Why do theists and atheists insist that if there is a God that it created the universe?

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

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Immanuel Can
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Re: Why do theists and atheists insist that if there is a God that it created the universe?

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attofishpi wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 5:17 am Why do you care about the life of an entity that has not lived one especially in consideration that this entity has an indestructible soul?
All human beings are intrinsically valuable. Their lives are an opportunity given to them by God. That makes both them and their lives of infinite value. It also makes them not property of other people to dispose of in any way they like, or to deprive of their unalienable right to a life.

Murder's not wrong just because of what it does against the victim; it's also a crime against the One who gave them life.
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Re: Why do theists and atheists insist that if there is a God that it created the universe?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:22 pm Let me put it very simply: trial and error is fine, so long as the "error" end is not too costly.
So now you are factoring in cost into errors?
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:22 pm Likewise, if you want to measure the dimensions of a stellar phenomenon, you're going to have to use mathematics, not hand measurement. You can't "race the horse" in that case.
Sure you can. If you can contrive a measurement tool. You can contrive a "race".
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:22 pm There are many such cases. Ergo, trial and error is not the only method. Sometimes, it's not even a possible method.
You lack imagination: https://www.amazon.com/How-Measure-Anyt ... B00INUYS2U

Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Apr 14, 2019 5:26 pm Maybe. But the lions still get you. There's no ethics in that.
I don't understand your analogy any longer. Are you saying it's unethical for lions to hunt?
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Apr 14, 2019 5:26 pm The problem, then, is justifying your particular telos. It's controversial.
I am justifying my telos with your actions.

You want to live. Therefore maximising life is good.
If you want to die - the option is there for you also.
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Apr 14, 2019 5:26 pm But this is only a verbal trick. "You" are not alive. "You" do not survive. And logically, whether or not the human race goes on while you are in the eternal black oblivion of death cannot be a matter of concern to you, either then or now. It's not wrong for your to take out the whole human race with you, and it's not right of you to perpetuate it. The very terms right and wrong no longer have referent, then.
Nietzsche knew this.
It's not a verbal trick. It's a statistical fact. Nietzsche didn't know statistics.

I do not survive, but WE live longer.
I do not prosper, but WE are wealthier.

Do you not agree with the above? If you dislike life in 2019 in which year and location in human history would you prefer to live then?

Nietzsche didn't understand Ergodicity
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Apr 14, 2019 5:26 pm That's simplistic, and it turns out to be wrong. I know it's what they "altruism-believing" set wants to believe, but it just doesn't stand up to the facts.
It stands up to ergodicity.
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Apr 14, 2019 5:26 pm The most effective survival game is getting the "us" to do what "I" want, but "I" being able to exempt myself from all the rules. Then the "I" not only survives, but triumphs.
Not cooperation, but everybody else cooperating with me and I being left free to do as I see fit...that's the real win in an amoral universe.

Nietzsche also understood this.
How many dictators did that strategy work for?
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Apr 14, 2019 5:26 pm You mean you've discovered ways to revivify corpses? I think not. It's binary, alright.
No, Cathy Newman. That's not what I mean.
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Re: Why do theists and atheists insist that if there is a God that it created the universe?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:24 pm All human beings are intrinsically valuable. Their lives are an opportunity given to them by God. That makes both them and their lives of infinite value. It also makes them not property of other people to dispose of in any way they like, or to deprive of their unalienable right to a life.

Murder's not wrong just because of what it does against the victim; it's also a crime against the One who gave them life.
Your ideals do not stand up to a trivial trolley problem.

You have $100 million at hand and 100 of the world's brightest minds at your disposal.

Do you make them solve heart disease or murder?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Why do theists and atheists insist that if there is a God that it created the universe?

