I used "easy" as connoting "effortlessly flowing" from the conclusion that there is either no creator - whether or not that being is a deity - or a creator or creators exist, but are clearly not involved in maintining the safety, the health and the happiness of "creatures".
And human beings have no other way to judge a creator except by their experience and understanding of the creation. "Nature" (the "creation" in such systems) is not indicative of any all-powerful, compassionate creative-and-guiding Hand. Simple. And..."easy".
when you suggest an act is cruel, it's because you assume the act must be cruel to God
If it isn't cruel to a Creator, then the Creator is a hideously flawed entity. Humans can only judge and conclude from our own minds, hearts, and experiences. We have no Archimedean Point by which to stand outside ourselves and see our sufferings in the light of some external "authority", be it the cosmos or some deity. Our duty as adults is to judge for ourselves for the simple reason that the so-called "Creator" has left us utterly alone to make such decisions.
And this is compounded to the nth degree when people deliberately select a truly monstrous "Creator" such as ancient Israel's Yahweh - a deity whose own sacred texts list his crimes with nauseating explictness, from his ordering the rape of Canaan to his outright murder of King David's infant son. But in a way Yahweh's behavior certainly fits the model of a "Creator" who not only condones natural suffering, but himself causes suffering, loss, and bereavement to human beings for his own savage, vain "reasons".
God shouldn't have allowed it, or there is no God in charge
Pretty close, but I would put it differently -
First: I deny that God is a-or-the Creator, and therefore from the get-go, for me it is not a question of a god-as-creator allowing or disallowing things that happen in the cosmos and/or on earth.
Second: your phrasing of my position only expresses half of the equation, i.e., "since randomly evil things happen in the world, then there is no Creator in charge."
The missing part can be stated, "since randomly evil things happen in the world, then, if a Creator exists, then that entity is by turns indifferent, hostile, incompetent, cruel, profoundly uncaring and uncompassionate - etc."
This second component of my belief was actually a Christian theology that flourished in the early centuries of Christianity and still exists, and I know that you are aware of it - Christian Gnosticism, many important schools of which affirmed that "the Creator" is really "the Demiurge", a false, ego-intoxicated morally blind being, frequently identified with "the Creator" Yahweh.
This is why my claim is twofold: 1) There is no Creator; 2) If there is a Creator, "It" is a mere demiurge ontologically and morally opposed to the true, "alien" (alien to the Demiurge's flawed world) transcendent non-creating God.
The Demiurge:
http://www.sullivan-county.com/id2/gnostic_files/demiurge.htm
The True God:
The Father of Light is not merely god or a god, or similar to a god. It is incorrect to think of him so: he is The Invisible Spirit. Since there is none more powerful, no one is able to give him orders. He does not live in inferior beings; rather, everything exists in him. He even brought himself into being, and he lives forever because he does not require sustenance. Since he does not lack for anything, he needs nothing for completion. He is a completely perfect being in light.
His ability is unlimited, since there is no one more powerful to set limits. He is not able to be closely examined as a specimen, for no one lived before him to examine him. For the same reason, he cannot be measured. He is invisible since no one has seen him. He is eternal for he had no beginning.
He is indescribable since no one is able to comprehend him to speak of him. He cannot be named since there was no one with the authority to name him. He is blinding light - pure, holy, immaculate.
Since all but him are corrupt, and he is incorruptible, no one is able to describe his blessedness, divinity, or perfection.
He is even superior to such eloquent words in their fullness of meaning!
He is not corporal or incorporeal. He is neither large nor small. One cannot say, "Of what quantity is he, or what quality?" No one can know him. He is more than superior - he is beyond the confines of time and reality since he created these and did not receive them from another. He does not look to anyone for anything out of need. All look expectantly to him in his light.
His perfection is majestic. He is pure, limitless mind. He is time-giving time, life-giving life, blessings-giving blessed, knowledge-giving knowledge, goodness-giving goodness, mercy- and redemption-giving mercy, grace-giving grace - not because these are his possession; rather, they are the benefits of his gift of immeasurable and incomprehensible light.
How can I describe him so that you can understand? His existence is indestructible; his repose is in the confident knowledge of being before all. He is the head of all creation, and he imparts strength through his goodness. We are unable to describe him accurately or understand him; all, that is, but the one who came forth from the Father.
This one who came forth is able to describe him because he looks at the Father through the very light that surrounds him. This light is also called the "spring water of life." So he is the mediator who imparts this light to all creations in every way, for he is able to gaze upon the Father's image in the spring water of the spirit. He is able to accomplish his desires through this water-light that surrounds him. Now you know, for I have told only you.
http://jacksonsnyder.com/sss/pages/Apocryphon%20of%20John.htm
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cfwente
8 years ago
"If it isn't cruel to a Creator then the Creator is a hideously flawed entity."
