Irish Caesar
Yellow Jacket
Swedishguy said:
It would be worse if he didn't.
Is that a yes or a no?
Would it be better if God would exist?
- Thread starter Swedishguy
- Start date
It would be worse if he didn't.
Is that a yes or a no?
PrincepsAmerica
Nothingness made flesh
Erm, I mean that it seems that most people are not on God's 'side' (it's the default position) and thus His existence would mean that their existence is worse for them than they realise.
LucyDuke
staring at the clock
I think you realize that parking space is mostly metaphorical. It's the whole food-air deal I'm talking about. If we stop dying, we have to stop reproducing (not just restrict, but eliminate) and even at our current numbers we're going to deplete the food-air situation faster than it can replenish itself. And I'm pretty sure that without the food-air, immortality ain't gonna be sustainable, either.
Who would claim that most people don't want to live more? Of course most people want to live. That's perfectly fair. To expect or even want to live forever, or even just unnaturally far past a natural life span, is IMO selfish and cowardly. That's just my opinion.
That is plain absurd. For the implications of the absence of the Judeo-Christian god to be at all relevant would require that the Judeo-Christian propsitions about the god be correct. If those propositions are correct, then the absence of the Judeo-Christian god is not in question. If those propositions are incorrect, the implication is merely that a lot of people made a mistake. Or did I miss something?
Perfection
The Great Head.
What's an enemy to God anyways?
Lucy, you should look up how Malthus was wrong; we'd not need to stop reproduction, merely reduce it to the rate at which we bring new resources to bear on any problems we desire. Anyway, according to your scenario, we need to stop reproducing too, since you seem to be assuming that we're already overpopulated.
It's such a strange notion, isn't it? The power differential is supposedly extreme; it would be like me labelling my spoon an enemy.
It's such a strange notion, isn't it? The power differential is supposedly extreme; it would be like me labelling my spoon an enemy.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
If God has infinite power, as claimed by some, then the power differential would be infinite as well... no matter how powerful you are.
meaning that God keeps Satan around for fun, if you really think about it.
The Lombard
Warlord
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Depends which god you mean.
If the Abrahamic one, then no - despite the claims of some, I consider him irrational and prone to tantrums. Not particularly interesting either- a bog-standard Zeus figure, only with added prudery and transcendance. Uck, no-thank-you. Jesus is a top chap, mind - he's the good third, I suppose. So it wouldn't be a total disaster if He/They exist, just unfortunate.
If something more exotic (to me) and unambiguously benevolent though, like Eris or Brahman or some kind of all-embracing Neo-Pagan pantheism, well then we'd cooking with gas. I'd be all for that, and the first to make ornate altars of the most exquisite play-doh so that the Almighty One(s) would know my piety.
Descartes and old St Anselm might disagree with that - but then I disagree with them, so moot point really.
If the Abrahamic one, then no - despite the claims of some, I consider him irrational and prone to tantrums. Not particularly interesting either- a bog-standard Zeus figure, only with added prudery and transcendance. Uck, no-thank-you. Jesus is a top chap, mind - he's the good third, I suppose. So it wouldn't be a total disaster if He/They exist, just unfortunate.
If something more exotic (to me) and unambiguously benevolent though, like Eris or Brahman or some kind of all-embracing Neo-Pagan pantheism, well then we'd cooking with gas. I'd be all for that, and the first to make ornate altars of the most exquisite play-doh so that the Almighty One(s) would know my piety.
Descartes and old St Anselm might disagree with that - but then I disagree with them, so moot point really.
The Lombard
Warlord
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'Imagine' that he doesn't though.
You know, just for fun.
You know, just for fun.
LucyDuke
staring at the clock
I do believe that we're already overpopulated, though I realize it's an unpopular belief and certainly don't blame anyone for disagreeing with me. I can't find anything useful discrediting Malthus, do you have any good links? BTW his ideas are not the foundation of what I think about overpopulation.
Your scenario doesn't work for me, either, though. Would you disagree that there is a point at which we are overpopulated? If we reduce the rate of reproduction, even to infintesimally small levels, we're still going to reach that level eventually. Even with the provision that once we exhaust the earth's bounty, we move on to other planets, we're still going to overrun everything in the universe. I know that the timeline is a bit of a stretch, but if we're talking about living forever, it's relevant.
That's a pretty impressive proof right there, bub. I hadn't realized that writing something in big red letters makes it true.
Heck yeah, Satan is a lot of fun!
The Lombard
Warlord
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If technology stays relatively stagnant then probably. But not with the right advances. Things like mass-grown GM foodstuffs and arcologies, combined with a much higher rate of recycling, would do wonders. Might even be able to fit a trillion+ people comfortably on the planet.
God could be female or hermaphroditic. I wouldn't jump the gun and say God is a he.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
If Satan exists at all, then yes. But for an all-loving, all-forgiving God, I see no reason to think that Hell and Satan are anything more than human fabrications to keep people in line.
Xanikk999
History junkie
Or even better maybe gods a sexless robot created by a god before him to rule over life in this universe!
(This post was an excuse to use that smiley)
LucyDuke
staring at the clock
Okay, so do we stop reproducing when we've got the trillion+ people? I'm probably going to start sounding like a four-year-old practicing saying "why?"
Perfection
The Great Head.
Or nongendered or a third gender!
You're right in believing that there will be times when it will seem unwise to reproduce. But there will also be times when there are excess resources generated (through a new use of resources) that will allow people to reproduce again. But I experience the same thing in a regular lifespan, where it's more affordable to reproduce at certain stages.
And I understand that you're wanting to extend the line to a trillion+ people, but I am not really sure what we'll be doing as a species at that point.
I also agree that the earth seems a little overpopulated now, but I certainly don't want people to die because of this. So, morally I'm motivated to find more ways to increase the sustainability of our planet and to find more ways to increase the number of people our planet can support.
Because by that time we would have transcended and become computer programs ala SMAC.
