If... but... wait...

If God exists,
then everything matters
there are morals and there is a code
there will be a judge.

If God doesn't exist,
then nothing matters
life has no code other than what we attribute
there will be no judge.

If God exists,
and he knows everything
then nothing matters
because everything has already happened.

If God doesn't exist,
and no one knows the future
then everything matters
because nothing has yet to happen.
 

Freakaholic

not just an addiction
im a firm disbeliever in free will. atleast on a universal level. there might be like one decision we get to make as humans, but otherwise it just seems far fetched.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
im a firm disbeliever in free will. atleast on a universal level. there might be like one decision we get to make as humans, but otherwise it just seems far fetched.

What makes you think it's so far fetched? Genuinely curious as to your reasoning, even if you have no choice in the matter ;)

Is free will more far fetched than existing in the first place? Or having self-awareness?

What's your subjective feeling on this?

Gurdjieff said humans were not born with free will but could acquire it.
 
noel emits, how is the logic flawed? If God exists or some type of god exists then as all religions state, there is a heaven/hell/afterlife/existence after this which depends on how you act in this life. Whether or not you subscribe to the dictated morals doesn't deny their existence. Conversely, if there is no God, then those morals as well do not exist except for what people call "society". The loose network that keeps people working together and not devolving into disharmonious action. The morals do not exist inherently, we ascribe them to ourselves.

Then there is the fact of free will, that tired argument about God. So, nothing would matter because you're life has already been determined. Then again, if there is free will, then yet again, everything matters, and there is no God because what will can be outside of God's will? Everything would matter because it actively affects the final outcome.

How is the logic flawed? What am I leaving out?
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
I thought you were kidding! I know I was.
I would say there is next to no logic at all in your original statements.
You haven't stated your position on all this (and of course you are not obliged to) but first of all it seems that you are working with a very specific and limited idea of what 'God' means. You might need to define that here for your statements to make more sense.
Are you still thinking this through or do you subscribe to a particular religion?
If God exists,
then everything matters
Not necessarily, why does this follow?
there are morals and there is a code
there will be a judge.
Not necessarily, why does this follow?
...just assume I insert that line after every two lines of your original statement.
If God exists or some type of god exists then as all religions state, there is a heaven/hell/afterlife/existence after this which depends on how you act in this life.
Existence of God (especially if you define that as 'some type of god') does net necessarily imply the existence of an afterlife, of any kind. And by no means do ALL religions state this anyway.
Then again, if there is free will, then yet again, everything matters, and there is no God because what will can be outside of God's will? Everything would matter because it actively affects the final outcome.
Why should it follow that everything matters if free will exists? Can you not have free will and nothing mattering? What does it mean for something to matter anyway? Why should there be nothing outside of God's will if there is a God? Could free will be inside God's will? Would an omnipotent God be unable to permit free will?
You are making so many assumptions it's hard to even know where to begin.
And re: morals. Do you not perhaps feel some kind of inner sense as to what is right or wrong?

I reserve the right to withdraw from this discussion at any point.
A wiser man than me would probably not have even started.

Are you OK?

Peace.
 
Dealing with the "if God exists" train of thought:
God is anything that is all of these:
A. omnipotent
B. is the central character in a creation story, the catalyst
C. currently running the place
It doesn't have to be Christianity. It can be any religion that you want it to be. They all have the central, omnipotent God or gods if it's . They all have moral code of some sort. And they speak of the afterlife in some way other than just being a non-state of existence, or non-existence.

So God(s) set everything in motion. To be a god, you have to be omnipotent or you're exactly like what you created and no longer qualify as a god. Therefore, if you're omnipotent, you know the past, present and future, nothing is outside your grasp. Thusly, if you know what is going to take place, it has already taken place from your point of view, God's point of view that is. So from God's point of view, everything he has created will follow a set path to an end he already knows. There is no will in a life on rails. Predestination and free will are incompatible.

So, from your point of view, not God(s), everything would have to matter, because you're life on Earth dicates life after death. You would have to actively ignore the fact that God(s) is/are omnipotent for this to be true.

Dealing with the "if God doesn't exist" train of thought:
If a God(s) doesn't exist then there is no omnipotent presence. There is nothing that knows the future. There is a sense of limited free will. You can choose what you do, but obviously, choices you make will have an effect on the future, so therefore the future is not entirely composed of free will. Though what you do will affect others, and in turn will affect more and more. So what you do from all points of view, in light of free will, actually matters and has an affect on the future. Though, in the same vein, nothing will matter because there is no real outcome to the situation, it's tying and untying a knot. There was no reason to tie the knot, nor any reason to untie it.

