[Gem Windcaster]

No offense taken, that is pretty much what I believe, even though there is much more to it. What I have chosen to believe is both more and less than that post. I have never liked to be compared to others, and I probably think about these things more critically than most, but I am very much a believer. It is just a small piece of my mind that you got there...please handle it with care and discretion.

[ch'arlz]

Gem Windcaster;215776 said:

-One question that I've asked myself about the fact that God probably knew what would happen - why did he put that tree in the Garden of Eden in the first place? Why give us the chance of messing up?

When I studied religion many years ago, the "correct" answer was that is why He gave us free will -- to choose to mess up or not.

-ch'arlz, Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

[drinksinbars]

i aint religious, dont even belief in god, but the other day a woman and her daughter showed up at my front door and asked me why if there is a god does he allow so much suffering in the world and tbh i thought the answer pretty bloody obvious.

why would you need faith in something if your life was perfect. What value would there be in charity or compassion or friendship or love if the world wasnt so much easier to live in when we are greedy and selfish and hateful.

what need to believe in life after death, if no one died?

[Gothos]

mind you. did God create evil? he created everything, right? so also the notion of evil.

on the notion of tests, do Angels have free will?

[Gem Windcaster]

Gothos;218475 said:

mind you. did God create evil? he created everything, right? so also the notion of evil.

on the notion of tests, do Angels have free will?

Personally, I think it's more complicated than that, but yes they have free will.
And about the evil thing - I support the theory that evil is simply the absence of God(or God's presence is compromised). Well, something like that...I find it is hard to describe these ideas that are so clear in my mind...

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Gothos;218475 said:

mind you. did God create evil? he created everything, right? so also the notion of evil.

Two of the more traditional options in Christian theology are the following:

1.) Evil is not a "thing"; it cannot be "created". Evil denotes an absence of the good/right/etc. It's like the problem of nothingness: can God create nothingness? Well, since "nothing" is not a "thing," it obviously can't be created since creation applies only to things. The deficiency lies in language, not God. Interestingly enough, many languages don't even have a word for "evil"--take French, for example. The closest you can get to "evil" in French is "le mal," which means "the bad". As you can see, the connotations are waaaaaaaaaaay off.

2.) Without evil, "good" is a meaningless term. Likewise, without failure, success is meaningless. So too with "down"--without it, "up" makes no sense. And yes, there is a tie here to free will.

[pastures]

FINALLY! A good question. It is one of the central questions why people do not believe in God (or a god).

Free will has already been mentioned. You will see it again. (oh nooo) But later.

Let us explore the Christian answer to this. I believe most of us are familiar with the basics of Christianity (in particular, the story of Adam and Eve), whether or not we believe in Christ.

First, Christians believe God created the universe and man perfectly. Everything was perfect.

Second, Christians believe (i will drop this phrase for convenience) that man chose to rebel, or sin, against God. This is the Fall of man.

Third, after sin entered the world, suffering began.

Question: If God is all powerful (omnipotent) and all good, why would He allow pain and suffering in this world? Can't He make a world with free choice AND no suffering?

Answer: He DID make a world with free choice and no suffering. But man chose to embrace that suffering even after being told that suffering would occur. Remember that God said "You will surely die!" [if you choose to disobey me]

Collorary question: Why must God allow free will?
Answer: This goes to the purpose of creation. Why did God create the world and humans? Christians believe that it is for RELATIONSHIP (or LOVE, if you will. Yes. Love is the answer! lol). The Christian God is a Trinity. So God has relationship within the godhood. And this extends to His creation. God wants a relationship with His creation, and, in particular, man. Now, there is no true relationship, or no true love, without FREE WILL. Programming a robot to love you does not make it true love. Love has to be entered into freely for it to be meaningful. This is why God will never tamper with free will. It is the central basis on which creation was created. This is also why God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. True love must be proven to be made real. As long as man chose to obey that command, they would be loving God. Loving God in the Christian context means having a relationship with Him. In the extreme sense, it is "abiding" in Him. That is, living in God's will. We can choose to live outside of God's will, but that means having no relationship with God.

