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Author Topic:   What would you have God do?
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 83 of 104 (104568)
05-01-2004 2:48 PM
Reply to: Message 80 by mike the wiz
05-01-2004 12:44 PM


Benevolence does not mean there is automatically no possibility for misery. All-powerful does not automatically mean there is no possibility for misery.
Of course they do. The existence of misery is anathema to a benevolent God. If he's all-powerful, then he either does something about it, or he's not truly benevolent.
If a man is dying on the sidewalk, and you walk on by and do nothing, you're not benevolent. That's called a sin of ommission if you're Catholic.
If God is all-powerful, then everytime something bad happens he's guilty of a sin of ommission. If God is guilty of sins then he isn't benevolent by nature.
You can't reconcile your model of God with the presence of misery in the world.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 80 by mike the wiz, posted 05-01-2004 12:44 PM mike the wiz has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 84 by mike the wiz, posted 05-01-2004 6:25 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 90 by RingoKid, posted 05-02-2004 6:48 PM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 85 of 104 (104607)
05-01-2004 6:42 PM
Reply to: Message 84 by mike the wiz
05-01-2004 6:25 PM


Show me how message #81 is wrong then.
You're just assuming that the presence of joy means that God exists. That's not a proof. That's a tautology.
According to the definition of God, God is benevolent and all-powerful. Do you dispute this? Because I'm basing the definition of God based on what you believe about God. If you don't believe that God is benevolent or all-powerful, then obviously my proof means nothing.
Is God benevolent and all-powerful? Yes or no.
Luckily for God - he isn't a catholic.
You might want to ask the Catholics about that.
This reminds me of that episode of Seinfeld, where Jerry and his friends are taken to court for being innocent bystanders who didn't help someone who was being mugged.
What it should be reminding you is of the parable of the Good Samaritan, and how the other passers-by are condemned by Jesus for inaction.
Therefore, My God (God of the bible), says that evil and misery is from satan.
Do you believe that Satan is more powerful than God? Because if he's not, God could eliminate the Satan problem any time he chose to.
The existence of Satan doesn't help you in the least - if Satan can resist God then God is not all-powerful. If Satan can't resist God, then he continues to exist because God lets it happen.
Either way, God can be benevolent or all-powerful, but not both. If you believe that the God that exists is both, you're wrong - there's no way that God can have both those qualities, exist, and the universe turn out the way it does.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 84 by mike the wiz, posted 05-01-2004 6:25 PM mike the wiz has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 86 by mike the wiz, posted 05-01-2004 9:01 PM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 87 of 104 (104635)
05-01-2004 9:03 PM
Reply to: Message 86 by mike the wiz
05-01-2004 9:01 PM


Unless you really really wanted an answer to your post I must refrain now.
That's cool. I'm not keen to get into a shouting match either, and I guess I'm just not smart enough to explain how I think your logic is faulty.
Anyway, we're cool.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 86 by mike the wiz, posted 05-01-2004 9:01 PM mike the wiz has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 88 by mike the wiz, posted 05-01-2004 9:20 PM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 89 of 104 (104654)
05-01-2004 10:15 PM
Reply to: Message 88 by mike the wiz
05-01-2004 9:20 PM


Thanks for the links I will try and remember what you taught me about contra-positives.
No prob. If you learn only one thing from me, basic symbolic logic doesn't hurt.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 88 by mike the wiz, posted 05-01-2004 9:20 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 91 of 104 (104750)
05-02-2004 6:54 PM
Reply to: Message 90 by RingoKid
05-02-2004 6:48 PM


you can't reconcile your model of misery with the presence of God in the world...
Sure. So, we know that one of two things is false:
1) God exists.
2) Misery exists.
Only one of those statements can be false. By trivial observation, we know that misery exists. Therefore God does not.
...the absolute truth is God is the ultimate nihilist so we can't ascribe our flawed constructs of truth, reality, logic, reason, values, ethics or morality on something that is beyond our ability to understand or elucidate upon
I'm not inclined to accept ineffability as an argument. Rather than adopt a model with no hope of any human understanding, I'll accept another theory that explains the same data and is much easier to understand: God doesn't exist. See how much easier that is to comprehend than "the actions of God are incomprehensible?"
I don't know how you can rationalize an incomprehensible God with a comprehensible universe. Moreover I don't believe that you truly think God is ineffable - for instance, there must be some things you feel confident God won't do, like, grab you with his Holy Hand if you were to jump off a cliff?
A truly ineffable God would render the universe into immediate chaos, because there's no predicting what God will do. He essentially acts at random with infinite power. That's not consistent with the universe we observe.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 90 by RingoKid, posted 05-02-2004 6:48 PM RingoKid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 92 by RingoKid, posted 05-03-2004 3:26 AM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 93 of 104 (104898)
05-03-2004 6:26 AM
Reply to: Message 92 by RingoKid
05-03-2004 3:26 AM


