Godlike Forsight

[AAFitz]

Weeee. Now we're getting some good discussion going.

Without evil, good doesn't exist. Balance.

That's the basis for one of my favorite religions. Taoism. I believe in our current state of being on this planet, everything works together to at least give the illusion of balance. Hot - cold, Water - wind, Black - white, Good - evil...

I think it also causes us to expect that things in the long run have to balance or they don't make sense to the way we view everything. There are way too many rational (in some cases simple) things for any single person to know well. Then add in complex things that have not been discovered or properly understood yet.

I basically by comparison of what exists know very very little.

This makes it sound like god's some sort of self-conscious guy who wants to prove to a girl ("Christians") that he's all awesome by punching some ugly cunt in the kidneys (non-Christians) and being like "see?!?! Aren't I awesome?! I won't punch you in the kidneys!"

Why does there have to be any good to begin with? Why the f*ck do humans have to exist in the first place? God is such a insecure motherfucker.

For me, the best argument against god is "so what about the people who live in some remote society who haven't even heard of the concept of god?" That's pretty much like an express flight to Hell.

Or is it? Maybe its the only express flight to heaven.

One thing can be surmised of a truly Good God. Praise and worship would inherently be wholly lost on Him.

Only the worst parent in the world would help their children and expect praise and thanks for it. True love, means helping your children, regardless of the cost, or any kind of return.

[2dimes]

One more and I hope I can step back,at least for today. It looks like I'm stalking you or something. [tone=brokeback]I can't quit you Fitz.[/tone]

I'm actually just responding to things you happen to have wrote today that have engaged me for some reason.

Mostly I think most religious people dont give a flying f*ck about people starving and just use religion as a delusion to get through the day, and block out all the injustice in the world, so they can justify their ignoring of the suffering of millions of people, all while pretending to be pious and righteous spreading the word of some God, whose message, they have clearly missed, or ignored.

I think though I disagree with how you worded it. I agree with my understanding or what I think you meant.

If I give money to a charity, that does not absolve me of my higher responsibility to treat everyone I interact with as well as I possibly can to the point of loving them. Actually choosing to do the right thing, everytime. Simply because it's the right thing even if in the end God was a neat fairy tail and in death I just cease to be. It by no means helps me to be rightous, though doing rightious works puts me closer, or takes me in the right direction.

I also admit I've been failing at least slightly more than half the time to most of the time at doing that for a while now.

At anytime if I'm not highly involved in a charity. I have no idea what's actually happening there. If they are high enough profile ie. Habitat for Humanity. I can be reasonably certain some of the money collected is doing good. Even then there might be one or more people stealling from it.

I personally have found in life that when I do the right thing kind of just because it is the right thing and consider what I believe Yahusua has taught me. I get the best results. Mostly based on past-tense experiences. I can't know if I'm just about to fall though. If we could people wouldn't make those mistakes.

And that's exactly why I said you completely missed the entire point of Christs teachings...because you think that is enough, or could even be mentioned without embarrassment.

That's a thing about God, us and where he seems to have put us. No actions by us can ever be enough.

That's when it becomes sensible to make this thread and accuse him of not doing enough because it looks like it, yet unlike us he is should to be able to fix everything.

[Ray Rider]

Suuure you were.
I would never cite such an overused cliche, especially since it's again taking the point of view of the human(a being which actually understands very little about the universe). Also, what makes my response religious, pray tell? You could at least try to hold your bias in just a teensy bit for the sake of being accurate.

Yes, I was (it's kinda my catchprhrase) See: [1] and [2]

Your response is religious because it defends an omnipotent, omniscient being who lets this happen:


Is god unable to stop that kid from dying WITHOUT any further negative consequences ? Then he's not omnipotent.

And you completely avoid the issue of free will, man being a free moral agent, love only being love if it is voluntary, the existence of evil in all of us, etc.

Mostly I think most religious people dont give a flying f*ck about people starving and just use religion as a delusion to get through the day, and block out all the injustice in the world, so they can justify their ignoring of the suffering of millions of people, all while pretending to be pious and righteous spreading the word of some God, whose message, they have clearly missed, or ignored.

Oh so you're pretending Samaritan's Purse, World Vision, Compassion International, Habitat for Humanity, Operation Blessing, the Salvation Army, the Mercy Ships, heck even Florence Nightengale, founder of modern nursing never existed? Okay, got it. Carry on with your delusion.

[AAFitz]

Suuure you were.
I would never cite such an overused cliche, especially since it's again taking the point of view of the human(a being which actually understands very little about the universe). Also, what makes my response religious, pray tell? You could at least try to hold your bias in just a teensy bit for the sake of being accurate.

Yes, I was (it's kinda my catchprhrase) See: [1] and [2]

Your response is religious because it defends an omnipotent, omniscient being who lets this happen:


Is god unable to stop that kid from dying WITHOUT any further negative consequences ? Then he's not omnipotent.

And you completely avoid the issue of free will, man being a free moral agent, love only being love if it is voluntary, the existence of evil in all of us, etc.

Mostly I think most religious people dont give a flying f*ck about people starving and just use religion as a delusion to get through the day, and block out all the injustice in the world, so they can justify their ignoring of the suffering of millions of people, all while pretending to be pious and righteous spreading the word of some God, whose message, they have clearly missed, or ignored.

Oh so you're pretending Samaritan's Purse, World Vision, Compassion International, Habitat for Humanity, Operation Blessing, the Salvation Army, the Mercy Ships, heck even Florence Nightengale, founder of modern nursing never existed? Okay, got it. Carry on with your delusion.

