for real

give yourself up to the glazed god

11/13/2006 3:29:05 PM

truth is found in the hole

11/13/2006 3:30:50 PM

Quote :

"look at good compared to light. not letting someone merge is like shade. lying is like 5pm assault is like midnight and murder is like shut inside a dark closet"

Right ok. Well now I would say that you are defining evil as the lack of good, and also good as the lack of evil. That is following your comparison, darkness is the absence of light, and light is the absence of darkness. So now you have good and evil intertwined where it would be impossible for one to exist without the other. What would light be if darkness did not exist?

11/13/2006 3:31:12 PM

darkness is not a thing. it does not exist. that is proven scientifically

11/13/2006 3:44:35 PM

then evil does not exist by your comparison... and then murder and not letting someone merge are both just lacking of good... you can't say that one lacks more good than the other as they both are totally lacking of good

[Edited on November 13, 2006 at 3:54 PM. Reason : 1]

11/13/2006 3:53:26 PM

no there is still some good in you when you don't let one merge. you're just not full of good.

its like saying your room with the light off and a shut closet are both the same because neither has light light. but the room actually has a little light and the closet has no light.

11/13/2006 3:59:22 PM

where is the good in not letting someone merge? it seems to me that I have an option to do something good, but I choose not to, therefore I do no good. Also I believe you will be hard pressed to find a completely dark room, ie a room where night vision goggles (light amplification type) do not work because there is no light. So that would be like saying that there is good in rape and less good in murder. I think rape=murder=evil

For me it seems like there is good or bad. There are "gray" areas but this is just do to the mixing of good and bad results/actions.

11/13/2006 4:13:33 PM

if this was a perfect world, i'd have magical powers.

11/13/2006 4:17:50 PM

yes the action is no good but there is still some good in the person.

11/13/2006 4:19:30 PM

This semi-serious philosophical discussion turned into 2 people with a combined IQ of 12 trying to pretend to be Einstein

11/13/2006 4:33:22 PM

^^right ok, but by your definition, evil is the absence of good... if the action of not letting somebody merge is lacking good... then it is evil. Then if a person containing good commits an act absent of good, then that makes the person lack good, using your definition that makes them evil.

^yea right because we are talking theoretical physics here

[Edited on November 13, 2006 at 4:36 PM. Reason : :]

11/13/2006 4:33:25 PM

that's the point.

Even this is out of intellectual reach for you two.

11/13/2006 4:41:08 PM

That is not theoretical phyics...unless eating at McDonalds counts as running a marathon.

11/13/2006 4:42:59 PM

no everyone has done something bad. they just didnt use the good in hteir hearts to perform that action. someone tottally evil is just a person that has no good. evil is the lack of good.


new shit cold does not exist.

cold is the absents of heat.

the merge thing may be like 50 degrees while rape is like 10 and murder is 0

[Edited on November 13, 2006 at 4:45 PM. Reason : there is no such thing as cold]

11/13/2006 4:45:26 PM

Quote :

"what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.""

[Edited on November 13, 2006 at 5:23 PM. Reason : .]

11/13/2006 4:55:43 PM

Quote :

"absents"

What is this that you speak of?

11/13/2006 5:19:39 PM

Grumpy -- let me start by correcting some things you said about Buddhism. You painted it as being quite dualistic when in fact it's not.

Quote :

"The long and the short of it is, you're a person, and you're not exactly Buddha."

The idea is that everybody has Buddha-nature. Buddha isn't some external concept that Buddhists strive towards like Christians strive towards an alienated God. The concept is that everybody is already Buddha, and must simply return to this internal nature.

Quote :

"Obviously enough, I disagree. There's all sorts of various counterarguments. A parent who does nothing but shower their kids with gifts all the time is really doing something horrible with their kid. A parent who punishes them when they fuck up and rewards them when they do good and otherwise teaches lessons is the benevolent one."

How about situations where kids are brought into the world, put through horrible child abuse, and then killed before they can even make sense of the world?

Quote :

"Well if there were no evil, then could there be good? Also is good merely the absence of evil, or is it something of its own? Also how do you define supernatural good?"

This is actually a great question. I guess good and evil are in the same boat, as in they're on the same axis. It's one-dimensional in this sense -- the more evil something gets, the less good, and vice a versa.

What I mean by supernatural good is something that sees no natural fruition. This is to say, God being happy, or your eternal life being secured -- something along those lines. Not something you'll ever see the payoff for in this life, or in natural reality.

