God created evil

[Gary_Sheldrake]

Not to get all Gaia, but I like to think that we are just bits of the universe that have become self aware.

Good Morning again Bradski. That is not a lot different from what I have observed as well, although after thinking about it for a lot of years I am inclined to think that the universe was self aware already and simply experiences itself through its expressions, and we are one of its expressions. And I think the universe is just one universe in a perennial process of universes, and perhaps there’s another one on the other side of every black hole. The purpose I think is experience, which is largely dependent on the metabolic rate of a given type of experiential agent (like us), but in the end, it’s all one thing expressed as many. This is of course my opinion, but I enjoy discussing it. Like the universe, I am learning as I go. And now, I am off to work to learn more about the utterly mundane.

Thank you,
Gary

 

[PRmerger]

Good Morning PR: Many people aren’t how they want to be because they are told that they should be something other than what they are

Does this include the Rev. Fred Phelps? Should he be who he is: a man who has read the Bible and formed his own opinions about it?

Good Morning PR: Such a person is not experiencing love of any sort. They are using the bible to promote hate, and therefore hate is what they know, not love.

Thank you,
Gary

It would appear from your answer above that you are telling him to be something other than what he is?

I am confused…

 

[Oreoracle]

PRmerger,

You’ll have to forgive me for being difficult, but this seems like hair-splitting. God can consider the possible humans he will create, and he knows beforehand what they will do. He can do this without ever following through with the creative act. So God sort of “shops” for souls in a way; he considers the possible outcomes of the beings he might create, and if he doesn’t like the way one will impact the rest of creation, he will scrap the idea and design someone else instead.

Now if God makes the choice that he would never design someone who will bring about a Second Holocaust, to me this pretty plainly means that “God designs humans so that they can’t choose to commit a Second Holocaust”. If you agree with the way I’ve phrased this in the first paragraph, but you have a problem with the quote, please tell me how you would prefer for it to be phrased. I honestly can’t see the difference.

 

[PRmerger]

Good Morning PR: Such a person is not experiencing love of any sort. They are using the bible to promote hate, and therefore hate is what they know, not love.

Thank you,
Gary

It would appear, then, that you understand that love needs to be grounded in truth.

Who can doubt that the Rev. Fred Phelps loves? He loves his Bible. He loves his views. He loves his church. He, of course, loves his family. He loves all those in his church. He loves all those whose views are consistent with his…

He does love.

But without truth, it is…whacky.

 

[PRmerger]

I thought he’d be fine.

Yes. But why did you leave him a bone? What’s the point in that?

I told him not to dig a hole. He’s a smart dog, he knew that he shouldn’t have done it.

And why shouldn’t he have done it? Was there any other reason save for, “Because Bradski told me not to?”

 

[Bradski]

Yes. But why did you leave him a bone? What’s the point in that?

And why shouldn’t he have done it? Was there any other reason save for, “Because Bradski told me not to?”

Uh? I left him a bone because…dogs like bones. And he shouldn’t have done it because it ruined the flower bed. I told him not do it, he knew he shouldn’t do it but did it any way and now my wife holds me responsible.

Can that be right?

 

[rinnie]

I don’t know what you’re complaining about, PRmerger. I granted you everything. I granted you that God can create whomever he wants, know what they will do, and that none of this precludes free will. Now I’m using those premises to point out that God could have eliminated all evil without eliminating freedom by your very own logic. You have only yourself to blame.

But just because God could eliminate all evil, the point is he did not.

 

[rinnie]

Richca;12227515:

Neither did Paul VI in Humanae Vitae. How do you choose what to believe is infallible from the Pope and not? Ex cathedra is almost never used.
Darwinian style evolution has largely been displaced except for the basic concept.
The Christian God knows from before a person is born what their fate will be. Free will becomes irrelevant because you have been created with the foreknowledge of an omnipotent force. The condemned do mot stand a chance…it is predestination in every way but the word.

I disagree, the condemned condemn themselves. Its as simple as this, when people know the word of God, they have the choice to obey it, or disobey it.

God created all humans equal. He does not love me, better then he love you. What makes the difference is my Love for God and My choice to obey and do what he commands.

