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blind pew

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By that reasoning praising God is also worthless.

In and of itself, yes, it is ultimately worthless, but then again, He likes it, that's why we do it...

God has no need of the human race, but he enjoys and pays attention to us, some would say he even loves us, but ultimately? he has no real need of us.

Edited by Jor-el
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No one has tried to address natural evil yet. How do you reconcile that with an omnibenevolent God?

There are three answers to this.

First that there is no such thing as natural evil. Second that natural evil is simply natural. And third, that god created a world with no evil in it but that mankind brought evil into it,

Iin the first, which personally, i agree with, in a natural world there is no evil because evil is a choice whihc can only be made with an awareness of consequence. Earthquakes dont do evil. An insane man doesnt do evil. Animals dont do evil. Evil is a philosophical construct linked to a word devised by man, Thus without human level sentience, evil does not exist.

The second is like the first. An ape kills its rivals' offspring. That exists but is not evil, simply natural.

In the third, and biblical scenario, god created a world very differnt to today. There was no death decay pain or suffering No earthquakes bushfires etc. Only when man disassociated himself from the fabric of god did the world change and those things begin. That's a creationist view with which I do not concur, but it explains the present dichotomy of a good god and an evil world and that, I think, is the purpose/rationale for genesis as a story.

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I used to love this poem until I found it was a bunch of bull*****

Its a bunch of words.

How it affects you is your own choice. Sometimes that choice will be influenced by your own life but it doesnt have to be determined by it. My brotherinlaw had a copy for years and he had had times of great hardship in his life, including losing a son to suicide. It seemed corny to me because god never leaves my side and so I didnt quite get it, but then i began to uunderstand its purpose, and that my experience with god is not that of everyone.

Now we have two copies one poster size on my office wall and one magazine size on my wifes desk. They mean more to her than me, because she has to accept god's presence, in faith, but i also appreciate their intent.

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No one has tried to address natural evil yet. How do you reconcile that with an omnibenevolent God?

Is natural evil real? I thought it was a philosophical concept - what we believe is good or evil is a matter of choice of morality and perception.

We live in a world where everything changes, entropy eventually wins over all things here, nothing is permanent. We are born, live here awhile and die. We are passing through a realm of changes and ultimately decay.

If there is a God and a soul outside the body, why do we treat the material world as so precious? Wouldn't it make more sense to treat each other as precious as we are fellow souls on a journey through eternity after life here?

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I really liked that post libstak, but i disagree with one point. Even entropy is malleable to human imagination and technologies. I expect that, not too far in the future, we will find a way to avoid the effects of entropy, to overcome them, or to sidestep them.

At least our existence adds this potentiality to the universe.

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I really liked that post libstak, but i disagree with one point. Even entropy is malleable to human imagination and technologies. I expect that, not too far in the future, we will find a way to avoid the effects of entropy, to overcome them, or to sidestep them.

At least our existence adds this potentiality to the universe.

Not likely...that part is as preordained as the moment of creation, when the dominos started rolling...

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Not likely...that part is as preordained as the moment of creation, when the dominos started rolling...

Ah, but i do not believe in pre-ordination, given sapience. Ie. Neither in a natural world, nor in a created world, can preordination survive contact with human level (or above) sapient self awareness.

Was god preordained, and is god unable to alter the natural order of things?. If god created us as free willed beings like himself, then we have, within us, the potential to alter the natural /preordained order of things, just as god can. If god did not create us, but we are evolved beings, then the same is true.

Eventually, should we survive long enough, we will have the capacity to build entire universes and certainly to do easy things like create sapient lifeforms. Stopping entropy falls somewhere between those levels of difficulty

To use your analogy. Any sapient entity with sufficient technology can stop any domino from falling, reverse the fall of the dominoes, pick them up and start them again, or most simply, send them in a different direction..

Edited by Mr Walker
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First that there is no such thing as natural evil. Second that natural evil is simply natural. And third, that god created a world with no evil in it but that mankind brought evil into it,

Iin the first, which personally, i agree with, in a natural world there is no evil because evil is a choice whihc can only be made with an awareness of consequence. Earthquakes dont do evil. An insane man doesnt do evil. Animals dont do evil. Evil is a philosophical construct linked to a word devised by man, Thus without human level sentience, evil does not exist.

