What if he is able but unwilling. But he's unwilling only because doing so would strip us of free will which is really the fundamental uniqueness that makes life worth living.
That just seems like you’re reaching. If I was talking about any other book than the bible and made a claim like that people would accuse me of huge logic jumps.
as soon as the ants build cities, a internet and sent ships into space I'd be willing to ask them. which would be moot, since we did not create ants.
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· 5 years ago
In a bizarre twist, I'm with the guest and @princessmonstertru here.
A teacher who is able but unwilling to give us test answers, because their standards and intentions are different from those of the students—that makes sense.
But to throw out a God/god/being who is able to eliminate our difficulties or the harmful choices other make and chooses not to so for a purpose his/her/its own, a purpose unknown to us or different from how we interpret things— that's immature reasoning at best.
If i had a choice between a world where we were free to make decisions (including wrong decisions) vs a world where we don't even get the choice I'd take the freedom every time.
I get the feeling if there is a God in that sense of the word, he didn't really make us on purpose. More like he made some nifty components and eventually our weird asses came out. There's just too many interesting God concepts out there though and the default Christian one is the lamest.
What a quaint idea. How philosophical. But... philosophy has yet to define good and evil- so we can’t even say what good or what evil things happen philosophically. What is good for the spider is evil to the fly isn’t it? We can’t even understand the nature of human consciousness or define it. So if we can’t understand or explain ourselves, or the concept of good and evil itself- how would we be able to judge a god, or an extra dimensional being? Hell- half the time we can’t understand or judge each other correctly. So the answer to this is simple- if you can draw the universe you can speak to the nature, will, or existence of a god. If not- you are taking it on faith a god is or isn’t there, is good or evil.
The first thing he did was outlaw the Fruit of Knowledge. I wouldn't waste much thought on anything that would prefer me being ignorant, so long as they stay the fuck outta my way.
It’s not a fruit of knowledge they refer to in genesis- but knowledge of good and evil. To know the concepts of the two. In a religious sense there is no good or evil. There is the will of God and then there is sin- also known as rebellion against god. The idea being that the garden was paradise, and that all humans had to do was follow the will of God and all would by default “be good.” The forbidding of the fruit wasn’t an attempt to rob people of choice. As many point out- an all powerful God could have not put the tree there, guarded it, made humans so they couldn’t disobey. The tree presents a choice. That humans were intended to choose for themselves wether or not they wanted to be obedient in paradise or not. Hence the expulsion from the garden of Eden to a world where there would be “good and evil” and there would be pleasure and pain.
The imagery of “heaven” and how to get there is meant to say that a human who chooses to flow god can know paradise again but they do not have to. Hence- choice. The basic idea is that each person must choose for themselves wether they want to follow or not, and each would reap the consequences of their choice. Not that god wanted people to be ignorant. It plugs in to other bible narratives where people often question why a “good” god would ask certain things. The whole idea is that you’re talking to the all knowing all seeing creator of everything, so it would be a tad arrogant to try and tell them they are wrong about something.
It was not an informed choice. Eve was deceived when she had no understanding of even the concept. And then she tricked Adam in an attempt to share what she had learned.
And so God punishes all of humanity over his creations being ignorant of subversion, fooled by another of his creations.
That's just chapter one, and it doesn't get even arguably better for hot minute.
Not my kind of god.
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· 5 years ago
Like the comment above about the definition of "evil", it would be important to define "punishment" before we throw Christianity out the window.
It was an informed choice. That’s the point. The point of the narrative is that in a religious context the only guidance one needs is wether or not a thing would please their God. One may seek happiness and fulfillment and fill their wants and desires- but within religion one is supposed to do so while honoring their God. Even if one takes “god” out of it- if a rich person invited you to live in their mansion and estate, and said to you: “you can have anything you want, do anything you want, just don’t touch this...” would we need to debate that, or would common sense tell you that when you are in someone’s house and they ask you not to eat their shit that you don’t do it? Do you regularly help yourself to whatever you like when you’re in someone else’s house, let alone do specifically what they ask you not to? And do you think they might kick you out for that?
A teacher who is able but unwilling to give us test answers, because their standards and intentions are different from those of the students—that makes sense.
But to throw out a God/god/being who is able to eliminate our difficulties or the harmful choices other make and chooses not to so for a purpose his/her/its own, a purpose unknown to us or different from how we interpret things— that's immature reasoning at best.
And so God punishes all of humanity over his creations being ignorant of subversion, fooled by another of his creations.
That's just chapter one, and it doesn't get even arguably better for hot minute.
Not my kind of god.