You have the freedom to choose God or face an eternity of unimaginable suffering.
No good god would make an unlasting punishment. if you have forever, then even Hitler, Dahmer would have enough time for a finite punishment. Even the worst people in the world don’t deserve a unlasting punishment.
The Nicean Council excluded a bunch of books, and Jesus was Jewish. In kabbalah, you learn about reincarnation, and so why did people think Jesus and John were OT prophets? So karma isn’t a punishment, but a teacher, you repeat lessons, which are scaffolded, until they are mastered. Well, why don’t you remember past life lessons? Why aren’t crib sheets allowed in exams? Is doing the right thing only for personal gain still the right thing? Then no one should be upset with billionaires for reversing dei. And Jesus said the whole law can be summed love God, love your neighbor as yourself. Not better than, not less than. And that the kingdom of heaven is within us. Also the fall of the morning star gave “the devil” the earth as his dominion. “Be in the world, not of it,” and “be wise as serpents, innocent as doves,” eg be neither boot nor doormat. Love you neighbor as yourself. Ha-Satan is the prosecutor, who freely comes and goes into heaven (where is the Kingdom?) who lists every reason (sin) you don’t get to be there (schism of self). And a defending angel can list one redeeming quality and you’re in. You passed that particular lesson set. Now you have a new set.
Also Jesus said he teaches in parables, don’t take things so literally. Why wouldn’t he want every student to understand? They’re not on that lesson set, yet. Someone just learning division isn’t ready for trig.
You make a great point about how we’re not allowed to remember lessons. Wouldn’t the world be more peaceful if everyone knew what lessons they had already learnt? Like say in one life someone insults someone with a disablity, the next life they’re a person with the same disability and they remember the insults they said so they know how shitty they made that person feel? And in turn, would make them do the right thing more often, not because of personal gain but because it’s the right thing to do. Without the memories, people could revert straight back to throwing insults. It’s like putting a kindergartener in college math because “Well you’ve been here before so you must remember.” but the kindergartener can’t even do his times tables.
My personal perspective is we forget because doing the right things for the wrong reasons, hoping for punishment or reward, is wrong. And also because variables change over time, so the lessons can’t be presented in the same way. For instance the difference between common core multiplication and memorizing the tables.
Or another example, the periodic tables contain n elements at one time, x elements another.
So even if I remember the periodic tables from when I learned it (I don’t!), they’ve changed in the decades since, so my knowledge is incomplete. Assuming I had the physical, mental, financial and material capacity to become a physicist, should I choose, I have a lot to relearn, unlearn, and learn new things, additionally. And that’s just this lifetime.
I appreciate your non-hostile inquiry style. Thanks so much. Btw these things don’t require God. It’s just an allegorical tool. Just like communism has many approaches and corruptions as there are minds to conceive them, so too religions. Even Buddhism and Taoism.
Sure, lessons can’t be presented in the same way. I agree with you on that. But different lessons while rembering the previous lessons would make life much more meaningful in my view.
It’s like watching movies. Movies are not presented all the same way because that would be boring but having memories of all the movies you’ve seen makes you appreciate film even more, especially if it’s a great one. A comedy movie has a different experience than a thriller movie but remembering the movies you’ve seen can make you appreciate the films even more. But now imagine watching rotating between superbad and taken and you don’t even remember you’ve already watched them. That’s what not remembering the lessons feels like to me.
I will always try and respect people’s viewpoints even if I don’t agree with them myself. You’re also doing a good job at that, so well done.
Thanks so much, I appreciate your respect and return it! If you’re native English speaker, do you remember how to diagram sentences? If not, do you remember every from every class you’ve taken? Photographic memory allows for that, but even people with that gift forget things. My point is, it gives us a loose framework. Variable changes affect data, and if we’re living in a lab, some variables aren’t controlled for, we can’t even be aware of every variable (Einstein’s spookiness? Not sure, I have to go back and look, later). Or how “ethers” became gasses. Or demon possession became mental illness, but we still say we’re fighting our demons. Sorry, I should be working so this is rushed.
