I like to think of why people suffer or God allows it like this. Even if you don’t think there is a plan, 70 years on earth vs an infinity of bliss is a good deal.
Libs: The religious concept of “free will” is fundamental to our ideology because it justifies prisons, wars, exploitation, colonialism, etc. Historically it’s all the same thing.
Church dilemma - knowing the will of God vs affirming that God’s ways are inscrutable, According to convenience
What’s the use of being god if every run-down schmuck with a two dollar prayer book can come along and fuck up your plan?
- George Carlin
Reminds me of the Epicurean Paradox:
You could replace “God” with “Parents” to the same effect.
But arguing that a parent is evil because they see a child committing an error, know it is an error, and decline to intercede doesn’t rationally follow. If you helicopter over your kids and intercede every time they make mistakes, they never develop into independent and mature adults. You also induce a lot of anxiety, as you’re constantly interposing yourself between the child’s desires and actions without the ability to convey the wisdom of your decisions. So the kid sees you as the harmful force, rather than the thing you’re seeking to avert.
So what’s a Parent/God to do? Do you puppet your child, never letting them stray farther than the length of a string? Do you lock your child in a padded ceil and hand-feed them every day? Do you hardwire their programming, so they can’t deviate from your design, acting exclusively on a divine instinct?
Is that really what we consider “Goodness”?
There is also the Calculation Problem to consider. A God-like intelligence might be able to observe far more than a human without being perfectly omniscient. Similarly, they might be able to calculate probabilities more quickly and accurately without being perfectly prescient. If a Parent/God knows most of the things but is not omniscient, does that mean they are unworthy of your attention or the reception of wisdom? At the same time, is it the duty of a Parent/God to restrict the actions of the others in their domain to the things they can calculate in advance? This brings us back to the idea of the Child Prisoner or Brainwashed Child. You’re safe at the expense of any kind of growth or personal liberty. God treats you like a farmer treats a veal calf - perfectly unspoiled through inaction.
And finally, there is the problem of Entropy. A God who can foresee everything and recognizes that Evil is inevitable. Is such a God responsible for this Evil simply because it can perceive it? Is such a God responsible for this Evil simply because it cannot prevent it? Is this flaw in God’s power a reason to reject it as a source of virtue?
Consider Odin hanging from Yggdrasil, his eye plucked out in pursuit of a way to prevent Ragnorak. He is not all-powerful. He is not-all knowing. He is routinely makes mistakes and even acts out of anger, lust, or petty vengeance. He is fundamentally flawed as dieties come. And yet his primary goal and function - to prevent the end of the world - seems noble enough to justifiably cultivate a religious following.
Parents aren’t all powerful. But the Abrahamic god is (according to their faith) all powerful. So it could stop any war, any disease, any pain, … but does not. Either it’s not all powerful or not good. Choose. Or, as I think, doesn’t exist.
If you read the Bible with a purely objective mind and come away thinking God is the good guy in the story, I have some serious questions about your morality and ethics.
Username checks out?
I don’t think many Christians would actually argue for that first point tbh. It’s not something Biblically portrayed as one of God’s gifts. Free will is portrayed as something that was given conditionally, but taking from the tree of knowledge and specifically eating the fruit of knowledge is known as man’s first sin in the Bible.
I think it’s a bit of a metaphor for a parent wanting to shield their child from the harshness of reality, but as the sheltered child grows older they often want to know more about the outside world and become exposed to that cruelty. This was my own experience with religion growing up. A teacher of mine one day sat us down and pleaded the above with our class, as many of us grew to see through the veil of how reality looked.
In retrospect I think some things about the world make sense to not told about, depending on one’s age. However, I think other things should never be hidden, have been hidden, or done in other cases.
Side note: I think the idea of God’s plan is for people to hold love for one another. Lots of people lose sight of what they are called to do and how they are to act though. They’re called to love their neighbor as their self, called to love their enemy, and called to forgive others for their transgressions. I personally think people are called to do good works in conjunction with holding faith, as people are called to act righteously in this life.
I don’t think many Christians would actually argue for that first point tbh.
Then truthfully, I don’t think you’ve had this conversation with many christians. Every single one immediately defaults to that point when confronted with the horrors god would be responsible for if god is in control.
I’m not saying that people don’t have free will or that it’s not talked about in the Bible, but free will is not something presented as a gift, yet alone God’s greatest gift to humanity as the meme says.
