by Shining One 43 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I read what the fellow wrote. But of course all this stuff on evil vs. good has no existence on evil.
Good has always been. The word evil is man's understanding the opposit of good. If anything, God created good,,,which is purity.....anything less man created evil, or whatever one thing is opposit of good.
Since Satan is the opposit of Good......man said...evil.......or whatever you like your fancy...:-)
My opinion folks...lol
But something did happen in which evil-the loss of good-took place
For that to be true, God cannot be all-knowing and all-powerful, because He would have known about the loss of good and have had the power to rectify it.
I'm sure God had a good reason for allowing evil.
Same old non-explanation given by many churches.
the ultimate reason we were created was not so we can have fun and enjoy life. God's purpose for creating us was to develop us into certain types of people who were fit to spend eternity with Him.
Then why did He create so many ppl with a burning desire to derive happiness from their lives? Ppl actually have happiness as a lifelong pursuit. Living without it is not merely a small sacrifice or exercising self control; it is pure misery.
a bunch of adult two-year-olds, grown-ups who believe it's their divine right to feel every pleasure they can possibly feel, to never encounter any difficulty, any pain, any suffering. And if they do, then God must be a cruel God.
There are some people like that. IMO m ost recognize and accept that happy lives are a potpourri of good times & bad. Wanting happiness is neither immature nor selfish. If "God" really believes that, then I sure as hell don't want to worship him, let alone spend eternity with him. That's why I left the dubs. All they had to offer was a false hope of living in eternal boredom, celibacy, and misery--forever on earth with a bunch of twisted control freaks.
On a sliding scale, what is good and what is evil? Where do YOU draw the line? What issues do you scrutinise by this standard?
Personally I find the idea of not allowing everyone free healthcare, at the point of need, barbaric. Alas, there are few nations, even in the Western world, that adhere to this standard. It's probably just as well I live in Britain then, huh?
Everything is subjective...
Finally, an intelligent response! I applaud you, Hellraiser.
>The underlying idea in that article is and age-old idea: That this is the "best of all possible worlds". I believe Leibniz was the first to sum up this idea. One aspect of this belief is that even though bad things happen to innocent people in the world, as a result of mans free will (the will do do evil things towards others), then this has to be, because free will is in itself a greater good (for all mankind) than the painful things that some people have to experience because of free will (other peoples bad behaviour, war etc, which is what these other people chose). A problem for this idea, is, of course, natural disasters! Why did God create the planet in such a way that earthquakes, storms, tornados, etc, happens? Couldn`t God have created it otherwise? Both of these issues (both pain inflicted on innocent people who did no wrong, as well as natural disasters) begs the question:
Creation has fallen along with man and entropy has set in. Weather is primarily a neutral force of the natural world. Our world is alive and life might not exist in a static environment, just like it cannot exist on the worlds like Jupiter and Saturn that are the opposite extreme. Have you ever seen scientific studies of just how precise our world is in it's physical make up and within the solar system?
>Is God really omnipotent? Was this the best he could do? Was it not possible for God to create the world in such a way that natural disasters didn`t happen, and was it not possible for God to create man with free will without this free will having consequenses for innocent people (when some people choose evil, and inflict pain on others)? If this was not possible for God, then God too is subjected to "natural laws", just as man, and he is NOT omnipotent (but could be good/benevolent). If God could have created the world otherwise, but didn`t then God is omnipotent but not good/benevolent.
Nope, you cannot reason it out that easily, you assume top much knowledge and credit for human, finite reasoning.
>You can`t have it both ways...
God can and does!
Rex
>god" is making my family pay for Adam's mistake? How is that not evil?
If you have some problem like this I do not want to say anything hurtful. First of all, beyond Adam there is no innocent human being. The world is always about 18-20 years from descent into barbarity: Human beings when left to their own means to grow up are absolutely inclined to evil or sin. I.E.,You don't have to teach a child to lie or be selfish.
The age of 'enlightenment' brought about the idea that if you just gave man the right social structure he would be a responsible and reasonable individual. None of it works. All of the social systems and governments are predisposed to fail and that is true of the U.S., just as well as the others. The seeds of destruction were sown into the system despite it's relative success. The reason it has lasted this long and with the strength that it has had over the last century is because of the laws inspired primarily by the Judeo-Christian religious base.
I believe that Pat Buchanon has a good book on the subject but I cannot bring it to mind right now...
Rex
just checking in to see if "Shining One" posted his own thoughts. Leaving now.
The greater the truth - the shorter the explanation. Jesus was a master at this.
What is evil?
Rebellion.
UpanAtom-
That's short and sweet allright, Evil=Rebellion. (?)
Maybe it's too short and sweet.
Nope, you cannot reason it out that easily, you assume too much knowledge and credit for human, finite reasoning.
Ah, the old "God's thoughts are higher than your thoughts" trick! Seen in other guises as "God works in mysterious ways", "It's a divine mystery", etc.
Well, that just begs another question, to add to Hellraiser's:
Why did God create humans with such a limited reasoning ability? If our eternal salvation depends on our exercising faith in God, yet many (the majority) find it impossible to exercise such faith because they cannot understand this issue, isn't that inherently unfair? Why would God create humans with X amount of reasoning ability, then say "unless you have faith in my explanation, which requires 10X reasoning ability to fully understand, you are condemned"?
Rebellion can be a good thing. Oppressed peoples rebel.
