Children that God neglected

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I´m not that familiar with Jewish scripture, but from what I understand, Yaweh is not considered to be omni-benevolent (in fact, in early scripture, wasn´t he killing people before he had a "change of heart"?), thus allowing for the existence of evil.

Now, in reply to DOULOS:

Yes, Doulos, welcome! You present very interesting points of view, but I´m afraid that we´re gonna disagree on this one. Debate gets pretty intense in here, but don´t take it personal, as philosophers are VERY anal about logical coherence. Any tiny fault in logic will be picked apart, but thats just what philosphers do, eh?

I´m not sure how this is evidence of you not being religious. None of my friends would call me a philosopher because I do not speak deeply about these issues with them, but I´m very much a philospher in my whole way of living. Forgive me if I take my own observations over the word of people I´ve never met.



"my faith is founded on reason"???? This is exactly what my post was fighting against. I don´t know how faith (in a sense of speaking of God and such) can be founded on reason as I explained.




Yes, the classic philosophers did attempt to put the belief of God on logical footing, and it is pretty much universally recognized that they were wrong. They were using the same proofs as theologins in this area. This doesn´t mean that they weren´t philosphers, but proofs of God were just a tiny part of their philosophy, whereas theology is only concered with such matters. I don´t belief a proof of God is possible (in fact, I don´t believe that a knowledge of the object "God" is possible as stated here:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/asperger.htm ... ht=#227417) This is something that is based on my own loss of faith. When I stopped believing, it was as if I could not percieve God in the world anymore, it was not like I stopped believing in an object.




I´m not sure I can agree with this criteria as it rules out the possibility of any new truths being established, because after all, it is not possible that a new truth to have been documented before, or found in any tradition, otherwise it would not be a new truth! Were the first people to argue that the sun was the center of the universe wrong? Were the first people to say that the world was round wrong? According to your criteria, what is thought to be true by a few founding humans, and what is true as accepted by the majority of humans as true as two different things, one always must be in the category of the former before it can be in the latter. Your criteria discounts the former.

However, I fully agree that the first two requirements are necessary, especially number 2. This is akin to saying it must make sense, it has to be applicable to the real world. My argument was presented after witnessing (and participating in) many, many, MANY debates between Christians and Atheists, and I have NEVER once seen a Christian agree with the arguments of an Atheist, and neither have I seen an Atheist ever once agree with the conclusions of a Christian. And as for my example with the child, this is related to what is generally agreed upon as the stages of development of children. A child cannot form abstract thought until much later in life, but is able to hold religious beliefs quite early.

Now, let me ask you, do you believe that God is all loving, all knowing, and all powerful? And do you believe that mankind are sinners? The answers to these questions will let me know your true position.

While you may claim to not be religious, your arguments are very religious indeed as scrapheep pointed out. Unless you can logically answers his challenges, I´m afraid I can´t take your word for it. If I am standing with a friend and looking at an animal that looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and acts like a duck. Well, I´m gonna call it a duck, no matter how much he may try to convince me that its a rabbit.

So, I guess what I´m trying to say is, is that I´m calling you a duck

But, keep in mind, as I said before, there is nothing wrong with being a duck, just don´t try to convince me you´re a rabbit.

Cheers!

Johnathon79,

Thank you for your kind welcome.

You present many avenues of thought in your reply, so I will begin by addressing what seems to be as I perceive it, the major barriers to agreement in our thought process.

Your colleague has asserted that I have presented “nothing new” and that, actually, is correct. I am not establishing a new philosophic method. I am simply using and referring to ideas that are well established in modern thought.

I am increasingly convinced that you and I (and perhaps others) are using vocabulary in very inherently different ways. For example, you maintain that I seem to you to be “religious” when in fact what I have presented are thoughts of someone who is interested in Being – the Ontological Equation. An attempt to minimalize my points by claiming they are invalid because they involve or include a metaphysical essence in their equation or to write them off as “religious” seems to involve a short-sightedness of thought on the presenter’s part. “Religion” is specifically a set of systematic or non-systematic ideas which presuppose a deity and that come together to form a set of rules and regulations for specific cultural behavior. They typically and invariably include some sort of restrictive dogma and conformity. Theology, on the other hand, requires none of these - certainly not a presupposition of a divinity - and inherently contradicts the restrictive borders of religion. It is a school of thought devoted to God, in whatever state the theologian perceives in her philosophic excercies God to be or not be – even atheism is a theology – and a discussion on how this god impacts human events, if at all.

