Can’t speak for everyone. But for myself, the world and humanity was created with free will and it’s up to us to choose good vs evil. God only has dominion over the heavenly afterlife and the hellish afterlife is forced to exist on the principle of yin and yang. There can be no good without evil.
For context I consider myself agnostic but was born roman Catholic and base my morals on the teachings that everyone was created equal and forgiveness should be shown to those that can be helped. Forgiveness isn’t a requirement in the cases that someone willingly chooses evil in the face of morality over and over. (Putin, Hitler, Trump, Netanyahu, serial violent criminals, etc.)
But for myself, the world and humanity was created with free will and it’s up to us to choose good vs evil.
That’s a terrible take: It implies that if you see something that you consider evil, you attribute it to choice, whereas the opposite is generally the case – once individuals have waded through layers of shit conditioning they are able to make choices that are actually attributable to them and not to society, upbringing, etc, and they very much do not choose evil. They might choose things that are inconvenient to others, or short-sighted, or unwise, but evil? That’s not just a different ballpark that’s a different game:
In other words: Noone, willingly, chooses imperfection. Minds, life, that would do so, would use its degrees of freedoms like that, would long have went the way of the dodo.
I’ll ignore the first half of this reply because we won’t agree. Not every choice is a conscious decision in my eyes, but the vast majority are.
As for the second half, believing that bad actors would be weeded out based on the principle of free will is naive. Consider game theory. Two people have something to gain from cooperation, but more to gain from defecting. Meanwhile, the other gains nothing or very little. That simple thought experiment incentivizes bad actions from time to time. You have more to gain by acting selfishly.
Now blow up the experiment. You vs the world and reputation is introduced. Someone with a perfect cooperation rate is flawed. They offer nothing but blind trust and can be taken advantage of. The opposite also displayed. Someone who makes selfish decisions all the time offers nothing but blind distrust. You’re left to choose which people to interact with that are somewhere along the middle of the reputation gradient. Those that are 70% or lower seem unpredictable or untrustworthy so many choose to interact with people on the higher end of the reputation spectrum when available and reflect that in their own decision making. You can’t always choose who to interact with, so eventually you’ll have to interact with a bad actor. You’ll get burned by making a cooperative choice and they will benefit from it. In turn, ensuring that they will survive natural selection.
But even if we have free will to choose, God knows all. He exists in all space and time. He knows every freewill choice each person will make ahead of time. So he creates people knowing they are unavoidably destined for eternal agonising pain in hell.
And even if we make freewill choices, why doesn’t he intervene? A parent will stop a baby playing with a deadly sharp knife. But if the parent doesn’t see it happening, why doesn’t God jump in and do the right thing like the parent does?
I can only speak for my own beliefs. I don’t believe in an omnipotent god. I believe that god holds dominion over the heavenly afterlife and that is all. The universe was created by pushing over the first domino, two atoms collided, and now life exists. It’s up to us to use the gift of life as fully and morally as possible. To leave the world a better place than when you first arrived. I don’t think that we are some pet project for a God that can change everything on a whim.
Catholicism teaches that God is all forgiving and loves unconditionally. For as many flaws as the Catholic Church has or has had, they’ve generally been the Christian denomination that’s preached forgiveness the most to my knowledge. Maybe I’m wrong.
And I was talking about my beliefs growing up in the Catholic Church not Catholicism as a whole.
Yes, as a lapsed one myself, I believe they preach it as they need it the most, as the self proclaimed representatives of the creator of the universe would, when happening to be historical blood thirsty, wealth hoarding, human trafficking paedophile harbourers they are at their political core. Regardless, forgiveness is a necessary and helpful human value which religion did not invent, much like all of the moral arguments in apology of religion. If it works for you, thats fine. My position is also based on having grown up in it.
