Leaning towards Skepticism

[anon99031074]

Because Fred would be the designer of Lisa, and since we are talking about the monotheistic God, Fred would also then be the source of morality itself. And that’s the assertion God is the only feasible source of any objective morality, and therefore arguing with God on morality is self defeating because by definition Lisa would be arguing against the very thing that allows her to argue

Ok, so God made Lisa, and presumably knows what makes her tick? Therefore he is more skilled at knowing what causes her suffering than she is? Is that the argument? How does that make his morality objective as opposed to simply informed? Also, suppose Apple leaves you an ipod on your doorstep, and you use it for listening to music that Apple does not approve of. Are they an objective authority on what music you SHOULD listen to on your ipod simply because they made it? You did not ask them to give it to you, but now that they have, are you morally obliged to use it the way they say? They might be able to tell you that certain forms of music will wear down the earplugs more quickly than others, but suppose you don’t care about that and are willing to sacrifice, say, six months of life for your earplugs in exchange for being able to listen to music the designer Apple does not approve of?

But why does it matter? Why should your suffering matters? In a naturalistic worldview those suffering are just the firings of neurons that give you sensation of pain, so why does it matter? Why would that be good compared to say a psycopath that doesn’t care about his suffering and others as long as he can derive sadistic pleasure by committing genocide? Why should anyone happiness matter more than this one psycopath? They’re all biological and sociological construct

What matters doesn’t float around in the sky somewhere. Something matters to someone, or the word means nothing. So it matters TO ME whether or not I suffer, and since I dislike suffering, I am acting in my own best interest when I stay away from actions that cause suffering to myself, and because I do not live in isolation, to others. I am also born with empathy, which means I experience suffering when I witness other sentient beings suffering.

Why should the psycopath listen to God? If God thinks sadism is bad, the psycopath may disagree? Sure, God may have the power to inflict suffering on the psycopath for not listening to his moral demands, but I fail to see how it should necessarily matter more to the psycopath what God says than what someone else says.

EDIT: As for the reductionism where you say it is “just the firing of neurons”. I disagree. Obviously the experience of being in love is not just the firing of neurons. It is also the subjective experience of being in love. If it were just the firing of neurons, we’d all be philosophical zombies, and we are not.

 

[DMSP]

Ok, so God made Lisa, and presumably knows what makes her tick? Therefore he is more skilled at knowing what causes her suffering than she is? Is that the argument? How does that make his morality objective as opposed to simply informed? Also, suppose Apple leaves you an ipod on your doorstep, and you use it for listening to music that Apple does not approve of. Are they an objective authority on what music you SHOULD listen to on your ipod simply because they made it? You did not ask them to give it to you, but now that they have, are you morally obliged to use it the way they say? They might be able to tell you that certain forms of music will wear down the earplugs more quickly than others, but suppose you don’t care about that and are willing to sacrifice, say, six months of life for your earplugs in exchange for being able to listen to music the designer Apple does not approve of?

A more apt analogy would be that apple left me an ipod and they say, here you go you can use the ipod to listen to music, to which I said no, I think you’re wrong apple I can use this Ipod like an Iphone. I could try but that would certainly be objectively wrong way to use an Ipod. God is the source of all morality, you don’t have to follow God but that would be objectively morally wrong.

What matters doesn’t float around in the sky somewhere. Something matters to someone, or the word means nothing. So it matters TO ME whether or not I suffer, and since I dislike suffering, I am acting in my own best interest when I stay away from actions that cause suffering to myself, and because I do not live in isolation, to others. I am also born with empathy, which means I experience suffering when I witness other sentient beings suffering.

Why should the psycopath listen to God? If God thinks sadism is bad, the psycopath may disagree? Sure, God may have the power to inflict suffering on the psycopath for not listening to his moral demands, but I fail to see how it should necessarily matter more to the psycopath what God says than what someone else says.

