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Old 05-02-2002, 11:00 AM   #51
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Originally posted by IntenSity:
<strong>Then maybe, I would turn around and weigh him with my eyes.
Then the flurry of questions would follow.
And I doubt that he could have convincing answers.</strong>
Hi IntenSity

Ok, going with what you said...

but what if he looked back at you and he looked right in your eyes and he just said he loved you and somehow you believed him and it was disarmingly powerful and made you cry...

Maybe this would only work with a woman though...

I think that's kinda how Christians think of Jesus, anyway...

The stories can be extremely powerful - to those who believe...

love
Helen

[ May 02, 2002: Message edited by: HelenSL ]</p>
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Old 05-02-2002, 05:56 PM   #52
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metacrock---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Free will is the major priority, it has to be to have a moral universe. Since moral universe is the goal, then free will is must.

2) It's not that free will is used here in an argument to say that "you have all the responsibilty so anything God did doesn't matter." It's really saying "this is a reason why things have to be this way, why God has to create creatures which he knows will not choose him, because he has to create free will creatures."

3) To not create a creature because it will make the wrong choices is to "queer the deal" before it even takes off. That's like saying there are no real choices, because there will only be those creatures who make right choices.

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I see a fallacy here. You imply that if God chooses not to create people with free will, for who he knows that later will become sinners and won't choose him, then it means that God will not be able to fullfil his plan to create a moral universe, where free will is a must. Well, that is not the case. Not creating people for who he knows will not choose him doesn't take away free will from those that choose him (and hence it doesn't remove the presence of free will from the universe). There is a big difference between creating people with ability to CHOOSE ONLY GOOD and creating ONLY THE PEOPLE that will choose good. They will have the possibility to choose evil but they just won't do it.

metacrock---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4) It might also be a question as to wheather God knows concete actualities or all contingent possiblities.
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Then why is he considered omniscient?

metacrock------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5) The only other option would be to not create at all. Now if what is accomplished in creation is more important than anything else, then the risk that some creatures choose wrongly just has to be part of the deal, colladeral damage.
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No, it won't be the only other option - read my responce to your points 1), 2) and 3). And I wouldn't like to be involved in a deal for which no one has asked my consent whether I want to participate or not. Free agents have the ability to choose in which deals to be involved. I haven't chosen this "deal" - it is imposed on me. And "queering the deal" is exactly my point - in my life I do not get involved into deals from which I won't benefit and wil only lose. And I also don't get inolved into deals with agents that have not proven their legitimacy (even if I am likely to benefit from that deal).
Neither I do want to be a collateral damage in the creaton of a moral universe. And on what grounds do you think that God wants to create a moral universe? God creates people to love him and leaves them with free will to choose to love him because without free will love is untrue, remember? The universe is created for these free moral agents to dwell into it, the universe per se is impersonal, it is neither moral nor immoral, it nas no mind and is not capable of self-reflection, self-awareness and self-consciousness, God can not get into touch with it (unless he himself professes pantheism), the universe per se is not capable of love. However the free moral agents into it are capable of love and they are the purpose of God's creation. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think it is human beings, not the universe that is created in God's image. And if it's not every single person that matters but the universe, represented by the collective mind of a kind of a collective organism which consists of all humans then I, being a separate human being, really don't see why should I love God.

As for apophatic speech, mystical experience and the Christian existential position - I've been through this. I am born and raised in an atheistic family, but through the works of Nikolay Berdyaev I got into Christianity. I like him very much even though he is a religious existentialist and now I consider myself to be an agnostic. He makes me very emotional, really, however he doesn't solve the problem of theodicy for example (not only this though). There are problems with apophatic speech and mystical experience, too. How can be anything unknowable if you already know something about it (you know about God if you have read the Bible - hence your apophasis about him is handicapped). And what about mystical expirience? If you know God through mystical expirience, then why do you/we/anybody need the Bible? How can I know that your mystical experience is true and not that of a Hindu or a Buddhist for example? Sometimes when I attend at soccer games I fall into a trans-like state, how can you know that I am not having a mystical expirience with the God of Soccer?

