Euthanasia: good or evil?
Abortion: murder or self-determinism?
Sex education: help or corruption?
Alternative healing: divine progress or the devil's work?
Genetic research: potential lifesaver or tampering with God's creations?
Is there a common thread to all these intense and complex debates? It seems to me that one thing is pretty central:
If we are God's children, what kind of father is he?
Is he the stern patriarch who knows everything and therefore must be obeyed and never questioned?
Or is he a laid-back parent who wishes first and foremost his children to be their own individuals who run their own lives and make their own mistakes?
Conversely, what kind of children should we be? Should we be quiet and obedient and never do anything if we have not been told that this is what Father wants us to do?
Or should be be rambunctious kids who always want to do things ourselves, and who sometimes get hurt or in trouble, but who learn fast and meet the universe head on?
11 comments:
Free Will is the most expensive gift.
I don't believe in predestination but I do believe in intervention by what we call God. Even if the accumulated stories from all cultures are merely myth's they tend to point to some divine nudge now and then.
The latest fear is of atomic power. The last fifty years has been an exercise in armed limitation of who has the atomic resources to possibly anihalate the planet.
The same technology could allow us to travel this fish bowl we call a Universe.
I am a strong believer in a benevelant God and free will allows man kind to do everything possible to harm each other in the name of the God we think we know. And free will allows us to protect those that animal nature would detroy by simplitic survival of the fit. Nature when you study it is very cruel and ruthless.
All that said it is both with great joy and great sadness that I observe the world as it grinds daily this way and that.
I have to rely on looking for the Grace each day and have to fight to stay trusting in a benevelant God.
Otherwise Anarchy rules.
Taking care of those that Anarchy destroy's by it's simple rules saves myself. I would be one of Anarchy's victims. Trust me when I tell you this.
In the end I have to believe in goodness so that I can be good. I have to believe in happiness so I can be happy. I have to believe in some kind of long range positive purpose or I am merely adrift in this world.
Free will is the most expensive gift mankind discovered or God made into us.
Us it wisely!
There are 2 paths in life that we can take, 1 is Gods path, the 2nd is the devils path. It states quite clearly in the Bible what it takes to be a Christian, God allows us freedom of choice, He will not try to force anyone to do anything against their will.
Murder is a sin i.e. abortion/euthanasia, as is sex between 2 people of the same gender and of course sexual abuse of none consenting people. Stealing, cheating i.e. avoiding paying taxes, lying are also no go areas in Gods book.
We must be prepared to suffer the consequences of our choices. In the Bible it says "As ye sow so shall ye reap. Of course Christians fall by the wayside, nobody is perfect but God is a loving Father and forgives those who repent.
Those who follow the devils path must accept that they will receive his reward i.e. living in hell for eternity. AMEN!
The choice is yours,
Jesus loves you and so do I.
Mary
Most of those who believe in "god" believe in the stern patriach, even though they will not admit it to themselves. Certainly the Bible and (perhaps even more so) the Koran teach about that kind of god.
I, on the other hand, am an atheist. I believe that while it may be possible that some power created and sustains the universe, we cannot relate to this power any more than we could relate to one of the individual cells of one's body. (I suppose this would make me philosophically an agnostic, but I also believe that this term is a cop-out. None of us KNOWS whether or not god exists; we can only go by what we believe.)
I also believe that the "arguement from evil", which would be better termed the "arguement from suffering" since it is strongest on what is sometimes called "natural evil", i.e., suffering, proves that the Christian god cannot exist. Simply put, if god cannot put an end to suffering, he is not omnipotent. If he is unwilling to, he is not benevolent. Since the Christian god is supposed to have both these properties, he does not exist.
And before anyone says that suffering supposedly makes us more mature, I also believe that's Bovine Substance. BS, in other words. Nobody making that claim has ever proved their case (at least not to me.) Many people are destroyed by suffering-- sometimes physically, often spiriually. (A word I'm reluctant to use, but I don't know one that would better fit.) Couldn't god, if he is who he's supposed to be, find some other way?
Mary is a perfect example of someone who claims to believe in a "loving father" but in reality believes in the stern patriach. For example, we are finite beings, therefore any "sins" that we commit can only be finite. And yet Mary's "loving father" would send us to hell for eternity, with no possiblity of parole, for a finite amount of sin. What's up with that?
Although it does explain why Christains are among the loudest voices saying "Lock 'em up and throw away the key!"
By the way, that word in my previous post should be "spiritually". (Darn typo.)
Well, it`s 6 am, so I`m not going to tarry too long....
Just dropped in to say sorry I missed you last night, Eolake, had problems with my server being down.
Had a wee quick read at the comments so far, and I`ll be back, no doubt, to add the Zep thoughts to the melting pot.
I just can`t agree with the fundamentalist black/white heaven/hell dogma.
(Isn`t that a surprise...!!!)
No room for humanity there.
