Franktalk, Are we hear to learn about good and evil?

[_Drifting]

If a man murders another man, robs him on the spot, and then steals items of value from that mans house - all because he has heard voices in his head telling him to do it.
Is that good or is that evil?

Bump for Frank to answer.

[_bcuzbcuz]

Okay, so for some the purpose of this life is not to learn about good or evil.

No, we all come here to learn good from evil. Exactly how that is accomplished I don't know.

I'm going to butt in here with a little reality. I worked for 15 years as the caregiver to a child with shaken baby syndrome. If you do not know what that means I will explain.

This was a child born normal, with all potential to develop normally. At the age of three months her father, pretty much the same build as me, 190 cm 90 kg, picked her up, angry that she wouldn't/couldn't stop crying. Now first imagine the size of a small infant, 3 months old, barely able to distinguish the environment around her, just at the stage of learning to recognize people around her, without speech, still being breast fed. Now picture her in the hands of her father, a large man, very strong, enraged over her tears and crying.

He shook her so violently that her small brain bounced back and forth in her somewhat larger brain cavity. Her frontal lobe smashed into her skull behind her eyes, her occipital lobe bashed inside the back of her skull. Her neck vertebrae snapped and she lost consciousness.

When the ambulance arrived (and I know this because I have talked to the ambulance attendant) her small, 3 month body was limp, her lips were blue and she had barely a pulse. She received emergency care at the hospital then was airlifted to a major city some 3 hours away. But she lived.

2 months later she came in to our household just after coming back from hospital. Our first impression was a small bundle of a baby that almost constantly cried. Her crying lasted about 15 minutes, then she would drift into an uncomfortable sleep, then after 30-45 minutes jerk into wakefulness with a start and extended rigidness and arching of the back and begin a pain filled wailing for a new 15 minutes. This pattern occurred 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for almost the first three years of her life. Anyone who has cared for such a child can tell you that when the child sleeps longer than 45 minutes you, as caregiver, stir yourself from your half stupor of tiredness and go in to check on what's wrong.

After many visits to a long list of specialists the true extent of shaken baby syndrome became apparent. This little child was blind with only a slight ability to distinguish light from dark. She was and is quadriplegic, with no voluntary movement of either arms, fingers, legs or feet. Around two years of age she could roll over from stomach to back when we propped her up on her hands but this behavior disappeared some months later, never to re-appear. She could only be bottle fed. She could never chew any food. But around 2 1/2 she stopped swallowing and any food given to her came back up immediately. She then became tube fed, a condition that she still has to this day (she just turned 22).

Around the age of three she stopped her incessant crying and her crying became more associated with some immediate discomfort instead of what one doctor described as akin to "electrical storms in her brain". She is and remains a three month old baby, although she is the size of a 12 year old. She will never be able to talk, she can hear but does not have enough brain activity to remember things she hears. Each sound is new and for the first time. Even the basic instincts that small babies have of closing their mouth when dunked under water are not present in her. (As I said, she has undergone almost every test imaginable)

She has undergone a multitude of surgeries: Hips, back, arms...all to relieve pain. She has spent roughly a quarter of her young life in and out of hospitals. Even a chest cold is potentially deadly for her.

And please remember, she was born perfectly normal.

So my question to you is this. What good and evil has she learnt? What good and evil will she ever learn? Your loving god has done exactly "what" for her?

[_Franktalk]

If you believe that it is possible for a baby in the womb or a baby of 1 minute old can learn the difference between what the world perceives as good and evil then you are going to have to support that with something other than your testimony.

No I do not. There is nothing I can say to you that will make any difference at all. You reject my world view yet all of what I say comes from that world view.

[_Franktalk]

So my question to you is this. What good and evil has she learnt? What good and evil will she ever learn? Your loving god has done exactly "what" for her?

My loving God has given each of us choice. We also have a weak body of flesh that is easily broken. But it is the spirit that is unbreakable by evil. Oh evil can lead our body astray and we can do the most terrible things. The spirit either learns from this experience or it does not. Since I can not see into the heart of this woman I don't know what she has learned. But I trust God to take whatever course is required to give each of us what we need while here. I do not judge God, I trust God. It is that simple. I don't like the evil in this world and one day wish to be in a place that sin is not all around me. But until then I must be in this world.

