God's Advocate

[Guest Davka]

OK, so I've been pretty disappointed with the quality of arguments being made by Christians on this board. I've seen way too many softball questions end with a 'swish - stee-rike!' It's sad, really.

 

And I thought "Hey, I used to be a pretty damned good apologist, back in the day. I should do the Christian thing here and help these poor sufferers out."

 

So in this thread, I'm going to argue for the Christian position. I'll start with an easy one that I've seen fluffed more than once - if God is Good, how come He allows stuff like 9/11 and the Holocaust?

 

OK, the nature of life and reality is such that there are certain limitations. One example of this is the various possibilities for the nature of an intelligent animal, such as human beings. Humans could have been created without the ability to do bad things (by which I mean things that they themselves know are wrong), but that would have made us little more than flesh-robots, automatically intoning "I Love You" to God. Or we could have been made with no curiosity and no desire to try new things, which would have been pretty much the same thing, but more zombie-like. Not very satisfying to either us or a loving Father.

 

Another possibility would be for God to step in and stop us every time we tried to do (or even think) anything wrong. But let's face it - we would hate that. It would not be a loving thing to do to a self-aware, curious species with free will.

 

Therefore, if God is going to create human beings at all, His best possible choice is to give us free will and very hands-off supervision. He allows us to do horrible things to each other because He loves us, and also because He knows that what we consider so horrible on Earth really isn't such a big deal in the Eternal scheme of things. Those people who died in the Towers on 9/11 were actually blessed, we just can't see it from this side of death.

 

Any more questions?

[OpheliaGinger]

Why does God allow for children in third world countries to be born with major deformities? Rarely do these children ever get access to someone who is compassionate enough to provide financially to pay for surgery for that child, and the children have to hide from the public lest the people mercilessly ridicule them.

[Vigile]

Bad things humans do might summarily be explained away, but what about bad things god/nature does? Why did god create parasites? Why did god create disease? Malformations? Etc... These can't be explained away by free will nor do they indicate a god with a benevolent nature.

[Mutate]

god told Solomon had to have long hair, God told Paul men with long har were disgraceful. he changed his mind on hair fasions? of course Its only a contradiction if you believe that every sentence in the bible is inspired and not mixed with the individual opinions of the writers.

[Guest Marty]

god told Solomon had to have long hair, God told Paul men with long har were disgraceful. he changed his mind on hair fasions? of course Its only a contradiction if you believe that every sentence in the bible is inspired and not mixed with the individual opinions of the writers.

 

I think you meant Samson...

[Mutate]

Yes, I meant samson, not solomon.

[Guest Davka]

Why does God allow for children in third world countries to be born with major deformities? Rarely do these children ever get access to someone who is compassionate enough to provide financially to pay for surgery for that child, and the children have to hide from the public lest the people mercilessly ridicule them.

Actually, God allows children born all over the world to be born with major deformities. We just have better medicine in the West.

 

As is often the case, this is our fault, not God's. Adam and stEve sinned, which upset the original, perfect balance in which there were no birth defects or disease. That's what started the mess.

 

And before you say "well what did those children do wrong?" allow me to interject that the sin of Adam and Eve has been repeated by every generation, so we're all guilty, guilty, guilty. Even these supposedly innocent little children have already sinned in their hearts.

 

Besides, they have the same shot at a perfect eternity with perfect bodies as everyone else. The short flash of time on this Earth with a major deformity is as nothing compared to a glorious eternity with a perfect body. In fact, many of these kids are really blessed, because even though they are depraved sinners, if their birth defect kills them before the Age of Accountability^TM, they get a free pass to Heaven. So what looks like a terrible misfortune is really a blessing in disguise.

[Guest Davka]

Bad things humans do might summarily be explained away, but what about bad things god/nature does? Why did god create parasites? Why did god create disease? Malformations? Etc... These can't be explained away by free will nor do they indicate a god with a benevolent nature.

