by Terry 65 Replies latest watchtower bible
<< If you are ALL powerful and you are God it should be impossible to lose. >>
I suppose one could define success as creating a world full of Stepford robots who have no choice but to smile and obey.
Would that really be success?
Would it be better to create nothing at all?
<< If you are ALL powerful and you are God it should be impossible to lose. >>
I suppose one could define success as creating a world full of Stepford robots who have no choice but to smile and obey.
Would that really be success?
Would it be better to create nothing at all?
This is ALWAYS presented as the ONLY alternative and it isn't.
Consider the following, if you will....
What makes you seek a glass of water if you are thirsty? Is it wrong to do so?
What if you are dehydrated to the point of death and must drink from someone else's well? That would be stealing, right?
But, what makes you THIRSTY has nothing to do with the right and wrong of it. Thirst is natural. It intrinsic to human nature.
It is the CIRCUMSTANCE and the CONTEXT which is only secondarily judged to be good or bad.
Now, with that in mind consider the following...if you will....
IF God created humans with everything they needed they could have no natural desire that was wrong.
With WHAT were humans tempted? The desire to BE LIKE GOD which entailed KNOWING good and evil.
God is the ultimate superlative in the human mind.
Seeking to be like the ultimate superlative comes from the same source as BEING THIRSTY in humanity. It is natural as a desire: SEEKING KNOWLEDGE and attaining the best for oneself.
If man was not created already WITH THIS DESIRE the desire would not have been there in the situation in Eden.
Are you still with me?
HAD GOD CREATED EQUALS instead of INFERIORS there would never have been a problem with __created inferiors operating in an inferior fashion__.
You see?
You get what you make.
If you are a great cook you produce a great meal.
If you are an inferior cook you can only produce an inferior meal.
But---what we seem to have here in our Eden story is a GREAT cook deliberately cooking an inferior meal and getting very upset with the result.
Before you automatically reply; think about it.
The way around your automaton robot scenario is there: don't create inferiors; create equals.
<< IF God created humans with everything they needed they could have no natural desire that was wrong. >>
Is this correct?
Do humans only desire what they need?
I desire lots of foods that I don't need, some in fact that in the long run are harmful to me.
<< HAD GOD CREATED EQUALS instead of INFERIORS there would never have been a problem with __created inferiors operating in an inferior fashion__. >
In order to be equal with God, these created beings would have to be eternally self-existent and uncreated, dependent on no one and nothing else.
Isn't that self-contradictory?
Wouldn't they all also have to be omnipotent and have complete sovereignty over the universe?
I agree with you Terry. People say angels and humans would forever doubt God if he killed Satan right away.Well as it stands God can't win because if he kills all then we could say he never gave the upcoming generation a chance.Some will say he let them have enough time,well no because a life time is only 100 years or so not a life time as infinity.
B
agonus, point well said. Satan is more feared of than Jehovah by the Jdubs imo. My own mother is more afraid of what 'Satan' can do to us than what Jehovah can. She made the statement to me a week ago, "Satan is out to kill each and everyone of us, how can you not realize that he is out to get you?"
I told her point blankly, "I'm not afraid of Satan, he has no power over me." She was speechless. Like I defied all that was 'written' in the WTBS publications.
I stand by what I said, and I still do.
Do humans only desire what they need?
Think of it another way and maybe this will be better phrased and more logically accessible for you;
Can you want what you ALREADY HAVE? Or, do you want what you LACK?
Humans were created NOT LIKE GOD in what specific way which led to "sin"?
They were not COMPLETE beings; they were CONDITIONAL beings.
What does that mean?
It means they NEEDED continual maintenance. They required constant "filling in" of what they lacked because their moment to moment life was conditional upon necessity.
God did not require maintenance, sustenance, or continual upkeep; He was complete.
By creating lower life forms, God built-in the very LACK which triggered DESIRE.
What experience did humans have controlling, maintaining and understanding the LIMITS of those desires, lacks and conditional needs?
