rainbow walking

Thomas Metcalf




Sometimes it's better for humans to learn something without having to experience it firsthand, right?

rw: Humans with the intellectual maturity to grasp the essentials of self preservation need not "experience" every possible threat to their life to "understand" danger and harm. Toddlers, who have not yet acquired that maturity, are a different animal. They must be protected by another.

Humans have already amassed an extensive knowledge base of their ecosystem and the inherent dangers, yet people die everyday of accidents caused by their willful neglect of that knowledge. And that, Thomas, is the real crux of this discussion. The willful compliance or rejection of knowledge. If humans immediately and always lived consistently to such knowledge as they do possess there'd be less pain and suffering in the world. So it isn't always obvious that it is better to learn something intelectually only, without the added impetus of experience to compliment the learning. Prisons are full of people who knew better than to commit the crimes they committed. Graveyards and hospitals are also the recipients of such willful neglect of the intellectually knowledgeable.

Your assumption that intellectual comprehension will automatically reduce suffering doesn't jive with reality. Some people will, some won't. In order that a specific cause of suffering involving human choice be eradicated by a god, he would have to violate the human will in such a way as to make it impossible for a human to choose such a collision course with disaster. This would involve either a modification to human nature or a modification to the ecosystem...and we've already been down that road and seen where it leads.



thomas: I'm sorry, but I didn't see an answer to the original question. Do you wish there were less suffering in the world?

rw: My answer was neither. I wished for no suffering. It is permissable to answer questions in my own way, is it not? I also expanded on my answer considerably.

thomas: Suppose it were possible. Suppose it were possible to implant the knowledge in the child's brain of what exactly would happen if she poured boiling water on herself. Would you do it?

rw: Certainly I would. But this would in no way gaurantee that she would willfully choose to comply with that knowledge. In order for me to ensure she never get scalded by hot water would necessitate a considerable degree of interference in her life far beyond implanting knowledge of the consequences.

Now, as to an omniscient being making this same decision, as I would, is another matter altogether. Your assumption that his omni-benevolence should automatically dictate he make the same choice has not been substantiated. It is not the case that reducing the suffering of one child would be morally mandated when this act could potentially cause the child to suffer greater pain later in life, (especially when the child also has the option of willfully ignoring such implanted knowledge), or when this benevolent act, on her behalf, could incur tremendous adverse consequences to humanity in the aggregate. You are not considering all the ethical and moral ramifications here Thomas.

thomas: Suppose it were possible to convince the child never to pour boiling water on herself, without teaching her that. Would you do it?

rw: How do you convince someone of something without their knowing it? The only way is to make it an automatic, instinctual reaction residing beneath the level of human will. I submit that man already has such an instinctive desire to live. What man does not have is an automatic knowledge base of how to achieve that desire. But even when man knows that some choices and actions are life threatening he still is able to risk his life if it is his will to do so. In many cases men do this to save the lives of others. This is a classic display of the virtue of courage. How far into man's complex world should an omnimax being penetrate to relieve possible causes of pain and suffering? Doesn't man's responsibility in these cases allow him to experience and learn and test his own virtues? Again I ask, how does a supermax being logically create a virtuous man without a history?

Pain is the evolutionary method of self preservation. Reducing pain, while a worthy goal in many cases, must also be weighed against the factor of human self preservation. It is one thing to teach someone the dangers of fire, but when someone actually experiences the burning sensation, it saves a great deal of time in the teaching process. Since man is a mortal being whose own life is a limited resource, time and economy are one of the things I would think evolutionary forces would encourage a species to select. Pain needn't be fatal or even very harmful, just convincing.

Koyaanisqatsi

I didn't reallize free will was back in this. Well, being omnipotent, one can simply implant the knowledge, of course. Not to take from pop culture, but as Neo says in the Matrix, "Now I know judo."

Presumably the same way cult members say they know and recognize their choices as virtuous; God told them it was so.

What has this to do with virtue?

So? No matter what we are "automatons" to an omniscient being.

Then, again I'll ask, why would a non-interfering god care about such a thing? Why is it important to a being such as the one you posit that humans become "virtuous enough to prefer the right a vast majority of the time," and what does that mean?

Most humans do prefer the "right" (as they see it) the vast majority of the time. The problem only comes when certain humans (the Hitlers in each generation) don't prefer the "right" (or worse, think what they are advocating is right). Was Hitler wrong? Not according to Hitler (and millions of his followers into our current generation, unfortunately). This happens with every generation to one degree or another, so how does that help us to become more virtuous? There have been literally billions of Hitlers, both small and grand, inflicting suffering throughout mankind's history (upwards of forty thousand years now) and the only thing that has changed is the escalation in the amount of suffering being able to be inflicted and the ability to inflict it on a larger number of people.

The core "evil" hasn't changed in the slightest and every single one of us is capable of doing it to some degree or another. That we don't is not a matter of inherent structural design; it's the result of social conditioning and indoctrination from birth forward.

For your theory to hold true, we would have to be structurally designed to progress toward becoming more virtuous with every generation, yet that isn't the case, your optimism aside. Look at the Native American Indian cultures that were wiped out en masse. For the most part, they had achieved an almost perfect, virtuous state; living in harmony with nature and each other. Even when they went to "war" with other tribes, the vast majority of those "wars" were not built on death and destruction, but on humiliation; a show of skills.

Indeed, even the great European campaigns were largely fought in "civilized" manners (as much of an oxymoron as that is). Soldiers would line up on a battle field and be directed by the generals and Kings on the hillside and whoever was left standing on the battlefield "won" the war. Civilians used to actually watch the campaigns from hilltops, safe in the knowledge that they would not be considered combatants and therefore left alone.

