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

[McBell]

Is post #69 invisible?

 

[Lady B]

My argument wasn't that Hell is scary, or that I am perfect. My argument was that eternal torture is unjust, by all conventional understanding of the word justice.


So that follows that God would know that eternal torture is unjust too.

I mean, you believe that God gave us the ability to know right from wrong, correct? Why would he write it in our hearts that eternal torture is wrong, when he thinks it is right? Why would he trick us?


I really don't have this need for vengeance you appear to have. Why would your life have no purpose because someone else didn't get eternal torture for his crimes? I mean, my purpose is to be a good person, help out when I can, utilize my talents, broaden my knowledge and experience, build a family, make friends, make cookies, and enjoy life. You can find no pleasure or purpose in any of those things if Hell doesn't exist? I find that to be a sad, wasteful sort of existence.

And I certainly cannot fathom having peace with the idea that people will be eternally tortured. How could you enjoy yourself knowing that it is likely that I, someone who has never killed anyone, will be burning in Hell for eternity simply because God didn't choose me or because I didn't choose God?

A just, omnibenevolent God may be preferable to what I see as reality, but the God your beliefs portray simply doesn't provide justice in any sense of the word I understand.

Could you explain why my view takes more faith than yours?

For me being a believer and resting not on my own understanding takes less effort than for the Atheist to rest on his understanding alone. I am quite comfortable knowing their is a Higher being and that higher being is absolutely perfect in all his doings. Men on the other hand I see every day, I see their imperfections, their stupidity (myself included), I see how many times I have gotten it all wrong, I see great scholars who have gotten it all wrong, so why would I trust my or men's fallible mind when I can trust The God who created me. The knowledge we have now with the complicity of DNA alone supports a Creationist and to believe that this all came from chance or some big bang, or even macro evolution is just mind boggling and requires much more faith than their being a designer.
As for your depiction of me as vengefull, That is not correct for me or for God, He has bemoaned how his creation curses him. I surely do not wish the wrath of God on anyone, and I am not sure your concept of all nonbelievers suffering the same torture is correct from scripture, I do not see this written anywhere do you?

 

[Lady B]

Is post #69 invisible?

You know you guys aren't very patient, I opened my PC and had so many posts to respond to, I am not overlooking any, but again thinking and typing in speedily fashion simultaneously is a skill I do not have.

As for post 69 "Hold on a second...
You believe that everything is pre-ordained by God according to some master plan?
Yet you started a thread complaining about how some people "slander" your god? "

I don't see a contradiction here, Because God has preordained life, you don't need to respect him? Is that really your stand? Because your parents chose to have you and you had no say, you don't need to respect them? Help me if I am misunderstanding you here.

 

[Lady B]

Well Guys I need to put this discussion on hold for a while, I have presents to wrap, food to prepare and shopping to do, I promise I will try to respond to any posts directed at me when I have a chance to sit and relax again. By the way I am greatful for the respectful way of discussion between us in this thread thus far.

 

[McBell]

You know you guys aren't very patient, I opened my PC and had so many posts to respond to, I am not overlooking any, but again thinking and typing in speedily fashion simultaneously is a skill I do not have.

My apologies.

As for post 69 "Hold on a second...
You believe that everything is pre-ordained by God according to some master plan?
Yet you started a thread complaining about how some people "slander" your god? "

I don't see a contradiction here, Because God has preordained life, you don't need to respect him? Is that really your stand? Because your parents chose to have you and you had no say, you don't need to respect them? Help me if I am misunderstanding you here.

Define "pre-ordained"

I ask because you seem to have a much different idea of what "pre-ordained" means than i do.

 

[Copernicus]

It seems to me that we have an answer to both questions in the OP, given Lady B's description of God and her beliefs:

Question: Why does God allow children to die?
Answer: We cannot know.

Question: Is God evil?
Answer: Lady B thinks that we have no basis for judging God good or evil. Most others seem to think that there is adequate basis for judging this version of God to be evil. All human suffering in the world was ultimately, willfully, and knowingly caused by this God. Only selected humans--the "elect"--will ever be compensated for their suffering. Others will be tortured eternally. For most of us, it is hard not to judge such a being to be evil.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I am sorry, But the thing is I do believe no man will enter heaven or hell without being predestined to do so, But we ourselves do not know who is in this book, so we must consider all as having that possibility.

