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From: garys@bunkerb.UUCP (Gary Samuelson)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: What should God be like? (third round)
Message-ID: <297@bunkerb.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 21-Feb-84 11:13:58 EST
Article-I.D.: bunkerb.297
Posted: Tue Feb 21 11:13:58 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 22-Feb-84 02:37:59 EST
Lines: 233

Third round in the discussion of "What should God be like?"
between me (Gary Samuelson) and Darrel Plank.  This has taken
quite a while to put together.  My boss thinks I should occassionally
do work :-), and, frankly, the questions are getting harder.
None of my original article is quoted herein, and very little of
my second one, but I think the discussion can still be followed,
though it is somewhat staccato.  Quotes from my second article
are prefaced by '>>>'; responses from Darrell by '>'.

>>>I don't think that the freedom to rape or murder is a human right,
>>>either, and I hope you are not saying that I do.

>No, I didn't mean to imply that you thought that such things were a right.
>But what does it mean to say "You have the right to CHOOSE whether to rape
>or not but you don't have the right to rape"?

Clearly, the right to choose to do X is indistinguishable from the
right to do X.  What I said was that the ability to choose exists,
not the right.  If it were not possible to choose to do evil (as well
as good), then it would be meaningless to say that any individual is
'good' or 'evil'.

This will no doubt lead someone to ask if it is meaningful to say
that God is good.  Yes, in that God is the source of that which is
good, and he is not the source of that which is evil.

>There are some tricky questions as to what should and should
>not be allowed in human behavior, but if the courts can make
>a meager attempt at such a thing, then an all loving perfect
>God had ought to be able to do a bang up job.

If by "what is allowed" you mean "what is considered proper,
it is the Christian belief that he does know the answers to
the question of what should and should not be allowed, and that
he has provided at least three ways of obtaining them (the written
word, conscience, and praying for guidance).  And people have
rejected all three, on the grounds that God didn't do it the way 
the people think they would have if they had been God.

If, on the other hand, by "what is allowed" you mean what is possible,
then we are back to wondering why God gave man free will in the
first place.

>I think that most of us would agree that murder is not an
>acceptable response if someone steals your parking spot.  If
>God were to disallow such blatant cases and leave the minor
>decisions to us I think that most people could agree on that.

If "most" would agree with you, what do you propose doing with
those who do not?  And who is to say that God has not disallowed
cases which are even more blatant?

>After all, while the courts have problems, most people wouldn't
>like to live in a society without them.  In other words, people
>WANT to have the "right to choose" curtailed when such a choice
>might result in a murder.

Well, most people want others' choices curtailed when the latter's
choices might result in harm to the former.

>To put it another way, I don't think many people would want ALL
>choices removed, but on the other hand, I don't think people like
>a world where ANYBODY can make ANY choice ANYTIME he/she wants to.

I don't think we live in such a world.  We actually have very
few choices; it's just that we're used to it, and cease to think
about some of the less reasonable choices after a while.

>A happy medium exists somewhere between which is far preferable
>to either extreme, and if God were interested in our welfare I
>think he would try to meet this happy medium instead of the
>extreme we are currently experiencing.

One person's happy medium is another person's extreme; so unless
you can find some standards that all (not most) people could agree
to, I will not be convinced that you can devise a better system.

(I have omitted the part about why God allows volcanoes, since neither
of us know).

>>>If miracles were commonplace, they wouldn't be impressive;
>>>they wouldn't prove anything.  But if they aren't commonplace, then
>>>those who were not eye-witnesses (and even some who were) will try
>>>to explain it away, saying that it was a trick, or hypnosis, or some
>>>such.

>If pennies suddenly started always landing on heads every time
>that would impress me.

It might "impress" you, but I doubt that you would call it a miracle.
I don't think I would.  After all, it is simply a possible, though
very unlikely, event.  How many times in a row would convince you that
a miracle had occurred?

>If the sun came up a different color every day, that would impress
>me.  On top of that, I think there are plenty of miracles that people
>would not "explain away", the trick with the stars being just one of
>them.  I don't think you can effectively argue that God could not
>manage to impress all of humanity if he really wanted to.

I think I can.  The whole universe constitutes a miracle called
'creation'.  Many people are unimpressed, it that they deny that it
is a miracle.  I would think that resurrection from the dead would
be an impressive miracle, but many people are unimpressed.  One theory
is that Jesus merely "swooned."  Consider the many stories today about
people who have recovered after being pronounced dead by physicians.
These are not commonly called miracles; they are considered anomalies,
for which the explanation has not been found.  (Note: I am not saying
that I consider them miracles; I just mentioned them to show that it
is hard to impress people.

Even the trick with the stars (lining up a bunch of them to spell out
"God was here") would fail to impress some people.  First, what language
should be used?  Those who didn't read that particular language might
be unimpressed.  Others could say that it was just another amazing
coincidence, and not a miracle at all.  Others might think they were
hallucinating.

