I know, thanks for bringing that out, I wasn't attacking you.. Just asking questions.
Theists, why does God allow suffering..
by The Quiet One 754 Replies latest watchtower bible
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mP
There is no god watching over everyone. If there was, why should he like humans over other animals ? We already have enuff advantages, shouldnt he spend time helping animals ?
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Fernando
God has made humans the gatekeepers of the physical universe.
We can choose to channel good or evil.
By our rejecting God and his message we are rejecting his healing dominion over ourselves, the animals and this earth.
Therefore we may want to rephrase the question.
"Why does God allow us to allow evil?"
It seems the answer may be "free will".
When we freely choose to see and admit dysfunction and the need for God's cure-all solution then we can expect change.
(Why do followers of the Watchtower religion call themselves “publishers of the Good News” whilst unfamiliar with the “Good News” according to Paul, Moses, Isaiah and Psalms?)
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LisaRose
LisaRose -- How about the animals that were killed because they belonged to a city with 'bad people' in it/stoned along with someones family for the mans 'sin'/drowned in the flood/drowned in Red Sea etc. ? Not just sacrifices..
I am not a Thiest, and I don't believe everything in the bible, and this is one of the reasons why. In the wild, so called prey animals do not suffer as much as you would think, they usually go into shock and die quickly, but yes, sometimes they die a painful death. Animals do not worry about the eventually of dying as far as we know, but it is clear that they have feelings, they do hurt, so why did God create them just to suffer? If the lion is going to eat grass in the coming paradise, why did God make him an carnivore in the first place? Ricky Gervais, well known athiest, said "If God has a plan, it is very similar to somene having no plan". That is the problem with trying to prove the bible, you are starting with the premise that the bible is true, then you have to try force scientific facts to fit, rejecting anything that doesnt jibe, and still in the end you have questions like this. And every new scientific discovery proves evolution even more, so you are more and more out of step with reality
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The Quiet One
Well put, LisaRose.
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adamah
Fernando said:
"Why does God allow us to allow evil?"
It seems the answer may be "free will".
Nope, that explanation holds no water if someone understands how the Bible defines "God's Divine will" vs mankind's "free will". God's will ALWAYS TRUMPS man's free will, where violating it is a sin.
Per the Bible, death entered into the World by Adam's fall, where eating the fruit was a violation of Divine Will. Since that was the ONLY command recorded in the Bible up to that point, that was the ONE decision that Adam and Eve didn't have God's permission to make for themselves, using their free will decision-making capabilities. Thus, eating the forbidden fruit was the ONLY action Adam and Eve could take that WASN'T a free-will decision, since it would be a violation of God's Will, and hence a sin (which is the Bible's explanation for how sin and evil entered into the World).
So If God truly didn't want to let evil enter into the World, He should've not made it possible for sin to occur by not starting in with "Thou Shalts" and the "Thou Shalt Nots", in the first place!
PS Oh, it was a REALLY BAD IDEA to place that Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the center of the Garden, without so much as putting a seraphim with a flaming sword to guard it. Seems kinda silly, if an omniscient God already knew He was only going to fly off the handle after they ate it!
Apparently faithless Eve didn't know about the reassuring words of James 1:13:
"When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone...."
The Eve story wasn't like that AT ALL, NO SIRREE! It's not like God gave the forbidden fruit a catchy name to target-market it to Eve, or made it look nutritious to eat, give it a delicious yummy aroma/scent, and loaded it with miraculous wisdom-granting powers (which God couldn't even over-ride, despite the granting of wisdom being a miracle, due to his Omnipotent Divine Power)! A God who could do all things didn't have the antidote, so it clearly was "out of his hands, and in God's God's hands"after they ate it!
Apparently a faithless Eve hadn't yet read 1 Cor 10:13, either (although not being omniscient, can we really blame her?):
And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
Cold comfort to a "perfect" Eve, who really couldn't have been so "perfect" if she was able to DESIRE (AKA covet, a violation of the ten commandments, with the "Thou Shalt Not Covet") things, since the behavior was later deemed to be a sin.
If that's not enough to convince you that it's only a story and NOT literal history, then here's more logical disassembly of a fascinating myth that's based on multiple other ancient sources (Epic of Gilgamesh, Pandora's Myth):
Adam
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mP
Fernando
God has made humans the gatekeepers of the physical universe.
We can choose to channel good or evil.
mP:
So we are gatekeepers of places we have never been and can never go. Thats total nonsense.
The concepts of good and evil only exist for humans. We never say flies or viruses are good or evil. You cant send a caterpillar to jail for being evil. Dogs cant rob banks.
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prologos
the creator allows suffering because those that avoid suffering are the survivors and this is a success-based universe.
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Badfish
To me, it appears as though all life-forms that procreate are subject to death and suffering. Many times, events leading up to death incur suffering. But if a life-form were allowed to be immortal while also having the ability to procreate, the earth, and eventually, the universe--if finite--would be filled up with that particular life-form. Think of the possibilities of an eternity of ever-increasing exponential growth of one particular immortal life form with the capability of reproduction. This is why the immortal creatures such as angels "do not marry nor are given in marriage."