Gamera

[QUOTE=EthnAlln]Well, it's not quite a bit and it isn't very specific -- the mansion part is clearly a metaphor, as is all his references to heaven. I suspect the condition of being transformed is unimaginable to us, so why worry about it.

Ethn, there's nothing preventing these conditions but human conduct. We have a beautiful world with sufficient resources to allow for a beautiful life for all. But greedy selfish men oppress others for their own gain.

So how is this related to your qualms about God?

Yep, the world is filled with physcial limitations in which we are embedded. There's gravity that results in death if you fall off a cliff. There's a genetic code that goes wrong once and while. Again, what's your alternative: a world in which we hover above the physical? No thanks, that's not human existence, it's some other existence that I don't recognize as meaningful.

(and yes kids with Down's syndrome have a life worth living, and yes, even a second of life is better than none)

Nope, there are things that result from our free will -- oppression, violence, war, etc; and there is suffering inherent in living embedded in a physical world with physical limits and laws. Thus, gravity will kill you if you fall off a cliff. But WHAT'S THE ALTERNATIVE? You keep avoiding this question. You seem to want a world without physical limitations, in which we are no longer embedded in a real physical world. No thank, such an existence would not be HUMAN existence, and very likely would have no significance. I think God that I was given a meaningful human existence, even if that means I got to scrape my knees sometime and ultimately I'm going to die, probably painfully. Would you honestly give up your existence to avoid the attendant suffering? I find that nihilistic.

EthnAlln

So, let's see, Einstein, Newton, Beethoven, Monet, .... all would have been just "sitting and grinning" without all the suffering in the world. They wouldn't really have been human? Let's make a distinction here between obstacles and suffering. They are very different things, like being tired and being dehydrated. Not knowing something or not having finished a painting is a challenge, not a source of suffering.

Even though I don't believe there is a god, I don't see human-caused suffering as inconsistent with a good god who allows us free will. I agree with you that much. It's the rest of human suffering, deliberately inflicted by "God" that causes me to say, "this is inconsistent with what Christians claim."

I think you and I just look at the world very differently. I see nothing at all futile about creating great art, music, literature, and science, and no reason why that couldn't be done without suffering. Given what you have revealed of your interpretation of the Bible (ignoring entirely the Hebrew Scriptures, regarding Jesus' words about heaven (and hell also?) as symbolic), and your disagreement with Saint Paul about the importance of a future life, I'm at a loss to understand why you would quote scripture to anyone. What authority do you expect it to have if you reject most of it? Don't answer unless you want to. None of my business. But you are an enigma, Gamera.

TomboyMom

Just to beat my hammer again--we're not complaining about "bad things happening" in general. We're complaining about the character of Yahweh being described as having ordered his followers to slaughter innocent little babies by stabbing them to death, and kidnap young women into a life of sexual slavery.

Gamera

Again, please try to discriminate between two types of suffering.

Suffering Type #1: human conduct -- oppression, violence, war, greed, etc. You can't blame God for that, except that he gave us free will, the consequence of which is bad moral choices. Would you give up your free will to avoid this type of suffering? I wouldn't. It would mean having a life without significance.

Suffering Type #2: phyical limitations: disease, natural disasters, death, injury. You can blame God for that, but only if you tell us the alternative that still allows us to remain human. Getting rid of type 2 suffering seems to entail ending our embeddedness in the physical world, creating a world without limits for us. Would we still be recognizably human if we had no physical limits? I don't see how. So again your alternative seems to mean the end of humanity or at least a meaning existence for humanity.

Again, I reject a solution to the problem of suffering that results in a universe in which I'm not included and neither are you. Resolving an existential problem by eliminating human existence seems a rather poor solution to the problem.

spin

I'm glad this makes sense to you.

So, if life entails suffering, god is not benevolent to those who don't suffer.

Or suffering is not a necessary condition for living as provided by god.

If it is not a necessary condition for living, then people suffer though it's not umm, necessary.

