Conscience

[Purple Knight]

Question for Debate: Would a good and fair God make people whose consciences are simply wrong?

I've long had this idea of Christians, and maybe it's an unfair one, that they must think that anyone who disagrees with them about morality is either brainwashed or lying. The reason being that unless God intentionally makes people inherently evil and not merely weak and prone to sinfulness, everyone has to, at least, have a conscience that points in the right direction. They can be weak, they can give in, they can be tempted, but they at least have to know right from wrong, genuinely, or the idea that we're all morally responsible for what we do falls apart. The idea that we're supposed to overcome weakness and do what is right, ultimately, is tenable. The idea that God creates some of us to think up is down and punishes us for then swimming in the wrong direction... at least I don't see how it could hold.

But I do see a few alternatives that generate some consistency, one of which I brought up in the last paragraph.

1) Clever people can brainwash and trick, even about morality.
This would simply involve people being convinced that their consciences point the wrong way, when in fact they're true North. Arguably this could explain moral conflict in a way that did not implicate God for crafting anyone in such a way as to make them inherently evil. The clever liar knows what he's doing is wrong, and he can trick someone else into thinking it's right. The tricked person can genuinely believe the liar, and there we can have genuine moral conflict without a petty and scheming God.

2) The Plan with a Capital P
Maybe God needs someone to do something immoral at some juncture and they won't do it unless they think it is moral. This doesn't necessarily implicate God as nasty nor Christians as those who think people who have a genuine disagreement about morality are lying.

3) Ignorance is Necessary
This is a very weird thought but it could be that we live in a universe of such fundamental chaos and/or vileness that everything we do is actually evil and the only way to create good is to limit our capacity to understand what we are doing.

[brunumb]

We know Adam and Eve each had a working conscience because evidently, they felt ashamed of themselves after they disobeyed God. Sadly for them and for all mankind, they chose to ignore their god given consciences for selfish reasons and lived to regret their decision.

No. That was after eating that magic fruit that gave them knowledge of good and evil. Only then did they have understanding. In any case, God is complicit in that he did nothing in terms of intervention while the hapless couple were being seduced by one of his own creatures.

[TRANSPONDER]

That does not compute. You say God does not judge those ignorant of his laws adversely, and you imply that he is aware of our imperfections. But you also say that those who wish to please him will conform to his standards.

The argument seeming that those who don't do so will not please God, but he won't 'judge' them adversely for itand not at all if they never heard hi law. So if there is no pentaly (the whole point of judgement) then none of it matters and if none of it matters if we never heard the Laws then He should never have given us the Laws in the first place. In effect, God wanting to save us could have just 'saved us' in a simple forgiveness without imposing this absurd system of laws and judgement which is all Our fault, not His.

Like I say, that does not compute.

Eskimo: If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to Hell?
Priest: No, not if you did not know.
Eskimo: Then why did you tell me?

Yes, but I was told (maybe on a former board) I couldn't tell that joke. Though if you make it 'Inuit' (if they haven't found another apellation one must use) you may get away with it.

but I do like these little polemical anecdotes, especially when they backfire when you unpack them.

'Analogy of god like a hairdresser' 'You aren't doing a good job (analog. problem of evil) because look at all those people going around having a bad hair day.'

"They have to come to me, first."

But hang on, your sign says 'the fabulous hairdresser.' you can just magic their hair cut, can't you?

"I could, but they still have to come to me, first."

"Why?"

"I don't do this for free."

[TRANSPONDER]

We know Adam and Eve each had a working conscience because evidently, they felt ashamed of themselves after they disobeyed God. Sadly for them and for all mankind, they chose to ignore their god given consciences for selfish reasons and lived to regret their decision.

No. That was after eating that magic fruit that gave them knowledge of good and evil. Only then did they have understanding. In any case, God is complicit in that he did nothing in terms of intervention while the hapless couple were being seduced by one of his own creatures.

That was brilliant. Yes, Our JW pal .....


........


