NOTE: This is not an anti religion post, simply a philosophical and age old debate.
Ok, so very very basically, here is an issue with the typical Christian view of God, a view shared by other religions, aside, however.
God is all good God is all powerful (omnipotent) God is all knowing
If God is all good, then why does he make evil things happen? Why does he create murderers and tsunamis?
Some say God creates us with the choice to do good and bad that we may have free will.
So, in this case God creates us without knowing if we'll choose to be good or bad people, or even if we will believe in him/her.
So God doesn't know if we're going to be good or bad, so God is not all knowing.
BUT - Imagine we still want to hold that he his all knowing, i.e he knows everything about everything. This means God creates us knowing that we're going to be good or bad people, this means that he condemns those he creates bad to a life of sin and ultimately hell, so he can't be all Good.
BUT - if we want to still hold that he is all good, then there must be another reason murderers and tsunamis exist, but what? Maybe God created the world, and is not powerful enough to intervene. Then God is no longer all-powerful. Either that or he is powerful enough to intervene, and simply doesn't want to, in which case he is not all good. What do you think about all this?
I hate when I turn my back and the thread jumps several pages. So sorry in advance if I don't cover everything.
Urghhh...has no one read my comment on the first page about Good and Bad being just perceptions? Furthermore, even if such a God exists, who are we mortals to judge for Him what IS good or bad?
Yes read it. Whether it's a perception thing or some basic fundamental concept we can compare and decide if God's action fit with what is considered good or bad. If God can't even live up to our imperfect mortal standards how can he possibly be expected to live up to something even higher?
He put the tree there so they HAD the option to go off the good path. And if he stopped them, he would be taking away their free will.
But according to the story he did stop them, he kicked them out of Eden to prevent them from also eating from the tree of life. If it was taking free will away to prevent them in the first instance then it would have been in the second as well.
How does knowing something will happen take away free will. It will happen that way, but he doesn't nessicarily make it that way. I could know that my friend was walking home, but it doesn't mean I was making him do so.
It would mean everything is predetermined. Since God in this case created everything that would also mean he set it up that way.
This conversation is pointless. Has anyone else worked out that every idea we have has a counter? There is a way to disprove everything that has been said and then something else to counter that disproof. Like Somewhat said, there is no way to win this argument.
That's my usual feeling about philosophy, also why I prefer using science.
Again, we have no idea what is Good Or Bad. And if there is a Good side, there will be a Bad side. Why? Because:
Good and evil is a judgment. To consider something better than or worse than is a judgment. Evil is something of inferior quality compared to something better, therefore a lesser good is considered evil when compared with a greater good. When there is no judgment, there is no consideration of something being better or worse than another. Everything is accepted equally as it is. Judgment creates separation of one thing with another whereas non judgment sees the oneness and equality of all things.
If we are regarding God as all good then it would stand this would equate to a form of perfection. Our judgment on the matter would be there would be nothing better then God, thus all good. However what we view in his work does not reflect this in the least. We don't just see things of inferior quality compared to something better, but we find this inferiority to an excess level.
And no one has even mentioned what role the Devil might be playing in all of this.
A role God either set up or allows to happen. if God is unable to stop any such interference this would go against god's all powerful status.
But according to the story he did stop them, he kicked them out of Eden to prevent them from also eating from the tree of life. If it was taking free will away to prevent them in the first instance then it would have been in the second as well.
He kicked them out AFTER they both had eaten from the tree and disobeyed him. That was their punishment. He gave them the chance to choose even if he knew what their choice would be anyway. Don't know why, but that's how it supposedly went.
He kicked them out AFTER they both had eaten from the tree and disobeyed him. That was their punishment.
You might want to reread the passages it clearly states he kicks them out to prevent them from eating from the tree of life.
Genesis 3:22-23 (NIV) And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
God is preventing them from also eating from the tree of life. If we are to regard ti an invasion of free will to do this with the first tree why isn't it with the second?
But should we regard not interfering in free will always the option that is good? If we were to place a hand gun in the middle of a room where a toddler is playing wouldn't it be the good thing to attend to and prevent that toddler from playing with that gun, interfering with his free will? If it would be good in this case of the toddler why wouldn't it be with Adam and Eve with the tree?