It seems to me you are saying that objective morality does not exist, if that is so well then my premise at the beginning was

Do you believe in objective moral standard? If no, then this argument won’t work.

But if so, then you cannot really make any moral judgment at all, you cannot say that hitler is objectively worse than Gandhi or Mother Theresa

As for the reductionism where you say it is “just the firing of neurons”. I disagree. Obviously the experience of being in love is not just the firing of neurons. It is also the subjective experience of being in love. If it were just the firing of neurons, we’d all be philosophical zombies, and we are not.

I agree, but that conclusion reject materialism. If matter is all there is then obviously these subjective experiences are just illusion it would be just human working as the DNA machine as Dawkins had put it

 

[anon99031074]

That would be true if we are talking about the gods of polytheism, the sort of god that have a beginning. The God of the monotheistic religion, by definition is the greatest conceivable being and as such God is the source of all of reality and truth, the laws of logic can be trusted to make inferences because it is designed to find the truth, but the monotheistic God the uncreated sustainer of reality is the truth itself.

Greatest conceivable being, to whom? I can conceive of greater beings than, say, a cat can, and presumably, smart aliens can conceive of ideas my poor monkey mind cannot even fathom? I also fail to see how this solves the problem. If God is eternal, then God’s mind is undesigned. Since it it is undesigned, it has no purpose. Your argument was that the human mind needs to be designed with a purpose in order to be trustworthy, but surely that is a self refuting proposition since the mind of your God was not designed. BTW, there are different systems of logic, which are all mathematically sound. The western “classical logic” (which is actually a 19th century construct) is not the only system of logic in existence, and alternative systems work beautifully.

I agree that the specifics of how creation came to be cannot be inferred from the cosmological argument just that the universe is created. But it does not matter whether the universe came to be through a sudden flash of inspiration or gradual only that it would have a uncreated self-sustaining cause. Because the problem of an infinite regression of events in regard to the universe is that then there would be an eternal past within the time axis, which by itself is a contradiction because if there is an infinite amount of past then we would never arrive in the present. The causal links need to end at some point at what Aristotle termed the unmoved mover.

Well it matters to me whether God-arguments that say they solve difficult existential questions actually solve them, or if they merely push them back to a stage where theists are unwilling to continue asking the questions. If the universe existed eternally in the mind of God, then God did not design it. In fact, we might call it self caused, since the idea of universe is what caused the actual universe to come into existence (supposing that it actually exists as more than a mere divine idea, outside God’s mind).

If it could have popped out of nothing in the mind of God, as a flash of inspiration, then perhaps it could have popped out of nothing outside the mind of God. If it evolved as an idea in the mind of God, then it might have evolved without being embedded in a divine mind. Also, how does an eternal, unchanging and singular mind give rise to a universe that is not eternal, unchanging and which is multifaceted? If the cause is eternal and unchanging, the effect also ought to be? If the cause is singular, where does the multiplicity of effects come from?

 

[anon99031074]

A more apt analogy would be that apple left me an ipod and they say, here you go you can use the ipod to listen to music, to which I said no, I think you’re wrong apple I can use this Ipod like an Iphone. I could try but that would certainly be objectively wrong way to use an Ipod. God is the source of all morality, you don’t have to follow God but that would be objectively morally wrong.

I am questioning the idea of God being the source of all morality. You can say he is by definition in your view, if you want, which certainly ends the discussion, but is completely unpersuasive, at least to me.

In the analogy of Apple, the point is that the ipod was left on your doorstep. You did not enter an agreement with them about how to use it. I see no reason why you are morally obliged to use or not use it in any particular way, simply because they have an opinion about what usage is correct. You can say they have this right by definition, but that is precisely what we are discussing.

It seems to me you are saying that objective morality does not exist, if that is so well then my premise at the beginning was

I honestly don’t know what you mean by that term. Objective as in true by definition, without considering duty, consequence, etc? The argument is that the psycopath can ignore society, other humans, etc., but surely they can also ignore God? If power = moral authority, then an omnipotent God who can throw all subjects who disagree into hell wins hands down, but I don’t think that was your argument.

