Absurd Escapism

Originally posted by sonship

Further, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The brain is responsible for storing memories. When we die these memories are destroyed.

You have to admit that by[b] personal experience, you don't know that.

We see corpses rot, Yes. But by personal experience we don't know what takes place to our soul at death.
...[text shortened]... a hope in some logical loophole I think I can speculate about.

I am dealing with God.[/b]

I put ZERO confidence in any imagined scenario in which the God of the universe is "stumped" or at a loss how to proceed. Any arguments suggesting we can come up with a perplexing situation, mental or otherwise, which will have the Almighty baffled as to what to do, I put no trust in.

Then you've missed the point. I'm not suggesting that "God is stumped" I'm pointing out that if such a thing as a soul exists then either the soul retains memories, in which case reincarnation makes sense as a mechanism for justice, or souls do not retain memories in which case the Christian cosmology has problems.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
I would say justice is a theory by which fairness is administered, and whereby actions have consequences.

But you don't know what the consequences of what you call "real justice" are, right?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
When you find yourself unable to refute a piece of text that someone posted, rather resort to personal insults instead. Very mature approach.

I did refute your copy and paste, top of page 13, you ignored it. What's more I'll use personal insults when I think someone is being deliberately obtuse or they otherwise deserve it. If you engage with people's arguments instead of trying to think of clever questions or copy and pasting the arguments of others I won't have reason to be rude to you. Failing to read people's posts, which you clearly had done, but continuing to post in an attempt to gain an eristic victory is considerably ruder than the small amount of name calling I did.

Just to summarize my earlier argument: The theme of "widows and orphans" being protected is a common theme in ancient law codes, some of which predate Mosaic law by up to a millennium. There is nothing in your copy and paste that distinguishes divine justice from human justice.

Edit: Took a quick look back, I'd replied to your earlier copy and paste. This latest copy and paste I hadn't. That article relies on the crucifixion fixing a contradiction between divine mercy and divine retribution. The problem is that I really don't think substitutionalism helps your argument at all. Essentially, justice is preserved because Christ took the punishment. So your argument depends on the one hand on sinners being punished to balance up the scales, but on the other the same sinners not being punished because Christ was Crucified. So you now have a completely contradictory position. If Adam commits a crime and the judge, knowing all the facts, sends Brian to prison, it is difficult to see how justice has been served (as a matter of fact early law codes forbade exactly this regarding fathers and sons being punished for each others crimes). So, the crucifixion is the opposite of justice as your second copy and pasted article seeks to define it.

Originally posted by DeepThought
[b]I put ZERO confidence in any imagined scenario in which the God of the universe is "stumped" or at a loss how to proceed. Any arguments suggesting we can come up with a perplexing situation, mental or otherwise, which will have the Almighty baffled as to what to do, I put no trust in.

Then you've missed the point. I'm not suggesting that "Go ...[text shortened]... for justice, or souls do not retain memories in which case the Christian cosmology has problems.[/b]

But we have no other way to figure this out. The abrahamic gods are hiding from us.

The above leads me to think that the claim: "God is necessary for perfect justice." has it on its head. The notion is that justice is (or at least ought to be) perfect, but absolutely perfect justice would be terrible (in the shock and awe sense of terrible). Contrary to what the copy and pasted article on p.13 says, human justice is generally best served by the judge having some leeway to be merciful or not as the case demands. So a more robust position a Christian might take is to make a claim along the lines that: "Without God (via the crucifixion) justice would be absolute and merciless, as it is mercy is available.", which is a more interesting position, but seems to make justice in some way independent of God - in the same way as there is no reason to believe that an abstract geometrical figure depends on God for its existence, even if any instantiation (real world approximation to a circle) does.

Originally posted by apathist
But we have no other way to figure this out. The abrahamic gods are hiding from us.

I'm not sure what your point is. The Christians posting here are defending a statement along the lines of: "God is a necessary condition for absolute justice.". I'm interpreting that to mean that there is no possible world where there is no God and there is absolute justice. I pointed out that reincarnation seems to allow for this - one can imagine a possible world where justice is realized over reincarnations but without a God, at least in the personal sense. So I'm attacking the word "necessary", it may be that in the actual world God exists and did create justice, but that is contingent, it's not necessary in the modal sense.

