Another What's the Alternative Thread

[_KevinSim]

I am not trying to persuade you what "preserving good forever" might mean, as I frankly don't know what it means. I do know as humans it is clear what is important to us varies tremendously based on a variety of criteria not a few of which are our age, culture, gender, era, upbringing and so on. Your questions continuously presuppose your acceptance of most of those factors from your own life. Were you to have been born and raised in another country and or at another time you may very well be asking these same sort of question from the perspective of a Muslim, Buddhist or Jew with an entirely different concept of what "preserving good forever "even means.

Fence Sitter, you mentioned Buddhism. Let's say for the moment that I focus in on Buddhism, and declared that that faith is the one that actually has it right, that everybody should be Buddhist, that Buddhism is the good thing that should be preserved forever, and that we should take political action to insure all of that.

Would people react to that passively and let me successfully establish Buddhism as the pre-eminent faith of the world? Of course not! People would cry out, foul, and declare that my attraction to Buddhism was no reason to make everyone embrace it. Anybody in any other faith group had a right to believe as s/he chose.

But think about what we're saying here; it amounts to a sort of meta-good. It's a good thing to let each person in her/his individual faith group to believe the way s/he chooses to believe. That's the good I'm talking about that we need to preserve forever, something that the entire human race can more or less come to a consensus about. If we can make sure that no matter how far you go into the future each individual person will have the right to believe as s/he chooses, then we have accomplished my goal; we have preserved forever some good things.

[_Themis]

I find it hard to believe that any person or group of persons is seriously working on it, even if you throw out the forever part.

Well it hard to get you to say what you think it is they should be working on. As far as working on improving the human condition, whether forever is possible or not, many are working on whether you have chosen to not believe it. I think your problem is part of you knows the church is not true, but to save your marriage and other reasons choose to try and believe. You then play this alternative game in some weird way to help you solidify your attempts to keep believing.

For one thing, what does anyone really know about climate change, about global warming? Sure a lot of people talk about it, generate a lot of words of warning. But is there a mechanism in place that will evaluate the claims, find out if humanity (let alone the other living things on the planet) is in danger, and will take steps to solve the problem if humanity is in fact in danger?

What are we comparing knowledge to. There is quite a bit of knowledge, and it is growing. This would seem to indicate that many people are working on this particular problem to protect the human race. I would agree that more money should be put into research and solutions, but one of the big problems here is science deniers. Unfortunately most of them seem to come from Christian religions, especially LDS. Atheists and Agnostics are doing much better here.

Then there's also the problem of exponential population growth. It doesn't matter how many resources the planet has; as long as that number of resources is finite, exponential population growth is going to exhaust those finite resources very quickly. Where is the mechanism that needs to be in place to put an end to this out of control population growth?

Again there are many people trying to work on this problem as well, and many programs in place. The problem again is relgioous groups like LDS who refuse to see the problem and fight against it.

Here are two things that could cause humanity serious grief in the relative short term. I really doubt there are sufficiently influential people working on getting either of these two problems solved.

The real problem here is religions like LDS. Atheists and agnostics are doing much better. Also I am not sure you know much about the issues, which is why you cannot see some of the things being done. You could also try to look outside the US.

[_Themis]

Really? Now that's an interesting response. What exactly are people doing to try to solve the problem of the heat death of the universe at roughly 100 billion C.E.?

First you wouldn't even know of the concept unless someone had thought about it. Now you don't know if we can ever escape this, and if we can, what should we be doing to solve this problem. The only thing we can do right now is to continue to increase our knowledge of the universe(something being done) to be able to understand someday if their is a solution. This probably would not come anywhere near our lifetimes, but then we do have billions of years to get there. Also we first have to make sure of near term existence is not threatened like with Global warming or population problems. Something LDS in general are not doing well with.

I have no problem whatsoever with groundwork that needs to be done in order to get to the point where we can solve the overall problem, just as long as solving the overall problem is the ultimate goal.

It doesn't need to be the ultimate goal right now in order to work towards it, and we still are not to any point to even know if it is possible. You need to get your priorities right. I don't spend much time thinking about since it would distract from ever getting there. You need to understand what the foundation needs to be in place first.

[_KevinSim]

Kevin, your explanation of believing in God because humanity needs him is a backwards argument. And by that I mean you start from the conclusion and work backwards. Whether or not humanity needs God to survive the end of the universe is irrelevant to the question of the existence of God. If you're right and we do need God to survive, it's still entirely possible that God doesn't exist and we will go extinct in billions of years. God either exists or he doesn't, and whether he does or not is completely independent of any believing or wishing that you may do.

