Forget Abortion, Why Does God Allow Babies To Die?

Great Debates
21

Yes, it was God’s fault. I’ll sum this up with a list.

  1. There’s no reason for him to have created Eden or humanity in the first place. Whatever ends God wanted to reach with his creations, he could have instantly.

  2. God created beings who were essentially children, with no knowledge of what their actions would do. Even if you give a child nigh-everything and satisfy him, if you introduce one forbidden element, the child will go for it. If something’s forbidden, it’s more desirable - adults have this problem, even though they know the consequences of their actions. And Adam and Eve were merely children.

  3. Okay, so God gave them the choice, as you noted. Interesting point, I’ll admit, but it just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. If God really wanted them to love him, but he wanted to give them an honest choice, then why did he make the whole tree thing a nigh-inescapable trap? The snake, the fact that they didn’t know the consequences… Rigged, rigged, rigged. God wanted, nay, expected them to take the apple. Because of the way the scenario was designed, their childlike nature made it Almost Impossible for them not to eat the apple at some point. And, even if Adam and Eve didn’t choose the apple, they would start reproducing like good little hyoo-mans, and create more and more generations not concious of the nature of the apple, further tipping the balance of human fate towards doom. Rigged. I have a suspicion that I’m forgetting something… Uh… Oh yeah. Hi, Opal!

  4. Even if Adam and Eve were responsible for everything they did, and it was an even contest, why should all of humanity be responsible for their actions?

  5. God pulled the strings. There’s no free will, according to the Bible - God plans it all. If Adam and Eve ate the apple, it’s because God wanted it that way. Suffering, death, the damnation of humanity? It’s all God, sez the “Good Book.”

I’m going to side with the whole “God is an evil motherfucker” group, if you don’t mind. I don’t have any problem with you worshipping a being purportedly responsible for the death, damnation, and suffering of all of humanity. I just think it’s a bit silly. Feh, different strokes for different folks.

22

Are you referring to us heathens, or stubborn plant life? Either way, the soil didn’t create us. The seeds did.

23

Jinx, I’m sorry for your family’s loss. That’s a terrible thing to happen.

24

Also, God is omniscient so he already knew they would eat the apple and he sent the serpent to convince them to do it. It is logically impossible for anything to occur without God’s will so everything in Garden occurred exactly as he intended. He created people who he knew would eat the apple and a snake that he knew would tell them to do it. God created sin. God created evil. Man has no culpability. God should be begging for our forgiveness.

25

i think the question is “Why does God let - or make - people live past 2?”. think about it… if we all died that early, other than making the human race extinct, we’d all go to heaven and half the crap that happens (murder, rape, accidents, paralysis, drug use…) wouldn’t happen. that’d be awesome!

26

Dio, yeah, that’s the crux of what I had to say, too.

Gypsy - yeah, and we could build cities in heaven. Yay.

Svt4Him, do you have anything to say in response?

27

You assume the end is what was important. I do not agree.

Yup. It was a temptation all right. I don’t think God ever denied that. But it was always their choice. There was no reason they had to do something - they could have chosen not to.

[quote]
3) Okay, so God gave them the choice, as you noted. Interesting point, I’ll admit, but it just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. If God really wanted them to love him, but he wanted to give them an honest choice, then why did he make the whole tree thing a nigh-inescapable trap? The snake, the fact that they didn’t know the consequences… Rigged, rigged, rigged. God wanted, nay, expected them to take the apple. Because of the way the scenario was designed, their childlike nature made it Almost Impossible for them not to eat the apple at some point. And, even if Adam and Eve didn’t choose the apple, they would start reproducing like good little hyoo-mans, and create more and more generations not concious of the nature of the apple, further tipping the balance of human fate towards doom. Rigged. I have a suspicion that I’m forgetting something… Uh… Oh yeah. Hi, Opal!

[quote]

Why do you assume it was nigh inescapable? All they had to do was say no. Saying “no” is close to the easiest thing in the world, and they had every reason to do it. There were no children before they were cast out of the garden, and I do not think it was a mere coincidence.

Because it was they who defined human nature. This was not simply an ordinary sing - they created humanity. God simply gave them the choice about what they would create.

Bull. Everyone has the choice to go with or against God, and the consequences, like the choice, are yours to face.

God knew exactly what they were going to do. Its true. And he knew exactly when and how the serpent would tempt Adam and Eve. But God did not force them. Everything he created had the choice - not an even chance, but a option. God always knows which one they will take, because they have taken that choice.

Beg for our forgiveness? Why? Because he gave us the choice to sin and choose more immediately gratifying pleasures?

No. Everything occurred as God allowed. He does not punish before the crime, and he does not condemn before the Sin, even knowing that we would fail.

But you know, this whole thread is based off of a wrong assumption. Genesis is talking about human nature, not divine. I believe it was an allegorical work of early Jewish scholars trying to explain what had been revealed to them about men, not about God.

Jinx, I am sorry to hear about your neice. Yet take heart. Death is no evil, though it may be painful. How can death be a wrong, when it mean only eternal life? What is death but a grand hoax we pull upon ourselves? Greive not, but rejoice. Do not pout on clothes of mourning, but dance while weeping. Let all sadness be washed away with song.

28

Wrong. Everything occurred as God intended. He wrote the script. it was his choice to create a universe in which everything would behave as it did. He created the serpent. If he creates something that he knows will be evil it’s the same as creating evil. It was his choice to bring evil into the world.

Free will means nothing with the knowledge of right and wrong. Adam and Eve had no knowledge of right and wrong before they ate the apple, therefore they cannot have any culpability for eating it. They didn’t know it was wrong. They didn’t know it was wrong to disobey God either.

