Pope Francis describes ‘ideological Christians’ as a ‘serious illness’

[Thrasher]

The source of evil is rebellion against God and not the tree just like when Satan fell and took 1/3 of the angels with him. That is what evil is atleast according to the bible.

IF God created everything, then he created evil as well, as well as the behavior of rebellion (or more generally, free will). If this results in his displeasure, then why would he do this if he knew that it would displease him? Doesn't seem like something a being of perfection would knowingly do.

Unless he enjoys punishing us for our misdeeds...

 

[DArtagnan]

Yes, but aren't you trying to be so open minded that your brain falls out? And if you really want to adopt that kind of position, you need to take account of all sorts of other things, not just faith in some deity: It may equivalently be that you don't truely understand father christmas or the tooth fairy or the flying spaghetti monster. Why should one reject those concepts and not some equally ludicrous father figure in the sky?

I don't reject them, but I'm not facing millions of adults who claim to understand them and have faith in them.

If I did, I'd have to consider whether they actually existed or not.

As it is, I don't really care - and I'm not emotionally invested in resisting things I don't recognise or understand the way you are.

It doesn't frighten me and I don't consider myself an idiot for not rejecting such things.

I can't claim to have an open mind and then be selective about it, it just doesn't work like that.

You can get surprisingly comfortable not knowing, but it takes time to adjust once you realise the problem with certainty.

That's not to say I'm right or wrong in my way - I just don't understand certainty on the level we're talking about here.

 

[DArtagnan]

It is the snowball effect. It starts small and gets really big.

Which would be 100% predictable from the very beginning for a supreme being.

Yes because while she knew from Adam that she shoudlnt eat from the tree it was Adams duty to look after her, he failed. They are together so they deal with things together.

His duty but they have to face punishment together? I don't understand how that's fair.

Explain please.

Pretty much.

Interesting position, and that's putting it gently

Yes.

Which makes the above position even more interesting

God didnt create people like that. It is the result of sin that has a physical element to it. The bodies of children have the effects of sin to deal with.

He didn't create sin? Who created sin? How can they be sinful as his creations - and why did he allow for it when he knew what the result would be?

You really havent look that hard have you? I dont blame you form not looking. But a lot of mass murderers enjoy inflicting pain on people. And FYI God doesnt enjoy the suffering of people that dont deserve it.

I'm pretty sure I've looked harder than most people. Mass murderers don't enjoy inflicting pain on people - it's just one more way they suffer from the inertia of making decisions that removes them from normal life. It can be a compulsion and murder or rape can bring momentary relief from a near-constant state of meaninglessness or pure suffering - but they don't actually enjoy torturing other people, they're just using them as a hopeless means to an end. More often than not, it's a desperate rebellion against "life" or whatever painful mental condition you endure by lacking empathy. The complete absence of enjoyment or normal emotion is quite common in serial killers.

Once you isolate yourself like that, life can be very hard to endure - and murdering people is never a sane choice made by people who enjoy inflicting pain. At least not as you or I understand enjoyment. You see the same kind of perceived cruelty or irrational violence commited in relationships of physical abuse. The abuser doesn't enjoy abusing - but it might very well seem that way to people who don't understand the psychology.

God enjoys the suffering of people that DO deserve it?

That 100kmph is an arbitary number however an animals instincts would help it get out of the way of a slow moving object imo. Then again i havent had much dealings with animals.

Unfortunately, lots of animals still suffer without having committed any sin. Why is that? What's the point?

 

[Roq]

I don't reject them, but I'm not facing millions of adults who claim to understand them and have faith in them.

That's only because of your particular position in time and space. If you were an ancient Greek you would be surrounded by people believing in Zeus, for instance. I can't totally reject any of these positions either, because that would be making assumptions to certainty that we can't reliably have. But, what one can say, is that given the paucity of evidence which these beliefs share, they don't stand out from the background noise to any extent that makes them interesting or viable to pursue as reasonable hypotheses for what might be true. And since the universe is only one way, out of the myriad possible ways that it might (logically) have been, that's a pretty damning indictment.

