Conscientious Alternative to Mormonism

[_KevinSim]

Now I don't claim God doesn't exist, although I recognize if he/she/they do, it won't be anything like the Christian God.

As I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong), God as most Christians describe God (1) has the power to create intelligent beings out of nothing, (2) therefore has the power to cause intelligent beings to cease to exist, to go back to completely not existing in any form, and (3) chooses not to cause the souls of the unsaved to cease to exist, but rather lets them suffer unbearable agony endlessly, for the rest of eternity.

If God exists, and He is the Christian God, then I don't want to have anything to do with Him. How in the world could anyone call such a deity good? What significant difference is there between such a deity and an evil (perhaps supernaturally powerful) being, like Satan himself?

[_KevinSim]

I would gently suggest one go a different route.

Like what? I'm open to other suggestions.

I've no objection to being very, very careful. But I would suggest some reality testing. You are suggesting that after thousands of years of human experience, something not known to have ever happened before, and with no one knowing how it might happen, is going to occur? Do you have some modicum of evidence, however small, that such a process is even possible?

Reality testing has its place. But I strongly oppose letting it have veto power over everything we try to do.

Reality had nothing to say about whether it was possible for humans to shift from a hunter/gatherer lifestyle to an agricultural lifestyle. We knew that plants grew, sure enough, but reality testing at that time would have told us that we simply didn't know if we could even survive if we shifted to attempting to make a living by planting crops and tending to them.

The same could be said for humanity's attempts to harness fire. Reality testing would have told us that fire is dangerous, and could potentially kill us. But humanity made the attempt anyhow, and is all the better for it.

I think this could be said for a lot of advances humans have made over the centuries. My favorite example is the United Nations. Reality testing had one precedent to point to, the League of Nations that failed dismally, and whose outcome was possibly inevitably World War II, the most destructive war the world has ever seen. And yet the powers that won that war recognized the need for an organization that would prevent future wars, and they came up with the UN.

Wanting doesn't make something so. That's magical thinking.

If wanting didn't make the United Nations so, then what was the string of events that led to the creation of that organization? I think that the post-WW2 political powers recognized the need the world had for a war-preventing world organization, and that need, combined with a balance, perhaps, of reality testing, produced the UN. Of course the UN is far from an ideal world governer; often the way its security council is set up prevents it from fulfilling the dreams of the founding organizers. But the fact is that the UN has done some good, and the world is better off because it exists.

Being unrealistic is a dangerous way to live.

Sure it's dangerous. The world humans were originally born into was dangerous, and we're better off because they took some risks to improve that world, and by so doing made a better place out of that dangerous environment. My point is that the world in some ways is still a dangerous place. Nobody really knows the long term effect global warming is going to have on humanity as a species. Do you really think that global warming is going to be the only future crisis we're going to run into?

So let's do reality testing; by all means let's do reality testing. But if we're in a situation again where reality testing would advise us simply not to act, and when it's pretty clear that if we don't act, that's going to be as dangerous as acting; then I say; forget the danger; let's act! And I think we can be reasonably certain we're going to arrive at that situation.

[_Chap]

Please excuse me if I have misunderstood you. But surely the task is not to decide what attributes we personally feel comfortable about a supposed deity possessing (which is the aim your two paragraphs above seem to be based on), but to find a means of determining, in order of priority:

(a) whether any being remotely resembling our idea of a deity exists,

and if so (and of course only if so)

(b) what his attributes actually are.

Both are questions of fact, not of our likes or dislikes, surely? Thus, for instance, it does not matter at all whether or not you 'need' the idea of a deity who is a creator. It matters a great deal whether or not a creator deity exists.

[I have restored my full post.]

Chap, if by some miracle we do find a way to determine "whether any being remotely resembling our idea of a deity exists," and we apply that method and find out no deity does exist, what then? What would our consciences require us to do in that case?