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Logik wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:34 pm Are you saying it's unethical for lions to hunt?
Of course not. But neither is it ethical. Ethics aren't involved there: lions are not capable of ethics.
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Apr 14, 2019 5:26 pm The problem, then, is justifying your particular telos. It's controversial.
I am justifying my telos with your actions.
That's circular.
I do not survive, but WE live longer.
"We" don't "live." Human beings have one life each.
Immanuel Can wrote: Sun Apr 14, 2019 5:26 pm The most effective survival game is getting the "us" to do what "I" want, but "I" being able to exempt myself from all the rules. Then the "I" not only survives, but triumphs.
Not cooperation, but everybody else cooperating with me and I being left free to do as I see fit...that's the real win in an amoral universe.

Nietzsche also understood this.
How many dictators did that strategy work for?
You don't have to be a dictator to get that strategy. You only have to understand that even on an individual level, altruism isn't in your best interest. What serves your purposes is conformity when it suits, and departure from conformity when it suits. That way, you take advantage of all opportunities. You retain the appearance of decency, but you're free to be wicked.

That's amorality.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Why do theists and atheists insist that if there is a God that it created the universe?

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Logik wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:36 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:24 pm All human beings are intrinsically valuable. Their lives are an opportunity given to them by God. That makes both them and their lives of infinite value. It also makes them not property of other people to dispose of in any way they like, or to deprive of their unalienable right to a life.

Murder's not wrong just because of what it does against the victim; it's also a crime against the One who gave them life.
Your ideals do not stand up to a trivial trolley problem.
Not relevant. We're talking about individuals, not about choosing among individuals. That's a different issue, but it doesn't even appear unless the problem of the value of an individual life is already established.
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Re: Why do theists and atheists insist that if there is a God that it created the universe?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:46 pm Of course not. But neither is it ethical. Ethics aren't involved there: lions are not capable of ethics.
You keep shifting from one position to another. From what perspective are you evaluating "ethics".

First person (individualist) or 3rd person (collectivist)?
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:46 pm That's circular.
It's not circular. It's recursive.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:46 pm "We" don't "live." Human beings have one life each.
False equivalence.

Are you really trying to convince yourself that one life 2000 years ago is the same as one life in 2019?

Are you really trying to convince yourself that living 35 years and dying of sepsis is the same as living 85 years and dying of old age?
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:46 pm You don't have to be a dictator to get that strategy. You only have to understand that even on an individual level, altruism isn't in your best interest. What serves your purposes is conformity when it suits, and departure from conformity when it suits. That way, you take advantage of all opportunities. You retain the appearance of decency, but you're free to be wicked.

That's amorality.
Where in our conversation did you get the hint that I am an altruist? I am a rational egoist. I aspire to Nietzche's Übermensch.

Does the Übermensch not recognize his own choices? The choice of strategy by which he plays the game.

The choice is every Übermensch for himself, or Übermensch cooperation.

How do you decide which one is better?
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Re: Why do theists and atheists insist that if there is a God that it created the universe?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:47 pm Not relevant. We're talking about individuals, not about choosing among individuals. That's a different issue, but it doesn't even appear unless the problem of the value of an individual life is already established.
In what universe are you the only individual?
In what universe do you get to ignore the other 8 billion players who do EXACTLY as you do?

They strategize on how to play the game of life.

So you are back to: Every Übermensch for him/herself; OR Übermensch cooperation.

I mean. You seem to like this "internet" thing. Do you think it evolved from a competitive or a cooperative game?
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Re: Why do theists and atheists insist that if there is a God that it created the universe?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:24 pm
attofishpi wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 5:17 am Why do you care about the life of an entity that has not lived one especially in consideration that this entity has an indestructible soul?
All human beings are intrinsically valuable. Their lives are an opportunity given to them by God.
So God enshrined the life of someone that was impregnated by force - rape. ..and the mother of the child must love that offspring regardless of the memory of its conception?
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:24 pmThat makes both them and their lives of infinite value.
So you are one of those that must inject the word infinite and beyond that, propose that there is also infinite value in a human being.
Please give me an example where any human has had infinite value.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:24 pmIt also makes them not property of other people to dispose of in any way they like, or to deprive of their unalienable right to a life.
What right to life? There are countless numbers of failed pregnancies occurring all the time, did 'God' decide those of failed pregnancies didn't have a right to life? But the ones impregnated by the force of rape did? - please explain.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:24 pmMurder's not wrong just because of what it does against the victim; it's also a crime against the One who gave them life.
This is a good point for me to readdress a point of mine you have avoided. That the soul is indestructible, a foetus has had no life, gained no love of relatives etc..ergo - nothing lost by way of love of loss - nothing lost by way of life ultimately since there is an indestructible soul. This soul from my comprehension, lives again from the stage of a foetus, reembeded within a womb and ultimate birth of a family that the 'soul' deserves.
The only thing that matters in your point - regarding murder (of a lived life) is that there are family/friends that loved that individual. There is no 'crime' against the 'one' that gave life (God), there is only a crime against the thing that matters most - and that is the love of those that have now lost their beloved.
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Re: Why do theists and atheists insist that if there is a God that it created the universe?

