Anonymous
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2 years, 12 months ago (13 minutes after post)
I am also curious as to what theists would say against this.
heres the thing: the deal was don’t eat the forbidden fruit and you can stay in the nice safe gardan where nothing bad will ever happen. eat the fruit, and you get tossed out into the world were bad things can and will happen and you will have lots of temtation, however i will still be there for you but i will not interfear with the choices of other people or generaly the pysical happenings of that world. well, they ate the fruit so here we are.
Well, look at it this way…
God, would like us to be more like him… and that means ability to understand evil and resist it!
For us to be able to achieve that we have to face evil first!
If you look at it, God always seems to give us the strength to get through the tough times and we normally come out stronger!
Therefore by facing evil… standing up to it and choosing against it we become stronger and better people… which is God’s aim!
Gaara♫♥♪♥ wrote:
heres the thing: the deal was don’t eat the forbidden fruit and you can stay in the nice safe gardan where nothing bad will ever happen. eat the fruit, and you get tossed out into the world were bad things can and will happen and you will have lots of temtation, however i will still be there for you but i will not interfear with the choices of other people or generaly the pysical happenings of that world. well, they ate the fruit so here we are.
But there’s still evil in the world. Why should we still be being punished millions of years later because someone ate an apple?
R.A.M wrote:
Well, look at it this way…
God, would like us to be more like him… and that means ability to understand evil and resist it!
For us to be able to achieve that we have to face evil first!
If you look at it, God always seems to give us the strength to get through the tough times and we normally come out stronger!
Therefore by facing evil… standing up to it and choosing against it we become stronger and better people… which is God’s aim!
But what about all those innocents evil is perpetrated on? The victims of Genocide, Hunger, etc.
I’m genuinely trying to get to the bottom of this.
Cro-magno man wrote:
Gaara♫♥♪♥ wrote:
heres the thing: the deal was don’t eat the forbidden fruit and you can stay in the nice safe gardan where nothing bad will ever happen. eat the fruit, and you get tossed out into the world were bad things can and will happen and you will have lots of temtation, however i will still be there for you but i will not interfear with the choices of other people or generaly the pysical happenings of that world. well, they ate the fruit so here we are.
But there’s still evil in the world. Why should we still be being punished millions of years later because someone ate an apple?
R.A.M wrote:
Well, look at it this way…
God, would like us to be more like him… and that means ability to understand evil and resist it!
For us to be able to achieve that we have to face evil first!
If you look at it, God always seems to give us the strength to get through the tough times and we normally come out stronger!
Therefore by facing evil… standing up to it and choosing against it we become stronger and better people… which is God’s aim!
But what about all those innocents evil is perpetrated on? The victims of Genocide, Hunger, etc.
I’m genuinely trying to get to the bottom of this.
1) because that was the deal
2) i JUST anserd that
They could be classified as martyr’s and to call someone innocent with only a small view of things is quite irrational!
You must remember we are all born with sin and in someways the worst sin is doing nothing when others are in trouble…
It’s called faith.
Now, I’m not actually religious, so I won’t be able to give you any specific argument, but that doesn’t matter, because religion isn’t a science, which can be explained with a formulation of figures and statistics.
Have you considered, for example, that ‘God’ is simply beyond your comprehension? It is arrogant and naive to think that we, as humans, have mastered language so well that we can explain anything. I could replace ‘God’ and say ‘Love.’ Now try and describe that to somebody who does not feel it. They won’t believe you. Explain the concept of taste to someone without a tongue, or colour to someone with no sight.
Now that we understand that language is inherently limited, we can focus on your question.
You have assigned God these traits. Not God. Why are you judging him? Even if the words you use were correct, then who is to say that the meanings or semantics you ascribe the are? You define lack of intervention evil. Why? Not intervening does not necessarily equate to not caring.
