The Dreamer and the Dream

Argue for and against Christianity

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Purple Knight
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The Dreamer and the Dream

Post #1

Post by Purple Knight »

Question for debate: If it's none of it real, does that make it ethical?

Let me clarify. Suppose God and Christianity and all that is true, but none of what we are experiencing right now is, for lack of a better way to describe it, real. This is all a dream and we simply wake up into the real world.

Arguably, this is a case for a benevolent God after all. We experience this nightmare so it knows how we perform morally under pressure, but that's all this is - a nightmare. None of it is really happening. So why does God allow pain and suffering and evil? Well, it doesn't. There is no pain. That pain and suffering and horror you're feeling? All just a game of Roy. You may have even gone in there voluntarily.



So again, does this make it okay? Does suffering have to be "real" to count against some torturer? If not then every game of D&D is pretty horrible, every person's character maimed or killed... well that's that person maimed or killed... if fake suffering still counts. Here's the real question: If I, now as Roy, didn't want to live this life, but the person playing me said he did, and if he's happy and fine with it when he wakes up... and if I only ever existed as an extension of him... Is that okay? Is anyone really being tortured here?

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Re: The Dreamer and the Dream

Post #2

Post by Dimmesdale »

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #1]

Perhaps the greatest torture is just how unreal this world is. Its unreality tinges the suffering here with an eerie, desolate contour and colour -- like some surreal ichor. It exacerbates it by not making the suffering and pain final: not a conclusive stab of the sword, but a long, prolonged, and infinitely tiresome Kafkaesque trial of time. Respites only draw out the suffering like some long draught of evil smelling alcoholic beverage.

In that way I envy the animals. They, more or less, die faster at least. Slow-dying, the death of a thousand cuts, that belongs to the human being alone.
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." - Albert Einstein

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Re: The Dreamer and the Dream

Post #3

Post by Tcg »

Dimmesdale wrote: Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:13 am [Replying to Purple Knight in post #1]

Perhaps the greatest torture is just how unreal this world is. Its unreality tinges the suffering here with an eerie, desolate contour and colour -- like some surreal ichor. It exacerbates it by not making the suffering and pain final: not a conclusive stab of the sword, but a long, prolonged, and infinitely tiresome Kafkaesque trial of time. Respites only draw out the suffering like some long draught of evil smelling alcoholic beverage.
This is the happiness God brings?
In that way I envy the animals. They, more or less, die faster at least. Slow-dying, the death of a thousand cuts, that belongs to the human being alone.
Humans are animals and are far from the longest living. The Greenland Shark can live from 300-500 years. We aren't even the longest living mammals. The Bowhead Whale can live over 200 years.

Image

Elephants seem happy enough and can live to about 70.

Image

Perhaps the trick is to avoid the trap of believing in god/gods.


Tcg
To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.

- American Atheists


Not believing isn't the same as believing not.

- wiploc


I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.

- Irvin D. Yalom

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Re: The Dreamer and the Dream

Post #4

Post by Dimmesdale »

Tcg wrote: Fri Apr 16, 2021 6:53 pm
Dimmesdale wrote: Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:13 am [Replying to Purple Knight in post #1]

Perhaps the greatest torture is just how unreal this world is. Its unreality tinges the suffering here with an eerie, desolate contour and colour -- like some surreal ichor. It exacerbates it by not making the suffering and pain final: not a conclusive stab of the sword, but a long, prolonged, and infinitely tiresome Kafkaesque trial of time. Respites only draw out the suffering like some long draught of evil smelling alcoholic beverage.
This is the happiness God brings?
In that way I envy the animals. They, more or less, die faster at least. Slow-dying, the death of a thousand cuts, that belongs to the human being alone.
Humans are animals and are far from the longest living. The Greenland Shark can live from 300-500 years. We aren't even the longest living mammals. The Bowhead Whale can live over 200 years.

Image

Elephants seem happy enough and can live to about 70.

Image

Perhaps the trick is to avoid the trap of believing in god/gods.


Tcg
I don't think you really understood what I wrote.

But anyway, this place IS a world of suffering, God or no God. The more sensitive you are, the greater your potential anguish. I'm not saying animals don't live long lives. I'm talking about a state of mind.
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." - Albert Einstein

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Re: The Dreamer and the Dream

Post #5

Post by nobspeople »

Dimmesdale wrote: Fri Apr 16, 2021 10:26 pm
Tcg wrote: Fri Apr 16, 2021 6:53 pm
Dimmesdale wrote: Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:13 am [Replying to Purple Knight in post #1]

Perhaps the greatest torture is just how unreal this world is. Its unreality tinges the suffering here with an eerie, desolate contour and colour -- like some surreal ichor. It exacerbates it by not making the suffering and pain final: not a conclusive stab of the sword, but a long, prolonged, and infinitely tiresome Kafkaesque trial of time. Respites only draw out the suffering like some long draught of evil smelling alcoholic beverage.
This is the happiness God brings?
In that way I envy the animals. They, more or less, die faster at least. Slow-dying, the death of a thousand cuts, that belongs to the human being alone.
Humans are animals and are far from the longest living. The Greenland Shark can live from 300-500 years. We aren't even the longest living mammals. The Bowhead Whale can live over 200 years.

Image

Elephants seem happy enough and can live to about 70.

Image

Perhaps the trick is to avoid the trap of believing in god/gods.


Tcg
I don't think you really understood what I wrote.

But anyway, this place IS a world of suffering, God or no God. The more sensitive you are, the greater your potential anguish. I'm not saying animals don't live long lives. I'm talking about a state of mind.
We don't know the state of mind of animals, in general, across the board. We don't even know the state of mind of the human sitting next to us!
Suffering is, to me, a means humanity uses to organize their world. People can choose to look into 'the world' and see suffering or not. Does that mean suffering doesn't exist?
Seems suffering is a human construct, more so than universal. But then again, we'd have to ask someone that's not human to know for sure. Maybe that's more of a philosophical question that's not appropriate here?
Have a great, potentially godless, day!

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