That still doesn't discard the possibility that a benevolent, helpful, and kind person might suffer eternally simply because they weren't part of "the elect." One could live all their life trying to be a good person and treat others well only to end up in some sort of hell because of something that they had no control over and didn't choose in the first place. To be honest, I see this as a much bleaker and upsetting view than people merely turning into dust once they are dead. At least they wouldn't suffer in the latter case.

As for the whole "purpose" argument, I find that basing all of one's decisions in life on the off chance that they have been elected (for no reason of their own choosing) to be neither promising nor that 'purposeful'. It seems to me that entering heaven (or hell) being predestined according to factors that we supposedly can't control actually defeats the argument that one must believe in a certain god concept to be moral or act benevolently toward others. Going by that logic, why would someone strive to do good unto others if they already know that they are bound to suffer eternally no matter what they do?

 

[Falvlun]

Well Guys I need to put this discussion on hold for a while, I have presents to wrap, food to prepare and shopping to do, I promise I will try to respond to any posts directed at me when I have a chance to sit and relax again. By the way I am greatful for the respectful way of discussion between us in this thread thus far.

Enjoy the holidays! Merry Christmas, Lady B

 

[Falvlun]

Define "pre-ordained"

I ask because you seem to have a much different idea of what "pre-ordained" means than i do.

I asked this in Post 72 as well. I mean, to ordain something means to order it, to decree it. Such a viewpoint really does leave no room for freewill.

Pre-ordained theology seems to make us simply puppets in a play that God wrote and directed. It makes it even stranger why God would feel the need to punish or reward particular puppets.

 

[Falvlun]

For me being a believer and resting not on my own understanding takes less effort than for the Atheist to rest on his understanding alone. I am quite comfortable knowing their is a Higher being and that higher being is absolutely perfect in all his doings.

Note the two phrases I highlighted. Now, take a stab as to why their juxtaposition is strange.

Do you not realize that you are relying on your own understanding? You believe you know, not only that God exists, but that you know how he operates. That is a whole lot of knowledge you got there, and quite a bit of trust in your own understanding.

Men on the other hand I see every day, I see their imperfections, their stupidity (myself included), I see how many times I have gotten it all wrong, I see great scholars who have gotten it all wrong, so why would I trust my or men's fallible mind when I can trust The God who created me.

Then you would also see all the good hearted people as well. Why do you focus on the evil, and claim that is all man has to offer?

And unfortunately, you also have faith that the book that tells you all these things about God is infallible. This is another arena in which you trust your own understanding. I find it far more likely that men, fallible men, wrote your holy book. How do you know differently, except by your faith, faith in your knowledge and understanding?

The knowledge we have now with the complicity of DNA alone supports a Creationist and to believe that this all came from chance or some big bang, or even macro evolution is just mind boggling and requires much more faith than their being a designer.

I'd be happy to debate this in another thread, but don't want to derail this one. Though, I would beg of you to acquaint yourself with the theory from a scientific standpoint first.

As for your depiction of me as vengefull, That is not correct for me or for God, He has bemoaned how his creation curses him.

I am not cursing God. I don't even know he exists. If he bemoans this, then why doesn't he do something about it, like clearly explaining to me a) that he exists and b) what he wants? Surely an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent being would be able to do this, especially if he desired that I come to know, love, and obey him.

And yes, it is vengeful to torture someone for eternity for any sort of crime. That is beyond reasonable punishment, which is what vengeance is.

I surely do not wish the wrath of God on anyone,

I'm sorry Lady B, but yes you have. You have stated multiple times that you desire people to be punished after death for their crimes committed here on Earth. You have even said that you wouldn't want to live in such a world in which such punishment were not given. You believe God's wrath is deserved and desirable.

and I am not sure your concept of all nonbelievers suffering the same torture is correct from scripture, I do not see this written anywhere do you?

That is possible. But hell is hell. Do you think that the Buddhist only gets a couple years and Hitler gets more? Or do you think that the Buddhist is only burned continually to death, while Hitler gets burning and scorpions? What is your view of hell? The Jewish concept of non-existence, I have no problem with morally. The fire and brimstone and place of wailing and gnashing of teeth for eternity, I do.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I find evil in evildoing going unpunished.I find evil in a life given for no purpose but to die and cease to exist.
What say you?

I find evil in people using their concepts of god to justify hate, violence, suffering, and lies.

 

[Copernicus]

I don't see a contradiction here, Because God has preordained life, you don't need to respect him? Is that really your stand? Because your parents chose to have you and you had no say, you don't need to respect them? Help me if I am misunderstanding you here.

