Here's my question. Bear with me, I do have a point/question, if you'll be patient and read to the end.
1. We are meant to learn from experience, right?
2. If you believe in a God, you believe that he/it teaches through things in your life, right? You believe that God wants you to take lessons that life teaches you and apply those lessons, right?
If you agree with those two statements then tell me this:
What is God (if you believe) teaching you/me/everyone with the conflicts over Israel? If you've studied your history then you know that Muslims ruled the Holy Land for nearly all of the years from 800-1500 A.D., roughly. The Christians would take it back for a few decades, and then get kicked right back out. Now the Jews run it, with the help and support of Christians. The Muslims have no power there, at all. What are we being taught? Here are your two choices:
1. God was testing Christians (or Jews, if you're Jewish) during the years than Muslims ran the Holy Land. They passed the test. Now he's rewarding them by letting them run the Holy Land.
2. God is showing us that, when you have more money and more access to information and goods, you're more likely to win a conflict. The Muslims controlled the Silk Road for centuries, and therefore had much more money and easier access to information and goods than everyone else. After advances in shipbuilding, navigation, etc. reached a certain point, Christians/Jews were able to use the ocean to trade with India and China more cheaply than with the Silk Road, and were also able to travel to and get wealth/riches and goods from the Americas.
I can provide other examples. I like this one because all 3 religions find it hard to ignore.
I think my point is clear.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by steven: What is God (if you believe) teaching you/me/everyone with the conflicts over Israel?
It's a trap! Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
A better question: What is so difficult for us to learn that he could not accomplish the same results without introducing some of the more horrendous suffering into the world?
Seems like a shoddy way for an omnipotent being to teach lessons.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:What is God (if you believe) teaching you/me/everyone with the conflicts over Israel?
I doubt the conflicts over Israel are merely an attempt to teach us something. However, I do think there is a pretty strong lesson that it teaches: "Fighting over 'holy' land is counterproductive."
[ October 03, 2009, 01:17 AM: Message edited by: Tresopax ]
Posted by Hedwig (Member # 2315) on :
quote:Originally posted by steven: Now the Jews run it, with the help and support of Christians.
...with the persmission of Christians.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
Oh my...
Posted by AchillesHeel (Member # 11736) on :
When I was really little I realized that everyone said that God was all powerful, and that Satan was responsible for all the bad things that happen (war, rape, death, bigotry, poverty and starvation) so I asked "why doesnt God end bad things if He is in control of everything?" never got a clear answer on that one.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Depending on your religion, there are multiple possible resolutions for the classical "Problem of Evil."
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
quote:Originally posted by Frisco: A better question: What is so difficult for us to learn that he could not accomplish the same results without introducing some of the more horrendous suffering into the world?
Seems like a shoddy way for an omnipotent being to teach lessons.
shoddy, perhaps, from the perspective of an imperfect mortal.
the better question could be the first part of your question:
What is so difficult for us to learn?
ill further that question:
What is so difficult for us to learn that god, possibly at risk of great personal distress, must allow such horrendous suffering to exist in the world?
often, and remarkably conveniently, people "blame" the "bad" of this world on god and completely ignore the good.
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
quote:Originally posted by AchillesHeel: When I was really little I realized that everyone said that God was all powerful, and that Satan was responsible for all the bad things that happen (war, rape, death, bigotry, poverty and starvation) so I asked "why doesnt God end bad things if He is in control of everything?" never got a clear answer on that one.
why doesnt god trample all over the agency of man and deny him consequence and accountability?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Oooh. Capax is either a Mormon or an Adventist. Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
Well, steven clearly does think god tramples over the agency of man, otherwise his question wouldn't make sense.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I don't agree with either of the two statements in the OP.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Heh, strange how there are only two choices!
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
"1. We are meant to learn from experience, right?1. We are meant to learn from experience, right?"
Meant to? No. Is it a very good idea? Why yes, I'd recommend it.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:often, and remarkably conveniently, people "blame" the "bad" of this world on god and completely ignore the good.
Actually, in my personal experience I've found just the opposite. I hear people praise god for all the good things that happen in their lives, praise god for the miracle of the one man who survived in the rubble of the fallen building, and yet never blame god for all the deaths he chose to let happen, or all the bad things that occur.
