Why does my God allow children to die? Is he evil?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

We don't know anything about him other than he was a doc..
Paul said- "Our dear friend Luke the doctor, and Demas send greetings.(Col 4:14)

The authorship of Colossians is disputed:

Several scholars dispute the authenticity of Colossians. According to Raymond Brown (An Introduction, p. 610), "At the present moment about 60 percent of critical scholarship holds that Paul did not write the letter."

Colossians

And even if we take the passage in Colossians at face value, it only suggests that Paul knew a fellow Christian named Luke, who he considered to be a doctor. It doesn't say anything about this Luke writing the Gospel of Luke (or Acts, which is generally held to be written by the same person who wrote "Luke").

 

[Shuttlecraft]

The authorship of Colossians is disputed..

AARGH yet another atheist-sponsored conspiracy theory!
You'll be telling us next that Paul was spotted on the grassy knoll, and Oswald shot Liberty Valance..

 

[CG Didymus]

AARGH yet another atheist-sponsored conspiracy theory!
You'll be telling us next that Paul was spotted on the grassy knoll, and Oswald shot Liberty Valance..

Didn't John Wayne shoot Liberty Valance?

 

[Shuttlecraft]

Didn't John Wayne shoot Liberty Valance?

Well that's what was given out, but some scholars believe he was shot by either Lee Harvey Oswald, Mary Poppins or The Last of the Mohicans

 

[CG Didymus]

I can't believe someone mentioned Babies again. Who could have guessed babies would show up in this debate.

I'd like to talk about... babies and other things that Christian have developed into doctrines from things at best implied in the Bible. Like babies being born morally depraved? Deduced from a couple of verses because you need all of us to need Jesus to get saved. Jesus is fully man and fully God? Sure, but there's verses that imply he's not God. The stuff about the devil and hell... because it's part of the NT, Christians needed to find verses in the Hebrew Bible that implied that the Christian beliefs were true. Age of accountability? Where does it say in Judaism that before that age kids have a go to heaven card? It doesn't because they don't have the same doctrine of salvation as Christians have.

These, and probably many more, are Christian inventions. They are not necessarily how things are. And, they are not Biblical "fact", are just how some Christians need things to be to make their view of the Bible make sense. So quit being such a baby about it and admit that Christianity has had to develop these doctrines, or I could say, make them up. And that is why Christianity doesn't line up with Jewish beliefs.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

AARGH yet another atheist-sponsored conspiracy theory!
You'll be telling us next that Paul was spotted on the grassy knoll, and Oswald shot Liberty Valance..

Actually the conspiracy theory here (though "theory" is overly generous) is that atheists have influenced 60% of biblical scholars and earlychristianwritings.com to spread falsehoods about Colossians.

 

[Shuttlecraft]

Colossians seems pretty genuine to me..
But forgeries are easy to spot.
For example I bought the book 'Long Walk Home' an allegedly true account written by an escaper from a Siberian gulag who supposedly walked several thousand miles south out of Russia, but it soon became obvious he was making it up as he went along.

 

[JM2C]

Sure, but this is not the point. The point is that if you really want to prevent something bad from happening, you have to make the conservative assumption that people make up their own rules. If you don't...you are naive or you don't know people.

That is exactly why there is a law, a written law to prevent people from doing things that are against the law. Although it’s a law written on a piece of paper does not mean it has no value or it cannot prevent people from doing bad things, but what it can prevents is, from the consequences of violating this law written of a piece of paper, and that is, penalties, incarceration, or death.

 

[JM2C]

Would you put a million of dollars out in the open with a warning sign that whoever steals it will be punished? Is that prevention, for you? I assume you live in a civilized country. Would you do the same with your life savings in your civilized country?

Lawbreakers do worse than that, they killed people, kids or any age “out in the open” and the OPEN MINDED PEOPLE always blame God for these killings. Do we have a written law that says if you kill or steal you will be punish? We do, but why people disobey these written laws? Not enough “warning signs” perhaps? No! For the simple reason they do not follow the written laws because according to you

There are countries where nobody would care about a sign.