 

[DArtagnan]

That's only because of your particular position in time and space. If you were an ancient Greek you would be surrounded by people believing in Zeus, for instance. I can't totally reject any of these positions either, because that would be making assumptions to certainty that we can't reliably have. But, what one can say, is that given the paucity of evidence which these beliefs share, they don't stand out from the background noise to any extent that makes them interesting or viable to pursue as reasonable hypotheses for what might be true. And since the universe is only one way, out of the myriad possible ways that it might (logically) have been, that's a pretty damning indictment.

I'm not pursuing them - I'm staying open to them.

You have no idea if the universe is only one way - or that it even exists.

That's an assumption based on your ability to perceive and understand - or so it might well be.

 

[Roq]

I'm not pursuing them - I'm staying open to them.

You have no idea if the universe is only one way - or that it even exists.

That's an assumption based on your ability to perceive and understand - or so it might well be.

We know that there is something rather than nothing, because there has to be some substrate in which our thoughts can operate, viz Rene Descartes's "Cogito Ergo Sum" and we call the totality of that "the universe".

To say the universe is one way is not to say that we know it's configuration, just that it is in a particular configuration: In the same way your bedroom is configured in a particular way with the bed, lamp etc. in particular places. And, If I were to hypothesize about the arrangement of your bedroom, what I would need to support my hypothesis is some evidence as to the placement of the items in it, because, without that, any theorizing would be specious. In the same way all these religious theories of the universe have no traction without some sort of evidence or reason to believe them. Just saying that thousands of people believe something means zilch.

 

[DArtagnan]

We know that there is something rather than nothing, because there has to be some substrate in which our thoughts can operate, viz Rene Descartes's "Cogito Ergo Sum" and we call the totality of that "the universe".

Something and nothing are possibly just concepts we created because that's all we can deal with. There could be concepts that go beyond something or don't even reach nothing - but we wouldn't be able to comprehend them. You could exist within a dreamscape and everything you sense could be your creations limited by your ability to perceive and comprehend.

It's not something we can know as far as I can perceive.

To say the universe is one way is not to say that we know it's configuration, just that it is in a particular configuration: In the same way your bedroom is configured in a particular way with the bed, lamp etc. in particular places. And, If I were to hypothesize about the arrangement of your bedroom, what I would need is some evidence as to the placement of the items in it, because, without that, any theorizing would be specious. In the same way all these religious theories of the universe have no traction without some sort of evidence or reason to believe them. Just saying that thousands of people believe something means zilch.

Millions of people believe enough in their senses and ability to reason to believe they can say something with certainty - or call it science. It means no more to me than people saying they have faith in God.

I don't understand certainty in either case.

 

[Roq]

Something and nothing are possibly just concepts we created because that's all we can deal with. There could be concepts that go beyond something or don't even reach nothing - but we wouldn't be able to comprehend them. You could exist within a dreamscape and everything you sense could be your creations limited by your ability to perceive and comprehend.

It's not something we can know as far as I can perceive.



Millions of people believe enough in their senses and ability to reason to believe they can say something with certainty - or call it science. It means no more to me than people saying they have faith in God.

I don't understand certainty in either case.

Since nothing is the absence of anything at all, a dreamscape qualifies as "something", since there would have to be some specific structure to the universe in order to support dreams, which can hardly be described as nothing! - that is Descartes's point.

Science is not based on blind faith it's based on what works. We have justified belief in the results of science, because, for instance we have immediate evidence that airplanes built on scientific principles actually do fly. No amount of praying to Jesus or the great Juju up the mountain is going to get you from London to New York in a few hours, that requires science.

 

[DArtagnan]

Since nothing is the absence of anything at all, a dreamscape qualifies as "something", since there would have to be some specific structure to the universe in order to support dreams, which can hardly be described as nothing! - that is Descartes's point.

You're still not getting it.

You don't know what nothing is - because you can't explain it. Calling it the absence of anything at all is not comprehension. Just like saying infinity is endless isn't comprehension. You can't contain nothing or infinity in your mind. You can only contain what would theoretically lead to nothing or infinity. That's because you're limited - or because the concepts are flawed.

Both of which are not necessarily the extremes you perceive them to be.

You have no idea if a structure is required for a dreamscape - because a dreamscape is not necessarily the human construct you want it to be.

You keep insisting that your senses and your ability to reason are such that they can't be mistaken about the potential of existence.

