A God that is love? Devil is evil?

Eddie.Brooke · Post by **Eddie.Brooke** » Fri Apr 16, 2010 8:26 pm

My Fiance and i have come up with many questions between the two of us. and boy am i glad i found this forum.

ok here are the questions and i really don't want to start a whole lot of crap but i welcome it at the same time.

1. If God is supposed to be all love and forgiveness then how do you explain the following?
sodom and gammora (forgive my spelling), the FLOOD, his Only son, Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, world war 1 and 2, war in Iraq, ok war in general.
now it would seem to me that if "God" is love then he would stop the pain and suffering that comes with death in general. as far as i can think of there have been more killings and deaths done in the name if "God" than any other label.

2. if Satan "Lucifer" the Devil what ever you want to name him / her. then why is it that people that pray/worship him / her are usually the nicest people you will ever meet. and are 9 times out of 10 the quiet ones that stay out of everyone else's business. and when was the last time that you heard in the news that a bunch of satanic people were burning down a church?

now just to add my a little bit of my own piece of mind. there are all these religious groups and or religious affiliated groups that do nothing but as a collective (not on the person to person level because not everyone within a label is as zealous as the label describes) seem to do nothing but get in trouble by doing things that are usually either deadly (lynching, church burning, genocide, ect.) illegal ( cross burnings, vandalism, ect.) and so on.

i feel like i am rambling here so i will leave it at this for now and if needed i will add as responses come. thanks in advance for any and all comments and questions.

Kuan · Post by **Kuan** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 4:01 pm

mgb wrote:Suffering and evil exist because the human mind is corrupt (the fall). It is our task to overcome our corruption by becoming perfect again.

Hey, and welcome to the forum. Just want to remind you that people are going to ask you to back up how you know that the mind is corrupt and stuff like that so be prepared to defend what you believe.

LiamOS · Post by **LiamOS** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 4:04 pm

And on that note, I'll ask him to back it up.

Seriously, suffering exists because that's the way life works, and the reason it's still prevalent is because people are horrible.

Kuan · Post by **Kuan** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 4:08 pm

Aki-

Im just curious, if we are inherently evil because of the fall, would that not take away from free agency and our choice to be good?

LiamOS · Post by **LiamOS** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 4:11 pm

That presumes that we have free agency to begin with.
The truth is that we have no more or no less freedom of choice than a watch.

But yes, if you presume both than that conclusion does seem to follow.

Kuan · Post by **Kuan** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 4:13 pm

AkiThePirate wrote:That presumes that we have free agency to begin with.
The truth is that we have no more or no less freedom of choice than a watch.

But yes, if you presume both than that conclusion does seem to follow.

So you believe that we have no free agency to begin with? How do we know that we dont have it, I can do whatever I want to right now. Does that mean if I wanted to commit suicide, it would be useless to try and stop me?

LiamOS · Post by **LiamOS** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 4:15 pm

It means that 'you' are nothing more than a very complex structure of six particles interacting through four forces. There's no reason to assume otherwise.

As for your example, using those examples to argue for free will isn't relevant due to the nature of the problem.

Kuan · Post by **Kuan** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 4:18 pm

What is the nature of the problem then? Also, im assuming that you believe that we act the way we do because of chemical balances in us? Am I correct?

LiamOS · Post by **LiamOS** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 4:23 pm

The problem is that it is impossible to demonstrate a disconnect between the human cognitive and motor processes and the physical universe.
As such, it follows that the human mind and body are both functions of physical interactions. Something I find ironic is that those who hold onto the cosmological argument necessitate causality and as such necessitate causal determinism.

I'm not a causal determinist, and I can make a case for my position. But unless there's something I'm missing, we do not have the capacity to do anything other than what we were going to do.

Goat · Post by **Goat** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 7:55 pm

AkiThePirate wrote:That presumes that we have free agency to begin with.
The truth is that we have no more or no less freedom of choice than a watch.

But yes, if you presume both than that conclusion does seem to follow.

Really?? I know that determinism claims that.. but can you provide an experiment that backs that up?

LiamOS · Post by **LiamOS** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 8:01 pm

It's not all too difficult to show that matter interacts through four forces and that these interactions are probabilistic.
I have a funny feeling that you are requesting a proof that this is applicable to a human, however.
Given your challenge, I don't think you'll simply accept:
Humans are made of matter, matter does not exhibit choice.

What exactly are you requesting that I show?