I Wear Pants;749785 wrote:So you're saying God, who is omnipotent and perfect, had a plan for humanity, earth, etc to be perfect but messed it up?

God, who is perfect and (to any sensical degree at least) omnipotent, had a plan for humanity, earth, etc. to be perfect, but he provided humanity, earth, etc. with the ability to choose whether or not to follow it.

Essentially, he created, and among his creation were beings who were fully capable of choosing to live in accordance with said plan (the Opus of the creation, I suppose). They had the ability to commune with God on a level above any other part of the created world. Given that ability, at some point, this created being chose (as was his ability to do so) to veer from this perfection, such that the the creation, beginning to end, would no longer be a perfect entity, holistically.

Seems if I were in the position to create a world and do what I wanted to with it, I would make it a perfect and happy place. Although, I do play violent video games, so maybe he gets a kick out of watching humans kill each other.

WebFire;749824 wrote:Seems if I were in the position to create a world and do what I wanted to with it, I would make it a perfect and happy place.

He did.

WebFire;749824 wrote:Seems if I were in the position to create a world and do what I wanted to with it, I would make it a perfect and happy place. Although, I do play violent video games, so maybe he gets a kick out of watching humans kill each other.

But if you wanted somebody to love you, would you create a robot or someone with a free will, who could intelligently and intentionally choose to love you? I would think a world full of robots would be boring.

Yeah, but if I create things with the ability to choose whether or not the like/love/believe in me and when some of them don't I condemn them to an eternity of suffering I'm a huge dick.

So then what about infants that die and have no opportunity to ever learn about God....or people in remote places for that matter? I mean there are just so many gray areas here.

Also, I would contend that God is not perfect because he created so many imperfect beings. Now you can argue that God created them perfect and they chose to become imperfect through free will....but when you create humanity and seemingly more people "choose" to go to Hell rather than Heaven. You fucked up as a creator.

I Wear Pants;749837 wrote:Yeah, but if I create things with the ability to choose whether or not the like/love/believe in me and when some of them don't I condemn them to an eternity of suffering I'm a huge dick.

Yea...you are. I may have a child one day, a child I "created" through the fertilization process. Now that child may choose to disobey me, but that doesn't mean I want them to suffer eternally. So yea....God's a dick.

I Wear Pants;749837 wrote:Yeah, but if I create things with the ability to choose whether or not the like/love/believe in me and when some of them don't I condemn them to an eternity of suffering I'm a huge dick.

Again, it's not an act of condemnation. God set up people to have existences (souls, spirits, whatever) that live past physical death. In that God has set up heaven to be a perfect place, that includes perfect justice, meaning anyone there is either perfect, or has had their imperfections paid for (again, much like a debt).

Without the covering of this debt, there would not only be a lack of justice in someone being in heaven, but it would no longer exist as a place where everything in it exists in harmonious perfection.

Y-Town Steelhound;749846 wrote:So then what about infants that die and have no opportunity to ever learn about God....or people in remote places for that matter? I mean there are just so many gray areas here.

Also, I would contend that God is not perfect because he created so many imperfect beings. Now you can argue that God created them perfect and they chose to become imperfect through free will....but when you create humanity and seemingly more people "choose" to go to Hell rather than Heaven. You fucked up as a creator.

If this was true, the only way to prevent it would have been for God to create us as choiceless, will-less, predetermined organisms, incapable of anything other than following a sort of "programming," regardless of how complex.

O-Trap;749852 wrote:Again, it's not an act of condemnation. God set up people to have existences (souls, spirits, whatever) that live past physical death. In that God has set up heaven to be a perfect place, that includes perfect justice, meaning anyone there is either perfect, or has had their imperfections paid for (again, much like a debt).

Without the covering of this debt, there would not only be a lack of justice in someone being in heaven, but it would no longer exist as a place where everything in it exists in harmonious perfection.

