Oh come on, that is so easily answered by the concept of free will. An all-powerful god doesn’t create a universe populated by sentient beings just to control everything that any of them do. That’s just silly.
Human beings are endowed with free will, and given a choice: use it for good or evil. You can try to be morally neutral, but ultimately you’re either serving yourself or others. It’s possible to balance doing both, but that means neither is to the exclusion of the other and therefore still counts as doing good.
It’s so lazy to just ask “Why did god let people do evil things in the first place.” Do you really expect me to believe the concept of free will has never crossed your mind when asking this question?
And I never said that a biblical hell is real, I was just following along with the hypotheticals of the previous comments.
Do you really expect me to believe the concept of free will has never crossed your mind when asking this question?
Free will is so obviously an illusion to me (since no-one in recorded history has ever been able to magic their way around causality) that I sometimes forget that most people, especially religious people, think they have free will. I should have stated that.
If free will is real for people tho, then God isn’t all-knowing or all-powerful, which means it’s not God - unless you use a definition of God that extremely few people in the West or Middle-East hold.
Free will isn’t about magic or causality. Framing it like that just shows you misunderstand the concept of free will.
We’re bound by circumstances and possibility, yes. That doesn’t contradict free will, because free will is about self-determination: being able to choose a course of action from among the possibilities, rather than being compelled one way or the other by some extrinsic force such as fate.
For example, say you go to a restaurant. They give you the menu. You get to choose anything on the menu, and maybe even make a special request, and no one is compelling you to choose one thing or another.
They might say “No, we can’t do that” when you ask if they can substitute hush puppies for a side. That’s not a contravention of your free will, they might just not have hush puppies.
Just because the menu doesn’t include everything in the universe doesn’t mean you don’t have free will when choosing an option.
Also, free will doesn’t contradict god being omniscient or omnipotent. I don’t know why you keep implying that it does, but you haven’t presented any rationale for why we should suppose that.
This doesn’t mean I believe in a god, by the way. I’m just telling you that your logic about free will and omnipotence doesn’t add up.
You are the one misunderstanding. When you are sitting there with the menu in front of you, what is doing the “choosing” in the end? What is causing you to rule out this dish or that?
Got food poisoning from eating salmon that one time? Better not order that then, you’d get nauseous just looking at it.
Grew up eating tamales? Of course you love them, but mostly the ones that taste similar to the ones your parents made.
Your parents fed you a ton of sugar as a kid? Well now you’re gonna want something sweet for dessert.
You had a bad day, you’re gonna want some comfort food.
You have a lifetime of experience behind you dictating your preferences, beliefs, values, epigenetic state, hormone balance, and current state of mind.
Note about god, they are supposedly the ones who set this whole sequence of events into motion. God would know that, given an initial state that they set up, the series of events of the universe would eventually lead to you picking tamales on the menu. Or pasta. Or honey glazed chicken. But that is more of a question of determinism, whether starting over at the same initial state would lead to the same current state of the universe. But given god is supposedly omniscient, they should know all the branching possibilities from the initial state in addition to which one the universe will tumble down.
In other words, if god is real, and they are omniscient and omnipotent, then literally everything that happens is their fault.
You have a lifetime of experience behind you dictating your preferences, beliefs, values, epigenetic state, hormone balance, and current state of mind.
Those things might all influence the choice you make on the menu, but none of them forces you to choose anything. You’re still the one making the choice. The things you’ve mentioned are about the web of conditionality, not determinism.
And your second to last paragraph assumes predestination, which not all christian denominations believe. So that argument only applies to presbyterians and other calvinists. And anyone who buys the prosperity gospel scam.
And which part of you is the “you” making that final choice? Which part evaluates all of the conditions to make the decision, the part that isn’t determined by your hormones and brain chemistry at the time?
Surely you’re not going to tell me it’s the soul, unless you have evidence that it exists at all.
You’re asking questions that neuroscientists don’t even have the answers to. But if all of that was predetermined by your biology, then humans would be nothing more than computers.
So if that’s the case, then you must be the type to believe that LLMs can evolve into AGI. After all, these stupid soulless meat computers in our skulls were able to develop emergent consciousness, or at least a very good imitation of it, so good in fact that it even fools us into believing that we’re conscious and have free will, when actually we’re just stupid soulless meat computers.
