Letter to God

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KnGNOiFll4"]YouTube - Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - Letter from God

 

I'm going to take this perhaps a little too seriously as I'm a fairly highly strung person.

This video is a somewhat humorous projection of deism.
It's the belief that god is a 'clock maker', that creation unwinds absent of his interference.

Like so many rap songs, it's a misanthropic critique of humanity.
I understand that it illustrates some of the malignant twisting of religion, though it could have been a whole lot more potent if the author dropped the guise of God and simply attacked religion as himself.

The problem is he ends up defending god. God is saying that us humans are evil and unruly and God is not to blame as he let's us 'be our own boss'.
God proclaims 'Where did I go wrong'?...

It's still 100% God's fault and there's no excuses, so the whole song really ends there. God created pain and suffering.
'Where did you go right, God?', would be a better a question.

Overall, I believe that yes we are doing horrible things to ourselves and the planet, and religion is awful and so is war and capitalism in it's current iteration...but...why would you try and get God off the hook?

If God was to be real, he'd be the entirely responsible.

But yes, we are responsible too.

 

the focus obviously wasn't on religion, as the artist himself said so.

he also doesn't specifically defend god. this is your interpretation.

he does specifically try to point out the ignorant acts of our species as seen from an entity with larger perspective than most of us, though it could have been done better, of course.

whether or not a god exists or created suffering (the freewill conundrum) is and will likely always be open for debate, so maybe it would be best not to post anything in reference to it as fact.

not that it really matters, but i don't see how group (a) can be entirely responsible and group (b) be responsible as well.

this song doesn't even get a 4 out of 10 in my book when compared to all philosophical and intellectual literature produced by mankind, but when compared to much of the cRap that is pumped out of the radio these days, it is assuring to hear.

oh and deism's a pretty sweet perspective. i don't necessarily buy into it completely, but it's a far more intelligent perspective than most religions.

 

Separating God from religion is like separating 'cause' from 'effect'.

and suffering doesn't depend on freewill. for instance no one chooses to suffer diseases...

 

separating god from religion is like separating a tree from a blind man's painting of a tree.

suffering depends on the free actions of multiple living organisms. the human being suffering from the disease may have made choices that helped lead them to that point, or others around them could have made decisions that helped as well, not to mention the actions of the microorganisms causing the illness.

while we may not be completely free, as we are constrained by certain physical forces in this universe, we do have multiple paths to choose from. perhaps god allows suffering to occur because that allows for many other intricate, beautiful experiences to occur as well.

we become sick due to other beings' attempts at survival. these beings evolved to live inside of hosts, as we evolved to live off of the planet that we are slowly killing. perhaps what we are upset with god about is the fact that we are no more important to it than a single-celled organism. they are allowed a chance at survival, just as we are.

our needs conflict with each other, causing suffering. we base our actions on ignorance, causing suffering. we believe without understanding, causing suffering when we are let down. we as a whole, create suffering.

perhaps god allows us to do this, so that we all have our own individual experiences and realizations. suffering is a pretty good teacher.

 

You may as well claim that you chose to be born,
And that the suffering of those born with defects is also the result of 'free actions'.

 

You don't need a religion to invoke good cause.

Suffering is endemic to the human condition of embodiment. Knowing this, do you prefer not to be here? If you have any lust for life, it could be interpreted as a choice to suffer in the face of the identified character of being incorporated.

There is a will that all living things share and that is to be, manifested in its simplest form as the instinct for self preservation, to it's most profound, as gratitude. I don't remember paying anything for it.

 

life is kind of like a knot to me...
I want to unravel and be free
but then I would be dead.
it's a lose-lose situation.

don't mind me I'm just in a foul phase :frown:

 

perhaps i did choose to be born, perhaps not. this still does not mean that my actions or the action of others are the fault of god for causing us to exist.

yes, those born with defects are the result of the free actions of others. ignorance of the results of ones actions does not imply that god is responsible for the suffering caused by them.

 

and we don't mind you.

 

God created everything
Everything includes suffering
God created suffering.

The logic is so clear. It's very simple and mathematical.

Even if the exceptions of Gods authority are the actions of our freewill, God still CREATED freewill, and he still created a universe in which suffering could potentially exist.

Everything ultimately is God's SOLE responsibility in a universe where God exists.

Do you still insist that we are entirely responsible for ALL suffering?

 

no one is responsible for all suffering.

suffering is caused by free action.

perhaps god made it possible for suffering to occur by allowing so many possibilities of action, but this was likely so that so much else could occur in this infinitely complex universe we live in.

none of us know if god exists, or what the nature of an existent god would be, but it seems likely to me that existence is god experiencing itself. suffering must be allowed to happen for free action to occur; for all of these experiences to be possible.

 

might i add that suffering is entirely a subjective perception?

 

Dear God,

Please prove your existence by sending me a pound of chronic.

Thanks
:ssmokeit:-Nyxx

 

yyyesiam

There's not much point discussing our ideas about reality if we don't work upon some consensus.

for the purpose of this discussion we have been working under the assumption that God actually exists, and his/her position is creator the entire universe, this includes humans and freewill.

OK.
A God that is experiencing itself could still be omnipotent - meaning it has power over everything, and could have still be the 'Creator'.

I don't have a problem with changing the concept of God, but doing so is changing the subject...it's like changing the rules halfway through a game of chess...

Except God.
I Just explained this in my previous post in very elementary terms.

And free action is something that god ultimately created..not to mention he created suffering as well, be it subjective or not.

If you can't understand that 2 + 2 = 4,
and/or you continue to argue that that 2 + 2 = 5,
Then we leave logic behind and move onto arguing semantics.

