into Christian theology because the point in contention here is what is known as the theodicy issue. I maintain it is a non issue based on the theology of Christianity.

I understand that Christians have grappled with this for centuries. The turning point was the Lisbon earthquake which caused people to ask why such a catastrophic event from a benevolent God happened, especially on All Saints Day. Was it punishment or was this God not so benevolent. Several years ago, a bunch of people who were very interested in religion in an academic setting discussed this. We came to a conclusion that the theodicy issue was a non issue because all the so called "evils" were finite while the Christian God was offering up infinite rewards. And the only real evil in this existence is failure to achieve salvation. That was permanent and infinite. There is no way to tell just what this was, fires of hell (physical), eternal loneliness(psychological), or maybe the extinction of the soul. Further, we had no way of knowing what was happening to the victims of cruel activity on earth after their death. So the invoking of earthly suffering was not an issue about the benevolence of God or his power. Now this flows from Christian theology so if one is going to criticize the Christian God, one has to start with its premises. One cannot not assume that this is all the world is about and then condemn this God. It is an irrational criticism.

5 But why couldn't this world be hunky dory and have no suffering?

This was a theme that popped up but was quickly dismissed. Why, because such a world would be so vanilla that it would have no meaning. There would be no free will especially if one knew that God would punish immediately those that trespassed him. I added a concept from my business career about the nature of what was evil. If we ranked every unpleasant act from lowest to highest, then we would get some really egregious acts at one end and humans would act to eliminate them. We have been trying to do so since the beginning of time and in fact have eliminated lots of the things that affected our ancestors. But as we eliminated something, another would take its place at the top of the list and would be the focus of activity till it was eliminated. These later events might have been less of a problem to the preceding generations but would now top the list. As the new problem got solved, it would be replaced by a new problem till we might get down to the level of stubbing your toe as the ultimate issue. We used that as an example of how something that was not a consideration for one group may in later times be the worse thing that could happen to you. Use your own example. It is kind of hard imagining a world where the worse thing that could happen to you was of the order of stubbing your toe but the concept made one understand the finiteness of bad or so called evil things.

6. Free will had to be maintained for a meaningful existence which leads to bad things happening

Without free will there is no meaningful existence and without uncertainty and the potential of bad things happening there is no free will. Thus, God would never intervene is an obvious way because once the intervention was obvious, free will disappears. There would be no calls to 911. This is a very brief outline of the issue and I am sure could be made much better with more time and input from others. It is based on what I was taught and my exposure to those who studied theology and some conversations several years ago. So let's bury the theodicy issue. It is really a non issue for Christians. I am leaving for a business trip in a couple hours so will not be able to respond to this till next week if there are any coherent/serious answers to my comments. Atheism is an incoherent philosophy so I will not respond to anything based on it till they deal with the their incoherencies jerry

Eugen "Ben I think I understand now that you and your atheist friends are : b) God doesn’t exist but we still don’t like his behavior …and you are lecturing me about logic ? " I'm unclear why you seem to be having trouble with some pretty basic, everyday forms of reasoning. The reasoning employed by atheists here are "IF/Then…" This can not be so confusing to you, as you yourself use this reasoning all day. "IF I skip lunch, THEN I will feel hungry during the day, but IF I eat lunch I'll feel satisfied." "IF my son hasn't done his homework, Then his teacher will be mad at him…" etc. The subject of "IF" doesn't need to happen in reality for you to contemplate the implications. "IF we lost our jobs, THEN these bad results would follow…" "IF I were hit by a speeding car when crossing the road THEN I'd likely be horribly injured." If/then reasoning is routinely applied to scenarios that haven't happened, unlikely to happen, or may never happen. They are used to examine the nature and application of principles, e.g. morality. IF Obama ordered a nuclear device to be set off in Washington THEN he would be an immoral person. IF a 500 foot tall being appeared on earth and began torturing children THEN that being would be considered "evil." This is what the atheist is saying: IF Yawheh existed as depicted in the bible THEN he would be immoral. IF a being created this world, THEN he would be evil or at least amoral. Feel free to dispute the arguments…but to dismiss them by questioning the very validity of If/then reasoning, or even be confused about it, is rather strange. Vaal

vjtorley "The miracles worked by Sai Baba involved sleight of hand, as you correctly point out." Yes, that is what his miracles look like to the degree skeptics can actually have access to them. But far greater miracles have been attributed to him. That's the point: attestations to miracles are EVERYWHERE attesting to every religion and every new age, spiritual belief etc. But the closer you get to the source of any such claims, the more widely accessible the source is to public, skeptical scrutiny, inevitably the source of the "miracles" doesn't hold up and becomes quite prosaic. You have claims of levitation. We have those today as well. Yogic Flyers claim to be able to actually levitate. For real. But what happens when you have DIRECT ACCESS to yogic flyers? You only see people flopping on their knees. But "don't worry, we have LOTS of eyewitnesses establishing we really can fly!" Oh, and they have "scientific studies" their yogic flying has magical effects in reduced crime and other societal ills." Isn't that amazing? Convinced yet? We have no direct access to the purported levitation you refer to - and given the huge propensity of people to be fooled, deluded, for stories to grow in the telling, even with the most prosaic occurrences as their source, we should have the highest skepticism about the character of claims you are producing. This is why all you can produce is…like any other religious person…anecdotes, claims for miracles, but we get no actual miracles available for wider, skeptical scrutiny. "If someone could explain to me how a 17th century magician could pull of a stunt like that, then I’d be more impressed." Eyewitnesses - and there are thousands and thousands - claim a huge number of miracles for Sathya Sai Baba. Among the eyewitness claims are that Sathya Sai Baba: Controlled the weather, changing it at will. Altered a flowing river. Performed miraculous "impossible" healings, performed bi-location (physically manifesting to different people in completely different areas at the same time, e.g. separated by 600 miles). He also raised multiple people from the dead, including "resurrection of a man dead some six days in whom body decomposition was taking its normal course." Can you explain how a mere huckster could pull off stunts like those? Not to mention his mother claimed she was a virgin and his was a miraculous birth (heard that one before?). And devotees are already starting to report resurrection appearances of Sathya Sai Baba. But wait…that's impossible…Sai Baba died a mere 4 hers ago. It's far too close to the founder's death for any such legends to arise! Am I doing this right? ;-) (There used to be a page on the web that I can't find at the moment, with a very large list of eyewitnesses to Sai Baba's miracles, giving addresses and/or phone numbers so you could TALK to them. That's one hell of a lot more direct "evidence" and access than you have for ancient claims in an old book). Sai Baba is only one of many "God men" in India to which all these types of miracles are claimed by eyewitness devotees. Sai Baba of Shirdi, another God man in the 20th century, aside from performing a great many miracles (*including being able to take off his limbs, put them back on) , died and afterward made physical re-appearances: "Testimonials come pouring in from all quarters of the tangible reappearance of Sai Baba. In many cases the Master gives darshan in actual flesh and blood, not only to those who had been his close disciples during his life time, but also to many others who had not even seen him or heard of him." If you think, like most Christians, the beliefs that a founder did miracles and made post mortem appearances requires explaining rather than dismissal, then how can you explain all these beliefs of the Indian God-men devotees? And, again, why don't you think your case for miracles is ready to be presented to the scientific community? We know scientists are going to say "not nearly good enough." The question is why? The answer is: science arose BECAUSE it has learned what types of evidence is required to justify confidence in one claim over another. The huge amount of variables, the noise, in which your miracle claims sit, are just the type of variables science arose to address, and if you accept the validity of science you should be far more skeptical than you are being about such claims. Vaal

What Sastra said. Aleta

Ben I think I understand now that you and your atheist friends are : b) God doesn't exist but we still don't like his behavior ...and you are lecturing me about logic :D You atheists should try to condense your ideas because we are not pen pals telling each other our life stories. Another problem is for people like me whose first language is not English because we may not understand complicated philosophical terms. Since you are b) shouldn't we first clear whether such being exists or not so that way we clear the more important issue. Eugen

vjtorley #215 wrote:

Let us recall that every human being created by God has an opportunity of attaining Heaven, with God’s grace. Those who do not do so have chosen to reject God.

Let's recall my original argument then, which pointed out that millions of human beings have had no access to or awareness of the revelations of the Bible, sophisticated Thomist apologetics, modern science or any of the other possible defeaters which have been brought up here to answer the Problem from Evil. A world in which the good often suffer and the wicked often prosper looks exactly like a world which isn't being morally supervised from above. And absent any good reason to think otherwise, a reasonable and compassionate person would be rationally justified in concluding that there is no benevolent and powerful God watching over humanity and caring for every individual equally. These people have not "chosen to reject God" in the sense usually meant by that, that they've made a "bad choice" by preferring wickedness. On the contrary, they would be doing the best they could given the information they have -- and are motivated by their love for other people. If a loving God of grace has provided every human being with an opportunity of attaining heaven, then it would not be possible for people to become atheists for good and moral reasons. And yet this is possible. That God therefore does not exist. Sastra

VJ, pardon me for jumping in here. I believe in the Bible and as such I do believe that miracles do still occur today, but I am not aware of any miracles in the Bible that were performed simply to impress people. Jesus did point to his miracles as evidence for the truth of what he taught and the claims he made about himself, but his miracles always were of the type that helped people. He didn't just do a miracle simply to impress people or to display his power. In fact, when asked by Satan to do just that, - to throw himself down from the top of the temple in plain sight of everyone - he refused. So, these miracles of levitation do not fit the type of miracles we have recorded in the Bible in my view. I just read a little about the claims made about this guy's levitation and I guess I am inclined to believe it actually happened, but again, it doesn't strike me as the type of miracle that God would perform. There seems to be no purpose to it. It seems only to have brought attention to him. It just doesn't sit right with me so, personally, I'm not sure what to think. I do agree with you though that trustworthy witnesses are enough to validate a miracle. The claims about the resurrection could easily have been proven to be false by anyone alive at that time. The religious leaders could easily have produced the body to put these dangerous rumors of resurrection to rest. That would have been an effective way of dealing with this early "cult". If they were simply lies dreamed up by the disciples or the early believers, why would those same people live their whole life to spread a lie and suffer persecution doing it? That doesn't make any sense either. Denying the resurrection creates a lot of other logical problems or scenarios that do not make sense of the data. tjguy

Vaal, Thank you for your comments. The miracles worked by Sai Baba involved sleight of hand, as you correctly point out. And it's true that people's perceptions ar notoriously unreliable, when it comes to rapid bodily movements. Sai Baba never levitated several meters off the ground for several hours on end, in the presence of hundreds of eyewitnesses, like St. Joseph of Cupertino did. If someone could explain to me how a 17th century magician could pull of a stunt like that, then I'd be more impressed. You ask where the testimonies of these eyewitnesses are, They're in the Vatican. There are 13 volumes of depositions, as I mentioned in one of the articles on St. Joseph that I linked to above. The guy was the phenomenon of the 17th century. He even levitated in front of the Pope. I might add that the Catholic Church didn't like him levitating either: they kept moving him around and trying to lock him away. The Inquisition made his life miserable. Re the 500 witnesses mentioned by St. Paul, see my remarks to Ben Goren above. St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, knowing that some of them would soon be visiting him in Jerusalem (see 1 Corinthians 16: 3-4), where they could easily check the veracity of his claims. That's why I'm convinced that St. Paul wasn’t making those 500 people up. You write:

People can believe crazy things. People are often in error. Nothing else is presented but a belief. No other data to examine, no experiment to replicate. No dice.

Miracles don't need to replicated if the combined probability that the witnesses are all in error is lower than the threshold I proposed above for the probability of a miracle: namely, 1 in 10^120 (the number of discrete events that have taken place in the history of the cosmos). It would be irrrational to rate the prior probability of a miracle as being lower than that. With a sufficient number of independent witnesses, one can easily get below this threshold. That was the point Babbage made. Got to go now. vjtorley

SB: God, on the other hand, is not responsible for the behavior of adults.

Yes, Stephen, I think we’re in agreement that the gods are both descriptively and evidentially irresponsible. (Nonexistent, actually, of course; this is for the sake of argument.) The question is how one can get from a position of irresponsibility to that of ultimate morality — whether proscriptive or as a model to be emulated.

If you are going to misrepresent what I say, our dialogue will be short lived. To say that God is not responsible for human vice is not to say that God is "irresponsible," nor is it to imply polytheism. SB: I will now provide an abbreviated answer to your question: God doesn’t drop the dime on sexual perverts for misusing their wills to molest boys for the same reason he doesn’t drop the dime on you for misusing your intelligence to become an atheist. The power to love depends on the power to decide between loving and hating and the power to decide between doing good and doing evil. There is no charm in a yes unless a no is possible.

Honestly? The description you provide of your god seeking love is immature to the point of being infantile. If your god has so little self-esteem that it is so utterly dependent on expressions of love from its own creations…I mean, really? This is admirable?

Your response has absolutely nothing to do with what I said, and you are, once again, seriously misrepresenting my comments. I don't like it when people put words in my mouth and keep moving the target. It tells me that they have no confidence in their own position and that they are afraid to address the real points that I make. The Christian God, which is apparently the God you disdain, does not "need" or depend on anything. StephenB

Hi Sastra, Vaal and Ben Goren, A few more quick comments. Ben, you write:

To support a claim of all-encompassing lovingkindness, it is not sufficient to argue a “best of all possible worlds” position, that there is some greater good that necessitates the evil we observe. That might support a claim of maximal benevolence, but it does not support a claim of boundless love.

God is infinite, or boundless, in His essence. But as far as I am aware, there is no Christian teaching that he is infinitely loving in His dealings with creatures. I'm not even sure what that would mean. But if you want boundless love, then I'm curious as to why you think the prospect of eternal happiness with God doesn't qualify as a manifestation of infinite love on God's part. Vaal, you wrote:

Like Sastra I would sacrifice my life (in my best moments) if it altered the future of human suffering. (In fact, having contemplated the concept of Hell, eternal suffering, if that fate could be shown to me to be a real one for some people, and if even one person were suffering eternally, I would offer my own annihilation if it would get them out of hell. Nothing I can experience in my life could outweigh eternal suffering.

I have to say that you are a noble-minded soul, Vaal, and you'll probably get to Heaven before I do. (I expect a very long spell in Purgatory.) Re Hell, you are assuming that people in Hell would prefer annihilation to being in Hell. I doubt that. People in Hell are there because of excessive self-attachment, and nothing you could do for them could get them into Heaven. People have to choose God. However, I believe God is not a sadist. The suffering of Hell is eternally bitter, but I don't believe it is one everlasting scream of pain. You also write:

To act rationally and morally is to choose to bring about the the better possible world, at the expense of a less promising possible world.

But the problem with this is that because each and every human being is of infinite and incommensurable value, it's not possible to compare world 1 (with X, Y and Z who are confirmed in grace and destined to be saved) with world 2 (with A, B and C who are capable of being damned) and say that world 2 is better. World 1 has better outcomes, but the people in world 2 are no less valuable than the people in world 1. With regard to your example of saving the drowning child: it makes sense to aim for an obviously better outcome for the child, but when one is comparing outcomes for two different sets of individuals, I would argue that there is no obligation to aim for the best possible outcome. For supposing there were such an obligation, to whom is it owed? What you're saying is that God has an obligation to aim for the best result, irrespective of the parties involved. A strange kind of obligation, if it's owed to no-one! Sastra, you write:

If your death would guarantee that there would be no war, no disease, and no cruelty — would you sacrifice your life for the good of others? For this much good, and so many others? I would answer — I HOPE I would honestly answer — “Yes.” There are some things worth dying for. And to have not been born in the first place? I’d never feel that pain at all, just as all the millions of permutations of potential brothers and sisters you might have had if things had proceeded just slightly differently between your parents have not undergone any injury because they never got conceived. Again, if I was given the choice, I’d take it.

I would certainly agree with you that there are things worth dying for. But I am not a utilitarian, and I don't think of myself as a replaceable cog in the great wheel of society. That's a degrading kind of morality, because it implies that society could justly ask me to undergo any kind of degradation (e.g. rape or unending torture), no matter how awful or brutalizing, if it were necessary in order to advance the "greatest happiness of the greatest number." Let us recall that every human being created by God has an opportunity of attaining Heaven, with God's grace. Those who do not do so have chosen to reject God. Frankly, I see no reason why I should forego my own existence (which I value), merely in order to guarantee that nobody will ever make any bad choices, or suffer the consequences of a bad choice. I'm not that altruistic. But if you are, well, I wish you well. vjtorley

What you’re forgetting here is that human bodies are not built from the top down but from the bottom up, via a genetic program. It’s not enough to critique the way the human body looks and say how it could be improved. What you have to do is say how you would improve the genetic program that determines how our bodies are built.

Eh? No, I don't. Not hardly. If the DNA-based method of building human bodies is inadequate to the task, an intelligent designer with adequate resources (time, creativity, budget, etc.) would simply abandon it and build a better method. And modern manufacturing has already solved lots of these sorts of problems -- plus many nature hasn't solved. How many vertebrates have wheels, or supersonic turbofan engines? What you describe is how we know that the design itself is an evolutionary design; it came about in a stepwise fashion of incremental changes of previous designs, exactly as described by modern biology. Intelligent designers aren't constrained like that; they abandon old designs and invent new ones with reckless abandon and disregard for backwards compatibility. Amongst intelligent designers, things only get reused if they're already a perfect fit (or can be readily modified to be a perfect fit)...or if you lack the time, imagination, or other resources to come up with something new that's the perfect fit. As such, reuse is typically a sign of suboptimal design -- and extensive and inappropriate and constraining reuse is a sign of incompetent design. Or, in the case of biology, no design whatsoever.

Having made that choice and been presented with the Beatific Vision of God, they are no longer free to turn away.

Sorry, you're now contradicting your story about Satan. He turned away, no? And what sort of idiot signs a contract without terms and conditions specifying nullification options?

And that brings me to your challenge: you ask why I am a Christian. The short anser is that if I were not, then I’d have to believe something even more incredible: that all these people were hallucinating the same thing at the same time, or that there was something causing them all to hallucinate, on thousands of occasions and at several locations in Italy.

Not hardly! All you have to believe is that a single person invented a story about thousands. Happens all the time. Here -- I'll show you: I can personally attest that I have collected video statements from ten million people who have witnessed the power and glory of the true god, AZAvaTEr and his holy miracle of transylvating bent spoons. They have pledged their lives, their fortunes, and sacred honor to spreading His Good News to all seven corners of the Earth. Will you not join in the worship of AZAvaTEr? ...and, if it's levitation specifically you want, you might try India. The popular con game there is "yogic levitation" or some such; tens of thousands claim to have witnessed it. So why aren't you Hindu? And I could continue similarly for all your other pieces of so-called evidence. You yourself only find them convincing when they support your favored flavor of Christianity. Mormons have actual signed eyewitnesses rather than unnamed anonymous hordes; that's not good enough for you. People in India today will eagerly tell you about how they witnessed some faker fly; still not good enough. Entire cults of hundreds or thousands commit suicide (or fly airliners into skyscrapers or what-not), and that doesn't convince you nearly so much as Paul's anonymous imagined hundreds, some of whom supposedly risked death. Again, I have to conclude: you're no more convinced by these claims of miracles and sincerity than I am, else you'd be overwhelmed by the even better claims of the competition. You're not telling me why you believe; you're giving me examples of what you see as bolstering evidence. I can drop the apple and time its fall any time I doubt whether or not it'll accelerate towards the center of the Earth at about 10 m/s^2. What test for your gods can you offer that comes even remotely close? b& Ben Goren

Vaal @208, 209, You are writing far too many words and saying far too little. There is no reason for you to take each individual sentence that I write and respond with three paragraph. Until you can make your points more concisely, I will move on to other address other writers. StephenB

vjtorley, Your appeal to St. Joseph's purported levitation sounds like more of the same. Do you have actual many thousands of personal attestations, or only claims by other authors that thousands saw the levitations? If the latter - of which I have little doubt - then it's like Paul's claim: not established fact, but itself just another extraordinary claim in need of demonstration. "The levitations are as certain as any other fact in recorded history." Would you say that with a straight face to a scientific audience? That levitation has been established…through the written claims of people many hundreds of years ago? And would you expect the audience to agree it has been thus established? I know you know the answer. Are you familiar with Sathya Sai Baba? He was until he died recently, one of the many "god men" of India. The God men are considered manifestations of God on earth and all manner of miracles are attributed to them - resurrections, incredible headings, levitations you name it. Sai Baba had around a million followers, and still has plenty (I just passed one of his massive church centres the other day, and I'm in Canada). Thousands and thousands claimed to have seen Sai Baba perform the miraculous - almost all the miracles attributed to Jesus and many more - simultaneously appearing in different places, controlling the weather, resurrecting the dead, levitating, you name it! How could ALL THOSE PEOPLE be mistaken? Well, go look at videos on line of Sai Bab performing "miracles." What will you find? An obvious cheap dime-store magician, performing old "materialization" tricks (and you can see videos slow-mo where he's pulling things out of his sleeves etc). If it's not obvious how utterly prosaic his "powers are," consider also, as Wikipedia states: "Accusations against Sathya Sai Baba by his critics over the years have included sleight of hand, sexual abuse, money laundering, fraud in the performance of service projects, and murder." Sound like a legit Divine Being to you? Me neither. But this is exactly what it's like the closer we get to the source of miraculous claims - the more publicly accessible the evidence is - actual videos for instance of Sai Baba "doing miracles" or Yogic Flyers "flying" (by hopping around) the more reliably prosaic these miracle-makers become. Examples like Sai Baba show just how easily fantastic claims attach to ordinary people…or to con men. I do not see that in your appeals to evidences for a resurrection, you are taking this lesson to heart. You would if you were doing science; but when it comes to your religious beliefs, it appears the credulity grows and the skeptical bar drops. Exactly what science arose to help us guard against :-) Cheers, Vaal

vjtorley "But it’s a different matter when one is dealing with a large group of people (500, according to St. Paul) who claim to have seen a dead man come back to life," As Ben mentioned, the "500" isn't a "fact" one has to explain; it's merely part of the claim of the story that itself is being asked for veracity! If I say to you "I just ran 200 mile per hour" you are going to demand much more than my claim. If I add "Well 500 people saw me do it, so how do you explain THAT mister!?" you will be utterly unmoved, knowing I haven't added at all to the veracity of my claim. I've just added another fantastic claim on top of the other, which I'd need to show was true as well. Same with a biblical passage simply claiming 500 people saw a resurrection. It's not a fact that requires explaining: it's a claim itself that requires evidence! "who claim to have seen a dead man come back to life, and who are so sure of what they’ve seen that they’re willing to be tortured and killed (in some cases) for insisting that what they saw was real. I can’t think of another parallel case for such a claim, in history." But all these appeals to martyrdom are simply a way of saying "they really, really believed it!" But since when has people "really, really believing" an extraordinary claim entailed that it's true? Do you think martyrdom is required before accepting that anyone "really believes" a claim. That would be a crazy, impossible, and unjustified criteria. Surely you accept I really believe my wife loves me, without my having to be martyred, or that Muslim's truly believe their religion, without their having to be mattered. So the whole "but they were martyred for their beliefs so we can conclude they really believe it" is just a red herring. (And, anyway, there are countless examples of people believing fringe, extraordinary claims, e.g. healers of all variety, that they stake their very lives on it - Steve Jobs choosing bogus alt medicine for his cancer treatment is only one example of many). In the scenario I brought up, the presenter saying to the scientific audience: but they really, truly believe they saw a perpetual motion machine! wouldn't justify the claim one more bit. People can believe crazy things. People are often in error. Nothing else is presented but a belief. No other data to examine, no experiment to replicate. No dice. "By contrast, it is relatively easy to ascertain that someone is dead' Except that there have been many instances of people left for dead, who were not dead. And even many instances of people ruled dead by modern physicians, who turned out not to be dead. You an google various such instances. "(especially if they’ve just been crucified and pierced through the heart with a lance)," Which is simply accepting the claims that are part of a story actually under dispute here. From the vantage point of 2,000 years later, we have no way to verify any claims of whatever was done to Jesus. But the point is: we both know very well that the type of "evidence" you are presenting for someone resurrecting from the Dead - in a way that violates our current knowledge of physics/biology - would be grossly insufficient in making the case to other scientists. That is, to the group who most understand when to be skeptical, why to be skeptical, and what kind of evidence is required to accept some new phenomenon has occurred. Again: 10 to 15 years usually required of hard research by hundreds of people using the best modern facilities and scientific methods merely to establish the mild efficacy of a heart drug. But to justify belief in the actual resurrection from the dead, you propose the claims found in an ancient book pass the muster. How can you not see the gulf between these two approaches to justifying empirical claims? How can you not vividly see just how much you allow yourself to lower the skeptical bar for evidence of your religion? Vaal

Hi Ben Goren, I'd like to respond to your recent comments. You wrote:

Vincent, a perfect artist does not create imperfect art. Let’s leave aside the question of sin for just a moment. If I have your god to thank for my body, then I must castigate him for cursing me with such an incompetently-designed hacked-up kludge. Now, don’t get me worng; as humans go, I’m in superb shape, and get an A+ from my physician in my annual exams. But I’ve already had to have pieces of plastic mesh inserted in my abdomen to stop crippling pain from inguinal hernias — and I would be long since dead by now were it not for the perfect job the surgeon did in repairing your god’s superb cockup.

What you're forgetting here is that human bodies are not built from the top down but from the bottom up, via a genetic program. It's not enough to critique the way the human body looks and say how it could be improved. What you have to do is say how you would improve the genetic program that determines how our bodies are built. I might also add that the alleged flaws in the design of the human body are actually the result of multiple conflicting design constraints. Given these constraints, some compromises are necessary. Regarding aging: I'm starting to need glasses for reading at night myself (I'm long-sighted), but I don't complain about the fact. To me, the most amazing fact is that I am capable of enjoying the sensation of color at all, even for a second. And that's something you can't explain: why evolution would bother to generate beings that were not only highly responsive to their environment, but also sentient. There's no need for that, from an evolutionary standpoint. Even Richard Dawkins confesses to finding it puzzling. Regarding your individual genetic flaws: we all have some flaw or another. But these flaws are the result of bad mutations, and the only way to prevent those is to have a static world, where there are no mutations. That would be a world without you or me in it. Finally, regarding your claim that a perfect artist does not create imperfect art: we need to know what the artist designed in the first place. If we look at the DNA molecule or at proteins or at ATP synthase, then I'd say God did a very good job designing those. And the human brain is a marvel of engineering. And you might like to look at this talk by a biologist and engineer, Stephen Larson, who admits that that life's "complex interacting molecular machines" reveal that "molecular clockwork is real and pervasive" and appear to be "built by an engineer a million times smarter than" we are. He's not an ID proponent, but he's over-awed at the design of even a humble bacterium:

On the one hand it's extremely well organized, but on the other hand the sheer scale of all of this unfamiliar well-organized stuff that happens in there makes me feel that I've stumbled onto an alternate landscape of technology that's built by an engineer a million times smarter than me.

Definitely food for thought. You add:

So, for starters: yes, I would very much appreciate had I been made a different person with a different body. I think all of us would.

Huh??? Ben, I can understand your wanting to upgrade your body, but wanting to be a different person makes absolutely no philosophical sense. If you were a different person, then you wouldn't be "you." You conclude:

As you describe, in Heaven we are changed. And this is a good thing. So all your appeals to emotion that I should be glad that I am who I am are irrelevant; when in Heaven, it won’t be me there, but some simulacra of what I would be like stripped of my free will.

People who end up in Heaven have made a final and irrevocable choice to accept God's offer of eternal life with Him. Having made that choice and been presented with the Beatific Vision of God, they are no longer free to turn away. What's the problem? Also, according to Christian doctrine, it is the same person who ends up in Heaven as the person who lived on Earth. Regarding the resurrected body in Heaven: I would not be the same person if I had had different parents, but there is no reason why my body's acquiring new powers, after being raised, should cause me to undergo a loss of identity. I don't think you understand what Christians believe about the resurrection. Re the evidence for Christianity, you write:

Vincent, that’s not a case of 500 people risking death for what they believe; that’s a single offhand mention of 500 faceless, anonymous people saying they saw a ghost. I’m pretty sure you’re not a Mormon; assuming that’s the case, consider why you’re not at all convinced by the twelve signatories at the opening of the Book of Mormon, all who testify that they did, indeed, personally witness Joseph Smith’s magic talismans. Once you understand why you’re not convinced by that any more than I am, you’ll understand why I should find Paul’s account far less convincing.

First of all, you're overlooking the fact that St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, knowing that some of them would soon be visiting him in Jerusalem (see 1 Corinthians 16: 3-4), where they could easily check the veracity of his claims. St. Paul wasn't making those 500 people up. None of the alleged witnesses to Joseph Smith's talismans was martyred for affirming their existence. Also, while some claimed to have seen and handled them, others spoke of seeing them with the eyes of faith. But the real point which you fail to address is the argument made by mathematician Charles Babbage in his Ninth Bridgewater Treatise:

...[P]rovided we assume that independent witnesses can be found of whose testimony it can be stated that it is more probable that it is true than that it is false, we can always assign a number of witnesses which will, according to Hume's argument, prove the truth of a miracle... It follows, then, that the chances of accidental or other independent concurrence of only six such independent witnesses, is already five times as great as the improbability against the miracle of a dead man's being restored to life, deduced from Hume's method of estimating its probability solely from experience.

But if the evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus were not enough to convince you, I have already mentioned the thousands of witnesses, from all walks of life, who saw St. Joseph of Cupertino levitate for hours on end, several meters above the ground. The probability that they were all hallucinating is infinitesimal - much lower than the alleged improbability of a miracle (which, for a cosmos in which 10^120 events have taken place, could not be any lower than 1 in 10^120, on Laplace's sunrise argument.) And that brings me to your challenge: you ask why I am a Christian. The short anser is that if I were not, then I'd have to believe something even more incredible: that all these people were hallucinating the same thing at the same time, or that there was something causing them all to hallucinate, on thousands of occasions and at several locations in Italy. That's preposterous. You remind me of the Aristotelians who refused to look through Galileo's telescope, because they were closed to his new world-view. Over to you, Ben. vjtorley

StephenB "Man, not God, created suffering." Well that's weird. I don't remember myself, or anyone else, causing the existence of rabies. Or malaria. Or Ebola. Or earthquakes. Or tornadoes. Or cancerous rays from the sun. Or predators, poisonous snakes, genetic defects, or any of the countless natural afflictions. I'm afraid I see no reason to accept your claim. It isn’t love until it consciously chooses good over evil, Sorry, but again, on whose say so? What definition of "love" are you using and why ought I agree with that definition? I see no reason that love could not exist absent evil. I'll appeal to actual, accepted definitions of love (Googles definition of Love): Love: 1. An intense feeling of deep affection. When I look at my wife or my son I feel love. I don't feel myself struggling with or even thinking about evil. The simple experience of deep affection quite sufficiently entails I love them. So your assertion that "love" requires consciously choosing good over evil is thus far just that: an unsupported claim. 'Love must prove itself by loving actions. Always." Always? Except…always the exception…except for God, right? A loving action would presumably be to help someone when they are suffering. But there are countless examples every hour, every day, all year, of God not doing so, and when no one else could do the job. Re: an All Knowing God needing to do tests? "It makes perfect sense." No it doesn't. We need to set up tests in order to gain information we can not know otherwise. An Omniscient Being would have no such requirement, so His requiring a "test" makes no sense. God would know "if I create X this will be the outcome, if I create Y that will be the outcome" and He could create whatever outcome He desired, without "tests." (And no that doesn't deny free will: God would have HAD to have chosen between alternate possible worlds to have chosen ours, so you can't object the process logically negates free will). "Would you want to live forever with someone who refuses to love you?" Absolultely!!! If: I were a Good Person (let alone the Ultimate Good Being) AND the alternative was that human being suffering for all eternity. It would be the pettiest bit of pique to say "I won't save you from eternal suffering because YOU DON'T LOVE ME." Anyone taking that approach would immediately be recognized as a villain - in fact villainous characters have used that model often in fiction because it's so vainglorious and lacing in compassion. Why you want to adduce such excuses on behalf of God is very curious. "Heavenly virtue requires both heavenly grace and earthly struggle. There is no cheap path to either virtue or heaven. The price of virtue is suffering." Again…why? That's mere assertion. It may be a contingent fact that God made earthly struggle necessary for entrance into heaven, but it hardly seems a necessary fact. Why would God make such a "price" to get in? Does God let in sinners who accept Jesus's sacrifice? If so, it doesn't seem that God requires people of higher moral character to get into heaven, so "virtue" is not tested for to get into heaven. Or is it based on "works," e.g. those who do more good on earth? If that's the case, we have to ask did those people do good arbitrarily and by accident? If so, how is that a valuable form of "virtue?" Or did their tendency to do good derive from their nature? If that's the case, then God could have created more, most or all humans with a better nature like those people, without having created people without morally relevant free will. So this whole free will defense - that humanity as God created us was necessary, falls apart. Again, why does an All Powerful God HAVE to put people through material suffering to MAKE immaterial beings good enough to keep him company in a realm of non-suffering? This makes no sense, and nothing you have written establishes this necessity; you've only asserted it to be the case. Basically what we have here is the Christian method of rationalization: You have to look at the world as it is and are forced to conclude, on your religious assumptions, that this MUST be what an All Good God would create, and therefor you have to rationalize backwards from that to your theodicy. It's always thinking-in-reverse, which inevitably leads to special pleading. Vaal

StephenB "However, when we do intervene, we are acting on behalf of God and neighbor in the spirit of love." So a good person intervenes and interferes with the free will of someone causing unnecessary suffering. But not God. Who is The Ultimate Good Person. Instead, when we intervene we are 'acting on behalf of God.' But what does this mean? It suggests God endorses the principle that "the value of human well-being trumps the value of free will," even if we are his proxy. But then…that is the principle I have argued for! And yet your reason for exempting God is to suddenly raise the principle that free will is more valuable than well being, which is why God won't interfere with a rapists free will even at the cost of someone's well being! You still haven't established some alternate principle that actually rebuts my argument, thus far. Further, there are countless instances where there is no other person around to intervene. A rapist attacking a woman in an alleyway when no one else is around or aware of it does not afford anyone the opportunity to intervene, and hence seems gratuitous in terms of justifying free will. God intervening would not be robbing someone else of their opportunity to "do good." How can God be "good" by standing by allowing gratuitous suffering - God is just not acting like a Good Person would. "Accordingly, if bad people don’t have the power of free will to do evil, then good people don’t have the power of free will to do good. That should be obvious." It if FAR from obvious that people ought to have the power to cause as much suffering as we do. There is nothing logically necessary about the extent of harm we able to cause one another, nor the amount of anguish we can suffer. God could have logically reduced the severity of both, without harm to free will. The plausibility of this is played out every time we enjoy ourselves without suffering terrible harm or anguish. I recently had a wonderful night out with friends, a dinner. We all had free will, yet were in a state of well being and happiness without contemplating, choosing or encountering moral horror. Ought the restaurant owner have come up to us with this offer: "We see you are having dinner here tonight. You will only be able to enjoy and appreciate your meal if you have the counter example of how bad things could be for you. So we've set up a torture chamber just over there, where we will torture this person in view to allow you to enjoy your meal all the better. After all, you can't experience good without the contrast of evil, right?" That of course is morally insane. But it is quite similar to what you and other Christians argue: when someone suggests that goodness and well being could obtain without the existence of moral horror, you object "Oh no, we need the moral horror and the nature of suffering we have in this world in order for there to be goodness and well being!" Further, I have earlier provided an argument that your comment does not address. That is: An All Powerful God could have, without logical contradiction, created nobler beings with a tendency to choose The Good, rather than as we have been created, with a "sin nature" and tendency to often choose badly. This in no way contradicts free will. For one thing, the beings could still retain the power to cause others suffering…but they freely choose not to cause suffering. This can only be denied on pains of some very problematic implications. For instance, we know there is a great variety among humans in terms of those who tend to act morally vs many who tend toward immoral actions. Many people have been able to lead FAR more moral lives, in terms of avoiding immoral choices, than others. Are we to presume that the nobler among humans are the ones without, or with less free will? That would produce quite a paradox in terms of God purportedly valuing free will, but urging us toward states in which we would exhibit less free will! If you are to make your case against my objections, you need to answer why these things are not possible. Vaal

Yahweh never claimed to have created our spirits, only our bodies. He only claimed to have created the body as a receptacle for the human spirit (and even other spirits if you believe in demon possession). Spirits can neither be created nor destroyed. They just are. So, if we are a bunch of a-holes (and we all are), we cannot blame Yahweh for it. Our spirits are our own. Mapou

Goren:

Jesus is claimed to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.

