Well, he does have an ironclad plan . . . you know he's an idiot when he can't even say "against." And the crowd is even scarier, cheering and supporting him.Originally Posted by Charles Darnay
Still, I don't think even (a supposed) God can be held responsible for the idiocy of the world. Free will and all that. If I'd point to anything and say, "How can God let that go," it'd be kids with cancer, genetics disease, Michael Bay films, etc.
It's true that lots of suffering is caused by the minds of humans. Yet aren't humans made in God's image? Also, being benevolent and loving, why does God not intervene where these injustices occur.
Yet it's not the whole story. Many people suffer in situations where they have no control. What about virtuous people who live in difficult areas? What about natural disasters? If God is omnipotent, why isn't something done about it? Why do animals suffer so much? Why does social inequality continue? Why isn't God involved? If God made the world, why is evil so apparent?
Yes, Paul does state that he was a Pharisee; yes, he does agonize in Scripture over his persecution of Christians.
I don't recall Scripture stating emphatically that he supported himself as a tent maker. He indeed states he is a tent maker, as was the Corinthian couple (I forget their names off-hand), which is why he lodged w/ them. We may assume he supported himself as a tent maker, but there is no account of him actually doing so. I'd reckon he'd no time for tents w/ all that traveling & evangelizing; in fact, I don't recall an occasion when there's a definitive statement of who was subsidizing his travels. Someone paid for all those sea excursions.
Do not mix up God with Evil
Do not mix up God's Grand Plan with Evil. We humans are capable of doing Good and Bad things, and we're God's creation. So it will only be common that God is capable of both as well.
The whole world God created is perfect. And by perfect, I don't mean most ideal (though we, as His most favoured of His creation, can make it so,) but perfect as in whole and complete. Of course, that involves the Good and the Bad aspects of all matters. Someone was saying things like why God created natural disasters such as Tsunami, earthquakes and cancer in newly-born kids. But if I drop all those thing out, natural disasters, I mean, I can see no other mean for God to punish us in this life for something bad we have done. We as humans do not have the mind or the wisdom to comprehend and the Grand Plan that God has for all creation. Our little minds seem to (always) think that Death is the end of all creation. Well, it's not, but we tend to think it is because our limited measures in realizing things (in other words, Science) never reached that level yet. We still can't make heads from tails in most cases like the vast outer space or the reality behind ghost stories.
I don't know about other religions but we Muslims have a lot of stories in the holy Quran about how some incidents can appear very unfair and unjust in the human eye, but are actually 'effects' of other much earlier incidents. The story of the prophet Mosa (or Mozes in the bible) comes to mind, the one where he takes a trip and loses a whale to find a wise man who's much wiser than Mosa himself. The wise man does three things that appear to the prophet of God as harmful, unjust and completely wrong. But then discovers otherwise later before they part ways. Some could be familiar with this by recalling the word Karma (we Muslims call it Fate or God's well.)
Good or Bad, it has nothing to do with God. Our days living on Earth are but a lifetime test. We only get to see the results once our souls leave our bodies, so it will do us little good questioning it now.
Imagine a world with nothing Bad in it... you can't, can you?
You can fool yourself saying you 'can' but you can't. Human nature, some may call it. Look at the world now, look at Africa, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and others. Look at Palestine's 60 years of killing and suffering. Forget Japan and America's natural disasters, those are tests laid upon us humans from God to see how we will react. But what about the rest of the things? Why is Bill Gates and few others are the richest (when speaking about money) people in the world while many others sleep with the fear of not getting enouph to eat tomorrow? Why are there people who strive and kill for power while all that others want is to live in peace? Aren't those tragedies human-made? Don't say God allowed them so God is Evil. Sure, God created all things but WE are the ones who allowed those things to happen. We can easily set a universal plan across all nations to coexit and share Earth's materials, oil and supplies. Like on human race... but why don't we do so? Human nature. God created us, yes, but then Humans were the only of his creations that accepted to bear the burden of the Mind. Thus, God bestowed Humans with a Mind while giving the rest of his creation Instinct. We can think for ourselves and change bad things to good to better... but we never do.
Why?
Is God really the Evil one in this picture? God created life on Earth, it's up to us to shape that Earth into Eden or Hell.
Those kids who are born with cancer aren't any different than the kids before them who had a silly flu but died also... because, back then, even flu was dangerous. Medicine evolves with Science, but so is illness. In fact, most of our recent illnesses are caused by yours trully. We have thought of million ways to create pollution. World war one and two, factories, car, nuclear studies, you name it. I don't have it for Science, but we're so irresponsible in this time and age, you have to admit it.
So is God evil?
No, God created all things, Good and Evil. A pefect complete world. It is us humans who promoted Evil ever so strongly. It is us who became so selfish and self-centred that we started to blame God for the Evil we created.
- These are my own thoughts about the subject.
Last edited by Monamy; 07-05-2012 at 05:51 AM. Reason: Typo
When life gets hard... Laugh!
But if I drop all those thing out, natural disasters, I mean, I can see no other mean for God to punish us in this life for something bad we have done.
