GOD EXISTS

Annachie wrote:I could probably point to several million children in Africa who are more needy. Without meaning to be disrespectful, some of them are bound to be more worthy than either of us too.

perhaps but what would a slight wisper in the ear really do to help them? this ain't the old testement. God doesn't come down from the sky with bails of food. He expects us to be smarter and more civilized to help ourselves. Not his fault if were not.

MAD-4A wrote:

Annachie wrote:I could probably point to several million children in Africa who are more needy. Without meaning to be disrespectful, some of them are bound to be more worthy than either of us too.

perhaps but what would a slight wisper in the ear really do to help them? this ain't the old testement. God doesn't come down from the sky with bails of food. He expects us to be smarter and more civilized to help ourselves. Not his fault if were not.

I would add that God expects us as individuals to help others in every way. That help must be willingly given. He gave us free will so that we can choose to participate in His plan for the world. He will not force us. If He does, He remains alone. Sharing Creation with beings that have no free will is pretty much being alone.

MAD-4A wrote:

Annachie wrote:I could probably point to several million children in Africa who are more needy. Without meaning to be disrespectful, some of them are bound to be more worthy than either of us too.

perhaps but what would a slight wisper in the ear really do to help them? this ain't the old testement. God doesn't come down from the sky with bails of food. He expects us to be smarter and more civilized to help ourselves. Not his fault if were not.

So the grand sum of God's influence on his creation is "Maybe whisper in some person's ear for no immediately apparent reason"?

Wow.

Absentee Landlord, or psychopathic child watching (and occasionally burning, drowning, starving or otherwise disrupting) an ant colony? Which characterization fits best?

EDIT: And you wonder why I don't think he's fit to cast moral judgment on anything humanity does....

Got it. They're too primitive to be saved. Does that aply to all blacks, or only those still stuck in Africa?

I always thought that the greatest argument against a single active deity was the large number of religions.

I'm not saying that there isn't a God, just that if there is, it probably doesn't bother itself with something as galactically small and insignificant as us.

That's fine with me. I don't go whinging to God every time something fails to land in my lap and God doesn't go out of his way to screw up my life.

Live and let live.

Just don't trust the translations of holy books. Each translation is affected by the preconceptions and prejudices of the person(s) who translated it.

Classic example from different versions of the Bible
Modern English translation via Latin and German = Man shall not lie with man as like husband with wife. {Homosexuality is bad}
English translation direct from original Aramaic - Man shall not lie with child as like husband with wife. {Pedophilia is bad}
Big difference from a simple translation drift, hmmmm?

Yet if God asserted His Truth directly, would we be able to refuse Him? Would not exposure to Him directly overwhelm our ability to resist doing His will? Would we not rely on God's omnipotence to solve all our ills? Would not that direct intervention diminish the creation He loves so dearly?

I believe it would. I believe that God gave humanity the ability to fix the ills that plague us, if we choose to do so. As we organize ourselves in ways consistent with His Truth, humanity achieves ever greater things. As we move away from lives guided by that Truth, the constructs we built begin to erode and crumble.

We are made stewards of Creation not as unthinking slaves to execute a perfect plan given to us. No, we are charged to use the gifts God gave us to assisst Him in helping Creation grow into what He envisioned.

The closest analogy for me is the process where I help my child learn how to navigate life's obstacles. I can tell her what do and in doing so make her dependent on me. No, I must let her live and make the mistakes her choices define. I spent her entire childhood teaching her but she must choose her own way to be the best human being she can be.

The analogy isn't perfect but does work. All those that demand God act in his omnipotence to solve our problems are like my daughter asking me to fix a problem her choices have created. He can act just as I can make my girl's problems better, but what is lost? How much is mankind's potential atrophied by God's intervention? How much of my daughter's future is made more dim because she must learn later what my actions prevent her learning while she is young?

If the choice to act in our children's lives is that complicated, how much more complicated are the choices God faces every second to balance teaching and helping for all humanity.