I see it like a puzzle on a tabletop, but there’s not room for the completed puzzle and all the pieces spread at once, so some being left in the boxtop. Generally, people find and place border pieces first, then put more pieces from the bottom on the table to fit into place. And I’m imperfect so there’s that.
If everyone remembered your past lives you could be held accountable for actions “you” never took. Imagine being born only to find out that your last life was a serial murderer and you have 300 consecutive reincarnations left before you’ll ever experience freedom again.
No, I think its better that we don’t remember. Plus, life wouldn’t be at all novel if you’ve already experienced everything there is for you to enjoy.
I always wondered about that. When would enough be enough.
Depends on the flavour of Christianity
At one end unforgiven sins condemn you to the ancient Greek underworld, slightly modified
At the other end you land in limbo if you haven’t been perfect for a time that fits, thence to heaven for the rest of forever
Beyond that end, their god is infinitely forgiving so everyone goes straight to heaven.
At the other end you land in limbo if you haven’t been perfect
Slight correction, but limbo was the ‘first’ area of hell, where you just get bored forever. Purgatory was where you washed off the crusted shit on your soul and could eventually get into heaven.
It could take hundreds or thousands of years but no one person deserves unending punishment for finite sins.
This
“I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, ‘George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.’ And I did, and then God would tell me, ‘George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,’ and I did.”
- George W Bush
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bush-god-told-me-to-invade-iraq-6262644.html
He sounds like Elwood from The Blues Brothers. “We’re on a mission from God.”
Thought terminating cliche
That is exactly true. Life is only about 3 things: food, reproduction and dealing with boredom. Humans add so many colours to that, that it looks like we do more than those 3 things so that’s where you might see free will.
Had to drop a friend when he told me that “God sent Trump to us to stop abortions”
Why did you drop them?
His perspective on the world went too deeply against mine. I couldn’t take the hypocrisy anymore.
Dunno. Dropping friends due to politics seems totally cringe. Civilized people should have the option of “let’s not talk about politics” instead of breaking up relationships.
When someone shows me they’re a terrible, ignorant person I act accordingly.
Yup.
The teachings of Christianity don’t make any fucking sense. (Unless you’re willing to gaslight yourself for a lifetime.)
Too bad our entire society is based on this nonsense.
Agreed.
That’s the point of religion. Trick the brain into thinking everything is going according to plan so that it gives out the happy time drugs instead of the “you need to wake the fuck up and do something about this” drugs. The religion pushers get their cut, and everyone thinks their happy.
Now now, don’t discount free reign to also gaslight others for a lifetime as well. And judge and shame others too. It’s great for complete assholes.
I think that’s part of the appeal: the ingrained superiority Christians feel.
Not just Christians, that’s a common thing with any cult, be it for a person, a country, etc.
I don’t think many Christians would actually argue for that first point tbh. It’s not something Biblically portrayed as one of God’s gifts. Free will is portrayed as something that was given conditionally, but taking from the tree of knowledge and specifically eating the fruit of knowledge is known as man’s first sin in the Bible.
I think it’s a bit of a metaphor for a parent wanting to shield their child from the harshness of reality, but as the sheltered child grows older they often want to know more about the outside world and become exposed to that cruelty. This was my own experience with religion growing up. A teacher of mine one day sat us down and pleaded the above with our class, as many of us grew to see through the veil of how reality looked.
In retrospect I think some things about the world make sense to not told about, depending on one’s age. However, I think other things should never be hidden, have been hidden, or done in other cases.
Side note: I think the idea of God’s plan is for people to hold love for one another. Lots of people lose sight of what they are called to do and how they are to act though. They’re called to love their neighbor as their self, called to love their enemy, and called to forgive others for their transgressions. I personally think people are called to do good works in conjunction with holding faith, as people are called to act righteously in this life.