Honestly, if you understand english, you cant even jokingly think thats what I meant. That is unless youre not that intelligent, or...delusional

Given the man is a free moral agent and love bs, Ill go ahead and assume the latter.

[_sabotage_]

The POV taken by most here seems to be that god is human-like and looks at each matter from a human POV. But a few things seem to suggest otherwise.

If there is a god, we live forever, therefore someone dying would be a relief to them and not some terrible catastrophe. If a hungry child dies, then he is no longer hungry, but has entered eternal bliss. The original OP subject infers death as a finality, which isn't correspondent with religion. On the other hand, those who made the child suffer the hunger, they face the terrors of the afterlife.

When I was in Cambodia, I hung out at a place called the Lazy Gecko, not too far from all the charitable organizations around. The charities share the same street with the presidential palace, the office for the World Bank, or its ADB arm and it's among the nicer areas of town. The offices would have about an 8:1 ratio of helpers to those being helped and the help provided was often language training, or other such nonsense. One Cambodian I met there, a desk manager at a hotel, had a sister who recently went through one of their programs and then went on to study abroad. Of course, being a desk manager, he didn't seem too poor and his sister got the help similar to that of a scholarship. The destitute didn't get much of anything.

Besides letting in limited numbers of select people to help, the charities ran a little ad campaign to tell people to beware of pedophiles and had a small tourist thing where they would take foreigners to a petting zoo. Mostly the money that they were in charge of was used to keep up with the Joneses, in this case the presidential palace and ensure that the young westerners enjoyed their charitable activities.

As long as we follow the demand and supply curves, there will always be people who just aren't worth the supply, there will always be reason for war; the demand curve shows we need the resources more than they do and and our weapons supply curve means we have the ability to wrench them from their hands.

This is not god's doing. These are not god's charities. And death as seen from god's POV is not the end.

If we could assume godlike foresight, as the title suggests, then we would look to a time of equality, where the demand for food is universally equal, not sold to the highest bidder, and where resource input is equal, not my mother making $700 an hour and others making $700 a year.

Our economical cycle is not a invisible hand producing domestically for our greater security as was the original suggestion, but banks allocating resources to multinationals who pass the costs on to the unseen and heard of the world. The same economic principles which guide the allocation of resources guide the charitability of UNICEF.

If you wish to suggest god, then please bear in mind than Jesus continually called us his brothers and sisters and him being the son, so are we all. If we imagined our siblings starving at the hands of our economy, we would do something, but you have decided to take a convenient view of god and can shrug of responsibility in the matter. I find this hard to do and constantly worry about how my desire for more may be reflected on someone else's suffering with less.

I suggest a return to the common man. If we do not try to build for the individual and empower them within their communities then we will always see the same. People will decide their freedom's and the market will allocate them resources according to a small group of individuals benefit. We are complacent. If god is in everything, then god is in us, and therefore, where is our foresight?

[thegreekdog]

Are you saying you don't hold God to a higher standard to a person?

Do you care what my answer is?

Did you care what his was?

I was making a joke, so no, I don't care what his answer was.

But do you care what my answer is? Is there anything I can say that will be of any value to you? I suspect the answer is no.

I was making the same joke you were, while more of a parody of yours, and honestly, obviously so, as was the last post.

In short, it was rhetorical, just like yours, if you still don't get it.

That being said, you often post things of value, but I certainly wasnt hoping to do more than follow your rhetorical question, with the same exact one...mostly...because you kind of deserved it.

I honestly cant imagine how that wasnt obvious to you, since you did the same exact thing right above it.

My joke-o-meter is low these days.

[Funkyterrance]

...

[AAFitz]

One more and I hope I can step back,at least for today. It looks like I'm stalking you or something. [tone=brokeback]I can't quit you Fitz.[/tone]

I'm actually just responding to things you happen to have wrote today that have engaged me for some reason.

Mostly I think most religious people dont give a flying f*ck about people starving and just use religion as a delusion to get through the day, and block out all the injustice in the world, so they can justify their ignoring of the suffering of millions of people, all while pretending to be pious and righteous spreading the word of some God, whose message, they have clearly missed, or ignored.

I think though I disagree with how you worded it. I agree with my understanding or what I think you meant.

If I give money to a charity, that does not absolve me of my higher responsibility to treat everyone I interact with as well as I possibly can to the point of loving them. Actually choosing to do the right thing, everytime. Simply because it's the right thing even if in the end God was a neat fairy tail and in death I just cease to be. It by no means helps me to be rightous, though doing rightious works puts me closer, or takes me in the right direction.

I also admit I've been failing at least slightly more than half the time to most of the time at doing that for a while now.

At anytime if I'm not highly involved in a charity. I have no idea what's actually happening there. If they are high enough profile ie. Habitat for Humanity. I can be reasonably certain some of the money collected is doing good. Even then there might be one or more people stealling from it.

I personally have found in life that when I do the right thing kind of just because it is the right thing and consider what I believe Yahusua has taught me. I get the best results. Mostly based on past-tense experiences. I can't know if I'm just about to fall though. If we could people wouldn't make those mistakes.

And that's exactly why I said you completely missed the entire point of Christs teachings...because you think that is enough, or could even be mentioned without embarrassment.

That's a thing about God, us and where he seems to have put us. No actions by us can ever be enough.

That's when it becomes sensible to make this thread and accuse him of not doing enough because it looks like it, yet unlike us he is should to be able to fix everything.

Its ok, I was absolutely trying to engage you, and you are always respectful, regardless the level of your disagreement.

So...I will make the point I was eluding to.

