quote:

---

Originally posted by JB:
Motherboard and I are shocked, Even though I read it, it doesn't seem real. Totally shocked and confused.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
My reaction was "What, YOU?"

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Flausa:
I can understand how depression can lead to self harm, so I can understand how Jen could have been swallowed by darkness. But I cannot wrap my brain and heart around the Jen I knew inflicting harm on others, including a child.

---

One of the major things I learned this summer was that when is swallowing someone, they don't know their own strength. Even attempting someone hurting themselves in the midst of despair and grief can often lead to other people getting hurt. I thought I was being bitten whilst trying to stop a very distressed friend from punching an ex-friend, but really the friend fall on my arm with her mouth open.

None of us were eye witnesses, and none of the newspaper reports I read had any sort of timeline or explanations. I guess my real point here is that I don't know the full story, and I'd guess that most of us here don't either, we just need to piece it together slowly.

And pray.

 

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Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :
 
This doesn't seem possible - and yet it has happened. for all those who suffer pain, and yet hide it behind a cheerful face.
 

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Posted by Beautiful Dreamer (# 10880) on :
 
I know in my head that I couldn't have done anything to prevent this, but I wish in my heart that I could make everything right again and take away her pain.
 

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Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :
 
When I was feverish and delirious with food poisoning, I apparently started trying to hit my partner and I accused her of trying to hurt ME. I have no memory of any of this. The idea that I could not only not be aware of and in control of my behavior but be VIOLENT toward the person I love the most was so shocking to me that I've been having a very hard time forgiving myself. My only memory of that four days was alternately lying in bed wishing I were dead and crawling into the bathroom and wishing I were dead. But after I was clothed and in my right mind she showed me some of the weird stuff I'd been doing, up and walking around and being belligerent. Again, no memory of this at all.

I've heard of other people having similar reactions to certain sleep medications. My normally funny and mild-mannered aunt became physically belligerent when her health deteriorated and we had to put her in a care facility; had to be strapped onto a gurney by burly law enforcement officers, and was shouting words I had no idea she knew. And a few years ago my partner had a strange reaction to NOT taking one of her medications where she became frighteningly angry, to the point where I became concerned enough for my safety to consider moving out until she saw her doctor. She, like me, had no idea that she'd said or done anything out of the ordinary, and was appalled to later hear what had gone on.

I think the human mind is a pretty complex and scary thing. All I know is that if there is any -- ANY -- tool in the human or Divine toolkit that can somehow reduce that violent lizard-brain behavior should I ever again become delirious (deliver me, o Lord) with some illness...I don't want to hurt anyone ever again. I repent in sackcloth and ashes, and I'm not being flip. But I've developed a new understanding of being able to do some real harm without really knowing what I was doing.

Everyone carries burdens that even the people closest to him or her may not realize. God help us all.
 

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Posted by snowgoose (# 4394) on :
 
Depression can destroy a person. So can alcoholism. And, remember, she was recovering from a nasty bout of double pneumonia at the time. I know from my own experience that being physically ill can make depression even deeper and darker.

We will never know what horrors she was suffering. I hope those who were wounded recover fully. I am so sad that she got to a point where all this could happen.
 

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Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :
 
Depression can be severe enough to enter into the realm of the psychotic. And that's without added stressors of other illnesses, and all the other factors we don't sufficiently understand.
There are certainly violent people who are very clear-headed about what they've done and why; others, though -- I don't think they know. Which adds to the sadness and scariness.
 

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Posted by Anna B (# 1439) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sine Nomine:
I don't suppose it's betraying any confidences at this point to say she tried to get help and certainly fought against her demons as best she could. And did so with her own self-deprecating humor and humility.

---

Thank you for posting that, Sine. Your words have helped me make some sense of this.
 

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Posted by Esmeralda (# 582) on :
 
I can understand wanting to kill someone else better than I can understand wanting to kill oneself. But that's partly because I have such a strong inhibition against suicide because my brother did it and I saw the effect it had on everyone else, including me.

I think jlg was brave for shooting herself before she did anyone else more harm.
 

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Posted by Mama Thomas (# 10170) on :
 
May the Lord have mercy on jlg and her family. She was one of a handful of shipmates that I've had contact with off the ship and this comes as a horrible surprise. May she rest in peace and rise in glory.
 

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Posted by malik3000 (# 11437) on :
 
What an awful surprise.

I never had any personal correspondence with her. However, I regularly saw her name on posts, which, as I can best recall and as has been noted above were thoughtful and witty.

One just never knows the pains that may be hidden within a person. Into your hands O Lord, take our sister Jennifer.
 

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Posted by Nicolemrw (# 28) on :
 
I didn't realize she struggled with alcohol herself. That makes certain interchanges I had with her make more sense.

It's terrible what people are capable of, even ones you would never think could be.

I will miss her from the ship.
 

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Posted by Bronwyn (# 52) on :
 
Not saying this was the case here but. In the movie Forrest Gump there was a scene in which the adult Jenni went back to the childhood house of her abuse. She threw stones at it and then stopped exausted emotionally. Forrest says sometimes there are just not enough stones.
Always remember this as an expression when I see frustration hurt and anger of abused people who as a result struggle as adults to cope and make bad decisions may lash out and try to keep going. Sometimes there just isn't the strength to keep going.
 

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Posted by Think² (# 1984) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Flausa:
But I cannot wrap my brain and heart around the Jen I knew inflicting harm on others, including a child.

---

quote:

---

We, all of us, lead complex lives, only a small part of which we show publicly. We like to think that we can keep our demons sufficiently suppressed and under control, but sometimes they get the best of us.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by dolphy:
It is so sad to think that someone we thought we knew was in a place that must have felt so dark and so lonely.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Think²:
it seems unlikely to me that she was intending to hurt the child. And the two adults injured have made good enough recoveries to be actively using facebook. I hope she knew she had not murdered anyone when she died.

---

I find this a profound insight. In the darkness of despair (into which Christlight always shines) we can do the most inexplicable things; somehow in the hellish paroxysms of Jen's last hours there was darkness and light. Let us pray the light has the final word. It will.



I liked jen a lot, shipboard. It is only a few real personalities that climb out from our shared anonymity. That says something about her authenticity, however tortured it may have been. I'm glad she passed through my life, even if the passing was 'only' an e-passing.
 

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Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Armin:
This doesn't seem possible - and yet it has happened. for all those who suffer pain, and yet hide it behind a cheerful face.

---

And on that note, may I be the kind of friend who doesn't require someone to keep that smile on when they just can't do it.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
 

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Posted by Mother Julian (# 11978) on :
 
Oh my gosh, if only I / we could have done something to help. May she find peace now, my prayers ascend for her and all impacted by this terrible situation.

It's horrible to think this happened in September, and yet our grief only surfaces in December, those months when we didn't know and carried on our quotidian lives.

And a personal confession, I was reading about some recent stabbings and shootings in the UK, thinking this doesn't directly affect me in my relatively comfortable life; enjoying reading SoF's boards as a refuge, a haven from what goes on in the world and elsewhere in my life. What a wake-up call: we're all interconnected, we're all struggling in our own ways, may God preserve us from burdens that seem too strong to bear.
 

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Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on :
 
It was wise to post this in Purgatory as well as in All Saints.

This sorely tests my two non-intersecting belief systems: the one about the power of the demonic, and the one about moral responsibility.

According to internet accounts, Jennifer attacked and wounded three people. I'm reading a lot of sympathy for her pain, and the duress she was under as she pointed a gun and shot her victims.

She was herself a victim too; I get that. I have enough of a mediaeval religious imagination - plus some small experience of the baffling and outrageous power of evil - to imagine that she was in the grip of forces stronger than herself. Alcoholism and Depression are the names of two extremely powerful, destructive, and largely inexplicable demonic forces.

On the other hand, perhaps it does not do justice to Jennifer to rob her of moral agency. Perhaps it does no justice to humanity either. Are we still gawping open-mouthed at paintings of demons which can control us? Were the chemicals sloshing around in Jennifer's brain such that she could no longer distinguish between right and wrong? Maybe. I don't know; I have never drunk that cup and hope not to. But I am angry with her that in her own pain and woundedness, she (in some way, with whatever degree of culpability you choose to assign) externalized it and violently attacked others.

I am surprised to find my reaction is the opposite of Esmeralda's: I can understand wanting to kill oneself better than I can understand wanting to kill others. I can't point to any particular experience or even depression leading me to that different sense of inhibition.

I'd find it easier to just go with the "sad at demonic possession" emotion and theodicy, which I do honestly feel and think. But in all honesty, I am bothered by the question of the role of moral agency. I do not know how to reconcile these for myself, let alone how to advise anyone else considering these things.
 

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Posted by Tortuf (# 3784) on :
 
This is sad beyond words.

This is shocking beyond words. (At least mine.)

The only thing I can add is to look to the whole of jlg, not just her death. She had many good and wise moments. That, at the end of her life, she did things that are problematic, does not change or lessen the good things she did.

We are all complex and many of us think much less of ourselves than others do.

I don't know what god has out there for us, but I hope that Jennifer finds some peace.
 

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Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
My interactions with jlg were limited but enjoyable (mostly about music), and I valued her as a shipmate.

I work every day with people who have done terrible things that they would not have done had they been masters of themselves--and this includes people who seemed to have managed very well all their lives until something went terribly wrong. I can only imagine what stresses could have pushed jlg over that line, but in so many cases I have seen it has been a feeling of abandonment and betrayal so intense that it made thinking all but impossible, especially when it was added onto a preexisting vulnerability (bipolar disorder, trauma, addiction). One thing I will never believe again is that any of us is incapable of anything. And yes, we have choices and agency, but sometimes we don't see the critical choice coming until we're no longer able to see the alternative.
 

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Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
Peace, light, and healing to JLG and all affected. May there be healing of all the ripple effects.


I've had my own struggles with depression, and one long-ago suicide attempt. (I'm very ok now, folks.) When you're down in that pit, especially if it's due to a chemical imbalance, you can only see darkness and pain--and no end to it.

JLG and I had a few conversations, here and there. We had some spiritual questing in common.

May Erin and the other Shipmates-in-Glory welcome you home, JLG.
 

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Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
Darn. Meant that for the AS thread...but I guess it works here, too.
 

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Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Leaf:
I'd find it easier to just go with the "sad at demonic possession" emotion and theodicy, which I do honestly feel and think. But in all honesty, I am bothered by the question of the role of moral agency. I do not know how to reconcile these for myself, let alone how to advise anyone else considering these things.

---

quote:

---

Perhaps the daemons lead us to the edge of the abyss - which must seem all-encompassing and irresistible at that distance - yet it ultimately remains our choice as to whether we continue forward into the terrible darkness or turn around to face the light.

I dunno... I've never been there so I could be talking shite.

---

quote:

---

Posted by jlg (# 98) on 26. May 2003, 00:26:

(jlg emerges from a mental fog and a nightmare scenario where she was in Hell with a bullseye painted on her and someone was throwing...water balloons?)

Huh? Where am I? Goldenkey? Sauna? White fluffy towels?

Really? I'm not dreaming?

Ah, this is wonderful! Thanks!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
One thing I will never believe again is that any of us is incapable of anything. And yes, we have choices and agency, but sometimes we don't see the critical choice coming until we're no longer able to see the alternative.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
One thing I will never believe again is that any of us is incapable of anything.

---

So true, and so fucking terrifying. Because I know that includes me as well, and that all it takes is the right (or, more accurately, wrong) set of circumstances. May God preserve us all.
 

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Posted by Nicodemia (# 4756) on :
 
So sad, so horrifying, so unbelievable.

Prayers for family and all involved.

I don't think we ever know what we could be capable of given the unrest and unravelling of our minds.
 

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Posted by Nunc Dimittis (# 848) on :
 

quote:

---

One of our best threads ever, IMHO, was "Calling God To Hell". . It was about bad stuff and where God fits into that. (AKA “theodicy”.) It started by Nunc Dimittis in Feb. 2003.

---

Wow! I'd forgotten about that thread. That was quite a doozy...

And rereading it I am conscious of who we have lost who posted profound things on that thread, not least jlg and Erin.

May they both find rest after the fighting.
 

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Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on :
 
C.S. Lewis said something similar about not knowing what we are capable of - that we can never stand in judgement of another person, because we have no idea what we ourselves would have done, given the same circumstances, background, brain chemistry, etc. I always feel very aware of this - of how vulnerable we all can be, no matter how strong and mentally robust we may seem at any given moment.

I didn't know jlg personally, but I read her posts and knew of her as part of the community, and feel very sad about this - sad for her, sad for the other people involved, sad for those who loved her, sad that she is gone.

for jlg and all who loved her
 

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Posted by comet (# 10353) on :
 
I'm reminded by this of something I know - WE ARE ALL CAPABLE.

more in hell shortly.
 

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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
I agree with sophs. We don't know enough about what happened beyond the fact that there was one fatality and several injured people.
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
If jlg struggled so much with life, then I'm glad she found help and a place of escape on the Ship. A reason for us all to keep doing what we do, to ensure this leaky and imperfect vessel stays afloat each day.

God bless this Ship, and all who sail (and have sailed) in her.
 

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Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
One thing I will never believe again is that any of us is incapable of anything.

---

So true, and so fucking terrifying. Because I know that includes me as well, and that all it takes is the right (or, more accurately, wrong) set of circumstances. May God preserve us all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mother Julian:
Squibs said

quote:

---

Perhaps the daemons lead us to the edge of the abyss - which must seem all-encompassing and irresistible at that distance - yet it ultimately remains our choice as to whether we continue forward into the terrible darkness or turn around to face the light.

I dunno... I've never been there so I could be talking shite.

---

'fraid so, Squibs, that is undiluted shite.

