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the loving, caring god strikes again - 173

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SheBlewHimDidYouBlowHim

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Jan 2, 2006, 6:15:59 PM1/2/06

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/02/mine.explosion/index.html

CNN) -- As rescuers entered a coal mine where 13 miners were trapped early
Monday by an explosion, family members gathered at a church awaiting word of
the fate of their loved ones.
The miners were trapped about 6:30 a.m. ET about eight miles south of
Buckhannon near Tallmansville in Upshur County, officials said. Louise
Bleith, operations supervisor at the county's 911 center, said six other
miners escaped unhurt.

Monday afternoon, a rescue team -- with a backup team in place -- entered
the mine, said Steve Milligan, deputy director of the county's office of
emergency management.

The crew was made up of an eight-person rescue team and a ninth person -- a
foreman for the coal company -- familiar with the mine.

Earlier Milligan had said there was no indication whether the miners had
survived the blast and the resulting falling debris. (Watch what's being
done to help trapped miners -- 1:28)

Milligan said family members of the miners were being taken to a Baptist
church near the mine. The Red Cross also had staff at the church, he said.

Anna McCoy told The Associated Press that her husband, Randall, 27, was
among those missing. She said he "was looking to get out. It was too
dangerous," the AP reported.

Near the mine, other family members waited for news.

"We're just doing a lot of praying and trying to think positive," one woman
told CNN affiliate WSAZ. "We hope that they're all OK."

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin told CNN he was flying home from the Sugar
Bowl football game.

Manchin had been in Atlanta, Georgia, to attend the contest between West
Virginia University and the University of Georgia, but said, "I'll be at the
site tonight."

The trapped miners have two hours of life support and sensors that monitor
air quality, Manchin told CNN.

Five mine rescue teams were on site, with more on the way, officials said.

Rescue attempt
The rescue crews, equipped with breathing gear and equipment to bore a hole
through the debris, faced a "long, involved process," Milligan said.

The miners, he said, were trapped 5,800 feet below the surface. (Map)

"I know they're sucking the bad air out; not sure if they're blowing fresh
air in," he said.

The U.S. Labor Department's Mine Safety and Health Administration sent mine
safety specialists to the site and said it would investigate the cause of
the accident. The agency's Mine Emergency Operations group's command
vehicle, equipped with seismic and gas-analysis equipment, and a rescue
robot, were en route, officials said.

Milligan said the explosion occurred at the Sago Mine, owned by
International Coal Group, an energy-consulting firm.

A manager at a pizza delivery company in nearby Tennerton said everyone in
the communities knows someone who works in the mines.

"With this size town, everybody should pretty much know everybody," Thomas
Wilkins said. "I haven't heard anything about exactly who has been trapped,
but pretty much everybody here knows somebody who is in the mining business
and possibly could be [trapped]. It's a pretty big thing here."

International Coal Group, which has mining operations in West Virginia,
Kentucky and Maryland, was formed in May 2004.

"All options are being investigated," said ICG senior vice president for
mining services, Gene Kitts. "As far as drilling a hole from the surface, if
that is deemed to be a feasible option, I'm sure that we and the regulatory
authorities will pursue that."

ICG general counsel Roger Nicholson said there was no indication that the
explosion "was a methane-related event, at this time."

According to the Mine Safety and Health Administration, 14 miners were
killed underground in 2004, the last year for which data were available.

In February 2003, three contract workers were killed by a methane explosion
while drilling an air shaft at a Consol Energy Mine near Cameron, West
Virginia, according to the Associated Press. Three mining deaths occurred in
the state in 2005, the lowest total there since 2000, the AP reported.

In July 2002, nine miners were rescued after being trapped for 77 hours in a
mine near Somerset, Pennsylvania

Neill

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Jan 2, 2006, 7:48:51 PM1/2/06

"SheBlewHimDidYouBlowHim" <kil...@killgod.com> wrote in message
news:Puiuf.1724$%W1....@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/02/mine.explosion/index.html
>

With a little mercy from Almighty God, perhaps these miners will survive
this deadly attack of your god, whose purpose is to kill, steal and destry.

Tony Black

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Jan 2, 2006, 11:56:43 PM1/2/06

It is appointed to all to die for their sin debt. HE knows the time and
the hour.

"SheBlewHimDidYouBlowHim" <kil...@killgod.com> wrote in message
news:Puiuf.1724$%W1....@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...

SheBlewHimDidYouBlowHim

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Jan 3, 2006, 8:14:16 AM1/3/06

>
> With a little mercy from Almighty God, perhaps these miners will survive
> this deadly attack of your god, whose purpose is to kill, steal and
> destry.
>

hey neil,. why did your "loving, caring" god allow them to be trapped in the
first place ??????
again, why must MAN rescue them, why doesn't yuor loving, caring god do it?

waitinf for yet more backpedalling from the religious nutcases

host

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Jan 3, 2006, 2:58:50 PM1/3/06

"SheBlewHimDidYouBlowHim" <kil...@killgod.com> wrote in message

news:IMuuf.1662$ZA2...@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...

No backpedaling here you stupid ass. I will say what I have always said: You
suck!!!!! And you always will. Honestly I do not know if it is drugs which
make you say the things you do, or just plain ole stupidity. I am willing to
guess stupidity. You come here with your "god is guilty of everything"
agenda and you really do a good job of making yourself look about as stupid
as a brick. Good job She, you are doing a good job of letting people know
what a TRUE nutcase is like (YOU). Keep up the good work, that way no one
will be deceived by a piece of shit like you when they come around! ; )

I mean, honestly, no one here likes you She, get a clue...nobody believes
you.

*Host just slammed you down and wrung you out like the wet laundry you are.
(And I mean WET!)

Care to repent yet She?

Host.
with the most...

Bill

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Jan 3, 2006, 5:09:45 PM1/3/06

"Tony Black" <drtb...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:funuf.3950$M%4.2...@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...

> It is appointed to all to die for their sin debt. HE knows the time and
> the hour.

A typical sick fundy. Why would any god creator cause 13 family men to
suffer and parish like this?

And why did 250,000 men, women of all religious persuasions and totally
INNOCENT CHILDREN
suffer and die in last years Asian tsunami?

I thought you had a Hell to take care of punishment? Your god doesn't appear
very fair or intelligent.

SheBlewHimDidYouBlowHim

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Jan 3, 2006, 6:52:16 PM1/3/06

lmao. pretty fucking funny coming from a religious nutcase.

seriously however, if your god is so great, then why doesn't he just open up
the mineshaft himself and let the miners walk out unharmed ? waiting for

more backpedalling from the religious nutcases

and seriously, if you want me to go away, it's fairly simple, all your
loving, caring, all-powerful, all-knowing god has to do is QUIT COMMITTING
MURDER. Why can't your loving, caring god stop killing people? Hmmmm ?

why must man ALWAYS fix the loving, caring christian god's fuck ups?

Tony Black

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Jan 4, 2006, 2:17:11 AM1/4/06

Bill
I think you just like to argue for the sake of arguing. Couldn't you
unbelievers go and bother the other abominable news feeds and be with your
own kind?

"Bill" <wm...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:oACuf.10640$vL4....@bignews1.bellsouth.net...

SheBlewHimDidYouBlowHim

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Jan 4, 2006, 7:12:44 AM1/4/06

hey religious nutcase, when the first bad report came out that 12 had
survived, church bells were ringing, people were praising the almighty
shithole, etc.

were you religious fruitcakes still praising the almighty shithole christian
god when the REAL report came out that the loving, caring mass-murdering,
child-killing christian god had MURDERED 12 people, and left one other in
critical condition.

the loving, caring christian god strikes yet again.

Neill

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Jan 4, 2006, 10:41:57 PM1/4/06

"host" <ho...@home.com> wrote in message
news:5b5c1$43bad607$4088ca67$12...@EVERESTKC.NET...

>
> "SheBlewHimDidYouBlowHim" <kil...@killgod.com> wrote in message
> news:IMuuf.1662$ZA2...@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> > >
> > > With a little mercy from Almighty God, perhaps these miners will
survive
> > > this deadly attack of your god, whose purpose is to kill, steal and
> > > destry.
> > >
> >
> > hey neil,. why did your "loving, caring" god allow them to be trapped in
> the
> > first place ??????
> > again, why must MAN rescue them, why doesn't yuor loving, caring god do
> it?
> >
> > waitinf for yet more backpedalling from the religious nutcases
> >
> >
>
> No backpedaling here you stupid ass. I will say what I have always said:
You
> suck!!!!! And you always will. Honestly I do not know if it is drugs which

> make you say the things you do, or just plain ole stupidity.<snip>

It's the stupidity.

Neill

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Jan 4, 2006, 10:42:36 PM1/4/06

"SheBlewHimDidYouBlowHim" <kil...@killgod.com> wrote in message

news:Q6Euf.4346$M%4.1...@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...

That's the most arrogant statement I've heard today.

Neill

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Jan 4, 2006, 10:43:26 PM1/4/06

mem

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Jan 5, 2006, 11:29:53 AM1/5/06

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 23:15:59 GMT, "SheBlewHimDidYouBlowHim"
<kil...@killgod.com> said the following highly interesting and
thought-provoking thingies in this 'froup:

You are blaming GOD for the errors humans made themselves.
Those unfortunate miners who died certainly were not to blame, but
the owners of SAGO Mines were.
There were up to TWO HUNDRED violations against the company, a
reported 87 being serious safety hazards.
MY question is, why was Sago not shut down until such repairs were
completed, inspected, and passed?
And WHY did they shut down the internal ventilation system for the
week the mine was closed?
MONEY, that's why.
In their greed for money, they willfully jeopardized the lives of
those miners.

God was not to blame there, now was He?

The miscommunication that 12 were alive and one dead was also due to a
manmade error. The immense joy and relief those poor families
obviously felt on hearing such miraculous news was only to last three
hours, when these poor souls learned that their loved ones were not
alive and well, but sadly, dead.
Whose fault was that?
God was not to blame there either, now was He?

Aren't you placing the placing the blame on God where in fact, the
blame is really on mankind?
Please reconsider.

Icarus

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Jan 5, 2006, 12:13:38 PM1/5/06

mem wrote:

...

> You are blaming GOD for the errors humans made themselves.
> Those unfortunate miners who died certainly were not to blame, but
> the owners of SAGO Mines were.

If your god made humans imperfect, who's responsible for us being
imperfect - him or us?

dianaiad

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Jan 5, 2006, 12:22:48 PM1/5/06

If God gave man free will, that is, the ability to make our own
choices, and they make the wrong ones, who is to blame, Him or us?

the problem with having free will is that when we make choices, we also
choose the consequences of the choices. Sometimes those consequences
affect more than just us. Sometimes the choices made by a corrupt or
uncaring group of mine owners will have consequences for the workers.
Sometimes the choice made by a government, that allows its citizens to
live in incredibly substandard housing, will result in death and
destruction when an earthquake hits. Sometimes individual choices to
live in a place that DOES flood periodically, WILL result in getting
flooded out.

What amazes the hell out of me is this: how atheists, who say that they
do NOT believe in God, will blame Him for all the evil in the world,
when the theists who believe in Him and all the stuff that comes with
Him, understand that He is not. you want irony? THAT is irony.

diana

mem

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Jan 5, 2006, 4:01:30 PM1/5/06

On Thu, 5 Jan 2006 17:13:38 -0000, "Icarus" <icar...@email.com> said

the following highly interesting and thought-provoking thingies in
this 'froup:

>mem wrote:

US.
God made us FINITE BEINGS, with a free will to either obey or disobey.
I don't intend to argue over this, but the problem lies on mankind,
NOT God.

mem

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Jan 5, 2006, 4:02:25 PM1/5/06

On 5 Jan 2006 09:22:48 -0800, "dianaiad" <dian...@msn.com> said the

following highly interesting and thought-provoking thingies in this
'froup:

I agree, Diana, wholeheartedly. It's all to easy to simply 'blame God'
for OUR shortcomings.

Icarus

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Jan 6, 2006, 4:23:26 AM1/6/06

dianaiad wrote:

> Icarus wrote:
>> mem wrote:
>>
>> ...
>>> You are blaming GOD for the errors humans made themselves.
>>> Those unfortunate miners who died certainly were not to blame, but
>>> the owners of SAGO Mines were.
>>
>> If your god made humans imperfect, who's responsible for us being
>> imperfect - him or us?
>
> If God gave man free will, that is, the ability to make our own
> choices, and they make the wrong ones, who is to blame, Him or us?

Him, obviously. Being capable of making 'wrong choices' means we're
imperfect. If god chose that we would be this way then obviously he's
responsible for us being this way. We didn't choose the way we are, he did
(according to your religion), so he's responsible. An omnipotent god could
have made us with free will but perfect so we never do wrong, just like him,
or at best being omniscient he could have foreseen that we would do wrong
and not created us in the first place. Whichever way you look at it, you
cannot absolve your supposed creator from responsibility for his creation.

> the problem with having free will is that when we make choices, we
> also choose the consequences of the choices. Sometimes those
> consequences affect more than just us. Sometimes the choices made by
> a corrupt or uncaring group of mine owners will have consequences for
> the workers. Sometimes the choice made by a government, that allows
> its citizens to live in incredibly substandard housing, will result
> in death and destruction when an earthquake hits. Sometimes
> individual choices to live in a place that DOES flood periodically,
> WILL result in getting flooded out.
>
> What amazes the hell out of me is this: how atheists, who say that
> they do NOT believe in God, will blame Him for all the evil in the
> world, when the theists who believe in Him and all the stuff that
> comes with Him, understand that He is not. you want irony? THAT is
> irony.

Well, no, we're not blaming a god for anything, just highlighting the fact
that your position is indefensible :-)

Icarus

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Jan 6, 2006, 4:26:05 AM1/6/06

mem wrote:

If you don't intend to argue over it then I'll state it as an undeniable
fact: The creator is responsible for the failings of his creation. Case
closed :-)

mem

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Jan 6, 2006, 8:17:47 AM1/6/06

On Fri, 6 Jan 2006 09:26:05 -0000, "Icarus" <icar...@email.com> said

Shallow-mindedness noted.

dianaiad

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Jan 6, 2006, 12:16:26 PM1/6/06

Icarus wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
>
> > Icarus wrote:
> >> mem wrote:
> >>
> >> ...
> >>> You are blaming GOD for the errors humans made themselves.
> >>> Those unfortunate miners who died certainly were not to blame, but
> >>> the owners of SAGO Mines were.
> >>
> >> If your god made humans imperfect, who's responsible for us being
> >> imperfect - him or us?
> >
> > If God gave man free will, that is, the ability to make our own
> > choices, and they make the wrong ones, who is to blame, Him or us?
>
> Him, obviously. Being capable of making 'wrong choices' means we're
> imperfect. If god chose that we would be this way then obviously he's
> responsible for us being this way. We didn't choose the way we are, he did
> (according to your religion),

Be careful of those assumptions, sir. Assuming something that isn't so
is causing you to go spinning off in a direction I'm not headed.

> so he's responsible. An omnipotent god could
> have made us with free will but perfect so we never do wrong, just like him,

Where in this is 'free will'? Free will ABSOLUTELY requires that the
choices be free; that is, you have to be able to choose to sin as well
as to 'not sin'. You have to be capable of making that choice and
acting on it. You are describing Calvinism in reverse here; where the
Calvinists posit that God has created all men to be abject
reprobates/sinners, you are mad at Him because He didn't create all men
to be perfect non-sinners. Two halves of the same coin, in other words,
and neither half allow for any choice.

> or at best being omniscient he could have foreseen that we would do wrong
> and not created us in the first place. Whichever way you look at it, you
> cannot absolve your supposed creator from responsibility for his creation.

Of course I can....but I can see where, if I believed as you assume I
do, you would come to the conclusion you have done. You might say that
you are speaking to theists in general and Christianity (as you see it)
specifically, but you are answering my specific post.

> > the problem with having free will is that when we make choices, we
> > also choose the consequences of the choices. Sometimes those
> > consequences affect more than just us. Sometimes the choices made by
> > a corrupt or uncaring group of mine owners will have consequences for
> > the workers. Sometimes the choice made by a government, that allows
> > its citizens to live in incredibly substandard housing, will result
> > in death and destruction when an earthquake hits. Sometimes
> > individual choices to live in a place that DOES flood periodically,
> > WILL result in getting flooded out.
> >
> > What amazes the hell out of me is this: how atheists, who say that
> > they do NOT believe in God, will blame Him for all the evil in the
> > world, when the theists who believe in Him and all the stuff that
> > comes with Him, understand that He is not. you want irony? THAT is
> > irony.
>
> Well, no, we're not blaming a god for anything, just highlighting the fact
> that your position is indefensible :-)

The problem of course is that you aren't highlighting my position at
all. Why should I defend a position I don't hold in the first place?

Diana

Bill

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Jan 6, 2006, 4:50:52 PM1/6/06

"mem" <m...@yup.yup> wrote in message
news:2a2rr1lj7ektlqsba...@4ax.com...

Idiot, you believe that your god created us in his image. If that is the
case why did he create us to do evil.
Free will? That's just a ridiculous cop out. We do not have the free will
not to breath, eat, avoid excessive heat and cold etc.

If your all loving god created us with free will he did not have to include
'evil' in the world he created.

Bill

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Jan 6, 2006, 4:56:31 PM1/6/06

"dianaiad" <dian...@msn.com> wrote in message
news:1136567786.7...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...

>
> Icarus wrote:
>> dianaiad wrote:
>>
>> > Icarus wrote:
>> >> mem wrote:
>> >>
>> >> ...
>> >>> You are blaming GOD for the errors humans made themselves.
>> >>> Those unfortunate miners who died certainly were not to blame, but
>> >>> the owners of SAGO Mines were.
>> >>
>> >> If your god made humans imperfect, who's responsible for us being
>> >> imperfect - him or us?
>> >
>> > If God gave man free will, that is, the ability to make our own
>> > choices, and they make the wrong ones, who is to blame, Him or us?
>>
>> Him, obviously. Being capable of making 'wrong choices' means we're
>> imperfect. If god chose that we would be this way then obviously he's
>> responsible for us being this way. We didn't choose the way we are, he
>> did
>> (according to your religion),
>
> Be careful of those assumptions, sir. Assuming something that isn't so
> is causing you to go spinning off in a direction I'm not headed.

I see you are incapable of dealing in logic because your fanatical religous
beliefs get in your way.

>> so he's responsible. An omnipotent god could
>> have made us with free will but perfect so we never do wrong, just like
>> him,
>
> Where in this is 'free will'? Free will ABSOLUTELY requires that the
> choices be free; that is, you have to be able to choose to sin as well
> as to 'not sin'.

Why did this wonderful all caring god need to create 'sin'???

Free will does not require the need for 'evil'. He could have created the
free will to choose from hundreds
of wonderful things - not evil.

dianaiad

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Jan 6, 2006, 5:13:20 PM1/6/06

Bill wrote:
> "dianaiad" <dian...@msn.com> wrote in message
> news:1136567786.7...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > Icarus wrote:
> >> dianaiad wrote:
> >>
> >> > Icarus wrote:
> >> >> mem wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> ...
> >> >>> You are blaming GOD for the errors humans made themselves.
> >> >>> Those unfortunate miners who died certainly were not to blame, but
> >> >>> the owners of SAGO Mines were.
> >> >>
> >> >> If your god made humans imperfect, who's responsible for us being
> >> >> imperfect - him or us?
> >> >
> >> > If God gave man free will, that is, the ability to make our own
> >> > choices, and they make the wrong ones, who is to blame, Him or us?
> >>
> >> Him, obviously. Being capable of making 'wrong choices' means we're
> >> imperfect. If god chose that we would be this way then obviously he's
> >> responsible for us being this way. We didn't choose the way we are, he
> >> did
> >> (according to your religion),
> >
> > Be careful of those assumptions, sir. Assuming something that isn't so
> > is causing you to go spinning off in a direction I'm not headed.
>
> I see you are incapable of dealing in logic because your fanatical religous
> beliefs get in your way.

I see that you immediately go to the ad hominem. There is nothing in my
statement that the writer is assuming something about my beliefs that
isn't true that indicates MY lack of logic.

> >> so he's responsible. An omnipotent god could
> >> have made us with free will but perfect so we never do wrong, just like
> >> him,
> >
> > Where in this is 'free will'? Free will ABSOLUTELY requires that the
> > choices be free; that is, you have to be able to choose to sin as well
> > as to 'not sin'.
>
> Why did this wonderful all caring god need to create 'sin'???

Why would HE have to create sin? All He had to do was fix it so that we
could choose among the options. Sin automatically happens when we
choose bad ones. That's the function of choice. It simply goes with the
territory.

>
> Free will does not require the need for 'evil'. He could have created the
> free will to choose from hundreds
> of wonderful things - not evil.

Oh, really? Give me an example, why don't you?

dianaiad

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Jan 6, 2006, 12:17:38 PM1/6/06

Be careful of those assumptions, sir. Assuming something that isn't so

is causing you to go spinning off in a direction I'm not headed.

> so he's responsible. An omnipotent god could

> have made us with free will but perfect so we never do wrong, just like him,

Where in this is 'free will'? Free will ABSOLUTELY requires that the

choices be free; that is, you have to be able to choose to sin as well

as to 'not sin'. You have to be capable of making that choice and

acting on it. You are describing Calvinism in reverse here; where the
Calvinists posit that God has created all men to be abject
reprobates/sinners, you are mad at Him because He didn't create all men
to be perfect non-sinners. Two halves of the same coin, in other words,
and neither half allow for any choice.

> or at best being omniscient he could have foreseen that we would do wrong

> and not created us in the first place. Whichever way you look at it, you
> cannot absolve your supposed creator from responsibility for his creation.

Of course I can....but I can see where, if I believed as you assume I

do, you would come to the conclusion you have done. You might say that
you are speaking to theists in general and Christianity (as you see it)
specifically, but you are answering my specific post.

The problem of course is that you aren't highlighting my position at

dianaiad

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Jan 6, 2006, 5:03:03 PM1/6/06

That's true only if you are willing to consider the ramifications of
being, to all intents and purposes, a robot. You wouldn't be able to
make any of your own choices. You woudn't be able to choose your
clothes, your school, your mate, how you raise your children, the car
you drive, the food you eat, nothing. Indeed, you would have no control
over the thoughts you have or what you do about those thoughts. Indeed,
you would have no purpose for being. None. What good would you be doing
yourself or anybody else? A rock would have more purpose for existance.

So yeah, a loving God would have to allow evil in the world. He would
HAVE to, in order to give us choices. The problem with choices is,
people actually make them. The problem with options is, sometimes
people take the wrong ones. Indeed, the fact that people can and DO
make the wrong choices is proof that our wills are free; if nobody
chose badly, that would, would it not, be proof that they were NOT
free?

Diana

Icarus

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Jan 7, 2006, 8:07:40 PM1/7/06

mem wrote:

>>>>> ...
>>>>> You are blaming GOD for the errors humans made themselves.
>>>>> Those unfortunate miners who died certainly were not to
>>>>> blame, but the owners of SAGO Mines were.
>>>>
>>>> If your god made humans imperfect, who's responsible for us
>>>> being imperfect - him or us?
>>>>
>>> US.
>>> God made us FINITE BEINGS, with a free will to either obey
>>> or disobey. I don't intend to argue over this, but the
>>> problem lies on mankind, NOT God.
>>
>> If you don't intend to argue over it then I'll state it as an
>> undeniable fact: The creator is responsible for the failings
>> of his creation. Case closed :-)
>>
> Shallow-mindedness noted.

As someone once said, "... only his non-existence could excuse him"

Icarus

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Jan 7, 2006, 8:38:39 PM1/7/06

dianaiad wrote:

> Icarus wrote:
>> dianaiad wrote:
>>
>>> Icarus wrote:
>>>> mem wrote:
>>>>
>>>> ...
>>>>> You are blaming GOD for the errors humans made themselves.
>>>>> Those unfortunate miners who died certainly were not to
>>>>> blame, but the owners of SAGO Mines were.
>>>>
>>>> If your god made humans imperfect, who's responsible for us
>>>> being imperfect - him or us?
>>>
>>> If God gave man free will, that is, the ability to make our
>>> own choices, and they make the wrong ones, who is to blame,
>>> Him or us?
>>
>> Him, obviously. Being capable of making 'wrong choices'
>> means we're imperfect. If god chose that we would be this
>> way then obviously he's responsible for us being this way.
>> We didn't choose the way we are, he did (according to your
>> religion),
>
> Be careful of those assumptions, sir. Assuming something that
> isn't so is causing you to go spinning off in a direction I'm
> not headed.

Ah, but it's the direction in which you *should* be headed, since it's the
one dictated by rational thought.

>> so he's responsible. An omnipotent god could
>> have made us with free will but perfect so we never do wrong,
>> just like him,
>
> Where in this is 'free will'? Free will ABSOLUTELY requires
> that the choices be free; that is, you have to be able to
> choose to sin as well as to 'not sin'. You have to be capable
> of making that choice and acting on it. You are describing
> Calvinism in reverse here; where the Calvinists posit that God
> has created all men to be abject reprobates/sinners, you are
> mad at Him because He didn't create all men to be perfect
> non-sinners. Two halves of the same coin, in other words, and
> neither half allow for any choice.

Then which property will you deny your god - free will or perfect goodness?
By your logic, he can have one or the other, but not both. If you insist
that he can have both, then you can't deny that we could have both too.

>> or at best being omniscient he could have foreseen that we
>> would do wrong and not created us in the first place.
>> Whichever way you look at it, you cannot absolve your
>> supposed creator from responsibility for his creation.
>
> Of course I can....but I can see where, if I believed as you
> assume I do, you would come to the conclusion you have done.
> You might say that you are speaking to theists in general and
> Christianity (as you see it) specifically, but you are
> answering my specific post.

Well it's a simple matter - Did your supposed god foresee that we would
sin, and freely choose to create us anyway? If so, he's responsible for
sin, since it didn't have to exist, and indeed wouldn't have existed if he
hadn't chosen to create it. The reasoning is inescapable.

>>> the problem with having free will is that when we make
>>> choices, we also choose the consequences of the choices.
>>> Sometimes those consequences affect more than just us.
>>> Sometimes the choices made by a corrupt or uncaring group of
>>> mine owners will have consequences for the workers.
>>> Sometimes the choice made by a government, that allows its
>>> citizens to live in incredibly substandard housing, will
>>> result in death and destruction when an earthquake hits.
>>> Sometimes individual choices to live in a place that DOES
>>> flood periodically, WILL result in getting flooded out.
>>>
>>> What amazes the hell out of me is this: how atheists, who
>>> say that they do NOT believe in God, will blame Him for all
>>> the evil in the world, when the theists who believe in Him
>>> and all the stuff that comes with Him, understand that He is
>>> not. you want irony? THAT is irony.
>>
>> Well, no, we're not blaming a god for anything, just
>> highlighting the fact that your position is indefensible :-)
>
> The problem of course is that you aren't highlighting my
> position at all. Why should I defend a position I don't hold
> in the first place?

If you believe that your god freely chose to create us and knew in advance
how we would behave, then you cannot deny that he freely chose to create
sin. To argue against this position you have to deny his free will, or his
omniscience, or his existence. Which is it to be?

host

unread,

Jan 8, 2006, 11:53:34 AM1/8/06

"SheBlewHimDidYouBlowHim" <kil...@killgod.com> wrote in message

news:Q6Euf.4346$M%4.1...@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...

> lmao. pretty fucking funny coming from a religious nutcase.
>
> seriously however, if your god is so great, then why doesn't he just open
up
> the mineshaft himself and let the miners walk out unharmed ? waiting for
> more backpedalling from the religious nutcases

Hmmm, didn't Jesus say, "An evil and adultress people look for a sign..." Or
something pretty close? But nevertheless we understand what he meant. And we
know what to think about people like SheMale who always needs a SIGN.

>
> and seriously, if you want me to go away, it's fairly simple, all your
> loving, caring, all-powerful, all-knowing god has to do is QUIT COMMITTING
> MURDER. Why can't your loving, caring god stop killing people? Hmmmm ?
>
> why must man ALWAYS fix the loving, caring christian god's fuck ups?

Hmmm, let me see you fucking idiot. Using your logic, I guess we can't
really blame god for the collapse of the mine shaft since it was a bunch of
bumbling HUMANS who built it!

Too bad for you SheMale, your logic is corrupt, and your brain is turning to
mush.

Host.

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 9, 2006, 12:57:50 AM1/9/06

Icarus wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:<snip to>

> > Be careful of those assumptions, sir. Assuming something that
> > isn't so is causing you to go spinning off in a direction I'm
> > not headed.
>
> Ah, but it's the direction in which you *should* be headed, since it's the
> one dictated by rational thought.

Why? It's NOT the "direction dictated by rational thought," it's the
direction dictated by your assumptions of what I believe; thus, your
arguments against what you think I believe are rather missing the
point.

>
> >> so he's responsible. An omnipotent god could
> >> have made us with free will but perfect so we never do wrong,
> >> just like him,
> >
> > Where in this is 'free will'? Free will ABSOLUTELY requires
> > that the choices be free; that is, you have to be able to
> > choose to sin as well as to 'not sin'. You have to be capable
> > of making that choice and acting on it. You are describing
> > Calvinism in reverse here; where the Calvinists posit that God
> > has created all men to be abject reprobates/sinners, you are
> > mad at Him because He didn't create all men to be perfect
> > non-sinners. Two halves of the same coin, in other words, and
> > neither half allow for any choice.
>
> Then which property will you deny your god - free will or perfect goodness?

Why should I deny either? HE may be perfectly good, but if WE have free
will, then WE do not have to be.

> By your logic, he can have one or the other, but not both.

We aren't talking about God. We are talking about human beings.

> If you insist
> that he can have both, then you can't deny that we could have both too.

You've lost me. You are so far afield from what I believe about God
that we aren't even waving at each other in passing here.

>
> >> or at best being omniscient he could have foreseen that we
> >> would do wrong and not created us in the first place.
> >> Whichever way you look at it, you cannot absolve your
> >> supposed creator from responsibility for his creation.
> >
> > Of course I can....but I can see where, if I believed as you
> > assume I do, you would come to the conclusion you have done.
> > You might say that you are speaking to theists in general and
> > Christianity (as you see it) specifically, but you are
> > answering my specific post.
>
> Well it's a simple matter - Did your supposed god foresee that we would
> sin, and freely choose to create us anyway? If so, he's responsible for
> sin, since it didn't have to exist, and indeed wouldn't have existed if he
> hadn't chosen to create it. The reasoning is inescapable.

Did you, as a parent, forsee that your children would have problems in
their lives, make really stupid decisions, sometimes come to harm,
sometimes make total asses out of themselves and indeed, be pretty
normal children on their way to becoming adults, with all the angst and
foolishness that goes with that, and did you choose to have them
anyway? If so, you are responsible for every bad choice your child
makes, EXACTLY the way God is responsible for every bad choice we make.
To precisely the same level.

The problem with allowing people their free will is that they will use
it; and you have to let them even when the choices they make are
horrifically, tragically wrong, or it's not really free will, is it?

> >>> the problem with having free will is that when we make
> >>> choices, we also choose the consequences of the choices.
> >>> Sometimes those consequences affect more than just us.
> >>> Sometimes the choices made by a corrupt or uncaring group of
> >>> mine owners will have consequences for the workers.
> >>> Sometimes the choice made by a government, that allows its
> >>> citizens to live in incredibly substandard housing, will
> >>> result in death and destruction when an earthquake hits.
> >>> Sometimes individual choices to live in a place that DOES
> >>> flood periodically, WILL result in getting flooded out.
> >>>
> >>> What amazes the hell out of me is this: how atheists, who
> >>> say that they do NOT believe in God, will blame Him for all
> >>> the evil in the world, when the theists who believe in Him
> >>> and all the stuff that comes with Him, understand that He is
> >>> not. you want irony? THAT is irony.
> >>
> >> Well, no, we're not blaming a god for anything, just
> >> highlighting the fact that your position is indefensible :-)
> >
> > The problem of course is that you aren't highlighting my
> > position at all. Why should I defend a position I don't hold
> > in the first place?
>
> If you believe that your god freely chose to create us and knew in advance
> how we would behave, then you cannot deny that he freely chose to create
> sin.

No. The most you can say is that He freely chose to allow US to create
it.

> To argue against this position you have to deny his free will, or his
> omniscience, or his existence. Which is it to be?

How does this deny HIS free will? He has chosen to allow us OUR free
will, good choices or bad ones. How does that remove His from Him?

Diana

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 9, 2006, 12:27:15 AM1/9/06

Icarus wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:<snip to>

Why? It's NOT the "direction dictated by rational thought," it's the

direction dictated by your assumptions of what I believe; thus, your
arguments against what you think I believe are rather missing the
point.
>

> >> so he's responsible. An omnipotent god could
> >> have made us with free will but perfect so we never do wrong,
> >> just like him,
> >
> > Where in this is 'free will'? Free will ABSOLUTELY requires
> > that the choices be free; that is, you have to be able to
> > choose to sin as well as to 'not sin'. You have to be capable
> > of making that choice and acting on it. You are describing
> > Calvinism in reverse here; where the Calvinists posit that God
> > has created all men to be abject reprobates/sinners, you are
> > mad at Him because He didn't create all men to be perfect
> > non-sinners. Two halves of the same coin, in other words, and
> > neither half allow for any choice.
>
> Then which property will you deny your god - free will or perfect goodness?

Why should I deny either? HE may be perfectly good, but if WE have free

will, then WE do not have to be.

> By your logic, he can have one or the other, but not both.

We aren't talking about God. We are talking about human beings.

> If you insist

> that he can have both, then you can't deny that we could have both too.

You've lost me. You are so far afield from what I believe about God

that we aren't even waving at each other in passing here.
>

> >> or at best being omniscient he could have foreseen that we
> >> would do wrong and not created us in the first place.
> >> Whichever way you look at it, you cannot absolve your
> >> supposed creator from responsibility for his creation.
> >
> > Of course I can....but I can see where, if I believed as you
> > assume I do, you would come to the conclusion you have done.
> > You might say that you are speaking to theists in general and
> > Christianity (as you see it) specifically, but you are
> > answering my specific post.
>
> Well it's a simple matter - Did your supposed god foresee that we would
> sin, and freely choose to create us anyway? If so, he's responsible for
> sin, since it didn't have to exist, and indeed wouldn't have existed if he
> hadn't chosen to create it. The reasoning is inescapable.

Did you, as a parent, forsee that your children would have problems in

their lives, make really stupid decisions, sometimes come to harm,
sometimes make total asses out of themselves and indeed, be pretty
normal children on their way to becoming adults, with all the angst and
foolishness that goes with that, and did you choose to have them
anyway? If so, you are responsible for every bad choice your child
makes, EXACTLY the way God is responsible for every bad choice we make.
To precisely the same level.

> >>> the problem with having free will is that when we make

> >>> choices, we also choose the consequences of the choices.
> >>> Sometimes those consequences affect more than just us.
> >>> Sometimes the choices made by a corrupt or uncaring group of
> >>> mine owners will have consequences for the workers.
> >>> Sometimes the choice made by a government, that allows its
> >>> citizens to live in incredibly substandard housing, will
> >>> result in death and destruction when an earthquake hits.
> >>> Sometimes individual choices to live in a place that DOES
> >>> flood periodically, WILL result in getting flooded out.
> >>>
> >>> What amazes the hell out of me is this: how atheists, who
> >>> say that they do NOT believe in God, will blame Him for all
> >>> the evil in the world, when the theists who believe in Him
> >>> and all the stuff that comes with Him, understand that He is
> >>> not. you want irony? THAT is irony.
> >>
> >> Well, no, we're not blaming a god for anything, just
> >> highlighting the fact that your position is indefensible :-)
> >
> > The problem of course is that you aren't highlighting my
> > position at all. Why should I defend a position I don't hold
> > in the first place?
>
> If you believe that your god freely chose to create us and knew in advance
> how we would behave, then you cannot deny that he freely chose to create
> sin.

No. The most you can say is that He freely chose to allow US to create
it.

> To argue against this position you have to deny his free will, or his

> omniscience, or his existence. Which is it to be?

How does this deny HIS free will? He has chosen to allow us OUR free

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 9, 2006, 12:50:46 AM1/9/06

Icarus wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:<snip to>

Why? It's NOT the "direction dictated by rational thought," it's the

direction dictated by your assumptions of what I believe; thus, your
arguments against what you think I believe are rather missing the
point.
>

Why should I deny either? HE may be perfectly good, but if WE have free

will, then WE do not have to be.

> By your logic, he can have one or the other, but not both.

We aren't talking about God. We are talking about human beings.

> If you insist

> that he can have both, then you can't deny that we could have both too.

You've lost me. You are so far afield from what I believe about God

that we aren't even waving at each other in passing here.
>

Did you, as a parent, forsee that your children would have problems in

> >>> the problem with having free will is that when we make

No. The most you can say is that He freely chose to allow US to create
it.

> To argue against this position you have to deny his free will, or his

> omniscience, or his existence. Which is it to be?

How does this deny HIS free will? He has chosen to allow us OUR free

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 8, 2006, 12:53:16 AM1/8/06

Icarus wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:<snip to>

Why? It's NOT the "direction dictated by rational thought," it's the

direction dictated by your assumptions of what I believe; thus, your
arguments against what you think I believe are rather missing the
point.
>

Why should I deny either? HE may be perfectly good, but if WE have free

will, then WE do not have to be.

> By your logic, he can have one or the other, but not both.

We aren't talking about God. We are talking about human beings.

> If you insist

> that he can have both, then you can't deny that we could have both too.

You've lost me. You are so far afield from what I believe about God

that we aren't even waving at each other in passing here.
>

Did you, as a parent, forsee that your children would have problems in

> >>> the problem with having free will is that when we make

No. The most you can say is that He freely chose to allow US to create
it.

> To argue against this position you have to deny his free will, or his

> omniscience, or his existence. Which is it to be?

How does this deny HIS free will? He has chosen to allow us OUR free

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 9, 2006, 11:53:02 AM1/9/06

dianaiad wrote:

the same thing four times. My apologies, a server problem.

Icarus

unread,

Jan 9, 2006, 8:56:04 PM1/9/06

dianaiad wrote:

Let me state it more clearly: If you assert that your god has free will,
and yet is perfectly good, then that destroys your argument that *we*
couldn't have been made the same way. Does your god freely choose never to
do wrong? If so, then why can't we?

>> By your logic, he can have one or the other, but not both.
>
> We aren't talking about God. We are talking about human beings.

I agree - We're talking about why you assert that human beings don't have
the property that you claim for your god, which is to freely choose never
to do wrong.

>> If you insist
>> that he can have both, then you can't deny that we could have
>> both too.
>
> You've lost me. You are so far afield from what I believe
> about God that we aren't even waving at each other in passing
> here.

<chuckle>...

>>>> or at best being omniscient he could have foreseen that we
>>>> would do wrong and not created us in the first place.
>>>> Whichever way you look at it, you cannot absolve your
>>>> supposed creator from responsibility for his creation.
>>>
>>> Of course I can....but I can see where, if I believed as you
>>> assume I do, you would come to the conclusion you have done.
>>> You might say that you are speaking to theists in general and
>>> Christianity (as you see it) specifically, but you are
>>> answering my specific post.
>>
>> Well it's a simple matter - Did your supposed god foresee
>> that we would sin, and freely choose to create us anyway? If
>> so, he's responsible for sin, since it didn't have to exist,
>> and indeed wouldn't have existed if he hadn't chosen to
>> create it. The reasoning is inescapable.
>
> Did you, as a parent, forsee that your children would have
> problems in their lives, make really stupid decisions,
> sometimes come to harm, sometimes make total asses out of
> themselves and indeed, be pretty normal children on their way
> to becoming adults, with all the angst and foolishness that
> goes with that, and did you choose to have them anyway? If
> so, you are responsible for every bad choice your child makes,
> EXACTLY the way God is responsible for every bad choice we
> make. To precisely the same level.

Only if you believe I'm omnipotent and omniscient. I don't... :-)

> The problem with allowing people their free will is that they
> will use it; and you have to let them even when the choices
> they make are horrifically, tragically wrong, or it's not
> really free will, is it?

As it happens I don't think free will really exists at all, but that's
another matter... All I'm pointing out here is that you seem to have
different rules for humans and god - You allow him free will and perfect
goodness but seem to deny that we could have been made the same way. Why?

But this is absurd - you're saying he knew in advance that the Nazis would
throw living children into the furnaces, he could have chosen not to create
us, but he chose to create us and watch it all happen... and yet this god
is perfectly good? Something is very wrong with this argument.

>> To argue against this position you have to deny his free
>> will, or his omniscience, or his existence. Which is it to
>> be?
>
> How does this deny HIS free will? He has chosen to allow us
> OUR free will, good choices or bad ones. How does that remove
> His from Him?

What I meant was that if god had no choice - that he *had* to create us,
and had to create us exactly as we are, for some reason - then that would
let him off the hook, so to speak. If instead he freely chose to create us
then he freely chose to create the evil that humans do.

Icarus

unread,

Jan 9, 2006, 8:57:58 PM1/9/06

Icarus wrote:

<snip>...
Sorry, I meant:

> I agree - We're talking about why you assert that human beings

> COULDN'T have the property that you claim for your god,

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 10, 2006, 12:39:53 AM1/10/06

Who said we couldn't?

>
> >> By your logic, he can have one or the other, but not both.
> >
> > We aren't talking about God. We are talking about human beings.
>
> I agree - We're talking about why you assert that human beings don't have
> the property that you claim for your god, which is to freely choose never
> to do wrong.

You have never heard me say that it was impossible to live a sin free
life. Highly improbable, yes. But then, what are the possibilities that
any child can learn to spell without ever once mispelling a word? What
are the possibilities that anybody at all can learn to do anything
without making mistakes along the way? It's called "growing up" and
"learning a new skill."

Doesn't an omnipotent God have the ability to allow us to choose
between good and evil ourselves? If He doesn't, how can He be
omnipotent? This one isn't a paradox, y'know. There is nothing 'can God
create a rock He can't lift' in the idea.

>
> > The problem with allowing people their free will is that they
> > will use it; and you have to let them even when the choices
> > they make are horrifically, tragically wrong, or it's not
> > really free will, is it?
>
> As it happens I don't think free will really exists at all,

Oh? Calvinist or determinist of another stripe?

> but that's
> another matter... All I'm pointing out here is that you seem to have
> different rules for humans and god - You allow him free will and perfect
> goodness but seem to deny that we could have been made the same way. Why?

Because if we were MADE the same way, perfectly good, we wouldn't have
free will, would we...any more than an ancient Greek statue of Venus
can be anything but what the sculpter made it, neither more, nor less,
beautiful. No chance of growth there, no chance of expansion.

Is that what I am saying? Odd, I didn't think so.

> he could have chosen not to create
> us, but he chose to create us and watch it all happen... and yet this god
> is perfectly good? Something is very wrong with this argument.

I don't know what. Where in having a father be 'perfectly good' does it
say that his children have to be? OUR poor choices are ours, not His.
He has made His. It's our turn.

Not to mention that (and I do get tired of mentioning this small point)
God's view of the universe, should He exist and the stories about him
are true in any way, is a bit wider than ours. As we see the happenings
of a second, or a minute, in the duration of a life time, so He would
see our entire lives...even if we can't see before or after our lives
ourselves. In fact, the only way your criticisms of God work are if He
actually does NOT exist; a paradoxical view, indeed.

Consider: you are criticizing Him as if we all ceased to exist at death
(as atheists insist) and yet actually exists; therefore, our mortal
lives are the be all and end all of HIS purpose for existance. You
(general 'you') won't accept the other half of the story, that is, that
if God is, then there is ALSO this eternity of existance for US, as
well. A very, very long time indeed, of which this small mortal
existance is but a minute or so.

We can handle anything for a minute or so. Or rather, if it is our
children who are being hurt for a minute or so, even if THEY don't
understand why, WE do, and can watch as the doctor, say, sticks needles
in them, or cuts them with something, or does something else that the
child simply does not understand, at the time...and to which he
protests mightily.

> >> To argue against this position you have to deny his free
> >> will, or his omniscience, or his existence. Which is it to
> >> be?
> >
> > How does this deny HIS free will? He has chosen to allow us
> > OUR free will, good choices or bad ones. How does that remove
> > His from Him?
>
> What I meant was that if god had no choice - that he *had* to create us,

Big 'if'.

> and had to create us exactly as we are, for some reason - then that would
> let him off the hook, so to speak. If instead he freely chose to create us
> then he freely chose to create the evil that humans do.

Actually, I believe that He freely chose to have children. Just as you
and I have done.

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 10, 2006, 1:26:59 AM1/10/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Because if we were MADE the same way, perfectly good, we wouldn't
> have free will, would we...any more than an ancient Greek statue
> of Venus can be anything but what the sculpter made it, neither
> more, nor less, beautiful. No chance of growth there, no chance of
> expansion.

I'm pretty sure that is wrong. Are you aware that you are talking about
God here? Anything you say about all perfectly good beings has to
include God. If being perfectly good means we aren't free, then neither
is God free.