No, it is an act of condemnation. "If you don't believe in God/Jesus you're going to be eternally tortured and punished". That's a textbook definition of condemnation. I understand what you're saying about heaven being a perfect place and it being "just" in the way people would be allowed/disallowed there at least in the context of what we've discusd. I just strongly disagree that a loving God would set up a system so damned stupid. Because even though it may be just it's also a really big dick move with the way the world is. If it was obvious or somehow crystal clear that Jesus/God/the Bible were true then I may think differently but you don't have to be crazy or an idiot or opposed to the idea of God to have serious doubts or disagree with parts or the notion of God entirely.

And if God is sending completely rational people who live good lives to suffer eternally then he is not loving.

O-Trap;749852 wrote:
Without the covering of this debt, there would not only be a lack of justice in someone being in heaven, but it would no longer exist as a place where everything in it exists in harmonious perfection.

Without perfection and no debt paid, History has shown that power struggles and jealousy can propagate.

IE: The old fallen perfect angel, Satan thing,

"I just strongly disagree that a loving God would set up a system so damned stupid. Because even though it may be just it's also a really big dick move with the way the world is."

Job had similiar questions for God, I would suggest you read God's answers to Job starting in Job 38-1.

Atheist, agnostics will they go to heaven? Probably not, since that is the path they chose to go, just as it always has been God giving the opportunity to choose and we live with the choice we make.

What did Eve really do in the garden? If it was eating of apples, why did Adam and Eve fashion aprons from leaves after that?

I Wear Pants;749870 wrote:No, it is an act of condemnation. "If you don't believe in God/Jesus you're going to be eternally tortured and punished".

It's not punishment. That's the thing. It's merely the cost of an imperfect life. To assume that it is an act is to assume that God has to "put" someone into that category. That's not the case.

Hell is an existence with a perfect absence of good, but that's the default destination. That's not where God puts us, that direction is where we begin. We don't start on the fence, and then God flicks us to one side of the fence or the other, depending on an arbitrary filter. We all start on that side of the fence. God offers to bring us to the other side, but we have to let him.

I Wear Pants;749870 wrote:That's a textbook definition of condemnation. I understand what you're saying about heaven being a perfect place and it being "just" in the way people would be allowed/disallowed there at least in the context of what we've discusd. I just strongly disagree that a loving God would set up a system so damned stupid. Because even though it may be just it's also a really big dick move with the way the world is.

But that's the point. The way the world is today is not the way the world was set up. It's not the way it was created. If anything, "Adam" (or "people" as the case may be) would be the dick. Viewing the human race holistically, the human race dicked itself over. It had the clear option to either dick itself over, or refrain from doing so. The ability to make that choice was created, yes, but had God not allowed for such an ability to choose, we (again) are nothing more than elaborately programmed computers.

God created a world where the odds were stacked heavily in our favor. We fucked up, and we fucked up the rest of creation in the process. That includes the afterlife dichotomy we're discussing here. The fact that anyone goes to hell has nothing to do with God's choosing, and everything to do with human beings' choosing.

I Wear Pants;749870 wrote:If it was obvious or somehow crystal clear that Jesus/God/the Bible were true then I may think differently but you don't have to be crazy or an idiot or opposed to the idea of God to have serious doubts or disagree with parts or the notion of God entirely.

Not at all. I've been through much of that, even as someone who believed in God. At one time, while I believed in God, I also adopted the notion shared by Dr. Dawkins:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with doubting the goodness of a God who exists over a world that is so fucked up. However, if God wished to be a prick, I can't imagine him offering any redemptive option at all. Like a writer with a page that is ruined because someone spills coffee on, he could crumple up his creation and toss it aside. Instead, he has taken a world that he made perfectly ... that humanity screwed up ... and he has offered a solution that both satisfies fairness and still offers mercy. Providing a means to have the cost we've all incurred to be paid in a way so that we don't have to pay it. But that doesn't mean it isn't paid.

And again, as much as it sucks that many might never know about a debt, that doesn't mean the debt doesn't exist. Our justice system follows a similar model. Ignorantia legis neminem excusat (ignorance of the law does not excuse). Is our justice system also a dick for having such a system in place?

We all start with the same debt. For those of us who are fortunate enough to know about a way out of it, it is humbling to know that it's nothing we can do but accept someone's gift to us. For those who don't ever know about it, it's the tragic reality of living in a jacked up world ... a world where we never hear about this freedom from the debt in terms we can accept, if at all.

