The Vegan Christian

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pizza
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Re: The Vegan Christian

Post by pizza »

thebestofenergy wrote:There must be a brain or a neurological function in order for there to be sentience. It's impossible otherwise.If there's no time, there's no fourth dimension, meaning there's no existence.
No physical existence you mean

thebestofenergy wrote:Philophers say many things, they're not scientists. You don't have to take their words for it.
Scientists' words are authoritative only when related to their field of research, sadly some of them try to do philosphy.
thebestofenergy wrote:There are many philosophies, but those don't prove facts.
Only logic can prove something, because you cannot prove that our perceptions aren't illusions, you cannot prove for example that your keyboard exist, it is not self evident unlike non-contraddiction principle.


The only thing I can do is to suggest you to study some philosophy...

Best regards.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: The Vegan Christian

Post by brimstoneSalad »

thebestofenergy wrote: This is just imagination without any proof. It's the art of inventing theories.
If your intention was to prove to me that people can support any theory by just making things up in a second or two, using their fantasy, you've certainly made your point; but I already knew that.
The point is that there's no logically valid course to attempt to argue against hypotheticals like that.

You can try to fight fire with fire by making stuff up yourself (like that a person would go insane in heaven and it would be horrible), but there's no empirical evidence for it, because we can not access or test this heaven, and there's no logical proof that such would be the case, so it's easily dismissed.

If you want to make headway, you have to target the logical fallacies at the root of the theology (the definitions and qualities of god); not petty doctrinal details of how this or that is supposed to work.
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thebestofenergy
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Re: The Vegan Christian

Post by thebestofenergy »

brimstoneSalad wrote:
thebestofenergy wrote: This is just imagination without any proof. It's the art of inventing theories.
If your intention was to prove to me that people can support any theory by just making things up in a second or two, using their fantasy, you've certainly made your point; but I already knew that.
The point is that there's no logically valid course to attempt to argue against hypotheticals like that.

You can try to fight fire with fire by making stuff up yourself (like that a person would go insane in heaven and it would be horrible), but there's no empirical evidence for it, because we can not access or test this heaven, and there's no logical proof that such would be the case, so it's easily dismissed.

If you want to make headway, you have to target the logical fallacies at the root of the theology (the definitions and qualities of god); not petty doctrinal details of how this or that is supposed to work.
I based my definition of heaven on how people I know perceive it, how it is taught in a church, how it is taught in school. How most people know it, basically. A perfect place (where time is not frozen), and you don't have the possibility of free will and the possibility of seeing the people you loved that went to hell, but you still have the capability to think for yourself.
That's why I said that a place like that (with those and only those properties) would me go insane pretty quickly.
For evil to prevail, good people must stand aside and do nothing.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: The Vegan Christian

Post by brimstoneSalad »

thebestofenergy wrote: I based my definition of heaven on how people I know perceive it, how it is taught in a church, how it is taught in school. How most people know it, basically.
That's debatable. And it's an empirical claim, so you could substantiate it. (For sure, go to a few churches, and interview the preachers- do a survey of well studied church members. Visit a bible study group, and ask them questions)

You may have based your definition on your recollection, or assumption about how people you know see it, what you remember from your prior church, and how it was taught to you as far as you understood it-- but I'm telling you now, that's a straw man.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman

You're mistaken, misinformed, and presenting an incomplete and erroneous picture of Christian belief.

Look, Christians are wrong. It's not hard to disprove the things they actually believe.
I also totally respect your attempts, and I don't want to do anything but encourage you to keep at it and improve your arguments.

But you can't go by second and third hand accounts of doctrine.
You have to understand your opponent's positions better before you attack them, or you risk committing the straw man logical fallacy. You're attacking positions they don't hold- and that won't go over.

If you present this argument to a Christian, even if they take it seriously and can't argue against it themselves, they'll probably take it to a friend or a pastor, and that person will be more informed on Christian doctrine, and will tear the argument apart.

