Bill Snedden

Hey, if the shoe fits...

Seriously, I don't. I'm speaking of the slavemaster that some people (apparently yourself included) claim is the Holy, omnipotent Creator of all. Like I said, I think that's quite a slanderous mischaracterization.
Asked and answered:
Regards,

Bill Snedden

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Bill,
And why is it that you feel God is a 'tyrannical slavemaster'?



Not exactly. How is calling God a neurotic, petty-minded, tyrannical slavemaster 'seeking' God?




Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Philosoft

I'm confused, SOMMS. This is the God that Bill said he was explicitly not seeking. And, since this is not the God you claim to believe in, you should be encouraging Bill.

Bill Snedden

Does this feel like a circle to anyone besides me?

One more time: I don't feel that God is a "tyrannical slavemaster". I have no belief in God; I am agnostic as to whether or not it exists. I simply seems to me that your characterization of God is best described by the appellation "slavemaster":

• He owns us
• He can do as he wills with us
• His authority exists without question
• He doesn't have to explain his actions, regardless of how inexplicable they seem
• Rebellion against his "authority" is punishable by eternal torture
• etc.

Now, the first bullet alone should be enough to demonstrate that this conception of god is a slavemaster. The rest are just variations on that theme.

Most rational beings (and that would include "god", whatever he might be) understand that authority exists only by the consent of those over whom the authority is claimed. IOW, God's authority to rule over us must come from our free consent or it is not true authority, but totalitarian monarchy. Where authority is usurped, there is no freedom, no liberty, and hence no morality as the ability to make moral choices depends upon the freedom to choose.

Your conception of "God" as a slavemaster reduces Man to a mere slave, not the free moral agent he truly is.

I think that if God does exist, he doesn't claim to rule over us, as you believe. Our freedom and moral liberty are his gift to us. He desires nothing more than that we justify the trust he places in us and that we trust in him to do likewise.

After all, that's what I'd want from my children. I certainly don't intend to torture them eternally when they let me down...

If I were actually calling "God" by that label, I don't think it would be. How do you think worshipping him as one endears him to you?

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Bill,
I'd agree with the first 4 items...not the 5th.

This does not demonstrate 'slavemaster'...it demonstrates 'ownership'.

Moreover, IF God did create us (and everything else) THEN He does own us (and everything else).


?? This is unilaterally false.

If you decide not to 'consent' to your parents this doesn't mean they have no authority over you.

If you decide not to 'consent' to your teachers this doesn't mean they have no authority over you.

If you decide not to 'consent' to the police this doesn't mean they have no authority over you.

If you decide not to 'consent' to the President of the United States this doesn't mean he has no authority over you.

Ad infintum.


Authority is not a 'choice' of those subject to it.

You seem to have stepped on a idealogical landmine here Bill.


You misunderstand.

I have no concept of God as 'slavemaster'. You seem to be the only one propositioning this idea. Moreover, the only reason you offer for this is that you equate 'God's ownership of everything' to 'Southern plantation owner buying African Americans at auction and workin' em all day in the cotton fields'. A bizzare and fantastical translation, yet incorrect none the less.






Why do you believe this?




Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Fiach

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas
[B]Bill,

He owns us

He can do as he wills with us

His authority exists without question

He doesn't have to explain his actions, regardless of how inexplicable they seem

Rebellion against his "authority" is punishable by eternal torture

etc.


I'd agree with the first 4 items...not the 5th.

If God made us (which I reject) then he would own us as slaves.
He can do whatever he pleases with us, as his slave property. He doesn't need to explain why to a slave. Rebellion against the slave master historically results in extreme punishment or death, so that fits as well. Of course, eternal torture is by Fundamentalist thinking punishment for unbelief not moral rebellions. Sins do not count if you are saved. Unbelief is unforgivable.


This does not demonstrate 'slavemaster'...it demonstrates 'ownership'.

I think you are playing sematic hair splitting. Slaves are indeed owned, and the owner is the master. American black slaves called their owner, "master." (colloquially, "Massa.")

Moreover, IF God did create us (and everything else) THEN He does own us (and everything else).

And if that Godly owner is cruel, vindictive, capricious, unjust, and subject to lethal rage attacks, then we are truely in a nightmare universe. Even a kindly master is not a ideal existence for slaves. A violent, unpredictable, and homicidal one is truely a horror story.

Most rational beings...understand that authority exists only by the consent of those over whom the authority is claimed.

?? This is unilaterally false.

This is true (Bill is right) in the real matter-energy univers where rational intelligent beings have made a social contract for the purpose of a good and altruistic society. It is so because God is imaginary. But assuming the existence of an all-powerful cruel, violent god who views humans as mere property (SOMMS' belief) it makes a logical sense, a frighteningly logical sense.

