OK, crazy couple days, but happy to answer these...

@diplomat61:

My burgers are made with 100% Theory, and so the 100th will taste as good as the first (guaranteed!) ;) But the larger point... that'd still just be the evaluation, a human evaluation of something which has a fixed value. So to the human being, the enjoyment, the valuation on the 100th would not be as high as on the 1st or 2nd, but the actual burgers themselves, supposing that these Theoretical Burgers are all the same in quality, would have the exact same ACTUAL valuation, it'd just be your perception of them that would change; to illustrate that, stack the burgers on top of them, from 1 to 100. Eat #1 in the stack. Now #99. Or #2 and #67. Or #4 and #88. Regardless of which burgers you eat, the value will remain the same, it isn't that the burgers THEMSELVES are different in value. Now, if you ate straight from #1 to #99, is that any different in the ACTUAL value, you are still eating beurgers that are still, as just stated, all the same value, regardless of the order, it is the mere frequency that makes you desire #99 less, but if you had eaten burger #99 FIRST you would ahve loved it, and if you'd have eaten #1 as the ninety-ninth sample you likely would have been miserable and hated it.

Not the actual burger, they are all the same, just perception. To underline this, and to show where I am going with this, imagine a burger- and nothing else. A total vacuum, nothing in existance but the burger, not even the Burger's Creator, nothing to ASCRIBE the burger value. Now, in this vacuum, where it can serve no purpose but mere existance, what is its value? Value is determinant on relativity and comparison (ie, a burger is more valuable than a lump of mud to most people and less than a diamond ring, and yet, if the mud were all that existed, it wouldn't be low, or high, just THERE, no value acribed to it, and nothing in it intrinsically indicates value, as that is relative.)

As such, the Burger in the Vacuum is worthless, as is the Ring in the Vacuum, the Mud... anything. Now, what is meant by worthless? Perhaps valueless is a better term; with nothing to ascribe it value, and as there is no intrinsic value in any such material goods, as any material or physical goods are good or bad, valuable or worthless depending completely on circumstance (ie, a nugget of gold is highly useful in state that values it, but in a State of Nature where there is no monetary system and the nugget may not be exchanged for any goods, the nugget becomes far less valuable, and nearly worthless in some situations) an object has no VALUE in a vacuum.

Now, extend that to the present situation we have. WE have values placed upon our goods, our possessions, everything, but these are external. ANYTHING in a universe in which it alone existed would be valueless, as there is nothing to compare it to and thus establish a comparitive ranking of valuations. It MAY be argued that there is WORTH intrinsic within such an object or being still, that mere existance is SOMETHING, and that may or may not be true; I am inclined to disagree, and would love to here someone else's take on that, but it is beside my main point, that being the discussion of VALUE, which would not exist in the vacuum (even a claim that it is 100% valuable, the most valuable thing, falls flat, as, again, that isn't value but rather merely taking what is as what is, to put it another way, if YOU were alone and the only thing in existance, you would not find that special, as, having nothing else to compare existance with aside from the vacuum, you would be forced to conclude that existance is merely THE state, nothing of value or special, it just IS, just as if everyone were immortal and had always been it would not be considered special or valuable, as everyone, every living organism had existed immortally and so it is not comparative to anything) and as such, the burgers, the men consuming them, and all that exists...

All is valueless in its nature, as anything can be imagined in such a theoretical vacuum; rather, it is ONLY through the existance of multiple and diverse creaturs and objects and beings that we hae a sense of valuation, but it is totally aritificial, in the sense that it is not naturally occuring within the internal nature of all beings or objects (as they can theoretically be in that Vacuum) but rather an external consequence of many chance objects and beings thrust, by design or random action, into a Space.

And this leads to my final point, coming back, at long last, to God.

God is taken to precede, in the Tradition, everything else.
Even a terrible Jew like me knows the passage "In the Beginning, God Created the Heaven and the Earth."

