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“God works in mysterious ways”
The cope that always comes across when I hear this is intesne
imo every religion ever is a cope. All of those elaborate ideas about supernatural beings and alternate planes of existence to somehow cope with the fact that one day the good man, and the evil man, will both die and rot just the same.
It feels incredibly unjust for good men to die the same way evil men do, and for a lot of people that’s too much to handle. We as humans have such a strong sense of “fairness” that we attempted to structure our entire society around the idea of justice for all, and so by comparison nature feels cruel and unfair, you can either learn to live with that, or tell yourself really really hard that it’s not the end :) after they die the good man will be happy! and the evil man will get the punishment he deserves!
now layer that with milenia of different ideas about what qualifies you as “good” and “evil” and you’ve got religion.
This is my personal opinion, and honestly I don’t mind nor care how the other person deals with their existential dread, as long as they aren’t bigots about their way of coping.
Maybe God is studying ethics, and we are his show and tell assignment.
If there is a ‘god’ then they are a fucking asshole.
“If there is a god, he must ask me forgiveness.”
-Scrawled on the walls of a Nazi concentration camp cell
You can’t have free will without the option to choose anything. If you can’t choose evil you don’t have free will it’s just a semblance of free will. If you’d prefer a semblance of free will that’s valid
I choose hedbidittle!
Oh! I can’t have hedbidittle, because it doesn’t exist. It’s not even a concept.
Well then, I guess I don’t have free will.
How does free will mean absolute power?
It doesn’t. All I’m saying is that your assertion that free will requires that evil is a choice assumes the existence of evil in the first place. If God never created evil, then it’s simply not something you could ever choose, just like an infinity of other non-things that you cannot choose. But that doesn’t inhibit your free will.
To nibble further at the arguments for God: free will is absurd.
If god is all knowing and all powerful, then when he created the universe, he would know exactly what happened from the first moment until the last. Like setting up an extremely complex arrangement of dominoes.
So how could he give people free will? Maybe he created some kind of special domino that sometimes falls leftward and sometimes falls rightward, so now it has “free will”. Ok, but isn’t that just randomness? God’s great innovation is just chance?
No, one might argue, free will isn’t chance, it’s more complex than that, a person makes decisions based on their moral principles, their life experience, etc. Well where did they get their principles? What circumstances created their life experience? Conditions don’t appear out of nowhere. We get our DNA from somewhere. Either God controls the starting conditions and knows where they lead, or he covered his eyes and threw some dice. In either case we can say “yes, I have free will” in the sense that we do what we want, but the origins of our decisions are either predetermined or subject to chaos/chance.
A good read on the inverse of what you’re stating, namely that free will is logical:
https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/godTaoist.html
Got to be honest, I started reading that, saw how long it was and stopped. Would you want to share the gist?
It’s a long read and worth it, because it beautifully explores the theme.
But these are two quotes that summarize the main though:
God: Why, the idea that I could possibly have created you without free will [is a fallacy]! You acted as if this were a genuine possibility, and wondered why I did not choose it! It never occurred to you that a sentient being without free will is no more conceivable than a physical object which exerts no gravitational attraction. (There is, incidentally, more analogy than you realize between a physical object exerting gravitational attraction and a sentient being exerting free will!) Can you honestly even imagine a conscious being without free will? What on earth could it be like?
And
Don’t you see that the so-called “laws of nature” are nothing more than a description of how in fact you and other beings do act? They are merely a description of how you act, not a prescription of of how you should act, not a power or force which compels or determines your acts. To be valid a law of nature must take into account how in fact you do act, or, if you like, how you choose to act.
There can’t be free-will if there wasn’t any choice. If there there are choices, there is the potential for evil choices.
So it’s kinda like saying “if God is all powerful could He create a mountain on Earth but also make it so the Earth is a perfect sphere?” It’s just pointing out that a planet that’s a perfect sphere wouldn’t have mountains and a planet with mountains are not perfect spheres. Which isn’t exactly deep philosophical thought that needs a flow chart.
Also if proving something about religion is paradoxical proves that religion is wrong, by the same logic proving something about math or science is paradoxical proves those are wrong. Halting Problem? Math is false! Schrodinger’s Cat? Physics is false!
But outside atheist dogma, most people accept there are things about the universe that are paradoxical. The Halting Problem doesn’t mean we should discard mathematics, Schrodinger’s Cat doesn’t mean we discard Physics. Following this trend means that all of the efforts by atheists to point out paradoxes in religion doesn’t accomplish anything.
There can’t be free-will if there wasn’t any choice. If there there are choices, there is the potential for evil choices.
I am hungry. I decide to make myself a sandwich, with peanut butter, and one of the following:
- strawberry jam
- honey
- grape jelly
None of these are evil, yet they are choices.
Also if proving something about religion is paradoxical proves that religion is wrong, by the same logic proving something about math or science is paradoxical proves those are wrong.
