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tonyrey
Guest
A delightful and incisive image!
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steph_86
Guest
I agree with you. None of us chose to be born. Sometimes, in fact, I share a similar sentiment in which I lament the difficulty, the misery and the injustice of human existence. The cause of this lament thus, I guess, is the fact that human life is inherently unjust. Were our lives to be always happy and felicitous, I think we would have less reasons and habits of remonstrance towards God. But consider our true end: happiness, blessedness, joy, knowledge, truth, love. God created us as “little” gods, who are in His image, and who are a limited reflection of His inherent Freedom and Rationality. As I see it, the real root of the problem is pride which results in one’s inability to accept one’s condition as a creature, dependent not only on others, on natural circumstances, but above all, on God. And this, I think, is the root of the problem. But it is only in humility that one can come to accept one’s state as a creature dependent on the Beneficence and Providence of God. Without this humility, there can be no subservience, and thus, no obedience.
I have a great respect for all religions. And I am fully aware that this respect is also a result of a process of inculturation and education, the result of which is tolerance and which owes much to the contributions of secular and political thought. But at the same time, I lament the division present within humanity, above all, the disparity in faith, the division in religion. All religious faithful have the duty to show reverence, respect, and also obedience to their religious leaders. But we must recognize one simple thing. Some religions are natural religions, the fruit of man’s intense search for the eternal, and for the All. Whereas, there also exists revealed religion as seen in Judaism, and Christianity which is the continuation and the fulfillment of the latter. Every religion is the fruit of intense spiritual activity and the result of a cultural and historical process. This is also the case of Christianity which is the most historical of all the world religions. There is enough evidence for Christianity, for its Doctrine, for the existence of the Church. Still, it is a matter of accepting the “claims”. The Buddha never claimed to be the Savior of the world, he merely claimed to be the “Awakened one”. The same is true for Confucius, who was merely concerned with the realization of an ethical code that came to characterize Chinese custom and life for millenia. Only the Christ claimed to be the Savior of the world, and something more, the Son of God, and God Himself. The matter thus is whether you are able to accept this. In the end, it demands an act of faith which presupposes humility and the acceptance of the intervention of supernatural intervention within history. Without this, true belief is almost impossible
As regard to the papacy, yes, its claims rest on the Scriptural passage in Matthew. As Christian history attests, the early Church possessed a definite system of ecclesiastical organization. The Church came to be regarded as an autonomous society, with its own Law, its own Doctrine and its own ends. There were particular churches often founded by the bishops, the successors of the apostles. But the church of Rome held a definite prestige owed to the fact that it traced its foundations to St. Peter and St. Paul, the two most glorious apostles. Now it is true, after the legalization of Christianity as the religion of the Empire, and after the passing of the ages, the Emperor often intervened in the affairs of the Church, convened ecumenical councils and was responsible for the appointment of bishops. This is mostly seen during the Carolingian age, during which the king and Emperor attempted to systematically regulate the juridical affairs of the Church and create a Christian theocracy. Also, the papacy has never been a perfect institution. There have been holy popes, but there have also been worldly popes, and even antipopes. And yes, the international and supranational character of the papacy took centuries to realize. But throughout history, in many ecclesiastical and theological controversies, the interventions of the Bishop of Rome were often recognized as authoritative and final. And the true testament to the reality and the divine origin of the papacy, has been that no pope legitimately elected, has ever been seen to err in matters of faith and morals. The pope indeed is not only the Vicar of Christ, but also the bond of unity of the Church, tasked with the charge to teach and to lead Her.
And that is enough.
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billcu1
Guest
Pain, self, and reality have to do with the reality of each of us. Each of us has a different reality and there is nrivanna or the beatific vision. Two people look at a red car. “That’s a beautiful car”, says one. “Are you kidding that’s the most ugly car I’ve ever seen!” What is the car? The answer: both and neither. Empty. The observer’s reality is put on the object. I often wonder with the beatific vision if we see the same thing. There is an ultimate reality. “I forgive you” we say. Ultimately there’s nothing to forgive. THink of it “My grace is sufficent for thee.” There’s nothing to forgive. IMO.
