Theists, answer this
Offline A friend of mine died a few days ago of congestive heart failure, he was 41 yrs old. I'd only known him about 3 yrs, he was a customer on my mail route who would meet me at the mailbox most every day. He was born with congestive heart failure and suffered greatly from other conditions during his 41 years. At one point medicine he was taking caused him to black out and fall, shattering his arm. He suffered great pain in that arm for many years. In addition to all this his mental development was that of about a 12 year old. It's been difficult delivering mail there knowing he's not coming out, we had become good friends. He was a big fan of KISS and Ace Frehley (I downloaded all of their music for him), and he was a big believer in your god.
My question is this; why would your god (or any god) suffer this gentle individual with such misery from birth? What could the unborn have possibly done to deserve such a fate? I don't want to hear any crap about how we can't fathom his reasons or tests of faith (remember, he was a believer) or any other such bullshit. Come up with some straight answers that make moral sense, or even common sense. In my estimation, if your god exists, the Epicurean argument applies.
"Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society." Thomas Jefferson
www.myspace.com/kenhill5150
- Login to post comments
What difference does it make if he does or does not? Even if their limbs regenerate, they will still maintain an imperfect existence. They will still have bodies that deteriorate with age, they will still be tempted by unrighteous things, they will still be susceptible to disease, etc. You have to view things, not in the context of our earthly existence, but in the context of eternal values and what's most important in the context of eternity. What's most important is our nature as people, not as physical entities. That is what God heals.
"But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." --Isaiah 53:5
In this context, you must understand healing as being spiritual healing, not physical healing.
Of course, if you adopt a physicalist worldview, then this is all a moot point.
To answer your question, I would say that, in certain instances, choice and inability are not mutually exclusive. God is just and, by his very nature, cannot do anything wrong. Any fallible being is a being that is less than perfect. Therefore, if it is just that the created world be rational, then God could not have chosen to do it any other way, not because he is constrained, mind you, but because he will always be consistent with his own nature. A rational world must maintain a certain consistency or we would have no potential for leading an existence that is not chaotic. At the same time, it could be said that a necessary evil of such a world is that it maintains an order which makes no exceptions. For example, the law of gravity is going to still apply, whether it is a leaf falling out of a tree or a human falling off of a building. The human will die or be hurt and the law of gravity will not make exceptions on those grounds. But to answer this question fully, I would need an exhaustive understanding of God's wisdom and that is impossible for any finite being to achieve.
Give it up. You have not even tried to answer the challenge I made, that being an answer in rational terms, not metaphysical, as to why god does things like this. The bible itself has many stories of god's justice and his nature and most show him as a petty and jealous tyrant with a murderous bent, uncaring of the victims of his games.
I assume you believe the bible is inerrant. Try actually reading it from beginning to end, remember what you read and when you see something that doesn't mesh with what you might have read earlier, don't gloss over it. Go back and make comparisons. You will soon see the glaring errors, fabrications and outright ignorance of the writers of the various books reflected in it.
Life is chaotic, there's no getting around that. It will always be chaotic to one degree or another, and I doubt seriously there will ever be a day when it is not chaotic. god does not make this world perfect, regenerate missing limbs, people are born with disabilities, people die and life goes on. Not because god does anything. he does not exist, there is no impact on anything in reality. It's a myth. One day, hopefully, christianity and all the other religions will go the way of all the thousands of other older myths no longer believed in.
"Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society." Thomas Jefferson
www.myspace.com/kenhill5150
Do you know on how many levels the above statement is stupid? Have you even an inkling of how many of the most noble of human virtues are offended by your remark? Can you even guess at the arrogance of it? Can you even make the wildest of guesses at where the love of self-inflicted ignorance leads?
Do you care?
Is being religious to brain cells what being a Necrotizing Fasciitic bacterium is to subcutaneous tissue?
I sometimes really, really wish I could be so dumb and happy as you are, RedSox. However the feeling normally lasts only a nano-second or two and then my brain kicks in again.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
It suffers from a key problem: "greatest" is an undefined term.
If I use the natural definition of "greatest", I can conceive of very great beings who simply don't exist. So it's all very well to define "God" this way, but then God doesn't exist except as a concept in my head. Fine by *me*, but I would guess that you, as a monotheist, don't like that definition.
Your God is not omnipotent, unlike the conventional Christian god. Got it. Yes, non-omnipotent Gods are much less internally contradictory.
To preemptively demolish the most common apologetic to try to keep God 'omnipotent': I expect the response "omnipotence is all *possible* powers, not *all* powers". This means, notably, that God exists within a universe which s/he didn't create. (If you create your own universe, you can clearly do anything non-contradictory with it, period: ask any writer of fiction.) However, many things are clearly possible, *for humans*, within our universe (wiping out smallpox, for example; regrowing limbs is probably in this category too, once our research gets a bit further) and God didn't do them even when it would clearly have been a good idea. So even with this limited definition of omnipotence, an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God still doesn't exist.