Natural evil (surd evil) is explained adequately enough in this wiki article;

"Moral evil results from a perpetrator, or one who acts intentionally and in so doing has flouted some duty or engaged in some vice. Natural evil has only victims, and is generally taken to be the result of natural processes. The "evil" thus identified is evil only from the perspective of those affected and who perceive it as an affliction. Examples include cancer, birth defects, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, acts of god, and other phenomena which inflict suffering with apparently no accompanying mitigating good."

No mitigating good (or greater good). That's key I think, the pain, suffering and death (aka evil) is gratuitous. Anyways, you can't deny the evidential problem of pain, suffering and death by denying it's evil. It's not moral evil like you said, but's still evil, as in something to be avoided.

The second is like the first. An ape kills its rivals' offspring. That exists but is not evil, simply natural.

This argument is called nomic regularity. a fancy way of saying "that's just the way things are"., and that's not really an answer is it? From the cited article above; "If such regularity has (natural) evil as a byproduct (perhaps including animal pain), those byproducts are morally permissible as long as the good of nomic regularity is outweighing." Again, it's the greater good emphasis, except no one has ever explained to me what this "greater good" might be.

In the third, and biblical scenario, god created a world very differnt to today. There was no death decay pain or suffering No earthquakes bushfires etc. Only when man disassociated himself from the fabric of god did the world change and those things begin. That's a creationist view with which I do not concur, but it explains the present dichotomy of a good god and an evil world and that, I think, is the purpose/rationale for genesis as a story.

Yes, that's the pre-lapsarian world argument where pain, suffering and death (aka evil) did not exist. You are right to disagree with this argument as the evidence against it (pre-hominid fossils) is overwhelming.

Thanks Walker, I've think we've been through this before.

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Why would anybody worship a god that allows children to be molested and killed? If you want my worship you need to give something in return.

I'm so tired of these threads where people are trying to pick fights with God. If you're unsatisfied that God isn't our personal Clark Kent Superman, save the day every day, then why don't you get off your ass and do something? Change the world, make it a better place, be the hero yourself if you think you can do a better job.

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No one has tried to address natural evil yet. How do you reconcile that with an omnibenevolent God?

"Natural evil" wasn't put forth in the question of the OP. The thread starter asked how we can worship a being that allowed children to be molested and killed. The statement was then put forth that God needs to give something to us if he wanted worship. I personally believe (and stated this in an earlier post) that if God created everything in this world then he's already given us our very existence, and that's reason enough to worship him. It's been said several times in this thread but people here arguing for God doing more seem to want God to be their own personal genie, granting wishes left and right, and nothing less than that is enough for them.

With that said, natural evil is just a part of life. People die and suffer every day. It's hard, but that's the way of things. Sure, it'd be nice if God stopped everyone from dying from anything except old age. If that was the case, then my father who had a heart attack two weeks ago would still be alive. But it isn't. In my opinion, God has bigger things on his mind than our happiness in this physical world. He has eternity to consider - an eternity where people will live as spirit beings without the frailties of humankind. With that eternal concept in mind, as tragic as my father's death was, as tragic as the deaths of those children two weeks back (my father passed on the same day as the shooting) there's a whole new existence waiting for them far beyond the existence we have now.

Just my thoughts, anyway :)

~ Regards, PA

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Then I ask you, what's the use in worshiping a god that doesn't do ****? You might as well pray to a doorknob.

You speak (well, type) as if prayer is about getting God to do things for us. Sure, in one sense we do bring our troubles before God and ask him to intervene. That doesn't mean he will directly and miraculously change the situation in your favour. Prayer isn't about asking God for stuff. Prayer is about talking to God. A relationship with God is, I believe, like any relationship. It develops through communication. That's where prayer fits in. We don't just use it to ask God for things. In fact, if you think about it, if we only ever spoke to God when we wanted something then it wouldn't be much of a relationship, would it? Think about life, if someone only ever spoke to you when they wanted to borrow money from you, are they truly your friend? No. They're what I would call a User. We shouldn't use God as if he is our cosmic wish-granter, but we can use God to talk to, share our problems and our burdens, share even the good times. Communicate.

That's what I believe, anyway.

~ Regards, PA

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"Natural evil" wasn't put forth in the question of the OP.

You're right. I shouldn't hijack threads.

The thread starter asked how we can worship a being that allowed children to be molested and killed.

And the answer to moral evil is free will. No problem there.

