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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: jlg's despair and death
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
1) how does heaven work, then?
2) why did God make us so bloody stubborn?
1. I believe that heaven will be nothingness. Which will be heaven to me. YMMV.
2. Because we're more interesting that way.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Trin
Shipmate
# 12100
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Posted
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?
Yep, good point.
Convenient.
Posts: 442 | From: UK | Registered: Nov 2006
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
So . . . what is all this, then?
If we buy into the orthodox Christian theology, the human life cycle goes roughly thus:
1. Nothing, or at least unknown: pre-existence.
2. Life on earth (from the human perspective): confusing, morally ambiguous, painful more often than not (for most); made-somewhat-more-comfortable-through-greed-and-selfishness-or possibly-just-boneheaded-ignorance-of-or-willful-blindess-to-the-plights-of-others (for a few); sheer agonizing terror and pain perhaps mercifully cut short by death (for some unknown number of others).
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.
This seems to reduce us to experimental critters in a maze who get shocked for pressing the wrong lever and rewarded -- only long after we could possibly be expected to logically connect the reward(s) to the behavior(s) -- for pressing the right one, and the Uber-Being into an objective oberver and recorder of some sort of experiment.
Meanwhile, such information as we're provided concerning the maze, the levers, the options, the consequences, rewards & punishments is, at best ambiguous, confusing, or simply nowhere in evidence.
I hope Faith Defenders will forgive my failure to find this vision at all consoling or encouraging.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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WhateverTheySay
Shipmate
# 16598
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Posted
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?
I agree.
When I'm having a bad time, everything seems worse to me. It is only when I feel good enough to see the good stuff that I do.
(ETA, because I hit post before I thought of this: Depression does not feel bleak without reason.)
[ 05. January 2012, 19:21: Message edited by: WhateverTheySay ]
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I'm not lost, I just don't know where I am going
Posts: 872 | From: Lost in Space, without a map | Registered: Aug 2011
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
How? Why?
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.
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:
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:
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.
According to the Bible, it was perfect at the start.
I think that suffering is the price of our free will. To have free will, we must be able to choose whether to go God's way or another way. Therefore another way must be made available. With free will comes responsibility and consciousness, to know the beneficial or harmful results of words and actions and recognise the connection between them, unlike non-human animals.
I believe that Jesus was given as a gift to us, not only to show us how to live God's way if we so choose, not only to show us that suffering is necessary as people had and have the free will and ability to be cruel (as they tortured and crucified Jesus), but also to show us that there is hope of life after death thanks to the resurrection.
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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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
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.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
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.
Well (and sorry for the discursion), to the extent it helps, that's not the small-o orthodox Christian teaching. There is no promise of an eternity in a non-earthly place. What it promises is (a +Durham laid out so elegantly in "Surprised By Hope") life after life after death. We don't know what happens after death - traditionally it was said that the dead "sleep" or "enjoy the beatific vision". Call it "heaven" if you like. Then, 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. Hence the wish expressed of one departed that they "rest in peace and rise in glory!" Not in heaven. Here. The resurrection of the dead was explicitly understood to be a physical, earthly, phenomenon.
As to damnation for the evil, that's trickier and it's not clear what form it would take. Many think damnation is simply that a series of choices a person makes takes them farther and farther away from God until, after death and in the age to come, that person simply does not rise and never enjoys the life of the world to come. What, after all, is the meaning of free choice if you can't choose away as well as toward?
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Pre-cambrian
Shipmate
# 2055
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Posted
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.
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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"We cannot leave the appointment of Bishops to the Holy Ghost, because no one is confident that the Holy Ghost would understand what makes a good Church of England bishop."
Posts: 2314 | From: Croydon | Registered: Dec 2001
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
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?
I said that I could be persuaded by statistical evidence complimented by some documented but unexplained events. This report, even if true, is not statistically significant, nor does it include any medical documentation.
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?
This one is sheer anecdotal evidence, and no more convincing than a childs report that she saw monsters under the bed.
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.
So humans can do all the work of god if they just get a reminder? We might do better to remind one another, and remind ourselves, and then we can do away with notions the supernatural altogether.
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 9515 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jan 2002
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
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.
Then why does the church keep trying to give answers? They don't work. It's interesting that so many believers are disturbed by the lack of answers to this problem. Nonbelievers, for the most part, are able to accept that shit happens unless we humans do something about it.
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.
I looked at faith from within and found that I was insulated from any sense of reality in it. This is far less of an issue from the outside than from the inside.
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.
When my son was bit by the neighbors' nasty dog, I was there. I stopped the bleeding, called the paramedics, took him to the emergency room, paid for the stitches, helped him through his resultant fear of dogs, and, yes, I hugged him. That's what a loving parent does. A parent who doesn't do that either doesn't love, or isn't present.
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 9515 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jan 2002
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
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?
I suspect/hope that there will be a line for those wishing/needing to tell God off and punch God in the nose. Of course, if when we meet God, we understand everything AND we're ok with that, then we might have a conga line, instead. But the thought of the first line gives me some comfort.
Of course, if we die and there's nothing (which I don't want, but fully acknowledge as a possibility), then it's moot, and we won't get any answers.
