Athiest Design

[Super Universe]

Lets say for a moment that God exists, now, what answers can you come up with as to why the universe, the earth, and life exists the way it does?

Now, we're not going to come up with anything that everyone will agree on so maybe if we can just try and come up with a few answers that at least come close to what you are willing to accept.

How about we try and find an answer to this question:
If God exists, why does He allow bad things to happen?

 

[Willamena]

Lets say for a moment that God exists, now, what answers can you come up with as to why the universe, the earth, and life exists the way it does?

"Just because" works for me.

Now, we're not going to come up with anything that everyone will agree on so maybe if we can just try and come up with a few answers that at least come close to what you are willing to accept.

How about we try and find an answer to this question:
If God exists, why does He allow bad things to happen?

Allowance is one of our concepts. I see no reason to hold God accountable to our concepts.

 

[Papersock]

I don't think I could say it better than Willamena did.

Lets say for a moment that God exists, now, what answers can you come up with as to why the universe, the earth, and life exists the way it does?

Either God just let it happen to turn out this way or he felt like making it this way.

How about we try and find an answer to this question:
If God exists, why does He allow bad things to happen?

Why shouldn't he/it? Because we don't like it when bad things happen?
If god does exist, he seems to be mostly impersonal and lets things happen the way they would even if he didn't exist.

 

[ironangel]

How about we try and find an answer to this question:
If God exists, why does He allow bad things to happen?

Like cause & effect, nothing happens without a cause & I think it applies to your question. This is what the Lord said:

Isa 1:19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
Isa 1:20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
It's basically our choice really, but there are of course exceptions. But normally it is the fruit of our actions, we suffer because we choose to disobey but if we be obedient we will eat the good of the land... "that's a promise of a God that cannot lie" (Titus 1:2 & Hebrew 6:18). Here is another pronouncement of the Lord:

Deut 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
Deut 30:20 That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days:....

Proverbs 26:27 Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.

 

[eudaimonia]

Lets say for a moment that God exists, now, what answers can you come up with as to why the universe, the earth, and life exists the way it does?

Any answer I could give you can be followed by the question: Why does that "why" exist as it does?

"Just because" MUST be the final answer reached.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Valjean]

Things are the way they are becaue the laws of physics, chemistry, electrodynamics, &c dictate the way matter and energy behave and interact. This does not preclude God, but, thus far, there is no evidence of any of the divine suspension of Natural law you'd expect if Someone periodically meddled with the watchworks.

 

[BucephalusBB]

If we had a creator, I asume he has sort of the physic rules like we have. He must have realized that you "need" evil to see the "good". He's making life exciting..

Or, he invented "evil" to keep us following some rules.

 

[rojse]

Lets say for a moment that God exists, now, what answers can you come up with as to why the universe, the earth, and life exists the way it does?

Now, we're not going to come up with anything that everyone will agree on so maybe if we can just try and come up with a few answers that at least come close to what you are willing to accept.

How about we try and find an answer to this question:
If God exists, why does He allow bad things to happen?

I have come up with a couple of possible reasons, (I have considered this exact question before) although these will probably offend anyone who is remotely religious. I see several possibilities:
1. God is a sadist
2. God likes to test people, or study through experimentation, by inflicting "events" on them, whether they are good or bad
3. God really does not care

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

The question invites the worthless. It's called: "coaxing anthropomorphism".

 

[logician]

Like cause & effect, nothing happens without a cause & I think it applies to your question.
.

Not necessarily true, there may be no first cause if cosmologicial theories are correct and the multiverse is infinite in time and space.

 

[Sola'lor]

Lets say for a moment that God exists, now, what answers can you come up with as to why the universe, the earth, and life exists the way it does?

Life and the universe is the way it is because God is our father and wants us to be able to progress and become more like Him. We existed as spirits with God and needed to come to earth to gain physical bodies to become more like him. So He, through Christ, organized the universe, more specifically the Earth. We were born on the Earth to gain our bodies and to be tried to see if we can handle the experiences associated with physical bodies. Also we are here to see if we can do those things it takes to be worthy to return to God's presence.

