Belief in God

[Chap]

Veritas, rhetorical questions are questions asked to make a point. Are you trying to say that it makes as much sense to believe in the spaghetti monster as it does to believe in God?

Yes.

Note the usual rhetorical trick: you oppose a particular named supposed deity "the spaghetti monster" to a thing called "God", which makes it sound like it is, as they say "a thing" like "water" or "air", whose existence and nature are undisputed.

If on the other hand KevinSim had phrased his question even-handedly. he would have had to say something like:

"Are you trying to say that it makes as much sense to believe in the spaghetti monster as it does to believe in the entity that Mormons call 'Heavenly Father'?"

The obvious answer would be "Why not?".

Which is why he will not do that.

[canpakes]

Since you believe your god does, in fact, create suffering and, if he were to be a real entity, uses his powers to levy suffering on the natural world, it follows that your god is evil by any metric. Eyeball parasites? Check. Flooding babies? Check. Toddler bone cancer? Check. Add in blood sacrifices and it’s fairly obvious your god isn’t a god of love, but rather a god of fear, suffering, and death.

Jersey Girl, I picked this out from Doc’s post above because it mentions something that I’ve always wondered about, with respect to the idea of a world designed by a supreme being.

Simply put, nearly all life on this globe - be it closely spaced in a biological sense (Doc’s kudu and lion), to being about as different as imaginable (a virus within a person) - succeeds only by consuming other life (plants sometimes excepted). And the life being consumed isn’t agreeable to the deal, nor does it revel in it. Rather, it’s usually painful, bloody, and ultimately destructive.

Why would either condition be necessary in a world designed by a loving god?

When I read the Genesis account I see a God who created a perfect world (Garden) …

What made it perfect?

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Since you believe your god does, in fact, create suffering and, if he were to be a real entity, uses his powers to levy suffering on the natural world, it follows that your god is evil by any metric. Eyeball parasites? Check. Flooding babies? Check. Toddler bone cancer? Check. Add in blood sacrifices and it’s fairly obvious your god isn’t a god of love, but rather a god of fear, suffering, and death.

Jersey Girl, I picked this out from Doc’s post above because it mentions something that I’ve always wondered about, with respect to the idea of a world designed by a supreme being.

Simply put, nearly all life on this globe - be it closely spaced in a biological sense (Doc’s kudu and lion), to being about as different as imaginable (a virus within a person) - succeeds only by consuming other life (plants sometimes excepted). And the life being consumed isn’t agreeable to the deal, nor does it revel in it. Rather, it’s usually painful, bloody, and ultimately destructive.

Why would either condition be necessary in a world designed by a loving god?

When I read the Genesis account I see a God who created a perfect world (Garden) …

What made it perfect?

Any being that set the conditions for this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/HardcoreNature ... _an_eland/

^ possible nsfw with regard to animal gore

is not a ‘loving god’. It’s a being that’s either completely indifferent to terror and pain, or it’s a being that revels in suffering. History is replete with horrors beyond our mind’s ability to comprehend (the Mongols exterminating entire hegemonies, for example) wherein the jewish god Jehovah passively observed his creations, from viruses liquidating organs to mankind absolutely brutalizing innocents without regard to their pain.

If a believer wants to take comfort in whatever notion they believe their god provides, then fine. It still doesn’t change a thing with regard to how this cruel, bloody, unholy world operates. The rules are in place, and if you want to believe your god is ‘loving’ by all means go for it. Stalin had a pet named Tishka, but does his love for an animal change who he was or what he did? Of course not - he was evil incarnate. Such is the duality of a ‘loving’ god.

- Doc

[Vēritās]

The account of creation in Genesis is borrowed from earlier creation myths such as the Enuma Elish. The correlations are too obvious to ignore, which begs the question...

Why would the official "Word of God" version of creation need to rely on older myths that are obviously false?

[Jersey Girl]

The account of creation in Genesis is borrowed from earlier creation myths such as the Enuma Elish. The correlations are too obvious to ignore, which begs the question...

Why would the official "Word of God" version of creation need to rely on older myths that are obviously false?

I don't know why people on these boards typically reference Enuma Elish when there are a plethora of ancient flood myths.

As to your question, I'd have to find the dates attributed to all the flood stories and see what shakes. For the time being though, all I can say is that I don't know the answer.

[Jersey Girl]

Since you believe your god does, in fact, create suffering and, if he were to be a real entity, uses his powers to levy suffering on the natural world, it follows that your god is evil by any metric. Eyeball parasites? Check. Flooding babies? Check. Toddler bone cancer? Check. Add in blood sacrifices and it’s fairly obvious your god isn’t a god of love, but rather a god of fear, suffering, and death.

Jersey Girl, I picked this out from Doc’s post above because it mentions something that I’ve always wondered about, with respect to the idea of a world designed by a supreme being.

Simply put, nearly all life on this globe - be it closely spaced in a biological sense (Doc’s kudu and lion), to being about as different as imaginable (a virus within a person) - succeeds only by consuming other life (plants sometimes excepted). And the life being consumed isn’t agreeable to the deal, nor does it revel in it. Rather, it’s usually painful, bloody, and ultimately destructive.

Why would either condition be necessary in a world designed by a loving god?

The only answer to that I can think of or even imagine, canpakes, is that anything God creates outside of his holiness is destined or has the potential to become corrupted. Then I ask myself what about the angels, can angels become corrupted? And the answer to that, in my view, is yes they can.

