luvluv

I don't want this to turn into a problem of pain thread, but the analogy sort of breaks down at this point. Of course, death puts us beyond our parents hands but not beyond God's hands. You do allow your children to learn to ride a bike on their own (it's the only way they can learn) because you can handle a scraped knee or a few bumps and bruises. Similarly, God can handle death, so he's in a different moral position. (I'd appreciate if you wanted to answer this in a Problem of Pain kind of way that you cut and pasted it to the other thread. Let's just try to define goodness here.)

You're loading the question with emotionalism that isn't really helping us to an answer.

What is greater love? Allowing that something has the possibility to become the best it can be while allowing it to suffer, or not allowing it to become the best it can be and not allowing it to suffer? I see them as mutually exclusive. The best good is only available through choice, because choice is a good attribute that a pre-programed being would lack.

MrDarwin

Well, not quite. The other discussion is about suffering, not evil. You may recall that it started with my observations on the suffering of animals other than humans. When one animal kills and eats another (frequently while the eatee is still alive) I don't consider it evil, because I think we all agree that "evil" implies free will, and the ability to choose to do or not to do something. A predator has no choice but to kill and eat other animals.

phlebas

A benevolent god wouldn't let you realize you were a slave or a robot. He could give you the impression of free will. there's no reason to think we'd be "less happy" as an ignorant slave than as a totally free agent.

wordsmyth

Thank you, phlebas. That was exactly my point and one which luvluv overlooked. It would be quite irrelevant what I want.

wordsmyth

There is no certainty that a child will die by playing with fire or with knives, so lets just assume that the child will only potentially scar himself badly with the fire or slice off a few fingers with the knife, but not necessarily die. Can you fathom a greater good coming from this?

This analogy completely fails as there is nothing inherently harmful about learning to ride a bike.

Its not goodness that needs defining, it is OMNI-goodness which you still lack an understanding of its implications.

You believe that your deity loves his children and this is why he causes them to suffer, so my analogy of a parent and child rightfully possesses a degree of emotionalism.

This completely avoids my question, but then again so does your entire reply.

From our perspective yes, slavery or lack of free will would be bad. What you continually overlook and show no understanding for is the perspective of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent deity. We need not ever know that we were basically slaves and/or lacked free will, therefore in that instance lacking free will would not be bad.

If our having free will does not provide a greater good FOR God, then our free will would be irrelevant TO God.

How has choice proven to be a good attribute to mankind. Has choice proven more beneficial over a life of blissful ignorance from the perspective of a being who does not wish to see harm befall anyone?

Vibr8gKiwi

Your claim cannot be distinguished from any of the other similar claims from people of other proselytizing religions. I doubt an all-powerful god would use the same tactic that every religious fraud in history has used: that of requiring me to find him via someone else, specifically by putting my faith in the words of some man or men who claimed to speak to god for me (prophets).

To be blunt, if a god that created me wanted to contact me, he would contact me. Such contact could not be of the form of someone saying "oh, god spoke to me and wants you to know..." since that is the form nearly all revealed religions take, even the ones known to be frauds. Because most revealed religions take this form they are in a way indistinguishable from each other, but ironically can easily and objectively be identified as most likely frauds since they all use similar tactics: the tactics religious frauds have used. Common sense would tell us that a real all-powerful god would have no need to use, nor would likely use, tactics easily faked by humans and used by human frauds.

So bottom line, I’m not particularly interested when some other human claims to have a message for me from the god that supposedly created me. Of course if you can at least levitate for me, or have some other identifying supernatural characteristics that provides evidence you are the messenger of the God of the Universe, I might be persuaded to listen, but then that's not the case is it? And it's never the case. I'd wonder why, but I think I know why

Oh, and notice you didn't answer my original question.

[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: Vibr8gKiwi ]</p>

ex-preacher

luvluv, you like to use the parent-child analogy, so try this on.

Let's say you are the parent of a two year old child. Would you leave your child alone with any one of the following:
1. a loaded gun
2. an open bottle of rat poison
3. a set of steak knives
4. a pan of boling oil
5. a bathtub full of water
6. a rabid dog

You wouldn't?! Do you mean to say you would take away your child's free will just for the sake of its safety? You naughty, naughty parent.

Yet you think its just hunky-dory that God gave us rabies, influenza, AIDS, e-coli, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, cystic fibrosis, spina bifada, the Holocaust just so we could enjoy the lovely benefits of free will.

If God had wanted to, s/he/it could have given us a limited free will. Things could have been designed for instance that one could not hurt another person. They designed that on the holodeck in Star Trek. Isn't this what your heaven will be like? Oh yeah, you think everyone who gets to heaven will be so sweet that nothing bad will ever happen.

You seem to worship a god who enjoys watching 76,000 people starve to death every day (most of them headed for his hell) just so he can brag about free will.

rainbow walking

Regarding the question of benevolence the classic christian response seems to be along the lines of freewill and allowing suffering for the greater good. Perhaps the question isn't so much one of defining good in this case but of asking "who's good"?

Since the Genesis account of A&E has been introduced it should be clear that christian doctrine doesn't jibe with this argument of greater good. Since the result of the A&E account was the fall of humanity I fail to see any greater good for man coming out of allowing billions of souls to be damned so that a few elect can spend eternity in heaven. Clearly the greater good being administered here is the christian god's good. So any definition of benevolence is only viable in respect to what this god considers in his best interest. Apparently it is with an eye on his own personal pleasure and greater good that he chooses some to fall within the spectrum of salvagable while the rest are fossil fuel.

So if you're seeking to define good, first decide "good for who" in your definition and the rest should fall into place.

rainbow walking

This is directed primarily towards Vanderzydan but anyone else can respond if they wish. I'm interested in getting at an understanding of the believers view of their god's benevolence so I'm asking the following questions based on the A&E account in Genesis.

Considering the way the garden was sarranged with A&E having access to all the trees but one would you say that this represented:

A. A mistake by god?

If so, why?

B. A test?

If so, why?

C. An opportunity for A&E to become independent creatures and move out of the nest, so to speak?

If so, why?

Also, considering the commandment given to A&E about that one tree would you say it was:

A. An order along the lines of a military edict such that disobedience was seen as a violation of the chain of command?

If so, why?

or...


B. A statute along the lines of a civil ordinance such that violation was a type of civil disobedience like violating a trespass notice?

If so, why?

RogerLeeCooke

If he punished only the actual malefactors, I wouldn't see any problem with it. But in fact he continues to torture their remote descendants to this day, from the moment they emerge from their mother's womb (and probably even before). THAT is inconsistent with any ordinary definition of all-good and all-powerful.