Let's go into a hypothetical future

  • Thread starter Thread starter Spock
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
In other words you would be miserable because you would feel frustrated when you can’t do what you want. It would be far worse than being a robot because a robot doesn’t want anything!
There’s a lot I can’t do but I don’t get frustrated. Maybe I just don’t smoke, drink and play enough cards. 👍 I simply don’t feel I should have a right to victimize my children and brothers. Apparently you do. Violence is just a turnkey philosophical tool. Even the Jesus story is filled with violence.

I’ve had quite a few conversations over the years with folks who are incapable of understanding the value of spending resources on peaceful instead of warlike endeavors. Many of us are simply still addicted to violence and ignorance I guess, which I think is a symptom of living a life without faith. Perhaps I’ve simply been more fortunate than most.
 
crowonsnow, i couldn’t agree with you more.
To six pages worth of others, I think Jesus agrees too, or why would He say this:
Matthew 24:12 – Because of the increase of evil, the love of many will grow cold.

So then He is implying that a decrease of evil will increase the love of many.
 
If you take away someone’s right to choose to do evil, or if you take away every negative consequence of such choices, then you take away free will. Period. Unfortunately that necessarily means that free will is deprived if one is not allowed to suffer any violence because of another person’s choice. I’d rather live in a world of free will than a world of robots, and I’d rather be hurt by my friends than have them be machines.
Then from my perspective your religious views are nothing more than a license to commit crime while simultaneously abdicating personal responsibility for your criminal behavior. How is that not sociopathy?
 
Have you ever been loved unconditionally? Like a dog, or a child can love? What is wrong about it?
I’m delighted you gave the examples of a dog and a child. There is nothing at all wrong with their love. It is wonderful and beautiful. I leave others to judge whether it is sufficient for a fully developed person…
 
There’s a lot I can’t do but I don’t get frustrated. Maybe I just don’t smoke, drink and play enough cards. 👍 I simply don’t feel I should have a right to victimize my children and brothers.
What a peculiar deduction! You believe the gift of free will gives a person the right to victimize others. :confused:
 
Furthermore, and this may be surprising to you, but I believe that there is suffering in Heaven. It is all over Christianity that God longs for his people (that’s us) to return to him, and that he loves us so much that he sacrificed his only Son in order to save us. How is this not suffering? How is this love not so strong it hurts? I say that it does hurt, and that the whole community of Saints and angels is heartbroken whenever a soul is lost to Hell. But this is just speculation.
It’s not speculation but fact! 👍 It is impossible to love another person without suffering. You identify yourself with that person and you share the inevitable frustrations, disappointments, failures and heartaches of a finite existence. The beauty of God’s love is that He chooses to make Himself vulnerable by sharing with us His freedom and power to love. Jesus came into the world precisely to demonstrate this fact. The fantasy of a world without evil and suffering is a hedonist’s dream which does not correspond to reality…
 
I think you made a typo. The highlighted sentence should read: “If it is wrong for a rapist to infringe upon the will of his victim, then it follows that it is wrong for the prevention of rape to infringe upon the will of the would perpetrator.”
Do you deliberately misread other’s posts? No it was not a typo, and should have been clear, had you read the whole post contextually, please revisit. If someones freedom is restricted due to the action or would be action of another it is an injustice. Why is that hard to digest?
I see a significant difference to curtail someone’s freedom to do rape, and the rapist’s ability to curtail the freedom of the victim. Don’t you guys believe in some kind of morality?
Now your talking in levels of degree, of course there is a hierarchy of infringment of liberty, but any valid moral system does not ignore one infringement to curtail another. Could you not see the insanity of banning everyone from driving because of drunk driving crashes? I see little difference.
Nonsense. Humans who have no violent streaks in them are hardly “automatons”.
There was never any mention of violent ‘streaks’ unto this point. Are you changing the nature of the discussion? Besides, many of these crimes are perpetrated as isolated acts, not part of a ‘streak’, which is essential to the discussion, because all human activity would need be monitered and manipulated to carry out such thought policing.
If emotion and behavior are ‘controlled’, definitionally they will be automatons- manipulated beings. Free of personal control.
You did not pay attention. There are robotsto do these tasks, “who” are expendable, and who can do the job much better. What is the point of putting oneself into useless danger?
Where to begin?
Let’s combine the analogy’s and see how you dodge this one. At the beach there is a girl drowning out in the deep. The robot lifegaurd short circuits and is inoperable (let’s just say the whole lifegaurd system is on the fritz). The beachgoers, including her parents, are impotent to act because the self violence of heroism has been stripped from them. How is this a good thing?
O.K., O.K., you’re fine that heroism is dead. What then do people strive for? How do people grow in positive human characteristics?