The whole idea is to be a general case and to showcase the utter absurdity of both the existence and non-existence of God(s).

Do I feel an internal sense of right and wrong though? If I state that everything matters and nothing matters in both cases, then can I state that there is a right and a wrong? Can you point clearly, without emotional attachment, to what is right and what is wrong? Can't we just context away any type of wrong doing? Isn't right and wrong a very thin line between intent and outcome? Relative to a given situation, good guys will point to the outcome as their justification, and the relative bad guys point to the intent. "Good" says, ends justifies means, "Bad" says, means justify the end. All that exists, truly, is the argument.
 

Freakaholic

not just an addiction
What makes you think it's so far fetched? Genuinely curious as to your reasoning, even if you have no choice in the matter ;)

Is free will more far fetched than existing in the first place? Or having self-awareness?

What's your subjective feeling on this?

Gurdjieff said humans were not born with free will but could acquire it.

First of all, this has always been hard for me to put into words. Its more of a generalisation i get from seeing the world the way i do (if that makes sense).

I see existence as merely the sum of our sensory input. No two persons have the same universe, but we all share a common understanding on some level.. the sky is up... gravity pulls us down... green is that color that i call the grass...etc.

Further, all of our sense are merely wave analysis. Basically, our brains are wave analyzers, with memory being the stored wave patterns and interactions. This is highly abstract, and prolly pretty poorly described at this point... i just had a vodka-and-salad lunch.

But I start there because i think this world view shows the myriad of influences in our decision making. If our world, our universe, from the time we are born is a summation of the waves that we perceive, then any decisions, conclusions, or consequences we "create" are merely the response to those perceptions. Further, the criteria we use to make these "decisions" are also the results of these perceptions.

So, while we think that we are making a decision, we are merely acting on programming that has been compiling since we were born... since we first exited the womb. To say that decisions are made from free will is ignoring the programming that has been taking place from the moment your existence began. Your values, your prorities, your tastes... these are decided FOR you, not BY you.

Consciousness, to me, is a big accident. Brains evolved as they helped humans -or apes- survive or procreate better. At some point, the brain became self-aware, and from then on out it was a downhill slide away from awareness of our universe into awareness of ourselves. As these first aware beings looked at their hands with renewed fascination, and then their reflections in the water... they 'discovered' the concept of identity. And, this, i think, is the real creation of the concept of "free will".


Now, one thing thats always troubled and interested me..... how did this consciousness come to be? How, in the evolution of the brain, did it make the leap from reactions and learned behavior to conscious contemplation? Or did it? Did our reactions and learned behavior jsut become so complex that it seemed like contemplation.

Im rambling now, so Ill stop there.

One other concept that i want to throw out there with respect to this discussion is Jung's theory of the universal consciousness....... but i cant comment on it right now, and this is way too long.
 
We are gods to the machine

And like I keep saying NOTHING is all that matters for...

NOTHING is perfect
in the space where nothing exists
will one find perfection
the perfect NOTHING

Want for it
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Further, all of our sense are merely wave analysis. Basically, our brains are wave analyzers, with memory being the stored wave patterns and interactions. This is highly abstract, and prolly pretty poorly described at this point... i just had a vodka-and-salad lunch.

Fair enough - but what is the nature of those waves? They contain an element of uncertainty which might just be, free will?

So, while we think that we are making a decision, we are merely acting on programming that has been compiling since we were born... since we first exited the womb. To say that decisions are made from free will is ignoring the programming that has been taking place from the moment your existence began. Your values, your prorities, your tastes... these are decided FOR you, not BY you.

Well yes this may well be mostly the case. But could it be possible to transcend or override your arbitrary programming by activating parts of your circuitry that can undertake the task of consciously and deliberately reprogramming your nervous system?

Terrence McKenna (in Food Of The Gods) has an interesting take on how consciousness may have evolved - involving psilocybin mushrooms of course .

That still doesn't really explain how self-awareness works. Maybe it's an inherent function of the universe?

Have you looked at the Kurzweil 2010 thread?
 
That still doesn't really explain how self-awareness works. Maybe it's an inherent function of the universe?