Personally I don't think the universe is comprehensible otherwise there would be a consensus of opinion and you could rule out God as a first cause...
Ah, but if God did exist, don't you think that there would be a consensus of opinion about him? Instead, if you ask a dozen people about God you'll get thirteen different ideas.
Of course God isn't going to extend his hand to me if I jumped of a cliff he's got better things to do and I'm not even going to try as a test of faith, that's just silly
Right - so clearly God isn't as incomhrensible as you think - you, a lowly human, are apparently able to make accurate predictions about at least some of his behaviors.
you are right though, there's no predicting what God will do so it appears he acts at random with infinite power from our perspective...
No, Random infinite power would be ice cream rain one day, and seas turning into jello the next. God, on the other hand, appears to do nothing at all, ever.
I'm sticking to the intelligent designer model with faith that we will evolve enough to be able to understand the mind of God...
That's cool. Me, I'm sticking to the explanation that best fits Occam's Razor - the universe is the way it is because God simply doesn't exist.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 92 by RingoKid, posted 05-03-2004 3:26 AM RingoKid has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 100 of 104 (111707)
05-31-2004 2:01 AM
Reply to: Message 99 by Hangdawg13
05-31-2004 1:05 AM


All I have is his word. I personally believe him.
How do you think it works, exactly?
Eyesight isn't magic. The principles are pretty well-understood. How exactly does light bounce off of an incorporeal entity in order to be seen?
You're right that we're a little harder to convince than you. But it's not because we're stony-hearted skeptics - it's because when you dig into these stories even just a little bit, you run headfirst into contradictions with what we know about the universe.
Me? Explaining your friend's visions as hallucinations or lies fits a lot easier into what we know about physical laws. I don't know your friend, but I know one thing - even good people can lie or be outright mistaken, or even be just a little bit crazy.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 99 by Hangdawg13, posted 05-31-2004 1:05 AM Hangdawg13 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 101 by Hangdawg13, posted 05-31-2004 2:33 AM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 102 of 104 (111713)
05-31-2004 2:39 AM
Reply to: Message 101 by Hangdawg13
05-31-2004 2:33 AM


If you're looking for a scientific answer I can't give you one.
Not a scientific one, just a reasonable one.
The human body operates under certain principles, and one of those is that eyes work by reacting to reflected light. You claim to have a friend, and presumably he's a human being. All I'm asking you to do is explain how what you think you know about your friend fits in with what we know we know about eyes.
As to how it works, I suppose its how near-death experiences work where people have "come back" describing their bodies lying on a bed and the actions of the EMS personell and things going on in the next room.
You mean the ones where they get the general idea right, but are always wrong about details that they were unable to observe from a vantage point on the operating table? Like I said, even good people can lie or be mistaken, or misinterpret sensory information.
Of course these are proofs only to the people who have experienced them or to those who believe in the trichotomous nature of man and thus will be of no interest to you.
Yeah, the thing about souls and spirits is, it just doesn't make any sense. If they're ephemeral, how do they interact with the body? The body is composed entirely of matter. If the spirit is not, how does it control the body? How does sensory information go from the body to the spirit?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 101 by Hangdawg13, posted 05-31-2004 2:33 AM Hangdawg13 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 103 by custard, posted 05-31-2004 5:40 AM crashfrog has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 104 of 104 (111743)
05-31-2004 5:42 AM
Reply to: Message 103 by custard
05-31-2004 5:40 AM


Hey, I don't like to make unwarranted assumptions.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 103 by custard, posted 05-31-2004 5:40 AM custard has not replied

  
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