E
edwest2
Guest
They knew. Your argument is faulty. There was only one command, one prohibition. They broke trust with God and listened to the evil one. The man and woman had free wills and they chose to disobey.
God bless,
Ed
- Status
God bless,
Ed
T
TheQuestioner
Guest
In order to talk about God in the Judeo-Christan concept Judeo-Christian evidence must be admissible. Christ died for us in order to let us be able to come to him and repair or relationship with God. You ask for evidence that God has agape love for us, but then you disallow me to use the most apparent example of it. You narrow my argument.
In this case naturally I could present my evidence anyway and we can discuss why you do not find it convincing.
Aside from that, I can present to you the scripture saying “God is love (agape)” from 1 John 4:16. Fully
16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
Because God’s very nature is love, he cares for me.
However, this too may not be enough for you, so I will present to you a truth that, should God exist, no one could deny. That would be Divine Immanence. That being that not only does God create the universe, but He holds it into being (if everything came ex nihilo then its natural state would be nothingness, there is no reason why the universe should not just revert back to non-existence, and in fact it should, but it continues to exist because God continues to hold it into existence). Thus, yours and even my very existence is a constant gift from God and shows he cares.
I think you may have misunderstood what I said (or I presented it in the wrong way) but I said that love is a choice. Goodness (the good things from love) can come without the choice of the one receiving it but there must be a choice on the part of the one who gives it, so that person must choose to love.
Again, all that I presented above. Also, because of John 3:16, grace was produced. This grace is constantly given to many people in order to bring them closer to God (who is love) and thus to happiness. Reconciliation is a great sign of God’s continuous care as well as the Eucharist. But again, our continued existence is a great sign.
…I think i may know what you are looking for. God is ‘obligated’ (and I use the term loosely because I am not sure he has any obligations to us at all, but i digress…if he was) to do what it is necessary for us to fulfill our nature. Since in order to be human we must feel emotion God must give us this ability. Since we are humans God is obligated to let us materialize our decisions (move around). Humans had the right to life and God was obligated to give this to us (this right was forfeited after the fall). As people in the image of God he was obligated to do the greatest good for us (again forfeited at the fall, hence the sacrifice of Christ was a mercy)
Assuming there was a hell, would you wipe those in it out of existence?
Something to think about. Anyway, I am not too sure. I would love to work on it though.
T
TheQuestioner
Guest
Would you entrust her to push a button to wipe you out of existence should you end up in hell?
See above for evidence. As for why it is supposed to be volitional, self-sacrifice purely for the other must be volitional in order for it to be self-sacrifice purely for the other. Have you ever heard of a self-sacrifice for the other that was not volitional? Can a robot be programmed to be self-sacrificing purely for others? If it necessarily must sacrifice itself then is it really “self-sacrifice” for the other (external person) or simply fulfilling its own programming for itself (internal person)? Sure these mine-sniffing robots blow themselves up to protect human soldiers, but no one says “thanks robot” or sheds a tear for it or builds a monuemnt for it because that robot was doing what it was supposed to do. It had no choice in the matter. It was not a moral decision, it was pure programming.
You touched on them in this response.
T
TheQuestioner
Guest
I myself have been concerned about this at times. During the middle ages it was believed that the souls of fetuses and fertilized eggs would go to limbo (hell, but no suffering, and no happiness since they would not be filled with God). However recently it is believed that God could save the unborn (and even those un-implanted zygotes) however if that were true (and this is my opinion) God would have to reveal himself to them and they would have to choose Him. If they do not then they end up in limbo. Now before you say that since they are mere children this would be unfair realize that the spirit knows God, and the will knows what is righteous. The hoping part would be on the part of hoping God would do something about all this instead of sending souls to limbo left and right. However there is a third option, and that is that God can (if he wants to) baptize these persons (and this does not require a choice, and could be done in God’s middle knowledge if you are a molinist), thus removing all sin and purifying them, like he did with Jeremiah before he was born i.e. before you were born I sanctified you.
