God seems to be a ''mixture of opposites'' as is Man!! Virtue cannot be thought to exist without Evil.
Reason and Passion
By Kahlil Gibran
(1883 - 1931)
And the priestess spoke again and said: Speak to us of Reason and Passion.
And he answered, saying:
Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.
Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.
But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.
If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.
I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.
Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.
Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows -- then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason."
And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, -- then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion."
And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.
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When asked how World War III would be fought, Einstein replied that he didn't know. But he knew how World War IV would be fought: With sticks and stones.
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For the sake of the argument, which stems from purely theological reasoning -we're talking about God after all-, it's nonesense to impose God the concepts of good or evil; good or evil would be defined from God and not the opposite. That doesn't solve anything though.
My blog about literature (in spanish): http://otrasbentilaciones.wordpress.com/
Doesn't this idea display an a priori assumption about the nature of God?
While typically eastern concepts of God may be consistent with this idea, in the West there is a long tradition that views Evil not as an independent force contrasting with Good, but rather as existing only as a corruption of what is Good.
Eastern outlook in this matter differs from religion to religion, even from sect to sect.
Yes, as absence of light means Darkness, lack of Evil means Good or vice versa.
God seems to have created all and everything in Pairs, such as light and darkness, good and bad, light and heavy, curse and blessing, low and high, peace and terror, etc etc. Viewing any of these traits in isolation will tend to confuse the divine nature of God.....which human mind is not capable of comprehending at all!
It is said that those who do not believe in God or the Creator are typically confused people who are not even capable of knowing themselves, lest God!!
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When asked how World War III would be fought, Einstein replied that he didn't know. But he knew how World War IV would be fought: With sticks and stones.
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When asked how World War III would be fought, Einstein replied that he didn't know. But he knew how World War IV would be fought: With sticks and stones.
-(:===============
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When asked how World War III would be fought, Einstein replied that he didn't know. But he knew how World War IV would be fought: With sticks and stones.
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Language itself. Axioms are a predefined need for speech to exist, what we call logic is only a sort of language, so you cannot actually argue using God IF He happens to exist.
You can argue something that you think is God, but that doesn't make it God. Whenever any faith talks about God, they're not really discussing any actual divinity, because either 1) it doesn't exist or 2) it's not taking its place as an axiomatic form for all the creation, ergo the thing they are discussing isn't God.
This leaves you with the option of devoting your speech to false gods 100% of the time.
My blog about literature (in spanish): http://otrasbentilaciones.wordpress.com/
Well, you can always justify that by another of the limitations of language, which is the negative language paradox in which by saying no, you're seem to make things bigger instead of shrinking them. The definition is actually a form of exclusion, so talking about God more or less limits what God is, instead of actually helping their case, any people talking about God -again, assuming Its a real concept-, would be minimizing the divinity.
Arguing God holds its water when you discuss against God, if you're actually trying to defend divinity you're better off not using explicit language.
My blog about literature (in spanish): http://otrasbentilaciones.wordpress.com/
St Augustine struggled over this. He came to the conclusion that there is only good and what perceive as bad is really good corrupted; and it is sin that acts as the corrupting agent.
I think personally that we are pained by evil not because evil is so powerful, but because because good is so powerful that seeing it corrupted damages us tremendously, even if only on sub conscious level.