Does God implicitly consent to everything that happens?

[Tiassa]

Okinrus

Tiassa, how can you believe in a God that desires suffering?

(Okinrus)

Umm ...

• I think it would be most appropriately phrased that God doesn't give a hoot one way or another. If God "wants" you in the concentration camp, it's because your presence in the camp is instrumental to whatever it is God actually cares about. (Tiassa)

• God . . . simply does not take overt joy in "Nasor's suffering" in the concentration camp. That suffering is only important to God insofar as the conditions that bring it about are somehow necessary to the larger plan. (Tiassa)

• Ladybug, Ladybug, why do you weep? For thine son, struck away by the roaring reaper who waits at my hand? 'Tis not evil that hath struck him down, for he is given for life and for beauty. Rejoice, Ladybug! You do not know the greater cause, the loving reality to which thy child was given.

What? I don't have any specific desire to kill anything. But genocidal wars are fought to bring me an apple or a loaf of bread. Is it evil? I'd say "No," but then again, I'm not the bug whose exoskeleton is melting off as the result of a chemical strike by the human plague. (Tiassa)

Hmm ... let me try that again.

Tiassa, how can you believe in a God that desires suffering?

Er ... ah--no, wait.

Now ... no.

Tiassa, how can you believe in a God that desires suffering?

I guess I'm just wondering what you're referring to:

• I think it would be most appropriately phrased that God doesn't give a hoot one way or another. If God "wants" you in the concentration camp, it's because your presence in the camp is instrumental to whatever it is God actually cares about. (Tiassa)

• God . . . simply does not take overt joy in "Nasor's suffering" in the concentration camp. That suffering is only important to God insofar as the conditions that bring it about are somehow necessary to the larger plan. (Tiassa)

• Ladybug, Ladybug, why do you weep? For thine son, struck away by the roaring reaper who waits at my hand? 'Tis not evil that hath struck him down, for he is given for life and for beauty. Rejoice, Ladybug! You do not know the greater cause, the loving reality to which thy child was given.

What? I don't have any specific desire to kill anything. But genocidal wars are fought to bring me an apple or a loaf of bread. Is it evil? I'd say "No," but then again, I'm not the bug whose exoskeleton is melting off as the result of a chemical strike by the human plague. (Tiassa)

The question just doesn't make any sense to me:

Tiassa, how can you believe in a God that desires suffering?

Connect the dots for me, please. Whence comes that question?

God, whether the true source of all or a reduced shoebox-deity that must necessarily be good or just or something like that, simply does not take overt joy in "Nasor's suffering" in the concentration camp. That suffering is only important to God insofar as the conditions that bring it about are somehow necessary to the larger plan.

(Tiassa)

I will attempt to address your other points later. But your question ...

Tiassa, how can you believe in a God that desires suffering?

... seems rather absurd to me.

 

[okinrus]

Ok, so you don't believe in a God that desires suffering but you believe God either allows suffering or suffering is just a part of God's plan? Wouldn't believing that all suffering is just a part of a greater plan mean the Nazis were just accomplishing God's will?

 

[Tiassa]

Okinrus

Ok, so you don't believe in a God that desires suffering but you believe God either allows suffering or suffering is just a part of God's plan?

What is simply is. As PeepsOnFleas pointed out quite directly--

It is interesting to see how many of these posts used suffering and death as an example of God's indifference, but this is pre-supposing that suffering and death are "bad". In fact, they are not necessarily "bad" or "good" in God's eyes, they just "are" . . . .

. . . . As for this talk of "evil" and "good", these are completely human subjective values - nothing to do with God what-so-ever . . . .

--whether something is good or evil, right or wrong, is merely a human convention.

Wouldn't believing that all suffering is just a part of a greater plan mean the Nazis were just accomplishing God's will?

Sure. But that cycles back to something I wrote earlier:

Part of it may be that we are at this point quibbling specific points of faith. The "God" I acknowledge is quite apparently a different idea than the God you have faith in . . . .

. . . . God, whether the true source of all or a reduced shoebox-deity that must necessarily be good or just or something like that, simply does not take overt joy in "Nasor's suffering" in the concentration camp. That suffering is only important to God insofar as the conditions that bring it about are somehow necessary to the larger plan

I included that second, which I have reiterated before, in order to focus on the boldfaced portion. Much is omitted by the ellipsis, to be sure, but the ideas function well beside one another.

The problem comes when we place boundaries on what God is or isn't, can or can't do.

• A child's riddle: How many fish can a glutton eat on an empty stomach? One; then the glutton's stomach isn't empty anymore.

It's a philosophical hook that gives the punchline any value whatsoever. Just as an empty stomach cannot contain a fish, else one cannot call it "empty," the only impossibilities facing God are notions which are by definition mutually exclusive. While it is, in all actuality, possible to create a loud silence, black is not white, light is not dark, wet is not dry.