From my perspective, once God set the universe in motion he has mostly taken a step back from direct action. I would say life is a test of sorts for us, to see if we can make earth resemble the good of heaven, on a humanity wide scale. But it’s also an individual test for each person’s willingness to use their obtained knowledge to still be good unto others. We are all the children of God, from my own perspective we are learning to become like God, who is the Bible is shown as loving and kind.
Don’t worry, they don’t read the Bible, and especially don’t read the old testament.
They believe they have god given freedom of action
Did Calvin write this post?
It was Hobbes who said…
“But his Lordship [tells]us that God is wholly here, and wholly there, and wholly every where; because he has no parts. I cannot comprehend nor conceive this. For methinks it implies also that the whole world is also in the whole God, and in every part of God. Nor can I find anything of this in the Scripture. If I could find it there, I could believe it; and if I could find it in the public doctrine of the Church, I could easily abstain from contradicting it.”
Only the right half. Arminius was responsible for the left.
Thought terminating cliche
This
You have the freedom to choose God or face an eternity of unimaginable suffering.
No good god would make an unlasting punishment. if you have forever, then even Hitler, Dahmer would have enough time for a finite punishment. Even the worst people in the world don’t deserve a unlasting punishment.
The Nicean Council excluded a bunch of books, and Jesus was Jewish. In kabbalah, you learn about reincarnation, and so why did people think Jesus and John were OT prophets? So karma isn’t a punishment, but a teacher, you repeat lessons, which are scaffolded, until they are mastered. Well, why don’t you remember past life lessons? Why aren’t crib sheets allowed in exams? Is doing the right thing only for personal gain still the right thing? Then no one should be upset with billionaires for reversing dei. And Jesus said the whole law can be summed love God, love your neighbor as yourself. Not better than, not less than. And that the kingdom of heaven is within us. Also the fall of the morning star gave “the devil” the earth as his dominion. “Be in the world, not of it,” and “be wise as serpents, innocent as doves,” eg be neither boot nor doormat. Love you neighbor as yourself. Ha-Satan is the prosecutor, who freely comes and goes into heaven (where is the Kingdom?) who lists every reason (sin) you don’t get to be there (schism of self). And a defending angel can list one redeeming quality and you’re in. You passed that particular lesson set. Now you have a new set.
Also Jesus said he teaches in parables, don’t take things so literally. Why wouldn’t he want every student to understand? They’re not on that lesson set, yet. Someone just learning division isn’t ready for trig.
You make a great point about how we’re not allowed to remember lessons. Wouldn’t the world be more peaceful if everyone knew what lessons they had already learnt? Like say in one life someone insults someone with a disablity, the next life they’re a person with the same disability and they remember the insults they said so they know how shitty they made that person feel? And in turn, would make them do the right thing more often, not because of personal gain but because it’s the right thing to do. Without the memories, people could revert straight back to throwing insults. It’s like putting a kindergartener in college math because “Well you’ve been here before so you must remember.” but the kindergartener can’t even do his times tables.
My personal perspective is we forget because doing the right things for the wrong reasons, hoping for punishment or reward, is wrong. And also because variables change over time, so the lessons can’t be presented in the same way. For instance the difference between common core multiplication and memorizing the tables.
Or another example, the periodic tables contain n elements at one time, x elements another.
So even if I remember the periodic tables from when I learned it (I don’t!), they’ve changed in the decades since, so my knowledge is incomplete. Assuming I had the physical, mental, financial and material capacity to become a physicist, should I choose, I have a lot to relearn, unlearn, and learn new things, additionally. And that’s just this lifetime.
I appreciate your non-hostile inquiry style. Thanks so much. Btw these things don’t require God. It’s just an allegorical tool. Just like communism has many approaches and corruptions as there are minds to conceive them, so too religions. Even Buddhism and Taoism.
I always wondered about that. When would enough be enough.
It could take hundreds or thousands of years but no one person deserves unending punishment for finite sins.
Depends on the flavour of Christianity
At one end unforgiven sins condemn you to the ancient Greek underworld, slightly modified
At the other end you land in limbo if you haven’t been perfect for a time that fits, thence to heaven for the rest of forever
Beyond that end, their god is infinitely forgiving so everyone goes straight to heaven.