Anyway, sonship responded to this by trying to argue that reincarnation doesn't work as a mechanism for achieving perfect justice, because you don't remember previous lives. I countered this by pointing out that the Christian cosmology requires that souls have memories, otherwise the final judgement makes no sense. So there are no good grounds (if sonship wishes to retain his Christian cosmology) for dismissing reincarnation as a potential mechanism for realizing absolute justice. Although a given incarnation only remembers its current lifetime, the soul it carries around remembers all of them and the soul is the object of justice in both these cosmologies.

The rest of his post seemed to consist of an argument that because I'd never died I couldn't know that I wouldn't remember things post-mortem and a complaint that I was looking for logical problems with his position. He has a dual standard going on. Christian souls have memories, but Buddhist souls apparently cannot. From sonship's post the 14th on page 13: I am sorry. I count this as attempting to hunt for inconsistencies or logical weaknesses. Which is a bizarre complaint - obviously I'm looking for logical weaknesses, the target of my argument is the word "necessary" in the claim about justice being dependent on God and that seems not to withstand scrutiny.

Originally posted by DeepThought
I'd dispute that no one owed the widows and orphans your copy and paste mentions. Consider this passage from Deuteronomy:[quote]19 When thou cuttest down thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow: that the Lord thy God may ble ...[text shortened]... tively different about divine justice.

[1] http://www.general-intelligence.com/library/hr.pdf

Sorry but I don't know of any human justice system on earth that holds people liable for not caring for widows and orphans. In which country on the planet can you go to jail if you don't care for widows or orphans?

Originally posted by apathist
But we have no other way to figure this out. The abrahamic gods are hiding from us.

First, there are no Abrahamic gods. That is a line of defense given as a rational excuse not to hear the word of THE God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. IMO (which I respect by the way).

Now, it Bible itself does record that "God hides Himself". But you cannot take that too far. I am willing to talk about God hiding Himself, but with a cautionary note that we would not be served well to over play that.

Quite much God has revealed about God.

Now let me be more personal about it which I think is practical. Obedience to what God has shown you will lead to greater light. Often God will not waste more light on someone He knows is not going to walk in the degree of light He has already shown them.

Sometimes if God reveals something to you about Himself He observes HOW you will react to that much light and truth He has revealed to you. Sometimes, if you squander that illumination, God will not waste more light and truth on you because you have not done anything to walk in the light He did grant you.

But if you walk in the light and truth that God has revealed to you, rest assured greater light and truth will be yours.

Please let me confirm it with a passage please -

" For whoever has, it shall be given to him and he will abound; but whoever does not have, even that which he has shall be taken away. " (Matt. 13:11,12)

it is no game then, how we react to the level of light and truth God has afforded us. It is well worth the while for a sinner to go to God in prayer asking Him, just what light He has already shone Him, to be reminded.

God gives His revelation concerning Himself not to tickle man's curiosity. He looks for repentence and a few steps in that which He has shown.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Sorry but I don't know of any human justice system on earth that holds people liable for not caring for widows and orphans.

But according to the Bible God does. That's one reason why divine justice is different to human justice.

First you've ignored a host of law codes which do specifically include protections for widows and orphans. Secondly you've misunderstood why there is a liability. If there is an entitlement and that entitlement is breached then the respondent is liable. The passages from Deuteronomy establish some foraging entitlements for the poor. In medieval England they would have had access to common land. It is that kind of entitlement that is being created in the passage from Deuteronomy. Basically in English law they would have a claim under equity. While there is no generalized requirement to help people in English law, there is a duty of care and the passages say not to engage in activities that compromise "widows' and orphans'" foraging rights. What is more specific agencies do have such duties and there are provisions for pensions. So such protections do exist. Further, in the ancient world, widows were in possession of dowries and so the codes tend to concentrate on the legal protections concerning preventing her in-laws dispossessing her. In other words what both sets of law codes do is establish entitlements and seek to protect them. So it is not clear to me why you think anything different to existing secular law codes and social security systems is happening.

