He made the world this way, though. How merciful is it really to throw someone into a tank of sharks and then offer your hand as "the only way out"? Oh, but no, you're right. If I am privileged enough, I can experience very little struggle and have moments of joy and pleasure while here. And so help me if I'm not grateful and genuflecting over it all. And those people less privileged? Who know suffering and sorrow and nothing but pain? They better be grateful just for the opportunity to breathe.

Yea, sounds intuitive when you put it that way. This God must have my best interests at heart for sure.

(August 8, 2021 at 3:56 pm)Ten Wrote: He made the world this way, though. How merciful is it really to throw someone into a tank of sharks and then offer your hand as "the only way out"? Oh, but no, you're right. If I am privileged enough, I can experience very little struggle and have moments of joy and pleasure while here. And so help me if I'm not grateful and genuflecting over it all. And those people less privileged? Who know suffering and sorrow and nothing but pain? They better be grateful just for the opportunity to breathe.

Yea, sounds intuitive when you put it that way. This God must have my best interests at heart for sure.

Theism is a mix of Stockholms syndrome and sadomasochism

(August 8, 2021 at 3:56 pm)Ten Wrote: He made the world this way, though. How merciful is it really to throw someone into a tank of sharks and then offer your hand as "the only way out"? Oh, but no, you're right. If I am privileged enough, I can experience very little struggle and have moments of joy and pleasure while here. And so help me if I'm not grateful and genuflecting over it all. And those people less privileged? Who know suffering and sorrow and nothing but pain? They better be grateful just for the opportunity to breathe.

Yea, sounds intuitive when you put it that way. This God must have my best interests at heart for sure.

Yes, you should be grateful. Whatever you think is the origin of life didn't really owe you or me life in the first place. Your venting above is more evidence that atheism is correlated with arrogance and ingratitude.

You say , "what about people less privileged", how exactly do you know that anyone is less privileged ? As someone who should be agnostic about an afterlife, you have no way to tell whether or not some dead child is playing joyfully in heaven right now. We came to this life unexpectedly, nothing really prevents an unexpected afterlife.

(August 8, 2021 at 11:01 am)LadyForCamus Wrote: @Klorophyll

Whether intentional or not, you appear to be missing the obvious point. How did the Bible get stuff right about Egypt?

You do realize that the Qur'an asserts the bible's divine origin in its unaltered form.. right ? The correct stuff in the bible could be the remnants of what was initially revelaed to Jesus. But let's assume it's not the case, let's say whoever wrote the bible got it from some source, how does that explain Muhammad getting it right everytime he supposedly copies from the [corrupted!] bible or some other source?

There is no afterlife, just an afterdeath.

(August 8, 2021 at 4:29 pm)Klorophyll Wrote:

(August 8, 2021 at 3:56 pm)Ten Wrote: He made the world this way, though. How merciful is it really to throw someone into a tank of sharks and then offer your hand as "the only way out"? Oh, but no, you're right. If I am privileged enough, I can experience very little struggle and have moments of joy and pleasure while here. And so help me if I'm not grateful and genuflecting over it all. And those people less privileged? Who know suffering and sorrow and nothing but pain? They better be grateful just for the opportunity to breathe.

Yea, sounds intuitive when you put it that way. This God must have my best interests at heart for sure.

Yes, you should be grateful. Whatever you think is the origin of life didn't really owe you or me life in the first place. Your venting above is more evidence that atheism is correlated with arrogance and ingratitude.

You say , "what about people less privileged", how exactly do you know that anyone is less privileged ? As someone who should be agnostic about an afterlife, you have no way to tell whether or not some dead child is playing joyfully in heaven right now. We came to this life unexpectedly, nothing really prevents an unexpected afterlife.

(August 8, 2021 at 11:01 am)LadyForCamus Wrote: @Klorophyll

Whether intentional or not, you appear to be missing the obvious point. How did the Bible get stuff right about Egypt?

You do realize that the Qur'an asserts the bible's divine origin in its unaltered form.. right ? The correct stuff in the bible could be the remnants of what was initially revelaed to Jesus. But let's assume it's not the case, let's say whoever wrote the bible got it from some source, how does that explain Muhammad getting it right everytime he supposedly copies from the [corrupted!] bible or some other source?

I never claimed Muhammad copied anything. My point is, if you’re willing admit to yourself that it’s possible whoever wrote the Bible got correct information about Egypt from “some source,” then you need to similarly admit to yourself it’s possible that Muhammad and/or whoever wrote the Quran also got correct information about Egypt from “some source.” If you want to be consistent in your reasoning, that is.

(August 8, 2021 at 7:39 am)Klorophyll Wrote: If we start explaining these things by lucky guesses, then we are erring on the side of irrationality. But sure, you can always take this way out, the Qur'an is a collection of guesses that are all true because Muhammad was lucky.

