Monday, September 19, 2005

Is God a Taoist?

If you have never enjoyed the pleasure of reading any of Smullyan's work, please keep an open mind and follow along with patience....no, the Christians haven't taken over this site yet and by the end of this little vignette I think you will see what I mean. Anyone who finds this little tale interesting should find a copy of David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion........enjoy!

Jason




Is God a Taoist?
Raymond M. Smullyan, 1977

Mortal:
And therefore, O God, I pray thee, if thou hast one ounce of mercy for this thy suffering creature, absolve me of having to have free will!

God:
You reject the greatest gift I have given thee?

Mortal:
How can you call that which was forced on me a gift? I have free will, but not of my own choice. I have never freely chosen to have free will. I have to have free will, whether I like it or not!

God:
Why would you wish not to have free will?

Mortal:
Because free will means moral responsibility, and moral responsibility is more than I can bear!

God:
Why do you find moral responsibility so unbearable?

Mortal:
Why? I honestly can't analyze why; all I know is that I do.

God:
All right, in that case suppose I absolve you from all moral responsibility but leave you still with free will. Will this be satisfactory?

Mortal (after a pause):
No, I am afraid not.

God:
Ah, just as I thought! So moral responsibility is not the only aspect of free will to which you object. What else about free will is bothering you?

Mortal:
With free will I am capable of sinning, and I don't want to sin!

God:
If you don't want to sin, then why do you?

Mortal:
Good God! I don't know why I sin, I just do! Evil temptations come along, and try as I can, I cannot resist them.

God:
If it is really true that you cannot resist them, then you are not sinning of your own free will and hence (at least according to me) not sinning at all.

Mortal:
No, no! I keep feeling that if only I tried harder I could avoid sinning. I understand that the will is infinite. If one wholeheartedly wills not to sin, then one won't.

God:
Well now, you should know. Do you try as hard as you can to avoid sinning or don't you?

Mortal:
I honestly don't know! At the time, I feel I am trying as hard as I can, but in retrospect, I am worried that maybe I didn't!

God:
So in other words, you don't really know whether or not you have been sinning. So the possibility is open that you haven't been sinning at all!

Mortal:
Of course this possibility is open, but maybe I have been sinning, and this thought is what so frightens me!

God:
Why does the thought of your sinning frighten you?

Mortal:
I don't know why! For one thing, you do have a reputation for meting out rather gruesome punishments in the afterlife!

God:
Oh, that's what's bothering you! Why didn't you say so in the first place instead of all this peripheral talk about free will and responsibility? Why didn't you simply request me not to punish you for any of your sins?

Mortal:
I think I am realistic enough to know that you would hardly grant such a request!

God:
You don't say! You have a realistic knowledge of what requests I will grant, eh? Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do! I will grant you a very, very special dispensation to sin as much as you like, and I give you my divine word of honor that I will never punish you for it in the least. Agreed?

Mortal (in great terror):
No, no, don't do that!

God:
Why not? Don't you trust my divine word?

Mortal:
Of course I do! But don't you see, I don't want to sin! I have an utter abhorrence of sinning, quite apart from any punishments it may entail.

God:
In that case, I'll go you one better. I'll remove your abhorrence of sinning. Here is a magic pill! Just swallow it, and you will lose all abhorrence of sinning. You will joyfully and merrily sin away, you will have no regrets, no abhorrence and I still promise you will never be punished by me, or yourself, or by any source whatever. You will be blissful for all eternity. So here is the pill!

Mortal:
No, no!

God:
Are you not being irrational? I am even removing your abhorrence of sin, which is your last obstacle.

Mortal:
I still won't take it!

God:
Why not?

Mortal:
I believe that the pill will indeed remove my future abhorrence for sin, but my present abhorrence is enough to prevent me from being willing to take it.

God:
I command you to take it!

Mortal:
I refuse!

God:
What, you refuse of your own free will?

Mortal:
Yes!

God:
So it seems that your free will comes in pretty handy, doesn't it?

Mortal:
I don't understand!

God:
Are you not glad now that you have the free will to refuse such a ghastly offer? How would you like it if I forced you to take this pill, whether you wanted it or not?

Mortal:
No, no! Please don't!

God:
Of course I won't; I'm just trying to illustrate a point. All right, let me put it this way. Instead of forcing you to take the pill, suppose I grant your original prayer of removing your free will -- but with the understanding that the moment you are no longer free, then you will take the pill.

Mortal:
Once my will is gone, how could I possibly choose to take the pill?

God:
I did not say you would choose it; I merely said you would take it. You would act, let us say, according to purely deterministic laws which are such that you would as a matter of fact take it.

Mortal:
I still refuse.

God:
So you refuse my offer to remove your free will. This is rather different from your original prayer, isn't it?

Mortal:
Now I see what you are up to. Your argument is ingenious, but I'm not sure it is really correct. There are some points we will have to go over again.

God:
Certainly.

Mortal:
There are two things you said which seem contradictory to me. First you said that one cannot sin unless one does so of one's own free will. But then you said you would give me a pill which would deprive me of my own free will, and then I could sin as much as I liked. But if I no longer had free will, then, according to your first statement, how could I be capable of sinning?

God:
You are confusing two separate parts of our conversation. I never said the pill would deprive you of your free will, but only that it would remove your abhorrence of sinning.

Mortal:
I'm afraid I'm a bit confused.

God:
All right, then let us make a fresh start. Suppose I agree to remove your free will, but with the understanding that you will then commit an enormous number of acts which you now regard as sinful. Technically speaking, you will not then be sinning since you will not be doing these acts of your own free will. And these acts will carry no moral responsibility, nor moral culpability, nor any punishment whatsoever. Nevertheless, these acts will all be of the type which you presently regard as sinful; they will all have this quality which you presently feel as abhorrent, but your abhorrence will disappear; so you will not then feel abhorrence toward the acts.

Mortal:
No, but I have present abhorrence toward the acts, and this present abhorrence is sufficient to prevent me from accepting your proposal.

God:
Hm! So let me get this absolutely straight. I take it you no longer wish me to remove your free will.

Mortal (reluctantly):
No, I guess not.

God:
All right, I agree not to. But I am still not exactly clear as to why you now no longer wish to be rid of your free will. Please tell me again.

Mortal:
Because, as you have told me, without free will I would sin even more than I do now.

God:
But I have already told you that without free will you cannot sin.

Mortal:
But if I choose now to be rid of free will, then all my subsequent evil actions will be sins, not of the future, but of the present moment in which I choose not to have free will.

God:
Sounds like you are pretty badly trapped, doesn't it?

Mortal:
Of course I am trapped! You have placed me in a hideous double bind! Now whatever I do is wrong. If I retain free will, I will continue to sin, and if I abandon free will (with your help, of course) I will now be sinning in so doing.

