Which would you choose?

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

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Immanuel Can
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Re: Which would you choose?

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RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:19 am
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,
So you're still insisting all the victims of the Holocaust "chose" or "did" something that caused their suffering and murder?
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. [/quote]
But how do you derive the epithet "evil" from a worldview that says that consequences are all just "reality," just the automatic results?
...unless you regard, "justice," as some way you'd like things to be or something dictated by some authority.
I don't think that's how the victims think about it. I don't think they had to consult an "authority" to feel that they were being treated in a way that their actions never merited. Most people have a sense of injustice that is quite instinctive. You won't find many people who have no sense of injustice.
You think injustice is something one, "feels?"
One can "feel" pain. That doesn't mean the pain isn't real, or something isn't wrong. The important question is not whether or not one can "feel" a thing: it's whether or not the "feeling" corresponds to an objective truth or not.
I see injustice every day.
Apparently not. What you must imagine you see is just "reality."
Whenever some human being uses force, or the threat of it, against others, especially to enforce, "laws," that is injustice.
Why?

Isn't that also just "reality"? Don't people do those things to others all the time? What "authority" are you invoking? Or is it just a "feeling" you have? :wink:
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.
Ah. I see.

So you think the parents of the children made a "choice" or "did" something that inflicted suffering on their own children? It had nothing to do with Hitler and his minions? But it wasn't "unjust," even though the children can hardly have merited being beaten, incinerated, cut apart, frozen to death, shot in the back of the head, starved or turned into soap?
Those are terrible things, but to say they are unjust implies someone is responsible for those consequences.

Well, you think the children...or their parents...were responsible.

I find that view...unjust.
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Re: Which would you choose?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 2:16 am
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?
Well, then you answer them, if you think it will help anything. I don't think it will and is more likely to cause trouble than anything else. Bad things happen in the world, and every solution proposed to end it always only makes things worse. I do not choose to be part of harming others in the search for making the world a better place to live.
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Re: Which would you choose?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 2:33 am
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:19 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:56 pm
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,
So you're still insisting all the victims of the Holocaust "chose" or "did" something that caused their suffering and murder?
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.
But how do you derive the epithet "evil" from a worldview that says that consequences are all just "reality," just the automatic results?
...unless you regard, "justice," as some way you'd like things to be or something dictated by some authority.
I don't think that's how the victims think about it. I don't think they had to consult an "authority" to feel that they were being treated in a way that their actions never merited. Most people have a sense of injustice that is quite instinctive. You won't find many people who have no sense of injustice.
You think injustice is something one, "feels?"
One can "feel" pain. That doesn't mean the pain isn't real, or something isn't wrong. The important question is not whether or not one can "feel" a thing: it's whether or not the "feeling" corresponds to an objective truth or not.
I see injustice every day.
Apparently not. What you must imagine you see is just "reality."
Whenever some human being uses force, or the threat of it, against others, especially to enforce, "laws," that is injustice.
Why?

Isn't that also just "reality"? Don't people do those things to others all the time? What "authority" are you invoking? Or is it just a "feeling" you have? :wink:
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.
Ah. I see.

So you think the parents of the children made a "choice" or "did" something that inflicted suffering on their own children? It had nothing to do with Hitler and his minions? But it wasn't "unjust," even though the children can hardly have merited being beaten, incinerated, cut apart, frozen to death, shot in the back of the head, starved or turned into soap?
Those are terrible things, but to say they are unjust implies someone is responsible for those consequences.

Well, you think the children...or their parents...were responsible.

I find that view...unjust.
[/quote]
Fortunately, your not the judge.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Which would you choose?

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RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 10:59 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 2:16 am
RCSaunders wrote: Thu Jul 08, 2021 9:55 pm You asked:

I answere:
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.
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:
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?
Well, then you answer them, if you think it will help anything.
I cannot provide them with what your theory claims is true: namely, a tidy relationship between what each of those six million victims did, and what they got in the end. It's your theory: if it's indefensible, it's not my fault.
Bad things happen in the world,
I can think so...but how can you? Did you not say that reality gives us what we deserve, what our choices and actions produce as natural consequences, and that there's no such thing as injustice? How then can you say "bad things"? Are then not, then, just "Things that are"? Are they not, then, just "reality"?
I do not choose to be part of harming others in the search for making the world a better place to live.
That's commendable. But there can be no "harm" if reality ineluctably delivers to each person the natural consequences of what they do. And what's a "better" place to live, since you love "reality" whatever it may dish up? Are you suggesting that "reality" isn't good enough yet?

It almost sounds like you believe in injustice after all.
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RCSaunders
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Re: Which would you choose?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:15 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 10:59 am I do not choose to be part of harming others in the search for making the world a better place to live.
That's commendable. But there can be no "harm" if reality ineluctably delivers to each person the natural consequences of what they do. And what's a "better" place to live, since you love "reality" whatever it may dish up? Are you suggesting that "reality" isn't good enough yet?

