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Wes's Philosophy Thread


Today, it occured to me: God cannot be good. Nor evil. Nor limited in any way. Nor can God be personified nor described by any characteristic term, nor have any political viewpoint or individual ideas, nor have any equals (for any two things exactly identical in form and in spacetime position are equal to one of the thing).

Limits are what defines us. Our roleplay is good because we limit it with quality standards. When something is good, there is a limit placed on it that means it cannot be bad. Conversely, the bad cannot be good and is limited.

God does not exist as some sort of spiritual entity. If there is a God, is is the God found in the mind and experience and mathematics and in all things, for what God is, simply put, is the infinite, the limitless.

That, possibly, is the reason for our existence: Because God is limitless, God is already everywhere and doing everything, and yet cannot do anything but BE because God cannot change God's state; We lack the infinite but God lacks the limits and thus cannot do anything or be anything but all things, places, and times.
 
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Not every single good action someone does is only so that he or she can get into heaven. I guess you could say theoretically that someone only does good deeds for that purpose, but it's unlikely if not impossible. Therefore it's an interesting idea, but not a totally valid one--in my eyes, at least.

I didn't post a while back when the discussion was going on, but I don't think that every single religion completely shuns everything science says.
 
This is the only official-ish version of the story I found on Google in 5 minutes so:
Yeah. So if you give a poor, starving kid on the street your ice cream cone and he goes into diabetic shock and dies, is it your fault? Are you going to hell for killing a child? You could have checked and found out he was diabetic. Maybe. But he died full, not of starvation...but would he have died of starvation? I think it's easier, better, AND more productive to just not take responsibility for anything and instead consider what you're going to eat the following morning for breakfast so that you yourself don't become diabetic (or, if you already are, so that you don't die of it). Alternatively, you could start a foundation for the awareness of diabetes in poor children, so that acts of charity such as this don't end lives. Consider, instead of what you could have done, or what's going to happen to you because you didn't, what you can still do.

...and that's one of the many things that I look for in a religion.
 
As I said earlier, it is intention that is important, not the action.

You where rather stupid giving him ice-cream though. That's not filling. But it was a good dead anyway.
 

Hi Zakalwe,

That does sound like a traditional-style philisophical argument!

However, what happens when you add to the stew that people are rarely motivated by a single source. Suppose a person has a desire to do something you would qualify as 'a good deed for the sake of doing that deed'. I have troubles with that notion, but let it lay for the time being. Suppose also that motivation, on its own, is not enough to prompt action. Suppose finally that the person also expects credit in heaven or whatever for the action, and between the two motivations is prompted to move. If neither motivation is enough on its own, can you really say the intention was entirely due to what you call a selfish motivation, or does what you would call the selfless part still count as a contributing factor?

Hrm.. now for the sake of argument, could it arise that your christian becomes convinced he or she had already earned a place in heaven? Further good deeds would then possibly be uninfluenced by the notion of heavenly rewards, and so count in full.
 
Been done, in fiction at least.

However the Churches do not have the right to say you will go to heaven, so you'd have to be deluding yourself.. Esepecially if you believe in puragatory.
 
Anyone who has different beliefs from you is deluded. This is one of the reasons why churches form: so that people can be in the company of other people who are not deluded compared to them. Relativity applies in philosophy, too.
 
Zakalwe said:
Been done, in fiction at least.

However the Churches do not have the right to say you will go to heaven, so you'd have to be deluding yourself.. Esepecially if you believe in puragatory.
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Hi Zakalwe,

There are all sorts of areas to explore just from this post, but I'd like to continue from your original thought for a moment. The addition of a church just adds another avenue to reach the same effect. Suppose someone is what you would call deluded into thinking they have a place in heaven. At that point, couldn't they do what you would call good deeds without the fact their place in heaven is on the line influencing it?

Even should they not really have a place in heaven (or even if there is no heaven), they don't know it, so should not the effect on their intentions be the same?
 
BUT if you believe in Jesus and such then you get all redeemed and go to heaven anyway, so who cares? Do good deeds or not, it's all the same in the end.
 
That's often debated among Christian denominations. Well, I don't know if it's debated, but they hold different beliefs. Catholics believe that it's not enough to just believe, you have to be good, too. I don't believe this necessarily means that you have to be Mother Theresa (sp?) to get into heaven, just you can't believe in Jesus and go killing people with no remorse.
 
