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I Like Jell-O posted:It HAS been dealt with, in many different ways, by many different religions. Look, if the problem of evil is central to your belief (or lack of belief) in God, then share that. But don't argue about it in some kind of "gotchya" tit-for-tat. We can all acknowledge that there are a range of logical ways to approach Evil, and while you may find some more convincing than others there are answers out there. Personally as a Mormon, I thought the article did a good job of summarizing my answer. In the context of my religion, the problem has been thoroughly dealt with. I've never met someone who's religious beliefs were based on or even influenced by Wikipedia, so why would I go there instead of, you know, talking to them?
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Jun 27, 2016 23:08
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I Like Jell-O posted:It HAS been dealt with, in many different ways, by many different religions. Look, if the problem of evil is central to your belief (or lack of belief) in God, then share that. But don't argue about it in some kind of "gotchya" tit-for-tat. We can all acknowledge that there are a range of logical ways to approach Evil, and while you may find some more convincing than others there are answers out there. Personally as a Mormon, I thought the article did a good job of summarizing my answer. In the context of my religion, the problem has been thoroughly dealt with. Theologians can deal with the problem of evil in any way they like since they can just make things up. As I said before, the discussion is pointless because one party can just make up anything the want to justify anything. Incompatible terms on which to have a discussion.
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Jun 27, 2016 23:16
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I Like Jell-O posted:It HAS been dealt with, in many different ways, by many different religions. Look, if the problem of evil is central to your belief (or lack of belief) in God, then share that. But don't argue about it in some kind of "gotchya" tit-for-tat. We can all acknowledge that there are a range of logical ways to approach Evil, and while you may find some more convincing than others there are answers out there. Personally as a Mormon, I thought the article did a good job of summarizing my answer. In the context of my religion, the problem has been thoroughly dealt with.
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Jun 27, 2016 23:48
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Noam Chomsky posted:Theologians can deal with the problem of evil in any way they like since they can just make things up. As I said before, the discussion is pointless because one party can just make up anything the want to justify anything. Incompatible terms on which to have a discussion. If you want in on that action, atheists are under exactly the same constraints as theists when it comes to making things up. I actually kind of like the hubris of claiming that the other side of a philosophical debate is just "making things up". I like the concept of describing a philosophical debate as competitive making stuff up at each other.
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Jun 27, 2016 23:51
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I Like Jell-O posted:If you want in on that action, atheists are under exactly the same constraints as theists when it comes to making things up. Yeah, but then we get yelled at for making up the wrong stuff.
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Jun 28, 2016 00:13
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twodot posted:Going off the Wikipedia page Mormons simply don't have a problem of evil since God is bounded by nature. I understand why you would think the problem of evil discussion boring in that context. Yeah, pretty much. God not being (strictly speaking) omnipotent sidesteps the whole debate very nicely. To add my own story, I was raised as a Mormon, but I would say my conversion and belief comes in two parts. The first and most important part is spiritual. I had a good understanding of the doctrine from a pretty early age. Every time I put God to the test and asked him if he was there and if what I was learning was true I got a confirmation in my heart that he was listening and answering. Even when I was in darker times in my life and going through bad times, I always knew deep down that God was there and he loved me. It wouldn't matter without the first part, but the other part of my belief is practical. I have learned a set of principles and been told "if you follow these teachings to the best of your ability, you will have joy in this life and the life to come". It has been the experience in my own life and what I have observed in those around me, that joy and true happiness increases as people get closer to living God's plan for us. The opposite is also, unfortunately, true.
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Jun 28, 2016 00:55
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I Like Jell-O posted:It wouldn't matter without the first part, but the other part of my belief is practical. I have learned a set of principles and been told "if you follow these teachings to the best of your ability, you will have joy in this life and the life to come". It has been the experience in my own life and what I have observed in those around me, that joy and true happiness increases as people get closer to living God's plan for us. The opposite is also, unfortunately, true. What is God's plan for us?
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Jun 28, 2016 01:00
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Who What Now posted:What is God's plan for us? To become like him by learning truth in this life and the life to come. Also, probably outside the scope of this thread.
