by poor places 126 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
bohm,
Perhaps you have missed the point that, up until my last post, I had not made any argument at all. So, you see, there's really no point in attacking me for poor argumentation, when I haven't made one. You're just getting excited because I mocked you for mocking God. But maybe now you could chillax.
'But that time is not this time'. Otherwise known as an Excuse that Believers are forced to use because Jesus wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn't have saved some little children who Prayed to him for protection, Sang to him for joy and his response was to not telepathically communicate the simplest of messages to their guardians or send a guardian angel to avert having their bodies torn, mangled and horribly burned.
Jesus gets an F
is impossible to explain why he didn't stop the Holocaust, for example. Go ahead, try to explain it.
I am not sure why it was not stopped immediately, though it was eventually stopped.
Here is something to think about:
The German people trusted Hitler. They voted for him. They put this monster into power. There is a powerful lesson there. The holocaust was stopped eventually. And what have we all learned from it? Be careful who you put into power. Also, check what you are willing over to overlook in the person who has promised you comfort if you just get rid of the jews or whomever is being blamed for society's ills.
Like it or not, human beings have to take some responsibility for the atrocious acts they commit.
Sulla:
Perhaps you have missed the point that, up until my last post, I had not made any argument at all.
Indeed. What you have done is been arrogant, condescending, called us idiots and compared us to JWs. congratulations.
You're just getting excited because I mocked you for mocking God.
...most of us idiots around here like to call it facepalm...
And, indeed, such a God might have existed; but he would not have made human beings, not human beings with free will, anyway
You wrap it in fine words and do not make a case. Explain to me whos free will God would have violated by eg. warning about the 2003 tsunami?
Indeed. What you have done is been arrogant, condescending, called us idiots and compared us to JWs. congratulations.
Thanks, but that wasn't much of an accomplishment. I can't help myself, really. I see weak reasoning treated as if it were profound reasoning and I have to say something.
You wrap it in fine words and do not make a case. Explain to me whose free will God would have violated by eg. warning about the 2003 tsunami?
Well this is what you are missing. Look, it is obvious that a divine warning about the tsunami given to the residents of Bandah Aceh would have not violated the free will of anyone. But that's not the argument you are making.
Imagine a world where the tsunami never happened (it wouldn't be enough to have a warning, because these people would still have lost their homes and livelihoods and experienced suffering). Imagine a world where there was no suffering at all, with the exception of an eight-year-old boy who was strangled and dismembered one summer day. Your argument would be just as forceful in this case -- even with a single instance of evil.
More than that, we can imagine a world where no evil happened for years: no murder, no cancer, no accidental deaths. But we would look back in time and find evidence of a prehistoric raid on a village. There, we would find the skeleton of a man with an arrowhead in his back and the skeleton of a crushed baby underneath him. He had seen the assault coming, grabbed the child, and run for the safety of the village palisade; the archer had shot him in the back, causing him to fall and crush the child with his own body.
And your argument would apply with equal force for this single event 50,000 years in the past. If God exists, why did he not save this man and this child? A single case of murder at any time ever would suffice for your argument. And a world without a single case of suffering is a perfect world, a world that is not broken, a world that is not fallen.
But given who we are: our natures, our desires, our constraints, whatever, we have broken our world. We are killers, bohm, we are rapists, we like to torture others. We are not ok. But if you view these evils as, ultimately, a failure to love, and if you think love is a free act chosen (or not chosen) by free people, then you begin to understand the depth of the problem. The mystery of evil is the other side of the mystery of love.
Try to figure out where you came from and see where it will take you,but please do not go mad! There is a GOD, Just like everything else has a maker!
Explain to me whose free will God would have violated by eg. warning about the 2003 tsunami?
If you're thinking of the Indonesian tsunami of 2004, some of the indigenous people escaped. Why? They knew it was coming because their knowledge helps connect them to the earth. It's just another example of being connected to God through a more subtle consciousness rather than hearing voices.
Survival Tactics of Indigenous People
Sulla:
Okay so we agree on this point: God can act to prevent at least some kinds of evil without violating free will.
Before we continue, i must ask (and i do not ask this in an agressive way, i just want to make sure i do not get to OT), when you write about "your argument", what argument are you referring to?
Actually, bohm, it might not be your, bohm's, argument at all, now that I review the thread.
So, whether it's yours or not, the argument I'm talking about is the one that asserts God can't exist because of the problem of evil and suffering. God could have saved the boy from being strangled and dismembered, but did not. An all-loving, all-powerful person would never allow such a thing, therefore, he must not exist.
LIke I said, I don't know if that's the argument you are advancing or not. That is the one I was talking about.
Sulla: I am glad you too my question without offence because we could have gone mighty derailed here!
So, whether it's yours or not, the argument I'm talking about is the one that asserts God can't exist because of the problem of evil and suffering
Its very important for me to emphasize that this is not what i believe: I dont think it can be supported, at least not if one take some care when defining God.
The argument i would advance is that the observation of evil, moral and natural, lend evidence towards gods nonexistence. italic words are used in their (common) scientific meaning. I will note i believe the evidence is strong.
The argument parallel the one i gave back on page 2 for gods hiddeness with trivial modifications which i will repost below.
The reason why this argument works is perhaps best illustrated by Feynmans 3 steps:
So we get:
how definitive the argument is depend on how likely we think it is God would not give us clear signs, but we must accept this as evidence which favor Gods non-existence over his existence unless the implications 2a,2b are a-priori wrong(and i would like to see an argument for THAT!)
