The 'If Gods so good' Paradox

Started by Sabby, September 14, 2010, 10:24:10 PM

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Trieste

And since we can't seem to discuss these things without pedantry, it gets a lock.

proxious


Goodboy

the reason why i avoid participating in such thread is that the term 'God' is either ill defined or not defined at all! How anyone an argue from there is beyond me.

For me the statement "If Gods so good" is ridiculous because i believe in a God who can do anything He wants, any time He wants, anyway He wants. No ifs and buts! He is the absolute master, nobody can question His actions (no matter how good or bad) while He can question anybody He wants. Kind of like a Master/Slave except that in this case the Master owns absolutely everything and makes everything possible including the actions of His slaves! He is God in the most absolute sense imaginable!

In light of this description, paradoxes such as the one mentioned here and almost every other paradox related to the 'undefined God' just vaporize.

I also have problem with people putting unnecessary 'restrictions' on God according to their own beliefs when there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In this case we can clearly see that God brings famine, death, poverty, suffering and disease! i cant see what's so difficult in accepting that FACT! Yes God can do anything He wants good, evil, or whatever. He is God after all!   >:(

btw who said God does only good anyway? It wasnt God that's for sure.  ::)
Well whoever he was he is clearly wrong! :-X

Noelle

Please make sure to point out your claims and to do a little reading. You talk about your own 'facts' and accuse other claims of being untrue, but provide no backing or research of your own save for your own opinion. We've also already discussed the goodness of God (the abridged version anyway).

Goodboy

well that's what i said in the first sentence. it's unclear which god are we talking about here; my definition, your definition, which definition, which book/source? hence this and other discussions about God are pointless.

if this is about the Christian God then ill have to take a bow and leave because i cant even pretend to understand the Trinity.

Noelle

I think we generally settled on the Christian god or just slight variations of it, since they typically put forth the notion that God is good (as found in the Bible). If we're all discussing our own interpretations, we're bound to go nowhere, since personal 'relationships' and the like with divinity are so varied and inconsistent -- even Christian interpretation is ridiculously widespread. Even so, it doesn't necessarily make it pointless, it just means you need to draw on various examples and sources out there to present why your interpretation may be more or less valid than someone else's. Ultimately, there is no real right answer given we can't know who/what God is and what his/her/its intentions are, but there are interpretations that make more or less sense.

mystictiger

That's the real advantage of believing in a non-Abrahamic religion. You expect Zeus to be a bastard. Odin is arbitrary. Baron Samedi is ... rather odd. The apparent Henotheism (worship one but acknowledge many) approach of Hinduism also has its appeal. I suspect that the nature of a God that a society worships says something about the nature of the community. I have no idea what, but I think its an interesting idea. I guess, though, that I've been heavily influenced by playing too much Civ4 - Monotheism is 'more advanced' than Polytheism, but in respect they're just different.
Want a system game? I got system games!

Kate

I think that this question has less to do with if god exists and its intention but more what good is and what reality is.

For example - is rape bad ?

In our culture and most others the answer is yes rape is bad => it is an assult that fk's many women up and causes considerable distress to those she loves etc.

Before you say "Well how can that be good in ANY way ?"

What if the victim was a raper in their previous life, and to understand themselves in relation to what is the "else" they experienced what they identified with as the "else". If this shocked them then subsequent incarnations (assuming they exist) would be less inclined to even desire to (thoughts turning them on about it would change to disgust etc).

Also the soul that was "raped" may be angry and could be of a type to evolve needs to return the favor to an incarnation of the soul which effected them so negatively to "get it out of their system"

It could easily be said "whoa slow down kate I doubt god would advocate vengeance or vengeance being a path for souls evolution... but what if "GOD" didn't have a particular path in mind for souls to evolve and let each choose their own sense of good in relation to each other ?

If that was true (and a big if) then by god not interjecting but simply by facilitating incarnations permitting souls to explore themselves, re-identify themselves or experience life - without intervention ..

"Is good" (from "its" sense of good) - assuming God has emotional landscapes we can relate to.

