theodicy

[Iwannaplato]

Okay, but we have to establish in turn what this means "for all practical purposes" down here among us mere mortals. Does this God have moral Commandments mere mortals are obligated to embody? Does worshipping this God come around to one or another rendition of Judgment Day? And, if you are judged for the behaviors you choose on this side of the grave, is there the possibility of immortality and salvation on the other side?

Also, is this God omniscient and omnipotent? Is there an actual Scripture/Bible available to mere mortals?

Well, my point was that the idea that if there is a right path, there is only one, and it would be right period and the others would be wrong period, is a very specific and I think unjustified conclusion. That it must be like that. That was the main humble goal of my post. To point out that there are all sorts of assumptions in the 'must'.

I think there needs to be some care. Suddenly all these other questions came up. If you disagree with what I wrote, then why? If you agree, great. Then we could move on to other points. And note: agreeing does not mean that you now think some paths are correct or many are. It only means that number 2 in the OP is making assumptions that are just that assumptions. And I think it is important. Because if one necessarily has to try 100s of paths to find the needle in the haystack even if there is one, well, that's fairly hopeless unless you're ten and maybe even then. But if number two is confused, then it's a different situation. For example.

What people, what insights...what God/Gods? Those that exist only for the sake of argument?

Are you asking me to tell you which religion I think is the most accurate. That's a shift in topic. Not from the OP, but from my post's focus on one part of the OP. Have we finished with the point I was making? Do we agree? Would you, if you restarted the thread change point 2?

I repeat:
I think there needs to be some care. Suddenly all these other questions came up. If you disagree with what I wrote, then why? If you agree, great. Then we could move on to other points.

Well, that's my point. That things like religion and politics and morality are rooted existentially in dasein...in the many, at times, very, very different historical and cultural and interpersonal contexts any particular individual may be a part of.

That's one of your points, but I think you make assumptions around this that are not this point. It was those assumptions I was addressing specifically those that lead to the way the situation is framed in number 2.

Again, here I always come down to the bottom line [mine]...religion as it is most relevant to the lives we live: connecting the dots between morality [sins] on this side of the grave, Judgment Day and immorality/salvation on the other side. Or eternal damnation.

Or, for those who worship "the Gods", whatever the equivalent of that is.

Again, it seems to me you are jumping wihtout really dealing with what I wrote. Without saying, oh, this point you make here makes no sense because of X. Or, I can buy this, but I don't see why Y is entailed. Or whatever. But suddenly you are raising a mass of issues and religious concepts without clearly disagreeing or agreeing. If number 2 was important, the we could stay there and see if anything changes
and then look at other things.

If we take the religions as projects to generally bring people closer to the divine and to better treat other humans, it seems like there can be degrees of correctness and effectiveness.

Rather than only one path is correct, period.

Sure, "for the sake of argument". But that's not what the overwhelming preponderance of religious folks are focused in on.

Sure, and probably most people who believe in evolution think that it's survival of the fittest and would treat most of epigenetics as false or if they are a tad smarter as Lamarkian.

1) my goals was humble. To question the assumptions in two. If you are giving me an ad populum argument to mean I must be wrong, I think that's problematic.

2) You asserted something in number 2. I am questioning that. Number two is part of an argument supporting it. It's mostly implicit but there's enough there to see it. Yes, there are important things that come after step 2 there. But if we just accept number 2 as necessary truth, well, I think that affects later steps.

They are human projects and thus fallible, but there's no reason for someone outside all these traditions (or even in them) to assume that we throw out any tradition that has any distortion or falsehood. Or that any difference means one religion is wrong, period.

Again, if there is a God, the God [which most believe] mere mortals can't afford to be fallible.

1) You just shifted from scripture to God. I was talking about scripture. 2)
People have official positions and real positions or practical positions or mixed positions. Sure, if you ask most theists if they deities are infallible they will say yes. That is in the dominator religions that took over, primarily the Abrahamic ones. But even these religions show deities making mistakes, getting pissed off when things don't go their way, not understanding things, feelilng betrayed. IOW there is mixed message. Pagan religion deities have foibles and mistakes and weaknesses and bad habits and more in their deities. And the animist traditions are also complicated like that.

Again, two is assuming something, that need not be assumed and there are in fact many theists who do not assume that.

I've already tried to focus what I see as you heading off in a lot of directions without really addressing the points I made. I understand those directions. I see them as valid directions to be explored. But if anyone raises a specific point and the response doesn't really deal with that point and then tosses a whole mass of issues to be solved before we even look at any one specific point, I don't see this as a doable process. And as I write this I believe someone else said something very similar to you once and I think it was FJ.

[iambiguous]

Okay, but we have to establish in turn what this means "for all practical purposes" down here among us mere mortals. Does this God have moral Commandments mere mortals are obligated to embody? Does worshipping this God come around to one or another rendition of Judgment Day? And, if you are judged for the behaviors you choose on this side of the grave, is there the possibility of immortality and salvation on the other side?

Also, is this God omniscient and omnipotent? Is there an actual Scripture/Bible available to mere mortals?

Well, my point was that the idea that if there is a right path, there is only one, and it would be right period and the others would be wrong period, is a very specific and I think unjustified conclusion. That it must be like that. That was the main humble goal of my post. To point out that there are all sorts of assumptions in the 'must'.

I'm not sure what you are saying here.

This...?

"Why not live in a world where there are many equally accepted assessments of God and religion as they pertain to moral Commandments on this side of the grave and immortality and salvation on the other side?"