May you never be there in that dark circle of hell with no light, no hope, no way out. And no further shite about the love of God reaching everywhere - even if true, it's of no use when the demons have you trapped in the pit of despair and you can't recognise anything apart from the bad stuff that is pulling you down.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Armin:
This doesn't seem possible - and yet it has happened. for all those who suffer pain, and yet hide it behind a cheerful face.

---

And on that note, may I be the kind of friend who doesn't require someone to keep that smile on when they just can't do it.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eliab:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
One thing I will never believe again is that any of us is incapable of anything.

---

So true, and so fucking terrifying. Because I know that includes me as well, and that all it takes is the right (or, more accurately, wrong) set of circumstances. May God preserve us all.

---

I don't want that to be true. I want to go back to the world where people who go to their exes houses with guns are sick, selfish monsters who having absolutely nothing in common with the rest of us. I don't want them to be people as honest, as understanding, as humble as jlg.

Fuck this world. It makes no sense.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moth:
Really, there are no monsters, only humans in despair and confusion and rage. Who would not choose to be happy and brave and good, if we only could?

---

You just made me cry. In a good way.
 

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Posted by sabine (# 3861) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moth:
I have recently come to the realisation that we are not defined by how we are either at our best or at our worst. A person who leads a good life but commits one terrible act is not a monster. A person who lives a terrible life but commits one heroic act is not a saint.

I think that we are most ourselves at our best, because that is what God intended us to be. The us we really like, the us that others love to be with. In this fallen world, some of us struggle to be that person for more than a few fleeting minutes, and some of us manage things better - or perhaps are just more fortunate.

Really, there are no monsters, only humans in despair and confusion and rage. Who would not choose to be happy and brave and good, if we only could? That we so often appear to choose otherwise shows how broken we are.

I'm sure this is not a popular view, but the older I get, the less I can find it in my heart to condemn. Life is simply too complicated and confusing to judge what lies in another's heart.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Niteowl2:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kelly Alves:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Armin:
This doesn't seem possible - and yet it has happened. for all those who suffer pain, and yet hide it behind a cheerful face.

---

And on that note, may I be the kind of friend who doesn't require someone to keep that smile on when they just can't do it.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

---

Amen. And may we all find at least one friend we can be totally, unflinchingly honest with 100% of the time.

---

Amen. Maranatha: come Lord Jesus, come, into a world of darkness.


 

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Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
A relative I love very much had a psychotic break when under less stress than JLG. Just absolutely snapped, and violently. I don't think the Lord laid any of that to their personal account.

Martin Luther compared it to being a man suddenly ambushed by robbers who overwhelm you with superior strength no matter what you do. He considered the person to be a victim, and held Satan to be fully responsible in such cases.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by QLib:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
One thing I will never believe again is that any of us is incapable of anything. And yes, we have choices and agency, but sometimes we don't see the critical choice coming until we're no longer able to see the alternative.

---

This fits better with my understanding of things than talk about demons. But how much moral agency does remain in the full grip of extreme mental illness? If you can't see clearly enough to choose - if you've maybe even lost your grip on the fact that there is a choice - are you really chooisng? Are you still a moral agent?

We all take wrong turnings, but the consequences - how badly lost we get - seem to depend on a whole host of other things not within our control. I don't even want to say, "there but for the grace of God...." because I don't believe in a God who would withold Grace from Jenn. I suppose that leaves me with There, but for fortune...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moth:
I have recently come to the realisation that we are not defined by how we are either at our best or at our worst. A person who leads a good life but commits one terrible act is not a monster. A person who lives a terrible life but commits one heroic act is not a saint.

I think that we are most ourselves at our best, because that is what God intended us to be. The us we really like, the us that others love to be with. In this fallen world, some of us struggle to be that person for more than a few fleeting minutes, and some of us manage things better - or perhaps are just more fortunate.

Really, there are no monsters, only humans in despair and confusion and rage. Who would not choose to be happy and brave and good, if we only could? That we so often appear to choose otherwise shows how broken we are.

I'm sure this is not a popular view, but the older I get, the less I can find it in my heart to condemn. Life is simply too complicated and confusing to judge what lies in another's heart.

---

FWIW, I think you are spot on and wish more people saw others this way.
 

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Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :
 
So many amens I want to add to this thread. Perhaps that in itself is a gift from jen to us.
 

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Posted by Gill H (# 68) on :
 
What Moth said.


 

---

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moth:
I'm sure this is not a popular view, but the older I get, the less I can find it in my heart to condemn. Life is simply too complicated and confusing to judge what lies in another's heart.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moth:
A person who leads a good life but commits one terrible act is not a monster. A person who lives a terrible life but commits one heroic act is not a saint.

I think that we are most ourselves at our best, because that is what God intended us to be. The us we really like, the us that others love to be with. In this fallen world, some of us struggle to be that person for more than a few fleeting minutes, and some of us manage things better - or perhaps are just more fortunate.

---

quote:

---

God sees all and understands all. I don't for a moment believe that he has been anything other than compassionate to Jennifer.

---

quote:

---

I think that we are most ourselves at our best, because that is what God intended us to be.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by fletcher christian:
One of the biggest problems I have with the church is its tendency to sentimentalise the love of God. Personally I find God's love utterly terrifying and so beyond my comprehension that I fear to think on it for too long.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hart:
"Jennifer died of suicide"

Saying it that way doesn't so much help, or make this make sense, but it does reframe things away from something even harder to abide.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by wilson:
I don't know where to start to reply to that. I think you're using words in a different way to me.

---

quote:

---

Timothy the Obscure:I can only imagine what stresses could have pushed jlg over that line, but in so many cases I have seen it has been a feeling of abandonment and betrayal so intense that it made thinking all but impossible, especially when it was added onto a preexisting vulnerability (bipolar disorder, trauma, addiction).

---

I so identify with this and I think it is something many counsellors see.

The issue is not what causes the sense of outrage and betrayal(mileage varies hugely here) but the outrage itself that somehow paralyses all rational thought temporarily.

Unless one has experienced this I don't think it can be really understood. It is resisting the self destructive thoughts that flood in on the wings of such a sense of betrayal that is the challenge. How do I prevent myself from actions that I will regret forever?

This is where so often God's grace prevents more tragedies I think. Sadly not in the case of our dear shipmate.
 

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Posted by Scot (# 2095) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
This is where so often God's grace prevents more tragedies I think. Sadly not in the case of our dear shipmate.

---

quote:

---

I don't understand this at all. In what way is love terrifying? If it has become terrifying surely it's no longer love?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
This is where so often God's grace prevents more tragedies I think. Sadly not in the case of our dear shipmate.

---

So, in this sad case, was god unaware, unwilling, or unable? Or, perhaps it is not the supernatural, but our own inner resources, friends, and communities that step in and prevent more tragedies.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pyx_e:

quote:

---

God sees all and understands all. I don't for a moment believe that he has been anything other than compassionate to Jennifer.

---

Of this I have no doubt.

My doubt and fear centres around whether I have the love and compassion to see and understand Him.

AtB, Pyx_e

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eliab:
I want to go back to the world where people who go to their exes houses with guns are sick, selfish monsters who having absolutely nothing in common with the rest of us. I don't want them to be people as honest, as understanding, as humble as jlg.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Taliesin:
There is something huge here that isn't anywhere else.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eutychus:
That said, either you guys have a whole lot more access to reliable accounts of what happened than I've found or, as I've posted before, in my view you are placing far too much faith in the newspaper accounts.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by irish_lord99:
Observing it all has been, for me, like listening to a song that you haven't heard since high-school; and when you hear it it brings you back to the last time you played it. Like you're right back there, you know? It's almost like an emotional flashback. To be honest, I've been pretty emotionally fucked up since reading the news.

Several similar instances from my past (small-town Alaska tends to have high suicide rates) have come back to haunt me the past few days; like I never really 'solved' them or figured out the all-important answer to 'WHY the ever-loving hell would you do that? WHY?!' And of course, the answer still evades me.

"I don't know."

I think that's the answer.

Sure is a shitty answer though.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eutychus:
]It's part of the great challenge of this event to come to terms with the fact that things like this are done by "people like us".

---

Exactly this.

 

---

Posted by Og: Thread Killer (# 3200) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
This is where so often God's grace prevents more tragedies I think. Sadly not in the case of our dear shipmate.

---

So, in this sad case, was god unaware, unwilling, or unable? Or, perhaps it is not the supernatural, but our own inner resources, friends, and communities that step in and prevent more tragedies.

---

Inner resources, friends and community didn't help somebody getting shot in the face in this case either, so it seems.

Is it that important that religion, as you see it, has failed in this instance that you can not notice a systemic failure, rather then pointing out one part of that system?
 

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Posted by Scot (# 2095) on :
 
I can understand, can I can show you, how other resources prevent tragedies. I do not see religion, other than as a form of community, doing the same. The supernatural component doesn't seem to be a contributing par of this system.
 

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Posted by Leaf (# 14169) on :
 
And, over here, marching to the beat of my own discussional drummer...

I'd been thinking about moral agency, because jlg had a lot of choices to make ( Should I pick up the gun? Should I point it at these people? Should I shoot? ) The fact that she kept hitting the "Yes" button, when any sane person would choose at least one "No", made me realize how disordered her thinking was and how many things were affecting her ability to be a moral agent.

I read a description once about how many things may be influencing the person you are meeting, including but not limited to: past trauma, family of origin issues, environmental impacts, political conditions, the state of their personal finances, sex lives, close relationships, working conditions, recent conversations, biological changes, addictions, mental illness, media input, community, the Holy Spirit and what they had for breakfast. With these and probably many more potential variables, how on earth can one completely judge another person's ability to be a moral agent?

Even the term "moral agent" feels slightly embarrassing, on reflection. It reminds me of something you might see on a generations-old sociology textbook: "Man as Moral Agent", with an accompanying asexual line drawing of a human. Real life, of course, is much more complicated than the abstract "man as moral agent" idea.

Stealing an apple is wrong. Stealing an apple when you are starving in a concentration camp, and the apple might mean a few more hours of life for you but not for the person you took it from... how could one begin to judge what "wrong" is, or unpick the factors having an impact on one's ability to be a moral agent.

So all I've learned is that Circumstances Alter Cases. Yay me.
 

---

Posted by Patdys (# 9397) on :
 
Scot, I hear your pain in your posts.

Are you saying
There is no God- you are fools for believing empty comfort.
There is a God but God is powerless or malignant.
Stop turning a tragedy I am part of into a theological debate.

Irrespective of theology, this is a tragedy.
 

---

Posted by Scot (# 2095) on :
 
It would be silly of me to post on a debate board if I wasn't looking for a debate, wouldn't it? ;-)

When I look at the world, and this tragedy, it appears that, if there is a god, he is detached or malevolent. Simpler to assume there is no god.
 

---

Posted by Patdys (# 9397) on :
 
I have stated my case, my theology, my attempt to understand earlier on this thread. I too struggle with many images of God. I guess my hope is that all the images are exactly that- a poor reflection of the reality. And still, I hurt.
 

---

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eliab:
I want to go back to the world where people who go to their exes houses with guns are sick, selfish monsters who having absolutely nothing in common with the rest of us. I don't want them to be people as honest, as understanding, as humble as jlg.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Theodicy: it doesn't work. Never has, never will. It always fails in the end, because it always backs itself into a corner and ends with a pathetic, "God's ways are not our ways." Scot is right: God must be unaware, unwilling, or unable. (Or absent, or non-existent, I'd like to add.) Any of those options is unacceptable in traditional theodicy, therefore traditional theodicy fails.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bronwyn:
This year...has been a time of great greif and soul searching a lot of questions of why me...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by QLib:
Shit happens. It happens irrespective of the existence (or otherwise) of whatever god you do or don't believe in.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
We don't know that she took the gun to the house; it may have been there already. I think it probably was.

IIRC her husband hunted, which means that he owned guns. She had lived in the house and knew where the guns were kept. I think she had a brainstorm while interacting with her ex and the other woman. She knew where the guns were and got one.

Moo

---

quote:

---

Jim Doggett served on the School Board with Gaines for several years. He was especially surprised to hear about the shootings because he said Gaines was strongly opposed to guns.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bronwyn:

So many questions and so out of God' s plan. So many times it has been my god my god why hath thou forsaken me?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
I can understand, can I can show you, how other resources prevent tragedies. I do not see religion, other than as a form of community, doing the same. The supernatural component doesn't seem to be a contributing par of this system.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Leaf:
Even the term "moral agent" feels slightly embarrassing, on reflection. It reminds me of something you might see on a generations-old sociology textbook: "Man as Moral Agent", with an accompanying asexual line drawing of a human. Real life, of course, is much more complicated than the abstract "man as moral agent" idea.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
When I look at the world, and this tragedy, it appears that, if there is a god, he is detached or malevolent.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by 205:
Do we overintellectualize something as simple as 'you can choose, so do not choose wrongly'?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dal Segno:
He makes you a puppet not a person.

---

quote:

---

Job does not in any sense look at life in a gloomy way. If wishing to be happy and being quite ready to be happy constitute an optimist, Job is an optimist. He is a perplexed optimist; he is an exasperated optimist; he is an outraged and insulted optimist. He wishes the universe to justify itself, not because he wishes it to be caught out, but because he really wishes it to be justified. He demands an explanation from God, but he does not do it at all in the spirit in which Hampden might demand an explanation from Charles I. He does it in the spirit in which a wife might demand an explanation from her husband whom she really respected. He remonstrates with his Maker because he is proud of his Maker. He even speaks of the Almighty as his enemy, but he never doubts, at the back of his mind, that his enemy has some kind of a case which he does not understand.*

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dal Segno:
If God is to allow us to have free will, He must allow us to choose wrongly.

So yes, that will make Him seem detached.

If you want God to intervene in terrible things, where do you draw the line?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dal Segno:
He makes you a puppet not a person.

---

But a happy puppet. And right now, I'd take that.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Armin:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dal Segno:
He makes you a puppet not a person.

