What is God responsible for?

[Willum]

Many things were done in God's name:
But what is he responsible for?

When the Catholic Nazi Germany attempts a genocide, a man is blamed.
When Hebrews commit genocide on the Canaan, it is his will.

We have plagues, on Catholic countries, for example. The Dark Ages were committed in Yahweh's name. Were they?

Why would Yahweh plunge the civilization of Rome, with health, farming and sanitation, back into the primitive squalor of ancient Jerusalem, if so?

If not, why did he not stop such a terror? It seems to be in His purview.

How does one determine if an act is done in God's will, or men's will?
Does the Bible tell us?

Understanding that free will is a constraint - we can also understand that mob's and large numbers of people lose free will, does this fall into God's purview, then?

In short, how does one know what God is responsible for;
Any group decision?
A decision influenced by prayer?

The position is that presented by Romans 13:

Obey the rulers who have authority over you. Only God can give authority to anyone, and he puts these rulers in their places of power. 2 People who oppose the authorities are opposing what God has done, and they will be punished. 3 Rulers are a threat to evil people, not to good people. There is no need to be afraid of the authorities. Just do right, and they will praise you for it. 4 After all, they are God’s servants, and it is their duty to help you.

The position of the OP is: those atrocities committed by governments, God's will, and he is responsible for them.

[Willum]

[Replying to hoghead1]

Well, I am glad that, I took all that effort and described a feasible way forward, and you say you do not agree.

Very powerful. I can reference that, I can point out to all the world that HH saw this approach that doesn't have impossible magical beings (but that you do find plausible) in it and in his opinion, without backing it up by anything but his opinion, he didn't agree, and that impossible magical beings are a better way forward.

I think you have change my mind, nay, the entire world, for all I need to do now is reference those few sentences of yours, that and based on your opinion and no back-up, we can convert the entire world to Creationists , if not actually pure and good religionists.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 196 by Willum]

No, that is nowhere good enough for me. I do not agree that through randomness you get startling accurate pictures of ducks or any of that. I also know that blind, mechanical forces can produce no beauty. It takes the mind of a sensitive artist with great feeling to do that. The universe is a wondrous place. Therefore, it was created by a Cosmic Artist, not blind, random forces.

Just another take.

Blind mechanical forces produce beauty all the time. Artists capture this all the time. All an artist does is reproduce what is around them. The universe IS wondrous.

Even more wondrous without a creator.

[marco]

Blind mechanical forces produce beauty all the time. Artists capture this all the time. All an artist does is reproduce what is around them. The universe IS wondrous.

Modern artists invariably fail to capture what might be called beauty.
Blind mechanical machines may produce something that we can see as beautiful but beauty is entirely in the mind of the human observer. We may all agree that what we see is beautiful - or ugly - but these are simply human descriptions. Neither Nature nor God produced beauty; man did by classifying it.

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 198 by marco]

OK, so let me see if I correctly understand your position. You seem to be saying you are agnostic, up in the air as to whether there is or is not a God, right? If so, I would be interested in hearing your comments on the arguments for God's existence. What is your justification for your skepticism?

You said that "the use of hypothesis testing in finite domains was inapplicable." Could you elaborate that further? Doesn't science work from very limited populations, generalizing from there?

You said you don't care what some scientists think. Are you saying you aren't interested in science or what? That was a comment I made, regarding an important point in modern science: Is there intelligent life out there I'm talking about SETI. Are you saying you are not interested in such a major project? Another major issue I was addressing here is that fact atheistic scientists will argue order in the universe is purely due to chance or blind laws, rather than ID, then turn right around and say that a few simple beeps will show intelligent life. To me, that points to major hypocrisy in atheistic thinking. Maybe I didn't make that clear enough in my previous post, but that was my point.

I am interested in asking teh Big Questions. And it is true many will jeer at myself and others who do so. The search for reality has broken down into multiple, technical fields, the proponents of which seem to be extremely territorial. Not only do they refuse to talk to one another, but they wouldn't know what to say if they did. Many will tell you that striving to see the Big Picture is an absurdity, like asking sic blind men to describe an elephant. Nevertheless, I firmly believe that if we do not even try to see the Big Picture, however abstract or imaginative it may be, we humans become sick, fragmented.

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 199 by marco]

"It doesn't mean any such thing"? You know that how?

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 200 by marco]

Speak for yourself. Others of us do know.

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 201 by Willum]

In my Post 197, I provided you with solid reasons why I did not find your approach satisfying. If you wish to offer a rebuttal, you can. And that means you will have to show how blind, mechanical forces can produce beauty, which you have yet to do.

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 202 by Willum]

"Blind mechanical forces produce beauty all the time"? You know that how? Know any great blind painters?

You say artists just copy what's around them. You know that how?

[hoghead1]

[Replying to post 203 by marco]

The idea od beauty as merely in the eyes to the beholder has a long lineage. It dates back to Aristotle's substance metaphysics, whereby we are all windowless monads, wholly enclosed within ourselves. Nothing in or out. Hence, our emotions of beauty, as are all emotions, are simply private things just floating around in our own heads and no place else. However, there has been a major change in our worldview, whereby we have moved into a fundamentally relational understanding of reality. We are not but ships that bump in the night, if that. We enter into one another. We are all relational beings. Every entity is an item in the real internal constitution of every other.

The traditional empiricist approach, dating back at least to Locke, argued for a strict dichotomy between the primary and secondary qualities. The primary qualities are objective, out there. The secondary qualities, the aesthetic art of life, are purely in us, purely subjective, say nothing about what's out there. The taste, the smell, the sound, the feel, the color of something is purely in our heads and no place else. Problem is, as Berkeley and others have noted, those same arguments that write off the secondary qualities as purely imaginative also write off the primary ones as well. Snip a nerve and you don't wee color. Well, snip another and there is no perception of push either. All perceived qualities are in the same boat, to sink or swim together. Indeed, how unfortunate it is that we are equipped to see things that aren't really there. And how unfortunate it is that we live in a bland, colorless world.

[marco]

[Replying to post 200 by marco]

Speak for yourself. Others of us do know.

I'm afraid you would be using the verb "to know" with a meaning it is denied in any dictionary. You can have strong feelings of belief but, like the Tower of Babel, they don't reach the heaven of certainty. I can see you claim certainty but this claim is debateable. Sadly.