What acts do you define as evil? Death? What if death is merely a stage and beyond it is immeasurable joy and happiness? Is this, then, not an act of kindness? Suffering? Surely, to live is to suffer. To endure suffering is to know happiness. Would you prefer not to live, or not to know happiness?
Ultimately, the answer to your question is, you cannot hope to understand this overwhelming being with our lacklustre grip of communication skills or understand of the world and its concepts or what lies beyond. Equally, I am assuming you are attacking only Christianity and ignoring all of the other religions, because they do not certainly all preach the same thing.
Instead of seeking holes in a subject that not even the most powerful believers can understand, why don’t you spend the time trying to find things you DO have faith in? Because, just because other’s are different to yours, doesn’t mean they aren’t entitled to them.
Like blind optimisms reply :)
Faith! is a nice answer.. find answers to what you believe in rather than question what you do not!
BlindOptimism wrote:
It’s called faith.
Now, I’m not actually religious, so I won’t be able to give you any specific argument, but that doesn’t matter, because religion isn’t a science, which can be explained with a formulation of figures and statistics.
Have you considered, for example, that ‘God’ is simply beyond your comprehension? It is arrogant and naive to think that we, as humans, have mastered language so well that we can explain anything. I could replace ‘God’ and say ‘Love.’ Now try and describe that to somebody who does not feel it. They won’t believe you. Explain the concept of taste to someone without a tongue, or colour to someone with no sight.
Now that we understand that language is inherently limited, we can focus on your question.
You have assigned God these traits. Not God. Why are you judging him? Even if the words you use were correct, then who is to say that the meanings or semantics you ascribe the are? You define lack of intervention evil. Why? Not intervening does not necessarily equate to not caring.
What acts do you define as evil? Death? What if death is merely a stage and beyond it is immeasurable joy and happiness? Is this, then, not an act of kindness? Suffering? Surely, to live is to suffer. To endure suffering is to know happiness. Would you prefer not to live, or not to know happiness?
Ultimately, the answer to your question is, you cannot hope to understand this overwhelming being with our lacklustre grip of communication skills or understand of the world and its concepts or what lies beyond. Equally, I am assuming you are attacking only Christianity and ignoring all of the other religions, because they do not certainly all preach the same thing.
Instead of seeking holes in a subject that not even the most powerful believers can understand, why don’t you spend the time trying to find things you DO have faith in? Because, just because other’s are different to yours, doesn’t mean they aren’t entitled to them.
Thank you. Makes sense. I’m still going to live as if there is no God but this gives me something to think about.
yeah.. my argument is good (because its in the bible, lolz) but optimsiem is as smart as he is good at makeing cool pictures =3
Cro-magno man wrote:
Thank you. Makes sense. I’m still going to live as if there is no God but this gives me something to think about.
Thats fine. The crucial thing isn’t that you follow others belief’s because they think it is right, but that you follow what you think is right :)
Gaara♫♥♪♥ wrote:
yeah.. my argument is good (because its in the bible, lolz) but optimsiem is as smart as he is good at makeing cool pictures =3
You certainly know how to make me feel good about myself :)
BlindOptimism wrote:
It’s called faith.
Now, I’m not actually religious, so I won’t be able to give you any specific argument, but that doesn’t matter, because religion isn’t a science, which can be explained with a formulation of figures and statistics.
Have you considered, for example, that ‘God’ is simply beyond your comprehension? It is arrogant and naive to think that we, as humans, have mastered language so well that we can explain anything. I could replace ‘God’ and say ‘Love.’ Now try and describe that to somebody who does not feel it. They won’t believe you. Explain the concept of taste to someone without a tongue, or colour to someone with no sight.
Now that we understand that language is inherently limited, we can focus on your question.
You have assigned God these traits. Not God. Why are you judging him? Even if the words you use were correct, then who is to say that the meanings or semantics you ascribe the are? You define lack of intervention evil. Why? Not intervening does not necessarily equate to not caring.
