What would you do if you were God? (Page 2) ghostgeek: If humans were made by God, as some people claim, then to say humans are imperfect is to say that God made an error with us. To admit God made an error is to say that he is imperfect. Yet God is perfect, surely? Therefore God could not have made an error and therefore we are the best we can ever be. Nothing can therefore be changed for the better.  lori100: You're bumming me out man.....  ..........God made us to have free will , to make choices, to choose good or evil.......He knew we would make mistakes, learn from them, and do better in the future......I don't know about you, but I have learned from my mistakes and am wiser for it....we are always growing and evolving, becoming better and better....  LiptonCambell: Haha that's awfully circular reasoning there ghost....I'd appreciate it if this topic doesn't get bogged down with people justifying their beliefs(although it's hard not to point to the holocaust and ask....that's perfection?) but I find one very clear problem with your reasoning; Why do you assume God must be perfect? Certainly there could be the possibility that God is imperfect, couldn't there? It would certainly explain away that nasty "Why did God create the dinosaurs, then kill them off" issue  CoIin: @ Lori That old free will excuse doesn't exonerate God from the problem of suffering as long as we grant omnipotence and omni-benevolence. I demonstrated this in another thread. If you wanna see, just holler  Just as a taster... You mention learning. Learning is a causal process. You evidently feel it takes one from a lower state to a higher state with some unpleasantness necessarily involved - a price that has to be paid. Right? Well, God is the author of causal laws, is she not? She can bring about any state she likes IN ANY WAY SHE LIKES. If the learning process involves suffering, we'd have to conclude that God is NOT omni-benevolent. Perhaps even malevolent  So there CoIin: @ Lipton As David Hume pointed out way back when, if the theists are going to argue from like effects to like causes, then clearly "the world is perfect therefore God must be perfect" is a complete non sequitur. From looking around at what we see in the world, and as you point out, the manifold ways we humans constantly IMPROVE on the natural order, a much more cogent inference would be that this world was the first fumbling attempt at creation by an incompetent juvenile deity. (Edited by CoIin) lori100: Yes Colin, if you believe we have one life on Earth , then we cease to exist, it does seem God is cruel for allowing suffering to happen. I believe we are multi-dimensional beings having a temporary learning experience on Earth. We will evaluate our progress after we die, and then plan our next incarnation. We have forgotten who we are and that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience. Many who have traveled out of body and met highly evolved teachers have been repeatedly told the Earth is a school when they ask what the Earth is. -------- We are always learning and making progress in our understanding even if it doesn't seem like it. When we make errors in thoughts, beliefs, or actions we might suffer consequences, and eventually learn from it. All exists as cause and effect, though we don't realize it often. When we get slapped in the face, we might decide to find answers as to why it happened. The teacher helps the student learn, giving some assistance, not all the answers. The mind must develop. Rudolf Steiner said "A soul places obstacles in it's path so that in removing them it will become strong. " I have had that experience myself. I used to be angry with God for bad stuff that happened to me and my family. Years later after reading a lot on spirituality , I accept what happens and can handle it much better, and have a good deal of inner peace. ( Still working on more inner peace ) I only changed because of suffering. It has been said souls only evolve from suffering---you will try to find answers for why it happened. It has been true for me. For years I refused that truth, now I accept it. Truth never changes, we do. (Edited by lori100) lori100: "Incompetent juvenile diety"......God's not going to like that one.... How do you mean we have improved the natural order? Were we supposed to have physical bodies in the first place or life on a physical Earth? I don't think so. I believe we became fascinated by others in physical forms and wanted to experience it, made errors, and have to correct them still today. Cause and effect... CoIin: Hi Lori  Well, but.... If we grant, as I argued above, that human suffering is inconsistent with an omnipotent and wholly benevolent deity, then the inconsistency remains NO MATTER HOW SHE "MAKES UP FOR IT" in the hereafter. The suffering here and now remains unjustified regardless of how much free pizza and ice cream we get later. And the stuff about learning misses the point. Yes, we humans do expect to suffer sometimes in order that a greater good be brought about - a painful operation perhaps. We humans are not omnipotent. If the surgeon had an equally efficacious procedure which was painless, he would use it. The point is that God, unlike the human surgeon, IS omnipotent (or so we are told). If she wants us to learn or improve or whatever, she can bring this about in a way that does not involve pain, grief, loss, etc. The claim that learning must involve suffering is simply logically inconsistent with omnipotence and omni-benevolence. Erm, perhaps we shouldn't take this any further in Lipton's thread  Meet up with me in my Free Will thread (in Philosophy) if you want to  more .Or make a thread of your own  CoIin: Do you agree? 1. The suffering is not good in and of itself? 2. The suffering is only good for its salutary effects? 3. Salutary effects without suffering are preferable to salutary effects WITH suffering? Or are you some kinda sadist? lori100: Yes, in our limited understanding , we do believe , as I have , all of the above. Do we see the whole picture of existence or just a small portion ---physical existence? Do we see what our actions were in previous lives that caused pain to another---that we might have to experience the effect in this life? Could God come up with a better system? Maybe , I don't fully understand it myself, just bits and pieces--having only scratched the surface in learning all there is to learn. I will try to find some excerpts from what I have read to explain some of it better, too tired to find them now... (Edited by lori100) CoIin: Cool. For the best ever treatment of the problem of evil, see the chapter "Rebellion" in The Brothers Karamazov. And Dostoevsky was no atheist He just wanted to show these dang atheists that he could play the game better than they could. And he did.  The rest of the book is (supposedly) his answer. lori100: Btw, I don't think God makes up for suffering in the afterlife. We correct our mistakes, remove huge chunks of our negative karma, and move to a higher level of understanding. People who were out of body observed souls preparing to reincarnate on Earth --in various books. They were shown the fast track of evolving--through a lot of suffering, and the slow track of evolving---through a fairly healthy, comfortable life. They each made the choice for themselves. Only a few chose the fast track--often with many physical disabilities.