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Daedelus76
Guest
Can you explain this?
I’m still not clear how this is an issue of pride… I want to know how God is going to get rid of my pain in the next world, because the Christian religion hasn’t gotten rid of my pain in this world, why would God be able to fix it in the next? I’m not sure how I can live eternally knowing God chose to deprive me of a normal life, just so that he could have other people be free-willed creatures. That sounds like hell to me, not paradise. You bet I ask tough questions; religion has a responsibility to give a good answer for people like me to take it seriously.
I am exploring process theism and trying to understand issues from that perspective, too. IT sounds more palatable but I’m not sure its reconciled with the Christian tradition. I need to engage with more people of that persuasion, I suppose.
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
Daedalus
**And for what it’s worth, I’m a non-theist, I don’t believe in the monotheistic conception of God. If such a being existed, I doubt he would be omnipotent and I would doubt he would be good. **
Normally, when an assertion is made, proof is offered.
Why do you think that if God were all powerful, you doubt that He would be good?
Do you think He would be bad?
**And for what it’s worth, I’m a non-theist, I don’t believe in the monotheistic conception of God. If such a being existed, I doubt he would be omnipotent and I would doubt he would be good. **
Normally, when an assertion is made, proof is offered.
Why do you think that if God were all powerful, you doubt that He would be good?
Do you think He would be bad?
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Daedelus76
Guest
I suppose I honesty don’t know about God… I am much more agnostic than I was, less anti-theist. However, I don’t think Catholic epistemology is all that great, so I don’t think Catholicism is a particularly useful path to knowing metaphysical truths, including God. But in truth, Christianity has a track record of getting many things wrong. Open the New Testament and you can see that the early church were millinialists, expecting an immanent end of the world and Christ’s soon return, which never happened. The Christian argument for the resurrection of the dead at the end of time is also likewise sketchy… we see Jesus appearing after death in the NT to his disciples but Paul and others jump to the conclusion that this is going to be some kind of zombies rising from the graves living forever in physical bodies, confirming the Jewish resurrection beliefs about the end of time. One doesn’t follow from the other. Jesus could have been a trickster or engaged in a noble deception, or maybe the disciples misinterpreted what they saw (perhaps Jesus appearance was a totally seperate phenomenon, maybe something like the Tibetan of spiritually advanced gurus appearing after death) ,or a dozen other explanations other than “the resurrection is a true belief”.Why do you think that if God were all powerful, you doubt that He would be good?
Do you think He would be bad?
I figure if the Christian God exists and is good, he probably isn’t too concerned with people with honest questions, like me; people that are bothered by his hiddenness and silence. After all, if he’s omniscience, how could he judge somebody for doing something he knows beforehand they would do… unless he’s evil and unworthy of worship?
I think if God is all powerful I need to have it explained to me just why he permits or wills so much suffering in the world, to what end? If He’s all powerful, he could surely devise a way that we could develope character, free will, or whatever without so much suffering and sadness, don’t you think? Yes, we should put God on the dock, because if we are worshipping a monster we’ll act like monsters to our fellow human, and I for one think we owe our fellow human beings quite a bit better than that.
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
**I think if God is all powerful I need to have it explained to me just why he permits or wills so much suffering in the world, to what end? If He’s all powerful, he could surely devise a way that we could develope character, free will, or whatever without so much suffering and sadness, don’t you think? Yes, we should put God on the dock, because if we are worshipping a monster we’ll act like monsters to our fellow human, and I for one think we owe our fellow human beings quite a bit better than that. **
I’m afraid your experience of God is entirely different from mine. It was only when I found God that life seemed to acquire any meaningful significance. When I looked back on my life without God, I saw a spiritual vacuum that was waiting to be filled. I thought I could live without god, but in retrospect I know that was not living. That was just existing. I grant there is a monster somewhere, but I think the monster role is more aptly filled by Satan than by God.
If God is really a monster, our lives would be pure hell. Mostly when they are hell, it is of our own doing, not God’s. We hold on dearly to life because God made life worth holding onto dearly. But God also made letting go of life a kind of passage through a dark tunnel with light at the end of it … if we have but followed His will.
