God Debris
Hello,
I've been thinking about a particular thought experiment coined by Scott Adams in his 2001 novella "God's Debris: A Thought Experiment".
Essentially, the idea follows that, through a radical form of kenosis, the omnipotent God annihilated himself in the Big Bang to become the Universe. Why? Because God already knew everything possible except what would be due to his own lack of existence. Therefore, He would need to end it in order to complete his knowledge. Because of this all-knowledge and the lack of motivation to do anything or create anything, there would be no purpose to act in any way whatsoever. But, if God had that one nagging question, “what happens if I cease to exist?” - He might then be motivated to find the answer through his own self-destruction.
God would now exist as a combination of the smallest units of energy of which the universe is made, and through humankinds own becoming, God is in the process of being restored, because we, all of us, we are God, or we will become God. This is interesting in its parallel's to Nietzsche, being his idea that we should act as bridges to the Übermensch, or to higher forms of humanity in our future that elevate or evolve our species beyond, into something more than we are.
What are your thoughts on this idea? Are we born from a negation - God's denial of Himself and his subsequent self-annihilation?
If so, then the Universe is God and we are elements of His fragmented self? God therefore does not exist as an omnipotent being but rather as the fragmented elements of our Universe; thereby having no control over it, thereby explaining why we have free will? Explaining the existence of both "good" and "evil"? Explaining why events seem random, or why our experiences of suffering and joy are so different from one human being to the next?
It would explain why we feel so alone, so abandoned perhaps? We are the agents of our own destiny then, to choose to become, to push towards an apex of something higher, or to choose not to?
Just an interesting idea I've been pondering for a while now.
I've been thinking about a particular thought experiment coined by Scott Adams in his 2001 novella "God's Debris: A Thought Experiment".
Essentially, the idea follows that, through a radical form of kenosis, the omnipotent God annihilated himself in the Big Bang to become the Universe. Why? Because God already knew everything possible except what would be due to his own lack of existence. Therefore, He would need to end it in order to complete his knowledge. Because of this all-knowledge and the lack of motivation to do anything or create anything, there would be no purpose to act in any way whatsoever. But, if God had that one nagging question, “what happens if I cease to exist?” - He might then be motivated to find the answer through his own self-destruction.
God would now exist as a combination of the smallest units of energy of which the universe is made, and through humankinds own becoming, God is in the process of being restored, because we, all of us, we are God, or we will become God. This is interesting in its parallel's to Nietzsche, being his idea that we should act as bridges to the Übermensch, or to higher forms of humanity in our future that elevate or evolve our species beyond, into something more than we are.
What are your thoughts on this idea? Are we born from a negation - God's denial of Himself and his subsequent self-annihilation?
If so, then the Universe is God and we are elements of His fragmented self? God therefore does not exist as an omnipotent being but rather as the fragmented elements of our Universe; thereby having no control over it, thereby explaining why we have free will? Explaining the existence of both "good" and "evil"? Explaining why events seem random, or why our experiences of suffering and joy are so different from one human being to the next?
It would explain why we feel so alone, so abandoned perhaps? We are the agents of our own destiny then, to choose to become, to push towards an apex of something higher, or to choose not to?
Just an interesting idea I've been pondering for a while now.
Comments (92)
We pandeists have to stick together.
At what point do we start to feel alone and abandoned? Because I get the sense that's an older child thing, not a baby thing or a toddler thing and, furthermore, occurs whether one is raised a deist, an atheist, or anything else for that matter.
Atlantis syndrome?
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
That desperate huh?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Ok! I am.
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
What about floods, hurricanes, earthquakes?
I read the book. And I suspect that Adams wrote with tongue-in-cheek. The God's Debris hypothesis has some things in common with PanTheism and PanEnDeism. But it treats the Creator of our world as a depressed deity, who commits suicide in anticipation of reincarnation as a physical universe. Unlike Jesus, who gave his mortal life for the benefit of mankind, but rose again as the immortal Christ. Anyway, I don't take the amusing story seriously. :joke:
I like it, but my understanding of All has me thinking All could be both before and after at the same time, and not. Plus, while my understanding of All forces me to admit that we are special to All in one or more particulars, we really aren't, even in those particulars, so every time it comes up I'm a little repulsed by it. After all, I'm stuck with us and can't just take my sentience off to more inviting parts of All any old time I feel like it. Whenever someone's notion of "God" had us as teacher's pet, it makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit. Familiarity breeds contempt?
The god in the thought experiment doesn't seem any more complicated than the standard gods though.
It's the new expansive view of the cosmos that had displaced us as the center of the universe that might explain some of this anxiety. The distances against the limit of the speed of light is kind of depressing. The vastness of space, the quantity of worlds out there and being stuck by gravity to a single orb in an uncrossable ocean. Further that these distances are growing.
No one is texting us from across the expanse. Where is the universe's social media feed?
I like the notion that humans left an embodied world (God) as they increasingly developed the memory mediated self. Maybe animals still live in the embodied world, where the dissection of the self and the world has not happened. The dawn of consciousness is a kind of curse but since we're already here, this is the party we have to attend. Might as well build a god (a mummy daddy) to replace the one lost.
I like that. I often wonder, however, if it's not so much that we have something animals don't, or that we somehow gained something through evolution and have "grown" or "progressed" or are somehow "better" but, rather, that animals have something we used to have, and we lost it: Where they lack the anxiety and the feeling of being alone because they retain a sense of being a part of the whole? God is what they appreciate being a part of, and not something separate.
Even if I'm wrong on that, I do think the "feeling alone" or "abandoned" is more a misperception, or an "illness" or a failure to appreciate, a lack of gratitude, amazement, wonder and love. I know there are some people who seem to be good with our condition. Some children (not all) and some of those touchy-feely yogi types (unless they are bullshitting us).
The idea that a philosopher or physicist or a intellectual deep thinker or a bible thumper or a person on top of current events must have an empty feeling of aloneness or abandonment simply because ignorance is bliss, and they are not ignorant is, really, the height of arrogance. It's like the old phrase "If you aren't angry, you aren't paying attention." Is that really true? If one has a more objective, long-term view of life, maybe all the shit that should make one angry just doesn't. Sit in the stands and watch the show, or get in the arena a fight. But to sit back and wring ones hands in consternation with some "woe is me" BS and "why hast thou forsaken me?" seems pretty weak.
Apparently, pandeism is a belated materialist/physicalist variation on the tzimtzum theme (i.e. creation = creator/s abscondus).
Quoting Gnomon
Nothing about vicarious redemption through human sacrifice (crucifixion) I've ever found "amusing", and stopped taking that "story" seriously (literally) over forty years ago.
Quoting Nils Loc
:up: We have our mediocrity (principle) to thank for our (existential) freedom. To paraphrase the Persian poet Rumi: we are not only teardrops in an ocean but an ocean is every drop.