You are judging God by your own standards ("Me God, you Jane"). Eg., a man walking down the street falls head-long into an open manhole disfiguring himself for life -- and God permits this. "Indifference" and "cruelty" to both you and me. But ... the man is on his way to a pre-school to shoot as many children as he can. God (an entity greater than anything which can be imagined) may view cruelty and His own involvement (or lack thereof) in this act differently than we... Who, by definition, is likely closer to "the truth"? I would opt for the latter. Especially, because I believe that there is more than our incomplete "experience and understanding of the creation" (I guess you mean the physical creation) by which we may reflect on the question. There are, also, the less tangible elements of both "experience and understanding" such as intellect, spirit, and faith (our own and of others) available to our mulling.
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bastasch8647
8 years ago
You are judging God by your own standards
Yes, of course. There are no other standards, no Archimedean Point, by which - from which - to judge, as I said before.
I. You yourself - and all Abrahamic people - judge Divinity for yourself simply by selecting-out Yahweh to be your Creator. You have judged - and judged negatively, to the point of rejecting them - all other "Creators" and deities. You've done your own judging God-wise, yet you have a problem with me exercizing the same right.
II.
If the putative Creator wants us to judge him or even simply perceive him differently than we do, he is free to 1) inform us of our incorrect views, and/or 2) change the game plan, the world, the cosmos, etc.
And by definition and necessity, all of this new "corrective" data must issue from the putative Creator, since we below have not been given a single clue. (And please remember that I am not talking about God here, I'm talking about a, or the, "Creator").
Point 2) above has never, and likely will never, happen.
Point 1) above is claimed to have happened, especially by biblicists specifically, and generally by Abrahamists, Hindus, and some native cultures. But there's the rub. There are all these claimed "Creators" clamoring for adherents, and their messages don't add up internally, and they especially do not add up in comparison amongst themselves. Who, then, to believe? As I've said, Yahweh is just as bad a choice for Creator and God as any other Moloch - and as I've also said, his own sacred texts explicitly list his savage acts. So if the choice is between a monstrous Yahwistic "Creator" and a much more creature-friendly "Creator", then the moral choice is obvious: choose the better "Creator" over the incendiary, volatile, vengeful, fickle and violent Yahweh. Like I've said before: "Easy".
the man is on his way to a pre-school to shoot as many children as he can
So the school got lucky because of a random accident. Earlier in the day, a little girl on her way to that school was crushed to death by a tree branch that had been cracked by the previous night's storm.
Both cases are understandable if there is no "Creator" overseeing his "Creation".
But with the assumption that a "Creator" is indeed in charge - an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-compassionate Parent figure - both cases become radically incoherent, and they simply, easily, demonstrate the emptiness of "Creatorism's" claims.
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cfwente
8 years ago
I think it comes down to:
1) "Incoherence" to some is "prerogative" to others.
And 2) can a fallible creation make the argument that it can define and pass judgements (as distinguished from 'questioning') on its infallible creator? If the answer is "yes", then there must be two utterly disconnected sources in the beginning (your view?) which is harder to explain, it seems to me, than a single omniscient source who created 'the fallible' with a coherent purpose for having done so.
Whew!
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bastasch8647
8 years ago
can a fallible creation make the argument that it can define and pass judgements (as distinguished from 'questioning') on its infallible creator?
Sure, a Creation/creatures can judge its Creator, just as children can judge - and condemn - bad parents. Just because the parents are older, more powerful than, and supposedly know more than the offspring, does not mean that their parenting is wise, compassionate, and sound.
But the idea that the Creator is infallible is already a presupposition based on another presupposition, namely, that a Creator exists in the first place. And as I have pointed out, the biblical Creator is without doubt fallible, makes mistakes, makes moral errors (nothing can justify Yahweh's direction to rape Canann or his decision to murder King David's infant son), occasionally "repents" of his depredations, he's supposedly omniscient but constantly fails to consult his omniscience - etc.
However, that's the biblical Creator. The philosophical question of Creator/Creators in general still remains, i.e., "Is there such a being as a Creator (I see zero evidence for this idea), and is this Creator worthy of the love and worship of Its creatures?"
Therefore, people who believe that a Creator exists need to:
1. Provide evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the mindless and uncaring cycles of force that constitute the physical world are actually a "Mindful", deliberate Creation or Design of a superhuman, nonmaterial Creating Intellect.
2. Then - if they love, admire, value and/or worship said Creator - they need to explain why the universe's mindless cycles of force are mindless, and why they so egregiously injure, sicken, age, terrify, depress, and annihilate the "creatures" who are caught in their crushingly hostile web.
