h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

toxx:
"On other occasions we can only reflect that, from an eternal point of view, nobody's suffering lasts for more than a lifetime - which is supposed to be but a drop in the ocean of our total existence."

So that's okay then, is it? The suffering of one individual by a deliberate act of God doesn't matter in the scheme of things?

The truth is:

We are all deviants. The species homo sapiens has arrived by natural evolution and the process continues. Some deviations are beneficial, the vast majority are not. No external involvement is necessary in the ongoing development of species. In fact, a perfect God would only produce beneficial deviations, surely?

....ho hum....

">>1. Providing that the definition of Morality is: solves interpersonal conflicts.
2. People will disagree and argue [about the definition].
3. The def. of morality negates itself.
>>

Is it valid? I don't think so, but I can't prove it."

The problem is in the first premise. In no valid definition that I've seen of 'Morality' is there mention of 'solves interpersonal conflicts'. So where does this definition come from?

"HS, read A Review of Ronald Hutton's 'The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles' "

I did, Alji. I can't refute it all (and wouldn't, if I could) but I recognise where she's coming from. Although the argument is ad hominem, I do distrust people such as the article writer whose only published and purchasable work I could track down 9but no doubt there are others) is a "Goddess Tarot". other than that, she seems to make her living as an ardent feminist on the US circuit, and her publications on the website you pulled.

At least Hutton is an eminent historian in this country, orgianally a medievalist but now specialising in modern pagan histories. I see that at least a couple of the criticisms in the article were addressed by him in another of his later books ("The Triumph of the Moon"), where he discusses some of the people she mentions in more detail. Other than that, a lot of her work is a rehash of the very feminist religiously-motivated work he criticises in the book she reviews.

That book is now out of print and has been overtaken by further archaelogical research in some areas. However, the main point she makes, which I dispute, is his bias. Hutton, more than most scholars, is careful to try to eshew bias. The bias she sees lies in that attempt, which she translates as a defence of patriarchy because he does not assent to her biassed interpretations of existing evidence as 'obvious' evidence of a Stone Age cult of the 'Great Goddess'. her interpretations are based on her pre-existing bias. As Hutton points out: we have no evidence from the stone Age which is unambiguous at best. We have nothing from that age which tells us, without reference to our desires to see what we wish, how to interpret the artifacts from the period. For example, there is nothing to say that the figurines or representations of an exaggerated female form are a goddess, or a Stone Age equivalent to the page three model in certain tabloid newspapers.

Either way, the article is not merely mostly polemic (although there may also be some decent information buried in there, it is always dangerous to accept it uncritically from a source which may be filtering through such pronounced bias), but also confines its comment to a very portion of Hutton''s book., which covers more material than the article would suggest.

"My examples are from the first-order propositional calculus. Do I need to include a truth-table proof too?"

No, toxx - my logic is nothing like as good as yours. My remark was tongue in cheek. I will leave the logic to you!

S'man



What a total misrepresentation of what I said! For there to be freewill the universe has to be subject to contingencies, not ruled by necessity. Hence God has to take a 'hands off' approach. Hence there is no 'deliberate act of God' involved in the origin of suffering.

Taking the broader perspective of eternity is a way of justifying the system as a whole - not particular events within it, which are not so justified.

toxx

"Sacrifice and suffering is necessary in some degree in any loving relationship (although I hope this is sorted out in Heaven smiley ). In some respects it goes back to the question of free will, as the will is the faculty associated with love and also rejection. So suffering should not lead us to reject God."

the problem I see with this one, Andrew (and you have to bear in mind that, unlike az, I have completely rejected the Judeo-Christian religious POV in favour of one free of it.) is that human relationships are between people of (in religious terms) equal power status, while those between the triple O god and people are not.

This means that humans do not have the power to change some external circumstances to please the one they love, simply because they wish to do so: they cannot raise the dead, nor overcome poverty, illness and the adverse long term effects of trauma when these impinge badly upon a relationship.

however, the triple O god does have that power, but chooses not to use it.

you talk of Lewis mentioning the redemtive power of suffering when it is taken in the *right* attitude i.e. that it is holy, or there for a divine purpose of learning, or simply that the it enables the Christian to learn how to bear suffering by trying to be more like their god of suffering.

But, at the same time, they avow that their god has the power to alleviate suffering, because he is omnipotent, but he chooses not to use that power. That is the problem for worshippers of a triple O god: how to worship a god who prefers his people to suffer rather than alleviating their pain.

