When God knows a soul goes to hell..

[sin_is_fun]

When God knows a soul is going to go to hell ,why does he still create that soul?Why create that soul ,judge it later and send it to eternal hell?Stopping creation of such souls seems to be a better option.Why does God create souls knowing fully well that it will land up in eternal hell?

[QED]

The choices for the microbe are akin to the boiling water as it is totally restricted by its simple construction. On the other hand the choices for the animal are infinitely greater thanks to the complexity of its nervous system. The brain has evolved gradually over hundreds of millions of years and I see no reason to have to introduce a magic wand at any point in this development cycle in order to account for consciousness.

Well, conversely, you can go to smaller and smaller scales and see quantum processes at work which can only be explained using wave functions. So, for me in my quantum-cosmological perspective, microbes are also described by wave functions. Turtles all the way down.

Thanks Harvey, your succinct and patient replies have succeeded in clearing up a good many points for me. By invoking quantum processes at the very beginning of the story I can understand a little bit more of your argument. Regrettably I am unable to agree that this gives us a good reason to question the material world-view that I presented in the case of the afterlife (or any other supernatural concept for that matter).

Of course I understand that QM presents us with a glaring non-linearity when we move from the classical world to the atomic and far from being uncomfortable with this fact I heartily embrace it as it suggests to me a serious (and hence exciting) omission in our current model of the cosmos. Now it may just be my stereotypical British reservation, but I feel that until we have hard answers to the quantum conundrums as part of the final unification of all forces we can only speculate as to any wider implications. There is no doubt in my mind that life, being assembled from natural nano-technology, benefits from a significant contribution by quantum effects.

I spend quite a bit of time speculating and rarely dare to speak of such musings, but I think the current advances in quantum computing are providing us with powerful insights into the subject of our own grey-matter processors. However, you will have to forgive me for not interpreting our lack of any firm understanding as any sort of necessity -- for all my professional experience in troubleshooting informs me that all emergent phenomena are their own undoing when it comes to our understanding of them. In other words it seems that everything tangible is imprinted with the key that unlocks it. In a similar strand of thinking I do not accept the full implication of platonism. That things are seen to obey laws reminds me of coin-rubbing. The pencil picks out the contours of the underlying penny. The same is seen again in the supervenience of software on hardware. I feel that you should be recognizing the titanic amount of evidence lying all around us for this view.

The quantum world is just as predictable and reliable in it's own sweet way. Who cares if certainty is replaced by statistical probability, monality with duality? What if the world is constructed from vibrating strings that oscillate in unseen dimensions? I cannot see any supernatural goings-on in the world that require us to point towards the limits of scientific understanding. The afterlife, like souls are simply concepts which by definition cannot be brought into the lab and studied. We don't have any requirement for an explanation or understanding other than the fact that people have hypothesized about such things. Clearly they have the freedom to do so if they choose but what I can't emphasize enough is that there is no tangible phenomenon to answer for. Many people, I'm sure, enjoy presenting such things to make material realists dance (like I'm doing) but I trust that this is not your motive. My bones have yet to fuse into one solid mass so I want to keep listening to what you say in the hope that you'll lead me to something new and interesting. But all I'm getting from this topic seems like a heady rationalization of the standard Christian doctrine.

[Cathar1950]

Same here Harvey. When I read what you say giving QM and Whitehead and Heartshorne you don't sound that crazy. Dualism maybe just polarity.
I think QED made a good observation about rationalization. I saw this when you rewrote Genesis and reinterpreted. I think you reasons were to give bible believers a reason for believing it was true. Admirable as it is it amounts to rewriting myths to explain science.

[harvey1]

My bones have yet to fuse into one solid mass so I want to keep listening to what you say in the hope that you'll lead me to something new and interesting. But all I'm getting from this topic seems like a heady rationalization of the standard Christian doctrine.

I think QED made a good observation about rationalization. I saw this when you rewrote Genesis and reinterpreted. I think you reasons were to give bible believers a reason for believing it was true. Admirable as it is it amounts to rewriting myths to explain science.