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Jun 28, 2016 01:11
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I Like Jell-O posted:Yeah, pretty much. God not being (strictly speaking) omnipotent sidesteps the whole debate very nicely. You can recognize that this has not been the case for others though, right? That some people have gotten closer to what they view as living God's plan, only to find misery, suffering and death, while others have moved away from religion to find happiness, purpose and true joy. Don't get me wrong, I understand weighing your own experiences more heavily, because I certainly do; but I know people that find religion a fulfilling and important part of their lives, so 
Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 05:09
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Mo_Steel posted:You can recognize that this has not been the case for others though, right? That some people have gotten closer to what they view as living God's plan, only to find misery, suffering and death, while others have moved away from religion to find happiness, purpose and true joy. Yeah, I'm hiding behind a bit of a tautology here. You see, living according to the principles that are taught to us by God leads to joy, no matter how you get there. So if one of those principles is "love thy neighbor as yourself", showing true love for your neighbors will lead to joy, even if you do it because of your interpretation of the Quran, or the great wolf spirit said so, or because you just woke up in the morning wanting to make someone else happy. So if something leads to joy, it means that it at least partially follows some of those principles. The problem is, these eternal principles are only fully comprehended by God, and we can only begin to understand a few of them. So God has given us tools to help us find happiness here on earth, but we have to grow into the type of person (usually through trials), that can recognize and take advantage of what we are given. We can only get so far feeling around in the dark on our own; beyond that, we need religion.
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Jun 28, 2016 06:06
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I Like Jell-O posted:If you want in on that action, atheists are under exactly the same constraints as theists when it comes to making things up. I don't see what atheists would be making up. Atheism is a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods There isn't really much to make up. Whereas theists can make up literally anything up to and including their own religion. "Atheists can make stuff up too!" is just nonsensical.
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Jun 28, 2016 06:38
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Noam Chomsky posted:I don't see what atheists would be making up. Atheism is a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods There isn't really much to make up. Whereas theists can make up literally anything up to and including their own religion. It's not nonsensical at all, you just can't make up things about atheism. You can make things up about other positions you might have, or about positions other people in the dialog have, though.
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Jun 28, 2016 13:48
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I Like Jell-O posted:This thread really did start out interesting, but hoo boy did it go south. Let this be a case study in why so many of these discussions don't work on a medium like a forum. Yeah, and posts declaring how poorly the discussion is going don't do anything to fix it now do they? The Problem of Evil is hardly solved. You'll notice the Wikipedia page you so assiduously cited refers to the topic both as part of a "series on God" and a "series on Atheism". As others have pointed out, the Mormon conception of God is unique, especially as it stands in relation to this specific topic, so you'll forgive the 6.985 billion non-Mormons in the world for continuing to debate it. And if your concern really is the health and wellbeing of this thread, please, don't take five posts to get around to posting some content. It's worse than useless. Lampsacus posted:
Obviously there is a discussion to be had - for another thread, I think - as to whether certain religious beliefs do more harm than good. My point was simply to articulate that "hey, if it makes them feel good, leave them to it" is a poor line of reasoning. GAINING WEIGHT... fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 15:18
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:Obviously there is a discussion to be had - for another thread, I think - as to whether certain religious beliefs do more harm than good. My point was simply to articulate that "hey, if it makes them feel good, leave them to it" is a poor line of reasoning.
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Jun 28, 2016 17:05
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I Like Jell-O posted:To become like him by learning truth in this life and the life to come. Last time we tried that he sentenced every human to death.
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Jun 28, 2016 17:09
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SedanChair posted:Last time we tried that he sentenced every human to death. Is the Garden of Eden story largely unchanged in the Mormon version? Edit: And/or the Tower of Babel. And I suppose it also depends on how literally Jello believes those stories. Who What Now fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 18:11
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SedanChair posted:Yeah nobody is interested in the standard arguments, we are interested in the opinion of individuals who profess to believe in God as to why those standard arguments have not wrecked their beliefs. I also still really really would like a good answer for the problem of evil, because it's literally the prime sticking point preventing me from having religious beliefs excluding my general lack of compelling evidence to hold them. Like I realise that it isn't a very original question but it's one that I know of absolutely no satisfactory answer to, within the confines of the benevolent, omnipotent idea of God. And I don't think it's especially prudent for a professed theist to complain about wanting answers to unoriginal questions. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 19:43
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I Like Jell-O posted:Every time I put God to the test and asked him if he was there and if what I was learning was true I got a confirmation in my heart that he was listening and answering. Even when I was in darker times in my life and going through bad times, I always knew deep down that God was there and he loved me. So if it feels true, then it is? http://www.cc.com/video-clips/63ite2/the-colbert-report-the-word---truthiness E: How exactly did you put God to the test?
