Where Was God...

[Etritonakin]

Exactly. God is in control. Therefore responsible for everything...unless we have free will.

There is a difference between responsibility and blame.

God is responsible for creating creators (relinquishing some control to them) -which requires independent choice, so he is responsible for bringing us to a state of responsibility and for making right all that has gone wrong.

All part of the plan.

 

[serp777]

There is a difference between responsibility and blame.

God is responsible for creating creators (relinquishing some control to them) -which requires independent choice, so he is responsible for bringing us to a state of responsibility and for making right all that has gone wrong.

All part of the plan.

Evil, sadism, and slaughter are a necessary part of God's plan? I mean you're implying that God is responsible for creating the devil as well as sin. How could an infinitely moral and good being create evil? Its completely contradictory and like trying to squeeze oil from a stone. You're implying that God is not perfectly moral. Perhaps God is subject to the same moral relativism we are. Its why his morality changed all the time in the old testament to the new testament.

 

[serp777]

God allows and restrains Satan as God sees fit, actually.

The sinning angels are restrained, but also allowed to do their own will at times. It is an odd arrangement, but will result in something positive.

Job1:12 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

It will result in something positive? Nice assertion. You don't know that. For all you know GOd doesn't care about our spec of dust in a galaxy with a trillion stars and simply created good and evil as part of the ultimate reality tv show.

 

[serp777]

I see your logic. Logic matters. You're own compassion causes you to question a reality in which a loving God could allow such atrocities. Your a good guy/woman.

I am concerned for you, but I have to have a bigger faith in God's ability to reach you. My forum name is God lover. I'm not going to pretend that I don't believe.

So here is my response to a very fair point you make:

Look for God within your own experience. I am convinced that we will never see God in a microscope or telescope. We won't prove God in a logical or phylisophical argument. Science and logic Matter! They are wonderful capacitis of human kind! Love em' However, I want to impress the view that the meeting between a present and active God happens between God and every person. Perhaps the only place you will meet God is in your own experience. Looking at the lives of others will never be where your own meeting happens. The lives of others can serve to point you towards God, but your experience in your heart will only be known by you.

I think you mean allah or baal. You clearly haven't experienced Allah's greatness.
Furthermore its funny you think experience is a reasonable criteria. Would you say the Christian woman who had a vision from Jesus and God to drown her children was having a real experience? Once you accept one experience you must accept them all. She truly believed that God was testing her like Abraham and that God had touched her heart and was going to take her children to heaven. But no, her experiences were wrong and yours are valid right? You just know you're correct because you know. Your feelings and experiences must be completely bullet proof and undeniable. Can you give me your feelings about the stock market tomorrow? Maybe you could be a day trader, although i don't know about federal regulations about contacting God about such things since God is the ultimate insider.

 

[Neo Deist]

There is a difference between responsibility and blame.

God is responsible for creating creators (relinquishing some control to them) -which requires independent choice, so he is responsible for bringing us to a state of responsibility and for making right all that has gone wrong.

All part of the plan.

So for an omnipotent, omniscient supreme being that had to see it coming but went ahead with it anyway...what does that say? It was by His design, and therefore His responsibility and is to blame. Unless we have free will...

 

[JoStories]

I am of course speaking of the God of the Abrahamic faith (which you referenced in the comment I replied to).

Yes then you seem to have it right. God is omnipotent which means he can do anything though, for his own reasons, he won't necessarily do everything.



It is your opinion that it is insane. But you should be humble and honest enough to admit that your belief that it is insane is based on the limited knowledge you have about how human beings learn and develop.

I think you both have points here. Yes, we need to learn from mistakes and sometimes those mistakes are huge and have very serious consequences. However, if God is omnipotent, then that would imply that God knows what will happen and such atrocities as the Holocaust would be something that is so over the top as to make God look as Strategic Philosopher points out. If a person lives a good life and follows the laws set forth by your Bible, one would not expect something as heinous as the Holocaust. Why would God inflict something this horrible? Yes, we as a people learned from that but the price of the lesson makes this God into a monstrous being. A parent would not murder all their children to make a point.

 

[JoStories]

Lessons learned:

The Holocaust:

Nationalism and racial pride can dangerous even deadly.

A charismatic leader is not necessarily the best leader.

9/11:

If you keep interfering in other nations don't be surprised when someone starts interfering with your nation.

