Violence committed by God as opposed to violence committed by nature

[Night FM]

Often violence committed by God is a point of criticism of religion (generally in relation to the Abrahamic religions), however violence committed by nature (e.x. earthquakes) doesn't tend to draw the same criticism of nature. (e.x. people often hold that "caring for the planet" is a good axiom, sometimes to a quasi-religious degree, even when nature seems apathetic to the suffering of humans).

I'm curious why this is. I suppose one could take a purely pragmatic approach and believe that human intervention in nature could cause loss of human life, and therefore should be avoided purely for the sake of consequences to humanity, however this wouldn't explain a reverence of nature (e.x. such as a desire to preserve endangered species even if they offer little to no practical benefit to humanity.

[joigus]

Nature has no will. Thereby the fallacy. "Live long and prosper" is just a Vulcan salute, not what Nature has in store for us.

[npts2020]

Also "nature" is known for harshness, once an entity is no longer among "the fittest", it dies and is gone.. OTOH "god" keeps a person (not sure if it applies to dogs and amoebae) around forever in some form or another.

[Eise]

7 hours ago, Night FM said:

Often violence committed by God is a point of criticism of religion (generally in relation to the Abrahamic religions), however violence committed by nature (e.x. earthquakes) doesn't tend to draw the same criticism of nature.

Take the Lisbon 1755 earthquake. 

Quote

The earthquake and its aftermath strongly influenced the intelligentsia of the European Age of Enlightenment. The noted writer-philosopher Voltaire used the earthquake in Candide and in his Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne ("Poem on the Lisbon disaster"). Voltaire's Candide attacks the notion that all is for the best in this, "the best of all possible worlds", a world closely supervised by a benevolent deity. The Lisbon disaster provided a counterexample for Voltaire. Theodor Adorno wrote, "the earthquake of Lisbon sufficed to cure Voltaire of the theodicy of Leibniz" (Negative Dialectics 361). Jean-Jacques Rousseau was also influenced by the devastation following the earthquake, whose severity he believed was due to too many people living within the close quarters of the city. Rousseau used the earthquake as an argument against cities as part of his desire for a more naturalistic way of life.

It occurred on All Saint's Day, during many church services. It put the omnipotence and omnibenevolence of God in doubt for many people. How could God do (or allow) something like that? The easy answer of course is, there is no God, and the earthquake was just a a-moral, natural process. Nature is not a person, so you cannot morally blame it.

[Phi for All]

7 hours ago, Night FM said:

Often violence committed by God is a point of criticism of religion (generally in relation to the Abrahamic religions), however violence committed by nature (e.x. earthquakes) doesn't tend to draw the same criticism of nature. (e.x. people often hold that "caring for the planet" is a good axiom, sometimes to a quasi-religious degree, even when nature seems apathetic to the suffering of humans).

I'm curious why this is. I suppose one could take a purely pragmatic approach and believe that human intervention in nature could cause loss of human life, and therefore should be avoided purely for the sake of consequences to humanity, however this wouldn't explain a reverence of nature (e.x. such as a desire to preserve endangered species even if they offer little to no practical benefit to humanity.

Nature isn't an entity like a deity, so it's not really capable of "committing" anything. Most of the "violence" you're highlighting are events like fire, floods, and lightning, which can't happen unless certain conditions are present, unlike the designed destruction written of in the Bible.

Caring for one's environment is a result of intelligence and understanding. Other animals make sure their immediate environment is kept functional. The desire to preserve the species we can is a nod to diversity, which seems to protect this whole planet from the harshness of our environments.

[Bufofrog]

9 hours ago, Night FM said:

Often violence committed by God is a point of criticism of religion (generally in relation to the Abrahamic religions), however violence committed by nature (e.x. earthquakes) doesn't tend to draw the same criticism of nature.

There is no right and wrong in nature or the universe in general.  Right and wrong are made up concepts developed by people.  To be clear it is a made up concept that has served mankind very well.  The concept of right and wrong allows us to live our lives happily and minimize violence.  If a star near us happened to go super nova and there happened to be a polar jet from that star that was pointed towards us and eradicated all life on earth, it would be neither good nor evil, it would just be what happened.  I, personally, really embrace the saying "shit happens".

