Let's suppose some despicable heathen streamed a lot of porn online, for the purpose of this convo let's call this rapscallion, "Shmeverybody W. ShworkingGenitalia".
What steps should Shmeverybody be taking to protect their devices? Is there any reason to believe that the whole world might have access to the number of times Ol' Shmev's searched out the term "tentacle" or any other regular inquiry that he would prefer remain private?
The Invisible Gardener (from “The Pig That Wants to be Eaten”)
Consider the following scenario:
Stanley and Livingston have been observing a picturesque clearing for over two weeks from their safe hideout nearby.
“We’ve seen no one and the clearing has not changed in any way,” said Stanley, “Now will you admit that there is no gardener tending this site?”
“Stanley,” replied Livingston, “did I not allow that it might be an invisible gardener?”
“But the gardener has not made any noise nor changed anything on the site,” replied Stanley.
“My invisible gardener is also silent and intangible,” retorted Livingston.
Stanley was exasperated. “Well, damn Livingston. What’s the difference between a silent, invisible, intangible gardener and no gardener at all?”
“Easy,” replied Livingston. “One looks after gardens and the other doesn’t.”
“Then I presume,” said Stanley with a sigh, “that you will have no objection if I swiftly dispatch him into a soundless, odourless, invisible and intangible heaven.”
Should we think of Livingston as an irrational fool? After all, he is persisting with an opinion for which there is no evidence. In order to maintain the belief in his gardener, he has made the very idea of it to be so flimsy as to dissolve into thin air. What is left of the gardener when you remove all that is visible and tangible? Stanley cannot prove that this gardener doesn’t exist, but he can rightly ask what purpose it serves to continue believing in something so nebulous.
Now consider this in the case for God. Just as Livingston sees the hand of the gardener in the beautiful clearing, many religious people see the hand of God in the beauty of nature. Perhaps it is reasonable to hypothesize the existence of an all-powerful creator of this marvelously complex world, but we have more than just first impressions to go on. Our continuing observations strip away the characteristics that gives this God life.
First, the world runs according to physical laws. God is not required to turn the rain on or raise the sun every day. However, the believer would say that God set the universe in motion. Then we notice that nature is far from gentle and kind. There is terrible suffering and evil in the world. Where is this good God? The believer would maintain that God made things as good as possible and human sin messed things up.
However, we see that even the blameless suffer and cry out for help but God doesn’t answer. The believer then contends that the good that comes from suffering is not in this life, but in the life to come.
So what are we left with? A God who leaves no trace, makes no sound and does not interfere in the progress of the universe. Sure, there are a few miracles claimed here and there, but most religious believers don’t seriously believe in them. Other than that, God is absent.
Hence, what is the difference between this God and no god at all? Is it not as foolish to maintain that he exists as it is to insist that a gardener tends to this clearing that Livingston and Stanley discovered? If God is to be more than a word or a hope, do we need some sign that he is active in the world?
And the Lord spoke unto the philosopher, “I am the Lord they God, and I command you to sacrifice your only son.”
The philosopher replied, “But your commandments say, ‘Thou shall not kill.’”
“The Lord giveth the rules and the Lord taketh away,” replied God.
“But how do I know you are God?” asked the philosopher. “Perhaps you are the devil trying to fool me.”
“You must have faith,” replied God.
“Faith or insanity? Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me? Or maybe you are testing me in a cunning way. You want to see if I have so little moral fibre that at the command of a deep voice through the clouds, I commit infanticide.”
“I’m the almighty!” exclaimed the Lord. “What you’re saying is that it is reasonable for you, a mere mortal, to refuse to do what I, the Lord, commands.”
“I guess so,” said the philosopher, “and you’ve given me no good reasons to change my mind.”
In Genesis, God found a more compliant servant in Abraham who went along with God’s instructions and was stopped at the last second by an angel. This story of Abraham has been presented as a paradigm of faith ever since.