It's starting to get frustrating honestly.
Some of your ideas I find a little obscene.

You appear to suggest that a child born with a horrible illness is responsible for it's own affliction, or that it's parents are.

Is that something you would tell a child?
'Hey kid, see your parents over there, your cystic fibrosis is all their fault!'

It's a rather insensitive position to hold..

Personally, I would say that nature is responsible, and not God because God doesn't exist outside of our imagination.

You can argue that humans can manipulate the existence suffering with their 'free actions'....
but everything is still traced back to God, the creator or everything, including humans, suffering, and free actions!

You can add that. but It contributes absolutely nothing to your contentions.
Might I add that they sky is blue?

If suffering is subjective, then so is Joy, your house, a beach ball.
And if it's so subjective to you, why don't you simply remove it from your life?
when you stub your toe, do you not feel pain?

I think your just arguing with me because of my critique of the video.
I liked the video and appreciate you posting it
I just like dissecting things =)

 

oh, wow. i'll just answer one thing at a time.

my main point was that neither of us can know the nature of god or blame it for suffering caused by free action and that if god allowed suffering, it was more of a side effect of allowing free action, which accounts for far more experiences than that of subjective suffering.

you did explain your perspective in very elementary terms. my perspective is coming from outside of that box, or paradigm.

i very obviously explained to you that the child born with an illness was born that way due to the free actions of others, not the child. i also implied that obviously those free actions were made in ignorance of the outcome, as most are, and that this is not enough reason to blame the entities committing the actions or the creator that allowed them to be possible.

this is what i mean when i say that no one is entirely responsible. life isn't that simple.

yes, experience is subjective, and yes, with enough effort people can change how they feel about stubbing their toe, right down to the physical pain.

mostly, i am trying to express the perspective that it isn't as simple as saying suffering is god's fault. the issue is far more complex than that. we are allowed to do as we will, and learn what we will. i am grateful for that.

we are not responsible for the suffering caused in ignorance, but i personally feel that we should attempt to be responsible for the suffering that we know we can prevent, and this includes attempting to be less ignorant of our actions.

ok, i think i've answered everything. i enjoy dissecting things as well, and i am arguing with you because i disagree, not because of the fact that you critiqued that video.

 

I agree with this 100%
My reason being there's no irrefutable evidence for the existence of God.
And any evidence brought forward FOR the existence of God is metaphysical in nature and cannot be proven either way.

The amusing thing is, even if God was to appear right in front of me, it means that God would be manifesting in his own creation, meaning he appears as his own creation...how would he prove he created himself, must I take his word for it? can he demonstrate it? ..anyway, I'd still believe that I was hallucinating ..

so even God himself couldn't prove the existence of God to me. He'd have to be omniscient and omnipotent and reach into my brain and convince my mind manually. I'm completely incapable of believing in god, it's like choosing to believe that 2+2=5, I can't do it and it hurts me to try.

It's almost as if nothing can prove the existence of God as the creator of the universe, not even god himself, because then who or what created God? and so on and so forth.

This statement relies on assumptions about the nature of God, something that neither of us can do...as you said.

however, it's fine to take the liberty to make assumptions...however
My assumption is that God created the entire universe
that's an assumption that I don't necessarily believe in, but it is intrinsic to what the word 'God' actually means.

The title of 'God' is creator of the universe, as far as I know.

To say:

The 'IF' implies that god has the ability to decide - at least to the degree of allowing or disallowing the 'free actions' which lead to suffering.

ERGO

God is responsible for suffering, as he made the decision which allowed the potentiality of suffering, that is if he existed and created the universe.

Even if suffering a completely human creation...which perhaps it is,
.... in the the scenario that God created everything, his creations still produce the circumstances for suffering to be created in the first place.

You can argue that we made the decisions to reproduce and evolve into beings which could perceive suffering, and that all our decisions that produce suffering our made by US...given that:

The only way in which God can be rid of the responsibility for suffering is if he didn't create the circumstance for suffering in which to arise, and didn't create the potential for us to experience said suffering, and that these things were created by something else that was self-creating and wasn't created by God, therefore meaning God didn't create everything.

Then the connundrum arises once again, who created the universe in which self created things can create themselves.

If we were responsible for suffering, we wouldn't have suffering.
Suffering is something in the universe
It's NOT subjective, the meaning of suffering might be subjective, but not suffering itself.

Everyone suffers whether they want to or not.

 

Would you agree with the premise that we all invoke our good?

 

I don't agree that suffering is subjective, at least pain isn't.
Pain exists 'in the mind' but it is measurable -in physical forms such as brainwaves, chemical activity in the nervous system, etc

'Invoke' is an interesting word
Because 'Good' could simply be an absence of pain, and to achieve such you can remain passive and not be 'invoking' anything.

It's subjective in that we get to choose it for ourselves, but it's presence could also be measured, giving it a partially objective status.

It's not black and white.
however, I'll say yes...if such an answer was leading somewhere I'm curious to know =)

 

2+2 has nothing to do with the impossible origin paradox. this paradox applies to the concept of god and the big bang equally.

there are many definitions of god, and we never did agree on one to begin with. i didn't change the rules by telling you what my current notion is. god can be considered simply to be a supreme being.

some cultures believe in multiple gods, so the definition of having created the universe may not apply; rather, creative forces would be more appropriate.

so, let us agree that i am talking about the first or primary creative force, whose existence is just as much a mystery as anything else, if you take into account the before question.

perhaps this force created the playing field in which so much is possible, and we all did with it what we did.

we are ignorant of much of the suffering we cause to others, as well as our role in our own suffering. we do not always intentionally cause it, but our actions, as well as our perceptions, are the root of it.