neo-x wrote:No, why do I need to concede this. Look at this picture again. Where is the love in this? How can you reasonably say God loves us and yet he permits stuff like this to occur? Im looking for a serious answer, either God has the power to prevent this kind of suffering or he doesnt. If he has the power to prevent it and doesnt then he allows it and allowing this is not love.
Mag, I think you did not get perhaps what I asked you. And on that note, I do not think I'm kidding with you either.
First you have to concede that point because you cant have it both ways. It nullifies the law of non-contradiction. Two statements can not be true at the same time while also being in direct opposition to each other. God is good, God is not God, can not be both true at the same time, can it now?
And that is why I asked you, if God doesn't stop evil or allows it? why does he allow Goodness as well? (there is happiness and goodness in the world) you still have to answer that, pasting that picture over and over is not an answer Mag.
let me riddle you with the exact opposite of what you're saying and perhaps then you may realize what I am trying to say...I can post 100 images (Im not going to but just imagine) of happy people, people helping each other, wiping the tears of an orphan, etc etc. and then say
"Either God allows goodness or he doesn't, and since there is so much goodness around therefore God is good and he exists."
What would be your objections to this, If your argument carries truth, so does mine. Goodness is all around us too if you but only notice. Let me know what you find wrong with my statement, how will you refute it?
I dont believe God is responsible for good or evil. I think he just doesnt exist. Let me explain what I mean. If a bear or a lion or a shark happens to kill a human being, this is a bad thing, an example of human suffering, but God did not make the bear, lion, or shark kill the human, its just something those animals do. Likewise if a human happens to be close to a bear, lion, or shark and it doesnt attack the human it is not because of God either, its just that the lion, bear, or shark wasnt in a killing mood at that particular time. We would see it as good that the animal didnt kill the human, but its not goodness that comes from God and its not badness or evil that comes from God. Likewise when humans do good things or bad things, God has nothing to do with it. Humans have the capacity to do good or to not do good, just like bears, lions, and sharks have the capacity to kill humans or not kill humans. A human killing a human is no more from God than a bear killing a human and a human doing good towards another human is no more from God than a bear not killing a human.
You said
"I think the capacity to do good and evil are just human characteristics. I dont attribute evil to God, I just think the pervasiveness of evil is proof that God doesnt exist, or is indifferent to human suffering."
Do you realize you just shot your argument squarely in the head? (no pun intended)
When saying human beings are good and evil, you just answered your own dilemma. I would then ask you, why is it that some are good and some are bad?
It could be any number of factors. Environment one was raised in, mental health, overall health, education, any number of factors could come into to play in determining why some people are good and some are not.
I also asked you whether there was any good in the world and if so, why do you think that is? It seems to me that even a single act of "evil" in your opinion is valid enough for you to think that either God doesn't love us or he doesn't exists. While all acts of compassion and mercy can not be attributed to God at all.
I think there is plenty of good in the world and plenty of good people. I also think there are good dogs and bad dogs. There are dogs who are prone to attack people and many small children are hurt and killed every year by dogs but God is not responsible for these dogs attacking children and he is not responsible when dogs are loving and well behaved. Dogs have the capacity to hurt and kill and they have the capacity to be great companions and different factors determine what side of the coin a dog ends up on and it has nothing to do with God. Likewise humans have the capacity to hurt and kill people and we have the capacity to be kind to each other and do good and different factors determine what side of the coin we end up on and I would say this too has little to do with God. I do believe that a truly good and powerful God would do anything in his power to prevent unnecessary suffering and the fact that there is so much suffering and evil is evidence that there is either no God or he is either not all powerful or not "good" in any way that a reasonable human would define goodness.
I'm quite well aware of the excerpts you posted about cruel people, I can perhaps add to the list a few people as well, I appreciate your effort nonetheless.
Why goodness matters? is a good question. For example, Hitler's extermination of the non-Aryan race was in his eyes a good deed. Did you think Stalin wept for millions of people that he had killed, tortured? To these people what they did was good and therefore something which should be perused by others as well. This is why I asked you, what is good and why does it matter in a Godless world? Do you even realize that without a "God" the concept of good and evil is plain arbitrary. You can argue, hurting someone is bad or starving someone is bad but mind you this is not as plain and simple as it sounds. Some people would disagree with you, perhaps the people on the list you posted are likely to deny this. And you can cry out "foul" and you would be rightly doing so and yet what you hold as good or evil, is nothing more than your personal take on the matter. and if there is no higher authority which one is subjected to then what makes you think that your opinion is the only one which matters, why not Hitler's opinion matter? Isn't he doing the same thing. Doing what he thinks is right and justifying the consequences thereof. Whats to prove him wrong? That millions die? he will say that the millions of Germans in the coming years will prosper. You can say that starving someone is wrong, but he may tell you that he will use the same bread to feed a German kid rather than a Jew. So giving bread to a Jew in his eyes, evil and feeding the German kid is a good thing.
I personally respect all life on this Earth. I try not to even kill bugs in my house if I can seriously avoid it. To me it doesnt matter what Hitler or any other person who does bad things might think about the matter. Daily I read about people who take the lives of others over the most trivial of things. Human lives taken over 40 and 50 dollars. I often wonder how human life can have so little value to some people. So all I can say is that goodness matters to me and my opinion is what matters to me.
I am sure you do not agree with the notion, neither do I but can you actually prove that this is wrong? Your objectivity has to have its roots. Without an objective standard of Good i.e God, there is no such thing as goodness or evil, they are at best, matters of perspective.
