• ToothyMaw
    1.3k


    As much as I appreciate you, Smith, you should probably stop posting irrelevant one-offs and non-sequiturs.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    As much as I appreciate you, Smith, you should probably stop posting irrelevant one-offs and non-sequiturs.ToothyMaw

    Okie dokie!
  • Benj96
    2.3k
    He told his freshly minted humuns "Go, cavort in the garden and amuse me, but don't touch my special fruit... because, if you do, I'll kill you." No further reason or explanation given. Indeed, it would have a been wasted effort to talk to them about fairness, since they had no knowledge of good and evil.Vera Mont

    I think this is a metaphor, an allegory for innocence, curiosity and revelation.
    God as a parent told his creations, his children, to live their best life, to explore, play, have fun, just in general enjoy themselves in paradise. They were innocent - ignorant to the truth, to knowledge and therefore free - unaccountable. They could not be held responsible because they are children. In this way they had no guilt and no shame. They were truly free. They were animals. Just doing what animals do.

    God's one request to maintain this beautiful cherished innocence was that they not go off learning the truth. That they not choose to grow up. To not go searching for reason behind all the wonderfulness and innocence they enjoyed.

    But curiosity - the beginning of the pursuit knowledge and truth, the motivator to question creeped in as a temptation.. To lead them away from innocence and towards true reality.

    They ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (in my opinion a hallucinogen or philosophy) which showed them that perception can be altered, that alternate understandings of reality were possible. And as they explored those possibilities they approached the truth (God) and left their innocence behind.

    They were devastated by what they found. That knowing the truth, having been empowered by knowledge, they were now culpable, they were now responsible. They knew right from wrong and thus were enslaved to guilt and shame and a lack of perfection. They had become god themselves. They were depressed by this fact and suffered thus.

    In essence they relinquished eternal childhood in pursuit of knowledge but realised only too late that being an adult, being a parent was fret with constant existential crisis. It was a cycle that continued ever since (sin passed from generation to generation). Humankind, a species set apart from the rest of nature... A species that felt at odds with nature... Had been created.
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k
    We can make every act we do serve truth if we want to.Benj96
    This is true. In fact, we should be just and true to each other. Besides, we all belong to the same race. We should therefore support and help each other. That is, we should be all perfectly rational beings, because we have this potential.. Yet, we are far from somthing like that. Because it is in your nature to be as rational as irrational; metally healthy as as mentally ill. And we also have to fight against physical sickness, and attacks from other species and all kinf of living organism. This is far from persection and justice, isn't it?

    Tell me if you were God for a day ...Benj96
    BruceAlmighty_poster.jpg

    Would you spread your knowledge, your truth of truths, with the intent to save strangers that you have never met?[/img]
    Of course I would. But this is the ideal scene. The actual scene is the opposite: a God that can and does punish us. Just listen to the priests as well as the devotional, God-fearing people. Imagine that you create a puppet --because this is supposedly the relation of God to Man-- and then you get angry and throw it down, insult it, etc. And, as a puppet it doesn't undestand why you do that. Yet, it is you who created it. Isn't that ironical if not insane?
    Benj96
    In all honesty if you aren't prepared to face injustice alone, to carry that burden for others, then you do not practice the truth, you would not know it nor possess its true power/authority.Benj96
    Isn't this what Chirst did? If so, it means that he saw that there injustice in the world, which means he believed that His Father (as Son of God) was responsible for that injustice, did he? Because who created everything, including Man with a potential not only to be injust but also to kill his congeners?
    Carrying the sins of humanity on one's shoulders is carrying all the injustice and imperfections created by God.

    I do not believe, of course, in such a God.
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k
    The God of Genesis wasn't omniscient or particularly fair, and didn't pretend to be.Vera Mont
    I believe so. I have not retained many details from my religion courses at school. I had to learn the material in order to pass the course! :grin: What I remember was that I had a lot of questions but didn't dare to as the teacher for fear of being punished! But by the time I entered adulthood and was free to have my own opinion, I had no questions any more! All that just dind't fit, for dozens of reasons. So, I have forgotten about the Genesis and the whole Old Testament, because it simply didn't make sense. And it was a useless subject.There were many more interesting subjects to get interested in.