God didn't do any of those things. The devil did them, and he was only freed to destroy God's previously unblemished creation (where all the carnivores were vegetarians, all the women were strong, and all the children were good-looking) because of Adam and Eve eating that doggone fruit. Sin warped the previously perfect world in which volcanoes would ask permission before blowing up, hurricanes would carefully thread their way so as not to cause any damage, and parasites and disease did not even exist.

[Guest Davka]

god told Solomon had to have long hair, God told Paul men with long har were disgraceful. he changed his mind on hair fasions? of course Its only a contradiction if you believe that every sentence in the bible is inspired and not mixed with the individual opinions of the writers.

God didn't tell Samson he had to have long hair. That was the result of Samson's mother making a vow to raise her son as a Nazarite if only God would open her womb. When she finally got pregnant, she kept her vow and raised her son as an ascetic, which included never cutting his hair as a sign to the world that he was "set apart" for God.

 

Paul's decrees regarding long hair on men were aimed at the Gentiles, who had (apparently) a proclivity for cross-dressing. Men wearing their hair like women was one example of this, and as we all know, God is really grossed out by drag queens. Paul did not mention the exception for those taking the vow of a Nazarite for two reasons: first, it was a well-known exception to the rule among Jews, and had nothing to do with Paul's reason for the prohibition against long hair on men. Second, there was no reason to confuse the gentiles by saying "unless you take Nazarite vows" when they didn't even know what those vows were.

 

Don't ask, don't tell.

[Deva]

God didn't do any of those things. The devil did them, and he was only freed to destroy God's previously unblemished creation (where all the carnivores were vegetarians, all the women were strong, and all the children were good-looking) because of Adam and Eve eating that doggone fruit. Sin warped the previously perfect world in which volcanoes would ask permission before blowing up, hurricanes would carefully thread their way so as not to cause any damage, and parasites and disease did not even exist.

 

Give us some proof outside of the Bible that this perfect world ever existed.

[Vigile]

Bad things humans do might summarily be explained away, but what about bad things god/nature does? Why did god create parasites? Why did god create disease? Malformations? Etc... These can't be explained away by free will nor do they indicate a god with a benevolent nature.

God didn't do any of those things. The devil did them, and he was only freed to destroy God's previously unblemished creation (where all the carnivores were vegetarians, all the women were strong, and all the children were good-looking) because of Adam and Eve eating that doggone fruit. Sin warped the previously perfect world in which volcanoes would ask permission before blowing up, hurricanes would carefully thread their way so as not to cause any damage, and parasites and disease did not even exist.

 

Ah, so it's all Adam and Eve's fault. We really are worms deserving of eternal torment. Thank the bloodthirsty god that he sent himself as a sacrifice to himself so that those who kiss his ass can go on kissing his ass for all eternity.

 

I wonder though at the morality of an all powerful god who chooses to allow needless suffering to continue. Would easing the pain of an innocent baby lion be overstepping the boundaries of the chain of events caused by free will? And if so, then didn't an all knowing, infinitely intelligent god design a system and hold himself accountable to an inane set of rules when obviously there are infinite possibilities for such a dude?

[Vigile]

As is often the case, this is our fault, not God's. Adam and stEve sinned, which upset the original, perfect balance in which there were no birth defects or disease. That's what started the mess.

 

Or, restated, god tempted Eve by planting tasty fruit in plain sight, yet this fruit was so uber powerful that its chain reaction was worse than nuclear fusion, though innocent Eve could never know this. Isn't this akin to leaving a poison cookie your child's playpen and then telling the baby don't eat that?

 

Moreover, if god's delicate balance was so vulnerable it occurs to me it had a major design flaw in the first place. Kind of like a bridge that is engineered so as the removal of a single pebble on the asphalt would collapse it, which would then set off a chain reaction by collapsing the nearby damn which then drowns the last remaining source of arable land with saltwater.

 

You sure God isn't designing multiplex apartment buildings in E Europe now?

 

Oh, and this also begs a question. Had Adam and Eve not eaten the fruit, would god have set out to test each of their offspring ad infinitum until one of them fucked up, thus setting off the awful chain reaction caused by sin? Is it realistic that at least one of them wouldn't have fucked up therefore creating a future earth that is full of pain and suffering? Then, isn't it actually god causing the pain and suffering since mathematically it's impossible that at least one person wouldn't fuck up and throw off the balance?

