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Thank God

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,371 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    kelly1 wrote: »
    I'm convinced that if the majority of us loved God, He would prevent all disasters.

    By Odin's raven, you actually believe this is how the world works, don't you?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,097 ✭✭✭kiffer


    Zillah wrote: »
    By Odin's raven, you actually believe this is how the world works, don't you?

    Worse than that ... They also seem to think that such behaviour from a god would be good, just, compassionate and mercyful...

    (edit: also shouldn't that be ravens... If not then which raven?)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,371 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    Munin, obviously.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    kelly1 wrote: »
    I have faith that God is good because He was good enough to create us and when we insulted our Creator by sinning against Him, He didn't ask us to pay the price but instead sent His only beloved Son to die for us.

    Yeah, lets leave the "beloved Son" bit to the side for a moment (there is only so much illogical stuff I can deal with at a time :pac:)

    Who is to say that God didn't have an evil reason for creating us? You?

    You say that while many of the horrible things God has done appear bad there is a good reason why he did them, just one that we cannot see or understand.

    Surely the flip side of that argument is that it is just as likely that for the good things God appears to have done there is actually an evil reason he did them.

    You think creation appears good. I think the Old Testament appears bad. You say to me that it is arrogant of me to judge God as being bad based on the Old Testament because I'm not aware of all the facts and I don't have access to a God sized knowledge bank.

    Surely that applies to you as well.

    Is it not equally arrogant or illogical for you to suppose that you have the ability to judge God is good based on your assessment of the things he is supposed to have done?
    kelly1 wrote: »
    The good part is easy to understand. The problem is understanding evil.
    Only because deep down for you guys the purpose of God is to provide comfort. An evil god doesn't do this and so naturally to you it makes less sense than a good god.

    But that is an assessment based on your own need to be comforted by this concept. Logically there is no more reason why a good god would exist than an evil god.

    If God is in fact good and doing what appears to be evil for unknown but righteous reasons we have no more the ability to assess this than we do the ability to assess it if God was in fact evil and doing things that appear good for some unknown but evil reason.

    It makes no more sense for you to suppose that we should consider the idea that God has a good reason for the evil he apparently does than it does for you to consider the idea that God has an evil reason for the good he apparently does.

    The reason you don't consider this is not because it is a less logical position, but again because an evil God serves no purpose to you.
    kelly1 wrote: »
    Of course God could have made us incapable of evil and we'd probably be very happy etc. But maybe God had a better way?

    Or maybe he is just evil.

    Maybe he created us to suffer. We certainly do an awful lot of it and it would have been just as easy for God to create life that cannot suffer as it would have been for him to create life that does, given that he is omnipotent.
    kelly1 wrote: »
    To me anyway, giving us free will shows a greater love for us. God demonstrated His love for us by creating us out of His goodness and wishes us to respond to His love so that our love will be true and unforced.
    Now you are just quoting dogma back.

    The whole point is that God didn't demonstrate his love for us by creating us because he created us in such a way that we suffer greatly.

    The assertion that this is necessary for free will doesn't stand up. It isn't necessary for free will. I do not need to be able to burn in order to have free will. I do not need to be able to drown in order to have free will. I do not need to have a physical body that can feel pain or suffering in order to have free will.

    You look at life and (for some reason I can't fathom) conclude that God loves us. Everyone else here concludes, based on how frail and easily hurt humans are, that God if he exists at all, hates us.

    Your only response to that seems to be to suggest that we assume that there is some unknown reason explaining why he actually does love us but he had to create us like this. The question on everyone else's lips here is Why?

    Why assume that? Why not simply assume the far simpler conclusion the he either is evil or doesn't exist.
    kelly1 wrote: »
    There are lots of things that haven't been definitively revealed by God and I believe there is good reason for that.
    Why?

    Maybe there is an evil reason for it.

    Maybe God knows that if he reveals to much about his evil plans we will realise this and all rebel against him?

    Of course such a concept of God serves no purpose to religious people so is not considered.
    kelly1 wrote: »
    Not quite. I said that God doesn't cause moral evil. The physical evil (disasters etc) is a mystery.