Did Jesus make that claim? Or is this a strawman? Where did this claim come from? Who first claimed it? I challenge anybody (Christian or atheist) to either show or prove that Jesus/Yahweh ever made that claim about themselves. And, please, don't anybody quote the Bible as evidence for an omniscient and omnipotent God because I can do the same to show the opposite. And what does omnibenevolent mean? Mapou

Hi Ben. Just wanted to let you know that I've been enjoying reading your posts. Aleta

Mung, if I can add on an additional clarification that I just realized the theists in this thread aren't getting... To support a claim of all-encompassing lovingkindness, it is not sufficient to argue a "best of all possible worlds" position, that there is some greater good that necessitates the evil we observe. That might support a claim of maximal benevolence, but it does not support a claim of boundless love. If you wish to support the typical theistic claims in this regard, you must transcend local maxima...and, to do that, you must demonstrate that priestly rape is, itself, an act of good and benevolence and love and kindness. Let that horror sink in for a minute, and maybe you'll come to understand why I so vigorously reject the theistic claims of infinite love from their various gods. Cheers, b& Ben Goren

vjtorley, "What this means is that while God could have made a world filled with people who could never sin, He couldn’t have made one with me in it – or you, for that matter. Consequently, it is impossible for anyone to reproach God with the complaint: “Why didn’t You make me sinless?” If God had done that, then He would have made a different person. Hence, in wishing for a perfect world, you’re wishing for a world in which you would never exist. Are you sure you want to do that?" The same objection Sastra noted immediately came to my mind on reading this, and he's already put it well. But I'd go further and say this is a very, very odd defense. It seems to make an unjustified exception of normal reasoning…just in the case of God. Of course if God had made a different world this exact one wouldn't exist. That's what possible worlds is all about and counterfactuals. We routinely rely on possible world/counterfactual reasoning for deciding our actions: IF I take action A then B will (likely) happen. But if I don't take action A then B will (likely) not happen. We choose one possible world; the other one doesn't happen (leaving aside for the moment the idea of the multi universe, but even so this reasoning would still pertain to our universe). Moral reasoning in deciding action relies on this. A kid is drowning. I SHOULD save the kid = of the possible futures, including the one I let the kid drown, I should bring into being the possible world in which I save the kid. Moral action requires discarding possible worlds, choosing the best one from alternatives. The same goes for evaluating past actions using counterfactual reasoning. If I had acted to save the kid from drowning I would have saved him, and therefore would have acted morally. Therefore, instead of ignoring his plight, I should have made a different choice with a better outcome. To act rationally and morally is to choose to bring about the the better possible world, at the expense of a less promising possible world. Therefore, how can you suddenly raise the principle that God would be restrained from choosing a different world because it would abandon some other possible world (e.g. this one)? God, like any rational Being, could understand the many possible worlds and select the one with the best result. If another counterfactual world would have had a better result (far less suffering or no suffering/evil) then it's just special pleading on God's behalf to say it can not be a basis to evaluate any purported choice by God, or that He couldn't have chosen the better world because it meant not creating the worse world (this one). As Sastra said, it seems extraordinarily selfish to say "God couldn't have made another better world with far less suffering, because then it wouldn't have ME in it." Like Sastra I would sacrifice my life (in my best moments) if it altered the future of human suffering. (In fact, having contemplated the concept of Hell, eternal suffering, if that fate could be shown to me to be a real one for some people, and if even one person were suffering eternally, I would offer my own annihilation if it would get them out of hell. Nothing I can experience in my life could outweigh eternal suffering. Vaal

Very well, Mung. Jesus is claimed to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. Therefore, he knows when his very own priests -- or even frauds falsely pretending to be his priests -- are committing the most horrific imaginable atrocities in his own name with the help of his assumed authority. He also has the ability to prevent or curtail these atrocities. Horrific atrocities are not properties of benevolence, omni- or otherwise. A benevolent entity does not commit nor even tacitly conspire to facilitate horrific atrocities. Therefore, the initial claim results in a contradiction. Jesus cannot possibly possess all three properties. Indeed, even the Christians here agree. The common conclusion is that Jesus displays no benevolence whatsoever in this world, and only is benevolent to the dead. Why one would expect an heartless monster who turns a deaf ear on the cries of children being raped by his own men in his own name to suddenly develop a sense of compassion after they're dead is beyond me -- but I suppose that's not directly addressed by the logic of the premises here. If you think there's a logical fault in any of that, by all means: identify it for us. Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Ben Goren: Is such basic logic really so hard to grasp? Especially from a crowd that favors Aristotle so? First you should demonstrate that you understand basic logic. Then perhaps we'd have reason to accept your judgment. Mung

Eugen, you seem to misunderstand a basic convention in discussion and logic -- that of assuming, for the moment, that somebody's claims are valid and figuring out what the consequences of those claims are. If that leads to a contradiction, you know the initial claims aren't valid after all. But, even within that...well, I don't think Iago or the Baron Scarpia or Darth Vader are any more real than any of the gods in any of the various pantheons. But I still think Iago, Scarpia, and Vader are truly horrific, evil, nasty so-and-sos. Don't you? Fictional characters don't have to be real for you to decide what you think of them. So, to put it succinctly: I personally have yet to encounter a proposal for a divine entity that can reasonably and coherently be considered to exist outside of the context of a made-up fantasy. Considering that the prime purpose of the gods is to provide an unquestionable authority for those who speak on their behalf, and that they establish their authority by doing that which simply cannot be done no way nohow, this is hardly surprising. And, surprise surprise, we see throughout this entire thread claim after claim from theists about their gods that, per the descriptions of the theists themselves, are beyond inquiry and confirmation. How is one supposed to confirm that an absent non-interfering deity has infinite ability to alter reality to suit its needs? But we're also told by these same theists that these gods have specific wants and desires of us, and rewards and punishments after death for those who do and don't comply...and they themselves know this...how, exactly? How could they even possibly know, even in principle? The problem that kicked this all off is that some very common and very specific claims are trivially contradicted by observation. Were you to claim that there is a supermassive black hole orbiting the Earth at about the altitude of the ISS, we wouldn't need to grab any telescopes to know that claim is false; we'd all already be dead -- and, besides which, the Earth would not only orbit something heavier, but, at that distance, would be well within not only the event horizon but the Roche limit. So, too, the claim that there is an entity of limitless power and all-encompassing knowledge of utmost benevolence. Said entity would no more put up with his official spokesmen being serial child rapists than any human CEO would. Therefore, if the entity exists at all, either its power or knowledge is severely limited or it is incomprehensibly evil, not unimaginably good. Is such basic logic really so hard to grasp? Especially from a crowd that favors Aristotle so? Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Thanks Jerry and StephenB for great discussion. There's always something to learn from you. TBH situation is becoming amusing again with atheists. They don't believe in God but they come here to to tell us how should God behave! Being that doesn't exist doesn't behave, right? If you are an atheist you should still try to make some sense. So now we don't know which way atheists think: a) God exists but but we don't like his behavior b) God doesn't exist but we still don't like his behavior c) God will be allowed to exist if he behaves by our standards Atheists remind me of this: http://images.dailykos.com/images/102928/large/atheist-nonsense.jpg?1409343048 Eugen

God, on the other hand, is not responsible for the behavior of adults.

Yes, Stephen, I think we're in agreement that the gods are both descriptively and evidentially irresponsible. (Nonexistent, actually, of course; this is for the sake of argument.) The question is how one can get from a position of irresponsibility to that of ultimate morality -- whether proscriptive or as a model to be emulated.

I will now provide an abbreviated answer to your question: God doesn’t drop the dime on sexual perverts for misusing their wills to molest boys for the same reason he doesn’t drop the dime on you for misusing your intelligence to become an atheist. The power to love depends on the power to decide between loving and hating and the power to decide between doing good and doing evil. There is no charm in a yes unless a no is possible.

Honestly? The description you provide of your god seeking love is immature to the point of being infantile. If your god has so little self-esteem that it is so utterly dependent on expressions of love from its own creations...I mean, really? This is admirable? Right here as well as elsewhere in your responses to me and others, you've made quite the laundry list of assertions about the nature and desires of your god. I do think it's time to take a moment for me to challenge you as I similarly have Vincent. How do you know all this, and why should you, I, or anybody else believe you? I hope you'll pardon me if I express more than a bit of skepticism that a mere mortal can so intimately know the nature and desires of an entity he himself describes as incomprehensibly infinite. And I hope you'll still pardon me if I note that your claims are, to me, indistinguishable from the claims of those of all other religions -- claims you yourself reject outright, just as I do. So, what makes you think that you're the mortal with the direct line to the divine, and all those others are confused or liars or whatever? And, assuming you're not just as confused (or dishonest) as all the rest, what've you got that's so different? Cheers, b& Ben Goren

jerry, Your replies are a good example of the special pleading seen in the responses of most Christians. Reasoning and argument is about consistency; that is if you are going to put forward a claim or argument that you expect anyone else to accept, you must show how that principle is accepted elsewhere. I.e. "Look, I'm appealing to a principle we already accept, here's an example, therefore it's a valid principle from which to argue." This is what the atheists are constantly doing - employing principles we already accept in your everyday reasoning to establish their warrant, and then applying them with consistency to claims about Gods. On the other hand Christians tend to assert principles - e.g. If God was our creator then God can dictate moral rules, or If we are not omniscient we can not make judgements about an Omniscient Being, etc - and these principles are merely asserted without argument showing why based upon principles acceptable to the other side. You just use them as declared starting points from which to build other claims. You'd been challenging the criteria, asking for it (e.g. "what is evil?") by which atheists here were trying to judge claims about God's goodness. I just explained the criteria. And I gave the argument, unre-butted by you, why this isn't simply an arbitrary criteria only assumed by atheists in this thread, but one generally accepted, including by you and most Christians. That was the point of the "bad guy/good guys" in movies example. The point is made that you already understand the criteria being used for judging the claims about God's goodness. You reply: "You are confusing personal characteristics with actions that may be desirable or undesirable." It's not a confusion on my part. The moral characteristics we normally associate with persons all imply actions; they are mostly meaningless without action. For instance, a Good Person we normally take to be benevolent. That is they have a disposition or desire to help others. That characteristic IMPLIES action. That is, given many circumstances, we are right to expect certain behaviour from someone who is "Good," who is "benevolent." For instance, a toddler is drowning in the shallow end of a pool. If a Good/benevolent person is there, aware of the toddler's situation and able to save the toddler, we expect that person to act to save the toddler. This is WHY such concepts are, as you put it, "helpful in ordinary conversation." because Goodness/Benevolence actually mean something and communicate expectations. You can't just ignore this point. It is therefore BEING CONSISTENT to apply this criteria to judging anyone's claims that a Good God exists, or that the character like Jesus or Yawheh in an ancient book fit that criteria of Goodness - loving, benevolent, etc. The atheist is being consistent here. When you abandon this, you are special pleading, making up new principles for judging God. (Though, you only do so inconsistently, because Christians will happily judge God "good" whenever it's convenient - look how GOOD Jesus was with the poor and downtrodden, look how BENEVOLENT God was in the case of Jesus' sacrifice for our sins, etc). Now, here comes your special pleading. You want to make an exception for God: "But there is no way could these be applied to God." Why? What principle are you appealing to that I should accept? It looks like with your "worm" example that you appeal to the standard Christian response: We are simply not in an epistemic situation that allows us to make judgements about God. But this thread has already been full of reasons to reject that principle. Ben and I have given explicit, detailed responses to that claim giving reasons to reject it. Again: All you are doing is pointing out our general epistemic limitations - we have a limited viewpoint, and God represents the omniscient perspective which we can never have. But the problem of our lack of omniscience has NEVER been a reason to withhold rational conclusions. Because if it was we would exist in total paralysis. Our lack of absolute certainty about anything, our limited ken, can be highlighted by countless examples against every single belief we hold. Are you typing at a computer? How can you know it is not a fully convincing illusion foisted by The Matrix, or Aliens from other dimensions we don't know about, or that you aren't a sophisticated robot with that image and sensation programmed in to you, or that a magical being isn't fooling you, or that a God isn't fooling you. You'd require omniscience to know every logically possible alternative was false, so gee…I guess we just can't be rational about anything. Except you know this is nonsense and you don't let that problem stop you from making rational conclusions all day long. Rationality *allows for our limited viewpoint,* takes it as part of the deal, and works within it. Do you KNOW for sure you will arrive safely at work when getting in to your car in the morning? Of course not. You aren't omniscient. But you don't need to be: you work from probabilities based on the evidence you have at hand - it's the only way rationality could work, in our situation. Was Hitler really a Good Magical Being who saved The Jews by pretending to incinerate them but really whisked them off to another realm of pure bliss? Puny mortal, how can you be in a position to KNOW that's not true? But of course, it's not rational to demand this omniscience in the first place. Instead we go on what *seems to be the case* using logic/reason to tie it together with the rest of our experience. Hitler did things that bad people do - it's reasonable to conclude Hitler did a bad thing and truly had ill will toward the Jews. If we were to say in the case of talking about a God "we are in no position to judge" then we would be epistemically helpless - for no good reason - in the face of ANY claim to Godhood. I'm God, you ought to send me your life savings, I want to spend it on a lottery. What, are you going to make a judgement I'm not God, or that God wouldn't demand this of you? That this is simply not a reasonable, believable claim? How unreasonable of you - as a puny human you are in no position to pass any judgments about me! This is what you get when you pretend we can't have the criteria to judge, and that God supplies the criteria. ANYONE claiming to be God can pass the criteria test, on their own criteria. Which is reason to reject this bad principle. So when you come to me with a claim about God, you can't make some special pleading objection where God is excepted from our everyday judgements. If you have a book that claims the Character is the creator of the universe, I'm going to see if the evidence supports that claim. If you, or the book, claims the character Yahweh is "good" I'm going to see if the evidence - e.g. the actions ascribed to the character in the book or by Christians - supports that claim. Based, consistently, on the usual, useful notions of deciding "good" and "bad" persons. Vaal

Vaal

Hope you won’t mind if I take a stab at it

Not at all. Go for it.

Ask yourself this: How can WE grant one another (or respect one another’s) Free Will and, at the same time, prevent someone from misusing it?

We can’t. That is why we ought to intervene. However, when we do intervene, we are acting on behalf of God and neighbor in the spirit of love. In other words, we can love and intervene only because God gave us the power to do so, which is why He normally allows both good people and bad people to act without interference from him. If He intervened for us, we couldn't do good. Accordingly, if bad people don’t have the power of free will to do evil, then good people don’t have the power of free will to do good. That should be obvious.

The principle that “free will” trumps the value of well-being is not one I hold to, or civilized societies hold to, or you hold to in real life. So why would you expect anyone to accept that principle in defense of God’s inaction in the face of human or natural evil causing human suffering?

Man, not God, created suffering. Every sin carries a price tag of suffering and guilt. Thus, the solution is to deal with the cause, which is sin, not to impeach God, who recommends that we avoid the cause. SB: “The power to do good depends on the power to decide between good and evil.

That actually doesn’t follow, any more that the old trope “without darkness there can be no light” follows.

It follows as surely as night follows day. A will that isn’t free to choose evil isn’t free to choose good.

ight – electromagnetic radiation – could exist, in fact WOULD exist, without the absence of light – darkness. We wouldn’t have a word for darkness anymore, but then we wouldn’t need one.

Irrelevant. Please do not ask me to respond to irrelevant comments.

There is no logical contradiction between states of experience we consider “good,” e.g. peace, love, feeling of well-being, joy etc – and the absence of terror and pain. And it’s amazing when Christians forget this, since it’s already a concept they accept in their mythology: you already have this concept of a blissful only state: it’s called “Heaven.”

Inaccurate and irrelevant. I will address only relevant topics.

Which brings up the question as to why God would ever create a corporeal realm and launch a plan guaranteed to include the suffering and physical misery of untold millions/billions of physical beings, rather than simply create us in a heavenly realm.

Question already answered.

Wait…maybe He had to test us first to see if we will get into heaven?

Correct. Love must pass a test. It isn’t love until it consciously chooses good over evil, often at a price. Love must prove itself by loving actions. Always.

An All Knowing God requires tests? How would that make sense?

It makes perfect sense. Would you want to live forever with someone who refuses to love you? Would you want to live forever with someone who wants nothing to do with you? Would you want to live forever with someone who embraces values inferior and antagonistic to yours?

Does our earthly trials suggest we require some sort of preparation, some sort of training to avoid suffering and evil because we’ll be faced with all these ills and temptations in our afterlife? No, heaven is a place of eternal bliss living in God’s glory. So…what’s this earthly, suffering-infused boot-camp for again?

As already indicated, boot camp and earthly suffering are for the purpose of soul making, that is, to become saints and enter heaven. Heavenly virtue requires both heavenly grace and earthly struggle. There is no cheap path to either virtue or heaven. The price of virtue is suffering. Anyone can practice vice and go to hell. It requires no moral exertion at all—at least until the chains of habit enslave, at which time, free will is severely diminished and the opportunity to do good becomes increasingly compromised. All that is necessary to lose everything is to do nothing, flow downstream, and plunge over the waterfalls.

And even IF one grants free will were necessary for moral goodness,

Free will is obviously necessary for moral goodness.

So, I’m sorry, but this free will defence for evil and suffering does not seem to stand up no matter what angle you hold it at.

You have provided no argument against it. You have merely complained about it. StephenB

What this means is that while God could have made a world filled with people who could never sin, He couldn’t have made one with me in it – or you, for that matter... Hence, in wishing for a perfect world, you’re wishing for a world in which you would never exist. Are you sure you want to do that?

Sorry to break into the dialogue with Ben, but the answer to this is not an obvious 'no.' In fact, I think a thoughtful response will go the other way. If your death would guarantee that there would be no war, no disease, and no cruelty -- would you sacrifice your life for the good of others? For this much good, and so many others? I would answer -- I HOPE I would honestly answer -- "Yes." There are some things worth dying for. And to have not been born in the first place ? I'd never feel that pain at all, just as all the millions of permutations of potential brothers and sisters you might have had if things had proceeded just slightly differently between your parents have not undergone any injury because they never got conceived. Again, if I was given the choice, I'd take it. And whether I really would if push came to shove, I think it ought to be rather obvious what I ought to say, from a moral, ethical perspective. And I assume my atheist friends would agree. We try not to think of ourselves as such Special Snowflakes that nothing matters so much as we do. Since you ask this question as if every believer you know would give the obvious answer "yeah, I'd never want to sacrifice my life for the greater good, no matter how much suffering is relieved" -- are you sure you want to do that? Sastra

You are moving the target,

What else can they do? They do not like to deal directly with the actual issues. jerry

Since you seem to be having trouble with the whole “good and evil” thing insofar as most of us here understand the terms…

I have been reading about it for over 30 years, long before I knew there was an evolution debate. When I first heard about the theodicy issue, I thought it was a no brainer because it had no relevance to what the Christian God was offering. So I am fairly confident about the meaning of the word "evil" or the trouble defining it. I have given numerous examples in my comments about this. It is vague and it varies from person to person. Not something one can debate with.

Another is to instead take generally agreed upon notions of “Goodness” among people like ourselves, and from there investigate who is applying these criteria most consistently, e.g. to evaluating claims about a purported God’s goodness.?This is just as “standard and acceptable” as the former method of debating claims. And to engage in such a discussion, all you have to do is acknowledge that we do indeed share some basic intuitions or concepts of “good” and “evil” as we apply those terms in evaluating persons.

You are applying what is desirable/undesirable from a particular situation and trying to say these are good and evil incidents. These are helpful in ordinary conversation. But there is no way could these be applied to God. In the book of Job, one of the earliest discussions of good and evil there is an analogy of a worm, a human and God. In it the worm knows more about the human than the human knows about God. I had all sorts of people react to this as absurd but in reality the worm and human are finite creatures while God is infinite. We can not possibly begin to understand an infinite entity. You may not agree with this but you can not blithely say we want to apply our human understandings to God. It is impossible. Does this mean we cannot know anything about God. No, especially when He decides to communicate to us through His creation and his other possible communications.

traits That Identify Good Characters: Kindness. Bravery. Benevolence (disposition to act for the welfare of others). Self sacrifice. Love. Compassion.?I’m sure you can complete the list.

You are confusing personal characteristics with actions that may be desirable or undesirable. I fail to see the relevance of movie/literature characters in understanding God. They could be very useful in helping one to lead a moral life. But, it is really missing the point of the debate. I would look more to the endpoint of existence in the Christian tradition if you are going to judge the Christian God.

Clearer now, I hope? Can we move on to applying the criteria to claims of a Good God, or to the claims of the Christian God’s goodness?

Once you start dealing with just what is Christian theology and not your misconceptions of it. Start by dealing with my comments. You must deal with that the endpoint of Christian existence is eternal and not of this world. Any criticism of the Christian God must consider this and not just what happens in this world. What happens in this world is trivial unless it affects one's status for eternity. Now you can criticize the theology etc but do not criticize God based on what is not relevant to His objectives. Undesirable events in this world are not relevant. If they are caused by an intelligent entity then they are relevant to that individual because they violate the desired objectives of God but are not a reflection on God per se but to the individual. I suggest you do not go off on tangents and address the actual issues. jerry

Virgil Cain #191 wrote:

They seem humane and just.

This is a reasonable answer -- and it supports what I say about the necessity for a shared morality as opposed to an imposed one. I don't 'decree,' I'm pointing out something you can see for yourself. As I think Vaal mentioned somewhere back in the thread, a statement like "God's creation; God's rules" is in need of support. It's not morally obvious that one person has the right to do anything they want with another person if they created that person. In fact, I'd argue that it's much more obvious to both of us that ethics is going to have a lot more to do with what is humane and just -- and what is meant by that -- than it has to do with things like ownership, power, and punishment. Sastra

Sastra:

Why are the rules the foundation of morality?

God's Creation, God's rules

What makes them right?

God's rules

How do we tell?

Many human laws are based on them

Why would we adopt them?

They seem humane and just.

Any answer which places God outside of our understanding of good and evil also places us outside of His.

Sastra has decreed it so. Virgil Cain

Ben

Stephen, your argument presupposes that your god is acting in a parental capacity — a very common way that gods throughout history have been presented.

You are moving the target, but I will answer your question anyway. First, My aim was to address your question about God, the Creator. From a moral perspective, which is the one you are taking, God created a universe of soul making. More precisely, He created a universe that made it possible to love Him and help His creatures, which is possible only if it is possible to not to love God and hurt his creatures, as previously indicated. To answer your second question, the relationship between God and His creatures is not exactly the same as the relationship between parents and children, at least not in this context. The reason is that parents are, in large part, responsible for the behavior of their children and are obligated to help them reach adulthood in one piece. God, on the other hand, is not responsible for the behavior of adults. Meanwhile, I would be interested in your response to my first answer. StephenB

Consequently, it is impossible for anyone to reproach God with the complaint: “Why didn’t You make me sinless?” If God had done that, then He would have made a different person. Hence, in wishing for a perfect world, you’re wishing for a world in which you would never exist. Are you sure you want to do that?

Vincent, a perfect artist does not create imperfect art. Let's leave aside the question of sin for just a moment. If I have your god to thank for my body, then I must castigate him for cursing me with such an incompetently-designed hacked-up kludge. Now, don't get me worng; as humans go, I'm in superb shape, and get an A+ from my physician in my annual exams. But I've already had to have pieces of plastic mesh inserted in my abdomen to stop crippling pain from inguinal hernias -- and I would be long since dead by now were it not for the perfect job the surgeon did in repairing your god's superb cockup. My eyesight is starting to fail; I need reading glasses for the normal-sized text on a smartphone, for example -- especially at the end of the day. I haven't yet managed to shed the last bits of belly flab I had accumulated; why give us a sweet tooth but not a mechanism to excrete sugar without metabolizing the extra? Oh -- and I have a genetic disposition to high cholesterol, though no sigs of arterial plaque or other cardiovascular disease. And that's just me -- again, somebody in near-perfect health, probably in the top 5% or even 1% of the population. The rest of all y'all have it so much worse! So, for starters: yes, I would very much appreciate had I been made a different person with a different body. I think all of us would. Indeed, imagine were you given the opportunity to engineer your own body! Whether superficially humanoid or a radical departure from anything familiar, I'm sure the result would include some very significant departures from your present body. And think of how much it would reveal of your true nature were you given a chance to create your body! So, now that we've got the basic question answered with the body, let's continue the thought experiment. Imagine that you're exactly the same person you are today, but with one and only one difference. You have a divine sense of compassion, but limited only to the effects of the actions you yourself take. That is, you'd still be free to punch somebody else in the face...but you'd not only feel the other person's pain of a broken jaw, but, before the punch landed, you'd also feel the person's terror at what you're about to do. And, since this is fantasy we're discussing, we could even include a divine dispensation for, for example, a surgeon to set a fractured bone without becoming so overwhelmed with pain as to be unable to complete the procedure. So there's another dilemma for theists. How can Jesus feel our pain, but not share it? ...but, again, obviously, of course, you've already mooted the entire discourse. As you describe, in Heaven we are changed. And this is a good thing. So all your appeals to emotion that I should be glad that I am who I am are irrelevant; when in Heaven, it won't be me there, but some simulacra of what I would be like stripped of my free will. Sorry. Try again...? b& Ben Goren

But it’s a different matter when one is dealing with a large group of people (500, according to St. Paul) who claim to have seen a dead man come back to life, and who are so sure of what they’ve seen that they’re willing to be tortured and killed (in some cases) for insisting that what they saw was real.

Vincent, that's not a case of 500 people risking death for what they believe; that's a single offhand mention of 500 faceless, anonymous people saying they saw a ghost. First, if you don't know of any similar claims, it's because you've covered your eyes and stuck your fingers in your mouth. I'm pretty sure you're not a Mormon; assuming that's the case, consider why you're not at all convinced by the twelve signatories at the opening of the Book of Mormon, all who testify that they did, indeed, personally witness Joseph Smith's magic talismans. Once you understand why you're not convinced by that any more than I am, you'll understand why I should find Paul's account far less convincing. But never mind that. If it's simply the willingness to die for a cause that you find convincing, why are you not a devotee of Jim Jones, or those whackjobs awaiting rescue from the flying saucer that was hiding behind a comet? Why are you not a Muslim? The answer, of course, is that none of what you have put forward is evidence that you yourself find convincing; rather, it is an attempt at rationalizing a worldview that you yourself have described as being beyond reason -- I again, of course, refer to the Matrix-style conspiracy theory of God as the Ground of All Being. You owe it to yourself to seriously answer -- to you, if not to us, why you believe in Christ. Not why you should believe. Not what you think will convince us. Not what you think others find convincing. Not even what you find confirms your preexisting beliefs. But the very foundation for the beliefs themselves. When you do so, I do believe that you'll discover that they're built on nothing, and unsupportable by themselves. In contrast, I believe that the mutual gravitational attraction between the Earth and an apple causes them to accelerate towards their mutual center of gravity, resulting in an observed downward motion of the apple of about ten meters per second per second, with minor footnotes for air resistance and similar confounding factors. Why do I believe that? Because I've measured it, multiple times, and I informally re-measure it basically every waking moment of my life. And others have measured it and reported the same thing. And other observations I've made, such as of planetary motion in a college astronomy class, are consistent with that observation, and so on. What personal experience have you of Jesus that's even a fraction as reliably repeatable and universally available? If you doubt my claim that an apple falls at about 10 m/s^2, we can both grab some apples and a stopwatch and figure out who's right. But just look at all the responses to my initial challenge in this thread: we don't see Jesus do this; we can't see Jesus do that; Jesus only does this other when nobody's looking; and the grand finale only comes after death. "One of these things is not like the other one," as the song goes. Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Vaal and Ben Goren, I'd like to briefly respond to your question about free will in Heaven:

Is there evil in Heaven? Do its residents enjoy free will? If there is no evil in Heaven but people retain their free will, then we know that free will is not a valid excuse for the existence of evil. If there is no free will in Heaven, then why should we need it here? And if there is evil in Heaven, then what’s the point of Heaven in the first place?

The traditional Christian teaching is that the Blessed in Heaven are not free to turn their eyes (or rather, minds) away from the Beatific Vision of God. They retain the freedom to choose between good act A and good act B, but they are not free to sin. Could God have made people like that from the get-go? Yes, and in a few cases He did. Apart from Jesus Christ (who, as a Divine Person, was not only sinless in His human will, but also impeccable), the Catholic Church teaches that the Virgin Mary was divinely preserved from sinning throughout her life: she was "confirmed in grace" from the moment of her conception. And there may have been other individuals who were accorded a similar privilege (St. Joseph, for instance). This raises the obvious question: why didn't God make all of us like that, thereby preventing a world filled with evil? The short answer is that if He had done so, then the individuals in that perfect world wouldn't have been the same people as the individuals in our world. If a person is divinely preserved from sinning throughout their life, then that feature becomes part-and-parcel of their very identity. Had the Virgin Mary been able to sin, she wouldn't have been the same person. What this means is that while God could have made a world filled with people who could never sin, He couldn't have made one with me in it - or you, for that matter. Consequently, it is impossible for anyone to reproach God with the complaint: "Why didn't You make me sinless?" If God had done that, then He would have made a different person. Hence, in wishing for a perfect world, you're wishing for a world in which you would never exist. Are you sure you want to do that? You might say that from a Divine standpoint it would be highly irrational to prefer making a world filled with evil, such as ours, to a perfect world. In reply: first of all, each individual person is an entity of irreplaceable value - a jewel that's unique and like no other. Consequently it makes no sense to say that a world containing individuals X, Y and Z would be better than a world containing individuals A, B and C. Second, God is under no moral obligation to make a world containing as little suffering (or as much goodness) as possible. For if God had such an obligation, to whom would he owe it? X, Y and Z? Or A, B and C? Obviously, none of them, for God doesn't owe anyone the gift of existence. But then, the notion of an obligation which is owed to no-one surely makes no sense. Third, for all its drawbacks, our world does contain a number of goods that a perfect world might not contain: an Incarnation, for instance (although Duns Scotus famously maintained that the Incarnation could have occurred even if Adam had never sinned), and the Redemption of the human race through Christ's death and resurrection. I don't expect these things to impress you, given your sensitivity to the problem of evil, but from a purely dramatic standpoint, there's something to be said for this world. I hope that answers your questions on free will and evil. Cheers. vjtorley

Virgil Cain #182 wrote:

I said the RULES are the foundation of morality.

Why are the rules the foundation of morality? What makes them right? How do we tell? Why would we adopt them? Any answer which places God outside of our understanding of good and evil also places us outside of His. As many theists would agree. It's not an atheist argument; it's an ethical one. Sastra

Jerry #178 wrote:

Pointless from whose perspective?

Apparently pointless from our perspective, but as you, and my inclusion of the modifier "apparently" points out, we could be wrong. Yes. We might change our mind when we learn more. Or not.

No this is not a definition of the word that goes very far. It is too vague. Also all instances are finite and often arbitrary.

It's a definition which goes very far, since it's broad enough to include every possible instance as well as the possibility of error. It sets the field. As you note, it's just not very useful when we want to get down to understanding or debating particulars.

We are talking about the total human experience not the experience of any particular person.

