acrionx opened this issue on Oct 05, 2010 · 394 posts
SamTherapy posted Sat, 30 October 2010 at 5:07 AM
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For me, any religion worth its salt has to answer the classic and fundamental question of why a truly benevolent God allows terrible things to happen to the most innocent of his children. And no fudging about free will. There are certain things a loving parent doesn’t allow to happen to their children if they can prevent it. So God is either 1. A slacker, 2. A sadist, or 3. Nonexistent. I prefer to believe that God has his own limitations, perhaps self-imposed, and can’t help us out of every jam. That seems like a contradiction of the very definition of God as omnipotent, but it would explain a lot – and, I would argue that you really aren’t all powerful if you don’t have the power to limit yourself – which can become circular I suppose ÷) Still, I think that we would be better served by doing more to get our own act together, rather than depending on God to come riding to the rescue. He probably has his own problems to deal with.
Playing Devil's advocate for a moment (pun very much intended)...
I posted earlier that any attempts to understand God's motivations, intentions or even nature of being would be futile. Imagine an ant trying to understand a human, for example.
Who knows whether or not God lets these happen for the overall good of humanity? Or that - if heaven exists - the people who suffer go there straight away as reward for their terrible suffering on earth? Or some other, unfathomable reason? My cats must think I'm a sadist at times, when they get stuffed in a box and taken to a strange place to be stabbed with metal spikes by a guy in a white coat.
And maybe - just maybe - the Free Will argument is valid, after all. God gives us life, the world and everything in it. Gives us the tools to deal with most things (intelligence and a reasonably adaptable body) then lets us make the best of what we have.
Would we, as a species, learn anything if God rescued us from every self imposed disaster? Even natural disasters may be factored in, if the ultimate good of the species is the consideration, rather than the material well being of individuals. Maybe we just think too small.
Of course, as an Atheist, I don't believe in a God of any description but I believe the points above to be valid in the case of a real, existent, deity.
Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.