If anything, we have become progressively more evil over the centuries, not less. Our revolutionary war arguably introduced guerrila warfare to Western Civilization; WWI saw the use of gas; WWII the use of atomic weapons (twice), suicide bombers, Dresden, death camps, etc.; Vietnam gave us napalm and endless carpet bombing and Agent Orange; now we have "WMD's" all over the place (except in the places we say they're in as a pretense to instigate a war, something America officially vowed never to do (overtly); etc., etc., etc., to the point where we now have "smart bombs" that kill more efficiently, instead of what should have happened if your theory was correct. That the thought of war by now would be anathema to the majority instead of fully supported.

This is not "my pessimism;" it is cold hard fact that tends to contradict the notion that an omnibenevolent, non-interfering god structurally created us to progress toward virtue.

And how does being able to experience snake venom as snake venom in order to know that it is different than honey result in our becoming more virtuous? We've known that for thousands of years. Yet we still created the Neutron bomb.

More later.

Koyaanisqatsi

More now (sorry, life intervened ).

But will it necessarily be a turning of another page in regard to virtue or merely self-survival? Again, for your argument to hold true, we would have to be escaping earth and extending our lives as a matter of inherent structural design toward virtue. How does that obtain necessarily from a progress in science (i.e., technology)?

Would we be escaping earth in order to escape human tyranny; to escape man's inhumanity to man? How? Why wouldn't the same inherent "evil" qualities (such as greed and lust and hatred and anger, etc.) follow us out in to space and onto the next planet we land on (or space station we create)?

If history is our judge, we won't so without direct intervening by your god concept, what is going to fundamentally change our inherent nature?

Seen objectively, humans are the cockroaches of this planet. We destroy our own resources (peeing in our own water supply); we rape and pillage the land with a reckless disregard for our further existence; we have to create vast beauraucratic monsters (called "governments") just to try to force corporations from not dumping toxi waste into our oceans; we have to create intricate and complex systems of jurisprudence and religions--rife with corruption and greed on many different levels--with the threats of eternal damnation in the fires of hell just to try to force people to treat one another as they would have them treat themselves; etc, etc., etc.

How is any of that evidence of an inherent structural design toward virtue, when, arguably, if it weren't for the tireless efforts of the few against the majority such institutions would continue to piss in our water supply?

His what? What "normative assignments" would those be and how would any of us know them considering you're positing a non-interfering god?

And what of the non-premeditated evil?

Only to repeat them and forget them from generation to generation so that each generation has to learn them all over again.

My grandfather tried to tell me one time when I was sixteen of the "evils" of going to hookers by relating what happened to him back in 1914 (he was born in 1899). Did this stop me from going to a hooker in Amsterdam when I was 18? No.

Why not? Because his experience was his experience and my experience was my experience and never the twain shall meet. Point being that each generation is dynamically established on an individual basis.

If we aren't moving toward a "perfect" state, but merely a "more virtuous state than the last generation" then where was the "trigger" mechanism that should have prevented me from going to a hooker?

You're taking sweeping generalizations of mankind's history and then optimistically, romantically extrapolating forward to a "better" state in the future and then stating, "and nobody can prove it wasn't the result of a god, therefore PoE fails."

But to do this, you would have to show some tangible evidence of this necessarily inherent structural mechanism that actually reveals itself within each individual, progressing in each generation, not just romantic generalizations of how you personally wish to categorize our history.

Why didn't I inherit a "better" virtuous view of going to hookers from my own grandfather's experience? Because each individual has to determine what it is they consider "right" and "wrong;" virtuous and non-virtuous. Personally, I see nothing non-virtuous about going to a hooker; the experience itself was not what I expected, but there was no moral question I struggled with, but shouldn't there have been, in keeping with your theory?

By positing an argument that is not logically sound, based on premises that are only valid from the assertion and acceptance of a particular perspective?

That's because your argument would be considered the argument that PoE is in response to.

You are asserting the existence of a non-interfering god who has somehow structurally designed us and the universe we exist in to effectively force us toward "more virtue," yes?

But you still haven't adequatly accounted for such things as non-premeditated evil (e.g., SIDS or "acts of god") and you haven't effectively established why your optimistic, romantic assessment of humanity is valid, not to mention explain why such a being would want us to progress in this manner.

Not to mention the fact that such a being could lessen the amount and/or impact of the various attrocities we see all around us, such as children born without limbs or certain organs or with a propensity for schizophrenia, etc., etc., etc., without necessarily effecting our "will."

There are numerous examples that have been brought up here that your primary answer is to say, "Well, being omniscient, god knows it's necessary even if we don't," which, of course, is nothing more than a self-justifying cop out that merely seeks to avoid addressing the salient issues with a trumped up trump card (that, strangely enough, we're not allowed to play in kind).

Dynamically, meaning each generation will go through the same or similar trials and tribulations. Thus it is not about a "meta" path at all and is instead about each individual life's choices.

No, you are arguing god created man as a progressive being and that evil was created into that structure as a necessary "trigger" to that progression.

You are also erroneoulsy conflating "technological progression" with "moral progression," for which we have direct counter examples in such things as WMD's.

...as a result of the incoherent desire of an omnimax being [b]wanting[/]b this to happen for some unknown reason.

We know and understand why mankind would want this for itself, but we still have no clue as to why some omnimax being would instantiate all of this.

But you must if your supposition of an omnimax god instantiating it all can be considered valid.

Sorry, but life intervenes again....

More later.

And just so it's clear, don't take my "tone" to be antagonistic to you personally. It is to your arguments that I address my deconstruction.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by rainbow walking :

Sometimes it will. Sometimes comprehending the pain of something will prevent people from doing it. And that's all I need.

No, it wouldn't. God only needs to prevent more suffering than he's preventing now. He could stop one more instance of painful cancer, and he'd be morally better. And that wouldn't require a radical modification of human nature or the ecosystem.

