It seems clear to me that the universe is amoral.....

[Revoltingest]

But you are the universe, judging yourself with your own personal standards

I'm merely one of the universe's tenants.

 

[RestlessSoul]

While I think Pessimism is a guaranteed self-fulfilling prophecy, I don't believe Optimism guarantees good things to come.

Life is all about perceptions bro. Sometimes you just have to make a conscious decision to look for the good in any situation

“The mind is it’s own place, and in itself can make a Hell of Heav’n, a Heav’n of Hell.”

- John Milton, Paradise Lost

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Thanks.

Could you explain the difference?

 

[Wildswanderer]

The universe might be amoral but God isn't.
The negatives in the world are due to man's poor choices.
Everything good comes from God.
God is in charge, not to be confused with God controlling all man's actions.

 

[Colt]

Children being born with diseases, or disfigurements.

Good people dying, bad people getting far in life.

You could be on your way to beating depression, becoming religious, and trusting God, and then one day before you achieve all your goals, you're out hiking and you're attacked by a bear. Killed.

You could have gone to school, became a great genius, but never getting into a career long enough to make a breakthrough.


Any of this can happen. Assume, now, there is a God and the universe is going exactly they way God planned it. This is His design, everything that happens is exactly as it's meant to be.

What do you think the message is here? What do you interpret the meaning of our chaotic universe to be based on everything we know?

If you were to ask me, I sometimes feel like life is much like Albert Camus's view on Sisyphus. From this wikipedia article:

Camus is interested in Sisyphus's thoughts when marching down the mountain, to start anew. After the stone falls back down the mountain Camus states that "It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end." This is the truly tragic moment when the hero becomes conscious of his wretched condition. He does not have hope, but "there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn." Acknowledging the truth will conquer it; Sisyphus, just like the absurd man, continues pushing. Camus claims that when Sisyphus acknowledges the futility of his task and the certainty of his fate, he is freed to realize the absurdity of his situation and to reach a state of contented acceptance. With a nod to the similarly cursed Greek hero Oedipus, Camus concludes that "all is well," indeed, that "one must imagine Sisyphus happy."
​

I feel like what God is telling me is to follow through with my duties, goals, my individual meanings of life even when there's no light at the end of the tunnel. To not fully give up on myself to fall victim of hedonism or nihilism, but to aim for my goals while being happy doing so.

Kind of like optimism, but accepting that things won't necessarily turn out as you expect them to, so therefore instead of hope for the future it's more like acceptance of the future while also trying to mold it. The two are not contradictory.

If we are to be free then we will experience all that comes with free will. The group then benefits or suffers the consequences of the loyalties and disloyalties of our own members, higher authorities and celestial administrators. Lucifer rebelled against God and abused his authority. Being a free will celestial administrator the possibility of default was there. Many of the diseases end genetic deformities would have been eradicated long ago had the default not happened. So we all more or less still suffering the consequences of Lucifers betrayal.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Could you explain the difference?

Yes. While the two words can certainly be seen as synonymous, for me at least "message" can connote "messenger" which, in turn, can suggest agency.

 

[rational experiences]

If just a human says I'm doing research for a new resource. It is the exact word usage.

If you claim I'm looking for god. You hence own thoughts already claiming you know God.

Which in your mind means the type of energy that all energy is as energy.

Just by a humans term. What I say is energy.

So you've already named the God you want. As type.

Direct owned determined answer.

Your answer owns no thesis.

So then you go about claiming you're finding the thesis

Hence I ask you why did you human brother invent God yourself? As the answer to your own inventive human belief?

You need to directly answer the question yourself.

As it has nothing to do with being human but everything to do with a human wanting.

