Thanks u/Plemethrock
We can have a discussion on whether or not free will exists. Discuss if every action we do is already predetermined by how our brain is wired, with the environment around us being the inputs.
We can also have a discussion on whether or not humans have souls and analyze the evidence for and against us just being our bodies
(I made an error and had to repost, apologies)
Ignoring the man does not make him the victim of your choices, as murdering him does. It simply means you're not intervening into his situation either way. The evil that is allowed now can force others to bear the brunt of the consequences, and I'd argue is in a lot of cases even necessary due to the system of reality we exist in. To me this is a huge distinction. I've mentioned this has been abstracted away by human dominance, but in the past when resources were limited it would be necessary to kill, either indirectly by taking the available resources, or directly by killing the competition to ensure you and your people got the resources. It's hard to see that as the most ideal classroom.
You posit that a world where everyone is super powerful would be chaos, I have previously posed the solution that we all live in our own reality where we have godlike power, if this life is to be a test. Even if we discount that possibility, it's not hard to believe existence would have reached an equilibrium. Technology has allowed us to kill people so much more efficiently than ever but there are also more people than ever, so we're not in this posited state of mega chaos despite guns, tanks, nukes, bombers, etc.
I think "this is best" is the simple answer and is in some ways necessary to believe in order to believe God is all knowing, all powerful, and all good. But I find, without being able to really expand on this, for it to be unsatisfying intellectually. I'm sure before agriculture people, without being about to conceive of alternatives, thought finding berries in the woods was best. I believe this line of thinking ends up at "God works in mysterious ways", which is fine but as I said, I find to be unsatisfying when trying to reason this out. Either way, appreciate you
Oh and, regarding your point here:
Doesn’t that make him the victim of our choices still? To make it explicit, imagine he isn’t homeless, but choking to death on a sandwich… now your inaction has a very clear and unambiguous negative result… I believe the choice to not choose (or to choose to ignore) is still a choice
No, it doesn't. You can say not acting was the wrong thing to do, and I'd agree, but the man is still only victimized by his own choices, mistakes, etc in that case. He is in no way being victimized by the choice not to save him, he is simply not being saved. Taking the idea that not taking action is victimizing to people who would benefit from that action to its logical conclusion - this means if you are not spending all time you have looking for people to help, you are victimizing every single person that you have the physical capability to help in some way. Seems ludicrous
You introduce this word, victimize, and I would probably agree with what you’re saying but reframe it to be more relavent to the overall point: let’s imagine a world in which you can’t victimize other people (which is basically the world i was describing in my last comment, where our spectrum of available choices has constraints on it) - I’d say don’t worry about “logical conclusions” because those so often stray into hypothetica and absurdism when the topic is as ephemeral as “free will” - we all acknowledge God, if he exists, is beyond mere human comprehension, so let us confine ourselves to the realm of human comprehension, ya know?
So, a world where we still have “free will”, but it is constrained such that we cannot “victimize” others.
Can we not still victimize ourselves? Falling into drug abuse or other forms of self-abuse? Would those not be moral failures/failures of the “tests” of life/“evil”?
And do we not still “fail the test of life” when we allow our brother to victimize himself (aka suffer the results of their own actions aka choke to death when we could have helped them?). Even if we aren’t the one directly victimizing someone, I believe we still fail a moral test when we allow ourselves to ignore or brush aside the suffering of others as “unimportant” or “their own fault” (even when those things might be, to whatever extent, “true”, they don’t tell the whole story so-to-speak)
To refer back to your point about “logical conclusions”, did we not already establish that we have limitations on our actions? We can’t summon infinity bajillion dollars and solve world hunger, but we sure as hell can donate a weekend or three a year to the soup kitchen, no? We can’t all be Jesus, but we can sure try harder to act like him when presented with the opportunity, I think.
Like our cultural wisdom says, “to whom much is given, much is expected”. To my view, that one thought covers much of the breadth of the, shall we say, “issues” you’ve been pointing out. What do you think?
I brought up victimization because it was a concept you introduced into the hypothetical asking whether the person was a victim. But this has gone far beyond what the initial point was, which was that there are still infinite amounts of actions one can take even if there is no evil. You contend "less good" would become evil in such a system, I don't agree. Regardless free will could be expressed, with a still infinite number of choices. None of this has to do with a moral test. But, if we grant your presupposition that a moral test is necessary (already a huge concession in this debate) again, why do some face much lesser moral tests than others? Why should we not all face the same tests and given that it's a test, why are we not facing the maximum test we should?
I feel as if we're arguing passed each other. I'm coming at it from an angle of how can we understand the nature of the world, and how we can really know whether it is ideal - this involves trying to conceive of completely different systems of reality, existence of a whole different nature than the one we have here, which I have tried to break down. You seem to be coming at it with the presupposition that the way things are IS the ideal, and trying to reason about ways to make that conclusion fit. And though I accept many of the conditions necessary to make such a presupposition for this debate, then we have to spend time in the weeds. To disregard a logical conclusion of an idea means to discard the principle core of the idea, and to do so when we're talking in theory really undercuts our capacity to understand each other's points. I don't see how we can find further common ground this way
Likewise :)
Really? Don’t we compete over resources even in our cushy modern system? There can only be one Valedictorian in a class after all. And besides that, isn’t adversity a prerequisite to achievement? Without the existence of “evil”, (it seems to me that) “good” becomes meaningless. All that is, in that scenario, is good. Nothing can be chosen, nothing can be corrected… here is a powerful message on the topic you may be familiar with:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mZOM6hOnEBE
And here are two little short fiction pieces which may or may not resonate with you but which have certainly influenced my thinking on the subject:
Pleased to Meet You
https://communities.win/c/Manna/p/19BZpZpE27/but-imagine-the-abomination-of-a/c
"What is the Darkness?"
You open your eyes and gaze at your hands, seeking an answer to your question.
Searing glow from a tyrant light above you annihilates all shadow from the plain of sand you stand upon in a world full of L I G H T.
The last thing you perceive is a blazing outline of alabaster fingers gripping your wrist in a tight fist, before photokeratitis takes your sight.
The roar of the wind fills your ears.
Whatever has seized you is shaking you. You perceive shouting over the rush of air, but you can't make out the words. You lean closer to your hands, to whatever's clasping them, shaking them.
The shouting grows eager.
You can smell it now; whatever has seized you. Ancient. Rotting. Powerful.
Its grip is strong—as strong as yours, the heat of the Light coursing through it.
It can smell the Light on you, too. It knows you are just like it.
It has lived forever. A gift from your shared parent. Forever is too long.
You think you know what it's saying now.
It begs for death.
Your vision gradually returns…
A harsh glare blooms from the heavens above.
Your soul is weary.
Your feet find purchase in shifting sands.
Your cloak billows in the wind, yet something clings to it, weighing it down.
https://communities.win/c/Manna/p/1ARK0KPi2H/coda--a-world-b-e-t-w-e-e-n-ligh/c
Just so you know, im not approaching this conversation from the stand point of “the Bible is literally true and you must believe it.”, im simply using it as our shared cultural reference point for “God”. I think things are a lot more complicated than most Christians want to acknowledge, but at the same time, it is an excellent, perhaps the best we have, foundation to work from and build on