Originally posted by Zahlanzi
absolute benevolence doesn't mean you don't allow suffering. sometimes there is a bigger picture. a parent will not rush to his kid's aid whenever he scrapes his knees. he might allow him to deal with the pain on his own and become stronge so the next time the child will either learn to avoid getting hurt or will deal better with perhaps an even bigger pain ough, but the next. you struggle through this one so you can appreciate the next.
absolute benevolence doesn't mean you don't allow suffering. sometimes there is a bigger picture. a parent will not rush to his kid's aid whenever he scrapes his knees. he might allow him to deal with the pain on his own and become stronge so the next time the child will either learn to avoid getting hurt or will deal better with perhaps an even bigger pain. there is nothign sadder than a 20 year old mama's boy who never experienced hardship and then crumbles at the first difficulty he encounters. and i believe it would be even sadder if that "let mommy take care of you" persists for ever. i would find such an existance demeaning and boring.
Let's remain focused on the particularly nasty situations where the `opportunity to grow' is a non issue, like for example, someone suffering a long and brutal death. It's all too easy to pick examples where you can put up a defence of some god's omni-ness in one specific case (and others) like it,
Reveal Hidden Contentand even these are far from watertight
but it has to hold for all cases - even the really grizzly ones. To this end, what is the bigger picture for people who, in one moment may have been living decent lives, and in the next are thrashing around in agony, dazed and confused, doing whatever they can (in vain) to stay alive as they are slowly dying half crushed and scorched under a pile of burning rubble in the wake of a terrorist explosion somewhere?
Further, a system which allows people the free will to do as they please is not consistent with a benevolent God - it is consistent with a god who desires the "who's the daddy!"' factor if people choose to be subservient to it of their own accord
i don't get " a system wich allows free will [...] is consistent with a god who desires the who's your daddy factor" . care to rephrase that? and assuming you claim that free will somehow forces god to step in and deny it (or be branded as a jerk), what would your solution be? force all people to do only good things? to effectively deny free will? what is the point of living if your actions are forced on you? where is the satisfaction of you accomplishing anything if god did it?
Basically I meant the free will as often described is to guarantee that people choose "God" of their own accord - an action which would bolster the already soaring ego of a god who set such a thing up.
Reveal Hidden ContentWhat I meant by the "who\'s the daddy!" factor is we could suppose it\'s sitting in the clouds somewhere thinking to itself "oh YEAH!!!..chalk up another believer for the God-meister! I\'m too good, just too damned good!!!"
I'm not seeing the problem that you have with either the suppression of (or even complete denial) of `free-will'. Firstly I'm a determinist so I don't actually believe true "free will" exists anyway - pseudo free will yes, but not truly untethered, undetermined (in some way) free will.
So long as the person is unaware that some sort of intervention is taking place that prevents them from choosing to be evil then from their own perspectives they are still choosing to be good; and live out their rewarding lives as they would if they were naturally good people anyway.
free will is a gift. it is by it that we live our lives as we deem right ( or at least under the ilusion that we have control), that we grow and prosper and accomplish great things as a civilization. us, not an outside force. that means you are a human being, and not a barbie doll in a giant cosmic doll house controlled by a supernatural force.
But I contend that's not a system consistent with an omnibenevolent god - a pragmatic god maybe,
Reveal Hidden Contentin *certain* cases that is
but not an omnibenevolent one; indeed that is a claim about god which carries strong implications about what it "ought to do" when suffering takes place. For example suppose your employer is decent person, pays you a comfortable wage and allows you the freedom to get on with and grow in your job, suppose you are actually pretty good at your job (to him you're difficult (not impossible) to replace) - then suppose you are struck down with a life-threatening affliction for which the treatment can only be carried out outside the health system you have access to and you can't afford it on your current wages. Is your employer "maximally benevolent"
Reveal Hidden Contentas far as such maximality can apply to humans
if, supposing he were not inconvenienced financially by helping out, just shrugs his shoulders content in the knowledge that your health ought not to be his problem?
Reveal Hidden Contentswap \"he\" for \"she\" if necessary
He might have been a good employer but does he deserve the title "maximally benevolent employer"? more deserving than one who put his hand in his pocket and gave you enough coin to get better!?
i thank god for what i was given. i thank god for the beauty of creation. i like to think that god is with me and is sad when i am sad and proud of me and happy when i overcome a difficulty. he is my friend and a silent observer. i don't ask for help from him because i feel it would be insulting to him, he already gave me more than enough.
this life is a life of suffering. of growth. what you ask for, god promisses. not in this life though, but the next. you struggle through this one so you can appreciate the next.
I acknowledge that's your own view on the nature of God and your own reservations about asking for or demanding help, but then given you're in a position to hold that view means your not not the sort of person who's life (soon to expire) has been defined pretty much, for example, by hunger and hopelessness.
Moreover you talk about the struggles in this life being such one will appreciate what's to come in the next; supposing I reserve my own skeptism here, I have to ask how much the relatively transient (but in some cases truly horrible) struggles living as a mortal really weigh in on ones eternal evaluation of how good it is to exist in the afterlife!
Making an example out of the unfortunate
02 Jun '11 11:45
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