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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Why can't God ...
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
Sorry thought he did. They are called the heavenly host. We know them not to be humans.
Jengie
Does this answer the question? If God created angels, why did he need to create humans?
The fact that other things exist doesn't seem to answer why the thing in question exists to me.
That one, at least, is easy. God's true nature is that He's creative. It is the first thing we learn about Him, the chief thing He does. He made angels, fine. You think that's -enough-? No no. There's lots of other things to create. I forget which scientist it was, who said that from observing creation it could be deduced that God has an inordinate fondness for beetles. He's also crazy about ants, and has a collector's mania for single-celled organisms.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I forget which scientist it was, who said that from observing creation it could be deduced that God has an inordinate fondness for beetles.
I might be wrong, but that sounds very much like Terry Pratchett. Or possibly EO Wilson.
I don't know if your explanation is a good one, Brenda. I still can't really see why he created humans with inbuilt shittiness when it was possible to create angels without it.
OK one can just say it was because he was creative or because he could or because meh, he just did.
But that seems to me to sidetrack the question of why the whole vale-of-tears thing at all if it was possible to create beings in the spiritual realm.
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arse
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I'm not sure there's a theological basis for this. But consider that you can't just make things. Your creations need to do stuff, interesting stuff. Conflict is essential, if you want the story to go. God isn't creating an endless set of beetles in glass topped display cabinets. He's getting them an environment, a life cycle, mating habits, irritating chemicals or stridulations or the ability to eat crops, all kinds of stuff.
To say it another way: why is there evil? Because otherwise there would be no plot. And it wouldn't be a good story without a plot.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Uriel
Shipmate
# 2248
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Posted
Perhaps God can make such beings, but the process by which they necessarily have to be made is not straightforward. Perhaps we are works in progress, but only through the pain, the suffering, the meaninglessness can we pull through to exhibit sympathy, compassion and find real meaning. If we were all perfectly self sufficient, self contained, self satisfying beings without any need for the other there would be no need for love, for solidarity or kindness. Perhaps a world with such higher order goods, which require such suffering to exist, which allow us to become more than we currently are, is a better world than a bland, beige, insulated world of self reliant, self dependent, self satisfied beings.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
To say it another way: why is there evil? Because otherwise there would be no plot. And it wouldn't be a good story without a plot.
But that's saying that God purposely creates bad shit.
Personally I prefer the idea that he can't do anything about it to the idea that it was a deliberate design feature.
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arse
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I'm writing a novel. In me the characters live and move and have their being, and without me there is nothing done. The characters are closer to me than my own children -- I have complete control over everything they do or say or that happens to them, past and future.
So: why do bad things happen to them? Why not only good things? Because it would be boring. The criterion is not their happiness or health. The first priority is outside their comprehension. It's the story.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I'm writing a novel. In me the characters live and move and have their being, and without me there is nothing done. The characters are closer to me than my own children -- I have complete control over everything they do or say or that happens to them, past and future.
So: why do bad things happen to them? Why not only good things? Because it would be boring. The criterion is not their happiness or health. The first priority is outside their comprehension. It's the story.
The difference is that people in life are real and alive. Characters in a book are not.
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arse
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
It was J.B.S. who also said "My own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.", which applies more to the Kalam thread I know.
jj, mr c, BC; a good development, with mr c ahead on points BC, your points don't match his. The creative, writerly, plot metaphors. They don't justify suffering. And it's not just humans that are shit. Plesiosaurs scared the ink out of and ate ammonites. But Uriel stands on your shoulders. Not sufficient to kiss my arse mind you ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Couldn't resist. Meant only in jest.
A good showing Uriel, but for the vast majority of humanity, the half a trillion in a quarter of a million years, nothing has been learned, no meaning obtained, yearning at best, at most. Apart from for us staggeringly privileged few. Timmy never yearned. I came across a figure once upon a time that the life expectancy of humanity over our time as a species is five. Another is that the average woman has two miscarriages. And not just zygotes. As Hobbes said 400+ years ago, life in the main is nasty, brutish and short.
As the multiply benighted inhabitants of Mosul or Yemen would agree.
If there can be angels, then the only justification for there being humans is that angels can TRULY fall.
Plan B.
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Love wins
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I'm writing a novel. In me the characters live . . . . The criterion is not their happiness or health.
But rather the entertainment of your public. Does God have a public who are entertained by the tragedies that befall mankind?
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
HhhWoooh! The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag comes to mind.
