What kind of a world would you create, if you had the power?

[abucs]

So everything is hunky-dory from the Holocaust all the way to wars, tortures, rapes and abortions (especially abortions!). Let me ask something: “what do you do when you have a toothache”? Do you run to the dentist to fix it? Of just offer up your suffering? What do you do if your child is sick (if you have any)? What do you do when you see someone starving? Because every time you interfere with the world, you implicitly criticize God’s natural “design”.

With respect I think what you are not understanding is that we are in a world right now where we have the power both to interfere in the world and to create something better (or worse). That is part of God’s creation. If He didn’t specifically want us to ‘interfere’, then we wouldn’t be able to. Reading the gospels, interfering in the world is not a criticism of God but pretty much a demand of His. He gives us this mission and this power.

We don’t have absolute power, we have to negotiate with others and are limited by our own knowledge and experience. We could create (hypothetically) a world just for ourselves but that would be not just boring but ultimately insane. On the other hand we could create a world where our thoughts dominate over others but in the last century we had quite a few attempts at that as a species and it always turned out to create something closer to the caricature of Hell rather than that of Heaven.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t try to create a better world. The rules of God’s creation here and now not only allows us to do just that, but pretty well demands it. We must also suffer the consequences of where and when we go wrong. That is the price of sharing this world and being independent free thinking (and acting) creatures. These experiences allow us to progress and come closer to the ultimate realisation of what is good and just.

Paraphrasing the Nobel physicist winner Werner Heisenberg - God is waiting for us there.

 

[Francis]

Game On!

Psalms 86:8 There is none like you among the gods, O Lord,nor are there any works like yours.

Romans 8:28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.Deuteronomy 4:6 You must observe them diligently, for this will show your wisdom and discernment to the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!” 7 For what other great nation has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call to him? 8 And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?

Genesis 2:31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Wisdom 1:12-16 Do not invite death by the error of your life,or bring on destruction by the works of your hands;13 because God did not make death,and he does not delight in the death of the living.
14 For he created all things so that they might exist;the generative forces of the world are wholesome,and there is no destructive poison in them,and the dominion of Hades is not on earth.
15 For righteousness is immortal.Life as the Ungodly See It16 But the ungodly by their words and deeds summoned death;considering him a friend, they pined away and made a covenant with him,
because they are fit to belong to his company Wisdom 2:24 but through the devil’s envy death entered the world,and those who belong to his company experience it.

Well, if man is responsible for his doings how come you blame God for all the evil.very unreasonable.i for one, would submit my will to His.

Ecclesiastes 7:29 See, this alone I found, that God made human beings straightforward, but they have devised many schemes.

Game over!

 

[crenfro]

Hello.

I’d create a world where men & women lived in separate countries unless/until a couple decided to marry or become a religious. Child abuse would not be tolerated. Parents would not try to live through their children but raise children to become their own person.

I’d have lots of dog shows and cat shows and Strawberry Schnapps and everyone would wear beautiful, well-made clothes.

The use of language would be used for works of art, clarity but not to confuse or mislead.

Everybody would be a good Catholic.

There would be no inconsiderate, noisy neighbors.

Everybody’d do what they were made to do and actually enjoy it.

Only gentle, thoughtful people would be allowed to be in public office.

People would be required to be honest with themselves & act accordingly.

The punishment would fit the crime.

I’d have a city for people who’d just started to turn their life around for the better.

I’d have to ask God to run this world because it’d be too much for me.

just random thoughts…

 

[WelcomedHome]

The question was if we had the power though…

 

[IWantGod]

But your power would remove freewill.

 

[WelcomedHome]

Again, I was answering the question as it was posted.
I assume we were discussing absolute power over humanity.

 

[Sophia]

You think that God just arbitrarily made murder sinful?

I cannot know God’s motives, they are unknowable. The only way we can surmise them is by observing what he does (or rather does NOT do) and perform a logical analysis. But it is certain that God has full control over the decision of “action A” is sinful, while “action B” is not. There cannot be objective sinfulness, because it would be a constraint upon God. This is just a variant on the age old Euthyphro dilemma.

Your world sounds way too much like the miserable way people try to live right now. Don’t commit. Don’t value reliability. Avoid doing anything with permanent consequences. Bounce constantly from one thing to another. Abandon rhythms and seasons; chase novelty endlessly, instead. Nothing would have consequences, so people would catch on that nothing they do ultimately has any meaning. It would create a flabby Hell of ennui.

You misunderstood. Avoiding the negative consequences is what we try to do now - but not having the power, many times we are unable to succeed. But we try to eliminate the negative things in life. In the world I envision a world, where people would not have to waste time upon fighting the “bad stuff”, like pain, hunger, illness, hate and so on, they could concentrate upon the “good stuff”, creativity, love, art, happiness, innovation, travel, reading.