Then I think you are running afoul of the concept of a Benevolent God who cares for all individuals, and would presumably not coldly create any human being as a mere tool to be used for the benefit of others. Sastra

jerry , Since you seem to be having trouble with the whole "good and evil" thing insofar as most of us here understand the terms…. There are generally two ways in which debating parties - e.g. atheists and Christians - can debate things like the Goodness of God. One is at the deepest philosophical level of assumptions - comparing our Moral Theories, which may involve metaphysical arguments, appeal to axioms, etc. Another is to instead take generally agreed upon notions of "Goodness" among people like ourselves, and from there investigate who is applying these criteria most consistently, e.g. to evaluating claims about a purported God's goodness. This is just as "standard and acceptable" as the former method of debating claims. And to engage in such a discussion, all you have to do is acknowledge that we do indeed share some basic intuitions or concepts of "good" and "evil" as we apply those terms in evaluating persons. We don't have to establish that EVERYONE IN THE WORLD agrees, only that we here (and likely most civilized people) agree, and then look for consistency from there. Now, if you might think you just can't find any common ground here, no characteristics we'd both agree upon as indicating "good" and "evil," I'd suggest you are quite wrong. Hopefully this is helpful: Movies and TV shows very often feature "good guys" and "bad guys." Right? Do you, or most people, have trouble figuring out who the bad guys are vs the good guys? Certainly there are some movies that attempt ambiguity in this manner - but a great many don't, from westerns, thrillers, horror movies, superhero movies, audiences naturally understand who is "good" and who is "evil" on screen. Now I'd ask you to characterize the traits that people identify in these onscreen characters, that lead us all to agree "good guy" and "bad/evil guy." What traits do they share? Here's what I would suggest: Traits That Identify Good Characters: Kindness. Bravery. Benevolence (disposition to act for the welfare of others). Self sacrifice. Love. Compassion. I'm sure you can complete the list. Traits That Identify Evil/Bad Characters: Selfishness. Wonton disregard for the well-being of others in pursuit of their own goals, if not the outright desire to cause suffering. Deceitful. Unjust. Etc. But, again, be my guest if you would suggest alternate characteristics that would predict the judgement of audiences about a character's goodness or badness. Now, if we start with this basic agreement on the traits we tend to associate with Good Persons and Bad Persons, then we can go FROM THERE to analyze if the claims for any particular person, or personal Being, would be judged "good" or "bad" using that normally employed criteria. Which is generally the approach taken by the atheists on this thread. And it's an approach that, in fact, is the basis for the "problem of suffering/evil" in the first place for Christianity. After all, this has never been a problem for atheism; it's a problem WITHIN CHRISTIANITY which is why individual Christians face it so often, and why theologians have spent so much time trying to harmonize a way out of it. If Christians only ever found it acceptable to believe "whatever God does is good" then there would be no problem of evil/suffering. But it's the fact that people DO have a sort of base-level, societal level concept of "Goodness" that seems to clash with the facts of the world, that causes the distress in the first place. Just like the atheists on this board, Christians have tended to associate "goodness" with characteristics like love and benevolence, and it's from that perspective of consistency that even Christians have to acknowledge creates friction with the suffering we see under the purported overseeing of an All Good, All Powerful Personal Being. Clearer now, I hope? Can we move on to applying the criteria to claims of a Good God, or to the claims of the Christian God's goodness? Cheers, Vaal

Hi Vaal, Thank you for your post. I'd like to address your key comments. You write:

There are just countless examples of people who have what one would assume is a disposition against accepting an extraordinary claim, becoming a convert. It’s a psychological fact about human beings and with such a huge variable it is far from justified to use such examples in support of any extraordinary claim.

That's a fair point. Skeptics can sometimes become zealous believers. But it's a different matter when one is dealing with a large group of people (500, according to St. Paul) who claim to have seen a dead man come back to life, and who are so sure of what they've seen that they're willing to be tortured and killed (in some cases) for insisting that what they saw was real. I can't think of another parallel case for such a claim, in history. You also write:

Now, imagine 12 men claiming with utter conviction that they’d “experienced” seeing a perpetual motion machine – a machine violating our understanding of physics. Could you imagine someone at a scientific convention presenting this as evidence to justify accepting the claim, and overturning what we think we understand about physics? You know how quickly it would be laughed off the stage, and justifiably so. How much more ludicrously insufficient would it be if the speaker appealed not even to living claimants, but to purported claims from an ancient book? No one would, or should, take any scientist seriously presenting such “evidence” for a claim that would violate our understanding of the world. Why then would you possibly think lowering the standards of skepticism is justifiable just in the case of claims of an ancient resurrection????

I don't think your example is a parallel case. A proper parallel would be: twelve trained physicists being tortured and in some cases, killed, for asserting that they'd personally examined an alleged perpetual motion machine and verified that it actually was what it claimed to be. Even that wouldn't be a perfect parallel, because it would be very difficult for them to systematically exclude the possibility that the machine was obtaining energy from a hidden source, or from a source that will eventually burn out. By contrast, it is relatively easy to ascertain that someone is dead (especially if they've just been crucified and pierced through the heart with a lance), and it is easy to verify that a person you encounter a few days later is the same person as the person you saw dying (especially if they happen to have the same wounds, in the same places, and if they publicly manifest supernatural powers, as well). One doesn't need special measuring instruments to ascertain that. As for the illegitimacy of appealing to claims made in an ancient book: no New Testament scholar disputes that St. Paul's account in 1 Corinthians 15 was written a mere 25 years after Jesus' crucifixion. In his account, St. Paul mentions many people who were still alive, who had seen the risen Jesus. As for the levitations performed by St. Jospeh of Cupertino in the seventeenth century: as I have pointed out in previous posts (see here, here and here), the man was seen levitating several meters in the air, often for hours on end, on about 1,500 occasions during his life-time, by thousands of witnesses, including eminent people (many of whom made sworn depositions after his death). It would be unreasonable to turn up one's nose at evidence like that. The levitations are as certain as any other fact in recorded history. Finally, I should mention that there is contemporary scientific evidence, summarized here by Dr. Bruce Greyson, that consciousness can occur independently of the brain. I don't claim any expertise in this field, but I think it warrants an open-minded investigation. This evidence, on top of the philosophical arguments for dualism, at least supports the strong possibility of life after death. That doesn't get God off the hook, as you correctly pointed out. But what it does show is that we are only seeing a tiny portion of the whole picture, which means that it would be unwise to be form any firm conclusions about God's goodness based on the evils we see in this life. Finally, Vaal, I would like to thank you for the courtesy you have displayed in your posts over here at Uncommon Descent. One of the reasons you seldom see my comments over at WEIT is that they're usually deleted by Jerry. That's his privilege, I suppose; after all, it's his Website. Anyway, it has been a pleasant exchange of views. Thank you. vjtorley

Sastra 176 wrote:

The foundation of morality is punishment?

I said the RULES are the foundation of morality.

Might makes right?

Following the rules make right.

“It ain’t wrong if you don’t get caught?”

In the context we are discussing- God catches all.

If nothing else, they usually mean that the existence of God explains where we get / how we measure our sense of what is right and good, against what is wrong and evil.

Those rules I was talking about.

God doesn’t stand outside of it like an arbitrary, incomprehensible alien Force of Destruction.

What is it with atheists and strawmen? Virgil Cain

Vaal, if I might summarize your post: Is there evil in Heaven? Do its residents enjoy free will? If there is no evil in Heaven but people retain their free will, then we know that free will is not a valid excuse for the existence of evil. If there is no free will in Heaven, then why should we need it here? And if there is evil in Heaven, then what's the point of Heaven in the first place? b& Ben Goren

We are talking about the total human experience not the experience of any particular person.

I think an honest evaluation of all the most significant horrors in history will reveal that all depend on this sentiment in one of two ways: either harm done to individuals or minorities is justified as being for the greater good, or those who are harmed are considered not human and therefore irrelevant. Even if you sincerely believe in the utilitarianism you espouse, you owe it to yourself and to the rest of society to reject it as adequate justification, lest you yourself become such a monster. When you do that, you will discover that it's fine and dandy to sacrifice yourself, or to ask others to sacrifice themselves on your behalf. But sacrificing others for your own desires crosses over the line. If somebody else is doing evil, yes, stop them -- but do no more than is minimally necessary to stop them. And only intervene if you have good reason to believe that your intervention will be effective; inaction, frustrating as it is, is far preferable to making things worse. Cheers, b& Ben Goren

StephenB, Hope you won't mind if I take a stab at it :-) "How can God grant grant perverts free will and, at the same time, prevent them from misusing it?" Ask yourself this: How can WE grant one another (or respect one another's) Free Will and, at the same time, prevent someone from misusing it? We do this all the time, don't we. It's called: Enforcing The Law. We have laws against harming one another and we have forces to thwart the efforts of people doing bad things - i.e. we want police to prevent people from exercising their "free will" when it comes to producing more human suffering. We do not think the freedom of the rapist is more valuable than the well being of his victims. If someone knew a terrorist was about to introduce Anthrax into a school's air system you and I would expect a Good Person to ACT and PREVENT terrorist from freely acting on his desire. (And no one thinks that our stopping criminals affects our overall free will). The principle that "free will" trumps the value of well-being is not one I hold to, or civilized societies hold to, or you hold to in real life. So why would you expect anyone to accept that principle in defense of God's inaction in the face of human or natural evil causing human suffering? "The power to do good depends on the power to decide between good and evil. That actually doesn't follow, any more that the old trope "without darkness there can be no light" follows. Light - electromagnetic radiation - could exist, in fact WOULD exist, without the absence of light - darkness. We wouldn't have a word for darkness anymore, but then we wouldn't need one. There is no logical contradiction between states of experience we consider "good," e.g. peace, love, feeling of well-being, joy etc - and the absence of terror and pain. And it's amazing when Christians forget this, since it's already a concept they accept in their mythology: you already have this concept of a blissful only state: it's called "Heaven." Which brings up the question as to why God would ever create a corporeal realm and launch a plan guaranteed to include the suffering and physical misery of untold millions/billions of physical beings, rather than simply create us in a heavenly realm. Wait…maybe He had to test us first to see if we will get into heaven? An All Knowing God requires tests? How would that make sense? Does our earthly trials suggest we require some sort of preparation, some sort of training to avoid suffering and evil because we'll be faced with all these ills and temptations in our afterlife? No, heaven is a place of eternal bliss living in God's glory. So…what's this earthly, suffering-infused boot-camp for again? And even IF one grants free will were necessary for moral goodness, does this logically entail we must have the "sin/depraved" nature God created us with? I don't see how that would follow. Christians, and the rest of us, always bemoan human nature, our lack of intelligence, lack of perspective, our bad impulses and tendency to choose wrong. Why in the world would God necessarily have to create creatures with the nature of having a propensity to sin? Why not create smarter and more noble creatures, without our base impulses that lead us astray, with the tendency to choose right over wrong? There is nothing logically impossible about that proposition, and in fact Christians already think this is an intelligible proposition as they believe there are beings with free will whose nature it is to do always do the good: Jesus. God. So, I'm sorry, but this free will defence for evil and suffering does not seem to stand up no matter what angle you hold it at. Cheers, Vaal

I was referring to the formal term in philosophy of religion. “Evil” in this context means apparently pointless suffering. Humans don’t like to suffer unnecessarily, regardless of the cause.

Pointless from whose perspective? I am sure most would prefer no level of discomfort (though we all witness the process of excelling needs certain amounts of deprivation and discomfort.) But this begs the question of why do we want to excel. As far as what is pointless, take torture or what is called enhanced interrogation. Certainly from the perspective of the one being interrogated, they do not like it. But is it evil? Some say yes but what if it caused no permanent damage to the individual and he eventually provided information that saved another or perhaps thousands. So what is evil. A stubbed toe is a discomfort and is certainly unnecessary but no one would call it evil. If we applied the definition to one's perspective then we could have 7 billion definitions in this world of what was evil. No this is not a definition of the word that goes very far. It is too vague. Also all instances are finite and often arbitrary.

From the perspective of someone who only suffers — or who suffers a great deal — there is no benefit. There is little to contrast it with and they do not derive a more meaningful life from it.

We are talking about the total human experience not the experience of any particular person. If there were no discomfort by anyone, human life would be so mundane and essentially meaningless. The process has to appear random for life to be meaningful. Life has to be uncertain. People want to avoid any discomfort and will transfer that attitude to wishes for others. But such a world would be meaningless even if it is unfair and we want to eliminate unfairness. We as humans then try to eliminate the unfairness. That is one of the things that makes life meaningful. jerry

How can God grant sexual perverts free will and, at the same time, prevent them from misusing it? If free will does not include the power to create both good and bad consequences, of what use is it? Doesn’t the power to love God and his creatures necessarily include the power to hate or disregard God and his creatures? How can there be loving actions if only loving actions are allowed and hateful actions disallowed?

Stephen, your argument presupposes that your god is acting in a parental capacity -- a very common way that gods throughout history have been presented. So, permit me to continue with your analogy. You have two children, one, say, seven years old; and the other a toddler. And the seven-year-old starts hitting the toddler. How many times must the seven-year-old strike the toddler before you as the parent will interfere and save the toddler from further harm? And if you failed to intervene, or if you had left them alone without adequate supervision such that no intervention were possible, would not child protective services be justified in concluding that you're an unfit, abusive parent and step in to remove the children from your harmful influence? Of course, if there's no parent, if these two children are simply shipwrecked on a deserted island...well, that right there is a pretty good analogy of the world we actually find ourselves in, no? Sure, it's not a pretty picture...but would that therefore justify the children inventing imaginary invisible parents simply because they missed their mommies and daddies? If they did, that would be entirely understandable...for children. But can such an excuse really wash for adults? Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Virgil Cain #172 wrote:

God gave us the rules to play by. Those rules are the foundation of morality and those who break those rules pay- sooner or later. And they pay dearly for their transgression(s).

The foundation of morality is punishment? Might makes right? "It ain't wrong if you don't get caught?" You might want to rethink that. Most theists mean something very different when they say that "God is the foundation for morality." If nothing else, they usually mean that the existence of God explains where we get / how we measure our sense of what is right and good, against what is wrong and evil. This embeds God into our nature by embedding us into God's. The presumption is that we share a system, one which makes good and fair sense to us. God doesn't stand outside of it like an arbitrary, incomprehensible alien Force of Destruction. Sastra

vjtorley #156 wrote:

Thank you for your comments. You have mounted a vigorous argument for atheism, but before I address that, I’d like to get back to what we mean by “God.”

Thank you for your response. The Argument from Evil cannot work against any version of 'God' which does not significantly involve benevolence, goodness, love, and so forth, so this is irrelevant to my argument. You're bringing up a different topic.

Leaving aside these personal encounters with the divine, I would add that most people who have ever lived have believed in a God (or gods) of some sort, for two very strong reasons.

Again, not relevant to my argument. I said that "... for MOST people who have ever lived, it would be perfectly rational to be an atheist." I didn't say that most people who have ever lived were atheists (or didn't believe in the supernatural.) My point was that it would have been reasonable (and compassionate) if they had. For most people for most of human history, contemplating the Problem of Evil could fairly counter any inchoate feelings that maybe the universe is controlled by something like a loving, caring Person -- if the person doing the contemplating was themselves a loving, caring person. This is unexpected if a benevolent God exists, but expected given naturalism.

Why not give Spinoza a go, if belief in a God of love is a bridge too far for you?

Assuming that the 'God of Spinoza' is not just a poetic way of referring to "Nature," I don't find the Argument from Design convincing -- and I find the case for naturalism highly persuasive. But I'd rather not run off in that direction, since I'm more interested in reading your response to the argument I made. Sastra

Predicted response to StephenB @171 "God is omniscient, knew what the priests were going to do and allowed it. That is much worse." A keiths' response: "God, in Her omni magnificence, could have created humans with free will but create only those who would use it for doing good." Virgil Cain

I'll just end addressing this part: Third, there is impressive documentary evidence for miracles (Google my posts on St. Joseph of Cupertino) and for the Resurrection (see Drs. Tim and Lydia McGrew’s online article on the subject). Vince (I've always liked that name!)… Given you are clearly well educated and an IDer I assume you not only accept the scientific method; you appeal to it for many of the facts upon which you build the case for Intelligent Design. I believe you should see how very inconsistent this is with accepting claims of ancient resurrections, miraculous or otherwise. The methods of science arose and were refined over time not simply as some "other way of knowing" or procedure you do when putting on a lab coat, as if the concerns underlying science didn't apply to your off-time. The justifications for science arose from fundamental epistemological concerns that arise immediately when you have the problem of variables both in terms of cause and effect (how do you determine a cause when there are many possible causes?) and the problem of explanation (given for every experience we have one can conjure a variety of logically possible explanations, how do we choose from among them?). That is to say, that when it comes to the world of our experience, you can't just accept the necessity of scientific rigor in justifying any new claims to empirical knowledge and then cast it aside, drop the critical bar, to allow your favorite claim to hop over. Look how much effort was demanded to satisfy the scientists concerning the Higgs Boson - decades and billions of dollars just to build a machine that could establish some empirical evidence for particle for which theory was already extremely plausible and solid. Now, imagine 12 men claiming with utter conviction that they'd "experienced" seeing a perpetual motion machine - a machine violating our understanding of physics. Could you imagine someone at a scientific convention presenting this as evidence to justify accepting the claim, and overturning what we think we understand about physics? You know how quickly it would be laughed off the stage, and justifiably so. How much more ludicrously insufficient would it be if the speaker appealed not even to living claimants, but to purported claims from an ancient book? No one would, or should, take any scientist seriously presenting such "evidence" for a claim that would violate our understanding of the world. Why then would you possibly think lowering the standards of skepticism is justifiable just in the case of claims of an ancient resurrection???? I mean, take a non-miraculous, prosaic claim that a cancer medication or blood pressure drug has some slight effect. Given the problems of human bias, confounding variables etc, just vetting this claim typically takes from 10 to 15 years before it becomes acceptable. And for good reasons! Place next to that the claim of a Nobel-prize-worthy, physics-upturning phenomenon like someone rising from the dead…and in that case suddenly the claims of purported witnesses in an ancient book passes the evidential bar? Could it not be clearer the distance you have dropped the skeptical bar in the case for your religious beliefs, vs what we reasonably demand for important empirical claims? (And yes Jesus' resurrection is an a posteriori empirical claim, not an a priori claim). Is it any wonder atheists like us believe we are justified in our skepticism? (Again, thanks for hosting this conversation). Vaal

Sastra:

When theists claim that God is the ‘foundation of morality,’ what do they mean?

God gave us the rules to play by. Those rules are the foundation of morality and those who break those rules pay- sooner or later. And they pay dearly for their transgression(s). Virgil Cain

Ben Goren, You ask why God doesn't "drop the dime" on perverted clerics who molest children. My implicit answer is inherent in the following questions, which I hope you will address. Following those questions, I will provide my explicit answer. How can God grant sexual perverts free will and, at the same time, prevent them from misusing it? If free will does not include the power to create both good and bad consequences, of what use is it? Doesn't the power to love God and his creatures necessarily include the power to hate or disregard God and his creatures? How can there be loving actions if only loving actions are allowed and hateful actions disallowed? I will now provide an abbreviated answer to your question: God doesn't drop the dime on sexual perverts for misusing their wills to molest boys for the same reason he doesn't drop the dime on you for misusing your intelligence to become an atheist. The power to love depends on the power to decide between loving and hating and the power to decide between doing good and doing evil. There is no charm in a yes unless a no is possible. StephenB

Ben Goren:

You’re substituting the Christian Golden Rule for what I actually wrote.

OK I see where I did that. You said:

Evil is doing unto others as they do not wish to be done unto.

Then the world is overwhelmed by evil and yours is an idiotic criteria. Virgil Cain

vjtorley, I appreciate your reply. I'm glad we seem to be on the same page as far as reasoning to the best explanation. Though as I argued this does dispense with the force of any appeals to "unknown/logically possible" reasons in defending God from either the problem of natural suffering or in defending Christianity in general. (Since evaluating the claim of God's goodness is what is under question, one can not beg the question by appealing to mysterious reasons that depend on presuming God's goodness to give it plausibility in the first place). "One might rationally infer that He was only interested in creating a universe that was fit for intelligent life, and that He was indifferent to the suffering of individuals." Indeed. And Sastra's objections are relevant to this as well. "“Edward Feser: Some brief arguments for dualism” and you’ll get a list of five online posts of his, which you might like to peruse. (Professor Feser is a Thomist philosopher of some note.)" I'm familiar with Ed Feser, having read his blog for years now and having engaged him (and many more in his comments section) in some back and forth over Natural Law Theory, Thomistic-Aristotelian metaphysics, and on the problem of moving from metaphysical arguments for God to justified belief in Christianity. In a nutshell the problem is that Metaphysical arguments for God, even if they were successful, don't raise the probability of any particular miracle, and since the world full of noisy variables would remain the same, we STILL have to come up with the most rigorous method of assessing claims given human bias, error, etc…e.g. science. So the person arguing for the metaphysical God can not suddenly drop the skeptical bar to let his favourite miracle or religion hop over. A problem we'll get to in just a moment :-) "If materialism is false, we cannot say that death is the end of everything, or that people suffer irreparable harm." That's just a re-statement of the possibility of metaphysics already taken for granted in Ben's (and my) arguments against the Christian conception of God. Materialism being false, or life after death, aren't arguments for God's goodness: all the suffering on earth remains, and this will at best be just another appeal to "logical possibilities of a Creator having Good Reasons for the horrors of earth." "Second, many people claim to have a personal experience of, or encounter with, God. Yes, and for encounters with aliens, with Elvis, with New Age spirits, with Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster…for every way out fringe belief and extraordinary claim you will find people waiting to tell you about their "utterly convincing experience." Haven't we learned by this, and through science, just how skeptical we ought to be given this problem? Some of these people have had their faith strengthened after undergoing horrific experiences – e.g. the murder of a family member – which one might think would destroy anyone’s faith in God." And many people have had their faith destroyed by bad experiences, or have had their faith destroyed or removed by exposure to argument or evidence, or even just going to college ;-) All your statement denotes is a psychological fact about some people, it's no argument for the truth of God's existence. If that level of "evidence" were strong enough, every fringe claim would have to be granted truth. If you want to talk about purportedly "unlikely" psychological scenarios virtually every extraordinary claim comes with "I was a SKEPTIC until I EXPERIENCED IT." Take the claims of Transcendental Meditation, whose proponents claim that through proper meditation and practice you can obtain supernatural powers, walk through walls, become invisible, and more famously actually levitate. (known as the Yogic Flyers). Have they ever actually demonstrated any of those claims? Of course not. Instead, most rational people snicker at the videos of "yogic flyers" simply hopping up and down on their folded legs. Now, who would be LESS likely to fall for such trickery, such silliness, than a professional magician who specializes in illusions of flying, and in the mechanics of human gullibility and illusion? And yet, Doug Henning, the premier illusionist/magician of the 70's/80's bought into the claims of TM, yogic flying. After joining Henning expressed beliefs such as: "“You can disappear at a high state of consciousness because your body just stops reflecting light.” This is a guy who specialized in how people are tricked to believe in levitation and invisibility in his professional life, actually falling for bogus claims that people were doing real thing! (And, of course, neither Henning or any other TM proponent ever demonstrating any such real powers, to no one's surprise - an inconvenient fact which didn't impact their own belief at all, typical of such extraordinary claims of the superntural). There are just countless examples of people who have what one would assume is a disposition against accepting an extraordinary claim, becoming a convert. It's a psychological fact about human beings and with such a huge variable it is far from justified to use such examples in support of any extraordinary claim. This of course pertains to claims of Resurrections and sudden conversions of followers as well. Vaal

Jerry #154 wrote:

What is evil? I have not found one person who can define this word. I have searched books and intellectual writings on it. But you use it cavalierly. That is one problem

I defined my use of the term "evil" back in #126:

I was referring to the formal term in philosophy of religion. “Evil” in this context means apparently pointless suffering. Humans don’t like to suffer unnecessarily, regardless of the cause.

It's a minimalist definition. There are of course many different applications and kinds of "evil" which could be discussed and explored, but I was keeping it very simple.

The best explanation is that unfortunate incidents must exist to have a meaningful life and these incidents can range from what we consider trivial, getting a cold chill while sitting in a room, to excruciating, painful death of a child from a cancerous tumor (happened to some acquaintances of ours). That is a second problem for your position.

From the perspective of someone who only suffers -- or who suffers a great deal -- there is no benefit. There is little to contrast it with and they do not derive a more meaningful life from it. A successful theodicy must apply to the hard cases as well as the 'easy' ones. Sastra

Virgil Cain #151 wrote:

Your say-so is not an argument. Lenski was the foundation of his experiment yet he remains outside of it. God is not beholden to our game. God is judging our actions. We are alone in that regard.

When theists claim that God is the 'foundation of morality,' what do they mean? It can't just mean that God "judges" us, for anyone might judge anyone else. What do you think the phrase means then? Sastra

Virgil, I can't reconcile your responses with those of somebody arguing in good faith. I'll likely continue the discussion with others, but don't be surprised if I don't see fit to continue replying to your trolling. Sorry. b& Ben Goren

So it’s OK for people who like to be beaten up to beat up other people just because?

No, Virgil. You're substituting the Christian Golden Rule for what I actually wrote. But you have identified why the Golden Rule, if given more weight than the right to personal autonomy, is powerfully evil. Torquemada was being perfectly Christian when he tortured his subjects; as he himself is said to have put it -- and you and others here have written as much in this very thread -- better a few months of earthly torment than an eternity in Hell. The reason why Torquemada was evil, and why your example is one of evil, is because the people Torquemada tortured and the people being beaten up in your example didn't want to be tortured nor beaten up. If they wanted to be tortured or beaten up, fine. Stupid, incomprehensible -- but it's their choice to make. Their choice. Not the choice of the one doing the torturing nor the beating. Jerry wrote:

I am sure all the people in jail would not like to be there.

Agreed! But, assuming the criminal justice system really is just (and, sadly, it's got a really bad record on that front, especially of late), then the people will only be in jail until we can be reasonably confident that they're no longer a threat to anybody else. Anything more than that would be excessive and tantamount to kidnapping.

Is standing by and letting this happen equally immoral?

That seems to be the official position of the current US government and most of the world. So are they equally to blame?

US foreign policy is so horrifically messed up it's not even an unfunny joke. But you point to a key fault of foreign policy of the current generation: the recognition that a situation is horrific, intolerable, even...and, from there, concluding that something must be done...and, from that, latching on to anything, and doing it...without regards to whether or not what you're doing is actually going to make things better. If you come upon somebody who fell in a lake and is suffering from hypothermia, you have a moral obligation to render aid. But dousing that person with gasoline and lighting the person on fire because that'll warm the person up does not constitute properly-rendered aid. If a gas can and a match is all you've got to offer, you're much better doing nothing than doing something. Powerlessness is a terrifying phenomenon, but it is evil in the extreme to commit horrors simply to assuage your lack of self-esteem. b& Ben Goren

Chris, you seem to think the issue is “how much faith should we have?” No, that is not the issue.

Talk about dismissing straw men! I made no assertions about metaphysics in my post. I asked Virgil to clarify what his statement that one worldview takes "more faith" than another actually implies. You then jump in and claim that it's not about faith at all. If it's not about faith, why make the claim that one worldview is worse because it's more faith-based? And, of course, we haven't even addressed the ridiculous claim that "my side" thinks the Universe is the result of "contingent serendipity." The idea that the Universe is contingent rests on your Thomistic philosophy. Again, it is Virgil presenting claims that the Universe is contingent to begin with and it is you talking about faith-based worldviews and refusing to answer a simple question about what you just implied. Virgil did not say anything about sets of underlying metaphysical principles, he clearly dismissed an argument based on the fact that he perceives it as requiring "more faith." This is a relatively straightforward claim, but since you refuse to even answer questions about it, let's back up a step. Please point out where I, or anyone here, has claimed the Universe is the result of "contingent serendipity" and then we can discuss the issue of who is presenting straw men. ChrisBuckley80

Ben Goren:

But neither do I think that anything you claim in the name of your gods is actually so, either.

And what have I claimed? Please be specific or admit that you are just a jerk on a fishing trip. Also you have issues as I am not religious. I am not a christian nor am I a member of Islam. I just take issue with atheists creating strawman after strawman just because their position has nothing. However atheists are entertaining, in a sad sort of way. Virgil Cain

Just because these people say they are doing it- raping- in the name of God doesn’t make it so.

Ladies unt chentlemen, ve has a veiner! Virgil, neither of us think that the DAESH commando raping his preteen "bride" has actually been commanded by any god to commit the act. But neither do I think that anything you claim in the name of your gods is actually so, either. And, you know what? That DAESH commando agrees with me on that. You're fond of this, "If you can't ____ then go home," sophistry -- but this one really is the real deal. If you can't identify independently-verifiable universal means by which somebody like me can conclude that you're right and the DAESH terrorist isn't, then it's game over, man. You've got all your work ahead of you, as the saying goes. Start with Virgil's most recent arguments -- personal revelation, powerful emotional experiences, tradition, appeals from consequences, recognition of patterns in nature, all the rest. You'll find that those're exactly the same arguments that Islamists use to defend Islam. The only difference is they've done a search-and-replace of, "Jesus," and, "Jehovah," with, "Muhammad," and, "Allah." And it goes both ways. All the arguments you use to "prove" Christianity over Islam? They work exactly as well in the other direction. ...with, of course, the usual exception: the special pleading that is such a popular feature of religion. "I'm right because I said so" may make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, but, again, so does wetting the bed. For all of a minute or three. In reality, you only prefer Jesus to Muhammad because of an accident of birth; your parents taught you to sing, "Jesus Loves Me," when you were very young, and it's stuck. I don't know what the Islamic equivalent is, but you and I both know it's every bit as popular in the Middle East. Both of you can't possibly be right. But you both can be -- and most certainly are -- worng. b& Ben Goren

Does that help?

No. I suggest you read more and get back to us. I am sure all the people in jail would not like to be there. It is not just children that must be told to do things they do not want to do. Hey, I think too many people pay more taxes then they should. Is that evil? I would call it misguided but others would call it enlightened policy. Besides you are missing the basic argument in all this and that is natural evil is usually the sole focus of the debate. Rarely do people come after God because of moral evil because they understand the free will argument of an independent entity. What they object to is natural evil where no independent entity causes painful experiences and only one entity could be blamed and that is the One who created the system that caused the pain. jerry

Ben:

Evil is doing unto others as they do not wish to be done unto.

LoL! You can't be serious. So it's OK for people who like to be beaten up to beat up other people just because? Virgil Cain

can we agree that, whatever the true nature of good and evil, that the systematic rape of prepubescent Yazidi girls by DAESH militants is evil?

It is certainly an immoral act. But another question that arises is

Is standing by and letting this happen equally immoral?

That seems to be the official position of the current US government and most of the world. So are they equally to blame? Or they more so? After all we can look on the actual perpetrators as deranged but those standing by as coolly rationale. But the question above is irrelevant to the debate just as any individual incident is irrelevant. The choosing of specific incidents only confuses the basic issue and is an appeal to emotion and not reason. So I suggest you drop the approach and deal with the fundamental questions. jerry

What is evil?

I'll give you a concise definition that I think you'll find fits. Evil is doing unto others as they do not wish to be done unto. "No means no," as the current popular phrase puts it, and continuing after a "no" constitutes evil. Evil is the deprivation of another's autonomy. Obviously, people themselves engaging in evil do not wish others to stop them, and permitting them a "get out of jail free" card would be idiotic. As such, it is morally permissible to use forceful means to stop an act of evil...but only to the minimum amount necessary to do so. Summary execution of a petty theft would be a classic over-the-top example of more-than-minimmaly-necessary force. Children and other incompetents present another gray area. Parents must take full responsibility for infants for all obvious practical reasons. At adulthood, children must have full adult autonomy. Between the two, there must be a gradual blending transition -- and judgement calls of when control is warranted and autonomy deserving are some of the most difficult faced by most humans. Does that help? b& Ben Goren

LoL! @ Ben- Just because these people say they are doing it- raping- in the name of God doesn't make it so.

Rather, it’s the case that, with gods, you can justify even the most horrific acts simply by declaring certitude that you’re carrying out the orders of the gods.

Everyone has to answer for their actions- sooner or later. No one gets a pass. Eternal damnation awaits them.

Unless theists can explain the origins of their gods and why the gods are intrinsically deserving of respect, they lose before they begin.

What a joke. Why does God need an origin? As for deserving respect, do you respect your parents? Also the misunderstanding of information and codes is all yours. The genetic code is a real code. It isn't a metaphor nor an analogy. And your position cannot account for it. Virgil Cain

Sastra, Thank you for your comments. You have mounted a vigorous argument for atheism, but before I address that, I'd like to get back to what we mean by "God." Lord Bertrand Russell and Father Frederick Copleston, in their now-famous 1948 BBC radio debate on the existence of God, agreed on the following definition of the term "God": "a supreme personal Being - distinct from the world and Creator of the world." That is the definition I shall adopt. It says nothing about God's goodness. This is an important point. If there is scientific evidence for the fine-tuning not only of our universe but also of any multiverse that contains it - see here for a strong defense of this position by Dr. Robin Collins - then that indicates an intelligent agent distinct from the cosmos, who created the cosmos. Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston would have both called such an agent "God," regardless of whether this agent cared about each human individual or not. You write that the evil we see in Nature is "consistent perhaps with an indifferent Creator — or an absent one — but I’ll assume introducing this pointless option doesn’t really interest either of us." I disagree. We cannot overlook the evidence for the intelligent design of life and the cosmos, simply because the evidence seems to point to an indifferent Creator. We have to follow the evidence wherever it leads. You write:

The problem with your additional ‘reasons to believe’ (Thomist philosophy, special encounters, anecdotes of miracles, etc.) is that these reasons all require a privileged position — by which I mean someone has to be in the right time and place to encounter them, and be of sufficient intelligence and curiosity to think them through... Therefore, for MOST people who have ever lived it would be perfectly rational to be an atheist.

On the contrary, I would say that the vast majority of people who have ever lived have either had an intense spiritual experience (e.g. an encounter with the spirit of a deceased loved one, an experience of grace, or a feeling of supernatural joy such as we might encounter once or twice in a lifetime) or known a close friend or family member who has had such an experience. That wellspring of shared human experience, I would suggest, is the main reason why religion has flourished down the ages. Leaving aside these personal encounters with the divine, I would add that most people who have ever lived have believed in a God (or gods) of some sort, for two very strong reasons. The first is an intense conviction, difficult to articulate but widely shared, that the world and its creatures are designed and ordered by some Intelligence. For some people, this conviction of design comes from watching the stars. For others, it stems from the common fact that Nature is generally reliable: for instance, St. Paul pointed to the seasons in Acts 17. For still others, it's the beauty of Nature that suggests a God - "Tiger, tiger burning bright, / In the forests of the night; / What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" in the words pf William Blake, although he did also wonder, "Did He who made the lamb make thee?" The other reason that many people have believed in God, down through the ages, is the moral argument. Even in societies where people thought very little about the afterlife, people have strongly felt that a shared public belief in God as the Author of the moral order is essential for the proper functioning of any society. For these reasons, then, I cannot agree with your conclusion that "for MOST people who have ever lived it would be perfectly rational to be an atheist." I'll leave you with this thought. Einstein believed in God, but his God was not a personal God, but the God of Spinoza. It strikes me that many of today's atheists never even consider this option, but I think it has a lot going for it: it is compatible with both the evidence for design in Nature and the callous indifference of natural processes to individual human welfare. Why not give Spinoza a go, if belief in a God of love is a bridge too far for you? vjtorley

This is stupid- if atheism is right then there isn’t any good nor evil- whatever happens, happens.