It's not an unfamiliar idea. I can't really engage with it however as I don't accept the proposition that a God existed/exists. I also don't feel any sense of abandonment or aloneness at the thought of being without theistic supervision. There is no hole or deficit in creation that needs filling. To me this idea reads a bit like a Marvel adaptation of deism.
Thanks for the welcome. Looking forward to the discussions in here. I've been lurking for a little while and only recently decided to create an account.
I should have been more clear, I think the older child to adult. Also yes, it would be something more felt if raised as a deist, and then perhaps through own research and enquiry, after a change of mind / heart followed by the inevitable questions to ponder.
Ah of course, I forgot the floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes. How careless of me :wink:
Agreed, it reads like tongue-in-cheek. However, the idea is still there. Infinitely interesting idea, I think at least. One I've thought about :chin:
The dawn of consciousness is a kind of curse but since we're already here, this is the party we have to attend. Might as well build a god (a mummy daddy) to replace the one lost.
I like this idea. That it's up to us to create our own new "God" now, or to become "Gods" ourselves to push our species forward into something greater. A new rapture, with a newfound vigor and zest for life and the possible, for our future in this infinite cosmos.
To me this idea reads a bit like a Marvel adaptation of deism.
Would make for a banging origin story :lol:
Then the story develops from here.
1. god rises from its own ashes like the Phoenix.
2. God feels he has nothing more to offer to himself, the world, the universe. So he has to reinvent himself.
3. Reinventing himself consciously is impossible, since he is omnipotent.
4. Having lived an eternity, he knows that eternity bears boredom, unbelievably stupefying and painful boredom. So he gets rid of his mind by eating himself.
5. Getting reintroduced, dust particle-by-dust particle, provides him with growing pleasures.
6. But basically he is doing it to get laid just once more again. After all, we have no evidence of sex in his life after he lost his virginity.
Fucking awesome! I was just thinking something similar to that but let it wander out of my head. Thanks.
I remember those days. :blush:
Is that based on anything, other than being in service of Exploding God Theory?
Subjective, personal experience perhaps. Some of Nietzsche's Will to Power too I'd say. God being dead and all... us humans now left with the task of providing a new rapture for ourselves. To keep us in awe. To inspire. I think the idea of it all falling on us to create our own meaning, and perhaps working towards an apex of humankind / human potential is inspiring.
Still makes you wonder if there is / was some sort of Creator. I suppose we'll find out for sure when we're dead.
The idea of God annihilating himself in order to get laid again is infinitely amusing lol. thanks.
For instance: Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
If he became the universe, then he would not have annihilated himself but transformed himself.
And similarly:
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
God knows 'everything'. Not some things. Everything. So that would include knowledge of all true counterfactuals, such as "x would be the case if I did not exist" etc. Thus he would not need to do anything to complete his knowledge. Again, an omniscient being does not have incomplete knowledge. And an omnipotent being does not 'need' to do anything. The idea that God, to achieve X, would 'need' to do Y, assumes that there are laws that apply to and constrain God. But that's a contradiction, for nothing constrains an omnipotent being. So Adams is simply trading on the fact that most people don't fully understand just what being omnipotent involves.
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
The idea makes no sense at all. Not even a tiny bit.
This is a prison and we're being punished. That's the truth, a truth easily discoverable by reasoned reflection.
An omnipotent being can do anything. And as such God can bestow any benefit on us he wants. And there is no harm so firmly bonded to any benefit that God could not have given us the benefit without the harm. And an omnipotent omnibenevolent being would give innocent beings all the benefits they could - so, all the benefits - without any harms.
Yet here we are, living in ignorance in a dangerous world. What follows? What follows from these two facts:
1. If God exists, he would not suffer innocent people to live in ignorance in a dangerous world
2. We are living in ignorance in a dangerous world?
This:
3. Therefore, if God exists, we are not innocent
And as
4. God exists
This follows:
5. We are not innocent
The purpose for which we are living lives here, then, is not to facilitate God's quest for knowledge, but to satisfy God's desire that we suffer. Simple.
[i]3. Therefore, if God exists, we are not innocent
And as
4. God exists
5. We are not innocent
The purpose for which we are living lives here, then, is not to facilitate God's quest for knowledge, but to satisfy God's desire that we suffer. Simple.[/i]
This is interesting. Reminds me of a line of dialogue from one of Terrance Malick's more recent films (Knight of Cups): "If you are unhappy, you shouldn't take it as a sign of God's disfavor. Just the contrary. Might be the very sign He loves you. He shows His love not by helping avoid suffering, but by sending you suffering, by keeping you there. To suffer binds you to something higher than yourself, higher than your own will. Takes you from the world to find what lies beyond it."
Assuming 4. is correct, perhaps the suffering we experience, or this life in general is some sort of test. Perhaps God is asking us what makes us worthy of his love? Like a parent pushing his child to be all they can be, to strive towards the apex of their own innate human potential to be all they can be.
Interesting, I have looked into a couple of Watts' monologues in the past, I may have to add this book to my reading list. Thanks.
I have not seen the film as he seems to have gone up his own fundament since Badlands. But I find the view expressed in the quotes to be the opposite of what is the case. If you are unhappy, you most certainly should take it as a sign of God's disfavor, for that's precisely what it is. Why else would he let you be unhappy? He can make you happy with ease, and so that's exactly what he'd do if he liked you. So he doesn't like you. He doesn't love you at all. Loathes, not loves.
"To suffer binds you to something higher than yourself, higher than your own will. Takes you from the world to find what lies beyond it."
God's omnipotent so if he wanted you to be bound to something higher than yourself, he could make that happen just like that without visiting any suffering on you at all. To think otherwise is to think God can't do things - but he can do anything. So, even if suffering can have beneficial consequences for its victim, these two facts remain: a) God could have given you the benefit 'without' the suffering and b) God wants you to suffer, not for the benefits, but for its own sake, for otherwise why are you suffering? If God exists and you're suffering, you can know that God wants you to suffer what you're suffering and that it's not the act of a parent keen to teach his offspring a difficult lesson, but the act of a retributivist who wants you to get your comeuppence (and get it you are).
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
That cannot be so. For God knows everything, so what does he need to test us for? What does he need to find out that he doesn't already know? There is nothing he does not know, and thus no purpose to any test. God is not, then, testing us. Plus what if I want to know for how long a child can stand on hot coals? Am I good person if, to satisfy my curiousity, I place an innocent child on hot coals? Clearly not. Well, then a fortiori God would not do such a terrible thing. We are not being tested and we can be as sure of that as we can that being good does not involve being a callous sadist.
