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

[NIX]

If allowing children to die is evil, and your god does this, then obviously he is doing something evil.

 

[adi2d]

If allowing children to die is evil, and your god does this, then obviously he is doing something evil.

Obviously

 

[Zanuku]

Well, don't ALL major gods throughout history allow the deaths of children, women & men?
Just remember it's not just your god that allows it to happen.
Maybe it's the norm up there in the celestial realm of gods, we can't really say.

 

[1robin]

I see your morals come from God Himself. So maybe you could answer the OP and tell us why children have to suffer and die.
My morality wouldn't allow me to do nothing if I had the knowledge and the ability to stop a child suffering. It is my feeling that I would be an accessory if I didn't do what I could to stop it.

First unless God exists there is nothing that is actually evil to begin with. Without God prove that even killing every life form there is actually wrong. You must sit in God's lap to slap his face. Second IN what way is the existence of evil incompatible with a good God. You are confusing capacity and quality with purpose. Third you also have a hierarchy of purpose and capacity conflict. It is not God's purpose to stop all suffering and fix this world. It is his purpose to grant freewill. That necessitates rebellion. Which necessitates suffering. Suffering is used by God to illustrate the destruction cause by the incorrect exercise of freewill so we will freely choose him. BTW only with God is all suffering ended and justice ever provided. Without him we get almost eternal suffering for no reason and no restoration yet you are calling the only being that promised to restore things evil.

Remember,I'm not talking about someone dieing of aids or a junkie with a needle in his arm. I'm talking about a child suffering and dieing

Man was judged corporately and individually. When our perfect representative Adam as we have been doing ever since then told God to go away that we are our God's and will be fine on our own, God said ok and took his constant supervision off of nature. It operates by cold unreasoning natural law and produces suffering. That as well is to indicate the truth of God and the consequence of rebellion and provide incentive for acknowledgement. Only with God is that ever fixed or has any purpose.


There are two component to "the problem of evil"

1. The philosophical issue. Which I have resolved.
2. The emotional. Which no one can and intrudes on the philosophical where it should not.

I do not like suffering but with God understand it.

 

[1robin]

I was pointing out the knee-jerk eagerness of moral absolutists to wheel out Hitler and the Nazis and say "See? Either you agree with me or you can't call these monsters wrong". Of much greater interest to discussion of the nature of morality is how Hitler persuaded huge numbers of his countrymen that what he advocated was right.

That is because it is only those obvious extremes a non theist will agree are wrong. Trying to establish what is actually wrong with a group of people who support abortion as a sacred right is too ambiguous.

It isn't a case of what people say about it, but what they say constitutes murder. Until a couple of generations ago, a Frenchman who killed his unfaithful wife and her lover was guilty not of murder but a crime passionnel, punishable by a couple of years in jail. Like it or not, murder is a matter of definition.

Your discussing what is legal and I am discussing what is wrong and they are many times not the same. See Mallum en se and Mallum prohibitum.

As am I, but we are not likely to find common ground. I am looking for foundations empirically, in how we observe morality functioning in society. Morality is out there, as an evolved and functioning component of human brains; it needs ontological grounding only if you wish to pursue the seductive fiction that there exists an absolute moral standard. I accept morality for what it is; you are straining hard to fashion it into what you wish it to be.

No matter what methods, terminology or semantics you use to define moral foundations without God they all equal opinion and preference and that is one poor substitute for God based fact. Morality developed through evolution alone would be as brutal and red in tooth and claw as nature is. It isn't. Natural law can never tell us what should be. If it could evolution would tell me I should kill every competing human on Earth that did not directly contribute to my tribes success. Evolution survives at all costs it does not care nor give moral truth.

 

[1robin]

I would point out that provided you are making an appeal to a 'transcendent' cognitive entity which formulates said rules, this would be a 'transcendent' subjective standard, as it would merely be the subjective standard devised by the cognitive function of a 'transcendent' entity and as such would still not be objective.

