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I actually study quite a lot of science as I awaken interest according to myself. But I have no prescription for anyone else regarding that.Quote:
Originally Posted by cafolini
I only prescribe undefined religion for anyone else, which I cannot define, and am not interested in defining. It would be pointless, since the chances of being the same I'm using are scientifically nil. Have fun. Love you all. Forever.
1. For fun?
2. Because he is not a good God?
3. To teach us a lesson.
4. Because he wants more believers?
5. Because of some plan we will never be able to understand?
6. To teach us a lesson.
7. Maybe Satan and God were somehow switched and all of Christianity is a big joke?
Whoa! this video would agree with that
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLGJXo8gshg
8. God is a businessman.
9. God wants attention.
10. He has nothing better to do.
11. http://www.amiright.com/photoshops/i...1229797628.png
Hi YesNo I have just noticed your new signature.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I have just been wondering whether we have been cunfunded to believe in a God that does anything naturally we must be certain he does or we would no be here deliberating about him. ;)
How does number 11 fits in with the rest?Quote:
Originally Posted by Tor-Hershman
Hold on there is a difference between believing he exists and believing in his existence to do things.Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenLucky
Which are you talking about?
And back to the original post who said God promoted anything?
He is famous enough to want to promote anything.
Promotion is nouveau word by the nouveau rich and comes with ads and technology and means advertising to sell a product that would not stand a chance otherwise.
God creating people and planets is promotion enough.
What more is there to say?
My wee parody fitsQuote:
Originally Posted by cacian
http://www.amiright.com/photoshops/i...1229797628.png
for it shows that The Bible/Jesus/God couldn't even, nor evenly nor odd nor oddly, manage to pass a high school biology course.
Stay on groovin' safari,
Tor
"The universe wants us to win." It's a great line i think, it's from the novel, 'Girlfriend in a coma' by Douglas Coupland. Is God cheering us on hoping his encouragement, his 'promotion' of our cause, will help us win promotion to the major league? (do you have promotion to the major league? i didn't want to sound english and say 'premier league') Suffering might be part of the basis for us coming top of the class, if i can mix my metaphors. That's the theology of an optimist. A God who punishes us for our sins to promote his desire for vengence may just be the theology of bad digestion. Is it even possible to have a 'rational' debate or is it all just a'prejudice of the heart' as Nietzsche might say?Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
This just shows how easily someone who thinks they are smart can totally miss the most obvious.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tor-Hershman
:icon_bs:
Cheers to Tor-Hershman who makes a high school Biology class the measure of all things.
Haha indeed if only we could measure things we'll be counting them with the tip of our fingers and hoping they would grow sideways and everyways.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZTay
Thanks for noticing the signature, cacian. Since I was defending Harry Potter in another thread, I figured I better put a quote from Rowling in my signature, at least temporarily.Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
I love the way Rowling made Snape explain that being Confunded implies that such a person is certain of whatever they have to say. Usually we think being confused involves enough humility to have some doubts, but such people aren't as confused as their emotions make them think. Those most deeply confused do not even know they are confused and so have no doubts at all.
I don't have any specific religion to promote. I pick and choose from various religious practices whatever makes sense to me and ignore the rest. Regarding this thread the most basic issue is not whether God is good but whether the universe we live in is good. We don't have to believe the universe exists. We are confronted with it, as well as the suffering we experience by living in it, on a daily basis.
A theist who believes in a good God, depending on the theology, will usually accept a good universe made by that God. For theists, this thread provides only a minor problem even when they have gone through personal tragedy which hurts them as much as anyone. It is atheists who are mainly challenged and that is why atheists present these challenges to theists. They are calls for help under the cover of hostility.
Some theists, including myself, believe that suffering is a way to provide us with a corrective feedback mechanism to our misunderstandings of what is most real. At a simple level, this correction works like this. We put our hands in the fire. We suffer. We stop putting our hands in the fire. At a deeper level, suffering reminds us of our deaths and the ultimate insignificance of going after fame or wealth or power. It tells us to find something better. The religious, spiritual or intuitive people of our various cultures have over thousands of years come up with suggestions, rituals and institutions that might help us to better spend our brief lives.
So suffering is a way to break a Confundus Charm we have cast on each other and find out what is most real, which I believe, since I do believe the universe is good, is staring us in the face.
