Do Religious People Really Believe in Their Religion?

[Charlemagne_II]

R Daneel
*
By observing that God does not interfere to protect the weak, and since you yourself asserted that God “respects” the free will of the attacker. There are two “wills” which clash, that of the attacker and that of the victim. God allows the attacker to prevail - therefore God places a “higher value” on the attacker’s free will than the victim’s free will.*

Do you mean that God prefers evil to triumph over good when it so chooses?

No. God allows evil men to triumph over good men, but in the end, if they do not repent, they do not really prevail; and life wrongly taken from good men in this life may be restored to them in the next. Nobody knows how god judges. The calculus of his judgments is indecipherable on this plane. That’s why it’s called the mystery of evil.

Under atheism, when evil men prevail over good men, there is no final judgment that sets things right. An atheist wrongly imprisoned for life, or wrongly executed, has only despair in front of him.

The essence of atheism is hopelessness. The essence of theism is hope. The essence of atheism is to reduce man to an animal who has no future. The essence of theism is to hope for a future life beyond this one. All the world over men have believed in spirits and an afterlife. Such belief is tied ultimately to hope.

Why is man the only creature who hopes for life beyond death? Could it be because God has planted that hope in us? Those who deny that hope have their own private reasons for denying it, but they have to think constantly about their refusal, because hope, like it or not, springs eternal.

That is why atheists come to Catholic Answers. They have not entirely lost hope.

 

[reggieM]

That is why atheists come to Catholic Answers. They have not entirely lost hope.

That’s a very encouraging thing for us to remember. As atheists continue to think about God, it will be a benefit for them and hope will continue to increase.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Notice how you changed the word “force” to “coerce”. That does make a difference. Freedom is preserved, although the one who loves us tries to win our affection. But we remain free to refuse.

Why?

 

[Moonstruck888]

Moonstruck

*If God has limitations, then what sets him apart from us? Why should we worship him as a superior being? *

God has a definite nature. It is no sign of impotence that God chooses to do one thing rather than another. We should worship Him as a superior being because He is a superior Being. He is the ground of all our being. It is a poor son who does not respect a loving father, a Father who holds out the promise of eternal bliss … for a price … the price of obedience to His will, which is good, not evil.

I’m sorry that you ae so indoctrinated as to consider yourself inferior to a capricious, malevolent, vengeful, mysoginistic, genocidal psychopath.

I however do not. I think I am more moral, more loving and more compassionate than your God. I think that you are more moral, more loving and more compassionate than your God. If the biblical God came down to Earth tomorrow, he would make the Nazi regime look like the Brady Bunch.

Fortunately for me, I am spared the terror of such an occurence by the knowledge that God is fictitious.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Charlemagne II;7125499}:

The essence of atheism is hopelessness. The essence of theism is hope. The essence of atheism is to reduce man to an animal who has no future. The essence of theism is to hope for a future life beyond this one. All the world over men have believed in spirits and an afterlife. Such belief is tied ultimately to hope.

Man is an animal. We are part of Kingdom Animalia, like it or not. Comforting ourselves by wallowing in a pack of lies and infecting others with them isn’t hope, it’s hypocrisy.

That is why atheists come to Catholic Answers. They have not entirely lost hope.

Or could it be that they want to know their enemy? I consider the insidious creep of faith based education in the UK to be the biggest threat my culture has faced since World War II. I do not want my culture to turn into a technological and philosophical backwater because of a state sponsored retreat into primative superstition.

My “hope” is that people will ultimately see beyond superstition and apply reason to solving the problems that afflict mankind, not getting down on our knees and praying for better luck in the next life which we have no evidence even exists.

 

[R_Daneel]

So, I used that method and showed the logical consistency.

Ok. A logically consistent argument does not make it a logically sound argument.

All elephants can play the violin
Jumbo is an elephant.
Therefore Jumbo can play the violin.

This is the secular version of your argument.