So, what on Earth was Abraham thinking? He receives the instructions, but would he be mad to simply go ahead and do so? All the problems raised in the above scenario are true. It might not be God talking, maybe it’s the devil. Abraham could be going crazy and hearing voices. The test might be to see if Abraham would refuse to kill his son. All of these seem more likely than God actually wanting Abraham to kill his son since what kind of all-loving god would command something so barbaric?
In the bible, people tend to have a much more direct relationship with God than believers today. God would talk to people as though there were sitting next to each other. In the world we know, no one could be sure that they actually heard God’s word. And even if they were, there would still be uncertainty as to whether the test is to see if Abraham would refuse or go through with it.
If this is really a story about the nature of faith, what is its message? It seems that it is not simply to see if a person of faith would do God’s bidding, however unpleasant. It is that a person of faith can never know for sure what God’s bidding is. Faith does not just enter when action is called for; faith is required to believe in the first place, despite the lack of evidence. Faith sometimes needs the devout to go beyond the evidence and believe what is contrary to all they previously thought was right and true – in this instance that God does not approve of pointless killing.
This is not the faith that is normally preached from the pulpits. That faith is a secure rock which provides the believers with a calm, inner certainty. However, if Abraham was prepared to kill his son serene in his own faith, then he couldn’t have realized just what a risk he was taking with his faith.
Consider the people who believe God wishes them to become suicide bombers, to murder prostitutes, or to persecute an ethnic minority. Before you say that God could never command such evil things, remember that the God of the three Abrahamic faiths not only ordered the sacrifice of Isaac, but also condoned the rape of a wife as punishment to the husband (2 Samuel 12), ordered the killing of followers of other religions (Deuteronomy 13), sentenced blasphemers to death by stoning (Leviticus 24), etc. It seems like there are no limits to what God might ask and some people of faith will do.
Consider the following dialogue:
In Genesis, God found a more compliant servant in Abraham who went along with God’s instructions and was stopped at the last second by an angel. This story of Abraham has been presented as a paradigm of faith ever since.
So, what on Earth was Abraham thinking? He receives the instructions, but would he be mad to simply go ahead and do so? All the problems raised in the above scenario are true. It might not be God talking, maybe it’s the devil. Abraham could be going crazy and hearing voices. The test might be to see if Abraham would refuse to kill his son. All of these seem more likely than God actually wanting Abraham to kill his son since what kind of all-loving god would command something so barbaric?
In the bible, people tend to have a much more direct relationship with God than believers today. God would talk to people as though there were sitting next to each other. In the world we know, no one could be sure that they actually heard God’s word. And even if they were, there would still be uncertainty as to whether the test is to see if Abraham would refuse or go through with it.
If this is really a story about the nature of faith, what is its message? It seems that it is not simply to see if a person of faith would do God’s bidding, however unpleasant. It is that a person of faith can never know for sure what God’s bidding is. Faith does not just enter when action is called for; faith is required to believe in the first place, despite the lack of evidence. Faith sometimes needs the devout to go beyond the evidence and believe what is contrary to all they previously thought was right and true – in this instance that God does not approve of pointless killing.
This is not the faith that is normally preached from the pulpits. That faith is a secure rock which provides the believers with a calm, inner certainty. However, if Abraham was prepared to kill his son serene in his own faith, then he couldn’t have realized just what a risk he was taking with his faith.
Consider the people who believe God wishes them to become suicide bombers, to murder prostitutes, or to persecute an ethnic minority. Before you say that God could never command such evil things, remember that the God of the three Abrahamic faiths not only ordered the sacrifice of Isaac, but also condoned the rape of a wife as punishment to the husband (2 Samuel 12), ordered the killing of followers of other religions (Deuteronomy 13), sentenced blasphemers to death by stoning (Leviticus 24), etc. It seems like there are no limits to what God might ask and some people of faith will do.
Was just about to post that. You beat me to it. Well done.
And the Lord spoke unto the philosopher, “I am the Lord your God, and though you have no proof I am who I say I am, let me give you a reason to believe that will appeal to you: a gamble based on self-interest.”
“There are two possibilities: I exist or I don’t exist. If you believe in me and I exist, you will get eternal life. If I don’t exist, you get a mortal life with some comforts of belief. Maybe you wasted some time praying and missed out on some pleasures, but that won’t matter when you’re dead. But if I do exist, eternal bliss is yours.”
