Yes, then you agree that the answer to thread's question is god creates suffering and therefore, that god is, in effect, indistinguishable from the devil (i.e. wholly unworthy of, or is immorsl to, worship). :pray: :naughty: — 180 Proof

I wouldn’t go that far, suffering is a product of creation and though God itself could indeed be perfect his creation isn’t due to the natural world unfolding in the way it does. Worship is a personal choice.

Prey-predator dynamics are part of nature and what makes it wonderful imo, yes in a sense it’s cruel and as an ardent theist I must take the good with the bad, what would the cheetah eat without the gazelle which in turn eats vegetation. It’s a vicious cycle in a sense and I’d rather be a cheetah but such is nature, and empathy is not just a human attribute I’m sure some animals are capable of it too.

You also have to realise that neither the cheetah nor the gazelle had a choice that they were born as such and that the cheetah without the prey would die without it.

For me the most convincing argument I suppose you could call it, is intelligent design combined with aesthetics. Why is our vision hard wired to like beauty ? Is it universal?

The idea that god would be happy to factor in intense suffering as an inherent attribute of their creation (in order to prevent boredom) sounds sociopathic. — Tom Storm

Sounds like the Old Testament to me, yes I think the motives of such a being are hard to fathom.

What is the purpose of God anyway? can’t he just chill out for a bit and give us humans a break ? Nope some idiot wants to start a war because he wants the old times back or more land or whatever reason wars happen for, it’s always got the human element there, again the privilege of free will…but if they followed one of the commandments though shalt not kill then the world would be a slightly happier place no ? Tigers can’t read so you carry on boys …

The bible is full of contradictions I have to admit but as far as morality goes it’s got some good stuff.

Stunning. How do you define "perfect"? — javi2541997

having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be — dictionary

My definition is something that is flawless

According to your basis, free will always pushes us to commit sins. Only in a predetermined life would we all be perfect then? — javi2541997

No free will also allows us to perform good deeds too, it's wisdom and emotional intelligence that allows one to do the right thing rather than being an evil bastard, I'm not necessarily saying free will is bad.

I'm saying bad choices are bad and that not being able to tell the difference is ignorance rather than bad. If something evil is performed deliberately and the person performing knows it's a bad thing to do then there is not contravention of free will taking place, it's the privilege of having free will

I think there is a bigger problem than this. If creation is the product of good god, then why did this god conceive of and build a system wherein bloody and abject suffering of innocent living things was written into the very act of survival? To a great extent, insects and animals torment, hunt and eat other insects and animals in order to stay alive. What kind of a cruel deity (when presumably anything might have been possible) would conceive of a vicious reality wherein predation of this kind is a foundational attribute? — Tom Storm

Good question there questioning the creators intent and laws of the jungle. He could easily make paradise, where all that exist is sheep eating grass. That would defeat the purpose of diversity and life itself, I think he just wanted to create knowing perfection would be boring so he chose imperfection instead, I don't really know.

I assume you mean “where is the evidence of god ?”

There isn’t much, though you might see it in a pretty flower.

It’s intrinsic to that creature, eat, survive reproduce though they don’t know that’s their meaning. Same applies to human beings, but we want more or specifics to which the computer replies: 42

It makes perfect sense. — Vera Mont

I’d imagine if I was an African man struggling to eat this would be the last question on my mind. It’s the spoilt westerners that have this sort of nihilistic outlook about life. Life’s too easy or comfortable is why this question gets asked.

Why can't you simply live, love, succeed and enjoy, with no hidden messages? — Vera Mont

You can but it does make you wonder the fact we haven’t met any other extraterrestrials yet means we’re pretty much an extraordinary achievement to exist at all. So could point towards divinity perhaps though we may not know it.

You must have an easy life then, still it doesn’t make sense to state there is no meaning to life.

Maybe the meaning of life is love or to give yourself meaning such as be successful and enjoy it ? Or maybe just be happy that you’re alive ☺️ the odds of life existing on this planet is billions or trillions to one so perhaps celebrate that and be glad…maybe in that astronomical number lies the answer you’re looking for.

The real question should be not “is there a god” but do I have faith that there is no god. This confuses most theists and atheists alike, because the question of god has nothing to do with proof or evidence but belief and faith.

Does the fact that a physicalist have no answer to say literary creativity or art highlight where it falls short as a credible philosophical concept ? For me it does because creativity is higher form of process than mere experience (a la Kant metaphysic).

Although I have questions too regarding this, if ideas exist a priori than wouldn’t this point to genetic markers passed down through millennia ?

An example of this exists in some birds whose chicks are immediately scared upon seeing a certain shape in the sky meant to represent an eagle.

Not sure if this applies to humans but the above example is a real one in the natural world.

I'm not entirely sure what you are asking or trying to communicate. Is it what reasons people might have to pursue philosophical enquiry? — Tom Storm

I guess it’s for the sake of self introspection which can yield useful knowledge about oneself.

