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Why do most people assume God is benevolent?
- Thread starter rojse
- Start date
Andal
resident hypnotist
i agree with this.
rojse
RF Addict
God may have shown love when he sent Christ, but what about when God sent plagues to kill all of Egypt's firstborn sons?
Quote:
Originally Posted by cottage http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...o-most-people-assume-god-100.html#post1580455
Quote:
Originally Posted by cottage
Suffering is part of desire? So, you are actually saying that it is necessary for individuals to suffer as it is part of their desire for there to be no suffering?
No; that's only implied in your image of reality. I am saying that where individuals desire, they also suffer.
Im referring to your words: Suffering is necessary (979), and If we didn't know suffering, we wouldn't know relief from it; if we didn't know death, we wouldn't hold so tightly to life. (973). So what is it that individuals desire, relief from suffering?
We desire and suffer for a lot of things. Suffering and desire go hand in hand. Desire is for things we can't have, and we suffer when we don't have the things we desire. A desire for no suffering could certainly be one of the things we desire, and suffer for not getting; however, suffering, like desire, is not necessary to have, but where there is one there is necessarily the other.
This Buddhist notion of suffering and desire is just another metaphysical belief. And even if it were true it doesnt answer the contradiction.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cottage http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...o-most-people-assume-god-100.html#post1580455
Edit: Oh! I forgot... yours is the "right" one.
Arguments stand or fall by their own merit, not because of some imagined rightness.
There's a modium of truth in that. It's been my experience that arguments stand or fall on their interpretation and acceptance by the reader. Even more so, they stand or fall on the reader's ability to interpret them as arguments.
Only a modicum of truth? (!) And [arguments] stand or fall on the readers ability to interpret them as arguments? An argument is a fact or assertion presented as true. What is not to be accepted or understood about that? We don't have to assent to what is being asserted in order to recognise an argument as being what it is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cottage http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...o-most-people-assume-god-100.html#post1580455
Suffering exists everywhere! It is the very point of the discussion. And having established the existence of suffering, the problem now is how we reconcile that fact with the contradiction, an omnipotent God who is perfectly good and all benevolent.
The real contradiction is in the idea that a benevolent God could give us a world where all desires are immediately fulfilled, perhaps before they can even be fashioned as desires. That would be choatoic. And dull, as there would be nothing to do (no hunger, no motivation, no love, no hope... oh, and no desire).
Im getting dizzy. Weve simply rotated full circle to beg the question again: Suffering is good. Why is it good? It enables us to overcome suffering, which is good.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cottage http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...o-most-people-assume-god-100.html#post1580455
Quote:
Originally Posted by cottage
To what are you referring?
Willamena: "Existence, even the existence of suffering for us, is better than nonexistence."
Originally Posted by cottage
Then I think we need an explanation of how something that doesn't exist can benefit from...anything.
What is it that doesn't exist?
We didnt! If humans are a created species then there was a point when we didnt exist (and didnt suffer). Read your own words. You are saying it is better that we suffer, rather than to not exist. Im asking you how it can be better for a non-existent thing to suffer?
But when we did exist, we existed, and it was good. I'm simply saying that existing is good. "Nonexistent things" don't suffer --they don't exist, there is nothing to suffer.
With respect, you were not simply saying existing (ie the here and now) is good. You said Existence, even the existence of suffering for us, is better than non-existence. Remove the subordinate clause or leave it in as you will and we have Existence is better than non-existence.
Originally Posted by cottage http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...o-most-people-assume-god-100.html#post1580455
Quote:
Originally Posted by cottage
Suffering is part of desire? So, you are actually saying that it is necessary for individuals to suffer as it is part of their desire for there to be no suffering?
No; that's only implied in your image of reality. I am saying that where individuals desire, they also suffer.
Im referring to your words: Suffering is necessary (979), and If we didn't know suffering, we wouldn't know relief from it; if we didn't know death, we wouldn't hold so tightly to life. (973). So what is it that individuals desire, relief from suffering?
We desire and suffer for a lot of things. Suffering and desire go hand in hand. Desire is for things we can't have, and we suffer when we don't have the things we desire. A desire for no suffering could certainly be one of the things we desire, and suffer for not getting; however, suffering, like desire, is not necessary to have, but where there is one there is necessarily the other.
This Buddhist notion of suffering and desire is just another metaphysical belief. And even if it were true it doesnt answer the contradiction.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cottage http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...o-most-people-assume-god-100.html#post1580455
Edit: Oh! I forgot... yours is the "right" one.
Arguments stand or fall by their own merit, not because of some imagined rightness.