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 10, 2006, 11:55:32 AM1/10/06

That depends upon why He is perfectly good. If He is so because He
chooses to be so, that's one thing. If He is so because it is
impossible for Him to be not so, then you are correct; He is not free.

Why is He "perfectly good," then? I suggest that it is because He
chooses to be so.

There is this story about Christ being tempted by Satan; turn these
rocks into food, the devil said, jump off the cliff; surely God will
save you, surely you can, since you did the water into wine trick,
still your hunger by changing the rocks.

Why bother tempting him if the possible choice didn't actually exist?
What would have been the point?

Diana

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 10, 2006, 12:11:16 PM1/10/06

dianaiad wrote:

> Bill wrote:
>> If your all loving god created us with free will he did not have
>> to include 'evil' in the world he created.
>
> That's true only if you are willing to consider the ramifications
> of being, to all intents and purposes, a robot. You wouldn't be
> able to make any of your own choices. You woudn't be able to
> choose your clothes, your school, your mate, how you raise your
> children, the car you drive, the food you eat, nothing. Indeed,
> you would have no control over the thoughts you have or what you
> do about those thoughts. Indeed, you would have no purpose for
> being. None. What good would you be doing yourself or anybody
> else? A rock would have more purpose for existance.

Are you saying that a life without sin is not worth living? That's an
interesting perspective, but I doubt many religious institutions
would agree with you.

It seems to me that I go through life always doing good things, or at
least avoiding anything really bad, and I'm perfectly happy and don't
feel like a robot. Perhaps it is self-centered to say so, but I wish
God made everyone like me in that way.

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 10, 2006, 12:26:39 PM1/10/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
> > Bill wrote:
> >> If your all loving god created us with free will he did not have
> >> to include 'evil' in the world he created.
> >
> > That's true only if you are willing to consider the ramifications
> > of being, to all intents and purposes, a robot. You wouldn't be
> > able to make any of your own choices. You woudn't be able to
> > choose your clothes, your school, your mate, how you raise your
> > children, the car you drive, the food you eat, nothing. Indeed,
> > you would have no control over the thoughts you have or what you
> > do about those thoughts. Indeed, you would have no purpose for
> > being. None. What good would you be doing yourself or anybody
> > else? A rock would have more purpose for existance.
>
> Are you saying that a life without sin is not worth living? That's an
> interesting perspective, but I doubt many religious institutions
> would agree with you.

Actually, pretty much all of them do. It's called "felix culpa," or
"fortunate fall." Basically, it is the idea that Adam's fall was
required so that we could have the Savior come. It was (may still be, I
don't know) included in a Catholic mass on the Saturday between Good
Friday and Easter Sunday.

More particularly, it's the idea that sin; not the actual engaging in
it so much as the possibility of doing so, is required for contrast,
like diamonds on dark blue velvet. A little closer analogy is that of a
see saw; if you can't go low, you can't go high, either.

> It seems to me that I go through life always doing good things, or at
> least avoiding anything really bad, and I'm perfectly happy and don't
> feel like a robot. Perhaps it is self-centered to say so, but I wish
> God made everyone like me in that way.

But you COULD, if you wanted to, go through life always doing bad
things (many people do..) You don't feel like a robot because you
aren't one; the choices are yours to make, after all.

....and the term for what the above paragraph sounded like isn't 'self
centered'. ;-)

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 10, 2006, 8:26:57 PM1/10/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:
>> dianaiad wrote:
>> > Because if we were MADE the same way, perfectly good, we
>> > wouldn't have free will, would we...any more than an ancient
>> > Greek statue of Venus can be anything but what the sculpter
>> > made it, neither more, nor less, beautiful. No chance of growth
>> > there, no chance of expansion.
>>
>> I'm pretty sure that is wrong. Are you aware that you are talking
>> about God here? Anything you say about all perfectly good beings
>> has to include God. If being perfectly good means we aren't free,
>> then neither is God free.
>
> That depends upon why He is perfectly good. If He is so because He
> chooses to be so, that's one thing. If He is so because it is
> impossible for Him to be not so, then you are correct; He is not
> free.
>
> Why is He "perfectly good," then? I suggest that it is because He
> chooses to be so.

I'm not going to try to say that what you believe is wrong, because
that is a very reasonable interpretation of what God could be.
However, people are always talking about how perfect God is and that
he is a supreme being that is better than all others in every
possible way.

On the other hand, you are saying that he might one day do a bad
thing. In fact, if he might do bad things, then maybe he has done
some bad things in the past. Your idea of God is that he could go
either way; it is up to his whim. Perhaps that explains where
headaches come from.

If it is not part of the very nature of God that he must always be
good, then why do we assume that he is good at all? Perhaps he sent
Jesus to us in one of his good moods, but we can't be sure what he is
feeling at this moment.

If God merely chooses to be good, then praying becomes so very
important. We need to beg God to help us, for otherwise he might lose
interest in us and go do something else. Or he might even wipe us out
in a flood for simply boring him. We have to protect ourselves
against the possibility that he might choose to do a bad thing which
could be a disaster for everyone.

> There is this story about Christ being tempted by Satan; turn
> these rocks into food, the devil said, jump off the cliff; surely
> God will save you, surely you can, since you did the water into
> wine trick, still your hunger by changing the rocks.
>
> Why bother tempting him if the possible choice didn't actually
> exist? What would have been the point?

Satan was being pretty foolish to try to tempt Christ, so maybe there
was no point. Or perhaps Christ allowed him to try just to show that
it would not work.

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 10, 2006, 8:38:58 PM1/10/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:

>> Are you saying that a life without sin is not worth living?
>> That's an interesting perspective, but I doubt many religious
>> institutions would agree with you.
>
> Actually, pretty much all of them do. It's called "felix culpa,"
> or "fortunate fall." Basically, it is the idea that Adam's fall
> was required so that we could have the Savior come. It was (may
> still be, I don't know) included in a Catholic mass on the
> Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
>
> More particularly, it's the idea that sin; not the actual engaging
> in it so much as the possibility of doing so, is required for
> contrast, like diamonds on dark blue velvet. A little closer
> analogy is that of a see saw; if you can't go low, you can't go
> high, either.

Does that mean that all of the most horrible things in the world are
actually things which we should be grateful for? They seem to have no
value now, but as bad as those things are, that is how far we will
rise because of them.

To balance out the see saw, all the suffering in the world will bring
those of us who survive so close to God as to be almost as good and
powerful as he is.

However, I'm not quite ready to believe that things will balance out
and that mass suffering will be a means to a greater good. I can't
see that greater good even on her horizon, so when will it come?
Also, I see no proof that the possibility of sin is needed for me to
live a good life. I don't choose sin now, so how would I notice if
that choice was taken away from me? My gut tells me that the world
would be vastly improved without the possibility of sin.

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 11, 2006, 11:51:55 AM1/11/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
> > Rick Hawk wrote:
> >> dianaiad wrote:
> >> > Because if we were MADE the same way, perfectly good, we
> >> > wouldn't have free will, would we...any more than an ancient
> >> > Greek statue of Venus can be anything but what the sculpter
> >> > made it, neither more, nor less, beautiful. No chance of growth
> >> > there, no chance of expansion.
> >>
> >> I'm pretty sure that is wrong. Are you aware that you are talking
> >> about God here? Anything you say about all perfectly good beings
> >> has to include God. If being perfectly good means we aren't free,
> >> then neither is God free.
> >
> > That depends upon why He is perfectly good. If He is so because He
> > chooses to be so, that's one thing. If He is so because it is
> > impossible for Him to be not so, then you are correct; He is not
> > free.
> >
> > Why is He "perfectly good," then? I suggest that it is because He
> > chooses to be so.
>
> I'm not going to try to say that what you believe is wrong, because
> that is a very reasonable interpretation of what God could be.
> However, people are always talking about how perfect God is and that
> he is a supreme being that is better than all others in every
> possible way.

yes, people do.

>
> On the other hand, you are saying that he might one day do a bad
> thing.

If He did, would He still be God? By that question, I mean this: is He
perfectly good because He is God, or is He God because He is perfectly
good? (please don't ask me where this question came from, just
wondering...)

> In fact, if he might do bad things, then maybe he has done
> some bad things in the past. Your idea of God is that he could go
> either way; it is up to his whim. Perhaps that explains where
> headaches come from.

Mine....comes from a sinus infection. ;-) Some things I'm willing to
wait to find out.

>
> If it is not part of the very nature of God that he must always be
> good, then why do we assume that he is good at all? Perhaps he sent
> Jesus to us in one of his good moods, but we can't be sure what he is
> feeling at this moment.

Yep, I can see where a headache could arise from this....

>
> If God merely chooses to be good, then praying becomes so very
> important. We need to beg God to help us, for otherwise he might lose
> interest in us and go do something else. Or he might even wipe us out
> in a flood for simply boring him.

Actually, many, many people have believed precisely that, come to think
of it...

> We have to protect ourselves
> against the possibility that he might choose to do a bad thing which
> could be a disaster for everyone.
>
> > There is this story about Christ being tempted by Satan; turn
> > these rocks into food, the devil said, jump off the cliff; surely
> > God will save you, surely you can, since you did the water into
> > wine trick, still your hunger by changing the rocks.
> >
> > Why bother tempting him if the possible choice didn't actually
> > exist? What would have been the point?
>
> Satan was being pretty foolish to try to tempt Christ,

Was he? I wonder how close he came to success...Certainly Christ had
some problems in Gethsemane...

> so maybe there
> was no point. Or perhaps Christ allowed him to try just to show that
> it would not work.

Perhaps.

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 11, 2006, 12:06:10 PM1/11/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
> > Rick Hawk wrote:
> >> Are you saying that a life without sin is not worth living?
> >> That's an interesting perspective, but I doubt many religious
> >> institutions would agree with you.
> >
> > Actually, pretty much all of them do. It's called "felix culpa,"
> > or "fortunate fall." Basically, it is the idea that Adam's fall
> > was required so that we could have the Savior come. It was (may
> > still be, I don't know) included in a Catholic mass on the
> > Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
> >
> > More particularly, it's the idea that sin; not the actual engaging
> > in it so much as the possibility of doing so, is required for
> > contrast, like diamonds on dark blue velvet. A little closer
> > analogy is that of a see saw; if you can't go low, you can't go
> > high, either.
>
> Does that mean that all of the most horrible things in the world are
> actually things which we should be grateful for? They seem to have no
> value now, but as bad as those things are, that is how far we will
> rise because of them.

Actually...yes and no. You know the old saw 'that which does not kill
us makes us stronger'? The problem, of course, is that 'the most
horrible things' generally kill us. That sorta cuts short the
educational opportunities, I think.

> To balance out the see saw, all the suffering in the world will bring
> those of us who survive so close to God as to be almost as good and
> powerful as he is.

Do you truly think that anything we go through on this earth is THAT
horrific? On the other hand, I do believe that the ultimate goal for
all of us IS to be 'heirs and joint-heirs' with Christ, and have all
that He does, and that his command to us to be 'Perfect, even as your
Father in Heaven is perfect" is one that He meant.

> However, I'm not quite ready to believe that things will balance out
> and that mass suffering will be a means to a greater good.

I have a theory about that. I don't believe in 'mass suffering'. I
believe that suffering is very personal indeed. I have never bought
into the 'one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic' viewpoint.
If everything is personal, (and it certainly is to the person doing the
dying, even if there are thousands around him joining him in that
process) then so are the lessons, whether learned here, or in an
afterlife.

Also, just as an aside, I have noticed another thing. The natural
disasters caused by the workings of the planet; things like tsunamis
and earthquakes, volcanos and all...these things kill fairly quickly.
For true intense suffering, torture and misery, you need people.

>I can't
> see that greater good even on her horizon, so when will it come?

Who's 'greater good"?

> Also, I see no proof that the possibility of sin is needed for me to
> live a good life.

How do you know that it's a good life, if you weren't aware of what an
evil life was?

>I don't choose sin now, so how would I notice if
> that choice was taken away from me? My gut tells me that the world
> would be vastly improved without the possibility of sin.

In one way, I suppose. But then we would be no more than automotons,
kitchen appliences; worthless to ourselves and our creator, seems to
me. Personally, I want to be more than a toaster.

Diana

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 11, 2006, 8:36:15 PM1/11/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:
>> On the other hand, you are saying that he might one day do a bad
>> thing.
>
> If He did, would He still be God? By that question, I mean this:
> is He perfectly good because He is God, or is He God because He is
> perfectly good? (please don't ask me where this question came
> from, just wondering...)

God has many other important properties beyond being perfectly good,
so being perfectly good is not sufficient to be God. He also has
omnipotent power that makes him the creator of everything. If he
chose to do bad things, we'd still have to call him God for two clear
reasons: He has such awesome power and if he stopped being God, there
would be no other God to take the name.

On the other hand, he isn't perfectly good just because he is God;
that would mean that God has no choice to be bad and therefore God is
like an automaton. If God always did the very best thing, then we
could predict his every move. If we could predict him, we could
control him through our prayers. There could be a table that lists
the inevitable result of every prayer from a perfectly predictable
God.

>> If God merely chooses to be good, then praying becomes so very
>> important. We need to beg God to help us, for otherwise he might
>> lose interest in us and go do something else. Or he might even
>> wipe us out in a flood for simply boring him.
>
> Actually, many, many people have believed precisely that, come to
> think of it...

It is what I am coming to believe. The perfectly good God is a
strawman and something for eternal optimists to believe in and feel
good about. People who actually think about their lives and read the
newspapers know that God isn't always so nice and it is so easy for
them to poke holes in the perfectly good God.

So I am forced to believe in a God who sometimes chooses to do bad
things. That is a God who should truly be feared and a God who cannot
be disproven. There are bad things all around us to suggest that he
exists. I see things like hurricanes and tsunamis on TV and it feels
as if we are under attack.

Also, it helps to make sense of the Old Testament.

>> dianaiad wrote:
>> > There is this story about Christ being tempted by Satan; turn
>> > these rocks into food, the devil said, jump off the cliff;
>> > surely God will save you, surely you can, since you did the
>> > water into wine trick, still your hunger by changing the rocks.
>> >
>> > Why bother tempting him if the possible choice didn't actually
>> > exist? What would have been the point?
>>
>> Satan was being pretty foolish to try to tempt Christ,
>
> Was he? I wonder how close he came to success...Certainly Christ
> had some problems in Gethsemane...

Perhaps no real being is perfect, God or otherwise. A perfectly good
God wouldn't have the gritty feel of reality.

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 11, 2006, 9:20:11 PM1/11/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
> > Rick Hawk wrote:
> >> On the other hand, you are saying that he might one day do a bad
> >> thing.
> >
> > If He did, would He still be God? By that question, I mean this:
> > is He perfectly good because He is God, or is He God because He is
> > perfectly good? (please don't ask me where this question came
> > from, just wondering...)
>
> God has many other important properties beyond being perfectly good,
> so being perfectly good is not sufficient to be God.

Perhaps not, but wouldn't the lack of that be enough to make Him *not*
God?

True, simply knowing how to speak English doesn't make you a college
English Lit professor, but if you don't know how, you CAN'T be a
college English professor...

> He also has
> omnipotent power that makes him the creator of everything. If he
> chose to do bad things, we'd still have to call him God for two clear
> reasons: He has such awesome power and if he stopped being God, there
> would be no other God to take the name.

That's a great many 'if's, there, and begs a question. How do we know
that?

>
> On the other hand, he isn't perfectly good just because he is God;

No, I posit that if anything, it's the other way around.

> that would mean that God has no choice to be bad and therefore God is
> like an automaton. If God always did the very best thing, then we
> could predict his every move.

Which of course begs another question; how would we know what the
'very best thing' was?

> If we could predict him, we could
> control him through our prayers. There could be a table that lists
> the inevitable result of every prayer from a perfectly predictable
> God.

Assuming, of course, that we had all the infomation that God would.
Things being as they are, I think it's safe to assume that we don't.

> >> If God merely chooses to be good, then praying becomes so very
> >> important. We need to beg God to help us, for otherwise he might
> >> lose interest in us and go do something else. Or he might even
> >> wipe us out in a flood for simply boring him.
> >
> > Actually, many, many people have believed precisely that, come to
> > think of it...
>
> It is what I am coming to believe. The perfectly good God is a
> strawman and something for eternal optimists to believe in and feel
> good about. People who actually think about their lives and read the
> newspapers know that God isn't always so nice and it is so easy for
> them to poke holes in the perfectly good God.

Again, it raises the question of whether we DO know what the 'perfectly
good' option is. We may not. Certainly if the stories are true and
there IS an afterlife that we don't know much about, but about which
God knows everything, we are working on very inadequate data.

I use the example of the fireman in a burning building. There are
people in a room, fire all around them, the only exit is blocked by
flames. If ALL they knew of life was that room and the flames at the
door, what decisions would they make? What would they think of the man
who crashed in there and started shoving people through the fire?

How could THEY possibly know that he was saving their lives, literally?
To them he is killing them, putting them through severe pain...

No, we are like the people in that room. We are working from a very
limited data set, and simply cannot judge the actions of someone, or
Someone, who sees both sides of the exit.

> So I am forced to believe in a God who sometimes chooses to do bad
> things. That is a God who should truly be feared and a God who cannot
> be disproven. There are bad things all around us to suggest that he
> exists. I see things like hurricanes and tsunamis on TV and it feels
> as if we are under attack.

I keep remembering (and have noted in this thread) that the actions of
the planet, like tsunamis and earthquakes and such, when they take
lives, do so quickly. If painfully, certainly quickly. For pure agony,
torture, long drawn out pain and atrocity, it requires men.

> Also, it helps to make sense of the Old Testament.
>
> >> dianaiad wrote:
> >> > There is this story about Christ being tempted by Satan; turn
> >> > these rocks into food, the devil said, jump off the cliff;
> >> > surely God will save you, surely you can, since you did the
> >> > water into wine trick, still your hunger by changing the rocks.
> >> >
> >> > Why bother tempting him if the possible choice didn't actually
> >> > exist? What would have been the point?
> >>
> >> Satan was being pretty foolish to try to tempt Christ,
> >
> > Was he? I wonder how close he came to success...Certainly Christ
> > had some problems in Gethsemane...
>
> Perhaps no real being is perfect, God or otherwise. A perfectly good
> God wouldn't have the gritty feel of reality.

Seems to me that a perfectly good God would know all about perfect
evil; He would have to. That's 'gritty' enough reality for me.

Diana

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 11, 2006, 9:24:03 PM1/11/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:
>> To balance out the see saw, all the suffering in the world will
>> bring those of us who survive so close to God as to be almost as
>> good and powerful as he is.
>
> Do you truly think that anything we go through on this earth is
> THAT horrific? On the other hand, I do believe that the ultimate
> goal for all of us IS to be 'heirs and joint-heirs' with Christ,
> and have all that He does, and that his command to us to be
> 'Perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect" is one that He
> meant.

I do actually think that all the suffering of the world, taken
together, is beyond anything one person can imagine and I believe
that it would take something truly awesome to make all of the misery
over the ages balance with the good.

>> However, I'm not quite ready to believe that things will balance
>> out and that mass suffering will be a means to a greater good.
>
> I have a theory about that. I don't believe in 'mass suffering'.
> I believe that suffering is very personal indeed. I have never
> bought into the 'one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic'
> viewpoint. If everything is personal, (and it certainly is to the
> person doing the dying, even if there are thousands around him
> joining him in that process) then so are the lessons, whether
> learned here, or in an afterlife.
>
> Also, just as an aside, I have noticed another thing. The natural
> disasters caused by the workings of the planet; things like
> tsunamis and earthquakes, volcanos and all...these things kill
> fairly quickly. For true intense suffering, torture and misery,
> you need people.

Nature can give us cold and hunger, often as a side-effect of things
like earthquakes, and those things can be really bad.

A famine caused by lack of rain can be fairly horrible, as well.

>>I can't
>> see that greater good even on her horizon, so when will it come?
>
> Who's 'greater good"?

I'm not sure about who. All I know is that there must be someone
benefiting from all this suffering, or else things do not balance and
God isn't trying to make the world a good place at all.

>> Also, I see no proof that the possibility of sin is needed for me
>> to live a good life.
>
> How do you know that it's a good life, if you weren't aware of
> what an evil life was?

I know that my current life is good and I've never had to sin to make
it clear to me. If the ability to sin were taken away from me, I
can't imagine when I'd ever miss it.

Do you think that knowing that this life is good is important? Isn't
it better to live a great life without ever knowing how horrible
things could be than it would be to live a life with mixed good and
bad? A perfect life never touched by sin or even the idea of sin
would be what I would call bliss. There is nothing fundamentally bad
about ignorance.

>>I don't choose sin now, so how would I notice if
>> that choice was taken away from me? My gut tells me that the
>> world would be vastly improved without the possibility of sin.
>
> In one way, I suppose. But then we would be no more than
> automotons, kitchen appliences; worthless to ourselves and our
> creator, seems to me. Personally, I want to be more than a
> toaster.

Perhaps we should imagine it in more detail. Suppose we were
incapable of doing bad things. You are in a store and looking at some
small, expensive thing. You could just slip it into your pocket and
no one would know. Except suddenly you realize that you can't.
Perhaps you are overcome by sadness and regret at merely the thought
of it, or perhaps some invisible force prevents your hand from
performing the act. So you breathe a sigh of relief and go on with
your life, free of the pain you could have caused to the store-owner.
You go to the movies, you read a book, you laugh, you love, and you
live a life very much unlike a toaster.

Is that something like what you think of when I say a world without
the possibility of sin?

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 11, 2006, 9:43:14 PM1/11/06

....question: does NATURE give us the hunger, or do the rest of us
ensure/allow it because WE do not share? There is no excuse for
famine, quite honestly, none at all. When most famines are examined, we
find that they are the result of human screwups far more than they are
'acts of God.'

> >>I can't
> >> see that greater good even on her horizon, so when will it come?
> >
> > Who's 'greater good"?
>
> I'm not sure about who. All I know is that there must be someone
> benefiting from all this suffering, or else things do not balance and
> God isn't trying to make the world a good place at all.

As I have said, I believe that all suffering is very personal indeed.
That is, the only Person whose suffering was strictly for anybody else,
ultimately, was Christ Himself. I think that for the rest of us, any
suffering we go through will be balanced for us, the sufferers.

>
> >> Also, I see no proof that the possibility of sin is needed for me
> >> to live a good life.
> >
> > How do you know that it's a good life, if you weren't aware of
> > what an evil life was?
>
> I know that my current life is good and I've never had to sin to make
> it clear to me. If the ability to sin were taken away from me, I
> can't imagine when I'd ever miss it.
>
> Do you think that knowing that this life is good is important?

Vital.

> Isn't
> it better to live a great life without ever knowing how horrible
> things could be than it would be to live a life with mixed good and
> bad? A perfect life never touched by sin or even the idea of sin
> would be what I would call bliss.

It's what I would call 'software'. Self awareness is rather important
to a joyful life.

> There is nothing fundamentally bad
> about ignorance.

Ignorance is neutral...but neutral things, if they don't know the low
points, also do not reach the high ones.

> >>I don't choose sin now, so how would I notice if
> >> that choice was taken away from me? My gut tells me that the
> >> world would be vastly improved without the possibility of sin.
> >
> > In one way, I suppose. But then we would be no more than
> > automotons, kitchen appliences; worthless to ourselves and our
> > creator, seems to me. Personally, I want to be more than a
> > toaster.
>
> Perhaps we should imagine it in more detail. Suppose we were
> incapable of doing bad things. You are in a store and looking at some
> small, expensive thing. You could just slip it into your pocket and
> no one would know. Except suddenly you realize that you can't.
> Perhaps you are overcome by sadness and regret at merely the thought
> of it, or perhaps some invisible force prevents your hand from
> performing the act. So you breathe a sigh of relief and go on with
> your life, free of the pain you could have caused to the store-owner.

All this requires that you first, imagine the act as possible, (the
idea of 'slipping it into your pocket'), then you have to imagine the
consequences of it (regret and sadness) and then you are forced in some
way to forgo it, whether or not you would have chosen to forego it. In
other words, you would have to understand evil.

I can imagine in such a situation that people would let their fantasies
go free; imagining all sorts of evil things, safely in the
understanding that they wouldn't be allowed to perform any of them.
>From such a situation I can think of a few results, none of them good
ones; frustration, perhaps. Certainly no moral or ethical growth; that
comes from making conscious decisions about moral choices.

> You go to the movies, you read a book, you laugh, you love, and you
> live a life very much unlike a toaster.

Which movies? What books? What on earth would you laugh at? Who would
you be allowed to love and what would you be allowed to do about it?
And if your scenario is possible, all you are talking about are puppets
who are actually aware of their strings.

>
> Is that something like what you think of when I say a world without
> the possibility of sin?

No. Actually, the world you describe gives me a right royal case of the
willies. What I was envisioning was a world where everybody was
programmed so that if they saw the small item in the store, they would
be incapable of even the thought of taking it without paying for it.
Which would make the store owner happy, certainly, and save the rest of
us money, but....and here is the biggie:

What if someday the strings were cut, and we had to make a real moral
decision without the programming? Would we be capable of doing so?

Diana

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 11, 2006, 9:59:17 PM1/11/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:
>> God has many other important properties beyond being perfectly
>> good, so being perfectly good is not sufficient to be God.
>
> Perhaps not, but wouldn't the lack of that be enough to make Him
> *not* God?
>
> True, simply knowing how to speak English doesn't make you a
> college English Lit professor, but if you don't know how, you
> CAN'T be a college English professor...

It's pretty crazy, but following the analogy, suppose there was a man
whose name was next to English Lit courses and who stood up front and
lectured for those English Lit courses and all the students took
careful notes because they know that the will not pass if they don't,
but for some reason this man speaks not a word of English. In that
crazy world, I would still call him an English Lit professor.

It is the same for God. He is out there somewhere, creator of
everything and dictator of all the world. Even if he isn't perfectly
good, most people will still call him God.

>> He also has
>> omnipotent power that makes him the creator of everything. If he
>> chose to do bad things, we'd still have to call him God for two
>> clear reasons: He has such awesome power and if he stopped being
>> God, there would be no other God to take the name.
>
> That's a great many 'if's, there, and begs a question. How do we
> know that?

How do we know that if God were to go bad, there would be no good
omnipotent being whom we could call God? That is simply because an
omnipotent being cannot have competition. There are no rivals for one
with total power over everything. There can be only one God.

>> On the other hand, he isn't perfectly good just because he is
>> God;
>
> No, I posit that if anything, it's the other way around.
>
>> that would mean that God has no choice to be bad and therefore
>> God is like an automaton. If God always did the very best thing,
>> then we could predict his every move.
>
> Which of course begs another question; how would we know what the
> 'very best thing' was?

We don't have a way at the moment, but we can't be sure that it is
guaranteed forever. Just imagine that someone did know that, then he
would have power over God. Knowing what God will do before He does it
is a powerful thing. Perhaps that is fitting, since he would be far
above us normal people, but it gets worse: He would merely have to
write down some of his knowledge and share it with us, then we would
all have power over God. We have free will and the ability to do bad
things, something which God would not have, so God could never fight
back against our manipulations.

No amount of knowledge should give us any amount of control over God,
therefore God cannot be constrained to always doing the best thing.
God must have complete freedom.

>> The perfectly good God is a strawman and something for eternal
>> optimists to believe in and feel good about. People who actually
>> think about their lives and read the newspapers know that God
>> isn't always so nice and it is so easy for them to poke holes in
>> the perfectly good God.
>
> Again, it raises the question of whether we DO know what the
> 'perfectly good' option is. We may not. Certainly if the stories
> are true and there IS an afterlife that we don't know much about,
> but about which God knows everything, we are working on very
> inadequate data.
>
> I use the example of the fireman in a burning building. There are
> people in a room, fire all around them, the only exit is blocked
> by flames. If ALL they knew of life was that room and the flames
> at the door, what decisions would they make? What would they think
> of the man who crashed in there and started shoving people through
> the fire?
>
> How could THEY possibly know that he was saving their lives,
> literally? To them he is killing them, putting them through severe
> pain...
>
> No, we are like the people in that room. We are working from a
> very limited data set, and simply cannot judge the actions of
> someone, or Someone, who sees both sides of the exit.

Interestingly, that analogy breaks down when we consider that the
fireman did not create the building, put the people there, and set
the building on fire. The fireman has nothing but good intentions.

On the other hand, if he had set the fire and trapped the people, the
people would be right to fear the fireman, despite the fact that he
is now coming to save them. In fact, if the people somehow knew that
the fireman had done those things, then they would be foolish to
trust that he actually was going to rescue them. It would be far more
likely that beyond the burning door is more fire which he would use
to burn them.

We don't know what the afterlife is like, except that God created
that world. God also created this world. I imagine that the touch of
the creator is visible in the creation. Surely there will be things
we can recognize from this world in the afterlife from the common
origin of both. This is something I can't shake from my mind and it
makes me worry about the eternal fate of humanity.

> I keep remembering (and have noted in this thread) that the
> actions of the planet, like tsunamis and earthquakes and such,
> when they take lives, do so quickly. If painfully, certainly
> quickly. For pure agony, torture, long drawn out pain and
> atrocity, it requires men.

Don't forget about the misery of the loved ones that the dead leave
behind.

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 11, 2006, 10:29:46 PM1/11/06

dianaiad wrote:
> ....question: does NATURE give us the hunger, or do the rest of us
> ensure/allow it because WE do not share? There is no excuse for
> famine, quite honestly, none at all. When most famines are
> examined, we find that they are the result of human screwups far
> more than they are 'acts of God.'

It is a mixture of both, I expect. Surely in the modern world there
would be ways to eliminate hunger if we put enough effort into it,
but in the past such things have been impossible and that did not
stop hunger from happening.

> Rick Hawk wrote:
>> I'm not sure about who. All I know is that there must be someone
>> benefiting from all this suffering, or else things do not balance
>> and God isn't trying to make the world a good place at all.
>
> As I have said, I believe that all suffering is very personal
> indeed. That is, the only Person whose suffering was strictly for
> anybody else, ultimately, was Christ Himself. I think that for the
> rest of us, any suffering we go through will be balanced for us,
> the sufferers.

I see that I misunderstood you before, but it is more clean now. The
question that remains is, how? Do you mean that the people who suffer
gain some secret reward in this life that none of us are aware of, or
do you mean in the afterlife?

I don't know very much about the afterlife, perhaps nothing at all,
but what value could suffering have there? One crazy idea would be
that in a world of perfect happiness, people need stories of
suffering to break the tedium and therefore the people who suffered
in their lives become the most important. Another option would be
that God merely chooses to benefit the people who suffered above
normal people, but if that were the case, there would have been no
reason for Him to allow the original suffering.

>> Perhaps we should imagine it in more detail. Suppose we were
>> incapable of doing bad things. You are in a store and looking at
>> some small, expensive thing. You could just slip it into your
>> pocket and no one would know. Except suddenly you realize that
>> you can't. Perhaps you are overcome by sadness and regret at
>> merely the thought of it, or perhaps some invisible force
>> prevents your hand from performing the act. So you breathe a sigh
>> of relief and go on with your life, free of the pain you could
>> have caused to the store-owner.
>
> All this requires that you first, imagine the act as possible,
> (the idea of 'slipping it into your pocket'), then you have to
> imagine the consequences of it (regret and sadness) and then you
> are forced in some way to forgo it, whether or not you would have
> chosen to forego it. In other words, you would have to understand
> evil.

Understanding is not technically required. There could be people who
never encounter the barrier that prevents evil because they would
simply never seriously think of doing such a thing. Actually, a lot
of people are like that. I have never tried to steal anything, for
example. They could live in total ignorance of evil, with no evil
around them and no evil in their own minds.

> I can imagine in such a situation that people would let their
> fantasies go free; imagining all sorts of evil things, safely in
> the understanding that they wouldn't be allowed to perform any of
> them. From such a situation I can think of a few results, none of
> them good ones; frustration, perhaps. Certainly no moral or ethical
> growth; that comes from making conscious decisions about moral
> choices.

If people feel frustration from their inability to do evil, it is
because they try to do evil and fail. Then frustration is the least
of the punishment that they deserve.

There would be no moral growth because there is no where to go up
from a world free of evil. People would have lives where they do
nothing wrong; we would all learn to live that way. Even those who
would still try to do evil would have to try to find a way to be
happy in a world of goodness, but I doubt it would be difficult.

>> You go to the movies, you read a book, you laugh, you love, and
>> you live a life very much unlike a toaster.
>
> Which movies? What books? What on earth would you laugh at? Who
> would you be allowed to love and what would you be allowed to do
> about it? And if your scenario is possible, all you are talking
> about are puppets who are actually aware of their strings.

I imagine the books and movies would be much the same as they are
now. Why wouldn't they be? Making a good movie is not a bad thing; it
is a great thing. Who doesn't enjoy a good book? Of all things, there
would be no barriers to love in a world free of evil.

You talk about all the best things in life as if they were somehow
stopped dead by putting a halt to all evil in the world, but I cannot
imagine why.

>> Is that something like what you think of when I say a world
>> without the possibility of sin?
>
> No. Actually, the world you describe gives me a right royal case
> of the willies. What I was envisioning was a world where everybody
> was programmed so that if they saw the small item in the store,
> they would be incapable of even the thought of taking it without
> paying for it. Which would make the store owner happy, certainly,
> and save the rest of us money, but....and here is the biggie:
>
> What if someday the strings were cut, and we had to make a real
> moral decision without the programming? Would we be capable of
> doing so?

I am not sure about that; I cannot imagine what a programmed person
would be like.

Why would the strings ever be cut? Do you mean that God would cut the
strings?

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 12, 2006, 11:49:12 AM1/12/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
> > Rick Hawk wrote:
> >> God has many other important properties beyond being perfectly
> >> good, so being perfectly good is not sufficient to be God.
> >
> > Perhaps not, but wouldn't the lack of that be enough to make Him
> > *not* God?
> >
> > True, simply knowing how to speak English doesn't make you a
> > college English Lit professor, but if you don't know how, you
> > CAN'T be a college English professor...
>
> It's pretty crazy, but following the analogy, suppose there was a man
> whose name was next to English Lit courses and who stood up front and
> lectured for those English Lit courses and all the students took
> careful notes because they know that the will not pass if they don't,
> but for some reason this man speaks not a word of English. In that
> crazy world, I would still call him an English Lit professor.
>
> It is the same for God. He is out there somewhere, creator of
> everything and dictator of all the world. Even if he isn't perfectly
> good, most people will still call him God.

....but, as in the case of your rather stretched analogy, would they be
correct to do so?

I think I read a story with that premise once. If not, someone really
needs to write it...what a concept! (and I'm not being snide or
uncomplimentary, it's one amazing concept..)

> No amount of knowledge should give us any amount of control over God,
> therefore God cannot be constrained to always doing the best thing.
> God must have complete freedom.

I agree with the 'complete freedom' part. However, complete freedom to
choose doesn't necessarily mean that one MUST choose evil at some
point. My suggestion is that the fact that God has never done so is one
of the reasons He IS God. Not that, being God, He cannot choose evil,
but that, not choosing evil, He is God.

In most natural disasters, the analogy above would read more like the
rescuer had built the building, decided that it needed renovation, and
set the demolition date...in the meantime, some squatters, ignoring the
signs to stay out, were camping in a place they had no business camping
in.

> We don't know what the afterlife is like, except that God created
> that world. God also created this world. I imagine that the touch of
> the creator is visible in the creation. Surely there will be things
> we can recognize from this world in the afterlife from the common
> origin of both. This is something I can't shake from my mind and it
> makes me worry about the eternal fate of humanity.

There are some amazingly wonderful things about this world that I would
be quite happy to carry with me to the next one.

>
> > I keep remembering (and have noted in this thread) that the
> > actions of the planet, like tsunamis and earthquakes and such,
> > when they take lives, do so quickly. If painfully, certainly
> > quickly. For pure agony, torture, long drawn out pain and
> > atrocity, it requires men.
>
> Don't forget about the misery of the loved ones that the dead leave
> behind.

I'm not likely to forget that. It's a pain every human on the planet
shares. It's one of the things that faith ameliorates.

Diana

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 12, 2006, 12:31:01 PM1/12/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
> > ....question: does NATURE give us the hunger, or do the rest of us
> > ensure/allow it because WE do not share? There is no excuse for
> > famine, quite honestly, none at all. When most famines are
> > examined, we find that they are the result of human screwups far
> > more than they are 'acts of God.'
>
> It is a mixture of both, I expect. Surely in the modern world there
> would be ways to eliminate hunger if we put enough effort into it,
> but in the past such things have been impossible and that did not
> stop hunger from happening.

Have they ever been completely impossible?

>
> > Rick Hawk wrote:
> >> I'm not sure about who. All I know is that there must be someone
> >> benefiting from all this suffering, or else things do not balance
> >> and God isn't trying to make the world a good place at all.
> >
> > As I have said, I believe that all suffering is very personal
> > indeed. That is, the only Person whose suffering was strictly for
> > anybody else, ultimately, was Christ Himself. I think that for the
> > rest of us, any suffering we go through will be balanced for us,
> > the sufferers.
>
> I see that I misunderstood you before, but it is more clean now. The
> question that remains is, how? Do you mean that the people who suffer
> gain some secret reward in this life that none of us are aware of, or
> do you mean in the afterlife?

I don't know about direct reward, but certainly they learn something,
don't they? At least, we are supposed to. I have.

> I don't know very much about the afterlife, perhaps nothing at all,
> but what value could suffering have there? One crazy idea would be
> that in a world of perfect happiness, people need stories of
> suffering to break the tedium and therefore the people who suffered
> in their lives become the most important. Another option would be
> that God merely chooses to benefit the people who suffered above
> normal people, but if that were the case, there would have been no
> reason for Him to allow the original suffering.

This of course assumes that we learn,and gain, nothing of our selves;
that our searching is unproductive, that our learning is for naught,
that we do not have anything to do with our own successes and character
development. It is as if you were saying that a child who practices the
piano three hours a day has done nothing to contribute to his own
ability as a concert pianist.

> >> Perhaps we should imagine it in more detail. Suppose we were
> >> incapable of doing bad things. You are in a store and looking at
> >> some small, expensive thing. You could just slip it into your
> >> pocket and no one would know. Except suddenly you realize that
> >> you can't. Perhaps you are overcome by sadness and regret at
> >> merely the thought of it, or perhaps some invisible force
> >> prevents your hand from performing the act. So you breathe a sigh
> >> of relief and go on with your life, free of the pain you could
> >> have caused to the store-owner.
> >
> > All this requires that you first, imagine the act as possible,
> > (the idea of 'slipping it into your pocket'), then you have to
> > imagine the consequences of it (regret and sadness) and then you
> > are forced in some way to forgo it, whether or not you would have
> > chosen to forego it. In other words, you would have to understand
> > evil.
>
> Understanding is not technically required. There could be people who
> never encounter the barrier that prevents evil because they would
> simply never seriously think of doing such a thing. Actually, a lot
> of people are like that. I have never tried to steal anything,

You have never attempted to steal anything, because you know what
'stealing' is. If you had no idea what it was (evil) then how could you
possibly call what you are not doing 'stealing'?

> for
> example. They could live in total ignorance of evil, with no evil
> around them and no evil in their own minds.
>
> > I can imagine in such a situation that people would let their
> > fantasies go free; imagining all sorts of evil things, safely in
> > the understanding that they wouldn't be allowed to perform any of
> > them. From such a situation I can think of a few results, none of
> > them good ones; frustration, perhaps. Certainly no moral or ethical
> > growth; that comes from making conscious decisions about moral
> > choices.
>
> If people feel frustration from their inability to do evil, it is
> because they try to do evil and fail. Then frustration is the least
> of the punishment that they deserve.
> There would be no moral growth because there is no where to go up
> from a world free of evil.

No, there wouldn't. I think you are beginning to see the point....and
there IS an 'up' to go, y'know. Which is more powerful, and better; to
not know evil, or to know it, and conquer it?

> People would have lives where they do
> nothing wrong; we would all learn to live that way. Even those who
> would still try to do evil would have to try to find a way to be
> happy in a world of goodness, but I doubt it would be difficult.

And that is all they would be. No change, no growth, no learning.
Because...evil exists.

>
> >> You go to the movies, you read a book, you laugh, you love, and
> >> you live a life very much unlike a toaster.
> >
> > Which movies? What books? What on earth would you laugh at? Who
> > would you be allowed to love and what would you be allowed to do
> > about it? And if your scenario is possible, all you are talking
> > about are puppets who are actually aware of their strings.
>
> I imagine the books and movies would be much the same as they are
> now. Why wouldn't they be?

Have you SEEN a movie lately? Have you read a book? Every single plot
of every single movie and book ever written has a conflict in it,
between good and evil, and lately, sometimes simply between evils.
Without that conflict, there would BE no books or movies, or plays.

> Making a good movie is not a bad thing; it
> is a great thing. Who doesn't enjoy a good book? Of all things, there
> would be no barriers to love in a world free of evil.

Except of course there would be nothing to write about. ;-)

>
> You talk about all the best things in life as if they were somehow
> stopped dead by putting a halt to all evil in the world, but I cannot
> imagine why.

Because all things are seen best in contrast. Nobody would long enjoy
chocolate in a world where chocolate was all there was to eat, and the
delight of a lemon pie is the sour as well as the sweet. The
satisfaction you feel about never having stolen anything is mostly
because you knew that it was possible to have stolen something. There
is a certain word that I have never said or written. I know what it is,
however, and what it means. It is a (true, very minor) character
improvement/development that I do not write or say it...but only
because I know what it is.

There are many, many other phoneme combinations that I have never said
or written, but I haven't learned anything from not doing so, because I
don't know what they are or what they may mean to someone else.

Evil may not be necessary, but the possibility of it is, because we
can't grow up until we conquer it. How can we conquer it if we don't
know it's there?

> >> Is that something like what you think of when I say a world
> >> without the possibility of sin?
> >
> > No. Actually, the world you describe gives me a right royal case
> > of the willies. What I was envisioning was a world where everybody
> > was programmed so that if they saw the small item in the store,
> > they would be incapable of even the thought of taking it without
> > paying for it. Which would make the store owner happy, certainly,
> > and save the rest of us money, but....and here is the biggie:
> >
> > What if someday the strings were cut, and we had to make a real
> > moral decision without the programming? Would we be capable of
> > doing so?
>
> I am not sure about that; I cannot imagine what a programmed person
> would be like.

The sort of person who would live in a world where choosing evil would
be impossible.

>
> Why would the strings ever be cut? Do you mean that God would cut the
> strings?

We are running headlong into theological doctrine here, y'know. What do
you think heaven will be like? what IS our ultimate goal? What are we
going to DO for eternity?

In other words, why do you think we were created?

Diana

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 13, 2006, 12:37:42 AM1/13/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:

>> Surely in the modern world there would be ways to eliminate hunger
>> if we put enough effort into it, but in the past such things have
>> been impossible and that did not stop hunger from happening.
>
> Have they ever been completely impossible?

In the ancient world people would travel very little and knew next to
nothing about the greater world. I don't know how far back we'd have
to go for that, but surely you can convince yourself that it is the
case. In such a time, when one person has a drought, everyone in that
person's little world has a drought and everyone is hungry.

>> dianaiad wrote:
>> > As I have said, I believe that all suffering is very personal
>> > indeed. That is, the only Person whose suffering was strictly
>> > for anybody else, ultimately, was Christ Himself. I think that
>> > for the rest of us, any suffering we go through will be
>> > balanced for us, the sufferers.
>>
>> I see that I misunderstood you before, but it is more clean now.
>> The question that remains is, how? Do you mean that the people
>> who suffer gain some secret reward in this life that none of us
>> are aware of, or do you mean in the afterlife?
>
> I don't know about direct reward, but certainly they learn
> something, don't they? At least, we are supposed to. I have.

A little knowledge can hardly be considered compensation for grave
injuries or being cold and hungry or any of the worst things in life.
The memories of horrible things could even be considered a curse by
some.

>> I don't know very much about the afterlife, perhaps nothing at
>> all, but what value could suffering have there? One crazy idea
>> would be that in a world of perfect happiness, people need
>> stories of suffering to break the tedium and therefore the people
>> who suffered in their lives become the most important. Another
>> option would be that God merely chooses to benefit the people who
>> suffered above normal people, but if that were the case, there
>> would have been no reason for Him to allow the original
>> suffering.
>
> This of course assumes that we learn,and gain, nothing of our
> selves; that our searching is unproductive, that our learning is
> for naught, that we do not have anything to do with our own
> successes and character development. It is as if you were saying
> that a child who practices the piano three hours a day has done
> nothing to contribute to his own ability as a concert pianist.

That seems like quite a leap. I am saying that suffering does not
benefit the sufferer by an significant amount, especially when
compared with the cost. I agree that searching and studying and
learning are good things.

>> Understanding is not technically required. There could be people
>> who never encounter the barrier that prevents evil because they
>> would simply never seriously think of doing such a thing.
>> Actually, a lot of people are like that. I have never tried to
>> steal anything,
>
> You have never attempted to steal anything, because you know what
> 'stealing' is. If you had no idea what it was (evil) then how
> could you possibly call what you are not doing 'stealing'?

