I see ‘God as parent’ as a metaphor that can provide partial understanding of something which human beings can’t ordinarily gain total understanding. Like any metaphor, it breaks down if it’s extended too far.
I see the existence of adveristy as a part of human nature. Hence, skipping over it and going straight to the full-grown stage would only be possible if humans were turned into something less than human. I realize that some view that as a technicality that God ought to be able to work around, but I don’t.
Using another metaphor, a man is certainly all-powerful in relation to a glass bottle, since he can easily break the bottle into hundreds of pieces. But even the most intelligent and powerful person would find it a laborious process to put the pieces back together.
(Also, those who say that real human existence is horrible are really saying somethign about their own existence, not about humanity in general.)
Try telling the victims of the countless unjust and arbitrary horrors (something that has been mentioned several times but curiously sidestepped) that what they are experiencing is really just honest and satisfying reality.
Besides that, if humans can envision a world that is just a TINY bit easier on the unlucky ones (one idea: maybe that really really happy and shiny place we all want to go to when we die? how bout just starting us off there?), think what your omnipotent god should have been able to do.
I have read history, thank you very much. I’m also well aware of your distaste for the very concept of theism. I was just interested in what you meant by “waking up from history”.
I’m not a parent, and I don’t play one on TV. However, I have seen parents bring things home that were not for their child(ren), explicitly told them not to touch it, been disobeyed, and had to send the kid(s) on a timeout. Sounds like the story of the Garden of Eden to me.
Of course, that’s assuming you take the story of the Garden of Eden literally.
Yeah, a lot of people supposedly died in the Flood. That’s a pretty dickish thing to do, assuming you take it literally.
From strictly story-telling perspective, I’ve always wondered why this was added, since it indeed makes God look like a dick. But I suppose one has to take it literally for that to really matter.
Have you ever told a kid not to touch a hot stove but they did anyway? See also the first example.
If your goal was to convince me that yours is the only interpretation, then you need to provide more.
Or more than human. Humans are poorly made. And the simple fact that there are a great many perfectly functional humans who got that way without horrible suffering show that that sort of suffering is unnecessary.
No, we are showing that we’ve read history or watched the news. Billions of people have led short, miserable lives.
It should be obvious. We are finally beginning to overcome many of the ancient evils that have plagued humanity. We can cure diseases, build democracies, live longer, establish a rule of law, and so on. We’ve built for ourselves what a good “parent” would have given as a bare minimum.
You wouldn’t have to make do with just warning if you were an omnipotent parent would you? Come to that, you wouldn’t even have to plant something totally inappropriate for your children smack dab in the middle of their room.
Please help my unimaginative mind along the path of interpreting these stories written in a tone that suggests not just fact, but Fact with the power of the Almighty behind it to boot. I mean, what kind of deep hidden meanings can you decifer fro mthese horrid stories other than what is readily apparent?
And god so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not not perish, but have everlasting life…assuming you take it literally.
I didn’t write the book, but that doesn’t prevent me from critiquing it. Until you come forth with a different version that contains just the passages you approve of, I’m going to go ahead a analyze the version at hand. In the Bible, God comes off as a sadistic ass, and ignoring the passages that show this is your problem, not mine.
Never said I was ignoring anything. I was just showing that it’s possible to have a different interpretation. Whether you accept it as valid is something else.
The Bible can be viewed as a collection of stories, written by people who wanted to write down the oral traditions which were used to try and understand the incomprehensible. Doesn’t mean any of it happened as it is written. The first two chapters of the first book don’t even agree with each other.
Must you always be so snarky? This is part of the reason I have a hard time having an intelligent discussion with you. (And I’m sure the fact that I believe in a magic sky pixie is what makes it hard for you to do the same with me, I’m sure.)
In curing some diseases, we’ve created others. Take the disinfectant-resistant bacteria for example.
I’d be interested in hearing you point to a democracy that you consider to be a good thing and not inherently corrupt.
The Bible says people used to live for hundreds of years and that God established a rule of law, but you obviously won’t buy that.
Tell you what, you take the diseases that are no longer a threat because of modern medicine, and I’ll take the disinfectant resistant bacteria. Which one of us do suppose gets the better deal?
Inherently corrupt? How do you figure?
The bible also says that bats are birds, pi = 3, and that daughters getting their father drunk and raping him so they can have kids is just fine.
So? The Bible is fraudulent and unsatisfying also, but that isn’t the reason not to believe in it - especially because feeling fraudulent is different from it being proved fraudulent through archeilogy and physics.
All this dickering about medicine changing over the years strikes me as rather absurd. Some of our atheist friends assert that all human life was misery all the time until quite recently. I find that claim preposterous even by atheist standards. Let’s definie the terms.
Happiness is a mental state within the individual, not a set of conditions outside the individual. It is not true that long lifetime, for instance, is a synonym for happiess; if it were, we’d see every 90-year-old skipping around with glee. So the truth of the atheist claim won’t be settled by studying the progress of medicine through history. It will be studying by whether people were actually happy, and everyone I know who’s seriously tackled those questions has concluded the exact opposite of what the atheists in this thread concluded.
I think it can be apt within limits. I agree with Napier that some people like the parent idea a little too much and want to stay children. I think we have to remember that as parents we hopefully want our kids to grow up and be responsible adults and our equals rather than stay dependent children. We don’t usually know where the lines are drawn and exactly what to do to achieve that end but an omnipotent deity would.
begbert makes a good point. It’s easy in relatively comfortable cable TV and computer land to accept this analogy but much harder when we see the extremes that some people truly experience. Still for the sake of discussion, let’s consider a couple of things. As parents we accept the bumps and bruises that go along with childhood. Hopefully we teach our kids to make sound choices and to take responsibility for those choices. If they are rebellious children or if they make bad choices as adults how much can we really do?
Let’s say my child is a drug addict and does all manner of self destructive things to support their habit. My heart breaks because I’ve offered my love and my help but they continue their course. What does my love for them require of me? I could lock them up and prevent them from doing drugs but until they wake up enough to deal with their own inner demons and make a conscious choice to change there’s only so much I can do.
We can acknowledge that an omnipotent god could reach in and change our consciousness so that we don’t have to go through such extreme experiences. IMO that’s a different issue. Perhaps we volunteered to come and experience physical reality not knowing every detail but knowing we would find our way back. I think thats some of that non useful speculation **begbert **spoke of. Let’s also keep in mind that if we are spiritual beings experiencing a temporary physical reality then our godly parent knows that no matter what we experience here we are ultimately safe.
I tend to think the experience itself is the point. The journey is the point so if an omnipotent god transported us to our destination then we’ve missed it.
Jesus said “be ye perfect as your father in heaven is perfect” I also tend to believe in some sort of reincarnation since it seems clear that perfection won’t be achieved in a single lifetime.
Really? Oh well in that case, I define happiness as ‘having no religion’. See? Now history has been one long miserable bummer, with a select minority only recently finding happiness. I win.
You can’t just start throwing down definitions to suit what you think. If the people you are trying to convince don’t agree with the definitions then you aren’t really arguing.
Let me try again. There is a big problem with the parent analogy, which is that parents want their kids to grow up and be parents also. If God were a parent, he’d be one keeping his children in the equivalent of short pants their entires lives. If I understand correctly Mormons think that Mormons, at least, become gods after they die. They might have a case for God being a parent, no one else does.
Saying no and taking kids to the circus are not the major roles of a parent. I’d say most of the maturing our species has done has been in spite of religion, not because of it. Religion has followed along, though.