Why did God create me even though I didn't want to exist?
When you were a toddler, you very much wanted to exist. You did everything you could to live and adapt to human society rules, starting from the first cry when being born.
Your saying "didn't want to exist" is an idea you have later adopted. Do you blame God for that?
You are misidentifying the causes of your frustration. Find them, and figure out how to heal them. It will improve the life of yours, and those whom you depend of and who depend of you.
When you were a toddler, you very much wanted to exist.
I don't remember being a toddler, because I was so ignorant, empty and non-existent that I was probably infinitely happy.
You did everything you could to live and adapt to human society rules, starting from the first cry when being born.
That first cry was the first reason to not want to live. I never wanted to live, I only thought I did because I was ignorant.
Your saying "didn't want to exist" is an idea you have later adopted. Do you blame God for that?
Yes. Everything is God's fault because he created everything.
You are misidentifying the causes of your frustration. Find them, and figure out how to heal them. It will improve the life of yours, and those whom you depend of and who depend of you.
No matter what I do, life can never be 100% joy, so why would I want it instead of non-existence? For example, a few days ago I was doing a TAS of Blackthorne but it desynced on level 1-3, and it was annoying. If God hadn't created me I wouldn't have needed to experience that annoyance.
When you were a toddler, you very much wanted to exist.
I don't remember being a toddler, because I was so ignorant, empty and non-existent that I was probably infinitely happy.
You were non-existent as a toddler?
nfq wrote:
Yes. Everything is God's fault because he created everything.
Your definition of the word "fault" is wrong. Enabling something to happen does not make it your fault, unless you do it for the purpose of making that happen, or consciously neglect to heed to warning signals of it possibly happening.
For example, if you order a pizza, and on his route to your house, the pizza delivery boy has a car accident, is it your fault, because you ordered the pizza and without your order, he wouldn't have had the accident? No, there's no way you could have known it will happen.
Many people carry guilt over such things, especially when someone closer person is involved than some delivery boy, but it is a fallacy. Blaming someone for such thing, or carrying guilt over such a thing, is pointless. It is not one's fault.
Similarly, blaming God for your idea of regretting your own existence is pointless.
nfq wrote:
No matter what I do, life can never be 100% joy, so why would I want it instead of non-existence? For example, a few days ago I was doing a TAS of Blackthorne but it desynced on level 1-3, and it was annoying. If God hadn't created me I wouldn't have needed to experience that annoyance.
True as you say, this life down here is never 100% of joy. It contains also bitter elements.
I believe such bitter elements are actually crucial for a human life: They enable us to learn. Without disappointments, we would never know which directions and actions are good and which are bad. We would never learn what to do. Nothing would motivate us to reproduce either, unless we knew that the actions paving the reproduction of humankind (sex, watching the children grow and learn what we teach them) produce a greater joy than the life by average.
Computer game designers know that granting the player all the power in the beginning does not make them happy. Even though all players strive to gain "exp" in the game, the moment a magical "exp button" (press button to gain exp) is introduced in the game, all other actions aiming to gain experience become moot, and it will eventually lead to the decline of the playerbase. It degrades the game, it does not improve it.
You need to have both lows and highs in order to see direction and have purpose.
A first-person shooter without possibility to die would make hitpoints meaningless, and pointless to avoid damage. Granting the player instant-kill weapons would make all battles pointless. Even though the player plays for the purpose of reaching the game ending, granting the player a warp directly into the ending of the game would make the whole game pointless.
Similarly, giving up because you cannot experience 100% joy, is pointless.
Hence, by no means it is a fault of God that you don't live a life of 100% joy.
However, as I earlier explained in this thread, God has actually designated us a life that is 100% joy. To receive it, we just need to accept it, and it will be coming. But it won't begin right away. First we need to grow up here. After accepting that life God wishes to offer us, God will shape us towards the way that enables the 100% joy mutually for everyone -- mostly by teaching us to rely on him, because he's perfect. :)
For example, if you order a pizza, and on his route to your house, the pizza delivery boy has a car accident, is it your fault, because you ordered the pizza and without your order, he wouldn't have had the accident? No, there's no way you could have known it will happen.
God is all-knowing, so when he orders a pizza he knows what will happen to the delivery boy. Nobody has free will because when God created the universe he already knew everything that would happen. He also knew his own actions, so he has no free will, so I can't blame him for creating me.
