Conundrums
 

I have several books on philosophy, but my favorite it probably the most simplistic one. It's called "Conundrums" and it contains a series of questions on various subjects that are designed to make you think. The reason I love this book is because you can spend hours thinking about a single question. I thought I would post a few of the questions from the chapter on God that are interesting:


1) Is God changing or unchanging? He must be unchanging because if he is perfect, then any change from a state of perfection would make him imperfect. But isn't thinking itself a form of change? So if God is unchanging, then how can he think about a changing world? How can he act on one? If God is changing, how can he be perfect? Doesn't change imply incompleteness? And incompleteness, imperfection?

2) Isn't to think about a thing, to become a little bit like it?

3) Is God proved because the Bible speaks of him? And the Bible proved because it is the word of God?

4) Did the universe have to come from somewhere? If so, would not the same hold for God? And who created him? Super God?

5) Is God the self-caused being? But if God could be the self-caused being, why can't the universe be that thing?

6) Is the fact that almost everyone, everywhere, believes in God, evidence for the existence of God? Was the earth really flat when almost everyone, everywhere, believed that it was?

7) Is God all-powerfull and all-good? If he is all-powerful, then he would be able to prevent evil. If he is all-good, then he would want to prevent evil. But are not pain and suffering woven into the very fabric of our life? Why is there pain and suffering?

8) Does God allow evil so we can develop good characteristics? Does he permit pain and suffering so we can become better? Is it owing to poverty that we become charitable, owing to cruelty that we become kind? Does evil build souls? But why are built souls a virtue? Why are the traits of charity and kindness good? Isn't that they help us prevent evil, pain, and suffering? But if there was no evil in the first place, why would we need these traits? Would they still remain virtues?

9) Does God permit evil so we can develop characteristics worthy of entering heaven? But why do we need those characters in heaven? Is there poverty and cruelty in heaven too? If not, why did we suffer to develop these characteristics? What good would they be in heaven?

10) Doesn't evil destroy character more often than building it? Do not abused children themselves abuse children?

11) Must we have pain so we can know joy? Must we suffer in order to know what happiness is?

12) Does pain and suffering come from the misuse of our freedom? If God is all-powerful couldn't he have made us both free and so that we always did good?

13) If a parent gives a child freedom to roam in the street and child gets injured, is it the child or the parent who is guilty?

14) Are we punished for inherited sin? Did Adam and Eve start the whole problem? What would you think of a people that forced its criminals to reproduce so it could then punish their children?

Re: Conundrums
 

15) Can we judge God? If we are finite and limited in our judgement then we cannot cast judgement on an infinite being. But isn't the act of worship itself a positive judgement?

16) Christians typically doubt the miracles of the Islamic and Hindu religion. Muslims and Hindus typically doubt the miracles of the Christian religion. Why do these people believe only in the miracles of their own religion? Owing to an accident of birth perhaps? Or does God do tricks for every religion?

17) How does prayer work? By asking God for something he did not know that you needed? Or does prayer persuade God to give you something he otherwise wouldn't have? Are you really that good a bargainer?

18) Or does prayer work by asking God for something he knew you needed but wanted you to genuflect for? Would you treat your children this way?

19) Does worship please God? Would you like your children to worship you?

20) Is blind obedience a good character trait? Is it a moral one?

21) Would you be proud to be worshipped by roaches? Would it enhance your self-concept? Or would it make you embarassed? Could a roach change your mind? If it could speak, would you understand what it said?

Re: Conundrums
 

22) Pascal argued that even though we cannot know, we should wager that God exists. If he exists and we do not believe, then we go to hell. So, given that we do not know, we are better off believing. But on these grounds shouldn't we believe in all the Gods that have ever been worshipped? After all, if you wager and bet on the wrong God, what then? What does God think of gamblers?

23) Is there really such a thing as "faith"? Or rather, are there only good and bad reasons for what we believe? Do we use the word "faith" when we only have reasons of the latter kind?

24) Does something greater than us--God--give human life meaning? What, then, gives God's life meaning?

25) Have you believed for most of your life that there is an all-good, all-powerful God who created and who sustains the world? If you have believed this through faith, then is it not equally possible that the world is created by an all-powerful, evil demon? Might not the favorite trick of this demon be to make you believe he is all-good, as well as all-powerful? Might the "saved" be precisely those people who do not believe?