What acts do you define as evil? Death? What if death is merely a stage and beyond it is immeasurable joy and happiness? Is this, then, not an act of kindness? Suffering? Surely, to live is to suffer. To endure suffering is to know happiness. Would you prefer not to live, or not to know happiness?
Ultimately, the answer to your question is, you cannot hope to understand this overwhelming being with our lacklustre grip of communication skills or understand of the world and its concepts or what lies beyond. Equally, I am assuming you are attacking only Christianity and ignoring all of the other religions, because they do not certainly all preach the same thing.
Instead of seeking holes in a subject that not even the most powerful believers can understand, why don’t you spend the time trying to find things you DO have faith in? Because, just because other’s are different to yours, doesn’t mean they aren’t entitled to them.
Well said I agree with you you are completely on point in your response. God is not contained in a box, and WE could never attempt to completely comprehend what is spiritual without being in the spirit as well.
God gave us free will. Without free will we’d essentially be robots. If we did not have a choice (good verses evil) we’d be without free will.
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I think Carri hit it spot on. If God prevents evil, then what would be the point of life?
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BlindOptimism wrote:
Gaara♫♥♪♥ wrote:
yeah.. my argument is good (because its in the bible, lolz) but optimsiem is as smart as he is good at makeing cool pictures =3
You certainly know how to make me feel good about myself :)
^_^
Sorry to turn this back into a debate, but I couldn’t ignore this:
BlindOptimism wrote:
Have you considered, for example, that ‘God’ is simply beyond your comprehension? It is arrogant and naive to think that we, as humans, have mastered language so well that we can explain anything. I could replace ‘God’ and say ‘Love.’ Now try and describe that to somebody who does not feel it. They won’t believe you. Explain the concept of taste to someone without a tongue, or colour to someone with no sight.
Okay, there are several things wrong with this argument. Here the OP has posted a logical question (and a really infamous one), and your answer, or the answer of theists is, ‘we can’t possibly quantify or understand god, therefore he is outwith the parameters of logic and science, and therefore because you nor I (the believer) can fully comprehend god he is not subject to our system of logic, he is above and beyond the question.
That isn’t an answer. It’s easy to say ‘we are merely humans and god is an advanced concept’. That only helps to do two things. 1) It devalues the ability of humans to rationalize, and 2) It encourages people to be stupid and stubborn, rather than encouraging them to learn, to question, and to study to further their knowledge. But this is beside the point.
You mention the word love, and how it is unquantifiable, and to explain it to someone who has never heard the term before would be like explaining colour to a blind person. Another problem with this. First of all, love IS quantifiable. We can measure ‘love’ with chemistry. Brain waves, chemical reactions, the word ‘love’ is only a cover for something deep rooted in our genetics and psychology, ie. we humans are hardwired to love so that we may have offspring and keep our species alive. Personal experiences and added fluff aside (all that mushy love stuff), love is not an alien term that is outside our human understanding. As for the colour and the blind person, one blind person not understanding colour does not make colour a moot concept. Billions of people on this planet can say they understand colour, they see colours. It’s not interpersonal, and can be proven. So god is not like a colour to a blind person, and he is not like love, because both of these can be explained, but god can’t. Because he’s just above and beyond measure.
Language is not inherently limited since language itself is constantly adapting, new words are springing up all the time, new terms. Language is not limited to our understanding.
You have assigned God these traits. Not God. Why are you judging him? Even if the words you use were correct, then who is to say that the meanings or semantics you ascribe the are? You define lack of intervention evil. Why? Not intervening does not necessarily equate to not caring.