In fact, I don't know that I've ever heard anybody blame all the bad in the world on god, and ignore the good. Who exactly fits that description of yours? Atheists and agnostics don't blame the bad in the world on god, since they don't believe in god. And religious folks are obviously not going to blame the bad in the world on god, especially not at the expense of praising him for the good.
Who exactly are you talking about?
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
My Boy Scout instructor taught an entire troop of knuckleheads that guns are dangerous and that we needed to use them safeyl without any of us having to shoot each other.
I think my point is clear.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:1. We are meant to learn from experience, right?
Going back to this.... there seems to be some confusion with this premise. The fact that we are meant to learn from experience would not imply that the only purpose of experience is learning.
I'd think the primary "purpose" of most of our experiences are that they are valuable for their own sake.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Quote from KateBoots--"I don't agree with either of the two statements in the OP."
That throws the scientific method right out the window, seeing as how the scientific method is nothing more than "learning from experience in a controlled situation."
No?
Quote from Rakeesh--"Heh, strange how there are only two choices!"
I didn't want to mention the others, like
"God is insane."
"God hates us."
etc.
In fact, I'm a bit surprised you'd give me the chance to open that particular can of worms. Those conclusions don't exactly make the Judeo-Christian God look remotely worth worshipping.
Re: free agency, I am assuming that, for the purposes of this discussion, that all people who would bother thinking that 1 of the 3 religions has some kind of "divine right" to run the Holy Land ALSO believe that God intercedes, at least sometimes, on behalf of the righteous (righteous meaning, well, whatever you decide righteous is). There's not much of a point in being pro-Christian/Muslim/Jewish if you can't get any more help from God by following the rules of one of those versus the other two, right?
Quote from TomD--"Depending on your religion, there are multiple possible resolutions for the classical "Problem of Evil."
This isn't the problem of evil, Tom. It's just not as simple as, "Why is there evil?". The Holy Land has changed hands so many times in the last 1500 years that no slightly logical person would even begin to try to correlate those many changes-of-ruler with any real-world behavior or event (beyond, of course, good luck plus more warriors/money/knowledge). I would think, anyway.
My point is, the history of the Holy Land, when looked at from a logical, realistic, fair-minded, cool-headed perspective, simply does not support the conclusion that any one of the big 3 religions is any more favored by Teh Yahweh/God/Allah than any other. In my humble opinion, that is.
It's like this: let's say Roy Williams coaches Carolina basketball, and they win the heck out of the NCAA championship a bunch of times. Then let's say Roy goes to Virginia Tech (he won't, but whatever), and Carolina STOPS winning, and Tech STARTS winning. Then let's say Roy goes to Clemson, and CLEMSON starts winning. Then let's say Roy goes back to Carolina, and the whole cycle repeats 3 or 4 or 40 times.
It's the same situation. What are you going to credit with control of the Holy Land, something to do with God (what that would be, I don't know), or simple better access to money/goods/information?
Posted by Shawshank (Member # 8453) on :
It's been a while since I posted, but let me give a shot at it.
I'm first going to address your two assumptions.
1. If you say "we're meant to learn from experience" and you mean: God desires for humanity and individual humans to learn from the past experiences of individuals and groups. Then yes I would agree.
Does that mean that that is God's only or even main method of communicating His will for us? Certainly not. It's only one through which God communicates to humans. Others include: Scripture, reason (yes I certainly think that God wants us to use reason), and even direct communication between Himself and individuals.
2. I do think that God teaches us through various situations- whether good or bad and wants us to apply those ideas to our lives.
However that does not mean that God creates those situations so that we might be taught. I think God can and does teach independently of great suffering. We have free will so that we can make our own choices on this earth and affect the world around us. God does not take away our ability to choose.
I think one of the most remarkable things about God is this: no matter what situation is in the world he can transform it into something good. He can turn a situation from evil into something beautiful and good.
So perhaps with your particular example/question about the state of affairs in Israel we shouldn't necessarily cast it in the light that God has been in charge of everything that has happened- but has allowed humanity to let it do what it wants.
[ October 03, 2009, 07:39 PM: Message edited by: Shawshank ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:This isn't the problem of evil, Tom.
I wasn't responding to you.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
quote from ShawShank--"So perhaps with your particular example/question about the state of affairs in Israel we shouldn't necessarily cast it in the light that God has been in charge of everything that has happened- but has allowed humanity to let it do what it wants."