One reason you can’t judge that is because you don’t know the purpose of the attack and what the ultimate meaning of the result of it is.

“Ultimate” meaning? We never have full information even when a human criminal is considered. Therefore we use whatever information is available. And then we use the “duck principle” (if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, tastes like a duck - it is very probably a duck). There is absolutely no sign that torture, rape, mayhem would lead to some undefined “greater good”. So, by using the available information we conclude: God is not “loving”.

Now you need to know how God protects the weak and the strong. How does God respond to prayer? How does God give everyone what is best for each person?

Using the available evidence: he does not. Any one of them. You are free to believe otherwise, but you are unable to present even an iota of evidence for your belief, therefore it is simply “blind faith”. Of course you are also entitled to your blind faith, just don’t think that you are a rational person.

 

[R_Daneel]

Do you mean that God prefers evil to triumph over good when it so chooses?

According to the available evidence, yes.

No. God allows evil men to triumph over good men, but in the end, if they do not repent, they do not really prevail; and life wrongly taken from good men in this life may be restored to them in the next. Nobody knows how god judges. The calculus of his judgments is indecipherable on this plane. That’s why it’s called the mystery of evil.

Pie in the sky.

Under atheism, when evil men prevail over good men, there is no final judgment that sets things right. An atheist wrongly imprisoned for life, or wrongly executed, has only despair in front of him.

Well, if executed, he sure has nothing in front of him, not even despair. You know, if you were wrongly imprisoned for life, would you keep on living cheerfully, and say: “oh well, no big deal. These upcoming few decades (when I will not see my family, cannot enjoy the company of my children and grandchildren) are not even worth to worry about, in heaven there will be unlimited bliss, and the judges, who wrongly imprisones me will get their punishment”. Do you really think that this would be your response?

The essence of atheism is hopelessness.

Such a vessel of stinking fertilizer. But there is a moratorium on discussing atheism, so I will not respond any further.

That is why atheists come to Catholic Answers. They have not entirely lost hope.

Of course. I still have hope that some of the less deeply brainwashed can see the light.

 

[davidv]

I’m sorry that you ae so indoctrinated as to consider yourself inferior to a capricious, malevolent, vengeful, mysoginistic, genocidal psychopath.

Who would this be?

I however do not. I think I am more moral, more loving and more compassionate than your God. I think that you are more moral, more loving and more compassionate than your God.

That is because you don’t know God.

If the biblical God came down to Earth tomorrow, he would make the Nazi regime look like the Brady Bunch.

Nice strawman.

Fortunately for me, I am spared the terror of such an occurence by the knowledge that God is fictitious.

 

[ContegoFides]

Not really on point, but I find Moonstruck’s signature regarding Young’s Theorem to be kind of ironic.

First, it’s cited as a “theorem,” which is something which is supposed to be provable. However, it’s really more of an axiom or razor, as the statement is itself a statement of faith that is unprovable.

Second, I’d cite quantum mechanics as being a great counter example of the theory. Quantum mechanics is very real, even physically testable, but in the 19th century it would have been laughed at as having nearly impossible odds of existing in view of “Young’s Theorem.” Ironically, by narrowing our view of what is even physically possible with such a “theorem” we would be less likely to investigate scientific improbabilities - and as a result we’d likely not be communicating with comptuers as we are today…

Take the blinders off!

 

[Moonstruck888]

Not really on point, but I find Moonstruck’s signature regarding Young’s Theorem to be kind of ironic.

First, it’s cited as a “theorem,” which is something which is supposed to be provable. However, it’s really more of an axiom or razor, as the statement is itself a statement of faith that is unprovable.

Second, I’d cite quantum mechanics as being a great counter example of the theory. Quantum mechanics is very real, even physically testable, but in the 19th century it would have been laughed at as having nearly impossible odds of existing in view of “Young’s Theorem.” Ironically, by narrowing our view of what is even physically possible with such a “theorem” we would be less likely to investigate scientific improbabilities - and as a result we’d likely not be communicating with comptuers as we are today…

Take the blinders off!

