LordFall

It's great to think God is purely all loving but when we think about an omnipotent creator of the universe, sadism must by definition be one of its top traits. If one was omnipotent there would be no need to use evolution as a way to evolve consciousness, there would be little to learn if you know everything and have infinite intelligence to calculate everything. One of the traps that such a being could fall into though would very simply be boredom. So creating billions of creatures that fight amongst each other can perhaps be proved as one of the foundational divine plans and be based in the enjoyment of watching them fight and kill each other infinitely which can simply be recapped as sadism. The idea of a hierarchy of values is key because I'm not claiming sadism is God's primary value—reality could easily be engineered to be far more agonizing if pure malice were the objective— but it clearly sits much higher in the divine design hierarchy than conventional spirituality is comfortable admitting.

I'll point out that there are very few people on this forum that have the humility to admit they're wrong. I've had discussions on topics I'm an expert on with people with no clue and they flail out. Very few users have the lack of ego to just say ''Huh that's an interesting point, I'll think on it." I will then point you back to your own signature and let you honestly introspect on your own bias and stubbornness as I believe that's what's happening here as when I deconstructed your point you defaulted to an ego response of why didn't you ask me to clarity instead of countering the point. Asking for a coherent model to explain extreme biological suffering isn't claiming expertise. It’s holding an inquiry to basic standards of logic. I’ve laid out the arguments from first principles across 4 pages. Those who want to engage with the actual mechanics of suffering can read the thread. I'm off, good night everyone.

Why would I assume that everyone has credible points? By default humans don't know much. If you start to claim that you're an expert in astrophysics I will not believe you until you prove it.

Of course it does. That's like if someone set someone on fire and their criminal defence was 'you wouldn't understand, I'm a 5D being it's beyond you.' Great, be beyond it in jail. I cannot put God in jail so all I can do is deconstruct it down to first principles.

That's how the scientific method works. You come up with a premise and you see if you can invalidate it. If you cannot you think it strongly supported until you come into evidence to the contrary. Is that learning or is that indoctrination? I do give people basic respect but I am intellectually honest. If someone tries to wave away their burden of proof with some vague "I'm too enlightened you wouldn't understand" then I will respond with heavy skepticism. It's pretty universally true that if you understand something deeply you can not only communicate it to others but do so effectively and also summarize it. Sometimes Leo says he has reached awakenings so deep he couldn't even explain them and that's perhaps true or perhaps it's delusional. He has hundreds of hours explaining credible concepts deeply enough that I respect his work and thoughts on stuff. Generally I do not give people that same benefit of the doubt though. It's a perfectly valid conclusion that someone can be wrong or biased. It could also be the case that they aren't communicating properly but if that's the case why is the burden on me to drag it out of them? Especially after I've explained my arguments in depth and they were hand-waved away by "sorry you're confused I'm too enlightened. " That doubly puts the burden on you to explain better or I think you're simply off track.

Sure that perhaps the case and hard to argue.If that is the case they should have no problem learning some game, taking some good pics and crushing on their dating life. If they have a passive attitude towards dating that's on them.

