Which would you choose?

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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AlexW
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Re: Which would you choose?

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Gary Childress wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 4:02 am That's a good question. How do we know God is the God of the Deists or Bible or Koran or any of that stuff? Maybe God's justice isn't what we think it is. And maybe it's not something we would want. I think if God is the master or supreme ruler of everything that is, then I would think whatever God determines is Justice I should accept. I mean, I would have no choice but to accept it if there is a God. But I've lived a good life and some haven't so I hope those who haven't get a chance to live good lives too or at least get some reward or reciprocity in an afterlife or whatever.
I like what you are saying - you seem to be a kind person - there should be more out there like you.

Problem is: Life turns "you" into a good and happy person or it doesn't - it might turn you into a unhappy, bad person... but was it your choice?
I doubt it very much... otherwise we would all be good and happy :-)

Was it God's choice? Again, I doubt it very much... it simply is as it is - no specific reason for it (besides that we are actually able to reflect about what happens - a bee, being killed by a hornet wouldn't feel that this behaviour is unjust - it would simply attempt to defend its hive and then die... thats all)
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Re: Which would you choose?

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AlexW wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 4:07 am
Gary Childress wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 4:02 am That's a good question. How do we know God is the God of the Deists or Bible or Koran or any of that stuff? Maybe God's justice isn't what we think it is. And maybe it's not something we would want. I think if God is the master or supreme ruler of everything that is, then I would think whatever God determines is Justice I should accept. I mean, I would have no choice but to accept it if there is a God. But I've lived a good life and some haven't so I hope those who haven't get a chance to live good lives too or at least get some reward or reciprocity in an afterlife or whatever.
I like what you are saying - you seem to be a kind person - there should be more out there like you.

Problem is: Life turns "you" into a good and happy person or it doesn't - it might turn you into a unhappy, bad person... but was it your choice?
I doubt it very much... otherwise we would all be good and happy :-)

Was it God's choice? Again, I doubt it very much... it simply is as it is - no specific reason for it (besides that we are actually able to reflect about what happens - a bee, being killed by a hornet wouldn't feel that this behaviour is unjust - it would simply attempt to defend its hive and then die... thats all)
You have a good point. As the saying goes, "there but for the grace of God go I." So yes, I could have turned out to be an unhappy person or a bad person (assuming I'm not a bad person now), perhaps depending upon circumstances out of my control. But if that were to happen, then it's my hope that there would be reciprocity for me too, a chance to have some happiness either here or in an afterlife. I would also hope that there is a way to forgiveness for those who were bad, perhaps pay a penalty, and then be redeemed. I think Lacewing makes a good point about forgiveness.

In the end, it would be nice to be one big happy family in an afterlife. Where all of us are made morally whole again after the various fortunes of existence have taken their toll.
AlexW
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Re: Which would you choose?

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Gary Childress wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 4:26 am In the end, it would be nice to be one big happy family in an afterlife. Where all of us are made morally whole again after the various fortunes of existence have taken their toll.
Sure, would be nice... but I doubt this will happen to the individual person (otherwise heaven would be filling up fast) - I rather think that the idea of being separate from "God" in the first place (as well as other ideas) will simply fall away and there will be only oneness (not a person becoming one with God but rather the idea of being a person "dying"/falling away and only God being left)
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Re: Which would you choose?

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AlexW wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 4:30 am
Gary Childress wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 4:26 am In the end, it would be nice to be one big happy family in an afterlife. Where all of us are made morally whole again after the various fortunes of existence have taken their toll.
Sure, would be nice... but I doubt this will happen to the individual person (otherwise heaven would be filling up fast) - I rather think that the idea of being separate from "God" in the first place (as well as other ideas) will simply fall away and there will be only oneness (not a person becoming one with God but rather the idea of being a person "dying"/falling away and only God being left)
That's certainly possible too. Or perhaps we become unified with God in a oneness. A lot of mystics have talked about "oneness" with God. I don't know what it means but it seems to be an interesting trend that, according to Walter Stace, appears in mysticism in many otherwise disparate religions and cultures.
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Re: Which would you choose?

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Gary Childress wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 4:33 am That's certainly possible too. Or perhaps we become unified with God in a oneness. A lot of mystics have talked about "oneness" with God. I don't know what it means but it seems to be an interesting trend that, according to Walter Stace, appears in many cultures.
In a mystical sense, oneness with God, means to simply be here now without the slightest idea of a separate "me" being here/now - what is left is God/reality itself.

It is similar to how young children operate and how adults again can operate once the have understood what the separate person actually is.