No idea how you got to the LLM conclusion, as they operate on completely different principles.
Sounds to me like your argument now is that you wouldn’t feel special, because humans would be “nothing more” than computers. Turns out actually that humans, and every other organism that we know of, are just biological robots built by our genetic material for the purposes of its safety and propagation.
Doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t have free will though. Although I’m almost certain that if the abrahamic god exists, we definitely do not.
Because you’re saying that humans are biological computers. That’s the same underlying belief that leads some people to think that LLMs can grow into AGI. “Well human brains are just really complex computers with emergent intelligence, so digital computers should be able to do the same!” It’s a theory I disagree with. I’m merely pointing out that it’s where your line of reasoning leads.
Sounds to me like your argument now is that you wouldn’t feel special
It’s not about feeling special. Humans are more than just biological computers.
Turns out actually that humans, and every other organism that we know of, are just biological robots built by our genetic material for the purposes of its safety and propagation.
That’s a theory, without enough evidence to confirm. Framing it as “turns out actually that” ignores the facts. Presenting a hypothesis as if it’s some confirmed reality is anti-scientific.
If humans have free will then god is not omnipresent omnipotent, we’re all powerful.
Evil exists in the world because God allows it or because he’s powerless to stop it.
Even if God is not omnipresent omnipotent and does not know everything you will do, Then he is still making creatures to which he will torture for all eternity if they do not align with him. The most morally just thing at all would be to create nothing or at least create things that are not bound to heaven or hell.
False, endowment of freewill doesn’t logically contradict omnipotence. And your statement “we’re all powerful” is a giant leap. Free will is not omnipotence.
Evil exists in the world because God allows it or because he’s powerless to stop it.
(Assuming we’re going with theistic explanations for the purposes of argument), Evil exists because humans are endowed with free will, meaning god gives humans a choice of how to behave. Anything less would make us mindless automatons/slaves, which would arguably be evil.
Then he is still making creatures to which he will torture for all eternity if they do not align with him.
Assuming an omnibenevolent god, hell would be a place for genocidiers and fascists and other people who caused untold suffering for others, who would then be tortured for eternity by their own degeneracy because when you remove the pleasures of the flesh from the equation, there’s nothing left to distract one from one’s own inner life.
Oh come on, that is so easily answered by the concept of free will. An all-powerful god doesn’t create a universe populated by sentient beings just to control everything that any of them do. That’s just silly.
Human beings are endowed with free will, and given a choice: use it for good or evil. You can try to be morally neutral, but ultimately you’re either serving yourself or others. It’s possible to balance doing both, but that means neither is to the exclusion of the other and therefore still counts as doing good.
It’s so lazy to just ask “Why did god let people do evil things in the first place.” Do you really expect me to believe the concept of free will has never crossed your mind when asking this question?
And I never said that a biblical hell is real, I was just following along with the hypotheticals of the previous comments.
Free will is so obviously an illusion to me (since no-one in recorded history has ever been able to magic their way around causality) that I sometimes forget that most people, especially religious people, think they have free will. I should have stated that.
If free will is real for people tho, then God isn’t all-knowing or all-powerful, which means it’s not God - unless you use a definition of God that extremely few people in the West or Middle-East hold.
Free will isn’t about magic or causality. Framing it like that just shows you misunderstand the concept of free will.
We’re bound by circumstances and possibility, yes. That doesn’t contradict free will, because free will is about self-determination: being able to choose a course of action from among the possibilities, rather than being compelled one way or the other by some extrinsic force such as fate.
For example, say you go to a restaurant. They give you the menu. You get to choose anything on the menu, and maybe even make a special request, and no one is compelling you to choose one thing or another.
They might say “No, we can’t do that” when you ask if they can substitute hush puppies for a side. That’s not a contravention of your free will, they might just not have hush puppies.
Just because the menu doesn’t include everything in the universe doesn’t mean you don’t have free will when choosing an option.
Also, free will doesn’t contradict god being omniscient or omnipotent. I don’t know why you keep implying that it does, but you haven’t presented any rationale for why we should suppose that.