I hate death. I've been very angry at God, and terrified of God, and tangled in theology, to the point of being suicidal about that. Now, I'm more or less at a point of "I don't know; there are various strains of thought in the Bible, and I'm going to take a risk on the love; everyone ultimately being healed and safely arriving Home is the only thing that makes sense to me, and if I'm going to risk eternal destiny on anything, I might as well risk it on that; there may be nothing when I die, or something awful...but I personally can live better if I hope for heaven".
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
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.
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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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
I've been attending Anglican churches almost all my life and have never heard that teaching. So don't worry hourself over it too much, Yorick.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
That's good. I don’t really know why it should appal me so much, but honestly. I feel I need a shower.
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Nonbelievers, for the most part, are able to accept that shit happens unless we humans do something about it.
Optimistic, Scot. Shit happens is a good starting point. Sometimes we humans, in doing something about it, generate more shit. But there are times when our individual and cumulative attempts to fix, to be more benevolent, make a good difference.
Actually, I think the endless speculations about life after death get in the way of finding answers to the question "is there life before death?".
Or as Len Murray, ex TUC leader and lifelong Methodist put it (the only sermon I ever heard him preach), "I think Christians ought to get stuck in".
If future speculation generates some measure of present indifference (whether in people of faith or without it), then we have lost the plot.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Niteowl
Hopeless Insomniac
# 15841
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Posted
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.
I don't really count Adam pre-fall in that. No one since Adam has been able to avoid some suffering in this life, but I'll bet Adam appreciated the joy/peace and perfect relationship he had had with God much more after the fall, as in the old "you don't know what you've got til it's gone." Of course, some here might resent God for allowing the fall to happen. Not sure if we'll have memories of suffering here when we're in heaven, but if we do the relief of said suffering will make it that much better. I do agree with you on the boredom issue. I was an adrenaline junkie in my younger years. Playing it safe was boring. There were times I got hurt, but some of the experiences were well worth the pain.
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"love all, trust few, do wrong to no one"
Wm. Shakespeare
Posts: 2437 | From: U.S. | Registered: Aug 2010
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
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.
Except when He doesn't. Which is most of the time.
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.
Is our pain a fair price for God's pleasure?
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.
Which comes to the same thing, when you think about it.
quote:
According to the Bible, it was perfect at the start.
It can't have been. If it was, it would never have gone wrong.
quote:
I think that suffering is the price of our free will.
A price not worth paying.
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.
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.
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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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
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.
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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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
You must be wilfully ignoring the point that people have tried to make to you, Marvin. You are describing an alternate reality in which happiness can somehow exist in the absence of unhappiness. Apart from the obvious limitations of such conjecture, the logical problem with your argument is that happiness is actually a positive state on a scale that must have a negative, and is therefore dependent on unhappiness. As others have been trying to get you to see, you cannot have happiness unless you have the equivalent possibility of unhappiness against which you may qualify it. In other words, the existence of light is contingent on the existence of dark.
Is understanding this really beyond you?
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
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
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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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
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.
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.
Oh crap. You have aroused the demon of philosophy. On your own head be it...
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.
Now God can banish all sorts of real things (cancer, for instance); but he can't banish what is not real in the first place--what is actually a lack of something else that IS real. The only way he can do that is the same way anyone else does it--by supplying what is lacking. (and no, omnipotence makes no difference in this case. God can't perform logical nonsense no matter how strong he is.)
But within the playpen, challenge and interest are precisely what is lacking. For God to supply them (and thus banish boredom), he would have to remove the playpen walls. Allow some real risk into the world. Stop sanitizing all our choices. Which brings us right back to the possibility of evil.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
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.
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.
Hey, now (or Hwaet! as the writer of Beowulf would have said), Yorick! I didn't say I believed this. I am merely reporting. I just think it's interesting that so many people don't know how truly whack the after-death teaching is. (Or truly awesome, if you believe it).
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
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.
It's certainly an absence. But of what? "Interest" and "challenge" are just concepts we've come up with to describe things that cause changes in our brains that make us feel differently, they aren't real things that can be given or taken away.
The real absence is simply of the right chemicals in our brains that make us feel happy and/or content. Endorphins and so forth. We don't need "interest" or "challenge" except as a means of causing our brains to release those chemicals, and if those chemicals were always present we wouldn't even need them as concepts.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
This discussion seems to be only concerned with *human* suffering. Any suggestions on how God could have created a self-sustaining (well, except for sunlight) living world without any animals suffering?
I happen to think it is more fruitful to accept that some suffering is inevitable in the material world, and deal with the problem of all the *unnecessary* suffering humans (not God) inflict on each other. OliviaG
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
There seems to be a presupposition that an enjoyable human life is God's primary concern for the human race. What if (as C.S. Lewis noted), that such is not the case and human birth is essentially the pre-qualification for human death (and an the concomitant eternal soul) and that earthly life is simply the canvas and material that we get to work with during the time allotted?
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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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laura:
There seems to be a presupposition that an enjoyable human life is God's primary concern for the human race.
It's based on all that guff about God actually loving us, and so forth.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
According to the Bible, it was perfect at the start.