This sounds a lot like the common use of denial. "You're in denial that you're an alcoholic," "I'm not an alcoholic!" "See, you're in denial!"

The problem with that is that no matter what someone says, they are in denial. Similarly, no matter what one says in defense of their religion, they are "rationalizing."

Actually, I have always been concerned with rationalization, and that's why I think building your beliefs from first principles is important. If you can show on minimum assumptions that your beliefs can be constructed, and those beliefs are reasonable, then it is really difficult to make the case that one is rationalizing.

As for Cathar's Genesis comment, I didn't propose that as a rationalization for Genesis. All I meant to show with that is that one could stay consistent with a Genesis interpretation with a mild reconstructionist approach to the text. I personally think it is humorous to consider, but I don't for a minute think that the Hebrew authors believed they were writing about an evolutionary tale. However, I have pondered whether there is some kind of archetype or self-similarity in the cosmos that humans could infer a creation myth that recapitulates the history of the earth.

[Cathar1950]

Harvey1 wrote:

However, I have pondered whether there is some kind of archetype or self-similarity in the cosmos that humans could infer a creation myth that recapitulates the history of the earth.

Very Jungian..lol
You may have a good point or even insight. I think they got there tales from the Mesopotamians and Egyptians who got it for the Mesopotamians .
But your point is still valid. I am not sure how useful it is to belive those myths to be real.

[harvey1]

I was not convinced of the lack of material causation.

Being convinced is not the standard in my opinion. One must provide a solution that doesn't itself lead to paradox. No one has done so. Of course I know people will believe what they want, but there's no more reason to believe in material causation as there is with 2+3=6.

It seemed like you were disputing an old view of matter. You seem to be beating an old dog to death. The thing that seems to be the force behind causation is feeling and memory. It seems to me that if you look at the feeling subject (that which is caused instead of the cause which is history) you might get someplace. The cause is memory, past and felt the object is the feeling of the Occasion which is where you need to place causation. What ever caused is interpreted by the object and is the focus.

My view is that however we treat material causation, it is inconsistent. Therefore it is wrong. I don't lose any sleep since I don't think material causation even works to explain even common quantum processes (e.g., Feynman's path integral).

[Cathar1950]

Might not the same be said for non-materal causation? When I look at all the bits of matter and there tinny little parts it looks like fairies to me anyway. But it is so cool. There could be multidimensional aspects we are incapable of discovering. I don't know. String theory is pretty weird too.

[harvey1]

Might not the same be said for non-materal causation?

I don't think so. I think quantum laws provide a good framework to understanding causation. I think nature obeys quantum laws, in fact, the material universe, I think, emerged from quantum laws out of nothing (i.e., no space/no time).

[Cathar1950]

And that is the nature of matter.
It looks the same to me.

[harvey1]

And that is the nature of matter. It looks the same to me.

But, it's not the same. Quantum laws are not material regularities, they are platonic structures that exist "out there" that determine what is possible/probable and what is not possible/probable.

[Cathar1950]

But Harvey1 it can/could be a part natural material as anything else of the properties of matter. You are moving into dualism and not by choice.
Any God, I can not attest to the nature of God has to be related to matter and reality how ever we chose to describe it. Your bottom up is fine but you need to start at the top and move down too.
Now onto the question of hell.
Got me people. I have no idea and the people that do are suspect.
Seems like a waste of time. At least heaven is about what we desire. Sure some people desire weird stuff but given a little guide lines that any one but a psychopath or sociopath could agree with it is a possible ideal..kind of. I would not send anyone to hell God must be kinder then me or it is not the God I could belive in. It would be a God in charge or a big guy on campus, but not God. Now I may be wrong God could be some self rightious mean perfect unmoved mover that has nothing to do but watch his groveling creatures suck the life from him that comes from his son.
If you use the Bible as your guide , you end up with a God going from an alien to an spirt kind of alien. I love my friends and my family no matter how weird they are and God is better then me and if I am wrong well that just sucks.