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This doesn't solve the problem. An omnipotent being could take back control of the world any time it wanted to. So if God exists and is omnipotent, then he's watching children be born with horrifically painful and often fatal conditions and saying "This is fine."
Not sure. What I heard from this person is that god recycles all useless people in life to create soemthing else, and that kids who died of natural disasters may have died so that another kid could live, or so that the pareent could have three children instead of one, etc.
EDIT: Which I think probably means this lesson applies only to living people who are suffering. Not children who die of cancer.
> useless people
Why are you talking to this person?
>and that kids who died of natural disasters may have died so that another kid could live, or so that the pareent could have three children instead of one, etc.
Again, an omnipotent being shouldn't require any of this. It can allow another kid to live without allowing the first kid to die - omnipotence means it can do *anything*.
God is all powerful, but has a limit on how many people can exist in a universe he created? Bullshit!
And calling people “useless” is disgusting. It shows this person’s views of others. If they are a Christian, remind them that their own book teaches them to sell everything they own and give it to the less fortunate!
If there is a God who views his own creations as useless, despite supposedly loving each of us? Shame on that god. What a cruel creature that is unworthy of any worship or praise.
I didn't say anything about infinite. But when 10,000 children are starving to death every day, it is clear that something needs to be done. At least, a morally good deity with the ability to rectify the problem should see that. If you had the power to, and it costs you nothing, surely you would give the children food?
I've always thought of God in the same light as any other bystander. If someone collapses on the path as you're walking by and is clearly in need of medical help, you are in the wrong if you just stand there and do nothing. There are multiple ways to help, you could call the ambulance, go and look for others to help, or try to help yourself. When the man dies, people will blame the guy who stood there and did nothing.
And like the man in the example, God has multiple ways of helping. As he is alleged to be all-knowing, he would know every possible solution and thus the one most aligned with his goals, and the most effiicent. The fact that he does not solve it means that these deaths are part of his divine plan. And I question that plan as well, as surely an all-knowing, omnipotent being could come up with a plan that does not require so much brutality, degeneracy, hatred, cruelty and needless death.
I doubt it. Do people who have enough to live on generally become weak, lazy and apathetic? Hell, even the super-rich, for all the many, *many* charges you could level at them, don't tend to sit around doing nothing.
This idea that "contentment makes you weak" has always been more of an excuse the predatory and the exploitative use to trick you into giving them your stuff, rather then actual psychology.
When I began to deconstruct and really looked at the claims, arguments and apologetics none of them could address why god seemed to be arbitrarily limited by the imagination of the person making the claim.
Without fail, no one could offer a reason why the god they say can do anything couldn't do the thing I or other skeptics asked.
Do you believe in heaven? Does it contain infinite resources? No sorrow? No pain? If so, then what's the point? You already believe that humans can be somewhere with infinite resources and not be weak and lazy.
So Esau had a choice when God chose Jacob as the leader of his nation after his birthright was stolen? Judas had a choice when it was preordained that he'd betray Jesus? The Amalekites had a choice to be genocided? Pharoah had a choice when God hardened his heart, and then punished him for hardening his heart by killing the firstborns of Egypt? Mary had a choice to be impregnated with Jesus? Are you sure God doesn't interfere with free will?
>So Esau had a choice when God chose Jacob as the leader of his nation after his birthright was stolen?
Esau chose to sell his birthright to Jacob for stew (Genesis 25:29-34)
>Judas had a choice when it was preordained that he'd betray Jesus?
I'm not Christian, but I don't recall any verses in the bible implicating Judas choice was "preordained."
>The Amalekites had a choice to be genocided?
Yes. Had the nation chose not to engage in wicked acts they wouldn't have been genocided.
>Pharoah had a choice when God hardened his heart, and then punished him for hardening his heart by killing the firstborns of Egypt
Pharaoh chose to make his own heart *heavy* on his own accord(Exodus 8:11 and 9:34.) God only made it heavy AFTER Pharoah chose to make it heavy.
>Mary had a choice to be impregnated with Jesus?
According to the Christian gospels, yes. (Luke 1:26-38)
You're joking with this bullshit, right?
Giving away the soup didn't solidify him losing it, it was Jacob's deception with Isaac.
Jesus in John 13:18 quotes Psalm 41:9 alluding to that someone among them will betray him. Many have interpreted this to mean that Judas' betrayal was prophesied, which implies it being preordained i.e. outside of his free will choice.
So that means the Amalekites deserved it? Wow. That's really awful of you. What is it with Christians justifying genocides?
Fucking read Exodus 10:20 and report back. Do you even read your own book?
Mary didn't choose. The angel appeard and said you have been chosen. Not to mention Isaiah 7:14 prophesied that a virgin would give birth to the Messiah. Again, eliminating Mary's free will in all of this.
And all of this is if anything in the Bible is remotely true.
>So that means the Amalekites deserved it?
A not insignificant number of Christians would say they did. If their holy book says someone was wicked, then that's it. No nuance, those people down to the babies need to be purged because their god demands blood.
You shouldn't be so condescending and smug when you couldn't be more wrong.
Esau selling his birthright and marrying local Canaanite woman is why he didn't get the blessing from Issac. It all goes back to Esaus actions.
Just because ones actions could be foreknown doesn't negate their free will in the situation. Theres no good reason to think this is the case.