This is a false equivocation. Proving that a fundamental part of a religion (such as a tri-omni god) to be paradoxical means everything built off of that idea is wrong. The same applies for math and science, but when large swaths of things in math and science get proven wrong because of a underling assumption that later turned out to be false, we get closer to the truth. That’s how we went from a geocentric model, to a heliocentric model, to the understanding that there isn’t any discernible center to the universe.
Halting Problem? Math is false! Schrodinger’s Cat? Physics is false!
Those problems do not prove math and science to be false, as they do not challenge fundamental assumptions.
Following this trend means that all of the efforts by atheists to point out paradoxes in religion doesn’t accomplish anything.
Nah. This paradox quite clearly debunks the idea of a tri-omni god presiding over the universe. This is a fundamental assumption within some major religions, and it’s wrong. By extension the ideas built off of it are wrong.
Do the same for math and science and you’ll lead to new discoveries.
I am hungry. I decide to make myself a sandwich, with peanut butter, and one of the following:
strawberry jam honey grape jellyNone of these are evil, yet they are choices.
If I throw a jar of strawberry jam at your head, is that not an evil choice? You chose to make a sandwich with that jam, but someone else can choose to do something evil in the same situation.
Those problems do not prove math and science to be false, as they do not challenge fundamental assumptions.
If you’re saying that it’s only because you don’t really understand them. Mathematics was widely assumed to be complete, consistent, and decidable and then Alan Turing’s Halting Problem came along and blew that out of the water. So it’s been mathematically proven that not everything in mathematics is provable. Seems paradoxical to me! I guess that means the field of mathematics is just a weird superstition we should mock, right?
If I throw a jar of strawberry jam at your head, is that not an evil choice? You chose to make a sandwich with that jam, but someone else can choose to do something evil in the same situation.
You’ve missed the point of the example situation. Throwing the jar at a person’s head isn’t one of the available choices. The only choices available are ones that do not harm to anybody, and are in no way sinful. Yet despite that, there is still a choice, there is still decision making.
One my favorite books is Forever Peace, and in the book humanity has found a way to have digital connections directly into the human brain through a port at the base of the neck. The military uses it for remote control warfare drone warfare. The civilian population mainly uses it to connect directly into another partner during sex, which has the effect of feeling what both people are feeling mid-act. Eventually the protagonists find out that if people are connected in this manner for extended periods of time, they become “humanized”, meaning they see all other humans as extensions of themselves, incapable of willingly harming other humans. They become pacifists to the extreme. The protagonists go on a fight against the government to humanize the entire world, and eventually they do so, ending all war and crime across the planet.
If free will was really so important to create us with, god could have done so in a manner similar to the humanized people from the book. They still have the ability to make decisions and chose things for themselves, but the option to harm others is never available. If god exists, they could have done something like that, maintaining this need for free will.
So it’s been mathematically proven that not everything in mathematics is provable. Seems paradoxical to me!
That’s not a paradox. Just because some things can’t be proven doesn’t mean everything can’t.
I guess that means the field of mathematics is just a weird superstition we should mock, right?
No, because nothing in mathematics requires everything to be provable.
Look through this list of mathematical proofs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mathematical_proofs
Not a single one requires “all mathematical problems have a solution” to be a premise.
On the other hand, the false belief in a tri-omni god is in fact a prerequisite for a number of religions, and therefore are indeed weird superstitions deserving of mockery.
You’ve missed the point of the example situation. Throwing the jar at a person’s head isn’t one of the available choices.
You’re missing the point of free will. Putting a limit on people’s choices is the antithesis of free will. I can make the choice to use the jam to make a sandwich, I can sell the jam, I can throw the jam in the garbage, and yeah, I can throw a jar of jam at someone if I choose. Some of these options are better than others, but free will means I make the choice, the choice isn’t made for me.
If free will was really so important to create us with, god could have done so in a manner similar to the humanized people from the book.
Free will is important since it’s the essence of creation. If we didn’t have free will we’d all just be an extension of God, not distinct beings. If there are no distinct consciousness, then it would be just God and nothing else. If there’s no distinct consciousness then there’s nothing really created. It would be all just thoughts of a single being.
For there to be distinct consciousness there needs to be the capability to make choices, which means there’s there’s the capability to make bad choices. For me to be incapable of throwing a jar of jam at you there would need to be an omnipotent being governing my decisions. But doing that would take away my agencies and destroy free will. Destroying things is the opposite of creation, which would be against everything God is supposed to be.
Just as we are capable of making choices, God is also capable of making choices. Choice is something that an omnipotent being should be capable of, right? God’s choice to not interfere with our consciousness is inseparable with the creation of free will.
On the other hand, the false belief in a tri-omni god is in fact a prerequisite for a number of religions, and therefore are indeed weird superstitions deserving of mockery.
And that is your choice. God isn’t going to stop you from making this choice. But is mocking other people’s beliefs making the world a better place?
Putting a limit on people’s choices is the antithesis of free will.
