Some of us believed that mood would not only continue but expand... a few diehards are still fighting a valiant, doomed rearguard action against the gathering darkness. — Vera Mont

That makes political activism sound really cool, ngl.

It really is difficult to discuss American politics and societies (all of them, north to south pole) without some mention of race, racism, the theory and practice of discrimination based on one's continent of genetic origin. It has played such a significant - often decisive - part in the formation of our present nations, it's simply unavoidable. And when we don't talk about it, we still keep running up against it in the dark. Better, I think to discuss than not - but it's hard to do without acrimony. — Vera Mont

Yes, tensions over race are palpable in the US, or so I have found. I have had a variety of roommates, and honestly it seems to me that all of the best and worst qualities are equally dispersed across racial and ethnic lines, even if there are different cultural conventions more or less commonly observed by certain races or ethnicities.

Even though people of color commit more crimes in general, I think people with empathy realize that there are extenuating circumstances and screeching at them about their culture accomplishes nothing. Uplifting oneself can be like being expected to win a race one has not only not been prepared for, but also the details of which are unknown. The goals and aspirations of a person, and their ability to achieve good things, hinges upon the conditions they are born into, and what they are taught. But even the idea of the status of being uplifted itself is problematic - what is it to be uplifted? Is it to be more like white people? I don't think so.

You claimed passing wind is non-linguistic so I refuted this claim. Same goes for rocks. — Hallucinogen

You really have a bone to pick it seems. Unfortunately for you the Philosophy Forum doesn't give out participation awards. Or any awards. Must be the leftist idealism.

Yes, you seem to be competent at linguistics. I only know the basics - and not very well.



Maybe try to be a little more focused? My problem has always been what appears to be yours: profundity. You or I might be smart, but it is difficult to write profoundly all the time. I find that I get the best product if I stay down to earth and then expand on what I'm writing.

I'm trying to follow along here a little, but I don't understand any of this. What could logic have to do with spacetime, for instance? The OP speculates people are introduced to logic through language, and thus logic and language are irreducible. They then must have developed alongside each other from some proto-language, and for some reason this means that spacetime is the ultimate conjunction between ... ?

With so many mad people, it's amazing how we can get anything done at all! — Agent Smith

I see Smith is suspended. That was a pretty dickish post right there.

In the case of psychosis we are dealing with information in its true form. A physical brain and mental content. An example of how ridiculous the psychiatric profession is is the symptom of conspiracy theories. Clearly mental content but often used as a basis for forced drugging. And forced it is. If you observe these cases going through the courts there is no doubt people are being drugged against their wills with the backing of governments without knowing how bad the underlying science really is. — Mark Nyquist

So we should allow a catatonic schizophrenic incapable of consenting to taking medication to languish when we know that putting them on some good old Clozaril will benefit them cognitively?

What about someone so deluded they cannot even understand that they are mentally ill? Should we not intervene and help them readjust to society and recover some functionality via medication and therapy, even if it is initially forced?

An example of how ridiculous the psychiatric profession is is the symptom of conspiracy theories. — Mark Nyquist

What does that even mean? Are you saying that psychiatrists are conspiracy-theorists? Or that people center conspiracy theories around psychiatrists? You are not writing clearly.

Genetic processes are entirely physical both in expression and replication so why would the use of the term information even be needed? More of a false projection of our minds onto our environment than anything real. — Mark Nyquist

It is designated as information because it regulates the characteristics that are passed on to offspring. Yes, information might be ubiquitous, but some collections of information can be understood as being essential for understanding certain processes and, thus, such linguistic distinctions are useful and not so redundant.

A Turing machine can implement any computer algorithm that supplies a table of instructions for where symbols are to be printed on strips of paper. Would you say that calling the instructions for where the symbols are printed on the strips of paper information would be redundant? I certainly wouldn't, as the instructions are a collection of rules - which are a form of information - demarcated solely to execute said processes, and thus it is not redundant to designate it as a form of information, even though it reads physical instructions and executes its functions physically.

I mean I can read self-help books about quitting smoking and then quit smoking. Quitting, while it may be a physical process, is indeed a function of the physically stored information in the book, yet you wouldn't not call a book a book, would you?