But if so, then you cannot really make any moral judgment at all, you cannot say that hitler is objectively worse than Gandhi or Mother Theresa

I don’t know what you mean by being “objectively better”. I think both Gandi and Mother Teresa acted wishing to benefit other sentient beings, and their ethics were sufficiently reality oriented that they actually succeeded in doing this. Hitler knowingly created tremendous suffering for countless sentient beings, and was at best willing to ignore that suffering to further some misguided, racist ideal in his mind.

I agree, but that conclusion reject materialism. If matter is all there is then obviously these subjective experiences are just illusion it would be just human working as the DNA machine as Dawkins had put it

Electrical impulses in the brain is the third person view. The feeling of love would be the first person view. Reducing either view to the other would make it incomplete, as both are needed to understand the human feeling of love.

 

[DMSP]

Greatest conceivable being, to whom?

By definition God is the greatest conceivable being that is an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, etc. entity. If you can conceive a greater being than that would be by definition God.

If God is eternal, then God’s mind is undesigned. Since it it is undesigned, it has no purpose.

Certainly the mind of God has no human purpose to find the truth like human. Because God as the Ultimate Reality itself is the truth

BTW, there are different systems of logic, which are all mathematically sound…

Well certainly, but the fundamental laws of logic surely remain the same? things that begin to exist requires a cause. This surely would be true to aristotle as well as say Lao Tzu, unless you are campaigning for post modernism in which no truth can be found and everything is relative

Well it matters to me whether God-arguments that say they solve difficult existential questions actually solve them, or if they…

Well wouldn’t that be just a question of pantheism and non-pantheism? If the universe has existed within God and therefore is part of God that would just be pantheism, if not then non-pantheism. Either way there is a creator

Also, how does an eternal, unchanging and singular mind give rise to a universe that is not eternal…

Why not? I don’t really see any logical or philosophical problem here

 

[DMSP]

I am questioning the idea of God being the source of all morality.

Well it’s either God or there is no source of any standard of objective morality, certainly in a naturalistic worldview there is no objective standard of morality

Objective as in true by definition, without considering duty, consequence, etc?

Objective by meaning that it would be true even if no one has committed the act in the first place. As in even if human would be extinct in the future the Holocaust would still be morally wrong. And therefore human can have a discourse on morality because there is an objective standard of morality that is universal

I don’t know what you mean by being “objectively better”. I think both Gandi and Mother Teresa acted wishing to benefit other sentient beings, and their ethics were sufficiently reality oriented…

But in a naturalistic worldview certainly both of them are valid and equal? Both are just acting in accordance to what their biology and sociology instruct them too, why would Hitler’s be misguided? why is it racist? Nothing matters in pure naturalism everything will just die and eventually the universe too will suffer from heat death, so why does it matter? Everything is just everyone acting as a ‘DNA machine’

Electrical impulses in the brain is the third person view. The feeling of love would be the first person view. Reducing either view to the other would make it incomplete, as both are needed to understand the human feeling of love.

Again agreed. That first person view would only be valid if there is something beyond matter

 

[anon99031074]

By definition God is the greatest conceivable being that is an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, etc. entity. If you can conceive a greater being than that would be by definition God.

Conceivability does not exist in a vacuum. It is always conceivable to someone. In this case, conceivable to bipedal primates known as humans. Specifically the two of them having this discussion The greatest conceivable being to a cat is presumably not as great as the greatest conceivable being to a human, which is not as great as the greatest conceivable being to an angel, which is presumably not as great as the greatest conceivable being to an omnimpotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent being (all words that we could write separate threads about). So perhaps God is the greatest being God can conceive of, which seems a bit like a tautology to me.