    To the hugely inflated Creator of the whole now-known universe, with all his later add-on superpowers, no logic can applyVera Mont
    Exactly. To "no logic" I will add "no usefulness".
  • Vera Mont
    4.2k
    To "no logic" I will add "no usefulness".Alkis Piskas

    I wouldn't. He's been a wonderfully effective lever to move masses of gullible people into calamitous wars, as well as craven obedience.
  • Vera Mont
    4.2k
    I think this [the Eden story] is a metaphor, an allegory for innocence, curiosity and revelation.Benj96
    Of course. It is the earliest myth, in that region (probably Sumerian, though the other gods have been almost* expunged from the Judaic telling of it), of the shift in human organization from hunting-gathering tribes through herding-trading nomads to settled civilization.
    At the very heart of it, however, is not personal responsibility, but subjugation. The curse.
    Gen 3:17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
    Obedience and punishment onto all his generations. Not justice.
    *
    #:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
    A little boo-boo in editing. And later transcribers and translators didn't dare to fix it, any more than they dared to remove the alternate creation story from the first chapter - because by the time it was fixed as scripture, the text had become too holy to alter.
  • Benj96
    2.3k
    #:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
    A little boo-boo in editing. And later transcribers and translators didn't dare to fix it, any more than they dared to remove the alternate creation story from the first chapter - because by the time it was fixed as scripture, the text had become too holy to alter.
    Vera Mont

    Precisely Vera. A very insightful and articulate account. I think this is the fatal flaw of a story of morality/ truth held in such high esteem by the society of the time.

    As time passes, culture changes and with it so too does language in that some words become obsolete while others take on a new meaning and thus inevitably the story becomes ever more interpretative and less exacting. The truths of sages of old are "lost in translation" and become inaccesible to progressing civilisation.

    And as you said many do not dare tamper with the sacred story despite the fact that doing so correctly would preserve and adapt the story to the modern era and make it accessible once again to people. They doubt themselves and their ability to do a "just" translation, to reform the analogy.

    Religions holding the text as unchangeable called any attempt by someone to resolve it an act of heresy and threatened their very safety and rightful place in society.

    But as we know science and alternative views of genesis of the universe and of ourselves exploded into existence despite religions best attempts to stifle it. A shame that such religions had the best intentions at heart but lead by a flaw that such truths can ever be preserved textually in an ever changing and dynamic linguistic environment they did a great deal of harm to scientific progress.

    Science now seems just as dogmatic as religions were when they reigned supreme. Believing science is the be all and end all interpretation of reality denies spirituality, denies belief in any abstraction, any idealism, any imagined beauty that doesn't exist as a physically observable object in the world that can be measured. This is rather disenchanting. And also ridiculous.

    The irony of course is that we know symbolic things (abstractions/ concepts/ beliefs) exist that aren't objectively "provable" by science - money for example is a belief system. An alien cannot take a paper note/bill and examine it with science to find the "value" if they didn't understand how humans use money. It only exists through demonstration. Not in objective isolation. The same goes for words and language, for theological beliefs and for ethics/ belief that other people's emotions and feelings exist and can be harmed.
  • Benj96
    2.3k
    Isn't this what Chirst did? If so, it means that he saw that there injustice in the world, which means he believed that His Father (as Son of God) was responsible for that injustice, did he? Because who created everything, including Man with a potential not only to be injust but also to kill his congeners?
    Carrying the sins of humanity on one's shoulders is carrying all the injustice and imperfections created by God.
    Alkis Piskas

    Yes you've made good points here. I believe jesus probably did see the universe - his creator as equal parts destructive/disordered/irrational and unjust and equal parts creative/orderly/logical and just. In that way his father was imperfect.

    But he chose to channel benevolence. I suspect enough was enough for him and he didn't want to observe foolish acts of injustice any longer if he had wisdom to prevent it.
    So he thus took upon himself the woes of the world knowing that he alone understood what would happen to him, he would reveal truth and understanding to others, and they would love him for it, and he would naturally gain popularity and tip the balance of power in his favour.

    Of course the courts and governments of the time would be raging at such a person being offered authority and power that had previously been offered to them. They would be jealous and envious and want him gone. He knew this of course because of the power of truth to confront itself with lies/immorality/deceit and manipulation all of which are sourced from the most unpalatable people.

