Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It was a bigger issue than fruit. It was the one and only law and they willfully disobeyed.
Did anyone see the movie "The Caine Mutiny", the ship's captain went berserk because someone stole a quart of strawberries from his fridge.
So somebody ate an apple without getting permission. For that billions must suffer, some a very horrible death.
If God stopped at Adam and Eve with this "punishment" would it have been a sufficient amount of time? Would humans have learned and never repeated the error they did? Satan challenged that humans could do it without God. God is giving sufficient time to pass to show what happens when humans become fruitful, fill the earth, and rule themselves.
If I said a particular date that God would step in, that would be one day too late for the person who suffered the day before. We'd have to back it up all the way to Adam and Eve. Only God knows when sufficient time and occurences have passed to prove once in for all times that Satan is wrong. If God stepped in too early, the argument could always resurface that we didn't have enough time to try this or that form of govt, or the technology didn't support a global society, etc...
Your Jehovah's Witness beliefs don't set well with me. I left them back in 1969 and am glad that I left. Their reasoning is beyond anything that is compassionate and loving. This god of yours is more concerned about his name than about anyone suffering. But that goes for most religious beliefs.
But I realize that most people have a hard time understanding this world and why we suffer, and so religion has come up with all kinds of beliefs to suit different types of reasoning people. But most of those beliefs are so cold. Even the Buddhists and Hindus who sit there and say, "It was their karma," and the cool breeze goes right through you when you hear it.
Did anyone see the movie "The Caine Mutiny", the ship's captain went berserk because someone stole a quart of strawberries from his fridge.
So somebody ate an apple without getting permission. For that billions must suffer, some a very horrible death.
tried to give you and others some reps today but have to wait.
you know what else is wrong about god. this idea by some religious organizations that this god is going to burn people forever for rejecting his son or for doing wrong in the short life span that they have here on earth. but the very idea that god has intentions of burning people forever. talk about suffering. it makes what happens here on earth look like child's play.
To build on this thought abit more...
Well, yes and no. You might argue that we don't have free will because everything that happens only happens because God has allowed it.. because He hasn't prevented it.. but does this really interfere with our free will? Not really.
Just an example: Imagine that God intervened in an event that would have taken your father's life when he was a boy. Your father grew up, your parents got married, and you were born. Were anyone's choices violated? Altho you are only here because God intervened, does that limit your free will?
Yes. Even though I wasn't born at the time; I didn't exist so any inter-causal relationship that I would have with my father would not be affected until after I were born but I have still interacted with people associated with my father that would have otherwise probably not interacted the same. It would have greatly affected a large number of people that my father interacted with after the "intervention" - even if he didn't know about the intervention. Everyone my Dad spoke with, engaged with, met with and talked with following that set forth a different course of events that would have otherwise not been there. Disrupting a person for one second could mean the difference in getting T-boned by a drunk driver or smacking a deer on the road in which all of the subsequent decisions by that person would have been greatly altered as well. So, let's say that my Dad was driving home one night, God made a drunk driver swerve out of the way, and now I'm here typing this to you as a result of that. Because of that interference, every single person I have interacted with, every choice I have made, every physical altercation to the world I have made, would otherwise not have been here. Whatever effect I've had on another person's life would not have been affected and the chain goes on from there.
I think, and my memory is really fuzzy on this particular one, that Ray Bradbury wrote a story about that. I think in the story, set way in the future, people finally invented a time machine in which they could go back to the age of the dinosaurs and hunt them. The hunting expeditions were pre-plotted to make sure that the dinosaur would have no causal interaction with the world from that point on. I think they had actually followed the dinosaur to ensure that it was going to die very shortly after the hunting expedition. Anyway, to make a long story short, man goes back in time, finds the dinosaur, steps off the "pre-approved" path he was supposed to walk on, accidentally crushes a bug (I'd like to think it was a butterfly), and finishes his expedition. When he transports himself back to the future everything seems normal until he realizes that everyone is now speaking a different language and all the signs are written in a language he cannot understand.
The tricky part is this: During the course of either example we postulate the if and then of a 'free will' universe as opposed to what seems like a 'pre-deterministic' universe. It would seem that to hypothetically say that God intervened in my father's life so that I would eventually be born would most certainly indicate a 'pre-deterministic' universe. Simultaneously, we are hypothesizing on the fact that we live in a 'free will' universe and therefore we must be under the assumption that absolutely nothing is interfered with by a 'pre-deterministic' entity. The paradox, in my opinion if we're talking about God existing and whether or not he interferes, is this:
We either live in a 'pre-deterministic' world/universe in which God controls every molecule, atom, etc... to his bidding and thus our idea of 'free will' is simply an illusion and we cannot alter the outcome of anything despite what we think we are doing. This, in my opinion, and to go back to the OP, would make God responsible for the suffering of everyone on the planet and would also make him responsible, if you believe in that sort of thing, for Eve biting the apple because her 'free will' was simply an illusion.
or...
