In the universe that this god is proposed created and with the ultimate power he is supposed to posses nothing is impossible and everything is possible. You can make up as many human relative questions as you please but you are not understanding that it could just be how he wished and it would for you be totally logical. Your doing it again failing to understand the meaning and the full extent of what all powerful really is.
In the universe that this god is proposed created and with the ultimate power he is supposed to posses nothing is impossible and everything is possible. You can make up as many human relative questions as you please but you are not understanding that it could just be how he wished and it would for you be totally logical. Your doing it again failing to understand the meaning and the full extent of what all powerful really is.
You think that God can know something that is false? So what would it mean to say that God knows all truths? You would have to say he knows all truths and all falsities. And I would not know what you were talking about if you said that. That would mean He knows not only that 2+3=5, but also that 2+3=7, 2+3=966, 2+3=438. In fact, He would know that 2+3=any number you would like to name, including zero. In other words, you would be speaking nonsense.
No your starting to understand how illogical the idea of an all powerful god would be.
I see that this discussion has grown at the rate of about a page per day since its inception. I beg your pardon for not reading all the previous posts, but I am going to jump in as one who has held his peace from the beginning, but now has a turn to speak:
I will start with the proposition that God is Omnipotent, Eternal, All Knowing, All Wise, and the Loving Creator and Lord of all.
I add the proposition that the reality of God is as far beyond our comprehension as the reality of a painter is beyond the comprehension of the pictures that he has painted.
Next, I wish to suggest that God has given us scriptures to inform us what actions of ours are good, and what sorts of actions are evil. What I am saying is, that it is for us as humans to learn how to be good and to do good acts.
"Natural disasters", like earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. are processes that are part of the world that we live in, but they are not evil. They cause pain. Physical pain is the result of nerve impulses traveling from an injured part of our body to our brain. It has evolved as a natural mechanism to allow us to protect ourselves from those things and actions that cause us physical damage and may end our lives. Physical pain is not evil, it is educational and a protection. Events that cause physical pain are part of the evolutionary processes that are moving our species forward: Learn to avoid pain and injury from earthquakes by building better structures. Build a better society so that there are not poor cities like Port-au-Prince filled with poor people. When disasters strike, learn to help one another, to bring aid from all the rest of humankind. This is what we should learn (perhaps are learning) from the natural disasters that have recently occurred.
Emotional pain and suffering comes from our attachment to the things of this world: loss of a loved one causes grief because we will no longer have them in our lives. Their death reminds us of our own mortality, and people are attached to life. God teaches us that we should be attached to the things of the spirit, not things of the world. We should use and enjoy the things of the world, and give thanks to God for them, but, for example, when a baby is of a certain age, he has to learn to give up nursing. If your electric power goes out, you will be happier if, after calling the utility company, you simply accept that the power is out and move on to creatively using your time without electricity. That is detachment.
When one is attached to the things of the spirit, one works on developing virtues like compassion, creativity, assertiveness, courtesy, truthfulness, loving kindness, wisdom, and the like. The development of virtues is a goal which cannot be thwarted by any outside event or person. When people in communities are all working to develop virtues, they are better able to trust one another, better able to collaborate to accomplish great things. This give greater power to humans. The "meekness" advocated in the Gospel is not "being a doormat", it is rather being courteous and treating others with as much respect as you would wish to be given. Human potential will never increase beyond a certain plateau until we give up competing for material goals and learn from God the ways of cooperation. Then our capacities as individuals and as a species will grow to unimaginable hights.
The question has been raised, "How could a loving God allow the Holocaust to occur?" What I think is, humans are a species of mammal, closely related to chimps, genetically. Our species has developed certain characteristics which distinguish us from all other species on the planet: Humans have a great deal more power to manipulate tools, to discover the workings of nature and to apply this knowledge to develop technology. We also have many different social structures (i.e. cultures) and these are constantly evolving. I think that each individual also has a much greater potential to act "creatively" (i.e. outside the norm for their culture) and that this makes us potentially much more dangerous to ourselves and the world. This also gives us other potentials, as I have mentioned.
God has caused us to evolve to have the powers that we have, and the creativity to do things that have evil consequences. Ergo, some people choose to do evil. A person who believes in God knows that death in this world is just like birth: we move from one condition to another. (I do not hold the na?ve "Heaven or Hell" theory of the afterlife. I believe that in this life we are preparing for the next by developing our selves, just as an infant in the womb is preparing for life in this world. The more one has developed spiritually, the better the next world will be.) Thus, death is not evil, but the act of killing someone is evil.
So, I am saying that "good" and "evil" are characteristics of human actions, which we can choose. God has given us guidance to do good, but it is our choice to follow that guidance. When we learn to follow God's guidance (which should not be confused with the guidance of the clergy) we will be able to live in harmony and mankind will advance to greater heights.
What of the evil that is not a characteristic of human actions, like the suffering caused by the Haitian earthquake? Why does that exist?
He explained that in his post. And I agree...natural disasters are not intrinsically evil.
I don't know what you mean by "intrinsically evil", but it doesn't matter since natural disasters cause great evil. As you can see on today's TV. Wy can't something can be evil without being intrinsically evil? When the brakes on a car fail, that isn't (I guess) intrinsically evil. But when a mother of two, and her childen die in the resulting crash, that seems to me an evil. Doesn't it to you?
it seems a tragedy to me. I have never once heard about someone getting in a car crash and thought that that situation was "evil". Sad, yes. Unfortunate, yes. Tragic, yes. But evil, no. Pain in and of itself is neither evil nor good.