Of course it is. The fact that we a part of the universe and are aware makes the whole system aware. What sustains the universe is a wave of thought. Projecting consciousness on to a 4d screen. The speed of thought is faster than the speed of light.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
God is anything that is all of these:
A. omnipotent
B. is the central character in a creation story, the catalyst
C. currently running the place
It doesn't have to be Christianity. It can be any religion that you want it to be. They all have the central, omnipotent God or gods if it's . They all have moral code of some sort. And they speak of the afterlife in some way other than just being a non-state of existence, or non-existence.

Thanks for defining. I'd still say that's a rather narrow view of what ideas about God(s) and religions can be. There are many more options I think. But that's fine if those are the terms you're working with.

So God(s) set everything in motion. To be a god, you have to be omnipotent or you're exactly like what you created and no longer qualify as a god. Therefore, if you're omnipotent, you know the past, present and future, nothing is outside your grasp. Thusly, if you know what is going to take place, it has already taken place from your point of view, God's point of view that is. So from God's point of view, everything he has created will follow a set path to an end he already knows. There is no will in a life on rails. Predestination and free will are incompatible.

I wouldn't say that any of that was necessarily the case at all. Just consider that you may not be able to discuss the reality inhabited by God-like entities in those terms. I think you are anthropomorphising too much, as if God were a human who is somehow omnipotent and omniscient. Actually what you seem to be saying here is that God has no free will!

If a God(s) doesn't exist then there is no omnipotent presence. There is nothing that knows the future. There is a sense of limited free will. You can choose what you do, but obviously, choices you make will have an effect on the future, so therefore the future is not entirely composed of free will. Though what you do will affect others, and in turn will affect more and more. So what you do from all points of view, in light of free will, actually matters and has an affect on the future. Though, in the same vein, nothing will matter because there is no real outcome to the situation, it's tying and untying a knot. There was no reason to tie the knot, nor any reason to untie it.

The first sentence I can agree with. The second doesn't follow. Free will does not imply omnipotence. Ones influence could be limited to ones physical presence and that which it can affect. Also, I don't see why the non-existence of God(s) should preclude the validity of some kind of cosmic purpose, or even justice.

The whole idea is to be a general case and to showcase the utter absurdity of both the existence and non-existence of God(s)

The absurdity of the existence or non-existence of God? Or do you mean the absurdity of dabating the existence and non-exeistence of God(s)?

Unless you know differently, we don't know. I'd say the important thing is to keep an open mind and keep adjusting your models to suit the circumstances. Or invent your own God(s).
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Of course it is. The fact that we a part of the universe and are aware makes the whole system aware. What sustains the universe is a wave of thought. Projecting consciousness on to a 4d screen. The speed of thought is faster than the speed of light.

Maybe the whole system is already aware and we are just reflexively aware of being aware?
 
1. I'm defining what a God(s) is/are. Not the religion that surrounds them. I have purposely excluded religions that do not include God(s) because those are more just systems of living.

2. I'm not trying to define God(s) as a physical entity. I'm just saying that if said entity wasn't omnipresent, then it isn't a god. If you wanted to carry it that far, then yes, if God(s) knew exactly what was going to happen, then it'd know exactly what it was going to do, therefore it would be constrained by it's own will. But it's will would expand and contract on it's own whims, constantly redefining what is known as will.

3. To have a cosmic purpose, there has to be something either recording what's going on or that set it into motion. If it's a completely arbritrary reason for existence, then there's no meaning that can arise out of that other than what we attribute. That's really the kind of somewhat narcissistic idea that humans have about themselves. We exist, therefore, we are important and what we do has meaning. I'm not denying that what we do affects others, but in the absence of God(s), to subscribe a higher meaning to it isn't feasible. To that end, in an existence without purpose, there is no justice, but only revenge.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
1. "I have purposely excluded religions that do not include God(s) because those are more just systems of living."

OK, if that's how you want to draw the playing field. I still think you are talking only about a certain kind of religion - religions needn't have omnipotent god(s), moral codes, creation myths or notions of an afterlife to be religions IMO. Various shamanic, magical, animist or pantheistic world-views, just for instance, do not necessarily require these things. I'll leave out Buddhism as I suspect that's what you mean by 'systems of living' (which sounds a little chauvinistic...)

2. "If said entity isn't omnipotent then it isn't a god."

Only as long as you insist that a god must be omnipotent - that's circular reasoning.

3. "To have a cosmic purpose, there has to be something either recording what's going on or that set it into motion. "

Why must this be the case?

"That's really the kind of somewhat narcissistic idea that humans have about themselves. We exist, therefore, we are important and what we do has meaning."

Maybe a lack of god(s) allows us to create our own meaning and value, making us more like god(s) and our actions all the more important?
 
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