...... (searching for the Right Word)


...... Interpreted the Bible to suit his argument. You called it. They did not have the mental apparatus to have a conscience (each)before they ate the fruit (1) One has to wonder, do they not know what is in their own Bible or do they just hope that we don't? It's why I sometimes itching to type that they are insulting us by thinking we didn't know any better.

(1) I can understand that. The first time I ate mangosteen I knew all about sin and wickedness.

[JehovahsWitness]

.. eating that magic fruit

DID THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT HAVE MAGIC QUALITIES?



In a word, no. In the bible narrative, The Tree of Knowledge did not have any "magical fruit ". It was no doubt a tree like any other, with fruit similar to all the other trees of it's kind that God had created for Adam and Eve to eat. Nothing on a physiological basis would change because they ingested it's fruit. It wasn't poisonous and did not contain mind altering chemicals.

Simliar to burning the national flag in a public place, spitting in your father's face or taking off one's wedding ring and throwing it at your partner, the gesture sent a clear message to God, namely, that Adam and Eve rejected their maker's authority and would henceforth make their own decisions as to what was "good" or "evil"

RELATED POSTS

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viewtopic.php?p=1116524#p1116524

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viewtopic.php?p=1040461#p1040461

Did eating the fruit from the tree affect Adam and Eve's thinking?
viewtopic.php?p=1027919#p1027919

Was sexual intercourse represented by " the forbidden fruit" from the "free if knowledge "?
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ADAM , , THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND BAD and ... THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT,

[TRANSPONDER]

.. eating that magic fruit

DID THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT HAVE MAGIC QUALITIES?



In a word, no. The Tree of Knowledge did not have any "magical fruit ". It was no doubt a tree like any other, with fruit similar to all the other trees of it's kind that God had created for Adam and Eve to eat. Nothing on a physiological basis would change because they ingested it's fruit. It wasn't poisonous and did not contain mind altering chemicals.

Simliar to burning the national flag in a public place, spitting in your father's face or taking off one's wedding ring and throwing it at your partner, the gesture sent a clear message to God, namely, that Adam and Eve rejected their maker's authority and would henceforth make their own decisions as to what was "good" or "evil"

RELATED POSTS

Was the forbidden fruit "magical"?
viewtopic.php?p=1116524#p1116524

Prior to their eating the forbidden fruit, did Adam and Eve understand the concept of what good and bad was?
viewtopic.php?p=1040461#p1040461

Did eating the fruit from the tree affect Adam and Eve's thinking?
viewtopic.php?p=1027919#p1027919

Was sexual intercourse represented by " the forbidden fruit" from the "free if knowledge "?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 88#p954188

If the fruit had no intrinsic value why would the prohibition be permanent?
viewtopic.php?p=1092364#p1092364

To learn more please go to other posts related to...

ADAM , , THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND BAD and ... THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT,

But you've completely made that up. Do you want me to post the passage and see what was said and what was not?

Now I get it that you can claim that fruit has no magical properties, and nor have serpents; they don't talk.

But if you are going to say 'Miracles don't happen' and work out some more plausible explanation, the fruit and the snake were just fruit and snake and the rest was more about psychological actions... why do we need to think any of it happened?

Consider that if this is inspired by God so as to be sure we can trust it, why would the book not explain what actually happened? It is just the same with the sun made after the light being explained by cloud cover. Why does the book say how it would have appeared to anyone standing there when there was nobody standing there, rather than God telling what really happened?

I know you want to believe this, but you must see that you going halfway to saying 'It didn't happen like that; not like the Bible says - it happened in a more natural way."can you blame us skeptics for saying 'why should we do anything other than consider it a made up myth by people who didn't understand anything much?'

[Purple Knight]

IT IS POSSIBLE TO BREAK FREE FROM THE SATANIC INFLUENCE OF THIS WORLD

YOU CAN'T EVEN SHOW THERE'S A SATANIC INFLUENCE IN THIS WORLD. [/quote]

If you have a problem accepting that fairy tales are true, it might be helpful to see the best way to give logical charity in terms of rescuing the moral from the fairy tale. Is there a literal devil with horns and a spaded tail who is good at playing the violin? Probably not. Is the world set up in such a way as to reward bad (unsustainable and/or parasitic) behaviour? Well, the exploiter always gets ahead and people scream for good laws that are then co-opted by people playing them unfairly to advantage the exploiter even more. And it might be helpful enough to name this demon that whether its name is correct doesn't matter.

