by cofty 2596 Replies latest jw experiences
Flamegrilled, do you have any intention of succintly laying out the big picture? So far all we have to go on from you are broken analogies and an argument proven to be logically useless in decision making, yet you claim you still have an argument to make.
Can we see it?
When I was a Christian theist I believed that Paul had the answer --the sacred secret in 1Cor.2 explained that it had been hidden all the time up to Jesus' arrival.
But it was only warmed over hash.
Now when trouble comes we have the horizen only exended further than ever. The sacred secret/wisdom of God, Paul says, is in Christ crucified. That is what opens the door to glory.
Suffering and death still and an unseen restitution. Paul is quick to say that it is for a select few.
The tsunami killed people indesciminately. they only get to taste wrath-- not mercy, not love.
The sacred secret is still a secret--I'm waiting for a better story.
flamegrilled: you have failed miserably to present even a passable defense of your claim that god is perfectly capable of preventing tragedy and misery but still loving if he choses not to.
You've had many, many chances to answer and to explain and all you present back is an endless series of excuses and clear avoidance of the issues put to you.
We get it. There is no way you can defend your position because no one has managed to do it yet !
Look at any theist website for "why does god allow suffering or evil" and they launch into an explanation of where they think it originated from and how god is love and how he can make things right. But they ALWAYS miss explaining why he allows it to happen if he could prevent it. They try to make the discussion about something else, anything, because they know it is an unwinnable argument.
Just like you.
Flamegrilled - You have spent the past 30 pages telling us that there must be some mysterious reason why drowning a quarter of a million people is an act of perfect love when seen as part of a bigger picture. Apparently this reason is a mystery to believers and unbelievers alike.
However you assert that since you know there is an omnipotent and loving god, this mysterious information must exist.
We have reached a point where the only sensible thing to do next is for you to tell us how you know such a deity exists.
On the one hand we have unassailable facts about the reality of human suffering.
So what facts can you offer that are so compelling, that any reasonable person should deny the obvious implications of the Asian tsunami?
Take as many words as you need and I will not criticise your tone or methods of explaining your case.
You have had numerous requests to present your case, the stage is yours..........
While we are waiting on Flamegrilled, the summary so far...
I suspect Flamegrilled is 'turning the other cheek', but here's something to consider adding to Cofty's list in the meantime:
Cofty, what exactly did you find so unsatisfying with the obvious: the JW version of theodicy?
Even though we know it's only a pipe-dream, it actually offers the most-sophisticated and loving approach to the problem of evil ('natural' or otherwise), claiming EVERYONE who dies before Armageddon (from Hitler to the most-innocent child, overlooking the WT's flip-flops on Sodomites, etc), will be given a second-chance, resurrected into a paradise Earth and given another opportunity to prove their loyalty to a loving God, under conditions where Satan (always the scapegoat) is confined for 1,000 years.
Hence a perfectly valid (and sound) rationale within the JW belief system is that an infant drowned in the tsunami was possibly-saved from a life filled with misery, pain, and eventually death by a loving God, since the infant otherwise would fall into the hands of a child molester where she later became a meth-addicted prostitute, who ODed at 20 (and also gained resurrection). So an early death was actually more-loving for her, since it bought her the same "golden ticket" into a Paradise Earth, but avoided a short lifetime filled with pain and misery in this "corrupt" system of things. Sure, it's speculative, but that's the problem with inductive reasoning: it's trying to forecast (analogous to creating hypotheses), and that allows the imagination to run free, and it's perfectly-valid under the rules of inductive logic (since the threshold is lower vs deductive logic).
And what do we tell the grieving mother, you ask? You all know the answer, since you told others this many times: if she becomes a JW and survives Armageddon, her dead daughter will be resurrected, and both mother and daughter will potentially gain eternal life and live together on a paradise Earth. THAT'S a pretty-darn seductive message to many people, and it's loving for all involved (that is, if it were only true).
Of course, that also presupposes the existence of a prescient God who knows future timelines that are not privvy to, and hence humans have "known unknowns" (and Job acknowledged his maggot-like status when bowed to God's greater knowledge, judgment, and wisdom, and refused to "curse God and die").