    He thus demonstrated proof of his benevolence and thus his truth by being annihilated by his opponents, re-instilling in a skeptical, distrusting society the faith that there is a benevolent source of truth in the universe. But only can it exist in the form of an object - a man. Because most people have to "see it to believe it". Jesus on the other hand did not need to see it. He had pure faith from the beginning because the truth of the matter made sense to him. It was logical and ethical.
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k
    Where does this composite image of the god or God come from?Vera Mont
    Us! :smile:
    More precisely, those who have written the Old Testament --actually the Hebrew Bible-- which then was adopted by Judeo-Christians and the story has survived to our days as fairy tales have.

    (As for the rest of your post, I have already responded.)
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k
    He's been a wonderfully effective lever to move masses of gullible people into calamitous wars, as well as craven obedience.Vera Mont
    Yes, this is the other side of the story, which is more important, since it refers to the majority of people. My "uselessness" refers to the those who are not affected, who are the minority.
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k
    But he chose to channel benevolenceBenj96
    Yes, this is true. Buddha had chosen compassion. Quite similar. But I prefer Buddha's approach. Very "human", simple, direct, practical, no gods or even deities, etc. Christ, and the whole New Testament are very mystical and allow for a lot of interpretations, let aside the self-contraditions and other illogical elements it contains.

    he would reveal truth and understanding to others, and they would love him for it, and he would naturally gain popularity and tip the balance of power in his favour.Benj96
    These looks like attributes of a revolutionary and politically-oriented person. I have read in the (very) past a few texts with these views in mind. Even that he belonged to Zealots, who I think were also amed!

    Of course the courts and governments of the time would be raging at such a person being offered authority and power that had previously been offered to them.Benj96
    This is a view that may indeed well be more factual than the one presented in the New Testament. But, honestly, I don't care much! :smile:

    He had pure faith from the beginning because the truth of the matter made sense to him. It was logical and ethical."
    True.
    Benj96
  • Benj96
    2.3k
    Yes, this is true. Buddha had chosen compassion. Quite similar. But I prefer Buddha's approach. Very "human", simple, direct, practical, no gods or even deities, etc. Christ, and the whole New Testament are very mystical and allow for a lot of interpretations, let aside the self-contraditions and other illogical elements it contains.Alkis Piskas

    Quite right Alkis. Quite right. I think at the end of the day it doesn't matter what religion one pursues (if they wish to even coin themselves by any dogma at all) because beneath all religions or spiritualities seems to be a common ground. A sacred message about doing the right thing. Buddhism is attractive in that as you said it focuses less on living by strict rules and more about meditation, contemplation, self reflection or (as in abrahamic religions
    put it - prayer). That affords Buddhism flexibility - unlike its dogmatic counterparts.

    I believe Buddha reached his nirvana, his true inner peace, by letting go of his suffering, guilt and shame. By forgiving those who wronged him and by forgiving himself for what wrong he did against others knowing he didn't understand the true way to be, and thus allowing himself the chance to begin anew. Probably as jesus did. And Muhammad.

    These looks like attributes of a revolutionary and politically-oriented person. I have read in the (very) past a few texts with these views in mind. Even that he belonged to Zealots, who I think were also amed!Alkis Piskas

    Correct again. And how many of our greatest leaders even just within the last few centuries were a force to be reckoned with, inspiring the masses and being assassinated for it? Or at least attempted assassination.

    Did they all know the same thing? Were they all compelled by the same truth? I wonder.
  • Vera Mont
    4.2k
    My "uselessness" refers to the those who are not affected, who are the minority.Alkis Piskas

    I know. I don't have much use for deities, either. But I would not turn against them, nor deny access to them to people who need a spiritual reference in their lives - were it not for their intrusion into the social and political life which encompasses my life, the circumstances of my environment, my rights and freedoms and the well-being of other people for whom I have compassion.

    I think at the end of the day it doesn't matter what religion one pursues (if they wish to even coin themselves by any dogma at all) because beneath all religions or spiritualities seems to be a common ground. A sacred message about doing the right thing.Benj96
    Different cultural matrices evolve different spiritual bases for their collective morality. A collective morality is necessary for the survival of any social species - ask any meerkat or elephant. For humans, with the big brain, fertile imagination and constant awareness of imminent death, it's easier to devise and to enforce a moral code with the authority of a supernatural entity behind it. But even without a personification of righteousness, the code of right behaviour grows out of the geography and up with the history of a people.