Suppose there are two cups. One has a pint of water in it. The other is empty. Which one has less water?

Do you really think it would be better to let a child scald herself than to convince her not to pour boiling water on herself? I've never poured boiling water on myself. I never will, on purpose. Or do you think I might?

If you could give every child an instinctive desire not to pour boiling water on herself, would you do it?

If you saw a child about to pour boiling water on herself, would you intervene and pull her away so she couldn't?

Jamie_L

rw:

Back again. And sooner even.

I think Koy and I are beating the same drum here, so I'll try to keep my remarks brief.

I've come up against this idea before, and I've basically decided that its an unfounded assertion. I've banged out whole threads on this one, and given my lack of time to post lately, I don't want to side-track this thread unduely.

But even if I were to grant this assumption, you still have to prove that virtue is more valuable than freedom from suffering.

Really, this arguement holds two unfounded assumptions:
1) Virtue requires suffering.
2) Having virtue is better than not suffering.

I think both these assertions are false, and at the very least, not self-evident.

Absolute moral clarity. It would know what is right and what is wrong because God gave it that knowledge.

Why does it need to know it's morally superior? If God wants it to know it's morally superior, he can give it that knowledge as well.

Without earthquakes, would we have less joy, goodness, and love? Without cancer, ebola, polio? Think of all the extra people who would have lived and enjoyed life if they hadn't been snuffed out en masse by these evils. Think of all the survivors who would have spent less time feeling angry, sad, and guilty. It seems the net happiness of all humanity would be quite larger in the absence of such tragedies.

If people did learn some kind of virtue from these tragedies, are those people happier because of it? Are the people around them happier because of it? Does that outweigh the lost potential for happiness from those involved in the tragedy? I just don't see it.

Is the simple joy of living a happy, healthy life with no tragedy so worthless that it doesn't count for anything?

Jamie

rainbow walking

koy: I didn't reallize free will was back in this. Well, being omnipotent, one can simply implant the knowledge, of course. Not to take from pop culture, but as Neo says in the Matrix, "Now I know judo."

rw: I have intentionally omitted the free aspect of human will due to the connotations often abused in the ensuing arguments. But I have continually asserted man and his willful participation across the board, so the will of man has always been an integral aspect of my argument.
Also, Hollywood and its imagination aside, implantation of knowledge does not automatically trump man’s will. In any given situation criminals had prior knowledge of the illegality of their choices. Often a defense attorney will try to get his client off the hook by pleading ignorance of the normative assignments associated with his crime and the court will appoint a psychologist to examine the accused for evidence of moral comprehension. Knowledge alone does not assure us that man will seek the virtuous path. It is my personal opinion that man’s will to be virtuous is seriously embattled by his sense of mortality, (the feeling that his own existence is a limited resource), so that he is often motivated to seek a short cut in the acquisition of his desires. It is in these short cuts that he runs afoul of virtue and finds himself entangled in circumstances that bring harm to himself and others. This is one reason why I assert the indefinite extension of man’s existence will alleviate this angst that often expresses itself as an adversary of man’s PFR compelling him to make rash and unsound choices that he honestly believes will accomplish his desires economically in relation to his perceived mortality.



koy: Presumably the same way cult members say they know and recognize their choices as virtuous; God told them it was so.

rw: Cult members make these claims on the basis of the existence of both good and evil. If a god eradicated evil as a choice man would have no reference from which to adjudge his actions or assign normative value to the actions of others. Our very personalities derive from this natural ability of man to assign normative value to his experiences. Remove, or modify this ability and man ceases to be man. If PoE must destroy man to support its conclusions it is anything but a sound logic.



koy: What has this to do with virtue?

rw: Everything. The normative value here is basic and revolves around man’s desire to exist. Obviously one of the choices above will not facilitate this desire. All of man’s normative valuations stem from his basic desire to live and be happy. If you negate man’s normative abilities you negate his ability to distinguish between his existence, (the good), and the necessary requirements of his existence, (also the good) such as the sustenance of his body. If a man does not value his existence he has no reason to prefer honey over snake venom.



koy: So? No matter what we are "automatons" to an omniscient being.

rw: Not if our own will has a role in our existence.



koy: Then, again I'll ask, why would a non-interfering god care about such a thing? Why is it important to a being such as the one you posit that humans become "virtuous enough to prefer the right a vast majority of the time," and what does that mean?

rw: The answer to that question is assumed in the connotations and definition of omni-benevolent. If we assume such a being created the accoutrements necessary for a creature such as man to arise, and such a being is omni-benevolent, then his purpose for doing so must necessarily be for the good of that creature to be realized. How it should be realized is one of the underlying assumptive premises in PoE and the parameter of my argument against PoE. PoE’s assumption is that the greatest good of man could have been accomplished by divine fiat with less or no pain and suffering involved. I am deconstructing PoE’s assumption and demonstrating that it is erroneous and does not lead to a logical conclusion that such a being does not exist.

koy: Most humans do prefer the "right" (as they see it) the vast majority of the time. The problem only comes when certain humans (the Hitlers in each generation) don't prefer the "right" (or worse, think what they are advocating is right). Was Hitler wrong? Not according to Hitler (and millions of his followers into our current generation, unfortunately). This happens with every generation to one degree or another, so how does that help us to become more virtuous? There have been literally billions of Hitlers, both small and grand, inflicting suffering throughout mankind's history (upwards of forty thousand years now) and the only thing that has changed is the escalation in the amount of suffering being able to be inflicted and the ability to inflict it on a larger number of people.

