God was looking out for some, not others?

[Holly]

Dale:

Life is not a bowl of cherries, nor is it supposed to be. Hard experiences make you stronger.

Or, hard experiences can warp and weaken you until you’re incapacitated. Women who can’t recover from the aftermath of a vicious rape and veterans who suffer from PTSS come to mind. Babies who are deprived of affection and nourishing food do not thrive: they develop psychological and physical problems. (Or are they just not trying hard enough to overcome?) Picture a baby born with a horribly painful terminal illness. Does he suffer so that his character will be strong, or to strengthen the character of his parents? Is it then good to torture a baby so that he or others may benefit?

In any case, this life is but a blip on the radar screen of eternity so any experiences we have here are almost meaningless (if you subscribe to the idea of an immortal soul). It seems unfair to judge the eternal fate of a person’s soul by his performance during these few moments on earth, especially since the playing field is uneven: some people are inherently stronger than others, some have many more advantages; some have much more time to find the “right path” while others’ lives are short.

In heaven, will there be no suffering? If suffering is so necessary for character-building, shouldn’t it be included in the heavenly experience?

The idea that “God won’t give you more than you can bear” is similar to one I’ve heard a jillion times: “God gave you a handicapped child because you’re special”. I believe the first warm, fuzzy thought is refuted by the fact that some people commit suicide, and the second is refuted by the fact that handicapped children are more likely to be abused by their parents than are healthy ones. (Or perhaps child abuse is a good thing because it builds the handicapped child’s character?)

If suffering is meant by god to be a tool for strengthening character, then inflicting pain on others cannot be evil: it’s a good thing. Conversely, easing the suffering of others is evil because you’re depriving them of a beneficial character-building experience. (What if you eased the suffering of a person and he didn’t develop the strength he would need to face some future trial?)

jab:

Being an all-knowing God, He knew who was going where even before He said, “Let there be light.” There is no need for a test when the potential tester already knows the outcome.

To elaborate on this excellent point, an omniscient and omnipotent god could have simply skipped the suffering altogether with the same result. He’d know who would pass the test and who would fail, so why not create the winners already in heaven with “memories” of their travails, along with the strength of character they would have acquired on earth? As for the losers, they would never have existed at all (except in the “memories” of the winners), so there would be no need for their earthly or hellish existence to actually occur.

[dangermom]

My golly, this thread has gotten ridiculous. I have no more patience. Thank you, JTC, for bringing in a measure of reason.

It would be horrible if we were all protected from ourselves and others. We would be babies for eternity. Being a baby is nice for a while, but is pretty limiting as a permanent condition. God wants us to grow up into adults, and obtain knowledge, and eventually, to become more like Him. This takes hardship, but we have to grow up.

Everyone go out right now and check out C.S. Lewis’ “The Problem of Pain” from the library. Read it. Then come back to this thread and discuss this topic with a little more knowledge of Christian thought on the problems of evil and pain in this world.

[dangermom]

OK, I’m calmer now. Sorry about that.

I would just like to state my belief that God can turn all things to good. We may not see it in out lifetimes, or until we’re dead. We are part of the tapestry, and we have no way of seeing the entire work; only God can do that. All we can do is try our best to be good and loving where we are. I may not understand now, but I do believe that even the handicapped and abused child will be rewarded, and that one day we will see clearly.

[tracer]

genie wrote:

Thank you, JTC, for bringing in a measure of reason.

Where? Where?

It would be horrible if we were all protected from ourselves and others. We would be babies for eternity.

Okay, suppose that on the planet Ploov, there lived a species of really, really fragile aliens. These aliens are so frail that hitting them with a pillow can cause them grievous injury. Some of these aliens are also deeply religious, and believe that things happen according to God’s plan, and that God lets bad things happen in order to help Ploovians mature.

Now, suppose one of these religious Ploovians comes and visits Earth. On Earth, he is horrified to see humans getting into pillow fights with each other. But he is even more horrified to see that humans are not harmed by being in pillow fights. The Ploovian, who has learned how to speak English, leaps up onto a pulpit and cries, “You sinful people! You hit each other with pillows, yet you don’t get hurt! Don’t you know that pillows are lethal weapons? You are all a bunch of irresponsible babies who have no respect for the consequences of your actions!”

The Ploovian alien thinks that, because the universe has been set up in such a way that pillows don’t hurt humans, that humans are being shielded from the consequences of their actions and are thus not being given an opportunity to mature. But the Ploovian is wrong. Because pillows don’t hurt humans, the consequences of hitting someone with a pillow are minimal. Humans are not being shielded from the foul consequences of their actions – it’s just that their actions simply don’t have foul consequences.