Don’t worry, they don’t read the Bible, and especially don’t read the old testament.
They believe they have god given freedom of action
I don’t think many Christians would actually argue for that first point tbh.
Then truthfully, I don’t think you’ve had this conversation with many christians. Every single one immediately defaults to that point when confronted with the horrors god would be responsible for if god is in control.
I’m not saying that people don’t have free will or that it’s not talked about in the Bible, but free will is not something presented as a gift, yet alone God’s greatest gift to humanity as the meme says.
From my perspective, once God set the universe in motion he has mostly taken a step back from direct action. I would say life is a test of sorts for us, to see if we can make earth resemble the good of heaven, on a humanity wide scale. But it’s also an individual test for each person’s willingness to use their obtained knowledge to still be good unto others. We are all the children of God, from my own perspective we are learning to become like God, who is the Bible is shown as loving and kind.
the horrors god would be responsible for if god is in control
You’re forgetting the counterfactual. Namely, that we live in The Best Of All Possible Worlds and what you describe as horror is actually the nicest things can conceivably get. The standard Christian argument is that, without God, existence would be significantly worse. Also (depending on your flavor of Christianity) the mortal life is a proving ground not a final destination. Life is a trial one experiences before being eligible to enter the Kingdom Of Heaven, where God is fully in control.
The horrors are a consequence of Free Will mixed with the corruptive influences of evil spirits sent out to tempt mortals to sin. And they are transient, while the Christian Reward is supposed to be eternal. You see this best in the Story of Job, during which he suffers a litany of torments but holds firm to his faith. This faith is ultimately rewarded, not just through the restoration of his material pleasures, but through the promise of an eternal blissful afterlife.
Satan: Hey, i only do Black Metal bands and orgies, all other things are with the other bloke
Free will is an illusion.
What shits me is Christians (and Jews and Muslims, but it’s mainly Christians who do this) who just handwave away the problem of evil. Like fine, I can accept that some evils might arise as a result of human decisions and free will. Things like wars and genocides are done by people. It’s difficult to swallow even that much with the idea of a god who supposedly knows all, is capable of doing anything, and is “all good”, but fine, maybe free will ultimately supplants all that.
But what I absolutely cannot accept is any claim that tries to square the idea of a god with the triple-omnis with the fact that natural disasters happen. That children die of cancer. You try telling the parents of a child slowly dying of a painful incurable disease that someone could fix it if they wanted, and they completely know about it, but that they won’t. And then try telling them that person is “all good”. See how they react.
I find religious people who believe in the three omnis after having given it any amount of serious consideration to be absolutely disgusting and immoral people.
Any “evil” suffered in current life will be compensated with reward in afterlife.
The concept tends to fall apart with modern Christianity where everyone just goes to heaven and hell is written out.
But why is that all good? Why couldn’t he have earth be good?
If there is no evil how can there be good?
If the purpose of life is to be a test, how can you test without challenges (evil)?
The crux of the problem is once again the modernized version of Christianity. Where hell has been written out and Adolf Hitler goes to heaven because “Jesus died for his sins”.
The hero’s journey is exactly the point!
If there is no evil how can there be good?
Easy. You take the world as it is right now…and then remove the evil things. Evil is a metaphysical concept. We often use analogies of light and dark, but it doesn’t literally work that way.
Then how does the concept of life as a test work when humans can do no evil?
You want stepford wives. I don’t and you don’t get to choose that for me.
It’s not about “want” at all. It’s about figuring out what’s true. And what’s true is that the Abrahamic god, as understood by modern Jews, Christians, and Muslims, is very clearly impossible, unless you choose to define “good” as including children dying of cancer.
It is good. Challenges are meant to evolve us to our best possible selves.
Children dying of cancer is not “good”, and frankly the fact that you seem to think it is is fucking disgusting.
That doesn’t work. People with crap lives often can’t meet the standards of goodness that many forms of Christianity need for you to be qualified for heaven
Something about camels and needle eyes.