[Guest Davka]

God didn't do any of those things. The devil did them, and he was only freed to destroy God's previously unblemished creation (where all the carnivores were vegetarians, all the women were strong, and all the children were good-looking) because of Adam and Eve eating that doggone fruit. Sin warped the previously perfect world in which volcanoes would ask permission before blowing up, hurricanes would carefully thread their way so as not to cause any damage, and parasites and disease did not even exist.

 

Give us some proof outside of the Bible that this perfect world ever existed.

Your questions are themselves proof of that perfect world. Why would people think there was anything wrong with the way the world is if we did not have some innate knowledge of a better world? God put in our hearts the desire for a perfect world.

 

Think about it: what purpose would hunger serve if there were no such thing as food? Why would you get horny if there were no such thing as porn sex church-sanctioned procreation? The existence of a desire indicates the potential for satiating that desire, or the memory of having satiated that desire. Our desire for paradise and a perfect world indicates that such a thing is possible.

[Guest Davka]

Bad things humans do might summarily be explained away, but what about bad things god/nature does? Why did god create parasites? Why did god create disease? Malformations? Etc... These can't be explained away by free will nor do they indicate a god with a benevolent nature.

God didn't do any of those things. The devil did them, and he was only freed to destroy God's previously unblemished creation (where all the carnivores were vegetarians, all the women were strong, and all the children were good-looking) because of Adam and Eve eating that doggone fruit. Sin warped the previously perfect world in which volcanoes would ask permission before blowing up, hurricanes would carefully thread their way so as not to cause any damage, and parasites and disease did not even exist.

 

Ah, so it's all Adam and Eve's fault. We really are worms deserving of eternal torment. Thank the bloodthirsty god that he sent himself as a sacrifice to himself so that those who kiss his ass can go on kissing his ass for all eternity.

Close, but not quite. In every generation we have all continued to sin, so it's our fault too.

 

You brought this on yourself, you know. God is only trying to help. If you weren't such an evil little shit, you wouldn't be suffering.

 

I wonder though at the morality of an all powerful god who chooses to allow needless suffering to continue. Would easing the pain of an innocent baby lion be overstepping the boundaries of the chain of events caused by free will? And if so, then didn't an all knowing, infinitely intelligent god design a system and hold himself accountable to an inane set of rules when obviously there are infinite possibilities for such a dude?

Well, free will brings up a whole new ball of wax. Or was it a barrel of monkeys? Possibly even a kettle of fish.

 

Anyways, God is not really totally all-powerful, because he cannot do anything that goes against his nature. God can't sin, for example. (Not that he hasn't tried - that fling with Mary was close, but then she had to go and get pregnant with the Messiah, which sanctified the whole deal. Sucks to be God.)

 

So God, who is LOVE, naturally has the desire to share that love, because that's what love is all about - giving and sharing and stuff. So God was destined by his very nature to create an object of his affection. That's us.

 

Now, God could have made us without free will. But what fun is a robot who says "I love you"? He could also have made us with free will, but then stopped us from sinning. But we would have hated that - who wants to live in a nanny theocracy (aside from Pat Robertson, I mean)? So really, once he created beings with self-awareness, God pretty much had no choice but to allow us free will, even though he knew we would screw up and sin and mess the whole place up. Which is why he also split himself in three, and crucified part of himself from the foundations of the Earth, meaning it was his plan all along to rescue us from our inevitable stupidity.

 

Except the ones who don't repent, of course. But hey, there are bound to be casualties in any war. Did I mention the war part?

[Deva]

Your questions are themselves proof of that perfect world. Why would people think there was anything wrong with the way the world is if we did not have some innate knowledge of a better world? God put in our hearts the desire for a perfect world.

 

Think about it: what purpose would hunger serve if there were no such thing as food? Why would you get horny if there were no such thing as porn sex church-sanctioned procreation? The existence of a desire indicates the potential for satiating that desire, or the memory of having satiated that desire. Our desire for paradise and a perfect world indicates that such a thing is possible.

