Why the world isn't perfect

I agree - I never understand why people point at God for everything that goes wrong.Just because people do bad things doesn't mean there isn't a God.

lol i love how you say "powers" like he's some kind of superhero...... the point is that apperently there is no on "true" god.... lest you forget about zues and allah and ganaesha or whatever. LOL and obviously the human race is the dominant species of the planet... what else would you expect? Like the simpsons episode where the dolphins take over the town lol??

Why do you suppose that God made some people more perfect than others, and saddled some people with such defective brains that they could never exercise their alleged free will?

How do you define "perfect" anyway? According to the Bible, Jesus broke several commandments and was called a glutton and a drunkard by his contemporaries, so I don't see how anyone could consider him to be perfect.

You've got some good points. I think the bible did say that jesus was "perfect" or something like that

The bible said jesus was the only one who was riteous (don't think I spelled that right). God made everyone differant because like I said he wanted the world to be an interesting place. Differant people have differant challenges in life

inner-peace, the Bible does not say that Jesus was perfect, only that he was made perfect (Hebrews 5), as all good Christians will be.

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MJB919, according to the Bible, a number of people were perfect or righteous (depending on which version you consult) including Noah, Lot, Job, Asa, Joseph, John, and Simeon.

In your opinion, what does it mean to be perfect and/or righteous? Would breaking several commandments disqualify them?

Life is more than a "challenge" when your brain does not function well enough or you do not live long enough to exercise free will.

From my days as a catholic many people said god was the only one riteous. I think they might have also said jesus was but since Jesus broke the ten commandments I'll have to say he wasn't as righteous as god the father. I guess I must not have heard it from the bible. I do think that anyone can be righteous from a certain point of view but not the same way the lord is.

see I think thats crazy... god made us have challenges like mental retardation and all these crazy diseases like aids so he could be "entertained" ... jeez and you christians get all razzed when you see some nudie ladies on tv

obviously not the same way the lord is.... because haha guess what nobody has personally talked "face to god" and so therefore the lord father could be a "kiddy porn freak" because god would have the power to peak into the girls locker room

Maybe some people really have talked to god but nobody believes them. Kind of like people who claim to have seen UFO's

The world isn't perfect because people have free will and people are stupid, irrational and emotional.

Re: Why the world isn't perfect
The temperature of our sun is a universal which fades the further away one moves. Carbon based life is contingent upon temperature sensitive chemical reactions which only occur within a narrow band of temperature ranges. The moon lacks sufficient gravity to hold an atmosphere and all other planets in our system are quite distant from the orbital path of the Earth.

Yet you seem to believe that all the planets of our solar system should support life and that an exceptional explanation is required to explain the "coincidence" that only Earth does.

I appreciate that this was not the main point of your post but I felt that it should be addressed.

I am also curious how the imperfections of human society leads to shifting techtonic plates creating tsumanis to drown people in asia, flesh-eating bacteria destroy people's bodies while they are alive and volcanoes happily spew molten rock over nearby human populations.

Why do you think the world is not perfect, because it does not comply with your interests and values? I think it is "perfectly" what it is.

If jesus was made perfect, and man is made in his image, I guess we're all perfect. My biology and environment screams at me that this is all BS.

C.I., I should add that I think, philosophically, that the world is perfectly what it is, I personally am not happy about everything in my biology and environment either. But that is a statement about me, not the world.

If we assume there's a 'god,' then why limit the question to why such a being would make the Earth imperfect? Why would such a being make the world at all? Perhaps we're simply lab rats in a cosmic experiment. Or perhaps we are 'thoughts' in the mind of the almighty as it tries to figure itself out.

However, there is little that is free about free will. How meaningful is a term like 'free will' when so much of who we become is determined by factors external to us? Can you actually have a little free will, or is it an 'all-or-none' proposition?

BTW: What commandment(s) did Jesus break?

Mills, here are some commandments that Jesus is known to have broken:

Thou shalt have no gods before me. Jesus put himself before God when he said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me" (John 14:6).

Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. Jesus and his disciples plucked and ate corn on the sabbath and Jesus said, "The sabbath was made for men and not men for the sabbath" (Mark 2:23-28). They also ate with unwashed hands. (Mark 7:1-4)

Honor your father and mother. Jesus scorned and publicly humiliated his mother (Mark 3:31-34, Luke 8:19-21, Luke 11:27-28, John 2:3-4) Jesus said, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters, -- yes, even his own life -- he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26) The Bible does not report a single instance where Jesus did or said anything to honor either his earthly father or his mother.

Thou shalt not bear false witness. Jesus said he wasn't going to a feast and then as soon as the others left, he went to the feast in secret. (John 7:8-10) Jesus promised to return within the lifetime of his disciples but never did, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power." (Mark 9:1)

Jesus said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of the pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:17-20)

But Jesus taught others that it was Ok to violate the Commandments:

Thou shalt not commit adultery. The OT required that anyone guilty of adultery be stoned to death, but when a woman caught in adultery was brought to Jesus, he enabled her to escape lawful punishment (John 8:3-11).

Thou shalt not steal. Jesus taught a parable about a man who found a treasure in someone else's field and rather than tell the owner about it, he hid it and bought the field (Matt. 13:44).

Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. But one of his disciples objected, "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages." "Leave her alone … You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me." (John 3-5)

Thou shalt not covet. Jesus taught a parable about a merchant who saw a pearl and coveted it so much that he sold all he had and bought it (Matt. 13:45-46)

Not a violation, but some insight into Jesus' reputation among the Jews: The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, `here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners."' (Luke 7:34)

Jesus also told a parable about a man who had a fig tree in his vineyard, did not find any fruit on it and wanted it cut down, but the vineyard man said to fertilize it and give it another year. (Luke 13:6-9) Jesus, however, got mad when a fig tree had no fruit (it was out of season) and killed it. (Mark 11:13)

Since the Gentiles were resistant to following Jewish Law, particularly circumcision, Paul arbitrarily abolished the Law in order to gain converts. "Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law." (Galatians 3:25) "For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations." (Ephesians 2:15) The church has generally followed the teachings of Paul which allows it to pick and chose which laws to enforce and which to ignore. For instance, the Catholic Church ignores the commandment regarding idols or graven images.

Of course it is "perfectly" what it is, as is anything else no matter how flawed. A truly perfect world would not cause sentient beings to suffer unnecessarily. This one does, due in part to design flaws such as droughts, earthquakes, severe storms, parasites, and human beings who are bioengineered to harm others.

Terry, you do realize, of course, that the perfect world is a world that YOU approve of. Zebras are killed by lions, so that lions can live, babies die so that viruses can live. How can you "objectively" claim that these zebras and babies have suffered unnecessarily. "Design flaws" such as droughts, earthquakes, severe stormes and parasites are "flaws" only from a narrowly anthropocentric perspective. That is the moral equivalence of the egocentric notion that society is "flawed" because not everyone obeys me.