Why is God so mean?

[PJM]

=jkiernan56;5354468]Tonyrey - the question that Severntofall asks is a very good one. I honestly don’t understand the relationship between moral evil … and how that impacts the natural world around us. I have always heard there is a connection between moral evil and the other evils of the natural world. One upset the balance of the other. I have a 1st grader understanding of this.

Isn’t there a direct cause/effect relationship between moral evil and the evil of natural disasters?

***No, I do not accept the idea that all Natural disasters are a result of the human condition that we term sin. Indeed, I would question if any natural disaster is a direct result of our sinful nature.

That is not to say that God cannot and does not make use of Natural disasters for His Greater Glory and the possibility of our greater good. Certainly He does.

Natural disasters are a direct result of other Natural events and occurances; thau the term “natural.”

God is not in the common human sense of the word “vindictive”, Rather God is fair and just, and it is we who apply the label of being “vindictive,” as we struggle to make sense out of what at times seems to be senseless violence and discord.

God is always in charge, always in control. We are not.

However no sin is truly “personal.” Every sin effects us, our Church, the practice of our faith, often how God is perceived through our actions, and humanity in general.

Primarily because through sin we are giving assent and consent to an action that says “NO to God”, in a lesser or greater way. This then is seen by others as an affirmation of the action, and lowers there resistance to this act.***

 

[Detales]

'56,

Your OOP deliniation contains an astounding point of interest. Can you detect it beyond what you’ve said so far?

 

[PJM]

=Detales;5355150]'56,

Your OOP deliniation contains an astounding point of interest. Can you detect it beyond what you’ve said so far?

God who is “all and only good perfectly” must be, has to be just and fair; as a natural consequence of His Divine Nature, God can be neither vindictive or mean.

 

[Detales]

PJM,

Hmmm… Interesting extraction, but not the one I was after. Thanks.

 

[jkiernan56]

So it its understandable that religion can’t be stamped out, because it is part of the human way of expressing relationship with the invisible Unknown.

Another way of saying the same thing that St. Augustine said - Everyone is searching for God … Everyone is created for God … only in God will they find complete happiness … the happiness they already seek

Religion is man reaching out for God. Christianity is God reaching out to man.

 

[jkiernan56]

'56,

Your OOP deliniation contains an astounding point of interest. Can you detect it beyond what you’ve said so far?

I have read some of St. Augustine’s book “On the Holy Trinity” … since he is extremely deep and philosophical … I went to Frank Sheed’s “Theology For Beginners” … Frank Sheed explains it very well … if you would like something even more easier to understand … go to CS Lewis “Mere Christianity” … and in the back section of the book is a few chapters on The Trinity that I think is very worthwhile.

When we use the word “God” … we are referring to His nature.
If there is a person walking along the street, I could ask a question 2 ways -

1. What is that?
2. Who is that?

I would answer the first question by saying “that is a human being” referring to their nature.

I would answer the second question by saying “that is Joe … or Sue” if I knew them personally. If I didn’t know them, I would have to say - “I don’t know”.

WHAT something is … defines it’s nature. WHO something is defines the Person … “the man behind the curtain” in the wizard of Oz. When Catholic Theology says that there is ONE God … it is referring to the NATURE. What nature? The nature of God. If you read up on what nature means, it defines all that something can do. The term “God” means its “nature” - and this nature we call “God”. There is only one “God” nature.

“Who” God is in Catholic Theology refers to the Persons of God - 3 distinct Personalities/Persons who all have the same NATURE. There is nothing that one Person in the Holy Trinity has that the other Persons do not have. They all have the same nature - the same essence … the same “God” nature.

That can be likened in Object Oriented Programming to their being ONE CLASS … that has all the methods and properties that are possible. Take this ONE CLASS and instantiate it 3 times … and you have 3 distinct objects … they each have the same ONE CLASS … yet are distinct from each other. That is as best as I can explain it.

 

[Detales]

Thanks, '56, I appreciate your response. I do know a bit about Catholic theology, as I often state, one way or another, and have refered to a brief history of that here as well. I’ve also read almost everything that Lewis has written. Great writings!

I accept your answer, particularely about the one class idea. Thanks!

BD

 

[jkiernan56]

Religion is man reaching out for God. Christianity is God reaching out to man through His Divine Son - Christ (the 2nd Person of the Holy Trinity) … joining Himself to a human nature.