Before that, there was JUST GOD... IN A VACUUM.

It is supposed that He comes before all, even any sort of space which he might occupy that had any sort of dimensions to it, and so He MUST have been in a vacuum.

And... He was valueless, in the line of reasoning put forth above.

So He creates Man and the Earth and all that, if you believe a Creation Tale.

Man without God doesn't exist, or could simply "be" and in a vacuum, and is valueless.
God without Man or any Creations, organic or physical, is in a vacuum- valueless.

And so I'd postulate that, rather than viewing whatever God or Creating Force (you can decide if its an Entity or a Big Bang only or whichever you like) as supreme over His Creation, I would suggest that instead Man is, in a sense, while not equal in ability, equal in the fact that he would give that which previously had no value a value, would make God a valuable entity, and God in turn creates and ascribes His valuations to Man.

So Man and God are really very much connected, and far from a Master/Slave or Ruler/Subject relationship, as the Abrahamics tend to promote, I would lean more towards the sort of relationship the Greeks had with their gods, that while God may be more powerful and more valuable, we may affect HIM as well, our being affects Him, gives Him as purpose as we might suppose He might give to us (if you take that line of thought) and that subordination is the wrong path in dealing with God, and striving to raise ourselves, raise our value and being, and thus the value of God's Creation and God Himself as a Creator.

So for God to do this, to creat in a vacuum where nothing had been created before, he had just been, he would need to be all-powerful. However, as morality is really a system of valuation dealing with actions and interactions between and affecting other people, I would suggest that morality s a fallacy, that it is merely what you select and truly subjective, and going by "God's word" is merely choosing that which has had the most value ascribed to it, the Word of God... in a World God Created. It's another opinion- just one backed by lightning bolts and hellfire, so to speak. In truth there is no morality, not an objective one, anyway, and as such God may not be, in response to Epicurus, so much malevolent as indifferent.

@obi +1, i'll critique it if i get a chance later.

@obi - You presume that value can only come from perception. I disagree. Take microbiology, for instance. 2000 years ago, the same microbes that work in our systems today and make complex multi-cell life possible worked in the bodies of man as well. But today we have microscopes and know they exist. Did not knowing they existed mean they had less value than they do today? I say no. There is an innate value in everything based on what it contributes to the universe/life/physics/whatever. Now, the innate value in mud may actually be greater (and probably is greater) than the innate value in a diamond ring.

There are two types of value. Perceived or ascribed that man puts on objects, and innate that nature/God/whatever has attributed to them. We may not even know some of the most important objects exist yet, but they still have innate value if they maintain the order and stability of the universe.

"Did not knowing they existed mean they had less value than they do today?" - no, in a vacumn it is not just that nothing can observe you it is also that you have no interaction - cause nothing to happen.

If these microbes had no effect on humans 2000 years ago then they wouldn't have had no value. No effect at all including climate, gravitational or any other.

Obi didn't say much about observed value, more about relative interaction value. how one hamburger tastes (interacts with the tongue and nourishes the body) compared to another - it doesn't matter if you can't see or taste the hamburger, if it contributes to the system it has some value WITHIN the system.

(and that might be a negative value if the contribution is undesirable)

Gotcha! But then if God could not interact with the system within the vacuum, and therefore had no value to the system, he could not have altered the system. therefore, he must have had some interaction, ergo some value.

agreed.

only a relative value within any system God is interacting with. (where i assume the complete system includes God)

Why must God have been in a vacuum or a place with some spatial dimension? These are just aspects of our universe and may have no real application to God. Why would God value our valuation of him?