This doesn’t mean I believe in a god, by the way. I’m just telling you that your logic about free will and omnipotence doesn’t add up.
You are the one misunderstanding. When you are sitting there with the menu in front of you, what is doing the “choosing” in the end? What is causing you to rule out this dish or that?
Got food poisoning from eating salmon that one time? Better not order that then, you’d get nauseous just looking at it.
Grew up eating tamales? Of course you love them, but mostly the ones that taste similar to the ones your parents made.
Your parents fed you a ton of sugar as a kid? Well now you’re gonna want something sweet for dessert.
You had a bad day, you’re gonna want some comfort food.
You have a lifetime of experience behind you dictating your preferences, beliefs, values, epigenetic state, hormone balance, and current state of mind.
Note about god, they are supposedly the ones who set this whole sequence of events into motion. God would know that, given an initial state that they set up, the series of events of the universe would eventually lead to you picking tamales on the menu. Or pasta. Or honey glazed chicken. But that is more of a question of determinism, whether starting over at the same initial state would lead to the same current state of the universe. But given god is supposedly omniscient, they should know all the branching possibilities from the initial state in addition to which one the universe will tumble down.
In other words, if god is real, and they are omniscient and omnipotent, then literally everything that happens is their fault.
Those things might all influence the choice you make on the menu, but none of them forces you to choose anything. You’re still the one making the choice. The things you’ve mentioned are about the web of conditionality, not determinism.
And your second to last paragraph assumes predestination, which not all christian denominations believe. So that argument only applies to presbyterians and other calvinists. And anyone who buys the prosperity gospel scam.
And which part of you is the “you” making that final choice? Which part evaluates all of the conditions to make the decision, the part that isn’t determined by your hormones and brain chemistry at the time?
Surely you’re not going to tell me it’s the soul, unless you have evidence that it exists at all.
You’re asking questions that neuroscientists don’t even have the answers to. But if all of that was predetermined by your biology, then humans would be nothing more than computers.
So if that’s the case, then you must be the type to believe that LLMs can evolve into AGI. After all, these stupid soulless meat computers in our skulls were able to develop emergent consciousness, or at least a very good imitation of it, so good in fact that it even fools us into believing that we’re conscious and have free will, when actually we’re just stupid soulless meat computers.
Eh?
No idea how you got to the LLM conclusion, as they operate on completely different principles.
Sounds to me like your argument now is that you wouldn’t feel special, because humans would be “nothing more” than computers. Turns out actually that humans, and every other organism that we know of, are just biological robots built by our genetic material for the purposes of its safety and propagation.
Doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t have free will though. Although I’m almost certain that if the abrahamic god exists, we definitely do not.
Because you’re saying that humans are biological computers. That’s the same underlying belief that leads some people to think that LLMs can grow into AGI. “Well human brains are just really complex computers with emergent intelligence, so digital computers should be able to do the same!” It’s a theory I disagree with. I’m merely pointing out that it’s where your line of reasoning leads.
It’s not about feeling special. Humans are more than just biological computers.
That’s a theory, without enough evidence to confirm. Framing it as “turns out actually that” ignores the facts. Presenting a hypothesis as if it’s some confirmed reality is anti-scientific.
If humans have free will then god is not omnipresent omnipotent, we’re all powerful.
Evil exists in the world because God allows it or because he’s powerless to stop it.
Even if God is not omnipresent omnipotent and does not know everything you will do, Then he is still making creatures to which he will torture for all eternity if they do not align with him. The most morally just thing at all would be to create nothing or at least create things that are not bound to heaven or hell.
False, endowment of freewill doesn’t logically contradict omnipotence. And your statement “we’re all powerful” is a giant leap. Free will is not omnipotence.
(Assuming we’re going with theistic explanations for the purposes of argument), Evil exists because humans are endowed with free will, meaning god gives humans a choice of how to behave. Anything less would make us mindless automatons/slaves, which would arguably be evil.
Assuming an omnibenevolent god, hell would be a place for genocidiers and fascists and other people who caused untold suffering for others, who would then be tortured for eternity by their own degeneracy because when you remove the pleasures of the flesh from the equation, there’s nothing left to distract one from one’s own inner life.