Occasionally a theist makes an argument so amusingly stupid that it would be a shame not to share it with a larger audience. This is one of those occasions.
On another thread, we’ve been discussing the unloving way in which God — supposing that he exists at all — is treating the victims of Hurricane Harvey (and the soon-to-be victims of Hurricane Irma, unfortunately). In the course of that discussion, fifthmonarchyman — a Christian — made the following, er, memorable argument:
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.
– Isaiah 45:7
keiths:
Yes, and creating disaster for his children is exactly what every loving father sets out to do. Right, Mung?
Nothing says “I love you” like drowning someone or wiping out their possessions.
At that point fifthmonarchyman got the bright idea that he could defend God by arguing that God is not our father. He wrote:
quote:
the Originator of the heavens and the earth! How could it be that He should have a child without there ever having been a mate for Him – since it is He who has created everything, and He alone knows everything? – Sura 6:101
and
and say: “All praise is due to God, who begets no offspring, and has no partner in His dominion, and has no weakness, and therefore no need of any aid” -and [thus] extol His limitless greatness. – Sura 17:111
end quote:
That’s right, folks. Fifthmonarchyman quoted the Quran to argue against the idea that God is our father — forgetting that the latter idea comes straight from Jesus. What are the first two words of the Lord’s Prayer? Our Father.
Seeing fifth — a Christian — use the Quran to argue (unwittingly) against Jesus is one of the stupidest moves I’ve seen in a long while. I therefore renominate fifth for the title of World’s Worst Apologist.
After posting his comment, fifth belatedly realized that he had just thrown Jesus under the bus. He tried to undo the damage:
Get it keiths ?
A loving father is not the default understanding of God. Not by a long shot.
To know him as Father you need to have met his Son. Once you have met his Son you are simply not dissuaded when bad things happen.
peace
It’s a bit too late to backpedal, fifth.
This is a good time to quote Augustine again, on the topic of Christians who make fools of themselves:
…we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.
The inanity goes even deeper. I’ll elaborate in the comments.
So let me see if I follow. Because, you know, I really am that dense.
Can Mung explain why Hitler chose to exterminate the Jews when everyone who met Hitler said he’s a swell guy? Is that your question?
Do you really think that I cannot explain why Hitler chose to exterminate the Jews, when everyone who met Hitler said he’s a swell guy?
Think.
Why won’t keiths answer the very simple questions that have been posed to him? Is he simply afraid to do so? It has the appearance of cowardice.
So that’s your requirement for a loving God, kids can’t be killed, is that it? Everyone else can die, and you won’t go moving the goalposts right?
We have to start categorizing. Woodbine’s God is infinitely loving. keiths’ God is supremely loving. Neither one is simply loving. And neither God is love.
We have to figure out which God can and can’t do what.
#StrawGods
My conception of a loving God is one that does not order the slaughter of children.
It’s not really a high bar.
You don’t.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations
Knock yourself out.
There is no simple answer to suffering. Rudolf Steiner had much to say about this topic and I am pretty confident that people here will find it either mostly fantasy or else too far a departure from the Christianity that they know and love. But I would like to present it for consideration and as a stimulus to move this debate out of its present rut. Here is an excerpt from Steiner’s lecture THE ORIGIN OF SUFFERING
So I have asked you to be more clear about this, so we can understand-you don’t mind woman getting raped, or stabbing grandmothers, as long as babies are made of rubber and can’t die, is that it?
CharlieM,
I find it mostly gibberish. It doesn’t rise to the level of fantasy. I mean “…consciousness is created between the red and the blue blood”!? To pick just one example.
Woodbine,
So Woodbine, can you explain why your version of a loving God would allow grandmothers to be beaten and raped?
Woodbine has a low bar. So I am guessing those are above the bar. As long as they aren’t babies.
Mung,
Right. Keiths wants God to either do everything or nothing, he won’t say, and Woodbine just wants God to not let babies die. Everything else goes.
Oh, I get it. It’s a rhetorical question. You (and keiths) aren’t really interested in an actual explanation. And if someone does provide an explanation you have to pretend like they didn’t understand the question or pretend like they didn’t provide an explanation. Hard to take either of you seriously.
CharlieM,
I have never seen any logical explanation of consciousness by theists other than the eternal soul… This lecture is just pure nonsense..
Same applies to materialists when it comes to explaining the evolution of consciousness; it evolved but it is another mystery…
I have been researching the theme of consciousness, near-death experiences in relation to so-called quantum consciousness…
This is the only theory I have come across so far that has scientific proof for some of the claims it made 20 years ago. This theory could unify both science and religious beliefs of a “soul” whatever that means…I’m not sure…
I’m not saying that there is proof for a quantum soul, but due to the laws of quantum information conservation (something Tom English was supposed to explore on in regards to his Evo-Info nonsense: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/evo-info-3-evolution-is-not-search) it is possible that if our consciousness operates on sub-atomic level (or even lower/deeper).