Quote :

"Voltaire makes a pretty good argument against this in 'Candide'. A good read. But then, he was just mad at Libniz."

Haha who wasn't mad at Leibniz? Even Leibniz was mad at Leibniz.

Quote :

"The fact that we can concieve a more perfect world places the blame of imperfection squarely on our shoulders. Rape and murder exist because we allow them to exist, we create them."

This is an excellent point, actually. But how about things we don't have any control over? What about illnesses we have no control over, or natural disasters, etc etc.

Anyway -- let's reset the thread at this point. hcnguyen is an admitted troll, and at this point is pushing the thread off topic.

I'm actually really happy about this topic for the most part, save for him and marko/nastoute. This seems to be one of the few times in the soap box that we've gotten an actual, engaged discussion from people without it degenerating into mind-numbing trolling off the bat. The least you guys could do is actually participate instead of sit back and pretend you're too good to get involved in the discussion. If you think that, then just don't open the thread. You're not too good. Your criticisms might be valid if this was a typical religion thread, but it's not. It hasn't degenerated that far yet.

11/13/2006 6:06:00 PM

Quote :

"Buddha isn't some external concept that Buddhists strive towards like Christians strive towards an alienated God."

Sigh...I know this, McDanger. It wasn't really relevant to the point I was trying to make, so I just took a shortcut. Regardless of how you want to phrase it, moron is not like Buddha, either the man or the nature within himself, and as such the life of someone who has found it is probably not going to strike him as being any fun.

Quote :

"How about situations where kids are brought into the world, put through horrible child abuse, and then killed before they can even make sense of the world?"

That's not what God is doing to us or anyone else, and anyway, its beside the point, which is that benevolence will occasionally require the impelementation of unpleasantries. Basically all we're doing now is debating the minutiae of child rearing/world creation, but I think we can agree benevolent treatment need not be all good, all the time, and it certainly isn't all bad, all the time. From there we can only go into discussion about individual actions ("Well this isn't benevolent!" "Yes it is! And look at how benevolent this is!"). We've gone about as far down this road as we can, methinks.

[Edited on November 13, 2006 at 6:16 PM. Reason : ]

11/13/2006 6:15:04 PM

You're probably right about us reaching an impasse on the topic of omnibenevolence.

Anybody else have a take on it? How about on omnipotence? I think omnipotence is a harder sell than omnibenevolence, because there are a few paradoxes that come into play that cannot be explained away so easily.

11/13/2006 6:49:44 PM

God is not "omnipotent" because he limits his own power by giving us free will. Other than self limitations, yes, omnipotent. Its not that complicated man.

11/13/2006 6:57:40 PM

Is there such a thing as "other than" when you're talking about omnipotence?

11/13/2006 6:59:58 PM

i havent read any of this, but how does giving us free will make him not omnipotent?

11/13/2006 7:52:31 PM

^ I think she means hes all powerful, but then gives this up and becomes less powerful, but still has the power to take it back, so he actually is all powerful, but doesn't actually take it back, so he's not really all that powerful. makes sense right?

11/13/2006 7:54:12 PM

thats like saying i somehow have less power over this ant on my carpet because i choose not to step on it

11/13/2006 8:00:19 PM

^I was being sarcastic

11/13/2006 8:01:31 PM

Quote :

"i havent read any of this, but how does giving us free will make him not omnipotent?"

Well that's what you get for not reading it.

We were talking about omnipotence being an incoherent notion or not. You know, the old "can God create a rock so big that not even he could lift it" problem.

11/13/2006 8:36:06 PM

That's like saying, "Can God create a round square?" Which is in turn like saying, "Can God booglie booglie boo." It's nonsense.

11/13/2006 8:39:56 PM

Obviously something in the sentence has to be nonsense, since its a paradox. Why is the concept itself invalid, however? It's imaginable. I can imagine the boulder. I cannot, however, imagine a round square.

This is just to say that there are things God cannot do. (raising problems with omnipotence)

11/13/2006 9:05:00 PM

she used free will as a example of a limit on his power, but its not. i didnt need to read anything for that.

11/13/2006 9:13:17 PM

I guess he could technically brainwash people if he wanted, so I'll agree.

11/13/2006 9:16:52 PM

Quote :

"Obviously something in the sentence has to be nonsense, since its a paradox. Why is the concept itself invalid, however?"