If you decide not to 'consent' to your parents this doesn't mean they have no authority over you.

The idea of consent refers to fully rational humans. Children are not considered to be fully rational but growing and learning. Until they reach adult maturity, they are under parental authority. However, good parents do not slay their children or toss them into a fire for disobedience.

If you decide not to 'consent' to your teachers this doesn't mean they have no authority over you.

Again, they can make you write, "I must do my homework" 100 times on the chalk board. But a good teacher does not hang the child by a noose from the ceiling. He/she counsels the child, or warns that he is forgiven but future disobedience could result in parental-teacher counselling. The Teacher does not set the child on fire after dowsing him with petrol.

If you decide not to 'consent' to the police this doesn't mean they have no authority over you.

No, but they must read you their rights to solicitor before questioning. They may not arbitrarily administer a beating for punishment. Their authority over you is based on the consent of your and other parents in the social contract. Their authority can be cancelled for abuse, as with parents and teachers.

If you decide not to 'consent' to the President of the United States this doesn't mean he has no authority over you.

He does have almost God like authority in your country, for 4 years at a time. You can impeache him, a difficult if not impossible process. In the UK, we can have parliament vote "no confidence" and his authority goes pppfffttt.

Ad infintum.

No, it has finite limits.


Authority is not a 'choice' of those subject to it.

Jefferson and Madison had it wrong, eh? I am glad most Americans still support the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

You seem to have stepped on a idealogical landmine here Bill.

Right, pre-Enlightenment versus Enlightenment thought.

Your conception of "God" as a slavemaster reduces Man to a mere slave, not the free moral agent he truly is.

Spot on.


You misunderstand.

Sounds like he is thinking quite rationally.

I have no concept of God as 'slavemaster'. You seem to be the only one propositioning this idea. Moreover, the only reason you offer for this is that you equate 'God's ownership of everything' to 'Southern plantation owner buying African Americans at auction and workin' em all day in the cotton fields'. A bizzare and fantastical translation, yet incorrect none the less.

You can't have it both ways, SOMMS. God is either an owner of humans with whom he can do what he wants and is a slave master or he isn't. That is what I read from your description. So at least two of us on two continents see it the same way. I think as well that the Southern Plantaion owner buying Africans at auction is not bizarre or fantastical but history based. It is quite corrrect in my opinion.

Why do you believe this?

It fits the portrayal of the God in the Old Testament, and the vision of God in many Christians, particularly American Fundamentalists.

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Very unique ID, quite original.

Fiach

Bill Snedden

I suppose that it could be that your conception of Hell is more akin to "a choice to stand apart from God" or "the logical consequence of sin" rather than punishment. However, if you conceive the reality of Hell to be an eternity of suffering, then it is mere semantics.

Moreover, it's a semantic dodge quite familiar to the denizens of these boards. The goal is to transfer the responsibility for perdition to Man instead of God. Unbelievers (and other sinners) utilized the free will God gave them to "choose" hellfire over heaven. It is therefore the consequence of their choice, not God's responsibility and he can't be blamed for it.

Nice try, but no cigar...

The flaw, of course, is that Man doesn't (and can't) make a choice to participate in this cosmic game. It was set up without our consent. We're told the rules, but it doesn't matter if we agree with them or not; we must play. It's akin to being forced to play Russian Roulette and given a restricted set of ways on how to avoid the bullet. If I choose not to follow any of those ways, the bullet is certainly the logical consequence, however there is no way that I can be held morally responsible for the outcome. My death would be the moral (and legal) responsibility of the one forcing me to play the game.

However, perhaps I've assumed too much. Perhaps your soteriology is more inclusive. Perhaps you simply don't believe in Hell or any realm of eternal suffering. If so, then that point certainly wouldn't apply to your worldview.

At any rate, your agreement with the other items is sufficient to allow me to confirm the accuracy of my initial assessment: you worship a slavemaster.

Well, as I indicated, the very concept of "ownership" includes some of those other points. However, perhaps I should have been more explicit.

I suppose one could conceive of "ownership" that did not include the ability to dispose of one's property as one wished, but I can't imagine such a conception at present. After all, one of the benefits of owning a thing, as opposed to borrowing or renting, is that one may do as one wishes with it. I own my car, which means that I can rent it out, sell it, trash the interior, have it repainted, have it destroyed, etc., etc without limit. How could I be said to own something if I did not possess the ability to take whatever actions I choose in regard to that thing? A puzzling question.

Insofar as the concept of "ownership" includes the ability to dispose of one's property as one chooses, I take issue with that. I see no reason to believe it to be true.