---

But a happy puppet. And right now, I'd take that.

---

I'm amazed - and pleased for you - that you can claim to be happy. That puts you in a very small minority.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
You don't need god. You need a stuffed animal.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dal Segno:
If you want God to intervene in terrible things, where do you draw the line? Where on the spectrum of bad things should He intervene and where should He leave us be? If God wades in to stop the Holocaust, to stop the Rwandan genocide, to stop suicide, to stop child-beating, to stop gossip, to stop unkindness, to stop bad actions, to stop bad words, to stop bad thoughts, He stops free will. He makes you a puppet not a person.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by 205:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Leaf:
Even the term "moral agent" feels slightly embarrassing, on reflection. It reminds me of something you might see on a generations-old sociology textbook: "Man as Moral Agent", with an accompanying asexual line drawing of a human. Real life, of course, is much more complicated than the abstract "man as moral agent" idea.

---

Is it?

Do we overintellectualize something as simple as 'you can choose, so do not choose wrongly'?

---

I don't think it's overintellectualization - just a recognition of reality.

Perhaps it is better stated: Moral agency is affected by multiple factors. For example, we recognize that one's moral agency may be impaired by alcohol or drugs. People behave differently when under the influence.

ISTM the perfect abstract moral agent is an independently wealthy, politically free and influential, environmentally rich, socially privileged, well educated, physically healthy, unaddicted, mentally healthy white European male. God grant that we may all be thus! The farther we get from that abstract standard, the more complex our moral choices become. The closer you are to that standard, the more it requires imaginative effort to consider the moral choices of others. What if you were [insert potentially qualifying factors here]? Would your moral choices be rational, understandable, forgiveable in that situation?

The point it: There IS no line-drawing human! There is you, and me, in our flesh, in our complexity, in our times and places and conditions.

I did not drink jlg's particular cup of suffering. Neither did you. Even if we think we have enough similarities to compare ourselves as moral agents with her, there are important considerations left out. For example, I was not a female engineer in a time when there were few, breaking my nose against others in my profession. Pioneers in non-traditional occupations have it harder than their peers. ISTM that changes a person.

Incidentally, this complexity is why we have judges and not book-readers. Book-readers can look in the rule book and say: You did this, you get that, simples. However, we pay people to take into consideration the complexity of human situations.
 

---

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Originally posted by leaf

quote:

---

So all I've learned is that Circumstances Alter Cases.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
It would be silly of me to post on a debate board if I wasn't looking for a debate, wouldn't it? ;-)

When I look at the world, and this tragedy, it appears that, if there is a god, he is detached or malevolent. Simpler to assume there is no god.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by wilson:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dal Segno:
If God is to allow us to have free will, He must allow us to choose wrongly.

So yes, that will make Him seem detached.

If you want God to intervene in terrible things, where do you draw the line?

---

None of us have ultimate free will, we're all constrained by something, whether it's circumstances, the physical world or other people's free will. The idea that free will is a kind of absolute and therefore you can't interfere with people's choices to do terrible things seems only to apply to God. We're quite happy to pass laws and enable enforcement to restrain free will amongst ourselves. Parents may struggle with exactly where the line between free will and restraint is but they still draw it every day, they don't throw up their hands and say it's impossible.

And God is supposedly bigger, better, kinder and cleverer than us as either parents or law-makers.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
It doesn't matter where I want him to intervene. He doesn't intervene at all....

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by wilson:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dal Segno:
If God is to allow us to have free will, He must allow us to choose wrongly.

So yes, that will make Him seem detached.

If you want God to intervene in terrible things, where do you draw the line?

---

None of us have ultimate free will, we're all constrained by something, whether it's circumstances, the physical world or other people's free will. The idea that free will is a kind of absolute and therefore you can't interfere with people's choices to do terrible things seems only to apply to God. We're quite happy to pass laws and enable enforcement to restrain free will amongst ourselves. Parents may struggle with exactly where the line between free will and restraint is but they still draw it every day, they don't throw up their hands and say it's impossible.

And God is supposedly bigger, better, kinder and cleverer than us as either parents or law-makers.

---

I agree. But I don't see anything about that that changes Dal Segno's point, simply clarifies it a bit.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
It doesn't matter where I want him to intervene. He doesn't intervene at all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dal Segno:
If you want God to intervene in terrible things, where do you draw the line? Where on the spectrum of bad things should He intervene and where should He leave us be? If God wades in to stop the Holocaust, to stop the Rwandan genocide, to stop suicide, to stop child-beating, to stop gossip, to stop unkindness, to stop bad actions, to stop bad words, to stop bad thoughts, He stops free will. He makes you a puppet not a person.

---

It doesn't matter where I want him to intervene. He doesn't intervene at all. A god who doesn't intervene is of no use, either practically or philosophically, and can simply be excised with Occam's razor.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by rugasaw:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
You don't need god. You need a stuffed animal.

---

I'd be ok with that. But stuffed animals do not commune with me. I tried but my stuff giraffe never communed with me no matter how hard I tried. God does.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
How do you know he doesn't intervene? I agree he allows many evils, but I believe he prevents many also.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scarlet:
.. I used to believe god communicated with me. Then I realized I was hearing my own voice. And I sure don't need to be trying to heal my sick mind with my own sick mind!

[/QB]

---

Yes, that rings true with me too. I trust the silence more, now, than the "voice" I know that's really my voice. I don't know whether or not God exists, or whether God is loving or caring or not. I think I've come to the conclusion that Jesus went to the cross not to atone for us, but to show us how to sort out our own shit.

And yet, there does seem to be something that subtly offers consolation and sometimes opportunity. It isn't evidence for the existence of God, of course, but it does feel like more than the fruits of my own labours.
 

---

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :
 
I haven't been around the ship much lately - it seems whenever I do that for a while I come back to news that we've lost someone.

This really sucks.

I'm bipolar myself, and I can tell you it can be really terrifying to be completely aware that you're losing control of yourself sometimes. For me, it was more a matter of losing the ability to stop negative thoughts. It felt like at some point I was watching myself as if watching a movie.

And I, too, understand better the desire to hurt oneself than to hurt others. I'm intentionally NOT going to look up news reports on this, though.

One thing that has always pissed me off as a person with mental illness is the way people who don't struggle with mental illness seem to think it's just about having feelings & impulses you could choose to control, but don't. The truth of the matter is, a mood disorder isn't just about emotions any more than mood is just about emotions: it's about your whole outlook, and affects your reasoning process, willpower, everything. The choices we all make are made with a biological organ inside our heads, and like all biological organs, it can get sick. When it does, it can malfunction. (This is why I never say someone "committed" suicide; I say they died from suicide.)

I have no idea how to reconcile that with the soul/spirit, but I'm not willing to make of the soul/spirit something magical that can will to do things apart from the brain, nor am I willing to spiritualize depression or other mental illness into demonic beings outside a person that "tempt" them to do something no one in their right mind would do.

Yes, we have moral agency, but that moral agency can also be compromised. That's why there's a such thing as an insanity defense in court. I like to think God doesn't hold us accountable for the malfunctioning of our internal organs, either. Especially since God made them and all...

This really sucks.

Since I'm at work (in a church), I'm going to go light a candle now, a real one along with this virtual one: for Jen, her victims, and all who are suffering from this tragedy, and for all victims of suicide and mental illness.
 

---

Posted by art dunce (# 9258) on :
 

quote:

---

Ruth posted: Believe anything you want, but Scot asked for evidence. No one here has given any.

---

What would suffice? MRI? A doctor's note? Or do you need to stick your own finger in the wound?

Having been on the recieving end of a miracle myself I realized that we cannot understand why and to whom the are given. It isn't being deserving, as far as we understand the concept, it doesn't even amount to something greater we can grasp in our finitude (believe me I tried). I asked why, changed my whole life triying to be "worthy", tried to turn it into something postive for others, suffered guilt over it when someone I trult believed much worthier than I was not similarly spared and then felt guilt over the ingratitude. . In the end, I just cannot wrap my mind around it. I am grateful and have to leave it at that.
 

---

Posted by art dunce (# 9258) on :
 
And prayers for jlg. It perhaps speaks poorly of the environment of my upringing that these things happen more often than anyone can bear and as an art dunce I always appreciated and admired her engineering mind/sensibilites and dry humor. We all fall short and I truly believe we will all be forgiven.
 

---

Posted by Og: Thread Killer (# 3200) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
I can understand, can I can show you, how other resources prevent tragedies. I do not see religion, other than as a form of community, doing the same. The supernatural component doesn't seem to be a contributing par of this system.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zappa:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Theodicy: it doesn't work. Never has, never will. It always fails in the end, because it always backs itself into a corner and ends with a pathetic, "God's ways are not our ways." Scot is right: God must be unaware, unwilling, or unable. (Or absent, or non-existent, I'd like to add.) Any of those options is unacceptable in traditional theodicy, therefore traditional theodicy fails.

---

Traditionally sensible theodicies have never attempted to be a prophylactic against suffering, but an empowerment within suffering and within grief. That is why the gospel narratives portray Christ as refusing the legions of angels at the Passion, and why he doesn't say to the crucified thief-dude 'hop down and go home you silly bugger'.

The theodicy narrative will never satisfy all. But what it more or less says is that the deepest vortex of horror - and jen's is somewhere on that richter scale - is not the final word. Burundi and Rwanda, the Brownshirts in Hitler's nights, Nero shoving lions up the arses of the quivering Christians ... not the final word.

It's my job as a Christ-bearer to live that theodicy, and words are a nuisance. My words for example will only irritate some who want an always onmipotent God, or who fundamentally don't want that God. God chose impotence though, the impotence of the Cross, precisely because divine redeeming love is not about prophylactically protected lives but about raw, unprotected lives lived with, as PATDYS reminded us, a terminal disease. My life, your life, jen's life, jen's 'victims'' lives, all attrociously terminal. It's a shit, but it's a shit into which the first Easter breathed hope.

---

This is beautiful, Zappa. Thank you.
 

---

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :
 
Tried to edit & add this, but the edit window elapsed while I was composing it:

ETA: I also like what A. Roy Eckardt said in How to Tell God from the Devil - that theodicy is the devil's business, because only the devil can justify evil.

My late mentor (Alejandro García-Rivera) had been starting on a new approach which he called "anthropodicy," or justifying the human being in the face of evil (both committed and suffered by humans). Basically, for him, the question amounted to whether or not, at the end of the day, we can say, "It's good to be human." And despite all the negative feelings and opinions of humanity these related threads are bringing out, I suspect on balance we can all agree that it's good to be human, and good that humans exist.

Not entirely satisfying, but it's a start. It's also worth noting from the Christian perspective that God's opinion of our situation was that it's good to be human - so good, God became one and remains one for all eternity. No one else has chosen to be born. Whatever silence we hear from God, the loudest silence is from that speechless baby otherwise known as the Divine Logos, the Word made flesh.
 

---

Posted by Janine (# 3337) on :
 
Random thoughts raised by the tragedy --

Gene Roddenberry thought he'd invented the "Prime Directive" -- but he hijacked the idea from God. It's proven to be as flexible a rule for Him as it did for various Star Trek characters.

I'm willing to keep rolling along on the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things as yet unseen. I'm willing to be conformed (hammered and blowtorched, wrenched and compacted, flattened and expanded and stretched and amputated) to the image of the Christ. To turn one's back on that seems foolish in the extreme, since one goes through it just from living in this fallen, material world, anyway. Seems like, since one will be slogging through the torturous race anyway, why not accept the reward at the finish line?

That's where the hope comes in, maybe.
 

---

Posted by Ancient Mariner (# 4) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zappa:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Theodicy: it doesn't work. Never has, never will. It always fails in the end, because it always backs itself into a corner and ends with a pathetic, "God's ways are not our ways." Scot is right: God must be unaware, unwilling, or unable. (Or absent, or non-existent, I'd like to add.) Any of those options is unacceptable in traditional theodicy, therefore traditional theodicy fails.

---

Traditionally sensible theodicies have never attempted to be a prophylactic against suffering, but an empowerment within suffering and within grief. That is why the gospel narratives portray Christ as refusing the legions of angels at the Passion, and why he doesn't say to the crucified thief-dude 'hop down and go home you silly bugger'.

The theodicy narrative will never satisfy all. But what it more or less says is that the deepest vortex of horror - and jen's is somewhere on that richter scale - is not the final word. Burundi and Rwanda, the Brownshirts in Hitler's nights, Nero shoving lions up the arses of the quivering Christians ... not the final word.

It's my job as a Christ-bearer to live that theodicy, and words are a nuisance. My words for example will only irritate some who want an always onmipotent God, or who fundamentally don't want that God. God chose impotence though, the impotence of the Cross, precisely because divine redeeming love is not about prophylactically protected lives but about raw, unprotected lives lived with, as PATDYS reminded us, a terminal disease. My life, your life, jen's life, jen's 'victims'' lives, all attrociously terminal. It's a shit, but it's a shit into which the first Easter breathed hope.

---

Inspired.


 

---

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
It doesn't matter where I want him to intervene. He doesn't intervene at all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Og: Thread Killer:
And, in this case, neither religion nor inner resources, friends, and communities that step in prevented a further tragedy.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by churchgeek:
I haven't been around the ship much lately - it seems whenever I do that for a while I come back to news that we've lost someone.

This really sucks.

I'm bipolar myself, and I can tell you it can be really terrifying to be completely aware that you're losing control of yourself sometimes. For me, it was more a matter of losing the ability to stop negative thoughts. It felt like at some point I was watching myself as if watching a movie.

And I, too, understand better the desire to hurt oneself than to hurt others. I'm intentionally NOT going to look up news reports on this, though.