With that said, natural evil is just a part of life. People die and suffer every day. It's hard, but that's the way of things.

If it was for a greater good, it would be a plausible logical explanation. But the evidential problem of evil is harder to address.

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Not true.

If the core of one's belief system is to bring other's to their own belief, then by attempting to assimilate them is not an act of insecurity, but loyalty to their God. It is at the core of many religions across the world.

You see, to believe something means you believe it is true. Therefore it only makes sense for one to attempt to spread what they believe to be true.

So in a way, security in one's beliefs can actually be found be attempting to spread their beliefs (if their beliefs are founded on the conversion of others that is).

Insecurity is a sub-consious activity. If you are secure in your belief, and you want to persuade others to your way of thinking, that's all well and good...and normal...but to belittle other's beliefs is a sign of insecurity with one's own.

All beliefs of a Religious Nature are insecure beliefs at the core. There is never 'proof' of the truth one believes and so the possibility that it may not be the truth is always prevalent in the sub-conscious mind. The more one becomes 'convinced' that they are right and everyone else is wrong, the stronger the insecurity. It is the insecurity with belief that drives the 'I am right and you are wrong' mindset.

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You're right. I shouldn't hijack threads.

It was bound to come up in a discussion of this nature, so it's no biggie :)

And the answer to moral evil is free will. No problem there.

Just to throw a spanner in the works, but not everyone believes in free will. Predestination vs Free Will is and always will be a big argument (among Christians, at least).

If it was for a greater good, it would be a plausible logical explanation. But the evidential problem of evil is harder to address.

My personal beliefs (which were outlined in my previous post) don't really think of it as a "greater good", more like looking at it from a longer (eternal) time frame. But I have no empirical evidence of this, it's just my beliefs and I'm happy with them :yes:

~ Regards,

Edited by Paranoid Android
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My personal beliefs (which were outlined in my previous post) don't really think of it as a "greater good", more like looking at it from a longer (eternal) time frame.

Yes, this is a popular explanation. It's the same one Job got; "Where were you when I created the heavens?" In other words, it's an unfathomable mystery. But if you reply that it's a Mysterium Iniquitatis, that's not really an answer.

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Yes, this is a popular explanation. It's the same one Job got; "Where were you when I created the heavens?" In other words, it's an unfathomable mystery. But if you reply that it's a Mysterium Iniquitatis, that's not really an answer.

Not necessarily an unfathomable mystery, though there's certainly no clearly defined answer. I just happen to believe that God has in mind the eternity of the spirit, not the transitory nature of our fleshly being. With that perspective, the pain we go through here is also transitory and therefore the problem of "natural evil", as painful and hurtful as it may be, is not a great stumbling block (and certainly not one that demands God step in and prevent/diminish).

As an aside, I had to research about on mysterium iniquitatis, I'd never heard the term. I looked into a couple of sites, seems like an interesting topic, I'm not sure I agree with it all yet but I'll keep looking at them.

Thanks for the discussion, redhen :tu:

~ Regards,

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I really liked that post libstak, but i disagree with one point. Even entropy is malleable to human imagination and technologies. I expect that, not too far in the future, we will find a way to avoid the effects of entropy, to overcome them, or to sidestep them.

At least our existence adds this potentiality to the universe.

Ah yes, the opportunity for microscopic nanobots to run around our system repairing cells almost seems possible in the not so distant future.

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Ah, but i do not believe in pre-ordination, given sapience. Ie. Neither in a natural world, nor in a created world, can preordination survive contact with human level (or above) sapient self awareness.

Was god preordained, and is god unable to alter the natural order of things?. If god created us as free willed beings like himself, then we have, within us, the potential to alter the natural /preordained order of things, just as god can. If god did not create us, but we are evolved beings, then the same is true.

Eventually, should we survive long enough, we will have the capacity to build entire universes and certainly to do easy things like create sapient lifeforms. Stopping entropy falls somewhere between those levels of difficulty

To use your analogy. Any sapient entity with sufficient technology can stop any domino from falling, reverse the fall of the dominoes, pick them up and start them again, or most simply, send them in a different direction..

I don't think so, no matter how powerful mankind might one day become, and I do understand the type of power you are speaking of, (harnessing black holes, restructuring the very fabric of the universe), entropy is the single most certainty of the universe. You can slow it down, but end it or reverse it, not likely.

