The definition of god is of a being that is perfect in every way. All knowing all good all powerful. Perfect in all aspects. — kindred

Cool. The next question that you have to ask yourself is whether such a God can create another God.

And that is a problem. You are not critical of your own beliefs. It seems you are here to tell us what you believe, but not to listen or think about things in a new way. Not to do philosophy.

Challenge yourself. — Banno

I am critical of my beliefs. I thought you could find a problem with my belief.

I think, BC, that this question reveals an even more disturbing question- what kind of god wants his creations to suffer? — schopenhauer1

A God who wants evolution in life. Suffering is an inseparable feature of life, without it we don't learn many things, and without it we don't evolve.

A God who wants evolution in life. Suffering is an inseparable feature of life, without it we don't learn many things, and without it we don't evolve. — MoK

Do you think that this 'evolution' has an 'end'? Or is endless?

Yes, suffering can teach many things but I would hope that life is not an inseparable feature of life. Why should I want to suffer if I have no chance to somehow find an escape from it?

What if, something like Christian universalism is true? Do you think that in this case suffering is still unacceptable if God exists? — boundless

So to answer the question, yes I it would be.. Here is my reasoning:

Contention: An all knowing, all perfect being would be nowhere near anything like the characteristics like a human. He wouldn't be a petty self-absorbed, narcissistic, sadistic tyrant-spectator-king. He wouldn't be curious. He wouldn't be like a teenage genius game designer who wants to see how his game plays out, not knowing the tiny variations, but understanding the overall outcome.

So there is a well-established tradition since at least the time of Judaism around the Greco-Roman era (300 BCE- 600 CE) that God (that is to say Israel's deity, the one and only) created Man as a sort of experiment in how a free-willed entity would act if given the choice, and not the certainty of knowing God and his Will. This article explains it well, and I highly recommend reading all of it to get the sense of the main beliefs and debates surrounding it:

The belief in free will (Hebrew: bechirah chofshit בחירה חפשית, bechirah בחירה) is axiomatic in Jewish thought, and is closely linked with the concept of reward and punishment, based on the Torah itself: "I [God] have set before you life and death, blessing and curse: therefore choose life" (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Free will is therefore discussed at length in Jewish philosophy, firstly as regards God's purpose in creation, and secondly as regards the closely related, resultant, paradox. The topic is also often discussed in connection with negative theology, divine simplicity and divine providence, as well as Jewish principles of faith in general.

Free will and creation
According to the Mishnah, "This world is like a vestibule before the World to Come".[151] According to an 18th-century rabbinic work, "Man was created for the sole purpose of rejoicing in God, and deriving pleasure from the splendor of His Presence... The place where this joy may truly be derived is the World to Come, which was expressly created to provide for it; but the path to the object of our desires is this world..."[152] Free will is thus required by God's justice, "otherwise, Man would not be given or denied good for actions over which he had no control".[153]

It is further understood that in order for Man to have true free choice, he must not only have inner free will, but also an environment in which a choice between obedience and disobedience exists. God thus created the world such that both good and evil can operate freely, this is the meaning of the rabbinic maxim, "All is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven".[154]

According to Maimonides,

Free will is granted to every man. If he desires to incline towards the good way and be righteous, he has the power to do so; and if he desires to incline towards the unrighteous way and be a wicked man, he also has the power to do so. Give no place in your minds to that which is asserted by many of the ignorant: namely that the Holy One, blessed be He, decrees that a man from his birth should be either righteous or wicked. Since the power of doing good or evil is in our own hands, and since all the wicked deeds which we have committed have been committed with our full consciousness, it befits us to turn in penitence and to forsake our evil deed.[155]

The paradox of free will

In rabbinic literature, there is much discussion as to the apparent contradiction between God's omniscience and free will. The representative view is that "Everything is foreseen; yet free will is given" (Pirkei Avot 3:15). Based on this understanding, the problem is formally described as a paradox, beyond our understanding.

The Holy One, Blessed Be He, knows everything that will happen before it has happened. So does He know whether a particular person will be righteous or wicked, or not? If He does know, then it will be impossible for that person not to be righteous. If He knows that he will be righteous but that it is possible for him to be wicked, then He does not know everything that He has created. ...[T]he Holy One, Blessed Be He, does not have any temperaments and is outside such realms, unlike people, whose selves and temperaments are two separate things. God and His temperaments are one, and God's existence is beyond the comprehension of Man... [Thus] we do not have the capabilities to comprehend how the Holy One, Blessed Be He, knows all creations and events. [Nevertheless] know without doubt that people do what they want without the Holy One, Blessed Be He, forcing or decreeing upon them to do so... It has been said because of this that a man is judged according to all his actions.[156]

The paradox is explained, but not resolved, by observing that God exists outside of time, and therefore, his knowledge of the future is exactly the same as his knowledge of the past and present. Just as his knowledge of the past does not interfere with man's free will, neither does his knowledge of the future.[153] This distinction, between foreknowledge and predestination, is in fact discussed by Abraham ibn Daud.