    But you don't know God doesn't cause moral evil. You assert this and then when some one challenges it you claim they lack the ability to make this assessment. If they do why do you not?
    kelly1 wrote: »
    It's not simple, there are unknown quantities at play! There is some speculation involved.

    No there isn't because by your religion's definition of God he is all knowing and all powerful. There are no external issues that constrain him, so there are no unknown quantities.

    The only way there would be unknown quantities is if your god isn't what you believe him to be.
    kelly1 wrote: »
    Why can't you accept the idea that all bad/evil comes from us?
    Because we aren't gods. We do not create the universe we exist in. We do not create the space time we exist in.

    We come from God, from the moment of creation, and so under the logic so does everything we do.

    Before God created the universe he knew everything that would happen in that universe. He created it anyway. He could have created any universe he wanted to, he created this one. If he didn't like everything in this universe, from the atomic bomb to a child dying of cancer, he would have created a different universe. He had access to an infinite number of universe, and in that set would have been one where we didn't create the atomic bomb and the child didn't die of cancer.

    He picked this one over that one.
    kelly1 wrote: »
    Having the ability to sin doesn't cause us to do so.

    That is irrelevant from God's perspective. He knows we will. Having a choice is irrelevant if you already know what choice we will make. It then just becomes something you do/did. It is like looking back in the past. "Choice" has no meaning when looking back in the past. There is just what we did. The future would look the same to God.
    kelly1 wrote: »
    And as regards natural disaster, disease etc, I would speculate that God would prevent these things if we were obedient to His commandments.
    Doesn't that make him evil?
    kelly1 wrote: »
    Divine justice doesn't allow sin to go unpunished. Whether we pay now or later is up to God. I'm convinced that if the majority of us loved God, He would prevent all disasters.

    Again that makes him evil. Killing a child in a tsuamni because I don't go to church on Sunday is evil. The fact that God does this, a being with unlimited power, makes it infinitely evil. Slapping "justice" on to it doesn't make it justice.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,371 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    Wicknight wrote: »
    If God is in fact good and doing what appears to be evil for unknown but righteous reasons we have no more the ability to assess this than we do the ability to assess it if God was in fact evil and doing things that appear good for some unknown but evil reason.

    The reason you don't consider this is not because it is a less logical position, but again because an evil God serves no purpose to you.

    Nice.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,838 ✭✭✭midlandsmissus


    Wicknight wrote: »
    I'm not following. If God doesn't do anything in response to prayers how does that give someone who is praying peace of mind?



    But surely that is him doing something? If he is going to interact with the world to give this woman strength then why not save children in Africa?

    But that's the whole point! Religion/God is meant to impact you spiritually,soothing your spirit.

    If you don't believe in God surely you can still see how praying could give some-one peace of mind - essentiallytalking out their problem with some-one


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,838 ✭✭✭midlandsmissus


    Wicknight wrote: »
    That is ridiculous. It would be as easy for God to create life in such a way that one life form cannot harm another as it would be for him to the the opposite. He choose to do this this way (assuming he exists).

    As Dades says, does not compute

    Right so how could you create life with free will, without there being the potential to kill some-one.

    But then I take it you're choosing to believe we don't have free will.

    So posters on here are saying it is written that God is all powerful. It is also written that we have free will.

    Why is the first constantly brought up,and the second totally dismissed out of hand?

    Just because it helps your argument more?


  • Posts: 4,630 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Right so how could you create life with free will, without there being the potential to kill some-one.

    But then I take it you're choosing to believe we don't have free will.

    So posters on here are saying it is written that God is all powerful. It is also written that we have free will.

    Why is the first constantly brought up,and the second totally dismissed out of hand?

    Just because it helps your argument more?

    The thing which many people don't seem to understand is that if god wanted to create free will, and still not let people murder and whatnot, he could have. If he was (assuming he exists) infinitely powerful - as is always stated - then it would have been no harder for him to create free will without the possibility of murder as it would have been for him to create free will with the possibility of it. Our understanding of free will with the possibility of murder is based on limited intelligence: that doesn't mean a system of free will without murder wouldn't have been possible: because how can something not be possible for an infinitely powerful being? It's a contradiction, and one of my many reasons for believing that if a god existed (which I don't believe) then he is malevolent.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,838 ✭✭✭midlandsmissus


    Zillah wrote: »
    The reason you're not following is because you're leaving out a key ingredient in our delicious evil-God cake: God created the universe.

