Question for a Christian (Hicks)

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 5:32 am

@Prak: It's generally a good idea to ignore the complication of adding omnipotence (or pretty much any omni) when doing any kind of thought experiment unless it's directly relevant to the issue under discussion because it's an inherent contradiction. Let alone when you discuss how it interacts with other dodgy qualities. I mean, let's say that this being was omnipotent, so now let's imagine this conversation:

Mr. X: "God, how can you do this to us despite being omnibenevolent and omnipotent?"
God: "My omnibenevolent plan involves you suffering for a graham's number to the factoral number of eons."
Mr. X: "But couldn't you use your omnipotence to implement the plan without this suffering?"
God: "I could, but I'm using my omnipotence to make it so that everyone suffers for a graham's number to the factoral number of eons without contradicting my omnibenevolence."
Mr. X: "But..."
God: "I got omnipotence, biyatch!"

Euthyphro's Dilemma is a shit-sucker as it is, but if you believe in omnipotence at all -- well, or at least a reasonably close facsimile that isn't inherently contradictory, anyway -- you're forced to accept it by definition.

Schleiermacher wrote:I'm not sure why you quoted me there, both because you took my first sentence out of context and because I pretty clearly said "non-omnibenevolent".

I'm not contesting the non-omnibenevolent part, I'm contesting the 'still not evil' part. Unless you're saying that this being's resources are limited in such a way that they're unaware or unable to help humans at all without compromising the greater good. Whereupon I would have a hard time wondering why you would even call this entity 'god' in the context of this thread since their power doesn't even rise to that of a Star Trek captain unless you have some very specific special pleading in mind.

Regardless, that was the point of the quote. Any sufficiently opaque motivation that results in unexplained yet supposedly preventable suffering (whether by commission or omission) is indistinguishable from malice.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 5:52 am

Sorry, I didn't realize the comic was dealing with purely the "kind and loving" thing, and not the Three O god that christians typically believe in and I started the thread to ask Hicks his opinion on.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 6:55 am

Prak wrote:*Parents on the Den- do you find it true that children cannot understand why they must suffer the pain of a shot? Have any of you tried to explain to your children why they need the shot?

My 5yo gets it, and still doesn't like it. He has understood it things from sometime in his 3rd or 4th year, when he first understood it in the context of not playing for an extra 5 minutes daily to get his teeth brushed in order to avoid cavities. My 2yo doesn't understand it at all, but he's not old enough to be expected to. There is a developmental barrier against understanding that sort of thing, as shown by the stanford marshmallow experiments.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 7:14 am

Interesting. I've kind of figured for a while that you could explain those things to a kid, at least of a given age, but having no kids of my own, it was just armchair parenting.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 10:30 am

Prak wrote:*Parents on the Den- do you find it true that children cannot understand why they must suffer the pain of a shot? Have any of you tried to explain to your children why they need the shot?

I'm not a parent, but I always actively wanted shots because they GAVE SUPERPOWERS. My mom had a HUGE scar on her arm from a shot, 2 cm in diameter. I wanted to have such a scar (bigger scar = bigger powers, or so I thought when I was four). I was really sad when the vaccination program (and single-payer healthcare in general) fell down the shitter, taking with it my medical records. The only shots I didn't like were Mantoux tests -- unlike vaccines, they weren't granting any superpowers, I usually failed them, and no one gave a fuck.

Occluded Sun · Post by **Occluded Sun** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 12:37 pm

Ancient History wrote:Ineffability is not a good fucking argument for why there's suffering in the universe.

Assuming the universe were somehow designed to the level of detail that implied question is concerned with... why would a competent designer-deity NOT have suffering? People who can't feel pain (this is an actual condition) live very short, unpleasant lives. Suffering and pain exist for much the same reason pleasure and joy exist - they make it possible for organisms to respond to stimuli in such a way as to maintain themselves. By avoidance rather than attraction, but that varies depending on what the thing in question is.

The real issue isn't why suffering exists, but why some things which rationally seem injurious give us pleasure and some things which seem beneficial do not. Similar condition with pain: conditions which don't harm us or benefit us but hurt are avoided, while harmless things or things we can do nothing about cause pain.

And the best answer we know is that we weren't designed, in the way that word is commonly used - we were 'designed' in a metaphoric sense by blind mutation and selection by the environment. We think lead salts taste sweet as a tragic accident. We think fat and salt is delicious because those were critically limited to our ancestors.

The name of God is 'Azathoth'. And it is utterly unaware of and indifferent to our existence.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Fri Jan 16, 2015 4:42 pm

TarkisFlux wrote:
Prak wrote:*Parents on the Den- do you find it true that children cannot understand why they must suffer the pain of a shot? Have any of you tried to explain to your children why they need the shot?
My 5yo gets it, and still doesn't like it. He has understood it things from sometime in his 3rd or 4th year, when he first understood it in the context of not playing for an extra 5 minutes daily to get his teeth brushed in order to avoid cavities. My 2yo doesn't understand it at all, but he's not old enough to be expected to. There is a developmental barrier against understanding that sort of thing, as shown by the stanford marshmallow experiments.

