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Could/should God have prevented the Russian school massacre?
- Thread starter retrorich
- Start date
painted wolf
Grey Muzzle
I personally don't think its god's job to keep us from wiping ourselves out...
If we as a species want to be dumb and self distuctive than there is little 'god' can do about it.
Its up to humanity to save itself IMHO.
wa:do
If we as a species want to be dumb and self distuctive than there is little 'god' can do about it.
Its up to humanity to save itself IMHO.
wa:do
YawgmothsAvatar
Member
Hey, welcome.
Well, since no one else is doing it and I am bored right now, I'll play a little devil's advocate. I am atheist as well, by the way.
Assuming that you are coming from a traditional Christian view of God...
a. God could have prevented it. He is omnipotent.
b. God should not have prevented it. Doing that would interfere with free will.
Well, since no one else is doing it and I am bored right now, I'll play a little devil's advocate. I am atheist as well, by the way.
Assuming that you are coming from a traditional Christian view of God...
a. God could have prevented it. He is omnipotent.
b. God should not have prevented it. Doing that would interfere with free will.
Ceridwen018
Well-Known Member
Adding to that:
God shouldn't have prevented it because it obviously wasn't part of his plan. It may have seemed like an awful thing to us, but it happened for a reason--god's reason.
God shouldn't have prevented it because it obviously wasn't part of his plan. It may have seemed like an awful thing to us, but it happened for a reason--god's reason.
Hope
Princesinha
Thanks, guys, for beating me to it!
Indeed God could have prevented it. It was a horrible, horrible thing, and God by no means is callous toward all those who suffered and were killed. Nevertheless, He is not responsible for the free will actions of the evil people who committed the crime. We are all responsible for our own actions. In this one sense, God makes Himself 'vulnerable', so to speak. He lets man have the choice whether to do good or evil, though if He chose He could override our free will to make us do what He wants. But then I think we would be more like puppets or robots, and I think it's a much greater honor from God to be made like Him, in that we have choice. So, with freedom of choice, comes great responsibility, and unfortunately many people don't think about how their choices affect others, or simply don't care. In this case, of course, the 'people' had blatant disregard for human life altogether.
Indeed God could have prevented it. It was a horrible, horrible thing, and God by no means is callous toward all those who suffered and were killed. Nevertheless, He is not responsible for the free will actions of the evil people who committed the crime. We are all responsible for our own actions. In this one sense, God makes Himself 'vulnerable', so to speak. He lets man have the choice whether to do good or evil, though if He chose He could override our free will to make us do what He wants. But then I think we would be more like puppets or robots, and I think it's a much greater honor from God to be made like Him, in that we have choice. So, with freedom of choice, comes great responsibility, and unfortunately many people don't think about how their choices affect others, or simply don't care. In this case, of course, the 'people' had blatant disregard for human life altogether.
Mr Spinkles
Mr
Hope-- If my kids were getting guns and pipe bombs and gathering them in my garage to use in a school rampage, and I knew about it, I would do everything in my power to stop it--and I don't think that would make them puppets, I think it would make me a responsible parent.
It's one thing to let your kids touch a hot stove or something to see how hot it is....it's entirely another to allow them to kill, rape, and steal. Honestly, don't you think the God you are describing seems a bit negligent? And come to think of it, I actually wish God would take away mine and everyone else's ability to kill, rape, and steal....why on earth is the power to do those things a good thing?? I would say if anything, God has put a curse on his creations by giving them those powers.
It's one thing to let your kids touch a hot stove or something to see how hot it is....it's entirely another to allow them to kill, rape, and steal. Honestly, don't you think the God you are describing seems a bit negligent? And come to think of it, I actually wish God would take away mine and everyone else's ability to kill, rape, and steal....why on earth is the power to do those things a good thing?? I would say if anything, God has put a curse on his creations by giving them those powers.
Hope
Princesinha
Hmmmmm....Why do you always make me think so hard, Mr. Spinkles?
I guess it would be nice if I didn't have to the ability to do anything bad. But, let's look at it this way--and I'll use your illustration of your kids trying to blow up stuff. You're right, you would not be a responsible parent if you didn't try to stop them. But what if you did everything in your power to try to stop them, and yet you couldn't? What if they (God forbid, of course, I'm only speaking hypothetically) turned around and blew you up? Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we cannot force our children, or anyone else, to do something, if they are absolutely determined to do something else.
