by designs 81 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
My burning question has been why an all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing God would allow suffering?
It seems to me that God would have to be deficient in at least one of the three characteristics. I've decided I'd rather follow an all-loving God with limitations.
Spare me the apologist responses.
My burning question has been why an all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing God would allow suffering?
The same reason why we let our children "skin their knees." If they don't break their skin they won't know why not to. That's a concept we can wrap our heads around so I just think of God as that on a much larger scale. I think all worthy sentient life will eventually be brought back after our species grows up enough to handle the population and all that comes from that.
-Sab
The same reason why we let our children "skin their knees." If they don't break their skin they won't know why not to. That's a concept we can wrap our heads around so I just think of God as that on a much larger scale. I think all worthy sentient life will eventually be brought back after our species grows up enough to handle the population and all that comes from that.
Thats wrong IMO on several levels:
#1: If the parent was all-powerful, he or she would probably find a way in which their kid could learn to ride a bike, say, WITHOUT having to fall and risk breaking their arms. If I COULD prevent their pain as a parent, I WOULD. Its simply that my lack of power means they have to take some risks in order to progress.
#2: Your logic MAY be able to be twisted into something like: god allows us to get broken hearted during dating for us to find out for ourselves what love is. Or god allows us scientifically to search for answers to help our ability to learn and expand our capacities. There seems to be NO way to positively twist the reasons god allows hurricans tornadoes which rip people apart, volcanos to see them burn or suffocate to death, floods to make them drown, horrific, specifically designed viruses (say ebola) that cause people's bodies to erupt and liquify in a grotesque and brutally painful way. Or plague. Or leprosy. Etc. Equate that with "lets a kid skin their knee in the process of riding a bike"? Come on now.
How do we take photos if we can't see them?
Take photos of what? Other planets? How many planets pictures can you show me from beyond this solar system? The only thing you'll be able to see is their nearly microscopic sillhouette as they make an eclipse like passing in front of their sun. It will look like a black dot, several pixels in width. There is absolutely nothing in science that can even remotely tell you if there is any sort of life existing there.
#1: If the parent was all-powerful, he or she would probably find a way in which their kid could learn to ride a bike, say, WITHOUT having to fall and risk breaking their arms. If I COULD prevent their pain as a parent, I WOULD. Its simply that my lack of power means they have to take some risks in order to progress.
The Bike not a good example. A stove is a better one I think.
We have to touch the stove. My 15 month old hasen't touched anything scalding or super hot yet, but I am waiting for it to happen. It's not like I am going to watch him touch the stove and then ask him what he learned I will make attempts to save him from himself, but that seems like the wrong thing to do.
Pain is part of the game, and the human game is high stakes. We are moving forward no one can deny that and some, like me, believe that we're moving toward God.
-Sab
sab, i re-reading this thread i might have misunderstood you, but you seem to read something into the word "atheist" which are very perculiar. For instance:
That doesn't change the fact that almost every atheist I have ever come across is actually a closet agnostic because they aren't married to their conclusions because they entertain theistic ideas to support, by form of rebuttal, their "firm conclusion" that a human creator does not exist in any fashion.
I think that rest on the false premise that disbelief in god(s) (atheism) is different than any other kind of disbelief. For instance i am fairly sure this sound silly to you:
That doesn't change the fact that almost every non-believer in eather theory I have ever come across is actually a closet eather-agnostic because they aren't married to their conclusions because they entertain eather-theory ideas to support, by form of rebuttal, their "firm conclusion" that an eather does not exist in any fashion.
I think you are digging yourself into a philosophical hole by all this talk about closets.
Take photos of what? Other planets? How many planets pictures can you show me from beyond this solar system? The only thing you'll be able to see is their nearly microscopic sillhouette as they make an eclipse like passing in front of their sun. It will look like a black dot, several pixels in width. There is absolutely nothing in science that can even remotely tell you if there is any sort of life existing there.
I know I have seen pictures of planets, but I don't know how far away the furthest one we have found is. I get your point, though, that we just see brilliant galaxies and nebula which are too far away to see planetary detail.
But look at the math there. If we can't see anything than there must be life just like us or even superior, it's just too much space and if all you need is a sun and a planet in "the right" circumstances (earth circumstance are not proven to be the only means of life on a planet, correct?) then it could be said that life existing in the places we don't see is probable, right (because we exist)?
-Sab
I think you are digging yourself into a philosophical hole by all this talk about closets.
I guess it's just a hunch of mine. I actually highly sympathize with the atheist position, but I am more of a Free Thinker, at least that's what I am shooting for, than a non believer. As a free thinker when I examine myself I feel a strong belief in God so I compelled to examine that. If that feeling is not in you then I should just accept that and move on.
-Sab
The Bike not a good example. A stove is a better one I think.
We have to touch the stove. My 15 month old hasen't touched anything scalding yet, but I am waiting for it to happen. It's not like I am going to watch him touch the stove and then ask him what he learned I will make attempts to save him from himself, but that seems like the wrong thing to do.
So if your 15 month is about to stick a fork into an electrical socket, same logic applies? How about if he is about to run in front of a bus? How about if he is about to drink down some ammonia? How about put his hand in a wood chipper? Sit back and let him learn from the pain?
Does the kid need to have those things happen so he learns not to get electrocuted or poisoned or crushed or chopped up? No. You can teach him about the dangers and, in most cases, you will successfully get him to avoid them. You can do the same thing with the stove. Like you said, you absolutely will not just let him scald himself. You'll try to stop him. Because preventing pain is the name of the game. And most likely he will learn without ever scalding himself. I never had to learn to not touch the stove by touching it. It would be cruel to sit there and watch your kid get burned to "teach him a lesson" and as much as you want to invoke the analogy to provide some mental justification to God allowing suffering on some very trivial example of pain (like a skinned knee or a minor stove burn), you KNOW that even that is something you won't do as a parent. Its not right. And when you scale it out to more significant examples like in my first paragraph, the illustration because as morally apalling as the WT's "God is like the teacher letting the student give a chance to explain to the class his insistence on the wrong way to solve the math problem"
I am a non-believer, but I am not an atheist. Atheism is a non-position postition which doesn't make sense to me.
