Mageth

Magus:

God doesn't put us through trials and tribulations just for the heck of it. If He does something, He has a very good reason for doing it - whether we know that reason and agree with it or not.

And explain to me how exactly God's mucking around in our lives with all these trials and tribulations he supposedly puts us through for some "good reason" that only God knows is not God interferering with our "free will"?

telerion

Is this a compliment?


"Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein."

Mark 10:15

Better not grow too big for your briches as they say.

A greater familiarity with theology gives you no more authority in these matters. This thread has been placed in the "Existence of God(s)" forum. An expansive knowledge of how others have described their god(s) is not a prerequisite to engaging in this discussion because it assumes an answer to the very question we are here to debate, specifically "Does a god exist?"

Certainly the study of others ideas of god(s) would be helpful as general tool. In my case, the more aware I become of others gods the more confident I grow in my atheism. Nevertheless, the study of theology is no more necessary to the debate than a knowledge of myths.

nemesis855

Hmmm.... what gives God that right?

Magus55

Hmm, might be something along the lines of He is the Sovereign ruler of the universe, the Alpha and the Omega, the Light of the world, the Creator of all life. If a potter makes a pot, is he not allowed to break the pot if he so chooses? Isn't it his creation to break if he decides to?

winstonjen

So if I build a building, I am authorised to destroy it at my whim, even if the building is full of people?

Understand this - MAN IS NOT A POT. While a pot is inanimate and cannot feel pain, hurt or suffer, a human being DOES.

Philosoft

Depends. If God goes around killing people just because he can, it seems he would be interfering, rather egregiously, with free will.

Bill Snedden

You worship such a creature? One that would treat human beings as casually as we might treat a clay pot? IMO, Paul's analogy, like so much else of his theology, is fatally flawed. As Winstonjen points out, "we are not pots."

If it were within your power to create an "artificial intelligence" of such high quality that it could comprehend ethics and become a functional moral agent, would you consider that you had the right to destroy it on any whim?

Really?

I often find it so odd that otherwise enlightened minds could twist themselves around such pre-enlightenment ideas. The very foundation of modern democratic society is that there are no sovereigns. No being has the right, simply by virtue of status, to wield authority over another. True authority flows only from the consent of those over whom the authority exists.

I find it even odder that so many Americans apparently see no contradiction between this notion of God as "sovereign" and living in a democratic society. Cognitive dissonance, anyone?

Regards,

Bill Snedden

winstonjen

Perhaps it's just the fear that they can't get rid of.

keyser_soze

Don't know which america you're thinking of, but this is not a democracy....They didn't even pretend it was when they designed it. It's a republic, and like rome, led by the rich and elite, multi-classed, riding the back of the common with a whip. I happen to have one.

nemesis855

So then God is a slaveowner and we are his personal chattels? Clearly, this blows any concept of "free will" right out the water!