If God created everything why didn't he create it perfect?

[Paraprakrti]

If life had a designer, and the designer was perfect, why isn't all life perfect?

But if you're perfect, why create anything at all? Creation is inherently inferior to your perfection. So, if a perfect being designed life, it must have been due to the plea of inferior beings. Moreover, if life was created at the whim of inferior beings, then its parameters would reflect that inferiority.

 

[blackout]

Would there be death in a perfect world?

Would we all be indestructable in a perfect world?

Be able to fly, and create things... matter... from thin air?
Then deconstruct them again, with no physical waste or toxicity left behind?

Would we be able to live at our own leisure?
Not have to run a daily rat race
in order to live in prosperity?
Not be owned by a bank.
Nor ruled by politicians.
Have absolutely no need for money.
No need for packaging,
copyrights, insurance, lawsuits.
Have no lack whatsoever.
No physical, mental, emotional illness.
No physical, mental, emotional pain.
No disease, no discomfort.
Beautiful weather all the time?
Or, maybe we can ride a tornado
as a little god,
like an amusment park ride,
and get off
with a smile.

Just bliss of creative freedom
as a little god of the universe.

In this world we would all be little gods.
We would all be Super Beings.
But,
there would be no Heroes.

 

[PolyHedral]

But if you're perfect, why create anything at all? Creation is inherently inferior to your perfection. So, if a perfect being designed life, it must have been due to the plea of inferior beings. Moreover, if life was created at the whim of inferior beings, then its parameters would reflect that inferiority.

Why? Couldn't a perfect being create a perfect creation?

 

[Wombat]

Would there be death in a perfect world?.

Would we understand/appreciate imortality without having known mortality?

Be able to fly, and create things... matter... from thin air?

Then deconstruct them again, with no physical waste or toxicity left behind?.

“You are what you think and with your thoughts you make the world” Buddha

“According to your faith be it done to you.” Jesus

To be in a realm in which thought/imagination was the instantaneous wellspring of existence? To >think< things into being.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!.....I would love that!.......that would be heaven-

http://www.polymerclaycentral.com/rodwicks_gallery.html

Would we be able to live at our own leisure?.

I don't believe that without having lived this life of limitation and constraint- misdirection and false turn, that I would have come to know what my "own leisure" would be. I'm certainly glad I did not gain it at 16- 28...

Not have to run a daily rat race

in order to live in prosperity?
Not be owned by a bank.
Nor ruled by politicians.
Have absolutely no need for money.
No need for packaging,
copyrights, insurance, lawsuits.
..

Yes.....Having met them all.....I will not miss them for an eternity.

No physical, mental, emotional illness.

No physical, mental, emotional pain.
No disease, no discomfort..

Oh!......can I just have a >little< sunburn?....Without the skin cancer?:beach:

Beautiful weather all the time?..

What?.......I don't get my own weather Remote and make it snow and storm when I want?:sad4:

Just bliss of creative freedom

as a little god of the universe..

Ahhhhhhhhh!.......But there's the rub!

I know many gentle artist/musician souls and I can't wait to see what they would do with uninhibited "creative freedom"....nor can I believe that the universe is so blind indifferent and wasteful as to nurture a creativity to realise its potential....and then obliterate it.
There are many I know who would be grand little gods of heavenly creative universes.

But there are also some I have met who, in a realm of creative freedom would be little devils and create a Hell.

And perhaps that is just how Heaven and Hell work....to "create things... matter... from thin air"

In this world we would all be little gods.

We would all be Super Beings.
But,
there would be no Heroes.

You are perhaps assuming that no one creative imagination would be more advanced or Superior to another?

I am assuming that many of my 'heros' long passed from this world are now Super Heros...and that many who never got a chance in this world have gone on to surpass them.

 

[PolyHedral]

Would we understand/appreciate imortality without having known mortality?

Of course we would, because we can imagine the world being worse than it is.

You do appreciate the lack of man-eating, fire-breathing dragons, don't you?

