A Robot Alligator and God.

[Divine Insight]

Let's say that I build a robot alligator. I design it to look and act just like a real alligator. I program it to attack and devour anything that moves. Then I set it loose into the world.

The robot alligator eventually encounters a human child playing by the edge of the water. The child is moving so the alligator attacks the child and devours the child. Authorities just happen to see the whole event and capture the robot alligator. They quickly discover that it is indeed a robot and not a real alligator. They also discover that I am the one who designed it, built it, programmed it, and set it loose where it could potentially harm humans.

What do you think would happen to me? I would instantly be arrested of course, and viewed as a heinous criminal who had done a very bad thing indeed. I would most likely get life imprisonment or worse.

But just look around at the real world and the real alligators. If the world was created by a God then God has done precisely what I described above. God designed and created alligators that are programmed to attack and eat anything that moves, including humans.

So why is it that, as a human, if I create an alligator and set it loose in the world I am considered to be a heinous criminal, but it's perfectly fine for a God to do precisely the same thing?

Question for Debate: Why the double standard?

[ttruscott]

- no innocent person ever suffers, ie, only those guilty of evil suffer

So, are you claiming that Jesus never suffered or that he was guilty of evil?

I don't see how you can suggest this in light of the time you have spent here with Christian theology - but I'll take you at face value and presume you are not just going for some cheap shot. No, Christ is unique and is in His own category of sinless suffering.

Additionally, Jesus disagrees with this. He admits that this blind man's suffering was not the result of sin:

John 9:1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?� 3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,� said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

The fact that He ascribed the man's being born blind so as to set up the glory of GOD in that healing a man born blind was supposedly one of the 3 or 4 miracles only the Messiah would be able to do, doesn't absolve the man from sin in the least nor does it deny the idea that we may experience the effects of sins done before our birth. Jesus just said his blindness was not due to sin, not that his earthly life was not due to sin.

You have obviously created a rather complex theology, but it is just as obvious that it is not founded on a Biblical based Christianity. The Bible teaches that God causes suffering amongst the sin free.

This interpretation is not accepted as Biblical by most denominations and is contrary to the revealed attributes of GOD as I see them so I reject it. What innocents do you suggest it says suffer?

[Guy Threepwood]

[Replying to post 1 by Divine Insight]

If you buy a child a bike, and they get in an accident and hurt themselves, are you a heinous criminal?

[Tcg]

- no innocent person ever suffers, ie, only those guilty of evil suffer

So, are you claiming that Jesus never suffered or that he was guilty of evil?

No, Christ is unique and is in His own category of sinless suffering.

You've just admitted that your previous claim is false given that an innocent Jesus suffered.

Additionally, Jesus disagrees with this. He admits that this blind man's suffering was not the result of sin:

John 9:1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?� 3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,� said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Jesus just said his blindness was not due to sin, not that his earthly life was not due to sin.

Let's stick to what he did say, shall we?

He said, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned."

You have obviously created a rather complex theology, but it is just as obvious that it is not founded on a Biblical based Christianity. The Bible teaches that God causes suffering amongst the sin free.

What innocents do you suggest it says suffer?

Both Jesus and the blind man as I have already detailed.

[William]

So why is it that, as a human, if I create an alligator and set it loose in the world I am considered to be a heinous criminal, but it's perfectly fine for a God to do precisely the same thing?

Question for Debate: Why the double standard?

The apparent double standard comes from the fact that laws are often written as a means of punishing naturalism for behaving naturally.

Why this has occurred has to do with human society attempting to subjugate the circumstances of life in order to control their environment that they are more safe from the harm that environment can bring them.

If there is a creator-GOD responsible for the creation of this environment, the reason one cannot bring that entity to justice under human laws is because there is no direct way in which to do so.

If that entity occupies the form of the earth - the planet itself (as I think is the case) then how is one to punish said entity? Destroy its form? Perhaps that is one underlying reason for why human beings appear to be in the process of attempting this destruction? At subconscious levels humans are bitter and twisted about their circumstance and want it dead?

Generally any wild animal which goes rouge and becomes a man-eater is hunted and destroyed. Generally humans have learned to deal with the unsafe environment and if anything, have become the biggest threat to that environment as a result.

