by AK - Jeff 322 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Suffering is only deserved when it is a consequence of making others suffer. For sure, the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger members all deserve to suffer for the suffering they have caused others.
Otherwise, all these fallacies are simply flimsy excuses to glorify a God that should instead be vilified.
I alway have to chuckle when someone yells 'false premise', then sites a false premise to prove that. WOW
Jeff
I have to bite: If i see a children who suffer and it is not mine, i dont need to intervene. I feel the christian love.
But God has intervened Bohn. What is better... treat the symptom or treat the cause? In other words, if a 6th century mongol from the asian steppes was somehow time transported into a modern surgical room, he no doubt would swear that the surgeons were blood thirsty animals from his ignorant viewpoint.
Likewise, his answer to the cancer might be to get some fresh air or take some herbs to temporarily feel better..... rather than cut away the cancer.
Christians believe that God, who is able to see the beginning and the end of things knows best how and when to restore perfection (cut away the cancer of sin ... the cause of decay).
I mean, if a person is going to go to the trouble to imagine an all knowing Supreme Being, he ought to at least follow his own logic in that an all-knowing Supreme Being might know a few things that we don't and might choose seemingly tragic methods as viewed from our comparatively ignorant point-of-view.
So, how does transient suffering justify such?
AK-Jeff, I've always admired your civility, and your arguments to one side, I will concede that ultimately, it is not possible to reconcile suffering with an omnibenevolent, omnipotent God based 100% on human reason alone. We can't see all ends, or know all things. We can't even define and explain our own human selves properly, we are so complex and wonderful, so how can we define God? He isn't a taxonomical specimen, or a molecule.
I can offer different explanations that have helped me (and am more than happy to on this thread, if you like, and discuss with you, I love the subject), but probably none of them will work for you 100% unless you are first willing to live with the fact that you are not capable of explaining everything when it comes to God. That's part of having faith. To use your human father allegory (which breaks down after a certain point, as all allegories do), when you were very little, you didn't understand everything Daddy did, but you did know he loved you, and you did trust that he was going to take care of you and make everything OK. Now that you've grown up, and remember, you might understand.
That's a reason none of your arguments will sway me-I have faith, and some pretty decent logical rebuttals too. However, none of my arguments will sway you, because you (apparently) don't believe.
Kierkegaard spoke of the leap of faith. To let go and trust.
I believe in a good God, and I admit there is suffering in the world. I've rationalized and theodicized and debated regarding the suffering/God on this forum a great deal over the years. Many of these explanations satisfy me to a degree, but I am starting from a different place than you are. But ultimately, I have to be silent and trust. It comes down to faith and trust. With or without rationalizations, the only thing I can ultimately do is trust in that all of this had to happen for a greater reason than we can now realize, and have faith that it will be resolved, both individually in the hereafter, and collectively at the end of history.
My son, who can't swim yet, jumps off the edge of the deep end of the pool, because he has faith that I will catch him. He knows that his father loves his beautiful little boy. For an instant, he can fly! That's my leap too. And I have faith that the loving arms of a Father will catch me too.
Jesus said we had to be like children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Pax on your search for truth.
BTS
Well said BTS!
I can offer different explanations that have helped me (and am more than happy to on this thread, if you like, and discuss with you, I love the subject), but probably none of them will work for you 100% unless you are first willing to live with the fact that you are not capable of explaining everything when it comes to God. That's part of having faith.
Step one in understanding suffering: First, be willing to say that God's way is so far beyond us that questioning Him is beyond us. Just have faith that He knows what He is doing.
My problem is that this is the best tool that preachers have been using since Man created religion. JUST HAVE FAITH. I know you said more than that, but that's all it boils down to. It is not the answer.
To use your human father allegory (which breaks down after a certain point, as all allegories do), when you were very little, you didn't understand everything Daddy did, but you did know he loved you, and you did trust that he was going to take care of you and make everything OK. Now that you've grown up, and remember, you might understand.
Suffering of children in Haiti is not like Daddy insisting that you go to bed at an early hour or telling you to eat your vegetables. A good Daddy only beats a child when the child deserved it. To fit the Haiti situation, would you say that a little girl doesn't understand why Daddy destroyed her bed room and her dolls, but as adults we do? Daddy wanted to make her less materialistic? No good "Daddy" does that.