Those who do not know Christ, or think Christ was not really who he claimed to be, have to approach the tunnel with hopeless fear and trembling. They can, if they like, prefer to think of it as falling asleep; but the only reason we do not fear falling asleep is that we expect to waken again. Christians can approach death with the full expectation of rising again … not as zombies, but as the Children of God.
As you suggest, the usual argument against Christianity is that it fails our expectations. I think it is not Christianity, but rather Christians, who fail. When Christians failed, they failed not because they were Christians, but because they were not Christian enough.
I’m afraid your experience of God is entirely different from mine. It was only when I found God that life seemed to acquire any meaningful significance. When I looked back on my life without God, I saw a spiritual vacuum that was waiting to be filled. I thought I could live without god, but in retrospect I know that was not living. That was just existing. I grant there is a monster somewhere, but I think the monster role is more aptly filled by Satan than by God.
If God is really a monster, our lives would be pure hell. Mostly when they are hell, it is of our own doing, not God’s. We hold on dearly to life because God made life worth holding onto dearly. But God also made letting go of life a kind of passage through a dark tunnel with light at the end of it … if we have but followed His will.
Those who do not know Christ, or think Christ was not really who he claimed to be, have to approach the tunnel with hopeless fear and trembling. They can, if they like, prefer to think of it as falling asleep; but the only reason we do not fear falling asleep is that we expect to waken again. Christians can approach death with the full expectation of rising again … not as zombies, but as the Children of God.
As you suggest, the usual argument against Christianity is that it fails our expectations. I think it is not Christianity, but rather Christians, who fail. When Christians failed, they failed not because they were Christians, but because they were not Christian enough.
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tonyrey
Guest
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tonyrey
Guest
Or by those who claim to** know **that a better world is possible!
Precisely! The yardstick is Jesus. Which of you is going to cast the first stone?
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Daedelus76
Guest
So God is not a first cause? I’m confused. If God is the First Cause, and he causes me to come into being knowing that I’ll make all those choices, how is he not responsible for that?
Life is purposeless but that doesn’t mean we can’t live purposefully . A cheap, simplistic theology is just a rationalization to avoid approaching life as a great tragedy and responding to other people with compassion. Religion is all about cheap explanations that don’t measure up to careful scrutiny but are nontheless enforced by fear-laden appeals to some authority.I’m afraid your experience of God is entirely different from mine. It was only when I found God that life seemed to acquire any meaningful significance…
If God is really a monster, our lives would be pure hell. Mostly when they are hell, it is of our own doing, not God’s. We hold on dearly to life because God made life worth holding onto dearly. But God also made letting go of life a kind of passage through a dark tunnel with light at the end of it … if we have but followed His will.
On the contrary, some peoples lives are pure hell. How about the kids that die from cancer, or the grieving parents who are left behind wondering “why”? Are you telling me I should just ignore all those in your desire to see a good God behind the world? What sin does a child or their family commit to deserve that kind of fate?
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tonyrey
Guest
Ultimate responsibility is not identical with immediate responsibility. Parents are aware of the crimes some of their descendants will commit but they are not responsible for them.
How do you derive purpose from that which is purposeless?
A cheap, simplistic philosophy of materialism is just a rationalization…
Materialism is all about cheap explanations that don’t measure up to careful scrutiny but are nonetheless **enforced by terrorism **in atheistic regimes.
Can you provide a **feasible **blueprint of a world totally devoid of disease, disasters and deformities?
Are you telling me I should just ignore **the reality of good and evil **in your desire to see a Godless world?
None whatsoever!
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Daedelus76
Guest
But if a parent knew what his kids would do before he decided to have them, he would indeed be responsible for their behavior.
People can choose their own purposes and create their own meaning.
I’m not a materialist. Rejecting your religious beliefs doesn’t equate with embracing materialism.
It’s not my responsibility. I’m not the one claiming to believe in an all-powerful, all good supreme being. However, I’ve just found something your God cannot do… create a world devoid of suffering yet having moral freedom. This makes classical theism invalid as far as I’m concerned, because this God is not all-powerful but his goodness and/or power is constrained by human freedom. People want to believe their God is all-powerful, but they qualify God into meaninglessness.
