Did you ever think that God made doctors to remove cancer because it was the Devil who placed it there?
Every one blames God when things go wrong because the Devil wants you to believe it was God.
The Devil's greatest accomplishments are turning people from religion and making people believe God is the one who does things like let children starve, let good people die, and place cancer in people.
My Mom has cancer but we don't blame God. We blame the Devil and plead with God to help guide the hands of her Doctors to help them cure her.
Well obviously some people believe it was god's doing due to the post because someone made it and are you trying to say it is my mother's fault she has breast cancer and cancer in her uterus?
@mrscollector It is my understanding that God created everything, including the devil. So, wouldn't it ultimately be God's fault? Especially when you dig deeper, and find out that angels did not have the same kind of free will that humans purportedly have. Doesn't that make it worse in some ways? You can't say "God created everything" and then say "This isn't God's doing." You are admitting to a universal scale paradox.
Well for starters the Devil IS a creation of God. But the Devil is not. You see he was once an Angel and it was only after he fought against God did the Angel than became evil and also became the Devil. Angels had free will they just didn't get the same free will as humans. We get to challenge God's existence yet God still loves us. We say God's name as a cuss word yet God's love never changes.
God still loves the Devil and all the Angels that sided with the Devil. But what the Devil truly wanted was to be a ruler like God. It would be like a child telling it's parent that it makes all the rules now and they have to obey them even though the kid is barely 10.
God can only create and leave the tools for us to be good. God was kind enough to give us a good start. We start out as pure and our own choices make us good or evil. God is the one who offers us good choices to make. It is the Devil who for every good choice we have he makes sure there is more evil choices to pick.
Look you roll a ball down hill you hope the ball stays on the path you set and roll straight down hill into the net you set up at the end. From the moment you release the ball to the moment it reaches the net you do not and can not control what happens to the ball.
It can hit a rock and start to bounce making it reach the net faster. It could be kicked by someone walking by sending it far from the net. Or it can go smooth and end up exactly where you want it to go and get there exactly as you planned.
But the truth of it is you have no control over what will happen. All you can do is what God does. He set us all in motion one at a time and he hopes the path he set us on is the one that ends in a good way. He doesn't control what happens to us he just lets us know he will be there at the end ready to catch us when we are done.
You see a wounded feral/wild animal. It’s caught in a trap and it’s leg has gone numb from pain. You need to restrain it. This terrifies it. You remove its limb from the trap. The movement causes the numb to go to pain. Free- it tried to escape but it can’t because you’re keeping it there! You treat its wound, the disinfectant and cleaning hurts. The dressing is restrictive. The medicine is horrible and bitter. At this point it doesn’t understand why you are doing this to it. You’re a horrible cruel beast tormenting this creature.
You set it free after you are done and it feels much better. Maybe it now understands. Maybe it doesn’t. Before long you come upon an overpopulated species. It’s destroying the habitat. It will ultimately destroy itself and others. You put it down. Explain to this to the animal you killed. Make it understand why it had to die for a greater good, a larger plan. Even if it could understand your language- it cannot understand what you speak of can it? It’s mind can’t grasp such concepts. It’s experience of the world is so different than yours that it couldn’t understand.
There’s no perfect analogy for a “supreme being” but for humans- this may be the best we get. For humans- relating to that point of childhood when your parents said or did things you didn’t like but when you got older you understood- might be the closest you’d get. It doesn’t have to be a supreme being. What is it like to be a mouse? What is it like to be me? You can’t know unless you are.
It doesn’t matter if you believe in a god or not- if you have logic this is a pretty simple thought exercise- if we suppose there is a supreme and all knowing all powerful being- and you don’t understand what it is doing or why: is the more likely conclusion that you know better than an all knowing being, or that you are literally incapable of understanding the intellect of such a being? That something that has knowledge of every detail of the universe past through future- might know exactly what it is doing and why; even if you don’t?
