Suppose it's all true

Ok, let me just preface this by saying while I don't believe in God and happily choose the questions offered by science over the answers offered by religion, I refuse - for that precise sentence - to outright deny the existence of God because while no one can prove he exists, likewise nobody can prove he doesn't.

In the meantime, I go about life confident that if anyone needs to be told right from wrong by a voice in the sky, or only do good things because of perceived consequences after death, then they're not actually good...

Two Tone wrote: »

Course he's cruel - what's free will got to do with e.g. cot deaths

Nothing. A total and tragic accident. You reckon God reached down and pulled up baby's blanket? The baby did, through actions it had no understanding of.

Two Tone wrote: »

and children getting cancer? The free will thing doesn't cover everything.

Please don't tell me you honestly believe massive, multi-billion companies will choose to administer a one shot cure for cancer, instead of making billions per year treating the symptoms....
As is their free will to do. We may not like it, but it's the truth. It's their choice.

Two Tone wrote: »

And why should sometimes millions of innocent people suffer because of the free will of one dictator? God should surely stop them.

Then that would not be free will. God didn't tell Adolf Hitler to kill six million Jews. God didn't tell the Bolsheviks to kill almost 6 times as many Russians and he certainly didn't tell Chairman Mao to preside over the deaths of almost 70 million Chinese during his "great leap forward".
They did that themselves. Today's lesson is that your free choices effect others. Wether they're the things you choose to say, or the laws you choose to sign.

Two Tone wrote: »

The free will thing is a lame cop-out.

For the reasons above, I put to you that it isn't.
More an unfortunate truth.

Two Tone wrote: »

If a higher power exists (and I don't know whether it does or not, but I certainly don't buy the biblical explanation) it's clearly not both benevolent and omnipotent. One of them.

Who knows? He's definitely not all controlling. If he was, nothing bad would ever happen.
280 of 300 cute little baby turtles wouldn't be massacred and eaten alive by predators in their journey from beach to ocean.

Maybe that kind of ability - to "create life" - if it actually exists, comes with the cost that you let it run it's course without interference of any kind.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

What happens at the end of Game oh Thrones?

Ned Stark wakes up safe and sound in Winterfell. And vows never to eat cheese before bed again.

I'll say, bone cancer in children, what's that about? How dare you. How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that's not our fault? It’s not right. It's utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?

Can I watch a top ten countdown of my worst sins?

If God has existed forever, what did he do with all his spare time before he made the Earth?

And what about when you weren't allowed to eat meat on Fridays. How come that's alright now but it wasn't back then - the people who are meet on Fridays back then, did they all go to hell or what? I mean it's mad!

Why did you stop telling people in Ireland to become priests?

Avatar MIA wrote: »

You haven't read the thread then.

I did

Two Tone wrote: »

What a petty spiteful entity... yet loving when it suits.

Renegade Mechanic, not a thing you've said changes how much of a cop out the free will thing is. The cancer treatment thing - bizarre. If God wasn't cruel it wouldn't exist in the first place. And again, free will doesn't explain it.

How is it bizarre? Try to imagine you're on the cusp of billions. You can have millions of people pay you for decades in some cases, or you can have them all pay you once.
Honestly what do you think is going to happen? Seven billion people in the world and you reckon some of them aren't going to go 'well **** me, this is some cash cow we've got going. Let's keep it going'.
If someone actually ever found a cure, I'm confident in my belief it would be destroyed.
You, me, and everyone else here - I assume - has lost someone close to cancer at this point.
That is a huge customer base to people who live in a vastly different world to us.
That's not God's fault, that's theirs.

And your point of cancer even existing to begin with - or most diseases - is a bit moot at the end of the day, because if there is a God, he's done absolutely nothing good for us. That is, the invention of literally everything over the last few thousand years that's lead to this modern society in which almost every injury or disease is treatable, water and electricity flow beside each other into the most comfortable houses in mankind's history.

If he is thete, then he didn't do that. We did. We are the ones responsible for anything good. So if he is there, why should he be responsible for anything bad?

Two Tone wrote: »

Cot death the fault of the baby - what the actual fuq.

Well it's not the parents fault, is it? The baby tossed and turned, and it tragically leads to a situation in which they suffocate. The baby has no idea it's actions could lead to this danger, but lead, those actions do, nonetheless.

Two Tone wrote: »

I don't know if God doesn't exist either and I have no problem with people believing in and praying to - and most importantly living according to - Jesus Christ (wonderful man by all accounts) but that doesn't mean I feel I can't question the inconsistent bullshít elements.

I think some folk are so afraid of looking like militant atheists they claim to respect some awful rubbish.

If blaming someone that may or may not even exist is a way for people to cope with the fact that life is **** and **** things happen to most instead of simply accepting that we just have to get over it and move on in the full knowledge that we do so, completely surrounded by people who have it better than us - and in some cases much worse - and that our own life could end before the sun sets today, then far be it from me to deny them that "cop out"....

Would you have a moment to talk about our lord jesus christ

I would probably say-

"Hi monkey, I want to speak to the organ grinder"

I've always wondered who created God. He must be a pretty powerful person.