by cofty 2596 Replies latest jw experiences
jgnat - Outstanding work on topic. Thank you.
PSac - You are arguing a defense for a some other god who is not the one of christian theism. Your god is a helpless and hapless spectator. A celestial agony aunt dispensing useless platitudes.
Not a single word you have typed so far in any way contributes to the actual topic.
Your particular belief system demands however, that this is a God-created nature. A perfect God creating a flawed nature that sometimes comes crashing down on humanity with devastating effect. You absolve God from this flaw. Cofty doesn't.
This is the part I can't figure out....
I can easily, with almost no intellectual effort, dream up a world in which there is free will, and consequences for making "bad" decisions, in which world excruciating pain and torment and suffering do not exist.
If I, an imperfect, (relatively) immoral mere human can imagine such a world, why couldn't an omniscient & omnipotent god do so as well? And if he could imagine it, why didn't he create it?
In other words, go back to the time before the world existed. You're God, and you're drawing up the blueprints for "the universe". Why intentionally create a world in which intense and prolonged suffering of creatures over billions of years is such an integral part?
Let me guess - "it's a mystery", and "you can't judge God".
The God of christian theism is one that punished us with death and suffering, according to the bible. It is NOT natural--(Paradise Earth-remember?)
Suffering in childbirth and death were named early on for disobedience --with more to come....
Suffering and death in the OT was not designed and not understood as edifying us-- as anything but our fault for being children of Adam and Eve.
I am just not able to follow your re-invention of the God of the bible, Psac. Your points of reference to the Word of God no stronger than mine--and I don't hold to them at all.
What ground are you standing on? I, for instance, can stand on the teachings of Jesus' compassion teachings without having to support the dead weight of a NOT-self sacrificing diety. (hear, hear M*A*S*H)
Really, I can love the Jesus story and not believe in god at all---And Compassion is as bright and lustrous as ever. And even more so, devoid of the everlasting life motif and resurrection promise.
The suffering deaths of the thousands in the tsunami are just so many nail in god's coffin. Yet the story of the Good Samaritan is no less beautiful and relevant to me.
Maeve
Psac,
More data which refutes your compassion theory (the study doesn't suggest religious people aren't generous, just that their motivations are more likely due to a sense of responsibility rather than human compassion):
Religious People Less Driven By Compassion Than Are Atheists And Agnostics, Study Says
Published: 05/01/2012 12:11 PM EDT on LiveScience
Atheists and agnostics are more driven by compassion to help others than are highly religious people, a new study finds.
That doesn't mean highly religious people don't give, according to the research to be published in the July 2012 issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. But compassion seems to drive religious people's charitable feelings less than other groups.
"Overall, we find that for less religious people, the strength of their emotional connection to another person is critical to whether they will help that person or not," study co-author and University of California, Berkeley social psychologist Robb Willer said in a statement. "The more religious, on the other hand, may ground their generosity less in emotion, and more in other factors such as doctrine, a communal identity, or reputational concerns."
The actual study:
My Brother’s Keeper?
Compassion Predicts Generosity More Among Less Religious Individuals
About "natural disasters are part of nature", which I agree. Your particular belief system demands however, that this is a God-created nature. A perfect God creating a flawed nature that sometimes comes crashing down on humanity with devastating effect. You absolve God from this flaw. Cofty doesn't.
You speak about my beliefs and even though I orginally said that the problem of suffering is THE biggets issue I have in Christianity, say that I absolve God from this problem, this flaw in nature, the flaw that nature is imperfect, that the world that God created is imperfect and could have been created far better.
I don't absolve God of his responsibility in creating this world, far from it (even though I am a evolutionary thiest), I may accept that the world is the way it is because it can be no other way AND have us here as were are right now, BUT I don't h ave to like it ( and I don't).
I do accept that God has His reason and no, they are not a mystery and YES we can judge God ( I know I do).
I accept that humans are not immortal and they die, that the universe, thei world IS the way its and that humans, coming later, have to adapt and survive and that this world is not suppose to change and that God makes it clear that it won't change ( we will eventually to the point that the way the world is won't matter as much).
I think it is horrifc that people have to die, the number is not relevant to me because even ONE death is one too many BUT we DO DIE, we do suffer and we have evolved that way, all life is MORTAL and God has made no promises for THIS life in THIS state untill the END comes.
I don't like it anymore than you do, perhaps hate it even more BUT I have hope in Christ and see in what He has done, His self-sacrfice for Us, as soemthing I deem worthy of worship. BUT that is MY view, you have to choose yours.
You don't think God worthy or even a very good God ( I know you don't think he exists) because the world He created is not a very good one, that it could have been made different and you MAY be right ( though you have no proof of that, that human life as it is could have come to be in a different world as this is), you may be right that there is no excuse for creating a world full of pain and suffering with no good reason that you cna accept.
I understand that completly and I am not asking to to agree with my POV.
As for not contributing to the topic, well, I did my best and I apologise for wasting anyones time.
That said, I thank the people that PM'd me for sharing my view and that agreed with me ( to whatever degree that they agreed).
Psac,
More data which refutes your compassion theory (the study doesn't suggest religious people aren't generous, just that their motivations are more likely due to a sense of responsibility rather than human compassion)
My "compassion theory" as you put it, means that suffering is what develops compassion, it has ZERO to do with religion at all.
It is obvious I have hit a nerve. I was projecting the consequences of your statements (God's non-interference for instance) and if that doesn't match your personal beliefs, then there's come dissonance in there somewhere.
PS "You don't think..." - you are not reading carefully, and you are projecting on to an imagined antagonist. I still believe in God.
I contribute to threads like this when apologists stop listening.
It is obvious I have hit a nerve. I was projecting the consequences of your statements (God's non-interference for instance) and if that doesn't match your personal beliefs, then there's come dissonance in there somewhere.
No, not really, no dissonance at all, I simply accept that there are things that happen that God does nothing about that I would LIKE him to do something about, even if I understand why He doesn't.
it could have been made different and you MAY be right
"With God, all things are possible".
If I "may be" right, this implies I "may be" wrong.
If I am wrong: Why would an omnipotent god be constrained from creating a different kind of world? Who or what placed those constraints?
If I am wrong: Why would an omnipotent god be constrained from creating a different kind of world? Who or what placed those constraints?
A good question and one that depends on once view of the creative process, yes?
If on beleives God created everything AS IS, then it is a valid question and would get a reply inline with that view.
I don't subscribe ot that view.
I believe God set in motion the creative process and the laws of physics that contolled it.
I believe THIS world is the way it is because that is the only way it can be based on the laws of physcis in THIS universe.
Just as God can't make a square triangle, He can't make a world be outside the very laws of physics of this universe.