    God knows all, sees all and has absolute power over everything. He sees the future. He knows, before he's even made the decision to do it, that when he creates the universe a certain way then certain things will happen. He knew that little Mary-Sue was gonna get murdered. He could have made a universe where that didn't happen, but he did anyway.

    God chose to make a universe where on earth the sky is blue. He knew full well the sky, when it formed would be blue. In just the same way, when he made the universe, he knew the way he made that universe would make a world where millions of infants die from disease every year before their first birthday. He could have made a different universe, where those children were loved and looked after and became poets and painters and teachers.

    He chose to make the universe with millions of rotting infant corpses instead.

    Not following - Au contraire in my opinion!

    I'm listening to what everyone is saying and trying to come back with a valid point of my beliefs.

    So God knows eveything that everyone does,that doesn't mean you don't have control over what you. How could it possibly? Again you are picking and chosing phrases, you agree with 'Omnipotent,Omniscience' but don't agree where its said we have free will.Why agree with the first two and not the third?A little biased? I think so.

    As regards all the bad things you mentioned I think suffering is necessary for us to go through to learn. You suffer, you empathise with suffering.

    Mary Sue's murderer chose to make that decision.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,371 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    Right so how could you create life with free will, without there being the potential to kill some-one.

    I would use my INFINITE POWERS to create a world that has both free will and murder.

    It's like one of those old paradoxical questions, but not: Is God so powerful that he can create a universe that has both free will and no murder? Yes. Yes he is.
    So posters on here are saying it is written that God is all powerful. It is also written that we have free will.

    Why is the first constantly brought up,and the second totally dismissed out of hand?

    Just because it helps your argument more?

    1 - In my post (which was directed at you and which you ignored by the way, classy) I used disease as my example, so free will has nothing to do with it.
    2 - Freewill is not a thing. This is an entirely new argument and one that would highjack this thread, but suffice to say, not only am I saying we don't have freewill, I'm saying that this word "freewill" people keep using is gibberish.


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  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,838 ✭✭✭midlandsmissus


    Zillah wrote: »
    I would use my INFINITE POWERS to create a world that has both free will and murder.

    It's like one of those old paradoxical questions, but not: Is God so powerful that he can create a universe that has both free will and no murder? Yes. Yes he is.



    1 - In my post (which was directed at you and which you ignored by the way, classy) I used disease as my example, so free will has nothing to do with it.
    2 - Freewill is not a thing. This is an entirely new argument and one that would highjack this thread, but suffice to say, not only am I saying we don't have freewill, I'm saying that this word "freewill" people keep using is gibberish.

    Zillah I had about three posts coming at me at the time, and that post was very brief anyway, I have replied to you since but take it how you want!

    Getting off topic, if you would be so kind as to see ourselves outside the atheist/religious boundary for a min, I've just noticed that you are in Canada. I landed here yesterday! I love it!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,371 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    Zillah I had about three posts coming at me at the time, and that post was very brief anyway, I have replied to you since but take it how you want!

    Well yes, we can be like a pack of dogs that way. I was referring to this post where I explain your question about power/control.

    EDIT: Oh wait, there's a post up there I missed. D'oh
    Getting off topic, if you would be so kind as to see ourselves outside the atheist/religious boundary for a min, I've just noticed that you are in Canada. I landed here yesterday! I love it!

    PM sent :)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,371 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    As regards all the bad things you mentioned I think suffering is necessary for us to go through to learn. You suffer, you empathise with suffering.

    Mary Sue's murderer chose to make that decision.

    Again, free will has nothing to do with this. I'm using disease as my example.

    So basically you're saying that the fact that God is responsible for billions of infant deaths doesn't mean that he is evil because in some way the suffering and death he inflicted on those three week old children let's them learn?