If there is a starving, suffering child, and you can do more to help him. It is Christs teachings that you should. If Christ was here right now, and saw you playing a risk game, while thousands of kids died of malnutrition, something that is actually easily avoidable, I do not think he would thank you for the $100 donation.

Keep in mind here, I dont mean this personally. Im using you as an example, to mean anyone, including myself.

I fully believe, that everytime you choose to spend money on something for yourself, when you could use that money to save a childs life, you are a sinner as described explicitly by Christ's teaching.

I think an analogy is a weak tool, but I will use it here to shorten what I need to type to express the point I am going for.

If you are in a room with five other people, and you have enough money to buy food for all of them, but instead, by a fabulous window dressing, and two of those people die, you are a sinner, and practically, in some way, responsible for their death.

Mind you, I understand you cannot save everyone, but the fact is, every single person can save more people than they do, which means every single person has let children die, that they did not have to, which makes them responsible for their deaths, almost as much as pulling the trigger to shoot them.

Its less visual, less connected, and easier to remove oneself from, but on a basic level, there is absolutely no other conclusion that one can make. The only reason we do not do more to help these children, is because they are in another room, and we choose not to open the door, and pretend not to hear them screaming.

Now, this is not at all directed at the many people of many faiths, or the many atheists who obviously know this, and have devoted their entire lives.

Further, I fully recognize that some do way more than others and absolutely should be commended for their relative contributions.

However, what it all comes down to is Shindlers list. He had a certain amount of money, and he realized all that money meant human lives and he used it all to save every single child he could, and I bet if you asked him, he would agree he should have done more, that if one child is dying or suffering, its one child too many.

Certainly Christ taught that was the case.

My point here, is that all of us, religious and non, do not do enough, and damn well know it. We justify it ten thousand different ways, but in the end, we choose to let children die, and no matter how you sugarcoat it, thats exactly what we do.

That is the basic point, and there are many variations and I could even delve into the Bill Gates scenario, where he robinhooded the entire first world, and is giving half of it to the third world, and argue its good, and argue its bad....but on a basic level, every time we decide to waste resources on ourselves, for something we truly don't need, we allow children to suffer and die.

My point is, that those that profess their belief in Christ and preach how Godless atheists are, are laughable, because on some level, every single one of them knows this, and simply lets it happen, because at the end of the day, they just don't care enough to do more about it, and absolutely no one in the world who is able to read this, especially on this site, can possibly argue its incorrect.

You can argue you think you do enough, or that you do more than others or that you cant save everyone, but you definitely cannot argue you do enough, and only the most self-righteous would say they would look Jesus in the eye and say they were doing enough.

I think in reality, any intelligent Christian would be frightened to their core of what would happen should their messiah show up at their house one day, and ask them how the battle to save His children was going.

My guess, is the lot of them, would just crucify Him again, as opposed to committing to the sacrifice that would be needed, to truly do as He wished.

This, is why I mock the religious for mocking atheists or those of different faiths, because they believe that believing and worshiping a God would mean something to Him, as His children died needless deaths, and suffered needless suffering.

And using another hated analogy. Imagine how you would feel when the nanny who let your child starve to death, said, sorry, but I love you and praise you, and Ill do it every Sunday, please forgive me.

I hate I even had to explain this thought, and I hate that even still many will miss the obvious basic truth to it.

[AAFitz]

Are you saying you don't hold God to a higher standard to a person?

Do you care what my answer is?

Did you care what his was?

I was making a joke, so no, I don't care what his answer was.

But do you care what my answer is? Is there anything I can say that will be of any value to you? I suspect the answer is no.

I was making the same joke you were, while more of a parody of yours, and honestly, obviously so, as was the last post.

In short, it was rhetorical, just like yours, if you still don't get it.

That being said, you often post things of value, but I certainly wasnt hoping to do more than follow your rhetorical question, with the same exact one...mostly...because you kind of deserved it.

I honestly cant imagine how that wasnt obvious to you, since you did the same exact thing right above it.

My joke-o-meter is low these days.

Tell you what, Ill chalk it up to the fact that you assume I am always engaging you in battle, and for reasons that I am at least partly to blame....and mostly because Ive become more of an anti-troll than anything else. And by that I do not mean you are a troll, but more that I tend to be in anti-troll mode, as opposed to reasoned discourse mode, which is actually my default.

Further, I wish I just posted that it was rhetorical now, instead of making such a big deal of it.

[BigBallinStalin]

Mostly I think most religious people dont give a flying f*ck about people starving and just use religion as a delusion to get through the day, and block out all the injustice in the world, so they can justify their ignoring of the suffering of millions of people, all while pretending to be pious and righteous spreading the word of some God, whose message, they have clearly missed, or ignored.

<steps outta dinosaur suit>

Are they really worthy of blame? Who are we to judge that their subjective valuation of profit and opportunity cost are incorrect?

It can be frustrating to hear uninformed voters (more or less) blindly clamoring for state intervention while demanding the opposition to resolve imagined and/or expected intricate problems about proposals in favor of the market. How can I compile centuries of knowledge and confine them into a few posts? How do I convince people to at least level the same standard of criticism against the government?

Many of us develop into these various belief systems or ideologies while hardly engaging in some serious introspection. Introspection, critical thinking, and searching for information is not costless, so why not seek the lowest priced substitute (e.g. God did it; need more regulation; etc.)?

Im not blaming them. Im hardly suggesting I am any better. However, if one simply studies the Bible, and reads what it suggests we do in the face of human suffering and evil, there isnt really any way to interpret other than, Do not stand for this.

People instead assume its Gods will, and go on with their lives, when its very clear, that if the Bible was written by God, it was his will that such suffering was meant to be stopped. Theoretically, he sent his son to die so we would get the point even better, and its really straightforward, so on some level, except those doing everything they can, the blame absolutely rests with them, myself included.