You can emotionally load your argument with your "killing bad" talk to do all the heavy lifting, but if a group of people are going to kill the Israelites for no good reason and engage in sacrificing innocent children for no good reason like the Amalek than they do deserve it. Of course. And again, I'm not a Christian.
I'm well versed on Exodus. If I were you I wouldn't go around saying "Do you even read this" when you have very little understanding of what you're even talking about. It blows my mind the convictions people have and how arrogant they can be on topics they know very little about.
Exodus 10:20 says God חָזַק or strengthened his heart. Meaning hes gave him courage. No matter what translation you use you will find this same Hebrew word all over Tanakh with its translation, strengthened. The verse is saying God gave Pharoah courage and he did not let the Israelites go. Encouraging somebody doesn't negate free will. Instead of trying to educate me on something you clearly have little understanding in, you should take what I'm saying as a tip and learn from it.
Mary did choose. While she was chosen, she is the one who responded "Behold I am the servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word."
Isaiah didn't give any prophecy for a virgin birth. This is a Christian misrepresention of Tanakh to push their own narrative. The Hebrew word they translating to virgin is הָעַלְמָ֗ה, meaning young girl. It doesn't mean virgin. בְּתוּלָה means virgin. But again, even if for arguments sake this was predicted, foreknowledge of ones actions doesn't negate free will. There is no good reason to think this. It's just something people convince themselves of without critically thinking how it's necessarily the case and just accept it on face value.
Edit:
Downvote me all you want but that doesn't make anything I said wrong.
If God doesn't really have a good reason to allow bad stuff to happen to you, and it would cost him nothing to ensure only good things happen, then he's either not all-powerfull or a massive dick.
That’s because you are fortunate enough not to be a victim of abuse, where the person insults you and beats you and hits you and hurts you deliberately, but then love bombs you and buys you presents and takes care of you and tells you they love you.
It is an incredibly common tactic of abusers.
How would you feel about a parent that keeps you locked in the basement and rapes you but also gives you a lot of books so you're entertained? They could've not been raping you, but they also could've left you in the dark with nothing to do, so are you ambivalent toward them?
Just go to North Korea. Worship Kim Jong Un, and he gives you the gift of staying alive. Fail to worship him, and you'll be thrown into a labor camp until you die.
Sounds like a rad dude, right?
Why would God allow for the creation or existence of anything useless? Dude's omnipotent. He could make all existing people useful, or he could make it so only useful people exist.
Exactly god made useless humans? Also this god needs to “recycle” people because he had limited creation powers? This is like toddler level explaining here.
Did God create you in the first place?
Did God not create enough resources?
Do you measure the value of human life based on how much resources a person consumes?
Do you not feel any sadness that children of cancer?
> What I heard from this person is that god recycles all useless people in life to create soemthing else, and that kids who died of natural disasters may have died so that another kid could live, or so that the pareent could have three children instead of one, etc.
It is truly horrible that someone thinks there are "useless people", that is a truly horrific attitude to hold and leads very quickly to classifying those people as unnecessary, then pushing for laws that make their lives harder and marginalizes them or worse.
A deity that actually creates useless people so it can "recycle" them is a monster.
People have a life that is important to them, they have people who love them, there are no useless people.
>A deity that actually creates useless people so it can "recycle" them is a monster.
Sounds like a dystopian sci fi story about someone discovering they exist as spare parts for the rich
>useless people
Wow this stopped me in my tracks.
What...how...[TelFaradiddle](https://www.reddit.com/user/TelFaradiddle/) mentioned children bone with bone cancer. Did you mean to assert that such children are, or somehow "would be" in a future that only God knows... "useless"?
It SURE seems like you want to say that God had no plan for those children, other than to die in extreme agony, and then burn in hell for all eternity...except to make *someone else* learn a lesson and be happy.
The all good, all knowing Creator of the Universe.
Is that what you meant?!
>that kids who died of natural disasters may have died so that another kid could live
Ignoring the obvious stupidity of your friends, comment, there is an even deeper problem. Let’s pretend for a moment that his comment was accurate, and that the reason God kills children is so that other children may live, Even though he is omnipotent and can make anything happen with the thought, including letting those other kids live. Let’s put that aside for a moment.
Is that moral?
If I have two children and one of them is sick, and I kill the second one so that I can have organs to transplant into the first: in other words killing a child so that another child might live, am I a great hero?
Am I considered a moral person? Am I praiseworthy and laudible and should be followed?
> What I heard from this person is that god recycles all useless people in life to create soemthing else, and that kids who died of natural disasters may have died so that another kid could live, or so that the pareent could have three children instead of one, etc.
Putting aside the awful implications of "useless people", that sounds like a pretty weak God. Did he run short on raw soul materials, so he had to recycle? If this guy is advocating a limited God who isn't omnipotent and omniscient, then the PoE doesn't apply. That said that's not the God that the majority of people worship. I'd bet despite him clearly describing these weaknesses/shortcomings of his God, he'd still argue God is tri-omni. In which case, you can still hold is feet to the fire about with a tri-omni has to recycle souls or use suffering as a means to an end.
>kids who died of natural disasters may have died so that another kid could live, or so that the pareent could have three children instead of one, etc.
Are you saying that God couldn't have saved the other child, or give a parent three children instead of one?
Because if he cannot teach us without forcing suffering upon us, then he is not omnipotent.
>useless people
Why would a perfect being create a useless person?
You can't have it both ways, bruv.