Certainly the mind of God has no human purpose to find the truth like human. Because God as the Ultimate Reality itself is the truth

You use a lot of words I am too ignorant to understand. For instance, that God is the truth. I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, although I am aware that Jesus said he was the truth according to the gospel of John. But once again, the mind of God has no purpose, because having a purpose simply means being made with a purpose. Since the mind of God was not made, it has no purpose. If not being designed with a purpose means not being trustworthy, then the mind of God has the same problem an evolved human mind has. Besides, human minds are at least partially designed, even if evolved. If one doubts this, then imagine a human mind raised by wolves, compared to a human mind raised by other humans in an affluent western society.

 

[anon99031074]

Well certainly, but the fundamental laws of logic surely remain the same? things that begin to exist requires a cause. This surely would be true to aristotle as well as say Lao Tzu, unless you are campaigning for post modernism in which no truth can be found and everything is relative

I think the idea of causation is a construct that does not accurately reflect the world in which we live. It is useful for the simple animal life of humans, but wholly inadequate when looking at existencial questions. An ipod never truly comes into existence from its own side. Rather, “ipod” is imputed onto a collection of functions defined by Apple and human society.

Well wouldn’t that be just a question of pantheism and non-pantheism? If the universe has existed within God and therefore is part of God that would just be pantheism, if not then non-pantheism. Either way there is a creator

What does it mean to say that God created something which has eternally existed within God? And what exactly does the framework around that something called God actually contribute to the discussion of origins? If the universe can exist eternal, such as it is, within a God, then why can’t it exist outside such a framework? I am not arguing that there is no God, but I am arguing against the idea of God as the ultimate solution to the questions of origin that humans love to ask.

Why not? I don’t really see any logical or philosophical problem here

Well, I am assuming that the word causation means something. I can understand how milk + bacteria + time will turn into what we call yoghurt. But how can milk, and only milk, assuming it is a pure, non-composite substance, like it is claimed that God is, give rise to computers, galaxies, sofas, this discussion, etc? I should simply like to know, because it must surely be different from any kind of causation I am familiar with,

 

[Lion_IRC]

Lion_IRC:

The universe might have spontaneously popped into existence without any intentional prior cause.

Likewise it might suddenly disappear without a trace.

…but that would be a nightmare for physicists and the scientific method.
It’s not even a particularly “elegant” theory.

Did it begin to exist in the mind of God, or was it embedded as an idea in his mind from eternity? If it began, did it evolve or pop out of nothing? You have added a wrapper around “universe” called God, but as far as I can see, it solves nothing. Postulating God as the source of the universe raises a lot of questions, a lot of which I haven’t even begin to ask in this thread

Intentional universe.
Accidental universe.
You decide.

Sand dune.
Sand castle.
You decide.

 

[anon99031074]

Well it’s either God or there is no source of any standard of objective morality, certainly in a naturalistic worldview there is no objective standard of morality

What do you mean by that, though? Why is “that which causes needless suffering”, less objectice than “that which God says is wrong”?

Objective by meaning that it would be true even if no one has committed the act in the first place. As in even if human would be extinct in the future the Holocaust would still be morally wrong. And therefore human can have a discourse on morality because there is an objective standard of morality that is universal

Well, it would still cause needless suffering, even if it is merely a thought experiment. So why is that a less objective standard?

But in a naturalistic worldview certainly both of them are valid and equal? Both are just acting in accordance to what their biology and sociology instruct them too, why would Hitler’s be misguided? why is it racist? Nothing matters in pure naturalism everything will just die and eventually the universe too will suffer from heat death, so why does it matter? Everything is just everyone acting as a ‘DNA machine’

Validity and equality mean nothing apart from minds making judgements. I can compare two systems and label them equal, or one being superior or inferior. This is a value judgement I make, and value is something minds do. Racism is a word constructed by humans, and it is a system of ideas that has contributed to, and continues to contribute to great suffering. Since nobody likes to suffer, including hitler and his modern bedfellows, they are acting against their own best interest when they are following racist ideals. Sure, they may disagree with me, and they may disagree with modern western nations which have largely rejected racism, but they may also disagree with any divine claim of morality.