Therefore, we must insist on free markets for the world. Thanks, AAFitz!

RE: underlined, really? Because St. Augustine (or Aquinas) had a different view. IIRC, slavery exists because the slaves committed some sin previously, so now they're paying for it. People living under brutal dictatorships also get what they deserve because sin.

The point is that the Bible has remained--more or less--unchanged, yet human interpretations of it have changed (to my knowledge in the modern era no one makes such arguments like Aquinas and Aug. have). So, it's not a simple matter of reading the Bible because the interpreted directives will differ. Our awareness of others and our desire to help them seems to have increased over the centuries, but the Bible plays a proximate role in this. Something else explains why humans shifted from Aquinas and Aug's way of thinking. Perhaps the Bible is not as relevant as we think it is.

Well, as you say here, people incorrectly interpret writing as you have done with your faulty free market assumption.

OHHH!!!!! (Is a dinosaur-suited Jack Nicholson under the alias BigBallinStalin allowed to make the occasional joke?



<serious face>

As far as my statement being far too generalized, it is, but it is also aimed for the most part at those particular people, and the ones I know like them.

There are many theories about what the remedies could be, and free markets could be one of them, but given what Ive seen markets do in the past, I wouldn't trust them to create anything but a disaster. I believe you have simply misinterpreted history, to come up with your faulty assumption.

A crucial I've learned is that the outcomes of markets are intertwined with the plans of politicians and bureaucrats. For example, when the financial crisis was in its worse stages, out came the cries against markets--and 'free' markets, which was odd; however, very little was mentioned about the public policies and regulatory agencies which have distorted prices and in other ways have hampered activities within the market.

[2dimes]

Weeee. Now we're getting some good discussion going.

Without evil, good doesn't exist. Balance.

That's the basis for one of my favorite religions. Taoism. I believe in our current state of being on this planet, everything works together to at least give the illusion of balance. Hot - cold, Water - wind, Black - white, Good - evil...

I think it also causes us to expect that things in the long run have to balance or they don't make sense to the way we view everything. There are way too many rational (in some cases simple) things for any single person to know well. Then add in complex things that have not been discovered or properly understood yet.

I basically by comparison of what exists know very very little.

This makes it sound like god's some sort of self-conscious guy who wants to prove to a girl ("Christians") that he's all awesome by punching some ugly cunt in the kidneys (non-Christians) and being like "see?!?! Aren't I awesome?! I won't punch you in the kidneys!"

Why does there have to be any good to begin with? Why the f*ck do humans have to exist in the first place? God is such a insecure motherfucker.

Actually I was suggesting something many Christians might think is heritical. The fact that at times it seems like God has nothing to do with my life.

Good and bad things happen to us all.
Bible verse, (I'll look it up if you want but I'm going to throw it off the cuff here. Hopefully I'm close to what it actually says.)
God causes the rain to fall on both the rightious and the wicked. And also the sun to shine on us all.

To a degree, God lets things happen to us in both directions. Good and Bad and not allways the one we deserve or asked for. Some of the worst times in my life have been right after I started trying to get closer to God. Christians call it "being challenged or attacked by the enemy or Satan." Basically I start doing the right things, praising God, talking to people about him, maybe going to a church (though for me I don't go to churches unless I'm trying to be with God the rest of the time) and I get punched in the kidneys.

Regardless of who punched me I was trying to hang out with God who at this point should have been doing that "impress me" thing and punching a (non-christian).

Some think we cannot have or know good unless there is bad. I don't believe that. Though there is both here on Earth. Sometimes it's difficult to see the good in people lately but how much of that is actually dark times and how much is perception?

[kentington]

Its ok, I was absolutely trying to engage you, and you are always respectful, regardless the level of your disagreement.

So...I will make the point I was eluding to.

If there is a starving, suffering child, and you can do more to help him. It is Christs teachings that you should. If Christ was here right now, and saw you playing a risk game, while thousands of kids died of malnutrition, something that is actually easily avoidable, I do not think he would thank you for the $100 donation.

Keep in mind here, I dont mean this personally. Im using you as an example, to mean anyone, including myself.

I fully believe, that everytime you choose to spend money on something for yourself, when you could use that money to save a childs life, you are a sinner as described explicitly by Christ's teaching.

I think an analogy is a weak tool, but I will use it here to shorten what I need to type to express the point I am going for.

If you are in a room with five other people, and you have enough money to buy food for all of them, but instead, by a fabulous window dressing, and two of those people die, you are a sinner, and practically, in some way, responsible for their death.

Mind you, I understand you cannot save everyone, but the fact is, every single person can save more people than they do, which means every single person has let children die, that they did not have to, which makes them responsible for their deaths, almost as much as pulling the trigger to shoot them.

Its less visual, less connected, and easier to remove oneself from, but on a basic level, there is absolutely no other conclusion that one can make. The only reason we do not do more to help these children, is because they are in another room, and we choose not to open the door, and pretend not to hear them screaming.

Now, this is not at all directed at the many people of many faiths, or the many atheists who obviously know this, and have devoted their entire lives.

Further, I fully recognize that some do way more than others and absolutely should be commended for their relative contributions.

However, what it all comes down to is Shindlers list. He had a certain amount of money, and he realized all that money meant human lives and he used it all to save every single child he could, and I bet if you asked him, he would agree he should have done more, that if one child is dying or suffering, its one child too many.

Certainly Christ taught that was the case.