CoIin: https://web.duke.edu/secmod/primarytexts/Dostoevsky-Rebellion.pdf Enjoy "Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it’s beyond our means to pay so much to enter on it. And so I hasten to give back my entrance ticket, and if I am an honest man I am bound to give it back as soon as possible. And that I am doing. It’s not God that I don’t accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket.” - Ivan Here God. Take this. I'm respectfully returning my ticket too. The price is too high. If this is the best you can do, don't expect me to applaud. - Me So getting back to Lipton's original question... I think I'd begin by ensuring children never get tortured. How about that? (Edited by CoIin) lori100: I agree , violence should not ever happen. There are many stories of Divine intervention, people's lives being saved. Why some and not others? I have told you my own experiences of healing from illness when I asked for help. God didn't make the violence, people did. I've read about appearances of the Virgin Mary. Children she appeared to asked why she chose them when others were far more saintly. She told them she does not always choose the best ones, and can't appear to all people. She didn't say why....more mysteries... CoIin: "God didn't make the violence, people did." You're trying awfully hard to get your buddy off the hook, Lori Even if we grant (which I don't) that by giving us free will, God is absolved responsibility for human acts of violence, at the very least, by creating us as we are SHE KNEW WHAT WE WERE CAPABLE OF. Or do you imagine God saying "Dang! They're fighting. I didn't expect that  " CoIin: What else would I change then? Hmm... Ok, how about don't just heal that one in a million - heal 'em all  Come to think of it, why did I make them sick in the first place? lori100: Lol, I don't think God needs my support....they are just my beliefs... I do believe God knows what we are capable of and yet allows it to happen, and is sad for many of the choices we make, but knows it is all a learning process.......and I can't think much more when tired....seems I'm already giving you a headache..... ghostgeek: Lipton, you ask why I assume God is perfect. It seems to me that this is the general consensus in Christianity. Perhaps here I'm being overly influenced by the Ontological Argument for the existence of God. For example, St. Anselm talks about God as a "Being than which none greater can be conceived," which seems to me to be saying that he is perfect. If he wasn't perfect, if he had a flaw, then it would be possible to conceive of a being without that flaw who would then be greater. Anyway, it is clear that before we start talking about what we might do if we were God we first have to establish what we mean by the term "God." In the context of this thread I am taking God to be a supreme being who cannot be bettered in any way. A being who has no faults, ie. is perfect. If you accept this premise then it seems to me that it is impossible for God to err, otherwise he would be imperfect. Therefore, how could something that is incapable of error make something that is not perfect for it's intended purpose? This leads to the conclusion that existence, as we experience it, fits the devine purpose perfectly. Being God, I would have His attributes and His intent and would therefore come to the same perfect conclusion as He has done. I would change nothing. To do otherwise would be to err. It is not a matter of belief, rather it is a simple statement of reason. LiptonCambell: still seems like a leap in logic....there doesn't seem to be much proof that God should have to be perfect other than the insistence that he is....... CoIin: @ Lipton Remember my thread on the Ontological Argument? The argument purportedly demonstrates that a perfect being ( "a being greater than which cannot be conceived" ) MUST exist. That's the proof. Make of it what you will  CoIin: Yes, but there is no particular reason to suspect that an imperfect being - a unicorn, say - must exist. If the Ontological Argument is sound, then a perfect being MUST exist as a matter of pure logic. It says nothing about the existence of imperfect deities like that old philanderer Zeus and his ilk Fans of unicorns, Zeus and other imperfect deities will have to find alternative methods of proof. (Edited by CoIin) | Philosophy Chat Room 9 People Chatting Similar Conversations |