If God didn’t want them to eat the apple he would have created people who wouldn’t eat the apple.

Let me ask you this; what was about Adam and Eve that made them disobedient? What was their moral flaw? How could they have a moral flaw without knowledge of right and wrong?

Whatever was flawed about them was flawed because of God. He deliberately chose to create entities which he knew would disobey him so that’s his bust, not man’s. Man just did what God intended him to do. Sin is God’s bad. It was his idea.

29

Bull. Whatever happened to the whole God’s plan thing? God supposedly plans everything. Nothing can ever go against His will because He is omnipotent. Everything in the world - suffering, tragedy, and death, is apparently justified because it’s all part of God’s plan. God doesn’t stop it because he’s planned it. Yet whatever he’s planning, he could reach instantly. His plan is just a fancy way of getting to a result that he could get to whenever he wanted, without all the suffering.

So, everything that Adam and Eve did - everything that every horrible human has ever done - has all been part of God’s plan. The eating of the apple? God’s plan. Jesus being killed? God’s plan. The crusades? God’s plan. The destruction of civilizations, millennia of war and strife? God’s plan. If you want to get all “recent history”, fine. The world wars? 9/11? Current conflicts all around the world? God, God, God. Technically, everything could be blamed on God, because it’s part of his Plan.

If God sets it up so that there’s no other possibility besides the whole “Humanity Shalt Fail” scenario, it’s God’s fault. Saying that God allowed it is silly - what God really did was disallowing all other possibilities. It doesn’t matter when He “condemns” us for Sin - condemning us period is wrong because He was the one who pulled the strings so that humanity does bad things. It was the possibility that He “allowed” above all others. He is ultimately responsible. God is an evil motherfucker.

Punishing humanity for anything we have done as part of God’s plan is wrong, because God has masterminded the situation and given us no other option.

It’s as simple as that.

30

Nothing is ever simple. I am not sure where you get your impressions of God, to me tho, it seems you look at God from an unbelievers eye. Which is fine, each to their own, but I think to blame God for evil in the world is silly. As thinking self-aware people we have every thing we could possibly need to survive provided to us in this world. Because we choose to fight, argue, kill over stupid things is not God’s fault, but ours.

I to used to wonder why God created us, and I think it is simple as it is in His nature to create. I dont think God could have NOT created us, or something like us.

And Jinx I truly wish I had a good answer for you, I dont. Life is hard and bad things happen to good people all the time. While im a beliver I do struggle with this, alot. I have faith tho that one day I will know.

31

Not at all. It’s the only logical entity who can be blamed. Its God’s universe. It was created exactly as he intended. If God chooses to create something which he knows will be evil, then God creates evil. There is no logical way out of this box.

32

not exactly. If I make a sword, and someone uses that sword to slaughter babies…am I evil? I wanted that sword to go toward protecting a family, not killing babies. I dont think you can look at the results and cry evil…intent should count for something, shouldnt it?

33

God is omniscient. It is impossible for something to not go as he intended. If something did not go as he intended he could not be omscient.

34

If you had foreknowledge that the sword would be used to slaughter babies, then yes, you’re evil.

If one is omniscient, as God is proposed to be, then intent and result become the same thing.

35

Omniscient: as dictonary defined

1 having infinite knowledge or understanding

2 having very great or seemingly unlimited knowledge

I was never one to assume omniscient meant also the ability to see into the future. Having infinte knowledge of things as they are today is one thing…knowing all paths as they lead forward is another. With Free Will I dont see it possible that God, or any diety, could possibly know what will happen in the future. We are free to make any decison we want, for good or evil. How can free will be predicted? If it could be, would it still be “free”?

36

Well, one way to look at it is such: observe, and make theories.

One could look at bad things that happen in the world, and come up with theories with a good God in them; then you have to justify the contradictory appearances of bad things happening in such a world.

One could come up with theories where it’s all the result of random chance; this seems to fit the observations perfectly without any strained justifications. This is what I think is true.

There are also the theories that include an evil God. Then one must justify the good things, and we’re straining just as much as the good God theory.

But how about a weak God? One that is unable, not unwilling, to end evil? This makes more sense to me than a good omnipotent God, but I think the “no God” theory still fits the observations better.

37

With just my limited understanding of human nature, I could have told God that Adam and Eve would eat the fruit. Or if not them, then one of their offspring. There’s no way that God could not have seen it coming.

38

Well even with your “limited” understanding you are still drawing on conclusions based on thousands of years of humans doing stupid things. Considering Adam and Eve were living in a perfect world with a want of nothing…it is not unreasonable to think they could not do one freakin thing!

However, while I believe in God, I dont believe in the whole Adam and Eve story.

39

Which is obviously more useful than God’s expertise from creating humans in the first place. :rolleyes:

Seriously, if God created humans, then He has a better grasp of how humans work than said humans are even capable of.

It is unreasonable from my perspective, with but a basic grasp of human nature. Thus, it must have been blindingly obvious to an entity who created human nature.

40

Give a child everything he wants, hmkay? Then introduce a little black box. Tell him “DON’TOPENTHEBOX.” The child doesn’t know the consequences of opening the box. The child might not even understand what boxes are. Do you expect the child to forever obey your command? Well, then you’re a pretty fucking naive God. You’re not giving him a choice whether or not to worship you, you’re giving him a trap that he has no knowledge of.

Well, according to the Bible, god is all-powerful. He can do anything. He could make Gigli good! Along with, you know, seeing into the future, and that sort of thing.

Even if there’s something he can’t do, which would rail against the Christian idea of an omnipotent God, even a stupid teenager such as myself can grasp that Adam and Eve were going to eat that fruit at some point.