God is good but there is still suffering.

@Fil Albuquerque,

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ordinary as they come, leave it.

Thanks, I'm kind of a sucker for those. Never could leave well enough alone but maybe I need to take a break.

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@Leadfoot,

Leadfoot wrote:

First, being omnipotent is an assumption. He is not. Omnipotence is a logical fallacy. Not being able or willing to prevent evil assumes that he never does or will.

Do you even critically read what you write? If he is not omnipotent, if that is a logical fallacy (you've given no justification for that claim), then how can he ever decide to prevent evil? (Keep in mind that you wrote in the same brief paragraph that your goy god is not omnipotent, but that the statement is false because it assumes that he never "does or will," which would be the only assumption to make if he is not omnipotent.

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Always preventing 'evil' would of necessity preclude free will. Precluding free will would be inconsistent with a benevolent God.

You provide no reasons to believe these claims of yours to the effect that preventing evil would preclude free will (it would only preclude exercising free will to do "evil."); or that precluding free will would be inconsistent with benevolence. These are unsubstantiated claims, and, effectively, ipse dixit statements.

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Is he both able and willing? Then whence comes evil?
Your free choice to choose.

Ah, blaming the victim. It is certainly not my choice that someone else acts in a manner consistent with what is called evil. That was truly a feeble riposte.

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Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
Because he is both able and willing but chooses to give us the chance to do it ourselves.

You will call him god because "he" will allow evil which he could prevent, and for which the victims are not necessarily responsible. Really, this is just too incoherent. You're just shooting from hip, and arguing for argument's sake, and not because you actually have a reasonable answer.

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You know, Lardhead, Fil just ran through a series of vicious insults and personal slurs against me, and then when he accuses me of that, you go right along with it, and try to make out that you are some sort of noble being for persisting in talking to me. Why don't you go **** yourself, and not talk to me again.

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@Setanta,

Let me keep at it so you get to know yourself through someone else's eyes. You have not a single idea which is not, criticism, reply, to someone else's own ideas, not a single post in this forum along the years pops up about your own, if you have any, set of believes...your logic flatulent, flaccid, basic, linear, easy...your intellectual combat ability, directed to the week, defenceless, the kindred spirits, that cannot retort to your linear aggressive yet empty box of pseudo pot shot criticisms...your mundane.

You my dear friend, have nothing, are nothing, but an empty hot balloon bag with to much free time and a backwards education. You do not understand life, others peoples needs, urges, or ways of living, heck you don't understand yourself nor your reason of being...empty is you.

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@Smileyrius,

A few scriptures to prop the suggested godmodel.

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God made man, whom he would govern.

Genesis 1:27

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Man wanted to rule his self, under the assumption that they do not need god to prosper

Eve was drawn out by her desire to "know" (The Hebrew word for "knowing" (Yaw-dah) also means to discern, declare, designate or to teach) the difference between right and wrong, (Genesis 3)

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God then sets aside two time periods, 6000ish years so far of mostly unassisted human rule, followed 1000 years of Heavenly rule to come, at the end of which a conclusion can be drawn.

It was suggested that it did not belong to man to direct his own step (Jeremiah 10:23)
and that man will only dominate his self to his own injury. (Ecclesiastes 8:9)
Matthew 25:31-34 speaks of the kingdom under jesus rule, which is also spoken of at Daniel 2:44 as being one to replace and bring an end to the kingdoms on Earth. Jesus work here on Earth was to announce the coming passing of this system of things and the kingdom to come (Hebrews 12:28). Quintessentially his ministry on Earth was a manifesto (Luke 4: 43) for what was to come under his 1000 years in charge (Revelation 20, 1 Corinthian 15: 24)

Keep in mind this still quite the abbreviated version. I'm not a fan of walls of text Smile

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@InfraBlue,

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The subjects, then, really don't have the chance to prove the challenge made in the most effective way.

The burden of proof is on God. He is the one whose right to rule has been challenged
can you think of a more effective way of proving that man needs his governance than allowing man a period without his governance?

Take for instance war. Say we have both periods of rulership, mans ands Gods, God then has a marker by which to state, in 6000 years, you could not establish a sustained period of peace, in 1000 years of rule under my son, you did not see a single weapon used against another man.

Obviously I am speculating, but do you not think that an effective way to establish grounds upon which God can claim his right to rule?

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@Smileyrius,

The "god" of your vision is so petty and childish, so ego-centric and petulant that--although it is claimed that he "so loved the world"--this god would see mankind suffer just to make a point. In fact would see mankind suffer for thousands of years. Really, is that the best you can come up with for an allegedly omnisicent and omnipotent god?

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@Smileyrius,

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Take for instance war. Say we have both periods of rulership, mans ands Gods, God then has a marker by which to state, in 6000 years, you could not establish a sustained period of peace, in 1000 years of rule under my son, you did not see a single weapon used against another man.

That's going to be a tough sell Smiley. It casts God as Sadam Husain. Without him the Muslims fought tooth and nail but with his rule there was peace. Is that the peace we want?

And since you introduced scripture, didn't God's son say he came not to bring peace but a sword?

There has to be a better story line to make sense of 'all this'.

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Scripture being the claim, not the evidence.

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb192/DinahFyre/read.gif

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@Setanta,

I suppose I can see your charge, but I imagine different things could be said if he had exercised other options available. i.e. erase free will, kill off the rebels and start again, ask them to blindly accept his word for it.
Is there a solution that satisfies everyone?

This is of course all under the large presumption that such a god exists.

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@Smileyrius,

Smileyrius wrote:

This is of course all under the large presumption that such a god exists.

Thank you, that is a biggie.