rw: And it is man’s responsibility to identify and assign a normative value to these historical events. They can be prevented from recurring when man decides they are not preferable as a means of achieving an end. Hitler and all such examples demonstrate that “virtue” was not their primary objective, but control and manipulation was: curiously the same tactic the proponent of PoE is advocating a god should employ. The amount of suffering and pain possible is not known and hopefully is not necessary to be known to establish a normative assignment to those actions and choices that could incur the maximum amount. It isn’t necessary to burn ones hand to the bone to comprehend the danger of fire to human existence. And I reject your claim that the only thing that has changed is the degree of possible suffering inflicted. There is also a scientific history offsetting these gloom and doom predictions for man’s historical future. But if we only allow ourselves to focus on the gloom and doom we are likely to miss, not only the significance of our science, but the real enemies to man’s reduction of the pain and suffering available at any given historical point of his progress. The lesson man ought to learn from the Hitlers of this world is that you cannot force either virtue or vice upon man’s will without incurring a high degree of pain and suffering along the way, with the end result being the extinction of man, not his progress.

koy: The core "evil" hasn't changed in the slightest and every single one of us is capable of doing it to some degree or another. That we don't is not a matter of inherent structural design; it's the result of social conditioning and indoctrination from birth forward.

rw: Yes, the core structure of political tyranny remains as a choice. Social conditioning and indoctrination from birth do not force men to make these choices. If that were the case I would still be a theist…yes? Man has not yet acquired the vision of his potential. His religions are designed to damn him from birth and his politics, which always eventually follow the popular will, react accordingly and move to manipulate what’s left of the man who has allowed himself to be convinced he is evil and damnable. But for every Hitler there have been a hundred thousand men who have not completely embraced their own damnation and have struggled, each to his own ability, to find some way to rise up out of this sea of despair and take a stand against the core structure of an erroneous vision. Neither man’s religious or political expressions have addressed man’s real enemies but have only facilitated man making enemies of himself and his neighbors. If, and or when, man as a populace grasps the import of his existence and the fact of his real adversaries, his religious and political expressions will follow the will of the man.

koy: For your theory to hold true, we would have to be structurally designed to progress toward becoming more virtuous with every generation, yet that isn't the case, your optimism aside. Look at the Native American Indian cultures that were wiped out en masse. For the most part, they had achieved an almost perfect, virtuous state; living in harmony with nature and each other. Even when they went to "war" with other tribes, the vast majority of those "wars" were not built on death and destruction, but on humiliation; a show of skills.

Indeed, even the great European campaigns were largely fought in "civilized" manners (as much of an oxymoron as that is). Soldiers would line up on a battle field and be directed by the generals and Kings on the hillside and whoever was left standing on the battlefield "won" the war. Civilians used to actually watch the campaigns from hilltops, safe in the knowledge that they would not be considered combatants and therefore left alone.

If anything, we have become progressively more evil over the centuries, not less. Our revolutionary war arguably introduced guerrila warfare to Western Civilization; WWI saw the use of gas; WWII the use of atomic weapons (twice), suicide bombers, Dresden, death camps, etc.; Vietnam gave us napalm and endless carpet bombing and Agent Orange; now we have "WMD's" all over the place (except in the places we say they're in as a pretense to instigate a war, something America officially vowed never to do (overtly); etc., etc., etc., to the point where we now have "smart bombs" that kill more efficiently, instead of what should have happened if your theory was correct. That the thought of war by now would be anathema to the majority instead of fully supported.

This is not "my pessimism;" it is cold hard fact that tends to contradict the notion that an omnibenevolent, non-interfering god structurally created us to progress toward virtue.

rw: Your one basic error here Koy is to assume that my argument differs from social evolution. Evolution does not progress forward or backward in any consistent manner when left to time and chance. Man, however, has the unique position of being able to direct his evolution in a specific direction, if and when he recognizes that direction. Until he does, then he is still left at the mercy of blind evolutionary historical and social forces. Were man to ever fully identify his real enemies and develop his politic around that knowledge his evolutionary thrust will reside within his control.

koy: And how does being able to experience snake venom as snake venom in order to know that it is different than honey result in our becoming more virtuous? We've known that for thousands of years. Yet we still created the Neutron bomb.

More later.

rw: I too am pressed for time. I hope my response here will help establish a clearer framework for us to debate the premises more thoroughly surrounding both PoE and my counter-argument to it. Until tomorrow….

Koyaanisqatsi

But, absent the "free" part, the "will of man" is impotent and we are "automatons;" something you (erroneously) implied is anathema to your god.

Well, now you're just capitulating. We're not talking about teaching or instructing somebody of what they should or shouldn't do; we're talking about an omnimax being implanting the knowledge within the genetic structure on a delayed, time-release program; about an omnimax being designing a human so that they can not, over time and as the result of past experience with necessary evil, become criminals any more (i.e., progress toward virtue).

You have posited an omnimax god who has designed humanity in such a way as to learn from "evil" and progress away from committing it (again, avoiding non-premeditated, human caused evil).

In other, more direct, legal terminology: to determine if the client can mentally participate in his or her own defense; whether or not the accused has the mental capacity to determine "right" from "wrong" in the actions they're accused of.

The determination of "right" and "wrong," however, is according to legal standards and not necessarily "moral" standards.

To show how radically different this concept is from legal paradigms, according to original Mormons, it is "right" (i.e., morally permissable) to have more than one wife. Would a mentally retarded defendant be asked whether or not they think having more than one wife was "right" or "wrong?"

No. They would be asked questions according to the crime they're accused of. If they murdered somebody, they would be asked whether or not their actions were "wrong?"

If they said, "No, killing a person is morally acceptable in times of war and self-defense," then the psychologist would conclude that they are capable of assisting in their own defense because they understand "right" from "wrong" in accordance with the legally acceptable paradigms of "right" and "wrong" as it pertains to killing.