Also, before you say the Church has said this and that in its “wishy-washy fashion” (and I somewhat agree with you on this particular issue that the above statement is wishy-washy) realize that in terms of the unborn the Church has no official stance. One can believe in Limbo or that God would do something. However, you need to separate pious Christian belief with actual theological truths.
T
TheQuestioner
Guest
As for Immanence
Conservation and concursus are so to speak, continuations of creative activity, and imply an equally intimate relation of God towards creatures, or rather an equally intimate and unceasing dependence of creatures on God.
From newadvent.org/cathen/06614a.htm
Conservation and concursus are so to speak, continuations of creative activity, and imply an equally intimate relation of God towards creatures, or rather an equally intimate and unceasing dependence of creatures on God.
From newadvent.org/cathen/06614a.htm
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R_Daneel
Guest
Do you mean admissible or automatically accepted? Certainly, anything is admissible. Though, truth be told, I always thought that one should argue on the “playing field” of the other party. If you would talk to a Protestant, you should only use “sola scriptura” type arguments; if you talk to an atheist, only use secular arguments; since they will reject everything about the infallibility of the Magistretium (and the like). This approach cuts down on the empty posts, which the other party will reject anyway. To illustrate your position, by all means, bring up whatever you want to. But do not expect the other party agree with you. Does this make sense?
Yes, this is correct in the case of “agape”.
Now you speak of emotion. Indeed, to be “human” as we understand it, emotion is part of our humanity. Why should we consider it important? Since “agape” is void of “emotion”, why did emotion become an issue?
As a matter of fact, if I had the power, there would be no hell in the first place. According to my sense of “justice”, there is no finite, temporal deed which would merit eternal suffering (whatever form that suffering might take). But, to answer your specific question, I would give the people in hell the option: “to stay where they are, or to be wiped out of existence”.
R
R_Daneel
Guest
Funny thing, they sure do. The soldiers get very attached to their “robot” dogs. They give them name, they try to repair them, and they weep when the robot gets irreparably damaged. Of course the robot’s actions are not “true” self-sacrifice, but the recipients (the soldiers) do not care about that at all. It was just an example, but I maintain that “agape” and its manifestation does not need to be volitional for the beneficieries to appriciate what was done for them.
Furthermore, these robots do not even expect “gratitude” or “adoration”, or “worship”. Their deed is truly “selfless” (since they don’t even have a “self”). However, if these robots would be advanced enough to have a “self” (science fiction thought experiment) they still would perform their acts, and they still would not expect anything in return.
A
avflf
Guest
(My bold)
An omniscient creator does not need to “test” what he creates as he knows before hand the outcome of such test. A test is provided to find fault, degree of knowledge, etc. that up to that instance was unknown to the test-giver. You will notice that in Gen.1 there were no restrictions (v.29) And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
My point follows this same reasoning: Before they ate of the fruit they did not know or understand right from wrong. As to your idea that God’s motives were to show respect for the dignity of man is, you must admit, pure speculation. The Bible does not say that God explained in detail the reason for the test or the forces that would come into play if man ate it.
In a way one could say that the original pair were very like robots programmed with ignorance or, as the church says, “innocence”. Only after the eating did they become fully human.
(Gen 1:31) And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Alas, not every thing was that good, but it took him 5 more chapters to realize that.
(Gen 6:5) And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.(Gen 6:6) And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
M
MindOverMatter2
Guest
Just because somebody is a Jew means nothing. Carl Marx was a Jew and he rejected religion altogether as the tool of the oppressor. I am talking about a Jewish believer from the time of Moses that believed what Moses believed. And at least i have challenged you. You have simply ignored my argument. In any case my argument still stands, and your blanking attempt to avoid it as if it is unimportant leaves me suspicious about your intentions. I am not asking you to believe me, i am asking you to take another possibility in to consideration, but it seems that you are only interested in what you have to say about it. Your not going to convince anybody with that attitude.