That is pure projection. I am the one anchoring directly to physical reality: biological nervous systems, nociceptors, cartel torture, and real human suffering. You are the one avoiding reality by retreating into airy abstractions about "selection bias collapsing" and "reasoning evaporating until consciousness persists." When someone is being physically tortured, that is not an abstract "possibility"—it is a concrete, localized event engineered by the laws of this universe. Calling the actual lived experience of pain "pointless subjectivity" is just an intellectual trick to avoid confronting the horrifying mechanics of the world we actually live in. You're the one that missed the point. He wrote books that sold millions of copies and gave worldwide lectures using a speech synthesizer. Hawking proved that even with extreme physical limitations, a rigorous thinker can and must communicate complex ideas clearly. I never claimed to be better than him at math.🤦‍♂️ You see what I mean by bad points? I never asked Michael Jordan for basketball coaching, where did that come from? You're trying to put me down from a pedestal that I never put myself on, I don't play basketball bro. You're also implying that people here are at the top of their field and that their competence and knowledge is beyond questioning which is not the case. I've fleshed out many other alternatives that you chose not to go down. I see it as sadism because I don't see it as a constructive move from an omnipotent being. A lot of religions portray God as quite a ruthless being so I don't see why him being sadistic is out of the question. Especially because indeed sadism is a prevalent trait in humans. I have a mild enjoyment in increasing my knowledge through debates. I am satisfied when I come to the conclusion that my understanding stands up to scrutiny. I think that's a pretty common and reasonable feeling. My attack on God is being the master of the universe and creating conditions for much worse sadism. If you fathered 10 kids and let them beat each other up and fight to the death you would be imprisoned and considered a monster. Why is that same standard not applicable to God? I think it is and that's my point. That's the Flatland Analogy. It describes a spatial illusion, not conscious agony. A 2D observer seeing an expanding circle is making a geometric mistake. A conscious biological organism being tortured is experiencing raw nervous-system trauma. Adding a 3rd or 4th dimension does not erase or negate the agony felt on the 2D plane. If a 3D architect intentionally creates vulnerable 2D beings and drops a crushing sphere through their world knowing they cannot comprehend or escape it, that architect isn't just "higher dimensional"—it is actively cruel to the beings it engineered. Claiming there is an unseen dimension where suffering magically becomes fine is just an unfalsifiable excuse to ignore the problem. As a matter of fact it's exactly my point. If God and whatever other post human beings exist indeed can control human suffering and are not affected by it then holy moly we are ruled by sadistic creatures. I don't think that's fully the case as I've stated before since humanity seems to be able to achieve massive progress and I personally believe that all crime on earth will end in the next 30 years. I'm mainly questioning why it was necessary for us to take that long to achieve it. The two conclusions I came to is God took enjoyment in our struggles which makes sense because an aspect of a mind seems to be enjoying the struggles of others in some others that it alienates. Since God creates being that are limited we are by definition alienated from divine power. The other is that it was not possible to do it any other way. It's plausible but I'm highly skeptical of that answer. I guess the universal mind could evolve over time but there are plenty of credible instances of people having been able to predict the future hundreds and thousands of years ago that I think it's provable that consciousness has an ability to be omnipotent. This is partly what awakening shows you as well but I'm still looking for an answer to the problem of evil and specifically the mass suffering of mankind.

@Xonas Pitfall I've already countered all of these points. On the God has to be everything point. There is no reason that God cannot compartmentalize things, and as a matter of fact our very existence is the proof that it is. Also your point is easily proven false as not everything exists in our reality. There are no 20 legged giraffes. You can say you can think of one or in VR you can make one but that's not the same thing as the experience of a giraffe as a biological organism. It is tricky which is why I find it worthwhile to deconstruct it. Your point here is weak though and is a simple false equivalency. An ant doesn't have the same brain structure to experience the same level of pain as a human does. They have studied this unless you want to pick apart the science on it. Unless your personal finances are in order you cannot afford to help each homeless person. If they are you should otherwise you are logically quite shallow and cruel. That's a deeper conversation on ethics and morality but is also worth having. Muscles don't have consciousness, you experience the pain. There are different ways of being finite. We could have been born as angels and experience taking walks and hunting fake beings that don't experience pain and hanging out with our friends and building businesses all the same without the design fact of extreme pain put into the universe.

