If you were God...

[_truth dancer]

Hi MG,

Well, actually, I think you have a point! I mean a plan! LOL!

I think it would be lovely to have children protected from cruelty until such time that their brains are fully formed and they have been nurtured, loved, and cared for enough to make healthy choices. In fact, I think anything less than this is not quite, "right." ;-)

Of course, I think there are ways a (almost) powerful God could do this while maintaining loving, gentle, and attached connections with their parents and loved ones but this is just a minor alteration! ;-)


~td~

[_truth dancer]

My point is that when you awake from a nightmare and realize it was a dream, the pain isn't so real.

Unfortunately, there are children who will never awake from their nightmare.

:-(

~td~

[_thews]

My point is that when you awake from a nightmare and realize it was a dream, the pain isn't so real.

Unfortunately, there are children who will never awake from their nightmare.

:-(

~td~

Says you? Define pain. Define how if life were fair we would all share the same amount of pain. Conclusion = life is not fair.

[_mentalgymnast]

Hi MG,

Well, actually, I think you have a point! I mean a plan!

Kind of Orwellian, with a soft, huggy, fuzzy feel to it. by the way, I think my hypothetical plan stinks.

The reality is, look around, we live in a fallen world. And it may well be that there is no other way other than through opposition and atonement for everything to work. Or at least to work out.

The only other person that tried to come up with something better according to LDS theology was Satan. And his plan sounds very similar to my hypothetical example that I laid out showing how God could have chosen to do things by severely limiting agency by institutionalizing all children when they are born and restricting their opportunities.

God rejected that plan.

Regards,
MG

[_Hoops]

This thread is pointless. All of these "ideas" are nothing more than condescending back slapping and sophistry. All the cheerleading from the sophisticated agnostics and atheists is so much hot air from a well ventilated domed stadium.

So I put it to you again, TD. What would you do? Specifically. While addressing the potential consequences of your solution. And their potential consequences. And then those. And then...

by the way, the rest of us are "anti-pain" just as much as you.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Going off Truth Dancer’s criteria and I was God and I wanted to eliminate child abuse in a way that does so while maintaining the Moral Agency that Mormons often crave in their theology…

Of all possible worlds, I would actualize the world in which all agents freely choose to not abuse children. For a moral choice to be free (something impossible, in my opinion), there would be no prior forces that would influence someone in any way to choose to abuse children and not to abuse children, so the chance of someone abusing or not abusing is equiprobable, all God would have to do is pick the possible world in which no agent decided to abuse a child.

Of course, we don’t live in a world where a person as the moral agency Mormons speak of in their beliefs, but it is a metaphysical possibility that such worlds that I’ve described could exist.

Just sayin'

[_mentalgymnast]

Hi MG,

Well, actually, I think you have a point! I mean a plan!

Kind of Orwellian, with a soft, huggy, fuzzy feel to it. by the way, I think my hypothetical plan stinks.

The reality is, look around, we live in a fallen world. And it may well be that there is no other way other than through opposition and atonement for everything to work. Or at least to work out.

The only other person that tried to come up with something better according to LDS theology was Satan. And his plan sounds very similar to my hypothetical example that I laid out showing how God could have chosen to do things by severely limiting agency by institutionalizing all children when they are born and restricting their opportunities.

God rejected that plan.

Regards,
MG

Well, I was hoping to get a little more "fight" out of you! It's a bit hard to come up with anything much better than what we got, isn't it? That is unless you want to make us into a world of robots.

Regards,
MG

[_MrStakhanovite]

It's a bit hard to come up with anything much better than what we got, isn't it? That is unless you want to make us into a world of robots.

I thought it was fairly easy to come up with something better, having a world where all agents freely choose to do good isn't a logical contradiction, nor metaphysically impossible.

[_stemelbow]

The point is, if GOD has created this world as it is, (I mean really, think of everything we know that exists, think of how the human functions, think of what is possible...), I just do not think it would be that difficult for such a being to tweak a little thing here and there to eliminate the horror that exists with the current plan.

I very much agree. It seems awful that God would allow such atrocities to go without much intervention (perhaps He does on some occassions). All I can say is I hav eto trust that God knows and understands it all more than I do. That He knows the pains and afflictions of people, and He knows how to deal with them. And ultimately, I have to accept that God will bless people who suffer these awful things in ways I can't imagine. Luckily, being LDS I can safely assume God is in the business of blessing people eternally. He is focused on doing so for each and every one of us.

[_MrStakhanovite]

I very much agree. It seems awful that God would allow such atrocities to go without much intervention (perhaps He does on some occassions). All I can say is I hav eto trust that God knows and understands it all more than I do.

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.