“If you don’t believe and I don’t exist, you have a free and easy life but you will still end up dead and you would have lived without the reassurance of belief. If I do exist, it’s an eternity of torment for you.”
“So gamble that I don’t exist and the best is a short life with the worst being eternal damnation. Gamble that I do exist and the worst is a short life, but the best is eternal life.”
We all see examples of people all around the world that don’t regularly worship or follow their religious teachings. However, they still don’t give up their belief in God or gods. For example, they still baptize their children, arrange bar mitzvahs, have religious funerals, pray in times of need, etc.
These people have the same principles that underlie their behavior: it’s best to maintain a minimal commitment to God, just in case. It is a similar reasoning to purchasing insurance: it’s not a lot of time or effort, but it might save your soul.
This wager makes sense if there were only two possibilities like it suggests, but of course there aren’t. There are many gods to believe in. Christians believe that you must accept Jesus as your savior. So if you practice Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, or any other religion, you still lose if Christ turns out to be the King of heaven.
The stakes are still the same: eternal damnation is one possible outcome of being wrong. However, you can’t insure against this highly probably eventuality because if you pick the wrong religion, you’re damned anyway.
Maybe you think that an all-loving God wouldn’t condemn people to hell for believing in the wrong religion. However, a God this kind and accepting would surely not damn atheists to eternal damnation either. The only God worth taking out insurance against is a fundamentalist one, and those policies are valid for one very specific deity only.
Also, it seems odd to think of a God who can see into our very souls would accept a belief based on such shallow and calculating self-interest. Perhaps over time you would genuinely come to believe and not just be going through the motions. However, God may still recognize the insincerity that motivated your belief and judge you accordingly.
Therefore, the gamble needs to be stated differently. Your choice is between believing in one particular vengeful and punishing God who commands belief in only one of the fundamentalist religions as opposed to the many more competing ones; or believing either that there is no God or that he is not so egotistical to demand that you believe in him before he’ll offer you the opportunity to redeem yourself. Even if you bet on a nasty God, there are many to choose from, each of which will be displeased that you chose someone else. This bet doesn’t have the best odds.
We all see examples of people all around the world that don’t regularly worship or follow their religious teachings. However, they still don’t give up their belief in God or gods. For example, they still baptize their children, arrange bar mitzvahs, have religious funerals, pray in times of need, etc.
These people have the same principles that underlie their behavior: it’s best to maintain a minimal commitment to God, just in case. It is a similar reasoning to purchasing insurance: it’s not a lot of time or effort, but it might save your soul.
This wager makes sense if there were only two possibilities like it suggests, but of course there aren’t. There are many gods to believe in. Christians believe that you must accept Jesus as your savior. So if you practice Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, or any other religion, you still lose if Christ turns out to be the King of heaven.
The stakes are still the same: eternal damnation is one possible outcome of being wrong. However, you can’t insure against this highly probably eventuality because if you pick the wrong religion, you’re damned anyway.
Maybe you think that an all-loving God wouldn’t condemn people to hell for believing in the wrong religion. However, a God this kind and accepting would surely not damn atheists to eternal damnation either. The only God worth taking out insurance against is a fundamentalist one, and those policies are valid for one very specific deity only.
Also, it seems odd to think of a God who can see into our very souls would accept a belief based on such shallow and calculating self-interest. Perhaps over time you would genuinely come to believe and not just be going through the motions. However, God may still recognize the insincerity that motivated your belief and judge you accordingly.
Therefore, the gamble needs to be stated differently. Your choice is between believing in one particular vengeful and punishing God who commands belief in only one of the fundamentalist religions as opposed to the many more competing ones; or believing either that there is no God or that he is not so egotistical to demand that you believe in him before he’ll offer you the opportunity to redeem yourself. Even if you bet on a nasty God, there are many to choose from, each of which will be displeased that you chose someone else. This bet doesn’t have the best odds.
I thought you were a "Humans are intrinsically seeking power-over" guy?
