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Spice Master
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 17,969
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Been meaning to read some C.S. Lewis, but just can't generally stand the consistent fallacies that pro-christian/religion writers subscribe to and repeat, over and over and over and over and over again. Found this on Reddit from a guy reviewing "Mere Christianity"
Quote:
Hold on, I just read the first several pages. He's opening with the Argument from Morality. Is his book filled with long debunked theological arguments like this, or does he offer something original? I just don't want to waste hours of my life re-reading the same, tired arguments in different wording, if that's what this book is.
EDIT: Skipping around, and read this:
Another difficulty we get if we believe God to be in time is this. Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow. But if He knows I am going to do soand- so, how can I be free to do otherwise? Well, here once again, the difficulty comes from thinking that God is progressing along the Time-line like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot.
Well, if that were true, if God foresaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call "tomorrow" is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call "today." All the days are "Now" for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday; He simply sees you doing them, because, though you have lost yesterday. He has not.
He does not "foresee" you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, He knows your tomorrow's actions in just the same way—because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you have done it is already "Now" for Him.
So this is where people get this tired, nonsensical explanation of how free will and omniscience can coexist.
Sorry, it does not answer it. There was a time before I existed (or else I am eternal). God had to choose to create me, or else I would have been created by something other than god. When god chose to create me, he chose to create somebody who he knew would end up in hell. "He sees you already there; he doesn't foresee it happening" is just wordplay.
After reading just a few sections of this book, I can tell that it will be monumental waste of time.
EDIT: I don't know why I keep reading on.
If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe— no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. And that is just what we do find inside ourselves. Surely this ought to arouse our suspicions?
Holy flawed logic, Batman. Why couldn't something outside of the universe show itself inside of it? An architect could make himself part of the house, if he wanted to, holding up a pipe instead of supporting it with a beam. An architect could walk through the house and say "Hey, look at me, I made all this, here are the blueprints." An omnipotent God can't do something similar?
Further, Doesn't Christianity, in fact, believe this DID happen, with Jesus, a god/creator showing himself inside his creation?
How do people take this guy seriously?
EDIT: Let's keep going.
Life-Force philosophy, or Creative Evolution, or Emergent Evolution. The wittiest expositions of it come in the works of Bernard Shaw, but the most profound ones in those of Bergson. People who hold this view say that the small variations by which life on this planet "evolved" from the lowest forms to Man were not due to chance but to the "striving" or "purposiveness" of a Life-Force. When people say this we must ask them whether by Life-Force they mean something with a mind or not. If they do, then "a mind bringing life into existence and leading it to perfection" is really a God, and their view is thus identical with the Religious. If they do not, then what is the sense in saying that something without a mind "strives" or has "purposes"? This seems to me fatal to their view. One reason why many people find Creative Evolution so attractive is that it gives one much of the emotional comfort of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences.
Is he talking about Intelligent Design proponents here? Is CS Lewis a Creationist? Evolution isn't "chance," nor is it a conscious life force. It is reproduction of life that goes in the direction of advantageous mutations, because that's the obvious outcome of reproducing with mutations. Come on, CS.
Note: He's now at page 25, and his entire essay thus far relies on the tired Argument from Morality. He has fallacies such as the above to support the overarching fallacy.
EDIT: Still going.
If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth.
WHAT? I can be an atheist and say there is a "hint" of truth to a religion that says we should treat others as we'd like to be treated, and maybe there was a dude named Jesus who said it and had followers. Or by "hint of truth," is CS Lewis saying it must be a belief in God, and no other beliefs count as "hints of truth"? How does CS Lewis make such a blatantly false claim and not get called out on it?
EDIT: Onward still
My argument against God [when I was an atheist] was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet.
This old line again? "Evil must exist in order for there to be good." Then doesn't that make evil good, since good cannot exist without evil? So why does God dislike evil, if it must exist in order for there to be good? Further, it is impossible for us to all be good, since it would obliterate evil in the world, and thus good would be gone? So we don't have free will to all choose good? What ridiculous logic.
It is no good asking for a simple religion. After all, real things are not simple. They look simple, but they are not. The table I am sitting at looks simple: but ask a scientist to tell you what it is really made of—all about the atoms and how the light waves rebound from them and hit my eye and what they do to the optic nerve and what it does to my brain—and, of course, you find that what we call "seeing a table" lands you in mysteries and complications which you can hardly get to the end of.
This is an introduction to his suggestion that since Christianity is complicated, we shouldn't ask questions like "Why does God let suffering exist," because that's simplifying it too much. The alternative is to just believe it makes sense, somehow, and STFU with questions?
EDIT: About to take some aspirin
You can be good for the mere sake of goodness: you cannot be bad for the mere sake of badness. You can do a kind action when you are not feeling kind and when it gives you no pleasure, simply because kindness is right; but no one ever did a cruel action simply because cruelty is wrong—only because cruelty was pleasant or useful to him. In other words badness cannot succeed even in being bad in the same way in which goodness is good. Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness.
How the hell does he claim that people do good even when it gives them no pleasure? On what is he basing that claim? I always get a "warm fuzzy" feeling when I do good for somebody else that doesn't benefit me. I enjoy the idea that they are happy. Just like if somebody does something bad, like cruelty to animals, it gives them a satisfactory feeling as well. Both have the same motivation: feeling good. I don't know how much more I can read. I keep waiting for him to make a solid case of something without using flawed logic and baseless statements.
God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. A world of automata—of creatures that worked like machines—would hardly be worth creating.
Being omnipotent and omniscient, God could choose to make nothing but people who he knows will freely choose good of their own will. "Robots who cannot do wrong" is a Straw Man. "Straw Man" has now been added to my running list of CS' fallacies while reading this.
Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk.
1.) With an omniscient being, there is no "if" and there is no "risk;" only certainty of outcomes. If he sees all, everything that happens happens exactly as he set them to.
2.) "Free Will" does not answer why non-human-caused suffering exists, like natural disasters and childhood cancers.
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07-07-2011, 02:44 AM
Linear Mode