    And how many of our greatest leaders even just within the last few centuries were a force to be reckoned with, inspiring the masses and being assassinated for it? Or at least attempted assassination.

    Did they all know the same thing? Were they all compelled by the same truth? I wonder.
    Benj96

    I would venture: no. I believe they were compelled by a conviction which seemed evident to them, and which they may even have held to be The Truth, but it's not the same one. The great leaders of some peoples are the monstrous enemies of other peoples. Without going *there*, I might just mention Civil War monuments.
    Whatever forgiveness a religious icon dispenses, it fails to eradicate the harm of the conflict he had caused in life, that continues on long after his death. Jesus and Muhammad both understood the trouble they were stirring up, but considered the risk acceptable for the eventual reward: a population united by faith. I don't know about the Buddha; he may have been wise enough to realize that couldn't happen; that he could only get them to behave individually.
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k
    I think at the end of the day it doesn't matter what religion one pursues (if they wish to even coin themselves by any dogma at all) because beneath all religions or spiritualities seems to be a common ground.Benj96
    I fully agree on and support religious freedom. Even if some people chose to "belong" to a religious denomination for other reasons than actually following it.
    However, not all religions are dogmatic. E.g. Buddhism is a practical, philosophical, non-dogmatic religion. Dogmatic religions are mainly the gig ones, such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, which are centered on their own image of God or deities. (Buddhism is also a big religion, but it does not belong in this category.)

    I believe Buddha reached his nirvana, his true inner peace, by letting go of his suffering, guilt and shame. By forgiving those who wronged him and by forgiving himself for what wrong he did against others knowing he didn't understand the true way to be, and thus allowing himself the chance to begin anew. Probably as jesus did. And Muhammad.Benj96
    Nicely said!
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k
    I don't have much use for deities, either. But I would not turn against them, nor deny access to them to people who need a spiritual reference in their livesVera Mont
    Certainly. This is the healthy way to address the subject. Religious freedom is very important. Ironically though, the Churches and the people belonging to dogmatic religions, are intolerant to other beliefs. Very bad. I would say that they have got it very wrong, if they had not adopted this attitude for political and other reasons irrelevant to religion! (Think for instance of religious wars, even within a same country, e.g. the Bosnian war in the end of the previous century.)
  • Vera Mont
    4.2k
    Ironically though, the Churches and the people belonging to dogmatic religions, are intolerant to other beliefs.Alkis Piskas

    It is necessary, in order to keep the established elite in power, for the rank and file to hold a rigid sense of their own rightness - and if possible, a sense of grievance against any person, group or idea that might either threaten to dethrone the entrenched elite or that can be used as scapegoats. Thus the RC vs Jews and heretics; the Anglican kings vs the papists; the Stalin regime vs reactionaries; the Repub... well, you know.
    We [western democracies] had a brief period in the prosperous 1960's and '70's during which a good deal of social progress was made, because the general conciliatory attitude among branches of Christianity, increasing secularization of institutions and laws, the spread of education, cultural and ethnic tolerance, and of course, the triumphs of science and rational thought.
    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.
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k
    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.
  • FrankGSterleJr
    94
    Scripture was written by human beings who unwittingly created God’s nature in their own fallible, typically angry and vengeful image – especially the part insisting, via publicized protest pickets, that God hates or condemns this or that group of people. Too many of today’s monotheists believe and/or vocally behave likewise.

    Maybe the general need for vengeance-is-mine retributive justice is intrinsically linked to the same terribly flawed aspect of humankind that enables the most horrible acts of violent cruelty to readily occur on this planet, perhaps not all of which we learn about.

    Much, if not most, of the plentiful violence committed by humankind is against God’s animals, their blood literally shed and bodies eaten in mind-boggling quantities by people. [It leaves me wondering whether the metaphorical forbidden fruit of Eden eaten by Adam and Eve was actually God’s four-legged creation.]
    I can see that really angering the Almighty – a lot more than the couple’s eating non-sentient, non-living, non-bloodied fruit. I’ve yet to hear a monotheist speak out against what has collectively been done to animals for so long.