That would only be true if God declared morality into existence. God is morality he did not decide at some point what it was. It is an effect of his nature. This makes no difference even if his morals were subjective. They are objective in respect to us by definition. They are perfectly binding and absolute and all are accountable no matter what label you slap on it.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

That would only be true if God declared morality into existence. God is morality he did not decide at some point what it was. It is an effect of his nature. This makes no difference even if his morals were subjective. They are objective in respect to us by definition. They are perfectly binding and absolute and all are accountable no matter what label you slap on it.

So Slavery is moral.

 

[1robin]

If allowing children to die is evil, and your god does this, then obviously he is doing something evil.

Passivity is not culpability.

1. Only with God is evil true.
2. God's nature determines what is evil.
3. His nature can't condemn his nature.

Please see the above posts for more detailed explanations.

 

[1robin]

Well, don't ALL major gods throughout history allow the deaths of children, women & men?
Just remember it's not just your god that allows it to happen.
Maybe it's the norm up there in the celestial realm of gods, we can't really say.

Only with God is suffering ever rectified. Without him it is pointless, never rectified, and everything ends in futility.

 

[1robin]

So Slavery is moral.

Not chattel slavery. OT slavery was a form of servitude almost always voluntary, regulated by the most benevolent laws known to exist in the ANE and not God's active will. You are making an optimization fallacy. God allows things like divorce, servitude, and suffering because freewill and our sin make them necessary not because that is his active desire. They will not exist in heaven and Christ said he came to set the captives free. A Christian began the war against slavery in the US, a Christian president carried out slavery's destruction, and 300,000 Christians died to free another race.

 

[1robin]

Obviously

You have allowed children to die. Could not all your money and effort not saved at least a few dozen.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

Not chattel slavery. OT slavery was a form of servitude almost always voluntary, regulated by the most benevolent laws known to exist in the ANE and not God's active will. You are making an optimization fallacy. God allows things like divorce, servitude, and suffering because freewill and our sin make them necessary not because that is his active desire. They will not exist in heaven and Christ said he came to set the captives free. A Christian began the war against slavery in the US, a Christian president carried out slavery's destruction, and 300,000 Christians died to free another race.

Fallacy?

Is it morally correct to own another person as property?

Not on how you treat them, not based on if things were rough for them and they needed help. Is it morally acceptable to own another person? Yes or No. Because that is what Slavery is.

Also Christians also pushed the slave trade, Christians in the South fought to keep Slaves, The christian president remarked that if he could stop the splitting of the United States without ending slavery he would. 300,000 Christians (actually 258,000 confederates not sure they were all Christian, but lets just make assumptions ) Died to keep slaves.

But none of that has anything to do with whether or not it is morally acceptable to own another person.

 

[Magic Man]

You have allowed children to die. Could not all your money and effort not saved at least a few dozen.

1) Having the ability to save some children by using money and effort is much different from having the ability to change reality. It would be much easier for God to make things different, assuming the usual omnipotent, omniscient God.

2) God is supposed to be held to a higher standard than humans. If humans allow other humans to die, that doesn't justify an all-loving omnipotent being doing it. He's supposed to be perfect and all-loving; humans aren't.

 

[johnhanks]

Your discussing what is legal and I am discussing what is wrong and they are many times not the same. See Mallum en se and Mallum prohibitum.

I am fully aware of the distinction, thank you. The fact that murder and crime passionnel were seen as morally, and not just legally, distinct seems to have escaped you.

Morality developed through evolution alone would be as brutal and red in tooth and claw as nature is. It isn't.

You have a very blinkered view of what can develop through evolution.

Natural law can never tell us what should be.

But evolutionary processes can implant a sense of "should-ness", without which no moral code can develop. And it is quite unlikely that any two societies, plucked at random from history and geography, would agree in every detail on what "should be". Your hamkering for a universal, absolute moral code is futile.

If it could evolution would tell me I should kill every competing human on Earth that did not directly contribute to my tribes success.

This is nonsense. Read Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of our Nature.

 

[adi2d]

You have allowed children to die. Could not all your money and effort not saved at least a few dozen.