By the way: The statement "unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" - points to this "truth".
Giving up (or rather: seeing through) the idea of being a special/important person, being like a child, without attachment to ego, is the key to the kingdom of heaven which is always already here/now.
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Re: Which would you choose?

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AlexW wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 4:40 am
Gary Childress wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 4:33 am That's certainly possible too. Or perhaps we become unified with God in a oneness. A lot of mystics have talked about "oneness" with God. I don't know what it means but it seems to be an interesting trend that, according to Walter Stace, appears in many cultures.
In a mystical sense, oneness with God, means to simply be here now without the slightest idea of a separate "me" being here/now - what is left is God/reality itself.

It is similar to how young children operate and how adults again can operate once the have understood what the separate person actually is.

By the way: The statement "unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" - points to this "truth".
Giving up (or rather: seeing through) the idea of being a special/important person, being like a child, without attachment to ego, is the key to the kingdom of heaven which is always already here/now.
That's interesting. I didn't know that. It's been a while since I read some of Stace's descriptions of how mystics describe "oneness" with God.
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Re: Which would you choose?

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Gary Childress wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 4:45 am That's interesting. I didn't know that. It's been a while since I read some of Stace's descriptions of how mystics describe "oneness" with God.
Well... I guess everyone describes it differently... often there is a mention of bliss and peace, but I think it is important to understand that "oneness" with God is not only happening during "special" experiences (eg in deep meditation) but is the natural background of all life and living.
It is only that our focus of awareness is not here/now but mostly in thought - we live in our head, in projections and ideas, which makes it impossible to be here/now.
The mystic is mostly here/now - the regular person is mostly in his/her head.
Thats really the biggest difference (but its also a huge one - at least when considering ones basic happiness and appreciation of life - which flourishes the more present one is to each and every moment).
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Re: Which would you choose?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 3:27 am But this sense we all have that things ought to be better...
No, we, "all," don't hate reality the way it is. Only the religious and mystics have that cynical pessimistic sense. I love the world, exactly as it is, warts and all. I do not long after some mystical Utopia or eternal paradise where no one ever makes a mistake or has to work to achieve anything, and no one has to learn anything because knowledge is just given to them magically by something called intuition or revelation.

G.B. Shaw was right. "Those for whom the world is not good enough find themselves shoulder to shoulder with those who are not good enough for the world."

I'm afraid your desire to evade reality's demands and justice, by repudiating it will not wash. All your condemnation of humanity and belief that you can be forgiven will not replace objective knowledge or true virtue. So long as you hate this world and regard it as evil you will never be happy in it, nor should you be. There is no other world, no Utopia, no magic eternal paradise.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Which would you choose?

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RCSaunders wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 1:16 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 3:27 am But this sense we all have that things ought to be better...
No, we, "all," don't hate reality the way it is.
THIS is your idea of repeating what I said? :shock:

Try again, I guess.

P.S -- What's your answer to my question about how your view explains what happened to people in the Holocaust? How did that represent any natural and deserved consequences of who they were?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Which would you choose?

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RCSaunders wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 1:16 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 2:19 am P.S -- What's your answer to my question about how your view explains what happened to people in the Holocaust? How did that represent any natural and deserved consequences of who they were?
To be fair, I understand completely why you wouldn't want to answer this. It's a bit of a difficult question: if you say, "They deserved what they got," you've got to explain how the children and others the Nazis killed "earned" what they got, what "choices" they made that warrranted being gassed and burned, or being experimented on by Josef Mengele. If such an explanation could be made, it would be guaranteed to be morally horrendous, no? I'm sure you agree.

On the other hand, if you say, "They did nothing worthy of being gassed, burned and experimented on," then your thesis that life delivers any kind of "justice" or "deserving" has been abandoned.

So either way, I've put you in a very difficult state, and all one can do with such "Catch-22" questions is avoid them altogether. So I sympathize with you in the situation into which I've placed you by posing the question...it's a hard one.

But I think it's still a serious problem, and I don't think we can pass it over. If we do, are we not tacitly giving disrespect to the fact that so many people were so badly treated, seemingly without any reasonable justification? Can we remain silent and indifferent, and not thereby mark ourselves out as uncaring, indifferent to suffering, and maybe worse?

I do think the Jewish peoople who were tortured and killed by Hitler...and the German dissenters and conscientious objectors...and the handicapped...and the other minorities...the Slavs, the Poles, the Gypsies...and so on...were unjustly treated, and I don't think a plausible explanation can be made out of "that's reality." I think they have a right to raise the question of cosmic injustice -- don't you? I hear the cry raised by people like Elie Weisel, and I want to take him and all the others seriously...I'm sure you do, too.

