Freethought & Rationalism Archive

EnterTheBowser · 12-02-2005, 11:46 PM

Regarding rape and free will: I already pointed out that the act of rape does more to interfere in free will than preventing the act of rape.

Furthermore, your statement that if God interferes with our lives in any way then we are slaves seems problematic. It would indicate, for example, that when the cops stop a rapist, the rapist is their slave. Is this really true? And what exactly do you mean by slave?

patman · 12-03-2005, 12:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EnterTheBowser

Regarding rape and free will: I already pointed out that the act of rape does more to interfere in free will than preventing the act of rape.

Furthermore, your statement that if God interferes with our lives in any way then we are slaves seems problematic. It would indicate, for example, that when the cops stop a rapist, the rapist is their slave. Is this really true? And what exactly do you mean by slave?

You gotta' up it up a little bit. We aren't talking about a person stopping a person from doing wrong. That is in no way slavery.

I am referring to an all powerful being forcing us to only take certain actions.

Slaves can have freedom of mind and spirit, but their actions are limited by their master. If God masters every wrong action, those who he masters over are his slaves.

patman · 12-03-2005, 12:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EnterTheBowser

Alright, it sounds like you definitely reject deontology. So here's a question:

You and an old and dear friend are trapped on a desert island. He gets sick and as he lays dying, he reveals the location of his hidden wealth (back on the mainland), and makes you promise to give half of it to his son (you can keep the rest). Now, he dies and you are rescued. Back on the mainland, you discover that the son is a bit of a wastrel. So you are contemplating what to do: give him the money, or keep it secret and donate his half to charity?

The wastrel gets the money anyway.

If I find out that he is a murderer, he doesn't tho. The money goes to the victims family.

patman · 12-03-2005, 01:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John A. Broussard

I strongly suggest that you read your bible.

NUMBERS 31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

NUMBERS 31:18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Need I say more?

John....

-SIGH-

So I went and read Numbers 31:1-54

God wasn't even the one speaking in Numbers 17 and 18.

Again, had this been a court or some formal debate, and you present evidence of God saying "Rape people" and it turned out to be someone else saying it.... That'll get thrown out. Right?

And then the words "rape" or "sex" are not said anywhere, but you assume it means that, that doesn't even help for your over all point even if they were God's words...

Maybe your the one who should read closer?

patman · 12-03-2005, 02:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John A. Broussard

In this instance I won't quarrel with your answer since you are clearly pointing out that your god is not all-powerful. He's a god who can't be nice and do what needs to be done too.

Nonetheless, your god did personally commit genocide--killing every man, woman and child (except for one family and some animals).

I suppose if your god would have like to accomplish whatever was necessary without killing everyone, but not being all-powerful collateral damage was inevitable.

Anyhow, thank for making it clear that your god is not an omnipotent god. It makes for easier discussion.

I started to not answer this one, but here I am.

I gotta admit all-powerful is overrated. The God of the Bible is presented as:

Creator
Powerful
Good
Loving
Just/Fair
Knowledgeable
Wise

Just to name a few. It is non-the-wiser Christians who go through and put the "all" in front of each of many of those.

I stated That if we are to debate the God of the Bible's existence we should stick to what it says about him, not what other's say it says.

http://www.theologyonline.com/forums...64&postcount=6

He does a good job of explaining it. Check it out if you like to read.

EnterTheBowser · 12-03-2005, 10:28 AM

Regarding the "desert island promise" case; your answer rejects act utilitarianism, since the promise has no meaning, according to AU. That pretty much leaves us with virtue ethics or rule utilitarianism.

Act utilitarianism: an act is right iff it maximizes happiness.
Rule utilitarianism: an act is right iff it is in accordance with a rule whose general acceptance would maximize happiness.

I'm going to guess you'll reject RU, since it would say that you always obey the rule, regardless of the particular consequences. I forgot to mention, though, one other theory that is particularly applicable in this debate: divine command theory (just do what God says).

Quote:

Originally Posted by patman

Quote:

Originally Posted by EnterTheBowser

Regarding rape and free will: I already pointed out that the act of rape does more to interfere in free will than preventing the act of rape.

Furthermore, your statement that if God interferes with our lives in any way then we are slaves seems problematic. It would indicate, for example, that when the cops stop a rapist, the rapist is their slave. Is this really true? And what exactly do you mean by slave?

You gotta' up it up a little bit. We aren't talking about a person stopping a person from doing wrong. That is in no way slavery.

I am referring to an all powerful being forcing us to only take certain actions.