Do you think that there is intrinsic value of the “bad stuff”?

 

[Sophia]

With respect I think what you are not understanding is that we are in a world right now where we have the power both to interfere in the world and to create something better (or worse). That is part of God’s creation.

This reminds me of the age-old dilemma: “is the glass half full” or “half empty”? On one hand one can value the opportunity to make things better, one the other hand one can rue the loss of better solutions.

He didn’t specifically want us to ‘interfere’, then we wouldn’t be able to.

This is a very dubious concept. It justifies all the atrocities humans can commit. Let’s make it non-generic: “If He didn’t specifically want us to ‘have abortions’, then we wouldn’t be able to.” And that is what my desired world would prevent.

We must also suffer the consequences of where and when we go wrong.

So you view this world as a “school”, where we learn and improve, so eventually we shall “graduate” either to heaven or to hell? Well, I could give you arguments why this is not a “loving” solution, pages of it. But one short analysis is sufficient. There is no “feedback” from the teacher (God) to teach us. It is a “one strike and you are out”. And the teacher is absent, he does not give lectures, there are no mid-term exams to guide us. Besides, why is there a “school” at all? A loving God would create directly into heaven and bypass this “vale of tears”. Before someone is created, they are by definition - innocent of any wrongdoing - so they would deserve the beatific vision.

If I look at reality, I see that we have too much power to destroy and too little power to repair / build new things. To give us challenges, to enable us to improve is not a bad way to organize the world. But most of our energy is spent on fixing (or attempting to fix) ridiculous shortcomings. How much better would it be on spending the energy on creating new arts, new ideas, new solutions, rather than trying to scrape mere existence from the uncooperative soil.

About 5% of all the microorganisms is detrimental to the host. 95% is either beneficial or neutral. What is the point of having that 5%?

But your power would remove freewill.

Not remove, put it to better use. And curtail the abuse of it. Every time this “free will” comes up, someone starts to complain that “removing free will would turn us into robots, it would remove the ability to ‘love’… as if love would be contingent upon the ability to hate”? Our freedom is already seriously curtailed by the laws of nature, why would a little more limit be problematic?

If you or anyone would like to argue about the benefit of “evil” (in a very wide meaning), they should enumerate the intrinsic benefit of evil action. To give some argument that removing evil would make existence even more miserable, that good is really evil and evil is really good. Not an easy task, I suggest.

 

[Latin]

God bless you Sophia and God bless every readers of the CAF.
.
I know the following citations from the Divine Providence doesn’t answer all questions, but probably helpful.
.

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence.
.
Life everlasting promised to us, (Romans 5:21); but unaided we can do nothing to gain it (Rom.7:18-24).
.
It is grace of Christ that delivers us (Rom.7:25); and makes us co-heirs with Him (Rom.8:17).
.
This, the beneficent purpose of an all-seeing Providence, is wholly gratuitous, entirely unmerited (Romans 3:24; 9:11-2).
.
It extends to all men (Romans 2:10; 1 Timothy 2:4), even to the reprobate Jews (Romans 11:26 sq.); and by it all God’s dealings with man are regulated (Ephesians 1:11).
.
It extends to every individual, adapting itself to the needs of each (St. John Chrysostom, “Hom. xxviii in Matt.”, n. 3 in “P.G.”, LVII, 354).
.
All things are created and governed with a view to man, to the development of his life and his intelligence, and to the satisfaction of his needs (Aristides, “Apol.”, i, v, vi, xv, xvi.
.

Continue

 

[Latin]

Continuation
.

His wisdom He so orders all events within the universe that the end for which it was created may be realized.
.
That end is that all creatures should manifest the glory of God, and in particular that man should glorify Him, recognizing in nature the work of His hand, serving Him in obedience and love, and thereby attaining to the full development of his nature and to eternal happiness in God.
.
The universe is a system of real beings created by God and directed by Him to this supreme end, the concurrence of God being necessary for all natural operations, whether of things animate or inanimate, and still more so for operations of the supernatural order.
.
God preserves the universe in being; He acts in and with every creature in each and all its activities.
.
Thus things happen contingently as well as of necessity (I, Q. xxii, a. 4), for God has given to different things different ways of acting, and His concurrence is given accordingly (I, Q. xxii, a. 4).
.
Yet all things, whether due to necessary causes or to the free choice of man, are foreseen by God and preordained in accordance with His all-embracing purpose.
.
Hence Providence is at once universal, immediate, efficacious, all alike postulate Divine concurrence and receive their powers of operation from Him (I, Q. xxii, a. 3; Q. ciii, a. 6); efficacious in that all things minister to God’s final purpose, a purpose which cannot be frustrated (Contra Gent., III, xciv);
.