God:
But by the same token, you place me in a double bind. I am willing to leave you free will or remove it as you choose, but neither alternative satisfies you. I wish to help you, but it seems I cannot.

Mortal:
True!

God:
But since it is not my fault, why are you still angry with me?

Mortal:
For having placed me in such a horrible predicament in first place!

God:
But, according to you, there is nothing satisfactory I could have done.

Mortal:
You mean there is nothing satisfactory you can now do, that does not mean that there is nothing you could have done.

God:
Why? What could I have done?

Mortal:
Obviously you should never have given me free will in the first place. Now that you have given it to me, it is too late -- anything I do will be bad. But you should never have given it to me in the first place.

God:
Oh, that's it! Why would it have been better had I never given it to you?

Mortal:
Because then I never would have been capable of sinning at all.

God:
Well, I'm always glad to learn from my mistakes.

Mortal:
What!

God:
I know, that sounds sort of self-blasphemous, doesn't it? It almost involves a logical paradox! On the one hand, as you have been taught, it is morally wrong for any sentient being to claim that I am capable of making mistakes. On the other hand, I have the right to do anything. But I am also a sentient being. So the question is, Do, I or do I not have the right to claim that I am capable of making mistakes?

Mortal:
That is a bad joke! One of your premises is simply false. I have not been taught that it is wrong for any sentient being to doubt your omniscience, but only for a mortal to doubt it. But since you are not mortal, then you are obviously free from this injunction.

God:
Good, so you realize this on a rational level. Nevertheless, you did appear shocked when I said, "I am always glad to learn from my mistakes."

Mortal:
Of course I was shocked. I was shocked not by your self-blasphemy (as you jokingly called it), not by the fact that you had no right to say it, but just by the fact that you did say it, since I have been taught that as a matter of fact you don't make mistakes. So I was amazed that you claimed that it is possible for you to make mistakes.

God:
I have not claimed that it is possible. All I am saying is that if I make mistakes, I will be happy to learn from them. But this says nothing about whether the if has or ever can be realized.

Mortal:
Let's please stop quibbling about this point. Do you or do you not admit it was a mistake to have given me free will?

God:
Well now, this is precisely what I propose we should investigate. Let me review your present predicament. You don't want to have free will because with free will you can sin, and you don't want to sin. (Though I still find this puzzling; in a way you must want to sin, or else you wouldn't. But let this pass for now.) On the other hand, if you agreed to give up free will, then you would now be responsible for the acts of the future. Ergo, I should never have given you free will in the first place.

Mortal:
Exactly!

God:
I understand exactly how you feel. Many mortals -- even some theologians -- have complained that I have been unfair in that it was I, not they, who decided that they should have free will, and then I hold them responsible for their actions. In other words, they feel that they are expected to live up to a contract with me which they never agreed to in the first place.

Mortal:
Exactly!

God:
As I said, I understand the feeling perfectly. And I can appreciate the justice of the complaint. But the complaint arises only from an unrealistic understanding of the true issues involved. I am about to enlighten you as to what these are, and I think the results will surprise you! But instead of telling you outright, I shall continue to use the Socratic method.

To repeat, you regret that I ever gave you free will. I claim that when you see the true ramifications you will no longer have this regret. To prove my point, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I am about to create a new universe -- a new space-time continuum. In this new universe will be born a mortal just like you -- for all practical purposes, we might say that you will be reborn. Now, I can give this new mortal -- this new you -- free will or not. What would you like me to do?

Mortal (in great relief):
Oh, please! Spare him from having to have free will!

God:
All right, I'll do as you say. But you do realize that this new you without free will, will commit all sorts of horrible acts.

Mortal:
But they will not be sins since he will have no free will.

God:
Whether you call them sins or not, the fact remains that they will be horrible acts in the sense that they will cause great pain to many sentient beings.

Mortal (after a pause):
Good God, you have trapped me again! Always the same game! If I now give you the go-ahead to create this new creature with no free will who will nevertheless commit atrocious acts, then true enough he will not be sinning, but I again will be the sinner to sanction this.

God:
In that case, I'll go you one better! Here, I have already decided whether to create this new you with free will or not. Now, I am writing my decision on this piece of paper and I won't show it to you until later. But my decision is now made and is absolutely irrevocable. There is nothing you can possibly do to alter it; you have no responsibility in the matter. Now, what I wish to know is this: Which way do you hope I have decided? Remember now, the responsibility for the decision falls entirely on my shoulders, not yours. So you can tell me perfectly honestly and without any fear, which way do you hope I have decided?

Mortal (after a very long pause):
I hope you have decided to give him free will.

God:
Most interesting! I have removed your last obstacle! If I do not give him free will, then no sin is to be imputed to anybody. So why do you hope I will give him free will?

Mortal:
Because sin or no sin, the important point is that if you do not give him free will, then (at least according to what you have said) he will go around hurting people, and I don't want to see people hurt.

GOD (with an infinite sigh of relief):
At last! At last you see the real point!

Mortal:
What point is that?

God:
That sinning is not the real issue! The important thing is that people as well as other sentient beings don't get hurt!

Mortal:
You sound like a utilitarian!

God:
I am a utilitarian!

Mortal:
What!

God:
Whats or no whats, I am a utilitarian. Not a unitarian, mind you, but a utilitarian.

Mortal:
I just can't believe it!

God:
Yes, I know, your religious training has taught you otherwise. You have probably thought of me more like a Kantian than a utilitarian, but your training was simply wrong.

Mortal:
You leave me speechless!

God:
I leave you speechless, do I! Well, that is perhaps not too bad a thing -- you have a tendency to speak too much as it is. Seriously, though, why do you think I ever did give you free will in the first place?

Mortal:
Why did you? I never have thought much about why you did; all I have been arguing for is that you shouldn't have! But why did you? I guess all I can think of is the standard religious explanation: Without free will, one is not capable of meriting either salvation or damnation. So without free will, we could not earn the right to eternal life.

God:
Most interesting! I have eternal life; do you think I have ever done anything to merit it?

Mortal:
Of course not! With you it is different. You are already so good and perfect (at least allegedly) that it is not necessary for you to merit eternal life.

God:
Really now? That puts me in a rather enviable position, doesn't it?

Mortal:
I don't think I understand you.

God:
Here I am eternally blissful without ever having to suffer or make sacrifices or struggle against evil temptations or anything like that. Without any of that type of "merit", I enjoy blissful eternal existence. By contrast, you poor mortals have to sweat and suffer and have all sorts of horrible conflicts about morality, and all for what? You don't even know whether I really exist or not, or if there really is any afterlife, or if there is, where you come into the picture. No matter how much you try to placate me by being "good," you never have any real assurance that your "best" is good enough for me, and hence you have no real security in obtaining salvation. Just think of it! I already have the equivalent of "salvation" -- and have never had to go through this infinitely lugubrious process of earning it. Don't you ever envy me for this?

