Pantheism

[OnlyAmbrose]

Could you explain to me your evidence, Ambrose? I'm very interested and 1805 posts is a lot to wade through.

You make it sound like I just found something and was like "bam! There's proof of God"

Anywho, it's not quite like that, lol

It would take forever to present the full case, because it was really built through several threads, and I actually have an English paper I'm supposed to be writing (I always seem to frequent CC more when I have something to procrastinate ). So in the interests of time I won't go into detail, but I'll make a basic list of conclusions I came to. You'll have to forgive that they don't have citations, etc because I want to keep it brief and I don't want to thread-jack.

The evidence for each point is scattered all over various threads, and if the topic comes up i'm sure you'll find me posting about it.

-The universe had an origin
-An impersonal force could not have created the universe because impersonal forces can't choose when to act, and yet the universe had a definite origin
-Therefore, the universe had an origin from a personal force
-The ability to create something from nothing implies an extremely powerful personal force
-Based on the above, assume this personal force exists
-We are aware that this personal force exists
-Given that everything that exists came from this personal force, the idea of the personal force also came from this personal force
-Therefore, the personal force designed to make itself known

That is how I came to the conclusion of a personal God, albeit the above is written in ridiculously hasty summary. Here's how I got from there to Christianity.

-If God designed to make himself known, and if he is powerful enough to fulfill this design, then it follows that his nature is known by man
-Therefore, it is necessary to study the religions of man to find the most credible one.
-Christianity defines a God so personal that he used his power to become man and walk among his creation.
-Accounts of this miracle are told by many eyewitnesses, many of whom died rather than deny what they saw. These frequent acts of martyrdom of the early apostles are accounted by secular Roman records, and lend credibility to the claims of the eyewitnesses themselves.

Dang, it's 10PM. I really need to work on my paper. 'night all!

[Neutrino]

The concept of an infinite universe follows the laws of thermodynamics. The third law states "As temperature approaches absolute zero, the entropy of a system approaches a constant minimum."

In a limited universe, absolute zero must be reached once you exit the boundrys of it, since if there is nothing, there is no energy. The third law makes absolute zero impossible. A finite universe would break the third law.

Wrong. A finite universe needs only to be fully internally consistent; it doesn't matter if it's laws don't operate outside its borders. Sure, the Third Law might become paradoxical outside of the universe, but it won't be operating there. Whatever the local equivalent is, will be, if there are multiple universes and they are jammed shoulder-to-shoulder, or nothing if they aren't.

The other two are good, though.

By most current readings scientists predict that the universe has a radius of approximately 30 trillion light years (I might be off but stick with me) and that we are in the middle. This raises the question of weather or not light decays. Since light behaves like both a wave and a partical, it is entirerly plausable to assume that it does, thus proving the possibility of an infinite universe.

How does the possibility of light's decay prove an infinite universe?

The Cosmological Principle dictates that were not in the centre of anything.

Also, I recall the figure to actually be 78 billion.

[Nobuo]

I'll respond now Ambrose and you can view it tomorrow. As far as I see it, we differ on the following points:

An impersonal force could not have created the universe

We assume that all sentience will be personal because we are limited by our humanity. We dream up gods in human form and depict extraterrestrials as humanoid. This is natural, but it is not impartial thinking--it resides on human centered beliefs and blind faith in our own significance. I argue that sentience did create the universe but it did not have free will and it was not personal, as you call it.

Christianity defines a God so personal that he used his power to become man and walk among his creation.

I do not believe that God created humanity, e.g. imperfection, as grooveman already noted this is illogical. I believe that the "original sin" of humanity (in the style of Catholicism) is that we have free will or as Buddhists would say, desire. I do not believe that Jesus could both be tempted by sin and be perfect. I do not believe that Jesus could both pray to God and be God. I do not believe that Jesus was created by God. I do not believe that Jesus could interact with those of us with free will and still be God; I believe it is supported by circumstantial evidence that God cannot interfere with the affairs of free will which supports a conclusion logically drawn from the assumption of a pantheistic God. However, I do believe it is very likely that Jesus became God in the traditional Adoptionist sense that is viewed as heresy by the Catholic church.

On the matter of creating something from nothing, I agree with you. Indeed, it would take a powerful being to accomplish this. On miracles, I believe they exist and are God's way of communicating with us without interfering with our lives. The fact that when I was much younger I witnessed a miracle along with my family is the main reason I am so interested in religion.