I wasn't referring to protesters. I was referring to the institutions and constitutional rights that the right actually protects. They only seem to support thos institutions that carry guns. Not the public school system, not the right to protest, not fair and free elections, Air Force, yes; APHIS, no; BOP yes, BLA, no; CIA, yes; CDC no; DHS, yes, HHS; EC yes, EPA, no. ...
And I really don't want to get into the details of who initiates conflict between police and protesters in a non-ideal world. — Vera Mont

Good point. If the right cared about all institutions and the well-being of everyone in the country, regardless of skin color, they would give more support to those institutions. I agree. And yes, often times the police initiate against the protestors. I acknowledge that.

Sounds nice. I'm sure it sounds especially nostalgic to the many thousands of people disenfranchised by Republican state voting legislation and systematic voter intimidation. I wouldn't be astonished if some people were irate about being prevented from voting and then told: It's all your fault for not voting. — Vera Mont

If voting is not sufficient then what would you advocate for? Some sort of upheaval? It seems to me there would be a maximum rate of transformation that our institutions could handle without a rupture. Or so my intuition tells me.

That's correct! All entrenched power is quick to defend itself from reform. The more lopsided the disparity between haves and have-nots, the more violently the haves respond to any challenge to their entrenched power. — Vera Mont

Yes, agreed again. Good point.

By whom? The entire left as a political entity with the power to destroy your life, or by some anonymous poster on an internet forum? It's quite a long way down the scale of harms from being eaten. — Vera Mont

I'll have to comb the internet for some more extreme examples if I am to defend that. Yes, I have only been censured by anonymous posters, and that is indeed far from having one's life ruined.

But it annoyed me.

Interesting word choice! Would you like to reconsider it? — Agent Smith

You'll just have to tolerate my word choice, as I have no idea where you picked that out in my OP. Maybe try to contribute meaningfully to the discussion, Smith?

I don't use the terms "racist" or "racism." — T Clark

I think it is okay to use those terms as long as one understands the weight behind them.

I don't use the terms "racist" or "racism." I don't think they're useful. But... if you and I were having a discussion about race, and if the first thing you brought up was black on black crime; or the second, or the third, or the fourth, or the fifth; that would tell me something significant about whether I can trust your judgement on racial issues. — T Clark

For myself, I think the first discussion should be about some form of reparations, honestly, and from there we could find some solutions to the problems of police brutality, disenfranchisement, and black-on-black crime - the last of which I think, although less obviously than police brutality, is the result of racist institutions and generational poverty on a level many don't fully understand. So yes, making a big fuss about black-on-black crime when people are talking about police brutality and poverty is pretty often a diversion from legitimate challenges to entrenched power, despite what I may have argued in the past.

edit: okay, it is pretty much always a diversion from challenges to power, I totally admit that. Sorry for downplaying it.

Some of the institutions. The ones that serve their agenda. Like heavily militarized police forces to keep the mob from protesting economic and political disparity and the privatization of everything from drinking water to highways. — Vera Mont

Ideally protestors would not even come into conflict with said pseudo-military police departments. But I don't see anything wrong with the police doing their designated jobs and preventing innocent people from having their businesses and homes ripped apart by angry mobs, swathes of whom could feasibly be construed as verging on militant. Not BLM activists so much as the looters and opportunists that took advantage of the situation.

Killer Mike summed it up when he said that the people need to make a difference with their votes; it is paramount to first build up your house and make it strong to effect lasting change - even if you, understandably, want to see shit burn.

Yes, I would call the support of armed insurrection 'rule breaking to a degree'. But I was referring to your specific examples of abortion racial equality, on the right-wing rhetoric is so egregiously mismatched with the actual behaviour of its leadership. — Vera Mont

I wasn't referring to that specifically, but yes, not denouncing armed insurrections is pretty horrible, even if they don't all necessarily support it.

I would say the right largely follows through on the promises they make, or try to, it's just that so many right-wingers don't understand just what those promises mean; I think it is more that right-wing politicians act contra to what right-wingers actually want as it affects their lives, even if the politician's objectives are met.

