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doomhammer
Guest
Heresy never stops.
”I am a secular humanist”
You remind me of Judas: “after he took the morsel, Satan entered him” (John 13, 27).
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”I am a secular humanist”
You remind me of Judas: “after he took the morsel, Satan entered him” (John 13, 27).
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Hitetlen
Guest
Yes, that is a good point - as an entertainment I would prefer something which is - well, entertaining. But as life goes, that is a different matter. With my wife we frequently joke how “boring” our life is, no frustration with each other, always agreeing with the other, no anger, just love. I still prefer it this way, rather than having a huge row and then a tearful reconciliation. But I guess, that is just me (and her
)
No question about it. The second one is much more respectable. I do not envy either one of them. I don’t want luxury either, just a comfortable and “boring” life with my loved ones. Do you agree?
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adamlsp
Guest
Hitetlen,
You cannot prove this world is not the best or not the worst either. And we must reference it as best at the purpose it was meant for. So whatever purpose God meant for this world it will fulfill it the best. God would not create a world that was contrary to his nature either. This world best reflects God than any other. You must look at the time/space continuum as a whole.
Prove it is not the best possible. I will respond accordingly. I eagerly await your response.
Adam
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adamlsp
Guest
Hitetlen,Yes, that is a good point - as an entertainment I would prefer something which is - well, entertaining. But as life goes, that is a different matter. With my wife we frequently joke how “boring” our life is, no frustration with each other, always agreeing with the other, no anger, just love. I still prefer it this way, rather than having a huge row and then a tearful reconciliation. But I guess, that is just me (and her
No question about it. The second one is much more respectable. I do not envy either one of them. I don’t want luxury either, just a comfortable and “boring” life with my loved ones. Do you agree?
You respect the second man because he deserved what he got more than the first. He was justly rewarded. Likewise if our world was made with everything given to us we would not be as respectable in God’s eyes. Thus since God is all powerful to make us more respectable he did so. He gave us as much as he could that we could earn as much as we could without giving too much as to discourage effort and without giving us too little as to make it impossible to succeed. He maximized the number of people that would succeed as well by finding the happy medium between too many freebies and too little. This cannot be proved. But it aslo cannot be disproved.
Adam
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RyanL
Guest
Then tell me again, please, what kind of book are you asking God, the Author of Life, to write?
You merely think it’s boring. I assure you that part of what makes your marriage great is that your wife and you have a story which isn’t boring. How did you meet? How did you fall in love? Did you marry instantly? Were either of you ever unsure? Hesitant? Did she tend to you when you were sick? Has she ever needed you and you came through for her? Has she come through for you in your time of need? All of these things bring life and meaning which simply isn’t present in this “perfect” world you’re trying to force God to write. Quite frankly, as I believe what (IIRC) the great sage Yogi Berra once said, “If the world was perfect, it wouldn’t be.”
Why? Would you think that God, if there is one, would agree?
I didn’t ask if you did.
Yes, but it’s certainly not my primary goal. I want holiness. I want to be an up-note in God’s symphony; a protagonist in His story.
God knows, however, that I’m a long way off.
God Bless,
RyanL
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Hitetlen
Guest
Ok. Here comes.
If this would be the best world, there would be no change, no progress. A perfect world does not need change, does not need modification. From the pinnacle of the mountain there is only way - downward. In a perfect world there cannot be miracles, because a miracle is an intervention, disturbing the autonomy of the world.
That change occurs: is obvious. Medications which were not available yesterday, are available today. Pain and suffering, which was unaviodable in the past, can easily be avoided in the present. The quality of life keeps increasing.
You (in the general sense) may say that God does not care about such “mundane” things. What he wants from this world is not our well-being or comfort. That our possible pain and misery have a “soul”-building quality, that he gives us these “tests” to help us become better beings.
Maybe, maybe not. You do not have a direct line to God, to know that.
If your assessment is true, and pain and misery have those “positive” qualities I mentioned, there are other questions that need answering. If pain and misery are sooo wonderful for us, why does God allow them to disappear in such an “alarming” rate? If living in poverty makes our “soul” stronger, why does he allow better conditions for some?
And finally, if pain and misery are so wonderful because they build our “soul”, make us more worthy for the “kingdom of God”, why does he allow tsunamis, earthquakes and wildfires which kill some people prematurely, before their “soul” could be ready for heaven?
There was a (fictional) book “The bridge of St. Louis Rey”, where the author examines the lives of five people, who perished when a bridge collapsed. His conclusion was that their life was at a “perfect” moment, they were exactly ready for death. No one can reasobaly argue that everyone of those millions who randomly perish in those disasters was “precisely” ready to die in that particular moment and in that particular fashion, sometimes very painful.
