ddb@mrvax.DEC (DAVID DYER-BENNET MRO1-2/L14 DTN 231-4076) (12/15/84)
I've seen several postings recently which, as I read them, say "You guys haven't shown how there can be morals without God; therefore there is God." Let's take this in two parts. First, please IGNORE WHETHER THAT'S WHAT YOU REALLY SAID. That is what I understood you to say, and I want to make sure you understand why I don't like it. There is no logical connection apparent to me between the premise and the conclusion. If the above statement seems reasonable to you, you are assuming something that I am not. Possible candidates include "and there are morals", or "morals can only come from God", or "morals can't exist unless we know where they come from" or something like that. I shouldn't pursue this any further without some feedback to guide the direction of the discussion. Now, the other possibility is that I didn't understand what you said correctly. This seems doubtful. I've seen too many arguments of essentially the same form -- "you rationalists can't completely explain everything, therefore we are right." To me, that's nonsense. To me, any system that claims to completely explain everything is suspect; because whenever I've thought I completely understood something, I've later learned that there was more to it than I had thought. One of the problems of being a rationalist is that we have to live with uncertainty about many things, some of them of vital importance. JUST BECAUSE IT ISN'T PLEASANT DOESN'T MEAN IT'S WRONG!!!!! To us, your apparent yearning for security, certainty, and stability is simply at odds with the way the universe really is. This is the main "presumption" I see you making. It flavors all of your arguments, is an unspoken premise behind everything you say. Again I ask you to set aside for the moment whether my conclusions about you are in fact correct, and discuss their consequences. Do any of you out there deny that there is a stupendous quantity of evidence that humans are easily led, easily fooled; that they can convince themselves of the most ridiculous things, if they want to? That human psychology isn't very well understood, but that our capacity for creating and inhabiting dream worlds of greater or lesser extent is unbounded? I SAY THAT EACH OF US MUST APPLY THIS TO HIMSELF, AS WELL AS TO OTHERS. Of course it's inconvenient for my arguments that I've just called all human thought into question. So what? I refuse to sweep it under the rug just because it's inconvenient. The universe is rarely as we would have it, but must be dealt with on its own terms. Please, let's try to deal with these difficult issues as difficult issues, rather than sweeping them under the rug. In particular, Paul Dubuc, the last long article of yours that I read had a disgusting selection of shallow, facile, arguments playing with the surface of some serious discussion of these real issues. Ken Arndt has shown that he is more widely read than I am; I look forward to a response, to see if he can contribute something to my understanding. -- David Dyer-Bennet -- ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-mrvax!ddb
ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Kenneth Adam Arromdee) (11/04/85)
In article <2802@hplabsc.UUCP> brengle@hplabsc.UUCP (Tim Brengle) writes: >What shall we say, then? That God is unjust? Not at all. For he said to >Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I wish, I will take pity on whom I wish." >So then, it does not does not depend on what man wants or does, but only on >God's mercy. Are you trying to tell me that anything God does is automatically good? If something is injust, it's not magically made just just because God does it. If God really does things of a type we would consider "unjust" if done by some other being, then God is evil. If you say that we cannot judge God, it works both ways--you can't judge him as evil, but you can't judge him as good either. >For the scripture says to Pharaoh, "I made you king for this >very purpose, to use you to show my power, and to make my name known in all >the world." So then, God has mercy on whom he wishes, and he makes stubborn >whom he wishes. If God really does what he wishes without regards for right and wrong, then I cannot consider him a being worthy of worship. >One of you, then, will say to me, "If this is so, how can God find fault with >a man? Who can resist God's will?" But who are you, my friend, to talk back >to God? A clay pot does not ask the man who made it, "Why did you make me like >this?" After all, the man who makes the pots has the right to use the clay as >he wishes, and to make two pots from the same lump of clay, one for special >occasions, and the other for ordinary use. A clay pot is an unthinking object, and it is not right to do something to a thinking, living being just because it is right to do so to an object. >And the same is true of what God has done. He wanted to show his wrath and to >make his power known. So he was very patient in enduring those who were the >objects of his wrath, who were ready to be destroyed. And he wanted also to >reveal his rich glory, which was poured out on us who were the objects of his >mercy, those of us whom he has prepared to receive his glory. > >Romans 9:14-23, Good News for Modern Man Rich glory? God being able to do anything he wants to anyone he wants, with- out regard for conventional morals because anything he wants to do he auto- matically defines as good, is rich glory? Treating you like a clay pot is rich glory? I do not want to worship any being that treats me like a clay pot. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you know the alphabet up to 'k', you can teach it up to 'k'. Kenneth Arromdee BITNET: G46I4701 at JHUVM and INS_AKAA at JHUVMS CSNET: ins_akaa@jhunix.CSNET ARPA: ins_akaa%jhunix@hopkins.ARPA UUCP: ...{decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!aplcen!jhunix!ins_akaa