In a world where everyone always successfully passes the blame, this demon desperately needs a name. The lobbyist is just doing his job. The politician, pleasing his constituents. The corporations, merely exercising their rights of free speech, included in which is the right to hire people to ask politicians for things.

And just let the religious god stand for the degree of effort and sacrifice needed to overcome nature's tendency to reward bad behaviour over good.

It matters not whether any of it is literally true. A good fairy tale teaches a good moral. Whether it happened in reality or not isn't the biggest issue.

Despite being (as far as hard evidence goes) baseless, this "Satan's influence" may be a very good model for the world. And it's okay. Because having good models for phenomena we don't understand is how we learn their minutiae.

It is a con based on an apparently feasible premise - "keep improving and you will get better" which is fine morals (unless 'get better' means "get more sunk in faithbased denial) but not fine when it is a scam of 'keep buying our product in hopes to get this prize or reward that you never will'. Because on all reason and evidence, it doesn't exist.

People do seem to burden others with unrealistic standards when they can. It's tough if you're the one with the burden - if you're Charlie Brown in that scenario - because there's no way to tell who the con man is. It's easier to think it's the person who is apparently perfect who simply fudged his perfection, because then Charlie Brown gets to be validated in his lack of ability. Thus, the one playing the role of Linus in this scenario actually has the easier con to pull, though he doesn't gain anything by it.

It's harder to think that there may be people who actually have the extremes of ability they portray themselves to have. I have a very high IQ, but I am bad at basketball. There are people just as much better than me at basketball as I am smarter than someone with below-average intelligence.

And we have this weird standard in society where we always condemn anyone who falls short because it must be for want of trying. So it's a real double-kick to poor Charlie Brown that he can't make perfect calligraphy because, (we think) if he was actually trying, he could. So if he accepts truth as we see it, he can either find an out, such as the one Linus has given him, or admit he is lazy and hasn't put in enough effort. I'm just very fortunate that for the thing I have, it has been adequately drilled into me that I don't have it because of effort. The basketball star thinks it is because he tried harder, because every day people praised him, and they don't like to admit the world is a scary, unfair place, so they praised his effort instead of his innate ability.

This is certainly evident in the Christian cosmology. If you just put enough effort, of course you could refuse to sin. Nobody does though. That's because nobody is trying hard enough. At least, this seems, to this cynic, to be one more example where we have a narrative of a fair world, and because people fail in that fair world, it must be for want of trying.

They thus reeducate their consciences to become sensitive to Gods standards of right and wrong. This will mean leaving behind things the world sees as fine and acceptable in favor of seeing things Gods way (2 Cor 6:9-10).

The only way I can get something achievable out of this, is to assume that when one is being reeducated out of bad and into good, their conscience or even just plain logic (think of it as God throwing a bread crumb if you like) would provide at least some indication that they're going the right way. Otherwise someone would have no way to tell whether they were reeducating themselves into righteousness, or out of it. But a just and fair god would have to provide some way for the individual to differentiate between hammering a defunct conscience into the right shape, and twisting a good one into evil.

A lot of times I think that people who just get offended rather than explain their moral structure are that bread crumb.

[JoeyKnothead]

If you have a problem accepting that fairy tales are true, it might be helpful to see the best way to give logical charity in terms of rescuing the moral from the fairy tale. Is there a literal devil with horns and a spaded tail who is good at playing the violin? Probably not. Is the world set up in such a way as to reward bad (unsustainable and/or parasitic) behaviour? Well, the exploiter always gets ahead and people scream for good laws that are then co-opted by people playing them unfairly to advantage the exploiter even more. And it might be helpful enough to name this demon that whether its name is correct doesn't matter.
...