    Albeit, there may be many monotheists who cannot help but feel hopelessness in a fire-and-brimstone angry-God-condemnation creator that requires literal pain-filled penance/payment for Man’s sinful thus corrupted behavior. (It’s somewhat like an angry father spanking his child, really).
  • Vera Mont
    4.2k
    Much, if not most, of the plentiful violence committed by humankind is against God’s animals, their blood literally shed and bodies eaten in mind-boggling quantities by people. [It leaves me wondering whether the metaphorical forbidden fruit of Eden eaten by Adam and Eve was actually God’s four-legged creation.]
    I can see that really angering the Almighty – a lot more than the couple’s eating non-sentient, non-living, non-bloodied fruit. I’ve yet to hear a monotheist speak out against what has collectively been done to animals for so long.
    FrankGSterleJr

    Not according to scripture as written in *that book*. God was perfectly all right with drowning all the animals, but one breeding pair of each, when He was miffed with the humans.
    And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.
    Then a few hundred years later, in Leviticus, He lays out a whole big list of what animal to kill for which minor transgression against Him.
    That god had no pity for animals - He just didn't want their blood eaten by people
    Leviticus 17:14 For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.
    but He wanted it sprinkled all over the altar and out on the ground.

    No, the killing, torture and extirpation of other species is not down to Jehovah... unless you consider him creator of the world, in which case he's the one who invented predation and parasitism.
    (Me, I prefer to blame blind, deaf, dumb, amoral nature that shoves a life form of some kind into every possible ecological niche.)
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k
    It is necessary, in order to keep the established elite in power, for the rank and file to hold a rigid sense of their own rightnessVera Mont
    Right. I/we have talked about that.

    Thus the RC vs Jews and heretics; the Anglican kings vs the papists; the Stalin regime vs reactionaries; the Repub... well, you know.Vera Mont
    Right. But hereses within a any system should not be tolerated. Otherwise, the system falls apart. However, in my country, the Orthodox Church calls "heresies" even Buddhists (!) and every significant minor religion that has nothing to do with Christianity. Aren't they totally nuts? I believe they have to call them as such, i.e. as if they are Christian schemes that deviate from the orthodox scheme (!), otherwise itm would seem as if they are provoking a religious war with every other religion!
    I have seen a very long list of heresies compiled by the Greek Othhodox Church in the past ... It included even Yoga! :grin:
    (Fortunately though, The Church is separated from the State in Greece a few years. This has reduced the power of the Church a great deal.)

    ...the triumphs of science and rational thoughtVera Mont
    Yes, at last! The war lasted for too long!
  • Vera Mont
    4.2k
    .[the triumphs of science and rational thought — Vera Mont]
    Yes, at last! The war lasted for too long!
    Alkis Piskas
    It's baaaack!
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k

    The war is back? In what way? Have I missed the news? :smile:
  • Gregory
    4.7k


    From your OP let me say I don't think God could change its nature but the question arises why injustice and suffering is necessary for us when they are not necessary for the God this world comes from and which is the archetype of everything
  • Vera Mont
    4.2k
    The war is back? In what way? Have I missed the news?Alkis Piskas

    You must have. Religious terrorism; systemic denial of scientific evidence; curtailment of human rights; racial strife; economic disparity; and of course... actual war.
    Other than that, we're just squabbling, polluting the landscape, spreading disease and accelerating climate change. IOW, BAU.
  • Alkis Piskas
    2.1k

    Thanks. Wow! That's a lot of homework!
  • PhilosophyRunner
    302
    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?ToothyMaw

    We would have to accept our ignorance and either give up, or look for another tool other than logic to analyses the statement.

    But this confusion comes from assigning a characteristic to God that I don't think you fully understand the consequences. What are the consequences of a being who can make contradiction true? I don't think you even understand such a scenario, nor do I, nor do I think anyone does. I'm not sure you, or I, are fully capable of understanding a world in which a contradiction are true.
  • PhilosophyRunner
    302
    The issue I have with logical arguments about a omnipotent/omniscient/can make contradictions true God can be seen using an (imperfect) analogy.

    I have a being locked in a room. He has real magical superpowers and can make anything happen. I will argue he can't escape.

    -The room has walls that are so thick it is impossible to escape
    -The door is secure in a way that it can never be opened
    -There are no windows
    -There is no other escape route

    Therefore the being cannot escape.