One thing that has always pissed me off as a person with mental illness is the way people who don't struggle with mental illness seem to think it's just about having feelings & impulses you could choose to control, but don't. The truth of the matter is, a mood disorder isn't just about emotions any more than mood is just about emotions: it's about your whole outlook, and affects your reasoning process, willpower, everything. The choices we all make are made with a biological organ inside our heads, and like all biological organs, it can get sick. When it does, it can malfunction. (This is why I never say someone "committed" suicide; I say they died from suicide.)

I have no idea how to reconcile that with the soul/spirit, but I'm not willing to make of the soul/spirit something magical that can will to do things apart from the brain, nor am I willing to spiritualize depression or other mental illness into demonic beings outside a person that "tempt" them to do something no one in their right mind would do.

Yes, we have moral agency, but that moral agency can also be compromised. That's why there's a such thing as an insanity defense in court. I like to think God doesn't hold us accountable for the malfunctioning of our internal organs, either. Especially since God made them and all...

This really sucks.

Since I'm at work (in a church), I'm going to go light a candle now, a real one along with this virtual one: for Jen, her victims, and all who are suffering from this tragedy, and for all victims of suicide and mental illness.

---

I have quoted the whole post because I don't want to quote out of context and I got a little confused with what I was doing, but I am mainly replying to the 5th paragraph, which I happen to be in complete agreement with.

If the feelings that come with mental illness were easy to control, then we wouldn't have a problem. And not having any control of these feelings is indeed scary. Using my own example, I didn't just wake up one morning and decide that everyone around me is an enemy and I'll have crippling anxiety as a result of this.

----

I've only been on the Ship a few months, so know very little of jlg. But I too have been moved by these events, having myself been in the deep dark pit of depression at one point in my life (though I am ok now, apart from the anxiety).

I believe that jlg should be remembered for the good things that she did. May she rest in peace and rise in glory. Amen.

----

PS: I hope that this post makes sense.
 

---

Posted by Dal Segno (# 14673) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
Despite all of the claims about miracles and the power of prayer, I have not seen any credible evidence that such claims are true. In the absence of any evidence for divine intervention, I think I can safely assume that there is none.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scarlet:
In a way, I'm curious as to how god communicates with you, but I've probably heard all the supposed ways already. I used to believe god communicated with me. Then I realized I was hearing my own voice. And I sure don't need to be trying to heal my sick mind with my own sick mind!

Since I'm pretty over the edge, I'm gonna just turn this around and say:

I have a stuffed cat named Filby. God does not commune with me. I've tried but god, jesus, the holy spirit nor any of the angels or saints never communed with me no matter how hard I tried. Filby does.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:
If there is a god, either this is exactly what it wants or it doesn't care. Every other attempted explanation is willful flouting of logic for the sake of prettily-formed expositing hopes.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:
If there is a god, either this is exactly what it wants or it doesn't care. Every other attempted explanation is willful flouting of logic for the sake of prettily-formed expositing hopes.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dal Segno:

It seems that the divine will not be tied down to a scientifically rigorous, reproducible, experimental setup. That would require the divine to respond in a predictable way rather than on a case-by-case basis, and I believe that the divine is big enough to handle things case-by-case rather than by following some pre-ordained list of instructions.

---

quote:

---

For the most part, the divine seems to work very quietly, through the agency of those humans who will allow it to act through them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
Despite all of the claims about miracles and the power of prayer, I have not seen any credible evidence that such claims are true. ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:
If there is a god, either this is exactly what it wants or it doesn't care. Every other attempted explanation is willful flouting of logic for the sake of prettily-formed expositing hopes.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
...The prognosis that you were given, although grim, indicated an expectation that the course of treatment would be successful some of the time.

If the recovery, following prayer, of a gravely ill person is evidence of intervention by a loving god, why is the death of a similar person never seen as evidence against the same? ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rossweisse:
My doctors were surprised by how well I did. That should tell us something. I believe that it was the prayers of so many others that tipped the scale.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
I don't think that experimental evidence is required to claim that the divine intervenes in human affairs. Surely there would be some statistical evidence, and the occasional documented but unexplained case. I could potentially be persuaded by that sort of evidence.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dal Segno:
For the most part, the divine seems to work very quietly, through the agency of those humans who will allow it to act through them.

---

How would you distinguish that from humans simply acting?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:
If there is a god, either this is exactly what it wants or it doesn't care. Every other attempted explanation is willful flouting of logic for the sake of prettily-formed expositing hopes.

---

quote:

---

I've only been on the Ship a few months, so know very little of jlg. But I too have been moved by these events, having myself been in the deep dark pit of depression at one point in my life (though I am ok now, apart from the anxiety).

I believe that jlg should be remembered for the good things that she did. May she rest in peace and rise in glory. Amen.

----

PS: I hope that this post makes sense.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Patdys:

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:
If there is a god, either this is exactly what it wants or it doesn't care. Every other attempted explanation is willful flouting of logic for the sake of prettily-formed expositing hopes.

---

At the end of the day, Christians can't use this to convict Atheists of the existence of a loving God and Atheists can't convict Christians of the folly of their make believe sky daddy.
But I am happy to stand by you and say 'What a completely fucked up situation. I wish it never happened.'

For me today, it's enough.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
If that were the case, there would be a statistical relationship between remission rates and how many prayers are offered. ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by OG: Thread Killer:
Logic that assumes binary thought patterns rule the universe.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peppone:
I'm not sure. Isn't it also possible to conceive, a god that doesn't want X, but is prepared to accept X in order to obtain or offer or make possible a more valuable Y?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:
It seems to me that the real hurdle with faith in the christian definition of god is the fortitude to accept that it doesn't need to make sense according to our myopic understandings, and that there is ultimately value and purpose to everything - even suffering. Even jlg's end. All of it.

Squirming to make poorly-formed and dubious explanations for the sake of reassuring yourselves seems like a childish shying away from the important work of your faith. I guess I can see value, both spiritually and intrapsychically, in forgiving yourself for not understanding and forgiving god for being unknowable in this way. But to pretend understanding, or feign comprehension of the unknowable - that's kind of offensive. Usually it's just funny for me, but in this conversation it's hard to spit out the aftertaste of your failure.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
I don't quite get the part about forgiving God for being unknowable -- a god I could completely comprehend would be too small to be God. I don't feel like I need to forgive God for being unknowable, though it's certainly results in difficult, painful and frustrating experiences sometimes. I want God to be beyond my understanding.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:
.... if god is soooo clever, (s)he should be able to think of a way to explain itself in a way even we can understand.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by rugasaw:
I'd be ok with that. But stuffed animals do not commune with me. I tried but my stuff giraffe never communed with me no matter how hard I tried. God does.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by rugasaw:
I'd be ok with that. But stuffed animals do not commune with me. I tried but my stuff giraffe never communed with me no matter how hard I tried. God does.

---

He must like you better than He does me.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Peppone:
That does give us a whole other problem to chew over - why some prayers and not others?

---

quote:

---

Scot: You say that god was unable to intervene because he is dependent on "faith prayers of believers".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The answer is: because God is a capricious cunt.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grits:
But it is the fact that those who doubt God seem to be having the hardest time with all this that leads me to ask... Where IS your hope? If all you have is what you've got right here, right now -- how do you explain anything that happens?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The answer is: because God is a capricious cunt.

---

I wish you'd release your inner poet and write us some worship songs, Marvin - they'd sure beat the saccharin ones most of us have imposed upon us.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mili:

However, when I do start to doubt the existence of God I then wonder how evolution is linked to depression and mental illness. If there is no God there is still the question of why we have evolved in a way that so many people end up so depressed that they cannot engage with others at times and may even want to end their lives? I'd be interested to know how the opinions of atheists here.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pyx_e:
I laughed and did a wee.

P

---

Please don't piss all over Marvin's nascent creativity, he's a sensitive wee soul, you know.

On a serious note, though, we have had many people over the years who have turned up at our church for some temporary (sometimes becoming permanent) respite from places with a continuous upbeat attitude, always singing jolly songs like:

Jesus is my Boyfriend
I'm as happy as can be
Everything is lovely
Everything is twee

and instead are sorely in need of some peace, quiet and music in a minor key with words and prayers which more adequately reflect that life can be very tough at times.

Some of the composers of early music were particularly good at this as they had to live through the life is nasty, brutish, and short and man that is born of woman has but a short time to live and is full of misery era, as a daily reality, rather than as an exceptional event happening to only a few, in otherwise comfortable lives.
 

---

Posted by Laura (# 10) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dal Segno:
For the most part, the divine seems to work very quietly, through the agency of those humans who will allow it to act through them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:
If there is a god, either this is exactly what it wants or it doesn't care. Every other attempted explanation is willful flouting of logic for the sake of prettily-formed expositing hopes.

---

This is my belief. Per Teresa of Avila
(and as alluded to here):

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
 

---

Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :
 
I like your take, Mili, I too would prefer not to be an ant or a gumtree .

ISTM that while we're all responsible for everything we do and say, and take for granted that we have the free will to select appropriately, it's consciousness of good and evil which is all-important. We know that mental/emotional illness may impair consciousness, temporarily or permanently. As we build it into our justice systems, so we can surely rely on God to do so far more effectively.

The question of suffering is and will continue to be long-standing. We're promised a perfect world in the end, with no suffering and no more evil. Some claim that heaven would be a boring place, but it sounds good to me, the kind of world to aim for whether religious or not.
 

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Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 
This is a comment for Scot.

There is no pat answer in a doctrinal or credal sense that will ever satisfy as to the problem of evil that afflicts. For me, personally, I see Christ identifying with human suffering in his own suffering and in that identification something deep is satisfied in the sense that though I cannot make rational sense of it,(the forces that pull us toward destruction are not rational,) there is a place where I am at least, not alone in it.

The other issue that one grapples with in looking at faith from the outside, is that one seems insulated from any sense of reality in it. It seems to me you can use the existence of palpable evil to say "See, this proves it's all nonsense!" or you can be softer and tell your Daddy "Hey the nasty dog bit me!" In other words, come to God for a hug. There is though a need to be open to the possibility that your Daddy actually might be there for you.

[ 03. January 2012, 18:52: Message edited by: Jamat ]
 

---

Posted by JFH (# 14794) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pyx_e:
I laughed and did a wee.

P

---

Please don't piss all over Marvin's nascent creativity, he's a sensitive wee soul, you know.

On a serious note, though, we have had many people over the years who have turned up at our church for some temporary (sometimes becoming permanent) respite from places with a continuous upbeat attitude, always singing jolly songs like:

Jesus is my Boyfriend
I'm as happy as can be
Everything is lovely
Everything is twee

and instead are sorely in need of some peace, quiet and music in a minor key with words and prayers which more adequately reflect that life can be very tough at times.

Some of the composers of early music were particularly good at this as they had to live through the life is nasty, brutish, and short and man that is born of woman has but a short time to live and is full of misery era, as a daily reality, rather than as an exceptional event happening to only a few, in otherwise comfortable lives.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
We're promised a perfect world in the end, with no suffering and no more evil.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by catthefat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mili:

However, when I do start to doubt the existence of God I then wonder how evolution is linked to depression and mental illness. If there is no God there is still the question of why we have evolved in a way that so many people end up so depressed that they cannot engage with others at times and may even want to end their lives? I'd be interested to know how the opinions of atheists here.

---

You could wonder that about any number of medical ills that beset us.
Man is not so evolved that he is perfectly adapted, that's all.
Everyone suffers, everyone dies (well,I might not),it's just a case of where and how. Depression is just another sickness.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by QLib:

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:
.... if god is soooo clever, (s)he should be able to think of a way to explain itself in a way even we can understand.

---

Jesus.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grits:
Where IS your hope?

---

quote:

---

If all you have is what you've got right here, right now -- how do you explain anything that happens?

---

quote:

---

it's hard to grasp how you deal with the bad AND the good of life. I want to live beyond my knowledge and my power, and the only way I can do that is with God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:

quote:

---

Originally posted by QLib:

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:
.... if god is soooo clever, (s)he should be able to think of a way to explain itself in a way even we can understand.

---

Jesus.

---

Fine; be cute. Put on your Jesus sockpuppet and explain the value of Jennifer feeling it necessary to blow her brains out.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The answer is: because God is a capricious cunt.

---

I wish you'd release your inner poet and write us some worship songs, Marvin

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
Nice.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
OK:

(to be sung in an upbeat tempo)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
I can just about get it to fit to Give me oil in my lamp.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grits:
If all you have is what you've got right here, right now -- how do you explain anything that happens?

---

Why should I feel a need to have an explanation for everything? Sometimes "I don't know" is perfectly appropriate.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
We're promised a perfect world in the end, with no suffering and no more evil.

---

Why does it have to be "in the end" though? Why can't that just be the world? What does giving us all this fucking shit to live through first actually achieve?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
The frustrated call for the world to be transformed by God into a paradise, or Heaven, is perhaps one made by people since the beginning of time.

Why can't that just be the world now? Any answer is guesswork, as far as God's concerned. If it's what we all want, and we aim for it together, might it do away with our fighting each other, and bring on change to the better?

---

quote:

---

What does it achieve, living through the suffering as well as the joy? I remember a comment made by someone who deliberately put himself into uncomfortable situations for lengths of time. When asked why he did it, he said it was worth it because it was so good when the discomfort stopped.

---

quote:

---

It's perhaps more often the lack of control which brings on despair,

---

quote:

---

and the loss of hope for change to the better.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grits:

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grits:
If all you have is what you've got right here, right now -- how do you explain anything that happens?

---

Why should I feel a need to have an explanation for everything? Sometimes "I don't know" is perfectly appropriate.

---

So isn't that OK for us, too? The way you feel about Jennifer (Why didn't her God stop it?) is pretty much the same way we feel, too. We don't know. Yet you do seem to "need" us to explain.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Well sure, if there's no God (or no chance that He'll do anything to help) then all we can do is work towards that world ourselves. But if there is a God who wants to help, then why the fuck doesn't He?

