THERE Is no super being i will tell you why

[Beaudreaux]

or another option, that god is not going to fix our problems for us, that god is leaving us to take responsibility for our own actions and in-actions and to suffer the consequences of said actions or in-actions. It is the belief that "someone else will take care of it" that prevents many people from acting to ease the suffering of the world. How much less do you think we would act if we believed god would come down and fix it all for us.

Ah yes. The "stop being a crybaby" argument.

So millions of children die painful deaths from diseases we can't cure. What?!? Should God prevent that just because He loves us and He can?
​

This argument holds God to a lower standard of morality than we rightfully hold ourselves. It is not being a crybaby or spoiled to expect an all-loving, all-good God to be who He is supposed to be. If your own child were sick and dying and you could help by taking him/her to the hospital, would it ever occur to you ONCE to say "Well, my child shouldn't expect ME to solve all of his/her problems."

 

[Beaudreaux]

I have seen a lot of "God is benevolent" and "God doesn't really care about us," going back and forth in this thread, so here is an alternative viewpoint.

The Christian Bible states that God created man in His image. And that we as humans have freewill; and can choose to be good or evil (Obviously most people are a gradient of both, but that is besides the point I'm making).
So then wouldn't it be safe to assume that if God exists, he has the ability to be both cruel and just as well?

God helps when he wants, and hurts when he feels like it?

For the majority of people this makes their God seem too human; But we are human and we're, supposedly, created in his image. Therefore God is human... It isn't us being homo-sapiens that makes us human. It is our ability to think and reason, and decide for ourselves, and "God" has all of these abilities, correct?
So why can't "God" choose when and to what extent he wants to help or hurt? We do both everyday and with little regard as to why we do it. Some people help others, while some hurt others; "God" encompases humanity as a whole and therefore does both equally...

I don't believe in the Christian concept of God myself, but I wanted to post a third side to the discussion that wasn't the "God doesn't exist, that's why these things happen" arguement.

So, God is fallible just like humans....interesting. Doesn't really make Him worthy of worship, though...

 

[Beaudreaux]

Just a thought to expand on this: consider if god did prevent some of the world's ills like say starving children, natural disasters and diseases, knowing human nature we would probably move on to the next horrible things down the list like oh say rape and genetic disabilities and say "why didn't god prevent these horrid things? He certainly has the power." And then lets say he did. Well again knowing human nature we would move on to other horrors. Why bother fixing one complaint if all it will do is send us looking for other things to complain about?

So, it is not within God's capability to defeat all evil in the world?

 

[Beaudreaux]

Yep exactly. Why bother fixing problems that we have the ability to fix our selves if we only changed our attitudes?

There are some problem that we cannot fix ourselves. We are not capable of preventing things like the Asian Tsunami, but God is. Clearly he does not prevent such things.

 

[logician]

"His job is to be loving and patiently waiting for you to return to him.
__________________
"
God has a job?

 

[Beaudreaux]

I wonder why that is such a hard concept for some people to understand???

Maybe because it is fatally flawed?

There are mountains of pain and suffering in the world that humans are not capable of preventing (natural disasters, diseases). Why would God allow such things when He knows only He can prevent them?

 

[Beaudreaux]

Suffering and evil are in this world and we
have only ourselves to blame.
Our world was created perfect by God then
our parents(Adam and Eve) disobeyed. The
human race became a fallen race from that
point up until the present time.
The fact that there is suffering and evil in
the world is a natural consequence of Adam
and Eve's sin.
God does not will suffering and evil but He
does will to permit it. If he did not permit
it we would not be free creatures.
Sin is so evil that even the innocent suffer
such as children, etc.
It is a total mystery why God permits the
seemingly innocent to suffer. Only God can
answer that question.
God makes the rain fall on the just and the
unjust. Just think how strange the world
would be if two people were walking down
the road together. One was a sinner and
one was not. It started to rain but the rain
only fell on the the sinner!

I didn't eat no apple.....

 

[MoonWater]

So, it is not within God's capability to defeat all evil in the world?

