Christianity vs Earth, the right vs the left (the Nietzsche reading club)

[Florestan]

God's foreknowledge

Finally,  you've hit upon the magic word. Foreknowledge is not predestination. My foreknowing that the Sun will rise tomorrow at time X in place Y does not cause the Sun's raising at time X in place Y. God foreknows what we do because we do it, not the other way around.

[71 dB]

Finally,  you've hit upon the magic word. Foreknowledge is not predestination. My foreknowing that the Sun will rise tomorrow at time X in place Y does not cause the Sun's raising at time X in place Y. God foreknows what we do because we do it, not the other way around.

The Sun rising is of course an illusion caused by the Earth rotating. Your X and Y are a little different from my X and Y because you are in Bucharest (44°25′57″N, 26°06′14″E) and I am in Helsinki (60°10′15″N, 24°56′15″E). Today your sunrise happened at 7:24 am while my sunrise happened at 8:43 am. These times are comparable because we are using the same time zone. Your sunrise happened 79 minutes earlier. About 6 minutes of that is because Bucharest is about 1.5° more to the east and the rest 73 minutes is because Helsinki is located much more to the north shortening the day in the winter due to the 23.44° axial tilt of the Earth.

Just bringing some rationality and science to counter all this religious gobbledegook.

[Florestan]

The Sun rising is of course an illusion caused by the Earth rotating. Your X and Y are a little different from my X and Y because you are in Bucharest (44°25′57″N, 26°06′14″E) and I am in Helsinki (60°10′15″N, 24°56′15″E). Today your sunrise happened at 7:24 am while my sunrise happened at 8:43 am. These times are comparable because we are using the same time zone. Your sunrise happened 79 minutes earlier. About 6 minutes of that is because Bucharest is about 1.5° more to the east and the rest 73 minutes is because Helsinki is located much more to the north shortening the day in the winter due to the 23.44° axial tilt of the Earth.

Well, "Sun rising at time X in place Y" clearly implies that in different places it will rise  at different times, so what's your point again?

[DavidW]

Finally,  you've hit upon the magic word. Foreknowledge is not predestination. My foreknowing that the Sun will rise tomorrow at time X in place Y does not cause the Sun's raising at time X in place Y. God foreknows what we do because we do it, not the other way around.

I think that perhaps implicit in your post is that you see God as an aloof observer, while many place faith in God as a loving participant who has a plan. If I'm reading you write, which I might not be!

[Florestan]

I think that perhaps implicit in your post is that you see God as an aloof observer, while many place faith in God as a loving participant who has a plan. If I'm reading you write, which I might not be!

No, you misunderstood me, perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I'm a theist, not a deist. I wrote a page or two ago that God extends His grace to all mankind. Jesus Christ died for the salvation of all, not just a few elected. Yet He doesn't compel anyone to salvation (or to damnation, for that matter). Both are works in progress at any given time and the final outcome depends entirely on the free will of man. Nobody can be saved against their will. Of course God is loving and intervenes in the world, but only to assist, encourage, answer to prayers, show His mercy (in forms which may or may not be comprehensible to human understanding) --- never to compel. Nobody is saved or damned regardless of what they think or do; human cooperation (or lack thereof) is essential.

I hope I made my position clear (which is actually not mine but standard Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic teaching).

[Florestan]

To return to the topic.

Is climate change real? Of course it is. Denying it is denying the obvious.

Is it totally man made? Probably not, but we have no small share in it.

Is it in man's power to "kill the Earth" in the sense of making the environment harsh, hazardous or downright uninhabitable? Of course it is. It has already happened in some areas.

Is it in man's power to extinguish life on Earth? Yes it is, eg by an all out nuclear war.

Will it happen? Probably not, because God will intervene --- but as I wrote in a previous post, God works not only directly but also by people, so any rational and reasonable action taken trying to correct the environmental damage is also His doing. Folding the arms and waiting for God to eventually take care of it all is both irresponsible and un-Christian, because it means tempting God: we do as we please because surely He'll clean up our mess in the end; well, He might or might not, as He pleases.

[Todd]

Is it in man's power to extinguish life on Earth? Yes it is, eg by an all out nuclear war.

Untrue.  Full-scale nuclear war would not kill all humans, let alone all life.  Estimates of human survival vary, of course, with high end estimates of around two billion people and low end estimates of around five hundred million.  Full-scale nuclear war would destroy modern human civilization and most likely lead to a mass extinction, but many species would survive, and over the course of millennia, new life would return in abundance.  To be sure, full-scale nuclear war would be the worst possible thing that humans could do and should be avoided at all costs.  While it would be the most catastrophic thing to happen to humans (possibly - the Youngest Toba eruption may have been more destructive than current nuclear arsenals from a human survival standpoint), it would not be the most catastrophic thing to happen to the earth and life on earth.  People tend to attribute power to humanity that it simply does not possess.

