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Author | Topic: Movie: "God on Trial" | |||||||||||||||||||
Aware Wolf Member (Idle past 1451 days) Posts: 156 From: New Hampshire, USA Joined: |
iano writes: It seems to me that you can't have love without hate. I mean, how can you love children without hating the acts of a paedophile? But this isn't a good analogy for God loving all of us but punishing those of us who reject Him. The child and the paedophile are two distinct people; we are not. Unless you mean to say that God only loves believers, and hates non-believers? You might say that, in the analogy, the children represent us and the paedophile represents sin, but it is we who suffer God's wrath, not sin, so that doesn't work either.
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Aware Wolf Member (Idle past 1451 days) Posts: 156 From: New Hampshire, USA Joined: |
iano writes: Eternal separation from God (and that being experienced as torment) strikes me as the overarching condition of the finally lost. That the decision to occupy that state is made by a person in the temporal realm isn't ethically problematic.
I've seen you use this type of language before, where you are differentiating between eternal torture and eternal separation from God. Are you saying that this separation from God isn't such a bad thing, maybe only a 6 on the discomfort scale rather than a 10? This might make God out to be less of a monster, certainly. But then that would kind of lessen the whole impact of Jesus being the Savior, since what we would be saving us from would be moderate suffering, which a lot of us are already undergoing here and now. If, on the other hand, this separation is real and terrible suffering, are you really saying that people knowingly and willfully, with full comprehension of the consequences, choose this over God? That seems very unlikely.
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Aware Wolf Member (Idle past 1451 days) Posts: 156 From: New Hampshire, USA Joined: |
iano writes: I'd see eternal separation from God as the framework on which eternal torment is built. and in the same post
iano writes: The issue isn't so much the consequence that follow (sic)... I beg to differ, very very much. If eternal torment is the consequence that follows, then EVERY OTHER issue associated with the choice is so insignificant as to be effectively non-existant.
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Aware Wolf Member (Idle past 1451 days) Posts: 156 From: New Hampshire, USA Joined: |
Are you saying that God intentionally set it up so that we can't know the real consequences of our choice, because to not do so would be to make it no choice at all, the right answer being so obvious? That sounds an awful lot like deception, never mind the other obvious repercussions of that line of argument.
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Aware Wolf Member (Idle past 1451 days) Posts: 156 From: New Hampshire, USA Joined: |
iano writes: There is no right answer involved I think you know that in the context of my statement the "right answer" is the answer God prefers. He may allow us to choose, but He would rather we choose Him, right? So I would still like an answer. Are you saying that God intentionally set it up so that we can't know the real consequences of our choice, because to not do so would be to make it no choice at all, the answer that God prefers being the obvious choice?
What other repercussions are there? So, due to whatever set of circumstances (blame it on Adam/us if you want), we have to make a choice, and one choice leads to eternal torment. That's bad, but not too bad, because not many people will choose eternal torment, for obvious reasons. Then, God steps in and makes it much more likely that billions of people WILL choose eternal torment. This makes God evil. That's quite a repercussion, I think.
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Aware Wolf Member (Idle past 1451 days) Posts: 156 From: New Hampshire, USA Joined: |
iano writes: So I would still like an answer. Are you saying that God intentionally set it up so that we can't know the real consequences of our choice, because to not do so would be to make it no choice at all, the answer that God prefers being the obvious choice? Does the above illuminate? The answer that God prefers isn't relevant to the choice offered. Not really; your sort of dancing around the question. Maybe I'm not being clear enough. The statement you made back in post 39:
The trouble is that as a blind person (or so the theology goes) you cannot believe in the consequences that will follow in order to be motivated this way or that in your choosing. Besides, what kind of choice would it be to be presented with eternal torment or eternal bliss (although I'm sure theres some or other braveheart out there who'd be dumb enougn.. )
sounded like you were saying that God does not want us to fully understand the repercussions of our choice, because that would make it essentially no choice at all. That idea kind of blew me away, so I've been trying ever since to find out if you believe that God has intentionally set up the circumstance so that we don't fully understand the repercussions; one of which, lest we forget, is the unimaginably inhumane eternal torment.
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Aware Wolf Member (Idle past 1451 days) Posts: 156 From: New Hampshire, USA Joined: |
iano writes: I'm inclined to assume God, in working with the situation as he found it post-Fall, intended that there be balance .. above all else. Well, to that, what else can I say but "holey f'ing crap"? One thing's for sure: whatever God's moral philosophy is, it certainly isn't utilitarian.
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Aware Wolf Member (Idle past 1451 days) Posts: 156 From: New Hampshire, USA Joined: |
There's a couple of ways I could go with this. For one, it seems very twisted to say that the situation where information is witheld from the chooser results in a more free choice.
For two, and I guess this is more opinion than cold hard logic: limiting, or even eliminating, free choice is easily justified by keeping the chooser from an eternity of suffering. It's not even close. Edited by Aware Wolf, : Clarification
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Aware Wolf Member (Idle past 1451 days) Posts: 156 From: New Hampshire, USA Joined: |
Larni writes: before your god puts us out of our misery Except we are never put out of our misery. We are put INTO misery, for eternity. Correction, WE put ourselves into eternal misery, by making the wrong decision- excuse me, the unfortunate decision - between two choices which have been made to look like 6 in one, 1/2 dozen in the other. This is so that God can ligitimately claim that he never biased our decision with the actual facts of the matter.