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Love wins
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I'm writing a novel. In me the characters live . . . . The criterion is not their happiness or health.
But rather the entertainment of your public. Does God have a public who are entertained by the tragedies that befall mankind?
Another thought is, perhaps we are the audience as well as the players on the stage. It may look awful at a given moment, but we're not at the end of the play. It may only be Act Two Scene Four. We don't know the ending yet. (There's a fine plotting hand at work in some historical events. I wonder if God has a stable of assistants, like Dumas.)
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
There IS no story. Stories are the shit me make up.
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Love wins
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Don Quixote is everyone. Story is all there is. And song.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
We like stories. When we didn't understand the bizarre existence of ourselves or that of our surroundings, that time when our awareness switched on, we quickly made stories to make sense of it.
Now those 'stories' are generally dismissed in favour of the true story, as presented to us by people we hail as scientists with measuring instruments.
Trouble being these people can no more answer Martin's big questions than can the Scripture writers. All they can say is ----stuff happens due to ABC physics. No reason, no purpose, it just does,
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Both. So don't get me wrong. I love a good story. Proper Pan narrans me. So, I find myself going through another loop of neo-orthodoxy, invoking God as He tells me to through His Word. What else is there eh? Reinforced by a recent good strong neo-orthodox daily reading of Matthew 22 from Oasis.
That'll have to do I guess.
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Love wins
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
I suppose if we want the shitty stuff to go away, be put in context or whatever then we have to cleave to the story which provides us with the maximum hope. Meaningful hope, hope in the meaningful.....? So it goes on
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
We don't know the ending yet.
Those who believe the Bible to be the literal and unerrant Word of God would disagree.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Don Quixote is everyone. Story is all there is. And song.
Song is story set to glory.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by agingjb:
Some say that there is only story.
I'm with you. It's all story, and there seem to be an endless suite of variations on a surprisingly small set of great themes.
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Is that it simontoad? As threatened in another place? It's a good one. Up there with Dougal-now when Father Ted agrees with him on being dismissive of mere superstitions and the like unlike the great Roman distinctives which he lists to which Dougal-now nods and says, to the effect, 'Yeah! Like them.'.
Yeah that was it. I forgot I'd done it and got busy. Then when I remembered it took me ages to find it again.
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Human
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by agingjb:
"A tale told by an idiot" or "that most tremendous tale of all"?
With vast swathes of religiosity as a kind of gateway drug to other kinds of untrue beliefs, causing us to think things like personal economic success means God loves us. And writ large, that centuries of overthrowing other countries' governments, enslaving brown people or making war is the Jesus way.
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Well yeah. There is the irony writ large.
We employ God to bring about a load of meaningless suffering on ourselves and others then plead with Him to deliver us from it.
'And God He takes no sort of heed. This is a bloody mess indeed' Ivor Gurney The Western Front 1917.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
No, we don’t employ God - we lay the blame at God’s door. Who else is there to blame for earthquakes?
God doesn’t take away suffering but is with us through it, I believe.
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Garden. Room. Walk
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
How? Apart from locally omnipathically? Beyond that? How does He feel (locally) about (locally) feeling our pain?
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Love wins
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
How? Apart from locally omnipathically? Beyond that? How does He feel (locally) about (locally) feeling our pain?
Whatever omnipathically means it sounds right!
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Garden. Room. Walk
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
All feeling. But how does He feel about that? And is all of Him all feeling of infinitely everything?
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Love wins
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
All feeling. But how does He feel about that? And is all of Him all feeling of infinitely everything?
That’s how I see it, that She’s in and through everything - holding it all together, in love.
Our freedom/the freedom of evolution is part of the love. So if She created transcendent, sublime beings, would they be free?
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Garden. Room. Walk
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
So, whatever evanescent pain is felt by every ephemeral organism in the infinite metaverse is felt by all of God?
My metatarsalgia?
How does all of God feel about feeling my infinitesimal sore foot in all of His meta-infinite being?
As for the final question, that's one for Lucifer and Gabriel and Michael et al. 1:2 say no.
[ 02. October 2017, 10:55: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
As far as I can see, the deity is passionate about those who nobody gives a shit about and has very little interest in those who are privileged (in all possible ways).
Which further makes me think that all of us who regularly go to church for the purpose of DIY spirituality are actually talking to the deity's back.
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arse
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Passively passionate. Helplessly, powerlessly passionate. Passionate for a thousand days in a bloke a couple of thousand years ago until the brief foul extremis of the Passion?
