How to respond to those who call God a mass murderer?

[mythbuster1]

“In righteousness does He judge and make war.”

 

[goout]

That’s a scripture passage.
What’s your point? How does the Church read this?

Catholics are not fundamentalists. We don’t proof-text Scripture, we read it in the light of Christ.
Christ is the full context of Scripture. Scripture is read in that full context of the whole. All of the books of the bible are read in the context of the whole, not as isolated proof texts. Proof texting is a modern thing not in mind with the Tradition of the Catholic Church. .

Look up Bp Barron “violence in the bible” for a fuller explanation of this.
Benedict’s Verbum Domini is also reference several times throughout the thread.
Sec’s 42 and 44 are especially expressive of Cathollc Scripture interpretation.

What do you think?

 

[Mijoy2]

Hi Russell

All the first cause points to is just a logical conclusion of a first cause. Does not imply a deity, universe creating pixies, etc. It is not correct to have a justified belief in what that first cause is other than, ‘We don’t know.’.

Yes I agree completely - We do not know. My point was more that not only do we not know - I’d suggest we cannot know and will never know the answer to this profound mystery. It is beyond us.

I didn’t say it is proof of God. It is not. But I also propose it cannot be answered by science, which I find interesting (you probably disagree). What I did say (in other words), if we assume God created the heavens/earth/universe, He perhaps made the first cause unknowable to test our humility. Perhaps the more humble creatures, allow for the answer (to this and other questions) to be outside our realm of understanding/capability-to-understand and leave the possibility of a creator (who does know the answer). And other’s who believe all knowledge is attainable by mankind and it is just a matter of time before we -learn- everything. It’s all within the power/capability of us to -know-.

 

[Mijoy2]

Evolution disproves the cultural myth of Adam and Eve. So no original sin. Religion teaches the immoral idea of being created sick and commanded to be well. When they fail, then it is sin. That is just sadistic to believe that about yourself, where the default about humanity is broken just for being human regardless of our successes.

Catholics are not obligated to believe there was a tree in the middle of a garden and Eve fell to temptation and ate an apple from it. What we believe is, this is the way God chose to enlighten us on the concept of original sin. In His marvelous poetic prose. What we extract from it is the truth that we do not always choose to do what is best for our neighbor (we sin).

We believe there is a place without sin, we call this heaven. We hope to attain heaven. However we are here to exhibit that that is what we desire. We do this by first acknowledging it, then repenting of it. Because this is where we truly desire to be, in a place where we always do what is right by our neighbor and God. Heaven.

 

[mythbuster1]

Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. When He does, He will destroy the wicked. He is patient, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, but at the appointed time, He will unleash full retribution on those who will not repent.

 

[goout]

Christ will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. When He does, He will destroy the wicked. He is patient, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, but at the appointed time, He will unleash full retribution on those who will not repent.

Who, me?
Why are you sending this to me?

 

[mythbuster1]

I thought you were responding to my post, immediately preceding yours. It appears I was mistaken.

 

[Russell_SA]

I can see how presupposing a deity could lead you to all kinds of different results and then working back to a motivation for why it chooses to do X and Y. But I don’t see how anything leads to the idea of presupposing a deity as a possible solution to the problem when reality has not demonstrated that the spirit realm exists at all other than our active imagination coming up with it. Just because I can imagine something, does not mean that our reality indicates that idea would exist at all. Like I can imagine dragons, but there is nothing in reality that would indicate that dragons could exist. We can have nonmagical dragons since dinosaurs existed, but not magical dragons that breath fire.

 

[goout]

So Russell, do you believe that all of reality is subject to material proof?

 

[Russell_SA]

Claim of reality must tested against reality. If I can logically conclude my level 4 D&D mage spell works in reality and then go test it but the test in reality fails, which conclusion best models reality? The logical conclusion or the test against reality? Our logic is based off first observing reality and then making conclusions that most repeatedly predict the nature of that reality. So reality is the reference point for everything, including our logical conclusions.

 

[goout]

Claim of reality must tested against reality.

How are you testing that claim?

 

[Russell_SA]

I think you referenced the answer. By doing it. Thats how we determine the difference between an imagined idea that does not follow reality and the idea that does follow reality.

 

[goout]

You claim that all of reality must be testable.
How did you test that claim?

You are engaging in circular reasoning, which yields superstition.

 

[Russell_SA]

I’m fine with that until it can be explained otherwise. That is how I currently understand the process. If you can present a more accurate way to create models of reality that best represent actual reality then I’m up for it. As I understand it then, are you saying that it is circular to presuppose that Reality is the reference point for what you test your logical conclusions against?