Then you start talking about heat death. If this is actually the fate of the universe, then nothing matters to anyone at that time, because there will be no one around to experience anything at that time. Now, however, I live, and experiece happiness and sorrows, and so now, things matter to me, as they also do to you, and to your cat (should you have one), even though the latter knows nothing about the alleged heat death, or eternal destiny of sentient beings.

Again agreed. That first person view would only be valid if there is something beyond matter

Matter is a human concept, imputed onto objects of experience.

 

[anon99031074]

Intentional universe.
Accidental universe.
You decide.

Is it intentional if it eternally existed within the mind of God, though? Or does it simply happen to exist because God also happens to exist? Why is there God instead of just nothing?

 

[Lion_IRC]

Lion_IRC:

Intentional universe.
Accidental universe.
You decide.

Is it intentional if it eternally existed within the mind of God, though? Or does it simply happen to exist because God also happens to exist? Why is there God instead of just nothing?

Now, now.
Be careful of those red herrings.
Your choices are;
A universe which is the product of prior intent/volition
A spontaneous universe, the onset of which was uncaused and unpredictable.

You’re drifting off into different thread topics. (Why does God exist? Why did He cause the universe to appear? Is God/Universe past eternal?)

 

[DMSP]

Conceivability does not exist in a vacuum. It is always conceivable to someone. In this case, conceivable to bipedal primates known as humans…

I think it has become a bit of semantic at this point. Alright, let me rephrase that what I meant was that when theist are talking about God we are talking about the greatest being that became the source of reference for everything that is why God would be omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, and so on. I don’t think God would be able to conceive a being greater than Himself, hypothetically if God were asked what do you conceive as the greatest being, God would say that He is the greatest conceivable being.

You use a lot of words I am too ignorant to understand. For instance, that God is the truth. I have no idea what that is supposed to mean…

It’s not really intrinsically tied to the biblical concept. How do we define the truth? well by observation right? We take in the world from the apparatuses we call senses and interpret them with our brain. Well how do we know our inferences are valid? We compare it with another people, and how do we know that person inferences are valid compare to another and so on. But at some point in purely naturalistic worldview we would just default to solipsism how do we know anything is true at all? Why can’t all of us is in the matrix or within dreams ala inception? That is why like the causal link need to end at an unmovable mover, in order for us to believe anything at all there need to be an unobserved observer that became the basis for all of reality. God’s position as the ultimate observer of reality is what we meant by that God is truth. Just like films are less real than us who observes them, in metaphysical sense we are less real then the God who observe reality.

The argument is not a human mind is not designed and so we can’t trust it but rather if matter is all there is, then we can’t trust anything. The only reason we can trust our brain is because our priori position presuppose that there is an ultimate objective reality that can be found, and that ultimate objective reality hinges on the ultimate observer.

 

[DMSP]

I think the idea of causation is a construct that does not accurately reflect the world in which we live. It is useful for the simple animal life of humans, but wholly inadequate when looking at existencial questions

But we are talking about our world. The premise is that the universe, this physical universe we live in begin to exist and therefore the laws of causality dictates that our universe requires a cause

What does it mean to say that God created something which has eternally existed within God?..

That’s fair, let me rephrase it. The premise was that the universe begin to exist, and so whether the nature of the universe is cyclical eternal loop within God’s mind which meant pantheism. Or separate and finite which meant non-pantheism does not matter in so far the premise of something that begin to exist has a cause. If you want to argue about the universe that has existed eternally that would be another discussion but that would be off topic for this thread as the OP’s assertion was proving that the universe had a beginning does not mean that a deity created it.

And what exactly does the framework around that something called God actually contribute to the discussion of origins?