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
Again, that would make God a total arsehole. God hates us. Not loves us. Hates us. God doesn't want us to love him or want to make us go through this or that ordeal so that we might somehow come to love him - that sounds like an incredibly abusive relationship, a 'treat-em mean, keep em-keen' mentality that it is insulting to attribute to an all-good person. God is not trying to foster a relationship with us; he's ending one. This - this here, this life - is what happens when you break up with God. God's dumped you. And now he's cutting-up your wardrobe and slashing your tires.
Assuming 4. again, continuing this thread. Then we can perhaps agree that God is not omnibenevolent. So how to rebel against an abusive parent? Give them the middle finger and strike out on your own perhaps?
Following this line of thought though, what do you think would be great ways to strike out against an abusive, omnipotent being? If we are even capable of it. Given that the being in question would already know everything we could do, then nothing we could do, could piss Him off (?). Or perhaps we could, and He knows it. An omnipotent being knowing His "child" is going to piss Him off in future is an amusing thought.
It seems more likely that He, doesn't give a F*&%, and neither should we. If we have been created to suffer, and there is no overarching meaning to this life, then it's up to us to create our own meaning and purpose to our lives, thereby reducing our own suffering as much as we can through our own actions. Obviously, within the constraints of what's possible given our circumstances (each being unique to our own place in history and the society we grow into).
Or perhaps the ultimate act of rebellion is to shoot ourselves in the head as the ultimate "up yours, I'm not playing your game". Though personally, I'd rather live, and fight against the suffering. Perhaps finding that joy, or beauty, in the dissonance of life is its own reward (and the ultimate rebellion against a sadistic Creator). To think that even after all the suffering he does brings us, or in spite of it, we can still find joy and meaning in our lives, created by us, and therefore given to us, by us, through our own actions. The ultimate "up yours" indeed.
We can't do that, for God is by definition omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. That is, it is just what the word denotes: a person who has those properties is 'God' just as a man who has never had a wife is a bachelor. 4, in other words, just asserts that there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being.
Furthermore, if a person is omnipotent, then she will also be omnibenevolent, or at least it is beyond a reasonable doubt that they will be (for the person will be Reason and she will approve of herself and 'being approved of by Reason' is what being omnibenevolent consists of). The same is true where omniscience is concerned (for if one does not know everything, then one will lack some powers; knowledge is power, as they say). They come as a package, then.
Finally, we are trying to find out what the purpose of our lives here may be, yes? So we should not start out by assuming that we know already and then adjusting the premises of an argument until it yields what we want. Anyone who does that is engaged in a pointless exercise, for they are trying to find the answer to a question that they already insist they know the answer to.
What I have done is demonstrate what the purpose of our lives here is if an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being exists. It's not a test or an attempt to seduce us. It's a punishment.
Perhaps no such person exists. But they do - premise 4 is true - and this can be rationally demonstrated. And certainly no reasonable person can reject premise 4 on the grounds that they do not like the conclusion that 4 yields. For not liking a conclusion is not evidence the conclusion is false.
Anyway, imagine you wake one morning with no memories of the day before. But you are lying on a bed and you are covered in bandages and there are tubes and wires coming out of you and monitors around you making beeping noises. You find as well that you are barely able to move and that there are others in beds around you in a similar situation. You ask others how you got to be in this situation, but all they can tell you is that you came through the double doors at the end of the room, which doesn't really answer your question.
What is it reasonable for you to believe? Surely that you are a patient in a hospital and something has gone seriously wrong with your health. It would be odd - indeed, rationally perverse - to conclude that someone is head over heals in love with you and to express this covered you with bandages and hooked you up to various machines and restricted your movement and put you in a ward without them, but with a lot of other people with whom they are also madly in love. I mean, there's just no reasonable route to that conclusion - it's potty. And it becomes even more potty if one supposes in addition that your lover is omnipotent and omniscient!
Obviously we're not in that situation, but our situation is relevantly similar. We have awoken in ignorance in a dangerous world. If we ask others why we are here, the most they can tell us from their experience is that we fell out of that woman over there some time ago. But that's not really what we want to know.
What's the reasonable conclusion for us to draw about our situation if we know that God exists? That God loves us and he's somehow trying to express it by making us living in ignorance in a dangerous world? That seems potty. No, we're in a prison. We may not know precisely why, but we are and we're not loved, we're hated, and nothing that happens to us is undeserved. Not a particularly pleasant conclusion - though one that will, if taken seriously, make one much more psychologically robust - but there it is.
We have not been 'created' to suffer - why would an omnibenevolent being do such a thing? They wouldn't. The idea makes no sense. So we are not God's creations. God exists. We exist. No contradiction there. But if you suppose God created us, then that's perverse and makes no sense. There is a long tradition of thinking God created us, but there's no evidence he did and plenty that he didn't, not least the fact we're not perfect and the fact we have free will and the fact we're being punished (what kind of bastard would create us for the purpose of punishing us??).
There 'is' a purpose to this life: the purpose our living it serves is it gives us our comeuppence. That's a purpose. It's serving it.
You can't create your own purpose for your life. You didn't bring yourself into existence here or make this place. So how on earth can you give your life here a purpose? You are confusing your own purposes with the purpose for which you are living here. Your purposes are too late to the purpose party. In order for your purposes here to be the purpose for which you are being subjected to a life here, your purposes - the ones you formed here - would have had to have been causally responsible for you living here, which as a moment's reflection should tell you is manifestly impossible, for what is later does not cause that which is earlier.
A knife has been made for the purpose of cutting things, and it that's not going to change if the knife has other ideas.
And as for 'rebelling' - well, rebel or don't rebel, it'll make no difference to why you're here. And you can try to escape, but what would be the point of that? This is God's prison; you can't escape.
So, let's see if I can align myself here to what you're thinking. Basically, following this idea, our lives are a punishment for a "crime" committed by us, even if we do not understand what that crime is / was, and the act of living is solely to serve out our time here, on this "prison" created by a God to punish us for this crime. This is the purpose of our life. To serve our time.
So unlike say, the idea that our existence precedes essence, we instead have been designed for a purpose, that purpose being to serve our time in this prison. Therefore we are like the knife, made for cutting things.
Also, God may not have actually created us. Yet, punishes us anyway? We must have really pissed the old man off...
Now, let's assume that indeed this world and our lives are a prison cell. We can't escape it. Surely, we can attempt to alleviate our time spent in the cell then? Of course this would be subjective. A matter of perspective. But within the confines of "serving" our time out, we could at least perhaps, try to make the act of serving that time slightly more pleasant for us. Sure, rebellion might be pointless since there is no escape, but not if we subjectively find meaning in the act of that rebellion - rebellion here being to find beauty in the dissonance of life, to reduce our suffering and maximize our joy.
Just like a prisoner may, say, workout in his cell everyday to keep his body sharp, or read a book or two if available to keep his mind sharp, whilst still existing within the confines of his own prison (the cell), could we not also make our cell more comfortable?