God is not mean. He has sent His Son to rescue us from the power of evil that leads to death - eternal death from God. In and through His Son, you and I (we) can have eternal life - a loving and life giving relationship with God that lasts FOREVER as His adopted sons and daughters.

 

[jkiernan56]

Thanks, '56, I appreciate your response. I do know a bit about Catholic theology, as I often state, one way or another, and have refered to a brief history of that here as well. I’ve also read almost everything that Lewis has written. Great writings!

I accept your answer, particularely about the one class idea. Thanks!

BD

Thank you too for engaging me in respectful dialogue. I thank God for you knowing that you are a gift of God to the world … as is each person that He has ever created or will be created. (God’s creation is still happening … stay tuned … lol).

CS Lewis is one of my favorite authors!!! I can’t wait to meet him and give him a hug … and thank him … and laugh with him … if I remain faithful to God’s grace … which I’m sadly ashamed to say I have not always … there will be a day when I will stand in shame before God for things that I have done (or not done) knowing the blessings He has showered on me. But I trust in the love of God … not in myself … and that is my hope … His Goodness, Kindness, Mercy

 

[Detales]

Correction and reference:

It has been my habit on these fora to continulally urge that everyone, of whatever theist, agnostic, or atheist ilk, continunally and asiduously persue rigorous self inquiry. I have repeatedly said that “Gnothi Seauton” or “Know thySelf” is by no means a frivolous injunction. In small support of this idea, among many others, one of the things I posted was a reference to an article by Penn of Penn & Teller. I have ot confess that my lysdexia ogt the tebber of eem.

The actual article is contributed to by Teller. The said article is titled *Attention and Awareness in Stage Magic *and is by Macknik and Martinez-Conde of the Barrow Neurological Institute in Pheonix, AZ. That article is in Nature Reviews Neuroscience and is the reference material for a piece in WIRED magazine synopsizing it in lay terms. That piece is called …Now You Don’t; inside the neuroscience of illusion, by Jonah Lehrer. (Wired; May, 2009, pg 90.)

I quote briefly from that article to support the nature of my encouragement: "…–each of the [magic] effects relies on a specific perceptual phenomenon. This may be why exposing the “secret” of a magic trick is so often deflating. Most of the time, the secret is that we’re gullible and our brains are riddled with blind spots. (emphasis mine) This isn’t the stuff of magic shows; those perceptual phenomenon also allow us to make sense of reality, as we translate the blur of photons hitting our retinas into a coherent world of three-dimensional forms."

I wish again to emphasise here the constructed nature of the reality we think is actual. Yes, there is a necessary correspondence, but it is far less than we imagine or would like. It is this specific dynamic, related to Self Knolwedge, that has been treated by the catagory of Mystics whom I have mentioned above. In many cases it is specifically these Mysitcs and their revalations that are usually either dismissed or grossly misunderstood, their original offerings being systamatized by less perceptive non-realizers into what end up as religions.

Again, does that lessen either the sincerity or accomplisment of believers? NO. All it does is alert each one to the shenanigans that their own mind can easily pull on them relative to what they might only partially accurately percieve as revelation. I strongly and emphatically maintain that this dynamic operates in spite of protestations of divine guidance, that being invoked in the failure of any actual knowledge based sytem of explication. This is what I mean by saying that a faith may be known, but the knowing of a faith is not knowledge. It is belief of the catagory described by the above explications. And though it may be about something actual, it is not that actuality per se. And neither Catholic, nor Muslim, nor any religionist’s, nor any agnostic’s nor atheist’s brain is exempt from these at least 100 known cognative errors soley/souly by virtue of their beliefe system. The map is not the territory! And I don’t know about you, but I have seen many kinds and styles of maps that refer to the exact same experiential ground, from crayons to satallite photo contours.

Remember the girl who drove her boyfriend’s Mercedes into the river because the gps on the dash told her to turn right? Who is drivng your vehicle? Really? Is your GPS* updated to actual conditions? Or are you still in a 2-D** flatland worth five sense?

*God Plausibility System  **bifurcated-dualitic

 

[One]

You are right … I will aquiese …

… Wait for it… Wait for it…

---

but***

There it is! The word “but” always negates everything that comes before it.

Let’s see if we go there…

… but it is my firm conviction in my subjective experience to declare that what I experienced for myself … is true for everyone … that it is Absolute Objective Truth …

And there you have it. A complete negation of the notion of acquiescing a point.

