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I've read a bunch of these threads over the past few years. I've seen many atheists who started out as Christian turn to atheism when they were quite young. The average age seems to be around 12 or so. And yet, there are Christians on the same threads who also pondered these questions at the same tender age, and reached a completely different conclusion. So, I don't think it's fair to assume that because their conclusion is different than yours, that they didn't ponder, as you did.
No, it's not some "dismissal". Obviously, some Christians have pondered this for over 1500 years, and continue to do so. And while some may simply say something like, "God's ways are mysterious", it doesn't mean they haven't thought about it. For example, a parent may have a very good reason for prohibiting their child from doing something. But instead of taking the time (which the parent may not have, at the time) to explain their reason to the child, they say, "Because I said so."
Again, not true. The whole point that atheists seem to miss about God is that God is ALL KNOWING. So, just because *you* don't know of any 'good' reason for suffering, doesn't mean there isn't one. You can't reconcile it in your own mind because your knowledge is limited. God's knowledge and wisdom isn't. But like so many other humans, you want to believe that you know more than God, and you demonstrate that by saying what God "should" have done, or "shouldn't" have done. You (plural) make the claim that IF God loved us, He would/wouldn't...(fill in the blank)...or that if He's REALLY God, He could find a way to make a circle a straight line...
Years ago, I watched a movie called 12 Angry Men. It stared out with 12 jurors sequestered in a room, debating the fate of a defendant's life. The same evidence was presented to all of them. Eleven out of the 12 believed he was guilty. Only ONE wanted to talk about it. Little by little, the one persuaded the other eleven to change their minds about the defendant's guilt. It's not that the one had other evidence. It's that he looked at the same evidence differently. So, while atheists and theists look at the same evidence, atheists and theists see the evidence differently. Hence, why they come to different conclusions.
I find that some atheists do the exact same thing.
Because they clearly aren't aware of the various arguments on free will. They would not know a compatibilist from a convertible. That isn't to say none of them do, or that they don't think about it in more limited ways. It is just to say that WRT fundamentalists -- they are parroting their teachers with no understanding of where they are in the context of the larger debates.
I don't entirely blame them; I find arguing about free will to be not that interesting. I have enough free will to suit me, and if it's not "really" free will in some technical sense I really don't care. It looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, so for my purposes, it's a duck. I do not in any way feel imprisoned by life with insufficient choices.
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Originally Posted by Mink57
I've read a bunch of these threads over the past few years. I've seen many atheists who started out as Christian turn to atheism when they were quite young. The average age seems to be around 12 or so. And yet, there are Christians on the same threads who also pondered these questions at the same tender age, and reached a completely different conclusion. So, I don't think it's fair to assume that because their conclusion is different than yours, that they didn't ponder, as you did.
That's quite the generalization. I deconverted in my late 30s for example. While a handful of people here and elsewhere claimed to have working BS detectors even as children (and most such claims are probably true, I think you can be born with different levels of intuition and perception), my own off the cuff estimate would be more like 20 or so for an average age. I think religious faith falls apart for a lot of kids sometime in their freshman or sophomore year of college. Others, like me, have to get beat up by life for a decade or three before they come around.
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Originally Posted by Mink57
No, it's not some "dismissal". Obviously, some Christians have pondered this for over 1500 years, and continue to do so.
Of course, some have thought more than I have about it. It's just that in my personal experience (mostly with fundamentalists) they have not thought much about it at all, and it shows.
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Originally Posted by Mink57
Again, not true. The whole point that atheists seem to miss about God is that God is ALL KNOWING. So, just because *you* don't know of any 'good' reason for suffering, doesn't mean there isn't one.
That's never been my point. God is also all-benevolent and patient and so forth so he could certainly explain his reasons which would be another great way to reduce human suffering. People can endure a lot if they understand why it is necessary.
