(December 15, 2020 at 1:19 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Either starving you and killing your kid is a means of improvement, or it's not.  If it is, we can continue, if it's not, then we've answered the question already.

Yes - I think it's an impasse then.

Starvation may not lead directly to improvement but I don't think that's enough to rule out option 4.

The reason I think it's not enough is because there could exist things in option 4 that are not all related to improvement - these items may be undesireable but necessary to exist if a higher opposite path is to be possible.

So the framing of the question is, as I see it, not accurate.

It's not an impasse between us..it's a suggestion you made but now refuse to endorse. It doesn't have to be starvation or you specifically, but it does have to be horrid shit you're signing off on...and if it doesn't have anything to do with improvement, then it's not a soul forge at all.

See how easy it is to answer questions in this life?

(December 15, 2020 at 1:19 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Excellent suggestion, then it's not a soul forge at all.  It's just some random asshole doing bad shit. 

Can you be a bit more objective ? Why are you restricting the scope of reasons for the existence of evil to soul forge..? Why aren't you taking free will into consideration, which logically solves the problem of evil completely.

For moral evil, humans are endowed with free will and so can inflict an arbitrary amount of suffering on each other.
For natural evil, we can posit the existence of an invisible creature responsible for all phenomena inflicting damage to people and/or their property.

So logically there is nothing we didn't account for.

(December 15, 2020 at 1:19 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I tend to think that earthquakes are a product of geological activity and so have absolutely no moral component..but as we all know, that's just crazy talk.

How do you rule out the heartless demon responsible for earthquakes. Maybe his signature move is plate tectonics ?

(December 15, 2020 at 1:09 pm)Angrboda Wrote: Yes, moral agents exist.  How you get from there to God is something I'm not going to speculate upon.

If there is no absolute moral authority, then there is no good and evil, these words become basically undefined, because human beings as moral agents with limited information will forcibly disagree on the list of moral/immoral actions.
By contraposition, if there is good and evil, there has to be an absolute moral authority.

(December 15, 2020 at 1:31 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: It's not an impasse between us..it's a suggestion you made but now refuse to endorse. It doesn't have to be starvation or you specifically, but it does have to be horrid shit you're signing off on...and if it doesn't have anything to do with improvement, then it's not a soul forge at all.

See how easy it is to answer questions in this life?

Is your claim, “option 4 cannot be try e, because, bad stuff happens.” ??

That’s what I think you’re saying.

(December 15, 2020 at 11:25 am)Eleven Wrote: Correct me if I am wrong, but science is not in the business of discovering god or the soul.

What we have, then, is a philosophy of what-ifs that like to pretend at reality.

I would say science is very much in the business of discovering anything that does and can or has the possibility to exist. This does include god and soul.

God, as it is commonly posited, is an intelligent being with intent and behavior—capable of performing action—in the language of science this means to be able to persist through space and time and be able to manipulate mass & energy. Even at a very basic level, this has physics, chemistry, biology written all over it.

Soul is supposedly an extension to life after death —so this is more specific to chemistry and biology. Because matter, or underlying energy of the unique body of a living organism that made it is never really lost as per law of conservation of energy—however it is not usable in any manner that is meaningful to our human perception. Biologically speaking the molecules that made up the body are recycled and some of it is perhaps part of various other organisms. Realistically we are made up many others who lived previously if that’s taken on its face value.

To some extent “soul” has lost its meaning in modern times—the “soul” of 21st century is “consciousness” which many confuse with also something to do with quantum physics (due to one of its poor formulated interpretations, where an observer is causing reality to take form) and now every Douglas and Harris who doesn’t want to go the “soul” way because it’s just too magical for our 21st century appetite, goes the “consciousness“ way—and what is consciousness? Your guess is as good as mine but there seems to some consensus among philosophers: it’s the subjective experience of an object (object and not just living organisms as, as per panpsychism, everything including rocks and oak tree and grain of sand have consciousness).

Roger Penrose, who is recipient of 2020 Nobel Prize believes in Panpsychism. Erwin Schrodinger believed in it— Bertrand Russell believed in a version of it.

However, it’s one thing for scientists to hypothesize something like this, it’s quite another for layman to eagerly latch on to something to validate their primitive religious beliefs through new hypotheses that may never materialize.

(December 15, 2020 at 1:38 pm)Klorophyll Wrote:

(December 15, 2020 at 1:19 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Excellent suggestion, then it's not a soul forge at all.  It's just some random asshole doing bad shit. 

Can you be a bit more objective ? Why are you restricting the scope of reasons for the existence of evil to soul forge..? Why aren't you taking free will into consideration, which logically solves the problem of evil completely.

You're the one who just told us that earthquakes were a demon doing random bad shit.  Heaven forfend you were being disingenuous or just plain stupid.  

Quote:How do you rule out the heartless demon responsible for earthquakes. Maybe his signature move is plate tectonics ?