An ecumenical path...only going beyond Christianity itself and including all faiths?

But how would that be realistic? And it's not for nothing that most religious denominations insist that only their own rendition of The Way is the One True Path.

I think there needs to be some care. Suddenly all these other questions came up. If you disagree with what I wrote, then why? If you agree, great. Then we could move on to other points. And note: agreeing does not mean that you now think some paths are correct or many are. It only means that number 2 in the OP is making assumptions that are just that assumptions. And I think it is important. Because if one necessarily has to try 100s of paths to find the needle in the haystack even if there is one, well, that's fairly hopeless unless you're ten and maybe even then.

Either those who embrace Christianity, Judaism, Islam and all of the other faiths [large and small] will say, "okay, believe what you do, it's all the same in the end", or they will warn you that if you don't come around to the one true God or spiritual path [their own], you risk...."

Then whatever each denomination fills in the blank with insofar as it relates to the "infidels".

That's the world we actually live in. Not the worlds we speculate about in a philosophy forum. Or, rather, so it seems to me.

For those like IC and others here, it very much matters regarding what we agree about in regard to religion.

What people, what insights...what God/Gods? Those that exist only for the sake of argument?

Are you asking me to tell you which religion I think is the most accurate. That's a shift in topic. Not from the OP, but from my post's focus on one part of the OP. Have we finished with the point I was making? Do we agree? Would you, if you restarted the thread change point 2?

I think there needs to be some care. Suddenly all these other questions came up. If you disagree with what I wrote, then why? If you agree, great. Then we could move on to other points.[/

Point 2: ...addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?

The OP is about point 4. The part where, okay, let's suppose that a God, the God does exist. And it is your God. How do you reconcile your God with this...

...an endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events...making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages...

Your own "for the sake of argument" point has, in my view, little to do with the world around us as it really is. Or given how I have experienced it. Yes, some are more tolerant of other faiths than others. But if there really is the possibility of immortality and salvation, one path to it seems more plausible.

Why? Because if there are many different conflicting paths with many different conflicting assessments of how we are to be judged given the behaviors we choose here and now, why mine instead or yours? why ours instead of theirs?

Point two is included in my list of things that interest me about God and religion precisely because most people who are religious are members of a particular denomination...and almost all of them insist that only their own Scripture counts. So, again and again and again: with so much at stake before and after the grave and with so many different faiths to choose from...why yours?

Well, that's my point. That things like religion and politics and morality are rooted existentially in dasein...in the many, at times, very, very different historical and cultural and interpersonal contexts any particular individual may be a part of.

That's one of your points, but I think you make assumptions around this that are not this point. It was those assumptions I was addressing specifically those that lead to the way the situation is framed in number 2.

I don't really understand what your point is. The part regarding dasein is the most important component of my own argument here. Why? Because in my view the reason so many are able to embrace one faith/denomination over all of the others is rooted both in their indoctrination as children and in the fact that their experiences as adults are always going to be rooted existentially out in a particular world historically, culturally and in terms of their interpersonal relationships. After all, how many men and women are willing to go out and try many additional spiritual paths in order to determine if their own is the right one?

Again, here I always come down to the bottom line [mine]...religion as it is most relevant to the lives we live: connecting the dots between morality [sins] on this side of the grave, Judgment Day and immorality/salvation on the other side. Or eternal damnation.

Or, for those who worship "the Gods", whatever the equivalent of that is.

Again, it seems to me you are jumping wihtout really dealing with what I wrote. Without saying, oh, this point you make here makes no sense because of X. Or, I can buy this, but I don't see why Y is entailed. Or whatever. But suddenly you are raising a mass of issues and religious concepts without clearly disagreeing or agreeing. If number 2 was important, the we could stay there and see if anything changes
and then look at other things.

This just goes over my head. It's too abstract. I'm simply unable to pin down what you are getting at. We need to focus in on a particular set of circumstances...a situation where a belief in a God, the God, my God would prompt you to behave in certain ways [and eschew other ways] in order to comply with the moral Commandments of this God in order to attain immortality and salvation on the other side. How does one react to those who choose different behaviors in believing in a different God?

If we take the religions as projects to generally bring people closer to the divine and to better treat other humans, it seems like there can be degrees of correctness and effectiveness.

Rather than only one path is correct, period.

Sure, "for the sake of argument". But that's not what the overwhelming preponderance of religious folks are focused in on. They live very real lives involving very real conflicting goods anchored to very real beliefs in Gods they both love and fear. Gods "up there" or "out there" passing judgments on them.

Sure, and probably most people who believe in evolution think that it's survival of the fittest and would treat most of epigenetics as false or if they are a tad smarter as Lamarkian.

1) my goals was humble. To question the assumptions in two. If you are giving me an ad populum argument to mean I must be wrong, I think that's problematic.

2) You asserted something in number 2. I am questioning that. Number two is part of an argument supporting it. It's mostly implicit but there's enough there to see it. Yes, there are important things that come after step 2 there. But if we just accept number 2 as necessary truth, well, I think that affects later steps.

Again, I'm really at a loss in understanding what you are telling me here. Instead, from my frame of mind, it's the sort of thing I encounter in discussions with Harry Baird and Alexis Jacobi. Their own philosophical assessments may be crystal clear to them but I fail to see what they have to do with my own assumption regarding point 2. Same with you. We need to focus in on sets of circumstances in which God and religion become crucial components. Regarding both the motivation and intention behind our behaviors.

