Spirituality Can God witness murder? And what about the after life?
- Thread starter Blobbenstein
- Start date
Once again I'm going to reiterate that this is just my personal beliefs, and as such it doesn't follow any established religion/philosophy that I'm aware of. Also I could be wrong. I try to keep my personal philosophy from becoming too hidebound, but as I'm a human being (as far as you know) I'm prone to make either/or statements and get stuck in the belief that I'm always right. -I try to fight that, but it can be difficult.
Anyway..
If I take your above post and remove all the suffering that you mentioned that was caused directly by human action (necessity for that answered in my beliefs about in the good/evil/free will posts) what your left with is acts of God: famine, disease, accidents, birth defects, fire, natural disasters, etc. And many of these are actually caused by man, or easily solvable by acts of good will, which would go back to the good vs. evil dichotomy.
For what's left:
When I was talking about growth I didn't mean only in the limited area of personal mental/ethical growth. I was talking about the growth of knowledge, technology, overall human philosophy, etc. I was also talking about growth through evolution (which is how I believe God created us, and I don't think he's done). All of these are in some way provided with impetus by suffering.
I also didn't mean to limit it to human beings.
This, in a nutshell, is why I refute organized religion. Either there isn't an omnipotent god, or there is and he is such an ******* that I wouldn't want to worship him anyway. Honestly, why are so many people lining up to worship a being who by most accounts is a pretty terrible person?
Not being omnipotent isn't bad. But the omnipotence of God is part of the premise of Judeo Christian religions. I'm not sure whether that's also true for Islam?
If God isn't omnipotent, what actually makes him God?
That comes close to the way people used to consider monarchs divine.
FortyTwo
Custom Title
Well, they had might, not personal power.
But I know what you mean.
I blame comics for cheapening the concept of "omnipotent".
FortyTwo
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I mean actual, you-control-literally-everything omnipotence, not I'm-very-strong-gee-I-hope-Superman-doesn't-defeat-me omnipotence.
OP
OP
FortyTwo
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In the case of an omnipotent God who cares about his creations and also would like to give them free will (as is supposed to be represented in the Bible), He would be able to set up conditions so nothing bad ever happens, while still giving them free will. It sounds weird until you consider that a truly omnipotent being would actually be able to do that. For example, what about criminally insane murderers? Is it their free will that their brain is telling them to kill people? Not really. You'd think that a God who believes in free will would, you know, give them free will and alleviate the suffering of those whose lives are destroyed by them. Because an omnipotent being could do that.
Also, why have things die? So they can come party with you later? Why not party with them now? Why not make them immortal? Oh, that's right, a snake made them eat fruit and that made God angry and vengeful like he's supposedly not, on one of the ridiculously numerous occasions where he demonstrates these traits in the Bible?
I just don't get it. The Bible itself sets up a jealous and uncaring yet pretty much omnipotent God, yet most Christians seem set on convincing others that God loves humans, God is amazing, God wants everyone to be happy. Every little explanation adds to what is basically a train wreck trying to explain simple truths in a much more fantastic way that doesn't need to exist and has caused much grief throughout the ages.
Sorry if I'm coming across as snarky and rude, but I'm just getting more and more sick of this whole mess the more and more I hear people trying to rationalize it.
OP
OP
well wouldn't the scientific approach be to treat the idea of God as a hypothesis?
Rather than say God has to be this or that, assume there is a God and then think about what he might be.
You wouldn't approach dark matter by saying it has to be this or that; all you know is that there is an effect, of which you don't know what the cause is, and that is sort of what believers in God do, and they try to fill in the gaps with their own ideas.
I don't think it is particularly a good approach to say: God has to be omnipotent, and if he is omnipotent then he must be an a-hole, and if he is not omnipotent, then he's not much of a god. It just seems like a let-out clause for atheists. Like I said before, all based upon a very human concept of what power is.
Rather than say God has to be this or that, assume there is a God and then think about what he might be.
You wouldn't approach dark matter by saying it has to be this or that; all you know is that there is an effect, of which you don't know what the cause is, and that is sort of what believers in God do, and they try to fill in the gaps with their own ideas.
I don't think it is particularly a good approach to say: God has to be omnipotent, and if he is omnipotent then he must be an a-hole, and if he is not omnipotent, then he's not much of a god. It just seems like a let-out clause for atheists. Like I said before, all based upon a very human concept of what power is.
I've never read anything in the Bible that required God to be Omnipotent (except where it say's he is) just extremely powerful.
jeneticallymodified
Forum Legend
what do you mean, 'what if'?What if we are all just a game of the sims?!
nobody told you.... i'm really sorry but i have to blurt out that i keep reading this as 'so how should things be if God was impotent?' and thinking "well, i spect Mrs God wouldn't be dead chipper about the whole thing...." stupid dirty english mind.
i'm not sure if scientists are supposed to be really big on assuming stuff without decent evidence to support the assumptions, are they?
OP
OP
I'm not sure if scientists do this but in maths you can assume anything, and then work from there, so you could say 'assume 1=3' and work from there to see what happens, see if you can prove it, so that's what I mean by 'assume there is a God'. You could equally say, 'assume there is a Yeti, what sort of food would it eat?'.
jeneticallymodified
Forum Legend
beancounter
The Fire That Burns Within
OP
OP
yes, that seems like a very human based argument, a human concept of what power God should have.