If God doesn't have emotional landscapes we can relate to, associating our mutual or an individuals sense of "Good" with god's is pointless.

Jude

Making the case by using sophisticated work-arounds like concepts such as past lives may seem like an eloquent way to discuss possibilities (incredibly unlikely ones at that which seem more like an ad-hoc hypothesis than anything), but when you look at the concept on a practical level, such logic is utterly abhorrent and has no place in human society.  Take Hinduism for example.

For many years in India (and to some small extent today even) ignoring the issues of the poor was justified by religious logic.  Hindu moral principles and the idea of karma holds that people are not born into their station in life arbitrarily, but based on actions in their past life.  Thus no one is unfortunate enough to be born poor, they're born poor because they were bad in a previous life.  Not only does this make no sense because the "first life" initial conditions of humanity still had some people elevated above others even when the karmic slate was clean (not to mention social mobility is the antithesis of this concept), but it leads to lack of sympathy for the poor.  After all, if they put themselves in that position, why should I help them?

They're suffering because of evil actions in a past life and it's up to them to live a good life, gain good karma, so that they can be reincarnated at a higher level.  And of course Hinduism isn't the only branch to employ such twisted logic.  Calvinists have their own deterministic nightmare.

The problem here isn't with religion in general.  There are an infinite number of potential religions that could be true.  I'm not one to make statements about the impossibility of anything because I know how hard it is to prove a negative.  It is however, difficult to deny that certain claims are more far-fetched than others, and (in a classic Saganism) extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  I find a lot of the claims that are often made by popular religions to be contradictory.  For example:

God is all-knowing, yet god has granted human beings free will.  If god knows what decision is going to be made before it is made (which is required under omniscience) then how are human beings capable of free will?  Isn't that predestination?

God is all-powerful, the source of all things, perfect, and omniscient, yet evil exists in the universe.  For reasons stated previously, this too seems contradictory.  Especially when that evil doesn't arise from entities capable of free will.

Going back to my original point, there are plenty of religious theories and configurations that get around these apparently problems. If you don't believe in a perfect god, that fixes nearly every problem.  If you don't believe in monotheism, there's another easy fix in most circumstances.  We're not discussing all religion in this thread, just those that are victims of this dilemma, because they aren't subject to that dilemma.

Mathim

Considering a permanent retirement from Elliquiy, but you can find me on Blue Moon (under the same username).

Zakharra

Quote from: Kate on October 30, 2010, 03:09:30 AM
I think that this question has less to do with if god exists and its intention but more what good is and what reality is.

For example - is rape bad ?

In our culture and most others the answer is yes rape is bad => it is an assult that fk's many women up and causes considerable distress to those she loves etc.

Before you say "Well how can that be good in ANY way ?"

What if the victim was a raper in their previous life, and to understand themselves in relation to what is the "else" they experienced what they identified with as the "else". If this shocked them then subsequent incarnations (assuming they exist) would be less inclined to even desire to (thoughts turning them on about it would change to disgust etc).

Also the soul that was "raped" may be angry and could be of a type to evolve needs to return the favor to an incarnation of the soul which effected them so negatively to "get it out of their system"

It could easily be said "whoa slow down kate I doubt god would advocate vengeance or vengeance being a path for souls evolution... but what if "GOD" didn't have a particular path in mind for souls to evolve and let each choose their own sense of good in relation to each other ?

If that was true (and a big if) then by god not interjecting but simply by facilitating incarnations permitting souls to explore themselves, re-identify themselves or experience life - without intervention ..

"Is good" (from "its" sense of good) - assuming God has emotional landscapes we can relate to.

If God doesn't have emotional landscapes we can relate to, associating our mutual or an individuals sense of "Good" with god's is pointless.

Whether you believe in past lives or not, rape is STILL BAD. It doesn't make any difference if the 'soul' is an old one or not. The rape is happening now. The person doing the rape deserves to be punished (castration or nuetering is a good punishment) and the person being raped  should be counceled.








mystictiger

Quote from: Zakharra on October 31, 2010, 11:04:30 AM
Whether you believe in past lives or not, rape is STILL BAD. It doesn't make any difference if the 'soul' is an old one or not. The rape is happening now. The person doing the rape deserves to be punished (castration or nuetering is a good punishment) and the person being raped  should be counceled.