D
dj_dave
Guest
[SIGN]avflf;
An omniscient creator does not need to “test” what he creates as he knows before hand the outcome of such test. A test is provided to find fault, degree of knowledge, etc. that up to that instance was unknown to the test-giver. [/SIGN]
Think about this; there was the “tree of life” in the garden also. (Ge 2:9) This tree evidently had no natural life-giving qualities in its fruit, but it represented God’s guarantee of life “to time indefinite” to whomever God would allow to eat of its fruit. Since the tree was put there by God for some purpose, undoubtedly Adam would have been permitted to eat this fruit after proving faithful to a point that God considered satisfactory and sufficient. Luke 16:10 When Adam sinned, he was prevented from having opportunity to eat from the tree, Jehovah saying: “Now in order that he may not put his hand out and actually take fruit also from the tree of life and eat and live to time indefinite,—.” Then Jehovah followed his words with action. Ge 3:22, 23.The fact that God had to posts ‘guards’ over it later after the fall. This to me shows that Moses is being guided to write this down to show US that this Tree is God’s guarantee of life everlasting -. Otherwise why post guards?
(Genesis 22:12) And he went on to say: “*Do not put out your hand against the boy and do not do anything at all to him, **for ****now I do know *that you are God-fearing in that you have not withheld your son, your only one, from me.”
(Genesis 18:20-21) Consequently Jehovah said: “*The cry of complaint about Sod′om and Go‧mor′rah, yes, it is loud, and their sin, yes, it is very heavy. 21 I am quite determined to go down **that I may see whether they **act altogether according to the outcry over it that has come to me, and, **if not, I can get to know it.”/**B]
(I really believe God had that penned to inform us of this “out of the ordinary” fact about his abilities.)
Listen, here is what God set before Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth.” “And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: ‘From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.’” (Gen. 1:28; 2:16, 17) Would you encourage your children to undertake a project with a marvelous future, knowing from the start that it was doomed to failure? Would you warn them of harm, while knowing that they were sure to come to grief? Is it reasonable, then, to attribute such to God?
If God foreordained and foreknew Adam’s sin and all that would result from this, it would mean that by creating Adam, God deliberately set in motion all the wickedness committed in human history. He would be the Source of all the wars, the crime, the immorality, the oppression, the lying, the hypocrisy, the disease. But the Bible clearly says: “You are not a God taking delight in wickedness.” (Ps. 5:4) “Anyone loving violence His soul certainly hates.” (Ps. 11:5) “God . . . cannot lie.” (Titus 1:2) “From oppression and from violence he [the One designated by God as Messianic King] will redeem their soul, and their blood will be precious in his eyes.” (Ps. 72:14) “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) “He is a lover of righteousness and justice.”—Ps. 33:5.
Just my thoughts*
An omniscient creator does not need to “test” what he creates as he knows before hand the outcome of such test. A test is provided to find fault, degree of knowledge, etc. that up to that instance was unknown to the test-giver. [/SIGN]
Think about this; there was the “tree of life” in the garden also. (Ge 2:9) This tree evidently had no natural life-giving qualities in its fruit, but it represented God’s guarantee of life “to time indefinite” to whomever God would allow to eat of its fruit. Since the tree was put there by God for some purpose, undoubtedly Adam would have been permitted to eat this fruit after proving faithful to a point that God considered satisfactory and sufficient. Luke 16:10 When Adam sinned, he was prevented from having opportunity to eat from the tree, Jehovah saying: “Now in order that he may not put his hand out and actually take fruit also from the tree of life and eat and live to time indefinite,—.” Then Jehovah followed his words with action. Ge 3:22, 23.The fact that God had to posts ‘guards’ over it later after the fall. This to me shows that Moses is being guided to write this down to show US that this Tree is God’s guarantee of life everlasting -. Otherwise why post guards?