But how do we know that pillows aren’t really lethal weapons? Sure, every time I hit another human with a pillow, the pillow bounces off harmlessly, but what if this is because God is intervening? What if pillows are really lethal weapons, and we’ve just never been able to discover this fact? What if countless generations of pre-historic humans had died at the hands of pillow fights, and one day God said, “Enough! I am going to intervene every time a human hits one of his brethren with a pillow, and protect him from harm.” And thus, the only reason it seems like pillows are harmless is because God is actively shielding us from their harm. (Surely, this is the theory that the religious Ploovian alien has come up with!)

Would you say that that makes us humans immature? Or would you simply say that ignoring the “harmful” consequences of pillow fights is no longer relevant to human maturity because, in effect, pillows are no longer harmful?

[Holly]

genie:

My golly, this thread has gotten ridiculous.

It has? How?

It would be horrible if we were all protected from ourselves and others.

So death and suffering must also exist in heaven?

We would be babies for eternity. Being a baby is nice for a while, but is pretty limiting as a permanent condition.

I think the opposite may be true: with no negative consequences to our actions, life would be pretty interesting. A cosmic pillow fight.

God wants us to grow up into adults, and obtain knowledge, and eventually, to become more like Him. This takes hardship, but we have to grow up.

Do infants and children receive hardships in heaven so they may also grow up, as god wants them to do? Also, I’ve often heard that suffering is entirely man’s fault: god intended for the world to be perfect, suffering is a bad thing that wasn’t part of his design, but Adam and Eve misused their free will and screw it up for everyone. Which scenario do you believe is correct?

I may not understand now, but I do believe that even the handicapped and abused child will be rewarded, and that one day we will see clearly.

Oh, it’s a mystery.

[tracer]

Holly wrote:

Do infants and children receive hardships in heaven so they may also grow up, as god wants them to do?

Why, of course not. No one matures in heaven. Because, since heaven is completely free of sin, and sin is a consequence of having free will, there cannot be free will in heaven!

[Monty]

Wasn’t there a war in heaven? Or was that just a friendly game of Bridge and the loser packed up and moved out afterwards?

[jab1]

*Originally posted by ianzin *
**The rationalists here are wasting their time. People infected with the God virus apply a closed system of belief in which ‘God exists’ is non-falsifiable. All phenomena are deemed to corroborate the belief, and no phenomena are considered capable of falsifying the belief. When someone is saved from harm, it is assumed God helped or responded to human desire. When not, it is assumed God plays a higher purpose game which we can appreciate dimly if at all. Either way, the belief is intact.

As a corollary to the above, it follows that the outcome of events makes no difference to the God believer, since the belief system survives any experience. Taking it one step further, believers may say they are praying for a given outcome (a life saved, a disaster averted, whatever) but in fact it doesn’t really matter to them what happens, since any outcome is still compatible with the “loving, caring God” scenario.

You cannot rationally argue out what wasn’t rationally argued in. **

You’re absolutely right. I’m outta here. No point in debating with brick walls.

[tracer]

Monty wrote:

Wasn’t there a war in heaven? Or was that just a friendly game of Bridge and the loser packed up and moved out afterwards?

I thought that was only in Paradise Lost, not in the Bible itself.

(Unless you count Revelation 12:7-9, which are supposed to be prophecies of future events, not descriptions of past ones.)

[Dale_The_Bold]

*Originally posted by Cajo *
You know, without a degree in theology I suppose I’ll forever confuse the parts of the Bible that don’t mean what they say with the parts that actually do mean what they say. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve heard, “Oh, this part is gospel but that part’s not literal” or “I know The Bible says X but it really means Y” It’s frustrating to say the least.

Grab a concordance, look up all occurances of the word “fear” and try and find a scripture that refers to God as someone we should cower and be afraid of. I emphasized “we” because demons are afraid, but humans are repeatedly told not to be afraid. Rather than quietly sitting in the corner and assuming that there’s a contradiction, look it up and educate yourself. I have yet to find a contradiction that wasn’t man-made, but sometimes it takes a little study of context.

*Originally posted by Cajo *
**For me, the story of Job, Sodom and Gomorrah and vivid tales of eternal damnation never inspired a feeling of “Wow, how impressive. Isn’t He powerful?” It was always more like, “Wow, He said I’d spend eternity in torment if I don’t believe in Him, obey Him, and love Him.” That’s a pretty heavy threat to lay on a child. Ever see an old-fashioned fire-and-brimstone church service? There’s far more “you don’t want to go to Hell, do you?”-type fear-mongering than reverence going on there, let me tell you. **

A lot of bible thumpers use the infamous fear tactics of “you are going o hell” or the recent “you helped this happen,” but that doesn’t make it biblical. As mentioned above, you should not live in fear, or make decisions based on fear. That includes saying that because God strikes fear in people, I’m not believing in Him. God wasn’t flexing his muscles to intimidate people into worshipping Him. He was only getting rid of the wicked. Doomsday preachers throw this around to scare people, but anyone reading the bible understands it. I get the sneaking feeling that a lot of preachers understand it too, but they know that fear brings in the numbers.

