Original sin

[Teallaura]

You are correct, I posted the wrong passage. I meant Genesis 6:5-6

"When the lord found how great was mans wickedness on earth, and how no desire his heart conceived was ever anything but evil he regretted that he had made man on earth, and his heart was grieved."

And Genesis 8:21

"Never again will I doom the earth because of man, [since the desires of mans heart are evil from the start, nor will I ever again strike down all living beings, as I have done."

Which poses a few questions regarding this god himself. If man is evil from the start, then whose fault is that, and didn't god, the omniscient, know that would be the case before he created them. God was sorry he created man, and then he was sorry he murdered them all. Doesn't say much for gods "omniscience."

But the main point I made to seer was that the biblical god disagreed with him about mans moral character.

Okay, I completely disagree, which is why I'm not amening this, but wow - that's an excellent job of argumentation.

[Teallaura]

And how did god know to create those exact physical laws, seer, in order that they foster and sustain order and life?

God is omniscient - He knows everything. This is one of his best known characteristics - which is probably why Seer didn't take you seriously.

Anyway, that's the answer.

[Teallaura]

You said it was a stupid question, CP. Show me in what sense it's stupid. Answer it!

Psst! That was Seer.

It's not stupid but it's kinda surprising you didn't already know.

[Tassman]

God is omniscient - He knows everything. This is one of his best known characteristics -

So, some people say. How do you know this?

[JimL]

God is omniscient - He knows everything. This is one of his best known characteristics - which is probably why Seer didn't take you seriously.

Anyway, that's the answer.

seer's point is that the natural laws didn't exist, that god created them, being omniscient is to know all that there is to know, not to know that which doesn't exist. A god couldn't know anything, if there was nothing existent to know. Creation out of nothing! Either that, or seer, and you, would have to admit, that the natural laws were not created, that they are as eternal as is your god, which would make your god, a supernatural cause, unnecessary for creation.

[Cow Poke]

seer's point is that the natural laws didn't exist, that god created them, being omniscient is to know all that there is to know, not to know that which doesn't exist. A god couldn't know anything, if there was nothing existent to know. Creation out of nothing! Either that, or seer, and you, would have to admit, that the natural laws were not created, that they are as eternal as is your god, which would make your god, a supernatural cause, unnecessary for creation.

The God we serve is not just omniscient, but omnipotent - all-powerful. Such a God knows all there is to know, and all that will ever be, and has created all there is.

[shunyadragon]

Like I said Shuny, welcome to the intelligent design camp.

Ah . . . no. I accept science as science, and science cannot be used to justify the fundamentalist views of the bizzaro fundi Creationists of the Discovery Institute. Science represents an independent investigation of truth of the nature of our physical existence. My belief that Creation by God reflects the natural processes reflects the belief that science is accurate, and not in contradiction with God's Creation by natural processes.

Belief in Theistic Evolution does not remotely even resemble Intelligent Design foolishness.

I believe rogue06 agrees with me and is likely a Theistic Evolutionist or some variation thereof.

[seer]

Ah . . . no. I accept science as science, and science cannot be used to justify the fundamentalist views of the bizzaro fundi Creationists of the Discovery Institute. Science represents an independent investigation of truth of the nature of our physical existence. My belief that Creation by God reflects the natural processes reflects the belief that science is accurate, and not in contradiction with God's Creation by natural processes.

Belief in Theistic Evolution does not remotely even resemble Intelligent Design foolishness.

I believe rogue06 agrees with me and is likely a Theistic Evolutionist or some variation thereof.

Actually Shuny most people who believe in intelligent design hold to theistic evolution, evolution that was guided and directed by God. Which is exactly what your religion teaches. In other words nature herself could not have accomplished this without the direction of God.

[seer]

seer's point is that the natural laws didn't exist, that god created them, being omniscient is to know all that there is to know, not to know that which doesn't exist. A god couldn't know anything, if there was nothing existent to know. Creation out of nothing! Either that, or seer, and you, would have to admit, that the natural laws were not created, that they are as eternal as is your god, which would make your god, a supernatural cause, unnecessary for creation.

That makes no sense Jim. God would only have to know which laws would work, then create the laws.

