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March 5, 2011 at 10:20 am (This post was last modified: March 5, 2011 at 10:32 am by reverendjeremiah.)
(March 5, 2011 at 3:22 am)theVOID Wrote: Prove beyond a reasonable doubt? Okay, easy.
Belief in the existence of Satan is entirely unjustified, this is the same as saying that it is in no way reasonable to believe that Satan exists. If it is in no way reasonable to believe that Satan exists then, beyond all reasonable doubt, I can say that Satan is not fooling me.
Satisfied?
..and I agree. There is no LOGICAL justification for it. a malevolent deity is absurd. But let us remember this is just a hypothetical discussion. Either this is a godless univers (which I pretty much stand behind), or some sort of malevolence is behind all of this (which I dont strongly adhere to, but sometimes I wonder). Lets go over some points:
Multiple religions in this world = Either the result of a godless cosmos or a malevolent force. I tend to think it is way on the godless side, but sometimes I wonder.
Multiple forms of govt = Either the result of a godless cosmos or a malevolent force. I tend to think it is way on the godless side, but sometimes I wonder.
Psychiatric diseases = Either the result of a godless cosmos or a malevolent force. I tend to think it is way on the godless side, but sometimes I wonder.
Babies born without a brain = Either the result of a godless cosmos or a malevolent force. I tend to think it is way on the godless side, but sometimes I wonder.
etc..
I was satisfied before, but like I said..sometimes I wonder.
(March 5, 2011 at 7:08 am)ozgoat Wrote: Because you're fooling me, not Satan.
Anyway, I spend most of my life fooling myself, I don't need anyone else to do it.
LOL. Im not trying to fool anyone, even though I like your response. I am merely bringing up something that I wonder about sometimes. Malevolent design vs godless Cosmos. I tend very heavily towards godless Cosmos, but I cant be 100% sure. How can anyone be 100% sure about something like this?
(March 5, 2011 at 7:40 am)Zen Badger Wrote: How do we know god isn't fooling us?
That is what I am asking. Perhaps I should have said "malevolent force" instead of Satan, but I figured most would get the picture. Perhaps it is millions of malevolent gods and goddesses who are fooling us. Perhaps HP Lovecraft was inspired when he wrote of the Cthulhu and the great old ones from beyond the stars and no hope but malevolence for mankind. Like I said before, I tend heavily towards "godless universe" and a healthy dose of human imagination when dealing with this subject, but nobody, in my opinion, can be 100% sure about this subject. Sometimes it just nags me. Example:
How can you be 100% sure that Jesus isnt really a malevolent demon who lied to people. Sure, bad people will do nice things to draw in their victims... see what I mean?
(March 5, 2011 at 8:13 am)Aerzia Saerules Arktuos Wrote:
Actually, I believe the Gods of the Vigil are fooling us... Regulos is being pretty damn honest about wanting to kill everything.
defafnyr Wrote:If my toon had any opinion, she'd say that those baleful gods covet the sourcestone our planet is rich with because it feeds them power. If the those gods feed on sourcestone then likely so do the gods of Vigil, so of course they don't want us figuring out how to use it to power our creations. They are jealous gods and don't want us to join them. They're afraid we will become them. So some of those gods dress up pretty and pretend to care about our world and ascend those that will fight for them but not question them. Do they ascend the most righteous and worthy to fight their fight? No, they ascend people regardless of their moral compasses as long as they can control them and use them to turn on their fellow Telarans, Telarans who have figured out how to bypass the gods and use the sourcestone for ourselves.
We are no more than chess pieces between the Gods of Vigil and the Baleful gods. And our world is ripped apart while we fight this civil war rather than turning against those that fuel the fire with our deaths.
Where were these gods when Telara fell in the future time-line?
There are bloody reasons I could only be Ascended as one of the Defiant... the Gods of the Vigil would certainly have never brought such a being as myself back.