Then they'll think "Oh, I thought the atheist had a good point... but now I see that atheists are just mistaken. If this is an atheists' best argument, my pastor just destroyed it- atheists must be wrong, and Christianity must be true after all"

A perfect place (where time is not frozen),
Yes.
and you don't have the possibility of free will
No. That's not necessarily the case. Where do you get that?
Satan was in heaven as an angel. He had free will to disobey god despite being a celestial being.
and the possibility of seeing the people you loved that went to hell, but you still have the capability to think for yourself.
Close enough.
Not being able to see your loved ones who are in hell is a good point to make- "How could you be happy when your loved ones are suffering? Doesn't that make you a bad person?"
Christians have answers to those things, but their answer reveal some of the moral depravity- so it is by getting the answers that you can make progress in the argument.

But your conclusion (which I pointed out) did not follow from any of this.

That's why I said that a place like that (with those and only those properties) would me go insane pretty quickly.
You claimed much more than that, but you're backing down a little on that now. And that's fine.

You talked in terms of logical absolutes. That it would happen to everybody. Because of psychology, and because of human evolution. Basically that it would be a terrible place- not just for you, but for the human mind- any human mind.

If it's a personal claim (only that you think you would go insane), then that's another matter- both less likely to meet resistance, but also not less compelling as an argument (for you, you might not like it, but for a Christian it might be eternal bliss).

I'm just saying, it's not a good argument.

If you want to keep making it, that's up to you. But you should lead with your strongest argument for atheism that the Christian is likely to be able to understand (some arguments are too abstract for people, and aren't as effective for that reason)- this shouldn't be your best argument, or even your best argument against the concept of heaven (using an argument that doesn't logically follow, in some cases, can even damage your credibility in the eyes of your opponent and make them less likely to consider what you have to say).

Please don't take it personally.
I like you. I just don't like this particular argument.
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thebestofenergy
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Re: The Vegan Christian

Post by thebestofenergy »

brimstoneSalad wrote:Please don't take it personally.
I like you. I just don't like this particular argument.
Don't worry, I like to be challenged and corrected. I don't take offense :)
I understand that it's not a good argument to prove that heaven is not a heaven, but however the question at the start was 'what would you do if God was proven to you' (the God of the bible). And I still stand by my statement, for what I know untill now, that it'd be really unpleasent for me.
Altough, I shouldn't have generalized for all the people.
brimstoneSalad wrote:No. That's not necessarily the case. Where do you get that?
Satan was in heaven as an angel. He had free will to disobey god despite being a celestial being.
But if heaven is a 'perfect' place, people cannot sin. Doesn't this mean that you wouldn't have free will?
You could say that people lose the desire to sin, but then why couldn't God make everyone lose the desire to sin?
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: The Vegan Christian

Post by brimstoneSalad »

thebestofenergy wrote: But if heaven is a 'perfect' place, people cannot sin. Doesn't this mean that you wouldn't have free will?
You could say that people lose the desire to sin, but then why couldn't God make everyone lose the desire to sin?
Well, the concept of "free will" as an absolute thing (rather than a subjective social construct we use to evaluate actions) is inherently incoherent.
So, in reality, the question is meaningless.

But in the world of Christian metaphysics, where it's OK to place logical fallacies at the core of your beliefs, it's supposed to work like this:

Heaven is basically just being in God's presence/connected to god.
Sin distances people from god, which is the nature of hell (being apart from god)
There's no sin in heaven, not because people who are in heaven can not sin, but because sinning makes you not in heaven (by distancing you from god)

If somebody sinned in heaven, the moment they began to sin they would no longer be part of heaven. So, Sin can not bring evil into heaven- it just brings the one doing it to hell.
The same thing happened with Satan. His Sin expelled him from heaven.

And that's all fine, or would be, except for the fact that the Christian notion of free will is logically incoherent. It's not the doctrinal consequences of "free will", so much, that need to be attacked as the very notion itself.