And yet, racial pride and charismatic leaders are alive and well today, doing much the same thing as Hitler did. So what then becomes the point? Do you deny the racist attitudes toward our president, or Blacks or Hispanics or Muslims? Do you deny the charismatic leaders such as Bin Laden or Hussein or Putin or the leader of North Korea whose name escapes me at the moment? If the lesson of the Holocaust was to point out the problems with racism and so on, why have we not learned? Why would God continue to allow these things? Therein is the problem that paints your version of God as monstrous.

 

[Thanda]

And yet, racial pride and charismatic leaders are alive and well today, doing much the same thing as Hitler did. So what then becomes the point? Do you deny the racist attitudes toward our president, or Blacks or Hispanics or Muslims? Do you deny the charismatic leaders such as Bin Laden or Hussein or Putin or the leader of North Korea whose name escapes me at the moment? If the lesson of the Holocaust was to point out the problems with racism and so on, why have we not learned? Why would God continue to allow these things? Therein is the problem that paints your version of God as monstrous.

Why are you asking me why we haven't learnt? Why aren't you asking those who refuse to learn?

Many have learnt the lessons - thr germans and the Japanese certainly have. Perhaps others are waiting for disaster to strike them as well before they learn.

But as often as people refuse to learn the lesson will continue to be taught.

 

[God lover]

I think you mean allah or baal. You clearly haven't experienced Allah's greatness.
Furthermore its funny you think experience is a reasonable criteria. Would you say the Christian woman who had a vision from Jesus and God to drown her children was having a real experience? Once you accept one experience you must accept them all. She truly believed that God was testing her like Abraham and that God had touched her heart and was going to take her children to heaven. But no, her experiences were wrong and yours are valid right? You just know you're correct because you know. Your feelings and experiences must be completely bullet proof and undeniable. Can you give me your feelings about the stock market tomorrow? Maybe you could be a day trader, although i don't know about federal regulations about contacting God about such things since God is the ultimate insider.

You raise reasonable cautions! We need to use our discretion!

My discretion would tell me that the "Christian woman" who comités murder because of some visions she had was deluded. I think God meets us in our personal experiences, but if we turn from goodness we will come to places where we will experience non-God influences. Not every feeling, dream or vision necessarily is from God. God is not the only spiritual being at work and not every human experience is from God. We also have our own desires to come to grips with.

We must discern what is from us, what is from lesser spirits and what is from God.

 

[Neo Deist]

Do you deny the racist attitudes toward our president, or Blacks or Hispanics or Muslims?

Racism is a two way street...just saying.

 

[029b10]

One large piece of the 'free will' analogy is:
It's not really 'free', and no entity gave it !
Some take it, and some are victims of it !
~
'mud

It's not really 'free',
Not sure how you conclude 'free will' isn't really free. It appears your concept of 'free will' is based upon the belief that "free will' should exempt a person from any consequences of their actions 'Free will' is simply the ability of a living creature to act according to the dictates of their own conscious, or determination.

and no entity gave it!
No entity gave it depends upon whether you consider Nature a living entity, is it not evident that nature itself has said that every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: Gen 2:16

Some take it, and some are victims of it!
Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed;Rom 4:16
And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin Romans 14:23

 

[Etritonakin]

So for an omnipotent, omniscient supreme being that had to see it coming but went ahead with it anyway...what does that say? It was by His design, and therefore His responsibility and is to blame. Unless we have free will...

It says he sees the beginning and end -and declared the end from the beginning.
The end is already awesome -we're just not there yet.
It's going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better, because every generation is essentially just as ignorant and arrogant
-but we now have extreme power and our self-destruction cannot be postponed any longer (rather, there is no point in doing so -it will be prevented, but not postponed).

God did not do anything wrong -we do things wrong. Allowing that was not wrong -especially since he knows everything is going to be all right.

By creating creators, he allowed things to be by our design. His responsibility and design is to bring us to a point of designing responsibly.
If you say God is responsible, don't complain when he is all up in your business -because you acknowledge it is his business.
If you reject God, don't complain when you wreck yourself.

 

[Etritonakin]

It will result in something positive? Nice assertion. You don't know that. For all you know GOd doesn't care about our spec of dust in a galaxy with a trillion stars and simply created good and evil as part of the ultimate reality tv show.

Yes, I do.

 

[Etritonakin]

Evil, sadism, and slaughter are a necessary part of God's plan? I mean you're implying that God is responsible for creating the devil as well as sin. How could an infinitely moral and good being create evil? Its completely contradictory and like trying to squeeze oil from a stone. You're implying that God is not perfectly moral. Perhaps God is subject to the same moral relativism we are. Its why his morality changed all the time in the old testament to the new testament.

