Cary Cook
Member
I agree, but I think you should discuss that with atheists.
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Axe Elf
Prophet
Of course it is needed. Why do you think God predestined it?
"This Jesus, when delivered up according to the definite and fixed purpose and settled plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and put out of the way [killing Him] by the hands of lawless and wicked men." --Acts 2:23
"For in this city there actually met and plotted together against Your holy Child and Servant Jesus, Whom You consecrated by anointing, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and peoples of Israel, to carry out all that Your hand and Your will and purpose had predestined (predetermined) should occur." --Acts 4:27-28
Cary Cook
Member
IMO, not only can a sub-deity create a world of pain and suffering, but the SB can and may do that if doing it achieves something he considers more important.
Cary Cook
Member
Your example is subjective. The predator likes it. No amount of emotional revulsion can turn a subjective truth to an objective truth.
You must have an objective standard, and common sense is not one.
GoodbyeDave
Well-Known Member
1. Why do you expect the world to be perfect? I/we simply did the best I/we could.
2. Why do you fret about pain when you never worry about all the insects you have trodden on inadvertantly in the course of your life? Do you seriously think those actions have made you evil?
Cary Cook
Member
In figuring out what's true or probably true, it is first beneficial to lay out all the logical possibilities, including the disgusting and horrifying ones. Otherwise you are letting your emotions cloud your rational judgment. Emotion is always detrimental to sound probability judgment (any exceptions to this are coincidental).
Cary Cook
Member
This is the creation/evolution debate. I favor theistic evolution, but I'm not a scientist, so my opinion is worth little.
Even if evolution accounts for all of it, a Supreme Being and sub-deities may still exist.
socharlie
Active Member
For example, development of complex many stepped elements like eyes or similar. Something that has many elements and each element developed with no apparent advantage for organism but final result is spectacular.
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The evolution of the eyes simply demonstrates the diverse many stages of the evolution of eyes in their varied forms over hundreds of millions of years.
Thank you for your comment.
I doubt anyone could figure it out ahead of time, meaning, I doubt anyone could pre-program it ahead of time. Probably the materialists are correct in claiming that the natural laws and matter itself have the ingredients necessary for, in our case, what turned out to be life exactly as it is. But who fine-tuned the fundamental constants of nature so such a thing was possible?
Yes, in certain systems a small change produces a huge unexpected effect. And certainly the random mutations and gene copy errors could behave like this. But my point is, that these quantum mechanics effects are strictly random, with no intelligence of what will proceed as a consequence. How can such random events produce such remarkable design without interaction and gentle "nudges" at just the right key moments by an intelligent designer?
I doubt there is such a thing as an objective standard for such issues as these. Certainly people claim there are objective standards, but no one can agree on the source or the content.
Thank for your reply.
Perhaps the perfection of God is limited as you suggest when he/she/it creates things other to him/her/itself? Only God is perfect; created things are, by nature, imperfect.
Yes, the same for when I eat a burger twice a month.
So I think you are saying that God accidentally and inadvertently causes harm in performing his/her/its activities. Maybe he/she/it feels bad about it even.
As far as the evidence goes suffering, pain and death are simply factors of life on earth nothing more nor nothing less.
There is no evidence that 'It has all been figured out ahead of time.' is too anthropomorphic of God from the human perspective. This is a religious belief.
Needs more explanation, because this does not reflect what is known concerning Quantum Mechanics, and its relationship to the Macro physical existence.
The theories and hypothesis concerning Quantum Mechanics should no be misused for purposes of justification of Theistic hypothesis.
Quantum entanglement: Perhaps a method by which the program running the universe can not be changed. [/quote]
There is not known program running the universe. Are you speculating aliens?
sure...
We naturally think in terms of billions of years but science now knows that at the speed of light, time slows down or becomes irrelevant. (From what I understand).
Mankind, as we know it, is only thousands of years. (Not that there weren't other beings before known man). So suffering is relative to one's perspective. Today, it seems like time is flying but there are still only 365 days in a year. Perhaps for someone else, time is crawling. For God, a thousand year is but a day so in His perspective, suffering has been short.
In the Christian perspective, God knew that there would be suffering because of choice, no different than when I chose to have children even though I know that they will experience suffering. That is why it was written that Jesus was slain before the foundations of the world. He had already built in a solution.
My marriage has had difficult times, but I wouldn't change my union just because there was some suffering. The blessing and joy of having love far outweighs the difficult times. Even moreso when we compare 120 years with an eternity.
Ultimately, a new earth will be created where there is no more suffering, crying or dying. This earth, which was cursed because of man's sin, will be reformated and there will be no more suffering.
Obviously this short synopsis hardly can explain all that will be -- expecially since I don't know everything. But that is the short of the long of it.
Thank you for your insights.
Seems this view assumes God is always in a state of becoming, of unfolding, as he interacts with his creation and its creatures. Being very very very familiar with the Christian perspective, I know they usually think of God as outside of time or some such. But your examples involve time and relationship within time, and I think that is an essential ingredient in understanding God's nature and character.
It's also intriguing to consider that, if God is light, he has no time. Even though light interacts with the universe significantly, the light itself doesn't have time to notice; somehow it is transcendent.
I totally agree with your view of the New Heavens and New Earth. Many Christians speak of heaven as the final goal.
Thanks again for sharing with me.
Cary Cook
Member
Likely true. But if no objective standard is assumed, morality becomes a matter of individual preference. All the villains of history are no longer objectively evil; they are just unpopular.
Not in science that would justify your religious agenda.
Modern humans have been around for more than 70.000 years, and our immediate ancestors have been around for more than 2 million years.
JoshuaTree
Flowers are red?
Perhaps God is in control and you lack the faith to believe it. Perhaps go
I think you are saying that if quantum effects are probabilistic and can't be known before hand how does God control all the seemingly random quantum fluctuations taking place across all creation?
It is my opinion that God can't create without knowing the results of his creation across all time from beginning to end. This is to say that God knows how all the pool balls are going to move from start to finish by the way he holds his queue. In this sense God doesn't have to worry about manipulating all the balls after the big break to get them into the pockets rather God knows all the balls will go into the pockets because of the way he holds his queue on break.
I don't think realities are spawned by God adjusting his queue from position to position seeking his preferred outcome but rather reality is spawned when God makes the break and says let there be light.
So I think on God's side of creation he sees at once all quantum fluctuations across all time as a single state... God isn't controlling those fluctuations per se but rather choosing the creation that results in those fluctuations.
Probably just so much nonsense but those are my ponderings on the matter and represents nothing more than a two dimensional projection of an infinite dimensional being.
But I'm ok with that lol.