26) Even if we die and find ourselves in heaven, does that prove God exists? Is it not possible that the right combinations of chemicals and hallucinagins can make you believe you are experiencing God's love? How can you ever be sure? Or cannot an all-powerful God re-wire your brain to make you believe or feel anything?

Re: Conundrums
 

Oh crap, those are good.

I borrowed a philosophy book once, and it was based on logic and wisdom. It took simple logical problems (A needs to go to B, but C is in the way) and it briefly explained the entire list of processes and ways to go about the problem. You could apply these problems to pretty much everything. It was really interesting. I even apply these logics to real life situations.

Of course, I looked at the forward, and the entire book was written within 2 days. Haha, those crazy philosophers. Textbook of Wisdom, it was called.

Re: Conundrums
 

Those made me think.

I found number 4 funny as hel... uh... heaven!

Re: Conundrums
 

Some of those were very good, but there were a few that didnt make me think at all, I just knew the answer right off.

But that probably means I have already spent time thinking about that question prior to reading it and just forgot about it. :D

I've been interested in philosophy for as long as I can remember...I'm going to check out the philosophy section of my library after the weekend is over. Any really famous books on philosophy that someone would recommend?

Re: Conundrums
 

Philosophy is interesting because no matter how hard you think, you can never come to a true, unquestionable answer.

I find it to be in the same state of mind thinking about philosophy as something like meditation, trying to get in touch with some higher answer to things.

Re: Conundrums
 

my housemates a really strong christian.....there was one time where she tried encouraging me to learn bout christianity with her bible study group....i was given so much info which i was sceptical about and bombareded them without questions....most of my questions were familiar to *whats at the top*.....took us an entire night of debate and i was still sceptical...*shrug* they answered the questions pretty well though...coming back to the fact that all human beings are sinners and jesus (crucified) went through a **** load to make up for 'our' sins and god sacrificed his own son (by allow him to suffer the pain) for the good of all mankind....

*shrug* they teach bible study so i guess theyve been through a lot of is-god-real questions...

i feel like printing neos post and giving it to her... :p

Re: Conundrums
 

That's actually why I cannot find philosophy interesting at all...I find it hard to argue or think of something for that long when I can't figure out an answer and will not be able to...I find psychology much more interesting because it is a pretty new science, but there are some certainties and some not, but at least it's not just question after question after question...

To each his own though. I understand why philosophy is interesting, but I say to it, why waste your time?

Re: Conundrums
 

I believe you can arrive at some answers if you bring physics into the mix. But the point of philosophy is to stretch your mind and get you to examine why you believe the things that you do.

Whether or not psychology is a true science is debatable. Some colleges have psychology under liberal arts instead of natural science. But there are no absolute certainties in any field. We may be 99.9% sure about something but the true scientist always leaves room for question.

Re: Conundrums
 

Yeah, if you notice, when religious arguments come up, and someone said "Who created God? How did God come to be?" Their answer is almost always soemthing about nothing, because he is God. He is all knowing.

But I love those. They rocked my socks.

Re: Conundrums
 

*strokes chin*

Too true.

Are there any 100% true facts, or just 99.9% true theories?

My language arts class recently took a look at a quote taken from Antigone, written by Sophocles. The quote reads: "A good man tries to repair the evil, the only crime is pride". We had to write an essay exploring the truthfulness of that quote.

I actually disagreed with Sophocles. Pride is NOT the only crime. Most people, when reading the words of an ancient philosopher, or anyone ancient actually, seem to believe them immediatly. Ancient or not, he was just a man, and him being a memory now doesnt change anything. The only way it would be true would be if he said "pride is a crime."

Pride is humanity’s ultimate double edged sword. Where would we be without pride? We take pride in ourselves, pride in our brethren, and pride in our homelands. It gives us the strength to stand up for what we believe in, and what makes us get up again if we’ve been kicked down. You can take everything away from a man: his freedom, his family, and his possessions…but you cannot take his pride. On the other hand, pride is probably the root of most every great problem in the world. It’s when we have so much pride that we remain ignorant that it actually becomes a deadly sin. Someone who will not admit their pretense when they are blatantly proven wrong is indeed guilty of a crime. As humans we are imperfect by nature, and we all support some sort of flaw. It is the pride in our opinions that make us unique and give us a reason to live; it is the pride in incorrect facts that should be punishable. We should take pride in ourselves, in all of our glorious imperfection, not in our abilities.

