Why did god create...

[Ecofarm]

End goal: create me.

And I must say, it's done a fine job even if the road was long.

Of course, now that I'm here, God left. It's probably off making another me in a different dimension. I know that's what I'd be doing.

 

[Phlegmak]

Biological evolution.

social evolution

So god created social and biological evolution in your opinion?

 

[BasketCase]

Some would ask, how could a perfect God create a Universe filled with so much that is evil.

Effortless segue to Iraq:

What is it the majority of American want U.S. troops to do in Iraq? They want us to leave. Indeed, in these times, most people around the world seem to be all about sovereignty. Don't cross national borders.

The answer is already right there. Leave other people alone. People want to be running their own affairs (even if that means running them really badly), instead of being somebody else's lap dog.

So maybe God is merely giving us what we think we want. He's leaving us alone and staying out of our business.

I find it extremely curious that the people who want us out of Iraq are exactly the same people who, when confronted with religion, demand to know why God isn't eliminating all the evil things in our lives.......

They have missed a greater conumdrum: why would a perfect God create a Universe at all?

This one, on the other hand, we can only guess at. Why do we humans create things? Maybe we get a sense of accomplishment. Maybe just for kicks. Why do we keep pets? Maybe for companionship, maybe for distraction.

But this one's pretty much unanswerable.

 

[FredLC]

Effortless segue to Iraq:

What is it the majority of American want U.S. troops to do in Iraq? They want us to leave. Indeed, in these times, most people around the world seem to be all about sovereignty. Don't cross national borders.

The answer is already right there. Leave other people alone. People want to be running their own affairs (even if that means running them really badly), instead of being somebody else's lap dog.

So maybe God is merely giving us what we think we want. He's leaving us alone and staying out of our business.

I find it extremely curious that the people who want us out of Iraq are exactly the same people who, when confronted with religion, demand to know why God isn't eliminating all the evil things in our lives.......

Effortless comparison indeed.

The reason people want self determination in their own countries is because they don't believe a foreign tutelage is to their advance. Assuming, as the religious people do, that God indeed does "know better", than the reason why we prefer to care for our own business loose it's meaning.

Unless God does NOT know better, in which case his overruling of "free will" would not be inherently good - but this is a concession that the religious people are quite unwilling to make...

Regards .

 

[West 36]

As a young teen, I remember thinking why the hell God would make Ticks. (and I suppose other blood-suckers; leeches, weeds, vines, and all things described by those words.
The question remains.

 

[Head Serf]

Why did god create these (by god, I mean whatever god you believe in):

cancer
hatred
smallpox
AIDS
jealousy
sadism
homosexuality
greed
animals that cause horrible suffering to each other
dwarfism
hemophilia
retardation


Note to sissies: I included homosexuality in that list not because I think it's negative, but because it's something that religious people might think is negative.

God didn't create those things. I did.

 

[BasketCase]

The reason people want self determination in their own countries is

.....selfish pride.

We don't care if God knows better. We want to be in the driver's seat, it's that simple.


Edit: What Head Serf said last post. For some odd reason, people are incorrectly attributing many of the world's evils, such as terrorist attacks, to being God's creation.

God didn't create terrorism. WE did. Nice going, people.

 

[FredLC]

.....selfish pride.

We don't care if God knows better. We want to be in the driver's seat, it's that simple.


Edit: What Head Serf said last post. For some odd reason, people are incorrectly attributing many of the world's evils, such as terrorist attacks, to being God's creation.

God didn't create terrorism. WE did. Nice going, people.

Of course it's pride. I am quite aware that the only reason why people is so interested in shouting their surrender to their god of choice is because that is quite inconsequential. If that weren't the case, things would likely be very different.

Nevertheless, you seen to fail noticing that this question is rhetorical. Nobody is seriously arguing that god would be the best commander-in-chief ever, nor dwelling on the psychological effects of him assuming an active role in the world. This question serves only the purpose of debating the consistency of the descriptions of God, and, obviously, it counts with certain things that the proponents of his perfection would never deny, even if untrue (like that they would refuse to surrender to a direct ruling from god).

On a side note, I gotta say that i don't blame god for terrorism (or any evil whatsoever) any more than I blame the Santa Claus for kids who don't get Christmas gifts.

Regards .

 

[BasketCase]

Nobody is seriously arguing that god would be the best commander-in-chief ever

Most religious people do argue exactly that.

And, if you accept their premise that God is the kind of Being they describe--they're right.

The problem is, if God really knows better than we do, there's no way for us to tell. If you don't understand something, there are always at least two possible reasons: either the person describing it is too dumb to get it, or you're too dumb to get it.

 

[FredLC]

Most religious people do argue exactly that.

Again: nobody between those who propose the problem of evil argue that god would be the best commander-in-chief ever.

And, if you accept their premise that God is the kind of Being they describe--they're right.

Again: Which is why we who propose the problem of evil can confidently expose the question, because we know they won't avoid the problem answering that men would not accept his rule.

The problem is, if God really knows better than we do, there's no way for us to tell. If you don't understand something, there are always at least two possible reasons: either the person describing it is too dumb to get it, or you're too dumb to get it.

Not when one of the parts is supposed to be "perfect". Under that premise, god should be able to explain quantum physics to a platypus using only three words, each of a different language, without pronouncing vowels. Such are the capacities of one who is all-powerful.

Look, there is no need to throw at me the incongruence of postulating an all powerful being. That's exactly what I (and those like me) are exploring when we propose the problem of evil.

Regards .

 

[Alpine Trooper]

You guys really need to play SMAC more often.

