Hey, we can all relate to that thinking process. I mean, if you were to design and construct a new type of defibrillator, and you were somehow able to determine with 100% certainty in advance how your current design would work in a real life situation, you would of course forego that knowledge; choose not to know, to simply make things more interesting. Like a patient dieing. Same if you were to design a car, and you could know how it would work in traffic. Much more exciting not to know. It's the spice of life and all that. So a few people die, so what? It's more fun not knowing.
You know, I've yet to meet a JW who can explain this
by Lady Zombie 63 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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WTWizard
Now that I no longer abide by the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger, I will explain it. God is missing one of the three qualities that make Him a God worthy of worship. He is either not omniscient, not omnipotent, or not maximally benevolent (or more than one of the above). I believe he is not maximally benevolent. Hence, He could willfully and deliberately create beings with feelings, and then go out of His way to hurt them. He also has the will to punish humans for sins (that is, if you could call attempting to liberate mankind from a potential tyranny yet to come a sin) committed by angels.
If God were wicked, that would fully explain all the atrocities He has committed. There simply is no way for a God with all three attributes to allow humans to suffer. But, if He was omniscient and omnipotent, but wicked and evil, He would gleefully punish people for trying to think for themselves and demand redundant sacrifices that are totally wasteful. Which is what He has been doing, and what He continues doing to this day.
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james_woods
And of course there is this recursion loop thing going on with this -
OK, I am God. Maybe Adam will sin, Maybe NOT??? OK OK, I just can't peek --- but I could if I wanted to. But if I thought that he might sin, then that means that he might really sin - so that means that I can't say that he WONT...But, I cant say that he WILL either, because I cannot peek into the future. Maybe some day some physicist named Erwin Schroedinger will put a cat into a box with a bottle of poison - but is the cat going to be alive or dead at the same time? I cannot even think about it, I might have the answer and then that would ruin quantum physics...BTW, I never did trust that slimy devil Satan - and I think I spotted him using the X-ray vision thing on Eve. Eve is sort of a fox, all right - but the brunette Lilith has better moves. But I cannot peek, because I am God. Maybe Satan peeked...
Maybe I am God, but I think that I am going crazy.
Maybe I will just have to kill them all.
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tinker
I have asked many JW's this, from pubs to CO's, their answer is always the same: You THINK to much
thus my name Tinker = Thinker
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Rapunzel
The question can become even more complicated still if a person accepts even the possibility of a plurality of worlds, that is to say, if you accept the idea that there might possibly be intelligent life on other planets in the universe.
If a person does accept such a possibility, then a person might wonder if the "Adam and Eve/garden of Eden" scenario played itself out. Did God and Satan go around to various planets and play their little game? Was it like a card game - "Let's see who can win the best out of 10" [or the best out of 10,000,000,000,000. After all, there are potentially an infinite number of planets in an infinite universe, and it seems that both God and Satan have a lot of time on their hands]?
It all boils down to the issue of theodicy. It was a German philosopher named Leibniz who first coined the term theodicy, based on the Greek theos [God] and dike [justice]. Although it was Leibniz who first coined the term, the notion or idea was raised by "pagan" [pre-Christian] philosophers such as Epicurus who posed his famous tetralemmaof religion to show that the hypothesis of a creator God is not plausible:
1.) Either God wanted to eliminate evil and could not, which means God is impotent. However, this cannot be the case for God.
2.) Or else, God could eliminate evil, and did not want to, which means God is evil. However, this is [supposedly] foreign to God's nature.
3.) Or else, God neither could eliminate evil nor wanted to, which means that God is both evil and impotent. In which case God is not God
4.) Or else God both wanted to eliminate evil and could eliminate evil, which is the only hypothesis that truly corresponds to God. However, in this case, the question is, where does evil come from and why does God not eliminate it?
Leibniz summed the main issue up in two questions - "If God exists, whence evil? If God does not exist, whence good?