Those like IC who embrace the Christian denomination and connect the dots between morality here and now and immortality and salvation there and than. And solely in accordance with their own faith. IC is just someone who insists his own beliefs transcend faith. He knows that if you and I and others don't accept Jesus Christ as our personal saviors our souls are doomed.

They are human projects and thus fallible, but there's no reason for someone outside all these traditions (or even in them) to assume that we throw out any tradition that has any distortion or falsehood. Or that any difference means one religion is wrong, period.

Again, if there is a God, the God [which most believe] mere mortals can't afford to be fallible. It's not for nothing that Christians and Moslems proselytize. From their frame of mind, they are literally attempting to save souls.

Only for all practical purposes that can become rather problematic:

Imagine three Christian missionaries set out to save the souls of three different native tribes. The first one is successful. The folks in the first tribe accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior and are baptized in the faith. The second is not successful. The folks in the second tribe refuse to accept Christ as their personal savior and instead continue to embrace their own god...their own religion. The third missionary is not even able to find the tribe he was sent out to save.

Now, imagine one member of each tribe dying on the same day a week later. What will be the fate of their souls? Will the man from the first tribe ascend to Heaven having embraced the Christian faith? Will the man from the second tribe burn in Hell for having rejected the Christian faith? And what of the man from the third tribe---he will have died never having even been made aware of the Christian faith. Where does his soul end up?

1) You just shifted from scripture to God. I was talking about scripture.

As though for those who embrace Christianity, Judaism, Islam and many other denominations, God and Scripture are not one and the same.

2)People have official positions and real positions or practical positions or mixed positions. Sure, if you ask most theists if they deities are infallible they will say yes. That is in the dominator religions that took over, primarily the Abrahamic ones. But even these religions show deities making mistakes, getting pissed off when things don't go their way, not understanding things, feelilng betrayed. IOW there is mixed message. Pagan religion deities have foibles and mistakes and weaknesses and bad habits and more in their deities. And the animist traditions are also complicated like that.

Again, in your head, this is all pertinent to my point above. It's not however in my head. I fail to see how I can relate this to my own personal experiences as a Christian or given my many, many experiences being around others who believed in one or another God or spiritual path.

You seem to be in one exchange, me in another. But: that is only from my own frame of mind. I'm not arguing that mine is more reasonable than yours. I simply don't "get" what you are telling me time and again. I can't relate it to how I understand religion given my own personal experiences, my own personal encounters with it in books and films and magazine articles and philosophy texts.

[Iwannaplato]

I'm not sure what you are saying here.

This...?

"Why not live in a world where there are many equally accepted assessments of God and religion as they pertain to moral Commandments on this side of the grave and immortality and salvation on the other side?"

An ecumenical path...only going beyond Christianity itself and including all faiths?

But how would that be realistic? And it's not for nothing that most religious denominations insist that only their own rendition of The Way is the One True Path.

Actually, I don't think they do'. I think most, these days, especially in the West, preach respect of other traditions. At the very least a very significant minority do.

Also you are turning my point into an assertion about how things are and I was pointing out that you were assuming things that don't seem supported to me.

So, now, you return with an ad populum argument that if there is a God, those theists who argue that only their path is the right one have to be correct.

Either those who embrace Christianity, Judaism, Islam and all of the other faiths [large and small] will say, "okay, believe what you do, it's all the same in the end", or they will warn you that if you don't come around to the one true God or spiritual path [their own], you risk...."

Then whatever each denomination fills in the blank with insofar as it relates to the "infidels".

That's the world we actually live in. Not the worlds we speculate about in a philosophy forum. Or, rather, so it seems to me.

You're conflating two issues. What humans do out there with what is ontologically the case (in relation to God and getting closer to such a deity should one exist). It's actually very much like VA's 'proof' that there cannot be a God. Many theists say X. So God has to be Y because many theist say X. It's a kind of category error.

You are assuming that if there is a God, there is only one path to that deity.

You have an ontological belief about the nature of any possible deity and a way to being close to that deity.

This is as much a knowledge claim as any theist makes.

For those like IC and others here, it very much matters regarding what we agree about in regard to religion.

So, what?

This is a meaningless point. For evolutionists like X, it very much matters.....For atheists like X it very much matters.....

This is all beside the point of your ontological assumption in point 2. You are still jumping ahead to other issues.

Point 2: ...addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?

The OP is about point 4. The part where, okay, let's suppose that a God, the God does exist. And it is your God. How do you reconcile your God with this...

The OP is about point 4. Sure, and the title of the thread. But you included point 2. You considered it part of your argument and important enough to be a whole step in a four part challenge. If the ontological assumption in it is false or unjustified then presumably that matters.

...an endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events...making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages...

And so you jump away from the issue around point 2. I suggest you take point two out of the OP, if it doesn't matter.

Your own "for the sake of argument" point has, in my view, little to do with the world around us as it really is. Or given how I have experienced it. Yes, some are more tolerant of other faiths than others.

That wasn't the main point. I was not simply trying to get you to agree that some people not only respect other paths but that you are deciding to base your own ontology on what some theists say. And that you have no justification for this.

But if there really is the possibility of immortality and salvation, one path to it seems more plausible.

Precisely. You have a sense of how things would have to be if there was a God. You're obviously not a theist, but you have the same sense that you understand issues of the ontology of a deity that they do. If there was a God, there would have to be one path, period.

Why? Because if there are many different conflicting paths with many different conflicting assessments of how we are to be judged given the behaviors we choose here and now, why mine instead or yours? why ours instead of theirs?

