* A God that wanted children to die horrible deaths in the holocaust is a monster-God.
* A God that predestined such torture and death is a monster-God.
* A God that could’ve prevented that torture and death, but did not want to is a monster-God.
* A God who designed the universe in such a way that an event like the holocaust is necessary for a greater good, is simply perverse.
* A God who values free-will so much that it is worth the torture of innocents to maintain is perverse.
And, since all of the above fall into the realm of human behavior, let’s take earthquakes, volcanoes, viruses…
I can understand someone bowing down to such a God out of fear—but to worship and praise and love such a God: that too would be perverse.
And if you say who am I to judge God, I say to you: “What kind of person are you that you would not judge such a God? What kind of person would love and worship such a God?”
* A God that wanted to prevent such torture and death but could not, is not all-powerful.
* A God that we can’t understand is simply a God that we can’t understand, and therefore cannot talk about at all—at least not sensibly. Why would anyone worship what they cannot understand?
“Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1st John 4:8) Now this verse does not say God is loving, or that God is capable of love, or sometimes loves and sometimes does not. This is not a statement of an attribute, such as God is just, or God is jealous, or God is blond—it is a statement of essence. Or else it is simply bad grammar—or else it is simply wrong. God either is love or not. Take your pick. If God’s essence is love, then every other attribute and action of God must serve that essence (or you have a schizophrenic God).
And don’t bother going to that “you want a warm and fuzzy” God stuff—if you think that is all that love is (agape—and, yes, eros too, which is included in agape; agape is not dispassionate), warm and fuzzy feelings, then I’d have to say that you don’t know what love is, or have a very paltry understanding of it.
Here’s the deal:
(1) God is love or not.
(2) Cruelty and torture are part of God’s plan or they are not.
(3) God is either all-powerful or God is not.
(4) We can either understand what God is about or we cannot (and hence should shut up about it).
Now, you can put together “God is love” with “God is not all-powerful” and make sense, for example. You cannot put together “God is love” and “cruelty and torture are part of God’s plan” and make any sense at all. So, how do you put these together to make sense? How do you put these together to picture a God that you can both understand and love—passionately and freely love—without making yourself monstrous in the process? That’s a serious question, because I think some “Christian worldviews,” while being logically consistent, seem also to be so cold and dispassionate as to approach the psychotic. (Maybe Calvin had his own psychosis.)
Originally posted by vistesdYikes, spell it out ...
* A God that wanted children to die horrible deaths in the holocaust is a monster-God.
* A God that predestined such torture and death is a monster-God.
* A God that could’ve prevented that torture and death, but did not want to is a monster-God.
* A God who designed the universe in such a way that an event like the holocaust is necessary for a grea ...[text shortened]... e so cold and dispassionate as to approach the psychotic. (Maybe Calvin had his own psychosis.)
It needed saying.
Originally posted by vistesdSince you are not enough of a "Christian" to have received your Secret Decoder Ring, you obviously don't understand as well as the "Christians" here God's mysteries. However, if you start running around saying you're "saved" and are "going to Heaven" and stop thinking in a rational manner about these things, it will all become crystal clear to you through the intervention of the Holy Spirit.
* A God that wanted children to die horrible deaths in the holocaust is a monster-God.
* A God that predestined such torture and death is a monster-God.
* A God that could’ve prevented that torture and death, but did not want to is a monster-God.
* A God who designed the universe in such a way that an event like the holocaust is necessary for a grea ...[text shortened]... e so cold and dispassionate as to approach the psychotic. (Maybe Calvin had his own psychosis.)
Originally posted by vistesdDo you then believe God is powerless to prevent suffering?
* A God that wanted children to die horrible deaths in the holocaust is a monster-God.
* A God that predestined such torture and death is a monster-God.
* A God that could’ve prevented that torture and death, but did not want to is a monster-God.