[Opus131]

You're worried that if God is the ocean he can't also be the waves, because waves come and go and God must be permanent. But the ocean never actually comes and goes; it only looks that way when we stare at one wave and forget it's just the ocean moving. The wave never drags the ocean into being temporary; it's still 100 % ocean the whole time.

So when we say "the world is God," we're not dragging God down; we're just noticing there was never anything except God pretending to be waves for a bit. Take away the pretending and only the ocean is left, unchanged, untouched, and completely whole. That's it.

I would say the problem with this analogy is that size alone doesn't really reflect the disparity between God's trascendence and contingent reality.

A wave is smaller than an ocean but they are still essentially the same in essence. Such is not the case between God and creation.

If we look at Hinduism, there is formula which goes something like "Maya is nothing other than Atma, but Atma is not Maya". The contigent is nothing other than the principle on some level, but the principle cannot be identified with the contingent or effect.

It's the same in Orthodoxy with the essence/energies distinction. When we look at the world, we look at God in terms of his operations, not his essence. MAYBE you can argue visible reality is a kind of symbolic pointer or rapresentation of this essence (thus the sun sort of rapresent an aspect of the nature of God in a symbolic way), but that's as far as it goes. Creation may be an icon of God in some sense, but God's essence is still radically separate from anything that is finite nature. 

That's why i said panentheism is a more accurate description than pantheism.

[AnotherSpin]

I would say the problem with this analogy is that size alone doesn't really reflect the disparity between God's trascendence and contingent reality.

A wave is smaller than an ocean but they are still essentially the same in essence. Such is not the case between God and creation.

If we look at Hinduism, there is formula which goes something like "Maya is nothing other than Atma, but Atma is not Maya". The contigent is nothing other than the principle on some level, but the principle cannot be identified with the contingent or effect.

It's the same in Orthodoxy with the essence/energies distinction. When we look at the world, we look at God in terms of his operations, not his essence. MAYBE you can argue visible reality is a kind of symbolic pointer or rapresentation of this essence (thus the sun sort of rapresent an aspect of the nature of God in a symbolic way), but that's as far as it goes. Creation may be an icon of God in some sense, but God's essence is still radically separate from anything that is finite nature. 

That's why i said panentheism is a more accurate description than pantheism.

The formulation in Hinduism is:

The Absolute alone is real. The world is a mere appearance. The Self is nothing other than the Absolute.

[Opus131]

Personally, i would describe my objection to pantheism thus. There is a sense in which you can say your reflection in a mirror, your shadow or a painted rapresentation of yourself is "you", but there is also an incommensurable difference between an image and its model, or the reflection with the actual reality that projects it.

The relative is nothing but the absolute but the absolute is not the relative. So the world is both God in a sense but God is also utterly trascendent from all creation and all contingent reality and nobody can see his essence except through its icon, which in Christianity is the Logos.

[steve ridgway]

The relative is nothing but the absolute but the absolute is not the relative. So the world is both God in a sense but God is also utterly trascendent from all creation and all contingent reality and nobody can see his essence except through its icon, which in Christianity is the Logos.

There is certainly plenty of food for thought in this thread!

[71 dB]

Untrue.  Full-scale nuclear war would not kill all humans, let alone all life.  Estimates of human survival vary, of course, with high end estimates of around two billion people and low end estimates of around five hundred million.  Full-scale nuclear war would destroy modern human civilization and most likely lead to a mass extinction, but many species would survive, and over the course of millennia, new life would return in abundance.  To be sure, full-scale nuclear war would be the worst possible thing that humans could do and should be avoided at all costs.  While it would be the most catastrophic thing to happen to humans (possibly - the Youngest Toba eruption may have been more destructive than current nuclear arsenals from a human survival standpoint), it would not be the most catastrophic thing to happen to the earth and life on earth.  People tend to attribute power to humanity that it simply does not possess.

Wars are not fought to kill everybody. They are fought to kill the enemy. If mankind really wanted to end its existence, it could use the nuclear weapons optimally to kill everybody on this planet. Humanity has a lot of power and we should be careful how we use it. With power comes responsibility. 

[71 dB]

Is climate change real? Of course it is. Denying it is denying the obvious.

Only intellectually challenged/lazy low information people believe climate change is a hoax. The fossil fuel industry and the politicians bought by them know climate change is real, but they simply don't care about the future of this planet, because they are morally bankrupt and insanely selfish/greedy. They must believe their children and children's children are okay thanks to all the fossil fuel money they inherit. They can afford living comfortably in a destroyed World while others suffer and die. Sick people.

Is it totally man made? Probably not, but we have no small share in it.

