RE: One sentence trump for everyone
March 5, 2011 at 10:40 am
(This post was last modified: March 5, 2011 at 10:45 am by reverendjeremiah.)
(March 5, 2011 at 9:39 am)azharrison Wrote: The premise makes the assumption that Satan is real. Besides, what is he lying about? Astronomy? Biology? Witch hunts? God? Other God's? Human history? I don't get how that question helps understand anything.
Not really. I went through pains to explain it could be ANY deity. One that we do not know of that acts malevolent and treats the Cosmos like its own video game for its amusement. But you are correct when you say "assumption". Yes, it is an assumption, which makes me consider it to be false and that this is a godless world. But how can we ever be 100% sure? The question puts things into perspective for me because of the following
- Either this is a godless cosmos or a malevolent design. A malevolent design can also include the "appearance" of a godless universe just to increase the height of malevolence.
- Christians and other religions claim their gods are benevolent, but are also responsible for the biological entities in this Cosmos. Any deity that would purposely create evolution for the method of species creation would be malevolent.
- Viruses and parasites just scream "godless cosmos or malevolent design" to me. I tend very heavily towards godless cosmos because that is what the evidence looks like, but how can I be 100% sure that some malevolent designer didnt make it that way just to kick his kicks? A benevolent designer would not make tse tse flies, or hook worms, or tape worms..and those arent even the worst ones. Fall of man doesnt help either, because any deity that would punish men like this for failing to be perfect and or worship him would also fall into the "maelvolent designer" category.
I have more, but these are the major ones on the list.
(March 5, 2011 at 9:50 am)theVOID Wrote: It doesn't assume he is real, it assumes that he could be real and fooling us into believing he isn't. The question is "Can we show beyond reasonable doubt that he is not fooling us" - It's akin to the New Evil Demon Problem, a common challenge in Epistemology.
Yes. That is the hypothetical situation here. I expected you would see the problem and appreciate a conversation like this as smart as you have proven yourself to be to me over the last few weeks. Like I said before, I tend HEAVILY towards the "godless cosmos" as the answer, but still..how can ANYONE be 100% sure that we arent the subjects of some malevolent designers entertainment? Malevolence also includes an uncaring deity. Any deity that can easily stop a child from being raped and murdered, yet doesnt is malevolent. Becuase if the deity DIDNT like a child being raped and murdered, then it could easily stop it. But it doesnt. So that screams to me; either godless cosmos or malevolent design.
