RE: What God's justification for eternal torment?
November 27, 2020 at 6:55 am
(This post was last modified: November 27, 2020 at 6:56 am by The Grand Nudger.)
@Confused-by-christianity
That's why I think that personal experience is a compelling explanation for a belief.
There's a reason that we call hurricanes and tornados acts of god. It's a fine line, if there is a line, between terror and awe.
We can demonstrate this by showing that a question regarding supermans moral state in any given context doesn't require an exploration of whether superman is a real boy..and, in fact, changing that fact does not and cannot change the conclusion of our moral reasoning. A difference that makes no difference.
Is this god a competent moral agent? What was the disposition of the choice or outcome field? Is the act, accurately described, within a range of actions we deem to have negative moral content but, for whatever reason, also believe that we should withhold judgment even so? I can think of any number of situations where any possible answer to this question - many of them mutually exclusive, could be true. I've been given no relevant moral facts other than that this potential moral agent has done something of moral import.
Quote:Yeah that is true. It's my own experience but it's likely not persuasive to someone who doesn't believe in God. I could be lying, or telling the truth but mistaken. It's also not verifiable to any other human.I tend to assume that a person reporting an experience isn't lying or mistaken. I also tend to assume that people who have experiences afford them the instant credibility that we all instinctively and routinely afford to any of our experiences.
That's why I think that personal experience is a compelling explanation for a belief.
Quote:That statement is huge. I don't even know where to begin thinking about it.If you're asking me, it's more the case that the terrible and immense are manifestly present in our experience. Any god breathed whatsit that doesn't account for that (or refuses to include it in some way) has lost the instant credibility we afford to our experience - and also deprives itself of the a significant portion of the very content it was manufactured to describe, contextualize, or impart with meaning.
Is it the fear religion? Is God really a horror for a bad reason? Is He a horror for a good reason? Are people horrible and they put their own horror twist on scriptures to whip people into shape?
It's probably beyond the scope of my experience??
There's a reason that we call hurricanes and tornados acts of god. It's a fine line, if there is a line, between terror and awe.
Quote:What's God's justification for eternal torment?I don't think that there is one - either god or a justification - but I don't think that there has to be, either..so. Maybe god tortures for the same reason that fires burn down towns.
Quote:If He exists, would He be right to do that?The existence of a god is irrelevant to a moral claim on any proposed act of a god. Just as the existence of a god is irrelevant to any claim that you might make about having had a personal experience about gods. I'd need to know other relevant facts about a god..and it's existence isn't part of the metrics of moral consideration at all.
If He exists, would He be wrong to do that?
We can demonstrate this by showing that a question regarding supermans moral state in any given context doesn't require an exploration of whether superman is a real boy..and, in fact, changing that fact does not and cannot change the conclusion of our moral reasoning. A difference that makes no difference.
Is this god a competent moral agent? What was the disposition of the choice or outcome field? Is the act, accurately described, within a range of actions we deem to have negative moral content but, for whatever reason, also believe that we should withhold judgment even so? I can think of any number of situations where any possible answer to this question - many of them mutually exclusive, could be true. I've been given no relevant moral facts other than that this potential moral agent has done something of moral import.
Quote:If He doesn't exist - Did people just make the horror up out of fear? malice? control?As above, I'd say that part of what god concepts necessarily address are those things, that experiential content, which terrifies us. We have to explain fear and malice and control, and the consequences of those things. It's a requirement for us as creatures who navigate that context, and for whom that context is mortally consequential. The point being, ultimately, that we see and feel and know that there are immensely powerful and destructive forces at play in the world because we're intimately familiar with them - and if one's ordering of the divine fails to account for that it puts itself in a strange position.
None of the above?? :-)
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