We come to the we-know-God-through-faith-not-through-reason-because-reason-is-too-limited-to-concieve-him argument for the existence of God again. Let me present you an extract from the work of a student of St. Augustine (the spelling of the name may not be the same in English, it is taken from a non-English source; the translation of the excerpt is mine, too):

Claudianus Ramertus
taken from "A dialog between a philosopher, a jew, and christian"
"If it is not allowed to discuss on the basis of reason, beacuse it (faith) would lose from its dignity, and if that thing in which a man must belive, can't be judged by the criterion of reason, then a man has to agree with everything that is told/revealed to him, regardless of the mistakes that can come out as a consequence of this. Even to the extent that believing in this means nothing, because a man can not use his reason to judge this, when he is not allowed to do so. Thus the pagans can claim that a stone or a piece of wood or whatever is the real God, the real creator of heaven and earth, or simply to proclaim any blatant barbarism. Who then will be able to refute him, if regarding his faith we cannot use arguments from reason?"

And then comes the question: why faith? Why is it so important for God to get to know him through faith? Is it because reason is not able to do so? Although this could be a plausible explanation for knowing God himself, his properties, this argument can not be apllied when we want to understand whether he exists or not. First, because it could be all brain activity, and second - because the supply on the market of gods is really overwhelming. How to choose the real god? And if God is really (1) omnibenevolent, (2) omniscient, and (3)omnipotent this means that (1a) he wants all people to be saved, (2a) knows that a lot of people will not find mystical experience convincing enough, (3a) and is able to provide convincing evidence of his existence. Obviously such evidence is missing, then either (1) and (1a), (2) and (2a), or (3) and (3a) are not true. One possible explanation for not presenting evidence is that it will take away free will from the agents, but I don't see how for example if he writes on the Moon so that everyone can see it "Jesus is Christ", it will obliterate free will. To reject God one must (1) Know that God exists (2) To know some of the properties or deeds of God and because of not liking them, to reject him. If someone doesn't know that God exists, then he cannot reject him. Or, to return to the "deal metaphor", by presenting evidence for his existence, God becomes like the counteragent of the deal, who presents proof for his legitimacy. Even if I know that the counteragent is legitimate, I could still accept or reject the deal, depending on whether I accept the conditions of the deal or not. Free will is still there. While I really don't like God, because the OT could be easily renamed to "How to make a genocide - for dummies" (BTW, apart from the classic slaughters, what I found most disgusting was 2 Kings, chapter 2, verses 23 and 24 - in the Protestant Bible, in mine it is 4 Kings) I know a lot of atheists who don't believe in God because they don't rely on blind faith.

Besides, you take free will for granted. However it is questionable whether people have free will and to what extent. And while there are many passages in the Bible that speak of predestination (Romans, chapter 9 being the most explicitly revealed I think, but also the hardenning of the Pharaoh's heart by God, Pr.16:4, etc.), I got the impression that the passages that cause theological problems are considered by your hermeneutics either as "just literature" or you don't take them literally, so probably you will discard the predestination passeges in the same way. But for your hermeneutics later, now let's come back to the (lack of) free will. Even though you may not agree that a bondage of the will exists from the metaphisical point of view, I think that the problem of naturalistic determinism is pretty obvious. The people that are born in Saudi Arabia, for example don't have much of a choice and become Muslims even though a large part of them (I suppose) know what Christianity is all about (at least overall, even if not in details). You cannot deny that our surrounding environment shapes us and influences us much more than we do the same thing to the environment itself, because the environment consists of congeries of people and it is hard for a single person to stand up against the others even when that person holds different opinion from the masses and is sure of its verity. But what is is even more difficult is the formation of this different opinion, because cultural models of behaviour become implanted into us on subconscious level mainly during our childhood and adolescence, and once such thing has happenned, it becomes almost impossible for us not to consider these cultural models of behaviour as something inherent into human nature, and not as cultural acquisitions from our surrounding environment. By not being aware of their existence we can't change them at all, and even if we know about them, that change is still very difficult.