Michael Everett wrote:I always thought that the greatest argument against a single active deity was the large number of religions.

I'm not saying that there isn't a God, just that if there is, it probably doesn't bother itself with something as galactically small and insignificant as us.

That's fine with me. I don't go whinging to God every time something fails to land in my lap and God doesn't go out of his way to screw up my life.

Live and let live.

Just don't trust the translations of holy books. Each translation is affected by the preconceptions and prejudices of the person(s) who translated it.

Classic example from different versions of the Bible
Modern English translation via Latin and German = Man shall not lie with man as like husband with wife. {Homosexuality is bad}
English translation direct from original Aramaic - Man shall not lie with child as like husband with wife. {Pedophilia is bad}
Big difference from a simple translation drift, hmmmm?

PeterZ wrote:The analogy isn't perfect but does work. All those that demand God act in his omnipotence to solve our problems are like my daughter asking me to fix a problem her choices have created. He can act just as I can make my girl's problems better, but what is lost? How much is mankind's potential atrophied by God's intervention? How much of my daughter's future is made more dim because she must learn later what my actions prevent her learning while she is young?

If the choice to act in our children's lives is that complicated, how much more complicated are the choices God faces every second to balance teaching and helping for all humanity.

So I can add "bad parent" to the characterizations for your God. Fantastic.

I mean, let's look at his track record in responsible parenting here: tens of thousands of years without any direct intervention, then a short sharp interventionalist period 2 to 3 thousand years ago, followed by being absent again.

And this "God", in all his wisdom, decides that the lessons he imparted to us those two thousand years ago are entirely sufficient to keep his children on track.

Yeah. Real role model, he is.

More like He is raising juvenile delinquents without destroying the core that makes them worthy of love.

What makes you think he hasn't intervened in ways that will not degrade or destroy our free will? I would assert He has had numerous interventions.

The E wrote:

PeterZ wrote:The analogy isn't perfect but does work. All those that demand God act in his omnipotence to solve our problems are like my daughter asking me to fix a problem her choices have created. He can act just as I can make my girl's problems better, but what is lost? How much is mankind's potential atrophied by God's intervention? How much of my daughter's future is made more dim because she must learn later what my actions prevent her learning while she is young?

If the choice to act in our children's lives is that complicated, how much more complicated are the choices God faces every second to balance teaching and helping for all humanity.

So I can add "bad parent" to the characterizations for your God. Fantastic.

I mean, let's look at his track record in responsible parenting here: tens of thousands of years without any direct intervention, then a short sharp interventionalist period 2 to 3 thousand years ago, followed by being absent again.

And this "God", in all his wisdom, decides that the lessons he imparted to us those two thousand years ago are entirely sufficient to keep his children on track.

Yeah. Real role model, he is.

PeterZ wrote:More like He is raising juvenile delinquents without destroying the core that makes them worthy of love.

While apparently still reserving the right to judge and punish us at some unspecified point in the future for all our failings.

What makes you think he hasn't intervened in ways that will not degrade or destroy our free will? I would assert He has had numerous interventions.

And? If all of them are on the level of "waking random people up to save them from minor accidents", instead of actually being helpful in any major way, I'd still question his judgment and fitness to be worshipped as a being of superior morality.

It's an issue of trust and respect. God, through his documented behaviour, has earned neither; As such, I find it more comforting to live in a universe that doesn't feature God in any capacity.

The E wrote:Absentee Landlord, or psychopathic child watching (and occasionally burning, drowning, starving or otherwise disrupting) an ant colony? Which characterization fits best?

Neither - a parent whose younger selfish, aberrant children needed sever discipline and whose children are now growing up. Who leaves them to make their own decisions instead of forcing them to do "WHAT I SAY OR ELSE", if he did that would you be any less cynical about a "dictator of a god" who won't let me do what I want to? Can't have it both ways.

The E wrote:EDIT: And you wonder why I don't think he's fit to cast moral judgment on anything humanity does....

like your fit to make that judgment