Oh my God, as the saying goes. I'm not sure I've ever heard anything quite so ridiculous. This doesn't pass the smell test.
To cut you off at the pass, you are just about to reinvent Leibniz's "Best of All Possible Worlds" argument, which is best mocked by Voltaire in _Candide_.
This is the "Appeal to Ignorance", known as one of the major fallacies of reasoning since the time of the ancient Greeks.
Not impressive.
You're almost certainly brainwashed; there are well-known techniques used to convince children that if they stop believing in God they will feel bad (and lo and behold, once brainwashed, it actually happens). This leads otherwise sensible people to the most extraordinary illogical, unempirical rationalizations to maintain the "comfortable" belief. If you ever decide to leave your brainwashed state, there are resources out there to help you try to live a rational, relaxed, uncoerced life. And you can keep doing the rituals if you like 'em.
Hey, she's an impressionable chick and Thor is HOT.
"The world goes on, always," eh?
Let's see you try and stop THAT with your magic hammer.
(PS-Sorry I'm late, I was drinking beer with Thor in Bilskinir, lol)
"Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, show me the steep and thorny way to heaven. Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, himself the primrose path of dalliance treads. And recks not his own rede."
Awesome images! BTW, welcome to the site.
"Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society." Thomas Jefferson
www.myspace.com/kenhill5150
Thanks buddy.
BTW, with regards to your actual post, first off let me offer my condolences. But you raise a very good point, when I was 15 a friend of mine died and I remember distinctly the pastor at the funeral saying "Sometimes I just don't understand God's plan, but I guess that's why he's God." The religious answer to "Why do people die for no good reason?" is "God works in mysterious ways." Trust me, don't go to the church for help when you have a problem like this.
"Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, show me the steep and thorny way to heaven. Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, himself the primrose path of dalliance treads. And recks not his own rede."
Thanks for the condolences. I'm actually well past the grief considering I originally posted the challenge in January, 2008. I had friends who offered all the usual platitudes; "it's god's will", "he's in a better place", etc. The only thing remotely comforting at the time came from a fellow atheist who simply said "well, he won't be suffering anymore". I don't actually think he was suffering so much as he couldn't understand why it had to happen to him. He was happy enough, especially when I'd deliver his Kiss catalogs and burn copies of their albums for him.
What I wanted from this was a believer to actually come up with something that would make sense as to why any god would visit such hardship on a person from birth. I don't accept as possible any supernatural anything including ghosts and goblins or things that go bump in the night, so to speak. The challenge was predicated on the suspension of logic to assume that if there was a god what rational reason could he/she/it have had to visit a lifelong nightmare such as my friend's disabilities on anyone.
I can think of no valid reason for such actions from anyone or thing. I belive that such a situation would be morally reprehensible under any circumstances. Having read the bible cover to cover several times I find the christian god to be a morally bankrupt idea, made up by a bunch of misogynistic, cherry-picking assholes making a power grab.
Believe me, I would never turn to any church for any kind of help. Should I ever need any kind of psychological help I would not turn to someone who bases his/her entire existence on fantasy, I would seek help from someone who knew what he/she was doing.
"Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society." Thomas Jefferson
www.myspace.com/kenhill5150
It's not very realistic to imagine that we should be able to logically follow of all the 21 million 400 thousand extended moments of his life to their ultimate extent so that we can be satisfied that there was intrinsic value, for him and for those around him, in how he lived them. But of course there was. His life and experiences were probably unique in their emotional depth, and the individual that rose out of those experiences left a large enough mark on your life that you feel empathy for his losses even as a fairly casual acquaintance of only 3 years, no doubt he affected others to a similar degree.
His life, as it was, made a significant contribution to the world he lived in, and the person he is remembered as. I know you want to see his suffering justified, but his suffering, his life and the person he was are intrinsic to each other, in a way, frowning on his suffering is to frown on the person that grew out of it, I don't believe you mean to do that at all. So what I'm saying is, maybe justifying his suffering isn't needed, since it seems that the impact he left on you certainly justifies the way he lived his life.
Any circumstances you say? Imagine this, imagine that you are, right now, in a perfect world, living the perfect utopia of perfection in everything; imagine that it is all you have ever done, and all you have ever been. Flawless, unmoved, unperturbed in your privileged, coddled state. If a change is as good as a holiday, then could we not say that if this was your ordinary circumstance, it justifies taking on the unique experience of an absolutely real, to you, life of suffering. I'm just saying, it wouldn't necessarily be morally reprehensible under every circumstance, right?
Theist badge qualifier : Gnostic/Philosophical Panentheist
www.mathematicianspictures.com
Eloise, you are right that such an effort would not be very realistic. His life impacted mine and, undoubtedly, the life of anyone else who knew him, in one way or another. Though his mental capacity was probably that of a 13 year old I always marveled at his ability to find joy in myriad things in life. However, as I wrote earlier, he sometimes wondered why god had chosen him to be the way he was.