Slaves can have freedom of mind and spirit, but their actions are limited by their master. If God masters every wrong action, those who he masters over are his slaves.

I'll say it again: rape does more to interfere in free will than preventing rape. And frankly, even if that weren't true, I am not inclined to value the rapist's freedom above the tremendous, long-lasting suffering experiences by the victim.

I'm also curious - what is the difference between an angel with a flaming sword appearing whenever one person attempts to rape another, and the cops showing up during a rape? How does one force the rapist to take certain actions and the other not do so?

And lastly, if we accept that the cops do not interfere in free will, but somehow the angel does, why can't God call the cops? I mean, how does an anonymous call interfere in anyone's free will?

And regarding "If God masters every wrong action..." I tried to point out why this is not necessarily the case; we're just looking at rapes; stopping them does not entail stopping every crime all the way down to littering and spitting.

patman · 12-03-2005, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EnterTheBowser

Regarding the "desert island promise" case; your answer rejects act utilitarianism, since the promise has no meaning, according to AU. That pretty much leaves us with virtue ethics or rule utilitarianism.

Act utilitarianism: an act is right iff it maximizes happiness.
Rule utilitarianism: an act is right iff it is in accordance with a rule whose general acceptance would maximize happiness.

I'm going to guess you'll reject RU, since it would say that you always obey the rule, regardless of the particular consequences. I forgot to mention, though, one other theory that is particularly applicable in this debate: divine command theory (just do what God says).

I'll say it again: rape does more to interfere in free will than preventing rape. And frankly, even if that weren't true, I am not inclined to value the rapist's freedom above the tremendous, long-lasting suffering experiences by the victim.

I'm also curious - what is the difference between an angel with a flaming sword appearing whenever one person attempts to rape another, and the cops showing up during a rape? How does one force the rapist to take certain actions and the other not do so?

And lastly, if we accept that the cops do not interfere in free will, but somehow the angel does, why can't God call the cops? I mean, how does an anonymous call interfere in anyone's free will?

And regarding "If God masters every wrong action..." I tried to point out why this is not necessarily the case; we're just looking at rapes; stopping them does not entail stopping every crime all the way down to littering and spitting.

Rape is a black and white situation. It is never justifiable to rape someone. It is what I would call an absolute wrong.

Giving your word to someone is a different thing. Stick's and stones are one thing, but words are not quite as blunt. If God commands us to kill a murderer, and I go and give him money..... I feel that God's command outweighs my word.

I am not saying I personally have the right to execute the death penalty, so please, no one go right after me and say "So you must be ok with..........." whatever. I just plainly said we as individuals may not go around executing murderers. That is a job given to Government by God that it might decide who is executed by do process, and it might allow someone to execute the murderer.

Your morality points are interesting, but they do not take into account God, and I do. You can't put me under just one, because my moral standards are defined by the law that God has written in his book, and put in my heart.

If you reject his book or are ignorant to what it says about morality, you are at least recognize the morality law you have written in your heart. If that's all you follow, perhaps you can give your form of morality a fancy name.

Instead of calling me a utilitarianism, call me a Christian.

I said earlier that Rape is always wrong, no matter what. I expect someone to come up with some insane story about someone threatening someone else to rape someone or else something bad such as death towards an innocent person, will occur.

I'll be interested to see who does it, because I will know who was not reading what I have to say about it first.

Even if someone was threatened, and it seemed good to rape instead of let someone die, that rape was still wrong. Not raping is better, see afterlife. The person who did the right thing would in no way be responsible for the evil actions of another's murder.

As for Cops and Angels.

In my analogy of Angels, they were commissioned by God to stop every single act of sin, great and big. I hoped you would see how much slaves we would be because of God sending something, Angel, or whatever, to stop the sin from happening. We would in no way be free, and a lot of people on here would in no way get to do the things they like to do.

God's interference of freewill and another person's interference of freewill are two different things. If you are right, and a Good God would have a responsibility to prevent all sin, and people would have no freedom because they are being micromanaged, then God would also have to be unloving.

God, being Powerful, and able to stop all sin(doing away with freewill), and being obligated to do it, and still being Loving are a paradox. If you disagree, prove how, this is the best way to dissolve my points of how God does exist.

A human stopping a sin, not doing away with all freewill, but only one(or more) instance of it, is different and allowable and good, because we humans are not in the same class as God. If a human stops a crime, the criminal's freewill was not effected by God, as it was the humans choice to do the "effecting".

God's love is a deep subject. I hope I don't open up a can of worms, because it is deep. But God's love for a criminal and God's love for a saint are like Man's love for a complete stranger, and Man's love for his own child.

