Do you believe or do you epoché?

[Gary Childress]

If there is a God, then the situation for me is whatever it is.

What gives you so much assurance that you have no present possibility to affect "whatever it is"?

What if your "situation" now is negotiable for you, right now?

What if it is negotiable? How is any mere mortal supposed to know it's negotiable, let alone any particulars pertaining to such "negotiations". It's like asking, "what if God wants us to face Mecca in the mornings and evenings". Are you currently doing that "just in case"? If not, then I don't see any more reason for me to be concerned in case I'm supposed to be doing something I'm not. We live and do to the best of our reckoning. I mean, I stay out of trouble for the most part and sometimes do charitable things. I don't know what else I'm supposed to do as a human being to please God. Considering all the shit we humans have to put up with in this world, God should maybe be happy with that much from us.

Suppose it is "negotiable". How are God and I supposed to "negotiate"? Through voices in my head? A Ouija board?

[Immanuel Can]

What if your "situation" now is negotiable for you, right now?

What if it is negotiable? How is any mere mortal supposed to know it's negotiable, let alone any particulars pertaining to such "negotiations".

A fair question.

A mere mortal could not, I think. He would have to have that revealed by God, or he couldn't possibly know such things.

So then, the real question then becomes, "Has God spoken?" And if He has, "How?" And I think you're right to raise that question too.

I mean, I stay out of trouble for the most part and sometimes do charitable things. I don't know what else I'm supposed to do as a human being to please God.

Well, what if He told you?

[Gary Childress]

Well, what if He told you?

Well, if I were a father and it involved sacrificing my only son, I'd probably say, "sorry, God. Find someone else." After some of the stuff we have in the Bible, I'd be a little suspicious of any mysterious voices telling me what they wanted at this point, even if it were something like, "go eat the chocolate cake, Gary. I God command it." I might wonder if the voice is trying to give me diabetes or something.


To be honest, just the very notion of a God who speaks to some but not others or who may or may not be interpreted correctly in his or her will, leaves me with the belief that it is best for all if God just minds his or her own business and leaves us alone in this realm (if such be the case). His or her intervention in the world (if it has in fact ever really occurred at all) has left us with as much bad as good and it is just as well that we are left with a great uncertainty regarding his or her existence. Let each of us wonder for ourselves what is the case. And let there be no concrete answers.

[Immanuel Can]

Well, what if He told you?

To be honest, just the very notion of a God who speaks to some but not others or who may or may not be interpreted correctly in his or her will, leaves me with the belief that it is best for all if God just minds his or her own business and leaves us alone in this realm (if such be the case).

Interesting. So you would prefer to be "alone in the cosmos" rather than to risk finding out that the cosmos might mean something?

But I must ask: wouldn't it be worth an investigation first? Why would we just arbitrarily settle on the worst alternative? What does it get us if we do?

His or her intervention in the world (if it has in fact ever really occurred at all) has left us with as much bad as good and it is just as well that we are left with a great uncertainty regarding his or her existence.

Yes, we cannot imagine we can "read" a simple story out of "adding up" the events we have in hand from our own local perspective. That's for sure. And ultimately, as I have conceded already, if God hasn't actually definitively spoken, we're all at sea.

But again, the question arises: has God spoken?

Now, you mention the old "problem of evil." There are things in the world that we don't like, ways things happen with which we disagree, and outcomes we not only don't desire, but some which actually strike us as very bad indeed. But before we make that our basis for rejecting the idea of God, we should perhaps examine what we've "let in the back door" while we were attentive to the "front door" problem of evil.

Ironically, there is no objective reality to the ideas of "good" and "bad" in the very universe you happen to posit as the real one. One can't blame the indifferent cosmos for being indifferent to our interests and projects, can one? It's not really "bad" at all...its just not what you happened to prefer.

If we want to launch a moral indictment against the idea of God, we're going to have to use God-dependent concepts to do it. "Good" and "bad" do not make sense as objective concepts in an indifferent universe. So there would be no objectivity to any indictment, in that case.

Let each of us wonder for ourselves what is the case. And let there be no concrete answers.

That would seem to be a lose-lose route. Let all of us be nothing but perplexed, and let there be no answers, rather than that their should be answers and we be accountable for them. It's to choose obliviousness over thought, to choose meaninglessness over meaning, to choose confusion over order, and to choose bewilderment over knowledge. And if there is a moral order in this world, then it is to choose amorality over goodness too.

But all that begs the central question: regardless of any preference one might have for such choices, how do we confirm that that is the kind of universe in which we actually live?

[Gary Childress]

Well, what if He told you?

To be honest, just the very notion of a God who speaks to some but not others or who may or may not be interpreted correctly in his or her will, leaves me with the belief that it is best for all if God just minds his or her own business and leaves us alone in this realm (if such be the case).

Interesting. So you would prefer to be "alone in the cosmos" rather than to risk finding out that the cosmos might mean something?