Does this mean, however, that they are morally "right" or knew the difference between morally "right" and "wrong?" Well, that would depend upon who is asserting such a claim. Judeo/Christians are split on the matter. Some say god said, "Thou shalt not kill" and other will say that god said, "Thou shalt not murder.'

Who is "right" in a moral (virtuous) sense?

Then you agree that your proposal mandates a god who designed us in a spcific way.

And it is my personal opinion that acceptance of his anhiliation will result in his doing the "greater good," precisely because he has no other option.

Hence, Jews being constantly persecuted, yet always coming out on top. They are taught there is nothing after life and so seek only to better the short time they have.

Which is "better" and how do you justify such a claim without unjustified assurance of eternity?

You keep asserting that we will conquer death, but have no way of guaranteeing it to support your suppositions.

Further, by asserting immortality, you are once again asserting a perfect state; a state you said we would never attain.

Take the implication of immortality to its logical extreme and you're once again asserting a state of eventual perfection that will last for all eternity; a state that an omnimax god would know would eventually obtain and therefore its omni-benevolence should kick in long before the design of man so that it designs man initially as immortal and omniscient.

Indeed, you have raised no valid argument as to why this god wouldn't make all of us gods right from the start.

Why aren't all of us omnimax creatures? The exact same logical limitations you have declared your own god concept must adhere to would equally apply to any of us omnimax gods, as well, so what's stopping your god from making us all gods just like it?

So, simple solution is: make us all gods, yes?

Everything you are posting points to this eventuality (we will become like gods), so why wouldn't omniscience kick in and make the first god reallize that its creating eventual gods; something that is time-based, but your god is not.

Indeed, your god is omniscient, so it is not constrained by linear time. It could (and must) therefore think at the same instant: man plus knowledge; man plus time; man plus immortality; man = god and just cut out the middle pointlessness and create us all as equal gods.

Why not? We must learn and earn it? Wouldn't we already in the blink of an omniscient god's mind?

Trump cards thrown.

No, they do not. They are told what is good and evil according to their cult leaders. Mormons originally told their members that polygomy was "good."

Were they "wrong?"

Those fundamentalists who follow the bibles that translate the fifth (?) commandment as "Thou shalt not kill" believe that there is no justification for killing, no matter what.

Are they "wrong?"

But if the same god either implanted the knowledge of evil and the reason it is bad in the same way the god understands it, or never created evil to begin with, then there would be no problem.

Likewise, if the same god simply made all of us gods, there would be no problem.

But then who would we have to subjugate to our will? See the missing problem with your argument?

So?

But it doesn't; your argument does. Your argument states that man is not man, but a designed entity with a predetermined purpose.

Please don't counter with, "No, it's not predetermined," because it is. It must be, for your argument to hold water.

Either we came to where we are on our own, or we were setup to become what we are. What you're trying to argue is that a god set everything up to make us become what we are, which means that we didn't do it on our own.

Even if a god said, "These paradigms MAY result in man becoming virtuous," then it is impossible to state that we became virtuous on our own and if you're not arguing that we become virtuous on our own (which you're not) then god intervened.

If god intervened at any point, then all of its omnimax qualities come into play and PoE defeats your supposition.

Remember, PoE is in response to your argument; not the other way around.

You are not "defeating" PoE; you are invoking PoE.

"Desire" or survival instinct? We know, painfully, that this "desire" you speak of can be contravened through suicide and other forms of self-destruction. You had originally argued (in regard to asserted, eventual immortality) that it would be a choice. Why? What made you admit that capitulation?

Some are just "lost?"

Incomplete. All of man's "normative valuations" stem from his basic desire to live and be happy in relation to other humans. If there were no other humans, then there would be no question of happiness, yes? Using your own logic, that is. No other humans would mean no comparative unhappiness.

Or are you asserting that a human can be unhappy absent the knowledge of other humans to make him happy? If so, then you've defeated your own argument.

And there's the core of your fallacy. Why is man's existence "good?"

Again, the fallacy. Why are the "necessary requirments of his existence" also "good?"

Because non-existence is "bad?" Why would mere existence be intrinsically "good?" What of the dinosaurs, then?

But the question, again, is not about man valuing his own existence; the question is, why would the god you posit value man's existence?



What has our will got to do with a god's omniscience, especially if it isn't "free?"

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. How did "to be reallized" get into this?

You just erroneoulsy slipped that qualification in there without justification and without logical support. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc is a fallacy, rendering any premises or conclusions based upon it invalid. You can't do that. Sorry, but foul! I must throw a red flag and your syllogism is discarded as non-sequitur.

If such a being as you posit exists (with omnimax qualities), then its omniscience would already know the outcome of the given parameters and then it's omni-benevolence would kick in (as you argued previously in a different manner).

You must cease to randomly apply the omnimax trump cards whenever they suit your presuppositions as that is a distinct fallacious no-no.

Remember, you are the one asserting the existence of an unproved concept, so the best you can do is argue: If we assume such a being created the accoutrements necessary for a creature such as man to arise, and such a being is omni-benevolent, then his purpose for doing so must necessarily be for the good of that creature. Period.

The "to be reallized" qualification is an invalid addendum that results in a forced, invalid conclusion.

And therefore, your primary fallacy. PoE does not argue how it should be reallized; it argues how it could be reallized.

See? You do know the distinction, yet did not argue it prior in anything you've posted. You've been arguing "should" and not "could."

But you aren't. You've been arguing a "should" and thinking you're arguing a "could."

Could an omnimax god lessen suffering and still be non-interfering in the manner you argue? Yes, it could.

Therefore, PoE is valid.

"Responsibility?" To whom? To man? Or to your god? If to man, then no problem. If to your god, then why?

