My question is not "why", but rather "how"?

[Figures]

How can God allow, witness, and not prevent, the suffering, the pain, the horrid realities of our existence, and everything that is almost unanimously considered, and objectively experienced, as negative? Ex. Starvation to the point of death

 

I don't want to know why, I want to know how. 

 

The why is easy when you can't be held accountable for your actions. 

 

The how is much more difficult, to apologize for. 

 

I can accept the "why" reasoning behind God allowing for it according to standard apologetics, because your theology is compromised and rendered useless without free will. (Calvinists feel free to ignore this post)

However, with the absolute moral attributes you consider God to be endowed with, it baffles my brain that you even could, much less would choose not to recognize the fact that how your God operates is blatantly disappointing. I know I couldn't, and it's because I stopped removing myself from other people's suffering, and forced myself to accept the reality that if there is a God, he's not the one of the Christian faith. 

 

Try this exercise before you respond. 

 

Every 3 seconds a child dies, from poverty, starvation,  lack of oxygen at birth, etc. 

Take 2 minutes, or even 1, and every 3 seconds snap your fingers. 

With the full knowledge that with every snap of your fingers a child's last breath was just taken. 

And your God did nothing to stop it...

Has done nothing to stop it...

And will do nothing to stop it...

 

[Geezer]

It has been said that a God that cannot act in the face of evil is no different than a God that will not act. And that is probably a strong indication that God simply does not exist. 

[Joshpantera]

The Adventist's use extra biblical reasoning to address this. 

 

Founder and proclaimed prophet Ellen G. White claimed to have traveled through space, gone up to heaven, and that there's all variety of planets like earth out there. All of these other planets had their own gardens, and each passed the temptation trial. So all of the other planets out there with life are sinless. The only planet in all of existence who did not pass the trail of temptation in it's garden, is the earth. So god had to let sin completely play out on it's own without interfering, for the benefit of establishing that sin will completely unravel on it's own accord. Apparently after this all plays out to the end, and god finally destroys the devil, sin, and the grave, if it ever pops up again going forward he can destroy it immediately without being accused of being unjust for doing so, because, everyone will know the outcome of sin and agree that it's ok to wipe it out immediately thereafter. 

 

So any one using the opening argument against an SDA will be hard pressed to get anywhere with it. Unless they first tackle the issue of EG White and extra biblical reasoning and false prophecies first, and then proceed to the points. 

[Cousin Ricky]

Apologetics is so easy when you can just make shit up about God on the fly.

[Figures]

Lol, that whole idea just had me going "wat"

[Joshpantera]

Another issue is how people completely do think that god does intervene in the world. Something good happens, god is great! You see it everyday on social media. But when a baby dies of cancer, it's mysterious ways, beyond our knowing, happening for reasons that we're not aware of, etc. etc. And they also will claim godly intervention in negative situations where some one survives a car crash, a rape, a beating, etc. 

 

So clearly the question of how god stands by while children are dying can't be answered with saying he stands back and doesn't intervene, allowing free will to play out. There's a number of ways they claim that god does intervene, and I think that contradicts a complete free will scenario leaving room only for the claim of limited free will, if any at all. 

 

This narrows it down a little more. How can a god with the attributes attributed to him intervene in some cases, but not others? 

 

Babies are apparently not prior #1 on gods intervention in the world list? 

[ag_NO_stic]

A counter question, "How do *we* let it happen either?" The answer to yours is "Bible god doesn't exist, and so therefore, he can't."

 

But we all scrape excess food off our plates into the trash, overeat to the point of obesity, throw away ugly vegetables or day old bread, watch TV shows where contestants dive into huge containers of rice.....that has been resonating with me lately, I feel like a huge shithead.

[Orbit]

23 hours ago, ag_NO_stic said:

A counter question, "How do *we* let it happen either?" The answer to yours is "Bible god doesn't exist, and so therefore, he can't."

 

But we all scrape excess food off our plates into the trash, overeat to the point of obesity, throw away ugly vegetables or day old bread, watch TV shows where contestants dive into huge containers of rice.....that has been resonating with me lately, I feel like a huge shithead.