The third point is that someone can be a widow and poor without anything unjust happening. The husband's death may have been tragic but tragedy is not injustice. So, although I agree with the notion that it is desirable that there should be customs and laws to help the weak and the poor, I don't think that has to do with justice particularly. If their condition prevents them from gaining access to resources (with which they could be productive, rather than just consuming them) then there is an injustice - but then an entitlement has been compromised and secular law codes recognize this. So once again I'm not seeing anything not included in human notions of justice.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Sorry but I don't know of any human justice system on earth that holds people liable for not caring for widows and orphans. In which country on the planet can you go to jail if you don't care for widows or orphans?

What do you believe is your God's "real justice" that is meted out to people who don't care for widows or orphans?

Originally posted by DeepThought

I'm not sure what your point is. The Christians posting here are defending a statement along the lines of: "God is a necessary condition for absolute justice.".

it is hard for me to see anything else but arbitrary opinion in moral decisions unless there is God.

If you don't like the rapist, murdering pedophile, well that's just your opinion.
It cannot be absolutely right unless there is an absolute goodness.

Does the view lead to some difficulties? Maybe. saying there is no absolute legislator leads to more problems I think.

I'm interpreting that to mean that there is no possible world where there is no God and there is absolute justice. I pointed out that reincarnation seems to allow for this - one can imagine a possible world where justice is realized over reincarnations but without a God, at least in the personal sense.

Suppose your children decided that they would rather be dealt with by, say, the electrical energy generator rather than by you ? A non-personal force cannot so well deal with the problems of personhood. And that is on either the positive or negative side.

Personhood should be dealt with by a Person.

The electrical generator didn't love the your kids or instruct them concerning what was good to do. YOU did as a person and their personal father.

" He who planted the ear, does He not hear?
He who formed the eye, does He not see? ...

He who teaches man knowledge, does He not reprove? " (See Psalm 94:9,10)

And impersonal force is responsible for the personhood of mankind ??
Perhaps this has some attraction on some level, but not on all. And I don't think it is the case.

So I'm attacking the word "necessary", it may be that in the actual world God exists and did create justice, but that is contingent, it's not necessary in the modal sense.

I think goodness and righteousness just flow out of His being by His nature. It existed as long as God existed - from eternity.

Something happened with the introduction of another WILL among His creations. Something happened such that a WILL besides the Will of God was allowed to be introduced into existence.

You know we do have that verse where God says that judgment is His "strange" work. That is as if it is strange that God should have to judge at all.

Won't hurt. Look at it.

" For the Jehovah will rise on Mount Perizem, He will agitate as in the valley of Gibeon, He will do His deed, His STRANGE deed, And word His work, His most different word." (Isaiah 28:21)

Bible scholars take this to mean that to have to execute judgment at all is atypical for God. It is strange that God should have to do so. I concur with this. Something has occurred in the free will of His creatures that calls for this "strange" act to have to be done by God.

Anyway, sonship responded to this by trying to argue that reincarnation doesn't work as a mechanism for achieving perfect justice, because you don't remember previous lives.

Not only do you not remember, It is not you TO remember. It is something else.

i see transmigration of the soul to be soul replaces soul replaces soul ,,, etc. etc.

I countered this by pointing out that the Christian cosmology requires that souls have memories, otherwise the final judgement makes no sense.

It is true that I do not remember many things even as a living person. I cannot argue that we FORGET.

However, God does not forget and can call to our memory every detail as He sees fit.

" And I saw to you that every idle word which men speak, they will render an account concerning it in the day of judgment, For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemend." (Matt. 12:36,37)

Revelation 20 speaks of books opened to recall deeds of every man. If men do not remember God Almighty can bring TO their remembrance the needed details.

Now, before you view this only and entirely negatively you should view it positively as well. The cleansing blood of Christ can wash AWAY the guilt of man's sins whether he remembers or not.