The above quote was sponsored by the Saudi Minstry of Internal Affairs. Well, not it wasn't. Rape is one of several capital crimes in SA (the other 'fun' ones being idolatry, apostasy, blasphemy, and homosexuality). I would never have enough faith in a criminal justice system to give an irreversible punishment in its hands. You can at least be let out of prison on appeal. Who's going to reattach your nads?

There is no situation in which rape or sexual assault is good. I find arguments based on karma to be deeply unconvincing - 'you deserve it'.

QuoteGod is all-knowing, yet god has granted human beings free will.  If god knows what decision is going to be made before it is made (which is required under omniscience) then how are human beings capable of free will?  Isn't that predestination?

There are two 'cheap' answers to this:
1) our wills are never completely free. They are constrained by upbringing, education, society, arbitrary emotional attachments, and so on. Essentially free will in its idealised and philosophical form doesn't actually exist
2) merely because God knows the outcome doesn't mean that it's predetermined. I may know the outcome of the result of the Cote d'Ivoire election, but that does't mean I rigged it.
Want a system game? I got system games!

Harrison jess

dunno why people talk on religion .
we are humans and we are all the same except living styles .

Oniya

And that is why the Politics and Religion section is clearly marked, so that those people that don't wish to 'talk on religion' can choose to avoid those discussions.
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Kate

Oniya

exceptionally good point.

We are also maknig the assumption that if god does exist (i beleive so at least in a vague way) it has the same set of values of "good" our society has (which is a tall expectation I think for something so different)

Lio

If god is all good (what ever your definition) and god is all powerful (his abilities are limitless) then what ever your reasons for god introducing evil into creation....surely he could have created us, got the effect he wanted but without creating evil (defined as the opposite of gods all goodlyness)/

If you accept god is all powerful you must also accept he created evil for no other reason than having evil exist (surely making him ever so slightly not entirely good(again both good and evil by whatever standards you like, just as opposites)).
The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.

Kate

the presense of evil - if evil does exist could be seen as a teaching tool.

Can you create a society and mindset to transcend it ?

Lio

Quote from: Kate on December 23, 2010, 07:22:32 PM
the presense of evil - if evil does exist could be seen as a teaching tool.

But if god created everything he's also responsible for cause and effect. We could be taught what ever we're supposed to learn with exactly the same lesson learnt by eating marshmellows or walking through a doorway. So everything bad that happens is a creation of gods for no other reason than than having bad things happen. Unless of course laws of cause and effect were already there when god got here or he was restricted in some way (which begs the question; what is more powerful than god?). So got created evil just for evils sake, there's no other way around it...(if you accept he's all powerful).
The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.

Kate

depending on what camp of sprituality you hold - or choose yourself.

You could see this as him training us to be godlike himself.

"Here is the heaps of everything ... play, choose what you want to be and how you want to manage it, what you call good what you call bad and how to get what you want."

RubySlippers

I tend to keep my Christianity simple - what did Jesus do and say?

I don't really care about the rst of the Bible and what the apostles and the preacher Paul said about things, and I leave out Revelation entirely.

So if Jesus said the Father was good He is good but more like a stern parent that loves us but is perfectly willing to punish us as a species. Look at the world and all the evil HUMANS do to each other, the planet and you wonder why bad things happen. We reap what we sow, good for good and evil for evil. If we lives as Christians or in the morals intrinsic to the many other faiths we would likely not be having issues now.

Kate

#95
Personally I dont think God punishes us.

Our own "evil" creates problems later in life or in the next - and I dont subscribe to the catholic hell - more lost oppitunities / regret / issues that happen later consequenes that are natural that happen anyway without divine intevention. To me "god" is more a creator, not a manager, nor a judge. You can love without intruding, and "it" will give help you if you choose it, and beleif you can get that is step one of the choice.