The ‘God Hypothesis’ maintain that the since the universe has a beginning it does not arose out of nothing as that would be breaking the law of causality, the explanation would be an unmovable mover that is the Prime Cause of everything. There is only to hypothesis the ‘God hypothesis’ or ‘nothing to something hypothesis’ the theism worldview offers God as an explanation that would more sufficiently conform to the laws of logic as we know it rather than the alternative.

Well, I am assuming that the word causation means something. I can understand how milk + bacteria + time will turn into what we call yoghurt. But how can milk, and only milk, assuming it is a pure, non-composite substance, like it is claimed that God is, give rise to computers, galaxies, sofas, this discussion, etc? I should simply like to know, because it must surely be different from any kind of causation I am familiar with,

Because God is an agent and milk is not an agent. Milk cannot cause anything because the laws of causality requires efficient cause at the foremost to beget anything. God as an agent can create as God fulfills the efficient cause. Human as an agent can certainly give rise to computers, furniture, etc that certainly differs from his or her nature

 

[DMSP]

What do you mean by that, though? Why is “that which causes needless suffering”, less objectice than “that which God says is wrong”?

Because in naturalistic worldview there is no God, there would be no meaning at all to suffering why should the suffering of a tiny transient clump of cells in this vast universe matter at all? The existence of God is what bring meaning to suffering, you are right that the claim “that which causes needless suffering” would be objective if God exist.

Validity and equality mean nothing apart from minds making judgements. I can compare two systems and label them equal, or one being superior or inferior. This is a value judgement I make, and value is something minds do. Racism is a word constructed by humans, and it is a system of ideas that has contributed to, and continues to contribute to great suffering. Since nobody likes to suffer, including hitler and his modern bedfellows, they are acting against their own best interest when they are following racist ideals. Sure, they may disagree with me, and they may disagree with modern western nations which have largely rejected racism, but they may also disagree with any divine claim of morality.

Yes, but why would your judgement be more valid than other people judgement? What is your objective standard for morality? The neo nazis for example would see the same data and came to the conclusion that genocide of a certain race is justified what would invalidate their judgement? It cause needless suffering? So what?

Then you start talking about heat death. If this is actually the fate of the universe, then nothing matters to anyone at that time, because there will be no one around to experience anything at that time. Now, however, I live, and experiece happiness and sorrows, and so now, things matter to me, as they also do to you, and to your cat (should you have one), even though the latter knows nothing about the alleged heat death, or eternal destiny of sentient beings.

But that ultimately does not matter in the cosmic scale right? There is no ultimate meaning to anything and therefore no objective moral standard can be construed. What you are describing is that in a naturalistic worldview every human beings need to delude themselves into thinking that anything has meaning at all to avoid a fatalistic nihilism.

 

[anon99031074]

Now, now.
Be careful of those red herrings.
Your choices are;
A universe which is the product of prior intent/volition
A spontaneous universe, the onset of which was uncaused and unpredictable.

You’re drifting off into different thread topics. (Why does God exist? Why did He cause the universe to appear? Is God/Universe past eternal?)

To me it appears to be basically the same question. If the universe exists eternally as an idea within the mind of God, then:

God did not invent it with an intent. It is just always there, as a fully formed idea in his mind, just like God is always there. The only possible intent is to actualize what exists as a potential within his mind. That assumes that our universe is external to God, as a physical copy of an eternal idea within the mind of God. If the universe we experience simply is the idea as it exists in God’s mind, then it is as unintentional as an atheistic universe, because the God in which it exists eternally is not intended by anyone.

The idea universe might also haved popped into the mind of God from nothing, as a flash of insight. This assumes that God can change from not having an idea into having one, and that he can change from not being a creator and into a creator. If it merely pops into existence in his mind, it is difficult to see how he caused it or intended it. It was apparently uncaused in his mind, just like it would be were it eternal. The only possible intent is to actualize what exists as a potential within his mind, just like in the previous possibility.