[dangermom]

So you think it would be a good thing if we were all treated like toddlers. Whenever we tried to hurt one another, God would stop us, saying, ‘now, play nice; I won’t let you hurt each other.’ OK. We’ll go with that.

In this world, would it be possible to be hurt at all? Could accidents happen? Could I bonk into someone on the street? Could a brick fall on someone’s head and bean them? Could you die from an accident? Would you ever stub your toe? Could objects be material? Could the laws of physics be obeyed? Or would we all just have personal forcefields?

Could we still hurt one another with words? Could I still make you angry by calling you names? What about unintentional tactlessness that hurts others’ feelings? If I asked a woman who had just had her fourth miscarriage whether she had children, would the words just not come out of my mouth?

Could you get sick, or would we be protected from that as well? Would we get old? Would we die of old age, or at all? If we died, how would it go? Would we just go in our sleep, or disappear?
I’m not even going to go into the questions of faith this scenario poses; I’m just curious about how it would work.

[Dale_The_Bold]

*Originally posted by Holly *
…hard experiences can warp and weaken you until you’re incapacitated…Is it then good to torture a baby so that he or others may benefit? If suffering is meant by god to be a tool for strengthening character, then inflicting pain on others cannot be evil: it’s a good thing. Conversely, easing the suffering of others is evil because you’re depriving them of a beneficial character-building experience. (What if you eased the suffering of a person and he didn’t develop the strength he would need to face some future trial?)

Not everyone passes tests. They are hard for a reason. When someone fails a test, they have failed. If you take a test in school and get an “F” while everyone else gets an “A” then you will be the only one who says the test is unfair. Does that mean the test was unfair? No, it means you failed it. Some people fail, some people pass. If no one failed it wouldn’t be a test. It may sound callous, but women who have been victims of multiple rapes have recovered and lived great lives. It can be done. It’s a horrific thing, and I hate the fact that people have to endure it, but they can survive. I am not as strong as they are. Does that mean I’d fail if I had to endure something similar? It would if I already decided I’d fail. All I can say is that it is possible for a person to endure anything. If you’re too pessimistic to understand that, then you have already quit before you started.

Causing suffering makes you a failure. You have failed in your quest to be a decent person if you seek pleasure in (or find a way to rationalize) causing another’s pain. God doesn’t cause suffering, evil people (those who “failed” to be good) do.

Failing to help someone in need makes you a failure in a couple of ways. First, you have failed to love your neighbor much like the person who causes suffering. Second, you are causing that person to stumble when they are already down. You were right there to help them, but walked on. Your negligence is to blame if they fail, so it’s a compounded failure. Kind of like the marriage analogy. If you cause your spouse to divorce you, then they remarry, they are sinning (having sex outside of the original marriage), but it is due to your actions that they sin, so you are responsible for the divorce and also for the sin.

*Originally posted by Holly *
**…an omniscient and omnipotent god could have simply skipped the suffering altogether with the same result. He’d know who would pass the test and who would fail, so why not create the winners already in heaven with “memories” of their travails, along with the strength of character they would have acquired on earth? As for the losers, they would never have existed at all (except in the “memories” of the winners), so there would be no need for their earthly or hellish existence to actually occur. **

Imagine being a born loser. You are born in hell. You’d complain that you weren’t given a chance to succeed. In the same way, if God never created the losers, He’d be back to creating only people who loved Him. As it is, people who worship God were presented a choice. If God only created winners, we’d be back to having no test at all. So your very question is a paradox. God knows the outcome, but He still cared enough to give you a fair shot. That way, you’ve got no one to blame but yourself. Failure is bad, but the opportunity to fail is what makes success possible. Being tested is also bad, but not the fact that the test exists. Without it, there would be no success.

So there.

[tracer]

Dale The Bold wrote:

Not everyone passes tests. They are hard for a reason. When someone fails a test, they have failed. If you take a test in school and get an “F” while everyone else gets an “A” then you will be the only one who says the test is unfair. Does that mean the test was unfair? No, it means you failed it. Some people fail, some people pass. If no one failed it wouldn’t be a test.