When I read the Genesis account I see a God who created a perfect world (Garden) …

What made it perfect?
[/quote]

As reported, sin hadn't yet entered the creation and corrupted it. But here is the thing, if as I stated above that anything God creates out of his holiness is destined/has the potential to become corrupted then...was it already corrupted when he created it?

Don't know. Boggles the mind.

[Jersey Girl]

Folks I answered a couple of brief posts while reading the thread backwards. I'll get back to where I originally left off (Schmo) when I come up for air again and have time to sit with those particular posts that I'm after. This thread picked up and is taking place at the same time my art association show is happening. I'll get back here. I really like the activity I see on the thread.

[huckelberry]

Jersey Girl, I picked this out from Doc’s post above because it mentions something that I’ve always wondered about, with respect to the idea of a world designed by a supreme being.

Simply put, nearly all life on this globe - be it closely spaced in a biological sense (Doc’s kudu and lion), to being about as different as imaginable (a virus within a person) - succeeds only by consuming other life (plants sometimes excepted). And the life being consumed isn’t agreeable to the deal, nor does it revel in it. Rather, it’s usually painful, bloody, and ultimately destructive.

Why would either condition be necessary in a world designed by a loving god?

The only answer to that I can think of or even imagine, canpakes, is that anything God creates outside of his holiness is destined or has the potential to become corrupted. Then I ask myself what about the angels, can angels become corrupted? And the answer to that, in my view, is yes they can.

When I read the Genesis account I see a God who created a perfect world (Garden) …

(canpakes asked)
What made it perfect?

(Jersey Girl responded)

As reported, sin hadn't yet entered the creation and corrupted it. But here is the thing, if as I stated above that anything God creates out of his holiness is destined/has the potential to become corrupted then...was it already corrupted when he created it?

Don't know. Boggles the mind.
[/quote]

Jersey Girl, you noted previously that you vary your thoughts sometimes(not a bad thing) so if I propose a different reading that is not necessarily picking an argument with you.

I do not see a perfect world that God created. There have been animals living dying and eating each other for a very large number of years before the garden of eden. Is not a garden a special protected place? its safety is not the dangerous outside world to which Adam and Eve were expelled into . I have certainly heard the idea that the fall corrupted to world causing death and conflict everywhere. That just does not fit either real world evidence or the Biblical text. It is an easy out for a more difficult question.

Your worry about corruptible angels may well be more on target. If angels are free to think they might get spoiled in a very selfish sense. People certainly have that potential. Perhaps the danger is great enough that the experience of living in a world of objective dangers and responsibility is necessary for human creation.

It might be kept in mind that there is no miracle involved in hurricanes earthquakes and disease. Each of these are natural events in the fabric of real world cause and effect.

[KevinSim]

That is, unless you're saying you have two gods, one who was the architect and another to do the construction.

Well, I believe that God the Father was the architect, and that His Son Jesus constructed, but in a very real sense they are each the same God.

I suppose the world could be worse, but it could also be infinitely better.

Some Schmo, how could it have been better?

[canpakes]

.
Jersey Girl -

Let me start with a disclaimer, of sorts.

When I ask you questions like these, I’m very interested in your perspective; I’m not looking to trap you into a particular response or to force a conclusion … these are more oriented towards a kind of thought experiment (as much as my walnut-sized brain can participate in, anyway), and I enjoy reading how other folks approach these subjects.

That said -

Jersey Girl, I picked this out from Doc’s post above because it mentions something that I’ve always wondered about, with respect to the idea of a world designed by a supreme being.

Simply put, nearly all life on this globe - be it closely spaced in a biological sense (Doc’s kudu and lion), to being about as different as imaginable (a virus within a person) - succeeds only by consuming other life (plants sometimes excepted). And the life being consumed isn’t agreeable to the deal, nor does it revel in it. Rather, it’s usually painful, bloody, and ultimately destructive.

Why would either condition be necessary in a world designed by a loving god?

The only answer to that I can think of or even imagine, canpakes, is that anything God creates outside of his holiness is destined or has the potential to become corrupted. Then I ask myself what about the angels, can angels become corrupted? And the answer to that, in my view, is yes they can.

Putting aside angels at the moment … how does an entire world become corrupted by - or, more to the point, become victims of the ‘corruption’ from - the single action of two uninvolved individuals designed to be susceptible to suggestion?

When I read the Genesis account I see a God who created a perfect world (Garden) …

What made it perfect?

As reported, sin hadn't yet entered the creation and corrupted it. But here is the thing, if as I stated above that anything God creates out of his holiness is destined/has the potential to become corrupted then...was it already corrupted when he created it?

Don't know. Boggles the mind.

It would seem that anything that ‘corruption’ is, was included within the system from the start. If you propose an alternative ‘corrupted’ existence to an ‘uncorrupted’ existence, then you’re only stating that one of two options is in effect - but either option must have always been there.

Similarly, if you are going to assign the existence of suffering and death to corruption, then suffering and death are an inseparable part of this existence, when there’s no sure rationalization that either ever needed to be … if an existence is created by a god.

Which leads us back to the main question: Life must destroy other Life - often painfully so - in order to succeed. Why?

And it’s not so much that I’m asking why a supposed god would design an existence with those features; rather, why should I assume that a god existed to make that decision in the first place? The notion speaks to a dark intent if it is a designed reality, and assuming that a god designed this existence, then that dark intent is assigned to that god by default.