I expect, on a site dedicated to debating religion or religious notions, that words of a religious context have specific, religious meanings.

If one wishes to declare "Satan" means something other than Satan, then why even bother using the term?

[Purple Knight]

If you have a problem accepting that fairy tales are true, it might be helpful to see the best way to give logical charity in terms of rescuing the moral from the fairy tale. Is there a literal devil with horns and a spaded tail who is good at playing the violin? Probably not. Is the world set up in such a way as to reward bad (unsustainable and/or parasitic) behaviour? Well, the exploiter always gets ahead and people scream for good laws that are then co-opted by people playing them unfairly to advantage the exploiter even more. And it might be helpful enough to name this demon that whether its name is correct doesn't matter.
...

I expect, on a site dedicated to debating religion or religious notions, that words of a religious context have specific, religious meanings.

If one wishes to declare "Satan" means something other than Satan, then why even bother using the term?

It still means Satan it's just not necessarily literal.

What I have to ask myself is, if Satan was still Satan, and acted exactly as JW describes, controlling the world and all, but his name was actually Theodore Wellington Bombash, would I say, aha, that claim was wrong? No I would not, because it's not about getting the arbitrary name right; it's about the phenomenon being described.

I still think I should concede the point if no literal entity is doing it and the name is just a placeholder, as long as it placeholds for a real phenomenon.

And bad people get ahead. Nice guys finish last. That's the world and I have no problem with the "Satan's World" description.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/m ... on-moloch/

Moloch is introduced as the answer to a question – C. S. Lewis’ question in Hierarchy Of Philosophers – what does it? Earth could be fair, and all men glad and wise. Instead we have prisons, smokestacks, asylums. What sphinx of cement and aluminum breaks open their skulls and eats up their imagination?

And Ginsberg answers: Moloch does it.

There’s a passage in the Principia Discordia where Malaclypse complains to the Goddess about the evils of human society. “Everyone is hurting each other, the planet is rampant with injustices, whole societies plunder groups of their own people, mothers imprison sons, children perish while brothers war.”

The Goddess answers: “What is the matter with that, if it’s what you want to do?”

Malaclypse: “But nobody wants it! Everybody hates it!”

Goddess: “Oh. Well, then stop.”

The implicit question is – if everyone hates the current system, who perpetuates it? And Ginsberg answers: “Moloch”. It’s powerful not because it’s correct – nobody literally thinks an ancient Carthaginian demon causes everything – but because thinking of the system as an agent throws into relief the degree to which the system isn’t an agent.

Bostrom makes an offhanded reference of the possibility of a dictatorless dystopia, one that every single citizen including the leadership hates but which nevertheless endures unconquered. It’s easy enough to imagine such a state. Imagine a country with two rules: first, every person must spend eight hours a day giving themselves strong electric shocks. Second, if anyone fails to follow a rule (including this one), or speaks out against it, or fails to enforce it, all citizens must unite to kill that person. Suppose these rules were well-enough established by tradition that everyone expected them to be enforced.

So you shock yourself for eight hours a day, because you know if you don’t everyone else will kill you, because if they don’t, everyone else will kill them, and so on. Every single citizen hates the system, but for lack of a good coordination mechanism it endures. From a god’s-eye-view, we can optimize the system to “everyone agrees to stop doing this at once”, but no one within the system is able to effect the transition without great risk to themselves.

[JoeyKnothead]

It still means Satan it's just not necessarily literal.
...

How do I know it's not meant literally, when it comes from a preacher?

I'm a mind reader now?

[Purple Knight]

It still means Satan it's just not necessarily literal.
...

How do I know it's not meant literally, when it comes from a preacher?

I'm a mind reader now?

It probably is meant literally. My point is that it can still be functionally correct even if there's no red guy with horns and a tail.

None of us understands the world as it actually is. We don't see objects; we see light bouncing off them. The world is much, much different than it appears to us.

Understanding the world, or even a part of it, as it actually is... that's an unreasonable ask. Correctitude just comes from having a model that works well enough to be used.