Is god that great?

Great Debates
1

Sagrolidge aside, is god that great compared to man?

Supposedly it took 3.8 billion years for life to evolve into humans (i’m using humans because it is easier to make my point). At this point, there are millions of things that can go wrong with us physically or mentall. In 300 years, we have cured or found ways to avoid or alleviate, i’d say, 3/4 of them. I know what you’re saying, you’ll dig up some disease like pancreatic cancer and say ‘we can’t cure that’. But we can cure testicular cancer, hernias, detached retinas, compound fractures, infections, infected teeth, high blood pressure, etc. etc. etc. Of all the problems our bodies have or can get, we have cured or helped alleviate many of them in a few hundred years.

Aside from the time it takes to evolve, there is suffering.

Have you ever seen a refrigerator screaming in terror becuase it was denied electricity? Our creations (machines) do not suffer.

Not only are our creations made thousands of times faster and free of suffering (as far as i know :smiley: ), but we take responsibility for them. Where is god when people are starving? i don’t know. But when your computer breaks, someone will really be there to fix it. He won’t just let it scream & cry (not that it matters, because as i’ve said our inventions don’t suffer). He will help it get ‘back on its feet’ and function again.

Anyway, it took 3.8 billion years to evolve humans, and it took humans a few hundred to invent machines that can do anything better than any living animal. Our machines run faster, fly higher, swim faster, and think better than any organic life. No organic armor is as strong as cermaic laced kevlar. No bird flies faster than a jet.

We have found out how to solve (via medical science) thousands of the problems our bodies can develop.

Our creations do not suffer

We take responsibility for them, and are actually a real presence in their existence.

With all that, why do people still say god is great but man is evil? like worshiping man & science is bad but depending on god is good?

2

What always amused me was the old testament. specifically how it seems like god just forgets about his choosen people for long periods of time. It reads like"god was just hanging out and then looked down and realized the israelites were still wandering the desert." what the fuck was he doing all that time? then there was how he repeatedly “hardened the heart” of the pharoh when he was about to free the israelites just so he could rain down more misery on the egyptians. What a nice guy.

3

Sacrilege?

4

Perhaps none of these attributes matter; has man created a machine that can love? (no snide latex comments please), or experience joy (or experience anything, for that matter)?

5

Actually, humans have yet to invent a machine that can think better than we do. We have invented machines that can process information in a set algorithm faster than we can, but not think better. I have yet to see a computer tackle philosophy, theology, or take the information it has processed and develop its own unique conclusion from it.

Second, the Israelites were wandering in the desert for 40 years not because God had abandoned them but because they were jerks and that was their punishment. Maybe it reads like God was just hanging out and then looked down 40 years later to people who have read the story for themselves but just heard the rough cultural references to it…I dunno, but it’s inaccurate.

Last, I’m having an issue with all the capitalization problems so far in the thread. Remember, proper nouns get capitalized. That includes God, Old Testament, Pharaoh, Israelites and Egyptians. In fact this irritates me in many threads…but I will cease with the hijack and open a Pit Thread if I decide it is worth it on further reflection. Most likely I won’t simply because I’m lazy.

6

No, IMO, God is not that great.

If you create a creature that can feel and then abandon it, then IMO that is not exactly a ringing endorsement.

7

Actually, that’s the impression I got from reading it myself, but I will concede that I am likely mistaken. What is your take on the whole Pharoh thing?

Also, sorry about the capitalization issues in the first post(as well as the decidedly bitter tone), I was a bit drunk.

8

Right on, Mr. T. But all of this assumes that god is the Christian god that is so pervasive in our culture today. What if he just created us and has NEVER been involved in anything on Earth? What if there is no afterlife? What if the creator isn’t “in man’s image”? What if he was never intended to be a worshippable entity? (What if “worshippable” isn’t even a word!)

9

No need to apologize for capitalization. All of us have done it. But it is one of those little neuroses (see my handle) that drives me crazy. I’ve almost brought it up before but bit my tongue, I just couldn’t hold back this time. I actually feel bad about it.

As for the whole Pharoah thing, I hadn’t really much thought about it (I don’t personally feel the OT has much relevence on the actual teachings of Xianity and is more of a background primer so I don’t really study it too much) but one of the Jewish posters here on the boards explained it once, but I can’t remember who exactly.

His explanation was essentially that the whole hardening of the heart passage was a way to explain an inconsistency in Hebrew thought. Basically, since God was all-powerful to the Hebrews and was clearly showing his all-powerfulness, they found it completely unbelievable that Pharoah would not obey God’s command. The only way out of that was for them to conclude that God had hardened his heart. This poster knows a lot more about the OT and the theology/philosophy behind it than I ever will in twenty lifetimes, so I decided to take his word for it. YMMV.

Frankly, there’s not much evidence to suggest that the story is nothing but myth and so it is less likely that this is hard evidence as to God’s (assuming he exists) personality. Divinely inspired, perhaps, but still subject to human biases and tinkering.