You will note that using your exact line of reasoning in my original reply to Aeriel, I concede that anyone who ponders issues of God is a theologian and that in this sense (the same in which you admit to being a philosopher) I am indeed one. I also state and again point out that this is very different from being tied to and limited by an overarching system of beliefs, rules and human dogma – religion. The two ideas – religion and philosophy - are far less related to each other than you seem to assert philosophy and theology are.

The second, but I believe related conflict in our communication is your (and others whom have addressed me) insistence upon a “universally understood” (your term) set of philosophical presuppositions in our conversation. You write off most of my comments with the sweeping gesture that modern philosophy “universally recognized that they (classic philosophers) were wrong.”

“Universally” is a big word. Exactly where, in philosophical discourse did all of modern philosophy universally renounce the inclusion of theological / metaphysical / ontological equations in philosophical discourses? As I pointed out earlier, most of our foundational philosophers maintain a discourse of the divine and indeed Postmodern Philosophy itself is founded and continually influenced by the writings of Kant, Descartes, Kierkegaard, Heidegger and others who deal with the questions presented by metaphysics and of Ontological dualism. These arguments – even Nietzsche and Hegel’s – include dialogue that grounds god in whatever form their arguments lead, as a foundational aspect of philosophy that must be addressed.

So before we philosophers here “universally” rule out the possibility Being that even postmodern philosophers address actively in their writings, please let me know what school of thought are you referring to when you say philosophy has ruled out the exercise of theology?

Specifically, whom are you assertaining has surpassed the thought of Existenitalism, Postmodernity and Ontological Dualism? Even the newer philosophers I’m reading who have the creativity to base abstract potential worlds of reality and philosophy on models that resemble Matrix-like realities continue to rely upon these principles, so I am wondering what this new universal rejection is that I seem to have missed in my philosophical readings. I know that the recent philosophers who brought us Quantum philosophy – the predessor to Quantum Mechanics – included an entire section of their field to Metaphysics. Perhaps you rule their writings insufficiently modern? These men and women were peers of Albert Einstien and influenced his mathematical formulas that have formed our definitions of reality, as I said earier – hardly lightweights.

Names, please – and if we’re talking “universal” recognition of a reversal of 4500 years of thought, please let them be not obscure footnotes in contemporary culture, but icons, as the creators of new paradigms that have reconstructed human thought as we have known it for centuries must surely be.

Please do not hear this as disrespect of your views. I seek clarification. I am simply having trouble determining where your views are coming from and frankly, as with anyone “I do not know,” I cannot assume yours are “universally recognized” simply because you say they are. The same goes for this threefold or fourfold formula of negation you and your colleage (and a few others, I’ve noticed as I read through former discussions) seem to brandish as a weapon of submission on multiple and varied occassions.

By the way… and I mention this in a friendly way, not an advesarial one: do you note that your argument of refutation against my suggestions is actually grounded in my own Quadrilateral? Think about it. Even as you were refuting my ideas, you were using the Quadilateral to do so. When you seek to source “universal” condemnation of an idea, what are you doing besides seeking refutation in Tradition and Authoritative Authentication / Documentation? You have pointed to an outside scale of authority of some sort.

This brings me to your rejection of the third and fourth points of Quadrilateral proofs of logic. I think again, you have misinterpreted what I propose. If not, answer the following:

Help me understand how Newton and Einstien didn’t rely upon mathematical proofs or any other previously existing reference or authority as they shared their new formulations.
Before their ideas were accepted, did they not have to be proven by conventional (Traditional) means?
The scientific method of using equations to prove the validity of an idea is a traditional means of testing the “truth” of an unproven idea (hypothesis).

Einstien’s discoveries had to be proven and authenticated – btw, it was actually the confirmation of his writings by the observed effect of light rays at a solar eclipse that made him famous (eg Documentation) – before they were accepted by the scientific community.

You also seem to consitently use reason to disavow (seemingly, at least) knowledge of Absolute Being, and refute its ability to point towards Being. How then, can you deny that this idea came about using any process but that of which we speak? When you try to "prove" anything and insert the relational element as part of proof, you have once again used the Quadrilateral. It is primarily a practical application of Descartes Ontological Dualism, if you think about it - the required responce to essence. One that even he did not derive - that's the genius of Whitfield and his colleages. You renounce an object God. OK. If you feel that is what I am subtely arguing for (or against) then you have miscontrued my writings and I will seek to be more clear. My comments have been specifically in reference to God as Being, which by nature and definition trancends the idea of an object god. John MaQuarrie wrote a small book that is widely read in academic circles with a wonderful essay explaining the concept - as has W. Pannenburg, among others. Both are readily available - or you may have already read them. You seem to be very well read.