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Jun 28, 2016 19:49
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As an aside, the Catholic catechism describes the Problem of Evil as one of the most important questions imaginable and one the entire faith is dedicated to answering. Similarly, the whole point of the Book of Job as I understand it is "theodicy is both incredibly important and nearly impossible to attempt without blaspheming." I'm not interested in belittling anyone in their faith, but I am very interested in the viewpoint of people who don't feel loved, who experience the universe as hostile and hungry, and still maintain faith, and theodicy seems like a way to hook into that. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 19:53
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OwlFancier posted:I also still really really would like a good answer for the problem of evil, because it's literally the prime sticking point preventing me from having religious beliefs excluding my general lack of compelling evidence to hold them. As far as I can tell? If you're not satisfied with various forms of special pleading, you're not going to get a good answer. The most honest attempts I've heard and read all seem to boil down to something roughly analogous to "the problem of evil is a significant challenge to the core thesis of who and what God is, and for that not to fail there must be an answer, so therefore there is an answer, but we just don't know what it is yet and must maintain faith that we'll find out eventually." I don't find it all that satisfactory myself.
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Jun 28, 2016 19:58
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The issue I would take with that answer is, while admiring the honesty of it, that it remains easier to suggest that if the problem of evil represents a major issue with the idea of God existing as written, then perhaps God doesn't exist as written. That seems the rational takeaway from that. Moreso than continuing to assume that God exists in apparent contradiction to the problem of evil. Or, I suppose, suggesting that Evil doesn't actually exist like some kind of Christian Scientist.
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Jun 28, 2016 20:03
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twodot posted:All else being equal, this seems like a really good line of reasoning. There's a possibility of some undiscovered negative, but that's true of literally all activities. Really? I know that this is going off topic, but this is a very surprising viewpoint to hear. I don't think the downside to "let people do whatever they want" is at all undiscovered, nor even that esoteric. It seems obvious. That's why we have things called "laws". Surely I'm misunderstanding you?
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Jun 28, 2016 20:09
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SedanChair posted:Last time we tried that he sentenced every human to death. I don't really understand what you're getting at here. To what are you referring? Who What Now posted:Is the Garden of Eden story largely unchanged in the Mormon version? Mormons view the Garden of Eden story very differently than most Christian denominations. Without getting into too much detail, the "Fall of Adam" was an important and necessary early step in Gods plan. We refer to it as "Adam's transgression" because Adam broke one of God's commandments (don't partake in the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil) in order to fulfill another, more important commandment (be fruitful and multiply). It wasn't a sin, because to sin requires a knowledge of good and evil. Original Sin has no place in Mormon theology. And the Bible stories are different degrees of allegorical. In my opinion, (not necessarily theology) the Tower of Babel story in particular is mostly symbolic. There may have been a tower built, it may have been struck down by God, but the specifics are almost definitely wrong.
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Jun 28, 2016 20:13
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:Really? I know that this is going off topic, but this is a very surprising viewpoint to hear. I don't think the downside to "let people do whatever they want" is at all undiscovered, nor even that esoteric. It seems obvious. That's why we have things called "laws". Surely I'm misunderstanding you? twodot fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 21:18
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twodot posted:The standard is "Let people do whatever they want, unless you have a good reason not to". Yeah, that is waaaaaaaay different than just the first half by itself. quote:and your only piece of information is "They like to do that activity" The entire point of contention is that this isn't the only piece of information. The hypothetical discussion would begin with presenting all of the other impacts organized religion makes, understanding to what degree each of them applies to specific religious people in question, weighing the good against the bad, etc. My point with the heroin example was that them enjoying it is not the whole story. But I'm gonna leave this discussion here. Surely we can at least agree that the conversation about religion's impact on the world is varied and nuanced, and can't be summed up with a simple statement, whether that is "people shouldn't get to be religious" or "people like being religious so let's let them be".
