You're a stand up comedian.
Question to believers
- Thread starter Enoc
- Start date
I guess you make satire easy
No, it doesn't follow logically. A god could be both all-benevolent and omnipotent and still allow for harm. For example, most people basically agree that death is unfavorable, but if death didn't occur the Earth would have long since been unable to support all the cumulative lifeforms. So death is a necessary harm for life to persist.
It is similar with freewill. Freewill is a greater good which necessitates the possibility for those exercising it to cause harm. Now we can blame a god for bad things or convince ourselves that these preclude a god, but logically it doesn't follow. Just depends on if we are making an emotional or a rational argument.
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Souls are, per definition, eternal too.
The idea of Stepford gives a clue.
It's interesting that there developed the idea that a good, free, mature, happy life resembles that of robots.
When I grow up I won’t have to think,
I won’t have to see unpleasant things,
It’ll all be perfect, just like on TV,
And when I grow up I won’t feel a thing,
I won’t trifle in other people’s pain,
I’ll put these childish things away.
When I grow up, when I grow up,
When I grow up I won’t have to think so much.
When I grow up I’ll look out for me,
It’s a small lifeboat, baby, it’s a great big sea,
And your tears are nothing; don’t put that guilt on me.
Oh, when I grow up, when I grow up,
When I grow up I won’t have to think so much.
The one who does with the most toys wins,
The one who dies in unspeakable sin, while the hungry multitude is condemned to live,
Yeah, loaves and fishes, and fairytales,
Let them eat cake, let the strong prevail,
Let me alone, let them help themselves.
I wanna kill this little voice inside of me,
Yeah, the crazy little bastard saying things I will not believe,
I wanna slide just like a snake into the driver’s seat,
Oh, I’m so glad I’m living in the USA, with my BMW and my MBA,
Driving over the slums, high on the new beltway.
When I grow up, when I grow up,
When I grow up I won’t have to think so much,
Oh, when I grow up, when I grow up,
When I grow up I won’t have to feel so much.
source
K
keith1
Guest
I had to work to provide myself.
Fathers provide opportunity, skills, preparation, insight
I got my self in some difficulty
Fathers are always available to share gained knowledge that may help prevent pitfalls
, had hunger for several days ,
Fathers provide survival skills, and cushion the vulnerable launching years
got locked up in jail, Got my self two rounds of venereal disease,got married 4 times .
Fathers teach problem avoidance skills, by example and mock trial
what does my father have to do because of my problems.
Sometimes a father's hands are tied and they cannot perform as required, or as intended, or as wished
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elte
Valued Senior Member
If God were all powerful, why would balance require the suffering of death? Life could all have been done differently from the outset.
I still don't agree with that. If they can harm only themselves through freewill, that would maybe be something that could somehow be passable (But not to me still), but it's just wrong that freewill could result in people doing harm to innocents.
Since we aren't perfect we have to live in a imperfect world. The state of the world isn't a sign of how God is, it is a sign of how we are. If God would create beings that was incapable of suffering then those beings wouldn't be us and God wanted us. Suffering isn't all bad either, many good things come from suffering, including compassion and unity amongst us. But the short answer (what I can understand) is that the world reflects us and we aren't perfect.
If you don't believe then you will find the reasons why, if you believe then you will find the reasons why. It's a matter of perspective. The truth stays the same though.
One word: significance. Without a finite world, things like life and goals lose all meaning. There would be no time or resource constraints to make any accomplishment meaningful by contrast. Everyone would equally have all the time and resources to accomplish anything. It wouldn't matter if one person had or had not accomplished any specific thing, as they have an infinite amount of time in which to do so.
In such an unlimited world, there would be no reason to do anything. There would be no competition or struggle for resources, nor urgency in any endeavor. It would be a world without passion, and just as sterile as a world without freewill, as there would be no real consequence to any action.
No matter what, you would just always be. This is the dilemma a god would specifically be seeking to resolve by any act of creation.
Freewill doesn't exist without the potential to harm oneself. As I've previously said, otherwise, this would be the freedom of someone locked in a padded room. Freewill, definitively, cannot exist where action is either determinately enforced or inhibited.
"Freewill" and "no harm to innocents" are mutually exclusive logical premises. If "harm to innocents" is inhibited, then freewill does not truly exist.
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Wasn't talking about souls.
