[quote]Oleena wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:
Oleena wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:
forlife wrote:
And I keep bringing you guys back to the heart of that question - if the only reason you think God is not benevolent is because of the level of punishment applied to those who sin, your problem is not with the concept of God creating man knowing that he would have to punish some - but the actual punishment itself. For example - if all hell really is is a plainer version of heaven but just no presence of God - is that not benevolent? What do you make of all the passages that describe hell as a burning lake with satan and all his angels nearby? I can see how you would want to believe in christianity more if you didn’t believe that hell was a burning lake with people screaming and gnashing their teeth. Giving those people exactly what they want - separation from him? After all - Christ on the cross experienced that very thing - and that was the true torment of the crucifixion for him!
But let’s deal with another aspect of your question that i tried to raise many pages back. Without a punishment for sin - moral choices would have no value. This is a rather old idea. Moral choices actually do have value outside of the concept of god- and the value is life or death. All you have to do is read up a little on the social dynamics of any other social animal to see what the consequences of acting unethically can be. If you murder your cousin, someone might murder you back. That, of course, is not even scraping the surface of the complex study of social dynamics and how it relates to a code of ethics outside of any concept of god. If there was no punishment - choosing to kill, rape and murder and on and on - would be just as viable an option as not doing those things. No, it wouldn’t. As I said, you need to read up on power dynamics. If there was no torment - then doing evil would be just as good as doing good - there has to be consequence to action. There are tons of consequences outside the concept of god for not “doing evil”. The survival of our species is a good one. Everywhere you look in the physical universe this law plays out - jump off of a building and you can yell “God is love” all the way to the ground - but your choice to jump off of the roof will still result in you hitting the ground. You’re right. You can scream “Don’t have sex before marrige” all you want, but those damned teenagers still breed!
You say that a loving God would not have created you if he knew you were going to sin and be punished for it . . . but that is not a choice at all because if he had not created you there would be no choice to make since there would have been no you to love enough to not create. . .how can I dumb this down for you . . . . You are asking why God did not love something that did not exist enough to not make it . . . it is illogical on its face . . . He could not have loved you if you did not exist, so the choice to not make you because he loved you when you did not exist is patently absurd! He could not love you until you existed Interesting. So there is something god can’t do. He can’t imagine ahead of time what he is going to create and see that he is going to love it. I’ve met unpregnant women who have better forethought than that. , now that you exist - he loves you unconditionally and is trying to save you from the consequences of the decisions you made of your own free will!
that was your answer? really?
So you cannot understand a hypothetical, eh? All you have done is proven my point by your response that you care more about the punishment than you do the love. You didn’t answer my question about what parts of the bible you’re getting your ideas from You could care less whether or not God loves anyone- it is the idea of being punished that bothers you. That was my point - you do not care about the issue of God’s love, that is merely a tool for you to attack the idea of punishment for sin. I believe we have been addressing whether or not god is acting as a loving god all knowing god, not the idea of whether or not he’s justified in punishing sinners after he brings them into exist
As for your juvenile assessment of right and wrong in a societal context - you know that in any scenario without an ultimate moral authority- all pretext of right and wrong are merely subjective to the person with the power to enforce their view. You argument was that natural consequences of choices would define something as right or wrong - but with enough power - or a majority opinion -that can disappear. Again- your concept of right and wrong is SUBJECTIVE -and consequently loses all value and meaning . . . How is god’s supposed judgement of right and wrong objective? Isn’t it weird that a lot of his ethical guidelines in the old testiment no longer apply to our society?
So you’re reasoning goes like this . . .(I’m God for the sake of argument) I could create man or not create man - If I create man, I will love him. If i create man I will give him free will to choose to love me or not. I know that some will deny me and sin and I will then have to punish them. OK - I will make no one so that I do not have to punish the ones that I love that choose to do wrong . . . that is so absurd - how can I make you see that . I’m trying to figure out how to show you that people make this absurd decision every time they strap on a condom.
I know - you gave me the perfect example - - - -Let’s flip this around to your example of the potential mother - if you are going to have a child, you will love him right? Will you punish him for being disobedient? Will you then choose to not get pregnant since you would have to punish them and you could not punish someone you love? See how absurd that is? I would choose not to have the child if I knew that he was going to eventually kill someone and I would have to turn him in and lock him up for the rest of his life- yes I would choose not that have that child out of compassion for life. I would have a child who I had to punish at some points, but in the end led a satisfying life where he didn’t spend major portions wishing that he’d never been born.
You see - it all comes down - not to whether or not God loves you enough not to create you if he has to punish you - but whether or not you think his punishment is too harsh for the sins committed. We have no problem with the idea of someone loving someone that they have to punish for doing wrong - it is the punishment itself that you have a problem with - which has been my point all along.
And which you have proven true yourself again and again . . .
The two things that people hate about Christianity is personal responsibility (free will) and the possibility of punishment for sin (consequence of action) - take those two things out of Christianity and it would be as popular as Eastern Philosophies and just as ignored . . . Whether or not Eastern Philosophies are ignored really depends on what part of the world you come from, or who raised you in that part. Where I live eastern philosophies have a greater following than western.
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and I repeat - hypothetical - you proved my point
and I repeat - God made the Laws - has the power - is the Judge - right and wrong have a fixed point - thus are not subjective.
Oh - new tangent - OT law - given to a specifically chosen group of people to distinguish them from every other society on earth . . .Have you even read the OT(in its entirety not just the parts that you can mock?)
And you again prove that it is the punishment itself that is the problem -if God was just giving everyone a time-out for sin -you’d be ok with that - but a real punishment- oh no - can’t be loving and really punish someone . . .