Impassibly passionate?
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Love wins
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
It may look awful at a given moment, but we're not at the end of the play. It may only be Act Two Scene Four. We don't know the ending yet.
I'm sure that's a great comfort to all the ones who suffer and die purely in order to advance the plot. Of course, those characters aren't around at the end of the play either so don't get to share in the enjoyment of the ending.
Lord of the Rings is one of the greatest stories ever told - unless you happen to be Boromir, or Denethor, or any of the hundreds of unnamed soldiers who die in the various battles. I wonder whether they would say that having to live the part Tolkien wrote for them was worth it, given that they never got a happy ending?
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Hail Gallaxhar
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
None are buying that dead metaphor you're flogging Brenda.
The story is, God can't. He can only ground being as if He weren't.
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Love wins
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
The one who created everything can’t be described as ‘powerless’.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
With regard to creating transcendent beings incapable of suffering, by fiat or even with regard to obtaining, facilitating what He says He wants of, for His creatures, what power does He have?
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Love wins
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Posted by Marvin:
quote:
I'm sure that's a great comfort to all the ones who suffer and die purely in order to advance the plot.
It can be though. Just because it doesn't wash for you doesn't mean it can't for a significant amount of others. Many millions who have lived through the most terrible suffering have found hope and strength in concepts of an afterlife through many of the world's religions. Many religions have this particular 'drive' in light of the injustice of random suffering. It sounds like a trite pat answer if we think its horseshit, but if we were truly to live as we profess to believe (in the Christian economy) it might well grant a very different perspective. It's where the Western church fails in my view; the proclamation of the conquering and victorious aspect of resurrection is something we have been terribly shy about. One might be tempted to say we perhaps don't really believe it.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
It may look awful at a given moment, but we're not at the end of the play. It may only be Act Two Scene Four. We don't know the ending yet.
I'm sure that's a great comfort to all the ones who suffer and die purely in order to advance the plot. Of course, those characters aren't around at the end of the play either so don't get to share in the enjoyment of the ending.
Lord of the Rings is one of the greatest stories ever told - unless you happen to be Boromir, or Denethor, or any of the hundreds of unnamed soldiers who die in the various battles. I wonder whether they would say that having to live the part Tolkien wrote for them was worth it, given that they never got a happy ending?
Except that, unlike Tolkien, resurrection is part of the Christian story. They WILL be around at the end.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Very good. As it was in Christ. I was going to say that despite being very good, it wasn't germane to the OP. But it is. We are conceived in weakness, as weakness, for weakness. It would seem that one does not have to be much at all to be sublimed, like Timmy. Who had less about him than a new born calf or even a joey. Which begs another question. Animals.
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Love wins
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
The one who created everything can’t be described as ‘powerless’.
Because that Power is not used in direct way to satisfy or eradicate humanity's problems and conundrums it is easy to question faith or abandon it altogether.
The 'why can’t God? question can never fully go away for a Believer. Presumably non-believers are not troubled by such questions, sounds enviable.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Posted by Marvin:
quote:
I'm sure that's a great comfort to all the ones who suffer and die purely in order to advance the plot.
It can be though. Just because it doesn't wash for you doesn't mean it can't for a significant amount of others. Many millions who have lived through the most terrible suffering have found hope and strength in concepts of an afterlife through many of the world's religions. Many religions have this particular 'drive' in light of the injustice of random suffering. It sounds like a trite pat answer if we think its horseshit, but if we were truly to live as we profess to believe (in the Christian economy) it might well grant a very different perspective. It's where the Western church fails in my view; the proclamation of the conquering and victorious aspect of resurrection is something we have been terribly shy about. One might be tempted to say we perhaps don't really believe it.
Contrarywise, one is reminded of Sir Pterry's comment (through Granny Weatherwax, as I recall) that if we stopped going on about how great it'll be up there there might be a bit more effort to improve things down here.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Mainstream churchgoers in comfortable circumstances don't deal much in the afterlife, ISTM. Their clergy don't preach about it much; they probably do spend lots more time on social issues.
But communities of disadvantaged Christians don't have the means to make live wonderful here on earth, so for them the afterlife is more meaningful.
It seems fairly obvious to me.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
The one who created everything can’t be described as ‘powerless’.
But scripture does talk about his power being made perfect in weakness
I hardly think that means that power STAYS weak.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
The one who created everything can’t be described as ‘powerless’.