Then due to the laws of quantum physics derived from quantum field theory -> quantum Liouville theorem, quantum information is not created or lost.
If that is true, and it appears to be, our consciousness including our memories, experiences. etc. can be preserved indefinitely… Quantum information (soul-whatever that is) can’t be created or destroyed…
An explanation for why a supposedly loving God would destroy homes and cause people to die by means of a flood. For keiths, Woodbine, and other slow-fourth-graders.
Can we stop pretending now that no explanation has been offered?
And after that, can we stop pretending that Christians are not aware of this passage (and others like it) or that they completely ignore it (and others like it) when they develop their view of God?
The opinion that keiths has of God is not the same as the view of God held by Christians.
#StrawGods
When providing an example of something it does not necessary exclude other examples of the same thing.
If Woodbine said the only qualification for a loving God is He doesn’t order the chopping up into small pieces innocent children then you would have a point. Apparently that is not a deal breaker for you by your reaction
Second, there is the difference between a passive( not doing something to prevent it ) and an active role ( doing something to cause it) in the causation. If God X does not stop someone from chopping children into bits it is different from God X ordering someone to chop the little children up.
Is your comprehension do dim that when I say my version of a loving God wouldn’t order the slaughter of children you think I’d therefore be fine with grandmothers being raped?
It’s like conversing with a robot.
It explains it but unless little babies were guilty by being born of the corruption of the Earth their painful deaths are hardly seem the actions of a just ,omnipotent God. And yet it was
How does anesthesia effect an immaterial soul?
Good question! This is one of my claims against the immaterial soul…
You’re still missing the point, incredibly.
Nobody here is unaware of God wanting to cleanse the Earth, Mung; we’re all familiar with the tale. The point of contention, which you seemingly cannot grasp, is his methods.
God is omnipotent, his hands are not tied. So out of all the options available to him, why would a loving God elect to remove the babies, infants and children of the Earth by drowning them, crushing them, and smashing their bodies against the rocks?
Yes. Thank you. If keiths claims again that Christians have offered no explanation we’ll know he’s lying.
You’ve not heard of soul sleep?
So you conclude the soul is made of matter?
No. Why would you think that? The soul could be an equivalent of quantum information…
He used a flood.
So you think keiths was already aware of the explanation? His beef was that Christians couldn’t give an explanation for why a loving God would do such a thing. Extreme wickedness is an explanation. Everyone gets it except keiths.
If that’s the question he meant to ask that’s the question he should have asked. But that wasn’t the question he asked. He never said, yeah, but why a FLOOD! Anything but a FLOOD!
How about a massive meteor strike? Would that be better?
Evidently I should have written out an exhaustive list.
Oh, nothing’s a deal breaker for them….they are straight up genocide apologists.
Exactly. Phoodoo has asked for one repeatedly. What is acceptable and what is not acceptable in your eyes. And why.
Who, specifically, is apologizing for God?
I’ve been pointing out what the bible says about God. Is that what you mean by being an apologist?
Yeah….I’ll get right on that.
What I find acceptable is irrelevant…..the question is what actions are compatible with a supposedly loving god?
The Christians here, yourself included, believe that butchering children is quite compatible with an omnipotent and loving god.
Myself, Keiths, and presumably anyone else not desperate to maintain their spot in heaven, disagree.
Generally something is either matter or not matter. Which raises the question, how does anesthesia interact with quantum information…?
It would have made the whole building the ark kind of pointless
Try a thought experiment.
Imagine yourself to be omniopotent.
Imagine further you are infinitely loving.
Tomorrow you are tasked with removing a million children from existence. So you make a list of ways of how to achieve this. Because you are omnipotent you have practically infinite number of methods available (it’s a long list).
So, remembering that you’re not only omnipotent but also loving – whereabouts on the list do you think….
Drown the children.
….would be?
Would it be near the top or near the bottom of your list?
FFS…
I was going to just read on the sidelines, but it boggles my mind that you (and others like J-mac, Mung, Erik, et al) so badly mangle and mischaracterize Keith’s point. I won’t speak for him, but I’ll go out on a limb an note it isn’t about Keith (or anyone else…like me for instance) subjectively assessing some god’s behavior and saying, “ohh…waaah…that’s mean!” That’s just plain ludicrous.
No, this is is much simpler: any event for which ANYONE can come up with even a ridiculous “better” alternative outcome DEFINITIONALLY contradicts any concept of “omni-loving”. Period. So fuck any argument that some god supposedly did anything to “forgive sins” or made some “sacrifice”; the cross is simply a wimpy and pathetic appeal to emotion. The rubber meets the road the moment any group of humans are ever in situations in which they are not treated “lovingly”. And there are literally BILLIONS of such events. Thus, if there is some entity out there that anyone wishes to call “god”, said entity cannot be – BY DEFINITION – “all loving.”