First off, it is provable, and second, discussing Young’s Theorem with a philosopher is like discussing how to make love to your wife with a priest.

One point of Young’s Theorem is that every philospher I’ve ever encountered rises to the bait every time.

Including you…

Q: How do you cause a philosopher’s stress levels to cause him a cardiac arrest?

A: Tell him you believe the evidence of your own eyes.

Oh, and a word to the wise. The 20th century interpretation of QM was based on…

Can you guess it?

OBSERVATION!!!

And before the observation could be performed in the 19th century, there was no interpretation of QM.

So, QM backs up Young’s Theorem, which I so called because it had a nicer ring to it than Young’s axiom or Young’s razor. The hypotheses that led to QM Theory were harder to verify than those that led to Newtonian Mechanical laws precisely because, as per Young’s Theorem, it is harder to make the observations.

Young’s Theorem makes a prediction that can be tested. Sadly, I no longer have the statistical data I used, but it does hold true.

 

[Moonstruck888]

Second, I’d cite quantum mechanics as being a great counter example of the theory.

Quantum Mechanics is fettered with some eye wateringly appalling metaphysical baggage.

So much so, in fact, that it prompted Erwin Schroedinger to observe, “I hate it and I wish I’d had nothing to do with it.”

 

[reggieM]

Ok. A logically consistent argument does not make it a logically sound argument.

All elephants can play the violin
Jumbo is an elephant.
Therefore Jumbo can play the violin.

This is the secular version of your argument.

You didn’t address my critique but again have returned to the question of the existence of God. If you’re not willing to accept, for the sake of argument, that God exists, then any of your questions about “why would God …?” are pointless. When a logically sound argument is given from the first premise, you deny the foundation of the argument.

Can you see the problem here?

“Ultimate” meaning? We never have full information even when a human criminal is considered.

Here you need to prove that we “never” gain full knowledge even after death.
Where is your evidence for this claim?
If you’re lacking evidence, then you’re arriving at conclusions based on ignorance.

There is absolutely no sign that torture, rape, mayhem would lead to some undefined “greater good”. So, by using the available information we conclude: God is not “loving”.

Of course, I already proved this to you in a prior discussion. From the atheistic perspective, you have no argument. There can be no “greater good” in anything – therefore, there cannot be evil.

Of course, rape and mayhem provide a “greater good” for the self-interest of those who want to do it. That’s what atheism provides as a moral foundation. So now, however, you want to use a theistic foundation to judge the greater good of actions.

But let’s return to your view of the world – there is no God, no afterlife, no final judgement and no ultimate purpose.

The rapist wants to rape – then that fulfills him. That’s atheism.

Now, however, you want to evaluate a theistic worldview by adhering to atheism.

But you’re confusing the two concepts. When I tell you how God’s justice is worked out in life, you revert to atheism and say that God doesn’t exist. Then you say that in a materialist worldview, there is no evidence for God anyway.

So, you render the discussion pointless. Supposedly, I have to accept your atheistic view in order to prove God exists.

It’s your task to accept, for the sake of argument, that God exists. After that, you can learn how God manifests His love and how we learn about God.

But if you insist that I have to accept a philosophical view that eliminates the possiblity of God, then there’s no point in asking any questions about God’s love.

So, R. Daneel, some good faith on your part is required.

Using the available evidence: he does not. Any one of them. You are free to believe otherwise, but you are unable to present even an iota of evidence for your belief, therefore it is simply “blind faith”. Of course you are also entitled to your blind faith, just don’t think that you are a rational person.

It probably would be worth some time to help you recognize the evidence supporting the existence of God. You claim that I can’t claim one iota of evidence. How do you know that?

 

[davidv]

First off, it is provable, and second, discussing Young’s Theorem with a philosopher is like discussing how to make love to your wife with a priest.