So, the problem is, according to you, lawbreakers only see a warning sign as a written “sign” and not care about the meaning of it. But what they don’t see is, that this written “sign” can “prevent” them from the “consequences” of this written “sign”, and that is, penalties, incarceration, or death.

So, the problem is not the written law or the “sign” but the lawbreakers by ignoring its punishment or consequences.

Therefore, we cannot blame the lawmaker but the lawbreakers for not reading or understanding the written “sign” with its meaning or consequences properly.

 

[JM2C]

By this standards, the garden of Eden was also uncivilized for the simple reason that the sign did not work, either. Ergo, either God was naive, or He did not know what He just created, or both.

No, you wrong! The law or the sign did work perfectly because the man was punished by death by disobeying the law or the sign.

If I put up a sign in a beach that says, “NO SWIMMING BECAUSE NO LIFEGUARD” and you swim anyway and drowned, then who is at fault here?

You might say that the prevention or the written “sign” that I put up was not enough and therefore blame me for that.

Should I cover the entire ocean so you could not swim?

Or the written “sign” was good enough and that what you should be looking at, beside the written sign alone, is the consequence of violating this sign could be drowning or death.

God did not violate His law the man did and therefore was punished with death.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

No, you wrong! The law or the sign did work perfectly because the man was punished by death by disobeying the law or the sign.

If I put up a sign in a beach that says, “NO SWIMMING BECAUSE NO LIFEGUARD” and you swim anyway and drowned, then who is at fault here?

You might say that the prevention or the written “sign” that I put up was not enough and therefore blame me for that.

Should I cover the entire ocean so you could not swim?

Or the written “sign” was good enough and that what you should be looking at, beside the written sign alone, is the consequence of violating this sign could be drowning or death.

God did not violate His law the man did and therefore was punished with death.

At least here, the law uses what's called the "reasonable person test": the responsible person has a duty to take reasonable steps to protect others.

If I was to design a road with one curve that had a design speed way less than the rest of the road, then unless there was some very good reason why I absolutely had to do it, I could very well be found liable for someone's crash even if it had a "sharp curve" warning sign.

 

[1robin]

I'd like to talk about... babies and other things that Christian have developed into doctrines from things at best implied in the Bible. Like babies being born morally depraved? Deduced from a couple of verses because you need all of us to need Jesus to get saved. Jesus is fully man and fully God? Sure, but there's verses that imply he's not God. The stuff about the devil and hell... because it's part of the NT, Christians needed to find verses in the Hebrew Bible that implied that the Christian beliefs were true. Age of accountability? Where does it say in Judaism that before that age kids have a go to heaven card? It doesn't because they don't have the same doctrine of salvation as Christians have.

These, and probably many more, are Christian inventions. They are not necessarily how things are. And, they are not Biblical "fact", are just how some Christians need things to be to make their view of the Bible make sense. So quit being such a baby about it and admit that Christianity has had to develop these doctrines, or I could say, make them up. And that is why Christianity doesn't line up with Jewish beliefs.

You first must make it relevant to theology. This baby obsession is tripping me out. This is at least three weeks discussion of that which has never been hinted to be relevant to anything. So for me any way until relevance is given no more responses will be given to the great baby debate.

 

[viole]

I think there is some clever, diabolical, horrific, stupendous, trick going on here because this issue is all to clear to be demanding proof. Are you talking about the actually probability that a thing can exist or the probability computed about it's existence which may or may not be true? I thought we were talking about things that actually have zero chance to exist but if a middle school education is enough for that. So I suspect you talking about something else. Nothing that actually exists can possibly have actually zero chance to exist.

Nothing diabolic, just plain probability theory. And I am not addressing ontology, I am addressing probability of events. Events that have probability zero can happen. Logical impossibility does not equal having probability zero.

Thanks for that. I would not have gotten it. What is a Lebesque? Spell check does not even get it.

It is actually Lebesgue, a mathematician. He generalized the concept of measure (area, volume) with important applications in probability theory, among others.

1 in almost zero.

What does that mean? Is that a number bigger than zero? Which one?

