Why doesn't God just not create the bad people to keep them from going to hell

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oldcelt said:
How is my belief in God gratuitous and yours is not? I have given what I believe to Be God’s purpose again and again…it is God’s nature. From observation, He is still creating…just not here.
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How can creation elsewhere possibly be observed?
To go any deeper than that cannot be supported by anything but supposition designed, I suppose, to make man feel more important.
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Another gratuitous supposition which conflicts with your view that life is valuable.

Is man totally insignificant?

Deism is akin to scepticism:
The whole presents nothing but the idea of a blind Nature, impregnated by a great vivifying principle, and pouring forth from her lap, without discernment or parental care, her maimed and abortive children.
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quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ecco/004895521.0001.000/1:2.12?rgn=div2;view=fulltext

A consistent sceptic doesn’t postulate a god of any description…
 
tonyrey said:
How can creation elsewhere possibly be observed?
Another gratuitous supposition which conflicts with your view that life is valuable.

Is man totally insignificant?

Deism is akin to scepticism:

quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ecco/004895521.0001.000/1:2.12?rgn=div2;view=fulltext

A consistent sceptic doesn’t postulate a god of any description…
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How about the “solar nurseries” observed by the Hubble telescope? Doesn’t that qualify as creation? Just one that quickly popped in my head. In my view, the creation process for this universe is far from over.
I believe that life here on earth is valuable to us. I love my family and friends…I care about my neighbors and fellow creatures, but, in a cosmic sense, we may be very insignificant.
Deism is not skeptical in my view. I look at it as rational and observation driven. However, I can see how people could, at first, view it as something else.
 
oldcelt said:
How is my belief in God gratuitous and yours is not? I have given what I believe to Be God’s purpose again and again…it is God’s nature. From observation, He is still creating…just not here.To go any deeper than that cannot be supported by anything but supposition designed, I suppose, to make man feel more important.
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Then again, what is Deism supported by? How is it that you know God is creating but not designing? What creature on earth do you know who does that? It just does not make sense, does it?

If you can deduce creation, why not also deduce design?

What makes one possible and the other not? :confused:
 
oldcelt said:
Deism is not skeptical in my view. I look at it as rational and observation driven. However, I can see how people could, at first, view it as something else.
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Deism seems highly skeptical. How can we consistently see in human beings a consciousness far superior to that of the Deist God, who presumably is an unconscious force and not much else?

That is, how can the Creator have traits inferior to the creature? How is it that we can understand the Creator, but the Creator cannot understand us? How is it that we can desire to know the Creator but the Creator has not the least interest in us? How is it that some of us can love the Creator, but the Creator acts as if we exist are beige wallpaper?
 
oldcelt said:
How about the “solar nurseries” observed by the Hubble telescope? Doesn’t that qualify as creation?
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No! They don’t explain how they are created from nothing. If they did you wouldn’t have any reason to believe in deism!
Just one that quickly popped in my head. In my view, the creation process for this universe is far from over.
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Continuous creation presupposes a Creator who is still active…
I believe that life here on earth is valuable to us. I love my family and friends…I care about my neighbors and fellow creatures, but, in a cosmic sense, we may be very insignificant.
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“a cosmic sense” doesn’t make sense! What has size to do with significance? Nothing whatsoever - as we realise when we are “bitten” by a flea or mosquito! I’m sure you don’t value people according to their height, build and weight… 🙂
Deism is not skeptical in my view. I look at it as rational and observation driven. However, I can see how people could, at first, view it as something else.
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How can it be rational when it postulates a Creator who ceases to create while the creation process continues on its merry way? :confused:
 
tonyrey said:
No! They don’t explain how they are created from nothing. If they did you wouldn’t have any reason to believe in deism!
Continuous creation presupposes a Creator who is still active…
“a cosmic sense” doesn’t make sense! What has size to do with significance? Nothing whatsoever - as we realise when we are “bitten” by a flea or mosquito! I’m sure you don’t value people according to their height, build and weight… 🙂

How can it be rational when it postulates a Creator who ceases to create while the creation process continues on its merry way? :confused:
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Again Tony, you are making suppositions that are not based in knowledge. Deism doesn’t say that creation has ended…just that God is not actively interfering with it. Once things were set in motion, it has been taking care of itself, an “active” creator is not needed. Humans create replacements for themselves, and apparently, so do stars.

