God's Will - Page 5

Yes I can. Many have. Because God is (supposedly) all good and all powerful and he made this world. Why has he made a world where innocent children and the harmless poor are slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands?

You've answered that God killed them because they deserved it. I don't think they deserved it.

Its not stupid for such thoughts and questions, if we are going to go around and tell ourselves its bad to kill, torture, and cause untold sufferring then naturally we might think it not cool when not only are hundreds of thousands instantly murdered, smited, whatever, but that hundreds of thousands more die of disease and hunger, buried underground, swept out to see, eaten by various whatnots, in slow painful deaths and many of them just being children.

And if you are familiar with suffering then you really won't be to happy with it all and you wouldn't think anyone deserving of such death or life. And you might have some choice words for the heavens and perhaps god.

Especially , like DT said, when god is referred generally to as a good kind and just god of love.

But then some of us are just silly like that I guess.

To answer DumbTeen, I do not believe that God is omnipotent. Omnipotent means "being able to do ANYTHING," and like you said, if God were omnipotent, God could prevent things like the tsunami from occurring. I am not saying that God is unable to stop something like a tsunami, but I am saying that God has to play by the rules God set down for this universe whenever God interacts with us. We're just now finding out what those rules are through science. As for social or ethical rules, there are some things that parents just can't teach their children, things only experience and harsh trial-and-error can teach. As we are God's children, God understands this, and so despite giving us all these different versions of religious truth, we still have a long way to go toward becoming spiritually or ethically mature as a species. So sometimes disasters like the tsunami end up killing a lot of people through our lack of scientific knowledge concerning tsunamis and our apathy towards disaster prevention.

"but I am saying that God has to play by the rules God set down for this universe whenever God interacts with us."
God is all knowing. When he lay down those rules, he knew perfectly well that it would kill many innocents.

An all good God would not do that.

"So sometimes disasters like the tsunami end up killing a lot of people through our lack of scientific knowledge concerning tsunamis and our apathy towards disaster prevention."

Again, so your saying people who die of disaster deserve it.

Its all quite simple, what makes you really think there is an all good, all powerful and all knowing thing watching over us? What makes you think that? Why can't it just be random? Is it because it scares you?

You are absolutely right. An all good God would never kill an innocent. Now I would love to hear your argument that mankind is, from a divine perspective, innocent.

Explain your devine perspective, because man is beneath the devine by design and is uncapable of understanding it and therefore is innocent in it.

A creature forced to adapt to an hostile and threatening environment devinely created or not does not lose innocence depending on what innocence is to you, but is merely forced to live in the manner designed.

Even if the creature learns to manipulate and harm other creatures it is doing so for survival, even greed is based on the idea that one must continually strive for survival of ones self.

As for selfish to selfless, even selfless acts are survival, be it of the soul, the species, or just social standing.

This happens because the system may or may not be innocent, but the creatures have either the choice to live or die, and any act of survival is selfish, and selfish is not the loss of innocence, but the demanded law of survival forced upon the living.

And more so, children are thought of as the epitomy of innocence by most points of view (other than perhaps parents), and hundreds of thousands of dead babies is god killing innocents.

Those dead babies, unless they had naughty thoughts in the womb, were probably innocent.

Although of course no man is 'innocent'. No man has not 'sinned' as defined by God. But men have spent so much time arguing about what is moral and what is sin, how are we supposed to know what we are supposed to do when God's message of what is moral is so unclear?

Probably? Interesting. From whose perspective? Mankind's? If you are arguing from Mans perspective then I would agree but this topic is not about man's perspective.

If you are going to argue theology than you need to put things in their proper context. If mankind rejected the Creator and violated His laws knowing that the punishment was death and the Creator brings death he is not being unjust. The fact that fallen man is still allowed to exist speaks more about the nature of the Creator and his willingness to provide mercy than anything else.

You may say that God is unjust by allowing humans to die - I say God is merciful and more than just for allowing humans to continue to live. If God was nothing but just and had no merciful tendencies then mankind would not exist at all, nor should they!