First: I've been savoring your Philosophy thread for a few days. You're a brilliant writer, and I couldn't bear to risk the spoilers and jump ahead from the Big Mike capitalism debate to tell you. If we're all single scoops of hard, deep frozen, vanilla, you are a double scoop of Rocky Road at that perfect moment just before it melts...IN A GOD. DAMNED. WAFFLE. CONE!
I'm enjoying your thread immensely. Thanks!
Re: the above quoted
I feel as though your position is completely logical and almost above dissension in the vacuum it is presented in...
However, the reality is a much dirtier place. We can't ignore the benefits the religious receive from their actions. Vain superiority, assuaging feelings of weakness, impotence in life...and maybe even creating hope, altruism [you're a phil-guy, I'm using that word to troll ] or inner peace.
I thought you were a "Humans are intrinsically seeking power-over" guy?
First: I've been savoring your Philosophy thread for a few days. You're a brilliant writer, and I couldn't bear to risk the spoilers and jump ahead from the Big Mike capitalism debate to tell you. If we're all single scoops of hard, deep frozen, vanilla, you are a double scoop of Rocky Road at that perfect moment just before it melts...IN A GOD. DAMNED. WAFFLE. CONE!
I'm enjoying your thread immensely. Thanks!
Re: the above quoted
I feel as though your position is completely logical and almost above dissension in the vacuum it is presented in...
However, the reality is a much dirtier place. We can't ignore the benefits the religious receive from their actions. Vain superiority, assuaging feelings of weakness, impotence in life...and maybe even creating hope, altruism [you're a phil-guy, I'm using that word to troll ] or inner peace.
thanks for the compliments
there are definitely some benefits to religion. i'm not sure if they outweigh the cons though. that could be a good question to respond to in my philosophy thread.
very interesting articles. i once had a neighbour who had a stroke and his heart stopped for a few minutes before they revived him. he later told me that when he was in the hospital he remembered seeing a bright light that he walked towards. as the light faded he could see three figures. on the right was an angel and on the left were two grim reapers. that's all he could remember before waking up in a hospital bed.
take what you want from these stories (because they are stories after all despite how the article explains the process), but the question still remains whether these phenomena suggest the existence of an afterlife or not. perhaps our technology is just still too primitive to explain how we die and what happens to our bodies and minds.
it does beg the question whether thoughts can exist without a physical body or brain. i don't see why not personally.
lol. i think the theist would argue that heaven is more than just the immaterial realm. idealist philosophers have been arguing for the immaterial realm for centuries and they sure as hell weren't talking about heaven.
EDIT: i should note that it is written from a biased perspective, but there are still some valid arguments and interesting points in it.
EDIT 2: if you don't want to read the whole article, at least consider the following:
What I will admit is a problem is that plenty of atheists are themselves too incurious about philosophy and religion. Too many atheists have knee jerk, ill thought out (and usually scientistic) assumptions about philosophical issues and not enough interest in figuring out what the deeper and better puzzles related to philosophy and religion might be. That’s not a problem of atheist parents passing on their atheism and their humanism to their kids though, rather it’s a problem of atheist parents who are not themselves invested enough in critical thinking and wide education. Were I to have kids the atheistic things they said and thought that were philosophically improvable would be just as subject to challenges as any religious things they said. Just as I challenge my fellow atheists or my atheist students wherever interesting ideas lead, I would challenge my kids to think more clearly and precisely and probingly should their atheistic thinking be lazy. And, just as I do with all my philosophy students, I would even explore with my kids those theistic ideas that actually are interesting or raise good philosophical puzzles. Again, the goal would be to move kids past the stuff that should be settled and to the stuff that’s really worth thinking about and having conflicting opinions about. There’s so much of that out there.
Comments
Let's suppose some despicable heathen streamed a lot of porn online, for the purpose of this convo let's call this rapscallion, "Shmeverybody W. ShworkingGenitalia".
What steps should Shmeverybody be taking to protect their devices? Is there any reason to believe that the whole world might have access to the number of times Ol' Shmev's searched out the term "tentacle" or any other regular inquiry that he would prefer remain private?
