Cutting God in Half

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jayjacobus
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Re: Cutting God in Half

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Does evil and love affect the physical universe? What science or philosophy would lead to that conclusion? .
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Re: Cutting God in Half

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jayjacobus wrote: Sun Feb 18, 2018 8:17 pm The universe has been very successful. Until recently it hadn't been evil or loving. God,if he existed, hadn't been evil or loving. What changed?
If I were religious, I'd say the change happened with the humans showing up. According to many religions, if not to all of them, humans and god have a very special relationship.

In the Christian tradition, god loves his people.

However, if you subtract god, there is still love and hate in the universe since humans appeared. Or perhaps love and hate were available even before that, in warm-blooded animals on Earth, and in god*-only-knows what creatures elsewhere.

*manner of speaking

Evil and goodness also appeared. Evil is hopelessly relative. And so is goodness. If I eat your children, I am evil to you. But I am not evil to my family if their survival solely depends on a good meal for me at a time when nothing else was available to eat but your children.

Or take Nero. He had a lot of Christians (early Christians) be eaten by lions at the circus. Nero was evil to the Christians, but not evil to the average Roman, who enjoyed the view of lions eating people.

Or take Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. He was evil in the eye of the capitalist establishment figures and in the view of feudal landlords, but he was not evil in the eye of the proletariat and in the eye of the surfs and peasants.

The virtuous, the rigteous, and the virtuous and righteous also appeared, along with the wicked and the nasty.

Macrame, the love for the periodic table of elements, and Twiggy also appeared.
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attofishpi
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Re: Cutting God in Half

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jayjacobus wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2018 1:31 pm
attofishpi wrote: Mon Feb 19, 2018 12:27 am
jayjacobus wrote: Sun Feb 18, 2018 8:17 pm The universe has been very successful. Until recently it hadn't been evil or loving. God,if he existed, hadn't been evil or loving. What changed?
Were you around in an earlier time? How do you know this?
Does evil and love affect the physical universe? What science or philosophy would lead to that conclusion? .
What do you mean by 'Until recently it hadn't been evil or loving.'?

I think 'evol' and 'love' would have been around since a very distant past.
jayjacobus
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Re: Cutting God in Half

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Read the book of Job. Job makes the case that God is evil. But if you don't believe in God, then Job is wrong and if you do believe in God, then have you any reason to believe that God chooses you for anything, good or evil? What happens in the universe, happens because of nature. God's actions are very subtle. In fact so much so that they can not be discerned without a religious bias.
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Re: Cutting God in Half

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jayjacobus wrote: Thu Feb 22, 2018 10:33 pm Read the book of Job. Job makes the case that God is evil. But if you don't believe in God, then Job is wrong and if you do believe in God, then have you any reason to believe that God chooses you for anything, good or evil? What happens in the universe, happens because of nature. God's actions are very subtle. In fact so much so that they can not be discerned without a religious bias.

"Read the book of Job. Job makes the case that God is evil. But if you don't believe in God, then Job is wrong (and therefore God is good.) And if you do believe in God," I would have gone on from here this way: "then Job is right, and therefore God does not exist as we know it."

In other words, if God exists, then the bible is wrong, and if god does not exist, then the bible is irrelevant.

Thanks, Jayjacobus. I am not saying what you are saying, I know, but you sort of got me on the right track.
jayjacobus
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Re: Cutting God in Half

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-1- wrote: Fri Feb 23, 2018 12:00 am
jayjacobus wrote: Thu Feb 22, 2018 10:33 pm Read the book of Job. Job makes the case that God is evil. But if you don't believe in God, then Job is wrong and if you do believe in God, then have you any reason to believe that God chooses you for anything, good or evil? What happens in the universe, happens because of nature. God's actions are very subtle. In fact so much so that they can not be discerned without a religious bias.

"Read the book of Job. Job makes the case that God is evil. But if you don't believe in God, then Job is wrong (and therefore God is good.) And if you do believe in God," I would have gone on from here this way: "then Job is right, and therefore God does not exist as we know it."

In other words, if God exists, then the bible is wrong, and if god does not exist, then the bible is irrelevant.