You can't have a subjective, personal experience that deists generally feel something more than atheists.
I see what you mean. Poor choice of words in my previous reply to you. Then, I should try to clarify, whether you're a deist, atheist, etc. at the stage of older child to adult, we may feel this feeling regardless (abandoned / alone / lost / despairing) (?), and perhaps we each attribute that feeling to something different, based on subjective / personal experiences and individual beliefs.
Of course, this is pure conjecture on my part.
Yes. There would be three purposes, not one. First, to protect others from us (met any morally perfect people? Exactly. They're not here. This is the land of the depraved). Second, retribution: to give us what we deserve. We would all no doubt have subjected an innocent person to the very risks of harm that we are now running - and so we deserve to face them ourselves (and if you've had kids - well done, you just done gone earned yourself another stretch!). We are being fed our own medicine. And third, rehabilitation - to learn the error of our ways and change them. That's the least important as God, being nice, give us this opportunity, but doesn't really give a rat's arse whether we do or not, as we're loathsome to her.
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
No, I never said that. Indeed, I said the opposite: the idea that a good omnipotent person would create us for the purpose of punishing us is absurd. We - we - have not been designed.
But what do you do with arseholes that you haven't created and that threaten good people? Destroy them? Perhaps, but you're good and would rather not. So you put them somewhere else. You put them, to quote Empodocles, 'away from the abodes of the blessed'. You put them here. You make them wear mortal clothes.
The world - this world - and our career in it is the knife. Not us.
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
Not 'may'. 'Did not' create us. I was clear. I said God did not create us. I said there is a tradition of thinking he has, but no evidence and plenty that he hasn't. I couldn't have been clearer. Only an arsehole would create us to punish us. God is not an arsehole. Therefore he has not created us. The logic is impeccable, the conclusion unpleasant. And yes, we have really pissed him off.
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
Yes. One way is to realize you deserve all you get. Easier to do your time - easier to take your licks - if you recognise that you deserve it all. However, only those who undertake to listen to Reason - that is, to God - will be afforded this luxury. The rest will languish here feeling sorry for themselves and wondering why bad things are happening to thjem and why the world is soooo unfair and helping themselves to every self-aggranising view on the market. Ooo, I am made to suffer so I can come closer to God; GOd loves me soooo much he's made me suffer. What a shower of idiots! Hell, I want them to suffer too - don't you? The fools.
And note that unlike Douglas Adams's thought experiment, this theory is demonstrably true, not just a comedian's flight of fancy. If you think it isn't true, dispute a premise.
Define morally perfect, or objective morals. What standard are you measuring man to exactly? What makes us depraved? Are we all depraved? How? Why?
Your rehabilitation idea is interesting though. Are we to assume here, that the goal is to elevate ourselves from our depravity?
Also interesting, this idea of placing us here instead of destroying us.
I said may because I do not necessarily agree with your position, but I'am thoroughly enjoying the conversation and want to explore this further. Out of curiosity, this evidence you mention, could you provide a source? Interested to explore the idea.
I'm all for individual agency, and taking active and purposeful control of your own life with passion, love, and courage. Ultimately, to find your own meaning and to grow, I suppose, out of despair, or perhaps, out of the depravity you may be referring to, towards something greater / higher. However, for those that do not see it this way, and for those that suffer, I do not necessarily want them to suffer, or remain that way. I'd like to help those I can, or those that want to be helped. To do some good. In this short blip of time that I have here in this prison or purgatory perhaps.
How is it demonstrably true? I have some idea of where you might be headed, but would rather have you clarify and expand on this idea so I can comment back on it with clarity.
Fair enough, but then this can't be used to demonstrate the explanatory power of your theory. One can accept your theory (perhaps a la Sebastian Flyte on the grounds that it's lovely, which it is) and then posit this as an explanation for feelings of abandonment in a separate theory, but to assume that those feelings are a good demonstration of your theory is circular, relying as it does on a degree of interpretation proceeding from the assumption that the theory is true.
I think our feelings of abandonment have a lot more to do with the society we mature in. I don't think these are spiritual, rather are interpreted as spiritual when seen through a religious lens which, for most of the last couple of millennia, things have.
I was thinking back to the "spiritual" pull that I, an atheist from birth, felt when hearing a choir and organ in Durham cathedral. It was the first time I thought I might get what Christians interpreted as spiritual. It was rather melancholic but also comforting, beautiful and sad. It made me want to bear all to an invisible father figure who would definitely definitely not judge and keep my secrets.
I told a religious friend of mine who likewise saw this as demonstrating the explanatory power of religion. But of course Christianity has had millennia to refine its articles and accompaniments to better achieve a feeling that they claimed for religion, while teaching people throughout that time to associate that feeling with the spiritual.
According to Calvin we are.
Well, to be fair, this was more stream of consciousness flow from the idea posited in God Debris as per my OP. I don't think my thoughts here are fleshed out enough to be any theory, but have contributed to worthwhile discussion, which I've enjoyed.
I do agree that society plays an important role, as perhaps these ideas represent a more modern / contemporary Western view, one that has become more secular given the fall of Christianity as the prevailing worldview, or, following the "death of God" as Nietszche has famously stated (and predicted).
I too am not a religious person, raised Catholic but abandoning that worldview in my late teens, I've flirted between atheism / agnosticism, and toyed with the idea of pandeism. Although I'd say I'm primarily existentialist in my views and have been for quite some time.
I think the matter of there being a God or God-like diety is irrelevant to the day to day functioning of life, however engaging the idea of it is always interesting to me. Pondering the possibilites of God, or no God, and the implications of each possibility in its effects on humankind.
Personally, I think that the idea of God holding a primary worldview in a modern, Western, and primarily secular society no longer has the rapturous pull required to keep us all in awe. We need something new. Something to snap us out of our indiffernce, and perhaps, to snap us out of the elements of nihilism we've found ourselves in. At least in my opinion of us, the contemporary Western, modern individual. Jaded and apathetic, but not without hope.
Ah okay. We'll, like I said, the idea is attractive, by which I meant as mythos. I think there's more to ordering narratives than historical data points, and I find Christianity the most fascinating (no doubt because it's the dominant religion in my upbringing), so I'm not down on creationist myth in and if itself. I like that yours incorporates the sacrifice motif of Christianity with the scientific motif of completist, self-justifying curiosity.
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
Which your OP qualifies as, and which counts Einstein among its adherents. Good company.
It's a great story, and very well presented. It reminds me of something I read. I think it was in Alan Watts - God was all alone in the world. Lonely. She wanted someone to play with, so she split herself into many pieces, us, and then made herself forget.
I have thought that one of the reasons we need God is so we have someone to be grateful to.
