Let me pose a hypothetical
 

*I had this thought last night. I'm posting this in the debate forum just in case. However, this is intended to provoke thought and meaningful discussion, not hateful debate.*


Suppose you gave birth to a child who was blind and deaf, thus, could not fully comprehend what you are. Would you sentence this child, your child, to a life of punishment for not believing you exist?

No.

The child could still feel you. Why wouldn't he/she believe you exist?

You should probably just say what you're trying to get at.

It was a personal choice to put it that way. I didn't believe I could properly communicate the idea while being completely straight forward. Surely that doesn't bother you?

:) I don't think the intent could be more plain anyway.

One might similarly ask: If obedience is the goal, would one be better off with a human servant or a robot? Or, put another way, if the answer is human, was obedience the goal?

Hmmm...

Okay, so the child can feel things. Assuming the child is aware of the idea of having a parent, how would the child decide which object is its parent? Furthermore, if you want the child to understand that you are indeed its parent, you would be present and nurture the child, show it love and care in ways the child could sense and understand.

Excellent, a very intriguing thought


Oops, double post :P

No. First thing that comes to my mind is if that child is aware of its own existence to make such conclusions. One generally experiences the existential crisis in the adolescence period (in which we are no longer children).

Children (animals included) normally perceive the one who cares for them and nurtures them constantly as a parental figure. Therefore, it would have a sense of who you are.
I would allow it to live. Because no matter if it recognizes you or not, it has a right to life. It's there for a reason.

There are people who are blind and deaf. They are still people, their brains and minds are still people and just as intelligent than if they were able-bodied. They would still know who I was - by touch, by smell, by whatever form of communication we come up with. They'd still be my child.

Not sure where you are getting the 'for not believing in me' just from being blind and deaf, and no, I'd wouldn't PUNISH them for something that wasn't their fault.

Translation

It doesn't mean he is real, so I don't really care.

On an afterthought, I think there wouldn't be such a situation for the hypothetical child. The world the child knows is more "real" than the world we know. The interaction the child has with the world is entirely empirical. One can be tricked with an image or sound but it is very difficult to fool our other senses.

One thing to think about also in addition to the above mentioned is that within our lifetimes, science will probably find a way to make the blind see and the deaf hear. To keep this child alive with your time and effort so that you can hopefully give him or her the gift of sight or hearing (and life) would be one of the greatest things.

I don't think this thread necessarily challenges the existence of a god. The conversations end before they can get interesting if you always immediately bail out on the "existence" question, IMO. :)

Mostly, I think this thread questions whether we have any idea what a god--if one exists--wants. Unfortunately, the deaf/blind analogy is not ideal because deafness and blindness are uncommon whereas--and here's a contentious assertion, I suppose--most among even the religious would not claim to hear/see a god. After all, if they did, the terms "faithful" and "religious" would not be as interchangeable as they are.

There was a great Twilight Zone episode many years ago that went something like this: Aliens suddenly appear in the UN General Assembly, express concern over all the miserable little quarrels between nations, the nuclear weapons, etc., and make it clear that they're ready to take drastic measures to "fix" things. Motivated by fear of the unknown consequences, the leaders negotiate unilateral disarmament in less than 24 hours. The next day, the aliens return. Unfortunately, it turns out that they were misunderstood. Rather than being disappointed in the existence of conflict, they were disappointed with how *little* conflict there was; they had long ago intended the human race to be a race of bloodthirsty warriors who would fight on their behalf. The episode ends as millions of spaceships descend on Earth to kill everybody and restart the breeding process.

Such a great episode. Now where were we? :D

Even if one is not religious, it is often easy to use "god" as a placeholder for an answer to the question, "What put us here?" On the other hand, unless you happen to be one of those privileged few "children" who are not "deaf/blind", knowing what that a god might want of you is harder. But... would a being capable of creating the universe leave to chance that the human mind should choose to perform the task for which it was intended? Seems a terribly unnecessary risk to me!

I feel incapable of offending god. That's not a proud statement, but rather a humble acknowledgement of insignificance. If indeed I have a divinely-given task, then I suspect I'm carrying it out without my knowledge. Admittedly, that does make the life I know remarkably like to a waste product in the grand scheme of things, but I haven't found a better gig yet, soo... :D

Well, I'm glad you understood it, at least. Yes, they say we are god's creation, thus his children, but we can neither hear nor see god. Hence the deaf/blind child.

This is pretty much how I feel.

...*rubs face* Next time, could please label it better, then? I had no idea that's what the heck you were going on about.

But this blind and deaf child would only be blind and deaf to their creator. They would be able to see and hear everything else in the world.

So you're analogy should be more like:

You have a child. They can never hear or see or touch you, but they can hear and see and touch everything else in the world. Would you sentence them to a life's punishment if they didn't know who created them?

Hehe - I got the analogy right away and I like it. Of course it does not have to be taken literally as in seeing and hearing, but rather as in not having all the means of perception that would be required to perceive the parent fully. For the deaf and blind child, the world would be one of touch and smell, but it would not know anything else. Likewise many people know only seeing and hearing and touch and smell, but do not have a sense for what one could call "the creator".
I think perception is what defines our reality and connects us to our reality and the world we live in. If we have a sense to perceive who created us is a question of theology, I presume, but in any case to the original question, I think a parent like that would still love its child and there would not be any reason to punish it.

They can still physically determine your presence. They still know you exist. The analogy is not only transparent, but fallacious.

Also, a small point of interest - if you were subsequently replaced by another person who acted the same and neither spoke, they wouldn't know any difference.

Sorry for the bad analogy, as apparently it was. I'm glad it made sense to some of you, at least. I should have prefaced it.

That is much better. I'll steal that for future reference if you don't mind.

Exaaaaactly

I really can't add anything to what you said.

Ok, yes HNM, that is right. The analogy is not really that good because the intention behind it was to say that that person would not be able to PERCEIVE the creator. To use sight or sound as the seemingly only means to do so, leaving the other senses out of play is fallacious indeed. The analogy assumes that the other senses do not apply to the creator but only to one self and the other ones likewise. So in a way cavemans analogy would be better, that of an invisible (to the "child") creator. I describes what I understood how it was meant but frankly, I also do not really know a good analogy either :P

Should we name the child Job?:gwink:

I believe that the religious people claim to hear their creator, and be able to feel him. Whether or not you believe they are tricking themselves or not is up to your beliefs.

"Assumption is the mother of all **** ups!"

You believe in what you're told... or not. I don't believe in existence of God, but I'm also not denying it. There's no reason to.

<.<
>.>

Nah, son

are you talking to me? feel free to call me stupid :rolleyes: