God simply doesn't care

[Katzpur]

Mormonism is a joke! The Book of Mormon is joke! Mormon Prophet is a joke!

Wow. That was an intelligent, thought-provoking statement if I've ever heard one. Really, all you could have added was "Neener, neener, neener..."

 

[rrosskopf]

Have you read the Bible? The real Bible?

Of course. Generally speaking, Mormons know the Bible better than most other Christians. Personally I like the New Living Translation, as it seems to be the most accurate, but often I am forced to look at the Hebrew or Greek to resolve seeming contradictions.

The University of California at Berkeley tested the Book of Mormon for authorship. They concluded that there were at least 20 separate authors, none of which were Joseph Smith or any known contemporary (sorry Solomon Spaulding!) Chiasmus was discovered in the Book of Mormon back in the seventies. It is a language independent form of prose, used extensively by the Jews in 600 BC. Some of the best examples can be found in the Book of Mormon. A few years back someone used Documentary Hypothesis on the Book of Mormon and discovered that it is substantially Israelite in nature, and not Jewish at all. Since Mormon claimed to be descended of Joseph, this was a strong corroboration.

There are still a few anachronisms in the Book of Mormon - things believed to be out of place by the current scholarship. Never the less, the list has shrunk substantially from the 1800's, and the Book of Mormon isn't what changed.

 

[rrosskopf]

So where was God during the Holocaust?

Ironically, the German Jews had just signed a pact to remove all references to a return to Jerusalem from their liturgy.
God's plan, that we be allowed to witness the good and the bad, and learn to think for ourselves, choosing righteousness on our own, requires that we have agency to do evil. The end of life isn't really the end of life; something persists. That something is the spirit of man, and one day it will be reunited with its body.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

God's plan, that we be allowed to witness the good and the bad, and learn to think for ourselves, choosing righteousness on our own, requires that we have agency to do evil.

So God "built in" evil when he created humans, knowing that it would lead to events like the holocaust? It makes God sound like a sadist.

 

[rrosskopf]

So God "built in" evil when he created humans, knowing that it would lead to events like the holocaust? It makes God sound like a sadist.

You make it sound like evil is a thing, an ingredient in a recipe list, when it is nothing more than extreme selfishness and hateful behavior. You might as well take a shower, and then blame God for getting wet. We can choose what matter of men we want to be. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Before Jesus came onto the scene people were dying left and right without being saved from the wages of their sins. Then when god finally decided to set his plan of salvation into motion it was like molasses running downhill in winter. Only a smattering of those in the mid-east and those in Rome eventually heard about salvation through Jesus (Christianity didn't become the accepted religion in Rome until 300 CE). Slowly, over hundreds of years, people of other lands were introduced to the "message," some not hearing about salvation through Christ until the twentieth century. In the meantime the omnipotent god of Abraham turned a blind eye to the millions upon millions of people who had died and were dying without benefit of the death of his son.

So what could have been going on in gods mind? What kind of mind lays misery on an entire species of creatures and then provides a cure that is so confined and works so slowly it only affects a pitiful percentage of them? Were these clueless people somehow undeserving of salvation? Was this some kind of experiment of god's, using the unaware as a control group?

Considering that salvation is such a big deal, to me a decent being would never withhold such a gift. I know of people, myself included, who would never be so merciless. So, I can only conclude that when it comes to the truth of the matter, god simply doesn't care. He eventually threw a bone to his creation and doesn't care who sees it or not.

Of course, if I've missed an important element here, I'm all ears.

Why don't stop picking on the easy target revealed religions that can't defend themselves?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

You make it sound like evil is a thing, an ingredient in a recipe list, when it is nothing more than extreme selfishness and hateful behavior. You might as well take a shower, and then blame God for getting wet. We can choose what matter of men we want to be. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

So are you saying that God had no hand in creating humans? Or that he did and he decided to put in extreme selfishness and hateful behaviour, knowing the appalling suffering that this would lead to?

You still haven't explained why God didn't intervene in the holocaust.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Why don't stop picking on the easy target revealed religions that can't defend themselves?

Why don't you come up with some credible evidence to demonstrate that God cares?

 

[Skwim]

Why don't stop picking on the easy target revealed religions that can't defend themselves?

There were 164 posts before yours that imply differently.

 

[Ingledsva]

You make it sound like evil is a thing, an ingredient in a recipe list, when it is nothing more than extreme selfishness and hateful behavior. You might as well take a shower, and then blame God for getting wet. We can choose what matter of men we want to be. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

We whom are normal people, do not have ourselves to blame for evil!

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[Thief]

We whom are normal people, do not have ourselves to blame for evil!

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I've read somewhere......No one is good but the Father....

