Part 2 of 4 Why I Am Not a Christian - Bertrand Russell

[zodice1]

He is a biased fool

[jamafrican657]

@zodice1 Please tell me that's sarcasm? lol

[buktomsin]

@WATTY024 If he has divine foreknowledge then he must answer to why even allow a creation that would bring so much disaster, strife, angst, war, tears, and just plain evil upon this world? All the dead innocence babies and children ugh fuck him, why even allow an angel to ruin everything to exist? lets just say I would do BETTER if i had those kind of powers... I wouldn't let ONE child be pained, what a shitty parent.

[watty024]

@buktomsin i don't know why something that doesn't exist did something or other. 

[buktomsin]

@watty024 haha

Are you possibly an intellectual GIANT!?

(Not)

[watty024]

@buktomsin no, i just don't know why this being you are describing did all the things you claim he did. i don't believe in any gods.

[buktomsin]

@watty024 ... "IF" is a BIG factor above... Now, plainly, sure there is absolutely NO supporting evidence for a god(s), case-closed.

[watty024]

@buktomsin yeh...

[buktomsin]

@watty024 Dirk Nowitzki..

[BreaksFast]

LOL at 1:06 - 1:13 !

[luciano9009]

One of my favorite essays...

[jaqzzzz]

"There are only two ways of living, one is as if nothing is a miracle. The second is that everything is a miracle, I believe in the latter. --- Albert Einstein

"I used to be a atheist, till I thought I was God." --- John Lennon

Love Betrands views on Nietche, he hated the Atheist :)))

[wiggaroo]

Bertrand Russell is my favourite philosopher, he's so good at explaining things, and such a sharp wit! I highly recommend his history of western philosophy, its a good read even for the less philosophically enclined.

[supersmash43]

This is brilliant!

[Rambl3On]

I love Bertrand Russell.

[SOSADS]

BR uses the issues of natural laws, design and adaptation, moral argument and injustice, to question the existence of a creator God. But at no time does he label the antithesis of good as bad, evil or satanic, and instead wraps his listeners into a humanist paradigm that a world without God is a world (full stop). While he chooses not to discount a silly Gnostic argument that the world was made by the devil when God was not looking, he never addresses sin or gives credence to its satanic origin.

[HBCjunke]

@SOSADS the satanic origin you mention is getting it wrong, after all if god is all knowing yet he made satan he knew full well that satan would be the cause of evil and mans orignal fall. So it seems resonable god was just using a proxy to create evil. You may accept or deny this, if you accept it however, why did god create evil and if it were a test why not openly admit to creating evil instead of creating satan knowing full well the results would be the same.

hope for a reply, peace.

[SOSADS]

@HBCjunke @HBCjunke You stray into Predestination vv Free Choice. If we accept God has pre-planned our every move and it is unchangeable we should give up now and submit to the inevitable. When Satan+1/3rd of angels fell from heaven he introduced evil that manifests his spiritual realm. From deceitful serpent to Hitler's evil, satan runs interference on God's will. Only in Christ & through his Spirit God has given us the power and authority to overcome evil and trust in God's will for our lives.

[HBCjunke]

@SOSADS you obiviously arent a calvinist but my main point i think is still valid, if we assume god knows all including the future (which the book of revalations and the OT prophetic books unambigoulsly propose), so he must have known from the very act of creation (man, universe and angel) how it would all turn out, and satan would lead man to sin, more so he made man w/ free will knowing full well some would sin and end up in eternal torment (hell), that makes him wicked.

[philonous09]

@HBCjunke Agreed, but not only does it make God wicked but foolish and irrational. A rational and wise being would avoid making bad decisions with obviously bad and immoral consequences, but if a being chooses to make a decision while knowing what the horrible consequences are, in contrast to other possible choices without such horrible consequences, then this means that God is astonishingly reckless.

[SomewhatStaid]

@HBCjunke Furthermore, if we truly believe God is all-knowing regarding the future, then we have to accept that he already knows which sins I will commit, how they will weigh, and what his judgment of me will be. Thus, but Christian logic, my descent into Hell was known by God before I was ever born; no effort of free will could change it, because God knows what we will DO with said "free will" (which makes it seem less free, doesn't it?)

[watty024]

@SomewhatStaid if we grant that god knows the future, it does not follow that we have no freewill. it is true that your descent to hell was known by god, but you are the one, using your freewill to make free choices, who put yourself there. no effort will change what god knows, because we have already granted that he knows the future, however, this does not limit our freewill. if you have a choice between a or b, how does god knowing which one you will choose affect your choice? it does not.

[SomewhatStaid]

@watty024 Of all the ways your God could make me, he chose to make me a non-believing sinner. He did so knowing his new creation would never seek the road to salvation. It's not like I could have surprised him by doing anything contrary to what he made me to do. It makes as much sense to punish me for this as it would for me to pen a novel and hold my characters accountable for the words I put in their mouths.