For instance, many right-wingers want less taxes because no one likes being taxed. So apparently that is a reason to not have socialized healthcare. Right-wing politicians have no issues with following through on denying us universal healthcare, and they are successful in their opposition to it. Those right-wing voters have no conception of the fact that it would save them money, and if they do, they deny it because they have been indoctrinated into the taxes = bad mentality and just repeat debunked talking-points.

That is less an example of defending institutions than of deliberately misrepresenting the position of the other party. A tactic not unusual to the right. Was anarchism advocated or even mentioned by the left? Whence did that term enter the discussion of police funding? Why is anarchism never an issue when de-funding public services that don't carry guns? — Vera Mont

My point was that the right is quick to act on perceived threats to the current order - far more so than the left. Anarchy, although perhaps not anarchism, would be the direct result of the state no longer having a monopoly on violence, and the right, despite, and also in line with, their tendency to form militias, seems to understand this - that more is at stake than just equal treatment of minorities, although the equal treatment of minorities should always concern us.

In fact, the existence of well-regulated militias is an expression of the right's respect for authority, often times promising to uphold order if order is lost. I have no idea if those militias could actually be effective without heavily centralized command like an army, or if they would abuse their power, but they reflect, somewhat paradoxically, the right's respect for order, I think.

Some people have certainly expressed rigid views on forums. But I am unaware of any Democrat having been ostracized by the party, or left unsopported in mid-campaign for expressed a nuanced view on anything. — Vera Mont

I have been accused of being racist, or a useful idiot for racists, for mentioning black-on-black violence, even though I acknowledge that it is often invoked to draw attention away from the atrocities people of color have, and sometimes still do, suffer for being of color. I argued that it was valid to bring up because murder is murder, even if police brutality is more obviously indicative of an institutional issue than a black man killing another black man.

It does now. They drummed out dissenters large and small, starting back in the Nixon years, with further purges under Reagan and Bush II. — Vera Mont

Right. My history is not that great, and I don't read as much as I should, but I'll take your word for it.

As much as I appreciate you, Smith, you should probably stop posting irrelevant one-offs and non-sequiturs.

It's very difficult to treat your enemies absolutely fairly and to apply the golden rule towards them every time, regardless of how atrocious and nasty their actions have been. — universeness

Yeah, and the right doesn't seem to care what you do at all so long as you toe the line.

To forgive them totally for all the actions they performed which resulted in friends and fellows that had their lives severely damaged or totally destroyed. — universeness

If the citizens of the US, be they left or right, actually cared about our government not ruining lives, they would have voted out the neoliberals and fascists for the many atrocities committed against people in other countries. Selling weapons to Saudi-Arabia so they can blow up brown people halfway across the world? No noise.

I think it's incredible when people can be so forgiving towards the nefarious rich and to right wing extremists, but I also understand those who cannot be so forgiving — universeness

Honestly, I have little forgiveness for them myself, but I at least try to understand, some of the time, why they do what they do.

I appreciate your measured reply.

I do not believe that is an accurate representation of either side. The right says - proclaims, shouts, pounds, screams, buys expensive advertising and mobilizes ruthless propaganda campaigns to convince its supporters - that these are the issues at stake, while the leadership not only knows that to be false, but blatantly breaks every one of the rules and damages every one of the institutions they're campaigning to 'protect.' As for excommunicating those who disagree with the core leadership -- How do you think they became as locked in step as they have in the last 20 years? What happened to the moderate conservatives? And Liz Cheney? — Vera Mont

So many republicans had no desire to see Trump become president, yet the Republican party has supported him through all of his idiocies, falling into step with a clear megalomaniac as easily as you might join a friend for coffee. You might view this as rule breaking, and it is to a certain degree, but it also demonstrates that the right tends to come together despite small, or large, differences in views.

And I maintain that the right, at least in the US, has a greater desire to preserve the institutions we have in place. Take for example the fact that many on the right pushed back against what they thought was the literal defunding of police departments, because of their (correct) intuition that anarchism doesn't really work.

You could say that this actually hurts the police, or society at large, because we could divert funding to hire more social workers or something - I don't disagree.

Is not making alliances, or giving concessions of principle to the "rottenest knaves" really a weakness in a political party? — Vera Mont

No, but try to adopt a nuanced view on race, attempt to discuss it with candor, and see how quickly you get declared a bigot or a white privilege denier.

