The Question Islam and Christianity Can't Answer

[Link]

I agree with you. No morally defensible idea of God is compatible with God foreknowing the free willed decisions of created beings and the existence of evil.

I think if future knowledge was all knowable, God could create only beings who choose good. Then evil would not exist, but I don't think it's possible to know all this without trying us in real time, meaning future knowledge is not known.

 

[sayak83]

I think if future knowledge was all knowable, God could create only beings who choose good. Then evil would not exist, but I don't think it's possible to know all this without trying us in real time, meaning future knowledge is not known.

I agree.
I would however say that the Hindu conception is better. As through the reincarnation cycle, God provides an infinite number of attempts for all beings, no matter how thick headed , to eventually get it right. This honors both free will, justice and compassion in my view.

 

[Link]

I agree.
I would however say that the Hindu conception is better. As through the reincarnation cycle, God provides an infinite number of attempts for all beings, no matter how thick headed , to eventually get it right. This honors both free will, justice and compassion in my view.

Salam

I've discussed the issue of reincarnation before. I think @Bird123 has a similar view of reincarnation and I've had lengthy debates about it.

 

[Tomef]

Salam

Free-will is only possible with God and unseen realms. The Quran says a day with God is a thousand years of our reckoning and things take a thousand years to ascend to God. Each day our deeds are presented to God and his Messenger and the security givers (the Imams), but it's not in a process we are familiar with.

Angels (a) and the unseen realm we are connected to make free-will possible. In this unseen realm, we have enemies too and can go wrong realms and wrong skies.

Once we associate with God, we are in a far place, and Angels (a) and Imam (a) are not responsible at that point if we reach guidance or not. However, if we enter the proper doors and fear God, the Imams (a) will guide us in the unseen journey.

The speed we race to God is a matter of will.

Ultimately, we are the creators of the realms in our souls. We choose what to tune into the good thoughts from God and Imam (a) or the evil thoughts from Satan and his minions.

The struggle to get out darkness to light is not easy. And it's not a matter of just a moment decision. Rather, each decision behind the scenes is an entire battle in the soul between light and darkness. Yet when we do evil, we feel guilt and when we do good, we feel good about it, so we are the ultimate decision makers. How those events take place, we don't know.

Man is a light, a secret on top of a secret. The Angels rank up the higher they help humans in ascension. Each day we witness is an entire thousand years of battle between Shayateen and Angels in the unseen realm.

Salaam. I appreciate your answer, but old religious mythology doesn’t have the same relevance it once had. It’s more a way of avoiding understanding than gaining any, beyond a certain point.

 

[Link]

Salaam. I appreciate your answer, but old religious mythology doesn’t have the same relevance it once had. It’s more a way of avoiding understanding than gaining any, beyond a certain point.

Salam

No problem. The heart of decision between good and evil in my view, is who we choose to love or hate. Envy of God's chosen will make us incline to the unclean tree. If we cling to God's chosen spirits that obey God and help us on the journey, we will be traveling the right direction.

Love is like a magnet - that brings us to either good realms or distances us from God.

If we love based on falsehood, we will hate the truth. If we love the truth and it's holders, we will travel to God who is the source of that the truth and the one who guides to it through his guidance and rope.

 

[sayak83]

Salaam. I appreciate your answer, but old religious mythology doesn’t have the same relevance it once had. It’s more a way of avoiding understanding than gaining any, beyond a certain point.

With all due respect every thread here cannot be about whether God exists or not. This is a discussion about comparative theology between various religious systems as the question in the OP was on that. You have to work within the structure of the worldviews in question to answer this. This is standard practice of the form
If X is assumed to be true what are the consequences in ethical space or space of meanings etc. ? What changes if Y is true instead? And so forth.

 

[sayak83]

Salam

I've discussed the issue of reincarnation before. I think @Bird123 has a similar view of reincarnation and I've had lengthy debates about it.

I do not remember participating in it. If you are interested we can have one, a discussion on the whether, ethically, which system delivers more.

 

[Link]

I do not remember participating in it. If you are interested we can have one, a discussion on the whether, ethically, which system delivers more.

Sure, you can start a debate about in the one on one debate section. Tag me in it.

 

[sayak83]

Sure, you can start a debate about in the one on one debate section. Tag me in it.

I do not like debates. Discussion is better. Let me see where to have it. But before that, can I get a brief summary of the Shia view here. Hell is eternal or not?

 

[Link]

I do not like debates. Discussion is better. Let me see where to have it. But before that, can I get a brief summary of the Shia view here. Hell is eternal or not?

Some Shia Irfan people say hell is not forever. However, I believe the Quran is clear it's forever.

 

[Trailblazer]

Totally incorrect. People are free to choose. That's just how it is.

People are free to choose between good and evil and that is why crimes are punishable by law, but people are not free to choose everything because some things that happen to people are fated/predestined. God is responsible for those things. That's just how it is.

 

[Trailblazer]

I agree with you. No morally defensible idea of God is compatible with God foreknowing the free willed decisions of created beings and the existence of evil.