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Jun 28, 2016 21:42
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OK, at least there is a theological discussion I can join in on that doesn't have theist/atheist dichotomy.Captain_Maclaine posted:As far as I can tell? If you're not satisfied with various forms of special pleading, you're not going to get a good answer. The most honest attempts I've heard and read all seem to boil down to something roughly analogous to "the problem of evil is a significant challenge to the core thesis of who and what God is, and for that not to fail there must be an answer, so therefore there is an answer, but we just don't know what it is yet and must maintain faith that we'll find out eventually." The primary fallacy with the Problem of Evil is that it ignores that, to God, human agency is a desired goal. Let's take the first formulation of the logical Problem of Evil as listed in Wikipedia, just as a place to start: "If an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent god exists, then evil does not. There is evil in the world. Therefore, an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God does not exist." The problem with this statement is that is assumes that if God omnibenevolent and omnipotent He must intervene any time an evil action occurs. I suppose the argument is that if God is good and hates evil, He would therefore try to stop evil at any point, otherwise he violates his value of good > evil. Thus if evil exists, it is solely because he chooses not to stop it. However, it doesn't take into consideration that that much of the evil in the world is due to Man's actions. For God to stop every evil action of Man, God essentially has to remove the concept of free will entirely. Since God created us with free will ("let us make Man in our own image") it therefore stands to reason that He values that ability to choose; therefore the presence of evil in this world is simply a reflection that God still gives us free will and that we have the power to choose our actions, and the consequences they bring. Now why is this important theologically? It is because God doesn't want puppets to worship Him, but rather He desires our love to be given to Him freely, just as He freely loves us. If God wanted worship without a choice, He would have never made creation, as the heavenly host already has that part covered. If God wanted to enjoy an evil-less creation, He would have never have created Man and simply enjoyed a universe without sapience (no ability to choose evil). Instead, He chose to create us capable of choosing Him, or not choosing Him. It is worth noting that the definition of sin is to be "off the mark" or not aligned with God's way. For God to create us such that we can choose to follow Him, He inherently gave us the ability to not choose him, which leads to evil. He has given us an example of how to live without choosing to do evil, both in his spoken Word (the Bible) and by living a righteous life Himself (as Jesus). Whether we choose to follow His example or not is up to us alone. Essentially, the Problem of Evil is only a logical problem for those who are unwilling to accept that we humans are the true source of evil. We don't have to do bad things, we choose to do them.
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Jun 28, 2016 22:08
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Crowsbeak posted:Now I want the Atheists here to answer the question why do you not like religion. As most of you obviously have some major problems with it or you wouldn'tpsot in these threads and declare theists to be mentally ill. Well if you'd like a reasoning from someone who would like to believe but doesn't. Its because for the most part if a God does exist then it is more likely a creature fundamentally different from every other form of existence. The very idea that you can approach it is silly, so instead we make up different aspects of god in order to see it. Now more than likely the meditative practisces that are taught by a lot of faiths serve to try and bring closer union with that and with an idea that is, fundamentally, outside of ourselves. However, I would say I am an Atheist because when examined from the outside, with having never experienced an episode of faith I would find it difficult to grasp this concept. Fundamentally I differ on most peoples of faiths views because of this lack of Faith in there being a divine intellegence that is like a lot of the things described as divine. I do not doubt that people may have found Enlightenment, or oneness with God and so on or what they believe to be that. The rest of it though? The robes, the inscence, the politics? Whilst a true divinity would encompass all things I doubt that I wish to take part in that bit of it. As to the idea that people with Faith are mentally ill? I don't believe that, I know it is a stereotype of internet atheists, but I know plenty of people without faith whose views and personalities I dislike. Faith is not tied to mental illness. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 22:08
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Griffen posted:Essentially, the Problem of Evil is only a logical problem for those who are unwilling to accept that we humans are the true source of evil. We don't have to do bad things, we choose to do them. Which human, or which human action, is the source of leukemia or whooping cough? As a related question, if someone choose to commit evil and I choose to stop them from doing it will I have violated their free will by stopping them from making a decision and the consequences of that decision from fully realizing?