That's fine, your subjective experience is your own. If we sit down together and make a map of what we understand about reality, if you want your points to be credible then you need to communicate them effectively. Otherwise I don't know my neighbour could be Jesus Christ himself powering up for the second coming. I can't know that but it's not something that I'll consider until I see evidence to the contrary. Alright and now respectfully my friend, this is a bad point. Let me explain why. > God can be any experience. Selection bias collapses, indecision ensues. Any experience happens. This is one of those experiences. It’s impossible to say it’s better or worse or sadist or masochism, when anything else can happen and there is endless comparisons. This is the subjectivity point. Which from the universal perspective is true. We're humans though. Unless you want to put your flag in the ground and say that to you a child getting murdered is about the same as an apple falling from a tree. If that was your point then that can be your perspective but I find it invalid and it would define you as a psycho. > Points of reference collapse. Reasoning becomes paradoxical until it evaporates. Consciousness persists. That would prove my point though. If a supreme ruler made a universe made a bunch of beings that genocide, kill, rape, and torture eachother and it's like whatever I'm gonna look at some stars now then it's wildly irresponsible first of all but also that doesn't really make sense. We are now attributing limited consciousness to God like a telescope that can only focus on one thing at once. I think God can experience all viewpoints in the universe at once and therefore has experienced the POV of all humans since the dawn of time. It's either suffered alongside us for the sake of evolution which is a valid theory but I think an omnipotent God could've made beings that don't need to torture themselves for thousands of years until they learn better so he just enjoyed the process. That can be entirely inaccurate and therefore my conclusion would be invalid and if I've now proved the limits in God's power then I'm also satisfied with that If Stephen Hawking taught a class and nobody understood what he talked about then I would call him a terrible communicator and that would be a fair point. Which is an invalid hypothetical because Stephen Hawking wrote many books and communicated his points quite well. Michael Jordan is an athlete not a performance coach. If he was a poor performance coach then yes you could call him a bad coach. Respectfully again this is what I meant in the other post by you make shallow points that are not well thought out.

A lot of these "nice guys" have many toxic traits under the surface. It's quite rare for a man or human being in general to have worked on being attractive to the other sex, have their finances in order and have done enough shadow work to not be a toxic individual. I've met some very nice and caring people who after having known for a while had some nasty character traits. The psyche is quite deep my friend, be careful not to judge a book by its cover.

Just because a game engine has concepts it can use doesn't mean it needs to use them all the time. Some people get skinned alive and tortured by cartels when they try to speak out for justice because it limits the power of the cartels. The pain caused is only valuable to the cartels power and I guess to a sadistic God that's experiencing it as well. We could also say that it's a perfectly organized set of dominos and if one less person was skinned alive then the collective will towards positive change would not be strong enough to make it happen. That's on the human level though, there is still a sadistic God that made it so. Or an unchangeable reality but that's an atheistic argument. Of course it's a possibility. In what way am I confused? You're clearly just avoiding the fact that it's entirely possible for a God to be partly good and partly bad. Like the simple concept that the Devil is another aspect to God. Not more powerful than God since I don't believe reality to be fundamentally based in pain but it's quite a large component of it for sure. I'm an INTP, I focus on solutions and understanding not dwelling on the pain in the universe. If God decided to make it like this but gave us the tools to improve it then I'll focus on understanding how things work and then work to solve it for myself and others. There is no other rational way to look at it. 52 homicides happen globally each hour so since I've made this thread give or take 300 people have been murdered. I can't do anything about it but you know who can? God. If he hasn't done something then he must be getting some value out of it. If you consider that as one gets murdered you join the universal consciousness and you don't feel bad then I guess that's justifiable. I'm not really talking about murder though I'm talking mostly about all the worse things that go down on this realm as well as the concept of justice. It's a conversation but if we're to be serious in our inquiry then we need to ruthlessly deconstruct each-others point. Otherwise we're back to the fish stoner bro metaphor. I've done that plenty in my life, now I'm on a quest for truth and understanding and have no patience for half-baked points. I went to the forum with the smartest and most spiritually aware people I know and if they can't poke holes in my arguments it must be true. AI said it's true and life is complicated but stop thinking about it if it makes you uncomfortable. I said AI stop worrying about my comfort and just analyze my points and it couldn't really find flaws in them.

No, I accept being ruled by a partly quite sadistic ruler since thankfully my life is not that bad and I was born in a time where real solutions seem to exist for all the problems we face. I've rebutted all the points made in this thread to my liking. If you don't feel like my answers changed your mind on your points then feel free to restate your points and we can go over them again otherwise I'm satisfied with this thread so far.