Code:
Now, what if Jehovah allowed Adam and Eve to eat form that tree and then later they sinned. He would be on the ‘horns of a dilemma’…what he needed was a test of obedience. Like I cited **Luke 16:10** plays a major role here. If they had been faithful in something small then they would be faithful in something great.
**As for God already knowing the outcome, the Bible indicates that God does not always allow himself to know the out come of a certain situation. **The owner of a radio can listen to the world news. But the fact that he ***can ***listen to a certain station does not mean that he does. The Bible shows that GOD makes selective and discretionary use of that ability, with due regard for the free will with which he has endowed his human creation. **Why? Perhaps he too wants to feel JOY of finding out how his children will choose -- just like parents seeing the integrity of their children in the face of challenges**…—READ CARREFULLY Genesis 22:12; 18:20, 21.(Genesis 18:20-21) Consequently Jehovah said: “*The cry of complaint about Sod′om and Go‧mor′rah, yes, it is loud, and their sin, yes, it is very heavy. 21 I am quite determined to go down **that I may see whether they **act altogether according to the outcry over it that has come to me, and, **if not, I can get to know it.”/**B]
(I really believe God had that penned to inform us of this “out of the ordinary” fact about his abilities.)
Listen, here is what God set before Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth.” “And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: ‘From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.’” (Gen. 1:28; 2:16, 17) Would you encourage your children to undertake a project with a marvelous future, knowing from the start that it was doomed to failure? Would you warn them of harm, while knowing that they were sure to come to grief? Is it reasonable, then, to attribute such to God?
If God foreordained and foreknew Adam’s sin and all that would result from this, it would mean that by creating Adam, God deliberately set in motion all the wickedness committed in human history. He would be the Source of all the wars, the crime, the immorality, the oppression, the lying, the hypocrisy, the disease. But the Bible clearly says: “You are not a God taking delight in wickedness.” (Ps. 5:4) “Anyone loving violence His soul certainly hates.” (Ps. 11:5) “God . . . cannot lie.” (Titus 1:2) “From oppression and from violence he [the One designated by God as Messianic King] will redeem their soul, and their blood will be precious in his eyes.” (Ps. 72:14) “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) “He is a lover of righteousness and justice.”—Ps. 33:5.
Just my thoughts*
A
avflf
Guest
You want what? That I give you a name of a Jew from the time of Moses that believed what Moses believed? Not sure I can, but Solomon went after other gods and he was the wisest of the land. David danced naked a la Baal worshipers. The Hebrews, some scholars believe, were a branch of the Canaanites and the Hebrew language was an off-shot of the Canaanite tongue “Many scholars believe that around 1000 BC four branches developed from the original Semitic alphabet: South Semitic, Canaanite, Aramaic, and Greek. (Other scholars, however, believe that South Semitic developed independently from North Semitic or that both developed from a common ancestor.) The South Semitic branch was the ancestor of the alphabets of extinct languages used in the Arabian Peninsula and in the modern languages of Ethiopia. Canaanite was subdivided into Early Hebrew and Phoenician, and the extremely important Aramaic branch became the basis of Semitic and non-Semitic scripts throughout western Asia. The non-Semitic group was the basis of the alphabets of nearly all Indian scripts; the Semitic sub-branch includes Square Hebrew, which superseded Early Hebrew to become the prototype of modern Hebrew writing”.
“Alphabet,” Microsoft® Enact® Encyclopaedia 2000. © 1993-1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved
Like many Jews today believe in the Trinity but others not so it was in the early days. See this article fsmitha.com/h1/ch04.htm
Now, your turn to show me outside the Bible account that Jews were monotheistic from the beginning.
A
avflf
Guest
What makes you think they hadn’t eaten from the “tree of life” seeing there was no restriction on this one?
You are comparing God with Man here. You say that God can and does switch off his omniscience, and after those switch off periods he has to find out what has happened? I see, that’s why he went about the Garden calling out “Adam, Adam, where aaare yooou?”
OK.
By the way, what happened to his omnipresence? Can he also shut it off?
Perhaps? Aren’t you sure?
