Pretend you are God

StealthRolex

Spawned from "Why did God Create Us?"

edit - it has been pointed out the thread title is misleading. Please read as " Pretend you are the immortal governor of a planet"

youcrazyjesus! wrote: »

If "God" did create us we're little more than a video game to "God". A science experiment maybe. Clearly we, as individuals, are of little consequence to him.

StealthRolex wrote: »

I've often contemplated this and wondered if God is not grooming us to rule some other planet somewhere when we are elevated to immortallity with god like powers.

The question then is given your experience as a human and having learned the truth about good and evil if you had to rule a planet what rules would you impose and why?

The Premise is quite simple. Having lived your life on Planet Earth you die and go to Heaven.
You discover that God has been playing with various planets across the universe creating life here and there. Some are still primordial, some have basic life forms, some have hominids.

You are provided with a planet where the equivalent of what was homo sapiens on earth is emerging.

It's your planet now. A gift from God to occupy you in Eternity. Just as Adam was put into the Garden of Eden to look after it and tend it so you have been presented with a Planet to look after and tend. How do you manage it and keep it going? Would you appear to people to explain to them the difference between good and evil, right and worng, or do you take a hands off approach and see what results?

edit - was amuse which is probably the wrong word. changed to occupy.

Hagar

Smite.

/thread

StormWarrior

The way I treated them would probably depend on my mood at the time. If I was in a good mood, I'd be considerate and if I was in a bad mood I'd probably wipe loads of them out in a great flood. I'd probably come across as a bit bipolar, like the god of the bible.

StealthRolex

StormWarrior wrote: »

The way I treated them would probably depend on my mood at the time. If I was in a good mood, I'd be considerate and if I was in a bad mood I'd probably wipe loads of them out in a great flood. I'd probably come across as a bit bipolar, like the god of the bible.

Taking the latter God had a reason for sending the flood. What would be your reason and why?
Bear in mind that evil actions for the sake of it are not allowed otherwise you would be ejected from Heaven or banished to live on your own planet and stripped of your powers until you learned your lesson.
Remember you got into Heaven because you were good - why would you now turn bad?

StormWarrior

Well, the title of this thread was "Pretend you are God." So if that's the case, I can cause a flood just because I feel like it. I don't think the christian god's reasons for causing a flood were that great. If I can be stripped of my powers and banished from heaven then I'm not god at all, but just a servant of god's, abiding by god's rules, in which case I'll just skip the whole thing and not bother playing.

StealthRolex

StormWarrior wrote: »

Well, the title of this thread was "Pretend you are God." So if that's the case, I can cause a flood just because I feel like it. I don't think the christian god's reasons for causing a flood were that great. If I can be stripped of my powers and banished from heaven then I'm not god at all, but just a servant of god's, abiding by god's rules, in which case I'll just skip the whole thing and not bother playing.

I apologies if the thread title is misleading and while I cannot amend it I have noted it in my opening post.

The rules are quite simple. You can only do good things to keep your charges on the straight and narrow. Your job if you will is to implement Gods plan.
You have the powers of omniscience and ominipotence with regard to this planet and its beings only, however you cannot create life.

StealthRolex

StormWarrior wrote: »

Well, the title of this thread was "Pretend you are God." So if that's the case, I can cause a flood just because I feel like it. I don't think the christian god's reasons for causing a flood were that great. If I can be stripped of my powers and banished from heaven then I'm not god at all, but just a servant of god's, abiding by god's rules, in which case I'll just skip the whole thing and not bother playing.

He did it to remove wicked humans and sort out the human\angel offspring. What's wrong with that?

God did not want a world full of wicked people or strange non-human beings so He gave it a bit of a wash.

adamski8

why not just play this game instead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_&_White_%28computer_game%29

StealthRolex

Apologies for the multiple edits - the omnipotence is going to my head so I'm clearly not cut out for it yet

StealthRolex

adamski8 wrote: »

why not just play this game instead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_&_White_%28computer_game%29

because it has no Christian premise and it can teach me nothing of truth and love

adamski8

StealthRolex wrote: »

because it has no Christian premise and it can teach me nothing of truth and love

have you played it?

Fanny Cradock

adamski8 wrote: »

why not just play this game instead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_&_White_%28computer_game%29

Cauz it's muck

PDN

I prefer Civilization myself.

StealthRolex

adamski8 wrote: »

have you played it?

The link you provided informed me that it has no Christian premise so why would I want to play it?

StealthRolex

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Cauz it's muck

I would have said borderline Satanic but that would be guessing

Fanny Cradock

StealthRolex wrote: »

I would have said borderline Satanic but that would be guessing

Don't know about that! The controls certainly were devilish, and the gameplay was hell.

strobe

Interesting thread idea Stealth. Although there are a few problems....my goal being to implement God's plan but only being allowed to do good being the main one.

Firstly because God's been pretty vague about his plan to date, and completely silent on a potential plan for any non Earth dwelling beings, so first I would have to make a presumption as to exactly what that plan entails.....some theist seem to spend their entire lives doing just that and not getting very far so I can't imagine given my beliefs I would stand much chance of figuring it out in time to post a response.

