The only reason that I haven't posted is because I have been on a five week holiday to Central Australia.
I had a decent amount of time to consider some issues, and one which struck me with a lot of force was the problem of evil. Not only does the world contain human evil and natural disasters, but our species is capable of feeling so much suffering. If there is a designer of the universe who has created us with the capacity for so much suffering and faulty enough to continually inflict it upon others I couldn't worship it.
I find more comfort in the idea that our capacity for suffering is an evolved trauma avoidance mechanism, one which exists due to the bottom up population pressures on our ancestors. It stops us from having to rationalise the horrors of the world with the idea of a benevolent God, and leaves the door open to alleviating suffering on an individual level.
I kept coming back to the idea of goodness which Daniel Dennett wrote about in an essay following his heart attack a few years ago, it's quite inspiring and shows a lot about how we are able to be good without God.
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dennett06/dennett06_index.html
My attitude is one of atheism and anti-theism (although there is a very small possibility of God, if its existence was demonstrated I would just become an anti-theist). I think that there is more elegance and beauty in understanding the nature of the universe, and actively trying to find out new facts than handing credit to a creator. I think that religion exploits and infects human minds in the same way that advertising does, and gets them to accept the implausible on the basis of faith (for instance saying that there is an intelligence which started the universe is a completely unjustified statement, and any specific claims about prophets and miracles are much the same).
I had a decent amount of time to consider some issues, and one which struck me with a lot of force was the problem of evil. Not only does the world contain human evil and natural disasters, but our species is capable of feeling so much suffering. If there is a designer of the universe who has created us with the capacity for so much suffering and faulty enough to continually inflict it upon others I couldn't worship it.
My attitude is one of atheism and anti-theism (although there is a very small possibility of God, if its existence was demonstrated I would just become an anti-theist).
You do realize that most atheists have considered the view, and have searched for answers, don't you?I disagree with you, but I hope you are open to considering the view that a universal God does exists.
And will search and think about this question.
I disagree with you, but I hope you are open to considering the view that a universal God does exists.
And will search and think about this question.
What designer would create humans to suffer so much emotional damage from the prevalent behaviour of rape?
What designer would create faulty human brains which lead to depression, delusions, and suicide? What designer would infest the world with parasites and viruses, entities that only function to replicate at the expense of host organisms?
The same god that would allow free will, must, by definition allow suffering. Does God rape women?
Its easy to explain human inflicted suffering as free will, but what about the parasites A_Wanderer mentioned. What kind of God would create these?
Candiru: Vampire Fish
What would you think of a God that did not create us with a free will?
I don't think there's a bearded man in the sky, I think there's a cosmos in the sky.
Not very much at all, Iron Horse. It's a no-brainer. And I cannot see how such a scenario could ever be, anyway. Once we developed sentience, we became creatures of free will. There's no going back from that.
I don't think you even know what your original question was."Not very much" is your answer?
So, you prefer a God who creates beings without free will?
I"m guessing you don't believe a God exists, but you answer the question?
I don't think you even know what your original question was.
Ever since I was a young child, I remember thinking that God owed us all at least one "revelation" in our lifetime. Since I was taught that my eternal soul depended upon believing in God; and, at the same time, God had created a reasonably intelligent being that would of course doubt what it had no obvious evidence of, how then, I wondered, could I be eternally damned by a loving God for doubting? I thought, if God just gave us one simple revelation of himself during our life and said, "Here I AM, Knuckle. I am who am. It's all true. Well, that's it. Be good now. Or don't. You have free will now don't forget." That would have been enough for me (and just about every human being I expect).
That just seemed fair to me as a child. It still does. But I'm still waiting to be struck off my horse while riding to Damascus. Then I can start my letter writing campaign to the people of Corinth (even though they'll never listen anyway).
What do you mean by free will? I'm not sure that we enjoy the sort of free will and moral choice that we generally think we do, our conscious willing may be secondary to deterministic natural processes.The same god that would allow free will, must, by definition allow suffering. Does God rape women?
But aren't complex food chains and conscious agency products of natural law; all life is exploiting energy to reverse entropy, and wherever there is an opportunity in the economy of nature it will be filled. It is so much more parsimonious to reject an intelligence behind it in the absence of evidence and necessity.To sum up, it seems to me that the only way a universe free of suffering for us could exist would be if it operated on such a small and limited scale as to be nothing but a little clockwork world with all the rough edges smoothed off. No complex food chains. No conscious agency. I am having trouble imagining it really.
But is this more than deism, is it a spiritual appreciation and wonder towards the laws of nature rather than the acceptance of miracles and special creation?I mean, for a hypothetical: what's worse, a god that sets everything to unfold as it will, or a god who really is nothing much more than a human-like designer, building a padded treehouse for some happy campers to sit around in like chumps. I know atheists like to think that Christianity means a bearded man in the sky, but I don't think there's a bearded man in the sky, I think there's a cosmos in the sky.
But aren't complex food chains and conscious agency products of natural law; all life is exploiting energy to reverse entropy, and wherever there is an opportunity in the economy of nature it will be filled. It is so much more parsimonious to reject an intelligence behind it in the absence of evidence and necessity.