And just as Job (a fictional character, set in Ur, some 4,500 yrs ago) couldn't begin to understand things in our modern World if God tried to explain them to him (eg quantum physics), a JW accepts that God has greater knowledge than us modern humans, and we truly wouldn't be able to understand an explanation which God could provide, or even if we could understand, we simply don't have any need to know, which is what the Bible is saying with "God's ways are mysterious" (which is begging the question, of course, since we're talking about a non-existent being).
The JW response obviously crosses the threshold of believability to resolve the theodicy question in the minds of many active JWs, being not just plausible (the threshold in inductive reasoning), but also seductively and painfully-desirable, esp those looking for hope beyond hope who desparately WANT to believe.
(And that's the problem with challenging theodicies: the business of religion is based on providing comfort with a "grand prize" of eternal rewards in Heaven, and they've had millenia to work out the kinks, developing a smorgasborg of options from which to select. It the same problem encountered when debating presuppositional Xian apologetists; it forces the atheist to accept their questionable premises, and the best-possible outcome is a stale-mate, since it gives the theist a HUGE advantage by forcing us to play on their "turf".)
But back to the main point:
You claim flaws in theodicy caused you to lose your belief in God, but didn't the typical JW theodical response work for you? It resolves the all-loving God thing quite well, IF one believes in God. Are you sure theren't nagging doubts emerging before?
The limitation of ALL theodicies is they work ONLY for those who believe in God, since once someone starts questioning God's existence, the placebo benefit of theodocies quickly dissipate, and the cookie starts to crumble.
I was actually just wondering the same thing recently, adamah. I haven't seen the JW theodicy really addressed, although I freely admit that I wasn't following the thread for most of its history, so I thought I might have missed it.
I suppose cofty will say, though, that this is outside the scope of the discussion because he's only interested in why God (Jehovah, etc.) would design a planet that has natural disasters occur on it.
I don't quite know what the official JW answer is to this; I honestly never gave it much thought. I suppose my assumption was that the earth is not functioning the way it was meant to (Flood, water canopy, yada yada).
True, the WT always had an answer. Everyone gets a chance (except stillborn babies--Non-breather,don't you know). Mostly.
The trouble with a liar is you can't trust a thing they say--even if they are telling you something you like.
Apo said- I suppose cofty will say, though, that this is outside the scope of the discussion because he's only interested in why God (Jehovah, etc.) would design a planet that has natural disasters occur on it.
Cofty was trying to reconcile an all-loving God who sat on his hands and failed to intervene. The "faults could've been designed to slide over each other" issue arose around page 50 or so (as an offshoot of Leibniz's "best of all possible Worlds" defense), but it was deemed as insufficent to the address on the point of "all-loving" God claim.
Cofty said it himself, back on pg 3:
Cofty said- My point is that theism is internally inconsistent. If there is a creator god who passively observed the tsunami wipe out a quarter of a million people he/she is not loving.
The JW's answer seems to be the most-suitable to fulfill his criteria, but only he can explain why it failed for him.
Hence a perfectly valid (and sound) rationale within the JW belief system is that an infant drowned in the tsunami was possibly-saved from a life filled with misery, pain, and eventually death by a loving God, since the infant otherwise would fall into the hands of a child molester where she later became a meth-addicted prostitute, who ODed at 20 (and also gained resurrection). So an early death was actually more-loving for her, since it bought her the same "golden ticket" into a Paradise Earth, but avoided a short lifetime filled with pain and misery in this "corrupt" system of things. Sure, it's speculative, but that's the problem with inductive reasoning: it's trying to forecast (analogous to creating hypotheses), and that allows the imagination to run free, and it's perfectly-valid under the rules of inductive logic (since the threshold is lower vs deductive logic).
So actually, everyone is ok except people who 'reject the message'. Therefore, aren't Christians who preach the message really bastards who prevent people having a fair crack at life? Is that showing love or malice?
See - it still makes no sense. Theist inventions never do.