 

No, I was responding only to your assertion that there was such a thing. Stop reading such a bunch of stuff into it such as "innate knowledge". Everyone would like an easy life with all their needs supplied. That's the survival instinct. Desire has no connection with believing a bunch of stories in a book.

[Guest Davka]

As is often the case, this is our fault, not God's. Adam and stEve sinned, which upset the original, perfect balance in which there were no birth defects or disease. That's what started the mess.

 

Or, restated, god tempted Eve by planting tasty fruit in plain sight, yet this fruit was so uber powerful that its chain reaction was worse than nuclear fusion, though innocent Eve could never know this. Isn't this akin to leaving a poison cookie your child's playpen and then telling the baby don't eat that?

Eve wasn't the one who screwed the pooch. It was Adam, who was older and wiser, who messed it up. God told him not to eat the fruit, but he did it anyways. If he had only said "no," then God would have done something different.

 

Moreover, if god's delicate balance was so vulnerable it occurs to me it had a major design flaw in the first place. Kind of like a bridge that is engineered so as the removal of a single pebble on the asphalt would collapse it, which would then set off a chain reaction by collapsing the nearby damn which then drowns the last remaining source of arable land with saltwater.

 

You sure God isn't designing multiplex apartment buildings in E Europe now?

*sigh*

 

Must you plague me with your silly questions? Really, now. This is serious business.

 

Oh, and this also begs a question. Had Adam and Eve not eaten the fruit, would god have set out to test each of their offspring ad infinitum until one of them fucked up, thus setting off the awful chain reaction caused by sin? Is it realistic that at least one of them wouldn't have fucked up therefore creating a future earth that is full of pain and suffering? Then, isn't it actually god causing the pain and suffering since mathematically it's impossible that at least one person wouldn't fuck up and throw off the balance?

See the above post for an explanation of how God had no choice, and he had the whole thing planned out in advance.

[Guest Davka]

Your questions are themselves proof of that perfect world. Why would people think there was anything wrong with the way the world is if we did not have some innate knowledge of a better world? God put in our hearts the desire for a perfect world.

 

Think about it: what purpose would hunger serve if there were no such thing as food? Why would you get horny if there were no such thing as porn sex church-sanctioned procreation? The existence of a desire indicates the potential for satiating that desire, or the memory of having satiated that desire. Our desire for paradise and a perfect world indicates that such a thing is possible.

 

No, I was responding only to your assertion that there was such a thing. Stop reading such a bunch of stuff into it such as "innate knowledge".

 

I was actually referring to the original question by vigil:

 

Bad things humans do might summarily be explained away, but what about bad things god/nature does? Why did god create parasites? Why did god create disease? Malformations? Etc... These can't be explained away by free will nor do they indicate a god with a benevolent nature.

See, Vigil expects a perfect world. And if you were only honest with yourself, deep down you do to. Don't bother lying, because I can read your mind. They taught me how in Bible school.

 

Everyone would like an easy life with all their needs supplied. That's the survival instinct. Desire has no connection with believing a bunch of stories in a book.

Well, as any good Creationist can tell you, the so-called "survival instinct" is all about killing and eating things, not about a perfect world. Animals are perfectly content once they've eaten - they don't sit around talking about how much better things would be if everyone could get along, they just satisfy their needs and that's it.

 

But humans have desires far beyond food and procreation and shelter. Deep yearnings for things far outside the scope of human experience, like flying cars and teleportation and the perfect mate. We desire a perfect world because we have racial memories of Eden.

 

Oh, crap - am I channeling Jung?

[Deva]

See, Vigil expects a perfect world. And if you were only honest with yourself, deep down you do to. Don't bother lying, because I can read your mind. They taught me how in Bible school.

 

Hell no I don't expect a perfect world. Perfect world? Living here for 50 years will get that idea out of your mind quickly. As far as reading my mind, and judging my life, hey, Christians like to think they can. Plenty of them have come on this site in the last three years telling me I was not a "true christian."