Trust me, Satan and Loki aren't wasting their time trying to fool me, and have better things to do than fool me, and are not fooling me. I know this, because the gods of the Vigil won't give me a list of their names and an explanation of who they are... and this is because they are aware that my full eventual intent (after beating back the significantly more powerful Blood Storm) is to kill them.
They aren't just going to give me their names and tell me about themselves and where they live to make my job all the easier: that isn't the style of the Vigil, and at best this 'Loki' or 'Satan' were invented to throw me off my course. Not unlike that time they successfully lured me away from the Iron Pines.
Damn elevators.
That is pretty much what I am saying, to a point. My point would also include that Malevolence also includes uncarring gods as well. Any god that has the power to stop human suffering and doesnt is malevolent, because if it were benevolent it would snap its fingers and stop this blood soaked debate we humans have about so many things such as religion, politics, and so on.
The absurdity of the idea isn't relevant, neither is the truth of his existence/non-existence, what matter is what is reasonable to believe given the evidence available - There is no evidence for any malevolent deities, nothing what-so-ever indicating that one exists and the universe is not better explained by one than it is by his absence, therefore there is not reasonable to believe in one - If it is not reasonable to believe in this deity then any doubts raised regarding his non-existence are also not reasonable.
Thus, I can say that beyond all reasonable doubt, such a being does not exist.
Keep in mind 'beyond reasonable doubt' does not mean 'necessarily'. A parallel case might be a trial, A man is accused of murdered his wife, the murder weapon has his prints on it and he was known to have threatened her, the neighbours testified that they were having an extremely heated argument prior to the event, the man's defence is that "someone was sick of us arguing so he put a knife in my hand and stabbed her with it" - There is however no evidence of this person existing and no reason to believe he does exists, the situation is not better explained by this mystery man it is made worse - This is still a doubt over the guilt of the man murdering his wife, but this doubt is NOT a reasonable one.
Any time you are not talking about necessity you leave open the potential for doubt, this doesn't make the doubts reasonable.
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.
I've essentially answered all of that in my other response, you are making the conceptual error of equating 'necessarily' with 'beyond all reasonable doubt', a valid comparison would be equating 'necessarily' with 'beyond all doubt'
The way you are using the term 'beyond all reasonable doubt' makes the term 'reasonable' completely redundant.
March 5, 2011 at 10:58 am (This post was last modified: March 5, 2011 at 11:07 am by reverendjeremiah.)
(March 5, 2011 at 10:40 am)theVOID Wrote: The absurdity of the idea isn't relevant, neither is the truth of his existence/non-existence, what matter is what is reasonable to believe given the evidence available - There is no evidence for any malevolent deities, nothing what-so-ever indicating that one exists and the universe is not better explained by one than it is by his absence, therefore there is not reasonable to believe in one - If it is not reasonable to believe in this deity then any doubts raised regarding his non-existence are also not reasonable.
Thus, I can say that beyond all reasonable doubt, such a being does not exist.
Keep in mind 'beyond reasonable doubt' does not mean 'necessarily'. A parallel case might be a trial, A man is accused of murdered his wife, the murder weapon has his prints on it and he was known to have threatened her, the neighbours testified that they were having an extremely heated argument prior to the event, the man's defence is that "someone was sick of us arguing so he put a knife in my hand and stabbed her with it" - There is however no evidence of this person existing and no reason to believe he does exists, the situation is not better explained by this mystery man it is made worse - This is still a doubt over the guilt of the man murdering his wife, but this doubt is NOT a reasonable one.
Any time you are not talking about necessity you leave open the potential for doubt, this doesn't make the doubts reasonable.