I guess it falls to what one defines as creation.
 
oldcelt said:
Deism doesn’t say that creation has ended…just that God is not actively interfering with it. Once things were set in motion, it has been taking care of itself, an “active” creator is not needed.
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  1. How does a universe “take care of itself”?
  2. And how was it “revealed” to you that God is not actively interfering with it? :confused:
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Deism seems highly skeptical. How can we consistently see in human beings a consciousness far superior to that of the Deist God, who presumably is an unconscious force and not much else?

That is, how can the Creator have traits inferior to the creature? How is it that we can understand the Creator, but the Creator cannot understand us? How is it that we can desire to know the Creator but the Creator has not the least interest in us? How is it that some of us can love the Creator, but the Creator acts as if we exist are beige wallpaper?
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I think that many people want a God who is like them. This is a definition that I find to be acceptable:
Because God does not manifest himself directly, he can only be understood through the application of reason and through the study of the universe he created. Deists have a fairly positive view of human existence, stressing the greatness of creation and the faculties granted to humanity such as the ability to reason. As such, deists reject all forms of revealed religion. Any knowledge one has of God should come through their own understanding, experiences and reason, not the prophecies of others.
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I don’t agree with the “faculties granted” part because I believe that humans evolved from God’s creation…not that we were directly designed. This is really basic, but it does demonstrate the respect we have for the creator, while not expecting that creator to watch over us.
 
oldcelt said:
No! They don’t explain how they are created from nothing. If they did you wouldn’t have any reason to believe in deism!
Continuous creation presupposes a Creator who is still active…
“a cosmic sense” doesn’t make sense! What has size to do with significance? Nothing whatsoever - as we realise when we are “bitten” by a flea or mosquito! I’m sure you don’t value people according to their height, build and weight…
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Again John, you have failed to explain what size, quantity or frequency have to do with significance. Your expression “a cosmic sense” is based on a widespread and false assumption - similar to “might is right”. Would we be insignificant if we discovered we are the only rational beings in the universe?
Deism doesn’t say that creation has ended…just that God is not actively interfering with it. Once things were set in motion, it has been taking care of itself, an “active” creator is not needed. Humans create replacements for themselves, and apparently, so do stars.
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I guess it falls to what one defines as creation.
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Your hypothesis is steadily becoming more untenable! “taking care of itself” contradicts your argument that there is too much suffering in the world. Created beings are obviously incapable of solving their problems by themselves.

If the deist god is still actively creating yet doing precisely nothing to help his creatures he is a diabolical monster. He is supposed to have tremendous power yet is totally indifferent to the results of what he has done and is doing. Such a god is not worth having…
.
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tonyrey said:
Again John, you have failed to explain what size, quantity or frequency have to do with significance. Your expression “a cosmic sense” is based on a widespread and false assumption - similar to “might is right”. Would we be insignificant if we discovered we are the only rational beings in the universe?

Your hypothesis is steadily becoming more untenable! “taking care of itself” contradicts your argument that there is too much suffering in the world. Created beings are obviously incapable of solving their problems by themselves.

If the deist god is still actively creating yet doing precisely nothing to help his creatures he is a diabolical monster. He is supposed to have tremendous power yet is totally indifferent to the results of what he has done and is doing. Such a god is not worth having…
.
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I guess that would go double for a god who is supposedly actively involved and picks and chooses who he will or will not help. Take a serious look at the injustice in this world…

Not worth having? This isn’t Amazon.com we’re talking about…we are trying to arrive at reasonable conclusions regarding the nature of God.
Suffering in this world is either part of the natural cycle or human folly, not an intervening god. The good things we see in this world are also not handed down by an intervening god.They are either the result of humans using their intelligence for the common good
or a natural occurrence. That is the Deist view.
Obviously, it is not what you believe. But God’s apparent detachment doesn’t bother me.
 
oldcelt said:
Suffering in this world is either part of the natural cycle or human folly, not an intervening god. The good things we see in this world are also not handed down by an intervening god.They are either the result of humans using their intelligence for the common good or a natural occurrence. That is the Deist view.