Virgil, can we agree that, whatever the true nature of good and evil, that the systematic rape of prepubescent Yazidi girls by DAESH militants is evil? I should think that it's self-evident that there is no context, gods or no, in which we can reasonably consider that anything but evil. If Jesus appeared to you in a dream and commanded you to kidnap young girls and make them your sex slaves, you'd probably assume that it was Satan pretending to be Jesus -- and, even if Jesus managed to convince you he was the real deal, I'd hope you'd have the courage to tell him to go to Hell rather than do something so horrific. Even if it meant going to Hell, yourself. The problem, of course...is that the DAESH militants are raping prepubescent Yazidi girls out of their perceived duty to their gods. Go read up on it -- it's quite horrific. They call the girls their prayers, their duty, and the act of rape itself a form of worship. It's not a problem unique to DAESH. Go read Numbers 31...and you'll see that YHWH commanded Moses to do exactly what the DAESH militants are doing. So, you see, it's not at all the case that, without gods, whatever happens, happens. Rather, it's the case that, with gods, you can justify even the most horrific acts simply by declaring certitude that you're carrying out the orders of the gods.

And unless atheists are also IDists they can’t explain our existence so they lose before they begin.

Unless theists can explain the origins of their gods and why the gods are intrinsically deserving of respect, they lose before they begin.

If non-believers want to support their position they need to show that nature can indeed produce codes. Good luck with that.

The common public understanding of "information" and related phenomenon is quite confused -- hardly surprising, since it's a difficult subject and not one typically addressed in schools. Information is not some sort of reified Platonic ideal that has some existence of its own. Information is only that which is being communicated. And Claude Shannon and others like him have described the hard, inescapable physical limits (mostly relating to energy amounts and signal-to-noise ratios and the like) that govern communication and information. The short version is that, just as you can't inject energy into a system lest you make a perpetual motion machine, you also can't inject information into a system without injecting energy -- again making a perpetual motion machine. And, as for the spontaneous emergence of order from disorder...who, pray tell, do you think it is who has the job of so neatly stacking the gumballs in the gumball machine? Cheers, b& Ben Goren

The Problem of Evil has to do with God’s existence and, as Vaal stated, is one of inference to the best explanation.

What is evil? I have not found one person who can define this word. I have searched books and intellectual writings on it. But you use it cavalierly. That is one problem The best explanation is that unfortunate incidents must exist to have a meaningful life and these incidents can range from what we consider trivial, getting a cold chill while sitting in a room, to excruciating, painful death of a child from a cancerous tumor (happened to some acquaintances of ours). That is a second problem for your position. jerry

First, there are solid philosophical reasons for rejecting a materialistic account of the human mind.

Philosophical arguments, no matter how philosophically solid, have an astounding track record of being spectacularly worng. It was philosophy that concluded that there must be but four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. It was philosophy that concluded that the Earth must be at the center of the celestial spheres, and that the fact that there are five planets and five Platonic solids is no coincidence. It was philosophy that concluded that every effect must have a cause. Philosophy, frankly, is bunk. At best, it's only as good as its starting premises -- and those, in turn, are only reliable insofar as they're firmly grounded in careful observation. But, once you go that far, you've left the realm of philosophy far behind; you're now doing science, instead. Vince, you've explained why you favor a Matrix-style conspiracy theory, that all this is but the actualization of the mind of a god. That can get you to the odd miracle, but it can't get you to where you're trying to go with cognition. I think even you'd have to agree that the Standard Model is the only sane explanation for common everyday phenomenon...and there's not even the slightest hint of wiggle room in there for cognition being anything other than the result of the physical workings of a meat computer. Anything more would require observable electromagnetic interactions -- and, frankly, quite substantial such interactions. No, what you propose is no more and no less than that every brain is a perpetual motion machine. If cognition is supernatural, then the disembodied soul has full knowledge of the workings of the body, and can control the body like a puppet. Presumably, in this model, the brain is a transceiver for the soul, possibly with some relatively inconsequential primitive autonomous control functions of its own so the soul doesn't have to tell the heart every time it should beat. But that means that, when you lift something, when you do work in the sense used by physics, the energy budget has a deficit in the brain. If something other than biochemistry made the neurons in the brain fire in the ways we know full well are necessary to cause the limbs to move, then that same something could do the exact same sort of physics to charge a chemical battery. And that the mind is a property of the brain -- or, at least, the body -- is something that we've had overwhelming evidence is the case for millennia. At the very lease, ever since the invention of beer...an invention that itself predates, by millennia, the Biblical timeline for Creation. So, what happens when you drink beer? Does the alcohol interfere with the soul receiver in the brain? How could that even make sense? But, of course, it's much more than that. Though there's more that we don't know but wish we did about the brain than perhaps any other phenomenon, there's amazing amounts we do know...and that includes a significant number of actual physical structures in the brain directly responsible for all sorts of things that you would consider essential to what makes you "you." Throw a blood clot in this specific region, and you can't do basic arithmetic any more. Have a lesion over there, and you lose all sense of music appreciation. Have a railroad spike take out this region, and you become prone to fits of uncontrollable rage. Ingest this chemical and you want to make love to anybody and anything in the room. Ingest this other chemical and you'll want to make love to your spouse, but everything you see has a blue tint. Send an electrical charge over here and you'll raise your arm -- and, when asked why you raised your arm, you'll answer that it's because you wanted to, maybe even making up a story about how you wanted to ask a question. It certainly doesn't feel like we're meat computers; we generally do have the illusion of being disembodied floating spirits hovering somewhere on the forehead, or whatever. But our world is full of cognitive illusions -- many of which I'm sure you've enjoyed on the Internet. So, yes. Philosophy can certainly reject all of science, all of physics, all of information theory, all of everything else, and suggest that black is white and water is indivisible and there. are. four. LIGHTS! But it's an argument that most emphatically doesn't impress in the slightest. Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Sastra:

The fundamental question here though is not “Is God omnibenevolent?” It’s “does God exist?”

The scientific evidence says some Intelligent Agency existed that brought life to Earth. Nature doesn't produce codes and biology is ruled by them. If non-believers want to support their position they need to show that nature can indeed produce codes. Good luck with that. Virgil Cain

Sastra:

God cannot be both outside of our morality and the foundation for our morality.

Your say-so is not an argument. Lenski was the foundation of his experiment yet he remains outside of it. God is not beholden to our game. God is judging our actions. We are alone in that regard. Virgil Cain

Virgil #146 wrote:

God is outside of the game.

No, God cannot be both outside of our morality and the foundation for our morality. Pick a horse and ride it. Sastra

vjtorley #145 wrote:

Let me say up-front that if the balance of good and evil in the world were the only piece of evidence we had relating to God’s goodness, it would be rational to infer that God is not omnibenevolent. One might rationally infer that He was only interested in creating a universe that was fit for intelligent life, and that He was indifferent to the suffering of individuals.

The fundamental question here though is not "Is God omnibenevolent?" It's "does God exist?" This makes a difference, I think. We can't use familiar analogies which have to do with people we know behaving in or out of character, and our wondering why they might do that. They don't fit the situation. If the balance of good and evil in the world were the only piece of evidence relating to God's existence, one might rationally infer that there is no God. The world is exactly what we would expect to see if there was no Creator, benevolent or malevolent. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people depending on the entire chain of physical circumstances. It's consistent perhaps with an indifferent Creator -- or an absent one -- -- but I'll assume introducing this pointless option doesn't really interest either of us. The problem with your additional 'reasons to believe' (Thomist philosophy, special encounters, anecdotes of miracles, etc.) is that these reasons all require a privileged position -- by which I mean someone has to be in the right time and place to encounter them, and be of sufficient intelligence and curiosity to think them through. Leaving aside the problem of whether they really do count as strong, convincing evidence for the existence of God or an afterlife, we're still left with the problem that these reasons would only be available to a handful of the human race during a very short period of human history. Therefore, for MOST people who have ever lived it would be perfectly rational to be an atheist. In fact, as I pointed out earlier, they'd not only be reasonable, they'd be motivated in that direction by compassion and love. The Problem of Evil has to do with God's existence and, as Vaal stated, is one of inference to the best explanation. If the Problem of Evil can only be defeated by invoking knowledge and evidence available to the very few -- leaving virtually all the rest of humanity rationally justified in concluding that it works and there is no benevolent God out there -- then I think it works. God is supposed to care about every individual from every moment in history, not just the privileged few who have access to Aquinas or a computer. Sastra

You can’t beg the question by assuming God’s good intentions,

I am not begging any question. I am pointing out what has to happen to have a meaningful existence. First, the evidence overwhelming points to the existence of a massive intelligence who created the universe. Second, there must exist another or the same intelligence to create life and the various life forms subsequent to the creation of the universe. One could argue that Earth is such a rare event that there must have been an intelligence behind it too. (Assume that I understand the physical processes of star and solar system creation.) So we have to deal with this. That is not begging the question. What is begging the question is assuming that these things arose by some naturalistic means. The information points away from this. So people from the beginning of time have been trying to deal with the phenomena of creation. And there are tens of thousands of explanations that have been held including thousands within our current time. Next, has this massive intelligence communicated with us. And if He did, how did He do it. So sorting through all the phenomena since the beginning of time that we are aware of, what could be these communications if there were any. Once we do that, we can try to assess what makes the most sense. But it will never be conclusive. I have given you the reasons why it cannot be conclusive. If it was, life would be meaningless. The explanation that many have ascribed to is that there is a single God with various characteristics and it is coherent. Is it necessary right. No, but assuming that this intelligence did communicate with us, how would He do it. My explanation is coherent while those who say that this God would not allow suffering, is not a coherent explanation. Remember there must be doubt or else life is meaningless but we have been left with lots of clues and it is up to us to interpret these clues to reach a best explanation. A God that would intervene every time that something unpleasant would happen is an absurdity so the basic proposition put forth that God should intervene is absurd. No, it you who are begging questions. I am working from evidence to a best explanation. And the theodicy issues is a non-starter because essentially evil does not exist. It only exist in the minds of those who beg the questions and assume there is no reason for it. Unpleasant results in terms of this world must exist for this life to be meaningful. That is the proposition that is so easy to understand or prove that it should not have to be repeated. So the only coherent system is one where Jesus rarely calls 911 and when He does it will be in such a way that it will be hard to prove He did. jerry

The sad truth — for you, not for me — of the matter is that, no matter how much might wish it otherwise, even in principle no other entity than yourself can give your life meaning, and this right now is your only chance to actually give your life meaning.

LoL! We can only give ourselves mundane meaning. And that meaning is meaningless in the grand scheme. In principle you wouldn't even be here with an Intelligent Designer or a Creator. All purpose derives from that. Virgil Cain

Vaal:

This is the appeal-to-unknown-possibilities I (and Ben) have pointed out as insufficient.

That's only your opinion, so it doesn't count for anything.

Even if God “made the rules for morality” then insofar as God is not “playing by the rules of morality” then God can not be described as “Being Morally Good.”

God is outside of the game. This is stupid- if atheism is right then there isn't any good nor evil- whatever happens, happens. And unless atheists are also IDists they can't explain our existence so they lose before they begin. Virgil Cain

Hi Vaal, I'm not a professor, and although I have a Ph.D. in philosophy, I don't care about titles. "Vince" or "vj" or "vjtorley" is fine. You immediately caught my eye with the following comment of yours, which was very insightful:

The case being brought by Ben, and by most atheists, is not the formal logical argument against God, but a reasoning-to-the-best-explanation. That is, applying skepticism consistently to God claims as to any other claims. Hence it will NEVER do to appeal to “logical possibilities” such as “God MAY have a morally sufficient reason we aren’t in a position to know for X instance of suffering.”

All right. Now I see where you are coming from. As an Intelligent Design advocate, I understand reasoning-to-the-best-explanation quite well. That's how we reason that life had a Designer. Let me say up-front that if the balance of good and evil in the world were the only piece of evidence we had relating to God's goodness, it would be rational to infer that God is not omnibenevolent. One might rationally infer that He was only interested in creating a universe that was fit for intelligent life, and that He was indifferent to the suffering of individuals. However, that is not the only evidence we have. First, there are solid philosophical reasons for rejecting a materialistic account of the human mind. Google "Edward Feser: Some brief arguments for dualism" and you'll get a list of five online posts of his, which you might like to peruse. (Professor Feser is a Thomist philosopher of some note.) If materialism is false, we cannot say that death is the end of everything, or that people suffer irreparable harm. Second, many people claim to have a personal experience of, or encounter with, God. I can't speak for myself, as I haven't had any dramatic experiences, but there are many people I know who have. Some of these people have had their faith strengthened after undergoing horrific experiences - e.g. the murder of a family member - which one might think would destroy anyone's faith in God. Third, there is impressive documentary evidence for miracles (Google my posts on St. Joseph of Cupertino) and for the Resurrection (see Drs. Tim and Lydia McGrew's online article on the subject). Fourth, Dr. Bruce Greyson has catalogued evidence for veridical perceptions (visual and auditory) by individuals who have undergone near-death experiences. Maost of these individuals were brain-dead. I could go on, but I have to head off to work shortly, so I'll stop there. vjtorley

(Hi, Vaal! Good to see you here.) Jerry, one or the other of us is quite confused...and I don't think it's me. On the one hand, you declare all suffering in this mortal coil to be moot, for it is but nothing compared to an infinitude of bliss in the life to come. On the other hand, you bemoan the fact that, without a god to tell you what is and isn't good and how you should live your life, this life is meaningless. So, which is it? Is this life meaningless because your god has rendered it so, or this life not meaningless only because your god has commanded it not be so? The sad truth -- for you, not for me -- of the matter is that, no matter how much might wish it otherwise, even in principle no other entity than yourself can give your life meaning, and this right now is your only chance to actually give your life meaning. It might be scary...but tough. It's all you've got. Vaal has done an excellent job of demonstrating why the Euthyphro Dilemma really does hold: either goodness is independent of the gods and they may be judged accordingly; or it is arbitrary and subject to their whim. The same holds for meaning, as well. No god, no matter how powerful, can decide for you what you want. The god can tell you what it wants of you, but you still must decide, for yourself, if what the god wants of you is what you yourself want. That's the whole point of, "free will," as Christians understand it, no? My own life is full of meaning. I just got back from a rehearsal that included Bach's second Brandenburg Concerto, possibly the most intimidating work in the trumpet repertoire. And I don't think I'm going to embarrass myself too badly on the concert -- which will be a major accomplishment all unto itself. Simultaneously, in another life, I'm independently developing new techniques for digital camera color profiling and calibration and achieving results that few, if any, have ever matched -- at least, with the type of equipment I'm working with. And I'm blessed to have been graced by an incarnation of Baihu, the White Tiger of the West, in the form of a most loving formerly-feral tabby kitten (now a several year old cat) -- a divine feline who is most emphatically reminding me that it's time for his katsuobushi now...neow...NEOW... ...so, really, what more meaning could I possibly ask for? If you're unhappy with the meaning you have adopted for your life, as it sure sounds you are...well, I'm quite sorry at your existential angst. But the answer is to give yourself a kick in the seat of your pants, ask yourself what it is that you really want in life...and then devote yourself to building your own heaven here on earth -- for it's for damned certain that that's the only heaven you'll ever know. I think that's what saddens me the most about Christianity. All that wasted effort preparing for an imaginary heaven in the sky, that could instead be put towards building a real one here on Earth. We've done not all that bad, all things considered; there's a great deal that's intolerable and that we should be ashamed of, but, at the same time, even the poorest of us has access to luxury and wealth beyond imagining for the kings of old. ...but we can do so much better. So why don't you join in the construction project? It's as good a purpose to life as any, and carries lots of rewards all its own. It's simple, if not easy. All you have to do is imagine what you wish the world really were like, and then try to come up with ways to remake it in that image. Do you, for example, wish that people didn't suffer needless pain after getting in a car wreck? Wouldn't that be nice? Well, then...drive safely, first of all...and, if you witness a wreck, don't be a jerk like Jesus, and instead call 9-1-1.... Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Jerry, "Who is to say if the girl’s temporary suffering is not made up by some other form of compensation of which we are not aware." This is the appeal-to-unknown-possibilities I (and Ben) have pointed out as insufficient. If you are going to appeal to skepticism based on our epistemic limitations it cuts both ways: I can say as well "who is to say Jesus' sacrifice wasn't part of God's evil plans to ensure maximum human suffering?" You can't beg the question by assuming God's good intentions, so you bring up this epistemological skepticism at your own peril. Which is to say, again, all we can rationally do is evaluate the evidence as it appears, what it suggests using criteria we normally apply to other claims. Further, the principle you seem to be invoking, like Prof Torley, is something like "It is ok to cause or allow intense suffering, so long as the suffering person is given a reward after the suffering (e.g. whatever reward in eternity)." But why accept this principle? What does it say about morality? We normally associate "good person" with "being benevolent." That is, a disposition to DO GOOD, to act in support of the well-being of others. And doesn't "evil/bad" have to do with the wrongness in causing unnecessary suffering to another person? Therefore, isn't it just "wrong" on the nature of "wrong" to cause unnecessary suffering to someone? And "good" to act in support of their well-being? If so, the idea of what will happen later on, reward or not, is moot. It's just WRONG to torture someone or stand by and watch it happen if you could stop it. It's just GOOD or RIGHT to help someone who is suffering, if you can do so. Full stop. Talk of later rewards SO IT'S OK TO CAUSE OR ALLOW SUFFERING seems twisted and evil on how most of us understand good and evil actions. And this is the thrust of Ben's example - we don't excuse the actions of a torturer as "ok" no matter WHAT reward he is able to offer afterward, magical or otherwise. It's just not ok to want to torture someone, or allow it, in the first place! Hence this principle you appeal to seems to be a very dubious one, yet to be justified. You've also claimed that the type of evil we see in the world is necessary for human free will (i.e. morally relevant free will). I don't think this is remotely plausible even if we keep the discussion to human behavior. But it is even less plausible in explaining natural evil - that is the staggering amount, and diabolical kinds, of suffering inflicted on humans by nature. How is it MORE PLAUSIBLE THAN NOT that rabies is utterly necessary for humans to exert free will? Or earthquakes? Or any number of countless horrors that afflict humans? I've never seen a remotely plausible answer from any Christian. One move has already been indicated by Prof Torley, which is the old "we are reaping the world handed to us by Adam and Eve" gambit. But this doesn't seem to answer this problem at all. It's still a world of horrors as God designed or allowed it to become. No All Good Being would allow unnecessary suffering, which the world seems utterly full of. You still have to make a case that all the suffering we see is necessary, and how in the world is it "necessary" for a Good God to make a contract with a devil that would allow the devil to cause all this suffering in our earthly life? Or necessary for God to base the well-being of ALL FUTURE HUMANITY on the decision of two original, callow human beings, especially knowing the horrific outcome for our earthly existence? "Y'know, if you two disobey me I'll let it result in the horrendous suffering of billions of people after you. Ok, I'll make this your call." This is not in keeping with how any Good Person, with how any RATIONAL person we know would act. Vaal

Prof Torley, (Hoping I get the quote formatting right...) vjtorley wrote: "But if we depend on God for our very existence, then surely, for that reason alone, God is in a position to dictate moral standards to us." How does that follow at all? You won't want to special plead, so you would have to show this derived from a principle we accept elsewhere. But I can't think of any examples that would show I do, or ought to, accept this principle. Do we say that, for instance, a patient dependent upon doctors for her existence (e.g. their care is keeping her alive) entails that whatever the Doctors decided to dictate to her she ought to take as a moral standard? Does fathering a son, bringing a person into existence, entail that whatever the father dictates to the son is therefore moral, and what the son ought to do? "Son, you ought to rape, murder and steal whenever possible!" No one (no one not twisted) would agree that follows from the son's dependence upon the father. I certainly don't. So don't see how your principle follows. Perhaps you mean something more like the common: "God is the creator so He is in position to have made the rules" apologetic one often hears from Christians. If so, it's a pretty naive defense, and doesn't help. If morality is only set of rules created by God for humans, as for instance we allow that creators of games create the rules, then that has implications. Even if God "made the rules for morality" then insofar as God is not "playing by the rules of morality" then God can not be described as "Being Morally Good." No more than the person who designed chess could be described as "playing chess" if he's not playing the game, or violating the rules of chess. So if this is an attempt to absolve God from the same moral rules humans are bound to, you've done away with a moral/good God right there. Or let's use a thought experiment to further test the principle. Let's say two scientists of the future, Lucy and Richard, managed to fully design and create a new race of beings, whose capacity for fear, love, goals, desires, suffering etc was as rich as our own. Now lets say Lucy treats the beings with benevolence and advises them to act in ways we normally associate with "good persons." But Richard's approach is to produce as much suffering and fear as possible in the beings, and instructs them to lie, cheat, and harm each other as much as possible. Make a movie with that plot line and every audience in the world will agree which of those scientists is the "Evil/Bad Guy" in the story, right? Again, this indicates we don't really think the nature of morality is equivalent to "a game in which ANYTHING would go" or that it follows a creator could dictate ANYTHING to his creation and still be understood as Good. But I'm presuming your position would want to be more sophisticated than that, and say that God WOULD BE moral in the way we understand goodness/morality - e.g. loving, benevolent, etc. (And perhaps this derives from God's very character). Well then, you are back to the fact a Good God would act consistently with what we understand to be a Good Person. Which makes the issue of "God being in a position to dictating morality" or being outside humanity, or the material or whatever, moot to the debate, and non-answer to Ben's objections. Yahweh either acts in accordance to "good" as we tend to understand it or not. The world LOOKS like one plausibly created by a Benevolent All Powerful Being…or not. And the answer to both, when you remove special pleading to unknown reasons, seems to be: "not." Vaal

Hello Prof Torley. I appreciate seeing you engaging Ben's piece, and Ben personally, in dialogue. I hope you don't mind another atheist voice added to the conversation. I believe Ben is right in identifying the main issue: the special pleading so often used by Christians, and on display here IMO. When it's convenient for the Christian, God's goodness and motivations are scrutable. When inconvenient - e.g. problem of suffering - God becomes inscrutable, with possible unknown reasons for causing or allowing any particular instance of suffering. (Or, insofar as some tentative reasons are floated, they do not hold up in consistency with our normal moral reasoning). The case being brought by Ben, and by most atheists, is not the formal logical argument against God, but a reasoning-to-the-best-explanation. That is, applying skepticism consistently to God claims as to any other claims. Hence it will NEVER do to appeal to "logical possibilities" such as "God MAY have a morally sufficient reason we aren't in a position to know for X instance of suffering." That is merely a re-statement of our general epistemic limitations, our lack of omniscience, taken for granted in any such skepticism about your Christian claims. God is not a "special" epistemological problem that requires we make exception only for that claim. As Ben's reference to The Matrix reminds you, there can be logically possible ideas we can not formally disprove that would contradict virtually ANY belief we already hold. Yet this does not - can not! - mean we refrain from coming to reasonable conclusions about the plausibility or implausibility of any claim, either mundane or extraordinary. It's logically possible Hitler actually had good intentions for Jews that went astray, or even that Hitler was God, engineering the Jews' fate for the Best Possible Outcome for their eternal souls. This is compatible with the horror of the holocaust. But does the holocaust SUGGEST it? No. Is it more plausible, more reasonable than an inference based on evaluating the evidence as we do for any other person? Of course not. Let's say a Being arrived and displayed all the powers Yahweh and Jesus purportedly demonstrated that convinced people it was God, our Creator . But then this Being proceeded to go on a never ending rampage of destruction, relentlessly torturing anyone in His path. Basically, acting in a manner more befitting a demon. How would it make sense to call this Being "good" given how we normally understand that epithet as we use it to identify "good" in other persons? Of course, in an attempt to save the goodness of this rampaging Being, one could say "Sure from our perspective this Being looks evil…but perhaps He has Good Reasons for his behavior that we can't know from our limited perspective." First of all, no one would, or should, accept this. The reason is obvious: this type of reasoning leads to epistemological chaos, leaves us vulnerable to ANY claim to Godhood. This form of reasoning could justify belief that ANYONE or anything is God - a pet rock, a stray cat, my next door neighbor, Donald Trump…."hey, who are we puny humans to judge how the Almighty appears to us?"….and hence can never distinguish between any such claims. The fact is, epistemologically, we are left calling 'em as we see 'em, by our own lights. This means judging whether a claim that a character in an ancient book acts in accordance with what we normally understand as "good," or whether the world looks like one plausibly created by a Good Being with unlimited power and knowledge. For all the reasons Ben brings up, and countless more, the claims of Christianity and the purported Goodness of Yahweh are not plausible. Cheers, Vaal Vaal

I think you’ll agree with me on this one. At least, I rather hope you would…the alternative being you’re the same sort of monster as DAESH is filled with.

Let's call someone a monster if they don't agree with you especially if it was their child. Sounds like a Michael Dukakis moment. Interesting rhetorical technique. Why does the fact that it is your child make a difference? However, your example is irrelevant and any example you can imagine is irrelevant. Why because they are all finite no matter how horrific they are. We could start a contest of the most unpleasant/painful act possible and see who could win. The current winner is from "The Empire Strikes Back" where one has to endure a thousand years of agony in the Sarlacc pit after falling in. But even this outlandish example if it were real would still be finite and would have to be permitted to have a meaningful world. Because if they weren't what would the alternative be. A world where the most horrific thing would be far down the list from the winners of the contest. And one would ask why cannot we do something more horrific. Oh, there is a God who would step in if you do. Ok, I get it, I am not supposed to do these but I can do these less horrific things. But what will happen to me if I do the slightly less horrific things. I get zapped too. Oh, I better not do those either. It is a meaningless existence devoid of free will. Rank all the unpleasant events possible from the slightest, for example, not getting the best seat at the opening night of the hot new concert to whatever you can imagine. Use your example of the Yazidi girl if you want but people here could probably out do it. They love to bring up the torturing of babies. All are finite and if you eliminate the top end of horror, the slightly less horrible will then be the top but why stop there. Eliminate them and so on and you are down to stubbing your toe as you go out for a walk as the worst that can happen and since it was the worse thing it would now be your example and someone should call 911 for you. No, all has to be allowed and is one a monster for saying this. It doesn't mean that you approve of it, just recognize that it is a possibility no matter how undesirable it is. What is the alternative—meaningless existence. Your examples of what will compensate for the horrific act are irrelevant too. Especially, the Harvard degree and Disney land tickets. That is almost comical. I would go for something bigger, the devil would figure out more interesting alternatives. But he asks for your soul. Now you are maybe getting into real evil. Why don't you have a contest? You are God and can do anything. Design a meaningful world. See what you come up with. Find the "Best of All Possible Worlds." jerry

Atheist:

Why doesn't Jesus call 911?"

Jesus:

"Shall the pot say to the potter, "What makest thou?""

PS. It sounds better in King James English for some reason. Mapou

No, the end result is not the same. If God were to apply to join our society, then He’d have to do so on our terms. But He is the Lord and Creator of the cosmos, and He’s inviting us to join His society. If we want to belong, then we have to do so on His terms.

Then you're admitting that his terms do not include the moral obligation to call 9-1-1 in case of emergency. After all, you've already made plain that he's under no obligation to do so. And who would be crazy enough to want to join such a cruel and depraved society where nobody has the simple compassion and decency to even do something so little as call 9-1-1 when help is needed the most? b& Ben Goren

Who is to say if the girl’s temporary suffering is not made up by some other form of compensation of which we are not aware.

I think you'll agree with me on this one. At least, I rather hope you would...the alternative being you're the same sort of monster as DAESH is filled with. I've no clue if you've a family or not, but, regardless, imagine you've a daughter. And imagine she's kidnapped and brutalized in all the worst ways your imagination can imagine. Take a moment to dwell on the horror. "...and then he touched me, and I begged him to stop, but he didn't, and then it hurt even more and nobody stopped him...." Continue until you've truly internalized the true depths of evil -- and, again, imagine that it's not some faceless Yazidi girl, but your own beloved daughter. Okay. You can stop now. It's a year later, the girl's daily, hourly, never-ending nightmare has finally come to an end, and her captor show up with her at your doorstep, gives her back to you, apologizes for the inconvenience, but explains that he's really sorry about what happened to her and, just to show that he really means it, he's set up a full ride scholarship for her at Harvard when she's grown up, and there's an endowment she can draw from for whatever she wants, and a million dollars for you and your wife, and, just to show he really means it, season passes for the next several years to Disneyland. Would that compensation satisfy you? No? How about if he implanted a science-fiction pleasure device in her brain so that, for the rest of her days, she experienced unimaginable bliss at all times? Would that be enough? How about all that, plus a magic pill that made her live that that for a million years? Are we now getting close to compensating for that year of brutal sex slavery? ...no? Didn't think so. And, of course, I completely agree with you. Cheers, b& P.S. If you don't agree with me...spend some more time imagining what the monster is doing to her, exactly how he's touching your tiny daughter.... b& Ben Goren

Vincent, I'm sure you remember a very popular movie of some time back, an huge blockbuster at the time and now rightly considered one of the all-time science fiction greats. Most people have since realized that it was rather heavy on the Christian symbolism, and I think the directors have even described the Gnostic Christian influences they drew upon in making the film. I refer, of course, to The Matrix. And it is, hardly surprisingly, a perfect model for what you describe. It even explains how you think it could be reasonable that physics as we think we understand it is utterly irrelevant to the true nature of reality, how Agents beyond our ken can step in at any time and alter the very fabric of existence by the power of their minds. Before I continue, I should hasten to add that it's one of my personal favorite movies of all time, one that I've watched quite a few times and with a greater appreciation each time. A masterful work of art, full of great beauty and passion and technically executed with consummate craft. Come to think of it, I should probably make a point of digging out the DVD and watching it again this weekend; it's been a while. It is also, not to put too fine a point on it, a conspiracy theory. We know it is such because, as I'm sure you would agree, it is impossible to disprove the theory. If there's an intelligent Agent monitoring my green hieroglyphs as they fall down the monochrome LCD monitor, and it sees that I'm about to perform an experiment that would reveal its presence...well, no problem; just edit the code, never mind the little glitch, and my experiment gives whatever results the Agent would prefer it should. There are two levels of problems with such conspiracies: local and global. The local problem...is that you yourself have no way of knowing that the conspiracy is as you perceive it to be. How do you know that you're in the Matrix, and not on the Holodeck of the Enterprise, or the philosopher's favorite brain in a vat? How do you know that you're in a simulated reality in the first place? Maybe your tinfoil has slipped and the aliens are controlling your thoughts with your mind ray? Maybe the dentist secretly replaced your filling with a CIA mind control implant? And, even if you do come up with a way of positively identifying the proximate conspiracy, how do you know that that's where it stops? Maybe you're a brain in a vat, but the vat is a construct of the Holodeck, but the Enterprise is flying through the Matrix. Or the Matrix is a construct of the Holodeck, which the philosopher is feeding into the brain in the vat. Or whatever. The sequels to The Matrix addressed this, but gently. Neo, the Christ analogue...his power was supposed to be limited to the Matrix itself...until it was discovered that he could perform the same miracles in the real world. That would superficially be seen as an indication that the power of the Christ is not limited to our world but spans all time and space...but a far simpler answer would be that Neo never actually escaped the Matrix at all; what he thinks is the real world is simply a quarantined subroutine of the Matrix. That brings us to the global problem of conspiracy theories: that even the conspirators themselves are trapped by them. Imagine, for a moment, that, very similarly to (but not exactly as) Christian theology describes, Satan tells Jesus that he's seen the Light, he's now a good person, and wishes himself to be Judged that he might receive Jesus's forgiveness and grace and be welcomed back home with the Heavenly Host. Jesus would hopefully have the compassion to consider such a request, but also not be foolish enough to blindly trust Satan. And, so, he agrees to judge Satan by giving him a test: Jesus will, for the duration of the test, bequeath to Satan Jesus's own power -- all the omnipotence, all the omniscience, all of everything; and Jesus will see what Satan will do with such responsibility. But, again, Jesus is no idiot. Satan may well, as always, get drunk and run the Maserati head-on into the tree at 100 MPH again. So, of course, Jesus secretly sets up a simulation, of the same sort we've been describing all along. And, also of course, Jesus being perfect, the simulation is equally perfect. As far as Satan is concerned he, Satan, really is the one-and-only all-knowing all-powerful Creator of Life, the Universe, and Everything. But Satan's no dummy, either. He's been around the block a few times himself, and understandably suspects that Jesus might be setting him up. So, of course, the first thing he does is pull out Jesus's almighty secret decoder ring of omniscience and ask it if this is the real deal, or if he's in another one of Jesus's fake playgrounds. So what happens? If the almighty secret decoder ring of omniscience really is the real deal, it's going to blow the gig right then and there before it gets started. So Jesus would have to give Satan a counterfeit almighty secret decoder ring of omniscience...and the test is equally invalid, because the whole point is to see what Satan would do with the real thing. If you're as familiar with mathematics as you present yourself, you should recognize that scenario: it's just a stylized retelling of a popular proof of Turing's famous Halting Problem. And the answer, of course, is that there is no answer; there is no almighty secret decoder ring of omniscience...and, as such, the ultimate nature of reality will truly remain a mystery to all entities, no matter how much else they know, no matter how much more they know than other entities. So, if even the gods can't possibly know the ultimate nature of reality...well, first, why call them gods? And, more importantly, of what sense does it make to claim that there even is an ultimate nature of reality? By the time you get to that point, you realize the futility in trying to pick the right conspiracy from a transfinite array to pick from. The only sane conclusion is that all conspiracy theories deserve to be discarded, with prejudice, until actual credible evidence is presented to support their reality. And, by that standard...Christianity is the exact opposite of credible. Never mind that it doesn't even pass the "sniff" test, what with all its tales of sword and sorcery and magic and monsters; its fabulous development is pretty clearly laid out. Zechariah 6 has the prototypical Jesus (Joshua) with all the foundational elements -- architect and high priest of YHWH's true perfect church, prince of peace, crowned (i.e., anointed / christened) with many crowns, and so on. Philo of Alexandria, writing at about the same time as Jesus was supposedly on his mission, noticed nothing of the goings-on in Jerusalem...but did incorporate the Greek Logos into Jewish philosophy, including the explicit identification of Zechariah's Jesus with the Logos, including a discourse on the significance of one of Zechariah's epithets that Philo interpreted as "The Rising." A few decades later, Paul's Risen Christ Jesus is theologically indistinguishable from Phio's Rising Anointed Jesus, and is still devoid of terrestrial biography. After the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, in the spirit of Euhemerus, Mark writes an epic biography for Paul's Jesus, set in the fading glory days of the Jewish kingdom and drawing heavily on Homeric iconography. The other Gospel authors draw inspiration from Mark and attempt to do him one better...and the rest, as they say, is His Story. Nor is any of this any grand secret conspiracy of its own. Saint Justin Martyr -- yes, that Martyr, the earliest-known Christian apologist -- himself devoted his writings to the thesis that his Pagan audience had no right to mock Christians for their beliefs for Pagans, too, believe that Perseus was born of a virgin in accord with prophecy, that Bellerophon Ascended on Pegasus, that Aesculapius raised the dead, that Mithras manifested in his Eucharist of bread and water, and so on...and that the only difference was that the Pagan superstitions were planted by evil daemons with the power of foresight who knew of Jesus's immanence and sought to lead honest men astray. Incidentally, if you strip out all the biographical elements and theological characteristics that Martyr identifies Pagan precedents for, you're left with nothing for Jesus. So, which, I ask you, is more likely? That the Christian Gospel is an accurate reflection of the reality allegorized in The Matrix? That Justin Martyr was right and the reason Jesus looks like all the other demigods of his era was because of infernal interference? Or because it really is just yet another ancient superstition with nothing to distinguish itself from all the other near-identical similar ancient superstitions you yourself dismiss without second thought? Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Ben Goren, You also write:

But isn’t that the entire premise of Christianity? YHWH manifested as Jesus, became one of us, served as our greatest teacher, and will welcome us into his own home? Whether you wish to call that him joining our society, us being called to join his, or a merger of the two, the end result is the same: a single interacting community of mortal and divine.