But definitely don’t bring that up with the american ‘christian’ or you’ll have to hear the litany of excuse attempts.
The concept tends to fall apart with modern Christianity where everyone just goes to heaven and hell is written out.
Huh? From what I can tell Christians are more fixated on hell than ever now. Listen to them talk about gay/trans people, Palestinians, women who get abortions, or literally anyone who isn’t Christian, and it’s clear that they’re really excited about the idea that their god will torture those people for all eternity while they get to watch from heaven. You’ll even get catholics and protestants both thinking they’re the only ones going to heaven and the “wrong” kind of Christian goes to hell because of technicalities like whether you go to confession or not or whether praying to Mary is idolatry. Some outright say that it’s okay to kill gay/trans people, Palestinians, etc, because they’re damned anyway and god doesn’t give a shit about them.
Most we observe in the media either the kumbaya Christians, where Jesus died for everyones sins and everyone goes to heaven. Or the MAGA Christians who believe treating the poor like dirt is owning the libs.
The question about evil existing is rather easy to answer but all the Christian internal discourse would be more confusing. I don’t have much experience with it but
technicalities like whether you go to confession or not or whether praying to Mary is idolatry.
Wouldn’t that directly violate the first commandment?
Asking someone already in the kingdom is no different than asking someone without the kingdom to intercede on our behalf. Also God has 72 names in our tradition, millions in others.
Also God has 72 names in our tradition, millions in others.
Mary is not God or part of the trinity right? Jesus ascending into heaven would not mean Mary is in heaven. Which would mean Mary remains dead until judgement day and is not yet in heaven. Unless I am not familiar with something.
You’re not familiar with a lot because churches and politicians occulted this information. It’s in the whole Bible (you can find the Ethiopian Bible in English online but there are mistranslations so you have to go to the Jewish and hermetic kabbalah and other sources to find them. Also I already referred to Psalm 82, wrt God.
I did a quick google search and apparently the pope added it in 1950 but it is not canon
Yep years ago I was in a bible study, well on my way to being an agnostic already. They were going over a difficult passage and the conclusion was ‘god works in mysterious ways’. Not that I hadn’t heard that nonsense before but for some reason hearing it in that scenario was the last straw and I never went back.
Yeah, the average person gets a pass on this sort of thing because I generally assume they haven’t thought much about it. But it’s particularly galling when biblical scholars do it.
I saw one biblical scholar whose schtick was debunking things evangelicals believe about the bible. He would happily admit it’s written by a collection of authors over a long period of time, who were doing so not literally but in rhetorical styles popular in their day. Things like that.
Once, I saw him describe how the early Israelites did not believe in the three omnis. They may not have even believed in a monotheistic god, but it was certainly not omniscient and omnibenevolent. Then he went on to say that despite that—despite the fact that the authors of the religious text and the society that invented this god not believing in three omnis—he nevertheless did believe god was omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Wtf?
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you here, but thought I’d provide a counter argument.
A group of children are dying of a horrible, deadly disease that can only be cured with the bark from a specific tree. So we go into the forest and chop this tree down to save the children from an excruciating disease.
A squirrel had built its entire home in that tree. That tree was everything to the squirrel. Now the squirrel has nothing and will suffer because we chopped down its home.
How do we explain this to the squirrel? Well, we can’t. No matter how hard we try, we can’t explain why we needed to destroy its home. The squirrel is physically incapable of understanding.
Playing devils advocate here, perhaps the reason for the need for human suffering is so beyond our understanding and comprehension that we are just physically incapable of understanding. Maybe we’re just squirrels, and human suffering needs to happen for some greater purpose unbeknownst to us.
IF there was some reason, first of all, God could give us the ability to understand if he wanted to, as he is not supposed to be limited. Second, it would imply someone is getting something from it, God, us, or otherwise, that for some reason, God can’t give in a way that doesn’t involve evil. But again, if he is never limited, that shouldn’t be the case.