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Logik wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:55 pm First person (individualist) or 3rd person (collectivist)?
There is no such thing as "collectivist ethics."

Collectives have no ethical awareness or ability to respond to moral precepts. Collectives have no singular conscience. Only the individuals within a collective can respond to ethics, and the collective direction is only ever a byproduct of that.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:46 pm Where in our conversation did you get the hint that I am an altruist?
When you imported to the discussion the concepts of collective duty and collective identity, as when you were arguing that making a "contribution" to the society or race is some sort of answer to the problem of individual death.
I am a rational egoist. I aspire to Nietzche's Übermensch.
Then you aren't collectivist. And you wouldn't believe in any concept of duration after death through the "we," the collective.
The choice is every Übermensch for himself, or Übermensch cooperation.
No, it's not. And Nietzsche knew it's not. Ubermensch "cooperate" only strategically, and never as a matter of principle. They consider themselves beyond all concepts of good and evil.

Instead, Nietzsche thought Ubermensch practice essentially what is sometimes called "radical moral neutralism," meaning the ability to behave well or badly, to appear to serve the collective and to serve oneself, as the situation offers the opportunity.

It's amorality. It's nothing but pragmatism. It has no principles, and no ethics.
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Re: Why do theists and atheists insist that if there is a God that it created the universe?

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Logik wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:56 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:47 pm Not relevant. We're talking about individuals, not about choosing among individuals. That's a different issue, but it doesn't even appear unless the problem of the value of an individual life is already established.
In what universe are you the only individual?
I didn't say that. You should read it again.
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Re: Why do theists and atheists insist that if there is a God that it created the universe?

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attofishpi wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:05 pm So God enshrined the life of someone that was impregnated by force - rape. ..and the mother of the child must love that offspring regardless of the memory of its conception?
We can talk about that.

But first, I want to see what you really care about here.

According to neutral statisticians, all health-related and crime related abortions total only 7.5% of all the abortions in North America. The other 93% are for convenience.

If you'll agree that 93% of abortions, the purely convenience ones, are all deeply evil, then I'll talk about the 7%.

If you don't agree, then It's quite clear that you don't care about rapes or women's health -- for you, those are clearly not the real issue. The truth then would be that you only care about free abortions for convenience, and have no regard for infant life anyway. The posing about rape is empty. And in that case, you'd just be a bad person, advocating pure infant murder, and there would be no more to say to you.

So what do you say?
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Re: Why do theists and atheists insist that if there is a God that it created the universe?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:07 pm There is no such thing as "collectivist ethics."

Collectives have no ethical awareness or ability to respond to moral precepts. Collectives have no singular conscience. Only the individuals within a collective can respond to ethics, and the collective direction is only ever a byproduct of that.
There is a mantra in management science: if you can't measure it - you can't improve it.
Whether you agree or disagree with it is moot at this point. I merely want you to acknowledge that this is something people subscribe to.

Are you aware that statistics is a "collectivist" endeavor, by virtue of the law of large numbers? The larger your sample size - the more significant the results.

Now. Here is a chart which plots the human life expectancy over the last 300 years.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life ... 1770..2015

I want you to put 2 and 2 together.

