One problem cause by Religion

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The thing that gets me is nobody really has the answers. Well, maybe one of you is right, but you can't exactly prove it. We don't know more about god then we did a thousand years ago, and that blows my mind. we don't know how much power he has, if he is evil, or if he just created us to let us be. Plus maybe humans can only percieve one side of god, not able to see his big picture. But I suspect ya'll might be debating awhile before you reach a conclusion. lol

Well, I do think this is logically required. God by choosing from a set of all possible worlds, must logically thus be choosing between sum of all of the outcomes within all of the possible worlds. Given the extremely large number of possible worlds, this means a lot of control. (I am tempted to post a link to a paper by philosopher Dean Zimmerman about the foreknowledge and freewill compatible belief of molinism, which is very popular, where he shows/suggests that it leads to theological determinism. I don't have time to find it though)

Intervened in what way? Who or what did He come between?

The Pharaoh had been told to let the people go, and he had said he would not. The more he refused, the more God did whatever He did for whatever reason, and the Pharaoh's stubbornness or "hard-heartedness" thereby continued to grow ... and that seemed to strengthen the Pharaoh for a time ... and to have eventually even brought him right back to it after having relented for a while.



I am not an opponent.

Power has no will, exactly.

To put it under the control of something is to limit it to the choices of the user, which limits its potential.

Even more so if this power is that of an omniscient being. Because the being knows everything, it knows everything it will use the power for. Because of this you could plot how the power will be exerted on a graph and that will be it, exactly what the power will be used for and nothing more. That is all it can be, limited to linear use.

It can be a massive amount of power, but it can't be infinite because its potential isn't infinite due to its possessor being omniscient. It therefore has a strictly limited potential and is therefore not limitless in all ways and is therefore not infinite.

Like a battery that never runs out but can and will only be used to power a gameboy for 5 minutes. It has infinite chemical potential energy, yes, but after those five minutes its potential for use is known to be zero 0.

Another problem-
Everything has mass. This infinite energy will have infinite mass. It is not spread evenly over an infinite space because we wouldn't be able to be here. If it isn't the you have a small area with infinite mass.... That would create a blackhole that would destroy all of known existence (blackholes happen when you have very small areas with very large masses, for an infinite mass, any area that wasn't infinite would result in a black hole.)

So this power must occupy a place outside of nature, but if it is outside of nature, it is limited by only being able to exist outside of nature.

I'm thinking qualitative limits rather than quantitative.

Here's what I meant:

most of what's argued from 8 on suffers from the problem that we discussed in another thread about the possibility of an evil God - scope. As in the context of what's happening exterior our experience is likely far more salient. There's also a great deal of trouble in us using the very existence of theodicy as a proof for atheism when we know that the implication of a God means that we're locked away in somewhat of a tight sphere of influence, that also means at the same time that our very sense of what's good is also built on the rules of what we can perceive, thus when we define God as the sum of all goodness we're giving the same treatment of judging from inside the fishbowl. Taking that seriously almost necessitates that we are seeing everything, and if we are - that's an atheistic a priori as much as the concept that a conceptual possibility of a consequential exterior to our reality is a theistic a priori.

Where our available options stop: a) we work our way outward as individuals and come to the conclusion, from our own internal behaviors and the structure of our environments that a higher meaning is likely or b) we work our way outward as individuals and decide that any form of internal spirituality we have is purely a figment of our imaginations.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 12 Nov 2009, 7:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

When people just follow their own tribal religions, they never have extremism. That's only when you've got imperialist establishments trying to demonize everyone else and push their politics. When have you ever heard of native Americans crusading and commiting acts of terrorism in an attempt to get everyone to worship their Gods?

In a lot of senses as well, based on the lack of free will, limits of genetics, etc. - some of these clouds have even more silver lining than rain. For instance - ability to see one's future, sounds nice until you realize that many people would end their lives if they saw how modest their futures were, or saw all their worst trials in one fall swoop, it would also completely destroy our ability to really learn from experiences as struggles build a certain degree of integrity within individuals that a lack of struggles can't create. Yes, its possible that God could have created us fully complete without a need to learn anything (under the assumption that God exists) but - I think the apt question is was he lonely for other beings or did he just want toys? If his creations had no personality of their own or no capacity to be anything more than what he directly planted - they'd have no more sentience than your average pickle.

IMO a lot of things rule out a vengeful God as well. In short though for him to love us all and put us in a world where evil exists and with no sure knowledge of him - under the idea that he loves us all and know our opinions formed where the dice landed, if he has an intellect greater than the average human it would be impossible for him not to understand it. The only other vengeance that could be created aside from threat to loved ones is threat to self and of course, he's so far away on the food chain from anything in existence that its tough to figure how he even gets out of bed in the morning let alone have the kind of adrenal/lymbic urge to arbitrarily divide what he created and supposedly cast most of it into hell based on outcomes that he full and well knew were practical certainty. One can always try to argue that 'no God' is much cleaner and simpler but that's still speaking from an a priori assumption.