I admit that I rely on blind faith but I do not see how your faith is any less blind. I think that Pantheism has logical integrity and is supported by circumstantial evidence regarding the nature of the world and the general trend of religions to renouncement of selfishness, a central tenant of Pantheism. I suppose the largest reason I believe in Pantheism is I've found the logic along the way reinforces the assumptions previously made through intensive philosophical analysis. I cannot hope to impart this experience to you, though, as it is only gained through personal effort.

[Neutrino]

That is how I came to the conclusion of a personal God, albeit the above is written in ridiculously hasty summary. Here's how I got from there to Christianity.

-If God designed to make himself known, and if he is powerful enough to fulfill this design, then it follows that his nature is known by man
-Therefore, it is necessary to study the religions of man to find the most credible one.
-Christianity defines a God so personal that he used his power to become man and walk among his creation.
-Accounts of this miracle are told by many eyewitnesses, many of whom died rather than deny what they saw. These frequent acts of martyrdom of the early apostles are accounted by secular Roman records, and lend credibility to the claims of the eyewitnesses themselves.

Dang, it's 10PM. I really need to work on my paper. 'night all!

The reasoning for the existence of God isn't too bad, if you exclude the possibility of an infinite number of alternate universes (one would spawn from the corpse of the old). These reasons (or, more precisely, the last one), however, don't really make the cut.
Humans will sacrifice themselves for an idea, whether divinely inspired or not. Humans also have a propensity to, despite an absolute lack of evidence, delude themselves into thinking an idea is absolutely true and frequently getting themselves killed for it, a la my first point.
Sure the Apostles got themselves killed for their beliefs. So have millions of other people, throught the ages. I would imagine just as many Athiests, Muslims, Hindus and assorted other religions have refused to deny the accuracy of their claims and died for it.
Are they all correct?

Just because the Christian martyrs are slightly better documented than any other version of martyr does not provide even the slightest proof for the existence of the Christian god.

[MR. Nate]

Needless to say I don't quite understand. Do you believe that God is anthropomorphic? Do you believe that Jesus was alive forever, incarnated as a being both perfect and imperfect at the same time? Do you believe that we all go to heaven, regardless of whether we discover infinite truth during our lifetime? This seems like faith to me.

This is loaded with poorly worded or questions, so in Ambrose's absence, I'll offer some answers on behalf of Christianity. God is not anthropomorphic, but He did make have the desire to communicate Himself to humanity, which could not grasp His true nature. A piece of that communication was Jesus Christ, God incarnate. He was perfect in every sense of the word. Your assumption that physicality = imperfection is platonic, not Christian. We do not all go to heaven, those who accept Jesus Christ as the only payment for their sin will go to heaven. Everyone else will go to hell. Infinite truth is not graspable by finite human minds.

I do not believe that God created humanity, e.g. imperfection, as grooveman already noted this is illogical. I believe that the "original sin" of humanity (in the style of Catholicism) is that we have free will or as Buddhists would say, desire. I do not believe that Jesus could both be tempted by sin and be perfect. I do not believe that Jesus could both pray to God and be God. I do not believe that Jesus was created by God. I do not believe that Jesus could interact with those of us with free will and still be God; I believe it is supported by circumstantial evidence that God cannot interfere with the affairs of free will which supports a conclusion logically drawn from the assumption of a pantheistic God.

It may be illogical for God to create imperfect human beings, but it is perfectly logical for God to create perfect human beings with choice: Love Him or Don't. The rest of this particular paragraph is entirely made up of beliefs based on the conclusions you have already decided on, as I think is illustrated in the next paragraph.

I admit that I rely on blind faith but I do not see how your faith is any less blind. I think that Pantheism has logical integrity and is supported by circumstantial evidence regarding the nature of the world and the general trend of religions to renouncement of selfishness, a central tenant of Pantheism. I suppose the largest reason I believe in Pantheism is I've found the logic along the way reinforces the assumptions previously made through intensive philosophical analysis. I cannot hope to impart this experience to you, though, as it is only gained through personal effort.

It appears to me that you made a decision, then went through your intensive philosophical analysis to support it. Just a guess. On a brighter not, you appear to have made up a logically consistent argument. I would posit, however, that you made a number of innacurate assumptions to get there, so you still ended up in the wrong place.