One analogy here is that of time travel. The time traveller, having returned from the future, knows in advance what x will do, but while he knows what x will do, that knowledge does not cause x to do so: x had free will, even while the time traveller had foreknowledge.[157] One objection raised against this analogy – and ibn Daud's distinction – is that if x truly has free will, he may choose to act otherwise when the event in question comes to pass, and therefore the time traveller (or God) merely has knowledge of a possible event: even having seen the event, there is no way to know with certainty what x will do; see the view of Gersonides below. Further, the presence of the time traveller, may have had some chaotic effect on x's circumstances and choice, absent when the event comes to pass in the present.)

In line with this, the teaching from Pirkei Avot quoted above, can be read as: "Everything is observed (while - and no matter where - it happens), and (since the actor is unaware of being observed) free will is given".[158]

Alternate approaches

Although the above discussion of the paradox represents the majority rabbinic view, there are several major thinkers who resolve the issue by explicitly excluding human action from divine foreknowledge.

Both Saadia Gaon and Judah ha-Levi hold that "the decisions of man precede God's knowledge".[159]
Gersonides holds that God knows, beforehand, the choices open to each individual, but does not know which choice the individual, in his freedom, will make.[160]
Isaiah Horowitz takes the view that God cannot know which moral choices people will make, but that, nevertheless, this does not impair his perfection; it is as if one's actions cause one of the many possibilities that existed then to have become known, but only once chosen.[161]
Rabbi Mordechai Yosef Leiner holds perhaps the most controversial view: apparently denying that man has free will, and that instead all is determined by God.

Kabbalistic thought

The existence of free will, and the paradox above (as addressed by either approach), is closely linked to the concept of Tzimtzum. Tzimtzum entails the idea that God "constricted" his infinite essence, to allow for the existence of a "conceptual space" in which a finite, independent world could exist. This "constriction" made free will possible, and hence the potential to earn the World to Come.

Further, according to the first approach, it is understood that the Free-will Omniscience paradox provides a temporal parallel to the paradox inherent within Tzimtzum. In granting free will, God has somehow "constricted" his foreknowledge, to allow for Man's independent action; He thus has foreknowledge and yet free will exists. In the case of Tzimtzum, God has "constricted" his essence to allow for Man's ndependent action; He thus has foreknowledge and yet free will exists. In the case of Tzimtzum, God has "constricted" his essence to allow for Man's independent existence; He is thus immanent and yet transcendent and yet independent existence; He is thus immanent and yet transcendent. — Free Will Judaism Wiki

So, with all that being said.. We have a pretty good outline of what is going on here in the theological conception..

God is a curious designer type who sort of poses an experiment to himself. What would it be like to have entities that have to make "the right choices"? Presumably, if we are being REALLY charitable and include Kabbalistic thought [which came much later in history versus the orthodox religious claims of it being as old as the Torah, etc.], what this means is that godliness is in doing the commandments. They are like holy sparks to be revealed by playing out the commandments set out by God. The commandments are the written words along with all the oral traditions surrounding it (which is akin to following all the laws of a written Constitution and all the judicial interpretations surrounding its application). Thus keeping kosher, following the 10 commandments, keeping the sabbath holy by not working, etc. and doing it in correct fashion are revealing the sparks. No doubt, worshiping god through prayer or sacrifice is also part of this, especially at defined parts of the year. Sin would be straying from the knowledge and practice of the written and oral commandments. It is tempting to not follow these, as it is the easier route, but it isn't what God wants..

[Now mind you this is for a Jewish framework. This can easily be reconfigured for the supercessionist Christian framework whereby the "Old Covenant/Testament" of the Law (written and/or oral) is thrown out and the New Covenant of Jesus' sacrifice and belief in his death and resurrection and his teachings (along with whatever variation of church doctrine/theology) is what God wants.. I am just keeping with the OG Jewish conception, as it is well-laid out and makes the same point for both]

Here's the thing, even with ALL of these considerations that God wants to see these "lower realm" creations that do not "know God" make the right choices and "reveal" him through praxis (divine actions elevating the lower realms to God), even with all the fancy theological and ideas of Biblical, Post-Biblical (Talmudic), and Kabbalistic thought, still boil down to a very human like quality that does not pass this initial contention:

Contention: An all knowing, all perfect being would be nowhere near anything like the characteristics like a human. He wouldn't be a petty self-absorbed, narcissistic, sadistic tyrant-spectator-king. He wouldn't be curious. He wouldn't be like a teenage genius game designer who wants to see how his game plays out, not knowing the tiny variations, but understanding the overall outcome.