I know the human's don't always exercise this basic concept, we have all passed a stranger on the side of the road needing car help. But for the most part, people like to help strangers even though they don't always do it. That desire to help the stranger comes from love for him, be it ever so subtle.

God has a "subtile love" for everyone similar to the love we usually have for strangers, but for God that love is more perfect. He loves us enough to allow us the freedoms to love him back, and love one another. It is the most basic allowance that is required of love - not to force it's ways on someone else, at least not to the extremes you suggest he should.

He also loved enough to allow his son to die for our sins. That should put into prospective how willing he is to take a sinner and cleans his sins. Because, sin being utterly bad, while he will not prevent it, he will allow them a way to be dead to those sins, by the death of Christ.

These two aspects of God's basic love allow us freedom to do with sin as we choose. We have the freedom to be free from it, or to be free in it. Being free form it is better than being free in it because when it is time for us to receive the punishment of our sins, those who were free in it are free from the punishment of it.

Those who receive their punishment will still be free to be themselves, just receiving the punishment at the same time.

So anyway.

God allowing sin and God loving us and God allowing away back from sin are all compatible.

Man standing against sin, man loving one another, and freewill's integrity still being whole in regards to God's allowance of it are all compatible too.

On the other hand, God utterly preventing sin, God loving us, and God making us slaves to do good only are not compatible.

bling · 12-03-2005, 03:24 PM

Quote:

Parms 18 said:
If Godly love is all about selfless sacrifice, I see no reason why extreme suffering is necessary to effect such love in most or all people.

If my friend forgot his wallet at home and needs train fare, I can demonstrate so-called Godly love by giving him some of my money. There was no "suffering" involved, let alone extreme suffering, but I displayed exactly what the New Testament espouses.

The only response to this that I can think of at the moment is that suffering so minor does not effect love that can be called "Godly." And that would seem to imply to me that extremity of suffering is directly proportional to the Godliness of the love it is capable of inspiring. So then, why not make the world even worse than it is? Much, much worse. Then it would be chock full of Godly love - Love even Godlier, on average, than it is now.

You may or may not show Godly love by giving your friend money. It has everything to do with motive and how you do things then the physical results. If you do good to those that can do good back to you and do it for that reason even subconsciously then that is not Godly love. If you pay the fare without any expectation of getting anything and purely as a result of what God has done for you, then it is Godly love. Now you should feel good and want to do more acts of love and even greater acts of love. You have made a good start and there are always going to be opportunities to grow.

Quote:

Parms 18 said:

One might counter by saying that love only becomes sufficiently Godly when the suffering is sufficiently extreme, that God knows what this threshold is, and that this threshold is precisely the amount of suffering God allows Satan to create (or creates himself, depending on your point of view). No more, because he is benevolent.

See above.

Quote:

Parms 18 said:

At this point, I just don't see the point in the Christian reasoning - what does God find so utterly despicable about a world whose only troubles are trivial and/or fleeting(e.g., my friend forgetting his wallet)? An omnipotent God is capable of creating a world without horrible suffering. That is not an assumption; that is true by definition of the word "omnipotent." All of the virtuous qualities espoused by the Bible can be engendered in such a world.

My definition and even Patman’s definition would not give a God that type of omnipotent. Definitions do not define God’s power. The stand I am making is that man’s objective is Godly love and there is no way for man on earth to develop Godly love without suffering, so God allows suffering to happen.

Quote:

Parms 18 said:

And I might add that this hypothetical world is not, as has been asserted earlier in this thread, a "program," nor would my friend or I be "robots." I do not need the ebola virus to appreciate the benefits of not bleeding out my eyes any more than I need pneumonia to appreciate the benefits of breathing comfortably, or murder to appreciate the benefits of not being stabbed. Some things in this world are granted, and I really doubt any benevolent being would find reason to make them privileges.

The fact of this matter is that our world does not appear to have "pain and suffering dials," let alone finely tuned ones. We live in a world that looks exactly like we would expect it to if there was no divine pupose behind anything.

There is plenty of opportunities in this world for everyone to both develop and grow their Godly love. What appears to be a vast amount of excess opportunities is the result of people not ceasing the opportunities they have.

Quote:

Parms 18 said:
Ebola wreaks havoc because it is very good at replicating. Earthquakes occur because of convection currents inside the Earth's mantle. Rape is rampant because humans evolved a neurochemistry that rewards reproduction. All of these "because ______" explanations follow from physical law, and there is no reason to append any such explanations with "...and because God's divine plan requires them." Occam's Razor, anyone?

