The Wis-dumb of Pogo

thebigsd said:

Bingo. My thought on this is that if the Creator is all knowing then he knew that people would sin before he even created them. Riddle me that one.

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Well... how could the Creator be the Creator and yet not be all knowing. Being the Creator by definition includes the all knowing part.

Badger Johnson said:

A child runs through a field of flowers, laughing and full of glee. Is the child attempting to understand "purpose"? Does the child have 'purpose' (as in a belief they must worship a supreme being?). NO! The child is happy and there's no need for postulating a need for a religious belief. When we are happiest we are experiencing the 'inner child'. There is no overt thought (see the Inner Game of Tennis, or All I Needed to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten)

A dog jumps and plays with another animal, dog, cat, farm animal. Does the dog have an understanding of 'purpose'? No. Well, you might say animals don't have 'souls'. But they do seem to have 'happiness'..

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These situations exemplify the happiness of innocence. It is difficult to achieve innocence

Badger Johnson said:

A husband and wife, separated by their jobs in the military, reunite after weeks at sea. Are they attempting to be religious, to evince the bonds of matrimony as defined by the church or God? NO! They're experiencing a physiological reaction, being humans, biological computation machines, with hormones and bio-electric innervation. They might be a young Billy Graham and wife, but they are not thinking of religion or supreme beings at that moment.

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True... and that happiness is typically short lived...

Badger Johnson said:

So yes, I couldn't disagree more that there is no Purpose in life (see Teleological principle), just function. You're overlaying human nature with a man-created dogma - thus you're one step away from reality.

HTH.

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The first sentence is not clear to me. The double negative may be the issue. Can you clarify?

georg jetson said:

Well... how could the Creator be the Creator and yet not be all knowing. Being the Creator by definition includes the all knowing part.

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You've never made something where you know enough to make it yet not every detail of its constituent parts?

Wow, you have a much better grasp on quantum mechanics than I do.

Tawnos said:

You've never made something where you know enough to make it yet not every detail of its constituent parts?.

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Yes I've "made" things, but NEVER "created" things. Creation is the ability to start with nothing(whatever that is) and then have something. That's FAR different form making something.

Tawnos said:

Wow, you have a much better grasp on quantum mechanics than I do.

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Probably, but who knows...

georg jetson said:

True... and that happiness is typically short lived...

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Yes marital happiness is probably fleeting in many. However, I have the same feelings, and the rush of passion as I did as a teenager when my partner walks into the room. I met her in college 41 years ago. We've kept it alive, and even more so in the past 18months. ((Figure me this. I had low testosterone, and when we met back up again, I had it checked. I went from 239 ng/dl Testosterone level (at the HRT level) to well over 600 ng/dl after hooking back up with her (38 years later - we had lost touch). How can a person, or your brain seeing the person have such a dramatic effect. The doctors are stymied - they claim it's not possible.))

Because we don't understand the Brain (the most complex machine in the Universe thus far) doesn't mean it needs to have a supernatural explanation. (See Isaac Asimov's comments on technological 'magic'.)

The first sentence is not clear to me. The double negative may be the issue. Can you clarify?

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I did, indeed use a double negative - (editing at 4am). Life has no innate 'purpose', imo. Its function or aspect or outcome is what you make of it. The function of my brain, operating fully, is that +I+ am driven to try to understand my nature, human nature, and to gain knowledge (that's what computational systems using heuristic algorithms do). I can take on a 'purpose' in a sociological sense, but there's no innate 'divine purpose' related to a supernatural cause that can be shown.

Consider Newcomb's paradox on free will. We can not know and have no terms to define things that happen outside our 'system' (the known Universe). Thus we can not know "God". The description of a 9th dimensional being is beyond us. Thanks for the correction.

Badger Johnson said:

Yes marital happiness is probably fleeting in many. However, I have the same feelings, and the rush of passion as I did as a teenager when my partner walks into the room. I met her in college 41 years ago. We've kept it alive, and even more so in the past 18months. ((Figure me this. I had low testosterone, and when we met back up again, I had it checked. I went from 239 ng/dl Testosterone level (at the HRT level) to well over 600 ng/dl after hooking back up with her (38 years later - we had lost touch). How can a person, or your brain seeing the person have such a dramatic effect. The doctors are stymied - they claim it's not possible.))

Because we don't understand the Brain (the most complex machine in the Universe thus far) doesn't mean it needs to have a supernatural explanation. (See Isaac Asimov's comments on technological 'magic'.)

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True, but order, in general, does require an explanation outside that order. Order cannot happen randomly(though it may sometimes appear to). May I presume that you believe the scientifically impossible... that there is NO Creator? Because sufficiently advanced technology can seem like magic does NOT mean that everything seeming like magic is explainable by understanding the technology.

Badger Johnson said:

I did, indeed use a double negative - (editing at 4am). Life has no innate 'purpose', imo. Its function or aspect or outcome is what you make of it. The function of my brain, operating fully, is that +I+ am driven to try to understand my nature, human nature, and to gain knowledge (that's what computational systems using heuristic algorithms do). I can take on a 'purpose' in a sociological sense, but there's no innate 'divine purpose' related to a supernatural cause that can be shown.

Consider Newcomb's paradox on free will. We can not know and have no terms to define things that happen outside our 'system' (the known Universe). Thus we can not know "God". The description of a 9th dimensional being is beyond us. Thanks for the correction.

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We CAN know "God" if in fact He makes Himself known to us. What is being said here is that we cannot institute knowledge transfer. We have no way of knowing more than that which is allowed.