 

[Wombat]

Of course we would, because we can imagine the world being worse than it is.

You do appreciate the lack of man-eating, fire-breathing dragons, don't you?

No...I honestly don't "appreciate the lack of man-eating, fire-breathing dragons"...
like most people I satisfy myself with the partial and vicarious thrill of suspending disbelief for a couple of hours and feeling the thrill as the dragon chases the hero.....but I do not generally "appreciate the lack of" imaginary threats.
There is of course the real bad guy who thinks he can take my life....but there I believe the only real and lasting harm he can do is to himself- in and through the desire to do so.

 

[PolyHedral]

No...I honestly don't "appreciate the lack of man-eating, fire-breathing dragons"...
like most people I satisfy myself with the partial and vicarious thrill of suspending disbelief for a couple of hours and feeling the thrill as the dragon chases the hero.....but I do not generally "appreciate the lack of" imaginary threats.
There is of course the real bad guy who thinks he can take my life....but there I believe the only real and lasting harm he can do is to himself- in and through the desire to do so.

So what's the problem with immortality?

 

[Wombat]

So what's the problem with immortality?

No problem with it at all....it just tastes better after the illusion of mortality and the time/conditions to work out what would be worthy of eternity.

When Churchill was challenged- "Oh Winston...What would >you< do with eternity"?

He responded- "I would devote the first ten thousand years to learning the basics of oil painting".

I am with that sentiment- born of a desire stemming from a lifetime that denied the oportunity to do what you really want ...and, paradoxically, forged and clarified the understanding of what you really want.

Think 'beer'.........allways good.........but at it's heavenly best at the end of a loooong hot days hard work in the company of good friends (not seen for a while)

 

[Willamena]

But if you're perfect, why create anything at all? Creation is inherently inferior to your perfection.

How so?

 

[Oneatatime]

If life had a designer, and the designer was perfect, why isn't all life perfect?
Why is our trachea ventral (infront) of our oesophagus, (posing the risk of choking, meaning we have to have an epiglottis).
Why are our retinas inverted (i.e. the rods and cones point the wrong way round).

Why do biological proteins not always work efficient, e.g. RUBISCO has an oxygenase activity (an evolutionary accident).
And following from that, why are not all plants the more efficient C4 (or CAM) plants (most are C3).
Why didn't god just make them all the more efficient C4?

There are many more examples of imperfections in life...

All of the above can be explained by evolution, but why would a designer do this.

Good question and one which the religious can't provide a satisfactory answer for because despite thousands of years of religion the concept of God hasn't progressed past it being a figment of imagination with no reliably defined characteristics or motives.

 

[TalAbrams]

"If life had a designer, and the designer was perfect, why isn't all life perfect?"

If all were perfect, whatever that is, it would an incredibly boring life.
Can we really ask the question about perfection without self and opinion getting in the way?
Perhaps the design is perfect for the end-game which only the designer knows.
It is His creation and His rules.
But why did He include mosquitoes and gnats?

 

[Paraprakrti]

Why? Couldn't a perfect being create a perfect creation?

Sure. But the "perfect" for God and the "perfect" for creation aren't the same.

Allow me to elaborate...

If I give you crappy blueprints and tell you to build the structure just as the blueprints describe, and if you do just that, then what you have built is perfect because it is perfectly in line with those blueprints despite that the structure is rickety and unreliable.
Creation is inherently inferior to the desires of a being such as God. I would argue that God has no vested interest in creation, per se. Any interest God might seem to have in creation is predicated on the souls that dwell within it (e.g. God maintains universe in order that souls have this facility to try and fulfill their desires.) If it weren't for the desires of these souls, then God wouldn't even create the material universe (what to speak of maintaining it?)

 

[Dan4reason]

"If life had a designer, and the designer was perfect, why isn't all life perfect?"

If all were perfect, whatever that is, it would an incredibly boring life.
Can we really ask the question about perfection without self and opinion getting in the way?
Perhaps the design is perfect for the end-game which only the designer knows.
It is His creation and His rules.
But why did He include mosquitoes and gnats?

