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Going through mud, blood and tears, breaking bones, getting concussions etc. isn't exactly a walk in the park. It is an evil experience which brings about good.
37 Who is this who speaks and it comes about
if Yahweh does not determine it?
38 Do not both the evil and the good come forth
from the mouth of the Supreme? Lam.3:37-38
Again, it is not evil. It sucks, sure, but it is not evil. Equating football practice as being the same as say, the BTK killer is just plain ignorant.
As I said, I played 4 sports in HS (and 1 after HS), so I know what practices are about. They are not evil.
Again, it is not evil. It sucks, sure, but it is not evil. Equating football practice as being the same as say, the BTK killer is just plain ignorant.
As I said, I played 4 sports in HS (and 1 after HS), so I know what practices are about. They are not evil.
Are so. You must have played on powder puff teams. I come from a very large high school. So you are saying breaking legs, arms, fingers, concussions, etc. isn't evil? Here is a hint for you: Evil does not just comprise something that is absolutely horrific like the BTK killer.
One thing where God failed in that myth is that he never warned Adam and Eve about the serpent/Satan and its lies. Every responsible parent teaches his kids at least something about "stranger danger" and how other people do not always have the best motives. God however, never even mentioned that some time in the future Satan would try to deceive the first humans. And how were they supposed to know what lie and deception were, if they had never encountered them in their childlike innocence? All they knew was that if someone says something, it must be true. God made them face the challenge totally unprepared.
They were told not to eat of that tree.
In the army they have certain things they like to test men on to see if they are leader worthy. For instance, they will tell a person they can't smoke for a specified amount of time. They let the guy go. He sneaks between a couple buildings and lights up little knowing they are watching him all the time. They want to see if he can follow a command. If he can't, he can't give commands.
So, according to you, to be fair, they should have told him they will be watching his every move?
In the army they have certain things they like to test men on to see if they are leader worthy. For instance, they will tell a person they can't smoke for a specified amount of time. They let the guy go. He sneaks between a couple buildings and lights up little knowing they are watching him all the time. They want to see if he can follow a command. If he can't, he can't give commands.
So, according to you, to be fair, they should have told him they will be watching his every move?
So God has to result to stupid-human tricks in order to effect the outcome He wants?
He isn't ANY higher up than weird faulty games like this?
*
Psst...by the way: in the army they have to do this testing because they don't know whether the guy can follow a command. God's supposed to know everything...making tests irrelevant...n'est c'est pas? If God knows everything why does He have to test anybody?
I guess it's just for a lark? He's sitting there watching everyone..."Pass pass pass pass FAIL pass FAIL FAIL pass pass oooooooooh, ANOTHER FAIL...just as I predicted! Ha ha, this never gets old."
So God has to result to stupid-human tricks in order to effect the outcome He wants?
He isn't ANY higher up than weird faulty games like this?
*
Psst...by the way: in the army they have to do this testing because they don't know whether the guy can follow a command. God's supposed to know everything...making tests irrelevant...n'est c'est pas? If God knows everything why does He have to test anybody?
I guess it's just for a lark? He's sitting there watching everyone..."Pass pass pass pass FAIL pass FAIL FAIL pass pass oooooooooh, ANOTHER FAIL...just as I predicted! Ha ha, this never gets old."
God knows all. He knew they would disobey. The human does not know. God set up the trial to get Adam and Eve to see that even in the best of situations (living in a garden, rent free, free food, free everything), they will still disobey.
Are so. You must have played on powder puff teams. I come from a very large high school. So you are saying breaking legs, arms, fingers, concussions, etc. isn't evil? Here is a hint for you: Evil does not just comprise something that is absolutely horrific like the BTK killer.
Someone has issues...
No, it's not evil.
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
God knows all. He knew they would disobey. The human does not know. God set up the trial to get Adam and Eve to see that even in the best of situations (living in a garden, rent free, free food, free everything), they will still disobey.
It obviously is not the way you understand.
Because otherwise they wouldn't have know that?
And they wouldn't have known it because of the way God made them. Right?
Not to mention the fact that "even in the best situations (living in a garden, rent free, free food, free everything), they will still disobey" BECAUSE OF the way they were MADE, PLUS due to the maker deciding in advance that that was what they were going to do...
Tell me again whose fault this is? Fatal-mistake setups and Stockholm Syndrome, do ya feel the love...
Listen, I know this is going to sound insulting but the whole Bible outlook is so very childlike...good guys, bad guys...until somebody questions the inconsistencies of it all. WHEN the kids all start seeing the holes in their old stories, THEN they begin to mature, not just emotionally but intellectually.
But some people just never mature beyond that childlike point.
This is becoming a rather Kafkaesque conversation.
There is little light, but much heat, to be had using loaded terms like "evil" that presuppose too much.
What it all comes down to is that life is difficult, often absurdly so, and when one casts about looking to see who is doing something about it, you see that it is science and technology and secular philosophy that are making it less difficult and that most everything else, including theism in all its forms, is doing nothing on a good day and making it MORE difficult on a bad day. Or as the NY Daily News courageously pointed out in yesterday's cover story about the San Bernardino massacre, GOD ISN'T FIXING THIS.
This whole thread is a sidebar about the problem of suffering that presupposes for the sake of argument that there is an allegedly benevolent, loving, caring, potent and aware deity who has our back ... mostly in a particularly unusual conception via Eusebius, who cheerfully acknowledges that this being does "evil that good may come of it".
But in purely pragmatic terms all I give a flying fig about is, does this thought-system either make life more compelling or life's difficulties less problematic? From where I sit, I left Christianity, my religion of birth, because it had no predictive or explanatory power concerning my existence and what was happening to me. It made simple things complicated.
I suspect that some people actually take comfort in the notion that things happen, or not, for some Higher Purpose which has some responsible party in charge of things. But for me, the random BS in my life is far better accepted and understood as just things happening and not personal; there's no one at the controls and in fact no controls in the first place. If the BS in my life is part of some wise ineffable plan, all that does is tick me off, because it completely disregards whatever pain / suffering / loss that inflicts on me in favor of some alleged ultimate closure, always conveniently displaced in the future, somewhere just beyond my death. This is only my puny insignificant life, but it's all I have, I'm obliged to experience it whether I wanted / want it or not, and I'm supposed to smile and keep any objections to myself, accept 100% responsibility for everything that goes wrong and give 100% of the glory to god for everything that goes right.
As my mother used to say, "nuts to that noise".
Just wanted to cut through all this multilayered hypothetical BS for a moment of sanity. I now return you to your regularly scheduled talking past each other from alternative universes.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled talking past each other from alternative universes.
Sound like fun!
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Fatal-mistake setups and Stockholm Syndrome, do ya feel the love...
