About a deity full of love and compassion

[Thief]

It's got to be one of the two.

Your quoted rebuttal flops from one assumption to other extreme.

Why not accept death as is?

Eternal life is not something I believe in...physically.

Life is linear here in this world.
And you become a unique person because of it.

Then you go back to God.

 

[Falvlun]

As for children dying....
They probably have a better chance of crossing over into the kingdom.

So, does that mean your answer is "Yes"?

 

[Thief]

So, does that mean your answer is "Yes"?

And again the question is poor....and the perspective too small.

Step up.

 

[Falvlun]

And again the question is poor....and the perspective too small.

Step up.

Even if we accept death as an inevitability of human life, without associating it with good or bad, surely we can wonder why some people get more time than others, and why some get horrific deaths and others relatively painless ones. There is great disparity, and the answer "death is" does not reconcile that injustice.

 

[Thief]

Even if we accept death as an inevitability of human life, without associating it with good or bad, surely we can wonder why some people get more time than others, and why some get horrific deaths and others relatively painless ones. There is great disparity, and the answer "death is" does not reconcile that injustice.

There's no injustice about dying....unless you're willing to digress to topics such as Cain and Abel.

Or perhaps you believe Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by angels under God's command?

Are you sure you want to use the word 'justice' in this topic?

Or perhaps God's love isn't obvious until the next life?
Wanna go there?

 

[Falvlun]

There's no injustice about dying....unless you're willing to digress to topics such as Cain and Abel.

Or perhaps you believe Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by angels under God's command?

Are you sure you want to use the word 'justice' in this topic?

Or perhaps God's love isn't obvious until the next life?
Wanna go there?

Is not justice the crux of the issue?

Why shouldn't God's love be obvious in this life?

 

[Thief]

Is not justice the crux of the issue?

Why shouldn't God's love be obvious in this life?

And are you asking for a sign?

 

[Falvlun]

And are you asking for a sign?

Just consistency.

 

[Koldo]

There's no injustice about dying....unless you're willing to digress to topics such as Cain and Abel.

Or perhaps you believe Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by angels under God's command?

Are you sure you want to use the word 'justice' in this topic?

Or perhaps God's love isn't obvious until the next life?
Wanna go there?

Isn't unequal suffering an injustice?

Justice and Love are the key points in this topic.

 

[ellenjanuary]

It's got to be one of the two.

No it doesn't.

I am the self of the awareness of god

Now what? Conservation law.

 

[atanu]

Yes, but that isn't a matter of seeing death as a good thing; it's a matter of seeing death as something other than an intentional act.

If I felt that death was "freeing someone from a cage", then I wouldn't think that a person's life was worth saving. OTOH, if I feel that death is something negative but simply a natural consequence rather than an intentional creation, then I can still work to prevent it even if not getting mad at some "perpetrator" of death.

For both points, the problem is that we do not know as to what takes birth and what dies.

 

[Willamena]

Just consistency.

Signs, signs, everywhere are signs...

 

[Falvlun]

Signs, signs, everywhere are signs...

The problem is that they all have widely variable interpretations. Even within a single worldview, one sign can be taken to mean one thing, and another sign will be taken to mean something completely different, and the worldview asks you to accept both interpretations. "Is there consistency?" should be one of the first questions you should ask when evaluating a belief construct.

 

[PolyHedral]

No it doesn't.

I am the self of the awareness of god

Now what? Conservation law.

That wasn't coherent. It doesn't mean anything.

The problem is that they all have widely variable interpretations. Even within a single worldview, one sign can be taken to mean one thing, and another sign will be taken to mean something completely different, and the worldview asks you to accept both interpretations.

Follow the shoe! ...Or the gourd.
[youtube]uywIYQEHZLs[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uywIYQEHZLs

 

[Willamena]

The problem is that they all have widely variable interpretations. Even within a single worldview, one sign can be taken to mean one thing, and another sign will be taken to mean something completely different, and the worldview asks you to accept both interpretations. "Is there consistency?" should be one of the first questions you should ask when evaluating a belief construct.

Well, signs are supposed to have a variety of interpretation --not just one for each interpreter, either, but as many interpretations are there are "takes" of the sign. That's what makes for good signification. What's important for a sign is its significance to the "taker" at any given moment, so if "God" spoke to you in a sign sent, it would be a message only for you, and only for that moment. Unique case. We paint the world here and now.

I get what you're saying --one glorious universal sign, painted in reality, that says, "I'm here, and I care." But each of us has a unique relationship to the world around us, and we assign the world similarly uniquely. What may be obvious to one need not be obvious to any others.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

And the question you are asking isn't valid.

The question's perfectly valid. I think it's just that you realize the implications of it and don't like either possibility:

- if you think it's good to watch the child die, then you're immoral.
- if you think it's bad to watch the child die, then you implicitly condemn the God who watched every needless death throughout history without helping.

God will stand back and let you...and everyone else die.
We were never meant to live forever...physically.

But some deaths are better than others, aren't they? Some lives are better than others. People suffer... sometimes to death. If this suffering can't be helped, then so be it, but with an omnipotent, omniscient God running around, there's nothing that "can't be helped".

No life after death for you?
Your personal denial is suppose to suit everyone?

It's not a matter of likes and dislikes. If a claim is correct, then its implications will be consistent with reality. What do you think that the claim of an all-powerful, all-loving God implies about the existence of suffering?

As for children dying....
They probably have a better chance of crossing over into the kingdom.

Then you have the same problem that I pointed out in response to atanu: if killing children is good, then allowing children to live is bad.

From the point of view you suggest, Andrea Yates shouldn't have been arrested; she should've been given a medal as mother of the year, no?

I mean, she realized that once her children acheived the age of reason, they might sin or reject Christ and thereby end up in Hell, but if they died then and there, they'd be assured of Heaven... so she made sure that this happened. In the model of reality you suggest, Andrea Yates' murder of her five children was a perfectly rational, loving act.

 

[Autodidact]

Well, signs are supposed to have a variety of interpretation --not just one for each interpreter, either, but as many interpretations are there are "takes" of the sign. That's what makes for good signification. What's important for a sign is its significance to the "taker" at any given moment, so if "God" spoke to you in a sign sent, it would be a message only for you, and only for that moment. Unique case. We paint the world here and now.

I get what you're saying --one glorious universal sign, painted in reality, that says, "I'm here, and I care." But each of us has a unique relationship to the world around us, and we assign the world similarly uniquely. What may be obvious to one need not be obvious to any others.

I don't know about that.

 

[Autodidact]

From the point of view you suggest, Andrea Yates shouldn't have been arrested; she should've been given a medal as mother of the year, no?

I mean, she realized that once her children acheived the age of reason, they might sin or reject Christ and thereby end up in Hell, but if they died then and there, they'd be assured of Heaven... so she made sure that this happened. In the model of reality you suggest, Andrea Yates' murder of her five children was a perfectly rational, loving act.

This was part of John Emil List's rationale for killing his entire family. He was convicted nonetheless.

 

[Willamena]

I don't know about that.

A good example, interpreted uniquely by each driver in each circumstance in which it's encountered.

 

[TEXASBULL]

This was part of John Emil List's rationale for killing his entire family. He was convicted nonetheless.

Weird. I actually had a dream recently that one of my former bible thumper friends came to kill me because God told him if he sent me to heaven now before I blasphemed the Holy Ghost my soul would be saved.

I was pleading with him not to pull the trigger, but he told me " its for your own good" and I would thank him in heaven.

It really was a freaky dream. I was deep in religious circles for 15 years and know a lot of people who think like that. You better be careful the company you keep and what you tell others.