How is the death of thousands of men women and children in the big Tsunami justified? What wrong doing needs such a punishment, and why does it include children, animals etc? Saying our small minds can't comprehend God's plan is unsatisfactory in my opinion.
I also think the punishment idea is very wrong and leads to the conveniant adoption of attitudes apparently proven by God's wrath. It is far too easy to ascribe a conveniant cause for this punishment. For example, I saw a documentary shot after the Tsunami in Malaysia where the chap being interviewed ascribed the Tsunami to God's punishment for woment wearing western clothes. Ridiculous as this is, this young chap was adamant about this, and thus made himself a danger to anyone not conforming.
Our days living on Earth are but a lifetime test.
How can a child be tested if they die in a natural disaster?
Forget Japan and America's natural disasters, those are tests laid upon us humans from God to see how we will react.
How can a good God organise such a cruel test?
So is God evil?
No, God created all things, Good and Evil. A pefect complete world.
If God created the world and humans in his image, why did he need to introduce evil? The sufferings of humans and animals throughout history have often been cased by the very beings created by God as you said. Saying his purposes are hidden makes no sense, and there have been few good explanations of it.
I prefer the explanation that says this is not a perfect world and we are born, suffer and die within it because of the conditions we create for ourselves through Karma. This is played out over countless lives and explains why the innocent are often caught up in karma generated in the past by reincarnation.
In this model there is no God to either blame or rely on, but the reliance has to come from yourself to improve the conditions for yourself and, more importantly, others.
I am a deist now. God created the world and just let the thing spin on its own.
Paulclem, you're right in everything you have written if Life was all there is.
While me, I believe in the afterlife. I believe that Death isn't the end of the line, only a portal that our souls can pass through without our bodies. Thus, those we call dead aren't really dead.
Your whole arguement about my views on the subject seem to revolve around the death of children. I believe those children are also part of the Grand Plan set for humanity. If this one life was all there is to it, I think humanity has no purpose to exist.
I also think the punishment idea is very wrong and leads to the conveniant adoption of attitudes apparently proven by God's wrath
How else would we stop and think about our actions? God's wrath doesn't come without a valid explanation, it's there open our eyes on the world whenever we close them. Please, do not bring me examples of extremists and - pardon the use of the word - nutjobs. To put it generally, I believe that natural disasters are lessons sent to us by God, because I believe - again - that death isn't the end.
Saying his purposes are hidden makes no sense, and there have been few good explanations of it
It's called Belief, my friend. My personal thoughts about this world and what Life could mean led me to this belief. Of course, there are many good explanations for me to believe so.
And about how perfect this world is, you say it's not perfect. I'm with you on that point, it's not perfect... we humans ruined it. We made all the differences between one another, gathered the world's power and supplies to selected nations while others suffered the lack of it. We are this close to destroying the O-zone and get BBQed by the sunrays. It's not perfect, this world of ours, but it was created to be perfect. We were unjust, and are still unjust to this planet that hosted our lives for countless ages.
I didn't mean to start a discussion about the matter, I merely dropped my two cents. But since you replied, I only find it necessary to reply back. Thank you.
When life gets hard... Laugh!
"And about how perfect this world is, you say it's not perfect. I'm with you on that point, it's not perfect... we humans ruined it."
In the light of what we now know about the age of the world, compared to the age of humanity, this view is simply not tenable. Humans are a mere blip in the history of the world. Maybe humans are important in God's eyes, or maybe, as has been said before, He is much more fond of beetles.
In any event, pain, disease and natural calamities have been around for millions of years before humans arrived and. no doubt, will continue for eons after the last human mutant provides a supper for cockroaches.
Voices mysterious far and near,
Sound of the wind and sound of the sea,
Are calling and whispering in my ear,
Whifflingpin! Why stayest thou here?
Does not make too much sense to me. At least in Christian theology God is the ultimate paragon of goodness - the good itself, the very opposite of evil. The problem with original sin is to begin with that God cannot tolerate any sin (=evil) and that's why he had to become the sacrificial lamb himself in order for the jews to get into paradise - later a pharisees called Saul of Tarsus gave pagans the same privilege. I don't know how this whole sin thing works in Islam though - presumably in a quite similar fashion since the God is the same one.
He sure must be having fun with his lab rats. Quite a trickster this Yahweh.
Forget Japan and America's natural disasters, those are tests laid upon us humans from God to see how we will react.
Last edited by Freudian Monkey; 07-07-2012 at 04:05 PM.
De omnibus dubitandum.
Your whole arguement about my views on the subject seem to revolve around the death of children. I believe those children are also part of the Grand Plan set for humanity. If this one life was all there is to it, I think humanity has no purpose to exist.
I use children as the most emotive example, but there are countless other tragedies occurring every day around the world. I would agree that this life is not all there is. I disagree as to the purpose - but that's a difference in worldview.
How else would we stop and think about our actions? God's wrath doesn't come without a valid explanation, it's there open our eyes on the world whenever we close them.
