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Author Topic:   Calvinism and Arminianism remix
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9486
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.6


Message 76 of 283 (816443)
08-04-2017 1:38 PM
Reply to: Message 75 by ringo
08-04-2017 12:18 PM


Re: Spending money Wherever Needed
ringo writes:
Maybe from the zebra's point of view. The lion would probably think a garden salad was evil.
Not if he was a vegetarian.
Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 75 by ringo, posted 08-04-2017 12:18 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 83 by ringo, posted 08-05-2017 11:33 AM Tangle has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 77 of 283 (816453)
08-04-2017 5:09 PM
Reply to: Message 74 by Tangle
08-03-2017 2:39 PM


Re: Spending money Wherever Needed
Firstly, why is the alternative to carnivorism sickly, weak and unevolved? Herbivores are as evolved as any other critter.
Good question. I left some things that I supposed to be obvious unsaid.
Herbivores have evolved, in part, to escape carnivores. Carnivores have evolved to escape men and to more readily catch herbivores.
Part of man's evolution has involved the need to escape carnivores and to prey on other animals.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I was thinking as long as I have my hands up they’re not going to shoot me. This is what I’m thinking they’re not going to shoot me. Wow, was I wrong. -- Charles Kinsey
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. Thomas Jefferson
Worrying about the "browning of America" is not racism. -- Faith
I hate you all, you hate me -- Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 74 by Tangle, posted 08-03-2017 2:39 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 78 by Tangle, posted 08-04-2017 5:37 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9486
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.6


Message 78 of 283 (816455)
08-04-2017 5:37 PM
Reply to: Message 77 by NoNukes
08-04-2017 5:09 PM


Re: Spending money Wherever Needed
NoNukes writes:
Herbivores have evolved, in part, to escape carnivores. Carnivores have evolved to escape men and to more readily catch herbivores.
Part of man's evolution has involved the need to escape carnivores and to prey on other animals.
Sure, but the question is why does it have to be that way? It's a viscous and evil thing to do - make every organism in the world compete with every other just to survive.
It's more like an evil experiment - 'let's see what happens if I make everything fight' - than a benevolent god doing his best for his creation.
Of course if you remove the god thing, it all makes perfectly horrible sense.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 77 by NoNukes, posted 08-04-2017 5:09 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 79 by NoNukes, posted 08-04-2017 5:54 PM Tangle has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 79 of 283 (816457)
08-04-2017 5:54 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by Tangle
08-04-2017 5:37 PM


Re: Spending money Wherever Needed
It's a viscous and evil thing to do
That's your opinion.
My opinion is that there is no other way to create a self-sustaining, evolving ecology. In that system, herbivores, carnivores, scavengers, and death all have a role to play. We know that the current system works well, and is capable of generating living, sentient beings with enormous potential. I am not aware of any other way to do that.
Your line of argument is one I would totally expect from a creationist who imagines life on earth was created in a gestalt with every creature specially created. I could not fault a creationist for thinking that way. I really cannot understand why anyone else would think that way. Death is not evil. It is a fact of life.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I was thinking as long as I have my hands up they’re not going to shoot me. This is what I’m thinking they’re not going to shoot me. Wow, was I wrong. -- Charles Kinsey
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. Thomas Jefferson
Worrying about the "browning of America" is not racism. -- Faith
I hate you all, you hate me -- Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by Tangle, posted 08-04-2017 5:37 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 80 by Tangle, posted 08-05-2017 1:24 AM NoNukes has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9486
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.6


Message 80 of 283 (816470)
08-05-2017 1:24 AM
Reply to: Message 79 by NoNukes
08-04-2017 5:54 PM


Re: Spending money Wherever Needed
NoNukes writes:
That's your opinion
It certainly is and the evidence that it is so is all around us - life here is brutal, self-evidently so. But it's only evil if someone created it that way. If it happened as the natural course of things then it simply is what it is.
My opinion is that there is no other way to create a self-sustaining, evolving ecology. In that system, herbivores, carnivores, scavengers, and death all have a role to play. We know that the current system works well, and is capable of generating living, sentient beings with enormous potential. I am not aware of any other way to do that.
You're looking at the world we have now and saying that given what we've got there's no other way of acheiving it. That's just a failure of imagination, if you're a god of creation you could design everything utterly differently, deliberately designing in suffering and death would be the very last thing I'd want to do. But a god, welll, who knows?
Death is not evil. It is a fact of life.
Death and suffering are only facts of life because there was no designer to do it in a way a loving designer would. If there was a designer, he was a twisted psychopath who wanted watch billions of his creatures kill each other and die from long and painful illnesses.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 79 by NoNukes, posted 08-04-2017 5:54 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 81 by NoNukes, posted 08-05-2017 4:50 AM Tangle has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 81 of 283 (816476)
08-05-2017 4:50 AM
Reply to: Message 80 by Tangle
08-05-2017 1:24 AM