    Have I proved my case? No of course not! For a normal human, sure if the above is true then he is not escaping. For a magical being with superpowers who can make anything happen? He can make anything happen, so of course he can still escape!

    And he can escape not only any physical cage I put him in, but also any logical cage. For he can do anything - I have said so myself!

    You can't attribute a being with all encompassing superpowers and then ignore the consequences of those superpowers.
  • Vera Mont
    4.2k
    Thanks. Wow! That's a lot of homework!Alkis Piskas

    Not so impressive - routine research for an unrelated project.

    The issue I have with logical arguments about a omnipotent/omniscient/can make contradictions true God can be seen using an (imperfect) analogy.PhilosophyRunner
    Yes. The Christians did themselves a great disservice when they promoted their god right up out of all probability. Are you familiar with the Peter Principle? Might be a bit outdated now...
    people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence":
    Jehovah made sense as a local tribal god, like Thor; his magic was restricted to slinging frogs and burning bushes. Then Jesus came along, casting out demons, curing leprosy and shoving God up into the Kingdom of Heaven. Then Constantine set about imposing him on all the subject peoples of the Roman Empire, which meant rolling all the characteristics of their local gods into the RC's one big god (no wonder he split into three!)
    Arrives the age of reason; science keeps making the world larger and more comprehensible, and God has to be pushed farther and farther out into space and given more and more improbable attributes to keep him in power - until he makes no sense at all, except to the uncritical non-thinking believer. (Of which there are still plenty, so God is secure for a little while longer.)
  • ToothyMaw
    1.3k
    But this confusion comes from assigning a characteristic to God that I don't think you fully understand the consequences. What are the consequences of a being who can make contradiction true? I don't think you even understand such a scenario, nor do I, nor do I think anyone does. I'm not sure you, or I, are fully capable of understanding a world in which a contradiction are true.PhilosophyRunner

    Yeah, I admit I don't understand it. If God made a contradiction true wouldn't the principle of explosion follow? Or would it just mean that logic still works apart from some localized contradiction?

    I suppose we could always revert to some paraconsistent logic and give up disjunctive introductions and/or disjunctive syllogisms or whatever.

    But God could mess that up too somehow, probably.

    The issue I have with logical arguments about a omnipotent/omniscient/can make contradictions true God can be seen using an (imperfect) analogy.

    I have a being locked in a room. He has real magical superpowers and can make anything happen. I will argue he can't escape.

    -The room has walls that are so thick it is impossible to escape
    -The door is secure in a way that it can never be opened
    -There are no windows
    -There is no other escape route

    Therefore the being cannot escape.

    Have I proved my case? No of course not! For a normal human, sure if the above is true then he is not escaping. For a magical being with superpowers who can make anything happen? He can make anything happen, so of course he can still escape!

    And he can escape not only any physical cage I put him in, but also any logical cage. For he can do anything - I have said so myself!
    PhilosophyRunner

    Yes, I see your point, but consider this:

    If all you see is a world in which injustice is ubiquitous, and know that a being could arrange the world in such a way that people get what they deserve, then is that being not responsible for the human element of that inconsistency?

    You would say, presumably, that God could either have a superior understanding of justice or could just magically make it true that people get what they deserve. After all, if God is all-powerful, why wouldn't the world bend to his will? And why wouldn't his omniscience allow him superior insight? Or maybe we must be getting what we deserve if God allows us to suffer injustice.

    If God is magically making it the case that everyone gets what they deserve, then why is there no consistency among those who commit similar acts? Justice is blind, as they say, and murder, for instance, is murder, no matter who perpetrates it. What confounding factors could explain the inconsistency in what people receive for committing the same good or bad acts?

    Furthermore, in a just world there could be no differences in justice across irrelevant characteristics - and we reliably find that there are. I don't feel like giving any examples.

    So, when you consider merely the lack of consistency, and not the actual punishments or positive treatment people receive, you find that God must not have arranged the world in such a way as to be just - regardless of what people actually do or don't deserve according to whatever superior understanding of justice God has.

    edit: or justice never existed, so God must be unjust according to my definition
    edit2: but it would be trivial

    edit3: I suppose God could be a racist and make it true that people of color should be treated worse than Jewish people or something, but that sounds ridiculous. I mean, it would be an out if he accidentally bungled justice and humanity, but what kind of God would fuck up that bad.
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Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.