Mortal:
But it is blasphemous to envy you!

God:
Oh come off it! You're not now talking to your Sunday school teacher, you are talking to me. Blasphemous or not, the important question is not whether you have the right to be envious of me but whether you are. Are you?

Mortal:
Of course I am!

God:
Good! Under your present world view, you sure should be most envious of me. But I think with a more realistic world view, you no longer will be. So you really have swallowed the idea which has been taught you that your life on earth is like an examination period and that the purpose of providing you with free will is to test you, to see if you merit blissful eternal life. But what puzzles me is this: If you really believe I am as good and benevolent as I am cracked up to be, why should I require people to merit things like happiness and eternal life? Why should I not grant such things to everyone regardless of whether or not he deserves them?

Mortal:
But I have been taught that your sense of morality -- your sense of justice -- demands that goodness be rewarded with happiness and evil be punished with pain.

God:
Then you have been taught wrong.

Mortal:
But the religious literature is so full of this idea! Take for example Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." How he describes you as holding your enemies like loathsome scorpions over the flaming pit of hell, preventing them from falling into the fate that they deserve only by dint of your mercy.

God:
Fortunately, I have not been exposed to the tirades of Mr. Jonathan Edwards. Few sermons have ever been preached which are more misleading. The very title "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" tells its own tale. In the first place, I am never angry. In the second place, I do not think at all in terms of "sin." In the third place, I have no enemies.

Mortal:
By that do you mean that there are no people whom you hate, or that there are no people who hate you?

God:
I meant the former although the latter also happens to be true.

Mortal:
Oh come now, I know people who have openly claimed to have hated you. At times I have hated you!

God:
You mean you have hated your image of me. That is not the same thing as hating me as I really am.

Mortal:
Are you trying to say that it is not wrong to hate a false conception of you, but that it is wrong to hate you as you really are?

God:
No, I am not saying that at all; I am saying something far more drastic! What I am saying has absolutely nothing to do with right or wrong. What I am saying is that one who knows me for what I really am would simply find it psychologically impossible to hate me.

Mortal:
Tell me, since we mortals seem to have such erroneous views about your real nature, why don't you enlighten us? Why don't you guide us the right way?

God:
What makes you think I'm not?

Mortal:
I mean, why don't you appear to our very senses and simply tell us that we are wrong?

GOD:
Are you really so naive as to believe that I am the sort of being which can appear to your senses? It would be more correct to say that I am your senses.

Mortal (astonished):
You are my senses?

God:
Not quite, I am more than that. But it comes closer to the truth than the idea that I am perceivable by the senses. I am not an object; like you, I am a subject, and a subject can perceive, but cannot be perceived. You can no more see me than you can see your own thoughts. You can see an apple, but the event of your seeing an apple is itself not seeable. And I am far more like the seeing of an apple than the apple itself.

Mortal:
If I can't see you, how do I know you exist?

God:
Good question! How in fact do you know I exist?

Mortal:
Well, I am talking to you, am I not?

God:
How do you know you are talking to me? Suppose you told a psychiatrist, "Yesterday I talked to God." What do you think he would say?

Mortal:
That might depend on the psychiatrist. Since most of them are atheistic, I guess most would tell me I had simply been talking to myself.

God:
And they would be right!

Mortal:
What? You mean you don't exist?

God:
You have the strangest faculty of drawing false conclusions! Just because you are talking to yourself, it follows that I don't exist?

Mortal:
Well, if I think I am talking to you, but I am really talking to myself, in what sense do you exist?

God:
Your question is based on two fallacies plus a confusion. The question of whether or not you are now talking to me and the question of whether or not I exist are totally separate. Even if you were not now talking to me (which obviously you are), it still would not mean that I don't exist.

Mortal:
Well, all right, of course! So instead of saying "if I am talking to myself, then you don't exist," I should rather have said, "if I am talking to myself, then I obviously am not talking to you."

God:
A very different statement indeed, but still false.

Mortal:
Oh, come now, if I am only talking to myself, then how can I be talking to you?

God:
Your use of the word "only" is quite misleading! I can suggest several logical possibilities under which your talking to yourself does not imply that you are not talking to me.

Mortal:
Suggest just one!

God:
Well, obviously one such possibility is that you and I are identical.

Mortal:
Such a blasphemous thought -- at least had I uttered it!

God:
According to some religions, yes. According to others, it is the plain, simple, immediately perceived truth.

Mortal:
So the only way out of my dilemma is to believe that you and I are identical?

God:
Not at all! This is only one way out. There are several others. For example, it may be that you are part of me, in which case you may be talking to that part of me which is you. Or I may be part of you, in which case you may be talking to that part of you which is me. Or again, you and I might partially overlap, in which case you may be talking to the intersection and hence talking both to you and to me. The only way your talking to yourself might seem to imply that you are not talking to me is if you and I were totally disjoint -- and even then, you could conceivably be talking to both of us.

Mortal:
So you claim you do exist.

God:
Not at all. Again you draw false conclusions! The question of my existence has not even come up. All I have said is that from the fact that you are talking to yourself one cannot possibly infer my nonexistence, let alone the weaker fact that you are not talking to me.

Mortal:
All right, I'll grant your point! But what I really want to know is do you exist?

God:
What a strange question!

Mortal:
Why? Men have been asking it for countless millennia.

God:
I know that! The question itself is not strange; what I mean is that it is a most strange question to ask of me!

Mortal:
Why?

God:
Because I am the very one whose existence you doubt! I perfectly well understand your anxiety. You are worried that your present experience with me is a mere hallucination. But how can you possibly expect to obtain reliable information from a being about his very existence when you suspect the nonexistence of the very same being?

Mortal:
So you won't tell me whether or not you exist?

God:
I am not being willful! I merely wish to point out that no answer I could give could possibly satisfy you. All right, suppose I said, "No, I don't exist." What would that prove? Absolutely nothing! Or if I said, "Yes, I exist." Would that convince you? Of course not!

Mortal:
Well, if you can't tell me whether or not you exist, then who possibly can?

God:
That is something which no one can tell you. It is something which only you can find out for yourself.

Mortal:
How do I go about finding this out for myself?

God:
That also no one can tell you. This is another thing you will have to find out for yourself.

Mortal:
So there is no way you can help me?

God:
I didn't say that. I said there is no way I can tell you. But that doesn't mean there is no way I can help you.

Mortal:
In what manner then can you help me?