Note how your general sense of deities has a very Abrahamic flavor to it. I did mention in an earlier post the common core to many of the worlds' big religions (and many of the smaller) and how this may well be the path. You could look at the work of Ken Wilbur for a long thought out argument that really, if one follows the intended practices of most religions they lead to one place.

Point two is included in my list of things that interest me about God and religion precisely because most people who are religious are members of a particular denomination...and almost all of them insist that only their own Scripture counts. So, again and again and again: with so much at stake before and after the grave and with so many different faiths to choose from...why yours?

Right, because the OP is an attack on theists. So, you know that many of them assume point 2, so it's a good way to set up disputes. To make the ontological assumption that some theists make. But even more importantly above you make it clear that you make it also, not just because they do.

But if there really is the possibility of immortality and salvation, one path to it seems more plausible.

So, it's actually not because of what they believe. You have this belief yourself. It seems more plausible to you. It couldn't possibly be that different cultures, often with very, very similar core practices related to how to become close to God, have different metaphors and culturally connected rules that have distorted facets of their religion so it seems like there are many paths. No. Only one of them can be correct, if any of them are correct.

Here's a thought experiment. I don't want to read what this experiment shows you, if anything. Because I think the temptation to maintain your position is so strong (as it is for most people) the results, if you know they will be shared with me get skewed. So, just carry it out, if you're curious.

What would it mean if number 2 was a false assumption? What if, actually, most religious paths bring you closer to God and salvation? What if it's not, for a non-believer like you, a kind of throwing a dart in the darkness, a buying of a lottery ticket and hoping you guess the number right? And remember there are also theists who do not have a squid game conception of the relationship with God - that only if you go through these hoops do you get immortality (those religions that believe in that)? There are many theists that believe that God does not punish good people. There are also religions like many parts of Hinduism that see long processes where everyone heals, etc.

But what happens if you stop assuming, out of habit, that number two is the case?

You put it in there.
Just like VA has decided he knows that if there is a God, that God must be absolutely perfect.....
You have decided that if there is a God, there is only one path to that God.

These are articles of atheist faith on both your parts. Both of you were believers at one point. Both of you were around other theists who had these beliefs.

You both left the religions, but not on this point.

In this way you still have the belief system of those theist you were around, or at least what they seemed to believe.

You left the god belief behind. But you kept this one path faith and in his case the absolute perfection idea belief.

And you cling to these and it is clearly important because out of four steps it is 1 step.

What if you stopped buying that now subjunctive belief? Subjunctive because it is now in if, then form.

Give it a mull or not.

And notice that the moment it is brought up you jump to people like IC to justify it.

That is the actually pattern in your mind. I can't convince IC and people like of this, so it's wrong.

And further note. You can stop making that assumption without then assumption all parts are correct. You can just stop assuming that it MUST BE THE CASE AND YOU KNOW IT that if there is a God only one path is correct.

Because at root your justification is that people like IC would think you are wrong. Well, he already thinks you are wrong about a million things.

Can you actually fully leave the religion or will you continue to be a true believer on point 2?

And why, if that one, not others?

[iambiguous]

I'm not sure what you are saying here.

This...?

"Why not live in a world where there are many equally accepted assessments of God and religion as they pertain to moral Commandments on this side of the grave and immortality and salvation on the other side?"

An ecumenical path...only going beyond Christianity itself and including all faiths?

But how would that be realistic? And it's not for nothing that most religious denominations insist that only their own rendition of The Way is the One True Path.

Actually, I don't think they do'. I think most, these days, especially in the West, preach respect of other traditions. At the very least a very significant minority do.

Okay, but even if this is true, how does it actually make sense?

Either a God, the God, my God does exist, or He doesn't.

And, if He does, what is expected of those on this side of the grave who worship Him? And how is that connected to immortality and salvation on the other side of the grave?

Are mere mortals permitted to treat God and religion as the spiritual equivalent of a cafeteria? You pick and choose behaviors on this side of eternity that you are convinced your God expects of you in order to attain immortality and salvation on the other side?

[and that's when I bring up this part:

3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in Gods and religious/spiritual faiths]

An ecumenical approach to these things has never made sense to me. If someone can't be certain that his or her own leap of faith to God reflects the likeliest leap of all than how on Earth can they really know, in regard to the behaviors they choose, what either is or is not a Sin?

Again, that's why so many of the faithful are passionate about saving souls. Their God is the One True Path. And, re this thread, their God does have a Divine reason to explain all of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... _eruptions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... l_cyclones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tsunamis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landslides
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_floods
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... ore_deaths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_diseases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events

Also you are turning my point into an assertion about how things are and I was pointing out that you were assuming things that don't seem supported to me.

So, now, you return with an ad populum argument that if there is a God, those theists who argue that only their path is the right one have to be correct.

Back to what I noted above. We clearly think about it differently.

"The three religions that are proselytizing religions, seeking more members actively are: Christianity, Islam and Buddhism."

There are approximately 2.6 billion Christians in the world.
There are approximately 1.8 billion Muslims in the world.
There are approximately 470 million Buddhists in the world.

Either those who embrace Christianity, Judaism, Islam and all of the other faiths [large and small] will say, "okay, believe what you do, it's all the same in the end", or they will warn you that if you don't come around to the one true God or spiritual path [their own], you risk...."

Then whatever each denomination fills in the blank with insofar as it relates to the "infidels".

That's the world we actually live in. Not the worlds we speculate about in a philosophy forum. Or, rather, so it seems to me.