metacrock---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why do you believe in hell? It's hardly mentioned in the OT, it comes from Hellenistic sources, and it is only mentioned by Jesus in parables and hardly anything about it directly stated in any other part of the NT. It's in the apocalyptic "Revelation" but that is clearlly symbolic.
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Coming back to your personal hermeneutics, I think that you and I are not much different. You choose not to take some passages of the Bible literally or regard them as mythical literature and so do I. You don't take hell literally and I just go a little further and don't take the original sin, the resurection, heaven, hell, the miracles and God himself literally. The problem is that if there are passages in the Bible that are fiction and are not to be taken literally, then which parts of the Bible exactly are literal, and which are fictional? And then you apply wishful thinking when you decide what parts of the Bible to take literally, I apply naturalism when I decide what parts of the Bible to take literally. And since I don't know what exactly is your treatment of the whole Bible and what is literal and what is not, I will constrain myself to heaven & hell only. But before that, since you consider angels to be a myth, do you belive that Satan exists, for he is a fallen angel?
Why I think that hell is literal (at least that those who wrote the NT want to be taken this way)? Heaven and hell are two equally real and equally important polarities, they are a kind of "the two sides of the coin". If heaven is real and taken literally, then hell must be real and taken literally, too. They must go hand in hand - if heaven is only spiritual, then hell must be only spiritual, if heaven is physical, then hell must be physical, too, if heaven is both spiritual and physical, then hell must be both spiritual and physical, too. When Jesus speaks about hell, he usually also speaks about heaven (Mt 25:46 for example), but I bet that you consider heaven to be taken literally. Am I right? And if I am, how can you call this criteria (for choosing what is to be taken literal and what is not) if not wishful thinking? I guess that you just consider parts of the Bible as literature because they don't fit into your notion about God, who you have created according to your desire. I don't agree that there is anything parabolic in the teaching for hell in Mt 5:22, Mt 13:41-42, Mt 25:41, Mt 25:46, Thes. 1:7-9, 2 Pet.2:4.
As for the fact that in the OT hell is hardly mentioned, so is afterlife. In fact terms of the latter, I find this passage interesting (and although that I know that there are verses in the OT that speak about the opposite, also check: Job 7:9, Ps.6:5, Ec.3:19, Ec.9:5, Ec.9:10, Is.26:14, Is.38:18):

"I said to myself concerning the sons of men, God has surely tested them in order for them to see that they are but beasts. For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath [Gen. 6:17; 7:15, 22] and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust [Gen. 3:19]. Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth?"
Ecclesiastes 3:18-21


