Re: Deconversion

Gareth McCaughan wrote:
Simon Robinson wrote:

In effect, [part of] the
explanation you're looking for is that it's simply impossible to have a
world in which there is anything to do, without the charge you make also
looking valid.

... Gimme a day or so and I'll try to
put together more thoroughly what I think my basis is for making that
claim.

OK...

Bugger! Now you've indicated you are apparently still following this
subthread I guess I'll have to make the effort to write that up now :-)

I'm suggesting that the facts of evil and free will are
absolute even though our perception of them is to some
extent relative.

I don't think that will work. You claim they are absolute, but that our
perception of them is relative? Can you propose an absolute way for us to measure them? Otherwise it's meaningless to say they are absolute. (Space post-Michelson-Morley, but pre-special relativity? If I recall my history of science correctly, people believed that there was an absolute space - so it was possible for something to be absolutely still, yet it was apparent there was no way of finding the absolutely still reference frame - and we both know what happened as a result :-) )

Ironically, given the analogy with relativity, some of my arguments below are founded on the assumption is that, in spiritual terms, 'good' is ultimately defined by the process of making something better, not by whatever the current situation is. Your arguments seem to be founded exclusively on viewing 'good' as defined by what some static situation looks like; I think that's a mistake.

And also that if it's really true that
most of the human race would be fairly miserable even
if given a much better life, then that is *itself* a
problem.

.... if of course being miserable is an absolute :-)

(A being of limited power could be maximally good, if there
were a limit to the goodness of worlds that being could
make.)

What this shows is that there can't be an omnipotent being
of unimprovable moral goodness,

I'd agree that is the case within the bounds of how you would define moral goodness in the context of what a God could create, but of course I don't agree with that definition :-) (Because for me, the fact of being given the chance to create something better is crucial, as being discussed elsewhere in these posts)

OK, sorry for being apparently blind, but can you point me to what you
said that you think explains why you think it's a very bad idea
(assuming it was in a previous post and you're not referring to the
bit below that I've marked [^^])

...
| But: (1) once again, who said that an omnipotent God couldn't
| do better than human beings? And (2) we are able to recognize
| a distinction between a (human) father who merely doesn't give
| his children everything that would be best for them, and one
| who beats them and locks them up and humiliates them and so on;
| human life, at least for many humans much of the time, is more
| like the latter than like the former.

OK, I think I understand. But it sounds to me as if that is saying amounts to - in effect - that a supremely good omnipotent being would never create any lifeforms that are capable of seeing evil or bad in anything around them. That sounds odd to me. (And yes I know I've deliberately phrased that in a manner to emphasize the apparent oddity)

Who says that God had to make beings with *our* nature?
Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, "Let us make man in our image. God made
man in his own image...." I think that's significant. God made beings
that in some way reflected his own nature.

Certainly. But are you really suggesting that part of God's
nature is being unable to appreciate good things without bad
things to compare them against?

I think that is a plausible possibility, for this reason: If God is all that there is (if you prefer, insert: "at least, before he created us"), then there *is* nothing else to compare against. And I'd imagine that makes it very hard, if not logically impossible, to experience things like goodness. As an example, imagine believing that you are kind to people in need. Unless you actually meet someone in need, whom you can be kind to, then all you have is an abstract belief that, in theory, you are kind. That seems very different from actually being kind, or experiencing being kind. I know that's all another very handwavy argument, full of unprovable implicit assumptions about the nature of God, but it seems plausible to me - and suggestive that it's simply not possible for kindness to exist without people who require the kindness also existing.

OK, so let's take it as read that some sort of creativity
is an inevitable part of the nature of beings such as God
might create. I don't think that comes close to justifying
your contention that such beings will necessarily be unable
to appreciate good without evil.

....

I'm not sure that I agree. You could create something different
and about equally good, and thus form part of a process of
creative change that in itself is good and part of the perfection
of the universe.

Possibly, but what motivation would you have to create something
different if you don't perceive it to be in some way better than what
was there before? Offhand I can't think of any decision I've made in my
entire life that wasn't based on my imagining at the time that it would
make something better (even if it was something minor like eating so I'd
feel less hungry). Can you think of anything you've done that wasn't so motivated? ISTM that if there is no perception of creating something better, then any decision would simply be monotonous - no incentive to do whatever-it-is. It's not clear to me that such a world would be any better than the one we have.

...I would
contend that what is 'bad' about an event is more properly defined by
how people feel about the event - eg. whether it makes them happy or
sad. ...
>
...Let's suppose, partly
for the sake of argument and partly because it's roughly
true, that the only reason why rape is bad is because it
makes people miserable in sundry ways; how does that help
to support your contention that evil is merely an absence
of positive good?

A fair question. I was perhaps a bit sloppy with language as I was
trying to be brief (yeah I know that's a hopeless task in this thread).
More accurately, what I meant was important was not so much that people feel happy, but that people get more into communion with God. I regard being happy [1] as an inevitable consequence of being in full communion with God and being miserable as an inevitable consequence of not being in any communion with God. (In a sense, being miserable is how we experience not being in communication with God) So from that point, very roughly speaking, 'evil' = 'miserable people' = 'no communion with God' = absence of good (good = communion with God). Does that make more sense?