Proving that you do not have a clue what skills and knowledge that a priest could bring to bear on this subject. Why the appeal to emotion? Do you have a real argument?

One point of Young’s Theorem is that every philospher I’ve ever encountered rises to the bait every time.

Including you…

Q: How do you cause a philosopher’s stress levels to cause him a cardiac arrest?

A: Tell him you believe the evidence of your own eyes.

Oh, and a word to the wise. The 20th century interpretation of QM was based on…

Can you guess it?

OBSERVATION!!!

And before the observation could be performed in the 19th century, there was no interpretation of QM.

So, QM backs up Young’s Theorem, which I so called because it had a nicer ring to it than Young’s axiom or Young’s razor. The hypotheses that led to QM Theory were harder to verify than those that led to Newtonian Mechanical laws precisely because, as per Young’s Theorem, it is harder to make the observations.

Young’s Theorem makes a prediction that can be tested. Sadly, I no longer have the statistical data I used, but it does hold true.

Your theorem is based on an unproven assumption that all there is, is the observable. Since I know the unseen is real, I reject your argument as unsound, based on a false premise.

 

[ContegoFides]

First off, it is provable, and second, discussing Young’s Theorem with a philosopher is like discussing how to make love to your wife with a priest.

One point of Young’s Theorem is that every philospher I’ve ever encountered rises to the bait every time.

Including you…

Q: How do you cause a philosopher’s stress levels to cause him a cardiac arrest?

A: Tell him you believe the evidence of your own eyes.

Oh, and a word to the wise. The 20th century interpretation of QM was based on…

Can you guess it?

OBSERVATION!!!

And before the observation could be performed in the 19th century, there was no interpretation of QM.

So, QM backs up Young’s Theorem, which I so called because it had a nicer ring to it than Young’s axiom or Young’s razor. The hypotheses that led to QM Theory were harder to verify than those that led to Newtonian Mechanical laws precisely because, as per Young’s Theorem, it is harder to make the observations.

Young’s Theorem makes a prediction that can be tested. Sadly, I no longer have the statistical data I used, but it does hold true.

So much anger and contempt. I hope you find some peace.

Unfortunately, you’ve misunderstood my citation to quantum mechanics. What I am saying is that if you adopt such a philosophy as Young’s “Theorem,” you will naturally exclude that which could be real - even observable - simply because you believe it is less likely to exist because it is hard to observe. The difficulty of observing quantum mechanical effects shows that Young’s “Theorem” is not good philosophy for even science.

Another example: you can never observe inside the event horizon black hole. Per Young’s “Theorem” nothing can exist inside a black hole. Clearly, that is not correct, so Young’s “Theorem” is invalid.

Young’s “Theorem” makes no predictions that can be tested. It also cannot be proved - if you think you can do it, then bring forth your proof. As an atheist, you are big on proof, so show me what you got. As established above, Young’s “Theorem” just a philosophical assumption, of the kind you like to denigrate, and it’s not very convincing.

By the way, priests can know a lot about sex and relationships. You don’t have to experience something to be an expert in it. You don’t have to experience outer space to know a lot about it.

Such assertions are classical ad-hominem attacks that unjustly attempt to denigrate the opposition without setting forth a logical argument.

 

[R_Daneel]

You didn’t address my critique but again have returned to the question of the existence of God. If you’re not willing to accept, for the sake of argument, that God exists, then any of your questions about “why would God …?” are pointless. When a logically sound argument is given from the first premise, you deny the foundation of the argument.

Except your argument is logically valid, but not logically sound. I have seen your argument before, and it went like this:

1. Let’s start from the assumption that God exists, he is infinitely knowledgable, powerful and benevolent. (This is what you say, and that is the hypothesis)
2. Therefore all the “seemingly” evil or unnecessary sufferings must have some greater good attached to them.
3. We observe innumerable instances of “seemingly” unnecessary sufferings and we are unable to explain all of them - actually we cannot even explain one of them.
4. Since our observations cannot be denied, and they “seem” to contradict the hypothesis, it is a very strong evidence against 1).