In that statement, slightly rephrased, you say, “It is my firm belief in my subjective experience…”

Look, JK, you really can’t have it both ways. Well, you could, of course, but that simply doesn’t make sense; people might start to look at you oddly.

If your realization/awareness, or “my” realization/awareness (I use the term “my” very, very loosely), or anyone’s realization/awareness were what we could call an ‘objective truth’, then…

– There would be no dispute about this truth. Almost everyone would agree to it.

– There would be no atheists. There would be no agnostics. There would be no pantheists. Heck, there’d be no “catholics”, either, for there would be no need for belief.

– There would be no particular reason for one set of religious practices over another.

– There would be no wars fought in the name of religion.

– In short, there would be no doubt, among anybody, about the nature of this ‘objective truth.’

“Objective Truth” is a truth that almost everyone can agree to. This is why they call it ‘objective’, for it is an object in our relative awareness. If I hold up this red ball, and you, and I, and everyone else (except for the blind) agree that it’s something we call “red”, then that is an ‘objective truth’ that transcends any belief about the ball.

(It can be argued that there are no objective truths at all, that everything is an “intersubjective truth” that is commonly agreed upon because of the nature of our perceptual apparatus, but that’s not important right now.)

I have no problem at all with what you’ve experienced – quite not. I have no problem at all that you interpreted the experience through the lens of your lifetime of conditioning; I expect that, and as I’ve said, I can hear the structure speaking through you. (That’s an entirely different post.)

But at the end of the day, your experience is a ‘subjective truth’ * that you’ve managed to turn into a belief. It is not anything we could call an Objective or Absolute Truth.

(* In actuality, the only Truth that could possibly exist, except I tend to spell it with a capital “S.”)

Since this forum has people of all ideologies, I think it’s important to use language as accurately as possible so that misunderstandings don’t occur.

and that God is intensely in love with each of us … in a very personal way. God’s love overwhelms me at times …

See? I happen to agree with that, although I chuck out all pronouns when considering the matter.

Now that we are clear on the distinction between “objective truth” and “subjective truth”, we can move along to…

All it does is alert each one to the shenanigans that their own mind can easily pull on them relative to what they might only partially accurately percieve as revelation.

and

This is what I mean by saying that a faith may be known, but the knowing of a faith is not knowledge.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Matter of fact, I-I sorta did, right, Detales?

 

[PJM]

=jkiernan56;5355398]Another way of saying the same thing that St. Augustine said - Everyone is searching for God … Everyone is created for God … only in God will they find complete happiness … the happiness they already seek

Religion is man reaching out for God. Christianity is God reaching out to man.

***Archbishop Fulton Sheen [may he rest in peace] has a different take on this.

His premis is that that the bible is about God seeking a relationship with man. From God calling Adam; “where are you” [Gen. 3:9], to picking Noah and his family out of the flood, to choosing Abram /Abraham, to Moses, to David and Solomon, to the Prophets, to John the Baptist, the Apostles and me and you. God seeks us before and with seemingly more urgency, then we seek Him. This we have the incarnation of Christ.

Of course both perspective are true. However which is the greater truth?***Love and prayers,

 

[jkiernan56]

“Objective Truth” is a truth that almost everyone can agree to. This is why they call it ‘objective’, for it is an object in our relative awareness. If I hold up this red ball, and you, and I, and everyone else (except for the blind) agree that it’s something we call “red”, then that is an ‘objective truth’ that transcends any belief about the ball.

(It can be argued that there are no objective truths at all, that everything is an “intersubjective truth” that is commonly agreed upon because of the nature of our perceptual apparatus, but that’s not important right now.)

I have no problem at all with what you’ve experienced – quite not. I have no problem at all that you interpreted the experience through the lens of your lifetime of conditioning; I expect that, and as I’ve said, I can hear the structure speaking through you. (That’s an entirely different post.)

But at the end of the day, your experience is a ‘subjective truth’ * that you’ve managed to turn into a belief. It is not anything we could call an Objective or Absolute Truth.

(* In actuality, the only Truth that could possibly exist, except I tend to spell it with a capital “S.”)

Since this forum has people of all ideologies, I think it’s important to use language as accurately as possible so that misunderstandings don’t occur.

See? I happen to agree with that, although I chuck out all pronouns when considering the matter.