Re: Spending money Wherever Needed
You're looking at the world we have now and saying that given what we've got there's no other way of acheiving it
If I am doing that, then I am looking at the evidence instead of indulging in fantasy. In contrast, you are indulging in a fantasy where the laws of science are malleable and will yield to some amount of energy and willpower. There is zero evidence that such a thing is so. Biology simply does not work the way creationists work, and the way is necessary for your belief that the current world is unnecessarily evil. What you do here is assume that the creationists might well be correct and critique the existing world on that basis.
It makes no difference whether life on earth is an accident or whether some sentient force started life on this planet the fantastic result we have is still the same. It is only if you imagine a cosmic micro-manager that had other choices to make but did not that you can conclude that God is evil.
Death and suffering are only facts of life because there was no designer to do it in a way a loving designer would.
Assuming that the designer had a choice to make the world work that way given some set of constraints that you are speculating do not exist. In rejecting those constraints as a possibility, you are the one with a lack of imagination. I have at least come up with one possibility that would not make God a psychopath. I am sure there are others.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I was thinking as long as I have my hands up they’re not going to shoot me. This is what I’m thinking they’re not going to shoot me. Wow, was I wrong. -- Charles Kinsey
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. Thomas Jefferson
Worrying about the "browning of America" is not racism. -- Faith
I hate you all, you hate me -- Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 80 by Tangle, posted 08-05-2017 1:24 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 82 by Tangle, posted 08-05-2017 9:19 AM NoNukes has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9486
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.6


Message 82 of 283 (816484)
08-05-2017 9:19 AM
Reply to: Message 81 by NoNukes
08-05-2017 4:50 AM


Re: Spending money Wherever Needed
NoNukes writes:
If I am doing that, then I am looking at the evidence instead of indulging in fantasy.
And I'm looking at the evidence of psycopathy and also indulging in fantasy. Or thought experiment if you prefer.
quote:
In contrast, you are indulging in a fantasy where the laws of science are malleable and will yield to some amount of energy and willpower.
Correct.
What you do here is assume that the creationists might well be correct and critique the existing world on that basis.
Not sure I understand your point here, but if you mean that if I assume creationists are correct and God designed the world this way deliberately, then I am calling him a psychopath.
But additionally, if he set the world up for evolution to happen the way it actually has, then I'm still calling him a psychopath.
quote:
It is only if you imagine a cosmic micro-manager that had other choices to make but did not that you can conclude that God is evil.
False choice. He need only make different choices. No need to have him be a micromanager. Where your imagination is failing, is in assuming that the whole thing - life, the universe and eveything - needs to be the way it is. A god capabale of creating this kind of universe should be capable of creating a quite different one. Unless, of course, you wish to limit your god to only these choices.
quote:
I have at least come up with one possibility that would not make God a psychopath. I am sure there are others
In order to do this, you've had to make your god a lessor god.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 81 by NoNukes, posted 08-05-2017 4:50 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 87 by NoNukes, posted 08-05-2017 3:44 PM Tangle has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 402 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 83 of 283 (816498)
08-05-2017 11:33 AM
Reply to: Message 76 by Tangle
08-04-2017 1:38 PM


Re: Spending money Wherever Needed
Tangle writes:
Not if he was a vegetarian.
There are no vegetarian lions. They don't have the stomach for it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by Tangle, posted 08-04-2017 1:38 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 84 by Tangle, posted 08-05-2017 11:36 AM ringo has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9486
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.6


Message 84 of 283 (816499)
08-05-2017 11:36 AM
Reply to: Message 83 by ringo
08-05-2017 11:33 AM


Re: Spending money Wherever Needed
ringo writes:
There are no vegetarian lions. They don't have the stomach for it.
Evolutionary fail

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 83 by ringo, posted 08-05-2017 11:33 AM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 85 by ringo, posted 08-05-2017 11:39 AM Tangle has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 402 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 85 of 283 (816501)
08-05-2017 11:39 AM
Reply to: Message 84 by Tangle
08-05-2017 11:36 AM