I think you may be getting at a much deeper concept here, but on the
surface it seems like a simple thing. I could not call it stealing.
Why should that be important? The act is the problem, not the name.

>> > I can imagine in such a situation that people would let their
>> > fantasies go free; imagining all sorts of evil things, safely
>> > in the understanding that they wouldn't be allowed to perform
>> > any of them. From such a situation I can think of a few
>> > results, none of them good ones; frustration, perhaps.
>> > Certainly no moral or ethical growth; that comes from making
>> > conscious decisions about moral choices.
>>
>> If people feel frustration from their inability to do evil, it is
>> because they try to do evil and fail. Then frustration is the
>> least of the punishment that they deserve.
>> There would be no moral growth because there is no where to go up
>> from a world free of evil.
>
> No, there wouldn't. I think you are beginning to see the
> point....and there IS an 'up' to go, y'know. Which is more
> powerful, and better; to not know evil, or to know it, and conquer
> it?

It is better to conquer it, but it is far worse to know evil and not
conquer it, which is what we have now. If God had wanted us to
conquer evil, he would not have given us a world were such a thing is
so impossible that even over thousands of years many billions of
people have lived and died in a world of evil, all failing to conquer
evil.

If conquering evil is the point of life, then where are the tools for
conquering evil? Humans have fantasized about them forever and yet
they are denied to us. The only thing that we are able to do to
battle evil seems to be to battle each other in bloody conflict.

>> People would have lives where they do
>> nothing wrong; we would all learn to live that way. Even those
>> who would still try to do evil would have to try to find a way to
>> be happy in a world of goodness, but I doubt it would be
>> difficult.
>
> And that is all they would be. No change, no growth, no learning.
> Because...evil exists.

Learning is usually a means to an end, especially where evil is
involved. We learn to fight evil, especially in the area of medicine,
but if the end was achieved, the defeat of all evil, then the
learning would have no value. What is the point of learning to cure a
disease that doesn't exist?

Would you say that God values the ability to fight nonexistent evils,
and so he brings the evils into existence so that we will be
motivated to learn?

Of course, other kinds of learning and growth would still happen. Our
drive to explore would not stop in a world without evil.

>> I imagine the books and movies would be much the same as they are
>> now. Why wouldn't they be?
>
> Have you SEEN a movie lately? Have you read a book? Every single
> plot of every single movie and book ever written has a conflict in
> it, between good and evil, and lately, sometimes simply between
> evils. Without that conflict, there would BE no books or movies,
> or plays.

That is a very good point that I had not considered, but do not
underestimate the imagination of an artist. Even in a world totally
without evil, I am sure they would be able to come up with something
entertaining.

Even if evil is absolutely necessary for the making of good movies,
we still have far too much evil. This amount of suffering in the
world does not come even close to being compensated by the art we
create, and surely we could create good art even with a far lower
level of pain.

I would gladly sacrifice all art if that were necessary to stop all
suffering. It would be a bargain in the current state of the world.

>> You talk about all the best things in life as if they were
>> somehow stopped dead by putting a halt to all evil in the world,
>> but I cannot imagine why.
>
> Because all things are seen best in contrast. Nobody would long
> enjoy chocolate in a world where chocolate was all there was to
> eat, and the delight of a lemon pie is the sour as well as the
> sweet. The satisfaction you feel about never having stolen
> anything is mostly because you knew that it was possible to have
> stolen something. There is a certain word that I have never said
> or written. I know what it is, however, and what it means. It is a
> (true, very minor) character improvement/development that I do not
> write or say it...but only because I know what it is.

You cannot compensate pain and suffering with contrast. The very tiny
amount of satisfaction I might feel about never stealing isn't even
close to worth the problems that stealing causes in the world. Even
if everyone felt that satisfaction, it would still be a poor
justification for allowing people to steal.

> Evil may not be necessary, but the possibility of it is, because
> we can't grow up until we conquer it. How can we conquer it if we
> don't know it's there?

If that is the case, would it be enough to allow us to view evil in
movies and books by allowing us to imagine evil and perhaps even
encouraging it, while physically preventing us from actually
performing it? That seems like an ideal solution to everything.

>> > What if someday the strings were cut, and we had to make a real
>> > moral decision without the programming? Would we be capable of
>> > doing so?
>>
>> I am not sure about that; I cannot imagine what a programmed
>> person would be like.
>
> The sort of person who would live in a world where choosing evil
> would be impossible.

You mean, a person who would go through life never even considering
doing a bad thing? Then cutting the strings would mean pushing evil
thoughts into that person's mind. One could hardly blame that person
if evil resulted from such an operation.

>> Why would the strings ever be cut? Do you mean that God would cut
>> the strings?
>
> We are running headlong into theological doctrine here, y'know.
> What do you think heaven will be like? what IS our ultimate goal?
> What are we going to DO for eternity?
>
> In other words, why do you think we were created?

In order to answer that, we have to know God. We were created because
God wanted us. Presumably, he wanted to watch us because we amuse him
in some way. Perhaps he was bored with a universe full of thoughtless
lumps and decided to create beings like himself that were capable of
thought. If God really does love us, then perhaps he created us
because he wanted something to love. So I would say our purpose is to
entertain and maybe to be loved by God.

No matter what our purpose is, God would not create us with the
ability to fail. Clearly, God can never be disappointed by anything,
since He is all-powerful. If he created us with a purpose and then we
failed to achieve his purpose, it would be a failure of God, which is
impossible.

Anything which we find difficult or which seems to be against our
nature is probably not our purpose. We struggle to find cures for
diseases, but there are always more diseases to cure, therefore, God
does not want us to cure diseases. I find it much more likely that
God created us and He created diseases because he is somehow amused
by the effect of disease on us.

God created us to be what we are, all the suffering of the world
included. My guess is that we are like actors on a stage and God is
both the audience and the writer, enjoying the show as we play out
His drama. The afterlife is likely to be just another stage and
another drama in God's great plan, if He has any use at all for His
actors once they have left the stage.

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 13, 2006, 1:13:19 AM1/13/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:
>> dianaiad wrote:
>> > Rick Hawk wrote:
>> >> God has many other important properties beyond being perfectly
>> >> good, so being perfectly good is not sufficient to be God.
>> >
>> > Perhaps not, but wouldn't the lack of that be enough to make
>> > Him *not* God?
>> >
>> > True, simply knowing how to speak English doesn't make you a
>> > college English Lit professor, but if you don't know how, you
>> > CAN'T be a college English professor...
>>
>> It's pretty crazy, but following the analogy, suppose there was a
>> man whose name was next to English Lit courses and who stood up
>> front and lectured for those English Lit courses and all the
>> students took careful notes because they know that the will not
>> pass if they don't, but for some reason this man speaks not a
>> word of English. In that crazy world, I would still call him an
>> English Lit professor.
>>
>> It is the same for God. He is out there somewhere, creator of
>> everything and dictator of all the world. Even if he isn't
>> perfectly good, most people will still call him God.
>
> ....but, as in the case of your rather stretched analogy, would
> they be correct to do so?

People are always correct to call something by its name, and the name
of something is determined by what people call it, therefore the one
that people call God is God, no matter what He is. The important
thing is the being, not what we call Him.

If we start insisting that only a being within a strict definition
can be called God, then whenever evidence suggests the God-like being
might be slightly different from that definition, we would find
ourselves saying that God does not exist because He does not meet our
rules about what He must be.

Personally, I will always consider any omnipotent being to be God, no
matter what his other characteristics.

>> No amount of knowledge should give us any amount of control over
>> God, therefore God cannot be constrained to always doing the best
>> thing. God must have complete freedom.
>
> I agree with the 'complete freedom' part. However, complete
> freedom to choose doesn't necessarily mean that one MUST choose
> evil at some point. My suggestion is that the fact that God has
> never done so is one of the reasons He IS God. Not that, being
> God, He cannot choose evil, but that, not choosing evil, He is
> God.

But remember that there can be only one omnipotent being. We are not
sorting through many omnipotent beings and choosing one to call God
because He is better than all the rest. If that were the case then
you would be exactly right.

Instead, we are thinking about the one and only omnipotent being and
his characteristics. If we choose to call only beings who never do
evil God, then perhaps our God is not the omnipotent being. Perhaps
we were being too selective and missed the truly powerful being
because we did not like him.

Remember that we cannot actually see God. The closest that we can
come is seeing Jesus, but Jesus was not with us forever. I have no
doubt that God was very good while Jesus was on earth, but what about
before and after? I think God can change His mind and become bad when
he wants to be. He seemed that way in the Old Testament and He seems
that way now. He has the power to do anything else, so why stop
there?

>> On the other hand, if he had set the fire and trapped the people,
>> the people would be right to fear the fireman, despite the fact
>> that he is now coming to save them. In fact, if the people
>> somehow knew that the fireman had done those things, then they
>> would be foolish to trust that he actually was going to rescue
>> them. It would be far more likely that beyond the burning door is
>> more fire which he would use to burn them.
>
> In most natural disasters, the analogy above would read more like
> the rescuer had built the building, decided that it needed
> renovation, and set the demolition date...in the meantime, some
> squatters, ignoring the signs to stay out, were camping in a place
> they had no business camping in.

God has trapped us on earth and he rains disasters upon us. Even if
there is a way to predict most disasters, we aren't talking about
someone with limited power to warn us. If God wanted to warn us, we
would all be warned without a doubt. Anything that only happens most
of the time isn't the clear will of God, or else it would happen all
of the time.

>> We don't know what the afterlife is like, except that God created
>> that world. God also created this world. I imagine that the touch
>> of the creator is visible in the creation. Surely there will be
>> things we can recognize from this world in the afterlife from the
>> common origin of both. This is something I can't shake from my
>> mind and it makes me worry about the eternal fate of humanity.
>
> There are some amazingly wonderful things about this world that I
> would be quite happy to carry with me to the next one.

What makes you think those are the things that will carry over to the
next life? I have no idea what will carry over and I see many bad
things around me in the world. The afterlife will be where I spend
eternity and even slightest of the bad things on earth would become
intolerable after a few thousand years.

Even more scary is the thought that perhaps only the bad things will
carry over. It seems to be a possibility, given that God created this
world. Most likely it will be a mix of good and bad, but I would like
to be sure.

>> > I keep remembering (and have noted in this thread) that the
>> > actions of the planet, like tsunamis and earthquakes and such,
>> > when they take lives, do so quickly. If painfully, certainly
>> > quickly. For pure agony, torture, long drawn out pain and
>> > atrocity, it requires men.
>>
>> Don't forget about the misery of the loved ones that the dead
>> leave behind.
>
> I'm not likely to forget that. It's a pain every human on the
> planet shares. It's one of the things that faith ameliorates.

But it cannot eliminate it. We should not pretend that natural
disasters do not cause suffering or try to think of that suffering as
insignificant, even if humans are capable of far more suffering.

fyf...@gmail.com

unread,

Jan 13, 2006, 1:57:29 AM1/13/06

Icarus wrote:
> mem wrote:
>
> > On Thu, 5 Jan 2006 17:13:38 -0000, "Icarus" <icar...@email.com> said
> > the following highly interesting and thought-provoking thingies in
> > this 'froup:
> >
> >> mem wrote:
> >>
> >> ...
> >>> You are blaming GOD for the errors humans made themselves.
> >>> Those unfortunate miners who died certainly were not to blame, but
> >>> the owners of SAGO Mines were.
> >>
> >> If your god made humans imperfect, who's responsible for us being
> >> imperfect - him or us?
> >>
> > US.
> > God made us FINITE BEINGS, with a free will to either obey or disobey.
> > I don't intend to argue over this, but the problem lies on mankind,
> > NOT God.
>
> If you don't intend to argue over it then I'll state it as an undeniable
> fact: The creator is responsible for the failings of his creation. Case
> closed :-)

There are times when we have to accept our God is mighty but not
almighty. Agreed?

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 13, 2006, 12:23:27 PM1/13/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:

> > Rick Hawk wrote:<snip to>

> > I don't know about direct reward, but certainly they learn
> > something, don't they? At least, we are supposed to. I have.
>
> A little knowledge can hardly be considered compensation for grave
> injuries or being cold and hungry or any of the worst things in life.
> The memories of horrible things could even be considered a curse by
> some.

I think, again, you are working with an inadequate data set. What, for
instance, is "a little" knowledge, and what is "grave injury?" Again,
going back to the analogy of the child with leukemia, she doesn't know
that the very real pain, illness and suffering she is going through at
the hands of her parents and doctors will result in a long healthy
life. Leukemia, as a disease, often doesn't hurt physically nearly as
much as the cure. It just kills you. However, the child doesn't
understand that, does she? Especially if she is very young. All she
knows is the pain of the bone marrow aspirations (and they truly hurt),
the needle sticks, the nausea and pain of the chemo, the misery of
losing her hair and her face swelling up and the exhaustion.

Does she care that with all this, she has a 95% chance of living a
good, solid, healthy and long life, and that without it, she has a 99%
chance of dying within a year? How could she? All she knows is what we
tell her, and what she experiences. All she has is trust in what she is
told.

Just like we do with God. All we know is what we are told. Do we trust
that or not? All we know is what we experience. Do we trust that
Someone has a far wider perspective about all this than we do, or not?

> >> I don't know very much about the afterlife, perhaps nothing at
> >> all, but what value could suffering have there? One crazy idea
> >> would be that in a world of perfect happiness, people need
> >> stories of suffering to break the tedium and therefore the people
> >> who suffered in their lives become the most important. Another
> >> option would be that God merely chooses to benefit the people who
> >> suffered above normal people, but if that were the case, there
> >> would have been no reason for Him to allow the original
> >> suffering.
> >
> > This of course assumes that we learn,and gain, nothing of our
> > selves; that our searching is unproductive, that our learning is
> > for naught, that we do not have anything to do with our own
> > successes and character development. It is as if you were saying
> > that a child who practices the piano three hours a day has done
> > nothing to contribute to his own ability as a concert pianist.
>
> That seems like quite a leap. I am saying that suffering does not
> benefit the sufferer by an significant amount, especially when
> compared with the cost. I agree that searching and studying and
> learning are good things.

Ah, but I have just given you one example of suffering doing precisely
that. As to the three hour a day piano practice, what sort of suffering
goes along with that? One is giving up a great deal to sit on a piano
bench for three hours.

Or, more to the point, have you ever seen the feet of a ballet dancer?
Such grace, such strength, such ability is paid for in pain that is
little discussed, but the state of a typical ballet dancer's feet
certainly testify to it.

We pay for everything we learn. We pay in time, in pain, in the
sacrifice of other things. The point, however, is this: we gain far
more than we pay. In terms of what pain and suffering we have in this
life, we may have to, like the very young leukemia patient, have to use
a LOT of faith to figure that we will gain something very great in
return for what we go through, but her faith is generally repaid. Why
shouldn't ours be?

>
> >> Understanding is not technically required. There could be people
> >> who never encounter the barrier that prevents evil because they
> >> would simply never seriously think of doing such a thing.
> >> Actually, a lot of people are like that. I have never tried to
> >> steal anything,
> >
> > You have never attempted to steal anything, because you know what
> > 'stealing' is. If you had no idea what it was (evil) then how
> > could you possibly call what you are not doing 'stealing'?
>
> I think you may be getting at a much deeper concept here, but on the
> surface it seems like a simple thing. I could not call it stealing.
> Why should that be important? The act is the problem, not the name.

The *concept* is the problem. To name it is to recognize that it
exists, and it is a deep concept, indeed.

>
> >> > I can imagine in such a situation that people would let their
> >> > fantasies go free; imagining all sorts of evil things, safely
> >> > in the understanding that they wouldn't be allowed to perform
> >> > any of them. From such a situation I can think of a few
> >> > results, none of them good ones; frustration, perhaps.
> >> > Certainly no moral or ethical growth; that comes from making
> >> > conscious decisions about moral choices.
> >>
> >> If people feel frustration from their inability to do evil, it is
> >> because they try to do evil and fail. Then frustration is the
> >> least of the punishment that they deserve.
> >> There would be no moral growth because there is no where to go up
> >> from a world free of evil.
> >
> > No, there wouldn't. I think you are beginning to see the
> > point....and there IS an 'up' to go, y'know. Which is more
> > powerful, and better; to not know evil, or to know it, and conquer
> > it?
>
> It is better to conquer it, but it is far worse to know evil and not
> conquer it, which is what we have now. If God had wanted us to
> conquer evil, he would not have given us a world were such a thing is
> so impossible that even over thousands of years many billions of
> people have lived and died in a world of evil, all failing to conquer
> evil.

Why do you think that we have to do it all RIGHT NOW? We are going,
according to the doctrines of most theistic systems, going to live
forever. Why then do we have to perfect ourselves here? That we need to
begin to do so is obvious, but...

> If conquering evil is the point of life, then where are the tools for
> conquering evil? Humans have fantasized about them forever and yet
> they are denied to us. The only thing that we are able to do to
> battle evil seems to be to battle each other in bloody conflict.

Your free will is a tool. The scriptures are a tool. Your faith,
prayers, the guidance you receive in personal prayer is a tool. In
fact, these are very powerful tools.

>
> >> People would have lives where they do
> >> nothing wrong; we would all learn to live that way. Even those
> >> who would still try to do evil would have to try to find a way to
> >> be happy in a world of goodness, but I doubt it would be
> >> difficult.
> >
> > And that is all they would be. No change, no growth, no learning.
> > Because...evil exists.
>
> Learning is usually a means to an end, especially where evil is
> involved. We learn to fight evil, especially in the area of medicine,
> but if the end was achieved, the defeat of all evil, then the
> learning would have no value. What is the point of learning to cure a
> disease that doesn't exist?

What, you think that knowledge will go away because it has served its
purpose?

Besides, evil will remain; the conquering of evil is about your choices
to perform evil acts, not in removing those choices from the list of
possibilities.

>
> Would you say that God values the ability to fight nonexistent evils,
> and so he brings the evils into existence so that we will be
> motivated to learn?

You are assuming that 'evil' is an entity that will go away if we kill
it. It's not. It is an option that is always there, with every choice
we make. The conquering of it is in the choices we make. Those choices
will always exist for all.

> Of course, other kinds of learning and growth would still happen. Our
> drive to explore would not stop in a world without evil.

There would be nothing to explore, for all our choices would be made
for us.

>
> >> I imagine the books and movies would be much the same as they are
> >> now. Why wouldn't they be?
> >
> > Have you SEEN a movie lately? Have you read a book? Every single
> > plot of every single movie and book ever written has a conflict in
> > it, between good and evil, and lately, sometimes simply between
> > evils. Without that conflict, there would BE no books or movies,
> > or plays.
>
> That is a very good point that I had not considered, but do not
> underestimate the imagination of an artist. Even in a world totally
> without evil, I am sure they would be able to come up with something
> entertaining.

G'head. Give it a go.....;-) The challenge is; write something that is
entertaining, that doesn't involve conflict in any form, the humor
doesn't involve misfortune or mockery to anyone or anything, and no
comparisons between a beautiful thing and one less lovely, even by
inference.

> Even if evil is absolutely necessary for the making of good movies,
> we still have far too much evil.

I'll agree with that, actually, but whose fault is that? God's...or
those who keep making the wrong choices?

> This amount of suffering in the
> world does not come even close to being compensated by the art we
> create, and surely we could create good art even with a far lower
> level of pain.

What are you, personally, doing to alleviate that suffering? I'm not
asking this to be snide, or accusative. I'm attempting to make a point;
that we do not, any of us, have any right to complain about human pain
and suffering unless we are personally doing everything we physically
can to alleviate it in our neighbors.

>
> I would gladly sacrifice all art if that were necessary to stop all
> suffering. It would be a bargain in the current state of the world.

Would it, really?

But we don't have to "sacrifice all art," y'know. All we would really
have to do is simply...choose rightly. Take the recent earthquake that
killed so many thousands of people in Turkey. That is suffering, yes?
Whose fault was it that so many suffered, God's, or those who allowed
all those people to live in substandard housing in abject poverty over
a known fault? We know how to build for these things. Had that
earthquake happened here, where I live (and I have personally lived
through three, one of which was actually stronger), we would have
picked up the pictures and widgets that had fallen off the wall, yelled
at ourselves for forgetting to strap the TV down, turned on the
generator until the power was restored, and maybe, MAYBE, have mourned
the loss of less than a dozen lives, if we had lost that many.

WE choose to build in tornado/earthquake/flood country, even when we
know the dangers. So whose fault is it when we get hurt by tornados,
earthquakes and floods?

Whose fault is it when we win the lottery?

> >> You talk about all the best things in life as if they were
> >> somehow stopped dead by putting a halt to all evil in the world,
> >> but I cannot imagine why.
> >
> > Because all things are seen best in contrast. Nobody would long
> > enjoy chocolate in a world where chocolate was all there was to
> > eat, and the delight of a lemon pie is the sour as well as the
> > sweet. The satisfaction you feel about never having stolen
> > anything is mostly because you knew that it was possible to have
> > stolen something. There is a certain word that I have never said
> > or written. I know what it is, however, and what it means. It is a
> > (true, very minor) character improvement/development that I do not
> > write or say it...but only because I know what it is.
>
> You cannot compensate pain and suffering with contrast. The very tiny
> amount of satisfaction I might feel about never stealing isn't even
> close to worth the problems that stealing causes in the world. Even
> if everyone felt that satisfaction, it would still be a poor
> justification for allowing people to steal.

You sound as if you want to be in control of whether other people
steal. You can't be. They must be, and that's the point. This is a
battle they must fight.

> > Evil may not be necessary, but the possibility of it is, because
> > we can't grow up until we conquer it. How can we conquer it if we
> > don't know it's there?
>
> If that is the case, would it be enough to allow us to view evil in
> movies and books by allowing us to imagine evil and perhaps even
> encouraging it, while physically preventing us from actually
> performing it? That seems like an ideal solution to everything.

How would that be enough? What would happen, do you think, to someone
who was dealt with in that manner...and then who had to make a choice,
for real? His strings cut? We know what happens to many kids when
their parental strings are cut; some of them go pretty nuts, because
their parents had done with them pretty much as you suggest God do to
all men.

The thing is, your solution might work if all we are to be, in
eternity, is what we are now, that is, lesser beings whose only purpose
in life is...wait. What IS our purpose in God's universe? Are we pets?
Children? what?

>
> >> > What if someday the strings were cut, and we had to make a real
> >> > moral decision without the programming? Would we be capable of
> >> > doing so?
> >>
> >> I am not sure about that; I cannot imagine what a programmed
> >> person would be like.
> >
> > The sort of person who would live in a world where choosing evil
> > would be impossible.
>
> You mean, a person who would go through life never even considering
> doing a bad thing? Then cutting the strings would mean pushing evil
> thoughts into that person's mind. One could hardly blame that person
> if evil resulted from such an operation.

Yet you are blaming God for allowing us to learn to fight evil little
by little. Perhaps you should make up your mind what it is you are
upset about?

> >> Why would the strings ever be cut? Do you mean that God would cut
> >> the strings?
> >
> > We are running headlong into theological doctrine here, y'know.
> > What do you think heaven will be like? what IS our ultimate goal?
> > What are we going to DO for eternity?
> >
> > In other words, why do you think we were created?
>
> In order to answer that, we have to know God. We were created because
> God wanted us. Presumably, he wanted to watch us because we amuse him
> in some way.

Why presume that?

> Perhaps he was bored with a universe full of thoughtless
> lumps and decided to create beings like himself that were capable of
> thought. If God really does love us, then perhaps he created us
> because he wanted something to love. So I would say our purpose is to
> entertain and maybe to be loved by God.

That is, of course, begging a large question, assuming as a 'given'
something that is not at all a 'given'. All of the following argument
depends upon this assumption that God created us because we "amuse Him
in some way." I don't agree with that assumption; it's not a "given,"
at all.

>
> No matter what our purpose is, God would not create us with the
> ability to fail. Clearly, God can never be disappointed by anything,
> since He is all-powerful. If he created us with a purpose and then we
> failed to achieve his purpose, it would be a failure of God, which is
> impossible.
>
> Anything which we find difficult or which seems to be against our
> nature is probably not our purpose. We struggle to find cures for
> diseases, but there are always more diseases to cure, therefore, God
> does not want us to cure diseases. I find it much more likely that
> God created us and He created diseases because he is somehow amused
> by the effect of disease on us.
>
> God created us to be what we are, all the suffering of the world
> included. My guess is that we are like actors on a stage and God is
> both the audience and the writer, enjoying the show as we play out
> His drama. The afterlife is likely to be just another stage and
> another drama in God's great plan, if He has any use at all for His
> actors once they have left the stage.

Diana

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 13, 2006, 12:58:57 PM1/13/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
> > Rick Hawk wrote:

> >> dianaiad wrote:
<snip to here.

> But remember that there can be only one omnipotent being.

I can see where you get this idea. However, this may not be necessarily
so. There is a problem with the definition, for one thing; if an
omnipotent being has all the power, wherein is there any left for
anyone else to use? Wherein is there power for stars to shine, or
people to act, or planets to rotate? However, if "omnipotent" means
that one has the ability to act upon all things and can do all things
should one choose, then that leaves the possibility of others to use
power in and of themselves. Like us.

> We are not
> sorting through many omnipotent beings and choosing one to call God
> because He is better than all the rest. If that were the case then
> you would be exactly right.

Is now the time to remind you that I'm a Mormon? (grin) Not, mind you,
that this means I believe that there is more than one God to this
universe....

> Instead, we are thinking about the one and only omnipotent being and
> his characteristics. If we choose to call only beings who never do
> evil God, then perhaps our God is not the omnipotent being. Perhaps
> we were being too selective and missed the truly powerful being
> because we did not like him.
>
> Remember that we cannot actually see God.

We can't?

> The closest that we can
> come is seeing Jesus, but Jesus was not with us forever. I have no
> doubt that God was very good while Jesus was on earth, but what about
> before and after? I think God can change His mind and become bad when
> he wants to be. He seemed that way in the Old Testament and He seems
> that way now. He has the power to do anything else, so why stop
> there?

> >> On the other hand, if he had set the fire and trapped the people,
> >> the people would be right to fear the fireman, despite the fact
> >> that he is now coming to save them. In fact, if the people
> >> somehow knew that the fireman had done those things, then they
> >> would be foolish to trust that he actually was going to rescue
> >> them. It would be far more likely that beyond the burning door is
> >> more fire which he would use to burn them.
> >
> > In most natural disasters, the analogy above would read more like
> > the rescuer had built the building, decided that it needed
> > renovation, and set the demolition date...in the meantime, some
> > squatters, ignoring the signs to stay out, were camping in a place
> > they had no business camping in.
>
> God has trapped us on earth and he rains disasters upon us.

Not everywhere on earth at the same time, sir....and even if He did,
the universe is a very large place.

> Even if
> there is a way to predict most disasters, we aren't talking about
> someone with limited power to warn us. If God wanted to warn us, we
> would all be warned without a doubt. Anything that only happens most
> of the time isn't the clear will of God, or else it would happen all
> of the time.

"limited power to warn us"? What do we need warnings for, now, when we
already KNOW that building unreinforced housing over an earthquake
fault will cost lives, that building houses in the path of a
Mississippi flood is a bad idea, or that New Orleans is probably not
the best place to build a city (do you have ANY idea how many times the
folk who built there were told not to, from the very first white
settlements there?), or that a trailer park in "tornado alley" is a
really stupid idea?

No, sir....that lives are lost in such disasters is a tragedy, yes. But
those lost lives cannot be blamed on God. They are the result of
calculated risks taken by those who make the choices to live where they
do.

> >> We don't know what the afterlife is like, except that God created
> >> that world. God also created this world. I imagine that the touch
> >> of the creator is visible in the creation. Surely there will be
> >> things we can recognize from this world in the afterlife from the
> >> common origin of both. This is something I can't shake from my
> >> mind and it makes me worry about the eternal fate of humanity.
> >
> > There are some amazingly wonderful things about this world that I
> > would be quite happy to carry with me to the next one.
>
> What makes you think those are the things that will carry over to the
> next life? I have no idea what will carry over and I see many bad
> things around me in the world. The afterlife will be where I spend
> eternity and even slightest of the bad things on earth would become
> intolerable after a few thousand years.

Well, I have some notion of what will go with me. My love of family,
my love of learning, my attitude, my appreciation of beauty and what
makes things beautiful...

>
> Even more scary is the thought that perhaps only the bad things will
> carry over. It seems to be a possibility, given that God created this
> world. Most likely it will be a mix of good and bad, but I would like
> to be sure.

May I say that so far your view of what God is scares the peewaddin out
of me? Were I a naturally pessimistic sort, I might be tempted
to....no. If what you say is true, drowning myself would not help
anything.

> >> > I keep remembering (and have noted in this thread) that the
> >> > actions of the planet, like tsunamis and earthquakes and such,
> >> > when they take lives, do so quickly. If painfully, certainly
> >> > quickly. For pure agony, torture, long drawn out pain and
> >> > atrocity, it requires men.
> >>
> >> Don't forget about the misery of the loved ones that the dead
> >> leave behind.
> >
> > I'm not likely to forget that. It's a pain every human on the
> > planet shares. It's one of the things that faith ameliorates.
>
> But it cannot eliminate it.

We should not. To eliminate it, we would also have to eliminate the
memories of what made them worth knowing. The thing is, from my own
life, I know that one cannot know what joy is, unless one has also
known sorrow. An 'even keel' is flat, unproductive and very boring.

> We should not pretend that natural
> disasters do not cause suffering

yes, we can state, fairly strongly, that natural disasters cause
suffering...but not as much as people would like to think they do. The
VAST majority of human suffering that follows natural disasters is the
result, not of the tsunami or the volcano or the tornado, but because
people have made the choice to be where they know such things will
happen. Whose fault IS it when the house on the side of Vesuvius burns?
Whose fault is it when the idiot, who knows where the San Andreas fault
lies (as we all do) builds a house on it and has it fall down on him?
Whose fault is it when people, who can see from the evidence of the
scour lines and the growth pattern on the cliffs that very high waves
come by there every so often, build beneath the high water mark?

Whose fault is it, really, when people choose, in spite of the fact
that every seacoast on the planet has been visited by tsunamis of
varying heights, accept that risk and build there anyway....and have
thier houses and their families wash out to sea?

I'm not saying that sometimes those risks are small, and worth
taking...but they ARE risks, we know the possible consequences, and we
choose them anyway. Therefore, the fault is not God's.

> or try to think of that suffering as
> insignificant, even if humans are capable of far more suffering.

Fine, then we should ourselves do something about it, since we are the
ones who put ourselves in harms way in the first place. What we should
NOT do is blame the train for running over us when we picnic on the
rails.

Diana

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 13, 2006, 8:44:40 PM1/13/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:
>> But remember that there can be only one omnipotent being.
>
> I can see where you get this idea. However, this may not be
> necessarily so. There is a problem with the definition, for one
> thing; if an omnipotent being has all the power, wherein is there
> any left for anyone else to use? Wherein is there power for stars
> to shine, or people to act, or planets to rotate? However, if
> "omnipotent" means that one has the ability to act upon all things
> and can do all things should one choose, then that leaves the
> possibility of others to use power in and of themselves. Like us.

This is how I take the meaning of omnipotent as well, but even with
this lesser definition of omnipotent, there can be only one
omnipotent being. All things happen in accordance with God's will, so
any conflict that comes between God and any other entity must always
be resolved in favor of God. Humans have free will, but only because
God continuously allows it. If God chose to veto any of our
decisions, he could do so without effort.

Therefore, if there were any other omnipotent beings, they would all
have to bend to God's will, which can only mean that they are not
truly omnipotent. In other words, if two beings were equal dictators
of all things, they would have to resolve conflicts in some way. If
we call them A and B, then perhaps A always wins and A is truly
omnipotent and B is just following A's rules. Otherwise, sometimes A
wins and sometimes B wins, then neither of them are omnipotent.

>> Remember that we cannot actually see God.
>
> We can't?

Surely we can't. We can pray to him, but he never speaks back, except
in the minds of the mentally ill. He isn't sitting on a mountain
somewhere for us to view Him. All we have is his works to try to
guess about what he is.

>> >> On the other hand, if he had set the fire and trapped the

>> Even if
>> there is a way to predict most disasters, we aren't talking about
>> someone with limited power to warn us. If God wanted to warn us,
>> we would all be warned without a doubt. Anything that only
>> happens most of the time isn't the clear will of God, or else it
>> would happen all of the time.
>
> "limited power to warn us"? What do we need warnings for, now,
> when we already KNOW that building unreinforced housing over an
> earthquake fault will cost lives, that building houses in the path
> of a Mississippi flood is a bad idea, or that New Orleans is
> probably not the best place to build a city (do you have ANY idea
> how many times the folk who built there were told not to, from the
> very first white settlements there?), or that a trailer park in
> "tornado alley" is a really stupid idea?
>
> No, sir....that lives are lost in such disasters is a tragedy,
> yes. But those lost lives cannot be blamed on God. They are the
> result of calculated risks taken by those who make the choices to
> live where they do.

It is easy enough to find examples of avoidable disasters, but can
you say that all natural disasters are avoidable? There are very few
places on earth that are not vulnerable to any kind of natural
disaster. Anything with a view of the water is vulnerable to a
tsunami, the globe is cobwebbed with fault-lines, in flat land we get
tornados, in mountainous areas we get avalanches, and by the shore we
get hurricanes.

God is in all things, after all, so we cannot just take some of the
best situations and imagine that He is perfect. We have to look at
everything, all disasters and all of creation, and use that to try to
guess what God might be like. Ignoring any part of it can only lead
to a lesser understanding of God. In other words, look at the worst
of the world to see what the worst of God can be.

>> dianaiad wrote:
>> > There are some amazingly wonderful things about this world that
>> > I would be quite happy to carry with me to the next one.
>>
>> What makes you think those are the things that will carry over to
>> the next life? I have no idea what will carry over and I see many
>> bad things around me in the world. The afterlife will be where I
>> spend eternity and even slightest of the bad things on earth
>> would become intolerable after a few thousand years.
>
> Well, I have some notion of what will go with me. My love of
> family, my love of learning, my attitude, my appreciation of
> beauty and what makes things beautiful...

You do not get to decide what you take with you, only God can choose.
For example, that is why some look upon a life spent in the pursuit
of money as a wasted on, because God is unlikely to allow you to
bring your money to the next world.

On the other hand, I agree that we will all very likely get to bring
our own values into the next life, but unfortunately, our values have
very little impact on the world around us. We do not get to enforce
our wills as God can enforce His. I am more concerned that there
might be natural disasters in the next life.

>> > Rick Hawk wrote:
>> >> Don't forget about the misery of the loved ones that the dead
>> >> leave behind.
>> >
>> > I'm not likely to forget that. It's a pain every human on the
>> > planet shares. It's one of the things that faith ameliorates.
>>
>> But it cannot eliminate it.
>
> We should not. To eliminate it, we would also have to eliminate
> the memories of what made them worth knowing. The thing is, from
> my own life, I know that one cannot know what joy is, unless one
> has also known sorrow. An 'even keel' is flat, unproductive and
> very boring.

You might say that it is very boring because you cannot think of what
could be fun and exciting in a world without suffering, but people
always try very hard to find a way to have fun under any
circumstances, so we must also try hard when we are trying to predict
what life will be like. Just because the fun and excitement isn't
obvious at first glance does not mean it would not be there.

For example, in a world without suffering, there would still be
skydiving, it would just be a kind of skydiving where the parachute
always opens. Skydiving is always exciting, there is no version of
skydiving possible that would be boring, even if all of the risk is
removed. Imagine that God went to great lengths to ensure that his
loved-ones would come to no harm and that the earth would be as soft
as pillows to a skydiver so that he could dive without a parachute at
all. Can you really imagine that not being fun?

How about a version of laser tag that uses fighter jet planes instead
of little hand-held guns? That sounds pretty not-boring to me and all
the better knowing no one could be killed accidentally. It would be
really expensive, but in a world without stealing and without
medicine, there would be a lot more wealth.

The world is full or wonderful things that do not require suffering
in any form; that is the good part of God. I merely suggest that the
rest of creation represents God at His less-than-perfect.

>> or try to think of that suffering as
>> insignificant, even if humans are capable of far more suffering.
>
> Fine, then we should ourselves do something about it, since we are
> the ones who put ourselves in harms way in the first place. What
> we should NOT do is blame the train for running over us when we
> picnic on the rails.

True, but if someone decided to cover the entire world in rails, then
I would want to find someone to complain to. At the very least, I
would like to know why he did it.

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 13, 2006, 10:26:09 PM1/13/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Again, going back to the analogy of the child with leukemia, she
> doesn't know that the very real pain, illness and suffering she is
> going through at the hands of her parents and doctors will result
> in a long healthy life. Leukemia, as a disease, often doesn't hurt
> physically nearly as much as the cure. It just kills you. However,
> the child doesn't understand that, does she? Especially if she is
> very young. All she knows is the pain of the bone marrow
> aspirations (and they truly hurt), the needle sticks, the nausea
> and pain of the chemo, the misery of losing her hair and her face
> swelling up and the exhaustion.

When thinking of this example, I cannot help but bring to mind the
one who created leukemia.

You are making an analogy between the doctors and God, but imagine
what would happen if the doctors actually were God. The little girl
would be spared all of the suffering because she would be instantly
cured by people who care about her.

But all of that is a side-track, because I understand the nature of
your analogy and I was missing the point with the first two comments.
You are really saying that all of the suffering we have here on earth
is helping us in some greater way that we cannot even imagine. But
again, imagine that the doctors were actually God and the analogy
still breaks down. If the doctors were God, they could cure the girl
painlessly because they would be all-powerful. I do not know what
God's plan is for us, but I do know that he could prepare us
painlessly if he wanted, simply because there is nothing which he
cannot do. If he wanted us to have certain knowledge, he could have
created us with the knowledge already installed.

> Just like we do with God. All we know is what we are told. Do we
> trust that or not? All we know is what we experience. Do we trust
> that Someone has a far wider perspective about all this than we
> do, or not?

God knows all things and so we should trust Him, but he also creates
all things, and so we can perhaps learn things about Him that He has
not told us by looking at what He has done. Actions tell us more
about Him than words.

Our situation is different from hers because the doctors would not
choose to make her suffer if they could cure her without the
suffering. God is making this choice, and I do not trust your
interpretation of His reason. Perhaps we will gain through suffering,
but perhaps not. It is hard not to doubt that one who chooses to not
to give us our great return without the suffering will give it to us
merely because of the suffering.

It is as if we were taking God to court and suing Him for the
suffering he has caused, so to repay us he gives us a great reward.
It is a ridiculous notion when presented that way. God has omnipotent
power and He does not need suffering as a motivation to give us any
reward in any form. If He wanted us to have it, He would simply give
it to us.

>> It is better to conquer it, but it is far worse to know evil and
>> not conquer it, which is what we have now. If God had wanted us
>> to conquer evil, he would not have given us a world were such a
>> thing is so impossible that even over thousands of years many
>> billions of people have lived and died in a world of evil, all
>> failing to conquer evil.
>
> Why do you think that we have to do it all RIGHT NOW? We are
> going, according to the doctrines of most theistic systems, going
> to live forever. Why then do we have to perfect ourselves here?
> That we need to begin to do so is obvious, but...

What motivation could God possibly have to make our perfection a slow
process? I can guess that it is because he finds our suffering
amusing, but I can never really know.

>> If conquering evil is the point of life, then where are the tools
>> for conquering evil? Humans have fantasized about them forever
>> and yet they are denied to us. The only thing that we are able to
>> do to battle evil seems to be to battle each other in bloody
>> conflict.
>
> Your free will is a tool. The scriptures are a tool. Your faith,
> prayers, the guidance you receive in personal prayer is a tool. In
> fact, these are very powerful tools.

They are powerful in a sense, but only by comparison to everything
else that we have. They are not powerful in the sense that they
cannot eradicate evil and suffering from the world. If this is the
most powerful tool that God has given us, then I can only conclude
that he does not want us to succeed.

>> Learning is usually a means to an end, especially where evil is
>> involved. We learn to fight evil, especially in the area of
>> medicine, but if the end was achieved, the defeat of all evil,
>> then the learning would have no value. What is the point of
>> learning to cure a disease that doesn't exist?
>
> What, you think that knowledge will go away because it has served
> its purpose?

I do not believe it will go away, but I do believe that it will no
longer have a purpose. God is driving us to collect useless
knowledge, because once all diseases are destroyed, all our learning
about medicine will be for nothing.

> Besides, evil will remain; the conquering of evil is about your
> choices to perform evil acts, not in removing those choices from
> the list of possibilities.

I get the impression that you believe that fighting evil is an
entirely personal task assigned to each of us by God for some greater
purpose than we can see. But if that is true, then we are working
against God every time we remove the possibility of evil.

Of course, God is capable of removing all evil from the world, but
man is also capable of removing some evil and he does very often.
Whenever we put criminals in jail, we are doing it to remove the
option of committing crimes. But if you are right, then we should let
them all free so that they can fight evil in their own personal
battle and get the reward that God will give them for it. By locking
them up, we are punishing them in a profound way. Without the option
of evil, they can never grow and then God will deny them the reward.

>> Would you say that God values the ability to fight nonexistent
>> evils, and so he brings the evils into existence so that we will
>> be motivated to learn?
>
> You are assuming that 'evil' is an entity that will go away if we
> kill it. It's not. It is an option that is always there, with
> every choice we make. The conquering of it is in the choices we
> make. Those choices will always exist for all.

I was not assuming that, I merely meant that God introduced problems
into his creation in the form of natural disasters and expects us to
learn to fight them, but if he had simply chosen not to introduce the
problems then the knowledge of how to fight them would be useless.

But actually, will those choice always be there for all? They would
not if man finds a way to finally eliminate evil by locking everyone
in prison where we can never hurt anyone. We put up guard rails to
prevent people from falling from high places, but they also prevent
people from being pushed. We are constantly trying to put up barriers
to prevent evil; that is the entire purpose of police enforcement.
Would you say that doing that is a mistake in God's eyes?

>> Of course, other kinds of learning and growth would still happen.
>> Our drive to explore would not stop in a world without evil.
>
> There would be nothing to explore, for all our choices would be
> made for us.

Not all of our choices are between good and evil. Perhaps they are
all between different quantities of good or evil, where there is
always exactly one perfect choice, but there are always many choices
which are merely good.

If I want to fly off in a rocket ship and explore the stars or kneel
down before a microscope and study insects, how is that evil? Why
would any of that be stopped?

> G'head. Give it a go.....;-) The challenge is; write something
> that is entertaining, that doesn't involve conflict in any form,
> the humor doesn't involve misfortune or mockery to anyone or
> anything, and no comparisons between a beautiful thing and one
> less lovely, even by inference.

It is hard, but there are entertaining things in this world that do
not require anything bad. For example, games and puzzles. The mystery
novel could still exist, even if it were not about murder. Also,
there is sports and action. You could tell a thrilling story of
intense action where no one was injured and everyone had fun,
including the reader.

Plus, conflict is not necessarily bad. Sports have conflict, but it
is purely innocent. Play-conflict causes no harm.

>> Even if evil is absolutely necessary for the making of good
>> movies, we still have far too much evil.
>
> I'll agree with that, actually, but whose fault is that?
> God's...or those who keep making the wrong choices?

Laying blame is not important. Who is actually responsible depends on
how you look at it, so it is pointless to try to figure out a clear
answer. But one thing is clear: if God wanted it to stop, it would
stop. That is the nature of the almighty.

>> This amount of suffering in the
>> world does not come even close to being compensated by the art we
>> create, and surely we could create good art even with a far lower
>> level of pain.
>
> What are you, personally, doing to alleviate that suffering? I'm
> not asking this to be snide, or accusative. I'm attempting to make
> a point; that we do not, any of us, have any right to complain
> about human pain and suffering unless we are personally doing
> everything we physically can to alleviate it in our neighbors.

Then we should not complain. Complaining does not change the world or
make God any better than he is. It is very likely best to go through
life never complaining against God, for I have no reason to believe
that he is going to forgive me or anyone. Perhaps he would be angered
by complaints; that is nothing we want to risk.

But that is not going to stop me from trying to know God better and
trying to guess at what is in His mind.

>> I would gladly sacrifice all art if that were necessary to stop
>> all suffering. It would be a bargain in the current state of the
>> world.
>
> Would it, really?
>
> But we don't have to "sacrifice all art," y'know. All we would
> really have to do is simply...choose rightly. Take the recent
> earthquake that killed so many thousands of people in Turkey. That
> is suffering, yes? Whose fault was it that so many suffered,
> God's, or those who allowed all those people to live in
> substandard housing in abject poverty over a known fault? We know
> how to build for these things. Had that earthquake happened here,
> where I live (and I have personally lived through three, one of
> which was actually stronger), we would have picked up the pictures
> and widgets that had fallen off the wall, yelled at ourselves for
> forgetting to strap the TV down, turned on the generator until the
> power was restored, and maybe, MAYBE, have mourned the loss of
> less than a dozen lives, if we had lost that many.