 

[Heyo]

To call existence poetic may seem to contradict my original post which claimed the world seemed chaotic. But there is order, we call it natural order. The reason why I say it's poetic is because from nonliving organisms comes life, and from life comes meaning for continued existence, and from meaning comes intelligent life, and from intelligent life comes intricate language and exploration of the universe and the desire to understand more about the world around us. It appears to me that, through life, the universe is trying to understand itself. But again, this is just my opinion why it seems there is a God (or that the universe itself is God)

I stumbled over your use of "chaotic" but let it slide as it seemed you meant it poetically, not in a scientific sense. In science we believe that the universe is orderly. That is usually one of the main contentions between believers and scientists for almost all religions insist on miracles being real - which is exactly the polar opposite of an orderly universe. The more mature a theology is, the less miracles it requires.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

If we are to be free then we will experience all that comes with free will. The group then benefits or suffers the consequences of the loyalties and disloyalties of our own members, higher authorities and celestial administrators. Lucifer rebelled against God and abused his authority. Being a free will celestial administrator the possibility of default was there. Many of the diseases end genetic deformities would have been eradicated long ago had the default not happened. So we all more or less still suffering the consequences of Lucifers betrayal.

I don't see why diseases or genetic deformities would be a result of our own freewill, especially when children get these things. The point of this thread is that no matter what we choose in life, to be the best we can be or to give up on ourselves and live in nihilism, there's no guarantee we will be happy; therefore we have no freewill.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Yes. While the two words can certainly be seen as synonymous, for me at least "message" can connote "messenger" which, in turn, can suggest agency.

I was asking in the OP that, if hypothetically there is a message to this all, what could it possibly be? Essentially, what would the moral of the story be in a universe without justice?

I understand that there may be no rhyme or reason at all behind existence. I'm personally on the fence, I accept the possibility that this is all just the result of unconscious, natural forces. But at the same time I get the feeling that these natural forces are in a way a divine pattern (not necessarily in a conscious way, but maybe just a natural phenomenon that has a divine "meaning" behind it).

 

[The Sum of Awe]

I stumbled over your use of "chaotic" but let it slide as it seemed you meant it poetically, not in a scientific sense. In science we believe that the universe is orderly. That is usually one of the main contentions between believers and scientists for almost all religions insist on miracles being real - which is exactly the polar opposite of an orderly universe. The more mature a theology is, the less miracles it requires.

You're right, I did mean chaotic in a poetic sense.

That is true, but it depends on how you view 'miracles'. Like I've said, the universe appears to have no justice (unless you believe in reincarnation like sayak83 mentioned), so to believe that the child that survives a car crash but everyone else dies a miracle would be far fetched for me.

But to call everything a miracle, every instance that happens, as whether it was miraculous or not depends on the perspective. What about those other people that died in the car crash, was their death a miracle? Well, I suppose it would be to the dozens of worms underground that'll get a few slabs of meat to feast on.

I think the biggest miracle is existence itself.

 

[firedragon]

Children being born with diseases, or disfigurements.

Good people dying, bad people getting far in life.

You could be on your way to beating depression, becoming religious, and trusting God, and then one day before you achieve all your goals, you're out hiking and you're attacked by a bear. Killed.

You could have gone to school, became a great genius, but never getting into a career long enough to make a breakthrough.


Any of this can happen. Assume, now, there is a God and the universe is going exactly they way God planned it. This is His design, everything that happens is exactly as it's meant to be.

What do you think the message is here? What do you interpret the meaning of our chaotic universe to be based on everything we know?

If you were to ask me, I sometimes feel like life is much like Albert Camus's view on Sisyphus. From this wikipedia article:

Camus is interested in Sisyphus's thoughts when marching down the mountain, to start anew. After the stone falls back down the mountain Camus states that "It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end." This is the truly tragic moment when the hero becomes conscious of his wretched condition. He does not have hope, but "there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn." Acknowledging the truth will conquer it; Sisyphus, just like the absurd man, continues pushing. Camus claims that when Sisyphus acknowledges the futility of his task and the certainty of his fate, he is freed to realize the absurdity of his situation and to reach a state of contented acceptance. With a nod to the similarly cursed Greek hero Oedipus, Camus concludes that "all is well," indeed, that "one must imagine Sisyphus happy."
​

I feel like what God is telling me is to follow through with my duties, goals, my individual meanings of life even when there's no light at the end of the tunnel. To not fully give up on myself to fall victim of hedonism or nihilism, but to aim for my goals while being happy doing so.

Kind of like optimism, but accepting that things won't necessarily turn out as you expect them to, so therefore instead of hope for the future it's more like acceptance of the future while also trying to mold it. The two are not contradictory.

Yes. The universal is Amoral. In terms of theological discourse, the universe is only made to appear and/or manipulated by God. The universe does not have agency. So you could call it amoral. But you are alive, and you will deal with life throughout. Thus, you are commanded to be moral and the source is spelled out.

