Posts by Viviane

754

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

by The Quiet One in

..specifically, the suffering of animals.

you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

Viviane

As everyone knows for a fact, facts cannot be challenged. Case closed IF evolution is a fact.

Correct, that evolution did and continues to happen is a fact. Case closed.

754

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

by The Quiet One in

..specifically, the suffering of animals.

you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

Viviane

Animal suffering is a fact. But that does not prove that God is bad. A "proper foundation" has not been established as to what is good and bad either. You have your opinion BUT you are not running the USA

If you are claiming God is a creator and perfect love and and all omni, knowing a powerful, it creates a situation were all of those thing cannot be true. That is not an opinion unless you define live in some as yet unknown way (such as it is loving to allow 250K deaths). That is not an opinion. Whether or not anyone is running the USA has nothing to do with anyone.

Is everyone able to do the same thing with evolution? or is it a conclusion derived from facts and interpretation of facts?

It a measurable and demonstrable fact, as much as as the earth not being flat. Next question.

754

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

by The Quiet One in

..specifically, the suffering of animals.

you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

Viviane

Off topic then, does anyone know with certainty that "evolution" is how life developed?

Yes. Next question.

26

Are the USA and Russia the key actors in end time prophecy?

by scotoma in

jw
friends

what's the problem with prophecy?prophecy primarily requires a pattern recognition or insightful strategy not an analytical strategy.

prophecy rarely gives names whether of empires or their rulers.

even the name of the messiah - yeshua -wasn't foretold.

Viviane

End time prophecy requires a high tolerance for ambiguity.

So, prophecy is nothing more than vague hand waving with everyone left the guess and fill in the blanks because it said nothing at all, actually? Seems about right. So, not a single prophecy has ever, nor does is, have the possibility of coming true since it doesn't actually say anything.

You can brush this off as mere opinion. But if you don’t believe in the Bible you aren’t going to find a more educated opinion of the world’s situation.

You yourself said it is mere opinion. No prophecy actually says anything. You are the one filling in the blanks since the prophecy never says any of this and we've no proof of you having a hotline to Jesus, so it MUST only be opinion.

754

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

by The Quiet One in

..specifically, the suffering of animals.

you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

Viviane

That might be a simple calculation but without you defining anything it's pretty meaningless.

I recognized it immediately, Caedes. It's the most basic form of the slope-intercept equation for line equations. son just recently worked on that in school and I helped him with it, hence I've seen it a lot recently. Not sure what it's doing in this thread, however.

754

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

by The Quiet One in

..specifically, the suffering of animals.

you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

Viviane

In the context Cofty’s writing, is does. He referenced attributes of the animal and all attributes have a specific purpose

So, you are now telling me what Cofty meant? Also, since you've studied so much science (I know because you've told me!) you should know by now that using a laymans definition is a science discussion leads to much confusion. I'm sorry, but... you don't get to speak for Cofty nor decide that a valid use of a word isn't.

That depends on which evolutionary theory we are discussing, but let me rephrase. The deeper I study the biology of the human body, it becomes relatively clear that it is engineered and designed and has not evolved from nonadaptive causes, mutation or genetic drift (i.e. by chance).

No, it doesn't and if you think the human body was designed, it simply means God is a sh*tty designer.

The complexity and purpose of stem cell generation is pure genius. It is simply biological coding, the structure of the cell can be modified by giving it a new set of instructions (DNA/RNA).

So, if you're going to tell me life must have a designer, you probably shouldn't begin by telling me how complex it is and really simple. You're assuming purpose and complexity and then claiming it to be simple. You don't get both.

Although, I do not deny the evidence of evolutionary factors on many organisms, the fact remains that there is no empirical evidence to support evolution jumping species. In other words, a fish is fish, a mammal is a mammal and humans did not evolve from some aquatic species

That is blatantly untrue. This tells me that, without a doubt, you did not study evolution in depth as you claimed to.

That is why I started by saying, “we can probably argue this till the cows come home.” However my point is that it is plausible, and actually more reasonable to theorize that if the universe came into existence as the Big Bang, it did so by the initiation of the creator as opposed to just happening. Nothing “just happens” which is why we have science, to study and provide answers to the “why”.

No... that's what "no evidence" means. You have no argument, you no facts. You have a belief, which you can say you believe, awesome, but there is no objectively verifiable arguments, no evidence you can introduce. You're pretending something is more reasonable by way of "I believe this thing" rather than evidence and facts.

Basically, you're entire argument is one from personal incredulity.

754

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

by The Quiet One in

..specifically, the suffering of animals.

you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

Viviane

Although to design, someone must act as designer.

To say "the design of animal" is not implying a designer.

The deeper I study the biology of the human body, it becomes relatively clear that this did not happen by chance.

Evolution isn't "by chance".

The DNS RNA structure and programming clearly demonstrated a well-engineered model for cellular proliferation.

How so?

That said, I have also studded evolution and can see where within species, or as one species takes president over another, or when adaptation to survive in a changing environment is required that this is great example of programed engineering at the highest level.

What, specifically, are you thinking is programmed engineering by a designer?

The Big-bang, theory has relevance too for the creationist. We do it all the time when we use high explosives to start nuclear fission. So why couldn’t the universal engineer set up the physics, time, etc, to create and perpetuate matter into existence and start the underlying processes to develop what we know as the universe?

Sure. But... there is zero evidence for it.

102

A couple questions for atheists on Suffering

by little_Socrates in

who told you that the world should be free from suffering?.

do you find any value in suffering?.

do you think it is possible to experience all the beauty and goodness and pleasure the world offers without also experiencing the bad?

Viviane

In and of itself that is a pretty horrible event. However when taken as a whole with the whole human condition it doesn't make the world an evil place.

No one said it did. But, you said the ENTIRE human experience was beautiful. You are calling that beautiful. You are calling the deaths from the tsunami beautiful. You are calling every miscarriage beautiful. You are calling every death of a child beautiful.

Even if your argument is that it averages out, you would be arguing that it's OK to give you poison, making you sick because it averages out. Do you really want to start decided and comparing a child being raped and saying it's OK because someone else had a nice day?

Sickening.

754

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

by The Quiet One in

..specifically, the suffering of animals.

you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

Viviane

If you do not believe that God exists, you should not even be here. This is not for you.This is for theists. This discussion is moot for you. And if that is the case then the question asked on this thread is a rhetorical one, trying to show that God does not exist because he allows evil.

How else will theists know when their arguments are irrational without someone to point them out?

Then you have just answered your own conundrum from creation to evolution. Both views are arbitrary.

Evolution is evidence based and has multiple lines of evidence, predictive power and underpins modern biology and medicine.

Creationism has zero evidence.

102

A couple questions for atheists on Suffering

by little_Socrates in

who told you that the world should be free from suffering?.

do you find any value in suffering?.

do you think it is possible to experience all the beauty and goodness and pleasure the world offers without also experiencing the bad?

Viviane

My point about the victims you mentioned... even though they died tragically, it doesn't negate all the great things they experienced in life.

No, it doesn't, but if there is a creator God, then he is either a sh*tty creator or doesn't love his creation enough to give them a safe home.

Would you be fine if someone decided to crush each of your fingers with a hammer? After all, it doesn't negate the lovely dinner you had last night.

when atheists say "Why does God allow suffering" how do they define it? That is the definition I want to work towards.

Why would an atheist ask that? They don't believe in God, by definition. I think when you see that, it's a hypothetical as part of a conversation where the existence of God is assumed for the sake of conversation and there is someone, usually, a Christian, trying to say God is perfectly loving, omniscient and omnipotent.