The idea of universe might also have evolved within the mind of God. The question then is, did it have a first cause or does it exist as an infinite regress within the mind of God? If it has a first cause within the mind of God, then that first cause either popped into existence as a flash of insight, or it existed eternally within the mind of God, and we are back to our original two options. An infinite regress, it is claimed is impossible, and we need God to escape that problem, and so we can discount that as an option.

Finally, even if God has the limited intent of actualizing a potential in his mind, nobody intended God. God just is what God happens to be. Had God happened to be different, presumably his intentions would also be different. Which leads to the deeper question, why is God the way God is, and not different, or more fundamentally, why is there God instead of just nothing?

To me it seems that God is not the solution to any of the so-called great questions. This says nothing to me about whether or not God exists, but it does mean that certain arguments for the existence of God seem to be empty of substance.

 

[anon99031074]

I think it has become a bit of semantic at this point.

We need not pursue it further. The point I was trying to make is that in western philosophy there is a tendency to divorce concepts that belong within minds from minds, as if they exist in their own platonic sphere of ideas. To me “the greatest conceivable being” means nothing unless we define who conceives of the being, how they define greatness, etc… etc…

How do we define the truth? well by observation right?

Well, first we would need to make a claim, or a statement of some sort, using humanly constructed language (which is all we have available). Then we would try to verify that claim with human experience. I make no claims about the underlying nature of the experiential world apart from what can be known through our senses and the extensions we have made to them. It is unknowable to me if I am in the matrix, and I don’t think the matrix is less real than the world of Neo and Morpheus anyway. Whether this is a simulation running on a matrix-like network, or something I cannot even imagine, experience still is what it is, and any truth claim belongs within this framework, not outside it, as all our language is derived from within it. If God is the ultimate observer, that is certainly helpful to God, but I fail to see how it changes my experiential world. Also, how does God know that he knows everything? How does God know that God is not part of an elaborate simulation where he is fooled into thinking he is the supreme God? Even God cannot know what God does not know?

Yes, but why would your judgement be more valid than other people judgement? What is your objective standard for morality? The neo nazis for example would see the same data and came to the conclusion that genocide of a certain race is justified what would invalidate their judgement? It cause needless suffering? So what?

It is not whether or not I make the judgment which makes it more or less valid. Both I and nazis and all sentient beings universally dislike suffering. Certain forms of behavior increases it, while other kinds of behavior decreases it. Since the nazis dislike suffering, the question is what kind of behavior should they engage in? The answer to that question isn’t purely subjective. God’s claims to moral authority can also be rejected, btw.

Finally, about ultimate meaning,

I don’t live in the cosmic scale. As long as I live, happiness matters and suffering matters to me. When nobody lives, there are no minds to which anything could matter. As for meaning, I reject nihilism on the grounds that objects neither have nor lack inherent meaning. Atheistic nihilists and Christians seem to agree on the idea that a universe is “meaningless” unless made by God. I don’t think meaning can be found within the objects that make up the universe whether or not a mind made them, and so it is a category mistake to refer to it as meaningful or meaningless.

 

[anon99031074]

But we are talking about our world. The premise is that the universe, this physical universe we live in begin to exist and therefore the laws of causality dictates that our universe requires a cause

And my point was that an object like an ipad never truly comes into existence. We see a bundle of functions which has certain culturally defined properties (such as being made by Apple, running iOS, etc.) and we impute “ipad”. It isn’t ipad from it’s own vantage point. It isn’t even an it. But it is a useful convention to speak as if it is. The same is true of universe. There is no substance called universe that could possibly be found anywhere, and the referent of the word is not the same from one moment to the next (and even time is quite subjective and relativistic). So I think a lot of the initial questions are wrong at the very outset, and this is one of the reasons why the founder of my religion refused to answer them. But instead of arguing at length why I think the infinite regress is a flaw of human imputation, and not something that could exist “out there”, it is much easier to point to the problems of trying to plug holes in our reasoning with God.

Because God is an agent and milk is not an agent.