If God protected each of us from evil how would we know what it is? Do we not have free will? Does that imply we can disobey God? If God allows us to hang our self is that God's fault? Since the soul does not die then the trials of this world seem harsh because we are so attached to this world. But if we were to step back and see this world for what it is the trials would not matter. Only the learning would matter. The sadness of the world should generate love for those under trial. We should not allow evil to make evil in us. Reject evil and love those who have suffered in this fallen world.

[_Drifting]

If a man murders another man, robs him on the spot, and then steals items of value from that mans house - all because he has heard voices in his head telling him to do it.
Is that good or is that evil?

Bump for Frank to answer.

Oh Frankyyyyyyyyyy..........!

[_bcuzbcuz]

So my question to you is this. What good and evil has she learnt? What good and evil will she ever learn? Your loving god has done exactly "what" for her?

My loving God has given each of us choice. We also have a weak body of flesh that is easily broken. But it is the spirit that is unbreakable by evil. Oh evil can lead our body astray and we can do the most terrible things. The spirit either learns from this experience or it does not. Since I can not see into the heart of this woman I don't know what she has learned. But I trust God to take whatever course is required to give each of us what we need while here. I do not judge God, I trust God. It is that simple. I don't like the evil in this world and one day wish to be in a place that sin is not all around me. But until then I must be in this world.

If God protected each of us from evil how would we know what it is? Do we not have free will? Does that imply we can disobey God? If God allows us to hang our self is that God's fault? Since the soul does not die then the trials of this world seem harsh because we are so attached to this world. But if we were to step back and see this world for what it is the trials would not matter. Only the learning would matter. The sadness of the world should generate love for those under trial. We should not allow evil to make evil in us. Reject evil and love those who have suffered in this fallen world.

I wrote in specifics, you answered in generalities. The story I related is completely true, completely real. The baby I told about was brutally victimized by her birth-father. Nothing that happened to her, either in the three months prior to her being shaken had anything to do with choices she could make, nor in the years and years and years of pain she has suffered since then.

I read one of your earlier posts wherein you stated that people probably make a choice in the pre-life to come to an earth existence in a pre-destined damaged body. Does that imply that all the rich, overstuffed Americans also chose to come to earth for their over dimensioned gorging on life's bounties? And that people throughout the rest of the world chose sickness and starvation?

I have one word for such doctrine: simplistic. It is a doctrine without nuance, grotesque in its naïve view of reality. It is a view held by those who have never had to do without. It is a view that judges god's wisdom as a monetary rewards market. Those he likes he heaps with wealth. Silly.

[_ludwigm]

My loving God ...

Didn't Your hand tremble while writing these words?

[_Franktalk]

If a man murders another man, robs him on the spot, and then steals items of value from that mans house - all because he has heard voices in his head telling him to do it.
Is that good or is that evil?

We all have voices in our head. It is called thinking. But sometimes a thought may come from another source. It really does not matter. We have a choice to sort out any idea that comes into our head. If we act on it knowing it is evil then it is evil. However if someone has a damaged brain and they think they are at the store but in reality are killing someone then I think there is a question of responsibility. Only God knows our heart so I am Okay with not judging. That is judging the spirit. Man can and should judge the behavior of others. This is a judgment of the act and man can have laws to rule society. This is obviously a setup question so get on with it.

[_Franktalk]

Didn't Your hand tremble while writing these words?

Not at all. Why do you think that way?

[_bcuzbcuz]

[
I wrote in specifics, you answered in generalities. The story I related is completely true, completely real. The baby I told about was brutally victimized by her birth-father. Nothing that happened to her, either in the three months prior to her being shaken had anything to do with choices she could make, nor in the years and years and years of pain she has suffered since then.

I read one of your earlier posts wherein you stated that people probably make a choice in the pre-life to come to an earth existence in a pre-destined damaged body. Does that imply that all the rich, overstuffed Americans also chose to come to earth for their over dimensioned gorging on life's bounties? And that people throughout the rest of the world chose sickness and starvation?

I have one word for such doctrine: simplistic. It is a doctrine without nuance, grotesque in its naïve view of reality. It is a view held by those who have never had to do without. It is a view that judges god's wisdom as a monetary rewards market. Those he likes he heaps with wealth. Silly.

Still waiting for a comment. You mean to state that this poor battered child "chose" to come to earth and live in pain?

That's big of you. No sympathy there. Don't complain about your lot in life, you chose it. (I, on the other hand, chose wealth, good health, long life! Wow, what a struggle) I suggest you go back to your scriptures and read about sparrows.