DEATH AND GOD!

Please clarify the argument here. Are you saying an omnipotent being would automatically see to it that all human experiences are painless? And by invoking these poetic images your point is... what? Are you refuting these statements or offering them as supporting evidence? No, you are of the opinion that it is a self-contradiction. I know of no theist who says his or her deity expresses mercy through physical torture. You appear to be starting from a sadistic premise so you can draw a sadistic conclusion.Many theists would say God loves and sustains his creatures in their joy or their pain. Two big blunders here.Your first blunder lies in mistaking the argument I presented for 'my opinion.' I expressly told you I did not hold the beliefs I was describing. (You made this same mistake with RAZD only a few posts back.)My concern was to examine the logic at work. From certain premises certain things follow.If one starts from the premise that eternal existence belongs to humans, one will naturally come to view all suffering--all human experience of any kind in this world--as fleeting. It's a matter of scale. An eternal perspective would make the history of the universe itself look practically instantaneous. Our own time in it would look like nothing.Which brings us to your second blunder: your maudlin appeal to emotion. Logically, this does not advance your case. It fumbles a punt.I could concede that a dying person may find the experience interminable, unendurable and overwhelming. But I could ask how that same person, being immortal, would view the experience 800 years from now... and 80,000 years from now... and 800,000... and 800,000,000,000,000... and on and on. The number of questions like this I could pose really has no end. The possibilities are truly infinite.Which is the point. Eternal existence shifts perspective. I would hate to miss a reasoned argument you have made. Please provide a message number or link. Thanks._____Edited by Archer Opterix, : typo.Edited by Archer Opterix, : html.Edited by Archer Opterix, : brev.

What blessings? If I believe that the universe was created with a propensity for forming life, this does not mean that humans are necessarily any special result, to say nothing of my mere existence.You seem to view all faith through your past catholic lens, and those views are not necessarily correct for other beliefs.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : .

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

Just checking. Sometimes people profess a particular belief, but are, in effect, something else... One of the best roads to happiness is to greatly appreciate the positive things in life!

Archer OpterixYour replies are eloquent. However, your interpretations of my posts are flawed . Thus, no further rely is warranted.

...Because there's no such thing as God?

Please don't take this the wrong way - or in any way but the sincerest attitude of jovial pals reasoning together - but I find your comments largely refute themselves. It's sufficient to highlight the ridiculousness of a putative "eternal" human existence with a "God who knows what's best" to point out that, if human existence is eternal, mathematically our Earthly portion of that existence, being finite, constitutes an insignificant portion of that eternity, and is therefore pointless and useless.And God, purported to "know what's best", would surely not subject us to something that is pointless if that were so. Certainly he would not have gone to all the expense and effort of creating physical, material reality if the entirety of our infinite lives happens in a spiritual realm.So clearly either our existence is as finite as we observe it to be, or God is not all that interested in what's best for us. Were he, we wouldn't be saddled with the great waste of time and source of suffering that constitutes our physical lives.Or, you know, there's no such thing as God. I find the simplicity of that explanation highlighted in juxtaposition to the baroque gymnastics of theology.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

-----------------------------------------------------------------I agree! Well put!