God:
I suggest you leave that to me! We have gotten sidetracked as it is, and I would like to return to the question of what you believed my purpose to be in giving you free will. Your first idea of my giving you free will in order to test whether you merit salvation or not may appeal to many moralists, but the idea is quite hideous to me. You cannot think of any nicer reason -- any more humane reason -- why I gave you free will?

Mortal:
Well now, I once asked this question of an Orthodox rabbi. He told me that the way we are constituted, it is simply not possible for us to enjoy salvation unless we feel we have earned it. And to earn it, we of course need free will.

God:
That explanation is indeed much nicer than your former but still is far from correct. According to Orthodox Judaism, I created angels, and they have no free will. They are in actual sight of me and are so completely attracted by goodness that they never have even the slightest temptation toward evil. They really have no choice in the matter. Yet they are eternally happy even though they have never earned it. So if your rabbi's explanation were correct, why wouldn't I have simply created only angels rather than mortals?

Mortal:
Beats me! Why didn't you?

God:
Because the explanation is simply not correct. In the first place, I have never created any ready-made angels. All sentient beings ultimately approach the state which might be called "angelhood." But just as the race of human beings is in a certain stage of biologic evolution, so angels are simply the end result of a process of Cosmic Evolution. The only difference between the so-called saint and the so-called sinner is that the former is vastly older than the latter. Unfortunately it takes countless life cycles to learn what is perhaps the most important fact of the universe -- evil is simply painful. All the arguments of the moralists -- all the alleged reasons why people shouldn't commit evil acts -- simply pale into insignificance in light of the one basic truth that evil is suffering.

No, my dear friend, I am not a moralist. I am wholly a utilitarian. That I should have been conceived in the role of a moralist is one of the great tragedies of the human race. My role in the scheme of things (if one can use this misleading expression) is neither to punish nor reward, but to aid the process by which all sentient beings achieve ultimate perfection.

Mortal:
Why did you say your expression is misleading?

God:
What I said was misleading in two respects. First of all it is inaccurate to speak of my role in the scheme of things. I am the scheme of things. Secondly, it is equally misleading to speak of my aiding the process of sentient beings attaining enlightenment. I am the process. The ancient Taoists were quite close when they said of me (whom they called "Tao") that I do not do things, yet through me all things get done. In more modem terms, I am not the cause of Cosmic Process, I am Cosmic Process itself. I think the most accurate and fruitful definition of me which man can frame -- at least in his present state of evolution -- is that I am the very process of enlightenment. Those who wish to think of the devil (although I wish they wouldn't!) might analogously define him as the unfortunate length of time the process takes. In this sense, the devil is necessary; the process simply does take an enormous length of time, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. But, I assure you, once the process is more correctly understood, the painful length of time will no longer be regarded as an essential limitation or an evil. It will be seen to be the very essence of the process itself. I know this is not completely consoling to you who are now in the finite sea of suffering, but the amazing thing is that once you grasp this fundamental attitude, your very finite suffering will begin to diminish -- ultimately to the vanishing point.

Mortal:
I have been told this, and I tend to believe it. But suppose I personally succeed in seeing things through your eternal eyes. Then I will be happier, but don't I have a duty to others?

GOD (laughing):
You remind me of the Mahayana Buddhists! Each one says, "I will not enter Nirvana until I first see that all other sentient beings do so." So each one waits for the other fellow to go first. No wonder it takes them so long! The Hinayana Buddhist errs in a different direction. He believes that no one can be of the slightest help to others in obtaining salvation; each one has to do it entirely by himself. And so each tries only for his own salvation. But this very detached attitude makes salvation impossible. The truth of the matter is that salvation is partly an individual and partly a social process. But it is a grave mistake to believe -- as do many Mahayana Buddhists -- that the attaining of enlightenment puts one out of commission, so to speak, for helping others. The best way of helping others is by first seeing the light oneself.

Mortal:
There is one thing about your self-description which is somewhat disturbing. You describe yourself essentially as a process. This puts you in such an impersonal light, and so many people have a need for a personal God.

God:
So because they need a personal God, it follows that I am one?

Mortal:
Of course not. But to be acceptable to a mortal a religion must satisfy his needs.

God:
I realize that. But the so-called "personality" of a being is really more in the eyes of the beholder than in the being itself. The controversies which have raged, about whether I am a personal or an impersonal being are rather silly because neither side is right or wrong. From one point of view, I am personal, from another, I am not. It is the same with a human being. A creature from another planet may look at him purely impersonally as a mere collection of atomic particles behaving according to strictly prescribed physical laws. He may have no more feeling for the personality of a human than the average human has for an ant. Yet an ant has just as much individual personality as a human to beings like myself who really know the ant. To look at something impersonally is no more correct or incorrect than to look at it personally, but in general, the better you get to know something, the more personal it becomes. To illustrate my point, do you think of me as a personal or impersonal being?

Mortal:
Well, I'm talking to you, am I not?

God:
Exactly! From that point of view, your attitude toward me might be described as a personal one. And yet, from another point of view -- no less valid -- I can also be looked at impersonally.

Mortal:
But if you are really such an abstract thing as a process, I don't see what sense it can make my talking to a mere "process."

God:
I love the way you say "mere." You might just as well say that you are living in a "mere universe." Also, why must everything one does make sense? Does it make sense to talk to a tree?

Mortal:
Of course not!

God:
And yet, many children and primitives do just that.

Mortal:
But I am neither a child nor a primitive.

God:
I realize that, unfortunately.

Mortal:
Why unfortunately?

God:
Because many children and primitives have a primal intuition which the likes of you have lost. Frankly, I think it would do you a lot of good to talk to a tree once in a while, even more good than talking to me! But we seem always to be getting sidetracked! For the last time, I would like us to try to come to an understanding about why I gave you free will.

Mortal:
I have been thinking about this all the while.

God:
You mean you haven't been paying attention to our conversation?

Mortal:
Of course I have. But all the while, on another level, I have been thinking about it.

God:
And have you come to any conclusion?

Mortal:
Well, you say the reason is not to test our worthiness. And you disclaimed the reason that we need to feel that we must merit things in order to enjoy them. And you claim to be a utilitarian. Most significant of all, you appeared so delighted when I came to the sudden realization that it is not sinning in itself which is bad but only the suffering which it causes.

God:
Well of course! What else could conceivably be bad about sinning?

Mortal:
All right, you know that, and now I know that. But all my life I unfortunately have been under the influence of those moralists who hold sinning to be bad in itself. Anyway, putting all these pieces together, it occurs to me that the only reason you gave free will is because of your belief that with free will, people will tend to hurt each other -- and themselves -- less than without free will.

God:
Bravo! That is by far the best reason you have yet given! I can assure you that had I chosen to give free will, that would have been my very reason for so choosing.

