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@Tradesecret
Evil exists and is therefore evidence for the existence of an all powerful and all good God.
Posts
Total:
154
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@Tradesecret
I love it when the godist surrenders unconditionally.
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@disgusted
He'll call it a strategic withdrawl!I love it when the godist surrenders unconditionally.
Maybe continuing to engage with a pedophile lover made him sick to his stomach
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@Tradesecret
Do you believe that evil exists?
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@secularmerlin
Do you believe that evil exists?
There is a language problem here. If darkness is the absense of light, does darkness exist?
My feeling is that it "sort of does and sort of doesn't". It's not hard to get one's head around the concept of dark being the absence of light, but in English we only have 'exists' and 'not exists', neither of which seem wholly appropriate.
Let me be radical and invent the term 'nexists re...' to describe case such as darkness (which nexists re light) and tradey's concept of evil which nexists re good.
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@keithprosser
As we use the term, darkness is a universal, created by human minds.
There exist real places which receive no light. We call them dark to differentiate them from other places that do receive light.
We also use the term darkness to refer to what those lightless places have in common.
Darkness itself does not exist outside human minds and human language.
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@b9_ntt
Darkness itself does not exist outside human minds and human language.
It's as you say, which is why it is impossible to answer 'Does darkness exist?' with a simple yes or no.
You seem to answer 'Does darkness exist?' with 'Darkness itself does not exist outside human minds and human language.'
My suggested answer is 'darkness nexists light'.
SM asked whether tradesecret thinks evil exists. Reading the OP I'd say 'evil nexists good' is a neat way to state tradesecret's view.
Someone like keith existing does not prove there is a god. It just proves keith is evil.
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@keithprosser
I agree with you that "there is a language problem here."
One problem is that we sometimes use dark and darkness as nouns, when all we mean is that no light reaches there (where it's "dark").
Such words have their uses in thought and language, and so exist for us in our minds and our linguistic expressions and nowhere else.
This view is called conceptualism, and I am a conceptualist. Big deal, right?
I'm sure you all know that I am new here. I read some debates and votes and forum posts before starting myself to post. I just learned that no one else on this page has any profile info. Why is that?
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@b9_ntt
My guess would be that most people learn about the other through interactions. It does seem lazy though, I'm guilty as well. Great to have you here, you come across as polite and we need that here :)
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@EtrnlVw
Thank you. I'll try to stay polite. Sometimes I tit-for-tat but not always.
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@b9_ntt
Haha, awesome, sounds good. Don't be shy to add topics either, we need some new questions and arguments.
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@b9_ntt
I'm sure you all know that I am new here. I read some debates and votes and forum posts before starting myself to post. I just learned that no one else on this page has any profile info. Why is that?
In my case it's a combo of a 'none of your business' attiude to giving out personal details and apathy.
Etrnl Vw: I won't be shy after I get some interaction going. Today is the first interactions I have had.
keithprosser: I have no problem with 'none of your business' or apathy. I'm here mostly to learn. Like how to defend conceptualism from realist arguments.
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@keithprosser
While I appreciate your help I am asking trade secret.
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@secularmerlin
I'm not stopping him from answering... consider my contribution an added extra for no charge!
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@keithprosser
I appreciate you waiving your usual fee.
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@b9_ntt
You'll probably only learn how to name-call and make snide comments here, but those skills do come in handy against tricksy realist rhetoric elsewhere!I'm here mostly to learn. Like how to defend conceptualism from realist arguments.
Tricksy indeed. The realists I run into are Aristotelians and scholastics of the Aquinas variety. Their arguments are mostly air-tight (they've been perfecting them for hundreds of years). I must find a way to deny their premises. It seems so obvious to me that their supernatural world and the inhabitants thereof are, um, @#$%!. But I need logic too.
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@b9_ntt
Can you please give an example of their arguments?
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@Tradesecret
I think murder is wrong.
Axiomatically.
Yet, I also accept that there is a significant issue with people discussing evil or right and wrong.
(IFF) "right and wrong" is concrete and universal (THEN) why did we need Vatican II? [LINK]
Especially when it comes to discussing the existence of God or not.
The discussion of whether or not a god exists is tangential at best.
After all, if absolute evil does not exist for the atheist - then evil can never be attributed speculatively or not to a hypothetical deity.
Strangely, my objection to the concept of "absolute good and evil" is not that "it doesn't exist" but more specifically that it is unquantifiable.
There is no religion that clearly defines "absolute good and evil" based on incontrovertible principles.
My position would be quite easily disproved by simply and clearly stating your preferred universal moral principle (golden rule or silver rule for example).
And [LINK]
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@b9_ntt
Citation please.Their arguments are mostly air-tight
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@EtrnlVw
God does not upload a soul with content, the soul creates its own content
I'm not sure how a blank slate can "create" anything without some set of basic tools and some material to sculpt.
Do you believe everyone has a "fair shot" at living an ideal life?
however God does create the soul. But more like an empty cup sent into the worlds of duality where it gains whatever content it wishes through experience and perceptions.
How exactly does an "empty cup" "choose" what it experiences? Does an infant decide to have abusive or neglectful or loving parents? Does a family choose to be born into a war zone?
Not powerless, the soul learns through its own experiences and desires, that's why it is not classified as a robot but a sentient being capable of choosing. The only way a soul can learn is to experience it, if God were to take away that aspect there would be no reason for the soul to be here.
I see, so do you imagine that "human life" is some sort of absurd obstacle course or quality control sorting booth?
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@keithprosser
“A conceptualist like Locke regards universal essences as entirely the product of the human mind. ‘... the essences of the species, distinguished by different names, are ... of man’s making’ ... But this sort of view is incoherent, and for reasons that also undermine the nominalist view that universals are mere artifacts of language. If we say that our concepts and general terms reflect nothing extra-mental or extra-linguistic, then we shall have to provide an account of how they are formed in a way that makes no reference to mind-independent and language-independent universal essences. But this is not possible."
Edward Feser, The Last Superstition, 45-48, 168-171, 211
Edward Feser, Scholastic Metaphysics, 223, 225
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@3RU7AL
See my post to keithprosser at 9:51am.
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@b9_ntt
You can get a link to a post by clicking the orange number on the right. This is post #88 and this is a link to #86
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@keithprosser
Thanks. How do you get the blockquote from another post imbedded in a post. Do I need to use HTML?
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@b9_ntt
AFAIK no special trick for that is currently implemented - you just use copy and paste and click the " button.