There's a modium of truth in that. It's been my experience that arguments stand or fall on their interpretation and acceptance by the reader. Even more so, they stand or fall on the reader's ability to interpret them as arguments.
Only a modicum of truth? (!) And [arguments] stand or fall on the readers ability to interpret them as arguments? An argument is a fact or assertion presented as true. What is not to be accepted or understood about that? We don't have to assent to what is being asserted in order to recognise an argument as being what it is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cottage http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...o-most-people-assume-god-100.html#post1580455
Suffering exists everywhere! It is the very point of the discussion. And having established the existence of suffering, the problem now is how we reconcile that fact with the contradiction, an omnipotent God who is perfectly good and all benevolent.
The real contradiction is in the idea that a benevolent God could give us a world where all desires are immediately fulfilled, perhaps before they can even be fashioned as desires. That would be choatoic. And dull, as there would be nothing to do (no hunger, no motivation, no love, no hope... oh, and no desire).
Im getting dizzy. Weve simply rotated full circle to beg the question again: Suffering is good. Why is it good? It enables us to overcome suffering, which is good.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cottage http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...o-most-people-assume-god-100.html#post1580455
Quote:
Originally Posted by cottage
To what are you referring?
Willamena: "Existence, even the existence of suffering for us, is better than nonexistence."
Originally Posted by cottage
Then I think we need an explanation of how something that doesn't exist can benefit from...anything.
What is it that doesn't exist?
We didnt! If humans are a created species then there was a point when we didnt exist (and didnt suffer). Read your own words. You are saying it is better that we suffer, rather than to not exist. Im asking you how it can be better for a non-existent thing to suffer?
But when we did exist, we existed, and it was good. I'm simply saying that existing is good. "Nonexistent things" don't suffer --they don't exist, there is nothing to suffer.
With respect, you were not simply saying existing (ie the here and now) is good. You said Existence, even the existence of suffering for us, is better than non-existence. Remove the subordinate clause or leave it in as you will and we have Existence is better than non-existence.
It doesn't answer it because there is none. If you see one, please explain it.
Odd. That's how I define a "fact".
Existence is good. Overcoming anything is a bonus (represented by the existence of overcoming).
Actually, I fail to see where you see "overcoming" in anything I said there.
Existence stands in contrast to nonexistence. I'm saying one is good, and one is not (not anything). There's no hidden meaning intended in my words.
It means you've earned the notable, and from this day forth highly esteemed, Thousandfold award (which I have just invented). :bow: It is yours to keep for eternity, after which the title because vacant once more.
I'm not so sure about the bit I've bolded.
I know the whole Trinity thing makes discussions of this tricky, but I think that in standard Christian atonement theology, Christ may have shown love when he agreed to be sent and sacrificed, but God the Father did not: as long as He had the option to simply erase the sins of the world (and He would have had it, being an all-powerful God and all), demanding that His son be punished in the world's place would have been an unnecessary and IMO unjust and unloving act.
Now... I know the argument can be made that Christ and God the Father are the same God and therefore God didn't punish anyone but Himself, but then you get into some odd "I hurt myself to show I care" thing that IMO is more psychotic than actually loving.
Francis
UBER-Christian
No, not exactly. Jesus is God the Father's son. Not in a physical sense, but they're... close. So it caused God pain to see Jesus go through Hid suffering. It'd be like seeing your child come into the house with a knee all scraped up because they were skateboarding. You immediately feel bad. My actual question is this: Why was Jesus's sacrifice necessary? I mean, why did God need anything because we sinned?
I just don't understand this. Peace!
rojse
RF Addict
Talk to five different Catholics about the Trinity, and you get ten different responses...
Come now, dont insult the intelligence, yours and mine: you were saying no such thing! Your very words were (post 976): Existence, even the existence of suffering for us, is better than non-existence. You were saying: Existence is better than non-existence, and to make the point even more explicit you included a clause, which said
that even if we suffer it is better for us than not existing.
As I said earlier in #976, the focus of my posts was to address that the assumptions we hold are related to the image of God we hold. Since that focus was entirely overlooked in favour of this view, I'm not going to pursue it anymore.
I do find it curious that the view that makes the issue make the least sense is the one held up as debate-worthy.
Since that was not my reasoning but your interpretation (prehaps trying to squeeze what I had said into the formal argument above), and since I have tried a number of times to explain, I have nothing more to say.
= Existence stands in contrast to nonexistence. I'm saying one is good, and one is not (not anything). There's no hidden meaning intended in my words.
Since the debate has come up a couple times in this thread and because I find the debate interesting, I have started a new thread.
Existence is better than non-existence
Feel free to check it out!