First of all, parents do not preordain the lives of their children. If they could, then they would share the guilt for any wrongs done by those children. Secondly, if my parents had made me do despicable things, I would not only lose my respect for them, but respect would quickly turn to anger or even hatred.

But the analogy between God and parents really breaks down in the sense that parents are human beings like their children. People judge each other, and they quite often understand each others motives. The God that you describe is supposed to be incomprehensible and not a being that can be judged in the sense that human beings can. For many of us, it could never be an object of love or worship except in the sense that Winston Smith came to love Big Brother in Orwell's 1984. Smith had been tortured and brainwashed to the point where he had no will left for any other emotion.

 

[Me Myself]

The problem here is, you who have the fear of the concept of eternal hell, don't have the fear of God to avoid it. I do not have this fear, I know that God created man for his own Glory, not for mans Glory, I Can understand that He made me, He can kill me, he can punish me for not giving him his due respect for his creation. You see that you are Good, God gave us ways to measure Good so that it is not relative morality or subjective speculations, and he has told us that no man is Good, no man deserves heaven, it is a gift by grace and not by works. So I am sorry there is no good Buddhist in the scriptures, there is no good Christian ,there is no good Muslim, Christ alone was Good . Not preaching here, just saying my belief.

Pphh you call this justice?

So instead of having limited pnuishment for limited actions like with Karma and buddhist thought, you have unlimited punishment. That is not punishment, it´s mindless torture.

If it is not corrective or contructive then it is not punishment but aimless violence. You say how is it fair that an innocent person has the same faith than Hittler but then say there is no innocent person. Well, then your god´s system clearly effed up.

He made children that he knew full well he would torture eternally? pathetic. that´s not a god.

He tortures people for not praising him? pathetic, that´s not a god.

As Krishna said, a true god does not torture people for not praising him. That is not a god but a tyrant. A true god manages to be worshipped by being kind, not by being a tyrant.

 

[cataway]

what makes you think the most high God is some kind of servant ?

 

[Falvlun]

what makes you think the most high God is some kind of servant ?

It might help if you actually directed your question at whatever made you ask it. Otherwise, I have no clue why you'd ask such a thing.

 

[Lady B]

Pphh you call this justice?

So instead of having limited pnuishment for limited actions like with Karma and buddhist thought, you have unlimited punishment. That is not punishment, it´s mindless torture.

If it is not corrective or contructive then it is not punishment but aimless violence. You say how is it fair that an innocent person has the same faith than Hittler but then say there is no innocent person. Well, then your god´s system clearly effed up.

He made children that he knew full well he would torture eternally? pathetic. that´s not a god.

He tortures people for not praising him? pathetic, that´s not a god.

As Krishna said, a true god does not torture people for not praising him. That is not a god but a tyrant. A true god manages to be worshipped by being kind, not by being a tyrant.

Ok MeMyself, I have limited time but I would like you to show me where you get your interpretation that you could have the same fate as Hitler, I see this is a major stumbling block for you, and while I don't share this fear, I understand where your coming from but I can't see any scripture that says this...

 

[Lady B]

falvlun, I am now getting to your many posts to me, Please be patient...By the way, what does favlun mean?

 

[Falvlun]

falvlun, I am now getting to your many posts to me, Please be patient...By the way, what does favlun mean?

Hey, no rush.

Falvlun is Sindarin elvish. It means "blue foam". Like foam on the waves. Thanks for asking.

Does Lady B mean anything particular?

 

[Lady B]

I find evil in people using their concepts of god to justify hate, violence, suffering, and lies.

I certainly do not use God to do this, I don't even see how there is a response to your accusation, perhaps you could show me how I and other Christians do this? If you kow anything about Christianity or even Calvinist's you surely know I blame the total depravity of man for all sin.

 

[Lady B]

Hey, no rush.

Falvlun is Sindarin elvish. It means "blue foam". Like foam on the waves. Thanks for asking.

Does Lady B mean anything particular?

Actually It is a funny story how I came to be Lady B, my name is brand'e, my dad is french and my mother is english , they teased among themselves that I would either be a lady one day or a starving artist with a dream.... My father was always angry that noone pronounced my name in the french way and so I became B. My mom has always tried to conform me into a Lady, and so In honor of her attempts, I have made my online name Lady B, I have had it since 1998 when I first became involved in social forums and It has kind of stuck with me. Be assured i am not the Lady my mother intended, nor the starving artist my Father dreamed of, but I feel good about giving them both something....though they don't get that I do.....:areyoucra