Because the belief is that you can change your mind on accepting God or not only in this world. I have thought that maybe it is better to not understand why someone would reject God, than to seek a reason and be lured in. People (all personal spirits, not just human beings) making their own ultimate decisions is a very strange thing.This is very illogical: Those who hates God come to hate their own existence? Why they should persist in hating themselves and not escaping the pain unless they are insane?
Or maybe your very concept of God is a very strange thing.Because the belief is that you can change your mind on accepting God or not only in this world. I have thought that maybe it is better to not understand why someone would reject God, than to seek a reason and be lured in. People (all personal spirits, not just human beings) making their own ultimate decisions is a very strange thing.
Sometimes strange things seem to correspond more to reality than logical ones.Or maybe your very concept of God is a very strange thing.
Thanks, Aloysium. Jesus summed it up perfectly when He allowed Himself to be tortured and murdered rather than use His divine power to protect Himself. It would not have been a sin to do so but it would have contradicted His teaching that “My kingdom is not of this world” and “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”.Well put. It describes sin as it exists within us all. Some people try to overcome it. Some people embrace it, and are better at it than others. Everyone has access to the Cure; some apparently refuse Him.
This just sounds like people are punished for sickness of the will. It is sad that God will not first heal the will but demands that his creatures come to him first. I don’t get freedom.Thanks, Aloysium. Jesus summed it up perfectly when He allowed Himself to be tortured and murdered rather than use His divine power to protect Himself. It would not have been a sin to do so but it would have contradicted His teaching that “My kingdom is not of this world” and “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”.
The lust for power is a distortion of the urge to survive which, ironically, leads to a form of self-destruction! In other words, the more we have the more we want but we can want far too much. We can become slaves of our desires and lose our personal freedom…
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To reduce evil to sickness of the will exonerates everyone from every crime and atrocity that has ever been committed. It reduces men to impotent machines and implies that malice is merely an unfortunate - and excusable - malady.The lust for power is a distortion of the urge to survive which, ironically, leads to a form of self-destruction! In other words, the more we have the more we want but we can want far too much. We can become slaves of our desires and lose our personal freedom…Code:Thanks, Aloysium. Jesus summed it up perfectly when He allowed Himself to be tortured and murdered rather than use His divine power to protect Himself. It would not have been a sin to do so but it would have contradicted His teaching that "My kingdom is not of this world" and "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends".
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After reading all your answers to the numerous responses, I believe you posed the topic in order to decline any and every answer, and would perhaps do the same if I were to say that “you will always have the poor with you”, or “temptations will come, but woe to him by whom they come”. The person who said them also said, “Follow me”. The sorrow and evil in the world is a mystery for us to live properly in relation to it, not a problem to solve in intellectual or political meetings so we can then go home to watch the real housewives or barbeque in the back yard because a committee’s solution to a problem is doing the work for us.I just don’t get it.
Our world is filled with suffering, and some people are or will be suffering eternally in Hell. And this is all because God allows it because he values personal freedom.
It is the usual argument in the problem of evil: God allows suffering but does not will it. Well, there is not a significant difference. For whatever reason, God would rather have the multitudes of suffering brought on by personal freedom, than for perfect peace without freedom.
What is it about freedom that Someone who we believe is all good, would allow evil simply for freedom’s sake?
But God did not want it that way. God wanted us to have personal freedom and peace. It is not the will of God that human freedom brings on suffering, that is mans idea.I just don’t get it.
Our world is filled with suffering, and some people are or will be suffering eternally in Hell. And this is all because God allows it because he values personal freedom.
It is the usual argument in the problem of evil: God allows suffering but does not will it. Well, there is not a significant difference. For whatever reason, God would rather have the multitudes of suffering brought on by personal freedom, than for perfect peace without freedom.
What is it about freedom that Someone who we believe is all good, would allow evil simply for freedom’s sake?
For God, there is not an apparent difference between causing something and allowing it to happen.But God did not want it that way. God wanted us to have personal freedom and peace. It is not the will of God that human freedom brings on suffering, that is mans idea.
In this case I don’t care whose fault it is. I just want suffering to end. That includes the suffering of those who produce it out of ill will, and the innocents who also suffer.To reduce evil to sickness of the will exonerates everyone from every crime and atrocity that has ever been committed. It reduces men to impotent machines and implies that malice is merely an unfortunate - and excusable - malady.
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That’s because my problem is very deep and the little tidbits people post have little real convincing substance to them. I am here to seriously argue, not to be satisfied with superficial responses.After reading all your answers to the numerous responses, I believe you posed the topic in order to decline any and every answer, and would perhaps do the same if I were to say that “you will always have the poor with you”, or “temptations will come, but woe to him by whom they come”. The person who said them also said, “Follow me”. The sorrow and evil in the world is a mystery for us to live properly in relation to it, not a problem to solve in intellectual or political meetings so we can then go home to watch the real housewives or barbeque in the back yard because a committee’s solution to a problem is doing the work for us.
Why is it reasonable that that you should get what you want? How have you considered God’s wants?In this case I don’t care whose fault it is. I just want suffering to end. That includes the suffering of those who produce it out of ill will, and the innocents who also suffer.
Freedom is the very basis by which we say that slavery is wrong. God allows me to choose my own destiny. Is that not a thing to value in itself? While the potential for evil exists we learn a great deal from evil, such as the value of good.That’s because my problem is very deep and the little tidbits people post have little real convincing substance to them. I am here to seriously argue, not to be satisfied with superficial responses.
If God does not wish at some point for suffering to end then God is not perfectly good.Why is it reasonable that that you should get what you want? How have you considered God’s wants?
Are you a Christian? If so, Jesus the Christ said pick up your cross and follow Him. Where did He say that we should end suffering?
Why should I be left to choose my own destiny? I am an imperfect creature who makes stupid mistakes.Freedom is the very basis by which we say that slavery is wrong. God allows me to choose my own destiny. Is that not a thing to value in itself? While the potential for evil exists we learn a great deal from evil, such as the value of good.
How could you choose your destiny is the right question? Are you sure that you have put any effort to do this by now? What is the right approach?Why should I be left to choose my own destiny? I am an imperfect creature who makes stupid mistakes.
What do you mean by “destiny”?How could you choose your destiny is the right question? Are you sure that you have put any effort to do this by now? What is the right approach?
What you and only you can create as a possibility. It shouldn’t exist otherwise your future is fixed.What do you mean by “destiny”?
I don’t get what you mean.What you and only you can create as a possibility. It shouldn’t exist otherwise your future is fixed.
Well, you need to think of those things you have created in your life or judge and accept what other people have created in their own life. Then you are provided with something you can stand on, so hopefully you can see further. That is all which matter. Other than that we are simply consciousness.I don’t get what you mean.