Now that we are clear on the distinction between “objective truth” and “subjective truth”, we can move along to…

and

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Matter of fact, I-I sorta did, right, Detales?

There is just one problem with your reasoning One … lol

If I was the only one who “experienced” this truth, then you might have a point. But the fact is that what I experienced has been written about by many great Theologians … St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine and others. I don’t know at the moment about others who had similar experiences to mine - but I’m sure I am not the only one (I will look into this more).

Lets suppose for the sake of discussion that I lived over 300 years ago and sailed the seas … and discovered a new land. Now suppose I was a complete idiot and sailed back to my homeland and “told” others about what I discovered, but without any proof. They might think that I was in the sun too much or maybe was loosing a few brain cells nipping too much on the adult beverages on the journey. But then supposed 1000 other people made the same journey and came back to verify what I had told them. The fact that others could verify what I originally said is other “empirical” evidence that what I reported was true.

I think that the experience I wrote about has been similarly experienced by others and written about by great minds. In other words, what I experienced is not just “in my head” … other people are able to talk about the same place.

Because of that, I again will make the statement that my personal experience was an encounter with Absolute Objective Truth that will never change.

 

[One]

~
You’re absolutely right, JK!

I agree with almost everything you’ve said. Your experience has been experienced by many other people. They’ve shared these experiences, and they all agree.

In fact, it’s this very point that you bring up that I’ve been trying to express.

Imagine having met with a group of 20 people in a room who have exchanged stories, and you have, at the heart of it, felt as though you all shared this same experience.

~~

Now imagine that you find out that their particulars are different than your particulars.

~~

Can we discount these people who are moved to the core of their heart, and are we able to say that they are all wrong, without then wondering if we might not also be wrong? Or, can we imagine that we’re all right, to the level that we can interpret that-which-we-saw; and maybe ALL of those perspectives are right – sharing Truth?

In my experience, that’s what I’ve seen.

Thanks.

 

[Detales]

In order of appearance,

I agree with One in his dilineation of objective vs subjective. It harmonizes with what I have called “commonality.” In instances of objective commonality, we agree about something that has exsistance seemingly “outside” us, though this is yet a mental distinction, defeated in a sense by solipsism. In other words, we share in common that gravity, electricity, & many other things function independently of our opinions or assesments of them on whatever groeunds. No matter who plugs in a toaster, if the circuit is live, you can make toast because of how we have used our common knowledge of electricity and manufacture. If ten honest people witness an incident, you are more than likely to get ten dispairate stories. Common objective incident, uncommon subjective experience. Real? Of course. To each one from their perspective.

So if a friend of mine, DD, gets excited about a passage in a Ken Wilber book, and reads it to the City Maintainance crew he is working with, there is not commonality. That is proved by interruptions ranging from “What the f*** are you saying?” to “Where’s the first aid kit? I need an aspirin.” DD’s experience of deriving interior meaning from the type in the book caused to appear by Mr. Wilber is completely subjective and referential to his own expereince relative to and including Wilber’s. It is fraught with meaning for him, It has none for the crew who do not share Wilger’s insights or have their own. All these are the same guys, all of which, including DD, could plug in a toaster and make it work. All these perspectives exist as states of awareness relative to the individual’s subjective existance. Wilber’s experience can objectively be known to be, but only subjectively surmised by hartmony of agreement triggered by his discription of his inner world of Understanding.

DD and I were talking about this just today. He said, You know, I’ll bet that there are people in the madhouse who have had the kind of ralization we hav had, and have been destroyed by it for lack of right understanding or of right guidance." I agreed. I told him I knew of such cases, and some that were on the edge. They were devided in their own mind about an indivisible experience, due to clinging to the felt necessity of accepting their pre-realiztion paradigm of the world. DD said, “Well, yes. It is their safety. Who would blame them. They have an internal contradiction to resove that has only one end. If they don’t accept it they can go mad, so they postulate their belief as a buffer. No blame in that. In fact, probably a good idea. It ook me three days to stabalize after the first shock of Seeing.” Coincidentally, mine was three days of complete disorientation, though it came a bit after I let the implications of what had happened into my reasoning mind. Hmmmm. Three days. But then I felt like a new man. Diifferent, somehow, but the same, I just knew where my feet were.