Or you could make a joke about dongles.

Overall, I think you are presenting a dichotomy I don't agree with; one can find common ground with people one does not totally agree with merely for the sake of progress - and the differences in views among leftists are largely magnified by a tendency to moralize inherent to the left that is both good and bad.

edit: by "moralize" I mean to reform to make more moral, and not to speak on moral matters with an unjustified sense of superiority.

Hello left-wing utopianism. Everyone gets a participation trophy, and anything less than that is all God's fault! I'm concluding here that you're just angry at reality for containing suffering and that you're just going to keep insisting that the responsibility lies in God's lap instead of in the laps of people who make those decisions — Hallucinogen

Seriously? I say that we should have a more meritocratic society, and you say that I want everyone to receive participation trophies. I just want people who do good things, or work hard, to receive good things.

Furthermore: who chooses to get cancer, or to be mentally ill? Maybe some people that get cancer or become mentally ill smoke cigarettes and marijuana, but can those that do everything right and still get cancer, schizophrenia, etc. be held responsible? Obviously not.

Look, you are not arguing in good faith, whether it is some attempt to troll me or induce a flame-war - I'm not sure. So, I'm going to stop responding to you.

I said it was our responsibility to create just outcomes in society; allowing our children to suffer injustices would be the opposite of that. — Hallucinogen

The analogy just went over your head. I understand letting children suffer would be an injustice - thus I pointed it out. If we allow those whose condition we have control over to suffer, then we are guilty for not preventing that suffering, no matter how, as I have had to point out many times in this thread, unfathomable God is.

People don't have the power to decide the fate and destination of other people's spirits, unlike God. — Hallucinogen

Then God is even more culpable than the parent who lets their child suffer, as he has absolute control over our outcomes and whether or not they are just.

From the rest of your comment, I'm getting a strong impression of left-wing idealism and bitterness about inequality, which tells me that your moral intuitions here are just expressions of your personality rather than moral statements I have to acknowledge as being objective or factual. — Hallucinogen

Yeah, that's a cop-out. I have no issue with inequality, I'm not really much of an idealist, and, unlike you, I generally don't ascribe negative qualities to people merely because I disagree with them.

No, this is just your moral intuition/outrage again. I don't have to accept the assertion that God should do anything. Intervening to cure every person of cancer would make creating a world with cancer in it pointless. — Hallucinogen

And what point is there in such suffering? You assert that gratuitous suffering actually should exist because it gives us the chance to, what? Die a slow and horrible death?

Cancer gives the sufferer (who is ultimately an alter-ego of God) the opportunity to experience and learn from mortality in a particular way, and it gives a unique experience to their loved ones and anyone trying to help them as well. — Hallucinogen

Yes, a unique experience indeed, a loved one getting cancer and dying painfully. Sure, some might be able to draw some positives from surviving cancer and getting a new perspective on mortality, but why would it have to be through something so horrible? Would anyone honestly say that getting cancer and dying is worth it for the uniqueness of the experience? I think not, and not just because they would be dead.

Ultimately it seems to me your subservience, tone deafness, and moral arrogance are likely facets of a personality marked by a severe lack of empathy and tolerance for free thought, and I can just dismiss anything you say because of that.

This is yet again you repeating the insistence there should be significantly less suffering, which I don't have to accept because it is an expression of your personality. — Hallucinogen

The main thrust of the OP is that God is unjust. Whatever I think about whether or not there should be less suffering is not the point.

I'm curious how you think we could demonstrate our compassion in a world with significantly less suffering, though. Wouldn't that mean significantly less compassion? — Hallucinogen

We could just try to arrange society in such a way that people get what they deserve? Do you honestly believe that someone could only be rewarded with a Nobel Prize if someone else falls off a cliff? What connection is there between some people's suffering, or the lack of just outcomes, and the just outcomes others receive, and why couldn't we all at least mostly get what we deserve?

Premise 1: God is capable of making contradictions true
Premise 2: X is unjust
Premise 3: God let X happen even though he could have prevented it

Conclusion: God is unjust — PhilosophyRunner

You conceded that even if logic were messed up, one could still use it to come to correct conclusions, such as in the donkey example or your mail example. It might not be correct, but it works.