Good is whatever helps human flourishing evil is the opposite. No God is needed to explain it.
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danserr
Guest
Really? So if torturing a little girl to death contributed to the flourishing of the greatest number of people, then torturing her to death would be morally good?
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sw85
Guest
It helps first to understand how we view “good” and “evil.” (Sorry if this has been covered already in previous posts).
We all intuit that a thing is “good” insofar as it exists in accordance with its mode of being. A “good” knife is one that cuts well, a “good” pen is one that writes well, a “good” meal is one that tastes good and/or is good for you, etc. I wouldn’t assess a pen’s goodness by trying to eat it, nor would I assess a knife’s goodness by trying to write with it; I would assess them by their own respective modes of being.
So the goodness of a thing is how well it instantiates its mode of being; so the ultimate standard of goodness is being itself. So “pure goodness,” if such could exist, would have to be pure being.
Conversely, evil is a privation – an absence of goodness or being, the failure to instantiate one’s mode of being. A bad knife cuts poorly, a bad pen writes poorly, a bad meal tastes bad or is bad for you. And so on. So evil is loosely identical to non-being, which means “pure evil” is an ontological impossibility – if it could exist, it would be “pure non-being”; but if it’s pure non-being, then there’s nothing to describe as being “evil”!
So “pure good” is an ontological possibility, “pure evil” an ontological non sequitur.
OK, so all this means is that God, if he has in fact all-good, must be pure being.
As it happens, we cannot avoid that conclusion. Here check out the “First Cause” argument, and make sure you understand that “cause” is understood not temporally but ontologically. That which has some potential can only have that potential realized by something which is actual; and given that everything has some kind of potential, everything must be understood by reference to which is not at all potential, i.e., pure being. This is a very reductive treatment of the argument.
So to answer your question in a nutshell: an “evil God” is an ontological impossibility, as is anything but a purely good God – for such a God would have to be less than pure being and therefore would not be God!
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
Daedalus
**On the contrary, some peoples lives are pure hell. How about the kids that die from cancer, or the grieving parents who are left behind wondering “why”? Are you telling me I should just ignore all those in your desire to see a good God behind the world? What sin does a child or their family commit to deserve that kind of fate? **
If there is a God, you would have to admit that out of His goodness He created us to love life.
And we do. It makes no sense to say God is a monster when He gives us a lust for life.
If God were a monster, He would take no pleasure in our love of life, but rather make us all in such a way that our constant suffering would lead us to wish we were never born. God does just the opposite. He makes us wish we might live, and after we shed our mortal coils, live some more.
Atheism is ultimately a hopeless and tragic view of life, as you admit. After much suffering and upon dying, we are doomed, and doomed for all eternity. So your God (the Universe, since there is nothing other than the universe) is really the monster God who is not only indifferent to our suffering in this life, but offers us no redemption or better life, paid for by all our suffering, in the next life.
Atheism is an ugly philosophy. Though it likes to preen itself on being the ugly truth, it is not the truth, because the truth should never enslave us to the notion that we are ultimately doomed…
As Jesus tells us, when we know the truth, the truth will make us free. It will liberate us from the ugly doom atheism offers us.
That is why you hear about so many deathbed conversions. Free at last, thank God we are free at last from atheism’s ugly pessimism.
**
How about the kids that die from cancer, or the grieving parents who are left behind wondering “why”? **
And your philosophy makes more sense? Life is a bi-ch, and after that you die?
**On the contrary, some peoples lives are pure hell. How about the kids that die from cancer, or the grieving parents who are left behind wondering “why”? Are you telling me I should just ignore all those in your desire to see a good God behind the world? What sin does a child or their family commit to deserve that kind of fate? **
If there is a God, you would have to admit that out of His goodness He created us to love life.
And we do. It makes no sense to say God is a monster when He gives us a lust for life.