It can't have been. If it was, it would never have gone wrong.
I blame Apple.
Over-enthusiastic attempts to banish everything evil don't have a terribly good press, either.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
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.
I don't think God has anything to do with these things one way or another. Shit like this is all on us.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
I completely agree. We sat with our thumbs up our collective asses on Rwanda and even turned away some would-be Jewish immigrants during WWII.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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aumbry
Shipmate
# 436
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
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.
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.
Marvin's desired state could surely be brought about by a frontal lobotomy.
Posts: 3869 | From: Quedlinburg | Registered: Jun 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
Marvin's desired state could surely be brought about by a frontal lobotomy.
The mental effect on the individual might theoretically be the same, minus the side-effects of course. But for it to work for all of us there really would have to be a completely new creation.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
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.
I don't think God has anything to do with these things one way or another. Shit like this is all on us.
I agree, but are you equally willing to say that god doesn't have anything to do with loving friends, bouncing babies, medical successes, raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, and so on?
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
Since plenty of people have all those things without reference to God, yes, absolutely.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
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. It would be just going through the motions. It's not good enough to be artificially happy.
And I say this as someone subject to lifelong major depression.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Since plenty of people have all those things without reference to God, yes, absolutely.
Concur.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
Shipmate
# 10651
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Posted
quote:
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)
Agreed. I suspect it's a minority opinion, though.
quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:
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?
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.
I think God's plan is heaven-focused, not here-focused. We, being here, are almost entirely here-focused. Which makes it really difficult to see the plan (as if we were big enough or had the perspective to, even if we catch glimpses).
I am convinced that God uses everything, even our horrific choices - but that doesn't mean that He desired everything. When God gave us the power to choose other-than-Him, He subjected Himself to all sorts of pain, too, and much greater than ours (if only because it's our pain and all the cumulative pain of creation).
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 doubt very much that puppets are happy; I suspect "happiness" is a reality and a concept far beyond puppets. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Great Chesterton quote, JFH - thank you.
wilson said: quote:
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.
You're making a judgement about the nature of the story and we're only midway through the story. You can say, "I don't like this story, I don't think this is going to end well," but we can't legitimately judge the entire plan yet because it's not yet finished.
God isn't a bigger, better human - God is other. We're created in His image but that doesn't make us the same. God's goals for His children are different than the goals of parents for their children. Parents want their children to be 'happy' and God wants us to be equipped for "real life" (what we call heaven because we don't know what else to call it) - and He says it will be worth it. I believe Him.
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.
You haven't noticed His intervention. It may be like color-blindness; if you can't see the differentiation between the wavelengths, you can't see it - but it doesn't mean the different colors are actually the same and that others can't see the differences.
Rossweisse, I am so grateful for your good outcome. quote:
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.
It's a huge problem and God never answers it, at least not that I've found in lots of Bible-reading. Closest I've found is when He shows up for Job, but He doesn't explain anything - He just shows up and asks Job to defend his complaint. Job is satisfied by God's appearance and repents for his presumption. "Jacob I loved and Esau I hated," and I think, "why?" And we come up with various explanations but I don't know that any of them satisfy. This is the wrestling with God that all serious believers have to do, at some point in their walk. And God wants us to wrestle with Him.
RuthW said: quote:
I want God to be beyond my understanding.
Yes. Just as I want to be beyond the comprehension of my dog. And I suspect there's a smaller gap between my dog and me....
Enough yammering and I still haven't caught up with the thread.
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
Posts: 6263 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
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]
[ 07. January 2012, 07:23: Message edited by: Scot ]
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
It's one of the relatively few Heinlein tales that I haven't read. Since it's not available electronically, I had to settle for the Wikipedia plot synopsis. I think what I gathered from it is that we live in a big mindfuck, and god is a painter of dubious talent.
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 9515 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jan 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
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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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
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.
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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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
quote:
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.
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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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
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.
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.
Well, sure, but then normal ego-reality might be brain chemistry as well. Or alternatively, reality might be the exhalation of a Venusian jelly-fish. You just have to deal with your experience as is.
Yes, bringing colour back is a good phrase. Actually, I had a great spell as an atheist in my yoof, and thoroughly enjoyed sneering at all the dumb theists. But then ...
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
quote:
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.
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?)
And,of course,the blessed Clive tried to imagine all this in his adult science fiction. Not entirely successfully.
eta: Particularly Perelandra [aka Voyage to Venus, I think.]
[ 07. January 2012, 10:04: Message edited by: QLib ]
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
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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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
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?)
I think starting again without the apple would be much better for us. But ultimately God doesn't much care about us - He's arranged things for His benefit.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
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.
The smart-ass answer would be that all your failings and iniquities have already been pinned on someone else...
But I'll behave.
Stop snickering.
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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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
quote:
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?
You know what that sounds like?
If you were absolutely certain that your man loved you, even though he hit you sometimes (mostly you deserved it though) and sometimes he abused the kids (they're bad anyway, though)... would you be unwilling to testify against him?
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
The parallel only exists if you hold God personally responsible for perpetrating the evils, and that of his own free will. If that's the God you believe in, you're better off without him.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
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.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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