The climate changes slowly by itself without mankind. On top of that is man made climate change which has been very quick (dramatic change within a few decades rather than thousands of years meaning the nature is too slow to adapt to changes).
 

Will it happen? Probably not, because God will intervene

What if God cares about mankind as little as he has cared about for example victims of all the genocides in history? What if we atheists are right and God doesn't exist? Has God intervened even once in history in your opinion and if you say yes, give me just one example. I don't see any deities intervening anywhere. All I see is people doing all kinds of things: Good, evil and everything in between.

but as I wrote in a previous post, God works not only directly but also by people, so any rational and reasonable action taken trying to correct the environmental damage is also His doing. Folding the arms and waiting for God to eventually take care of it all is both irresponsible and un-Christian, because it means tempting God: we do as we please because surely He'll clean up our mess in the end; well, He might or might not, as He pleases.

So in the end we have the responsibility to do good and I agree. I just don't need God and all this mental gymnastics to direct the responsibility from an all powerful creature to us.

[Florestan]

What if God cares about mankind as little as he has cared about for example victims of all the genocides in history? What if we atheists are right and God doesn't exist? Has God intervened even once in history in your opinion and if you say yes, give me just one example. I don't see any deities intervening anywhere. All I see is people doing all kinds of things: Good, evil and everything in between.

The last thing I want or need is to debate theodicy on GMG (or anywhere else, for that matter). Let everyone believe what they want as long as they let others do the same.

[71 dB]

The last thing I want or need is to debate theodicy on GMG (or anywhere else, for that matter). Let everyone believe what they want as long as they let others do the same.

I'm not stopping anyone believing whatever they want. I am a secular humanist and secular humanists support freedom of religion. Are we supposed to be able to challenge beliefs or not? What's the point of debating about anything if beliefs are not to be challenged? I welcome my own beliefs being challenged, because that gives the opportunity for me to evaluate if my beliefs can survive the challenges and especially if some of my beliefs are exposed to be weak, it is a win for me because I can improve my belief system.

You could keep your beliefs to yourself and save yourself from challenges, but you have chosen to bring up your views (God this, God that...) and that will result in challenges from people like me. Ask yourself if what you are demanding from others is fair. You want to use the opportunity to spread your views and beliefs online, but you don't want to encounter any kind of rebuttal. That's eating your cake and saving to too. I am ready to have my own beliefs challenged. I know I can defend them and if it turns out I can't, it is time to upgrade the beliefs. That's what intellectually honest people do. Intellectually dishonest people want to silence all criticism toward their beliefs.

[Todd]

If mankind really wanted to end its existence, it could use the nuclear weapons optimally to kill everybody on this planet.

Everything I have read since nuclear arsenals began decreasing in size in the 90s contradicts your assertion.  Can you please provide citations from experts on nuclear weapons and strategy that corroborate your claim? 

[Florestan]

I am ready to have my own beliefs challenged. I know I can defend them and if it turns out I can't, it is time to upgrade the beliefs.

I'm sorry, Poju, but your beliefs on various topics have been already challenged over the years by various people with sound arguments and you didn't upgrade any of them. Like I said, I have zero interest in debating theodicy with you or anyone else so don't try to bait me into it, it won't work.

Btw, there's a difference between stating one's views and beliefs and spreading them.

[71 dB]

Everything I have read since nuclear arsenals began decreasing in size in the 90s contradicts your assertion.  Can you please provide citations from experts on nuclear weapons and strategy that corroborate your claim? 

We chose to decrease the nuclear arsenals, but we could have chosen also to increase it. Just because we have had some sanity to not destroy everything doesn't mean we couldn't do it.

[71 dB]

I'm sorry, Poju, but your beliefs on various topics have been already challenged over the years by various people with sound arguments and you didn't upgrade any of them. Like I said, I have zero interest in debating theodicy with you or anyone else so don't try to bait me into it, it won't work.

Btw, there's a difference between stating one's views and beliefs and spreading them.

Sound arguments according to who? Obviously I need to find said arguments sound myself to see the need for adjusting my believes. It is also possible I have actually changed my opinion, but I have not informed you about it or you haven't noticed me telling about it somewhere.

It is totally your own choice what debates you want to participate. You are not obligated to debate anything, but as long as you express your opinions online, some people will react to your claims. That's just how it is.

I admit "spreading" wasn' the best word choise. I was in a hurry. Stating is better, you are correct.

[Todd]

We chose to decrease the nuclear arsenals, but we could have chosen also to increase it. Just because we have had some sanity to not destroy everything doesn't mean we couldn't do it.

This moves the goal post relative to your prior post and it includes a contrafactual assertion, as well.  As it stands today, full deployment of all nuclear weapons would not result in the death of all humans, let alone all life.