My point here, is that all of us, religious and non, do not do enough, and damn well know it. We justify it ten thousand different ways, but in the end, we choose to let children die, and no matter how you sugarcoat it, thats exactly what we do.

That is the basic point, and there are many variations and I could even delve into the Bill Gates scenario, where he robinhooded the entire first world, and is giving half of it to the third world, and argue its good, and argue its bad....but on a basic level, every time we decide to waste resources on ourselves, for something we truly don't need, we allow children to suffer and die.

My point is, that those that profess their belief in Christ and preach how Godless atheists are, are laughable, because on some level, every single one of them knows this, and simply lets it happen, because at the end of the day, they just don't care enough to do more about it, and absolutely no one in the world who is able to read this, especially on this site, can possibly argue its incorrect.

You can argue you think you do enough, or that you do more than others or that you cant save everyone, but you definitely cannot argue you do enough, and only the most self-righteous would say they would look Jesus in the eye and say they were doing enough.

I think in reality, any intelligent Christian would be frightened to their core of what would happen should their messiah show up at their house one day, and ask them how the battle to save His children was going.

My guess, is the lot of them, would just crucify Him again, as opposed to committing to the sacrifice that would be needed, to truly do as He wished.

This, is why I mock the religious for mocking atheists or those of different faiths, because they believe that believing and worshiping a God would mean something to Him, as His children died needless deaths, and suffered needless suffering.

And using another hated analogy. Imagine how you would feel when the nanny who let your child starve to death, said, sorry, but I love you and praise you, and Ill do it every Sunday, please forgive me.

I hate I even had to explain this thought, and I hate that even still many will miss the obvious basic truth to it.

Ouch. I think this is the best thing I have seen you write. It shows how simply we fail. That was a truly disheartening and inspiring message. Thanks for making and breaking my day.

[BigBallinStalin]

2dimes, tvor, TGD, and a few others--I imagine--represent the majority of Christians and other theists, and they have the right mindset when it comes to religion. This is why I'm not too particularly concerned about religion itself and about most of its adherents. When Hawkins stated (in that youtube video Haggis(?) posted somewhere far far away) 'religion is evil because X, Y, and Z," I disagree because his interpretation of religion does not sync with the majority's--and more importantly the consequences of religious followers are on net positive.

[AAFitz]

Mostly I think most religious people dont give a flying f*ck about people starving and just use religion as a delusion to get through the day, and block out all the injustice in the world, so they can justify their ignoring of the suffering of millions of people, all while pretending to be pious and righteous spreading the word of some God, whose message, they have clearly missed, or ignored.

<steps outta dinosaur suit>

Are they really worthy of blame? Who are we to judge that their subjective valuation of profit and opportunity cost are incorrect?

It can be frustrating to hear uninformed voters (more or less) blindly clamoring for state intervention while demanding the opposition to resolve imagined and/or expected intricate problems about proposals in favor of the market. How can I compile centuries of knowledge and confine them into a few posts? How do I convince people to at least level the same standard of criticism against the government?

Many of us develop into these various belief systems or ideologies while hardly engaging in some serious introspection. Introspection, critical thinking, and searching for information is not costless, so why not seek the lowest priced substitute (e.g. God did it; need more regulation; etc.)?

Im not blaming them. Im hardly suggesting I am any better. However, if one simply studies the Bible, and reads what it suggests we do in the face of human suffering and evil, there isnt really any way to interpret other than, Do not stand for this.

People instead assume its Gods will, and go on with their lives, when its very clear, that if the Bible was written by God, it was his will that such suffering was meant to be stopped. Theoretically, he sent his son to die so we would get the point even better, and its really straightforward, so on some level, except those doing everything they can, the blame absolutely rests with them, myself included.

Therefore, we must insist on free markets for the world. Thanks, AAFitz!

RE: underlined, really? Because St. Augustine (or Aquinas) had a different view. IIRC, slavery exists because the slaves committed some sin previously, so now they're paying for it. People living under brutal dictatorships also get what they deserve because sin.

The point is that the Bible has remained--more or less--unchanged, yet human interpretations of it have changed (to my knowledge in the modern era no one makes such arguments like Aquinas and Aug. have). So, it's not a simple matter of reading the Bible because the interpreted directives will differ. Our awareness of others and our desire to help them seems to have increased over the centuries, but the Bible plays a proximate role in this. Something else explains why humans shifted from Aquinas and Aug's way of thinking. Perhaps the Bible is not as relevant as we think it is.

Well, as you say here, people incorrectly interpret writing as you have done with your faulty free market assumption.

OHHH!!!!! (Is a dinosaur-suited Jack Nicholson under the alias BigBallinStalin allowed to make the occasional joke?



<serious face>

As far as my statement being far too generalized, it is, but it is also aimed for the most part at those particular people, and the ones I know like them.

There are many theories about what the remedies could be, and free markets could be one of them, but given what Ive seen markets do in the past, I wouldn't trust them to create anything but a disaster. I believe you have simply misinterpreted history, to come up with your faulty assumption.

A crucial I've learned is that the outcomes of markets are intertwined with the plans of politicians and bureaucrats. For example, when the financial crisis was in its worse stages, out came the cries against markets--and 'free' markets, which was odd; however, very little was mentioned about the public policies and regulatory agencies which have distorted prices and in other ways have hampered activities within the market.

Good timing. I agree fully here. I just happened to catch the last of "The chasing of Madoff"(close enough) where it was very clear how bad our financial system really is set up right now. Ten years of damning evidence ignored, and really...all for politics of one kind or another.

I think one of Obama's main failings was not scaring the shit out of financial fraud, but I also fully believe its because he was at the edge of the worst financial crisis this country has seen in 80 years, and was genuinely afraid of pushing it over that edge.