1. We can measure life expectancy
2. We have a sufficiently large sample size to reason about it

Are you REALLY trying to tell me that collectively WE would be better off if the graph had gone the other way?
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:46 pm Then you aren't collectivist. And you wouldn't believe in any concept of duration after death through the "we," the collective.
You make two ontological errors in one sentence.
To ask or state what things ARE is meaningless. It's just linguistic labels.
To speak of "beliefs" is as spoken words is further meaningless nonsense.

You can't narrate your beliefs. You can only ACT OUT your beliefs. This is why the question of "how does X behave?" is more informative than "what is X?"

How does an "individualist" behave in contrast to a "collectivist"?


I am a collectivist in as much as I subscribe to the law of large numbers. I can't measure my individual success - that's anecdotal.
I can't make ANY inferences about my well-being from my lived experiences.

The only way I can tell if the world is getting better is if it's getting better for EVERYONE. Because it's getting better for everyone - it's also getting better for me.

That's how logical deduction works. You are allowed to go from the general to the particular.

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:46 pm No, it's not. And Nietzsche knew it's not. Ubermensch "cooperate" only strategically, and never as a matter of principle. They consider themselves beyond all concepts of good and evil.
ONLY strategically? :lol: :lol: :lol:

What I asked you WAS as strategic question. What is your life-strategy?

Do everything yourself OR cooperate?

Do you intend to become a doctor (only for yourself)?
Do you intend to manufacture food (only for yourself)?
Do you intend to become an banker (only for yourself)?
Do you intend to run your own water purification (only for yourself)?

Do you think Economies of scale matter in strategy?

Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:46 pm Instead, Nietzsche thought Ubermensch practice essentially what is sometimes called "radical moral neutralism," meaning the ability to behave well or badly, to appear to serve the collective and to serve oneself, as the situation offers the opportunity.
And after you have done all that how do you know if your life is "better"?
What is your baseline? How do you determine that you are indeed "serving yourself" or "serving the collective"?

How do you measure your own progress towards your own goals?
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:46 pm It's amorality. It's nothing but pragmatism. It has no principles, and no ethics.
Not even teleology? Not even individual goals?

The ethical is the pragmatic ;)
Last edited by Logik on Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Why do theists and atheists insist that if there is a God that it created the universe?

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:17 pm
attofishpi wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:05 pm So God enshrined the life of someone that was impregnated by force - rape. ..and the mother of the child must love that offspring regardless of the memory of its conception?
We can talk about that.

But first, I want to see what you really care about here.

According to neutral statisticians, all health-related and crime related abortions total only 7.5% of all the abortions in North America. The other 93% are for convenience.

If you'll agree that 93% of abortions, the purely convenience ones, are all deeply evil, then I'll talk about the 7%.

So what do you say?
Sure. So long as you address the original points I made if I reiterate them.

No. I don't agree that abortions, even of convenience are deeply evil.

In my youth I agreed to abortions, not so sure it was out of convenience, there is the thought I still hold to that I and her would not have provided a good upbringing for children at the time (and now that I am far more mature, am certain of it)

Over to you.
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Re: Why do theists and atheists insist that if there is a God that it created the universe?

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attofishpi wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:33 pm No. I don't agree that abortions, even of convenience are deeply evil.
Then there are no terms on which you will not kill a baby.

The truth, then, is that you don't see any special relevance in cases of rape or health crises: you are an advocate for killing babies for any reason.

I get it. But then, there's no more to say, since you have absolutely no moral reservations about infanticide. There are no criteria to which I can direct you...you accept none.
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Re: Why do theists and atheists insist that if there is a God that it created the universe?

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Logik wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:31 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:07 pm There is no such thing as "collectivist ethics."

Collectives have no ethical awareness or ability to respond to moral precepts. Collectives have no singular conscience. Only the individuals within a collective can respond to ethics, and the collective direction is only ever a byproduct of that.
There is a mantra in management science: if you can't measure it - you can't improve it.
Whether you agree or disagree with it is moot at this point. I merely want you to acknowledge that this is something people subscribe to.

Are you aware that statistics is a "collectivist" endeavor...
Wildly off topic.

I said nothing about statistics. I was speaking of ethics.
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