 

Well, as any good Creationist can tell you, the so-called "survival instinct" is all about killing and eating things, not about a perfect world. Animals are perfectly content once they've eaten - they don't sit around talking about how much better things would be if everyone could get along, they just satisfy their needs and that's it.

 

I don't give credence to anything a creationist might say. They lie and twist facts to suit themselves. This has been abundantly proven to me by my own reading and research.

 

But humans have desires far beyond food and procreation and shelter. Deep yearnings for things far outside the scope of human experience, like flying cars and teleportation and the perfect mate. We desire a perfect world because we have racial memories of Eden.

 

Maybe so, but does this yearning in fact PROVE there was a perfect world? Hardly. "Racial memories of Eden" don't make me laugh. Pure theory and conjecture.

[Vigile]

 

Uh, what does free will have to do with the poor little baby lion who get's eaten by his father's conqueror and who lives out his days swatting painful biting flies?

 

If there's an all powerful god running around you bet I expect a perfect world. Or at least one that isn't overwhelmed by needless suffering.

[Guest Davka]

Maybe so, but does this yearning in fact PROVE there was a perfect world? Hardly. "Racial memories of Eden" don't make me laugh. Pure theory and conjecture.

And what's wrong with theory? After all, you godless atheist heathen commies believe in the theory of evolution, don't you?

 

I admit that this evidence is not all that strong, but that's what happens when you won't allow me to use the Word of God as a proof text. Your denial of the Word of God shows that you really don't want to know the Truth, you just want to poke holes in Christianity. Nonetheless, I stand by my assertion that all humans instinctively long for Eden. Why else would so many people enjoy gardening?

 

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go do some Christian writing for which I will actually get paid. I'll be back, though - this is fun!

[Guest Davka]

 

Uh, what does free will have to do with the poor little baby lion who get's eaten by his father's conqueror and who lives out his days swatting painful biting flies?

 

If there's an all powerful god running around you bet I expect a perfect world. Or at least one that isn't overwhelmed by needless suffering.

Oh, I get it - animal suffering. You some kind of a PETA nutcase? Everyone knows animals don't count.

[Deva]

And what's wrong with theory? After all, you godless atheist heathen commies believe in the theory of evolution, don't you?

 

Don't be stupid. You know there is more than one way of understanding the word "theory", especially when I also said "conjecture". The scientific theory of evolution has a mountain of evidence to back it. Let's not resort to having to quote wikipedia definitions of a word.

 

I admit that this evidence is not all that strong, but that's what happens when you won't allow me to use the Word of God as a proof text. Your denial of the Word of God shows that you really don't want to know the Truth, you just want to poke holes in Christianity. Nonetheless, I stand by my assertion that all humans instinctively long for Eden. Why else would so many people enjoy gardening?

 

The so-called "Word of God" is a work of man-made fiction, nothing more. I still say prove it otherwise. You can read whatever significance you like into that statement. There is no such thing as the garden of Eden. People in the modern world living in cities have lives divorced from nature. They are surrounded by concrete and not living, growing things. Nature is beautiful, hence the attraction.

[Guest Davka]

Damn, Deva, you're tough. I think you may have put your finger on the biggest flaw in the ammunition offered by Christian Apologetics. Their entire worldview depends on the assertion that the world was not originally intended to be the way it is. And there's really no way to back up that argument without saying "the Bible says so."

 

I'll see if I can come up with some sleight-of-hand to pretend that argument never happened.

[Deva]

I'll see if I can come up with some sleight-of-hand to pretend that argument never happened.

 

Bring it on..

[Kathlene]

Davka I am at home today from work sick with a nearly broken rib from coughing so much. Now I have just read this thread and nearly screamed in agony because I was trying to laugh and I couldn't. This was highly entertaining!! Thankyou for it.

 

Now I have a question. If we are all so called born evil with the only lust in our heart to be drawn to evil stuff, why then are there people who aren't?

Sure, sure you will say we are sinners..but why do some seem to sin at a far greater depth than others? Why are there some people who live their quiet little lives and don't hurt a fly.?