No, the end result is not the same. If God were to apply to join our society, then He'd have to do so on our terms. But He is the Lord and Creator of the cosmos, and He's inviting us to join His society. If we want to belong, then we have to do so on His terms. vjtorley

A couple things:

being a prepubescent Yazidi girl made a sex slave by a DAESH commando after watching the rest of her family be raped and tortured to death.

This is an example of moral evil or evil committed by one human against another. As opposed to natural evil where one suffers due to natural causes. Who is to say if the girl's temporary suffering is not made up by some other form of compensation of which we are not aware. Remember the Christian God's rewards are infinite both in the sense of eternity and kind. When juxtaposed the two are not comparable. You may not believe this but it is the Christian God we are discussing. And that the act must be allowed because these types of acts are necessary for one to use free will. If they were never allowed to happen, then obviously free will will never happen and humans action will essentially be meaningless. If we are supposed to only be able to choose between so called positive acts then these in turn could then be judged as to what is less or more positive and the less positive could then be judged as undesirable or classified as suffering. Human action needs uncertainty of outcome in order to exercise free will and make the actions meaningful. One of those uncertainties is whether they will be judged or not and rewarded or punished accordingly. Behavior theory essentially illustrates how free will is eliminated as the system of rewards and punishments guides behavior. If God came down every Monday morning and rewarded and punished everyone based on the previous week's actions, then after a few weeks there would be almost no punishment. That assumes that we would then not be punished for what was trivial at week 1 but by week 10 would be a major offense compared to other actions. A meaningless world.

When denied the right to refuse, when “no” doesn’t actually mean, “no”…that’s pretty much the definition of evil.

I never been able to find one who could define the word "evil." Why don't you take a crack at it. As to the comment about being denied the right to refuse, that happens to nearly everyone countless numbers of times in their life.

Can’t he at least tap them on she shoulder and say, “Hi, you don’t know me, but I’m Jesus, and I’d really rather you stopped doing that and saying I was the one who told you it was okay”?

Again leads to a meaningless existence. The world must appear random and human beings must have free will in order for life to be meaningful. It is only "evil" if one is punished unfairly for our entire existence and we cannot begin to know that jerry

Hi Ben Goren, There's a very simple reason why claims of levitation are utterly dissimilar to claims about the sun rising in the West this morning - namely, that we all saw it rise in the East this morning. If someone says it rose in the West then they're calling us all liars or deluded people. I have a Bachelor of Science degree, and although my major was Pure Mathematics, I studied physics for a couple of years, so I know all about the Higgs boson and am quite familiar with the Standard Model, thank you very much. I'm also familiar with Sean Carroll's writings (I've debated him previously). Proving that the laws of physics are a complete description of the interactions observed in Nature is not the same as proving that the laws of physics are causally closed. There's no way in principle that you can exclude the possibility of trans-corporeal agents who are able to influence bodies, via interactions governed by a more general set of laws (call it P') than the set of laws which holds for our cosmos. As for God, He is no more bound by our laws than the author of a book is bound by the rules governing the world she creates in her novels. Harry Potter is bound by the limitations of magic, but J.K. Rowling is free to rescue Harry Potter by any literary device she choooses. More later. vjtorley

How do we know what is pointless suffering? There is this great example from the Karate Kid where Daniel thinks he is wasting his time pointlessly but later understands that there was an ultimate purpose.

While there are certainly grey areas, I think we can all agree that there's quite a bit of difference between doing chores for a martial arts master and, for example, being a prepubescent Yazidi girl made a sex slave by a DAESH commando after watching the rest of her family be raped and tortured to death. I do believe even Jesus would be mightily hard pressed to offer up any examples of some "greater good" that could make up for that sort of thing. Lame excuses, sure -- Numbers 31 and all, again. But I think we've all already established that such is invalid. Besides, if I remember right, the kid in the movie was free to quit at any time. When denied the right to refuse, when "no" doesn't actually mean, "no"...that's pretty much the definition of evil. But never mind that. Don't you realize the irony of writing that knowledge of divine purpose is impossible, juxtaposed with declarations of divine will? If nobody can understand what Jesus wants, how can anybody know be confident in Jesus's personal love? If Jesus can clearly communicate his love to you, why can't he similarly clearly explain why he's standing idly by with his thumb up his bum as people commit the worst imaginable horrors at, they claim, his own explicit orders!? Can't he at least tap them on she shoulder and say, "Hi, you don't know me, but I'm Jesus, and I'd really rather you stopped doing that and saying I was the one who told you it was okay"? b& Ben Goren

I was referring to the formal term in philosophy of religion. “Evil” in this context means apparently pointless suffering. Humans don’t like to suffer unnecessarily, regardless of the cause.

How do we know what is pointless suffering? There is this great example from the Karate Kid where Daniel thinks he is wasting his time pointlessly but later understands that there was an ultimate purpose. We have no way of knowing what the purpose of suffering is or is not with the Christian God. Also what is suffering? jerry

Ben Goren "For good or ill, we are all alone in the Cosmos. We were not Created; ...etc" Of course Cosmos and we are created. That's who we worship: the Creator of Cosmos. Otoh, you and other Jerry Coyne's groupies can continue worshiping Jerry's Boots. It seems you are having a nice back-patting party over there at WEIT. I rarely learn anything new or interesting from atheists so it's the case with your comments here. You seem to be proposing modernized version of the problem of evil. Nothing original here including typical atheist-commenter attitude. Problem of evil has been covered by many philosophers in the past. Probably not the most interesting topic. Eugen

Virgil, if rationalists aren't permitted to speculate on anything until we can answer the question of ultimate origins ("That person would still have to explain our existence."), then, Shirley, Christians mustn't dictate the wisdom of Christ until your own grass house has its thrones properly stowed. Nor should it be a challenge. An all-wise, all-capable god could rip out a clear, self-explanatory, universally comprehensible and applicable guide to morality easier than Britney Hilton can Twit out a FaceLike. Simultaneously publish it in all languages, even; make it free for download -- and even invent the Internet just to make distribution that much easier. Sure, it took us millennia to come even this close, but everything before that only took YHWH a week, right? Snap of the fingers and it's done before the midmorning coffee-and-manna break. That the Bible needs interpretation and explication and has passages like Numbers 31 and Luke 19 in it tells us that that can't possibly be that text; regardless of what was thought back in the day, we know today that moral compassion does not involve making sex slaves of the unmarried girls of our defeated enemies or of killing all those who would not that we should rule over them. And, since Christians themselves, today, as an almost-universal rule, do not take as brides the daughters of their conquered foes nor kill as many non-Christians as possible, we can see that even Christians agree that the Bible is not the unambiguously perfect timeless guide to morality they superficially claim it to be. I do believe there's a quote from literature that may be applicable...something about a water-filled defensive formation filled with "yes" votes...? Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Virgil Cain #127: Okay. Sastra

Sastra- I prefer not to talk about the problems of Christianity- alleged or real. It's a glass house sort of thing. Virgil Cain

Virgil Cain #125 wrote:

The ony “problem of evil” is how to deal with it... But without God there isn’t any evil. It’s all whatever happens.

I was referring to the formal term in philosophy of religion. "Evil" in this context means apparently pointless suffering. Humans don't like to suffer unnecessarily, regardless of the cause.

Because ignorance isn’t bliss. A loving heart doesn’t put food on the table.

Well, no. But I'm not sure this addresses my point. A benevolent Higher Power would not set up a system which condemned simple people only because they had compassion for others and failed to be born at the right time and place to hear a lot of difficult intellectual arguments. If love deeply felt and experienced can reasonably lead to atheism, then I think Christianity has a problem -- even if you personally don't. Sastra

Sastra:

It seems to me then that this possibility is a rather powerful argument FOR the significance of Problem of Evil.

The ony "problem of evil" is how to deal with it.

The existence of seemingly pointless suffering is, on the surface, a good reason to not believe in God. It is a good reason which has nothing to do with arrogance or selfishness. It’s a reason which is inspired by love for others.

But without God there isn't any evil. It's all whatever happens.

Here is my new question: why would a just God have set the world up so that a loving heart is a liability — without additional study and learning?

Because ignorance isn't bliss. A loving heart doesn't put food on the table.

So for most of the world, most of the time, someone could be lead away from believing in God through no fault of their own — except that of a sympathetic heart.

The end is near... Virgil Cain

I should mention that for about 30 minutes, the possessed woman actually levitated about half a foot in the air.

Vincent, there's a saying about keeping an open mind, but not one so open that your brains fall out. If I told you that I saw the Sun rise in the West this morning, you would not believe that the Sun actually had risen in the West. You might believe that I was sincere in my belief, but you would be pretty sure that I had gotten turned around, or that it was part of a dream. Or, for that matter, that, no, I'm not sincere, and I was trying to trick you for whatever reason. Something like the direction of the sunrise is pretty obvious. You don't even need to consult any sort of evidence to dismiss the claim out of hand. It would run so contrary to so much that is so well established that, were it to be true, you'd be left adrift with no basis upon which to evaluate any claim. You'd have to start from scratch just attempting to figure out what the true appearance of reality is -- let alone the true nature of what appears. And, so, rightfully, you prejudicially dismiss a claim that the Sun rose in the West. Your claim of levitation here is of a similar scale. The only plausible explanations for levitation are the ones used by stage magicians; a false report; or that the entire universe has gone insane. This is not the place to explain basic Newtonian Mechanics. If your education is deficient such that you don't understand why actual levitation is not possible according to Newtonian Mechanics, you desperately owe it to yourself to take a local community college class on introductory physics. And it will (if the teacher is even remotely competent) be lots of fun...you will, for yourself independently confirm the acceleration of gravity, the property of inertia, and so on. If you continue your education in physics, you will eventually get to one of the most exciting discovery of all time: the Higgs Boson. And never mind the Boson itself; its significance to this discussion is that it completes the Standard Model at lesser scales. The short, hand-wavy version is that there are no unknown particles with a mass less than the Higgs; we've searched everywhere they could possibly be, we know the search is exhaustive and couldn't have missed anything, and all we've found has been that which is in the Standard Model. We already know that there's lots of physics beyond the Standard Model...but we also know that that physics similarly operates outside the Standard Model. Within the scope of the Standard Model, any new physics will reduce to the Standard Model. Why? Because we've found the Higgs and everything else in the Standard Model, and nothing else. Take Newton as an example. All the way up to the orbit of Mercury, you can calculate everything using either Newton or Einstein, and you get the exact same answers. You have to get the same answers, or else Einstein is worng. It's only when you go beyond the domain for which Newton is valid that you have to resort to Einstein -- at which point the answers start to diverge, and it's Einstein, not Newton, that matches the predictions. Similarly, you could use Quantum Mechanics to calculate the trajectory of a baseball...but you'd wind up doing insanely extra amounts of work just to get the same answer. But try to use Newton to predict the trajectory of an electron through a small enough slit...and again the divergence, with Quantum Mechanics being right and Newton again being worng. With all that in mind, I invite you to read this short essay that should help put into perspective why, indeed, claims of levitation are as absurd as claims of the Sun rising in the West: http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2010/09/23/the-laws-underlying-the-physics-of-everyday-life-are-completely-understood/ Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Vincent, I'll answer your multiple posts in this one. I'll try to keep the quoting coherent.

I’m mystified as to why you think that God, the Author of our Being, wishes to be part of our society.

But isn't that the entire premise of Christianity? YHWH manifested as Jesus, became one of us, served as our greatest teacher, and will welcome us into his own home? Whether you wish to call that him joining our society, us being called to join his, or a merger of the two, the end result is the same: a single interacting community of mortal and divine. Ergo, either there's a single set of rules that applies to all...or else we're no more than slaves or livestock or pets or whatever.

But if we depend on God for our very existence, then surely, for that reason alone, God is in a position to dictate moral standards to us.

That's the "I brought you into this world, and I'll send you out of it, too!" threat of an abusive parent. It carries no moral weight and is instead the lashing out of the bully frustrated at failure to control another person.

Rather, it is a question of God promising to let Lucifer hold sway over the planet for an appointed time.

So God is the absentee landlord who won't fire the criminally incompetent superintendent. Either God and Lucifer had at contract that Lucifer would be a good steward, or God is an incompetent idiot. Either Lucifer is in full compliance with that contract, in which case God is abhorrently complicit in Lucifer's evil; or Lucifer has breached the contract and God is negligent in reasserting control.

Compare the moral standards of the world before Christ with those of the world after

May I suggest? Christian apologetics is not a very good source for ancient history. In reality, the picture you paint has no bearing on reality. Trivially demonstrated. I'm sure you disagree with their arguments, but Southern slaveholders cited scripture after scripture to explain why Jesus wanted them to keep slaves. And there's no disputing the fact that there's lots of slavery in the Bible, including lots of instances of YHWH explicitly awarding slaves to Moses and the Israelites. Whether those slaves had it as bad as Blacks in the South doesn't even really matter, either; today, no form of slavery is considered tolerable. The pattern repeats continuously. Today, it's gay marriage. Whatever your own position on the matter, it's a slam dunk that, a generation from now, opposition to gay marriage will be seen as every bit as nasty as opposition to miscegenation is today -- and Christians in a generation or three will generally cite Christ's love for all mankind as some sort of proof that they were in favor of gay marriage all along.

By the way, you haven’t mentioned where you think moral obligations come from.

Morality is an optimal strategy (in the sense of game theory) for an individual living in a cooperative society. As one might imagine, it's a balance of give and take; the society won't tolerate those who attack it, but the individual won't tolerate oppression. It should come as no surprise that helping your neighbor with her groceries is much more effective for everybody than robbing and raping her.

You say you cannot imagine why God (or Jesus) doesn’t call 911.

No; that's not what I'm doing. The Christian claim is that Jesus is the most moral, most powerful, most loving, and most knowledgeable entity to ever walk the Earth -- and that he is still with us in a form such that he watches over us and hears and, sometimes, answers, our prayers. Thus, it is established, according to Christian claim, that Jesus is aware when disaster strikes, and that it is within his power to act. We know full well what moral mortals do when disaster strikes: they alert authorities and render whatever assistance they are capable of. And we know that people who fail to do so are either incompetent or immoral. So, at least one of the Christian claims cannot be true. If Jesus has the power to answer prayers, he has the power to make a phone call -- and a well-timed phone call to 9-1-1 would be far more effective than most of the miracles attributed to him. But if we insist that Jesus does have at least enough power left in him to call 9-1-1, then we must ask why he doesn't place the call. Is it because he's unaware of what's happening, or maybe not aware until it's too late to call? But that would invalidate the claim that he's all-knowing and all-seeing -- and is also inconsistent with the claims that other prayers are answered in a timely fashion. So if he has the ability to call 9-1-1, and he knows that a call to 9-1-1 is needed, the only remaining possibility is that he deliberately and with malice aforethought fails to render necessary aid in a time of crisis. That makes him not moral, but a monster -- and one of the most reviled types of monsters in all of humanity. You have consistently suggested many reasons why Jesus should be in a position to call 9-1-1 but choose to fail to do so...and all of your suggestions are horrific. Jesus has some big plan for humanity...and, apparently, that plan involves letting a priest rape hundreds of children over a span of decades. As Jesus watches. Every single time. And sits, unmoved by the prayers of the victims, caring more about whatever this grand plan is than the torture and humiliation the child is suffering at the hands of the man who, minutes earlier, had physically manifested Jesus's body and blood. And you yourself have agreed that you wouldn't think twice were you in a similar situation; you'd call 9-1-1, and you'd have no excuse for failure. Hell, I'm sure you're cringing at reading that previous paragraph as much as I cringed writing it. C.S. Lewis offered up a famous trilemma: Lord, Liar, or Lunatic. I'm offering you a similar trilemma: incompetent, ignorant, or evil. But, of course, in each case, there's another option. In the case of Lewis's trilemma, it's obvious: the reports of Jesus are fabrications, so of course Jesus can be however perfect his authors want him to be. And, in mine, the answer is much the same. For good or ill, we are all alone in the Cosmos. We were not Created; we were not placed here by some ultimate father figure. We are not the center of the Cosmos. The Cosmos was not Created just for us, just to impress us with the majesty of the Creator. The Creator has not presented us with all this wonder to gain our approval. Why are we here? Might as well ask why you drew the card you did from the deck. If you draw a card, some card is going to get drawn -- so why should it be any more remarkable that you drew this card than any other? Of course, from the card's perspective, it's incredibly lucky -- the odds were so stacked against it being drawn, so there must be some special significance. Except there wasn't. Yes, yes. My analogy implies a card-drawer -- and it's off to Paley's watchmaker races. But we now know full well that Aristotelian metaphysics is as primitively incoherent as any other ancient superstition; in particular, lots of things simply happen, without cause. There is no cause why a particular radioactive atom in a sample should be the one to decay at a particular instant; it just happens. Einstein's whole point about relativity is that cause and effect break down as you approach the speed of light (etc.), as well -- thus the need to express things relative to each other. And, to that point...though there's lots we don't know about the Big Bang, what we do know is that the explanation is going to have to rely on both relativity and quantum mechanics...with ancient notions of causality being even less relevant than bicycles to fish. And, you know what? As soon as you let go of Jesus...the entire world opens up for you. You leapfrog past childish thinking of the rainbow as a magical message from a monster who just drowned the whole planet and won't call 9-1-1 when Timmy is silently drowning in the pool...you move beyond that into an entirely new realm where the rainbow is the starting point for your journey into learning about the spectral response of human vision and how differences in the relative spectral sensitivity between humans and various digital cameras enables them to distinguish colors we can't and vice-versa...and so much more.... So, come on in! The water's fine. Shockingly cold at first, yes -- no doubt. But yet get over that quickly...and you won't believe what's on the other side of the lake.... b& Ben Goren

Virgil Cain #118 wrote:

If the person understood biology and the earth’s place in the universe I don’t see how that person couldn’t come to the conclusion there is a Higher Power. If the person is ignorant of science then that person could become an atheist.

Okay, yes -- this hypothetical person is ignorant of modern science as well as the Bible. Their kind heart has therefore mislead them into believing that there is no Higher Power in the universe watching over us. They have become an atheist because they knew too little and felt too much. This is, as you agree, possible. It seems to me then that this possibility is a rather powerful argument FOR the significance of Problem of Evil. The existence of seemingly pointless suffering is, on the surface, a good reason to not believe in God. It is a good reason which has nothing to do with arrogance or selfishness. It's a reason which is inspired by love for others. You have argued that it's then countered by special revelation, theology, science, and reason. Once you study and learn a great deal then it's not a good reason any more. I don't agree -- but I won't dispute that. I'll grant it for the sake of argument. Here is my new question: why would a just God have set the world up so that a loving heart is a liability -- without additional study and learning? Modern science and modern apologetics are, when you step back and look at the entire scope and history of the world, rare and privileged things. They not only aren't available to all, they weren't available till relatively recently. The ignorant hypothetical Person of my thought experiment could have been anyone and everyone. And yet the Problem of Evil, of bad things happening to good people, has always been around. So for most of the world, most of the time, someone could be lead away from believing in God through no fault of their own -- except that of a sympathetic heart. The Problem of Evil has now dovetailed into the Problem of Nonbelief. Sastra

vjtorley #11 #115 wrote:

Actually, there is good empirical evidence for the existence of demons.

No, even if the event really happened as described, it's still not classified as "good evidence" -- which is a much higher bar than "evidence" alone. It's an anecdote. Sastra

It could be that God is a respectable moral agent that has a hands-off approach so God can determine who deserves to get into Heaven.

No; that’s horrifically evil behavior, of the over-the-top comic book villain variety.

That's your opinion. And only your opinion. That person would still have to explain our existence.

Now that’s a strawman.

More opinions and no substance.

In order to conclude that there probably aren’t any invisible agents doing nothing, you have to know more than all cosmologists combined.

More opinions and no substance. Cosmologists don't know how the universe came to be and they surely don't know how life on earth started. Biology is ruled by codes and physics and chemistry do not produce codes. Virgil Cain

self-deleted duplicate post to Sastra Virgil Cain

Sastra- If the person understood biology and the earth's place in the universe I don't see how that person couldn't come to the conclusion there is a Higher Power. If the person is ignorant of science then that person could become an atheist. Virgil Cain

Dr Torley,

I should mention that for about 30 minutes, the possessed woman actually levitated about half a foot in the air.

Is there any video of this incident? daveS

Professor Jerry Coyne mocks my belief in Lucifer in a recent post over at Why Evolution Is True. Actually, there is good empirical evidence for the existence of demons. Genuine demonic possession is rare, but real. As evidence, I'd like to cite the following description of an exorcism by a board-certified psychiatrist and associate professor of clinical psychiatry at New York Medical College: Richard E. Gallagher, "Among the Many Counterfeits: A Case of Demonic Possession" New Oxford Review 75, no. 3, (March 2008). Here is an article discussing this highly unusual case: Testing Demonic Possession by Dr. James C. Patterson II, an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and emergency psychiatrist. I should mention that for about 30 minutes, the possessed woman actually levitated about half a foot in the air. Belief in Adam and Eve has also been ridiculed on this thread. I suggest that skeptics have a look at Dr. Lydia McGrew's excellent article, No, Virginia, Science Hasn(t Debunked Adam. vjtorley

Virgil Cain #110 wrote:

You don’t know that. That person would still have to explain our existence.

In the hypothetical case I'm offering, a person with a tender heart and great empathy for others has concluded from his or her observation of seemingly pointless suffering that there is no benevolent cosmic force watching over human existence. There's not a malevolent cosmic force either: the universe as a whole is indifferent. If someone believes this, then they might very well not feel any great need to explain human existence as particularly extraordinary and in need of explanation. Or, perhaps, they're just not a very deep thinker. Remember, this person has never encountered the idea of God, the Bible, or heard any of the reasons why they shouldn't view apparently pointless suffering as anything but what it seems to be on the surface. All of your own explanations are being made within the context of Christianity, and what you have learned and reasoned about God from the Bible. But not having that context, this one kind person has drawn a natural (but erroneous) conclusion, inspired by their own sympathy towards those who suffer. You don't think this is at least possible? Why not? Sastra

Ben Goren, It takes more faith to believe our existence is due to contingent serendipity than it does to be a christian. And please don’t talk of science as if your position has some to support its claims. Your entire worldview is faith based.

For the sake of argument, let's grant for a moment that Ben's entire worldview is faith-based. Now would be a good time to explain how this tired retort is doing anything to strengthen the position of any religion or religious claim. More faith is bad? It follows that less faith must be better. I'm sure you know the Bible frowns upon having little faith. At what point does less faith start becoming bad (for if it doesn't, the best amount of faith to have must be none)? Is there a parabolic arc where you can hit "just the right amount" of faith? How would one gather when this amount is satisfied? Faith? UDEditor: Chris, you seem to think the issue is "how much faith should we have?" No, that is not the issue. The issue is one side denying that it has faith and asserting that all of its truth claims are based on unassailable empirically verified fact and all of the other side's truth claims are based on wild-eyed, fundamentalist, snake-handler, grit-your-teeth in the face of the evidence blind faith. The fact of the matter is that both sides evaluate the data in the context of metaphysical commitments that cannot be proven empirically. And the problem is that one side (yours) denies that and the other side (ours) acknowledges it. Since you have failed to understand the problem, you have chosen to attack a straw man of your own creation. Tilt away. But don't expect us to take your seriously. ChrisBuckley80

Hi Ben Goren, I'd like to ask you one final question: in what respect does your criticism of the Christian theodicy differ from what Richard Dawkins disparagingly refers to as the Argument from Incredulity? On Dawkins' account, the creationist says he/she "cannot imagine" how this or that structure could have arisen via undirected processes. But, says Dawkins, the inability to imagine how a structure could have arisen naturally does not mean that it couldn't have arisen naturally. After all, "evolution is smarter than you are." But aren't you doing the same thing? You say you cannot imagine why God (or Jesus) doesn't call 911. However, your inability to imagine a reason that would justify God's non-intervention policy doesn't mean that there is no such reason. And after all, God is infinitely smarter than you are (or I am). vjtorley

Ben Goren, Thank you for your response. I was interested to read your answer to my question about whether visiting aliens would be obliged to call 911, if they saw a crime occurring (or about to occur):

However, if they wished to be part of our society, they would most certainly be under the same obligations as any other members of our society. In particular, if they wished for us to view them as exemplars of moral virtue and to dictate moral standards to us... they must walk the walk. They must hold themselves to the same standards as they would hold us to, and as they would have us hold each other to.

Three brief points in response: 1. I'm mystified as to why you think that God, the Author of our Being, wishes to be part of our society. He is on another plane of existence, just as the author of a book is on another plane of existence from her characters. (Having said that, I should add that I don't think the author-novel analogy is a perfect one: God is more like the Author of an interactive novel.) 2. You seem to think that unless God holds Himself to the same standards as He would hold us to, the He has no right to dictate moral standards to us. But if we depend on God for our very existence, then surely, for that reason alone, God is in a position to dictate moral standards to us. 3. I might add that even if the aliens had no wish to be part of our society, they would still have a moral obligation to call 911, in the absence of countervailing obligations. You also write:

...[A] boss who fails to fire an incompetent subordinate shares in the subordinate’s incompetence. When the subordinate goes beyond mere incompetence into violent criminality, if the boss still stands behind the subordinate, the boss takes on full responsibility for the crimes committed under his authority.

There is no question of God standing behind Satan (or for that matter, Adam). Rather, it is a question of God promising to let Lucifer hold sway over the planet for an appointed time. At the end of that time, he will of course be removed. As for Adam: Christians believe that Jesus has already reversed the major effects of Adam's fall. (Compare the moral standards of the world before Christ with those of the world after, and you'll see my point. Think of female infanticide, letting beggars die in the street, and child prostitution, which were all viewed as perfectly OK in the pagan world, but are now almost universally regarded as abominations.) We don't know when human history will end, but I think most Christians would assume that the end of things will take place in hundreds of years rather than thousands or millions. By the way, you haven't mentioned where you think moral obligations come from. Do you view them as arising from some kind of social contract, or as grounded in human nature (as Ayn Randian objectivists and libertarians do)? In other words, are they (a) shared and inter-subjective or (b) objective? vjtorley

It could be that God is a respectable moral agent that has a hands-off approach so God can determine who deserves to get into Heaven.

No; that's horrifically evil behavior, of the over-the-top comic book villain variety. It's the luxury hotel operator whose property survived the natural disaster, who continues to off the finest accommodations to his guests, and who welcomes all in need -- provided of course, they're the right sort of people. Of course, it should go without saying, that all those dirty homeless slobs clogging up the driveway aren't the right sort of people, and won't somebody please clear them away? They smell bad.

That person would still have to explain our existence.

Now that's a strawman. In order to conclude that there probably aren't any invisible agents doing nothing, you have to know more than all cosmologists combined. But to conclude that there are invisible agents imperceptibly doing damned little, all you have to do is attribute existence to the invisible agents. Maybe you'd be impressed by my anti-tiger rock? Or you'd like to speak to the inaudible invisible heatless dragon in my garage? I'd be more than happy to interpret for you everything she has to say to you. The answer to, "Why does existence exist?" is that the question itself is meaningless. What's north of the North Pole? But even if you want to push it back a bit, to, "What were the proximate causes of the Big Bang?" then, "I don't know," isn't merely a perfectly valid answer; it's the only defensible one. Claims of certainty in the face of ignorance are the purview of conmen and fools. b& Ben Goren

Sastra:

But this hypothetical person has not concluded “an evil force exists” — they’ve concluded that the universe as a whole is indifferent to suffering.

You don't know that. That person would still have to explain our existence.

In the absence of special revelation, do you think pity and compassion for the suffering might reasonably lead someone to atheism?

No. Virgil Cain

Either your gods are respectable moral agents, in which case are obligated to play by the same rules as everybody else;

Strawman. It could be that God is a respectable moral agent that has a hands-off approach so God can determine who deserves to get into Heaven.

or they’re under no such obligation and therefore are irrelevant at best and our mortal enemies at worst.

Or God just sets the standards that everyone has to follow to get into Heaven. It's a free will thing. Virgil Cain

Vincent, Your clarifications are most helpful...but not to the furtherance of your argument. Indeed, I do believe you've effectively conceded all my points -- especially with your final comparison to aliens. If aliens visited us, they would not necessarily be under any moral obligation to alert our local authorities in cases of emergency. However, if they wished to be part of our society, they would most certainly be under the same obligations as any other members of our society. In particular, if they wished for us to view them as exemplars of moral virtue and to dictate moral standards to us...they must walk the walk. They must hold themselves to the same standards as they would hold us to, and as they would have us hold each other to. As I noted, they may well not choose to be part of our society. But, if not, if they don't leave us alone, they become interfering so-and-sos at the least, and, inevitably, our enemies. If they merely wish to dictate terms to us with no intention of reciprocity, then they would be our masters with us as slaves -- a situation I would hope even you would find abhorrent. So, take your pick. Either your gods are respectable moral agents, in which case are obligated to play by the same rules as everybody else; or they're under no such obligation and therefore are irrelevant at best and our mortal enemies at worst. This iconic clip demonstrates the point rather viscerally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk01eeKMD_I As to your other points...a boss who fails to fire an incompetent subordinate shares in the subordinate's incompetence. When the subordinate goes beyond mere incompetence into violent criminality, if the boss still stands behind the subordinate, the boss takes on full responsibility for the crimes committed under his authority. Jesus can't pass the buck to Satan. And if Adam and Eve really were as children...then Jesus is the absolute most horrific child-neglecting parent imaginable to abandon them at their darkest hour. Only heartless monsters even think of doing that sort of thing. b& Ben Goren

Ben Goren, I will keep my response short. The point I have been making, over and over again, is that whatever good reasons you or I may have for calling 9-1-1 as soon as possible in order to prevent a crime, they do not apply to God, for two reasons: (i) God isn't a member of the human race and therefore doesn't have the same obligations towards individuals as you or I have; (ii) God may have countervailing obligations which prevent Him from intervening now. Not even God can break a promise. If He has promised to give responsibility for the oversight of this planet's affairs to some lesser intelligence, then He has to step aside and let that intelligence go bout its business. And if He promised to abide by the decision of the first human beings regarding whether acts of Divine intrervention should occur on a regular basis or not, then He has to keep His promise. It's as simple as that. A final thought. If aliens discovered our civilization, would they be morally obliged to call 9-1-1 if they saw a crime about to occur? vjtorley

Yin and Yang, people. You can't have one without the other. We must go through this suffering/tribulation because we are being initiated. We will not enter the company of the Gods unless we first experience both the Yin and the Yang. Stop blaming Jesus/Yahweh or the aliens for your afflictions. Mapou

You could hardly have a situation where half of humanity received regular updates from On High about approaching earthquakes, typhoons, and terrorist plots, while the other half was kept in the dark. That wouldn’t be fair, either. As a result of Adam’s fateful decision, it had to be “lights out” for everyone. That’s what the doctrine of the Fall is all about.

So when a plane crashes and 500 people die, but one person inexplicably and "miraculously" escapes, has that person been wronged by God in some way and been deprived of his chance to enjoy a horrible and unavoidable death and subsequent eternal torment as Adam dictated? Why did Jesus intervene and cure people of blindness, leprosy and insufficient bread and/or fish? Surely, they should have been left to their own devices to find cures for blindness, disease,hunger,tsunamis, earthquake, or whatever for themselves. I really do not like this kind of apologetic. You would never use it in any situation where you were not trying to explain God's apparent moral failings. Nobody argues that slavery is/was OK because maybe, just maybe, Adam, Noah, Moses, whoever, said "Should any descendant of mine ever complain about forced servitude/labor/slavery please ignore them and let them jolly well sort it out for themselves"; If someone in a concentration camp pleads for his or her life to be spared we don't generally search ancient texts for utterances of their forebears urging them to quit complaining and get on with it. when someone is suffering agonies brought on by some form of cancer, we don't deny them pain relief and inform them that it's not my problem/job (*). If we did, in each case we would be mirroring God's own course of inaction, but would arguably, by these standards, be correct to do so. (*) Possible exception: JW's who deny their children blood transfusions - although I am not OK with that. Why not "'Lights out' for Noah if he so wishes for himself, but that decision for others, in circumstances he could not have anticipated, be left to them, as is normally the way?" Eta: Fixed some typos, I'm sure I will notice more once the deadline passes. BTW, what happened to preview? steveh

Virgil Cain #103 wrote:

If they only got to see the pain and suffering, probably not. However if they also got to see the other side of humanity- the majority side, they may conclude there is a Higher Power pushing back.