metacrock----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As for the attitude stuff "O worhsip me cause I'm so great," these are human words inturpriting experinces of the divine, and they are stated because it is good for us to worship God; it makes our health better, our minds work better, we live longer, we feel beeter, we have less depression. this is all in study after study. But I don't think God actually ever says that in so many words, it's stated about him by the Psalmist but so what?
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Even if that is true, it could still be only our brain activity and our positive mind and thinking that do this, and not God. This is not proof for the existence of God at all. And these studies that confirm your statement are also product of confirmation bias and wishful thinking. There are studies after studies that show just the opposite. Check out this link for example <a href="http://www.hcrc.org/contrib/posner/byrd.html." target="_blank">http://www.hcrc.org/contrib/posner/byrd.html.</a> I also recomend you to visit the Quackwatch Home Page and check about faith healing.
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Old 05-02-2002, 07:24 PM   #53
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Photocrat,
Let me tell you what is wrong with your reasoning from my point of view. Human beings are different from God - they don't posses his qualities. Having children is the result not only because they wan't to love them. It is also for egoistic reasons that people have children. People are mortal. But they want to live forever or at least the longer the better. People think that part of themselves continue to live in their descendants - both in flesh and in mind. That is why they are willing to compromise and bear children even if they know that these children will endure some suffering, although they don't know how much will be that suffering, but they hope it won't be much. And here comes the difference between God and humans. God is, by definition, immortal. Unlike people, he doesn't need offspring to prolong his life. He is also omniscient and knows exactly how much suffering everyone will go through and whether he/she will reject him and live a sinful or righteous life. And humans don't. It is a hypothetical assumption, but I think that if people knew that their future child will be born with an illness, or that their child will become a rapist or a serial killer, they just wouldn't create him. The truth is that they can only guess what kind of life will have their children and they hope that these children will live a better life than themselves and will be better persons, too. Parents often see in their children the possibility for a second chance, they think that through their children they can make up for their old mistakes, the mistakes they didn't have the time and ability to correct. They hand down their knowledge for life to the next genereations, telling them: "I failed here and here, so don't do like me in these cases and you'll be successful". People think that their own suffering and wrong decisions can serve as an example for their children how not to act and that this will result into better life for these children.
And when I said that it is a hypothetical assumption that if people know their children will have lots of trouble and suffering in their life they wouldn't create them I wasn't right. It is not hypothetical at all. Here we are undergoing an economic crisis - the average month salary is around $90. Some young people here don't want to have children, because they don't want them to live in misery. Now, I think that when they know that the probability that their offspring will have a difficult, poverty-stricken life, people do exactly that - they don't make children.
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Old 05-03-2002, 01:52 AM   #54
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Helen
Quote:
but what if he looked back at you and he looked right in your eyes and he just said he loved you and somehow you believed him and it was disarmingly powerful and made you cry...
Honestly I can not relate to the love of a supernatural being. I believe love is a human emotion (evolutionary product?).
At best, his love would just scare me because it would entail losing anything I can claim for myself. For example, if he expects me to express my love for him by kneeling and praying in his name, I dont think thats a love relationship. If I have to abase myself totally and be subservient to him, then I lose any power to claim anything for my self. That would also mean loving him is more important than loving myself (at least in the christian sense) - in which case the idea of him loving me would lose meaning. If he created me to love him, then my creation is an expression of his unsatiable self-love. He needs kiss-asses, not friends.
But then again "love" would be a misnomer - referring to a higher being deriving some form of pleasure (through praise etc) from a lower being.
Quote:
Maybe this would only work with a woman though...
Mostly
Slex
Quote:
...There is a big difference between creating people with ability to CHOOSE ONLY GOOD and creating ONLY THE PEOPLE that will choose good. They will have the possibility to choose evil but they just won't do it.
Hence they will CHOOSE ONLY GOOD. Circular argument.
You cannot bifurcate actual and the potential in this case. Because the actual is dependent upon, hence, dictated by the potential.
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Old 05-03-2002, 03:57 AM   #55
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Quote:
Originally posted by IntenSity:
Helen: but what if he looked back at you and he looked right in your eyes and he just said he loved you and somehow you believed him and it was disarmingly powerful and made you cry...

Honestly I can not relate to the love of a supernatural being. I believe love is a human emotion (evolutionary product?).
At best, his love would just scare me because it would entail losing anything I can claim for myself. For example, if he expects me to express my love for him by kneeling and praying in his name, I dont think thats a love relationship. If I have to abase myself totally and be subservient to him, then I lose any power to claim anything for my self. That would also mean loving him is more important than loving myself (at least in the christian sense) - in which case the idea of him loving me would lose meaning. If he created me to love him, then my creation is an expression of his unsatiable self-love. He needs kiss-asses, not friends.
But then again "love" would be a misnomer - referring to a higher being deriving some form of pleasure (through praise etc) from a lower being.


