I don't speak for God. — unenlightened

One doesn't need a concept. — unenlightened

See the issue here, already?

No.

No. — unenlightened

OK, let me connect the dots.

If none of us can speak for God, and S/He exists as an abstraction since S/He remains silent, then is there anything more we can do to make God correspond to our everyday pitiful human existence?

And, if the concept (God) is so easy to destroy, with the simple example of a burning fawn, and the very human concept of "gratuitous" suffering, then what's the point of entertaining these mentally ill and mental gymnastics?

See the issue here, already? — Wallows

Yup, but you may not like what i have to say about it. Wallows.

Yup, but you may not like what i have to say about it. Wallows. — creativesoul

Yeah, not a very happy thought. Although, who knows what the big entity, up above, thinks about it too.

I heard He has anger issues.

is there anything more we can do — Wallows

For God, nothing. For the fawn, perhaps you can do something I like to call 'minimising the pain'. 'God' is a term I find necessary to philosophy, and unnecessary to life. Fawns manage without God, and I could manage this thread without god if you had not brought the thing up.

I heard he has anger issues. — Wallows

But this is unnecessarily feeble. When God has lost patience with His creation, you will/will-not know about it in no uncertain terms. By definition. Imagine the world on fire.

'God' is a term I find necessary to philosophy, and unnecessary to life. — unenlightened

That's pretty deep. What does that say about philosophy, I wonder?

'minimising the pain' — unenlightened

So, you have gratuitous suffering and then the moral concept of pain or anxiety arising due to this. How does one minimize the anxiety of the notion that God exists?

But this is unnecessarily feeble. When God has lost patience with His creation, you will/will-not know about it in no uncertain terms. By definition. Imagine the world on fire. — unenlightened

As childish as this may seem or depressed, what's the point of showing and telling here?

Yup, but you may not like what i have to say about it. Wallows.
— creativesoul

Yeah, not a very happy thought. Although, who knows what the big entity, up above, thinks about it too. — Wallows

I'm not a believer in such things. I'm much more a believer of recognizing our own part, our own role, and thus our own power to realize what's within our reach, and working from the principle of being helpful in each and every situation, as well as finding contentment purely in the fact that we're doing our best.

Personally, I find that your habits of thought are self-perpetuating. That's fine, I suppose, if you like where you are. If not, I suggest taking a different path by being courageous enough to deliberately and intentionally develop different more productive(new) habits of thought.

This, of course, requires someone else to show you and/or lead the way, so to speak.

A burning faun is what happens when the woods catch fire. A burning thought life is what happens when one doesn't recognize the power that they have to put out the fire in one's own mind.

Do something else.

So, you have gratuitous suffering — Wallows

Gratuitous? What do you mean by that? Undeserved, yes, and in any particular instance accidental (or not), but in general, (the possibility of) suffering is the necessary condition of life, and particularly the necessary condition of having value. Caring is taking pains That is my thesis.

Gratuitous? What do you mean by that? — unenlightened

not called for by the circumstances : not necessary, appropriate, or justified
a gratuitous insult
a gratuitous assumption
a movie criticized for gratuitous violence
2a: given unearned or without recompense — https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gratuitous

But, that just talks about definitions. The bigger issue is that the concept can be entertained at all, don't you think?

Yes, I like panpsychism quite a lot. I think, the issue is that at what point is suffering apparent to a living entity. Like, the hard question restated in regards to consciousness. Not sure if that's clear. — Wallows

In panpsychism, the priority of the human perspective is in question. If all matter has some capacity to interact in relation to an awareness of pain, then why is our perception of pain (ie. suffering, morally ‘evil’) the only one that matters?

Well, I view a deity who instills the sense of cruelty towards his own creation, whilst devoid of experiencing it himself, as somewhat abnormal from a human perspective. — Wallows

This is not how I view ‘God’. The way I see it, ‘cruelty’ is a disregard for the pain and suffering of others, which is either ignorance (a lack of awareness), isolation (a failure to connect) or exclusion (a refusal to collaborate). Your presumption that ‘God’ behaves in this way towards any element of creation is based on your own limited perspective of the situation, and your assumption that there is no more to know about this situation than what you already know.

‘God’’s perspective is not the same as the human perspective. If you want to genuinely understand what ‘God’ is doing here, then you need to imagine a perspective that is aware, connected and collaborating with the potential and possibilities of ALL matter since its ‘creation’. That means getting past our limited anthropocentric perspective of value. For me, ‘God’ is not so much a deity as a concept that enables us to extend our understanding of the universe beyond our own experience.

Yes, so we are in agreement about the utility of pain from a moral perspective. Is there any to begin with? If it's promised that heaven is a place where nobody suffers, then why not just create a universe where everyone is guaranteed access to heaven regardless of their moral "worth"? — Wallows

Yes, but this moral perspective is a limited one, manufactured by a limited understanding of ‘God’ and reality. This ‘promise of heaven’ and our access to it is a man-made conceptualisation intended to increase the perceived value of existence beyond organic life for those who fail to perceive the value of determining and initiating action towards increasing awareness, connection and collaboration in an unfolding universe that is so much more than organic existence.