This is the story I was referring to in my previous post. Your explanations are always better than mine.
I think you referred to this previously - what about those of us who find the world wonderful and who enjoy the company of our fellow humans. Who aren't in despair. Who recognize suffering for what it is. Who may even believe as Buddhists do that we are responsible for our own suffering. Our goal, to the extent we have one, is not to find meaning, but to make ourselves work the way God or Darwin built us to do. Tune up the machinery. Replace the framajamit. Polish up the chrome.
The joke is, of course, he could never find the answer to this question. What does not exist does not know anything.
This is not God's thought experiment. If it were there would have been no need to do anything but think about it. But thinking about it could not yield the desired result.
The bits that were God exist because God does not. If through their self-assembling combination God will again exist then what happens when he ceases to exist is that he will again exist.
But that cannot be known unless the bits actually assemble themselves to become God. How can it be known that they will? The experiment is self-destructive and from the perspective of us bits, very possibly a failure.
If God's bits are capable of becoming God then this is something he would already know if he knew himself.
Or, just as well, some(one) to blame, a Feuerbachian scapegoat ...
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Otherwise, our in-gratitude signifies taking 'the living – boredom and spite, joys and sorrows, loves and strangers – and the dying' for granted (i.e. neglecting, or denying, that we are called-into-question by these (our) givens).
what about those of us who find the world wonderful and who enjoy the company of our fellow humans. Who aren't in despair. Who recognize suffering for what it is. Who may even believe as Buddhists do that we are responsible for our own suffering.
If I can answer this from a Kierkegaardian perspective, then I'd say that those that aren't in despair are either living as a balanced self relation (to finitude / infinitude) and live in harmony, or, are in despair and don't know it. I suppose this is where authenticity may come into play. Do you truly believe the world to be wonderful, do you truly enjoy the company of your fellow man, have you shouldered the burden of your responsibility with commitment, passion and love? Do these convictions truly represent you, your beliefs, your ideals, your desires, your motives? If yes, then perhaps you're on the path of inner peace and true harmony with yourself, others and the world around you.
Unfortunately, not all of us have reached that point as yet, and perhaps some may never reach it.
Doesn't mean we shouldn't try. With all our effort.
The experiment is self-destructive and from the perspective of us bits, very possibly a failure. If God's bits are capable of becoming God then this is something he would already know if he knew himself.
An interesting thought. The experiment is self-destructive, and perhaps the failure is us. And if God does not know Himself, then perhaps He is not God, not in the way we picture Him at least (from a Christian perspective). Thus our imperfections mirror His, if he in fact, is not omnipotent, but instead, just a powerful enough being to create life, with that life being as flawed as Himself.
I do think the "feeling alone" or "abandoned" is more a misperception, or an "illness" or a failure to appreciate, a lack of gratitude, amazement, wonder and love. I know there are some people who seem to be good with our condition. Some children (not all) and some of those touchy-feely yogi types (unless they are bullshitting us).
I agree here. The feeling, at least from a Kierkegaardian perspective would represent a person that is in despair through the unbalance of his / her self. The self being a verb, that is, the active and ever-changing self relation to finitude and infinitude. This unbalance, occurring when someone attempts to search for meaning in the outside world by relating the self to the infinite through finite things.
Or perhaps what is annihilated is the concept of God. This can be taken in two ways: 1) God is not limited by our concept, or 2) God is only a concept. If God is only a concept then what happens if the concept ceases to exist?
We are supposing God to exist. God is omnipotent - so he can do anything and is not subject to any constraints. By itself we can conclude from this that moral standards are set by God - that is, for an act to be right is for it to be an act God wills us to perform, and for something to be morally good is for it to be approved of by God. For unless this were so, there would be a standard external to God that God did not have power over. Technically, then, these are not 'objective' standards, for they are constitutively determined by the attitudes of a subject - God. They are subjective standards, but they are external to ourselves.
I have demonstrated in the only way that anything can be demonstrated - that is, by ratiocination - that we are depraved. Here:
1. If God exists, she would not permit innocent creatures to live in ignorance in a dangerous world
2. God exists
3. Therefore, God does not permit innocent creatures to live in ignorance in a dangerous world
4. We are living in ignorance in a dangerous world
5. Therefore, we are not innocent (that is, we are depraved).
And yes, that applies to all of us, for it is rebarbative to Reason to suppose that an omnipotent omnibenevolent being would suffer any innocent experiencing subject to languish here.
To be clear: that argument is deductively valid. So if its premises are true, then its conclusion is established whether anyone likes it or not.
You ask 'how?' Well, by having freely done wrong. You ask 'why?' I do not know what you are asking. Are you inquiring into our past motives for having done wrong? Well, I do not know. To return to my hospital bed analogy: you may well wonder what accident or medical crisis led to you being in the hospital. But your inability to know - and the inability of other patients to be able to tell you - does not give you grounds for thinking that you are not, in fact, in a hospital and did not suffer an accident or medical crisis. Likewise, that you can't remember what immoral deed you did that landed you here, does not give you grounds for thinking that such a deed is not what landed you here, or that this is not a prison.
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
No, that's not the main goal at all, that's simply an opportunity we have been given. An omnipotent being has no problem realizing her goals - she could eradicate our depravity in the blink of an eye if she wanted. (Plus it is not always clear what the right thing to do is, yet it would be crystal clear if rehabilitation was a primary goal). Again, we are not living here for our benefit - the idea that we are is heretical for it supposes that God was incapable of giving us such benefits absent the harms, or that God is an arsehole and only likes giving people benefits if she can harm you as well into the bargain. Either thought reveals a corrupt nature on the part of the thinker. The goal - which she could realize in any way she wanted, but has chosen this way - is to protect others from us and to give us our just deserts. Those who look to the world with all it contains and see in it an expression of love are revealing the extent of their self-love and stupidity. They think they're so loveable that someone's built a world for them to live in. A world that contains every horror you can conceive of and the constant risk that at any time one of those horrors will be visited upon you. This might give them some pause, but their stupidity and self-love comes to the rescue and they are soothed by the idiot thought that somehow these horrors are designed to enhance the love between then and the other. And so they skip around with a rictus grin on their face, mouthing self-serving inanities to each other and breeding, when all they're actually doing is making the God hate them ever more and increasing their sentence. It's funny really.
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
Again, that's pointless and arrogant. The meaning - the purpose - of your life is not in your gift. Any purpose you want your life here to serve is impotent to make that the purpose of your life, for it is too late on the scene. THe purpose of your life here was determined by another, not by you. For you did not create this place and did not put yourself here. So how on earth can you then claim to be able to be the source of its purpose? I may choose to decorate my cell, but that does not mean that the purpose of my being in the cell is to decorate it. It's just something I'm doing, but it is not the purpose of the cell or the purpose of my being in it.
