March 10, 2009

• GMD & "Max Tegmark, Apatheism, and Frank Sinatra"

  Intro:

  Over on Dmitry's blogspot (link), someone in the comments, named GMD, decided to defend some of Dmitry's arguments.  Basically we are going through the standard iterations of incredulity in regards to even the idea of Max Tegmark's proposed all or nothing multiverse (link), what that might entail and what it wouldn't entail, and fleshing out just how moral it is for a "good" god to create a race of beings that he knows will end up suffering for all eternity, when he could have merely created a better race of beings. 

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  GMD said:

  Or perhaps each and every universe under Tegmark’s description is both caused by and under the command of one ultimate God. Or perhaps Tegmark’s specifics are wrong, but still an infinite number of universes under God remains. Either way, it’s a proposition which requires quite a lot of faith and argument. Atheist religion, I suppose.

  And I’m not sure this is Dmitry’s point, but: Why go on about how God could have done things ‘better’ when the ‘better’ necessarily entails that you and everyone you know and love would never and could never have existed to begin with? And no nonsense about ‘well God could have created me, but as an angel or being with a different physical makeup, mind, and history!’ You may as well argue that God could have made you you, even if you were Frank Sinatra. For you and those you love, you’re better off with a universe where imperfections (ie, wars, pain, evil, and you and I both) exist, yet improvement, even infinite improvement, is possible.

  Sorry. The theistic view makes vastly more sense to me. At least it doesn’t entail that a good God would have doomed us all to non-existence in favor of making the Uber-race, our forever superiors. God as shepherd trumps that creepy concept, at least in terms of good will by normal measures.

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  I responded:

  GMD,

  I see that you are very quick to jump on the atheistic faith cliche’ accusation, but that is a bit hasty in my opinion. The backbone is the solution to the problem of particularity, and the next tentative level is applying that solution logically (if we are going to bother at all). Obviously since it is logically possible for there to be realms not under control of a powerful being just as it is logically possible for there to be such realms, if “everything exists” it is logically impossible for all of these realms to be under the control of one such being. In fact, logically there’d have to be an infinite number of such powerful beings with different random temperaments. Can they ALL be fully in control of everything? Obviously not. The question will always be, “Well what’s actually in OUR neck of the woods of existence?” because we can never just assume. It’s strict logic and I know you have to sell yourself whatever you have to sell yourself to make it seem like everyone is just as credulous as everyone attending the local church on the street corner, but it is a complete misrepresentation of my views.

  Even if for some willy nilly reason I’m wrong, here, I’m perfectly fine with agnosticism on the details. You don’t know what all this literally entails until you know what it actually entails and nothing excuses irresponsible investigation into whatever is around the next corner of existence. So, no, on the faith scale, our views are simply not comparable in any meaningful regard and there’d never be a reason for me to advocate such a premise to prop things up. If I was ever shown that to be the case, I would always back down into an agnostic position, and therefore would not justify everyone else that just keeps going because they want something to be true. I’ve presented this option (if you bothered to read anything about it, second half of this link) as merely the best speculation on the market and it is defensible as such. If you are going to make claims that are obviously false about it, I will not hesitate to point them out.

  And “sorry,” it is not better to exist than to suffer eternally. There simply is no presuppositional “I” in the equation if all such “Bens” go to hell. “I” would be totally fine with not existing since I’ve never heard many complaints from non-existent people. Have you? Things are fine now, but if I end up in hell, will it have been worth existing? Frank Sinatra can take my place and I don’t have to add any “I become Frank Sinatra” (I’d prefer Gene Kelly anyway) modal problem to the equation. And if my opinion poll is any indicator (link), most people agree that my perspective makes more sense and that theology is out of its mind here. Maybe you need to spend a week in hell to get a better opinion, because I doubt you’d come out of that thinking it was all worth it. Apparently you have no idea how creepy it is that you would prefer to exist (thinking you will go to heaven) despite the plight of all your human brothers and sisters. How ironically anti-Christ like of you. :p It’s a good thing creepy isn’t the measure of a solid worldview right?

  Ben

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  GMD's response:

  (link) [note:  Like Joseph A (link), GMD has apparently decided this is a flame war and has shipwrecked sensible conversation.  Dmitry remains cheerful though, so we'll continue on with that (link and link).]

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  Outro:

  I'm sure sooner or later theists will get the idea I've actually thought my point of view through all the way.  Until then... *sigh* 

  Ben

  • 1:37 am
  • 3 Comments