Some people might point--for whatever reasons--to the idea of God being in more than one place at the same time. A multifarious notion of God is similarly limited by perspective as our notions of Good and Evil. The answer to how God can be in more than one place at one time is that God isn't in more than one place at one time. God is "in one place," inasmuch as God is anywhere, but that one place is something we humans interpret as various places. God is in this or that church, on the Moon with Neil Armstrong, &c, &c. God is everywhere, but that everywhere is here to God. One mosquito said to the other, "I'm heading down to the shoes. Join me when you finish the brow." And so the second mosquito eventually finishes up and goes "there." In the meantime, you, the object of the mosquitos hunger, haven't moved at all. You're still right "here" where you were a moment before.

The point being that any definition by which we measure, describe, or otherwise proscribe our notion of what God is or isn't still comes from humans.

Tell me ... did Rube Goldberg lie to his boss? All he did was set an alarm clock.

 

[okinrus]

Some people might point--for whatever reasons--to the idea of God being in more than one place at the same time. A multifarious notion of God is similarly limited by perspective as our notions of Good and Evil.

Provided that God would make a creature with no purpose but to choose, no values but to choose. Yet following this would be destruction as existence would neither would be good nor bad.

The answer to how God can be in more than one place at one time is that God isn't in more than one place at one time. God is "in one place," inasmuch as God is anywhere, but that one place is something we humans interpret as various places.

The problem with believing that God is everywhere is that it does not explain conditions of the heart. If every heart was completely infused with God's grace, then everyone would be good. God is materially everywhere but God is not within everyone's heart and not everyone is within God's heart. Yet if we accept that God is everywhere, including within everyone's heart, than evil cannot be explained as a rejection of God but rather a creation choosing what the creator has designed.

The answer to how God can be in more than one place at one time is that God isn't in more than one place at one time. God is "in one place," inasmuch as God is anywhere, but that one place is something we humans interpret as various places. God is in this or that church, on the Moon with Neil Armstrong, &c, &c. God is everywhere, but that everywhere is here to God.

Isn't our here then God's here?

Tell me ... did Rube Goldberg lie to his boss? All he did was set an alarm clock.

That depends, I think, on the foreknowledge of the events.

 

[Leo Volont]

The idea that God is All Powerful is from Greek Theology. You need to remember that Greek Philosophy was simply involved with making up what they thought of as plausible ideas. They never claimed to have a revealed religion.

If you look at the Revealed Religion of the Prophets and Mystics, you will see that God is never supposed to be All Powerful, in the sense that this would rob us of our Free Will or hopelessly fix our Future like writing carved in granite.

 

[Enigma'07]

An all powerful God is from the Hebrew history, which came long before the Greeks.

 

[Leo Volont]

An all powerful God is from the Hebrew history, which came long before the Greeks.

The Hebrew God was a God who exercised His Power by agency -- by the agency of His Angels. Well, Hebrew Tradition tells us that a third of the Angels rebelled and came to oppose God under the leadership of Lucifer/Satan. Seeing it in this Picture, then, how can you possibly believe that the Hebrew God was all powerful, when 33 Angels out of a hundred were working not for Him but against him. Besides, if the Hebrew God was all powerful, then all of the Atheist Objections to the Hebrew God suddenly apply. God's only defense against the Greek Arguments is that He is NOT All Powerful. An All Powerful God is responsible for Evil, which is what an Atheist wants us to admit. But those of the Hebrew Tradition blame Satan and those who abuse their Free Will, for Evil. So it becomes clear that Satan and most of Humanity exercise a Power beyond God's control. The Free Will of Mortal Beings and Independent Spirits subtract from the All Powerfulness of God.

 

[Enigma'07]

He allowed them to turn from Him. God allows satan to exist- for now. One day, he and his demons will be cast into hell along with all of those that do not believe in Jesus.

 

[mario]

Hmmm, what would happen if god allows evil that ultimately destroys ALL human life on earth? Say some mad scientist that creates a super germ that sweeps across the planet like an unstoppable plague. Or just a good old fashioned nuclear war. Something that totally wipes out the whole human population. If not directly then indirectly - like radiation making humans infertile and unable to reproduce. Would god allow this act of evil for the "greater good"? Would there be a greater good if there was nobody around to appreciate it?
-----------------------------------------------------------

Just some musings about the 2nd coming...

If god destroys satan and all evil on this planet then wouldn't he be interfering with free choice?

If "the lion will lie down with the lamb" does that mean that all animals will be vegetarians? It's too bad that he didn't make all animals vegetarians in the first place. It would have saved a lot of pain and bloodshed.

With satan gone, who will be in charge of hell?

 

[Leo Volont]

He allowed them to turn from Him. God allows satan to exist- for now. One day, he and his demons will be cast into hell along with all of those that do not believe in Jesus.

Actually one of the apostolic letter made the point that belief in Christ is hardly sufficient. Satan believes in Christ. The Demons believe in Christ. Christ is a fact, so why would they not believe.

Christ taught a Moral Criteria. Faith and Belief were ideas taught by Paul because it was easier to sell an Easy Salvation then a Difficult Salvation. Christ's Salvation is Difficult. He insisted upon Perfection. Read the Sermon of the Mount. Christ doesn't ask us to believe. Christ asks us to be morally perfect.

