RE: If God sent your child to Hell.
May 26, 2015 at 3:27 pm
(This post was last modified: May 26, 2015 at 3:41 pm by Anima.)
(May 26, 2015 at 12:59 pm)Aroura Wrote:(May 26, 2015 at 11:42 am)Anima Wrote: Sorry; I did not finish that post. I started and then bailed to go to dinnerYes, in response to the part I bolded, now you understand why clinging to the outdated notion of free-will only causes people to be asses to each other in the real world.
Did you check how long he was locked up for? 150 years. So we are saying that society needs to be protected from this man for 150 years but society needs protection from a rapist for only 2 to 25 years.
In response to your statement about imprisoning people to protect society we will state the claim is not supported by the sentencing structure adopted for criminal conduct. Furthermore I would state imprisonment as retributivist act is more reasonable as rehabilitative or dissuasive view due to our ability to effectuate the former while still being accepting of the median and latter.
You know I had every intention of writing four different responses to the notion of free will and choice (I was even going to discuss the homosexuality is not a choice statement) under a philosophical, psychological (since psychology has not proved as you claim), legal, and evolutionary biology position. But then I realized there is no point.
In opposition to what I have already stated your response is to say that people are meat automatons that do not make choices nor are they free to make any choices (,which would seem odd as not all the meat puppets born into the same circumstance and even family reach the same outcome. Might we argue different quality of meat? Filet vs Rump?).
In conceding the battle I avoid the war, acceptance of your response renders the original question moot. Theist contend a person goes to hell based on their choices. If they are incapable of making choices (due to infancy, insanity, disability, or being a meat automation) then they do not go to hell. (Yes, if Hitler's acts were because he was crazy he should not go to hell.)
As a meat automaton you have as much likelihood of perdition as a rock or tree. There is no metaphysical person to speak of and even if there were it sounds as if their person is trapped in a hell of ineptness already. Forced to watch the world play out around them as their meat responds to stimuli and they are dragged along for the ride (reminds me of the ending to Being John Malcovich.)
However, I would think twice before opening the prisons and letting the serial killers and rapists out. While the contention is exposing their meat automaton to different stimuli will keep them from their prior conduct I would give consideration to the idea that their conduct was a choice which they may readily make again.
But no, the part I Italicized does not necessarily follow. We still retain the perception of making decisions, so that wouldn't change. Snd we would still need to protect society, so the serial killers and rapists would still need to be locked up if they could not be cured. But we could put more effort into curing, and to safely locking up the uncurable, instead of the outdated notions of punishment for punishments sake.
But yes, if determinism is true, or even compatibilism (free-will inside the constraints of determinism), then heaven and hell become completely nonsensical concepts, even if you believe in god.
I suggest you read up on these things a bit, since these ideas seem to be new to you. And also realize that my view of determinism (though you may find it unstable, that's an opinion and you have a right to it), is NOT an outlier. Much like atheism, determinism, is on the rise. Better get used to it.
And it has POSITIVE consequences on societies who's justice systems embrace it....look at crime rates dropping, the ideas of revenge and retaliation being less accepted, violence should no longer beget violence. Overall, it creates a more peaceful and humane outlook on the world and those who live in it.
Ha ha. Actually I cannot understand how you could possibly state anything about personhood or conduct devoid of a freewill. It does follow that without free will we would be effectual meat automatons devoid of person (or as often stated to me on this forum, "personhood that would not matter, which is not personhood at all") and thereby no conduct is good/bad or appropriate/inappropriate and thus to be subject to moral or ethical punishment (hell or even prison).
Furthermore, one may not posit all actions are automated and in no way volitional and thereby amoral or devoid of ethics; to then posit that certain automated actions are "detrimental" and to be guarded against. Whether each automaton acts independently or the automatons act in unison according to the stimuli (which you extend to include fictitious perceptions of choices that never occurred) or predestination already determined all of those actions are amoral or devoid of ethics and subsequent moral or ethical judgment followed by punishment.
To say that one retains the perceptions of decisions (while never actually making any decisions) is more fanciful and farcical than to say that one makes decisions and is subsequently bound by the repercussions that follow from those decisions. By that argument all that is one is a figment of imagination (merely perceptions of decisions without any actual decisions).
I would agree that freewill allows people to be asses to one another just as free speech allows people to state asinine things. (In my case hearing guilt and punishment are to be assigned over the perception of decisions one never actually made; in yours hearing guilt and punishment is to be assigned for decisions actually made). Guilt and punishment for perception of a decision made is far more disgusting than any system which would punish someone for a decision they freely made (the former involving punishment for something never done or punishing the innocent; the latter punishment for something done or punishing the guilty.)
I am well versed in both the theistic and atheistic arguments to predestination and determinism, as well as argumentum ad novitatem. I find all of them equally foolish as arguments to predestination and determinism (theistic or atheistic) all negate the very existence of the being or person (or render the being as a prisoner of existence with no way to effect it, thereby effectually nonexistent). If there was anything I thought we could agree on it is the existence of our own person. Alas it appears I shall be compelled to stick to my old antiquated ideas of person while the rest render their person nonexistence. I would ask you to send a post card, but you will not be around to do so.
(May 26, 2015 at 1:29 pm)robvalue Wrote: Right, so you think someone's sentence was too harsh. That's fine, I never claimed the legal system is perfect. But this still has nothing to do with hell, so I assume you have realized it's a very bad comparison. Especially since infinite punishment for a finite crime is the very definition of an overly harsh sentence, and one that serves no purpose other than for God to enjoy the suffering of others.
It's sad how people have to employ these obviously broken equivocations to try and pretend an evil character in a book is actually good.
And didn't you say that your God is imaginary? So why would you think hell is real?
So what do you think a 150 year prison sentence or the death penalty is? To an atheist would it not be infinite punishment for a finite crime?

After all the punished shall be separated from society indefinitely, that is to say infinitely, for their finite crime. (Coincidentally life imprisonment and the death penalty is not considered an infinite punishment to a finite crime for the theist.)
So you would say that there is no conduct a person can engage in which would warrant their everlasting separation from society. So you think Mr. Madoff will get to join society again when he is 200 years old or those who were executed will come back into the fold upon the resurrection at the second coming

I think the equalization is functioning as intended. Since we are discussing indefinite imprisonment for bad or improper conduct by an authority. I think it is shown well that we do such for similar reasons without god as with god. The theory is sound in principle and now we are just haggling over location and authority.