If you are trying to do what you know to be right then you have lost nothing. If you aren’t trying to do what you know to be right then revealing himself to you could very well get you cast out, which is not what God is in the business of doing.
So why has he revealed himself even at a low level of confidence? People supposedly already know right from wrong so that’s not it.
If his revealing himself helps people to do right rather than wrong more than it imperils them, then in his not revealing himself to me I have lost something. (It’s less probable that I will do right and thus I have been imperilled.) If he helps at a particular level of confidence less than he imperils then it doesn’t make sense for him to reveal himself to anyone. If they’re equal then there’s no purpose in it.
Assorted thoughts on the rest:
That is, there are reasons God operates the way He does and they are directly related to why we are here on Earth.
Eh, there’s a tension between power and justification. If you take it to the extreme, omnipotence and reason are mutually exclusive criteria. (Outside, perhaps, of an inability to commit logical contradictions, but that doesn’t really seem to be involved here.)
Therefore the goal is to have us obtain the same state of power and knowledge that God has and just as we do not wish to give god-like power to an AI that is then going to screw things up so too God does not wish to do the same to us.
I’d be more than happy to give symmetrical power to an AI, assuming I had godly powers. The whole issue is that a recursively improving AI might become far more powerful than ourselves.
Those of us who get born on Earth did not fall but followed what was right when we knew for a surety that it was right.
Why do we need to qualify to return if we followed him and didn’t fall?
Due to this state of failure, or sin, to follow what we know to be right we become unworthy of entering back into the presence of God.
Above you said we were here to gain a body and to qualify to return to the presence of God. However, if we become unworthy of returning to God that removes a lot of the reason for being here. Why not be embodied and immediately die? The purpose of life then having been completed.
As to eternal life it is up to us on earth to live according to what we know to be right. Not what we wish was right but what we actually know to be right.
You’ve already said knowledge is an incredibly high degree of confidence – indeed you’ve said that it’s practically indistinguishable from certainty—which you’ve in turn tied to proof. I’ve seen no proof of right and wrong. A feeling certainly isn’t proof; asides from anything else I’ve felt different ways about ethical issues at different points in time. Then you have the cultural variances in preferences and emotions....
This is the primary way with which God communicates with us as it testifies of the truth and lets us know what is right. It is also easily drowned out by other emotions and feelings and easily confused with other things (uncontrollable crying, a sense of community, trances, babelling incoherently, a sense of confusion are common things mistaken for the spirit) .
Again you’ve tied knowledge to being a high degree of confidence. If it’s easily confused with other things then it doesn’t provide that high degree of confidence. It also has the same problems as communication in general concerning its purpose. If the value of the guidance of testimony is exceeded by the peril of knowing more then it shouldn’t be done. If the inverse holds then it should be done for everyone. If they’re equal then there’s no purpose in it one way or the other.
Did you not understand that the peril of knowledge is only if one does not follow what one knows? Knowledge is not something to be feared but to be sought after and this is true of all knowledge. Of course with knowledge comes responsibility to use that knowledge well and this is again true of all types of knowledge.
if we become unworthy of returning to God that removes a lot of the reason for being here. Why not be embodied and immediately die? The purpose of life then having been completed.
I actually had a discussion on Less Wrong already that covered this. The only purpose of life is not just to gain a body but also to see if we would choose to follow what is right. I do not know what the state of those that die before they are able to make such choices is except that they are saved and exalted. I see I did not explain that this life is for testing to see what we will do without the constant certainty we had before.
If his revealing himself helps people to do right rather than wrong more than it imperils them, then in his not revealing himself to me I have lost something.
This is a personal thing, if Him revealing Himself to you helps you to do right rather than wrong more than it imperils you then in His not revealing Himself to you, you would have lost something. The only way it would hurt more than help is if you were to listen and to not follow, just as the only way it would help more than hurt is if you were to listen and to follow.
I’d be more than happy to give symmetrical power to an AI, assuming I had godly powers.
Would you then be willing to entrust that AI with control of some world populated with billions of people?
If you take it to the extreme, omnipotence and reason are mutually exclusive criteria. (Outside, perhaps, of an inability to commit logical contradictions, but that doesn’t really seem to be involved here.)
