Stephen Fry On God

world is not like the father knows best days here anymore, though.....

sweet and innocent......

 

I'm not sure what that means in relation to the discussion, I don't think the world was ever like that for me... Granted, my father is a good source of knowledge, that may be an idealized projection of sorts on your upbringing/part.

 

We have the most complex brain structure in the animal kingdom, we're inherently creative and have the capacity to think outside our default mental state and evolutionary habits. This to me implies a different set of needs to satisfy than simply feeding ourselves and breeding like shit.. it also seems to me to be a good idea to regulate, or discipline, our intelligence and pay a lot more attention to recognising the repercussions f our actions. 'ol Uncle Ben with his "with great power comes great responsibility".

The whole purpose of an evolutionary niche, after all, is survival.. we're abusing our power to our own detriment. For the arguments sake and relating to the dictionary definition of the word, yes we're thriving, but I don't see why that's of any value if it's not actually in our own best interests. You spoke earlier of insinuating complacency, to me describing our species as "thriving" does exactly that.

 

God dont like guys like him, dude, hes gonna be like, oh god and jesus, jesus and god, i am so sorry i said all that stuff, i didnt mean it. I was just kidding around. I love you. You cool, you made McDonald's didnt ya, thats why i am so dammm fat, i am a disgrace, i even emptied my ciggetette butts on the freeway . Oh god, i am sorry. You can have everything just have mercy on my soul. Hallelujah, god help me . Jesus. Anyone? Is there anybody out there?

 

Good response and ideas there, I agree with that.

Again, I was responding strictly to the parameters of "evolutionary niche." Considering continuous population growth, increased life span in many nations and the ability to inhabit several different ecozones, (some of which has occurred only over the last century) I'm not sure where you see complacency in the observations of us thriving giving those parameters? I'd contend we found our niche and then some.

It seems that perhaps you feel there are human specific conditions we are not thriving at. Conditions which we cannot measure and observe in comparison to life in general but that our specific to our (psychological, nutritional, spiritual, educational) makeup? Might be so but I think we need a whole new set of parameters to consider then.

 

Are ad hominem attacks the default when you cannot criticize comments thoughtfully?

 

I see complacency in improving our situation. I think it's very much so that there are human specific conditions we are not thriving at - and it's these I feel we need to start paying a lot more attention to since our psychological tendencies play an enormous part in governing our actions and determines whether they are controlled or not.
I'm interested in your take cos I've only just really noticed how methodical you are, I'm a bit more chaotic in the sense that I dive in headfirst and draw the lines in after getting a feel for things. My general view is "congrats humanity, but we're too big for our boots".

What parameters would you suggest and how would setting them help us?


Sorry for the late response, got payed a visit from the mother lady all the way from yon england so attention has been elsewhere

 

On the subject of ecological niche that would be a place where a living species fits into the system. What we are doing is manipulating the system which is not the niche our function fits into. Our conscious facility to influence change far outpaces bio-logic or geologic evolution. Our observable function as human creatures is to taste and to know. It is evident that we perturb the entire ecological system through lack of understanding.

 

I am methodical insofar that I have some education in formal logic and reasoning and value that approach. I see all too often on this site, people will make a specific assertion, then when that specific assertion is addressed, instead of rebutting to what was addressed there is a tendency to take a concept out of the specific assertion and generalize it. It's almost like a game of conceptual keep away.

... And That is if we are lucky, perhaps just as, if not more often, people go on completely unrelated digressions or we'll spend a couple pages on semantics.

Some parameters that could be set on human specific variables might be income gap disparity, education, technological resources, agriculture, industry, healthcare, military, etc.

We might set a high and low end spectrum of how to utilize sources, allow for outliers in specific variables and go from there. Anything functioning above or below, we might consider abuse on the high end and alert for attending to on low end.

We can probably make assessments on several of these variables but for those who are abusing power, how does one reach out to them to persuade them to use their power more efficiently for the greater good? Conversely, there are likely those who practically reject some of these variables (i.e. technology) so if they do not even identify with the set parameters, how does one attempt to integrate them in our perceived best human efficiency, without an imperialistic type of "You need to follow these guidelines because they are good for you" type way?

 

Fry is talking about the problem of "theodicy" which has been around since antiquity. Some Christian theologians have put forward a solution that seems to solve the dilemmanmipotence and omniscience don't mean the ability of God to do things that are logically contradictory: e.g., making white blackness. If that is so, God can choose to limit Himself by conferring free will. This argument is developed nicely in Charles Hartshorne's Omipotence and Other Theological Mistakes. Diogenes Allen takes another approach in arguing that claims of divine omnipotence and omniscience are based on confusion of those concepts with the word "Almighty", which just means able to do anything capable of being done. That would mean God is just awfully potent and "scient"--like all the other gods of yore, only more so. Good enough for me!

 

The fact that humans can imagine of a deity even more loving, powerful, etc. does not strike you as odd?

 

As far as helpful parameters going forward, I would not deny the one mind any experience. Most people would rather live than die no matter the transient or uncomfortable conditions of their life.

Problems are evidence of conceptual dysfunction. So first off if you are not comfortable in your own skin a need for fundamental education is implied. We become comfortable in learning how to apply the sensitivities of our own nervous system.

"Some parameters that could be set on human specific variables might be income gap disparity, education, technological resources, agriculture, industry, healthcare, military, etc".

^ These variables are not human creature or biologically specific but systemically organized around human institutions. This cultural/institutional scaffolding emerges from the abstract mind and can be changed because it is so. It can be changed because we made it up. There is nothing fundamental about any of those systems. We might benefit from a change of mind in conceiving ourselves as biological creatures of the biosphere with technical ability instead of as mechanically or technically organized. All the elements described above are fundamentally linked to an idea of scarcity and profit and loss balance sheets. The energetic evidence though, the evidence of nature, is that all exchanges of energy are equal to themselves and there are no bad debts or ensuing interest charges.

 

Odd? How so? It seems to me humans are capable of imagining just about anything. But i think the ability to imagine omnipotence and omniscience in an absolute, contradictory sense is an ability to use words without thinking through their implications. God is great, so let's call Him not only powerful but all powerful, omniscient, all loving, omnivorous, whatever. And 6 gazillion angels can dance on the head of a pin.

 

That's all fine and dandy until we consider stuff like bone cancer in children, then it all falls apart.

It's odd because we can think of absolutes which are beyond the supposed God's abilities.

 

Why?

 

There is no reason the rational Human should think of a God as great if it allows bone cancer in children or the "gazillion" other examples of peril in the world.

 

There is no reason to think less save for your idealogical comparison. That is in comparison to your imagined ideal of greatness or perfection. Peril is an interpretation made in comparison to the ideal.

To say you will be electrocuted if you grab unprotected the poles of a functioning 220 electrical buss is evidence of omnipotence in our experience.

 

It is not because saying it does not make it so.

 

I didn't mean to imply that it did. I meant there are omnipotent forces as far as we are concerned and thus we can say so. Some equate natural physical forces with the idea of god or we invoke them as authoritative. That is, not god personified but in the form of natural forces.

 

Doesn't really seem odd to me. So we can idealize and come up with abstract or imaginary concepts as perfection, so what?