10

I’m not sure how any entity canNOT be worshipable. I can worship ants or TVs or anything else really. Clearly, if God exists then no matter his characteristics, he would be worshipable.

I’m not sure worshipable is a word, either, but it works and isn’t breaking any rules. So we’ll run with it. :slight_smile:

11

The Calculus of Logic, I enjoyed the points you noted in your OP. I’d never thought of comparing humanity to God regarding who’s the better inventor.

One problem with your question, though, is that you don’t represent the entire viewpoint of Christianity in your comparison. Man-made things may have greater physical capability than supposedly God-made ones (with some exceptions already pointed out), but Christians don’t necessarily judge the worth of God’s inventions by their physical capabilities. A better way to judge them might be thus: inventions are good insofar as they do what they’re intended to do well.

So if God had intended to make something that could fly really fast and the best he could do was a bird, whereas we could build an SR-71, we’d win that contest. But, for one thing, while humans generally build things to achieve the greatest physical capability that they can (they build the fastest plane they can given their resources and knowledge, etc.,) God wasn’t necessarily striving for that when he created animals (assuming for the sake of argument that He did). If God made a hummingbird, He probably wasn’t trying to make something that could breach the sound barrier. But that’s not to say that He couldn’t; whereas the only reason a human hasn’t invented something that can teleport people at the speed of light, for example, is because he isn’t capable of that at this point. Basically, humans would make things physically more capable if they could; but that isn’t necessarily true of God, since physical capability is probably not his chief goal in creating things.

The other problem I think your question has is that it presumes God’s creations aren’t doing as well as He intended for them to do. Granted, when God made man, He probably didn’t desire for him to have to wander in the wilderness for 40 years, get sick and die of cancer, etc. But most Christian theology agrees that God had a higher purpose than that for man; namely, to be able to choose freely. Most Christian theology will argue that man is in the state he is as a natural consequence of having chosen apart from God’s will; therefore, while man isn’t physically as well off as he (and God) would like him to be, man is functioning in the way God designed him to, by choosing freely. God’s invention, then, does just what He wanted it to do, and is thus good.

12

Maybe another un-word is more useful is God worshipworthy?
If a god is and always was all powerful, then that entity hase not had to work to be where it is. A being which achieves or attempts to achieve greatness, such as mankind, is more to be praised than one which is great without effort.

Cheers, Keithy

13

Correction - our creations can not suffer, nor do I think we shall ever be able to create something that can. Just something else God’s got us beat at.

14

And hey, really, when was the last time you saw an SR-71 reproduce, fuel itself, etc? Although really, that would be pretty neat.

My point being that God’s creations seem to be getting along just fine without Him; our creations would be in a world of hurt without us.

15

And hey, really, when was the last time you saw an SR-71 reproduce, fuel itself, etc? Although really, that would be pretty neat.

My point being that God’s creations seem to be getting along just fine without Him; our creations would be in a world of hurt without us.

16

I would add that God did make something that can go faster than the speed of sound… and that would be us.

17

Give it time. Maybe 100 years. When machines do repair themselves (which they already do, to a degree) does happen, it won’t be due to millions of years of trial & error on forgotten machines. it will be due to decades of intelligent, cooperative responsibility.
i misspelled sacrilege. and a few other things too.

18

You realize, of course, that you’re implicitly presuming that the life that has come before us was created in unsuccessful attempts to get to humanity when you say this, don’t you?

I would also quibble with the notion that, for example, we’re going to have cars that can self-replicate any time soon. When I think of stereotypical cheesy monologues about the “miracle of life,” I’m not thinking “Gee, look at that cheetah. Runs pretty fast, eh?” but “gee, look at that baby.” I don’t expect we’ll see baby corvettes in the forseeable future.

19

Don’t be ridiculous, Calculus. Of course it will be due to years of trial and error on forgotten machines. What, you think that inventors get it right on the first time every time and never have to go back to the drawing board? And those machines will STILL not even come close to approaching the complexity of a single living organism. Give it a rest.

20

If the universe is designed, then the designer totally kicks our a$$ in technological savvy and cleverness. We cannot even build anything as effective as a housefly.

House flies can fly, get energy from readily available organic matter, reproduce themselves¡Kthey are amazing.

Scale that technology up…and look at a dog. Yea we have Aibo from Sony. The thing can barely navigate, moves like a snail, and its battery lasts 1.5 hours. A living dog, can run, jump, fetch, kill, and eat organic material, digest it, store energy in muscle tissue, get wet without breaking, and heal its own wounds. We are a LOONG way away from replicating that. At least 5-10 years ƒº. (Ok we are a long way away in terms of technology, but with our current pace, maybe not in terms of time.)

As for using billions of years to evolve humans¡Kwhen you have eternity to choose from, what is the difference between choosing to do something in 10 years or 5 billion or 17 billion years?

As for any representation of God in the Bible or anywhere else? Irrelevant. I have no reason to believe those representations are any more than creative fiction.

If their is a designer of our Universe, then She is amazingly clever. Are Her motives and values “great”, well, that is a very subjective question. But Her technology is definately impressive.