So how is this situation just — schopenhauer1

It isn't, and that's the point.

What a petty game this god has set up.. — schopenhauer1

Actually, we set it up. For what it's worth, you don't have to play. No matter what you do, you will still die, same as everyone else.

I think the simplest way to discuss this is question what equal means. Too frequently, it looks more and more like sameness. Same amount of money, same opportunities, same choices across races. It is unacceptable for one race to want to become doctors or politicians more than another race. We chase out uniqueness and diversity in the name of equality and diversity. Really makes no sense.

I think there are a lot of metaphors in Genesis, if one allows it to be read that way. — schopenhauer1

Of course it can be read that way, but it isn't anti-work: if anything it's the opposite, we need to work now because of our sin (injustice) but there is hope to return to the place of peace (heaven). Whenever the new testament talks about "the world" it is talking about this game you mention. It tells us we must live in it, but simultaneously don't be part of it. Anyway, once I saw you taking a secular approach to a religious concept thousands of years old I found that interesting.

Yes, life is "unfair".. I would say "unjust". — schopenhauer1

What's funny about this is there is a strong Judeo-Christian connotation to your stance, and as such I'm inclined to agree but in a way you would most likely dislike. The story in Genesis is Adam and Eve had all the food they could possibly desire, but because they chose sin (injustice), they condemned mankind to hard labor. And here we are today, arguing about why we aren't still in the garden of Eden and how unjust (sinful) the world is. So there you go, I agree with you.

Why do you suppose I am suggesting we change our system? — schopenhauer1

Then I suppose I question the point of this entire discussion, to simply point out life is unfair? I can accept that proposition.

make a distinction between working-to-survive and a kind of "trivial" work of lifting a hand — schopenhauer1

There is no "trivial" about it. If you reject the modern system, a lot of work goes into keeping food safe without the modern practices of having a house with electricity and plugging in a refrigerator. And once again, dealing with the end process, we either need running water and sewer or we deal with a lot of work disposing of waste and cleaning ourselves to prevent disease. To solve all these problems we have created a modern system which yes, requires work, but that work doesn't disappear if you leave modern society, it instead becomes harder. We have made working to live easier, not harder, hence you have the liberty to argue about working to survive. I somehow don't think this is a conversation the starving poor of the world would ever think to have.

do you see a difference between food that was absolutely always available no matter what and the set of challenges of work to get the food — schopenhauer1

It is technically work to put the food in your mouth, chew, and swallow. And then sometimes food has consequences on our digestive system and it is additional work to resolve the stomach or intestinal problems. Point being, your problem here seems to be that we are human, we can't get away from work of some type.

It seems unjust to put others in a circumstance X whereby X means if they do not do X, they will die or other dire consequences. — schopenhauer1

By that standard, eating is unjust.

The word "life" means many things. Do you have a heartbeat? You're alive by one metric. "Get a life" is a saying directed towards people who aren't alive by a separate metric. When a soul is "alive" it follows morality, when it is "dead" it does not. What do you do for a living? How's life? Are you lively? Talking about life and talking about the soul may not be different at all if you don't specify how to use the word "life."

I personally don't see the need for work as wrong, but I focus more on how government forces us to use more and more time with it. We regulate things to the point that we force people who would be happy with less to have more, thus forcing them to work longer hours and more days in a week to afford it. One simple example, if I buy land in the middle of nowhere in Nevada and choose to build a house or shack, I'm required to make it 400 square feet. Why can't I live in 300 square feet? Or 200? Layer many such laws one on top of another and we have a society where we are forced to consume more, have more, pay for more, then work more to afford it.

The issue I have is resolving the fact that everything must have an opposite in order to be manifest — Benj96

What is the opposite of Benj96? There are many people who are different from you, but that doesn't make them opposites. Not everything needs an opposite. What is the opposite of blue? Black, but then that is the same for red, green, ultraviolet, infrared... So the same opposite exists for multiple things meaning it isn't a true 180 degree opposite like left and right or north and south.

