A God that is love? Devil is evil?

[Eddie.Brooke]

My Fiance and i have come up with many questions between the two of us. and boy am i glad i found this forum.

ok here are the questions and i really don't want to start a whole lot of crap but i welcome it at the same time.

1. If God is supposed to be all love and forgiveness then how do you explain the following?
sodom and gammora (forgive my spelling), the FLOOD, his Only son, Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, world war 1 and 2, war in Iraq, ok war in general.
now it would seem to me that if "God" is love then he would stop the pain and suffering that comes with death in general. as far as i can think of there have been more killings and deaths done in the name if "God" than any other label.

2. if Satan "Lucifer" the Devil what ever you want to name him / her. then why is it that people that pray/worship him / her are usually the nicest people you will ever meet. and are 9 times out of 10 the quiet ones that stay out of everyone else's business. and when was the last time that you heard in the news that a bunch of satanic people were burning down a church?

now just to add my a little bit of my own piece of mind. there are all these religious groups and or religious affiliated groups that do nothing but as a collective (not on the person to person level because not everyone within a label is as zealous as the label describes) seem to do nothing but get in trouble by doing things that are usually either deadly (lynching, church burning, genocide, ect.) illegal ( cross burnings, vandalism, ect.) and so on.

i feel like i am rambling here so i will leave it at this for now and if needed i will add as responses come. thanks in advance for any and all comments and questions.

[Goat]

It's not all too difficult to show that matter interacts through four forces and that these interactions are probabilistic.
I have a funny feeling that you are requesting a proof that this is applicable to a human, however.
Given your challenge, I don't think you'll simply accept:
Humans are made of matter, matter does not exhibit choice.

What exactly are you requesting that I show?

If it is probabilistic, it is not determistic.

Humans.. or any animal that has a brain can exhibit choice. Chocolate or vanilla, or not at all. Humans , and other animals have a computer.. known as a brain.

As such, saying 'matter does not exhibit choice' is painting with too broad a brush.

[LiamOS]

If it is probabilistic, it is not determistic.

And?
I didn't say it was deterministic.

Humans.. or any animal that has a brain can exhibit choice. Chocolate or vanilla, or not at all.

For the purposes of this discussion, how are we defining choice?

As such, saying 'matter does not exhibit choice' is painting with too broad a brush.

You're right. I should have said that at a fundamental level, matter does not appear to exhibit any of the traits that would normally be associated with a choice.

Humans , and other animals have a computer.. known as a brain.

Do computers choose? I'd contend that a computer can choose to the same degree that a human can, but that contention would be dependant on how exactly choice is defined.

[Goat]

If it is probabilistic, it is not determistic.

And?
I didn't say it was deterministic.

Humans.. or any animal that has a brain can exhibit choice. Chocolate or vanilla, or not at all.

For the purposes of this discussion, how are we defining choice?

As such, saying 'matter does not exhibit choice' is painting with too broad a brush.

You're right. I should have said that at a fundamental level, matter does not appear to exhibit any of the traits that would normally be associated with a choice.

Humans , and other animals have a computer.. known as a brain.

Do computers choose? I'd contend that a computer can choose to the same degree that a human can, but that contention would be dependant on how exactly choice is defined.

When it comes to some of the deep computing.. it's hard to say. Some of those algorithms for something like Deep Blue are pretty specialized.. and it comes to trying to making a choice between thousands of moves in chess to see which is the best. Given the same situation, it won't always make the exact same move. Is that making a choice or isn't it? The brain of a mammal is much more complicated. I do not know if all the 'choices' are predetermined or not. I have not seen a convincing argument in either direction.

[LiamOS]

It's possible that there is an element in the algorithms that is 'random'. Randomness is computing isn't entirely random, though, but may be in future with quantum computing.

I would be interested to see if you can show that the computer, given the same initial conditions would have different outcomes without the use of random number generating, and would ask you to do so.

Choices most likely are not predetermined, but they're almost certainly not influenced by anything other than the physical universe.

[Kuan]

We are wondering if there is some type of scientific evidence or experiment that you could provide us with by any chance

[mgb]

And on that note, I'll ask him to back it up.

Seriously, suffering exists because that's the way life works, and the reason it's still prevalent is because people are horrible.

Buddhism tells us that suffering comes from desire, egoism. Think about this. It is not a matter of proof it is a matter of contemplating human nature and seeing for yourself. Look at how people suffer because of desire. Desire, egoism, is a desire to possess; it is essentially a desire to control some aspect of existence. If you go to the extremes you will see it more easily; Hitler, for example, desired to possess power; to take possession of it in his own being. Those who try to possess are trying to possess fire. They will get burned. Desire egoism and possessiveness are the same thing.

[LiamOS]

We are wondering if there is some type of scientific evidence or experiment that you could provide us with by any chance

I suppose I can.

Let's call this one Aki's Free-Will Experiment.
For this experiment, we shall need:
-Somebody's brain.
-The Stanford Linear Accelerator, or another large particle accelerator coupled with an extremely sensitive detector.
-A chemistry set.
-A laboratory.

Taking the brain and the chemistry set, extract as much hydrogen as possible from the brain through various means.(Most will come from electrolysis of the water)
Using high energy ionising radiation, strip the electrons from the hydrogen atoms.

Now accelerate these leftover protons to c/1.001 and collide them at the detector.

Likely result: Detect Ï€⁰, Ï€⁺, Ï€^−, K⁺, K⁰ and K^−.

Likely conclusion: Matter is the same in the brain. Therefore cognitive processes are an emergent function of fundamental particles and interactions.



I don't really understand why an experiment is even necessary, as it follows from our understanding of life and physics, and the alternative makes absolutely no sense.
If there can exist an alternative manner in which the brain operates, you only need to show that it's possible to throw my hypothesis into doubt.

[Goat]

We are wondering if there is some type of scientific evidence or experiment that you could provide us with by any chance

I suppose I can.

Let's call this one Aki's Free-Will Experiment.
For this experiment, we shall need:
-Somebody's brain.
-The Stanford Linear Accelerator, or another large particle accelerator coupled with an extremely sensitive detector.
-A chemistry set.
-A laboratory.

Taking the brain and the chemistry set, extract as much hydrogen as possible from the brain through various means.(Most will come from electrolysis of the water)
Using high energy ionising radiation, strip the electrons from the hydrogen atoms.

Now accelerate these leftover protons to c/1.001 and collide them at the detector.

Likely result: Detect Ï€⁰, Ï€⁺, Ï€^−, K⁺, K⁰ and K^−.

Likely conclusion: Matter is the same in the brain. Therefore cognitive processes are an emergent function of fundamental particles and interactions.



I don't really understand why an experiment is even necessary, as it follows from our understanding of life and physics, and the alternative makes absolutely no sense.
If there can exist an alternative manner in which the brain operates, you only need to show that it's possible to throw my hypothesis into doubt.

How does that prove that the decision making processes are predetermined?

[LiamOS]

It doesn't.
Where did I say it was?

[Kuan]

Well, I thought that you were saying that its predetermined because we cant help but do whatever the chemicals in our brain tell us to do, I guess I misunderstood you.