That's a reason none of your arguments will sway me-I have faith, and some pretty decent logical rebuttals too. However, none of my arguments will sway you, because you (apparently) don't believe.
Kierkegaard spoke of the leap of faith. To let go and trust.
JUST HAVE FAITH, JEFF. Just have faith. Let go of reasoning on the matter. Just have faith. Did I say it enough? Just have faith.
My son, who can't swim yet, jumps off the edge of the deep end of the pool, because he has faith that I will catch him. He knows that his father loves his beautiful little boy. For an instant, he can fly! That's my leap too. And I have faith that the loving arms of a Father will catch me too.
Bringing it back to a proper Haiti analogy: Even though God holds the heads of a few children under the water until they drown to death, have faith for the rest.
Edited to add: Okay, maybe that last one was too harsh. Try this: Even though God holds the heads of a few children under the water until they drown to death, have faith for that they will have some life in the Kingdom. They suffer horribly so that others can have faith in the God who allows their horrible suffering, then everyone lives happily ever after in the Kingdom. More fairytale-like that way.
BTS, I respect your position. My problem comes down to faith. And the depth of that problem is an issue too. I think that OTWO makes good points in refutation. Perry unfortunately, just slashes in the air at times, though I respect his right to disagree.
An additional element to this discussion is time. "The faithful" tend to treat this issue with much the same approach as the other issues mentioned; 'We are just children without a full understanding of why it takes so long/things we don't understand and can never understand/eventually we will be enlightened if the great sky-daddy wants us to understand, et al.'
Nonetheless, a serious failure to act in a timely matter must be part of any fair discussion here. Talking snake convinced naked lady to eat God's special property, resulting in horrors unimaginable for billions of people - that horrible act of apple-eating out of turn, took place thousands of years ago. Screenplay reads 'Four Thousand Years Later'. In comes God - or Son of God depending on your interpretation - and dies on a cross, supposedly 'bearing all our sins' accumulated since the naked lady ate God's apple. The ransom that God demanded from himself for the naked lady eating an apple - PAID IN FULL. [Though it can never be fully explained how eating an apple is ransomed by dying on a cross four thousand years later.] Now comes a second waiting game. Man has already toiled under sin and death because that nasty mother of mankind listened to a talking snake and ate God's apple - already suffered for that horrible sin for over 4000 years.
Now, we have waited, consistently enduring for another 2000 years since God paid himself off. Nothing has happened. Hurricanes, cyclones, earthquakes, disease, calamity, affliction continues without abate.
God paid his ransom to himself to satisfy his justice that he never told the naked lady about to begin with. Her children have suffered without end for thousands of years since God paid himself off. When will he actually act? I mean other than to write a book filled with promises he seemingly has forgotten to honor?
Seems to me that it would have been 'fairer' to have just slapped the naked lady's hand, stood her in the corner for an hour, and kicked the snake out of the garden! Years later we could have all looked back and laughed at 'the time God told me not to eat his special apple, and I did anyway, and got sent to the corner.' At least then the discipline would have fit the crime. It makes me damn mad that 150,000 Haitians had to die last month because Eve ate one of God's little green apples 6000 years ago.
If sky-daddy is really there - his sense of justice is all screwed up isn't it? Oh, that's right, I am like a little child that can't understand. I keep forgetting.
Jeff
It is the human mind that insists on trying to assign a "reason" for everything. "Reasons" are things invented by people. "Deserving" is a concept invented by people.
Wowzers- 'God is under no obligation whatsoever toward Adam's children' ........ John Calvin on steroids.
'The earth is still under a curse' ......... Tetonic plates, they shift they move and you have earthquakes and rifts and tidalwaves.
*Fundamentalists actually make rabid followers of the Society look sane.
Perry unfortunately, just slashes in the air at times
Jeff, If you have an argument against my comments, let's hear it. My comment is rock solid logically. Doesn't mean you have to agree of course.
Designs said:
'God is under no obligation whatsoever toward Adam's children'
That's right designs. And furthermore if a person doesn't understand this biblical teaching, then NOTHING about our origins will make sense to them, other than sticking your head in the ground and declaring ala Dawkins "something from nothing". Don't believe me? Try to make just one liberal Christian argument about the existence of evil....go ahead, explain it from your liberal, non-biblical Christian view.