Potential is not nothing but it also isn’t anything — Benj96

The words "nothing" and "anything" refer to different categories of existence here. There are multiple planes of existence--physical, emotional, intellectual, virtual, spatial, etc. They all exist, and they all interact with each other, but whenever I listen to someone try and explain all other planes of existence in terms of the physical alone, it is like watching them shove a square peg in a round hole. Obviously, potential doesn't fit completely in the physical plane alone, thus you make this response implying it fits better on a different plane (but still exists).

Love comes from an emotional. system, at least in us. — PoeticUniverse

Partially yes, but there is also a crucial intellectual component to it. It is simultaneously a choice and a feeling, sometimes the feeling leads to the choice, and sometimes the choice leads to the feeling. From my experience, when the choice leads to the feeling, there is generally a much higher level of commitment.

Further adding to this, as a foster parent I've noticed that our ability to love and feel loved is developed in childhood, so when it is lacking the emotions aren't enough to compensate for the intellectual aspect that is missing. In the vacuum of love we develop large ego's and become so self-centered we can no longer feel empathy for others. 1/3 of the kid's I've had were sexually abused, and this love-vacuum has formed numerous kids to be abusers of other children, I've known of 5 at this point. I had an 8 year old who tried burning my house down, by 11 he had caused permanent eye damage to a gal in a facility. I've had numerous other problems I won't mention here. But there is one commonality: none of them have any idea how much they are hurting others. They have the emotions, but there is a brokenness to them, and a brokenness to the intellectual understanding of love as well. They believe themselves to be loving while doing all the opposite things. To simplify love as being only a feeling is a grave mistake, but understanding it more fully is also an almost impossible task without understanding the greater component of existence in general. I don't think love belongs to humans, but is something humans partake of, even if imperfectly.

the only is existent of us beyond our frame is our conscience, as a token share of the overall conscience. — Santiago

I partially agree with this, except it is a little too us-centered. I'd reverse it and say our conscience takes a part in this far greater conscience, with the overall conscience being infinite.

The strong part of the OP is that The Eternal Existence is necessity, with no option not to be, given the impossibility of ‘nonexistence’. — PoeticUniverse

I also think there is a strong argument to be made for this existence having a creative component, which gets us closer to the standard idea for God. There's also an argument to be made in viewing love as being a constructive power, it can influence both people and animals in ways brute force can never do. I noticed you shy away from these concepts a little, they don't fit in well when it comes to the beginning of the universe as a science-only proposition. This is what makes them perfect though, as they might demonstrate a greater metaphysical force that lurks just out of reach of the sciences.

you mistake the non-existence of something — Nikita

I will stop the quote here because it isn't about the nonexistence of something. After the discussions on this thread I've decided maybe a better word to describe it is a pure nothingness, so not the idea, not the space, nothing.

by no cat, I mean the non-existence of a cat, an empty place — Nikita

So based on what I said above, this analogy is different because you have the idea of the cat (the idea exists), plus you mentioned an empty place. If I'm correct in assuming empty place means the same as an empty space, space is a thing so once again you don't have a pure nothingness.

It is a tricky argument, because I have to first make you think of something, nonexistence, then demonstrate that your mind can't think of it. Pure nothingness takes up no space, no time, etc. so it is impossible to think about. This is very different from saying an object doesn't exist (it isn't a pure nothingness).

The grey area for quantum computer qu-bits is that they can be 0 and 1 at the same time. — PoeticUniverse

So there are 3 possibilities, but what about 4, 5, or more possibilities? And out of the many possibilities, what determines a specific one will come to fruition? This is hard to explain without some kind of mind concept. I think part of the issue is people throw these problems to the concept of randomness without explaining what makes something random. In the real world, random takes up an incredible amount of computing power. This is the whole basis of cryptocurrency and how miners get Bitcoin. And that uses megawatts of electricity around the world. Random is no simple concept, order and patterns are simpler than random, but to confess the universe follows patterns is a confession it is deliberate, and then if it is deliberate the question becomes "how?"

Would the Existence be composed of bits, given that mass/energy seems to have been shown to be equivalent to information? — PoeticUniverse

Bits boil everything down to black and white, they don't allow grey area. I personally view this as the knowledge/understanding distinction. Knowledge puts everything in a box, similar to the concept of bits: 1 or 0. Understanding is open-ended, and in this way chases the infinite. Understanding can draw conclusions which can then be used to draw even more conclusions, etc., indefinitely.