I understand your frustration! I admit, God mystifies me a lot--I would never claim to know the mind of God. However, I still don't think that His giving us freedom of choice is a curse. I believe--and I know you will probably argue with me about this--that His gift of free will to us, despite all the horrible things that it can lead to if used the wrong way, was actually an expression of His great love for us. Maybe that seems like a contradiction on the surface, but let's look at it more closely. Let's suppose you were a sculptor and created this statue of a beautiful woman. Suppose, too, that you had power to bring her to life. And so, you did. So, here she is, this gorgeous woman that you created, breathing, living, in front of you. Now you want this woman to love you--to really, truly love you. To love you because she wants to, not because she is programmed to, or because you force her to. Because neither of those types of 'love' is really love. True love can only exist if it is given freedom to choose. So you have this decision before you--you have the power to program her to always love you if you wish, even though it isn't real love; or, you can take an amazing risk, and choose not to use that power, hoping that she simply chooses to love you because she wants to love you. If you take the harder road, of course she may totally break your heart, do horrible things, and completely reject you.
That is how I see God. He took an awful risk, but He was willing to take it just to give us the chance to truly love Him. He wanted us to have a real relationship with Him. The only reason I can have real relationships with my friends is because we choose to like and love each other. If I was programmed to be friends with so-and-so, I don't think it would be a genuine relationship. In all relationships we take risks--because we know that each party is free to love or reject the other. And so, God took that risk with us, knowing that if we chose, we could use our free will to do the most horrible things.
Does this make any sense?
I guess it would be nice if I didn't have to the ability to do anything bad. But, let's look at it this way--and I'll use your illustration of your kids trying to blow up stuff. You're right, you would not be a responsible parent if you didn't try to stop them. But what if you did everything in your power to try to stop them, and yet you couldn't? What if they (God forbid, of course, I'm only speaking hypothetically) turned around and blew you up? Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we cannot force our children, or anyone else, to do something, if they are absolutely determined to do something else.
I understand your frustration! I admit, God mystifies me a lot--I would never claim to know the mind of God. However, I still don't think that His giving us freedom of choice is a curse. I believe--and I know you will probably argue with me about this--that His gift of free will to us, despite all the horrible things that it can lead to if used the wrong way, was actually an expression of His great love for us. Maybe that seems like a contradiction on the surface, but let's look at it more closely. Let's suppose you were a sculptor and created this statue of a beautiful woman. Suppose, too, that you had power to bring her to life. And so, you did. So, here she is, this gorgeous woman that you created, breathing, living, in front of you. Now you want this woman to love you--to really, truly love you. To love you because she wants to, not because she is programmed to, or because you force her to. Because neither of those types of 'love' is really love. True love can only exist if it is given freedom to choose. So you have this decision before you--you have the power to program her to always love you if you wish, even though it isn't real love; or, you can take an amazing risk, and choose not to use that power, hoping that she simply chooses to love you because she wants to love you. If you take the harder road, of course she may totally break your heart, do horrible things, and completely reject you.
That is how I see God. He took an awful risk, but He was willing to take it just to give us the chance to truly love Him. He wanted us to have a real relationship with Him. The only reason I can have real relationships with my friends is because we choose to like and love each other. If I was programmed to be friends with so-and-so, I don't think it would be a genuine relationship. In all relationships we take risks--because we know that each party is free to love or reject the other. And so, God took that risk with us, knowing that if we chose, we could use our free will to do the most horrible things.
Does this make any sense?
retrorich
SUPER NOT-A-MOD
I agree 100%. It frustrates me that God is given credit for everything good that happens, but subjected to no blame for bad things that happen. With power comes responsibility. We In the United States are given a high degree of freedom (free will), but fortunately, limits to our freedom (laws) have been established to protect the innocent.Mr_Spinkles said:
It appears that God needs to make some adjustments in His "free will" policy to prevent tragedies such as 9/11 and the Russian school massacre. The old "God works in mysterious ways" excuse just doesn't cut it.
Hope
Princesinha
I cannot explain things any further than I already have. Yes, God allows things to happen--I'm not denying that. So, ultimately, you could say, everything good AND evil, is allowed by Him. I'm not arguing that! However, I think i gave the best illustration I could think of in my previous post to explain WHY God allows bad to happen along with good. If this illustration does not make any sense to you, then I am sorry! I did the best I could.
Lightkeeper
Well-Known Member
When you make posts you get coins. When you have enough coins you can buy things from the store. Look for Store on the header ^^^^.
Mr Spinkles
Mr
Hope-- Your analogy is very good, but I have a couple of problems with it.