Mortal:
What! You mean to say you did not choose to give us free will?

God:
My dear fellow, I could no more choose to give you free will than I could choose to make an equilateral triangle equiangular. I could choose to make or not to make an equilateral triangle in the first place, but having chosen to make one, I would then have no choice but to make it equiangular.

Mortal:
I thought you could do anything!

God:
Only things which are logically possible. As St. Thomas said, "It is a sin to regard the fact that God cannot do the impossible, as a limitation on His powers." I agree, except that in place of his using the word sin I would use the term error.

Mortal:
Anyhow, I am still puzzled by your implication that you did not choose to give me free will.

God:
Well, it is high time I inform you that the entire discussion -- from the very beginning -- has been based on one monstrous fallacy! We have been talking purely on a moral level -- you originally complained that I gave you free will, and raised the whole question as to whether I should have. It never once occurred to you that I had absolutely no choice in the matter.

Mortal:
I am still in the dark!

God:
Absolutely! Because you are only able to look at it through the eyes of a moralist. The more fundamental metaphysical aspects of the question you never even considered.

Mortal:
I still do not see what you are driving at.

God:
Before you requested me to remove your free will, shouldn't your first question have been whether as a matter of fact you do have free will?

Mortal:
That I simply took for granted.

God:
But why should you?

Mortal:
I don't know. Do I have free will?

God:
Yes.

Mortal:
Then why did you say I shouldn't have taken it for granted?

God:
Because you shouldn't. Just because something happens to be true, it does not follow that it should be taken for granted.

Mortal:
Anyway, it is reassuring to know that my natural intuition about having free will is correct. Sometimes I have been worried that determinists are correct.

God:
They are correct.

Mortal:
Wait a minute now, do I have free will or don't I?

God:
I already told you you do. But that does not mean that determinism is incorrect.

Mortal:
Well, are my acts determined by the laws of nature or aren't they?

God:
The word determined here is subtly but powerfully misleading and has contributed so much to the confusions of the free will versus determinism controversies. Your acts are certainly in accordance with the laws of nature, but to say they are determined by the laws of nature creates a totally misleading psychological image which is that your will could somehow be in conflict with the laws of nature and that the latter is somehow more powerful than you, and could "determine" your acts whether you liked it or not. But it is simply impossible for your will to ever conflict with natural law. You and natural law are really one and the same.

Mortal:
What do you mean that I cannot conflict with nature? Suppose I were to become very stubborn, and I determined not to obey the laws of nature. What could stop me? If I became sufficiently stubborn even you could not stop me!

God:
You are absolutely right! I certainly could not stop you. Nothing could stop you. But there is no need to stop you, because you could not even start! As Goethe very beautifully expressed it, "In trying to oppose Nature, we are, in the very process of doing so, acting according to the laws of nature!" Don't you see that the so-called "laws of nature" are nothing more than a description of how in fact you and other beings do act? They are merely a description of how you act, not a prescription of of how you should act, not a power or force which compels or determines your acts. To be valid a law of nature must take into account how in fact you do act, or, if you like, how you choose to act.

Mortal:
So you really claim that I am incapable of determining to act against natural law?

God:
It is interesting that you have twice now used the phrase "determined to act" instead of "chosen to act." This identification is quite common. Often one uses the statement "I am determined to do this" synonymously with "I have chosen to do this." This very psychological identification should reveal that determinism and choice are much closer than they might appear. Of course, you might well say that the doctrine of free will says that it is you who are doing the determining, whereas the doctrine of determinism appears to say that your acts are determined by something apparently outside you. But the confusion is largely caused by your bifurcation of reality into the "you" and the "not you." Really now, just where do you leave off and the rest of the universe begin? Or where does the rest of the universe leave off and you begin? Once you can see the so-called "you" and the so-called "nature" as a continuous whole, then you can never again be bothered by such questions as whether it is you who are controlling nature or nature who is controlling you. Thus the muddle of free will versus determinism will vanish. If I may use a crude analogy, imagine two bodies moving toward each other by virtue of gravitational attraction. Each body, if sentient, might wonder whether it is he or the other fellow who is exerting the "force." In a way it is both, in a way it is neither. It is best to say that it is the configuration of the two which is crucial.

Mortal:
You said a short while ago that our whole discussion was based on a monstrous fallacy. You still have not told me what this fallacy is.

God:
Why, the idea that I could possibly have created you without free will! You acted as if this were a genuine possibility, and wondered why I did not choose it! It never occurred to you that a sentient being without free will is no more conceivable than a physical object which exerts no gravitational attraction. (There is, incidentally, more analogy than you realize between a physical object exerting gravitational attraction and a sentient being exerting free will!) Can you honestly even imagine a conscious being without free will? What on earth could it be like? I think that one thing in your life that has so misled you is your having been told that I gave man the gift of free will. As if I first created man, and then as an afterthought endowed him with the extra property of free will. Maybe you think I have some sort of "paint brush" with which I daub some creatures with free will and not others. No, free will is not an "extra"; it is part and parcel of the very essence of consciousness. A conscious being without free will is simply a metaphysical absurdity.

Mortal:
Then why did you play along with me all this while discussing what I thought was a moral problem, when, as you say, my basic confusion was metaphysical?

God:
Because I thought it would be good therapy for you to get some of this moral poison out of your system. Much of your metaphysical confusion was due to faulty moral notions, and so the latter had to be dealt with first.

And now we must part -- at least until you need me again. I think our present union will do much to sustain you for a long while. But do remember what I told you about trees. Of course, you don't have to literally talk to them if doing so makes you feel silly. But there is so much you can learn from them, as well as from the rocks and streams and other aspects of nature. There is nothing like a naturalistic orientation to dispel all these morbid thoughts of "sin" and "free will" and "moral responsibility." At one stage of history, such notions were actually useful. I refer to the days when tyrants had unlimited power and nothing short of fears of hell could possibly restrain them. But mankind has grown up since then, and this gruesome way of thinking is no longer necessary.

It might be helpful to you to recall what I once said through the writings of the great Zen poet Seng-Ts'an:

If you want to get the plain truth,
Be not concerned with right and wrong.
The conflict between right and wrong
Is the sickness of the mind.

14 Comments:

Blogger Mannning said...

Free Will? YES!

Through the bloody clash of free wills over centuries men have forged guidelines and rules of behavior amongst themselves that delimit the exercise of their individual free wills in order to live more securely together. Thus there have arisen pragmatic guidelines and rules for acceptable conduct between men and women, families, tribes, and nations.

Such rules are known and practiced within nations, and between some nations, but not necessarily by all nations, or all peoples for that matter. Rules, big and small, are broken all the time. Fortunately, the incidence of rule-breaking appears to be fairly low, or else we would live in complete chaos.