Giovanni didn't connect the pain to the shot until he was about four. And then, we went online and discussed the diseases and what they did, and thus why he should get his shots. He may have understood that they were preventing something worse, but when he subsequently got his shot, it was worse than the thought of a disease he didn't have and he balked.

On the other hand, after showing him pictures of plaque and tooth decay, he was totally willing to brush his teeth conscientiously. But that doesn't hurt to do, and he even gets to use different flavors of toothpaste and cool toothbrushes.

Furthermore, as much as I don't like it, both of these teaching lessons involve fear. If Giovanni doesn't brush his teeth for one day, they're not going to fall out. They won't turn yellow. He won't even get a cavity. But without presenting the extreme, he doesn't understand the point of brushing his teeth.

So there definitely is a developmental line somewhere, and presentation is everything. I generally attribute it to the lack of experience - without having anything to compare it to, explaining what a horrible disease could potentially do to you doesn't have any meaning at all.

shinimasu · Post by **shinimasu** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 4:16 am

Prak wrote:*Parents on the Den- do you find it true that children cannot understand why they must suffer the pain of a shot? Have any of you tried to explain to your children why they need the shot?

Not a parent, older sibling, but not only do little kids not understand even when it's explained. They will hold a grudge about it for fucking ever. Well ok until they're 9 or so. But that's still 6 years of bitching about that time we made them get a flu shot even though they got ice cream after.

My little brother had to be held down by three doctors so he could get a tetanus shot after he stepped on a rusty nail :/

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 11:39 am

Occluded Sun wrote:Assuming the universe were somehow designed to the level of detail that implied question is concerned with... why would a competent designer-deity NOT have suffering? People who can't feel pain (this is an actual condition) live very short, unpleasant lives. Suffering and pain exist for much the same reason pleasure and joy exist - they make it possible for organisms to respond to stimuli in such a way as to maintain themselves. By avoidance rather than attraction, but that varies depending on what the thing in question is.

You're thinking too small scale. If there was an almighty, benevolent designer of the universe, that designer would not include anything in the universe that could cause his creations to have "very short, unpleasant lives" in the first place. Stuff like accidentally burning your hand off because you didn't realize it was on fire wouldn't happen because it would be a universe where fire was incapable of burning hands off. The only reason for pain to exist in a divinely created universe is if God finds it aesthetically pleasing for humans to suffer.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 12:57 pm

Grek wrote:
Occluded Sun wrote:Assuming the universe were somehow designed to the level of detail that implied question is concerned with... why would a competent designer-deity NOT have suffering? People who can't feel pain (this is an actual condition) live very short, unpleasant lives. Suffering and pain exist for much the same reason pleasure and joy exist - they make it possible for organisms to respond to stimuli in such a way as to maintain themselves. By avoidance rather than attraction, but that varies depending on what the thing in question is.
You're thinking too small scale. If there was an almighty, benevolent designer of the universe, that designer would not include anything in the universe that could cause his creations to have "very short, unpleasant lives" in the first place. Stuff like accidentally burning your hand off because you didn't realize it was on fire wouldn't happen because it would be a universe where fire was incapable of burning hands off. The only reason for pain to exist in a divinely created universe is if God finds it aesthetically pleasing for humans to suffer.

I was planning to counter this with something about how it only addresses "both omnibenevolent and omnipotent", but then I remembered - what reason is there for an omnibenevolent god to create anything at all?

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 6:08 pm

Omegonthesane wrote:
Grek wrote:
Occluded Sun wrote:Assuming the universe were somehow designed to the level of detail that implied question is concerned with... why would a competent designer-deity NOT have suffering? People who can't feel pain (this is an actual condition) live very short, unpleasant lives. Suffering and pain exist for much the same reason pleasure and joy exist - they make it possible for organisms to respond to stimuli in such a way as to maintain themselves. By avoidance rather than attraction, but that varies depending on what the thing in question is.
You're thinking too small scale. If there was an almighty, benevolent designer of the universe, that designer would not include anything in the universe that could cause his creations to have "very short, unpleasant lives" in the first place. Stuff like accidentally burning your hand off because you didn't realize it was on fire wouldn't happen because it would be a universe where fire was incapable of burning hands off. The only reason for pain to exist in a divinely created universe is if God finds it aesthetically pleasing for humans to suffer.
I was planning to counter this with something about how it only addresses "both omnibenevolent and omnipotent", but then I remembered - what reason is there for an omnibenevolent god to create anything at all?