As far as your ultimatum on answering your questions regarding issues of faith and sin – until we have established a common source of vocabulary and definitions, I am certain that any attempt to answer these questions will be misused or misunderstood. I am confidant that my understanding of sin is quite different than that I’ve seen attacked on this site and elsewhere (I'm not convinced at the moment that we can even discuss sin - for in order for there to be sin is the predicating factor that it be preceded by some metaphysical element which must be responded to in order to have sin in the first place...), and frankly, due to the limitations of the English language and contemporary ideas of who and what people seem to think “all Christians” believe, jumping in without clarity would only cause confusion and invite misinterpretation. The same is true of the other terms you mandate I affirm or deny. Answering these questions would determine my faith background perhaps, but not the essence or being of my nature, which is what I percieve you really want to deduce. Once we have determined what you mean by these terms – the primary task of any responsibile philosopher  - then I will be happy to answer your questions.

I do hope this has answered questions and addressed presented issues. If not, feel free to seek clarification.

Now, unless I’ve misunderstood your line of thought as presented in your comments, I guess what I’m trying to say is that at this point “This duck don’t quack.”

Sincerely,

DOULOS-XPISTOU

i dont understand what this is supposed to mean as I made the disclaimer at the beginning that I don´t know much about Jewish scripture.


As for our debate here, I don´t think we will ever resolve it, as you seem to take a heideggerian point of view of being, which in my opinion is just a re-description of a point of view in order to logically fit the arguments that you make (hence your constant redescripton of what i term "religious" as something different, when in fact we are talking about the same thing). I do not agree with Heidegger at all, so if that is your foundation, then we will never get anywhere. There was a book that pretty much sums up my views on Heidegger, it was titled "0 plus 0 plus 0 = 0" (in other words you can add up as many redescriptions as you want, but they don´t make anything new),I didn´t really read it as I agree with the title outright, and i don´t remember the name, but I can find out for you. But, there are some things i can answer here, so moving on.....





This is NOT what i am saying. You are doing the same thing that you are accusing me of.



The first paragraph means that i am a thelogian, which i am not. The second is true, theology and philosophy are closer together than philosphy and religion, but that ONLY concerns methodology, NOT logical coherence.




It is not found in discourse but in the seperate academic areas that are provided for the two at any university. There are different degrees for theology and philosophy. Hence, the universally recognized division between the two fields. Of course there is some theology in philosphy, but why the two different degrees if they are the same thing? Theologists do not lecture at philosophy conventions and vice versa (accept in very, very, very rare circumstances, which I have not seen yet).


i have made NO assertian that Existentialism, Postmodernity, and Ontological Dualism were wrong. My assertion was that the theological arguments (about God only, not their other philosophical systems)presented by the classic philosophers are recognized as such, and the prime mover argument does not really hold any water. i´m not really sure what this insistance on names is for, as naming a source does not makes ones opinion any more credible or true.
And, as stated before, the universally recognized division comes from the academic seperations at any major university, however, as stated above, this division is between theology and philosophy only.



Just because my arguments "happen" to fit this criteria, it does not make it true.




Okay, i did not realize you were saying the third and fourth proofs were speaking of the field themselves, and not the new movements within each field. But, I still cant see how this is right. Because you are saying that all science is founded on science? And all physics was founded on physics? Where was the beginning? Your criteria demands an infinite regress in order to validate any knowledge at all. Your criteria discredits the very notion that science, or physics can exist at all.





How can we determine what they mean when you insist on a one way dialogue???? All you have to do is state what they mean, but you won´t, instead you insist on me presenting all of my views which you can conviniently attack from a foundation-less position. You keep stating that your views are different, they are different, they are different, but never present them. I´m sorry, do not take this the wrong way, but this is a debaters trick. I can never be right, and you can never be wrong if the debate is to proceed like this.

Also, as stated, I´m am not a Heidigerrian, so I do not believe that your essence or nature is any different from your views on faith, I mean how can they be?. They are the same thing, just redescribed in a different way. My essence or being is not different from the points of view I have on things, i mean after all, if they were, then my points of view would not be my points of view!

Also, i have not accused you of being a Christian, I have accused you of using logic to justify your faith, which is what you admit to doing as quoted before.

If you want to dance around the issues without discussing them, then i am not interested. But, if you want to lay out your position, then I certainly am. As stated before, I do not play around with debating tricks, it is a waste of time.

Cheers!

Hello Jonathon79,

I must admit, I’m a bit surprised at your reply. Not at all what I was expecting.