"But the key point in the Christian understanding is original sin. This puts us in a bad situation with a tendency to do evil. The facility that God initially gave us to do virtue has been lost. Our faculties work in a disordered way. This disorder brought suffering into the world - i.e. it is not really God who 'requires' us to suffer but rather we have brought it down upon ourselves."

And this, Andrew, does not help, as it is the triple O god who defines what he regards as evil and he leaves people to it. After all, the simple solution within the Christian theology to alleviate pain would be for your god to eliminate that original sin in people, rather than permit them to struggle on and somehow have to save themselves by a belief in jesus or be condemned if they do not. Isn't that somewhat Palagian? Or do you hold, like the Calvinists, that god has already pre-ordained who will believe and who will not?

"The problem of pain is a very hard one - I see it as being that pain is *allowed* by God, but not willed or carried out by God. "

but why does he allow it, Adelaide, when, if he is omnipotent, he must have the ability to eliminate it?

Surely, he is either not omnipotent, or else he chooses to allow it?

if he choose to allow it, I do not see the difference between that and carrying it out. If you saw someone about to poison a child, and it was within your power to prevent it but you chose not to exercise that power, would you have less guilt than the poisoner?

If by 'solves interpersonal conflicts' we mean 'allows reasoned discussion to replace violent confrontation', then premise 2 no longer has any purchase.

toxx

"Moral evil has to exist as a possibility otherwise freewill would be meaningless. Humans have to be capable of choosing to do harm. Otherwise they would be automota or overprotected childlike beings rather than moral agents - the end which the God of Theism has in mind for us. That's the good old 'Freewill Defence' and, for me, it leads to a justification of natural or physical evil/suffering.

...Since these physical means of inflicting harm, like everything else predictable and meaningful, have to instantiate a general law (of nature) - they have to occur in appropriate circumstances even when nobody is at fault."

OK, toxx - but how do these things change in heaven? And, if they can change there, why not on earth?

< In fact, a perfect God would only produce beneficial deviations, surely?>

Only adaptive mutations, in addition to requiring a supernatural element in the system, are frought with considerable difficulties.

A predator would become so fast that it would eat well, have plenty of resources for reproduction, and rapidly wipe out the prey species! Then, of course, it would starve. Result: extinction of two species.

Or the prey species gets faster. The predators starve. The prey species reproduce beyond the capability of the environment to sustain all of them. Then most of them starve or become weak and are wiped out by disease.

toxx

"For there to be freewill the universe has to be subject to contingencies, not ruled by necessity. Hence God has to take a 'hands off' approach. Hence there is no 'deliberate act of God' involved in the origin of suffering."

Ok, toxx, let's try this:
What is the purpose of freewill? I don't think I'm misrepresenting you by saying it is in order to produce (=teach us how to be?) moral agents.

If that is the intent, then, presumably, once human beings have learned that lesson, suffering, for that individual, is no longer necessary, as it does not produce any greater effect.

Also: how does this integrate with the proposition that it is belief in the christ which is required to achieve a relationship with god, and that it is that relationship which is the thing god desires? Are there two desires: to be a moral agent and belief in the christ? if so, presumably both are necessary, it is not an either/or - or is it?

whether it is an either/or or a both, why is death the point of conclusion, rather than achieving the moral agency/belief in the christ? i.e. why do those who achieve both (or either, if that is the name of the game) have to wait X years (which may be less than one or very much greater than 1) to achieve heaven/oneness with god?

I guess the world is a training ground where we have the chance to become moral agents. This involves considerable experience in decision making without any artificial sticks or carrots applied by God. Moral agents cannot just be created fully formed. Some genuinely autonomous self-development is required.

I see no reason for anything like this in heaven where 'We behold Him face-to-face'. This latter also applies to angels, if we believe in them. Heaven can be as supernatural as it likes.

toxx

'After all, the simple solution within the Christian theology to alleviate pain would be for your god to eliminate that original sin in people, rather than permit them to struggle on and somehow have to save themselves by a belief in jesus or be condemned if they do not. Isn't that somewhat Palagian?'

