Do you believe there is any need for a "case" to be handled at all (individually or otherwise), if the judge is omnipotent?

If he is just omnipotent - no need, but if he is also just - he will do it. And admitting that he is not just would contradict my initial postulate that he will select for the better world those who reached love and wisdom, as such selection is possible only on the basis of perfect justice.

XSugarplum,

A number of years back I went through a period of intense meditation (at least for me) meditating for one hour, 3-4 times daily. This practice went on for about 6 months.

Anyway, one day when I was in town in a parking lot at Wal-Mart, I slipped into what might be called an alternate consciousness, I guess. It seemed to me that I was not simply this one body, I called me, but I was in every single body in that lot. (Not all at once, but individually so, much like I usually felt only with this one unique body.) I was divided up and living equally individually in a number of bodies, simultaneously.

When I looked into anyone’s eyes, and this happened several times, I saw myself looking back at me.

Every once in a while, these strange things happen to people and make them question, not our sanity, but our more narrow views of what is actually going on.

The mind is certainly capable of some surprises.

S9

But wouldn't an omnipotent judge already know what his own verdict was going to be?

If not, wouldn't this seem to imply that the judge is not omnipotent, or at least not capable of knowing his own mind?

As we talk about perfect justice and not lynching, then it is necessary that not only the judge knows, but also the judged ones being presented the evidence, arguments, conclusions and given the chance to query the sides involved and defend themselves.

Arjuna,

I keep running into this question all over the place. “What does it mean to exist?”

Then they say, something like, “Unicorns do not exist.”

So what are we talking about here, exist as a material object that we can kick? Or are we including mental objects like a unicorn, because obviously most people know exactly what you are referring to with that word? Or are we speaking far more vaguely about things like justice, which no one has managed as yet to identify in any complete and satisfactory manner?

So in the case of 'non' or 'un' being added to anything, like for instance non-justice, doesn’t this too actually exist, because most of us know only too well when justice isn’t present and it seems very real.

I know that I am more or less agreeing with you here , but was in hopes of getting your take on this confusing issue.

Thanx
S9

sugarplum

here is a story I wrote as part of an hons psych degree
describing an LSD experience in clinical detail
about 6 years after the fact
Free online literature: Psychotropical Forest
(dig the flashy graphics)
deputy dept head gave me 95% for it

Its weird, that happened in 1992, and the experience actually makes more sense to me now, and is more vivid than ever before. It triggered many more such experiences over the years.

...

Just a bit of a warning about LSD and other psychotropic substances,

they sometimes (not always) will bring subconscious fears and repressed trauma to the surface of your mind - this is why so many people believe they are bad. Ironically its the shadows in their own mind which are terrifying them.

They project the subconscious fears onto the agent which is aiding their release.
Not unlike a dog that may snap at you for trying to take a thorn out of his foot.

One probably should not take LSD - especially for the first time - unless you are in the company of experienced trippers who can talk you through the horrors - if you have any.

Great thread.

Jah live.

But how can the defendant possibly mount any sort of defense when the judge already knows what verdict is going to be delivered, as well as what the punishment will be, and in addition, knows how the defendant is going to react to the punishment?

If there were to be any chance whatsoever that the judge was going to change his/her mind, the judge would already know that as well, so in effect, the outcome is a foregone conclusion . . . the very definition of "your fate is sealed."

The purpose of the justice procedure is not changing the verdict but proving it's validity to the defendant. The defendant cannot change the verdict just because it is truly just, not because his defence would be ignored. The judge knows that in advance, but the defendant does not. After the defendant exhausts all his arguments he will realize that the verdict is just, and it makes a great difference as compared to just hearing the verdict announced. Another reason for arranging the procedure: justice should be implemented de facto at some point, not just "known in advance" without ever happening.

Shlomo,

Proving justice after the fact sounds more like justification than actual justice. If a defendant has no chance of winning the day, than we are back like children with justifications like, “Because its my ball. That’s why.”

Whether it happens or not, the game is still rigged.


With God knowing ahead of time, and the poor defendant not knowing, it sounds an awful lot like a maze with a mouse in it.

I’m looking. Nope, no 'free will' there! Perhaps, you could point it out to me.

If God created the mouse, and God created the maze, and then it doesn’t work out as God would have wished, does it make sense to blame the poor helpless mouse?

S9

S9,

After the poor helpless mouse made all her free choices, there is one and only definite set of choices to be judged under one unchangeable absolute law. The game is over, no place to tricks and manipulations. Do you regret that the judge cannot be fooled? And if it is really an innocent mouse, why do you believe she will be condemned?