None whatever!
You and I had a family and daily maintenance and nurturing as we grew up gradually acquiring life's skills.
Neither Adam nor Eve had a mother to nurse them or a family of children, neighbors, aunts or uncles to comfort and caretake on their behalf over time.
What I am saying is the a great part of God's UNSUCCESS in producing life forms on Earth is His stubborn insistence on their conditional inferiority.
This would apply to dinosaurs for millions of years eating each other or being eaten as well as humanity which craved total awareness and knowlege.
This is not a crackpot observation I am making here.
Think about it some more.....
Humans need to believe that something greater than themselves exists that they can reach out to and aspire to.
Belief in God has been the inspiration behind some of the greatest works of art and musical concepts ever created. God has been one of the human races most successful concepts.
What a boring world this would be be without something humans can let their imagination reach for. The sky really is the limit. The only things that we cannot reach for are those that escape our imagination.
Belief in God has been the bane of human existence (I don't need to recount all the negatives). Aspiring to something greater does not require God or gods. Exercise of creativity and imagination doesn't require gods either. Humans can aspire to become greater than we already are and can indulge our imaginations just fine.
Just because some good things have resulted from belief in God doesn't mean a society of disbelief/nonbelief would have been worse.
dear Terry...
you said: "He's going to have to MURDER ALL THE REST OF THEM.......BILLIONS OF THEM!
Is this actually a successful plan by a Supreme Mind?
Or, has man's telling of this story gotten all twisted into something more like the mind of Adolf Hitler would think up??"
When God 's word was fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and as the previous attempts at "correction" of israel show......He withdraws His protection and lets men do their own will which happens to be evil against their own kind...
"HAD GOD CREATED EQUALS instead of INFERIORS there would never have been a problem with __created inferiors operating in an inferior fashion__."...
He created them not knowing evil...why would God NOT want to protect them from evil if He could do so without impinging on their free will?...but they had every right to listen to and regard the sayings of satan...
+ "had God created equals"...can see the kind of mess that autonomous tribal leaders have in places like afghanistan?...do you think that would be a good thing with infinate power too?
I think God was very wise in giving us limited power and limited lifespan with the freewill to choose to know ONLY His goodness in His realm (after having tasted the fruit of evil and not before)
love michelle
Terry I enjoy your post, in fact I save most of them on word for future reference.
I have had many of the thougts you express through out my life, I have never been able to express them as eloquently
as you.
I observe that you and other atheist here have paved a very broad and spacious path away from God, a path that
I cant find words to contest. I come to realize, I can not win any arguments with atheist. I find there is a part of me
that agrees with your observations.
If these observations are true, I find them very disturbing and upsetting. I find them depressing.
I find them depressing because, this life will end and that will be it.
Life has been ups and downs, hills and valleys
but the good has overcome the bad.
I have been out of the tower for almost 30 years and havent done anything or wanted to do anything
that God cant get over. Like Joe Walsh says, "Lifes been good to me so far"
When I am on this broad spacious path the atheist have paved with very few bumps or pot holes all I can
see off to the side is a cramped narrow road that leads to God.
Is there something profound in that?
I observe that you and other atheist here have paved a very broad and spacious path away from God
Ahhh, correction, my friend: I'm NOT atheist.
I think God is completely unknowable.
Which means when we dress "him" up in a nice shirt and pants and Santa Claus beard, name Him and give him a personality and agenda we are only kidding ourselves.
God cannot be expressed or known in any way because we KNOW with our mind and our minds are totally dependant on sensory input.
Like clay, something presses in and forms an impression. By examining the "shape" of it we make certain inferences.
I can't begin to tell you (or myself) what God IS. Neither can anybody else. However, I can---using the premises of others---tell you what does not fit together as lucid and logical evidence. In other words, what God ISN'T.
I'm a DON'T KNOW person; i.e. Agnostic.
I just don't know.