So, what might be going on, may I suggest, is that due to habitual paradigmization (WOW! I invented a phrase!–I think–) folks who have a complete and true vision of Reality might keep it at a necessary distance due to the utter devastation of person that can actually happen, whether that is seen as beneficial or not. Given the base dynamic of IS IS, what’s left after a person sees their own ficticious nature, is Self as Soul (the feeling of being I AM) acting in Creation. So, beneficail “destruction” (it’s not, really, and its where crtics of Eastern thought go awry) would be in this case if the one realizing had prefatory knowldege and a Guide in the matter, and not beneficial if they just See and have no anchor of Guide or preknowledge of possibility. It is in this area that religion fails. Being essentially dualistic and dependent on subject/object perception, it fails both to prepare the potential realizer as to what might happen, and fails also therefore to have ready a Knowledgeable Guide. Thus the self *assesment *of what happens as a Realization may not be entirely accurate, despite the irrefutalbly genuine nature of the happening. In my case it took years to become stable again, relative to the world of commonality. But I had to go outside the Church to gain it. I dismissed the Church, but now have come to see it differently.

Yes, that is right, One, I-I said it, sort of.

You see, if it was me (you know what I mean) talking about it, instead of “objective” as '56 uses it, I wold use the word “Absolute byitself.” I AM is an Absolute Truth. By itself. And though it might be the “object” of self inquiry to discover that Truth, its realization as I AM is subjective/Subjective. That is the terror and horror of it, and why it is rarely accepted in a right dynamic of language/thought. It really is atonement/at-Onement. No wonder '56 clearly sees that God cannot condemn anyone to hell. Impossible. Why? Because in that state the Risen Christ is known. What changed?

Another thing '56 is completely accurate about is that many have written about that Awakening. My list would be different than many, but it includes Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Adi Shankara (maybe the first to record about it) Ramana Maharshi, Byron Katie, Nisargadatta, Toni Robeson, St. Catherine of Sienna among the Catholic pantheon, and my own Mentor, Guide, and Friend, Dr. KG Mills. This experience is trans-Catholic, my friends. And if you wish to put it through the Catholic or another filter, great. It doesn’t change the actuality of it. It is Perennial in Nature.

What oughtent be done is to deny the potential experiencers of this Vision the right and proper mental/emotional creche for welcoming it, and we oughtent deny them the Wise Men or Women who are capable of a proper welcome into this world of a new Man in a new State of awareness.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

My apologies. If you see the number of long responses I’ve had to deal with on the ID question you’ll understand why - and your post is now buried under a pile of other posts. I’m glad you’ve replied because I don’t have to search for it.

No problem. That happens to me all the time.

That is where we disagree because I maintain in a vast and immensely complex system there will be coincidences that interfere with Design - such as destructive collisions between objects and living organisms. I pointed out that a spate of miracles would lead to disorder and confusion.

You have claimed this, but I have explained why I think this is false. I am still waiting for a rebuttal of my claims.

I’m convinced no computer program could ever rival the vastness and complexity of the universe or even the biosphere. We can see how piecemeal “improvements” by human beings have practically wrecked this planet. But the only way to resolve the issue decisively is to provide the blueprint I requested.

What makes you think that? I have explained why an omniscient and omnipotent God would be unconstrained from creating a world with fewer natural evils. By your logic, I could not claim that an omniscient and omnipotent God could write a computer program that would calculate the first trillion digits of pi unless I could do so myself.

It is a tall order but there is no other scientific method of falsification. The more laws you create the more coincidences there will be. There must be an optimum number of laws to minimize undesirable coincidences. And how would you deal with the problem of collisions, for example?

Could you please explain what you mean by the words ‘coincidences’ and ‘collisions’? You have used them several times, but I am still unclear on exactly what you mean by them.

We can imagine thousands of better worlds but whether they are feasible is another matter…

Okay, but I have shown that they are feasible.

Note that I am not arguing that my argument is evidence against Catholicism. I am merely responding to your claim that God couldn’t have reduced the amount of natural evil in the world. There are many theodicies that explain why God might permit natural evil. Although I think some of them have problems of their own, I think you would be on firmer footing if you acknowledged that God could reduce the amount of natural evil if he wanted to, and then tried to figure out why he doesn’t.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Another excellent question.

As I posted earlier, I don’t understand the relationship between moral evil and natural disasters, but my gut says there is a connection. One effects the other. How? I have no freakin clue.

