Samhain

Of course not, if it accepted that God controls everything then all goes in accordance to God's "plan" therefore any kind of after-the-fact punishment cannot be considered truly as "punishment" but just part of God's reasoning to make the world the way that he wants it. Lives are acceptable in that sense, but eternal punishment is not. If hell exists, then how could God damn us there for nothing we have control over in our lives. This is more of the line of questioning that I'm on...

But we know what it is to have these things, and in essence, it is impossible for them to be a trait of a being. I can't see how they "transcend" logic rather than just refuse to acknowledge it. They cannot "transcend" logic, I think, it would just be logically impossible, or inconcieveable. Occam's razor.

Not if God chooses those morals for us.

Sorry, still don't think so. It brings up the question of the nature of God. Perhaps God is just a big joker, yes? Perhaps there is some underlying purpose for this, yes?

Sure it does. If we live by the same morals that God does, then we see that God does not have to adhere to those morals. If our morality is not subject to God's will, then we have proven free-will and disproven God's omnimaxness since he does not control everything (our thought in particular). If God controls everything about life or is an omnimax creator then our morality means nothing.

Depends on if God is omnimax or not. If he is then we can see his actions at work anywhere we look. If he is not omnimax then it's a bit harder, or perhaps not possible, but if this is the case then God can be viewed as an immoral creature.

So what about hell? And what about every evil in the world? If God is omnimax he has the power to control everything, and evil need not be in the world if he wills it otherwise. We could have a perfect world if God wanted that, with no suffering, pain, etc. but he obviously can't change that (so he is not omnimax) or he won't change that (making him immoral).

Jayhawker Soule

... and yet anoher possibility is that God wants to promote an active imagination (but not, of course, among the Midianites). [i]You really need to read the book.

jpbrooks

I read the book. My point was that since more than one possible interpretation of the passages cited is possible, the task of biblical interpretation is not a simple matter of reading out of a particular passage whatever one desires.

[ March 25, 2002: Message edited by: jpbrooks ]</p>

jpbrooks

For the same reason I gave before, "hell" cannot be a place of "punishment" or "damnation" for anything.
The provlem is that there is simply no inconsistency involved in a God who is already considered the direct cause of everything (including acts that violate His moral laws, assuming that this is possible) sending people to hell.

That's what I meant. To me, the term "transcend logic" just means "illogical". That's why I hold that they don't "transcend logic".

Again, there is no inconsistency involved in anything that such a God does. So, for this interpretation of God, the problem alluded to in the original argument does not apply.

Assuming that the interpretation of God that you presented is true, I would answer yes to both questions.

No, it is possible for our thinking to be independent from that of God in its content while our brain processes remain within the realm of cause and effect.

So, if God is "omnimax" then both good and evil come from Him. But doesn't this contradict His "onmibenevolence"?
But if He is not "omnimax" then there is no way to know for sure what His actions are.
In neither case above do we have a basis for assuming that morality is defined by God's actions.

But again, since (on your assumptions) morality must have come from this "omnimax" God somehow, morality must have some other aspect of God than His actions as a basis.

So, the question is how do we come to know God's position on morality if not by "observing" His actions?

We don't know a great deal about hell. Hell may be deemed a "better" place than heaven by some people, e.g., by people who can't bear having a God in their presence all the time.
And why would a world that will never have anything in it but morally naive creatures, who never have any possibility of acquiring knowledge about good and evil, be a more "perfect" world than our own?

Samhain

Granted, God would be the cause of Hell, directly because of being omnimax (omnibenevolence has trouble falling under here, though). But while God is just going "according to plan" in a sense, in the meantime, thousands roast in hell for nothing. Is this just? How is this different than the indifference of nature? Occam's Razor in effect again. If God has the same attributes as nature, but he is just a "being" in a sense, why does it make sense to have God around at all? God would therefore be nothing different than which that we see around us everyday, and God would just be an unnecessary diety existing for no real reason. Unless of course, God is nature, well, that brings up paganistic properties to God, then...Why complicate a situation beyond need. God has all attributes the same as nature, yet, exists apart from nature and is conscious of his actions, yet he is still as indifferent as nature is, and his actions in the world would be the same as natures...? That's completely pointless, the existence of God has no meaning in this way then. It's the same thing as a hard deterministic universe with an afterlife of torment of bliss. That makes completely no sense at all. I guess God works in "mysterious ways" if this is the case? Ridiculous.