We could make things a lot better, but we do not. In an ideal world
where everyone did everything possible to make the world a good
place, things would be much better. But we don't live in such a world
and I can see no way to bring such a world about. I would sacrifice a
lot if it would cause God to give us that world in place of this one.
Perhaps we need Jesus to come back and teach everyone the best way to
live.

> WE choose to build in tornado/earthquake/flood country, even when
> we know the dangers. So whose fault is it when we get hurt by
> tornados, earthquakes and floods?

There is no doubt that we can cause problems for ourselves, but the
question remains: why are there tornados and earthquakes and floods
popping up all over the world for us to avoid? What is God's reason
for putting those things in his otherwise wonderful creation?

> Whose fault is it when we win the lottery?

Winning the lottery is pure chance, nothing but luck. No one on earth
controls that: the world is governed by God, he creates all and he
knows all, so it is most certainly God's choice when the numbers fall
one way or another. Who else?

> You sound as if you want to be in control of whether other people
> steal. You can't be. They must be, and that's the point. This is a
> battle they must fight.

Except sometimes I can have that control and certainly other people
have such control. They are police officers and it is their job. They
take the battle away from people.

If I had the power to stop all crime by removing the option from all
criminals, I have no doubt that I would do it. Do I understand
correctly that you would not?

>> > Evil may not be necessary, but the possibility of it is,
>> > because we can't grow up until we conquer it. How can we
>> > conquer it if we don't know it's there?
>>
>> If that is the case, would it be enough to allow us to view evil
>> in movies and books by allowing us to imagine evil and perhaps
>> even encouraging it, while physically preventing us from actually
>> performing it? That seems like an ideal solution to everything.
>
> How would that be enough? What would happen, do you think, to
> someone who was dealt with in that manner...and then who had to
> make a choice, for real? His strings cut? We know what happens to
> many kids when their parental strings are cut; some of them go
> pretty nuts, because their parents had done with them pretty much
> as you suggest God do to all men.

Parents let go of their children, but God will never let go of us. It
does not matter how much we grow or do not grow; I will never agree
that it is a good thing for God to allow us to commit evil.

You are suggesting that if God at first prevented evil but then
changed his mind and allowed evil, that would be worse then if he had
allowed evil from the beginning. I have to agree with you about that,
but that doesn't change the fact that never allowing evil at all is
even better than any of those options.

> The thing is, your solution might work if all we are to be, in
> eternity, is what we are now, that is, lesser beings whose only
> purpose in life is...wait. What IS our purpose in God's universe?
> Are we pets? Children? what?

We are something of that nature, I imagine. If you had unlimited
power and an empty universe to build anything you could desire in,
what would you build?

>> You mean, a person who would go through life never even
>> considering doing a bad thing? Then cutting the strings would
>> mean pushing evil thoughts into that person's mind. One could
>> hardly blame that person if evil resulted from such an operation.
>
> Yet you are blaming God for allowing us to learn to fight evil
> little by little. Perhaps you should make up your mind what it is
> you are upset about?

I am not upset about anything; I am merely trying to understand God
better by looking around and considering the world that He has
created.

One of the things that causes me much concern is that God makes us
learn to fight evil little by little, instead of fighting evil
Himself or showing us how to do it directly and instantly.

>> > We are running headlong into theological doctrine here, y'know.
>> > What do you think heaven will be like? what IS our ultimate
>> > goal? What are we going to DO for eternity?
>> >
>> > In other words, why do you think we were created?
>>
>> In order to answer that, we have to know God. We were created
>> because God wanted us. Presumably, he wanted to watch us because
>> we amuse him in some way.
>
> Why presume that?

Because I am trying to guess our purpose and so I am trying to take
God's perspective. Given an unlimited space of nothing and the power
to put into it whatever I can imagine, I would fill it with all the
things I can imagine to amuse myself. I would make everything good
and fun and would strive to make it the best that I could, because
what other goals could I have?

In other words, if our reason for existing is not for God's
amusement, then what could it possibly be for? God can have no goals
that He needs help to achieve, so we cannot be here for that.

>> Perhaps he was bored with a universe full of thoughtless
>> lumps and decided to create beings like himself that were capable
>> of thought. If God really does love us, then perhaps he created
>> us because he wanted something to love. So I would say our
>> purpose is to entertain and maybe to be loved by God.
>
> That is, of course, begging a large question, assuming as a
> 'given' something that is not at all a 'given'. All of the
> following argument depends upon this assumption that God created
> us because we "amuse Him in some way." I don't agree with that
> assumption; it's not a "given," at all.

Do you have another idea to replace it, or is that still the best
that we can come up with?

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 14, 2006, 5:50:43 PM1/14/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
> > Again, going back to the analogy of the child with leukemia, she
> > doesn't know that the very real pain, illness and suffering she is
> > going through at the hands of her parents and doctors will result
> > in a long healthy life. Leukemia, as a disease, often doesn't hurt
> > physically nearly as much as the cure. It just kills you. However,
> > the child doesn't understand that, does she? Especially if she is
> > very young. All she knows is the pain of the bone marrow
> > aspirations (and they truly hurt), the needle sticks, the nausea
> > and pain of the chemo, the misery of losing her hair and her face
> > swelling up and the exhaustion.
>
> When thinking of this example, I cannot help but bring to mind the
> one who created leukemia.

Begging the question, of course, of who did 'create
leukemia'....everybody has to die of something.

> You are making an analogy between the doctors and God, but imagine
> what would happen if the doctors actually were God. The little girl
> would be spared all of the suffering because she would be instantly
> cured by people who care about her.

You are, of course, pushing the analogy too far. Yes, if we could, we
would instantly and painlessly cure her.

But...what if doing so actually does her more harm than good?

> But all of that is a side-track, because I understand the nature of
> your analogy and I was missing the point with the first two comments.
> You are really saying that all of the suffering we have here on earth
> is helping us in some greater way that we cannot even imagine. But
> again, imagine that the doctors were actually God and the analogy
> still breaks down. If the doctors were God, they could cure the girl
> painlessly because they would be all-powerful. I do not know what
> God's plan is for us, but I do know that he could prepare us
> painlessly if he wanted, simply because there is nothing which he
> cannot do. If he wanted us to have certain knowledge, he could have
> created us with the knowledge already installed.

Unless this is something that we have to do ourselves, and learn
ourselves. I think you understand that simply giving your child
everything he wants is a very bad idea.

>
> > Just like we do with God. All we know is what we are told. Do we
> > trust that or not? All we know is what we experience. Do we trust
> > that Someone has a far wider perspective about all this than we
> > do, or not?
>
> God knows all things and so we should trust Him, but he also creates
> all things, and so we can perhaps learn things about Him that He has
> not told us by looking at what He has done. Actions tell us more
> about Him than words.

Yes...but seems to me that the vast majority of those who blame God for
things completely discount the role of human choice in those things.

So why do you think that this would be different?

> God is making this choice, and I do not trust your
> interpretation of His reason. Perhaps we will gain through suffering,
> but perhaps not. It is hard not to doubt that one who chooses to not
> to give us our great return without the suffering will give it to us
> merely because of the suffering.

I think it has a great deal to do with...that which is simply given to
us is not appreciated, or properly used.

> It is as if we were taking God to court and suing Him for the
> suffering he has caused, so to repay us he gives us a great reward.

No, it is as if we have fully learned a lesson that, since we are
humans, we don't seem to be able to learn in other ways. It IS a truism
that simply giving your children everything they want spoils them in
every single sense of the word.

> It is a ridiculous notion when presented that way.

Why? I can see your point if God simply created us as pets or ornaments
or theatrical automatons....but what if we are, quite literally, His
children? We call Him Father, we are called children...what if that is
not a metaphor?

> God has omnipotent
> power and He does not need suffering as a motivation to give us any
> reward in any form. If He wanted us to have it, He would simply give
> it to us.

And if you wanted your child to be a doctor, you'd hand him the
diploma, right?

> >> It is better to conquer it, but it is far worse to know evil and
> >> not conquer it, which is what we have now. If God had wanted us
> >> to conquer evil, he would not have given us a world were such a
> >> thing is so impossible that even over thousands of years many
> >> billions of people have lived and died in a world of evil, all
> >> failing to conquer evil.
> >
> > Why do you think that we have to do it all RIGHT NOW? We are
> > going, according to the doctrines of most theistic systems, going
> > to live forever. Why then do we have to perfect ourselves here?
> > That we need to begin to do so is obvious, but...
>
> What motivation could God possibly have to make our perfection a slow
> process?

Because it's OUR perfection, and not His? Perhaps the rate of
perfection has a great deal more to do with our abilities than with
His. He's already perfect.

> I can guess that it is because he finds our suffering
> amusing, but I can never really know.

> >> If conquering evil is the point of life, then where are the tools
> >> for conquering evil? Humans have fantasized about them forever
> >> and yet they are denied to us. The only thing that we are able to
> >> do to battle evil seems to be to battle each other in bloody
> >> conflict.
> >
> > Your free will is a tool. The scriptures are a tool. Your faith,
> > prayers, the guidance you receive in personal prayer is a tool. In
> > fact, these are very powerful tools.
>
> They are powerful in a sense, but only by comparison to everything
> else that we have. They are not powerful in the sense that they
> cannot eradicate evil and suffering from the world. If this is the
> most powerful tool that God has given us, then I can only conclude
> that he does not want us to succeed.

What else do we have? What do you mean by 'everything else'? The
battle over evil is very personal; we have to conquer it personally. If
we take that battle away from others, we are also removing their
ability to make their own choices in the world. Do you think that would
be a good thing?

>
> >> Learning is usually a means to an end, especially where evil is
> >> involved. We learn to fight evil, especially in the area of
> >> medicine, but if the end was achieved, the defeat of all evil,
> >> then the learning would have no value. What is the point of
> >> learning to cure a disease that doesn't exist?
> >
> > What, you think that knowledge will go away because it has served
> > its purpose?
>
> I do not believe it will go away, but I do believe that it will no
> longer have a purpose. God is driving us to collect useless
> knowledge, because once all diseases are destroyed, all our learning
> about medicine will be for nothing.

Why then, people will forget, and the diseases will come back, and we
will have it all to learn again...what makes you think that because WE
may grow and learn and develop measures against disease, that evil and
disease are standing still?

>
> > Besides, evil will remain; the conquering of evil is about your
> > choices to perform evil acts, not in removing those choices from
> > the list of possibilities.
>
> I get the impression that you believe that fighting evil is an
> entirely personal task assigned to each of us by God for some greater
> purpose than we can see.

Well, yeah.

> But if that is true, then we are working
> against God every time we remove the possibility of evil.

You have already noticed that I am not advocating removing the
possibility of evil. Conquiring evil consists of acknowleging the
possibility...and not going there. Good choices mean that there must
first be choices.

>
> Of course, God is capable of removing all evil from the world, but
> man is also capable of removing some evil and he does very often.
> Whenever we put criminals in jail, we are doing it to remove the
> option of committing crimes.

We are administering the consequences of their own choices to those who
commit crimes, and protect ourselves from possible future crimes, but
are we eliminating anything? The goods are still there to be stolen by
someone else, the choice of whether or not to commit evil is still
there; it's just being made by someone else.

Those people who are incarcerated, by the way, are still quite capable
of choosing to do evil. OR to do good.

> But if you are right, then we should let
> them all free so that they can fight evil in their own personal
> battle and get the reward that God will give them for it. By locking
> them up, we are punishing them in a profound way. Without the option
> of evil, they can never grow and then God will deny them the reward.

As you can see, the above argument is not valid.

>
> >> Would you say that God values the ability to fight nonexistent
> >> evils, and so he brings the evils into existence so that we will
> >> be motivated to learn?
> >
> > You are assuming that 'evil' is an entity that will go away if we
> > kill it. It's not. It is an option that is always there, with
> > every choice we make. The conquering of it is in the choices we
> > make. Those choices will always exist for all.
>
> I was not assuming that, I merely meant that God introduced problems
> into his creation in the form of natural disasters and expects us to
> learn to fight them, but if he had simply chosen not to introduce the
> problems then the knowledge of how to fight them would be useless.

"not to introduce the problems"? You mean, not to have a planet with
weather, or tectonic movement, or any of the other things that are
involved in natural disasters?

We have such planets, actually. Nobody lives there. This could cause a
problem, I think.
However, you have switched topics. What do natural disasters have to do
with people who choose to steal, or who, knowing that the Mississippi
floods big time regularly, still choose to build where they are going
to get wet?

>
> But actually, will those choice always be there for all? They would
> not if man finds a way to finally eliminate evil by locking everyone
> in prison where we can never hurt anyone.

Isn't that what you are advocating that God do, put all mankind in a
"prison" of sorts where we cannot do any evil?

> We put up guard rails to
> prevent people from falling from high places, but they also prevent
> people from being pushed. We are constantly trying to put up barriers
> to prevent evil; that is the entire purpose of police enforcement.
> Would you say that doing that is a mistake in God's eyes?

I would say that doing all that is part of our choice NOT to do evil.
Just like figuring out that building brick houses on the San Andreas
fault is probably not a great idea.

>
> >> Of course, other kinds of learning and growth would still happen.
> >> Our drive to explore would not stop in a world without evil.
> >
> > There would be nothing to explore, for all our choices would be
> > made for us.
>
> Not all of our choices are between good and evil.

Actually, they are, pretty much. They are at best between 'best and not
quite as good". "Not quite as good" is, in comparison to 'best', evil.

> Perhaps they are
> all between different quantities of good or evil, where there is
> always exactly one perfect choice, but there are always many choices
> which are merely good.
>
> If I want to fly off in a rocket ship and explore the stars or kneel
> down before a microscope and study insects, how is that evil? Why
> would any of that be stopped?

Where did I claim that these should be stopped? I'm all for both.

>
> > G'head. Give it a go.....;-) The challenge is; write something
> > that is entertaining, that doesn't involve conflict in any form,
> > the humor doesn't involve misfortune or mockery to anyone or
> > anything, and no comparisons between a beautiful thing and one
> > less lovely, even by inference.
>
> It is hard,

Actually, impossible.

> but there are entertaining things in this world that do
> not require anything bad. For example, games and puzzles. The mystery
> novel could still exist, even if it were not about murder. Also,
> there is sports and action. You could tell a thrilling story of
> intense action where no one was injured and everyone had fun,
> including the reader.

There is, ALWAYS, a conflict. Every single time. games and puzzles are
only fun if there is a difference between success and failure. Sports
and action require winning and succeeding----which in turn requires the
possibility of losing and failing.

>
> Plus, conflict is not necessarily bad. Sports have conflict, but it
> is purely innocent. Play-conflict causes no harm.

Aquit me; I have never stated that conflict is a bad thing. Indeed,
that's my entire point; it's necessary. It is, in fact, the point of my
argument. The choice HAS to be there.

>
> >> Even if evil is absolutely necessary for the making of good
> >> movies, we still have far too much evil.
> >
> > I'll agree with that, actually, but whose fault is that?
> > God's...or those who keep making the wrong choices?
>
> Laying blame is not important.

Actually, it is. Especially to you, faulting God for providing them.

> Who is actually responsible depends on
> how you look at it, so it is pointless to try to figure out a clear
> answer. But one thing is clear: if God wanted it to stop, it would
> stop. That is the nature of the almighty.

Therefore, if God is a good God, there is a reason for the whole thing.
A good one.

>
> >> This amount of suffering in the
> >> world does not come even close to being compensated by the art we
> >> create, and surely we could create good art even with a far lower
> >> level of pain.
> >
> > What are you, personally, doing to alleviate that suffering? I'm
> > not asking this to be snide, or accusative. I'm attempting to make
> > a point; that we do not, any of us, have any right to complain
> > about human pain and suffering unless we are personally doing
> > everything we physically can to alleviate it in our neighbors.
>
> Then we should not complain.

Actually, we shouldn't. We do, of course, and even Christ did a very
heartrending version of it, but....

> Complaining does not change the world or
> make God any better than he is.

You are quite right. It wastes time better spent helping others and
ourselves.

> It is very likely best to go through
> life never complaining against God, for I have no reason to believe
> that he is going to forgive me or anyone.

Except of course that He has said that He will.

> Perhaps he would be angered
> by complaints; that is nothing we want to risk.
>
> But that is not going to stop me from trying to know God better and
> trying to guess at what is in His mind.

I should hope not. If, however, your arguments so far are serious and
not academic explorations of the divine mind, I believe you are
starting from the wrong premise.

>
> >> I would gladly sacrifice all art if that were necessary to stop
> >> all suffering. It would be a bargain in the current state of the
> >> world.
> >
> > Would it, really?
> >
> > But we don't have to "sacrifice all art," y'know. All we would
> > really have to do is simply...choose rightly. Take the recent
> > earthquake that killed so many thousands of people in Turkey. That
> > is suffering, yes? Whose fault was it that so many suffered,
> > God's, or those who allowed all those people to live in
> > substandard housing in abject poverty over a known fault? We know
> > how to build for these things. Had that earthquake happened here,
> > where I live (and I have personally lived through three, one of
> > which was actually stronger), we would have picked up the pictures
> > and widgets that had fallen off the wall, yelled at ourselves for
> > forgetting to strap the TV down, turned on the generator until the
> > power was restored, and maybe, MAYBE, have mourned the loss of
> > less than a dozen lives, if we had lost that many.
>
> We could make things a lot better, but we do not.

And again, whose fault is THAT?

> In an ideal world
> where everyone did everything possible to make the world a good
> place, things would be much better.

Bingo.

> But we don't live in such a world
> and I can see no way to bring such a world about.

And that is the fault of the humans.

> I would sacrifice a
> lot if it would cause God to give us that world in place of this one.

How about...two afternoons a week at the local homeless shelter?

> Perhaps we need Jesus to come back and teach everyone the best way to
> live.

He's already done that. Perhaps we should simply pay attention to His
first visit.

> > WE choose to build in tornado/earthquake/flood country, even when
> > we know the dangers. So whose fault is it when we get hurt by
> > tornados, earthquakes and floods?
>
> There is no doubt that we can cause problems for ourselves, but the
> question remains: why are there tornados and earthquakes and floods
> popping up all over the world for us to avoid? What is God's reason
> for putting those things in his otherwise wonderful creation?

Because without these things, we would be living...or rather not
living...on Mars? Ask any geologist whether all these things are not
required to make this planet habitable for man. What you are saying is,
basically, that the grandfather clock is great, and tells excellent
time, but why on earth do we need all the wheels and gizmos in the
back, or the hands and numbers on the face?

> > Whose fault is it when we win the lottery?
>
> Winning the lottery is pure chance, nothing but luck. No one on earth
> controls that: the world is governed by God, he creates all and he
> knows all, so it is most certainly God's choice when the numbers fall
> one way or another. Who else?

You really think that God micromanages the planet in this way?

>
> > You sound as if you want to be in control of whether other people
> > steal. You can't be. They must be, and that's the point. This is a
> > battle they must fight.
>
> Except sometimes I can have that control and certainly other people
> have such control. They are police officers and it is their job. They
> take the battle away from people.

Notice that they step in, as a general rule, only after the choices
have been made, not before.

>
> If I had the power to stop all crime by removing the option from all
> criminals, I have no doubt that I would do it. Do I understand
> correctly that you would not?

You mean, jailing all criminals after they have performed a criminal
act? Well, certainly I wouldn't be averse to that. However, I think you
are actually talking about removing the ability of anyone to become a
criminal in the first place...and no, I would not do that. It would be
the most evil of all evil things, to remove the ability to make those
choices from others.

> >> > Evil may not be necessary, but the possibility of it is,
> >> > because we can't grow up until we conquer it. How can we
> >> > conquer it if we don't know it's there?
> >>
> >> If that is the case, would it be enough to allow us to view evil
> >> in movies and books by allowing us to imagine evil and perhaps
> >> even encouraging it, while physically preventing us from actually
> >> performing it? That seems like an ideal solution to everything.
> >
> > How would that be enough? What would happen, do you think, to
> > someone who was dealt with in that manner...and then who had to
> > make a choice, for real? His strings cut? We know what happens to
> > many kids when their parental strings are cut; some of them go
> > pretty nuts, because their parents had done with them pretty much
> > as you suggest God do to all men.
>
> Parents let go of their children, but God will never let go of us.

No? Begging a question again, sir. I don't know how much you know about
Mormonism, but....trust me on this, you are begging a very big
question. ;-)

> It
> does not matter how much we grow or do not grow; I will never agree
> that it is a good thing for God to allow us to commit evil.
>
> You are suggesting that if God at first prevented evil but then
> changed his mind and allowed evil, that would be worse then if he had
> allowed evil from the beginning. I have to agree with you about that,
> but that doesn't change the fact that never allowing evil at all is
> even better than any of those options.

ONLY if all we are to him is pretty entertainments on a stage, or pets
that need to be caged up and controlled, or dolls or clay pots. If,
however, we are His Children in reality...???

>
> > The thing is, your solution might work if all we are to be, in
> > eternity, is what we are now, that is, lesser beings whose only
> > purpose in life is...wait. What IS our purpose in God's universe?
> > Are we pets? Children? what?
>
> We are something of that nature, I imagine. If you had unlimited
> power and an empty universe to build anything you could desire in,
> what would you build?

Which nature? There is a very big difference between pets and
offspring.

> >> You mean, a person who would go through life never even
> >> considering doing a bad thing? Then cutting the strings would
> >> mean pushing evil thoughts into that person's mind. One could
> >> hardly blame that person if evil resulted from such an operation.
> >
> > Yet you are blaming God for allowing us to learn to fight evil
> > little by little. Perhaps you should make up your mind what it is
> > you are upset about?
>
> I am not upset about anything; I am merely trying to understand God
> better by looking around and considering the world that He has
> created.
>
> One of the things that causes me much concern is that God makes us
> learn to fight evil little by little, instead of fighting evil
> Himself or showing us how to do it directly and instantly.

Would you teach your child to swim by throwing him in the middle of the
ocean and sailing off?

......or would you start in the local swimming pool, with life guards
and little airfilled armbands?

> >> > We are running headlong into theological doctrine here, y'know.
> >> > What do you think heaven will be like? what IS our ultimate
> >> > goal? What are we going to DO for eternity?
> >> >
> >> > In other words, why do you think we were created?
> >>
> >> In order to answer that, we have to know God. We were created
> >> because God wanted us. Presumably, he wanted to watch us because
> >> we amuse him in some way.
> >
> > Why presume that?
>
> Because I am trying to guess our purpose and so I am trying to take
> God's perspective. Given an unlimited space of nothing and the power
> to put into it whatever I can imagine, I would fill it with all the
> things I can imagine to amuse myself. I would make everything good
> and fun and would strive to make it the best that I could, because
> what other goals could I have?

Could it be, just possibly, that God being God and we not being He,
neither as intelligent nor as knowledgeble, that He could have a
purpose and a goal that we simply don't know about?

In fact, given these things, isn't it more probable than not that His
goals ARE not known, or knowable, to us at our present level? C'mon,
here we are, on just one of the planets that He created in the wide
universe, having the shear hubris to figure that we are smart enough to
understand....and thus to blame....Him?

> In other words, if our reason for existing is not for God's
> amusement, then what could it possibly be for? God can have no goals
> that He needs help to achieve, so we cannot be here for that.

What is the parent's goal for having a child? Trust me on this one, I'm
a woman who has borne and raised five children through to adulthood. I
didn't do it for the amusement factor, though I will admit that I loved
being a mom. I will love being a grandmother as well, if my kids ever
get around to giving me grandkids (private grump..). If all I wanted to
do was amuse myself, I'd much rather have gone on cruises.

> >> Perhaps he was bored with a universe full of thoughtless
> >> lumps and decided to create beings like himself that were capable
> >> of thought. If God really does love us, then perhaps he created
> >> us because he wanted something to love. So I would say our
> >> purpose is to entertain and maybe to be loved by God.
> >
> > That is, of course, begging a large question, assuming as a
> > 'given' something that is not at all a 'given'. All of the
> > following argument depends upon this assumption that God created
> > us because we "amuse Him in some way." I don't agree with that
> > assumption; it's not a "given," at all.
>
> Do you have another idea to replace it, or is that still the best
> that we can come up with?

I do, and that idea has been threaded all through this post. I believe
that I am a daughter of God. You are His Son. That's who we all are.

It. Is. Not. A. Metaphor.

Diana

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 14, 2006, 6:02:34 PM1/14/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
> > Rick Hawk wrote:
> >> But remember that there can be only one omnipotent being.
> >
> > I can see where you get this idea. However, this may not be
> > necessarily so. There is a problem with the definition, for one
> > thing; if an omnipotent being has all the power, wherein is there
> > any left for anyone else to use? Wherein is there power for stars
> > to shine, or people to act, or planets to rotate? However, if
> > "omnipotent" means that one has the ability to act upon all things
> > and can do all things should one choose, then that leaves the
> > possibility of others to use power in and of themselves. Like us.
>
> This is how I take the meaning of omnipotent as well, but even with
> this lesser definition of omnipotent, there can be only one
> omnipotent being. All things happen in accordance with God's will, so
> any conflict that comes between God and any other entity must always
> be resolved in favor of God.

In this universe, yes.

> Humans have free will, but only because
> God continuously allows it. If God chose to veto any of our
> decisions, he could do so without effort.

He could. I'll agree with that.

>
> Therefore, if there were any other omnipotent beings, they would all
> have to bend to God's will, which can only mean that they are not
> truly omnipotent. In other words, if two beings were equal dictators
> of all things, they would have to resolve conflicts in some way. If
> we call them A and B, then perhaps A always wins and A is truly
> omnipotent and B is just following A's rules. Otherwise, sometimes A
> wins and sometimes B wins, then neither of them are omnipotent.
>
> >> Remember that we cannot actually see God.
> >
> > We can't?
>
> Surely we can't. We can pray to him, but he never speaks back, except
> in the minds of the mentally ill.

oops. Begging the question again.

> He isn't sitting on a mountain
> somewhere for us to view Him. All we have is his works to try to
> guess about what he is.

What you are using as a premise is faulty; you are stating as if it
were fact that A: God exists, but B: He isn't talking.

There are a few problems with the above, y'know. One of the biggies is
that you are talking to someone who disagrees vehemently with B.

> >> >> On the other hand, if he had set the fire and trapped the
> >> Even if
> >> there is a way to predict most disasters, we aren't talking about
> >> someone with limited power to warn us. If God wanted to warn us,
> >> we would all be warned without a doubt. Anything that only
> >> happens most of the time isn't the clear will of God, or else it
> >> would happen all of the time.
> >
> > "limited power to warn us"? What do we need warnings for, now,
> > when we already KNOW that building unreinforced housing over an
> > earthquake fault will cost lives, that building houses in the path
> > of a Mississippi flood is a bad idea, or that New Orleans is
> > probably not the best place to build a city (do you have ANY idea
> > how many times the folk who built there were told not to, from the
> > very first white settlements there?), or that a trailer park in
> > "tornado alley" is a really stupid idea?
> >
> > No, sir....that lives are lost in such disasters is a tragedy,
> > yes. But those lost lives cannot be blamed on God. They are the
> > result of calculated risks taken by those who make the choices to
> > live where they do.
>
> It is easy enough to find examples of avoidable disasters, but can
> you say that all natural disasters are avoidable?

Avoidable? More than we think, and those that are not avoidable we can
certainly better handle than we do now.

For crying out loud, if Mt. Vesuvius erupts again (and it does often
enough..) whose fault is it if the lava covers some more homes? How
much warning do you think we NEED about these things?

> There are very few
> places on earth that are not vulnerable to any kind of natural
> disaster. Anything with a view of the water is vulnerable to a
> tsunami, the globe is cobwebbed with fault-lines, in flat land we get
> tornados, in mountainous areas we get avalanches, and by the shore we
> get hurricanes.

Indeed...and we know how to ameliorate the damage of all these things.
Or if not, we know the risks of living there and take them anyway.

>
> God is in all things, after all, so we cannot just take some of the
> best situations and imagine that He is perfect. We have to look at
> everything, all disasters and all of creation, and use that to try to
> guess what God might be like. Ignoring any part of it can only lead
> to a lesser understanding of God. In other words, look at the worst
> of the world to see what the worst of God can be.

The 'worst that God can be" in terms of what the planet can do pales
considerably next to the worst that men can be.

> >> dianaiad wrote:
> >> > There are some amazingly wonderful things about this world that
> >> > I would be quite happy to carry with me to the next one.
> >>
> >> What makes you think those are the things that will carry over to
> >> the next life? I have no idea what will carry over and I see many
> >> bad things around me in the world. The afterlife will be where I
> >> spend eternity and even slightest of the bad things on earth
> >> would become intolerable after a few thousand years.
> >
> > Well, I have some notion of what will go with me. My love of
> > family, my love of learning, my attitude, my appreciation of
> > beauty and what makes things beautiful...
>
> You do not get to decide what you take with you, only God can choose.
> For example, that is why some look upon a life spent in the pursuit
> of money as a wasted on, because God is unlikely to allow you to
> bring your money to the next world.

Begging the question again. I think you are going to have to be
specific as to what and who you think deity is, because it's quite
obvious that we aren't working from the same premises here.

>
> On the other hand, I agree that we will all very likely get to bring
> our own values into the next life, but unfortunately, our values have
> very little impact on the world around us. We do not get to enforce
> our wills as God can enforce His. I am more concerned that there
> might be natural disasters in the next life.

Might be. (shrug) Who knows?

>
> >> > Rick Hawk wrote:
> >> >> Don't forget about the misery of the loved ones that the dead
> >> >> leave behind.
> >> >
> >> > I'm not likely to forget that. It's a pain every human on the
> >> > planet shares. It's one of the things that faith ameliorates.
> >>
> >> But it cannot eliminate it.
> >
> > We should not. To eliminate it, we would also have to eliminate
> > the memories of what made them worth knowing. The thing is, from
> > my own life, I know that one cannot know what joy is, unless one
> > has also known sorrow. An 'even keel' is flat, unproductive and
> > very boring.
>
> You might say that it is very boring because you cannot think of what
> could be fun and exciting in a world without suffering, but people
> always try very hard to find a way to have fun under any
> circumstances, so we must also try hard when we are trying to predict
> what life will be like. Just because the fun and excitement isn't
> obvious at first glance does not mean it would not be there.

I think you need to look at a definition for the word 'excitement'.

>
> For example, in a world without suffering, there would still be
> skydiving, it would just be a kind of skydiving where the parachute
> always opens. Skydiving is always exciting, there is no version of
> skydiving possible that would be boring, even if all of the risk is
> removed. Imagine that God went to great lengths to ensure that his
> loved-ones would come to no harm and that the earth would be as soft
> as pillows to a skydiver so that he could dive without a parachute at
> all. Can you really imagine that not being fun?

I can't imagine a skydiver thinking that would be fun. Such a scenario
might get ME in an airplane, but most of the jumpers I know are
adrenalin junkies, and you don't get that rush if you don't think
there's a risk. As for me, I won't even get on a roller-coaster, so...

> How about a version of laser tag that uses fighter jet planes instead
> of little hand-held guns? That sounds pretty not-boring to me and all
> the better knowing no one could be killed accidentally. It would be
> really expensive, but in a world without stealing and without
> medicine, there would be a lot more wealth.

It would be no more exciting than a video game. Less....and the risk of
losing would also still be there.

Are you one of those 'outcome based' education people? ;-)

> The world is full or wonderful things that do not require suffering
> in any form; that is the good part of God. I merely suggest that the
> rest of creation represents God at His less-than-perfect.

There ARE such wonderful things. And we should go look for them, and
choose them over the other not-so-wonderful things.

>
> >> or try to think of that suffering as
> >> insignificant, even if humans are capable of far more suffering.
> >
> > Fine, then we should ourselves do something about it, since we are
> > the ones who put ourselves in harms way in the first place. What
> > we should NOT do is blame the train for running over us when we
> > picnic on the rails.
>
> True, but if someone decided to cover the entire world in rails, then
> I would want to find someone to complain to. At the very least, I
> would like to know why he did it.

But...he has not done so, has He?

Icarus

unread,

Jan 14, 2006, 6:31:00 PM1/14/06

fyf...@gmail.com wrote:

Err.. No. :-) There wouldn't be much point in postulating a god who
couldn't control his creation, it seems to me.

Icarus

unread,

Jan 14, 2006, 7:27:40 PM1/14/06

dianaiad wrote:

> Icarus wrote:
<snip>...
>> If you assert that your god
>> has free will, and yet is perfectly good, then that destroys
>> your argument that *we* couldn't have been made the same way.
>> Does your god freely choose never to do wrong? If so, then
>> why can't we?
>
> Who said we couldn't?

You did, when I said:

...so he's responsible. An omnipotent god could
have made us with free will but perfect so we never do
wrong, just like him,

...and you replied:

Where in this is 'free will'? Free will ABSOLUTELY
requires that the choices be free; that is, you have to be
able to choose to sin as well as to 'not sin'. You have to
be capable of making that choice and acting on it. You are
describing Calvinism in reverse here; where the Calvinists
posit that God has created all men to be abject
reprobates/sinners, you are mad at Him because He didn't
create all men to be perfect non-sinners. Two halves of
the same coin, in other words, and neither half allow for
any choice.

Right there, where you said that "neither half allow for any choice". You
were saying that to be a "perfect non-sinner" (as you claim god is) doesn't
allow for any choice.

>>>> By your logic, he can have one or the other, but not both.
>>>
>>> We aren't talking about God. We are talking about human
>>> beings.
>>
>> I agree - We're talking about why you assert that human
>> beings don't have the property that you claim for your god,
>> which is to freely choose never to do wrong.
>
> You have never heard me say that it was impossible to live a
> sin free life.

I think I did - right there where you said that being a 'perfect
non-sinner' does not allow for any choice.

> Highly improbable, yes. But then, what are the
> possibilities that any child can learn to spell without ever
> once mispelling a word? What are the possibilities that
> anybody at all can learn to do anything without making
> mistakes along the way? It's called "growing up" and "learning
> a new skill."

Oh I agree, absolutely - real life isn't like the fantastic property of
perfection that you suppose your god possesses. The problem lies in your
assumption that such a property is possible, and the reasonable conclusion
that therefore your omnipotent god could (if he wished it) have bestowed
the same property upon us too when he created us.

<snip>...
>>>>>> or at best being omniscient he could have foreseen that we
>>>>>> would do wrong and not created us in the first place.
>>>>>> Whichever way you look at it, you cannot absolve your
>>>>>> supposed creator from responsibility for his creation.
>>>>>
>>>>> Of course I can....but I can see where, if I believed as
>>>>> you assume I do, you would come to the conclusion you have
>>>>> done. You might say that you are speaking to theists in
>>>>> general and Christianity (as you see it) specifically, but
>>>>> you are answering my specific post.
>>>>
>>>> Well it's a simple matter - Did your supposed god foresee
>>>> that we would sin, and freely choose to create us anyway?
>>>> If so, he's responsible for sin, since it didn't have to
>>>> exist, and indeed wouldn't have existed if he hadn't chosen
>>>> to create it. The reasoning is inescapable.
>>>
>>> Did you, as a parent, forsee that your children would have
>>> problems in their lives, make really stupid decisions,
>>> sometimes come to harm, sometimes make total asses out of
>>> themselves and indeed, be pretty normal children on their way
>>> to becoming adults, with all the angst and foolishness that
>>> goes with that, and did you choose to have them anyway? If
>>> so, you are responsible for every bad choice your child
>>> makes, EXACTLY the way God is responsible for every bad
>>> choice we make. To precisely the same level.
>>
>> Only if you believe I'm omnipotent and omniscient. I
>> don't... :-)
>
> Doesn't an omnipotent God have the ability to allow us to
> choose between good and evil ourselves? If He doesn't, how
> can He be omnipotent? This one isn't a paradox, y'know. There
> is nothing 'can God create a rock He can't lift' in the idea.

The problem is not just with omnipotence, but with omniscience too - Unless
you're going to argue that your god didn't, and doesn't, know anything
about the horrific things that people do, then you have to accept that he
knows everything and chooses that it will happen.

>>> The problem with allowing people their free will is that they
>>> will use it; and you have to let them even when the choices
>>> they make are horrifically, tragically wrong, or it's not
>>> really free will, is it?
>>
>> As it happens I don't think free will really exists at all,
>
> Oh? Calvinist or determinist of another stripe?

I just think that if you try to examine it, the notion of 'free will' melts
away like candy floss in your mouth and you find there is nothing there.

>> but that's
>> another matter... All I'm pointing out here is that you seem
>> to have different rules for humans and god - You allow him
>> free will and perfect goodness but seem to deny that we could
>> have been made the same way. Why?

>
> Because if we were MADE the same way, perfectly good, we
> wouldn't have free will, would we

Then you deny your god free will by the same argument! How much more
obvious can this be?

> ...any more than an ancient
> Greek statue of Venus can be anything but what the sculpter
> made it, neither more, nor less, beautiful. No chance of
> growth there, no chance of expansion.
>

>>>>>>> the problem with having free will is that when we make
>>>>>>> choices, we also choose the consequences of the choices.
>>>>>>> Sometimes those consequences affect more than just us.
>>>>>>> Sometimes the choices made by a corrupt or uncaring group
>>>>>>> of mine owners will have consequences for the workers.
>>>>>>> Sometimes the choice made by a government, that allows
>>>>>>> its citizens to live in incredibly substandard housing,
>>>>>>> will result in death and destruction when an earthquake
>>>>>>> hits. Sometimes individual choices to live in a place
>>>>>>> that DOES flood periodically, WILL result in getting
>>>>>>> flooded out.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> What amazes the hell out of me is this: how atheists, who
>>>>>>> say that they do NOT believe in God, will blame Him for
>>>>>>> all the evil in the world, when the theists who believe
>>>>>>> in Him and all the stuff that comes with Him, understand
>>>>>>> that He is not. you want irony? THAT is irony.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Well, no, we're not blaming a god for anything, just
>>>>>> highlighting the fact that your position is indefensible
>>>>>> :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> The problem of course is that you aren't highlighting my
>>>>> position at all. Why should I defend a position I don't
>>>>> hold in the first place?
>>>>
>>>> If you believe that your god freely chose to create us and
>>>> knew in advance how we would behave, then you cannot deny
>>>> that he freely chose to create sin.
>>>
>>> No. The most you can say is that He freely chose to allow US
>>> to create it.
>>
>> But this is absurd - you're saying he knew in advance that
>> the Nazis would throw living children into the furnaces,
>
> Is that what I am saying? Odd, I didn't think so.

He didn't know? Then that does away with god's omniscience and his
omnipotence too, since omnipotence means being able to do anything and he
can't be omnipotent if one thing he can't do is see our future. Does he
know now, do you think? Did he know the instant they were doing it, do you
think? Was he watching? Is he watching now?

>> he could have chosen not to create
>> us, but he chose to create us and watch it all happen... and
>> yet this god is perfectly good? Something is very wrong with
>> this argument.
>
> I don't know what. Where in having a father be 'perfectly
> good' does it say that his children have to be? OUR poor
> choices are ours, not His. He has made His. It's our turn.

I'm not saying we *have* to be - What I'm saying is that in making that
choice that we're *not* going to be perfectly good, your (supposed) god is
responsible for us not being perfectly good, i.e. he is responsible for all
our 'poor choices', as you call them. God is responsible for evil because
it wouldn't have existed if he hadn't freely chosen for it to exist when it
didn't have to.

> Not to mention that (and I do get tired of mentioning this
> small point) God's view of the universe, should He exist and
> the stories about him are true in any way, is a bit wider than
> ours. As we see the happenings of a second, or a minute, in
> the duration of a life time, so He would see our entire
> lives...even if we can't see before or after our lives
> ourselves. In fact, the only way your criticisms of God work
> are if He actually does NOT exist; a paradoxical view, indeed.

I don't see how you work that one out, and you're contradicting yourself
now by asserting that your god sees our entire lives - so he *must* have
known about Nazis throwing living children into the furnaces before, during
and after the events, and he freely chose that this would happen when he
could just as easily chosen for it not to happen. Do you agree?

> Consider: you are criticizing Him as if we all ceased to exist
> at death (as atheists insist) and yet actually exists;
> therefore, our mortal lives are the be all and end all of HIS
> purpose for existance. You (general 'you') won't accept the
> other half of the story, that is, that if God is, then there
> is ALSO this eternity of existance for US, as well. A very,
> very long time indeed, of which this small mortal existance is
> but a minute or so.
>
> We can handle anything for a minute or so. Or rather, if it is
> our children who are being hurt for a minute or so, even if
> THEY don't understand why, WE do, and can watch as the doctor,
> say, sticks needles in them, or cuts them with something, or
> does something else that the child simply does not understand,
> at the time...and to which he protests mightily.

I really hoped I wouldn't hear this shameful argument from you. Can't you
see how disgusting it is to attempt in the slightest way to diminish the
suffering that some humans go through? You're saying that the agonizing
deaths of those children don't matter. You're saying that all the terrible
torture and unimaginable suffering endured by people throughout history
doesn't matter.

You should consider that if the only way to defend your belief is to make
such an atrocious and absurd argument, then the belief isn't worth
defending.

>>>> To argue against this position you have to deny his free
>>>> will, or his omniscience, or his existence. Which is it to
>>>> be?
>>>
>>> How does this deny HIS free will? He has chosen to allow us
>>> OUR free will, good choices or bad ones. How does that remove
>>> His from Him?
>>
>> What I meant was that if god had no choice - that he *had* to
>> create us,
>
> Big 'if'.
>
>> and had to create us exactly as we are, for some reason -
>> then that would let him off the hook, so to speak. If
>> instead he freely chose to create us then he freely chose to
>> create the evil that humans do.
>
> Actually, I believe that He freely chose to have children.
> Just as you and I have done.

And you will have to live with the logical consequences of that belief, if
you can, or come to your senses and give it up.

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 15, 2006, 12:20:13 AM1/15/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:

>> dianaiad wrote:
>> When thinking of this example, I cannot help but bring to mind
>> the one who created leukemia.
>
> Begging the question, of course, of who did 'create
> leukemia'....everybody has to die of something.

Adam and Eve did not have to die of anything, that was a part of their
punishment. We die because it is God's will and only for that reason.

>> You are making an analogy between the doctors and God, but
>> imagine what would happen if the doctors actually were God. The
>> little girl would be spared all of the suffering because she
>> would be instantly cured by people who care about her.
>
> You are, of course, pushing the analogy too far. Yes, if we could,
> we would instantly and painlessly cure her.
>
> But...what if doing so actually does her more harm than good?

You would not be able to convince her of that. This benefit that you
think comes from suffering is strange and incomprehensible. I am aware
that God might understand things that we cannot, but can you shed any
more light on the nature of this benefit?

>> But all of that is a side-track, because I understand the nature
>> of your analogy and I was missing the point with the first two
>> comments. You are really saying that all of the suffering we have
>> here on earth is helping us in some greater way that we cannot
>> even imagine. But again, imagine that the doctors were actually
>> God and the analogy still breaks down. If the doctors were God,
>> they could cure the girl painlessly because they would be
>> all-powerful. I do not know what God's plan is for us, but I do
>> know that he could prepare us painlessly if he wanted, simply
>> because there is nothing which he cannot do. If he wanted us to
>> have certain knowledge, he could have created us with the
>> knowledge already installed.
>
> Unless this is something that we have to do ourselves, and learn
> ourselves. I think you understand that simply giving your child
> everything he wants is a very bad idea.

There are only two kinds of things which we must do: the things which
God cannot do for us and the things which God chooses to not do for
us. If it were my child, there are many things which I cannot do for
him, there are things which he must do for himself and I have to make
him learn lessons in just the way you suggest. But unless your beliefs
about God are radically different from mine, God does not have that
problem. There are no things which God cannot do for us. Then the
question remains: why does God choose not to do these things for us?

If He wanted us to be smart and brave and wise, He could make us so
instantly and without effort. That is one of the things that even we
can know about God. And from that, it is clear that he does not want
those things for us except to the extent that we already have them.
God does not want us to improve, or he wants us to improve slowly
simply because he wants to watch it happen and not because he lacks
the power to make it instant as a human parent would.

>> God knows all things and so we should trust Him, but he also
>> creates all things, and so we can perhaps learn things about Him
>> that He has not told us by looking at what He has done. Actions
>> tell us more about Him than words.
>
> Yes...but seems to me that the vast majority of those who blame
> God for things completely discount the role of human choice in
> those things.

When people talk about God and blame God for things, it is often
because God is fascinating. God is the most important being in the
universe. The role that humans play in various things on earth is
often ignored as being uninteresting, but if God plays any small role
in something, that is immediately a huge concern.

God can cure her without the suffering and chooses not to, this makes
Him different from the doctors in a very important way. I do not think
it makes Him better.

>> God is making this choice, and I do not trust your
>> interpretation of His reason. Perhaps we will gain through
>> suffering, but perhaps not. It is hard not to doubt that one who
>> chooses to not to give us our great return without the suffering
>> will give it to us merely because of the suffering.
>
> I think it has a great deal to do with...that which is simply
> given to us is not appreciated, or properly used.