It almost sounds like you believe in injustice after all.
Well, I do believe in justice, as I have said all along. Justice is the actual consequences of one's chosen behavior. Every human attempt to administer, "justice," is interference in real justice. That's what I do not choose to be part of, because I don't want to change the world or others, even those injustices.

There is endless harm suffered by individuals, but its exactly what they deserve.

I've explained this all before:
It's much easier to blame all the, "bad," things that one experiences on an, "unjust, unfair," world, then to take responsibility for all one's choices and actions.

Life is hard and requires one to use all their abilities all the time to be and achieve all they can, to learn all they can, to develop every ability and skill they can, to work and produce all they can of value that their life requires, physically and psychologically. But there are no guarantees, except the guarantee that doing less than one's best means certain failure.

Reality does not care why you did a wrong thing—ignorance, defiance, laziness, or yielding to some irrational desire or impusle—the consequences (justice) are the same." By, "wrong," thing, I mean any choice or action made in contradiction of the nature of reality itself, of the laws of physics and the biological and psychological requirements of one's own nature. To defy any law of physics (like gravity or the nature of fire), to fail to nourish one's self (or to poison one's self), to not use and develop one's body, to not learn all one possibly can, to not think as well as one can about every choice, and to not work to produce all one can are all, "wrong," things; and to do anything that prevents one from being able to do those things is a, "wrong," thing.

Perhaps the most common, "wrong," thing most people do is to make their choices based on the belief that they have a right to a good life and when they discover life is difficult and problematic and that everything requires effort and often discomfort, they feel life is, "unjust," and their failure and suffering is not their fault—but it is always their fault.

Does anyone ever suffer anything that is it not their fault? Of course. We all do. They are not injustices, they are simply facts we must learn to deal with, if possible, and overcome, not use as excuses for more failure, which is how most people deal with them.

Life is tough. It is the means and potential to all good things and achievement, but it all has to be won by one's constant effort. Those of us who know what life is, what its potential is, regard no difficulty or hardship to high a price for the joy of a life of success, achievement and happiness, and know anything less is not a life worth living.

No one has to live in defiance of the requirements of reality, but they deserve what they get if they do, and, however bad or cruel it seems, it is justice. Most of mankind refuses to live as their nature's require and go through life, blaming a cruel and unjust world for all their problems which are ultimately of their own making.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Which would you choose?

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RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 2:56 pm Justice is the actual consequences of one's chosen behavior.
That only works if life is fair. But as you yourself said eariler, it's not. It's hard, and bad sometimes.
Every human attempt to administer, "justice," is interference in real justice.
I get that human justice is flawed. I agree. But so are all human artifacts. That doesn't always mean we're best to live without them, of course...for example, penicillin is a flawed medicine, but I think we're best to have it anyway.

But human justice, at its best, is an attempt to approximate objective justice, which is ultimately divine justice. And even to approach that standard is much better than to abandon the standard.
There is endless harm suffered by individuals, but its exactly what they deserve.
I'm still waiting to hear the details of how this describes the Holocaust victims. I think most people would be skeptical of that.
Reality does not care why you did a wrong thing
It's not clear at all, from your view, why anything "real" is actually "wrong" at all: including "ignorance, defiance, laziness, or yielding to some irrational desire or impulse."
By, "wrong," thing, I mean any choice or action made in contradiction of the nature of reality itself, of the laws of physics and the biological and psychological requirements of one's own nature.
Laws of physics and biology have no moral dimension at all, so "injustice" is not a term that applies to them. But what are the "psychological requirements of one's own nature"? How do we get an account of them without first having a teleology, a sense of what a human "is for," sot to speak, or what is "good for a human to be?"
Perhaps the most common, "wrong," thing most people do is to make their choices based on the belief that they have a right to a good life and when they discover life is difficult and problematic and that everything requires effort and often discomfort, they feel life is, "unjust," and their failure and suffering is not their fault—but it is always their fault.
Like the Holocaust victims, again? It was their fault?
Does anyone ever suffer anything that is it not their fault? Of course.
Whoa. You just said it was their fault. You said there were natural consequences, and that's all we can ever get, did you not?
Life is tough. It is the means and potential to all good things and achievement, but it all has to be won by one's constant effort. Those of us who know what life is, what its potential is, regard no difficulty or hardship to high a price for the joy of a life of success, achievement and happiness, and know anything less is not a life worth living.
Very Randian. But the problem is injustice. We don't, in fact, always get rewarded for our efforts, or punished for our follies -- at least, not in this life, right? You just said there are people who "suffer [things] that [are] not their fault"...
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Re: Which would you choose?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 3:17 pm Very Randian.
When you choose to discuss ideas without labeling people, we can continue. There does not seem to be much point is discussing something if you are going to keep forgetting everything I say.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Which would you choose?