 

[Heyo]

That is true, but it depends on how you view 'miracles'.

Miracles (or magic) are exceptions from the laws of nature.

Like I've said, the universe appears to have no justice (unless you believe in reincarnation like sayak83 mentioned), so to believe that the child that survives a car crash but everyone else dies a miracle would be far fetched for me.

Like miracles to laws of nature, mercy is an exception to justice. Nature doesn't do mercy but nature does the ultimate, blind justice. When you fall from a tall building, you get accelerated by 9.81 m/s², just like anybody else, no exception.
And speaking of Hinduistic concepts, I believe in Karma. Well, a version of Karma that is compatible with naturalism, not the naïve wishful thinking of restorative justice. Humans are a monkey-see-monkey-do, social species. Everything you do that is watched, changes the society you live in ever so slightly. Every action is like a vote in which direction society should go. Actions have consequences.

 

[ChristineM]

It seems clear to me that the universe is amoral.....

The universe does not care, try asking it "what is it all about" and listen to the silence in reply.

Why? is the universe alive, does it have consciousness... I do not believe so, so to say its amoral is like saying that piece of rock is amoral.

 

[Nakosis]

Children being born with diseases, or disfigurements.

Good people dying, bad people getting far in life.

You could be on your way to beating depression, becoming religious, and trusting God, and then one day before you achieve all your goals, you're out hiking and you're attacked by a bear. Killed.

You could have gone to school, became a great genius, but never getting into a career long enough to make a breakthrough.


Any of this can happen. Assume, now, there is a God and the universe is going exactly they way God planned it. This is His design, everything that happens is exactly as it's meant to be.

What do you think the message is here? What do you interpret the meaning of our chaotic universe to be based on everything we know?

If you were to ask me, I sometimes feel like life is much like Albert Camus's view on Sisyphus. From this wikipedia article:

Camus is interested in Sisyphus's thoughts when marching down the mountain, to start anew. After the stone falls back down the mountain Camus states that "It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end." This is the truly tragic moment when the hero becomes conscious of his wretched condition. He does not have hope, but "there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn." Acknowledging the truth will conquer it; Sisyphus, just like the absurd man, continues pushing. Camus claims that when Sisyphus acknowledges the futility of his task and the certainty of his fate, he is freed to realize the absurdity of his situation and to reach a state of contented acceptance. With a nod to the similarly cursed Greek hero Oedipus, Camus concludes that "all is well," indeed, that "one must imagine Sisyphus happy."
​

I feel like what God is telling me is to follow through with my duties, goals, my individual meanings of life even when there's no light at the end of the tunnel. To not fully give up on myself to fall victim of hedonism or nihilism, but to aim for my goals while being happy doing so.

Kind of like optimism, but accepting that things won't necessarily turn out as you expect them to, so therefore instead of hope for the future it's more like acceptance of the future while also trying to mold it. The two are not contradictory.

To me this means that we are free to deal with what life presents to us in whatever manner we feel is best. Free to be exactly who we are, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I'm merely one of the universe's tenants.

Well, your rent is overdue, and that party last week was too noisy. So pipe down.

Sincerely, the Universe.

 

[stvdv]

I was under the impression that amoral meant the lack of moral. I suspect we are in agreement?

Yes, pretty much

O would say about the Universe:
"Lack of moral and lack of amoral"

 

[stvdv]

I'm not the universe, so I get to judge.
Of course, I'll use my personal standards.
So behave yourself.

Of course, @Revoltingest is exempted

 

[Koldo]

I feel like what God is telling me is to follow through with my duties, goals, my individual meanings of life even when there's no light at the end of the tunnel. To not fully give up on myself to fall victim of hedonism or nihilism, but to aim for my goals while being happy doing so.

Kind of like optimism, but accepting that things won't necessarily turn out as you expect them to, so therefore instead of hope for the future it's more like acceptance of the future while also trying to mold it. The two are not contradictory.

How did you reach this conclusion?

 

[Revoltingest]

Well, your rent is overdue, and that party last week was too noisy. So pipe down.

Sincerely, the Universe.

The universe will get its rent
when it mows me lawns.