Morally justifiable pain, suffering and torture

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
But we’re both right in our reasoning. Where I am wrong is my holding any hope of materialistically proving to you that my premises are correct. Where you are wrong is your holding any hope that you can prove that your materialistic reasoning applies to God.

It is impossible to prove that your premises are correct in a materialistic fashion, since God is not a material being. I don’t have to prove that my reasoning is correct. There is no “materialistic” reasoning, by the way. You agreed that my reasoning is impeccable, you only question my premises.

What is impossible for you to do is to apply your reasoning to God. You don’t need to prove your reasoning is correct, as it is patently perfectly correct assuming your premises.

The reason your reasoning can’t be correct when applied to God is that God is found nowhere within the elements you use in your reasoning.

You “hallucinate” that you are talking about the real (our Catholic) God as being cruel and/or nonexistent, when in fact you are perfectly justifiably describing YOUR “God” and trying to convince us that you are speaking of OUR God!

That is why you are so laughable, in an adorably hyper-intellectually sort of way, in this discussion.

A better comic routine would be difficult to find.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
I have proof that God is who He says He is, from God.

Meaning that you had some “revelation”, which is inaccessible to others. I never had any, even though I was a believer as a child and in my youth.

You had something “averting” you from accepting God’s revelation given to you, most likely trauma from some “father”-type (in his presence or absence), which could well have been as subtle as simply having been in a “family/social atmosphere” of indifferentism toward mortality.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
Only God can prove to anyone that He is who He says He is.

Right. And he never “bothered” to do so.

Once again, if you understood God qua God you’d realize that everyone at every time is offered God’s revelation, which makes it like the ocean to a fish in it’s ubiquity, and that it’s incredibly easy to dismiss (to accept) BECAUSE it IS ubiquitous and not “important” until you suddenly feel your gills “uncomfortably dry”.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
The prerequisite of receiving that proof is the “bootstrap” of allowing ourselves to faithfully believe in Him for a time in true hope of confirmation of Him.

What is the point? According to your belief God created me as I am, with a very strong affinity toward reason, and also a very strong aversion toward “faithfully believe” something for which there is no corroborating evidence.

Why would God want me to go against the very basics of my personality?

You are not your “personality”. The “You”, or “I”, is more than what you think it is. You have free will, which you choose to exercise to deny that you are more than your “personality” instead of “getting over yourself” and discovering who you really are.

You seem to think that to be a believer in God is to NOT have a strong affinity toward reason. Believers generally have a very strong sense of the proper use of reason, and realize that reason is applicable to God-stuff as well as material matters.

God wants you to be who you really are, and not this self-limiting narcissistic pseudo-person with an addiction to being comfortable in his/her (though probably his) dismissal and scorn for “Fatherly love”.

By the way, I consider myself right there with you, and pretty much everyone else, in being a pseudo-person because I too am constantly battling with my WANT to not “get over myself in my greatness”.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
He demands you believe before being given proof.

See my previous question. What is the point of demanding that I give up the very traits he instilled in me? Wouldn’t that be disrespectful of me? To squander the “gift” of reason?

He does not demand of you that you give up your “gift” (faith) and abandon it for reason. Why am I in a different position? Is that “just”?

And this is the usual so-called atheistic proposition that there is a WAR between faith and reason.

There is nothing more reasonable than faith. Without being able to assume (have faith in) a thing which at least “appears” to be real might be worth experimenting with (ie test prayerfully) to confirm it’s reality, one is left deny things that are “uncomfortable” instead of denying things that are proven to be unreal.

You take the “leap of faith” that because “prayerful activity” is “uncomfortable” to you it is WRONG and nothing good can come of it!

Your RELIGION forces you to value precisely the opposite of what your religion SAYS it values, which is the free inquiry into reality.

This is the basic self-contradiction of so-called atheism. It denies what it actively refuses to see within reality, while proclaiming to actively look for all things concerning reality.

Reason is part of faith. It is not opposed to it. Reason is what is used on that which we desire to see, which are the truths of reality, and makes known the connections of what we do in fact see after doing what needs doing to see what needs seeing.

The so-called atheist DESIRES NOT to see any God-stuff because of the implications of having to admit that ALL reasoning is a “faith before reasons”, aka “hypothesis before results”, process.

The single reason that so-called atheists deny God-stuff is because of their morbid fear of and aversion to the “discomfort” of mortality, and that because their fathers didn’t inform them of the true implications of inevitable human mortality.

