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I learned a long time ago that any god that does exist doesn't care about our suffering, doesn't love us, and is at best indifferent to us.
The Christian, all loving, all powerful, all knowing God is illogical.
You could have a God that is all loving and all knowing, but powerless to help us.
You could have a God that is all knowing and all powerful, but doesn't love us enough to help us.
You could have a God that is all powerful and all loving, but ignorant of our suffering.
But more likely than that, there is no God at all.
Apologetics has an answer for all of those questions. Those answers are mostly informal fallacies, but you're not going to convince someone who is already convinced there is a God and just needs some talking points.
If there is a god, i like the theory of the clockmaker god. He made this meticulous clockwork world/universe but now has to be content with just observing.
The theory is much older than computers. But nowadays it is easier explained with a simulation. As long as the simulation has a consistent internal logic, it is impossible to notice that we are in one (we are on the inside). But if external forces start to mess with it, the ppl inside could notice or there will be chain reactions hard to foresee.
@ToxicWaste @13esq this is in line with the "Deist" version of God. the Deism position is the belief that there is a God or Gods, but not of religious man-made lore.
while a deist can have different ideas of how that God or Gods behave, the most common deist belief is of a God who set the universe in motion, but does not influence it further than that.
i do agree that it's a nicer idea of God where worship is not forced, arbitrary rules aren't established, etc.
Voltaite was a well known deist
Still makes you ask the question for why such a God would create a simulation with so much pain and suffering.
Why do we humans create simulations? Maybe it is a science experiment, a prediction machine or just because we can...
@13esq @ToxicWaste well ya see, God likes to do a little bit of trolling.
God is a 4chan user
And what would be the point of worshipping it?
suffering
What is suffering and why should it be avoided?
That quote is just shallow philosophy
Suffering: the state of undergoing pain, stress or hardship
Seem like quite sensible things to avoid if you can.
Do you have a counter point?
Suffering allows us to grow and develop because it forces us to create things that help us avoid it.
That's only if you can do something about it and in some cases were people can do something about it but convince themselves they cannot.
The only personal growth you can get from suffering you can do nothing about is in coping strategies - i.e. change yourself so that the suffering can be more easilly endured - and that's for people whose coping strategy doesn't lead them into becoming defeatist, fatalist or subservient (depening on the source and kind of suffering).
(Just look at people in abusive relationships who are unable to leave the abusive partner for great examples of how suffering leads some people to change in a direction which is the exact opposite of grow and develop)
I think it would be more correct to say that "challenge" allows us to grow and develop, which does include those forms of suffering were one can do something about it but that's not easy to do (hence challenging)
Tell that to the African child dying of dysentery on a bank of a severely polluted river whilst a parasitic worm bores in to their eye ball.
Apologists like you make me sick.
Pain is necessary for life, ask a CIPA patient. Or BDSM enthusiasts
Stress and hardship are a part of doing any meaningful thing (work, learning, art, survival, etc)
A parasitic worm boring through your body is necessary for the life of the parasitic worm, but God could have made a universe with no parasites if he wanted.
Stress and hardship can have many causes and many of them have no meaning at all. Being born in to a third world country with extreme poverty for example.
God could have made a universe with no parasites if he wanted
Sure, and it wouldn't be the same reality we live in
many of them have no meaning at all
Mostly an effect of how our reality works, there is no "meaning" necessary for cause and effect
God being loving yet allowing suffering doesn't make it a paradox such that it disproves God
third world country
My 3rd world country has less suicides than your first world country (assuming you are USA)
Suffering is relative, and no matter how much of "bad" you remove from the world, suffering will persist
Sure, and it wouldn't be the same reality we live in
Yes, it would be a better one
Mostly an effect of how our reality works, there is no "meaning" necessary for cause and effect
God being loving yet allowing suffering doesn't make it a paradox such that it disproves God
I'm not actually trying to disprove god here. But I do believe that if a god has subjected us to such suffering that can be shown in our world and in our histories, then not only is he underserving of our praise, but quite the opposite. There is plenty of evidence that shows that not only is god unloving but that they're malevolent.
My 3rd world country has less suicides than your first world country (assuming you are USA)
Suffering is relative, and no matter how much of "bad" you remove from the world, suffering will persist
I'm not sure what your point is here.
Permanently Deleted
Created universe. Created flawed people. Created ETERNAL DAMNATION AND SUFFERING for the flawed people that they created.
Nice God.