So I don't want to be mean, but in a way, it's a dilemma you've put yourself into by advancing the thesis that reality delivers us what we deserve. And I think it's only fair we pose the question, as sticky as it is.

Worth thinking about, no?
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Re: Which would you choose?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 2:19 am
RCSaunders wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 1:16 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 3:27 am But this sense we all have that things ought to be better...
No, we, "all," don't hate reality the way it is.
THIS is your idea of repeating what I said? :shock:

Try again, I guess.
No, this is my idea of repeating:
But justice is a different issue. You say that reality is "demanding," "not nice," "dangrous," "full of risk," "ruthless" and "pitiless." You say it has consequences people don't like. You use the value judgment "bad," and speak of "suffering." But this is the same as to say that reality is "unjust," since otherwise you would not use those pejoratives to describe it. You'd just say, "Reality is whatever."

But this sense we all have that things ought to be better...
I never said the risks, or demands, or ruthlessness and intransigence of reality were, "bad," because they are not. Whatever suffering there is in the world is only the just consequence of what those who suffer have chosen and done with there own lives. It is you who judges those things as evil. I do not judge them at all, because they are justice.

You are the one who does not like the world as it is, and believe it needs to be, "redeemed." If you loved reality as I do, you would not have the your so-called, "sense that things ought to be better."
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Which would you choose?

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RCSaunders wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:51 pm Whatever suffering there is in the world is only the just consequence of what those who suffer have chosen and done with there own lives.
So back to the case of the Holocaust, and the other people Hitler murdered: can you explain what all these dissenters, the handicapped, Gypsies, Jews, and others "chose" and "did" with their own lives that issued in that "consequence"?
It is you who judges those things as evil. I do not judge them at all, because they are justice.
I agree with those who see such things as evil and unjust. I marvel that you say you do not.
If you loved reality as I do, you would not have the your so-called, "sense that things ought to be better."
Well, I certainly congratulate you on being among that elite minority that has never felt injustice, and yet are so complacent in their situation that they cannot imagine that things ever ought to be better. That must be a very comforting way to live.

But back to those who have a different experience, like the children of the Holocaust...what about them?
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Re: Which would you choose?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 3:26 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 1:16 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 2:19 am P.S -- What's your answer to my question about how your view explains what happened to people in the Holocaust? How did that represent any natural and deserved consequences of who they were?
To be fair, I understand completely why you wouldn't want to answer this. It's a bit of a difficult question: if you say, "They deserved what they got," you've got to explain how the children and others the Nazis killed "earned" what they got, what "choices" they made that warrranted being gassed and burned, or being experimented on by Josef Mengele. If such an explanation could be made, it would be guaranteed to be morally horrendous, no? I'm sure you agree.
We've been all through this.