But wouldn't the situation in the Holy Land be the last thing that God/Yahweh/Allah would let humans muck up themselves? Surely, for clarity's sake, he'd make absolutely sure that the things that happened there cleared up all doubts about which of the big 3 is the best.
It would be like putting advertising for a new product on at 3 am on the History Channel, instead of putting it on prime-time on every channel, if the ad budget was limitless. Everybody watches the Holy Land like it's the Superbowl, and has for 1500 years. That stuff is the REAL must-see TV.
The other conclusions are
1. God couldn't care less who runs the Holy Land
2. God doesn't hold us, on an individual, one-lifetime-is-all-you-get level, accountable for figuring out which of the big 3 is the best.
3. God is teh jerky.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
There's another option that you'll find explains it nicely.
King of Men should explain it to you any sec now...
Posted by Shawshank (Member # 8453) on :
I don't think God really does care who politically runs the Holy Land. I don't even really see a point in calling that particular area of the globe as especially holy.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
"I don't think God really does care who politically runs the Holy Land."
That sure does make a lot of Christians, Jews, and Muslims look like tremendous fools, maybe, particularly the hundreds of thousands who have died in the struggle for control of it. Perhaps? Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Boy, steven, you are all over the place.
Certainly we can learn from experience; that is not the same as believing that experiences are created on purpose for us to learn.
I don't believe that God cares for one patch of land any more than any other patch of land or especially one particular group of people any more than any other group of people. I believe that killing each other over the "Holy land" is a spectacular example of missing the point.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
"I believe that killing each other over the "Holy land" is a spectacular example of missing the point."
In disagreement with some past Popes, are we?
But seriously, if that's true, who's more foolish, the Pope that sent those Crusaders to their near-certain (in many cases) deaths, or the Crusaders themselves?
My argument is rarely with you, on this subject, though, kate. You do know that, right? I'm more anti-fanatic than I am anti-religious, or, to be more clear, I'd rather have you than King of Men, all other things being equal, perhaps.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I am sometimes in disagreement with current Popes so, yeah.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
"I am sometimes in disagreement with current Popes..."
I am deeply, deeply perplexed. If only there had been some sign, some clue, in your posting history, I...have no words. I am shocked into silence. Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
Clearly, Allah and Yhwh are having a contest to see who has the followers who want it most. Think Job, but with even more families being killed to prove a point.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Shawshank: ... I don't even really see a point in calling that particular area of the globe as especially holy.
Maybe it was just a typo and someone actually meant "holey."
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
quote:What is God (if you believe) teaching you/me/everyone with the conflicts over Israel?
This is the problem with self-taught lessons with no study guide. What is being taught is up for debate.
The Hebrews believe that God is teaching them about faith. They lost the Holy land through the sins fo their forefathers, and they regained it, and will regain it completely in God's time, as God Promised.
Some Christians believe that God is fulfilling his promises and will return Jerusalem to the Jewish folks as soon as word of God has reached everyone in the world and the time for the second coming is approaching. Faith and Biblical literacy is all that needs to be learned.
Some Atheists believe that all the history of the holy land proves, from crusades to modern suicide bombers, is the terrible cost of religion. A faith, any faith, inevitably leads to blood, torture, and burning/stoning of the heretics. If you like the desert weather best to put up a condo in Las Vegas.
Most historians believe that the history of the "Holy-land" is a multi-layered story of clashes between European, African, and Asian/Persian empires. After all the holy land was not lost by the Christians to the Muslims. It was lost by the Jews to the Greeks, then the Romans. It was six centuries after the death of Jesus Christ that Islam was even born. The Crusades and the Zionist Movements and the PLO are all more political machination than religious movements.
So yes, there are a lot of lessons to be learned from 2000 years of highly detailed history. But no, you can't sum it all up in one short sentence about "Either God loves us or God hates them."
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
What if the conflicts over Israel are teaching God a lesson?
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
"What if the conflicts over Israel are teaching God a lesson?"