Also, if cancer and other diseases are supposed to exist and kill people for some kind of purpose we don’t understand, why do we have the ability to treat, vaccinate and cure those same diseases? If medicine gets to the point of preventing every ailment, then why does that “oh so important” reason for it existing not matter anymore? It would seem if these things NEED to exist, we shouldn’t be able to prevent them from happening under any circumstances.
Why? If we just knew, we’d be stepford wives or ai.
Being created little gods who die like men, our lesson is to solve certain things, at least amelioration of them. But all things die, and are born anew. A mutation that is helpful or harmful today may not have been so yesterday or tomorrow.
I’m upvoting because I thought this was done good engagement with the premise and you don’t deserve to be downvoted for it.
But fundamentally, you’ve missed a pretty big step. What if god just…didn’t create a situation where children get diseases that can only be cured with one rare tree?
Or, more importantly, what about diseases that cannot be cured? What about natural disasters? Yes, some types of natural disasters have gotten more common and worse as a result of human action, but they still happened before climate change, and if anything were more disruptive to people before we had modern building practices.
We’re talking about a god that is literally capable of anything. It could just wave its hand and delete all disease from existence. It chooses not to.
Is a hero a hero without a villain?
I’d wager you’ve been a hero to some people’s telling and not so much, to others’.
Every relationship is karmic, that is we learn.
That argument lands you in the “we can’t know which religion is true” category, because if we can’t know the plans of god, we also can’t know which god is real.
So, while it absolves the believer from having to answer the problem of evil, it simultaneously robs them of any certainty about the truth of their religion.
But only if they think about it.
They’re all true and all not true. Each culture given the appropriate teachers at the appropriate time for the appropriate lessons. Five is five, until it’s 5.2.
At their core they use symbolism to teach the same things. You get to choose. Misunderstanding lessons is allowed. It’s Montessori style school.
We’re talking about the Abrahamic trio, so God is supposed to be all powerful. That means there is nothing beyond his power. There is no “can only” or “can’t” or “incapable” for him. He can have His cure and save the tree too, He doesn’t have to choose. Your example only works if God is limited in some capacity, and has to make trade offs that we can’t understand.
the Abrahamic trio, so God is supposed to be all powerful.
The funny thing is, the ancient Israelites almost certainly didn’t believe this. It was a more recent invention that’s obviously not supported by the old testament or the talmud.
A parent can easily do their children’s homework. How does that benefit the kids? A passing mark doesn’t mean the kid understands and the lessons don’t get easier.
The “homework” you’re talking about is war, starvation, disease, rape, slavery, and death.
A parent is supposed to help their children, not torture them to death for a “lesson”.
We did that. It’s our mess to clean up.
Oh, but I never voted for that politician! Did we do anything besides vote and clicktivism?
Disease? Starvation? Disaster? Let us not pretend like God didn’t create human evil either. For what? For fun? “To teach us a lesson”?
The all powerful, all knowing God never seems to do anything either in case you haven’t noticed.
So we’re given the means to solve these tests. When we learn to work together to solve them, rather than “punishing” each other, we get closer to solving them. Disasters happen, whether natural or man-made. We either work together or we don’t. Test time.
That is an interesting thought experiment in general but I don’t think it really squares with Christian theology and the central role humanity has in it.
I’m tempted to give the actual theological answer here but I have a feeling it will not be well received lol
Try us. I’m curious! The theological answer I know don’t really fundamentally solve the issue, just reword and skirt around it
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Church dilemma - knowing the will of God vs affirming that God’s ways are inscrutable, According to convenience
Like, did you meet a person who unironically blames satan for everything bad that’s happening to them?
Reminds me of the Epicurean Paradox:
You could replace “God” with “Parents” to the same effect.