I’m concerned that you either have seen me as an aggressor encroaching upon you and yours – or think that I’m playing some ugly mind game with you, both of which are far from the truth. The comment that you won’t dialogue and can’t communicate with me because I have read and am influenced in my thinking by Heidegger is obviously not the real issue that now makes you not want to discuss this anymore. Heck, I never even claimed to be a devotee of Heidegger, but instead listed him as one of the greats which you told me that modern philosophy had, “universally agreed are wrong.”

Since I am honestly not trying to argue, I will make a concession – you state that I’m religious. OK, I can be religious. I don’t see it that way, but in your paradigm that’s who I am. Compared to you, I’m the pope. So as far as we’re concerned for the duration of these discussions, I’m religious.

I will share with you my thoughts on the questions you ask – I simply don’t want you to turn around and do what you have accused me of doing to you – that is instead of listening and discerning, just attacking. I agree that debate is a waste of time, so let’s discuss our faith – or lack thereof – without attacking each other.

Now then, to answer your questions as well as I can. Remember, I’m speaking of and from my paradigm. You may disagree with me, but please ask questions for clarification instead of throwing out grand sweeping comments negating what you think I’m saying. You’ve asked me not to debate – let’s stay on common ground with common rules.

Fair enough?

YOU SAID:
"Now, let me ask you, do you believe that God is all loving, all knowing, and all powerful? And do you believe that mankind are sinners? The answers to these questions will let me know your true position."


My understanding of God, as mentioned in earlier posts, is that what we call God and encounter as God is ultimate Being. Not a being. Not the being. Just Being. You don’t like Heidegger – OK. My construction of God based upon my experiences and reason by which I’ve processed the reason leads me to understand God as all totality. Not pure existentialism, more of a Process viewpoint actually. When an ant looks up at a human does it comprehend what it sees? When we stare into being, into existence, can we even pretend to comprehend what we see? I can’t. We’re not talking primary mover – I agree that this is an inadequate model. No, this god I encounter is much more than a clockmaker. The Ontological argument is convincing enough when it comes to “proving” there is a god, but there is more to it than that for me. For me it is also experiential – remember the criteria I’ve told you I demand for proof of truth.

When I first studied existentialism in college, I gotta tell you, it made a heck of a lot of sense, but what really got me is that when you read Exodus in the Hebrew, when Moses asks the unknown god of the burning bush who he is, you know what his reply is in Hebrew? “I am, 'I AM'” ("I am existence!"). Now I’m not telling you anything new, but when I was 19 and read that for the first time the semester after my first philosophy class, it really got to me. I mean, here we have a document that is 3000+ years old at least and it’s spouting 19th and 20th century postmodern thought. That’s excellent.

As I continued on in my readings and discovered via Whitehead and Hartshorne that there is indeed a natural philosophy for our times that is participatory – realizing that everything is in process. Not just our essence, not just the world, but Being is itself in process. That was the key that allowed me to again “see” God in the big picture.

I haven’t walked in your shoes, but I can tell that until the day I read Quantum Metaphysics (or whatever you want to call this interactive, inter-evolving concept), I had lost the image of God from my picture. I do identify with that comment in an earlier post. I had been raised in a very religious home, albeit fairly “liberal” compared to what America seems to consider religious (definitely NOT the religious right), and it was very troubling to not have an image of God because of all these wonderful things I was learning that I – at the time – thought had pushed God out of the picture. I’ll tell you this – it did push out the God I learned about in Sunday school; the nice sweet, tame God. And I was mad. Mad that I’d lost him and mad that He wasn’t who I thought he was – and since he wasn’t what I thought, I thought he simply wasn’t.

But He is. In fact, that’s His name. I AM. Being. Existence. Totality. Total Consciousness. God.

Enough for now.

I'll post to your other questions in a little while.

Sincerely,

DOULOS-XPISTOU

Now that I've laid the groundwork, here are some of my thoughts on your question:

OK, now you’ve got my construct. Now I can try to answer your other questions – maybe.

Is God all loving? We are a part of God. One philosopher says that we are a tiny part of the mind of God. I don’t know about that, but I know that I want my body to be healthy and in harmony. If cells, even on the tiniest molecular level are in disharmony, then I want them to be in harmony with the rest of my being. More importantly though – we aren’t just a part of God’s creation we are one of God’s creations. We are – as many traditions tell us – His children. Do you have children? Until I did I had absolutely no idea how much a parent does and should love his child. My kids are a part of me. We are a part of God. When my child falls and scrapes his knee, I feel the pain – and the disappointment of not having kept him safe. But I don’t raise him in a padded cell where there’s no risk or harm – would that be benevolent or loving? I don’t see it.