That is to say, God is STILL suspiciously all too human. He wants suffering so that "holiness" (himself basically in material form) can be revealed to his own creation. It reads too much like a game designer that wants to see his cool creation play out. It is especially odd when adding in elements like "reward and punishment" for these players.. wiping people out, condemning them, exiling them, cursing them, rebuking them.. etc. etc. This seems again all too human...To WANT punishment and reward, let alone meeting it out as divine dispensation. YOU get the World to Come, YOU get the World to Come, not YOU though.. The little creations ENDURE the negatives, because I'm curious to see how you overcome them... All too human. Obstacle course for the piddling creations. A game. Is it divine boredom then? Does BOREDOM, yet again rear its ugly head?

Mainlander has a darker version of this. The boredom leads to creation, but not so that it plays out in some game-like fashion, but because of a sort of the need to break out of its own boring unity.. He had to individuate himself to carry out a sort of suicide, akin to the "Heat Death of the Universe". Oddly, the ideas of entropy play much more into that notion.

Despite his scientific means of explanation, Mainländer was not afraid to philosophize in allegorical terms. Formulating his own "myth of creation", Mainländer equated this initial singularity with God.

Mainländer reinterprets Schopenhauer's metaphysics in two important aspects. Primarily, in Mainländer's system there is no "singular will". The basic unity has broken apart into individual wills and each subject in existence possesses an individual will of his own. Because of this, Mainländer can claim that once an "individual will" is silenced and dies, it achieves absolute nothingness and not the relative nothingness we find in Schopenhauer. By recognizing death as salvation and by giving nothingness an absolute quality, Mainländer's system manages to offer "wider" means for redemption. Secondarily, Mainländer reinterprets the Schopenhauerian will-to-live as an underlying will-to-die, i.e. the will-to-live is the means towards the will-to-die.[16] — Mainlander

Oh meant to add @Banno to the above too.

Do you think that this 'evolution' has an 'end'? Or is endless? — boundless

It depends on what the state of perfection is. If the state of perfection is boundless we will ever suffer. If the state of perfection is bounded then we will soon find peace.

Yes, suffering can teach many things but I would hope that life is not an inseparable feature of life. — boundless

Fortunately or unfortunately, suffering is an inseparable feature of life! Fortunately, because we have a way to evolve. Unfortunately, because we have to suffer.

Why should I want to suffer if I have no chance to somehow find an escape from it? — boundless

You need to get enlightened if you want to reach a state of relative peace.

Anyway, as I said, I was presenting Spinoza's thought (as I understood it). I was actually a Spinozist in 2011-2013, but now my views are quite different. For instance I am neither convinced by his metaphysics (especially I quite disagree with his complete denial of any kind of free will) nor by his convinction that philosophy is 'liberating'. I do find his views fascinating and they did left a strong impression in me. — boundless

That is of interest to me. Especially because, on this forum, the harshest critic of my personal worldview, Enformationism, also claims to be a Spinozist. I wouldn't call myself a Spinozist, since I only know of his ideas via second hand accounts. I told him (the critic) that my philosophical world model is, like Spinoza's, more akin to Science than Religion, but it also assumes that cosmic Evolution is not aimless & accidental, but governed & directed by logical/mathematical internally-coded laws similar to a computer program.

I know nothing of the implicit lawmaker/mathematician/programmer --- or He/r telos --- but I like Plato's notion of Logos as a label for the ordering principle of the universe. Apparently, even such a non-theological notion as Logos or First Cause or Prime Mover is too close to his despised Catholic dogma for his comfort. And any intimation of transcendence (i.e. pre-big-bang) offends his Immanentist beliefs.

Since at least one species of gradually evolved creatures has developed a somewhat objective & rational understanding of world events, I conclude that A> the ability to stand outside our emotion-driven animal nature, and B> the power to generate unique personal ideas (abstract representations, images, models, goals) of our own, allows us to become local centers of Will within the universal "Willpower" (motive force) of the universal thermodynamic system, otherwise dominated by destructive Entropy. Which, in effect, makes us humans the "little gods" of the world. Hence, we have begun to create sub-human creatures of our own, such as complex machines and artificial intelligence, that execute the will of their programmers.

How do you think Spinoza would judge such a 21st century update of his own 17th century worldview? :smile:

Enformationism :
A philosophical worldview or belief system grounded on the 20th century discovery that Information, rather than Matter, is the fundamental substance of everything in the universe. It is intended to be the 21st century successor to the ancient worldviews of Materialism and Idealism. An Update from Bronze Age to Information Age. It's also a Theory-of-Everything that covers, not just matter & energy, but also Life & Mind & Love.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

Enformy :
In the Enformationism thesis, Enformy is a hypothetical, holistic, metaphysical, natural trend or force, that counteracts Entropy & Randomness to produce complexity & progress. Physicists inappropriately labeled that positive force as "Negentropy".
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

Thanks for the response. I'll answer you tomorrow.

