That's quite wrong. We have all experienced bliss, so we have a frame of reference for what "perfect" bliss might be like.

What you are arguing is that if we ignore that frame of reference, perhaps we can conceive of a heaven that avoids the problem. Which is true. But conceiving things while ignoring any available frame of reference in our own experience is also known as "pulling things out of your butt", and is widely and correctly condemned because once you go there you can basically say anything you want about heaven without any basis for it.

What part of our experience of "bliss" tells us that there is such a thing as "perfect bliss"? Or that the experience of "perfect bliss" is either finitely bounded or potentially infinite?

I know what "pain" is, but does that mean that I know what "perfect pain" might be? I can honestly say that "perfect pain" is meaningless to me. But I can go further and say that I don't even have an adequate framework for understanding actual potential pains, such as the pain of torture. I have no clue what it's like to experience those types of pain, and I think that for me to extrapolate from my own experiences will leave me with huge gaps compared to the reality of the experience.

You're the one who is making the transition from conceptual possibility to using experiences to feed information about potential experiences.

I recommend you go back to the original article and see if it makes any sense to take the position that you're now in and make the argument that was being made. I don't see how it can possibly work.

Hence, your argument about "conceptual impossibility" fails.

I wouldn't say that anything here is "ignoring" the available frame of reference. But since the concept clearly goes "beyond" our current framework of experiences (otherwise, we're not describing anything except that which we currently experience), there is a necessary conceptual jump that needs to be made somewhere. If you want to call it "pulling things out of your butt" that's fine, but then the original position you took was pulled out of your butt as well.

This is silly. To have a frame of reference for what perfect bliss feels like one must have first experienced perfect bliss. Otherwise one is just putting forth conjecture....at best.

I'll answer you because you stated the argument more succinctly than Aaron did.

But it's wrong. If I am a bowler, and I normally bowl between 175 and 200, and my high score is 265, your argument is tantamount to saying that I have no frame of reference for what bowling a 300 game might be like. That makes no sense.

You can argue it's not a perfect frame of reference that will show you exactly what it is like, but not that it's no frame of reference at all.

I'm not a bowler, and I can have a frame of reference for what bowling a 300 game is like.

It's like the third game of this:



Your analogy isn't going to work because we have an extremely well defined concept of how scoring works for bowling. It's absolutely clear and indisputable.

We don't have anything remotely close to that for the experience of "bliss."

Edit: Please address the issue of "perfect pain".

Aaron, we have scoring systems for bliss too. And pain. They may not be as precise as the scoring systems for bowling, but we have them. (Indeed, the ones for pain have been the basis for quite a bit of scientific study.)

Again, your argument can at most show that we don't have a FULLY ACCURATE frame of reference. But we don't have a fully accurate frame of reference for anything we haven't experienced. I don't have a fully accurate frame of reference for what it feels like to bowl a 300 game. My frame of reference may be more precise than my frame of reference for bliss, but it's not completely precise.

A "frame of reference" isn't an on / off thing. It's a device for comparing the known to the unknown. We have such devices with respect to bliss. The most you can say is that they aren't fully accurate devices; but no such device is.

You're not addressing the issue of "perfect" pain. Your entire position is premised on this concept, and you've reiterated that "perfection" is a central component of your position.

The things you are attempting to cite here do not speak to the concept of "perfect" pain, so I don't know why you think it's relevant.

Aaron, I am not addressing "perfect" pain because it has nothing to do with the claimed experiences in heaven.

Unfortunately, "perfection" is central to your claim, so you need to provide *SOMETHING* that explains what you're saying. Otherwise, you're full of empty gibberish.

I'll repeat again that your original thesis was essentially "perfect isn't perfect." (Perfect means it cannot be improved, then it's lacking in something -- hence it's not perfect.) So you have yet to actually discuss what "perfection" really is. If you don't want to discuss "perfect pain" that's fine. But you must provide something more than "we can understand perfect bliss because we can understand bliss" because that's clearly false.

This whole frame of reference angle is BS. Its like claiming a 12 year old virgin has an idea of what it is like to make love to a woman because he has the experience of having masterbated to pictures of Lilly. To understand what it is like to make love to a woman...you have to have made love to a woman. Too understand what heavenly bliss is like you have to have experienced heavenly bliss.

Stu, actually masturbation DOES convey some information as to what intercourse is like.

I should say one other thing about this. Remember that "perfect bliss" is a big part of the sales pitch of religion. If humans REALLY have no frame of reference for what this is like, then it has no meaning to humans and there's no reason to accept Jesus or obey God's laws.

The entire theology requires that humans have some frame of reference so they can understand that heaven is worth going to.

Not really... It's the "sales pitch" of the article, which it then proceeds to discard (by arguing that perfect isn't perfect).

There's a distinction between the "experiential frame of reference" (which is what you're trying to argue) and the "conceptual frame of reference" (which you argued from the beginning, but have since abandoned).

Until you can consistently frame your position, I don't think you'll be able to meaningfully advance your argument.

If the framework is that heaven is simply "better" than what is here, then that would be sufficient.

Aaron, that's in no way sufficient.

If I am thinking of purchasing a car, and salesman 1 says "this car is 'better' than what you have", while salesman 2 says "this car accelerates faster and gets better mileage and has more room than what you have", salesman 2 has given men a reason to purchase the car, whereas salesman 1 has not.

What's happening here is religious people are asking to define heaven at a level of generality where the statements about it are nothing more than meaningless puffery. Unless heaven can actually be established to be worthwhile in some way that humans can actually understand and relate to, God is operating on the level of salesman 1. She has given us no reason to buy the car.

And there's no difference, for this purpose, between "conceptual" and "experiential" frames of reference. To avoid the "heaven is awful" problem, you need heaven to have no frame of reference at all.

This is the only point you've made in this thread that has any merit.

And how does this fit into your argument about "perfect" bliss? #2 is not trying to sell you a "perfect" car. He is simply selling you "better" cars (based on one of multiple types of measure). You still have yet to meaningfully describe your terms (ie, "perfect"), so it's impossible to know what you're trying to argue now.

You say that there's "no difference" yet you cannot seem to argue either case effectively, and both cases are being argued differently. It seems to me that there's a huge difference.