Perhapse your conception of perfect is flawed. Maybe that which is perfect is not possible. There are so many ways for something to be perfect, e.g. perfectly peaceful and no strife, adventurous and fun, full of pleasure and food, no physical dangers, etc. To get one form of perfection, you have to sacrifice another in some way. All this does is challenge the concept of an omnipotent God. All you can hope for is a God who can do alot of things but not everything and can only hope to make things as good as possible.

Of course I have yet to see how the human brain is the best possible contruction of God, or the greatness in the natural ecosystem he created that relies of ruthless natural selection, and self-preservation by killing other life forms.

 

[Penumbra]

But this is exactly what you're doing. You propose a world that's better than this one as an alternative to having to define perfect. If you've changed your mind (again) and want to go back to "perfect", then you'll have to address my proposition that perfection is a logical impossibility.

I haven't changed my mind.

On page four of this thread, 11 pages before you and I even began debating, I said:

Applying the concept of perfection to a multi-faceted concept such as "life" or "the universe" is bound to result in a lack of conclusion on the matter.

Probably the best way of thinking about it is, "is the best of all possible worlds I can conceive of?" If not, it's probably not perfect. As a brief start, the best possible world I can conceive of doesn't include brain parasites, flesh eating bacteria, childhood cancer, genetic defects that cause people to be born without arms and legs, an environment that regularly and randomly kills people and other animals, a fairly high complication rate and agony regarding childbirth, and some lesser annoyances like wisdom teeth or vision problems that are so common.

And in one of my earlier posts to you many pages ago, I said:

So rather than trying to define a perfect world, which I agree would be somewhat relative, the more appropriate path I think is to demonstrate the inverse- that this world is imperfect. And basically my question ends up being more of a challenge- I challenge theists to present a coherent model of why the most grievous suffering and despair necessarily must exist in a so-called perfect world.

Or, five months ago in a different thread, when I said: (in response to "how would you know if god were perfect?")

It may be impossible to do so, considering the partially subjective nature of the word "perfect" when applied to multifaceted concepts.

Somewhat easier, it would be, to determine that an imperfect thing is indeed imperfect. The Socratic Method is highly relevant in such a case. In other words, if someone were to describe a god that they consider perfect, one could discuss it critically and attempt to point out areas of imperfection, contradiction, poor reasoning, and so forth. If a fault is found, the concept is imperfect. If one were unable to find a fault, perfection may have been found.

I'm quite aware, and have been quite aware before the inception of this thread, that "perfect" is a problematic term for a world, a god, or any complex subject. This is why, when I debate in favor of the problem of evil/suffering/imperfection, I utilize the Socratic method to point out that this world isn't something we should reasonably call perfect by pointing out various problems with it, rather than by attempting foolishly to define what a perfect world would be like.

Unlike many proponents of the PoE, I specifically do not argue that a perfect world would exclude all suffering. I do, however, point out that extremely grievous suffering and despair, including of children, or horrible imperfections like torturous diseases, are directly at odds with a proposed perfect world and a perfect god, unless someone would like to demonstrate convincingly why this is not the case.
​

Yes, you make them better. They're only better in relation to their former state, that's my point.

Also, obviously the use of "imperfect" in this case is in comparison to some standard that you have in mind. what I'm trying to get you to do is to explain what standard you have in mind when you class the world as "imperfect".

To say that a system is "imperfect" is redundant, since no system is perfect.

All you're saying is that it could be made "better", which puts us right back where we were.

Yes, which is what you seem to have been suggesting with the list you offered. what I'm trying to show you is that this new and improved world you're proposing via this list is only new and improved until it becomes actualized, at which point it isn't a better world, it's just the world.

A world that is truly better than another one is better regardless of whether the other one is conceived of or not. This world is better than any number of worlds we've never thought of with horrors that we haven't yet imagined. If we lived in a world without grievous suffering and despair, it would be a better than a world that includes grievous suffering and despair, even if we had no conception of what grievous suffering and despair are.