Now your conclusion is this: since 1) is stipulated to be true, therefore 4) cannot be true. What you do here is a logical error, you wish to use 1) both as a hypothesis, and also as an argument supporting that hypothesis. And that does not work. It is a circular argument. In other words you say that each and every one of those “seemingly” needless sufferings are simply a “measurement error”.

If you wish to substantiate your hypothesis, you have to show that each and every one of those “seemingly” unnecessary sufferings do have
(a) some greater good attached to them, which
(b) good logically depends on the suffering (no pain, no gain) and
(c) which suffering cannot be decreased, because if we decreased the suffering even just a little bit, the greater good would also “evaporate”.

Clearly, this is impossible, since none of us has the necessary information. Since we lack all the necessary information, we must use the available information. The available information is: “there is no supporting evidence that even one of the ‘seemingly’ unnecessary sufferings are really logically necessary”. Therefore we discard your hypothesis, on account of having no supporting evidence.

On the other hand, I have supporting evidence (zillions of it) that the suffering can be decreased. The evidence is all around us. We keep on increasing our power to eliminate suffferings. We have good anesthetics and do not have to give a bullet to bite down when an amputation is necessary.

Here you need to prove that we “never” gain full knowledge even after death.

Irrelevant. This conversation happens here and now.

Of course, I already proved this to you in a prior discussion. From the atheistic perspective, you have no argument. There can be no “greater good” in anything – therefore, there cannot be evil.

That is sheer nonsense. Just because we do not accept some “ultimate” out-of-this-world good, it does not mean that we deny good in this world. The phrase “greater good” simply means that consequences of the “seemingly” unnecessary sufferings will more than compensate for the unpleasantness of the suffering.

Supposedly, I have to accept your atheistic view in order to prove God exists.

Of course you have to. You always “play” on your opponent’s playing field if you wish to score a “goal”. If you wish to argue against a Protestant, the only way is to argue based upon Sola Scriptura. You cannot mention the inerracy of the Pope, or the Magistratium. If you wish to argue agaist an atheist, you must argue on fully secular grounds. This is obvious, so don’t be confused.

It probably would be worth some time to help you recognize the evidence supporting the existence of God. You claim that I can’t claim one iota of evidence. How do you know that?

I studied all of them. Mene, tekel, ufarsin.

 

[reggieM]

Except your argument is logically valid, but not logically sound. I have seen your argument before, and it went like this:

1. Let’s start from the assumption that God exists, he is infinitely knowledgable, powerful and benevolent. (This is what you say, and that is the hypothesis)

No, this is not the hypothesis, it’s the first premise that is simply accepted for sake of argument. The hypothesis is “God does care about unbelief”.

Let’s look again at your analogy.

All elephants can play the violin
Jumbo is an elephant.
Therefore Jumbo can play the violin.

The hypothesis is not that all elephants play the violin. We are seeking to prove that Jumbo can play the violin.

Your argument is actually this:

If all elephants can play the violin
And Jumbo is an elephant.
Then Jumbo can play the violin.

This argument is logically sound and correct.

If the hypothesis was “all elephants play the violin”, then a different argument would be required.

In your case, the question is this:

If God exists, then why would he care about unbelief?

Now, you offered the argument as follows:

1. Therefore all the “seemingly” evil or unnecessary sufferings must have some greater good attached to them.
2. We observe innumerable instances of “seemingly” **unnecessary sufferings **and we are unable to explain all of them - actually we cannot even explain one of them.
3. Since our observations cannot be denied, and they “seem” to contradict the hypothesis, it is a very strong evidence against 1).

There is a lot of evidence provided in your reply here that contradict your first premise.

First, you accept that there are “necessary sufferings”. You distinguish those from “unnecessary sufferings”. What evidence do you use to determine and measure those things?