I'm starting to doubt I understand what it would mean for logic to not work because of your arguments. If God made logic stop working, how could we use it to come to any correct conclusions?

But our system of logic cannot cope with contradictions. See my above post with an example. — PhilosophyRunner

I never claimed that human logic can cope with contradictions. It can't, despite what Benj is saying.
edit: you were talking about what Benj said, my bad

Here is an example of a piece of logic.

Premise 1: I get letters if and only if the postman visited
Premise 2: I got letters today

Conclusion: The postman visited

If the two premises are true, then logically the conclusions must be true as we understand it.

Now what about if contradictory things can happen? "I get letters if and only if the postman visited" and "I got letter without the postman visiting" can both be true in such a world. The two premises no longer logically result that the conclusion must be true. — PhilosophyRunner

That's what I'm saying: if God messed up the logic in the donkey example, at least, we would know because the logic wouldn't work. If we can do the logic and verify the new statement is true, God has not messed with that particular piece of logic.

But if we can confirm that the appropriate application of logic always leads to correct outcomes, or almost always, then why do we have reason to doubt its integrity?

If the logic still can be used to describe reality, is it even faulty?

I'm saying that we wouldn't be able to use the donkey logic at all, but we reliably can, and that would indicate that our logic is not faulty. If the logic is faulty then why would one be able to use that logic to come to correct conclusions? And if you are saying faulty logic would have no effect on our ability to form arguments then why would there be an issue for the arguments applied to God?

Then that we see donkeys are grey and donkeys are small can both happen at the same time, does not mean they are non-contradictory. I.e if a being exists that can make contradictory things happen, then the very basis of logic that we use everyday, would be suspect. — PhilosophyRunner

If the logic didn't work, we wouldn't be able to combine the separate statements that donkeys are both small and gray to describe a donkey. The logic is just as necessary to the donkey example as the fact that they are indeed observably small and gray. If God had changed the rules of logic in such a way as to make the combined statement about donkeys false, we would not be able to use the donkey logic to come to any conclusions about donkeys or other things at all. But we can - merely with the premises that donkeys are small and gray.

If I'm wrong on this one, someone who knows more about logic correct me, please.

I don't think you can make a logical argument against an entity that can make two contradictory thing possible at the same time, as such a being would be able to invalidate the most perfect piece of human logic. — PhilosophyRunner

I actually made this argument against Bartricks. But we have no reason to think God has made any important logical statements contradictory. Although, yes, we cannot know for certain unless the intersection of the discussed logical statements is verifiable somehow.

For instance, if we can verify the claim that donkeys are small separately from the claim that they are gray to come to the conclusion that they are indeed both small and gray, then we know that the statements "donkeys are small", and "donkeys are gray" are non-contradictory.

That might seem pretty basic, but it demonstrates that we have a means of knowing if God has made two logical statements contradictory.

If we are talking about him making, for instance, certain rules of logic false or contradictory with other rules or what have you, then he could just explode logic. But logic works still for describing reality, so it appears he has not done so. Thus, he is still subject to logical arguments, even if they are somehow external to him through his own doing.

Could god not be both a person and the universe simultaneously? — Benj96

Yes. God, if he exists the way theologians formulate, could be anything at all, and could even just be a human with no powers if he so desired, and could just make himself God again whenever.

you cannot have justice and good without its opposite — Benj96

The potential for injustice and good is all that must exist for justness and good to exist. There doesn't actually have to be any real evil for good to exist, or any injustice for justice to exist, as per my definition - everyone must just get what they deserve.

But sadly in this duality god as the universe is ambivalent - because the system contains both good and evil, both chaos/destruction and order/creation - you cannot have justice and good without its opposite, and you cannot have free will either if only one or the other existed in isolation. — Benj96

But God could just give himself free will even if he existed as the universe and not a person. He could make any two contradictory things possible at the same time if he so desires. You might say then that God could just make human suffering and injustice just. But that makes little sense from a human perspective, because we humans still have a stubborn intuition about what constitutes justness that exists apart from God, and I can say that I believe murderers should be punished with no consequences.