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Originally Posted by Mink57
You can't reconcile it in your own mind because your knowledge is limited. God's knowledge and wisdom isn't. But like so many other humans, you want to believe that you know more than God, and you demonstrate that by saying what God "should" have done, or "shouldn't" have done. You (plural) make the claim that IF God loved us, He would/wouldn't...(fill in the blank)...or that if He's REALLY God, He could find a way to make a circle a straight line...
If god existed, and behaved as if he did, I would still have the brain he gave me and the ability to reason, which one would think he'd expect me to make good use of. And not to be following a bunch of lemmings out of some misbegotten notion of deference.
In any case there is no amount of knowledge, wisdom, prescience or foresight that could possibly justify some of the things that go on in this world. Someone here was willing to rationalize the deaths of all those children in Uvalde for example on the hypothetical that 100% of them might have gone on to be immoral or harmful in some way. That is repugnant thinking in the extreme to me. I would expect an omniscient god to smite me for such thinking. But that is the length believers will go to prop up their theodicies.
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Originally Posted by Mink57
Years ago, I watched a movie called 12 Angry Men. It stared out with 12 jurors sequestered in a room, debating the fate of a defendant's life. The same evidence was presented to all of them. Eleven out of the 12 believed he was guilty. Only ONE wanted to talk about it. Little by little, the one persuaded the other eleven to change their minds about the defendant's guilt. It's not that the one had other evidence. It's that he looked at the same evidence differently. So, while atheists and theists look at the same evidence, atheists and theists see the evidence differently. Hence, why they come to different conclusions.
That movie is about prejudice, assumptions, confirmation bias and the like, not about how everyone is entitled to their own facts. The one juror was the voice of reason, not of religious fantasy. It was the other eleven that had disordered thinking.
Because they clearly aren't aware of the various arguments on free will. They would not know a compatibilist from a convertible. That isn't to say none of them do, or that they don't think about it in more limited ways. It is just to say that WRT fundamentalists -- they are parroting their teachers with no understanding of where they are in the context of the larger debates.
I will give you, that SOME believers do that. But is that really the argument here? That SOME do this while the majority don't?
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[I don't entirely blame them; I find arguing about free will to be not that interesting. I have enough free will to suit me, and if it's not "really" free will in some technical sense I really don't care. It looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, so for my purposes, it's a duck. I do not in any way feel imprisoned by life with insufficient choices.
LOL! Point taken...
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That's quite the generalization. I deconverted in my late 30s for example. While a handful of people here and elsewhere claimed to have working BS detectors even as children (and most such claims are probably true, I think you can be born with different levels of intuition and perception), my own off the cuff estimate would be more like 20 or so for an average age. I think religious faith falls apart for a lot of kids sometime in their freshman or sophomore year of college. Others, like me, have to get beat up by life for a decade or three before they come around.
You'll notice that I wrote "many", and not "all". And to say that you think that "religious faith falls apart for a lot of kids sometime in their freshman or sophomore year of college" could also be considered as a "generalization". Perhaps we're both guilty of generalizing. Heck, I didn't come into any 'spiritual actualization' until I was in my late 20's. I'm only going by what I've seen written HERE, and other places by atheists.
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Of course, some have thought more than I have about it. It's just that in my personal experience (mostly with fundamentalists) they have not thought much about it at all, and it shows.
Believe it or not, I DO tend to agree with you. I know for a FACT that SOME believers simply believe by rote. It's how they were brought up. Never question...just 'obey'. Personally, I don't subscribe to that philosophy. After all, Abraham questioned...Moses questioned. And a few others in the Bible questioned.
But there's a difference in the questions. It's one thing to question God's love for us, after proving that He loves us. It's another matter to question God about WHY He wants us to do something that doesn't seem...logical (as *we* determine to be "logical") It wouold be like me questioning your 'love' for me, because I bought you a mansion...but not diamonds.