I think you're still talking about value only having meaning in the context of perception, even though you've described it in relational terms. Does a burger have any value if in its vacuum there is also mud and a diamond ring? It's only when a being, capable of perception, such as a human, that any of these things take on value. I would actually agree with you, and this is why I took issue with your theoretical intrinsic burger value. Consider a perceptive being in a vacuum. Say you were in vacuum, but you're holding your breath because I heard that you live longer in a vacuum if you don't try to hold your breath than if you do. Do you have any value in the vacuum? I think you do. I think you value yourself. If you knew what oxygen was, I think you'd value that too, considering you'll be needing it quite soon. It's not about objects in a theoretical vacuum, it's simply about consciousness. Presumably (though I could not say for sure), God is conscious, and if he has his own values, it doesn't matter that he's in a vacuum, value still exists, and he might value himself, who knows? If he didn't have values of his own, then by what motivation would he create heaven and earth (assuming he is anything like humans)?

To address Draugnar's argument of intrinsic value, I would say that without human perception, the microbes would not have any value. It is only a conscious being that can say that they value something based on its contribution to the order of the universe. It is true that 2000 years ago, microbes were still giving their contribution, yet had no perceived value in human civilization, and the same may be true of many things around us now that we do not perceive as valuable. In that sense, I would say that microbes did not specifically have value 2000 years ago. However, today, while I may not know of some other factor that contributes to universal order and cannot appreciate it's value specifically, I can broadly generalize by saying that I do value anything that contributes to universal order. The same could be said of someone 2000 years ago, who may not know the specific contribution of microbes, but could nonetheless say that they value those things which contribute to the universe. If you would make a distinction between the two types of value, such that they cannot be compared on the same scale, I would say simply call perceived value, "value", and your innate value, "function". I can say that I value function, but I would not ascribe to it any intrinsic value outside of perception.

Ugh. So many typos and missing words. If anything needs clarification, let me know.

@Obi2
I accept that your burgers are totally consistent in terms of ingredients & preparation, and that any variation of your enjoyment of the 1st vis a vis the 100th is totally due to perception.

Similarly, all cricket bats are created equal but your perception of the one that is wrapped around your head is different than the one that Ian Botham used to smite the Aussies at Headingly in 1981.

Ergo, perception is more important.

@Chrispminis:

Ummm... yes, COULD you clarify your position, I can't crack through to it (and when I, the KING of long rambling typo-ridden threads can't...) :p

@diplomat61:

I totally agree that perception is more important, BECAUSE of my conclusion that things have no inherent value. If they DID, then that might supercede the perception; but, lacking that, the only thing we HAVE is perception to define and evaluate, and so perception IS important.

As far as your counterexample goes... maybe I just misunderstood, as I don't get the cricket reference at all (a BASEBALL fan here, thank you lol) but if you are implicating that because the bats would not be any more valuable than one another and all equal that the only thing distinguishing Bat A from Bat B is perception, I believe that to be erroneous, as it leaves out the question of an object's history.

Baseballs 1, 2, and 3 lay before me, all created equal, all look perfectly alike.

#1 has never been used.
#2 has been thrown once, from a father to son in the shop
#3 was also thrown only once- but that one pitch was a Strike 3 to win the World Series

Now- just because their features are the same, are they the same?

No.

Even setting value aside, logic dictates that the ball thrown for Strike 3 in the 2054 World Series cannot be thrown twice; once an action is committed, it may not be altered or re-committed, even with time travel, as that would actually be a DIFFERENT action, as the circumstances would be different, ie, throwing the pitch for the first time and then going back in time to throw it again, knowing THIS time to locate the pitch away from the batter and not high and in, knowing that both will strike out the batter, but also that if you locate the ball high and in, not only will the batter swing and miss, he'll fall foward into the pitch with the momentum of his missed swing, and he will lose an eye as the ball strikes the left side of his face.

So Ball #3 is THE ball that was used to strike the batter out; regardless of similarities in kind with Balls #1 and #2, the differences in their experiences and histories defines Ball #3 as dfinitively being Ball #3.