I stopped when I saw infinity. Infinity always makes a mockery of application. I think that was the point there. Infinity produces such arbitrary and results that I think something was being attempted be smuggled in with it. I am not qualified to say for sure in the few minutes I have to go through it.

Infinity is used everywhere. Calculus would die without it.

But consider this: an unstable atom can decay at any moment according to a certain distribution. It can also decay in exactly 5 minutes. Alas, the probability of it decaying in exactly 5 minutes is zero if you do the math. But it might decay in exactly 5 minutes, why not?

What is the problem with that? Do you think that there is not such a think as "in exactly 5 minutes"?

Why is there never an intuitive, clear, unambiguous argument against God? Why is all the evidence against him vaguely alluded to in graduate level ambiguous studies? I do not recall any mathematics, or scientific principle I had in 10 years of college (ten because I was slow and had to work full time) ever used to even contend with God. It is always stuffed into the quantum, infinity, semantics, assumption. I am more and more starting to notice the consistency of this phenomena. There were at least two symbols in that paper I never even saw before.

Well, I suspect that those documents in your drawers proving the supremacy of the mind use the quantum as a justification. Correct? If that is the case, you are cherry picking assumptions according to what confirms your theory and reject what it doesn't.

First of all, it is not possible to prove the non existence of gods. I could not make a water proof argument against fairies, either. Second, intuition is useless as a general purpose truth detector.

The problem is when someone tries to prove God by using some sort of scientific or philosophical arguments. Given the importance of the claim, it is our duty to scrutinize it.The more extraordinary the claim is, the more scrutiny it requires. This fact should be intuitive enough.

I looked at that paper again. It looks as if the conclusion is similar to some historical probability calculus I have seen. It seems to suggest things with zero probability are not possible but certain. Is that correct?

Not in general, of course. I have probability zero to guess your number, but that does not entail that I will guess it. It just does not entail that I will not guess it either.

As usual, probability makes sense only when you have a well defined set of outcomes and a procedure that can lead to any of those outcomes. Logically impossible outcomes are usually not included: nobody includes the probability of getting 7 when you roll a die. Outcomes and procedure are both fundamental for a well defined problem, for you can have different probabilities for the same event if you do not specify the procedure. This is also why all fine tuning arguments that talk of probability are meaningless.

Like my example of the atom, any time the atom decides to decay, that event had a-priori probability zero to happen at exactly that time. The event is identified as decay at a precise time. And they all have probability zero.

Ciao

- viole

 

[JM2C]

Of course He did it. He just forbid Adam, but He did not prevent anything. You don't seem to understand the meaning of "preventing" which is definetely not the contrary of "allowing". Does the desperation of keeipng God off the hook, changes the meaning of English words?

Tell who cannot understand here?

How can one forbid without any prevention? If one forbids you to smoke in the train one needs to put up a sign to prevent you from smoking.

If I forbid you to enter my house I need to put up a sign to prevent you from entering.

You could go 85mph on a 65mph zone by just ignoring the sign that could prevent you from the consequences of paying the penalty on which the law forbids. Sign, like the 65mph speed limit, is something that could prevent you doing over 65 and this is the effect of that forbidden law.

If God forbids Adam to eat the forbidden fruit, God needs to put up a sign to prevent Adam from doing it, but you said “He just forbid Adam, but He did not prevent anything”

 

[idav]

You first must make it relevant to theology. This baby obsession is tripping me out. This is at least three weeks discussion of that which has never been hinted to be relevant to anything. So for me any way until relevance is given no more responses will be given to the great baby debate.

The baby debate is a good way to figure why god allows children to die. So babies die even though they are fairly innocent, same for children. Goes to question why god allows innocence to suffer and die before they can be held culpable due to their understanding. Is god trying to punish even the innocent?

 

[Clear]

Sorry 1Robin, but I am too curious to let this specific point go.


4711 Robin “I can't believe someone mentioned Babies again. Who could have guessed babies would show up in this debate.”
4712 Indav : “3. Babies do not go to Hell. “
4713 1robin “Babies are not punished for their sin eternally. “
4714 Clear “[FONT=&quot]REGARDING THE THEORY THAT INFANTS ARE MORALLY “DEPRAVED” OR THAT “BABIES SIN CONSTANTLY”[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]4725 CG DIDYMUS “[/FONT]I'd like to talk about... babies and other things that Christian have developed into doctrines from things at best implied in the Bible. Like babies being born morally depraved?....age of accountability…. kids have a go to heaven card?....” etc., etc, etc.