Question: When God made this perfect world, was there pain and suffering?
Answer: NO. It was pretty much heaven on earth. By definition, a perfect world cannot have pain and suffering.

Question: When God made this perfect world, was there the *potential* for pain and suffering?
Answer: Yes, of course. Otherwise how would pain and suffering come to be if they weren't already there? God Himself feels pain and hurt. So naturally His creation also does.

Question: Why was the potential for pain and suffering present in the PERFECT world?
Answer: Pain and suffering must obviously have had a good and perfect purpose for it to be in a perfect world. I will now endeavour to explain this.

In an excellent book called "Where is God when it hurts?", Philip Yancey documents his experience working with people with leprosy. Leprosy is not, as is commonly thought, a condition where parts of the body rot and drop off. Leprosy is a condition whereby a body cannot feel the sensation of pain. This phenomenon starts in a localised area but can and does spread to the rest of the body. "That's great!" you might say. It's not. Without the ability to feel pain, taking care of one's body becomes a living hell. For example, lepers have to constantly check their feet to see if their footwear is damaging them. Even slight bruising must be immediately acted upon (e.g. adjusting the footwear, or changing to a new pair or bandaging the feet). One story i will never forget. I will paraphrase, but the essential elements are there. There was a little girl with leprosy. Because she could not feel pain, she easily hurt herself. Her mum would tell her not to do certain things or to take note of certain things. But being a young girl, she would find it amusing to do those very things which got her mother agitated. So, at first she used to suck her fingers. This lead to biting. Her mother tried to stop her from biting her fingers. This amused the girl. She eventually bit off the tip of a finger. And later a whole finger. And later many fingers. But before it came to that, she gouged out her eyes and bit off her tongue. She could not feel the pain of all that, only the response of her mother. I think the girl eventually died of leprosy (by that we mean complications arising from damaged and diseased body parts).

So, here we have a medical doctor writing a spiritual book. And he talks about his life as a doctor. Where is the spirituality?

The point of it is this. Pain is a GOOD thing. It lets us know SOMETHING IS WRONG. This gives us the opportunity to respond to, and hopefully correct, the wrong thing.

So. It should all be clear now. Pain and suffering is NOT incompatible with an ominpotent and good god. Firstly, the potential for pain is a good thing. It lets us know when something is wrong so that we can address it. God Himself feels pain and hurt. Second, a world was created without pain and suffering and also with free will. Third, free will is necessary for true and meaningful love to exist. Fourth, suffering came about through the exercise of free will in spite of the warning that there would be suffering. Fifth, Christians believe there is a plan for redemption from pain and suffering. But that is for another thread.

There is also a part 4a). The question is why the exercise of free will in disobedience to God should lead to suffering (in this case, death). The answer is because "death" to Christians is more of a spiritual death than a physical one. "Death" to Christians merely means a [spiritual] situation where one lives apart from God (outside His will). Why should the spiritual death lead to physical death? It has to do with the nature of humans and how they were created. But that is for another thread.

At its most fundamental, the purpose of pain is to point us towards God. Pain shows us that this world is imperfect and needs to be fixed. Thus, all bad experiences give us a choice to turn towards or away from God. Similarly, all good experiences also give us that same choice.

There is also another important question: Why am *I* the one who is suffering? This is for another thread, if anyone is interested.

If this makes sense to you, feel free to share it. And if it does not, feel free to question it.

[Nequam]

(for the record, the original posters friend's answer was stupid IMHO)
I read the first page, and started to make my post. I was quoteing and analyzing, but then I thought, "man, I should probably read the rest of the thread first." And boy was I glad I did. What Gem Windcaster and pastures said in there posts was better than anything I could have done. It is how everything in my head works but I have trouble explaining my feelings/beliefs and why I believe them. So this post here is basically just a super agreement of everything those two posted.