Well..it's certainly not that, on account of how magic book gets things as hilariously wrong and just as often as the people it cribbed them from.  Whether thats the bits of judaism and christianity and their myths-as-history, or the greek medicine of the time.

(August 8, 2021 at 4:29 pm)Klorophyll Wrote: As someone who should be agnostic about an afterlife, you have no way to tell whether or not some dead child is playing joyfully in heaven right now.

I have no way to tell one way or another, but my disbelief in an afterlife is very, very close to 100%.

(August 8, 2021 at 4:29 pm)Klorophyll Wrote: Yes, you should be grateful. Whatever you think is the origin of life didn't really owe you or me life in the first place. Your venting above is more evidence that atheism is correlated with arrogance and ingratitude.

The thing about a natural origin of life is it gives no reason to think the natural world ought to be better (or worse) to us than it acually is.

Quote:Yes, you should be grateful. Whatever you think is the origin of life didn't really owe you or me life in the first place. Your venting above is more evidence that atheism is correlated with arrogance and ingratitude.

 
[excerpted from Khloro’s earlier reply]

Displaying gratitude to God for getting you out of a jam isn’t much different than thanking a man who bandages your wound after he stabs you.

Boru

(August 5, 2021 at 3:44 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

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(August 5, 2021 at 11:48 am)tackattack Wrote: @LadyForCamus to answer how can you differentiate between your own mind in action and a god acting upon you[?]

And what would be the practical effect of intentionally not making that distinction? I actually don't think it would be all that important. The same process of interpretation and disambiguation would have to be undertaken in order to make sense of what it being evocated, regardless of whether the source is imaginal or inspired.

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The practical effect of coming up with a conclusion about the distinction is the confidence the foundations of your question. For instance, if I believed all my life that little green leprechauns told me their outfit was green and I used that as my bases for the definition of green then it's valid. It's also corroborated by a lot of other reasons. What you're getting at is that it doesn't make a difference but it does. If the science of green changes, and there is no other support that green is green, you have to reevaluate the reliability of the distinction, and thus the source. That confidence is what we believers call faith, and it can be blind or reasoned. Usually it's blind because of the fact that people don't see the value in assessing their reasoning.

(August 6, 2021 at 12:43 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote:

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(August 5, 2021 at 11:48 am)tackattack Wrote: @vulcanlogician that seems a reasonable position as well. cheers

@LadyForCamus to answer how can you differentiate between your own mind in action and a god acting upon you: Speaking of my inner self,
If a situation outside of myself happens, I look for a cause. I look for natural causes within reason, and if I can't find one, look for unnatural ones within reason.

A few follow-up questions, if you would be so kind to oblige:

1. How do you rule out all possible natural causes, including potential natural causes that you aren’t aware of yet? And, what is the difference between an unnatural cause “within reason” versus an unreasonable unnatural cause? How do you make that distinction?

2. Is there a reason you don’t stop at “I don’t know the cause at this time,” when you have an experience you can’t think of a natural explanation for? I hope that doesn’t come across as condescending, btw. I don’t mean it as such. I have had several experiences in my life that I similarly have no natural explanation for, and back when I was far less skeptical about that sort of thing I attributed the cause to some force or “spirit.” Twenty years later, I’ve realized that I don’t actually have any evidence of such a thing as “the supernatural” (or even a clear definition of it for that matter), so I say, “I don’t know what that was and I probably never will.”  It is annoying as fuck, not having an explanation, don’t get me wrong. But I know I can’t make a rational inference without supporting evidence, and being rational is very important to me.

Quote:Both of those reasons are tainted by my biases and knowledge limits.

Yours and everyone else’s, atheist and theist alike. I appreciate your awareness and willingness to admit it.

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No LFC I don't take it that way at all and I appreciate the dialogue.

1. You can't, for an individual instance, factor out potential natural causes that are unknown. Unnatural cause “within reason” versus an unreasonable unnatural cause are still unnatural. The distinction is the reliability and amount of similar unnatural causes. This leads theists to a belief in the "super"natural world.

2. You, by definition, can't have natural evidence of something non-natural so I'm not surprised. I do stop at I don't know usually. Then I factor in the amount of similar I don't knows, to get to a confidence level that the supernatural world could very well exist and might. I then reassess those other things, known and unknown by the new world view that the supernatural could exist and reevaluate and resolve any cognitive dissonance. Bottom line its I'm OK with saying I don't know generally, I don't know lots of things. When trying to introspect I have a tendency to be a little more forceful and tidy about my thoughts because I'm the only one that could know the whys and who am I type answers to those questions. I think part of the problem is you're looking at one single instance and trying to make a rational inference to something materialistically known. If I were you I would take and make a rational inference to other similar experiences in the same category.
We do the same thing for natural inferences. This tree is green, the clover is green, I can compare them, this spectrometer lists it as green, paul agrees it's green, I was taught it's green, I guess that's green.