[Nobuo]

You seem like a wiser man than me, Nate, and your assessment of my beliefs for the most part accurate. I have only one disagreement on a matter of technicalities. Physicality = imperfection would indeed be a Platonic and a Gnostic argument. I do not make this argument, however. My argument is pure physicality = God = perfection, free will = desire = imperfection. I view this as enough to hold an Adoptionist view of Jesus and not a more convoluted one, though I'm sure the majority of Christians would disagree with me here.

On a different note, you say that I came upon conclusions then let logic follow. You are completely correct, I derived my beliefs intuitively initially and then expanded upon them through reason. I ask you if you adopted Christianity initially through logic or did you instead discover it through either faith or socialization?

[MR. Nate]

I must say, initially, certainly, socialization had a big impact. However, twice in my life I've chucked the entire system out the window, and started from scratch. As a result, philosophically, I'm more than comfortable that not only is my belief system as accurate as I can make it at this point, but that it is for the most part in correspondence to the truth.

On a different note, I think your equation of free will to imperfection is insane. If God, or any creature, does not freely choose to be good, or evil how can He be anything other than an automaton?

Also, I don't think that you're truly prepared to equate desire with imperfection. Is the desire to be loved imperfect? Is the desire to eat necessarily wrong? If I desire to help my fellow man, would you accuse me of being evil?

[Nobuo]

I'll tell you what I believe and you can draw whatever conclusions you want. The problem of desire is a tricky one but yes, long story short, desiring to eat is a little evil--God never desires to eat. Wanting to help your fellow man for any justification is technically only slightly evil but evil nonetheless. Someone who was infinitely good would help someone simply because they realize on an intuitive level that good is good, and they possess infinite impassionate "love" for all things. Note that desiring to be "loved" yourself for emotional reasons is evil, though. You can rationalize all you want, as I've tried to do here, but ultimately truth is God and God is intuitively apparent to all. Again, it is our irrational grasping to the self that makes it so difficult to accept/understand pure goodness but good transcends justification as a result of faith. It is the fact that it's so difficult to purge oneself of evil that makes me believe that though an afterlife exists, no one can ever realistically get there (you cannot will yourself to have no will). In the meantime, the entirety of mankind is here rooted to desire and biological processes, all unredeemably evil. This may be pessimistic, but hey it's logically sound as far as I can tell.

On the nature of God, if you assume he is perfect as I have done, how can you assume he could ever do anything less than do the most perfect thing at all times? He is this definition, though, so he doesn't follow some higher law, he has sentience, but he has no free will. Assuming that free will is a desirable thing is just the natural evil of humanity shining through.

[Colossus]

Nobuo, I have to say that this thread and your posts in it are the most spot-on that I've encountered here in CC. I agree with pretty much all of what you've said.

I think it is very difficult for any person of strong religious adherence (note I do not say 'faith'), particularly devout Christians, to recognize the dichotomy between free will and goodness. I agree that free will is a blessing because it gives us power, but at the same time it is a curse because it is that which necessarily removes us from true being (i.e. union with God). Your recognition of the selfness of this imperfection is right on, in my opinion. It is only our selfness which keeps us from acting intuitively.

Another point that strong religious adherents will have trouble seeing your point about God being passionless. To God, all of existence just IS. The good versus evil of things is in us, it is not absolute. This all derives from free will, I think. God has made the universe (or is the universe) such that it operates according to a certain order. In my opinion, the difference between choosing to do good or to do evil breaks down to the difference between being in harmony with that order or being out of harmony with that order. I suspect that there are real underlying physical explanations for the emotions that we feel, for the difference between the choice to do good or to do evil, and to our selfness. I think that there are physical explanations for the difference between being in harmony versus out of harmony. We just haven't figured out these physical underpinnings yet.

If you haven't encountered them before, Nobuo, I suggest The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan and Why God Won't Go Away by Andrew Newburgh. Both contain some very interesting ideas about the evolution of our brains as related to free will and the selfness that has developed which forces man to be divorced from his own existence by the self/non-self barrier. Very cool reading. I am interested to know if there are particular readings that you've done to arrive at the set of ideas that you've put forth because if there are, I'd like to check them out.