You asked:
You'll have to forgive me...do you mean to say that the Jews who suffered did so for "picking" Hitler? Or was it because of their "supersititious beliefs"? What, in your view, precipitated them into the gas chambers and ovens of Auschwitz?
I answere:
You tell me. I have no idea why so many of those Jews refused to see what was so obvious to the many others who did see and left before those horrible things occurred. [Perhaps they believed God would not abandon his chosen people.] I have no idea how many were complicit in the policies that brought Hitler to power. [I know many were.] I know they could only be identified as Jews because they identified themselves as Jews, but we all know what it cost them to hold on to their racism. (Yes it's just as racist to identify oneself, as it is others, with some category, because it always implies one believes they have some special value others do not have because they are a member of that class). If they had simply been individuals, they would not have been singled out. I don't know why people choose the things they do that result in their own tragedies but I do know, so long as individuals continue to blame everything in the world for their problems except their own choices, they will only have problems, and they will only get worse.
What one suffers in this world is there own fault, or there is no fault. That's reality and you just happen to not like it. If one is not to suffer in this world they have to take measures to avoid it, but there are no guarantees.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 3:26 pm I do think the Jewish people who were tortured and killed by Hitler...and the German dissenters and conscientious objectors...and the handicapped...and the other minorities...the Slavs, the Poles, the Gypsies...and so on...were unjustly treated, and I don't think a plausible explanation can be made out of "that's reality."
But it is reality. It's exactly what happened. Of course the acts of those who perpetrated those horrors certainly were, "unjust," as all coercive interference in other's lives is, "unjust," because it is in defiance of reality, not because it is a violation of some law, human or divine. But someone else's wrong acts do not relieve and individual of responsibility for their own life and choices. If a person is raped and murdered they have suffered and, "injustice," but if they knew it was going to happen and did nothing to prevent it when they could, what they suffer is still their own fault. It might be nice to live in a world where there never were any threats from others or dangers of being harmed, but that is not the real world. There are others who may be a threat and there are very real dangers in the world, and to refuse to learn what those threats and dangers are and to do everything one can to protect themselves from them is just wrong and whatever the consequences are, that is real justice. Life really is tough.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 3:26 pm I think they have a right to raise the question of cosmic injustice -- don't you? I hear the cry raised by people like Elie Weisel, and I want to take him and all the others seriously...I'm sure you do, too.
Sure! Raise any absurd question you like. "Cosmic injustice?" Really?
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 3:26 pm So I don't want to be mean, ...
I know. Your intentions are all good.
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Re: Which would you choose?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:56 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:51 pm Whatever suffering there is in the world is only the just consequence of what those who suffer have chosen and done with there own lives.
So back to the case of the Holocaust, and the other people Hitler murdered: can you explain what all these dissenters, the handicapped, Gypsies, Jews, and others "chose" and "did" with their own lives that issued in that "consequence"?
No one can, "explain," why others choose or do what they do, and without knowing how each individual lived every moment of their lives, no one can know exactly what led to the specific consequences of their lives.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:56 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:51 pm It is you who judges those things as evil. I do not judge them at all, because they are justice.
I agree with those who see such things as evil and unjust. I marvel that you say you do not.
I never said they are not, "evil," in the sense that individuals suffer from then, because they do. What one suffers as the consequence of their own wrong choices may be evil, but it is no, "unjust," unless you regard, "justice," as some way you'd like things to be or something dictated by some authority.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:56 pm
If you loved reality as I do, you would not have the your so-called, "sense that things ought to be better."
Well, I certainly congratulate you on being among that elite minority that has never felt injustice, and yet are so complacent in their situation that they cannot imagine that things ever ought to be better. That must be a very comforting way to live.
"Felt injustice?" That explains a lot. You think injustice is something one, "feels?" I see injustice every day. Whenever some human being uses force, or the threat of it, against others, especially to enforce, "laws," that is injustice.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:56 pm But back to those who have a different experience, like the children of the Holocaust...what about them?
What about them? You'd have to ask their parents about their fate. They were the one's responsible for those children. If you are thinking those children suffered, "through no fault of their own," how is that any different from those who are born blind, or deaf, or missing limbs, only half a brain that will never function or with some genetic defect that only allows them to live a few hours, or days, or weeks, or months in constant pain and suffering? Those are terrible things, but to say they are unjust implies someone is responsible for those consequences. Life is tough, like it or not.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Which would you choose?

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RCSaunders wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 9:55 pm You asked:
You'll have to forgive me...do you mean to say that the Jews who suffered did so for "picking" Hitler? Or was it because of their "supersititious beliefs"? What, in your view, precipitated them into the gas chambers and ovens of Auschwitz?
I answere:
You tell me.
I answered, "No, it's your theory. Only you can defend it. Don't look to me to do it for you, because I honestly don't know how you manage to believe it...especially in light of things like the Holocaust.
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 3:26 pm I do think the Jewish people who were tortured and killed by Hitler...and the German dissenters and conscientious objectors...and the handicapped...and the other minorities...the Slavs, the Poles, the Gypsies...and so on...were unjustly treated, and I don't think a plausible explanation can be made out of "that's reality."
But it is reality. It's exactly what happened.
Begging the point. Of course I mean that "That's reality" is no explanation at all of injustice.
Of course the acts of those who perpetrated those horrors certainly were, "unjust,"

Your own theory doesn't allow for such a judgment to be objective, though.
...as all coercive interference in other's lives is, "unjust," because it is in defiance of reality,

No, wait...you just said that particular "coercive interference" (WOW, what an understatement!) is "reality."

Which way is it?
Life really is tough.
Yeah. Gas chambers and ovens, or medical experiments. That "tough"? :shock:
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 3:26 pm I think they have a right to raise the question of cosmic injustice -- don't you? I hear the cry raised by people like Elie Weisel, and I want to take him and all the others seriously...I'm sure you do, too.
Sure! Raise any absurd question you like. "Cosmic injustice?" Really?
Yes, really. I think the victims of the Holocaust have a question that deserves to be taken seriously.

Don't you?
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