ScientoloJü
GAY RETARD
Very well put 'teen
ScientoloJü
GAY RETARD
BLACKHAWK
Serpent of Entropy
What believe what
Acion
Nusoicaca
The god Christians, kikes and Muslims pray to is an evil being. He is responsible for every evil in the world. He is entertained by human suffering.
'gatorfag sl33p
congolombian's dead account award
Suffering builds character o eso
Acion
Nusoicaca
A good god wouldn't create a world like this. And I intentionally misspoke for the sake of brevity. Christians, kikes, and Muslims do not worship the creator of reality, they just say they do. Those fools have know idea who they worship. YHWH is not the creator, he is just one of many gods. The creator of reality is the first thing and everything eminates from that thing. The creator isn't a god, it is something else. Everything came from it including all evil
tldr YHWH is not the creator, but they are both evil.
S
Spas
Guest
"why does God..." is not the kind of question that is guaranteed to be answerable by us. The world is fallen and sin was permitted to enter the world, the life on earth decays and becomes susceptible to illness. Sin entered the world, and the wages of sin is death. Personally I don't find the question of "why doesn't God play divine policeman" very compelling, and I don't think it is to most people in general, considering people generally prefer freedom to safety, and even atheists will in the same breath of asking this question ask "isn't God a tyrant?". Tragedies happen due to the fallen nature of world, evils happen due to the nature of free will. This world is our opportunity to prepare for the next, a world without sin, a renewed earth.
Personally I also think of it in relative terms. The pain we feel now feels real, but so do nightmares. You feel real fear in a nightmare, it wakes you up in cold sweat, but after a while you calm yourself, and the "realness" of waking hours trumps any feelings you may have felt in your dream. Those feelings were still real and vivid, but they do not compare to the potency of reality. It is then possible that the next life will, with all of it's glory, trump what has happened here. Not to say that the pain we feel here is any less real, but rather that the joy (or pain) in the next world will trump whatever experiences we had in this world with sheer potency.
At the end of the day, there is no guarantee for us, in our fallen state and with our limited minds, to understand the thought process of a being that is omniscient and omnibenevolent. The greatest theologians and saints prayed tirelessly to grasp more of the divine, how could a man drowning in sin even begin to comprehend the Divine plan? This is why we must trust the plan rather than arrogantly attempt to correct God.
Personally I also think of it in relative terms. The pain we feel now feels real, but so do nightmares. You feel real fear in a nightmare, it wakes you up in cold sweat, but after a while you calm yourself, and the "realness" of waking hours trumps any feelings you may have felt in your dream. Those feelings were still real and vivid, but they do not compare to the potency of reality. It is then possible that the next life will, with all of it's glory, trump what has happened here. Not to say that the pain we feel here is any less real, but rather that the joy (or pain) in the next world will trump whatever experiences we had in this world with sheer potency.
At the end of the day, there is no guarantee for us, in our fallen state and with our limited minds, to understand the thought process of a being that is omniscient and omnibenevolent. The greatest theologians and saints prayed tirelessly to grasp more of the divine, how could a man drowning in sin even begin to comprehend the Divine plan? This is why we must trust the plan rather than arrogantly attempt to correct God.
Nihilma
/caca/borean
I do want to give an answer to this.
I'm not 100% sure of the underlying logic and if it is fully sound, but I still want to give it a shot.
Also I said I didn't wanna talk about christianity online anymore, so this is an exception, I don't want to debate a lot, jusst giving maybe an idea.
First off, on prayer. God is not a vending machine, never has been. Christianity expressly teaches that no one can do against God's will, and God's will is sovereign in the world. God will answer to your prayers, but that answer can be "no". As Christ himself stated in his teaching on how to pray God : "Thy will be done in heaven as on earth".
Second of all, why evil ?
The first answer is free will, regarding humans. God gave Adam and Eve a choice, for them not to be mere puppets but willful servants, priests by choice. They chose.
But what about other evil, like the suffering of animals, and the unjust suffering of the righteous ? To me this is the biggest problem that is brought up by the problem of evil, and it is also the most mysterious, because in christianity, the biggest message surrounds this problem : Christ.
Christ is the most just, and suffers the most unjust death. He is the living and dying embodiment of the problem of evil. Why does a man as righteous as Jesus suffer unjustly, not just physically but also spiritually, as he is abandonned by God on the cross, while carrying the worst filth that he did not commit ?
The answer to that question can be found int he Acts of the Apostles 3:18, and in numerous other passages of the New Testament : "But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.". In other words, Christ HAD to suffer, it was a necessity for the wellbeing of a plan, and in order for Christ to be born, numerous people had to suffer before him.
