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Angels on a Pinhead
Authored by: Rolf on Friday, January 15 2010 @ 07:43 AM GMT+4
Hello Spinoza,
Voltaire's remarks are applicable to Robertson's comments.
But the larger theological, or philosophical problem for Robertson, or anyone else who chooses to contemplate it,
(and many choose atheism and do not have to contemplate it)
is that if God is all powerful (omnipotent) (which Voltaire lists as an attribute of God in this work you cited)
and God is loving and uniquely perfectly good
then how could the innocents of Lisbon, (or Haiti) be caused such pain and suffering, as well as violent death?
(The evil and suffering that people inflict on other people is a different beast, if you will, as it involves actions of creatures with free will. Those actions cannot really be blamed on any being other than the perpetrators themselves. Thus, the problem of Port au Prince seems fundamentally different from the problems presented by contemplating man's barbarity to man.)
For some, the abandonment of the concept of God in the face of suffering caused by natural events was or is the only answer.
For Robertson, the answer to suffering that is visited by acts of nature unto human beings is bound up in the very ancient concept of the guilt of entire nations, i.e. there is divine retribution visited upon entire nations and distributed to any or all of the members of a "guilty" nation. He has some scriptural basis for this ancient concept, and as a literalistic interpreter of the texts he holds sacred, that is the direction he would tend to go to. Personally I find the idea repugnant for the reasons that you have let Voltaire remind us of.
I personally do not choose atheism as a solution to the problem as I find it raises more problems for me both logical and moral, than it solves. I find radical cosmic dualism to be a better solution; God cannot be both all powerful and uniquely purely loving in a world with Ebola and one in which babies have been crushed in earthquakes, and worse.
Saying God is All powerful, omnipotent, is different from saying God is a Power.
The former seems impossible, the later seems likely, and preserves an attribute of God more vital to compassionate people than mere power, which is the attribute of Love and compassion.
This is one of the reasons that I personally abandoned Christianity. The concept of an omnipotent omniscient Loving God is incompatible with the world we live in. Removing Omnipotence from the list of God's attributes solves more logical problems for me than it raises.
Authored by: spinoza on Friday, January 15 2010 @ 12:40 PM GMT+4
As Rolf astutely points out, that Era was steeped in a literalism that is almost incomprehensible to a rational mind. Voltaire railed against a mindset in which the Inquisition dominated daily life. Reports say that clergy roamed the streets of Lisbon in the wake of the quake, seeking heretics and sinners to punish as cause of the calamity.
The scale of devastation in 1755 Portugal was comparable to Haiti, and the question of whether or not a benign Creator is behind earthly happenings is no less pressing today. Sadly, we still seem caught in the whirlpool of hysteria, where fear-mongers like Palin, Rush and Robertson have immense platforms, and elected officials dare not publicly air their wavering faith, or face damnation via the ballot box.
Authored by: Rolf on Friday, January 15 2010 @ 03:18 PM GMT+4
What I find bothersome about Voltaire, (well besides his anti-semitism, which is perhaps a whole separate topic)
is his easy dismissal of dualism as a solution to the problem he poses. Since I am interested and even invested in cosmic dualism, it's not surprising that I would reject his rejection of it. But there is more to my disatisfaction than that he disagrees with me. He suggests dualism won't do because it would require a belief in evil in a conceptional form that he rejects. But this dismissal of dualism is just that: a rather unsatisfactory circular dismissal. That he does it in a mocking tone doesn't help matters, but it's the easy almost flippant rejection that is bothersome, especially as he is capable of making better arguments for and against ideas than he displays at every juncture where the dualistic solution presents itself to his consideration. He falls short of what he is capable of. I say this not because he does not support or did not share the same notions as myself, but rather that he could have applied himself to providing a better critique of dualism, and instead choose flippancy and lazy dismissal of a notion that he apparently merely desired to reject for reasons that can be guessed at but not known.
My guess? He wanted to build support for his favored notion of deism, which has a delightfully bracing effect on the mind and on one's philosophical outlook. Dualisms outlook ladens individualizes with more responsibility and less than complete freedom than he probable could palate.
But who knows? He left us with a written record of flippancy so we can only guess at what underlies his rejection of dualism.
C. S. Lewis does a better job of knocking at dualism, but also fails, in to knock it off the pedestal that I have set it on. Not surprising that he fails; people like what they put on their pedestals after all. But at least C. S. Lewis hits it square on, and tried to break dualism into pieces, using logic like a hammer for smashing down a wall.
Hammers, walls, pedestals, now look; I am mixing up all these metaphors, so I better stop.
Authored by: Rolf on Friday, January 15 2010 @ 03:22 PM GMT+4
Spinoza wrote, "he question of whether or not a benign Creator is behind earthly happenings is no less pressing today."
Obviously from my perspective, this is not a pressing question.
The answer is, "Of course not." The question only comes up if one starts with a conception of God as Omnipotent. Let that go, and the pressing question evaporates, like dew in the hot sun.
Authored by: pjmelton on Friday, January 15 2010 @ 03:57 PM GMT+4
I can see how belief in deities would not necessarily require every deity to be omnipotent. However, if you are going with monotheism, as you seem to be, I don't get how you have monotheism without its god being an omnipotent one. Otherwise it's just a different sort of being, and not really a god at all.