You can likely relate- if the worlds top neurosurgeon was doing surgery- would you be in a position to tell them they are doing something wrong or what they should do? When they broke out things like saws and hammers and started going SAW 17 on a human head- would you shriek “you’re supposed to be fixing their head not breaking it!!!” Bubba- that guy knows what he is doing and may think he’s a god but isn’t close. So if you can’t even tell the mechanic or plumber or whoever how to do their job- how do you claim to understand the whole universe? You can ask “why” all you want but an answer doesn’t matter if you won’t understand it.
But @mrscollector If God is the perfect being, and can control everything, can't God change the direction of the boulder? Is God omnipotent, or isn't God? God can't be omnipotent AND unable to control the roll. Another paradox...
I think God has a duality, just like anything else in this unuverse. Rather, because God has duality, so does everything else. God can be the most pure being, and the most destructive, because God is beyond the scale of good or evil. That cancer could very well be part of a "plan", I don't know, but if it's the work of the devil, and God is omnipotent, then it is also the work of God.
The religious view of good and evil aren’t interpretive. Original sin was fruit from the tree of knowledge OF GOOD AND EVIL. The ability for humans to see more shades than “that which pleases God” and “that which does not.” Humans in Christianity are supposed to work to do that which pleases God. As for cancer and hurricanes and what not- it’s not good or evil. It just is as far as we are concerned. Why the suffering? Because original sin got humans kicked out of paradise. This isn’t paradise. Bad things happen here. Why? Who knows. No one can understand an all knowing omnipotent being.
Yeah, I agree with you, @guest_. I was only talking about potential fallacies in the original argument. I'm not speaking in absolutes, only using logic given certain speculations in given parameters said by mrscollector. That's all.
@guest_ I never look at God as he has no faults. I mean look at the Greek Gods. They had many problems. Their children weren't perfect either. Hercules even killed his children. To say something is with out flaws is a impossible thing. Truth is if God didn't have flaws than wouldn't he have been able to keep temptation from Eve? And he wouldn't of needed to flood the world. Nor would he had to need to make a promise to never do it again. He wouldn't get angry when people tried to build a tower to heaven and make different languages happen.
He has his problems but that is why he keeps himself from us now. He found that to be to much part of our lives would make more harm than good.
It's like with all parents we want to be there every second of babies life but at some point we have to let them live their own life and learn from their own mistakes. That is why even though he can make the path of life smooth he instead just lets us go on the natural path and let us make it on our own.
That’s an interesting take Mrs.C. I have pondered, in-line with some of Pumas thoughts- what if god and the Greek gods are in fact one in the same? What if either each Greek god represented an observed aspect of god- a way to reconcile the “good” and “bad” in the world and how one entity could seem so all over the place. Or perhaps even literally. Catholicism has the concept of the holy trinity, of aspects or “faces” of god.
To be honest- I’m not advocating the stances listed here or saying they are “right.” They’re merely thoughts I’ve had at various times when pondering religions of the world and different views I’ve seen it heard and how it can all fit together. Personally- I think “god(s)” or religions etc. are a personal thing I’ve never met two people who read any holy book themselves and came to the exact same conclusion on everything.
Wether a god(s) exist or not- the concept is universal- a place holder of values and reverence. Spirituality, religion, math, science- just languages. Just people all speaking different languages talking about the same stuff. We don’t have to agree with people’s ideas but I believe in respecting them. I’m glad this has been a respectful discussion filled with thought and intellect. Thank you both.
@1_puma- sorry to be brief earlier. I wasn’t being curt or anything. I was actually in between things and wanted to reply acknowledgment. I appreciate your views and your courtesy, and I’m sorry that I jumped in when you were talking to Mrs C.
Well when you listen to the stories of the bible where he interacts with humans it is always God saying NO YOU CANT DO THAT!
Like with Adam and Eve he made Eve from Adam and told him to protect her. But when he was punishing them Eve couldn't take it anymore and Adam told her he would do her punishment. Yet God got mad and told them they were not going to get to stay in the garden for doing what he asked Adam to do which was protect Eve.
He wiped the world clean with a flood because he didn't like how people were acting. So in other words he hated how the world was turning out and wanted to start over. Or how about he picked a virgin non-married woman to have the baby Jesus in a time when being pregnant out of wedlock got a woman stoned. Joseph was forced to marry her quickly so no one would harm her.