Where did I say he was not able to defeat it. I said that he likely knows solving one set of ills for us would cause us to just move on down the list to complain about some other ills for him to fix. Again "Why bother fixing one complaint if all it will do is send us looking for other things to complain about?"

Also you have to realize that most of the suffering in the world is our fault. Why should god fix the problems that we ourselves created? With things that aren't necesarily our fault like some natural disasters(I say some because there are natural disasters that are also our fault) you should realize that such disasters are nature's way of "balancing herself out". The asian tsunami for instance was(I believe) caused by a massive earthquake out in the ocean and while it was devastating the earthquake was necesary in order to release all the tension that had built up in those tectonic plates. They had to give eventually otherwise it would be similar to one of use spending the rest of our days with an elbow locked in the same position.

my understanding of the Christian concept of god seems to say that we are here to be "tested"(though I could be wrong and opinions on this would most certainly vary) to see if we are "worthy", if we are "truly righteous"; how would it be possible to prove ourselves at all if god took care of everything for us?

And another thought, if one's only concern is to see that innocent children don't suffer, well how would these children be able to deal with suffering as adults if they didn't suffer as kids? I'm not saying that a child's life should be constant suffering because of this I'm merely saying that any pain a child experiences growing up will help prepare them for whatever pain they may experience as adults.

 

[MoonWater]

I didn't eat no apple.....

That's not the point. The concept romcat is describing is known as original sin, the concept that everyone is born with the burden of sin upon them back from adam and eve's eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In this instance it doesn't matter whether or not you "didn't eat no apple" you're still "stuck with the sin."

 

[Katzpur]

I find this thread terribly amusing. God doesn't exist because He's mean to me? People need to grow up and stop this nonsense.

 

[Katzpur]

God could prevent it. He does not. Why do you think he allows it to happen?

Why should He? Where do you draw the line? Should He prevent land mines but allow kids to fall down and skin their knees? Should He prevent tsunamis but allow people to have boating accidents? Should He strike rapists dead but allow shoplifters to get away with it?

 

[Katzpur]

So millions of children die painful deaths from diseases we can't cure. What?!? Should God prevent that just because He loves us and He can?

How many kids should He let die? Millions are apparently too many. Would thousands be acceptable? How about hundreds? None? Okay, so if God didn't allow any kids to die from painful diseases, how about adults? At what age should God decide to end someone's life?

 

[Riverwolf]

Maybe because it is fatally flawed?

There are mountains of pain and suffering in the world that humans are not capable of preventing (natural disasters, diseases). Why would God allow such things when He knows only He can prevent them?

In terms of natural disasters, if God were to prevent them, it would reduce the planet to a dead rock because there'd be nothing to... stir the soup of life, as it were. Volcanoes are nature's way of relieving pressure from the earth, which if left unrelieved would cause the planet to explode eventually. With terms of weather "disasters", those are also necessary for life to continue to exist on earth because they are used to correct imbalances in itself.

With regards to disease, bacteria are living beings like us, and need to survive. In order to survive, they often need to make us ill, sometimes fatally. (So much for being at the top of the food chain, eh?)

So that covers the natural reasons for death. As for most of the rest, the mess is our own; why should God clean up our own messes? Especially since the majority of us aren't willing to do so.

 

[The Hammer]

So, God is fallible just like humans....interesting. Doesn't really make Him worthy of worship, though...

Why doesn't it make him worthy of worship? He created the entire universe including ourselves, that is a basis for worship in itself, don't you think?

Just because he is a god and can make his own decisions on whether or not to be cruel or just doesn't mean he is fallible; it means he has choice.
God has the ability to be both cruel or just, and uses whichever to accomplish his goals. Whatever they may be.

 

[Anti-thesisofreason]

Maybe because it is fatally flawed?

There are mountains of pain and suffering in the world that humans are not capable of preventing (natural disasters, diseases). Why would God allow such things when He knows only He can prevent them?

Change and death are part of life, would you rather have a static unchanging world that holds no challenge or growth?

 

[whereismynotecard]

Change and death are part of life, would you rather have a static unchanging world that holds no challenge or growth?