It's not about what God did -it's about what God is doing.

Looking at history thus far is like looking at an unfinished project and saying it doesn't work right.

The issue with creating creators is that they need to be aware before the project is finished -and finish the project themselves.
They are a project they must finish. They can do anything they choose, but will eventually realize that only certain choices are correct -and God manages and fast-tracks that process.

 

[jeager106]

Revelation 12:12 Should explain that "God" isn't in charge of this earth
just yet. Satan the devil is thus "woe to you.....".

New International Version
Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short."

New Living Translation
Therefore, rejoice, O heavens! And you who live in the heavens, rejoice! But terror will come on the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you in great anger, knowing that he has little time."

English Standard Version
Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

 

[suncowiam]

There is no God.

We are ants. Billions of ants die during storms. Unlike ants, which simply pick themselves up and continue like nothing happened, we like to question everything and place a grand label on it.

 

[Etritonakin]

Lets have an analogy,

If you witnessed a car crash, and a Kid was badly injured and bleeding, would you let him die, knowing that everything would be alright in the end? Or would you try to save him?

I think thats basically everyone on deist's side of the argument perceives a mono-theistic god.

Let's imagine a scenario.... God let everyone do whatever they wanted eternally -and nobody ever died.

Some think that would be awesome -but some want to do really bad things, and eternity would be miserable.

Saving the life of the body of the child is only one consideration.

If you knew the future of the child would be horrific because of the choices of other children who also become adults, even you might think death was a better option -but that might motivate you to change the child's future.

So -saving a life involves making circumstances right -not simply keeping a body alive.

God will make all circumstances right -and save every aspect of a life. His responsibility -since he created creators and set all of this in motion -is to save every life.

Death has a purpose -and it is toward saving lives. Part of saving us all is limiting our present lives.

Why would you want the child to live? Is life worth living? What makes life worth living and not worth living?

Was creating a child worthwhile -or should God have made robots which did not have accidents?

Why did the child get into an accident? Can you teach a child to prevent all accidents? Can God prevent all accidents?

If you say God should save the child -think about the best possible future for that child.

God has essentially already saved the child.

God will give the child a body which does not decay -is not subject to to the environment, but will cause the environment to be subject to the child.
God will not simply save the human body, but give the human a body which will allow it to have power over cosmic events -to create worlds.

Php 3:21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

However.... God must first bring the person within the body to a point of responsibility -and do so for all children.

An invulnerable body would not prevent spiritual misery. A mind must be made perfect to inhabit a perfect body -and this could not be done before initial awareness -as it requires the awareness and participation of the individual.

Our bodies are temporary so our exposure to the results of inexperience can be limited and temporary -and all of the dead children will be made alive again later.

If you -knowing the immediate future of the child would be horrific -had the power to suspend that life -and make the child alive again when you were certain the future of the child would be wonderful.... would you suspend the child's life for a year? A hundred years? A thousand?

If you knew making the future of every child perfect meant allowing every child to temporarily make mistakes which would hurt them and each other -would you allow it -or would you consider the idea of children to not be worthwhile -and skip it altogether?

If we assume there is no God -and we have children -is it a responsible action? Are we not then to blame?
Why would we bring a child into this world?
Assuming we could manipulate our lifespans, why wouldn't we make the world perfect before we have children? How could we explain to our children how to do the same?

 

[JoStories]

Why are you asking me why we haven't learnt? Why aren't you asking those who refuse to learn?

Many have learnt the lessons - thr germans and the Japanese certainly have. Perhaps others are waiting for disaster to strike them as well before they learn.

But as often as people refuse to learn the lesson will continue to be taught.

I was not exactly asking you per se, it was more in the lines of a response to your post and the questions were for generalized discussion. I know many who have refused to learn. Not many personally, thank goodness but I know of many people who are outright racists. The US is rife with them. They are prominent in the southeast but there are racists all over the place. Do you deny this? Our president is still mocked due to his color.

 

[Etritonakin]

You danced around the question, like you have before in this thread.
God letting the child die because his future on earth wouldn't be that right isn't a viable excuse because god would have the ability to change that child's future.

You need to be much clearer with the intent of your post to make it stand towards the analogy I made.
Why does the fact that eventually someone will be okay justify not helping when they are in trouble?
The argument still stands.

You do not understand the trouble -or how to save everyone out of it.

 

[JoStories]

Racism is a two way street...just saying.

Did I say it wasn't? I am not white so I speak of the racism and sexual orientation bias I have had to endure from whites or from Christians. There are racists of all stripes.