You keep asserting a form of "responsibility," but to whom? That's the question. If the responsibility is to man, then it would have nothing to do with a god; if the responsibility is to a god, then it would have nothing to do with man.

If the responsibility is to man and it has to do with a god, then what is the "has to do with" addendum? What is god's purpose in any of this and why does it only apply to humans?

Beg pardon, but virture was Hitler's only objective. The "Aryan ideal," for example, was to be the most virtuous human imaginable (and, indeed, though I don't mean to lump any of us into this mess, a perfect example of what you've been talking about). The entire purpose of Hitler's "Reich" (as stated) was in the purification of the human race to make sure that only perfect humans were generated from that day forward. He therefore murdered the old and the infirm and the nomads (i.e., the Gypsies and the Jews). Care to review the tenets of the Hitler Jugend?

And the same tactic you are employing when you argue that a god designed the world in such a way as to result in man's "greatest good."

What's the difference? Hitler instantiated a course of events that was supposed to result in man achieving its "greatest good." The events were seen as "necessary evils" in order to teach the world the "right" course of events.

Yes, it is. Clearly, as has been repeatedly demonstrated to you.

Of what? Explain WMD's, then. According to you argument, we should (yes, should) have no longer engaged in selective murder in order to establish a "greater good" of humanity.

Hitler and Stalin (and Pol Pot and Ghenghis Khan and George Bush (Sr and Jr) and insert any number of genocidal mass murderers for the purposes of ethnic cleansing here), however, disproves your argument.

Then why does your god allow us to burn our hands to the bone?

There, I've run rings around you; logically. (cue Monty Python responses )

That was not the extent of my "claim." History proves that we have grown more "non-virtuous;" not less.

Recent events prove this. We (America)--who were once avowed to never instigate a war (overtly)--just did for corrupt reasons having nothing to do with man's "greatest good."

They are not "gloom and doom predictions!" They are unemotional, clinical assessments of human existence. They are facts of our nature.

Agreed. However, this has nothing to do with your argument.

According to whom?

And? The dinosaurs reigned for millions of years and they were wiped out. Gone. Anihilated. What could have been more virtuous than the dinosaurs, given this paradigm? Man? How? Did Tyrannosaurus (the top of the food chain and therefore, arguably, like man) develop WMD's or flourocarbons to destroy the Ozone layer or Jihads or death camps...etc., etc., etc.?

And don't say they didn't have the "capacity" to do it, since we have no idea. We only have bones in the ground.

No. That is not what I argued. The core structure of man has not changed in the slightes and cannot or no personal "greatest good" will obtain.

You're changing the terms of my arguments in order to address them.

Yes they do, just not in the manner you're arguing.

No offense, but you still are, apparently .

Agreed.

Agreed.

Their own forced, erroneous damnation...

Agreed, since, what you've just said is, "Man refuses to submit to other men" (ultimately and in the ideal; though the reality is in stark contrast to this).

Also agreed. What this has to do with a presupposition of an omnimax god, however, is outside of this stream of consciouness.

Which is? To survive. Individually. Just like the trillions of other beings on this planet.

And your one fatal error is to think your argument can differ from social evolution. It cannot.

Hence, the PoE.

Now, come on! That's a blatant fallacy. "Time and chance" is the foundation of a progressive, adaptive theory of evolution.

What's more, how would you know this? Did whales sing ten million years ago? How would you know?

Let's look at that for a second. "Man has the unique position of being able to direct his evoltion in a specifc direction" is one argument.

"If and when he recognizes that direction" is another argument.

One (the former) states that man is in control; the other (the latter) implies that man is not in control.

So which is it?

Here's another fallacy. You're stating (implying) that man has an evolutionary destiny that it must "recognize" (awaken), presumably implanted or designed into it.

You're fallaciously asserting and deifying the concept of "destiny" and removing man from it in order to declare (in essence), "If man doesn't see it has a choice, it will perish." Then you are erroneously asserting that this "choice" was imposed by a god.

Man is a natural being. Therefore it will always be "left at the mercy" of evolution. Even according to your own theory, man will always (necessarily) be at the mercy of evolution. That's the purpose of evolution (according to your theory).

See? You've just supported PoE, however indirectly.

Sorry, but yours is not a counter argument; yours is a reiteration of the same argument, with invalid constructs added in.

You are positing an omnimax god with the addendum that it is a non-interfering god. PoE (as expanded here) disproves this.

rainbow walking

Hi Koy,
I like to respond to each of your arguments but, unfortunately for me, I’m out of town and at the mercy of the public library system which only allows me one hour a day. Add to that the fact that I neither think nor type very fast and well, you are over-whelming me with arguments that I do not have the time to adequately respond to as I would like. So I’m going to plug along and respond to each argument from you and others as I have the time.


koy: More now (sorry, life intervened ).

rw: I know the feeling.



koy: But will it necessarily be a turning of another page in regard to virtue or merely self-survival? Again, for your argument to hold true, we would have to be escaping earth and extending our lives as a matter of inherent structural design toward virtue. How does that obtain necessarily from a progress in science (i.e., technology)?

rw: There is no inherent structural design within man except the desire to exist happily. His PFR has arisen out of his recognition that being right facilitates his existence and happiness more so than being wrong. This axiom is inescapable irrespective of man’s developmental position historically. At no point can any man stop caring or seeking to be right in his choices and actions. The moment he does so is the moment he ceases to be virtuous.


koy: Would we be escaping earth in order to escape human tyranny; to escape man's inhumanity to man? How? Why wouldn't the same inherent "evil" qualities (such as greed and lust and hatred and anger, etc.) follow us out in to space and onto the next planet we land on (or space station we create)?

rw: Indefinite lifespan and advancement into the universe, taken together, will greatly reduce man’s susceptibility to the choices that lead to such adverse consequences.

