Sour grapes... said the fox

[Serious]

Sour “hypocrisy” … Should have said there is a difference in perspectives between human living on this earth and eternal life with our Creator. One can mix apples and oranges in a fruit bowl; but one cannot substitute creature views for those of the Creator.

Since the creator is notoriously silent (absent), we MUST use our perspective. That is all we have.

 

[grannymh]

Since the creator is notoriously silent (absent), we MUST use our perspective. That is all we have.

Sorry, “notoriously silent” applies to living organisms that have a material anatomy with no apparatus for making sounds. Not sure if any such creature exists since sounds can be made by hands or feet coming together.

Which brings us to interesting questions. What kind of ears are needed to differentiate between the Creator’s sounds and silences? What kind of an ever present Creator has the ability to be absent?

It is true we have our own perspectives; but that is not all we have. For example. Fish have their own perspective about taking a walk in a forest. Not only can we walk in a forest, we can enter a submarine and live for months under water. Especially if it is a yellow submarine.

It should be obvious that a fish, human, and a Creator have different perspectives because they are different beings.

 

[Serious]

It should be obvious that a fish, human, and a Creator have different perspectives because they are different beings.

Except that the alleged creator has the ability to assume human form and perform communication which can be perceived and understood by humans. So the creator has no excuse of staying silent - and as such we are justified to use the information what we have. We can be as open as we wish to to accept the communication on the channels which we can understand, but if this “creator” does not use those channels, then the blame is on him…

 

[robwar]

Sorry, misunderstanding. I did not give examples, I was quoting opinions - and those opinions were vague. Please do not shoot the messanger.

I reject that concept.

and what basis do you reject that concept?

I would prefer “heaven on Earth” and no “salvation”. And I vigorously reject the idea that “God uses evil for good”. It is a dogma that “one cannot do evil, just so that some good will come out of it”. Using other words: “the end does not justify the means”.

I think you are confused here. God conquers evil with good. Evil is conquered by God when God can turn around evil with an end result of good. You ignored the Joseph example. There were a thousand ways Joseph could have gotten to Egypt. Evil and suffering is not stronger than God and good. It is not the end justifying the means. It is evil and suffering that is conquered by the good of God.

 

[adrift]

Looking at those threads dealing with pain, there are invariably a few people who will consider pain and suffering a positive thing. Their argument is: “without pain how could we value our health?” In other words: “it is better to be sick and recover, than to be healthy all the time”, or “it is better to go hungry and have your fill, then never be hungry at all”. Relativism at its finest. They say that they do not appreciate good for its own value, they appreciate it as a contrast to the bad.

Usually they scorn the “utopia” of no pain, no misery, no hunger, no sickness… I wonder how honest - to themselves - these people are? Do they seek pain, just so the cessation of pain would be appreciated more? Do they grab a hammer and smack their own thumb, just because it feels “so good”, when they stop it? I sincerely doubt it.

What they try to do, is rationalize the existence of pain and suffering. Since the utopia seems to be out of reach, they pretend that it would not be good anyhow. And they also assert that having all the human monsters, criminals, murderers, rapists is preferable then getting rid of them. If there would be a medical option to change those criminals to decent fellows, these people would protest, because they think that the criminals’ “free will” is somehow “valuable”.

“Sour grapes”… said the fox. Should have said: “hypocrisy”.

I consider pain a positive thing but not for the reasons you state.
Pain and suffering is an opportunity to unite with Jesus in His suffering on the Cross. I have constant pain. The thought that I can unite with Jesus helps me endure it.

 

[Serious]

I consider pain a positive thing but not for the reasons you state.
Pain and suffering is an opportunity to unite with Jesus in His suffering on the Cross. I have constant pain. The thought that I can unite with Jesus helps me endure it.

Yes, this is the redemptive view. I reject it.

 

[Serious]

I think you are confused here.

I doubt it.

God conquers evil with good.

That is a strange proposition. God is the “strongest” guy around the block. he created evil, just so that he can manifest his strength by conquering a weak opponent? And, before you start to deny it, God created everything. Nothing can exist if God did not create or allow it. There is no difference between explicitly creating or tacitly allowing something.

God confirms this in Isiah 45:7
“I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the LORD, do all these things.”