And the POE could just as easily be brought up in that world as in this one.

Not all forms of the PoE. And specifically, not my form. If there were no grievous suffering or despair, the version of PoE that I put forth would not be applicable, or the forms of it would be so weak as to be minor points rather than major arguments.

 

[Paraprakrti]

How so?

Being eternally perfect, one is eternally satisfied within oneself. Creation implies that something was lacking.

 

[Paraprakrti]

Good question and one which the religious can't provide a satisfactory answer for

I doubt my answer will turn you into a theist, but I feel it is quite satisfactory given the parameters. Please see the top of page 27 for that answer, and feel free to respond.

 

[Willamena]

Creation implies that something was lacking.

But why?

 

[Paraprakrti]

But why?

Because what possible interest would an eternally satisfied being have with something that is, by nature, fleeting and insubstantial? If God enjoys sitting in a chair, let's say, then God has an eternally manifest chair in God's eternal abode. God doesn't need to create one as if that desire was previously a void to be filled.

 

[Quagmire]

I haven't changed my mind.

On page four of this thread, 11 pages before you and I even began debating, I said:
And in one of my earlier posts to you many pages ago, I said:
Or, five months ago in a different thread, when I said: (in response to "how would you know if god were perfect?")
I'm quite aware, and have been quite aware before the inception of this thread, that "perfect" is a problematic term for a world, a god, or any complex subject. This is why, when I debate in favor of the problem of evil/suffering/imperfection, I utilize the Socratic method to point out that this world isn't something we should reasonably call perfect by pointing out various problems with it, rather than by attempting foolishly to define what a perfect world would be like.

Unlike many proponents of the PoE, I specifically do not argue that a perfect world would exclude all suffering. I do, however, point out that extremely grievous suffering and despair, including of children, or horrible imperfections like torturous diseases, are directly at odds with a proposed perfect world and a perfect god, unless someone would like to demonstrate convincingly why this is not the case.
​

A world that is truly better than another one is better regardless of whether the other one is conceived of or not.

"Truly better" is the problematic proposition here: if we're not living in that world, if it's merely a hypothetical, then it isn't "truly" better, it's only hypothetically better.

You're basically saying that we should rate a world in accordance with subjective experience and then assign it an objective value.

Unless someone is experiencing that world subjectively, then it isn't a better world.

This world is better than any number of worlds we've never thought of with horrors that we haven't yet imagined. If we lived in a world without grievous suffering and despair, it would be a better than a world that includes grievous suffering and despair, even if we had no conception of what grievous suffering and despair are.

Better for whom? If you're asking that we compare these worlds objectively, then we have to place ourselves outside of subjective experience, at which point we have nothing to rate them with.

Not all forms of the PoE. And specifically, not my form. If there were no grievous suffering or despair, the version of PoE that I put forth would not be applicable, or the forms of it would be so weak as to be minor points rather than major arguments.

I disagree: I think if we suddenly found ourselves in a "better" world: say Meow Mix's hypothetical world where the worst thing that could happen to someone is that they could stub their toe, then in that world stubbing your toe would be that world's equivalent of "grievous suffering". We would still have the POE (and we would most likely still be having this debate). All that would have to change would be the examples you're using.

Remember: your whole concept of the POE is based on a standard that you set in accordance with what you consider this world's harshest aspects.

If all those aspects were eliminated, the next set of harshest aspects would then become the harshest aspects, and your sensibilities would shift accordingly.

 

[Wombat]

"
I disagree: I think if we suddenly found ourselves in a "better" world: say Meow Mix's hypothetical world where the worst thing that could happen to someone is that they could stub their toe, then in that world stubbing your toe would be that world's equivalent of "grievous suffering". We would still have the POE (and we would most likely still be having this debate). All that would have to change would be the examples you're using.

Your post/point displays remarkable insight and wisdom...this is clear in that the pov you put forward faultlessly mirrors my previous statements on the issue-

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/2378216-post31.html

And, deja vu, while conversing with the same respondent in both instances.

Have fun guys!