The way I see it, the extent to which the world we live in continues to increase awareness, connection to and collaboration with who we are beyond our organic or material life, corresponds to the extent to which we access this ‘eternal life’ promised to us. That’s it - no ‘heaven’ or ‘hell’, no St Peter checking if your name’s on the list, no adding up brownie points. That, I believe, is the example of Jesus and Buddha and Einstein and Elvis, etc.

God is a word we use to point at something which is not God.

So the abrahamic God is technically false.

The word God is our way of communicating the concept of a thing that is more than our pointer.

I see the thread needs a theme tune. Everyone loves the Scottish accent...

What is your response to the burning fawn scenario with respect to God? — Wallows

Should the fawn have not burned and lived a perfect life in a pristine utopian forest, and should have every one of God's creatures have done the same, would you then conclude God is omnibenevolent?

If so, you're suggesting the ultimate good is in living the hedonistic life and are ignoring the suggestion there might be more to this creation than the moment. I'm not telling you you're wrong, only that if you wish to adopt the theist's worldview of the all good God, you're going to also have to buy into his view there is greater purpose to the world than your day to day struggles and successes.

Is the notion of omnibenevolence at all coherent? You can make up as much crap as you'd like concerning God. Religious faith doesn't hinge on arguments. It's like fawns burning in the forest. Shit happens, like faith or the lack of it happens.

Maybe suffering is God's favorite condiment (the ketchup of creation).

Maybe God is feeling it all and that it continues is testament to his will that it is all worth it.

then what's the point of entertaining these mentally ill and mental gymnastics? — Wallows

The value of the exercise, combined with the problem of making sense of the lessons.

The word God is our way of communicating the concept of a thing that is more than our pointer. — Qwex

With the caveat that having a concept of a thing is neither ground nor warrant for concluding that the thing, or even anything like the thing, exists - except, in this case, as an idea.

Is the notion of omnibenevolence — Nils Loc

I invite you to do a dissection of "omnibenevolence." if you give it any thought, you will quickly realize you didn't actually know what it meant, and maybe even after thinking about it, you still don't. But at least a) you will know that either you don't or you didn't, and b) that anyone who tosses the term around probably also does not, though they may think they do.

You may even have to make a decision as to what it means within your context, and that will also be interesting because it immediately implies that the term can have multiple and exclusive meanings.

It's a kindness, I think, to warn that if you start, you may find it annoyingly difficult going.

Should the fawn have not burned and lived a perfect life in a pristine utopian forest, and should have every one of God's creatures have done the same, would you then conclude God is omnibenevolent? — Hanover

Notice the unusual myown fixation in this thread on the word "gratuitous"?

Is the notion of omnibenevolence at all coherent? — Nils Loc

I don't think so.

Maybe God is feeling it all and that it continues is testament to his will that it is all worth it. — Nils Loc

Maybe's aside, doesn't that make God a masochist?

The concept of God as all-loving doesn't really mesh with the concept of a fawn dying through a fiery death. — Wallows

Why a fawn? Why not a cockroach, a hyena, a warthog, a snake, a crocodile?

The concept of gratuitous suffering is rendered more aptly with a fawn or dog or cat than a cockroach???

To be ominbenevolent would be to wish no harm or suffering on any being. To be omnipotent and omniscient would be to be able to create a world whose beings never suffered pain or any negative feeling. Our world is obviously not such a world, and this is a problem for our understanding.

If there is a God, then "He" cannot be, according to our own definitions, both omnibenevolent and omnipotent/omniscient. Talk of God moving in mysterious ways is nothing but the obfuscation that comes with refusing to admit there is a contradiction or paradox there.

The simple solution to this conundrum is to stop thinking of God as either omnibenevolent or omniscient/ omnipotent or else to simply stop thinking of God at all.

Only because of our human sentimentality. The different is not a rational, but an emotional, appeal.

To be ominbenevolent would be to wish no harm or suffering on any being. — Janus

Just wishing? That ain't good enough to be benevolent.

And what's wrong with that?

Omnibenevolent action, as opposed to simply omnibenevolent wishing, is obviously not possible unless one is both omniscient and omnipotent.

You are trying to mount a rational argument, no?

I don't understand why if God is omnipotent he MUST create a perfect existence. That forgets the problem of evil - evil happens.

Evil ruins good work - tones stuff down - survives through some alternative.

Were you expecting the same simulation for all? Were you expecting no grouping of people?

No risk? Toned down existence?

The simple solution to this conundrum is to stop thinking of God as either omnibenevolent or omniscient/ omnipotent or else to simply stop thinking of God at all. — Janus

Good solution.