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That's never been my point. God is also all-benevolent and patient and so forth so he could certainly explain his reasons which would be another great way to reduce human suffering. People can endure a lot if they understand why it is necessary.
Even if people understand, it doesn't mean they'll agree. And they won't agree, again, because of their limited knowledge. God's benevolence and knowledge work in concert. Again, you're doing with the whole "God COULD do this or do that" thing, because you don't have God's knowledge. Yes, God COULD have given us all of His knowledge. But He didn't. There MUST be a reason, unknown to us, WHY He did what He did. But to make the assumption that God doesn't have good reasons for His plan, just smacks of hubris.
And wasn't hubris was what got us into trouble in the first place? Yeah, yeah, yeah...I know the whole, "well God could have made it so we didn't have hubris in the first place" debate. Yeah, God COULD have made a bunch of robots. But obviously, that wasn't His intention. He wants us to decide. Love is about decision...PERIOD.
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If god existed, and behaved as if he did, I would still have the brain he gave me and the ability to reason, which one would think he'd expect me to make good use of. And not to be following a bunch of lemmings out of some misbegotten notion of deference.
Yes, He DOES expect you to reason. But He also expects you to come to the RIGHT conclusion.
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In any case there is no amount of knowledge, wisdom, prescience or foresight that could possibly justify some of the things that go on in this world. Someone here was willing to rationalize the deaths of all those children in Uvalde for example on the hypothetical that 100% of them might have gone on to be immoral or harmful in some way. That is repugnant thinking in the extreme to me. I would expect an omniscient god to smite me for such thinking. But that is the length believers will go to prop up their theodicies.
You think this way because you are still "in" the world. Death to *you* means the end of all possibilities of good things. If a child dies, they'll "never experience what life has to offer." And a Christian looks at that attitude and says, "Sez WHO?" Who is to say that the child wouldn't be better off in Heaven?
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That movie is about prejudice, assumptions, confirmation bias and the like, not about how everyone is entitled to their own facts. The one juror was the voice of reason, not of religious fantasy. It was the other eleven that had disordered thinking.
Yes and no. The movie was mostly about assumptions, and how so many people make judgments because of assumptions.
People make assumptions every day, always thinking that *their* assumptions are correct.
Like Mystic said earlier, (to paraphrase), the hubris is astounding. Yes, there are PLENTY of so-called "christians" who claim that THEY have allll the answers. That THEY know the "way" to an eternal blissful life after death. And while *you* may not think that way...
...what if it's true?
What IF it's not that God doesn't exist, that but that your BELIEF in God is wrong?
Last edited by mensaguy; 06-23-2022 at 05:47 AM..
Reason: Fixed quote
I will give you, that SOME believers do that. But is that really the argument here? That SOME do this while the majority don't?
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[I don't entirely blame them; I find arguing about free will to be not that interesting. I have enough free will to suit me, and if it's not "really" free will in some technical sense I really don't care. It looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, so for my purposes, it's a duck. I do not in any way feel imprisoned by life with insufficient choices.
LOL! Point taken...
You'll notice that I wrote "many", and not "all". And to say that you think that "religious faith falls apart for a lot of kids sometime in their freshman or sophomore year of college" could also be considered as a "generalization". Perhaps we're both guilty of generalizing. Heck, I didn't come into any 'spiritual actualization' until I was in my late 20's. I'm only going by what I've seen written HERE, and other places by atheists.
Believe it or not, I DO tend to agree with you. I know for a FACT that SOME believers simply believe by rote. It's how they were brought up. Never question...just 'obey'. Personally, I don't subscribe to that philosophy. After all, Abraham questioned...Moses questioned. And a few others in the Bible questioned.
But there's a difference in the questions. It's one thing to question God's love for us, after proving that He loves us. It's another matter to question God about WHY He wants us to do something that doesn't seem...logical (as *we* determine to be "logical") It wouold be like me questioning your 'love' for me, because I bought you a mansion...but not diamonds.