No matter, how you view it, change itself is the proof that this world is neither the best, nor the worst possible.
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Hitetlen
Guest
As I said before, a nice comfortable and “boring” book, because it is not simply entertainment, it is “bloody” reality.
Please, my friend, I put the word “boring” into quotation marks, to indicate that I am being facetitious.
No, it is not boring at all, it is most enjoyable. That does not mean that I could not percieve it changing for even better, but that would be “greedy”.
It would be a long post to describe my whole life, and that really would be boring, really boring.
Of course we were there for each other in our time of need. I had two heart attacks (barely survived the first one) and she suffered when she thought she will lose me. Maybe you think that it made our commitment for each other even stronger (if that is even possible), and maybe you would be right. But neither of us wanted that reinforcement, our love and commitment was already strong enough for us. When she had a tumor, I was there for her. Until we learned that is was not malignant, we both suffered when contemplated her possible fate. I don’t want these “reinforcements”. They are not necessary.
I understand you, but that is not my goal. If I believed in God, maybe it would be my goal, too. But I don’t, so I seek as good a life as possible, here and now. I want to leave good memories, so I can “live” a little longer. That is all.
Some believers say that the life of atheists is “meaningless”. Nothing could be further from the truth. My life is very meaningful - I made it so. But it is true that my death will be pointless (unless I must sactifice my life to save my loved ones), which I sincerely hope will not happen.
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RyanL
Guest
Ok. Let me re-hash this.
YOU: The world should have no “evil”. It would be better that way. We should all feel wonderful all the time, and never lack anything. Because we don’t, there is no God.
ME: What kind of author writes a book like that? How terrible a book that would be! You would curse the author of a book with so poor a plot, not exhault him.
YOU: Yeah, but it’s not a book. It’s real life.
ME: Does that change the plot? Aren’t you the relativist? Why are you so sure this isn’t God’s “entertainment”? Certainly it’s no more sadistic than an Dostoyevsky writing the Brothers K; in fact, it’s more wonderful because it is real life!
YOU: …
ME: Could you at least begin to understand why “the problem of evil” isn’t so much of a problem for theists?
ME: Don’t you respect someone more who works for something?
YOU: Of course.
ME: Why do you think God would be any different? Do you think he wants His children to be slothful gluttons or people who work to improve themselves?
YOU: I don’t envy the rich. I just want to be comfortable.
ME: That wasn’t my question. My question has to do with whether or not your conception is actually a “perfect” world. Without up what is down? Without light what is dark? Without sadness and pain, what is joy? You would have God give you only one side of the coin. You say that you would enjoy the meal more if you were never hungry. Again, can you at least begin to understand why “the problem of evil” isn’t so much of a problem?
Final segment.
YOU: Evil exists, therefore there is no God.
ME: Evil exists? Is there an absolute evil? If there is it must be because there is an absolute good.
YOU: There are no absolutes.
ME: Absolutely no absolutes? Are any of the things you claim are “evil” absolutely “evil”? If not, where’s the “problem”? If so, you’re an absolutist (a position which logically results in a belief in God).
Recommended short essay reading on your philosophers (simply click their name): here.
God Bless,
RyanL
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adamlsp
Guest
Hitetlen,
First of all the perfect “world” that you describe without change is a little off. You know the highest perfection could be one thing one day and a higher thing the next. You are wanting this world to start out infinitely perfect. If you’re looking for it to be perfect in itself you are looking in the wrong place. You are basicly describing God. You describe a being not a world. A world is inside time. And without change there is no time.
I’m sorry but your medicine example you keep using isn’t that great. It’s unfair to people in the past. But people today have their own problems. And like you said time means change.
As for your direct line to God remark, you shouldn’t really comment on things you don’t know. It makes you look like an *** if you’re wrong. You cannot say that no one has ever had a “direct line” to God. That is also an absolutist statement that you’re dealing with on this thread.
If everyone was in poverty it wouldn’t be poverty. Your situation is only as bad as you make it. Different problems arise for different eras. Epistemological problems are what many modern men face. Why does God allow death? We would say it’s one punishment for sin. Also purgatory is a state in the afterlife where you continue building your soul if you’re a good person. You are leaving out punishment for sin as a reason for suffering. Innocent suffering is osul building. Innocent death just leads them to purgatory where they continue building their soul or if it’s already built they go straight to heaven.
Another absolutist statement about the bridge deaths. Just because you think no one could argue these people were done soul building just then does not mean that they weren’t. I can’t argue the Trinity to you with philosophy but that doesn’t mean that doesn’t exist. And you also leave out purgatory. You can believe in the transmigration of souls if you want a nonCatholic’s guess.