Thank you. But this hypothetical person has not concluded "an evil force exists" -- they've concluded that the universe as a whole is indifferent to suffering. Nobody is watching and controlling, for good or ill. In that case I don't think the fact that there's also love and joy in this world would require the assumption that there's anything "pushing back." In the absence of special revelation, do you think pity and compassion for the suffering might reasonably lead someone to atheism? Sastra

Sastra:

if someone knew nothing about God, Jesus, or the Bible in advance, do you think this person could look at all the seemingly unjustified suffering in the world and reasonably conclude that there is no Higher Power lovingly watching out for humanity?

If they only got to see the pain and suffering, probably not. However if they also got to see the other side of humanity- the majority side, they may conclude there is a Higher Power pushing back. Virgil Cain

Ben Goren:

The goal in science is to proportion one’s belief as indicated by a rational analysis of objective observation.

Yes and your position can't do that.

There are all sorts of other facts that can be demonstrated with similar levels of confidence…and, amongst those facts are that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old; that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor almost as old as the Earth

The age of the earth depends on how it was formed. The 4.5 billion year number assumes the proto earth was so hot that no crystals survived and all crystals were made during the cool down. The common ancestor one, well, there isn't any way to test the claim. We don't know what makes an organism what it is. DNA codes for assorted RNAs. There isn't anything in DNA that determines the final form. But that misses the point. None of that points to a mechanism. Your position relies on differing accumulations lucky accidents. It can't be tested. Did you know that most of the greatest scientists thought science was a way of figuring out God's Creation? Virgil Cain

Virgil, as you do not seem to be arguing in good faith, I question your comprehension of the term...but I'll give it a try anyway. The goal in science is to proportion one's belief as indicated by a rational analysis of objective observation. Lacking adequate observation or a thorough analysis, the proper answer is, "I don't know" -- which is the answer you'll get from any cosmologist on questions of ultimate origins. We can -- and do -- push the boundaries of knowledge back...but, as with the child's "Why?" game, there will always be a further horizon beyond which we cannot (yet?) see. Incidentally, such is also the same for any purported intelligence, no matter how allegedly infinite. Jesus, for example, has no way of ruling out the possibility that even he is but a fragment of Alice's Red King's Dream -- and the King, in turn, cannot rule out the chance that he himself is but a minor subroutine of a pan-Cosmic Matrix...which, in turn is some pimply-faced teenaged hyperintelligent shade of the color blue's smartphone game. And so on. But there are all sorts of things we can have, for all insensitive porpoises, absolute confidence about. The Sun will rise in the East. Until air resistance (etc.) becomes a factor, things unsupported near the surface of the Earth fall at about ten meters per second per second. Water is a chemical compound made of two hydrogen atoms for every oxygen atom -- and those atoms are composed of electrons and quarks held together by the various nuclear forces. And so on. And there are other things that lie between. We're pretty confident that dark matter is real, for example; we can see galaxies move in ways that only make sense if there're clumps of matter out there that we can't see. But, though lots of astrophysicists have their pet theories as to what that dark matter actually is made of, and they'll eagerly tell you about those theories and why they prefer theirs...they'll also admit that they don't know and are still trying to figure it out. (Note: declaring it's Jesus mysteriously waving his magic wand and giving up does not constitute an attempt at trying to figure it out.) You yourself do not question the sorts of basic agreed-upon facts I gave examples of -- at least, I should hope you don't. I'm pretty confident that you don't live your life thinking that you can step off a cliff without falling down, that the Sun someday might rise in the West (high-latitude supersonic aircraft trips notwithstanding), that water is some sort of fundamental Platonic ideal essence present in most substances to some degree or another. There are all sorts of other facts that can be demonstrated with similar levels of confidence...and, amongst those facts are that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old; that all life on Earth shares a common ancestor almost as old as the Earth (alternatively stated, that we are cousins with all living organisms, not just all other humans); that there was no global Flood; and that the entire Jesus incident is a mythical fabrication no different from all the other religious fabrications of the era... ...but that is perhaps best left as a subject for another day.... Cheers, b& Ben Goren

I have a question which relates to Ben's problem with theodicy: if someone knew nothing about God, Jesus, or the Bible in advance, do you think this person could look at all the seemingly unjustified suffering in the world and reasonably conclude that there is no Higher Power lovingly watching out for humanity? I'm not asking whether you think they'd still be wrong. I'm wondering if you would agree that yes, absent Special Revelation, the Problem of Evil could mislead an honest person into atheism not through arrogance, but through compassion? Sastra

Ben Goren, It takes more faith to believe our existence is due to contingent serendipity than it does to be a christian. And please don't talk of science as if your position has some to support its claims. Your entire worldview is faith based. Virgil Cain

Barry, may I suggest? You yourself are highly unlikely to embrace every fool superstition out there that dresses itself in the garb of mysticism. You do not consult the dredges of your coffee cup for investment advice; you do not seek to cure your headache by splattering yourself with chicken blood; you do not ward off evil by dancing around the fire in the skins of your trophies in the hunt. Nor do you shy away from the fruits of our most impressive successes at making sense of the Cosmos. Your smartphone could not have been built without an understanding of both Quantum and Relativistic Mechanics, and it will tell you how long you'll be before you get to the coffee shop at the same time you use it to relay that information to your friend waiting for you there. This very medium we are communicating by, some random blog on an out-of-the-way corner of the Internet...it represents a mind-boggling fusion of so much human understanding. You literally would have no device to see the words I type were it not for the fact that we know exactly how the human eye functions and how to trick it into seeing an entire spectrum of color where only three small slices of the rainbow are present. The excuses you offer for your own mysticism would neither fool nor satisfy you were we to simply do a search / replace on the names and places of the mysteries you reference. Set Genesis not in Eden with Adam and Eve but in an hidden city park in Baltimore with Bruce and Carol, and you'd instantly recognize it as what it is: a faery tale in an enchanted garden with talking animals and an angry wizard. You'd also recognize that talking plants (on fire!) do not, in fact, give magic wand lessons to reluctant heroes -- at least, not outside of faery tales. And zombie resurrections, with thralls thrusting their hands into the gaping chest wound of the king of the dead... ...none of it wold even remotely pass the sniff test for you had you not been taught from your mother's breast that it's really real. No appeals to mystery, to ignorance, to blind trust...none of that would suffice for anything that even vaguely resembled that which you proudly claim on those exact grounds. Would you buy an used car on faith, or would the salesman's passionate reassurance that the car was a real cherry, no need for you to have your own mechanic kick the tires, set off all kinds of alarm bells? And if you wouldn't even buy an used car on faith...how can you possibly justify buying an entire worldview on faith? b& Ben Goren

Ben, I have answered this question before. I will point you to that answer. You will not be satisfied with it. But this is my last word on it today: We Cannot Wrap Our Head Around Evil An excerpt: Adherents of both schools would have benefited from Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. Chesterton takes for granted the fact that we cannot understand the universe (far less the God of the universe) fully, and efforts to do so lead quite literally to a sort of madness. Using poetry as a metaphor for mysticism, he writes:

Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion . . . The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.

Chesterton would be the first to admit that the internal logic of both the “sadistic maniac” and the “amiable bumbler” schools is unassailable, just as the internal logic of a madman’s arguments cannot be defeated:

If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment. He is not hampered by a sense of humor or by charity, or by the dumb certainties of experience. He is the more logical for losing certain sane affections. Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleading one. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

Chesterton concludes that only the ability to hold truths that appear to be contradictory keeps us sane:

Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them . . . Thus he has always believed that there was such a thing as fate, but such a thing as free will also . . . It is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid.

Barry Arrington

So many strawmen, so little time. It must be sad to be so desperate, Ben. Virgil Cain

Which thread is this? Is this the one where molecules make meaning out of other molecules? Or is the one with the guy shaking his fist at a God that he doesn't think exists? Or is it the one where rapists are cool, as long as there aren't too many of them. Like smokers in a pool room, we don't want them all lighting up at once. Upright BiPed

Barry, put yourself in what you perceive as Jesus's shoes, as the righteous judge of your own life. And imagine that you committed some horrific, unspeakable tortuous act upon an unwilling innocent child, but, in your mind, only to prepare the way to give the child a life of great wealth and luxury afterwards. Would you ignore the evil wrought simply because you promised to do something to make amends afterwards? Were you on a jury hearing such a case, would you vote to acquit? We know empirically that this is overwhelmingly not the case with Christians. We are told that abortion is one of the worst imaginable sins, yet that the aborted get a guaranteed free ride straight to Heaven without suffering earthly torment. The truly brave moral conclusion for one who believes such would be to cause as many abortions as possible, to sacrifice one's own eternal salvation for the infinite bliss of as many hundreds of innocents as possible. That no Christians see the good done to the aborted as reasonable justification to the harm caused to them by being aborted...well, there's your answer right there. Not only do two worngs not make a right, a future right doesn't exculpate past worngs. Christians claim that all moral authority derives from their gods. If that is the case, then our morality must be a mirror of divine morality -- even if imperfect. And, whenever our morality deviates from the divine, it must be our obligation to abandon ours and realign ourselves with the divine. Therefore, if we have a moral obligation to, again for example, call 9-1-1, then so, too, must the divine. But if the divine can have reasonable excuses for not calling 9-1-1, then those excuses must be every bit as valid for humans. That no such excuse is imaginable for somebody with knowledge of, again again for example, priestly rape, there must similarly be no excuse for gods with such knowledge. Vincent focussed his original reply to me on a number of implicit assumptions of mine he considers invalid. All his objections, and yours as well, ultimately distill down to but a single invalid assumption of your own. And that is, that because you think something should or must or ought to be so, it therefore is so. Wouldn't it be wonderful if that was how the Cosmos actually functioned? If we could dream up of ways that we would do things better, and Lo and Behold they were? Life would be so much easier with an ultimate father figure telling us what to do; ergo, an ultimate father figure has told us what to do. For better or for worse, that's not how things actually work. As I suspect you very likely actually do know, deep down inside, even if you'd rather not admit it, not even to yourself. Faith is the false warm comfort of the bed the child has just wet. Long before morning, the misery of the wet bed far outweighs the perceived misery of the inconvenience of getting up and walking down the hall. b& Ben Goren

VJ, I appreciate your attempts to answer Ben Goren. But I can assure you that at the end of the day none of your answers will satisfy him. Ben is doing a fine job of standing in for Ivan Karamazov in this thread. And if you will remember, Dostoevsky never answered Ivan's indictment by providing a counterargument. He answered the indictment by pointing to God's grace. David Bentley Hart captures this in this article. In one of the most sublime paragraphs ever written in the English language he says:

As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child I do not see the face of God, but the face of His enemy. It is not a faith that would necessarily satisfy Ivan Karamazov, but neither is it one that his arguments can defeat: for it has set us free from optimism, and taught us hope instead. We can rejoice that we are saved not through the immanent mechanisms of history and nature, but by grace; that God will not unite all of history’s many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; that He will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature, but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, He will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes”and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and He that sits upon the throne will say, “Behold, I make all things new.”

And that, my friend, is all the we can really say. So let Ben rage. Let him pretend that his solution -- pretending that a universe in which man, instead of God, is the measure of all things makes the situation better. I can even understand what compels him (and Ivan). The pain and terrible suffering in the universe cry out to us. But his proposed solution is worse than the problem he hopes to solve. As someone said, after the Holocaust it is difficult to believe in God, but it is impossible to believe in man. Barry Arrington

Mr Barry, my apologies but I am not sure what part of my post (90) is bad/ ban worthy. Ben is posting strawman arguments and his "arguments" are that which come from infants. Did you read what I was responding to? Or do you think Jesus tortures people? UD Editors: Virgil, you can point that out without vulgar references to humping. Virgil Cain

Virgil Cain at 90. You are warned against such. Last warning. Barry Arrington

Ben, Didn't your mother teach you not to hump strawmen? Or are you really as mentally limited as an infant? Virgil Cain

Virgil, didn't your mother teach you that two worngs don't make a right? Torture is inexcusable under any circumstances; infinite torture infinitely inexcusable. And that's ignoring the fact that prevention is the most important part of the criminal justice system. Jesus doesn't have the same moral obligation the rest of us do to call 9-1-1 in case of emergency in order to ensure that perpetrators get punished. Most emergencies don't have perpetrators to punish. The obligation to call 9-1-1 is to staunch the bleeding, to keep a bad situation from getting even worse. In particular, in the case of Jesus's official agents going on all-expenses-paid extended child rape vacations...the reason to call 9-1-1 after the first dozen or so rapes is to spare the next dozen or so possible victims from becoming victims. Who will Jesus torture for the tree that falls with nobody to call for help for those trapped underneath? What comfort to the second dozen victims of a predator priest is even worse agony inflicted upon the priest? Especially when their own agony could have been avoided, not by some magic miracle, but a simple phone call! By your own logic, who is to cast Jesus himself into Hell for all eternity for his own repeated crimes against humanity, for his constant failure to render assistance when, in many jurisdictions, failure to do so is itself criminal? b& Ben Goren

Our newly arrived atheist is a confused imbecile. What happens on earth we are responsible for. That is how we are judged. All of the bad and evil people don't get in to heaven. Eternal punishment is far greater than anything humans can do. Virgil Cain

You still haven’t explained why a supernatural Deity with perfect knowledge, love and power, would be obliged to help each suffering individual right now. Nor have you explained why the obligations of a Deity are the same as those of a human passerby.

But, don't you see? I don't have to, for you already have. The least among us is expected to, and it is demanded of the greatest amongst us. You yourself would. You know why you would call 9-1-1. You know why you would teach your own children to call 9-1-1. You know why you would urge anybody and everybody to call 9-1-1. Mentally tally those reasons. Conjure up your excuse for Jesus's incompetence. Apply that same excuse to yourself, to your children, to some random stranger. Would you not be horrified at applying any excuse to yourself and anybody else? So why would you love somebody who has an excuse? I'll give you but a single example; if you have any sense of honesty, of decency, you yourself could come up with countless others. We know from too-painful example that a priest (or whomever) who rapes a child is unlikely to stop with but a single victim. Ideal, of course, is prevention; but, in this scenario, prevention is too late. Even if the priest has already raped dozens of children by the time you stumble upon his crimes, you're still going to call 9-1-1 so that the priest doesn't rape dozens more. If you don't, and that priest goes on to rape dozens more children, you are morally and legally considered an accomplice, as complicit in the crimes as if you yourself were the rapist. You're aiding and abetting after the fact, as I believe prosecutors put it. Those later victims, after you observed the crime, could, would, and should have been spared their torture but for the fact that you hid the priest from the police and thereby actively helped him continue his crime spree. Could you live with yourself knowing that you had effectively raped by proxy dozens of children? Could you respect anybody who did? If the accomplice were the rapist's supervisor, the rapist's regional manager, the CEO and founder of the rapist's organization?

You could hardly have a situation where half of humanity received regular updates from On High about approaching earthquakes, typhoons, and terrorist plots, while the other half was kept in the dark.

Again with the omnincompetence! Do not we ourselves already receive updates, literally on high from orbiting satellites, regular updates on approaching typhoons? Do not our spies (incompetently) provide a small handful of people regular updates about suspected terrorist plots, leaving the rest in the dark? Every time I suggest something that mere mortals do as something that Jesus might consider doing, you declare it far beyond his capacity to even consider. Jesus can't do this; Jesus can't do that; Jesus can't do the other. Excuses, excuses, excuses -- yet you yourself do these very things. Never mind rocks too heavy to lift, burritos too hot to eat. Jesus, by your own emphatic and repeated declaration, is too weak to skip a stone across a still lake, too anorexic to swallow a crumb, too heartless to drop a dime. If Jesus can't do any of these most trivial things, not even when it means saving children from being raped by his own priests...why on Earth should you think he'll follow through on any of these other promises? Would you trust somebody who wouldn't even drop a dime on a serial rapist? b& Ben Goren

I’d say that, after a priest has run out of appendages to count the number of children he’s raped, it’s high past time Jesus dropped a dime on him, don’t you?

The priest will spend eternity in hell. That is quite the dime being dropped on him.

How many times would you have to witness a priest raping a child before you would call 9-1-1?

Why would I need 911?

A Christian who demonstrates infinitely higher moral standards and more compassion and dignity than Jesus.

I'm not a christian.

Walking…a nasty habit?

When compared to how God gets around, yes.

And, last I checked, the American Dental Association recommended chewing gum for dental hygiene. I never cared for gum…but, again? Clean teeth is a nasty habit?

God has teeth? Or are you a deluded dork? How do you know that no angel ever called 9-1-1? How do you know an angel never intervened?

Oh, that’s trivial. You just proved it for me.

Only in your very limited mind.

First, had any ever done that, you’d have been the first to offer the evidence.

As if I monitor all 911 calls. Obviously you are a moron. So Ben doesn't know jack and thinks his ignorance is an argument. Typical atheist. Virgil Cain

Ben Goren, Thank you for your post. In my previous comment, I pointed out that sarcasm is no substitute for logic. I'd like to add that rhetoric and bombast are no substitute are no substitute for logic, either. If you have a point to make, you don't need to shout. We can hear you. In answer to your question, obviously I would call 9-1-1 if I believed, or even suspected on reasonable grounds, that a priest (or any other individual) was going to molest some child. You then ask: "Why should it not be even more horrific still that Jesus himself, whom we are to believe sees all and has far more than enough ability to place a simple phone call," doesn't call 9-1-1? "Why," you ask, "should that not absolutely repulse and horrify all morally competent humans?" Not so fast. You still haven't explained why a supernatural Deity with perfect knowledge, love and power, would be obliged to help each suffering individual right now. Nor have you explained why the obligations of a Deity are the same as those of a human passerby. As I pointed out above, the only obligation that we can be absolutely certain that an omnibenevolent Deity has towards suffering individuals is the obligation not to allow them to suffer irreparable harm. With regard to Adam and Eve, you ask: "What sort of insane psychopath carries out a grudge on the hundreds-of-times-removed-great-grandchildren of somebody whose crime was eating a piece of fruit?" Quick answer: God carries no grudge. I believe it was Adam who demanded that the human race be left alone, and that God refrain from "butting in" all the time with danger warnings, whenever something bad was about to happen. Adam saw that as interference, and viewed God as an interfering Cosmic Nanny. Adam wanted complete autonomy. He demanded that the human race be left alone to make its own mistakes, even if this entailed lots of suffering for us all. God reluctantly complied with his request. You might ask why God has bound the whole human race by Adam's fateful decision, when some people might have preferred to have a "Cosmic Nanny." (After all, why not?) But if you think about it for a little while, you'll see why. You could hardly have a situation where half of humanity received regular updates from On High about approaching earthquakes, typhoons, and terrorist plots, while the other half was kept in the dark. That wouldn't be fair, either. As a result of Adam's fateful decision, it had to be "lights out" for everyone. That's what the doctrine of the Fall is all about. Christians believe, however, that God has not left the human race in the lurch. But the triumph over evil will not happen overnight. Ever since Calvary, we have known that God's victory is a fore-ordained conclusion, but we do not know when history will come to a close. vjtorley

Even I would agree that God is eventually bound to cut short the suffering innocent human beings who are in distress, and that He would be morally depraved if He were to allow them to suffer forever.

Even that standard would be considered horrific if applied to an human. I'll ask you the question. How many children would you witness a priest rape before you saw fit to call 9-1-1? How many rapes must a single child under your care suffer before you relented and called 9-1-1? Would I not be correct in identifying you as morally depraved if that number were greater than one? Imagine now you're the priest's superior -- bishop if Catholic; substitute your denomination's own hierarchy if not. Or cardinal, or pope. If the pope witnessed a priest rape a child and failed to alert the local police, would that not be even more horrific than a cardinal who failed to do so? So, again: why should it not be even more horrific still that Jesus himself, whom we are to believe sees all and has far more than enough ability to place a simple phone call...why should not his active complicity in not merely enabling but conspiring to perpetrate serial child rape -- why should that not absolutely repulse and horrify all morally competent humans?

While each of us has a guardian angel who is good, the boss of the show, at least on planet Earth, is still the Devil.

Then the Devil has demonstrated that Jesus, far from being all-powerful, is utterly impotent. Imagine if Obama's daughters were kidnapped by terrorists; would he not throw the entire might and force of the American military at the kidnappers in an effort to free them? How long would he make his daughters suffer in order to give the terrorists the opportunity to exercise their free will and come clean? Yet Jesus, in his fight to liberate us from the Devil, can do more than make cameo appearances on burnt bread and the hindquarters of a dog?

You mock such a Deity as being unable to walk and chew gum at the same time. But it isn’t a matter of simply juggling responsibilities; if the responsibilities are on different levels, then higher-level ones could over-ride lower-level ones.

Again, you're the one who, on the one hand, claims that Jesus's power is limitless -- and then, with every other breath, desperately assures us that Jesus is completely powerless and incompetent. Utterly incompetent! Even the lowliest of Greek Muses would have been able to spare Earth the Holocaust, by simply inspiring Hitler to fulfill his dreams of becoming a great artist. And, indeed, rather than somehow diminish his "free will," his will would have been expanded and empowered. Yet Jesus was unable to do something even so trivial...and so millions had to die, just so that Hitler could take out his frustrations on them? That's what you expect of all-powerful infinite compassion?

I was referring to our first parents, Adam and Eve.

Never mind that they never existed, that they're fictional characters from a fourth-rate faery tale about an enchanted garden with talking animals and an angry wizard. Even according to your mythology, that was hundreds of generations ago. What sort of insane psychopath carries out a grudge on the hundreds-of-times-removed-great-grandchildren of somebody whose crime was eating a piece of fruit? Would you think it just were I to dig up all the crimes your own parents ever committed and sentence you to that much jail and fines? Your grandparents? But, apparently, it's perfectly fine if it's your imaginary great...great-grandparents.

The fact that some individuals have claimed to hear the voice of God does not imply that most or all individuals are in fact capable of doing so.

At this point, I need to ask you to stop and ask yourself why you worship such a blitheringly incompetent god. Every single challenge I've offered of you, you've replied by assuring us that it's far too difficult for your god to even think of addressing. Here, even: your god can't get get an official Twitter account, let alone hold the occasional press conference? And is instead reduced to competing with all the other auditory hallucinations schizophrenics suffer? This is one of the things that most amazes and frustrates me: the naked hypocrisy of the pious -- that, from the one side of the mouth, we are told of the limitless power and glory of the gods; from the other, even the most trivial task is utterly beyond imagination for the gods. How can you believe that Jesus had the power to physically manifest, has the power to hear and answer prayers, loves us all as his own children...and yet sits idly by, ignoring the desperate pleas of help from actual children actually being actually tortured at the actual hands of his actual official representatives? ...and, of course, the other thing that amazes me is that, not only is none of what I've written any sort of new revelation or observation, but just another recapitulation of what Epicurus himself wrote centuries before Mark wrote an Euhemeric biography for the ancient Jewish demigod of Zechariah 6.... Cheers, b& Ben Goren

Ben Goren, I see that you have deigned to grace us with your presence. I should inform you at the outset that for people who contribute to this forum, sarcasm is no substitute for logic. I questioned your implicit assumption that God’s responsibility to assist innocent human beings who are in distress is the same as (if not greater than) that of a passerby who happens to see them in distress and who hears their cries for help, and you attributed to me the callous view that God (or gods, as you put it) "are to be held not to an (sic) higher standard, but no standard whatsoever." Sorry, but that does not follow. Even I would agree that God is eventually bound to cut short the suffering innocent human beings who are in distress, and that He would be morally depraved if He were to allow them to suffer forever. I also criticized your assumption that God cannot delegate this responsibility to some lesser intelligence, such as an angel, and you responded by asking why no angel has ever called 9-1-1. Here's your answer, from a Christian perspective: the angel in charge of this planet, a.k.a. the Prince of this world, is called Lucifer. We know him as Satan. While each of us has a guardian angel who is good, the boss of the show, at least on planet Earth, is still the Devil. If you want to understand where I'm coming from, I suggest you read C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet. I also drew attention to your assumption that the assumption that God has no higher obligations towards the human race as a whole, which might conflict with, and over-ride, His obligation to assist individuals in distress. You mock such a Deity as being unable to walk and chew gum at the same time. But it isn't a matter of simply juggling responsibilities; if the responsibilities are on different levels, then higher-level ones could over-ride lower-level ones. By the way, the “privileged members” of the human race who have the prerogative of deciding, on behalf of humanity as a whole, whether (and to what degree) God should offer assistance to individuals in distress who call upon his name for help, are not priests. I was referring to our first parents, Adam and Eve. Finally, the possibility that perhaps no-one on 911 would be capable of hearing the voice of God, even if He wanted to leave an important message for them, should not be overlooked. The fact that some individuals have claimed to hear the voice of God does not imply that most or all individuals are in fact capable of doing so. vjtorley

Ben - Jerry Coyne's groupie You atheists used to be amusing but now you are just creepy to me. It's good that there are people on UD who have patience for you. Eugen

Ben Goren, we live in a Yin-Yang reality. There is no such thing as pleasure without pain, happiness without suffering. We are designed with both pain and pleasure sensors for that reason. God could certainly intervene to prevent all the nasty things that happen on earth, even to prevent little kids from falling on their tricycles. But that would not be reality. We would be living a lie. The brain adapts to its environment precisely because we have both appetitive and aversive behaviors. IMO, whoever is in charge knows that nobody is allowed into their company without going through the same crap that they went through. We must be initiated into both Yin and Yang. There is no escaping it. Mapou

And if we are constantly bailed out then what was accomplished?

Who wrote anything about, "constantly"? I'd say that, after a priest has run out of appendages to count the number of children he's raped, it's high past time Jesus dropped a dime on him, don't you? Or maybe you don't think Jesus should alert the authorities until after he's raped an hundred children? More? How many children does a priest have to rape before it's time for Jesus to finally decide that enough is enough and call 9-1-1? No -- wait. Don't answer that. I've got a better question for you. How many times would you have to witness a priest raping a child before you would call 9-1-1? Ten? Twenty? Or...just one? Hmpf. Fancy that. A Christian who demonstrates infinitely higher moral standards and more compassion and dignity than Jesus.

Those are nasty human habits.

Walking...a nasty habit? Seriously? And, last I checked, the American Dental Association recommended chewing gum for dental hygiene. I never cared for gum...but, again? Clean teeth is a nasty habit? ...and you wonder why Christians have a reputation for...well...backwardness...?

How do you know that no angel ever called 9-1-1? How do you know an angel never intervened?

Oh, that's trivial. You just proved it for me. First, had any ever done that, you'd have been the first to offer the evidence. Second...they're clearly all too busy helping sports megamillionaires score more points and drunks find their car keys to bother calling 9-1-1 for babies whose houses are on fire. But, then again, I suppose Jesus thinks it's more important that the baby and its parents and the little dog, too, all die an agonizing death so you yourself can learn some vague lesson about lovingkindness or some such. Clearly got his priorities straight, that Jesus. All that pain and death and misery is such a small pay for your righteous self satisfaction, wouldn't you agree? b& Ben Goren

Here I thought that the gods were supposed to be paragons of virtue, the ultimate exemplars of morality.

And if we are constantly bailed out then what was accomplished?

You mean the omnipotent almighty all-powerful can’t even walk and chew gum at the same time?

Those are nasty human habits.

So, why, then, has no angel ever called 9-1-1?

How do you know that no angel ever called 9-1-1? How do you know an angel never intervened? As the saying goes... with atheists like you who needs clowns? Virgil Cain

the assumption that God’s responsibility to assist innocent human beings who are in distress is the same as (if not greater than) that of a passerby who happens to see them in distress and who hears their cries for help;

Silly me. Here I thought that the gods were supposed to be paragons of virtue, the ultimate exemplars of morality. And, yet, here you are complaining that they are to be held not to an higher standard, but no standard whatsoever.

the assumption that, if God is responsible for alerting 9-1-1 whenever innocent people are in distress, He is directly responsible, and that He cannot delegate this responsibility to some lesser intelligence, such as an angel;

Okay; I'll bite. So, why, then, has no angel ever called 9-1-1?

the assumption that God has no higher obligations towards the human race as a whole, which might conflict with, and over-ride, His obligation to assist individuals in distress;

You mean the omnipotent almighty all-powerful can't even walk and chew gum at the same time?

the assumption that there are no “privileged members” of the human race who have the prerogative of deciding, on behalf of humanity as a whole, whether (and to what degree) God should offer assistance to individuals in distress who call upon his name for help;

Ah, yes. The priests. The mere mortals who invented the gods and hold ultimate power over the gods, commanding the gods to speak on their behalf. Nasty lot, the priests.

the assumption that anyone – in particular, anyone on 911 – would be capable of hearing the voice of God, if He wanted to leave an important message for them.

Wait -- I'm confused. If nobody realizes that the gods are speaking to them, let alone has a clue what they're saying...where do all these scriptures and prophesies and revelations come from, again...? As the saying goes...with enemas like these, who needs fronds? Cheers, b& Ben Goren

The same question could be ask in regards to the early detection of diseases. For example, some kinds of cancer has a over 90% rate of completely being cured if detected early enough. Why doesn't God inform patience or doctors when the first cancerous cells are present? Again, in the future, we will have clouds of nano-machines in our bodies constantly monitoring for the early onset of diseases, which will report their presences and possibly even follow up with in place treatment. Would that make us less sensitive to suffering? I don't see how. In fact, wouldn't it be immoral of us to *not* provide such a system to people if requested? Popperian

BA77, You are off the rails, IMO. That's OK. Peace out. mike1962

Of supplemental note: Although I don't know what you think about NDEs mike1962, there is a 'unexpected' correspondence in NDE testimonies to the 'tunnel' and 'eternal' attribute that is 'scientifically' found for the speed of light:

“The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass.” Richard Swenson – More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12

Please note, at the 3:22 minute mark of the following video, when the 3-Dimensional world ‘folds and collapses’ into a tunnel shape as a ‘hypothetical’ observer moves towards the ‘higher dimension’ of the speed of light, (Of note: This following video was made by two Australian University Physics Professors with a supercomputer.).

Seeing Relativity – Approaching The Speed Of Light – Optical Effects – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQnHTKZBTI4

And, in stark contrast to multiverse (and Darwinian) claims from atheists, for which we have no direct observational evidence, we have actual observational evidence from Near Death Experience testimonies of eternity and also of people going through a tunnel to a higher heavenly dimension,,,

'Earthly time has no meaning in the spirit realm. There is no concept of before or after. Everything - past, present, future - exists simultaneously.' - Kimberly Clark Sharp - NDE Experiencer 'There is no way to tell whether minutes, hours or years go by. Existence is the only reality and it is inseparable from the eternal now.' - John Star - NDE Experiencer ‘In the ‘spirit world,,, instantly, there was no sense of time. See, everything on earth is related to time. You got up this morning, you are going to go to bed tonight. Something is new, it will get old. Something is born, it’s going to die. Everything on the physical plane is relative to time, but everything in the spiritual plane is relative to eternity. Instantly I was in total consciousness and awareness of eternity, and you and I as we live in this earth cannot even comprehend it, because everything that we have here is filled within the veil of the temporal life. In the spirit life that is more real than anything else and it is awesome. Eternity as a concept is awesome. There is no such thing as time. I knew that whatever happened was going to go on and on.’ In The Presence Of Almighty God – The NDE of Mickey Robinson – video (27:45 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s66DchGhhD0 “I started to move toward the light. The way I moved, the physics, was completely different than it is here on Earth. It was something I had never felt before and never felt since. It was a whole different sensation of motion. I obviously wasn’t walking or skipping or crawling. I was not floating. I was flowing. I was flowing toward the light. I was accelerating and I knew I was accelerating, but then again, I didn’t really feel the acceleration. I just knew I was accelerating toward the light. Again, the physics was different – the physics of motion of time, space, travel. It was completely different in that tunnel, than it is here on Earth. I came out into the light and when I came out into the light, I realized that I was in heaven.” Barbara Springer – Near Death Experience – The Tunnel – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv2jLeoAcMI Ask the Experts: What Is a Near-Death Experience (NDE)? - article with video Excerpt: "Very often as they're moving through the tunnel, there's a very bright mystical light ... not like a light we're used to in our earthly lives. People call this mystical light, brilliant like a million times a million suns..." - Jeffrey Long M.D. - has studied NDE's extensively http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/beyondbelief/experts-death-experience/story?id=14221154#.T_gydvW8jbI "Regardless, it is impossible for me to adequately describe what I saw and felt. When I try to recount my experiences now, the description feels very pale. I feel as though I'm trying to describe a three-dimensional experience while living in a two-dimensional world. The appropriate words, descriptions and concepts don't even exist in our current language. I have subsequently read the accounts of other people's near-death experiences and their portrayals of heaven and I able to see the same limitations in their descriptions and vocabulary that I see in my own." Mary C. Neal, MD - To Heaven And Back pg. 71

This following video interview of a Harvard Neurosurgeon, who had a Near Death Experience (NDE), is very interesting. His NDE was rather unique from typical NDEs in that he had completely lost brain wave function for 7 days while the rest of his body was on life support. As such he had what can be termed a ‘pure consciousness’ NDE that was dramatically different from the ‘typical’ Judeo-Christian NDEs of going through a tunnel to a higher heavenly dimension, seeing departed relatives, and having a life review. His NDE featured his ‘consciousness’ going outside the confines of space/time, matter/energy altogether to experience ‘non-locally’ what he termed ‘the Core’, i.e to experience God. It is also interesting to note that he retained a ‘finite sense of self-identity’, as Theism would hold, and did not blend into the infinite consciousness/omniscience of God, as pantheism would hold.