Nothing is no one's fault because no one chose to exist, not even God. Hitler was no worse than Jesus. It wasn't xebra's fault that he posted some bad things, and it wasn't bisqwits fault that he banned him. God controls every atom in the universe, so God also controls us.
granting the player a warp directly into the ending of the game would make the whole game pointless.
Sending us to heaven instantly wouldn't have been pointless. The problem is that there is always a snake in Paradise, and it will trick us to eat the fruits again. There is no escape from this eternal life.
True as you say, this life down here is never 100% of joy.
Then he shouldn't have created me, because I want 100% joy or nothing.
You need to have both lows and highs in order to see direction and have purpose.
If nothing existed, no suffering would exist, and everything would be perfect. There would be no use of directions, purposes, highs or lows.
(I know that non-existence is non-existent, I just talk about it because you believe in it)
reality is what we believe it is. so if we believe that life is hell, it will become hell, and there will be no escape from it. best thing is to choose useful beliefs that make us happy. i believe i have no choice, so i have no choice.
God will shape us towards the way that enables the 100% joy mutually for everyone -- mostly by teaching us to rely on him, because he's perfect. :)
Nothing is perfect... nothing is the source where everything came from. It's the real God.
Sincerely yours,
The real God who had no choice
Do you think there are other forms of life in space? Why?
I think it is possible. It would be religious to say that there aren't, considering no proof is given either way. In this aspect, I believe in the scientists.
While I have the utmost respect for science and the scientific community (I consider myself a skeptic with regard to pseudoscience, which I detest), I think this is one thing where the majority of scientists are a bit biased. The logic goes like this:
- There's no scientific evidence that life on Earth was created instead of having appeared by natural causes. I completely understand and respect this as a scientific fact.
- Thus it follows that natural phenomena must be so that they can produce life.
- Thus given the right conditions it must be so that forming life by natural means becomes possible.
- Not only that, but given certain conditions forming life must be quite probable.
- Since there's a staggering amount of different planetary systems in the universe, the amount of planets with these conditions must also be high, so the probability of some of them having life is also quite high.
Personally I see somewhat of a circular deduction somewhere in this deduction chain. Because there's life in Earth, it must be possible for life to form by natural causes. Given the proper natural conditions, forming life must be possible, because there is life in Earth, after all, where life was formed by natural causes. It just feels like the phenomenon is explained by the phenomenon itself: It must be possible for life to spawn by natural causes because life exists on Earth, and life exists on earth because life can spawn by natural causes.
Moreover, it must be more or less "easy" and "probable" that life forms given the right conditions (or else there wouldn't be life on Earth). This is so ingrained in the scientific belief that even the mere presence of water seems to make the probability of presence of life quite high. Personally I find it amusing that they almost expect to find signs of life in Mars if they find signs of water in Mars. As if water made the probability of life something like 50% or something.
(Quite curiously, it is actually possible that there has been some life in Mars, but from Earth! It has been scientifically argumented that it would theoretically possible for mold spores to be carried by air currents to the upper layers of the atmosphere, grabbed there by solar winds and carried all the way to Mars. Mold spores are incredibly resistant to all kinds of radiation. It has been estimated that some mold spores could survive even a thousand years of outer space radiation and still spawn if they arrive to the right conditions. If some mold spores from Earth have been transported to Mars during the past millions of years and there has ever been water and even the slightest of proper atmospheric conditions, it's theoretically possible that mold from Earth has grown in Mars at some point.)
Personally I see somewhat of a circular deduction [...] It just feels like the phenomenon is explained by the phenomenon itself: It must be possible for life to spawn by natural causes because life exists on Earth, and life exists on earth because life can spawn by natural causes.
No, this is incorrect. It's never been said that "because there is life on Earth, it must be possible to spawn life by natural causes". People looked at the evidence available, and searched for a theory which explained the spawning of life, and corresponded with the available evidence. A theory was found that seemed to work perfect in many aspects, and as more information became available, the theory was confirmed more and more. So with this, you can come to the conclusion that since they had a theory which explained life by natural causes so well, there exists life on Earth because life can spawn by natural causes... but the other way around is not how it worked, research had to be done first.
Because there's life in Earth, it must be possible for life to form by natural causes.
Evolution is a theory spawned by scientific observations, see darwin.
some important parts of the imagined life forming process have been tested and were successfully reproduced. We lack the couple of million years for extensive tests, but so far no experiment I know of turned out to give us data that'd contradict the theory. Having some evidence supporting theory A and no evidence supporting theory B (except for an old book claiming to tell a truth it doesn't care to prove), it's scientifically sensible to assume theory A is true.