I said nothing about preferring to be alone in the cosmos. I said I would go so far as to prefer that God remain mysterious and uncertain for the best interests of everyone.

[Immanuel Can]

I said nothing about preferring to be alone in the cosmos. I said I would go so far as to prefer that God remain mysterious and uncertain for the best interests of everyone.

In what sense is it "in the best interests" of everyone not to know God, rather than to know Him?

That would imply a rather cynical view of God, would it not? If somebody said, "It's better not to know Gary than to know him," I think you'd rightly be insulted...and I suspect it wouldn't be true either, even if someone chose to think it.

[Gary Childress]

I said nothing about preferring to be alone in the cosmos. I said I would go so far as to prefer that God remain mysterious and uncertain for the best interests of everyone.

In what sense is it "in the best interests" of everyone not to know God, rather than to know Him?

That would imply a rather cynical view of God, would it not? If somebody said, "It's better not to know Gary than to know him," I think you'd rightly be insulted...and I suspect it wouldn't be true either, even if someone chose to think it.

Fair enough. Let God speak to everyone all the time. Let there be certainty and God speed to everyone!

[Immanuel Can]

Fair enough. Let God speak to everyone all the time. Let there be certainty and God speed to everyone!

Well, that's the other extreme...to give nobody a choice as to whether or not they DO know God. Everybody has to, and nobody chooses.

Of course, we do have names for a relationship that is unchosen, and which the stronger compels upon the weaker...however, such an arrangement is not worthy of the name "relationship," I think you'd agree.

A truly equitable relationship is one that one gets to have or to choose not to have, no?

[Gary Childress]

Fair enough. Let God speak to everyone all the time. Let there be certainty and God speed to everyone!

Well, that's the other extreme...to give nobody a choice as to whether or not they DO know God. Everybody has to, and nobody chooses.

Of course, we do have names for a relationship that is unchosen, and which the stronger compels upon the weaker...however, such an arrangement is not worthy of the name "relationship," I think you'd agree.

A truly equitable relationship is one that one gets to have or to choose not to have, no?

I see. So let God only speak to some and God speed only to those she or he chooses to speak to. Is that better?

[Immanuel Can]

Fair enough. Let God speak to everyone all the time. Let there be certainty and God speed to everyone!

Well, that's the other extreme...to give nobody a choice as to whether or not they DO know God. Everybody has to, and nobody chooses.

Of course, we do have names for a relationship that is unchosen, and which the stronger compels upon the weaker...however, such an arrangement is not worthy of the name "relationship," I think you'd agree.

A truly equitable relationship is one that one gets to have or to choose not to have, no?

I see. So let God only speak to some and God speed only to those she or he chooses to speak to. Is that better?

Let's try another alternative: the invitation to know God goes to everyone. The decision as to whether or not to accept it is made by the recipient.

Now, that's better.

[Gary Childress]

Well, that's the other extreme...to give nobody a choice as to whether or not they DO know God. Everybody has to, and nobody chooses.

Of course, we do have names for a relationship that is unchosen, and which the stronger compels upon the weaker...however, such an arrangement is not worthy of the name "relationship," I think you'd agree.

A truly equitable relationship is one that one gets to have or to choose not to have, no?

I see. So let God only speak to some and God speed only to those she or he chooses to speak to. Is that better?

Let's try another alternative: the invitation to know God goes to everyone. The decision as to whether or not to accept it is made by the recipient.

Now, that's better.

Whatever makes you happy, that's what it should be. Anything less would doubtless be evil.

[Immanuel Can]

Whatever makes you happy, that's what it should be. Anything less would doubtless be evil.

"Doubtless"? But surely one can doubt that anything is "evil" in an indifferent cosmos. So unless you actually believe in objective moral assessments, you must simply mean "I happen to like that idea." Hardly "doubtless," is it?

And what makes "happy" a moral quality? Aren't many people made "happy" by things you and I might find unattractive, unpleasant or even horrendous? In any case, by what alchemy did the indifferent cosmos promise us "happiness"?

[Gary Childress]

Whatever makes you happy, that's what it should be. Anything less would doubtless be evil.

"Doubtless"? But surely one can doubt that anything is "evil" in an indifferent cosmos. So unless you actually believe in objective moral assessments, you must simply mean "I happen to like that idea." Hardly "doubtless," is it?

And what makes "happy" a moral quality? Aren't many people made "happy" by things you and I might find unattractive, unpleasant or even horrendous? In any case, by what alchemy did the indifferent cosmos promise us "happiness"?

Yeah. All that.

[Immanuel Can]

Yeah. All that.

Agreement?

Or are you simply saying, "Not something I want to think about?"

You may do either, of course. A conversation doesn't "take prisoners."

[Gary Childress]

Yeah. All that.

Agreement?

Of course. It would be wrong to disagree with you.