Secondly the not being allowed to do anything bad thing means I would certainly not be omnipotent and I would be unable to to a lot of what God did on Earth. Which I'd imagine would set the perfect example of how to accomplish the above unknown plan. For example I believe that murdering the majority of life on the planet would be about as bad a thing as I could do.

So either I am granted that catch-all clause that God gets where absolutely nothing I do can be considered wrong, or impolementing his plan, if he did decide to share it with me to help with my planet overseeing when I got promoted, would presumably be impossible, other wise why would God have done those things in the first place.


If you are interested in me giving my opinion on what I would do if I was the god/overseer of a planet without the above terms and conditions though, I'd be happy to give that a shot.

StealthRolex

strobe wrote: »

Interesting thread idea Stealth. Although there are a few problems....my goal being to implement God's plan but only being allowed to do good being the main one.

Firstly because God's been pretty vague about his plan to date, and completely silent on a potential plan for any non Earth dwelling beings, so first I would have to make a presumption as to exactly what that plan entails.....some theist seem to spend their entire lives doing just that and not getting very far so I can't imagine given my beliefs I would stand much chance of figuring it out in time to post a response.

Secondly the not being allowed to do anything bad thing means I would certainly not be omnipotent and I would be unable to to a lot of what God did on Earth. Which I'd imagine would set the perfect example of how to accomplish the above unknown plan. For example I believe that murdering the majority of life on the planet would be about as bad a thing as I could do.

So either I am granted that catch-all clause that God gets where absolutely nothing I do can be considered wrong, or impolementing his plan, if he did decide to share it with me to help with my planet overseeing when I got promoted, would presumably be impossible, other wise why would God have done those things in the first place.


If you are interested in me giving my opinion on what I would do if I was the god/overseer of a planet without the above terms and conditions though, I'd be happy to give that a shot.

The Plan.
Admittedly that is a dilemma. You could ask what is your current purpose and decide if you want to impose that on your charges.
Or, you could decide that all you want is for them to live happy lives. As they are creations of God they have souls which will go to heaven, hell or purgatory when they die. The object of the game is to have the maximum number in heaven and the minimum number in hell. If carrying out a cleansing act will increase the numbers in hell it might be worth revisiting any potential actions.

Doing "bad" things.
This is the kind if thing I was thinking of. Was the flood and act of murder? Or was it an attempt to go back to the drawing board? Is there another explanation?
Remember, the primary reasons recorded in the Bible were wickedness - and man has a long history of executing people for wickedness - and the destruction of the Nephilim.
God cannot destroy immortals (I know there is a conflict there with omnipotence but would you kill your own children?) and he cannot or will not destroy souls - souls come from Him so He would be destroying part of Himself and that does not make sense. Mortal bodies however are different.
It may be that only the killing of an innocent is murder and the killing of the wicked is required for the common good. God can judge. We cannot which is why it is a problem when we have laws that allow execution of criminals but that's a different area of discussion.
As it happens God found a good man and modified his plan.

It is entirely reasonable to question why did God do the things He did and if put in the same place would you do the same?

Best place to search for guidance is the Bible.

catch-all clause

As I clarified you are not God but are looking after the planet in Gods absence. If extreme action is required can you justify it? Was there no alternative?

Turtwig

Well I always found war movies to be good fun, so I don't see the point in interfering. Besides if they don't learn to cooperate mutually they'll only have war after war because regardless of how good my interference is, if they're like us humans then there will always be skeptics and non believers.

strobe

StealthRolex wrote: »

The Plan.
The object of the game is to have the maximum number in heaven and the minimum number in hell.

Well I can think of one way to score a near 100% heaven success rate if that is the objective. I alter my charges so that they reproduce asexually, and sustain themselves purely through photosynthesis, then when they are born I immediately put them into a coma, meaning they can not sin. No sin = no one going to hell. No one going to hell = everyone going to heaven.

But I think maybe you mean the question to apply in relation to a planet of humans as they are here on Earth? If so I think the best way to score a high heaven:hell ratio would be to simply maintain a constant omnipresence beside all the people all the time and give them a good hard smack upside the head anytime they looked like they were going to sin, or anytime they started to formulate a single thought about sinning. That would presumably score something in the region of 99% or more souls for heaven.

Maybe adding in the proviso that you aren't allowed interfere with free will would make things a bit trickier. But in that case any interventionary behaviour on my part whatsoever would violate that rule. In which case I would have no option but to do nothing at all. To leave them entirely to their own devices. As even informing them that there was sin or heaven or hell would have a very direct effect on thier free will.

Hagar

One interesting thing to try would be to undo the Tower of Babel.

How would the world have progressed if everyone understood everyone else?

PDN

I think the key thing would be to strike a balance between making the creatures free and letting them hurt each other too much.

Yes, we could make them asexual beings who sleep all the time - but who would really want to live such an existence?

But if we give them unfettered freedom and never intervene to restrict that freedom then they probably won't take long to destroy my planet.