Mom’s job is tocomfort us and make us feel good, and forget about “bad stuff” we can put off considering until later.

Dad’s job is to show us “boundaries” and make us feel their necessity to function as human persons.

No Father, and the “freedom” to be animals, even VERY intelligent and reasonable ones, is too attractive to pass up.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
You demand proof before giving belief.

If I were given proof, I would not need faith or belief. Mind you, I would still be free to worship God or reject him.

When God gives one proof of God’s existence (and essence to some degree), He doesn’t remove the need to continue to have faith.

Because you posit a (truly nonexistent) WAR between FAITH and REASON, or God and reasonableness, you naturally think that when one side WINS, the other side loses!

Since there is no war, there are no winners and losers.

But, as your religion DEMANDS that this nonexistent war be constantly raging, and your very ego, your “personality”, your “I” which is not really the real you, is dependent on this so-called war, it’s perfectly understandable why you’re reluctant to stop fighting a battle that an abject hallucination.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
You and God are at loggerheads, not you and I. I’m here to give you hints, not proof.

Actually, no. I am at loggerheads with the human concept that giving faith is somehow “noble” and not foolish.

Which only proves that you have no idea what “faith” means, which is perfectly reasonable of you because you have no idea what “God” means, which is the necessary prerequisite of understanding what “faith” means.

You apply a subset of rules-o’-truth-finding appropriate to one realm of reality, where God is in truth very inconsequential to the “engineering knowledge” sought after, to a realm of reality where that subset of rules, as opposed to the fuller set of rules, are very definately NOT appropriately applied.

The “engineer” is concerned with “tools”. The scientist, the “knowledge-ist”, is concerned with describing reality.

What is a “scientist” called who dogmatically refuses to see some portion of reality because it “hurts his ego”? That I call the “scientistic materialist”, who is concerned only with getting an advantage over his environment (human and otherwise) in whatever way he chooses which hurts his ego the least.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs
Some day, hopefully before death overtakes you unawares, the true meaning of your mortality will be made known to you, and it’s my hope that you are given the time you need to truly cogitate and decide on those things that you will need to shed yourself of so as not to grasp at them in paniced desperation in the face of God.

Highly unlikely, though not impossible. The alleged deathbed conversions are morally and intellectually dishonest in my opinion. It is called “hedging the bets”, by following Pascal’s misbegotten wager.

You are a highly ethical, honest (though “veiled”), and intellectually logical (though used to improperly applied logic) person. That is obvious.

You think that it would be a betrayal to “your ethics” to go an entire lifetime and then relent, even due to utterly changed circumstances, to what you had always considered dishonesty and stupidity.

You value your ETHICS, your constructed persona, your ego over even truth itself.

But, luckily, you’ve got time (maybe!) to come to see that truth is more important than your ego when shedding the false structures of your ego is “requested” by the-real-you when that real-you truly understands it’s mortality.

I would rather follow my basic personality honestly, and bet that God is “just” and will not hold against me that I “honor” his gift (unrelentingly following reason). To try and “fake” a conversion would not “fool” God, of course. And honest conversion seems totally impossible me.

You are right to trust that God will be just and merciful with you. You are wrong in that you think you know what God’s gift to you was (is). It is not “to unrelentingly follow reason”, because you misunderstand what “reason” means.

You misunderstand what reason means because you misunderstand what faith means, and you misunderstand what faith means because you misunderstand what God means.

No one, not even God, is asking you to have a “FLASH” instant conversion. God asks only that you do the experiments necessary to allow a connection with Him, and we ask, plead actually, that you take our hints of His greatness and love as the utterly pale and weak descriptions of what He has given us as a “prompting” to do those experiments, which don’t cost very much other than in “rightly adjusting one’s ego into proper proportion” for your own good.

THE singular most “impossible seeming” thing in the world to do is to convince a person that they are not their ego, their personality. This applies MOST strongly when trying to convince oneself that one is not one’s ego.

(( This is why an essential component of any addiction treatment is “power greater than you”, which can be “relented to” in service to battling one’s addiction. ))

The usual means by which this “breakthough” happens is by being “broken”, which God WILL do in proportional “force” to the strength of the ego in question. Sometimes God gives MUCH warning and opportunity to be broken “gently”, like being told the truth in these forums, and if not heeded reserves the “breaking” to the afterlife.