Who says that God is the objective standard of goodness. By my standard anyone who has the power to prevent suffering and evil and doesnt is not good. There are examples in the bible where God called upon the Israelites to slay entire nations down to the children. There are other times when he said that women left alive to be used as they pleased. Maybe when you get your notions of what is good and bad from a book written by goat herders 3000 years ago, you dont see these things as a big deal. But what specifically makes God so good?
What do you think "death" is to God? when we die, do we feel pain, sometimes yes, sometimes no. You seem to be applying anthropomorphism and asking if God can feel our pain and he doesn't do anything, he is not loving. Or God is very loving but because of all this pain and suffering, there is no doubt that such a God could exist and be not dealing with the problems that we have, thus he doesn't exist.
But what you are missing is that you have created a false dichotomy. IF
this is wrong, then
else must be right. Try things from the other side, lets assume you are God. You look down and you see man's corruption. You see the evil there is, what do you do?
1. You can wipe out all humanity (as you earlier suggested)
but this means you are not Just
So God was not just when he wiped out all but a literal handful of people during the flood?
2. You can save them but in the process it takes time because God won't force his will on humans too.
This way everyone reaps what they sow, some people even recover and realize that they did wrong, but this seems more loving than killing everyone. In this way you are loving as well as just.
Me personally, I would kill every person who sought to do harm to another human being on the spot.
You have to grasp that to God all of this is not a game at all.
It seems very much like a game to me. God creates Adam and Eve, creates a tree with fruit on it and tells adam and eve not to eat from it knowing they will do it anyway and then punishes them severly when they do the thing he already knew they would do from the start
God is not merely out to eliminate evil, he also wants to rescue mankind from the fallen state.
What is the fallen state? What does that mean and why does God want to rescue mankind from it?
Can God make everything alright with the twitch of his pinky? sure he can. but that would only satisfy one thing, lack of responsibility. Its like the six year old Kid who lost a snake ladder game and went on to tear the board apart.
You will not kill your child if he killed a dog? would you? the dog suffered at the hands of your 8 year old kid. Do you think that merits termination because he failed a standard held by others, on some accounts yes, on some accounts no, most serial killers start in life with cruelty against animals. Does this mean that a child killing an animal is beyond hope, lost that he should not be even clarified on the consequences of his actions or made to see what was wrong or perhaps more to be punished for his mistake. The punishment would be just but from a parent it would also be an act of love. Killing the child wont solve the problem.
Some people dont deserve that benefit of the doubt. Some people are simply evil and dont deserve to live imo. At the point where you just start hurting and killing people intentionally, I dont personally believe you are worthy of redemption or forgiveness and you deserve to simply die
And Should not God use more wisdom than this if he created all life? The fallen humanity deserves a chance.
Again you will have to explain what "fallen humanity is" and I do believe there are some things people should be forgiven for and given a second chance but I also think there is a line people cross where they no longer deserve a chance. For instance I dont think a person who robs or steals is beyond redemption, but when you get to the point where you start physically hurting people and taking lives, then to me you do not deserve a chance.
There are those who abuse this grace of God and kill, torture others. If God merely wipes out everyone to get rid of these few, would it be a fair judgement? I do not think so, regardless of what you say. It won't be just. God must be just as he must be loving.
So during the flood do you think that Noah and his family were literally the only good people on the entire planet? On all of Earth there were only about 7 good people? Do you really believe that? At any rate I do agree that God shouldnt wipe everyone out but why cant he simply destroy the truly evil people.?
I am detecting more disdain of suffering from you than a logical construct of your argument. May be you have suffered or perhaps watched someone suffered and have seen the ugly side but in all earnestness I think your solution is more out of hate of pain rather than anything else. Everything is backed up by emotional appeal. I suggested before that this is a fallacy and can ruin any good and sound healthy reasoning on both sides.
I didnt mean God should really wipe out all humanity. I meant he should do anything necessary not excluding wiping out humanity. And I dont necessarily see wiping out humanity as a bad thing because it would just mean the good people would go to heaven and whatever happens to bad people would happen.
In fact, if you look at it, your solution is no more different than Hitler's, its only a derivation at best. You consider evil and suffering to be a problem, you like wise suggest that God could have never made us or he should wipe all out to end evil. Hitler considered Jews to be the problem of that was wrong with Germany so he came up with the "the final solution of the Jews" and therefore decided to eliminate everyone to get rid of the problem.
God has done it before so its clearly not unprecedented. According to the bible there was a time when humans were so terrible that God figured it was best to wipe them out and start over
Please do not mind this, as I am just pointing out what seems apparent and common enough to merit such a comparison. My intent is merely to understand what you are saying and perhaps make you realize that while your premise is valid, the conclusion is not. It is very easy to think of ending problems in our mind and then project it on God without calculating the broader scope. This will lead your discussion nowhere.
As a matter of fact, I am going to push the argument a bit more further,
just for the sake of the argument If all life has value, then eating an apple from a tree is equal to killing a child. I mean after all, all living things indeed have value. Killing one life (be it a harmless apple) just because it is not human life is also a cruel way. wouldn't you agree? You may not feel the pain or suffering a plant may feel. You may even say they do not have any conscience so they can not feel pain, but you do understand that they have life, its just different than ours.
No I wouldnt agree with that at all. Fruit was made to be eaten. If we could not eat plants or animals then we could not sustain ourselves. Please dont waste my time with completely absurd arguments just for the sake of argument or to make some ridiculous point.
The question is not of pain here but the value of Life. It is too much precious to be eternally condemned because of some people who chose to abuse God's creation. And they will be held responsible, as a matter of fact I think that is the only and the most just outcome, a God can offer. To claim otherwise, IMHO is a logical absurdity.