We live in a 'free will' universe in which God does not interfere. This means that my physical interactions, your physical interactions, and everyone else's physical interactions are only inter-dependent upon who and what you interact with. There is no pre-set course. If my father somehow died when he was younger it would not affect any events in the future other than what the function of that event was. It would not alter the course of the future because the future was not 'set' like it would be in a pre-deterministic universe.
In my opinion, if we say that God interferes with our world, than it almost becomes impossible to say that we have 'free will'. Because, to interfere with our world, God would have to be able to look ahead at the future, see what is going to happen as a result of the events he is to interfere with and then he would have to prevent (or make) that event happen. Thus, if we live in a pre-deterministic universe, it would seem to me we're just chess pieces on a celestial chess board with the grand illusion of 'free will'.
Thus, an intervention or an answered prayer would seem to indicate to me that we most definitely do not live in a 'free will' universe because it would almost inherently produce a paradox of a 'pre-deterministic' universe.
Edit: Ahhh yes.... Here's the Ray Bradbury story I was thinking of... It was called A Sound of Thunder. Slightly different from how I remember it but a wonderfully fun read altogether. http://www.lasalle.edu/~didio/course...of_thunder.htm
As I have said in some other posts I wonder all them years ago people thought they were worshipping a God but really it was an alien or aliens? And from then on they made a huge deal about this so called God and wrote the bible and made up some other mumbo jumbo theories.Its possible,I mean aliens supposedly helped the Egyptians build the pyramids.Maybe the aliens are observing this world as we write these posts,maybe the aliens created man and woman.Is the "God" most people have been worshipping all these years just an alien?
It's to easy to blame God, when man is causing this. The back drop is a war torn (Man), Greedy (Man), Evil (Man) free will granted humanity. Wanting God to step in and micro manage.
godspeed,
freedom
C'mon, but it's really easy to praise the lord everytime happy things happening. If i follow your logic, we should praise people that made those happy thing happen, not god. Right?
C'mon, but it's really easy to praise the lord everytime happy things happening. If i follow your logic, we should praise people that made those happy thing happen, not god. Right?
I don't have a problem with people giving thanks, it is an honorable attitude.
He gave us life, freewill, self determination, the abundance of all things, and to possibility that we could be like Him.
Your Jehovah's Witness beliefs don't set well with me. I left them back in 1969 and am glad that I left. Their reasoning is beyond anything that is compassionate and loving. This god of yours is more concerned about his name than about anyone suffering. But that goes for most religious beliefs.
But I realize that most people have a hard time understanding this world and why we suffer, and so religion has come up with all kinds of beliefs to suit different types of reasoning people. But most of those beliefs are so cold. Even the Buddhists and Hindus who sit there and say, "It was their karma," and the cool breeze goes right through you when you hear it.
Pretty easy to spot someone associated with Jehovah's Witnesses, isn't it? Now that is unity!
I don't have a problem with people giving thanks, it is an honorable attitude.
He gave us life, freewill, self determination, the abundance of all things, and to possibility that we could be like Him.
Lots to be thankful for, don't you think?
godspeed,
freedom
This is irrespective to the debate at hand, but it is wholly redundant to sign your empty, meaningless regards and your username ["godspeed, freedom"] at the end of every post. It is already clear, in huge, bold font, who you are within the posting frame. It is just a pointless sentiment that you have grown accustomed to. I think you would save a lot of time and afford you more consideration to your next repetitive and banal post.
It is almost comparable with your irrational and unnecessary god-belief... Time consuming and unproductive.
I don't have a problem with people giving thanks, it is an honorable attitude.
He gave us life, freewill, self determination, the abundance of all things, and to possibility that we could be like Him.
Lots to be thankful for, don't you think?
godspeed,
freedom
At this point, i'm going to be grateful to my mom and dad, because when they decided to cuddle one night, i'm here.
But as always, you went on and on murmuring something about nothing and avoiding my question. How very speedy of you. So, would you answer my question, just for the sake of never ending scenery of your godly speed to avoid questions, may be you can actually stop and answer?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