It depends on what the state of perfection is. If the state of perfection is boundless we will ever suffer. If the state of perfection is bounded then we will soon find peace. — MoK

I don't think that it is necessary that a 'boundless' state of perfection contains suffering. But IMO, why seek it if suffering is literally endless? Seeking an end to suffering seems to be the most natural thing to seek (even if it would be impossible).

Fortunately or unfortunately, suffering is an inseparable feature of life! Fortunately, because we have a way to evolve. Unfortunately, because we have to suffer. — MoK

I see your point, but IMO everyone desires to be from suffering in a very intimate level. Why should I seek a state of perfection if I will still suffer?

I saw your response as I was typing. I'll answer tomorrow to you too!

Fortunately or unfortunately, suffering is an inseparable feature of life! Fortunately, because we have a way to evolve. Unfortunately, because we have to suffer. — MoK

I don' know if your use of "evolve" is meant to refer to biological evolution, but if so, no we as individuals don't evolve. Species evolve.

So do you think it is the case that we simple aren't the species that God wants, and God is waiting for some species to come, and doesn't care about the suffering it takes to get there?

I read your long post twice and here you can find my response to it: I think it would be fruitful to discuss the idea of God in the first place since I don't believe in the concept of Jewish God that for example has foreknowledge. Apart from the paradox (the paradox that our fates are fixed) you mentioned there is another paradox that I can summarize in the following. Let's assume that I meet God in Heaven face to face and I can ask questions to God. I can simply challenge God's foreknowledge by asking a simple question of whether I am going to do a certain act. If God answers that I am not going to do then the question is whether I can do the opposite or not. If I cannot then I am not a free agent which is problematic. If I can then God does not have foreknowledge. That is one problem aside: God does not have foreknowledge. The second problem is related to the fact whether God can create God or not. It is against wisdom if God can create God but wouldn't create God, instead creating creatures who must undergo all sorts of troubles and sufferings. Therefore, I believe that God cannot create God therefore the creation, like it or not, looks like the things that it is, people suffering but evolving, and people do wrong so they get punished... So here we are involved in something people call life, like or or not, we have to play it out.

I don't think that it is necessary that a 'boundless' state of perfection contains suffering. But IMO, why seek it if suffering is literally endless? Seeking an end to suffering seems to be the most natural thing to seek (even if it would be impossible). — boundless

Well, that is unfortunately not completely up to us. If perfection is boundless then we suffer eternally since we cannot possibly achieve it. If perfection is bounded then we can achieve it hence there will be an end to our sufferings.

I see your point, but IMO everyone desires to be from suffering in a very intimate level. Why should I seek a state of perfection if I will still suffer? — boundless

Well, if we achieve perfection we won't suffer anymore. That is the goal of our lives!

I don' know if your use of "evolve" is meant to refer to biological evolution, but if so, no we as individuals don't evolve. Species evolve. — wonderer1

By evolve I mean both spiritual growth and evolution which only occur in species.

So do you think it is the case that we simple aren't the species that God wants, and God is waiting for some species to come, and doesn't care about the suffering it takes to get there? — wonderer1

I think humans can enlighten so we can reach a state of harmony and relative peace if each individual puts into practice to achieve enlightenment. I think that humans are subject to further evolution as well. I also think that God cares about the level of suffering that we receive. Too much suffering can lead to the extinction of humans. We won't evolve further if the suffering does not exist at all. So suffering should be in the right proportion.

One baked-in element of God is His moral correctness and the source of ethical and moral truths. We would have to be wrong on (in fairness..) almost every conception of a personal God, and most others too. The entire point of God is to provide an ethically-inarguable framework. The subsequent discussion/revision/updating of those frameworks speaks to the nonsenseness of religion, imo.

Is something good because the gods will it or the gods will it because it’s good? — schopenhauer1

In my view, this discussion (Euthyphro, Liebniz) is fundamentally erroneous. We have the texts. Either see to the texts (which in Judeo-Christiandom are extremely clear - God dictates ethical truth, not recognises it) or accept that they are not foundational texts. I don't really understand why one would ask the question, unless you're seriously considering a supernatural God and want to square your discomfort with that position. In that case, navigating one's discomfort might be required to live a fulfilling life, but it clearly flies in the face of the texts.

