i hate god.

Originally posted by The Chess Express
I think he’s referring to my posts in the “God, the schizophrenic” thread. I basically attempt to theorize about how there could be a good God when there is such evil in the world. Free will of coarse is the easiest answer but some of the atheists on this sight who tend to outsmart themselves with their lofty powers of intellect won’t accept it.

As TheSkipper will attest to I have the monopoly on being bored and lonely.

This is disingenious. You yourself admit in that thread that evil is not necessary for free will. To defend your mental idol though, you embarked on an irrelevant, and poorly formulated (i.e. circular), justification for evil outside of free will (to be precise you ask questions about meaningfulness, and define 'meaningfulness' as anything that makes some one better off or anything that could indirectly lead to some one being better off, even the person making the choice). As I said in that thread, I have no desire to put so much effort and patience into my posts when you can't follow your own (forget my) arguments.

At the very least, be sincere. Free will does not require evil to exist. I proved it. You expressly accepted it. It's incredible how deeply you've allowed yourself to be brainwashed (you probably had a hand in the brainwashing).

Once and for all, free will does not imply the existence of evil. According to your circular idea of meaningfulness, you have that free + meaningfulness = existence of evil, but free will alone is not enough to justify the existence of evil. You've conceded as much.

Originally posted by telerion
This is disingenious. You yourself admit in that thread that evil is not necessary for free will. To defend your mental idol though, you embarked on an irrelevant, and poorly formulated (i.e. circular), justification for evil outside of free will (to be precise you ask questions about meaningfulness, and define 'meaningfulness' as anything that makes but free will alone is not enough to justify the existence of evil. You've conceded as much.

You yourself admit in that thread that evil is not necessary for free will.

What I said is that some of our choices can be meaningless. The example that I gave was that of the #2 pencils. If I’m about to take a test and I have two identical #2 pencils to choose from, it makes no difference which one I choose. This is an example of a meaningless choice that requires free will.

you ask questions about meaningfulness, and define 'meaningfulness' as anything that makes some one better off or anything that could indirectly lead to some one being better off, even the person making the choice

This is a type of a meaningful choice, but it’s just one type. I’ve already summarized my theory on why we are here and the role that our choices have in us achieving our goal plenty of times. You don’t accept it because you don’t accept God. Fine.

Free will does not require evil to exist. I proved it. You expressly accepted it.

As I have said this is true. God could have put us here on earth to choose between identical #2 pencils for all eternity. Great argument. If there is no God how can he waste his or our time? Knock yourself out.

you have that free + meaningfulness = existence of evil, but free will alone is not enough to justify the existence of evil. You've conceded as much.

That is what I said. There are two categories of choices that we can make. Both require free will. Category A. are choices that are meaningless as in the #2 pencils. Category B. are choices that have moral significance one way or the other. That is to say they can be judged as good or evil.

We are not here to make Cat A choices, they are not important. We are here to make Cat B choices. Cat B choices require both free will and the existence of good and evil. Good cannot exist without evil and vise versa. Writing with white chalk on a white chalk board makes nothing. There has to be a contrast. Evil contrasts good. Evil is the absence of good and good is the absence of evil. Eventually we realize that evil is a poor choice because it leads to our suffering and good is a wise choice because it leads to our happiness.

I’m not sure which side of the fence the problem lies on, but it’s clear we’re not communicating. There must be some strange mystery in the sets you speak of or perhaps I just don’t have the words to get through to you. Either way, you seem to be more interested in stroking your ego than considering what I say, so if people want to know what my thory is on all this they can check out the “God, the schizophrenic?” thread and decide for themselves.

Originally posted by The Chess Express
[b]You yourself admit in that thread that evil is not necessary for free will.