I'll try laying out my main arguments:
- killing innocents is bad, babies are innocent, babies die from nature (God's Law), therefore God cannot be all good
- God has sent a huge variety of "apparent messengers", each with a different view of morality, how can man obey God's law (morality) if God has not made it clear what morality is?

As a Christian I can only defend it's theology...

"killing innocents is bad, babies are innocent, babies die from nature (God's Law), therefore God cannot be all good"

Yes killing innocents are bad and no babies are not innocent (from God's perspective) as they are the children of Adam and Eve who are fallen humans that do not deserve to live. God said 'eat of that apple and you will surely die' and they, as the representatives of mankind, ate of that apple. Thus any death that comes is just.

The fact that God did not wipe out mankind but allows it to still exist suggests two options: either God has a plan to provide mercy in order to redeem mankind or some of mankind or God has divorced himself from our nature and is simply allowing it to die out from its own natural causes. However, neither imply that God is unjust.

"God has sent a huge variety of "apparent messengers", each with a different view of morality, how can man obey God's law (morality) if God has not made it clear what morality is?"

As the Bible says, specifically Paul, God's law was written on Man's heart and all intrinsically know his morality thus none are innocent.

"Yes killing innocents are bad and no babies are not innocent (from God's perspective) as they are the children of Adam and Eve who are fallen humans that not deserve to live. God said 'eat of that apple and you will surely die' and they, as the representatives of mankind, ate of that apple. Thus any death that comes is just."

I don't think very many people would define that as a "good" God. Is it really just to be punished for the acts of someone else? (I don't think blood relations come into play, unless it means I should be put in prison if my dad steals a car).

"As the Bible says, specifically Paul, God's law was written on Man's heart and all intrinsically know his morality thus none are innocent."
But God also gave us Bhudda, the Torah, the Koran and Confucius. How do we know which one to pick? Given the variety of religions, God was not clear as to which morality is his morality.

"I don't think very many people would define that as a "good" God. Is it really just to be punished for the acts of someone else? (I don't think blood relations come into play, unless it means I should be put in prison if my dad steals a car)."

I am sure many humans would complain over that however it is still nothing more than an argument from man's perspective and not the Creators. Are you unjust because you have killed an ant? Since mankind, or those 'innocent' babies, existed in their parents at the time of the fall (sperm and eggs) they thus were also corrupted by the fall and effected by death or entropy or God's punishment etc. The fact that they chose to procreate after the fall does not oblige God to remove the stain of death from them or mean he is unjust for allowing them to be born tainted. Man must take responsibility for his own actions as well. And there is a legal sense where you can be held responsible for another's actions. If you, by your own failings, declare bankruptcy your debt will still be credited to your wife.

"But God also gave us Bhudda, the Torah, the Koran and Confucius. How do we know which one to pick? Given the variety of religions, God was not clear as to which morality is his morality"

Who says God gave us those? You could say God gave us Hitler too using that rationale. Is God even responsible for giving us messengers if he wrote His will on our hearts and if he did is that not an extra act of mercy?

" Since mankind, or those 'innocent' babies, existed in their parents at the time of the fall (sperm and eggs)"
Is it really the baby's fault he was once an evil sperm? I don't think a good God can punish you for something which isn't your fault.

"Who says God gave us those?"
God created all men. From man's point of view, he cannot determine which messenger (and thus which morality) is God's. How are people born in Muslim or even Pagan societies supposed to avoid hell? How can we follow God's morality when we can't tell which one is God's?

"Is it really the baby's fault he was once an evil sperm? "

No - nor was it God's! It was their parents fault and they were warned beforehand that death would be the consequence. You are also forgetting that not only are those babies born dying but that death was entered into all of nature.

"God created all men. From man's point of view, he cannot determine which messenger (and thus which morality) is God's. How are people born in Muslim or even Pagan societies supposed to avoid hell? How can we follow God's morality when we can't tell which one is God's?"

God created Adam and Eve. They were created good and death did not exist in their nature. They chose to rebel and death became an intrensic aspect of nature. Ultimately you can not hold God, in a legal sense, responsible for Adam and Eves future actions.

I have to go to class - I will respond to the remainder when I get home.