That is to say, God is STILL suspiciously all too human. He wants suffering so that "holiness" (himself basically in material form) can be revealed to his own creation. It reads too much like a game designer that wants to see his cool creation play out. It is especially odd when adding in elements like "reward and punishment" for these players.. wiping people out, condemning them, exiling them, cursing them, rebuking them.. etc. etc. This seems again all too human...To WANT punishment and reward, let alone meeting it out as divine dispensation. YOU get the World to Come, YOU get the World to Come, not YOU though.. The little creations ENDURE the negatives, because I'm curious to see how you overcome them... All too human. Obstacle course for the piddling creations. A game. Is it divine boredom then? Does BOREDOM, yet again rear its ugly head? — schopenhauer1

Fair enough. A comprehensive series of accounts. Boredom seems as good a reason as any. Perhaps a desire to share boredom and to see what ridiculous things creatures will do to distract themselves.

Then of course there is the idea that our flawed universe is the product of a Demiurge. The Gnostic accounts suggests a creature of some malignancy.

I have never read an account of god which makes much sense to me or one which resonates. Which is why I think belief in god is a bit like a preference or predisposition, not unlike sexual attraction. You can't help what ideas you are attracted to. The reasoning and justifications come later. For me the god hypothesis doesn't offer anything useful when it comes to sense making.

As an aside, god has no explanatory power - we don't actually know why or how creation was made or to what extent god has any control over creation or, in fact, how many gods there might be. We don't know if god is good or to what extent they care. The events on earth suggest a negligible commitment to the welfare and happiness of creatures.

Is god good? Is god love as many believe? The idea that god is good seems to come from the fan fiction and just because an old book says a thing, doesn't mean would believe it.

The events on earth suggest a negligible commitment to the welfare and happiness of creatures. — Tom Storm

As noted earlier though, if any personal God is 'true', we are wrong to think this way. We are simply not listening.

We disagree on this.

Fair enough!

@Schopenhauer1 I was awakened in the middle of last night by a train of thought passing near my bed on a rarely used track.

My preferred claim for the nature of God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

There is another contrary claim about God that deletes the "omni" prefixes, leaving God with only some power, some knowledge, and some, limited, presence. This God is still a creator, but not the manager of the expanding universe. This God is profoundly loving, but doesn't have perpetual patience and isn't above getting very angry with us paragons of animals, us crowns of creation, and smiting us when He just can't stand us any longer. The ultimate expression of this very loving God is that He became man in Christ. God ceased being God.

This theogony hasn't been very popular, because among other things, if God isn't God anymore, Who is in charge and to Whom have we been praying to for the last 2000 years? What about the Holy Ghost? Is the Holy Ghost the ghost of God, hovers over the world?

So, God didn't create a perfect world. Apparently, it wasn't clear to God that all the things that could go haywire in creation definitely would, and they definitely have. We paragons of animals, we crowns of creation don't perform all that well, either. From the POV of God we probably come off as ungrateful hateful fbastards. Not only do we suffer, we are the authors of a lot of our own suffering. God probably didn't foresee the unbridled growth of cancer cells which causes suffering, and evidently didn't see any problem with running the urethra through the prostate which eventually swells up and causes all sorts of annoying problems. That's for men. For women he unwisely made the urethra so short they get UTIs easily causing more suffering.

At least God foresaw the futility of plants and animals that reproduce but don't die. The world would have long ago suffocated itself under the weight of it all. So death and rot was absolutely necessary. Good call on that one, God! Maybe death could have operated differently -- like after 50, 60, 70, or 80 years--whatever--we would just drop dead. Splat! Healthy up to end, then dead. God decided to let nature, such as it is, keep things under control over the long run. Nature has, and--paragons of animals take note--will keep things under control. If fossil fuel companies heat the planet up too much, then one of the species that will be weeded out will be ourselves, and many others too. Nature plays a very long game and our esteemed species becoming extinct is conveniently doable! God has almost certainly rethought the advisability of granting great intelligence to primates.

Eventually this train of thought moved on, out of sight and earshot.

You remind me of a philosophical David Sedaris :rofl: . Witty, yet insightful. Here's a more recent article of his from The Atlantic: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/06/17/notes-on-a-last-minute-safari

There is another contrary claim about God that deletes the "omni" prefixes, leaving God with only some power, some knowledge, and some, limited, presence. This God is still a creator, but not the manager of the expanding universe. This God is profoundly loving, but doesn't have perpetual patience and isn't above getting very angry with us paragons of animals, us crowns of creation, and smiting us when He just can't stand us any longer. The ultimate expression of this very loving God is that He became man in Christ. God ceased being God. — BC

A god with out the "omni" oof. This is indeed a very human god, and I guess we are created "In his image". An imperfect god is one you don't want to fuck with, because like a petulant child-king, he has an ego that gets pissed if you don't recognize him and play his game. Take your pick: cursed, damned, exiled, obliterated. I know we've had this one posted before but apt:

Fair enough. A comprehensive series of accounts. Boredom seems as good a reason as any. Perhaps a desire to share boredom and to see what ridiculous things creatures will do to distract themselves. — Tom Storm

The darker version of this is Mainlander's god:

Mainländer was confident that the Will-to-die he believed would well up in humanity had been spiritually grafted into us by a God who, in the beginning, masterminded His own quietus. It seems that existence was a horror to God. Unfortunately, God was impervious to the depredations of time. This being so, His only means to get free of Himself was by a divine form of suicide.