I would think the Infinite Existence fits more in the understanding category than the knowledge category, and I would even say infinite knowledge is, by definition, complete understanding of all things. In this sense, it breaks away from the concept of computers that deal with absolutes: 1 or 0, with no grey area. But as of yet, I don't have a good logical way of explaining this nor explaining the necessity, other than to state that many elements of physics and chemistry could have been altered and a completely different universe could have come from it, but somehow this one came to be, so it isn't a binary reality but one with multiple possibilities, of which only one was selected.

Regular computer programming covering all eventualities probably can’t calculate the universe, as it’s too linear and too slow. — PoeticUniverse

This does seem to be a problem with computers, they are linear. I noticed in math there is a curious way to bypass the linear using imaginary numbers, or i.

Nothing can escape from being something, even nothing. The absence of attributes is an attribute. — RAW

I like this way of putting it, very succinct.

Government IS the solution in this case. — James Riley

Don't forget what you discussed with me on my discussion, x=x and ~x, so therefore the government is the solution and the problem, we should promote it and get it out of the way. That is, unless you suddenly changed your mind about all that...

That's not my goal and wasn't the question of this thread. If I could snap my fingers and change people's minds, fine -- but in the real world, I know very well it often can't be done and is, essentially, a waste of time. Much like this discussion with you. — Xtrix

So you confess this discussion was worthless from the beginning, then proceed to blame the worthlessness of it on someone else? Maybe you could at least add a paragraph break between these contradictory statements. If we're going to devolve this discussion into a series of pointless insults, we might as well to a good job of it...

Glad you're still looking into the logic! There's no greater philosophical quest. — PoeticUniverse

Logic is in short supply, and only getting worse. Perhaps a detour, but I can't help but think the universe is like a giant processor, performing infinite calculations and ensuring everything follows the laws (mathematical calculations) to the T. But, who wrote the code?

One way to do that, is to help them weather this shit storm. — James Riley

I personally like these kinds of storms, probably because I view them as revealing the crap we had buried. We'll probably come out of this crappy storm better off, just got to weather it...

Though not free of the virus (which took your freedom). — jorndoe

Nobody is free from death, but we can be triumphant in it. Socrates, Jesus, early Christian martyrs (the famous first Stephen)--their names and stories have remained with us for thousands of years, immortalized, because they didn't fear death. You're free to be a coward, but I've said elsewhere, although I don't have a death wish and will do basic things to protect myself, I will not let fear control my life. Death is not my enemy, living a worthless life, holed up in a room afraid of the dangerous world outside is worth than death, so death by some virus is more than welcome to come for me if this is the alternative.

I gather that because I didn't exibit an enthusiastic belief in vaccination, that automatically made me an anti-vaxxer in their eyes. — baker

It's kinda like the "black face of white supremacy" thing, the words don't mean what the words mean. It's just a tricky deceitful way to discredit people to push a political agenda.

All beings is contingent. They may exist now, but they might not exist tomorrow, or any moment. That is what existence means. — Corvus

Perhaps a certain arrangement of atoms, yes, but the underlying matter, no, and the underlying space, also no. The sophist doesn't believe in an absolute truth, it is subjective, up to the individual. For this I criticize you. You keep making claims you uphold, but no supporting logic, and you don't directly attack the logic others present, but say "I do not see." There is a lot you can criticize in this way, you can go back to Descartes "I think therefore I am" and reject that we know about anything more than our mind. Ultimately, this discussion has many built in assumptions, and relies upon those to build up new ideas. One of those assumptions is that our process of scientific discovery is true. This also entails mathematics, physics, etc. To reject these fields of study is an argument for elsewhere, but yes, if you can undermine them as you seek to do you would undermine a portion of my argument.

You've obviously never met people who live in the country, there's a lot out there to kill someone, but doesn't stop them one bit. I've met a guy who as a teenager tried helping save a calf in the winter, got a bacterial infection from the calf in his brain, nearly died and lives the rest of his life thinking/moving very slow because of the brain damage, that one was preventable, but nobody changes course they keep doing their thing.

