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Author Topic:   Game - Battleground God
riVeRraT
Member (Idle past 415 days)
Posts: 5788
From: NY USA
Joined: 05-09-2004


Message 37 of 79 (456988)
02-21-2008 7:19 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by RAZD
02-18-2008 9:31 PM


The problem of suffering
Your God is omnipotent (all-powerful, able to do anything), omnibenevolent (all-loving) and omniscient (all-knowing).
The metaphysical engineers have found it hard to model this God in a universe like our own. The problem is this: our universe contains vast amounts of suffering, much of which seems either entirely unnecessary or unnecessarily severe. Although some of this is the result of human action, and thus may be seen as an inevitable consequence of human free will, much is not. Plagues, floods and famines are not all the result of human action. Even the idea that human free will explains the existence of much suffering is hard to accept, since God, if all-powerful, could surely limit our capacity to harm others or suffer at their hands (after all, there are many other limits on what we are able to do).
So why is there all this suffering? If God cannot prevent it, it would seem she is not all-powerful. If God doesn't want to stop it, it would seem she is not all-loving. If God doesn't know about it, she can't be all-knowing.
The metaphysical engineers are continuing to study theodicies, which are attempts to resolve this difficulty, known as the problem of evil.
How does suffering = not all powerful?
Just because humans do not like suffering, does not make it bad. We "suffer" as children to learn lessons that will sustain us later in life.
I think the website is pure bullshit.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by RAZD, posted 02-18-2008 9:31 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 42 by RAZD, posted 02-22-2008 9:02 PM riVeRraT has not replied

  
riVeRraT
Member (Idle past 415 days)
Posts: 5788
From: NY USA
Joined: 05-09-2004


Message 38 of 79 (456989)
02-21-2008 7:22 AM


Personal relationship
Not so personal after all?
The metaphysical engineers are finding it hard to understand how, on your conception of God, one can have a personal relationship with her.
Personal relationships appear to depend on a number of things. Sufficient similarity between the persons in the relationship is one. Another is that both are persons, or are, at least, person-like, as some higher primates, for example, appear to be. The problem is that in our universe there seem to be no genuine personal relationships between things of great difference. And God, as you have described her, is vastly different from human beings.
People can have feelings for things which are similar to those they have towards people. Affection or love for places or objects, for example, is common. But this is not the same as having a personal relationship with them. In a similar way, people have relationships with animals, maybe a cat. But this does not seem to be the same as a personal relationship, because of the great difference in the way the person relates to the animal and the way the animal relates to the person. Perhaps this is the kind of relationship which you envisaged?
If a relationship with an animal is not personal, then what is it? Does it really matter how one relates, or just the simple fact that we relate? I relate to animals, and it is personal.
More bullshit.
Edited by riVeRraT, : No reason given.

  
riVeRraT
Member (Idle past 415 days)
Posts: 5788
From: NY USA
Joined: 05-09-2004


Message 39 of 79 (456991)
02-21-2008 7:42 AM


And th eBs continues
My last two responses were from "Do-It-Yourself Deity" which I did first as they suggest.
Earlier you said that it is not justifiable to base one's beliefs about the external world on a firm, inner conviction, paying no regard to the external evidence, or lack of it, for the truth or falsity of this conviction, but now you say it's justifiable to believe in God on just these grounds. That's a flagrant contradiction!
Well I never said such a thing. I said that being an atheist is faith. So is believing in God. Pretty much everything we believe in is faith, it is just the size of the relative leap.
You have been awarded the TPM medal of distinction! This is our second highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground.
The fact that you progressed through this activity being hit only once and biting very few bullets suggests that your beliefs about God are well thought out and almost entirely internally consistent.
The direct hit you suffered occurred because one set of your answers implied a logical contradiction. The bitten bullets occurred because you responded in ways that required that you held views that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. At the bottom of this page, we have reproduced the analyses of your direct hit and bitten bullets.
Because you only suffered one direct hit and bit very few bullets, you qualify for our second highest award. A good achievement!
What a joke.

  
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