If you conclude that “we cannot explain one of them”, then how do you explain “necessary sufferings”?

The term “necessary” that you use, is measured against a goal or purpose.

Necessary for what?

This is the “purpose” you assign to suffering. What evidence can you show that proves that your understanding of purpose is correct and final?

Again, you deny ultimate purpose but then claim that some sufferings are necessary. But you have to explain why they are necessary – what goal do they have, and why is that the true goal for those sufferings? How would you know?

If you wish to substantiate your hypothesis, you have to show that each and every one of those “seemingly” unnecessary sufferings do have
(a) some greater good attached to them, which
(b) good logically depends on the suffering (no pain, no gain) and
(c) which suffering cannot be decreased, because if we decreased the suffering even just a little bit, the greater good would also “evaporate”.

I can do this once I understand your own measurment system for:

1. What do you mean by “greater good”?
2. How do you measure “necessity” of suffering?
3. What meaning and value do you place on the interior disposition of a person – and how do you measure it?

We keep on increasing our power to eliminate suffferings.

Therefore, the existence of sufferings enabled us to increase our powers. So, you’ve proven a greater good already.

That is sheer nonsense. Just because we do not accept some “ultimate” out-of-this-world good, it does not mean that we deny good in this world.

Yes, it actually does mean that you deny good in this world. When you deny an ultimate good, then the ultimate value of everything is zero. This is a negation of being and therefore an evil. So, there cannot be any good in that system.

There is no evidence that anything in your worldview is good. What scientific evidence can you show that indicates what “good” is? Where in nature does “good” reside?

The phrase “greater good” simply means that consequences of the “seemingly” unnecessary sufferings will more than compensate for the unpleasantness of the suffering.

Here, you assert that “unpleasantness” is not a good.

As I showed previously, teachers provide students with the experience of unpleasantness so that the students can achieve a greater good.

There are countless examples of this. The catepillar must die so the butterfly can live.

One man sacrifices his life for the good of the nation.

A scientist encounters great hostility and loss of his career to reveal new findings which are never accepted in his life.

Vincent Van Gogh suffered his whole life and did not sell his art. This was a price for the greater good of innovative art.

Now if we are to believe that “unpleasantness is always evil”, then we have a society of hedonists and egotists who serve their own pleasure.

That’s atheism. If you can’t find the greater good in sacrifice, then that leaves a world of selfish pleasure.

Of course you have to. You always “play” on your opponent’s playing field if you wish to score a “goal”. If you wish to argue against a Protestant, the only way is to argue based upon Sola Scriptura. You cannot mention the inerracy of the Pope, or the Magistratium. If you wish to argue agaist an atheist, you must argue on fully secular grounds. This is obvious, so don’t be confused.

I see how obvious that is.
You have joined “my playing field” here on CAF.
You have claimed that you want to show us the “light” of your wisdom.

Therefore, you have to accept our worldview and argue from the Catholic perspective.

From our perspective, God exists and He loves each one of us. He wants the best for us – and He wants us to come closer to Him through prayer and goodness.

 

[ContegoFides]

To my fellow apologists: Always remember your purpose. Strive to increase in charity and humility, always. Something I myself work on, but don’t always succeed in accomplishing. Just keep in mind that strong or aggressive language can hinder your actual purpose.

As to the question of suffering and a good God, suffering is something that God allows, but all suffering ultimately in some manner can be traced back to sin - our sin - not something He created. While suffering might be instructional or purifying, it might not be either. Some suffering is neither instructional nor purifying; yet, it exists. So, how to reconcile this fact with a good God?

Ultimately, God’s response was not to eliminate suffering by a deific act, but rather to take on the form of one of us and suffer with us. That is the story of Jesus on the cross. The cross is absolutely essential to understanding God. If you don’t understand and participate in the cross, you can understand neither suffering nor God, and likely neither can you share in His kingdom.