If I were to create an "artificial intelligence", a computer capable of reasoning as humans reason, would it be your automatic assumption that I would own it? Remember, we're talking about a rational being, a being that can conceive and comprehend abstract objects and their relationships. A being that can comprehend the idea of ownership and what it entails and can also understand freedom and what it entails. A being that might actually prefer to be free.

Further, let us assume for a moment that there is no God. Logically, then, my parents "created" me. Should they therefore have the right to dispose of me as they please? Even after I am no longer under their parental supervision? Do my feelings, desires, values, etc., have no bearing on this disposition? I cannot imagine that any rational person would affirm this view.

Is it moral for one rational being to own another? By what logical reasoning would God claim this right? Mere creation seems to be insufficient as the example above should show. It seems to me that a being with the ability to comprehend the difference between "freedom" and "slavery" and the ability to prefer one over the other cannot morally be owned by another being.

Perhaps you would argue that God is somehow exempt from objections that we might argue against any other types of rational beings. He's bigger, stronger, faster, more knowledgable, etc. I think that these would all be fallacious special pleadings. If the principle is sound (and I think it is), then it should apply regardless of "special circumstances".

For example, I'm bigger, stronger, faster, and more knowledgeable than my dog, but do I "own" my dog in the sense we're using? Can I dispose of my dog as I choose?

Within certain limits, yes. However there are limits. I cannot choose to torture or mistreat my dog without incurring criminal penalties. Some would argue (and I would be one) that I cannot choose to kill my dog without sufficient reason (e.g., euthanasia). Regardless of how specific we get, it is clear that we do not recognize ownership of non-human animals in the sense in which you argue God owns us. Therefore any attempts at special pleading for God must fail as well.

It seems to me that the majoritarian Christian worldview should acknowledge this principle as well. After all, "free will" theodicies are the most often touted in rebutting the POE. If "freedom of the will" is so important to God that it offsets seemingly inscrutable evil, then it must be of exceeding importance even to him. So "freedom" should obviously be a higher moral principle than "slavery", even by majoritarian Christian standards.

"Unilateral" means "one-sided". If by this you mean "false only from SOMMS point of view", then you're undoubtedly correct.

I think you probably meant something else although I'm not sure what it was. If you meant to say that my statement was inaccurate, you are most assuredly in error. My statement was nothing less than the logical extension of free moral agency; what it means to be a moral agent. Moreover, it is the foundation of democratic government and rational relations among free human beings. To controvert it is to affirm slavery and dictatorship.

Fiach has provided a pretty good point-by-point refutation of your objections, but I'll add a few of my own.

You seem to forget, as Fiach points out, that we are discussing "free moral agents". Children are not recognized as such. Once children reach the age of consent, their parents authority is no longer recognized. Even so, parental authority over minor children under the age of consent certainly does not extend without limit, as you allege your slavemaster god's authority to extend over us.

Actually, this is not true. Teachers have no authority over us that we do not vest in them. Schools exist only by the consent of those attending and by those that enact the laws to bring them into existence. If those laws were to be repealed, or students to stop attending, the teachers' authority would no longer exist.

Again, untrue. Democratic society vests authority in police through the enactment of laws. That authority can be repealed at any time by a decision of the members of that society. IOW, if we fire the police, they no longer have authority over us.

Of course it does. POTUS can be impeached by the people and his authority thus nullified. The only authority he enjoys is that granted to him by the Constitution. A Constitution enacted of, by, and for the people of the USA. The divine right of kings is a morally bankrupt concept, repudiated by all thinking people.

Au contraire, mon frere. It is you who have stepped on that landmine. The ideaology you apparently espouse is in direct opposition to the ideals and principles that underlie the foundation of democracies all over the world. Or perhaps you think that democracy is an overrated concept?

I beg to differ. The cognitive dissonance is your own. It is you who must explain how your god can be said to own us, be able to dispose of us as he pleases, set up all the rules, and hold us accountable by an authority to which we did not consent and still not be labeled by the same appellation that we would apply to any other being demonstrating the same qualities.

The term "slavemaster" is only one that would apply. "Dictator", "Tyrant", "Usurper", et al would also be apropos.

Because I simply cannot comprehend that an omnipotent, omniscient Creator would have any need for slaves. Because the evidence of my mind and senses cries out that it cannot be so.

Because if this Creator is responsible for our rational nature and if it is a reflection, however dim, of its own, then it must surely value freedom as highly if not more highly than we do and recognize that existence is valueless without it. In fact, it would surely realize that we could not possibly evaluate it as worthy of worship should it not accord us this value.

