Someone who believes God created even evil

[Good_Fella]

We are agreed.

Only to an extent. Our understanding of how good and evil relate to each other differs.

I disagree with your “intrinsically”. You appear to be setting up a reified Platonic Ideal world, with only good. That is merely a mental construct. It is not the real world in which we live. The actual world in which we are living contains both good and evil.

I don’t consider this world a utopia, since goodness is lacking. But since the proper exercise of our will is to direct itself towards a good object, human beings are essentially good. If we were intrinsically evil, then the direction of the will towards an evil object would not be its improper function. Are lust and jealousy mental constructs? I’m afraid not. These are vices that we internally experience within ourselves in the forms of feelings and states and which can influence our will, setting it off its proper course. We don’t need a map to find this territory. We ourselves as composite entities are that territory. No person in their right mind would assert that he doesn’t want anything good that would make him happy. Even the odd person who wishes to deny himself existence, which normally is something good for us and makes us relatively happy, may decide suicide would be good for her, and so she kills herself to escape from the unhappy circumstances in her life which have arisen by chance. It’s no illusion that my pet dog can’t think and act like this. We do in fact conceive who and what we are as distinct from other species indirectly by our experience of the world.

Sin is a Christian concept, not a Buddhist one. The closest Buddhism get is “unwise actions”. The idea of a “nature” in the sense you are using it, is also probably just another reification, and hence mistaken.

Then I suppose lust and jealousy, and even greed and arrogance, are unwise feelings and states. Do you suppose they possess an intellect and a will? Is it unwise to be angry? No! It is unwise not to control our anger. But being angry is a sin, since it offends God and neighbor and is hateful in His sight. But the first stage of wisdom is to fear God. If we violently attack someone out of anger, it’s not because we are unwise, but rather because we hate the person. This hatred arises within the fabric of our being. Murder is ultimately the result of how we feel - not how we reason. People start to morally rationalize once their conscience speaks to them. Murderers, of course, refuse to listen to it and make excuses for themselves to justify their acts. And what they do is something hateful to the victim - something they know might create a momentary mutual hatred between them, since what they do is hateful for themselves. But the first stage of wisdom would be to fear the law. Only then might a murderer abide by the law so that nothing hateful for himself might happen to him.

Thus we don’t need another person as a model to sense what we experience within ourselves. Yet we may understand how another person might feel If we were in their situation. Murder is the ultimate act of hatred and sometimes indifference towards another human being. A lack of wisdom is not the root cause of the act, but rather a feeling which rises from within ourselves. It is a means for gaining personal satisfaction or gratification by taking what is most precious to all of us from the victim. Because the murderer knows what he is doing is most hateful to his victim, he commits the act. For this reason anger is one of the deadly vices. We can even destroy the life of another human being by our hateful and spiteful words.

Words like “nature” and “essentially” signify to me that you are reifying. Reification is always an error. It is an attempt to project the model we carry inside our brain onto the external world. Our model is not the external world. Mistaking one for the other causes suffering.

Reification has first to be established as an active principle in the behavior of the patient before it can be applied diagnostically in clinical psychology. But reification isn’t always there when it is assumed to be.

There is no real water in a mirage. The water we “see” in a mirage is merely a projection from our internal model. We need to avoid living in a mirage, so we need to keep our internal models separate from reality.

So what you are saying is that there is nothing obscene about the act of a pedophile. Obscenity is merely a mental construct in the mind of the beholder. The obscene act isn’t really obscene, right? The quality of the act is in the eye of the beholder, correct? It just seems obscene to people who actually perceive a mirage. If obscenity is merely a mental construct and the act of the pedophile seemingly obscene, then how is it that the victims possess a personal sense of outrage and an unquenchable thirst for justice? People don’t become thirsty after they see the mirage of water. Couldn’t it be that the victims of rape and sodomy know what is objectively real by having experienced it firsthand themselves, viz. obscenity? A mirage is a subjective experience. Among all the people in a desert caravan only one person might see a mirage. Obscenity is something that we collectively acknowledge when we see it manifested in the act. Regarding ourselves, we know that we are inherently selfish by experiencing selfishness in our relation with each other. We accuse each other of being selfish towards ourselves everyday.

PAX
:heaven:

 

[rossum]

Again, evil arises from a vacuum in a world that is perfect, but not absolutely.

We are agreed, the world is not absolutely perfect. Assuming that God created exactly the world He wanted to create, then that slight imperfection was created by God. Since it is that very God-created imperfection, whose consequences God must have precisely foreseen, which allows evil, then God has allowed evil in His creation.

An absolutely perfect world would hold no potentiality, since it would be an immutable world where nothing required is absent.

Precisely. A perfect heaven would be unutterably boring.