The King James version is even more explicit:
"I form the light, and create darkness:
I make peace, and create evil:
I the LORD do all these things. "

 

[Qoeleth]

There is nothing ‘good’ about suffering itself. To pursue suffering, or to seek to inflict it, positively would be idiocy. But suffering may have a good outcome. That outcome is that the sufferer becomes detached from the vanities of the world and the self.

A person who has drunk the cup of suffering (the bitter cup of life), no longer fears death. Eventually, they are freed of all hopes and fears, and desires and aversions. Then this world is seen as nothing but a bubble, a mirage or a passing vision- the self is nothing but an illusion, a construction, a chimera a fictional character.

This then brings the perfection of compassion- to realise that ‘my’ pain, and ‘your’ pain are verily one and the same- the suffering of the other then hurts (me) as much as my own.

 

[Serious]

There is nothing ‘good’ about suffering itself. To pursue suffering, or to seek to inflict it, positively would be idiocy. But suffering may have a good outcome. That outcome is that the sufferer becomes detached from the vanities of the world and the self.

A person who has drunk the cup of suffering (the bitter cup of life), no longer fears death. Eventually, they are freed of all hopes and fears, and desires and aversions. Then this world is seen as nothing but a bubble, a mirage or a passing vision- the self is nothing but an illusion, a construction, a chimera a fictional character.

This then brings the perfection of compassion- to realise that ‘my’ pain, and ‘your’ pain are verily one and the same- the suffering of the other then hurts (me) as much as my own.

Just look at this post. forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=9163506&postcount=148 and be amazed. I was almost left speachless, and had to scramble around for “charitable” words.

 

[grannymh]

I doubt it.

That is a strange proposition. God is the “strongest” guy around the block. he created evil, just so that he can manifest his strength by conquering a weak opponent? And, before you start to deny it, God created everything. Nothing can exist if God did not create or allow it. There is no difference between explicitly creating or tacitly allowing something.

God confirms this in Isiah 45:7
“I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the LORD, do all these things.”

The King James version is even more explicit:
"I form the light, and create darkness:
I make peace, and create evil:
I the LORD do all these things. "

The Catholic Church knows God’s power as being so powerful as to transcend all creatures and all creation. The fullness of God the Creator is invisible, inexpressible, incomprehensible, and ungraspable with our human nature minds.

It is foolishness of humans to think that they know everything about God.

 

[grannymh]

Except that the alleged creator has the ability to assume human form and perform communication which can be perceived and understood by humans. So the creator has no excuse of staying silent - and as such we are justified to use the information what we have. We can be as open as we wish to to accept the communication on the channels which we can understand, but if this “creator” does not use those channels, then the blame is on him…

To assume human form, besides what it means in my neighborhood, is not the same as being the same being.

To clarify the Catholic position: Jesus Christ is one Person with two natures, divine and human. God is three Persons, one nature, divine. This is the meaning of the Blessed Trinity. When talking about God as the Creator, normally, we are referring to the one divine nature.

It is foolishness of humans to think that they know everything about God.

It is not my intention to get into the middle of all the discussions above. My intention is to state a few foundational facts (such as different natures have different perspectives) which will offer some light on the concerns above. Your mentioning perspective is an excellent way to accomplish my intention. Thank you.

Post 22 was in response to your post 21 which stated: “Since the creator is notoriously silent (absent), we MUST use our perspective. That is all we have.” Now you are talking about an “alleged creator.”

Surely you have in your mind a basic description of the creator’s or the alleged creator’s nature in terms of spiritual, immaterial, material, physical or a combination of the preceding. I am looking forward to your description of the Creator nature–what He is; not what He does or does not.

To go back to the last statement in post 22 “It should be obvious that a fish, human, and a Creator have different perspectives because they are different beings.” – Is that obvious to you?

 

[Serious]

To clarify the Catholic position: Jesus Christ is one Person with two natures, divine and human. God is three Persons, one nature, divine. This is the meaning of the Blessed Trinity. When talking about God as the Creator, normally, we are referring to the one divine nature.

I am aware of all this. What you call “mystery” I call a contradicion. Not important for this thread. The point is that we must use our faculties because that is all we have. If there is no communication from God, then it is crazy to assert that the communication is there, we just “purposefully” close our ears to it.