Christ taught that there would be his Narrow and Difficult Way, and the Wide Way which would lead to Destruction. Simeon Prophecized at Christ's Presentation that Christ's Teachings would be contradicted. They were -- the Entire Christian Church is Teaching a Doctrine of Salvation that Christ warned us against.

So who DOES go to Hell? The Disobedient, the Rebellious, the Selfish. Those who fail the Moral Criteria of Perfection will go to Hell. Those who believed all their Life that Christ died for their Sins and that they are saved by faith, and think, therefore, that they can sin with impunity, such people may have a big surprise in store for themselves.

 

[Leo Volont]

If god destroys satan and all evil on this planet then wouldn't he be interfering with free choice?

With satan gone, who will be in charge of hell?

It is not an interruption of Free Will for God to punish the wicked. That is His Free Will. If people wish to act badly then they will be treated badly. It would be a betrayal of their Free Will if God were to impose some sort of mental control over these evil people so that they would be compelled to behave themselves. That is why God gave us Protestant Christianity -- as a Test. The Protestant Doctrine is that People are saved by Faith and can sin all they want since Christ died for their sins. So all these Christians feel entirely Free to sin if they want to. They have been tested and they failed.

As for Satan... the way I see it God is dividing His Universe between Good and Evil. God collects the Good. Satan collects the Evil. The Good is the Collective -- the Community minded -- those who love. Evil is the predatory and selfish -- the competitive. Satan really isn't put in charge of Hell. He is simply in charge of Hell because he keeps himself in charge. God does not impose torment and fire on Souls in Hell. This is what Satan does in order to teach new Republicans in Hell who is boss. Everyone in Hell would want to be boss. These people know no loyalty, or they would have gone to Heaven. Everyone who goes to Hell would aspire to be Satan. So Satan keeps them down. Satan keeps them hungry and on minimum wage. The way the elite controlled the masses -- that is how Satan treats them, and to the same End -- to maintain his control. Satan probably has to sleep with one eye open. He who tried to overthrow God probably has to worry every day that he himself could be overthrown. Anyone could be King of Hell, but that's exactly what Republicans want -- Opportunity!

 

[Enigma'07]

Hmmm, what would happen if god allows evil that ultimately destroys ALL human life on earth? Say some mad scientist that creates a super germ that sweeps across the planet like an unstoppable plague. Or just a good old fashioned nuclear war. Something that totally wipes out the whole human population. If not directly then indirectly - like radiation making humans infertile and unable to reproduce. Would god allow this act of evil for the "greater good"? Would there be a greater good if there was nobody around to appreciate it?

God will not alow for all human life to be killed in such a way. He Has alreadystated how the world will end. people still have a soul after they die, so yes they would know of the goodness of the Lord.

Actually one of the apostolic letter made the point that belief in Christ is hardly sufficient. Satan believes in Christ. The Demons believe in Christ. Christ is a fact, so why would they not believe.

You know exactly what I mean be believe as AI have said it many times before. You must have faith (and thus belief) in Him. Altimate trust.

 

[GRO$$]

I'm surprised that noone has mentioned this yet, but this is included in the more general question of "Why do bad things happen to good people?"

Rabbi Harold Kushner dicusses this using the Book of Job. He decides that for bad things to happen to good people, either:
A) God is not all-powerful (he can't do anything about our problems)
B) God is not all-fair (he knows and could do something about it, but doesn't)
or C) God is not all-knowing (he didn't notice the baby get run over by the truck)

Personally, I take the existentialist view that nobody cares in this cold universe, and there is no reason beyond the mathematics and physics that can be proven by logic.

 

[GRO$$]

On a seperate note, I hope Leo Volont dies (This world will only gain from it). It's people like him that just piss me off.

 

[TruthSeeker]

God let all that happen to Job because He wanted Job to learn. He wanted him to receive the "crown of life". He only does that with those that He know that can stand and still persist and do what is right.

See James 1 for the "crown of life"...
The entire chapter goes around this. This is the exact scripture:

James 1:12
"12 Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. "

Entire chapter

 

[GRO$$]

hm... i guess that baby persevered under the trial of that Mac Truck

 

[TruthSeeker]

O....k.....

 

[mario]

You're gro$$ly funny, gro$$. Ahhh but if you say..."It would be a betrayal of their Free Will if God were to impose some sort of mental control over these evil people so that they would be compelled to behave themselves."...mr leo, then it would be also a betrayal of their free will to kill them for their behaviour. Since by being dead they will have no further free will. And besides, if god was going to kill people for their actions, then the least he could do for their victims is kill the evil doers BEFORE they commit their heinous crimes. What's that saying?..."why put off tomorrow what you can do today?".

 

[GRO$$]

I didn't mean to be too gross, I was referring to the James 1:12 quote...

"Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him."

Having studied marketing for the little time that I have (3 years now, although first year was really sales), the Bible really seems just like an infomercial to me... Um bad things happen to good people because God is testing you guys... yeah... he's just wondering if you'll turn to the dark side... religion is dying out anyway, and good ridance!

 

[Enigma'07]

Masses of people don't die for a lie.