Edited September 16 by Bufofrog

[MigL]

Jow do you know which is which ?

[joigus]

How does? I can only tell the difference between "fishy" and "just about right".

[Phi for All]

17 minutes ago, MigL said:

Jow do you know which is which ?

If it's nature, it will happen no matter what you do. If it's God, there will be a way to avoid it somehow by being a "better" person.

[Night FM]

9 hours ago, Eise said:

Take the Lisbon 1755 earthquake. 

It occurred on All Saint's Day, during many church services. It put the omnipotence and omnibenevolence of God in doubt for many people. How could God do (or allow) something like that? The easy answer of course is, there is no God, and the earthquake was just a a-moral, natural process. Nature is not a person, so you cannot morally blame it.

That's not really a good argument for there being no God, and just falls back onto the "problem of evil", which could be postulated about anything destructive, regardless of whether the earthquake is a moral-natural process.

Since philosophers have dealt with the problem of evil for millennia, I'm sure they have plenty of good answers which don't just fall back on assuming there "is no God" simply because destructive things occur.

Edited September 16 by Night FM

[iNow]

1 hour ago, Night FM said:

That's not really a good argument for there being no God

We need not argue there is no god, only that there’s no valid reason to think there is. Faith is what every belief in god(s) boils down to, and for some of us faith simply don’t and enough reason to accept something so extraordinary as true. 

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and theists don’t even have weak evidence in favor of their position. 

[Night FM]

Just now, iNow said:

We need not argue there is no god, only that there’s no valid reason to think there is. Faith is what every belief in god(s) boils down to, and for some of us faith simply don’t and enough reason to accept something so extraordinary as true. 

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and theists don’t even have weak evidence in favor of their position. 

I'd argue it's not extraordinary but rather ordinary.

[iNow]

17 minutes ago, Night FM said:

I'd argue it's not extraordinary but rather ordinary.

Then do so. You’re laughably mistaken and it might be entertaining to watch you introduce red herrings and meander aimlessly around the central issue that you have faith and literally nothing more. 

[Night FM]

11 minutes ago, iNow said:

Then do so. You’re laughably mistaken and it might be entertaining to watch you introduce red herrings and meander aimlessly around the central issue that you have faith and literally nothing more. 

"Extraordinary" is purely subjective. Given that belief in a God is universal among cultures, I'd argue it isn't particularly extraordinary.

And all axioms (e.x. materialism) are based on faith, so it's a moot point. I'd argue that there is evidence for a God. The problem would be people demanding very specific types of evidence and refusing to accept the possibility of a thing otherwise, while happily accepting different standards of evidence for other things that they believe in. (For example, I could argue that, unless someone provides a full-length video recording of a single-celled organism evolving into a human, that there is "no evidence" of evolution, and of course such evidence would be impossible to provide).

[iNow]

11 minutes ago, Night FM said:

belief in a God is universal among cultures

Just checking: You do realize even one counter example renders this false, correct?

As a follow-up: Nobody argues that belief in god(s) doesn’t exist. That’s your first red herring. The conversation was about whether god(s) exist. Stop trying to move the goalposts. 

[Night FM]

2 minutes ago, iNow said:

Just checking: You do realize even one counter example renders this false, correct?

I'd argue that exceptions don't make the rule. And that if a significant enough amount of "universality" exist, we can declare it a "universal belief" regardless of odd possible exceptions.

Edited September 17 by Night FM

[iNow]

Just now, Night FM said:

I'd argue that exceptions don't make the rule.

You’re arguing nothing. You’re asserting and time wasting. Boring and unsurprising. 

[Night FM]

5 minutes ago, iNow said:

You’re arguing nothing. You’re asserting and time wasting. Boring and unsurprising. 

I'm using the widespreadness of beliefs in a God as an argument that it's not an "extraordinary" belief, but a commonsensical one which anyone from any culture could have deduced on their own.

And I wouldn't claim that the statement "people are social animals" isn't true simply because of the hypothetical existence of some hermit who lives in a cave.

Edited September 17 by Night FM

[iNow]

8 minutes ago, Night FM said:

it's not an "extraordinary" belief

And yet it’s based on faith and nothing more, and further purports to explain everything that’s ever existed across the entire cosmos.