Because, as you say, it's nonsensical.

It looks like you're proving that there's something God can't do, but the thing you've provided isn't anything.

11/13/2006 9:18:09 PM

I'm not sure how you figure. Playing with infinities can be tricky, but are you saying God can't create something as infinite as himself?

11/13/2006 9:20:39 PM

he can create a rock infinite in size, but he would also be able to do what he wanted with it

11/13/2006 9:22:04 PM

Quote :

"I was being sarcastic"

I think that sums up half the posts in this thread



[Edited on November 13, 2006 at 11:23 PM. Reason : ;]

11/13/2006 11:21:32 PM

Quote :

" I think that sums up half the posts in this thread "

including this one

11/13/2006 11:31:01 PM

if the world was perfect, would we need religion?

11/13/2006 11:57:03 PM

^ random thought that popped up after reading.


If you mean "the most perfect" as perfect in every way, with the most perfect one lacking bad/evil/whatever, then i think no, it is not the most perfect.

11/14/2006 12:37:42 AM

my cat will figure out this thread before mankind will

11/14/2006 12:46:35 AM

a perfect world would not have gnats

11/14/2006 12:55:25 AM

Quote :

"Way to contribute nothing to the thread. The point here wasn't to tread on new grounds. If you had any reading comprehension at all, you would have understood from the first post that this is just about what people think. Hahaha "read a philosophy book." Do you have any idea how fucking stupid you sound? What kind of philosophy, exactly? Don't be a fucking dope, I'll wager quite a few people in this thread alone have read a lot more philosophy than you. I'll wager I've read more philosophy over the past month than you have in the past four years. "

hahaha the whole point of this thread is made obvious by that second paragraph. it's for you to show off the fact that you've apparently read more philosophy over the past month yadda yadda.

CONGRATULATIONS.

i hope you feel better arguing just for the sake of arguing while advancing philosophy in no way, shape, or form. i know i do, typing this!

if you've read so much philosophy, then i'm sure you've read something about modern philosophy, and guess what? you probably read Leibniz, didn't you? considering the fact that this guy was a proponent of this world being the best possible world and he that INVENTED CALCULUS, I'D BET A LOT OF MONEY HE'S CAPABLE OF MAKING A BETTER ARGUMENT THAN PEOPLE WITH A BACHELORS FROM NC STATE.

oh wait, i know what you like to do. you've been reading these theories, and then you read the faults, which were found by other, more intelligent people, and now you tear down these people's basic arguments because it makes you feel good, doesn't it?

quit pretending that you're here to "find everyone's opinion." man up to the simple fact that you're just trying to back people into corners and show you're advanced knowledge.

and byron, it was just to this blowhole, not everyone else.

11/18/2006 1:08:54 AM

Quote :

"hahaha the whole point of this thread is made obvious by that second paragraph. it's for you to show off the fact that you've apparently read more philosophy over the past month yadda yadda."

Huh? You realize that in the soap box, people make topics to discuss things that interest them. Philosophy and religion interest me, so why wouldn't I start threads regarding them? I'm not trying to "show off" what I've read, I was trying to get together a topic for discussion. Lots of people seemed to get on in the thread just fine, while you butted your head in to provide this unhelpful, idiotic commentary.

Quote :

" i hope you feel better arguing just for the sake of arguing while advancing philosophy in no way, shape, or form. i know i do, typing this! "

The thread wasn't about "furthering philosophy." Too stupid to get the point, and then additionally stupid enough to mock his misconceptions... wow. You suck.

Quote :

"if you've read so much philosophy, then i'm sure you've read something about modern philosophy, and guess what? you probably read Leibniz, didn't you? considering the fact that this guy was a proponent of this world being the best possible world and he that INVENTED CALCULUS, I'D BET A LOT OF MONEY HE'S CAPABLE OF MAKING A BETTER ARGUMENT THAN PEOPLE WITH A BACHELORS FROM NC STATE."

Leibniz was a brilliant guy, but his philosophy was actually pretty horrible. In fact, his argument for this sucks. I might have read Leibniz, but you obviously haven't. If you had read Leibniz, instead of talking out of your ass, you'd know the guy's philosophy was wack. Pre-established harmony? Come on.