The meaning of your life is discovered, not made. It is discovered if one chooses to follow Reason. If you listen to Reason you will discover that Reason is a person, and that she's omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. And if you listen some more, you'll discover that you're not innocent. And thus that you are in a prison. And thus that the purpose of your life - regardless of what purpose you adopt while living it - is protection and retribution, with rehabilitation not as a primary purpose, but an opportunity that you can take up or not as you choose. To think the purpose of your life is something else is not thereby to have made it something else. Reality is not like that: it's not a plaything of our will.
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
There are imperatives of reason. A demonstration is itself an appeal to one. For instance, it is an imperative of reason that arguments of this form
1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q
entail their conclusions. And moral imperatives are imperatives of Reason. And imperatives of prudence are imperatives of Reason. So, logic, prudence and morality are all made of imperatives of Reason. They cannot reasonably be doubted (their content, yes, but not their existence). So, this premise cannot reasonably be doubted:
1. There are imperatives of Reason
Imperatives are commands - it's just another word for a command. And only a mind can issue commands. Thus this premise is self-evidently true:
2. Only a mind can issue an imperative
From which it follows that
3. The imperatives of Reason are imperatives an existent mind is issuing
The mind in question would not be bound by its own imperatives and thus would be omnipotent. And they would know everything, for Reason is the arbiter of knowledge. And they would be omnibenevolent because they would approve of themselves (they are omnipotent, so if they disapproved of any aspect of themselves, they could just change it). And when Reason fully approves of something, that's what it is for that thing to be maximally good. Thus:
4. THe mind of Reason will be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.
From which it follows:
5. The imperatives of Reason are imperatives an existent omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent mind is issuing.
That mind is, by definition, God. For God is just shorthand for 'an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent mind'.
And from here we pick up the argument I made earlier:
6. If God exists, she would not suffer innocent people to live in ignorance in a dangerous world
7. Therefore (from 5) she has not suffered innocent people to live in ignorance in a dangerous world
8. We are living in ignorance in a dangerous world
9 THerefore we are not innocent
There. Proof that we are in a prison doing time.
moral standards are set by God - that is, for an act to be right is for it to be an act God wills us to perform, and for something to be morally good is for it to be approved of by God.
What are these moral standards? Are we talking the ten commandments or a version of such? As you state later this isn't always clear. Following this idea, it seems we are stuck playing a game of which we don't even know the rules. A game designed for us to lose, simply because this God, has deemed it necessary to punish us for eternity for a deed we do not even understand. The original act of depravity we have committed must have been extreme, for a God to punish us so for eternity.
This God does not seem omnibenevolent at all then. If she were, then wouldn't she seek to rehabilitate us rather than to punish us? Or is this a do some evil for the greater good type scenario? In which case this God is capable of evil. Therefore, cannot be omnibenevolent. A God that freely allows us to wallow in our ignorance, and allows all the evils of the world to occur to us, on random chance (think of children that die too young, or suffer needlessly in isolation and despair in parts of our world that have the lowest of standards of living); is not a benevolent God. The fact that we are left ignorant in our depravity, deprives us of the very opportunity to correct our wrongdoing.
But, you did mention that this God loathes us anyway. We are hated. And we deserve it. This makes God vindictive, not benevolent. A benevolent God would not watch us suffer. This instead sounds like the work of a sadist.
No, that's not the main goal at all, that's simply an opportunity we have been given. An omnipotent being has no problem realizing her goals - she could eradicate our depravity in the blink of an eye if she wanted. (Plus it is not always clear what the right thing to do is, yet it would be crystal clear if rehabilitation was a primary goal). Again, we are not living here for our benefit - the idea that we are is heretical for it supposes that God was incapable of giving us such benefits absent the harms, or that God is an arsehole and only likes giving people benefits if she can harm you as well into the bargain. Either thought reveals a corrupt nature on the part of the thinker. The goal - which she could realize in any way she wanted, but has chosen this way - is to protect others from us and to give us our just deserts.
Our existence then is pointless beyond the act of just serving out our time.
And yes, I can see the logic of the form of your argument if we accept the premise as true.
Again, that's pointless and arrogant. The meaning - the purpose - of your life is not in your gift. Any purpose you want your life here to serve is impotent to make that the purpose of your life, for it is too late on the scene.
This is a matter of perspective, and only true when accepting this premise.
Personally, I'd rather find /create meaning in the act of my rebellion, and decorate my cell. This God can piss off, she doesn't care anyway, and neither should we, hey?
If God is only a concept then what happens if the concept ceases to exist?
Then of course, there is no God.
The commands constitutive of morality. Moral standards are standards, yes? Well, those. I don't know why you mention the 10 commandments. You must be supposing me a CHristian or something, even though nothing in my arguments gave you any ground for that. I am not a CHristian, I just follow reason.
To find out what is right and what is wrong - so, what we are bid do, and what we are bid not do - one uses one's faculty of reason, the mechanism whereby Reason gives us the opportunity to reform (not that she cares much whether we do or not).
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
No, the implication is that rehabilitation - so knowing and doing as Reason bids - is not the primary reason we're here. Hence why the rules are not always crystal clear. What's the alternative - that she made them unclear because she loves us so much?!
To stress again: she doesn't like us. Clearly. She's nice enough that she's given us some insight into what we have to do if we're to stand any chance of release. But she's not gone out of her way or made matters crystal clear. Don't you think she'd have made it clear if reform was the whole point of the exercise?
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
I didn't mention eternity. Why would it be eternity?
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
Question begging. You're assuming you're innocent and that so is everyone else here. No matter what I argue you're going to keep making that assumption. The evidence is that you're not. If you think otherwise, identify a false premise in my demonstration. For you asked me for a demonstration, and I gave you it. But now it seems that it doesn't count and you're free to assume you're innocent despite the demonstration that you're not.
A good person doesn't like evil people. A good person dislikes them. A good person doesn't think that someone who's behaved abysmally deserves the same benefits as someone who's behaved well. A good person is outraged at bad things happening to innocent people. By the same token, they are not outraged when bad things happen to blameworthy people - to people who were actively trying to visit such bad things on innocent others.
Harms are not always morally bad and benefits not always morally good. It matters who gets the benefits. It was not a good thing that Dr Mengele, the Angel of Death at Auschwitz, lived out the remainder of his live in luxury in South America. That isn't a fact that, upon learning, makes a good person think "ah, well at least some good came of it!". Someone who had that thought - someone who saw Dr Mengele's post holocaust success as a silver lining - is morally corrupt, not a saint.
So, living well and enjoying yourself are not always good - sometimes they're bad. A good person helps others, but they don't help a burglar to jimmy open a window. A good person does not help others indiscriminately. So, good people are not opposed to all suffering and in favour of all happiness. It matters whose happiness it is.