Tell me that you can at least see that it is not only a negative matter.
Positively, God is able to clear you totally of what you DON'T remember too.

So there are no good grounds (if sonship wishes to retain his Christian cosmology) for dismissing reincarnation as a potential mechanism for realizing absolute justice.

I can see it as perhaps preferable on some level. It leave man on the highest level of being. I do not think any non-personal oversoul is on a higher level of being than the personhood of man.

You look DOWN on such a matter.
With God you must look UP for He is like you but much more so - infinitely more so.

Be happy that God is love.

Although a given incarnation only remembers its current lifetime, the soul it carries around remembers all of them and the soul is the object of justice in both these cosmologies.

In even a civil court, if the one being examined doesn't remember, details can be brought back to his mind. If man can do that think of what God can do.

And why should an impersonal Force as an Oversoul of UNpersonhood really care? What is it in such a force TO care ?

The "Hevenly Father" does not only contain its dreadful aspects of accountability. It contains His loving provision that He not have to do His "strange work" upon us.

In fact, salvation is based upon the fact that Judgment for all the sins of the world has fallen on One who bore it on our behalf on His cross. He bore what was too heavy for any of us to bear.

We are invited to accept this substitution and this Substitute as Lord and Savior.

The rest of his post seemed to consist of an argument that because I'd never died I couldn't know that I wouldn't remember things post-mortem and a complaint that I was looking for logical problems with his position.

I tried to show that One is there to be trusted to be an Authority on dying and resurrection.

I think you should consider HOW He died, WHY He believes He HAD to die, when it could have been avoided. I think you should consider His absoluteness to not try to AVOID dying. And I think you should consider that -

The power of His resurrection matches the power of His moral teaching.
The power of His victory over a self giving sacrificial death matches the power of His words leading up to that point.

I believe He has informed us of the most important things related to death and being raised again by Himself some day,

" Do nor marvel at this, for an hour is coming in which all in the tombs will hear His voice and will come forth: those who have done good, to the resurrection of life; and those who have practiced evil, to the resurrection of judgment." (John 5:28,29)

He warns us not to marvel or be overly astounded. It will happen.

"But HOW will they HEAR if they are dead ?"

Answer: I don't know. But I know we're dealing with God.

He has a dual standard going on. Christian souls have memories,

The memory objection is not that strong because I have shown you that God can bring back to memory anything a soul has forgotten. He can probably produce witnesses too.

We're dealing with the God Who "in the beginning ... created the heavens and the earth."

While you are trying hard to tie the Almighty's hands, I am suggesting that this is child's play to God. Bad memory, damaged brain, underdeveloped brain ...? None of these things are too hard for God in His administrating His creation.

but Buddhist souls apparently cannot. From sonship's post the 14th on page 13: I am sorry. I count this as attempting to hunt for inconsistencies or logical weaknesses. Which is a bizarre complaint - obviously I'm looking for logical weaknesses, the target of my argument is the word "necessary" in the claim about justice being dependent on God and that seems not to withstand scrutiny.

Yea, some of you are pretty tough. I admit that. But if there is no absolute Person then whose person's opinion should we put as the ultimate standard ?

Out of God's eternal being just flows perfect goodness, righteousness, holiness, as well as love, mercy. But sin will not go overlooked.

I would like to you to explain something of WHY it had to come about that soul transmigrate to this oversoul of non-personhood to begin with. What happened that transmigration should become necessary in the first place ?

In the Bible you have a Fall of man instigated by the rebellion of a very high creature created by God - the introduction of a second WILL in the universe besides the will of God.

Do you have an explanation for WHY souls far distant from the ONE cosmic Oversoul Force should be TASKED to reincarnate in the first place ?

Originally posted by sonship

I'm not sure what your point is. The Christians posting here are defending a statement along the lines of: "God is a necessary condition for absolute justice.".

it is hard for me to see anything else but arbitrary opinion in moral decisions unless there is God.

If you don't like the rapist, murdering pedophile, well that's just your o ...[text shortened]... distant from the ONE cosmic Oversoul Force should be TASKED to reincarnate in the first place ?