It's not at all 'Palagian'!
http://www.clive.bates.btinternet.co.uk/palagius.htm
'Pelagius denied original sin. He rejected baptism as a requirement for salvation. He refused to follow an ascetic or monastic life. His writings denied the sanctity of virginity (a major church emphasis by this time.) And the followers of Pelagius were accused of the grievous sin of "venality." That is, they enjoyed sex.
Pelagius preached a strange doctrine called "Free Will." Each person, he believed, could work out her/his own salvation by the exercise of free will alone.'

Alji

HS. I don't think we can remain moral agents if our freewill is taken away after we're fully developed examples. However, once certain choices have been freely made and the indicated paths followed, we don't apparently need to repeat those choices indefinitely. Hence God can become manifest at some point.

It is not that suffering is required as experienced by the individual moral agent, but that consideration of the possible suffering of others is required if we are to act rightly. I don't see how we could have a two-tier world where there is no suffering for some but not others. Presumably that is the point of the Earth/Heaven distinction.

We're very much on the borderline here between philosophy and doctrine. The latter just isn't my area except in the broadest sense as someone who was educated in a plain, vanilla C of E context.

I don't see the requirement for accepting Christ as a necessary one. Surely Jews, Muslims and those of non-theistic faiths or no faith may develop as moral agents. Here again, I think this is more significant to the doctrinal theologian. Perhaps people achieve considerable enlightenment in the world and pass it on to others in various ways during their lifetime. After all, Jesus is supposed to have been 'fast-tracked', yet he stuck around for a while.

toxx,

I stand by my statement:
< In fact, a perfect God would only produce beneficial deviations, surely?>

You replied:
"Only adaptive mutations, in addition to requiring a supernatural element in the system, are frought with considerable difficulties."

Why? It's only the beneficial mutations which endure. If the God which you speak for exists, then the system was devised by a supernatural element, which, through its omnipotence and perfection, would not allow grotesque mutations.

"A predator would become so fast that it would eat well, have plenty of resources for reproduction, and rapidly wipe out the prey species! Then, of course, it would starve. Result: extinction of two species."

Predators have to comply with physics. Their prey evolve, too. Extinctions continually take place.

"Or the prey species gets faster. The predators starve. The prey species reproduce beyond the capability of the environment to sustain all of them. Then most of them starve or become weak and are wiped out by disease."

What you describe is what happens! Unless the predator adapts to the new circumstances. Which is what does happen!

"I guess the world is a training ground where we have the chance to become moral agents. This involves considerable experience in decision making without any artificial sticks or carrots applied by God. Moral agents cannot just be created fully formed. Some genuinely autonomous self-development is required. "

this is my point about death. Are we to assume that death only comes to those who have acquired sufficient experience to be judged as having accomplished the maxiumum of their development? If not, does not undermine your proposition?

"It's not at all 'Palagian'!"

What I meant was, that a belief that one has a completely free choice in whether or not to believe in jesus and therefore be saved smacks of Pelagianism, though, i agree, it is not the same.

it was Augustine, of course, who argued that only belief was necessary, but even he would not go so far as to say that people have a free choice, which is why he invented the doctrine of prevenient grace. But that ends up with predestination, so eleiminating freewill in the matter. Augustine invented that because he saw that to argue there was complete freewill in the decision was to go down the Pelagian route to admitting it was up the person, not to god, hence my allusion.

"It is not that suffering is required as experienced by the individual moral agent, but that consideration of the possible suffering of others is required if we are to act rightly."

as you said later, some of us do not require christianity to teach us this!

There are, of course, many who die unable to reach a sentience level at which they can make such moral choices.

" I don't see how we could have a two-tier world where there is no suffering for some but not others. Presumably that is the point of the Earth/Heaven distinction."

I anticipated this response. I also expected you to use it in response to my gambit about the elngth of the interval between achieving moral responsibility and death, though that would be less blatant a connection between belief and outcome. But your response therefore infers that the Christian god does not wish to offer any convincing proof of his existence by offering a two tier world, or by obviously taking those who believe early - in which case, why? if he truly seeks a relationship, who shy away from proof? why make the whole business hide-and-seek?

"We're very much on the borderline here between philosophy and doctrine. The latter just isn't my area except in the broadest sense as someone who was educated in a plain, vanilla C of E context."

yes, and I know that theologians have grasped at this. but, toxx, theology is no more than the attempt to grapple with questions which bother everyone. I do not discuss in order to convince, nor to hope to prove or disprove (and certainly not after so many professionals have argued these matters for so many centruries!), but for the love of discussion.