Ahhh...well put. I too have thoughts along these lines.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
"That sure does make a lot of Christians, Jews, and Muslims look like tremendous fools, maybe, particularly the hundreds of thousands who have died in the struggle for control of it. Perhaps? [Smile]"
Ding ding ding.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Even if we thought that these experiences were expressly created by God with no help from the choices of man or beast, the idea that the sufferings of thousands in the wars that have crisscrossed that region for centuries were merely theater for the edification of us here in the present (and largely an ocean away) is still demeaning. If we can learn from these experiences that is so much to our benefit but I would say that if we were to take our original assumption at face value I would still say God does not view any war anywhere as a single event, but merely a label for a common experience than many shared in their own personal journeying in life. My experiences are for me, learning and otherwise just as others have their own lives fulfilling their own purpose.
Hobbes Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
I can see it now. Some guy is sitting grumpilly in heaven. "What's the matter man?" asks an irritatingly hip angel.
"I spent my life seeking a higher understanding of God and God's plan for me. Then, after sacrificing myself, my family, and everything I hold dear except God, living a life of abject suffering and denial of all its pleasures in pursuit of all that is holy, I discover that my death was just on little statistical point in some master equation to teach lazy TV watching folks half a world away that the Holy Land should belong to some other group."
The Angel just shook his head. "Bummer dude."
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
quote: Some Atheists believe that all the history of the holy land proves, from crusades to modern suicide bombers, is the terrible cost of religion. A faith, any faith, inevitably leads to blood, torture, and burning/stoning of the heretics. If you like the desert weather best to put up a condo in Las Vegas.
Really? I don't mean that sarcastically; I'm honestly surprised. I don't know much about atheists, but I find it odd that anyone would think that "any faith" inevitably leads to anything like that. What about all the religious people throughout history who haven't tortured or killed anyone?
I mean, I suppose someone might think that, but I would assume that the number of people who hold that tenet would be so small as to be negligible.
Am I beating a dead horse? Consider me ignorant about atheism.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
PSI, I missed who said that originally in this thread, but the person does say "some" atheists, not "most" atheists. And when they use the word "faith" i'm assuming they're using that as a catchall for "a religion". I don't think they're implying a person's individual faith inevitably leads to this stuff, but that when organizations come around that make conflicting claims and develop belief systems based on holy writ, that violence is an inevitability. The poster is using faith to mean religion. So yes, of course there will be individual people of faith that will choose non-violence. But under the banner of that same faith, others will choose the path of violence, and use their holy books to back up their actions.
With that caveat, I do think the poster's statement is accurate. Some, if not many, atheists do believe violence is the inevitable result of holding dogmatic beliefs. I think that's a simplistic assessment of the situation, but it's certainly one important element of it.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
Interestingly though, some religious people believe that adherence to OTHER religions also inevitably leads to violence and other bad outcomes.
Posted by Armoth (Member # 4752) on :
I am personally NOT a fan of learning things from history, unless God gave us the framework to interpret them (which in most cases He has not).
Deuteronomy (and other places) talks about how if the Jews are bad, they're gonna get kicked out of their land and life is going to be miserable for them. It's amazing how specific the Bible gets and how many of those things have unfortunately occurred.
So, often, Jews will interpret the destruction of the temple as punishment for their sins, and will subsume the tragedies of the 2000 year exile under that rubric.
Israel is viewed as an incredible miracle, and as a second-chance. But Jews are keenly aware of the fact that they aren't really in possession, but that they are merely permitted to exist there by the Christian west. So we don't feel like we have suddenly been forgiven and that we don't sin anymore. On the other hand, Israelis have experienced miraculous victories in war.
So...it's complicated.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote:2. God is showing us that, when you have more money and more access to information and goods, you're more likely to win a conflict.
Well, duh. But is winning a conflict the point?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:So...it's complicated.
It gets a lot less complicated when you realize that the whole "God" thing is a fiction, you know. Posted by Armoth (Member # 4752) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:So...it's complicated.
It gets a lot less complicated when you realize that the whole "God" thing is a fiction, you know.
I always thought that the atheist argument is that God makes things simpler.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Where'd you get that idea?
No, God is an unnecessary complication. Occam thought God made things simpler, but he was wrong.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:Originally posted by Armoth: I am personally NOT a fan of learning things from history, unless God gave us the framework to interpret them (which in most cases He has not).
Armoth, could you elaborate on this? I'm experiencing a bit of a disconnect. It seems self evident to me that learning from history is almost always a valuable thing, just as learning from one's own past experience is--so much so that I'm thinking that I must have misunderstood your point.