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Jun 28, 2016 22:19
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Crowsbeak posted:Now I want the Atheists here to answer the question why do you not like religion. As most of you obviously have some major problems with it or you wouldn'tpsot in these threads and declare theists to be mentally ill. I don't dislike religion to that degree or think people who believe in God are mentally ill but I have personal issues with it because I find people use it as an excuse. People who are believers I don't have any problem with, nor with religion in general. I have problem with people who attempt to force that religion on others or use it to justify doing terrible things. I have the same problem with non-religious 'excuses' as well but with religion I have a bigger issue when people use the fact that it is religion to defend truly abhorrent behavior. So basically I don't have a problem with personal, private or moral religion, I have a problem with large-scale impersonal religion. I don't care if you want to celebrate, what you choose to wear, what you choose to eat or not eat, or anything of the sort as long as it isn't forced upon others or used to harm people who don't agree with your religion. Once it does then I have a problem with you and your religion, but not because you believe in a god. On a personal level my only other problem is when religion is used to avoid having to question or to devalue actual research, which again comes more to the large-scale religion assholes than the individual private religion. I don't believe even in the slightest but my only conflict is with people who use beliefs to attack others at which point is stops being about religion and starts being about being an rear end in a top hat.
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Jun 28, 2016 22:25
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Griffen posted:Essentially, the Problem of Evil is only a logical problem for those who are unwilling to accept that we humans are the true source of evil. We don't have to do bad things, we choose to do them. Well that remains a pretty drat big problem since humans aren't the true source of all evil. That humans can and do create evil does not mean that all evil is created by humans (unless you're going the Victor route here and presuming that human sin literally causes parasites to attack the eyeballs of third world children, which don't think you are). Suffering and wrong exist in the world independent of human action as well as that which we inflict upon ourselves. If a standard omni-* God wanted us to have free will, he could still let us wreck the hell out of ourselves all we wanted without, you know, also deciding Tay-Sachs needed to be a thing.
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Jun 28, 2016 22:25
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Bluntly, I don't think even free will justifies giving us the ability to hurt each other. There's a tremendous range of space for creativity, choice, and expression even without that; even agreeing for the sake of the argument that God exists and is good, that shouldn't necessarily mean that goodness is mono-polar, that the better we become the more we converge to a single undifferentiated model.
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Jun 28, 2016 22:48
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Captain_Maclaine posted:Well that remains a pretty drat big problem since humans aren't the true source of all evil. That humans can and do create evil does not mean that all evil is created by humans (unless you're going the Victor route here and presuming that human sin literally causes parasites to attack the eyeballs of third world children, which don't think you are). Suffering and wrong exist in the world independent of human action as well as that which we inflict upon ourselves. If a standard omni-* God wanted us to have free will, he could still let us wreck the hell out of ourselves all we wanted without, you know, also deciding Tay-Sachs needed to be a thing. I miss Victor and his biblical literalism. I miss proto-bears.