You seem to think of God as if He were merely human. God is almighty
with ultimate power over everything. The entire universe exists
because of Him and His will drives it forward. If God wants something
from us or for us He can get it with or without suffering involved. I
know this simply because any statement of the form: God can do <blank>
will always be true.

One might think that having appreciation inserted into a person's head
would be rather violating and uncomfortable. I certainly would not be
eager to have God do that to me, but I think the little girl with
leukemia might have a different idea. She would be balancing being
made to appreciate something by direct touch of God with months or
years of suffering and I doubt she would need a minute to decide.

>> It is as if we were taking God to court and suing Him for the
>> suffering he has caused, so to repay us he gives us a great
>> reward.
>
> No, it is as if we have fully learned a lesson that, since we are
> humans, we don't seem to be able to learn in other ways. It IS a
> truism that simply giving your children everything they want
> spoils them in every single sense of the word.

The reason we don't seem able to learn in other ways is because God
built us that way. He created us, so he must have wanted learning to
be a slow and painful process when he designed us.

>> God has omnipotent
>> power and He does not need suffering as a motivation to give us
>> any reward in any form. If He wanted us to have it, He would
>> simply give it to us.
>
> And if you wanted your child to be a doctor, you'd hand him the
> diploma, right?

No, but I am not God. If God wanted his child to be a doctor, He would
hand the child a diploma and all of the knowledge needed to be a real
doctor.

>> >> It is better to conquer it, but it is far worse to know evil
>> >> and not conquer it, which is what we have now. If God had
>> >> wanted us to conquer evil, he would not have given us a world
>> >> were such a thing is so impossible that even over thousands of
>> >> years many billions of people have lived and died in a world
>> >> of evil, all failing to conquer evil.
>> >
>> > Why do you think that we have to do it all RIGHT NOW? We are
>> > going, according to the doctrines of most theistic systems,
>> > going to live forever. Why then do we have to perfect ourselves
>> > here? That we need to begin to do so is obvious, but...
>>
>> What motivation could God possibly have to make our perfection a
>> slow process?
>
> Because it's OUR perfection, and not His? Perhaps the rate of
> perfection has a great deal more to do with our abilities than
> with His. He's already perfect.

You are right that it has nothing at all to do with God's abilities,
but the curious connection with God is this: Why did God choose to
give us the abilities that He did? If he wanted us to grow, why not
make us learn instantly and never forget?

>> >> If conquering evil is the point of life, then where are the
>> >> tools for conquering evil? Humans have fantasized about them
>> >> forever and yet they are denied to us. The only thing that we
>> >> are able to do to battle evil seems to be to battle each other
>> >> in bloody conflict.
>> >
>> > Your free will is a tool. The scriptures are a tool. Your
>> > faith, prayers, the guidance you receive in personal prayer is
>> > a tool. In fact, these are very powerful tools.
>>
>> They are powerful in a sense, but only by comparison to
>> everything else that we have. They are not powerful in the sense
>> that they cannot eradicate evil and suffering from the world. If
>> this is the most powerful tool that God has given us, then I can
>> only conclude that he does not want us to succeed.
>
> What else do we have? What do you mean by 'everything else'? The
> battle over evil is very personal; we have to conquer it
> personally. If we take that battle away from others, we are also
> removing their ability to make their own choices in the world. Do
> you think that would be a good thing?

Perhaps there are no other tools in the battle against evil. More
importantly, regarding the question of removing choices, there are
many different kinds of choices. There are choices to steal things and
there are choices to eat one thing or another for breakfast. Some
choices are clearly bad and to remove them is clearly good. Other
choices are not clearly bad and to remove them is not clearly good.

You talk as if I was suggesting the removal of all choices. I merely
think that the world would be better with the removal of those choices
which are clearly bad. I have no interest in dictating what people
should have for breakfast or what books they should read.

>> > What, you think that knowledge will go away because it has
>> > served its purpose?
>>
>> I do not believe it will go away, but I do believe that it will
>> no longer have a purpose. God is driving us to collect useless
>> knowledge, because once all diseases are destroyed, all our
>> learning about medicine will be for nothing.
>
> Why then, people will forget, and the diseases will come back, and
> we will have it all to learn again...what makes you think that
> because WE may grow and learn and develop measures against
> disease, that evil and disease are standing still?

I do not think that at all. I think that God enjoys tormenting us with
diseases and no matter what we do, there will always be new diseases
to fight. My point is only that this is in no way a good thing. God is
making us find a solution for a problem that only exists because God
wants it. Medicine is a battle that we fight directly against nature
and therefore God and so we can never win.

>> Of course, God is capable of removing all evil from the world,
>> but man is also capable of removing some evil and he does very
>> often. Whenever we put criminals in jail, we are doing it to
>> remove the option of committing crimes.
>
> We are administering the consequences of their own choices to
> those who commit crimes, and protect ourselves from possible
> future crimes, but are we eliminating anything? The goods are
> still there to be stolen by someone else, the choice of whether or
> not to commit evil is still there; it's just being made by someone
> else.

I am pretty sure that is not right. People all make their own choices.
If you can no longer make choices for yourself, no one else is going
to take over. A person put in prison does not have someone else
outside to steal for him, that option is completely cut of. If it
happens that people outside are still stealing, that is completely
unconnected.

> Those people who are incarcerated, by the way, are still quite
> capable of choosing to do evil. OR to do good.

The point of putting someone in prison is to prevent that very thing.
A person in prison may still be able to do bad things, but if he does,
he is put into solitary confinement where it is only him and the
walls, and he cannot even hurt the walls.

>> I merely meant that God introduced problems into his creation in
>> the form of natural disasters and expects us to learn to fight
>> them, but if he had simply chosen not to introduce the problems
>> then the knowledge of how to fight them would be useless.
>
> "not to introduce the problems"? You mean, not to have a planet
> with weather, or tectonic movement, or any of the other things
> that are involved in natural disasters?
>
> We have such planets, actually. Nobody lives there. This could
> cause a problem, I think.
> However, you have switched topics. What do natural disasters have
> to do with people who choose to steal, or who, knowing that the
> Mississippi floods big time regularly, still choose to build where
> they are going to get wet?

Surely a flood is a natural disaster. What I would very much like to
know is why God makes us work so hard to avoid natural disasters when
he could merely have not chosen to create them.

It seems that you are pointing out that there are scientific reasons
why natural disasters are necessary for life on earth, but
environmental science is meaningless in a discussion of God because
God makes all the rules. If he wanted a calm, peaceful planet where
people could live happily, he could make it. That is the tautology of
God: If you can say it, he can do it.

>> But actually, will those choice always be there for all? They
>> would not if man finds a way to finally eliminate evil by locking
>> everyone in prison where we can never hurt anyone.
>
> Isn't that what you are advocating that God do, put all mankind in
> a "prison" of sorts where we cannot do any evil?

I didn't mean that it was necessarily bad; I only gave it as an
example of how the choice to do evil can be removed from us. Though
now that I think of it, if we tried something like that, God would
surely take direct steps to prevent it.

>> Perhaps they are
>> all between different quantities of good or evil, where there is
>> always exactly one perfect choice, but there are always many
>> choices which are merely good.
>>
>> If I want to fly off in a rocket ship and explore the stars or
>> kneel down before a microscope and study insects, how is that
>> evil? Why would any of that be stopped?
>
> Where did I claim that these should be stopped? I'm all for both.

You claimed that there would be no exploration in a world where God
had removed evil choices from people, which strongly suggests that you
consider those things evil. If not, then why would they stop?

>> > G'head. Give it a go.....;-) The challenge is; write something
>> > that is entertaining, that doesn't involve conflict in any
>> > form, the humor doesn't involve misfortune or mockery to anyone
>> > or anything, and no comparisons between a beautiful thing and
>> > one less lovely, even by inference.
>>
>> It is hard,
>
> Actually, impossible.
>
>> but there are entertaining things in this world that do
>> not require anything bad. For example, games and puzzles. The
>> mystery novel could still exist, even if it were not about
>> murder. Also, there is sports and action. You could tell a
>> thrilling story of intense action where no one was injured and
>> everyone had fun, including the reader.
>
> There is, ALWAYS, a conflict. Every single time. games and puzzles
> are only fun if there is a difference between success and failure.
> Sports and action require winning and succeeding----which in turn
> requires the possibility of losing and failing.
>>
>> Plus, conflict is not necessarily bad. Sports have conflict, but
>> it is purely innocent. Play-conflict causes no harm.
>
> Aquit me; I have never stated that conflict is a bad thing.
> Indeed, that's my entire point; it's necessary. It is, in fact,
> the point of my argument. The choice HAS to be there.

You have said a few times that there could be no conflict in art in a
world without evil. I had assumed that you said that because you
considered all conflict to involve evil. If conflict is good, then why
can it not exist in a world free of evil?

>> Who is actually responsible depends on
>> how you look at it, so it is pointless to try to figure out a
>> clear answer. But one thing is clear: if God wanted it to stop,
>> it would stop. That is the nature of the almighty.
>
> Therefore, if God is a good God, there is a reason for the whole
> thing. A good one.

That is not possible. God cannot be using these things as means to
some greater end, because God does not require means. God can jump
straight to His goal with no steps in between. That means that all the
bad things on earth are part of God's goals and the only reasons for
them exists within God's mind. For whatever reason, he wants some bad
things to happen on earth in addition to all of his many good goals.

>> There is no doubt that we can cause problems for ourselves, but
>> the question remains: why are there tornados and earthquakes and
>> floods popping up all over the world for us to avoid? What is
>> God's reason for putting those things in his otherwise wonderful
>> creation?
>
> Because without these things, we would be living...or rather not
> living...on Mars? Ask any geologist whether all these things are
> not required to make this planet habitable for man. What you are
> saying is, basically, that the grandfather clock is great, and
> tells excellent time, but why on earth do we need all the wheels
> and gizmos in the back, or the hands and numbers on the face?

When we are talking about the works of God, anything is possible. The
geologist assumes that God is not going to help us to survive on the
planet. Is he mistaken? If not, is it because God does not want to
help or because God cannot help? I expect the geologist believes the
latter and I believe the former. What do you believe?

>> > Whose fault is it when we win the lottery?
>>
>> Winning the lottery is pure chance, nothing but luck. No one on
>> earth controls that: the world is governed by God, he creates all
>> and he knows all, so it is most certainly God's choice when the
>> numbers fall one way or another. Who else?
>
> You really think that God micromanages the planet in this way?

Of course. Do you not believe that God is a limitless being? He knows
everything and sees everything. I hardly think something as huge as
winning the lottery would be beneath his attention.

>> We are something of that nature, I imagine. If you had unlimited
>> power and an empty universe to build anything you could desire
>> in, what would you build?
>
> Which nature? There is a very big difference between pets and
> offspring.

I do not know which. Why does it make a difference in how God treats
us? He is far higher above us than we are above a dog or cat.

> Could it be, just possibly, that God being God and we not being
> He, neither as intelligent nor as knowledgeble, that He could have
> a purpose and a goal that we simply don't know about?
>
> In fact, given these things, isn't it more probable than not that
> His goals ARE not known, or knowable, to us at our present level?
> C'mon, here we are, on just one of the planets that He created in
> the wide universe, having the shear hubris to figure that we are
> smart enough to understand....and thus to blame....Him?

It is not as hard as it might seem. Though God is very complicated in
ways and much of Him is unknowable, there are also many important
things that we can easily know about Him. For example: God has no
problems and he has no worries. Surely that comes directly from having
complete control over the destiny of the universe and everything.

From that, there are things which we can say about his goals. We can't
say exactly what they are, but we can say that his goals are not to
solve his problems. Since he does not have any problems, his goals
must all be set for Himself by Himself. If that is the case, then why
is He using us to solve nonexistent problems?

Especially considering how much we are suffering for whatever this
great purpose is, it reminds me of slaves building pyramids in ancient
Egypt. He is making us suffer to achieve some purpose, but he created
that purpose. If He had not done that, we would not have to suffer.
How can He do that and still be perfectly good?

> What is the parent's goal for having a child? Trust me on this
> one, I'm a woman who has borne and raised five children through to
> adulthood. I didn't do it for the amusement factor, though I will
> admit that I loved being a mom. I will love being a grandmother as
> well, if my kids ever get around to giving me grandkids (private
> grump..). If all I wanted to do was amuse myself, I'd much rather
> have gone on cruises.

Then you are in a far better position than I am to say what the goal
is. If you believe that is God's goal for us, then please tell me what
it is. As I understand it, a parent's goal for having a child is to
have someone to love. When I said 'amusement' I was including love as
part of that. Do you mean that God created us to love us, or something
else?

> I believe that I am a daughter of God. You are His Son. That's who
> we all are.

Is having children a deep, biological drive that cannot be explained
rationally? Is that the reason why God created us? If so, then God has
no purpose for us. We exist only because God needs us on a fundamental
emotional level.

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 15, 2006, 1:02:31 AM1/15/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:
>> He isn't sitting on a mountain
>> somewhere for us to view Him. All we have is his works to try to
>> guess about what he is.
>
> What you are using as a premise is faulty; you are stating as if
> it were fact that A: God exists, but B: He isn't talking.
>
> There are a few problems with the above, y'know. One of the
> biggies is that you are talking to someone who disagrees
> vehemently with B.

Then that was my mistake. I had assumed that you would agree with B.
Am I correct in assuming that nothing he has said is important in
this discussion? I notice that you have made no direct quotes from
God.

>> God is in all things, after all, so we cannot just take some of
>> the best situations and imagine that He is perfect. We have to
>> look at everything, all disasters and all of creation, and use
>> that to try to guess what God might be like. Ignoring any part of
>> it can only lead to a lesser understanding of God. In other
>> words, look at the worst of the world to see what the worst of
>> God can be.
>
> The 'worst that God can be" in terms of what the planet can do
> pales considerably next to the worst that men can be.

My point is simply that the worst that God can be is less than
absolutely good and perfect. Am I correct in guessing from your tone
that you agree with that?

>> dianaiad wrote:
>> > Well, I have some notion of what will go with me. My love of
>> > family, my love of learning, my attitude, my appreciation of
>> > beauty and what makes things beautiful...
>>
>> You do not get to decide what you take with you, only God can
>> choose. For example, that is why some look upon a life spent in
>> the pursuit of money as a wasted on, because God is unlikely to
>> allow you to bring your money to the next world.
>
> Begging the question again. I think you are going to have to be
> specific as to what and who you think deity is, because it's quite
> obvious that we aren't working from the same premises here.

I start with the assumption that God is an all-powerful, all-knowing
being with limitless abilities that created the universe and all of
mankind. Beyond that I am making inferences about what he must be by
looking at his creation.

So far, my inferences have lead me to believe that our lives are a
drama that he watches for some kind of amusement. He toys with with
us, throwing disasters and diseases at us to see how we will react.
But all of that is up for debate; I am not entirely sure about it.

However, I do know that God makes all the rules. If God does not want
you to take your money with you, then you will not. If God does not
want you to take your beliefs with you, then you will lose them. I do
not know what God wants. Do you?

>> > Rick Hawk wrote:
>> >> dianaiad wrote:
>> >> > Rick Hawk wrote:
>> >> >> Don't forget about the misery of the loved ones that the
>> >> >> dead leave behind.
>> >> >
>> >> > I'm not likely to forget that. It's a pain every human on
>> >> > the planet shares. It's one of the things that faith
>> >> > ameliorates.
>> >>
>> >> But it cannot eliminate it.
>> >
>> > We should not. To eliminate it, we would also have to eliminate
>> > the memories of what made them worth knowing. The thing is,
>> > from my own life, I know that one cannot know what joy is,
>> > unless one has also known sorrow. An 'even keel' is flat,
>> > unproductive and very boring.
>>
>> You might say that it is very boring because you cannot think of
>> what could be fun and exciting in a world without suffering, but
>> people always try very hard to find a way to have fun under any
>> circumstances, so we must also try hard when we are trying to
>> predict what life will be like. Just because the fun and
>> excitement isn't obvious at first glance does not mean it would
>> not be there.
>
> I think you need to look at a definition for the word
> 'excitement'.

I have done so, but I must have missed your point. Could you explain
what about the definition I seem to be not understanding?

>> For example, in a world without suffering, there would still be
>> skydiving, it would just be a kind of skydiving where the
>> parachute always opens. Skydiving is always exciting, there is no
>> version of skydiving possible that would be boring, even if all
>> of the risk is removed. Imagine that God went to great lengths to
>> ensure that his loved-ones would come to no harm and that the
>> earth would be as soft as pillows to a skydiver so that he could
>> dive without a parachute at all. Can you really imagine that not
>> being fun?
>
> I can't imagine a skydiver thinking that would be fun. Such a
> scenario might get ME in an airplane, but most of the jumpers I
> know are adrenalin junkies, and you don't get that rush if you
> don't think there's a risk. As for me, I won't even get on a
> roller-coaster, so...

You mean that someone has to die doing it once in a while for it to
be fun? If God were my loving human father, He would be more than
happy to see me go without that kind of fun for all eternity.

For normal people, that would be all the excitement one needs in life
and more.

>> How about a version of laser tag that uses fighter jet planes
>> instead of little hand-held guns? That sounds pretty not-boring
>> to me and all the better knowing no one could be killed
>> accidentally. It would be really expensive, but in a world
>> without stealing and without medicine, there would be a lot more
>> wealth.
>
> It would be no more exciting than a video game. Less....and the
> risk of losing would also still be there.

Do you seriously mean that flying at the controls of actual jet
planes with all the world and the sky wide open to you, plus guns and
missiles at your fingertips, would be less exciting than a video
game?

If that is the case, then I have to ask, even though it is horribly
off-topic: What video games do you play?

> Are you one of those 'outcome based' education people? ;-)

Probably not, since I do not know what that means.

>> > Fine, then we should ourselves do something about it, since we
>> > are the ones who put ourselves in harms way in the first place.
>> > What we should NOT do is blame the train for running over us
>> > when we picnic on the rails.
>>
>> True, but if someone decided to cover the entire world in rails,
>> then I would want to find someone to complain to. At the very
>> least, I would like to know why he did it.
>
> But...he has not done so, has He?

Not quite but he has given it a good try. There are few regions that
are totally immune to natural disasters and no precautions that
completely elimate the effects. It is like he has laid a minefield
across the earth. Why do you suppose he did that?

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 15, 2006, 1:28:52 AM1/15/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
> > Rick Hawk wrote:
> >> dianaiad wrote:
> >> When thinking of this example, I cannot help but bring to mind
> >> the one who created leukemia.
> >
> > Begging the question, of course, of who did 'create
> > leukemia'....everybody has to die of something.
>
> Adam and Eve did not have to die of anything, that was a part of their
> punishment. We die because it is God's will and only for that reason.
>
> >> You are making an analogy between the doctors and God, but
> >> imagine what would happen if the doctors actually were God. The
> >> little girl would be spared all of the suffering because she
> >> would be instantly cured by people who care about her.
> >
> > You are, of course, pushing the analogy too far. Yes, if we could,
> > we would instantly and painlessly cure her.
> >
> > But...what if doing so actually does her more harm than good?
>
> You would not be able to convince her of that.

Well now, that sorta sums your entire argument up, doesn't it?

> This benefit that you
> think comes from suffering is strange and incomprehensible. I am aware
> that God might understand things that we cannot, but can you shed any
> more light on the nature of this benefit?

I think I have said it as plainly as I can possibly say it. Growing up.
Understanding, intimately and with our own ability to deal with it,
evil and good, choosing good.

>
> >> But all of that is a side-track, because I understand the nature
> >> of your analogy and I was missing the point with the first two
> >> comments. You are really saying that all of the suffering we have
> >> here on earth is helping us in some greater way that we cannot
> >> even imagine. But again, imagine that the doctors were actually
> >> God and the analogy still breaks down. If the doctors were God,
> >> they could cure the girl painlessly because they would be
> >> all-powerful. I do not know what God's plan is for us, but I do
> >> know that he could prepare us painlessly if he wanted, simply
> >> because there is nothing which he cannot do. If he wanted us to
> >> have certain knowledge, he could have created us with the
> >> knowledge already installed.
> >
> > Unless this is something that we have to do ourselves, and learn
> > ourselves. I think you understand that simply giving your child
> > everything he wants is a very bad idea.
>
> There are only two kinds of things which we must do: the things which
> God cannot do for us and the things which God chooses to not do for
> us. If it were my child, there are many things which I cannot do for
> him, there are things which he must do for himself and I have to make
> him learn lessons in just the way you suggest. But unless your beliefs
> about God are radically different from mine,

They may well be.

> God does not have that
> problem. There are no things which God cannot do for us. Then the
> question remains: why does God choose not to do these things for us?
>
> If He wanted us to be smart and brave and wise, He could make us so
> instantly and without effort.

Question: did He make HIMSELF 'smart and brave and wise"?

<snip to end, not because I'm ignoring you, but because I think we ARE
working on completely different premises about God.

Diana

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 15, 2006, 1:47:17 AM1/15/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:
>> dianaiad wrote:

>> > Rick Hawk wrote:
>> >> You are making an analogy between the doctors and God, but
>> >> imagine what would happen if the doctors actually were God.
>> >> The little girl would be spared all of the suffering because
>> >> she would be instantly cured by people who care about her.
>> >
>> > You are, of course, pushing the analogy too far. Yes, if we
>> > could, we would instantly and painlessly cure her.
>> >
>> > But...what if doing so actually does her more harm than good?
>>
>> You would not be able to convince her of that.
>
> Well now, that sorta sums your entire argument up, doesn't it?

That is not a summary as I would give it. How do you think that
summarizes it?

I would prefer to summarize my argument more like this: God created
the universe and all the people. The universe contains things which
hurt and kill and people who fail to learn from their mistakes. This
is not the place a omnipotent being who loved all people would create
for people to live in and the people in it are not designed to rise
above it and live happily. Therefore, God is not perfectly good and
loving.

>> This benefit that you
>> think comes from suffering is strange and incomprehensible. I am
>> aware that God might understand things that we cannot, but can
>> you shed any more light on the nature of this benefit?
>
> I think I have said it as plainly as I can possibly say it.
> Growing up. Understanding, intimately and with our own ability to
> deal with it, evil and good, choosing good.

I suppose I had hoped for more than that. There is no way that such
things can even compensate for the agony of disease. With luck you
will never find yourself in a position to realize that.

>> > Unless this is something that we have to do ourselves, and
>> > learn ourselves. I think you understand that simply giving your
>> > child everything he wants is a very bad idea.
>>
>> There are only two kinds of things which we must do: the things
>> which God cannot do for us and the things which God chooses to
>> not do for us. If it were my child, there are many things which I
>> cannot do for him, there are things which he must do for himself
>> and I have to make him learn lessons in just the way you suggest.
>> But unless your beliefs about God are radically different from
>> mine,
>
> They may well be.
>
>> God does not have that
>> problem. There are no things which God cannot do for us. Then the
>> question remains: why does God choose not to do these things for
>> us?
>>
>> If He wanted us to be smart and brave and wise, He could make us
>> so instantly and without effort.
>
> Question: did He make HIMSELF 'smart and brave and wise"?

That question has me stumped, I must admit. I find the very idea of
modifying one's own mind to be very baffling. I do not know the
answer to that one.

Did you ask that question only to get an opinion or because you have
no answer for it yourself? If you have an opinion, then I am
interested to hear it.

> <snip to end, not because I'm ignoring you, but because I think we
> ARE working on completely different premises about God.

My only premise about God is that he is omnipotent, with total power
over everything and the creater of the universe and all of mankind.
Do you share that premise or something like it?

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 15, 2006, 1:50:59 AM1/15/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
> > Rick Hawk wrote:
> >> He isn't sitting on a mountain
> >> somewhere for us to view Him. All we have is his works to try to
> >> guess about what he is.
> >
> > What you are using as a premise is faulty; you are stating as if
> > it were fact that A: God exists, but B: He isn't talking.
> >
> > There are a few problems with the above, y'know. One of the
> > biggies is that you are talking to someone who disagrees
> > vehemently with B.
>
> Then that was my mistake. I had assumed that you would agree with B.
> Am I correct in assuming that nothing he has said is important in
> this discussion? I notice that you have made no direct quotes from
> God.

Nor have you. Why would you assume that I would agree that God isn't
talking to us?

>
> >> God is in all things, after all, so we cannot just take some of
> >> the best situations and imagine that He is perfect. We have to
> >> look at everything, all disasters and all of creation, and use
> >> that to try to guess what God might be like. Ignoring any part of
> >> it can only lead to a lesser understanding of God. In other
> >> words, look at the worst of the world to see what the worst of
> >> God can be.
> >
> > The 'worst that God can be" in terms of what the planet can do
> > pales considerably next to the worst that men can be.
>
> My point is simply that the worst that God can be is less than
> absolutely good and perfect. Am I correct in guessing from your tone
> that you agree with that?

I think that you are placing things that are morally neutral into 'good
and evil' catagories, that's what I think. There is nothing "evil"
about a volcano, for instance. In fact, quite the opposite; without
volcanos (and very active weather and tectonic movement) we wouldn't
have a planet capable of supporting our lives. These things are very
much a part of why our world IS beautiful.

Any evil that results from these natural processes is OUR fault,
especially nowdays when there are very, very few "natural disasters"
that we don't know how to build for or avoid or ameliorate.

If these things are not "evil," then what is? I say that "evil"
is...our choices. When we make choices that cause harm to ourselves and
others, that's evil; and that's OUR choice, not God's.

> >> dianaiad wrote:
> >> > Well, I have some notion of what will go with me. My love of
> >> > family, my love of learning, my attitude, my appreciation of
> >> > beauty and what makes things beautiful...
> >>
> >> You do not get to decide what you take with you, only God can
> >> choose. For example, that is why some look upon a life spent in
> >> the pursuit of money as a wasted on, because God is unlikely to
> >> allow you to bring your money to the next world.
> >
> > Begging the question again. I think you are going to have to be
> > specific as to what and who you think deity is, because it's quite
> > obvious that we aren't working from the same premises here.
>
> I start with the assumption that God is an all-powerful, all-knowing
> being with limitless abilities that created the universe and all of
> mankind. Beyond that I am making inferences about what he must be by
> looking at his creation.
>
> So far, my inferences have lead me to believe that our lives are a
> drama that he watches for some kind of amusement. He toys with with
> us, throwing disasters and diseases at us to see how we will react.
> But all of that is up for debate; I am not entirely sure about it.
>
> However, I do know that God makes all the rules. If God does not want
> you to take your money with you, then you will not. If God does not
> want you to take your beliefs with you, then you will lose them. I do
> not know what God wants. Do you?

I live my life as if I have some small clue. So do we all, for that
matter. If we didn't, why bother? I do believe, actually, that Jesus
(and He was quoting prophets who came before Him in this, for that
matter) said it rather clearly; Love God, and love each other. I think
that's what God wants. <snip to>

> > I think you need to look at a definition for the word
> > 'excitement'.
>
> I have done so, but I must have missed your point. Could you explain
> what about the definition I seem to be not understanding?

The excitement felt by any sports participant, or indeed, anyone
experiencing it, is based upon risk. The "fight or flight' mechanism
that causes excitement doesn't work if there isn't any, even if it is
more percieved than real.

>
> >> For example, in a world without suffering, there would still be
> >> skydiving, it would just be a kind of skydiving where the
> >> parachute always opens. Skydiving is always exciting, there is no
> >> version of skydiving possible that would be boring, even if all
> >> of the risk is removed. Imagine that God went to great lengths to
> >> ensure that his loved-ones would come to no harm and that the
> >> earth would be as soft as pillows to a skydiver so that he could
> >> dive without a parachute at all. Can you really imagine that not
> >> being fun?
> >
> > I can't imagine a skydiver thinking that would be fun. Such a
> > scenario might get ME in an airplane, but most of the jumpers I
> > know are adrenalin junkies, and you don't get that rush if you
> > don't think there's a risk. As for me, I won't even get on a
> > roller-coaster, so...
>
> You mean that someone has to die doing it once in a while for it to
> be fun?

Well, for the majority of those who do it, pretty much, yes. It IS
mostly about the risk.

> If God were my loving human father, He would be more than
> happy to see me go without that kind of fun for all eternity.

Perhaps, but isn't that YOUR choice?

>
> For normal people, that would be all the excitement one needs in life
> and more.

"normal"? define "normal"

>
> >> How about a version of laser tag that uses fighter jet planes
> >> instead of little hand-held guns? That sounds pretty not-boring
> >> to me and all the better knowing no one could be killed
> >> accidentally. It would be really expensive, but in a world
> >> without stealing and without medicine, there would be a lot more
> >> wealth.
> >
> > It would be no more exciting than a video game. Less....and the
> > risk of losing would also still be there.
>
> Do you seriously mean that flying at the controls of actual jet
> planes with all the world and the sky wide open to you, plus guns and
> missiles at your fingertips, would be less exciting than a video
> game?

If there were no risk in the reality, no. It probably wouldn't. It
CERTAINLY wouldn't to those people I know who participate in such
things, and believe me, I know a few. I have been involved,
peripherally, in the space program since I was fourteen. Being the
daughter of a rocket scientist at Edwards AFB in California got me a
real close look at the real figher pilots who actually PLAY those sorts
of games. When you have a bunch of pilots who think it's hilarious to
break the sound barrier immediately over your house at 4AM, you get to
know the breed. ;-)

>
> If that is the case, then I have to ask, even though it is horribly
> off-topic: What video games do you play?

Me? I'm a Zelda nut. But then, I'm 56 years old and my reflexes are
shot. You?

>
> > Are you one of those 'outcome based' education people? ;-)
>
> Probably not, since I do not know what that means.

One of those who believe that self esteem is more important than
achievement in scholastics; that it is better to hand an unqualified
student a diploma than to make him repeat a grade, because it would
harm his psyche. We have far too many of those over here.

>
> >> > Fine, then we should ourselves do something about it, since we
> >> > are the ones who put ourselves in harms way in the first place.
> >> > What we should NOT do is blame the train for running over us
> >> > when we picnic on the rails.
> >>
> >> True, but if someone decided to cover the entire world in rails,
> >> then I would want to find someone to complain to. At the very
> >> least, I would like to know why he did it.
> >
> > But...he has not done so, has He?
>
> Not quite but he has given it a good try. There are few regions that
> are totally immune to natural disasters and no precautions that
> completely elimate the effects. It is like he has laid a minefield
> across the earth. Why do you suppose he did that?

Because without all those natural processes that keep our planet alive,
we wouldn't be earth; we'd be Venus, or Mars...either way, WE wouldn't
be able to live here.

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 15, 2006, 3:48:52 AM1/15/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:

>> dianaiad wrote:
>> > What you are using as a premise is faulty; you are stating as
>> > if it were fact that A: God exists, but B: He isn't talking.
>> >
>> > There are a few problems with the above, y'know. One of the
>> > biggies is that you are talking to someone who disagrees
>> > vehemently with B.
>>
>> Then that was my mistake. I had assumed that you would agree with
>> B. Am I correct in assuming that nothing he has said is important
>> in this discussion? I notice that you have made no direct quotes
>> from God.
>
> Nor have you. Why would you assume that I would agree that God
> isn't talking to us?

Because I have never of anyone actually receiving words from God. I
have never hear of anyone believing that God has actually spoken to
us since the Bible and perhaps Joan of Arc. Even if it is happening,
I thought it was extremely rare.

>> > The 'worst that God can be" in terms of what the planet can do
>> > pales considerably next to the worst that men can be.
>>
>> My point is simply that the worst that God can be is less than
>> absolutely good and perfect. Am I correct in guessing from your
>> tone that you agree with that?
>
> I think that you are placing things that are morally neutral into
> 'good and evil' catagories, that's what I think. There is nothing
> "evil" about a volcano, for instance. In fact, quite the opposite;
> without volcanos (and very active weather and tectonic movement)
> we wouldn't have a planet capable of supporting our lives. These
> things are very much a part of why our world IS beautiful.
>
> Any evil that results from these natural processes is OUR fault,
> especially nowdays when there are very, very few "natural
> disasters" that we don't know how to build for or avoid or
> ameliorate.
>
> If these things are not "evil," then what is? I say that "evil"
> is...our choices. When we make choices that cause harm to
> ourselves and others, that's evil; and that's OUR choice, not
> God's.

Why do we not evaluate God's choices as good or evil as well? It
seems simple enough to do so. Even if most natural disasters can be
avoided most of the time, that does not make them a neutral thing.
God is better than us in every way, so he should be held to at least
as high standards. If volcanoes are his way of attacking us, even if
we are expected to defend ourselves, we should still give him proper
credit for what he is doing.

I would not call being shot at by a sniper a neutral act, even if he
did not hit me. Even if I knew in advance and was able to avoid the
place where he was going to shoot, I would still find it hard to
believe that the sniper was good.

Aside from the idea that natural disasters are necessary for the
survival of the earth, in what way is God so completely different and
better than a sniper?

>> However, I do know that God makes all the rules. If God does not
>> want you to take your money with you, then you will not. If God
>> does not want you to take your beliefs with you, then you will
>> lose them. I do not know what God wants. Do you?
>
> I live my life as if I have some small clue. So do we all, for
> that matter. If we didn't, why bother? I do believe, actually,
> that Jesus (and He was quoting prophets who came before Him in
> this, for that matter) said it rather clearly; Love God, and love
> each other. I think that's what God wants.

Yes, you are right. I do not know how I managed to forget about all
of that for a moment. I suppose I meant on a deeper and more detailed
level than what He has given us directly through Jesus and through
talking to other people.

>> > I think you need to look at a definition for the word
>> > 'excitement'.
>>
>> I have done so, but I must have missed your point. Could you
>> explain what about the definition I seem to be not understanding?
>
> The excitement felt by any sports participant, or indeed, anyone
> experiencing it, is based upon risk. The "fight or flight'
> mechanism that causes excitement doesn't work if there isn't any,
> even if it is more percieved than real.

By the sound of this, it seems that I have never felt real
excitement. I have never been in a potentially deadly situation. And
those few situations where I risked injury where not of the exciting
kind. Perhaps I can't miss what I have never felt, but I had believed
that I had felt excitement.

I had felt something that I called excitement when I played sports or
did public speaking or took a timed, written examination. But none of
those had any real risk. The worst that could happen was not really
bad at all. I believe that such a feeling should be enough for
anyone, though I have a perspective from ignorance.

If I am wrong about excitement, then it could really be that God
allows us to suffer because without danger life is not worth living.
At least that is better than concluding that God wishes us to suffer
for some selfish reason.

>> >> For example, in a world without suffering, there would still
>> >> be skydiving, it would just be a kind of skydiving where the
>> >> parachute always opens. Skydiving is always exciting, there is
>> >> no version of skydiving possible that would be boring, even if
>> >> all of the risk is removed. Imagine that God went to great
>> >> lengths to ensure that his loved-ones would come to no harm
>> >> and that the earth would be as soft as pillows to a skydiver
>> >> so that he could dive without a parachute at all. Can you
>> >> really imagine that not being fun?
>> >
>> > I can't imagine a skydiver thinking that would be fun. Such a
>> > scenario might get ME in an airplane, but most of the jumpers I
>> > know are adrenalin junkies, and you don't get that rush if you
>> > don't think there's a risk. As for me, I won't even get on a
>> > roller-coaster, so...
>>
>> You mean that someone has to die doing it once in a while for it
>> to be fun?
>
> Well, for the majority of those who do it, pretty much, yes. It IS
> mostly about the risk.

In a world where God protects us, there would be a lot more people
doing it and most of them would have fun.

>> If God were my loving human father, He would be more than
>> happy to see me go without that kind of fun for all eternity.
>
> Perhaps, but isn't that YOUR choice?

It is God's choice to allow me to choose, is it not? God is like a
father letting me run wild. In fact, he lets me actually go out and
do something that he knows will get me killed. This is curious
behavior for God.

>> For normal people, that would be all the excitement one needs in
>> life and more.
>
> "normal"? define "normal"

I suppose I should have said "most people" or "the vast majority of
people."

>> > It would be no more exciting than a video game. Less....and the
>> > risk of losing would also still be there.
>>
>> Do you seriously mean that flying at the controls of actual jet
>> planes with all the world and the sky wide open to you, plus guns
>> and missiles at your fingertips, would be less exciting than a
>> video game?
>
> If there were no risk in the reality, no. It probably wouldn't. It
> CERTAINLY wouldn't to those people I know who participate in such
> things, and believe me, I know a few. I have been involved,
> peripherally, in the space program since I was fourteen. Being the
> daughter of a rocket scientist at Edwards AFB in California got me
> a real close look at the real figher pilots who actually PLAY
> those sorts of games. When you have a bunch of pilots who think
> it's hilarious to break the sound barrier immediately over your
> house at 4AM, you get to know the breed. ;-)

Maybe to some people like that, lives are not worth much, but I
strongly suspect that many of them would be silently grateful if they
knew that none of their friends would ever die while playing games
like that.

>> If that is the case, then I have to ask, even though it is
>> horribly off-topic: What video games do you play?
>
> Me? I'm a Zelda nut. But then, I'm 56 years old and my reflexes
> are shot. You?

I am not a huge fan of video games, but Zelda is great, especially
the earlier games. However, I can never imagine flying a jet plane
would be less exciting than a game of Zelda, no matter the safety
precautions.

>> > Are you one of those 'outcome based' education people? ;-)
>>
>> Probably not, since I do not know what that means.
>
> One of those who believe that self esteem is more important than
> achievement in scholastics; that it is better to hand an
> unqualified student a diploma than to make him repeat a grade,
> because it would harm his psyche. We have far too many of those
> over here.

I am certainly not one of those people. I'm surprised that such a
thing exists.

>> There are few regions that are totally immune to natural disasters
>> and no precautions that completely elimate the effects. It is like
>> he has laid a minefield across the earth. Why do you suppose he
>> did that?
>
> Because without all those natural processes that keep our planet
> alive, we wouldn't be earth; we'd be Venus, or Mars...either way,
> WE wouldn't be able to live here.

In that case, I believe I have finally reached a greater
understanding of your beliefs. You do not believe that God is
actually all-powerful. Clearly, if you believe that then you would
not suggest that He needs earthquakes and various natural disasters
to keep the earth livable. A truly powerful God could easily make a
peaceful, calm and livable earth by mere will.

This actually explains everything quite nicely and removes all
conflict between our views. I am perfectly happy to accept that God
loves us all and tries his best to make our lives happy. That is a
very pleasant thought. Then I can look around at all the seemingly
cruel things in the world and be content that God is trying his best
to minimize them and thank God for every life spared because a
tsunami was just a little smaller than it could have been.

In a way, a God that lacks total power over everything has a far
greater feel of realism than any God with absolute omnipotence. I
only started with the assumption that God was all-powerful because I
expected that everyone shared that assumption.

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 15, 2006, 9:25:25 PM1/15/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
> > Rick Hawk wrote:
> >> dianaiad wrote:
> >> > What you are using as a premise is faulty; you are stating as
> >> > if it were fact that A: God exists, but B: He isn't talking.
> >> >
> >> > There are a few problems with the above, y'know. One of the
> >> > biggies is that you are talking to someone who disagrees
> >> > vehemently with B.
> >>
> >> Then that was my mistake. I had assumed that you would agree with
> >> B. Am I correct in assuming that nothing he has said is important
> >> in this discussion? I notice that you have made no direct quotes
> >> from God.
> >
> > Nor have you. Why would you assume that I would agree that God
> > isn't talking to us?
>
> Because I have never of anyone actually receiving words from God. I
> have never hear of anyone believing that God has actually spoken to
> us since the Bible and perhaps Joan of Arc. Even if it is happening,
> I thought it was extremely rare.

Rick? Mormon here? (grin)

> >> > The 'worst that God can be" in terms of what the planet can do
> >> > pales considerably next to the worst that men can be.
> >>
> >> My point is simply that the worst that God can be is less than
> >> absolutely good and perfect. Am I correct in guessing from your
> >> tone that you agree with that?
> >
> > I think that you are placing things that are morally neutral into
> > 'good and evil' catagories, that's what I think. There is nothing
> > "evil" about a volcano, for instance. In fact, quite the opposite;
> > without volcanos (and very active weather and tectonic movement)
> > we wouldn't have a planet capable of supporting our lives. These
> > things are very much a part of why our world IS beautiful.
> >
> > Any evil that results from these natural processes is OUR fault,
> > especially nowdays when there are very, very few "natural
> > disasters" that we don't know how to build for or avoid or
> > ameliorate.
> >
> > If these things are not "evil," then what is? I say that "evil"
> > is...our choices. When we make choices that cause harm to
> > ourselves and others, that's evil; and that's OUR choice, not
> > God's.
>
> Why do we not evaluate God's choices as good or evil as well?

We could. We would probably be doing so on extremely inadequate
information.

Here's another analogy I have used fairly often; it's actually a bit of
a riddle. Two men throw a woman out adjacent third story windows. There
is no difference in the actions of the two, and the results for the
women are identical. One of the men is given a medal. The other is
jailed for twenty years. Why?

How do we know which act was evil, and which was not?

> seems simple enough to do so.

Simple doesn't equal "correct."

> Even if most natural disasters can be
> avoided most of the time, that does not make them a neutral thing.
> God is better than us in every way, so he should be held to at least
> as high standards. If volcanoes are his way of attacking us, even if
> we are expected to defend ourselves, we should still give him proper
> credit for what he is doing.

That is a very big 'if'. What if volcanos are not His way of attacking
us? After all, that does seem to be a pretty inefficient way of doing
so, volcanos being, as a general rule, fairly easy to avoid. They do
give a fair amount of warning.

What if volcanos are simply natural consequences of tectonic plate
movements, the natural action of the planet that keeps it dynamic, and
beautiful?

> I would not call being shot at by a sniper a neutral act, even if he
> did not hit me.

A sniper is a very mortal human, and there is no question that he is
aiming at you, or someone near you. You are still begging the question
of whether God is doing this in some little-boy-pulling-wings-off-flies
maliciousness. You are assuming He is, as the premise for your
arguments here. I'm saying that He is not.

> Even if I knew in advance and was able to avoid the
> place where he was going to shoot, I would still find it hard to
> believe that the sniper was good.

Again begging the question. Would you still have problems with the
sniper if he were aiming at a deer for food because you were hungry, or
an enemy creeping up on you? Your premise is faulty.

>
> Aside from the idea that natural disasters are necessary for the
> survival of the earth, in what way is God so completely different and
> better than a sniper?

Excuse me, but isn't that a little like "other than that, Mrs. Lincoln,
how did you enjoy the play?"

The fact that there IS that idea is all that is required.

> >> However, I do know that God makes all the rules. If God does not
> >> want you to take your money with you, then you will not. If God
> >> does not want you to take your beliefs with you, then you will
> >> lose them. I do not know what God wants. Do you?
> >
> > I live my life as if I have some small clue. So do we all, for
> > that matter. If we didn't, why bother? I do believe, actually,
> > that Jesus (and He was quoting prophets who came before Him in
> > this, for that matter) said it rather clearly; Love God, and love
> > each other. I think that's what God wants.
>
> Yes, you are right. I do not know how I managed to forget about all
> of that for a moment. I suppose I meant on a deeper and more detailed
> level than what He has given us directly through Jesus and through
> talking to other people.

You are being...hmn. I really hate to think that you are yanking my
chain in all this. I truly do. <snip to>

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 15, 2006, 10:39:40 PM1/15/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:

>> Because I have never heard of anyone actually receiving words from
>> God. I have never heard of anyone believing that God has actually

>> spoken to us since the Bible and perhaps Joan of Arc. Even if it
>> is happening, I thought it was extremely rare.
>
> Rick? Mormon here? (grin)

It seems I must confess my ignorance of Mormonism, but I believe that
I understand it a little better now, after some research.

>> Why do we not evaluate God's choices as good or evil as well?
>
> We could. We would probably be doing so on extremely inadequate
> information.
>
> Here's another analogy I have used fairly often; it's actually a
> bit of a riddle. Two men throw a woman out adjacent third story
> windows. There is no difference in the actions of the two, and the
> results for the women are identical. One of the men is given a
> medal. The other is jailed for twenty years. Why?
>
> How do we know which act was evil, and which was not?

My guess would be: Both women survived with little injury, but one
was thrown out of a burning building and the other escaped being
murdered. I am not sure if people get twenty years for attempted
murder, but I imagine the answer to the riddle is something along
those lines.

My point is that, depending on what you believe God to be, you may
already have all the information that you need to evaluate God's
choices. If God is truly all-powerful, then the universe becomes a
remarkably simple place from His perspective and it is equally simple
to see what choices He has.

>> Even if most natural disasters can be
>> avoided most of the time, that does not make them a neutral
>> thing. God is better than us in every way, so he should be held
>> to at least as high standards. If volcanoes are his way of
>> attacking us, even if we are expected to defend ourselves, we
>> should still give him proper credit for what he is doing.
>
> That is a very big 'if'. What if volcanos are not His way of
> attacking us? After all, that does seem to be a pretty inefficient
> way of doing so, volcanos being, as a general rule, fairly easy to
> avoid. They do give a fair amount of warning.
>
> What if volcanos are simply natural consequences of tectonic plate
> movements, the natural action of the planet that keeps it dynamic,
> and beautiful?