This world could be a paradise tomorrow, if God wanted it to be - if He actually wanted us to be spared the pain and suffering. But clearly, He doesn't. So fuck Him.

---

quote:

---

Well there's certainly no hope with God. I mean, if He was going to do something about it He'd have done it by now, right? For anyone who still has some small amount of hope that God will one day act to save us, it's time to face the fact that He.Is.Never.Going.To.Help. We're on our own.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
God does help us as we strive for a better world,

---

quote:

---

and wants us to do so.

---

quote:

---

This world will be a paradise tomorrow, but not today. The fact that the world isn't yet perfect doesn't disprove or reduce the likelihood of the existence of God.

---

quote:

---

I disagree. There's every hope with God. I think it makes all the difference to our take on life if we do allow ourselves to trust in God that ultimately all shall be well, while using all of our resources and energy to strive for the perfect world ourselves. We are never alone.

---

quote:

---

God showed us in the cross and resurrection how good can ultimately come from suffering.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
So what do you think of the theology that God is with us in our suffering, possibly even suffering alongside us or helping us through by being there (rather like fellow humans do)?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

This world will be a paradise tomorrow, but not today. The fact that the world isn't yet perfect doesn't disprove or reduce the likelihood of the existence of God.

---

I never said it did. I did say it disproves the existence of a God who wants to spare us the pain and suffering.

---

Not necessarily. It disproves one of the three "omnis", but it doesn't have to be that one. It could be that he isn't able to do anything about it. Or maybe he just doesn't know that life's suckier than a Dyson.

But it's the concept of heaven that really screws up all this twisty theology. Shit has to happen for various airy fairy, speculative or just unspecified reasons, but apparently the rules then change completely and everything is the happy, fluffy, perfect existence that only a minute ago was totally impossible, or deeply unsatisfying, or just an illusion.

You'd think 2,000 years was enough time to get the story straight.
 

---

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :
 
This is where Rob Bell had it right, I think. Here on earth there is heaven and there is hell. Jennifers experience - and our reaction to it - is a part of hell, here on earth, as we experience it now. There are parts of life that are heaven too. Forget the crap about after we die.

Our calling as Christians is to point people to heaven, and help them avoid hell. Seems reasonable to me.

And the more we guide others to heaven, the closer we get ourselves. What is the role of God in all of this? TBH, at the moment, fuck knows.
 

---

Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 

quote:

---

Marvin: a pill that could remove all of the suffering forever

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grits:
So isn't that OK for us, too?

---

quote:

---

The way you feel about Jennifer (Why didn't her God stop it?) is pretty much the same way we feel, too.

---

quote:

---

Yet you do seem to "need" us to explain.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by QLib:
Psychology explains people; Jesus explains God. Religion and science* are not alternative ways of explaining the world; they just work at different levels most of the time.

---

quote:

---

*Not saying Psychology is entirely scientific.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:

quote:

---

Originally posted by QLib:
Psychology explains people; Jesus explains God. Religion and science* are not alternative ways of explaining the world; they just work at different levels most of the time.

---

Well, I'll give you that they all try.

quote:

---

*Not saying Psychology is entirely scientific.

---

Heh. Science isn't entirely scientific much of the time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Man is a sinful self-centred being by nature which occurred when he succumbed to Satanic temptation.. Not God's fault

---

quote:

---

Satan has invaded man's nature and man has the authority from God to manage creation..Satan now rules through man. Satanic power has overwhelmed man's nature through man's choice.. Not God's fault.

---

quote:

---

God has provided a way man's nature and hence his destiny can be powerfully altered and freed from Satan's power..in Christ. But this requires humility. The cross must be applied to us for that power to flow. The fact that 98% of mankind are too arrogant to accept this confrontation of self life is again, not God's fault.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:

quote:

---

Originally posted by QLib:

quote:

---

Originally posted by RooK:
.... if god is soooo clever, (s)he should be able to think of a way to explain itself in a way even we can understand.

---

Jesus.

---

Fine; be cute. Put on your Jesus sockpuppet and explain the value of Jennifer feeling it necessary to blow her brains out.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
We just need to get our heads around whether free will is a good gift or a bad gift, and whether God 'should' override it on occasion (in which case it is not true free will).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
We just need to get our heads around whether free will is a good gift or a bad gift, and whether God 'should' override it on occasion (in which case it is not true free will).

---

Bad gift, and yes He should.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
And yet I get the impression that you are thoroughly enjoying saying exactly what you want to say, which would not be possible without free will.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Heck, a bottle of whiskey will do that. Why bother God?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
We just need to get our heads around whether free will is a good gift or a bad gift, and whether God 'should' override it on occasion (in which case it is not true free will).

---

Bad gift, and yes He should.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
You guess correctly. Give me the nice, easy life any time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trin:
Dear Marvin.
Would you mind providing more information about the world God should have created?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trin:
Dear Marvin.
Would you mind providing more information about the world God should have created?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Let me get this right: are you the same Marvin the Martian who plays cricket, which features a small, very hard ball travelling at 70 mph+ and rugby, which involves close contact with people a good deal bigger, stronger and nastier than the admittedly nippy and agile Marvin.

---

quote:

---

Easy life? And that's before the post-match socialising!

---

quote:

---

If it wasn't for free will you'd have to sit in front of the TV and vegetate.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

Seriously, there has to be more to life than just being happy, happy, happy all the time. Though there are days I long for that.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chorister:
I can't see your idealised world working, Marvin, because human beings are so bloody stubborn.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Niteowl2:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

Seriously, there has to be more to life than just being happy, happy, happy all the time. Though there are days I long for that.

---

One cannot truly appreciate the happy, joyful times unless one has experienced some suffering along the way. I know which one I prefer, but I also know it's the suffering periods that bring change and make the happy times that much sweeter. You have to take the good with the bad - no one is exempt.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Apocalypso:
Am I odd-person out in this?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
1) how does heaven work, then?

2) why did God make us so bloody stubborn?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trin:
Dear Marvin.
Would you mind providing more information about the world God should have created?

---

Heaven, basically. Presumably all the other stuff you mention can be resolved without any problems there, so why not here?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Apocalypso:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Niteowl2:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

Seriously, there has to be more to life than just being happy, happy, happy all the time. Though there are days I long for that.

---

One cannot truly appreciate the happy, joyful times unless one has experienced some suffering along the way. I know which one I prefer, but I also know it's the suffering periods that bring change and make the happy times that much sweeter. You have to take the good with the bad - no one is exempt.

---

This is an all-too-common refrain, that "we" (whoever that may be) cannot appreciate joy unless we also experience sorrow.

I'm sorry, but this is complete nonsense. A sibling, during our respective childhoods, once tricked me into taking a bite out of some unsweetened baking chocolate, with predictable results. This not only failed to improve my subsequent appreciation for chocolate candy, it substantially raised (at least for a while, until I learned to read) my subsequent suspicions regarding any brown-colored candy offered me by anyone.

Having a hellish week at work can actually diminish my enjoyment of time off the following week, as I enter that experience with less energy, more stress, and more nagging concerns about the welfare of certain clients while temporarily under another, less acclimated, manager's responsibility.

Having the flu for a few days does little to enhance my pleasure at feeling well once I recover. In fact, I'd much rather avoid the flu altogether (and thanks to flu shots, I generally do).

That's my experience, anyway. Am I odd-person out in this? Can others look honestly at their own, actual, daily experience, and make this bizarre (or so it seems to me) claim?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
How? Why?

---

quote:

---

I never said it did. I did say it disproves the existence of a God who wants to spare us the pain and suffering..

---

quote:

---

God hasn't made everything well yet, and He's had several million years to do so. He could have done so from the start, for that matter. What possible reason can you have for the hope that one day He'll change His mind and actually step in and do something? What do you think He's waiting for?

---

quote:

---

Well, He stepped in to save one person from death. Who just happened to be His son. And He's showed us in the last two thousand years that that was very much a one-off.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Niteowl2:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

Seriously, there has to be more to life than just being happy, happy, happy all the time. Though there are days I long for that.

---

One cannot truly appreciate the happy, joyful times unless one has experienced some suffering along the way. I know which one I prefer, but I also know it's the suffering periods that bring change and make the happy times that much sweeter. You have to take the good with the bad - no one is exempt.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Apocalypso:
So . . . what is all this, then?

If we buy into the orthodox Christian theology, the human life cycle goes roughly thus:


3. Afterlife consisting of: (a) eternal torment and punishment for those who made the Wrong Choice or Choices, OR (b) eternal undisturbed heavenly bliss for those who made the Right Choice or Choices.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Raptor Eye:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I never said it did. I did say it disproves the existence of a God who wants to spare us the pain and suffering..

---

The fact that we live in the world as it is and not in Paradise now doesn't disprove the existence of a God who wants to spare us pain and suffering. It leaves open the question as to why God doesn't end this world now and replace it with Heaven.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dal Segno:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
I don't think that experimental evidence is required to claim that the divine intervenes in human affairs. Surely there would be some statistical evidence, and the occasional documented but unexplained case. I could potentially be persuaded by that sort of evidence.

---

There is a problem with all anecdotal evidence, that you can always require more evidence than is available.

Here are two anecdotes of unexplained cases, told to me by the people themselves:

[1] A man who was healed of a debilitating long-term illness. He could barely walk upstairs before this healing and, after prayers, was able to do so, and remains able to do so thirty years later. What caused this dramatic turn-around in his health? Could he convince you that it was not coincidence, good fortune, natural remission, or the power of positive thinking?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dal Segno:
[2] A woman who felt a hand on her shoulder and heard the words "don't go any further", turned around to find no-one there but did choose to walk away rather than going further. This experience affected her deeply. Could she convince you that it was not wishful thinking, her own sub-concious, false memory, or some temporary mental aberration?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dal Segno:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dal Segno:
For the most part, the divine seems to work very quietly, through the agency of those humans who will allow it to act through them.

---

How would you distinguish that from humans simply acting?

---

I might distinguish it by their telling me their motivation for acting in the way they did.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
This is a comment for Scot.

There is no pat answer in a doctrinal or credal sense that will ever satisfy as to the problem of evil that afflicts.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
The other issue that one grapples with in looking at faith from the outside, is that one seems insulated from any sense of reality in it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
It seems to me you can use the existence of palpable evil to say "See, this proves it's all nonsense!" or you can be softer and tell your Daddy "Hey the nasty dog bit me!" In other words, come to God for a hug. There is though a need to be open to the possibility that your Daddy actually might be there for you.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
So will you be prepared to challenge that God about why he chose not to spare us pain and suffering when he could? And how easily will you accept his answers (assuming he deigns to give any)? Or do you think that God is not open to such challenges? And if he isn't, why do you think him worthy of worship?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Laura:
There is no promise of an eternity in a non-earthly place. What [orthodox Christian teaching] promises is … life after life after death. … at some indeterminate future time, Jesus comes again, and the faithful departed rise, bodily, from the dead and (with those still living) participate in the final bringing into being of God's kingdom on earth …Not in heaven. Here. The resurrection of the dead was explicitly understood to be a physical, earthly, phenomenon.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scot:
Nonbelievers, for the most part, are able to accept that shit happens unless we humans do something about it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Niteowl2:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

Seriously, there has to be more to life than just being happy, happy, happy all the time. Though there are days I long for that.

---

One cannot truly appreciate the happy, joyful times unless one has experienced some suffering along the way. I know which one I prefer, but I also know it's the suffering periods that bring change and make the happy times that much sweeter. You have to take the good with the bad - no one is exempt.

---

I don't think I agree with that. Presumably Adam's experience pre-fall was as good as it gets, and yet without suffering. And there'll be none of that in heaven either...

My problem with the "happy happy happy all the time" world in which we have no free will is that it's a playpen. Every possible danger fenced off and our choices severely restricted lest we stub our toes (or worse). I'd be bored out of my skull. I know the little guy was, the few times we actually put him in one for his own safety.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
God helps us as we strive for a better world by giving us motivation, attributes such as patience and love, and the encouragement to persevere, often against the odds. God brings us together, giving us different gifts so that we co-operate with each other as well as with God.

---

quote:

---

Why? ISTM that God gains as much pleasure as we do from our achievement, and building on, of all that's good and beneficial for everyone.

---

quote:

---

The fact that we live in the world as it is and not in Paradise now doesn't disprove the existence of a God who wants to spare us pain and suffering. It leaves open the question as to why God doesn't end this world now and replace it with Heaven.

---

quote:

---

According to the Bible, it was perfect at the start.

---

quote:

---

I think that suffering is the price of our free will.

---

quote:

---

I think the delay is due to God's patience with us, so that we'll all have the opportunity to take up God's invitation to live God's way by following Jesus, to our benefit.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
My problem with the "happy happy happy all the time" world in which we have no free will is that it's a playpen. Every possible danger fenced off and our choices severely restricted lest we stub our toes (or worse). I'd be bored out of my skull.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
the logical problem with your argument is that happiness is actually a positive state on a scale that must have a negative

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
My problem with the "happy happy happy all the time" world in which we have no free will is that it's a playpen. Every possible danger fenced off and our choices severely restricted lest we stub our toes (or worse). I'd be bored out of my skull.

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No you wouldn't, because you wouldn't have the ability to be bored! Like all things that work against happiness, boredom simply wouldn't exist in that world.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:

quote:

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Originally posted by Laura:
There is no promise of an eternity in a non-earthly place. What [orthodox Christian teaching] promises is … life after life after death. … at some indeterminate future time, Jesus comes again, and the faithful departed rise, bodily, from the dead and (with those still living) participate in the final bringing into being of God's kingdom on earth …Not in heaven. Here. The resurrection of the dead was explicitly understood to be a physical, earthly, phenomenon.