Interesting point you bring up here actually. You say that god is above our understanding. So why do humans try to quantify him in humans terms? ‘God is love, god is understanding, god forgives’ etc etc. If god is too complex for us, why is it that humans seem to have such a deep understanding ‘relationship’ with this invisible enigma? Why assign god humans traits? (’He made us in His image, for example’). It seems to me that humans actually do understand even the most basic concepts of god, yet there is no evidence. The only evidence we have is religious texts of varying religions. And again we have a problem. Each religion (albeit 3; Christians, Jews and Muslims) all have their own separate gods, and each of these gods are different. So which one is the true god or religion? This is a sensible question, yet you could no go about to answer it since, as you say, god is not quantifiable in humans terms.
If this IS the case, then religion should have absolutely NO power, religion should not have any business in politics, and most importantly religion should not be counted as a legal institute. It is sad that so many people who believe in a god (or even believe there may be one, but don’t actively believe in one per se) are happy with the fact that we are giving people the right to hold an unfounded belief in stead and use that belief to terrorize non-believers at will, because god is immeasurable.
The more we allow god to be this smoke and mirrors, unquantifiable, immeasurable ‘entity’, the more we allow humans to do horrific things in His name, the more we allow unfounded beliefs and hysteria to take over our lives, and the less and less we allow logic, reasoning and understanding to dictate what is real and what is not. Of course there are probably still many things humans may never understand, but that itself does not give license to ‘fill the gap of knowledge’ with something else, and to claim that this something else is real and untouchable, and something we cannot question because it’s all personal.
Barbie and Optimist, you may have turned this into the first LOGICAl debate on God I have yet to see on this site. To sum up her second point for those who don’t like reading so much. While Optimist said that we can’t assign God human terms the requirements for the Abrahamic God (which has 2/3 of the world’s belief) are that he be Omnipotent (all powerful), Omniscient (all knowing), Omnipresent (everywhere all the time) and Omnibenevolent (all loving).
OK!
See a lot of flaws in Barbie’s reply…
I would still say God is an advanced concept! It is like science… explaining quantum physics to a person who has no idea about it is very similar to explaining God… the difference is here, people know about quantum physics so they can teach it… but regarding God, we barely know anything about his true nature, therefore we can only speculate… (and remember quantum physics is just as much a theory with not everything proven)
Regarding love being chemical… a part of it is chemical… and that is mainly physical and basic attraction…
Love does take on a much deeper meaning which is not quantifiable or explainable to someone who hasnt experienced it!
Language isnt inherently unlimited.. but is limited by those who develop it… in this case us!
Most religions believe in the same God and especially Christians, Muslims and Jews… we actually believe in the same God and our texts prove it! But, we all look at different aspects….
In my view actually quanitfyingGod is what causes the problems! Since it is trough our quantifications that we make decisisions…
Go it R.A.M.!
I’m not good at theological debates, but I agree with you.
Thanks :)
Glad to be of help…
This argument has long ended, but I’m going to say something anyway :)
I think that point 2 in the initial argument is not necessarily correct.
God may have reasons for not acting, he may be stalling before acting, he may never intend to act for reasons other than malevolence.
At this point it becomes religion specific.
Lots of religions do actually claim malevolence (especially the more ancient ones). Some claim that stuff that goes on on earth is a result of inter-god domestics (read enuma elish for example).
But those based on the Old Testament (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) all claim that the existence of evil and suffering is a result of humankind’s rejection/disobedience/ignoring of God. Christians in particular argue that it is clear from the world that God exists, and that if we as humanity ignore him then there’ll be consequences.
Personally I think that’s fair enough. In-so-much as I’ve ignored God and made myself king of my life, I have done the wrong thing, and if there’s a creator and sustainer of the universe he/she has every right to inflict suffering on a disobedient insect like me.
Christian’s have the added aspect of Jesus, who is God, who willingly suffered the punishment in our place so that the eventual, eternal punishment will not come our way. Which I would argue is God showing love, even if it might appear to be in a weird way.
One last thing is that people here seem to have said “believe something because you believe it, not others”. I would say believe something because it’s historically verifiable. If God is an ******* who will strike you down if you don’t spin around in a cricle 20 times a day, then you should do it.
No?
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