As far as disease and children – which is how this post originally began – all I can say again is that I think God hurts more than any of us could ever imagine each time any of us, especially a child, feels pain. But this is His creation. That’s part of the construct when an entity within the body (or family – remember METAPHORS) is distanced. They lose contact. They feel disconnected. It causes gaps in the relationship and changes the entire state of being. He made it this way, it effects creation on some level when things go differently than intended – no matter how small a microscopic level we’re dealing with here.


Now remember, this is an analogy, a construct, a model – not reality. But I can’t grasp all of reality in my simian mind, so for me a model is as good as it gets from here. But this model tells me that God is rooting for me and that my actions, while not the determining factors in the universe (I’m not THAT sold on myself ), do at least make a difference in some respect. You, I, all of us, are a part of the process.

Is God all powerful? Well, He’s omnipotent. But that doesn’t mean he can and does do everything we think he should. I perceive that God can and does act in conjunction with nature. Think about it. If God is Being, then all of action is God’s action. Nothing from without can move him because nothing is without God. Anything that does move – and everything moves – effects Being, but from within, not without. There is nothing without God.

Are we sinners? What is sin? (don’t get uptight, I’m about to answer my own question…:-)

Because I experience God as relational and understand that what God desires is to be reconciled to His creation (he wants it all to be right). I also recognize that this state doesn’t seem to occur naturally. Why not? Who knows, I wasn’t there when and if the break occurred. Genesis tells us it’s because some guy and woman ate some fruit. Maybe. What is more important in that story though is that at one point they had everything. EVERYTHING. And they chose to risk it all in order to taste a moment of separation from God. They ate the apple out in the open, but then they did IT – the thing that changed history – or humanity. They hid from God. That’s the issue in the garden. Not that they disobeyed – God forgives. The issue is that they hid. They separated themselves from God. They hid.

We hide daily from God. We separate ourselves from God for as many different reasons as there are people in the world. We convince ourselves that He isn’t there, or that He’s mean, or that we’re not good enough, and on and on. And that is sin. Not the evil acts that come because we are separated. The separation itself. That is sin. Separation from God. It’s that simple – and yet we all do it in some way each day. You do it. I do it. We step outside of God’s presence – we hide from God. And that – not any other action – is sin.

It's not something to be punished - it is punishment enough. It is separation from all existence. It's angst. And it feels hopeless and those in sin feel meaningless and un-lovable (harmony with God) while they're in it.

Somebody's going to jump in any moment now and start shouting about morals and evil. I haven't even touched on those issues, yet. This is getting way too long. Suffice to say that, "It's in there," and at some point I'd love to hear your thoughts on all these (not necessarily your thoughts on mine, but YOUR thoughts on these issues). I'll be waiting.

Sincerely,

DOULOS-XPISTOU

hahaha, no...but apart from pointing out the obvious - "Jewish scripture" and "Christian scripture" are the same texts, except that Christians accept as scripture some Greek writings which are not part of the Tanakh - I'm gonna leave it alone. I am not familiar with whatever text jonathan79 tried to summarize with "wasn't he killing people before he had a change of heart", so I cannot discuss that statement in any meaningful way. I think the other responses to the post served to illustrate at least one of the points I was trying to make.

I used the quote from Rabbi Ariel as an illustration of another explanation for the continued existance of evil under the aegis of a supposedly benevolent God. I didn't think anyone here would be familiar enough with Kabbalah to refute his statements from a position of knowledge. I was trying to show that to argue effectively against a proposition, you have to at least have an understanding of its premises and origins. People think they have such an understanding of Christianity because it is relatively familiar, but most do not.

DOULOS-XPISTOU, it seems that no matter how many times you say, "Sin is the condition of being seperate from God," people will not replace their preconceived definition of sin with that one. Everyone seems still convinced that sin is something you DO, and should feel really guilty about. The new definition just doesn't seem to sink in, and without acceptance of that basic premise further discussion becomes futile, because there is no common definition of the word. You may say that 'we are born into a state of sin'; and I am willing to accept that as meaning 'we are born into a state of separation from the Divine' (in fact that seems quite obvious) but 99 out of 100 people are going to take that statement to mean, 'You are born a Bad Person, and you'd better get busy with the repenting - if you believe that nonsense'.

The notion of God as Process is part of Reconstructionist Judaism. You might enjoy checking out some links on that. In fact there is a sort of Reconstructionist in-joke that refers to God (G-d) as Pr-cess - from the traditional Jewish prohibition against pronouncing or writing the true Name. Oh well, I guess you had to be there...