So yeah I think God does have some faults. And I think it is due to his faults that he just gave us freewill so when we fall it is not his fault.
I teach the bible to kids every Sunday and I look over the book to try to make my lessons reach them more. But truly it also makes me appreciate God more.
I think at some point someone just made it seem God was this all perfect being that when we fail it was because we failed him not that we just failed. I don't see God as this judgy king of the mountain who wants us to be pure as new snow. At least not anymore. At one point he did want that and realized he was making people miserable.
I think he realized that the only way to let us truly be happy was to let us make our mistakes because just like a small child when we fall we may cry but we will get back up and try again.
I can agree with that last part especially. Personally I couldn’t see God as this demanding and judgmental distant parent who wants you to be perfect. 1. The creator of everything would have made everything perfect if they wanted. 2. The Narrative of many religions involves a messiah of champion figure that embodies the “perfect virtue.” Why would we need such figures like Jesus to suffer and or die for the imperfection or weakness of others, why would these figures be so “special” or “chosen” if all people were to be perfect?
As you say- fall, get up. See your flaws, work to improve them. The PURSUIT of living up to these figures is the point. They’re all mostly supernatural. A human can’t do as they are said to. It’s an impossible standard and for a reason. Aspiration to be better. The higher you aim, the higher the shot lands even if it missed.
Figures like Jesus, Hercules, Etc- they set examples you can’t 100% live up to. You just can’t. But they are still relatable. No matter how hard you try you know you can’t hurl thunderbolts or be all knowing and master time and space. But you can aspire to the relatable. Try to be better and in the process never be perfect, but end up better than you were when you started.
Every one blames God when things go wrong because the Devil wants you to believe it was God.
The Devil's greatest accomplishments are turning people from religion and making people believe God is the one who does things like let children starve, let good people die, and place cancer in people.
My Mom has cancer but we don't blame God. We blame the Devil and plead with God to help guide the hands of her Doctors to help them cure her.
God still loves the Devil and all the Angels that sided with the Devil. But what the Devil truly wanted was to be a ruler like God. It would be like a child telling it's parent that it makes all the rules now and they have to obey them even though the kid is barely 10.
God can only create and leave the tools for us to be good. God was kind enough to give us a good start. We start out as pure and our own choices make us good or evil. God is the one who offers us good choices to make. It is the Devil who for every good choice we have he makes sure there is more evil choices to pick.
It can hit a rock and start to bounce making it reach the net faster. It could be kicked by someone walking by sending it far from the net. Or it can go smooth and end up exactly where you want it to go and get there exactly as you planned.
But the truth of it is you have no control over what will happen. All you can do is what God does. He set us all in motion one at a time and he hopes the path he set us on is the one that ends in a good way. He doesn't control what happens to us he just lets us know he will be there at the end ready to catch us when we are done.
He has his problems but that is why he keeps himself from us now. He found that to be to much part of our lives would make more harm than good.
It's like with all parents we want to be there every second of babies life but at some point we have to let them live their own life and learn from their own mistakes. That is why even though he can make the path of life smooth he instead just lets us go on the natural path and let us make it on our own.
Like with Adam and Eve he made Eve from Adam and told him to protect her. But when he was punishing them Eve couldn't take it anymore and Adam told her he would do her punishment. Yet God got mad and told them they were not going to get to stay in the garden for doing what he asked Adam to do which was protect Eve.
He wiped the world clean with a flood because he didn't like how people were acting. So in other words he hated how the world was turning out and wanted to start over. Or how about he picked a virgin non-married woman to have the baby Jesus in a time when being pregnant out of wedlock got a woman stoned. Joseph was forced to marry her quickly so no one would harm her.
So yeah I think God does have some faults. And I think it is due to his faults that he just gave us freewill so when we fall it is not his fault.
I think at some point someone just made it seem God was this all perfect being that when we fail it was because we failed him not that we just failed. I don't see God as this judgy king of the mountain who wants us to be pure as new snow. At least not anymore. At one point he did want that and realized he was making people miserable.
I think he realized that the only way to let us truly be happy was to let us make our mistakes because just like a small child when we fall we may cry but we will get back up and try again.