Why would God want to use tectonic plate movements to keep the planet
dynamic and beautiful when he has the power to do it directly? Is it
a Mormon belief that God lacks that power?

>> I would not call being shot at by a sniper a neutral act, even if
>> he did not hit me.
>
> A sniper is a very mortal human, and there is no question that he
> is aiming at you, or someone near you. You are still begging the
> question of whether God is doing this in some
> little-boy-pulling-wings-off-flies maliciousness. You are assuming
> He is, as the premise for your arguments here. I'm saying that He
> is not.

I am not assuming that He is malicious; I am trying to argue that He
is malicious by looking at the evidence of the world around me and
assuming that he is all-powerful and in control of everything.

I look around and I see bad things in the world, even excluding those
bad things created by man, so I take this as evidence that God may
have some bad intentions. Are you using evidence for your conclusion
that God is not malicious or are you assuming it?

>> Even if I knew in advance and was able to avoid the
>> place where he was going to shoot, I would still find it hard to
>> believe that the sniper was good.
>
> Again begging the question. Would you still have problems with the
> sniper if he were aiming at a deer for food because you were
> hungry, or an enemy creeping up on you? Your premise is faulty.

I take it that you mean for me to use those things as an analogy for
what God might be doing, but certainly God could not be looking for
food because God has no needs. I am sure in any faith God is a
creator, so he creates what he needs.

For the analogy of the enemy creeping up behind me, you must mean
that God might be using a volcano to destroy bad people. If find it
hard to believe that everyone who dies in natural disasters deserves
it for some evil they have committed, but I must admit that it is a
possibility and it would explain why a purely good God would do such
things.

>> Aside from the idea that natural disasters are necessary for the
>> survival of the earth, in what way is God so completely different
>> and better than a sniper?
>
> Excuse me, but isn't that a little like "other than that, Mrs.
> Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"
>
> The fact that there IS that idea is all that is required.

I asked you to exclude that idea because no truly omnipotent God
would need natural disasters for anything. In fact, any omnipotent
being does not need anything for anything. I am still curious about
the possibility that a omnipotent and loving God might have a good
reason for natural disasters, but it seems not.

The other options are that God lacks the power to prevent natural
disasters and is not truly omnipotent, but He is truly loving, or
that He is not truly loving and causes natural disasters for some bad
reason.

>> Yes, you are right. I do not know how I managed to forget about
>> all of that for a moment. I suppose I meant on a deeper and more
>> detailed level than what He has given us directly through Jesus
>> and through talking to other people.
>
> You are being...hmn. I really hate to think that you are yanking
> my chain in all this. I truly do. <snip to>

I must apologize. I try to make my posts as thoughtful and careful as
I can, but sometimes I do manage to say things before thinking them
through. I am sincerely making my best effort here and am certainly
not yanking your chain.

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 16, 2006, 1:29:31 PM1/16/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
> > Rick Hawk wrote:
> >> Because I have never heard of anyone actually receiving words from
> >> God. I have never heard of anyone believing that God has actually
> >> spoken to us since the Bible and perhaps Joan of Arc. Even if it
> >> is happening, I thought it was extremely rare.
> >
> > Rick? Mormon here? (grin)
>
> It seems I must confess my ignorance of Mormonism, but I believe that
> I understand it a little better now, after some research.

Depends entirely on where you did the research. (sigh....I hope you
didn't ask Phil, for instance...)

>
> >> Why do we not evaluate God's choices as good or evil as well?
> >
> > We could. We would probably be doing so on extremely inadequate
> > information.
> >
> > Here's another analogy I have used fairly often; it's actually a
> > bit of a riddle. Two men throw a woman out adjacent third story
> > windows. There is no difference in the actions of the two, and the
> > results for the women are identical. One of the men is given a
> > medal. The other is jailed for twenty years. Why?
> >
> > How do we know which act was evil, and which was not?
>
> My guess would be: Both women survived with little injury, but one
> was thrown out of a burning building and the other escaped being
> murdered. I am not sure if people get twenty years for attempted
> murder, but I imagine the answer to the riddle is something along
> those lines.
>
> My point is that, depending on what you believe God to be, you may
> already have all the information that you need to evaluate God's
> choices. If God is truly all-powerful, then the universe becomes a
> remarkably simple place from His perspective and it is equally simple
> to see what choices He has.

...but only from his perspective, not from yours. You are mostly
correct about the riddle. However, remember that part of the riddle was
that the windows were adjacent to each other. The results were the same
for both, BECAUSE the building was on fire and there was a net waiting
for the rescued woman, it also caught the assault victim. The rescuer
knew this; he didn't "beleive" it, he KNEW it because he was the one
who arranged for the net to be there. The would-be murderer didn't know
this. He didn't know the building was afire, he certainly didn't know
that his victim was going to be saved. Indeed, he thought he was
throwing her to certain plop-hood (ever read a poem called "Tragedy" by
Marsiel somebody or other? Sorry....worst poem on the planet...)

We are like the guy attempting the murder. We see God doing things
that, if WE did them, would be evil, and assume that if it's evil for
us in our state of knowledge, then it must also be evil for Him. But
it's not, any more than it was evil for the fireman to throw a woman to
safety when the guy next door was trying to commit murder; most
definitely an evil thing.

It all comes down to choice and motive. Now, if we don't HAVE any
choices, if they've already been made for us, that's one thing.
However, if we do have choices, then motive and information mean
everything.

>
> >> Even if most natural disasters can be
> >> avoided most of the time, that does not make them a neutral
> >> thing. God is better than us in every way, so he should be held
> >> to at least as high standards. If volcanoes are his way of
> >> attacking us, even if we are expected to defend ourselves, we
> >> should still give him proper credit for what he is doing.
> >
> > That is a very big 'if'. What if volcanos are not His way of
> > attacking us? After all, that does seem to be a pretty inefficient
> > way of doing so, volcanos being, as a general rule, fairly easy to
> > avoid. They do give a fair amount of warning.
> >
> > What if volcanos are simply natural consequences of tectonic plate
> > movements, the natural action of the planet that keeps it dynamic,
> > and beautiful?
>
> Why would God want to use tectonic plate movements to keep the planet
> dynamic and beautiful when he has the power to do it directly? Is it
> a Mormon belief that God lacks that power?

It is my belief that since God created the laws under which the
universe works, that is, the laws of physics, of nature, of everything,
it must have been for a reason...and it seems the height of silliness
to insist that, having invented all these wonderful and efficient
methods by which things are done, that He not actually USE any of them
to deal with us.

> >> I would not call being shot at by a sniper a neutral act, even if
> >> he did not hit me.
> >
> > A sniper is a very mortal human, and there is no question that he
> > is aiming at you, or someone near you. You are still begging the
> > question of whether God is doing this in some
> > little-boy-pulling-wings-off-flies maliciousness. You are assuming
> > He is, as the premise for your arguments here. I'm saying that He
> > is not.
>
> I am not assuming that He is malicious; I am trying to argue that He
> is malicious by looking at the evidence of the world around me and
> assuming that he is all-powerful and in control of everything.

Then assuming that He is the equivalent of a human sniper as a premise,
rather than an argument and an example, is not the way to do it. You
are begging the question.

>
> I look around and I see bad things in the world, even excluding those
> bad things created by man, so I take this as evidence that God may
> have some bad intentions. Are you using evidence for your conclusion
> that God is not malicious or are you assuming it?

I am saying that I don't accept your premise that He is not. That's
what begging the question IS. After all, you are the one who came up
with the idea that God is supposed to be all good.

Suppose we take, as a thesis, that God is a good God. Given that
premise, how would all this stuff fit in to that?

>
> >> Even if I knew in advance and was able to avoid the
> >> place where he was going to shoot, I would still find it hard to
> >> believe that the sniper was good.
> >
> > Again begging the question. Would you still have problems with the
> > sniper if he were aiming at a deer for food because you were
> > hungry, or an enemy creeping up on you? Your premise is faulty.
>
> I take it that you mean for me to use those things as an analogy for
> what God might be doing, but certainly God could not be looking for
> food because God has no needs. I am sure in any faith God is a
> creator, so he creates what he needs.

Don't stretch the analogy further than it was meant to go. I was
pointing out that you were, again, begging the question of whether God
is personally aiming at you. There could very well be other reasons for
His actions, that might even ultimately be for your good.

Indeed, there is a verse in the Doctrine and Covenants (a book Mormons
accept as scripture written by modern day prophets) that goes this way:

D&C 122: 7

And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of
murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast
into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce
winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the
elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws
of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son,
that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy
good.

I always read this one with a wry sense of vast understatement....and
then we get the following verse, also:

8 The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than
he?

This was, we believe, given to Joseph Smith while he was in jail in
Liberty, Missourri. Think what you will of that man, he certainly was
put through it.

The thing is, great accomplishments require great effort. Great rewards
require great strivings, great blessings require great faith. There is
a reason all those cliche's ARE cliche's ...because they are true.

>
> For the analogy of the enemy creeping up behind me, you must mean
> that God might be using a volcano to destroy bad people.

Must I?

How about, I 'must mean' that the volcano is the result of natural
geological forces, that help form and drive the planet, and people who
live on the sides of volcanos are quite aware that doing so is likely
to get them scorched. God may have been responsible for the volcano,
but the people living there? That's THEIR fault.

> If find it
> hard to believe that everyone who dies in natural disasters deserves
> it for some evil they have committed, but I must admit that it is a
> possibility and it would explain why a purely good God would do such
> things.

Balderdash. Everybody dies, and we all die of something. The premise
is, for most theistic systems, that God has provided an afterlife. If
so, then HE, presumably, is quite aware of that, as in, full and
absolute knowledge of it. Therefore, for HIM (not for us, all we have
is faith, not knowledge) physical death is nothing but moving from one
room to another, a move that we all have to make. As I have pointed out
before, most natural disasters, if they kill people, do so fairly
quickly. For real punishment and torture, you need men to get
inventive.

By the same token, the vast majority of deaths due to natural disasters
would be prevented if men simply paid attention to their surroundings
and believed the evidence in front of their eyes. HOW many deaths
would have been prevented in Turkey if they had (as they could have)
built for the possibility of an earthquake? How much damage would have
been prevented in New Orleans if the original builders had paid
attention to those who told them not to build there? Or, having built
there, took the monies that were supposed to have strengthened the
levies and actually strengthened the levies with it? The government in
New Orleans was/is so incredibly corrupt that they really did reap what
they sowed themselves. Oh, not as a specific punishment from God, but
as the natural consequences of their own decisions not to keep the
levies in good repair. Again, the fault of men.

>
> >> Aside from the idea that natural disasters are necessary for the
> >> survival of the earth, in what way is God so completely different
> >> and better than a sniper?
> >
> > Excuse me, but isn't that a little like "other than that, Mrs.
> > Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"
> >
> > The fact that there IS that idea is all that is required.
>
> I asked you to exclude that idea because no truly omnipotent God
> would need natural disasters for anything. In fact, any omnipotent
> being does not need anything for anything. I am still curious about
> the possibility that a omnipotent and loving God might have a good
> reason for natural disasters, but it seems not.

Are you attempting to prove here, that there is no God? That the only
way that God could exist is if WE didn't understand any of the
principles behind the operations of His creation?

>
> The other options are that God lacks the power to prevent natural
> disasters and is not truly omnipotent, but He is truly loving, or
> that He is not truly loving and causes natural disasters for some bad
> reason.

Y'know, it's odd, but the only 'natural disasters' that are termed so
are those that take human life. But in most of those incidents, the
true cause of life loss is that people made choices in some knowledge
of the risk they were taking. Therefore, how is that God's fault?

Then there is also this other problem with perspective; you posit that
God is omnipotent and omniscient, but you judge His actions as if YOU
were; that is, that your perspective of death being the end of all
things and the worst of all evils were His. Remember, for God, (should
He exist) this mortal life isn't a very big slice if the lives we will
lead. We are going to live forever, remember? What is the few days and
years we spend here compared to that? What, to God, is so horrific
about leaving THIS life for another one? I liken it to walking from one
room to another. For Him, that's all it is. That it is more to US is
irrelevent, in judging HIS actions.

>
> >> Yes, you are right. I do not know how I managed to forget about
> >> all of that for a moment. I suppose I meant on a deeper and more
> >> detailed level than what He has given us directly through Jesus
> >> and through talking to other people.
> >
> > You are being...hmn. I really hate to think that you are yanking
> > my chain in all this. I truly do. <snip to>
>
> I must apologize. I try to make my posts as thoughtful and careful as
> I can, but sometimes I do manage to say things before thinking them
> through. I am sincerely making my best effort here and am certainly
> not yanking your chain.

It's quite easy to make a fool of me. I'm very good at making one of
myself. I'm especially ripe for being 'led down the garden path' and
being giggled at, when I start a train of speculative thought. Please
excuse me. I get a little paranoid.

...........never in time to prevent the damage, but......(shrug)

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 16, 2006, 10:36:31 PM1/16/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:
>> My point is that, depending on what you believe God to be, you
>> may already have all the information that you need to evaluate
>> God's choices. If God is truly all-powerful, then the universe
>> becomes a remarkably simple place from His perspective and it is
>> equally simple to see what choices He has.
>
> ...but only from his perspective, not from yours. You are mostly
> correct about the riddle. However, remember that part of the
> riddle was that the windows were adjacent to each other. The
> results were the same for both, BECAUSE the building was on fire
> and there was a net waiting for the rescued woman, it also caught
> the assault victim. The rescuer knew this; he didn't "beleive"
> it, he KNEW it because he was the one who arranged for the net to
> be there. The would-be murderer didn't know this. He didn't know
> the building was afire, he certainly didn't know that his victim
> was going to be saved. Indeed, he thought he was throwing her to
> certain plop-hood (ever read a poem called "Tragedy" by Marsiel
> somebody or other? Sorry....worst poem on the planet...)

That is a very clever analogy. Thank you; it gives me knew insight
into this discussion which I will share further down.

> We are like the guy attempting the murder. We see God doing things
> that, if WE did them, would be evil, and assume that if it's evil
> for us in our state of knowledge, then it must also be evil for
> Him. But it's not, any more than it was evil for the fireman to
> throw a woman to safety when the guy next door was trying to
> commit murder; most definitely an evil thing.

Yes, you are entirely correct about that. Of course, I agree
completely. Though, in the case of the creator of the universe,
things become less clear. Since God created the universe, He gets to
choose what is true and what dangers exist. If He is hurting us to
rescue us from some greater danger in the broad view of eternity,
then He is only rescuing us from something which He has created.

I accept that there may be much more to the universe than what I can
imagine and only God knows what those things are, but I am still not
certain that such things can make God good despite the seemingly evil
things in the world.

>> Why would God want to use tectonic plate movements to keep the
>> planet dynamic and beautiful when he has the power to do it
>> directly? Is it a Mormon belief that God lacks that power?
>
> It is my belief that since God created the laws under which the
> universe works, that is, the laws of physics, of nature, of
> everything, it must have been for a reason...and it seems the
> height of silliness to insist that, having invented all these
> wonderful and efficient methods by which things are done, that He
> not actually USE any of them to deal with us.

Perhaps it would be silly for God to make exceptions to many of His
rules for us, especially the idea of making the ground as soft as
pillows for skydivers or deflecting bullets away from innocent
people, but on the other hand, I doubt that any matter of life and
death can really be silly.

I find that love will often cause a certain amount of silliness. I
would find it highly acceptable if God were to do some silly things
to keep humanity safe. If He were to be silly in that way, then it
would be clear without a doubt that He really does love us.

>> dianaiad wrote:
>> > Rick Hawk wrote:
>> >> I would not call being shot at by a sniper a neutral act, even
>> >> if he did not hit me.
>> >
>> > A sniper is a very mortal human, and there is no question that
>> > he is aiming at you, or someone near you. You are still begging
>> > the question of whether God is doing this in some
>> > little-boy-pulling-wings-off-flies maliciousness. You are
>> > assuming He is, as the premise for your arguments here. I'm
>> > saying that He is not.
>>
>> I am not assuming that He is malicious; I am trying to argue that
>> He is malicious by looking at the evidence of the world around me
>> and assuming that he is all-powerful and in control of
>> everything.
>
> Then assuming that He is the equivalent of a human sniper as a
> premise, rather than an argument and an example, is not the way to
> do it. You are begging the question.

I was attempting to illustrate the point that being able to avoid
disasters sent by God does not make those things any better. On the
other hand, good intentions can make them better as you have shown.

>> I look around and I see bad things in the world, even excluding
>> those bad things created by man, so I take this as evidence that
>> God may have some bad intentions. Are you using evidence for your
>> conclusion that God is not malicious or are you assuming it?
>
> I am saying that I don't accept your premise that He is not.
> That's what begging the question IS. After all, you are the one
> who came up with the idea that God is supposed to be all good.
>
> Suppose we take, as a thesis, that God is a good God. Given that
> premise, how would all this stuff fit in to that?

I have considered that as deeply as I am able and the best conclusion
that occurs to me is that if God is good, then God lacks the power to
make our world any better by stopping disasters and similar things.

I have heard of the idea of God as a pure creator. By this I mean,
perhaps God created the universe like a finely crafted watch, wound
it, and let it go. He does not control the mechanisms, He merely
designed them to the best of His abilities. Of course, I reject that
idea because it would mean that praying is pointless.

If God is perfectly good, then He must be always doing His best to
make our lives better. Somehow, He just does not succeed totally.

>> I take it that you mean for me to use those things as an analogy
>> for what God might be doing, but certainly God could not be
>> looking for food because God has no needs. I am sure in any faith
>> God is a creator, so he creates what he needs.
>
> Don't stretch the analogy further than it was meant to go. I was
> pointing out that you were, again, begging the question of whether
> God is personally aiming at you. There could very well be other
> reasons for His actions, that might even ultimately be for your
> good.

That is true, but let us not leave that unanalyzed. I know of little
earthly benefit that comes to the victims from the horrors that the
world has to offer. Those benefits of experience are certainly not
compensation. In that case, what could those benefits be?

If we assume that there are benefits that more than compensate for
suffering, they must mostly come in the afterlife. This is yet
another clue to what may await us in eternity. Is God teaching us how
to wield great power by showing us the pain it can cause? In other
words, He is showing us what not to do. I find that idea strangely
unsettling, but I cannot think of another.

> Indeed, there is a verse in the Doctrine and Covenants (a book
> Mormons accept as scripture written by modern day prophets) that
> goes this way:
>
>
> D&C 122: 7
>
> And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of
> murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be
> cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee;
> if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather
> blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and
> above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide
> after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give
> thee experience, and shall be for thy good.

I have to agree with what is being said here. People are better with
experience than they are without. Yet mostly people do not seek this
kind of experience. People do not inflict pain on themselves to gain
experience because even though the experience is good, the final sum
of it all is still bad.

It could be debated that experience grows in value the longer you
have it. Every minute you spend with knowledge is better than a
minute spent without. Therefore, the value of experience grows to
become infinite in our eternal afterlife and so it will always
outweigh whatever suffering we went through to get it.

However, experience only has great value when it is of use. What use
could experience of suffering be in the afterlife? I fear that the
answer to that question may foreshadow the existence of suffering in
the afterlife.

> The thing is, great accomplishments require great effort. Great
> rewards require great strivings, great blessings require great
> faith. There is a reason all those cliche's ARE cliche's
> ...because they are true.

Clearly those things are true because the effort required to achieve
something is the measure of the greatness of the accomplishment. It
is also true that God sets the standards by which we measure; God
chooses how much effort is required for each accomplishment. Why did
He choose the amount of suffering that we have on earth instead of
some lesser amount?

> How about, I 'must mean' that the volcano is the result of natural
> geological forces, that help form and drive the planet, and people
> who live on the sides of volcanos are quite aware that doing so is
> likely to get them scorched. God may have been responsible for the
> volcano, but the people living there? That's THEIR fault.

You are right that it is their fault. In fact, they are fools for
living there. However, I would never choose to hurt a fool. In fact,
the more foolish a person is, the less likely I am to hurt him. It
seems that perhaps God works in the opposite manner.

>> I find it hard to believe that everyone who dies in natural

>> disasters deserves it for some evil they have committed, but I
>> must admit that it is a possibility and it would explain why a
>> purely good God would do such things.
>
> Balderdash. Everybody dies, and we all die of something. The
> premise is, for most theistic systems, that God has provided an
> afterlife. If so, then HE, presumably, is quite aware of that, as
> in, full and absolute knowledge of it. Therefore, for HIM (not for
> us, all we have is faith, not knowledge) physical death is nothing
> but moving from one room to another, a move that we all have to
> make. As I have pointed out before, most natural disasters, if
> they kill people, do so fairly quickly. For real punishment and
> torture, you need men to get inventive.

We should not pretend that natural disasters never kill people
slowly, laying helpless with broken bones and bleeding under a pile
of rubble. And worse yet, while their loved ones are crying and
trying desperately to dig them out. The entire issue of diseases is
another way in which God does this to us.

Here is where I have found new insight. I realize from all of the
points that you have made that God must have a far greater view of
eternity than our little part of it. Our short, little lives are next
to nothing in the greater universe. God sees the bigger picture and
perhaps He is working towards our greater good.

God does not care what horrors we must go through in this life
because he understands them to be insignificant. That does explain a
great deal.

God considers dying to be as trivial as moving from one room to
another. That explains why He does not give us a few extra hours on
earth after death to say goodbye to loved ones.

Personally, I consider this life and this world that I live in now to
be the most important thing in all of existence. It is horrible for
me to think that God may have his attention on some greater picture,
working to make some bigger part of existence great and perfect,
while letting this part be filled with suffering. I have to ask: Why
must the universe be divided into the good and the bad? Why must we
start our existence in the bad? Fortunately, I am not above believing
horrible things.

After reading carefully and now thinking about all that you have
said, I realize that perhaps God is all powerful and perfectly good,
but if that means that He sees our lives as the tiny, trivial things
that they are, I would prefer Him to be a little less perfect.

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 17, 2006, 10:13:08 AM1/17/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:

>
> After reading carefully and now thinking about all that you have
> said, I realize that perhaps God is all powerful and perfectly good,
> but if that means that He sees our lives as the tiny, trivial things
> that they are, I would prefer Him to be a little less perfect.

I would like you to consider the case of an earthly parent, who sees to
it that his child never bumps his toes, never falls down, never sees
sorrow, never learns about evil, always has everything he wants, no
matter what it is, instantly.

Would we call that parent a good one? Is it truely responsible for a
parent to never allow his child to make a choice and experience the
consequences of making that choice? Never allow him to ride a bike for
fear that he will fall? Never allow him to walk? Never to read a book
for fear of what he will find in it? Never go to school for fear of
germs?

Such a child will be able to live and function only so long as the
parent keeps him swaddled. He will never grow, he will never be able to
deal with other people, or become a sane adult.

I believe that God IS perfectly good, and that He has created us, His
children, and given them the ability to choose; because we can choose,
WE created evil. That comes with choice; whenever there is a choice to
be made, one choice will be "lesser." We learn about the consequences
of those choices every time we make one.

...and whenever we make a choice, we are choosing the consequences that
come with it, not just the action itself. When we choose to live on the
side of an active volcano, we are choosing all the possible
consequences that might result from that choice. Many people consider
the reward worth the risk; the sides of volcanos are generally very
fertile and lovely places to grow things, and volcanos don't erupt
every day, or every year. When a couple decide to have sex, they are
choosing all the consequences that can come with that action. All of
them. They have to deal with those that actually occur, whether or not
they think it "fair."

The point is, this life IS vital, because it is in this life that we
learn about choice, and consequences, evil and the importance of
avoiding it. It is in this life, right here, right now, that we at
least begin to grow up.

You might reply that a truly good parent would not allow his children
to make choices that would result in their deaths if he truly loved
them; that is, riding a bike is fine, but allowing him to ride in the
freeway is not...and you would be correct. A good and wise Father would
put a safety net for His children, so that all would not be utterly
lost when they make really bad choices. He has done so. He sent His
Only Begotten Son to us.

Diana

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 17, 2006, 8:29:26 PM1/17/06

dianaiad wrote:
> I would like you to consider the case of an earthly parent, who
> sees to it that his child never bumps his toes, never falls down,
> never sees sorrow, never learns about evil, always has everything
> he wants, no matter what it is, instantly.

You mean for me to compare God to an earthly parent. I am willing to
do that, though it makes me slightly uncomfortable. God is capable of
so much more than an earthly parent in both scope and quantity that
the validity of such comparisons are always going to be in question.

> Would we call that parent a good one? Is it truely responsible for
> a parent to never allow his child to make a choice and experience
> the consequences of making that choice? Never allow him to ride a
> bike for fear that he will fall? Never allow him to walk? Never to
> read a book for fear of what he will find in it? Never go to
> school for fear of germs?

Here is where we start to see the problem. That does not sound like a
very good parent at all, but that does not mean that God is a good
parent. Actually, I would say that He is much worse than what you
describe. He allows His children to ride bikes, but He makes their
bones breakable and their knees vulnerable to scrapes and He puts
bumps in the road for them to lose their balance. God allows them to
go to school but He fills the school with germs and ensures that some
of them will be infected. He is so much the opposite of what you
describe that it is far worse.

> Such a child will be able to live and function only so long as the
> parent keeps him swaddled. He will never grow, he will never be
> able to deal with other people, or become a sane adult.

Imagine an earthly parent working off of God's model. Surely if the
perfect God does it, then it must be good. This parent sees that God
allows us to live around volcanos, so she allows her children to play
in mine fields. She knows it is dangerous, but she understands that
it is a learning experience that will allow her children to grow. I
would like to ask her what she expects her children to learn from it,
but she does not know. She only knows that God has a reason she
cannot understand and that reason is good enough for her. She is
unconcerned that several of her children explode because she knows
that death is little more than stepping from one room to another.

Things get worse from there. She has a little kit filled with needles
and she uses them to inject horrible disease into her children at
random, crippling them and putting them into agony for their entire
lives. She does not want her children to miss out on God's great
plans for the people He gives diseases. Surely they must be good, or
else He would not do such things.

> I believe that God IS perfectly good, and that He has created us,
> His children, and given them the ability to choose; because we can
> choose, WE created evil. That comes with choice; whenever there is
> a choice to be made, one choice will be "lesser." We learn about
> the consequences of those choices every time we make one.
>
> ...and whenever we make a choice, we are choosing the consequences
> that come with it, not just the action itself. When we choose to
> live on the side of an active volcano, we are choosing all the
> possible consequences that might result from that choice. Many
> people consider the reward worth the risk; the sides of volcanos
> are generally very fertile and lovely places to grow things, and
> volcanos don't erupt every day, or every year. When a couple
> decide to have sex, they are choosing all the consequences that
> can come with that action. All of them. They have to deal with
> those that actually occur, whether or not they think it "fair."

That is all very true, but let us stop to consider what this might be
from God's perspective. He sees those people living on the side of a
volcano and His finger is on the button to make the mountain explode.
I am trying to imagine what goes on in His head just before He pushes
that button. I find it hard to imagine, but perhaps I just do not
want to imagine it. From what you have suggested, it might be
something like, "This will teach them a lesson!"

> The point is, this life IS vital, because it is in this life that
> we learn about choice, and consequences, evil and the importance
> of avoiding it. It is in this life, right here, right now, that we
> at least begin to grow up.

I get the impression from your posts that you see this in terms of
only 2 tones. Things can either be as they are, with generous doses
of horror and misery scattered around the world, or as a world
without choices where everything is empty and pointless and people
are little more than robots.

I am not saying that people should not be given choices, that God
should forbid us to ride bikes or construct tall buildings for fear
that we might fall. I have never meant to even suggest that. Surely
you can see that there are some horrors in this world that are beyond
compensation and which no one would regret losing. Some people live
with crippling disease for their entire lives and no matter how the
universe is configured, that is not a good thing. Removing the clear
evils of this world would not turn us into robots. Imagine this world
exactly as it is, but without cancer, now tell me how that world is
less perfect than this one.

> You might reply that a truly good parent would not allow his
> children to make choices that would result in their deaths if he
> truly loved them; that is, riding a bike is fine, but allowing him
> to ride in the freeway is not...and you would be correct. A good
> and wise Father would put a safety net for His children, so that
> all would not be utterly lost when they make really bad choices.
> He has done so. He sent His Only Begotten Son to us.

Thank you for bringing up Jesus here, because you have reminded me
where my entire scenario falls apart. No parent would be foolish
enough to do horrible things to her children in the name of God
because Jesus showed us God's true opinions on these matters.

Jesus healed the sick and gave sight to the blind. This proves that
He thinks those things are bad. He did not tell them to bear their
illnesses because of His greater plan for their growth and
experiences; He removed their burdens.

We know that at one point God believed that disease was bad. Do you
think that He has changed his mind? If not, then why does He no
longer cure people the way Jesus did and why does He not cure
everyone? A limitless and perfect being would not do things part way,
He would exercise His power to implement his perfect decisions
everywhere and always. That makes it so bizarre that Jesus cured just
some few, as if God were undecided about whether disease were bad or
not.

Regarding your actual statement about Jesus: I see nothing in this
world that suggests that He is stopping people from making decisions
that result in deaths. Perhaps he stops some but certainly not all.
He does not even stop children from playing near a freeway.

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 18, 2006, 11:54:11 AM1/18/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
> > I would like you to consider the case of an earthly parent, who
> > sees to it that his child never bumps his toes, never falls down,
> > never sees sorrow, never learns about evil, always has everything
> > he wants, no matter what it is, instantly.
>
> You mean for me to compare God to an earthly parent. I am willing to
> do that, though it makes me slightly uncomfortable. God is capable of
> so much more than an earthly parent in both scope and quantity that
> the validity of such comparisons are always going to be in question.

Yes, I do mean for you to compare God to an earthly parent, and yes, He

is capable of so much more than an earthly parent in both scope and

quantity. However, if the analogy holds, and I do think it does, so are
WE capable of more than we know.

>
> > Would we call that parent a good one? Is it truely responsible for
> > a parent to never allow his child to make a choice and experience
> > the consequences of making that choice? Never allow him to ride a
> > bike for fear that he will fall? Never allow him to walk? Never to
> > read a book for fear of what he will find in it? Never go to
> > school for fear of germs?
>
> Here is where we start to see the problem. That does not sound like a
> very good parent at all, but that does not mean that God is a good
> parent. Actually, I would say that He is much worse than what you
> describe. He allows His children to ride bikes, but He makes their
> bones breakable and their knees vulnerable to scrapes and He puts
> bumps in the road for them to lose their balance. God allows them to
> go to school but He fills the school with germs and ensures that some
> of them will be infected. He is so much the opposite of what you
> describe that it is far worse.

Here is where the perspective is getting narrowed too much, again.
Consider the life of an average medical student, an intern, a
resident...the students use each other as pincushions and don't get
enough sleep. The interns are constantly in danger of screwing
themselves (and a patient..) up and not getting enough sleep. Residents
have even more problems with sleep deprivation, NONE of them get paid
worth didley, most of them end up losing marriage and relationships
unless they are considerably stronger than most people, they get
deeper and deeper in debt every day they train. The hardships and
demands upon them are intense, and seem, sometimes, very much not worth
it, far too high a price for the end product. However, they come out
the other end of the process as doctors, hopefully good ones.

Or take the elite police/soldiers who are between us and the evil
others would do to us. Consider the training THEY get. Bootcamp, which
is not fun, and then, for the very best of them, training beyond that
to make boot camp seem like a day spa.

It is required to produce people capable of doing the job required of
them. So look at earth life as boot camp.

> > Such a child will be able to live and function only so long as the
> > parent keeps him swaddled. He will never grow, he will never be
> > able to deal with other people, or become a sane adult.
>
> Imagine an earthly parent working off of God's model.

Hopefully, we do.

> Surely if the
> perfect God does it, then it must be good. This parent sees that God
> allows us to live around volcanos, so she allows her children to play
> in mine fields.

Excuse me. Remember...GOD knows that death isn't the end of all living.
Therefore, HIS allowing us to live on the side of volcanos is more
like...us allowing our kids to play in poison ivy after we've warned
them several times what would happen if they do something that stupid.
The kid will get a rash, we will apply the calamine and steroid cream,
and the kid will recover.

God knows that those who live on the sides of volcanos may pay the
price for doing so, and the price is....coming 'inside' a little sooner
than they want to.

> She knows it is dangerous, but she understands that
> it is a learning experience that will allow her children to grow. I
> would like to ask her what she expects her children to learn from it,
> but she does not know. She only knows that God has a reason she
> cannot understand and that reason is good enough for her. She is
> unconcerned that several of her children explode because she knows
> that death is little more than stepping from one room to another.

Remember the analogy of the burning room? Only the one who KNOWS that
there is safety on the other side of the window is the hero. The other
guy is guilty of attempted murder, whether there is safety on the other
side or not. God KNOWS that there is an afterlife. We do not. We have
faith, yes, but that's not the same as knowledge, is it? We are not
God. We did not create the universe and all in it, and we have
influence and control only over that small part of it that we know
about.

> Things get worse from there. She has a little kit filled with needles
> and she uses them to inject horrible disease into her children at
> random, crippling them and putting them into agony for their entire
> lives. She does not want her children to miss out on God's great
> plans for the people He gives diseases. Surely they must be good, or
> else He would not do such things.

See above.

>
> > I believe that God IS perfectly good, and that He has created us,
> > His children, and given them the ability to choose; because we can
> > choose, WE created evil. That comes with choice; whenever there is
> > a choice to be made, one choice will be "lesser." We learn about
> > the consequences of those choices every time we make one.
> >
> > ...and whenever we make a choice, we are choosing the consequences
> > that come with it, not just the action itself. When we choose to
> > live on the side of an active volcano, we are choosing all the
> > possible consequences that might result from that choice. Many
> > people consider the reward worth the risk; the sides of volcanos
> > are generally very fertile and lovely places to grow things, and
> > volcanos don't erupt every day, or every year. When a couple
> > decide to have sex, they are choosing all the consequences that
> > can come with that action. All of them. They have to deal with
> > those that actually occur, whether or not they think it "fair."
>
> That is all very true, but let us stop to consider what this might be
> from God's perspective. He sees those people living on the side of a
> volcano and His finger is on the button to make the mountain explode.
> I am trying to imagine what goes on in His head just before He pushes
> that button.

Well, IF He micromanages things to that extent, I imagine that what
goes through His head is something like "well, kids, I TOLD you that if
you played in the mud, you'd have to come inside sooner than you wanted
to..."

> I find it hard to imagine, but perhaps I just do not
> want to imagine it. From what you have suggested, it might be
> something like, "This will teach them a lesson!"

Quite possibly. Remember; to God, physical death just isn't that big a
deal.

> > The point is, this life IS vital, because it is in this life that
> > we learn about choice, and consequences, evil and the importance
> > of avoiding it. It is in this life, right here, right now, that we
> > at least begin to grow up.
>
> I get the impression from your posts that you see this in terms of
> only 2 tones. Things can either be as they are, with generous doses
> of horror and misery scattered around the world, or as a world
> without choices where everything is empty and pointless and people
> are little more than robots.

Choice 3: things can be as they are, the "horror and misery scattered
around the world" are mostly the result of OUR choices, not God's, and
there is considerably more joy and good things than there are miserable
ones.

>
> I am not saying that people should not be given choices, that God
> should forbid us to ride bikes or construct tall buildings for fear
> that we might fall. I have never meant to even suggest that. Surely
> you can see that there are some horrors in this world that are beyond
> compensation and which no one would regret losing.

Such as?

> Some people live
> with crippling disease for their entire lives and no matter how the
> universe is configured, that is not a good thing. Removing the clear
> evils of this world would not turn us into robots. Imagine this world
> exactly as it is, but without cancer, now tell me how that world is
> less perfect than this one.

Well now, that's a poser, given that my husband died of cancer, and it
was not a good death.

But everybody dies of something, and...defeating these diseases and
conditions is our job. Our challenge, as humans. We can do that,
y'know.

>
> > You might reply that a truly good parent would not allow his
> > children to make choices that would result in their deaths if he
> > truly loved them; that is, riding a bike is fine, but allowing him
> > to ride in the freeway is not...and you would be correct. A good
> > and wise Father would put a safety net for His children, so that
> > all would not be utterly lost when they make really bad choices.
> > He has done so. He sent His Only Begotten Son to us.
>
> Thank you for bringing up Jesus here, because you have reminded me
> where my entire scenario falls apart. No parent would be foolish
> enough to do horrible things to her children in the name of God
> because Jesus showed us God's true opinions on these matters.
>
> Jesus healed the sick and gave sight to the blind. This proves that
> He thinks those things are bad. He did not tell them to bear their
> illnesses because of His greater plan for their growth and
> experiences; He removed their burdens.

Not all of them....and remember, to at least one of them, He said "your
sins are forgiven you"....and then asked those around Him which was
easier, to forgive sins or to heal the sick. Yes, He then healed, but I
think He made His point, don't you?

If He thought that healing the sick and removing those burdens was more
important than teaching us to deal with our lives and learn to be like
Him, why didn't He spend every minute of those three years doing
nothing but laying His hands on the sick and afflicted, raising the
dead and curing all ills?

Why did He spend most of His time TEACHING?

>
> We know that at one point God believed that disease was bad. Do you
> think that He has changed his mind? If not, then why does He no
> longer cure people the way Jesus did and why does He not cure
> everyone? A limitless and perfect being would not do things part way,
> He would exercise His power to implement his perfect decisions
> everywhere and always. That makes it so bizarre that Jesus cured just
> some few, as if God were undecided about whether disease were bad or
> not.

Perhaps His priorities are not your priorities, and his vision is a
whole bunch wider than ours? You see the school term with the bullies
and the tests and the problems that go with that and can't see past
graduation. He sees all the possibilities, and knows about the eternity
you are going to school FOR.

>
> Regarding your actual statement about Jesus: I see nothing in this
> world that suggests that He is stopping people from making decisions
> that result in deaths. Perhaps he stops some but certainly not all.
> He does not even stop children from playing near a freeway.

No. That is the problem with giving man free will. We use it...and we
will, inevitably, use it badly. That's why God sent His Son, to
ameliorate the consequences of those lousy choices, to give us the gift
of salvation.

....or, a safety net...whatever you call it. To US, to you and me, no
matter how much faith we have, physical death is an end. We can't see,
we can't know, what's on the other side of that, if anything. To us,
our suffering here is horrific sometimes. However, seen from the
perspective of a God Who created the universe and an eternity to live
in, how can physical death be seen as anything but trivial? Trivial,
as I saw the stick of a pin in my child's finger after I told her not
to play with the pin cushion because she could stick herself, and she
didn't listen. Of course she saw the lesson learned that day as one
involving great pain and sorrow; she was four.

As to the purpose of pain...and of sorrow. You have, of course, never
given birth. I can tell you that in spite of what anybody tells you, it
HURTS. Hours and hours of pain that no man has any idea of; pain that
doesn't go away, that just keeps building to a crescendo of ripping,
tearing agony.

I did it five times, and I would do it again in a heartbeat, because
the reward is worth it. I would have valued and loved my children no
matter how I got them, but I got them THAT way, and that's part of why
I valued them; I paid a great price for them. I bore them, I fed them,
I walked them and washed them and taught them...and I had to let them
make their own decisions. Some of those decisions weren't great. Some
were. Some of those choices make me proud. Some broke my heart.
Sometimes watching what they do with their free will is more painful
than actually giving birth.

But they are growing up to be good men and women who will be like their
parents.

Diana

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 18, 2006, 1:35:44 PM1/18/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Or take the elite police/soldiers who are between us and the evil
> others would do to us. Consider the training THEY get. Bootcamp,
> which is not fun, and then, for the very best of them, training
> beyond that to make boot camp seem like a day spa.
>
> It is required to produce people capable of doing the job required
> of them. So look at earth life as boot camp.

That is a very good point, but it suggests two obvious questions.
What does God want us to be trained for? It seems very odd that a
perfectly good God would not have created us directly with all the
training we need, especially considering how much suffering is
involved in the training. Also God should not have any needs that we
can fill, so our training must be for our own good only.

The second question is: what are we learning from all of this?
Horrible suffering is an unforgettable experience that leaves us
better, but surely there is a limit. Some people suffer for most of
their lives; was the last year of suffering just as important as the
first year? Are we really learning anything from suffering a second
time after suffering once? My point is that this life does not look
like training. The pain is not usually a road to making us better; it
is merely a struggle to survive against cruel fate.

> Rick Hawk wrote:
>> She knows it is dangerous, but she understands that
>> it is a learning experience that will allow her children to grow.
>> I would like to ask her what she expects her children to learn
>> from it, but she does not know. She only knows that God has a
>> reason she cannot understand and that reason is good enough for
>> her. She is unconcerned that several of her children explode
>> because she knows that death is little more than stepping from
>> one room to another.
>
> Remember the analogy of the burning room? Only the one who KNOWS
> that there is safety on the other side of the window is the hero.
> The other guy is guilty of attempted murder, whether there is
> safety on the other side or not. God KNOWS that there is an
> afterlife. We do not. We have faith, yes, but that's not the same
> as knowledge, is it? We are not God. We did not create the
> universe and all in it, and we have influence and control only
> over that small part of it that we know about.

Why should we make a distinction between faith and knowledge unless
that faith is wrong? If God really is perfectly good and God does
kill us, then death must be a good thing, as everything must be. Do
you have a reason to doubt it? If so, then what is it? I expect it
would be relevent to this discussion.

> Well, IF He micromanages things to that extent, I imagine that
> what goes through His head is something like "well, kids, I TOLD
> you that if you played in the mud, you'd have to come inside
> sooner than you wanted to..."

If He did not mircomanage to that extent then He would be negligent.
If He is perfect and all-powerful, He must also see everything and He
always has the option of not taking everyone who dies.

>> I find it hard to imagine, but perhaps I just do not
>> want to imagine it. From what you have suggested, it might be
>> something like, "This will teach them a lesson!"
>
> Quite possibly. Remember; to God, physical death just isn't that
> big a deal.

Yes, you are right about that, but death is just such an easy target;
God looks at it so much differently than we do. But if God thinks
death is a small thing, why would he not make it painless? In fact,
imagine that God would simply suck us up painlessly into the sky when
it is our time to die and He would give us some warning so that we
could say goodbye to our loved ones.

For a perfect world, it is certainly easy to imagine ways to improve
it.

>> dianaiad wrote:
>> > The point is, this life IS vital, because it is in this life
>> > that we learn about choice, and consequences, evil and the
>> > importance of avoiding it. It is in this life, right here,
>> > right now, that we at least begin to grow up.
>>
>> I get the impression from your posts that you see this in terms
>> of only 2 tones. Things can either be as they are, with generous
>> doses of horror and misery scattered around the world, or as a
>> world without choices where everything is empty and pointless and
>> people are little more than robots.
>
> Choice 3: things can be as they are, the "horror and misery
> scattered around the world" are mostly the result of OUR choices,
> not God's, and there is considerably more joy and good things than
> there are miserable ones.

True, but it is God's choice to allow those choices. Please do not
take that the wrong way. I am not talking about turning us into
robots, not in the slightest. I merely suggest stopping a torture's
hand from inflicting unimabinable misery or stopping a military
leader from starting a devestating war. There is a huge difference
between those things and the learning decisions that we make in
everyday life.

>> Some people live
>> with crippling disease for their entire lives and no matter how
>> the universe is configured, that is not a good thing. Removing
>> the clear evils of this world would not turn us into robots.
>> Imagine this world exactly as it is, but without cancer, now tell
>> me how that world is less perfect than this one.
>
> Well now, that's a poser, given that my husband died of cancer,
> and it was not a good death.
>
> But everybody dies of something, and...defeating these diseases
> and conditions is our job. Our challenge, as humans. We can do
> that, y'know.

We have been trying for a very long time. If God wants our lives to
be free of such things, he free of such things, He has failed for
thousands of years and billions of lives. But I do not believe that
God is capable of failing, so there must be another explanation.

>> Jesus healed the sick and gave sight to the blind. This proves
>> that He thinks those things are bad. He did not tell them to bear
>> their illnesses because of His greater plan for their growth and
>> experiences; He removed their burdens.
>
> Not all of them....and remember, to at least one of them, He said
> "your sins are forgiven you"....and then asked those around Him
> which was easier, to forgive sins or to heal the sick. Yes, He
> then healed, but I think He made His point, don't you?
>
> If He thought that healing the sick and removing those burdens was
> more important than teaching us to deal with our lives and learn
> to be like Him, why didn't He spend every minute of those three
> years doing nothing but laying His hands on the sick and
> afflicted, raising the dead and curing all ills?
>
> Why did He spend most of His time TEACHING?

I see what you are getting at here, but remember that you are saying
that illness is part of teaching. This is a bootcamp where we suffer
to learn. Except, that would present a conflict in Jesus. He healed
the sick and he taught, but healing the sick is the opposite of
teaching, so why did He do both at all?