Shmeverybody needs answers.
Noscript
and
Peerblock
with Spybot and Windows Security Essentials.
Consider the following scenario: Should we think of Livingston as an irrational fool? After all, he is persisting with an opinion for which there is no evidence. In order to maintain the belief in his gardener, he has made the very idea of it to be so flimsy as to dissolve into thin air. What is left of the gardener when you remove all that is visible and tangible? Stanley cannot prove that this gardener doesn’t exist, but he can rightly ask what purpose it serves to continue believing in something so nebulous.
Now consider this in the case for God. Just as Livingston sees the hand of the gardener in the beautiful clearing, many religious people see the hand of God in the beauty of nature. Perhaps it is reasonable to hypothesize the existence of an all-powerful creator of this marvelously complex world, but we have more than just first impressions to go on. Our continuing observations strip away the characteristics that gives this God life.
First, the world runs according to physical laws. God is not required to turn the rain on or raise the sun every day. However, the believer would say that God set the universe in motion. Then we notice that nature is far from gentle and kind. There is terrible suffering and evil in the world. Where is this good God? The believer would maintain that God made things as good as possible and human sin messed things up.
However, we see that even the blameless suffer and cry out for help but God doesn’t answer. The believer then contends that the good that comes from suffering is not in this life, but in the life to come.
So what are we left with? A God who leaves no trace, makes no sound and does not interfere in the progress of the universe. Sure, there are a few miracles claimed here and there, but most religious believers don’t seriously believe in them. Other than that, God is absent.
Hence, what is the difference between this God and no god at all? Is it not as foolish to maintain that he exists as it is to insist that a gardener tends to this clearing that Livingston and Stanley discovered? If God is to be more than a word or a hope, do we need some sign that he is active in the world?
Consider the following dialogue: In Genesis, God found a more compliant servant in Abraham who went along with God’s instructions and was stopped at the last second by an angel. This story of Abraham has been presented as a paradigm of faith ever since.
So, what on Earth was Abraham thinking? He receives the instructions, but would he be mad to simply go ahead and do so? All the problems raised in the above scenario are true. It might not be God talking, maybe it’s the devil. Abraham could be going crazy and hearing voices. The test might be to see if Abraham would refuse to kill his son. All of these seem more likely than God actually wanting Abraham to kill his son since what kind of all-loving god would command something so barbaric?
In the bible, people tend to have a much more direct relationship with God than believers today. God would talk to people as though there were sitting next to each other. In the world we know, no one could be sure that they actually heard God’s word. And even if they were, there would still be uncertainty as to whether the test is to see if Abraham would refuse or go through with it.
If this is really a story about the nature of faith, what is its message? It seems that it is not simply to see if a person of faith would do God’s bidding, however unpleasant. It is that a person of faith can never know for sure what God’s bidding is. Faith does not just enter when action is called for; faith is required to believe in the first place, despite the lack of evidence. Faith sometimes needs the devout to go beyond the evidence and believe what is contrary to all they previously thought was right and true – in this instance that God does not approve of pointless killing.
This is not the faith that is normally preached from the pulpits. That faith is a secure rock which provides the believers with a calm, inner certainty. However, if Abraham was prepared to kill his son serene in his own faith, then he couldn’t have realized just what a risk he was taking with his faith.
Consider the people who believe God wishes them to become suicide bombers, to murder prostitutes, or to persecute an ethnic minority. Before you say that God could never command such evil things, remember that the God of the three Abrahamic faiths not only ordered the sacrifice of Isaac, but also condoned the rape of a wife as punishment to the husband (2 Samuel 12), ordered the killing of followers of other religions (Deuteronomy 13), sentenced blasphemers to death by stoning (Leviticus 24), etc. It seems like there are no limits to what God might ask and some people of faith will do.
Was just about to post that. You beat me to it. Well done.
We all see examples of people all around the world that don’t regularly worship or follow their religious teachings. However, they still don’t give up their belief in God or gods. For example, they still baptize their children, arrange bar mitzvahs, have religious funerals, pray in times of need, etc.