Now, we're not going to come up with anything that everyone will agree on so maybe if we can just try and come up with a few answers that at least come close to what you are willing to accept.

How about we try and find an answer to this question:
If God exists, why does He allow bad things to happen?

God allows us all to make choices and to live with the consiquences of our choices. Gos put us here to test us and see if we will choose good or evil. It wouldn't be a test if God never allowed bad things to happen. God loves us and wont force us to make good choices.

 

[Quath]

I see so many possible answers.

For example for "Why is there evil if there is a God?"

1. God just wanted to make super-nova because they were pretty to him. We were an accident.
2. God made humans and watches them as a screen-saver on his God computer like we watch fish on our screen-savers.
3. God is evil and likes to see suffering.
4. God is conducting an experiment and wants to see if evolved systems tend toward chaos or peace.
5. We are God's science project and he wants to show he effects of evil in a created system to other deities.
6. God gets his power from prayer. So he sets up evil in humanity to give more reasons for prayer.
7. God sees everything as good because there is no one alive. He is just living the life of every human in a self-limited manner. So if he does evil, it is only to himself.

I think a lot of answers to the OP could be scripts for the Twilight Zone.

 

[Super Universe]

The question invites the worthless. It's called: "coaxing anthropomorphism".

The opinion shows a child afraid to play, and angry that others play without him.

 

[Super Universe]

Physical laws, chemistry, electrodynamics, matter, energy, time, the universe, life... Doesn't it all seem to be a great amount of work for something that seems uninterested?

What if you add in the free will thing? Lets say it's very important, extremely important. It's the actual purpose of creating it all in the first place?

The bad things, the evil, they can be prevented by God but then it would violate His law of free will. Also, if God exists then there is likely a heaven. Heaven is supposed to be a perfect paradise so maybe the earth is not supposed to be a perfect paradise.

 

[Sola'lor]

What if you add in the free will thing? Lets say it's very important, extremely important. It's the actual purpose of creating it all in the first place?

The bad things, the evil, they can be prevented by God but then it would violate His law of free will. Also, if God exists then there is likely a heaven. Heaven is supposed to be a perfect paradise so maybe the earth is not supposed to be a perfect paradise.

Is this not obvious to people?

 

[Rolling_Stone]

[/size]
"Just because" works for me.

But it's not rational.

Allowance is one of our concepts. I see no reason to hold God accountable to our concepts.

Remove the former sentence and I agree.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Physical laws, chemistry, electrodynamics, matter, energy, time, the universe, life... Doesn't it all seem to be a great amount of work for something that seems uninterested?

Only if it was the product of work at all.

I can look at something like the Grand Canyon and think to myself, "gee, if someone deliberately put that there, it would've taken an amazing effort." The thing is that I have no reason to believe that anybody put the Grand Canyon there deliberately, just like there's no particular reason to conclude that all the things you listed were deliberate creations.

 

[Jeremiah]

How about we try and find an answer to this question:
If God exists, why does He allow bad things to happen?

"Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?" — Epicurus, as quoted in 2000 Years of Disbelief

Problem of evil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Jeremiah]

The question invites the worthless. It's called: "coaxing anthropomorphism".

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." ~Aristotle

 

[Quath]

The bad things, the evil, they can be prevented by God but then it would violate His law of free will.

Why call it a law of Free Will and not a Choice of Free Will? There are many examples of God across religions in which he breaks "free will." If God knows the future and set up everything, then we have as much free will as a boulder does rolling down a hill.

Also, if God exists then there is likely a heaven. Heaven is supposed to be a perfect paradise so maybe the earth is not supposed to be a perfect paradise.

Maybe heaven is a place where only beings like God can exist. Or maybe there is no heaven.

And what is a perfect paradise? Maybe he just creates a hospital bed and hooks us to a drug that makes up endlessly happy without ever coming out of the "high."