Science is not based on blind faith it's based on what works. We have justified belief in the results of science, because, for instance we have immediate evidence that airplanes built on scientific principles actually do fly. No amount of praying to Jesus or the great Juju up the mountain is going to get you from London to New York in a few hours, that requires science.

You have no idea what works. You have no idea that your senses reflect actual reality - or simply a limited perceived reality. You don't know to what extent your senses are functional - or if they're functional at all.

You have blind faith in your ability to reason and comprehend if you believe anything is an objective fact. Blind faith - because you have no basis beyond your own capacity which could potentially be utterly limited or broken.

Getting from London to New York doesn't make science less based on faith. Travelling isn't necessarily a representation of something more real than prayer, which requires faith on some level.

 

[Corwin]

Dart, I'd like to make one small point. You continually ask why God allows people to sin, why He didn't just make it impossible or something. God didn't want/make robots!! He didn't want total control over His creation, therefore He allowed what some call 'free will' (which isn't really accurate) but which I prefer to call freedom of choice. If you are going to give your creation freedom of choice, then obviously they must be allowed to do so, even if there is a negative consequence for that choice, and there must actually BE a CHOICE available, such as obey/ disobey. God gave ONE and only one restriction and Adam chose to disobey, thus allowing 'sin' into the world. (Many theologians define 'sin' as disobeying God). Hope that clarifies that small point for you.

 

[DArtagnan]

Dart, I'd like to make one small point. You continually ask why God allows people to sin, why He didn't just make it impossible or something. God didn't want/make robots!! He didn't want total control over His creation, therefore He allowed what some call 'free will' (which isn't really accurate) but which I prefer to call freedom of choice. If you are going to give your creation freedom of choice, then obviously they must be allowed to do so, even if there is a negative consequence for that choice, and there must actually BE a CHOICE available, such as obey/ disobey. God gave ONE and only one restriction and Adam chose to disobey, thus allowing 'sin' into the world. (Many theologians define 'sin' as disobeying God). Hope that clarifies that small point for you.

No, that's not what I'm asking. I got the "free will" part the first time.

What I'm asking is why an all-knowing being would create free will, when that being would obviously foresee every single future act.

I assume you're not saying that free will means God won't know what'll happen, right?

God knows everything - or he's not all-knowing.

Meaning that God knew exactly what human beings would do with their free will - which means he willfully made people suffer and die horribly - and still does it.

 

[Corwin]

God wanted PEOPLE, not Robots!! Without freedom of choice you have only robots. Did God know what would happen? Yes, but He made that choice anyway, since He had His backup plan ready to roll. Jesus!!

 

[DArtagnan]

God wanted PEOPLE, not Robots!! Without freedom of choice you have only robots. Did God know what would happen? Yes, but He made that choice anyway, since He had His backup plan ready to roll. Jesus!!

I'll just let that quote be my post

 

[Thrasher]

So by that argument, God made us to be tormented? That's terribly cynical. Why would an all knowing all powerful being do such a thing?

 

[Corwin]

Sorry, but I don't see your reasoning. God made us to live happy fulfilling lives. We chose not to do that. We were not made to be tormented, nor do we have to be. I must be missing something here.

 

[Roq]

God wanted PEOPLE, not Robots!! Without freedom of choice you have only robots. Did God know what would happen? Yes, but He made that choice anyway, since He had His backup plan ready to roll. Jesus!!

Leaving aside the incoherence of the free will argument (not to mention the absurdity of atonement), wasn't it a bit late for the millions of people that he had already slaughtered?

Each person has just one life that is uniquely valuable to them and a truly benevolent God should value that too, not least one who should, through his omnipotence, have the means to make everyone's life fulfilling.

 

[Thrasher]

If God knew he would torment us for not picking the right choices, then he knowingly created us with the intent to torment us.

 

[Corwin]

That is a total Non-Sequitur!!

 

[Thrasher]

Not it's not. It's been at the core of the debate for the last page. Pay attention!

But perhaps the church has put a mind block in you. This is a side-effect of ideas based on faith rather than reason.

 

[txa1265]

God wanted PEOPLE, not Robots!! Without freedom of choice you have only robots. Did God know what would happen? Yes, but He made that choice anyway, since He had His backup plan ready to roll. Jesus!!

This makes more confused than ever about the role of Jesus and the fate of all those who lived before Jesus.