If God were a monster, He would take no pleasure in our love of life, but rather make us all in such a way that our constant suffering would lead us to wish we were never born. God does just the opposite. He makes us wish we might live, and after we shed our mortal coils, live some more.
Atheism is ultimately a hopeless and tragic view of life, as you admit. After much suffering and upon dying, we are doomed, and doomed for all eternity. So your God (the Universe, since there is nothing other than the universe) is really the monster God who is not only indifferent to our suffering in this life, but offers us no redemption or better life, paid for by all our suffering, in the next life.
Atheism is an ugly philosophy. Though it likes to preen itself on being the ugly truth, it is not the truth, because the truth should never enslave us to the notion that we are ultimately doomed…
As Jesus tells us, when we know the truth, the truth will make us free. It will liberate us from the ugly doom atheism offers us.
That is why you hear about so many deathbed conversions. Free at last, thank God we are free at last from atheism’s ugly pessimism.
**
How about the kids that die from cancer, or the grieving parents who are left behind wondering “why”? **
And your philosophy makes more sense? Life is a bi-ch, and after that you die?
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Daedelus76
Guest
Yes, but I don’t think torture leads to human flourishing, ever. It has a terrible psychological cost. We know that through science, not through clever religious arguments. So, your hypothetical situation is just too… hypothetical.
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Daedelus76
Guest
After I got my spinal tap and sat in a hospital bed with a horrible headache, I can assure you “lust for life” is not what was on my mind. Honestly at that point I just wanted to die and never be reborn here in this world. Yes, human beings and animals can lose the will to live, God doesn’t give us all an unbreakable will, if he exists.
All suffering is impermanent, that is the hope. Your religion has no guarantees of a better life either. Especially because you can’t be certain of your own salvation, for starters. Your God has a million reasons to cast you and me into Hell if you break a little rule. Is that some kind of salvation, or is it just a cruel trick?
We are not doomed. I just said it’s all impermanent. Life is tragic but one day the tragedy ends. You’re the one that wants to force people to bring children into the world despite the misery here.
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danserr
Guest
It was have a cost to the girl and to the torturer. So at most 2 people could be hurt by it. No one else would have to know.
But isn’t that pretty ugly? That your moral philosophy would force you to admit that torturing a little girl to death is actually morally good if it could benefit enough people? Wouldn’t it be better to pick a better base for your morality?
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Charlemagne_II
Guest
Daedalus
Yes, human beings and animals can lose the will to live, God doesn’t give us all an unbreakable will, if he exists.
But the stats tell us it is atheism that breaks our will, since the rate of suicide among atheists everywhere in the world is higher than the rate for theists.
All suffering is impermanent, that is the hope. Your religion has no guarantees of a better life either. Especially because you can’t be certain of your own salvation, for starters. Your God has a million reasons to cast you and me into Hell if you break a little rule. Is that some kind of salvation, or is it just a cruel trick?
It is apparent that your notion of God is not of a supreme Intelligence and Heart to go with it.
It is true we are uncertain of our salvation. That’s as it should be.
But the atheist is certain there is no salvation whatever. How can he be so certain?
We are not doomed. I just said it’s all impermanent. Life is tragic but one day the tragedy ends.
That is something only a suicide would hope for.
Yes, human beings and animals can lose the will to live, God doesn’t give us all an unbreakable will, if he exists.
But the stats tell us it is atheism that breaks our will, since the rate of suicide among atheists everywhere in the world is higher than the rate for theists.
All suffering is impermanent, that is the hope. Your religion has no guarantees of a better life either. Especially because you can’t be certain of your own salvation, for starters. Your God has a million reasons to cast you and me into Hell if you break a little rule. Is that some kind of salvation, or is it just a cruel trick?
It is apparent that your notion of God is not of a supreme Intelligence and Heart to go with it.
It is true we are uncertain of our salvation. That’s as it should be.
But the atheist is certain there is no salvation whatever. How can he be so certain?
We are not doomed. I just said it’s all impermanent. Life is tragic but one day the tragedy ends.
That is something only a suicide would hope for.
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MindOverMatter2
Guest
Why do you think that you are doomed? Is that a pleasing idea for you?
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