Sometimes, I think people trade physical well-being for psychological well being. People in the country might be considered stupid for their stance, but at least they are far happier than those in the city with so many rules and mandates.

For me, I chose what works for me. I took the vaccine and use the mask when obligated, which isn't often. Works for me, I've never gotten covid, and if I did and died oh well, at least I died a free man.

People going to such lengths over masking up have more than just lost perspective (if they ever had any). Sure, they'd have to be way out extremists. — jorndoe

I never really did the mask thing, used it a few times in Walmart and some other places but it quickly became unnecessarily to wear it. I think they give some people anxiety, so it isn't that they are extremists, it's more of a psychology issue. Personally, I find masks depressing, I'm glad I haven't hardly needed to use them.

In our universe, the lesser ever leads to the greater. — PoeticUniverse

Not exactly. The energy released by the sun is many times less then the energy of the big bang, but as that energy dissipates smaller creations can come to be, all the way down to us weak humans. Basically, we needed the energy of the universe to lessen to come into being. As power goes down, creativity rises.

Mother Nature holds the hammer. — James Riley

She is the best teacher, let her do her thing. I'm all about government stoping the waist of the wealthy, one flight in a private jet consumes more fuel then I'll burn in a year. But no, they have to bug the little guy because the people with the private jets pay for the political campaign. Get rid of first-class in the airlines while they're at it. That would make the airlines so much more efficient to carry more people and potentially require fewer planes. But once again, that affects the wealthy who pay the politicians, so go after the little guy...

Tired denialist thinking.
Common.
Boring. — Xtrix

Argue with emotion because logic is hard.
Common.
Boring.

No, you can't. — Xtrix

Alright fine. You're already on the side of saving the planet from climate change or it hurts people, so from now on in order to not hurt people with CO2 gas you can't travel anywhere in powered transportation except work and the grocery store. You can't visit your parents or friends or go on vacation unless you can walk or bicycle there. Since water usage has an effect on the environment, in both treatment and sourcing, and uses energy to heat when you shower, the government should now impose limits on your shower, you can only use a few gallons to wash yourself. And heating/cooling houses uses a lot of energy, and the wood to build them cuts down trees, so that all hurts the environment which hurts people so 1 person is only allowed to have a 400sqft home, and each additional person in your family allows for 200sqft, all to save energy, and the government will handle moving you if your family size changes. So a family of 4 gets 1000sqft, plenty, no more retired individuals living comfortably in a 2000sqft home they've been paying 30 years for, that hurts people!

It does matter when it effects other people. — Xtrix

You can justify anything on that basis. Our country permits a lot, and sometimes it bothers me also. But the things that bother me would probably piss you off if I tried controlling it. We just find the middle ground and move on, it isn't worth pissing people off for. Personally, I think this is one of the best reasons for state autonomy, people have the ability to move states, but when you push things on people from the national level, boy do they get mad fast.

For what it's worth, not that you will change your opinion, drunk driving kills many people, but banning alcohol didn't work so well.

Time is of the essence, both with this and with climate change. Lives are on the line. Denial and immovable ignorance cannot be tolerated forever -- even if one is the Dalai Lama. The world is burning, people are dying, while we're "debating" this issue over and over again. — Xtrix

Worth mentioning you are starting to sound like a prophet preaching to people who would not listen. That being said, we're all going to die eventually, some sooner than others. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. There are a lot if sheep in the world to different ideas and ideologies. It's why the Taliban exists, Isis exists, political parties exist, religious groups that fight each other exist. Part of the great American experiment was to see if we could all co-exist without killing each other. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how stupid someone else's idea is, at least they're free to it and we don't have to fight each other--at least until the modernist prophets come declaring we need war to cleanse our planet...

But it is one thing to own the blank concepts, and totally different thing altogether actually to draw some imaginative conclusions from them when there are no logical or tangible connections. — Corvus

You say I draw illogical conclusions without tearing apart any of my logic. You are quite the sophist, like I said you argue with emotion.