Surely you have in your mind a basic description of the creator’s or the alleged creator’s nature in terms of spiritual, immaterial, material, physical or a combination of the preceding. I am looking forward to your description of the Creator nature–what He is; not what He does or does not.

Not in this thread. Besides you use words (“spiritual”) which are not meaningful to me.

 

[Qoeleth]

To return to the OP, the bottom line is, if pain and suffering were actually good, it would be good to cause and inflict pain and suffering. But it isn’t. If suffering was really good, Heaven would be suffering.

The effects of pain and suffering may be good. But in the end, these effect are only good insofar as they lead to a reduction in suffering.

Sometimes, we might choose to interpret our own pain as a gift, if it helps us. But we should NEVER interpret another’s pain in this way.

 

[Serious]

To return to the OP, the bottom line is, if pain and suffering were actually good, it would be good to cause and inflict pain and suffering. But it isn’t. If suffering was really good, Heaven would be suffering.

The effects of pain and suffering may be good. But in the end, these effect are only good insofar as they lead to a reduction in suffering.

Sometimes, we might choose to interpret our own pain as a gift, if it helps us. But we should NEVER interpret another’s pain in this way.

Well said.

 

[grannymh]

I am aware of all this. What you call “mystery” I call a contradicion. Not important for this thread. The point is that we must use our faculties because that is all we have. If there is no communication from God, then it is crazy to assert that the communication is there, we just “purposefully” close our ears to it.

Not in this thread. Besides you use words (“spiritual”) which are not meaningful to me.

You could have chosen any words in the languge. No matter. I now understand where you are coming from. Thank you for sharing.

 

[grannymh]

Looking at those threads dealing with pain, there are invariably a few people who will consider pain and suffering a positive thing. Their argument is: “without pain how could we value our health?” In other words: “it is better to be sick and recover, than to be healthy all the time”, or “it is better to go hungry and have your fill, then never be hungry at all”. Relativism at its finest. They say that they do not appreciate good for its own value, they appreciate it as a contrast to the bad.

Usually they scorn the “utopia” of no pain, no misery, no hunger, no sickness… I wonder how honest - to themselves - these people are? Do they seek pain, just so the cessation of pain would be appreciated more? Do they grab a hammer and smack their own thumb, just because it feels “so good”, when they stop it? I sincerely doubt it.

What they try to do, is rationalize the existence of pain and suffering. Since the utopia seems to be out of reach, they pretend that it would not be good anyhow. And they also assert that having all the human monsters, criminals, murderers, rapists is preferable then getting rid of them. If there would be a medical option to change those criminals to decent fellows, these people would protest, because they think that the criminals’ “free will” is somehow “valuable”.

“Sour grapes”… said the fox. Should have said: “hypocrisy”.

“The point is that we must use our faculties because that is all we have.”

This is an out-of-context quote from this thread. However, it does pose an interesting concept (regarding the thread) in that we are only a material anatomy, with useful faculties, which eventually decomposes. And that is that.

The concept which is missing from some of the thread’s posts is that there is both a spiritual principle and a material principle to our human nature. We are not just a fine-tuned anatomy but rather our person uniquely unites both the material and spiritual worlds. Our future is more than an earthly rotting away precisely because God, as Creator, exists. Ultimately, God’s perspective is different than ours. His perspective is long range into an eternity of love and peace as we see God face to face or as Catholics say, we are finally in the presence of the Beatific Vision.

Obviously, there are people who either ignore the concept of a pure spirit Creator Who is essentially different from His creation or who fight against this concept. Both kinds of people like to use “suffering” as their reason to ignore or fight. Realistically “suffering” itself is hard to understand by believers in God. But faith in God, call it blind faith if you wish, gives us comfort in that our material anatomy and our faculties are not all that we have.

 

[Serious]

Obviously, there are people who either ignore the concept of a pure spirit Creator Who is essentially different from His creation or who fight against this concept.

“Fight” is not the correct word. Use “discard” and you get close to our thinking.

Both kinds of people like to use “suffering” as their reason to ignore or fight.

The unexplained and unexplainable and useless suffering is what contradicts the existence of a benevolent “Big Brother”. The question of: “how do we know that the suffering is useless?” is readily answered by showing that there is no explanation forthcoming, and therefore we are left to our own devices. We use the “duck principle”. To say that the creator “might” have different priorities is just an empty assertion.