As I've said before, the search for happiness must involve an analysis of one's belief system. Indeed, it is the search for happiness that brings us to that point.

georg jetson said:

Yes I've "made" things, but NEVER "created" things. Creation is the ability to start with nothing(whatever that is) and then have something. That's FAR different form making something.

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How many NPPM (nonsense propositions per minute) are you capable of?

Probably, but who knows...

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I'll be honest, in modern physics, the various forms of the Schroedinger equations made me their biatch.

georg jetson said:

We CAN know "God" if in fact He makes Himself known to us. What is being said here is that we cannot institute knowledge transfer. We have no way of knowing more than that which is allowed.

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So if it never makes itself known to us, then we're all good not believing in any particular god, right?

May I present to you The Theist's Guide to Converting Atheists?

Tawnos said:

So if it never makes itself known to us, then we're all good not believing in any particular god, right?

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I'm in no position to say who's "all good". Neither are you.

Tawnos said:

May I present to you The Theist's Guide to Converting Atheists?

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A honest conversation about happiness, including discussions of a Creator, can happen without anyone being "converted" to anything.

georg jetson said:

Well... how could the Creator be the Creator and yet not be all knowing. Being the Creator by definition includes the all knowing part.

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This doesn't really answer my question. If the Creator knew people would sin before he created them then the whole basis of Christianity is false. Why would a benevolent god created something he knew was going to fail?

georg jetson said:

I'm in no position to say who's "all good". Neither are you.

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Bull. I am entirely in a position to say what I think is or is not a morally acceptable action. Considering I don't believe in any gods, and the burden of proof is on the claimant of gods to reject the null hypothesis, I can most certainly say I'm "all good" in the sense previously stated.


From that link, your evidence is entirely unconvincing.

Any subjective experience.
Saying "I know God exists because I can feel him in my heart" or something similar will not affect me. Most arguments of this sort rest on the assumption that a person cannot have a completely convincing subjective experience and be mistaken regarding its cause, but a look at the diversity of world religions easily disproves this. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists - members of all faiths claim to have had convincing subjective experiences of the truth of that faith. Obviously, they cannot all be right. Why should an atheist accept any one of these testimonies as more valid than any other?

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thebigsd said:

This doesn't really answer my question. If the Creator knew people would sin before he created them then the whole basis of Christianity is false. Why would a benevolent god created something he knew was going to fail?

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If you understood Christianity, then your question would be answered. The answer is out there, go find it.

georg jetson said:

If you understood Christianity, then your question would be answered. The answer is out there, go find it.

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I suspect that you are just trying to say that you can't answer my question. I'm okay with that.

thebigsd said:

I suspect that you are just trying to say that you can't answer my question. I'm okay with that.

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That's a cop out... I said EXACTLY what I meant.

Tawnos said:

Bull. I am entirely in a position to say what I think is or is not a morally acceptable action. Considering I don't believe in any gods, and the burden of proof is on the claimant of gods to reject the null hypothesis, I can most certainly say I'm "all good" in the sense previously stated..

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You can "say" it, but you can't have ANY knowledge of the correctness of your position. In other words, you fool yourself.

Tawnos said:

From that link, your evidence is entirely unconvincing.

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I didn't make that argument. There's no real information in your "link". Interesting opinion though...

georg jetson said:

That's a cop out... I said EXACTLY what I meant.

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Okay, let me rephrase my my question.

Did the Creator know that people would sin and disappoint him before he even created them?

If yes, then why did he create them?

If no, then how is he all-knowing?

Not trying to be difficult. I believe this is a valid question that I and others have struggled to answer.

I don't think any kin of religion is a prerequisite for happiness.

lol!!! Wouldn't that be great if after your many journeys in life you suddenly found the answer to your most paradoxical problem on an OC internet site. Sorry... that was a bit funny to me.

Of course, I can't presume to prove up an answer. I can offer my belief so... go easy when you decide to beat me up on this...

thebigsd said:

Did the Creator know that people would sin and disappoint him before he even created them?.

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Unavoidably so... Unless of course you can ponder a being that can hide things from himself. Maybe he can??

thebigsd said:

If yes, then why did he create them? .

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My hypothesis... The Creator wanted creatures that WANTED to be with the Creator. It seems the way the Creator decided to do this is by creating them somewhere else and then letting the creatures decide. Please understand that this is a simplistic explanation for an enormously complicated issue. How could I possibly presume to list all of the reasons a Creator may have?

thebigsd said:

If no, then how is he all-knowing?.

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Answered...

thebigsd said:

Not trying to be difficult. I believe this is a valid question that I and others have struggled to answer. .

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It's a valid question. As expressed in another post in this thread, It is highly possibly that all things are not knowable.

thebigsd said:

I don't think any kin of religion is a prerequisite for happiness.

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I agree. However, discussing one's belief system when contemplating happiness is inescapable.

georg jetson said:

If you understood Christianity, then your question would be answered. The answer is out there, go find it.

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I'm an ex Christian. I understood it plenty. I wish more would take your earlier advice and read the horrors in the bible. Justification of rape, murder, genocide, and other acts of extreme violence and depravity are chock throughout the book. The morality espoused is laughable.

That is a much better answer to the question. (I mean that seriously) Thanks. I still respectfully disagree.

Who knows? The internet holds the answers to just about everything, why not life's most important questions?...lol

Tawnos said:

I'm an ex Christian. I understood it plenty. I wish more would take your earlier advice and read the horrors in the bible. Justification of rape, murder, genocide, and other acts of extreme violence and depravity are chock throughout the book. The morality espoused is laughable.

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There is definite validity in this statement. The Bible clearly endorses the pratice of keeping slaves. See Leviticus 25:44-46.