A couple of extra points: Neutrino is absolutely right about the need for the universe only to be self-consistent. The trouble with Grooveman's ideas regarding the contradiction of the second and third laws beyond the edge of the universe fail the self-consistency test exactly because these laws do not necessarily exist beyond the edge of the universe. Also, note that energy does not reach zero at the temperature of absolute zero. Even at absolute zero, motion still exists at the atomic level. The energy at absolute zero is called the zero point energy, and it is non-zero.

[Guiscard]

Logic dictates Backglass will appear at some point and mention Leprechauns, therefore lowering the tone somewhat.

[MR. Nate]

Logic dictates Backglass will appear at some point and mention Leprechauns, therefore lowering the tone somewhat.

I'll tell you what I believe and you can draw whatever conclusions you want. The problem of desire is a tricky one but yes, long story short, desiring to eat is a little evil--God never desires to eat. Wanting to help your fellow man for any justification is technically only slightly evil but evil nonetheless. Someone who was infinitely good would help someone simply because they realize on an intuitive level that good is good, and they possess infinite impassionate "love" for all things. Note that desiring to be "loved" yourself for emotional reasons is evil, though. You can rationalize all you want, as I've tried to do here, but ultimately truth is God and God is intuitively apparent to all. Again, it is our irrational grasping to the self that makes it so difficult to accept/understand pure goodness but good transcends justification as a result of faith. It is the fact that it's so difficult to purge oneself of evil that makes me believe that though an afterlife exists, no one can ever realistically get there (you cannot will yourself to have no will). In the meantime, the entirety of mankind is here rooted to desire and biological processes, all unredeemably evil. This may be pessimistic, but hey it's logically sound as far as I can tell.

On the nature of God, if you assume he is perfect as I have done, how can you assume he could ever do anything less than do the most perfect thing at all times? He is this definition, though, so he doesn't follow some higher law, he has sentience, but he has no free will. Assuming that free will is a desirable thing is just the natural evil of humanity shining through.

Would your helping someone because of your infinite and impassionate love happen all by itself, or would you have to first formulate, in your mind, that you wanted to help them, which would then translate into actions? And woudn't you phrase that thought as "desireing to help"? And clearly you don't really believe that desiring to eat is evil, or you would simply stop eating.

As for free will, are you now arguing that we can do something which God cannot? Freely choose to do good? Wouldn't that be a higher good than simply doing it because you have to?

It seems that your equation of evilness with desire has some pretty severe consequences. 1st, you can't eat. 2nd, you can't love, 3rd you have to do everything from pure obediance to a command

[Nobuo]

Action can be made without implying selfish reasoning inspired it. Let's say you twitch your arm spontaneously, did you desire to make this occur? You have a thought, did this arrive logically from nothing or was it intuitively pulled from nothing out of the void? Intuition is a call to which it is entirely possible to follow and we do so all the time in our day to day lives. It is the selfish inspired action that makes up the remainder that inherently separates the purely divine from the individualistic and corrupted. If you did become God, as I argue Jesus probably did, the immortality gained from renouncing desire and becoming God would indeed imply you never had to eat--the soul would be intuitively bound to everything, not just the mortal body and so would never decay.

We can do free will, which God cannot, just as much as we can be evil, which God cannot. When Adam and Eve ate the apple (a completely allegorical story), they gained the ability to do what God cannot, to choose their fate and in the process choose their fate based on selfish desires for fleeting pleasures. Under my definition of Love, it is correct to love someone but not correct to expect to be loved back. As far as I can tell, on the question of whether I have created a definition of good that is indistinguishable from pure obedience, I would argue no. To have a deeply intuitive comprehension of God that leads one to action does not seem like it can be lightly or without intense intense personal moral and philosophical betterment. The problem with bettering oneself in this way, however, is the more selfless one becomes, the less desire one possesses and it becomes difficult to become interested to continue striving without self-centered reasoning as an aid to pure intuition. God, could foreseeably help you to become God but that with no free will cannot influence those with free will just as much as those with will cannot will themselves to have none--leading to a seeming paradox Jesus must have been able to overcome.

Nobuo, I have to say that this thread and your posts in it are the most spot-on that I've encountered here in CC. I agree with pretty much all of what you've said.