Now, if you think life has been created, at what stage did the creation process take place? Did god create humans like the bible suggest? Science says humans evolved from some animals, and has good reasons to believe so, so there's your first contradiction.
Then again, those animals evolved from less complex life-forms. Evolution can explain everything from one-celled organisms to humans. chemistry can explain everything from dirty water to macro molecules. There surely is some scientific knowledge about the possibility of macro molecules to form one-celled organisms, but I'm not informed about it.
I currently see these ways to go about it:
1) life hasn't been created by $deity. The universe just went into existence for reasons outside of our scope. (While we can't explain why the universe exists, explaining it by $deity's creation would leave us with the same unanswered question of $deity's existence)
2) $deity deliberately created the universe in a way that allows life-forms like us to emerge.
3) $deity pushed us a little in overcoming an unlikely gap in the process of evolution from macro molecules to humans, or generally accelerated the process.
4) $deity didn't do anything at first, but finally decided that humans should carry souls (or a similar concept) and added them
5) god just created the universe 5 minutes ago but made it look like it was a couple of billion years old and had something like an evolution going on. This argument has been brought up by creationists before, and it's impossible to disprove, but it'd make the universe some giant sort of practical joke. Since that'd conflict with the concept of a loving god, let's drop this theory.
(feel free to add anything I missed)
With theory 1 or 2, it's likely that other planets spawned life-forms as well. Possibly even different from ours.
Theory 3 and 4 allow the concept of us being the chosen race and the only living things in the universe, but they don't necessarily enforce that view.
There's another question that comes to my mind: if god just created us as his chosen children, why is the universe so freaking huge? It's not like we'd have any use for that space.. I can only come up with two plausible answers:
- it's the tree of wisdom, version 2. God is testing us again. Will we lose faith once we recognize that we're lost in such a huge universe? (if this theory is correct, we seem to fail just like we did last time)
- it's a giant playground for us, because god wants to see how we cope in a big unknown world we can't possibly understand. Just like we do with our children: keep a watchful eye, offer advice where needed, but otherwise let them figure it out themselves. Thinking about it, that'd also mean that we should stop regarding the bible as a text of scientific truths and start trusting our own findings.
Anyway, life-forms on other planets wouldn't disprove religion. I'm sure there's enough love in god for all of us. Maybe god wanted us to find those other life-forms ourself and deliberately didn't include that information in the bible. Just stop taking the bible literally and many contradictions disappear.
oh well, hope this post made sense.
Nobody has free will because when God created the universe he already knew everything that would happen.
I don't see how that makes sense. Even if God knew what we would do, it doesn't mean we don't have free will. It just means he knew from the start what we would end up choosing i.e. how we would use our free will.
Personally I see somewhat of a circular deduction somewhere in this deduction chain. Because there's life in Earth, it must be possible for life to form by natural causes. Given the proper natural conditions, forming life must be possible, because there is life in Earth, after all, where life was formed by natural causes. It just feels like the phenomenon is explained by the phenomenon itself: It must be possible for life to spawn by natural causes because life exists on Earth, and life exists on earth because life can spawn by natural causes.
That was an interesting point of view that I had not considered.
nfq wrote:
God is all-knowing, so when he orders a pizza he knows what will happen to the delivery boy. Nobody has free will because when God created the universe he already knew everything that would happen. He also knew his own actions, so he has no free will, so I can't blame him for creating me.
Knowledge does not conflict with free will.
Let's take God out of the equation for a while. You now know, what people from a decade ago did. Does that mean that they did not have a choice? After all, you have knowledge of what they did. If God knowing humans' actions robs them of free will, why wouldn't you knowing humans' actions similarly rob them of free will?
Whether you know it in advance or in past does not make a difference; you still know, "they did", and thus they did.
I don't think your free will argument holds.
nfq wrote:
Then he shouldn't have created me, because I want 100% joy or nothing.
You missed the point in my previous message, where I explained how the concept of "100% joy" in human life is an oxymoron.
Most people are well satisfied with 60% joy. I guess your current life is something like 5% joy for you to think that way. I'm sad for you if that is the case, and I don't know how I could improve that situation.
Still, I'd like you to adopt a more positive way of thinking. There is no point in dwelling in sad things if doing so destroys you. Relish the good when it happens, and remember it. Anticipate the next time.