At the other end you land in limbo if you haven’t been perfect
Slight correction, but limbo was the ‘first’ area of hell, where you just get bored forever. Purgatory was where you washed off the crusted shit on your soul and could eventually get into heaven.
Well, since this is a religious discussion, I’m a Christian. It’s always God.
Job 1:6-12 very clearly shows God granting permission for Satan to test Job.
1 Kings 22:19-22 shows the “court in heaven” and God soliciting ideas from spirits for enticing Ahab to attack Ramoth Gilead, where he will die. When a good suggestion is made, God grants permission.
Exodus 10:1-2 states clearly that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart to not let the slaves go, so that God could display his “signs” (plagues).
Satan is a liar, and the father of lies.
Romans 9:19-21 NIV
One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
Wow, sounds like a cruel deity that’s definitely not worthy of worship.
Hey, at least you’re judging based on the facts of what the Bible says. God is who He is. He’s not campaigning. You disagree with Him, but at least it’s really Him.
Of course, that puts you in the same position as Job. You want to judge God. You want to put him on trial. You disagree with Him.
And if you have the opportunity to question Him directly, you’ll say the same thing Job said.
I’m judging a fictional character based on how he’s characterized by the book he appears in. There may be a higher power, but the god of the Bible certainly ain’t it.
Certainly? You have a better candidate? Baal? Molech? Satan, perhaps?
You do you; pick a side, deny the battle, anything you choose.
I’m quite seriously suggesting that the God of the Bible, and specifically the Christian God, is is the most perfect God that could be imagined, and yet wholly unexpected as He is revealed. The God of the Bible soothes no one. He ruffles everyone’s feathers. He is pure perfect and exacting. Yet there is love and mercy there.
Now, His followers have done a lot to screw up that presentation. But that’s as it always has been. In the Old Testament, in Jesus’s day, and now, the people of God - even those with direct divine revelation - have been misrepresenting Him.
Joshua 24:15 NIV
But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. [Or the gods of reason, science, and unbelief?] But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Certainly. Any candidate that doesn’t have a traceable origin as being created by people would be a good start, which all the religions of the world do.
I’m quite seriously suggesting that the God of the Bible, and specifically the Christian God, is is the most perfect God that could be imagined
Yes, that’s what people of every religion say about their god. I’m guessing your parents are Christian?
And if you have the opportunity to question Him directly, you’ll say the same thing Job said.
That would be what, “Why are you so weirdly obsessed with Leviathan?” after Job 41?
Haha, Leviathan was certainly the “big bad” in Job. I don’t know what creature was being referred to (maybe a species of large crocodile?) but yes, he gets a lot of air time.
No, I meant Job 42:3, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.”
I would add that not every author is writing unbiased in the Bible. We know now for instance that some books near the end of the Bible attributed to Paul may not have been written by him, but by some of the people under Paul in the early church. So adding parts about women not holding positions of authority within the Church more or less served to cement their own positions and authority for the early-Christians that were formalizing the religion.
Yep. That’s addressed in books the Council left out.
From my perspective, the Bible should have continued to been written forward, and included pieces of the issues Christians sought to address in their current times. I think an updated one would have spoken of the poorly of the actions taken by the church and followers alike through the ages, and would have followed people trying to do good in hard times.
Did god not have the power to give us free will without also giving us evil?
-
Had the power but opted not to: god is himself some part evil
-
Didn’t have the power, did the best he could with the tools he had: god is not omnipotent.
Pick one.
I think it’s a misread to say it gave us evil. The garden is portrayed as being a paradise with a tree with knowledge. The man and the women, as they self-identified themselves to be, were both allowed agency to be themselves and be blessed without the burden of knowledge, so long as they did not eat the forbidden fruit. Both the man and the women independently made the conscious decision to break the rule given to them to not eat the fruit of knowledge. The actual sin was both the man and woman breaking their covenant with God, through the eating of the fruit. My take on this is that story is meant to show that God can help you and will help you, but if you choose to go against his will you have the face the consequences of that decision on your own. However, you can still seek forgiveness for your decisions and even be forgiven, but this doesn’t magically put everything back to the way things were before.
The story is more or less a cultural device to explain good and evil from the perspective of the early Israelite society. The story itself is rippled throughout the Bible in this way: God gives instructions, the people follow the instructions at first but then grow complacent, bad things happen because people stop following God’s instructions, and then one of the leaders of the tribe of Israel steps in to help get people back on the right path of following God’s instructions.