Guidelines for behavior that are not necessarily codified into law can be said to be morals or ethics, and they are meant to instill moral or ethical behavior among men even in the absence of the means of enforcement. When there is clear intent to enforce behavior, laws are created, most often codifying the guidelines that have been accepted by the people concerned over a period of time.

Moral or ethical behavior, and the rule of law (and consistently following precedents) is the basis for a sound society. Such behavior can be directly or indirectly guided by several mechanisms, including: religious precepts covering the ideas of good and evil; social etiquette covering “polite society”; business ethics governing proper practices; the personal morals or ethics of individuals who adopt the rules because that is how they want to be treated by others; and, of course, the ever-present law enforcement methods.

Underlying this rule-setting are the historical facts of many egregious violations of accepted behavior by individuals or groups that do not respect the rule of law or morality. We call such individuals bad, criminal, evil or worse. We also call those who do respect the law and morality of a society to be good. We can also call the bad acts wrong, and the good acts right. When we want to form a government that brings the most good to the people, we are usually referring to a government that promotes the good and punishes the bad or evil. There is no question in my mind that both good and evil exist in our world. There is no solipsist or relativistic evasion of identifying good acts and good men, or bad acts and bad men. Or, naturally, an admixture of good and bad in the same person. This is another way of asserting moral absolutism, and of opposing moral relativism.

In most societies there are religious sects that set forth codes of conduct for their adherents. These codes are helpful to the extent that they promote the good and deter the bad in men. They are unhelpful to the extent that they create irresolvable conflicts with other religions ( and what might be termed non-religious religions as well, such as atheism.) and other people.

To deny that there is good and evil in the world, and that only acts of nature can be committed, is to deny the basis of our hard-won civilization and civilized behavior. One must also point out that such a view is irrational in the extreme, as history attests to over and over in every recorded period. To assert that morality is relative and not absolute is to readmit the Devil into another level of human affairs. This must not be allowed to happen.

Thu Sep 22, 10:40:00 PM CDT  
Blogger JasonJ said...

What I find most interesting about your statement here Jim, is that you can sit here and equivocate the terms bad and evil as though they are exact terms. I suppose that given the correct perspective, one might be inclined to believe they were completely interchangeable but I do not share that perspective.

I will allow that when speaking of good and bad; good and evil that the term good can stand alone in either case without losing too much of its intended usage; however, the terms evil and bad are completely different. When we call something bad we are saying that it is disagreeable or unfavorable. A quick reference to Webster's Dictionary confirms no mention of the word evil as a similar term. You would not get any argument out of me calling something a bad thing because I am not privy to seeing the world through your eyes. So let us call 'bad' a subjective term to describe anything we don't favor. Evil is another case. Looking up this term in Webster's finds: morally wrong or 'bad', but there is a distinction here of one word...morally. Of course, once again evil sould be considered a subjective term; but one that implies an altuistic nature about the term's authority.

I remember a while back that you referred to me as somewhat of a moral relativist. I believe at the time it was meant in a derogatory sense. I remember wondering to myself why you thought I should take offense to such a quip as well. All moral concepts are relative to the norms of the prevailing members of a given society. While it is true that one must either a):Surrender his or her individual will to the norms of the general will or b):Become powerful enough to avoid being pushed into following these norms or c):Retreat from the group and fend for himself; this decision is nevertheless still a relative issue and nothing from this argument can change it to an altruism.

Apparently on this point we somewhat agree judging from your introduction dealing with pragmatically accepted guidelines and rules. Now I am not going to argue that there is ever any practical usage for anarchy. Certainly no society can exist without some fundamental code of conduct to guide the individual members. Rules must be made, and people must be made to follow for their own good, but once again this is not a product of altruism just as you stated a pragmatic solution to avoid more chaos and bloodshed than necessary. Does that imply evil or does that just mean we like to substitute the word for anything 'we' find to our disliking in a strong enough manner?

Sat Sep 24, 03:25:00 PM CDT  
Blogger Mannning said...

I guess I was a bit careless! Unthinkingly, I used bad and evil synonomously. I was shooting for evil, since the issue to me was good versus evil. So in my usage, one is morally good or morally evil depending on the accepted moral standard and one's actions.
Then too, I receive much of my guidance on moral standards from....you guessed it...the Bible.
Not all, mind you! And not literally, in all cases, either.

With respect to moral standards, there is a leftist movement dedicated to challenging such standards and replacing them with moral relativism. The Secular Humanist movement is one of these leftist crowds. Since I am a traditionalist of sorts, I respect our moral standards, and I haven't deigned to dissect them and establish their specific origins for the purpose of finding good reasons to throw them out. For example, abstenence as a foolproof method for contreception. The modern way of education seems to be to virtually encourage teens to have sex by providing them with the means and knowhow. This happens because of the lack of parental and religious guidance, reenforced by schooling. So the liberal approach is to say to hell with the morals, let us give out rubbers and allow the teens to enjoy their sex. One more moral barrier down! It goes on and on, with barriers to moral decay falling all over the place. Oh, you got yourself pregnant? No problem! Go get an abortion and all will be well! Go Kill a baby!
So you believe in the sanctity of marriage? Well, we will bust that moral bastion up right now by letting just any old couple marry!
Why not live with your boyfriend, even at your home? Your parents can be coerced to let it happen by simply threatening to move in with him in some fleatrap room off campus! Weak moral values.
Have fun now, because there isn't a later! But, there is a later.
Not to an atheist there isn't!

Perhaps this is the real origin of the attack on morals and Christianity in the US. This would be a fine example of evil in action if so, such as by the ACLU!

I am all for having and maintaining our moral standards, and even enforcing them to the extent I can if it comes to that, if only through intimidation, shaming, and public denunciation.
You lie to me, I will tell everyone you lied, etc etc.

Many things are simply bad as well, I suppose.

Do you accept and follow the moral standards of our society?

Sat Sep 24, 04:30:00 PM CDT  
Blogger JasonJ said...

So should I take this response seriously? Because you chose your morally relative position of Christian Might and Christian Right; I should just back down and say 'so sorry, I must be out of line'? Make no mistake, just because you can call my position morally relative does not exclude your position from the same lable. This is one of the biggest problems I face with your right wing ilk. You seem to believe that if you resort to name calling before anyone can do it to you that no one will call you on your bluff.