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As an aside, I had to research about on mysterium iniquitatis, I'd never heard the term. I looked into a couple of sites, seems like an interesting topic, I'm not sure I agree with it all yet but I'll keep looking at them.

I through that term in there because everything sounds better in Latin. :) Seriously, I've heard the term bandied about before and assumed it just meant "the mystery of evil". I can't seem to find much info on it except for some death metal group of the same name, go figure.

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In the third, and biblical scenario, god created a world very differnt to today. There was no death decay pain or suffering No earthquakes bushfires etc. Only when man disassociated himself from the fabric of god did the world change and those things begin. That's a creationist view with which I do not concur, but it explains the present dichotomy of a good god and an evil world and that, I think, is the purpose/rationale for genesis as a story.

Yes, that's the pre-lapsarian world argument where pain, suffering and death (aka evil) did not exist. You are right to disagree with this argument as the evidence against it (pre-hominid fossils) is overwhelming.

I would add my two cents worth here, that the Genesis story has none of the items Mr. Walker mentioned in his post. There certainly was death, there certainly was no immortality for mankind. All the rules of the natural universe were functioning as they should be. There were were fires, earthquakes, decay, predator-prey relationships. The view given by Mr. Walker is held by a number of Christians, but it is not based on biblical texts but are merely assumptions taken on readings of verses that are taken out of their contextual understanding.

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Yes, this is a popular explanation. It's the same one Job got; "Where were you when I created the heavens?" In other words, it's an unfathomable mystery. But if you reply that it's a Mysterium Iniquitatis, that's not really an answer.

The ambiguity of "natural evil" exists due to assigning meaning to these natural events, as if they had a mind of their own. Since they cannot possibly have that mind, something greater must have caused it.. hence blame God.

The events in question are part of the domino effect in a deterministic universe, our presence in their midst was made by choice, when we decided to be at that location, whether by living there or being there for a visit.

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I through that term in there because everything sounds better in Latin. :) Seriously, I've heard the term bandied about before and assumed it just meant "the mystery of evil". I can't seem to find much info on it except for some death metal group of the same name, go figure.

When I saw the translation I thought the same - the mystery of evil - but the first couple of sites I looked at brought in certain issues about sin and who will pay the price of said sin (not including the death metal group, of course). Taking in those ideas about sin and such, I thought I'd take a look at it further (which at the moment I haven't had the chance, maybe it was just an interesting Latin translation at the time, lol).

~ Regards,

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How can you prevent something you cant foresee? God is supposed to be able to know things before they happen right? Dont you think if somebody could have prevented that shooting at sandy hook they would have? Give me a break

You are makeing the mistake of viewing it from your perspective, not the perspective of a god. To a creator god, those children are not lost. Simply returning from school a little early.

I'm not saying I don't agree with your sentiment, but it is extremely fallacious to place a human linier perspective upon an infinitely old creator god. Really your just using the tragedy to reinforce your bias. Logically it makes about as much sense as saying it was gods will.

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You speak (well, type) as if prayer is about getting God to do things for us. Sure, in one sense we do bring our troubles before God and ask him to intervene. That doesn't mean he will directly and miraculously change the situation in your favour. Prayer isn't about asking God for stuff. Prayer is about talking to God. A relationship with God is, I believe, like any relationship. It develops through communication. That's where prayer fits in. We don't just use it to ask God for things. In fact, if you think about it, if we only ever spoke to God when we wanted something then it wouldn't be much of a relationship, would it? Think about life, if someone only ever spoke to you when they wanted to borrow money from you, are they truly your friend? No. They're what I would call a User. We shouldn't use God as if he is our cosmic wish-granter, but we can use God to talk to, share our problems and our burdens, share even the good times. Communicate.

That's what I believe, anyway.

~ Regards, PA

I'm just going by what the bible says, I quote "And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you" Luke 11:9 I didnt see any small print that said only when it feels like it or you need to wait several decades etc..etc..

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I'm just going by what the bible says, I quote "And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you" Luke 11:9 I didnt see any small print that said only when it feels like it or you need to wait several decades etc..etc..

Luke 11:8

8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him whatever he needs.

Not to be finicky or anything but the text also states that one has to be persistent (which means it is NOT automatically given, just because you ask) but also that he will give you what you need, that does not necessarily translate to giving you what you want.

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