You're conflating two issues. What humans do out there with what is ontologically the case (in relation to God and getting closer to such a deity should one exist). It's actually very much like VA's 'proof' that there cannot be a God. Many theists say X. So God has to be Y because many theist say X. It's a kind of category error.

Ontologically the case? I focus in more on the ontic myself.

"The ontological refers to the Being of a particular being, while the ontic refers to what a particular being can or does do." WordPress.com

Tap folks on the shoulder and ask them what they believe about God. How they connect the dots between this side of the grave and the other side of it. In terms of the behaviors they choose. Behaviors, after all, are what produce actual consequences.

You are assuming that if there is a God, there is only one path to that deity.

You have an ontological belief about the nature of any possible deity and a way to being close to that deity.

This is as much a knowledge claim as any theist makes.

This could not possibly be further removed from my own "fractured and fragmented" understanding of even my own "rooted existentially in dasein" frame of mind here.

All I assume is that if you ask those like IC here, they will tell you that there is but one true God. Their God. And that you had better come around to worshiping and adoring Him yourself...or else.

To wit:

For those like IC and others here, it very much matters regarding what we agree about in regard to religion.

So, what?

This is a meaningless point. For evolutionists like X, it very much matters.....For atheists like X it very much matters.....

Well, that depends of course on the extent to which they hold power in any particular community. There are communities -- entire nations -- where you dare not disagree with the powers that be in regard to God and religion.

Ask them how meaningless it is. Insist that they approach their God and their religion as...as philosophers here do? As you do? As AJ does?

Then back to this...

This is all beside the point of your ontological assumption in point 2. You are still jumping ahead to other issues.

There is only one main issue for me in regard to religion...

Is there but one true path through moral Commandments to immortality and salvation...or are there many?

And then whatever "here and now" [re point 3] you believe "in your head", how do you go about actually demonstrating that it is in fact true?

The OP is about point 4. The part where, okay, let's suppose that a God, the God does exist. And it is your God. How do you reconcile your God with this...

The OP is about point 4. Sure, and the title of the thread. But you included point 2. You considered it part of your argument and important enough to be a whole step in a four part challenge. If the ontological assumption in it is false or unjustified then presumably that matters.

From my frame of mind, no realistic discussion of God and religion excludes any of the four points. They are all intertwined historically, culturally and individually. You are the one who keeps coming back to the ontological here.

And so you jump away from the issue around point 2. I suggest you take point two out of the OP, if it doesn't matter.

Huh?

Before we can discuss this...

...an endless procession of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and tornadoes and hurricanes and great floods and great droughts and great fires and deadly viral and bacterial plagues and miscarriages and hundreds and hundreds of medical and mental afflictions and extinction events...making life on Earth a living hell for countless millions of men, women and children down through the ages...

...someone has to attribute their own rendition of theodicy to the particular God that they believe in. After all, if they can't demonstrate it is their own God that does in fact exist, why should it matter to us what their explanation for these terrible things is. Whether they are right or wrong surely comes down to whether they are right or wrong about their God's existence itself.

Your own "for the sake of argument" point has, in my view, little to do with the world around us as it really is. Or given how I have experienced it. Yes, some are more tolerant of other faiths than others.

That wasn't the main point. I was not simply trying to get you to agree that some people not only respect other paths but that you are deciding to base your own ontology on what some theists say. And that you have no justification for this.

Again, I base my own frame of mind here on whether there is One True Path to immortality and salvation. And, if there is, however many conflicting conclusions there might be regarding this, how is this actually demonstrated to in fact be true?

But if there really is the possibility of immortality and salvation, one path to it seems more plausible.

Precisely. You have a sense of how things would have to be if there was a God. You're obviously not a theist, but you have the same sense that you understand issues of the ontology of a deity that they do. If there was a God, there would have to be one path, period.

That's your iambiguous, not mine. Mine is more interested in the ontic here. What individuals believe about God and religion is one thing. What individuals can actually demonstrate that all others are obligated -- philosophically, spiritually, morally -- to believe in turn is another.

Thus...

Why? Because if there are many different conflicting paths with many different conflicting assessments of how we are to be judged given the behaviors we choose here and now, why mine instead or yours? why ours instead of theirs?

Note how your general sense of deities has a very Abrahamic flavor to it. I did mention in an earlier post the common core to many of the worlds' big religions (and many of the smaller) and how this may well be the path. You could look at the work of Ken Wilbur for a long thought out argument that really, if one follows the intended practices of most religions they lead to one place.

Back to my not grasping what your point is here and how it pertains to mine. How, in your view, might Wilbur respond to it?

Point two is included in my list of things that interest me about God and religion precisely because most people who are religious are members of a particular denomination...and almost all of them insist that only their own Scripture counts. So, again and again and again: with so much at stake before and after the grave and with so many different faiths to choose from...why yours?

Right, because the OP is an attack on theists. So, you know that many of them assume point 2, so it's a good way to set up disputes. To make the ontological assumption that some theists make. But even more importantly above you make it clear that you make it also, not just because they do.

Well, their disputes are not only with me, but with each other. And it's less an ontological assumption on their part in regard to the others than a theological assumption: their God = the ontological. And, of course, the teleological. And, of course, the deontological.

Though with most of them, one way or another, immortality and salvation for our very souls is on the line.

But if there really is the possibility of immortality and salvation, one path to it seems more plausible.