koy: If history is our judge, we won't so without direct intervening by your god concept, what is going to fundamentally change our inherent nature?

rw: Well, history reflects man’s status as it is and has been since the caves. This status does not include indefinite life and space travel. It is extremely pessimistic to conclude that man must always be subject to passions that are stimulated by his mortality and competition for limited resources after those two stimulants have been addressed scientifically. Man has extended his life span and he has made the first small steps into the universe. This cannot be denied. It would be extremely foolish to expect humanity to change immediately as a result of these very small advances. They are a step in the right direction. When the pressures of being trapped on this planet and being trapped in a mortal body that ages and dies have been addressed, virtue will flourish. Nature has genetically assembled living organisms that live for thousands of years, organisms like trees that have been dated to 6000 years old and sea turtles that live 6 and 7 hundred years, so it isn’t like I’m postulating something that nature itself hasn’t already stacked the genetic cards in favor of. It’s just a matter of man duplicating the process.

koy: Seen objectively, humans are the cockroaches of this planet. We destroy our own resources (peeing in our own water supply); we rape and pillage the land with a reckless disregard for our further existence; we have to create vast beauraucratic monsters (called "governments") just to try to force corporations from not dumping toxi waste into our oceans; we have to create intricate and complex systems of jurisprudence and religions--rife with corruption and greed on many different levels--with the threats of eternal damnation in the fires of hell just to try to force people to treat one another as they would have them treat themselves; etc, etc., etc.

How is any of that evidence of an inherent structural design toward virtue, when, arguably, if it weren't for the tireless efforts of the few against the majority such institutions would continue to piss in our water supply?

rw: Well Koy, where did these tireless few acquire their virtues? You can’t remain consistent to your claims of humanity, as nothing more than “cockroaches”, even for two sentences. You have to admit that virtue and virtuous people do exist and have. Now how does man increase that number? How do we turn the minority into the majority?



koy: His what? What "normative assignments" would those be and how would any of us know them considering you're positing a non-interfering god?


rw: The normative assignments that stem from man’s existence and desires. How do you know when you have a headache Koy? Do you require external interference to determine you have a headache? No, but you likely recognize those external stimulants causing your head to ache…yes? And you likely do something to alleviate the pain…yes? Even if such a being exists intervention isn’t necessary. Man has everything he needs to accomplish his own greater good.



koy: And what of the non-premeditated evil?

rw: What of it? They are two different animals but man is obligated to address those as well, if he desires to live. If man doesn’t possess any degree of virtue why bother with medicine at all? Why not just let the sick either live or die on their own? Why bother to monitor the weather, or seismic activity or volcanic activity? Science is man’s greatest virtuous expression.



koy: Only to repeat them and forget them from generation to generation so that each generation has to learn them all over again.

rw: Science does not forget.

koy: My grandfather tried to tell me one time when I was sixteen of the "evils" of going to hookers by relating what happened to him back in 1914 (he was born in 1899). Did this stop me from going to a hooker in Amsterdam when I was 18? No.

Why not? Because his experience was his experience and my experience was my experience and never the twain shall meet. Point being that each generation is dynamically established on an individual basis.

If we aren't moving toward a "perfect" state, but merely a "more virtuous state than the last generation" then where was the "trigger" mechanism that should have prevented me from going to a hooker?

You're taking sweeping generalizations of mankind's history and then optimistically, romantically extrapolating forward to a "better" state in the future and then stating, "and nobody can prove it wasn't the result of a god, therefore PoE fails."

But to do this, you would have to show some tangible evidence of this necessarily inherent structural mechanism that actually reveals itself within each individual, progressing in each generation, not just romantic generalizations of how you personally wish to categorize our history.

rw: Most individual choices and experiences are contained within a limited range of available alternatives. You are not the first nor likely to be the last to use the services of a hooker. Science is about the business of extending man’s field of choices. Maybe one day scientists will develop an alternative method for sexual release that trumps the hooker and puts her out of work? History, sans science, would have man living in the caves to this day. The fact is, man’s science can extend his field of choices to those which neither you nor your grandfather had access. This is progress that paves the way for the reduction of experiences that have the potential to bring pain or suffering. Not forced reduction, but reduction by default since a better alternative exists. You are not prevented from walking to work but science and technology have extended your range of choices on how to get to work.

koy: Why didn't I inherit a "better" virtuous view of going to hookers from my own grandfather's experience? Because each individual has to determine what it is they consider "right" and "wrong;" virtuous and non-virtuous. Personally, I see nothing non-virtuous about going to a hooker; the experience itself was not what I expected, but there was no moral question I struggled with, but shouldn't there have been, in keeping with your theory?

rw: Only if you begin with an assumption that hookers are somehow morally wrong. You could have masturbated and saved yourself the money but you wanted to experience the hooker routine. You had to explore this avenue of sexual release to determine if it was right for you. Remember my argument flows on the paradigm of trial and error that requires the exploration of many alternatives to arrive at the right. Virtue is not attainable without great cost and experience.
Well, this is all I have time to address for now. I’ll pick up here tomorrow and continue to the end of this post and then address Thomas and others replies in the order in which they are submitted.

rainbow walking

koy: No, you are arguing god created man as a progressive being and that evil was created into that structure as a necessary "trigger" to that progression.

rw: My argument doesn’t necessitate a god having created anything. My argument is directly related to PoE and its assumptions. PoE assumes such a being created this state of affairs. My argument doesn’t require any such assumption. It doesn’t really matter how this state of affairs came to exist. The proponent of PoE only assumes that if such a being existed, with the ascribed attributes, he has the power and motivation to change the current state of affairs. This particular version of PoE we’ve shorted to CP, for Contemporary PoE, assumes that a god both could have and should have caused a different state of affairs to obtain, either directly at the outset or via interference along the way. So you see, it is PoE who is assuming a creative god…not I. My argument, to be relative to the CP, must respond on that basis but it isn’t necessary that it be so because my argument also carries the additional weight of being consistent to this reality even if no such being exists. My argument is also NOT intended as a logical proof that such a being exists, but only a deconstruction of PoE to show that their conclusion is not logical. There is an immense difference here and a distinction you appear to have missed.