Those are good comments (imo).

People who believe in God's love believe it is a giving, self-sacrificial, generous thing. They don't see Him as forcing obesiance; they see their response to Him as one of gratitude, as one naturally evoked by His love for them.

I expect you can relate to this in human terms, in that if someone is kind to you, I would think you naturally would want to show kindness in return - for example. If someone loves you it's hard not to love them back...

But I can understand if you say you can't relate to the love of a being you don't believe exists.

It seems pointless to try to 'defend' God here on the Secular Web - I could never 'defend' Him in a way that would overturn people's arguments against His existence... But I can try to explain how Christians understand God (to the extent I have time) - based on what I know...

Helen: Maybe this would only work with a woman though...

Mostly


Yeah. I should not generalize...does anything always work, anyway?

love
Helen
[ May 03, 2002: Message edited by: HelenSL ]</p>
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Old 05-03-2002, 04:41 AM   #56
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Why do we have children again? "Love"? For an atheist, I do not know what meaning to invest it with, as it seems to be little more than a biochemical delusion put forth by our survival instinct. But when you experience it, it's not so meaningless, is it? "Survival"? What's the point? It's futile in the end--the sun will die, entropy will 'wear down' the universe, etc.
We have children, because if we did not, we (we, you, me, our entire species) would not exist.

It is that simple, and that profound.

I am always amazed at the hang-up many folks have with searching for this mythological beast, "purpose."

You might as well ask why we eat. We eat because we gain both pleasure/satisfaction from the act, and require it for survival. We produce offspring for exactly the same reasons.

Life is an amazing thing. Being a part of it, no matter what its origin, or what its conclusion, does not for a moment cheapen it, or lessen its great beauty. Yes, my most distant ancestor was formed of chance chemical and electrical interactions. Yes, at some point it is likely that all life, not just my species, will perish in the universe. But what of it? Does either truth change the fundamental experience of my life? No. If anything, it makes me appreciate all the more my place in the cosmos, the sheer whimsy of it all, and fills me with the deep contentment that comes with not just understanding, but acceptance. I'm happy with purposelessness on a metaphysical scale, it is a truly grand thing, far better than anything we humans have managed to imagine up for all our smoke and mirrors.

Quote:
So, what's the point? How is our decision to procreate all that different from God's, save that He has more perfect knowledge? Equating foreknowledge with cause is still fallacy, after all. I know that an ice cube on a hot sidewalk will melt; but it's the heat that causes the melting, not me.
Our point is biological. Nothing more. Even that is not really a "point," just a current and local phenomena.

Are you saying you think your proposed "God" created the humans of your particular creation myth because he had to? Is creation a biological imperative for a creator?

We are limited biological creatures. We spend vast efforts and resources on doing the best we can to pass on our genes and ensure their survival and happiness. If god produced his offspring for the same reasons, but was omnipotent, he would have been farther better equipped to design us for eternal living. If he failed to, with his foreknowledge, and his omni ability, then he did so by choice, by design, by purposeful act. He is thus, in such a scenario, fully culpable of any outcome.

JUST as I might add, as you would be in the case of the ice cube on the hot sidewalk. Sure it's the heat that melts the ice, but it sure wasn't the ice cub that put itself on the hot sidewalk. That was you, and you knew what would happen, could have put the ice cube in a nice cold freezer, but nooooo, you put it on the hot sidewalk, where it now is a puddle of water, soon evaporated, sent skyward, and eventually returning perhaps as part of the polar ice cap (hmm, were you a Hindu god by any chance?). Now, an ice cube doesn't exactly care, but if it did, it wouldn't be its fault, it would be yours.

.T.