 

[BasketCase]

I didn't even understand your first two paragraphs, Fred, so I'll just skip to this one:

Not when one of the parts is supposed to be "perfect". Under that premise, god should be able to explain quantum physics to a platypus using only three words, each of a different language, without pronouncing vowels.

Gonna have to give this one a frowny face and a "bullpuckies" reply. God is perfect (assuming He even exists); platypusi are not. Idiocy trumps genius. Idiot-proof the Universe, and evolution will produce a better idiot.

Look, there is no need to throw at me the incongruence of postulating an all powerful being. That's exactly what I (and those like me) are exploring when we propose the problem of evil.

The existence of God is not in question here. The thread makes the assumption that He does exist. I'm an atheist and I can still comfortably explore the question "okay, if God exists, then why did he create a world that kind of sucks?"

It's about God's motivations for why he did what he did. And there's no real point in debating that. We can only guess.

However, arguing over procedural hurdles is entirely fair game.

 

[FredLC]

I didn't even understand your first two paragraphs, Fred, so I'll just skip to this one:

I'm really surprised with this. It's quite obvious that I merely correct a misunderstanding of subjects there.

Gonna have to give this one a frowny face and a "bullpuckies" reply. God is perfect (assuming He even exists); platypusi are not. Idiocy trumps genius. Idiot-proof the Universe, and evolution will produce a better idiot.

So what? Being perfect is enough, on God's part alone, to allow whatever miraculous result, regardless whatever raw material he is working with. This means that he can succeed in "teaching the unteachable" through means "absolutely inadequate" even to "completely incapable subjects"; ergo, "able to explain quantum physics to a platypus using only three words, each of a different language, without pronouncing vowels".

You can't evoke the imperfection of the material to justify a bad result from a "perfect" being; that, vulnerability to external quality, detracts from the perfection in the first place.

The existence of God is not in question here. The thread makes the assumption that He does exist. I'm an atheist and I can still comfortably explore the question "okay, if God exists, then why did he create a world that kind of sucks?"

It's about God's motivations for why he did what he did. And there's no real point in debating that. We can only guess.

However, arguing over procedural hurdles is entirely fair game.

Never denied that, in fact, I've plain been saying that this is an assumption of the question of evil. If God is not assumed, than "evil" as a result of imperfect and indifferent natural processes poses no threat at all.

I understand what you said, but fail to see how it vindicates your critique of my argument.

Regards .

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

So what? Being perfect is enough, on God's part alone, to allow whatever miraculous result, regardless whatever raw material he is working with. This means that he can succeed in "teaching the unteachable" through means absolutely "absolutely inadequate" even to "completely incapable subjects"; ergo, "able to explain quantum physics to a platypus using only three words, each of a different language, without pronouncing vowels".

What if He can't?

 

[BasketCase]

So what? Being perfect is enough, on God's part alone, to allow whatever miraculous result

Bullpuckies.

It's impossible to get more energy out of a reaction than you put into it; it's impossible to combine two and two and get five; it's impossible to get BasketCase to like rap music or country; it's impossible for two objects to exist in the same space at the same time; it's impossible to store more than 10^65 bytes of computer data within a space of one cubic centimeter; and it's impossible to know the exact position and velocity of any given chunk of matter.

These are actual physical Laws of the Universe, that cannot be broken.


Ain't my problem if you mangled the definition of "perfect".


Edit: Time for my next creation.



Whether this is FredLC, or me--or both--is up to you.

 

[FredLC]

What if He can't?

Bullpuckies.

It's impossible to get more energy out of a reaction than you put into it; it's impossible to combine two and two and get five; it's impossible to get BasketCase to like rap music or country; it's impossible for two objects to exist in the same space at the same time; it's impossible to store more than 10^65 bytes of computer data within a space of one cubic centimeter; and it's impossible to know the exact position and velocity of any given chunk of matter.

These are actual physical Laws of the Universe, that cannot be broken.


Ain't my problem if you mangled the definition of "perfect".


Edit: Time for my next creation.

(removed pic)

Whether this is FredLC, or me--or both--is up to you.

Than - for both of you - we are discussing something different than the common understanding of god.

If god is a slave to consequences, much of the incongruence that he is accused of indeed disappears, and the critique addressed falls in the realm of lack of evidence, not in the realm of conceptual inconsistency.

But - and this is a big "but" - my problem with this approach is that those who advocate this always evoke god's power as "enough to do this or that" whenever it's convenient, and after that throw his shortness of supremacy to get out of any corner in questions of ambiguity such as the problem of evil.

IOW, I think this may even be well-meaning, but is a rather dishonest approach to the problem, where the character of god lacks any consistency and is always argued to be whatever the person defending him wants him to in each passing moment.

Regards .

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Well, humans having an inconsistent or limited understanding of what He can do is different from His character actually being inconsistent.

 

[FredLC]

Ah, but every time the event is flatering, understanding curiously becomes simple.

People get cancer and die? God works in misterious ways.

Cancer gets cured? It's a miracle of loving Jesus.

Really... how much does it take to see that thinking here is directly wishful?

Regards .

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

People get cancer and die? God works in misterious ways.

Cancer gets cured? It's a miracle of loving Jesus.

I don't see these as necessarily entirely inconsistent.

Really... how much does it take to see that thinking here is directly wishful?

Maybe a lot of people do engage in wishful thinking when it comes to this, but that has little bearing on how and what God actually is. Or isn't, as the case may be.

 

[gangleri2001]

Because he's either not all knowing, not all powerful, not all good, or a logical contradiction!

(most people who aren't convinced by the problem of evil have a methodologically incoherent way of distinguishing good from bad, so that's how they get out of the problem)

The pagan gods are not all knowing, not all powerful and not all good. So there's no logical contradiction.