 

That is where secular humanism starts - asking ourselves why we. collectively are such shitheads to the poor and needy. The question becomes, what can any individual do to help, even in a small way. Voting for candidates who support humane social and environmental policies is a start. Get involved with your local Food Not Bombs chapter (they collect food from grocery stores that would be dumpstered and feed the homeless with it). There are things we can do, however small. Your question is an excellent one.

[florduh]

On 7/19/2017 at 10:47 AM, ag_NO_stic said:

But we all scrape excess food off our plates into the trash, overeat to the point of obesity, throw away ugly vegetables or day old bread, watch TV shows where contestants dive into huge containers of rice.....that has been resonating with me lately, I feel like a huge shithead.

We are not omnipotent and many of us just do what we can do. Growing enough food isn't the problem, distribution is. People have limitations despite best intentions. We can't feel guilty for having food available to us when others don't. 

[ag_NO_stic]

59 minutes ago, florduh said:

We are not omnipotent and many of us just do what we can do. Growing enough food isn't the problem, distribution is. People have limitations despite best intentions. We can't feel guilty for having food available to us when others don't. 

 

I agree that distribution is the problem. It's not that I feel "guilty," it just makes me ashamed for my contribution to the problem I guess. It makes me feel bad that I struggle to lose weight while other people are struggling to survive. Doesn't mean I'm going to like eat less, that will change nothing. I just want to help more than I have. 

[Guest]

@ag_NO_stic Your thoughts really resonate with me. I've enjoyed mission trips and I realize the work I've done with them is just a drop in the bucket. I may not be able to change the world,  but I can help to change the world of just a few people.

The problem for me is its hard to find secular mission groups. And even within those,  you find people who want to proselytize. Most religious mission groups demand that participants subscribe to a prescribed set of beliefs. I've been recently told that my particular skills are in dire need in a certain part of the world. But the organization in need has a screening process in which my relationship with Jesus must be described in writing, then approved. One can imagine what the response would be if I were to write, "divorced."  

 

I would love to create or find a charitable organization that loudly and proudly promotes atheists and agnostics as people who are willing and capable of doing good and charitable things. Imagine if such an organization demanded that participants subscribe to no religious belief.  No doubt Christians would claim persecution! Maybe there is something out there already and I just haven't found it. Or maybe I just need to get to working on it myself. 

[florduh]

6 minutes ago, Faithfulless said:

I would love to create or find a charitable organization that loudly and proudly promotes atheists and agnostics as people who are willing and capable of doing good and charitable things.

http://www.seculardirectory.org/special/#Charitable

[MOHO]

33 minutes ago, florduh said:

http://www.seculardirectory.org/special/#Charitable

 

A very comprehensive list.

[Guest]

12 hours ago, florduh said:

http://www.seculardirectory.org/special/#Charitable

Why, thank you Florduh!

I haven't yet found the sort of niche I'm looking for from this list, but it looks promising for some good leads. 

[disillusioned]

I like the way that Steven King put it: "If it happens, God lets it happen, and when we say 'I don't understand,' God replies, 'I don't care.'"

[LogicalFallacy]

This is basically the problem of evil and has been commented on for millennia. This from an ancient Greek philosopher:

Epicurus on God and Evil

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" - Epicurus   I think Christians get aroun this little issue by simply asserting that whatever God commands and does is good. And we all know how far bald assertions get you....

[disillusioned]

8 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

I think Christians get aroun this little issue by simply asserting that whatever God commands and does is good. And we all know how far bald assertions get you....

 

Yes, this is how a lot of evangelicals try to get around this issue. Of course, there are lots of major problems that this leads to.

[Joshpantera]

I would say that the above is the standard line of thought for christians. 

 

The question at the top of the thread tends to make christians think that the person asking such a question has no understanding of the bible or christianity. So it's a line of questioning that's essentially ineffective in terms of putting it to christians. Other lines of thought and questioning are necessary to achieve that. 

 

The creation account can not be made literal, for instance. 

 

If not literal, then there was no transgression in a garden to begin with. 

 

And there were no Elohim "gods" creating man in their image and likeness in the first place. 

 

There's no lesson being taught to man by ancient polytheistic "gods," much later reinterpreted as monotheistic "god," at all. 

 

And finally the idea of sin as a small dot on an infinite cosmic horizon falls very flaccid, like a broke dick, in light everything I've just listed. 

 

Game over...