Does God Exist? Theism and Biblical Faith vs. Atheism and Agnosticism

LEADERSHIPU ^ | November 22, 2004 | Various

[BikerNYC]

When I talk about loudness, I don't mean how many decibels a sound has, I mean whether or not we judge a sound as loud.

It is not so much a function of our sense impression, although hearing is a prerequisite, as it is a judgment we make about the sound we hear. We perceive a sound and judge it as loud. Others might disagree with our judgment about the sound, claiming that the sound is not loud. The number of decibels a sound registers on some scale is largely irrelevant to the judgment. If we compared people's judgments of whether or not a particular sound is loud, we might find points of commonality depending upon the kinds of sounds a person has been used to as they grew up.

"That music is loud." We've heard it plenty of times. The loudness is in the music, and a judgment that the music is loud cannot be reduced to how many decibels it registers. People can have a legitimate disagreement about whether the music is loud and, depending upon the physical characteristices of the sound, they may be sounds that almost all of us agree are loud. The judgment, however, is individual. Some people judge the music as loud and some do not. Which judgments are wrong?

Equally, we perceive an action committed by another person, using our senses, and judge it to be good. There may be actions which almost all of us might agree are good, but the judgment is ultimately individual.

[jwalsh07]

Virtual particles are continuously and spontaneously bursting from nothing all the time and everywhere. They are what cause black holes to evaporate.

Virtual particles are dependent on matter and energy so you're right back to where you started from. How do matter, energy and the laws of physics spontaneously appear?

[BikerNYC]

How do matter, energy and the laws of physics spontaneously appear?

A very good question. Why is there matter, energy, laws of phsyics, God, anything, rather than nothingness? I have absolutely no idea.

[D-fendr]

There may be actions which almost all of us might agree are good, but the judgment is ultimately individual.

Say, all other conditions were equal, and you had a choice in some particular instance: be cruel or be kind.

Are you saying that if "almost all of us" agreed it was better to be cruel than kind, then your being cruel would be "good"?

In other words, "goodness" is what most say is good. That is what makes it good?

[D-fendr]

Alternatively, say, someone took pleasure in the suffering of others. And, to them, they would say, "cruelty is 'good.'"

Are you saying that even if "almost all of us" agreed cruelty is not good that, since "the judgment is ultimately individual," cruelty in this case is "good" ?

[BikerNYC]

No...each individual makes a judgment as to what is good or not good...sometimes our judgments are more in agreement with each other than at other times.

It's like the best seller list. All the list tells you is what many people judge to be a book worth buying. It doesn't tell you anything about whether or not a book on the list is good. To find that out, you actually have to ask someone who has read the book whether or not the book is good. The judgment is individual.

[BikerNYC]

No. I'm saying that the person who inflicted the cruelty judges his actions to be good (although that does not have to be the case...he may judge his actions to be evil but choose to do them anyway), while other judge for themselves whether or not his actions are good.

[BikerNYC]

What is your view of what God might be? It ain't easy to put in words, is it?

[Heartlander]

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving.

What is your view of what God might be? It ain't easy to put in words, is it?

Love. Love as a Father has for his child; patient, kind, forgiving, and with discipline. A love that allows a child to make mistakes and learn.

Money can be good or evil.

Money is not evil or good but how money is used can be evil (calling ‘money’ blood money only explains the way the money was used).

Let’s see if we can agree on some general terms and definitions for good. Good is opposite evil similarly to light being opposite dark. I would go further and state darkness is ‘merely’ the absence of light similarly to evil being ‘merely’ the absence of good. (I hope we can agree in principle here…)

But I would like to make a distinction here, if only darkness existed how would one know anything about light? With only light we can have shades of darkness from trees, shelter, closing ones eyes, etc... But if only darkness existed where would light come from or exist?

Now if we were to step into this evil vs. good thing – can good exist within only evil (as with dark and light)? If one knows good than one can determine evil, but if one only knows evil or if only evil were to exist how can they know what is good? IOW can evil exist without ‘good’ as a measuring standard towards which they try to attain?

Back to point, a good father can recognize evil and correct his child - but an evil father allows everything without love, a fair consequence, or measure for anything but evil.

[D-fendr]

I'm sorry, I still don't get the answer to my question.

I get the part that each person judges good or evil for himself.

What I'm asking is "Is this what makes something good or evil?"

If I judge genocide as good and you judge it as evil, is it either or both or neither?

(I'll get to the other questions in a bit, but want to clarify this one first.)

thanks for your reply.

[BikerNYC]

If I judge genocide as good and you judge it as evil, is it either or both or neither?

It's both. If you judge someone to be beautiful and I judge the person to be ugly, is the person beautiful or ugly? It really does depend on who you ask.

Nothing is good or evil, just as nothing is beautiful or ugly, without a consciousness judging it so.

[BikerNYC]

Love. Love as a Father has for his child; patient, kind, forgiving, and with discipline. A love that allows a child to make mistakes and learn.

So God is an emotion? He literally exists within us as a result of certain brain activity?

How can evil exist without ‘good’ as a measuring standard towards which they try to attain?

I agree. Goodness and evil are like mountains and a valley. You can't have a valley without mountains. That's why the common notion of heaven, where everything is good, right, pure, clean and virtuous, makes no sense to me. In a world where everything is good, nothing is good.

[Heartlander]

So God is an emotion? He literally exists within us as a result of certain brain activity?

Do you really believe that ‘I’ was stating God is an emotion that exists due to chemical reactions in our brain? Honestly though, you have touched on our main difference. If I were to believe that love, justice, good and evil, etc… were merely chemical reactions in our brains and ultimately from molecules that formed by happenstance and without reason or purpose – why would I believe in God?

I believe that truth, logic, love, justice – exist outside our ‘being’. To say that they exist merely ‘as a result of certain brain activity’ is to say that ‘ultimately’ molecules have these values (or lack there of). Now this comes back to ‘things’ (molecules, material) having ‘some’ ability to be good or evil.

Example:

Two similar clusters of matter came into physical contact with each other at a single point in space and time. One cluster dominated, remaining intact; while the other began to break down into its component elements.

Now this same situation again…

A 26-year old man lost his life today in a violent and racially motivated attack, according to Thompson County police. Reginald K. Carter was at his desk when, according to eyewitness reports, Zachariah Jones, a new employee at the Clark Center, entered the building apparently carrying an illegally-obtained handgun. According to several eyewitnesses, Jones immediately walked into Carter's cubicle and shouted that "his kind should be eliminated from the earth," before shooting him several times at point-blank range.

Is there a difference and why?

[D-fendr]

Thanks for your reply.

It's both.… Nothing is good or evil, just as nothing is beautiful or ugly, without a consciousness judging it so.

I think I'd be correct in saying your view is that good and evil are relative, or conditional.

Which leads me back to my previous question: "All other things (conditions) being equal, when you have the choice between doing good or evil, do you flip a coin?"

The key part here is "all other conditions being equal." On what do you then base whether something is good or evil? How does your conscioussness make this judgment? For example being kind or being cruel. If there were no no other overriding conditions, how could your consciousness judge which action was good or evil?

Do you understand what I'm asking?

To make it a clearer thought experiment: Say, for some reason, you had to kill a cat. You have two methods at your disposal, one causing great suffering to the cat, one causing none. No one is watching, both take the same amount of time, etc., etc., ALL other conditions are equal.

You have a choice only on how you kill the cat: cruelly or not.

Which do you choose? Why?