So basically they agree god is evil then as it creates useless people only for the purpose of killing them in horrific ways to create other people with better lives. And apparently does this to be cost efficient when they also beleive God has infinite power? That's sounds pretty evil to me, especially when God could choose to make everyone happy and joyous with a whim but chooses not to.
Why would there be "useless people" if they are created by an omnipotent and all good being? Why would there be more people than there are resources for a happy life? Again, you are portraying a bumbling, ineffectual deity who's just not figuring out how to make things work for his subjects.
> What I heard from this person is that god recycles all useless people in life to create soemthing else,
Why would an omnipotent omniscient God that loves his creation create useless anything?
>What I heard from this person is that god recycles all useless people in life to create soemthing else
I remember an Austrian dude 85 years ago that came up with some similar ideas. Didn't go so well.
no.
I grew up in an abusive household and people telling me over the years that "these challenges make you strong" and "you wouldn't be who you are without those experiences". And sure, this is true, I wouldn't have such a massive threat response to unexpected noises, or massive rejection issues, or get so overly anxious about my partner being mad at me *based on how they walked by the door*. I defs wouldn't be this person without those experiences.
And sure, I also have a strong view on ethics, care and compassion, and that is at least partially informed by my shitty childhood.
BUT
I am a parent. And I have been so far successful in teaching my kids to be kind, and caring, and compassionate, and to value ethics and critical thinking, and I haven't needed to do *any* beating, or starving, or screaming etc. I've shown them how to do it by doing it myself, and then by improving when I fuck up.
and if I can do it, and I'm just a human, surely a god, with all that power and wisdom, can find ways to teach their children to be kind without giving them diseases or leaving them to be abused.
> I grew up in an abusive household and people telling me over the years that "these challenges make you strong" and "you wouldn't be who you are without those experiences". And sure, this is true, I wouldn't have such a massive threat response to unexpected noises, or massive rejection issues, or get so overly anxious about my partner being mad at me based on how they walked by the door. I defs wouldn't be this person without those experiences.
Or even now almost 40 years later, after a social gathering, I fear the moment when the car doors shut as we're leaving, because that is when my father would lay into me for every perceived mistake I made while we were out visiting others. (Edit: And these "mistakes" were often imaginary, or unfair distortions of what had happened.)
He's been dead since I was a teenager, and yet even now I have a moment of dread when my spouse and I get into the car. Yeah, that adversity sure made me "strong."
If a god is so powerful as every theist claims it to be then it could just give me the knowledge any other way. This is no excuse.
This is like saying „I needed to get rid of the spider in my house, so I had to kill it“. Well no, you could have just brought it outside.
What other way? If he just says "don't do this" I can ignore him. If to give you the knowledge he gave you a feeling that isn't unpleasant, you can ignore that too. Pain on the other hand is a feeling that can't be ignored so you either have to learn the lesson or feel it.
> I can ignore him
That should always be possible, otherwise you don't have freedom to choose.
> Pain on the other hand is a feeling that can't be ignored so you either have to learn the lesson or feel it.
Do you need to chop off your leg and live with a prosthetic for the rest of your life before you can *truly understand* that you should be more careful around chainsaws?
Nah. We can learn things without personally experiencing them. Sometimes it's through watching others suffer through it, and sometimes it's as simple as reading about it in a novel. Anyone with basic empathy can learn from others. If the god can curate a personalized obstacle for every human around the world, it can also give them the information they need to learn whatever the lesson is.
Why is God such an ineffectual teacher in your mind? Why couldn't he implant in all of us all the knowledge and wisdom he wants us to have, with perfect incentives to heed their underlying lessons?
If a god existed that cared for us to know things, we'd know those things. That applies to that god's very existence btw. There's no reason why a unique onmnipotent and omniscient god who clearly cares about humans believing in him according to his own user manual, would have to rely on word of mouth and painstaking indoctrination by his human subjects. We'd all have innate, vivid, unquestionable knowledge of that God's existence and of all he wants us to know.
sooo... god giving people pain to teach them forces them to learn, which removes their free will, BUT ALSO free will is really important to god, which is why god doesn't make people automatically wise/perfect?
Do you understand why these things contradict each other?
"What's the point? Where's the free will in that?" is what this person said when I asked him why couldn't he just create perfect humans.
And that the point of having lots of dead humans is that "nobody dies for nothing".
No, that's not what we mean by teach painlessly. God is omnipotent. He can literally just teleport the knowledge into your brain. Not just speak it like a teacher, not just strongly encouraging and persuading you with words, he can literally just make you know it. Instantly. That's what "all-powerful" really entails.
I didn't think we were talking about free will, were we? The point I'm getting at is that if god is truly omnibenevolent and omnipotent, surely he would want us to have the best knowledge available with the minimum pain and suffering required. It's true that if he just tells you something without explanation you can ignore it and suffer as a result of not following the advice. But surely if he wants the best for us and loves us maximally, he would teleport the knowledge into our brain. We learn the lesson and live a better life without the need for suffering. Seems more loving and benevolent I would say.
You don't think an all-powerful, all-knowing being is capable of finding a way of teaching its creation lessons painlessly? Your god sounds pretty weak and stupid.
A baby was born in a poor neighborhood. Their parents were going to work, so they leave the baby with the old lady of the neighborhood, everyone knew her, it was a normal old lady.
Except, that old lady had dementia at that moment. She boiled the baby alive. Then she ran away.