So finding the best midpoint between those two extremes would take all of my superhuman wisdom. Then I'd need a lot of patience, since the ingrates will probably moan about the balance that I struck and end up writing books that call me a Delusion.

Zombrex

Am I omnipotent?

Cause if I am I would instantly turn everyone into creatures that can't be hurt or feel pain or suffer.

Seems odd God hasn't done that already, but who am I to question our all knowing overlord

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

Am I omnipotent?

Cause if I am I would instantly turn everyone into creatures that can't be hurt or feel pain or suffer.

Seems odd God hasn't done that already, but who am I to question our all knowing overlord

The question is, would making us in such a way really be for the best?

Would such beings produce anything approaching a Picasso, a Bob Dylan, a Beethoven, a John Steinbeck?

In fact, would a creature that could not feel pain or be hurt really be capable of feeling or expressing love in any meaningful way?

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

In fact, would a creature that could not feel pain or be hurt really be capable of feeling or expressing love in any meaningful way?

Given that in this scenario I'm omnipotent I'm going to say, Yes, yes it would. :pac:

Are you suggesting that a god can't make a being that doesn't feel pain or hurt but is capable of feeling and expressing love in a meaningful way?

In heaven do you believe you will experience hurt? If not do you believe you won't be able to experience love in a meaningful way in heaven?

Manach

If I were God, would I believe in Bono?

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

Given that in this scenario I'm omnipotent I'm going to say, Yes, yes it would. :pac:

Omnipotence does not mean the ability to do that which is inherently self-contradictory.

Are you suggesting that a god can't make a being that doesn't feel pain or hurt but is capable of feeling and expressing love in a meaningful way?

I'm not stating it dogmatically, but yes, I am suggesting it.

I don't see that such a 'love' would have any real meaning or value. It would just be an arbitrary characteristic like being green.

So, if we have the freedom to love, we would presumably have to have the ability to withhold love. But what meaning would withholding love have if the other person,or indeed ourselves, cannot feel or experience anything negative as a consequence?

In heaven do you believe you will experience hurt? If not do you believe you won't be able to experience love in a meaningful way in heaven?

This red herring tends to get dragged into any discussion of free will on this board, despite it being explained very carefully on a number of occasions.

There is a world of difference between choosing to enter a state (be it celibacy,
marriage, sinlessness or heaven) of one's own free will, and being condemned to exist in that state with no choice in the matter.

So, for example, I believe it is important that young people should be allowed to choose whom they marry (I don't like the idea of arranged marriages or child brides). But, once they have made that choice and entered into a covenant of marriage, I don't agree with that person still having the freedom to pick and choose whom they want to spend their life with. They have made their choice and, barring exceptional circumstances (eg domestic violence) they should stick with it.

So, it is important to me that we have a genuine choice whether we want to spend eternity with God or not. But, once we have made that choice, and stuck with it, then it seems reasonable that we should be able to voluntarily enter a place where we can longer opt out of that choice. A point of no return, if you will.

To be honest, I would find the concept of being instantly born into heaven, and having no choice in the matter at all, to be a denial of one's humanity and moral freedom. You might as well just create a Tamagotchi as such divine pets.

iUseVi

PDN wrote: »

Omnipotence does not mean the ability to do that which is inherently self-contradictory.

Are you sure about that? Surely God set up the very rules of logic? In this world 2+2=4 but if I were God could I not create a 2+2=5 situation. I know this makes no sense, but an omnipotent God would be beyond human understanding.

PDN

iUseVi wrote: »

Are you sure about that? Surely God set up the very rules of logic? In this world 2+2=4 but if I were God could I not create a 2+2=5 situation. I know this makes no sense, but an omnipotent God would be beyond human understanding.

I agree that it makes no sense.

Philosophers (and theologians) usually agree that omnipotence does not include the ability to do that which is inherently self-contradictory.

Otherwise this whole discussion will instantly fall apart, as we have no objective concepts of truth and untruth on which to stand.

So you can ask why there's evil in the world. But then I can respond by saying that there is no such thing as evil. You demand how I can say such a thing since we can both see evil. But I can respond that an omnipotent God can make evil both exist and not exist at the same time. So even though you can see evil, it doesn't exist.

Do you really want to take us down that road? I think madness lies that way.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

Omnipotence does not mean the ability to do that which is inherently self-contradictory.

True, but I see nothing self-contradictory about it, nor has anyone ever been able to show why it would be.

PDN wrote: »

I don't see that such a 'love' would have any real meaning or value. It would just be an arbitrary characteristic like being green.

Well if you define love as requiring the ability to be hurt then I can see why that would be the case, but to me that is a rather immature definition of love. To me it makes love seem like neediness, I love you because you could break my heart but choose not to.

I would consider love, actual love, to be a step above that. Where two people are perfectly happy apart at a base level which is raised even further by love for each other, rather than people who are unhappy and only find happiness through a relationship, and thus are deeply hurt if the relationship was ever removed.

In my experience those people tend to be more "in love" with the idea of a relationship, and what it does for them (raise them up out of a state of unhappiness) rather than the actual person.