And you are also forgetting to look at the purpose of a world. All of these questions you have are fairly easily answered if you would care to know the answers. The fact is you just don’t want to believe them. Knowledge is merely a justified belief. Read William James to discover what a justified belief is in his opinion. All of our positions are justified. Look for the answers.
Adam
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Hitetlen
Guest
What you describe is relative perfection - perfection according some variable circumstances. It was you who said that the world reflects God’s aim to achieve his goal, and therefore it must be perfectly fitted to perform that task. If God’s goal does not change (God is alleged to be immutable), than the world should not change either. If it does that means that some “methods” of yesterday are not applicable today. So either the world did not conform to God’s task yesterday or it does not conform today. That is all.
I don’t “want” anything. You asked me why this world is not perfect and I answered it.
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Hitetlen
Guest
I am glad you left this answer for me to complete. Here comes my reply:
Imagine you are in the movies, enjoying a nice little adventure / mystery story, with lots of shoot-outs, car-chases, and a few bombs included for good measure’s sake. You had a great time.
Coming out of the movie, you learn that the gory scenes, the tortures, the murders were not make-believe tricks, they were real. The women were really raped, their kids were really thrown off the cliffs, some good guys were really shot to death.
Would that ruin your entertainment, or would it increase your pleasure as you said: “in fact, it’s more wonderful because it is real life!”
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doomhammer
Guest
"
does your perfect world include the elimination of what you call “parasites”?
the atheist perfect world: hell on earth.
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adamlsp
Guest
Hitetlen,
God’s goal can include a changing world. I think you are forgetting God’s place outside of time therefore nothing really changes from his perspective. Try and imagine this. That was not really a well thought out objection.
OK. You seem exactly like a person with no wants. Are there no more objections to this world? Do you agree with everything else I posted? If you have no further objections it seems resolved.
Adam
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Hitetlen
Guest
I have no problem with it, but it does not conform with God’s goal. See below:
I did not forget it. God’s immutability has the consequence that his goal is immutable, doesn’t it? If God’s goal is immutable, then the world cannot fulfill an immutable goal while it constantly changes. That is an obvious conclusion. An immutable goal can be fulfilled with immutable means. If the means are changing, then this immutable goal does not get fulfilled in an immutable fashion, sometimes it fulfills the goal “better”, sometimes it does not fulfill it as well.
I have no special “wants”. I like my life as it is, though I would really like to get retired as soon as I can and live for about 25-30 more years. I want to continue my life on the side of my wonderful wife, I want to see my “kid” advance in the world, and I want to see my grandson to grow. But I think these are not extraordinary wishes.
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RyanL
Guest
Dear Hitetlen,
If you think any of these things would shake the faith of a Catholic, your time here has been unbelievably poorly spent.
You apparently know nothing about Catholicism in particular, or Christianity in general.
Why would I say such a thing? Well…let me tell you a little story…
In the fullness of time, God looked at us, stuck in our sin, wandering in the darkness, and decided that He would really let us know about Him. He decided to give people like you and me some “empirical evidence” of His existence.
He took on flesh. He became like us in all things except sin. He was tempted just like us, only unlike us He chose to do the right thing - every single time. He did this in order to show us that He really exists, and to show us that He actually does care about us. He told us that if we just took better care of ourselves and others, we’d be better off. He told us that true freedom involved choosing to doing the right thing, every time; and He told us what the right thing to do is. He told us to love, and He told us that He loves us.
How did we reward God for doing this? For coming to cry with us, to laugh with us, to teach us and tell us about His love for us?
We spit on Him. We whipped Him and kicked Him. We called Him a liar. We mocked Him and scorned Him. Him! The God of the universe, who came only to show us His love and to set us free. We laughed at Him and cursed Him, and then…we killed Him. We - the creation - killed the Creator, to whom we owe everything. Deicide. There’s nothing worse anyone could possibly do. Not rape, not murder, not “throwing kids off cliffs”. These things are a drop in the ocean to the evil which is the intentional killing of God.
Is that the end of the story?
No. Out of the greatest evil mankind has ever committed, God brought about the greatest good - the salvation of the universe. The catch? There’s not one. It’s a free gift from a loving God. The problem? We’re so self absorbed that we don’t bother enough to care.
If you don’t realize after four months on these forums that your “problem of evil” isn’t a problem at all, you’ve wasted your time here. If you think that the existence of rape, as horrible as it is, should dissuade a Catholic from believing in God - you need to go spend some quality time in front of a crucifix. Go find one, and don’t look away until you come to terms with the idea that your “perfect world” you keep speaking of isn’t perfect at all, and that the world we have is far better (warts and all).