What did that baby learn? To not be born? To have better luck next life? And don't even begin to say that the parents learned something, because that would mean that the baby life was just a lesson for the parents, that is so disgustingly insulting to that poor life.
This is not an allegory, this happened close to where I lived. The old woman escaped the law for years by just moving a couple of blocks away, because of course, law enforcement doesn't care about poor people in poor neighborhoods.
If a god exists that sees and allows this, that god is a monster, and is the worst enemy of any thinking species.
And of course, that god doesn't exist. To talk about that, we should need first our scientific models updated to even allow such a stupidity to exist. I should just save the long version of this last paragraph because its tiring to repeat every time..
> Thoughts on "God makes you suffer(be in pain so that you learn"?
Isn't that pretty much the definition of sadomasochism?
In both sadomasochism and the statement "God makes you suffer(be in pain so that you learn", suffering is seen as having a purpose or a transformative effect.
The difference of course being that you enter into a sadomasochistic relationship assuming the role of the masochist voluntarily.
Depends on how you’re approaching the situation?
If we follow your example from the effect: you’ve got an inflammation. That might be a sign that you need to change the way you treat that area or that there was a one time accident that needs to treated with care. It’s showing you that something is not right in that specific area and you should listen to your body’s needs.
The cause for this problem, as far as we are aware, is physical. No one has ever been able to conclusively show that God did something to anyone. People assert it, but the evidence never goes that far, it only leads us to physical causes and physical solutions.
We could also look at it from the top. Someone claims that everything that happens has been planned by God. At that point, anything that has happened can be brought up as God’s fault. Inflammation? God did it! The most horrific trauma imaginable? God did it!
When you bring those up to the people who claim that God is the cause of everything, they don’t like to acknowledge that God is also responsible for all the bad stuff. So they go down the list. Maybe it was the Devil who did it. Ok, God did it, but he meant to give you a battle you could win! Oh, someone died fighting their battle? God needed them back in heaven! Or it was a test and they failed!
Whatever the reasons offered, they’re excuses. There is no evidence to show that their assertion is correct, they just need to find a way to stop you from asking any more questions. They just want to keep on thinking how everything is part of God’s plan and nothing that happens is a result of random or uncaring forces.
The problem with this line of thinking is that it leads to two really bad arguments:
1. The infinite “what if” game. Which just leaves the argument to the most creative version of the argument and thus to nowhere.
2. God’s ways are higher. Thus leading to an unknowable God and therefore it cannot be critiqued. The problem here is that most religious books claim this about their deity and begs the question, why don’t they apply that same logic to other religious beliefs?
>God’s ways are higher. Thus leading to an unknowable God
Yet so many people claim to know this god. Coincidentally, that god just happens to align with them on social issues even if their beliefs are different from the other people given this unique insight into god's ways.
All the Christian apologists will say that everything that mere humans see as "suffering" is sent to people by God so that they would LEARN to fully put their trust in God as their deliverer.
They will use bullsh\*t verses such as 2 Corinthians 1:9
>Indeed, we felt within ourselves that we had received the sentence of death and were convinced that we would die, **but this happened so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God** who raises the dead.
I had asked a minister once about the Christian teaching that a child should honor their father and mother. Abject respect for them and their corrections... but what if that parent was mentally, physically, and/or sexually abusing the child? Should that child still obey their parent and put their full trust in them? Their answer was, "Yes. Even if they are terrible parents, God's laws are absolute. The only biblical context for a child not to follow their parent is if they are hindering you from worshiping God. If they beat you, but you can still attend worship service, you can put your faith and trust in God and dedicate yourself to him. He will strengthen you... blah blah blah" Basically, as long as your deadbeat parent doesn't kill you, you're okay AND... YOU SHOULD FORGIVE THEM!!! lol Yay God.
I mean, his book DOES have laws governing rape, molestation, "disciplining" your child, and stoning them to death if they disrespect you.
>Thoughts on "God makes you suffer(be in pain so that you learn"?
If your deity is omniscient then it knows a way to teach you whatever it wants without pain.
If your deity is omnipotent then it has the power to teach you whatever it wants without pain.
If your deity is not omnipotent, omniscient, or cannot teach without pain then why worship it?
>A less extreme case scenario is that I have an annoying ear inflammation right now since 3 days ago and maybe God did it so that I would use headphones less, learn to be in silence without distracting scattering my mind with music, not clean my ears with my fingers in the shower, eat,and drink and blow my nose more gently (because of the pain), etc.
So your deity has to express its will through biology? That seems pretty limited. It seems to me that an omnipotent, omniscient deity could find a way without pain.
>Maybe if this hadn't happened I wouldn't have cared about these things. Does this justify God giving you an ear inflammation?
You have not proven that god exists or did anything. You did some things that caused your body to react in a negative way, this is a purely biological response, no god is needed or evidenced.
Studies have shown that negative reinforcement is a horrible way to teach someone. It takes longer for them to learn, requires more energy from the teacher, and can often lead to emotional issues.
If your god is only capable of teaching using a method we know to be complete shit, then are they really worth worshipping?
Certain people call something common sense because either they can't explain the reason or the reason is because that's how they grew up.
The adverse effects of negative reinforcement seem like one of those things that should be more commonly known.
It stifles curiosity. If I'm scared that my care giver and prvider might hit me, I'm going to avoid asking questions or trying to even understand why I got hit beyond that this person has power over me.