So while all these concepts are highly subjective, I see no issue with love in a universe were people are not hurt or unhappy, because I see love as adding to your happiness, not creating it in the first place. If it is removed you go back (or should go back) to the base level of happiness. People who look for love to make them happy, to raise them to this base level, seem in my experience, to in the long run end up still unhappy.

PDN wrote: »

This red herring tends to get dragged into any discussion of free will on this board, despite it being explained very carefully on a number of occasions.

There is a world of difference between choosing to enter a state (be it celibacy,
marriage, sinlessness or heaven) of one's own free will, and being condemned to exist in that state with no choice in the matter.

If you say so, but that isn't actually relevant to the point.

You said, or implied, that one cannot experience meaningful love without the ability to be hurt. So using that logic, in heaven where you cannot be hurt, you can't experience meaningful love, making the love you experience while in heaven a lesser form of love.

Which I doubt you agree with, so there is a contradiction here, long before you go anywhere near the issue of free will.

To say that you can experience it because in the past you could get hurt isn't relevant to the point at hand, because at that moment in heaven you can't be hurt, while at the same moment in heaven you experience glorious love.

Which means in a particular moment it is possible to both experience glorious love and not be able to get hurt.

So there is no inherent contradiction in such a concept, thus no reason why it cannot be applied at any point by an omnipotent being.

strobe

PDN wrote: »

Yes, we could make them asexual beings who sleep all the time - but who would really want to live such an existence?(

Well, no one. If I had free reign that isn't what I would do but the goal I was given was to get as high a percentage as possible into heaven. That would accomplish that goal better than anything I can think of. By introducing free will you immediately reduce the number that get to heaven.

For free will to truely exist I think it would also be necessary to completely avoid revealing the fact that behaving a certain way will result in you being rewarded with paradise and another way with exile to hell. That knowlege being available would leave my aliens with no more free will than someone would have if I put a shotgun their head and told them kiss my feet or I'll shoot them in the face. Sure they can choose not to do what I say and have their face blown off because of it, they have will, but it certainly isn't free will.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

Yes, we could make them asexual beings who sleep all the time - but who would really want to live such an existence?

strobe wrote: »

Well, no one.

The flaw in that of course is that it is anthropic (if that is the right term).

We only consider being an asexual beings who sleep all the time undesirable because we aren't asexual beings who sleep all the time. If we were, if we had evolved to do this, we would think it is quite great.

Asexual insects don't sit around thinking "Man I wish I could have sex". We enjoy sex because we have evolved to enjoy sex. We could have evolved to really really enjoy eating carrots and look at sex as weird and boring.

The biggest issue with these sort of discussions is that they are ultimately held down by the problem people have imagining situations other than the one they are in at this moment. We place high significance to how we are now, and what we do now, than on other arrangements for no particular reason other than this is how we are (why is sexual reproduction better than asexual reproduction other than that is the way we are set up to think?)

Which is some what ironic consider we are supposed to be imagining an all powerful being.

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

Well if you define love as requiring the ability to be hurt then I can see why that would be the case, but to me that is a rather immature definition of love. To me it makes love seem like neediness, I love you because you could break my heart but choose not to.

No, it is defining love as something that has inherent worth.

Otherwise you are saying, "I can choose to love you or not - but either way it doesn't actually make any difference to either of us."

If there is no difference, for either the giver or the recepient, between love and not-love, then what mmeaning has it? If there is a difference, then the choice of not-love involves some degree of pain, be it ever so slight or be it mental or physical.

Love is not a safe option. Real love involves taking a risk. And once you have risk (unless it is an illusion) you may get pain of one kind or another.

I would consider love, actual love, to be a step above that. Where two people are perfectly happy apart at a base level which is raised even further by love for each other, rather than people who are unhappy and only find happiness through a relationship, and thus are deeply hurt if the relationship was ever removed.

That is self-contradictory. If you are perfectly happy, then you can't get higher than 'perfectly'. If it is possible to get higher, but you don't, then that is to be lower. Relatively speaking, that implies a negative - or pain.

In my experience those people tend to be more "in love" with the idea of a relationship, and what it does for them (raise them up out of a state of unhappiness) rather than the actual person.

Forgive me for not seeing your experience of love as being a clincher in this discussion.

Which means in a particular moment it is possible to both experience glorious love and not be able to get hurt.

So there is no inherent contradiction in such a concept, thus no reason why it cannot be applied at any point by an omnipotent being.

Sorry, but that is shocking logic.

Being in the State of X without, at that same moment, experiencing Y, does not mean that it is necessarily possible to therefore enjoy X without ever experiencing Y.

We can demonstrate this by substituting different variables for X and Y.

A woman can be married (X) without, at that particular moment, being on the same continent as her husband (Y). But you cannot get to the point of being married without, at some point, being on the same continent as each other.

Now apply the same logic where X=experiencing love and Y=risking (not necessarily experiencing) pain or unhappiness to some degree.

Therefore it is reasonable to suggest that love necessarily involves taking risks, but that one can experience love in heaven without risking anything at that time.

PDN

strobe wrote: »

Well, no one. If I had free reign that isn't what I would do but the goal I was given was to get as high a percentage as possible into heaven.