Posted by Armoth (Member # 4752) on :
Yea. It wasn't clear. I didn't mean you shouldn't learn from history. I meant you shouldn't seek to learn God's intent from history, unless He has given you the framework with which to do that (promises/prophecy).
In most cases, promises and prophecies are not specific enough to understand what God's larger plan is. 9/11 is a big example in MY life - I've heard people give all sorts of explanations for why God was angry and stuff, and they all really bother me.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
quote:Originally posted by Armoth:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:So...it's complicated.
It gets a lot less complicated when you realize that the whole "God" thing is a fiction, you know.
I always thought that the atheist argument is that God makes things simpler.
Honestly, it depends.
If you are content to let the answers to hard questions be "because God wills it", and otherwise replace analysis with vague but all-purpose divine explanations, then yeah, belief in God can make things subjectively simpler.
But if you try to make sense of things, then it can look like reconciling religious beliefs with observed reality is a pretty taxing exercise.
Atheists aren't automatically different, of course. You can not believe in God but still resort to simplistic, vague answers to hard questions, or hold beliefs that are difficult to reconcile with observations and yet try to do so.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:Originally posted by Armoth: Yea. It wasn't clear. I didn't mean you shouldn't learn from history. I meant you shouldn't seek to learn God's intent from history, unless He has given you the framework with which to do that (promises/prophecy).
Ah, okay; I knew that I had to be misunderstanding your point. Thanks for clearing it up.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Occam thought God made things simpler, but he was wrong.
No, he didn't.
Occam used his razor to show the opposite. His point was that many things, among them God, are not provable by reason.
As he used it, Occam's Razor was both a guide to rational investigation and an acknowledgment of the limitations of rational investigation.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:But if you try to make sense of things, then it can look like reconciling religious beliefs with observed reality is a pretty taxing exercise.
I don't have such problem. But then I find I often have a different idea of what religious beliefs and observed reality are.
---
Most materialist thinking discards the notion of personal volition, which would seem to me to be strongly contradicted by observed reality and a pretty huge, unprovable assumption.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
quote: And when they use the word "faith" i'm assuming they're using that as a catchall for "a religion". I don't think they're implying a person's individual faith inevitably leads to this stuff, but that when organizations come around that make conflicting claims and develop belief systems based on holy writ, that violence is an inevitability.
That's what I assumed he meant, too. It just seems to me that if you look at the percentage of people who don't use religion as an excuse to harm others (And I mean that in a larger-scale sense; I'm not talking about personal faith and personal violence.) then it would make sense to start looking for other factors that are causing such behavior. In other words, just because two a-holes that happen to have a lot of power create a conflict regarding their religion that leads to death, does that make religion the cause? Or, in a world devoid of religion, would those a-holes have come up with other excuses to attack each other? Is a religious zealot dangerous because he's religious, or because he's a zealot? Zeal seems like a personality trait that's independent of religion.
Once again, I'm ignorant. I know I've been around Hatrack long enough that I probably shouldn't have that excuse, but I've largely avoided religious threads since about '04.
Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:Occam thought God made things simpler, but he was wrong.
No, he didn't.
Occam used his razor to show the opposite. His point was that many things, among them God, are not provable by reason.
As he used it, Occam's Razor was both a guide to rational investigation and an acknowledgment of the limitations of rational investigation.
Except Occam himself believed in God, and made an escape clause for an omnipotent being. Well, he at the very least *pretended* to believe in god, going so far as to say that the words of an infallible source could substitute for reason.
Other people have since used the same razor to prove that disbelief is rational, but I don't recall Ockham himself solely using it that way.
Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
I don't think Ockham thought God made things simpler, either, but was merely meshing his current belief with his philosophy. I don't remember ever reading that he believed a divine creator was the simplest answer, but I could be wrong there.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
Is 'Occam' the result of someone noticing that 'Ockham' has more alphabetical entities than necessary?
Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
Heh, not a clue. I always assumed there were multiple spellings of the town. I think of the theory as Occam's, because that's how I saw it spelled when I learned it. But after studying it more in depth, I think of the man himself as William of Ockham.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Most materialist thinking discards the notion of personal volition...
I think it's more that most materialists consider the concept of personal volition to be fictional but useful.
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