What I said is that some of our choices can be meaningless. The example that I gave was that of the #2 pencils. If I’m about to take a test and I have two identical #2 pencils to choose from, it makes no difference which one I choose. This is an example of a meani ...[text shortened]... n all this they can check out the “God, the schizophrenic?” thread and decide for themselves.[/b]

Why should the choice of one identical #2 pencil be meaningless under your definition? If I choose it, then I must have wanted to choose it. Therefore because the choice, if nothing else, gave me the pencil I wanted, it has improved my condition and therefore meaningful. That's a weakness of your formulation. It's so general as to include everything. Which I suspect was your intention from the get go.

Here's another one. Choosing one #2 pencil over another may by some turn of events beyond my control lead to a good outcome. For example, I reach for the pencil on the right, which causes my wrist to turn ever so slightly, which aligns the face of my watch just so with sunlight coming through a window that it glints of the watch and into the eyes of a pedestrian in the hall causing her to stop walking and look for the source of the nuisance. Only then does she discover that if she had continued even on more step she would have slipped on a spill on the freshly waxed floor which would surely have led to great physical harm to her. Some of your handwaving in your attempt to find morality in my examples was just a contrived.

This is a type of a meaningful choice, but it’s just one type. I’ve already summarized my theory on why we are here and the role that our choices have in us achieving our goal plenty of times. You don’t accept it because you don’t accept God. Fine.

I really don't care about your theories. It's the same claptrap I've heard a million times. The point is free will can exist without evil. Evil does not need to obtain in nature to appreciate good. You're trying to put a pretty face on needless suffering. Who else would claim that not only do we need evil to obtain, but we need every type of evil observed to obtain. From your view, lying is not sufficient to understand good. No, you insist that we are all better off with a lot of child rape. I find the heinous lengths to which you will go to maintain your mental snuggle puppy reprehensible. You love a mental idol more than a flesh and blood child.

Free will does not require evil to exist. I proved it. You expressly accepted it.

As I have said this is true. God could have put us here on earth to choose between identical #2 pencils for all eternity. Great argument.

Odd, because in a subsequent post in that thread you insisted that evil is necessary for free will. Now in this thread you have done the same. Either you are incapable of learning or engage in discussion insincerely. Hell, perhaps both! Either way I pity you.

Good cannot exist without evil and vise versa.

Actually, I showed evil hardly need exist at all. All we need for contrast is one idea of evil. We do not need all various evils that obtain in nature. There is no justification for it. You (and the god you made up) seem to think that we just can't have meaning in our lives without child rape. Would you stop and think for a moment about what you are saying? Do you really believe that or is it just convenient for the moment?

I also demonstrated that the "absence of good = evil" paradigm is flawed. You conceded this as well, but here we find you trumpeting it verbatim once more. Again either you are desperately slow or you are disingenious.

We are not communicating because you have a hard time with logical arguments. I expend no small amount of effort breaking it down for you. Then you claim to get it (often even accept it) but only to regress the next day! Set theory is no mystery. It makes the ideas cleaner and eliminates a lot of the word games that you are so fond of. Alas you do not have this item in your toolbox. That's fine. Nobody can know everything, but this does not excuse you of your horrendous logic.

At times I do enjoy destroying a fatuous idea, especially when issued by a haughty prick (dj2 and Darfius are infamous for these). In your case however, I really did try to be patient, but your insincerity got the best of me. I encourage those with fortitude to read the whole thread. I spent quite a bit of time on some of those posts, and I'd like to think the effort wasn't a complete waste.

Originally posted by Halitose
Why should there be a need to settle the dispute? It is when you combine theology with politics that such a potent mix is generated.

Also, your post incorrectly assumes that humans would freely exist without experiencing the transcendental (a term I use quite loosely).

Jews believe that God has promised they will inherit the world - after a struggle of course.

Muslim believe that Allah has promised they will inherit the world - after a struggle of course.

Spot any problems with these unsubstantiated, unverifiable, downright ridiculous beliefs?

You cannot separate politics from religion. Both are about control and power.

Originally posted by The Chess Express
[b]You yourself admit in that thread that evil is not necessary for free will.