AS far as the Pope when he speaks in the voice of God he is infallible. We don’t choose what to believe, there is no choice to make. You either believe the word of God or you do not.

I have the choice to disbelieve, if there was no choice to disbelieve we would not be having this conversation.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I believe that this is truly what you believe.

Thank you,
Gary

Do you not believe it?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Good Evening Charlemagne: I see no reason to suppose that because a person doesn’t believe in God that the will of such a person is to do evil.

Thank you,
Gary

By not believing in God, do you think we are doing good?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Good Morning PR: Such a person is not experiencing love of any sort. They are using the bible to promote hate, and therefore hate is what they know, not love.

Thank you,
Gary

When they use hate to promote the Bible, it is because they do not have the faith either.

Christ does not promote hate. If you have the faith, you should also have the love.

 

[Aloysium]

But just because God could eliminate all evil, the point is he did not.

Matt 13:29-43 - “But he said, ‘No; for** while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them**. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”. . . Jesus answered, “The man who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world; the good seed is the people who belong to the Kingdom; the weeds are the people who belong to the Evil One; and the enemy who sowed the weeds is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvest workers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered up and burned in the fire, so the same thing will happen at the end of the age”. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. "Then the righteous will shine forth as tha sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

 

[Amandil]

PRmerger,

You’ll have to forgive me for being difficult, but this seems like hair-splitting. God can consider the possible humans he will create, and he knows beforehand what they will do. He can do this without ever following through with the creative act. So God sort of “shops” for souls in a way; he considers the possible outcomes of the beings he might create, and if he doesn’t like the way one will impact the rest of creation, he will scrap the idea and design someone else instead.

Now if God makes the choice that he would never design someone who will bring about a Second Holocaust, to me this pretty plainly means that “God designs humans so that they can’t choose to commit a Second Holocaust”. If you agree with the way I’ve phrased this in the first paragraph, but you have a problem with the quote, please tell me how you would prefer for it to be phrased. I honestly can’t see the difference.

No. The problem is that for God to “work” for you He must be something created in your image and likeness.

(Although perhaps it can’t be helped in that an agnostic atheist cannot help but perceive that physical death to be the worst evil and thus it would be impossible to think of death or dying doing something good as a good thing.)

In this case He must be a cold, calculating “pragmatist” and not a loving Father who creates out of sheer gratuitous love while radically respecting the freedom of those who He created.

Nor do I buy the argument, “if God would have just done things this way(my way), then His ways would have made sense, His creation would be properly ordered, and then I could (or might), believe and follow Him.” It bespeaks an arrogance that borders on being outright mendacious.

 

[Oreoracle]

No. The problem is that for God to “work” for you He must be something created in your image and likeness.

(Although perhaps it can’t be helped in that an agnostic atheist cannot help but perceive that physical death to be the worst evil and thus it would be impossible to think of death or dying doing something good as a good thing.)

Actually I’ve made no assumptions about good and evil in my argument. I haven’t defined evil in terms of death or anything. I’ve left that up to anyone’s interpretation. The argument works regardless.

In this case He must be a cold, calculating “pragmatist” and not a loving Father who creates out of sheer gratuitous love while radically respecting the freedom of those who He created.

It makes no sense to “create out of love” because you can’t love something that doesn’t exist yet. Imagine if your parents told you they decided to procreate out of their love for you. That doesn’t make a lick of sense.

Nor do I buy the argument, “if God would have just done things this way(my way), then His ways would have made sense, His creation would be properly ordered, and then I could (or might), believe and follow Him.” It bespeaks an arrogance that borders on being outright mendacious.

What you put in quotes is something you confabulated in your own mind. My only goal has been to establish that the argument “God creating perfect beings would violate free will” is wrong by the conception of free will that has been advanced in this thread. Free will and the intentional creation of perfect beings are compatible. If you concede that point, I will cease and desist. Rinnie seems to have already made the concession.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

It makes no sense to “create out of love” because you can’t love something that doesn’t exist yet. Imagine if your parents told you they decided to procreate out of their love for you. That doesn’t make a lick of sense.

What makes a lick of sense is that they decide to procreate because they love the idea of what you will be.