A
AndyF
Guest
Adam and Eve’s souls were imbued with the faculty of conscience. This was adequate to tide them over until the Word was made Flesh, and also carried the Hebrews through their lives guided by the Old Law.
It would have been cruel to create aware beings without a sense of what is right and wrong, so God provided.
Andy
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MindOverMatter2
Guest
I see nothing in the Bible that approves of the worship of other Gods, and if you were such an expert on the bible you would at the very least know that. As usual, you are taking things out of context. Not surprising, since your whole enterprise is all about taking things out of context. Your whole argument requires me to believe that the authors of the Bible were dishonest swindlers of religion and spin doctors and that you can prove it by pointing out suggestive phrases in the bible and hearsay by conspiracy theorists. This is a serious charge and i don’t believe that you have provided enough evidence except for a lot of hearsay. You claim that Christians apologists are just trying to patch up a sinking ship with nothing but faith; but I don’t believe your motivation is grounded in truth either. I’m sorry but your position requires too much faith.
I don’t believe that it is i whom needs to back up my claims, since it is you that is making the accusation. However i have the following evidence based on the author of genesis.
First of all; What is important to me is that as the Bible develops, their understanding of God develops, but never to a degree that necessarily contradicts prior understandings. Genesis, of which we have no explicit mention of other Gods, does say “we” and nobody denies it. But quite frankly nobody knows what was being implied there, it could just as easily be the case that the author believed in a singular God that was more than one person, or perhaps something else was in mind when the author said “We” instead of “I”; such as the possibility that God inspired the author to say we; i don’t know. But without explicit reference to other pagan Gods by name (which is absent) we have no real justification for thinking that the early Jews where polytheists or heno-theists. That they evidently have such a strong belief in one God later on in the Bible alone suggests to me that it is untenable to think that they thought something different when the religion began. You are just reading polytheism in to it because it suits you to do so.There is no explicit mention of other Gods, and i think that the authors would have freely given name to these other Gods had they supposedly believed in it so strongly that it would form the basis of early Judaism. Its just speculation for which you have a high fever. I do not hear mention of Zeus or Chronos or what ever Gods were being spoken of at that time. The bible is silent on other beliefs or Gods accept when the author speaks in opposition to them or when the people of Israel come in to contact with other forms of belief. The bible speaks quite negatively of other belief systems. This much is brutally evident to me.
Secondly; the scripture moves from a strong rejection of other Gods for the worship of one God, to the the explicit statement of faith that there is only one God. You can certainly speculate as with genesis why there was not an explicit mention of this to begin with. But if you look at Genesis again, the author tells us that God is the creator of heaven and earth and that the so called pagan Gods were nothing more than lamps to light the night sky and sun to bring day. There is no mention of a Sun God or a God of lightning or a volcano God or whatever. The author evidently believed in a “natural world” created by God. If he didn’t, he would have apologetically and explicitly incorporated all the other nature Gods that he supposedly believed in, and he would have done so without altering their station or function in nature. If “We” means merely the Gods of other established religions, then why be silent as to their identity? Instead of an explicit admittance of their supposed pagan affiliates, what we do find is a very anti pagan- demystification of nature, which is both explicitly implicitly a rejection of the super-naturalism of other religions of those times and also the naturalization of nature which later formed the foundation of the scientific revolution. This much is painfully evident to me. The God of Judaism is a new conception of God; not a collage of old ones.
So, your argument that Judaism began merely as the regurgitation of other established beliefs on the basis that Moses likes poetry and in Genesis Gods creative act is accompanied by the word “we”, is a very weak conspiracy theory in my eyes.