One thing to understand about God, is that God usually is described as being outside time. He does not live the present like we do, past present and future are one to him, and they go together hand in hand, you cannot just take a piece of the puzzle out and claim it still works. What happens needs to happen for whatever the future hold to happen.
Another great piece of evidence is found in the Bible in the book of Job, where Job laments his life and doesn't understand why what happens to him happens. He turns towards God, and calls himself righteous and his fate unjust, as God should reward a man as just as him with great goods. Instead, he rots on the ground and still refuses to curse God. He remains just, but sour at his fate and at God.
His friends try to convince him that he surely had done something wrong and evil, and they follow the same logic as him, by saying that surely what happens to him is a punishment, because evil only happens to evil people and good things happen to good people, but Elihu, at the end of the book, the youngest person, and which also means "God himself" in hebbrew finally accuses Job and his friends for their wrongdoings and the wrongness of their speech, by saying that Job accuses God of being wrong, wrong about him and his fate and wrong in judgement. Elihu says that instead of glorifying God, Job turns his back to him as soon as things do not go his way.
And at the end of the book, when God himself finally appears, God asks Job :
Were you there when I made the world?
If you know so much, tell me about it.
Who decided how large it would be?
Who stretched the measuring line over it?
Do you know all the answers?
What holds up the pillars that support the earth?
Who laid the cornerstone of the world?
In the dawn of that day the stars sang together,
and the heavenly beings[a] shouted for joy.
God made the world, knows what needs to happen, and what needs to be avoided in order for things to happen. He orchestrates things in such a way that the outcome he decides of happen, and nothing can be taken away from it.
One may ask : "But couldn't God make things happen without the evil in it ?"
And the answer to that is simply no. We wouldn't be in the world we are today of the black plague didn't happen, if Hitler didn't exist and if natural events didn't occur. We wouldn't exist, and wouldn't be talking on here. Some evil needs to happen for the greater good to exist. And some evil needs to happen for free will to exist.
One might say : "Well doesn't free will contradict God's sovereignty ?"
And to that I admit of having no real answer. I see both as existing, undeniably. I know to be free of my choices, to have a soul able to decide, that I am sure, I know myself able to doubt, able to question and to chose. But I also know that my birthplace influenced me. So I do not know.
This is the one place where I actually use the word "mystery", because I know both exist and coexist in a way that I do not understand.
But if both exist in a mysterious relationship, then I think this can be an answer to the problem of evil
I'm not 100% sure of the underlying logic and if it is fully sound, but I still want to give it a shot.
Also I said I didn't wanna talk about christianity online anymore, so this is an exception, I don't want to debate a lot, jusst giving maybe an idea.
First off, on prayer. God is not a vending machine, never has been. Christianity expressly teaches that no one can do against God's will, and God's will is sovereign in the world. God will answer to your prayers, but that answer can be "no". As Christ himself stated in his teaching on how to pray God : "Thy will be done in heaven as on earth".
Second of all, why evil ?
The first answer is free will, regarding humans. God gave Adam and Eve a choice, for them not to be mere puppets but willful servants, priests by choice. They chose.
But what about other evil, like the suffering of animals, and the unjust suffering of the righteous ? To me this is the biggest problem that is brought up by the problem of evil, and it is also the most mysterious, because in christianity, the biggest message surrounds this problem : Christ.
Christ is the most just, and suffers the most unjust death. He is the living and dying embodiment of the problem of evil. Why does a man as righteous as Jesus suffer unjustly, not just physically but also spiritually, as he is abandonned by God on the cross, while carrying the worst filth that he did not commit ?
The answer to that question can be found int he Acts of the Apostles 3:18, and in numerous other passages of the New Testament : "But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.". In other words, Christ HAD to suffer, it was a necessity for the wellbeing of a plan, and in order for Christ to be born, numerous people had to suffer before him.
One thing to understand about God, is that God usually is described as being outside time. He does not live the present like we do, past present and future are one to him, and they go together hand in hand, you cannot just take a piece of the puzzle out and claim it still works. What happens needs to happen for whatever the future hold to happen.
Another great piece of evidence is found in the Bible in the book of Job, where Job laments his life and doesn't understand why what happens to him happens. He turns towards God, and calls himself righteous and his fate unjust, as God should reward a man as just as him with great goods. Instead, he rots on the ground and still refuses to curse God. He remains just, but sour at his fate and at God.