I feel quite fortuate that I don't have an axe to grind, so to speak, or a religion or philosophy to defend; I am very much on the side of the questioners and seekers. I'm not so arrogant as to believe that the senses I posess, and my 'simian mind', are capable of understanding the mysteries of creation and being. I do enjoy the reading the thoughts of those who have obviously devoted time and study to such questions. Also I am not a logician or particularly fond of participating in debate, I just like to see where it leads. Sometimes, I strike gold.

Do not take my forceful arguments for personal attacks, that is not my intention. When I feel that someone is doing something I say it. I do not hate you, or despise you, but will vigorously defend my position. When it comes to saying that I will not debate if you are a Heideggerian, it is because our foundations would be so different, that we would never to be able to discuss anything, our words would pass over each other, which was what you stated was happening. What makes me believe that you are a Heideggerian is your constant referal to a "state of being". And I know that there are other philosophers that espouse this way of thinking, but I consider Heidegger to be the main figure in the movement.




"When we stare into being, into existence, can we even pretend to comprehend what we see? I can’t." I dont understand how you can make this statement, then attempt to explain God. What can´t be understood, can´t be understood, it cannot be comprehended and it can´t be explained either. So, are you saying that you are guessing what God is? I cannot reconcile the two notions. If something is not understood, it is not understood. To say that I don´t understand it, but, "I understand it - here, let me explain it to you", doesn´t make any sense to me. As you say at the end of your post, God is:

"But He is. In fact, that’s His name. I AM. Being. Existence. Totality. Total Consciousness. God."

So, you do understand him then? I don´t get it. Thus, I don´t know what how to respond to your second post if you maintain this line of thought. But, I will assume that you do understand him and know him, and I will answer your second post until this issue is clarified.

I also do not agree with the ontological model, so we´re going to have to disagree there. The ontological model takes the form of a deductive argument:

1) God is perfect
2) existence is a requirement of perfection
3) God exists

The ontological model takes the position that God is perfect a priori, without solving the problem of evil. Gods perfection must be shown before the ontological model can be true, it cannot be taken as a "given".

To experience the perfection of God through the world is a subjective argument, thus is cannot meet the requirement of an objective argument. I experience the opposite, am I right? Are we both right?

Again, I say that this are arguments fit to the conclusion. To say that God feels the pain of the children is to say that you know God. A human parent loving a child and not protecting them is different than God not protecting a child. Sure, you let your child run around and play, but if you KNOW that he will develop cancer one day, and you had the power to stop it, surely you would. I do not make comparisons between parents and children, and God and people because this comparison cannot be made. God has powers that people don´t have. There is a difference between holding a six year old responsible for what happens to their 3 year sibling, and holding a 40 year old adult for responsible for what happens to their 3 year old child.

There is also difference between children playing around and getting hurt, and people getting sick and dying. The CHANCE of risk and harm is different from the CERTAINTY of cancer. One can avoid getting hurt on the playground, but a child cannot avoid cancer. Free will comes into play in our actions, not our cellular structure.

Also, I´m not sure how things can go differenty than intended. Either they were suppossed to go that way, or theres a mistake. God cannot make things one way, then they turn out another, its either a mistake, or purposeful, either of which calls God perfection into question. Also, I´m not sure how actions can cause cellular mutation, accept if you go near radiation or something.



A model is not a model if it is not based on total understanding. If I am shown half a bridge and build a model on that half of the bridge, I cannot say that I have built a model of "the whole bridge", i have a model of half the bridge. And, according to your statements earlier, you don´t even know if you have half the bridge, perhaps you have an 1/8, or a 1/16, or perhaps even a hundreth of the bridge. The rest of the bridge could be completely different, thus making the equations that I derived from a half model (or less) obsolete, and, even dangerous.



"But that doesn’t mean he can and does do everything we think he should." Again, this is working on the assumption that you "know" God.



"Because I experience God as relational and understand that what God desires is to be reconciled to His creation (he wants it all to be right)." So, you do understand God? I don´t get it, either you understand him, or you don´t. You cannot say you understand him when you are trying to explain something, and then say you don´t when something becomes logically incoherent. This is arguing from a foundation-less position as I have said.

"I also recognize that this state doesn’t seem to occur naturally." Yes, but this does´t mean that we chose it. Hobbes in fact did argue that man was naturally wicked, and Rousseau argued that it was society that made man wicked. You put the bible as the authority on the subject, which is something that I cannot agree with. "They ate the apple out in the open, but then they did IT – the thing that changed history – or humanity.", but earlier you said, "Who knows, I wasn’t there when and if the break occurred." "Then they did IT", to "when and if". Again, I cannot reconcile the two notions.

I agree with Rousseau´s logical analysis (a discourse on human inequality), which is on logical footing, i cannot agree with a story from the bible, because as you said, no one today was there.


