• Gnomon
    3.5k
    I was thinkin' more along the lines of ODDS is GODS. Miracles are highly improbable, not impossible (re the problem of induction), events and they're considered divine acts. In addition, the god of the gaps clearly demonstrates we worship ignorance.
    Probability is the math of ignorance — Wikipedia
    Agent Smith
    I wouldn't say that humans "worship ignorance", but I could suggest that people fear "Uncertainty", and worship "Hope". Religious people are not idiots*1, so they can understand that invisible deities are dubious. But when under threat from various invisible agents of Evil, they play the odds, and bet on the Good Guy, behind the curtain of ignorance, that everyone else believes in. For example, the typical barefoot peasant in ancient times, had never seen their King or Pharaoh, but they could directly experience the consequences of disobeying the top-down social laws governing their behavior, and limiting their freedom.

    Many Atheist arguments against the notion of an omnipotent & omnibenevolent deity point to the imperfection of the creation. But Leibniz seemed to acknowledge the obvious defects, and to ignore the unrealistic Garden of Eden myth. So, he focused his abstract mathematical argument on the Real world of ups & downs that we know directly. He didn't propose that our universe is a perfect world, but merely the "the best of all possible worlds". Which implies that his "perfect" god could not recreate heaven on Earth. Implying that H/er range of possibilities was limited for some self-imposed reason. The Genesis myth even hints at what that limitation was : human Reason (bestowing the freedom to choose). In the idyllic Garden, the immature humans were essentially naive animals with hands, but no ability to understand how to intellectually choose Good over Evil. The wily serpent was a metaphor for the short-term appeal of the Evil path.

    Of course, most animals intuitively act in their own self-interest, to preserve Life and to avoid Death. But humans add the ability to Reason from what-is to what-if, in order to prepare for the long-term future -- the strait & narrow path. And it's that uniquely human talent for projecting from Now into the Future, that gives them more choices than mere animals, including chimps & dolphins. Hence, humans have developed herd instincts into world-wide cultures that redirect Nature to serve human interests (e.g air conditioning). Naturally, what's good for my local comfort is not necessarily good for the global environment. So, our choices always involve trade-offs.

    Therefore, I conclude that a top-down Pre-Destined perfect world was not an option for this experiment in Free Will. Here, I'm reading-into Leibniz' argument, in order to explain why the Real world is not absolutely perfect, but the "best possible" compromise between Freedom and Determinism*2. Ironically, that trade-off between all-good & all-evil, implies that the Programmer of Evolution was not Omni-benevolent, but Omni-Potent, in the sense of possessing the Potential for both Good and Evil. I'll leave it to you to decide if, limited Free Will (human Reason) is a good-enough trade-off for off-setting the Hegelian Dialectic, zig-zagging between the poles of Good & Evil consequences of human choice. This "best of all possible worlds" is imperfect, but good-enough for survival of rational animals and moral agents*3. :smile:

    *1. Theism apologist, "Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz(1646–1716) was one of the great thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is known as the last “universal genius”. . . . "Leibniz presented a number of arguments for the existence of God, which represent great contributions to philosophical knowledge." . . ."Certainly only a fool could believe that it is the best world possible. But, Leibniz speaks on behalf of the fool, with an argument that has essentially the following structure" . . ."To the more difficult question whether there is a better world with perhaps a little less genocide and natural disaster Leibniz can only respond that, if so, God would have brought it into actuality. And this, of course, is to say that there really is no better possible world."
    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz/

    *2. Rationalism versus Fatalism -- Freewill Within Determinism :
    By taking the long view, they can accept that G*D is neither Good nor Evil, but BothAnd.
    http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page67.html

    *3. Apparently, another genius, Voltaire, missed Leibniz' implication that the possibilities for creating a space-time world were finite. Hence, his satirical novel Candide. Since Leibniz referred to his mathematical deity as "perfect", I suspect that even he was not completely convinced by his own argument. Today though, we know more about the initial conditions, and natural laws, that function as limitations on progressive evolution.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Syād, fools & geniuses are indistinguishable which kinda means that he who promotes worship and he who opposes worship are both both (wise fool), oui monsieur?
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