We would need to precisely define omnipotence as it is often understood to be an nonsensical concept. Also, the type of omnipotence that God actually has (as understood by me, a Latter-Day Saint) is nothing like what other Christians claim He has.
There are more restrictions then just an inability to commit logical contradictions. If I have said something contradictory then please point it out so I can see if that is what I actually meant and if it is, if that is actually what the doctrine is.
I’ve seen no proof of right and wrong. A feeling certainly isn’t proof; asides from anything else I’ve felt different ways about ethical issues at different points in time.
This goes back to why God reveals Himself, so that we can find out what is actually right. If you are doing what is right to the best of your understanding and knowledge as it currently is then that is fine. If with a greater understanding things you thought were right turn out to have been wrong then you are not accountable for doing what was wrong if you actually thought it was right. The ability to judge what is right and wrong is given to everyone.
So why has he revealed himself even at a low level of confidence? People supposedly already know right from wrong so that’s not it.
If his revealing himself helps people to do right rather than wrong more than it imperils them, then in his not revealing himself to me I have lost something. (It’s less probable that I will do right and thus I have been imperilled.) If he helps at a particular level of confidence less than he imperils then it doesn’t make sense for him to reveal himself to anyone. If they’re equal then there’s no purpose in it.
Assorted thoughts on the rest:
Eh, there’s a tension between power and justification. If you take it to the extreme, omnipotence and reason are mutually exclusive criteria. (Outside, perhaps, of an inability to commit logical contradictions, but that doesn’t really seem to be involved here.)
I’d be more than happy to give symmetrical power to an AI, assuming I had godly powers. The whole issue is that a recursively improving AI might become far more powerful than ourselves.
Why do we need to qualify to return if we followed him and didn’t fall?
Above you said we were here to gain a body and to qualify to return to the presence of God. However, if we become unworthy of returning to God that removes a lot of the reason for being here. Why not be embodied and immediately die? The purpose of life then having been completed.
You’ve already said knowledge is an incredibly high degree of confidence – indeed you’ve said that it’s practically indistinguishable from certainty—which you’ve in turn tied to proof. I’ve seen no proof of right and wrong. A feeling certainly isn’t proof; asides from anything else I’ve felt different ways about ethical issues at different points in time. Then you have the cultural variances in preferences and emotions....
Again you’ve tied knowledge to being a high degree of confidence. If it’s easily confused with other things then it doesn’t provide that high degree of confidence. It also has the same problems as communication in general concerning its purpose. If the value of the guidance of testimony is exceeded by the peril of knowing more then it shouldn’t be done. If the inverse holds then it should be done for everyone. If they’re equal then there’s no purpose in it one way or the other.
Did you not understand that the peril of knowledge is only if one does not follow what one knows? Knowledge is not something to be feared but to be sought after and this is true of all knowledge. Of course with knowledge comes responsibility to use that knowledge well and this is again true of all types of knowledge.
I actually had a discussion on Less Wrong already that covered this. The only purpose of life is not just to gain a body but also to see if we would choose to follow what is right. I do not know what the state of those that die before they are able to make such choices is except that they are saved and exalted. I see I did not explain that this life is for testing to see what we will do without the constant certainty we had before.
This is a personal thing, if Him revealing Himself to you helps you to do right rather than wrong more than it imperils you then in His not revealing Himself to you, you would have lost something. The only way it would hurt more than help is if you were to listen and to not follow, just as the only way it would help more than hurt is if you were to listen and to follow.
Would you then be willing to entrust that AI with control of some world populated with billions of people?
We would need to precisely define omnipotence as it is often understood to be an nonsensical concept. Also, the type of omnipotence that God actually has (as understood by me, a Latter-Day Saint) is nothing like what other Christians claim He has.
There are more restrictions then just an inability to commit logical contradictions. If I have said something contradictory then please point it out so I can see if that is what I actually meant and if it is, if that is actually what the doctrine is.
This goes back to why God reveals Himself, so that we can find out what is actually right. If you are doing what is right to the best of your understanding and knowledge as it currently is then that is fine. If with a greater understanding things you thought were right turn out to have been wrong then you are not accountable for doing what was wrong if you actually thought it was right. The ability to judge what is right and wrong is given to everyone.