If you were God...

[_mentalgymnast]

I doubt that this constitutes answering on point, but this is all I have time for at the moment. With regards to preventing child abuse as God.

If I were God, I would tweak the creation. I would remove addiction and the potential to develop psychological disorders, from the human psyche.

I think that many cases of child abuse stem from addiction to alcohol/drugs that leave adults playing with a less than full deck. I also think that abusive behavior is passed on generationally, creating systems of abuse wherein the abuse becomes learned behavior.

That is to say, I think that there are children who become the abusers their parents were via the parenting "style" of their parents whose ability to interact and respond in healthy ways to children is compromised by either the abuse of substances or the cycle of abuse that they themselves were born in to.

So...take away the propensity for addiction in human beings and remove the potential for the development of psyche disorders.

Under the heading of psyche disorders, I would like to include the inclination towards aggression and violence.

I will probably have to rethink this and return later.

But then you're saying that we are mainly, if not completely, products of our DNA, right? So if God creates perfect DNA with no propensity towards aberrant behavior and genetic mutations were always pre-programmed and indeterminably fixed in place to keep our genetic endowment in line with this pre-ordained propensity, we'd all be addiction free, psychologically healthy, free from aggressive tendencies, etc.?

Wow. That would be cool.

Utopia.

Environment, entropy, unforeseen roadblocks and hardships, chance events, evil, etc. would no longer be factored in to the human condition because they wouldn't have any effect on the DNA driven impulses of the human mind/being.

A perfect world.

Regards,
MG

[_truth dancer]

Hi again,

How would the "no prior forces that would influence someone in any way to choose to abuse children " thing work? We have a long evolutionary history that also includes complex social/cultural components. How would you engineer all of the forces? What would "drive" the forces to cause them to always move in an ideal fashion in the direction that you want?

I would not engineer all the forces, just tweak something here and there way back during the singularity! :-)

Like I said, a little extra something or another influencing the curvature of space time ought to do it!

At one point there was only one energy and it developed into four, so who knows it just may, at some point in the next five billions years create another one or two... to eliminate cruelty? Who knows?

Now, actually, if I was going to create a universe I would do things TOTALLY differently but that is not what this thread is discussing... this thread is just about a way to eliminate cruelty toward children on this sort of planet. :-)

I do not think it would be that hard.

~td~

[_stemelbow]

Stem said: I agree. The suffering of humanity is perhaps the most faith-troubling issue. There is no answer.

But should we hold that against God?

Regards,
MG

That's a good question. I think considering it brings into question the concept of omniscience as it traditionally understood though. Meaning if the evils we see and experience are something God can stop, then why doesn't He stop them so we, or at least some people, don't have to suffer them? Or those of faith can suggest, if evils persist, God knows of them and can stop them but doesn't, then it must be, if God is good and wants the best for us, that God has a reason to allow them to continue. Perhaps its a bit of a mix of both. maybe God can stop some evils, but chooses not to because he has a reason to not stop them, and perhaps there are some evils that He simply can't stop.

Either way, i think its a tough issue to consider, assuming there is a God.

[_Hoops]

Oh Hoops, stop being such a poop!

Your solution is equally horrifying as the status quo. But you do get feel good about it. So that's something.

Weird that someone thinks protecting children from abuse is equally horrifying as allowing child abuse. But oh well.

And, I think most people would feel good living in a world where children are not abused. Unfortunately, is not the world in which we live so I do not think it is, "something."

~td~

Weird that someone can not recognize that, often, it is through pain that we grow the most. Even children.

Still, you have to define abuse. And even then if you can develop some consistent standard, you have to create the children so that each would potentially react to abuse exactly the same way, thereby doing justice to the children. And, you would have to create the adults such that they potentially inflict abuse in exactly the same way, with the same nuance and context.


Then, you have to consider what to do with the children once they are no longer children. They have been abuse free for 18 years - or whatever - now what? Do they become parents? Do you remove parenthood from the equation entirely? That's not participating in life, which, to me, is the height of Godly worship. This is just off the top of my head. I'm sure there's more to consider, don't you?

[_Buffalo]

This is the best approach Stem, most of the theistically inclined posters sound almost like Job's friends giving him empty advice. which God described as, "words without knowledge". When Job confronted God in the Whirlwind and was told, " Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world?" Job didn't answer him.

That is really the point. There is no answer, free agency doesn't come close, and the typical apologist for God let's his ego get the best of him/her and tries to explain what God pretty much says is incomprehensible to humanity.

1st Peter 3:15 talks about giving a reason for your hope, and doing it with gentleness and respect, something that your post does Stem, well done.

I agree. The suffering of humanity is perhaps the most faith-troubling issue. There is no answer.

Other than the obvious answer - there is no god.

[_Hoops]

Other than the obvious answer - there is no god.

One wonders, then, why after 10,000 years of societal evolution, little, if any, progress has been made on what troubles TD.

[_Buffalo]

Other than the obvious answer - there is no god.

One wonders, then, why after 10,000 years of societal evolution, little, if any, progress has been made on what troubles TD.

As humans we've been getting consistently more moral and better at caring for each other. I'd say we've made a lot of progress. We have a long way to go, though.

[_Hoops]

As humans we've been getting consistently more moral and better at caring for each other. I'd say we've made a lot of progress. We have a long way to go, though.

You might agree that at the least a discussion could be had about this?

[_Buffalo]

As humans we've been getting consistently more moral and better at caring for each other. I'd say we've made a lot of progress. We have a long way to go, though.

You might agree that at the least a discussion could be had about this?

Of course.

[_MrStakhanovite]

How would the "no prior forces that would influence someone in any way to choose to abuse children " thing work?

Since I’m God (according to the OP’s thought exercise!), I could make it work.

We have a long evolutionary history that also includes complex social/cultural components.

I’m not bound to use evolution, but these are great reasons to reconsider human agency today.

How would you engineer all of the forces? What would "drive" the forces to cause them to always move in an ideal fashion in the direction that you want?

I’m not forcing anyone to do anything, I’m merely picking a possible world in which all counts of child abuse fail to obtain.