Well said, and I agree with you on all points. Perhaps you are even correct about wether absurdity is relevant in this case. Your example highlights my intentions of this discussion. Basically this discussion is a mix of the Epicurian "problem of evil" along with mankind inability to be 100% certain of anything. Anyone who is a fan of Sagan and Dawkins are well aware that they both said that you could not be 100% sure of anything, sure it may be possible, but is it probable? dawkins said something like: on a scale of one to ten, one being 100% god belief and ten being 100% atheist, I would land somewhere on 9, as I am unable to be 100% sure of things like this. Now I agree with him on that point, and I land on that 9 with him. That one point difference to me is what this topic is about. Of course the burdon of proof is on my shoulders, but how do you prove something that has the power to ensure it could not be proven solely for the purpose of malevolence and spreading confusion? Its a great conversation piece, but do not think I actually believe, nor want to worship a malevolent being. If said malevolent entity existed, why worship it?
(March 5, 2011 at 10:53 am)theVOID Wrote: I've essentially answered all of that in my other response, you are making the conceptual error of equating 'necessarily' with 'beyond all reasonable doubt', a valid comparison would be equating 'necessarily' with 'beyond all doubt'
The way you are using the term 'beyond all reasonable doubt' makes the term 'reasonable' completely redundant.
Why is it not okay to want to know beyond a reasonable doubt? Why is it not okay to ask "can we ever be 100% sure about anything?" Im not sure if I am following you on this. Could you break it down better for me?
I would be a 9/10 too regarding the existence of a deity, a 9.9 is still to me a position of agnostic atheism, only 1 and 10 are positions of Gnosticism, knowledge being equal to absolute certainty.
I disagree that we cannot be absolutely certain about anything, I have knowledge that there are no square circles, for instance - The laws of Identity (something is what it is) non-contradiction (something cannot be what it is not) and excluded middle (something cannot be true and false simultaneously) are all things that we can be absolutely certain of, they are true by definition.
Why worship it? Pragmatism perhaps, the alternative could be worse....
With something as conceptually flimsy as a god, shrouded in obscurity and described always in the most vague of terms, there is no "problem of evil", the god 'hypothesis' can be infinitely ad-hoced. Was someone to actually present a coherent and comprehensive definition of God things may be different.
(March 5, 2011 at 11:18 am)theVOID Wrote: I would be a 9/10 too regarding the existence of a deity, a 9.9 is still to me a position of agnostic atheism, only 1 and 10 are positions of Gnosticism, knowledge being equal to absolute certainty.
I disagree that we cannot be absolutely certain about anything, I have knowledge that there are no square circles, for instance - The laws of Identity (something is what it is) non-contradiction (something cannot be what it is not) and excluded middle (something cannot be true and false simultaneously) are all things that we can be absolutely certain of, they are true by definition.
Why worship it? Pragmatism perhaps, the alternative could be worse....
With something as conceptually flimsy as a god, shrouded in obscurity and described always in the most vague of terms, there is no "problem of evil", the god 'hypothesis' can be infinitely ad-hoced. Was someone to actually present a coherent and comprehensive definition of God things may be different.
Well said. And thankyou for correcting me on some things. I am well aware of logical arguments, and I should have typed "we cant be absolutely certain of some things". A good definition of god would be nice also.
(March 5, 2011 at 10:40 am)reverendjeremiah Wrote: - 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 should have been more clear: God, Satan, Vishnu, Spaghetti Monster etc... ANY diety benign or malevolent faces the same scrutiny. Are you saying that they could be lying to us about the entire 13.7 billion year origin of the cosmos, evolution, etc... seems it would be more complicated to plant the evidence than it would be to accept impirically the overwhelming evidence as it is uncovered... In this lie, there is, in my opinion, waaaaaay to many details to consider, with all the tools we use for gathering evidence, i.e. spectroscopy and carbon 14 dating come to mind as to VERY elaborate and accurate measurements, but also the forces of techtonics, fossil beds, the intricate evolution of languages and cultures, geneolgy, etc. and they all seem to tie together with amazing precision to help unravel the mysteries of the world around us.