God doesn’t have to love even the idea, since he exists outside of time and knows us as we are, not what we will be.

 

[Oreoracle]

What makes a lick of sense is that they decide to procreate because they love the idea of what you will be.

Loving an idea=/=loving a person

God doesn’t have to love even the idea, since he exists outside of time and knows us as we are, not what we will be.

We are still contingent upon God’s existence, so there must have been a time in which we didn’t exist (this is actually the way even Aquinas spoke of contingencies). If not, you would have to hold that we have been around as long as God; that is, that we are eternal, that we have always existed. Therefore you couldn’t p(name removed by moderator)oint a time at which we were created. There’s no need to create what has always existed.

 

[Aloysium]

Wow! I am truly surprised. It is evidently clear that if you don’t have faith, if you do not have a relationship with God, if you do not believe Jesus, the simplest reality is incomprehensible.
I think you need to know God to understand eternity because it does not exist outside of Him. I am amazed.

 

[Amandil]

Oreoracle:

Actually I’ve made no assumptions about good and evil in my argument. I haven’t defined evil in terms of death or anything. I’ve left that up to anyone’s interpretation. The argument works regardless.

You claim to “make no assumptions” about good or evil yet you create arguments where you implicitly object to “evil”, such as a “Second Holocaust”, and then leave out there the corollary that you apoarently take “evil” more seriously than God does because you would stop it (pardon me if I laugh out loud), where God not only permits it but “creates” it.

You’re trying to have it both ways.

The argument only “works” when it takes a position of sophistry.

Oreoracle:

It makes no sense to “create out of love” because you can’t love something that doesn’t exist yet. Imagine if your parents told you they decided to procreate out of their love for you. That doesn’t make a lick of sense.

Whatever you say.

Oreoracle:

What you put in quotes is something you confabulated in your own mind. My only goal has been to establish that the argument “God creating perfect beings would violate free will” is wrong by the conception of free will that has been advanced in this thread. Free will and the intentional creation of perfect beings are compatible. If you concede that point, I will cease and desist. Rinnie seems to have already made the concession.

They are compatible in those terms. But again you’re missing the point. Its not “God creating perfect beings would violate free will.” The problem is with “God creating perfect beings incapable of the possibility of abusing free will would violate free will.”

That is the subtle distinction that is being left out and which is incompatible with free will. Perfect beings, even the Blessed Virgin Mary, possess the possibility of the abuse of free will, but their nature and knowledge has been perfected by grace to such a degree that they would never abuse their free will by committing sin. Grace perfects nature, it does not overrule nature.

Even if God created every person as He created Adam and Eve, they’d still fall. You’d have billions of “Falls” instead of only one.

Hence why your objections fail.

Man cannot resist sin by his own natural powers or abilities.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

We are still contingent upon God’s existence, so there must have been a time in which we didn’t exist (this is actually the way even Aquinas spoke of contingencies). If not, you would have to hold that we have been around as long as God; that is, that we are eternal, that we have always existed. Therefore you couldn’t p(name removed by moderator)oint a time at which we were created. There’s no need to create what has always existed.

“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah

God does not exist in time, so he knows everything that happens in the realm of time, and he doesn’t have to wait for time to pass in order to know.

 

[fred_conty]

Loving an idea=/=loving a person

We are still contingent upon God’s existence, so there must have been a time in which we didn’t exist (this is actually the way even Aquinas spoke of contingencies). If not, you would have to hold that we have been around as long as God; that is, that we are eternal, that we have always existed. Therefore you couldn’t p(name removed by moderator)oint a time at which we were created. There’s no need to create what has always existed.

We have limited intelligence whereas God’s is unlimited. Even this “unlimited” we cannot fathom for everything we experience is limited.

For instance, eternity is not time strung out forever. Because that is still time and not eternity. When we talk about eternity we are talking about something we have never experienced.

When we say that God created the world at some point…what point? Since time has not been created before creation, then how can we say that God created at some point. Can we really say he created at some point or rather he simply created from eternity.

I’m just saying that all of this is a mystery in which we can have some knowledge but do not know everything. And having some knowledge, we can understand better but even tho not fully.

May God bless and keep you. May God’s face shine on you. May God be kind to you and give you peace.