Okay, I'll try to be as succinct and short as possible. Your argument about ends justifying means. First of all, God cannot be understood solely on mortal philosophy. It's like an ant trying to comprehend the size of the earth. It just doesn't work. Second, there are things that God causes and there are things that He allows. He may cause something to happen, but if He is the one doing it, it is for a good purpose. Other horrifying things, (such as the Apartheid and the Holocaust as you mentioned) were created by the devil who used men with evil already in their hearts as tools. I return to my other argument, that God cannot always intervene on our behalf. It's like a parent who always keeps its child from any and all discomfort, and always accedes to its' child's wishes. He also allows those things to happen so that he may judge those who caused them at the Last Day.

Largeham: that's a good question. In my religion, I believe that the ultimate reward and gift of God is to become elevated to His station, and become a god. That is His promise to us if we obey all his commandments and do as he asks, fervently. Becoming a god would be impossible in an artificial environment. You just can't take the easy way out. Living on earth is hard, it's difficult, it's stressful, and sorrowful. We lose loved-ones, we experience pride, hostility, and the evil things that people do to each other. I maintain that these things are why we are here in the first place. To have an understanding, and to become like god.

@InfestedRaisin:

We've already adressed your very first point, sir, and the case has been made against the "We just don't understand God's perfect plan as we're imperfect" argument.

Firstly, to make that argument is to imply that we cannot, then, udnerstand what God's meanings and plan is, as it is above our heads; however, if this is true, then the basis for believing in the biblical God is under serious attack, as THAT is based on the idea we CAN undertand God's word and ideas, to the extent that we are able to interpret his word, teach it as an absolute perfect law, and treat these things as absolute translations of God's thought.

The line of thought stating that we as human beings cannot understand God's reasoning opens the door for the destruction of the the acceptance of the Abrahamic God on the basis of the Bible, as that RELIES ON OUR UNDERSTANDING GOD'S WORD. If we state that we cannot understand his word or reasoning, the bible, supposedly his word, becomes garbage; even if it is said we cannot understand ALL of God's messages and meanings but CAN understand some, we still face the same problem, as without a clear and complete knowledge of something, you may not claim to undertand it, truly, and further, if it is established that certain aspects of God's word may be inscrutible to us, then it would follow that you could challenge ANY aspect of God's word, and defend any claim by stating that we simply did not and could not undertand what God meant.

I've phrased this FAR better earlier, on like the first page, but its 1am and its been a long day, so sorry if this is less than eloquent; if you still disagree after this, and either disagree after rading my previously posted statement on the subject or else don't want to read it, just let me know, and I'll try again with a clear head tomorrow.

But to close I WILL say that I find it somewhat contrary that you should on the one hand claim that "God cannot be undertsood solely on mortal philosophy," and end your statement with "He allows..." you seem to be stating that He may be understood by mortal philosophy (as we are but mortal, even with supposed divine help our thoughts would still be mortal in nature and thus mortal philosophy) and then not. Likewise, you use the example of a parent who coddles their child and always accedes to the child's wishes, and THIS I have raised issue with numerous times here, a main reason being that if you had a child, you WOULD, as a good parent, want to grant it freedom; however, IF the child had its hand near an open flame that would scar the child for life, you most certainly would swat their hand away, as that would both save them from a lifetime of disfigurement AND teach them not to go sticking their hand in the fire. Likewise, as the Original Sin has "disfigured" man for all eternity in the sense we are no longer in Eden adn perfectly happy and now feel pain, it would seem as though God did NOT swat our hand away from the fire. He may have WARNED not to go near it, but honestly- if you warn your child not to go near the open flame and they still do, would you just let your toddler burn himself at that point and say 'Serves you right for not listening to me."

That is NOT being a benevolent or perfect parent, and not a benevolent or perfect God, and as I've stated before, as the title "God" implies perfection, and I believe there is ample evidence to suggest believe some sort of Creator or Creating Force is necessary and true, and that such a being would have to be all-powerful (for a multitude of reasons I haven't, at 1am, the patience to go into now) then it would appear that God must be perfect.