But you have to ask, why is the test there in the first place? When we humans create tests to administer to other humans, we’re doing so to make sure that they have the necessary skills and talents to handle a particular task (whether that task is performing algebra, driving a car, or practicing medicine).

But God isn’t supposed to be just a “more skilled and talented” one of us, is He? No. He is supposed to be the Creator of all things. He could have created things in such a way that tests were not necessary. If He is omniscient and omnipotent, and wants as many of his creations to “succeed” as possible (however He wants to define “success”), He should be able to engineer His creations so that they will never fail.

The fact that some of His creations do “fail,” in theological terms, means that either He is not omniscient or omnipotent, or that He wants some of His creations to fail.

Oh, and you can’t take that whole “God the Father” analogy as some kind of literal Truth, and still believe in a God that is beyond our comprehension. If He’s beyond our comprehension, calling Him “Father” is a false and misleading analogy.

So there.

I know you are, but what am I?

[emarkp]

*Originally posted by tracer *
Dale The Bold wrote:
But you have to ask, why is the test there in the first place? When we humans create tests to administer to other humans, we’re doing so to make sure that they have the necessary skills and talents to handle a particular task (whether that task is performing algebra, driving a car, or practicing medicine).

But God isn’t supposed to be just a “more skilled and talented” one of us, is He? No. He is supposed to be the Creator of all things. He could have created things in such a way that tests were not necessary.

Unless the “test” accomplishes something more than simply assessing our skills/alliegences. I believe (as a Mormon–please don’t hijack the thread into an anti-Mormon rant) that this life is beneficial to us–that we learn and grow here and that as well as a test, this is a fundamental part of our eternal existance.

Of course, I don’t believe in Hell a la Dante, et. al. We will receive the greatest degree of glory that we choose to partake in. If we choose to not be with God, well then He’ll let us choose that. He’s willing to explain it to anyone who wants to listen, and lead anyone willing to follow.

(Note: that’s a whole lot less than I wanted to write, but this thread has degraded so badly that I don’t think it’s worth going into detail about all the problems here.)

[clairobscur]

*Originally posted by Dale The Bold *
[Imagine being a born loser. You are born in hell. You’d complain that you weren’t given a chance to succeed. In the same way, if God never created the losers, He’d be back to creating only people who loved Him. As it is, people who worship God were presented a choice. If God only created winners, we’d be back to having no test at all. So your very question is a paradox. God knows the outcome, but He still cared enough to give you a fair shot. That way, you’ve got no one to blame but yourself. Failure is bad, but the opportunity to fail is what makes success possible. Being tested is also bad, but not the fact that the test exists. Without it, there would be no success.

So there. **

You’re not adressing the issue. Since god knows the outcome, there is no difference between being born in hell or having living on earth (except that you had a brief moment without suffering…and even that actually makes no difference, since you’ll be eternally suffering in hell, so life on earth comparatively equates to zero).

In other words an omniscient and omnipotent god choose to create people who will eternally burn in hell. Since he’s omniscient, he knows the outcome. Since he’s omnipotent, he could avoid this outcome if he wanted to. When he creates someone he knows he’s creating someone who will go to hell, in the same way a clock-maker knows that the watch he’s making will work or not.
So, this god choose to create people who will suffer eternally in hell. He could choose not to create them, but he choose to. In other words, he wants that some people suffer eternally (if he didn’t want that, he wouldn’t create them), and creates deliberatly people who will suffer eternally.
There’s only one possible conclusion with an omniscient, ompnipotent god and a hell : by human standards, he’s sadistic (how would you call someone who would want to make someone to suffer eternally? and god is worse : he created them for that purpose). If you assume that we can’t understand god, because we’re too limited, it nevertheless means that you’re worshiping a god that for some unknow reason wants some people to suffer eternally.
I would want to understand why you choose to worship such a god. And even more according to which standard you would call “loving” a god who deliberatly creates someone in order to torture him forever? No human standard I’m aware of. If you actually believe in hell, the aztec god Tezcatlipoca to whom thousands of men were sacrified was incredibly more loving by comparison. Or should I say : incredibly less EVIL?

[grimpixie]

*Originally posted by ianzin *
**The rationalists here are wasting their time. People infected with the God virus apply a closed system of belief in which ‘God exists’ is non-falsifiable. All phenomena are deemed to corroborate the belief, and no phenomena are considered capable of falsifying the belief. When someone is saved from harm, it is assumed God helped or responded to human desire. When not, it is assumed God plays a higher purpose game which we can appreciate dimly if at all. Either way, the belief is intact.

You cannot rationally argue out what wasn’t rationally argued in. **

The same things could be said about atheists. If you view all religious belief as a lie propogated by fanatical bigots then it is going to be fairly difficult to be open to the influence of the “still small voice” of your Creator.