Thanks for the support, Colossus, but your trust might be misplaced--even I don't agree with everything I say. I haven't read either of the books you mentioned but I'll be sure to do so, maybe over the summertime. As far as particular readings I've done... I've always tried to absorb as many philosophical and religious works as possible and I believe that it is often through examining a wide-spread of ideas that truth is stumbled upon. However, as I've mentioned before, my deepest beliefs are intuitively gained and have been around since before I can remember (which isn't very long these days). I've had a lot of fun conversing with everyone here so far, even if I did not explain my original intentions that well, as it isn't often that you'll find people willing to talk about religion.

[MR. Nate]

There is an enormous difference between twitching spontaneously, and acting out a rational thought. You cannot volitionally do something that you don't have the desire to do.

And you're still dodging my point. Why are you not starving yourself to death? I don't want to be mean, but that's the end result of what your announcing to the rest of us. I try to practice what I believe and say on these forums, and I think it's a bit hypocritical of you to not act on your beliefs.

[Nobuo]

I do not claim to be perfect and I do not expect I will go to heaven. I don't know how you are claiming to know that I do not try to incorporate ascetic principles into my life, because there you would be misinformed. Of course, I need to continue to eat but I do try to cut back on the extent to which I enjoy it. I endorse a stoic sense of toleration to pain, which I think is one way to encounter truth in one's life. Of course, if I had achieved perfection in any one of these fields, I would not be talking to you now and so cannot claim mastery over even a hundredth of my desires. Surely you have fasted or otherwise deprived yourself of your primal desires before, Nate?

Anyhoo... turning the topic of conversation off myself and onto something infinitely more interesting, I now want to relate an argument explaining my belief in the preferability of pantheistic ethics to more traditional religious ones that I just came up with, something I'm sure Ambrose would be interested in if he comes back:

I believe that if you believe in some reality beyond this one that you are admitting that the concerns of this world are illusory in comparison, to some extent. This leads to a number of points of ethical concern ranging from the fact that you are absolving yourself partially from personal responsibility for your actions by viewing this universe as illusory to the fact that you are viewing external forces--matter, the devil as the reason for your imperfections instead of your own corruption due to desire. I think ethics are more directly derivable from pantheism than they are from the convoluted reasoning of multi-reality thinking. Additionally, some God needs to exist if we assume truth to be objective so atheistic ethics are not infallible, either. I think a personal connection with God can be achieved more easily if God is accepted to impersonal and not unnecessarily abstractified, arbitrarily complex, and placed on a mystical platform of incomprehensibility and removal of intuitive language people can relate to.

[MR. Nate]

I don't know how belief in religion leads me to absolve my responsibility in my own imperfection. I am imperfect not because I desire, but because I am a sinner. I act in ways contrary to God's law.

I'm appalled at how you move from objective truth in a fallible aesthetic ethic. That's an enormous leap that you have simply stated without supporting.

You claim that non-panthiestic religions remove all the jargonish things that separate us from God. Ever thought that perhaps the only way for us to really get to know God is for Him to incarnate Himself? worth a thought.

Finally, I must admit I admire your moxy. You are attempting to defend what is essentially Buddhism logically, which is something most died in the wool Buddhist won't do. Buddhism usually denies the existence of logic, rather than trying to prove itself with logic.

[Nobuo]

That was a very intelligent post, Nate. We all sin, this is true. But what is the cause of this sin, I ask? It is pride, lust, greed, etc. In short, desire. My point is that you need to accept your own selfishness as the cause of your sin. If a particular act of selfishness hurts no one, does this mean it is harmless? I would argue no, by being selfish you increase the amount of expectation you have for further pleasures, increasing the chance that you will act counter to someone else's self interest in the future. An act of self interest is also likely to hurt someone down the road. Let's say you harvest some slowly regenerating resource, no one is hurt by this, now. Others also want to share in the profits to be had and the self interest continues to escalate until all that resource is gone. For a while, everyone was exceedingly happy, you could have claimed to have done God's work, but eventually everyone will be exceedingly unhappy.

I believe that we need to accept God totally and I do not think one can do that while still grasping to the concept of the self. As long as there is desire, people will act in their own self interest even when this conflicts with a selfless definition of good. I do not think it is possible to bring even a shred of self interest into heaven and this is why it is so difficult to get in.

My point about pantheistic ethics is that if you view this world as partially illusory you will be more likely to make up justifications such as "it will not matter what happens to them now, it will all even out once they die." I believe that even if you do go to heaven that heaven is union with God in a bond of complete unselfish love and that God resides all around us so that every action of desire we commit lessens the perfection of heaven and the perfection of God.