What I said is that some of our choices can be meaningless. The example that I gave was that of the #2 pencils. If I’m about to take a test and I have two identical #2 pencils to choose from, it makes no difference which one I choose. This is an example of a meani ...[text shortened]... n all this they can check out the “God, the schizophrenic?” thread and decide for themselves.[/b]

"We are not here to make Cat A choices, they are not important. We are here to make Cat B choices."

We are not here to make any choices. There is no REASON for our existence...we are just here.
This is your mistake - imagining that there must be a motivation for our existence. It leads to a belief in a higher, intelligent being, when there is no such thing, and no need for such a concept.

Originally posted by telerion
Why should the choice of one identical #2 pencil be meaningless under your definition? If I choose it, then I must have wanted to choose it. Therefore because the choice, if nothing else, gave me the pencil I wanted, it has improved my condition and therefore meaningful. That's a weakness of your formulation. It's so general as to include everything. W ...[text shortened]... e on some of those posts, and I'd like to think the effort wasn't a complete waste.

"Either you are incapable of learning or engage in discussion insincerely."

His lack of intellect cause both.

Originally posted by telerion
Why should the choice of one identical #2 pencil be meaningless under your definition? If I choose it, then I must have wanted to choose it. Therefore because the choice, if nothing else, gave me the pencil I wanted, it has improved my condition and therefore meaningful. That's a weakness of your formulation. It's so general as to include everything. W ...[text shortened]... e on some of those posts, and I'd like to think the effort wasn't a complete waste.

I understand the point that limiting the options does not entirely destroy the concept of free will (I use it in the sense of a free moral agent, since our will is entirely bound by physical laws -- no freedom there). However, how free would such a will be? Can you choose between patience and non-patience? Kindness and non-kindness? Love and non-love? Gentleness or non-gentleness? Faithfulness, or non-faithfulness? The free will argument is that humans should be able to choose "good" - not be "good by definition"; Such a choice would allow for evil.

I agree that it could be possible to have the "moral freedom" of choosing between an apple or an orange for breakfast and call it free will -- and allow for some form of meaningfulness (to the choice maker) in the choice.

My slant on the free will argument requires a "Divine Being", who decided to bypass the robotron option for His creation. You can program you PC to flash the message - "I love you". Now to the PC, I guess this is meaningful, it flashed something to its owner. To you, however, this would have no meaning. You understand love in an entirely different sense – marriage, where love is not about an automatic response, but rather a conscious choice.

In this way, the analogy above applies to the "Divine Being". He could have created creatures that did “good” by default; that mechanically said they "loved" Him -- but instead He chose to create ones that would provide greater meaning to the word "love”.

Originally posted by howardgee
Jews believe that God has promised they will inherit the world - after a struggle of course.

Muslim believe that Allah has promised they will inherit the world - after a struggle of course.

Spot any problems with these unsubstantiated, unverifiable, downright ridiculous beliefs?

You cannot separate politics from religion. Both are about control and power.

hmmmm...I notice you have posted to this thread....but failed to respond to this, Halitosis.

Funny that!

Originally posted by telerion
Why should the choice of one identical #2 pencil be meaningless under your definition? If I choose it, then I must have wanted to choose it. Therefore because the choice, if nothing else, gave me the pencil I wanted, it has improved my condition and therefore meaningful. That's a weakness of your formulation. It's so general as to include everything time on some of those posts, and I'd like to think the effort wasn't a complete waste.

Why should the choice of one identical #2 pencil be meaningless under your definition? If I choose it, then I must have wanted to choose it. Therefore because the choice, if nothing else, gave me the pencil I wanted, it has improved my condition and therefore meaningful. That's a weakness of your formulation. It's so general as to include everything. Which I suspect was your intention from the get go.

Here's another one. Choosing one #2 pencil over another may by some turn of events beyond my control lead to a good outcome. For example, I reach for the pencil on the right, which causes my wrist to turn ever so slightly, which aligns the face of my watch just so with sunlight coming through a window that it glints of the watch and into the eyes of a pedestrian in the hall causing her to stop walking and look for the source of the nuisance. Only then does she discover that if she had continued even on more step she would have slipped on a spill on the freshly waxed floor which would surely have led to great physical harm to her. Some of your handwaving in your attempt to find morality in my examples was just a contrived.

