Or, in other words, Christians are commanded not to judge – but we obey commands about as well as anybody else, i.e., indifferently well to damn poorly.
CJ’s done a probing thread over in the Pizza Parlor’s Beverage Bar on why this particular sin gets singled out for so much attention.
But, just to address the basic question of the OP for a minute, it’s the general consensus of theologians that God must have felt that free will – the right to choose to love Him and follow Him, rather than having it be a requirement of our natures – was important enough that he created a world in which real moral choice was possible. That means it has to be possible for evil to exist in order that freedom to choose between good and evil can exist.
I once got into a song and dance with Gaudere that I don’t think either of us want to repeat, but the gist of my contention is that evil is contingent on good – evil is the absence of good in the same way as cold is the absence of heat. Good can be defined in positive terms without reference to evil; evil can only be defined in negative ones, by identifying what good is absent. She wasn’t convinced, though.
God, sometimes you just don’t come through;
God, sometimes you just don’t come through.
Do you need a woman to look after you?
God, sometimes you just don’t come through.
You made pretty daisies, pretty daisies, yeah,
And they’re fine fine fine, but whatcha doing about things here?
A few witches burning, gets a little toasty, yeah,
And it’s quite all right, but you always go when the wind blows…
Tell me you’re crazy, maybe then I’ll understand…
Tori Amos, “God”
Just what God needs: one more victim.
Why do we crucify ourselves?
So God wants people to choose to love him. And Jesus was sent down to convince people that God loves them. And what is the reward for this? Ultimately, why become a Christian?
I don’t buy the “evil is the absence of good” idea. Good and evil are just two ends of the spectrum in human nature. It’s a grey scale, and most people are somewhere in the middle. Truly evil people - for example child molesters - are evil because of the way they are built. It’s something chemical in their brain that makes them that way. From your argument, these people simply have had all of the good taken from them. If this is so, then what causes this to happen? Who would be powerful enough to make this happen (I know someone)?
There is whole other issue underlying this, which I guess helped prompt me into writing the OP: Why do Christians belive that all sins are equal? Does God not teach that the man who kills and abuses children is less of a sinner than the man who practices infidelity? And if not, then how does this sit with you, especially if you have kids of your own?
A side note to the mods: If practical / appropriate, would it be possible to move this to GD, taking out the f-word in the title? I’d be interested in the views of GD-ites, and not just pit-dwellers.
I know, I should have thought of that when I posted the OP…
God has gone on holiday, he left a message on my answerphone wanting me to feed his cat. I was going to but I have a problem with God calling his cat George.
I think Polycarp’s point is that theologically ( or philosophically, more correctly) one cannot have evil without free will, but nor can one have good. If god created a universe in which there was no free will, then all actions would be meaningless, whether they were good, bad or indifferent. So god did not so much create evil so much as god created a universe in which evil could occur if people chose it.
Another important thing to keep in mind (and I say this as a recovering Catholic) - if you don’t buy into the whole theology deal, then none of this will ever make any sense. Without faith, theology is just a head game - philosophy without logic.
Having little or no faith myself, I find it all quite amusing…
I think Polycarp’s point is that theologically ( or philosophically, more correctly) one cannot have evil without free will, but nor can one have good. If god created a universe in which there was no free will, then all actions would be meaningless, whether they were good, bad or indifferent. So god did not so much create evil so much as god created a universe in which evil could occur if people chose it.
Another important thing to keep in mind (and I say this as a recovering Catholic) - if you don’t buy into the whole theology deal, then none of this will ever make any sense. Without faith, theology is just a head game - philosophy without logic.
Having little or no faith myself, I find it all quite amusing…
It sounds like, samarm, that you’re struggling with one of the essential paradoxes of Christianity, or any religion for that matter.
If God is all-loving and all-powerful, there shouldn’t be any suffering in the world. That there is means that he/she/it can be one or the other, but not both. I’ve seen the paradox desribed much better, but I don’t remember where.
I’ve heard Christiains get around this by saying that the suffering is ultimately for our own good, somehow or the other. Actually, I think the explanation in the book of Job is much better: “Who the hell are you to ask me what’s going on?”
Just for the sake of accuracy, my whole point in that thread had nothing at all to do with homosexuality or Christianity. It was only about fairness and compassion for the bereaved. I took issue with the practice of making serious accusations, without evidence, against a family who just lost their only child. Nothing more.
I’m sorry the presumption of innocence until demonstration of guilt is so revolting to you. You must really have problems with the U.S. judicial system, since that’s where I got it from.
Naturally, if a young man kills himself, it must automatically be the fault of his hateful Christian parents. :rolleyes:
Actually, Joe, and with absolutely no intent to re-start that argument, I’d have to ask that you emend your statement to “…with insufficient evidence…” – much as in the discussions on the reliability of Scripture over in GD, I feel that while people can weigh evidence differently, it’s unjust to claim that evidence not satisfactory to you is “no evidence.” Many of us presumed that Andygirl was accurately reporting what Daryl had had to say about his parents’ attitudes and their reaction to his coming out – you, appropriately, waved the red flag that it was hearsay evidence and not sufficient grounds to automatically condemn them. But there was in fact some evidence – that it was hearsay is a telling factor, and makes it insufficient, but not equal to “no evidence.” Fair enough?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by samarm *
**
[li]Cancer, (the lottery with a 1 in 5 chance of hitting the jackpot)[/li]
OKay , I admit, that one kinda sucks.
[li]Aids (which indiscriminately strikes down everything in it’s path)[/li]Aids has gotten out of hand from promiscuios sex, God doesn’t really like that. We can’t blame him for something we are spreading on our own.
[li]Earthquakes (do you have to keep moving bits of the Earth around?)[/li][li]Floods (which wipe out thousands of the poorest people every year)[/li]
WE aren’t exactly nice to our enviroment either. We are screwing with the atmosphere, you don’t think that is partly to blame as well?
Well, swingchick, I have one answer to your AIDS comment: Ryan White. His major sin was to have been born with hemophilia; therefore God struck him down with AIDS. I’ll also mention, as I did when Scylla brought this up before, that the one person I’m personally acquainted with who is a Person With AIDS (PWA) is a chaste lady (no sex until marriage and then only with her husband). The problem was, he wasn’t – and he infected her. God punished her for marrying the wrong man?