[shunyadragon]

Actually Shuny most people who believe in intelligent design hold to theistic evolution, evolution that was guided and directed by God. Which is exactly what your religion teaches. In other words nature herself could not have accomplished this without the direction of God.

Actually no, the main advocate of Intelligent Design is the Discovery Institute, and they do not believe in Theistic Evolution. I do not believe you believe in Theistic Evolution as defined. Theistic Evolutionists accept science as science, and you do not do that. Ask rogue06

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution#Definition

Francis Collins describes theistic evolution as the position that "evolution is real, but that it was set in motion by God",[3] and characterizes it as accepting "that evolution occurred as biologists describe it, but under the direction of God".[4] He lists out six general premises on which different versions of theistic evolution typically rest. They include:[5]

(1) the prevailing cosmological model, with the universe coming into being about 13.8 billion years ago;

(2) the fine-tuned universe;

(3) evolution and natural selection;

(4) No special supernatural intervention is involved once evolution got under way;

(5) Humans are a result of these evolutionary processes; and . . .

(6) Despite all these, humans are unique. The concern for the Moral Law (the knowledge of right and wrong) and the continuous search for God among all human cultures defy evolutionary explanations and point to our spiritual nature.

© Copyright Original Source

[seer]

Actually no, the main advocate of Intelligent Design is the Discovery Institute, and they do not believe in Theistic Evolution. I do not believe you believe in Theistic Evolution as defined. Theistic Evolutionists accept science as science, and you do not do that. Ask rogue06

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution#Definition

Francis Collins describes theistic evolution as the position that "evolution is real, but that it was set in motion by God",[3] and characterizes it as accepting "that evolution occurred as biologists describe it, but under the direction of God".[4] He lists out six general premises on which different versions of theistic evolution typically rest. They include:[5]

(1) the prevailing cosmological model, with the universe coming into being about 13.8 billion years ago;

(2) the fine-tuned universe;

(3) evolution and natural selection;

(4) No special supernatural intervention is involved once evolution got under way;

(5) Humans are a result of these evolutionary processes; and . . .

(6) Despite all these, humans are unique. The concern for the Moral Law (the knowledge of right and wrong) and the continuous search for God among all human cultures defy evolutionary explanations and point to our spiritual nature.

© Copyright Original Source

From your link:

The executive director of the National Center for Science Education in the United States of America, Eugenie Scott, has used the term to refer to the part of the overall spectrum of beliefs about creation and evolution holding the theological view that God creates through evolution. It covers a wide range of beliefs about the extent of any intervention by God, with some approaching deism in rejecting the concept of continued intervention.

So Shuny there are different beliefs in how much God intervenes or not.

[Anomaly]

Original sin: The tendency to evil supposedly innate in all human beings, held to be inherited from Adam in consequence of the Fall.

Here I'm not focusing on the why of original sin, how we got here, but the fact of original sin (or evil). That we all do evil. And it's not that we merely do evil by mistake, but that we do wrong even when we agree with ourselves that the act is wrong. We, as humans, have all experienced this: I know A is wrong, I agree that A is wrong, yet I do it anyway. The morally rational is superseded or rejected - and we choose the wrong. But why, what is driving these bad choices, if we agree and know A is wrong, what compels us to go against our best moral sense? If we say selfishness or lust then the question becomes - how/why do these so often rise to ascendancy? What makes us forgo the rational in these moral situations?

I only read the first 3 or 4 pages of the thread, but noticed that the usual language of "effects" is applied to the question in the op, i.e., sin, pride, etc.

My 'value mechanism" hypothesis is the only theory I'm aware of that brings the theological issue of human fallenness into sharper focus beyond the language of effects. it's really not complicated.

First, assume everything is information (this is not controversial as the philosophy of information is currently flourishing and the notion of all that exists is information has been noted by a number of adherents). Second, reduce information [an abstraction] to "bits" of information, what I call iotas [another abstraction, but logically plausible]. Each iota of information is structured with the ability to produce the dualistic 'thing-attribute' or 'that-what' existence. Iotas of information thus form both physical parts (what we call 'matter') and abstract objects such as properties, qualities, concepts and other mental content, etc. From this perspective, all that exists within this structure is information, and either subject (living information, i.e., organics; but most especially, intellects) and objects, informational existents perceived.