This practically isnt diffent to faith in good or faith in your own intentions working regardless of the source or the nature of god. However being aligned or having a spiritual beleif that is strong and elavates or empowers such states of visualisation is of great benefit. Thus a christian praying to Jesus or God direct (dependin on the type of christian) while believing god (life) will answer and aid, would have comparable effect as a hindu of the same level of spirituality development doing so via shiva or whatever. To me "one God of a thousand faces" is the divinity within that is appealed to which sychronises and harmonises with like energy and calls it forth - like a tuning fork.

To me generally like attracts like more than opposites attract, and prayer (no matter what the faith) is actively using yourself as a tuning fork. One thing in common to alost all faiths is the act of prayer and meditation. Be still, listen focus ... there is a reason for that. Somethign "about that" does wonders. Is miraculous ... not paranormal, but miraculous compared to mundane actions.

Love And Submission

But  couldn't god just make us not spoiled childern and protect us at the same time? I don't have a problem with good allowing bad things to happen if he can't stop them from happening but if he's an omnipotent being he could simply erase anything negative within  the univer
se.

I mean  the warm fuzzy effect you get from helping people could still exist in the world even if all there was was good because god could command.

I have no problem with the christian god , I was raised catholic  myself , I just don't like an omnipotent god. Personally , I think the greeks were onto something with the multi-god theory. In a multi-god theory , a single god can't erase all the evil from the world because there are other gods who control things that involve said evil.



Apollo  can't erase war and bring peace to the world because ares is the god of war and Ares can't make it so that the sun doesn't exploe and kill everyone  because Apollo is the god of the sun.




Discord: SouthOfHeaven#3454

Kate

#97
DTW and Ruby.

Both of you are of a govenment recognised faith.
I am a follower of witchery (no not a white one... the else, set the clock back a while and burning me at the stake is some of what followers of simular faiths to yours would possible do.)


QuoteBut if god created everything he's also responsible for cause and effect. We could be taught what ever we're supposed to learn with exactly the same lesson learnt by eating marshmellows or walking through a doorway.

Yes. We could be taught this way, but what if God has "its" own intentions which were more aggressive than

"What happens if I teach souls up frount this and that by eating marchmellows or walking through a doorway"

What if it was

"what if i create souls and don't intervene unless they explicitly choose it, do see what they do on their own lonesome. what is "there" stuff ?" .. "I sort of already know ... but I only know from being beyond time, for me to KNOW it has to be DONE. for that to be done it has to be created and let free ... "

Talking to others which have some faith in the unseen which falls cleanly in spirituality is deserving of its own thread.

Talking of this in sentences which assume some "God" or some "divinity" exists ~at all~ (subjectively definitively true OR objectively definitively true) will cause motions to others wishing to impose their belief template.

We can move this to another thread.

Talkign to others of different faiths who are spiritual is of great interest to me. Those who are not beleiving in spiritualilty in any regard are thoughts which are not unwelcome - just unwelcome for some threads where more benifit could occur while those of a vague simular ink discuss values and reality.

OThers here seem (not are objectively, seem ... to me ... subjectively) to be getting frustrated with me not choosing to adopt what they beleive are fundamental core beliefs on reality for someone to exist while staying logical and sane. To them I am trapped in the beleif of being dismissive of what science can do and has done ... to me they are trapped being dismissive of what faith can do ... and has done.

Trying to debate this topic seems close to futile if the topic of "does god exist at all - objeictvely - if so prove it to ME subjectively" is constantly rearing its hard. THe difference between subjective and objective reality is is own thread and it will "biblically plague" the discussion here if not addressed in its own regard.

Zakharra

 Kate, can you say ANYTHING clearly? What you're saying is in one of the most convoluted and confusing ways possible. Is it possible for you to say straight out what you believe?

Silverfyre

Quote from: Zakharra on December 25, 2010, 10:06:04 AM
Kate, can you say ANYTHING clearly? What you're saying is in one of the most convoluted and confusing ways possible. Is it possible for you to say straight out what you believe?

Oh good, my universal translator isn't broken then.