1)For me to desire anything (i.e. the sculpture's love) would indicate that I am lacking something and therefore I am not perfect....but unlike me, God is supposed to be perfect.
2)If I wanted this living sculpture to love me, I would make my existence to her obvious, by standing in front of her and saying "Hello, I sculpted you". The obviousness of my existence would aid her in her choice to love me or not--I think this is perfectly reasonable because, after all, I want her to know I exist...she can still choose to love me or not even if I make my existence obvious. God, however, is like a sculptor who ran off into another room and locked the door before the sculpture came to life, hoping (for reasons I can only attribute to an inflated sense of ego) that the statue will guess His existence and His nature, and consequently choose to love Him.
3)If I knew everything, as God is supposed to, I would know that if I choose to sculpt them, statue A will love me of her own choice, and statue B will not love me of her own choice. Using that information, I would choose to sculpt statue A. Problem solved!
If that happened, it would confirm that I am not all-powerful. God, on the other hand, is supposedly all-powerful, so this shouldn't be a problem for Him.Hope said:
Although I think this is a rather touching analogy, I find three problems with it:
1)For me to desire anything (i.e. the sculpture's love) would indicate that I am lacking something and therefore I am not perfect....but unlike me, God is supposed to be perfect.
2)If I wanted this living sculpture to love me, I would make my existence to her obvious, by standing in front of her and saying "Hello, I sculpted you". The obviousness of my existence would aid her in her choice to love me or not--I think this is perfectly reasonable because, after all, I want her to know I exist...she can still choose to love me or not even if I make my existence obvious. God, however, is like a sculptor who ran off into another room and locked the door before the sculpture came to life, hoping (for reasons I can only attribute to an inflated sense of ego) that the statue will guess His existence and His nature, and consequently choose to love Him.
3)If I knew everything, as God is supposed to, I would know that if I choose to sculpt them, statue A will love me of her own choice, and statue B will not love me of her own choice. Using that information, I would choose to sculpt statue A. Problem solved!
If I were all-powerful, as God is supposed to be, I should be able to make true love exist under any parameters--even if there is not freedom to choose.
If I desire money does that mean that I lack money? Of course not. Even Bill Gates desires more money, even though he has somethin around 70 billion dollars.
There is one difference between you and God, God does not grudge you your life simply because He knows that you don't love Him or even believe in His existence.
back on topic,
Yes God could have stopped it.
No, God should not have stopped it, for reasons obvious to Him that we don't know.
Suppose that one of those more than 350 would have become another Hitler, or because of someone seeing what happened he/she would decide not to do something that would have killed many many more.
You don't have to agree with this view, but I believe, that no matter how much I wish it didn't happen, that there was a reason.
Ardhanariswar
I'm back!
No, God should not. why? we have our own karma. we may have done things to recieve the concequences of whatever negative things we did in our past lives.
yes, its sad that those kids died. its to teach the world how terrorism affects everyone and how we must work together to stop it. like from all bad tragedies, maybe God's intent is for us to mature and wisen up, and learn how to cooperate with other people, and become tolerant and loving.
see?
yes, its sad that those kids died. its to teach the world how terrorism affects everyone and how we must work together to stop it. like from all bad tragedies, maybe God's intent is for us to mature and wisen up, and learn how to cooperate with other people, and become tolerant and loving.
see?
While I do not believe in past lives, this is a very good post
Ceridwen018
Well-Known Member
It's so easy to say this. Speaking of Hitler, do you think any German citizens ever thought "Well, the things he does really are quite terrible, even if they are done to Jews and homosexuals...then again, Hitler is so much smarter than we are...I'm sure he knows exactly what he's doing, and that it's for the greater good of Germany."
Because it is true
Maybe, I don't know, but I do know it turned out that it was not for the greater good of Germany, after the war Germany was set back quite abit, divided up, and lost alot of its industry.
Btw, I just saw your sig, MP and the search for the Holy Grail was hilarious, and it brought back alot of funny memories, thank you
retrorich
SUPER NOT-A-MOD
So, because one of the more than 350 people killed would have become another Hitler, God allowed all of them to be killed, rather than just eliminating the potential Hitler?Mister Emu said:
Or God allowed the killing of more than 350 people because one person seeing the killings might be dissuaded from killing even more people, when God could have simply eliminated that one person?
I would say that in either case, God's lack of preventative action would have been incredibly cruel and illogical. Surely a just and loving God would have used His unlimited powers to prevent such needless slaughter.
As I stated in a previous post, the old "God works in mysterious ways" excuse just doesn't cut it. Nor do the preposterous excuses you have presented.