And Christians will flail about in attempt to substantiate free will.

And some of them, sometimes, will go to quantum mechanics (or, at least the absurd Copenhagen interpretation there of) to attempt to do so. Then you have them in a corner- check mate.

Think about it:

If they go to quantum mechanics, you can perfectly compare presence in heaven with free will to a radioactive element- depending on the person, of variable stability, but ultimately something of imperfect stability (without which, they would have no free will)-- and because all that's required to be sent to hell is to sin while in heaven, no matter how stable a radioactive element, or soul, in an infinite amount of time, it should inevitably decay. So, don't all Christians ultimately go to hell for the remainder of eternity?

But in order to get there, you don't attack heaven- you attack free will, and you push them to substantiate it.

Debate with a theist can be very much like a game of chess- you need certain concessions to get others with somebody who will worm around and adjust the particulars of belief to dodge arguments.
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thebestofenergy
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Re: The Vegan Christian

Post by thebestofenergy »

brimstoneSalad wrote:And that's all fine, or would be, except for the fact that the Christian notion of free will is logically incoherent. It's not the doctrinal consequences of "free will", so much, that need to be attacked as the very notion itself.

And Christians will flail about in attempt to substantiate free will.

And some of them, sometimes, will go to quantum mechanics (or, at least the absurd Copenhagen interpretation there of) to attempt to do so. Then you have them in a corner- check mate.

Think about it:

If they go to quantum mechanics, you can perfectly compare presence in heaven with free will to a radioactive element- depending on the person, of variable stability, but ultimately something of imperfect stability (without which, they would have no free will)-- and because all that's required to be sent to hell is to sin while in heaven, no matter how stable a radioactive element, or soul, in an infinite amount of time, it should inevitably decay. So, don't all Christians ultimately go to hell for the remainder of eternity?

But in order to get there, you don't attack heaven- you attack free will, and you push them to substantiate it.
Very solid points.
brimstoneSalad wrote:But in order to get there, you don't attack heaven- you attack free will, and you push them to substantiate it.
How would you proceed? What points do you think are the most efficient to attack free will?
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: The Vegan Christian

Post by brimstoneSalad »

thebestofenergy wrote: How would you proceed? What points do you think are the most efficient to attack free will?
I know I probably sound like a broken record, but the best advice I can give is to hit the books ;)

Sam Harris published a short book on Free will- particularly debunking the theistic notion of it- that will summarize the majority of the arguments for you, and help build on your understanding of the subject.

I'd recommend also reading Daniel Dennett's criticism of the book, posted on Sam's site here: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/refl ... -free-will (that is, so you can have a firm grasp on when the concept can arguably be used rationally).

A theist will attempt to substantiate free will in one of a few ways:

-Unknown to humans, but still deterministic. From god's eyes, it's deterministic, which begs serious questions as to its relevance regarding god's judgement (the whole reason for free will)- which then becomes a criticism of the contradiction with omniscience-- in order to make it relevant and resolve the contradiction they would have to concede that god is not all knowing in that domain, and does not know the certain future. You won't find many theists that will argue this, but when you do you'll have a very interesting and challenging discussion, because that generally means they aren't idiots. You may get into this with some Jehovah's witnesses. Once theists admit that their god is limited, it's easy to reduce that god into a merely powerful being comparable to a technologically advanced alien- if they accept that they would recognize such a being as their god, however, there's not really anything else more you can do. Belief in Aliens as gods can only be challenged empirically, based on probability, not so much with logical disproofs.

-Truly random, without appeal to quantum mechanics. Christians rarely argue this, because they don't usually think their actions are random, or that randomness constitutes a true choice- that they see evolution as "random" is a major criticism from their end- generally speaking Theists hate randomness. When they do argue this, it will bring up questions of responsibility for our actions if we're really just acting randomly, and can't control it-- a serious issue for soteriology. Once they realize that, they will usually retreat from the position, or try something else. If they actually pursue this, you need to bring the question back to god and ask if god has free will, and if that means its actions are random too.