What makes your ideology, and I use that term with all the conviction that comes with it, universally true? Because it is yours, and you cannot overcome your feelings of infallibility? Let me make one thing clear here. The United States of America IS NOT A CHRISTIAN THEOCRACY!!!! By declaring citizenship here I only promise not to overtly try to convert your sons and daughters into godless, hedonistic monsters who hate you. I do not agree to ever abstain from saying anything you or anyone else finds offensive, I do not agree to pretend to love and worship your imaginary god, I do not pretend to support your fascist, tyrannical version of Capitalism. I condone every man's right to life, liberty, and his or her notion of pursuit of happiness as defined by the individual. I am so sorry if my interpretation of Jeffersonian Democracy does not fit your standards of societal mind control but it is my personal interpretation so I hope you will allow me some lattitude. It's interesting that I meet so many people these days who are not afraid anymore to admit they no longer believe in the Abrahamic God of yore. It is also interesting how many of these people are good citizens and patriots to the philosophy of our nation's founders; meanwhile, men who claim to love Jesus are busy robbing the poor box and stealing from his neighbors while declaring acts of war with other countries in the name of God and peace, love of freedom and world unity. But then, selling guns to kids in foreign lands to shoot one another is OK for some good Christians too isn't it?

I have no problem in general with moral standard such as the ones forced upon our society, I just wish they were enforced upon everyone if the poor and destitude masses are expected to live up to them.

Sun Sep 25, 08:50:00 PM CDT  
Blogger Mannning said...

Fire in the hold!

Of course Christianity has established its own morality, DUH! But it is not relativistic! Christians believe in moral absolutes, as given to us by God.
Only you could attempt to say this is relative because of your own beliefs, but to a Christian, it just isn't so.

It is interesting to me that approximately 1% of our population signs up to being atheist. Whereas about 87% sign up to some form of belief in a God, 84% of whom claim active or passive Christianity, and another 10% claim no religion at all, not even atheism! Apparently, they are simply not interested in the subject at all.

Look, let me say that I respect your right to your beliefs, or non-beliefs, and I support our nation in its ability to continue a multitheism or non-theism form of government. I do NOT support a more strict form of secularism than we already practice however.

I seem to gather that you are neither a patriot nor a true believer in our Constitution, or in our society in general, just hanging onto the fringes ready to be a spoiler if the opportunity arises. Jeffersonian be damned! He loved this nation! In no way have I seen you show your colors as a real American. When, if ever, have you looked at the good side of our life here, as opposed to life just about anywhere else in the world?

As to your unwarranted use of terms like fascist and tyrannical when talking about capitalism, you make me believe that you are not well-acquainted with Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, or Thomas Sowell. Where tyranny can be used is when communism or strict socialism takes firm hold, and chokes off private property, free enterprise and free markets.

Centralized and planned economies have a long and ugly record of failing its peoples drastically, causing famines, pestilences, poverty, wars, and genocidal death on a huge scale -- such as millions and millions of dead.

No one in their right mind would want to start a socialist/communist revolution if they knew what the past record of them has been, and most likely would be again. Give it a chance? Hell NO!

As I said earlier, people are not buying in anymore to the sacrifice of generations of lives for a shining promise for the future, if all goes well in the communist/socialist state. It won't go well! It is a shimera.

Having said that, it is apparent also that I do not accept your atheism, but you are welcome to it if it makes your life that much more...well-rounded, but you should know that I believe it can be a certified evil and destructive influence on our society; or any society, for that matter.

I believe that most, if not all, communists and socialists are also atheists. These belief systems seem to go together like hell and damnation, and just won't go away and die somewhere like any touted ethical,pseudo-respectable but fully discredited belief system should do.

I thank God that there are so few of them anymore in positions of power! Come to think of it, I personally can not name a single atheist that was or is truly happy in this life. Can you?

If, as I believe, Rousseau's philosophy leads to a (defacto) communist/socialist state, I reject it forthwith.

Sun Sep 25, 11:35:00 PM CDT  
Blogger JasonJ said...

So why is your Christian moral position not relative again? Whether the number you so usefully pull out of your ass is .000000001% or 99.9999999999% still does not evince absolution. How can you convince me that your absolute deity is my creator and therefore author of all moral, ethical behavior when I do not believe in this magical diety?

As for your denunciation of secular philosophy? Have you ever read the Constitution of the United States of America? Have you ever read any of the decisions handed down by the Supreme Court concerning the First Amendment? Did you ever bother to read The Federalist Papers? I realize you tout being a member of the Federalist Society, but have you ever read, comprehended, and seriously thought about what Madison, Hamilton, and Jay were trying to say. I don't mind you doubting my sincerity about loving this country. Hey, it's allowed....how did you say 'Free Will? Yes!' I doubt your sincerity about loving anything other than your own sorry ass, but that's just my opinion.

See, I can digress to insults as well.

You know, I dissent because it is my duty to the people I love to do so; and I do it because someday you may want to dissent when the shoe slips onto the other foot. That is what makes my America a beautiful place worth saving from bastards like you. I find it interesting that the only people who are never interested in a free exchange of ideas is the status quo, which unfortunately has been the Conservative faction for far too long. And I wonder, why is it that if you people are so right, you are so afraid to hear the voice of dissent? If your magical fairy god will set everything straight, then why can't you entertain our derogatory comments the way we have to suffer your pathetic dogma?

You come on my website to debate how Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a godless commie. You spout all sorts of drivel about how you don't like the message he spoke, even though you don't understand half of it. You never begin to offer up concrete evidence to support your accusations of Rousseau's socialist orientation. And then you tell me how little I love my country. Does that about sum it up for you? OK, I can live with that; but you need to live with the fact that although I can gather from our long conversations that you are a learned man, I still find you sorely lacking in common sense. I would expect that at your age it isn't coming either.

I know more than you might think about Capitalism. I didn't arrive at my opinions by rote. I also do not attack the basic concept of capital economy. All societies must have some base of trade to survive in a competative global world. Would it have come to this had we kept to ourselves? Probably a moot point by now, this is the course our world has taken so we can no longer what if it. What I do attack is the methods of economic progress that capitalism has brought from our cultural perspective. If we were to invent words I guess I would have to call it American 'corporatism'. This is the world defiling debauchery which has made you all your blood money which you seem to offer up as proof of divine favor. I cannot accept your zero-sum notions of winner takes all. I do not accept the notion that he who creates gets all the spoils. Where did the creator learn to create? Who supported the creator when he was not on top? No one succeeds in a vacuum, it just doesn't happen that way. Why can a man work himself into an early grave with nothing to show for a rich man, while there are CEO's who physically do very little can make millions of dollars a year. The traditional right always wants to talk about distributive justice and the redistribution of their hard earned wealth to the undeserving masses of poor filth at the bottom of the rung. I find this merely propagandistic nonsense directied at the petty bourgeoisie who haven't the time or educational resources to see past the shallow game that is being played upon them. There is a resitribution of wealth in America but it doesn't go to the poor. It doesn't go to the homeless and displaced working class. It is redirected to the top tier of society. How can you explain Enron, Tyco, Worldcom? Why can a poor black man go to prison for ten years for robbing a convenience store of $150 and a corporate goon get a few months at ClubMed for stealing millions and still get to keep the cash? Where has all the money that has been unaccounted for involving Haliburton gone? Where has all the money that disappeared with the changing of the guard in Baghdad go? Why are there allegations that FEMA has misappropriated monies to the tune of $30 million on President Bush' watch? Why were we never privy to what was contained in the Federal Energy Bill when a democratic government is supposed to be transparent to avoid public suspicions of improprieties?