So what’s your point? That a category A choice can be made into a category B choice with enough fanciful thinking? Is that your big refutation? What were the examples that you gave…If I recall right you mentioned that marriage was neutral. Marrying one person over the other has no moral significance. Let me ask you this, which example is more likely to lead to good or evil, marrying somebody or the #2 pencils? Is this what you mean by my “contrived hand waving.” My advice to you is to not get married.

The point is free will can exist without evil. Evil does not need to obtain in nature to appreciate good. You're trying to put a pretty face on needless suffering. Who else would claim that not only do we need evil to obtain, but we need every type of evil observed to obtain. From your view, lying is not sufficient to understand good. No, you insist that we are all better off with a lot of child rape. I find the heinous lengths to which you will go to maintain your mental snuggle puppy reprehensible. You love a mental idol more than a flesh and blood child.

How many times have I said that the CHOICE is necessary, not the ACTION? How many times have I said that God puts us here to choose good? How many times have I said that evil is a poor choice and it leads to our suffering? How many times? Meaningful free will requires that there be good and evil, it DOES NOT require that we choose evil. Jesus is the perfect example. He lived in a world full of good and evil, he had free, and he always chose good, why? Because he knew good and evil better than the rest of us.

Free will: power of independent action and choice: the ability to act or make choices as a free and autonomous being and not solely as a result of compulsion or predestination
of your own free will without being forced by somebody or something else

This is the definition of free will! What don’t you get? We have the ability to choose. Do you understand what it means to choose? Evil choices lead to evil. Good choices lead to good. Child rape is evil and we would all be a lot better off without it. What is the problem?

originally posted by Telerion
Free will does not require evil to exist. I proved it. You expressly accepted it.

originally posted be The Chess Express
As I have said this is true. God could have put us here on earth to choose between identical #2 pencils for all eternity. Great argument.

Odd, because in a subsequent post in that thread you insisted that evil is necessary for free will. Now in this thread you have done the same. Either you are incapable of learning or engage in discussion insincerely. Hell, perhaps both! Either way I pity you.

Pity yourself. The best way to learn something is through experience. That’s why God put us here. To learn why good is actually good, and evil is actually evil. If our choices have no moral significance then they’re insignificant. If they have moral significance then we learn from them.

Example: A child in grade school (or on an internet forum) might think that it’s fine to call people names. If another kid has a toy that he wants and the other kid doesn’t share it he may hit him and take it. As long as it’s somebody else who gets hurt then it’s ok. This is an example of ignorance. This is how your world would be. A bunch of ignorant kids who don’t know the nature of good and evil. Only when the kid grows up (and some don’t) do they develop a sense of empathy. They learn through experience that such actions are wrong, hopefully, otherwise they learn through more experience, this is called consequences.

Empathy: 1. Understanding of another’s feelings: the ability to identify with and understand another person’s feelings or difficulties.

Consequence: 1. Result: something that follows as a result This is a direct consequence of your negligence. 2. Relation between result and cause: the relation between a result and its cause

Now lets say that the kid is grown up. What has he learned? Physical violence and name calling is wrong. Why, because he remembers the times that he experienced it and knows that just because it doesn’t hurt him it still hurts somebody else. You might call this a sense of empathy.

Ok, now empathy is a higher development in human consciousness. Through our empathy we better understand the nature of good and evil. Here’s another tuffy “conscience.”

Conscience: 1. Sense of right and wrong: the internal sense of what is right and wrong that governs somebody’s thoughts and actions, urging him or her to do right rather than wrong

Our conscience can also be developed through experience. This is why we’re here. To develop our higher forms of consciousness and understand the nature of good and evil. We’re here to learn why EVIL IS WRONG, and why WE SHOULD CHOOSE GOOD. We learn this through experience. Without experience we wouldn’t learn this.

