A Discussion on the Immorality of God’s Surveillance

By Daniel Miessler on April 27th, 2009: Tagged as Religion

My friend David has written a post in response to Christopher Hitchens’ talk on the “The Moral Necessity of Atheism“. He gives reasons for why he doesn’t think it’s immoral for God to have strict rules and require us to follow them and love him.

Here’s his post.

And here’s my response to it:

Since you have accepted the basic claims put forth in the Bible, I have the following to say as a follow-up to your post:

God started by himself. There was nothing. No pain, no suffering, no hurt, no want, no need…just nothing.

From this void he decided to create something. He decided to create man. He did not do so with partial knowledge. He didn’t make most of man and then leave the details to work themselves out. He didn’t create the good parts and hope for the best on the bad stuff.

No, it was total knowledge–down to every spin on ever quark in atom in every man. Every desire, every need, every want, they were all created by God.

And this goes for the devil as well. When God was alone, there was no devil. There was only God, and when he brought the devil (and the other angels) into being he did so with full knowledge. Every ability, every vice, every weakness, every thought. Again, it was all not only known by God, but EXPLICITLY created.

So when God’s creations met in the garden of eden (which God created, of course) there was in fact nothing unknown going on. Given god’s powers, it is simply impossible for him NOT to be 100% responsible for the outcome.

Even if God were to have given the angels and man some magical ability to make random decisions on their own, I fail to see how that magic would be outside the realm of God. God created the free will. He created every atom in every person. Every personality characteristic in every angel, etc.

It was all known. Not just known from a “this will probably happen” standpoint, but KNOWN in the sense that he had EVERY SINGLE VARIABLE.

And remember, he started with nothing and conjured all of this on his own, by himself, using his powers of omniscience and omnipotence.

So all the outcomes were his. This is plain to see for anyone who logically looks at the story. To blame man for “man’s” actions is intellectually absurd, and it’s far below you, my friend. Any omnipotent being that creates every fiber of a creature, out of thin air, and then blames that creation for its actions is either not omnipotent/omniscient or it is evil.

But those aren’t really our choices. Option three is the real answer, which is that it’s all made up, by man, who is just a humble form of life in the universe that we don’t understand.

This answer is good enough for the intelligent. Break the chains, my friend. Break the chains.

::

  • CarlM

    False Dilemma.

  • CarlM

    “This answer is good enough for the intelligent.”

    Daniel, do you know ANY intelligent people who have religious beliefs?

  • http://dmiessler.com/ Daniel Miessler

    Dude, I fucking love you. Seriously. This is like the best way to argue. :)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy

    Ok, I would argue that it's not a false dilemma because I don't believe my central point about total control is really disputed by anyone holding his beliefs. In other words, if God does actually have that much control over the universe, then you necessarily run into the problem I describe above.

    You could possibly call false dichotomy in an argument of larger scope, but my points are directly specifically to HIS claims of how the universe works.

  • http://dmiessler.com/ Daniel Miessler

    Lots.

    I'm simply saying that smart people tend to be more comfortable with the fact that they don't know how the universe works. If that's offensive then I'm ok with that.

  • CarlM

    “But those aren’t really our choices. Option three is the real answer, which is that it’s all made up, by man, who is just a humble form of life in the universe that we don’t understand.”

    Anytime you offer what you claim to be ALL of the choices, then you are creating a false dilemma IF there are in fact other possible choices.

    Example: Maybe even knowing ALL the consequences of His actions in creating the world as we see it (warts and all), He considered it worthwhile because of the good that exists. I've posed this to you before. Would you give up the GOOD moments in your life if that was the price of giving up the BAD moments? When people lose someone they love (through a death, a break-up .. whatever), they often react by saying that they will NEVER put themselves in the position to feel that bad again. Love, they say, isn't worth the inevitable pain. But, as time passes, they fall in love again .. because it IS in fact worth the pain. Perhaps God had a choice: create and allow people to come into being so they can experience love or don't create and deny these potential people this experience (and deny them the bad times too).
    Perhaps given this choice He chose to create.

    I'm not saying that this is what happened. As I've made abundantly clear, I have NO CLUE. But, I think that this is a possibility. If you're going to list all the possibilities in an effort to prove that in EVERY one of those possibilities, God is Evil or non-existent, you're not allowed to list only those possibilities that support your claim. THIS is the fallacy of a false dilemma.

    —-

    As long as I'm writing, the point of my OTHER reply here (about knowing ANY intelligent people who have religious beliefs) was that if you know even one, then your assertion that “This answer is good enough for the intelligent” is disproved.

  • CarlM

    I don't care if you're being offensive. I'm concerned that you're making claims that are too easy to prove false. When you do that, it weakens your argument.

    That was my only point. (I'm trying to help you argue better.)

  • http://dmiessler.com/ Daniel Miessler

    You're arguing that God didn't have the option to make people with only love and happiness and without pain and suffering. This would have to mean he wasn't omnipotent, and I think you'll find that people are less willing to throw this out then they are to admit he had personality issues.

    Most Christians are willing to agree that he's jealous with regard to worshiping other Gods, for example, which also makes no sense to me.

    But anyway, I thought I did give another out, i.e. that he didn't have full control. I just don't think anyone is going to take that option.

  • CarlM

    There are those who ask “If God is omnipotent, can He make a stone so large that he can't move it?” This is just silly. If we accept that self-contradictory things are excluded from the universe, then in the context of THAT universe, omnipotence would exclude the ability to create those self-contradictory things.