koy: You are also erroneoulsy conflating "technological progression" with "moral progression," for which we have direct counter examples in such things as WMD's.

rw: No I am not. I have conceded, during the course of defending my argument, that man’s moral progression lags far behind his technological progression. This concession does not mean there has been no moral progression, only that it has not kept pace with man’s technological progression. And for good reason, since man’s science and technology, for all the benefits we derive from it, is still in its fledgling stage and only beginning to point man towards indefinite life and space travel. Only when science allows man to make major breakthroughs in these areas will the pressures associated with mortality and earth boundness be relieved enough for man to begin any earnest moral progress.



koy: ...as a result of the incoherent desire of an omnimax being wanting[/]b this to happen for some unknown reason.

We [b]know and understand why mankind would want this for itself, but we still have no clue as to why some omnimax being would instantiate all of this.

rw: But Koy, none of that is relevant to PoE. PoE is not based on a motive beyond omni-benevolence in its argumentation so I have no obligation to allow you to drag the parameters of my argument beyond those assumed in the CP. My argument has a built in purpose for such a being revolving around its desire to see man achieve his greatest good. That is consistent with the CP that is also arguing a god should have instantiated a different state of affairs resulting in a greater good for man, i.e. the reduction of pain and suffering or eradication of evil and its sources. Your continual insistence for a reason other than this is a straw man.



koy: But you must if your supposition of an omnimax god instantiating it all can be considered valid.

rw: But that is not my argument. I am arguing that man is responsible for the progressive climb towards these goals, not that a god should instantly, (instantiate), such a state without man’s participation. You seem to be confused in this matter.

koySorry, but life intervenes again....

More later.

And just so it's clear, don't take my "tone" to be antagonistic to you personally. It is to your arguments that I address my deconstruction.

rw: Nor do I intend to convey any personal “tone” in my responses to your arguments.

rainbow walking

Thomas: Sometimes it will. Sometimes comprehending the pain of something will prevent people from doing it. And that's all I need.

rw: Do you know why that “sometimes” is necessary? My argument clearly spells out the criteria for “learning”: trial and error. It isn’t necessary to re-invent the wheel, so to speak, every time we have a choice to make. We can base our decisions on pre-existing knowledge. Now, if man already possesses knowledge of the dangers in a specific situation, why is a god, whose attribute of omni-benevolence, obligated morally to prevent man from ignoring knowledge he’s already garnered? It is man’s responsibility to protect his children especially while they’re at the age where “knowing” or being taught of a specific danger is still beyond their level of comprehensibility. What is it that makes you assume that a god is morally obligated to fill in the gaps of man’s negligence? If man is to progress he must be morally obligated to do so, but if a god intervenes and does it for him, how does man progress? You have yet to make any meaningful connection between man’s moral obligations and a gods. You just continue to assume that because man would be morally obligated that a god would also. But a god is not expressing his omni-benevolence if he prevents man from attaining his own greater good by hindering man’s moral progress.



Thomas: No, it wouldn't. God only needs to prevent more suffering than he's preventing now. He could stop one more instance of painful cancer, and he'd be morally better. And that wouldn't require a radical modification of human nature or the ecosystem.

rw: And I reject this claim out right. If such a being existed and demonstrated his willingness to stop one painful death via cancer, but allowed all other victims to continue to suffer and die, I would hardly find such a being to be morally better. It’s either all or nothing Thomas. If a god interfered for some and not all, this favoritism would not be construed to be morally superior but immoral at the root. No matter how you slice it, partial interference for some is not moral purity nor omni-benevolent. Those who were left out would still be arguing the CP. It eventually boils down to “all-or-nothing” Thomas. And that’s why this CP is just as susceptible deconstruction as the traditional version. At every point you are forced to retreat to complete eradication to remain consistent to the terms of human ethics of fairness.



Thomas: Suppose there are two cups. One has a pint of water in it. The other is empty. Which one has less water?

rw: One has NO water…not less water Thomas. For there to be less there must be some amount in both cups.



Thomas: Do you really think it would be better to let a child scald herself than to convince her not to pour boiling water on herself? I've never poured boiling water on myself. I never will, on purpose. Or do you think I might?

rw: Well, now you’ve again changed the parameters of your example. I thought we were discussing the ramifications of accidental scalding? Now you’ve pulled the old theist trick of redefining the terms of the example to be premeditated self inflicted scalding. And I thought we were considering the circumstances to involve a child incapable of comprehending the consequences? Now you’ve upped the comprehension level. I can’t see a child, capable of comprehending the danger, willfully scalding herself, so your example has drifted far shy of anything I can see to be meaningful to your CP. But then there are ways to convince people to intentionally harm themselves. Body piercing, tattoos, self mutilations are not that uncommon. Should an omni-benevolent god also prevent these activities?



Thomas: If you could give every child an instinctive desire not to pour boiling water on herself, would you do it?

rw: Children already have this instinctual drive Thomas, after the initial pain, their fight or flight instinct spurs an immediate response for their self preservation. And they learn immediately from such experiences never to duplicate them again. How do you instill an instinctive recognition of boiling water as a danger? Especially if the water is above you hidden in a pot and all you see is a curious black handle thingy protruding out from the edge of the stove.

Thomas: If you saw a child about to pour boiling water on herself, would you intervene and pull her away so she couldn't?

rw: I’ve already answered this question once on this page.