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"Economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." -- FDR
Surely you must know that You are definite not a Pinhead
Authored by: Rolf on Friday, January 15 2010 @ 06:35 PM GMT+4
Cosmic dualism is not anything that I came up obviously, it is a sysyem of thought found in traditional Zorastrianism which holds a different definition of God than that found in Christianity.
We are, I think so used to the formulation of the very definition of God as being all powerful that it is hard (for me as well sometimes) to step out of it, or to try to if one is so inclined.
Zorastrianism still posits supernatural powers of creation to one spirit that is benevolent, but what makes this spirit "Divine" is that it is perfectly loving.
In opposition to this is another spiritual force.
If one wants to worship power, than worshiping anything less than an all powerful being seems to fall flat.
But with people as well with Gods, power is not really a charecteristic that is worthy of worship.
In contrast, the chief charecteristic that is worthy of worship (according to Zorastrianism) is the charecteristic of mercy, compassion, love.
Interestingly, their concept of God also posits omniscience, all knowingness.
Authored by: Rolf on Friday, January 15 2010 @ 06:50 PM GMT+4
If we define Monotheism as the worship of a singular deity worthy of worship because it is purely good,
then yeah, I am "going for monotheism"
The problem with most conceptions of Christianity, for me, it is at best a modified dualsim.
Ie, they have a "Satan" story, but as God is all powerful and omniscient . .. even the actions of that malevolent force are in the end, logically all part of God's plan. God would, in this story, be aware of a malevolent plan eons before the plans were formulated, have the power to stop these plans coming to fruition, and not prevent them from transpiring.
God moves in mysterious ways is resorted to sometimes to explain evil that we suffer.
While I am a puny minded human, and not privy to divine understanding, well, as Voltaire, said, no, all is not well.
It doesn't add up for me.
Becasue of the "Satan" story, some forms of christianity are called a modified form of dualism, but for me it all logically breaks down.
I like my dualism straight, or "radical" and on the rocks.
Ok now its Whiskey metaphors, but the seem somehow apt.
Authored by: pjmelton on Friday, January 15 2010 @ 07:40 PM GMT+4
For me, the simplest solution to the problem is that, if there is a deity, its nature is unknowable, and therefore its existence or lack thereof is irrelevant. I realize this belief, such as it is, is not unique to me. But it is no less mine.
It is interesting to consider a deity who is omniscient and all-merciful but not all-powerful. Sounds like a recipe for a suicidal godhead, if you ask me.
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"Economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." -- FDR
Authored by: cgrotke on Friday, January 15 2010 @ 04:36 PM GMT+4
Doesn't mince words:
"...Tranquil spectators of your brothers’ wreck,
Unmoved by this repellent dance of death,
Who calmly seek the reason of such storms,
Let them but lash your own security;
Your tears will mingle freely with the flood...."
Authored by: annikee on Friday, January 15 2010 @ 10:12 PM GMT+4
Reminded me of Thomas Aquinas:
"It seems that God does not exist; because if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. But the name God means that He is infinite goodness. If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is evil in the world. Therefore God does not exist."
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Freedom and fear are natural enemies.
If you've a bed, closet & fridge, you're richer than 75% of the people alive.
Hello Spinoza,
Voltaire's remarks are applicable to Robertson's comments.
But the larger theological, or philosophical problem for Robertson, or anyone else who chooses to contemplate it,
(and many choose atheism and do not have to contemplate it)
is that if God is all powerful (omnipotent) (which Voltaire lists as an attribute of God in this work you cited)
and God is loving and uniquely perfectly good
then how could the innocents of Lisbon, (or Haiti) be caused such pain and suffering, as well as violent death?
(The evil and suffering that people inflict on other people is a different beast, if you will, as it involves actions of creatures with free will. Those actions cannot really be blamed on any being other than the perpetrators themselves. Thus, the problem of Port au Prince seems fundamentally different from the problems presented by contemplating man's barbarity to man.)
For some, the abandonment of the concept of God in the face of suffering caused by natural events was or is the only answer.
For Robertson, the answer to suffering that is visited by acts of nature unto human beings is bound up in the very ancient concept of the guilt of entire nations, i.e. there is divine retribution visited upon entire nations and distributed to any or all of the members of a "guilty" nation. He has some scriptural basis for this ancient concept, and as a literalistic interpreter of the texts he holds sacred, that is the direction he would tend to go to. Personally I find the idea repugnant for the reasons that you have let Voltaire remind us of.
I personally do not choose atheism as a solution to the problem as I find it raises more problems for me both logical and moral, than it solves. I find radical cosmic dualism to be a better solution; God cannot be both all powerful and uniquely purely loving in a world with Ebola and one in which babies have been crushed in earthquakes, and worse.
Saying God is All powerful, omnipotent, is different from saying God is a Power.
The former seems impossible, the later seems likely, and preserves an attribute of God more vital to compassionate people than mere power, which is the attribute of Love and compassion.
This is one of the reasons that I personally abandoned Christianity. The concept of an omnipotent omniscient Loving God is incompatible with the world we live in. Removing Omnipotence from the list of God's attributes solves more logical problems for me than it raises.
Rolf
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