Would Polytheism Be Better For Us ?

[Fëanor]

Which is either pointless (since there is alread the word, Nature) or a statement of faith ("I believe that God is just Nature").  ...

The word is "Pantheism".  No, it is not at all the Judeo-Christian-Muslim perspective.

[karlhenning]

The word is "Pantheism".  No, it is not at all the Judeo-Christian-Muslim perspective.

Right;  and from my viewpoint, "It's just all God" is more problematic than (for example) "How can an all-powerful God be good, and yet permit evil in the world?"

[DavidRoss]

"How can an all-powerful God be good, and yet permit evil in the world?"

Yes, it's hard to understand why this question troubles anyone over the age of, say, fourteen.

[Bulldog]

Jews know perfectly well, though very few will admit, that it is their own sense of separation, their own sense of superiority, that has alienated them time and again from the indigenous populations amongst whom they live.

It's good to see that Feanor has the inside track on the knowledge that Jews possess.

[Catison]

Yes, it's hard to understand why this question troubles anyone over the age of, say, fourteen.

And yet it is the first of the Objections St. Thomas Aquinas gives to the article, "Does God exist?".  More interestingly, Thomas has only two objections, and the other is a not an actual proof against God, but merely says that God is superfluous.  It is not as if Thomas was unaware of other arguments, but that he thought that the "argument from evil" was the only real candidate as a proof against God.

His objection goes something like this:  Both a thing and its opposite cannot both be infinite.  God is infinitely good and therefore His opposite, evil, cannot exist.  Yet we see that evil does exist, therefore God does not exist.

He then proceeds to give his famous five proofs for God.  His reply the to the argument from evil is that the existence of evil is not a contradiction because God allows evil to exist so that He can work through it for good.  In other words, evil is somehow a part of God's infinite goodness although it is not created by Him.

Another way I have heard this objection is that if God is the highest creator and evil exists then God must have created evil, yet this is a contradiction.  The reply here is that evil is not a thing in itself but the absence of good, like a vacuum is not a thing but an absence of matter.  God then uses this moral vacuum as a conduit of His infinite goodness.

[karlhenning]

Well condensed, Brett.

[Fëanor]

Yes, it's hard to understand why this question troubles anyone over the age of, say, fourteen.

Possibly because there has never been a truly satisfactory answer.

[karlhenning]

Yes, it's hard to understand why this question troubles anyone over the age of, say, fourteen.

Possibly because there has never been a truly satisfactory answer.

Sure.

There remain questions of the significance of the dissatisfaction.

[DavidRoss]

Possibly because there has never been a truly satisfactory answer.

Free will.

[greg]

Could be there are many people like you.

You find hostility in every forum you frequent... Why is that?

Socrates said it best: The unexamined life is not worth living.  Some of us are too busy whingeing to examine the life we live.

I like these replies.

[Fëanor]

It's good to see that Feanor has the inside track on the knowledge that Jews possess.

Are Jews so inscrutable?  I think not:  I am a non-Jew but I have know hundreds of Jews, some on a very friendly basis, and I am passably familiar with Jewish history of many eras and locations.

[karlhenning]

Free will.

Free will is a problem.  Why should anyone be allowed not to love Stravinsky?! 

[Fëanor]

Free will.

Assuming it explains human evil, (which I don't necessarily grant), how does it explain natural evils: floods, earthquakes, tsunamis?

[karlhenning]

Assuming it explains human evil, (which I don't necessarily grant), how does it explain natural evils: floods, earthquakes, tsunamis?

Those are natural phenomena.  To call them "natural evils" is a moral misnomer;  they are evil not in "intent" (the flood has none), but we call them "evil" when human catastrophe is the result.

[Dr. Dread]

yah.

[greg]

Free will.

That's not very satisfactory if you think about it (and I've heard this answer a million times).

If I decided to create my own room of little action figures that come to life and have feelings and told them to worship me because I am their creator, that's fine. Let's just say that at first, they have no choice because they are programmed to. But after awhile, I'm getting hungry for some genuine affection, because I honestly deserved to be loved, for real, through choice. So, I make a separate group of toy soldiers that have feelings, and free will. I figure, hey, you know what- they better choose to worship me or else I'm going to tie them up onto a table and use a magnifying glass to direct the sun onto them, so they can slowly burn forever. If they choose me, then they'll just get pretty much the same as what the originals get (or roughly, who knows exactly).

It turns out I know which ones will not accept me before I even create them. So, I see their future lives flash through before my eyes, and then their eternal demise. Yet, I create them anyway because I love them.

What is love, by the way?

Love means being patient even when you'd like the other person to hurry up already!

Love means being kind when being mean might seem more satisfying.

Love means not being jealous -- of your spouse or of others.

Love means not being pompous or inflated, not thinking yourself so important.

Love means not being rude but rather speaking and acting with courtesy to everyone.

Love means caring about others before one's own self-interests.

Love means not showing one's temper, no matter how angry you are.

Love means not brooding, not holding on to hurts.

Love means not gloating when the other is wrong or makes a mistake.

Makes sense, right?

[Franco]

Love means never having to say you're sorry.  At least, that's what I've heard.

I think evil has gotten a bad rap - think of all the good that comes as a response to evil.  If there were no evil, we would be unable to determine what was good.  If there were no free will man could not choose to do good, thereby creating the moral choice.  There is no morality when there is no evil choice that is denied.

[karlhenning]

That's not very satisfactory if you think about it (and I've heard this answer a million times).

If I decided to create my own room of little action figures that come to life and have feelings and told them to worship me because I am their creator, that's fine. Let's just say that at first, they have no choice because they are programmed to. But after awhile, I'm getting hungry for some genuine affection, because I honestly deserved to be loved, for real, through choice. So, I make a separate group of toy soldiers that have feelings, and free will. I figure, hey, you know what- they better choose to worship me or else I'm going to tie them up onto a table and use a magnifying glass to direct the sun onto them, so they can slowly burn forever.

You're extrapolating a God Who thinks, What Would Greg Do?  

Your illustration (which, I am sure it has not escaped you, is a bit simplistic on a number of points) imputes a questionable motivation to God:  that He created us because He needs our love.  But God is perfect; there is nothing He lacks (and the love among Persons in the Trinity is — without being quite the polytheism which might be better for Eric — an example of Love in the Godhead, without a "need" to create Man in order for God to receive love).  It is true (in Christian thought) that God made Man to love Him, but it is an error to consider this a 'lack' in God, the way no one to love us as people would be a lack.

Could write pages and pages more . . . but just one thought further.  In your rather 'projective' image of God creating, you fall into the error of considering Hell a spiteful punishment which God resentingly imposes.  The idea is more that:  God is Love;  in other words, it is God's nature to act and think and dwell in love.  God created Man in His image:  Man is meant, also, to love, to act and think and dwell in a condition of love.  Where God by His Nature is incapable of Non-Love, Man by his nature is created for the purpose of Love, and yet has free will.  The exercise of one's free will in defiance of Love, is for Man to be 'broken'.  From one angle, Hell is the absence of Love.  God doesn't "send" anyone to Hell;  Men choose to go there.

[karlhenning]

I think evil has gotten a bad rap - think of all the good that comes as a response to evil.  If there were no evil, we would be unable to determine what was good.

That's an error, but it's also ground we've covered a hundred times before.

That's like saying that someone has to live in a blighted urban landsacpe, or else he could not appreciate the beauty of a forest.

[Dr. Dread]

Waiter: "Falefel, sir?"

Plato: "No! Philosopher!"