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Aware Wolf Member (Idle past 1451 days) Posts: 156 From: New Hampshire, USA Joined: |
iano writes: Then you haven't grasped what a fuller knowledge of the environment of Heaven and the environment of Hell would do to the average unbelievers choice. They wouldn't be an unbeliever for one.. I believe I do understand it, and I still believe that the free-er choice is the one where you have all the information available to you. Just because one outcome seems preferable to another doesn't mean I'm not free to choose either outcome; just that the exertion of my free will will most often end up with my choosing the "better" option.
iano writes: Eliminate free choice and you eliminate the person. Which means there is no point in making the person. But if there is no person to speak of you can't say it's better for the person that they never exist (other than as a figure of speech). There would be no person for it to be better for. It would seem the definition of a person requires the level of free choice we have. Limit that and we might be like dogs or something. There's enough of them already probably. Not sure I followed all that. You say that removing free will from a person makes him not a person. OK, I guess. It's still a thing that has nerve endings and pain receptors. Try to picture in your head a "thing" (person, non-person, whatever) writhing in agony. Now imagine that the agony never ceases, ever. Tell me your skin doesn't crawl.
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Aware Wolf Member (Idle past 1451 days) Posts: 156 From: New Hampshire, USA Joined: |
iano writes: Would you say the choice to eat fresh fillet steak and the choice to eat a rotting fillet steak is a free choice.? I wouldn't. If the person is free to choose either one, than it is a free choice, by definition. The fact that one choice is more attractive than the other does not magically remove someone's free will. The fact that I didn't slam my hand into my car door this morning does not mean that that choice was not available to me.
iano writes: Indeed it does. And in the case of something like an animal I'd consider the infliction of same unjust. The will being the seat of the person and the personhood being respected (even at the cost of it choosing to be confined in misery) salves my concern. Jeez, iano, seriously? If you saw that someone was about to jam an ice pick into his leg, for whatever reason, you would stand by and let it happen, because the thought of interfering with his free choice is more repugnant to you than the thought of the agony he is about to experience?
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Aware Wolf Member (Idle past 1451 days) Posts: 156 From: New Hampshire, USA Joined: |
iano writes: Assuming I knew his free choice wasn't being unbalanced by eg: mental illness, then hopefully I wouldn't interfere. What right have I to interfere with the free, balanced choice of another? To me it's just simply obvious that interfering is the right, moral thing to do. Maybe this is an area where we'll just have to agree to disagree. I'll just make sure never to ask you to babysit my kids. It was pleasant debating you, but I think I'll head back into lurker mode.
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Aware Wolf Member (Idle past 1451 days) Posts: 156 From: New Hampshire, USA Joined: |
I meant to stay in lurker mode, but I dreampt up this thought experiment and knew I just had to share it with you.
I am going to be put into a box for a week. I will have all the fresh air and water I need, but as for food, I have to take it in with me. I am brought before two crates; I have to choose between these crates. One contains wholesome food that will last for a week, the other contains the rotten fillet steak you spoke of earlier. I can't differentiate the two so there's a 50% chance I'll choose "wrong"; or unfortunately, if you prefer. You are there also, and you know which is which, and are allowed to either tell me or keep the information to yourself. Will telling me which is which limit my free will, or free choice?Which action on your part is the more moral?
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Aware Wolf Member (Idle past 1451 days) Posts: 156 From: New Hampshire, USA Joined: |
iano writes: Dreampt up. How very Irish sounding Who knows from whence misspellings come? My surname does happen to be of Irish origin, but I don't know how many generations I'd have to go back - more than four, anyways - to find an ancestor living on the Emerald Isle.
iano writes: A baseless choice. A reasonless choice. Commonly known as a guess. I see your point. Let's see if I can't improve the scenario. In this new scenario, I can see what is in the two crates I have to choose between. One has healthy, wholesome food: chicken breast, salad, oatmeal; that sort of thing. The other has chocolate cake, cookies, jelly beans, etc. Now it's no longer a guess; both choices have positives and negatives, and it's not a slam dunk either way. At least it wouldn't be for me. In this new scenario, the information you have that I don't is: the junk food is laced with some sort of chemical that will make me very sick when I eat it: stomache cramps, muschle aches - you get the point. So I pose my two questions again:Are you limiting my free will by giving me the information? What is the more moral thing for you to do? Edited by Aware Wolf, : Clarification of wording
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Aware Wolf Member (Idle past 1451 days) Posts: 156 From: New Hampshire, USA Joined: |
iano writes: Assuming* we've balanced the original wholesome/junkfood choice (eg: with the addition of the sweettooth) then I'd tell the person about this hidden downside. The hidden downside attachs to only one of the options, effectively skewing the choice out of balance. A free unbalanced choice, like a free, balanced guess, limits true freewill expression and so I consider it my moral duty to intervene. Could you make this a little clearer? I understand you think intervening in this situation is the moral thing to do, but I'm not following why - I'm stuck on the whole free/unbalanced/choice/guess thing. So, clearly, I have tried to make this an analogous situation to God not revealing the entire consequences of our choice to accept or reject him. Earlier in this thread you argued that it is more moral for God to leave the choice more balanced, (that is, hide or de-emphasize the real consequence: eternal bliss vs. eternal torment) than to reveal the full information. In my thought experiment, you (in the analogous God role) chose the other way. How do you explain this? Edited by Aware Wolf, : Punctuation for clarity
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