Can’t speak for everyone. But for myself, the world and humanity was created with free will and it’s up to us to choose good vs evil. God only has dominion over the heavenly afterlife and the hellish afterlife is forced to exist on the principle of yin and yang. There can be no good without evil.
For context I consider myself agnostic but was born roman Catholic and base my morals on the teachings that everyone was created equal and forgiveness should be shown to those that can be helped. Forgiveness isn’t a requirement in the cases that someone willingly chooses evil in the face of morality over and over. (Putin, Hitler, Trump, Netanyahu, serial violent criminals, etc.)
That’s a terrible take: It implies that if you see something that you consider evil, you attribute it to choice, whereas the opposite is generally the case – once individuals have waded through layers of shit conditioning they are able to make choices that are actually attributable to them and not to society, upbringing, etc, and they very much do not choose evil. They might choose things that are inconvenient to others, or short-sighted, or unwise, but evil? That’s not just a different ballpark that’s a different game:
As a mark is not set up for the sake of missing the aim, so neither does the nature of evil exist in the world.
In other words: Noone, willingly, chooses imperfection. Minds, life, that would do so, would use its degrees of freedoms like that, would long have went the way of the dodo.
I’ll ignore the first half of this reply because we won’t agree. Not every choice is a conscious decision in my eyes, but the vast majority are.
As for the second half, believing that bad actors would be weeded out based on the principle of free will is naive. Consider game theory. Two people have something to gain from cooperation, but more to gain from defecting. Meanwhile, the other gains nothing or very little. That simple thought experiment incentivizes bad actions from time to time. You have more to gain by acting selfishly.
Now blow up the experiment. You vs the world and reputation is introduced. Someone with a perfect cooperation rate is flawed. They offer nothing but blind trust and can be taken advantage of. The opposite also displayed. Someone who makes selfish decisions all the time offers nothing but blind distrust. You’re left to choose which people to interact with that are somewhere along the middle of the reputation gradient. Those that are 70% or lower seem unpredictable or untrustworthy so many choose to interact with people on the higher end of the reputation spectrum when available and reflect that in their own decision making. You can’t always choose who to interact with, so eventually you’ll have to interact with a bad actor. You’ll get burned by making a cooperative choice and they will benefit from it. In turn, ensuring that they will survive natural selection.
But even if we have free will to choose, God knows all. He exists in all space and time. He knows every freewill choice each person will make ahead of time. So he creates people knowing they are unavoidably destined for eternal agonising pain in hell.
And even if we make freewill choices, why doesn’t he intervene? A parent will stop a baby playing with a deadly sharp knife. But if the parent doesn’t see it happening, why doesn’t God jump in and do the right thing like the parent does?
I can only speak for my own beliefs. I don’t believe in an omnipotent god. I believe that god holds dominion over the heavenly afterlife and that is all. The universe was created by pushing over the first domino, two atoms collided, and now life exists. It’s up to us to use the gift of life as fully and morally as possible. To leave the world a better place than when you first arrived. I don’t think that we are some pet project for a God that can change everything on a whim.
God: you have free will
Also God: you’d better make the choices I dictate or you’ll be punished eternally in the most unimaginable hellscape possible.
I don’t believe in a spiteful god, but sure man, go off I guess.
This is catholicism we’re talking about.
Catholicism teaches that God is all forgiving and loves unconditionally. For as many flaws as the Catholic Church has or has had, they’ve generally been the Christian denomination that’s preached forgiveness the most to my knowledge. Maybe I’m wrong.
And I was talking about my beliefs growing up in the Catholic Church not Catholicism as a whole.
Yes, as a lapsed one myself, I believe they preach it as they need it the most, as the self proclaimed representatives of the creator of the universe would, when happening to be historical blood thirsty, wealth hoarding, human trafficking paedophile harbourers they are at their political core. Regardless, forgiveness is a necessary and helpful human value which religion did not invent, much like all of the moral arguments in apology of religion. If it works for you, thats fine. My position is also based on having grown up in it.