The statement about God creating a program without errors in concept is a very good one. But here’s the problem. God is writing the program using human beings who have a “free-will” … and dang it, God does not “control” the universe like marionettes or puppets on a string. If the human race and the angels (who also have free-will) had only cooperated with God, it was in the realm of possibility that God could have created His program “error free”. But in the realm of probability - you can see the results of God’s program. God is writing His program with the cooperation of human beings who have free-will. The more we cooperate with God, the less lines of code will result with errors.

Free will is not the same as omnipotence. No matter how much I want to destroy Jupiter, this is an action that is outside the scope of my free will. Similarly, there is no reason that God must have extended the free will of angels beyond the heavenly realm and given them the power to influence events here on earth. God could have done all the good himself with no effort whatsoever, while avoiding all the evil supposedly committed by Satan. A similar argument holds with original sin (God did not have to give Adam and Eve the ability to affect future generations in that way). So while there could be plausible explanations for the natural evil in the world, I do not think that Satan or original sin is such an explanation.

 

[Detales]

Hmmm… a side note to the above. In The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object, M-W states that there are three criteria for a new scientific result to be accepted. First, it has to be “reasonable,” in that it proceeds from the general body of knowledge common to most scientists. Second, the experiment must be repeatable, in that any competent scientist in the area of the reseach can verify the result by his own settting up and carrying out the experiment. Third, and most important, it has to be emotionally palatable. History has many examples of experiements or results being summarily dismised or hidden from the public because of fear of… well, degrees and kinds of refusal. An example of this might be that many physicists went to their grave refusing Einstein’s E=MCC, despite understanding the math, because it destroyed their own habitual paradigm. (“I won’t accept it because it can’t be true!”)

I submit that many of the Universal kinds of spiritual experiences are both dismissed and distorted in thought because of the emotonal unpreparedness of the audience, and even of the experiencer. It serves us notice to re-examine religous premises in that if such expereinces are trans-cultural, -temporal, -geographic, -etc, that there is a more fundamental system of accounting than the parochial religions give us as perhaps momentaryu necessities of addressing the Mystey of Self and Divinity.

I reiterate the importance of my comments regarding the nature of human perceptions, and hope that a more Universl understanding of such insights as are discussed here might be seen in venues not vieing for their particular bit and display of Truth. Just as breathing is not a Catholic or a Jewish province, or eating is striclty a matter for the consideraton of the Shintoists, or the circulation of blood not just for the consideraton of Protestants or Pocomaniacs, perhaps the nature of awareness and Consciousness relative to Divinity is not to be either dismissed nor appropriated solely/souly by one system of consideration, whatever its claims to authority. Accuracy bears its own authority, as hindsight reveals the rules. Especially now, when we see all the formerly local ways of thinking clashing on the larger stage of the world, is not the Universe and its God large enough for a more expansive and inclusive understanding?

 

[4Horsemen]

Hi All!

After being away for a time, I’ve been trying to catch up to all the threads I’m involved with, so I hope I read this one well enough to make a comment or two.

There’s been a discussion of “objective truth” relevant to the nature of God’s goodness. I think it was Detales who suggested “intersubjective truth”; if I’m mistaken, please correct me. It’s hard to get at the notion of an objective or absolute truth without everybody getting out of sorts and insisting that we come to understand our own experiences as our own personal truth. It would seem that the idea of truth is that which is seen through a prism. Truth appears to many as fragmented–relativistic approach.

However, we might get some knowledge of what absolute Truth is by not arguing over truth, but looking at it from the question Aquinas poses about the definition of the “human
good.” Both Plato and Aristotle asked what fulfills and perfects the human good, and they were considered pagans.
Of course their answers will differ from Thomas Aquinas or St. Paul. The philosophical answer be may not really be false when comparing it to the Christian answer. It may, though, be inadequate. What Thomas says is that the pagan philosophers arrived at some truths aboout God which are a small part of the parcel that comes from Revelation. In other words, the law is “written in our hearts” (Natural Law), but original sin has weakened but not totally corrupted human nature. Afterall, before God gave the world the Ten Commandments, humans could come to the knowledge of evil. Adam and Eve ate (at least symbolically) from the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Cain, brother of Abel, knew in his “heart” that his jealousy and murderous act were evil in the sight of God. God gave Cain a mark on his head so that others wouldn’t take vengeance on him.

My point is that through reason we can come to an understanding in part of what is objectively good and evil, natural law, truth.