If there is something that continuously causes you feel wronged, seek a resolution to the issue, don't dwell on it.
nfq wrote:
If nothing existed, no suffering would exist, and everything would be perfect.
No joy would exist either. I don't see that as a perfection. Mathematically, I see perfection as infinity, and nothingness as zero. I think those are two very different concepts, and I don't see anything desirable in nothingness. If I were a hindu, perhaps this view would be different.
I'm afraid the rest of your message did not contain anything tangible to comment on, so I'll stop here for now.
If God knowing humans' actions robs them of free will, why wouldn't you knowing humans' actions similarly rob them of free will?
Because I'm just an observer. I didn't cause their actions, God did. When he created the us, he knew all our actions, and the only way he could have known our actions from the very beginning is if they were predetermined.
You missed the point in my previous message, where I explained how the concept of "100% joy" in human life is an oxymoron.
You also said that heaven is 100% joy, so why didn't God send us there instantly? He did actually, didn't he? But satan tricked us (Adam and Eve). So you're saying that we're here to grow up so that satan won't trick us again? If so, why did God put Adam and Eve in heaven instantly... did he make a mistake?
No joy would exist either. I don't see that as a perfection.
The need for joy wouldn't exist either. Problems wouldn't exist, so what could possibly be the "problem"?
Mathematically, I see perfection as infinity, and nothingness as zero. I think those are two very different concepts,
If zero is not perfection, how do you explain that the closer to zero these TASes come the more perfect they become ;)
Not only is nothingness perfect, it's also infinite. Think about the beginning. Nothingness was all that existed; it was everything (infinite).
Speedruns can never reach zero; you can come closer, but you can't reach infinity (zero).
I don't see anything desirable in nothingness.
Probably because you equate it with being poor: the lack of everything.
the only way he could have known our actions from the very beginning is if they were predetermined.
That's just not true.
I know that if I drop a ball, it will fall to the ground. I can even calculate its final speed when it hits the ground. That doesn't mean that the ball is *predetermined* to do that.
Knowing what will happen (eg. by deduction or by math) doesn't make that thing predetermined. It just makes you smart.
the only way he could have known our actions from the very beginning is if they were predetermined.
That's just not true.
I know that if I drop a ball, it will fall to the ground. I can even calculate its final speed when it hits the ground. That doesn't mean that the ball is *predetermined* to do that.
Knowing what will happen (eg. by deduction or by math) doesn't make that thing predetermined. It just makes you smart.
You decided before you drop the ball that you would drop the ball. You know the ball will fall if you drop it. Doesn't that mean you knew before the ball was dropped that the ball would fall, and that you would be the cause of it? Doesn't that make it predetermined by you?
Why is this so hard to understand? Let's say I can see the future. I see that my wife gives birth to a son, who chooses to go into medicine. Are you really saying that is then predetermined by me, just because I can see into the future? Does it mean that the choice my son makes when he decides to get into medicine is not his own, just because I have known how he will choose? He would still have made that choice, even if I hadn't been able to see the future. Me knowing what will happen has not forced his decision.
Did you write the non-forum part of the site yourself (particularly the wiki-style pages and the submission processes)?
Yes.
nfq wrote:
Bisqwit wrote:
If God knowing humans' actions robs them of free will, why wouldn't you knowing humans' actions similarly rob them of free will?
Because I'm just an observer. I didn't cause their actions, God did. When he created the us, he knew all our actions, and the only way he could have known our actions from the very beginning is if they were predetermined.
Knowledge does not imply predetermination.
Kyrsimys's explanation is good and quite precisely what I was trying to say, but my point went further than that:
Let's say, you help your sister who has problems with <something>.
― Scenario A: After helping, you peer into the future, 10 years later, and see that your sister has become <something>.
― Scenario B: 10 years elapse, and then you see that your sister has become <something>.
What is with scenario A that robs your sister of free will, and why does that not happen with scenario B?
Why specifically would you seeing what will happen mean that the actions are predetermined?
Why specifically would the fact that you had a role in the events mean that the outcome is predetermined?
God created the world, and God can see the future, but neither of them robs the human of free will.
God created the world, and God can see the future, but neither of them robs the human of free will.