If this is your first time really pondering the problem of evil then it makes sense that my conclusion that God is quite sadistic is too jarring to consider. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil It's one of the top questions of theology that I've personally wondered about for years and I've introspected even while on psychedelics. If you guys have not pondered it equally as deep then our conversation on the topic is not gonna be very productive. Feel free to offer a credible rebuttal otherwise I will assume that you do not understand the topic and are therefore categorically wrong on it.

Claiming you've had more awakenings without being able to explain how your understanding makes sense is a road straight to delusion my friend. I believe you yourself have pointed out the intellectual trap of making unfalsifiable points. Alright feel free to stop responding to this thread as I don't think you get the topic and the rebuttals you've had against my points have been weak and therefore invalid.

Since we've had a good dialogue these past few days I will be more conciliatory than I usually am. I don't think the points you've made have been good. Please state your points clearly and succinctly if you believe them to be valid and potentially invalidating the conclusions I've come to.

God could've made a reality where humans can opt out of pain. Or where just people that choose to inflict pain on others feel pain, like PvP mode in games. Have you felt pain in your life that others have not felt? If you stub your toe on the wall, that's localized pain. We agree that all of life does not experience your pain of having stubbed your toe. There's both the possibilities that God is a masochist and feels all the pain of all humans when they feel it and enjoys it or that God is even more fucked up than that and can cut itself off from others's pain and experience it like a movie and thus is more psychopathic and sadistic. Sure but we get to deconstruct reality and what it's made out of. For example government's top values are not to produce cheese. Their countries contain cheese but it's not highly ranked. What's highly ranked is military power or alliances to maintain sovereignty, a functional legal system, exports to fund the budget, etc. You can have a low standard for your arguments. I can say that I believe that God is really a giant fish and you can say wooow bro that's deep who knows it could be true. I wouldn't consider that a valid argument. You've responded to my arguments but you haven't invalidated them and you've simply deflected and haven't made a point of your own in terms of the power of God and its level of sadism.

Yes that's why I call it reductionistic. I don't know if this is the thread for it but my real point is how childrearing has stopped being the central pursuit of a lot of men and women and instead social media has connected us globally to the point that farming status is a worthwhile pursuit. It's truly a deep point to think about and will have massive ramifications on humanity over the next decades. Not Brave New World or Animal Farm that I've seen but 1984 yes and to To Kill a Mockingbird also comes to mind.

It's also because there are other ways to reach your goals than to hurt others. Win-win is a powerful concept. If you need to get your sexual or self-importance needs met you fundamentally understand life and also your ability to avoid prosecution. I will go as far as making the claim that in the next 20-30 years all rapists will get caught even the one with no evidence as AI becomes able to mindread and tell the truth between he said she said beyond the shadow of a doubt. All crimes will end on earth as soon as we figure out how to police the government itself and those who are currently above the law. Which I think is not that hard and even social media itself has done a good job of achieving partly but the legal system is so flawed that it can't do it fully. Humans self-empowered through AI will be able to overpower corrupt elites by function of how the universe is built and the asymmetric downsides that being a criminal inflicts on the universe.

So make your point, you haven't made one so far you just endlessly deflect. It doesn't matter how many awakenings she's had if she can't counter my points then my argument stands correct.

I mean obviously yes. I don't understand the nature of your questioning, it seems like my points are pretty self-explanatory. You seem to imply that putting in the effort to become a powerful human is not worth it. I think that's a bad way to look at life and leaves you open to, well, uncertainty first of all, but really much worse than that. The certainty that others more powerful than you will control your life and use you to their benefit. The only way to prevent that is putting in the work to become financially and socially independent. To go back to my line of questioning to @Cathal, he chooses to place himself under the protection of his monastery which is I assume funded by the country that he's in or I guess the fundraising arm of the organization he's under in which I assume he's not involved. I personally would feel quite uncomfortable with that arrangement which is why I was curious how he looks at it.