3. Or, like the Gnostic Christians, they can take the stance that the Creator is a blind, evil Demiurge, while the True God reigns supreme in the transcendent Pleroma, and fly in spirit to the True God, leaving the world and its cruel, ignorant Creator far behind.
there must be two utterly disconnected sources in the beginning (your view?)
Sorry, I don't understand the question as phrased, i.e., I do not understand why you think that I believe in "sources" - and that they are, or must be, "disconnected". Since I do not believe in a Creator(s) - I don't believe in a sentient "Source" or "Sources" - and I do not believe in any case that God is a Creator, I don't know what kind of sources you have in mind.
There is no "connection" between God and the origins (if any) of the physical universe because God is not a Creator.
If a Creator exists, It's probably no kind of a god, at least in the normative connotation of the word. And if a Creator does happen to exist - then, yes, the universe would have a single source in that Creator, with no "disconnect" source-wise. That is, if a Creator created the cosmos, then presumably there's a straight line from Creator-to-Creation with no occurence of double sources or disconnects. So could you please clarify what you mean by two disconnected sources...? The only "two source" theory I can think of is, say, a nonmaterial Creator (spiritual source) intiated the Big Bang (physical source), but I'm pretty sure that is not what you mean.
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cfwente
8 years ago
What I seem to have trouble conveying is my response to:
"... just as children can judge -- and condemn -- bad parents."
By whose definition of "bad" are the children judging and condemning? Their own? And, if each child is left to his own definition, then there is no definitive or absolute definition. Ie., no morality. Thus, the parent by the same token, cannot be adjudicated as "bad" -- or "cruel", or "hostile", etc. except anecdotally. In short, where does the morality of which you speak come from? Do the kids simply take a vote -- he's bad, good, or something in between?
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bastasch8647
8 years ago
The morality/moral judgment is directly derived from - i.e., concluded by - the child - from parental behavior ... just as bruising, scabbing, and bleeding are directly derived from wounding. Most children eventually figure out when they are being treated unfairly, ignored, put into unnecessary danger, coerced, mocked, and physically and emotionally abused. This sense doesn't come from outside - it's innate. Even dogs, dolphins and bonobo chimps have a strong sense of fairness-and-indignation, and a sensitivity to poor treatment - even more so human kids. To repeat, this abuse-response is innate, although it can be refracted through the lens of whatever culture/society - animal or human - is being examined.
I'm still not clear on two issues -
1. Are we talking about "a" Creator, or the biblical Creator - it makes a difference, because in the first case, derivations are made from the behavior of "God's Creation" or "Nature", while in the second case, derivations are made from the purported behavior and the "Word" of the Creator-Yahweh's supposed self-revelations in scripture.
2. I'm still not understanding your earlier question about "two sources" and a "disconnect" involving them.
By whose definition of "bad" are the children judging and condemning? Their own?
Sure - it's innate, although it can be refracted and/or intensified by experiencing external cultural sources, e.g., a sad movie about a pet who dies of ill treatment can bring tears to a child's eyes because their innate empathy dictates that this is an appropriate response - even though the movie or TV show is external to the kids. The principle here is: No empathy - no morality.
if each child is left to his own definition, then there is no definitive or absolute definition. Ie., no morality.
Each child's experience comes prior to any intellectual definition. Years of ill treatment are an experience which, after development of verbal skills, a stronger "I-sense", etc., can become a definition in a child's mind.
the parent by the same token, cannot be adjudicated as "bad" -- or "cruel", or "hostile", etc. except anecdotally
Most child abuse trials rest heavily on anecdotal testimony, but they also rely on police and medical forensics. If you or I saw an adult beating on a three-year-old, we would hopefully act on our innate sense of outrage over the act.
where does the morality of which you speak come from? Do the kids simply take a vote -- he's bad, good, or something in between
Like I said, it's innate, part of our psycho-neurological-spiritual makeup, and I suppose that its most common designation is "the human conscience".
If you want me to say that at least some of this sense comes from God, I can say that it reflects the nature of the true, non-Creator God - as was taught in schools of Christian Gnosticism. It wasn't implanted by a Creator. Rather, it's implicit and inherent in all spirits, human, alien, or true "alien" God.
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cfwente
8 years ago
I have problems with several things you said, the first of which is "empathy" = "morality". I don't think it does. They are often interconnected but hardly the same thing.
Secondly, "abuse response" is not "innate". Physical "sensitivity" may, indeed, be, but not necessarily the "response" to it (intellectual, verbal, or retributive). Further -- "If you or I saw an adult beating on a three year old child, we would hopefully act on our innate sense of outrage." ... Yes, but the beater would not! (Hitler's response to a Jewish child's dying would be rather different than would Mother Teresa's.) Outrage is not innate, imo.
My use of "two sources" and a "disconnect" refers to the dynamic described by you in various places as the "cruel" "Creator God", the other in your last paragraph: the "non-Creator God" the "implicit and inherent in all spirits, human, alien, or true 'alien' God."