So, it's actually not because of what they believe. You have this belief yourself. It seems more plausible to you. It couldn't possibly be that different cultures, often with very, very similar core practices related to how to become close to God, have different metaphors and culturally connected rules that have distorted facets of their religion so it seems like there are many paths. No. Only one of them can be correct, if any of them are correct.

No, it ultimately comes down to what each individual believes about their own religious faith, their own spiritual path, their own God. Either they construe them to be the One True Path or they don't. My main concern [again] is not what they profess to believe but what they can actually demonstrate that I should believe too.

Then the part about dasein and theodicy.

Here's a thought experiment. I don't want to read what this experiment shows you, if anything. Because I think the temptation to maintain your position is so strong (as it is for most people) the results, if you know they will be shared with me get skewed. So, just carry it out, if you're curious.

First, an interjection...

Over the years, I strongly maintained lots of positions:

...and there have been any number of situations in my past where my thinking and my emotions were shifting dramatically and thus up to a point out of sync. When I first became a devout Christian. When I became a Marxist and an atheist. When I flirted with the Unitarian Church and with Objectivism. When I shifted from Lenin to Trotsky. When I abandoned Marxism and became a Democratic Socialist and then a Social Democrat. When I discovered existentialism and deconstruction and semiotics and abandoned objectivism altogether. When I became moral nihilist. When I began to crumble into an increasingly more fragmented "I" in the is/ought world.

Again, the ontic iambiguous as opposed to the ontological iambiguous.

What would it mean if number 2 was a false assumption? What if, actually, most religious paths bring you closer to God and salvation? What if it's not, for a non-believer like you, a kind of throwing a dart in the darkness, a buying of a lottery ticket and hoping you guess the number right? And remember there are also theists who do not have a squid game conception of the relationship with God - that only if you go through these hoops do you get immortality (those religions that believe in that)? There are many theists that believe that God does not punish good people. There are also religions like many parts of Hinduism that see long processes where everyone heals, etc.

Again, that's my point. All of the different paths...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions

...to "religion and spiritual traditions". And they are not just "thought experiments" to most of them. Securing immortality and salvation for their very souls could not possibly be more important to them. And then all the millions/billions of them convinced that their own path is the One True Path.

But what happens if you stop assuming, out of habit, that number two is the case?

You put it in there.

That would entail me ignoring the fact that for millions and millions of the faithful around the globe, their religious path is deemed by them to be the One True Path. They're out their living their faith from day to day, more or less intolerant of the "infidels".

Just like VA has decided he knows that if there is a God, that God must be absolutely perfect.....
You have decided that if there is a God, there is only one path to that God.

No, I am noting that millions of actual practicing religionists believe this. And I noted above my objections to an ecumenical approach to God and religion. The rest is your "ontological iambiguous".

In this way you still have the belief system of those theist you were around, or at least what they seemed to believe.

From my perspective this is you trying to attribute to me a dogmatic "binary" assessment of God and religion. When "I" am no less fractured and fragmented in regard to them.

And notice that the moment it is brought up you jump to people like IC to justify it.

Of course! IC insists that beyond a leap of faith to God, we can know that He does exist. And, go ahead, ask him what the fate of your soul will be if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

Get back to me on that.

That is the actually pattern in your mind. I can't convince IC and people like of this, so it's wrong.

Sigh...

Going back to "the gap" and "Rummy's Rule" and all these questions...

Why something instead of nothing?
Why this something and not something else?
Where does the human condition fit into the whole understanding of this particular something itself?
What of solipsism, sim worlds, dream worlds, the Matrix?
What of the multiverse?
What of God?

...what on Earth can I possibly grasp to be either Right or Wrong about things like this?

And further note. You can stop making that assumption without then assumption all parts are correct. You can just stop assuming that it MUST BE THE CASE AND YOU KNOW IT that if there is a God only one path is correct.

Okay, but only if you stop assuming that all of the things you attribute to me here is, what, the Gospel truth?

Because at root your justification is that people like IC would think you are wrong. Well, he already thinks you are wrong about a million things.

I'm not interested in what IC thinks...I'm interested in how he can demonstrate to me that the Christian God does in fact exist. That way I can get back up onto the path myself again, my own soul saved for all of eternity.

Can you actually fully leave the religion or will you continue to be a true believer on point 2?

And why, if that one, not others?

Point 2 revolves around the obvious...that both historically and culturally there have been many, many, many religious denominations that did in fact insist that own their spiritual path was the only true path to immortality and salvation.

And nothing that you attribute to me here changes that.

[iambiguous]

Free will, the Holocaust, and The Problem of Evil
David Kyle Johnson

Indeed, inspired by the failure of both of these objections [above], we can build into the original argument a kind of separate argument for the truth of premise (2), that uses the holocaust as evidence.

(1)If God existed, evil would not.
1* The holocaust occurred.
2* If the holocaust occurred, then evil exists.
(2) Thus evil does exist (from 1* and 2*).
(3) Therefore God does not exist. (from (1) and (2))
Let us call this argument “ the problem of the holocaust .”

This is where I interject and truly muddy up the morality waters. In other words, while most would indeed insist the holocaust is clearly an example of evil, others, instead, see it as an example of good. Adolph Hitler and the Nazis for instance. And unless it can be shown that they are, say, mad or insane, then their frame of mind is one conclusion that human beings can come to embrace as rational. That, either genetically and/or memetically, there is a "master race". Indeed, we have those around still today [right here] who seem to argue that.

Whereas from my frame of mind in a No God world, there does not appear to be a definitive scientific or philosophical assessment that pins down deontologically that the holocaust is in fact essentially, objectively, universally evil.