Can you explicitly state the premises that underlie your above conclusion?
That which is temporary cannot effect nor affect that which is eternal.
Sin is temporary; therefore, it cannot affect the soul's future course.
Why do you subscribe to Christian doctrine?
elte
Valued Senior Member
That'd be good because we'd have time to do things right. I measure my accomplishments by what I think is right more than in comparison to others.
That passion is more like fear, if you ask me. Deadlines usually leave me with the grief that something was wastefully rushed.
Competition and struggle for resources is a bad thing. It means hurting someone else because the act deprives them of a limited resource. It is a root of evil in the world often resulting in war and waste. It is an aspect of hate whereas love can be described as desiring not to do harm. Peace.
Always desire to be the best you can be. That shouldn't require external conflict in a world of good, in a creation that isn't flawed from the get-go. Maybe that's what you mean and I'm missing that.
It's open to debate whether freewill even exists. It is based on limited perspective to say that a world without potential suffering would be boring. I propose that an alternate world could be better than this one without freewill, and freewill can be considered illusory in the first place, anyway.
That basically say's freewill can be evil. I'd be glad to be in a world without that.
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elte
Valued Senior Member
2. God is not all powerful.
I cross out the first one because otherwise that isn't Go(o)d. God has to be all good by definition so I drop the all powerful. I'm not sure if I'm getting to the thing you are seeking, though.
We started talking about this earlier:
But there is a number of assumptions going into this that are taken for granted as true, such as:
1. All living beings are their bodies; the body is all there is to a living being's existence.
2. This life is all there is. There is no karma and no reincarnation.
3. God is a vending machine; or is evil, or doesn't exist.
If you believe these three points, can you justify why?
But there is a number of assumptions going into this that are taken for granted as true, such as:
1. All living beings are their bodies; the body is all there is to a living being's existence.
2. This life is all there is. There is no karma and no reincarnation.
3. God is a vending machine; or is evil, or doesn't exist.
If you believe these three points, can you justify why?
In a wholly good world, "good" has no meaning, as there is no comparable with which to differentiate it. Neither could you conceptualize "right" without some degree of wrong. You simply wouldn't have any consideration of a "rightness" quality to even evaluate the merits of your own work. Without an evaluative means, you wouldn't even have a judgment of your own to motivate any action.
Elte, you are idealizing inconsistently. You are applying what you know of an imperfect world as if that knowledge would have meaning in an idealized one. It would not. You cannot "[a]lways desire to be the best you can be" if you have no choice in the matter. Why would you have a desire for something that you always have? Desire, here, is synonymous with passion.
It is not up for debate that the physical world consists of both deterministic and stochastic processes.
If freewill didn't exist, you wouldn't feel anyway about it at all.
Elte, you are idealizing inconsistently. You are applying what you know of an imperfect world as if that knowledge would have meaning in an idealized one. It would not. You cannot "[a]lways desire to be the best you can be" if you have no choice in the matter. Why would you have a desire for something that you always have? Desire, here, is synonymous with passion.
It is not up for debate that the physical world consists of both deterministic and stochastic processes.
If freewill didn't exist, you wouldn't feel anyway about it at all.
I don't, but you do, at least partially. You accept that there is something called a soul which is eternal. But you don't accept that anything we do in life affects us in eternity. So... what's the point of this temporary life? In terms of eternity, this life practically doesn't exist.
These premises are not fundamental to such conclusions, and seem to betray a bias. Afterlife need not be entertained to allow for such a god.
elte
Valued Senior Member
I can't say otherwise because of lack of ever seeing evidence anywhere for a non-bodily existence. However, that doesn't mean there isn't a persistence outside the body, just that I don't know it to be the case.
There is our legacy, to the extent that can console. We can leave good or bad behind. I can't say there is any spiritual aspect to that legacy, though. For all I can tell, unfortunately, the good or bad can only persist or grow in and around the lives of people still living.
God would basically give every good thing if perfect and powerful enough. God can't be evil and still be God. Alas, God appears to not exist, though.
Half belief or something similar.
elte
Valued Senior Member
I used to think that, but it is based on the way things are now. In a good world, things don't have to be the way we understand them now.
I think you are doing it more, even if i actually am.
I have no choice but to live yet I desire it passionately.
Maybe randomness is an illusion.
Even if it is only a theoretical abstract, I could still have an opinion about it.