How could you possibly say ‘What is the use of putting oneself into useless danger?’ It is the most usefull danger to put ones self in- to put ones own life on the line to save another!
Have you ever seen ‘I Robot’? 2 people are about to drown in vehicles that went into the drink. The robot is freeing the man who says ‘No, save the girl!’ (in the other car). But the robot can only do its programming with no respect to the would be heroism of letting another live instead of self. He valued the little girls life over his own. Can you seriously call such sacrifice useless?
As I said, not all emotions are eliminated. The emotions are still there, but the desire to act out the violent ones is eliminated.
No, you admitted that eliminating violence would eliminate heroism.
Not all of those is eliminated, and no one desires to do the rest. People would look at you as mildly insane.

Only if you equate “human” with violence, which seems to be the case.
Please don’t put words in my mouth and take them out of context. Either you’re ignoring my line of reasoning all together, or are unable to repond with logic and reason. I believe the latter, for your line of reasoning seems to be based solely on emotion, (which is ironic, since you wish some emotions were not allowed) :confused:
 
What a peculiar deduction! You believe the gift of free will gives a person the right to victimize others. :confused:
That’s certainly how it comes across to me. I’m saying that we humans do not have sufficient self control to prevent our hurting each other. So I say lets fix that. Lets impose controls. But you say that would restrict our free will. Therefore you are saying that we should be free to victimize each other. If you are saying we should not be free to victimize each other then just say it.
 
It’s not speculation but fact! 👍 It is impossible to love another person without suffering. You identify yourself with that person and you share the inevitable frustrations, disappointments, failures and heartaches of a finite existence. The beauty of God’s love is that He chooses to make Himself vulnerable by sharing with us His freedom and power to love. Jesus came into the world precisely to demonstrate this fact. The fantasy of a world without evil and suffering is a hedonist’s dream which does not correspond to reality…
Pretty good dream actually. Isn’t that what the heaven story is all about? Isn’t heaven free of evil and suffering? That’s how I’ve always understood it?
 
Isn’t heaven free of evil and suffering?
Why do you lump evil and suffering together? God must be frustrated by the state of affairs on earth, don’t you think? But there is a difference between the frustration caused as the result of sharing your freedom with others and the suffering inflicted on others for your own gratification…
 
I’m saying that we humans do not have sufficient self- control to prevent our hurting each other. So I say let’s fix that. Let’s impose controls.
You have hit the nail on the head! It’s self-control that is the problem. There’s only one difficulty. It’s not always lack of self-control. Usually it’s premeditated self-control used to rape, torture and murder people. You want a Brave New World in which everyone is brainwashed and drugged so that they are incapable of self-control…
If you are saying we should not be free to victimize each other then just say it.
You want it both ways. To be free but not free to victimize. If people are determined to victimize they can do it in a thousand different ways. They can drive others to commit suicide even without lifting a finger. The only way to prevent evil is to turn people into zombies…
 
Why do you lump evil and suffering together? God must be frustrated by the state of affairs on earth, don’t you think? But there is a difference between the frustration caused as the result of sharing your freedom with others and the suffering inflicted on others for your own gratification…
I did because you did when you talked about a hedonist’s dream. I’ve always considered heaven stories the ultimate form of hedonism.

But if you want to differentiate between the two be my guest. Not all unpleasantness if suffering obviously.
 
You have hit the nail on the head! It’s self-control that is the problem. There’s only one difficulty. It’s not always lack of self-control. Usually it’s premeditated self-control used to rape, torture and murder people. You want a Brave New World in which everyone is brainwashed and drugged so that they are incapable of self-control…

You want it both ways. To be free but not free to victimize. If people are determined to victimize they can do it in a thousand different ways. They can drive others to commit suicide even without lifting a finger. The only way to prevent evil is to turn people into zombies…
SPOCK’s position is clear, that freedom is limited already. That’s reality. Limiting it further to make a better world is a good thing. I don’t wish to be free to victimize another. But you do. Why again?
 
SPOCK’s position is clear, that freedom is limited already. That’s reality. Limiting it further to make a better world is a good thing. I don’t wish to be free to victimize another. But you do. Why again?
Spock has yet to demonstrate limits of free wiil. Thus far he has only given example of limitation of resource, and recourse. Not the same.
 
–snip–

Where to begin?
Let’s combine the analogy’s and see how you dodge this one. At the beach there is a girl drowning out in the deep. The robot lifegaurd short circuits and is inoperable (let’s just say the whole lifegaurd system is on the fritz). The beachgoers, including her parents, are impotent to act because the self violence of heroism has been stripped from them. How is this a good thing?
First of all, the girl wouldn’t be out there, because that’s dangerous. Since doing anything life threatening would be restricted, she’d never even learn how to swim. 😉
O.K., O.K., you’re fine that heroism is dead. What then do people strive for? How do people grow in positive human characteristics?