[ May 03, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>
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Old 05-03-2002, 04:49 AM   #57
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Helen,
Thanks for your comments, however..
Quote:
People who believe in God's love believe it is a giving, self-sacrificial, generous thing. They don't see Him as forcing obesiance; they see their response to Him as one of gratitude, as one naturally evoked by His love for them.
There is the mention of hell, hades ...
There is the mention of wailing and gnashing of teeth.
There is the mention of Gods wrath
There is the mention of eternal fire
There is the mention of judgement day
And all that other stuff that christians turn away from.

I see nothing generous in loving someone who will sit at the throne on the so-called "judgement day" to decide on your fate (this fate being based on whether you loved him or not).
Unless "pick and choose" theology has become that fashionable these days.

Quote:
I expect you can relate to this in human terms, in that if someone is kind to you, I would think you naturally would want to show kindness in return - for example. If someone loves you it's hard not to love them back...
Unless not loving them back incurs their wrath...
Unless they sacrifice their own son to blackmail you into loving them back...
Unless they have not been known for smiting thousands of people for touching some wood on the back of some animals...
Unless you are told "whoever loves him shall not perish..."...
Quote:
But I can understand if you say you can't relate to the love of a being you don't believe exists.
I think even if he does exist and loves me, his love is totally wasted on me. Because I cant feel it and he can't show it (for some reason). Its like someone loving a stone. There is nothing his love can do to improve my life or the lives of others I know here on earth.
At least nothing practical.
Quote:
It seems pointless to try to 'defend' God here on the Secular Web - I could never 'defend' Him in a way that would overturn people's arguments against His existence... But I can try to explain how Christians understand God (to the extent I have time) - based on what I know...
I think the most important thing, after we have lifted the dark fog of our runaway history, religious politics and confusion, and after we put aside all the controversies in religious and secular circles, we can only wonder why anybody needs God or religion at all.
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Old 05-03-2002, 04:53 AM   #58
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Originally posted by IntenSity:
<strong>I think the most important thing, after we have lifted the dark fog of our runaway history, religious politics and confusion, and after we put aside all the controversies in religious and secular circles, we can only wonder why anybody needs God or religion at all.</strong>
I think it's reasonable to ask those questions...

As for your other comments, I understand and I hope you know I have my own questions and concerned, some of which I tried to address when I wrote about <a href="http://www.mildenhall.net/writings/hell.html" target="_blank">the doctrine of hell</a> for my website.

love
Helen
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Old 05-03-2002, 07:26 AM   #59
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Quote:
Originally posted by IntenSity:
<strong>

Hence they will CHOOSE ONLY GOOD. Circular argument.
You cannot bifurcate actual and the potential in this case. Because the actual is dependent upon, hence, dictated by the potential.</strong>
I don't agree that this is a circular argument. There is a difference between foreknowledge and predestination. They will choose only good, really, but their choice won't be influenced by God, it will be a choice that they themselves make.

[ May 03, 2002: Message edited by: Slex ]

[ May 03, 2002: Message edited by: Slex ]</p>
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Old 05-05-2002, 09:16 PM   #60
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Quote:
Originally posted by Pompous Bastard:
<strong>Photocrat,

So, what's the point? How is our decision to procreate all that different from God's, save that He has more perfect knowledge? Equating foreknowledge with cause is still fallacy, after all.

Certainly, it is a fallacy to equate foreknowledge with cause, but not to equate foreknowledge with responsibility.</strong>
Well, how am I responsible say, for knowing ahead of time that an ice cube (that someone else put on a hot sidewalk) will melt? You're *still* missing some premises--ones you must spell out before you can see the flaws--but it's getting better. Your arguement is thus an amphiboly.

Even taking it at its face, then having children is immoral, QED. Read the above again, please. We can very well know that human suffering will continue in the forseeable future. Why not cut our losses & end human existence? It would be utilitarian, after all. The reason I state that is not because I think any of you believe such a thing would be a "solution" as it were (I should hope not, anyhow!). Instead, I want you to see for yourself the fallacy hiding in your amphiboly, even were you to complete the premises.
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