This is the notion of 'capitalism?' which I personally attack. Which America do you love? Is it the one where Jim gets whatever he wants and fuck everybody else? Or is it the America where every man and woman is entitled to life, liberty, and freedom to pursue happiness?

Mon Sep 26, 10:02:00 PM CDT  
Blogger Mannning said...

When we both quit wrapping ourselves in our own interpretations of the Constitution, the DI, The Federalist Papers, Hamilton, Jay, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and God knows who else, maybe we can make sense out of a few subjects.

You did clarify your views on Capitalism, and for once I can agree with you that corporate corruption and lying to the public is a rampant ill that must be reined in for us to survive. How to do so is not easy to see. These megaliths have power, and use power blatantly to their own ends.

I am not a blind follower of corporatism, but rather just one more feather floating on the pool, and blown all over by the shakedowns some corporations foist on us.

There are good corporations and there are evil ones. I suppose I worked for some of the best, at least in my opinion. The situation is not unlike the crime rate in general. A few bad guys (evil too!)make the society look bad.

I have known perhaps 30 or 40 CEOs around the world, many Officers and quite a few Board Members of major international corporations. I have participated in their deliberations on matters worth millions and billions of dollars (mostly as a quiet mouse in the back row, but there on scene!). In 43 years, I never heard or saw anything the smelled of corrupt behavior, but perhaps I was deaf and blind, or the corruption was held at such a low level, or on the other side of the world, that it was not visible from where I sat. Good thing too, for I would have been forced into being a whistleblower.

The end point is that some few corporations and their evil Officers must be brought to heel somehow. That does not invalidate the entire set of corporations and their Officers in the world.

As to the specific instances you cite, I have no knowledge of them but what I read in the news, and I discount most of that by 80%, because of either slanted reporting or virtually fictitious reporting, witness the huge boo boos that the NYT and WAPO have committed over New Orleans and Katrina.

The conspiracy theories and trumped up stories that seem to inundate us ever since Bush was elected have had the opposite effect than intended. The NYT has cried Wolf! in vain far too many times. So many people are simply disbelievers in the papers now, except on one thing: sports scores.

Oh, and those percentages I quoted were from the US Census Bureau of 2000. You can look them up. I don't quote fictitious numbers.
The point of them was that atheists are in a very small minority in the US. I do not think that the tail should wag the dog here.

We have "just enough secularism to suit" I believe. Not too much, and not too little. Just as the FF designed it to be, and not as the Secular Humanists and the ACLU would have it. But we should have prayer in the schools, the Ten Commandments on the walls, American History not taught with a sneer, and Under God in the pledge. N'cest pas? Roll back time to the 50s, in effect.

As for the SCOTUS, that is another rant! The last 30 or 40 years has been one of legislating from the bench, and that must stop too.
There is a long list of decisions that no rational person can find a basis for in the Constitution. They need to be revoked or corrected real soon now! we must legislate our laws, right?
Two more on the bench and we just might see some of it done.

Finally for tonight, I was pleased to observe that you did not use "equality" in your statement as you did before. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is the correct set of words.

Tue Sep 27, 11:02:00 PM CDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jason - Good
Manning - Evil
God - Doesn't exist

Wed Sep 28, 10:53:00 PM CDT  
Blogger Mannning said...

Yet another voice heard from, of course anonymously! Evil!

You wouldn't know whether God existed or not. How could you?
Prove that He doesn't exist!
PS. You can't!

Thu Sep 29, 08:13:00 PM CDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Jason, how are you? I see you're still forced to play host to Mr. Mannning here. Ah well... :)

Sat Oct 01, 01:16:00 AM CDT  
Blogger Again said...

a bit late...

thank you for that dialogue, jasonj. Actually, a god speaking like that i could accept easily:

God:
The word determined here is subtly but powerfully misleading ...Your acts are certainly in accordance with the laws of nature, but to say they are determined by the laws of nature creates a totally misleading psychological image which is that your will could somehow be in conflict with the laws of nature...But it is simply impossible for your will to ever conflict with natural law. You and natural law are really one and the same.


but the best (IMO) you didn't publish:

(God) All this talk of goodness and duty, these perpetual pin-pricks unnerve and irritate the hearer - You had best study how it is that Heaven and Earth maintain their eternal course, that the sun and moon maintain their light, the stars their seried ranks, the birds and beasts their flocks, the trees and shrubs their station. This you too should learn to guide your steps by Inward Power, to follow the course that the Way of Nature sets; and soon you will no longer need to go round laboriously advertising goodness and duty... The swan does not need a daily bath in order to remain white.

Is God a Taoist?

Mon Oct 03, 04:43:00 AM CDT  
Blogger JasonJ said...

If I may interupt this little quip between those who would senselessly fight here, I would like to say a few things about where this little argument is going. It has always been my opinion that everyone has an opinion. Being the case, I value everyones' opinions. I have promised from the very beginning of this forum that I will never censure anyone for expression of their own beliefs. I have however asked for all participants to have something to say when addressing this forum, even if the voice is one I may share or from someone I would be inclined to call friend.

To quote John Stuart Mill:

"Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."

This is the place for dissention, whether it is the dissention of current, dominant political paradigms or it is the dissention of my personal belief systems. We can only learn from one another when we allow the lines of communication to remain open and without the barriers we hide behind when shouting at one another. I deeply respect every person who takes the time to tell me what is inside their minds. Hopefully this statement has not fallen on deaf ears. I realize that I may be offending some whose opinions I value, but it would be far worse to close the lines of communication that tie us as human beings together.

Mon Oct 03, 09:17:00 PM CDT  
Blogger Mannning said...

Another administrative set of suggestions for the convenience of your participants:

(1) Have the date and time placed into the comments field of our posts. Simply putting the time there for all comments does not tell whether the comment is new or not. This forces all of us to search the entire comments section to find new comments. this is simple to do in Blogger.

(2) A second idea along with the above is to make a new post pointing to the new comments when you make them. This alerts us that a comment has been made by you, and where.

Taken together, these changes would make finding new comments far more easy to do.

It has been a bit laborious to search the whole comments fields from every post to find the new comments, and even then to miss one or two.

Sat Oct 08, 03:45:00 PM CDT  
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