God Help Me.

[dps]

First of all, this was a terrible thread title.

Anyway, fundamentalist Christian here.

Its unknowable so why worry about it.

People often stereotype people of faith as unimaginative, uninquisitive, etc., but that takes the cake for being uninterested in learning new things.  It also helps explain why Tyr is considered, as you'll find if you stick around, to be ignorant and provincial.

When areligious people try to describe how religious people think it doesn't sound like any religious person I know...

Yep.  Which ties into the reason I tend to avoid these type of threads.  I'm only here now for the benefit of the new guy.

Something I've always been surprised about is how smarter believers have generally failed to pick up on many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and apply it to theodicy

It's hard enough to win people over to Christ without having to educate them on quantum theory first.

[crazy canuck]

It's hard enough to win people over to Christ without having to educate them on quantum theory first.

Because once you teach people about science you knock out a lot of modern Christian beliefs...

[Neil]

It's hard enough to win people over to Christ without having to educate them on quantum theory first.

The people you should be trying to win to Christ wouldn't understand quantum theory anyways.

[CountDeMoney]

Are we counting Canadians as Americans or as Europeans?

Neither.  They're either Froglites or, in Neil's case, English-speaking wannabe-American gypsies.  Same with BB, with less flannel.

[Neil]

Are we counting Canadians as Americans or as Europeans?

Neither.  They're either Froglites or, in Neil's case, English-speaking wannabe-American gypsies.  Same with BB, with less flannel.

And yet you wish you were me.

[CountDeMoney]

Are we counting Canadians as Americans or as Europeans?

Neither.  They're either Froglites or, in Neil's case, English-speaking wannabe-American gypsies.  Same with BB, with less flannel.

And yet you wish you were me.

No, no I don't.
I wish I was Ed Anger, circa 2006.

[Ed Anger]

Are we counting Canadians as Americans or as Europeans?

Neither.  They're either Froglites or, in Neil's case, English-speaking wannabe-American gypsies.  Same with BB, with less flannel.

And yet you wish you were me.

No, no I don't.
I wish I was Ed Anger, circa 2006.

2006 was a bad year man.

[CountDeMoney]

Are we counting Canadians as Americans or as Europeans?

Neither.  They're either Froglites or, in Neil's case, English-speaking wannabe-American gypsies.  Same with BB, with less flannel.

And yet you wish you were me.

No, no I don't.
I wish I was Ed Anger, circa 2006.

2006 was a bad year man.

Hey, I'll take the leg halo for a child bride any time.

[Neil]

And yet you wish you were me.

No, no I don't.
I wish I was Ed Anger, circa 2006.

Then start voting Republican.

[Ideologue]

Something I've always been surprised about is how smarter believers have generally failed to pick up on many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and apply it to theodicy, insofar as it is an absolute solution to the Problem of Evil, and also grafts a nice pro-life sentiment onto the Creation.

Btw, the vocabulary of the board's spellchecker is weak.

But it doesnt really.  Even if one accepts the Quantum Theory proposition that all possible outcomes exist in separate realities a believer is still stuck with the problem that God allowed all those shitty outcomes to occur.

Basically, I set it out like this: If one set of physical laws, namely our own (which require quantum mechanics, and--accepting MWI as given--thus all possible outcomes), can produce intelligent life, then an omnibenevolent God must consider itself morally obligated to set up those physical laws, even though evil outcomes will be the result.

Now, I find this to be no compelling argument for the existence of God.  But I think it's a pretty decent theodicy.

It's hard enough to win people over to Christ without having to educate them on quantum theory first.

For these purposes, it's not too bad.  "Have you ever seen Sliders?"  "Yeah."  "Close enough."  MWI is substantially more complicated, but that gets the very basic idea across.

Of course, there are some that claim that MWI is not much more proveable (or disproveable) than God.  Though, personally, from a materialist and logical perspective, Copenhagenesque wave function collapse vexes me greatly.

[crazy canuck]

And yet you wish you were me.

No, no I don't.
I wish I was Ed Anger, circa 2006.

Then start voting Republican.

Republicans support spending on time machine research?

[crazy canuck]

Something I've always been surprised about is how smarter believers have generally failed to pick up on many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and apply it to theodicy, insofar as it is an absolute solution to the Problem of Evil, and also grafts a nice pro-life sentiment onto the Creation.

Btw, the vocabulary of the board's spellchecker is weak.

But it doesnt really.  Even if one accepts the Quantum Theory proposition that all possible outcomes exist in separate realities a believer is still stuck with the problem that God allowed all those shitty outcomes to occur.

Basically, I set it out like this: If one set of physical laws, namely our own (which require quantum mechanics, and--accepting MWI as given--thus all possible outcomes), can produce intelligent life, then an omnibenevolent God must consider itself morally obligated to set up those physical laws, even though evil outcomes will be the result.

Now, I find this to be no compelling argument for the existence of God.  But I think it's a pretty decent theodicy.

Why would an all powerful loving God be in any any way constrained by the natural laws of physics such that such a God must necessarily allow evil to exist.

Seems to me your solution has the same issue as the problem it tries to address.

[Ed Anger]

And yet you wish you were me.

No, no I don't.
I wish I was Ed Anger, circa 2006.

Then start voting Republican.

Republicans support spending on time machine research?

[Lettow77]

 I am a deist, in the sense that I believe intelligent design makes more sense than anything else.

I don't believe in  a driven universe or that things happen for ordained reasons. I guess I just never found it plausible; my father was an angry athiest himself, who combined this with getting quite worked up about the end times.

I have nominally intended to raise my children southern baptist, as I feel this does them a good service.

[Ideologue]

Something I've always been surprised about is how smarter believers have generally failed to pick up on many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and apply it to theodicy, insofar as it is an absolute solution to the Problem of Evil, and also grafts a nice pro-life sentiment onto the Creation.

Btw, the vocabulary of the board's spellchecker is weak.

But it doesnt really.  Even if one accepts the Quantum Theory proposition that all possible outcomes exist in separate realities a believer is still stuck with the problem that God allowed all those shitty outcomes to occur.

Basically, I set it out like this: If one set of physical laws, namely our own (which require quantum mechanics, and--accepting MWI as given--thus all possible outcomes), can produce intelligent life, then an omnibenevolent God must consider itself morally obligated to set up those physical laws, even though evil outcomes will be the result.

Now, I find this to be no compelling argument for the existence of God.  But I think it's a pretty decent theodicy.

Why would an all powerful loving God be in any any way constrained by the natural laws of physics such that such a God must necessarily allow evil to exist.

Seems to me your solution has the same issue as the problem it tries to address.

Okay, rephrase: God is capable of creating all possible worlds.  Failure to create all possible worlds, when omnipotence renders that creation trivial, would be to permit souls, or consciousnesses, to languish in oblivion.  How could God fail to create all possible worlds if he is not also loving?

Alternatively, if you deny that it is immoral to fail to create humanity, our set of physical laws is the only one that allows life to exist, and our physical laws require the existence of admittedly crappier alternative worlds, then God is still required to do so in order to create the best possible world, with the rest--including, presumably our own--are logically necessary* side effects, although not by necessity bereft of God's love simply because of their inferior state.

*Regarding omnipotence, I don't believe that omnipotence is meaningfully circumscribed by an inability to do logically impossible things, such as fashioning laws of physics which mathematically cannot create life, and then using those laws to somehow magically create life.