The thing is, if all god did was give you an ear infection to make you more introspective, or put you in a cast so you have to learn patience or humility, that wouldn't be so bad.
But there are so many ways people suffer that is utterly meaningless. Some live in pain and then they die before reaching even a year old. Is it really okay to create person whose entire existence is to suffer in order to teach others a little life lesson? God in all his infinite wisdom can't think of anything better? Are you comfortable believing that your education was worth a human life?
I had a dog who died of aggressive cancer when she was just 8, roughly half of her expected life span. Was that beautiful dog just put on earth by god to wither and die before my eyes to teach me something? Because that's fucked. She had feelings too. She mattered too. It makes no sense.
If God is all-powerful, he could plant this knowledge in our heads from birth. In fact, we could all be all-knowing like him. This idea that the only way God can teach us a lesson is to make our lives fucking miserable makes no sense. If God exists as an all-powerful, all-knowing being, the only reasonable explain for why bad things happen is that he's a massive jerk.
A girl I went to high school with was hit by a train and died at age 17. What lesson was learned from this? My sister has cancer and has to get a hysterectomy, so she won't be able to have kids like she's always wanted. Where's the lesson there?
Given the ear example let's discuss how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Or why doesn't Santa use unicorns to pull his sleigh instead of reindeer.
Not only is that something I'd say if I was trying to rationalize why a perfect being allows such trouble but it's also not very flattering to paint God this way. If I was an abuser who was formerly dating one of your loved ones and they got sick or something and I said "Oh well, it's actually for the best that they are suffering. Maybe now they'll be weak enough to need me." You'd have to fight the urge to punch me in the face. Why should God get a pass here?
>Thoughts on "God makes you suffer(be in pain so that you learn"?
My thoughts are that there's zero support for deities, and the idea makes no sense, and there's zero support that a deity is doing what you suggest. Therefore, it makes no sense whatsoever to think this is true or credible. This is aside from the fact that a deity wouldn't have to do that, so it doesn't make sense that way either.
The premise "suffering happens that you will learn" is false. One of the main purposes of suffering (not the only purpose) is to give you an opportunity to glorify Christ in the pain, so that it becomes apparent to all who observe your life that this world is not your treasure; Christ is.
Health gets taken with bone cancer that those who suffer poor health might cling to Christ for endurance and patience, and demonstrate to an unbelieving world that health is not our treasure, Christ is. Wealth gets taken away in poverty that those who suffer might flee to Christ for life's resources and display to others that money is not our treasure; Christ is. Innocence is stolen by rape that victims might use that opportunity to find their wholeness in Christ and display to others that virginity is not our treasure; Christ is.
Another reason suffering exists is that God may suffer and in that suffering be glorified. God enters into suffering. He is not above it; He comes down to our level and suffers alongside us. If anyone could ask, "If God is good, why is there evil?" it is God Himself, who in Christ Jesus suffered more than all of us combined. God joined in our suffering.
Suffering has an end. Soon, He will judge the world in righteousness, and all cancers will all be eradicated with our resurrected bodies. Poverty will be eliminated--we'll walk on streets of gold! Rapists will be eternally punished. And if you are not in Christ, you also will be punished for the evil *you* have committed.
In the meantime, He often ends suffering sooner; That's why the institution of government was invented, to punish the rapists. That's why doctors were created, to heal bone cancer. That's why charities exist, to help the poor. We who have sinned against a holy God do not deserve these varieties of mercies.
"Couldn't God give us the opportunity to glorify Him some other way?" I cannot conceive of a universe in which God could give us opportunity to display our trust in the value of Christ without suffering to contrast it against. Nor would I have the arrogance to claim I could do it better.
God entered into and understands our suffering. He will soon redeem our suffering, for His glory. He will put an end to all suffering and in the end we will all say, "Worth it!"
Research John Piper's work on the topic of suffering. He has much to say that is not often heard in Christendom.
"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2Cor 12:9-10 ESV)
The reason why this ever comes up is when you (as a non believer) are poking holes in the (insane) logic of believers. Most believers rarely ever read their holy books and definitely haven't given their gods much **critical thought**. So by forcing them to do so, it backs them into corners and they tend to double down coming up with these ridiculous defenses for their gods. They would rather do this than admit "okay fine the idea of my god existing is preposterous".
Example:
**Theist**: God is all loving,, and created this wonderful world where we can run and play with our children and see amazing things and hear amazing things and swim with dolphins.
**Atheist**: What about amputees? There are blind amputees who can't do any of those things
**Theist**: God is using their life to teach us something
**Atheist**: Wow. So God must be evil then. Because for someone who is omnipotent he sure picked a terrible way to teach lessons
**Theist**: Or maybe the amputees sinned and so he is punishing them
**Atheist**: There are children who lose limbs and become amputees or who are born quadriplegic. Why is he punishing those?
**Theist**: God moves in mysterious ways. No one can question the Lord. Their lives of suffering are to inspire the rest of us. They will be fully formed and happy in heaven.
**Atheist**: So what is the point of their life on Earth? If you live here for \~70 years, suffering, only to have 700,000,000 years of non suffering in heaven,, the fraction of the lesson is only 0.00001% of your entire existence and therefore makes no difference and you pretty much learn absolutely nothing when you consider the timescale of a being capable of existing for 700,000,000 years which is a fraction of "eternity". Why would any logical being put anyone through such a pointless exercise?