[1] I have to say I'm using lots of words here that don't have quite the right meaning for what I'm trying to say, for lack of better words, but I'm hoping it's close enough for you to get my drift. In particular, for happiness, you probably need to read some kind of inner peace: The term 'happiness' is a broad one and probably covers some states of mind - eg. satisfaction at having exacted revenge on someone - that I don't intend. Ditto for 'miserable'

If you assume that only human happiness matters, you might be
correct; perhaps we are no happier than we would have been in
such conditions. But ...

1. I don't accept that only human happiness matters; I think
it is objectively better for people to know more, live longer,
create more neat things, etc., even if their level of happiness
remains constant. (One reason, though not the only one: people
demonstrably want such things, and it seems just as fundamental
to me that it's good for people's wants to be better satisfied
in general as that it's good for people to be happy.)

But isn't the reason we try to satisfy people's wants that it generally makes them happy when their wants are satisfied? (Because happiness tends to arise from favourable changes rather than from an unchanging situation).

2. I repeat that the human tendency to determine happiness
differentially is not an inevitable feature of the world.

True. A repeating area where you and I disagree. I guess to convince me, you'd have to come up with some plausible world that doesn't contain that feature of humanness, and which doesn't have something else obviously wrong with it (eg. inability to feel the satisfaction of having improved something :-)

3. Suppose for the sake of argument that you're right that only
human happiness matters. Then here is a consequence you won't
like: God *could* in fact have made a much better world, simply
by making people much much happier. "But then we wouldn't have
had so much freedom / been truly able to have fellowship with God /
been motivated to improve the world / etc.!" Right; so you agree
with me that human happiness isn't the only thing that matters;
and on those metrics I just put into your mouth, and I think on
just about any others you might plausibly come up with, the world
could have been much better than it is.

I think that's covered by the issue of happiness resulting from change, as per what I said two paragraphs back. (Putting that back into spiritual language, I'd suggest that relates to an idea that what is good is to create better and better things - which ISTM is probably part of the nature of God)

From that perspective, to me, it seems odd to claim that a good God
wouldn't put <however much> bad in the world, because what makes the bad
bad is - basically - how we choose to view it.

But I think here you go too far. Not only for the reasons already
mentioned. Consider the person who loses his wallet, and suppose
the way he loses it is by having it stolen. Is the theft not a
bad thing in itself, even if it happens that the victim responds
in the second way you describe?

Yes it's bad because the thief is acting in a way contrary to God. In a sense, what the thief is doing is creating a situation that is worse than a situation that is better - and that's (IMO) against the nature of God. (Aside from things like not caring for others)

It seems to me that the only reasons for thinking it good
for humanity to have the chance to improve Y to X are also
reasons for thinking it at least as bad to have Y rather
than X in the first place.

I don't think that applies if you think that what is good is - at least in part - the act of making the improvement, rather than the final state.

I personally don't find that a problem - because I don't believe the
material things a good samaritan brings are what people ultimately
need. (Matt. 4.4). The point of being the good samaritan is for the
samaritan's benefit - becoming able to care for others to the best of
his ability.

Gosh, I hope you don't really think that. (Suppose it turned out
that being a "good Samaritan" didn't in fact bring you any benefit;
should you stop doing it?)

IMO that question contains a paradox and so can't be answered. Even if
we ignore all the arguments about God and good and evil, etc. being a
'good samaritan' does bring me benefits: The knowledge of having done
something I believe to be intrinsically good adds to my self-esteem,
gives me the experience of having helped someone, etc. That benefit arises from who I am (and IMO that benefit is inextricably linked to the nature of the Universe and to my relationship with God). There's no way being a (hypothetical) good Samaritan could not bring me benefit without making me something that isn't who I am - something that isn't 'me' anymore. Which kinda destroys the question since you ended by saying 'should *you* stop doing it?'.

If God always and immediately took care of the needy in
the way you suggest he ought to, then in the process he'd destroy any
chance of us being able to do that, which would remove our ability to
care for others.

I haven't suggested anything much about the way in which God
ought to take care of the needy. He might do it by giving the
rest of us more ability and willingness to take care of them,
which obviously wouldn't remove our ability to do it.

At best, if God gave us that ability, it would speed up the process of our caring for them. But then you get back into the evil (or if you prefer, the perception of evil) being relative thing - we'd still see the existing situation as 'evil'.

And: suppose you hear of someone who is in dire need, and you
are moved by their plight and immediately do something that
fixes it. You have thereby deprived everyone else in the world
of the chance to help that person. Is that a bad thing? (Hint:
no.) Is it any worse if you happen to be better placed to help
that person than everyone else, on account of being better
aware of their need, better equipped with the resources to
help, and more clearly aware of what's right? (Hint: no.)

But I can't totally 100% solve everyone's problems, so I don't think that's comparable to the suggestion of God simply fixing it all.

I agree that universalism makes it much easier to regard God
as good. Unfortunately it's rather lacking in evidence...

There's not much evidence that it's wrong either (for the simple reason
that there's precious little hard evidence whatsoever on what happens to
our consciousness after we die).

Simon
http://www.simonrobinson.com
.

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