I have my own rooted existentially in dasein moral and political prejudices rejecting and denouncing it. But how exactly would I go about demonstrating that all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to think as I do? After all, unlike God, I am not omniscient. In the end, it basically comes down to me saying that "I just know it's wrong!".

Because premise 2 is not only obviously true, but denying it would require one to deny either that the holocaust occurred or that it was evil, premise (2) seems firmly established.

Really? Again, run it by the Nazis. Who really knows, maybe we are programmed genetically to make distinctions between those who [for whatever reason] are different from us. After all, that's one possible explanation for why racism and sexism and heterosexism and classism, etc., persist centuries after the so-called Enlightenment.

And that's why Gods and religions are so crucial. With them you almost always have access to an omniscient/omnipotent frame of mind that ever and always gets to decree what is ultimately good and evil on Judgment Day.

Or to argue that in a wholly determined universe good and evil are interchangeable because if you are never able to not think and feel and say and do other than what your brains compels you to, what does good and evil really mean?

The more common response to this kind of argument, therefore, is to deny premise (1)—to suggest that, for some reason, even if God did exist, evil still could occur.

The Harold Kushner Syndrome for example. Evil exists because God is simply not omnipotent. He set creation into motion and it just got "beyond My control."

[Iwannaplato]

Point 2 revolves around the obvious...that both historically and culturally there have been many, many, many religious denominations that did in fact insist that own their spiritual path was the only true path to immortality and salvation.

And nothing that you attribute to me here changes that.

Here's the original quote:

2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?

It's an ambiguous sentence, but perhaps you did not intend the second half of the sentence, after the ellipsis to be your position, but rather a continuation of those particular theists' positions.
If that second part of the sentence is also being attributed to those religions - and is not your own conclusion, then what you say above makes some sense. But in the post you quoted here I quoted you saying that it made sense that only one path could lead to God. IOW you agree with those religious people who say that and not the religious people who say otherwise. So, you have chosen sides in a theological issue and sided with certain theists over others. For some reason. And you frame the issue and the task along lines that make sense for them.

And, of course, even the framing of the issue in terms of salvation and immortality shows an Abrahamic bias. Many if not most branches of Hinduism for example assert that everyone will get there, eventually and immortality is a given. Salvation is also a very Abrahamic goal/concept so for some reason you are also choosing to side with how some theists look at things and not others.

It looks like you are talking about theism, but it seems to me you are talking as an ex-Christian,affected by the specific form of Christianity you were raised in. It ends up sharing qualities with the other Abrahamic religions, but hardly stands for theism in general.

IOW you are framing the issue with a specific theological position while being an atheist.

[Agent Smith]

I'm surprised that no one's posted the standard retort to the PoE.

Edgar Allen? Power over ethernet? Point of Entry? Point of embarkation?

The question that should effectively silence atheists in this particular case begins with "quando"

It should silence all of us and certainly has me. Not that it proves anything. But it should slap the smugness off anyone's face. The metaphysically weird has happened. Exactly what that is, is another issue.

At least some religions realize this, and then a small, perhaps tiny subset of religious people, that awe and not fully understanding are inevitable. But then classy humanists and scientists will also acknowledge this.

Perhaps we should dig deeper, the point is to ask, ask questions, as many of them as possible, oui?

Or perhaps get under all the mental verbal bullshit and explore. Via practices -whatever, scientific, religious, shamanistic, contemplative and more. Literally metaphorically dig deeper. You know, coming at it with a classic working class skepticism about all that white collar blather.

PoE = Problem of Evil
The standard refutation: Free will Defense

[Iwannaplato]

PoE = Problem of Evil
The standard refutation: Free will Defense

[iambiguous]

Point 2 revolves around the obvious...that both historically and culturally there have been many, many, many religious denominations that did in fact insist that their own spiritual path was the only true path to immortality and salvation.

And nothing that you attribute to me here changes that.

Here's the original quote:

2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?

It's an ambiguous sentence, but perhaps you did not intend the second half of the sentence, after the ellipsis to be your position, but rather a continuation of those particular theists' positions.

Is it or is it not a fact that down through the ages historically and across the globe culturally hundreds Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions

...were/are championed?

And is it or is it not a fact that many of them presumed that the One True Path was their own?

If that second part of the sentence is also being attributed to those religions - and is not your own conclusion, then what you say above makes some sense.

From my frame of mine, i.e. that it seems correct to presume that from their frame of mind their path is the one true one, it makes a lot of sense.

But in the post you quoted here I quoted you saying that it made sense that only one path could lead to God. IOW you agree with those religious people who say that and not the religious people who say otherwise.

Well, if there are religious and spiritual folks here who do believe there are paths other than their own to objective morality, immortality and salvation, I'd be interested in exploring that with them. It just seems [to me] that if they are open to multiple conflicting behaviors on this side of the grave, how does that translate into Judgment Day when someone dies?

It's like the No a God, No the God Buddhists who broach reincarnation. Okay, are there or are there not sets of behavior on this side of the grave that predispose you to coming back as another human being rather than as a cockroach? And if no Who, then what decides that? And if, as another human being, is that as an entirely different soul? Is the "I" we carry with us to the grave in our current incarnation obliterated for all of eternity? And, again, how do they actually go about demonstrating any of this beyond what they "think is true" in their heads?

So, you have chosen sides in a theological issue and sided with certain theists over others. For some reason. And you frame the issue and the task along lines that make sense for them.

