Who is responsible?

[Peds nurse]

Imagine that a car manufacturing company, made the standard cars that we all drive today. It is equipped with a manual that tells the driver how to use the car efficiently. Although the car is equipped to engage in speeds of 120 miles per hour, the manual cautions the driver of the hazards of driving at such speeds.

Question for debate. Should the manufacturing company be held liable for people getting into accidents and sometimes causing death by driving at speeds not recommended?

I think we can translate this to the spiritual realm. Why should God be held accountable for people who make faulty decisions with their life, sometimes hurting or killing others?

[William]

[Replying to post 1 by Peds nurse]

Why should God be held accountable for people who make faulty decisions with their life, sometimes hurting or killing others?

Apparently according to some beliefs, indirectly GOD held himself responsible re the sacrifice of Jesus.

Should the manufacturers of plastic be held accountable for their part in the problem plastics are causing?

While looking for places in which to allocate blame, does the job of fixing anything ever really get done?

[steveb1]

Imagine that a car manufacturing company, made the standard cars that we all drive today. It is equipped with a manual that tells the driver how to use the car efficiently. Although the car is equipped to engage in speeds of 120 miles per hour, the manual cautions the driver of the hazards of driving at such speeds.

Question for debate. Should the manufacturing company be held liable for people getting into accidents and sometimes causing death by driving at speeds not recommended?

I think we can translate this to the spiritual realm. Why should God be held accountable for people who make faulty decisions with their life, sometimes hurting or killing others?

I myself have never heard it said that God is responsible for people's bad choices. However, I do think that, **IF** God is a creator (which I doubt) then God the Creator does bear the ultimate responsibility for all creaturely suffering, especially if we are talking about YHWH the biblical God.

My own (panentheist) view is that God is not a creator and therefore cannot be praised or blamed for the world that "He" never created in the first place. And that would include human "sin" and evil. Humankind found out about human evil without any supernatural intervention, whether by a creator deity or a wily serpent. The qualities of good and evil are simply inherent elements in human nature and the human condition.

A creator can and should be blamed for the existence of human evil if only because - if the creator is all-powerful / and / all-knowing / and all-loving - then "He" could easily have designed a world whose conditions excluded moral evil. ("He" could also have designed a world that excluded natural evils such as forest/grass fires, plagues, earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches, landslides, disease, harmful bacteria, disease, injury, aging and death. But that's a separate but related topic.)

Inasmuch as human evil is partially derived from the putative creator's failure to prevent human (and natural evil) from occurring; or inasmuch as the putative creator saw fit to even, simply, allow for the possibility of evil, then - although human beings can be greatly responsible for the evil they do - the creator remains the ultimate source, and therefore the ultimate object of blame, for evil.

[bluethread]

[quote="[url=http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?

Inasmuch as human evil is partially derived from the putative creator's failure to prevent human (and natural evil) from occurring; or inasmuch as the putative creator saw fit to even, simply, allow for the possibility of evil, then - although human beings can be greatly responsible for the evil they do - the creator remains the ultimate source, and therefore the ultimate object of blame, for evil.[/quote]

OK, now what? What is one to do with this information, if it is true?

[steveb1]

[quote="[url=http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?

Inasmuch as human evil is partially derived from the putative creator's failure to prevent human (and natural evil) from occurring; or inasmuch as the putative creator saw fit to even, simply, allow for the possibility of evil, then - although human beings can be greatly responsible for the evil they do - the creator remains the ultimate source, and therefore the ultimate object of blame, for evil.

OK, now what? What is one to do with this information, if it is true?[/quote]

As I indicated, I don't think it is true. That's because although I believe that God is real, I deny that God is a creator, intervener or judge. Thus God can't be blamed for the world's evils or praised for the world's goodness. The creation, maintenance of, and intervention in, the world is simply not part of God's job description.

Having said that, suppose that I am wrong and that a divine (as opposed to an alien Hacker organism) Creator exists and is the cause of cosmic and creaturely suffering. You quite legitimately ask what one would do with this information. Several alternatives suggest themselves -

1 Metaphysical/spiritual rebellion, i.e., thwart, as much as possible, the mindless cycles of force that the Creator so unjustly imposed on us. This would include breaking the Torah's Commandments - if one conceives the Creator to be YHWH.

2 Find a metaphysics and/or a religious system that contains and inculcates the principles embedded in point 1 above - Christian Gnosticism discounts the Creator as a mere "Demiurge" and false God, while holding to a one, true, non-creating "True Father" who has nothing to do with the evil Demiurge's creation; or Buddhism, in which there is no single, high creator deity, and in which gods are considered inferior to the Buddhas.

3 Acknowledge our cosmic victimhood and despair, or take the Stoic route of humble, patient, wise endurance until death removes us from the Demiurge's cruel world.