With regard to free will, I think one should first be born by his own free choice and then secure his staying alive as long as he chooses before claiming to have free will. Is there a philosophy which provides such an opportunity? And if not, why should we play hypocritical existential games instead of accepting the obvious fact that we all are prisoners in this world?

You do not agree with all God's management of His creation? OK. What is your next step?

Shlomo,

If there is one absolute law, than this governs over everything, and not just over our mistakes. It governs how that little mouse will be created, and thereby what this poor creature will be capable of, good or bad. His genetic code will in fact be his destiny. How can he/we step outside of his/our destiny, and thereby be held responsible for what God (in His wisdom) has made?

Remember if you will that I am looking at this from within the paradigm of the Christianity I learned as a child.

Even if there was free-will, which I doubt very much, if it goes astray and causes wrong-doing, that too should be laid right at the creators door-step as His own mistake in planning, that is unless He is a sadist and creates some of us to be broken.

Also, let me ask, where is the love or even compassion? Is this God truly so hard hearted as all this, a hanging judge?

If this poor little mouse is condemned, than I would have to say that there is something truly sick about such a God. I however would rather believe that He is misunderstood, that is if He exists at all.

I do not believe that we are prisoners in this world.

My next step, after pretty much ruling out such an autocratic tyrant, as this punishing God seems to be, would be to look directly at both myself, and my environment and find out what is the truth in all of this. I would also try to find out what IS Ultimate, if there be such a thing, and if there was something besides or outside of finitude, perhaps Eternity.

S9

S9,
Your post has struck me with its authenticity and paradoxicalness all at once. Authenticity in your outcry against the nightmare of the church dogmas failing to establish sound logical relationship between evil, free will, love and God. Anybody who is not prepared to be intellectual slave will follow your suit one way or another. My perception is that you mostly respond to those traumatic indoctrinations rather than to my words.

One thing still leaves me wondering: when you say that you "rule out such an autocratic tyrant" do you mean ruling out the actual God or just his sadistic representation?

Let me assure you that I am not a partisan of that "Christian paradigm" that you learned. My view on the issues is as follows:

God created evil as an essential part of this world in order to let us grow beyond a deterministic mouse whose destiny is in her genes. You ask "where is love in this cruel world?". I ask: who needs love in a carefree world? And what would be the use of free will in such a world? To choose between good and good? God did not "fail to keep the order". Everything goes according to the plan.

The paradox is that you fight simultaneously on both sides of the barricade: on the one hand, you insist on immunity against any possible judgment, as God should secure everyone's good choices, on the other hand, you want freedom. Does not freedom imply responsibility? Or you rule out the concept of morality?

Shlomo,

Yes, my dismay was authentic in my earlier life, because I have seen so much suffering in the wake of such a tyrannical dogma, based upon a hardhearted and punishing God.

But let me explain myself a little further, if I may. I am neither a theist, nor an atheist, and I am definitely not an agnostic. I am what some people call a mystic.

I guess at first sight, I would certainly appear to be fighting against both sides of this issue. You are very astute to notice this. Perhaps this is because, there are not just two sides, and therefore I am able to holding a third way of looking at it, a whole other perspective. So yes, I want immunity from all punishment, and yes at the very same time, I want freedom.

What I want is freedom from both good and evil, and that whole paradigm. I want rather a journey of discovery into what the Ultimate actually is. I am not going to buy any story line in this area. I am going to look directly, some say into my heart (that's close, maybe intuition is closer) and also into my life, and in this way find out for myself.

When I started out, all that I had was this genuine longing to know. It has served me well, and it has never left me. It is a loving umbilical between me, and the source, of this I am quite sure.

As is said in Islam, "It (God/Ultimate) longs for me, even more than I long for It."

No, I am not majorly into Islam either. I am closer to Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy, if anything.

So what is this suffering that you claim will teach us lessons? It is simply confusion IMO. We are trained up in an error and buy into an untruth, and we suffer these very thoughts.

We are so steeped in habitual thinking, that it is difficult to see the truth that is right in front of our face, all of the time.

S9

Hi XSugarplum,
I have just recently experienced something extremely similar to what you are describing with seeing parallel universes while being on LSD. My experience was much more complex as i recall it though. It was as if i could see numerous outcomes of decisions unfolding before me at the same time. The best way I can explain it is that my perception of time was completely altered so that I was able to see, at the same time, all the different paths ahead of me and a which exact points they were branching off. I was seeing the outcomes & the scenarios playing out in reverse to me. It seem almost like an out of body experience to me. I realize that it was a drug induced vision & am not necessarily saying that it proves the existence of parallel universes. But I would argue that the fact that it seems there are other people experiencing this same phenomenon poses the question of whether LSD does allow you to perceive time itself at a quantum level.