Gp

[Holly]

genie:

So you think it would be a good thing if we were all treated like toddlers. Whenever we tried to hurt one another, God would stop us, saying, ‘now, play nice; I won’t let you hurt each other.’ OK. We’ll go with that… I’m not even going to go into the questions of faith this scenario poses; I’m just curious about how it would work.

Interestingly, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are sure that paradise will be on earth, and people will live forever with perfect happiness and healthiness. I think Divine intervention would be necessary because even a healthy person is liable to sprain his ankle at some time during eternity.

Even with a purely spiritual body (i.e. in heaven), I’d suppose god would have to intervene and/or set it up in a way to prevent emotional pain. So god will treat people as “toddlers”, protecting them from harm; it just won’t be during this earthly existence.

Dale:

When someone fails a test, they have failed. If you take a test in school and get an “F” while everyone else gets an “A” then you will be the only one who says the test is unfair. Does that mean the test was unfair? No, it means you failed it. Some people fail, some people pass. If no one failed it wouldn’t be a test.

In theory, I agree with you. However, in this life, the test is unfair because we’re not all taking the same one. This Teacher sits his fourth grade class down and gives each student a different test. One kid has to remember his ABC’s. Another kid has to figure out a page of long division. Another is presented with college-level calculus. On top of that, some of the kids have a five-minute time limit to complete their work, no matter how easy or difficult their tests are. Others are given an hour or two or three. When the time’s up, each student is graded and either rewarded with eternal bliss or he has to stand in the corner forever with his clothes on fire.

All I can say is that it is possible for a person to endure anything. If you’re too pessimistic to understand that, then you have already quit before you started.

I wouldn’t call it pessimistic; I think it’s realistic. I believe there are horrors in this world that can destroy the strongest people. Of course some do win against tremendous odds, but I believe it’s not always possible. We should assume that any hardship can be overcome, if only because it gives hope. In the end, I think this must be a matter of pure belief: you’ll say that the man who commits suicide could have overcome his problems if he’s only tried hard enough; I’ll say that perhaps his failure was unavoidable. There’s no way to know which stance is right because we’re not omniscient.

Either way, some people are given many, many more obstacles than others.

God doesn’t cause suffering, evil people (those who “failed” to be good) do.

Some suffering results from events that are not caused by human hands: earthquakes, plague, Tay Sachs, etc. Who causes these?

Imagine being a born loser. You are born in hell. You’d complain that you weren’t given a chance to succeed.

I would never suggest that some people should be born in hell; it would be far more loving for an omniscient god to have never created such people in the first place.

As it is, people who worship God were presented a choice. If God only created winners, we’d be back to having no test at all.

Since God knows who will pass and fail, he could choose beforehand to create only those who would have been winners if they had actually taken the test, and create them with actual memories of the test. The outcome would be the same- only those who had freely chosen god would be rewarded- but no one would have been punished.

God knows the outcome, but He still cared enough to give you a fair shot. That way, you’ve got no one to blame but yourself.

If god knows that a certain person will fail (and thus be tortured forever), a loving god would not create him in the first place. It is infinitely better to never exist at all than to be in infinite agony.

[vanilla]

Re: war in Heaven.
I forget the verse, but it says that there will be a war(as such) in Heaven.
God throws Satan down to earth. he is mad casue he knows his time is short.
This would be during the tribulation.

[Monty]

So Satan’s in Heaven now? Dang, I just knew I wasn’t keeping up with my reading.

[Dinsdale]

Please forgive my paraphrasing, but some folks have asked why God allows a husband to beat or shoot his wife, a driver to run over a child, or a terrorist to fly a plane into a building.

Others have responded that it would be undesirable if bad/careless people could do whatever they wanted, and that God refuses to treat humans like babies.

What’s to stop God from punishing the bad guys right here and now?

-Hubby tries to shoot wife? Well his gun just happens to blow up in his face, maiming or killing him (depending on God’s knowledge of the individual’s possibility of rehabilitation.)
-Hijacker tries to commandeer plane, but his blade cutter gets detected at security, or he chokes on a peanut on the plane, or any number of other eventualities that would result in less than how many thousand innocents dying. As others have suggested elsewhere, how much evil could have been prevented through a few spontaneous abortions!
-Kid running towards traffic filled street happens to trip and fall on sidewalk and is scared by a quickly moving car near him, ending up with a badly skinned knee as well as an important safety lesson. Driver learns from the near miss too.

Sorry, but I don’t see the down side.

As I’ve said before, as long as you are making up a God, why make him such an asshole?