As to the virus = malevolence question, I think the entire struggle for existance model is nothing BUT an example of the countless "arms races" between species... as dawkins says, (sorry but I am paraphrasing 'cus I don't wanna look it up ..) "whose side is god on anyway, the cheetah or the gazelle". Or sharks and seals, frigates or terns, etc.... each slowly evolves and advantage over the other resulting in so many specialized forms.
"We live in the age of the internet, and there are still people willing to blow themselves up for the HIGHLY UNLIKELY possiblility of pussy in another dimension!" - Joe Rogan
"Jesus Christ! Grab the Escalade, we're outta here!" - God
(March 5, 2011 at 5:41 pm)azharrison Wrote: I should have been more clear: God, Satan, Vishnu, Spaghetti Monster etc... ANY diety benign or malevolent faces the same scrutiny. Are you saying that they could be lying to us about the entire 13.7 billion year origin of the cosmos, evolution, etc... seems it would be more complicated to plant the evidence than it would be to accept impirically the overwhelming evidence as it is uncovered... In this lie, there is, in my opinion, waaaaaay to many details to consider, with all the tools we use for gathering evidence, i.e. spectroscopy and carbon 14 dating come to mind as to VERY elaborate and accurate measurements, but also the forces of techtonics, fossil beds, the intricate evolution of languages and cultures, geneolgy, etc. and they all seem to tie together with amazing precision to help unravel the mysteries of the world around us.
Yes, yes and yes. But an all powerful malevolent being can snap his fingers and make all of this faked. Loki created the cosmos last thursday, and he gave everything, including human memories, the appearance of old age. For a human to do a conspiracy of that magnitude would surely be impossible, but an all powerful malevolent trickster god? Childs play. Remember, this is just hypothetical. I am not trying to convince anyone this is real or anything. Its just a mental exercise of sorts with lots of examples from reality tossed in. This is the trump. Its the greatest conspiracy of all time. Are we being duped by an all powerful trickster god? I think it makes for great fiction.
(March 5, 2011 at 5:41 pm)azharrison Wrote: As to the virus = malevolence question, I think the entire struggle for existance model is nothing BUT an example of the countless "arms races" between species... as dawkins says, (sorry but I am paraphrasing 'cus I don't wanna look it up ..) "whose side is god on anyway, the cheetah or the gazelle". Or sharks and seals, frigates or terns, etc.... each slowly evolves and advantage over the other resulting in so many specialized forms.
In this situation who would know? For one instance Loki may be for the Cheetah, the other for the Gazelle. It depends on whatever his mood would be at the time.
(March 5, 2011 at 6:14 pm)reverendjeremiah Wrote: Yes, yes and yes. But an all powerful malevolent being can snap his fingers and make all of this faked. Loki created the cosmos last thursday, and he gave everything, including human memories, the appearance of old age. For a human to do a conspiracy of that magnitude would surely be impossible, but an all powerful malevolent trickster god? Childs play. Remember, this is just hypothetical. I am not trying to convince anyone this is real or anything. Its just a mental exercise of sorts with lots of examples from reality tossed in. This is the trump. Its the greatest conspiracy of all time. Are we being duped by an all powerful trickster god? I think it makes for great fiction.
It sounds like a pretty elaborate scheme for an omnicient, omnipotent being to go through just to dupe one particular species of primates eking out a living on mote of dust, orbiting a forgotten star, in the arm of an ordinary galaxy in a remote corner of a super-cluster hurling through an almost infinite universe.
If your premise is correct, we are sooo fucked anyway so you may as well enjoy whatever life you can, and ignore this Loki dude.
"We live in the age of the internet, and there are still people willing to blow themselves up for the HIGHLY UNLIKELY possiblility of pussy in another dimension!" - Joe Rogan
"Jesus Christ! Grab the Escalade, we're outta here!" - God
![[Image: rift2.jpg]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i143.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fr137%2Fgeneral_81%2Frift2.jpg)
..) "whose side is god on anyway, the cheetah or the gazelle". Or sharks and seals, frigates or terns, etc.... each slowly evolves and advantage over the other resulting in so many specialized forms.