No problem. I was hoping you'd challenge it when our new colleague bailed so quickly.And the same in return, please. I'm wearing a different hat in this discussion than I usually do. It's an interesting exercise. Invalid line of reasoning.First, it equivocates between statistical significance (mathematical 'portion') and intrinsic significance (purpose and meaning).Second, it bases everything that follows on a false premise: that 'small' equals 'unimportant.'A virus makes up a very small portion of a human body. The virus is so small by comparison as to be microscopic. But it would not be logical to conclude from this that the small virus is 'insignificant' in its implications and potential effects on the larger body.Is Saturn a less significant celestial body than Jupiter because it is smaller? No. If you somehow lost a centimetre in height, would you be a less significant person than you are now? No.Mathematical scale does not in itself determine intrinsic worth. Assuming a direct equation between the two is therefore not rational. No logical reason has been produced to lead to the conclusion that anything we are 'subjected to' would be 'pointless.' Illogical. No 'expense and effort' would be involved in the case of an omnipotent being. This is true by definition.Omnipotence means no budget. Building a quark and building a galaxy would entail the same amount of sweat equity. None. We don't always know why large things develop from small things. But the limits of our knowledge have never prevented them from doing so.Redwoods start from seeds. People start from zygotes. Universes start from singularities.There is nothing inherently improbable in the idea that physical existence might represent a 'seed' stage in a longer existence. False dilemma. None of the other possibilities that exist have been logically eliminated. Self-contradiction. You initially assumed that in a context of eternity our physical lives are so brief as to be 'insignificant' and even 'pointless.' You now assume the opposite: that in the same eternal context the time taken up by our physical lives is too 'great' to 'waste.'Our time on this planet is surely limited. But that time is worth something or it isn't. Argument from incredulity. One's expressed ability or inability to accept a proposition does not constitute a reasoned argument.Also an argument from aesthetics. Pronouncing one idea 'elegant' and another 'baroque' is to render an artistic judgement, not state a reasoned case.But then, your argument has all along been asking poetry to do the work of logic. The initial assumption that 'small' equals 'trivial' was based on the equation of grand with meaningful.This is not a reasoned premise. it is an aesthetic response. Philosophers call it the sense of the sublime.'Sublime' refers to the meaning human beings find in vast things that make us feel puny. Many people, when confronted by the Grand Canyon or the Pacific Ocean or the distance from our planet to the farthest quasar, feel small and insignificant by comparison. The feeling is not necessarily unpleasant. Vast things offer a perspective on those worries that test our patience from day to day. By making those worries appear small, vast things offer us a kind of liberation. The emotion we feel is awe.You took this aesthetic/emotional response--'vast things are meaningful, small things are not important'--and tried to base a logical argument on it. It doesn't work, because no logic compels anyone to believe that bigger things are automatically more important than smaller things. The premise is not a work of logic. It is a work of poetry.Probably not baroque poetry, though. Romantic, more like.

The virus only becomes significant after it's had a chance to reproduce. As a singleton, one virus is insignificant. Not just small - nonexistent. Any finite amount taken as a fraction of infinity is zero. Nothing. That's what our finite physical lives mean set against forever.How could it be otherwise? Everything you'll ever do in your physical, moral life, you'll do in your infinite life - an infinite number of times. And you'll do it an infinite number of more times, only slightly varied. And another infinite lifetimes, slightly varied from that.You'll do nothing for an infinity, just to mix it up.Of what possible meaning could physical existence mean against that? We're not talking about a period of time that's 50% of your whole life, or 10%, or 1%, or even .00001%, or any other infinitesimal amount.We're literally talking about zero percent of your eternal life. A nonexistent fraction of a duration of infinite length. Mathematically speaking, that's nothing at all. Literally nothing. Of what possible significance can that be? It limits worth, certainly. Mathematically, our mortal lives are limited to precisely zero time, set against a putative infinite existence. That limits the significance of that life to zero, as well. You misunderstood. I'm not talking about our lives, I'm talking about God's life - the effort to create and maintain the physical universe, given its complete insignificance, is inconsistent on the part of a putative God who knows and does what is best for us. (Not to mention the idea of an eternal hell, to which is consigned those who make one wrong decision during their life of zero duration. How can that be consistent with what is "best for us"?) You say that, but we do know why trees come from seeds and people from sperm; why then must an infinite spiritual life begin with, and be determined by, a life so short as to be spiritually meaningless?We would never demand that an infant choose her major 18 years in advance of college, because we recognize the futility in demanding life-changing decisions from those too immature to make them.Why, then, would a God who theoretically "knows what is best for us" fail to perceive the obvious flaw in his cosmic set-up? So you say, but that objection falls flat from someone engaged in an argument from credulity:

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I'm wearing a different hat in this discussion than I usually do. It's an interesting exercise.

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If you're not actually being honest, if this is just an exercise in sophistry to you, then obviously you can continue to offer bullshit religious rationalizations till the cows come home. Indeed, all you need do is cut-and-paste; the theists have had millenia to develop all manner of arguments that have a surface similarity to reason.But if you're not yourself convinced by these arguments, if you've openly admitted that you're just spinning rationalizations for fun, then you've refuted yourself. If these were reasonable arguments that could convince a reasonable person with your logic, you'd be convinced by them. But you're not - and in admitting so, you've given the game away.I hardly need expend any effort to refute what you yourself admit is not true. Was I intended to refute logic? You should have given your argument to me in symbols, then. I was under the impression that I was supposed to wrestle with your sophistry, and I have, as far as I can see. Now you're crying "foul" to the referee of a completely different game.

Imagine you were a father of these people and you hade not seen them for a long time, just talked to them on the phone. Wouldn't you want to bring them home, whatever it took? Just a thought from a 17 year old.