Originally posted by ScheelOkay, point taken, but this negativity certainly increases our appreciation of goodness. I live in sunny Manchester in England and when we get the slightest little bit of sunshine everyoine is on a real high. Likewise, if i have gone with out food for an unusual amount of time, luckily this is rare, then agood meal is so much better. Perhaps going without is a good reminder of how lucky we are sometimes.
No that is not true !
It's the equivelent of saying that you can only appreciate a sunny day if you have lived through a wet and cold winter here in Copenhagen.
Or that you can only appreciate a good meal if you have known starvation.
Originally posted by DarfiusGod ordered the slaughter of thousands of people (see OT for examples - maybe a good place to start would be the Medianite kiddies), so what does your god care for free will?
Would Hitler have had free will if God had killed him?
As I said, your god plays cruelly with his toys.
Originally posted by MaustrauserWell, the people who were executed for their vile crimes used their free will for evil. Are you suggesting that the evil never be punished???
God ordered the slaughter of thousands of people (see OT for examples - maybe a good place to start would be the Medianite kiddies), so what does your god care for free will?
As I said, your god plays cruelly with his toys.
Oh my...
Originally posted by eagles54Here we go again.
As they are polar opposites, how can you have the one without the other? Without pain, pleasure is meaningless and unachievable.
No that is not true !
It's the equivelent of saying that you can only appreciate a sunny day if you have lived through a wet and cold winter here in Copenhagen.
Or that you can only appreciate a good meal if you have known starvation.
Originally posted by ScheelWhat makes you so sure that it is not true? If you had not experienced a cold day, how would you know what a sunny day was in terms of appreciation? And although starvation is over-doing it, if you had not tried a bad meal, how would you know what a good meal tasted like?
Here we go again.
No that is not true !
It's the equivelent of saying that you can only appreciate a sunny day if you have lived through a wet and cold winter here in Copenhagen.
Or that you can only appreciate a good meal if you have known starvation.
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Originally posted by DarfiusThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says:
For all of you atheists who just hate this one, this is your chance to make a better universe than God.
What would you change/add/take away?
'In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.'
I would get rid of it altogether. (Although I'm not at all sure what that would leave behind...)
I would take away any mention of an afterlife - face facts you live once make the most it because you'll be dead soon.
Relgious judgements wouldn't be need to be made. The person who needs to get divorced because their spirit is being crushed they would be able to divorce easily.
Gays could celebrate true freedom.
Society would be the judge of its peers on a consensus moral framework.
I would like to live in society that is truly secular, where there is mutual respect between the religious and the non religious, I hope we can all co-exist peacefully.
Originally posted by DarfiusI cannot make universes. Therefore I cannot give an answer as to how I'd do so. This thread has an implicit assumption that those who post are capable of making universes, right? Otherwise what's the point of this thread? To give emphasis to the fact that humans cannot make universes?
How? Please tell us HOW people.
Originally posted by jimslyp69I don't think this is true. Pain and pleasure do not depend on one another. They are independent sensations; one can experience neither one, both of them simultaneously, or either one or the other.
If it was not for pain and discomfort then we would not fully appreciate pleasure and positive feelings. There would be nothing but apathy. A great nothingness of numbness.
Originally posted by AThousandYoungHow would you identify pleasure as being pleasurable without the contrast of experientially knowing pain? ATY, if you lived in a world outside of dualities where you and all inhabitants only experienced what in this sphere is called 'pain,' you would not define it as such because there would be no opposite sensation to contrast it with. If then you experienced lessening values of the fundamental sensation, you would have to ascribe the increasing values of 'pleasure' to them as they as are the marked absence of the fundamental sensation, which in turn creates the dualistic sensation identified as 'pain.'
I don't think this is true. Pain and pleasure do not depend on one another. They are independent sensations; one can experience neither one, both of them simultaneously, or either one or the other.
How would you know the value of 'east' without contrasting it with the values of north, west, or south? East arises in interdependence with north, west, and south.