Tiktaalik wrote:Oh, me too. It was great. Now that we've agreed on that... Why is it that god must necessarily be "good"?
I don't know the ultimate why, but somehow that is a non-negotiable, universal requirement for godhood.
As to Bruce Almighty, I don't remember it all that well (only saw it once), but I was left with the impression that it might provide fodder for discussions such as this thread.
That's General Leo. He could be my friend if he weren't my enemy. eritis sicut dii I support NCMO
The Nehor wrote:If there is a creator who made us he can't be capricious and malicious. He couldn't give us good impulses or any morality he didn't understand himself.
I don't see how that's necessarily so. Furthermore, I can understand lots of impulses that I don't personally have.
Alternately, why couldn't god have impulses to do "good" but just decide not to follow them.
Tiktaalik wrote:Oh, me too. It was great. Now that we've agreed on that... Why is it that god must necessarily be "good"?
I don't know the ultimate why, but somehow that is a non-negotiable, universal requirement for godhood.
But that's your testimony speaking, not your logic, correct?
As to Bruce Almighty, I don't remember it all that well (only saw it once), but I was left with the impression that it might provide fodder for discussions such as this thread.
The "message" that I took from that movie (shallow though it was) was that Hollywood wanted me to think that we'd all be miserable if god did too much to make the world happier. It's as though god was a bigger, kinder version of the US government and the producer was a classical liberal economist - he wanted us to think that even though we might want big brother/sky daddy to step in and fix our short-term problems, he'd just end up screwing things up worse in the long haul.
Dictators intentionally hurt people and contribute little positive good. If there is a God then God is the source of all the good of which you and I are aware of.
God, as understood by monotheistic religions here on earth, is the Destroyer as much as He is the Life Giver. He murdered everything on Earth with a flood. He created death, Satan, and Hell. He is as responsible for bad things as He is for good things. He is Alpha and Omega.
Your notions of God don't fall in line with any religion that claims knowledge of God as supported by the Torah, the Bible, the Quran, or the Book of Mormon for that matter. I take it you're a Deist of some sort?
It is true that if there is a God who is creator then that God is the author of death as well. That would be clear. I made my statement from the standpoint of considering what if there is nothing beyond death. Even so and with the suffering I see life as fully worth thanking God for it. Life is worth it. I do think understanding life as shared and not just my private satisfaction helps this view. But life is good enough that it is worth it even from a selfish view.
But what puzzles me is people forget Gods promise when they complain how unfair life is (as well as forgetting it is shared) I understand that if you do not believe in God an eternal balancing is not in view but if one does believe then as Paul noted,
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us . The creation waits in eager expectatino for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration not by its own choice but by the will of the one who subjected in hope. that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
huckelberry wrote:I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us . The creation waits in eager expectatino for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration not by its own choice but by the will of the one who subjected in hope. that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
Um. What?
Regardless, I appreciate your viewpoint that if there's nothing beyond this life then life itself is worth living whether or not everything is puppy dogs and unicorns. I tend to agree to a point.
I'm sure this cat probably isn't having a grand time:
As opposed to this cat:
God, it seems, can be quite the asshole for what He hath wrought upon mankind.
Some of the posters on this thread are using rude and aggressive language to express their views on whether or not God (assuming there an entity of the kind usually taken to be described by this word) should be judged to be a bad kind of guy because of the bad stuff that happens to innocent people in the universe that is claimed to be (in some sense at least) under his control.
I think it is healthy that this should happen, and it certainly doesn't show that the people involved are morons. One of the unfair advantages possessed by people who put forward religious propositions is the social convention, still widely held, that the very fact of enunciating a proposition that affirms a religious position entitles the speaker to be answered in a manner that is respectful of his or her sensibilities. While I would still want to maintain this convention in a social setting where relations with the people involved take in many other dimensions, I don't see anything wrong with dropping the convention of delicacy and respect for religious positions one believes to be nonsensical in the context of an anonymous discussion board such as this.
If of course one does not enjoy having his or her carefully crafted theological positions dismissed as BS, there is always the Celestial Forum. But there are times when it is healthy for someone to point out emphatically that it is impossible to polish a turd, even if people have been reverently brushing at it for many centuries.
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
The Nehor wrote:If there is a creator who made us he can't be capricious and malicious. He couldn't give us good impulses or any morality he didn't understand himself.
I think a hypothetical creator could. Such a monster might understand morality but chose a different path.
Another possibility would be a creator who didn't realize that he created us--sort of like the scientist who invents something by serendipity. Maybe it's an emergent thing just as with genetic programming techniques.
Not that I find any of those hypotheticals very compelling.
asbestosman, why do you find those hypotheticals less compelling than the hypothetical that the creator embodies all that is good and just?
Tiktaalik wrote:But that's your testimony speaking, not your logic, correct?
As though they are so easily separated.
My testimony relies in part on logic. . .
I should have phrased this differently. What I meant was, is there any non-faith-based reason for thinking that goodness is a "non-negotiable, universal requirement for godhood"?