If we are regarding God as all good then it would stand this would equate to a form of perfection. Our judgment on the matter would be there would be nothing better then God, thus all good. However what we view in his work does not reflect this in the least. We don't just see things of inferior quality compared to something better, but we find this inferiority to an excess level.
Well I didn't state that God is all good. I was actually using the argument to counter someone's stance, which was that there is no ''bad side'' to what God does and that everything He does is ''Good''. My point was that if there is ''Good'' there will be a ''Bad''. If not then ''Good'' cannot come about since there is nothing to benchmark it against to raise it to the status of ''Good'', and is therefore just a neutral thing if there is nothing ''Bad'' to compare to.
If God can't even live up to our imperfect mortal standards how can he possibly be expected to live up to something even higher?
Why should God even conform to our moral standards that we created? He isn't bound by what we judge as morally correct.
Why should God even conform to our moral standards that we created? He isn't bound by what we judge as morally correct.
Indeed. What if god doesn't act all-good in order to prevent something even worse from happening? Maybe he actually acts in an "evil" way because he knows he has to in order to prevent disasters.... For example,God Kicked Adam and Eve from Eden in order to prevent them from eating from the tree of life,which he knew they would do,resulting in even worse problems than of those created after they ate from the tree of knowledge
Now that I have your attention, I would like to present my argument. If God is the picture of good, how does he know Hell? How can he compare Heaven to hell? God knows everything that a man knows AT LEAST. Or how can he punish us in Purgatory? TIf God knows everything, he doesn't know what it's like to learn something. You might say: at the start of creation, he didn't know what it was like to learn something, but he learnt X and he learnt what it is like to learn, and he is now therefore omniscient. God must be essentially omniscient. If this is not the case, this means God is not perfect, he did not know X and therefore cannot judge us fully as one who knows everything and therefore CAN judge us. Here is my first quote ever on armour games. So excited :P
Why should God even conform to our moral standards that we created? He isn't bound by what we judge as morally correct.
Actually, he does have to conform to our moral standpoint. We're the ones who define him as completely good. Therefore WE should be the one who think he is completely good. If something in this detracts from his goodness in anyway, then obviously we won't think he's completely moral. He's OUR God. Uh, wait. If he does evil stuff to HELP us, why do 10 000 people die from earthquakes every year? Why do earthquakes keep happening and kill HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people? What message is he trying to tell us? Obviously, if the earthquake method doesn't work, he should stop it and try something new :/
Now that I have your attention, I would like to present my argument. If God is the picture of good, how does he know Hell? How can he compare Heaven to hell? God knows everything that a man knows AT LEAST. Or how can he punish us in Purgatory? TIf God knows everything, he doesn't know what it's like to learn something. You might say: at the start of creation, he didn't know what it was like to learn something, but he learnt X and he learnt what it is like to learn, and he is now therefore omniscient. God must be essentially omniscient. If this is not the case, this means God is not perfect, he did not know X and therefore cannot judge us fully as one who knows everything and therefore CAN judge us. Here is my first quote ever on armour games. So excited :P
Just to point out, God doesn't learn jacksquat. He was omniscient and omnipotent from the start. Why....are both Heaven and Hell brought up here?
God is the picture of Good as we perceive. That doesn't mean he can't actually know what being in Hell feels like, nor does it stop him from knowing what Purgatory is.
Actually, he does have to conform to our moral standpoint. We're the ones who define him as completely good. Therefore WE should be the one who think he is completely good. If something in this detracts from his goodness in anyway, then obviously we won't think he's completely moral. He's OUR God. Uh, wait. If he does evil stuff to HELP us, why do 10 000 people die from earthquakes every year? Why do earthquakes keep happening and kill HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people? What message is he trying to tell us? Obviously, if the earthquake method doesn't work, he should stop it and try something new :/
Key phrase, ''conform to our moral standpoint.'' Our. What we thought is a suitable moral standpoint. Not His moral standpoint.
As previously mentioned in the thread, either we accept there is no good and bad, and earthquakes are just that, or we accept that God's moral standpoint is different from our own, earthquakes might be ''bad'' to us, but who are we to fantom what they are to Him?
