You wrote:
A tornado can kill an innocent baby as easily as a pedophile on the run, but the killing of the baby is not an injustice if indeed the natural force made no judgment whatever about the relative value of either, or both. The killing of the baby would be simply a fact, but not an injustice.
If there is a God then the baby dying rather than the paedophile is an injustice, to me. If there isn't a God then it's not an injustice as there is no higher power to appeal to for justice. In that case it's possible that a tornado is an indiscriminate non-thinking entity. If natural events are "thought out" by God then tornadoes and the tsunamis happen exactly as they do for a reason. This seems unlikey to me, but not impossible. Lately I am less inclined to infer an intelligence or reason behind happenstances of nature. Then of course I am left with which happenstances do I believe God gets involved in if not all of them -- this conundrum I would put down as a con rather than a pro for believing in God. The kind of example Joseph gave was if a judge convicted person "a" but let off person "b" for exactly the same crime - then that would be an injustice. Yes it would. I am suggesting that the feelings of injustice that I have may be borne out in any intelligent species that survives over time because they have certain traits -- and not artificially imposed on the world by only human beings -- perhaps my daughters hamster feels injustice? Perhaps the author really meant:
any feeling or idea that humans come up with is humanly imposed
?
Which may or may not be correct I guess, but is pretty short sighted, arrogant, and certainly leaves no room for God.
You wrote:
Personally, I can't quite fathom an existence where there is absolutely no creator being. It makes no sense whatever. I can't get over the "then who or what created things?" question.
Ok that's a pro for religion we believe that it correctly answers difficult questions.
You're also suggesting that humans are held in check in some way by religion, they don't go off raping and pillaging, because they are held in check by religion. There might be something to this because humans used to go off raping and pillaging and I think some still do. The question is "was it religion that stopped them doing this?" or would they have stopped doing it anyway as technology and society evolved? It's highly improbable that this question can be answered, because society evolved with religion in tow, so perhaps a con of not having religion is:
Without religion I suspect that I'd treat others as I wouldn't like to be treated myself
So it's not confirmed, but it's a belief. I guess my table of pros and cons for religion vs. not religion will need to say that each pro and con is relative to the beholder. I really wanted to get at the pros and cons that were agreed by both sides -- but I'm not even able to do that ! I'll still have a go at building this table over the next few weeks though, hopefully with your help, so far it's something like the following, but I'm not sure this is the best way to display the findings:
| Religious | Not religious | |
| Answers "Who or what created things?" | Pro | Con |
| Helps me to treat others as I would wish to be treated | Pro | Con |
| Provides someone to love me always | Pro | Con |
| Provides the meaning behind life | Pro | Con |
| Helps with fear / pain of death and loss | Pro | Con |
| Need to give it money | Con | Pro |
| Which religiion is correct? | Con | Pro |
| Why do bad things happen? | Con | Pro |
Gimme some more!
You asked:
Or did God create that person with the capacity, but the person chose not to desire existence?
Yes this one, I see what you are going with this -> No matter how crappy life is, whatever disability you have or chemical imbalance in the brain that makes life seem untenable, forget all that (it's really your fault after all) rejoice and follow Jesus, however bad it is now, it will be infinitely worse in Hell, so never choose to willingly die. I suppose this is connected with the challenges Job faced. Is strikes me that the Christian Religion really doesn't work without a Hell does it? Just like the British legal system, where suicide is a crime. If it were not a crime you would get the following scenario:
- Judge passes judgement on a person
- A person does not agree with the judgement and thinks it unjust and as a result decides life is pointless and commits suicide
- The Judge, really knowing that his judgement was unjust but bound by the law to make it, says "tsk tsk the person has committed another crime" and goes home with a clean conscience
Shades of Pilot? Laws are built in such a way, legally.
You wrote:
I'm unaware of any animal social construct where mating is done communally.
Queen insects?
They may act for the preservation of the pack when threatened by intruders, but propagation within the pack will go to the aggressive and selfish.
Yeah but even wall flower dweebs and nerds get laid occasionally :-)
Does ordinary matter really exist? Or do we just infer strong evidence for its existence through the observation of it?
No comments:
Post a Comment