I'm as curious as the next person. If there were some way of determining whether or not God exists, I'd like to hear what the outcome is. But I've been paying attention to this issue for a very long time, I've never heard of any suggestion to find out if God exists that makes any sense at all, and my intuition gives me the impression that it just may be impossible to find out whether God exists or not, unless and until God chooses to at some point make an entrance and prove the matter for once and for all.

In the meanwhile, what do our consciences demand that we do?

I think there's an analogue with the SETI question. Either extra-terrestrial intelligence, close enough to us that we can detect, exists or doesn't. I don't know of any scientific way to verify whether or not that extra-terrestrial intelligence actually exists. But obviously the SETI community is willing to gamble a lot of money and a lot of time on the assumption that some does actually exist and that we will eventually find it.

Similarly, in the absence of any good evidence one way or the other on the existence of God, we've got to decide, are we going to gamble that God exists, or are we going to gamble that God doesn't exist? That's kind of where we were in the discussion.

I think the difference between us is shown by the fact that I use the carefully distanced phrasing 'a deity', and you simply use the capitalized proper noun 'God'. By my usage, I would like to draw attention to the fact that the deity of the Christian tradition is only one amongst many candidates for recognition, and that amongst humanity there is very little consensus as to what kind of deity or deities do exist.

You on the other hand seem to be prepared to assume that we have a simple choice: the deity you call 'God', or no deity. Have you any reasoning or evidence to support that claim? To take the matter further, I suspect that you simply disbelieve flatly in the existence of Thoth, Zeus or Odin - but if not, why are they not included in the list of deities on whose existence we have to gamble? And why could there not be several of them at the same time? I ask that not with the aim of reducing the discussion to knock-about comedy, but to point to the fact that your presentation of the problem conceals certain crucial assumptions that I think you cannot justify.

Moving on, let us look at your suggestion that since you feel unable to be sure whether 'God' exists or not, you are in effect free to bet either way. Now you would not say the same about the Wizard of Oz, would you? That is because you are quite sure that the Wizard of Oz does not exist in the real world, since you know where the idea of such a Wizard comes from: a story book for children.

However, would you not be willing to consider that there are people like me who feel that a similar consideration applies to your 'God', and indeed to all other deities: the origins of stories about such powerful beings can be easily understood as part of the efforts of early peoples faced with the task of trying to make sense of a world of whose real workings they could form no rational picture. So I feel that there is little more risk that your 'God' (or any other known deity) exists than I do that the Wizard of Oz exists - although I do agree that the stories about the deity of the Judeo-Christian tradition are quite interesting ones.

[_lulu]

I would gently suggest one go a different route.

Like what? I'm open to other suggestions.

I suggested carefully thought out realism based on observation. I'll throw in now some rigerous risk/cost/benefit analysis.

I've no objection to being very, very careful. But I would suggest some reality testing. You are suggesting that after thousands of years of human experience, something not known to have ever happened before, and with no one knowing how it might happen, is going to occur? Do you have some modicum of evidence, however small, that such a process is even possible?

Reality testing has its place. But I strongly oppose letting it have veto power over everything we try to do.

When you suggest that you personally think we should start expending scarce resources to prevent hydrogen depletion in a bizillion years from now, I think the veto of reality testing is a fine, fine thing.

By the way, have you ever thought that the end of the universe is the way it's supposed to be, with or without a possible God whose existance and characterists you seek a near consensus for? Remember that Star Trek episode where someone overcame human mortality. It had it's downside.

Reality had nothing to say about whether it was possible for humans to shift from a hunter/gatherer lifestyle to an agricultural lifestyle.

Well, actually it did come from reality testing.

See that little stand of grass over there? We scatter a few seeds around edge and we have a bigger stand. Oh, look some plants produce bigger seeds, lets make sure those are the ones we scatter.

More food, our bellies felt better and we had more energy. There now, doesn't that feel better.

That's reality testing. Preventing the end of the universe is not.