I’ll add that functionally Genesis is three serparate creation stories that were pulled into one book. Culturally, the early Israelites borrowed some of the elements of other creation stories of their time seen in other cultures such as the Babylonians. The first creation story is the seven days, the second is what we know as the story Adam and Eve, and the third was the story of the great flood.
Its not a misread, your interpretation skips the important parts. The problem with your interpretation is right here:
be blessed without the burden of knowledge
The actual sin was both the man and woman breaking their covenant with God,
The knowledge is “of good and evil.” Until eating they couldn’t know that breaking a covenant was wrong no matter what their god has told them. They did not know that they should listen to what their god said, the concept of “should/shouldn’t” was devoid of meaning to them. While they had free will, literally all actions were purposeless and the two would just bounce around the garden not knowing if they should actually listen to their god or not. This becomes more evident when you read further as well as look at the stories from neighboring cultures this was borrowed from.
Later in the chapter their god speaks to the other deities in the pantheon about how the humans must be cast out of the garden as having their new abilities, may find the tree of everlasting life and become as powerful as the rest of the gods and supernatural beings. The idea is that having knowledge of the ramifications of one’s actions and living forever would mean that humans would no longer be controlled by the gods. That having free will, knowing what is good and what is evil and being immune to the wrath of the gods would render them all powerful.
This narrative then follows that their god casts them out into the world riddled with pain and suffering and humans eventually lose their knowledge of the past and how their god has their thumb on them. This is why Satan, “The Accusor”, is called the bringer of light. As sin is defined as a transgression against god, Satan is there to show how the fall of man was truly an enslavement by their god. Rather than leave humans dumb bouncing around the garden or immune to suffering, their god keeps humans ensnared in this system of life, suffering and everlasting torment. the story of the garden is what makes their god relevant when they otherwise shouldn’t be.
A major problem I’ve always had with that story is the fact that it is predicated on the fact that Adam and Eve acted disobediently by eating of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. But what is disobedience? Is disobedience a form of evil? To disobey God would be evil if it was done with knowledge, correct? How could Adam and Eve have possibly known that what they were doing was evil if they had no knowledge of such? Why would God set the situation up to necessitate that Adam and Eve would eventually disobey his wishes if they had no knowledge of good and evil, and therefore no knowledge of how their actions would have an impact or how their actions would be considered wrong. If a 2 year old disobeys their parents it’s easy to brush off their behavior as just being ignorant, and Adam and Eve are effectively like the cosmic 2-year-old, totally incapable of understanding consequences, or righteousness, or disobedience. Fundamentally, the God that created the Garden of Eden must be evil because what he did is akin to me putting an infant in a room with a loaded bear trap and telling them not to touch it. They don’t understand the consequences, nor do they really understand what commands mean. Is it really the baby’s fault for getting caught in a bear trap if I am the one with superior agency and knowledge and I was the one that set the whole thing up in the first place? Who is really the evil one here?
God is often referred to as the Father, and if he is truly a father I would say that he fails miserably in that duty by the very fact that he put his children directly In harm’s way. Yes, it is the responsibility of the parent to put obstacles in the way of their children so that they can grow, but at the same time it is also the responsibility to protect them from grievous harm, and clearly he didn’t do this according to Genesis.
the third was the story of the great flood
And don’t forget the really fun part, where you can actually still see the three flood stories smashed into one if you look at the sentences.
Going by the Bible, it’s both. He acted with malice and proved himself to not be omnipotent many times.
Jod introduced the idea of freewill to the board.
Lucifer said “That’s a bad idea, chief. Free will would ruin them.”
Jod cast him out.
Humans fucked everything up.
Jod sent his CTO, Jesus to try and fix it. It went poorly.
Lucifer said " I told you so"
“What if you gave them free will AND ALSO gave them the knowledge of the true nature of existence, rather than relying on them figuring everything out via very obviously man-made religions?”
“Naw.”
-
How dare you bring logic into god’s house!
No matter how well you point out the paradox (if God knows everything that will happen, free will doesn’t exist, because everything is predetermined, just like a fully written book), a significant portion of christians will simply ignore and keep circling between “but God gave us free will” and “God knows everything”