But arguing that a parent is evil because they see a child committing an error, know it is an error, and decline to intercede doesn’t rationally follow. If you helicopter over your kids and intercede every time they make mistakes, they never develop into independent and mature adults. You also induce a lot of anxiety, as you’re constantly interposing yourself between the child’s desires and actions without the ability to convey the wisdom of your decisions. So the kid sees you as the harmful force, rather than the thing you’re seeking to avert.
So what’s a Parent/God to do? Do you puppet your child, never letting them stray farther than the length of a string? Do you lock your child in a padded ceil and hand-feed them every day? Do you hardwire their programming, so they can’t deviate from your design, acting exclusively on a divine instinct?
Is that really what we consider “Goodness”?
There is also the Calculation Problem to consider. A God-like intelligence might be able to observe far more than a human without being perfectly omniscient. Similarly, they might be able to calculate probabilities more quickly and accurately without being perfectly prescient. If a Parent/God knows most of the things but is not omniscient, does that mean they are unworthy of your attention or the reception of wisdom? At the same time, is it the duty of a Parent/God to restrict the actions of the others in their domain to the things they can calculate in advance? This brings us back to the idea of the Child Prisoner or Brainwashed Child. You’re safe at the expense of any kind of growth or personal liberty. God treats you like a farmer treats a veal calf - perfectly unspoiled through inaction.
And finally, there is the problem of Entropy. A God who can foresee everything and recognizes that Evil is inevitable. Is such a God responsible for this Evil simply because it can perceive it? Is such a God responsible for this Evil simply because it cannot prevent it? Is this flaw in God’s power a reason to reject it as a source of virtue?
Consider Odin hanging from Yggdrasil, his eye plucked out in pursuit of a way to prevent Ragnorak. He is not all-powerful. He is not-all knowing. He is routinely makes mistakes and even acts out of anger, lust, or petty vengeance. He is fundamentally flawed as dieties come. And yet his primary goal and function - to prevent the end of the world - seems noble enough to justifiably cultivate a religious following.
Parents cannot prevent evil and are not all powerful.
Parents aren’t all powerful. But the Abrahamic god is (according to their faith) all powerful. So it could stop any war, any disease, any pain, … but does not. Either it’s not all powerful or not good. Choose. Or, as I think, doesn’t exist.
Parents aren’t all powerful.
From the perspective of a newborn, they might as well be. Everything you need to be happy, healthy, and comfortable is actively managed by the parent. You don’t understand anything about your condition or your history or your source of care. All you know is the id-based impulses to complain when you don’t feel good and the soothing release of your feeding, playing, and sleeping cycles.
So it could stop any war, any disease, any pain, … but does not.
What would that look like, from a practical perspective? Imagine trying to explain to a baby that you’re going to stick a needle into its skin in order to prevent it from suffering a disease, when it has no conception of disease. All you know is the pain of the needle. Must you conclude, from that pain, that your nurse is fundamentally evil for inflicting this upon you? And that, by extension, your parents are evil for bringing you to this nurse?
“If parents were truly worthy of my attention, they would have found a better method of vaccinating me than this needle!” is the sort of thing you get to say as a child, precisely because you do not understand the underlying nature of the world you live in. All you know is the scolding language of a parent cajoling you into this immediate superficial pain.
Should humankind be incapable of performing wars? What does that look like? Should humankind be incapable of contracting disease? What does that look like? Should humankind be incapable of experiencing pain, even? Is that what you really want? An eternal numbness of being? Is godly perfection just being a particularly resilient tree?
Either it’s not all powerful or not good.
One can be both exceptionally powerful and exceptionally good without needing to draw a distinction between the two. One can be beyond comprehension, as well. But the argument that a single person experiencing a single moment of discomfort disproves a benevolent deity seems to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water.
From the perspective of a newborn, they might as well be.
Not in comparison to God. My mom can’t flood the Earth killing everybody.
My mom can’t flood the Earth killing everybody.
Ask the kids of Andrea Yates whether they can tell the difference.
Lol. What a lengthy way to say “I am an idiot”