Thanks, Jayjacobus. I am not saying what you are saying, I know, but you sort of got me on the right track.
-1- wrote: Fri Feb 23, 2018 12:00 am
jayjacobus wrote: Thu Feb 22, 2018 10:33 pm Read the book of Job. Job makes the case that God is evil. But if you don't believe in God, then Job is wrong and if you do believe in God, then have you any reason to believe that God chooses you for anything, good or evil? What happens in the universe, happens because of nature. God's actions are very subtle. In fact so much so that they can not be discerned without a religious bias.

"Read the book of Job. Job makes the case that God is evil. But if you don't believe in God, then Job is wrong (and therefore God is good.) And if you do believe in God," I would have gone on from here this way: "then Job is right, and therefore God does not exist as we know it."

In other words, if God exists, then the bible is wrong, and if god does not exist, then the bible is irrelevant.

Thanks, Jayjacobus. I am not saying what you are saying, I know, but you sort of got me on the right track.
It's not raining so the rain god is angry. How do you know? Maybe it's not raining because the weather pattern is unfavorable. Job draws his conclusions based on a conversation he could not possibly have heard.

When Job was wealthy, he didn't say he wished he was never born. In spite of their troubles most people are glad to be alive.
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Re: Cutting God in Half

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jayjacobus wrote: Fri Feb 23, 2018 9:43 am Job draws his conclusions based on a conversation he could not possibly have heard.

When Job was wealthy, he didn't say he wished he was never born. In spite of their troubles most people are glad to be alive.

"Given that all green things can fly,
And given that goats are green,
means that all goats can fly."
This is a slightly altered form of a syllogism.

You can accept that an untrue thing is true, for the sake of accepting the conclusion.

After the conclusion has been accepted, then it can be rejected on the basis that the premise was not true.

Same with the Book of Job. By an atheist it can be read to first accepting that it has happened; draw the conclusion (that god is not just, and he does not keep his word, and he is not good at all); then revert to atheism and say the whole story is irrelevant anyway.

Why the mental exercise then, if in the end it is irrelevant anyway? Because to some people, such as Christian theists, God exists, and the bible is the word of god.

If you use the word of god that god is not at all what god says he is, then you show (not prove, but show) that the word of the bible is untrustworthy.

Sort of how in a legal trial a witness is questioned not always for facts, but sometimes, very often, to get him confused and say contradictory statements with his own previous evidence giving, thus showing to the judge or to the jury that the person is unreliable as a witness.

Once the unreliability of god has been shown, his inconsistence with his own character, then you can say "god, as a concept, may or may not exists, but the Christian god certainly does not exist, or rather, a god with the qualities that Christians attach to him can't exist."

You see, you can't prove to the jury, that the witness does not exist; you can only prove to the jury that the witness's testimony (testament) is an unreliable bunch of lies and inconsistent nonsense, therefore EVERYTHING he has said and will say must be dismissed as evidence.

Same with god, via the book of Job. First you must assume, not accept personally, but accept to be true as an example or as a thought experiment, that the book of Job is the word of god. Then show that it contradicts the word of god; then dismiss that god which has the attributes given to him in the bible, because those attributes are denied in the bible; then go home and have dinner and a cigar.
jayjacobus
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Re: Cutting God in Half

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But you don't have any evidence that God is evil which is particularly true if God doesn't exist. If God doesn't exist, what is evil about the universe? If you can answer that, then evil exists with or without God.
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Re: Cutting God in Half

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jayjacobus wrote: Fri Feb 23, 2018 12:12 pm But you don't have any evidence that God is evil which is particularly true if God doesn't exist. If God doesn't exist, what is evil about the universe? If you can answer that, then evil exists with or without God.
I am not getting through. This is surprising.

You pose, independent of my proposition, a question: what is evil about the universe? Answer: Evil exists only as a relative and temporal quality. And only exists from the point of view of those entities in the universe who are capable of suffering, which only includes humans and animals, as far as our knowledge extends.
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Re: Cutting God in Half

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Any kind of intelligent agency to life has to be considered far less than a God. This agent would have weaknesses and vulnerabilities. This agent would have powers that are very vulnerable, and very much at the mercy of existence.

Perhaps it would be an eternal being without form or body. Perhaps this agent feels pain, and suffering. Perhaps this being is apart of a vital life force that is extremely flawed.

The point is nothing ideal ever existed, so why expect any ideal at all, in the intelligent agent. The agent would have a lot to protect from humans, and probably wants to see how far our intellects take us.
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