I Wear Pants;749870 wrote:And if God is sending completely rational people who live good lives to suffer eternally then he is not loving.

Rational doesn't always mean right, and rational only has to do with thought process. Not conclusion. If the conclusion to allow someone to save your ass from a fire is what will save you, it ultimately doesn't matter whether the process that got you there was logical or not.

That's honestly the beauty of the rescue offered. You can be logical or illogical. You can be born with a high IQ or a low one. You can be a man or a woman, rich or poor, educated or uneducated. It's provided to anyone and everyone.

And we're still discussing "good" in our own terms, when our own terms aren't what matters. If a group of 8-year-old boys in southern Africa play basketball together, and one of them is far and away the best out of all of them, that doesn't mean he deserves an NBA contract. His peers might think he's the greatest basketball player in the world, but they're viewing "good at basketball" through the eyes of an 8-year-old boy, not an NBA scout.

We are to morality what those 8-year-old boys are to basketball. From our perspective, we see people to whom we just attribute the term "good people" (and we're not even getting into the fact that, at at least a minute level, we probably have different views of how good is "good enough"). Our perspective on good isn't the one that views "good" in its truest sense, though, so at best, it's flawed and incomplete.

Whether we're $8,000,000 in debt or $12,000,000 in debt ... we're still in debt. For us trying to say that since someone is only $7,500,000 in debt, they should deserve to be treated like they're debt-free would be unjust, and a God who picks an arbitrary line of how "good" is "good enough," and judges by that line would be INCREDIBLY unjust and TRULY a dick move.

Thread Bomber;749892 wrote:Without perfection and no debt paid, History has shown that power struggles and jealousy can propagate.

IE: The old fallen perfect angel, Satan thing,

I'm not sure what all I think on Satan, yet. Though I've studied a lot, and went to college for religious philosophy, I've still only been a Christian for about five years.

Skyhook79;749929 wrote:"I just strongly disagree that a loving God would set up a system so damned stupid. Because even though it may be just it's also a really big dick move with the way the world is."

Job had similiar questions for God, I would suggest you read God's answers to Job starting in Job 38-1.

Didn't answer anything.

O-Trap;749965 wrote: That's honestly the beauty of the rescue offered. You can be logical or illogical. You can be born with a high IQ or a low one. You can be a man or a woman, rich or poor, educated or uneducated. It's provided to anyone and everyone.

And we're still discussing "good" in our own terms, when our own terms aren't what matters. If a group of 8-year-old boys in southern Africa play basketball together, and one of them is far and away the best out of all of them, that doesn't mean he deserves an NBA contract. His peers might think he's the greatest basketball player in the world, but they're viewing "good at basketball" through the eyes of an 8-year-old boy, not an NBA scout.

We are to morality what those 8-year-old boys are to basketball. From our perspective, we see people to whom we just attribute the term "good people" (and we're not even getting into the fact that, at at least a minute level, we probably have different views of how good is "good enough"). Our perspective on good isn't the one that views "good" in its truest sense, though, so at best, it's flawed and incomplete.

Whether we're $8,000,000 in debt or $12,000,000 in debt ... we're still in debt. For us trying to say that since someone is only $7,500,000 in debt, they should deserve to be treated like they're debt-free would be unjust, and a God who picks an arbitrary line of how "good" is "good enough," and judges by that line would be INCREDIBLY unjust and TRULY a dick move.

Ignoring the semantic argument of "good enough", etc I still hold firm that a system wherein perfection which is impossible is rewarded eternally and anything else is damned eternally save for if you hold a specific viewset that is really determined more by where you grow up than by who you are as a person is incredibly stupid. I don't think God is stupid therefore I don't think that's the way it'd be set up.

I Wear Pants;749982 wrote:Ignoring the semantic argument of "good enough", etc I still hold firm that a system wherein perfection which is impossible is rewarded eternally and anything else is damned eternally save for if you hold a specific viewset that is really determined more by where you grow up than by who you are as a person is incredibly stupid. I don't think God is stupid therefore I don't think that's the way it'd be set up.