Existence is better than non-existence
Feel free to check it out!
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
No, not exactly. Jesus is God the Father's son. Not in a physical sense, but they're... close. So it caused God pain to see Jesus go through Hid suffering. It'd be like seeing your child come into the house with a knee all scraped up because they were skateboarding. You immediately feel bad. My actual question is this: Why was Jesus's sacrifice necessary? I mean, why did God need anything because we sinned?I just don't understand this. Peace!
Regardless, the point is he could have wiped away our sins and let us into Heaven without hurting and sacrificing himself or his son. That would have been the more benevolent way to go.
I thought 9-10ths Penguin provided the much needed clarification for the rest of that post, but I did want to probe this comment of yours.Willamena said:
The above quote was stated in reply to this statement: God can not commit evil if he is omni-benevolent.
I really don't see how you can claim that it is logically possible for an omni-benevolent God to commit evil.
You could claim that God commits evil only in order to bring about greater good, but then, can it really be claimed that God committed evil? (And conversely, can it really be considered to be good if it needs evil to exist?)
I still feel I see in sojourner's words the "God" that is not a cause of benevolence.
This is a pretty concise statement of sojourner's position, written by sojourner himself:
"I said that we experience the desire to return to a state of love and goodness, and we flesh that out in the Person of God. Given an assumption of the existence of God, as we have here, and given the nature of God as Creator, again, as we have here, we must assume that God does play a significant part in the development of that trait." post# 911
A direct reading would indicate that he believes God to be the cause of the trait.
The "image" we hold of evil or "God" or even of reality, which "God" allegedy informs (at least in some of "His" images), is constituted of the ideas we hold about these things. For instance, in our life-times we are repeatedly exposed to the word "evil" in various contexts, and even without having it explained to us, we draw meaning for the word from the contexts in which we experience it. We are exposed to "evil," we intuit, infer and concretize its meaning for ourselves, and that becomes our idea of "evil".
Earlier in my life I had concretized an idea of "evil" as bad acts, atrocious intents, and things along that line --as I think most people hold. Since coming to this forum and exposing myself to religious discussions, I have been exposed to a new idea of "evil," as a symbol that makes sense (for me, at least) of stories like Genesis in the context of myth. This symbolic meaning stems from a new (for me) image of "God"; and as pieces fell into place with symbolic meaning, I can understand a benevolence to the "God" that brings everything into existence, without discrimination.
All that is beside the point. The point I was trying to make was that if we hold so strongly to the image of "God" as an entity, like us, that acts on the world, as we do, with intent, as we have... this image is responsible for allowing such arguments to exist in the first place. I know I entirely failed to make my point.
Taken "directly", fleshing out "God" from the state of love and purpose, looked at in a context of cause and effect, gives the state of love and purpose the position of the cause, and the flesh of "God" as the effect. I still think that I see in sojourner's words the God that exists in a relationship of dependency with love and purpose in the world. But that's just me.
slave2six
Substitious
Because who wants to have a deity that isn't? We want to believe that people we meet are nice people and usually continue that belief until they do something truly horrible.
slave2six
Substitious
The answer is staring you in the face. No "good" or "benevolent" god would. So the choice you have to make is whether the god of the Bible is in fact "good" or "benevolent" based on that evidence that you have (e.g. the Bible). If the answer is "no" then the possible conclusions are:
- There is a good god but it cannot be the Judeo-Christian god
- The Judeo-Christian god is the real god and is not "good" or "benevolent" except when he feels like it and we are therefore all screwed no matter what we believe
- There is a god that is neither good nor benevolent but it is not necessarily the Judeo-Christian god, or
- There is no god.
OmarKhayyam
Well-Known Member
"The point I was trying to make was that if we hold so strongly to the image of "God" as an entity, like us, that acts on the world, as we do, with intent, as we have... this image is responsible for allowing such arguments to exist in the first place. I know I entirely failed to make my point."
Well not entirely. I got it.
BUT
A "god" who created this sorry scheme of things entire and left it to run its course w/o further attention or regard is not a "god" at all. It is just Aristotle's First Cause and as such is really both indescribable and irrelevant.
In the vernacular, "If 'god' don't give a rat's rectum about us why do we even care about it?"
Well not entirely. I got it.
BUT
A "god" who created this sorry scheme of things entire and left it to run its course w/o further attention or regard is not a "god" at all. It is just Aristotle's First Cause and as such is really both indescribable and irrelevant.
In the vernacular, "If 'god' don't give a rat's rectum about us why do we even care about it?"
AlsoAnima
Friend
1. Because humans are benevolent.
2. Because humanity would not accept a God who was not benevolent to them.