Obviously, it is not what you believe. But God’s apparent detachment doesn’t bother me.
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There’s are two big problems with this.

First, the Christian view of God is that Jesus Christ dying on a cross for our sins is hardly a form of detachment from the sufferings of the world.

The second problem is that you are basing your whole argument of an impersonal God on one distinct issue … the problem of evil. There are so many other issues also at stake that you don’t begin to address … such as the apparently intelligent design behind the Creation. You can say it isn’t apparent to you, but then you have to argue that your God is not only unconscious of having created a universe, and not only uninterested in the kind of universe that he created, but above all that we are truly and infinitely lucky to have had an impersonal God bequeath us with so much personality.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
There’s are two big problems with this.

First, the Christian view of God is that Jesus Christ dying on a cross for our sins is hardly a form of detachment from the sufferings of the world.

The second problem is that you are basing your whole argument of an impersonal God on one distinct issue … the problem of evil. There are so many other issues also at stake that you don’t begin to address … such as the apparently intelligent design behind the Creation. You can say it isn’t apparent to you, but then you have to argue that your God is not only unconscious of having created a universe, and not only uninterested in the kind of universe that he created, but above all that we are truly and infinitely lucky to have had an impersonal God bequeath us with so much personality.
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I don’t see those as “big problems” at all.
One can believe that God doesn’t “intervene” without ascribing that to God being “impersonal” or disinterested.
He did create us and give us free will. Either we really have free will or we don’t.
If he “intervenes”, that pretty much says it’s fake free will, no?

Jesus death on the cross doesn’t negate that idea either. He taught us where redemption is to be found. Still left it up to us to do it, no? Unless you’re one of those that believe His death wiped all your sins away for good and you’re saved forever no matter what you do.

Nor does the design of creation negate the idea of a non-interventionist God.
He set us in His creation to do as we will.
What’s so hard to grasp about that?
 
MacQ said:
Nor does the design of creation negate the idea of a non-interventionist God.
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Well, the design of creation per se doesn’t negate the idea of a non-interventionist God; but as a Catholic you know well the design of creation was to allow for an interventionist God in the person of Jesus Christ.
 
MacQ said:
. . . If he “intervenes”, that pretty much says it’s fake free will, no? . . .
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Reflecting our uniqueness, each of us has an individual relationship with God, albeit through His church (scripture, theology, philosophy, language itself, prayer, mass, the sacraments, etc).
“To intervene” would have different meanings depending on the context of our lives. Now from my life experience, it is a fact that if I do not do something it will not get done. That God has been calling me and that it is not I who has been chasing after truth my entire life has been something I have learned. The two do go hand in hand; but, had He not called, I would have been satisfied with ignorance.

God’s intervention actually enables free will.
Genesis 4:6-8 - Yahweh asked Cain, ‘Why are you angry and downcast? If you are doing right, surely you ought to hold your head high! But if you are not doing right, Sin is crouching at the door hungry to get you. You can still master him.’ Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let us go out’; and while they were in the open country, Cain set on his brother Abel and killed him.
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What would have been an emotional acting out became a reasoned decision on Cain’s part.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Well, the design of creation per se doesn’t negate the idea of a non-interventionist God; but as a Catholic you know well the design of creation was to allow for an interventionist God in the person of Jesus Christ.
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I don’t understand where you get that. God created everything, yes.
And He entered it in the person of Jesus, yes.
What does that have to do with over-riding man’s free will.
 
Aloysium said:
Reflecting our uniqueness, each of us has an individual relationship with God, albeit through His church (scripture, theology, philosophy, language itself, prayer, mass, the sacraments, etc).
“To intervene” would have different meanings depending on the context of our lives. Now from my life experience, it is a fact that if I do not do something it will not get done. That God has been calling me and that it is not I who has been chasing after truth my entire life has been something I have learned. The two do go hand in hand; but, had He not called, I would have been satisfied with ignorance.

God’s intervention actually enables free will.

What would have been an emotional acting out became a reasoned decision on Cain’s part.
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My reply was specifically about whether God intervenes to cause good or bad things to happen.

As for “God’s intervention actually enables free will”…well I have to say that maybe we have different definitions of “free will”.
If God intervened and “called you”…you still had the freedom to ignore or reject that call.
Or not?
 
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