Boredom.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 8:56 pm

MGuy wrote:
Omegonthesane wrote: I was planning to counter this with something about how it only addresses "both omnibenevolent and omnipotent", but then I remembered - what reason is there for an omnibenevolent god to create anything at all?
Boredom.

Of course, the real question is: when did it get bored?

Take the notion that an eternal entity created everything else, and that everything else is not eternal. This would tautologically mean that God existed for infinity years all by himself, and after sitting around lonely for infinity years, he decided to create some things. So, pinpointing when it got bored is kind of absurd. Whether it decided to create everything one trillion years sooner or later than what it did, it was still preceded by infinity years or nothing but itself.

How does one get bored after infinity years have passed?

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 9:21 pm

RobbyPants wrote:
MGuy wrote:
Omegonthesane wrote: I was planning to counter this with something about how it only addresses "both omnibenevolent and omnipotent", but then I remembered - what reason is there for an omnibenevolent god to create anything at all?
Boredom.
Of course, the real question is: when did it get bored?

Take the notion that an eternal entity created everything else, and that everything else is not eternal. This would tautologically mean that God existed for infinity years all by himself, and after sitting around lonely for infinity years, he decided to create some things. So, pinpointing when it got bored is kind of absurd. Whether it decided to create everything one trillion years sooner or later than what it did, it was still preceded by infinity years or nothing but itself.

How does one get bored after infinity years have passed?

When seems like a completely different question from what reason.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 11:43 pm

Boredom is a terrible, terrible answer. Boredom is not an aspect of love, so in relation to the impact of omnibenevolence there is nothing benevolent about being motivated by boredom. The only answer suitable with respect for why an omnibenevolent creator would create something is if creating is a more loving act than not.

For an omniscient creator there is no good answer beyond "We have no possible way of knowing the motivations of an omniscient being. (but we can again be certain that it isn't boredom)"

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 11:46 pm

RobbyPants wrote:
MGuy wrote:
Omegonthesane wrote: I was planning to counter this with something about how it only addresses "both omnibenevolent and omnipotent", but then I remembered - what reason is there for an omnibenevolent god to create anything at all?
Boredom.
Of course, the real question is: when did it get bored?

Take the notion that an eternal entity created everything else, and that everything else is not eternal. This would tautologically mean that God existed for infinity years all by himself, and after sitting around lonely for infinity years, he decided to create some things. So, pinpointing when it got bored is kind of absurd. Whether it decided to create everything one trillion years sooner or later than what it did, it was still preceded by infinity years or nothing but itself.

How does one get bored after infinity years have passed?

Obviously this is not a universal stance but I believed that time was one of the things made by God (i.e. "the first day" despite a lack of earth or sun, or something like that; I don't recall exactly how it went) and thus asking what God did before inventing the universe was just nonsensical because "before" is a concept that we use due to our constraint of not existing at all times and outside of time.

However that works.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 1:03 am

Conceivably, in this omnipotent, omnibenevolent creator scenario, there has always been a world, the creator creates as an act of love, but something always causes the created to cease to exist, and so a new world is created.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 1:22 am

erik wrote:Boredom is a terrible, terrible answer. Boredom is not an aspect of love, so in relation to the impact of omnibenevolence there is nothing benevolent about being motivated by boredom. The only answer suitable with respect for why an omnibenevolent creator would create something is if creating is a more loving act than not.

For an omniscient creator there is no good answer beyond "We have no possible way of knowing the motivations of an omniscient being. (but we can again be certain that it isn't boredom)"

Um I don't know why you're labeling it a terrible answer. It was a joke, yes, but there is nothing about doing something out of boredom that prevents omni-benevolence.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 2:44 am

It is worse than preventing it because it is completely unrelated. It's not wrong and it isn't even right.

'Ramen noodles' is as good an answer as boredom. It also gets bonus points since it wouldn't trick me into thinking it was a serious offering. Robby asked when boredom would set in to highlight the absurdity of it as an answer.

[edit: I typed Robby and autocorrect made it Bobby. Damn you autocorrect]

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 3:18 am

erik wrote:It is worse than preventing it because it is completely unrelated. It's not wrong and it isn't even right.

'Ramen noodles' is as good an answer as boredom. It also gets bonus points since it wouldn't trick me into thinking it was a serious offering. Bobby asked when boredom would set in to highlight the absurdity of it as an answer.

So you think that Ramen Noodles is a better reason to spontaneously do something than boredom? So if you were to ask someone on the street why they learned to juggle you would take the answer 'ramen noodles' as an answer over boredom? I think the fact that you could mistake boredom as a serious offering is evidence that it is a better answer than Ramen Noodles.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 3:22 am

The question was about what motivates an omnibenevolent being, not a person on the street.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 3:22 am

MGuy wrote:So you think that Ramen Noodles is a better reason to spontaneously do something than boredom? So if you were to ask someone on the street why they learned to juggle you would take the answer 'ramen noodles' as an answer over boredom? I think the fact that you could mistake boredom as a serious offering is evidence that it is a better answer than Ramen Noodles.