My faith is unshakable but it's not blind or illogical. Many of my friends don't understand my faith and I always have trouble telling them why I keep it. Thanks for giving me somewhere to direct them next time they ask.

[Mentalist]

to be honest, I don't think about such deep questions much (unless I'm in the middle of nowhere, I'm not the spiritual type). But when such questions are posed to or around me, then, yes, the essential answer is--Free will. God is not a puppet master, who arranges things. He is a neutral observer. While I might question certain precepts of the Bible, in the rare times when I do think about it, I do believe that there was a reason for the existence as a whole. partially, I believe that each person has a task to accomplish in their life, but simultaneously, there is a choice whether or not you look for that meaning. While I do not know my meaning, my life is "free". once I do, I am not.
I know that's a messed up and convoluted way of looking at it, but that is the nature of my belief.
Aside from that, I identify with my Church, and its rites, b/c i was taught them by my grandparents along with my cousins, because my Church did the most for the survival of my national identity through history.

[pastures]

Thanks Nequam. There is a good explanation for almost every question. Christians believe that their God desires His followers to gain understanding. Unfortunately, many Christians are not interested in God's answers - only their own made-up answers. The best answers are those that are divine revelations (e.g. what are humans?). I believe people will recognise the truth when confronted with it. The problem is the truth means the complete truth. While the answer to this question could, in some sense, be "it's a test" or "free will", that is the not the whole story. EVERYTHING is a test. LIFE is a test. So by saying "it's a test", you gloss over the real difficulties that people face when confronting evil and pain. Meet the needs.

I am a man of science. And by that i mean that i need to understand how things work. And this understanding must be logical and must adequately explain things. Further, it must be testable, so that there can be no doubt that it is not mere theory (as in the Theory of evolution), but fact. What i'm trying to say is that i have answers for quite a few interesting questions as relates to God and the supernatural. And i have some experience explaining these issues, if anyone is interested. YOU SHOULD BE INTERESTED, by the way. You are at the very least indirectly affected by "religion" (i hate that term) whether or not you subscribe to one. So it would be in everyone's best interested to find out what these people (apparently it's some 95% of the world) who believe in the supernatural are going on about. Contrary to science's popular misconception, i do not believe that "religion" came about merely to "explain the unexplainable". Rather, i believe that "religion" has its basis on facts. The reason being that all the "explanations" (i.e. "religions") all have a SPIRITUAL (or supernatural, if you will) basis. Most people do not deny the existence of the human soul. This is very very interesting. We have so many religions in the world, why does the explanation for the unexplainable always go back to the supernatural? Why not aliens or some other construct (e.g. some dark matter gravitation)? (yeah, now some people blive in aliens/science/etc, but this is a very recent phenomenon) The reason is, i believe (i know, actually), because there have actually been encounters with the supernatural that verify the existence of the supernatural (or at least enough to keep religions going). Of course, one can always deny your own soul. But i've found this to be in the very small minority (the ultra rationalists).

And for those who do subscribe to one religion or other, may i suggest that you think about these things. You need to know what you are doing. What is it you claim to believe in? Do you know? If you can't understand or explain it, then why can't you just believe in something else (that might or might not make more sense)? Why this blind faith? Is there a good reason for this blind faith? There are always answers. But please seek them out and KNOW FOR SURE what it is you believe in. If at the end of the day you choose to believe that aliens are gods, then so be it. But at least be able to explain it from first principles. If you can't, then there's no reason why you should be believing it in the first place, except in the cases where you have a direct supernatural experience (there's plenty of that too, actually). Only i hope that you are able to interprete that experience correctly. For that, one needs to know the truth about the supernatural realm. So again, more searching for answers! The truth is out there.

P.S. I posed some interesting questions at the end of my previous post that would make for interesting discussions if anyone is interested.

[Thelomen Toblerone]

I've never ever heard a religious person use the "testing" excuse. It's always been the free-will thing that I hear, which seems logically consistent with their beliefs.