Well, I don’t see how changeless agency works either, but how a singular substance, whether an agent or not, gives rise to a multiplicity of effects, is beyond me. You may call it causality, but it is certainly unlike anything in my world of experience, and so it doesn’t mean anything to me. The exact same cause, substantially, and not merely conceptually, one giving rise to a vast array of different things, is very difficult for me to make sense out of.

Because in naturalistic worldview there is no God, there would be no meaning at all to suffering why should the suffering of a tiny transient clump of cells in this vast universe matter at all? The existence of God is what bring meaning to suffering, you are right that the claim “that which causes needless suffering” would be objective if God exist.

I note that it does matter to me if I suffer, and it did matter to my cat if it suffered as long as it walked the earth on its four legs and said miau I don’t see what God has to do with this. I dislike suffering, and my cat disliked suffering as long as it lived. Since sentient beings dislike suffering, it makes sense for them to act in a way that does not cause it to arise more than necessary. It is true that putting my hand on a hot stove causes suffering, which means it is bad for me to do so since I do not like to suffer, value healthy hands and would like to use them for typing this. This is not merely subjective, since what happens when my hand touches a hot stove is not determined by what I might wish, as all torturers know.

 

[PhiriTalk]

Epistemologically, belief in a god is independent of observable fact. Any god or deity is a truth and not a fact. Meaning that it’s existence is solely based on the acceptance of a conscious entity that the god or deity exists. Essentially God, in the Catholic sense (which is meaning I will use for the rest of this post), exists, epistemologically, simply and solely because we believe that God exists. At the moment jest before the Big Bang, the universe (all of the energy and matter which exists, has existed and always will exist in the same exact amount) was confined into an very small singularity approximately the size of the Planck length, which is the physical limit to the size of something on the small level. In the beginning God said “Let there be light”, light in its literal physical form takes the form of Photons. Photons do not experience the passage of time as they continually traveling at the speed of light in one of the 3 spatial dimensions of spacetime. Photons are exactly identical now to as they were at their very moment of creation and they will remain the same until the very end or ad infinitum. It follows from this that God’s first thought was to give his creations the ability to think, aka Free Will. Now, of course photons don’t think the way you and I do, having preferences and rationality (or the potential for rationality), they simply recognize the existence of alternatives to their own existence and option to alter this existence (photons and all other fundamental particles have the ability to change into other particles through a transfer of energy, most easily demonstrated through particle accelerators such as the LHC). This is philosophy of Pansychism, which is the idea that consciousness is a fundamental property of all matter and energy, and which I do not see as being contradictory which Catholic positions at all in the manner in which I have described. God in this sense, is not literally everything, as in what you’d probably call Pantheism, nor is he a tyrant god, controlling and regulating every aspect of existence. Thus everything that is, is the result of God and his thoughts, who made the first thought before everything else and then established the rules by which everything must obey. And that God is thus in everything, the good, the bad and the otherwise. We are the offspring of his thought.

 

[PhiriTalk]

To convince yourself to believe in a God you cannot necessarily see, cannot feel, or touch or hear or taste, you must divorce yourself from the common cultural conception of what the Christian God is. God is not necessarily an elderly white guy with a flowing beard and white robes sitting on a cloud, also, he’s not necessarily not that. The existence of God is not a testable hypothesis, because of all this. Science can’t and shouldn’t care whether or not any deity does or does not exist, it is irrelevant to the enterprise of science and does not affect what is in the mind of God (aka, the laws of physics). Science is the exercise in knowing the mind of God through physical observation. trying to figure out what exactly that first thought of God’s was, though not necessarily why God had this particular thought in the first place, which is to delegated to the reaches of philosophy, which is the exercise in knowing the mind of God through the practice of thought itself. Science looks outward, Philosophy looks inward (obviously not literally, just metaphorically). God is the primordial singularity in which proceeded the Big Bang, and created the universe through thought.

This is all continent on the acceptance of Panpsychism as a philosophical position.