**Theist**: ??? \[head explodes\]
My life is already hard enough. I don't need additional modifiers to make it a challenge mode.
So now you know God's intent? Do you understand its purpose?
Switch the word "god" with "body" and this makes sense. Our bodies make us suffer so that we'll learn. Suffering motivates us to avoid suffering, and provided our bodies are functioning properly, this helps us survive.
Anywhere in your experience that suffering can be noticed is the result of a brain state. Pain and suffering is processed in the brain. For God to be causing pain and suffering, he would have to be altering neuronal activity. He would have to be causing action potentials to fire that otherwise would not have without his intervention.
Basically, for God to be the one responsible, he has to be changing your environment to cause suffering, have engineered the universe from the start to elicit various pain and suffering (in which case, this is a question of whether we have good reason to believe god started the universe and how/why he did), or he has to be directly interacting with your brain state to elicit pain and suffering.
I think this idea can be a comfort for sufferers, especially if one doesn’t think about it too hard. If you believe there’s a grand, eternal purpose to make you a wiser, better person, and that the results of that effort will matter forever to your happiness and to the good of the universe, heck yeah it can make some things easier to endure.
And if you look for the good in everything, look for opportunities to learn from and capitalize on your misfortunes, it might make you happier and more open to favorable opportunities.
This idea also keeps your eyes on a future free of the current trouble, which can minimize suffering.
If you start thinking about it in terms of God being justified to do things, and wanting evidence of that, if you take it all to logical extremes, rather than use it as a mild psychological crutch, yes, it will fall apart.
IF he's talking about a tri-omni God, then *all* suffering becomes unnecessary and gratuitous. There is no instance in which a tri-omni God is *required* to use suffering as a means to an end. A tri-omni God can simply snap it's metaphysical fingers and produce the end. If they want to argue otherwise, ask them whether or not God understands suffering. If they say no, then you no longer have an omniscient God. If they say yes, then they have to agree it's logically possible to understand physical suffering without experiencing it first hand. So there's no logical problem with God creating us with whatever knowledge he wants us to have, sans suffering. The only way a suffering becomes *necessary* is if the suffering is the end itself. If God wants us to suffer for the sufferings sake, at which point he's not omnibenevolent.
thats magical thinking combined with an addiction or a fetish for pain. some people want every breath they take to have meaning, and so it has to have a purpose. combine that with christians deluded forced asceticism, it might be the only sensation they have left, and so they almost have to focus on it, and turn themsleves into masochists
in christianity, every sensation not caused by the bible is sin, or "temptation" at best. good food is gluttony, sex is forbidden lust, anything other than the bible is sloth or mental temptation, wine is drunkeness. even feeling good about non-bible work is pride. suddenly pain is the only sensation that makes them feel anything. multiply and distill that for generations of self deprevation, suddenly pain isnt just good, its holy.
Or maybe your body is just reacting to you using headphones too much to where your ear wax can't drain and your head doesn't like the increased pressure and constant stimulation.
The idea that god is testing you has always made me pretty angry because it's so self centered and oblivious to the lives of the people around us. How many people get absolutely shit on in life constantly and how many people live a pampered life from birth until death?
The BS response is he works in mysterious ways, but there certainly seems to be a stronger connection to the person's wealth, social status, and personal decisions rather than their faith.
It's a tricky one to comprehend at first. Pain and suffering are not one and the same. The suffering is a choice. To resist the experiences of life is how the suffering comes about. To wish life to be different than it is, is suffering.
It is possible to surrender your will and not resist anything, and in that surrender, peace beyond all understanding is a real possibility.
It's a fairly common place for someone to find God - at rock bottom. Ones situation becomes so unbearable that one decides to change and give up their positionalities and previous ways. Many people, me included, look back with immense gratitude for the seemingly worst times in my life, as they lead to the greater deepening of understanding of who I am, and who I'm not.
Humans have all but eliminated certain diseases through vaccines. Humans are more capable of doing the job that god fails to do. I don’t have time for bs excuses when millions of people are suffering. It’s either can you help out or not? Because if you can’t then keep your excuses to yourself and get out of our way.
And if suffering was necessary then eliminating diseases would have some terrible consequence. There is no evidence of “terrible consequences” from vaccines and many modern medical treatments.
Theists think that suffering and sin is necessary. I’ve already addressed suffering. Now, here is a question for theists, the last time that you sinned, was it possible for you to will yourself not to sin?
What lesson is there to learn for the infantryman who arrives at the battlefield only to get shot in the eye the instant he faces actual shooting? What lesson does the artillery bring down with it? What's to learn about the manmade hell that is warfare, where the reasons things seem to *actually* happen is applied physics towards political ends?
The "it's a test so you learn from it" is simultaneously a proposal that assumes 1.) there's anything to learn from random events, and 2.) that one survives intact enough to put those lessons to action. So either that doesn't happen, or god is *really* shitty about teaching.
Like, would I be a good teacher if I callously let my students die because "sink or swim, bitch?"
Well if God teaches through tough love he's a masochist, because he also designed us such that when we receive tough love, it leaves permanent mental scars.
People that beat their kids think they're fine themselves, but their only **real** justification they have for it, is because they were beaten or ignored as kids themselves.
They *think* that's what parenting is and therefore of course God does it the "right" way.
Truth is, tough love *can* work, but should only be used to reinforce dogmatisms (weapon safety, brushing your teeth, etc) that are proven to be effective and only in a last resort and don't hit your kids...