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RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 3:54 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 3:17 pm Very Randian.
When you choose to discuss ideas without labeling people...
I didn't. I labelled the explanation as "Randian," as the sort of idea she would have liked.

If you find that insulting in some way, you've mistaken the case: I made no comment about you as a person.
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Re: Which would you choose?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 3:57 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 3:54 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 3:17 pm Very Randian.
When you choose to discuss ideas without labeling people...
I didn't. I labelled the explanation as "Randian," as the sort of idea she would have liked.

If you find that insulting in some way ...
Not insulting, just stupid. Why not label it Stirnerite, Shavian, or Menckenian, since it reflects their views, or why label it all, if it was not meant to denigrate. You certainly didn't intend it as a recommendation. You can say it was directed at my explanation, but it is my explanation, so it is directed at my thinking. As Rand would say, "mistakes of that magnitude are not mistakes."
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Re: Which would you choose?

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RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 6:07 pm You certainly didn't intend it as a recommendation. You can say it was directed at my explanation, but it is my explanation, so it is directed at my thinking. As Rand would say, "mistakes of that magnitude are not mistakes."
"Thinking" or "explanation of thinking," it's just about the idea, not the person. But not everybody agrees with you that saying something is "Randian" is a pejorative. In my context, it was just an observation. I think you're making it personal, when it was not.
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Re: Which would you choose?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 6:12 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 6:07 pm You certainly didn't intend it as a recommendation. You can say it was directed at my explanation, but it is my explanation, so it is directed at my thinking. As Rand would say, "mistakes of that magnitude are not mistakes."
"Thinking" or "explanation of thinking," it's just about the idea, not the person. But not everybody agrees with you that saying something is "Randian" is a pejorative. In my context, it was just an observation. I think you're making it personal, when it was not.
No need to explain.
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Re: Which would you choose?

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You did not choose to be born. And you do not choose to die.

The choice to kill yourself is not natural law. Natural law is choiceless. Just as the grass doesn't choose to grow, the baby doesn't choose to be a child, the child doesn't choose to be a teenager, and the teenager doesn't choose to be an adult. Moreover: the rain doesn't choose to exist, and the sun doesn't choose to exist...I think we get the gist.

There simply is no you who chooses to choose.

Pain for Sentient organism's are responsive reflexive impulses of a brain, and yet no pain has ever been located to exist as a physical object inside a brain. No thing chooses pain. And no thing chooses the absence of pain. If there was a chooser of pain then that chooser would surely choose never to experience pain ever again...this is obvious logic.

Life and death are the same one reality. They only appear to be different. Pain and Joy are the same one reality. They only appear to be different. Joy can turn to pain and pain can turn to joy. Life is suffering.


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Re: Which would you choose?

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Gary Childress wrote: Mon Jul 05, 2021 4:01 pm Let's pretend for a moment that it was discovered without any possible doubt that there is no God in the world. What has been gained and what has been lost?

Lost: The possibility of divine justice, divine intervention, divine providence.

Gained: We (as a frail and imperfect species) become more responsible for justice, more vulnerable and our fates are more uncertain in the face of an uncaring world.

Now, I realize it would seem that there is something called the truth that doesn't care one way or the other what our preferences are. According to this thing Truth, there is a God or there is not a God. and only one of those propositions is "true." However, let's pretend for a moment that you and I had a choice as to which is true.

My question is:

Which truth would be more appealing to you: the truth that there is a God or the truth that there is not a God? Or (in other words) if you could magically cause one of those two propositions to be true or to be the case, which one would you choose to be true? Also, why would you choose it to be true?

My answer: Personally, I think I would choose for there to be a God. The reason for that is that I want there to be divine justice. I don't think I trust human justice to truly be justice. And I feel like I want there to be justice in the world.
Should a man devise the laws for ants? ----- No.

Should some supernatural and immoral god devise the laws of mankind? ---- No.

The laws of heaven and earth can never be the same.

We can die here and there is no death in heaven. Not that there is such a supernatural place.

All species will and should have their own instinct and intelligence based laws.

Regards
DL
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Re: Which would you choose?

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Greatest I am wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 12:09 am
Should some supernatural and immoral god devise the laws of mankind? ---- No.
According to the popular fable. God gave us free will, and then slammed us in hell forever, just for using it.

Yeah, sounds about right, no surprises there, defo the work of human intelligence. :D
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Re: Which would you choose?

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Dontaskme wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 6:11 am
Greatest I am wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 12:09 am
Should some supernatural and immoral god devise the laws of mankind? ---- No.
According to the popular fable. God gave us free will, and then slammed us in hell forever, just for using it.

Yeah, sounds about right, no surprises there, defo the work of human intelligence. :D
I hear you.

It would not be so stupid of Christians if they did not turn around and sing that Adam's sin was a happy fault and necessary top god's plan.

They never come back to explain what in hell they are doing.

It is strange that I know how to do their apology for that, but I will not educate the fools of today who are too stupid to think about what they are singing and doing.

Regards
DL
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