God’s plan to suicide himself could not work, though, as long as He existed as a unified entity outside of space-time and matter. Seeking to nullify His oneness so that He could be delivered into nothingness, he shattered Himself—Big Bang-like—into the time-bound fragments of the universe, that is, all those objects and organisms that have been accumulating here and there for billions of years. In Mainländer’s philosophy, “God knew that he could change from a state of super-reality into non-being only through the development of a real world of multiformity.” Employing this strategy, He excluded Himself from being. “God is dead,” wrote Mainländer, “and His death was the life of the world.” Once the great individuation had been initiated, the momentum of its creator’s self-annihilation would continue until everything became exhausted by its own existence, which for human beings meant that the faster they learned that happiness was not as good as they thought it would be, the happier they would be to die out.

Rather than resist our end, as Mainländer concludes, we will come to see that “the knowledge that life is worthless is the flower of all human wisdom.” Elsewhere the philosopher states, “Life is hell, and the sweet still night of absolute death is the annihilation of hell.” — Ligotti

You can't help what ideas you are attracted to. The reasoning and justifications come later. For me the god hypothesis doesn't offer anything useful when it comes to sense making. — Tom Storm

But perhaps most notions of god are actually like a meme or mind virus with inbuilt mechanisms. If you convince people that god will CURSE or DAMN YOU, it would be harder for you to resist in talking bad on him.

As an aside, god has no explanatory power - we don't actually know why or how creation was made or to what extent god has any control over creation or, in fact, how many gods there might be. We don't know if god is good or to what extent they care. The events on earth suggest a negligible commitment to the welfare and happiness of creatures.

Is god good? Is god love as many believe? The idea that god is good seems to come from the fan fiction and just because an old book says a thing, doesn't mean would believe it. — Tom Storm

Fan fiction is a great label for it.

I've liked David Sedaris ever since I heard his story about being a Christmas elf at Macy's, which includes his rendition of "I'd love to be an Oscar Meyer Wiener" in the style of Billy Holliday. I used to like George Carlin, and some of his bits really are good -- his "just happens to be" piece is funny and on target. I tend to avoid him now (he being dead and all).

The idea of a god who is not all powerful, who sacrificed himself to become Jesus, who in turn was sacrificed as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, belongs to a respectable theologian whose work I read and whose book title and name I can't remember.

I do like to write with some levity and in a jokey way. I'm not trying to make my "thought" more accessible -- I'm expressing an idea which includes the advisory that we should not take all this stuff too seriously.

I don't know whether I believe in god -- omnipotent, hairy thunderer, or cosmic muffin -- or not. Most years not, some days yes. The family and institutional programming we receive early on is generally hard to overwrite. So, I used to like to read theology (a limited sample, anyway, mostly very liberal stuff). I haven't read any for maybe 20 years. Is there a Theology Anonymous group? I could get a 20 year pin.

we should not take all this stuff too seriously — BC

ding ding ding ding ding ding.

is generally hard to overwrite — BC

Seems so, but I've always found this claim dubious. I think it's hard to accept that your view needs rewriting. I don't think rewriting it is difficult (scary, though).

Whatever we are doing, thank heavens it works.

:naughty:

, @BC,

I am not sure how this response relates to Christian Universalism. Please, do not get me wrong, it was a very interesting. The first part was very informative about the Jewish background.
But, as I said, I am not sure how is relevant to Christian Universalism. Did you intend to show that it is inconsistent as a view?*

That is to say, God is STILL suspiciously all too human. He wants suffering so that "holiness" (himself basically in material form) can be revealed to his own creation. It reads too much like a game designer that wants to see his cool creation play out. It is especially odd when adding in elements like "reward and punishment" for these players.. wiping people out, condemning them, exiling them, cursing them, rebuking them.. etc. etc. This seems again all too human...To WANT punishment and reward, let alone meeting it out as divine dispensation. YOU get the World to Come, YOU get the World to Come, not YOU though.. The little creations ENDURE the negatives, because I'm curious to see how you overcome them... All too human. Obstacle course for the piddling creations. A game. Is it divine boredom then? Does BOREDOM, yet again rear its ugly head? — schopenhauer1