All of this presupposes a personal, creator God. There are great religious traditions that presuppose no such thing. If that is the case, the problem of theodicy becomes a moot point entirely.
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Finally-Free
I've always had a problem with the punishment not fitting the crime. What's this business of thousands of years of war, sickness, death, atrocities just because Adam and Eve ate some lousy fruit? What does that have to do with me? Or with victims of the holocaust?
W
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BONEZZ
You are a Zombie after my heart. I have asked this many times....and as for God "not peeking" at the future, doesn't that contradict the ol' "bruise 'em in the heel and bruise 'em head" prophecy? I used to call it "selective future peeking."...much to the disgruntlement of my many bible study conductors.
tinker - "You think too much"...what a great motto for the WBTS. I can see it on their new Watchtower masthead. "YOU THINK TOO MUCH...THAT'S WHY YOU NEED US"....OR ...."DON'T WORRY, LET US THINK FOR YOU."
-BONEZZ
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Simon
Because if he does exist (which I don't believe) then he's a cruel, evil being who likes to create creatures and sit back to watch them suffer.
Of course religious types won't accept that all their premises cannot be true all at once: you have to give up the omnipotence or the loving god, you can't have both.
Either way, it's not worthy of worship.
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OnTheWayOut
you have to give up the omnipotence or the loving god, you can't have both.
I like that.
I have met and know people who don't think their sufferings through disease,
disability, war, abuse, etc. would think that God can make it all worth it. -
Slappy
Is that what you want? Answers from somebody else? Will you even attempt to believe what they have to say even if it makes sense? Or will you put all of your time and effort into coming up with "ideas" that prove said explanations wrong? Have any of you actually attempted to read the Bible? Or are you afraid of what you might find? Fear is debillitating isn't it?
Sorry if that was a little scathing, but it's so frustrating when people ask all these questions and won't bother searching for the answers themselves. Since nobody is able to give them a "satisfactory" answer, they feel justified in their belief that God doesn't exist or that He isn't who the Bible says He is. Granted, the questions you ask have merit, but I think it has to do more with the spirit in which you ask them.
I'm not a JW, and would ask that you not judge God and what He gives us in His Word based solely on what JWs say, or any organized religion for that matter. Religion, in my opinion, is another institution set up by man to gain control over something he didn't previously have control over, God. Sorry, that's a soapbox of mine, and I'll try to stay away from it.
As for reading the Bible, you could start anywhere. I myself am rather fond of Romans 14, and would urge everybody to read that portion. I feel that many people who know and fear God have forgotten what Paul lays out in that chapter. As a result we (yes, even myself at times) do not act in a way that is according to God's desire thereby giving false impressions of who and what God is to those who don't believe. That's why God urges us to seek Him, that way He will give us a true representation of Himself. It is something that we have to do for ourselves, others cannot do it for us.
Granted, if you don't believe in God, it's easy to rationalize that it's not worth the time to read a book on something that doesn't exist. But, that being said, can you say with 100% certainty that there is no God in existence? I was raised in a "christian home" (as people like to call it), so you can argue that I was brain-washed (or whatnot) as a child and am therefore biased in my beliefs. However, it has been my experiences over my life (23 years...so you can also argue that I haven't had time to see enough to dissuade my belief in God) that have not only verified my belief in God, but strengthened my relationship with Him. One question that I have found useful to ask myself and others is this "In 80 yrs (give or take a few) does all of this really matter?" The point is that if there is no God, then what is the point of our existence? To enjoy our time here on earth for the brief while we are here? Seems rather pointless doesn't it? But if there is a God, then there is a point, because after our time here, we move onto the next stage in "life". So I ask this again, "Can you say with absolute certainty that there is no God?" Because what if you're wrong and there is a God? Is your pride worth what may come afterward?
Sorry for not directly answering your questions (which I'm sure a few of you will bash me for), but my point is that I want you to search, with an open mind (which is why I suggest Romans 14), for the answers yourself. You're not afraid are you?
bk