This seems like an interesting way to look at the suffering we cause ourselves, but what about the suffering visited upon the innocent by birth defects, trypanosomes, or drone attacks? If the universe is good, what's the meaning of this suffering?Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
That is the basic question. Is the universe good or not even when one cannot find a justification for suffering. If the universe is good, why do the innocent suffer?Quote:
Originally Posted by Anton Hermes
Here's the Wikipedia article on theodicy which is more in line with the original question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy Theodicy tries to justify whatever God the culture believes in, but further in the article is a discussion of cosmodicy. This focuses the problem on the source, the universe itself. The article even discusses "anthropodicy", but I think the idea of cosmodicy covers that.
However, I suspect the meaning of innocent suffering would be the same as the meaning of the suffering of the guilty. Suffering forces those who suffer as well as those watch their suffering to reject the shallow Gods of greed, power or fame and look elsewhere for something worthwhile to do with one's life no matter how short or how innocent that life might be.
Although I have my own ideas, I don't have any solution to publicly offer of what that worthwhile something might be. It wouldn't matter anyway to disclose that information. All that I can say is it makes more sense, since one is living in this universe, to say yes to it rather than no. Saying no leads to a dead end. Saying yes offers hope.
So you presume to know, then, how "on track" other beings besides yourself living in this universe are? You presume to know that it is a "dead end" to deny the goodness of a universe, one which has given no real evidence of any innate goodness whatsoever?Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
How does it make more sense to "say yes" to what you describe? How does it make more sense to believe in an untruth, or at the least, a nonsensical hypothesis?
I hope people are getting sick of the arrogance of those who claim to know the order of the universe, and that there is a reason and a goal associated with the suffering of the innocent.
It makes sense for the God of classical theism to permit (not promote per se) suffering. If such a God wants us to believe that we need him, it makes sense to make us anything but self-sufficient and susceptible to pain and suffering. If we were invincible and life painless, we wouldn't feel as if we needed anything or anyone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anton Hermes;
That's a question I have posed to some of the delusional apologists on this forum before but none seem to have any real answers. All they ever say is, the great god is ever so good that anyone who has suffered will soon realize how good the SOB really is. Dunno how that will benefit the aborted fetus but, somehow, people still cling on to their delusions.
To promote means to help, advance, aid. assist, or support. As far as suffering goes, I don't see God doing any of those things. I suppose that the originator of this thread meant that God aided in suffering existing. But I simply cannot see God helping to support suffering.
If it is not a dead end to deny the goodness of the universe, what is the alternative?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ser Nevarc
Isaiah 45:7
This "benevolent" god boasts of creating all evil.
I suppose that depends on the translation and the reader's interpretation thereof. It reads to me more like an affirmation of all-encompassing power than simply a boast of creating evil.Quote:
Originally Posted by hellsapoppin
For reference, Isaiah 45:7 (NET Bible translation):
I am the one who forms light
and creates darkness;14
the one who brings about peace
and creates calamity.15
Notes:
14tn On the surface v. 7a appears to describe God’s sovereign control over the cycle of day and night, but the following statement suggests that “light” and “darkness” symbolize “deliverance” and “judgment.”
15sn This verses affirms that God is ultimately sovereign over his world, including mankind and nations. In accordance with his sovereign will, he can cause wars to cease and peace to predominate (as he was about to do for his exiled people through Cyrus), or he can bring disaster and judgment on nations (as he was about to do to Babylon through Cyrus).
Deleted by Jassy Melson
Hitler's quote shows that it's a maniac speaking; not God.Quote:
Originally Posted by hellsapoppin
I don't know,actually there is too much suffering in life but I don't think He is sadistic. He is not happy for our suffering .
From my own experience, I've learnet not to judge any happening or event in the right moment . I've learnet to give it time . It's only with the passage of time that we can discover the right nature of things. When I review the chain of events in my previous life I discover that what seems to me at a very specific moment something so bad, too much suffering, unfairness or injustice, was the cause of sth good. In the chain " cause -effect " of our life, something bad, as suffering (cause)might have a good ( effect ).In this respect suffering might not always be sth bad. Suffering has to do a lot with creativity for instance. Great persons have suffered a great deal in their life. On the other hand , no one can deny that suffering might be so destructive. Here I remember one saying for ' Ibrahim Alzenedy :" Pain is the tool for anger or sublimation, and it's up to you to decide which one to choose"
Regards
Most attacks against God's goodness come in the form of this rather simplistic idea: "God is good, therefore nothing bad should ever happen to me or anybody else." That idea reveals a number of important things:
1. The individual speaking it has never really read the entire Bible, and if s/he did, s/he didn't understand it very well.