You are crudely assuming that happiness is an unalloyed good and suffering an unalloyed bad. But if you reflect, your reason will tell you that that's false. And therein lies another clue, if any were needed, as to why you are here. You are assuming a crude and empty picture of what moral goodness involves. It doesn't involve an absence of hate, or an absence of a desire to harm. Good people hate - it matters who you hate - and good people desire that harm comes to people - they just care who.
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
How is it pointless? It has a point. It's just a point most of us would rather it not have. (Doesn't it make you a bit suspicious that most people think the point of their life happens to be a point they'd like it to have?).
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
Ah, the self-indulgence rears its head again. The premises are all self-evidently true. It's not in your gift to make them false by just denying them. That's got a name - it's called 'the idiot's veto'.
2 + 2 = 4. If you think it = 5 you're wrong. You can assume it all you like, it won't = 5.
You can think my argument invalid. But it isn't. It's valid as those with reason can tell.
And you can just reject a premise. But that won't make any of them false. They're all true. THey just lead to a conclusion you dislike. And you think, mistakenly, that your attitudes determine reality and thus that your dislike of the conclusion is evidence that a premise is false. Yes? You're not reforming your ways at all! You, like so many others, prefer to listen to yourself than to Reason. Oh well - that's why you're here!
I think you're making is sound more complicated than it really is. We don't need to reach enlightenment to feel the way I've described. We don't need to be on some difficult, arcane spiritual path. I think it's more of a question of temperament. I am far from inner peace, but I see I'm responsible for my life. I don't think that's all that uncommon, although it probably is here where philosophers roam. Philosophers are an unhappy bunch.
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
I think most spiritual paths lead to a cessation of effort, surrender.
And the universe continues to function as it does.
To find out what is right and what is wrong - so, what we are bid do, and what we are bid not do - one uses one's faculty of reason, the mechanism whereby Reason gives us the opportunity to reform
Ok, so let me give you a scenario. Say we were at war. You had a choice to go to war and fight for your country, and let's assume here, your belief in that it is the "right" thing to do to protect your freedoms. At the same time you had your old mother at home, who needs you to help her with her day to day activities of daily living. Using your powers of absolute Reason, which choice is the morally correct one, to go to war, or to stay at home and look after your mother?
I didn't mention eternity. Why would it be eternity?
Fair point. Eternity seems like a long time.
So, living well and enjoying yourself are not always good - sometimes they're bad. A good person helps others, but they don't help a burglar to jimmy open a window. A good person does not help others indiscriminately. So, good people are not opposed to all suffering and in favour of all happiness. It matters whose happiness it is.
This (and your following statement) I can agree with. Context is important for good to be good. So why are we all in this prison then? We've all been lumped in the category of depravity then?
Ah, the self-indulgence rears its head again. The premises are all self-evidently true. It's not in your gift to make them false by just denying them. That's got a name - it's called 'the idiot's veto'.
So, what if there is no God? Your premise seems logical if God exists, but your premise does not prove absolutely, His existence:
[i]1. If God exists, she would not permit innocent creatures to live in ignorance in a dangerous world
2. God exists[/i]
What if we flip this over to:
1. If God does not exist, then innocent creatures can and do live in ignorance and in a dangerous world.
2. God does not exist.
Then:
3. Therefore, the absence of God means innocent creatures do live in ignorance in a dangerous world
4. We are living in ignorance and in a dangerous world
5. Therefore, innocence and depravity are irrelevant, as is the judgement or actions of a fictitious deity, we are simply creatures living in ignorance in a dangerous world.
What happens to the prison idea here (?)
And you can just reject a premise. But that won't make any of them false. They're all true. THey just lead to a conclusion you dislike. And you think, mistakenly, that your attitudes determine reality and thus that your dislike of the conclusion is evidence that a premise is false. Yes? You're not reforming your ways at all! You, like so many others, prefer to listen to yourself than to Reason. Oh well - that's why you're here!
Prove God's existence. What makes your premise true when the logical opposite can also be argued for with the same use of Reason?
I think most spiritual paths lead to a cessation of effort, surrender.
Indeed. Personally though, I feel this position untenable. The hard or brutal facts of our existence demand an effort from us to continue living. I think a balance between the brutal act of living and a spiritual or transcendent source of connection (finite/infinite) to potentially be a more realistic solution (if the problem we're addressing is spiritual despair). I too accept the responsibility for my life, and yet cannot deny the facts of existing in a finite body within a concrete reality.
I suppose we could sell everything and live in the mountains to be as close to nature as possible, but the brute facts of survival in the natural world also require effort. Surrendering to a spiritual path is an attractive thought, I just see it as difficult to properly apply in practice. The Ego always makes itself known, even in the deepest states of meditation, it fights to be recognized. Wouldn't it be a better alternative to find a way to integrate them both?
[i]Philosophers are an unhappy bunch.
[/i]
True :lol:
And the universe continues to function as it does.
That it most certainly does.
Let's go back a bit...
[i]There are imperatives of reason. A demonstration is itself an appeal to one. For instance, it is an imperative of reason that arguments of this form
1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q
entail their conclusions. And moral imperatives are imperatives of Reason. And imperatives of prudence are imperatives of Reason. So, logic, prudence and morality are all made of imperatives of Reason. They cannot reasonably be doubted (their content, yes, but not their existence). So, this premise cannot reasonably be doubted:[/i]
So, lets say I just simply follow your line of thinking above, then, it looks like I'm doubting the content of the imperative of reason you have posited. Not its existence. For, in my previous reply, using the same formula, I've posited its exact opposite.
Therefore, neither of these examples of an imperative of reason, can conclusively prove the existence of a God. What follows in your further examples of the imperatives coming from an existent mind and that mind being omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, and therefore are from God, only follow if you accept that the content of your formula cannot be reasonably doubted. However, you can, using the same formula, reasonably argue for the exact opposite, and come to the conclusion that no God exists.
:chin:
They are grammatical, emergent from discursive reason, and "exist" only insofar as language exists. "Imperatives" are not the function or property of a private "mind". All you've "proved" is that language exists. :roll: :sweat:
[quote=Twilight of the Idols]I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar.[/quote]
I can't speak for you, but I am one of the most fortunate people in the history of the world. That hits me every day, with most things I do. If I can't be satisfied with that, who can be satisfied with anything. So - I don't see the act of living as brutal and I don't see the source of connection as transcendent. God, Buddha, the Tao, and all those guys are always right here. I can see them in my peripheral vision.
Quoting CountVictorClimacusIII
We can leave it at that.
Quoting 180 Proof
I have wondered whether how we take this is a matter of temperament, something we're born with, rather than anything learned.