As such, as I have postulated before, God is all-powerful, but NOT always benevolent and loving, and can possibly even be cruel, the bottom line being that God's nature is a mystery aside from His power, and that the Judeo-Christian view of him as an always-loving father is wrong, as clearly he is not always loving if he were to let us "burn" ourselves on that "flame," and that cannot possibly be a good action, or even part of a Perfect Plan, and THAT, too, I've given an argue for why it cannot be, and, again, if you wish I'll go at it again tomorrow, though my searlier writings here I think were pretty good explaining my viewpoint, so its already there on this thread... good night, er, morning.

He is able but not willing to do something about it. "Why", do you ask ? Because He respect your free choice more than the evil that choice brought. He is a God that believes in Free choices and therefore does not interfere with choice no matter how evil they may be.
If He would live wouldn't be the same because every bad choice would be corrected instant.
The greatest gift from God is that we can make free choices. Whether you believe in it or not. that's up to you, because God isn't going to chance your choice in this matter.

Regarding this concept of Epicurus' riddle and other similar efforts at applying logic to the whole question of a good god... I present a quote I stumbled into recently:

"You can't reason someone out of a position that they didn't reason themselves into."

Indeed - many religious folk will even embrace a form of that... basically the "god is infinite and mysterious - so of course we can't make sense of him or the world he created and his purposes... we should just trust that there is a god, that he does have rational purposes, and that we'll never understand them but they are by definition 'good' ". I read at least a few people supporting god say some version of that in this thread alone. Well bollocks. There's no way to argue away an appeal to magic and mystery, is there. Especially when the magician (god) is invisible. Science is based on evidence... faith is based on belief without evidence and even contrary to evidence. Neither science nor faith will ever destroy the other fully because they both ignore each other... that is not, by the way, putting them on the same ground as being equal. Science is based in this world and we know it is real... faith is made up and is spun out of wishes for fairies and forevers and at the very least supposes a whole (spirit) realm that no one has ever shown to exist... Epicurus did a fine job of showing that the concept of a good god is irrational... but he made no headway against those who are committed to embracing their woo-wishes that the nonsense itself is seen as a feature (unknowable, infinite, mysterious, inscrutable) rather than a bug. To these the fact that their view of god is irrational is actually a comfort to them... it somehow *proves* that god is great because after all, god is defying understanding. Heck - there are a lot of things that one could imagine that would defy understanding... it's certainly a pretty poor argument for something's existence.

obiwan, could you be specific with what I ought to clarify? The only issue were some missing words in the second paragraph.

To paraphrase the second paragraph, you do not need to put things into a vacuum to see whether they have value or not. You simply need to put things away from conscious entities. If you found yourself in a vacuum, presumably you'd still have your values, and you'd be concerned for your survival in a vacuum because you'd value your survival. You can shove as many inanimate objects into a vacuum and their relationships to each other will not create value. It is only once a conscious and perceptive being enters the picture that these things will have value. God does not need us to have value, because he may have values himself, even in a vacuum, just as you would.

But I believe there is such a thing as intrinsic value that does not rely on perception. How to quantify and compare it would require perception maybe, but it exists outside of any quantification or qualification. The bonds within and between molecules are necessary for our universe to exist. Ergo, they have an intrinsic value and always have, even before the first primordial ooze became a single cell organism.

The bonds within and between molecules could be quite different and give rise to a completely different universe. The same could be said about any factor that contributes to our particular universe. Besides, what makes the existence or stability of the universe intrinsically valuable? Is existence inherently better than non-existence, physical stability better than instability? Why? These things only take on value because we as conscious and perceptive beings value our own existence, which is entirely contingent upon these myriad factors which form our particular universe. Their function predates us, but not their value.

We must disagree on what value is, unfortunately. Value, for me, is readily understood through contribution to a system. If it contributes, it has intrinsic value. Observation is not required any more than an observer being required to hear the noise of the proverbial tree falling in the forest. In fact some things with great intrinsic value may have little or no perceived value. Your mud puddle may be teaming with the building blocks of life and give rise to life on this planet giving it immense intrinsic value yet you somehow go back in time and just see a worthless puddle of mud.