---

Oh dear, I’m sorry to pick on this particular post, but this sort of talk really does sicken me. Talk about opiate of the masses, this Earthly life-after-afterlife belief is like the perfect dealer’s product- immensely desirable, immensely profitable, immensely monopolisable, immensely addictive. You never even have to deliver, and yet your junkies will keep on coming back and paying for more because they want it soooo much. Talk about telling people what they want to hear!

It’s really sad.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
It depends on whether boredom is a real thing in its own right, or whether it is an absence (a privation) of another, real, positive thing. I think it's an absence. An absence of interest and challenge.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Laura:
There seems to be a presupposition that an enjoyable human life is God's primary concern for the human race.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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According to the Bible, it was perfect at the start.

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It can't have been. If it was, it would never have gone wrong.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Laura:
I don't agree with it either, but it's one of the possible explanations for God's allowance of small children being chopped up in Rwanda and the Holocaust and similar episodes of terrible suffering.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
My problem with the "happy happy happy all the time" world in which we have no free will is that it's a playpen. Every possible danger fenced off and our choices severely restricted lest we stub our toes (or worse). I'd be bored out of my skull.

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No you wouldn't, because you wouldn't have the ability to be bored! Like all things that work against happiness, boredom simply wouldn't exist in that world.

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quote:

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Originally posted by aumbry:
Marvin's desired state could surely be brought about by a frontal lobotomy.

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quote:

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Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

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Originally posted by Laura:
I don't agree with it either, but it's one of the possible explanations for God's allowance of small children being chopped up in Rwanda and the Holocaust and similar episodes of terrible suffering.

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I don't think God has anything to do with these things one way or another. Shit like this is all on us.

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quote:

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Originally posted by RuthW:
Since plenty of people have all those things without reference to God, yes, absolutely.

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Originally posted by Rossweisse:
Bronwyn, I decided long ago that if I were not willing to ask "Why me?" when good things happened - and somehow I never have asked that; I've just cheerfully accepted them - then I cannot ask "Why me?" when bad things happen. I find it makes things more understandable, at least for me, at least for now. (YMMV)

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quote:

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Originally posted by rugasaw:

quote:

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Originally posted by Bronwyn:

So many questions and so out of God' s plan. So many times it has been my god my god why hath thou forsaken me?

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I use to believe God has a plan. It nearly incapacitated me. If I believed God had a plan then times like these and others I have had recently would have cause me to hate God.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dal Segno:
He makes you a puppet not a person.

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But a happy puppet. And right now, I'd take that.

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I doubt very much that puppets are happy; I suspect "happiness" is a reality and a concept far beyond puppets.

Great Chesterton quote, JFH - thank you.

wilson said:

quote:

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None of us have ultimate free will, we're all constrained by something, whether it's circumstances, the physical world or other people's free will. The idea that free will is a kind of absolute and therefore you can't interfere with people's choices to do terrible things seems only to apply to God. We're quite happy to pass laws and enable enforcement to restrain free will amongst ourselves. Parents may struggle with exactly where the line between free will and restraint is but they still draw it every day, they don't throw up their hands and say it's impossible.

And God is supposedly bigger, better, kinder and cleverer than us as either parents or law-makers.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Scot:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dal Segno:
If you want God to intervene in terrible things, where do you draw the line? Where on the spectrum of bad things should He intervene and where should He leave us be? If God wades in to stop the Holocaust, to stop the Rwandan genocide, to stop suicide, to stop child-beating, to stop gossip, to stop unkindness, to stop bad actions, to stop bad words, to stop bad thoughts, He stops free will. He makes you a puppet not a person.

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It doesn't matter where I want him to intervene. He doesn't intervene at all. A god who doesn't intervene is of no use, either practically or philosophically, and can simply be excised with Occam's razor.

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quote:

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And as I said in my initial post, the question of why some prayers are answered and others are not is the biggest problem I see.

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I want God to be beyond my understanding.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Scot:
Okay, Ruth and Laura, I'll bite. If there is a god, but he is not responsible for the bad things, and he's not responsible for the good things, and he's really not all about providing some perfect afterlife, what is he about? What makes him god? What, apart from the burning in their bosoms, do believers need him for? Would it not be a lot simpler and effective just to get on with living the best we all can manage?

[fixed phone-induced typos]

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:

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Originally posted by Scot:
Okay, Ruth and Laura, I'll bite. If there is a god, but he is not responsible for the bad things, and he's not responsible for the good things, and he's really not all about providing some perfect afterlife, what is he about? What makes him god? What, apart from the burning in their bosoms, do believers need him for? Would it not be a lot simpler and effective just to get on with living the best we all can manage?

[fixed phone-induced typos]

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Yes, it would, and I have often thought that. But, damn and blast, the hound of heaven chases me through the 'arches of the years', and I can't get rid of him.

In other words, I don't arrive at God via ratiocination, and not through any via at all. Just something in the here and now which announces itself.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
But for it to work for all of us there really would have to be a completely new creation.

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quote:

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Originally posted by QLib:

quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:

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Originally posted by Scot:
Okay, Ruth and Laura, I'll bite. If there is a god, but he is not responsible for the bad things, and he's not responsible for the good things, and he's really not all about providing some perfect afterlife, what is he about? What makes him god? What, apart from the burning in their bosoms, do believers need him for? Would it not be a lot simpler and effective just to get on with living the best we all can manage?

[fixed phone-induced typos]

---

Yes, it would, and I have often thought that. But, damn and blast, the hound of heaven chases me through the 'arches of the years', and I can't get rid of him.

In other words, I don't arrive at God via ratiocination, and not through any via at all. Just something in the here and now which announces itself.

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Yes, this has also been my experience. And I've found that, when I've tried to ditch God, it's (sometimes) gone well at first, but then things tend to go a bit grey after a while. Giving in and going back to God tends to bring the colour back - even the long dark tea-time of the soul is more colourful.
I don't think this is just about depression, though I (sort-of) accept that it may all be a matter of brain chemistry.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Chorister:

quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
But for it to work for all of us there really would have to be a completely new creation.

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So you think God should start again, but without the Apple this time? (And who's to say he hasn't already done that one - found it didn't work and so therefore began again with our reality?)

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Marvin, but I don't WANT to be a robot. I don't WANT to have someone, however benign, controlling my every thought and feeling by topping up the appropriate chemical at the moment.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Chorister:
So you think God should start again, but without the Apple this time? (And who's to say he hasn't already done that one - found it didn't work and so therefore began again with our reality?)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Marvin, but I don't WANT to be a robot. I don't WANT to have someone, however benign, controlling my every thought and feeling by topping up the appropriate chemical at the moment.

---

I kinda do. If for no other reason than nothing would be my fault, all my failings and iniquities would be pinned on someone else.

But really, I don't know. It's times like these that genuinely make me wonder if all this shit is really worth it. If God's big plan is worth the trouble. If the final destination is actually good enough to justify making the journey.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Serious question, though--if you had an absolutely iron clad gold standard 100% guaranteed more-reliable-than-gravity proof that God really LIKED you and didn't give a flying fuck about your failings and iniquities, would you be able to put up with the other mysteries of this life (like unexplained evil)? Do you think the shoe would still pinch unbearably, or would it be more livable?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

It's times like these that genuinely make me wonder if all this shit is really worth it. If God's big plan is worth the trouble. If the final destination is actually good enough to justify making the journey.

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Been sat for half an hour reading this quote. It's a fair call.

Cleave to the Cross
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
God's big plan? Is there one? Or was he just a curious boy playing with his chemistry set. All of a sudden there was a BIG BANG!!! Now the rest is up to us.
 

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Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Raptor Eye:

quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I never said it did. I did say it disproves the existence of a God who wants to spare us the pain and suffering..

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The fact that we live in the world as it is and not in Paradise now doesn't disprove the existence of a God who wants to spare us pain and suffering. It leaves open the question as to why God doesn't end this world now and replace it with Heaven.

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So will you be prepared to challenge that God about why he chose not to spare us pain and suffering when he could? And how easily will you accept his answers (assuming he deigns to give any)? Or do you think that God is not open to such challenges? And if he isn't, why do you think him worthy of worship?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
God helps us as we strive for a better world by giving us motivation, attributes such as patience and love, and the encouragement to persevere, often against the odds. God brings us together, giving us different gifts so that we co-operate with each other as well as with God.

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Except when He doesn't. Which is most of the time.

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quote:

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quote:

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Why? ISTM that God gains as much pleasure as we do from our achievement, and building on, of all that's good and beneficial for everyone.

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Is our pain a fair price for God's pleasure?

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quote:

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quote:

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The fact that we live in the world as it is and not in Paradise now doesn't disprove the existence of a God who wants to spare us pain and suffering. It leaves open the question as to why God doesn't end this world now and replace it with Heaven.

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Which comes to the same thing, when you think about it.

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quote:

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quote:

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I think the delay is due to God's patience with us, so that we'll all have the opportunity to take up God's invitation to live God's way by following Jesus, to our benefit.

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The opportunity? God is the only one witholding that opportunity from us, by not simply giving us the ability to live that way from the start.

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quote:

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Your post is like saying someone needs to be imprisoned for years so that they can have the opportunity to be free. Well, no - you could just free them right now and they'd be free. You could just not imprison them in the first place and they'd have always been free. Adding in the imprisonment bit just adds unnecessary suffering to the mix.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Laura:
This probably all sounds mad, but it's a crazy world!

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quote:

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Marvin:
this is all God's fault. Ultimately the creator is responsible for the actions of his creation

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
The parallel only exists if you hold God personally responsible for perpetrating the evils, and that of his own free will.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Laura:
the only reasonable conclusion is that if this good maybe-God I worship every Sunday in song exists, and is truly good and omnipotent, human well-being in this life cannot be that God's primary concern.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
You are asking God to take that free choice away and criticising him for making us moral beings if you insist on his omnipotent intervention in human affairs.

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quote:

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Originally posted by RooK:
How do you go about extrapolating an excuse for an all-powerful, all-knowing creator who is the source of everything?

I'm not saying that I can't imagine the possibility of a higher purpose, or that I wouldn't even agree with it ultimately if I could understand it. It's just that the "it's all OK as long as you know he loves you" rationale is really fucking sickening.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
You are asking God to take that free choice away and criticising him for making us moral beings if you insist on his omnipotent intervention in human affairs.

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Yes, that's exactly what I'm doing. I thought I'd made that pretty clear.

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Well, it's a consistent position, at least. God made the world one way and carries out one policy and you consider he should have done otherwise. All right.

Though I can't help a sneaking gladness that in this very post you demonstrate something I'm personally happy about--that by giving you free will (even to criticize him), God produced the very Marvin the Martian we know and love.

Sorry, but you wouldn't be the same without free will. and I like you this way.
 

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Posted by Daron (# 16507) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Laura:
the only reasonable conclusion is that if this good maybe-God I worship every Sunday in song exists, and is truly good and omnipotent, human well-being in this life cannot be that God's primary concern.

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Yes. And that's why He's a useless God.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
You are asking God to take that free choice away and criticising him for making us moral beings if you insist on his omnipotent intervention in human affairs.

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Yes, that's exactly what I'm doing. I thought I'd made that pretty clear.

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quote:

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Apocalypso: Who created Satan? Is Satan part of this God-created universe? Where did the evil originate that you seem to think define's Satan's nature, especially since God must have been Satan's creator too?

Are God and Satan equals, that God couldn't forestall or prevent Satan from despoiling humanity?

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Originally posted by Scot:
Despite all of the claims about miracles and the power of prayer, I have not seen any credible evidence that such claims are true. Positive thinking has a verifiable effect, but prayer does not. As GK noted, miracles don't occur in even the most extreme cases. In the absence of any evidence for divine intervention, I think I can safely assume that there is none.

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Originally posted by RooK:
If there is a god, either this is exactly what it wants or it doesn't care. Every other attempted explanation is willful flouting of logic for the sake of prettily-formed expositing hopes.

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quote:

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Originally posted by RooK:
It seems to me that the real hurdle with faith in the christian definition of god is the fortitude to accept that it doesn't need to make sense according to our myopic understandings, and that there is ultimately value and purpose to everything - even suffering. Even jlg's end. All of it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
But if there is a God who wants to help, then why the fuck doesn't He? This world could be a paradise tomorrow, if God wanted it to be - if He actually wanted us to be spared the pain and suffering. But clearly, He doesn't. So fuck Him.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
No, this is all God's fault. Ultimately the creator is responsible for the actions of his creation.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
... However, if I say to my son "Do your homework now, or you will have to do it later and miss Ben 10," then on one hand I'm wanting something absolutely, namely that the homework will be done. And so it will be (at least as far as my fatherly might extends). On the other hand, I also want something relative to the will of my son. Namely that he realizes by himself (admittedly with some prodding) the value of doing his duties now so as to receive what he wants later. I cannot achieve this if I force him to do his homework now. Assume that my son then refuses to do homework now, and later suffers grievously from not watching Ben 10. Did I want this to happen? Yes and no. I certainly wanted to set up the choice, and I still want to keep its consequences in effect. But I did not want my son to actually make this choice, I would have preferred the other one....

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quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
True as such, but false in the way you mean it.

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Originally posted by OliviaG:
My problem is that when we fail to do our homework in the real world, the bad consequences often fall on others and not just ourselves.

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quote:

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Originally posted by RooK:

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
True as such, but false in the way you mean it.

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Yeah, no. I meant exactly "as such". All that other materialistic garbage is pure projection on your part. Especially the mincing anthropomorphizing.

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quote:

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Originally posted by OliviaG:
Great analogy. My problem is that when we fail to do our homework in the real world, the bad consequences often fall on others and not just ourselves.

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quote:

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Originally posted by RooK:

quote:

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Originally posted by Laura:
This probably all sounds mad, but it's a crazy world!

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Makes perfect sense to me. If I didn't fundamentally hate people, I might have made similar life decisions as you with respect to church.

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quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
Sorry if I made incorrect assumptions about your opinions.

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quote:

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However, your answer here leaves me none the wiser.