I think you're being intellectually dishonest with this comment. I've had plenty of awakenings and mystical experiences and I came to this exact conclusion that I'm sharing and you've had no valid rebuttals. Reality seems to be a sandbox in which you can do whatever you want and that includes hurting other humans and if you couldn't do that then it would be worse than it is. I'm thankful to be born in an age where it seems like AI and post scarcity will happen soon and solve it otherwise from anything prior to our era seems quite hellish. Thank you, I think I'm making pure sense and people are bypassing the harsh reality that we live in a world of suffering and if there is an omnipotent God controlling it, which there must be if we believe in God, then the creator of the universe is quite sadistic. Which makes sense, I'm creating a world and you want to be able to influence it in all ways good and bad. It's just unfortunate from the human perspective.

Where do you think God starts and ends? If you don't think there is a being that has control over the universe, that's fine but then you're taking an atheistic viewpoint which I do not share. I think life is more scary than that and this conclusion is correct. To derive the most satisfaction from sadism you have to inflict a lot of pain otherwise it's not really real. If whenever someone got shot they were like ahah no big deal and healed themselves that's fine that's like Call of Duty but reality doesn't work like this.

God is not a bot though, it exists as many billions of humans and other sentient beings. Are you a bot? I'm not a bot.

You're parroting stuff without thinking about it. One mind can be subdivided into others while still being one whole and each part still experiences its reality and thus can be made to suffer. If this one mind is omnipotent and chooses to make reality in a way that makes most beings suffer a lot of the time that mind is by definition quite sadistic. You're making up opinions out of thin air. You could make nerve endings that induce even more pain than they do now. You can make humans that can't experience physical pain, there are conditions like this that exist. If reality is like it is and you believe in God then he thought it right to make it exactly like how it is for some reason. I'm trying to get to the bottom of why and sadism seems like a clear answer. You guys are not understanding the point you're making, you're arguing that you're a bot. I hope that that is not the case and your experiences are real and if so God chooses to inflict pain on us for some reason. Since it should be possible to make perfect beings that don't need to learn from the start then that reason basically has to be sadism. Here's an easy way to conceptualize it: in Grand Theft Auto you can steal anything you want and shoot and kill people. If you couldn't do that, the game would be less fun. In my Game Legend Of The Abyss you you'll similarly be able to wage war and kill other players and NPCs. Otherwise the game would be no fun and be like Animal Crossing. In a game you are not hurting real people though, they are NPCs that only appear like they have pain but are a central server that is just processing data. God chose to make a game where its playable characters, us humans, feel a lot of pain for some reason. @yetineti So you don't think God has consciousness? Or you believe its power is quite limited? Explain how you see God and we can compare our thoughts on it. @aurum You seem to want to believe that there was no other way to make reality which makes no logical sense if you believe in God and you believe that God has basically infinite power over reality. If you do not believe that then please explain where its power starts and end, I'm curious how you conceptualize it. My only conclusion is that God as an infinite mind is both benevolent and sadistic, like most humans to some degree but as the sum total of the universe its moral responsibility is much greater. Since no one can hold it accountable I guess it gets away with it.

If you build a reality that's particularly hard and you have control to change it however way you like, it must be because you enjoy it that way. Why else is reality built like this? I'm using deductive reasoning to come to this conclusion, I'm not sure it's the case but I haven't seen any good argument in this thread to prove the conclusion wrong. @Xonas Pitfall Your point is very incomplete though, you haven't thought it through. The only way non-dualism makes sense is that there is one universal mind that subdivides itself into other minds to experience reality from a limited being's perspectives. Those limited beings are still real and even if they merge with God in the end, their pain is real. To think in just one mind without subdivisions is insane lol, that's like saying you wrote this post or I wrote your comment. Depends how you define God but by using the definition of Actualized.org it would be a universal consciousness that experiences everything that makes up the sum totality of the universe. In that case it should have power over everything and it chose to make a reality where people can hurt each other in all kinds of ways. The fact that humanity itself is getting to the point that we're making a VR reality where you'll be able to live in a sandbox and kill others if you want but with no consequences leads me to believe that God could've shaped reality the whole time this way. The reason he didn't must be that it was more enjoyable to do it this way or its power is limited and he had no other choice but to do it this way. I don't believe the latter makes sense so it must be the former. Confronting what?