His friends try to convince him that he surely had done something wrong and evil, and they follow the same logic as him, by saying that surely what happens to him is a punishment, because evil only happens to evil people and good things happen to good people, but Elihu, at the end of the book, the youngest person, and which also means "God himself" in hebbrew finally accuses Job and his friends for their wrongdoings and the wrongness of their speech, by saying that Job accuses God of being wrong, wrong about him and his fate and wrong in judgement. Elihu says that instead of glorifying God, Job turns his back to him as soon as things do not go his way.
And at the end of the book, when God himself finally appears, God asks Job :
Were you there when I made the world?
If you know so much, tell me about it.
Who decided how large it would be?
Who stretched the measuring line over it?
Do you know all the answers?
What holds up the pillars that support the earth?
Who laid the cornerstone of the world?
In the dawn of that day the stars sang together,
and the heavenly beings[a] shouted for joy.
God made the world, knows what needs to happen, and what needs to be avoided in order for things to happen. He orchestrates things in such a way that the outcome he decides of happen, and nothing can be taken away from it.
One may ask : "But couldn't God make things happen without the evil in it ?"
And the answer to that is simply no. We wouldn't be in the world we are today of the black plague didn't happen, if Hitler didn't exist and if natural events didn't occur. We wouldn't exist, and wouldn't be talking on here. Some evil needs to happen for the greater good to exist. And some evil needs to happen for free will to exist.
One might say : "Well doesn't free will contradict God's sovereignty ?"
And to that I admit of having no real answer. I see both as existing, undeniably. I know to be free of my choices, to have a soul able to decide, that I am sure, I know myself able to doubt, able to question and to chose. But I also know that my birthplace influenced me. So I do not know.
This is the one place where I actually use the word "mystery", because I know both exist and coexist in a way that I do not understand.
But if both exist in a mysterious relationship, then I think this can be an answer to the problem of evil
Nihilma
/caca/borean
Also this is the tl;dr of what I just said.
Evil happens because it needs to happen.
Nihilma
/caca/borean
>Called it demiurge again award
>Sucked plato's dick again award
>Called the material world evil but still like nature award
>Is a stoic but still gooned award
>Called the serpent in the garden christ award
>Doesn't understand a single word of Hebrew award
>Never did an exegesis of the book of genesis award
>Reads apocryphal fanfiction books award
ChudGunner
ChudGunner
If God is bad, then why do good things happen though?
People always blame God for evil but not man for causing it in the first place.
People always blame God for evil but not man for causing it in the first place.
S
Spas
Guest
This is, I think, a very underrepresented point. When reading a book or watching a movie, no one wishes to watch something where everything goes well. We recognize that this would be extraordinarily boring and without substance. The historical figures we record and admire were people who suffered and persevered. We sing songs about brave warriors and mighty kings. We admire stories of people who were in war, dying in the mud yet thrived against all odds. We look down on people who had it easy, people born to rich families, those who never got disciplined by their parents, those who life went easy on. We think lesser of them because we recognize that suffering and hardship is what sculpts a person. Evils not only allow for the world to be interesting, they are what allow for good men to be forged, as steel is forged in flames rather than warm water. Without a world of temptations to overcome and evils to brave, without guilt to burden and sacrifices to make, what would become of us? Where would we go?
ScientoloJü
GAY RETARD
Okay. Thats a truth nuke.
Lism
POOP!!!!! POOP POOP PEE!!!!
What? But God *is* Good, isn't he? As in, he is identical with Goodness. Why do you need to "add" more good when there was already an infinite amount of goodness at the start?
Lism
POOP!!!!! POOP POOP PEE!!!!
Aquinas believed in predestination too though and Calvin was actually a Thomist albeitBluds a Calvinist
What. But why would you need something to live for if you came into this world knowing God? That is the ultimate state of ecstasy and it is what heaven is
This is how I understand it: The whole point of the suffering in this world is that it was the choice of Adam, who represents all of mankind. We chose to be in this world because of our ignorance and we made the choice to reject God and go to hell, so it is only really fair for everyone to go to hell. But God is merciful and lets some people go to heaven.
My problem: Adam does not make the choice on his own, he's deceived by the serpent. Who is lucifer, correct? Adam and Eve already had free will in Eden and were deceived by the outside force of lucifer, but why did Lucifer rebel? First of all, why do angels have free will? Secondly, why did God let lucifer into the garden knowing he was trouble? He clearly planned for lucifer to deceive them. Thirdly, why did lucifer revolt if he was familiar with God?
I don’t recall anything like that in the Bible but I’m a little rusty on my Bible lore.
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