Because that Power is not used in direct way to satisfy or eradicate humanity's problems and conundrums it is easy to question faith or abandon it altogether.
The 'why can’t God? question can never fully go away for a Believer. Presumably non-believers are not troubled by such questions, sounds enviable.
I wrestled with the question for years. I’ve come to the conclusion that She can - but won’t. Which must be with very good reason, if She is a God of love.
That’s the best I can do ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
But I seem unable to become an unbeliever. Not through lack of trying I must say.
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Garden. Room. Walk
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
There is no good reason at all for not alleviating unnecessary suffering. Therefore it can't - can not - be done. Because transcendent creatures cannot be made by fiat. Or IF they can be, it isn't worth the risk of failure as the only route to transcendence as (local) demons would be living proof.
But if Timmy's made it, why not just create transcendent Timmys? Don't create fully functioning new shiny people in the sublime, as they can go to the bad big time; create transcendent joeys, like Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 Dave Bowman star child at most, that can more flawlessly develop? But that would mean that all pre-sentient creatures would qualify even now surely? What level of existence now can become a transcendent being?
Or maybe Timmy hasn't made it as he wasn't there. Like zygotes with no neural tube. Nothing to get sentimental about? Like animals.
Or ...
For some ineffable, rational reason, God can only ground being - which nothing else can do - as if He weren't. And it's got NOTHING to do with faith - whatever that is - or any other bogus 'lesson'.
Me too Boogie.
[ 07. October 2017, 10:01: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
As the Lord said to Job: quote:
Will you even put me in the wrong?
Will you condemn me that you may be justified?
I used to read the ending of Job as a justification for the bad things of the world by an apologist for God. Now, I read the end of Job as a lecture from an AA sponsor to a sponsee.
Basically, my response at this point is I don't know the whys, or the hows, or how the future should look. I don't know why bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people.
What I do know is that my serenity, happiness, peace, whatever you want to call it, cannot be coupled to anything outside of myself. If I look for happiness in my situation, I will never be happy. If I look for peace within myself, I can find it with the help of God.
So, "Why can't God . . . ?" is no longer a relevant question to me. It is simply none of my business as I have enough on my hands dealing with me.
Let it go. Ask God for guidance, compassion, and peace. See other humans as filled with the light of God instead of judging them. Find your inner peace that passes all understanding and maybe what you do will catch on with others.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Tortuf
Sensei. Thank you. You know that you can say no wrong by me. I know that you have walked through fire before me based only on what I have seen you write, how I have seen you struggle and change, become wiser.
No buts.
However we'll get to that, I was GOBSMACKED that that's in Job. I must have read it I don't know how many times over nearly 50 years, love it, but it never had such impact before. It never felt personal before.
You are just so damn right, as was God to Job: I'd always got your penultimate paragraph, well after looking for other meaning than the obvious, thinking that others knew. They didn't. And it resonates with 'Go thy way Daniel'.
And you are just so damn right in your final paragraph. Let it go. And what follows.
However ... there is none is there? No however.
Believe it or not the OP was rhetorical and what I need is answers like yours. No, I need your answer. Which looks like ... God's. Which is. That gets hot eyes. Yours, His is the only answer that transcends mine.
I didn't think I was judging others ... whilst getting flinty eyed with W Hyatt elsewhere ... but I'm not full of compassion and peace of course. I'm found ... hollow. Empty. Which is scary.
It feels like I have nothing to distract me ... from my emptiness if I can't pursue futile OPs like this and I can't imagine what inner peace that passes understanding would look like from the outside. Especially among Christians. Resonating with your middle paragraphs, nothing external ... works. And I have so very little to give the external.
(I can barely bear my 87 going on 2 year old mother. She's knocking now. Joy. Not for the commode or tea. I can robustly attend to her functional needs. But not the bottomless pit of senile want, of tearless boo hoo hoo ... and now my mobility is drastically diminished. Hey ho. Don't worry mate, there are no answers and I don't want pity but other people's lives are ... different you know?)
... blew my cheeks out there. The facial ones ...
The OP was driven by conversation with my son and your answer, the answer is the only one there is. Somehow I've got to live that for him and I'm at my best with him, which isn't much.
I'll work it out.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
Martin, heavens above. You have a huge amount going on in your head that is good. You get a lot more than you care to admit to yourself and you are filled with love and compassion. Don't et me stop you from asking questions that require you, me, and everyone else to think instead of opine.
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Thanks mate. Means a lot. But you're STILL right
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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