I man has free will and bad things happen, how can you blame God? It wasnt him that did it- he didnt force people to live on fault line, or on volcano slopes, or invent guns, and so on.

[Nequam]

Quote

I've never ever heard a religious person use the "testing" excuse. It's always been the free-will thing that I hear, which seems logically consistent with their beliefs.

I man has free will and bad things happen, how can you blame God? It wasnt him that did it- he didnt force people to live on fault line, or on volcano slopes, or invent guns, and so on.

Exactly.

And yes pastures, I am very interested. Why don't you make a new thread called: Common Religious Questions.
In it you can attempt to explain some of the 'big' questions like those you posed at the end of your first post. then, anyone who wants to add questions can and we all give our own answers.

I like it!

[Sinisdar Toste]

first off, i like what gem is saying about the absence of god, and pastures bit on the reasons for suffering.

secondly i would like to state that i believe god, allah, brahma, the great spirit(but not buddha) whatever its called where your from is symbolic of the collective consciousness of human beings.

we all feel a connection to something greater than ourselves and with our characteristic need to label and quantify everything, we create deities and supreme beings. not saying i dont believe in one, i call it love(kinda cliche i know). if you replace god with love in Gems post about adam and eve, it still makes a little sense. not saying love definitively created the universe, but if the flying spaghetti monster could...

the way i see it god=love, and when people sin, they aint lovin very much.

my definition of sin is, however, much looser than most.

toste- yeah yeah, i believe in a thing called love

[pastures]

Well Toste, that's not so different from Christianity. Christians believe that a sentient being created the universe, but it was created out of and for love. So love definitely is the driving force behind creation.

Also bear in mind that the concept of sin makes no sense without an absolute standard of good. That is, God. Without that absolute standard, then everything is permissible and there is no sin.

The Christian definition of sin is slightly different from the popular conception of sin, though. Christians believe that sin is not doing "evil" or "bad" things. Rather, sin is ANYTHING that causes us to live apart from God. Thus, the consequence of sin is separation from God. (sounds a lot like Gem's definition eh?) That is why Christians believe that sin leads to death. The death here refers to a spiritual death that results from a spiritual separation from God, who is the source of life (particularly spiritual life).

Thus, sin can actually be something good, such as loving your mother. But if you love your mother more than you love God, then that constitutes separation from God and is, hence, sin.

So, in essence what i'm trying to say is that your definition of sin is pretty much in line with the Christian definition of sin in that 1) it is a broad definition, and 2) sinners aren't loving very much - but in this case we mean they are not loving God enough (and by extension not loving people enough since God commands Christians to love others).

Neq: Sorry. I've been very busy lately. Will get down to writing that Q&A thread some time....

[Bauchelain the Evil]

Thelomen Toblerone;260030 said:

I've never ever heard a religious person use the "testing" excuse. It's always been the free-will thing that I hear, which seems logically consistent with their beliefs.

Really I've heard it so much time that I' m so sick with it! What should God test? He' s omniscient, He knows everything!What answer does He want from us?Maybwe He was too bored staying there alone and He created us just to enlight Himself . That is IF God exists...

[Trull's son]

Feels like I'm reading sword of truth again. good times...good times...

[Optimus Prime]

Well to me, being "God" would be kinda boring in a way. I mean, theoretically you can do anything, know everything, and nothing can harm you.....sounds kinda.....dull.

[Nequam]

Nah, your freaking god!
I'm sure you'd be able to find some fun, maybe create a world or too and watch as they evolve and slowly kill themselves...
Who knows! Maybe you could create a "fake" god who thinks he has all the powers you do, and watch as he makes his futile attempts to destroy you.

There are plenty of things to do, plus, you could always role play...

[Optimus Prime]

Maybe God created the "Devil" just for entertainment

It's such an elusive concept to even grasp. Our puny human minds can't do it.

[Cold Iron]

Xander;305111 said:

Maybe God created the "Devil" just for entertainment

It's such an elusive concept to even grasp. My puny human mind can't do it.

What?