JCC If there is a God, then why is there evil and suffering?

Ooooooooh gotcha. Then I agree with you. Which should make you feel pretty splendid about yourself, since I only agree with people who are right.

 

I am always right.

 

That's not true. Because I only agree with you like 60% of the time.

 

Didn't a US ambassador get killed in His most Glorious and Bearded of names, because adherents were upset that Mohammed was shown in a movie?

Yeah, no, God is an awesome concept.

 

Agreed. The problem with these conclusions is that you have to go a lot further back to convince anyone that they make any sense. Without the fundamental assumptions and values which underpin these conclusions, it all sounds like either nonsense or evil.

That's really the problem with starting with something like the PoE, instead of the more basic "does God exist" or "what is the Good" questions. When you ask questions which need incredibly complex frameworks of belief and reasoning to hold up the answers, you end up feeling a lot like people only see the puppet of an answer without the puppeteer of theology, philosophy, and experience behind it all.

 

I don't think she's evil, she just is.





...and if she's the last thing I see, I wouldn't mind at all.

 

Presuming that there is a god, we're technically taking his word for it that he's benevolent at all.

 

Awww...I love Gaiman's Death. Also Pratchett's Death.

Doesn't change my belief that death is an aberration.

 

How can death be an aberration? It simply is the end of a lifetime. We cannot be immortal. Such a concept does not apply to organic life, thankfully.

 

That assumes that immortality is indeed abnormal. The Christian concept of the Fall postulates that death, pain, and evil are the result of a fundamental change in the created order, and that all these things are abnormal.

 

Truth be told, I wouldn't appreciate physical immortality. I don't care about outliving loved ones, regardless of the conveniences (but mostly inconveniences) of living forever.

If by immortality you refer to that of the soul, well, I don't think it's there either. If there is something whithin each of us that could be labelled a soul, I see that as energy that, like all forms of energy, can change or even dissipate across time and space. So is there immortality there? I don't think so. Let alone believe that said energy will go to a place labeled "heaven" or "hell" after shuffling this mortal coil.

 

Well...if immortality were a thing, you wouldn't outlive loved ones, since they'd be immortal as well.

 

Well, okay.... but at what point do you stop aging? I mean, bodies age... so, are you proposing that people would live lives, as we know them, and then spend eternity in a geriatric state? Because that would suck.

 

I think the problem is not with aging, but with decay. And since decay is part of death, that, too, wouldn't happen. So my guess is there would be further maturity and changes, but no weakness or loss of faculties.

 

Telomeres...

 

The goal is not living for centuries as an 80 year old. The clock can be stopped an possibly rewound. I suspect, give the mountains of information available, is that if true rejuvenation is handed out the clock will be wound back, you age, then get treated again at some point, repeat for however long you wish(or can afford, depending on the world we wind up living in etc).

I want to say it is C. elegans that have been given the equivalent of a 450 year human lifespan. Mice have had their lifespans doubled and remained active as if youthful for most of that span(this is not like living a bit longer 'cuz they ate better, it is like genticially making a 200 year old human who was as strong and active as a 30 year old fo rmost of it.). There is a jellyfish that naturally is born, grows old, then reverts back to a young state all without tinkering, it is immortal so long as it gets nutrients and avoids getting eaten.

 

um...what was the point of this thread again? And what happened to I See Dead People Jedi Falcon?

 

To argue, preferably while insisting that either god (who you did not think actually existed) was a jerk for allowing suffering or that god (who you did think actually existed) was the god of Abraham and it was our fault not his.

 

You mean Jedi Fiction

 

Is that so, child?

 

She left the thread because she was getting too much negative feedback on her visions.

 

No I would save the child. But to use your example. If God saw a child in the road amidst traffic which would be the more loving response. Let the child die and join him immediately in Heaven for all eternity, or allow the child to grow up and commit great evil and end up condemned to Hell. Judging God by human perspective and morality is a mistaken notion.

If your child rebelled against everything you taught him, murdered, lied, cheated, never spoke to you in 30 years of life. Then you get a call he needs a kidney transplant or he will die. Would you give him your kidney? If so congratultions you contain .000000000000000000000000001% of the love God has. And keep in mind after you donate your kidney your son will take it and smash it against the ground just to spite you and die anyways.

Again you make the mistake of using human morality to judge him. An ant would consider you a terrible ant by the standards ants have. And 'weak' I suppose creating and ordering all the cosmos and bending it to your will is a sure sign of weakness. 'Insignificant' I suppose being the author and creator of all existence does make you insignificant. 'Overinflated sense of self worth' I suppose being Lord and master of all reality and beyond reality, being Alpha and Omega, really does make you inflate your worth. Are you sure you understand the words you choose? I'm not sure they mean what you think they mean.

But to your point... If God was undoubtedly real. If he descended to Earth today and showed us all his power and showed us all he was THE GOD of all creation. And then revealed he was all those horrible things you say he was. My response would be the same, serve. Because a God no matter what his actions is to be obeyed, because what other choice is there? Does a table rebel against it's maker because it does not like it's maker? No. If there is a God he must be obeyed, there is no other option.

And should humanity as a whole deny God completely... I hope I and all my children are dead. For with God man is limited in his evil. Without God man no longer has anything to limit his evils.

If there were no God I for one would have no reason to be moral. If it was proven definitively to me that there was no God 'law' 'morality' would have no meaning to me. We are animals, there is no code. I will take what I want when I want how I want. I will kill, maim, destroy, anyone that gets in my way, or just because I feel like it. I will obey some laws when it benefits me of course, my survival being paramount, but there are so many evil things I could get away with I could do right now I only do not do because my God has told me not to. So yes, all of humanity killing God, it would be the greatest thing for humanity. If you are the last human alive who won this scorched earth as his prize.

 

Can we not dogpile on JediFalcon? I don't agree with her perspectives at all, but there seems to be an awful lot of namecalling which I haven't seen her provoke, other than posting an obviously very personal narrative which doesn't make a lot of sense and doesn't match the philosophical outlook of many people, including myself.

 

I agree with imiller.

 

We're not calling anyone names and her story doesn't just not match people's philosophical outlook, it doesn't match our current understanding of reality. JF has made a very, very extraordinary claim and backed it up with only a personal story. Anyone with any sense of scientific skepticism has an obligation to call into question her story.