This relates to veganism, i promise :P.....I'm an atheist and a big fan of the Hitch (Christopher Hitchens) and his book 'god is not great' hence the tittle. anyway, by looking at religious books and just the world around us, if there was a god, it would mean humans in general are more compassionate than him/her/it ( or the people that forged these religions). If people believe in a god that would send a person to hell to eternal damnation, or a god that answers your prayers, but leaves people starving, or a god that asks for animal sacrifice, especialy if this is the message many people are giving to impressionable children. how do they justify their compassion for animals (or say that its even necessary) and belief in god at the same time? i don't feel they can go together, because i don't believe god is compassionate. And that religion teaches that humans are worthless servants. also take this verse in leviticus for instance talking about sacrificing a live dove . Leviticus, 1:12
“And he shall cut it into pieces, with its head and its fat, and the priest shall lay them in order upon the wood that is on the fire upon the altar.”
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" Since modern Christians cannot bring themselves to believe that God willed the holocaust to happen and God wills every death and evil deed, they contradict themselves - they say "God is all-powerful" then they say that "Satan does all the evil stuff though"
by reading your post you are probably making assumptions on what Christians believe or you are speaking to Christians that actually do not understand their religion but they just go through the motions.
"If God were truly all-powerful, "Satan" would be completely under his control." - This is kind of a big point, also stated by many as "why does God allow bad things to happen." The idea here is that all beings are free to make their own choices knowing that there are consequences to those choices. No choice should be forced or made out of fear. Now, if God just snapped His fingers and wiped out Lucifer when he first pulled out the ol' pride issue (his initial reason for his down fall) then all the others would have been worshipping God out of fear. By letting things play out, yes with ugly cause and effect at times, God is letting everyone see what sin does bring to the world.
"There is no such thing as "good" or "evil." Everything just happens" What? Raping a child just happens? The slaugher to 10,000,000 christians and 6,000,000 jews in German was not evil?
What is the big picture then, without getting metaphysical or universal and unrealistic?
Permalink Reply by Joni on Michael, great post. I totally agree. The book The Great Controversy brings it out the same thought.
Permalink Reply by Peter Csere on Yes, those things happen. Good and evil are created by your amygdala. Raping the child just happens. I'm not saying it's not "evil", I'm saying "the knowledge of good and evil" come from our reptilian brain.
I am not making assumptions about any specific Christians like you say. I'm speaking about the doctrine of modern christianity.
The idea here is that all beings are free to make their own choices knowing that there are consequences to those choices. No choice should be forced or made out of fear. Now, if God just snapped His fingers and wiped out Lucifer when he first pulled out the ol' pride issue (his initial reason for his down fall) then all the others would have been worshipping God out of fear. By letting things play out, yes with ugly cause and effect at times, God is letting everyone see what sin does bring to the world.
Free will is an illusion. God is all-powerful. Every choice you think you have made was already known by God. Free will is an "evil" creation- doctrine of modern christianity - since it teaches us that God is not all-powerful - he is an old man sitting in the corner hoping that we will make the right choice with our free will. We are more powerful than him since we have free choice and he just has to sit back and hope we do the right things. Please note I don't use "God" in the way that modern christianity does. As was said earlier in this thread, the word "God" doesn't necessarily mean "distinct being." As far as I'm concerned, the word "God" is a synonym for the word "Universe" and implies the pure consciousness that is the universe.
Someone mentioned that God would be apathetic if he existed. Why? Because he allows evil to happen? God creates both good and evil, for without the evil, there would be no good. Good and evil require each other. Two sides of the same coin. For good to happen in the end, a sacrifice must be made. Hence we have the bible myth about Jesus on the cross. It is an allegory for the universe. So if God were apathetic the universe would never have existed in the first place. If God were apathetic, the proverbial "Jesus" would never have made his sacrifice. Please note, again, don't interpret my reply as if I am using the definition of God that modern christians use. I use it as a synonym for "universe" which is pure energy/consciousness.
Permalink Reply by Sheila Monthe on im sorry, what? .... ok first. how do know that there cannot be good without evil? you've never seen pure good (whatever that is), so if you believe in heaven, does heaven have evil? did you read my first reply?
but truthfully i cant answer you properly because i cant really tell what you believe in cos you're mixing alot of things. or maybe i have just terribly misinterpreted what you said and am slow. either way i don't understand. please elaborate.
Permalink Reply by The Humane Hominid on for without the evil, there would be no good. Good and evil require each other.
Malarkey. I don't need cavities to understand teeth. This kind of dualism is just another evasion.
Permalink Reply by pradtf on God creates both good and evil, for without the evil, there would be no good. Good and evil require each other.
that is a very bizarre idea, peter.
you may say something like you can understand good better when you contrast it with evil (if that's really what it takes some people to do). or you can argue in terms of physics that a positive charge is the result of lack of negative charge (but so is neutral) or darkness is the absence of light. however, let's not start stretching things too far here because you can see just from those two that +ve and -ve, isn't quite the same as as light and dark.
the concept of opposite also seems to require a fulcrum. for instance, -1 is the opposite of +1 with respect to the fulcrum of 0. however, then it may be feasible to also say that 1 is the opposite of 3 wrt 2.
in any case, binding two opposites together by virtue of their oppositeness (which for somethings is quite arbitrary) is logically absurd and conceptually restrictive.
we do not need evil in order to have good any more than we need darkness in order to have light. just find a super nova and one gets all the light one could possibly want for quite some time!
in friendship,
prad
Permalink Reply by Jon Fergus on Philosophically light cannot exist without darkness. Interesting thing is that in Christian ideology Darkness actually comes first!
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Darkness preceded light here. In the Tao Te Ching we read:
Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
And later:
Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.
This is very sound philosophically and is simply a recognition of the role of opposites in manifestation. It doesn't mean we can so easily apply it to our ideas of good and evil, and it is a logical fallacy to leap from these philosophical statements to idea that rape or any other evils must or are required to exist in order for 'good' to exist.
Permalink Reply by Sunshine on easy. people doing what they knew how to meet their needs the 'best' they knew how at the time, some tragic in a way that didn't take into account the shared values of other life(excused/repeated by a books of concepts copied from the last defeated civilizations myths) and lot of it has to do with fear of resources and the languages that we use allowing us to dehumanize others and justify 'punishment' / 'reward' system that infantalize adults who grew up facing psychologically abuse and threats by parents and others into these concepts. i give great thanks to my mother who got away from these system so i could have a outside view
Permalink Reply by Sunshine on +1 solid
together Hygienically & Brightly we move forward helping people out of closets
Permalink Reply by Freshtival on
IMO, I think God is great its people's "works" that cause the problems.
Permalink Reply by Sheila Monthe on no, not realy, i disagree i think the idea of god itself is the problem, people make it worse. although it was people who created god so...
Permalink Reply by Craig Plunkett on "Religion poisons everything" implies the world would be dandy if religion were not present. Not only is this untrue in the superlative, I am unconvinced that the world would lookany better without religion.
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