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quote:

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The "anthropomorphizing" (the father-son analogy in the 2nd paragraph) was an illustrative example for my own point of view (in the 3rd paragraph) - which is certainly not materialistic, whether it is garbage or not.

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quote:

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Are you saying here that you are some kind of atheistic non-materialist? A Buddhist perhaps? And since you seem to dislike the analogy (2nd paragraph), do you also disagree with what it was supposed to illustrate (3rd paragraph)? Or what?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Golden Key:
Out of curiosity: hating people in the sense of not wanting to hang around with a group of them? (E.g., church.) Or would happily send them all on a space cruise into a black hole? Or...?

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quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
Then it still remains fact that you ignore the fundamental disparity between what you are trying to find evidence for (or against) and what sort of evidence empirical methods can deliver. Empirical evidence requires regularity and repeatability, at least in the observational sense (though experiments are better). It can deal with unique events only if at least their consequences can be accessed multiply (think cosmic microwave background radiation). It can deal with agents, in particular intelligent agents, only by "hiding" from them or at least "outwitting" them (otherwise a "meta-game" with the agent ensues, e.g., the test subjects give the researchers the results they think are wanted). Miracles are by definition non-regular and (fairly) rare, with most not uniquely determinable from their consequences. Furthermore, there absolutely is no hiding from or outwitting of God. Hence if God does not want to be caught in statistics, He will not be caught.

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quote:

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Originally posted by RooK:
No, certainly not materialistic, nor garbage as an analogy for the point you made. But the scope is wrong. If there is a god, creator of existence itself, a better analogy is you building something with Legos and then claiming no agency over its behaviour. Causality and quantum mechanics and every nuance that free will is woven from are all completely understood and forged entirely by the supposed god of which we debate.

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Originally posted by Daron:
God is useless because you aren't the centre of his universe. Can you not see how terribly self-centred you're being?

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Originally posted by Scot:
Religion would have a good deal more credibility if its adherents could agree amongst themselves on at least the fundamentals.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Marvin: two questions.

Have you read Brave New World?

If you have, would you want to live in it?

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quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
But if there is a God who wants to help, then why the fuck doesn't He? This world could be a paradise tomorrow, if God wanted it to be - if He actually wanted us to be spared the pain and suffering. But clearly, He doesn't. So fuck Him.

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Paradise was never intended to be the goal of human life. The goal of human life is life with God Himself, not a supreme version of earthly pleasures.

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quote:

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Humans must accept this goal

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quote:

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This world always has been a proving ground, where God is sufficiently hidden and evil sufficiently present to provide real choice.

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quote:

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You still have a race to run and God to win, or lose.

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quote:

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
No, this is all God's fault. Ultimately the creator is responsible for the actions of his creation.

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If you are asserting that a certain treatment is due to you, then you are implicitly claiming sufficient independence from God to make such demands. You are hence a proper agent, not just a tool. In which case you incur independent responsibility for your actions to similar degree.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
the logical problem with your argument is that happiness is actually a positive state on a scale that must have a negative

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The scale on which it is measured may have a negative, but that doesn't mean anyone has to exist below any given mark.

If the hypothetical scale of happiness goes from -10 (really unhappy) to +10 (really happy), then why not just lock everybody in at +10? I mean, we incompetent, messed-up humans can develop drugs that will briefly do just that for anyone who takes them, so how much better and more permanent a job could God do?

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quote:

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If the hypothetical scale of happiness goes from -10 (really unhappy) to +10 (really happy), then why not just lock everybody in at +10?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
Marvin, I really am struggling to understand your point about this. You seem to be saying that an all-loving, all-powerful God would certainly ensure that nobody suffers in this life. You seem to be suggesting that the Christian God is ‘criminally reckless and negligent’ because he doesn’t magic us into a state of constant happiness, when he could. Have I got that right?

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quote:

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Setting aside the theological arguments about your ideas of the nature of God, I would like to know more about how things would better for the human race in your non-suffering fairytale utopia. Absent all suffering and unhappiness, what would our existence really be like? Can you imagine? Have you thought it through?

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quote:

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Because, in my mind, that would be a hideous and terrible existence, far worse than anything I could imagine in a reality in which suffering and unhappiness can and does exist. What, for example, would be the value of our constant happiness? How would we appreciate it?

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quote:

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Lets keep this simple and ignore psychological pain and suffering for a minute. You are right to suggest that modern medicine means nobody needs to suffer physical pain in this world.

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quote:

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So why do you suppose we permit pain ever to happen? Is it negligence and cruelty? Do you understand the benefits of somatic pain? Do you realise why we need it for our good health?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
Setting aside the theological arguments about your ideas of the nature of God, I would like to know more about how things would better for the human race in your non-suffering fairytale utopia. Absent all suffering and unhappiness, what would our existence really be like? Can you imagine? Have you thought it through? Because, in my mind, that would be a hideous and terrible existence, far worse than anything I could imagine in a reality in which suffering and unhappiness can and does exist. What, for example, would be the value of our constant happiness? How would we appreciate it?

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quote:

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Originally posted by lapsed heathen:
If I am locked in to a predefined state what can I become? I am a work in progress, never finished and only stopped at death.

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quote:

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If God sets the object at 9 then I will long for 10, if 10, how will I know it's 10? everybody is the same as me and I've aways been like this.

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Medicine cannot stop all pain without any side effects.

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Originally posted by Scot:
My earlier comments were made in the context of others claiming that miracles occurred in response to the volume of prayer requesting them. If that were the case, one could expect some statistical signal. I agree with you that any deity worth his flowing white beard would be able to outwit human analysis and remain hidden. Such a god probably wouldn't play popularity games with petitioners.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:

quote:

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Originally posted by Scot:
Religion would have a good deal more credibility if its adherents could agree amongst themselves on at least the fundamentals.

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One of my biggest problems with religion is that it lends itself so badly to pluralism. In and of itself, I see no harm in people believing in whatever god they happen to have been indoctrinated into, poor things, or in whichever deity they most want to be real, but when people insist that their god is the Only True God, it inevitably causes trouble for human beings. Disagreement on the fundamentals is the cause, and yet why should they agree? The demographics of religious belief are determined by such arbitrary things as regional culture and sociology, rather than some sort of Universal Absolute Truth. That’s why people may disagree so resolutely (and occasionally murderously) with each other on which of their delusions of god is the right one.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
If we were like that, physically and psychologically perfect and unable to suffer pain or sadness, we would not be human at all, would we? We would be something very else. Indeed, we would be the most inhuman beings of all.

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quote:

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To suffer, to feel pain and sadness, to bleed and to disease and to die is to be human.

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Suck it up and stop whingeing about how ‘cruel’ it all is.

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Basically, bollocks. Firstly, any sort of cultural system that strives to discern and disseminate truth is necessarily opposed to pluralism.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Fine then. I don't want to be human.

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quote:

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Then being human fucking sucks.

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quote:

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Never. As long as I still believe there is a God, I am going to be screaming my accusations at Him with all the power my voice can muster.

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quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
...religions - at least theist ones - are sufficiently agreeing on the fundamentals for you as an atheist to reject them all.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:
Yes, from an atheist perspective, the fact that all religions think they're right and (often) that all others are wrong reduces the credibility of all religions- to an atheist.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick:

quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Then being human fucking sucks.

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Well sure, some of the time, but in my opinion it beats the (real, not fairytale) alternative. I suffer quite a lot, but some people suffer more than me, and others suffer more then they, and so on, and on. Most people would very much rather be alive than dead, despite all this, so I’m guessing life has something going for it for most of us. I’m sorry it doesn’t work like that for you, and others.

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Originally posted by Evensong:
You would really choose non existence over existence Marvin?

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Eternal life with a God who doesn't care about us?

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Why? Why couldn't God just create us in a life with Him Himself? Why put us through all this shit first?

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
What's so great about real choice, exactly?

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If we all have a race to run, and God knows all about the eternal penalties we face for losing, then why does He allow some of us to have our legs broken on the starting blocks?

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If someone built a robot that acted completely randomly, and it went out into the street and killed someone, the creator would be responsible for that death even though it was not due to any specific choice on his part.

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

But that's not the case in Christian understanding. We are promised a new world where all tears are dried and pain and suffering no longer apply. It logically follows that such an existence is possible, and therefore the question of why we couldn't just have it from birth instead of this vale of tears is a valid one.

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Originally posted by IngoB:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Why? Why couldn't God just create us in a life with Him Himself? Why put us through all this shit first?

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It's a bit of speculation, but I think this is so because God is Love. How can a time-bound creature live in eternity with God?

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We do not really know, but it apparently involves "theosis", becoming like God. Further indications come from the "one Body of Christ" stuff from St Paul, as well as the Holy Spirit as Personification of the Love between Father and Son. Seems to me then that in order to be able to live in heaven, in eternal communion with God, you must truly love God, thereby personifying yourself Holy-Spirit-like into the eternal Body of Christ.

But there's a problem here. One cannot force or construct love. I think there's a contradiction in terms in the claim that God can create a creature that necessarily loves Him in true fashion. It's like saying that God can create a square circle. Not because creatures cannot truly love God, they sure can, but because true love must be an independent expression of a person, it requires a kind of autonomy to give yourself to someone. Otherwise you are just a given, a love-bot, which is not the same thing.

Thus in order for it to become possible for you to share in an eternal life of Love, you must receive the autonomy to love God, which means that there must be a risk that you won't love God. Or perhaps more philosophically: if God tried to create you as something that must be in love with Him, He would simply try to create Himself. Because there is already a Being that is necessarily in love with God, but is also necessarily One with itself: God. For you to exist as an independent person eternally in love with God, you must have the principle ability to not love Him. Otherwise you are God, not Marvin.

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I hence agree that God is not capable to grant you your wish. You must wade through some shit. Not because an eternal life without shit is impossible, of course it is. Heaven indeed will be without shit, so it must be possible. You are quite right about that. But because you couldn't possibly remain Marvin once there is no more shit, if you hadn't waded through some shit first.

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
What's so great about real choice, exactly?

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Being someone.

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Originally posted by Evensong:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

But that's not the case in Christian understanding. We are promised a new world where all tears are dried and pain and suffering no longer apply. It logically follows that such an existence is possible, and therefore the question of why we couldn't just have it from birth instead of this vale of tears is a valid one.

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Why couldn't we have it from birth according to the biblical tradition?

Well. Seems you only go there if you deserve it. So it's like a present at the end of a hard slog. Got to prove yourself first right?

That's not personally my theology. But I can certainly see why you might believe it.

Like the Great Gumby's question on a different thread, I'm curious as to how free will can still exist in heaven (or the new heavens and the new earth).

Or perhaps it doesn't. Perhaps we just float around like happy automatons like we used to in the Garden of Eden.

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
You've done it again IngoB, made God a run down clock.

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Perhaps, then, it's just as well some of us see our role as winding God up ...
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Nice. I see a raised eyebrow behind the cosmos. The ghost of the vastest, infinite smile.
 

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Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on :
 

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Originally posted by Evensong:
Perhaps we just float around like happy automatons like we used to in the Garden of Eden.

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Even if we accept the existence of a vaguely literal Eden, the beings inhabiting the joint were not automatons.

They were making choices.

The critter that ended up as a snake (and btw, what was it pre-snakehood?) made assertions that Bible-readers are supposed to assume are lies -- e.g., "God told you that if you ate of this tree you'd die, but trust me, sweetie, you won't. Here, go ahead, take a bite, it's lovely."

It (the thing) was able to distinguish between truth and falsehood, and chose (at least according to the myth) falsehood.

Please: don't recite the Lucifer myth to me again; I'm familiar with it. What the myth fails utterly to explain, though, is how Lucifer, or evil, or falsehood (pick your own terminology), enters, pre-Lapse, into a universe created by an all-wise, all-good, all-powerful God.

As I asked some time back, who created this rebellious asshole and then turned the thing loose in the Garden among these innocent, blissfully ignorant, wet-behind-the-ears, created-in-God's- image humans, and more to the point, why, knowing what was going to happen?

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Originally posted by Apocalypso:
Note, however, that the story, whether taken literally or not, makes no sense whatsoever.

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Exactly who is doing the tricking and betraying? Satan? Fine; but who created this deceiver and traitor?

Isn't it God?

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Originally posted by W Hyatt:
I expect plenty of disagreement...

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Well you won't get it from me.

Personally, I find the Lucifer-Satan myth is fine as a myth, but as an explanation of evil it lacks [checks to see if Martin PCNot is listening, and whispers...] parsimony.
 

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Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
Ingo--

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Originally posted by IngoB:
I'm not sure that the sheer volume is the main criterion, but I consider it entirely possible - even likely - that God on one hand is occasionally responding to petitionary prayer in the straightforward sense ("Please heal granny. Amen.", whereupon granny is healed) and on the other hand will thwart attempts to nail this down with medical statistics. And not so because God likes to play devious games with poor scientists. It probably would be too compelling to allow scientists to demonstrate the efficacy of prayer. It would make atheist or at least materialist points of view unmaintainable, and all but eliminate the importance of faith. Also God likely wants to discourage any mechanical use of prayer. If there was some simple causality between say the volume of prayer and its effect, then a rich person might pay plenty of people to pray for him in order to force God to miraculously heal him. That sure is not in God's interest.

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Ingo, are you saying that God won't heal some grannies because the scientists might be able to track God's behavior? What kind of God is that???

And why would God be *forced* by bought prayers? (Though bought prayers are known in both Christian and other traditions.) She could simply heal the rich man because She cares about him. Answered prayer doesn't have to mean a mechanical response--God can answer and heal us because She loves us.

And if God wants to play hide-and-seek with scientists, which She may well do , surely She can do that without letting other people suffer?
 

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Posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd) (# 12163) on :
 
I'm sorry to hear of jlg's passing and the manner in which it happened.