>I assume that the "mutually exclusive expectations" were the
>expectation of a perfect world and the expectation of a free will.
>If not, you will have to clarify because if these expectations are
>not mutually exclusive, then there is no reason that God can't live
>up to these requirements.  If he can live up to them, then there is
>no reason that I shouldn't expect him to do so.  At least no logical
>reason.

It is inconsistent to want free will, and to want immunity from the
consequences of exercising that free will.

But more importantly, why should God be required to live up to your
expectations?  He doesn't always do what I would like him to do;
oh, well.  That's his prerogative.  After all, he has free will, too.
Now you will say that if he really loved us, he would not allow X.
When people say that to one another ("If you really loved me, you
would...") are called manipulative.  My wife doesn't think I tell her
I love her often enough.  Perhaps she is right, but if she said, "If
you really loved me, you would tell me so three times a day," I would
not do that, just because she was trying to be manipulative.  Now if
I dislike being manipulated, I think God might, too.

I'm going to try to re-answer one of your questions.  Will there be
free will in heaven?  Yes, in that the people there have freely made
those choices which led to their being there.  In a sense, I suppose,
free will in heaven is irrelevant, since the choices will have already
been made.  Now is it possible for someone in heaven to choose to
disobey God?  In a sense, that is what Satan did, so I suppose so.
(I keep saying "in a sense," because I have to use earthly concepts
to describe unearthly things, and it doesn't work well.)

>No, I'm not saying you HAVE to disbelieve everything else, just that you
>haven't got any logical reason to believe or disbelieve.  No, a whisker
>doesn't make a beard, but a set of scientific axioms makes a scientific
>theory, and if one of those axioms is ever wrong, then there is no logical
>reason to believe any deduction which arose from that axiom.

As you point out later, a scientific axiom is always an approximation
of reality.  It may be a very close approximation, but an approximation
nevertheless.  Science is not deductive, it's inductive.  Most science,
I suppose, is accurate enough for most purposes, but there's no LOGICAL
reason to believe that a deduction arising from a theoretical model is
valid in the real world.  That's why we experiment.  External influence
(even of the non-miraculous sort) is always possible; that's why we
repeat experiments several times before we are convinced.

If you suggest that if a miracle always occurs at a certain point
in an experiment, I will again say: 1) Miracles are by definition
exceptions, rather than the rule; 2) Each miracle has a purpose, and
as far as I can tell, that purpose has never been to confound
scientists; and 3) If it happens the same way every time, what's the
difficulty?

>You can BELIEVE that God doesn't make exceptions to the natural
>laws often, but that is an arbitrary belief.  An equally valid
>belief is that God is constantly making exceptions, that all we
>KNOW are exceptions and that one day God will pull the rug out
>from under us and all science will come tumbling down.

First, I disagree that the second statement represents an equally
valid belief; it incorporates a contradiction in terms.  "Constant
exceptions?"

Second, the belief that there are no exceptions at all is equally
arbitrary, and no more valid on that account.

Third, the natural laws, as we understand them, have exceptions
in any case.  Newton's laws have exceptions at relativistic speeds.
Einstein's general theory of relativity no doubt has exceptions,
which physicists may or may not be aware of (I'm not a physicist).

>The size and relative frequency of such exceptions is not
>important.  Either everything is molecular or not.  If God
>would send even one tiny particle of matter from space which
>was not molecular, then we have no reason to believe that the
>spectroscopic analysis of distant stars has any meaning at all.

I guess we better discard all our spectroscopic analyses, then.
Or are neutrinos molecular?  Physicists seem to be constantly
discovering new kinds of matter; that doesn't invalidate what
we have observed about the kinds of matter we have already seen.

Suppose we leave God out of the above statement:  "If there came
to earth even one tiny particle of matter which was not molecular,
then we would have no reason to believe that the spectroscopic
analysis of distant stars has any meaning at all."  Well, we would
have about the same level of confidence in our spectroscopic
analyses that we do now; i.e., they are probably accurate, to the
best of our ability to determine.

(Regarding free will vs perfection)

>But we have already pointed out that either these two statements
   [that free will exists and that God can provide a perfect heaven]
>are inconsistent so that God can't abide by both or we are left
>with the conclusion that God COULD create a perfect earth and still
>allow free will and so why doesn't he?  Which is it Gary?  You can't
>have it both ways.

God DID create a perfect earth and gave it to man, who to some extent
has ruined it.  Man will not be able to similarly ruin heaven because
either, as I suggested earlier, all the relevant choices will have
been made, or because any one who attempts to ruin heaven will have
to leave (I suppose it is possible to leave heaven, but I don't know
why anyone would want to).

>Well, sorry for such a LONG rebuttal, but there was a lot covered here.
>Thanks Gary for the thought you put into this thing.  I tried to give
>responsible (if lengthy) answers.

Thank you.  I didn't know discussions in net.religion could be fun.
And even reasonable.  

Gary Samuelson
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