Why did you have two heart attacks? Why did your wife get cancer? I don’t presume to know - that’s not my department. Perhaps it was to teach you dependence. Perhaps it was to teach you about suffering, so that you would see a “problem” with it and it would eventually lead you to this site. I have no idea.
That said, I have no doubt that if you really want to know you’ll find out. Seek and ye shall find. Knock, and the door shall be opened.
That’s pretty much everything I have to say to you.
May God Bless you and keep you, make His face to smile upon you, be gracious to you, lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.
RyanL
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Gottle_of_Geer
Guest
Exactly 
- material abundance is worthless, if one’s deepest desire is not satisfied - and God has created us that we might be satisfied by nothing less than God.
It is not just “a good idea”, or “being pious”, to seek God above all things: it is the most basic necessity a human being can possibly have.I saw this in the paper about the possibility of living to 150 - I can’t imagine many things more dreadful. This life is for practicing to love God by loving our neighbour - it is not the real life we are created for; it’s a foretaste of it.
The real problem is in the sinful human heart. ##
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adamlsp
Guest
Hitetlen,
Time is change. But relative to God time does not change but rather is constant, immutable if you will. Time is only changing within itself. To God it is a constant because God is simultaneously at every point in time all at once.
God’s will is perfectly fulfilled at every moment in time through out history. You can just bring up the question of evil again and the theodicies will yet again answer you. Don’t forget we don’t have all the answers. You may bring more objections. An objection to the combination theodicy of punishment, freewill, and soul-building would be interesting.
Adam
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Hitetlen
Guest
Dear Ryan, I do not want to shake your faith, or anyone else’s.
“Nothing” may be too harsh a word. I was a believer before, though not a Catholic. “Not enough” would have been more correct, but I learn a little more every day from my interactions with you and other kind posters.
Obviously it presents a problem for me, that is why I brought it up. I know it presents no problem for you, that is not the question. What is interesting for me is: “how” can you reconcile the existence of these facts with your belief system? To me these are impossible to reconcile, your “little story” notwithstanding.
Thank you for your kind words. I cannot repeat them back to you (verbatim), because that really would be inappropriate, but I can say that I wish the very best for you and everyone else.
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Hitetlen
Guest
That is not the point in this respect, though it may be relevant in others. For us time changes. Let’s say that God “smelts” the gold out of our “ore” by sometimes applying pain and suffering, and this process is necessary to make us better beings. Fine. The particulars of this process may require a different amount of pain and suffering for different individuals. I can accept that, it is very reasonable.
But, humanity as a whole, does not change significantly from year to year, or even from century to century. Therefore the “smelting” process does not need to be changed from moment to moment. What worked a hundred years ago (or five minutes ago), still works (or should work) today.
Still the amount of pain and suffering keeps changing, and as a whole, it keeps decreasing. Yes, there are new problems to deal with, AIDS was not a problem a hundred years ago. Tuberculosis is pretty much gone now, so as a “smelting” process it was abandoned. It can be reasonably argued that sometimes new methods of “smelting” can be introduced, and old methods can be abandoned.
But not at such an alarming rate, and the amount of “smelting” is also decreasing, while humanity is still the same old, fallible conglomerate of sinners.
I still contend, that the fact that the world is changing (for us!) shows that it cannot be called “perfect” in every minute or second.
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adamlsp
Guest
Hitetlen,
In the way you imagine it, you are right, the owrld is not perfect. But it perfectly fullfils its purpose. In reference to you it is changing. But realisticly you do not use a moving object to reference the speed of another moving object. If you want to know its true speed you pick the thing that does not move to reference it against. This would be God.
Humanity evolves and as we evolve new challenges are required that would best test us for our particular state. Humanity is different from its past self. One example is IQ. In the past hundred years a dramatic increase in the average human’s IQ has lead science to believe it has been ncreasing all along. With more able minds humans now must face chalenges that are fit for these minds. If you follow the philosophical trends over the ages you will see the problems relevant to a particular time. Epistemological problems have plagued many modern philosophers. It is because we are in time and we are changing that the methods to test us must change. No one ever said TB couldn’t still be a good trial but perhaps there is a better one that has arose to take its place. One more suitable for the situation. Also you should notice the differences between modern and ancient society and how surely different tests are valuable. Even from a hundred years ago to now there is significant change. And from ten years ago. Rapid change in subjects means rapid change in methods. Your opinion is nice on this but you can’t really back it up with any hard evidence that couldn’t be used against you as well.
And on a side note TB still affects millions of people the world over.
Adam
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