Ok, therefore God is, in essence, an illogical being? What is the point of worshipping something that all logical evidence points against? If we cannot even understand the nature of God, we cannot understand anything about God, therefore to worship God is the same as worshipping a "wabbajacko." It's basically just making up a word/name to worship just for the sake of worshipping it, not founded on any reasons at all. How pointless and adsurd. At least you can see the golden calf.

No inconsistency, but it seems extremely pointless to worship this God (if you have a choice).

Either that, or the answer is no to both and God is just indifferent and doesn't really care much about anything.

How so? God being omnimax means he controls everything, as I stated before, thoughts included. It's ridiculous to think that everything is controlled by God, but our thoughts are somehow not, especially considering that many our thoughts are products of our environment, actions (or personality), time, etc.

So God, by our standards, can be seen as immoral, yes? Since he does wrong in the world, yes? As you said, this interferes with omnibenevolence. Therefore this God cannot be seen as absolutely good, so in accordance, he is either the same as nature (if nature was a conscious entity) or he is a fallible God, subject to the same attributes than man is subject to (pride, hate, fear, etc.)


He'd have to let us know somehow, I guess, which I haven't seen happen. So we must assume that our omnimax creator is not benevolent but more so, is omniindifferent instead. Therefore we could see how God's actions take effect on our world in this case. For how can God be omnibenevolent if he allows evil to exist in the world that he would have the power to change through his omnipotence and omniscience?

Well, this brings up some very important points to observe about the Christian God, does it not, especially if one is a Christian. As I stated before, my viewpoint is objective in this case, I have nothing invested in the Christian God or any other god(s), it simply does not matter to me either way. Our views of heaven and hell may or may not be anything like they actually are if we accept that they exist, and this is one of the more curious arguments if we accept everything else that we have concluded as true. I have no true answer for this one, for as you said, we know little about either place. But it's shown in the Bible that Hell is really hot with no water (seems most disagreeable) and that Heaven is filled with pretty music, roads of gold, beautiful gardens and mansions all to yourself (hedonistic, is it not?).

[ March 25, 2002: Message edited by: Samhain ]</p>

jpbrooks

So, in what way does this "being" have anything to do with the original argument?
A "God" that is considered to be the direct and immediate cause of everything (thereby eliminating any possibility of moral responsibility for any act) is, by nature, amoral; not omnibenevolent. So, "His" existence was irrelevant to any argument related to "the problem of evil" from the outset.
Your analysis has shown that it was pointless to have posited such a "God" in the first place. This "God" saves us all a lot of effort by using Occam's Razor on Himself.

I'm not suggesting this.

Why would it be less absurd to worship a gold object?

This "God" apparently doesn't exist anyway. So "He" saves us the trouble of deciding whether to worship "Him".

"He" doesn't even seem like a being worthy of consideration (at least, not for purposes regarding morality), much less worship.

Even if the "Omnimax" God that you are proposing doesn't exist, the causal relationship between our brain processes and our environment remains. So how can simply getting rid of the "Omnimax" God suddenly and automatically bestow "free will" upon us?

And in neither case is "His" existence relevant in any argument related to the "problem of evil".

Why would this amoral "God" even desire to get rid of evil? And Why should "He"?

Yes, hedonistic, except that, in heaven, there is a God always around telling you how to enjoy it, and otherwise "interfering" in your life. Why would a person who dislikes having a God around not view this as "eternal condemnation"?

[ March 26, 2002: Message edited by: jpbrooks ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

My point exactly! Exegeses that reflects little more than wishful thinking is ultimately self refuting.

jpbrooks

Especially if that is what the exegesis states.

Samhain

jpbrooks:

I know much has not been clarified as of yet, but I hope that I can now explain to you my position with the problem of an omnimax creator.

I think now that we have discussed many of these things which are relevant to the argument we can now draw several conclusions based upon what situations can and cannot be possible.