These people have the same principles that underlie their behavior: it’s best to maintain a minimal commitment to God, just in case. It is a similar reasoning to purchasing insurance: it’s not a lot of time or effort, but it might save your soul.
This wager makes sense if there were only two possibilities like it suggests, but of course there aren’t. There are many gods to believe in. Christians believe that you must accept Jesus as your savior. So if you practice Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, or any other religion, you still lose if Christ turns out to be the King of heaven.
The stakes are still the same: eternal damnation is one possible outcome of being wrong. However, you can’t insure against this highly probably eventuality because if you pick the wrong religion, you’re damned anyway.
Maybe you think that an all-loving God wouldn’t condemn people to hell for believing in the wrong religion. However, a God this kind and accepting would surely not damn atheists to eternal damnation either. The only God worth taking out insurance against is a fundamentalist one, and those policies are valid for one very specific deity only.
Also, it seems odd to think of a God who can see into our very souls would accept a belief based on such shallow and calculating self-interest. Perhaps over time you would genuinely come to believe and not just be going through the motions. However, God may still recognize the insincerity that motivated your belief and judge you accordingly.
Therefore, the gamble needs to be stated differently. Your choice is between believing in one particular vengeful and punishing God who commands belief in only one of the fundamentalist religions as opposed to the many more competing ones; or believing either that there is no God or that he is not so egotistical to demand that you believe in him before he’ll offer you the opportunity to redeem yourself. Even if you bet on a nasty God, there are many to choose from, each of which will be displeased that you chose someone else. This bet doesn’t have the best odds.
who would have guessed?
I thought you were a "Humans are intrinsically seeking power-over" guy?
First: I've been savoring your Philosophy thread for a few days. You're a brilliant writer, and I couldn't bear to risk the spoilers and jump ahead from the Big Mike capitalism debate to tell you. If we're all single scoops of hard, deep frozen, vanilla, you are a double scoop of Rocky Road at that perfect moment just before it melts...IN A GOD. DAMNED. WAFFLE. CONE!
I'm enjoying your thread immensely. Thanks!
Re: the above quoted
I feel as though your position is completely logical and almost above dissension in the vacuum it is presented in...
However, the reality is a much dirtier place. We can't ignore the benefits the religious receive from their actions. Vain superiority, assuaging feelings of weakness, impotence in life...and maybe even creating hope, altruism [you're a phil-guy, I'm using that word to troll
thanks for the compliments
there are definitely some benefits to religion. i'm not sure if they outweigh the cons though. that could be a good question to respond to in my philosophy thread.
Tee hee hee
Is There Life After Death? | Does Heaven Exist? | What Happens When You Die?
and
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/16/cheating.near.death/index.html?iref=24hours
tee hee hee hee >:D
very interesting articles. i once had a neighbour who had a stroke and his heart stopped for a few minutes before they revived him. he later told me that when he was in the hospital he remembered seeing a bright light that he walked towards. as the light faded he could see three figures. on the right was an angel and on the left were two grim reapers. that's all he could remember before waking up in a hospital bed.
take what you want from these stories (because they are stories after all despite how the article explains the process), but the question still remains whether these phenomena suggest the existence of an afterlife or not. perhaps our technology is just still too primitive to explain how we die and what happens to our bodies and minds.
it does beg the question whether thoughts can exist without a physical body or brain. i don't see why not personally.
You just described . . . naahhh.
lol. i think the theist would argue that heaven is more than just the immaterial realm. idealist philosophers have been arguing for the immaterial realm for centuries and they sure as hell weren't talking about heaven.
Wait, wat?
\daddyissues
you tell 'em jesus!
Those hateful bastards.
Should Atheist Parents Set Out To Raise Atheists?
EDIT: i should note that it is written from a biased perspective, but there are still some valid arguments and interesting points in it.
EDIT 2: if you don't want to read the whole article, at least consider the following:
Retcon ftw
Mark
1. Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.
2. Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.
3. The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.
4. Every person has the right to control of their body.
5. God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.
6. Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.
7. Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.
8. We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.
9. There is no one right way to live.
10. Leave the world a better place than you found it.
nope, think environment.. much more important imo..