<p>@Soul - You didn’t show how the difference between yourself and your grandfather is negligble and not a contradiction to your single humanity argument, you just said so. Also, you have yet to show why Person X should be punished for mankind’s wrongdoing. You have yet to show how there is a collective humanity. You’re just throwing your views out there without any backing.</p>
<p>I actually get what he’s saying since there’s a theory in physics and whatnot that we don’t actually have much free will or invidualism but it just appears that way since we’re so small and into our own lives. But practically speaking it’s pointless so I never cared about the theory.</p>
<p>@lucky - The theory you’re thinking of is determinism. I’m pretty sure that has nothing to do with his argument though.</p>
<p>@Wartsandall, I’m sure to babies in African having a mother die of AIDS and six brothers younger than you to take care of when you’re walking to your polluted well in the sweltering Saharan heat it’s a LITTTTLE more than just an obstacle to overcome. LOL.</p>
<p>But to the OP, I wonder this question everyday too. My only explanation is that God works in mysterious ways. Play your cards right, and maybe one day He’ll explain it to you in heaven. :D</p>
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<p>I’m not stating that they deserve those conditions. I just think that some actions and situations are brought upon us as some form of a test. Perhaps some are just enabled to handle more than others. That’s just my perspective though.</p>
<p>^ Are you saying that Africans are able to handle more than the people in the predominantly white developed countries? Racist…</p>
<p>You must really think the Jews can handle a lot after God put them through that whole holocaust thing.</p>
<p>You made a false assumption and then accused me of being racist based on your false assumption. Interesting.</p>
<p>Let’s clear a few things up.
First off, I included the story of the Fall to show what a silly question this is. The Bible itself answers directly WHY God allows people to suffer. So the question only makes sense in the context that the Bible is false, in which case the answer is obvious: God doesn’t allow people to suffer, because He doesn’t exist. Which I’m sure is what most atheists are getting at when they ask the question, but ask it anyway due to theological ignorance. </p>
<p>Second, I actually am a communist. Good call. Private property is another illusion, and a relatively easy one to see at that. How does one come to <em>own</em> something he did not create? By paying someone some worthless slips of paper and shiny coins? (the worth of currency is illusion- Econ101)</p>
<p>Third, I can’t show you that my great-grandfather and I are one and the same. But let’s put it in this context: you give one kid a stuffed animal, he names it Snuggles and Snuggles likes to sleep a lot and enjoys chocolate chip cookie. Give another kid <em>the same</em> stuffed animal, she names it Fluffers, but Fluffers always wants to play and only eats her spinach. Man is unable to perceive in many cases of the <em>thing-in-itself</em> (a very important Kantian term), but only perceives phenomena arising from the source substance. Therefore, we see different manifestations, individuals of the source substance, humanity. It is our false view of reality that creates individuals, and separates ourselves as separate from other individuals. </p>
<p>Many eastern religions (and different interpretations of Christianity and Islam) believe something similar to this. That we are all of one main substance that simply manifests itself in this world to seem like individual substances, but will eventually return to moksha/nirvana etc.</p>
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I feel like such a BAMF right now…</p>
<p>Hahaa Wartsandall don’t even listen to BMan22, his/her remark barely made any sense! And I was just playing devil’s advocate I understood what you were saying ;)</p>
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Enlighten me.</p>
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Are you just thinking out loud here? Because nothing here contradicts anything I said. </p>
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Currency is worth as much as people determine. People used to trade a goat for some timber. Now people just pay for a goat with a check. Or people pay for timber with some cash. And I’d like you to actually explain how all of this is an illusion. You’re merely saying that X is an illusion because you say so. Anyone can do that. Explanation is necessary.</p>
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Except humans don’t deal with humans as mindless slates. Stuffed animals don’t have minds, they don’t have rationality. Yes, humans are all the same biologically. In that way, all individuals would fall into the category of being humans. But that is not even a close to being an argument for collective individuality.</p>
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Appeal to authority. If us atheists don’t care for the arguments of Christians, why would we care for the arguments of eastern religions?</p>
<p>^Ey, boston, are you trying to have a “Science v. Religion - Which Wins? (Part II)?”</p>
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<p>Yah, I’m not a big fan of determinism. That sort of philosophy makes me :(.</p>
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<p>Thank you very much for taking time to clarify that. :)</p>
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<p>He started it. :P</p>
<p>Because we have free will. The question shouldn’t be why does God allow suffering, but why do we?</p>
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Fairly self-explanatory. God places man in paradise and makes a single request, “Do not sin against me.” Man disobeys and is cast out of paradise, into our current state of suffering. That’s the basic run-down of the Fall. Lots of more in-depth interpretations if you’d like to pursue those.</p>
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[quote[Currency is worth as much as people determine. People used to trade a goat for some timber. Now people just pay for a goat with a check. Or people pay for timber with some cash. And I’d like you to actually explain how all of this is an illusion. You’re merely saying that X is an illusion because you say so. Anyone can do that. Explanation is necessary.