We knew that plants grew, sure enough, but reality testing at that time would have told us that we simply didn't know if we could even survive if we shifted to attempting to make a living by planting crops and tending to them.

Agriculture has not been an unmitigated benefit, cf, the water quality far out into the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi.

Every solution creates a problem. Maybe we need fewer solutions.

The same could be said for humanity's attempts to harness fire. Reality testing would have told us that fire is dangerous, and could potentially kill us. But humanity made the attempt anyhow, and is all the better for it.

cf global warming

My favorite example is the United Nations. Reality testing had one precedent to point to, the League of Nations that failed dismally, and whose outcome was possibly inevitably World War II, the most destructive war the world has ever seen. And yet the powers that won that war recognized the need for an organization that would prevent future wars, and they came up with the UN.

I'll remember that next time I think about a dead UN peace keeper from the 3rd world who had been doing the bidding of the 1st world to maintain raw material supply and markets under the guize of "peace."

Wanting doesn't make something so. That's magical thinking.

But the fact is that the UN has done some good, and the world is better off because it exists.

Give me the cost/risk/benefit analysis. For the dead UN peace keeper the cost was 100%.

Being unrealistic is a dangerous way to live.

Sure it's dangerous. The world humans were originally born into was dangerous, and we're better off because they took some risks to improve that world, and by so doing made a better place out of that dangerous environment. My point is that the world in some ways is still a dangerous place. Nobody really knows the long term effect global warming is going to have on humanity as a species. Do you really think that global warming is going to be the only future crisis we're going to run into?

No I don't. Do you think global warming would be a problem if we had just left nature the “F” alone?

So let's do reality testing; by all means let's do reality testing. But if we're in a situation again where reality testing would advise us simply not to act, and when it's pretty clear that if we don't act, that's going to be as dangerous as acting; then I say; forget the danger; let's act! And I think we can be reasonably certain we're going to arrive at that situation.

I'd suggest that we do a cost/risk/benefit analysis before acting, cf the first smoke from a human made fire and global warming.

[_Themis]

You still don't get it. I've always been interested in the truth Themis, no matter what I was doing. And being called of God is a two-way street. Man must be willing to seek the truth and believe it (defend it if necessary), but also God must choose to reveal himself. Man can make no demands of God and should not presume to.

We all think we are interested in the truth. By your own admission you we not seeking God, yet you always tell people they need to, and if they do he will show himself, yet all those who are are having God show up. I just see some glaring problems here.

[_Themis]

Now I don't claim God doesn't exist, although I recognize if he/she/they do, it won't be anything like the Christian God.

As I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong), God as most Christians describe God (1) has the power to create intelligent beings out of nothing, (2) therefore has the power to cause intelligent beings to cease to exist, to go back to completely not existing in any form, and (3) chooses not to cause the souls of the unsaved to cease to exist, but rather lets them suffer unbearable agony endlessly, for the rest of eternity.

If God exists, and He is the Christian God, then I don't want to have anything to do with Him. How in the world could anyone call such a deity good? What significant difference is there between such a deity and an evil (perhaps supernaturally powerful) being, like Satan himself?

That is only just a one idea of the Christian God. The LDS version is similar with some differences. Interesting you just bring up one feature of what most Christians view about God to try and sell your version in your own mind. The problem is that the LDS God is still the same God who kills people for just being on the wrong patch of land. Your last statement about what you don't like about most Christians view of the after life is somewhat similar to the LDS one anyways. He keeps people out of certain areas just for choosing the wrong team

[_Themis]

Reality had nothing to say about whether it was possible for humans to shift from a hunter/gatherer lifestyle to an agricultural lifestyle. We knew that plants grew, sure enough, but reality testing at that time would have told us that we simply didn't know if we could even survive if we shifted to attempting to make a living by planting crops and tending to them.

The shift would have been very gradual that it would be hard to say when it actually happened.