[bluethread]

1 Metaphysical/spiritual rebellion, i.e., thwart, as much as possible, the mindless cycles of force that the Creator so unjustly imposed on us. This would include breaking the Torah's Commandments - if one conceives the Creator to be YHWH.

That would be an option. However, if Adonai is indeed that powerful, that is rather futile.

2 Find a metaphysics and/or a religious system that contains and inculcates the principles embedded in point 1 above - Christian Gnosticism discounts the Creator as a mere "Demiurge" and false God, while holding to a one, true, non-creating "True Father" who has nothing to do with the evil Demiurge's creation; or Buddhism, in which there is no single, high creator deity, and in which gods are considered inferior to the Buddhas.

Sure, but I could only see that as a practical option, if one believed in those other philosophies to begin with. If one thinks that Adonai does exist, holding another philosophy out of spite seems be to creating a duplicitious existence of one's own creation.

3 Acknowledge our cosmic victimhood and despair, or take the Stoic route of humble, patient, wise endurance until death removes us from the Demiurge's cruel world.

So, does HaTorah not call us to a humble, patient, wise endurance until death anyway? The only difference is one's attitude, victimhood and dispair, or faith and hope. To be honest that appears to have been the lot of Adonai's people all along. In fact, isn't that what Shlomo tells us in Ecclesiasties, when he says, "all is vanity and vexation of spirit" and "Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind."

[Peds nurse]

[Replying to post 1 by Peds nurse]

Why should God be held accountable for people who make faulty decisions with their life, sometimes hurting or killing others?

Apparently according to some beliefs, indirectly GOD held himself responsible re the sacrifice of Jesus.

That was more of a heroic testimony to the love that God has for us.

Should the manufacturers of plastic be held accountable for their part in the problem plastics are causing?

William, I am sorry, but I am going to have to come clean. I didn't really know that plastics were creating a problem. I don't watch television..or really read the news. If plastics are creating a problem, then yes, I would say the manufacturers certainly have a part in that. I feel however, that this isn't the same as people speeding recklessly down the highway. Plastic can't make a choice.

While looking for places in which to allocate blame, does the job of fixing anything ever really get done?

I agree with your statement with blame, but all to often I see where people are blaming God for the state of our world. Perhaps that is why nothing is getting done to improve it?

[steveb1]

[Replying to post 6 by bluethread]

"If one thinks that Adonai does exist, holding another philosophy out of spite seems be to creating a duplicitious existence of one's own creation."

Agreed, at least partially. Just as I can see a war protester's revolt leading him/her into a morally acceptable peace movement, so, too, I can see someone rebelling against the Creator, whether a pagan or Jewish one, who (like the peace activist) "journeys beyond mere rebellion" and authentically converts to one of the Gnostic sects that taught that while Adonai/YHWH is real, he is merely the creator of a paltry, infested world, and not all-powerful. The real God being the Gnostic True Father, the Silence, the Abyss and all the other names by which he was called, to whom the Gnostic soul unites in this life and flies to in the next life.

[Dimmesdale]

A creator can and should be blamed for the existence of human evil if only because - if the creator is all-powerful / and / all-knowing / and all-loving - then "He" could easily have designed a world whose conditions excluded moral evil. ("He" could also have designed a world that excluded natural evils such as forest/grass fires, plagues, earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches, landslides, disease, harmful bacteria, disease, injury, aging and death. But that's a separate but related topic.)

Playing "angel's advocate" as it were, I take it the Christian would respond in this kind of manner:

Mankind has been begotten in the Original Sin of our First Parents; thus hopelessly Depraved. And therefore, whatever the state of Nature might be, it is much less than we deserve due to our Inherent Depravity.

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23

I'm wondering how you would respond as a former Christian....

[bluethread]

[Replying to post 6 by bluethread]

"If one thinks that Adonai does exist, holding another philosophy out of spite seems be to creating a duplicitious existence of one's own creation."

Agreed, at least partially. Just as I can see a war protester's revolt leading him/her into a morally acceptable peace movement, so, too, I can see someone rebelling against the Creator, whether a pagan or Jewish one, who (like the peace activist) "journeys beyond mere rebellion" and authentically converts to one of the Gnostic sects that taught that while Adonai/YHWH is real, he is merely the creator of a paltry, infested world, and not all-powerful. The real God being the Gnostic True Father, the Silence, the Abyss and all the other names by which he was called, to whom the Gnostic soul unites in this life and flies to in the next life.

No, you do not understand. I think you are conflating peace protest with violent pacifism. Not all peace protesters are pacifists and not all protests are violent. If one holds that violence is an innate part of the human experience, then that person being a pacifist is duplicitious and futile. However, if one does not believe that violence is not an inherent part of the human experience, then, even if one is surrounded by violence, being a pacifist is not duplicitious and not necessarily futile.