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bastasch8647
8 years ago
I meant that the capacity for empathy causes a moral response. Obviously, empathy or "fellow-feeling" per se isn't morality, but I cannot imagine how morality can arise without empathy. So in saying that empathy = morality, I was just taking a shortcut.
"abuse response" is not "innate". Physical "sensitivity" may, indeed, be, but not necessarily the "response" to it (intellectual, verbal, or retributive).
Then I'm just not getting what you're saying. Typical - even predictable - responses to abuse, including emotional abuse, are fear, pathological introversion, suppressed anger/real anger, overdeveloped fantasy life, helpless rage, feeling as worthless as the abuser makes the victim out to be, cowed acceptance, self-punishing acting-out, co-dependence with the abuser, seeking to please the abuser in order to avoid more abuse, and so on. You asked me where morality comes from, so I'll ask you where these abuse symptoms and behaviors come from - if they're not innate - and if they're not innate, what is "the human conscience"?.
Also I'd like to ask you again what exactly we both mean when we say "Creator" - as I mentioned, there's a difference between a philosophical view of the Creator based on the behavior of Creation or Nature. Otoh, there's the religious view of a particular Creator - e.g., Yahweh or some other creating deity - as "revealed" in sacred traditions and scriptures. Next time we talk about a Creator, we should probably make clear which kind of Being we mean.
My use of "two sources" and a "disconnect" refers to the dynamic described by you in various places as the "cruel" "Creator God", the other in your last paragraph: the "non-Creator God" the "implicit and inherent in all spirits, human, alien, or true 'alien' God."
Oh, okay - thanks for the clarification - yes, in my view a Creator - whether a deity viewed by analyzing Its creation/nature, or a named traditional deity, or even an advanced but non-divine "Something" - is ultimately responsible for the world's ills; whereas the true "alien" God of (say) the Gnostic Christians has no responsibility at all toward a cosmos "He" had no hand in creating. The disconnect as it were lies in the difference between a demiurgic deity and a God beyond all creator gods.
"If you or I saw an adult beating on a three year old child, we would hopefully act on our innate sense of outrage." ... Yes, but the beater would not!
Yes, but wouldn't that be because the beater sadly lacked the moral sense ... whether it is innate or not? Apparently some sociopaths 1) cannot help themselves - and 2) more importantly, feel no obligation to help themselves. The world for them is an arena for predation, with the only remaining moral sense being their own instinct for self-preservation.
Although I am not a materialist, I do acknowledge that there can be strong, deciding genetic and neurological factors operating in sociopaths. These predators, says most science I've read, have not deliberately chosen "Evil" as a life style - on the contrary, they seem to be evil from a very early age - torturing small animals, bullying, etc. Sure, in some cases they themselves were horribly abused - but for them, can't the principle of innate abuse-response be invoked...? But for the others, predation and thrill-killing seems to be determined by factors outside of the conscious will of the psychopath.
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cfwente
8 years ago
I don't disagree that "sensitivity", which I called it, is innate in human beings, animals, etc. but "responses", your term, are not. Perhaps I should call sensitivity "first reaction" or "the survival instinct". Here is where the "conscience" and "morality" concepts differ from simple sensitivity to the abuse. Eg., a tiger responds to a beating with his teeth. A Christian responds to a beating by turning his cheek. I'm trying not to split hairs here, but I hope you get the idea. Maybe, we can say there are instinctive first responses and deliberative responses after thought. The former is "innate" and, therefore, common, as you suggest; the latter comes from separate (often, very separate) "moral" perspectives (eg., the observer & the child beater).
I think we may be pretty close on this now.
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Thats_A_Print
8 years ago
What you are all talking about being "bad" is not our natural instincts as a human, it is literally in our blood. Our ancestors pass on sin through their blood. this is why the Bible called it sin stained blood....
The reason Jesus had to be born of a virgin is because if he was fathered by man he would have sin stained blood and he could not have been pure enough to be a sinnless man to take on the sins of the world in his death to save our souls...
When a woman gets pregnant not one drop of her blood goes to the baby. Only the father passes on his bloodline to the child. SO the Virgin Mary can give birth to a baby without sin in his blood as long as the baby is Fathered by pure God. And with a sinless bloodline the human and soon to be our Messiah would not be prone to sinning like we are. It is our nature to sin because of our sin tainted blood line. The memory of our ancestors sin is carried through to our blood.
Jesus had pure blood from his Father and therefore the only man that could be sacraficed to take on our sin just as the way the offerings of a pure lamb as a sacrafice was used by the Jews to be absolved of their sins. Jesus is meant to take the place of the literal lambs and become "The Lamb of God" as John the Baptist called him.
... End of line.
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