Cylon, I actually agree with you. If the question is determining whether or not God actually exists, then you're right, our need for God to exist is completely irrelevant. Now I'm somewhat interested in the actual existence of God, though frankly I don't find the evidence either way all that convincing. But what I'm mainly interested in is not so much whether or not God exists, but rather in what my conscientious obligation is to the rest of humanity, and how I can best fill that obligation.

This is where the need for God comes in, or perhaps more to the point, this is where the need for a forever preserver comes in (and I call that preserver God). My conscience requires that someone preserve some good things forever; if God doesn't exist to preserve them then the job falls to me, or to someone else like me who also recognizes such a conscientious obligation. I recognize that the job is beyond me, but it has to be done, so I choose to believe someone exists who is doing the job, and I spend my life trying to communicate with that someone so that that someone can guide me toward my share of the job. I have no problem doing my part of the job; I just recognize my inability to coordinate all the parts of the job.

This says nothing about the actual existence of God, about the actual question of whether humans as a whole "will go extinct in billions of years." If you want to determine whether or not there actually is a God, go ahead, knock yourself out, try to determine whether God exists by whatever means you think you can come up with. But I suspect that if you look at the matter closely you will realize that you also have an obligation to the rest of humanity that your conscience compells you toward just like my conscience compells me toward it. Are you capable of coordinating the job of preserving some good things forever? It would be completely understandable if you said you were not capable. But like I said, somebody has to do the job. If you can't coordinate it yourself you'd better hope that there's somebody else who is capable of coordinating it. And in my opinion there isn't that much difference between that and having faith in the existence of God.

[_Drifting]

This thread has become a dogs breakfast.

Kevin wants people to post what 'real good' can be preserved by people outside of Mormonism for eternity. Yet cannot tell us whatever he means by real good.
When asked to provide examples of 'real good' being done by God, Kevin admits he can't.

It's pointless discussing any further.
So I'm not going to.

[_KevinSim]

If Kevin is meaning that some people have an emotional need to believe in a higher being, then I would agree with him. It would be a first, but it would be a point of agreement.

Sock Puppet, I think you've hit the nail on the head. That is precisely what I'm saying.

Furthermore, I'm saying that having a conscience is not synonymous with having this need. If someone with a conscience can figure out how to preserve some good things forever without assistance from a deity, then I say more power to her/him.

[_KevinSim]

Maybe I've lost track of what the question was. There have kind of been two questions floating around, both of which I answered. What is the definition of good? I answered that a long time ago by listing the dictionary definition that defined it as "morally excellent." What's an example of something good? I answered that in the last post; an example of something good is open and honest discussion, like the discussion we're having just now.

Themis, if the question you're talking about isn't one of these two, then what is the question? I don't remember anything other than these two.

Forget it. You have no intention of answering it anyways, even though justme brought it up again.

Kind of bizarre, Themis. Just Me asked what the good I was talking about was. I answered it right there in that paragraph you quoted; I said good was "moral excellence." (Which, by the way, I also said in another post a long time ago.) So how do you come to the conclusion that I "have no intention of answering it"? Do you actually read posts you respond to?

[_Themis]

Kind of bizarre, Themis. Just Me asked what the good I was talking about was. I answered it right there in that paragraph you quoted; I said good was "moral excellence." (Which, by the way, I also said in another post a long time ago.) So how do you come to the conclusion that I "have no intention of answering it"? Do you actually read posts you respond to?

Bizarre indeed. Now you seem to be saying you remember the question, yet no one thinks you answered it, and even Justme recently asked again.

[_Themis]

I recognize that the job is beyond me, but it has to be done, so I choose to believe someone exists who is doing the job, and I spend my life trying to communicate with that someone so that that someone can guide me toward my share of the job.

Sure no one is currently up to the job, and if it is possible, it will probably need to be done by the group. Choosing to believe in some entity who could do it because you are not up to the job makes no sense. It is one the of the problems with why people are not doing anything that can help in this area as I have shown. This type of belief is a deterrent to helping to try and make some good things last forever.

[_Darth J]

So I ask you again, what alternative is there to the LDS Church for a person to whom it is a foregone conclusion that the LDS Church is the true church?

Having a conscience sensitive to the needs of all future generations is not the same thing as having "a foregone conclusion that the LDS Church is the true church."

Invariably, your conscience's sensitivity to the needs of all future generations amounts to all future generations needing the LDS Church. And your observations in favor of the LDS Church invariably amount to a fallacious appeal to consequences. In all of the threads like this you start, without exception your proposition amounts to: (a) the LDS Church is probably true because of some vague notion of good consequences from following its dogma; or (b) the LDS Church needs to be true because you can't face a world in which it isn't true.

P.S. Bold italics do not make your assertions more valid.