From: Ralph Lewis (rlewis10us@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri Apr 27 2001 - 10:04:05 MDT
Check out "Is God a Taoist" by Raymond Smullyan, a good and FUN and
extropian was around this problem.You can find the chapter in Hofstadter and
Dennett "The Mind's I", also more fun stuff
Best Ralph
At 09:34 AM 04/26/2001 -0600, you wrote:
>
>
>BigBooster <fm1@amug.org>
>
>> What do extropians consider to be the most common errors made by
>> humans?
>
> The biggest mistake everyone makes is thinking that one can
>"hope" or "have faith" that there is already any kind of a higher
>power. If one believes or accepts that there is already some higher
>power (Gods, ETs or whatever) out there hiding from us, yet watching
>and occasionally influencing our existence, while there is still evils
>like isolation, suffering, death... is just the opposite of faith and
>hope. Accepting that there is any higher power, while there is evil,
>is the ultimate in giving up in despair. If such really does already
>exist we are eternally screwed and we have no hope.
>
> If one accepts that there is already a higher power, then one
>must spend his days trying to theodicies or justify evil in the face
>of this higher power. If one accepts this, they have no hope of
>overcoming evil, even if they become as powerful as this higher power.
>For if this higher, even all powerful being, can't do it, how can we
>ever hope to do any better!? The theist spends all his days in the
>futile effort trying to come up with various absurd theodicies in an
>attempt to justify it and their already all powerful God. They can't
>hope to overcome evil, so they must instead try to justify it and some
>how attempt to try to twist it into being good. The theist can't hope
>to overcome evil, but instead merely attempts to justify and accept
>it.
>
> But if you "hope" there isn't already a higher power, then and
>only then can you have "faith" that perhaps such evils aren't all that
>hard to overcome and aren't all that necessary. You can work with the
>faith and hope that we are about to overcome all such evils.
>
> A theists that claims to have faith and hope is a liar. The
>atheist is the only one that can have true and honest faith and hope.
>
> Despite how blatantly obvious this is, for some reason, no one
>can see it.
>
> Brent Allsop
>
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