Now keep in mind that I am what some describe as a strong atheist. I do not simply not believe (I use this term as it might be more easily understood, I prefer the term accept) in god or any god(s), I do not believe any exist in any form whatsoever except in the minds of people who need such a fantasy to handle life and all that it throws at us.
I do not need to “justify” anything. As I have said, he was born with disabilities. It is simply a fact of life that needs no justification of any kind. There is nothing intrinsically wrong, or evil, it just happened. I am not “frowning” on his disabilities nor do I frown on anyone’s disabilities. I agree, to do so would be to frown on the individual. That is not what I’m doing.
Obviously, we don’t live in a “perfect utopia” and I would not want to live in a perfect utopia. Personally, I think such an existence would be mind-bogglingly boring. I have no problem, rather I have few problems with the world we live in. I think it would be a far more peaceful place to live if there were no religion but that is beside the point here. Your response and the others that have preceded yours are the type of responses I have been talking of. I ask a question of a believer (I think you have explained the nature of your belief in other thread, I’m not sure) and, like a politician, no answer is forthcoming, just more bullshit. Let us imagine for a moment that you were god and you created, or allowed a child to be born with horrendous disabilities (spina bifida comes to mind here, I knew a young lady from college with this condition whom I admired greatly). Let us also imagine that you are a god who makes your presence known to us mere mortals and would converse with us. I would ask you “what is your reason for making this innocent child suffer such a disability?” Do you see what I am asking here? I’m not asking you to assuage any discomfort I may have, I am asking you a direct question. I am asking you to explain your reason(s) for your decision to make or allow a child, who has done nothing except be born, with this disability. Do you see the difference here? I am not asking for the usual mumbo jumbo about you “have a plan that I cannot comprehend” or that you work in mysterious ways that should not be questioned (I question everything). I don’t want platitudes to make me feel better about myself or anything else. I would be asking for your personal reasons for your actions. I want nothing else, just that! The answer needs to make sense as well. See, this is just the kind of thing that pisses me off about religion and those who ascribe to it. When confronted with something difficult to answer the response is always along the lines of "mere mortals cannot comprehend" or some other such crap that essentially says “just shut up and believe”. Those of us who value rationality want answers that are based on rational thought, not fantasy. So, can you come up with any good reason why god or any god(s) would do this to someone? <edit> Sorry about the run-on here."Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society." Thomas Jefferson
www.myspace.com/kenhill5150
I believe your answer is in your question.This man was probably in a great deal of pain for most of his life.He probably suffered greatly.Thru all the pain and discomfort he had the strength to believe in and love something he could not even see.I think that takes a hell of alot more faith than someone who believes in nothing.Christianity is all about faith and believing.Some people are able to do it and some people cant.
I am truly sorry for your friends death.He is a perfect example of what being a Christian is all about and he will be rewarded.
Again, this does not address my question.
<Edit> Thank you for the condolences.
"Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society." Thomas Jefferson
www.myspace.com/kenhill5150
That's interesting, I must have missed it before. It's interesting how people perceive 'themselves' and 'the way they are' as distinct in order to question it. I question the validity of such a premise. How is it that we can at once perceive our human condition as forming our psychological identity and our psychological identity as a priori to our human condition. This is cognitive dissonance.
How can his god choose him to be the way he was, when he and the way he was are a system correlated to each other - ie his god chose something to be what it was - how does this even require a choice at all?
Maybe you should be questioning what was this other "him" that he perceived to have been "chosen", rather than taking it as a given in order to question the "God" supposedly responsible.
Bullshit hey? Okay. Does this mean from here on in whenever I address a point from your post and you're inclined, for the most, to agree with what I've said, then it's bullshit? I don't mind what we call it, honestly. I just want to be sure that I know what it is we're talking about.
Of course I see the difference. Just to be clear, you argued that you could conceive of no circumstance under which it would not be morally reprehensible for a god to create a life of suffering for a person and I responded appropriately to that statement. I gave you a circumstance under which an entity might be perfectly keen to experience a life of suffering, a god who granted this would not be morally reprehensible in any way. The point being, of course, that one such circumstance is conceivable, so your statement is overturned.
This also answers your question, and directly, as you desired. Here I will show you:
Bulldog says to God: I would ask you what is your reason for making this innocent child suffer such a disability?
God says to Bulldog: Because in me she knows no such thing as a life of pain. Can you conceive, then, of how in the endless comfort of knowing herself in me she might, at some stage, simply want to?
Theist badge qualifier : Gnostic/Philosophical Panentheist
www.mathematicianspictures.com
i think these questions were intended for the christian god.
You won't get a straight answer from anyone bc there is not an answer involving god that makes sense.
"Take all the heads of the people
and hang them up before the Lord
against the sun.” -- Numbers 25:4
I would say just try to remember your friend as the good person he was. Remember the good times.