(Concurrence = Agreement or union in action: COOPERATION) – In the brackets is addition.
.

In spite of sin, which is due to the willful perversion of human liberty, acting with the concurrence, but contrary to the purpose and intention of God and in spite of evil which is the consequence of sin, He directs all, even evil and sin itself, to the final end for which the universe was created.
.

Sin is not ordained by the will of God, though it happens with His permission.
.
Evil He converts into good (Genesis 1:20; cf. Psalm 90:10); and suffering He uses as an instrument whereby to train men up as a father traineth up his children (Deuteronomy 8:1-6; Psalm 65:2-10;
.
Nor would God permit evil at all, unless He could draw good out of evil (St. Augustine, “Enchir.”, xi in “P.L.”, LX, 236; “Serm.”
.
Evil, therefore, ministers to God’s design (St. Gregory the Great, op. cit., VI, xxxii in “P.L.”,

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12510a.htm
.

God bless you Sophia and God bless every readers of the CAF.

Latin

 

[MCH1]

If God didn’t say that murder was a sin, and it was OK, don’t you think that society would be in bad shape?

 

[abucs]

This reminds me of the age-old dilemma: “is the glass half full” or “half empty”? On one hand one can value the opportunity to make things better, one the other hand one can rue the loss of better solutions.

But it is our solutions. We can turn to God in trying to find those solutions, but they are our solutions. You cannot blame God for Him allowing us to choose bad solutions. This is one of the main themes in the Garden of Eden story.

 

[abucs]

This is a very dubious concept. It justifies all the atrocities humans can commit. Let’s make it non-generic: “If He didn’t specifically want us to ‘have abortions’, then we wouldn’t be able to.” And that is what my desired world would prevent.

No it does not justify all of the atrocities humans can commit including abortions. Why would you say this? What is the logic that is making you assert that?

If a parent let their (adult) children borrow their car and the car is then used to deliberately run over the people then you cannot say the action is justified in any way or is the fault of the parent. I am not understanding your logic there.

The only way you can prevent that is to treat the child you lend the car to as a virtual puppet who cannot act in a way that you (the creator) would not want. In all of your perfect worlds you end up being a tyrant that wants control of other people’s actions and consequences.

 

[abucs]

So you view this world as a “school”, where we learn and improve, so eventually we shall “graduate” either to heaven or to hell? Well, I could give you arguments why this is not a “loving” solution, pages of it. But one short analysis is sufficient. There is no “feedback” from the teacher (God) to teach us. It is a “one strike and you are out”. And the teacher is absent, he does not give lectures, there are no mid-term exams to guide us. Besides, why is there a “school” at all? A loving God would create directly into heaven and bypass this “vale of tears”. Before someone is created, they are by definition - innocent of any wrongdoing - so they would deserve the beatific vision.

You have introduced the analogy of the school and then criticised your own concept. Your (not mine) idea of viewing this life as a school has many defects. As far as the feedback goes then of course we can see where we go wrong. This is feedback. At the start of last century many people seemed to have your idea of taking complete control of society through the state and forcibly controlling others actions to produce their perfect world. It was Hell. Most of us have learned that lesson. That is why we are trying to speak to you now. Your ideas have been tried.

 

[abucs]

If I look at reality, I see that we have too much power to destroy and too little power to repair / build new things. To give us challenges, to enable us to improve is not a bad way to organize the world. But most of our energy is spent on fixing (or attempting to fix) ridiculous shortcomings. How much better would it be on spending the energy on creating new arts, new ideas, new solutions, rather than trying to scrape mere existence from the uncooperative soil.

We choose what we want to spend our time doing. I put your ‘glass half empty’ idea back at you but with the addition of us being able choose the level of fullness to some degree.

If you look at places in the world where there is abundant fish and fruit and very fertile soil then life was so good they didn’t progress. They often fought with each other. They didn’t develop medicine or think long term. Alternatively those areas of the world that were less fertile were the areas that first developed cities and irrigation and crop knowledge and writing and eventually this led to electric power and the knowledge of the laws of physics.

 

[abucs]

About 5% of all the microorganisms is detrimental to the host. 95% is either beneficial or neutral. What is the point of having that 5%?

I don’t look at this as a design by God to have exactly 4.657% of organisms detrimental to the host. That is part of the package. Glass 95% full? What do you want 100%?

I grant you that survival of the fittest when looked at with the belief system that this world is all there is can throw up terrible situations. If you look at the history of the Catholic church universities and hospitals were developed to counter this. Of course having some organisms to fight against does make us stronger as a species. It also drives us to understand the world and be humble in the knowledge that something will end up killing us in this world. That is a reality that joins us all together and demands a response.

