Why does God allow bad things and suffering?

Why does God allow bad things and suffering? Jun 15, 2017 13:34:02 GMT

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Post by cupcakes on Jun 15, 2017 13:34:02 GMT

^tpfkar

@miccee said: So now you're emulating your hero graham

Good lord you're an overwrought mental case.

by misquoting me and then attacking the strawman argument that you have constructed. I never said anything about no humans being the fairest state of affairs for society.

Your exact words were "And if society wants the fairest possible state of affairs, that would mean no humans and no society."

And I've certainly never claimed to be able to change any outcome from what it is predetermined to be; but my thoughts and actions are certainly part of the chain of events that will lead to the eventual outcome.

The fact that you really don't see the utter madness in furiously trying to convince anyone of anything while knowing that no matter what you think, no matter what you do, that you cannot change the holy writ one whit. It's not the actions, it's the supposed knowing and not recognizing. It should give you a laugh just thinking about the irony of it. The same failure of basic reasoning that permeates a significant chunk of the ideas you share.

But you've failed to describe why determinism cannot account for the fact that we make choices in accordance with our preferences and traits.

"Determinism" as you attempt to overwork, has in no way been established. In any case, it really doesn't signify anything. After things are done, they were always going to happen only one way (if you must object over MW, then within one of the worlds). Our choices are components and instruments of that sequence of things, and out consciousness as part of our biology set directions within it. It is insanity to postulate, much less require the insanity of randomness in order for there to be free will; randomness of thought along with the related malady of non sequituritis is strictly the realm of mental illness, a pathology, not of a healthy human consciousness. Almost as mad to suggest that things should not have "reasons" to qualify for anything other than lunacy.

If it is so constrained, then what are our choices free from? If you say external coercion, then you're just reiterating the compatibilist position of deterministic philosophers, but yet still trying to maintain that our choices aren't predetermined. You're adding an unwieldy layer of hypothesis which you cannot even explain; when there is a perfectly elegant and simple explanation for our conscious experience of decision making.

I'm saying your use of "constrained" and "predetermined" is pointless yapittyap blown up for tendentious purpose. There's not any added layer, there's an outright rejection that in order for there to be free will that things would have to behave in a deranged fashion. Yes our brainand our biology exists as it is and at all because of "reasons". And yes, we as creatures have "free will" to decide and act according to what we want. The only meaningful or even sane depiction of "free will".

My views on free will are well within the mainstream of secular scientific beliefs. It's certainly unscientific to insist that something exists without being able to explain how it works, what it adds or why it needs to be hypothesised.

Views on free will are all over the place within secular scientific and philosophic beliefs. And not a one has gone an iota beyond an unestablished belief. If you didn't have ardent overmotives, you could live with that.

And they shouldn't be expected to pay the price of everyone else's joy. Especially if nobody would be deprived of that joy in a universe with no sentient life.