My character has no free will, and in your Christian paradigm, neither do we.

[watty024]

@SomewhatStaid again, you made the choices. yes, god knew what you would choose, but he did not make you choose it. he did not make you a non-believing sinner, you sin and do not believe. why blame that on god? knowing the future does not mean you have no free will. if you have a choice between a or b, how does god knowing what you will choose affect your choice?

[YetAnotherInfidel]

@watty024

It doesn't seem like you are hetting this concept, Mr. Guy.

If you believe, as I assume you do, that a God created everything and that he has knowledge of everything (omniscience), then by definition your God made us; to steal words from that other dude your speaking to,

we are but charactors in a novel, one that your God authored.

Rationalizing seems to be the theist's domain. Your arguments cannot stand against a skeptical breakdown of your claims and you know it.

[watty024]

@YetAnotherInfidel skeptical breakdown of my claims? an analogy where an author of a fictional novel is meant to represent a god that knows the future? the author does not know the future, he is creating a fictional reality that ends in finite time. here's an analogy for you; god is like a journalist covering a news story, but he knows the story before it happens. what you and that other dude i'm speaking to can't seem to answer is how does god knowing your choice affect your choice?

[YetAnotherInfidel]

@watty024

The analogy stands as the author is creating a reality for charactors in which he know what they will do, when they will do it, and in what manner. God creates these charactors, knowing what they will do, then condemns them for acting like he made them to?

Lol a news story? Fail... he not only is covering it, but he simultaneously is the story an caused the story, knowing how it would play out.

God not only knows what you will do but he made you that way by definition.

[watty024]

@YetAnotherInfidel the analogy does not stand because the author is creating fiction. god creates people knowing what they will do, but god is creating people with FREE WILL. free will means we make the choices that make up the life that god "knows". god knowing the future does not mean he created the future. he only knows what the future will be. you have not shown that knowing the future means controlling the future.

again, god made me with FREE WILL, if we grant this god nonsense.

[watty024]

@YetAnotherInfidel you claim that his traits will not allow him to know the future and create things with free will, but you have not shown why this is the case.

robot cannot learn new things, and if we give it free will, then it has free will. knowing what it will do when it exercises its' free will does not affect its' free will. we only know what the result of its' free choice will be.

you cannot create fictional characters with free will. do you know what free will means?

[YetAnotherInfidel]

@watty024

You accept that God creates the conditions in which a being has free will, but you then undermine yourself by saying "we only know what the result of its' free choice will be".

Creating a robot that can do as it likes, but then creating ALL the conditions in which its choices are made, is the same as a program. Fictional charactors, in their own world, act with "free will". They do as they choose, but the way they act and the conditions are set up.

This is just like any God.

[YetAnotherInfidel]

@watty024

Isn't it odd how we can have such simple disagreements, but draw this out this far?

You don't believe in God nor do I, as far as I can draw from our verbal exchange, yet we scwabble like we had good sense. It seems I am incapable of understanding what you mean, as to how a God who knows things before he does them can have created anything that could do something other than It's will, but nevertheless I find you intriguing.

[watty024]

@YetAnotherInfidel the analogy does not stand because the author is creating fiction. god creates people knowing what they will do, but god is creating people with FREE WILL. free will means we make the choices that make up the life that god "knows". god knowing the future does not mean he created the future. he only knows what the future will be. you have not shown that knowing the future means controlling the future.

again, god made me with FREE WILL, if we grant this god nonsense.

[SomewhatStaid]

@HBCjunke And if we accept that God creates each individual person himself, with his perfect knowledge of what that person's life will hold and what sins he or she will commit, then we have to accept that God creates certain souls with the intention they be sinners, and doomed to Hell.

[MzHellinahandbasket]

@SOSADS Zzzzz. Evidence of your claim.  :)

[wrdeboise]

Very interesting point about gods supposed goodness. One must conclude that _goodness_, if bestowed by god on the universe, must be logically true. We humans use logic to help us navigate the world we live in. Therefore _goodness_ (and badness for that matter) should be accessible using logic.

[Debaser11]

@wrdeboise

I agree. I'm surprised I've never heard Hitchens, Dennett, Dawkins, or Harris make this point in the same terms (especially since Hitchens is a noted admirer of Russell). It really is the most interesting part of the essay in my opinion because the argument from morality is usually typically used as a theist retreat point in today's ontological debates once first cause is shot down at the beginning. Yet Russell many years earlier dispells this notion as if it were mere child's play.

[ScienceIsKnowledge]

@Debaser11

Dawkins also admired much of Russell's work.

Morality to me, is instinctual in humanity's survival. Evolution of mind.

Nuff said.