You know Nothing about me
I have helped in my community when I could. Worked and donated to food bank
Never have I looked the other way if I could help
If God is all omni then he could help but doesn't


Your adam and eve story doesn't really help. If it is literally true then God punished all of us the first time we used our free will. Set the tree in garden and punished us when A+E didn't know what they did was wrong. God put them out. They didn't tell him they could live without Him

 

[1robin]

Fallacy?

Exactly which fallacy is that? The not convenient for your claims fallacy?

Is it morally correct to own another person as property?

It would be if starvation and death are the likely alternatives. That was the case in most all period societies and the choice of most. It is a fact that the same action can be right in certain circumstances and not in others.

Not on how you treat them, not based on if things were rough for them and they needed help. Is it morally acceptable to own another person? Yes or No. Because that is what Slavery is.

How would I know? There is no other objective basis for knowing what is right and wrong than God. If he said it was ok to consider a battle captive or one who sells himself into another's service on even what theoretical basis could anyone said that was wrong. BTW property designation concerning OT slavery only had legal implications concerning certain aspects and was not a moral determination. Servants had shelter, food, owned property and could run away at any time and could not be reported.

Also Christians also pushed the slave trade, Christians in the South fought to keep Slaves, The Christian president remarked that if he could stop the splitting of the United States without ending slavery he would. 300,000 Christians (actually 258,000 confederates not sure they were all Christian, but lets just make assumptions ) Died to keep slaves.

I would not advise debating the civil war with me. It is almost an obsession. I have never read of and I have journals, battle reports, and memoirs from or containing quotes from hundreds of confederates and not one ever claimed to be fighting to keep slaves as almost non actually owned any nor cared. They fought (for a cause we can see today) deferral encroachment on states issues. This came from our experience with the tyranny of King George and in some ways the wisdom was very sound judging from all the corruption, loss of freedom, and wire taps going on these days. It was often referred to as the South's second war of independence. It was mainly the politicians who cared about slavery and some of the officers. Only a few thousand people owned slaves to begin with. The average guy dying at the bloody angle, Shiloh, or Vicksburg was not fighting for Africans on way or the other. A list of the average confederates reasons for fighting would be.

1. Personal glory, (raised on stories of relatives in the revolution).
2. Peer pressure.
3. A sense of being invaded.
4. To protect their homes. Many deserted when Lee crossed into Maryland.
5. State sovereignty.

To give a typical example of one that actually owned slaves. Lee said he only chose to fight for the south because he could not determine to fight against his family and as a soldier he knew nothing else. His slaves would not leave even when free because he treated them well. He even argued against the institution its self. After the war in a still segregated south a black man wanted to answer an alter call at Lee's Church but was hesitant of what others thought. Lee saw him and took him by the arm to the alter and no one on Earth would have ever said a word. I never said Christian's were perfect but far far more died to liberate than to enslave. BTW where did you get 285,000 from. That does not ring any bells. 285,000 what? Soldiers that died in the south.




But none of that has anything to do with whether or not it is morally acceptable to own another person.[/quote]

 

[1robin]

You know Nothing about me

That is true but the odds are almost certain I am right. I was not judging you, the same can be said of me and virtually everyone else.

I have helped in my community when I could. Worked and donated to food bank
Never have I looked the other way if I could help
If God is all omni then he could help but doesn't

Omni is a capacity or quality claim not a will or purpose issue. You have no reason to demand God do more other than we all wish it. God is acting perfectly within his purpose and with no conflict with his capacity.

Your adam and eve story doesn't really help. If it is literally true then God punished all of us the first time we used our free will. Set the tree in garden and punished us when A+E didn't know what they did was wrong. God put them out. They didn't tell him they could live without Him

That was not the purpose of my story. I have no idea whether Adam and Eve were literal people nor whether there was a literal tree and it does not matter. They are perfect representation of human nature. The standard is perfection. God will not dwell eternally with imperfection. We are all imperfect and can offer nothing to make up for the mistakes we make. We would never even know all the fallout we cause. God provided the ticket home at his total cost. We are offered eternal non-existence which we deserve (no one earns eternal life, no one created life, no one deserves anything unless God exists), or at God's complete expense eternal contentment which we do not deserve. In what way is that unjust? He gives life, we misuse it, he pays the cost to rectify it, we refuse, he terminates the gift. BTW it was not fruit but the knowledge of evil and the will to choose it that was the original and representative sin we all are guilty of.