It's not really semantic to determine a level of "goodness" any more than it is to determine a level of talent in any activity. It's a sliding scale with no set "points" in it. So who, then, gets to arbitrarily pick where on the scale is "good enough?" It's not really an argument over the definition of the word "good," but rather the degree of "good" on a sliding scale.

Who we are as individuals isn't different. Our moral "value" is the same. I'm just as deserving of hell as anyone else, and the same applies to anyone. Thus, why should who we are as a person matter? If we're comparing ourselves to each other, it's the same as the kids playing basketball.

I meant "good enough" is a semantic argument in that defining what we believe to be "good enough" would certainly come down to personal beliefs and preferences and as such wouldn't be a very fruitful discussion.

I Wear Pants;750024 wrote:I meant "good enough" is a semantic argument in that defining what we believe to be "good enough" would certainly come down to personal beliefs and preferences and as such wouldn't be a very fruitful discussion.

Ah! Fair enough.

The idea of God "having" to do anything is hilarious. Is he omnipotent or not?

BigYtownRed;749073 wrote:You are 100% correct, he will have nothing to do with it. He has a standard & we must meet that standard which is accepting his free gift of Jesus Christ, his son, as your savior. Displace yourself on the throne of your heart & put him on it.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent.
Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent.
Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God?

Epicurus (c. 341 - c. 270 BC)

the_system;750110 wrote:Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent.
Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent.
Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God?

Epicurus (c. 341 - c. 270 BC)

If he allows evil if evil is deserved, he is just.

I Wear Pants;749970 wrote:Didn't answer anything.

This. The only "lesson" to be taught by Job is that you can be this Awesome McGreatguy and still get completely fucked over in life for no reason other than your god wanting to win a bet with his adversary. But if you take it like a good little abused spouse ("god beats me because he loves me")...hey, you'll be rewarded in the afterlife!

The OT version of god is up there with the average Greek one as far as being a petty psychopathic tyrant goes. Which is probably why so many of today's teachings come from the NT, with the OT relegated to parables that people probably try not to think too deeply about, lest they have to face unsettling realities about the text.

"And because Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son, the boy was spared and he was blessed...."

"Wait a minute...what kind of dick would order someone to kill their kid as a sign of loyalty?!"

"Uh...and then Moses brought plagues upon the Egyptians to free his people..."

"And then, after being a tireless servant of god for forever, got condemned to not reach the promised land because he lost his temper in a moment of frustration. Firing loyal, long-time employees to show everyone that no one's position is safe = great PR move!"

"Um...yeah...but...what about David and Goliath!?"

"Well, at least it's more inspirational than the tale of David and Uriah! Or virtually everything else in the books coming after that shining moment!"

"Wait! Samson!!! He was a badass!!!!"

"Hmmm...turmoil-filled life loaded with betrayal and ending with an "I'll take you all with me!" suicide. For the OT, that is a happy ending, so there's that!"

WebFire;749824 wrote:Seems if I were in the position to create a world and do what I wanted to with it, I would make it a perfect and happy place. Although, I do play violent video games, so maybe he gets a kick out of watching humans kill each other.

He did make it a perfect and happy place, humans screwed it up.

Y-Town Steelhound;749846 wrote:So then what about infants that die and have no opportunity to ever learn about God....or people in remote places for that matter? I mean there are just so many gray areas here.

Such an idea as age of accountability with infants, meaning if you do not have the concious ability to know you are wrong and know you need God, then you are able to go to heaven without trusting in God.

I Wear Pants;749837 wrote:Yeah, but if I create things with the ability to choose whether or not the like/love/believe in me and when some of them don't I condemn them to an eternity of suffering I'm a huge dick.

So, if you have AIDS and I have developed the cure. I hand you the cure for free but you push me away and reject my cure for whatever reason and you end up dying. How would I be the "dick"?

That is a perfect metaphor for what God did. If you believe the Bible we are all headed to hell anyway and he provided a way out to save us. He isn't the "dick" if we reject him, we are.