This is precisely what I was pointing at in the thread "Is Jehovah Really the Nazi King people image him to be?" where I wrote in the OP blurb;

I often think about the rise of the Nazi and see that the event had major consequences on the western mind-set (psyche) to which it is seldom spoken about in terms which help us understand ourselves and our ideas of GOD, even as displayed in the imagery of the OT God-concept.

Are we being a little hard on ourselves in relation to our general self/other-perceptions and is this hardness brought about because we are too afraid to see the ugly face to face and this consistent inherent lack of bravery only serves to increase our fearfulness, as a species?

Will our ongoing circumstances force us to face our self and its accompanying imagery of God in a way which neither dies out and both transform?

Is it the nature of sin to be stupid? Is to be stupid inevitably death? - A thing which science is attempting to breed out of us? Certainly such is on the table...

Perhaps the best course is to learn how to look at all things without the judgement of 'good' or 'evil' as seen through its hazy lens, and just face what is obvious with the same amount of focus as on what isn't.

In that way, perhaps the merging of the two can be accomplished and stupid can become more cleaver as a consequence.

Going by what you also wrote in post #7 DI, I suspect that our interaction in the other thread has prompted you to create this thread?

What you are telling me is that your favorite God cannot be trusted. He's evil, and basically no better than someone like Adolf Hitler. I'm willing to bet that your God casts people who refuse to obey him into a fiery furnace too.

So the God you are trying to sell is no better than Hitler.

Hitler had a "Higher Plan" too. He wanted to make the world "Perfect", filled with only blue-eyed, blond-haired Germans. You might thing that doesn't found very good if you don't happen to be a blue-eyed blond-haired German. But fear not, Hitler has a plan for you! You can be a slave to blue-eyed blond-haired Germans. Very Happy

See, Hitler has a plan for you. And it's not up to you to like that plan. You are supposed to humble yourself, give yourself over entirely to Hitler's WILL, and be thankful for whatever he sees fit to give you in return.

Sound familiar?

[ttruscott]

[Replying to post 18 by ttruscott]

While in heaven while others were trying to make up their minds about all this they tried to induce the elect into sinning..........

What sins can be committed in heaven?.

Ummm, your quote is from my list of heavenly sins... <shrug>

[ttruscott]

You've just admitted that your previous claim is false given that an innocent Jesus suffered.

I just said that I was not including Jesus when I said no innocent suffered as His category is unique.

[Tcg]

You've just admitted that your previous claim is false given that an innocent Jesus suffered.

I just said that I was not including Jesus when I said no innocent suffered as His category is unique.

Then your claim:

"- no innocent person ever suffers, ie, only those guilty of evil suffer"

Is flawed by both your reasoning and mine.

[PinSeeker]

God brought man into this world. God. Not man.

Right, and man disobeyed God. Man. Disobeyed. God. Gee, I hope I wasn't unclear...

I challenge you to show you speak truth in this regard, and have conveniently set up an OP just so's ya can.

I'm not sure what you need... I mean, God told Adam not to eat from the tree, but yet he did. He disobeyed. Do you need Scriptural proof? Okay:

The LORD God commanded the man, saying, 'From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat...'

[1213]

The answer to this question may give us a hint as to why you don't understand the very real danger alligators pose.

I understand that alligators can be dangerous. I also understand that they are not all-powerful and there is ways to avoid problems.

Given that I live in Ohio, I'm not terribly afraid of Polar Bears.

So, you are saying that you would fear terribly polar bears, if they would live near you?

Finland has about as many polar bears as alligators. Even if they would exist in my back yard, I think there is no reason to fear. Obviously, it would be wise to be careful, but as s disciple of Jesus, nothing of this world should be feared.

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matt. 10:28

All of this is simply a diversion to distract from the very real issues the OP presents. Perhaps at some point you'll attempt to address them.

Please tell, what is the real issue, if not mechanical alligators?

[1213]

So then if I build robot alligators and set them loose I shouldn't be held responsible if they eat someone's kid right? That kid should have known to be careful.

That's your argument?

You said also: “I design it to look and act just like a real alligator�. If it acts like real alligators, they would live in places were real alligators live. I don’t see ho they could be a problem.

If you set them to act surprisingly and so that people can’t beware of them, and your goal is to make them to harm people, then I think it is not the same thing as with the natural alligators.