Could A Good God Permit So Much Suffering?

[gmark77]

Nothing you wrote explains how inert chemicals spontaneously create cells, and how cells go to sentience, conscience, free will, moral agency.

So it sounds like in the absence of a clear direct line from individual carbon atoms to full-fledged llama you would propose....what?

Think about something like RNA. RNA is not DNA but it can function very much like it in terms of transcription and copying. I think we'd both agree those are key functions of life. But that transcription is nothing more amazing than lining up hydrogen bonds. That's it. RNA codes for proteins by basically being a "negative" of a given protein. The protein is built up of amino acids which are SELECTED by whether they will "stick" via hydrogen bonds to one of the bases on the RNA molecule. Literally nothing more than just matching.

RNA blocks are found in space and no one would call them "life", but they have the necessary bits and bobs to function in life.

In fact that is one of the proposed hypotheses about the rise of life. It's called RNA World Hypothesis.

So far I've provided you with two examples of fundamental aspects to life which have perfectly acceptable, perfectly rational possible explanations arising wholly from non-life.

Again I will ask the question you must have missed over the many times I've asked it: If not from non-life, where did life come from?

Again, this is why I had to step back from atheism.

Because you didn't get a biochem class in?

It's too big a leap of faith for me to just wave a wand and just say that human consciousness and experience is just the result of the motion of electrons.

It's actually much easier than one might think. All using ONLY and SOLELY regular physics and chemistry.

If love is based on the physical determinism of the motion of electrons

Oxytocin.

, then you are just a meat robot.

I don't know how you'd be able to tell if you were or weren't a meat robot. A meat robot with the illusion of free will is exactly indifferentible from one with real free will.

And there's more and more data suggesting we might be the former rather than the latter.

You cannot say that you freely choose to give your love to your mother, your spouse, your friends.

What if I'm not? What if I didn't have the chance to meet my mom and get to know her as a person before I decided to love my mom. Oh wait, I didn't. I was born and held by a human being with whom I shared a bond made up of so many chemicals and hormones it is nearly impossible to catalog them all here. I was washed in oxytocin and wired to latch onto the person who raised me.

 

[Cypress]

So it sounds like in the absence of a clear direct line from individual carbon atoms to full-fledged llama you would propose....what?

Think about something like RNA. RNA is not DNA but it can function very much like it in terms of transcription and copying. I think we'd both agree those are key functions of life. But that transcription is nothing more amazing than lining up hydrogen bonds. That's it. RNA codes for proteins by basically being a "negative" of a given protein. The protein is built up of amino acids which are SELECTED by whether they will "stick" via hydrogen bonds to one of the bases on the RNA molecule. Literally nothing more than just matching.

RNA blocks are found in space and no one would call them "life", but they have the necessary bits and bobs to function in life.

In fact that is one of the proposed hypotheses about the rise of life. It's called RNA World Hypothesis.

So far I've provided you with two examples of fundamental aspects to life which have perfectly acceptable, perfectly rational possible explanations arising wholly from non-life.

Again I will ask the question you must have missed over the many times I've asked it: If not from non-life, where did life come from?



Because you didn't get a biochem class in?



It's actually much easier than one might think. All using ONLY and SOLELY regular physics and chemistry.



Oxytocin.



I don't know how you'd be able to tell if you were or weren't a meat robot. A meat robot with the illusion of free will is exactly indifferentible from one with real free will.

And there's more and more data suggesting we might be the former rather than the latter.



What if I'm not? What if I didn't have the chance to meet my mom and get to know her as a person before I decided to love my mom. Oh wait, I didn't. I was born and held by a human being with whom I shared a bond made up of so many chemicals and hormones it is nearly impossible to catalog them all here. I was washed in oxytocin and wired to latch onto the person who raised me.

Perry, back to resorting to questioning my education and intelligence again?

Again, you gave no explanation here for how inert chemistry transitions to cells, and then transitions to sentience, free will, moral agency.

You can't give an explanation because there currently is no explanation, no matter how many words you write.

The leap of faith you are making is in assuming chemistry explains everything. You haven't even stopped to wonder where chemistry, matter, organization came from. Chemistry is not the ultimate explanation for life, the universe, and everything. That is a leap of blind faith too far for me to take. There are many longstanding philosophical and scientific questions about why the universe is finally tuned to make atomic matter possible. That's the underlying basis of the teleological argument.

 

[gmark77]

Perry, back to resorting to questioning my education and intelligence again?

