EthnAlln

You keep attributing to me and others opinions and feelings we don't have. I know the way the world is, as does everyone else. I'm saying such a world is compatible with a naturalistic interpretation, and with atheism. Nobody is actually complaining about a god we don't believe exists. What I am saying (and others too, I think) is that such a world is not compatible with a good and loving god. So far, nothing you have said makes the infliction of pain on a baby something that a good god could do, unless you make the word "good" mean the same thing as "bad." Do you have a justification for this? It really won't do to say God is compelled to do this in order to punish the adults who deserve it.

Or, have I misunderstood you? Do you not say or believe that God is good?
What then? Are you simply saying you worship power? Is your preference for God over Satan (if you believe in Satan) merely based on the fact that you think God is the stronger? I'm asking because I honestly want to know. I don't know you, so I certainly can't presume to know all of your opinions.

And, although I don't like to complain, could you use a bit less rhetoric and a bit less ridicule in your answers?

Gamera

I think you have perhaps overemphasized the flawed, incomplete view of God pronounced in the OT, for the people of that time, who all believed in gods, and expected the real gods to win out over the false gods and make them rich with sheep and dancing girls. That's the level of humanity God had to deal with at the time. So he did.

But as Paul says in his sermon to the Athenians, that time has passed. God has revealed his true self and set a new standard, through his Son, Jesus Christ. And that standard is love, because in the end, that's all God cares about and all that will exist (1 Cor 13).

As moral beings we can choose to be the loving beings God intended us to be, or we can choice poorly and inauthentically, and pursue a selfish loveless existence. It's not a death sentence imposed by God; it's not even a sentence. It's a moral choice about our identity, which we all have the means to choose, as provided through faith and the gospel.

So I simply reject the OT representation of God because it's like trying to figure out what a person looks like by examining one of his liver cells. That's how irrelevant the OT is to the gospel.

As to the discourse of sin, heaven, etc., similarly this is all cultural specific language for a more universal message the gospel brings about who we are. You might want to note that in the NT examples of the gospel message, sin isn't the central issue (Acts 17, Acts 26, John 3:16, as well as Paul's statements about what he preached, such as 1 Cor 15), They all revolve around Jesus's relationship to God (as a child), his suffering, death and resurrection.

By the way, God WANTS us to judge him, in the sense that he wants us to question him about moral choices. That's exactly, exactly what Abraham did when he argued with God about destroying Sodom,

Gen 18: Then Abraham drew near, and said, "Wilt thou indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked? 24 Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; wilt thou then destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? 25 Far be it from thee to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" 26

What do you call this but questioning God's moral judgment? And God listens! I don't know if you have children, but I hope my kids question me, since that's how they learn. And I expect that's what God wants. He's in a relationship with us -- he isn't the supreme commander of the human armies!

And further, I think Abraham failed for not questioning God when he complied in sacrificing Isaac. I think God wanted Abraham to say, no, it's wrong! Just like he did regarding Sodom, who where total strangers. Unlike most people I think Abraham failed that moral test miserably.

Israel means "struggles with God." That's what he wants us to do; not follow orders.

Gamera

Sounds like you don't like the universe we have and the life we have been given, and that you could do a better job than God. I just don't believe that. Even a second of life is better than no life at all. And a perfect life, with no obstacles no contingencies, no choices, would not be a human life at all.

So essentially your saying, you prefer a universe where people like you and me can't exist. I find that, well, unappealing to the utmost.

EthnAlln

A vast improvement over the descriptions his faithful servants give of him.

EthnAlln

Whoa there!!! There is no hint of a suggestion that any of us could design a better universe than already exists. The question being debated here is whether that actually existing universe reveals a loving God. And you are posing a false dichotomy: Life need not be either perfect or completely free. In fact, it isn't either. I won't speak for Diogenes, but speaking only for myself, I'm glad to be alive and enjoying life a lot. It's also made a lot easier by not having to believe that I'm obligated to worship a God who treats human beings as utterly worthless, tortures them with atrocious pains, and then insists on being praised as a being of pure love.

Gamera

Again, I think you're arguing against being human, which is an odd argument to make.

God made us with free will. Free will means we have the ability to make moral choices, and to make moral choices requires a particular kind of world and embodiment. If we lived in a perfect world, moral choice would be irrelevant, and we would hardly be moral beings, and hence not be human.