Oh well…
A
avflf
Guest
Seeing that you want accept any evidence from historical and archaeological sources and you persist in quoting from the Bible and giving fanciful explanations for the word “Elohim” perhaps you should visit your own fora - forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=119521 :hypno:I see nothing in the Bible that approves of the worship of other Gods, and if you were such an expert on the bible you would at the very least know that. As usual, you are taking things out of context. Not surprising, since your whole enterprise is all about taking things out of context. Your whole argument requires me to believe that the authors of the Bible were dishonest swindlers of religion and spin doctors and that you can prove it by pointing out suggestive phrases in the bible and hearsay by conspiracy theorists. This is a serious charge and i don’t believe that you have provided enough evidence except for a lot of hearsay. You claim that Christians apologists are just trying to patch up a sinking ship with nothing but faith; but I don’t believe your motivation is grounded in truth either. I’m sorry but your position requires too much faith.
I don’t believe that it is i whom needs to back up my claims, since it is you that is making the accusation. However i have the following evidence based on the author of genesis.
First of all; What is important to me is that as the Bible develops, their understanding of God develops, but never to a degree that necessarily contradicts prior understandings. Genesis, of which we have no explicit mention of other Gods, does say “we” and nobody denies it. But quite frankly nobody knows what was being implied there, it could just as easily be the case that the author believed in a singular God that was more than one person, or perhaps something else was in mind when the author said “We” instead of “I”; such as the possibility that God inspired the author to say we; i don’t know. But without explicit reference to other pagan Gods by name (which is absent) we have no real justification for thinking that the early Jews where polytheists or heno-theists. That they evidently have such a strong belief in one God later on in the Bible alone suggests to me that it is untenable to think that they thought something different when the religion began. You are just reading polytheism in to it because it suits you to do so.There is no explicit mention of other Gods, and i think that the authors would have freely given name to these other Gods had they supposedly believed in it so strongly that it would form the basis of early Judaism. Its just speculation for which you have a high fever. I do not hear mention of Zeus or Chronos or what ever Gods were being spoken of at that time. The bible is silent on other beliefs or Gods accept when the author speaks in opposition to them or when the people of Israel come in to contact with other forms of belief. The bible speaks quite negatively of other belief systems. This much is brutally evident to me.
Secondly; the scripture moves from a strong rejection of other Gods for the worship of one God, to the the explicit statement of faith that there is only one God. You can certainly speculate as with genesis why there was not an explicit mention of this to begin with. But if you look at Genesis again, the author tells us that God is the creator of heaven and earth and that the so called pagan Gods were nothing more than lamps to light the night sky and sun to bring day. There is no mention of a Sun God or a God of lightning or a volcano God or whatever. The author evidently believed in a “natural world” created by God. If he didn’t, he would have apologetically and explicitly incorporated all the other nature Gods that he supposedly believed in, and he would have done so without altering their station or function in nature. If “We” means merely the Gods of other established religions, then why be silent as to their identity? Instead of an explicit admittance of their supposed pagan affiliates, what we do find is a very anti pagan- demystification of nature, which is both explicitly implicitly a rejection of the super-naturalism of other religions of those times and also the naturalization of nature which later formed the foundation of the scientific revolution. This much is painfully evident to me. The God of Judaism is a new conception of God; not a collage of old ones.
So, your argument that Judaism began merely as the regurgitation of other established beliefs on the basis that Moses likes poetry and in Genesis Gods creative act is accompanied by the word “we”, is a very weak conspiracy theory in my eyes.
Oh well…
At least we agree that the Bible evolved. But the explanation seems simple: Gen 1 up to Gen 2:6 was written by one author and Gen 2:7 onward by another. The first believed gods created the heavens and the earth and all in it and the second believed that only one of those gods created man and after an undisclosed time period he created woman, after he found out that man could not propagate with the animals - his first biological discovery lol
It seems you are set in your ways and, as it is said “one cannot teach an old dog new tricks”, I’m not inclined to keep:banghead: so I wish you happiness and a short stay in Purgatory.
M
MindOverMatter2
Guest
Peace be with you and God-bless.
T
TheQuestioner
Guest
Funny, I thought it was you who was arguing against the Catholic Judeo-Christian God, not me arguing against atheism, Catholic evidence would have been admissible and acceptable. However, if you feel otherwise I am willing to continue on a level playing field. So then, why don’t you accept John 3:16?
