Is God Flawed If He Allows Evil and Sin?

[Iacchus32]

Originally posted by FZ+
Oh... Here there, everywhere... Brooding in guilt a little over being somewhat too harsh to LG over his "corrupt philosophy" (Sorry LG, but you still never should have an absolute insistence of one's correctness), that kind of thing. I was only gone for two days...

Welcome back to the trenches!

But WHY does it make sense? I am arguing that it is a matter of consistency with certain key axioms and certain observed notions. So, we get the idea that there is still nothing we can identify as absolutely true, when we are still based on foundations of sand.

How do you recognize the truth of anything if it doesn't make sense? You see, "That doesn't make sense!"

Yes, that is indeed a possibility. That is how I raised the "unreachable goal" idea of truth, and also fact (in the fact vs value thread). The two represent unreachable extremes, and we pick out trueness from the scale. But the relative also goes somewhere else. I am insinuating the idea that the central relative is always relative to yourself, and one's experiences. (which I also believe are one and the same, but that's besides the point) Truth is something that is relative to the observer.

I tend to agree with you. How is that? And yet I think it's reasonable to say we all share the same commonality. Hmm ... It almost sounds like you're developing an Idealistic side here?

But is it a fact? Well, it's pretty close to being true, perhaps is as true as possible, but still cannot be proven. The capacity for illusion exists, and I could be a figment of a dream. I could be a slave, forced to drag myself out of the bed. I'll never prove it, and it is pretty implausible, but it isn't an abolute fact. Just more true to me that the hypothesis I don't exist.[/color]
From your viewpoint, the idea that I exist is much less true, because you in fact have no real evidence other than faith and trust that I am in fact, a real person. What if I am your imagination? How do you know? Other situations can arise that what I see as true is blatantly false to you. Hence my objection to an absolute and universal truth, simply due to the subjectivity of cognition.

It's something you better come to accept, at least to some degree of certainty, otherwise you'll never be able to motive yourself. I think if you asked most people the same question, without being philosophical about it, they would probably say, "What are you nuts!"

Science addresses life by it's effects on the external reality. What is life, but what you do, the effects of the process? The nature of life is something that is vague and undefined, perhaps very much in the eye of the beholder, perhaps not even objectively real. Science deals with the concrete part of life.

If people were nothing more than automotans then this would be a perfectly acceptable answer, but they're not, therefore there must be something more to this whole thing we call existence.

 

[FZ+]

How do you recognize the truth of anything if it doesn't make sense? You see, "That doesn't make sense!"

No, what I meant there that making sense does not equal being true. Because we can't say that "sense" is similarly true. Hence foundations of sand.

I tend to agree with you. How is that? And yet I think it's reasonable to say we all share the same commonality. Hmm ... It almost sounds like you're developing an Idealistic side here?

Hmm? I don't exactly have a doctrine to follow. I would say that it is reasonable to say so, but it is not neccessarily true.

It's something you better come to accept, at least to some degree of certainty, otherwise you'll never be able to motive yourself. I think if you asked most people the same question, without being philosophical about it, they would probably say, "What are you nuts!"

Once upon a time, I wrote a post on the dangers of intuition and common sense. I believe that it is better to accept and recognise assumptions as an essential part of existence, whilst remembering that they are assumptions, not completely proven facts. Expect the unexpected!

If people were nothing more than automotans then this would be a perfectly acceptable answer, but they're not, therefore there must be something more to this whole thing we call existence.

Well... it is arguable depending on your definition of automatons. But the point is that science makes no judgement about the "something more". It merely provides answers to the observable. To extend the assumption that there is nothing more is not unreasonable, but it is also not necessary and is not part of science. Given science's place as the only real answer-source as to what we can see, a sense of reliance is wholly justified. As to the something more, science is entirely ambivalent. It's a matter of dealing with what information we have. There is certainly a part of us that works as a machine - our bodies.

 

[Iacchus32]

The Great Emperor ...

Excerpt from Behold the Spirit, by Alan Watts ...

Philosophically, we do not think of God as having the peculiar personal characteristics of a tribal patriarch, nor yet of an Oriental despot of uncertain temper and undoubted power, whose every whim is law and before whom all must grovel in the dust. Even when this awesome creature is endowed with a sense of perfect justice and mercy, he does not fit our philosophic conception, because he is still very much of a man -- ridiculous in that he takes himself too seriously. Nearer to our intellectual idea of God is the type of emperor envisaged by Lao-tzu, who advised the would-be ruler to be like the Tao, governing his sujects without letting them know that they were being governed ...

The great Tao pervades everywhere, both on the left and on the right.

By it all things come into being, and it does not reject them. Merits accomplished, it does not possesses them (or, lay claim to them).

It loves and nourishes all things but does not dominate over them...

Because it never assumes greatness, therefore it can accomplish greatness.

Therefore the Sage (as ruler), in order to be above the people, must in words keep below them;

In order to be ahead of the people, he must in person keep behind them.

Thus when he is above, the people do not feel his burden; When he is ahead, the people do not feel his hindrance. Therefore all the world is pleased to hold him in high esteem and never get tired of him.

Because he does not compete, no one competes with him.

How does this stand up to your idea of neutrality FZ+?