someone said to me the other day... how do you not see order in the world, and see how that order reflects God?
and then i watched a video about tornados and dead boy scouts. if there is a god, or any order to the universe planned by an intelligent being, clearly the randomness of life is strong evidence otherwise. this would be interesting to get into with someone... if only someone would start...
anyway... someone argue with me...
also... party on aug 16.
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a discussion of legal, political, moral, scientific, and religious ideas.
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5 comments:
The question should then be what is randomness? Because you or I perceive that tornado as random, it could really be part of god's massive plan and design.
Or at least, that is what a religious person would argue.
indeed, which is the argument i would expect in response. but that just does not hold up under further inquiry.
first, people claim that god's plan shows order yet there are these massive pockets of disorder that are unexplainable. this is not consistent.
second, this plan seems to be, at a minimum, uncaring and random, at worst manifesting a malicious disregard for any concept of justice.
third, one should be able to put forth guesses or claims about what benefits these things provide in accomplishing god's plan. it seems more likely that they are just the random happenings of an natural world without intervention from a personal god. which is really my larger point, that the world is prima facie evidence that there is no personal god that cares about the development of you or i.
that's a start! it's kind of like darwin famously pointed out as he lost his religion (partially a consequence of the death of his favorite daughter), it is hard to believe that a god that even plans the world would create wasps that lay their eggs in the paralyzed by still living bodies of other creatures for those larva to slowly digest alive over a period of months.
thanks josh for playing... too bad we probably have the exact same perspective though...
You are correct about this idea when thinking of a personal loving god, but if you go past that a moment and think about a higher power, one that created everything, but created with indifference, like a curious scientist. Then the idea of a plan, can be understood, but then if you are a god making up an entire universe and it has a plan, yet you do not care, then really what kind of sick, twisted god is that...
and yeah, you and I have the same ideas on this. It makes it hard to try the argue the other sides point, when it's just so hard to not laugh at.
I'll bite.
First of all, when speaking of tornadoes, or any other meteorological formation, there really isn't any randomness occurring. Tornadoes have a definitive life cycle, one that can be predicted with a high degree of certainty. It's true that the window of anticipation is indeed small, compared to other storm related entities, but to imply that they are evidence of the non-existence of some sort of divine figure is inaccurate.
If you were instead stating that the dead boy scout part of the equation is your evidence, then perhaps you need to examine the microcosmic relationship between humans and the beings exponentially below our own omnipotence.
Firstly, let's consider the relationship between a farmer and his crops (being analogous with God and humans). Given the fact that a reasonably knowledgeable farmer will formulate the optimal irrigation layouts, crop rotation cycles, fertilization techniques, etc., he effectively controls every aspect of the eventual growth of those crops.
Under the assumption that these crops are as conscious of life as we currently are, they might not understand why the farmer does not enclose the entire field in a greenhouse, thereby protecting them from the weather, pests, vandals, etc. To them, it certainly seems within the realm of possibility, but to the farmer it's just an unnecessary hassle. Sure he could do it, but he really doesn't have a reason to. In the end, he does not see the death of a portion of the crop as that big a deal. Do the crops adjacent to the dead ones feel the same way? Of course not.
To represent the godlike quality even more accurately, consider god-games such as Sim City. Sure, the denizens of these worlds function under a strict set of rules designated by the code, but the analogy still fits (and perhaps even we are at the mercy of a Vista like operating system, unbeknownst to us).
In those games we create an entire world, in any way we see fit. Over time, one can grow attached to this world, and all the faceless beings that make up its population. That doesn't mean we won't send down an earthquake every now and again, just because we can. Sure, it'll kill some people and cause some structural damage, but who cares? I can always make more right?
And what if that textile factory you erected doesn't bring in the income you thought it would, you laughingly send down a monsoon, just for giggles. Afterward you move on to something else entirely; forgetting about the factory within 5 minutes.
Such is the power omnipotence possesses. It's impossible for us to imagine the potential feelings derived from the death of even millions of inconsequential elements of God's overall biosphere. The farmer can love his crops, but not feel the need to coddle them. The gamer can love his city, but still send natural disasters it's way; if not exclusively for masochistic purposes, perhaps curiosity influenced this decision.
On an entirely separate note, given our current problems with overpopulation in the worlds urban environments, isn't the thinning of the herd an understandable element of continued existence? The methods through which this thinning is executed may seem irrational to us, but that's only a result of our emotional ties to logic and morality.
A boy scout dies in a tornado. A religious extremist blows himself up in a car. One makes us sad, one results in emotional indifference. It's all the same to a supreme being. Simply a means to an end.
true gideon, simply a means to an end. but it is the means that is important when a religion is arguing for caring, personal god concerned with suffering (specifically human suffering). it is my position that life is cruel and is evidence that there is no god at all, or at least not the god of the abrahamic religions.
further, i'm not talking about randomness of tornados, but the randomness of victim selection. there is no element of justice in any discernable sense.
the difference here is that you are talking about a god that simply controls without concern for human events, values, or outcomes. i'm criticizing the idea that there is a god that cares about all of these things. i'm also attacking the argument from design.
your farmer and sim city metaphors are interesting, but not overwhelmingly compelling when directed at my specific point. this assumes a god that is not personal, which is part of the assumptions that i'm attacking. but, in response, the farmer does act like the god i'm attacking in a very real sense, he attempts to maximize the well-being of the crops. he's attempting to prevent suffering and premature harm to the crops in order to maximize their value to him. sure, he doesn't put up a greenhouse, but he works hard to keep insects, nature, and herbivores from destroying them.
the sim city argument implies that god is callous or just playing a little game, which is not amenable to western religious belief, so outside the bounds of my point. although interesting, doesn't rebut my claim because the god doesn't share the same features as the one i'm attempting to undermine.
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