Again, you gave no explanation here for how inert chemistry transitions to cells, and then transitions to sentience, free will, moral agency.

You can't give an explanation because there currently is no explanation, no matter how many words you write.

The leap of faith you are making is in assuming chemistry explains everything. You haven't even stopped to wonder where chemistry, matter, organization came from. Chemistry is not the ultimate explanation for life, the universe, and everything. That is a leap of blind faith too far for me to take. There are many longstanding philosophical and scientific questions about why the universe is finally tuned to make atomic matter possible. That's the underlying basis of the teleological argument.

???????????????

If you don't want to discuss that's cool.

 

[IBDaMann]

Interesting. There are a lot of complex non-life chemicals as well.

Excellent point.

Just because humans haven't achieved something does not mean it doesn't happen in nature.

Another excellent point. Humans still haven't been able to create a hurricane, and correct me if I am mistaken, but I believe hurricanes do actually occur in nature. Humans haven't been able to reach the center of the earth, but I believe that the earth's center is still there.

 

[Tobytone]

As J. L. Mackie (1955, 200) formulated the so-called logical problem of evil:

God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists. There seems to be some contradiction between these three propositions, so that if any two of them were true the third would be false. But at the same time all three are essential parts of most theological positions: the theologian, it seems, at once must and cannot consistently adhere to all three.

Could A Good God Permit So Much Suffering? A Debate

As J. L. Mackie (1955, 200) formulated the so-called logical problem of evil: God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists. There seems to...

ndpr.nd.edu

I know that many struggle with this issue, but seriously, is this your first time? Have you never tried to understand this before? Are you an idiot? Are you sincerely asking? Have you just realized that most people on the planet believe in God, and all of them are acutely aware of the suffering in the world? I know your answers, you're a drone after all, the same as every other drone, so I'm not really asking, nor do I care what you'd say.

When dumbasses like you ask pointed biblical questions, trying to make a point, I'm always reminded of another biblical lesson. Never cast pearls before swine. The answer to your bullshit question is quite simple, but you're blind to it and always will be until you sincerely ask the only one who can answer it. Your insult disguised as a question won't get you anywhere, but you're not really looking for the answer, are you?

 

[Hume]

I know that many struggle with this issue, but seriously, is this your first time?

get lost you asshole troll

 

[IBDaMann]

Nothing you wrote explains how inert chemicals spontaneously create cells,

Do you classify acids and bases as "inert"? The cell-creation explanation, to what artificially short timeline are you restricting it?

and how cells go to [the illusion of] sentience,

FTFY. You haven't heard of complexity, I see.

conscience, free will, moral agency.

You haven't shown that there is free will.

Again, this is why I had to step back from atheism.

You still haven't explained this in any way that doesn't violate logic.

It's too big a leap of faith for me to just wave a wand and just say that human consciousness and experience is just the result of the motion of electrons.

Why are the limitations on your ability to comprehend such concepts somehow demanding you make a leap of faith?

If love is based on the physical determinism of the motion of electrons, then you are just a meat robot.

You just made a valid argument.

 

[Tobytone]

get lost you asshole troll

Oh, I'm sorry, were you really asking?? lol. Seriously, you dumbass moron, whose trolling? I'm pointing out the obvious, you're the troll.

 

[Hume]

Oh, I'm sorry, were you really asking?? lol. Seriously, you dumbass moron, whose trolling? I'm pointing out the obvious, you're the troll.

get lost asshole

 

[Into the Night]

What the fuck does that have to do with topic of the thread?!

The thread topic is about how a god can permit so much suffering. Since the Church of Global Warming, the Church of the Ozone Hole, the Church of Green, the Church of Covid, and the Church of Hate are your religions, your god is ABOUT suffering.

 

[Into the Night]

Faith: "belief that is not based on proof." (Dictionary.com)

Incorrect. Remember that dictionaries don't define any word.
Faith is simply another name for the circular argument.

Blind faith is just an extreme example. That's why we literally add a qualifier to it - "blind" faith.

ALL faith is 'blind'. Faith is just another name for the circular argument.

You have no rational basis or tangible evidence for believing that something spontaneously comes from nothing, that life comes from non-life, that order comes from chaos, that reason comes from non-reason.

Sure he does. It's based on faith. It is also called the Theory of Abiogenesis.
This theory does present a few logical problems which are not addressed by a typical believer, but that does not make the theory itself irrational.

In fact, all our sense evidence and life experience shows those beliefs can't be true.