A Conversation with Near Death Experiencer Neurosurgeon Eben Alexander III, M.D. with Steve Paulson (Interviewer) - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ASWnPJSf7o

bornagain77

mike1962, so you want me to accept your simplistic reasoning for a static "frozen in time" state being equivalent to the highest timeless state that God exists in? Your simplistic 'frozen in time' position was already gone over in my post on special relativity: https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/over-at-weit-reader-ben-goren-asks-why-doesnt-jesus-call-911/#comment-579007 Moreover, besides ignoring that post, you also presented no empirical evidence to counter the empirical evidence that I presented linking quantum wave collapse to Aquinas's 'unmoved mover' argument. i.e. Exactly how does a photon get from point a to point b? Although modern science has no clue, the 'unmoved mover' answers that question VERY WELL. You may not personally like the fact that Aquinas is verified in his 'unmoved mover' argument, but that does not negate the fact that modern science has verified the basic premise of his argumentation.

“The ‘First Mover’ is necessary for change occurring at each moment.” Michael Egnor – Aquinas’ First Way

It is certainly not me playing word games, it is you refusing to think outside your temporal 'flatland' box, and to follow the evidence where it leads, and recognize the 'empirical' reality of the higher 'eternal', and highest transcendent (timeless), dimensions above this one.

Albert Einstein – Special Relativity – Insight into Eternity – ‘thought experiment’ – video (6:00 minute mark) https://youtu.be/jHnRqhnkyGs?t=364 Approaching The Speed Of Light – Optical Effects – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQnHTKZBTI4 Dr. Quantum in Flatland – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=takn4FPkId4

bornagain77

Ba77, Perhaps you should consider this: If God does not undergo state change, than the very idea that "God created the heavens and the earth" is nonsense. Because here we have a clear, unequivicol statement that God is in the state where he is not in relation to his creation (since it doesn't exist yet), contrasted with another state where God is in relation to his creation. The act of creation is a state change with his respect to God's creation. This is fundamental, and no amount sophistry and irrational word play will change the clear and basic statement. If you cannot accept that, we have nothing to discuss. Aquinas was trying to have the Bible's God and Plato's God at the same time. It doesn't work. I have no reason to accept Plato's God. It makes no sense. I hope you can see that. mike1962

mike1962, well I consider the fact that Aquinas's argument, (reduction of potency to act), meshes perfectly with collapse of the quantum waveform, to be VERY good evidence that his 'unmoved mover' argument is indeed correct. It simply is uncanny how he was, simply through rigid reasoning, and centuries before it was even scientifically known about, able to deduce the basics of quantum waveform collapse. You may reject the evidence and his argument for the 'unmoved mover', but it is certainly not a 'fact not in evidence' as you claim. i.e. I hold you to be wrong not Aquinas. And I will continue to hold you to be wrong in your opinion until you provide the proper empirical evidence that counters what I have thus far presented (i.e. namely double slit & QED) bornagain77

Mapou -

It’s a stupid God who is above simple logic.

Have you ever read Matthew 22. It is my favorite chapter of the Bible from a purely intellectual logic point of view. It shows how foolish the brightest intellectuals of the day fare against the eternal Logos. Each group thought they had caught Jesus in a trap of inescapable "simple logic" by which they could "...entangle him in his talk." (Matt. 22:15 KJV) _________________ Pharisees - By simple logic - Jesus either has to support taxation ( at which point He will lose his followers ) or not support taxation ( at which point the state will arrest him ). Jesus - "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto Got the things that are God's". He wipes out their supposed trap with a clear answer. (Matt. 22:21 KJV) ______________ Saducees - By simple logic - We know that there can not be a real physical resurrection because it would lead to impossible eternal contradictions in the case of brothers who needed to marry a woman to "...raise up seed unto their brother." (Matt. 22:24 KJV) Jesus - "Ye do err...For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." There supposed simple logic which demonstrated the impossibility of the resurrection was vanquished by a simple understanding of the nature of the resurrection state.(Matt. 22:29-30 KJV) _______________ A lawyer - By simple logic. I know the most important law is from Deuteronomy part of which declares that '...The Lord out God is one Lord.' Jesus can't affirm this commandment and still claim divinity.(Deut. 6:4 KJV) Jesus - "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy should and with all thy mind." He just simply answers the question as to how to satisfy the command - he will deal with the issue of the relationship of the Son to the Father with a question of His own. ______ Jesus - "...How then doth David in the spirit call him[The Son of David] Lord..If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?"( Matt 22:43-45 KJV) He gives them a mystery which they could not answer at all, but any modern Christian will recognize as easily answered by the the Incarnation. ________ I'm afraid I don't know this "...stupid God who is above simple logic." I know a God of tremendous Love and Knowledge who has clearly revealed His Wisdom in His word. I know the God who will "...destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." and "...by the foolishness of preaching...save them that believe."( I Cor. 1:19, 21 KJV) God's ways have always been a mystery to those who limit themselves to the prevailing winds of man's wisdom in order to shield themselves from truly believing Him. His ways have always been discernible to those who put God's word first, and then wait for the Wisdom of God to see the mighty and perfect and glorious way that God has revealed Himself as Omnipotent Judge and Righteous Savior. This is the God I know. Who is your God? JDH

BA77: we undergo ‘state changes’, God, in his ‘highest heaven’, does not. Fact not in evidence. Not a big fan of Aquinas. I think he was wrong. mike1962

mike1962, we undergo 'state changes', God, in his 'highest heaven', does not.

"What is the immutability of God?" Answer: The immutability of God (His quality of not changing) is clearly taught throughout Scripture. For example, in Malachi 3:6 God affirms, "I the Lord do not change." (See also Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29; Isaiah 46:9-11; and Ezekiel 24:14.) James 1:17 also teaches the immutability of God: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning.” http://www.gotquestions.org/immutability-God.html

Moreover, as Aquinas established centuries ago, we are ultimately dependent on the 'unmoved mover', God, for us to have 'state changes', i.e. for us to have movement.

Aquinas’ First Way 1) Change in nature is elevation of potency to act. 2) Potency cannot actualize itself, because it does not exist actually. 3) Potency must be actualized by another, which is itself in act. 4) Essentially ordered series of causes (elevations of potency to act) exist in nature. 5) An essentially ordered series of elevations from potency to act cannot be in infinite regress, because the series must be actualized by something that is itself in act without the need for elevation from potency. 6) The ground of an essentially ordered series of elevations from potency to act must be pure act with respect to the casual series. 7) This Pure Act– Prime Mover– is what we call God. http://egnorance.blogspot.com/2011/08/aquinas-first-way.html Aquinas’ First Way – (The First Mover – Unmoved Mover) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qmpw0_w27As

Or to put it much more simply:

"The ‘First Mover’ is necessary for change occurring at each moment." Michael Egnor – Aquinas’ First Way http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/09/jerry_coyne_and_aquinas_first.html

Moreover, non local, i.e. beyond space and time, quantum actions provide solid empirical support for the 'unmoved mover' argument.

Stephen Hawking: "Philosophy Is Dead" - Michael Egnor - August 3, 2015 Excerpt: The metaphysics of Aristotle and Aquinas is far and away the most successful framework on which to understand modern science, especially quantum mechanics. Heisenberg knew this (Link on site). Aristotle 2,300 years ago described the basics of collapse of the quantum waveform (reduction of potency to act),,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/08/stephen_hawking_3098261.html

And in confirmation of this ancient ‘unmoved mover’ argument, in the following video Anton Zeilinger, whose group is arguably the best group of experimentalists in quantum physics today, ‘tries’ to explain the double slit experiment to Morgan Freeman:

Quantum Mechanics - Double Slit Experiment. Is anything real? (Prof. Anton Zeilinger) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayvbKafw2g0

Anton Zeilinger makes this rather startling statement in the preceding video that meshes perfectly with the ‘first mover argument’:

"The path taken by the photon is not an element of reality. We are not allowed to talk about the photon passing through this or this slit. Neither are we allowed to say the photon passes through both slits. All this kind of language is not applicable." Anton Zeilinger

If that was not enough to get his point across, at the 4:12 minute mark in this following video,,,

Prof Anton Zeilinger Shows the Double-slit Experiment - video http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgt69p_prof-anton-zeilinger-shows-the-double-slit-experiment_tech

Professor Zeilinger states,,,

"We know what the particle is doing at the source when it is created. We know what it is doing at the detector when it is registered. But we do not know what it is doing in-between." Anton Zeilinger

And if that was not enough to get the 'unmoved mover' point across, in Quantum Electrodynamics, arguably the most stringently, and accurately, tested theory in science today, we have these following comments

Quantum Electrodynamics - Introduction The key components of Feynman's presentation of QED are three basic actions.[1]:85 *A photon goes from one place and time to another place and time. *An electron goes from one place and time to another place and time. *An electron emits or absorbs a photon at a certain place and time. These actions are represented in a form of visual shorthand by the three basic elements of Feynman diagrams: a wavy line for the photon, a straight line for the electron and a junction of two straight lines and a wavy one for a vertex representing emission or absorption of a photon by an electron. These can all be seen in the adjacent diagram. It is important not to over-interpret these diagrams. Nothing is implied about how a particle gets from one point to another. The diagrams do not imply that the particles are moving in straight or curved lines. They do not imply that the particles are moving with fixed speeds. The fact that the photon is often represented, by convention, by a wavy line and not a straight one does not imply that it is thought that it is more wavelike than is an electron. The images are just symbols to represent the actions above: photons and electrons do, somehow, move from point to point and electrons, somehow, emit and absorb photons. We do not know how these things happen, but the theory tells us about the probabilities of these things happening. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_electrodynamics#Introduction

Verse:

Acts 17:28 For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

bornagain77

Mike1962: At any rate, I’m primarily concerned with the free-will of human consciousness and God’s alleged omniscience with regards to it. I don’t see how you’ve solved that one.

Why is there a problem when we assume that God has an outside-time-perspective and spectator knowledge? We make free decisions in the past, now and in the future. God watches us make those free decisions in the past,now and the future. Explain the problem, please. Box

BA77: As to the fact that there exists a dimension that transcends all conceivable space-time frameworks, that fact is empirically establish by comparing the temporal realm of matter with the eternal realm of light with the transcendent realm of quantum information. I don't agree that these things transcend all conceivable space-time frameworks, and nothing you quoted demonstrates that. They all undergo state changes. Something that undergoes state changes cannot be timeless in an absolute sense. At any rate, I'm primarily concerned with the free-will of human consciousness and God's alleged omniscience with regards to it. I don't see how you've solved that one. mike1962

Goren has not explained why a supernatural Deity with perfect knowledge, love and power, would be obliged to help each suffering individual right away.

So, if I see someone who I could help, say tomorrow, like a woman who is in an abusive relationship, then I don't need to help them right away?

As far as I can tell, the only obligation that God has towards suffering individuals here and now is the obligation not to allow them to suffer irreparable harm. However, we should always bear in mind that what appears to be “irreparable damage” to us, may not appear so to God;

So, if the abuser doesn't really cause any physical damage that cannot be repaired, I don't have to report it either?

if God has delegated the responsibility for alerting 9-1-1 whenever innocent people are in distress to some angel (or some other super-human intelligence), then we have to consider the possibility that this intelligence – call it Lucifer if you like – has “gone rogue” and is working to sabotage God’s original plan;

God, being infinite in nature doesn't need to delegate anything to anyone since he is supposedly infinite. Reporting someone doesn't leave him with less time to report anyone else or reduce his ability to act in some other capacity. Even then, God would know that lucifer failed to delver the message and could do it himself without reducing his ability to act in some other capacity.

if God’s always alerting 9-1-1 whenever someone is in distress would interfere with the moral development of the human race as a whole (e.g. by making them apathetic about assisting crime victims, leading to a hardening of people’s hearts towards suffering individuals), then it is at least arguable that God’s obligation not to hinder the moral development of the human race as a whole would over-ride His obligation to help those individuals who are in distress;

First, not all 911 cals are necessarily crime related. Take natural disasters, for example. Second, It's unclear how God alerting people when someone in suffering makes other people less empathetic to other peoples suffering. For example, imagine a scenario where each person had a personal digital assistant that could call 911 for them or contained an internal cloud of nano-bots that monitored their health, distress levels, etc. and called 911 automatically within specific parameters, (which seems rather likely at some point in the future.) Would this somehow imply the human race had become apathetic toward human suffering? Are you suggesting we would not be morally obliged to make such systems available for those who would want them to reduce suffering if we could? Again, this is yet anther example of how ID proponents here grossly underestimate the role that knowledge plays, in that it assumes we will not create the necessary knowledge to better solve moral problems than, apparently, God. How do you explain this future disparity?

(iv) it is entirely possible that God, after revealing His existence to the first human beings at the dawn of human history, then asked them, as representatives of the human race as a whole, how much Divine assistance they would like to receive in the future. And it is entirely possible that these “privileged” human beings opted for little or no Divine intervention, thinking that it would give them more personal freedom and enable them to escape from the suffocating embrace (as they saw it) of a Deity Who loved them too much. It’s also entirely possible that God may have promised to comply with their decision, which would “tie His hands” until the end of human history, insofar as He cannot break a promise;

Why would human beings at the beginning of history have the knowledge of what the future will be like and therefore, be considered a good representatives as for how much divine assistance would be desired today? What if those same human beings decided they wanted no assistance and complete separation from God? Would he free to make that promise as well, and be obliged to keep it?

(v) finally, it may turn out to be the case that our ability to hear a message from God depends on our spiritual condition, and that bad or spiritually lukewarm people are simply incapable of hearing detailed 911 messages from the Almighty, due to their poor relationship with God. In that case, it would be our fault, not God’s, that we don’t receive 911 calls from Him, about individuals in distress.

God could simply hijack a robo-dialer to make the call on his behalf. Or, he could simply cause 911 calls to appear in the call log system with all the necessary details already filed out. These are just different levels of indirection than those used when a person uses a phone to call 911. By acting in this way, any one individual "spiritual condition" would be irrelevant to the event being reported. Popperian

Again, the very same arguments the OP is appealing to could be used to "justify" the actions of abortionists. For example, in a comment on another thread, I wrote:

...if a women is evil enough to want their child to die, then one could argue that their child’s death would be God’s punishment for her evil. And being raised in such a family, such a child would have just been evil as well. IOW, it’s unclear how you could know that God isn’t just using abortionists as a “surgeon” to “cut out” evil that exceeded some limit that we cannot comprehend.

How can you rule this out, while simultaneously appealing to this supposed inability to know what God is or is not doing, want's or does not want, etc.? Popperian

Comment deleted by author. Back to the beach with you! Mung

Comment deleted by author. Upright BiPed

JDH:

This comment is directed to all of you who are arrogant enough to believe to have God caught in an obvious contradiction over free will vs. omniscience.

Only the God you created, JDH. Only the God your created in your own mind. It's a stupid God who is above simple logic. My God suffers from no such handicap. Your God is impotent because he cannot change his mind. My God is powerful and can change his mind anytime. Genesis teaches me that God regretted creating mankind. Not very impressive if he knew everything in advance. You fundamentalist Christians can continue to play with your little impotent and imagined God all you want but you cannot call yourselves Christians. You make a mockery of God. Mapou

1. When any time bound intelligent agent makes a decision, the Lord is there. If some other directive of God depends upon the agent making a different decision, he just puts every particle in the universe back to the time before the decision and again observes. He repeats this process until the agent makes the decision He wants.

That also explains why Hitler's "National Judaism day" and Stalin's on-going "Kittens are cute" league were replaced by more God-friendly events. Free will according to JDH: G) Do you you take sugar Y) No thanks G) No that is not the correct answer. Deleted. Now, do you take sugar? Y) No G) No that is not the correct answer. Deleted. Now, do you take sugar? Y) No, I have a medical condition, I must avoid sugar. G) No that is not the correct answer. Deleted. Now, do you take sugar? Y) No, I have a medical condition, I must avoid sugar. G) No that is not the correct answer. Deleted. Now, do you take sugar? Y) (High energy particle enters brain). Half past two, er, three, er sorry where was I? G) Ok three sugars it is then. steveh

This comment is directed to all of you who are arrogant enough to believe to have God caught in an obvious contradiction over free will vs. omniscience. You claim it is not possible for both to exist. So I don't have to know how God has both, all I have to show is one method by which the infinite God can have both. 1. When any time bound intelligent agent makes a decision, the Lord is there. If some other directive of God depends upon the agent making a different decision, he just puts every particle in the universe back to the time before the decision and again observes. He repeats this process until the agent makes the decision He wants. I am no way suggesting that this has any comport with reality, as I think this is much too complicated way. I bet God has a much simpler algorithm. I can't see it, being the time-bound agent that I am. BUT … any of you who read this, and still go on believing that you have discovered this obvious truth that God can't both be omniscient and have granted His subjects free will are willingly ignorant. You choose to disbelieve in spite of the evidence, not because of it. JDH

Seversky, Suppose that George Washington made a perfectly free choice when he retired from office after two terms. That decision is part of the past — the decision is fixed. But does the fact that George's decision is fixed change the fact that it is a decision determined by free will? His decision was an act of free will and free will determined his decision. When we study American history we can "see" George Washington make a free decision.

Seversky: That story alone, if true, is strong evidence that God knows the future, not just all the possible futures that might radiate from a particular present but the actual future realized from all those possibilities. This argues that the future must already exist in order to be known and in turn negates the possibility of absolute free will.

It doesn't follow. A timeless God can watch us make free decisions in the past, present and future. Similarly we can "watch" George Washington make free decisions. GW's decision isn't any less free because it "already exists". Box

Actually mike1962, you are making some fairly broad claims for time for which you simply have no empirical support (other than in your imagination). As to the fact that there exists a dimension that transcends all conceivable space-time frameworks, that fact is empirically establish by comparing the temporal realm of matter with the eternal realm of light with the transcendent realm of quantum information. Both special relativity and general relativity reveal a higher dimensional ‘eternal framework’:

“I’ve just developed a new theory of eternity.” Albert Einstein – The Einstein Factor – Reader’s Digest – 2005 “The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass.” Richard Swenson – More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12

To grasp the whole ‘time coming to a complete stop at the speed of light’ concept a little more easily, imagine moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light. Would not the hands on the clock stay stationary as you moved away from the face of the clock at the speed of light? Moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light happens to be the same ‘thought experiment’ that gave Einstein his breakthrough insight into e=mc2.

Albert Einstein – Special Relativity – Insight into Eternity – ‘thought experiment’ – video (6:00 minute mark) https://youtu.be/jHnRqhnkyGs?t=364

This higher dimension, ‘eternal’, inference for the time framework of light is also warranted, by logic, because light is not ‘frozen within time’, i.e. light appears to move to us in our temporal framework of time, yet it is shown that time, as we understand it, does not pass for light. The only way this is possible is if light is indeed of a higher dimensional value of time than our temporal time is otherwise light would simply be ‘frozen in time’ to our temporal frame of reference. Another line of evidence that supports the inference that ‘tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday’, at the ‘eternal’ speed of light, is visualizing what would happen if a hypothetical observer were to approach the speed of light. Please note, at the 3:22 minute mark of the following video, when the 3-Dimensional world ‘folds and collapses’ into a tunnel shape as a ‘hypothetical’ observer moves towards the ‘higher dimension’ of the speed of light, (Of note: This following video was made by two Australian University Physics Professors with a supercomputer.).

Approaching The Speed Of Light – Optical Effects – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQnHTKZBTI4

Of related interest, the "Flatland" video, which clearly illustrates this principle of higher dimensions, is on the Vienna Quantum Science Group's outreach page, (i.e. Anton Zeilinger's home group):

Vienna Group Video Outreach page http://vcq.quantum.at/outreach/multimedia/page-4.html Dr. Quantum in Flatland - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=takn4FPkId4

Moreover, hypothetically traveling at the speed of light in this universe would be instantaneous travel for the person going at the speed of light. This is because time does not pass for them, yet, and this is a very big ‘yet’ to take note of; this ‘timeless’ travel is still not instantaneous and transcendent to our temporal framework of time (as quantum entanglement/teleportation is), i.e. Speed of light travel, to our temporal frame of reference, is still not completely transcendent of our framework since light appears to take time to travel from our temporal perspective. Yet, in quantum entanglement/teleportation of information, the ‘time not passing’, i.e. ‘eternal’, framework is not only achieved in the speed of light framework/dimension, but is also ‘instantaneously’ achieved in our temporal framework. That is to say, the instantaneous teleportation/travel of quantum information is instantaneous to both the temporal framework and the eternal speed of light framework, not just in, and to, the speed of light framework. Information entanglement/travel is not limited by time, nor space, in any way, shape or form, in any frame of reference, as light is seemingly limited to us in this temporal framework.

Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012 Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php

Thus ‘pure transcendent information’ (in quantum experiments) is shown to be timeless (eternal) and completely transcendent of all material frameworks. Moreover, ‘instantaneous information’ is indeed real and the framework in which ‘It’ resides is the primary reality (highest dimension) that can exist, (in so far as our limited perception of a primary reality, i.e. highest dimension, can be discerned).

“An illusion can never go faster than the speed limit of reality” Akiane Kramarik – Child Prodigy –

Verse and Music:

Psalm 115:2-3 Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God? Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him. Rich Mullins – Creed – music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LR2hFP1yb4

Supplemental notes

God, The Universe, and Everything - Special Relativity and Quantum Entanglement Reflect Some Characteristics Of God Excerpt: Albert Einstein taught us that time and space are related by light. Imagine that you and I hitch a ride on the Star ship Enterprise, traveling at the speed of light. Now remember, at the speed of light time stops. So if we look out the window while traveling at this speed, we would be aware of the past, the present and the future all at once. This bizarre universe which seems absurd to us is the very universe described by quantum physics.,,, The concept that there is something outside the material world becomes even more evident when you consider light. You see light has the ability to behave in a singularly conscious manner. To actually transmit information across the entire universe instantly. Consider this. In 1997 a Geneva researcher created a pair of twin light photons and sent them flying in opposite directions along optical fibers. When one photon hit a mirror it was forced to make a random choice to go one way or the other. Which ever way it went it’s twin photon already seven miles away always instantaneously took the very same option. Instantaneous is the key word here. The reaction of the twin photon was not delayed by the amount of time it takes light to travel seven miles. Other more recent experiments support this finding. In fact, physicists now believe that an entangled twin particle will know what it’s partner is doing and instantaneously mimic it’s actions even if the pair live in separate galaxies billions of light years apart. Since we’ve been told that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, how does one photon on one side of the universe know what the other photon on the other side of the universe is doing? Instantly? - Dwight Nelson http://www.theevidence.org/article/70/programs/archives/the-evidence/episodes/episode-115-god-the-universe-and-everything/guest-information/episode-115-god-the-universe-and-everything-v2 video http://www.theevidence.org/article/441/programs/archives/the-evidence/episodes/episode-115-god-the-universe-and-everything

of note: Not only was our universe brought into being from this highest dimension of God 14 billion years ago, but God also continuously sustains this universe from His highest dimension. In essence, Quantum Mechanics is showing us that God continuously creates the universe, upholding it in its continual being:

Reality doesn’t exist until we measure it, (Delayed Choice) quantum experiment confirms - Mind = blown. - FIONA MACDONALD - 1 JUN 2015 Excerpt: "It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it," lead researcher and physicist Andrew Truscott said in a press release. http://www.sciencealert.com/reality-doesn-t-exist-until-we-measure-it-quantum-experiment-confirms "Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists who think the world sprang into existence on October 23, 4004 BC at 9AM (presumably Babylonian time), with the fossils already in the ground, light from distant stars heading toward us, etc. But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!" - Scott Aaronson - MIT associate Professor

bornagain77

vjtorley @ 31

Hi Seversky, Thank you for your comments. You write:

God is supposed to be omniscient. That means he already knows the outcome of any experiment we can think of – and that includes how people respond to suffering and evil.

Actually, that only follows if you accept either a predestinationist (Calvinist/Banezian) or Molinist account of free will. (In the latter account, God knows all counterfactuals.) But if you accept a Boethian account of free will, as I do, then it doesn’t follow. On this account, God is timeless, but His knowledge is that of a spectator. So God cannot know the outcome of an experiment involving free creatures (such as ourselves), unless He actually performs it.

Hi Thank you for replying to my comment. It seems to me the problem with the Boethian account is that there is an underlying assumption of a fixed temporal viewpoint You and I and everyone else sees time from the perspective of our own present and it appears we can do no other. We presume this to be true for all people throughout human history. We also presume there is no way to privilege one temporal perspective over any other. For example, George Washington in 1776 would have had some knowledge of his own history and, more generally, that of the world at large, up to that point in time. But, we have no reason to think that his viewpoint is any way more significant than our own today. The only difference between George Washington and ourselves, in this context, is that the 239 years separating us in time was a complete mystery to him but is known in some detail to us. Similarly, we can envisage one of our descendants, 239 years in our future knowing that mysterious future as settled history. This suggests that all times exist simultaneously and that we are somehow moving through fixed history in the way a traveler might cross a fixed landscape. God, on the other hand, is presumed to exist outside our spacetime Universe. He was there before it came into existence and He will still be there, wherever “there” might be, after it is gone. Although He could choose to see time from a particular temporal perspective, such as through the eyes of Jesus, He can also see the whole history of our Universe laid out before him, much as we might see the whole land surface of the Earth from the International Space Station. Do we have any evidence to suggest that God has definite knowledge of the future? Yes, the Bible provides some. For example, we have the story of Christ telling Peter that he would deny knowing Him three times before the following morning. According to the account, He does not tell Peter there is a good chance he will deny knowing Him or there is a 95% probability of denial, He says quite definitely that he will. And, according the the Biblical account, that’s exactly what he does. That story alone, if true, is strong evidence that God knows the future, not just all the possible futures that might radiate from a particular present but the actual future realized from all those possibilities. This argues that the future must already exist in order to be known and in turn negates the possibility of absolute free will. Seversky

Infinity worship is idolatry. It's the work of the devil. LOL. Mapou

And this business of a God existing outside of space and time is ridiculous. How can you exist outside of something that does not exist in the first place. Both space and time are abstract or derived concepts. Mapou

My God said "Know my ways". He did not say "You will never understand me". I can't stand those Christians who worship an incomprehensible God of their own making. That is idolatry. We, too, are Elohim (Gods). Mapou

BA77: and yet somehow immaterial timeless/spaceless/massless stuff does make sense to us. Not where free-will is a factor, and that is what I am addressing. Yes, we can intuit a transcendent "platonic" reality where "mathematics exists timelessly", but mathematics do not have free-will. By definition, they are changeless. Free-will is not change-less by definition. In fact I hold that unless human minds were able to somehow hold a perspective that was and is outside of space-time, in essence a ‘timeless’ perspective... Human consciousness may transcend space-time, that is, exist outside of the material space-time universe, but it need not be outside of all time. Assuming free-will of consciousness, I submit that the fact that human consciousness can change states, which is the essence of what time is, that it is indeed based in a more fundamental time than space-time. mike1962

For a Theist the baby doesn't die but instead continues to live with God. On Atheism there is no unfair death since humans aren't different from a stone to give them fairness. This life wasn't meant to be eternal to use as an argument against God death. I agree with Mapou that we are images of God equal in understanding and behaviour but i disagree when he says that God, in the Old Testament doesn't behave like Omniscience because He regrets. Sometimes you know how things will become and still continue to make them, God wasn't regretted for making us, he regretted for some humans but not for all humanity. JimFit

as to:

"the statement that God exists outside of any and all time is nonsensical and irrational. To assert it, is to assert nothing meaningful for us."

and yet somehow immaterial timeless/spaceless/massless stuff does make sense to us. In fact I hold that unless human minds were able to somehow hold a perspective that was and is outside of space-time, in essence a 'timeless' perspective, then science would not be possible for us.

An Interview with David Berlinski - Jonathan Witt Berlinski: There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time …. Interviewer:… Come again(?) … Berlinski: No need to come again: I got to where I was going the first time. The number four, after all, did not come into existence at a particular time, and it is not going to go out of existence at another time. It is neither here nor there. Nonetheless we are in some sense able to grasp the number by a faculty of our minds. Mathematical intuition is utterly mysterious. So for that matter is the fact that mathematical objects such as a Lie Group or a differentiable manifold have the power to interact with elementary particles or accelerating forces. But these are precisely the claims that theologians have always made as well – that human beings are capable by an exercise of their devotional abilities to come to some understanding of the deity; and the deity, although beyond space and time, is capable of interacting with material objects. http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/found-upon-web-and-reprinted-here.html “One of the things I do in my classes, to get this idea across to students, is I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software, and the other one is blank. And I ask them, ‘what is the difference in mass between these two computer disks, as a result of the difference in the information content that they posses’? And of course the answer is, ‘Zero! None! There is no difference as a result of the information. And that’s because information is a mass-less quantity. Now, if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation account for its origin? How can any material cause explain it’s origin? And this is the real and fundamental problem that the presence of information in biology has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic, evolutionary scenarios because information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce. In the nineteenth century we thought that there were two fundamental entities in science; matter, and energy. At the beginning of the twenty first century, we now recognize that there’s a third fundamental entity; and its ‘information’. It’s not reducible to matter. It’s not reducible to energy. But it’s still a very important thing that is real; we buy it, we sell it, we send it down wires. Now, what do we make of the fact, that information is present at the very root of all biological function? In biology, we have matter, we have energy, but we also have this third, very important entity; information. I think the biology of the information age, poses a fundamental challenge to any materialistic approach to the origin of life.” -Dr. Stephen C. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of science from Cambridge University for a dissertation on the history of origin-of-life biology and the methodology of the historical sciences. Intelligent design: Why can't biological information originate through a materialistic process? - Stephen Meyer - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqiXNxyoof8 "Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day." Norbert Weiner - MIT Mathematician -(Cybernetics, 2nd edition, p.132) Norbert Wiener created the modern field of control and communication systems, utilizing concepts like negative feedback. His seminal 1948 book Cybernetics both defined and named the new field.

Verse:

John 1:1-3 In the beginning, the Word existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. (of note: 'Word' in Greek is 'Logos', and is the root word from which we get our word 'Logic')

bornagain77

Davem: Since God exists out of time Fact not in evidence Moreover, God may not exist in our time frame, but nobody knows whether or not there is a more fundamental time frame that God exists in. Moreover, the statement that God exists outside of any and all time is nonsensical and irrational. To assert it, is to assert nothing meaningful for us. mike1962

JDH: It is a useful analogy for you not being able to quite comprehend how God can be omnipresent, omniscient or perfect. The flatland analogy is only useful for getting a sense about how entities could exist that occupy more dimensions than ours and how they might relate to us. It is not useful with regards to the idea that God has omniscience with regard to all future events within our dimension set if we have freedom of choice within it. mike1962

Man trying to comprehend God is like trying to explain to an amoeba everything we as humans know about the universe. Davem

Mapou - I apologize if I have offended you, but I thought we were discussing philosophy, not attacking each other. What do you mean by "same to you". I have not made the statement that an omniscient God is not possible like you have. I have not concluded things can not be true that are outside of my epistemological domain. I simply stated that you can not possibly declare that common sense dictates there can't be an omni- anything. Common sense does not help you in seeing what is not possible. Please read the book "Flatland'. I don't think you are my dog. I did not give you a command, I asked you to read something. If you want me to read something you think will help me see more clearly, please suggest. You seem like a smart guy, its just that I object to "time bound people trapped in three dimensions" ( which means that you can not move freely in time either to effect or to observe, and you can not move in a forth spatial dimension -i.e. it makes no sense for someone to tell you about it if it even existed because there is no way for you to see it. ) The book "Flatland" talks about a sphere entering a two dimensional world. The sphere is able to take a circle up and out of the two dimensional plane he dwells in and show him the 3-d world. Yet when placed back in his two dimensional plane the circle realizes it is impossible to describe what "up" means. It is a useful analogy for you not being able to quite comprehend how God can be omnipresent, omniscient or perfect. JDH

Since God exists out of time it is silly to talk about Him knowing the future, as if He is in our time. He views it all simultaneously. He is in our past, our present, our future. Just because He is aware of what is happening in our future doesn't mean he is determining it, just as He isn't determining what is happening right now, even though right now is the future to any time in the past. For all we know He could be tweaking things here and there throughout time in order to perfect creation. If He decided to change something in our past, how would we know? We wouldn't say, "hey, the past used to be this but now it's different!" Davem

JDH:

I feel sorry for you Mapou, you have not learned the lesson of your limitations.

Same to you.

For a time bound being trapped in three dimensional space,

You have no idea what those things mean.

you truly have a lot of nerve declaring that you can make grand logical conclusions about items outside of your epistemological domain.

You don't know that.

I suggest you read a little book called “Flatland”. It may open your eyes to see your own limitations and how they affect your thinking.

I suggest you take note of this essential point in our discussion (if you can call it that): I am not your dog. Mapou

I used to go sailing with a Jewish guy whose daughter I was dating, and he once said that if a school bus went over a cliff and half the kids lived, the parents would say "Thank God!" He then followed up with "What about the kids who died?" His daughter had been in an car accident many years before, and she said that as the car was rolling over, she felt the presence of God. When I told him he seemed astonished. I said "It's a different story when it's your own daughter" and he agreed. Davem

When Mapou said that the idea of an omniscient God was "all silly crackpottery from people who have not thought it through or are just dogmatic believers who are set in their ways", RDH replied,

I feel sorry for you Mapou, you have not learned the lesson of your limitations. For a time bound being trapped in three dimensional space, you truly have a lot of nerve declaring that you can make grand logical conclusions about items outside of your epistemological domain.

What RDH says applies both way - believing that an omniscient God (and all the other omni-s of the Christian God) exists definitely is a unwarranted conclusion "outside [the limits of our] epistemological domain." We just can't know all that. Aleta

Mapou said -

Folks, I’m neither atheist nor materialist but Seversky is correct about this omniscience thing. It’s all silly crackpottery from people who have not thought it through or are just dogmatic believers who are set in their ways.

I feel sorry for you Mapou, you have not learned the lesson of your limitations. For a time bound being trapped in three dimensional space, you truly have a lot of nerve declaring that you can make grand logical conclusions about items outside of your epistemological domain. I suggest you read a little book called "Flatland". It may open your eyes to see your own limitations and how they affect your thinking. JDH

Mapou,

Box: You seem to hold that God must determine the future if God sees the future. It doesn’t follow.

Mapou: I don’t hold this at all and this is not my argument. It’s a strawman of your own making. (...) This argument has nothing to do with causing the future. It has to do with determinism and omniscience. If God knows the future, the future is already determined by logical necessity.