And that is the flaw in this whole thought experiment.

I do not for a moment believe that God's greatest purpose for us is to get as many people into heaven as possible.

I believe that His greatest purpose is to help us reach our highest potential as moral beings created in the image of God. Some will achieve this, and some will not. But that IMHO is better than everyone reaching the same level of mediocrity in a lacklustre heaven that is actually pretty meaningless.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

No, it is defining love as something that has inherent worth.

Not its not. There is nothing in my scenario where love doesn't have worth. What you are doing is defining love as something that only has inherent worth if it is possible to be hurt by it.

To me that is like saying if you win the lottery it is only worth something if you were about to go bankrupt.

PDN wrote: »

Otherwise you are saying, "I can choose to love you or not - but either way it doesn't actually make any difference to either of us."

No, its saying I can fall in love with you but if I don't I'm not going to be hurt by this cause I'm already happy. You make me more happy, not happy.

Which is the basis for a proper adult relationship.

Don't get me started on these teenagers who think love is what they find in a Twilight movie (oh he has left me, I'm so depressed, I'll sit around doing nothing for 6 months and then try and kill myself! Oh the melodrama!)

Love is about (or should be about) enhancing your life, not bringing it up to a bearable level.

I'm not saying not one in love ever gets hurt. But it is not a requirement of love, it is easy to imagine love still existing in a universe where people don't get hurt. Love as a concept wouldn't evaporate simply because you couldn't be hurt.

PDN wrote: »

If there is no difference, for either the giver or the recepient, between love and not-love, then what mmeaning has it?

Who said there was no difference?

I'm saying not being in love doesn't have to equal being hurt, and thus a being that cannot be hurt can still feel love.

Again using the Lotto analogy, there is a difference between winning the Lotto and not winning the Lotto, but not winning the Lotto doesn't hurt me cause I'm already pretty happy. It would be a bonus upon my already pretty happy life.

PDN wrote: »

If there is a difference, then the choice of not-love involves some degree of pain, be it ever so slight or be it mental or physical.

Why? I see no reason for this to be true.

Happy + Love = Happier.
Happy - Love = Happy.

PDN wrote: »

Love is not a safe option. Real love involves taking a risk. And once you have risk (unless it is an illusion) you may get pain of one kind or another.

You make love sound like a card game.

Love is only a risk, or not the safe option, if you are already unhappy and require love to make you happy.

PDN wrote: »

That is self-contradictory. If you are perfectly happy, then you can't get higher than 'perfectly'.

Though it should have been obvious from the phrase and context (and perhaps it was) I meant perfectly happy in the common garden usage of the term such as I'm perfectly fine walking home, or I'm perfectly happy with my new TV. I wasn't implying that I was in a state of absolute perfect happiness.

Lets move on ....

PDN wrote: »

Sorry, but that is shocking logic.

Being in the State of X without, at that same moment, experiencing Y, does not mean that it is necessarily possible to therefore enjoy X without ever experiencing Y.

That isn't relevant. If you want to argue that in order to be in love you have to at some point in the past been able to be hurt go ahead, but that is a different point (and a bad one at that)

My point is that it is logical and physically possible (if we take physically possible to include things like heaven) to exist at a particular moment in time in a state of love and be physically incapable of being hurt at that moment.

Now as for your argument that you cannot get to this state without at some point in the past being in a state of being able to be physically hurt, I see no reason why this is need be true universally as I see no need for one moment in the past to control the present moment.

In the same way that God could simply create a 40 year old man who did not go through the last 39 years physically on Earth, God (or a omnipotent being) could simply create a person in this state.

There is no logical contradiction with the idea of someone existing in this state at a particular moment. As such what comes before it is as irrelevant to an omnipotent being as saying that God couldn't create a someone with the body of a 40 year old man without him first living 39 years of his life. There is nothing inherently contradictory with a 40 year old man and thus no reason why God couldn't simply create one.

PDN wrote: »

A woman can be married (X) without, at that particular moment, being on the same continent as her husband (Y). But you cannot get to the point of being married without, at some point, being on the same continent as each other.

Are you saying that God could not create a married couple and place one in Africa and one in Asia? That this is impossible? That he would have to first create an unmarried couple, have them get married, and then place them in different continents?

Lukker-

Whats there to pretend about?

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

Not its not. There is nothing in my scenario where love doesn't have worth. What you are doing is defining love as something that only has inherent worth if it is possible to be hurt by it.

No, I am saying it is something that only has inherent worth if it is possible to be hurt by the lack of it.

To me that is like saying if you win the lottery it is only worth something if you were about to go bankrupt.

Which says more about you than it does about my argument.

Actually, it is like saying, if you win the lottery it is only worth something if it is better than not winning the lottery.

No, its saying I can fall in love with you but if I don't I'm not going to be hurt by this cause I'm already happy. You make me more happy, not happy.

I think we'll get further in a discussion if we discuss the free will act of choosing to love someone, rather than this "falling in love" nonsense.

But as soon as you allow for a condition called 'more happy' then you have created a condition of being 'less happy'. And that opens the door for unhappiness, or emotional pain, because happiness is relative.