 

8 minutes ago, Night FM said:

which anyone from any culture could have deduced on their own been indoctrinated into.

There. FTFY. 

Edited September 17 by iNow

[Night FM]

7 minutes ago, iNow said:

And yet it’s based on faith and nothing more, and further purports to explain everything that’s ever existed across the entire cosmos.

 

There. FTFY. 

Nope. The belief would have pre-existed any attempt to indoctrinate masses into it. Plus, most people are "indoctrinated" to believe scientific theories (e.x. most people don't believe in the theory of gravity because they discovered it themself, they believe it because they've been taught it through rote instruction, and often with little understanding of it beyond that "it's true" because they were "told so").

Edited September 17 by Night FM

[iNow]

12 minutes ago, Night FM said:

The belief would have pre-existed any attempt to indoctrinate masses into it

Strawman/red herring 2. I said nothing about indoctrinating masses.

Indoctrination can happen at the individual level, and we absolutely have learned from our tribal elders and parents and shaman whatever beliefs they held. We’ve done this since the beginning of human history and even before.

Stories have been passed on and oral tales sung to each other around fresh kills and campfires since even the earliest of the apes hunted cooperatively.

To suggest we derived these simpleton beliefs like are found in Christianity in some sort of a vacuum… without pressures of social chosen or without a genetic predisposition to trust those in our family and community units while we’re still vulnerable toddling children… is laughably absurd. 

12 minutes ago, Night FM said:

most people are "indoctrinated" to believe scientific theories

Red herring 3

All you’ve done thus far is evade and deflect. If your evidence is so ordinary, where is it?

Edited September 17 by iNow

[Night FM]

11 minutes ago, iNow said:

Strawman. I said nothing about masses. Indoctrination can happen at the individual level, and we absolutely learned from tribal elders and parents and shaman the beliefs they held since the beginning of human history.

Stories have been passed on annd oral tales sung to each other around fresh kills and campfires since even the earliest of the apes.

To suggest we derived these simpleton beliefs in a vacuum without pressures of social chosen or without a genetic predisposition to trust those in our family and community units while we’re still vulnerable toddling children is laughably absurd. 

Red herring 2

it's a moot point, because that's true about any belief. And that doesn't address how the individuals teaching these beliefs learned or devised the beliefs themselves. Many of the beliefs are grounded on rational arguments, not simply repeating another's argument. My argument is that, even without any prior instruction into a belief or a specific religion, people would still arrive at the belief in a God on their own.

Edited September 17 by Night FM

[iNow]

16 minutes ago, Night FM said:

My argument is that, even without any prior instruction into a belief or a specific religion, people would still arrive at the belief in a God on their own.

You misspelled baseless unsupported assertion again 

I’ll even grant you that humans tend to be predisposed to look for a god or gods as a type of “first parent,” but (as I hope is obvious to all readers including you) that’s not evidence for existence… which is the actual topic here you continue to evade and introduce red herrings to avoid. 

You have faith, and faith alone. Nothing more. Surely you’re honest enough to acknowledge this. 

Right?

[Ken Fabian]

The catastrophes are the exceptions; most of the time nature is providing the essentials for life.

20 hours ago, Night FM said:

My argument is that, even without any prior instruction into a belief or a specific religion, people would still arrive at the belief in a God on their own.

I expect that without prior instruction most people would not, but, on the other hand, I think most people in the face of a mysterious and dangerous world - and experiencing  dreaming and imagination that are unbounded by observable, waking reality - would be susceptible to suggestion of conscious agency and intent in natural phenomena. And susceptible to persuasion by those suggesting it.

[Eise]

On 9/17/2024 at 1:17 AM, Night FM said:

That's not really a good argument for there being no God, and just falls back onto the "problem of evil", which could be postulated about anything destructive, regardless of whether the earthquake is a moral-natural process.

'The problem of evil' does not apply to natural processes.

And yes, the argument is not logically compulsive, but it is strong. Given that such natural disasters occur, only a few conclusions are possible:

• God is not omnipotent, i.e. he could not avoid the disaster happening
• God is not omnibenevolent, i.e he has no problem with killing humans, good and bad
• God does not exist at all.

Example of the second case...