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The Problem Of Evil?

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  • #31
    Originally posted by Alien View Post
    Boy this a good old one, but there's always a bit of flavor left in a stick of gum, no matter how long you chew it.
    Even if you leave it on your bedpost overnight?




    The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

    Comment


    • #32
      Originally posted by seer View Post

      One could ask this. If man never fell, could we have ever known, in practical application, the depths of His love and mercy? How far He was willing to go to redeem us?
      Seriously? This is an all knowing all powerful being you're talking about here. Step back a bit and think about it. Here's God, all alone. He decides to create us, for whatever reason. He wants us to know these things about him. So he creates us fallible, so we would "fall". Then he decides on a system of rewards and punishment that depends on our working out certain things about him from limited evidence. Most fail and "have to be punished". In the process, huge amounts of collateral suffering ensues.

      That was the best way an all knowing /all powerful (and loving!) being can think of to teach us stuff?

      Comment


      • #33
        Originally posted by Alien View Post
        Boy this a good old one, but there's always a bit of flavor left in a stick of gum, no matter how long you chew it.

        This has been mostly covered, but I'll throw in another idea. Why would a perfect and all powerful being need to be loved? Or to have glory (in the eyes of whom?). I got the following from a Da'var I get from a Rabbi (nice guy, he'll answer my questions sometimes). Basically, it goes like this: God needs nothing from us. His only desire/function (that's not quite the meaning) is to help us.

        Though I don't think the evidence supports that, it does make sense from a logical point of view. What would a 3-omni God need from us? Maybe he got bored and made the universe and us to pass the time? That still doesn't explain the problem of evil though.

        Mossy, you threw in the "mysterious ways" card. It makes sense in a way, but it makes all this discussion redundant. "Don't try to understand God because you can't".
        I don't think God "needs" our love. We need his love.

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        • #34
          Originally posted by Sparko View Post

          He sounds a bit like Dave L. Calvinism.
          Who sounds a bit like Dave?

          Calvinism is not a dirty word, any more than fundamentalism is. There are degrees of each.


          Securely anchored to the Rock amid every storm of trial, testing or tribulation.

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          • #35
            Originally posted by Sparko View Post

            He sounds a bit like Dave L. Calvinism.
            Yes, especially at the end. On the other hand it's worth a read for the way he describes the other explanations for the problem of evil. Remarkably accurate.

            But yes, it's still essentially "God wants everything to be the way it is, get used to it". Which kind of shifts it from "the problem of evil" to "the problem of God" in my view. I have a mental picture of a parent beating a child and saying "this hurts me more than it hurts you" *. And he lost me when after admitting God wants evil to exist, he claims that God is still "holy", whatever that means.

            * I think the best response from the child would be "OK let me hit you and we'll both feel better".

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            • #36
              What does Holiness mean exactly? It sorta means like "the Other". It's something abysmally horrifying and existential and if you encountered it, you would die. It's the Ancient of Days, the Alpha and the Omega.

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              • #37
                Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post

                Even if you leave it on your bedpost overnight?



                I can always rely on you CP. Would love to meet up and share jokes over a beer!

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                • #38
                  Originally posted by seer View Post

                  Right, it really is only a matter of timing. God will eventually end all evil and harm.
                  That has echoes of the White Queen's comment about jam.
                  "It ain't necessarily so
                  The things that you're liable
                  To read in the Bible
                  It ain't necessarily so
                  ."

                  Sportin' Life
                  Porgy & Bess, DuBose Heyward, George & Ira Gershwin

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by Machinist View Post

                    Very well. And if they didn't choose to partake of the fruit, then life on Earth would have carried on per plan B.

                    God's need for humans to love Him with their own free could still be fulfilled.
                    Nitpick: "God's need" is a poor choice of words, at least to those with a relatively orthodox view of the Deity. God doesn't "need" anyone or anything.
                    Geislerminian Antinomian Kenotic Charispneumaticostal Gender Mutualist-Egalitarian.

                    Beige Federalist.

                    Nationalist Christian.

                    "Everybody is somebody's heretic."

                    Social Justice is usually the opposite of actual justice.

                    Proud member of the this space left blank community.

                    Would-be Grand Vizier of the Padishah Maxi-Super-Ultra-Hyper-Mega-MAGA King Trumpius Rex.

                    Justice for Ashli Babbitt!

                    Justice for Matthew Perna!

                    Arrest Ray Epps and his Fed bosses!

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      Originally posted by NorrinRadd View Post

                      Nitpick: "God's need" is a poor choice of words, at least to those with a relatively orthodox view of the Deity. God doesn't "need" anyone or anything.
                      Well thank you for pointing that out. Perhaps "desire" would be a better word choice?

                      For me though, Norrin, I have never reconciled the opposites. In my mind, it is incomprehensible to me that God had eternal foreknowledge that man was going to fall, yet proceeded with his plan nonetheless, without considering the the possibility that man may not fall. If it cannot be said that God had a plan B just in case Adam and Eve resisted temptation, then what Dave L has been preaching around here would actually be more logically consistent.





                      Comment


                      • #41
                        e
                        Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

                        That has echoes of the White Queen's comment about jam.
                        Another country heard from...
                        Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Originally posted by seer View Post
                          e

                          Another country heard from...
                          Yes. The Biblical scholar has arrived so we can all rest on our laurels while she sets us straight.


                          Securely anchored to the Rock amid every storm of trial, testing or tribulation.

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            It seems to me, especially for Christians, that if we really believe that God is the standard for goodness and justice we must have confidence that He knows what He is doing. We are living in the shadow lands, we don't see the end of things, we don't always understand why He allows what He does. Often it seems that our moral sense does not track with our concept of how a loving God should act or be. But we have to ask, on what basis could our ethical sense rise above His? Could a stream rise above its source? I think the question for Christian is - will we trust that God is good - even here in the light of so much evil?
                            Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Originally posted by seer View Post
                              It seems to me, especially for Christians, that if we really believe that God is the standard for goodness and justice we must have confidence that He knows what He is doing. We are living in the shadow lands, we don't see the end of things, we don't always understand why He allows what He does. Often it seems that our moral sense does not track with our concept of how a loving God should act or be. But we have to ask, on what basis could our ethical sense rise above His? Could a stream rise above its source? I think the question for Christian is - will we trust that God is good - even here in the light of so much evil?
                              So you do see that it doesn't track? For me, it really doesn't track. I'm just thinking that maybe there are other views worth exploring that would provide better answers.




                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by Machinist View Post

                                So you do see that it doesn't track? For me, it really doesn't track. I'm just thinking that maybe there are other views worth exploring that would provide better answers.
                                It doesn't always track. We see a lot of evil in the world, but also a lot of good. And personally I'm not after better answers, I take God's self disclosed moral nature as fact, so I trust He knows where He is taking this and the fact as a limited, finite being I do not see the full picture.

                                Like the old song says:

                                "Trials dark on every hand
                                And we may not understand
                                All the ways the God would lead us
                                To that blessed promised land
                                But he'll guide us with his eyes
                                And we'll follow 'til we die
                                And we'll understand it better by and by..."


                                The question isMachinist, can you wait for the answers yet still remain faithful?

                                Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                                Comment

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