Well, most people think that suffering and pain are evils, and especially those who suffer and are in pain. You simply have a special use of the term "evil" which covers only moral and intentional evil. But the problem of evil concerns not only moral and intentional evil, but non-moral and non-intentional evil. In other words, as one writer puts it, "why does God allow bad things to happen to people?" Perhaps you don't think it is bad to suffer pain and anguish. But most people do think so, and they would like to know why a good and powerful God allows pain and anguish. Especially (but not only) to innocents like children. So, if you like, you can keep the word, "evil", and I will take the notion of "bad things" for myself, and pose the problem of bad things, and ask this question: why does an all powerful and all good God allow bad things (like suffering and anguish) happen to people? (Notice, I have not used the term, "evil". I have made a present of it to you) So, can we address my question?
Earthquakes are good! - When the earth was first created, it was molten and the surface was uniform in height. As water was delivered to earth (through the accretion process described above) and condensed, the planet became a waterworld - completely covered by a global ocean. Tectonic activity resulted in giant earthquakes and volcanoes that formed land masses over the earth. In addition, without continuing tectonic activity, the land masses would have returned to the ocean through erosion. Getting rid of the water cycle (to prevent erosion) is not an option, since fresh water is required for life. So, not only is the underlying cause of tectonic activity required to shield the earth from radiation, but the process itself is required for the formation and maintenance of continental land masses. It turns out that the number and strength of earthquakes is significantly less now compared to when the earth was first formed.18 This is primarily due to the reduction of radioactive materials in the earth (estimated to be one-fourth of what it was when the earth first formed19). So, one could say that God has reduced the suffering caused by earthquakes to the minimum level required for the existence of advanced life on earth.
Earthquakes and civilization - Despite the fact that earthquakes can be disruptive to civilization, 13 out of 15 of the first civilizations developed in the vicinity of earthquake fault zones (with the exceptions being ancient Egypt and China).20 Scientists have speculated that plate boundaries often have ample water supplies that might have attracted early settlers, and that volcanoes help create rich soils. Obviously, earthquakes could not have been that detrimental to human beings if the vast majority of ancient civilizations developed in proximity to active faults.
and what question is that exactly? why did God create natural disasters?
According to one thing I read that since the universe is governed by the four fundamental forces of physics, and since the universe would not exist in a way that would sustain life had those forces not been balanced exactly as they are, then the only other option would be no universe. All natural disasters can be explained by those 4 forces which govern the universe. A world could not logically exist in this universe in which it was not subject to those physical laws
No. That is not the question. The question is exactly as I worded it. Why does God allow bad things to happen to people? That might just be asking why God allows people to suffer from natural disasters, but not necessarily. The point is that nothing is changed or gained by limiting the term "evil" to moral and intentional evil, and refusing to call non-moral and non-intentional evil by the name, "evil". It is only a notational change. The question remains. God might have made a world in which there was no suffering, or a world in which there was less suffering, or even, no world at all. So, we return: why did God make a world at all, and why did God make a world with suffering and pain in it, and this amount of suffering in it? Consider: at least one innocent person died yesterday in Haiti. Could God have saved even that one innocent person? If the answer is, yes, then you have to ask, well, why didn't He, then? And, if the answer is, no, then you have to ask, how come?
If you are not talking about something that is moral or intentional then you are talking about something that is neither good nor bad in and of itself.
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All right. I'll accept that. How does that make a difference? Why does not God allow what is not bad in itself, but bad, anyway? (Although I have to say that pain and suffering seem to me bad in themselves, although they may have some good effects). The question is why God allows pain and suffering. (It is not the words that matter. It is what they refer to that matters. So, changing words makes no difference unless you are pointing to a difference in things). So, why does God allow pain and suffering, especially to innocents? Your turn.
Well what is pain used for? pain is a means of letting us know when we are doing damage to ourselves. Pain is a necessary part of growth. This is why pain is not bad.....in fact one might say it's good if anything.
If we did not feel pain we would injure ourselves quite often to the point of irreparable damange
No. That is not the question. The question is exactly as I worded it. Why does God allow bad things to happen to people? That might just be asking why God allows people to suffer from natural disasters, but not necessarily. The point is that nothing is changed or gained by limiting the term "evil" to moral and intentional evil, and refusing to call non-moral and non-intentional evil by the name, "evil". It is only a notational change. The question remains. God might have made a world in which there was no suffering, or a world in which there was less suffering, or even, no world at all. So, we return: why did God make a world at all, and why did God make a world with suffering and pain in it, and this amount of suffering in it? Consider: at least one innocent person died yesterday in Haiti. Could God have saved even that one innocent person? If the answer is, yes, then you have to ask, well, why didn't He, then? And, if the answer is, no, then you have to ask, how come?
Yes. Pain has some extrinsic value, as you say. But in itself (intrinsically) pain is bad. So, the question is why when a child suffers from pain, God allows the child to suffer. Could God not prevent the pain of the child? If He could, then why does He not?
...Suffering have the purpose of creating the Illusion that everything we old dear can be lost, and in the Idea that it can be lost, We nurture the only reason to old them dear...
There?s no Good without "Evil"... IN FACT THERE?S NO EVIL, its all GOOD !...:a-ok:
Maybe god does not only allow evil he he activly premotes it because he is intrinsically evil himelf, how about that thought?
If God was all-powerful and all-loving, with free will yet perfectly good, God would create life with similar properties: with free will and perfectly good. Meaning that there would be no human-created evil, and no need for evil, suffering or death in the world in any way.
However, there is evil and death in very great quantities, therefore it holds that if the situation was created by a god, rather than natural forces, then such a god is not omnipotent and benevolent.
Given that such a god exists, it must be malevolent: An evil god, who created life for the sole purpose of watching life suffer. !!!!!!!!!!