You misunderstand. I was merely speaking about how as humans we must contain emotions, and thus God’s obligation to human kind would be to make sure we can feel emotion (since this rightfully belongs to our nature, or for us to fulfill it anyway).
Fair enough, but then here comes the issue, and this is why this position is contradictory to the age old one, being “Why would God make people knowing they would end up in hell?” But since I am not sure that the quote is your position, i will not go into it. I will assume it is not.
Now if you feel like getting into whether or not non-existence is better than existence in hell, I would like you to consider the following.
- Lets say a horrible person is in hell for 1 second before your offer comes to him and he chooses to not exist. Would any type of justice be fulfilled?
- If you are going to wipe them out of existence, then why ask them anyway?
- If you are going to wipe them out of existence, then why create them in the first place? If you are God then you would know where they would end up and what their choices would be anyway.
…ok hold on. So you admitted that the robot’s actions are not “true” self-sacrifice (agape), but because the recipients do not care you maintain that the actions of the robot’s are “agape” love? You realize that love (even void of emotion) does not depend on the perception of the recipient but on the choice of the actor, right? Besides, humans have the tendency to anthropomorphize objects, hence the crying, but that is beyond the point. **Goodness **does not need to be volitional for the recipients to appreciate it, but agape must be volitional in order for it to be agape.
On the contrary their deed cannot be selfless because there is no self. In order for it to be self-less they must lose regard for self, which they cannot do. At most you can say it is selfish since the robot is not really blowing itself up for the safety of the person, but to fulfill its programing. If the robots were to be able to form a “self” but had no free will then they would still not be acting on love but on instinct.
Really now, it is very wrong to claim that love can exist without volition. This is just plainly incorrect and no amount of arguing can get around this. Volition is part of the very nature of love by the very definition of love. That is just a fact, and no argument can change this.
R
R_Daneel
Guest
If the Catholic argument and/or evidence must be a-priori accepted, then there is no need for a conversation, is there? I may ask a question, you provide your answer, and the case is closed. I don’t accept John 3:16 as a valid evidence for God’s love, because even if it could be taken at face value, it would not be enough. It is not enough to give one example of love, and then stop demonstrating that love ever again.
Oh, but my position is exactly that. That question is of utmost importance.
You present a complicated scenario. First, if I were God (truly self-contained and self-sufficient) I would never create anything. God is supposed to be a rational and logical being, so he would know that from the pinnacle every road leads downwards. God needs nothing, and “adding” something to a perfect existence cannot improve the “perfection” - it can only destroy the perfection.
As to your question of “justice”, it is my opinion (and your opinion will probably differ) that the concept of “justice” is bogus. It is a thoroughly human idea that an injustice can be retroactively “remedied” by a “punishment”. The only “just” method is prevention, so there is no need for justice. Since there is no “undo” command in real life, a “bad” action cannot be “undone”. The attempt to restore the original status quo is commendable, of course - even if it cannot be done exactly and precisely. But “justice” is usally used in conjunction with a punishment. As a surprising thought experiment, consider the “reversal” of a just punishment. We incarcerate someone innocent, who then gains the “right” to commit some “crime”. If intruding on someone’s life is incorrect, then it will stay incorrect, even if it is done as a “retribution”. Two wrongs do not make one right.
Ok, we shall not quibble about the words themselves. I agree that the robot’s actions are not “agape” at all.
I agree and draw the conclusion: “agape” is just another bogus concept - “goodness” is the important factor. Actions are relevant, the inclination behind them (programmed vs. volitional) are not. I don’t care if someone gives alms to a beggar just to feel good about himself or if he does it out of real concern.
Let’s not use “love” to avoid the possibility of misunderstanding, let’s stick to “agape”. Refer back to my previous paragraph. (Don’t forget that my screen name is “R. Daneel” - short for “Robot Daneel Olivaw”.
)- Status