Epicurus on the question of God
- Thread starter Frederick Foresight
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"The whole process of nature is a integrated process of immense complexity, and it is really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad. Because you never know what will be the consequences of the misfortune, or you never know what the consequences of good fortune." Alan Watts
So mugger kills my relative...BAD!!! Uncle john was a millionaire, leaves me a fortune, GOOD!! I develop cocaine habit lose fortune, Bad!!! Hit rock bottom get my life back together and devote my life to helping other addicts overcome addiction. Good!!!
yin yang
So mugger kills my relative...BAD!!! Uncle john was a millionaire, leaves me a fortune, GOOD!! I develop cocaine habit lose fortune, Bad!!! Hit rock bottom get my life back together and devote my life to helping other addicts overcome addiction. Good!!!
yin yang
why do you say Yin Yang?
Do you assume that necessarily after something good, a bad thing must happen?
Do you assume that necessarily after something good, a bad thing must happen?
"In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (also yin–yang or yin yang, 陰陽 yīnyáng "dark–bright") describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another."
"Being a noble believer is better than being a base believer."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...calls-mormon-bishop-who-raped-girl-a-good-man
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...calls-mormon-bishop-who-raped-girl-a-good-man
Or evil is simply an abstract concept that many times depends on perspective. Evil is the manifestation of what our intellect has deemed harmful and/or counter to our survival and well being. It's been our evolutionary coping mechanism. We share the same need to protect our offspring/property as any other mammal and anything which threatens that is marked 'evil'. There is no 'evil' among animals, but physical pain is certainly something they avoid as would any human.
ah, except having established he's omnipotent, and being able to wish 'evil' by snapping his fingers yet acting indifferent to it would render him/her an asshole at least, a hypocrite at worst.
And then there is Russell's teapot, which I bring up again just because:
Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of skeptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
You will recall that Russell Bertrand was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, social critic and political activist.
Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of skeptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
You will recall that Russell Bertrand was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, social critic and political activist.