You don't get to speak for everyone. Omniscience fallacy. You only get to speak for you.

That's why I can't have the kind of faith it takes to be an atheist. It requires a belief in miracles.

Atheism requires no faith. It also requires no 'miracles'.

 

[Into the Night]

Incorrect. Aquinas, Augustine, Anselm were not irrational men.

Random words ignored.

Religious belief can be rational,

Certainly.

and based on reason and logical inference.

No. It is based solely on a circular argument.

The cosmological argument,

No such argument. Buzzword fallacy.

the teleological argument,

No such argument. Buzzword fallacy.

the moral argument

No such argument. Buzzword fallacy.

are all independent and mutually supporting bodies of logical reasoning

Buzzwords are not logical reasoning. They are fallacies.

that claim to point to some kind of universal spirit, eternal logos, or Tao.

...or Gaia, which is what you worship.

 

[Into the Night]

There is nothing in life experience or rational sense data that tells Sybil that something spontaneously comes from nothing.

There is nothing in life experience or rational sense data that tells Sybil that life spontaneously comes from non-life.

There is nothing in life experience or sense data that tells Sybil that reason comes from non-reason.



I do not have the blind faith to accept these beliefs, and that's why I turned away from atheism 20 years ago.

Atheism has no such beliefs, Sybil.

 

[Into the Night]

Given that life exists but did not exist at one point,

How do you know? Rather a rash assumption I would say.

I always assume it is based on a limited half-knowledge of atheism. Not all atheism is faith-based. In fact a good solid atheism has no faith involved.

Atheism requires no faith. It is not ever faith based.

 

[Into the Night]

Yes. Seems absolutely perfectly rational and most likely the source of life. Where else could it possibly have come from?

There is also the Theory of Creation, which states that life arrived on Earth through the action of some kind of intelligence.
That's where.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

I think the biggest leap of faith strict physical materialists take is the belief that all of reality is rationally intelligible.

A big assumption.

To paraphrase Isaac Newton, "I can explain what gravity does, I can't explain what it is."

I think all natural laws can, eventually, be explained. Why they exist is a different matter.

 

[Tobytone]

get lost asshole

Sorry, Humel, you're clearly the one who's lost. Many others and I aren't. It's like learning your way home: once you know it, you can't unlearn it, and you'll never get lost again unless you stray so far off the path that nothing looks familiar, but that's quite rare.

Then there are losers like Humel, sidetracked by a very cunning scam artist who convinced him to head downstairs where the party's at, where everyone's having a blast, and you don't need to own your failures or ignorance. Just chant the mantra and take another hit of libtard dope.

Humel's a hardcore addict now. He's moved on to dragging more morons like himself away from finding their way home to join the party downstairs. Misery loves company, right? No worries, he'll figure it out one way or another.

My apologies to anyone genuinely wrestling with this question, unlike Humel here. Keep searching, but you won't find answers from any libtard. They're doing their best to keep you ignorant and bitter like them. Ask the only one you'll believe, and he'll find a way to answer any sincere questions.

 

[Cypress]

I think all natural laws can, eventually, be explained. Why they exist is a different matter.

I agree.
Why the mathematical laws and constants of physics exist and where they come from is a philosophical question.

We can describe how the Higgs field makes the existence of atomic matter possible. But we can't explain why the Higgs field exists, and where it comes from.

 

[Cypress]

Atheism has no such beliefs, Sybil.

Yes it does. It's the faith of physical materialism.

 

[Into the Night]

What is the difference between the chemistry of non-life and the chemistry of life? That would help to establish the metes and bounds. Because from where I sit there's no real difference.



We can rule that one out from the start. The chemistry of life is nothing more or less than regular chemistry. There is literally nothing that is different between life and non-life chemistry. In fact the word "organic" is no longer limited (as it once was) to life-related chemistry.

Organic chemistry is the study of carbon compounds where carbon is replicating in chains (carbon is the only element that can bond to itself in long chains). Polymolecular compounds like this are not life.

So in order to make this into something that it isn't (a mystery) it would help to understand what you mean by differentiating chemistry of life from chemistry of non-life.

It's not about chemistry. It's about a definition.

The word 'life' (or old English 'lif' and similar words in German, Dutch, Norse, and other related areas, has always meant a corporeal animated existence.
In other words, 'life' is an animated state, corporeal by nature (having a body).

Even a plant is animated. Even a single celled critter is animated. All seek out nourishment and reproduce.