I showed evil hardly need exist at all. All we need for contrast is one idea of evil. We do not need all various evils that obtain in nature. There is no justification for it.

Explain to me how there could be a world with meaningful free will and only one possible evil choice. I can’t think of any examples and I doubt you can either. Life is full of choices. At least 99% of them can be either good or evil. Many are evil by default if the good choice is not chosen.

Example: Somebody decides to lie vs. somebody telling the truth. I really don’t care if you can come up with examples where lying is good. If lying is good than telling the truth would be evil.

The "absence of good = evil" paradigm is flawed. You conceded this as well, but here we find you trumpeting it verbatim once more.

Where have I conceded it? You have too much faith in your presumptions.

In Heaven things are different. People know enough to choose good consistently. Earth is the learning process we undertake to get to Heaven. Here is where we develop our consciousness so that we don’t wind up turning Heaven into hell with crap like violence and name calling. As you have demonstrated atheists like yourself don’t get to that point. Since you reject God I’m sure you have no problem with that, and I’m sure that’s why all of this makes no sense to you. “Love your neighbor like yourself.” If people chose to follow this how much better would the world be?

Originally posted by howardgee
We are not here to make any choices. There is no REASON for our existence...we are just here. This is your mistake - imagining that there must be a motivation for our existence. It leads to a belief in a higher, intelligent being, when there is no such thing, and no need for such a concept.

"His lack of intellect cause both."

Well I’ll give you this, your theory (which you have as much proof of as I have of mine) has the benefit of being simple. Seems strange that you think it takes greater intelligence to understand it.

Originally posted by howardgee
Jews believe that God has promised they will inherit the world - after a struggle of course.

Muslim believe that Allah has promised they will inherit the world - after a struggle of course.

Spot any problems with these unsubstantiated, unverifiable, downright ridiculous beliefs?

You cannot separate politics from religion. Both are about control and power.

Okay. Where's the proof? Which part of Jewish doctrine promises them the whole world - through conquest? Which part of Islam promises Muslims the whole world - through conquest? Lets take a look see if your claims are well founded.

Originally posted by howardgee
hmmmm...I notice you have posted to this thread....but failed to respond to this, Halitosis.

Funny that!

Halitosis? Okay, Howard'sgeep see above... 😀😛

Originally posted by The Chess Express
So what’s your point? That a category A choice can be made into a category B choice with enough fanciful thinking? Is that your big refutation? What were the examples that you gave…If I recall right you mentioned that marriage was neutral. Marrying one person over the other has no moral significance. Let me ask you this, which example is more likel ...[text shortened]... good and evil, he had free, and he always chose good, why? Because he knew good and evil better

[/b]Let me clarify something from my previous post. I mentioned that only the choice is necessary and not the action, and then I said that we learn through experience. We don’t need to experience every evil to know that evil wrong. Most of us can say that rape is wrong even though most of us have never been raped. Developing our consciousness is the key. A good healthy sense of empathy can go along way. Again the golden rule. At any rate, most of the time we make the choices and so we decide what we will experience. This is how we learn.

I think the crazy thing about belief is people have the right to believe whatever they want. They can believe the earth is flat or whatever crazy belief that they so choose but my problem with that is once you know something to be proven then why believe opposite. As far as hating god that says he believes that there is a god but he hates him. Most here seem either to believe in a god or not at all. I find it an interesting stance. Good stuff everyone I always enjoy reading these though I do not post too much. Manny

Originally posted by menace71
I think the crazy thing about belief is people have the right to believe whatever they want. They can believe the earth is flat or whatever crazy belief that they so choose but my problem with that is once you know something to be proven then why believe opposite. As far as hating god that says he believes that there is a god but he hates him. Most here ...[text shortened]... e. Good stuff everyone I always enjoy reading these though I do not post too much. Manny

Actually, belief in God is not as crazy as you might think. Science currently supports the idea in relation to the creation of the universe.