In another post, much earlier, I was trying to intimate that a person with no formal religion can find God by catching the hints He gives us freely and lovingly in His adornments of Goodness, Beauty and Truth. In a literature class, we were required to read James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The “young man” (Stephen Dedalus, if I recall correctly) has an ephiphany and discovers that Goodness, Truth and Beauty are one. When we discover one aspect of God’s benevolence, we find the others (and, I think, even more).

On these forums posters often mention God’s attributes. I came across this interesting little piece on God as Creator, Lover, Protector by Blessed Julian of Norwich (ca. 1342 - 1420), a female recluse kknown only by the name of the church where she lived, the Church of St. Edmund and St. Julian in Norwich, England. At the age of thirty she had sixteen “showings” or mystical visions, which she described in Revelations of Divine Love:

"Our Lord showed me a spiritual sight of his homely and familiar love. He showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, as round as a ball. I looked a it and thought, ‘What can this be?’ And I was answered, ‘It is all that is made.’ I wondered how it could last for I thought that being so small it might suddenly fall apart. And I was answered in my understanding, ‘It lasts, and always will, because God loves it.’ And so everything has its being through the love of God.

“In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it; the second is that God loves it; the third is that God preserves it. But what is that to me? It is that God is the creator, the lover, and the protector. For until I am united to Him I cannot know love or rest or true happiness; that is, until I am so at one with Him that no created thing can come between my God and me.”

 

[tonyrey]

That is where we disagree because I maintain in a vast and immensely complex system there will be coincidences that interfere with Design - such as destructive collisions between objects and living organisms. I pointed out that a spate of miracles would lead to disorder and confusion.

You have claimed this, but I have explained why I think this is false. I am still waiting for a rebuttal of my claims.

A multiplication of natural laws to cater for every harmful contingency would lead to an exponential number of coincidences and make a rational existence impossible because of its sheer complexity. The unimaginable complexity of a living cell has been investigated by scientists for decades and there are still many unsolved problems. To alter any of its components would lead to malfunction or death. If that occurs at the microscopic level we can imagine what would happen at the macroscopic level…

I am convinced no computer program could ever rival the vastness and complexity of the universe or even the biosphere. We can see how piecemeal “improvements” by human beings have practically wrecked this planet. But the only way to resolve the issue decisively is to provide the blueprint I requested.
What makes you think that? I have explained why an omniscient and omnipotent God would be unconstrained from creating a world with fewer natural evils. By your logic, I could not claim that an omniscient and omnipotent God could write a computer program that would calculate the first trillion digits of pi unless I could do so myself.

Writing a computer program is vastly different from creating a world.

It is a tall order but there is no other scientific method of falsification. The more laws you create the more coincidences there will be. There must be an optimum number of laws to minimize undesirable coincidences. And how would you deal with the problem of collisions, for example?
Could you please explain what you mean by the words ‘coincidences’ and ‘collisions’? You have used them several times, but I am still unclear on exactly what you mean by them.

Coincidences are conjunctions of physical events, e.g. an avalanche moves down a mountain and engulfs mountaineers climbing towards the peak, people living in Chernobyl were exposed to radiation produced by the explosion of a nuclear reactor.
Coincidences can also be conjunctions of mental events, e.g. several people have the same idea at the same time.

Collisions are coincidences of moving objects in time and space which generally cause damage. Most collisions and coincidences are unplanned and inexplicable. They are what we describe as chance events.

We can imagine thousands of better worlds but whether they are feasible is another matter…
Okay, but I have shown that they are feasible.

They are apparently feasible but the acid test is a computer simulation. Otherwise the hypothesis is unscientific.

Note that I am not arguing that my argument is evidence against Catholicism. I am merely responding to your claim that God couldn’t have reduced the amount of natural evil in the world. There are many theodicies that explain why God might permit natural evil. Although I think some of them have problems of their own, I think you would be on firmer footing if you acknowledged that God could reduce the amount of natural evil if he wanted to, and then tried to figure out why he doesn’t.

My argument is not theological but scientific. I maintain that interference with the existing laws of nature like gravitation would lead to innumerable repercussions which would lead to other natural evils. That is why a precise description is essential if we are to make any headway. All attempts to describe this world with less natural evil have to made in the context of evolution not in isolation from what has happened already. Otherwise the entire world process has to be explained from start to finish - which is an impossibly difficult task…