"(not necessarily your thoughts on mine, but YOUR thoughts on these issues). I'll be waiting."

I have to respond to your thoughts in order to discuss these issues, but I have also presented my views, and I still maintain that you are trying to logically justify your faith as the logical inconsistancies are apparent.

I think it has been shown what I have been saying. I will not accept any conclusions that do not fit your arguments, and you will not accept any of my arguments that do not fit your conclusions.

I don´t see how there is anything left to debate, but if you can show me otherwise, then I am still interested.

So, I guess you could say that I´m still calling you a duck

Yes - this is exactly where I have difficulty with religious thought too. I have not yet encountered an explanation that makes real sense to me.

The data provided by my limited senses has made me a firm believer in intelligent design - but I have not been able to convince myself of the benevolence, or concern, of the Designer towards hir creation. I think of the Creator as a hobbyist who, say, sets up an aquarium with all the bells, whistles, snails and fish - and then gets interested in doing something else entirely. The fish are neglected and the whole beautiful ecology degenerates into a stinky mire of corruption and decay.

Were I God, I would stick with dimensions, stars, planets, rocks; this Life stuff seems like an exercise in over-achievement.

Hey, on the bright side - aren't you glad you don't live in my head???

What "Evidence" convinced you that I.D. is true??

The structure of crystals. The way a tree can grow from a tiny seed. Light. Fractals. Mathematics. The photos from Voyager. The instinct animals show in caring for their young. Hysterical strength. The universal language of music. That's just the first five or six mysteries that came to mind in answer to your question; there is a mystery under every stone you overturn.

Of course you are free to put your own interpretation on such things; to me they are mysteries best explained by the postulate of intelligent design.

I cannot credit human intelligence or philosophy for any of these things. Another aspie of my acquaintance believed that all of the beauty and order I see in our universe is merely a construct of the human mind, which insists on creating artificial order where only chaos exists 'in reality'. Actually that was the mindset I learned in childhood, and I reject it as even bleaker than my own pessimistic conclusions.

The Designer may not love me or care about me - but I don't believe all of this marvelous universe around us is here only by accident.

So I am not the only one who thinks that evolution is a fantasy? Interesting.

I also believe in something that is intelligent design this universe. For its mathematical probabilities that it came for nothingness into somethings that just come to be just like that are to high of probability. For there has to be a Grand Intelligent Designer that has done for what We see and don't see or at least with the naked eye.

Johnathon79,

Just read your replies.

Thanks for the remark, but I didn’t take your response as an attack. Don’t play the very game you accused me of before my recent posts, though. Anyone can sit back and throw darts. Let’s share ideas here. Present an alternate construct instead of picking holes in mine.

I’m interested in finding out what caused you to lose faith – and what your faith was in the first place that you lost. That is what, as much as your current construct, interests me.

I honored your request and shared some of my observations of reality with you – recognizing that I wasn’t in any way presenting a holistic picture in one or two threads, which would make them way too long and I don’t really have time to sit down and type them all out at once.

Let me clarify a few points you bring up:

The logic you propose above contains an inherent flaw.

You are correct to say that we can’t comprehend it – but not that we cannot explain it to the best of our experience. My paradigm asserts that humanity’s philosophic construct of being is one in process.

Consider this: Do you know everything about your parents, or a particular professor, or friend? Do you know their inner thoughts, their motivations? Is it possible that the professor you encounter in the classroom is a completely different person at home or in the faculty lounge? Yet does that keep you from describing them and your interactions with them? Does your understanding of your parents or others change as grow as you mature and learn more about yourself and them? We can only, accurately, express that which we have experienced or contemplated and then using the mental competence we have at that point in time, paring it down to a rational paradigm.

Do you even know everything about yourself? Can you rationally explain every thought and feeling you have and give a reason for each of your actions? If you can’t, can you even assert you really exist? Not according to your argument above. Since you’re replying to my posts, I’m going to assume you’re not a figment of my imagination, but I don’t know much about you – I’ve never seen you, never heard your voice – just some “signs” that may or may not be proof of your existence. Should I wait to declare you exist until I understand every facet of your being? It’s a preposterous concept.

Even within Judaism and Christianity (understandably a model you reject, but a historic literary example, nonetheless), the model of existence and Being has changed (evolved, if you will) over the centuries. As their understanding of God evolved, so did their theology.



Again, the logic here is flawed. I ask again, “Do you understand yourself? Do you fully understand your being, 100%?” If not, are you saying that you are logically incoherent and arguing from a foundationless position as well?