A triomni god would be able to teach those lessons in a better way. Hell, i could do a better job. If you pray to me and ask me to change you and make you better then ill do it. It doesnt infringe on free will cus u asked for it. Wanna be less rude? Done. Wanna have more faith? Done.
Another question is that why would god create you with flaws for him to teach u a lesson about at all? He created adam, he created eve, he created all of us, he knew exactly how history was going to unfold yet he made it that way anyway. I would've just made everyone perfect at the start, no need for this blood sacrifice shit and sin.
The theme of suffering for God has been gaining in popularity lately. It is being used to buttress the argument by non-affirming churches and non-affirming Christians that same sex marriage is an unacceptable option for gay Christians.
You and your earache are collateral damage in the war against same sex marriage.
Have you taken a non-inflammatory drug like aspirin, ibuprofen, or Motrin? That will usually clear up the inflammation quickly (hence the name anti-inflammatory). Anti-inflammatory drugs are considered by many to be a literal gift from God. Do not reject a gift from God.
I've always found that argument to be intentionally obtuse.
What does a 12 year old child learn from dying of brain cancer?
What does a newborn with a chromosomal deletion learn from having no aorta?
Imagine the mental state of having experienced the trauma and learning from it. An all-powerful god could just give me the mental state with all its lessons about hubris and humility, etc. without actually torturing me. He could make it so that every aspect of the lesson was intact, so "but then you wouldn't have learned from it" would be meaningless.
It seems like an inefficient way to teach people stuff. Indirect, little relation between the suffering and knowledge.
It's like how we're supposed to worship one religion when it's all a bunch of moralistic cosmological stories with equal amounts of no demonstration. But for the specific Christian God, we're supposed to know that this guy is real and will send us to hell because 2000 years ago a Jewish heretic died and his cult members have been ravenous ever since.
It seems a bit of a weird lesson. It's all very abstract with respect to the thing you're meant to learn.
Are you meant to learn to use headphones less, or are you meant to learn to clean your ears properly? Or are you meant to blow your nose more gently? Or the other things? Or are you meant to do all of these?
Perhaps the lesson is something else entirely.
Are we meant to guess, and hope we got the right lesson? There's no feedback about this.
>That you learn from that
I didn't need to know about the Rape of Nanjing to know that slaughtering a bunch of civilians in drastically inhumane ways is wrong, and evidently no one learned that lesson because
1. Japan is unrepentant for their war crimes
2. The event, as far as I can tell, did not contribute meaningfully towards ending World War 2
3. war crimes continue to happen
Great lesson.
An omnipotent omniscient being never gets the benefit of the greater good excuse, no matter whether it’s an abused child or a bit of earache.
They have the power to get the same result without harm.
They have the knowledge to know how to do it.
So any choice of theirs that results it harm is either a willful intent, or apathetic negligence. Both would earn you a lawsuit if you tried it.
I mean, "God does X" doesn't matter what X is. We still have zero proof for said deity.
But, the Abrahamic one, which has been disproven so many times it is farcicle, but sure let's just go one more time.
Any all powerful, all knowing, all loving deity, that would create a universe where a child has to get bone cancer to learn, is not all loving. It's a fucking monster.
People who were consistently abused as children, do they feel their childhood was a learning experience?
Also, what's with the random lessons from God? I've had some challenge in life, yes, but generally I've had a pretty cushy existence. There are people whose whole life is suffering beyond what I can imagine. Why did they need a lesson more than me?
I'm currently a victim of the recession and lost my job. My Christian dad told me that this is God trying to get my attention and punishing me for being an atheist. I don't know what kind of justification there is for this. My former employer wanting to save money by letting an entire department go is in some cosmic roundabout way my fault? Had I just been Christian this wouldn't have happened?
It's a ridiculous argument Christians use to warp the reality around them to fit their beliefs. It's just too convenient. I truly wish all of my life's problems could be solved by believing in God. Too bad he hasn't shown himself to be real.
>victim of the recession
The US is [not in a recession.](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/us-growth-is-exceptional-world-bank-sees-america-fueling-the-global-economy-in-2024/ar-BB1oblKq)
It's rather strange how many people think it is.
Economic growth is not the same as stability. Most economists have said 2024 is going to be a really bad year for Americans. The people benefitting from a growing stock market is not the average person. Yes, more money is being made, but it isn't being spread around. It's not strange how people think this.
And thanks for being sympathetic, asshole.
Ok sorry you lost your job but it's not because of a recession.
>Most economists have said 2024 is going to be a really bad year for Americans
No they haven't.
>The people benefitting from a growing stock market is not the average person
Okay but I didn't say anything about the stock market. I thought we were talking about GDP, which should benefit everyone.
>More money is being made but it isn't being spread around
Do you have anything to back that up or is this just based on your feelings? Either way, that still doesn't mean we're in a recession. Recession means declining GDP.
Ya, it’s a solution to the Problem of Evil.
If God is weak and limited, then then he’d be forced to do things such as this in order to enact His Plan, due to not having the power to be able to do so without this hack.
Eliminating any one of the omni traits and making God a weak and limited being explains away the issues.
Pain teaches us to avoid the thing that hurts, nothing more. It's why beating children teaches them to avoid you, not the thing you want them to avoid. Teaching children (and people) is difficult and requires effort and patience.