True. Knowledge doesn't negate free will but the two ideas put together might. If it is true that God is both omniscient and omnipotent and created the universe this could lead to a conclusion of no free will. Consider this; before the universe was created, God knew he would create a universe and would know everything that would happen inside that universe. Looking at this from a different perspective, it is as if God created the universe with a specific design in mind. In this way, everything is playing out exactly the way God wanted things to. This would mean that free will is non existent because all actions God foreplanned. It is like if I created a robot designed to kill. Who is responsible for the actions of the robot? The robot or the creator. I created the robot knowing exactly what it would do. I must therefore be responsible. How is this situation different from the former?
More on topic: What do you think would happen if two omniscient beings played each other in a game of chicken?
Knowledge doesn't negate free will but the two ideas put together might.
Correct. If God designed and tailored the universe for the purpose of it unfolding exactly as it will, then it could be deducted that we in the universe have no free will. I can not say for certain whether that deduction is correct. It is possible that God simply selected a choice from an infinite selection of alternative timelines and chose to have that.
Let's say, keeping my previous example:
― You help your sister with <something>, and then you use your Time Machine of Infinite Choices to see your sister's life 10 years in the future in millions of different ways. You see her become <something>, and <something else>, or <something other>. You become fond of seeing <something>, and make a choice to share that particular reality out of the millions of different possible choices.
Now, has your choice robbed your sister of the free will? How's that different from the case that your time machine didn't present you any other choice but the one you ended up selecting?
(Incidentally, this reminds me of statistical calculations. Somehow, the mathematical chance of something occurring seems to magically depend on how much you know.)xenos wrote:
before the universe was created, God knew he would create a universe and would know everything that would happen inside that universe.
This stands to argue more that God had no free will than anything else, but again, knowledge of consequences does not imply lack of ability to choose.
xenos wrote:
More on topic: What do you think would happen if two omniscient beings played each other in a game of chicken?
Presumably both would chicken at the same time, or both would void the game. There's no reason to expect that a break of symmetry would happen.
Knowing what will happen (eg. by deduction or by math) doesn't make that thing predetermined.
It doesn't make it predetermined?
That's what I said. Good work repeating it.
You are either stupid, or acting stupid. If you cannot tell I asked for you to elaborate, then something is wrong with you.
Bisqwit wrote:
Knowledge does not imply predetermination.
Well, it's indeed not knowledge that makes things predetermined. Things would be predetermined even if no one ever knew anything that was going to happen. However if you were to know something is going what was going to happen (with 'know' I mean it WILL happen), that would kinda confirm things are predetermined. If you know what someone is going to choose, it will still appear to the person as a free choice, even though it was bound to happen no matter what (this is how I defined 'know'). In what way was this not predetermined then? Knowing it didn't make it predetermined... it already was, knowing it confirmed that it indeed was predetermined.
Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 784
Location: Connecticut, USA
I have to agree with those saying that knowledge doesn't imply predetermination. The only way you would know that an action or choice is going to happen with 100% assurance is to be omniscient, and to know what is happening everywhere, all the time, forever. Since this includes your own thoughts and actions, I find that this is a type of paradox anyway, since "knowing" your own thoughts creates more thoughts, which you would have to have thoughts of, and these thoughts need thoughts, etc. forever. I just don't see how this is possible.
It's like having a insanely super computer break all of reality down into a mathematical equation. Theoretically, the computer would be able to predict the future with 100% accuracy. The only problem is that the computer would have to account for itself and its actions, which would create data accounting for data accounting for data, etc. which is another paradox. (Excuse me if this idea isn't accurate, since I don't know a thing about chaos theory)
The only way any of this would work is if the omniscient being or the super computer weren't part of the universe or reality, which defeats the point.
I have to agree with those saying that knowledge doesn't imply predetermination.
To me, it seems more that you are saying that knowing (in the way I defined in my previous post) is not possible. I could agree to that. This however doesn't mean that:
1) If someone in fact did KNOW something is going to happen, that this doesn't imply predetermination.
2) That things aren't predetermined.
Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 784
Location: Connecticut, USA
Baxter wrote:
ElectroSpecter wrote:
I have to agree with those saying that knowledge doesn't imply predetermination.
To me, it seems more that you are saying that knowing (in the way I defined in my previous post) is not possible. I could agree to that. This however doesn't mean that:
1) If someone in fact did KNOW something is going to happen, that this doesn't imply predetermination.
2) That things aren't predetermined.
Definitely true!
Personally, I need to think that one can forge one's own way through time, heedless of fate or destiny. Life is more enjoyable for me that way. I'd probably be all sorts of depressed otherwise (which is why I'm glad no one's been able to prove predetermination to me yet)