Conclusion 1: God is an omnibenevolent creator, but he cannot extend further than this with his "omnimaxity." He cannot be omnipotent in this sense, since his omnibenevolence would dictate to change all of the evil in the world to good, since God would not be able to put up with evil in the world because it goes against his ultimate and undying "goodness." So we can therefore assume in this conclusion that since God does not change all evil to good, that he is, in a sense, powerless to change all of the world to good, so this questions his omnipotence and/or omniscience. I will hold that God in this situation has the power to change some things in the world, but his power cannot extend in the "universal" sense, but he changes what he can, when he can. In this case we would have Free will.

Conclusion 2: God is, basically, the same as nature. God holds to the characteristics of omnipotence and omniscience, but instead of omnibenevolence, holds to omniindifference, since we we have concluded that it is impossible for omnibenevolence to exist along with omnipotence. God is nothing more than a hard deterministic viewpoint in this sense, and can be eliminated by applying Occam's razor. This God, as a entity, makes little, if any, sense at all. It would be pointless to worship a God of this type, one might as well worship nature. In this case God would eliminate free will, just like a deterministic universe would. I still hold that we cannot have free will with God as an omniscient and omnipotent being.

Conclusion 3: I hesitate to list this as a conclusion at all, since it is completely absurd and, I believe, impossible, but I've decided to list it anyway since I figured this would be more of the theistic viewpoint.
God keeps his omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence (even though, if we regard the Bible as accurate at all, we know this to be quite absurd, especially with omnibenevolence). We still have free will, and our actions are completely free of God's intervention (in a basic sense)(even though this conflicts with his omniscience and omnipotence). God allows evil into the world for some sense which we cannot understand (even though this conflicts with his omnibenevolence). Therefore it would be just for God to punish us accordingly depending on our actions, since we are not one of God's "tools" in this sense. The reason why God can have all of his "omnimaxity" is because, while we can define the terms, the attributes themselves "transcend logic." So basically God has everyone of these attributes, but cannot be bound by them in any sense? Absurd. In this case it is impossible to understand any attribute of God at all, and therefore impossible to understand God. This is another example of the cryptic nonsense which (in my experience) theists seem to fall back upon time after time, when they refuse to see logic and reason. I cannot even count this type of god as supernatural, but just irrational and impossible. This definition of God makes the least amount of sense at all in my opinion, but it is the only one which can explain all of the contradictions of God by basically shifting the burden of proof.

Now which of these three is worth worship? (1) A god who can be just as incompetant as any human since he does not have enough knowledge or power to be infallible, (2) A god who is basically nature and determinism defined or (3) A fairy tale. Something nice to hear and ok to believe if you are four years old, but when faced with harsh reality, it is sensed that this is completely devoid of all logic and reason. And therefore it can be logically concluded that there is no purpose in worshipping a god which one cannot even begin to comprehend let alone define.

I think this pretty much will answer any of the questions you posed before, but if you still have some, or have any more comments, feel free to ask/comment.

[ March 26, 2002: Message edited by: Samhain ]</p>

jpbrooks

Thanks. I had a long post typed up and lost all of my text data. So, I decided to just list the essential points from that post in this reproduction.

All three "Gods" above are problematic. (Actually, the "God" that comes closest to that of Theism is the "God" of Conclusion 1 rather than the one in Conclusion 3.)

The "God" in Conclusion 1 cannot be omnibenevolent either. This "God" is either or both not omnipotent or/and not omniscient. If "He" is omniscient, then "He" failed to avoid performing acts that "He" knew would eventually lead to the occurrence of evil. This, on your assumptions, makes "Him" an evil being. On the other hand, if "He" is not omniscient, then "He" chose to perform acts without knowing whether those acts would lead to good or evil. Which, again assuming your principles, makes "Him" amoral. In neither case can "He" be omnibenevolent.

The God of Conclusions 2, as you have already pointed out, is superfluous. And the God in Conclusion 3 is, as you have suggested, mislabelled as an "Omnimax" being.

If there is no reason to assume that a being exists, there is no point in asking why that being allows things like evil.
Again, the underlying problem in this discussion is that the distinction between direct (or immediate) causation and indirect causation is being rejected. Unless we can both agree to accept this distinction, we can never be referring to the same being when we use the term "God", you will never be able to make any sense out of the relationship between God and morality, and no "God" that you propose will be relevant in arguments related to the "problem of evil" for Theism. So, I wil let that final observation answer any future comments that you may desire to make.

[ March 27, 2002: Message edited by: jpbrooks ]</p>