Oh no I don’t mean that, I mean that cancer might be a negative by-product of a system that needs cancer in order to survive. You have heard of Co2 right?
If we were in such a world, would you be pointing to whichever of the remaining diseases was the worst?
Or perhaps we ARE in such a world - We are totally unaware of the diseases that are even worse than cancer, because God made sure to not let them exist in this world.
Okay.
I would suggest that nothing is a required by-product for an omnipotent being.
If God is severely limited, and this is the best he could possibly do, fine. He’s not omnipotent then.
The Garden Of Eden story and The Truman Show both featured rebellions against that sort of god. That people would chafe under such a god, resent it, and want freedom.
Unending agony and death are a pretty weak-ass place to draw the line IMHO. If the only diseases were mild discomfort, like a head-cold, that’s one thing.
Absolutely un-knowable from such a strange premise.
It’s not great at first but it grows on you.
Freedom doesn’t necessitate cancer tho. Free will means I can kick you. It doesn’t mean that cancer is somehow necessary.
It’s perfectly knowable. The answer is yes, they can know happiness.
My point is that if that was the worst pain in our experience, we’d complain about it every bit as much as we complain about cancer now. We would get a head cold, and we’d cry, “OMG! This is the WORST!” - and it would be very accurately true.
Sure. But if you were designing a world, you wouldn’t make sentient people suffer unspeakably until they die.
So either you’re a better person than God, or God doesn’t have the power to meet the level of moral goodness you have.
I prefer to look at the entire story, including what they experience after they die.
Okay, so you think suffering doesn’t count. That’s fine. You should go to the pediatric cancer ward and tell those whiners to stop complaining.
ETA: We’ve established that you aren’t omnibenevolent. The same should apply to God.
Why would I tell them to stop complaining? That wouldn’t be compassionate.
I have confidence that there is some sort of purpose behind the pain I feel, even if I can’t understand it. But for me to tell that to someone else would just make their pain worse.
There is no purpose to the pain caused by cancer. Or MS. Or fetal alcohol syndrome. Or rickets. Or parasites that make children blind.
It’s just stuff that happens because God either didn’t have the power to eliminate them, or didn’t care to.
No purpose that you can think of. None that I can think of either. But I concede that God might have such a purpose. For me to understand things from God’s perspective is like a three-year old trying to understand things from a parent’s perspective.
Did they? See my post about physical pain vs emotional pain. I suspect that pain of Gods rejection would be the ultimate pain.
Mysterious ways. Meaningless.
You understand morality. Either God is cruel, or He’s weak. You’re just saying, “Maybe he’s neither cruel or weak, because magic!”
I have no problem with a weak God. Hey, do the best you can. Same as me. I have no problem with the sadistic monster described in the bible. The problem comes with the utterly asinine argument that He’s both omnipotent and omnibenevolent. Which is impossible, given the universe we find ourselves in.
What do you think of the comparison from children to adults to God? Why is it so difficult for some people to accept the possibility that some things could be beyond our understanding?