In any case, it is the lack of accountability that makes me wary of free markets. I think instead what we truly need, is a good government, but dont worry, I am laughing as I type that.

[BigBallinStalin]

The POV taken by most here seems to be that god is human-like and looks at each matter from a human POV. But a few things seem to suggest otherwise.

If there is a god, we live forever, therefore someone dying would be a relief to them and not some terrible catastrophe. If a hungry child dies, then he is no longer hungry, but has entered eternal bliss. The original OP subject infers death as a finality, which isn't correspondent with religion. On the other hand, those who made the child suffer the hunger, they face the terrors of the afterlife.

When I was in Cambodia, I hung out at a place called the Lazy Gecko, not too far from all the charitable organizations around. The charities share the same street with the presidential palace, the office for the World Bank, or its ADB arm and it's among the nicer areas of town. The offices would have about an 8:1 ratio of helpers to those being helped and the help provided was often language training, or other such nonsense. One Cambodian I met there, a desk manager at a hotel, had a sister who recently went through one of their programs and then went on to study abroad. Of course, being a desk manager, he didn't seem too poor and his sister got the help similar to that of a scholarship. The destitute didn't get much of anything.

Besides letting in limited numbers of select people to help, the charities ran a little ad campaign to tell people to beware of pedophiles and had a small tourist thing where they would take foreigners to a petting zoo. Mostly the money that they were in charge of was used to keep up with the Joneses, in this case the presidential palace and ensure that the young westerners enjoyed their charitable activities.

As long as we follow the demand and supply curves, there will always be people who just aren't worth the supply, there will always be reason for war; the demand curve shows we need the resources more than they do and and our weapons supply curve means we have the ability to wrench them from their hands.

This is not god's doing. These are not god's charities. And death as seen from god's POV is not the end.

If we could assume godlike foresight, as the title suggests, then we would look to a time of equality, where the demand for food is universally equal, not sold to the highest bidder, and where resource input is equal, not my mother making $700 an hour and others making $700 a year.

Our economical cycle is not a invisible hand producing domestically for our greater security as was the original suggestion, but banks allocating resources to multinationals who pass the costs on to the unseen and heard of the world. The same economic principles which guide the allocation of resources guide the charitability of UNICEF.

If you wish to suggest god, then please bear in mind than Jesus continually called us his brothers and sisters and him being the son, so are we all. If we imagined our siblings starving at the hands of our economy, we would do something, but you have decided to take a convenient view of god and can shrug of responsibility in the matter. I find this hard to do and constantly worry about how my desire for more may be reflected on someone else's suffering with less.

I suggest a return to the common man. If we do not try to build for the individual and empower them within their communities then we will always see the same. People will decide their freedom's and the market will allocate them resources according to a small group of individuals benefit. We are complacent. If god is in everything, then god is in us, and therefore, where is our foresight?

Although the bathwater has been dirtied by government influence and crony capitalism in general, it does not justify throwing out the baby (the market process) with the bathwater.

[AAFitz]

Its ok, I was absolutely trying to engage you, and you are always respectful, regardless the level of your disagreement.

So...I will make the point I was eluding to.

If there is a starving, suffering child, and you can do more to help him. It is Christs teachings that you should. If Christ was here right now, and saw you playing a risk game, while thousands of kids died of malnutrition, something that is actually easily avoidable, I do not think he would thank you for the $100 donation.

Keep in mind here, I dont mean this personally. Im using you as an example, to mean anyone, including myself.

I fully believe, that everytime you choose to spend money on something for yourself, when you could use that money to save a childs life, you are a sinner as described explicitly by Christ's teaching.

I think an analogy is a weak tool, but I will use it here to shorten what I need to type to express the point I am going for.

If you are in a room with five other people, and you have enough money to buy food for all of them, but instead, by a fabulous window dressing, and two of those people die, you are a sinner, and practically, in some way, responsible for their death.

Mind you, I understand you cannot save everyone, but the fact is, every single person can save more people than they do, which means every single person has let children die, that they did not have to, which makes them responsible for their deaths, almost as much as pulling the trigger to shoot them.

Its less visual, less connected, and easier to remove oneself from, but on a basic level, there is absolutely no other conclusion that one can make. The only reason we do not do more to help these children, is because they are in another room, and we choose not to open the door, and pretend not to hear them screaming.

Now, this is not at all directed at the many people of many faiths, or the many atheists who obviously know this, and have devoted their entire lives.

Further, I fully recognize that some do way more than others and absolutely should be commended for their relative contributions.

However, what it all comes down to is Shindlers list. He had a certain amount of money, and he realized all that money meant human lives and he used it all to save every single child he could, and I bet if you asked him, he would agree he should have done more, that if one child is dying or suffering, its one child too many.

Certainly Christ taught that was the case.

My point here, is that all of us, religious and non, do not do enough, and damn well know it. We justify it ten thousand different ways, but in the end, we choose to let children die, and no matter how you sugarcoat it, thats exactly what we do.

That is the basic point, and there are many variations and I could even delve into the Bill Gates scenario, where he robinhooded the entire first world, and is giving half of it to the third world, and argue its good, and argue its bad....but on a basic level, every time we decide to waste resources on ourselves, for something we truly don't need, we allow children to suffer and die.

My point is, that those that profess their belief in Christ and preach how Godless atheists are, are laughable, because on some level, every single one of them knows this, and simply lets it happen, because at the end of the day, they just don't care enough to do more about it, and absolutely no one in the world who is able to read this, especially on this site, can possibly argue its incorrect.