I would love a world where no one else could die and no one else could be born. I'd hope we could figure out how to kill some of the rapists and murderers though, so we'd have more room for everyone else...

 

[MoonWater]

I would love a world where no one else could die and no one else could be born. I'd hope we could figure out how to kill some of the rapists and murderers though, so we'd have more room for everyone else...

Except not everyone wants that kind of world. I don't want to live forever and would like to have children of my own someday. And if we're stuck with the world being filled with the same people as it is now then how can we expect the world to make any significant changes? The biggest changes tend to come when the world "switches hands" from one generation to the next.

 

[gzusfrk]

If God played the role most people seem to want, there would be no hospitals, no doctors no clinics, no dentist, no nursing homes, we wouldnt even need day care God would watch them,no police or highway patrol, no body shops since no one would have a wreck,no insurance for homes or cars,no fire department, shelfs would become empty,with no asprin or any other medicine.The list does go on.

 

[Beaudreaux]

Where did I say he was not able to defeat it.

You do this when you say:

he likely knows solving one set of ills for us would cause us to just move on down the list to complain about some other ills for him to fix. Again "Why bother fixing one complaint if all it will do is send us looking for other things to complain about?"

If God can defeat ALL evil, pain and suffering in the world, there would be no "list" to "move on down"because there would be nothing to complain about. If, as I believe you are saying, there MUST always be the next thing to complain about, then God is not capable of eliminating all evil and suffering from the world.

Also you have to realize that most of the suffering in the world is our fault.

This is highly debatable. Here is a list of pain and suffering NOT caused by man that certainly could have been prevented by an omnipotent God. This is ONLY diseases and does not include figures from other natural disasters which I can provide if you feel this is unconvincing.

Death Toll Event

approx. 300,000,000 Smallpox
approx. 100,000,000 Bubonic Plague: Black Death
≥ 200,000,000 Measles
80,000,000–250,000,000 Malaria
50,000,000–100,000,000 Spanish Flu
40,000,000–100,000,000 Tuberculosis
approx. 40,000,000 Bubonic Plague: Plague of Justinian
25,250,000 AIDS
≥ 12,000,000 Bubonic Plague: Third Pandemic
5,000,000 Antonine Plague
4,000,000 Asian Flu pandemic
750,000 Hong Kong Flu pandemic

​

Please keep in mind that the death toll is only one measure of the tremendous human pain and suffering caused by these events.

Why should god fix the problems that we ourselves created? With things that aren't necesarily our fault like some natural disasters(I say some because there are natural disasters that are also our fault) you should realize that such disasters are nature's way of "balancing herself out". The asian tsunami for instance was(I believe) caused by a massive earthquake out in the ocean and while it was devastating the earthquake was necesary in order to release all the tension that had built up in those tectonic plates. They had to give eventually otherwise it would be similar to one of use spending the rest of our days with an elbow locked in the same position.

So, a woman who's 3 year is ripped from her arms by a Tsunami while she watches helplessly as it is dragged off in terror to drown and you tell her that such a thing was necessary because the earth needs to "balance itself out"? Not compelling IMHO.

my understanding of the Christian concept of god seems to say that we are here to be "tested"(though I could be wrong and opinions on this would most certainly vary) to see if we are "worthy", if we are "truly righteous"; how would it be possible to prove ourselves at all if god took care of everything for us?

Please explain how children who die of pediatric cancer are passing a test.

And another thought, if one's only concern is to see that innocent children don't suffer, well how would these children be able to deal with suffering as adults if they didn't suffer as kids? I'm not saying that a child's life should be constant suffering because of this I'm merely saying that any pain a child experiences growing up will help prepare them for whatever pain they may experience as adults.

Again, the children who die of horrible disease are not better for the experience. A child who is molested does not become stronger. They must deal with the pain of that experience for the rest of their lives. I admire your effort to hold God blameless, but it does not compel.

 

[Beaudreaux]

That's not the point. The concept romcat is describing is known as original sin, the concept that everyone is born with the burden of sin upon them back from adam and eve's eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In this instance it doesn't matter whether or not you "didn't eat no apple" you're still "stuck with the sin."

Does that seem just to you?