Mortality is a monkey-trap. A monkey-trap is a gourd with a hole in it, with a luscious hard fruit the size of the hole inside the gourd. The monkey wants the fruit and reaches into the gourd, and yet can’t extract the fruit, won’t release that fruit, and sits there until the hunter simply grabs the monkey and sells him or eats him.

The fruit is the false structures of the ego, the “personality”. The gourd is life’s full reality, and not only it’s material reality. The forest is heaven. The hunter is hell.

You’re free to play the game as you wish.

 

[Benadam]

Your response to this scenario is confusing me ateista.

*Originally Posted by Benadam
Well I just meant if the just cause of the pain in question was understood that would be all the pain. My own opinion on the matter is that life is served by a rythm of natural occurances that seem to interfere with the ebb and flow of different life forms on earth over the eons. That there is nothing immoral about the bodily pain involved as it is natural to mortal life.
*

ateista quote:
If you were an atheist, that would be the perfect conclusion. There is nature, which is morally indifferent, and things are simply what they are.
However, if you put God into the picture, that is a different ballgame. According to theists, God created nature, and thus God is responsible for its “workings”. Obviously God could have created a natural world, where there are no animals (beings with a nervous system) who are able to experience pleasure and pain.

If the conditions within which life exists causes experience that is unjust, why are the conditions and or experiences no longer unjust if there is no God?

 

[minkymurph]

If the conditions within which life exists causes experience that is unjust, why are the conditions and or experiences no longer unjust if there is no God?

Interesting point. If God does not exist, who or what should determine what is just, or what is moral? I believe the human race does have an inbuilt code of morality however we often disagree for a whole variety of reasons. Therefore, in the case of disagreement, who should decide for society what is moral or just? Governments? Scientists? The argument we can all decide for ourselves does not work as this would lead to breakdown in society and in the worst possible senario, complete anarchy. In the absence of a God therefore, who decides what is moral and just for a society or a nation, and why should they be the one’s to decide?

 

[ateista]

If the conditions within which life exists causes experience that is unjust, why are the conditions and or experiences no longer unjust if there is no God?

Because nature is “amoral”. If there is no God, no one can be held “responsible” for a wildfire or an Earthquake. No one “created” pain, it is just a feature of nature.

If, however one assumes a conscious creator, who could have arranged things otherwise, then the picture is different. Things are not “natural”, they are arranged in a certain fashion. Since they could have been “arranged” differently, the creator is responsible for his creation.

With power comes responsibility, and with “infinte” power comes infinite responsibility.

 

[ateista]

I’m not really sure what you mean here; can you enlarge?

Well, since God is supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful, he cannot “claim” ignorance or lack of ability to “fix” things.

Your an atheist, I’m a believer; on this point therefore we will probably have to agree to differ.

Sure. Happens all the time.

I agree with you up to a point. I go back to the argument that it is not always possible for us to intervene but when it is within our power, yes it is a moral imperative.

Right. Now if it is a moral imperative for us, why shouldn’t the same imperative apply to God? Allegedly it is God who demands us to be helpful to others. Why is there one moral code for humans and a different one for God? Isn’t morality supposed to be universal? There is a good old saying for such behavior: “preaching water and drinking wine” - to indicate someone who demands something form others, but is unwilling to follow his own demands.

 

[Benadam]

3879416If, however one assumes a conscious creator, who could have arranged things otherwise, then the picture is different. Things are not “natural”, they are arranged in a certain fashion. Since they could have been “arranged” differently, the creator is responsible for his creation.

I think I finally understand your position. You look at the world and see alot of room for improvement. It shouldn’t be like this if a moral agent was creating it. If there is a God creation 101 is required.

I wonder ateista are you an atheist because of the way the world is or do you think the world is the way it is because there is no God?

 

[jimmy85]

I personately believe that since it is beleive that we come from the nothing and that theologicaly speaking we conciously exist only due to God, I think that it is quite reasonable that in excahnge of that we just have to try to follow his will, or his divine guidance, or to do soemthign in exchange of what we have resived.

It is key to stress the fact that we come from the nothing, and that we previosuly didnt exist. This put us in a sort of situation in which we ought to do soemthing for God in exchange of what we have recived. Certainly life is full of injustice but when you realize that we were nothing at all then it kind of balance everything, otherwise life might seem like a negative and pessimist reality, made by an unfair God.

There is one notion that is beyond being rational, and that is the notion that in order to recive something good you would ahve to make an effort. This happens in our daily life, like when you go to college, in order to recive a diploma in order to make better your way of living.