You simply assumed God did not exist after I just provided you with a proof that he did. You didn't challenge a premise in my argument, you just pointed out that by changing the premises one changes the conclusion. That's neither here nor there. The issue is whether the premises are true. And in my argument's case I cannot see any grounds for doubting a single one of them. Again, do you deny there are imperatives of Reason? Do you deny that minds and minds alone can issue imperatives? Do you deny that a mind whose imperatives constitute imperatives of Reason - so, the mind of Reason - would be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent? You have said nothing to challenge those claims.
So you must be challenging the validity of the argument. And your grounds for doing so are what? No more, it would seem, than the brute possibility that despite appearing valid it may not be. Well, about what proof of anything could you not do that? That's just an arbitrary radical scepticism that you will adopt whenever an argument leads to a disliked conclusion. It's just to say 'but how can we know anything?' Not systematically, but just when it suits. It's once more the self indulgent 'if I don't like it, it ain't true' attitude rearing its head.
You asked for a demonstration and I provided one. If you were sceptical about the power of all demonstrations to show us anything you should have said before asking me to provide one so that I could know that doing so would be pointless.
You have provided nothing of the sort. As 180 proof has further demonstrated, all you have done is shown your ability to use discursive reason and language to create an argument based on a premise (your point number 1 and 2) that cannot be proven unless you accept 1. and thereby 2. as true. Changing the content changes the conclusion, yes. This demonstrates that I can use the same discursive reason to flip your argument on it's head and "prove" the opposite, thereby not actually proving anything. Ultimately, the brute possibility that it may not be valid, is still a possibility. A possibility that you have not sufficiently disputed in any convincing way.
Also your comment of "how can we know anything" is misguided. Obviously, context is important.
The conclusion here is that both examples are ultimately meaningless and do not qualify as any truth or any proof beyond a reasonable doubt of a God existing or not existing. Just as your prison theory is an interesting idea, an idea is all it is.
I've also not once said that I did not like your conclusions. You assuming my position and inferring as such is ignorant, and makes me wonder what you're projecting. Your entire idea is very interesting, and I've enjoyed exploring it with you. But that's all it is. As for self-indulgence, I see no difference on your part.
"God, Buddha, the Tao, and all those guys are always right here. I can see them in my peripheral vision."
A beautiful thought.
Like I say, before asking me to provide a demonstration you should have had the decency to tell me that you don't know what one of those is and that as far as you are concerned we can a just believe what we want and there's no way of knowing what this life is about.
Incidentally, anyone who thinks 180proof has made a valuable contribution is, well, beyond hope. Anyway, many lifetimes here await you, methinks.
Well. Agree to disagree then. Which is ok. Thanks for the chat.
I think he just means he doesn’t want to talk to you anymore because you’re an obnoxious douchebag. I could be wrong but it follows from how much of an obnoxious douchebag you are. :roll:
I liken our death to what you are suggesting god may have done. When we die, it's like a big bang, where all our molecules and finer particles are blown apart into a kajillion (scientific term of art) directions becoming a more integrated part of All (maggots, ravens, coyotes, microbes, etc., then carried off to parts unknown and shit back on the prairie to make the grass grow, get eaten, shit again, and etc. Maybe even spun off into the universe after a glancing blow from and inter-stellar or inter-galactic rocky visitor. It's like the river: Sit and watch it go by and wonder if the same water molecule ever goes by twice, and if so, in how long? Wave-ocean, us-earth, everything- All.
Likewise with the soul. We always have been a part of All but we were a synthesized or coagulated part of it. At death, we "reintegrate" more fully. And, once that state is achieved (possibly after a short transition process) who the hell needs to be "self-aware" on the one hand, or a "special" part of All on the other? At that point, you are All. It is only us that perceived a separateness, so we are just coming home when we die. Anyone who's ever been beside themselves with joy will understand the phrase "beside myself"; You don't exist except as part of something greater than you. This idea that you, or we, are somehow "special" is only true when placed in the context of everything being special; one thing no more than the other.
We were only parsed out as "coagulated"/ "separate"/"synthesized" part in the first place so All could perceive that part of itself. We are those pieces All blew into. There is an infinite number of you out there, the same, and some varied by a molecule or atom here or there. And that goes for everything else, too. And for nothing. After all, it is All. It is both sentient and not, at the same time and place.
It's totally improper for me not to castigate you for your egregious abuse. Also, I hate emojis. But still:
:up: :up: :up:
It’s my own fault for reading his painful exchanges. A momentary lapse I feel better now.
An Absolute, such as 'God' cannot go away or have a beginning, or it wouldn't be Fundamental and 'First'.
Further, a Mind couldn't have been fundamental, for it would have parts necessarily more fundamental.
Minds do not have parts. That's why you can't have half of one.
God could destroy himself if he wished. To think he couldn't is to think him constrained. Yet by definition he's omnipotent and so unconstrained.
What's confused about Douglas Adams's proposal is the idea that God might be lacking in some knowledge such that he would need to do X to acquire it. This is doubly confused for a) God knows everything and b) God doesn't 'need' to do anything to acquire anything, for he's omnipotent.
You're right, I shouldn't have jumped in.
God is whatever God is. I don't think It is constrained by human interpretations of what it can or should be, can or should do.
:roll: Vacuous semantics (glossolalia). "Goober is by definition" does not entail Goober is in fact.
Here's a slightly adjusted version of this thread:
OP: Douglas Adams wrote a short story about how a bachelor knowingly uses his wives to find out if he has a wife. Perhaps that's what we all are: wives of a bachelor who is knowingly using his wives to try and find out if he has a wife. It's an interesting idea, no?
Me: That makes no sense; indeed it is doubly confused. FIrst, a bachelor doesn't have a wife by definition. And second, if he's knowingly using his wives to try and find out if he has a wife, then he already knows that he does. So it's just silly.
70IQ: Semanticals! Linguistimisation! The fallacy of semantical linguistimisation. You can't define a bachelor into existence. I'm laughing so hard I am crying and defecating and urinating.
Me: I didn't say that you can define a bachelor into existence. I have argued that you cannot: that whether a bachelor exists is not something we can draw a conclusion about by mere examination of the concept alone. I simply pointed out that a bachelor is by definition wifeless. And thus to propose that there might be a bachelor who is knowingly consulting his wives to find out if he has a wife, is a thoroughly confused proposal that reflects conceptual incompetence on the part of its originator and, indeed, anyone impressed by the idea.
Oh, pardon me, from the context of both this thread discussion and your particular post, I had no indication that you assume you are talking about a merely fictional mind ("God") defined with fictional predicates. Well then, my mistake – carry on confabulating, Barftrix, instead of philosophizing. :ok:
An interesting idea. I've also often pondered this. Our death being the death of the physical body, however, all our molecules, particles and spirit returning home, or, becoming part of the greater whole of the universe. A beautiful idea.