Do you think it makes any sense to talk about an omnipotent being that created the universe to be bored? Like do you not get that boredom is a reaction to our genetic predisposition to seek something that will satisfy our biological needs?

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 4:46 am

Eternal means to have neither a beginning nor an end. By definition, at any given moment, an eternal god has already existed "forever" and will continue existing "forever." It's infinity in both directions. It follows that an infinite amount of time passed for an eternal god before this universe was created, but it doesn't actually follow that the eternal god spent even a single moment of that infinite amount of time twiddling his thumbs alone. This could just be the latest in an infinite string of completely different universe that he's watching on GodTube out of boredom. Obviously, this ascribes very human-like qualities to god's thoughts and motivations, which seems fucking weird, because we were definitively created by evolutionary processes and an eternal god absolutely would not have been.

Now, if you were invoking the concept of a timeless god (which is distinct from an eternal god), then obviously "boredom" makes no sense. A timeless god cannot change, because everything that will ever happen to him has already happened to him. He is either never bored or always bored, because anything that could happen to change his state has already happened - in fact, it happened so long ago there was never a time it hadn't happened, meaning that he has been whatever state he was supposed to be changed to all along. The timeless god is often used to "explain" how omniscience is compatible with the human agency required to punish us for our sins without those punishments being arbitrary and pointless. God isn't determining our actions in advance, he is observing them after the fact. That is, of course, total bullshit - it remains true that the god who creates the universe is aware of the outcome during the act of creating it (because he wouldn't be omniscient otherwise, and because as a property of timelessness the god who creates the universe is the exact same god at the exact same moment who is reflecting back on the results of creating the universe), and so the dilemma is completely unresolved.

Edit: minor clarification here and there.

GreatGreyShrike · Post by **GreatGreyShrike** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 6:06 am

The end of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens, a novel about a world where the bible is pretty much literally true and the end times are upon the Earth, put it a thousand times better than I ever could;

Good Omens wrote: "That's not good advice," said Crowley. "That's not good advice at all. If you sit down and think about it sensibly, you come up with some very funny ideas. Like: why make people inquisitive, and then put some forbidden fruit where they can see it with a big neon finger flashing on and off saying 'THIS IS IT!'?"

"I don't remember any neon."

"Metaphorically, I mean. I mean, why do that if you really don't want them to eat it, eh? I mean, maybe you just want to see how it all turns out. Maybe it's all part of a great big ineffable plan. All of it. You, me, him, everything. Some great big test to see if what you've built all works properly, eh? You start thinking: it can't be a great cosmic game of chess, it has to be just very complicated Solitaire. And don't bother to answer. If we could understand, we wouldn't be us. Because it's all-all-"

INEFFABLE, said the figure feeding the ducks.

I have never seen a really good, persuasive reason for God to create a universe which he controls absolutely, interacts with entirely unilaterally and arbitrarily, and was/is able to predict perfectly and absolutely during the very act of creation and all interactions since. The whole act seems sort of pointless and, due to the state of the universe, somewhat unnecessarily cruel to the created & inhabiting intelligences.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 5:34 pm

Kaelik wrote:
MGuy wrote:So you think that Ramen Noodles is a better reason to spontaneously do something than boredom? So if you were to ask someone on the street why they learned to juggle you would take the answer 'ramen noodles' as an answer over boredom? I think the fact that you could mistake boredom as a serious offering is evidence that it is a better answer than Ramen Noodles.
Do you think it makes any sense to talk about an omnipotent being that created the universe to be bored? Like do you not get that boredom is a reaction to our genetic predisposition to seek something that will satisfy our biological needs?

I think we're talking about a mythical being that is always being given human attributes. Like benevolence for example.

erik wrote:The question was about what motivates an omnibenevolent being, not a person on the street.

And you're saying ramen noodles makes more sense than boredom.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 6:20 pm

MGuy wrote:
Kaelik wrote:
MGuy wrote:So you think that Ramen Noodles is a better reason to spontaneously do something than boredom? So if you were to ask someone on the street why they learned to juggle you would take the answer 'ramen noodles' as an answer over boredom? I think the fact that you could mistake boredom as a serious offering is evidence that it is a better answer than Ramen Noodles.
Do you think it makes any sense to talk about an omnipotent being that created the universe to be bored? Like do you not get that boredom is a reaction to our genetic predisposition to seek something that will satisfy our biological needs?
I think we're talking about a mythical being that is always being given human attributes. Like benevolence for example.

No, we are talking about the alleged creator of the universe who is always given distinctly non-human attributes like omnibenevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience, and this is covered for by a bunch of idiots talking about how he also has all these human attributes and that is why he does X.