Sojourner553

[quote] per luvluv
That is, GIVEN an omnibenevolent and omniscient God, what are the rational reasons for disobeying Him? I'm not trying to prove He exists, or that He is the God of the Bible. I'm simply asking that if such a being were to reveal Himself tommorow, would you obey him or not? And why or why not? [/luvluv]

"I" did answer in the affirmative!

You just did not like the part (and therefore conveniently IGNORED) where I equated the probability of this as not much higher than the Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy existing.

So to me, your question had as much validity as asking us if we would all agree to be rabbits if found out that the Easter Bunny was real and had succeeded to the divine throne.

(By the way, I would hold the probability of some powerful being existing as being somewhat higher than an all powerful, all good divine being existing.)

[ September 02, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

The Other Michael

Hi luvluv,

I don't think that necessarily follows. An omnibenevolent being would work to make everything the best of all possible worlds for everyone.

If I'm in the best of all possible worlds, then by definition everything I do is the best thing for me.

Now things might be different if your being lacks a sufficient level of omnipotence necessary to structure the universe so that everything is always the best for everyone. In that case the being may be able to give good advice that would improve one's situation even though they are not able to actually improve the physical situation.

But then an omniscient being should have perfect knowledge, which I'd think would include the knowledge needed to sidestep around any lack of omnipotence.

There is the rub of coming up with a single immutable standard of 'best" that actually applies to everyone/everything, but then the omniscience should be able to handle that.

cheers,
Michael

d'naturalist

No. Why? Because we can.

Let me explain: If I were to create a machine to do a specific task, I wouldn't program it to run about doing whatever it wanted to do. If it's program became corrupted, I would simply correct it. Therefore, while I have the capacity to control the machine, it does what I want it to do. Likewise, if this allegedly omniscient, omnibenevolent deity is also omnipotent, then we are as it wants us to be. That includes the capacity to disobey. Thinking for ourselves and making judgements that run counter to authority are a part of who we are. It is behavior that is expected of us.

Why? Because it's impossible for the existence of this alleged deity to be proven to us by anything short of our own transcendence. As it was previously noted, we would have to be omniscient ourselves for the claim of godhood to be proven. For all we know, a talking pillar of light could be divine... or it could be a demonic or alien trick. The limitations of our awareness & knowledge requires us to be skeptical. Skepticism requires us to think for ourselves and make judgements based on available evidence and our own reasoning, not based on authority. We may make mistakes, but that's part of the learning process.

Personally, if any being or groups of beings who demonstrate a greater knowledge of things than I possess offers me counsel, I will take their advice into consideration. Any being or groups of beings who strive to make the world a better, cleaner, safer, freer, happier place; I would consider an ally. However, I will never blindly obey any alleged authority. Obedience = slavery, and in my mind is unethical. No benevolent being would require blind obedience. If I were a father, I wouldn't require blind obedience of my children. I would patiently explain every "why?" my children threw at me (so they can figure out how the process of discerning right from wrong works). And I would certainly never send my children to the neighbor's house to be brutally tortured just because they didn't obey me.

The question I would like to ask our theistic guests (if this belongs in a separate thread, let me know): Are we "property"? Are we nothing more than the organic version of those little robo-dogs, expected to obey our "owners" voice commands? I find that thought very disturbing.

Theli

Well, I would think that most people would suffer discomfort from not following their own will.
I think it's important to include the ability to make your own decisions in "happiness" (if we agree that is what drives a person). If you were to succeed under the guidence/control of an allknowing controler/commander, how happy would you be over the success?

There are ofcourse many situations where a tip would be appreciated.

All this is ofcourse based on the assumption that the being wants what is best for me, wich is not in any way certain.

MrDarwin

This is an important point. luvluv has made much of the "big picture", that suffering is necessary for God to achieve his/her/its ultimate goals (one of which is that we have free will). But if somebody is doing something really nasty to me (like killing me slowly) I would really have to wonder, where is the evidence of God's benevolence towards me?

luvluv, this goes back to our other discussion: where is the evidence of God's benevolence towards individual humans (or other animals) when that individual human or animal is suffering? Or does "omnibenevolence" simply mean that the good of the individual doesn't matter much, compared to the greater good?

Edited to add a hypothetical situation that I hope will illustrate my point without being too disturbing:

Suppose a child has been kidnapped, and the kidnapper calls the child's parents and allows them to speak to the child. The kidnapper is doing the most unspeakable things to the child, even as the parents speak to him, and it is clear that this will continue until the kidnapper kills the child. There is nothing the parents can do about it. And the child asks, "Why is this happening? Why isn't God helping me?"

What should the parents tell this child?

[ September 03, 2002: Message edited by: MrDarwin ]</p>

Jamie_L

Keith has it right.

If God is omniscient and our creator, then we ARE obeying his wishes, because we are as he made us. It is impossible for us not to be as he wishes, unless he made us through a random process by which his wishes were not involved in our creation.

Now, if God made us through random processes, the notion that he should get upset if we disobey him is still a bit silly.

Suppose we ignore all this and assume the omniscient, benevolent God wants us to do stuff. Well, if the God wanted us to do stuff that didn't upset me, then fine. I would take that as a sign of his true benevolence, and do it. But if he wanted me to do stuff that did not seem in keeping with my idea of benevolence, I'd have to question that benevolence. Again, why make me with a sense of benevolence that runs counter to the kinds of things this God wants? That would lead to questioning his intentions - and even if he is trustworthy. Maybe he's just playing with me.

Then again, I'm a fairly cowardly person. Faced with and OMNIPOTENT authority that could punish and torment me and those I love, I'd probably be his slave - out of fear. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm not that brave.

Jamie

Sojourner553

Good post. You do not cover all the possibilities though. For it is also possible:

*God is not all powerful

*God is not all good, or

*God does not exist at all.

The fact that all of us here can not agree on the issue is not evidence for any of the above hypotheses (except possibly the last one.)

raistlinjones

The point of the exercise is to imagine that you know that God is omniscient and omnibenevolent. In such a case, what would you do? A lot of you seem to be side-stepping the issue by saying "he's not all good, nor does he even exist". You don't answer hypotheticals with factual refutations.

raistlinjones

Oh also, to address something from the original post:

Absolutely. People do this all the time. What is reason? Why be reasonable? Are we morally obligated to have reasonable beliefs? What part does reason play in morality? Are there times when it's better to be unreasonable (such as in dating)? All these are questions asked about rationality; there is no topic that cannot be questioned.

Jamie_L

Okay. Here's a more direct answer. If I knew there was a God, and I knew he was omnibenevolent as I understand the term, then I would obey him without question.

What brings up all the sidestepping is that if God was omniscient and omnibenevolent as I understand the term, the world would be a much different place. So you see, the question is more complicated than you might at first believe.

Jamie