At this stage I am reminded of the way Dietrich Bonhoeffer was said to offer sympathy to the bereaved, by being there in support, rather than trying to offer 'words of comfort'.

From what I read on this and a few other threads I think most of us could do a lot more being there.
 

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Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 

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Originally posted by QLib:
We agree S/He's ineffable, as in you can't get any kind of an effin' handle on Him/Her.

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Added to the Quotes thread in Circus!
 

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Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :
 

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Originally posted by W Hyatt:
Somehow, somewhere along the way, billions of years after the universe started, some molecules somewhere actually got so complicated that they could, and did, start replicating themselves. That in itself is pretty incredible when you consider just how complex those molecules had to be to be able not only to sustain themselves, but also clone themselves.

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Originally posted by Yorick:
The conditions were such that the emergence of life on this planet wasn’t at all incredible- it was totally inevitable.

<snip>

People often see this the wrong way round, looking at it backwards, so to speak. To imagine human beings arising from nothing but natural physical laws and stardust and time seems miraculous, but in the real conditions of the real universe, it was really ordinary.

Sapience is also inevitable as an emergent property of biological complexity. If you could construct in a laboratory a creature with the same biological hardware as a modern human being, it would necessarily have self-awareness. I am not sure why you find this so hard to believe- perhaps you would explain?

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but in the real conditions of the real universe, it was really ordinary. [snip]I am not sure why you find this so hard to believe- perhaps you would explain?

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There's very little use setting up mythologies to explain things to the sheep when the explanations themselves have holes you can drive a bread truck through.

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Originally posted by W Hyatt:
God, who is life itself, had all this life and love and joy and happiness and no one to give it to.

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Now of course, he couldn't create other gods who would each have life in themselves because that would be cloning infinity, causing what is uncausable. So he created (evolved) us humans and gave us not just some of his life, but some of his self-awareness on top of it so that we can experience his life as though it's our very own.

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All we had to do, though, to start to ruin it was doubt what God was telling us and instead believe what our very own senses were telling us every single moment.

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So I have to wonder how God is supposed to prevent us having the potential to think that we can decide for ourselves what's good or bad when that same potential is a necessary consequence of our being able to experience and appreciate anything truly good from God. How is he supposed to take away our potential for evil without taking away our potential for experiencing his perfect gifts?

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Originally posted by lapsed heathen:

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but in the real conditions of the real universe, it was really ordinary. [snip]I am not sure why you find this so hard to believe- perhaps you would explain?

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Because its a black swan of the most unusual kind, it exists. Once and once only, afawk.

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Originally posted by Yorick:
Given the circumstances, life was bound to emerge. Given any other circumstances, it couldn’t. That life does exist shows us that the conditions were right, ergo life is inevitable.

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Originally posted by Yorick:
I read a quotation from one of the early QM lot I think, that refuted the idea that our universe is infinitely rare, and it goes something like this- that this particular universe seems so mathematically improbable takes no account of all the other universes that didn’t make it.

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Originally posted by Sir Pellinore (ret'd):
From what I read on this and a few other threads I think most of us could do a lot more being there.

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Originally posted by Apocalypso:

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Originally posted by Evensong:
Perhaps we just float around like happy automatons like we used to in the Garden of Eden.

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Even if we accept the existence of a vaguely literal Eden, the beings inhabiting the joint were not automatons.

They were making choices.

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Originally posted by Yorick:


My point? Well, it’s terribly easy to misjudge our lives as being special because they appear so mathematically improbable, when in fact they are mathematically inevitable given the peculiar set of circumstances in which we have come to be here. Wrap your head round that, and the emotional need for an extraordinary explanation disappears in a puff of smoke.

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Originally posted by Chorister:
To continue with Yorick's point - humans have an innate need to think we're special. That's why people like Marvin come along and get upset when they think God is being a selfish git for not appearing to treat us as if we are special.

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:


But if God does exist, then the world is the way it is due to a conscious choice on God's behalf. Pain and suffering exists because He wanted it to exist.

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

And furthermore, if that God claims to love us - if He is the one making the claim that we're special - then it opens Him up to even more criticism for consciously deciding to place us in a world with so much pain and suffering.

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Originally posted by Evensong:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:


But if God does exist, then the world is the way it is due to a conscious choice on God's behalf. Pain and suffering exists because He wanted it to exist.

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Not if you believe in free will.

When is that going to sink in?

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Originally posted by Chorister:
What are your thoughts on Process Theology, Marvin - where God is not as omnipotent as people have traditionally thought?

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Originally posted by Evensong:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:


But if God does exist, then the world is the way it is due to a conscious choice on God's behalf. Pain and suffering exists because He wanted it to exist.

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Not if you believe in free will.

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Do you tell your kids what to do forever if they don't want to be told?

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And besides: your whole argument ignores all the good in the world.

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Originally posted by Yorick:

quote:

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Originally posted by W Hyatt:
Somehow, somewhere along the way, billions of years after the universe started, some molecules somewhere actually got so complicated that they could, and did, start replicating themselves. That in itself is pretty incredible when you consider just how complex those molecules had to be to be able not only to sustain themselves, but also clone themselves.

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No, that is a misunderstanding. The conditions were such that the emergence of life on this planet wasn’t at all incredible- it was totally inevitable. I agree that a staggeringly immense complexity of conditions, including casual incidence, were necessary in order that life could emerge, but, given that those conditions were evidently met, the probability of the emergence of life itself was a certainty. If you ran a laboratory experiment for thirteen and a half thousand million years, in which the exact same natural conditions were met that led to the emergence of life, it would certainly emerge again. No miracle. No god.

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Sapience is also inevitable as an emergent property of biological complexity. If you could construct in a laboratory a creature with the same biological hardware as a modern human being, it would necessarily have self-awareness. I am not sure why you find this so hard to believe- perhaps you would explain?

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

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Now of course, he couldn't create other gods who would each have life in themselves because that would be cloning infinity, causing what is uncausable. So he created (evolved) us humans and gave us not just some of his life, but some of his self-awareness on top of it so that we can experience his life as though it's our very own.

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It is our own life. If it wasn't, He couldn't hold us responsible for our choices and punish the wrong ones. Which He does, so it must be ours.

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He knowingly set a significant proportion of us up to fail.

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So I have to wonder how God is supposed to prevent us having the potential to think that we can decide for ourselves what's good or bad when that same potential is a necessary consequence of our being able to experience and appreciate anything truly good from God. How is he supposed to take away our potential for evil without taking away our potential for experiencing his perfect gifts?

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Maybe He can't. But the question is this: is the fact that we have the ability to experience His "perfect gifts" a good enough justification for the fact that many of us do not experience those gifts, live lives of suffering and pain, then go to Hell cursing the creator that put us through this just so that He could lavish gifts on a few other people?

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If creating beings who can truly accept His love means having to create beings who cannot do so and who will suffer as a consequence, is it really worth it? Is it the loving thing to do for all humans?

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God is happy if only a small percentage of us ever truly accept His gifts, because then He's got someone to lavish the gifts on, and that's all He cares about (see first quotes paragraph above). I guess for the rest of us it's just tough shit. We were just the defective items on the conveyor belt of life, existing only to be thrown away.

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Originally posted by Yorick:

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Originally posted by lapsed heathen:

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but in the real conditions of the real universe, it was really ordinary. [snip]I am not sure why you find this so hard to believe- perhaps you would explain?

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Because its a black swan of the most unusual kind, it exists. Once and once only, afawk.

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But isn’t that the whole things about black swans? That they do exist?

Maybe it’s the way my brain works, but I’ve never been persuaded of supernatural forces by the massive mathematical improbability of there being life on this particular planet- simply because it does exist.

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I read a quotation from one of the early QM lot I think, that refuted the idea that our universe is infinitely rare, and it goes something like this- that this particular universe seems so mathematically improbable takes no account of all the other universes that didn’t make it.

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Originally posted by tclune:

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Originally posted by Evensong:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:


But if God does exist, then the world is the way it is due to a conscious choice on God's behalf. Pain and suffering exists because He wanted it to exist.

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Not if you believe in free will.

When is that going to sink in?

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So you think that disease, natural disasters, and the like are caused by our free will?

--Tom Clune

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

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Originally posted by Chorister:
What are your thoughts on Process Theology, Marvin - where God is not as omnipotent as people have traditionally thought?

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It's an interesting concept, but isn't it just saying that there is a God, but He doesn't actually do anything?

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Originally posted by Chorister:
There is a difference, though, between saying that God could do something but chooses not to, and God is unable to change something.

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Process theology is firstly heterodox as it denies the hypostatic union. Apart from that it works especially on denying omniscience that demands that God be a fully tick-tocked out clock.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
You do not study the intricate details of this or that religion before stating that you disbelief it.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
Neither theists, nor atheists, are in practice hindered by some supposed disagreement about fundamentals between the religions. At least not concerning their choice to become theists or atheists, respectively.

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
in the second He's merely useless.

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Originally posted by Scot:
Some have acknowledged that they can't make sense of god in light of the world they know, but said that they still believe on the basis of their personal, inner experience of him..... I'd much rather talk to someone who says, "I can't explain it, but I still believe" than listen to the folks to try to explain the inexplicable and defend the indefensible, usually at great length.

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Originally posted by Smudgie:



But what it boils down to for me is that, no matter how much my mind may work in convoluted questioning circles, I cannot deny a God whose presence I feel in every sinew of my body and by whom I feel loved and cherished. And because of that, I have no option but to trust without demanding to understand. And it seems such a weak response when people are seeking answers - it sounds so glib and dismissive and evasive and lacking in any depth.

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Originally posted by Smudgie:
I cannot deny a God whose presence I feel in every sinew of my body and by whom I feel loved and cherished. And because of that, I have no option but to trust without demanding to understand. And it seems such a weak response when people are seeking answers - it sounds so glib and dismissive and evasive and lacking in any depth.

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You're right. To me it sounds like so much hyperbolic and sentimental mush. And when people try to slather me in it too - as with Boogie's "loving God who cares deeply for every one of us" - it gets me reaching for the bucket. Sorry.
 

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 

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Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
To me it sounds like so much hyperbolic and sentimental mush. And when people try to slather me in it too - as with Boogie's "loving God who cares deeply for every one of us" - it gets me reaching for the bucket. Sorry.

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Originally posted by Scot:
I don't see any point in studying the intricate details of your version, when the next denomination down the road has a whole different set of detailed beliefs. It doesn't take a great deal of in-depth study to have an opinion about the tiny handful of universally shared Christian beliefs.

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Originally posted by Scot:
The lack of internal consistency in Christianity played a significant role in my conclusion that the whole thing made no coherent sense and I needed to look elsewhere. ... I'd much rather talk to someone who says, "I can't explain it, but I still believe" than listen to the folks to try to explain the inexplicable and defend the indefensible, usually at great length.

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That's a case of double standards. If you are so congenial to blind faith, then you should not be particularly disconcerted by doctrinal dissonances in Christianity. You should be happily singing Kumbaya or reading the mystics or whatever. If you cannot stand inconsistency and incoherence in doctrinal matters, then you should be giving theological dunces short shrift.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
QLib (& & hi by the way)

Process theology ... works especially on denying [the definition of] omniscience that demands that God be a fully tick-tocked out clock.

In other words that God MUST know what the spin of all 'currently' indeterminate electrons for eternity is, MUST know whether it will rain tomorrow, because He stands outside of time AND all time has already happened.

Which is of course ... imparsimonious to say the least.
 

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Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :
 

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Originally posted by IngoB:
But you say that you are an atheist because of the disagreement on intricate detail among Christianity. That's plain silly. It's like rejecting all of science in Newton's time, just because Newton and Huygens were disagreeing on the nature of light.

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Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
earthly parents

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Originally posted by Yorick:
Wrong. Disagreement between Newton and Huygens on the nature of light certainly does tell us something about the state of science at the time, and the fact that scientists today are in much better agreement on the nature of light tells us something else about it today.

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Originally posted by Yorick:

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Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
earthly parents

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As distinct from alien ones?

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Originally posted by IngoB:
While back in Newton's time one certainly could have been reluctant to believe in one theory of light over another, this would not have been sufficient grounds to dismiss physics as a whole, much less the entire scientific enterprise, least all human inquiry into regularities of nature!

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Originally posted by IngoB:
It is perfectly fine to reject all (Christian) theisms by their "tiny handful of universally shared beliefs", whatever those may be. That's proper for a (Christian) atheist. It is also perfectly fine to refuse following any particular theism due to the disagreement on intricate detail. That's proper for an undecided / confused theist.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
But you say that you are an atheist because of the disagreement on intricate detail among Christianity. That's plain silly.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
It's like rejecting all of science in Newton's time, just because Newton and Huygens were disagreeing on the nature of light.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
That's a case of double standards. If you are so congenial to blind faith, then you should not be particularly disconcerted by doctrinal dissonances in Christianity. You should be happily singing Kumbaya or reading the mystics or whatever. If you cannot stand inconsistency and incoherence in doctrinal matters, then you should be giving theological dunces short shrift.

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Originally posted by Scot:
I didn't say that. I offered my own, differing, personal experience in response to your sweeping claim that disagreements about religious fundamentals don't play a role in decisions to be theist or atheist. It's not just the "intricate details" that Christians can't agree on. It's the major components too.

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Originally posted by Laura:

One excellent article on the issue of God and human suffering is David Hart's "Tsunami and Theodicy", published in First Things back when. He writes beautifully, of course, but I found his treatment compelling. He touches on Voltaire, Dostoevsky, and Aquinas. But it speaks for itself.

Tsunami and Theodicy

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Originally posted by Pyx_e:

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Originally posted by Chorister:

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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The answer is: because God is a capricious cunt.

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I wish you'd release your inner poet and write us some worship songs, Marvin - they'd sure beat the saccharin ones most of us have imposed upon us.

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I laughed and did a wee.

P

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