Thomas Paine says it much better than I:

One final comment: if anything I've said here or in any other posts seems to you like a personal attack, then I sincerely apologize; that is not my intent. Please understand that on this topic I feel very strongly. I am intellectually and emotionally repulsed by your point of view. However, I am not repulsed by you as a person and I don't intend anything I write to indicate that I am. You may indeed have similar feelings about my beliefs and I would hope that you accord me the same degree of personal respect.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Websters: slave driver
Function: noun
Date: 1807
1 : a supervisor of slaves at work
2 : a harsh taskmaster

God fits none of these descriptions Fiach. If we were slaves, we wouldn't have freedom. Yet we do. This is unilaterally true and you can prove it to yourself. Do this: get up out of you chair, hop in the car, drive to your nearest ice cream parlor and order a whopping big hot fudge sunday. Now sit down and enjoy that sunday and ponder how you could not be doing so without freedom. Notice your freshly utilized freedom exists in stark contrast to the lack of freedom a slave has.

And here we see your logical fallacy of Affirming the Consequent:
-If A then B
-B
-Therefore A

-If 'we are slaves' then 'we are owned'
-'we are owned' (by God)
-Therefore 'we are slaves'

Check it out here .


For the record, you have just consiously acknowledged 4 counter-examples to 'authority exists only by the consent of those over whom the authority is claimed.'











Yeah...and in this post alone you've committed one major logical fallacy (Affirming the Consequent) and acknowledged 4 counter-examples to a hypothesis you claim is true.



Correct. He isn't a slave master.



Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Bill Snedden

Fiach may respond later, and I'm sure that you will also respond to my last missive, but while I've got some time, I thought that I would point out a couple of errors in your response to Fiach:

1) He (and I) are arguing that your conception of god is as a "slavemaster". In refutation, you cited Webster's definition of "slave driver" and then preceded to claim that god did not fit this definition. This is a strawman fallacy. Fiach never claimed god was a slave driver, but rather a slave master.

At any rate, the relevant definitions from Websters:

Slave:

1 : a person held in servitude as the chattel of another
2 : one that is completely subservient to a dominating influence

Master:

a : one having authority over another : RULER, GOVERNOR b : one that conquers or masters : VICTOR, SUPERIOR <in this young, obscure challenger the champion found his master> c : a person licensed to command a merchant ship d (1) : one having control (2) : an owner especially of a slave or animal e : the employer especially of a servant.

Obviously a "slave master" is someone that is in charge of, in control of, or owns slaves.

As you have previously affirmed that we are your god's chattel (he owns us) and that we are subject to his authority (he can do as he wills with us), we obviously meet the definition of slaves. As you have identified god as our owner, he obviously fits the definition of master. Therefore, in what way does your conception of god not fit the appellation "slavemaster?"

2) Fiach has not committed the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Your "restatement" of his argument is inaccurate.

In actuality, it should go like this:

P1: If we are owned, then we are slaves
P2: God owns us.
C1: we are slaves

P3: a slave master is one who owns slaves
C2: God is a slave master (from P2, P3)

This is a logically valid argument; no fallacies here.

3) Fiach's acknowledgement of "4 counter-arguments" does not amount to an argument that they are correct. In point of fact, you offered nothing to actually refute them.

4) Your final response "Correct. He (god) isn't a slavemaster." is in contradiction to your earlier statements regarding our relationship to god. Fiach's sentence reads, "God is either an owner of humans with whom he can do what he wants and is a slave master or he isn't." You say "correct", indicating you agree with this statement, but then you say, "He isn't a slavemaster." However, in an earlier post you agreed that we are God's property and he may do with us as he wills. Unfortunately, as I have shown, that fits the definition of "slavemaster."

So, which is it: A) God is a slavemaster or B) God doesn't own us and/or may not do with us as he wills

These are mutually exclusive responses; you can't have it both ways...

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Bill,
No strawman here, watch...Are you or are you not calling God a slave driver?



In the way that we do not qualify as 'slaves'. We are neither 'held in servitude' or 'completely subservient' to God. The ironic part is...you Bill...are proof of this. Any person can at anytime excersize their freedom and do whatever they wish...even reject God. This is not 'competely subservient' behavior. No slave has the freedom to reject their master.


Bill, I was hoping Fiach (not you) would step on this one. P1 'If X is owned THEN X is slave' is unilaterally false. Notice X=your shoes, your car, your family pet, money in savings, your favorite work of art. These are all 'owned', however none of them are 'slaves'.


Bill, those weren't 'arguments'. They are real world counter-examples of why 'authority exists only by the consent of those over whom the authority is claimed' is a unilaterally false statement.


You misunderstand. They are a contradiction to your earlier statements about God...not mine. See above.



Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas