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Huff....there aren't many other ways you can put it....well, there may be, but the quandry still won't be directly addressed, no matter how you put it.
It's either deliberate obtuseness or .......the alternative, just plain obtuseness.
1) Either god is capable of producing a world in which every single one of his goals, purposes and intentions are met perfectly without us suffering, or he isn't. There; all possible factors are accounted for. If he is able, proceed to step number 2; if he is unable, proceed to step number 3.
2) If god is able to produce a world in which every single one of his goals, purposes and intentions are met perfectly without us suffering, then he is all-powerful. If he is all-loving, he would choose that world without suffering. (He has no reason not to because every intention of his can be perfectly met without suffering; if not go back to step number 1). Since we do suffer, we must conclude that if there is an all-powerful god, he cannot be all-loving.
3) If god is unable to produce a world in which every single one of his goals, purposes and intentions are met perfectly without us suffering, then he is not all-powerful. (This begs the question, who or what was able to set up things such that god could not change them to perfectly satisfy his purposes without human suffering?)
Therefore, if there is a god, we can know at least one thing for certain, god cannot be both all powerful and all-loving.
QED
Last edited by Hueffenhardt; 11-08-2011 at 08:05 AM..
The question I have is: Would we be humans if we were created in a non-physical world or a world without physical consequences?
Well, let's run it through the model. I am going to take the liberty of rephrasing your question as, "would we be human without pain?" (This is because my whole argument is about pain and suffering. God could create physical consequences that aren't painful, if fact they already exist.)
This is really just another instance of a special relationship, but this time it is between the concept "human" and the concept "suffering". If God cannot create humans without suffering (because without suffering the things created can't be human), then god is not all powerful because he doesn't have the ability to make a human without suffering. This begs the question of who had the power to create the concept human and define it in such a way that suffering had to be part of its definition such that God has no power to uncouple the concept suffering from the concept human.
But, I challenge the notion that a human can't be a human without suffering. Many of us have been fortunate in life, such as myself. I have enough money, sufficient for our needs, and I have a loving wife and kids, all in good health. I am not really suffering, and haven't for a while, does that make me less human now, than I was earlier in my life when I was suffering? I don't think so. Futhermore, there have been a few cases of people born without the ability to feel pain. I would not call them, not human; I'd just say that they are humans without the ability to experience pain.
Plus, I think it is rather sadistic to create a creature that cannot be created unless it experiences pain. So, pain has become a goal in and of itself, not just in the service of some other goal.
1) Either god is capable of producing "humans" without suffering in a way in which every single one of his goals, purposes and intentions are met perfectly, or he isn't. If he is able, proceed to step number 2; if he is unable, proceed to step number 3.
2) If god is able to produce "humans" without suffering in a way in which every single one of his goals, purposes and intentions are met perfectly, then he is all-powerful. If he is all-loving, he would choose that to make the humans without suffering. (He has no reason not to because every intention of his can be perfectly met without suffering; if not go back to step number 1). Since we do suffer, we must conclude that if there is an all-powerful god, he cannot be all-loving.
3) If god is unable to produce "humans" without suffering in a way in which every single one of his goals, purposes and intentions are met perfectly, then he is not all-powerful. (This begs the question, who or what was able to set up things such that god could not change them to perfectly satisfy his purposes without humans suffering?)
...If god really loves us, he knows we care about the pain we are in even if it seems small to him, he would want to spare us from needless suffering, even if it is only momentary.
Who is God?
What is love?
We really don't know the origins of creation... so in that sense, we're clueless... & just guess.
We do know, however, the source of any spiritual/inspiring feels... within us. So, our experience of God is within us. Yet, we cannot help but be influenced by external factors also - especially by others - in their choice to love or not love us & our choice to love or not love them.
As a parent, I know that love is not always comfortable, happy feelings. It is often "tough" & involves discipline... If we only experienced comfortable happy feelings all of the time, we wouldn't appreciate them for what they are, since we wouldn't know any different. Hueffenhardt, you know, "there must be opposition in all things." Opposites let us appreciate - & although they may involve uncomfortable feelings, they can also expand our capacity for joy.
Where does pain come from? Sometimes it is inflicted by others (abuse etc.). A lot of pain comes from ourselves - in how we interpret life. There are 2 types of pain: clean pain -which is the natural consequences of being hurt... & dirty pain -extra, "unnessessary" pain that we add by getting upset about clean pain.
So... since our experience of God is within us... & we know that the subconscious mind is powerful for good or bad... the love or pain we think God expresses or witholds, is largely due to our own thoughts & related feelings & behavior.
I agree Hueffenhardt, if there is a God, he can't be all-powerful and all-loving at the same time. You made some good arguments, especially in your first two posts in the thread. When I believed in UR I chose to believe that God was all-loving, without a thought as to the pain and suffering we still have to endure. Then I snapped out of it and realized that God can't be all-loving either if there's pain and suffering. What kind of God would allow that? One that would have to be all-powerful but does not possess "feelings" like we do, one that has no compassion. Or, there just isn't a god to begin with.
Either way you can't say that God is "just" in his judgments when pain and suffering still exist. Unless you believe in the God of the Bible, who doles out punishment and death by waving his magic wand, no compassion, mercy or forgiveness. How is that all-loving? Sounds like all-powerful to me. So either there is no God or he's some monster who doesn't give a rat's butt about our pain and suffering.....trials and tribulations....and I'm sick of hearing the defense of "well, God's ways are not our ways, we just won't or can't understand in this life"......bull hockey. I think we all understand pretty well that if there is a god he ignores the heck out of us.
I spent the better part of 40 years wrestling with these issues, Ilene, especially the "red in tooth and claw" aspect of life. The difference was I know there IS a God . . . but the questions remained the same. Reconciling them required that I remove all the preconceptions about God (Omni's) that we humans had created. I realized that we had no basis for imposing those preconceptions onto God at all. We didn't do that to Nature. We just accepted what we found to be true using our science. I did the same for God . . . equating them.
What became clear to me was that life is a conjunction of thesis and anti-thesis . . . opposites. Einstein conceptualized the Void of space that comprises the bulk of our reality as the merging of two opposing forces. In discussing dematerialization, Einstein described how such an effect could be achieved without there being any real emptiness,
. . . a superposition of two oppositely oriented local curvatures of the non-Euclidean time-space which would cancel each other like two waves of equal amplitude meeting at opposite phases and the result would be a local disappearance of the non-Euclidean curvature. That particular region of time-space would acquire the homogeneous and undifferentiated character which characterizes what we call 'void' or 'absence of matter.'
That Void (or space) is expanding at an accelerating rate (growing as it were . . . like life). Where could this growth (Life) come from? I knew it had to be the God I encountered in deep meditation. It had to be God's consciousness expanding. But this consciousness was comprised of opposites . . . opposing phases of vibratory energy. What could that possibly mean? That sounded a lot like the merging of two "opposing" energy events, . . . like drive energy generated by our animal nature meeting an "opposing" drive energy in our consciousness generated by our maturing Spirit.
This suggested that the very EXISTENCE of God's consciousness (and our cellular portions of it) requires the merging of opposite energy forms. This led to some obvious conclusions (minus all preconceptions). God is NOT dependent on anything . . . so God's consciousness must achieve its status independently (on its own. . . so must we all as cellular portions of it . . . spiritual children of God). God consciousness is manifested (born) as the overcoming of opposing energy forms . . . (e.g., denial of negative drives like overcoming pain, suffering and injustice in our consciousness with Love . . . as Christ did). This pain in giving spiritual childbirth is analogous to the pain experienced in physical childbirth.
In short . . . NONE of the adversities of life are the result of God's choices. They are the result of God's very EXISTENCE and the requirements for the growth of God's consciousness itself. At least that is how I have come to see it, Ilene . . . given the fact that I KNOW God does exist. Peace in Christ's love, my sister,
Mystic
You can only know this for certain if you knew all of the variables involved. You don't. In fact, God can (and in my opinion, did) create variables that are outside of His direct control - us. He gave us free will, thus we control what we do, not Him.
If there are things that he does not have the ability to control, then he is not all-powerful. If you agree with that I have no argument with you because my goal was to show god could not be both all-powerful and all-loving. If you acknowledge he is not all-powerful, my goal has been reached.
Personally, I would have thought that a believer would say god has the ability to control us, but chooses not to. But, you said god did create variables outside of (meaning beyond) his control; indicating he is not all-powerful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingDavid8
So if God wants us to have a life that challenges us, that builds up our character, that leaves us in control of whether we choose good or evil, or choose to follow God or not, then He would need a world where there are negative consequences for making detrimental choices.
That is either true, or it is not true. (I am covering all possibilities.) If god were all-powerful, he could set up a life that challenges us, builds character, and leaves us the free will to make choices without even negative consequences. I have no idea what that would look like, but if god is all-powerful he could do it. Now, if it cannot be done, because those concepts "challenging", "builds character", and "free will" are inseparably connected to "negative consequences", then god is not all-powerful because he cannot severe that connection, nor establish a new connection with some other variable that is equally effective. That begs the question who had the power to create those concepts and establish that connection such that not even god can separate them. If you say it was god who created the concepts and the connections, why is he powerless over his own concepts and connections? (still means he is not all-powerful).
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingDavid8
And what if He doesn't want it to be exactly what He wants? I realize that seems like a paradox, but what I mean is this: I believe that God wants us to choose to do His will, rather than just programming us to automatically follow His will (the same way that I prefer that my wife choose to love me rather than her having no choice in the matter - there's no meaning to her loving me if she didn't choose to do so). But if He's going to give us a choice, then He's giving us the ability to choose not to do His will. I'm sure He doesn't like it when we go against His will, but if the alternative is the non-existence of anyone who would ever against His will (which is all of us, now and then) or having us programmed to do exactly what He wants, I believe He would prefer that we have the choice, even if there are negative consequences now and then. Without our ability to disobey God, there is no meaning to our obeying Him.