Just like that, every rational creature has in some way or the other to be purified or to make an effort.
Otherwise it would be like if you were never attending to college and to be demanding a diploma.

So keeping in mind that we come from the nothing, and that we were nothing, we cant ask for perfection, say no pain, no awful things happening, we can just try to diminish that by our effort in making the world a better place.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Benadam
If the conditions within which life exists causes experience that is unjust, why are the conditions and or experiences no longer unjust if there is no God?

Because nature is “amoral”. If there is no God, no one can be held “responsible” for a wildfire or an Earthquake. No one “created” pain, it is just a feature of nature.

If, however one assumes a conscious creator, who could have arranged things otherwise, then the picture is different. Things are not “natural”, they are arranged in a certain fashion. Since they could have been “arranged” differently, the creator is responsible for his creation.

With power comes responsibility, and with “infinte” power comes infinite responsibility.

The only thing wrong with your reasoning is that you imagine that YOU are capable of defining what “infinite responsibility” means.

To you it means, “The ability to make all things perfect as ATEISTA understands perfection, which means (at least) that no innocent being should ever suffer pain during it’s (biological) lifetime.”

Since you arrogate to yourself a perfect understanding of “infinite responsibility” it’s not surprising that YOU are more “likely” to be God than God, and since you KNOW that you are not Godlike then God CANNOT POSSIBLY exist!

The ego inflation of the so-called atheist is truly profound.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by minkymurph
I agree with you up to a point. I go back to the argument that it is not always possible for us to intervene but when it is within our power, yes it is a moral imperative.

Right. Now if it is a moral imperative for us, why shouldn’t the same imperative apply to God?

It does apply to God, but because you deny the existence of persons past death you are prohibited from seeing God’s justice and mercy.

Allegedly it is God who demands us to be helpful to others. Why is there one moral code for humans and a different one for God? Isn’t morality supposed to be universal? There is a good old saying for such behavior: “preaching water and drinking wine” - to indicate someone who demands something form others, but is unwilling to follow his own demands.

I realize this is futile, as you’re completely committed to simply yelling the BIG LIE that “God is nonexistent because if He exists then He is EVIL and we can all agree that He can’t be evil”, over and over and over, but I’ll give it a shot anyway:

Give me an example of how God obeys a different morality than what He tells us to obey? (…and I’ll show you specifically how He obeys His universal morality)

 

[minkymurph]

Well, since God is supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful, he cannot “claim” ignorance or lack of ability to “fix” things.

Right. Now if it is a moral imperative for us, why shouldn’t the same imperative apply to God? Allegedly it is God who demands us to be helpful to others. Why is there one moral code for humans and a different one for God? Isn’t morality supposed to be universal? There is a good old saying for such behavior: “preaching water and drinking wine” - to indicate someone who demands something form others, but is unwilling to follow his own demands.

Being perfectly honest, I don’t believe I could ever give you an irrevocable answer to the question, ‘Why does God permit suffering or evil.’ The only thing I have ever come up with, which is not an answer but food for thought, if you (or any of us) had ultimate power, to what extent would we intervene in order to make sure nothing bad ever happened? For example, if your son or daughter against your advice insisted on forming a relationship with someone you believed was no good for them, someone who would cause them hurt, how far would you go in preventing them from seeing that person? On a greater scale, I have just studied Plato’s Republic and my personal observation from the study was; the philosophers deem dictatorship the worst form of government and the most unjust yet the irony is, to maintain a completly just state, you would need to be a dictator. As I said, this is not an answer, simply food for thought but in addition I would add, it came to light after the Tsunami disaster that the Governements in that part of the world could have established a warning system prior to the disaster. They decided not to apparently because they did not believe it was needed. If they had set up such a system it would not have prevented all loss of live but it would have been considerably less. Should God have intervened and forced them to make that decision?

 

[ateista]

I think I finally understand your position. You look at the world and see alot of room for improvement. It shouldn’t be like this if a moral agent was creating it. If there is a God creation 101 is required.

Very well said!

I wonder ateista are you an atheist because of the way the world is or do you think the world is the way it is because there is no God?

Both. When I was a kid, I was brought up a believer. In my young years I frequented a church, and went to Bible studies. The preachers were great and wonderful people, whom I still remember fondly.