Third, and this is the important one that answers Seer's question in the op, each iota of information exists in exactly one value state, true or false. Here you have the answer to, "But why, what is driving these bad choices...what compels us to go against our best moral sense?...how/why do these so often rise to ascendancy? What makes us forgo the rational in these moral situations?"

"Value Mechanics" works like this from a roughly substance dualist perspective....each human is an informational entity made up of iotas of information [roughly analogous to a reduction to the atomic-level of existence] that (like all organics) contain two kinds of value, descriptive and prescriptive. The physical body's descriptive (matter) value is always true, and is inert in prescriptive matters. The vital feature of organics generally--and intellectual operation specifically--is due the prescriptive value state. The prescriptive value of the living information of the intellect is the only state that can be falsified. I hold the Genesis account to be a metaphor (which may or may not also have been a historical event) depicting a true state of affairs, e.g., representing the principle that agents alone of the class of living entities have ability by their choices to falsify their essence or spirit. That Adam and Eve died in this sense of value-enduedness [made up term] rather than literally and physically is attested to in the gradual chronological reductions in lifespan in the Gen 5 passages. This reduction of lifespan correlates perfectly with the principle of increasing falsification among the population. The effect of sin can thus be hypothesized as the predictable result of the degeneration of ontological prescriptive value states within human essence. Here we have not a literal passing of sin from Adam to humanity but the spreading corruption of value states projected into existence in which all humans must inexorably participate. Sin's cause is falsity. This is my two cents in answering the questions posed in the op.

The descriptive-prescriptive connection is one that fascinates me but not pertinent to the discussion. Suffice it prudent to point out that in cases like that of Phineas Gage who had an iron spike driven in an explosion through his head and suffered purported changes in moral temperament and demeanor as a result, it would follow logically that because prescriptive and descriptive value states in agents rely for proper function on both material and prescriptive value states operating concurrently as a whole, a disruption on either side of this equation would result in just the sorts of effects produced in Gage. In standard terms, the mechanism of value supports the defense of substance dualists that physical and spiritual components depend on each other for proper operation.

Remember, the perspective is from a reduction of informational wholes to constituent parts, iotas. It follows that one, by his 'bad' choices, has the power to falsify or degrade one's "principle of vitality" or essence or spirit--and thus exist in a fragmentally falsified state which affects moral judgment and choice. Just as consciousness is said to emerge from atoms (further downstream of course), so the moral sense which accompanies consciousness emerges in a partially falsified or corrupted state of being due a fragmented state of falsification. Intellectual operation is a faculty of consciousness, and because intellectual operation contains both descriptive and prescriptive value states working simultaneously as one, the corruption of the moral sense follows naturally from value as an ontological condition of existence. Thus, sin, pride, covetousness, greed, etc. are all effects of the cause of falsity in the essence of an agent.

[shunyadragon]

Actually Shuny most people who believe in intelligent design hold to theistic evolution, evolution that was guided and directed by God. Which is exactly what your religion teaches. In other words nature herself could not have accomplished this without the direction of God.

Theistic Evolution as defined and Intelligent Design shares some beliefs with Theistic Evolution but actually no, the Discovery Institute does not support Theistic Evolution, neither do you.

See https://www.discovery.org/id/faqs/ and in particular the section: Questions about Scientific Challenges to Darwinian Evolution

[seer]

Theistic Evolution as defined and Intelligent Design shares some beliefs with Theistic Evolution but actually no, the Discovery Institute does not support Theistic Evolution, neither do you.

See https://www.discovery.org/id/faqs/ and in particular the section: Questions about Scientific Challenges to Darwinian Evolution

Shuny, I used your own link, there are different beliefs on how much God intervened or not within Theistic Evolution. But here is the question, your religion teaches that evolution is God directed. Do you agree with that?

[JimL]

Actually Shuny most people who believe in intelligent design hold to theistic evolution, evolution that was guided and directed by God. Which is exactly what your religion teaches. In other words nature herself could not have accomplished this without the direction of God.

You mean "couldn't have accomplished without the" laws of nature. That nature need be directed is your belief simply because you, like all theists, just can't face the reality that you are no different than the rest of temporal existence and will some day pass away.