 

[joshua3886]

Take a walk through a maternity ward, after you see all the sick babies it's pretty clear that God still doesn't care. Many human beings are born into this world with no chance of a happy life at all, yet the strongly deluded still seem to think there is a master plan at work. What kind of psychotic being has a master plan that involves torturing and starving children? Of course there are plenty of people who say "this is our fault", well we're not the ones claiming to be all powerful and all loving. If I had the money, time and resources to help every starving and suffering child in the world I would. So I ask: if God is all loving and all powerful, how do you explain the unfair suffering placed on infants?
As a final note, in the incredibly unlikely event that a God does exist, I think it's plainly obvious that he hates smart and scientific people.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Take a walk through a maternity ward, after you see all the sick babies it's pretty clear that God still doesn't care. Many human beings are born into this world with no chance of a happy life at all, yet the strongly deluded still seem to think there is a master plan at work. What kind of psychotic being has a master plan that involves torturing and starving children?

Very good point. The more you look at the random suffering of the human condition, the less convincing the idea of a caring God becomes.

 

[rrosskopf]

Or that he did and he decided to put in extreme selfishness and hateful behaviour

God prefers that men choose righteousness of their own free will. Men have the ability to act, to choose, to interfere - much like a god.

"5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
"22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil..."
(Genesis 3)

 

[Thief]

Take a walk through a maternity ward, after you see all the sick babies it's pretty clear that God still doesn't care. Many human beings are born into this world with no chance of a happy life at all, yet the strongly deluded still seem to think there is a master plan at work. What kind of psychotic being has a master plan that involves torturing and starving children? Of course there are plenty of people who say "this is our fault", well we're not the ones claiming to be all powerful and all loving. If I had the money, time and resources to help every starving and suffering child in the world I would. So I ask: if God is all loving and all powerful, how do you explain the unfair suffering placed on infants?
As a final note, in the incredibly unlikely event that a God does exist, I think it's plainly obvious that he hates smart and scientific people.

we are here to learn all we can before we die.
Your body is self evident to it's use.

As for humans over populating the planet......we will.
As for humans grabbing all they can at the expense of others....we will.

God gave Man dominion.
We could do better......we won't.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

God prefers that men choose righteousness of their own free will.

And God doesn't mind when people reject righteousness and carry out genocides like the Holocaust?

 

[Ingledsva]

God prefers that men choose righteousness of their own free will. Men have the ability to act, to choose, to interfere - much like a god.

"5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
"22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil..."
(Genesis 3)

And why does it say your God murdered innocent babies for the crimes of other people?

Why does it say your God murdered guilty and innocent alike in a flood, - saving only 8 good people to start over, - whom turned out to actually be evil immediately upon landing? And evil grew again from them! God had a brain-fart?

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[Skwim]

And why does it say your God murdered innocent babies for the crimes of other people?

Why does it say your God murdered guilty and innocent alike in a flood, - saving only 8 good people to start over, - whom turned out to actually be evil immediately upon landing? And evil grew again from them! God had a brain-fart?

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Yup, the whole flood and ark show was a complete waste of time and effort. It did absolutely nothing to change anything. Too bad god didn't care enough to look ahead and foresee the futility of it all.

 

[Trantorfuzz]

I'm not a theist, but I know something about how Christianity works.

One of the things that you're missing is the notion of God's absolute sovereignty. Just as an absolute monarch is not subject to his own decrees, the Almighty is not subject to human moral judgment. He can make, destroy, or revise life in any way that he sees fit. Criticisms of God's wrath and indifference therefore amount to accusing God of playing God.

Another thing you're missing is the doctrine of the Fall and the doctrine of free will. Christians believe that, as punishment for disobedience, God cast humans out of a land of ease and comfort and into a dangerous world.

What is more, Christians point out that a great deal of human misery is caused by humans.

Put all this together, and you have an explanation for human misery that's more or less compatible with Christianity. It's not something I would want to believe, though.

 

[Ingledsva]

I'm not a theist, but I know something about how Christianity works.

One of the things that you're missing is the notion of God's absolute sovereignty. Just as an absolute monarch is not subject to his own decrees, the Almighty is not subject to human moral judgment. He can make, destroy, or revise life in any way that he sees fit. Criticisms of God's wrath and indifference therefore amount to accusing God of playing God.

Another thing you're missing is the doctrine of the Fall and the doctrine of free will. Christians believe that, as punishment for disobedience, God cast humans out of a land of ease and comfort and into a dangerous world.

What is more, Christians point out that a great deal of human misery is caused by humans.

Put all this together, and you have an explanation for human misery that's more or less compatible with Christianity. It's not something I would want to believe, though.

Whom are you replying to?

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