I agree with Kenneth in that some of the most unforgiving people I have met have been Christians.
Agree with whole paragraphs of Wonko`s post, but will be back to add some(very probably)offbeat thoughts later.
Excellent post Eolake..!!
Thanks, folks.
I attempted with this post to invite thought rather than fights (and I got it), because I felt the observation was rather central to much of what is going right and wrong in the world. So that is why I wrote as neutrally as I could.
When somebody states a straight opinion, it is apparently human nature to take sides. Whereas when you state questions, people will think it over.
Hmmm, lots of questions E.S.
You wouldn't be a Unitarian Universalist would you?
To question is the answer!
I was going to end here but "what the h---".
Personally I'm agnostic. The existance of existance seems like proof of "GOD" but further definition is subjective. If we are all alone then thats too scary for most people.
None of us really KNOW. It appears that if there is really SOMEONE up there then we are left on our own to
prove ourselves and then be judged later.
One question to the Holy. If you are so sure of your belief then why do you get so "up tight" when it is questioned? Too many people are this way.
Erich
I believe that anyone who isn't open minded enough to allow their beliefs to be questioned is manifesting a lack of faith in those beliefs because they are implying that those beliefs can't stand up to scrutiney.
I love challenges to my thinking probably in part because it tends to either change my mind to a more solid and secure position or else reaffirm my old position---and I like to have my positions solid (while of course still maintaining a true openmindedness), but I enjoy probably most of all just the intellectual pleasure of it.
Anyway in keeping with this philosophy, I'd like to go on record as saying that I believe in a God that is both benevolent and all powerful. I love Kenneth's "arguement from evil" against a christian God, because it seems well thought out and eligantly succinct.
But I don't conclude that a christian God isn't real from that. I'm trying to decide if I should write my arguement for that down (its kind of long). I guess I'll comment on Faith first. It is at least remotely relevant to the arguement against a christian God or rather "arguement from evil" as Kenneth posted it.
Okay this is it: I can believe things in such a way that I have no particular reason to believe it but it is more like a hunch or an unimportant opinion. Such a believe is quite frivolous and irrelevent for most other people and nothing much would be gained by convincing them that I am right or of others convincing me I'm wrong.
I can also believe things (whether true or untrue) that are not opinions, and which are based on evidence that I have collected and thoughtful considerations about the alternatives. This sort of belief is of course much more reasonable and helpful to myself and others to disscuss because the correctness of my belief may have real implications about the nature of the world we all live in. Also it can be tested for reasonableness. (I can not KNOW anything in the strictest sense of the word "know", but different ideas can be tested for reasonableness--each person being the judge of what that is).
I don't believe that faith is blindly following something without evidence; it is rather more like weighing all of the evidence and formulating a theory that fits all of the known facts and yet predicts other unusual things which you then believe and learn to rely on as a consequence of believing that theory. That is exactly like I view my christian faith.
There is one main thing I still want to say about what I believe.
God gives us free will and seems to have boundless power and yet he lets us decide for ourselves how we want to live within what I believe to be quite reasonable limits. (He grants us far more liberty than most of us would like to grant one another). And even if there was no God, the virtues of this sort of life seem quite self evident to me even weighed against the less pleasant things.
What do you all think?
Alright I'm going to do it.... (maybe the entertainment value will be worth the lenght of this post)....
Lets look at these assumptions one at a time. "if god cannot put an end to suffering, he is not omnipotent." Partially agreed. But where do we find evidence that God claims omnipotence? If I wanted to find out what the christian God was like I would look to the book that was purportedly from him/her/it (In this case the Bible). So in answer to my own question I would find one of the several references that God says "Is anything too hard for the Lord?". That is posed as a question. And is quite weak, but the truth is I can not at the moment think of anything stronger as far as what God purportedly says about himself in the Bible. (I'll use the masculine terms for the sake of simplicity). Let's suppose for a moment that God just wouldn't be God without being omnipotent, and lets further suppose that "omnipotent" in this context means having infinite power and ability. Is there any way for a god with infinite ability to still have limitations? I Absolutely think so! Why? Well not all infinite "quantities" are equal. For example Subtract all of the integers from the real number line and you will have a remainder. Infinity is not a real number and should probably be view more as a quality than a quantity. But if anyone wants to consider how one infinity can be larger than another I'll provide a simple thought experiment.
Consider an infinitely large 3-dimensional space which extends infinitely and uniformly in all three dimensions without any end points or looping dimentions. Secondly consider evenly spaced blocks which use up this space in such a way that the space between each block in the same dimension is the same distance that the block is long in that dimention. For ease in visualizing these blocks consider the case in which all the blocks edges and faces are either parallel or perpendicular to each other with all of the blocks having equal size, volume, and surface area. With this setup we have an infinite amount of empty space and an infinite amount of block filled space in equal proportions. Lets call the "amount" of infinite empty space "E", and the amount of filled space "F". In this stage of our thought experiment E/F=F/E=1.