The bolded part is a false dichotomy. Those are not the only two possibilities for an all-powerful god. An all-powerful god could give us free will and the ability to not do his will, and still have us exist and not be programmed. If that is impossible, then god is not all-powerful, and one has to ask who had the power to constain possibilities down to just these few, such that god could not do anything but these.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingDavid8
In order to teach us effectively, it would have to be some sort of negative consequence to bad choices. "Consequence X". And, again, we'd just be debating whether "consequence X" means that God isn't omnibenevolent.
Who says? Either your statement is true or false (again, I am covering all possibilities). If false, an all-powerful god could teach us effectively without consequences. He could design us to be taught any way he chooses, even without programming us. If your statement is true, then god is not all-powerful and I have to wonder who made it so that god could not design us to learn without consequences? Who set up that seemingly universal law of existence?
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingDavid8
You claimed it, but didn't show it. If He's going to give us the ability to choose to do His will or not, then He's logically going to end up with people who choose not to do His will. Though "not doing His will" isn't something He wants, it's something He's going to have to settle for if He gives us a real choice in the matter.
That is fine. I see your point. He does have to settle for the results of the choices humans make with the free will he gave them. But, I was talking about the set up of things that he has complete control over. If god is all-powerful, He doesn't have to take suffering in his model if he does not want to; he doesn't have to settle for that because he has control over every variable and every relationship and consequence of every variable. That is if he is all-powerful. If he does not have complete control of the set-up, for instance, he must settle for having suffering in his model to get the other things he wants, then he is not all-powerful, because there are some variables he cannot manipulate. Now, who made variables that not even god can manipulate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingDavid8
You can only know this if you understand all of the variables involved. Unless you can, it's only a hypothesis on your part, and one that doesn't make much sense to me.
Again, I have covered all possible variables. Either he has complete control over them or he doesn't (which includes if he only has partial control, then he does not have complete control). If he has complete control, he is all-powerful. If he does not have complete control, he is not all-powerful. Every possible variable is accounted for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingDavid8
The main problem with your assumption is that God would want a world which is flawless in His eyes, when I believe God would prefer a world in which the main characters (us) have the ability to choose to do God's will or not, which is one that would automatically be flawed in His eyes. There's no meaning to a world in which we're pre-programmed to automatically do what God wants us to do every second of every day. Just like I wouldn't want a wife who is programmed to love me and do everything I want every second of every day, but prefer having a wife who chooses to love me and, when she does nice things for me, it's because she chose to do so, not because she had no choice in the matter.
Number one, I do not assume god would want a flawless world. I am saying that an all-loving god would not want us to experience unnecessary pain. I don't believe things such as free-will and challenges are inseparably connected to pain. I find Sudoku puzzles challenging, but not painful. I have the free will to choose between strawberry or chocolate ice cream without any pain. But, it really doesn't matter what I can imagine or comprehend or not.
If god is all powerful, he can create a world with all the things we wants, human growth, learning, challenges, free will, etc, etc, whatever the case may be, without suffering. If he cannot, because it is impossible, he is not all-powerful, and I have to ask who made it impossible?
You keep thinking the only alternative to the way things are today is if we were pre-programmed. I don't think that is true, but again my model works whether it is true or not. If the only alternative is being pre-programmed, who had the power to make all other alternatives impossible.
If we only experienced comfortable happy feelings all of the time, we wouldn't appreciate them for what they are, since we wouldn't know any different. Hueffenhardt, you know, "there must be opposition in all things." Opposites let us appreciate - & although they may involve uncomfortable feelings, they can also expand our capacity for joy.
That is demonstrably not true, and I showed it in an earlier post. The mechanism in our brains that give us the feeling of pleasure acts independently of the system for pain. When the neurotransmitters responsible for us feeling pleasure are released, we feel pleasure, regardless of whether we ever felt pain before. And how do we know it is pleasure? Because it is so much more wonderful than how we feel normally, which is neither painful or pleasurable.
1) Either god is capable of producing a world in which every single one of his goals, purposes and intentions are met perfectly without us suffering, or he isn't. There; all possible factors are accounted for. If he is able, proceed to step number 2; if he is unable, proceed to step number 3.
2) If god is able to produce a world in which every single one of his goals, purposes and intentions are met perfectly without us suffering, then he is all-powerful. If he is all-loving, he would choose that world without suffering. (He has no reason not to because every intention of his can be perfectly met without suffering; if not go back to step number 1). Since we do suffer, we must conclude that if there is an all-powerful god, he cannot be all-loving.
3) If god is unable to produce a world in which every single one of his goals, purposes and intentions are met perfectly without us suffering, then he is not all-powerful. (This begs the question, who or what was able to set up things such that god could not change them to perfectly satisfy his purposes without human suffering?)
Therefore, if there is a god, we can know at least one thing for certain, god cannot be both all powerful and all-loving.
QED
I see a fourth choice. God(swt) could have created us as perfect beings as he did with the Angels. But it was not his plan we should not be perfect but rather that we could work our way up to perfection.
Man and the physical world are not perfect in what we consider perfect. But, since we are not the creator perfection is not dependent on our view. Something is perfect when it achieves the purpose it was created to do without failure. We may not like it but it seems that we are exactly what God(swt) wanted us to be.
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