The future — God’s actions included — are determined by something other than God? Pray tell by what.

Mapou: (…) let me add that my God (Yahweh) does not know the future.

Okay your Yahweh doesn’t know the future, however there are other concepts of God wrt to time, which you fail to take into account:

BA77: Since God created time (and space) it follows that there is no moment of time in the future that God can not have complete knowledge of. For God, being completely transcendent of time and space, it is simply nonsensical to hold that there is some hypothetical moment in the future that He does not have complete access to and knowledge of. The transcendent omnipresence, and omniscience, of God simply leaves no room, indeed CAN leave no room, for some ‘experiment’ that He ‘performs’ that He does not know the future outcome of.

VJTorley: But if you accept a Boethian account of free will, as I do, then it doesn’t follow. On this account, God is timeless, but His knowledge is that of a spectator.

You may also want to read this article at the Stanford website.

Mapou: All I’m saying is that, if God knows the entire future of the universe including what he’ll be doing in that future, then he is an impotent God who can never change his mind.

It doesn’t follow. A timeless God can make free choices.

Mapou: PS. “outside-time-perspective” is also nonsense since time is an abstract concept.

If that is the case, then it’s rather surprising that your Yahweh, who according to you consists of billions upon billions of individuals, is constrained by a mere “abstract concept” and cannot access the future. Box

Box:

What you don’t seem to get is that seeing the future does not imply causing the future. Those actions are entirely distinct. Similarly I know that the sun will rise tomorrow, but I don’t cause the sun to rise. So, assuming that an outside-time-perspective exists, why should things be “already determined” when seen by God? You seem to hold that God must determine the future if God sees the future. It doesn’t follow.

I don't hold this at all and this is not my argument. It's a strawman of your own making. All I'm saying is that, if God knows the entire future of the universe including what he'll be doing in that future, then he is an impotent God who can never change his mind. This argument has nothing to do with causing the future. It has to do with determinism and omniscience. If God knows the future, the future is already determined by logical necessity. It's nonsense, of course. But since you mentioned causes, let me add that my God (Yahweh) does not know the future. However, he can cause the future to happen the way he wants if he so chooses. And he can also change his mind. PS. "outside-time-perspective" is also nonsense since time is an abstract concept. Mapou

Aleta, funny you claim that

"it is a mistake for people, such as Ben Goren did, to bother to try to find “logical” problems with God, because it implies that there might be logical answers that solve the problem."

Yet you take no notice that you, i.e. the atheist, are the one who is holding that there is no real rhyme or reason, i.e. logic, for why the universe exists in the first place.

“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Before you claim that there is no logic for God, should you not at least have a worldview that you can be able to ground logic in in the first place? Exactly how is logic and reasoning to be grounded in a worldview that insists that everything arose without any real rhyme or reason? To presuppose that the universe can be understood through logic and reason is to presuppose that there is logic and reasoning behind the universe to be understood in the first place. The atheistic/materialistic worldview is incoherent as to providing a rational foundation for practicing science in that it presupposes no logic or reason behind the universe. All of which explains, number one, why there were no atheists at the founding of modern science,, and which, number two, also explains why the atheistic explanations for how the universe came into being, and for how our conscious selves came into being, both wind up in epistemological failure (Boltzmann's Brain, Plantinga's EAAN, also see Nagel.)

“If you do not assume the law of non-contradiction, you have nothing to argue about. If you do not assume the principles of sound reason, you have nothing to argue with. If you do not assume libertarian free will, you have no one to argue against. If you do not assume morality to be an objective commodity, you have no reason to argue in the first place.” - William J Murray The Great Debate: Does God Exist? - Justin Holcomb - audio of the 1985 Greg Bahnsen debate available at the bottom of the site Excerpt: The transcendental proof for God’s existence is that without Him it is impossible to prove anything. The atheist worldview is irrational and cannot consistently provide the preconditions of intelligible experience, science, logic, or morality. The atheist worldview cannot allow for laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, the ability for the mind to understand the world, and moral absolutes. In that sense the atheist worldview cannot account for our debate tonight.,,, http://justinholcomb.com/2012/01/17/the-great-debate-does-god-exist/

Verse:

John1:1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." of note: ‘the Word’ in John1:1 is translated from ‘Logos’ in Greek. Logos is also the root word from which we derive our modern word logic http://etymonline.com/?term=logic

Of supplemental note:

“It always bothers me that in spite of all this local business, what goes on in a tiny, no matter how tiny, region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time, according to laws as we understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out. Now how can all that be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one stinky tiny bit of space-time is going to do?" - Richard Feynman – one of the founding fathers of QED (Quantum Electrodynamics) Quote taken from the 6:45 minute mark of the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obCjODeoLVw

I don’t know about Feynman, but as for myself, being a Christian Theist, I find it rather comforting to know that it takes an ‘infinite amount of logic to figure out what one stinky tiny bit of space-time is going to do’: bornagain77

Severesky writes, "And has no one noticed that the reason apologetics are such a thriving field in Christian scholarship is because there is so much in Christian theology that demands explanation and justification." I think it's worse than that. I think it is a mistake for people, such as Ben Goren did, to bother to try to find "logical" problems with God, because it implies that there might be logical answers that solve the problem. However, the whole idea of a omni-everything divine being taken an interest in, and in some way being responsibility for, the actions of people, is a logically untenable story that people have made up. Since it is made up, people can go through endless rationalizations to try to make it make sense without there being any reality to ground their speculations in. It is all "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" type of stuff. The simplest answer to the questions in the opening post is that there is no God, especially of the God/Jesus type of Christianity, so the questions and points made by Ben Goren are meaningless. Aleta

Severesky @ 8:

And has no one noticed that the reason apologetics are such a thriving field in Christian scholarship is because there is so much in Christian theology that demands explanation and justification.

Actually, it's because the world is full of people who make it their hobby to come up with excuse after excuse after excuse for ignoring what God has said. Some of us choose to answer these excuses so that those who make them are without excuse.

In other words, for a perfect and omniscient being, God has apparently done a very poor job of communicating His intentions, beliefs and rationales.

Actually, He is perfectly clear when He wants us to know exactly what He expects of us. EvilSnack

Some things are written in a simple language for a certain age. Others are not. As the prophet Daniel wrote, a time would come when knowledge would increase. The time has arrived for us to understand the difficult things. I have excellent reasons to believe that some of the metaphorical books in the Bible contains revolutionary scientific knowledge that will shake the foundation of human civilization. Get ready to live in interesting times.

Sounds like you have a hankerin' for the Sinularity. But until I see it (and it turns out to not be a living nightmare for everyone), I'm going to have to reason from what we have, which are finite minds whose understanding is not able to fully comprehend the things its Maker can. EDTA

Since God created time (and space) it follows that there is no moment of time in the future that God can not have complete knowledge of. For God, being completely transcendent of time and space, it is simply nonsensical to hold that there is some hypothetical moment in the future that He does not have complete access to and knowledge of. The transcendent omnipresence, and omniscience, of God simply leaves no room, indeed CAN leave no room, for some 'experiment' that He 'performs' that He does not know the future outcome of. Exhibit A - The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ before time began:

2 Timothy 1:9 who hath saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but in accordance with His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the world began, 1 Peter 1:20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.

In fact, prophecy, i.e. knowing exactly what will happen in the future, is one of the ways that was used to test whether a prophet was from God on not. If what a prophet said was found to be false the punishment for his false prophecy, in old testament days, was death. (of personal note: I heard one Christian, who was fed up with all the false prophets now-a-days, quip that maybe we ought to bring that particular old testament punishment back :) )

Psalm 139:16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Isaiah 46:9-10 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:

Although many Christians reference the prophecies surrounding Jesus Christ to support the authenticity of the prophetic claims of the Bible...

The King Jesus (A Precise Mathematical Prediction) Excerpt: Here are the calculations. March 14th, 445 B.C. to March 14th, 32 A.D. is 476 years. (1 B.C. to 1 A.D. is one year, There is no year zero) 476 years x 365 days per year = 173,740 days Add for leap years = 116 days (Leap years do not occur in century years unless divisible by 400 [therefore, we must add three less leap years in four centuries]) March 14th to April 6 th = 24 days total = 173,880 How could Daniel have known this in advance? How could anyone have contrived to have this detailed prediction documented over three centuries in advance? http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/m.sion/kjesenpr.htm The Case for Jesus the Messiah — Incredible Prophecies that Prove God Exists By Dr. John Ankerberg, Dr. John Weldon, and Dr. Walter Kaiser, Jr. Excerpt: But, of course, there are many more than eight prophecies. In another calculation Stoner used 48 prophecies (even though he could have used 456) and arrived at the extremely conservative estimate that the probability of 48 prophecies being fulfilled in one person is one in 10^157. How large is the number 10^157? 10^157 contains 157 zeros! Let us try to illustrate this number using electrons. Electrons are very small objects. They are smaller than atoms. It would take 2.5 times 10^15 of them, laid side by side, to make one inch. Even if we counted four electrons every second and counted day and night, it would still take us 19 million years just to count a line of electrons one inch long. But how many electrons would it take if we were dealing with 10^157 electrons? Imagine building a solid ball of electrons that would extend in all directions from the earth a length of 6 billion light years. The distance in miles of just one light year is 6.4 trillion miles. That would be a big ball! But not big enough to measure 10^157 electrons. In order to do that, you must take that big ball of electrons reaching the length of 6 billion light years long in all directions and multiply it by 6 x 10^28! How big is that? It’s the length of the space required to store trillions and trillions and trillions of the same gigantic balls and more. In fact, the space required to store all of these balls combined together would just start to “scratch the surface” of the number of electrons we would need to really accurately speak about 10^157. But assuming you have some idea of the number of electrons we are talking about, now imagine marking just one of those electrons in that huge number. Stir them all up. Then appoint one person to travel in a rocket for as long as he wants, anywhere he wants to go. Tell him to stop and segment a part of space, then take a high-powered microscope and find that one marked electron in that segment. What do you think his chances of being successful would be? It would be one in 10^157. Remember, this number represents the chance of only 48 prophecies coming true in one person (there are 456 total prophecies concerning Jesus). http://www.johnankerberg.org/Articles/ATRJ/proof/ATRJ1103PDF/ATRJ1103-3.pdf 'Other than Christ, no other religious leader was foretold a thousand years before he arrived, nor was anything said about where he would be born, why he would come, how he would live, and when he would die. No other religious leader claimed to be God, or performed miracles, or rose from the dead. No other religious leader grounded his doctrine in historical facts. No other religious leader declared his person to be even more important than his teachings.' - StephenB - UD Blogger

Although many Christians reference the prophecies surrounding Jesus Christ to support the authenticity of the prophetic claims of the Bible, I feel a better evidence establishing the authenticity of the prophecies in the Bible comes from referencing the main prophecy that has come to pass in our own generation. Namely the precisely fulfilled prophetic restoration of the Jewish people to their homeland:

Is Modern Israel Fulfilling Prophecy? - Thomas Ice Excerpt: There are dozens of biblical passages that predict an end-time regathering of Israel back to her land. http://www.pre-trib.org/data/pdf/Ice-IsModernIsraelFulfill.pdf Luke 21:24 They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. The time span from the rebirth of Israel as a nation in 1948 to the 6 Day War in 1967 is 19 years. The time from the loss of independence in 606 B.C. to the time of the loss of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. was also 19 years. Was the recapture of Jerusalem in 1967 also prophesied? (Short Answer,, Yes!) http://xwalk.ca/y3nf.html Restoration Of Israel and Jerusalem In Prophecy - Chuck Missler (Doing The Math) – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/8598581/

Although Missler said that he cheated and ‘backed into the calculation’, none-the-less, archaeological evidence is found that supports his calculation:

Bible Prophecy Fulfilled - Israel 1948 - article Excerpt: Although July 15, 537 B.C. can not be verified by outside sources as the exact day of Cyrus's proclamation, we do know that 537 B.C. was the year in which he made it. As such, we can know for certain that the Bible, in one of the most remarkable prophecies in history, accurately foresaw the year of Israel's restoration as an independent nation some two thousand five hundred years before the event occurred. http://brittgillette.com/WordPress/?p=16 SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT Excerpt "In late years several cuneiform tablets have been discovered pertaining to the fall of Babylon which peg both Biblical and secular historic dates. The one tablet known as the "Nabunaid Chronicle" gives the date for the fall of Babylon which specialists have ascertained as being October 12-13, 539 B.C., Julian Calendar, or October 6-7, 539 B.C., according to our present Gregorian Calendar. This tablet also says that Cyrus made his triumphant entry into Babylon 16 days after its fall to his army. Thus his accession year commenced in October, 539 B.C. However, in another cuneiform tablet called "Strassmaier, Cyrus No. 11" Cyrus’ first regnal year is mentioned and was determined to have begun March 17-18, 538 B.C., and to have concluded March 4-5, 537 B.C. It was in this first regnal year of Cyrus that he issued his decree to permit the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. (Ezra 1:1) The decree may have been made in late 538 B.C. or before March 4-5, 537 B.C. In either case this would have given sufficient time for the large party of 49,897 Jews to organize their expedition and to make their long four-month journey from Babylon to Jerusalem to get there by September 29-30, 537 B.C., the first of the seventh Jewish month, to build their altar to Jehovah as recorded at Ezra 3:1-3. Inasmuch as September 29-30, 537 B.C., officially ends the seventy years of desolation as recorded at 2 Chronicles 36:20, 21, so the beginning of the desolation of the land must have officially begun to be counted after September 21-22, 607 B.C., the first of the seventh Jewish month in 607 B.C., which is the beginning point for the counting of the 2,520 years." http://onlytruegod.org/jwstrs/537vs539.htm

As to the paradox of our having free will and God's omniscience, I found this Tim Keller sermon to be very helpful.

Does God Control Everything - Tim Keller - (God's sovereignty and our free will, how do they mesh?) - video (12:00 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkQ6ld8dn7I

As to the argument from evil, does not that entire argument melt away when the Cross of Christ is taken into consideration? Certainly if God spared not his own Son through suffering

2 Corinthians 4:17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. The Contradiction of the Cross “On the cross, our false dependencies are revealed. On the cross, our illusions are killed off. On the cross, our small self dies so that the true self, the God-given self, can emerge. On the cross, we give up the fantasy that we are in control, and the death of this fantasy is central to acceptance. The cross is, above all, a place of powerlessness. Here is the final proof that our own feeble powers can no more alter life’s trajectory than a magnet can pull down the moon. Here is the death of the ego, of the self that insists on being in charge, the self that continually tries to impose its own idea of order and righteousness on the world. The cross is a place of contradiction. For the powerlessness of the cross, if fully embraced, takes us to a place of power. This is the great mystery at the heart of the Christian faith, from Jesus to Martin Luther King Jr., the mystery of the power of powerlessness. As long as I am preoccupied with the marshaling of my own feeble powers, there will be no way for God’s power to flow through me. As long as I am getting in my own way, I cannot live in the power of God’s way.” – Parker Palmer, The Promise of Paradox, Pg 46-47

bornagain77

The only question now is should I call the emergency services if I am first on the scene of a disaster when many lives are in danger? Before acting on such an occasion, It can be helpful to ask oneself, WWJD? - Apparently, what Jesus would do would be to delegate the Job of making the call to Lucifer, the Evil One, who hates Humans and will go out of his way to harm them, perhaps by prank-calling 911 and sending them off on some wild goose chase. So I guess I should delegate to Lucifer as well. I can't see any problem with that. There's also the problem that Jesus may be standing by while these people die horribly and go on to eternal suffering in Hell at the hands of God's Mr Telephone (assuming they are not Christians), because everything ultimately works out better this way (*). You know, like it did for the victims of the Holocaust and everyone on BA77's list of atheist atrocities. If I acted to save one person in any of these situations, for all I know, I could be making things much worse. The best thing is probably to do nothing; If it's better for people to die then it would be remiss of me to help save them. How can I know what the best action is? I can't, but if I do nothing and God doesn't step in with some miracle then I guess my choice of inaction will have been vindicated. OTOH, maybe I was supposed to help but didn't, but then God gets to throw that in my face before he sends me to join them in hell after my death. Well worth any discomfort on their part I should think. I like the idea that somebody may be refused the help they desperately seek because a distant ancestor didn't want every minute detail of his life dictated to them by God: "Back off God, I want to choose my own curtains". I don't like wearing hats so let me state for the record that no descendant of mine for ten thousand generations is ever going to be allowed to wear a hat or any sort of protective headgear or receive emergency help in the case of a head trauma unless it's from Satan, their appointed representative and enemy - Unless they pray for help, in which case their prayers will be successfully answered with a polite (and silent) "no" (and maybe tumbleweed) and a squishing. It saddens me that Jesus is unable to communicate with Human emergency service dispatchers because they can't hear his voice. Maybe we should club together and buy him one of those Stephen Hawking electric speaky gizmos which he operates using a single switch by moving his cheek. (*) Although I know of one Christian, BarryA, who does not accept such arguments. steveh

Hi Eugen, That was a very interesting scenario about the cellular automata. I enjoyed reading it. Thank you. vjtorley

Hi Dennis, Thank you for your very insightful comment:

I suggest one more assumption overlooked by Mr Goren, i.e., that God may already be intervening in many ways of which we are unaware. We may be seeing only unavoidable situations in which competing priorities make God’s intervention unwise, and even in those God may be working to lessen the blow.

tjguy, Thanks very much for that story from "American Minute" about the providential deliverance of Washington's army. I hadn't known about that episode. The event calls to mind Tennyson's aphorism: "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." vjtorley

Hi Seversky, Thank you for your comments. You write:

God is supposed to be omniscient. That means he already knows the outcome of any experiment we can think of – and that includes how people respond to suffering and evil.

Actually, that only follows if you accept either a predestinationist (Calvinist/Banezian) or Molinist account of free will. (In the latter account, God knows all counterfactuals.) But if you accept a Boethian account of free will, as I do, then it doesn't follow. On this account, God is timeless, but His knowledge is that of a spectator. So God cannot know the outcome of an experiment involving free creatures (such as ourselves), unless He actually performs it. vjtorley

Axel, would you please elaborate? Box

Worse, Box, imo, is that you and Mapou make no allowance for paradox re free will. Axel

Imagine for a moment this scenario.  Programmer creates cellular automata world on a computer. Little creatures and their world  are just patterns of electronic signals moving around the memory grid. He may make himself coffee and display the patterns so he can watch what's happening. Even though software rules he established are very simple emerging patterns become complex and unpredictable. Automata become conscious and intelligent and start learning about the world.  Automata scientists figure that everything is made of electrons which move around in bunches and follow simple rules built into the grid. They can count number of electrons in any bunch down to high precision. They develop ways to accelerate electrons and smash them around to see what happens. Automata scientists find the latest little pathway on a memory grid. They see that everything is stable, orderly and predictable in their reality. Automata philosophers start asking tough questions: If the Creator exists what are his intentions? Atheist automata ask: Would he call 911 for me? Theist automata say: you should do it yourself and stop whining, you will die sooner or later anyway. What could automata be able to say about programmer? Could they observe programmer with their science or even imagine how to describe him? Where is the programmer? How he looks and behaves? Does he eat, dream or is he ever going to pull the plug? The simple answer is no, we don't know his plan or intentions. There is no way for automata to cross to another domain/realm to observe or study the programmer. I cannot think of any probe or experiment they could setup to cross the barrier. Wise ones notice the rules which provide stability and orderliness to their world. They also see that combination of rules + some freedom is the optimum setup for their world.  They realize there is something amazing going on but nobody is sure what. Eugen

Mapou: Seversky is correct about this omniscience thing. It’s all silly crackpottery from people who have not thought it through or are just dogmatic believers who are set in their ways.

That’s rich coming from you. I already exposed your erroneous reasoning in another thread.

Mapou: the point is that, if God can see all past, present and future, there is no free will. It’s already determined. But since there is free will, God cannot see all past, present and future. It’s one or the other. There is no getting around this. It’s trivial logic and no one has to be a propeller head in order to understand it.

What you don’t seem to get is that seeing the future does not imply causing the future. Those actions are entirely distinct. Similarly I know that the sun will rise tomorrow, but I don’t cause the sun to rise. So, assuming that an outside-time-perspective exists, why should things be “already determined” when seen by God? You seem to hold that God must determine the future if God sees the future. It doesn’t follow. Box

EDTA:

You seem to be making the same presumption that others make, namely that if God were real, he could/should just sit us down, and explain every factor, every contingency, every mitigating circumstance to us, and we would be capable of fully understanding it, and would accept it as reasonable. There is no reason to believe that any of that is the case.

If we don't understand it now, we'll understand it later. We learn and we increase our knowledge, just like the Gods. Heck, we are Gods. So say the scriptures.

The conclusion here is that that the Bible, and any other communication to us from on high has to be a watered-down, simplified version of the actual truth.

Ha. Some things are written in a simple language for a certain age. Others are not. As the prophet Daniel wrote, a time would come when knowledge would increase. The time has arrived for us to understand the difficult things. I have excellent reasons to believe that some of the metaphorical books in the Bible contains revolutionary scientific knowledge that will shake the foundation of human civilization. Get ready to live in interesting times. Mapou

Mapau,

It’s all silly crackpottery from people who have not thought it through or are just dogmatic believers who are set in their ways.

I have thought quite a bit about this, and as the finite and inferior beings at the table, we suffer from a lack of information (among other lackings). We're not omniscient. How then can we know that we are even aware of all the variables? We cannot. You seem to be making the same presumption that others make, namely that if God were real, he could/should just sit us down, and explain every factor, every contingency, every mitigating circumstance to us, and we would be capable of fully understanding it, and would accept it as reasonable. There is no reason to believe that any of that is the case. Yet the skeptics continue to insist that anything they are asked to accept must make perfect sense to them, as if we mortals are the final judge. (The implicit assumption there is that all the God stuff is myth invented by man. If that were the case, then it _could_ be fully explained and understood by mortals.) The conclusion here is that that the Bible, and any other communication to us from on high has to be a watered-down, simplified version of the actual truth. Again, using my analogy from above, when explaining something to a 3-year old, it is necessary to simplify, simplify, simplify. Many important details may have to be left out of the explanation. We see a 2-D shadow; the real object is hidden from us. We read the abstract, but the full article is behind a paywall. (I'm clearly running out of analogies.) Logic is logic, but there may be additional information/circumstances/factors that we are not aware of nor even able to sense or comprehend. Therefore we cannot factor it all into our logic. EDTA

What do we call 911 for? Do we call it when a mosquito bites us? Do we call it when we see someone gets dissed by another? Do we call it when there is trash on the lot next to a store? Why not? Their trivial. But what separates these from the situation where one sees a group of young men attacking an older man on the street? From a situation where a man is raping a 12 year old girl? From the systematci killing of an ethnic group? And from our famous example here, the torturing of a a baby? Is there a line between what is egregious and what is not? If so what is it? Are these later examples, trivial too? In the total scheme of things for the Christian God, are not even these more harsh things trivial? After all this world is only a stepping stone. Where should God step in? Or should he ever? ----------------------- But what happens when God steps in? What will our existence be like if God did step in? And it was obvious? ------------- Leibniz once said that this if the best of all possible worlds and by that he did not mean life on this planet alone but our entire existence. We just don't know why it is the best? But maybe we could understand more about why it is the best, if we start from the assumption that it is the best and then maybe we could understand why it is and then why God would never make an obvious call to 911. jerry

Folks, I'm neither atheist nor materialist but Seversky is correct about this omniscience thing. It's all silly crackpottery from people who have not thought it through or are just dogmatic believers who are set in their ways. We, too, are Gods and were made in the image of the Gods. So says the Bible (just in case you are Christian). Human civilization will steadily increase in knowledge for eons until we become just as knowledgeable as the original Gods who created the universe. We're just babes in training for now. Besides, there isn't an incomprehensible logic for the immortal Gods and a lesser logic for us mortals. That's ridiculous. Logic is logic. One more thing. An omnipotent and omniscient God cannot regret his decisions. The God of the Bible does. Live with it. Mapou

Seversky:

That’s what I was taught but it doesnn’t make any sense.

It makes perfect sense.

God is supposed to be omniscient.

God is not beholden to our definitions. Also God would know ALL possible outcomes with free will providing the contingency. Nothing is set in stone. Virgil Cain

Virgil Cain @ 10

I was taught that the point of suffering and evil was to see how people responded to it- as a show of character of sorts.

That’s what I was taught but it doesnn’t make any sense. We run tests like that because we don’t know for sure what the outcome is going to be. If we did we wouldn’t do the experiment because there’d be no need. God is supposed to be omniscient. That means he already knows the outcome of any experiment we can think of - and that includes how people respond to suffering and evil. That explanation of why there is suffering and evil simply doesn’t work if God is omniscient. Seversky

F/N: A 101 on the challenge of evil, per Boethius, Zacharias and Plantinga, with a bit of Plato tossed in too: http://nicenesystheol.blogspot.com/2010/11/unit-2-gospel-on-mars-hill-foundations.html#u2_gdvsevl KF kairosfocus

I was taught that the point of suffering and evil was to see how people responded to it- as a show of character of sorts. Virgil Cain

Because he's Jewish and the emergency numbers in Israel are different. Roy

An omniscient being cannot change his mind. He is impotent to do so because he knows what he's going to do in advance. If he changes his mind and does something else, then he's not omniscient. Think about it. Omniscience is an illogical concept. So is omnipotence but that's a different topic. Mapou

Ben Goren makes the same mistake all believers in the "God can not be all good and all powerful if suffering exists..." fallacy. Ben is a time bound being and he can't know the final outcome. How can he tell when temporal suffering is good and when it is bad. He can't. For to make an accurate adjudication would require him to be eternal in time. To prove this I will appeal to some common sense that I know is held to by every person by how they behave. The behavior of all people shows that they will take onto themselves suffering for a greater good. So people choose to work, choose to exercise, choose to practice music, choose to go to school... they choose to do any number of (at the time) painful things in order to gain more at the end. This behavior is so universal it is found in every society. The concept and practice of suffering now to achieve a greater good later is universal. So why should someone like Ben Goren be surprised that the all powerful and all good God allows suffering to happen so that a greater good may be achieved. After all, God allowed His Son to withstand the true agony of the cross, that He might deliver all from the penalty of sin. These are truths that Ben Goren is willingly ignorant of. I heartily invite Mr. Goren to drop his willing ignorance and believe the truth. JDH

Jesus doesn't call 911 because he is on the main line. Duh. Mung

Jesus was the 911 answer. It was a big call. Also God is always stopping problems. He just can't stop them all because of the problem that led to Jesus being the 911 answer. Its an equation. Robert Byers

Seversky @ 8:

...for a perfect and omniscient being, God has apparently done a very poor job of communicating His intentions, beliefs and rationales.

This makes the assumption that God's intentions, beliefs and rationales are fully comprehensible to us. That is a huge assumption on which many atheist arguments rest, but one for which there is no justification at all. In fact, if there is (merely) a _superior_ being, then it would have to be the case that some things known to Him are beyond our ability to comprehend. As an analogy, a 3-year old does not understand why they have to get a shot at the doctor's office. In fact, they are not yet capable of fully comprehending why it is necessary. But it is necessary. All they know is that it will hurt. I can see one quick argument coming my way at this point: "But we (humanity) have done a pretty good job of understanding things so far!" How do you know that? How could you possibly prove that you (or all humanity, or at least one individual) have comprehended everything we've encountered so far? Not epistemically possible. People who argue against God always assume (always as a suppressed premise, I've found) that we would be capable of comprehending absolutely everything and anything that might be the case. Human hubris at its most extensive! Sorry. All arguments that depend on this assumption fail. EDTA

Seversky:

What would be the point? If they are omniscient, any such deity would already know what was going to happen. In fact they would have known since the beginning of time so they could have sent a message by carrier pigeon or a letter or an email alerting the emergency services well in advance if they’d wanted to. The question, as always, is, if such a being or beings exist, why didn’t they want to?

This is an excellent question that most Christians cannot answer because they are taught to believe in an omnipotent and omniscient God. But it's a heresy and a form of idolatry IMO, i.e., the work of the devil. Such a God cannot possibly exist and the concept if falsified in the Bible. It's a concept that was introduced to Christianity by Catholic medieval thinkers in those days when they had serious discussions about the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin. Mapou

The anti-God crowd want a universe where there is no suffering, just pleasure. Everything should be easy and never hard. Coyne's God would never have created pain sensors, only pleasure sensors. The problem is that we live in a Yin Yang universe and there is no way around it. You can't have Yin without Yang. Not even an all-powerful God could create just a Yin or a Yang universe. This is the lesson Yahweh wants us to learn but Jerry Coyne et al cannot learn this lesson because they are forever crybabies, a bunch of wussies, really. Yahweh, too, must have gone through his share of suffering over the eons. There is no escaping this. We, humans, are being initiated into the company of Gods. Mapou

Dennis says:

I suggest one more assumption overlooked by Mr Goren, i.e., that God may already be intervening in many ways of which we are unaware. We may be seeing only unavoidable situations in which competing priorities make God’s intervention unwise, and even in those God may be working to lessen the blow.

Exactly what I was thinking Dennis! Besides, why would God need to call 911? After all, He is God! He could save the person with a miracle if He so chose. Sometimes He works through humans - often times - but sometimes He alters the weather, supernaturally protects, helps people in trouble make the right choice by giving wisdom, or who knows what else! Recently, I read a very interesting story about how God intervened to save George Washington and the Revolutionary Army at one point in the war when they were trapped on an island. The skeptic will say it was just coincidence - he's welcome to his opinion - but General Washington knew it was God answering their prayers. Here was what Washington wrote after that supernatural deliverance:

Washington wrote later that year, Aug. 20, 1778: “Undergoing the strangest vicissitudes that perhaps ever attended any one contest since the creation … the Hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this – the course of the war – that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith. … But it will be time enough for me to turn Preacher when my present appointment ceases.”

You can read about the incident here: http://www.americanminute.com/index.php?date=08-27 Goren's argument is simply another version of the "God can't be both good and all powerful if He allows so much suffering in the world" argument. The other thing to remember here is that we often clearly see the instances when God does not deliver people from trouble, pain, and suffering. But I don't think we are often aware of the times He does protect us. If God were to protect you from an accident by inspiring you to take a different route to work one day, would you ever know that? Sometimes His protection is clearly visible as in George Washington's case, but other times we are protected without ever even being aware of it. Goren and his skeptic friends have a very man centered view of God - as if His sole reason for existing is to make man's life comfortable and smooth. If so, then his conclusion that "God" does not exist is accurate! The existence of great suffering in the world is not an easy one to understand and I don't pretend to be God or to be able to explain it all, but like Job, a man in the midst of dire suffering, said in response to his wife who wanted him to curse God and die, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (meaning not moral evil of course, but trials.) Goren speaks as one of the foolish scoffers would speak. He doesn't understand who God is and he tries to defame him by painting Him to be someone He is not. Anyway, why would God, the Creator of the universe, need to call 911? A silly thought! There are any number of ways He works to save people, but those are not good enough for this guy. If God doesn't do it his way, and if God doesn't help everyone all the time, then well, the obvious conclusion for this guy is that He doesn't exist. Everyone is welcome to their own opinion, Goren included, but many of us see things differently. We do not answer to him, but to God. If our answers/opinions/beliefs do not satisfy him, so be it. His opinions/answers/beliefs as a skeptic in defending his worldview do not satisfy us either. tjguy

Or we have done a poor job at listening and understanding what they are. Why does a perfect and omniscient being "need" to be more obvious. What is obvious enough? Just another "I wouldn't do it that way, therefore God doesn't exist". Placing expectations on something one doesn't believe must be difficult. Seems to me there is plenty of evidence, and God does do enough, not always in ways we understand or would like. That doesn't mean he doesn't exist. If someone is going to argue against the existence of God, do better than "I wouldn't do it that way". Pretty arrogant way of thinking. At least use an argument that is difficult to understand, say evil in the world. scottH

Over at Why Evolution Is True, New Atheist Professor Jerry Coyne has posted a letter he received from one of his regular readers, Ben Goren, regarding a major theological flaw which (he claims) undermines not only Christianity, but any religion that worships a God (or gods) who is both omniscient and good: why doesn’t such a being (or beings) assist the police, firefighters and ambulance workers by calling 911 whenever someone is in danger?

What would be the point? If they are omniscient, any such deity would already know what was going to happen. In fact they would have known since the beginning of time so they could have sent a message by carrier pigeon or a letter or an email alerting the emergency services well in advance if they'd wanted to. The question, as always, is, if such a being or beings exist, why didn't they want to? And has no one noticed that the reason apologetics are such a thriving field in Christian scholarship is because there is so much in Christian theology that demands explanation and justification. In other words, for a perfect and omniscient being, God has apparently done a very poor job of communicating His intentions, beliefs and rationales. Seversky

You missed his key assumption which is that God actually never called 911. How could anyone tell if an anonymous caller wasn't an angel or a human calling on God's request/command or even God himself. Even if he'd mention his name the callee'd hardly take that serious, so there really is no reliable data to base that assumption on. Sebestyen Sebestyen

Just another garbled rehash of the theodicy complaint. Here's another insightful article by Mark Shea not without relevance to this thread: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/mark-shea/monsters.-moralists-and-happiness/ Axel

I suggest one more assumption overlooked by Mr Goren, i.e., that God may already be intervening in many ways of which we are unaware. We may be seeing only unavoidable situations in which competing priorities make God's intervention unwise, and even in those God may be working to lessen the blow. DennisM

Whiny Atheists need to HTFU. If you want to live in a perfect world, you have to earn it. Salvation of the Fittest grrrr. "Why doesn't Jesus call 911 waaaa". What an ingrate. ppolish

Another in a long line of "God should do what I would do...maybe" objections. lpadron

semi related. I was impressed with this sermon from pastor Tim Keller last night as I listened to it. But then again many of his sermons are very good. I have come to respect him as one of the best pastors of our day. Tim Keller - The Terrifying and Beckoning God - sermon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6tnnU_wUi8 bornagain77

(iv) the assumption that there are no “privileged members” of the human race who have the prerogative of deciding, on behalf of humanity as a whole, whether (and to what degree) God should offer assistance to individuals in distress who call upon his name for help;

Is that not a reasonable assumption? Maybe it's the fact that I attend a Protestant church that makes the idea of such "privileged members" seem very strange. (To be clear, I am an atheist). daveS