'My Shattered soul has torn my aura, ignore my madness it is mine to bear. We all have our own crutch we must reject, for life has no need for it and our actions will doom us all.'
-unknown adventurer-
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Ah to join into this conversation. My thoughts are skewed somewhat, As the quote i just gave says, (also my signature for some things) I am a person who does not put up with excuses that i see a lot (okay I am bouncing a thought into the subject.) The main problem i see in american society right now is the whole 'it is not my fault' approach to things. We always blame other things for our actions.
 
One of the big problems is the

"The isn't my fault, this must be your fault! I SUE YOU NOW!!!!"

Culture.

I'll talk more later.
 
Today, it occured to me: God cannot be good.
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God is good because God defines what it is to be "good." It does not limit him because he is the definiton of goodness.

Been done, in fiction at least.

However the Churches do not have the right to say you will go to heaven, so you'd have to be deluding yourself.. Esepecially if you believe in puragatory.
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Purgatory is Catholic nonsense. :x

BUT if you believe in Jesus and such then you get all redeemed and go to heaven anyway, so who cares? Do good deeds or not, it's all the same in the end.
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If you truly believe, then you would do good deeds.
 
If God is good, why does he do evil things throughout the bible?
 
If God is good, why does he do evil things throughout the bible?
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The Bible is divinely inspired writing. It doesn't necessarily delineate the truth, just what we need to hear. Something like what the Oracle said in the Matrix except without Keanu going "whoa." That's my take on it anyway.
 
Wes said:
If God is good, why does he do evil things throughout the bible?
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If you accept Tim's take on the matter, God may define whatever it does as good, including whatever it actually did during what some would call biblical times.

Further, just because the bible says God did something does not mean that God did it, unless that is also part of your beliefs. It is entirely possible that what you are reading is human interpretation, or (as Tim said), just what people supposedly need to hear at a given point in time. (Explains how differences creep in over translations, I suppose!)

The real kicker to Tim's notion in my ever-so-humble opinion is: What happens if you disagree with God over what is good? Obviously, you are evil from God's eye, yet you may see God's view of good as evil yourself. I assume that if the christians are right, the result would be that you burn for your insolence. God is omnipotent, and in a conflict of beliefs you are sure to lose. Yet at no point does God's view gain any kind of validity in your mindset.. the only thing backing it up is God's overwhelming power. Is the universe a case of cosmic bullying?

Somehow I doubt it, but God only knows .
 
It was good when I first read it, and it is good now.

In any case, I'm going to go Calvanist and simply declare that we are all born evil!

But more reasonably ... the world is a corrupting influence, there is none that can live in this world that can prevent themselves from the coruption, and the longer you live the more effect it has.

You're born and then you die.

The middle bit is just going down hill.
 
You're born and then you die.

The middle bit is just going down hill.
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Maybe for some. I know a lot of people that have grown in maturity and relative "goodness" throughout their lives.

Edit: For instance, reformed basketball playboy turned evangelist David Robinson.
 

Hi Albionon,

There's no way I can speak for your own life, but must it be a given that everyone goes 'downhill' the entirety of their life?

I dislike the process of growing 'old'... I build up so slowly, the notion of losing something I have now does not sit well with me. That doesn't mean I gain nothing as I move through life, through. I learn, gain in knowledge and mental power, and expand my horizons. By the time I die, I will have many more capabilities than when I started.

I have to admit, my notion of morality has all but disappeared as I have aged. Does that fit your definition of corruption? On the other hand, my personal ethic has grown vastly in strength. I do not harm others because of my own choices, my own feelings. Is that corruption?

I suppose I just don't understand your meaning of the term. What is being corrupted?

Jon
 
On the growing older part ... by growing older we loose part of who we are! Every day we are a different person, subtly. Can you say you are the same person you where when you where nine? Do you really bare any resemblance to that person in terms of personality?

Worse we loose our memories, we forget everything that happens to us, and through that we loose everything! Even our most treasured moments, most beautiful memories crumble and disappear.

"All those moments... will be lost... in time... like... tears in rain. Time... to die." - To quote.

As for corruption. As we grow, we learn, as we learn, we learn of things that disturb us, but then we grow to accept them. We loose our innocence, we loose that which all children have, which makes them so wonderful. We become soiled by this earth, and all the evil that is present in it. Because there is so much evil, and it rubs off on us. Especially now, with the internet, and you can access so much material.

For example a while back I managed to get to a Wikipedia page about Jack the Ripper while randomly surfing, and eventually read about some of the most disturbing Serial Killers in the world. With reading that, I knew that such things where possible, and a little part of that innocence, that faith in the goodness of man died.

So yes, as we live we are exposed to the world and we loose our innocence, we become jaded to the depravity of the Earth. And as we age we loose who we truly are.
 
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