Again I don’t see this necessarily as God’s explicit direct hand. If we quibble over 5% of harmful organisms and want 4%, then we want 3% etc. That thinking won’t stop until we have 0%. Then we want not to die (in this world) and basically make our creator our slave giving us exactly what we want now and then not being satisfied with that. Again as I said above, you are basically arguing for Heaven now as a right and as you want it with God obeying your ideas.

There is a reason why the Jews wrote the story of the Garden of Eden with humans deciding they know better than God. This was the very start of their Bible for a reason because very many people have pondered your question.

I am a computer person and if we keep going I think we will create an intelligence (life) in an artificial world. When we do this we will have very many questions to think about.

Are you a parent?

I would guess that if you talked to just about any parent today they will tell you about how their vision for their own child did not turn out the way they wanted and most will also probably be happy that their child got to develop their own life and thinking and that both child and parent grew to be better people because of it.

Parents who have a strong ‘control’ of their children in the early years will tell you how they were too strict, or too lenient or too trusting or too busy or to protective etc. and how from their experiences they would do things differently.

I don’t think too many parents would say that everything went as they had planned. That being the case, if we can’t control even how our own children grow, develop and live I think we have to think again about our abilities to control certain parameters in order to build a perfect world for everyone on the planet.

 

[Ioana]

According to the Cathecism the primary suffering of Hell is eternal separation from God. If somebody doesn’t want God He won’t force them to be with Him for all eternity (is the message).

 

[Kei]

Unlimited bbq ribs, Chinese food, daifuku, anmitsu, okonomiyaki, and adventures.
Everyone would be my play things in a large chess game. You may think, oh so mean. But, what’s their lives to me? Do you fret over the germs you squash under foot with every step?
Oh, I’d also probably make it to where there’s a bunch of mes. And we’d battle it out in our large chess games. Or fight, but super adventure movie style with some magical powers and all.
Of course I’d have to impose limits on myself. I think I’d have the people, when they die, go to a paradise of sorts, but every now and again something problematic would come up.

Though I don’t think I’d be who I am if I were like that, so it’d be a bit different.

I understand what you’re saying. We are supposed to help others. People have free will, and there’s problems that happen. We’re supposed to help others. We have the ability to make the world better, and we’re supposed to.

 

[Sophia]

You cannot blame God for Him allowing us to choose bad solutions. This is one of the main themes in the Garden of Eden story.

And you just p(name removed by moderator)ointed the problem of the story. It is one thing to allow inconsequential, sub-optimal solutions, but it is very different to allow “lethal” solutions.

Why would you say this? What is the logic that is making you assert that?

I simply quoted what YOU said and use a slightly different wording. Why blame the “messenger”? Your exact words were: “(If) He didn’t specifically want us to ‘interfere’, then we wouldn’t be able to.”

The only way you can prevent that is to treat the child you lend the car to as a virtual puppet who cannot act in a way that you (the creator) would not want. In all of your perfect worlds you end up being a tyrant that wants control of other people’s actions and consequences.

Not a puppet, not even by a long shot. Only allow a limited set of options, those which are either beneficial or neutral to your plan. And there would be nothing wrong with a truly omni-benevolent tyrant.

You have introduced the analogy of the school and then criticised your own concept.

Not really. I read your solution and compared it to a bad school. If there is an error in the analogy, you are welcome to point it out.

I don’t look at this as a design by God to have exactly 4.657% of organisms detrimental to the host. That is part of the package. Glass 95% full? What do you want 100%?

Of course. What is the point to introduce errors into the system?

Again as I said above, you are basically arguing for Heaven now as a right and as you want it with God obeying your ideas.

Obey? If God would be omni-benevolent, that would be the obvious solution he could come up with - on his own.

I don’t think too many parents would say that everything went as they had planned.

Precisely, since they lack the necessary omnimax attributes.

 

[Sophia]

Well, finally an almost well-thought out concept. The only error is that the introduction of the “poisoned fruit” was a bad idea. The garden was fine, the “entrapment” of the first couple was not. If you don’t want your child to mow down the other kids, you do NOT leave an Uzi at easy access (and then prohibit the usage of that weapon), you lock it into a place when the kid cannot have access. Isn’t that obvious?

---

According to the Cathecism the primary suffering of Hell is eternal separation from God. If somebody doesn’t want God He won’t force them to be with Him for all eternity (is the message).

We are here and now totally separated from God. We cannot see God, hear God, there is no beatific vision (or any other kind of vision), we can talk to God, but there is no response… but this existence does not “feel” like hell. It could be much better, but also much worse.