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Jun 28, 2016 23:09
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Captain_Maclaine posted:Well that remains a pretty drat big problem since humans aren't the true source of all evil. That humans can and do create evil does not mean that all evil is created by humans (unless you're going the Victor route here and presuming that human sin literally causes parasites to attack the eyeballs of third world children, which don't think you are). Suffering and wrong exist in the world independent of human action as well as that which we inflict upon ourselves. If a standard omni-* God wanted us to have free will, he could still let us wreck the hell out of ourselves all we wanted without, you know, also deciding Tay-Sachs needed to be a thing. Now you're moving goal posts - is the question about the existence of evil, or why do bad things happen, aka why does suffering exist? These are two fundamentally different things. Disease it not good or evil, it just is; we may view it as evil because it causes us pain or takes someone we love away from us, but there is no moral element to a hurricane. IS capturing Yazidi women and forcing them to become sex slaves? That's evil, and that is on mankind. What you're now talking about goes into more of the book of Job, in which the answer is due to the complexity of creation beyond our comprehension, there is no answer you will like or understand ("you" referring to Man, not you specifically). Why are there earthquakes? Why do bodies age? Why is there disease? I honestly don't know; some theologians talk about how we live in a fallen world, and it is the presence of sin which has caused creation to turn from the original intent. I instead look at it more like we don't fully understand all the complexity. In the book of Job, after Job demands God to explain why his misfortune has befallen him, God responds to Job in two speeches, both of which are essentially the same idea. They both list off questions on the nature of the universe, an example being (Job 38:4-5): ""Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?" The core premise of Job is that Job wanted God to explain why misfortune befell him even though he did everything right. God's point is that creation isn't so simple that it can be boiled down to "do good, and nothing bad will happen to you." Man is inherently arrogant in the sense that we always believe that we can understand everything. I think we can understand many things, but there are some things that will be beyond us. Heck, there are many things beyond most of us. There are countless mysteries in the universe that we don't know; some we've figured out, and some we will figure out, but only human arrogance says that we will figure out everything. I think this is one of those things that we can't figure out for ourselves, because the nature of life in this world is so vast and complex (and by this I mean in terms of what builds and shapes who we are). What would we be like if there was no calamity to work together against? What would it be like if we didn't have things which scared us, to humble us and make us realize that we are not the masters of the universe we believe ourselves to be? I don't know. But let's look at your last sentence again: "If a standard omni-* God wanted us to have free will, he could still let us wreck the hell out of ourselves all we wanted without, you know, also deciding Tay-Sachs needed to be a thing." What you are essentially asking for here in this sentence (assuming I understand what you mean by "wreck the hell out of ourselves") is that Man be capable of choosing a course of action but then be free from the consequences of said actions. How is that free will at all? If there is a law against speeding, and I choose to go 100 mph above the limit and never have to face a police patrol, does the speed limit have a meaning anymore? A choice without consequences is not a choice at all, merely the illusion of one. Instead, we are free to make whatever decisions we want, but there will be consequences to those choices. If you choose to steal, you have deprived someone of what was their's; if you choose to verbally abuse someone, you have inflicted emotional pain on them; if you choose to murder someone, they are dead. That is how evil is manifest. If you were free to shoot anyone like in GTA or something, and all that happens after getting 50 rounds to the chest is that they come to in the hospital 50 bucks poorer, is there any meaning anymore to the choice of whether to shoot someone or not? The actions we take have consequences, and to lay the results of our choices at the feet of God and say "it's all your fault!" is to do no less than to forfeit our own agency and humanity.
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Jun 28, 2016 23:13
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Griffen posted:Now you're moving goal posts - is the question about the existence of evil, or why do bad things happen, aka why does suffering exist? These are two fundamentally different things. Disease it not good or evil, it just is; we may view it as evil because it causes us pain or takes someone we love away from us, but there is no moral element to a hurricane. The only reason there's no moral element to a hurricane is because no one set the hurricane in motion. If they did, it instantly takes on a moral element.
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Jun 28, 2016 23:17
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:The only reason there's no moral element to a hurricane is because no one set the hurricane in motion. If they did, it instantly takes on a moral element. There's also a moral element to prevent harm when one is able to. If a person has the ability and the awareness to prevent, say, a boulder from crushing a person by pressing a button, it would be immoral for them not to do so, even if they did not set said boulder into motion. Likewise a God who is aware of all suffering and capable of preventing it is in some way morally culpable for that suffering's existence. Edit: Griffen posted:The actions we take have consequences, and to lay the results of our choices at the feet of God and say "it's all your fault!" is to do no less than to forfeit our own agency and humanity. It wouldn't be all god's fault, only partially. Who What Now fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 23:28
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:The only reason there's no moral element to a hurricane is because no one set the hurricane in motion. If they did, it instantly takes on a moral element. No you see, you let God off the hook for all the things a human would be a sinner for doing. This is because God is perfectly good by definition. If he wanted us to fight each other to the death in the arena, that's what good is.