That kind of reasoning dictates that God causes oppositely charged particles to attract, not Coulomb's Law. No, God does it, and he does it exactly the same way every time for every particle in the universe at all times.

Unless we're subscribing to some kind of weak "God in everything" panentheistic worldview, this is a pointless conjecture. Weather occurs because the laws of nature demand it. Evolution occurs because DNA is an imperfect replicator.

No God needed.

This tread was not started to defend every aspect to explain the existence of God, only to show there is a logical reason for the suffering of the innocent and why God would allow that suffering to continue. Off subject: this universe is so perfectly made with no reasons for that perfection other then a God. Evolution is great but it does not explain how life go started.

EnterTheBowser · 12-03-2005, 03:42 PM

This is from a while back in the thread, so I'll repeat myself. It is a question directed at bling.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EnterTheBowser

An action is right iff it complies with God's will and the sole motive for the act is to comply with God's will.

I'm just trying to get a definitive idea of what constitutes a guide for right action from bling's perspective. I've switched to a deontological version in response to these comments:

Quote:

Originally Posted by bling

In some ways you are right since we are not sure of the out come. The object for us those is not to produce results in others but to develop Godly love by doing our part, the way it is to be done. We don’t need to know the results as long as we allowed God to work though us. It is a yielding to His desire that produces the results in us, no matter what happens outside our self’s. This is where the indwelling Spirit comes into play assuring the results in us.

Quote:

The only “results�? we can control is with ourselves. We are to do what we can to reduce suffering the way God wants us to do it only. The results are not up to us out side ourselves.

I added the second condition regarding motivation to address bling's focus on Godly love as a state of being. I made the first condition accordance with God's will seeing as how he has stated that our perception of the consequences are not particularly important - it is not our business to weight up consequences. Godly love can't be the concern for eliminating the suffering of others, if it is not our place to weight up consequences (suffering being a consequence of actions); it would seem that it would have to be accordance with God's will.

Now, this particular moral rule would only apply to humans. So I'm curious: what moral rule does God follow? (and why does God follow a different moral rule than humans?)

EnterTheBowser · 12-03-2005, 03:48 PM

For patman:

I argued that a good God would prevent some instances of horrible suffering. patman responded that if a good God ought to do this, then a good God ought to prevent every single wrong action. But this would destroy free will, which a good God would not do. I then responded that if a good God is obligated to prevent some suffering, it does not follow that such a God should prevent all wrong acts. I provided some reasons for this view. I don't recall getting any response.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EnterTheBowser

But the billionaire is then confronted with doubt: "Well, if I go out and do this, what other crimes should I stop? What sort of precedent will my action set?" Crippled by doubt, she does nothing, because she wants her actions to be coherent, and she doesn't know what else she'd be obligated to do if she accepts that she's obligated to stop rapes. I would say that she's drawn the wrong conclusion. Yes, where to draw the line is a difficult question. But this hardly means that there aren't situations which are clear-cut beyond all possible requirements. She can know, be perfectly sure, that she's got an obligation to stop rapes, using her devices. And she can know that there are other situations where she shouldn't - such as littering. And where to draw the line between these two extremes is certainly a question which will trouble her and cause her to reflect extensively on the nature of morality. But she still knows that she should stop rapes and allow littering.

As a related example, we can look at ring species, in particular the Larus Gull. We know that all American Herring gulls are the same species. There's no doubt about that. And we can be pretty sure that the American Herring gull is not the same species as the Lesser Black-Backed gull. But in between, things are not so clear - perhaps the Vega Herring gull is the same species as the American Herring Gull, perhaps it is not. But we still know that American Herring gulls are a species, and we know that they are not the same species as the Lesser Black-Backed gull. (As a note, I just want to say that species-identification is not transitive. If aSb means "a is the same species as b," then aSb and bSc does not imply aSc.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species

And it would seem that an all-knowing God would not have as much trouble figuring out where to draw the line with regards to rape and littering. My billionaire, however intelligent, is probably not as smart or wise as God.

I also asked how God calling the cops when rapes occurred would violate anyone's free will. I don't recall a response.

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12-02-2005, 11:46 PM	#221
EnterTheBowser Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Chicago Posts: 1,021	Regarding rape and free will: I already pointed out that the act of rape does more to interfere in free will than preventing the act of rape. Furthermore, your statement that if God interferes with our lives in any way then we are slaves seems problematic. It would indicate, for example, that when the cops stop a rapist, the rapist is their slave. Is this really true? And what exactly do you mean by slave?

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