DEGREE OF PHILOSOPHICAL / THEOLOGICAL INCONSISTENCIES BETWEEN THEORIES

No, I’m not going to talk about babies per se. I am curious about the consequences of changing a simple original (or early) doctrine and the adoption of another doctrine. It seemed to me that the abandonment of the early christian doctrine that infants are born innocent of sin and the subsequent adoption of a doctrine that infants are sinners and are morally depraved, creates more doctrinal and more philosophical problems than the new theory was designed to fix.

For example, SkepticThinkers point (a.k.a. “skeptics theorem of moral competency") that individuals must have adequate understanding and knowledge and opportunity for moral choice before they can BE a morally competent being is (as far as I am able to tell), the same as the early christian doctrine and it solves all of these questions that continue to be brought up about infants and their moral “depravity”. We have spent a lot of time discussing the theological difficulties of the theory where a newborn is born morally depraved.

Can anyone think of any theological problems and discomforts and theological dissonance created by the early Christian worldview where infants are born innocent of any sin?

Clear
σιειτζσινεω

 

[viole]

Tell who cannot understand here?

How can one forbid without any prevention? If one forbids you to smoke in the train one needs to put up a sign to prevent you from smoking.

If I forbid you to enter my house I need to put up a sign to prevent you from entering.

You could go 85mph on a 65mph zone by just ignoring the sign that could prevent you from the consequences of paying the penalty on which the law forbids. Sign, like the 65mph speed limit, is something that could prevent you doing over 65 and this is the effect of that forbidden law.

If God forbids Adam to eat the forbidden fruit, God needs to put up a sign to prevent Adam from doing it, but you said “He just forbid Adam, but He did not prevent anything”

Prevention: The action of stopping something from happening or arising (Oxford dictionary).

Now, if you insist that God really prevented Adam from eating the apple, the fact that Adam did indeed ate the apple can only have two explanations:

1) That was not a serious prevention. For preventing that from happening could have been very easy.
2) God is not omnipotent. His acts of preventions are useless. Like the police in some bad neighborhood.

Just think of the mess that followed. First covenant, second covenant,..., both useless against sin. Some accept the first only, others the second, but for the latter confusion is total. And for two thirds of the total population that is irrelevant. Destruction with a flood (useless) followed by Jesus ambassador diplomacy (equally useless). I don't think He knows what He is doing. Test and trials, at best.

Ciao

- viole

 

[idav]

Can anyone think of any theological problems and discomforts and theological dissonance created by the early Christian worldview where infants are born innocent of any sin?

Clear
σιειτζσινεω

Age of accountability is reasonable it just isn't scripture. It does solve issues like judging by intentions rather than just actions or just beliefs, and judging on a fair accountability. It also solves the issue of just granting free passes for people who just believe, it is more than the belief, it is being reborn in spirit from the inside which could likely happen at any age in a persons life.

 

[viole]

It is hard to argue with experience. That is why billions of them are convincing but thousands are only interesting. What experiences is it we are talking about. I wish I could talk to another faith who claims experience. No matter how hard I try it is always another guy who has and can't be reached. Let risk arrest and give you a hypothetical. If you go to a village of 100 and 33 of then claim to have met Joe and he is fat, 33 of them say Joe exists but ten say he is tall, ten say short, and 13 say skinny, 33 of them say no Joe can possibly exist. Would it not be the order of reliability to say.

1. Joe exists and is probably fat.
2. Joe exists and who knows exactly how fat he is.
3. 33 people have never met Joe and are making garbage up.

The worst conclusion is that no Joe exists and even worst is that Joe can't exist.

Let's try another experiment. Joe is a defendant in a court of law. He is accused of murder. No matter how fat or tall. Let's hear the eye witnesses whose experiences are the only evidence available.

