Comments for Faith and The Cynic

Comment on Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it! by Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:16:25 +0000

“All we know is that as humans we dislike pain, and therefore, as humans, we should strive to relieve the pain of others who are like us.”
I have a problem with this, actually (as does Hume. See “Hume’s Guillotine” or the “is/ought” problem). That statement is more in keeping with Bentham and Mills, who both believed that there were two motivations in humans, pleasure and pain. Anything painful was bad or evil, and anything pleasureful was good. They then argued that this meant that all human endeavors were a struggle against pain and a search for happiness, that one should always strive to do what is most pleasureful for the greatest number of people. There are some problems with this thinking, as one could pose the problem of what to say is moral when the will of the greatest number of people means a mob beating an innocent man. Or, if you want to take a more contemporary example, the recent measures taken in America to ban homosexual equality. That’s more an example of a failure of democracy, as the Constitution system is supposed to exist to protect the rights of the minorities, which cannot occur when the majority are the ones voting on the minority issue…but that’s another matter entirely.

In any case, the suggested reading for this post’s topic would be Alasdair McIntyre’s “After Virtues”. McIntyre isn’t the best of writers, and this is a seriously deep book that I wouldn’t suggest you tackle until you have a lot of free time for contemplation, but he’s one of the greatest philosopher of the past handful of decades, and he tackles all these issues at once, including arguing against Kant, Bentham, Mills, Kierkegaard, and plenty of others.

Comment on About by Meitar1

Meitar1 — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:14:05 +0000

Fixed. Thanks

Comment on Where was God during the Holocaust? by Meitar1

Meitar1 — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:09:15 +0000

Man, you’re always one step ahead of me
Personally, I agree that miracles are impossible, at least in the old sense of physical rules broken. But a miracle is to find 10$ bill on the street just when you lost all you’re money and don’t have a way to get back home… And for miracles like this, prayer can be quite effective, though I doubt it works through direct intervention of The Almighty.

Comment on They promised me an afterlife, but all I got was this lousy reincarnation by Meitar1

Meitar1 — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:06:39 +0000

I’ll try to get a hold of the movie asap. I think my next post is refers somewhat to this point.

Comment on Where was God during the Holocaust? by Meitar1

Meitar1 — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:04:59 +0000

Good point. I’ll have to think some to give a good explanation on this point. Thanks

Comment on Where was God during the Holocaust? by hilla

hilla — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:37:57 +0000

Please forgive me for writing in Hebrew…
מאד מורכב..בקריאה ראשונה הייתה בי נטייה להסכים ולאמר שהנה התשובה המושלמת לשאלה
מדוע יש רע בעולמנו. אולם עם קבלת ההנחה שהעולם שלנו הוא חסר משמעות אמיתית, עולה השאלה, אם החיים האלה הם רק אשליה, ואין להם שום משמעות, איזו משמעות יש לערכים האנושיים שלנו? איזו משמעות יש לבחירות שלנו בעולם זה שבו ניתנה לנו זכות הבחירה בין טוב ובין רע?…אם הכל רק משחק ילדים ענק, אז לזכות הבחירה שלנו אין משמעות , כי היא זכות בחירה בתוך עולם ללא משמעות…

Comment on Where was God during the Holocaust? by Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:12:34 +0000

I’ve always held to the belief that the explanation need not be so complicated.

I stick to a notion of absolute free will, of a God that doesn’t interfere with anything. That has several implications for other beliefs, of course, like the efficacy of prayers or the existence of miracles. If I choose to believe that God doesn’t interfere in bad situations, then I can’t hold him responsible for good situations, either.
That may not work for some people, because people like to cling to prayer so much, to the hope that if things get bad, they can always have a deity to turn to, but I see prayer as nothing more than a tool of comfort.

Comment on They promised me an afterlife, but all I got was this lousy reincarnation by Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:51:41 +0000

Have you ever seen the movie ‘What Dreams May Come’ with Robin Williams and Cuba Gooding Jr? That’s pretty consistent with my own beliefs of an afterlife. A plan of existence depending on the will and beliefs of the individual, with reincarnation being a choice. It’s a good movie, I highly suggest it.

Comment on Where was God during the Holocaust? by Dawoun

Dawoun — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:29:22 +0000

Hmmm. Your analysis claims that God does not view suffering the same way as humans do (setting aside the question of all humans viewing suffering in the same way. Some of us humans [and I use the terms 'us' and 'human' VERY broadly to include just about all the people] have very different views of suffering then others. Just check out some S&M sites).
If God does not share our view of suffering, it’s a very small step to conclude that She doesn’t share humanity’s view of good or evil, or any other value. And following that, you can go on and work on all the issues like punishment, morality, afterlife, etc. etc.
IMHO, when you start explaining things by ‘you don’t understand God’, you basically evade the issue; you can explain ANYTHING like that – so its an explanation for nothing.

Comment on About by jabba the hutt

jabba the hutt — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:18:01 +0000

“For one thing,**** prrof *****is only possible in mathematics”
misspelled