@draug - that mud puddle only has value to us because it is required to build blocks, and perhaps all mud puddle have that potential, but as we've got life here now they have no intrinsic value left (the potential to create something which already exists - and which can create itself - is not itself valuable)

I was referring to a theoretical trip to the past where the mud puddle that started it all could be found. All mud puddles there would look the same and have the same observed value (nill) to a casual observer but one of them will still have a high intrinsic value. The point I'm trying to make (and failing miserably at) is that an observer is not required for an object or process to have value as that value may be based upon the object's/process's interaction with the system.

Here is a good definition I like for the word "value"

The property or aggregate properties of a thing by which it is rendered useful or desirable, or the degree of such property or sum of properties; worth; excellence; utility; importance.

I'm with Orathaic here.
Value is only in the eye of the beholder.
Jumping up to obi's example:
I don't want a baseball, so to me each ball has a value of 0.
If I did want a baseball, it would probably be to play with, in which case they would all have the same value - arguably #3 the lead because it's been used most aggressively so will be in the worst condition.
However, if I wanted an investment, then the value to me becomes the value of an item in the eye's of another. In this case, the baseball is worth anything less than you're willing to pay for it. That is, it is in my interests to buy the baseball for any amount such that I make a profit selling it to you. Suppose I bought it, then you realised Baseball was overrated. I would be left with a ball that was worthless to me.
So, I repeat my main point:
An items value is only what someone else is willing to give you for it.

Draugnar, I think this is a misunderstanding because perception was a bad word to use. You don't need to directly observe something to value it, but I think you need to have a being of subjective conscious to say what has value. There are many things that lie outside of our personal sensory perceptions that we consider to be important or valuable. I mean, just look at the example of God. A lot of people value God, despite not ever observing him. I don't even think he exists, but that's the funny thing. Value doesn't even necessitate existence. Most money in the economy is stored electronically, so it doesn't exist except in the positioning of bits, but it is as real and valuable as whatever you can trade the numbers for. I agree with you that the puddle of mud is of value, and we both agree on that, despite never having observed the puddle of mud, but we're both beings of subjective conscious that can say that we consider the puddle of mud valuable because it represents the beginning of life. Abiogenesis is not that concrete a theory, though I think it is making good progress, and your puddle of mud may not have ever existed as a precursor to life, but you can still say it's valuable, despite that it may have never existed. Again, existence isn't necessary for value.

Our entire perceptive reality may be an illusion conjured up by Descartes evil genie, but despite it all being a lie, value would still exist as long as we as subjective beings ascribe them value. I, and I think you do, value the existence and stability of the universe, as well as the myriad factors that allowed us the immense privelege that is our own personal existence, regardless of whether we know specifically what these may be, but I don't believe these things have inherent value. I think you only value the puddle of mud because you think it was responsible for life on Earth, which is what I think you really value, though I could again have you all wrong.

I think we are all agreeing that the value of an object/concept lies within peoples' perception if it rather than any measure of it's intrinsic properties. This might be through rarity (Botham's bat, 2054 baseball) or need (a burger to starving man or Obi2 who has just scoffed 99 others). The truth of this is all around us: any market, eBay, beauty is in the eye if the beholder, a gold sovereign is worth more than it's weight in gold, etc. It is how our world works.

and the idea of something on it's own 'in a vacuum' - by which i take it to mean completely isolated from anything else, seperated and on it's own - not literally in the vacuum of space, but in a hypothetical seperate system/universe.

A thing has no value to those outside of that system, no intrinsic value. (though i htink i may have value to itself, just as we value our own existance, well most of us, those humans who didn't died out...)

@Orathaic.

I may have consumed too many sherbets to be sure but I think your argument just "jumped the shark".