    I am quite comfortable with the idea that there can be no bliss without there also existing despair. Otherwise, what is joy? What is bliss? What gives meaning to life if not the striving to better ourselves .. to overcome obstacles .. etc. My point is that I see no contradiction in the assertion that a world without pain and suffering is necessarily also a world without love and happiness.

  • http://dmiessler.com/ Daniel Miessler

    I don't agree.

    Just taking the human body as one example, our brains are able to perceive pain and pleasure independently of each other. A pain receptor does not activate only after confirming with the universe that a corresponding pleasure receptor also exists, and vice versa.

    I see no reason why an omnipotent being could not have made one without the other.

  • CarlM

    To be clear, I am asserting that it is not implausible to me that a world with love and happiness must contain within it pain and suffering. I want to be clear too that the pain I'm talking about has nothing to do with the pain receptors that are activated when we stub a toe, break a bone, or touch something hot. The pain and suffering I'm talking about are the ones that are the opposite of the bliss/happiness associated with love. I'm talking about emotional pain.

    Sure, we could deaden all physical pain, but we'd all be walking around with a lot of stubbed toes, broken bones, and burns. Physical pain exists to protect us. It would be a vicious creator indeed who left THAT out.

    But, as I said, I wasn't talking about physical pain (I assumed it was obvious that this was a sensible part of our make-up). I was talking about emotional pain.

    There are two examples I want to use, and since I've no idea which one you will find more convincing, I'll use both.

    (1) Much (likely all) of the pleasure we feel as humans can be linked to chemical actions in our brains. Indeed, there are people who, through drug use, artificially stimulate that pleasure-producing brain chemistry. When addicts of this sort STOP using their drug of choice they typically go through a period of pain and suffering. The same complex system (it may just be a chemical reaction, but the system is complex) that was responsible for the pleasure when stimulated is responsible for the pain and suffering.

    (2) Let me stick more directly to love. You're in love, Daniel. You've written about it. Tell me that you wouldn't suffer if something happened to her .. or if she left you. Now tell me that you can imagine a world in which the love you feel for her is as meaningful as it is in THIS world but in which you would NOT feel pain and suffering if something happened to her .. or if she left you. I can't imagine such a world. THIS is what I mean when I say that a universe with love and happiness (as we define them) might also be REQUIRED to be a universe with pain and suffering.

  • cooperati

    “Just taking the human body as one example, our brains are able to perceive pain and pleasure independently of each other.—

    “—As such, I see no reason why an omnipotent being could not have made one without the other. “

    what is light without shadow? what is the color without the spectrum? we cannot perceive one, pain, without the antithesis, pleasure. and in fact, we do divide the two up, naturally, along lines that are still quite arbitrary. one girl's sweet sixteen being canceled is equal to another's arm being blown off, given varying context of life situations.

    you and i know that our physical universe made us this way through circumstances, and will shift us still in some other direction or even directions.

    we can take up the argument that we should have been made differently with god, with evolution, and indeed with anything that can't or simply won't divulge any purposes to which the past has adhered to.

    then again, your disagreement with the procession of the universe is a disagreement with any forces that shaped us, not just god.

    AND, to complicate things, your disagreement is contrary to those who see these histories as justified by one means or another, and also in deep contrast to those who are apathetic to any degree.

    just because you find fault with these forces doesn't mean they are cruel, mean, unjustified, justified, or anything that can be pinned down under humanly acceptable definitions. the universe is too complex for us to agree, or even understand, all of it, intent, meaning, rules, or limitations.

    furthermore, we will discover answers as well as more complex questions, and some will ascribe their individual god(s) to the forces to which they originate, no matter the evidence towards chaos, precisely because that is how people are.

    demoting religion may be the point of promoting atheism, but limiting human's ability to cope with their basic lack of understanding with the universe by demoting their innate instincts to believe in a deity's basically good intentions is SEVERELY anti-therapeutic.

    i'm just sayin' is all.

    -=T=-

  • cooperati

    “Just taking the human body as one example, our brains are able to perceive pain and pleasure independently of each other.—

    “—As such, I see no reason why an omnipotent being could not have made one without the other. “

    what is light without shadow? what is the color without the spectrum? we cannot perceive one, pain, without the antithesis, pleasure. and in fact, we do divide the two up, naturally, along lines that are still quite arbitrary. one girl's sweet sixteen being canceled is equal to another's arm being blown off, given varying context of life situations.

    you and i know that our physical universe made us this way through circumstances, and will shift us still in some other direction or even directions.

    we can take up the argument that we should have been made differently with god, with evolution, and indeed with anything that can't or simply won't divulge any purposes to which the past has adhered to.

    then again, your disagreement with the procession of the universe is a disagreement with any forces that shaped us, not just god.

    AND, to complicate things, your disagreement is contrary to those who see these histories as justified by one means or another, and also in deep contrast to those who are apathetic to any degree.

    just because you find fault with these forces doesn't mean they are cruel, mean, unjustified, justified, or anything that can be pinned down under humanly acceptable definitions. the universe is too complex for us to agree, or even understand, all of it, intent, meaning, rules, or limitations.

    furthermore, we will discover answers as well as more complex questions, and some will ascribe their individual god(s) to the forces to which they originate, no matter the evidence towards chaos, precisely because that is how people are.

    demoting religion may be the point of promoting atheism, but limiting human's ability to cope with their basic lack of understanding with the universe by demoting their innate instincts to believe in a deity's basically good intentions is SEVERELY anti-therapeutic.

    i'm just sayin' is all.

    -=T=-


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