Think of it this way. As soon as you allow for different degrees of happiness, then we have a scale running from the least happy you have been to the most happy you have been. It doesn't matter if that scale runs from 0 to 100 - or if it runs from 99 to 104. We will always see the lower end of the scale to be unhappiness.

strobe

PDN wrote: »

I think we'll get further in a discussion if we discuss the free will act of choosing to love someone, rather than this "falling in love" nonsense.

That's a pretty unusual statement to make. Do you view loving someone as a decision people make? You meet someone and you choose to be in love with them or not like you choose wether or not to shake their hand?

bnt

If I had god-like powers over this planet, I'd use them to make people so wise and confident that they could figure out what has to be done without being told, They'd no longer need me, so I might be able to take a vacation, a break from all these whiny weaklings wanting me to fix what they broke.

Fanny Cradock

strobe wrote: »

Do you view loving someone as a decision people make?

Not totally. But I think it very likely that there is some cognitive process involved. People choose to hate other people for the silliest and thinnest of reasons. As my words suggest, there reasons might be absurd but at some level they still had to decide to hate. I don't then see why people wouldn't also rationalise love (to whatever level of cognition). In a slightly more practical manner than all this theoretical thought process that may be bubbling away behind the eyes, during the early stage of a relationship (and I'm presuming here that people do enter into relationship with a view to finding love) you evaluate the prospects before making the decision to actually turn up for the date. Similarly, on the 5th date you decided to ignore those little things that might annoy you otherwise.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

No, I am saying it is something that only has inherent worth if it is possible to be hurt by the lack of it.

Well yes, that is what I meant.

PDN wrote: »

Which says more about you than it does about my argument.

Well it says I don't accept your argument because to me love doesn't require this.

PDN wrote: »

Actually, it is like saying, if you win the lottery it is only worth something if it is better than not winning the lottery.

No it isn't like saying that because you are introducing the idea that you must be hurt by the removal or absence of love.

It is perfectly possible to say that being in love is better than not being in love without requiring that returning to not being in love involves you being hurt, in the same way that it is perfectly possible to say that winning the lottery is better than not winning the lottery without saying that not being a millionaire will emotionally hurt you.

I'm sure not being a millionaire, or losing all the winnings, would hurt some people. But that is not the same as saying it is a requirement. I like my life at the moment, I consider myself a happy guy. If I won the lottery great, but if I didn't, or one and had it taken, I would go back to my happy life.

PDN wrote: »

I think we'll get further in a discussion if we discuss the free will act of choosing to love someone, rather than this "falling in love" nonsense.

From previous discussions the free will act of "choosing" to love someone is a concept that seems to only exist in your own mind. I've never met anyone else who thinks you choose to love someone, and this is supported by all research I've seen into what is happening in the human brain when you are in love. As far as I can tell it is an unconscious act, like thinking chocolate ice-cream is nice than vanilla.

You seem to have an ideological opposition to this because you think it justifies things like separation or divorce. That is really your problem, not mine.

But thankfully it has very little to do with this discussion so lets try and avoid that particular rabbit hole.

PDN wrote: »

But as soon as you allow for a condition called 'more happy' then you have created a condition of being 'less happy'. And that opens the door for unhappiness, or emotional pain, because happiness is relative.

"Opens the door" is irrelevant.

As the omnipotent being in this scenario I decide where the lines are. Making a being that cannot slide into unhappiness does not mean the being cannot change between happy and more happy states.

PDN wrote: »

Think of it this way. As soon as you allow for different degrees of happiness, then we have a scale running from the least happy you have been to the most happy you have been. It doesn't matter if that scale runs from 0 to 100 - or if it runs from 99 to 104. We will always see the lower end of the scale to be unhappiness.

Why?

If I take the scale as starting at how I felt at a happy moment (say getting a puppy) in my life and run it up to the best moment of my life, that doesn't mean the feeling I had when I got a puppy then becomes "unhappiness". That would just be silly.

Zombrex

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Not totally. But I think it very likely that there is some cognitive process involved. People choose to hate other people for the silliest and thinnest of reasons.

Can you not see the contradiction in that?

Why would someone choose to hate someone for a stupid reason since it is a stupid reason?

In reality they aren't choosing, they hate them despite it being the stupidest reason precisely because they don't choose it. It is an involuntary emotional response, probably based on the persons issues rather than the actual reason stated.

They can choose to act on it or not act on it, choose to follow their emotional response or realise it is stupid and try and ignore it. But they don't choose to put themselves in that emotional state, any more than someone choose to be afraid of heights or chooses to like Emo music.

Likewise have you ever met anyone who choose to fall in love with someone, who decided like buying a car that this person would make a good girlfriend and then simply consciously switched on being in love with them?

Or vice versa, someone simply woke up one day and decided not to love say their kids? I would prefer to not love my kids today, they are a bit of a hassle, so I'm not going to, I'm simply going to switch this off. And tomorrow I'll simply switch it back on again.