Does it just so happen that the amount of suffering a person goes through is inversely proportional to the amount of money they have and the standard of living they experience???

This is some plutocratic god. Very benevolent. Take from the poor and give to the rich.

One that didn't have malaria, AIDS, ebola, George W. Bush, or tuberculosis. One where Donald Rumsfeld would get his hand cut off for shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. One in which people who have no choice but to live in drought-stricken countries don't die of starvation. One in which no child dies before reaching the age of knowing good and evil from some excruciating physical disease. One in which self-espoused followers of christianity don't invade other countries for oil. One in which... (I'm sure if you honestly thought about it you could add a few of your own.)

You wouldn't listen.


spin

Gamera

I think this makes my point, Ethn, not yours. Without the issues that physical limitations raise (like suffering and death) it is inconceivable that Einstein or Beethoven would have embarked upon their creative process. Read a biography of Beethoven and you'll see an extremely tormented man, wracked with issues, that he attempted to resolve through his music.

I mean it's almost a cliche: happy rich people don't tend to be creative in the slightest. They tend to lack empathy and insight having never been tested. Geesh, Kurt Cobain killed himself after he got rich and famous saying he nothing more to contribute artistically.

EthnAlln

No, I haven't avoided anything. The alternative is the hypothesis that this imperfect world, neither perfectly good nor perfectly bad from a human point of view, is not the result of a beneficient deity. I've told you over and over and over the kind of world I'd consider ideal. It has plenty of limitations in it. The creative work I most desire is possible only because there are physical limitations. You keep insisting that I am asking for a world without physical limitations. Where you get that conclusion from is beyond me. I assure you I don't.

But have it your way. As I've said earlier, your point of view isn't new. It goes back to Leibniz. I think we've aired our differences in a very civilized manner, and I thank you for that. There probably isn't much point in continuing, so I'll drop out now and just read what others have to say.

spin

You're projecting gain.

You are in error again.

You havily ignore the fact that those people who suffer have no control and are merely the brunt of the famine.

Not by those people who die. Their deaths are out of their hands just as if they had contracted some fatal disease. Their disease is life.

God bless america.

Tirade against christianity? Oh, I'm sorry. Looking at this god business is a tirade against christianity.

You happily ignored the universe which has people dying of diseases. People can happily live without the disease. There is no benevolence in disease. There is no choice of good or evil. It's the children I have pointed to who are the ones most hit by the diseases I have mentioned. They can have done no wrong, often contracting diseases before knowing good and evil.

A universe in which those who now don't get a chance to live do.

You are back to making no sense. These words might sound comforting to you, but they simply seem wayward and irresponsible. Who's talking about eliminating humnity from the universe? What exactly do you mean? Do you prefer suffering the little ones not to come unto a reasonable life? You don't make sense.


spin

Gamera

[QUOTE=spin]I'm glad this makes sense to you.
Last time I checked, every human on earth is embedded in the physical world and hence suffers. Grow up.

Suffering is a necessary condition for living as a human, i.e., of having a meaningful existence. That's what it means to be embedded in a world of limits -- to suffer. Of course it also means to love, to have joy, and to have significance. So I take it you want to give that all up to avoid suffering. No thanks. A really bad solution.

I don't know but it's not relevant to the issue of being embedded in a physical world. God sends the rain on the just and unjust alike.

Bush may do that; I don't think God does. Again you're confusion physical limitations with politics. You really can't blame God for Bush.

Like I said, this alternative excludes human existence. You want a world with (a) no physical limitations, and (b) no free will. No thanks. I like being human. It's clear you don't.

Gamera

[QUOTE=EthnAlln]Yes, but the world you describe has nothing to do with physical limitations, but rather human choices. So I don't see how your perfect world is incompatible with a benevolent diety. The problems you raise are problems of politics, human conduct, etc. What does that have to do with God's benevolence or lack thereof. Unless you don't like having free will, which raises broader questions I already addressed.