According to the First Law of Thermodynamics, nothing in the universe can appear out of nothing. The law of conservation of energy rules that energy neither creates nor destroys itself , but simply changes form. Therefore, the energy in the universe must have come from somewhere other than where it is now and from a source other than itself.

Hawking refuses to believe that energy comes from God, so he assumes that there must have been zero energy existing in the universe before the Big Bang and then zero energy existing in the universe after the Big Bang, matter energy being regarded as positive and gravitational energy as negative.

please read what Professor Hawking wrote: “In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter.” (emphasis added) The phrase emphasised is his way of saying, “I have done the calculation, but it is too complex for a book intended for a lay audience like this present volume.” He did not “assume”, he actually did the calculation. You would have to consult one of his scientific papers to see the actual calculations. Scientists very rarely “assume”, they measure and calculate. If you assume then you get shot down in flames by other scientists.

Of course you don’t subscribe to the Aristotelian idea of potentiality and actuality besides not believing in the human soul. You don’t, then, regard the acorn as the same oak tree, the mustard seed as the same mustard tree.

Of course not. An acorn is a lot smaller and can be fed to pigs. Oak trees are a lot larger and pigs fed on a diet of oak wood would die. If an acorn is really an oak tree in disguise, then what happens to the oak tree when a pig eats the acorn and what was an acorn is incorporated into a pig? Is the pig really an oak tree? What happened to the essence of the pig if it is now an oak tree? Buddhism denies all souls/essences.

And what about those components which begin to develop over time? Doesn’t their beginning to be developed depend on the course of development? Is a young child who is still developing physically, psychologically, and emotionally towards mature adulthood less human than a mature adult?

Some elements are missing at conception; all five elements are present well before birth.

But since the proper exercise of our will is to direct itself towards a good object, human beings are essentially good.

As you will no doubt guess, I object to your ‘essentially’, however all living beings will attain nirvana (even the equivalent of Satan) so you are correct in general, if not in detail.

It’s no illusion that my pet dog can’t think and act like this. We do in fact conceive who and what we are as distinct from other species indirectly by our experience of the world.

A young chimpanzee can beat a young baby (less than 18 months) at the mirror test. Chimpanzees have a better short-term memory than we do. Dolphins are far better at calculating movement in three dimensions than we are. Depending on what test you select we can be better or worse than other species.

Then I suppose lust and jealousy, and even greed and arrogance, are unwise feelings and states.

Correct. The short list is greed, hatred and delusion.

But being angry is a sin, …

Sin is a Christian concept. Anger is an unwise state, which entails suffering.

So what you are saying is that there is nothing obscene about the act of a pedophile.

A paedophile’s action are unwise, as are the actions of a murderer. Unwise actions bring suffering in their wake. If you don’t want the suffering then don’t do the actions. One of the disadvantages of not having the concept of sin, is that there is no forgiveness of sin either. If you do the crime, then you do the time.

Obscenity is merely a mental construct in the mind of the beholder.

Yes. What is obscene in the middle of a town may not be obscene in the middle of a nudist colony. Since the beholders are different, their mental constructs are different. To a strict Muslim, a woman with her face uncovered in public may be obscene. To most other people she would not be obscene. The woman is the same, it is the beholders that are different. The obscenity is not intrinsic to the woman, but is a mental construct of the various beholders.

rossum

 

[Good_Fella]

Assuming that God created exactly the world He wanted to create, then that slight imperfection was created by God. Since it is that very God-created imperfection, whose consequences God must have precisely foreseen, which allows evil, then God has allowed evil in His creation.

. Antecedently God had willed to create such a world, but He did not desire it. And God allowed such a world to exist, only so that a greater good may ultimately prevail. If God had wanted mankind (Adam) to fall from His grace, He wouldn’t have given him a free will or the sufficient grace to be able to properly direct his will to what is good.

please read what Professor Hawking wrote: … He did not “assume”, he actually did the calculation.

Hawking did admit he was wrong about black holes.

The “nothing that is needed” - zero energy - has a cause which is that which created the two forms of energy. Hawkings doesn’t mean there isn’t any energy at some point, but that there’s no net energy. The total net energy of the universe is zero: -1+1=0. According to the law of energy conservation, neither form of energy created itself. Without God there would be absolutely nothing, including a zero net sum, which is something that exists by the laws of physics and mathematics. And not even laws come into existence on their own independent of an intelligent entity. Common sense and experience are sufficient to tell us that.

An acorn is a lot smaller and can be fed to pigs. Oak trees are a lot larger and pigs fed on a diet of oak wood would die. If an acorn is really an oak tree in disguise, then what happens to the oak tree when a pig eats the acorn and what was an acorn is incorporated into a pig? Is the pig really an oak tree? What happened to the essence of the pig if it is now an oak tree?