I don't see the need for a God/ Creator God for this to be a necessity. Reflection upon your actions and lessons can be learned without reference to a God. I think the same goes for your valid explanation.
Please, do not bring me examples of extremists and - pardon the use of the word - nutjobs.
I know this isn't a representation of Islam, and I didn't intend it to be so. I put it merely as an example of that view can develop if God's intentions are second guessed. No offence was intended.
I didn't mean to start a discussion about the matter, I merely dropped my two cents. But since you replied, I only find it necessary to reply back. Thank you.
Fine. I can appreciate that we come from different worldviews, and we wouldn't agree on details. I don't have a problem with that. I hope you had your 2 cents back.
Whifflingpin, humans are indeed important. There's a reason why God favoured humans on most of his creation. When I said that line (or statement) I meant our current time and age. There are many things that can be fixed if we can just be like ants. We should be colonized and be one hand in dealing with our problems and situations like poverty, stopping war, support the needy, stop polution, that kind of thing. Thank you for participating.
Freudian Monkey, again, I could have sent the wrong image when I said God is capable of both. I didn't mean He can be Good and Evil, but in Islam, God is capable of anything. God can reward your goodbeing and can punish your wrongdoing. Bad things aren't always Evil, there's an Ayah in the holy book that translate to this: "You may hate something (to happen) but it's good for you; and you may like something (to happen) but it's bad for you." Remember the story about Mosa I shared in my first post? (I hope I didn't go off-topic.) Thank you for participating.
Dear LitNet friend Paulclem, you didn't offend me at all, I assure you. I too didn't mean it in that context. On the contrary, I was pleased with your reply. I agree, we're on two different parts of the world and so our universal points of view about things can vary widely. But that's what makes the issue all the more interesting.
LitNet is blessed with members such as you all. I like a light exchange of ideas and thoughts, and I very much enjoyed this one.
I hope you had your 2 cents back.
lol I knew I used the 'two cents' idiom wrong somehow, I should avoid using things I don't fully understand :P Thank you all.
When life gets hard... Laugh!
But if the Islamic God is supposed to represent the Platonic ideals of everything good, beautiful and righteous (as the Christian God does), then he cannot be capable of doing everything - namely, he is unable to tolerate sin (=evil) or commit an evil act himself. If he could, he wouldn't be the embodiment of goodness anymore and the whole philosophical base of the religion would fall apart.
De omnibus dubitandum.
I'm not trying to debate Islam or Christianity, but God is represented in his Holy book (at least in Quran, wouldn't know about the others) that He can do anything. I quote directly from the book these words which are repeated in many pages: إن الله على كل شيء قدير which translates exactly that He is capable of everything. God 'can' do anything and everything, the proof is the very existence of Satan and his challenge to God in misleading humanity towards Hell. Hell is yet another thing of God's vast creation, Hell is nothing but everlasting pain and torture, but that doesn't mean God likes pain and to torture.
Sorry if I can't explain it any better than that, language barriers irritate me sometimes.
When life gets hard... Laugh!
It seems that the existence of suffering is being used to try to disprove the existence of a good God. I don't think that's correct. More specifically, I don't think Monamy's religion, or most any other theistic religion, is in any way undermined by the existence of suffering. These religions provide a compassionate explanation for suffering assuming the universe is a good creation of a good God.
The existence of suffering allows two important things to happen in the universe. First, it allows freedom for creatures to make mistakes. Second, it allows for change to occur. The first allows for evil and the second allows for evolution to occur.
Although compassion would encourage one to reduce suffering, the existence of suffering itself is good. Without it there would be no freedom. Without it there would be no change.
The real problem of suffering is a challenge for the worldviews that do not think the universe is good. These worldviews in my limited experience are atheistic. They also view life as a blind accident that one must suffer stoically. Their ethics, to the extent they don't recommend discontinuing life itself in some way, is fixated on eliminating suffering which is an impossible task. They want to fix a universe they view as fundamentally flawed, which probably shouldn't have been created in the first place.
A nice presentation of this worldview is in the Lars von Trier movie Melancholia: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1527186/ In this movie the earth is swallowed up by some rogue planet called Melancholia that is about 4 times earth's diameter. All life is destroyed on earth when this occurs. The message is the following: Life is itself evil. It was a random accident and because of that life only exists on earth. Melancholia is now removing life from the universe cleaning up the accident.
EDIT: So an answer to the question why does a good God allow suffering is because suffering allows us to have freedom, allows change to occur and motivates our compassion. An atheistic position that finds suffering a problem is challenged to find a way to make sense out of suffering without leading to an ethical conclusion like that expressed in Melancholia. If it ever reached such a negative conclusion all the atheistic ethics would have done was provide a contradiction of its own worldview.
Last edited by YesNo; 07-08-2012 at 12:42 PM. Reason: grammar and additional material
My blog: https://frankhubeny.blog/
I understand your point, don't worry about it. We use different types of arguments: yours are theological and mine philosophical. Thank you for your answer.
De omnibus dubitandum.
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