That would mean that either God is allowing us to contradict his idea of justness with our free will or arranged the universe in such a way as to guarantee we would defy him on this one.

the truth doesn't change. It's the truth after all. And such a fundamental constant/ law/ principle as truth - which is unchanging.. Must therefore be inaccesible to systems that change/are under the influence of change. — Benj96

The position of a projectile in motion can be derived from unchanging equations - or just one when combined - that govern its trajectory. We have a system in which the position of the projectile, measured against time, changes, but is still governed by those equations. The changing position represents a (more contingent) "truth", and the immutable series of equations governing the trajectory represent a "truth".

And because the truth cannot change fundamentally or it wouldnt be true - it must have something to do with energy and time (the ability to do work/cause change as well as quantum uncertainty - heisenbergs uncertainty principle in science) and perhaps (in spirituality/ religion - being, consciousness, ethics and god). — Benj96

Why can't truth change? You make that claim multiple times but don't really back it up.

Don't get me wrong - suffering and hardship builds character, but not in gratuitous amounts.

We have free will and it is our responsibility to create just outcomes in society. — Hallucinogen

Would you say that adults should allow their children to suffer injustices at each other's hands merely so they can be judged by adults? That we should allow children to suffer so we can test them?

What if the people responsible for enacting justness refuse to enact justice correctly? Because it seems to me humanity is mostly incapable of enacting justness consistently, otherwise war criminals like George W. Bush would be in prison. Even though he is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and the destruction of a country he gets to retire to his ranch and paint self-portraits. Same goes for Putin and every other authoritarian asshole never held responsible throughout history.

And what about good people that get cancer? How are we supposed to enact justness there? If we can't enact justness, then shouldn't God protect good people from injustices we cannot rectify if he is even remotely just?

Expecting God to do everything for us so we needn't do anything is lumping the means by which we show God who we are onto God's lap, which would be pointless because God created creation to see how we react to life. — Hallucinogen

Then God really half-assed creation. We could demonstrate our worth, compassion, bravery, ingenuity etc. in a world with significantly less suffering.

You're going to have to define God in your syllogism as that which eliminates the possibility of injustice. I'm not sure that is a generally accepted notion of God. Most religions accept that there is injustice. — Hanover

Most religions deal with injustice by suspending typical moral reasoning, something I am speaking out against doing in this post. We should treat God the way we would treat anyone with a significant amount of power over others, even if, as some have argued, he is almost totally ineffable. Furthermore, even if one wants to postulate that God exists, he could be unjust as easily as just - even according to some standard only he can recognize. That cuts against the popular idea of God, given we strip away the bullshit.

I suppose if people are cool with God not caring about justice my argument would do little to persuade anyone to think critically about God or their religion.

Have we taken up too much time on this? — Tom Storm

Definitely not, I thought we actually have been having a good conversation.

Is this an insult? We are exploring an argument, not trying to slight each other, right?

We disagree (partly) in a discussion forum - nothing wrong with that, right? — Tom Storm

I didn't intend it as an insult, sorry if it came across that way.

I'll concede one thing here - you're right to say God may not be just by a human understanding of what is just. — Tom Storm

No, he definitely isn't. Not "maybe". As soon as God is invoked many people seem to suspend any sort of decent reasoning on moral matters - including on what is just. They just claim that either God's plan is incomprehensible or that he has special reasons for suspending justice (the guilty will be judged in the afterlife, the existence of original sin, etc.).

My problem is not this part of the argument, rather the implication that god is in some way a moral monster or 'choosing not to intervene'. — Tom Storm

I didn't claim him to be a moral monster, but it definitely looks like he is a moral monster from where I'm sitting.

From the perspective of omniscience what humans understand as injustice might look to be something utterly different. God may not consider intervention to be appropriate. — Tom Storm

Then we should stop drawing any sort of positive wisdom or assurance from any personal ideas of what God is too, it seems to me - especially given that the arguments for a just God are weaker than those for an unjust God merely by virtue of the fact that human injustices are allowed.

Btw - I never claimed that God couldn't have special reasons only they have knowledge of for allowing injustices. But I fail to see any, and it wouldn't change the fact that they allow injustices. Having a special reason for killing someone doesn't negate the fact that you killed someone, for instance - it just might be justified somehow.