Sorry, that's a long post and I've only read the first third or so. I'll read the rest and respond more fully later. I get the impression that we are arguing at cross-purposes. You seem to be focusing on the world as it is, or at least what you think the world is like. I'm questioning what is possible and what is claimed not to be, so I'm considering potential counterfactuals. What I'm arguing with is the notion that "Necessarily, if there is no God there is no absolute justice.". While I'd be as skeptical as you expect of the sentence: "If there is no God there is no absolute justice.", I would only be arguing with the word "absolute" since no one's said what they mean by it in a very clear way. But the word that is causing me real problems is "necessary". An impersonal force of nature may not be very satisfying, but if that's what there is then that is what there is. What you or I, or our counterparts in the possible world where this pertains, want is neither here nor there. So in this modal sense of the word necessary I see no reason that a system of reincarnation of the same soul into different bodies (sorry I'm simply not going to allow you to redefine reincarnation into a straw man you can defeat) cannot perfectly administer some cosmic judicial function. A coherent argument against it would seek to show that a personality is necessary for this, and wishing to be judged by a personality rather than an impersonal force of nature does not make it necessary, just desirable. Maybe you did do this later in your post, so until I've read it I'll reserve judgement. My purpose here is to make sure we both know what we are arguing about. Basically the words necessary and absolute. I'm taking absolute to mean perfect, although I want to return to this point it can wait. At the moment I'm concerned with the word necessary. I think that makes for a very strong condition and needs a lot of justification. That one might like it to be true is not adequate justification. It has to be logically impossible for anything else to pertain and I don't think that the notion of perfect justice via reincarnation is logically impossible, however unlikely.

Originally posted by DeepThought
First you've ignored a host of law codes which do specifically include protections for widows and orphans. Secondly you've misunderstood why there is a liability. If there is an entitlement and that entitlement is breached then the respondent is liable. The passages from Deuteronomy establish some foraging entitlements for the poor. In medieval Engla ...[text shortened]... recognize this. So once again I'm not seeing anything not included in human notions of justice.

I would like to point out you left our conversation about a universal now after I answered
your point about how we are unable to view or see it. With God and without God the
universal now does change, with God it is as real as any period in time as a year or even
a thousand years, without God it is beyond seeing. So would universal morals would go
and change with and without God as well.

Originally posted by sonship

Well, to begin with sir, I don't believe in reincarnation.

Okay. I don't either.

This was never about me personally dealing with or explaining about consequences from a previous incarnation.

Ask anybody ELSE. Ask someone who DOES believe in reincarnation.

[quote]
This was simply a correction of your own inte ...[text shortened]... t you are replaced with is a Void of "happy" nothingness.

But it is the aspiration of many.

To get on board with reincarnation you do indeed need to reconsider what it means to be 'human.' (The human body is just another 'vehicle' of the travelling soul, no different than the chicken or hedgehog). You also need to be less hung up on reward or punishment, and think more 'enlightenment.'

I think you have also misunderstood Nirvana when you describe it as lonely place of non-existence, compared to the 'collective' Kingdom of God. - The whole point of enlightenment is to obliterate the illusion of individuality and to become one with everything. In other words not to be separate and lonely, but to be part of the collective. (Think 'individual grains of salt' dissolving in a great ocean).

The irony is you talk a lot about union (with God) yet fail to see you are on the same page as the Buddhist or Hindu.

Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
To get on board with reincarnation you do indeed need to reconsider what it means to be 'human.' (The human body is just another 'vehicle' of the travelling soul, no different than the chicken or hedgehog). You also need to be less hung up on reward or punishment, and think more 'enlightenment.'

I think you have also misunderstood Nirvana when y ...[text shortened]... a lot about union (with God) yet fail to see you are on the same page as the Buddhist or Hindu.

"The irony is you talk a lot about union (with God) yet fail to see you are on the same page as the Buddhist or Hindu."

I cannot speak for him, but no way is that true! The union with God that Christians have
has nothing at all in common with either Buddhist or Hindu.