There will always be limits on people’s choices. I don’t have wings, I cannot choose to fly. I don’t own a nuke, I cannot choose to nuke something.
So because limits on free will are inevitable, they should be reasonable, which means no evil.
For there to be distinct consciousness there needs to be the capability to make choices, which means there’s there’s the capability to make bad choices.
As is demonstrated by the sandwich example, even when no evil choice is available, choice is still possible.
For me to be incapable of throwing a jar of jam at you there would need to be an omnipotent being governing my decisions.
As is demonstrated by Forever Peace, this is not the case. The mechanism for Forever Peace being that humans see others as an extension of themselves, thus being incapable of harming others, but there is no limit to other mechanisms that would do this.
Destroying things is the opposite of creation, which would be against everything God is supposed to be.
That would appear to be blatantly false. The universe constantly is destroying things. Celestial bodies get destroyed every day. Stars die, black holes consume, planets get bombarded with rocks from space. This planet alone has had 5 mass extinction events.
Not a year passes where there isn’t some child starved to death or slowly killed by disease. Natural disasters wipe people’s homes off the face of the earth and kill thousands.
The universe is an incredibly hostile place.
But is mocking other people’s beliefs making the world a better place?
When it is ultimately a force for suffering, yeah absolutely.
There will always be limits on people’s choices. I don’t have wings, I cannot choose to fly. I don’t own a nuke, I cannot choose to nuke something.
You can choose to fly because airplanes exist. Note how people can choose to use for transportation or use them to drop bombs or crash them into buildings with thousands of people inside.
Also nuclear weapons exist and people can choose to drop them on cities and many thousands of people will die.
It feels like you’re desperately trying to miss the point to avoid having thoughts that conflict with your current belief (or non-belief if that’s how you choose to term it)
That would appear to be blatantly false. The universe constantly is destroying things. Celestial bodies get destroyed every day. Stars die, black holes consume, planets get bombarded with rocks from space. This planet alone has had 5 mass extinction events.
Matter can’t be created or destroyed and energy cannot be created or destroyed. Matter can be converted into energy (and vice-versa) but nothing is ever really destroyed. Do you consider this to be a religious belief simply because conflicts with your argument?
When it is ultimately a force for suffering, yeah absolutely.
How much suffering was caused by the religious oppression done by atheists like Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot? It’s not just religious people that causes suffering. I’m pretty sure it’s intolerance of the beliefs of others that the root of all of that suffering, which history has demonstrated that atheists are more than capable of. So I’m asking again, is your intolerance of the beliefs of others making the world a better place?
You can choose to fly because airplanes exist
That’s not what I meant, and you know it.
Also nuclear weapons exist and people can choose to drop them on cities and many thousands of people will die.
Other people have that choice. I do not.
It feels like you’re desperately trying to miss the point
Given that you seemingly intentionally missed the point about the things that I cannot choose to do, I’d say this is projection.
to avoid having thoughts that conflict with your current belief (or non-belief if that’s how you choose to term it)
This conversation has nothing to do with the existence of god(s), it instead has to do with the existence of tri-omni god(s).
Matter can’t be created or destroyed and energy cannot be created or destroyed.
This is a false equivalence. If I burn down a building, it’s been destroyed even if the matter of the building still exists.
Do you consider this to be a religious belief simply because conflicts with your argument?
Are you here to have a serious conversation, or just waste time?
How much suffering was caused by the religious oppression done by atheists like Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot?
This has no relevance. You completely missed the point of everything I’ve said, I hope not intentionally. Because this line of thinking isn’t coherent.
Is there actually “free will” without evil?
why not? you can choose to eat a banana or an apple, both perfectly non evil
I will die on a hill that says a banana is more good than an apple.
Making the apple relatively more evil on the scale from good to evil.
Others may prefer an apple. But I guess that is their free will to choose so 😉
I mean there was that whole ‘garden of eden’ thing with the apples…
Wasn’t the forbidden fruit in the garden of eden originally a fig or date or olive or something? It was changed to apple in the later translations. Something like that .
I thought it was a pomegranate
obviously made by someone who hasn’t read the first page of the bible (like most). 1 huge point missing, god created earth not the universe, and other gods exist in the bible but are never talked about. this information is within the first couple pages of the bible. some translations can also make this harder to understand.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1, emphasis mine. I haven’t read the Bible in… Fuck almost 20 years and I could still remember that one because its the first line
These verses seem to suggest he did create everything, and that “the heavens” refers to the universe outside of Earth: John 1:3, Isaiah 40:26, Colossians 1:16, Psalm 8:3-4
Removed by mod
How can one experience pure joy without the contrast of sorrow? Stop trying to personify God. Try smoking DMT, then call yourself an “athiest”.
I dare you
Which religion did DMT make you start believing in?
No specific religion, but I saw evidence of a beautifully designed, perfect “machine” all around me. I felt in tune with some sort of higher power, whatever you want to call it.