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Currency is worth as much as people falsely believe it to be worth. The ultimate absurdity is not currency though; it is the idea of private property. After a long time, people have done away with the idea of owning other people, but not the idea of owning any object not of your creation. An economic system based on shared property is the one closest to reality and most antithetical to glutton, greed and aristocracy. The most true and the most virtuous. But I digress…</p>
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You and I disagree on a fundamental level it seems. You see, you believe ethics are derived from physical reality. “What ought be” is learned through “What is.” I, on the other hand, believe physical reality to be a shadow of a higher ethical reality (and please, before someone considers me crazy for such a belief, please re-acquaint yourself with Plato who pioneered the idea. Not to mention men like Kant and African Spir who furthered it). As one moves closer to attaining the absolute good, these shadows of our world dissolve (individuality being just one of these illusions).</p>
<p>Let’s take just one of these ethical realities, one being justice. Now, you may very well make the argument that justice is not real, it is an ideal that has not been achieved, that justice itself is an illusion. And I cannot prove you wrong on that- it is on faith that I believe in justice. But, if justice does exist, then an entirely new light must be shone on humanity. Because the fact is, good things do not always happen to good people, bad not always to bad people, and good and bad certainly do not come to a person in direct proportion to their virtue. Justice, a higher ethical reality, ignores the shadows of our perception of physical reality. However, if the history of man is shame (as Nietszche and myself find it to be) then the misery that has befallen man is completely deserved.</p>
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I’m not making any appeals here. My intent is not to convince anyone that I am right. The ideas I’m putting forth are too fundamental to take at the word of a 17 year old boy with elementary knowledge in philosophy and theology, and too sophisticated for that same boy to articulate without sounding insane. You’ll see that I’ve done quite a bit of name-dropping, and that is not for the sake of persuading, but as an outlet for those interested but perhaps not convinced by what I say to further investigate the ideas. And perhaps to let you know that there are broad, age-old implications of such beliefs that require inquiry on the part of the intrigued to better understand.</p>
<p>Suffering comes in 4 types:</p>
<p>Punishment for wrongdoers. If you rob and steal your life may be miserable.</p>
<p>Natural results of stupid actions. If you drink 5 gallons of milk in one hour, well, you haven’t sinned but you will suffer and deserve it.</p>
<p>Tests for you to overcome. To make you strong. See Job.</p>
<p>Byproducts of other people’s free will. Sad fact is, people really are able to harm others.</p>
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I already knew this. This is not a justification for the suffering of mankind, why you claimed Genesis does explain. I asked for the explanation. This is not an explanation. </p>
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Nothing to refute here. I’m starting to think you’re just thinking out loud and not looking for a debate? Am I correct in this assessment? </p>
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More thinking out loud with no substance…</p>
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See above.</p>
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Thanks, I was already aware of all these philosophies. I didn’t need you to lecture me on who put them forth and how old they are. I was interested in your thoughts on the subject and your arguments. Oh well.</p>
<p>I’m simply explaining, not arguing. I’m guessing your choice to engage in the latter is the reason you have yet to put forth your own view?
I’ll tell you that I used to have a similar view to yours (or at least, what I assume yours to be). An all-powerful God is nothing more than a sadist for letting man suffer as he does- and why? Because man was brash enough to seek moral knowledge? The idea of God is unproven, absurd and positively horrible if we are to believe He condemns the reasoned among us to hell for thinking a second it might all be made up. Reason is how man finds his truth, and reason is voice against god.</p>
<p>And that works fine when you direct yourself to the physical world- what are substances made of, how did life evolve etc- but lacking when you turn to ethics and philosophy. The scientific method, willing to slay God for a mere lack of evidence, cannot even test its own validity. Much less answer the questions that religions do- and so gracefully! Materialism leads to nihilism, which is why you see atheists clinging to a shallow humanism for dear life- committing the naturalistic fallacy left and right, unable to admit that ethics can not be subjected to the same controls as boron and lithium. That ideas lie outside scientific quantifiability- and certainly men ruthless enough to kill God would have long ago come out and said ideas are just as absurd, mere fancy, if not for the realization that the scientific method itself is just another idea. </p>
<p>You see, I am an atheist, but also a romantic. Science is a greater enemy to me than religion. Religion at least recognizes the worth of ideas, the power of symbol, the worthlessness of material things, the powerlessness of man. And then on the other side are the atheist humanists, who recognize the worth only of the quantifiable, think only in literal terms, believe only in the material, and create entire moral systems dedicated entirely to the pleasure of mankind (I’m looking at you utilitarianism). As an atheist valuing reason yourself, I’m guessing you fall under the utilitarian category? God how I hate that idea. Never believe British philosophers by the way- there’s yet to be a single decent one.</p>
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Fair enough. I can see you are a big philosophy and religion fan, I am too. Though, I’d like to respond to the last sentence of your post.</p>
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Oh, I disagree very much. I have a few British philosophers who I like, but one or two definitely stands out. Ludwig Wittgenstein is one of my favorites, and Thomas Paine is good too.</p>
<p>…And John Stuart Mill too. And John Locke. Okay, I’ll stop.</p>