2. The individual speaking it doesn't understand that you can't "have it both ways" in this world. We can't all have free will and then have a God that steps in to thwart all attempts by others to freely use their will in harmful ways.
3. If God isn't good, then He must be something else (which means "bad," "selfish," "malicious," "evil," etc). If this is so, and God is not good, then why would he suffer to allow anybody criticizing Him to continue to exist? If God is not good, then neither is he Just (since we would assume that justice and goodness go together) - and if God is not just, then what "law" of fairness requires Him to allow scoffers to attack and mock Him? Only a good God would allow those who misunderstand Him to malign Him and speak ill of Him.
Interestingly enough, most who attack God fail to either realize, or acknowledge these realities.
You are making a moral judgement. It's simpler, much simpler than that. There are millions of fools for whom God provides, as they like it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
I'm hard-pressed to see how my statements are "moral judgments." Number 1 deals with the reality that any judgment upon God should be based upon our knowledge of Him. That knowledge comes from the Bible. Without reading that book and understanding it, any judgment made of God's goodness is merely uninformed opinion. If we're going to judge Him, we ought to know what we're told about Him. Number 2 deals with logic: you cannot have free will in a universe where evil behaviors are forbidden. That's pretty obvious on the face of it. We can't argue for free will and then criticize God when He isn't selective about who gets the freedom to choose his/her behaviors. Number 3 deals with logic as well. People like to say that God is evil, and yet an evil being has no need to be fair, just, or tolerant of those who attack Him, so if God is bad, why does He continue to allow those who malign Him to live?
You're pretty quick to call people fools, but you didn't deal with any of my points in the least. You categorized them, said "it's simpler than that" (without bothering to explain yourself), and then denigrated believers. Is that all you've got in response?
This is a real problem faced by religious people who believe in a conventional, active God who rewards and punishes. The whole matter of theodicy is a significant part of Western religious philosophy. But there's no real solution. The Book of Job in effect admits that there's no rhyme or reason to the way God permits suffering; the only explanation Job receives from the Almighty is that it's presumptuous to even ask.
I see this as the dilemma of attributing moral meaning to events or natural phenomena. Does it trivialize people's suffering more when we assert that there's no grand reason for it, or when we dismiss it as being all part of the Almighty's inscrutable plan?
Try books like Hall's God and Human Suffering.
The last thing I'd do is entangle with explaining to your foolisness. Your stuff is inconsequential.Quote:
Originally Posted by Redzeppelin
If there is a benevolent god out there then why the hell does he allow something like this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti..._campaign=1490
The simple answer is that if there IS a god, he sure as heck isn't a nice one.
Anyone can snap. Having easy access to guns that have no purpose than killing people is the fault not of any god or God but of yourselves. Who are you all afraid of?
As far as human actions go, it seems a little bit overzealous to immediately blame them all on God. Unless free will is cruel, (which it could be), God is neither cruel nor responsible for human actions.
Whether or not free will is, in itself, evil is another question. I'd be curious to hear thoughts on that.
Natural disasters and things like that are a whole lot harder to explain away from a theistic standpoint. But:
1. If there is some spiritual evil force that opposes God, it certainly could be that these are to blame for natural evils.
2. Many natural evils are caused by human actions (e.g. environmental carelessness can result in environmental disasters).
It's the same argument, I'm afraid: we attribute the world, etc., to beings whose existence we cannot prove or disprove scientifically.Quote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
"O people! This world is an abode of absurdity, not an abode of straightness, and an abode of distress, not an abode of joy. Whoever knows it will not be jovial for affluence nor distressed for misery.
Verily, God created the world as an abode of affliction and the Hereafter is an abode of success. He made the affliction of this world a cause for the reward of the Hereafter, and the reward of the Hereafter a compensation for the affliction of this world. So He takes in order to give and He tries in order to reward.
This world passes very quickly and turns unexpectedly. Therefore, beware of the sweetness of its suckling for the bitterness of its weaning, and abandon its present joy because of its future distaste.
Do not strive to construct a home whose destruction God has decreed. And do not befriend it while God wanted you to stay away from it. That causes you to be exposed to His wrath, worthy of His punishment."
- Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him)