I remember people complaining about others living in bubbles well before the internet. There's always been the issue of people inhabiting a class or social group which has its own rules and values and is often ignorant of the wider world. In the days of newspapers, we often knew what bubble people belonged to by what paper/magazine they had delivered. — Tom Storm

Bang on there, thank you for bringing it up. Do you think this is healthy or unhealthy? To me it strikes as unhealthy as individuals should have a healthy level of curiosity of what is happening outside their little world.

You can be happy and bored or otherwise acknowledging there's more to discover or enrich one's life or understanding with. That is to say just because you're satisfactorily entertained or otherwise occupied and largely content doesn't mean you're "happy". In fact, you could even venture as far to say philosophy is far from the pursuit of happiness despite the nomenclature of "love for wisdom". We associate love with happiness, but as I'm sure we can all attest to, this is not always so. — Outlander

The initial shock of self imposed ignorance should make one angry or perhaps even sad that previously they did not think of the matter at hand in different ways. For me philosophy is more like a Swiss Army knife than a hammer whose many little tools (epistemology, metaphysics etc) allows one to tackle problems from many different angles.

It’s quite a fascinating post that the way we perceive a tree which happens in the visible spectrum of light is it’s most accurate of such a depicted tree with all its foliage, branches etc.

Yet our vision has also a limit here as we do not have the sensory ability to see the roots of the tree at first instance. So trees are not concepts of ideas but actual real things. At least I think that’s what you’re getting at.

You also refer to meta cognitive processes such as where in the mind/brain this tree is being perceived which is undisclosed to us perhaps due to evolutionary efficiency of the way our brains are structured.

To answer your question I think brain processes and vision are interlinked and in constant interplay during visual stimuli presented to the senses. If you close your eyes whilst looking at the tree, the tree disappears. Perhaps a brain scan during such vision can interlace with the tree being viewed in the brain itself in real time or not.

The real issue for me is not with sensory inputs when it comes to physicalism but abstract ideas generated by minds such as math or our ability to compute in the form of mental arithmetic on the fly such as 7+7 etc.

These I believe are irreducible to physicalism but other sensory stuff may be such as the taste of sweetness.

I’m not a denier in any sense but there are two viewpoints that have to be balanced here.

Firstly the recognition that the planet goes through cyclical long term temperature changes and secondly that we’re pumping way to much CO2 in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution and the carbon footprint has expanded exponentially especially in industrialised nations.

Having said that I’d say climate change is real and that within a short time frame we’ve sped the global warming cycle up a little bit

If two such lifeless particles are in motion then it seems reasonable to attribute them conventional concepts such as consciousness because through their interaction the force of gravity or mass comes into play. This assumption can be taken further for any lifeless environment such as early earth yet varied forces such plate tectonics created different environments and thus atmospheric pressure gasses etc if you think about it.

These lifeless masses or particles would’ve combined by principles of unification creating different types of matter to eventually single cell multicellular then consciousness

What I meant is causation stops at some point. After that the question becomes metaphysical such as first cause etc.

For if you are to have ten nodes you’d need nine and if you wanted a 9 node network you’d need 8 etc… where is the first node in such a network made metaphysically speaking… ?

The concept of nodes described by Wolfgang remains interesting but causes controversy when it comes to the linkage of such nodes.

A question that I believe remains unanswered due to the unexplainable effects of biogenesis, although apparently this has primitively emulated in a lab where conditions for life already exist such as humidity, atmospheric prressure etc

Right on…I thought I posted this in philosophy of religion…does it not fit the criteria?

Cause? But what causes a cause ? I can only assume it’s self caused and material as per Aristotle though an an unconscious one. Not too sure about this though from a metaphysical perspective because I’m making an assumption that it comes from my unconscious somewhere…

The ambiguity of whatever pursuits the individual wishes to go after seems an acceptable answer to me and this of course cannot be accomplished without the freedom to do so. But what even is that ?

Cause 4 seems to answer the question fully. With material and efficient answering equally well, as brains and ideas are products of material minds. Cause 1.a

Question answered I guess. The rest seems to be a question for neuroscience when it comes to the thinking of ideas. But as was made clear by the four causes, 4 is the perfect answer here.

Perhaps I wasn’t clear, ideas themselves require no energy to be elucidated or thought …yet…there must be something producing them…could that not be some type of energy?

In philosophy, energy cannot be the fundamental existent as it is not a thing. — L'éléphant

How would you conflate the current idea that matter = energy?

Metaphysicaly speaking of course conscious effort to think is that not energy in some form or something else entirely?

An great idea there. You have nicely tied up ontology with epistemology. Which makes perfect sense as you can’t have one without the other, especially to the grander idea of meta verse.

This is crudely manifested by current corporations albeit badly so.

If our reality is based on layers of abstraction then the buck has to stop somewhere if you are to entertain notions of simulation or simulacra (which i!m not familiar with)