Warcraft3

"Omni-benevolent"? LOL People do love saying God is "omni-this" and "omni-that" to prove any ole point under the sun. God is not defined or ruled by one personality trait alone. Otherwise He would not have much free will.

No He really, really does not have to do anything. He does not have to "accomidate" anyone or anything. He does what He chooses to do.

He made things the way they are for the same reason I wore a blue shirt to work today. Because He wanted to.

Russ
"Strumming the ole violen"
:boohoo:

Warcraft3

Not allowed? I never said that.

Nope. That is not what I said. I said He chose to do it differently than you or I would have, and since His perspective is very different (in fact, it is fundamentally different) from ours we can not make character judgments from that choice.
We can not make character judgements of God on a purely comparitive basis, since we are comparing Him to what we would do. That does not mean we can not infer ANYTHING about God from nature. But the "well I would have done it this way so surely God does not exist" argument is rather poor at best.

Loaded question there. My answer would take us WAY WAY WAY into the land of **completely off the thread topic** so I will save my answer for another discussion.

Russ

"Strumming the ole violen"
:boohoo:

Warcraft3

Interesting post. I will have to answer the question with a "no" though. If I thought it was a more rational position, then I would be a Gnostic.

Russ
"Strumming the ole violen"
:boohoo:

Warcraft3

Whew!!! I am so glad that none of those things happen today thanks to modern science and technology.

Russ
"Strumming the ole violen"

:boohoo:

GunnerJ

To discuss (yet again) the PoE, please start a new thread in either GRD or EoG.

Thanks.

Golgo_13

Then I suggest you take a strict oath of ignorance and intentionally block out any contrary evidence you may happen across, no matter how rock-solid it may be, in order to maintain your candyglass belief which you seem so insecure with that you must actively and intentionally commit Orwellain doublethink to artificiallty preserve.

Limit your information to that which only promotes your already concluded belief and never look away, for I fear the frailty of your beliefs will be eroded away if you can't control the information you recieve and you may turn out like my aforementioned friend.

I'll spare you the sentiments and do you the favor of being perfectly blunt. If you lose your beliefs, you'll become a danger to the public and yourself and have to be locked away. I don't want this, you don't want this, and any victims you may create, definately don't want this. So I implore you, for the sake of everyone, keep the faith, even if it is demonstrateably false. It is the only way your theology dependent mind can maintain it's structural integrity.

Had you grown up differently and not been so religious a person, accepted that the grave is the final destination, trying to serve society as best you may, and content with the inalienable unalterable facts of biological science, you could function without such cherished ideals. But since it manifests itself evident that such is not the case and you grew up believing in certain truths which your mind cannot accept as false since it has been cerebral-bore'd and hardwired into your brain, we both know what must be done for the continuity and well-being of both you and this society we live in. It's a basic social contract. If you can't adapt to change, see to it as best you can that change doesn't take place or social darwinism will get the best of you.

Keep the blinders on, stay jacked in the Matrix, hunkered down in Plato's cave, in your solipstic dream world, what have you, for a hard dose of reality will irreparably shatter your frail psyche into a million pieces, and, as everybody knows, all the king's horses and all the king's men could never put it back together again.

Let us both be sure that noone here, yourself included, has any illusions about your self-imposed deception. For if some reason it would some day fail, I want you to reflect upon this discussion and realize that a person can be a decent human being without belief.

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

- Albert Einstein, Religion and Science

- Golgo

HRG

But in a theist universe, there is no "natural order" of things, independent of God. Everything is planned and intended by him.
No. We are saying that the actual situation is inconsistent with the concept of a loving god. After all, would we call someone "loving" who could relieve suffering without any effort on his part, but chooses not to do so ?

"Loving" is a word of human language. Its meaning is thus defined by human use.
And why do you characterize this choice as "loving", since it left unnecessary suffering (any suffering is unnecessary to an omnipotent being) ?
Of course we can - see above. We can state that his alleged actions do not fall under the concept of "loving".

Regards,
HRG.

Oolon Colluphid

Ah, thanks chaps, you've made my points for me.

So to summarise: Steadele, please can you define 'loving'. You seem to be using a different dictionary from the rest of us .

TTFN, Oolon

emotional

Newsflash: I grew up in an atheist family. I was taught, at the age of eight, that death is the end of everything, and I have feared it ever since. I was born and grew up an atheist, and acquired belief later. Your assumption is wrong.

Decent, yes. I'm not talking about morality here. Secure, happy and unfearful - now that's a different matter.

Now, I'm leaving this thread. I'm not used to such attacks. You go ahead and feel superior. But in the end, I'm the one who'll be having the last laugh. You WILL accept the reality of the afterlife when you get there! I believe, therefore it is true.

pz

There have been relatively few "attacks" on you in this thread. Your ideas are certainly looking like a battered, tattered chew toy at this point, but ripping them up is a legitimate use of the board. You have my sympathies. Have you considered discussing this kind of wishful thinking as a substitute for logic on a more theistic board, where it won't be quite so out of place and ridiculous?