Quote :

"oh wait, i know what you like to do. you've been reading these theories, and then you read the faults, which were found by other, more intelligent people, and now you tear down these people's basic arguments because it makes you feel good, doesn't it? "

No, this was to bat the idea around with people on this forum. What about that do you fail to grasp? I actually do work in contemporary philosophy -- I'm brand new at it, and I've been polishing up a few papers in an attempt to get them published and present them at symposiums. None of it is on the history of philosophy.

Quote :

"quit pretending that you're here to "find everyone's opinion." man up to the simple fact that you're just trying to back people into corners and show you're advanced knowledge."

???

Where the fuck do I do this in this thread? Seriously, Duke, handle this fucking bitch.

11/18/2006 1:37:26 AM

Quote :

"Lots of people seemed to get on in the thread just fine, while you butted your head in to provide this unhelpful, idiotic commentary."

i'm sorry i've ruined your thread, sugartits.

Quote :

"The thread wasn't about "furthering philosophy." Too stupid to get the point, and then additionally stupid enough to mock his misconceptions... wow. You suck."

no, i got "the point." i just think it's just bullshit.

Quote :

"Leibniz was a brilliant guy, but his philosophy was actually pretty horrible. In fact, his argument for this sucks. I might have read Leibniz, but you obviously haven't. If you had read Leibniz, instead of talking out of your ass, you'd know the guy's philosophy was wack. Pre-established harmony? Come on."

oh, i know what leibniz' philosophy was, but to every theory there are followers. it'd be pretty simple to look up more arguments for his theories. see, if you open a book on Leibniz, you'd see not only his argument, but the opposition's, as well as proponents'. and guess what would be answering your question? that's right, "philosophy book".

while i agree that leibniz was a bit batty, i don't really think leibniz was that bad off. its rational that god couldn't be bound by laws of perfection because then god becomes this simple machine of great power that is unworthy of his praise. there's really nothing to this god then, and i don't blame him for disagreeing with it.

Quote :

"No, this was to bat the idea around with people on this forum. What about that do you fail to grasp? I actually do work in contemporary philosophy -- I'm brand new at it, and I've been polishing up a few papers in an attempt to get them published and present them at symposiums. None of it is on the history of philosophy."

okay.

is it possible that god worked through evolution? and consequently if only the species most agreeable to the changing environment survived, couldn't they be considered the most perfect species? expand this down to humans, and then our initial human societies were the most adaptable to change, or perfect? i think this brings causality to the table, though.

11/18/2006 9:51:30 AM

I had typed up this long, pejorative response mostly including your misconceptions about Leibniz... but I came to the last part of your post and realized this discussion is still salvagable, so I'll let it slide.

Quote :

"is it possible that god worked through evolution? and consequently if only the species most agreeable to the changing environment survived, couldn't they be considered the most perfect species? expand this down to humans, and then our initial human societies were the most adaptable to change, or perfect? i think this brings causality to the table, though."

Yeah, it's surely possible that god worked through evolution. In such a case, it'd be hard to determine "most perfect" though, because this becomes synonymous with "most successful." Basically, the most successful species would not only be determined by current conditions, but also by past conditions of all sorts.

It's actually interesting, though. Belief in God is surely compatible with evolution, but lots of beliefs are. It depends what sorts of factual claims about reality your religion makes, really.

11/18/2006 11:39:51 AM

you should post the horsedick dude in this thread

it would make sense

11/18/2006 2:23:13 PM

i think when dealing with evolution the term perfect becomes synonymous with most successful. any species that could function better (or more perfectly) would survive versus the species that actually has, i believe.

also, because evolution is the most logical theory concerning our current state, this would all go back to the original life, whatever it was. if some god had created it, then the question just becomes why did god create it the way it is, in the environment in which it was created? i suppose it leads to the original question of whether god could have created the universe any different, so that perhaps another variation of humans would have developed and there would have been one rape less in the world.

but i just cant grasp the idea of a rational creator of this actual world, which is one of the reasons i'm an atheist, or at least not christian or muslim, et cetera.

11/18/2006 11:43:02 PM

Quote :

"you should post the horsedick dude in this thread it would make sense"

You should get lost you fucking faggot. Your girlfriend is a cheating slut. Feel free to add something of content and value. Break that streak of 54,226 anytime now.

Quote :

"i think when dealing with evolution the term perfect becomes synonymous with most successful. any species that could function better (or more perfectly) would survive versus the species that actually has, i believe."

Yeah I suppose -- but I have a hard time using a normative term such as "perfect" when it comes to something like this.