Just in saying that demonstrates to me you don't understand the argument.

Do you want to keep going in circles or have we reached the end for now? — Tom Storm

Are you even trying to understand what I am saying?

Why does God potentially being totally incomprehensible mean that he isn't responsible for the injustices we suffer? I'm saying that relative to any human idea of justness God is not just. How is that wrong?

You've probably missed the argument about the nature of god then. You're approaching this in human terms and thinking of god as a kind of very special human, with the same frame of reference. — Tom Storm

No. I haven't. God could be that unfathomably complex machine yet still be a being that cares not for enacting justice at all. And that makes him unjust. You are dodging the argument, hiding behind some idea of God that, ironically, has more in common with the fundamentalist version of God than you seem to understand.

Mainly just for the kinds of anthropomorphic, cartoon gods of evangelicals.

I'm not sure how you have determined god's state of mind to conclude it doesn't give a fuck. :smile: — Tom Storm

If God cared, you don't think they would do something? Would God pussyfoot around so that we can have arguments like these? I think not. If God doesn't care, God doesn't care, no matter how inscrutable or unfathomable their nature is. If they wanted to enact justice, they could - and they don't. So, they must have some really great reason for allowing injustice that none of us can think of.

I get that, but I think this narrows the scope and nature of both god and evil. That's all I am saying. The world may be much vaster than this small fence around matters moral and metaphysical would suggest. — Tom Storm

If you knew that there is no way to make a perpetual motion machine that does not violate the laws of thermodynamics regardless of how you rigged it up, would you claim that an extraordinarily complex one - verging on unfathomably complex, even - might actually have some chance at achieving perpetual motion? Or would you hold to the principles of thermodynamics as humans understand them?

The problem for me is that these kinds of formulations only really work if God is a person - some old guy in the sky, with a personality and an almost human approach and is subject to a literalist/fundamentalist interpretation. — Tom Storm

But largely that is the God people actually argue for, not some deistic/agnostic formulation, and, thus, that is what I am addressing.

b) We have no good evidence about the nature of any god/s. — Tom Storm

We have plenty of evidence, however, that God does not give a flying fuck about people getting what they deserve, at least as we understand it. The claim that God may have some greater understanding of justice in which child rapists don't deserve to be punished is on par with the claim, in terms of arrogance, that everything is going according to some celestial plan laid out just for us - beings who are as insignificant as ants compared to God.

a) It is unwise to reach conclusions in the absence of good evidence. — Tom Storm

I agree.

c) Therefore we can make no claims about god/s as being just or unjust. — Tom Storm

But it seems to me that we can because the world is not perfectly just - which it would have to be for God to be just. I am defining justness as people getting what they deserve - and they largely don't - and you are circumventing that definition and making the claim that God is so incomprehensible that we can make no claims about his nature. You need to address my definition, because, according to that, we can indeed declare him to be unjust.

a - If god exists we seem to have no demonstrable way of knowing what their nature is, or if god is even present in the physical world.

I guess I would ask, what exactly is the correlation between our world and the reality (or not) of a deity? — Tom Storm

My point is that if one argues that God exists - and since all of the arguments that apply for the existence of any type of God apply for an unjust god - God must be unjust according to any plausible standard compatible with any human understanding of justness. My arguments for an unjust God do not affect god's nature, but rather are an artifact of human reality. So, it is a relative thing, ultimately.

So if there is such a good God and they are able to be a person for a limited time and speak the truth now would be a good time for them to reveal themselves — Benj96

What an odd thing to say. I doubt God would suddenly intervene now of all times.

That's a terrible shame. I do agree that probably most people at this stage in time would have to "see it to believe it" rather than blindly trust that such a good god exists. — Benj96

Maybe it's time to give up on notions of being guided by some benevolent, all-powerful, cosmic father-figure? I honestly think we are on our own.

What I am saying is that if you are starting off with an omniscient God (as you did mention in your OP), then by the very attribute you ascribed to God, God has a superior understanding of what is just than you. — PhilosophyRunner

Yes, but divine command theory is a bitter pill to swallow. So much so that many theists won't even entertain its implications.

I think no one good wants the second type of God to exist. — Benj96

Indeed. I just really doubt that a good God exists.