God knows what we will choose but this foreknowledge is not what causes us to do anything. We cause our life to unfold as it does by virtue of our own decisions and actions.

“Every act ye meditate is as clear to Him as is that act when already accomplished. There is none other God besides Him. His is all creation and its empire. All stands revealed before Him; all is recorded in His holy and hidden Tablets. This fore-knowledge of God, however, should not be regarded as having caused the actions of men, just as your own previous knowledge that a certain event is to occur, or your desire that it should happen, is not and can never be the reason for its occurrence.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 150

That does not mean that everything that happens to us is freely chosen. We do not choose our parents, where we were born, our heredity, and we do not choose accidents and injuries or diseases or our time of death. I think that some things happen because they were fated/predestined by God, but that does not mean that everything that happens to us is predestined.

 

[sayak83]

God knows what we will choose but this foreknowledge is not what causes us to do anything. We cause our life to unfold as it does by virtue of our own decisions and actions.

“Every act ye meditate is as clear to Him as is that act when already accomplished. There is none other God besides Him. His is all creation and its empire. All stands revealed before Him; all is recorded in His holy and hidden Tablets. This fore-knowledge of God, however, should not be regarded as having caused the actions of men, just as your own previous knowledge that a certain event is to occur, or your desire that it should happen, is not and can never be the reason for its occurrence.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 150

That does not mean that everything that happens to us is freely chosen. We do not choose our parents, where we were born, our heredity, and we do not choose accidents and injuries or diseases or our time of death. I think that some things happen because they were fated/predestined by God, but that does not mean that everything that happens to us is predestined.

You do not believe God is good if I recall. Correct?

 

[Tomef]

With all due respect every thread here cannot be about whether God exists or not. This is a discussion about comparative theology between various religious systems as the question in the OP was on that. You have to work within the structure of the worldviews in question to answer this. This is standard practice of the form
If X is assumed to be true what are the consequences in ethical space or space of meanings etc. ? What changes if Y is true instead? And so forth.

Regarding the OP, my impression has been that Christianity posits a god who is both loving, or rather ‘is’ love, but who is also ‘perfectly’ just, in the sense that he is compelled to punish wrongdoing. The workaround is the cross. But the response, as I understand it, is that in the Christian view god is somehow obliged to inflict maximum punishment because a) Christ would have had to die even if only one person in all history had committed some minor infraction and b) as the result would have been the same, the punishment is the same.

 

[sayak83]

Regarding the OP, my impression has been that Christianity posits a god who is both loving, or rather ‘is’ love, but who is also ‘perfectly’ just, in the sense that he is compelled to punish wrongdoing. The workaround is the cross. But the response, as I understand it, is that in the Christian view god is somehow obliged to inflict maximum punishment because a) Christ would have had to die even if only one person in all history had committed some minor infraction and b) as the result would have been the same, the punishment is the same.

I agree the usual interpretation has many problems and is not clear.

 

[Trailblazer]

You do not believe God is good if I recall. Correct?

I do believe that God is good, but I question whether God is all-loving because of all the suffering in this world.

 

[Trailblazer]

So, he creates a bunch of people he already knows will go to hell before they even die. What's the point?

I do not believe that hell is a physical place where people 'go' when they die. I believe that hell is remoteness of God.

The fact that God knows that some people will be in hell after they die has absolutely nothing to do with why they will be there.
They will be there because of their own choices and actions, not because God knows they will be there. The reason God knows that they will be there is because God is all-knowing but God's foreknowledge is not the cause.

 

[Ignatius A]

Yes, for starters you can familiarise yourself with the relevant arguments, here is a starting point: Free Will vs Determinism - Orion Philosophy
Once you are familiar with those, you will begin to realise that simply insisting that ‘everyone chooses’ and there is no nuance involved is absurd.

However it seems quite evident that you have no interest in any kind of mature conversation. I suspect that you do not understand your own demand for proof and what that involves. What it involves, in reality, is you engaging in some mature behaviour. What I think you perhaps mean is proof along the lines of proving it’s raining outside by sticking your hand out of the window. If that is what you mean then you know as well as I do that your demand is silly and childish.

Just show that I'm wrong. Plays to emotion regarding my "maturity" make you weak.

 

[Tomef]

Just show that I'm wrong. Plays to emotion regarding my "maturity" make you weak.

Pointing out that your responses are immature is not a ‘play’. If you really can’t understand that proof one way or another on an issue like this involves you first understanding what the arguments for and against the existence of free will are, then the answer is to educate yourself. Proof, in the only sense that is relevant here, is a multi-stage process. Demanding that I show you you are wrong via some magical or instantaneous process only shows that you either just don’t understand how to have a basic conversation about something complicated, or you do understand that and are choosing to be disingenuous.

 

[Ebionite]

Why would an omniscient and loving God knowingly create many people he knows he will one day throw into hell after they get done living out their lives?

Your question is based on the false assumption of omniscience.

They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire [for] burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake [it], neither came [it] into my mind:
Jeremiah 19:5