However, the wise Teiresias seems to have made a slight miscalculation in his well thought out prose. He did not state that pride was a crime; he stated that it was the only crime. Teiresias states that a good man will repair the evil once he realizes his course is wrong, but what if his evil course is not repairable? What if a person commits a murder in a blind act of passion? If later the person admits he was wrong and cleanses himself of his pride, does this make him a good man? No matter how much we shun our pride, we cannot give life to the dead.

Aside from this, another standpoint can be taken. What if a person is killed in an act of war or is given the death penalty. Does the man responsible for the loss of the life feel that he has committed a crime? And to make the moral and ethical paradox even worse, it was pride that drove the man to commit the murder. If the life was taken in a war, it was pride in one’s nation that drove the man to kill. If the life was taken in an electric chair, it was pride in one’s opinion that corporeal punishment is true justice that drove him to kill.

“Romeo and Juliet”, an Elizabethan play by William Shakespeare is a perfect example of how pride actually resulted in death, yet it also shows us that pride cannot be the only crime. In the play two noble families, the Capulets and the Montagues, are at a constant feud with each other. Their hatred of each other and their passionate pride are driven so intently that they will not concede to each other to allow two of their children to be married, although they both love each other deeply. In the end, Romeo and Juliet, the two star crossed lovers, kill themselves in a hopeless act of suicidal passion. It was only after this that the two families put away their pride and were united. In the end they recognized that their course was wrong, but even though they discontinued being proud, they could not bring back their dead children. Was pride the only crime in this tragedy? They may have admitted that their course was wrong, but they are still guilty of condoning the hatred and not letting their children be happy.

And what can be said of Juliet? Suicide is considered a sin by nearly everyone, and wrong by everyone. How does one propose Juliet repair her evil?

There are many implications within Teiresias’s philosophy. If a person is too stubborn to admit they are wrong when proven so, then they are guilty of a crime of pride, but if they will not admit they are wrong about a belief or opinion that someone else believes is “evil”, than they are guilty of nothing but having a strong morale code. Teiresias’s quote may sound wise and truthful at first glance, but it has far too many exceptions and contradictions to be accepted as a philosophy to live by. Pride to too important to the existence of humans to call it a crime.

Re: Conundrums
 

Very interesting. Those remind me of something I heard in a George Carlin bit awhile back.
It went something like...
"Why do people pray when the same people say that god has a divine plan? If god really does have a divine plan, and you pray for something that wasn't a part of the plan, do you expect him to change his plan?"

That really made me think. Good job Neo.

Re: Conundrums
 

Physics is about model construction. Using mathematics as a tool we construct theories which can explain and predict natural phenomena. "Truth" isn't a word physicists like to use. Einstein's theory of relativity agrees perfectly with every experiment ever devised but the question of whether or not the theory somehow exists as truth in some platonic realm is a matter of philosophy. Also to say a theory is incomplete is not really the same thing as saying it is incorrect. Newton's laws of motion are "correct" for speeds much less than the speed of light but they quickly break down when the velocity approaches that of light. Einstein's models are more complete but the simpler Newtonian laws can still be derived from them. It can be said that all laws are at best approximations for the occurrences in nature. Again whether or not the laws of physics have some reality beyond the conceptual is a matter of speculation. Are there 100% true facts? In an absolute sense no. For example, someone could have slipped LSD into your drink this morning. You would have to step outside your consciousness and observe yourself outside of yourself if that makes any sense.

You can say there are mathematical truths, such as 1+1=2. This results from having a quantity sitting over here, and another quantity sitting over there, and together we designate them as being "two" quantities. This way mathematical truths somehow feel more like conventions than actual truths. Convention isn't really the right word but you get the idea.

Re: Conundrums
 

Yeah it's like when people mention "God's will" I really don't think they understand what that means. Most of the problems in discussing God stem from the limitations of language. For example we say things like God wants this, or thinks this, or feels this, but "wanting," "thinking," and "feeling" are all characteristics of an organic human brain. Thoughts are the result of electrical charges interacting in your brain. I don't think that God wants, thinks, or feels anything in the traditional sense of what those words mean. Yet by using that language we end up personifying God and that gets us into all kinds of trouble. Asking what God wants is like asking what do rocks and Wednesdays have in common. The question ultimately just doesn't make sense, even if it's not immediately obvious.


Carlin has a new book out btw.