How could you possibly say ‘What is the use of putting oneself into useless danger?’ It is the most usefull danger to put ones self in- to put ones own life on the line to save another!
When I was a kid, my brothers and friends would race our bikes down a steep incline at the end of the dead end road we used to live on. It was dangerous and probably stupid, and a whole heck of a lot of fun. I gather this would be the type of thing suppressed in this “perfect” world. So it’s not just heroism. Bungee jumping, sky diving, hang gliding, rock climbing, pretty much anything dangerous would be dead. Like I said before, an absolutely boring life.
Have you ever seen ‘I Robot’? 2 people are about to drown in vehicles that went into the drink. The robot is freeing the man who says ‘No, save the girl!’ (in the other car). But the robot can only do its programming with no respect to the would be heroism of letting another live instead of self. He valued the little girls life over his own. Can you seriously call such sacrifice useless?
“I Robot” is a great example. Another is “demolition Man”.
No, you admitted that eliminating violence would eliminate heroism.
And a whole lot more like I mentioned above.
 
You want it both ways. To be free but not free to victimize. If people are determined to victimize they can do it in a thousand different ways. They can drive others to commit suicide even without lifting a finger. The only way to prevent evil is to turn people into zombies…
They drive people to commit suicide already here on the west coast in Oregon
and Washington with legalized assisted suicide. Still, the victim can say no,
with violent crimes, they can’t. We WILL have it both ways in heaven, and we are
supposed to be working for God’s kingdom to come here on earth. (The Our Father) With God’s way, the evil are punished eternally. With Spock’s way, the violent are saved from their acts, and so are their victims. Of course, Spocks way is made up, it can’t actually be done…😦
 
SPOCK’s position is clear, that freedom is limited already. That’s reality. Limiting it further to make a better world is a good thing. I don’t wish to be free to victimize another. But you do. Why again?
You are confusing free will with freedom. Free will is the power to choose. Freedom is the scope for free will. You and I don’t wish to lose our free will nor do we wish to victimize others. Our free will cannot be curtailed: we either have the power to choose or we don’t have the power to choose. It is nonsense to believe we can have a certain amount of free will, e.g. 50%. Free will is not something that has evolved gradually. Animals don’t have say 20% free will. Otherwise they would be 20% responsible for their behaviour - which is absurd. They are never responsible for their behaviour because they don’t have free will but we are normally responsible for our behaviour because we do have free will.

Sometimes there are mitigating circumstances for a criminal but it is not because free will is diminished. (The California Penal Code has even abolished the defense of diminished capacity or diminished responsibility.) It is because of low intelligence or extreme emotional disturbance which prevent the exercise of free will. But a person does not thereby cease to be a person with a right to life unless you share the views of Hitler and other proponents of eugenics. We do not blame a guitarist for playing music badly if his guitar is damaged or defective. So it is with the mind and the brain…

Even if we ignore the difference between free will and freedom your proposal to curtail freedom is not only misguided but unjust. It is impossible to know in advance who is going to abuse their freedom. It is necessary therefore to limit **everyone’s **freedom by brain surgery or the use of drugs. Is this what you are proposing? Without considering the side-effects of such measures on a person’s mind? Why should the vast majority of people have their freedom curtailed unnaturally because there are a small percentage of violent criminals?
 
What is so special about murders, rapes and tortures that makes you want to keep them as viable options?
What is so special about the murders, rapes and tortures committed by a very small minority of criminals that makes you want to interfere with the freedom of **every single person **on this planet? You obviously believe the end justifies the means even though the means violates a fundamental human right.

But why stop there? You do not seem to have a sense of proportion. What about all the unnecessary suffering caused by human selfishness - which greatly exceeds the crimes you mention? How do you propose not only to** prevent p**eople from being violent but also to force them to be benevolent? Does that entail a further course of drugs for everyone? And what exactly do these magical prescriptions consist of? All this sounds like the fantasy of a megalomaniac…
 
First of all, the girl wouldn’t be out there, because that’s dangerous. Since doing anything life threatening would be restricted, she’d never even learn how to swim. 😉

When I was a kid, my brothers and friends would race our bikes down a steep incline at the end of the dead end road we used to live on. It was dangerous and probably stupid, and a whole heck of a lot of fun. I gather this would be the type of thing suppressed in this “perfect” world. So it’s not just heroism. Bungee jumping, sky diving, hang gliding, rock climbing, pretty much anything dangerous would be dead. Like I said before, an absolutely boring life.

“I Robot” is a great example. Another is “demolition Man”.

And a whole lot more like I mentioned above.
That’s really sad.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top