>> We know that at one point God believed that disease was bad. Do
>> you think that He has changed his mind? If not, then why does He
>> no longer cure people the way Jesus did and why does He not cure
>> everyone? A limitless and perfect being would not do things part
>> way, He would exercise His power to implement his perfect
>> decisions everywhere and always. That makes it so bizarre that
>> Jesus cured just some few, as if God were undecided about whether
>> disease were bad or not.
>
> Perhaps His priorities are not your priorities, and his vision is
> a whole bunch wider than ours? You see the school term with the
> bullies and the tests and the problems that go with that and can't
> see past graduation. He sees all the possibilities, and knows
> about the eternity you are going to school FOR.

While the problems of this world do seem large to me, at the moment I
am looking at an apparent contradiction within God where he heals at
one point and curses with burdens the next. If He has a good reason
to give us disease then why did He heal?

>> Regarding your actual statement about Jesus: I see nothing in
>> this world that suggests that He is stopping people from making
>> decisions that result in deaths. Perhaps he stops some but
>> certainly not all. He does not even stop children from playing
>> near a freeway.
>
> No. That is the problem with giving man free will. We use it...and
> we will, inevitably, use it badly. That's why God sent His Son, to
> ameliorate the consequences of those lousy choices, to give us the
> gift of salvation.
>
> ....or, a safety net...whatever you call it. To US, to you and
> me, no matter how much faith we have, physical death is an end. We
> can't see, we can't know, what's on the other side of that, if
> anything. To us, our suffering here is horrific sometimes.
> However, seen from the perspective of a God Who created the
> universe and an eternity to live in, how can physical death be
> seen as anything but trivial? Trivial, as I saw the stick of a
> pin in my child's finger after I told her not to play with the pin
> cushion because she could stick herself, and she didn't listen. Of
> course she saw the lesson learned that day as one involving great
> pain and sorrow; she was four.

It seems as if our views of God are not far apart at all. For
whatever reason, God is apathetic. He does not care about our
suffering or the tiny problems our little lives. Perhaps it is
because He is malevolent or perhaps it is because He has his eyes on
a larger picture and not on us, but it does not change the fact.

> As to the purpose of pain...and of sorrow. You have, of course,
> never given birth. I can tell you that in spite of what anybody
> tells you, it HURTS. Hours and hours of pain that no man has any
> idea of; pain that doesn't go away, that just keeps building to a
> crescendo of ripping, tearing agony.
>
> I did it five times, and I would do it again in a heartbeat,
> because the reward is worth it. I would have valued and loved my
> children no matter how I got them, but I got them THAT way, and
> that's part of why I valued them; I paid a great price for them. I
> bore them, I fed them, I walked them and washed them and taught
> them...and I had to let them make their own decisions. Some of
> those decisions weren't great. Some were. Some of those choices
> make me proud. Some broke my heart. Sometimes watching what they
> do with their free will is more painful than actually giving
> birth.

You are saying that all of this suffering is like giving birth to
something? You mean that after death we will find that our suffering
was creating something and that we will treasure it all the more for
each moment of suffering that we went through to get it?

That seems very strange. Even if there is some great reward for us in
the afterlife, I cannot imagine how it could be connected to
suffering. If it is, then perhaps we are wise without knowing it to
inflict so much suffering upon each other.

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 18, 2006, 2:08:04 PM1/18/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
> > Or take the elite police/soldiers who are between us and the evil
> > others would do to us. Consider the training THEY get. Bootcamp,
> > which is not fun, and then, for the very best of them, training
> > beyond that to make boot camp seem like a day spa.
> >
> > It is required to produce people capable of doing the job required
> > of them. So look at earth life as boot camp.
>
> That is a very good point, but it suggests two obvious questions.
> What does God want us to be trained for?

I believe that we are being trained to be like Him.

> It seems very odd that a
> perfectly good God would not have created us directly with all the
> training we need, especially considering how much suffering is
> involved in the training. Also God should not have any needs that we
> can fill, so our training must be for our own good only.

That last is a very good point. It is for OUR good, not His, as the
training we give our own children is for their good, not specifically
for ours.

>
> The second question is: what are we learning from all of this?
> Horrible suffering is an unforgettable experience that leaves us
> better, but surely there is a limit.

Given the perspectives involved, can you decide what the limit is?

> Some people suffer for most of
> their lives;

Some do. Even so, however, what is that compared to eternity? I know it
seems forever while we are living through it, but from God's POV?

I remember Einstein's explanation of relativity and the hot stove....

> was the last year of suffering just as important as the
> first year? Are we really learning anything from suffering a second
> time after suffering once? My point is that this life does not look
> like training. The pain is not usually a road to making us better; it
> is merely a struggle to survive against cruel fate.

That might, in and of itself, be the point.

>
> > Rick Hawk wrote:
> >> She knows it is dangerous, but she understands that
> >> it is a learning experience that will allow her children to grow.
> >> I would like to ask her what she expects her children to learn
> >> from it, but she does not know. She only knows that God has a
> >> reason she cannot understand and that reason is good enough for
> >> her. She is unconcerned that several of her children explode
> >> because she knows that death is little more than stepping from
> >> one room to another.
> >
> > Remember the analogy of the burning room? Only the one who KNOWS
> > that there is safety on the other side of the window is the hero.
> > The other guy is guilty of attempted murder, whether there is
> > safety on the other side or not. God KNOWS that there is an
> > afterlife. We do not. We have faith, yes, but that's not the same
> > as knowledge, is it? We are not God. We did not create the
> > universe and all in it, and we have influence and control only
> > over that small part of it that we know about.
>
> Why should we make a distinction between faith and knowledge unless
> that faith is wrong?

Because it is faith, not knowlege. The point is, we do not KNOW if our
faith is correct, we believe. We may be quite correct in that belief,
but it's still belief. God, however, does indeed know. That makes a
huge difference.

> If God really is perfectly good and God does
> kill us, then death must be a good thing, as everything must be. Do
> you have a reason to doubt it? If so, then what is it? I expect it
> would be relevent to this discussion.

Personally, I believe death to be a necessary thing, in it's time.
But...WE aren't supposed to choose that time. We are supposed to be
working on making our time HERE better.

Back to the burning building analogy; it was a good thing that the
victims were tossed out the window. However, the tossing was a good
thing for only one of the tossers; only one did it for the correct
reason, because he KNEW what was going to happen to the woman outside
the window. The other man thought he was killing the woman he was
throwing. His motive meant everything, even if, in reality, he did her
a favor.

WE, in this life, are like the man who didn't know about the safety
net. If we do these things, we are doing very much the wrong thing.

> > Well, IF He micromanages things to that extent, I imagine that
> > what goes through His head is something like "well, kids, I TOLD
> > you that if you played in the mud, you'd have to come inside
> > sooner than you wanted to..."
>
> If He did not mircomanage to that extent then He would be negligent.

Or simply wise. Why in all the universe, which He created, would He
invent all the logical and workable laws by which the place operates
and then NOT let them work as they were obviously intended TO work?
What's the point of the processes that were created, and that we depend
upon?

> If He is perfect and all-powerful, He must also see everything and He
> always has the option of not taking everyone who dies.

"not taking", how? Everybody dies of something.

>
> >> I find it hard to imagine, but perhaps I just do not
> >> want to imagine it. From what you have suggested, it might be
> >> something like, "This will teach them a lesson!"
> >
> > Quite possibly. Remember; to God, physical death just isn't that
> > big a deal.
>
> Yes, you are right about that, but death is just such an easy target;
> God looks at it so much differently than we do. But if God thinks
> death is a small thing, why would he not make it painless?

Death is, in fact, quite painless. It's the process of getting to that
point that hurts.

> In fact,
> imagine that God would simply suck us up painlessly into the sky when
> it is our time to die and He would give us some warning so that we
> could say goodbye to our loved ones.

Now, that wouldn't leave much room for faith, would it? I would call
that a diservice, actually.

>
> For a perfect world, it is certainly easy to imagine ways to improve
> it.

A great deal of improvement to the world would be happening if WE
weren't so all fired good at screwing it up ourselves.

> >> dianaiad wrote:
> >> > The point is, this life IS vital, because it is in this life
> >> > that we learn about choice, and consequences, evil and the
> >> > importance of avoiding it. It is in this life, right here,
> >> > right now, that we at least begin to grow up.
> >>
> >> I get the impression from your posts that you see this in terms
> >> of only 2 tones. Things can either be as they are, with generous
> >> doses of horror and misery scattered around the world, or as a
> >> world without choices where everything is empty and pointless and
> >> people are little more than robots.
> >
> > Choice 3: things can be as they are, the "horror and misery
> > scattered around the world" are mostly the result of OUR choices,
> > not God's, and there is considerably more joy and good things than
> > there are miserable ones.
>
> True, but it is God's choice to allow those choices.

Yes. That's rather the point.

> Please do not
> take that the wrong way. I am not talking about turning us into
> robots, not in the slightest. I merely suggest stopping a torture's
> hand from inflicting unimabinable misery or stopping a military
> leader from starting a devestating war. There is a huge difference
> between those things and the learning decisions that we make in
> everyday life.

Is there? Great possibilities require great efforts, and knowledge
doesn't come freely, or easily.

>
> >> Some people live
> >> with crippling disease for their entire lives and no matter how
> >> the universe is configured, that is not a good thing. Removing
> >> the clear evils of this world would not turn us into robots.
> >> Imagine this world exactly as it is, but without cancer, now tell
> >> me how that world is less perfect than this one.
> >
> > Well now, that's a poser, given that my husband died of cancer,
> > and it was not a good death.
> >
> > But everybody dies of something, and...defeating these diseases
> > and conditions is our job. Our challenge, as humans. We can do
> > that, y'know.
>
> We have been trying for a very long time. If God wants our lives to
> be free of such things, he free of such things, He has failed for
> thousands of years and billions of lives. But I do not believe that
> God is capable of failing, so there must be another explanation.

yes. It's boot camp.

>
> >> Jesus healed the sick and gave sight to the blind. This proves
> >> that He thinks those things are bad. He did not tell them to bear
> >> their illnesses because of His greater plan for their growth and
> >> experiences; He removed their burdens.
> >
> > Not all of them....and remember, to at least one of them, He said
> > "your sins are forgiven you"....and then asked those around Him
> > which was easier, to forgive sins or to heal the sick. Yes, He
> > then healed, but I think He made His point, don't you?
> >
> > If He thought that healing the sick and removing those burdens was
> > more important than teaching us to deal with our lives and learn
> > to be like Him, why didn't He spend every minute of those three
> > years doing nothing but laying His hands on the sick and
> > afflicted, raising the dead and curing all ills?
> >
> > Why did He spend most of His time TEACHING?
>
> I see what you are getting at here, but remember that you are saying
> that illness is part of teaching. This is a bootcamp where we suffer
> to learn. Except, that would present a conflict in Jesus. He healed
> the sick and he taught, but healing the sick is the opposite of
> teaching, so why did He do both at all?

For the same reason WE are told to learn to heal the sick and relieve
distress ourselves? Because for those people, at that time, it was a
good idea, and He could.

> >> We know that at one point God believed that disease was bad. Do
> >> you think that He has changed his mind? If not, then why does He
> >> no longer cure people the way Jesus did and why does He not cure
> >> everyone? A limitless and perfect being would not do things part
> >> way, He would exercise His power to implement his perfect
> >> decisions everywhere and always. That makes it so bizarre that
> >> Jesus cured just some few, as if God were undecided about whether
> >> disease were bad or not.
> >
> > Perhaps His priorities are not your priorities, and his vision is
> > a whole bunch wider than ours? You see the school term with the
> > bullies and the tests and the problems that go with that and can't
> > see past graduation. He sees all the possibilities, and knows
> > about the eternity you are going to school FOR.
>
> While the problems of this world do seem large to me, at the moment I
> am looking at an apparent contradiction within God where he heals at
> one point and curses with burdens the next. If He has a good reason
> to give us disease then why did He heal?

Why did I allow one child to date, but not another? Because at that
specific time, for those specific children, dating was appropriate for
one but not for the other.

> >> Regarding your actual statement about Jesus: I see nothing in
> >> this world that suggests that He is stopping people from making
> >> decisions that result in deaths. Perhaps he stops some but
> >> certainly not all. He does not even stop children from playing
> >> near a freeway.
> >
> > No. That is the problem with giving man free will. We use it...and
> > we will, inevitably, use it badly. That's why God sent His Son, to
> > ameliorate the consequences of those lousy choices, to give us the
> > gift of salvation.
> >
> > ....or, a safety net...whatever you call it. To US, to you and
> > me, no matter how much faith we have, physical death is an end. We
> > can't see, we can't know, what's on the other side of that, if
> > anything. To us, our suffering here is horrific sometimes.
> > However, seen from the perspective of a God Who created the
> > universe and an eternity to live in, how can physical death be
> > seen as anything but trivial? Trivial, as I saw the stick of a
> > pin in my child's finger after I told her not to play with the pin
> > cushion because she could stick herself, and she didn't listen. Of
> > course she saw the lesson learned that day as one involving great
> > pain and sorrow; she was four.
>
> It seems as if our views of God are not far apart at all. For
> whatever reason, God is apathetic. He does not care about our
> suffering or the tiny problems our little lives.

Or He cares more than you know, figuring that, like me and my child,
the lesson learned was more important to her future than the slight
pinprick on her finger was.

> Perhaps it is
> because He is malevolent or perhaps it is because He has his eyes on
> a larger picture and not on us, but it does not change the fact.

What fact? That He allows pain and death and sorrow? We both agree on
that. The question you are begging is what that means about His love
for us. I believe He DOES have His eye on a larger picture, but that
very much includes us.

>
> > As to the purpose of pain...and of sorrow. You have, of course,
> > never given birth. I can tell you that in spite of what anybody
> > tells you, it HURTS. Hours and hours of pain that no man has any
> > idea of; pain that doesn't go away, that just keeps building to a
> > crescendo of ripping, tearing agony.
> >
> > I did it five times, and I would do it again in a heartbeat,
> > because the reward is worth it. I would have valued and loved my
> > children no matter how I got them, but I got them THAT way, and
> > that's part of why I valued them; I paid a great price for them. I
> > bore them, I fed them, I walked them and washed them and taught
> > them...and I had to let them make their own decisions. Some of
> > those decisions weren't great. Some were. Some of those choices
> > make me proud. Some broke my heart. Sometimes watching what they
> > do with their free will is more painful than actually giving
> > birth.
>
> You are saying that all of this suffering is like giving birth to
> something? You mean that after death we will find that our suffering
> was creating something and that we will treasure it all the more for
> each moment of suffering that we went through to get it?

Well, that's one way to put it. Lessons learned with difficulty tend to
be lessons that stick.

>
> That seems very strange. Even if there is some great reward for us in
> the afterlife, I cannot imagine how it could be connected to
> suffering. If it is, then perhaps we are wise without knowing it to
> inflict so much suffering upon each other.

It's not the suffering. It's how we handle it...and what we do do
alleviate it for others.

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 20, 2006, 10:30:37 PM1/20/06

I have been thinking a great deal about what you wrote and it has
inspired me in two ways. I have snipped many of your words but I
preserved the essense of what you said.

I have taken it in two directions. One of them goes against the point
you are making and the second one expands your point even farther
into a proof of the possibility of an all-powerful and perfectly good
God. Unfortunately, my proof involves an unbelievable interpretation
of reality such that if it were taken to heart would cause misery and
insanity.

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:
>> dianaiad wrote:
>> > Or take the elite police/soldiers who are between us and the
>> > evil others would do to us. Consider the training THEY get.
>> > Bootcamp, which is not fun, and then, for the very best of
>> > them, training beyond that to make boot camp seem like a day
>> > spa.
>> >
>> > It is required to produce people capable of doing the job
>> > required of them. So look at earth life as boot camp.
>>
>> That is a very good point, but it suggests two obvious questions.
>> What does God want us to be trained for?
>
> I believe that we are being trained to be like Him.

That sounds very good. When I first read it, I thought it was a very
clever response, but after thinking about it for a while, I realized
that it is far deeper than it appears and in a way truly horrible.
Let us expand on it and imagine what it is saying in more detail.

God is training us to be like Him. He is sending us through a 'boot
camp' of disease, frailty, pain, and most of all the heartache of
death, not to mention all of the other horrors of the world. In the
end we will have grown to be like Him. In other words, we are being
made to suffer so that we will learn how to make others suffer.

It makes complete sense and it is entirely believable. What better
training could there be for us to become like God than see all of the
horrors He created first-hand. Of course, there is much beauty in the
world and we see that too, but when there is suffering to be done,
all beauty pales.

>> That seems very strange. Even if there is some great reward for
>> us in the afterlife, I cannot imagine how it could be connected
>> to suffering. If it is, then perhaps we are wise without knowing
>> it to inflict so much suffering upon each other.
>
> It's not the suffering. It's how we handle it...and what we do do
> alleviate it for others.

This is what has given me a truly wild idea. It is inspiring because
it really does explain all the suffering in the world and how we can
be learning good things from it. Nothing could be better than to ease
the suffering of another.

The only problem is that God cannot be teaching us in that manner. If
easing the suffering of others is the greatest good, then it must be
the duty of God as the embodiment of the greatest good and there
would be no suffering left for us to ease.

But that line of thinking lead me to something ridiculous. Suppose
that God truly was perfectly good and all-powerful and teaching us to
ease the suffering of others. The obvious way for him to be all of
those things would be a kind of simulation. If God is perfectly good
then suffering is impossible, so imagine that it does not exist. The
implication is that the people whom we see suffering are not really
suffering, but are instead only acting as if they were.

What if the people who suffer in this world are the best people,
selected by God as having achieved all that is needed of them, then
given another mission. With the assistance of God, they have the
ability to flawlessly act as though they were in agony for the
purpose of teaching us to help those in need. Whatever small pains
that we feel are just to let us imagine what those in agony might be
feeling. This would have to be the case for every single person who
we have ever seen suffering.

No one can ever believe such a story, because if they did it would be
horrible. Such a person would be insane in the worst way, with little
more than apathy for people in need. We are fundamentally wired to
not believe such a thing and even that suggests that it might be
true. If the world were to have such a philosophy, it would ruin
God's plan and therefore prove that the philosophy was false. If the
philosophy were true, then God would have created us in such a way as
to be sure we would not believe in such a game.

I certainly do not believe it, but it is fascinating to think about.

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 21, 2006, 1:02:41 PM1/21/06

Or that we will learn first hand what suffering is, so that we will not
do so.

>
> It makes complete sense and it is entirely believable. What better
> training could there be for us to become like God than see all of the
> horrors He created first-hand. Of course, there is much beauty in the
> world and we see that too, but when there is suffering to be done,
> all beauty pales.

Actually, no. when there is suffering, the joy and beauty of the world
stand out.

>
> >> That seems very strange. Even if there is some great reward for
> >> us in the afterlife, I cannot imagine how it could be connected
> >> to suffering. If it is, then perhaps we are wise without knowing
> >> it to inflict so much suffering upon each other.
> >
> > It's not the suffering. It's how we handle it...and what we do do
> > alleviate it for others.
>
> This is what has given me a truly wild idea. It is inspiring because
> it really does explain all the suffering in the world and how we can
> be learning good things from it. Nothing could be better than to ease
> the suffering of another.
>
> The only problem is that God cannot be teaching us in that manner. If
> easing the suffering of others is the greatest good, then it must be
> the duty of God as the embodiment of the greatest good and there
> would be no suffering left for us to ease.
>

Oh? By that reasoning, nobody would train medical students, because
there would be nobody for them to work with. They couldn't practice
giving IV's to one another, they couldn't practice anything, because of
course those who went before them would be alleviating all the
suffering. No child would struggle through piano practice because the
concert pianist who had gone before them would relieve them of the need
to practice; they would play the piece themselves so that the child
never had to do so.

> But that line of thinking lead me to something ridiculous. Suppose
> that God truly was perfectly good and all-powerful and teaching us to
> ease the suffering of others. The obvious way for him to be all of
> those things would be a kind of simulation. If God is perfectly good
> then suffering is impossible, so imagine that it does not exist. The
> implication is that the people whom we see suffering are not really
> suffering, but are instead only acting as if they were.
>
> What if the people who suffer in this world are the best people,
> selected by God as having achieved all that is needed of them, then
> given another mission. With the assistance of God, they have the
> ability to flawlessly act as though they were in agony for the
> purpose of teaching us to help those in need. Whatever small pains
> that we feel are just to let us imagine what those in agony might be
> feeling. This would have to be the case for every single person who
> we have ever seen suffering.
>
> No one can ever believe such a story, because if they did it would be
> horrible. Such a person would be insane in the worst way, with little
> more than apathy for people in need. We are fundamentally wired to
> not believe such a thing and even that suggests that it might be
> true. If the world were to have such a philosophy, it would ruin
> God's plan and therefore prove that the philosophy was false. If the
> philosophy were true, then God would have created us in such a way as
> to be sure we would not believe in such a game.
>
> I certainly do not believe it, but it is fascinating to think about.

And while you are quite adept at the word games and the sophistry, (the
classic method of argument, not the modern equivalent) I would ask you
to tackle this one, just for kicks:

Wherever there is a choice to be made, there is at least one that is
less desirable than another. This less desirable one is 'evil', by
definition, whether it is so in great degree or less.

Thus, evil is, simply because we can choose between more than one
option. It comes with the territory.

Our purpose in life here is to experience evil and choices in what may
well be a 'sandbox' environment, that is, a 'safe' one, one in which we
cannot really hurt ourselves by screwing up all that bad, What's the
worst that can happen? We hurt for a time? We die? What is that in
terms of eternity? Expand your mind around that concept. Eternity.
Thousands, millions, billions, trillions of years measured by the
earth, time infinite.

And you are all worked up about a hundred of them, more or less. Excuse
me, but that's somewhat like.. accusing your personal trainer of the
utmost evil because he's putting you through a painful excercise
regime....so that you won't die climbing Mt. Everest.

We don't, obviously, know exactly what we will be doing in the
eternities, but if this life is simply training for it, then it's going
to be challenging; both the beauty and the challenges will be immense.

After all, look what God has done, and we are His children.

What, did you honestly think that heaven will be us sitting on clouds
playing harps?

Why don't you do your own thought experiment?

Use these statements as premises: God is perfectly good and wants the
best for us.
We are His children, He has said so.
There is an afterlife, a very long one, an eternal one.

Now YOU figure out how this life figures into that scenario.

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 21, 2006, 5:35:26 PM1/21/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:
>> God is training us to be like Him. He is sending us through a
>> 'boot camp' of disease, frailty, pain, and most of all the
>> heartache of death, not to mention all of the other horrors of
>> the world. In the end we will have grown to be like Him. In other
>> words, we are being made to suffer so that we will learn how to
>> make others suffer.
>
> Or that we will learn first hand what suffering is, so that we
> will not do so.

The entire point of what I was saying was that you had said you
believed Him to be training us to be like Himself. He does not mind
inflicting suffering on us, so this new interpretation of His
teaching cannot be right. If we are being trained to not inflict
suffering then we are being trained to avoid being like God, by God,
the ultimate source of much suffering.

Even if you assume that God has a great and good purpose for the
suffering, that does not change the fact that He puts suffering into
this world.

>> It makes complete sense and it is entirely believable. What
>> better training could there be for us to become like God than see
>> all of the horrors He created first-hand. Of course, there is
>> much beauty in the world and we see that too, but when there is
>> suffering to be done, all beauty pales.
>
> Actually, no. when there is suffering, the joy and beauty of the
> world stand out.

It would stand out for those who are not suffering by comparison, but
when a person is suffering in agony, that person would be happy to
tear up the Mona Lisa just to get peace. When we are allowed to
suffer, even God's beautiful creations are lessened.

>> dianaiad wrote:
>> > It's not the suffering. It's how we handle it...and what we do
>> > do alleviate it for others.
>>
>> This is what has given me a truly wild idea. It is inspiring
>> because it really does explain all the suffering in the world and
>> how we can be learning good things from it. Nothing could be
>> better than to ease the suffering of another.
>>
>> The only problem is that God cannot be teaching us in that
>> manner. If easing the suffering of others is the greatest good,
>> then it must be the duty of God as the embodiment of the greatest
>> good and there would be no suffering left for us to ease.
>
> Oh? By that reasoning, nobody would train medical students,
> because there would be nobody for them to work with. They couldn't
> practice giving IV's to one another, they couldn't practice
> anything, because of course those who went before them would be
> alleviating all the suffering. No child would struggle through
> piano practice because the concert pianist who had gone before
> them would relieve them of the need to practice; they would play
> the piece themselves so that the child never had to do so.

This is another thing which I have realized about God and His
perfection. All of those examples of humans training each other
differ from God in the fact that God is perfect and they are not. To
be perfectly good, no one can ever be better than God. If anyone ever
does the right thing while God does the wrong thing, that is a slight
flaw on God's perfection that ruins it forever.

Therefore God cannot challenge us to do good by presenting us with
problems, because that would mean that we are doing good in direct
conflict with God's actions, a clear instant of being better than
God.

Perhaps a more clear way to say this is: God is perfectly good,
therefore He must do everything good that He has the power to do;
surely that is the meaning of perfectly good. Therefore He must take
every step to ease the suffering of all people, even if it was
mankind that caused the suffering. On the other hand, if He is not
required to ease the suffering of all people, then it can only be
because easing the suffering of people is not good and therefore we
should not do it.

> And while you are quite adept at the word games and the sophistry,
> (the classic method of argument, not the modern equivalent) I
> would ask you to tackle this one, just for kicks:
>
> Wherever there is a choice to be made, there is at least one that
> is less desirable than another. This less desirable one is 'evil',
> by definition, whether it is so in great degree or less.

Surely that is incorrect. Let me make this clear with a single word:
jactitate. It means to toss back and forth. I had no reason to choose
that word, but suppose I had chosen 'sanctiloquent' instead. To be
sanctiloquent is intuitively far better than to jactitate, but was I
being evil to choose the word 'jactitate'? I hope you can agree that
my choice of word was entirely neutral.

Not every decision is between good and evil. What I had for breakfast
today was a choice between cereal and fruit, not between good and
evil. Do you think the books I choose to read or the television I
choose to watch might be evil? I think that one can live a very
fulfilling life, full of choices, without any evil at all.

You might say that every choice has some trace of evil, but you also
seem to think that choices are good in themselves, so the good of
having choices can balance the tiny amounts of evil in some of the
better choices.

> Our purpose in life here is to experience evil and choices in what
> may well be a 'sandbox' environment, that is, a 'safe' one, one in
> which we cannot really hurt ourselves by screwing up all that bad,
> What's the worst that can happen? We hurt for a time? We die? What
> is that in terms of eternity? Expand your mind around that
> concept. Eternity. Thousands, millions, billions, trillions of
> years measured by the earth, time infinite.

What you are suggesting is apathy. You cannot believe that what
happens here is unimportant except as training for some greater
thing. If you really believed that you would be like the parent
sending her children through a mine field; death would be unimportant
and the only goal in life would be to collect experiences.

> And you are all worked up about a hundred of them, more or less.
> Excuse me, but that's somewhat like.. accusing your personal
> trainer of the utmost evil because he's putting you through a
> painful excercise regime....so that you won't die climbing Mt.
> Everest.

I have no desire to climb Everest. I like this world and I like this
life. If only God would stop this bootcamp plan, things would be
truly good here. I do not know what awaits me in eternity, but I
would be very happy if it was a world like this with all the
suffering stripped away.

If God is truly good, then when is He going to show it? Is he
training us with pain for an even greater trial such as climbing
Everest? Perhaps the afterlife will be filled with suffering also,
more and more suffering to train us to greater and greater levels for
all eternity. That seems to be something like God's plan, judging
from this world, but I would not call it good.

> Why don't you do your own thought experiment?
>
> Use these statements as premises: God is perfectly good and wants
> the best for us.
> We are His children, He has said so.
> There is an afterlife, a very long one, an eternal one.
>
> Now YOU figure out how this life figures into that scenario.

That is an interesting puzzle. First I must consider that we are
thrown into this life without any help; there are no instructions
provided on how to deal with it except for those that we pick up on
the way. Given those premises I would expect at least a few sage
words from God before setting out into the trial of life. It is like
teaching us to swim by throwing us into the water. From that I
conclude that God is incapable of offering any guidance before life
begins.

If I take being God's children to mean that we are much like God and
can grow to be equal to God, then I suppose I can justify what seems
to be God's powerlessness to ease our suffering as God releasing
control of this corner of the universe to us to see what we will do
with it.

Our greatest power over the world seems to come through science,
through which we are molding aspects of our existence to meet our
desires. Perhaps that is how we are to grow to become like God. But
if that were the case, then why would God take us away before our
powers have grown?

Many of us die so early in life as to have learned almost nothing.
Those must be the ones who are created good enough to move on. From
that I must conclude that God does not have direct control of our
creation or else He would ensure that we were all prepared to move on
before being created. Just like an earthly father, the exact nature
of His children is a surprise even to Him.

In the end I must suppose that this life on earth is like being
released from the womb. We have left the protective embrace of God to
make lives on our own and just like earthly children there is crying
and there is cold and pain. There are no memories from within God's
embrace just as we have no memories from the womb, which seems a
strange parallel, but for some reason it holds. The loving father
that is God does his best to protect us, but He cannot because He has
thrust us into our own world where we can grow in our own universe to
be as great as He is.

As for the afterlife, using the given premises, I can only suppose it
is another stage in growth. It is like growing from a infant into a
teenager where we go even further from God while becoming more like
Him. It will be a world where we have greater control over our own
lives and so the horror we inflict on each other will be magnified
many times as the protection we get from God decreases. Presumably,
from there we can die once again and eventually we will emerge in a
empty universe without God because it will be an entire universe for
each of us to sculpt as we see fit.

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 22, 2006, 2:56:43 AM1/22/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
> dianaiad wrote:
> > Rick Hawk wrote:
> >> God is training us to be like Him. He is sending us through a
> >> 'boot camp' of disease, frailty, pain, and most of all the
> >> heartache of death, not to mention all of the other horrors of
> >> the world. In the end we will have grown to be like Him. In other
> >> words, we are being made to suffer so that we will learn how to
> >> make others suffer.
> >
> > Or that we will learn first hand what suffering is, so that we
> > will not do so.
>
> The entire point of what I was saying was that you had said you
> believed Him to be training us to be like Himself. He does not mind
> inflicting suffering on us, so this new interpretation of His
> teaching cannot be right. If we are being trained to not inflict
> suffering then we are being trained to avoid being like God, by God,
> the ultimate source of much suffering.
>
> Even if you assume that God has a great and good purpose for the
> suffering, that does not change the fact that He puts suffering into
> this world.

Again you are begging the question. you keep doing that.

Tell me, though; if you are going to train someone to be really good at
survival in the wild, able to care for himself, live and come through a
camping trip healthy, happy and without being eaten by the bears, do
you do so by putting him up in a four star hotel complete with room
service and day spas, or do you actually give him SURVIVAL TRAINING?

Do you train a swimmer by making him run in the Sahara? Train mountain
climbers by throwing them in a lagoon?

C'mon. If you are going to teach your children how to make choices, you
have to give them choices to make.

And allow them to make, and experiences the consequences of, lousy
choices from time to time.

>
> >> It makes complete sense and it is entirely believable. What
> >> better training could there be for us to become like God than see
> >> all of the horrors He created first-hand. Of course, there is
> >> much beauty in the world and we see that too, but when there is
> >> suffering to be done, all beauty pales.
> >
> > Actually, no. when there is suffering, the joy and beauty of the
> > world stand out.
>
> It would stand out for those who are not suffering by comparison, but
> when a person is suffering in agony, that person would be happy to
> tear up the Mona Lisa just to get peace. When we are allowed to
> suffer, even God's beautiful creations are lessened.

That may be true. IF, that is, suffering were eternal. It's not. the
worst pain in the world eventually has an end...and very little of the
suffering that can be laid entirely at God's door is longlived or
horrific. The VAST majority of suffering in the world is at the direct
or inderect hand of man. That means that we can stop it. If we don't,
whose fault is it that there is suffering? God's? Or OURS?

>
> >> dianaiad wrote:
> >> > It's not the suffering. It's how we handle it...and what we do
> >> > do alleviate it for others.
> >>
> >> This is what has given me a truly wild idea. It is inspiring
> >> because it really does explain all the suffering in the world and
> >> how we can be learning good things from it. Nothing could be
> >> better than to ease the suffering of another.
> >>
> >> The only problem is that God cannot be teaching us in that
> >> manner. If easing the suffering of others is the greatest good,
> >> then it must be the duty of God as the embodiment of the greatest
> >> good and there would be no suffering left for us to ease.
> >
> > Oh? By that reasoning, nobody would train medical students,
> > because there would be nobody for them to work with. They couldn't
> > practice giving IV's to one another, they couldn't practice
> > anything, because of course those who went before them would be
> > alleviating all the suffering. No child would struggle through
> > piano practice because the concert pianist who had gone before
> > them would relieve them of the need to practice; they would play
> > the piece themselves so that the child never had to do so.
>
> This is another thing which I have realized about God and His
> perfection.

With all due respect (and I'm certain that you have noticed that nobody
ever says 'with all due respect' unless they are about to say something
that shows some lack of respect..) you haven't "realized" a thing. You
are indulging in a sophist set of arguments here. While it can be
entertaining, it isn't getting either one of us anywhere.

> All of those examples of humans training each other
> differ from God in the fact that God is perfect and they are not. To
> be perfectly good, no one can ever be better than God. If anyone ever
> does the right thing while God does the wrong thing, that is a slight
> flaw on God's perfection that ruins it forever.

And there is a case in point. Where is there, anywhere in
this...conversation...a point where I said that God would do the WRONG
thing? We can, we have our free will, which is rather the point. God
CAN, I suppose, but I submit that if He ever did, He would cease to be
'perfectly good', and thus fall short of your definition of "God"...and
therefore cease to be God.

>
> Therefore God cannot challenge us to do good by presenting us with
> problems, because that would mean that we are doing good in direct
> conflict with God's actions, a clear instant of being better than
> God.

Again, you are completely ignoring the main problem, which is that an
action that would be evil in one person or situation would be
heroic/good in another. It all depends upon motive and perspective.
Ours is narrow. God's is very large.

It should be fairly obvious that a Creator Who A: created us and B:
KNOWS that there is an afterlife and that we will live forever would
have a considerably different viewpoint about physical death than we
do, who only believe or hope for such an afterlife.

Like the fireman who is a hero because he KNOWS that there is a safety
net waiting for the woman he tosses out the window and is thus saving
her life, vs. the guy in the next room who thinks he's about to murder
the woman HE throws out; even though she ends up in the same net, he is
guilty of attempted murder, he has commited an evil act. Same act.
Different people. different motives, and that's what makes it evil or
good.

You aren't allowing for the larger perspective.

> Perhaps a more clear way to say this is: God is perfectly good,
> therefore He must do everything good that He has the power to do;
> surely that is the meaning of perfectly good. Therefore He must take
> every step to ease the suffering of all people, even if it was
> mankind that caused the suffering.

IF, that is, what we call suffering isn't ultimately going to be for
our good.

Tell me, do you think that the parents of the leukemia victim would be
doing her any favors by witholding treatment, because dying of leukemia
is less painful than a year's worth of chemo? I have been told, by the
way, that this is often true.

> On the other hand, if He is not
> required to ease the suffering of all people, then it can only be
> because easing the suffering of people is not good and therefore we
> should not do it.

WE should. I don't suppose that, in an eternal sense, it's going to
make that much difference to the sufferers. Refusing to try might
affect OUR eternal future, though...

>
> > And while you are quite adept at the word games and the sophistry,
> > (the classic method of argument, not the modern equivalent) I
> > would ask you to tackle this one, just for kicks:
> >
> > Wherever there is a choice to be made, there is at least one that
> > is less desirable than another. This less desirable one is 'evil',
> > by definition, whether it is so in great degree or less.
>
> Surely that is incorrect. Let me make this clear with a single word:
> jactitate. It means to toss back and forth.

Actually, it means to 'stir restlessly', as if in agony. I had to look
it up. Does that mean you win?

> I had no reason to choose
> that word, but suppose I had chosen 'sanctiloquent' instead. To be
> sanctiloquent is intuitively far better than to jactitate, but was I
> being evil to choose the word 'jactitate'? I hope you can agree that
> my choice of word was entirely neutral.

Actually, given the nature of the conversation, and my particular
opinion of it and your motives, I think that "jactitate" is more
appropriate. "Sanctiloquent" sounds somewhat grandiouse for the
purpose. Since "jactitate" is the more appropriate word, then
"sanctiloquent" is the less appropriate one. That is, the "Not right"
choice, or the 'evil' one. Now in another time, place or conversation,
the reverse might be true.

>
> Not every decision is between good and evil. What I had for breakfast
> today was a choice between cereal and fruit, not between good and
> evil. Do you think the books I choose to read or the television I
> choose to watch might be evil?

I believe I have been saying that all along, rather plainly. Choice
MEANS that, at any one point, one choice will be more appropriate than
another. when one chooses the less appropriate option, one is choosing
evil....consider the reasons why one would deliberately choose the
lesser option, no matter how inoccuous that option might appear.

>I think that one can live a very
> fulfilling life, full of choices, without any evil at all.

Sure you can. If you make all the right ones. But in order to make the
right choices, one must have the wrong ones available so that one knows
what the right choices ARE.

>
> You might say that every choice has some trace of evil, but you also
> seem to think that choices are good in themselves, so the good of
> having choices can balance the tiny amounts of evil in some of the
> better choices.

Now why would you think that, or claim that, when I'm the one giving
all the examples of actions that are the same....and are "good" or
"evil" only when considered in the light of motive? You are the one
claiming that actions and events can be good or evil in and of
themselves; natural occurances like volcanos, for instance, you choose
to catagorize as evil, period.

Yet without them, we wouldn't have a great many of the most beautiful
islands in the Pacific, just for starters.

But if you are going to argue against that position, please don't let
me stop you, be my guest. I'll just get out of your way. ;-)

>
> > Our purpose in life here is to experience evil and choices in what
> > may well be a 'sandbox' environment, that is, a 'safe' one, one in
> > which we cannot really hurt ourselves by screwing up all that bad,
> > What's the worst that can happen? We hurt for a time? We die? What
> > is that in terms of eternity? Expand your mind around that
> > concept. Eternity. Thousands, millions, billions, trillions of
> > years measured by the earth, time infinite.
>
> What you are suggesting is apathy. You cannot believe that what
> happens here is unimportant except as training for some greater
> thing.

Why not?

> If you really believed that you would be like the parent
> sending her children through a mine field; death would be unimportant
> and the only goal in life would be to collect experiences.

No, I would be like the parent who sends her children to summer camp,
knowing that at the end of a month, they'll come home knowing how to
avoid snakes, apply suntan lotion and know how to handle themselves
white water rafting.

Perspective, remember?

You keep wanting to limit God to ours. Either He is God, and really
knows about an afterlife (because He created it and all...) in which
case we can't judge Him by mortal standards, or He doesn't exist at
all, in which case we REALLY can't judge Him by mortal standards.

>
> > And you are all worked up about a hundred of them, more or less.
> > Excuse me, but that's somewhat like.. accusing your personal
> > trainer of the utmost evil because he's putting you through a
> > painful excercise regime....so that you won't die climbing Mt.
> > Everest.
>
> I have no desire to climb Everest. I like this world and I like this
> life. If only God would stop this bootcamp plan, things would be
> truly good here. I do not know what awaits me in eternity,

That's rather the point. You don't. However, HE does.

> but I
> would be very happy if it was a world like this with all the
> suffering stripped away.

I bet you would be wishing for non-existance within a millenium or two.
BOoooRINg.
Human beings thrive on challenge. However, we also need to be UP to a
challenge, prepared for it.

>
> If God is truly good, then when is He going to show it? Is he
> training us with pain for an even greater trial such as climbing
> Everest? Perhaps the afterlife will be filled with suffering also,
> more and more suffering to train us to greater and greater levels for
> all eternity. That seems to be something like God's plan, judging
> from this world, but I would not call it good.

The point is, we don't know. However, God, should He truly exist, does.
I think it's a wee bit presumptuous of anyone to decide that we have
the knowledge we need to make judgements about Him, very much like the
kid who decides his mother is an evil witch who is out to destroy his
life because she made him go to the dentist and get his cavity filled.

> > Why don't you do your own thought experiment?
> >
> > Use these statements as premises: God is perfectly good and wants
> > the best for us.
> > We are His children, He has said so.
> > There is an afterlife, a very long one, an eternal one.
> >
> > Now YOU figure out how this life figures into that scenario.
>
> That is an interesting puzzle. First I must consider that we are
> thrown into this life without any help; there are no instructions
> provided on how to deal with it except for those that we pick up on
> the way.

Oh? Why do you consider this? Odd, given that there would obviously
have to be some reason that you knew that God is perfectly good and
wants the best for us, that we are his children and he has SAID SO.
How do you get "no instructions" from that? Indeed, you have to
assume, from what I just said, that there ARE such instructions, or
throw the premise out completely; in which case, no thought experiment.

> Given those premises I would expect at least a few sage
> words from God before setting out into the trial of life. It is like
> teaching us to swim by throwing us into the water. From that I
> conclude that God is incapable of offering any guidance before life
> begins.

Then I suggest you re-examine the premise and try again.

>
> If I take being God's children to mean that we are much like God and
> can grow to be equal to God, then I suppose I can justify what seems
> to be God's powerlessness to ease our suffering as God releasing
> control of this corner of the universe to us to see what we will do
> with it.

I'd say that we were getting somewhere if you hadn't screwed up the
first premise...

>
> Our greatest power over the world seems to come through science,
> through which we are molding aspects of our existence to meet our
> desires. Perhaps that is how we are to grow to become like God. But
> if that were the case, then why would God take us away before our
> powers have grown?

Your thought experiment. Why would He?

>
> Many of us die so early in life as to have learned almost nothing.
> Those must be the ones who are created good enough to move on. From
> that I must conclude that God does not have direct control of our
> creation or else He would ensure that we were all prepared to move on
> before being created. Just like an earthly father, the exact nature
> of His children is a surprise even to Him.
>
> In the end I must suppose that this life on earth is like being
> released from the womb. We have left the protective embrace of God to
> make lives on our own and just like earthly children there is crying
> and there is cold and pain. There are no memories from within God's
> embrace just as we have no memories from the womb, which seems a
> strange parallel, but for some reason it holds. The loving father
> that is God does his best to protect us, but He cannot because He has
> thrust us into our own world where we can grow in our own universe to
> be as great as He is.
>
> As for the afterlife, using the given premises, I can only suppose it
> is another stage in growth. It is like growing from a infant into a
> teenager where we go even further from God while becoming more like
> Him. It will be a world where we have greater control over our own
> lives and so the horror we inflict on each other will be magnified
> many times as the protection we get from God decreases. Presumably,
> from there we can die once again and eventually we will emerge in a
> empty universe without God because it will be an entire universe for
> each of us to sculpt as we see fit.

Don't presume anything except what the premise is, though you were
jactitating pretty good there for a minute or two...

Diana

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 22, 2006, 6:05:43 AM1/22/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:
>> dianaiad wrote:
>> > Rick Hawk wrote:
>> >> God is training us to be like Him. He is sending us through a
>> >> 'boot camp' of disease, frailty, pain, and most of all the
>> >> heartache of death, not to mention all of the other horrors of
>> >> the world. In the end we will have grown to be like Him. In
>> >> other words, we are being made to suffer so that we will learn
>> >> how to make others suffer.
>> >
>> > Or that we will learn first hand what suffering is, so that we
>> > will not do so.
>>
>> The entire point of what I was saying was that you had said you
>> believed Him to be training us to be like Himself. He does not
>> mind inflicting suffering on us, so this new interpretation of
>> His teaching cannot be right. If we are being trained to not
>> inflict suffering then we are being trained to avoid being like
>> God, by God, the ultimate source of much suffering.
>>
>> Even if you assume that God has a great and good purpose for the
>> suffering, that does not change the fact that He puts suffering
>> into this world.
>
> Again you are begging the question. you keep doing that.

Where am I begging the question? What is the question? I see you
saying that God is training us to be like Him and I see the logical
conclusion that He is training us to inflict suffering, since you
also keep saying that He is inflicting suffering.

> Tell me, though; if you are going to train someone to be really
> good at survival in the wild, able to care for himself, live and
> come through a camping trip healthy, happy and without being eaten
> by the bears, do you do so by putting him up in a four star hotel
> complete with room service and day spas, or do you actually give
> him SURVIVAL TRAINING?

I am aware that God is putting us through harsh conditions. Are you
saying that God is training us to do the same to others, or are you
suggesting that God is training us to be something other than what He
is?

>> It would stand out for those who are not suffering by comparison,
>> but when a person is suffering in agony, that person would be
>> happy to tear up the Mona Lisa just to get peace. When we are
>> allowed to suffer, even God's beautiful creations are lessened.
>
> That may be true. IF, that is, suffering were eternal. It's not.
> the worst pain in the world eventually has an end...and very
> little of the suffering that can be laid entirely at God's door is
> longlived or horrific. The VAST majority of suffering in the world
> is at the direct or inderect hand of man. That means that we can
> stop it. If we don't, whose fault is it that there is suffering?
> God's? Or OURS?

It is clear that much of the suffering in the world is caused by us,
but that is far less interesting and thought provoking than the
suffering which is caused by God. The only point of interest relating
to the suffering we cause each other is the fact that God chooses not
to ease it.