No, I take a "fractured and fragmented" leap of faith to the particular prejudices "I" have now...knowing that given new experiences, relationships and access to new information and knowledge, I might change my mind.

And, of course, even the framing of the issue in terms of salvation and immortality shows an Abrahamic bias.

On the contrary, whether it is one or another a God, the God, my God today or the multitudes of Gods from the ancient world, religion was almost always about our fate on the other side.

Many if not most branches of Hinduism for example assert that everyone will get there, eventually and immortality is a given. Salvation is also a very Abrahamic goal/concept so for some reason you are also choosing to side with how some theists look at things and not others.

"Most Hindus believe that humans are in a cycle of death and rebirth called samsara. When a person dies, their atman (soul) is reborn in a different body. Some believe rebirth happens directly at death, others believe that an atman may exist in other realms." bbc

A different body? Well, what determines what that will be?

"The caste system is deeply rooted in the Hinduism belief in karma and reincarnation. Dating back more than 3,000 years, the caste system divides Hindus into four main categories – Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the Shudras based on who they were in their past life, their karma, and what family line they come from." Set Free Alliance

Same thing though. If you come back in a different body, is the "I" you had in the previous ones obliterated? And how do they go about proving any of this?

Then this part:

"Modi is enflaming hatred of Muslims in India, as the world looks the other way" Rana Ayyub in the Wahington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... ncitement/

Or perhaps Joe Biden the Chrisitian will turn this all around at the state dinner in Washington.

It looks like you are talking about theism, but it seems to me you are talking as an ex-Christian,affected by the specific form of Christianity you were raised in. It ends up sharing qualities with the other Abrahamic religions, but hardly stands for theism in general.

IOW you are framing the issue with a specific theological position while being an atheist.

No, I'm understanding this part...

2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?

...differently from the manner in which you think that you understand my understanding of it.

[Agent Smith]

PoE = Problem of Evil
The standard refutation: Free will Defense

f(x) = nx ... a feast awaits!

[Sculptor]

God overhears a group of Jewish men laughing over some jokes, and he asks them what the jokes are about..
They are all about the Holocaust, what happened in Auschwitz and Belsen.
God asks to hear the jokes but does not find such a serious topic funny.

"I guess you had to be there" they say.

[iambiguous]

Free will, the Holocaust, and The Problem of Evil
David Kyle Johnson

One possible way to defend this idea is to suggest that God is not perfect. God either lacks the power to prevent evil, the knowledge to know how, or the will to do so.

Sure, why not. After all, that's one of the prerogatives of believing in a God that you accept as existing only in a leap of faith. You can imagine Him any way you want to. Since, in my view, the whole point of religion is to comfort and console you on both sides of the grave, make Him such that you are most comforted and consoled.

Though for most a less than perfect God doesn't seem all that comforting and consoling at all. If He is not perfect then how sure can you be about your own fate through all of eternity.

Thus...

But, needless to say, in Western philosophy, where the assumption that God is perfect in every way is firmly entrenched, this is not a popular option. What’s more, as I suggested before, this solution is uninteresting. Anyone can tweak their conception of God, after the evidence is already in, to avoid having to give up their belief.

Of course, here God basically becomes a philosophical entity for those like AJ and IC. And perfection for them revolves largely around the definitions and the deductions that they anchor God and religion in up in the spiritual clouds. That way, pertaining to their own lives, they can avoid altogether the part where they connect the dots existentially between morality and immortality. The part that for many reflect religion in a nutshell. The part I root subjectively/subjunctively in dasein, the part they root didactically, pedagogically in "serious philosophy".

[iambiguous]

Free will, the Holocaust, and The Problem of Evil
David Kyle Johnson

Varieties of The Problem of Evil

The kind of problem that the problem of evil presents is usually thought of in two ways: it’s either a logical problem or an evidential problem. If it is a logical problem, it suggests that there is a logical incompatibility between the existence of God and the existence of evil.

I don't understand this. And perhaps that's because when it comes to things like God and evil [intertwined or not] what on Earth does it really mean to be logical? Is the existence of God logical? Is a world without God logical? Is abortion logical or is it illogical?

God and evil cannot co-exist any more than a triangle can have four sides. Evil is deductive proof that there is no God.

On the contrary, if you "logically" believe that because God works in mysterious ways we mere mortals simply do not possess the capacity to grasp that these things...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... _eruptions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... l_cyclones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tsunamis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landslides
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_floods
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... ore_deaths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_diseases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events

...are not really evil at all, then that need be as far as it goes. After all, it's not like anyone can prove that "logically" they are evil.

If it is an evidential problem, however, then the occurrence of evil is evidence that presents a sufficient reason to doubt that God exists. It does not deductively prove that God does not exist, but it does render belief in God irrational. Such versions usually add the words“ probably” or “almost certainly” to the conclusion.

"The evidential problem of evil is the problem of determining whether and, if so, to what extent the existence of evil...constitutes evidence against the existence of God, that is to say, a being perfect in power, knowledge and goodness."

How is this not basically the same thing? How does one go about providing teleological evidence in regard to a God that is Himself beyond demonstrating evidentially? Since mere mortals have no complete understanding of why God chooses to do what He does how can it realistically be argued that it is irrational to believe in God? What we construe to be evil either logically or evidentially is merely the embodiment of the gap between us and God's own loving, just and merciful Divine Plan.

It's all only a problem for those unable to accept that "God works in mysterious ways" is all the justification the True Believer or one taking a "leap of faith" needs.

Same thing with reconciling an omniscient God with human autonomy. He's God. He can do anything.