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,809 ✭✭✭CerebralCortex


    'Omnipotent,Omniscience'

    Mary Sue's murderer chose to make that decision.

    Yes and if god exist and he is both omnipotent and omniscient creator of the universe then he created a universe in which that would happen knowing full well it would happen.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,558 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dades


    Right so how could you create life with free will, without there being the potential to kill some-one.

    But then I take it you're choosing to believe we don't have free will.

    So posters on here are saying it is written that God is all powerful. It is also written that we have free will.

    Why is the first constantly brought up,and the second totally dismissed out of hand?

    Just because it helps your argument more?
    Heaven. If God can create a place where every is happy for eternity - what the heck is the point of the horrible cruel world bit? To learn? Learn what? How wonderful God is? He'd be a lot more wonderful is we were all living in heaven first off.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    But that's the whole point! Religion/God is meant to impact you spiritually,soothing your spirit.

    Again, how does it "impact" you if nothing happens or can happen?

    I've yet to hear someone praying "God please protect my little Jonny as he goes around South America for the summer. I know you won't do this but merely by praying to you out loud I feel better, despite knowing you won't do anything and my little Jonny is as vulnerable as if you didn't exist"

    or

    "Dear lord, please help my mother to recover from her cancer operation. I know you won't, and that my mother's recovery is purely up to the chaotic nature of this natural world, but despite knowing you won't do anything in response to this prayer and everything will continue on as if I hadn't prayed or you simply don't exist or interact with the world, it still makes me feel better


    Even the word prayer itself means to ask something of God.
    If you don't believe in God surely you can still see how praying could give some-one peace of mind

    I can see how praying would give someone peace of mind if they believed that praying can actually do something Otherwise...
    - essentiallytalking out their problem with some-one

    Who are they talking it out with? Themselves?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    Right so how could you create life with free will, without there being the potential to kill some-one.

    By making life indestructible, obviously. He does have completely control over the universe after all.

    The free will argument that he could not do this is bogus. There are billions of things that God in his infinite wisdom doesn't allow you to do based on the physical laws of the universe that do not stop you having free will.

    Can you walk barefoot across the surface of a star? No? Clearly you don't have free will then :rolleyes:
    But then I take it you're choosing to believe we don't have free will.

    No more than you are because you can't breath in space, or survive in a bikini at the North Pole.

    Your argument appears to be that if God restricts us in anyway he is not giving us free will. But as I said he has already restricted us in a billion different ways by the way he has constructed us and the universe around us. And apparently we still have free will.

    So what is the justification for the argument that he must allow me the opportunity for my skin to burn off in a fire for me to have free will? Or the opportunity for me to crack someone skull with a baseball bat in order for me to have free will?

    For fun I think we should start a list of all the things God has decided not to allow us to be able to do ...
    Why is the first constantly brought up,and the second totally dismissed out of hand?
    Because they are not related.

    The "need" for free will does not require that God produce humans out of easily damaged or hurt cells of water and carbon that are so easily destroyed.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    So God knows eveything that everyone does,that doesn't mean you don't have control over what you.
    No it doesn't, but that isn't the point.

    Think of it this way. A an actor will take 10 or 15 takes to do a scene in a movie. The editor or director then picks the one take that he likes and puts it in the final movie. Neither the editor nor the director makes the actor choose the way he does each take. The actor has free will do to the take as he things, but the director decides which one of these ends up in the final movie.

    The universe is the finale movie. God does not make us choose what we do, but he does choose the universe. In universe A I choose to eat an apple for breakfast, in universe B I choose to eat a banana. In universe N to the infinite I'm a sea slug instead of a human. God picks which version of these universes by setting the initial moment of creation. If in this universe I freely choose to eat an apple that choice is approved by God. The only way that the universe where I pick a banana exists is if God approved that. There are two potential universe, one where I choose to eat an apple and one where I choose to eat a banana. God chooses which universe becomes this universe.

    The director doesn't control the actors mind but nothing from the actor's choices or possible choices gets into the movie without the director's approval. The director picks the finial movie from all the possible movies it could have been.