I see, but note that Christian Universalism has a quite peculiar 'take' on this. As I understand it, these thinkers see the whole history as a sort of educative process and the whole creation is seen as a pure act of love. Punishments are not seen as retributive but as remedial, educative, purifying, i.e. a corrective punishments. So, the suffering that human beings endure is seen as having a purpose, a particular aim.
Also, human beings are rational creatures and choose what they think is good for them. The 'corrective punishments' are, as far as I understand, seen as a way to learn what is really good for them (i.e. that God is what is really good).
Considering that the aim is an 'eternal blessedness' and that we finite creatures cannot have it by our own efforts and merits, according to these christians (on this point they agree with the traditional view), suffering, endurance etc have all an ultimately good purpose for all human beings (although the 'corrections' can be very long, hard etc according to them). Also, in my understanding, they see Jesus' (and therefore God's) own suffering as a necessary step for salvation.

Of course, I guess that you can retort that God may have chosen to create human beings in an even different way, where even these corrections are not necessary. But, again, how can we know that it is even possible to do that?

Finally, regarding the whole thing being being 'all to human', I don't know. On the one hand, I do understand why you would think so. On the other hand, I think that, after all, if one accepts a Personal God, the relation between he/she and God must have some kind of analogy with the relation with another human being. So, the spiritual 'journey' and the relation between humans and God might necessarily be framed in an apparently 'too human' way in order to be useful to humans.

*Regarding this point, as an aside, I think that the universalist position can be argued for from a scriptural basis (again, I am saying this because I am not sure if your point was that the universalist view is completely incompatible with the Bible). For instance, 1 Timothy 2:1-6 and 2 Peter 3:9 say that God 'wants all people to be saved' and does not want 'anyone to perish, but everyone come to repentance'. If one assumes that God's will will be realized, these two passages support the universalist view. Of course, for instance, the Catholic view accepts the eternal hell doctrine, despite agreeing that God doesnt want anyone to perish (e.g. here) - I cannot see how this wish can be realized if the fate of human beings is 'sealed' at the end of this brief earthly life (after all, putting such a brief time limit seems to me quite an obstacle to that wish, especially when we consider that during this life our knowledge is limited, as Saint Paul says).
But, again, this is not a discussion forum about Christianity and I think I'll end my digression here.

Mainlander has a darker version of this. The boredom leads to creation, but not so that it plays out in some game-like fashion, but because of a sort of the need to break out of its own boring unity.. He had to individuate himself to carry out a sort of suicide, akin to the "Heat Death of the Universe". Oddly, the ideas of entropy play much more into that notion. — schopenhauer1

Well, I have no arguments against this view. If suffering is intrinsic to any kinds of 'existence', clearly seeking a total end to suffering leads to an end of existence. But, honestly, while I can agree that it can be argued for, I think in us there is also a deep desire, a deep hope that existence is not so meaningless, that suffering is not so intrinsic to existence etc... now it would be quite a paradoxical desire/hope if the best we can desire/hope is pure non-existence (while the desire/hope itself is also an intimate hope to be 'free from' death). Of course, I reckon that this is not a compelling philosophical argument, but our existence would be very absurd if the best we can hope is non-existence. (BTW, I do respect philosophical pessimism. I agree, for instance, with Schopenhauer's view that a true satisfaction/happiness cannot be achieved by seeking satisfaction in the 'pleasures of the world'. But IMO it is incomplete...also, it could be argued that Schopenhauer's pessimism doesn't invalidate the hope that we can transcend suffering - after all, in the Part IV of the World as Will and Representation, he does argue for that, albeit in a bleak way. Mainlander's pessimism, on the other hand, simply leaves no room for any kind of 'freedom from suffering' that is not non-existence as I understand it. He is more radical than Schopenhauer)

There is another contrary claim about God that deletes the "omni" prefixes, leaving God with only some power, some knowledge, and some, limited, presence. This God is still a creator, but not the manager of the expanding universe. This God is profoundly loving, but doesn't have perpetual patience and isn't above getting very angry with us paragons of animals, us crowns of creation, and smiting us when He just can't stand us any longer. — BC

I think that this view would, in a way, solve many philosophical conundrums of the traditional picture of God. For instance, if God is not omniscent and not omnipotent, it is easier to accept that God might intend to save everyone but, at the same time, his wish is not realized, despite his best efforts.
But the 'price to be paid', so to speak, is that this kind of God seems to be in a way limited and too much 'human'.

The ultimate expression of this very loving God is that He became man in Christ. God ceased being God.