The trouble came when I started to compare the teachings and reality, and the teachings were “mene, tekel, upharsin”, so to speak. Slowly and gradually I lost my faith. Contrary to what CatsAndDogs keeps surmizing, there was no “trauma”, there were no bad experiences. I never had to cry out: “But, why, God, why?” - on my own behalf.

But there are far too many of these discrepancies when I look at others. Many people, children, animals suffer, and there is no visible reason why they should. I do not discard the possibility that there is a perfectly good and rational reason to allow all that suffering. However, I am not privy to it. Therefore I must judge according to the evidence which is available to me. And the evidence is pretty “damning”.

Many times I hear the argument: “but you are not omniscient, and maybe there is a perfectly good reason for all this…”. Yes, maybe. Or maybe not. As long as I am not given reason why to doubt my senses, I will go by the duck principle.

 

[ateista]

Being perfectly honest, I don’t believe I could ever give you an irrevocable answer to the question, ‘Why does God permit suffering or evil.’

You are not alone and you are in good company. No one ever has given an even remotely satisfactory answer.

The only thing I have ever come up with, which is not an answer but food for thought, if you (or any of us) had ultimate power, to what extent would we intervene in order to make sure nothing bad ever happened?

The ultimate power is not enough. Remember the movie “Bruce Almighty”, where God gave omnipotence to the hero, but not omniscience. And so he made a proper mess out of it.

But this is the real answer: the world should have been created not just “good”, but “perfect”, so that no intervention would be required ever again. And one of the attributes of perfection is that it does not change and cannot be “messed up”.

Or, of course, no creation should have happened in the first place. If God is “perfect” and “lacks nothing”, why should he create anything else? From the pinnacle all roads leads downhill.

For example, if your son or daughter against your advice insisted on forming a relationship with someone you believed was no good for them, someone who would cause them hurt, how far would you go in preventing them from seeing that person?

We should be very careful with this analogy. It is obvious, that I would go to a very long way to protect a toddler. Not that far with a teenager, and even less with an adult child. The point is that compared to God we shall never be more than a toddler and maybe even less. We shall never reach even the teenager state. So it is quite reasonable expect the same kind of protection as newborn.

On a greater scale, I have just studied Plato’s Republic and my personal observation from the study was; the philosophers deem dictatorship the worst form of government and the most unjust yet the irony is, to maintain a completly just state, you would need to be a dictator.

Sure, but you would not need a goverment or state if everyone would be a decent, loving, caring person.

As I said, this is not an answer, simply food for thought but in addition I would add, it came to light after the Tsunami disaster that the Governements in that part of the world could have established a warning system prior to the disaster. They decided not to apparently because they did not believe it was needed. If they had set up such a system it would not have prevented all loss of live but it would have been considerably less. Should God have intervened and forced them to make that decision?

Why not simply prevent the tsunami happening in the first place? No visible intevention is needed. Or give everyone the ability to foresee the tsunami without a special warning device? None of these are impossible for a being of sufficient power.

 

[ateista]

I realize this is futile, as you’re completely committed to simply yelling the BIG LIE that “God is nonexistent because if He exists then He is EVIL and we can all agree that He can’t be evil”, over and over and over, but I’ll give it a shot anyway:

Give me an example of how God obeys a different morality than what He tells us to obey? (…and I’ll show you specifically how He obeys His universal morality)

This is pointless. So let me tell you a joke instead.

There is a trial and the doctor is on the witness stand. The lawyer conducts a cross-examination.

Lawyer: So, doctor, did you examine the person in question?
Doctor: Yes, I did.
Lawyer: What was your conclusion?
Doctor: I discovered that he was dead.
Lawyer: How did you conduct the examination?
Doctor: I checked the heart and found it stopped, I checked the respiration and there was none.
Lawyer: But doctor, is it possible that the person was still alive?
Doctor: During the autopsy I removed his intenstines and placed them into formaldehyde.
Lawyer: Still, is it conceivable that the person was still alive?
Doctor: I had his brain in a jar on my desk.
Lawyer: But doctor, you are not omnisicent. Is there any chance, however remote that the person was still alive?
Doctor: Well, I guess, it is possible that he was still alive and practicing law somewhere!

 

[ateista]

The ego inflation of the so-called atheist is truly profound.

This is pointless. So let me tell you a joke instead.

There is a trial and the doctor is on the witness stand. The lawyer conducts a cross-examination.