I have to wonder how much of that also is economic/religious interests masquerading under religious epitat. When a religion gets that big it can easily start behaving like a modern nation state and when it covers many different countries, a federation of nation states.

Exo 9:12 But the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had spoken to Moses.

If God hardens someone's heart, then God is intervening.


In this argument/discussion you are. The term "opponent" isn't to be literally taken as if we are in a bloody struggle, but it is reflective of positions in a discussion, as one side is opposing the other on some measure. I would hardly say that we are agreeing on issues, would you? It certainly isn't even a bad thing. Think about being a devil's advocate. It means opposing a position, becoming an opponent to it, to make the position stronger.

Are you sure it doesn't expand its potential so that it may be used as the user desires, which actualizes it's potential? I mean, you are arguing that moving from being logically required to do nothing to doing something is a limitation of potential. In any case, power isn't a matter of potential. Power = power.


We don't ascribe personality or intention to batteries though, and that makes a significant difference I would think. We can't say that a battery could do something, but chooses not to. We can say that about a person though.


What about light and heat? They don't have mass. Not only that, but infinite power does not mean infinite energy. Take a president, he has more political power than you do, but there might be no difference in mass between you and a president, you could even be heavier than one. Power is a term about capability, not necessarily a physics term.

No, I am not. Even when I know differently, I nevertheless assume we are all simply trying to pool our overall, common, individual and/or personal knowledge, experience, intellect or whatever else -- all cards on the table, faceup -- for the sake of the better of all.

A statement had been made that God is corrupt, I believe that statement to be false, and I am looking to hear something other than positional rhetoric regarding it.

Ever heard of the Sioux tribe?

They could've and would've if it weren't for the white man's geniusness in the manifest destiny.

Umm... I don't think you and I are disagreeing on meaning but rather terms.

"The term "opponent" isn't to be literally taken as if we are in a bloody struggle, but it is reflective of positions in a discussion, as one side is opposing the other on some measure. I would hardly say that we are agreeing on issues, would you? It certainly isn't even a bad thing. Think about being a devil's advocate. It means opposing a position, becoming an opponent to it, to make the position stronger."

Nothing about how I defined opponent means that there is a person who is not honestly giving their knowledge so that all people may improve. It merely means that there are two different groupings of people, who have different beliefs and are trying to compare ideas in a manner where there are sides, like a debate. Do I consider debates illegitimate ways to get knowledge? Well, not really, they aren't perfect as there are variations in skill, and if a person is put on the spot they are worse, however, how else do you expect to have a good comparison unless you have motivated defenders and critics of ideas? I can't see a better way to do this.

That does not interest me.

I am only trying to find out what kind of evidence there might actually be that God is corrupt.

Honestly, premise 6 is where most people would cite the issue of scope and epistemic limitations, simply because I am positing knowledge of a better world than the current world, and some people do think that this requires understanding the workings of the entire world due to possible interconnections. For example, little Suzie getting raped could be justified because it prevented a war, so for me to prove evil from little Suzie's fate would thus be incorrect. The issue is to a certain extent the probability and justifiability within our given level of knowledge. After all, no matter what the state of the world is, we must grant our cognitive abilities *some* capability to find some form of truth or else admit to epistemic nihilism. And epistemic nihilism will eliminate all justifications for all things.

Umm.... ok?

leejosepho, I put forward a verse in Exodus about God hardening the heart of Pharaoh (Exodus 9:12). Now, you can accuse me of misexegeting this passage, however, I believe that for some bodies of Christians, the interpretation that God was acting in a manner so that Pharaoh would do evil *is* correct. I also put forward a formulation of the logical problem of evil.

1) Beings are responsible for the forseeable results of their actions. (Premise)
2) God is omniscient, therefore he knows all results. (Premise)
3) God's action is the basis of all things that occur. (Premise)
4) All of the evils in the universe are foreknown results from God's action(s) (from 2 & 3)
5) Therefore God is responsible for all evils. (from 1 & 4)
6) A world with less evil and no loss in goodness is possible. (Premise)
7) Therefore God is responsible for gratuitous evil (from 1, 2, 3, and 6)
8 ) Good beings do not cause gratuitous evil. (Premise)
9) Therefore God is not good. (from 7 & 8 )
10) God is defined as good. (Premise)
11) Therefore God does not exist (from 9 & 10)

Now, so far, I think we have disagreed about the status of premise 1, and so I think we have been arguing about premise 1. This constitutes one side opposing the other on some measure. If you disagree, then I must be somewhat confused on the matter.