Realistically “suffering” itself is hard to understand by believers in God. But faith in God, call it blind faith if you wish, gives us comfort in that our material anatomy and our faculties are not all that we have.

Yes, it is blind faith.

Here is a simple line of thought: Suppose we observe 1000 instances of seemingly unnecessary suffering. You come by and give a rational analysis for 900 of them and substantiate that the “seemingly” unnecessary sufferings actually have a good explanation for them. You may not be really correct in every case, but at least what you say is plausible. (No spriritual mumbo-jumbo, just simple rational thinking.) If you could do that, then it would be also reasonable to assume that the remaining 100 instances may also have a rational explanation for them. And to have faith that there is a rational explanation would NOT be blind faith, it would be a rational extrapolation.

But this is not the case. You cannot give a rational explanation for even one of those “seemingly” unnecessary sufferings. And thus the “duck principle” is followed: “if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and tastes like a duck… it is very probably a duck, and NOT an elephant”. The funny thing is that you and your fellow believers all use this principle in every facet of life … except when it comes to your religion. If you see an abusive father, you do not assume that there “might” be some unknown reason why that abuse is really an expression of love. You see abuse, and you say it is an abuse. And this inconsistency is what I call: “hypocrisy”.

 

[inocente]

And thus the “duck principle” is followed: “if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and tastes like a duck… it is very probably a duck, and NOT an elephant”. The funny thing is that you and your fellow believers all use this principle in every facet of life … except when it comes to your religion. If you see an abusive father, you do not assume that there “might” be some unknown reason why that abuse is really an expression of love. You see abuse, and you say it is an abuse. And this inconsistency is what I call: “hypocrisy”.

God causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matt 5:45), which means logically that He also rains down suffering on the righteous and the unrighteous alike (although noticeably less on the good folk of Beverley Hills and Las Vegas than the good folk of Baghdad and Burundi).

You quoted Isaiah 45:7 “I bring prosperity and create disaster”. Those who find excuses for God to make Him nice and cuddly don’t really get the idea of God. Imho.

Incidentally, the duck and the elephant, along with the fox from the OP, are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

 

[grannymh]

God causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matt 5:45), which means logically that He also rains down suffering on the righteous and the unrighteous alike (although noticeably less on the good folk of Beverley Hills and Las Vegas than the good folk of Baghdad and Burundi).

You quoted Isaiah 45:7 “I bring prosperity and create disaster”. Those who find excuses for God to make Him nice and cuddly don’t really get the idea of God. Imho.

Incidentally, the duck and the elephant, along with the fox from the OP, are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

The rain it raineth every day upon the just and unjust fella.
It raineth mostly on the just 'cause the unjust has the just’s umbrella.

from granny’s Irish Grandmother

 

[Qoeleth]

"Here is a simple line of thought: Suppose we observe 1000 instances of seemingly unnecessary suffering. You come by and give a rational analysis for 900 of them and substantiate that the “seemingly” unnecessary sufferings actually have a good explanation for them. You may not be really correct in every case, but at least what you say is plausible. (No spriritual mumbo-jumbo, just simple rational thinking.) If you could do that, then it would be also reasonable to assume that the remaining 100 instances may also have a rational explanation for them. And to have faith that there is a rational explanation would NOT be blind faith, it would be a rational extrapolation.

But this is not the case. You cannot give a rational explanation for even one of those “seemingly” unnecessary sufferings. And thus the “duck principle” is followed: “if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and tastes like a duck… it is very probably a duck, and NOT an elephant”. The funny thing is that you and your fellow believers all use this principle in every facet of life … except when it comes to your religion. If you see an abusive father, you do not assume that there “might” be some unknown reason why that abuse is really an expression of love. You see abuse, and you say it is an abuse. And this inconsistency is what I call: “hypocrisy”.

You are right. And the whole thing about suffering is that it is its very pointlessness which makes it worse. If you go the dentist, and experience pain for a reason (to fix a toothache), you would not normally refer to it as ‘suffering’.

Serious, I think you premise is wrong, in that you are assuming that suffering comes from God. It doesn’t it comes from sin, or the Devil. Evil is by definition that which causes suffering. The cause of suffering is, by definition, evil- which you can call either sin or the Devil. God redeems us from suffering, He does not create it.

The Catechism says the source of evil is a ‘mystery’. It isn’t God.