Ab_Normal

Thanks again for the clarification, SOMMS. I think my theist decoder ring might be broken. I should return it and get a new one.

Clutch

Good... good... you may be on the verge of getting it. Now, think carefully. This moral law -- that a consequence of sin is that innocents suffer -- whose law is it, again?

Angrillori

Do you regularly just make things up and pretend they're biblical?

This reads specifically and only as: they sinned and were kicked out of the garden. I don't see any separation from God here any more than they were separated in the garden.

In fact, throughout the OT God is still WITH the Israelites! (Gen 5:22, Deut 20:1, 29:15, 31:6...) Sounds like the first consequence of sin isn't any kind of separation from God at all, just a banishment from the garden!

Stop making things up and pretending they're from the bible!

Making stuff up again? It seems you're reading a lot more than is here. (As an aside: is Abel innocent, or has no man been righteous?) Where in the world does this in any way shape or form talk about the consequences of sin? Cain killed Abel IS a sin, not the consequences thereof. The consequence is: Abel is dead. But death was already a consequence of sin wasn't it? Where was that in the list?

While we're on it, I'd like to question your inexact counting skills. Why are we counting the banishment from the garden as the first consequence of sin,
Really isn't the cursing of the snake to slither on the ground the first consequence? And aren't the second through seventh: painful childbirth, the woman's subservience to man, painful toil for food, thorns and thistles, sweatyness, and death?

I'm just asking, or do you like to remove from the bible as well as add to it?

Huh? There are two concerns here:
First, who decided innocents suffer as cause of sin? How can you worship that monster?
Second, where did you even come up with that? Seriously, that is the worst apologetic for the suffering of the innocent that I've ever heard. Please try again.

Angrillori

Doggone Albert, MAKE SENSE! Be internally consistent!

You agree that
The concept of using means A to get to ends B does not apply to an omnipotent being.

Let me take this step by step.

Given the ability to do anything, anything is possible.
If anything is possible, then means are unnecessary. To achieve a desired end without any means at all is possible.

In this case, any apparent means must be an 'end' of themselves and exist independently of any perceived 'end' they appeared to be directed towards.

In other words, if we say A is for B, but realize that in fact for B, no A was necessary, then A must only exist on its own merits as its own end. A is for A and B is for B.

All this, you seem to agree with. Which makes your breakdown:

If he wants it FOR anything else, then it is a means, and as such unnecessary, as you agreed. Suffering, for God, or any omnipotent being must exist only as its own end for its own sake, regardless of what it appears to be directed at.

Whatever end it is God wanted suffering for could have been accomplished without such, given omnipotence.

(I like your analogy here, if we extend it a bit, we see that even in your definition, there are other 'means' for something to happen. I could as easly point out that while syrup is the means whereby fish swim, eating ice cream is the metaphysical means whereby finite beings necessarily actualize their freedom.)

But back to the main point. According to you, the desired 'end' was a metaphysically free people. While it appears God intended to use the means of suffering, we know otherwise. Means is unnecessary, ergo suffering is unnecessary, ergo suffering is an independent 'end' which god also desired.

Jackalope

I notice that the people who use this type of argument are never the people doing the actual suffering. I was born with an inherited autoimmune disease that's crippling me so you can have your freedom? Can you even see the faulty logic here? I did not choose to give up the hope of a normal life. So I'm paying the punishment for all the other folks who weren't cursed with inherited diseases? Excuse me, but that's fucking insane.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Angrill,
The Creator needs no means, His creatures do. Suffering is our means of exercising freedom. Otherwise the concept of freedom is meaningless.

What sense does it make to say that some aspects of creation (stones following mechanistic laws of gravity) are un-free while some other aspects of creation (creatures) are free? Un-free water travels the path of least resistance. If water were free, sometimes it wouldn’t.

Likewise, proof that we are free is that we sometime chose the path of greater resistance. That is, we suffer. It is the means whereby we express our freedom. We must choose to suffer in order to be free.

You say, God does not use suffering as a means of anything. Rather, we suffer as the only means of being free.

You wrote: God wants us to exercise our ability to act freely. OUR means to this end is suffering. Your objection is not with God, but with suffering. You wish there were another means of exercising freedom. But that’s like wishing there was a non-angular means of drawing a square or a non-curved means of drawing a circle.
– Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

keyser_soze

Ding Ding DING!!! We have a winner! Eyes open all the way, a winner!

Steven Carr

The debate continues at
http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/sho...&threadid=1585

The Christian defender is taking a real hammering

Albert Cipriani

Dear Kyser,
If you think Jackadope's drivel makes him a winner instead of a whiner, then this place is more lowbrow than I imagined. What passes in these parts as his posting is the equivalent of squeezing a pimple. I'll leave you two to your petulant pustule of non-thought. – Albert the Traditional Catholic

Jackalope

"She" and "her" if you please.

And I invite you to walk a few years in my shoes before you call me a whiner. I have yet to ever hear a handicapped individual ascribe to the line of nonsense you theists are espousing. The only folks I've ever heard using those smug and self-righteous arguments are the able-bodied.

Let's be honest. I simply lost the genetic lottery. I'm not as big a loser as the children who are born with tay-sachs, but I'm certainly on the losing end. No god needed.