Re: Spending money Wherever Needed
Tangle writes:
Evolutionary fail
Huh? You mentioned some imaginary vegetarian lions and I pointed out that they're imaginary - i.e. they have no basis in reality. So what are you trying to say?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 84 by Tangle, posted 08-05-2017 11:36 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 86 by Tangle, posted 08-05-2017 11:45 AM ringo has seen this message but not replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9486
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.6


(1)
Message 86 of 283 (816503)
08-05-2017 11:45 AM
Reply to: Message 85 by ringo
08-05-2017 11:39 AM


Re: Spending money Wherever Needed
ringo writes:
Huh
Just English humour - forget it.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 85 by ringo, posted 08-05-2017 11:39 AM ringo has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 87 of 283 (816530)
08-05-2017 3:44 PM
Reply to: Message 82 by Tangle
08-05-2017 9:19 AM


Re: Spending money Wherever Needed
And I'm looking at the evidence of psycopathy and also indulging in fantasy. Or thought experiment if you prefer.
Yes, it is a thought experiment. But it is one in which you construct a straw god to subject to criticism. All that's need as a rebuttal is to point that out.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I was thinking as long as I have my hands up they’re not going to shoot me. This is what I’m thinking they’re not going to shoot me. Wow, was I wrong. -- Charles Kinsey
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. Thomas Jefferson
Worrying about the "browning of America" is not racism. -- Faith
I hate you all, you hate me -- Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by Tangle, posted 08-05-2017 9:19 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 88 by Tangle, posted 08-05-2017 4:20 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9486
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.6


Message 88 of 283 (816531)
08-05-2017 4:20 PM
Reply to: Message 87 by NoNukes
08-05-2017 3:44 PM


Re: Spending money Wherever Needed
NoNukes writes:
Yes, it is a thought experiment. But it is one in which you construct a straw god to subject to criticism.
Aren't all gods straw gods? Your Christian belief system has erected one, many others have erected their own. I consider all to be straw and I see no reason why my straw god can't do what most believers in your straw god say he can do - that is, anything at all.
The idea that your god is only good enough to create this catastrophic mess is simply astonishing to those that read the book he's supposed to have commissioned. It runs totally counter to the stuff written within it. Or at least the new stuff that is supposed to replace the old stuff.
From memory your straw god is also rather puny, incapable of doing anything better than what he's done? I doubt many recognise that model.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 87 by NoNukes, posted 08-05-2017 3:44 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 89 by NoNukes, posted 08-07-2017 1:57 PM Tangle has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 89 of 283 (816592)
08-07-2017 1:57 PM
Reply to: Message 88 by Tangle
08-05-2017 4:20 PM


Re: Spending money Wherever Needed
Aren't all gods straw gods?
That is certainly what the position I would expect you to take. It is not a point that I am attempting to debate with you.
In this particular discussion, your position is that if God is real, He is evil. In so doing, you have elected to build up a straw god to pin guilt on.
From memory your straw god is also rather puny, incapable of doing anything better than what he's done? I doubt many recognise that model.
Or perhaps God does not have the cartoony powers that you are trying to attribute to Him.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I was thinking as long as I have my hands up they’re not going to shoot me. This is what I’m thinking they’re not going to shoot me. Wow, was I wrong. -- Charles Kinsey
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. Thomas Jefferson
Worrying about the "browning of America" is not racism. -- Faith
I hate you all, you hate me -- Faith

This message is a reply to:
 Message 88 by Tangle, posted 08-05-2017 4:20 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 90 by Tangle, posted 08-07-2017 2:18 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9486
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.6


Message 90 of 283 (816593)
08-07-2017 2:18 PM
Reply to: Message 89 by NoNukes
08-07-2017 1:57 PM


Re: Spending money Wherever Needed
NoNukes writes:
In this particular discussion, your position is that if God is real, He is evil. In so doing, you have elected to build up a straw god to pin guilt on.
How so? What I have done is observe that our world has been set up so that inorder to survive organisms must compete to the death. Plus, of course we have illness and desease and finally death of 'natural' causes if we're lucky. Objectively, I say that is an evil experiment. And if a god built it that way, then he is guilty.
Or perhaps God does not have the cartoony powers that you are trying to attribute to Him.
Then he is a lessor god than the one that is taught to his worshippers. I don't have my own version, I just ponder what I'm told about him. Of course you are able to believe anything at all that suits your mood - it's difficult to know which version of the god each of you believe in.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 89 by NoNukes, posted 08-07-2017 1:57 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 91 by NoNukes, posted 08-07-2017 5:23 PM Tangle has replied

  
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