Consider: No one is still alive that was there when Napoleon rampaged across Europe, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. No one is still alive who discussed evil with Locke, Hobbes or Rousseau (whom you mention elsewhere), and nonetheless you present their theories here as worthy of consideration. Wherein is the difference that makes Jewish tradition invalid?






Another clarification that is critical. I’m not trying to “logically justify (my) faith”. I am attempting to present my philosophic construct. I have not ventured into the realm of faith.

Faith () is a Greek verb meaning to be obedient to something (in this case, a system of beliefs). It means something to the effect of, “respond obediently to truth.” It is not belief, but something more. If one has faith, s/he lives it out daily. To have faith in something does mean you believe in it, but belief does not necessitate faith. One does not justify faith as a part of one’s philosophy – if we venture that direction, we have moved into the realm of theology – which you’ve stated you don’t do.




First: I’ve responded to this earlier in this post – my model is the relational / comparative aspect and process. I am a parent and that impacts my perceptions here. You may not be. Therefore we may not be able to connect on this experiencial level.

Second: As to the difference between accidents and illness, a parent experiences grief and sorrow either way – trust me on this one. If medical illnesses are precipitated by environmental alterations from humanity (second hand smoke, air and water pollution, etc.) as some evidence suggests – and please, let’s not get bogged down in an argument about the dangers or safety of biohazards in the environment - then the cause or at least the stimulus for these incidents of illness is a result of the decisions of humanity. The responsibility may not lie in the parent’s lap, but it can still be humanity’s fault.




In order to reply to this in a meaningful way, I need some clarification which I should have asked for at the very beginning. You’ve asked if I believe God is “perfect” and/or has “perfect love” for humanity. Please define these two terms for me as you’re using them. What is the source of your definitions? Are you using them in one of the various ways they are often interpreted in pop-culture or are you using a particular philosopher’s definitions. It would make a difference. What do you mean by perfect and perfect love?



I’ll clarify at this point, that I am not debating – not arguing anyway. I am intrigued by the discussions here and enjoy sharing, learning and interacting. My intent isn’t to persuade, but I do hope that I’m clear. (and I already said I’d be a duck, remember)

I still haven’t heard anything of your operational model of reality – except that you disagree with mine. I still want to hear your construct, not just your arguments against mine. More than that, though. I want to know what you perceive. What was the event that caused you to lose your belief system? I am interested.

What are your thoughts? If you don’t believe in Absolute Being, then what do you believe? Everyone has a paradigm. What’s yours?


Sincerely,

DOULOS-XPISTOU

Hey Aeriel,

Life would be much simpler without life, but it would be a lot more boring and lonely too!

I hear what you're saying and it is difficult. I don't pretend it's not. I have thought about this a lot over the years and without going into a big philosophical diatribe, I'd suggest the following. Again, I'm not trying to persuade you, but perhaps reading where I am currently in my views will help you as you formulate yours.

If we state that there is a god who loves us, and yet we recognize that we are separated from harmony with this god, we have to seek understanding as to why this conflict exists. Part of what we seem to be as humans is self-determining. Not a moral statement, but as a part of our nature we as humans decide and respond both consciously and unconsciously to stimuli. We don’t just respond though, we adapt not only ourselves to the environment, we adapt the environment to ourselves. On a grand scale we are the only animal that does this (and only our simian cousins – and maybe a few other examples I don’t know of seem to do it on a small scale). If there is a god, then part of the design in creating us included this ability to choose and change.

This is where morality becomes a part of our existence. Without choice there are no morals. But we have choice – and we have made choices that are harmful to us as a species and as individuals. The definition I would present for human evil is self-centeredness. When we place our desires above others’ and above nature’s best interests, then we are acting in a way that is evil and produces harm. Perfect love would be a way of interacting that puts others’ needs at least as forefront as your own (remember what I said about helping the kids if you really had love for them?).

Because there are morals – or a “right” and “wrong” response to any stimuli, there is an opportunity for things to not go the way they should – to go “wrongly” (disharmony). That humanity has not lived in harmony is only God’s fault in that He seems to have given us the ability to make decisions – which seems to be a prerequisite to having an authentic relationship.

The Christian model states that God did this and modeled it for humanity when He came down himself in human form as an example of a selfless offering for humanity to emulate. Many religious and non-religious systems have different models that reflect the same message. The tradition of obeying every law, which you mentioned earlier, would seem to be seeking this same harmony in a similarly selfless way.

So it isn't God's perfection that's in question - it's ours. And I for one admit wholeheartedly that I am not perfect.

Maybe that helps. I hope so. Let me know.

Sincerely,

DOULOS-XPISTOU

I guess you can't use Greek font in this forum. Oh Well!