* A God who designed the universe in such a way that an event like the holocaust is necessary for a grea ...[text shortened]... e so cold and dispassionate as to approach the psychotic. (Maybe Calvin had his own psychosis.)
Originally posted by no1marauderI wish I could send you one, but I don't have that authority.
Since you are not enough of a "Christian" to have received your Secret Decoder Ring, you obviously don't understand as well as the "Christians" here God's mysteries. However, if you start running around saying you're "saved" and are "going to Heaven" and stop thinking in a rational manner about these things, it will all become crystal clear to you through the intervention of the Holy Spirit.
Originally posted by ColettiI see nothing irrational with a conclusion that "God is a SOB" IF you believe that he purposely intended to inflict massive amounts of suffering on lesser creatures. I would call someone who pulled the wings off flies an SOB (meaning a "cruel person" in slang), so why is it "irrational" to call someone who inflicts tons more suffering on more intelligent creatures than a fly an SOB?
I don't affirm irrational conclusions. ... too boring. 😉
Originally posted by Colettiheh, now you're dodging. There are only two answers here, Col. There is suffering in the world. This is undeniable (go ahead and try, if it pleases you):
I don't affirm irrational conclusions. ... too boring. 😉
A) God is all powerful, and can choose to stop the suffering. He does not.
B) God is powerless to stop the suffering.
Would you care to define an option C?
Originally posted by David CColetti adopts A and the Calvinist psychosis.
heh, now you're dodging. There are only two answers here, Col. There is suffering in the world. This is undeniable (go ahead and try, if it pleases you):
A) God is all powerful, and can choose to stop the suffering. He does not.
B) God is powerless to stop the suffering.
Would you care to define an option C?
Originally posted by ColettiI don’t know if God is powerless over some things or not (for example, if human beings through acts of disobedience and wickedness were able to defeat God’s purpose for universal salvation). My point is that I don’t see how anyone can reconcile “God is love” with any of the following—
Do you then believe God is powerless to prevent suffering?
—God does not desire to prevent torturous suffering.
—God could prevent torturous suffering but simply chooses not to arbitrarily (a kind of dispassionate unconcern).
—God so designed the cosmos that torturous suffering is necessary for some “greater good” (i.e., that such suffering was part of God’s plan to begin with).
I do not see why such a God would be worthy of worship (unless one worships grand power for its own sake or out of terror). I do not see how such a God would be worthy of freely-given love.
Let me make it personal: I love my wife deeply and passionately (agape, eros and philia all rolled into one, if you will). Under a model of (double) predestination, my wife may very well be predestined to eternal damnation from the beginning of time. I can, of course, hope she isn’t; I can believe she isn’t—but there is nothing either she or I or anyone else can do change it. Now I cannot both love my wife and love a God who would cast her into hell without rending the fabric of my sanity and my soul. I don’t see how anybody could—in fact, I don’t think anybody can.
So, you have a choice: (1) God is not “that kind of God,” or (2) God is monstrous, or (3) God is powerless to prevent torturous suffering, or (4) God is something so far beyond our understanding that we ought to cease our God-talk altogether; (2) makes God unworthy of our worship and love; (4) puts God beyond our ability to worship or love; (1) and (3) keep the possibility of worship and love. If there’s a choice I’m missing, I’ll be happy to entertain it.
The God described by the Calvinist “worldview,” so far as I understand it thus far, does not desire universal salvation; does not have any real regard for humanity, but dispensed pre-ordained grace more or less on the basis of whim; and deliberately created a universe with terrible suffering and eternal damnation. Such a God is monstrous, and to give such a God worship and (especially) love would also be monstrous. The only alternatives I see are either that none of these things describes God, or that God is not all-powerful (or, what comes to the same thing, that God was “defeated” by some failure in the created order).
There is a line from the Tao Te Ching, which goes: “The Tao treats human beings as straw dogs.” That seems as if it could apply to the God you seem to describe. Taoists, however, are not called upon to worship or love the Tao, only to try to find a harmonious way of living in it.