 

[goout]

It’s circular to assert that all of reality is testable, when you cannot even test that assertion.
Prove that my wife loves me.
Prove that her love changed my life and the lives of those around me.
Prove peace.
Prove joy.
etc…the slice of reality that is not testable is literally endless. And you deny it.
hmmmmm

 

[Russell_SA]

So you want me to describe emotional states that we all experience as human beings with higher functional brains. Okay, the descriptors you listed are the words we use to describe those emotional states. These states occur in a functioning brain. That is one way you can demonstrate the difference between a properly functioning brain, a damaged brain, and a dead brain. The person tells us their current emotional state is peace, joy, love, etc. Since this person is in reality, they are communicating their emotional state, which is part of reality. We can scan these brain states, we can understand the neurochemistry that creates these brain states, etc. We can test these through chemically induced brain states as well. You seem to be implying that emotional states are not apart of reality. So what are they then?

 

[Gorgias]

Good response to @goout, @Russell_SA, but do you realize that you have quite a number of bald assertions – that is, unproven assumptions – in your premise? Namely…

These states occur in a functioning brain.

Where?

The person tells us their current emotional state is peace, joy, love, etc.

Can’t use that, can you? Unless the person points to a particular part of their brain and says, “here’s where peace is, and there’s where joy is, and over there is where love is”… well, unless they can do that, then they’re not referencing ‘reality’ as you define it, but rather, are referencing things that are not material.

And by the way, there’s another problem: you also need to demonstrate how an encoding is a particular thing. After all, I can encode just about anything in a computer’s hard disk… but that doesn’t mean that it stores the thing itself. Rather, it’s an encoding of a representation of the thing itself. Just because I have a picture of my puppy on my computer, that doesn’t mean that you can point to the bytes on the hard drive and say “there’s the puppy!”. We’d all look at you like you were silly, if you tried to make that claim. And yet, that’s precisely the claim you’re making about emotions here…

Since this person is in reality, they are communicating their emotional state, which is part of reality.

Too much hand-waving, here. Is the ‘communication of the emotional state’ the thing that’s part of reality? No? OK, then… is the ‘emotional state’ what’s part of reality? Or, since you need something material, is the ‘encoding of the emotional state in the brain’ that’s part of reality?

Big problems with your premise, no matter which way you go, here…

You seem to be implying that emotional states are not apart of reality. So what are they then?

No… I think that the implication is more subtle than that. It’s that emotional states are not a part of what you would define as reality.

 

[Russell_SA]

So to sum up the reply to your objections: all the data points to the brain for emotions and processing emotions. Do you have anything that points to these being from anywhere else? We are justified to research how something works by following the data that reality has presented. Justify it to the experts and anyone else that you have data counter to what reality has presented so far. Emotions are evolved brain states that come from a functioning brain. Show me evidence that is counter to this.

 

[Gorgias]

So to sum up the reply to your objections: all the data points to the brain for emotions and processing emotions. Do you have anything that points to these being from anywhere else?

Here’s the thing, though: from a conceptual perspective, you have two problems:

• First, you can’t locate a particular synapse or group of synapses that you can point to and say, definitively, “these are this emotion.” Now, this is a ‘god of the gaps’ argument, so I’m not going to push it too hard, but it’s still a valid argument (in fact, the same argument that was made against Galileo): you can’t prove it, so it’s not reasonable for you to proceed as if you’d proven it.
• Second, you cannot prove that these generate the emotion, but only that these are how the emotions seem to be encoded in the brain. That’s the “photo of a doggie” argument, and from a philosophical perspective, you’ve done nothing to distinguish between “physical encoding” and “emotion per se”, let alone demonstrate that the former is the cause of the latter.

We are justified to research how something works by following the data that reality has presented.

Agreed… but do you even perceive the bias and assumptions you’ve just demonstrated? Without cause, you’ve presumed that what you’re describing (i.e., emotions) have physical causes. Prove that first, and your case will look a whole lot more convincing.

Emotions are evolved brain states that come from a functioning brain. Show me evidence that is counter to this.

Your assertion. You’re the one who has to prove it.

 

[Russell_SA]

Science does not work in proofs, that is the realm of logic equations and mathematics. Science works in the most predictive models of reality. We can demonstrate that physical damage to a brain and altering the chemicals of a brain will alter emotional states. That is direct evidence of physical reality based on the evidence presented so far. It works. It’s repeatable. Unless you have evidence of something contrary to the repeatable model, I’m justified in using the model as an explanation of reality. That’s how we can fly planes, create medicines, etc. The models work repeatably.
The demonstration of damaging the brain or altering its chemistry and getting an altered emotional state is evidence of emotions being the product of physical forces of reality. All you seem to do is always be able to back up the question to, “how can you prove that the deity isn’t doing X”. Well we can’t because we can not not tell what deity markers are from non-deity markers in reality. This is just moving the goal post of what science discovers about reality and the religious moving the goal posts again. Okay then, by your logic, it’s emotion generating pixies that are the source. Prove me wrong. That’s not how justified belief of reality works. We explain reality by what we can demonstrate, not what can be asserted.

Yes you are just making god of the gaps arguments.