I have a problem with the insistence upon christian theology. The Greek gods only ever intervened in human affairs to gratify their lusts, or as a means of thwarting or punishing one another. The Norse/Germanic gods had almost no interest in humans and human affairs, although a warrior hoped to attract the favorable attention of Thor/Thunor/Donar, so that that god would help his endeavors prosper. Shiva is supposed to be a patron of the arts and culture, but he also runs around slaying demons with his trident-like spear, slaughtering great numbers of humans along the way-- His wife Kali/Durga, tries to kill a demon, but every drop of his blood produces a clone of himself, so Durga calls upon Kali, or becomes Kali (your mileage may vary) who goes into an uncontrollable rage, threatening to destroy the cosmos if she doesn't take a chill pill--but Shiva manages to get her to relax. Once again, lots of innocent (more or less) human bystanders get it in the neck. The Chinese had some bizarre superstitions about spirits, but were only worried about them when headed for the afterlife. The Chinese and the Japanese never had organized religion such as was known in the west. Of course, only the Abrahamic religions and the Greco-Roman religions insisted upon devotion to a god or the gods, promising eternal torment for those who failed to lvie up to whatever capricious standards the gods set. Early passages of Genesis suggest that the Jews were not originally monotheists, and that your boy Jehovah was not a particularly important, powerful or stylish god.

The wonderful thing about all these traditions are the stories. The horrible thing about them is the insistence that they're not stories, but "gospel" truth.

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@Setanta,

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(EDIT: An ordinary exposition of christian theology, apart from the claim that your god is not omnipotent, which you inferentially contradict later. You are not convincing in your pose of theistically independent thinker.)

Missed that edit.

What I think of as 'ordinary christian theology' is the bit about accepting Christ as all you need, saved from sin by his blood, dying on the cross, etc. etc.. maybe you have been exposed to more sophisticated christians than I have. I don't hang around them much.

Does being an independent thinker on any given subject require you to reject 100% of everything that anyone else thinks, believes or reasons? That would make us all a bunch of plagiarists. Conversely, If someone has an erroneous idea, does that make them wrong about everything?

Where was that inferential contradiction of non-omnipotence? If it was just claiming the ability to stop evil, that leaves a lot of areas uncovered. The main point there was that omnipotence is a logical fallicy.

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@Smileyrius,

Smileyrius wrote:

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The subjects, then, really don't have the chance to prove the challenge made in the most effective way.

The burden of proof is on God. He is the one whose right to rule has been challenged

He’s not being sincere in this challenge seeing as how he already has plans for a restoration.

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@Leadfoot,

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didn't God's son say he came not to bring peace but a sword?

He did, but keep in mind that under context he was speaking to his disciples, specifically about the difficulties that they would undergo in behalf of his name. He told that his message would prove divisive, as anyone who bore his message would be opposed, sometimes by people close to them

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"Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death

Shortly after Jesus death, Christians were being stoned and imprisoned for preaching in Jesus name, such was his legacy in Early Christian times and even through to this day it proves to be divisive in many countries. John 15:19 is a decent appraisal of what he was getting at. essentially speaking, when someone makes preposterous claims, or so perceived regarding something that is not mutually believed, opposition or a figurative "sword" will always arise.

With regards to peace, there are many types of peace, I wouldn't go as far though to say that the peace promised in scripture is of the same nature as monsieur Husain, I'd have to study Sadam's reign to compare, although in this instance war was just a speculated example, I might just as well have used the curing of sickness, the removal of death and old age, or one of the other bible claims with regards to Jesus Kingdom.

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@Smileyrius,

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I might just as well have used the curing of sickness, the removal of death and old age, or one of the other bible claims with regards to Jesus Kingdom.

On the topic of that kingdom and the time period you mentioned before, why 1000 years? Isn't that kind of short for someone who normally spoke in terms of forever?

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@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

The subjects, then, really don't have the chance to prove the challenge made in the most effective way.

Smiley wrote:

The burden of proof is on God. He is the one whose right to rule has been challenged

InfraBlue wrote:

He’s not being sincere in this challenge seeing as how he already has plans for a restoration.

Explain to us how the fulfillment of God's purpose would lack sincerity. Should God have changed his mind and abandoned his purpose? I believe that might have been Satan's hope.

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@neologist,

In regard to the subjects' challenge, God is insincere because he isn't letting them prove it because he has plans for a restoration that make the the chance to prove the challenge moot.

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@neologist,

But then, I already covered these questions and your conclusion was a snide remark.

You're welcome to chase your own tail by starting here.

Maybe Smileyrius has more to offer.

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@hmodahl,

This is the biggest problem with Christianity. The basic answer to it is that God does not interfere with physical reality directly.

It's exactly the same situation Genghis Khan faced upon establishing the Yassaq, or the great Mongol legal code. The empire had to be bound together by a single law and for that to work, that law had to be universal and apply to EVERYBODY, Particularly Genghis Khan himself and his own family. The empire held together for several generations so long as that idea was obeyed and held sacred; when the law broke, the empire itself fell apart.

Likewise God cannot interfere with physical laws and/or violate those laws for the benefit of any one person or creature; there would never be an end to it and the system of physical laws which govern the universe would collapse.

Therefore the good prayer is always for the wisdom, strength, courage and skill to resolve the problems which the universe presents. Do not pray for God to fix problems FOR you.

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....Eternal Father, grant, we pray,
To all Marines, both night and day,
The courage, honor, strength, and skill
Their land to serve, thy law fulfill;
Be thou the shield forevermore
From every peril to the Corps.....

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@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

In regard to the subjects' challenge, God is insincere because he isn't letting them prove it because he has plans for a restoration that make the the chance to prove the challenge moot.

So, you're saying the 6000 or so years God has allotted is insufficient?

OK, I get it.

1 Reply

God is good but there is still suffering.

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