Next let us imagine filling in most all of the remaining empty space with water and call this amount "W". Also the total available space let's call "t". But lets say that instead of filling in the rest of the space with water as we might have expected that we just added that same amount of liquid that would have filled the remaining space (and the liquid was all water except for a drop of oil the size of a marbel lets call this amount "M"). Lets also say that one block got wet and swelled to twice its normal volume and that exactly the amount of added block volume was subtracted from E.(Let's call the volume of one single unaltered block "b", and let's assume that no water volume was used up in swelling the block). Now we have a new amount of "total" space which let's call "T" as opposed to "t". Now if W+M=E+b and we consider W and M as part of F, then E/F doesn't equal F/E which used to equal one so lets say the infinite amount of space filled by blocks is "B". So altogether now we have E+M+W+B=T, F+E=T, F=M+W+B, and t=B+E. Isn't it totally obvious that t< T and that B< F and that M< W (I didn't exactly specify the size of the "marble" size blob of oil but lets say it is exactly 1 tenth the volume of a single unaltered block). We can now clarify our views in order to be more percise. For example I would say that T/3=B-b, and T-E-F=0. Also 2B=E-3.9b+W. Hopefully if I've done a good job you will see that with this sort of thinking it becomes plain how infinity is not all created equal and thus can have limitations.
But now back to our disscussion about God's omnipotence....
"...If he is unwilling to, he is not benevolent." I contend that the god of Christians is both willing to and able to end suffering, and will do so at some time in the relatively near future. That there can be limitations to how even infinite power can work should not be a great surprise. But I suggest another solution that allows for a benevolent as well as an omnipotent god. If God was also omniscient I would believe he should know not only what is best for us but also how we would like him to deal with us if we were privileged with the same knowledge. I would consider God to be benevolent if he allowed me to go through certain trying experiences that at a later time (having more complete information) I would regret having been "saved" from ---even if at the time I asked him for deliverence from them.
None of this reasoning tells us what God claims himself to be like or what particular infinite qualities he says to have or has demonstated to have. For the Christian version of this story we must again refer to the Bible to get anything more than a subjective view about this.
In the Bible there are storys which tell of his interactions with others and in making the world, and in sending his own son to help save any who choose to be helped from their bent toward self destruction and to make povision for humans to live forever. There are also records of people crediting God with infinite qualities and Jesus saying that God is good. But I am most interested in what God supposedly says about himself.
"I am who I am" he names himself. I think God (as revealed in the Bible) has many sides to himself which he could have used as a name. Many people believe he could for example have said "I am the one that is all powerful!" But his own name for himself suggests something about how he wants to be known. I think it is an invitation to find out for ourselves what he is like. And I think God is good.
I don't believe in a forever burning hell so arguements about how I can reconcille my belief about a good, just God and hell fire should be easily resolved. The Bible doesn't teach that the wicked have eternal life---that is the reward of the righteous!---But since there are texts that superficially do suggest hell does burn forever it would take a fairly involved study to do this subject justice and explain just exactly why I do not. But I'll consider that study beyond the scope of this comment).
But I want to say something else about faith.
But also I have a high regard for the agnostic position. Most if not all agnostics I've talked with have impressed me as intelligent and openminded. I dissagree that being an agnostic is a cop out because I can't see any virtue in claiming to believe one side over another if one feels the evidence is ambiguous.
If anyone cares to ask me something specific you can e-mail me at NT_SRP@hotmail.com and I'll try to respond to serious questions as I have the time.
First, you made me wonder about the relation between peoples' conception of God and their attitude as educators/parents. "It's just a wild theory" (yeah, suuuure!...), but I'm supposing there might be some correlation between very religious people --okay, I confess, I mean bigots-- and their having an overly stern and strict attitude in education. But then, maybe my own experience with holy nuts is influencing my objective perception of the world beyond my narrow little horizon. ;-)
My second comment is kind of a corollary to the first. I wonder how much my having "normal", sensible parents may have affected my perception of what/how God might be. Freud probably defined God as an über-father symbol figure, I reckon. I have great difficulty in believing, alongside with free will, in the tale of a loving Father that would be so severely unforgiving of every little thing I did, while my human, imperfect parents can be so comprehensive. Besides, why Father, and not Mother, since everything that exists originates from God "himself"? I conceive a unique God as genderless in nature, simply because gender would imply a COUPLE! There's more than one way for us to be made "in God's image".
And finally, since science constantly shows us how little He appears to be whip-cracking and managing His universe in every minute visible detail (contrarily to my last tyrant boss!), I feel like the answer to your question on His interventionnism seems pretty self-evident. God doesn't seem much like the terrifying "thing" that observed Earth from far above in Philip K Dick's S-F novel 'Eye in the Sky' (1957).
Post a Comment