That has to be the cutest and quickest retraction from a batshit claim that I've ever witnessed.  

Quote:If there is no absolute moral authority, then there is no good and evil, these words become basically undefined, because human beings as moral agents with limited information will forcibly disagree on the list of moral/immoral actions.
By contraposition, if there is good and evil, there has to be an absolute moral authority.

Human beings also disagree on the answer to 2+2.  Disagreement is not an argument against objectivity or for a god. It's not even a credible suggestion on it's own grounds. People disagree -with- gods, and in a universe in which god exists, allegedly.

Though, at the end of the day I agree with you, for things to be right or wrong there must be some moral authority, and that moral authority can't be swayed one way or another by a moral agents existence or it's own moral disagreement with that authority. Your god is an asshole, or there are asshole demons your god can't handle (or maybe earthquakes don't have anything to do with gods or demons)...hardly matters to me, doesn't matter at all to objective moral claims.

What I think is instructive about all of this, is that neither of our god botherers really want to certify their suggestions..they just thought that this subject was a place that they could dive into the unfalsifiable, the unprovable.

---

(December 15, 2020 at 1:38 pm)Confused-by-christianity Wrote:

(December 15, 2020 at 1:31 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: It's not an impasse between us..it's a suggestion you made but now refuse to endorse.  It doesn't have to be starvation or you specifically, but it does have to be horrid shit you're signing off on...and if it doesn't have anything to do with improvement, then it's not a soul forge at all.

See how easy it is to answer questions in this life?

Is your claim, “option 4 cannot be try e, because, bad stuff happens.” ??

That’s what I think you’re saying.

It's interesting that you think that.  It's my position that option 4 can only be true if the horrid shit does improve us, and if there is a moral justification for improving us in that way.  I can't get you to commit to the first part, so it's doa until you do. If that's not true, then..obviously, option four can't be true..since that's option four...jesus fucking christ.

I'll just mention again, to both of you, that we're very clearly dealing with claims that only seem useful; to either of you, before you realize how poorly following through goes. You want to be there for the excuse, but not when it goes pear shaped. You'll suggest it when you think it helps god..but not..as you're both figuring out in real time, when it damns him. You just got through telling me that maybe the bad shit isn't the soul forge but something else, and the other one blamed earthquakes on a demon.

You might be able to understand why I don't think that either of you genuinely believes a word you say to us, right?

(December 15, 2020 at 1:38 pm)Klorophyll Wrote: If there is no absolute moral authority, then there is no good and evil, these words become basically undefined, because human beings as moral agents with limited information will forcibly disagree on the list of moral/immoral actions.
By contraposition, if there is good and evil, there has to be an absolute moral authority.

Even if there is an absolute moral authority, which there's not necessarily good evidence for, that does not provide any reason why that moral authority must reside in a God, much less your God. So even if I grant absolute moral authority exists, your conclusion is a non sequitur. Morals could be an objective feature of the universe apart from any God. And if there is no absolute moral authority, that would not mean that the terms good and evil have no meaning and become undefined, but rather simply that they do not have the meaning that you seem to want to insist they must have. That's a misapplication of the law of the excluded middle.

(December 15, 2020 at 1:38 pm)Confused-by-christianity Wrote: Is your claim, “option 4 cannot be try e, because, bad stuff happens.” ??

That’s what I think you’re saying.

It's interesting that you think that.  It's my position that option 4 can only be true if the horrid shit does improve us, and if there is a moral justification for improving us in that way.  I can't get you to commit to the first part, so it's doa until you do. If that's not true, then..obviously, option four can't be true..since that's option four...jesus fucking christ.
[/quote]
Why the aggression?? From a speculative discussion to this level of frustration??!!
Why should I have to defend option 4?? I’m not trying to persuade you.

Oh I don't think you should have to, and I certainly don't envy any person who would...but it was a suggestion you offered.

Can we agree that the only way that option 4 is true is for the horrid shit to improve us, and for there to be a moral justification for improving us in that way? As in, for option 4 to be true...option 4 must be true......

If we can agree to that, then option four is a provably true..or provably false..... contention..in this life. As such, god beliefs based on that contention are, themselves, provably true or false. If a person believes in the god of the soul forge, and there's no soul forge..then there's no god of the soul forge. If a person believes in the good god of the soul forge, and the soul forge is evil, then there is no good god of the soul forge.

When we commit to cognitive assertions we open those assertions and whatever conclusions we draw from them up to rational scrutiny in this life, the same sort of scrutiny we use to declare any other thing true or false. Which..I suppose, sucks..because we want to rationalize our beliefs (at least), but not necessarily side with reason over our beliefs.

-particularly when we find ourselves mixing claims about what is - the existence of soul forge...and what should be, whether or not the soul forge, it it existed, is good.

I’ve tried to be clear that - I don’t know what’s going on. I guess at things but I could be mistaken.
You don’t need my agreement - just deliver your point as though it were true. I’m trying to get to your punchline. What you want to actually say.