Posted by alexandra_k on July 12, 2014, at 5:10:19
In reply to the Book of Job, posted by Dr. Bob on January 10, 2014, at 23:07:19
...nearer the start... i thought that was interesting... it got me thinking of plato's 'ring of gyges'. the idea is that there is a ring that makes the wearer invisible. you are then told that you can basically get away with anything because of the invisible ring.
what (if any) reason is there to be moral - when you can get away with it?
one answer people like to say is that the reason to be moral is god. god will know. i guess that is why people think you need to believe in got in order to have a reason to be moral.
but then... if god knows... whether you did good... whether you did evil... and he didn't reward / punish accordingly then... what reason would there be then?
i never thought of job in quite that light before...
my response to the problem of evil...
is that something has got to give. the idea of 'omnigod' (all knowing, all powerful, all loving / benevolent) is contradictory... a trilemma, if you will. something has got to give.
god can't have unlimited power, anyway because 'can god make a rock to big that god can't move it?'
it isn't LIMITING gods power to say that there are things he can't do... he could be the greatest possible being... but impossible isn't possible. we never expected him to be the greatest impossible being. did we? why would we expect that? that doesn't make much sense...
anyway... so, uh, i would think that accepting limitation on power...
but how does that help with job??
?
not entirely sure.
perfect benevolence is a weird notion...
job... one could appeal to something along the lines of character development, i guess. how suffering trials and tribuiations makes us stronger. makes... others stronger, perhaps. it is much easier to be good and kind when you are wealthy than it is when you are poor. i think. hungry and irritable etc. cold.
but if one goes beyond job... to the countless infants born with AIDS... who die of malnutrition or dehydration because they don't have milk... whose brief existance is filled with nothing but pain... or the animals stuffed in battery cages... the rats who can't rear the chickens who can't scratch...
just a little bit less suffering... and surely all the same lessons could be learned.
?
i... don't believe in god. i... don't feel that i need to. to be moral or whatever. i... don't see it helps anything to believe.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1058231
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faith/20130321/msgs/1068213.html