My point about jargon, as you call it, is that one needs to make rather reason defying arguments in order to arrive at ethics when you prescribe to a multi-reality view. If you don't believe that desire is the root of all evil, all suffering, all imperfection, I don't see how you can hope to eradicate the source of your sin. You do make a good point about God incarnating himself as Jesus. This would be a better way of establishing a personal connection with humanity, but I unfortunately cannot believe that it would be possible. Jesus clearly has free will, while God has none and I see no way to bridge the two together except to say that Jesus became God when before he wasn't.

I'm appalled at how you move from objective truth in a fallible aesthetic ethic.

I don't quite follow you here. I did make a point about how it is necessary to have God in order to have objective ethics and it is here that atheistic ethics fail, but other than that you'll have to explain yourself better.

In this part of my beliefs, Nate, I do indeed resemble a Buddhist. Ultimately you are right that truth is separate from logic and intuition must be the source of revelation and goodness, not justification. However, religion should make an effort to be intuitively apparent and if a little logic here and there promotes this, it is probably worth it. I think that Buddhist belief fails in that it has no conception of God and that it believes that Nirvana is possible to achieve by self endeavor alone. I think that the universe is God and that Heaven or Nirvana should never be the justification behind right action--rather good can be the only "reason" behind good, intuition the only "reason" for intuition.

[MR. Nate]

That was a very intelligent post, Nate. We all sin, this is true. But what is the cause of this sin, I ask? It is pride, lust, greed, etc. In short, desire. My point is that you need to accept your own selfishness as the cause of your sin. If a particular act of selfishness hurts no one, does this mean it is harmless? I would argue no, by being selfish you increase the amount of expectation you have for further pleasures, increasing the chance that you will act counter to someone else's self interest in the future. An act of self interest is also likely to hurt someone down the road. Let's say you harvest some slowly regenerating resource, no one is hurt by this, now. Others also want to share in the profits to be had and the self interest continues to escalate until all that resource is gone. For a while, everyone was exceedingly happy, you could have claimed to have done God's work, but eventually everyone will be exceedingly unhappy.

We sin because we have a sin nature. You can sin by not desiring just as much as you can sin by desiring. Ever heard of a sin of omission? That's not doing anything, when the right thing to do is to act. I'm not saying selfishness is OK, it's sin as well.

I believe that we need to accept God totally and I do not think one can do that while still grasping to the concept of the self. As long as there is desire, people will act in their own self interest even when this conflicts with a selfless definition of good. I do not think it is possible to bring even a shred of self interest into heaven and this is why it is so difficult to get in.

I like your attitude, but I'd like to point out that losing "self" is not necessarily a good thing. I mean, I think that the infinite diversity of humanity is divinely ordained, which would mean that God wouldn't want us to lose ourselves in him, but perhaps, in the words of Paul, allow ourselves to be transformed.

My point about pantheistic ethics is that if you view this world as partially illusory you will be more likely to make up justifications such as "it will not matter what happens to them now, it will all even out once they die." I believe that even if you do go to heaven that heaven is union with God in a bond of complete unselfish love and that God resides all around us so that every action of desire we commit lessens the perfection of heaven and the perfection of God.

I don't believe this world is partially illusionary. It's as real as we perceive it to be. It's just that there is another world, that is equally as real.

If we can lessen the perfection of God doesn't that mean that he has ceased to be God?

My point about jargon, as you call it, is that one needs to make rather reason defying arguments in order to arrive at ethics when you prescribe to a multi-reality view. If you don't believe that desire is the root of all evil, all suffering, all imperfection, I don't see how you can hope to eradicate the source of your sin. You do make a good point about God incarnating himself as Jesus. This would be a better way of establishing a personal connection with humanity, but I unfortunately cannot believe that it would be possible. Jesus clearly has free will, while God has none and I see no way to bridge the two together except to say that Jesus became God when before he wasn't.

I'm appalled at how you move from objective truth in a fallible aesthetic ethic.

I don't quite follow you here. I did make a point about how it is necessary to have God in order to have objective ethics and it is here that atheistic ethics fail, but other than that you'll have to explain yourself better.