Quote :

"also, because evolution is the most logical theory concerning our current state, this would all go back to the original life, whatever it was. if some god had created it, then the question just becomes why did god create it the way it is, in the environment in which it was created? i suppose it leads to the original question of whether god could have created the universe any different, so that perhaps another variation of humans would have developed and there would have been one rape less in the world."

I think the believer would argue that we don't know, and never will know all of the things that moved God to act like he did in the act of creation. However, I'm interested in what precisely constrained God in making the Universe in this particular way. Rather, what sorts of things did he base his decisions on at the time?

Quote :

"but i just cant grasp the idea of a rational creator of this actual world, which is one of the reasons i'm an atheist, or at least not christian or muslim, et cetera."

Yeah me either -- but I suspend judgment on the issue, because I find most every account of "god" to be horribly flawed. If God did exist, he would certainly be hard to understand -- but many people simply explain away contradictions in our idea of God by claiming he's super-complex, or something like that. Argumentum ad hand-waving.

11/19/2006 12:05:10 AM

I like how mcdanger tries to copy professor pangloss and inflat his ego.

11/19/2006 12:16:30 AM

Professor Pangloss is who?

[Edited on November 19, 2006 at 12:24 AM. Reason : .]

11/19/2006 12:23:40 AM

Quote :

"Candide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Note: For the Bernstein operetta based on the book, please see Candide (operetta). Candide, ou l'Optimisme, ("Candide, or Optimism") (1759) is a picaresque novel by the Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire. Voltaire never openly admitted to having written the controversial Candide; the work is signed with a pseudonym: "Monsieur le docteur Ralph", literally "Mister Doctor Ralph." Sardonic in outlook, it follows the naïve protagonist Candide from his first exposure to the precept that "all is for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds," and on through a series of adventures that dramatically disprove that precept even as the protagonist clings to it. The novel satirizes naïve interpretations of the philosophy of Gottfried Leibniz and is a showcase of the horrors of the 18th century world. In Candide, Leibniz is represented by the philosopher Pangloss, the tutor of the title character. Despite a series of misfortunes and misadventures, Pangloss continually asserts that "Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles" ("All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds"). "

Quote :

"Pangloss From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Pangloss is a character in Voltaire's novel Candide. He tutors Candide while they are living in the castle of Thunder-ten-Tronckh in Westphalia, Germany, and later joins Candide in some of his misadventures. Like most characters in Candide, Pangloss is a "flat character": he has only a few personality traits that do not evolve much throughout the story. According to Voltaire, Pangloss was a teacher of "metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology." Pangloss is a follower of, or as many have argued, a caricature or outright satire of the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, who in his Theodicy theorized that the world we live in is the best of all possible worlds. Consequently, Pangloss constantly argues that "there is no effect without a cause" — in other words, everything in existence, from the human nose to natural disasters, is meant to suit a specific purpose. However, this worldview causes Pangloss to not only remain optimistic in the face of incredible tragedy, but leads him to justify it. For instance, while Candide, Pangloss and Candide's friend James the Anabaptist are sailing to Lisbon, a storm hits and James is washed overboard. Pangloss stops Candide from saving James, claiming that "the bay of Lisbon had been formed expressly for [James] to drown in". Even though Pangloss himself suffers a series of misfortunes — including a botched execution attempt by the Inquisition and being enslaved on a Turkish galley — he doesn't adopt a more realistic outlook by the end of the novel. The name Pangloss was created through use of Greek prefixes and suffixes pan- meaning all, or every, and -gloss, meaning language. Therefore, Dr. Pangloss was called a scholar by saying that he knew all languages. Voltaire would have claimed that this was his way of showing what people found to be as a trustworthy and respectable person. (However, another possible translation of "Pangloss" is "all tongue," i.e., one who speaks incessantly without thinking.) [edit] Panglossianism The term "panglossianism" describes baseless optimism of the sort exemplified by Pangloss's beliefs, which are the opposite of his fellow traveller Martin's pessimism and emphasis on free will. The phrase "panglossian pessimism" has been used to describe the pessimistic position that, since this is the best of all possible worlds, it is impossible for anything to get any better. The panglossian paradigm is a term coined by Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin to refer to the notion that everything has specifically adapted to suit specific purposes. Instead, they argue, accidents and exaptation (the use of old features for new purposes) play an important role in the process of evolution. "

11/19/2006 12:48:51 AM

^^wow. I thought you of all people would know

11/19/2006 12:50:43 AM