An acorn is potentially an oak tree. If a pig happens to consume an acorn, it is consuming its material substance. Essence and substance are distinct.

Some elements are missing at conception; all five elements are present well before birth.

But those physiological elements potentially exist until they are extinguished. Remove the seeds from the soil and you won’t have any flowers in your garden.

A young chimpanzee can beat a young baby (less than 18 months) at the mirror test. Chimpanzees have a better short-term memory than we do. Dolphins are far better at calculating movement in three dimensions than we are. Depending on what test you select we can be better or worse than other species.

Try telling that to a chimpanzee or a dolphin, and you might see what we mean by essence.

Sin is a Christian concept. Anger is an unwise state, which entails suffering.

Our acts are sinful when they offend others. Anger, greed, and lust are sinful states, since they may lead to offensive acts. Allowing ourselves to fuel our anger, lust, or greed is unwise in view of the consequences we ourselves could face for the manner in which we might express the way we feel.

A paedophile’s action is unwise, as are the actions of a murderer. Unwise actions bring suffering in their wake. If you don’t want the suffering then don’t do the actions.

But we should avoid causing suffering for other people out of charity and compassion, not to be wise. I’m afraid Buddhism is a religion which focuses more on one’s own interest than that of others. A Buddhist’s sense of morality amounts to nothing more than selfish utilitarianism; the end of human conduct is the acquisition of perfect wisdom and complete alienation from suffering with no sense of any moral duty towards other human beings out of love for them and reverence for their self-dignity.

One of the disadvantages of not having the concept of sin, is that there is no forgiveness of sin either. If you do the crime, then you do the time.

Spoken like a true utilitarian and pragmatist. Of course, if murder is simply a practical problem to avoid or resolve, then it can’t be sinful. The victim doesn’t really matter at all, right?

What is obscene in the middle of a town may not be obscene in the middle of a nudist colony. Since the beholders are different, their mental constructs are different.

I’m sure that if one of the nude male members decided to unbecomingly touch one of the nude female members, she might find it obscene and take offense. There’s no escape from obscenity, I’m afraid. Deviant behavior can exist anywhere and offend anybody in some form of obscenity.

To a strict Muslim, a woman with her face uncovered in public may be obscene. To most other people she would not be obscene. The woman is the same, it is the beholders that are different. The obscenity is not intrinsic to the woman, but is a mental construct of the various beholders.

A traditional Muslim woman isn’t offended by having to cover her head or face with a veil. She would be if a man happened to rape her - as any normal woman of any culture might.

PAX
:heaven:

 

[rossum]

Antecedently God had willed to create such a world, but He did not desire it.

How can God do something He does not desire to do? The action follows the desire to act. If there is no desire to act, then the action will never be initiated.

Hawking did admit he was wrong about black holes.

Irrelevant. We are discussing the total energy of the universe, not Black Holes.

An acorn is potentially an oak tree. If a pig happens to consume an acorn, it is consuming its material substance. Essence and substance are distinct.

So, substance is so fragile that it can be destroyed by a pig? Or are there millions of essence-of-oak-trees floating around somewhere? What about saplings? Is there an essence-of-acorn, an essence-of-sapling and an essence-of-tree? Does essence-of-tree come in different flavours for essence-of-10-year-old-tree, essence-of-20-year-old-tree etc?

Our acts are sinful when they offend others. Anger, greed, and lust are sinful states, since they may lead to offensive acts. Allowing ourselves to fuel our anger, lust, or greed is unwise in view of the consequences we ourselves could face for the manner in which we might express the way we feel.

But those physiological elements potentially exist until they are extinguished.

Only one of the elements is physiological. Look up the skandhas for more detail.

But we should avoid causing suffering for other people out of charity and compassion, not to be wise.

Wisdom includes both charity, the first of the Six Bodhisattva Bhumis, and compassion, as represented by the Bodhisattva Avalokita. Your knowledge of Buddhism appears incomplete.

Spoken like a true utilitarian and pragmatist. Of course, if murder is simply a practical problem to avoid or resolve, then it can’t be sinful. The victim doesn’t really matter at all, right?

Wrong. You have a very strange understanding of Buddhism.

I’m sure that if one of the nude male members decided to unbecomingly touch one of the nude female members, she might find it obscene and take offense.

Irrelevant. I gave an example of places where nudity was obscene and where it was not obscene. You seem to have no real reply, so you divert to actions, rather than the nudity.

If you want to talk about actions, then consider the case of a stranger fondling a woman’s breast. Does it matter if the action is taking place as part of a medical examination in a doctor’s surgery? Of course it does. Any obscenity is not intrinsic to the action, but depends on the circumstances.

rossum