In this part of my beliefs, Nate, I do indeed resemble a Buddhist. Ultimately you are right that truth is separate from logic and intuition must be the source of revelation and goodness, not justification. However, religion should make an effort to be intuitively apparent and if a little logic here and there promotes this, it is probably worth it. I think that Buddhist belief fails in that it has no conception of God and that it believes that Nirvana is possible to achieve by self endeavor alone. I think that the universe is God and that Heaven or Nirvana should never be the justification behind right action--rather good can be the only "reason" behind good, intuition the only "reason" for intuition.

Don't put words in my mouth, I refuse to separate truth from logic. In fact, I think that all truth, and God, are inherently logical. Which is probably why I'm questioning your beliefs so vigorously. Humanity, and it's intuition, is warped and twisted by sin, so it seems that intuition is a fallible path to follow. In fact, the only infallible truth we could possibly have would be direct revelation from God.

[suggs]

Study some biology/genetics and get back to me. Its nearly all physical you know-eat a lot of chips, and see how spiritual you feel. Or starve yourself for a month and have some cool hallucinations, like the boy JC did-now there was a trippy dude.
Lust, "sin"-all just invented, arbitrary human abstractions, utterly without foundation in anything that is real.
Its just physical...

[Nobuo]

As far as I can tell, we seem to be agreeing more than we are disagreeing at this point, Nate. Okay, so we have sin nature--a tendency to sin, I agree. I would argue that the reason why we sin is that it is easier to be selfish than to be otherwise. If we sin by omission, it is because we find it more convenient not to act; we desire to act otherwise and in that desire for selfish preservation we sin. If goodness was always perceived by the individual as in their self interest we would always do good, this is why I do not think someone is doing good by sitting around on their couch all day thinking, "Hey, at least I'm not murdering anyone right now. I'm sure to get into heaven." I think this is the sort of selfish reasoning that occurs when not viewing desire itself as harmful.

I must make a distinction between instinct and emotion on the one hand and intuition on the other. You are right that human instinct is flawed, because this instinct is self interest and the want for self preservation. However, when I say intuition I mean the complete eradication of self interested justification, something that I view as direct revelation from God. I think that individualism, though rampant in modern culture, is harmful and ultimately self defeating. For instance, it is the pridefulness of the "counter cultural" movement and their desire for distinction/coolness that leads to the materialism so called "rebels" seek to eradicate. I think that individualism will always contradict itself in this manner because only God is truth, only intuition is incorruptible.

Finally, as I have claimed before, I maintain that by believing in other realities you have to relinquish the fact that the concerns of this world are partially illusory, and your desire is benign. You have claimed that desire is harmless part of the time and that there exists realities beyond this universe. I would claim that there is a causative relationship between these two beliefs of yours.

Despite humankind's lessening the perfection of God, he still remains the most perfect being possible given the burden our sin places on him. I continue to assert that non-pantheistic ethics need to make contrived arguments to arrive at their endorsement of correct behavior, while pantheism leads directly and intuitively to comprehension of God and God's message.

[MR. Nate]

Your forgetting the omission of not caring at all. If I see a starving man and am not moved with compassion at all or any other emotion, you would say that I'm doing OK, because I have no desire. Not the desire to help, or run away, and I don't care at all. God would say that this would be an appalling sin of omission. I SHOULD care for my fellow man.

Another example: You're married. By your ethic, I have a responsibility to not to be emotionally attached to my wife and children. I should not make any more effort to provide for them than for any other human being on the planet. God would say that you have a responsibility to provide for your family first and foremost.

So human instinct and emotion are flawed by sin, but intuition is not? Either your infected with sin or your not, there's not much middle ground. And now your saying that in spite of God's being infected with sin, he's still God, but he can't be God (according to you) and still be Jesus Christ? Your arguments are rife with inconsistencies.

[Nobuo]

I thank you for bringing up the example of marriage, Nate, because it illustrates exactly what I mean. Your first and foremost responsibility is to God, sympathy for the people immediately around us tends to get in the way of this. Let's say that for some bizarre reason, the world would be destroyed if you did not immediately kill your entire family, but if you let the world go, your family would be ensured continued survival. I would say that it is self interest, not pure love, that would prevent you from killing said family if it meant ending the continued well being of billions, deprived of potentially finding God and therefore truth.

As far as not caring for the starving man, I would say that if you truly had no desire and were not moved to help him, he is not supposed to be cared for. However, I would argue that the hypothetical desire free man would be moved to help the starving man through intuition and would not simply be apathetic, as you assert.