You can argue you think you do enough, or that you do more than others or that you cant save everyone, but you definitely cannot argue you do enough, and only the most self-righteous would say they would look Jesus in the eye and say they were doing enough.

I think in reality, any intelligent Christian would be frightened to their core of what would happen should their messiah show up at their house one day, and ask them how the battle to save His children was going.

My guess, is the lot of them, would just crucify Him again, as opposed to committing to the sacrifice that would be needed, to truly do as He wished.

This, is why I mock the religious for mocking atheists or those of different faiths, because they believe that believing and worshiping a God would mean something to Him, as His children died needless deaths, and suffered needless suffering.

And using another hated analogy. Imagine how you would feel when the nanny who let your child starve to death, said, sorry, but I love you and praise you, and Ill do it every Sunday, please forgive me.

I hate I even had to explain this thought, and I hate that even still many will miss the obvious basic truth to it.

Ouch. I think this is the best thing I have seen you write. It shows how simply we fail. That was a truly disheartening and inspiring message. Thanks for making and breaking my day.

Thank you. Its...lets call its a view of the world that I find impossible to ignore, the more I learn about the world. And I don't know if its the best thing I ever wrote, but I can tell you it was as much from the heart as anything i have ever written. I've written it prematurely, and quite frankly feel its thousands of words shy of the true message, but, twentycent sucked it out of me, as much because I felt he deserved an honest answer to his many questions.

[2dimes]

I won't quote it but that was a very well written post. I'm sure there's things you or I could ad and we could go on forever perhaps, but thank you for typing it and I agree with it. Maybe I failed to express it but most of the parts line up with where I was trying to go also.

Outstanding thoughts.

[kentington]

2dimes, tvor, TGD, and a few others--I imagine--represent the majority of Christians and other theists, and they have the right mindset when it comes to religion. This is why I'm not too particularly concerned about religion itself and about most of its adherents. When Hawkins stated (in that youtube video Haggis(?) posted somewhere far far away) 'religion is evil because X, Y, and Z," I disagree because his interpretation of religion does not sync with the majority's--and more importantly the consequences of religious followers are on net positive.

The hardest part Christians and other religions face. The evil members of the religion stand out fairly easily. The truth is that I am sure these people would be problems for society even if religion didn't exist. There are a lot of sick people out there who will use any excuse to justify their actions. Like AAFitz said if Christ showed up at our doorstep today a lot of Christians would crucify Him again, and that wouldn't surprise me. If He asked me what I was doing to help the children my answer would just be....crap. But that just goes to show that putting your faith in Christ doesn't make you a good person and it doesn't mean you actually believe what He has taught. A lot of people are just using it as a security blanket and I think it shows.

[thegreekdog]

I won't quote it but that was a very well written post. I'm sure there's things you or I could ad and we could go on forever perhaps, but thank you for typing it and I agree with it. Maybe I failed to express it but most of the parts line up with where I was trying to go also.

Outstanding thoughts.

I think the last sentence about sums up most arguments about that kind of thing, unfortunately.

[AAFitz]

I won't quote it but that was a very well written post. I'm sure there's things you or I could ad and we could go on forever perhaps, but thank you for typing it and I agree with it. Maybe I failed to express it but most of the parts line up with where I was trying to go also.

Outstanding thoughts.

I do know what you meant and again, was only using you as an example. To some degree I sucked you into that, though I honestly had no intentions of posting all of that. I really should have read it before posting, because there was some sloppiness to it, but the point I wanted to make is definitely there.

I also hope the fact that I am not religious, may very well be an atheist(who really knows) and feel this way, regardless of the existence of a God or not. Also, to give everyone credit, I think we all know it, and I'll be the first to admit I do much less than others do.

[AAFitz]

2dimes, tvor, TGD, and a few others--I imagine--represent the majority of Christians and other theists, and they have the right mindset when it comes to religion. This is why I'm not too particularly concerned about religion itself and about most of its adherents. When Hawkins stated (in that youtube video Haggis(?) posted somewhere far far away) 'religion is evil because X, Y, and Z," I disagree because his interpretation of religion does not sync with the majority's--and more importantly the consequences of religious followers are on net positive.

The hardest part Christians and other religions face. The evil members of the religion stand out fairly easily. The truth is that I am sure these people would be problems for society even if religion didn't exist. There are a lot of sick people out there who will use any excuse to justify their actions. Like AAFitz said if Christ showed up at our doorstep today a lot of Christians would crucify Him again, and that wouldn't surprise me. If He asked me what I was doing to help the children my answer would just be....crap. But that just goes to show that putting your faith in Christ doesn't make you a good person and it doesn't mean you actually believe what He has taught. A lot of people are just using it as a security blanket and I think it shows.

That was exactly my point, and if anyone ever questions my motivation for actively engaging someone of religion that seems to be posting something counter to what I happen to believe Christs message actually was....for the most part, thats it.

[_sabotage_]

We have spent thousands of years and countless people-hours trying to figure out how to make some of us better off than others. I held a talk yesterday at Dal trying to get people to share their collective knowledge, and putting in a few hours to try to focus on things that could allow people to be independent from our economic system.

Bell and Eastlink had joined together to sponsor a talk on data privacy, so I guess all the potentially attendees were busy seeing how two supposed competing service providers can convince us that we each need our own private network and couldn't attend.

I did manage to get one person along, and he seems like a good guy but we didn't get around to saving the world.

What I can say, based on the research than I have been doing, is:

1. we are quite capable of feeding the world, and providing people with the knowledge and tools to feed themselves. Based on modern techniques a family could feed themselves on little land and little time.

