You think humans are up to governing themselves for the greatest good; or that if not, that their freedom of choice is a greater good than the absence of suffering ?
Yes. Er, I mean, the second of those.
My personal philosophy is a bit of a hotch-potch of things that I think are important and/or sound plausible - and that does include the probable/possible existence of some kind of supreme being or beings, but without comment on how much control he has/wields over the lives of people.
My own take on the free will argument is that it's entirely useless when people try to use it as *proof* of a divine being, but that it's entirely possible, hypothetically speaking, that it applies to a divine being if one (or more) exists.
Purely personally, I think I do hold free will as having a higher value than the absence of suffering, though this is largely because I've bought classic(al) and romantic ideas that life doesn't mean much without suffering and so taking it away would just leave us with highs and no lows, which would a) be a bit boring, and b) perhaps have a lessening effect on our ability to enjoy the highs.
Anyway, given that I have this opinion, I don't see why it's *impossible* (I'm not saying that it's probable) that a god would also have a similar philosophy.
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Date: 2008-05-11 01:14 pm (UTC)Yes. Er, I mean, the second of those.
My personal philosophy is a bit of a hotch-potch of things that I think are important and/or sound plausible - and that does include the probable/possible existence of some kind of supreme being or beings, but without comment on how much control he has/wields over the lives of people.
My own take on the free will argument is that it's entirely useless when people try to use it as *proof* of a divine being, but that it's entirely possible, hypothetically speaking, that it applies to a divine being if one (or more) exists.
Purely personally, I think I do hold free will as having a higher value than the absence of suffering, though this is largely because I've bought classic(al) and romantic ideas that life doesn't mean much without suffering and so taking it away would just leave us with highs and no lows, which would a) be a bit boring, and b) perhaps have a lessening effect on our ability to enjoy the highs.
Anyway, given that I have this opinion, I don't see why it's *impossible* (I'm not saying that it's probable) that a god would also have a similar philosophy.