 

[1robin]

1) Having the ability to save some children by using money and effort is much different from having the ability to change reality. It would be much easier for God to make things different, assuming the usual omnipotent, omniscient God.

That is inconsistent with his purpose. On what ground do you demand God violate the purpose life has and instead do as you would have? On what basis do you contend evil and a good God are inconsistent. You pointed out a difference without distinction.

2) God is supposed to be held to a higher standard than humans. If humans allow other humans to die, that doesn't justify an all-loving omnipotent being doing it. He's supposed to be perfect and all-loving; humans aren't.

The only standard which God can be held to is consistency to his word. In fact he could still exist even if he lied. You and I may wish we could hold God to a standard but there is no basis for claiming that is true. In what court will you try him and by what law? What law is binding on God? I think he is good and will argue that but he does not have to be. In what way have you shown his imperfection? What does evil even mean without God?

 

[adi2d]

That is inconsistent with his purpose. On what ground do you demand God violate the purpose life has and instead do as you would have? On what basis do you contend evil and a good God are inconsistent. You pointed out a difference without distinction.

The only standard which God can be held to is consistency to his word. In fact he could still exist even if he lied. You and I may wish we could hold God to a standard but there is no basis for claiming that is true. In what court will you try him and by what law? What law is binding on God? I think he is good and will argue that but he does not have to be. In what way have you shown his imperfection? What does evil even mean without God?

Watching children suffer and die an doing nothing about it is evil. I'm sorry you can't see it

 

[1robin]

I am fully aware of the distinction, thank you. The fact that murder and crime passionnel were seen as morally, and not just legally, distinct seems to have escaped you.

By who? What are you talking about? I pointed out that even pagans knew certain things were actually wrong and certain things were simply against out wishes. I have no need to debate what you throw into either category. The fact that if they exist as moral truth then the transcendent also must is all I have need of.

You have a very blinkered view of what can develop through evolution.
But evolutionary processes can implant a sense of "should-ness", without which no moral code can develop.

No it can't in any actual moral sense. It could at best tell us what we should do to survive but it can't tell us survival is moral. Your simply redefining morality as (specie, human, group, tribe, etc...) flourishing or something similar. That is speciesm not morality.

And it is quite unlikely that any two societies, plucked at random from history and geography, would agree in every detail on what "should be". Your hamkering for a universal, absolute moral code is futile.

In know very well it is futile but that does not mean it is not perfectly true and absolute. Futility comes from a refusal to accept as much as inadequacy in presentation. It is not only likely but very very likely if God has given us all a conscience that is similar. So that is out. What the heck is Hamkering anyway?


[quote[This is nonsense. Read Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of our Nature.[/quote]It is very ironic I must read a book titled Angels to understand evolution. I am completely sick of evolution. It is an elastic theory capable of being stretched over whatever a person wishes it to be but incapable of covering what it must. Dawkin's pegged out my arbitrary assumes BS meter long ago on it. I am far more honest about evolution than most. It probably does occur but would produce as many abominations as agreeable intuitions concerning behavior. It is your side who is hyper selective and (blinkered, whatever that means) by claiming it can produce every benevolent action but not one malevolent one. That is just wrong. In fact evolution at it's very (not true) best can only create arbitrary ethics and never, ever, actual moral truth. By what standard is what it produces even determined morally good or evil without God? Which molecule cares about or is aware of right and wrong? Evolution can easily be used to justify racism, eugenics, and abortion and has been used to perform them all plus many more. As Dawkin's so un-eloquently but honestly put it, (on evolution what is to say Hitler was not right?).