I don't know what you mean when you say that God is infected by sin. He is harmed by it surely, but God comprises the totality of the universe unblemished with the curse of free will. If you can bring any other inconsistencies of mine to light, please do so. It is your duty as a man that aspires to righteousness to present me with my own ignorance.

[Nobuo]

Ah well, there goes that. I attempted to shamelessly make this thread more accessible to the Conquer Club masses by adding a poll. Needless to say my efforts went awry; if a mod could help, please do so. The gist of my intended poll was this:

Is it fair to say that you completely agree with me?
Yes, I am a mindless animal that marches to the drumbeat of the first idiot with a message that comes along.
No, I have an eloquent logical proof that will expose your ignorance to the entire world. I have not unleashed it for fear of your wellbeing but plan to do so soon.
No, I respect the logical integrity of your argument and realize that ultimately religion comes down to pure faith. My religion resembles yours in its final conclusions, only differing in how it gets there.
Religion? Why would we ever need religion?

[MR. Nate]

I thank you for bringing up the example of marriage, Nate, because it illustrates exactly what I mean. Your first and foremost responsibility is to God, sympathy for the people immediately around us tends to get in the way of this. Let's say that for some bizarre reason, the world would be destroyed if you did not immediately kill your entire family, but if you let the world go, your family would be ensured continued survival. I would say that it is self interest, not pure love, that would prevent you from killing said family if it meant ending the continued well being of billions, deprived of potentially finding God and therefore truth.

I would say that First, This is an insane example. Second, I am in no way responsible for other individuals actions, I am responsible for my own. If I kill my family, their blood is on my hands. That is my choice to do that, and I must take responsibility for that. If someone else chooses to kill the entire human race, that is their decision. I would certainly attempt to stop them, but I am not going to sin myself while I attempt that. That other individual must stand before God and give an account for their actions, just like I will.
Rather than try to be responsible for the whole world, I am responsible for me. I have to do what I can to glorify God, and trust him (all powerful being that he is) to make sure that justice is meted out. If the world dies, or my family dies, I must trust Him to be just.

As far as not caring for the starving man, I would say that if you truly had no desire and were not moved to help him, he is not supposed to be cared for. However, I would argue that the hypothetical desire free man would be moved to help the starving man through intuition and would not simply be apathetic, as you assert.

I wasn't talking about a hypothetical desire free man. I was talking about an individual so used to the suffering of other human beings that it ceases to matter. That is acceptable in your ethic, and still sinning under mine. In addition, if you can just say "He's not supposed to be helped" how is that at all moral? You have just relegated, by your choice, another human being to suffer . . . for no reason at all.

I don't know what you mean when you say that God is infected by sin. He is harmed by it surely, but God comprises the totality of the universe unblemished with the curse of free will. If you can bring any other inconsistencies of mine to light, please do so. It is your duty as a man that aspires to righteousness to present me with my own ignorance.

Let me piont out some things you have already said.

I do not believe that Jesus could interact with those of us with free will and still be God;

You do make a good point about God incarnating himself as Jesus. This would be a better way of establishing a personal connection with humanity, but I unfortunately cannot believe that it would be possible. Jesus clearly has free will, while God has none and I see no way to bridge the two together except to say that Jesus became God when before he wasn't

God resides all around us so that every action of desire we commit lessens the perfection of heaven and the perfection of God.

Somehow, every time we act out of desire, God's perfection, and by extension, his Godhood, is lessened. You find that logical. God is in a constant state of decay. Yet, in spite of that, it would be somehow too demeaning for God to either interact with beings which have free will, or to have the freedom himself to choose. Does that mean that at some point in the future, the acts of desire will have such an adverse effect on the character of God that he could incarnate? Perhaps he will eventually have free will himself? And how do you know if, or when that will happen? Has it already? If not, but if God is (as you said most recently) the totality of the universe unblemished by free will, how can I, or any other sentient being, have any potential for godhood, I have free will, therefore I am blemished by it, therefore I have no part in God.

[suggs]

Do you know, if God existed, this would be a really interesting conversation.

[Napoleon Ier]

Do you know, if God existed, this would be a really interesting conversation.

I shouldn't laugh...I really shouldn't, but that's a classic, suggs!