This theogony hasn't been very popular, because among other things, if God isn't God anymore, Who is in charge and to Whom have we been praying to for the last 2000 years? What about the Holy Ghost? Is the Holy Ghost the ghost of God, hovers over the world? — BC

I think that the main problem here is that if God ceased to be God, it cannot save anymore.

So, God didn't create a perfect world — BC

Yeah, Ok. But what if we could not exist in a perfect world?

That is of interest to me. Especially because, on this forum, the harshest critic of my personal worldview, Enformationism, also claims to be a Spinozist. I wouldn't call myself a Spinozist, since I only know of his ideas via second hand accounts. I told him (the critic) that my philosophical world model is, like Spinoza's, more akin to Science than Religion, but it also assumes that cosmic Evolution is not aimless & accidental, but governed & directed by logical/mathematical internally-coded laws similar to a computer program. — Gnomon

Ok, I think that your view shares some similarities with Spinoza's but isn't compatible with it. After all, there is no 'real' cosmic evolution in Spinoza's view. Change is an illusory appearance that we percieve because of our limited perspective. In the highest way of seeing the world, there is no change.

Since at least one species of gradually evolved creatures has developed a somewhat objective & rational understanding of world events, I conclude that A> the ability to stand outside our emotion-driven animal nature, and B> the power to generate unique personal ideas (abstract representations, images, models, goals) of our own, allows us to become local centers of Will within the universal "Willpower" (motive force) of the universal thermodynamic system, otherwise dominated by destructive Entropy. Which, in effect, makes us humans the "little gods" of the world. Hence, we have begun to create sub-human creatures of our own, such as complex machines and artificial intelligence, that execute the will of their programmers. — Gnomon

I see your point here. But Spinoza would deny any kind of autonomy for human beings. He would say that if we have free will, we would have some kind of independence from God and, therefore, we would be individual substances (after all, a 'substance' in classical metaphysics means something like 'a truly existing individual/entity'). But he would argue that if we were substances, we would be totally independent and therefore be like God, which is absurd. Our ontological dependence forbids our free will, according to him.
He would ask you to prove how we can be autonomous if we are 'modes' of the One Substance. He would only grant an illusion of free will, not a true free will.

In brief, how can be free will in human beings, if human beings are not separately existing entities?

How do you think Spinoza would judge such a 21st century update of his own 17th century worldview? :smile: — Gnomon

See above.

Well, that is unfortunately not completely up to us. If perfection is boundless then we suffer eternally since we cannot possibly achieve it. If perfection is bounded then we can achieve it hence there will be an end to our sufferings. — MoK

Ok, I see. But if suffering is literally endless, how can such an endless effort be something desirable to us?
For instance, IIRC, Kant's view was that the progress to ethical perfection is endless but I don't think that after a certain point, it involves suffering.

This leads to me to another question. Do you think that any kind of 'dynamic progress', so to speak, necessarily involves suffering? If so, why?

Well, if we achieve perfection we won't suffer anymore. That is the goal of our lives! — MoK

But if such a goal is utterly unachievable and suffering cannot be eliminated, why we should seek it?

I found a good website where are presented the definitions and the axioms of Spinoza's Ethics, which I think you'll like to read. For instance:

By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception.
...
By attribute, I mean that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance.
....
By mode, I mean the modifications ["Affectiones"] of substance, or that which exists in, and is conceived through, something other than itself.

It is against wisdom if God can create God but wouldn't create God, instead creating creatures who must undergo all sorts of troubles and sufferings. Therefore, I believe that God cannot create God therefore the creation, like it or not, looks like the things that it is, people suffering but evolving, and people do wrong so they get punished... So here we are involved in something people call life, like or or not, we have to play it out. — MoK

This all makes no sense, so I'll leave you to your own musings unless you want to explain your use of "against wisdom" here. Also, why would a perfect deity care about creating anything?

The only way to get around this is to define God as everything that ever exists in every possible mode that can ever happen. It is akin to the Many Worlds hypothesis in physics. We are playing out one mode of existence out of an infinite array. In this world, we have suffering. In this world, there might even be a hidden deity that enjoys creating beings that have to overcome obstacles and realize he exists, but this would just be one world out of many worlds, as clearly, a perfect God would have no need for creation, so perhaps there is a world where there is a perfect god and a creation set of nothing. So if a perfect god exists, it is not THIS world, but it MIGHT BE some world of all the infinite sets of worlds, perhaps even most of them. Maybe we are of the lesser variety of God's infinite set, that has deities with imperfect NEEDS to see creation play out in a "right action leads to rewards and wrong action leads to punishment" (or its cousin, the Eastern version of Karmic causal effect for that matter). In that sense, we would be living out in a sort of Spinozist world of infinite modes, sort of. Our world would be of "the lower-than-average suffering and deity that has needs that need to be met" variety.

@Joshs and @boundless