Even if people understand, it doesn't mean they'll agree. And they won't agree, again, because of their limited knowledge. God's benevolence and knowledge work in concert. Again, you're doing with the whole "God COULD do this or do that" thing, because you don't have God's knowledge. Yes, God COULD have given us all of His knowledge. But He didn't. There MUST be a reason, unknown to us, WHY He did what He did. But to make the assumption that God doesn't have good reasons for His plan, just smacks of hubris.
And wasn't hubris was what got us into trouble in the first place? Yeah, yeah, yeah...I know the whole, "well God could have made it so we didn't have hubris in the first place" debate. Yeah, God COULD have made a bunch of robots. But obviously, that wasn't His intention. He wants us to decide. Love is about decision...PERIOD.
Yes, He DOES expect you to reason. But He also expects you to come to the RIGHT conclusion.
You think this way because you are still "in" the world. Death to *you* means the end of all possibilities of good things. If a child dies, they'll "never experience what life has to offer." And a Christian looks at that attitude and says, "Sez WHO?" Who is to say that the child wouldn't be better off in Heaven?
Yes and no. The movie was mostly about assumptions, and how so many people make judgments because of assumptions.
People make assumptions every day, always thinking that *their* assumptions are correct.
Like Mystic said earlier, (to paraphrase), the hubris is astounding. Yes, there are PLENTY of so-called "christians" who claim that THEY have allll the answers. That THEY know the "way" to an eternal blissful life after death. And while *you* may not think that way...
...what if it's true?
What IF it's not that God doesn't exist, that but that your BELIEF in God is wrong?
What seems to escape most people about this venue within which we are to form our spiritual character is that if we actually knew with absolute certainty what the desired character was and knew what the consequences of not acting AS IF we had that character, no one would FAIL to act properly. But that would not reveal their ACTUAL character and certainly not be an indicator of what they actually value and prefer.
Our character would be based on reward-punishment considerations and NOT on what we personally consider the right thing to do. The latter is the only real indicator of our actual character and it cannot be evoked in an environment of absolute certainty and knowledge, or as Mink said, a world of robots.
What IF it's not that God doesn't exist, that but that your BELIEF in God is wrong?
If it's true, by some people's lights, I will be chained for eternity in a vat of boiling oil to writhe and choke and scream forever and without hope.
Clearly I do not think this likely.
God as generally posited (all knowing, all loving) has broad shoulders and would understand my reasons and would know I was always open to him but beyond a certain point I can't chose to believe things for which there's no evidence to engage with.
I asked my autistic stepson this morning to call one of his doctors who is going to administer cognitive testing to him next week, because he was supposed to get a questionnaire in his email to fill out and it hasn't arrived. As per usual he never did it because he is fearful and avoidant around those kinds of contacts. I'm just going to call them myself tomorrow. What kind of parent would I be if I chained him up in the basement and made him wear a hair shirt for a week because he didn't "obey" me? Probably the kind the child protective services would be interested in talking to, i'd wager. If I, being "evil", know how to respond to my stepchild's difficulties, how much more would your god?
Or maybe you should answer your own question. What do you think would happen to me "if it's true"?
Also have you ever seriously considered the downsides for you "if it's not true"?
Again, not true. The whole point that atheists seem to miss about God is that God is ALL KNOWING. So, just because *you* don't know of any 'good' reason for suffering, doesn't mean there isn't one. You can't reconcile it in your own mind because your knowledge is limited. God's knowledge and wisdom isn't.
No, we DO understand this ad hoc assertion, and we know your ad hoc excuse that there 'could' be a reason. We also understand that logically there should be no reason for an all powerful god to allow suffering unless this god does not care about suffering, which is a problem for an alleged all loving god.
The omnimax god is both an assertion (you have no evidence this god is omni anything) and it is logically inconsistent.