PDN talks about how love to have mean must involve hurt at the possibility of the love being taken away. But that idea itself is contradicted by the idea of choosing to be in love with someone, since if your girlfriend of 10 years breaks up with you and you feel a bit upset by it can't you simply choose not to love her, and hence not be upset any more?

If we choose to love or not love someone no one would ever be upset at a break up ever again, they would simply turn off being in love when it became inconvenient.

Of course this isn't how it works.

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

Can you not see the contradiction in that?

Why would someone choose to hate someone for a stupid reason since it is a stupid reason?

In reality they aren't choosing, they hate them despite it being the stupidest reason precisely because they don't choose it. It is an involuntary emotional response, probably based on the persons issues rather than the actual reason stated.

They can choose to act on it or not act on it, choose to follow their emotional response or realise it is stupid and try and ignore it. But they don't choose to put themselves in that emotional state, any more than someone choose to be afraid of heights or chooses to like Emo music.

Likewise have you ever met anyone who choose to fall in love with someone, who decided like buying a car that this person would make a good girlfriend and then simply consciously switched on being in love with them?

Or vice versa, someone simply woke up one day and decided not to love say their kids? I would prefer to not love my kids today, they are a bit of a hassle, so I'm not going to, I'm simply going to switch this off. And tomorrow I'll simply switch it back on again.

PDN talks about how love to have mean must involve hurt at the possibility of the love being taken away. But that idea itself is contradicted by the idea of choosing to be in love with someone, since if your girlfriend of 10 years breaks up with you and you feel a bit upset by it can't you simply choose not to love her, and hence not be upset any more?

If we choose to love or not love someone no one would ever be upset at a break up ever again, they would simply turn off being in love when it became inconvenient.

Of course this isn't how it works.

You and, probably quite deliberately, muddying the waters by confusing 'loving someone' with 'falling in love'.

The first, 'loving someone', is something we do by choice. I can honestly say that I love a very large number of people. I didn't fall in love with them. My feelings are not romantic.

'Falling in love' is a romantic feeling, an emotion, that people usually only feel for one person at a time.

When the Bible tells us to 'love one another' - it is not implying that we have to 'fall in love' with everyone else.

To be honest, Wicknight, your assertion that I am the only person who believes that llove is a choice is just flat out wrong. Are you seriously arguing that a person who genuinely loves people is distinguished from someone who is full of hate for people only by accident? That neither bears any moral responsibility for the way that they are? That both are simply caught in overpowering emotions over which they never had control?

I really worry when I read arguments like yours. Are there really people out there in society whose experience of (and practice of) love is so limited that they cannot conceive of any love other than a romantic infatuation? I actually find that genuinely scary. That would seem to border on a condition akin to being a psychopath.

Love, and the freedom to choose love, is at the heart of the neccessity for free will. In fact, being able to choose to love one another is to be made in the image of God.

Zombrex

PDN wrote: »

I really worry when I read arguments like yours. Are there really people out there in society whose experience of (and practice of) love is so limited that they cannot conceive of any love other than a romantic infatuation?

No there are people out there who don't redefine words simply because of a confusing translation of a holy book

When the Bible was translated into English the translators did not have different words for the different Greek concepts of attraction/fondness/love/kindness. So everything ended up being "love".

It would be foolish to think that this works in reverse, that the English word "love" takes on all these meanings simply because the Bible translators decided to do this.

"Love" means what it means. It doesn't mean all the concepts the translators were forced to settle for (the phrase "lost in translation" springs to mind) In fact to help people out some nice chaps even decided to write down what it means in things call "dictionaries"

Agapate does not mean love in English. There is no single word that translates to agapate, nor is there a single meaning of agapate. The desire to be kind to all around you and to help your fell man is not "love" in the English sense of the word.

Anyway, we have been over this before, can we get back to the issue at hand?

StealthRolex

strobe wrote: »

Well, no one. If I had free reign that isn't what I would do but the goal I was given was to get as high a percentage as possible into heaven. That would accomplish that goal better than anything I can think of. By introducing free will you immediately reduce the number that get to heaven.

Anything sentient created by God has free will. Without freewill choices cannot be made and the beings would be nothing more than living objects and looking after them would be would be no more challenging that looking after fish and invertebrates in a self sustaining aquarium.

While the objective of having more souls in heaven than in hell could be argued to be merely quantitative and a flawed directive, essentially it can only be achieved if the beings make the right choices.

StealthRolex

PDN wrote: »

I really worry when I read arguments like yours. Are there really people out there in society whose experience of (and practice of) love is so limited that they cannot conceive of any love other than a romantic infatuation? I actually find that genuinely scary. That would seem to border on a condition akin to being a psychopath.

This is an excellent point - when one considers how children are exposed to love at home, at school, in the churches, on tv, on the internet, through other media forms - analog, digital, printed word etc and never mind the concept of "sexualised children" and the nature of the "love" they are exposed to... very scary.

In support of this http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3603235.stm and you can add the nature of the content children, and adults, are exposed to and how this informs ones values.

For the purposes of this thread it is worth revisiting what Christ taught us of love.