    God had access to an infinite number of possible universes and he choose to create one, knowing exactly what would happen based on him picking that particular universe. Nothing gets into this final universe without God knowing and approving it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,213 ✭✭✭Mrmoe


    People thank God for a multitude of reasons. The important thing is not to get worked up by it, in the same way that religious people should not get worked up by people not thanking God. People in general can not be convinced either way of God's existence by rational debate or argument. It might be frustrating but that is the way the human mind works.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,371 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    Mrmoe wrote: »
    People thank God for a multitude of reasons. The important thing is not to get worked up by it, in the same way that religious people should not get worked up by people not thanking God. People in general can not be convinced either way of God's existence by rational debate or argument. It might be frustrating but that is the way the human mind works.

    I think I spotted an error in your logic.

    People should not get worked up about people raping people, in the same way they should not get worked up by other people not raping people.

    :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,213 ✭✭✭Mrmoe


    Zillah wrote: »
    I think I spotted an error in your logic.

    People should not get worked up about people raping people, in the same way they should not get worked up by other people not raping people.

    :D

    Well unfortunately you hit a nail of truth, people are raped all the time and most of the time there is no uproar. If people gave a crap about things like rape and murder in the world and did something about it I be more than happy to try and convince people that there is no God.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,753 ✭✭✭fitz0


    kelly1 wrote: »

    Ultimately evil is a mystery but like I said, I think love must involve free-will.
    That's one thing that constantly bothers me, religious folks don't really seem to want to understand this "mystery." They seem happy to just call it a "mystery" and be done. I can't rationalize such willful ignorance. How can you?

    kelly1 wrote:
    Why can't you accept the idea that all bad/evil comes from us?
    We do. God does not exist therefore everything is as it is. Man can be bad/evil/good/kind/cruel/generous/quiet/angry/sad and so forth.

    BUT if god did exist and is omnipotent and omniscient then all comes from him. The good AND the bad. If you insist that the above quote is true then why is it that all good does not come from us? If god makes it so that all evil comes from us then why is it so far fetched that all good does too?

    I think I know. If all good came from us then what would be the point in a god at all? So good must come from god, it has to.

    A side note on omniscience and omnipotence
    If god is both of the above then we arrive at a little contradiction. If god made the universe then he, in his omniscience, knew exactly how the whole thing would pan out. Surely if he knew in advance then he would be powerless to change it, since, by his omniscience, he would know that he would change it, thereby negating any claim to omnipotence. And, in his omniscience, he would surely know what he would do all along and he would know he knew. This leads me to envision god as a mere conduit, if he were to exist at all. Unable to change anything once events are set in motion, unable to even think new thoughts, this god-being is a prisoner of his own power, undeserving of worship or praise. Why praise a robot?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,788 ✭✭✭MrPudding


    fitz0 wrote: »

    A side note on omniscience and omnipotence
    If god is both of the above then we arrive at a little contradiction. If god made the universe then he, in his omniscience, knew exactly how the whole thing would pan out. Surely if he knew in advance then he would be powerless to change it, since, by his omniscience, he would know that he would change it, thereby negating any claim to omnipotence. And, in his omniscience, he would surely know what he would do all along and he would know he knew. This leads me to envision god as a mere conduit, if he were to exist at all. Unable to change anything once events are set in motion, unable to even think new thoughts, this god-being is a prisoner of his own power, undeserving of worship or praise. Why praise a robot?

    Epicurus FTW.
    Epicurus wrote:
    Either God wants to abolish evil and cannot,
    or he can but does not want to,
    or he cannot and does not want to,
    or lastly he can and wants to.

    If he wants to remove evil, and cannot,
    he is not omnipotent;
    If he can, but does not want to,
    he is not benevolent;
    If he neither can nor wants to,
    he is neither omnipotent nor benevolent;
    But if God can abolish evil and wants to,
    how does evil exist?
    Was my sig until I tried to raise a bit of money...

    MrP


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,753 ✭✭✭fitz0


    MrPudding wrote: »
    Epicurus FTW.

    Was my sig until I tried to raise a bit of money...

    MrP
    That's the one. I was trying to remember where it came from.


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