(Sam's book will probably cover the above two in sufficient depth if you need help on those arguments)

-Magical. Neither deterministic, nor random. This contradicts the creationist claim that all effects (except god) must have a cause- since every human choice is an uncaused effect. They will say that those free wills can only exist because they were created by god- but that contradicts their categorical exceptions that uncaused causes should not be expected to be (or usually can not be) caused- requiring their god to be caused, and resulting in an infinite regress within time. And particularly, if they attempt to explain the nature of this magical property as a result of being "outside time", the same argument would apply to human wills, possessing the exact same fundamental property, meaning human wills could not have been caused by god, but must have all eternally co-existed: thus making god no more than one of uncountable billions of wills. This is aside from the point that placing something outside time makes the concept of causing anything, in the temporal sense, incoherent-- at best, every will, including god, is just one of many inaccessible "hidden variables", and those wills themselves going anywhere- to heaven or hell- is impossible since they are immovably set outside of time. They may try to draw a distinction between the will and the self, but this should prove counter productive to them for a number of reasons that I won't go into here since I'm already running long (but that you should be able to figure out)
Aside from all of the, this claim also directly contradicts god's foreknowledge and classical omniscience- but that's a more trivial concern with respect to the above, and some theists could reject omniscience and foreknowledge of god. The most complete and expedient means of demolishing the concept is probably to push it outside of time and negate their soteriology entirely (which makes everything they say moot).

(This position of "it's magical" is really a failure from the start, and intelligent theists usually won't argue this. Unfortunately, for theists who do, they probably won't even understand the arguments you present against it. It's usually not worth the time when somebody appeals to something being inherently magical and incomprehensible as a defense of it.)

-Appeal to quantum mechanics (which they probably don't understand). This is becoming more popular now, and can be addressed as I explained in the prior post. However, you may have to brush up on quantum mechanics if you aren't familiar.

Some theists might argue that "once you get to heaven, you've been measured by god, and your wave function of free will collapses into good (or bad if you've been measured as evil and go to hell)"; it's idiocy, but it basically means that people in heaven/hell don't have free will anymore. I'm pretty sure most people who believe in free will don't believe they lose it in heaven, so you probably will not see that often- and this brings up the question of how Satan rebelled against god (if they believe that). They're basically left blaming god for the fall, instead of Satan- which some Christians will do.
That argument (about the inevitability of hell) only works in the standard framework of blaming the devil for sin. Otherwise, stick to the standard arguments against random will and determinism (to do that, you might have to educate them on how quantum mechanics actually works, which is not an easy task).
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thebestofenergy
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Re: The Vegan Christian

Post by thebestofenergy »

Thanks for the helpful advices and for your time. Very insightful.
It seems like you've debated/read a lot.
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Re: The Vegan Christian

Post by Viktorius_the_Third »

So Hello there.
Well to give you a short answer to your question:
if this god, you have spoken of is either the christian, the jewish, the muslim god i will accept his existence but will not let him influence my life. why? i can tell you: i do not think, that those three mentioned gods have ANY legislation to be someone to "believe" in or to pray to. those are cruel gods who are narcistic and overall just terribly amoral! not satan not hitler nor any other thing ive ever heard of (maybe the darleks from doctor who ^^) has EVER killed and taken so many lives as god! and not one (not even the darleks) are as cruel as getting parents to sacrifice their firstborns or to betray their families (well... maybe capitalism xD).
I think if you would prove me the existance of A god, i would try to evaluate him with my morals... i do realize, that im just human and god created me and stuff and i cant be as wise, but i do not want to "love" such a beast! thats like if i would tell you to worship satan forever and kill your god. its just wrong for me!

i hope i could explain my point of view and i apologize for some exxagerations... but christians and meat eaters often drive me mad. and if im mad i cant argue completly rational ^^
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