Note, this in no way is some magical “proof” that there is no God at all. It is simply a demonstration that one aspect of the Christian concept of God is contradicted by actual events and even the bible itself.
And yeah…it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever what “we”…the-Christians-believe-in-a-contradictory-god arguers here…believe. I know god is a myth, but I can still argue hypothetically about mythical beings based on made-up attributes and point out internal contradictions therein.
Oh…and per Phoodoo’s silliness, it’s not incumbent upon any of us arguers to come up with some definition of “loving” either. Nope…that’s your burden. But seeing as how the bible kind of puts one forward, it seems odd that your “god” doesn’t even match it…
agapé: love, goodwill
Original Word: ἀγάπη, ης, ἡ
Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine
Transliteration: agapé
Phonetic Spelling: (ag-ah’-pay)
Short Definition: love
Definition: love, benevolence, good will, esteem; plur: love-feasts.
Feel free to continue to ignore Keith’s points and try to rationalize how drowning people and destroying people’s stuff (or at least not offering to rescue everyone caught in our recent hurricanes’ paths) somehow is a magnificent, clear-cut sign of benevolence and good will.
Good grief…
So how do you conceive the afterlife?
As a passage into another (non-biological) form, but still within and part of the Universe?
More lunacy…
So your “god” is “all-loving”, so long as we ignore all actual definitions of “loving” because it is “mysterious” and doesn’t have to adhere to basic human concepts and definitions? Thanks for proving Keith’s point…
This is still baffling to me. It makes no difference (as far as I can tell) to Keith’s point whether some supposed god is the author of horrid events or simply a passive observer. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, horrible events MUST occur in this world. But if there is an omni-god out there who can in any capacity offer some form of goodwill, but doesn’t, said omni-god is not – by definition – all loving. I’d argue such a god is – by definition – unloving, but that’s just me.
It just seems a little odd to me (for instance) that a supposed omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving god couldn’t…I don’t know…show up and simply ask everyone effected by the hurricane, “hey…you need any help?” You know…just to maintain the non-creative, feeble-minded creationists’ insistence that it not do anything to remove free will and all. And then whoever says, “what…are you an idiot? Of course I want help!!” said all loving god immediately…umm…helps.
Kind of a no-brainer in my book… I mean, if we’re talking “all-loving”. Outside of that, I have no idea why anyone would even consider any god loving at all, for any given definition of loving at all…
Generally… but there little generality with quantum mechanics…
It is not well known how anesthesia disables consciousness because all brain functions are usually normal…It is believed that anesthetic gases affect microtubles in neurons preventing them from interacting with quantum information…
Once the anesthetic stops working, microtubes interact with quantum information again and the state of consciousness and self-awareness return…
Some claim that the near-death experiences while being under general anesthesia prove the existence of quantum soul and afterlife, but personally I’m skeptical about that…
Mandarin is gibberish to me because of a lack of understanding on my part.
I take it you agree that there would be no consciousness without blood supplying oxygen and removing carbon dioxide?
Maybe you could explain why you think it’s pure nonsense?
FMM comes from the reformed (Calvinist) tradition – his god is in no way ‘all loving’.
Even before the foundations of the world were laid, this particular God predestined some people (mainly white folk) to live eternally in His presence – and predestined the remainder to eternal torment.
It would have to be non-biological…
Quantum information conservation law indicates that quantum soul would still have to be a part of this universe…This means that God and heaven would have to be part of it too….which makes no sense to me….
As someone already pointed out, the idea of how consciousness being created:
“As poison is created in the blood in the veins, and as in the normal man consciousness is created between the red and the blue blood, so in the initiated man the higher consciousness is created inwardly in the co-operation of life and death. And the state of bliss arises from a higher pleasure, creation, that proceeds from death.”
This sounds like a metaphor to me… Are you sure it was supposed to be interpreted literary?
CharlieM
I take it you agree that there would be no consciousness without blood supplying oxygen and removing carbon dioxide?
Without oxygen, for a prolonged period of time, the whole body, including all brain functions shut down, not only consciousness…
However, some people who experienced near-death experiences claim to be conscious for longer periods of time while they were clinically dead.
You can’t just say “consciousness is created between the red and the blue blood” without any evidence whatsoever…
I can say consciousness is created in my bones and that means it is pretty much eternal…
or other parts of the brain.
Any chance of expanding on the concept of quantum information…?
Well, wiping out all but eight people needs to be on your list. Obviously.
Unless keiths just wants us to ignore the bible.
So is tossing Adam and Eve out of the garden.
So is killing the firstborn sons of the Egyptians.
Sending people to hell.
The list of actions that are compatible with a supposedly loving God is quite extensive.
Bit by bit.
omg! the omni-loving omni-god! why didn’t I think of that? Why would anyone believe in such a God?