33 say the murder was fat.
10 say the murder was tall
10 say the murder was short
13 say the murder was skinny
33 say say the other witnesses delude themselves or might need glasses. Nobody had a reliable visual.
1 does not know

Will Joe be condemned?

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

In this case, I think you are probably correct on this point and I am probably wrong.

I should probably turn my computer off at this point. I won't get many more agreements today I bet.

I had already, mentally, dismissed this theory as invalid and not worth forum consideration and time. So when it cropped up, again, I simply assumed that you had brought it up. It could have been me. Perhaps it was SkepticThinker’s point regarding knowledge and choice as prerequisites for an individual to be a moral agent, thus infants were amoral agents (I thought it was a wonderful point) that gave it a hit on the radar. Perhaps it was MY response to SkepticThinker and thus, I brought it up again in response to his post. I can’t tell. If you did NOT bring it up again (and it makes perfect sense why you would not want to), I apologize. There is no guarantee it will not return, but I think you are probably correct on this specific point Robin. If it was me instead, I apologize.

No apology necessary. I can't force any relevance for the baby issue from anyone so we can just leave it there.

Since I wrote the sentences above, indav brought up his question. I think since this issue affects 100% of the population (since we come as infants), it will probably come up again with newer posters who will want the “low down” on this issue.

I have no problem in it being brought up. In fact after sickened to death by it I responded to IDAV because he was new to it. However three weeks of futile appeals to emotionalism has long since become weird and so unless it is a new poster or someone makes it irrelevant I am done with it.

Oops, since I wrote the sentence above, I noticed SkepticThinker replied to your “it’s suspicious” comment. However, you claimed that “Concentrating on the most emotionally charged 5% of an arguments it's evidence” is incorrect. Most of us agree that adults commit moral acts that are “sins” but almost the entire disagreement (100% of the argument, not 5%) regards infants, the very population that early Christians traditions describe as “innocent” while your theory of moral depravity makes them sinners. Your attempt to re-context the argument as irrelevant or only affecting 5% of us seems deceptive since almost 100% of the argument regarding innocence regards infants and since 100% of us come to this world as infants.

This post is almost a color commentary on the thread as a whole. That's a new one. The was children not adults. Babies make up a small percentage of them and what's so strange is that they are the most unknowable and irrelevant category. That is why I find the obsession so suspicious. The same way I find that all arguments against God are hidden in the most obscure science. It is never 2 + 2 = no God. It is some bizarre unknowable quantum issue that proves God doe snot exist. Very suspicious.

I know that you feel your theory is somehow "special" and should be given more consideration. However, your theory is only one theory; one interpretation among many and, your theory that infants are morally “depraved” and that “babies sin constantly” is simply seen as less logical and unreasonable when compared with better theories. Instead of incessant arguing over a theory you have been unable to support, you could have swallowed just a bit of pride and admitted that you don’t really know if your theory is correct.

Of course I don't know. I must have said babies constitute the most unknowable group possible. I said my claim was justifiable not special or certain.

I agree with you that one can consider moral perfection concerning single moral actions and, there is some philosophical insight in doing so. If one never murders, then they are morally perfect in this one thing.

This is only a potentiality because hating is murder to God. It is conceivable someone did some act that was perfect but no ones total record ever could be.

If one never commits adultery, then they are morally perfect in this thing as well. If one never takes the name of God in vain, then one is perfect in that thing as well. That is, one can be morally perfect in certain points. This is partly why “total moral depravity” as an initial state of being does not make sense. However, as one ages and becomes able to steal, if they then steal or then lie, then they are no longer morally perfect in relation to stealing or lying. If I die as a newborn, then I am, morally, perfect. I have broken no commandment that I am able to obey, neither done a thing which was forbidden, nor failed to do a thing which I was able to do. This was partly why the modern Christian theory of TOTAL moral depravity was less rational than the early Christian theory of initial moral innocence.

I don't think it is total moral depravity. It is total moral bankrupts in that we fall infinitely short.
Some are better than others and some worse but we are all an infinity from perfect. Aquinas says we cannot even suggest what perfection is or any omni characteristic is. We can only show what it isn't. Original sin was not really part of my claim.


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