It sounds crazy at first, but the point is to allow us meaningful free choice to love. Love is to wish the highest and best good for the beloved, at the expense of self; love is an act of will, not some romantic feeling. For example, no person has a greater love than to lay down his/her life for a friend. Nearly everyone intrinsically recognizes, and most appreciate, the goodness of such self-sacrificial acts, such as when a soldier voluntarily throws himself on a grenade with the intent of saving his squad mates knowing that he will likely die.

That is love. You cannot authentically love without freely choosing to love. However, if you have free choice then you must have the actual, meaningful choice not to love. You could choose to hate or to do outright evil. However, your choice has consequences, resulting in a ripple of pain to others, even the innocent.

So, how does a good God reconcile free choice with its consequences? The cross. He came to suffer with us, as well as to redeem us - to make it possible despite evil choices to remain in Him. Though, of course, we retain the free choice to do evil, including not to have faith (trust) in Him or to obey Him. We retain free will, and we all must suffer its consequences, but in the eternal sense we receive more than any other kind of possible compensation: union with God, who is love.

So, to sum up, the reason why a good God allows suffering is to create the greater good of freely choosing to love Him, and be loved in return. God’s answer to the consequences of evil choices is to suffer with us. While suffering might not be created by God, through His infinite goodness He can make it either instructional or purifying or both.

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

If I believed that this present life were just a brief test to determine whether I would be admitted after death to another life of eternal bliss, it is inconceivable to me that I would ever commit a sin, since it would simply be foolish. Yet I hear Christians all the time say that they were ‘weak’ or ‘tempted’ on a given occasion to sin, and so did so, thus jeopardizing their own rational best interest in enjoying infinite bliss for the sake of a brief moment of trivial indiscretion. But since sane people are never tempted to bend down and touch the third rail of a subway because they are tempted by a piece of candy they spot lying there, I would assume that no sane Christian would ever be tempted to sin. Since they so often do sin, however, demonstrates that they don’t really believe in the doctrine they profess.

I mean no disrespect to Plato, but you’re operating under the rather simplistic Platonic idea that sin is ignorance, that its remedy is true understanding of right and wrong.

I disagree. You should read the play Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe.

People do stupid things all the time, and one’s stupidity is exacerbated when an act’s negative effects are really far removed from one’s immediate experience.

Similarly, if I believed that my present life were just a brief test prior to a possibly infinite afterlife of heavenly bliss, nothing that goes wrong here could ever seriously bother me. If we were all at a giant garden party given by God, and he imposed a forfeit on someone and made him blind for the duration of the party prior to admission to Heaven at the end of the afternoon, that blindness would be no more distressing than being ‘it’ for a little while in a schoolyard game of tag. So the fact that Christians wail in despair when some serious but mundane tragedy ruins only this life for them makes me again suspect that they don’t really believe what they profess.

Oh, I don’t disagree entirely. In some sense we are ridiculous to become upset over disappointments and suffering in this world. But that doesn’t mean we don’t really believe.

First of all, since this world is real, and the physical world is important, and God has said that everything he made is good, I don’t really think of this world as a “mere test.” The Catholic faith, for instance, considers our taking care of the earth a responsibility that God has given us. We have this responsibility even though we know there will be a New Heaven and a New Earth anyway. Why? Because God has commanded it, and because His creation is genuinely good. Similarly, we’re obligated to “feed the hungry” and “bury the dead,” etc. according to Christ, even though hunger and death are only temporary.

Also, Christ’s Incarnation gives the physical, earthly realm of things a greater and higher dignity. Purely temporary things become very special when God Himself lowers Himself to their level.

Finally, you underestimate the strength with which our physical needs and desires - hunger, sexual desire, etc. - hold sway over our spirit. Sometimes, in our fallen state, these desires work against an attentiveness to spiritual things, and it’s just not true that the mind/intellect (which “knows” or “truly believes” Christianity) can automatically hold sway over the appetitive side of our souls. Abstract intellectual assent doesn’t have that power by itself. (C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man deals with this in its first chapter; it’s an excellent book)

I do imagine that Christians seriously think that they believe, but this is only because they have never seriously examined the incongruities of their behavior in the situations I have sketched above.