With respect to children it is also worth remembering Christs attitude was markedly different to that of the elders and parents of the time - have we changed our ways with our children?

old hippy

Belief that a non-existent being loves us all is akin to psychosis, fwiw. Delusional at the very least. It also displays the huge collective ego that believers have. The vanity that we are beloved :rolleyes:

Zombrex

old hippy wrote: »

Belief that a non-existent being loves us all is akin to psychosis, fwiw.

No it isn't. Psychosis is an abnormal mental condition. 95% of humans believe in supernatural beings, that is hardly abnormal is it. The human brain naturally (and perfectly normally) constructs agents in nature.

Anyway, I suspect you are about to get kicked, but perhaps you should do some research into how the human brain works to stop you coming across as so blisteringly ignorant.

old hippy

Wicknight wrote: »

No it isn't. Psychosis is an abnormal mental condition. 95% of humans believe in supernatural beings, that is hardly abnormal is it. The human brain naturally (and perfectly normally) constructs agents in nature.

Anyway, I suspect you are about to get kicked, but perhaps you should do some research into how the human brain works to stop you coming across as so blisteringly ignorant.

Am I to assume you're a religious sort? Where did you pull that 95% figure from? Can I have a link to it, please?

PDN

Wicknight wrote: »

No there are people out there who don't redefine words simply because of a confusing translation of a holy book

When the Bible was translated into English the translators did not have different words for the different Greek concepts of attraction/fondness/love/kindness. So everything ended up being "love".

It would be foolish to think that this works in reverse, that the English word "love" takes on all these meanings simply because the Bible translators decided to do this.

"Love" means what it means. It doesn't mean all the concepts the translators were forced to settle for (the phrase "lost in translation" springs to mind) In fact to help people out some nice chaps even decided to write down what it means in things call "dictionaries"

Agapate does not mean love in English. There is no single word that translates to agapate, nor is there a single meaning of agapate. The desire to be kind to all around you and to help your fell man is not "love" in the English sense of the word.

Anyway, we have been over this before, can we get back to the issue at hand?

Here we go again. Wicknightian redefining of the English language. :mad:

dictionary.com wrote:

Love
   /lʌv/ Show Spelled [luhv] Show IPA noun, verb,loved, lov·ing.
–noun
1.
a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2.
a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
3.
sexual passion or desire.
4.
a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.
5.
(used in direct address as a term of endearment, affection, or the like): Would you like to see a movie, love?
6.
a love affair; an intensely amorous incident; amour.
7.
sexual intercourse; copulation.
8.
(initial capital letter) a personification of sexual affection, as Eros or Cupid.
9.
affectionate concern for the well-being of others: the love of one's neighbor.
10.
strong predilection, enthusiasm, or liking for anything: her love of books.
11.
the object or thing so liked: The theater was her great love.
12.
the benevolent affection of God for His creatures, or the reverent affection due from them to God.

wicknight wrote:

Agapate does not mean love in English. There is no single word that translates to agapate, nor is there a single meaning of agapate. The desire to be kind to all around you and to help your fell man is not "love" in the English sense of the word.

I am impressed. Not only are you able to redefine the English language, but now you want to redefine Greek as well (a language that, hitherto, I was not aware that you were proficient.)

Agape
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the type of love. For the English adjective meaning "wide open," see the Wiktionary definition of agape. For other uses of the word agape, see Agape (disambiguation).

wikipedia wrote:

Agape (Christian theology) the love of God or Christ for mankind. (pronounced /ˈæɡə.piː/ AG-ə-pee;[1] and sometimes /əˈɡɑː.peɪ/ ə-GAH-pay after the Classical Greek agápē; Modern Greek: αγάπη [aˈɣapi]), also called parental love, is one of several Greek words translated into English as love.

Merriam Webster Dictionary wrote:

Main Entry: 1aga·pe
Pronunciation: \ä-ˈgä-(ˌ)pā, ˈä-gə-ˌpā\
Function: noun
Etymology: Late Latin, from Greek agapē, literally, love
Date: 1607

1 : love feast
2 : love 4a

Anyway, we have been over this before, can we get back to the issue at hand?

This is the issue at hand. The whole purpose of free will is love. This is the highest purpose for man, and touches the very nature of God.

And is not surprising if someone who cannot understand love struggles with the concept of free will.

StealthRolex

strobe wrote: »

Firstly because God's been pretty vague about his plan to date, and completely silent on a potential plan for any non Earth dwelling beings, so first I would have to make a presumption as to exactly what that plan entails.....some theist seem to spend their entire lives doing just that and not getting very far so I can't imagine given my beliefs I would stand much chance of figuring it out in time to post a response.

A little more about the plan...

Adam and Eve were in the Garden with both the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Life.

Was it part of the plan that at some point they could be eaten, and if so in what order?
Or was it part of the plan that they could never be eaten thereby remaining as a perpetual test of obedience to God?

Is it possible that a knowledge of right and wrong alone is sufficient to eventually develop (or evolve into) a knowledge of good and evil?

I would hazard a guess that the planet you are in charge of does not have a Garden of Eden with the two trees.
I would also hazard a guess that as this Earth has reached its time the Book of Revelation has been fulfilled so will get no interference from Satan.