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Originally Posted by Mink57
But like so many other humans, you want to believe that you know more than God, and you demonstrate that by saying what God "should" have done, or "shouldn't" have done. You (plural) make the claim that IF God loved us, He would/wouldn't...(fill in the blank)...or that if He's REALLY God, He could find a way to make a circle a straight line...
This is not about knowing more than your god, it is about the logical problems of your assertions, and the fact your 'solutions' to these problems are also ad hoc.
Saying god "should have done" means we know more than we do. It also implies that its there to a degree.
like the phrase "we should understand that if we are talking about anything but the big religion's deity and actions we are engaging in the straw manning fallacy."
I mean how could us stupid people not know any better?
What seems to escape most people about this venue within which we are to form our spiritual character is that if we actually knew with absolute certainty what the desired character was and knew what the consequences of not acting AS IF we had that character, no one would FAIL to act properly. But that would not reveal their ACTUAL character and certainly not be an indicator of what they actually value and prefer.
Yes, I agree that most people would probably behave properly if they knew with absolutely certainty what the consequences would be if they didn't. But I also believe that there are probably a 'handful' of people who would rather take the consequences (figuring that the consequences aren't 'that bad') than to 'act rightly', if 'acting rightly' included worshipping God. Their own arrogance simply won't allow them to do that.
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Our character would be based on reward-punishment considerations and NOT on what we personally consider the right thing to do. The latter is the only real indicator of our actual character and it cannot be evoked in an environment of absolute certainty and knowledge, or as Mink said, a world of robots.
Yes, I agree again. This reminds me of people who "do the right thing" because it's the right thing to do vs. people who do the right thing because they don't want to get caught.
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Originally Posted by mordant
If it's true, by some people's lights, I will be chained for eternity in a vat of boiling oil to writhe and choke and scream forever and without hope.
Clearly I do not think this likely.
God as generally posited (all knowing, all loving) has broad shoulders and would understand my reasons and would know I was always open to him but beyond a certain point I can't chose to believe things for which there's no evidence to engage with.
I asked my autistic stepson this morning to call one of his doctors who is going to administer cognitive testing to him next week, because he was supposed to get a questionnaire in his email to fill out and it hasn't arrived. As per usual he never did it because he is fearful and avoidant around those kinds of contacts. I'm just going to call them myself tomorrow. What kind of parent would I be if I chained him up in the basement and made him wear a hair shirt for a week because he didn't "obey" me? Probably the kind the child protective services would be interested in talking to, i'd wager. If I, being "evil", know how to respond to my stepchild's difficulties, how much more would your god?
Or maybe you should answer your own question. What do you think would happen to me "if it's true"?
I don't know the God *you* believed in when you were a believer, nor do I know the God who some others believe in. But the God *I* believe in, is much more patient of our human foibles. Since God knows everything about us, He would also know about our true character as well (This is why I linked Mystic's post with yours). God knows about the difficulties that your autistic stepson has, and knows about your own compassion toward your stepson. I don't see God as saying to you, "Well done, Mordant, for taking care of a special needs child! But off to the Lake of Fire you go, for not believing in Me!" I see God as much more merciful than that, plus, I see "belief" in God a bit differently than some others do. As I've said before on a few occasions, that it wouldn't surprise me that some atheists would end up in heaven before some Christians!
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Also have you ever seriously considered the downsides for you "if it's not true"?
Sure. But I don't really see any 'downsides' to trying to develop good (spiritual) character, whether "it's true or not."
Yes, I agree that most people would probably behave properly if they knew with absolutely certainty what the consequences would be if they didn't. But I also believe that there are probably a 'handful' of people who would rather take the consequences (figuring that the consequences aren't 'that bad') than to 'act rightly', if 'acting rightly' included worshipping God. Their own arrogance simply won't allow them to do that.
Nippoed for space ...
Sure. But I don't really see any 'downsides' to trying to develop good (spiritual) character, whether "it's true or not."
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