Again, I can only recommend Doctor Faustus to you.

 

[reggieM]

Some suffering is neither instructional nor purifying …

Contego - this follows on R Daneel’s question and I ask - how do you know this? Additionally, it’s not just instruction or purification – but “the greater good” that comes from suffering. As follows …

Ultimately, God’s response was not to eliminate suffering by a deific act, but rather to take on the form of one of us and suffer with us.

Since Christ suffers with us, then suffering has this greater good – union with Christ. He gives meaning to all suffering.

So, to sum up, the reason why a good God allows suffering is to create the greater good of freely choosing to love Him, and be loved in return.

Right, and with this, all suffering has meaning for the greater good. It’s all part of God’s plan. It’s permitted by God for a reason.

While suffering might not be created by God, through His infinite goodness He can make it either instructional or purifying or both.

This is an understanding from the human perspective to say that “we recognize something as purifying”. But there is redemptive suffering that is “restorative”. It saves souls by taking on the punishment of others. This is also a greater good.

Sometimes this can be conscious.
St. Maximilian Kolbe laid down his life for another man.

 

[Moonstruck888]

So much anger and contempt. I hope you find some peace.

I don’t feel any contempt for you, nor anger. I feel exasperation.

Unfortunately, you’ve misunderstood my citation to quantum mechanics. What I am saying is that if you adopt such a philosophy as Young’s “Theorem,” you will naturally exclude that which could be real - even observable - simply because you believe it is less likely to exist because it is hard to observe. The difficulty of observing quantum mechanical effects shows that Young’s “Theorem” is not good philosophy for even science.

I’m not a philosopher, and Young’s Theorem should not, under any circumstances, be taken in a philosophical context. What Young’s Theorem means is that the more difficult a hypothetical phenomenon is to observe the more metaphysical baggage will be attached to any theoretical framework that explains it, so consequently the less likely it is to be a complete or even valid construct.

I think you’ll agree that in QM our current interpretations are, to put it mildly, incomplete. Many Theoretical physicists are of the opinion that it may be impossible for human beings to understand QM. The method I used to formulate Young’s Theorem was to look at various theories, some of which have stood the test of time, some of which have not, and look at how easy the observations involved in their formulation are, how much metaphysical baggage they carry, and whether they were obviated and see if there was any statistically significant connection. There is. Let me explain:

Looking at Boyle’s law for example, the observations on the effects of changes in volume and temperature on pressure can be made in any high school science class. They leave little to the imagination. There is no metaphysical baggage. Boyle’s Law stands, and always will.

String Theory on the other hand is based on ideas that are based almost entirely on metaphysics and as predicted by Young’s Theorem, String Theory, or to be more correct the String Hypothesis, is very weak indeed, basically pseudo science.

Looking at which theories stand the test of time, there is a definite statistical link between how resistant a theory is to being falsified and how much unobservable baggage is associated with it.

Another example: you can never observe inside the event horizon black hole. Per Young’s “Theorem” nothing can exist inside a black hole. Clearly, that is not correct, so Young’s “Theorem” is invalid.

The jury is still out on the properties of black holes as there are a number of conflicting models of them. We don’t have enough information on them to make any definitive statements on them. Young’s Theorem predicts this would be the case as black holes cannot be observed in any detail.

Young’s Theorem works. You’re just too fettered with an education in an outmoded and feeble discipline to see it.

By the way, priests can know a lot about sex and relationships. You don’t have to experience something to be an expert in it.

I’m afraid I don’t agree. Practice makes perfect, as they say.

Such assertions are classical ad-hominem attacks that unjustly attempt to denigrate the opposition without setting forth a logical argument.

Yes, I think you may have a point there. I have a bad habit of getting irritable with idiots.