> With all due respect (and I'm certain that you have noticed that
> nobody ever says 'with all due respect' unless they are about to
> say something that shows some lack of respect..) you haven't
> "realized" a thing. You are indulging in a sophist set of
> arguments here. While it can be entertaining, it isn't getting
> either one of us anywhere.

Perhaps you are getting nowhere, but actually I am not being a
sophist. In fact, I am being completely sincere and am pushed to
think in new directions by your posts.

>> All of those examples of humans training each other
>> differ from God in the fact that God is perfect and they are not.
>> To be perfectly good, no one can ever be better than God. If
>> anyone ever does the right thing while God does the wrong thing,
>> that is a slight flaw on God's perfection that ruins it forever.
>
> And there is a case in point. Where is there, anywhere in
> this...conversation...a point where I said that God would do the
> WRONG thing? We can, we have our free will, which is rather the
> point. God CAN, I suppose, but I submit that if He ever did, He
> would cease to be 'perfectly good', and thus fall short of your
> definition of "God"...and therefore cease to be God.

My definition of God does not include Him being perfectly good. The
only assumptions that I usually make about God is that He is the
creator of everything and all-powerful.

What I was trying to say is this: If we are doing a good thing by
counteracting God's creations and overcoming problems he sets us,
then He must have been doing a bad thing to set them. I understand
that you see those challenges as a means to an end, but this has two
problems for a perfectly good God. One, surely being absolutely
perfectly good suggests never performing the slightest evil for any
reason. Two, because God is all-powerful, He does not need means to
achieve his goals; He can instantly achieve them by direct force of
His will. Therefore if He does something evil it cannot be justified
as a means to a greater goal.

>> Therefore God cannot challenge us to do good by presenting us
>> with problems, because that would mean that we are doing good in
>> direct conflict with God's actions, a clear instant of being
>> better than God.
>
> Again, you are completely ignoring the main problem, which is that
> an action that would be evil in one person or situation would be
> heroic/good in another. It all depends upon motive and
> perspective. Ours is narrow. God's is very large.

You are assuming that we do not know that God is perfectly good. If
we knew that He was perfectly good then we would know that every
action He takes is for the best. Then we would have enough
perspective to never try to counteract anything God does, because to
counteract a good thing is necessarily a bad thing. This means no
fighting disease or even rescuing someone from the weather.

You assume that we do not know it because it is merely taken on
faith, which is not quite knowledge. From this you seem to conclude
that we can do things which would be bad if we knew, but are good
because we only have faith. This seems rather bizarre and I think I
can explain why.

The thing which really determines what is good or bad in cases like
this is not what we know, but only what we believe. If I throw a
woman out a window and believe that there is a net there, it is a
good thing, even if I do not know it. It would be a horrible mistake
if the net turned out to be not there, but no one could fault my
motives.

>> Perhaps a more clear way to say this is: God is perfectly good,
>> therefore He must do everything good that He has the power to do;
>> surely that is the meaning of perfectly good. Therefore He must
>> take every step to ease the suffering of all people, even if it
>> was mankind that caused the suffering.
>
> IF, that is, what we call suffering isn't ultimately going to be
> for our good.
>
> Tell me, do you think that the parents of the leukemia victim
> would be doing her any favors by witholding treatment, because
> dying of leukemia is less painful than a year's worth of chemo? I
> have been told, by the way, that this is often true.

I think it is very unlikely, but it would depend on how painful. But
remember that God is not curing us of any disease. At best, He is
forcing us to grow in a universe where He makes all the rules and He
decides that pain is needed for growth when He could have just as
easily decided that a large amount of quiet reading would be as good.

>> On the other hand, if He is not
>> required to ease the suffering of all people, then it can only be
>> because easing the suffering of people is not good and therefore
>> we should not do it.
>
> WE should. I don't suppose that, in an eternal sense, it's going
> to make that much difference to the sufferers. Refusing to try
> might affect OUR eternal future, though...

Even if God was the one causing the suffering? I find it hard to
believe that He could judge us harshly for allowing Him to cause
suffering, especially if we believe He always acts for the best and
He does in fact always act for the best.

>> > Wherever there is a choice to be made, there is at least one
>> > that is less desirable than another. This less desirable one is
>> > 'evil', by definition, whether it is so in great degree or
>> > less.
>>
>> Surely that is incorrect. Let me make this clear with a single
>> word: jactitate. It means to toss back and forth.
>
> Actually, it means to 'stir restlessly', as if in agony. I had to
> look it up. Does that mean you win?

I am actually surprised that you looked it up, especially when I gave
a perfectly good definition and the meaning of the word is not
relevant to my point.

>> I had no reason to choose
>> that word, but suppose I had chosen 'sanctiloquent' instead. To
>> be sanctiloquent is intuitively far better than to jactitate, but
>> was I being evil to choose the word 'jactitate'? I hope you can
>> agree that my choice of word was entirely neutral.
>
> Actually, given the nature of the conversation, and my particular
> opinion of it and your motives, I think that "jactitate" is more
> appropriate. "Sanctiloquent" sounds somewhat grandiouse for the
> purpose. Since "jactitate" is the more appropriate word, then
> "sanctiloquent" is the less appropriate one. That is, the "Not
> right" choice, or the 'evil' one. Now in another time, place or
> conversation, the reverse might be true.

I chose the words to be meaningless in this conversation in the hopes
that I could show you that some decisions are entirely neutral.
Suppose that I were to give you a number now and not tell you what to
do with it. Would it matter what the number was? Would you be any
worse off with an even number or an odd number? I find it fascinating
that you truly judge every decision to be between good and evil, but
if the jactitate example did not convince you otherwise then I have
nothing that will.

>>I think that one can live a very
>> fulfilling life, full of choices, without any evil at all.
>
> Sure you can. If you make all the right ones. But in order to make
> the right choices, one must have the wrong ones available so that
> one knows what the right choices ARE.

That is baffling. If we remove the wrong choices then the only ones
remaining are the right choices, therefore we make the right choices
without the wrong choices and we know which ones are the right
choices because they are all right choices. Do you think it is
possible to make any other choices but right choices when the wrong
choices are blocked to us?

>> You might say that every choice has some trace of evil, but you
>> also seem to think that choices are good in themselves, so the
>> good of having choices can balance the tiny amounts of evil in
>> some of the better choices.
>
> Now why would you think that, or claim that, when I'm the one
> giving all the examples of actions that are the same....and are
> "good" or "evil" only when considered in the light of motive?

I meant only that you consider having choices to be good because it
allows us to grow. I think that because I believe you have mentioned
it in several posts. I went on to suggest that the goodness of having
choices can balance a small amount of evil derived from making some
of the better of the bad choices. I did not think that was a stretch.

> You are the one claiming that actions and events can be good or
> evil in and of themselves; natural occurances like volcanos, for
> instance, you choose to catagorize as evil, period.

I should note that I agree with you that motives can affect whether
an action is good or bad, but you are right that I believe that some
actions cannot be good under any motive.

> Yet without them, we wouldn't have a great many of the most
> beautiful islands in the Pacific, just for starters.

Only if God chose to not make those islands without the assistance of
volcanos. You have very clear in your mind the concept that God is
perfectly good, but do you really believe that He is all-powerful? If
you really think that He is incapable of building this world without
natural disasters, then that explains a lot.

>> > Our purpose in life here is to experience evil and choices in
>> > what may well be a 'sandbox' environment, that is, a 'safe'
>> > one, one in which we cannot really hurt ourselves by screwing
>> > up all that bad, What's the worst that can happen? We hurt for
>> > a time? We die? What is that in terms of eternity? Expand your
>> > mind around that concept. Eternity. Thousands, millions,
>> > billions, trillions of years measured by the earth, time
>> > infinite.
>>
>> What you are suggesting is apathy. You cannot believe that what
>> happens here is unimportant except as training for some greater
>> thing.
>
> Why not?

It is because you are a human being and caring for people in need is
wired into the emotions of almost all of us. Believing that what
happens here is unimportant means believing that the suffering of
those in need is unimportant and I do not believe you have that in
you.

>> If you really believed that you would be like the parent
>> sending her children through a mine field; death would be
>> unimportant and the only goal in life would be to collect
>> experiences.
>
> No, I would be like the parent who sends her children to summer
> camp, knowing that at the end of a month, they'll come home
> knowing how to avoid snakes, apply suntan lotion and know how to
> handle themselves white water rafting.
>
> Perspective, remember?
>
> You keep wanting to limit God to ours.

Actually, I think I am doing quite the opposite. You seem to want to
limit ours far too much and I am suggesting that ours is far closer
to God's than that. For example, you are arguing that God is
perfectly good and He has a reason for all that He does. Are you
saying that we must never use that to make our decisions?

God allows people to die. Since God is perfectly good it must be for
a greater good, therefore we should allow Him to take them freely.
You say this is wrong because our perspective is limited, but you
have argued so convincingly that how can we fail to believe it? Our
perspective is not so limited that we do not know that God is
perfectly good, and even if it is, then all that means is there is a
possibility that He might sometimes be malevolent.

>> I have no desire to climb Everest. I like this world and I like
>> this life. If only God would stop this bootcamp plan, things
>> would be truly good here. I do not know what awaits me in

>> eternity, but I would be very happy if it was a world like this

>> with all the suffering stripped away.
>
> I bet you would be wishing for non-existance within a millenium or
> two. BOoooRINg.
> Human beings thrive on challenge. However, we also need to be UP
> to a challenge, prepared for it.

This world is full of challenges. We can colonize the ocean floor and
we can explore the stars. There is an entire universe to learn about
and marvels to discover. Especially if God chose to help us, we need
never run out of new things to explore, all without a trace of
suffering.

That is a better plan than whatever God has in store. I don't even
need to know what God's plan is, all I need to see is the agony it
involves.

>> > Why don't you do your own thought experiment?
>> >
>> > Use these statements as premises: God is perfectly good and
>> > wants the best for us.
>> > We are His children, He has said so.
>> > There is an afterlife, a very long one, an eternal one.
>> >
>> > Now YOU figure out how this life figures into that scenario.
>>
>> That is an interesting puzzle. First I must consider that we are
>> thrown into this life without any help; there are no instructions
>> provided on how to deal with it except for those that we pick up
>> on the way.
>
> Oh? Why do you consider this? Odd, given that there would
> obviously have to be some reason that you knew that God is
> perfectly good and wants the best for us, that we are his children
> and he has SAID SO. How do you get "no instructions" from that?
> Indeed, you have to assume, from what I just said, that there ARE
> such instructions, or throw the premise out completely; in which
> case, no thought experiment.

I get "no instructions" from the premise because I got no
instructions before coming into this world. If this world is a
sandbox or a game or a training exercise, we should have been given
directions and rules and advice on how to succeed before we began.
God has given us directions that some of us come across in life, but
many of us do not survive long enough to see them.

All that I have to do is assume the premises and make them fit the
facts, which I am doing by concluding that God is incapable of giving
us instructions before we are created, just as an earthly father is
incapable.

>> Given those premises I would expect at least a few sage
>> words from God before setting out into the trial of life. It is
>> like teaching us to swim by throwing us into the water. From that
>> I conclude that God is incapable of offering any guidance before
>> life begins.
>
> Then I suggest you re-examine the premise and try again.

Why? Are you saying that God gave you some sage words before you were
born? If so, what were they?

>> Our greatest power over the world seems to come through science,
>> through which we are molding aspects of our existence to meet our
>> desires. Perhaps that is how we are to grow to become like God.
>> But if that were the case, then why would God take us away before
>> our powers have grown?
>
> Your thought experiment. Why would He?

You are right; it is not fair for me to ask for help when it is my
challenge. But actually, I have no answer for that.

>> As for the afterlife, using the given premises, I can only
>> suppose it is another stage in growth. It is like growing from a
>> infant into a teenager where we go even further from God while
>> becoming more like Him. It will be a world where we have greater
>> control over our own lives and so the horror we inflict on each
>> other will be magnified many times as the protection we get from
>> God decreases. Presumably, from there we can die once again and
>> eventually we will emerge in a empty universe without God because
>> it will be an entire universe for each of us to sculpt as we see
>> fit.
>
> Don't presume anything except what the premise is, though you were
> jactitating pretty good there for a minute or two...

Despite the words I chose, it is not really a presumption. It is
clear that we are not ready to become like God when we leave this
world, therefore there must be at least another world of training
between us and becoming like God. When we leave that world to move
into our own universe, that would be like some form of dying.

dianaiad

unread,

Jan 22, 2006, 1:39:00 PM1/22/06

Rick Hawk wrote:
<snip to>

> What I was trying to say is this: If we are doing a good thing by
> counteracting God's creations and overcoming problems he sets us,
> then He must have been doing a bad thing to set them.

If a student does a good thing by solving a problem set by a teacher,
does that mean that the teacher was doing a bad thing by setting the
problem in the first place?

If someone survives for two weeks in the wild, thus proving that he can
handle himself in such situations, does that mean his instructers did a
bad thing by putting him there in the first place?

If a doctor sets a bunch of interns to researching the cause of one of
his patient's problems, and they find it so that they can help the
patient, does that mean that the doctor did a bad thing by setting them
that task?

If God says to us, treat other people as you would be treated yourself,
and they do, does that mean that He did a bad thing? Or more to the
point you are making, if, after giving people their freedom to choose
their own actions, and after having given this instruction (one shared
by most religions..) we freely choose to hurt, rather than help, each
other, does that mean it's God's fault?

this universe was created, operating under a set of physical laws. It
us under those laws, physical ones that science is working to
understand, that the planet works and is livable. A huge part of the
reason our planet IS livable is because of the very natural processes
you describe as 'evil', "Natural disasters" (which are natural, yes,
but not in and of themselves all that disastrous; they are simply
larger examples of the natural forces that run the planet) that are
considered so only becuase people get in their way and die. The problem
there is that almost every single time, the reason people die is
because PEOPLE did something stupid, or took deliberate risks and lost
the bet.

>I understand
> that you see those challenges as a means to an end, but this has two
> problems for a perfectly good God. One, surely being absolutely
> perfectly good suggests never performing the slightest evil for any
> reason.

Assuming, of course, that what you percieve as evil really is. That's
somewhat difficult to decide; you don't have all the data and God does.

> Two, because God is all-powerful, He does not need means to
> achieve his goals; He can instantly achieve them by direct force of
> His will. Therefore if He does something evil it cannot be justified
> as a means to a greater goal.

You mean that He should be able to make us like Him simply by the force
of His will, will we, nil we? You have, I submit, identified a paradox
that is right up there with creating a rock so heavy he cannot lift it.
It's a series of words with no meaning. Such is not possible, I submit;
such beings would not be like Him; they would be puppets.

> >> Therefore God cannot challenge us to do good by presenting us
> >> with problems, because that would mean that we are doing good in
> >> direct conflict with God's actions, a clear instant of being
> >> better than God.
> >
> > Again, you are completely ignoring the main problem, which is that
> > an action that would be evil in one person or situation would be
> > heroic/good in another. It all depends upon motive and
> > perspective. Ours is narrow. God's is very large.
>
> You are assuming that we do not know that God is perfectly good. If
> we knew that He was perfectly good then we would know that every
> action He takes is for the best. Then we would have enough
> perspective to never try to counteract anything God does, because to
> counteract a good thing is necessarily a bad thing. This means no
> fighting disease or even rescuing someone from the weather.

Except of course that the reason the person is sick is because he was
where (or someone else was, first) he shouldn't have been, or didn't
pay attention to known methods for preventing it. We have to rescue
people from the weather because he went sailing in spite of weather
warnings. We rescue each other from our own screw ups, not from God's.
Why would we have to rescue people from the side of a volcano if they
weren't there in the first place? Why would we have to rescue a
drowning sailor if he weren't on a boat on the water?

I know that in today's litiguous society, that wants to place blame on
anybody but themselves, it may be an unusual, even unique, stance, but
what happened to personal responsibility? Was it REALLY the fault of
McDonalds that a woman spilled hot coffee on her lap? Coffee is hot.
Hot liquid burns. Hello?

Is it really God's fault when someone ignores the warnings against
skiing on a certain slope, gets buried in an snow slide?

> You assume that we do not know it because it is merely taken on
> faith, which is not quite knowledge. From this you seem to conclude
> that we can do things which would be bad if we knew, but are good
> because we only have faith. This seems rather bizarre and I think I
> can explain why.

No. It's the other way around. God can do things which WE might
percieve as evil, because He KNOWS. He has all the data. We don't. We,
who have faith only, have only the data in front of us. We have to act
on that. So, while God, who created the universe and knows precisely
what is happening before, during and after our lives, can move us as He
wills and 'evil' doesn't come into it. WE, however, who have only the
data about this life, can only behave as if physical death were the end
of all things. For you and me, killing someone would be very, very bad.
For God, it's just moving day. It's all about perspective.

>
> The thing which really determines what is good or bad in cases like
> this is not what we know, but only what we believe. If I throw a
> woman out a window and believe that there is a net there, it is a
> good thing, even if I do not know it. It would be a horrible mistake
> if the net turned out to be not there, but no one could fault my
> motives.

You'd better be darned sure that net is there. REmember, the point of
the example is that the fireman KNOWS it's there. Not 'believes',
KNOWS, because he's the one who put it there in the first place. Your
guy, who only believes, had better have some reason to believe it
besides "the house is on fire, SURELY there is a net waiting.." In
case, simply looking out the window first might do....but in the case
of us and murder, we can't exactly look out that window first, can we?

>
> >> Perhaps a more clear way to say this is: God is perfectly good,
> >> therefore He must do everything good that He has the power to do;
> >> surely that is the meaning of perfectly good. Therefore He must
> >> take every step to ease the suffering of all people, even if it
> >> was mankind that caused the suffering.
> >
> > IF, that is, what we call suffering isn't ultimately going to be
> > for our good.
> >
> > Tell me, do you think that the parents of the leukemia victim
> > would be doing her any favors by witholding treatment, because
> > dying of leukemia is less painful than a year's worth of chemo? I
> > have been told, by the way, that this is often true.
>
> I think it is very unlikely, but it would depend on how painful. But
> remember that God is not curing us of any disease. At best, He is
> forcing us to grow in a universe where He makes all the rules and He
> decides that pain is needed for growth when He could have just as
> easily decided that a large amount of quiet reading would be as good.

He could have. Does it occur to you that, BEING perfectly good and
omniscient, that He has figured out that it wouldn't be as good?

After all, nobody can learn to ski by doing a large amount of quiet
reading. One has to go put the skis on and aim them downhill.

If even we, stupid as we are, realize this, how come you think God
hasn't?

> >> On the other hand, if He is not
> >> required to ease the suffering of all people, then it can only be
> >> because easing the suffering of people is not good and therefore
> >> we should not do it.
> >
> > WE should. I don't suppose that, in an eternal sense, it's going
> > to make that much difference to the sufferers. Refusing to try
> > might affect OUR eternal future, though...
>
> Even if God was the one causing the suffering? I find it hard to
> believe that He could judge us harshly for allowing Him to cause
> suffering, especially if we believe He always acts for the best and
> He does in fact always act for the best.

Again you are begging the question of who is causing the suffering. I
say that He isn't. I can't, quite honestly, think of a single instance
of suffering attributed to God that wasn't ultimately attributable to
the consequences of some human decision.

>
> >> > Wherever there is a choice to be made, there is at least one
> >> > that is less desirable than another. This less desirable one is
> >> > 'evil', by definition, whether it is so in great degree or
> >> > less.
> >>
> >> Surely that is incorrect. Let me make this clear with a single
> >> word: jactitate. It means to toss back and forth.
> >
> > Actually, it means to 'stir restlessly', as if in agony. I had to
> > look it up. Does that mean you win?
>
> I am actually surprised that you looked it up, especially when I gave
> a perfectly good definition and the meaning of the word is not
> relevant to my point.

I'm an English major. When I see a word I don't know, I get excited
about it and look it up. The OED is my friend....and I think that the
meaning of the word is very relevent to your point. ;-)

>
> >> I had no reason to choose
> >> that word, but suppose I had chosen 'sanctiloquent' instead. To
> >> be sanctiloquent is intuitively far better than to jactitate, but
> >> was I being evil to choose the word 'jactitate'? I hope you can
> >> agree that my choice of word was entirely neutral.
> >
> > Actually, given the nature of the conversation, and my particular
> > opinion of it and your motives, I think that "jactitate" is more
> > appropriate. "Sanctiloquent" sounds somewhat grandiouse for the
> > purpose. Since "jactitate" is the more appropriate word, then
> > "sanctiloquent" is the less appropriate one. That is, the "Not
> > right" choice, or the 'evil' one. Now in another time, place or
> > conversation, the reverse might be true.
>
> I chose the words to be meaningless in this conversation in the hopes
> that I could show you that some decisions are entirely neutral.

Then I think you need to find another example. This one didn't work.
;-)

> Suppose that I were to give you a number now and not tell you what to
> do with it. Would it matter what the number was? Would you be any
> worse off with an even number or an odd number? I find it fascinating
> that you truly judge every decision to be between good and evil, but
> if the jactitate example did not convince you otherwise then I have
> nothing that will.

I do believe that every decision we make is between good and evil, or
rather, between appropriate and not-so-appropriate (and that would be
evil). Perhaps the 'evil' quotient is almost negligible, but if it is
the less appropriate choice, then one needs to ask why that choice was
made. It is the MOTIVE for making the choice that matters here, not the
act itself, as is indicated by the fireman example.

>
> >>I think that one can live a very
> >> fulfilling life, full of choices, without any evil at all.
> >
> > Sure you can. If you make all the right ones. But in order to make
> > the right choices, one must have the wrong ones available so that
> > one knows what the right choices ARE.
>
> That is baffling. If we remove the wrong choices then the only ones
> remaining are the right choices, therefore we make the right choices
> without the wrong choices and we know which ones are the right
> choices because they are all right choices

> Do you think it is
> possible to make any other choices but right choices when the wrong
> choices are blocked to us?

That's called being a puppet. Artificial intelligence, programmed and
not capable of independent thought or decision making. Not the sort of
person you want to be creating universes, would you think?

>
> >> You might say that every choice has some trace of evil, but you
> >> also seem to think that choices are good in themselves, so the
> >> good of having choices can balance the tiny amounts of evil in
> >> some of the better choices.
> >
> > Now why would you think that, or claim that, when I'm the one
> > giving all the examples of actions that are the same....and are
> > "good" or "evil" only when considered in the light of motive?
>
> I meant only that you consider having choices to be good because it
> allows us to grow. I think that because I believe you have mentioned
> it in several posts. I went on to suggest that the goodness of having
> choices can balance a small amount of evil derived from making some
> of the better of the bad choices. I did not think that was a stretch.

I'm sorry, I have read the above several times and don't understand.

>
> > You are the one claiming that actions and events can be good or
> > evil in and of themselves; natural occurances like volcanos, for
> > instance, you choose to catagorize as evil, period.
>
> I should note that I agree with you that motives can affect whether
> an action is good or bad, but you are right that I believe that some
> actions cannot be good under any motive.

Such as? I think that there are some actions for which a good motive
would be almost impossible to find, but 'almost' impossible isn't
"impossible."

>
> > Yet without them, we wouldn't have a great many of the most
> > beautiful islands in the Pacific, just for starters.
>
> Only if God chose to not make those islands without the assistance of
> volcanos.

Now that's something I have never been able to figure out. God creates
the universe. He creates the natural laws that run it, that are doing a
pretty good job of making a beautiful planet. WHY do people (especially
those who so NOT believe in Him) insist that in order to be God, He NOT
USE the laws He created to perform the tasks He needs doing?

> You have very clear in your mind the concept that God is
> perfectly good, but do you really believe that He is all-powerful? If
> you really think that He is incapable of building this world without
> natural disasters, then that explains a lot.

The volcanoes that built the orignial Hawaiian islands were not natural
disasters. they were natural geological processes that produced
something very nice indeed. Why weren't they 'natural disasters'?
Because no people died as a result.

Why do people die in 'natural disasters'? Because, as a general rule,
they make calculated decisions to live in places where such things
happen. Rather like deciding that the view is best while standing on
the train tracks. One may well get a really great view, but eventually
the train WILL come and ruin your day. Maybe not in your life time, or
your children's, or even your children's children's time, but
eventually it will. When it does, and your descendents are suddenly
road kill, whose fault is it?

>
> >> > Our purpose in life here is to experience evil and choices in
> >> > what may well be a 'sandbox' environment, that is, a 'safe'
> >> > one, one in which we cannot really hurt ourselves by screwing
> >> > up all that bad, What's the worst that can happen? We hurt for
> >> > a time? We die? What is that in terms of eternity? Expand your
> >> > mind around that concept. Eternity. Thousands, millions,
> >> > billions, trillions of years measured by the earth, time
> >> > infinite.
> >>
> >> What you are suggesting is apathy. You cannot believe that what
> >> happens here is unimportant except as training for some greater
> >> thing.
> >
> > Why not?
>
> It is because you are a human being and caring for people in need is
> wired into the emotions of almost all of us. Believing that what
> happens here is unimportant means believing that the suffering of
> those in need is unimportant and I do not believe you have that in
> you.
>

Ah, but I didn't say that this life was unimportant. It is vitally
important. It is here that we DO learn how to make decisions and to
care for each other. But we can't learn these things in an environment
that precludes real choice.

> >> If you really believed that you would be like the parent
> >> sending her children through a mine field; death would be
> >> unimportant and the only goal in life would be to collect
> >> experiences.
> >
> > No, I would be like the parent who sends her children to summer
> > camp, knowing that at the end of a month, they'll come home
> > knowing how to avoid snakes, apply suntan lotion and know how to
> > handle themselves white water rafting.
> >
> > Perspective, remember?
> >
> > You keep wanting to limit God to ours.
>
> Actually, I think I am doing quite the opposite. You seem to want to
> limit ours far too much and I am suggesting that ours is far closer
> to God's than that. For example, you are arguing that God is
> perfectly good and He has a reason for all that He does. Are you
> saying that we must never use that to make our decisions?

No. you are the one doing the limiting, judging God's actions according
to your perception of what evil and good are, not to mention what death
means.

I just watched a program where a couple of people grabbed a young man
from his car and took him to a place where other people tied him down,
stabbed him in the ribs, put him in a cage, yelled at him, stabbed him
in his arms and legs, caused him incredible pain and refused to
alleviate any of it, actually swore at him at one point, and ended up
imprisoning him for six weeks while inserting various metallic objects
in his legs and skull.

Now, I KNOW you understand what was truly happening here. However, what
if you were, say, a transplant from the middle ages seeing any of this?
Would you understand what was going on? If you were such a transplant,
wouldn't you be certain that you were watching the inquizition at work,
at least, and wouldn't you be WRONG?

> God allows people to die. Since God is perfectly good it must be for
> a greater good, therefore we should allow Him to take them freely.

(grin) No 'allowing' involved here. We are all going to die, preferably
in our sleep after a very long, well lived life of service and joy. The
reason most of us don't go that way is because we, (or someone else)
made a stupid or deliberately evil decision. For us to attempt to
prevent or ameliorate the results of those decisions is a good thing.
It's one thing to "allow God", it's quite another to take over His job.
WE are responsible for keeping people from going too soon because of
thier, and our, own stupid decisions.

> You say this is wrong because our perspective is limited, but you
> have argued so convincingly that how can we fail to believe it? Our
> perspective is not so limited that we do not know that God is
> perfectly good, and even if it is, then all that means is there is a
> possibility that He might sometimes be malevolent.

I believe that one of the premises here was that "God is perfectly
good". that is, can we reconcile the problem of evil with the concept
of God's goodness? I believe we can.

>
> >> I have no desire to climb Everest. I like this world and I like
> >> this life. If only God would stop this bootcamp plan, things
> >> would be truly good here. I do not know what awaits me in
> >> eternity, but I would be very happy if it was a world like this
> >> with all the suffering stripped away.
> >
> > I bet you would be wishing for non-existance within a millenium or
> > two. BOoooRINg.
> > Human beings thrive on challenge. However, we also need to be UP
> > to a challenge, prepared for it.
>
> This world is full of challenges. We can colonize the ocean floor and
> we can explore the stars.

Not if we don't do the research first, we can't.

> There is an entire universe to learn about
> and marvels to discover. Especially if God chose to help us, we need
> never run out of new things to explore, all without a trace of
> suffering.

The only way God can eliminate human suffering is to eliminate human
choice. Eliminating human choice means that there would be no need to
explore or learn anything; no reason to, no incentive to, nothing.

As a Mormon, I believe that we lived before our births, as spirits with
our Father in Heaven. We saw what was going on here. We chose to come,
we knew (intellectually, at least) what we were in for. We volunteered
for it.

>
> That is a better plan than whatever God has in store. I don't even
> need to know what God's plan is, all I need to see is the agony it
> involves.

You mean, like the young man on the emergency room table being stabbed
in the ribs, immobilized in incredible pain....? ALL you need to see is
the agony it involved? You don't see the reason for it?

If you were the one on the table, and were, say, a child who didn't
understand why these grownups were stabbing you and hurting you so
badly when you were already in great pain, do you think you would be
correct in deciding that these grownups were evil incarnate, rather
than concerned people who were trying with everything in them to save
your life and future health?

> >> > Why don't you do your own thought experiment?
> >> >
> >> > Use these statements as premises: God is perfectly good and
> >> > wants the best for us.
> >> > We are His children, He has said so.
> >> > There is an afterlife, a very long one, an eternal one.
> >> >
> >> > Now YOU figure out how this life figures into that scenario.
> >>
> >> That is an interesting puzzle. First I must consider that we are
> >> thrown into this life without any help; there are no instructions
> >> provided on how to deal with it except for those that we pick up
> >> on the way.
> >
> > Oh? Why do you consider this? Odd, given that there would
> > obviously have to be some reason that you knew that God is
> > perfectly good and wants the best for us, that we are his children
> > and he has SAID SO. How do you get "no instructions" from that?
> > Indeed, you have to assume, from what I just said, that there ARE
> > such instructions, or throw the premise out completely; in which
> > case, no thought experiment.
>
> I get "no instructions" from the premise because I got no
> instructions before coming into this world.

Are you certain of that?

Besides, that wasn't part of the premise. Your own personal experience,
or rather, what you think your own personal experience is, isn't part
of the experiment.

> If this world is a
> sandbox or a game or a training exercise, we should have been given
> directions and rules and advice on how to succeed before we began.

I believe that we were. And are.

> God has given us directions that some of us come across in life, but
> many of us do not survive long enough to see them.

Not physically, no.

>
> All that I have to do is assume the premises and make them fit the
> facts, which I am doing by concluding that God is incapable of giving
> us instructions before we are created, just as an earthly father is
> incapable.
>
> >> Given those premises I would expect at least a few sage
> >> words from God before setting out into the trial of life. It is
> >> like teaching us to swim by throwing us into the water. From that
> >> I conclude that God is incapable of offering any guidance before
> >> life begins.
> >
> > Then I suggest you re-examine the premise and try again.
>
> Why? Are you saying that God gave you some sage words before you were
> born? If so, what were they?

Actually, yes. And we know what they were, if you put any stock in the
reason we believe there is a god in the first place. Consider why you
personally know about the concept of deity; from where you get your
information. Doesn't that include some rules for living?

Is graduating from college "some form of dying"? If that is not, why
would future growth and learning HAVE to involve such?

Rick Hawk

unread,

Jan 22, 2006, 6:45:37 PM1/22/06

dianaiad wrote:
> Rick Hawk wrote:

>> What I was trying to say is this: If we are doing a good thing by
>> counteracting God's creations and overcoming problems he sets us,
>> then He must have been doing a bad thing to set them.
>
> If a student does a good thing by solving a problem set by a
> teacher, does that mean that the teacher was doing a bad thing by
> setting the problem in the first place?

I meant a very different meaning of the word 'problem'. God does not
teach us by giving us school problems, He teaches us by introducing
horrors into the world and leaving it to us to avoid and counteract
them. This is very much unlike what an earthly teacher does.

> If someone survives for two weeks in the wild, thus proving that
> he can handle himself in such situations, does that mean his
> instructers did a bad thing by putting him there in the first
> place?

It was not a bad thing for two reasons. One is because the student
succeeded and did not get into serious trouble. If the student had
failed, it would have been a bad thing. The other is that the student
was a willing participent. If he had been kidnapped and dropped in
the wild, that would have been bad.

> If God says to us, treat other people as you would be treated
> yourself, and they do, does that mean that He did a bad thing? Or
> more to the point you are making, if, after giving people their
> freedom to choose their own actions, and after having given this
> instruction (one shared by most religions..) we freely choose to
> hurt, rather than help, each other, does that mean it's God's
> fault?

Absolutely not, but that is not what I was refering to. I do not mean
that kind of challenge from God. I mean the horrible diseases and
menacing weather and all other dangers that God sends to us and which
we must fight directly against. If we were to fight against treating
other people well, that would be bad and against God, but if we fight
against bad weather, that is good and against God.

>> Two, because God is all-powerful, He does not need means to
>> achieve his goals; He can instantly achieve them by direct force
>> of His will. Therefore if He does something evil it cannot be
>> justified as a means to a greater goal.
>
> You mean that He should be able to make us like Him simply by the
> force of His will, will we, nil we? You have, I submit,
> identified a paradox that is right up there with creating a rock
> so heavy he cannot lift it. It's a series of words with no
> meaning. Such is not possible, I submit; such beings would not be
> like Him; they would be puppets.

God can create a rock so heavy that He cannot lift it; that is not a
paradox. God can do anything and that includes placing limits on His
own power.

If God created beings like Himself, then for whom could they be
puppets? I can imagine only that you mean they would be puppets of
God. If I have that right, then it would require simply for God to
loosen the strings. God can create perfectly good, all-powerful
beings as easily as God can do anything.

>> You are assuming that we do not know that God is perfectly good.
>> If we knew that He was perfectly good then we would know that
>> every action He takes is for the best. Then we would have enough
>> perspective to never try to counteract anything God does, because
>> to counteract a good thing is necessarily a bad thing. This means
>> no fighting disease or even rescuing someone from the weather.
>
> Except of course that the reason the person is sick is because he
> was where (or someone else was, first) he shouldn't have been, or
> didn't pay attention to known methods for preventing it. We have
> to rescue people from the weather because he went sailing in spite
> of weather warnings. We rescue each other from our own screw ups,
> not from God's. Why would we have to rescue people from the side
> of a volcano if they weren't there in the first place? Why would
> we have to rescue a drowning sailor if he weren't on a boat on the
> water?

Placing blame for causing the situation is not so important. Why does
it matter who caused the situation? What matters is that God is in
control of the universe and He chooses the path things take, so
everything must be an extension of His will. In other words, God
chooses not to rescue the drowning sailor and God knows best,
therefore we would be making a mistake to rescue the sailor.

> God can do things which WE might percieve as evil, because He
> KNOWS. He has all the data. We don't. We, who have faith only, have
> only the data in front of us. We have to act on that. So, while
> God, who created the universe and knows precisely what is happening
> before, during and after our lives, can move us as He wills and
> 'evil' doesn't come into it. WE, however, who have only the data
> about this life, can only behave as if physical death were the end
> of all things. For you and me, killing someone would be very, very
> bad. For God, it's just moving day. It's all about perspective.

You seem to be claiming that we are both ignorant and wise at the
same time. You claim that we should not kill because we do not know
that death is a minor thing, but God knows it so for Him it is
acceptable. But at the same time you are claiming that death is a
minor thing, as if you knew it.

You seem perfectly confident that God is perfectly good, but you say
that we do not really know that death is not as horrible a thing as
it seems. Do you actually have doubts?

>> The thing which really determines what is good or bad in cases
>> like this is not what we know, but only what we believe. If I
>> throw a woman out a window and believe that there is a net there,
>> it is a good thing, even if I do not know it. It would be a
>> horrible mistake if the net turned out to be not there, but no
>> one could fault my motives.
>
> You'd better be darned sure that net is there. REmember, the point
> of the example is that the fireman KNOWS it's there. Not
> 'believes', KNOWS, because he's the one who put it there in the
> first place. Your guy, who only believes, had better have some
> reason to believe it besides "the house is on fire, SURELY there
> is a net waiting.." In case, simply looking out the window first
> might do....but in the case of us and murder, we can't exactly
> look out that window first, can we?

That was my point exactly. For us in almost every case there is no
difference between knowledge and true belief. If he looked out the
window and saw the net, that is the only way he could believe it was
there and at the same time he would know it. Your example does not
illustrate why there should be a difference between knowledge and
true belief.

>> But remember that God is not curing us of any disease. At best,
>> He is forcing us to grow in a universe where He makes all the
>> rules and He decides that pain is needed for growth when He could
>> have just as easily decided that a large amount of quiet reading
>> would be as good.
>
> He could have. Does it occur to you that, BEING perfectly good and
> omniscient, that He has figured out that it wouldn't be as good?
>
> After all, nobody can learn to ski by doing a large amount of
> quiet reading. One has to go put the skis on and aim them
> downhill.

I know that God makes the rules. We know that nobody can learn to ski
by reading alone, but that is a choice that God has made. God never
figures things out the way we do, He merely chooses and His choices
become reality.

>> dianaiad wrote:
>> > Rick Hawk wrote:

>> >> On the other hand, if He is not
>> >> required to ease the suffering of all people, then it can only
>> >> be because easing the suffering of people is not good and
>> >> therefore we should not do it.
>> >
>> > WE should. I don't suppose that, in an eternal sense, it's
>> > going to make that much difference to the sufferers. Refusing
>> > to try might affect OUR eternal future, though...
>>
>> Even if God was the one causing the suffering? I find it hard to
>> believe that He could judge us harshly for allowing Him to cause
>> suffering, especially if we believe He always acts for the best
>> and He does in fact always act for the best.
>
> Again you are begging the question of who is causing the
> suffering. I say that He isn't. I can't, quite honestly, think of
> a single instance of suffering attributed to God that wasn't
> ultimately attributable to the consequences of some human
> decision.

Yes, I see that you have a good point. I will not make that mistake
in wording again. But suppose I say it in another way: I find it hard
to believe that He could judge us harshly for behaving as He behaves
by not stopping suffering which is within our power to stop.

>> If we remove the wrong choices then the only ones remaining are
>> the right choices, therefore we make the right choices without the
>> wrong choices and we know which ones are the right choices because

>> they are all right choices. Do you think it is possible to make

>> any other choices but right choices when the wrong choices are
>> blocked to us?
>
> That's called being a puppet. Artificial intelligence, programmed
> and not capable of independent thought or decision making. Not the
> sort of person you want to be creating universes, would you think?

It does not sound so bad to me. It would be much better to have a God
who could not do evil than to have a God who often does evil, at
least. If the God that we have is perfectly good then He never does
evil; does it really matter whether or not He has the option to do
things which He will never do? At least we can be sure that the
difference would have no effect on our world.

>> I meant only that you consider having choices to be good because
>> it allows us to grow. I think that because I believe you have
>> mentioned it in several posts. I went on to suggest that the
>> goodness of having choices can balance a small amount of evil
>> derived from making some of the better of the bad choices. I did
>> not think that was a stretch.
>
> I'm sorry, I have read the above several times and don't
> understand.

I see now that it was needlessly complex. At the risk of embarrassing
myself further, I will try a third time. Having choices is a good
thing, because otherwise we would be mere automatons. Since you say
that all choices have at least a little evil in them, I say that the
evil can be balanced by the good. I know you do not actually say 'all
choices' because there would always be one perfect choice, but having
just one choice isn't really a choice at all.

>> > You are the one claiming that actions and events can be good or
>> > evil in and of themselves; natural occurances like volcanos,
>> > for instance, you choose to catagorize as evil, period.
>>
>> I should note that I agree with you that motives can affect
>> whether an action is good or bad, but you are right that I
>> believe that some actions cannot be good under any motive.
>
> Such as? I think that there are some actions for which a good
> motive would be almost impossible to find, but 'almost' impossible
> isn't "impossible."

In our earthly world I must admit that there are relatively few,
because almost anything can be a means to a greater end. I suppose
that torturing and murdering someone could not possibly have a
justifying motive.

>> > Yet without them, we wouldn't have a great many of the most
>> > beautiful islands in the Pacific, just for starters.
>>
>> Only if God chose to not make those islands without the
>> assistance of volcanos.
>
> Now that's something I have never been able to figure out. God
> creates the universe. He creates the natural laws that run it,
> that are doing a pretty good job of making a beautiful planet. WHY
> do people (especially those who so NOT believe in Him) insist that
> in order to be God, He NOT USE the laws He created to perform the
> tasks He needs doing?

It is probably because pretty good is not enough. We expect God to be
perfect and that means constant manipulation of the tiniest details
of every part of the system. He cannot let it run on automatic and
still be perfect, not when there is the slightest improvement to be
made. Why do you think that He should use the laws?

> Why do people die in 'natural disasters'? Because, as a general
> rule, they make calculated decisions to live in places where such
> things happen. Rather like deciding that the view is best while
> standing on the train tracks. One may well get a really great
> view, but eventually the train WILL come and ruin your day. Maybe
> not in your life time, or your children's, or even your children's
> children's time, but eventually it will. When it does, and your
> descendents are suddenly road kill, whose fault is it?

It is your fault, but the train will only ruin your day if the
conductor is unable or unwilling to stop it before it hits you.

>> God allows people to die. Since God is perfectly good it must be
>> for a greater good, therefore we should allow Him to take them
>> freely.
>
> (grin) No 'allowing' involved here. We are all going to die,
> preferably in our sleep after a very long, well lived life of
> service and joy. The reason most of us don't go that way is
> because we, (or someone else) made a stupid or deliberately evil
> decision. For us to attempt to prevent or ameliorate the results
> of those decisions is a good thing.

But God does not ameliorate the results of those decisions Himself,
so therefore you would have to say that from His perspective doing
that is not a good thing. You say that our perspective is limited and
not as great as God's but it is clear that we at least know what is
good and what is bad from God's perspective simply by looking at what
God does. That is not quite the same as actually having God's full
perspective, but it is practically just as good because it tells us
what we should and should not do.

>> This world is full of challenges. We can colonize the ocean floor
>> and we can explore the stars.
>
> Not if we don't do the research first, we can't.

Very true, but why do you mention that? Research is just one of the
many challenges that can engage mankind without suffering.

>> There is an entire universe to learn about
>> and marvels to discover. Especially if God chose to help us, we
>> need never run out of new things to explore, all without a trace
>> of suffering.
>
> The only way God can eliminate human suffering is to eliminate
> human choice. Eliminating human choice means that there would be
> no need to explore or learn anything; no reason to, no incentive
> to, nothing.

It would be quite the opposite. If God eliminates the choices that
lead to suffering, he would be taking away many of our options and
much of the excitement from the world. Do you think that we would
throw away the remainder of the interesting parts of life? It is far
more likely that we would throw ourselves into science and
exploration with far greater dedication without the distractions of
war and poverty and hunger.

> As a Mormon, I believe that we lived before our births, as spirits
> with our Father in Heaven. We saw what was going on here. We chose
> to come, we knew (intellectually, at least) what we were in for.
> We volunteered for it.

Perhaps that is the case for many people, but I can personally attest
to never having volunteered for any such thing.

>> That is a better plan than whatever God has in store. I don't
>> even need to know what God's plan is, all I need to see is the
>> agony it involves.
>
> You mean, like the young man on the emergency room table being
> stabbed in the ribs, immobilized in incredible pain....? ALL you
> need to see is the agony it involved? You don't see the reason for
> it?

You are correct and you have caught me in a mistake. But I know more
about God than that. I happen to know that God is all-powerful and
therefore that He does not need me to suffer in order to help me. He
could create a perfect, happy, satisfying world without suffering.
Whatever His goal in this plan is, I can know that it is not a goal I
would share with Him, even if I understood it.

>> I get "no instructions" from the premise because I got no
>> instructions before coming into this world.
>
> Are you certain of that?

I suppose you would say that it is my fault for having forgotten His
words, but I am certain that I have never heard God speak to me
directly.

> Besides, that wasn't part of the premise. Your own personal
> experience, or rather, what you think your own personal experience
> is, isn't part of the experiment.

My personal experience is part of the facts of the world. If it did
not happen to me, then it must not have happened to absolutely
everybody. God must have missed at least a few people.

>> Why? Are you saying that God gave you some sage words before you
>> were born? If so, what were they?
>
> Actually, yes. And we know what they were, if you put any stock in
> the reason we believe there is a god in the first place. Consider
> why you personally know about the concept of deity; from where you
> get your information. Doesn't that include some rules for living?

I did not believe in God when I was born; I learned of His existence
later.

>> It is clear that we are not ready to become like God when we leave
>> this world, therefore there must be at least another world of
>> training between us and becoming like God. When we leave that
>> world to move into our own universe, that would be like some form
>> of dying.
>
> Is graduating from college "some form of dying"? If that is not,
> why would future growth and learning HAVE to involve such?

We know that it does involve it in this world at least. If it is not
required then God should not do it because it only causes misery
here.

Graduating from college is not moving from one universe to another.
Surely passing out of the world is similar to dying.

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