The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday (page 39)

Laika

Excellent discussion from what I've read so far, I'm sorry that I haven't kept up with it, I'll try to read back all the way through.

I found the different perspective in two of your responses interesting:

1. God does good things, Satan does bad things.

My response - So Satan caused the tsunami and god did nothing. That makes god look weak as well as wicked.

...

5. Free will. Here he manged to link it to 9/11?

My response - I am deliberately not talking about human actions. I am only interested in "natural evil". If god had prevented the tsunami no free will would have been involved.

If the pastor's suggestion in theodicy 1 was correct (satan caused the tsunami) then god would still have been intervening in free will (satan's free will) if he stopped it. As such you could have used the same argument for theodicy 5 as for theodicy 1, right? God's failure to stop 9/11 makes 'god look weak as well as wicked'? I was curious if there was a reason you avoided that?

I think 'open theism' is the best attempt I've seen at dealing with the problem of evil. I'm not sure if that perspective has been raised on here yet (I feel bad engaging on a thread I haven't fully read )

PelicanBeach

Cofty,

"Is that a fair summary?"

No of course not. And I doubt that you actually believe that, well, I hope your smater than that at least.

cofty

Laika - Good to see you.

Let's pretend the devil wasn't stolen from the Zoroastrian religion during the exile, just for the sake of argument.

You are positing a god who is so concerned about not interfering with the free-will of a spirit creature, that he allows that spirit free reign to murder a quarter of a million people just for the fun of it.

That makes god a moral reprobate.

cofty

Pelican - In that case I shall have to copy-paste why I summarised your opinions in this way - sigh

PelicanBeach

Cofty,

Don't why you're sighing. It's your choice. I disagreed with your summary so you're choosing to repost what I wrote. Fine but don't understand why that requires a "sigh" as if I am the one who is causing you to do it. It's your thread do as you will. Sighing.......myself!

cofty

1. Humans do bad things too

What has caused more needless deaths? Natural disasters or wars, famines and disease caused by human greed?

2. Its a mystery & 3. Suffering is for the best in the long-run

Choosing to allow a terrible circumstance in order to bring about a better world is very hard to understand but in the end we will know and understand.

doofdaddy

Bohm,

Okay now we are getting somewhere :-).

I think you may like this answer: It all depends on how much I trust that you are who you claim to be. For instance, I know my daughter, I trust her. If she should find herself some day in a situation where she allowed someone to die rather than call for help I would believe she must have had good reason. But if I did not trust my neighbor, believing him to be a no good fellow, I would probably feel differently if he allowed someone to die without calling for help.

I trust in God. I know Jesus from what his disciples wrote about him. So my view would be quite different from someone who did not trust in God or his Son.

So there I've handed you a "flawed" Christian defense to do with as you will.

Pelican

So you just "trust" god in all he does? Add that to the list

doofdaddy

Apologies about formatting. First time using IE

PelicanBeach

Cofty,

1. Humans do bad things too

What has caused more needless deaths? Natural disasters or wars, famines and disease caused by human greed?

Best to put the point in context don't you think?

I wrote:

"I’m certain that in Jesus’ day there were many natural disasters occurring in many parts of the earth. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, erupting volcanoes went on as usual. His message and life’s work was not about preventing these natural events taking place in his day.

"It is the same with God. What has caused more needless deaths? Natural disasters or wars, famines and disease caused by human greed? But we want God to fix all our hurts for us even those we cause ourselves? Poor us…we war and pollute and destroy the earth but God allows the winds and the earth to have its way with us, what a travesty that is! "

The first paragraph was responding to natural disasters and why it is God does not stop them. You did see that right? The second was an attempt to put things in perspective and to address the irony in objecting to God not saving us from natural disaster while we at the same time are destroying the earth. And you well know that the crying face was NOT about my reaction to suffering. You chose to distort that for whatever reason popped into your brain.

Laika

Laika - Good to see you.

You too Cofty. Actually I was impressed you got as far with Pastor John as you did, I would have ended the discussion with the suggestion you were never a real christian.

I thought about a few angles to respond to this thread, but you're right, they're all vacuous, I agree with you. Sorry to disappoint.

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

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