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Jun 28, 2016 23:29
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:The entire point of contention is that this isn't the only piece of information. The hypothetical discussion would begin with presenting all of the other impacts organized religion makes, understanding to what degree each of them applies to specific religious people in question, weighing the good against the bad, etc. My point with the heroin example was that them enjoying it is not the whole story. edit: You can disagree with their conclusion, but you don't have any evidence their analysis wasn't satisfactory.
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Jun 28, 2016 23:44
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Who What Now posted:There's also a moral element to prevent harm when one is able to. If a person has the ability and the awareness to prevent, say, a boulder from crushing a person by pressing a button, it would be immoral for them not to do so, even if they did not set said boulder into motion. Likewise a God who is aware of all suffering and capable of preventing it is in some way morally culpable for that suffering's existence. So what you're saying is that you want God to baby-proof creation for you, so that you have no chance to hurt yourself. However, if that was the case, we would perpetually be infantile creations, never able to advance beyond that simplified construct. Perhaps the reason for difficulties in the world is to give us opportunity to grow and become more than just a cat trying to sun itself before we feed it? According to your argument, letting a friend work out is immoral, because you're not preventing him from suffering (working out hurts). In the same way, what if suffering is an avenue for us to grow through the overcoming of said adversity? I would wager you (and most goons) would look down on someone who grew up with a silver spoon in hand that never faced a difficult day in their life, yet here you demand God do that for us. God set creation up in this way, and I believe it is for our benefit, even if it can be hard to see at times. edit: What might possibly help explain this further is the understanding that this world is not all there is, there is a life beyond this. Therefore, an early death due to adversity that builds us up is not necessarily a bad thing in of itself in relation to the life to come with God. If all you see is life on Earth, then yes, life sucks and then you die and there is nothing else. However, if this world is how God shapes us for the life to come, then whatever we face here cannot stop us, no matter how dire. Griffen fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 23:45
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Griffen, do you believe that people suffering from psychotic breaks or compulsions to murder are choosing to do so?
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Jun 28, 2016 23:53
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Berish, in The Trial of God posted:If he insists upon going on with His methods, let Him -- but I won't say Amen. Let Him crush me, I won't say Kaddish. Let Him kill me, let Him kill us all, I shall shout and shout that it's His fault. I'll use my last energy to make my protest known. Whether I live or die, I submit to Him no longer... And they keep quiet? Too bad -- them I'll speak for them. For them, too, I'll demand justice... To you, judges, I'll shout, "Tell Him what He should not have done; tell Him to stop the bloodshed now..." I lived as a Jew, and it is as a Jew that I die -- and it is as a Jew that, with my last breath, I shall shout my protest to God! And because the end is near, I shall shout louder! Because the end is near, I'll tell Him that He's more guilty than ever! David R. Blumenthal, Facing the Abusing God: A Theology of Protest posted:In the post-holocaust era, it is not enough to push abuse out of our minds and hearts. In the era of increasing knowledge of child abuse, it is not enough to accept reality for what it was and go on with life. To have faith in God in a post-holocaust, abuse-sensitive world, we must: (1) acknowledge the awful truth of God's abusing behavior; (2) adopt a theology of protest and sustained suspicion; (3) develop the religious affections of distrust and unrelenting challenge; (4) engage the process of renewed spiritual healing with all that entails of confrontation, mourning, and empowerment; (5) resist all evil mightily, supporting resistance to abuse wherever it is found; (6) open ourselves to the good side of God, painful thought that is; and (7) we must turn to address God, face to Face, presence to Presence. I wouldn't look down on someone for never suffering. I'd look down on them for being callous to the suffering of others, which often goes hand in hand with that, but our tendency to ignorance and self-centeredness is God's work as well. Sustained misery and despair doesn't better you as a person; if you're lucky it scars you, if you're unlucky it breaks you. I probably don't have the patience or capacity for forgiveness to love a being who breaks us and lets us break each other, as Blumenthal suggests, but either way I think that's the proper frame for it, not "well you see a seven year old child with bot fly larvae bursting out of his soft tissue is akin to someone working out to get spiritually swole."
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Jun 28, 2016 23:55
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