Now, God could have presumably made us perfectly good beings, who had to make the right moral choices. But then of course we really wouldn't have free will and wouldn't have a life worth living in my opinion. We'd be no better than robots. We would not be humans in any recognizable sense.

I value the gift of free will because it is the gift that makes me human. I thank God for that. It comes with having to live in a contigent world were moral choices have significance (i.e. consequences, many of them bad). So I accept that, since I'd rather be human than have a perfectly happy life as a robot.

So I ask you, what's the alternative you are proposing? Stepford Wives?

EthnAlln

I'm not proposing anything, since I don't believe the universe was designed by an intelligent being.

But I gather you are saying that the only alternative to a world in which babies get cancer is a world in which people do not have free will. I don't see the connection. What is it in our freedom of the will that causes babies to get cancer? The American Cancer Association would, I'm sure, be interested in knowing.

My apologies for writing your name where I meant to write Diogenes' name. I have now corrected the misprint.

One final thought: What does all this human suffering achieve? Is a person who turns to God in adversity or terrible pain really exercising free will?

Astreja

As I pointed out in another thread recently, the fairytale in Genesis illustrates that humanity does indeed have the right to judge God. The very same "forbidden fruit" that dumped this bogus death sentence upon us also allegedly gave us knowledge of good and evil at a god-like level.

If humanity did indeed acquire the knowledge, we have the ability to know the mind of the biblical god and are perfectly within our rights as also-gods to judge such a being.

If humanity didn't acquire the knowledge of good and evil, the punishment of Adam and Eve was unjustified, as is eternal punishment in an afterlife.

Gotcha coming and going, Yahweh. Drop the pretense of being "good"; you aren't fooling anyone.

I've said it before and I will say it again: Original sin is a slander against life itself.

spin

Doesn't sound like that to me at all. Here I am living in a very cushy part of the world with all mod cons and relatively happy with life. I never have to worry about volcanoes or disease -- at least of the sorts that ravage through less better off parts of this world, such as rampant AIDS in Africa (which pharmaceutical companies could alleviate if they were interested enough). I don't, and won't in the forseeable future, suffer from famine or hardship. I was lucky enough to be born at the right time and in the right place, while some other poor creature was born into drudgery. They wouldn't want a perfect life with no obstacles or choices. In fact, they'd probably enjoy a bit of choice, not to be on the door of starvation, poverty, or even inevitable imminent death.

Nobody's talking about perfection (other than you). It might do you good to go and look at the imperfection of this world: walk around a few villages in some god forsaken part of the globe. See children whose limbs have been amputated by their parents to give them a good living as beggars. Once you have you probably wouldn't continue your theoretical diatribe. You would be an angry believer, wondering wtf your god is on about with all this talk of goodness and justice, when many people never get the opportunity to experience the realities implied by such concepts. Never having heard of your god, nor the opportunity for your salvation, they only have death in front of them, usually much faster than yours, usually much uglier than yours. They don't want perfection. They don't even think about such an idea. When you struggle to live, you're most concerned about the here and now: the next meal, some protection from the elements and from potentates.

I'm glad that makes some sort of sense to you.

You'd prefer to go and live in the imperfect world where life expectancy is under forty, where your children often die before you, where your wife leaves you in a painful childbirth, rather than in your relatively comfortable current existence.


spin

Gamera

That's why I ask: What's your alternative? I for one think a perfect world would by defintion be a nonhuman world, an amoral world. If I'm right, then God did the "right" thing by making the universe this way, because it's the very universe in which we can be human and hence have significant lifes.

As to suffering, it might achieve all kinds of things or might not. That's not my assertion. My point is, a world without suffering, is a world without consequences and hence a world without moral choice and hence a world where life isn't worth living. Of course there's nothing good about a baby getting cancer. That's not the question, the question is What's the alternative? A world without cancer, pain, death, suffering, unhappiness, disappointment, is essentially a world without significance. Nothing would matter. If you think sitting and grinning is a life worth living fine; but if you think life involves insight, self awareness, emotional depth, caring, then this appears to be the very universe where such things are possible, and no other universe. But again, man, give us the alternative. Describe you're perfect world. I bet we can pick it apart in an instance.