Lawyer: So, doctor, did you examine the person in question?
Doctor: Yes, I did.
Lawyer: What was your conclusion?
Doctor: I discovered that he was dead.
Lawyer: How did you conduct the examination?
Doctor: I checked the heart and found it stopped, I checked the respiration and there was none.
Lawyer: But doctor, is it possible that the person was still alive?
Doctor: During the autopsy I removed his intenstines and placed them into formaldehyde.
Lawyer: Still, is it conceivable that the person was still alive?
Doctor: I had his brain in a jar on my desk.
Lawyer: But doctor, you are not omnisicent. Is there any chance, however remote that the person was still alive?
Doctor: Well, I guess, it is possible that he was still alive and practicing law somewhere!

 

[minkymurph]

The ultimate power is not enough.But this is the real answer: the world should have been created not just “good”, but “perfect”, so that no intervention would be required ever again. And one of the attributes of perfection is that it does not change and cannot be “messed up”.

It is obvious, that I would go to a very long way to protect a toddler. Not that far with a teenager, and even less with an adult child. The point is that compared to God we shall never be more than a toddler and maybe even less. We shall never reach even the teenager state. So it is quite reasonable expect the same kind of protection as newborn.

Sure, but you would not need a goverment or state if everyone would be a decent, loving, caring person.

That’s Utopia. I would say that God originally did create Utopia. However he also gave us free will and I’ve often questioned whether or not he should have. I agree the ultimate power argument is not enough. I used it simply as food for thought. All the statements I made I made in relation to one question; to what extend should we allow others to exercise their free will? I disagree that we are all toddlers in God’s eyes. In a sense we are however a human toddler in God’s eyes is not the same as a human adult in his eyes. God expects adults to be bit more responsible than toddlers and gives us the means to be more responsible than toddlers and a greater capacity to reason than toddlers and gave us the means and the authority to guide toddlers. In relation to creating a world that would never get messed up,I would be of the opinion if Adam had not sinned sooner or later someone, somewhere, would have. To create a world where no one would ever sin and maintain it as such, you would need to be a dictator as it requires limiting the free will you allow others. As you quite rightly say, as child gets older you allow them to make their own decisions, and mistakes, to a greater degree. Why did God not stop the Tsunami in the first place? I’ve no idea. Man has been trying to answer these questions from the dawn of time and I don’t know if we’re any further on. I’m not actually trying to give you answers here; I admit I can’t. I’m just trying to reason on things for greater understanding of very complex questions.

 

[ateista]

That’s Utopia. I would say that God originally did create Utopia.

And, prey tell, what is wrong with Utopia?

However he also gave us free will and I’ve often questioned whether or not he should have.

The free will “defense” is not correct. It only accounts for the possibility of willful misdeeds, not for their actuality. Obviously you have free will, and would never dream of “abusing” it, to willfully cause harm to others. I would venture to say that most people are nice, benevolent, helpful. What is the point to have the “deviants”?

All the statements I made I made in relation to one question; to what extend should we allow others to exercise their free will?

As long as they use it and not abuse it.

I disagree that we are all toddlers in God’s eyes.

Actually we are even less. The difference between an adult and a toddler is infinitely smaller than the difference between God and the smartest genius - and here I am talking about the wisdom and power.

To give the ability to act freely would be irresponsible if given to child. One does not give a loaded weapon to a child and rely on a command: “but don’t use it!”.

In a sense we are however a human toddler in God’s eyes is not the same as a human adult in his eyes. God expects adults to be bit more responsible than toddlers and gives us the means to be more responsible than toddlers and a greater capacity to reason than toddlers and gave us the means and the authority to guide toddlers.

But it is woefully inadequate in many cases.

In relation to creating a world that would never get messed up,I would be of the opinion if Adam had not sinned sooner or later someone, somewhere, would have. To create a world where no one would ever sin and maintain it as such, you would need to be a dictator as it requires limiting the free will you allow others.

That is not the only option. A much easier approach would be to give the free will and also the wisdom of how to use it, and the inclination of listening to the voice of wisdom. Most people would only commit something “improper” out of ignorance.

Why did God not stop the Tsunami in the first place? I’ve no idea. Man has been trying to answer these questions from the dawn of time and I don’t know if we’re any further on. I’m not actually trying to give you answers here; I admit I can’t. I’m just trying to reason on things for greater understanding of very complex questions.

And you do it quite nicely and well. What I really value in your posts is the modesty of admitting that you don’t have the answers and do not pretend the opposite.