It is not that I don't like "infinite", but I just cannot find anything which is infinite in the real world. :) — Corvus

Perhaps you forgot you were finite? Hence, we are forced to use our imagination which you so despise, yet even then we can't truly "find" infinite because our minds themselves are also finite. Based on your current arguments, I get the feeling you might be a flat earther because you've never seen the roundness of the Earth anywhere you've gone...

We apparently don't have all the Omnis to the extent wished for in a 'Person God with Mind' — PoeticUniverse

I've been thinking about this one, I'm not in a place to be too verbose in my response but I'll throw out a few possible arguments in promotion of the idea of a mind:

1. I've presented the case for creativity--omnificence--this acts like the god-function which "picks itself up by the bootstraps." Although logic leads us to this all-powerful existence, it doesn't mean anything exists other than itself of course, so creativity would get it there (hence, the universe). But creativity isn't the same thing as randomness, creativity is patterned and randomness is not. Imagine a universe created without patterns...needless to say, everything is patterned, hence creativity, and creativity is only known to be generated by something which has some kind of forethought...

2. Consciousness as a higher-level of existence. If consciousness a higher level of existence or being then, for example, a rock, it would be odd to say infinite existence is more like a rock and less like us who are superior to it. It would also imply we are superior to infinite existence because we have consciousness, and the inferior thing (infinite existence with no consciousness) some how generated the superior thing.

3. Love as a metaphysical power. I've done enough charity to know that love is a powerful thing. Quick example: last time I was in Tijuana a 17yo who has been resistant to going to drug rehab did so because it was what I wanted and he's known me for 5 years and knows I care about him deeply. The bond of love allows me to have a direct influence on his life. It would be odd to say omnipotence excludes this power when it is supposedly all-powerful, but if it does include the power of love then we must draw one of two conclusions: Things with no mind or consciousness can love, or infinite existence has a consciousness.

Maybe I can make this part more apparent:
"Just a statement of beliefs" = beliefs presented stand-alone without logical connection.
While I might believe in what I talk about, I'm trying not to do this but instead reason out my beliefs.

Calling something "silly" instead of explaining why it is not true, is not a responsible attitude and certainly it does not behove this place. — Alkis Piskas

I actually used a reductio-ad-absurdum argument there, but it is becoming apparent to me that many on this forum don't understand this form of argumentation. I also distinguished the terms and demonstrated how the terms I was using were much more specific than the ones you were and how this affects the argument. And so, I really don't know how to respond to you to solve this problem for you, perhaps I just need to simplify the language and sentences for you, even if it becomes less precise in the process.

And then we have to explain how a Mind could be First, instead of evolving later on, since that is the reverse of the process we see in the history of the universe. — PoeticUniverse

Here you get it wrong, the universe is in every way like a magnificent mind, performing many trillions upon trillions of calculations instantaneously without flaw. "Conservation of energy" is possible because the universe never makes an error in its calculations. What is tricky to explain isn't how a Mind could be first, but how the First Mind could create many minds much like it but so much smaller (and unfortunately sizably more inclined to error as well).

I think your point is good (that non-existence is not even describable with grammatics is a bad sign for it to be a real concept). We use a similar argument as part of the video we want to make. I now foresee similar opposition. But remember that it is a youtube video. They want it to have the quality of a university lecture but that will make it so complicated too that no one on youtube will watch it. — FalseIdentity

I would eventually like to write a philosophical/theological book on these ideas, but it is hard to move forward without criticism. Being criticized isn't a problem, having shortcomings on a youtube video is also not a problem, I don't have to "prove" myself to anyone, the only goal is to find out if there are flaws I haven't noticed that prove a great weakness for criticism. So far, the greatest "flaw" seems to be adequately describing the philosophy to avoid misrepresentation and superficial criticism. But, a few people have reached the 'core' of the argument and their input is greatly appreciated.

You are obsessed with "beliefs" and you don't realize that you are also presenting your beliefs, even if in an indirect, covert way, like "Or is it just a statement of your beliefs" — Alkis Piskas

Perhaps the best way to demonstrate how silly this sounds is to present the opposite.
"Philosopher presents novel argument he doesn't believe in."

Of course I believe it, but it isn't "just a statement of beliefs" which is why I add connecting arguments, and then respond to criticism in a way that I believe properly supports my claim. This is the part you seem to leave out.