2. We are quite capable of living at our accustomed standard with far less energy and using local resources. I would refer to the 9800 years of our civilization prior to the industrial revolution, but even our modern needs can be met using about 8% of our current energy. Today a energy professor responded to me saying, not that it can't be done, but what of all the existing houses? Well if I am in the property market and am going to spend a few hundred thousand buying a Canadian house, then I might as well engage some Canadian labour, spend the same money and be self reliant for the rest of my life rather than put the money into the power hungry houses that are owned by the bank. IE, I wouldn't buy a record player just to keep them in existence when I could buy an ipod for the same, just to keep the banks happy.

3. We can and will soon be producing on a human scale, 3D printing will make any local resources manufactuarable based on world knowledge, the question is how much of the price of the end product is going to be sucked up by patents. Are we going to have machines and resources with user friendly interfaces and let a company who paid a designer 60k a year to inscript biomimickry, ie natural processes, into a data software, earn billions of the end user like we do with software?

The knowledge to end the world's problems exist, but so do the age old impediments towards its implementation, money, we all want that fucking money.

Jesus's only aggressive act according to the Bible was overturning the moneychangers tables. Yet we let the money changers direct every aspect of our lives to this day.

10 hours a week, probably less time than we each spend on conquerclub, working towards meeting the needs of everybody and changing the world forever.

Ten hours creating a blueprint for someone to build their future off of. I went back to university to learn this and yet every class just focuses on how this is not possible, no question I have brought up has ever been answered to the negative, but it keeps getting directed to the overriding system. Instead of focusing on how we can eliminate a need, we just focus on how we can service it. The thermal coupling concept, which requires no future inputs, ie its fucking free, is being suggested as an ets system which is the same damn thing but allows someone to make 1600 a year off of each of us.

Why the f*ck are we focusing all of our efforts on things that we will have to pay for forever, instead of focusing our efforts on things which eliminate need forever?


I ask you group of groggy minded assmunchers to join a like minded assmuncher and put in ten hours towards empowering the common man. The concept is of guerilla unity. Let's build back our communities with each other, not some fucking invisible hand snorting coke off victoria's secret breasts in the Caribbean.

[thegreekdog]

2dimes, tvor, TGD, and a few others--I imagine--represent the majority of Christians and other theists, and they have the right mindset when it comes to religion. This is why I'm not too particularly concerned about religion itself and about most of its adherents. When Hawkins stated (in that youtube video Haggis(?) posted somewhere far far away) 'religion is evil because X, Y, and Z," I disagree because his interpretation of religion does not sync with the majority's--and more importantly the consequences of religious followers are on net positive.

The hardest part Christians and other religions face. The evil members of the religion stand out fairly easily. The truth is that I am sure these people would be problems for society even if religion didn't exist. There are a lot of sick people out there who will use any excuse to justify their actions. Like AAFitz said if Christ showed up at our doorstep today a lot of Christians would crucify Him again, and that wouldn't surprise me. If He asked me what I was doing to help the children my answer would just be....crap. But that just goes to show that putting your faith in Christ doesn't make you a good person and it doesn't mean you actually believe what He has taught. A lot of people are just using it as a security blanket and I think it shows.

That was exactly my point, and if anyone ever questions my motivation for actively engaging someone of religion that seems to be posting something counter to what I happen to believe Christs message actually was....for the most part, thats it.

I vaguely recall Stranger in a Strange Land.

[BigBallinStalin]

2dimes, tvor, TGD, and a few others--I imagine--represent the majority of Christians and other theists, and they have the right mindset when it comes to religion. This is why I'm not too particularly concerned about religion itself and about most of its adherents. When Hawkins stated (in that youtube video Haggis(?) posted somewhere far far away) 'religion is evil because X, Y, and Z," I disagree because his interpretation of religion does not sync with the majority's--and more importantly the consequences of religious followers are on net positive.

The hardest part Christians and other religions face. The evil members of the religion stand out fairly easily. The truth is that I am sure these people would be problems for society even if religion didn't exist. There are a lot of sick people out there who will use any excuse to justify their actions. Like AAFitz said if Christ showed up at our doorstep today a lot of Christians would crucify Him again, and that wouldn't surprise me. If He asked me what I was doing to help the children my answer would just be....crap. But that just goes to show that putting your faith in Christ doesn't make you a good person and it doesn't mean you actually believe what He has taught. A lot of people are just using it as a security blanket and I think it shows.

Self-sacrificing a society's/group's wealth and transferring it to another group some place far away won't improve that group in the long-run. Note sabotage's point about foreign aid and/or charity organizations in Cambodia. Well-intended attempts to help others also have unintended consequences, e.g. it subsidizes the decrepit institutions and governments in those areas, so that they can continue oppressing their own people, implementing bad policies, etc. without having as much of a need to change for the better.

Considering those consequences, it makes sense to say, "I'm not sure; therefore, I'll put my money to where I best expect to be profitable for others." This can be done through voluntary exchanges on the market, which increase wealth---e.g. grocery shopping or even donating to charities (depending on where they contribute and how well their services can be monitored).

If I could rewrite Jesus' teachings, it would include:

1. Consider the long-term consequences.
2. Act appropriately--as best you can.
3. Voluntary exchanges FTW.

(Another way of self-sacrifice which would be acceptable is devoting one's life to understanding how wealth is created, how bad institutions undermine prosperity, etc.).


So, although AAFitz mentions some serious problems, it still doesn't justify total self-sacrifice for others.

[thegreekdog]

If it makes any difference, there is nothing so bad to me than a religious person who bloviates about his or her religion, but does not practice the tenets of the religion. That goes for everyone from the Pope to a priest to Rush Limbaugh. And that goes for myself as well.