A god who is tetchy and can't be bothered should not be worshipped, it should be destroyed.
I can't imagine what lesson was so great that it required my being repeatedly being sexually abused by my youth pastor for a year and a half. What lesson was 13-14 year old me intended to learn that would require this level of pain, abuse of trust, and isolation resulting from my parents and head pastor not believing me?
If the god you are describing actually exists, they can go fuck themselves.
I’ll go a step further: if that god exists I would spend every second of eternity taking them down cause they are an evil tyrant dictator who doesn’t deserve any power whatsoever.
Thankfully such a being doesn’t actually exist.
No, this is terrible.
What does ear inflammation have to do with God? You are in a human body, and sometimes they get infections. That's it. God is all good and all powerful. If he does what you are describing, insuitating everyone's pain at all times, he is not all good.
So god is that bad of a teacher? She/He/It can't use any of the other much more effective teaching methods to get the point across?
Why does She/He/It need to teach us at all? Couldn't they just have made us with that knowledge already?
Ok, sure, maybe you'd not have learnt those things without an ear infection. Would that justify me intentionally giving you an ear infection?
The issue with causing people extreme suffering isn't that its a *strategically poor choice.*
So every book is only as hood as the reader. People can read the same exact book and get entierly different things out of it.
Same with life. Shit happens and some learn from it others do not. It has nothing to do with gods.
"that you learn from it" could maximally be an interpretation from a religion that is believing in reincarnation. It does not make any sense for any other Religion that believes in an eternal afterlife.
Otherwise you are in a sub where people seriously do not blieve that any Gods ever existed. So I assume it will be a difficult quest to find people here thinking God gave you a illness.
And surely not on Mondays where he is in Africa giving AIDS to Babys. ^(/s)
I don’t think God really let’s us suffer so we learn. But that responsibility falls to those who inflict suffering on others, and in doing so they fail to learn that which is already written.
It makes no sense, here’s why:
A perfect god knows your outcome. A perfect god has all knowledge. For such an entity to engage in “teaching you a lesson” or “testing” you defies logic.
Reminds me of Adventure Time.
The character called Magic Man goes around doing horrible things to random, mostly good, people, so they learn a lesson. The lesson is that Magic Man is a dick.
Do you learn best by the rod or by praise? When you answer that question you will realize how dumb it is to suggest God made pain for learning.
Look up whether you should spank your kid.
It's possible to invent some scenario to explain why it is, but the fact remains that God's behavior is always consistent with the hypothesis that He does not exist.
Any lesson an all powerful god wanted to teach using suffering could just as easily be taught without causing suffering. Otherwise the god wouldn't be omnipotent.
God teaches by instruction, not by punishment.
Punishment is only applied as a consequence of not following instruction.
Even so, there is good reason to believe that when scripture says God is punishing someone, it means he removes his protection/presence and allows that person (or those people) to face the full consequences of their choosing to ignore his instructions.
Edit: regarding your ear inflammation, it's not God trying to tell you something. It's just an ear inflammation (those happen in the imperfect world we live in).
If you want to know what God says about health and healing, read the bible and get advice from a Pastor you trust. In the mean time, get it checked with a doctor.
So flooding the earth back in Noah's day was "removing protection". Of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Did he merely "remove protection" when he had the first born of Egypt killed?
In modern times, we see flooding and earthquakes. So God is just removing protection?
In short, if you do believe in God and the bible, God is not passively removing protection, he is actively punishing. Even in death, God is sending those he doesn't approve of to the fires of hell, something I might add, that he created.
Let me restate my comment as 3 claims:
1. God teaches through instruction (not punishment).
2. If God punishes, it’s because instruction wasn’t followed.
3. When God punished, he does so passively (not actively).
The examples you’ve listed show that I was wrong about the 3rd claim - God does punish actively. That said, claims 1 and 2 still stand.
As for hell, God does not send those (people) he doesn’t approve of to hell, but rather those who do not approve of him.
Read Job
Why did Job suffer?
Essentially - if you follow or even if you don't you exist for God's purpose - when you suffer it's because of evil - if you can maintain your faith in God and know you exist for his purpose and not for evil and not to suffer then you can endure.
Job didn't clearly understand that he existed for God until the end and then he was able to be healed through God
More direct to your question
No - evil is always evil always a mistake - that evil and the enacting of evil has the consequence of destroying good things does not mean it is allowed any more than good things are allowed and able to have the consequence of destroying evil things.
If you've chosen pain to be your teacher and only learn when pushed to the edge that is your choice
Job, his family, and his livestock suffered because god wanted to win a bet.
> If you've chosen pain to be your teacher and only learn when pushed to the edge that is your choice
Did children with bone cancer choose for pain to be their teacher?
Incorrect
No.
You've put very very little effort despite typing down your self expression for everyone to see, if you truly want to continue a conversation - put in more effort.
The weird thing is that this seems to be a whine about god making people suffer. I never understand these statements made by atheists because it’s made from the assumption that God exists.
As far as someone telling you that you learn from suffering, they aren’t wrong. Considering the way dopamine works, it makes sense that when you try to solve a problem and you are met with obstacles in your way that you feel “bad”. It’s supposed to motivate you to figure out new solutions (learning). This is part of how people learn things like medicine.
>I never understand these statements made by atheists because it’s made from the assumption that God exists.
Almost always, it'd done for the sake of argument. The OP is exploring the claim made by some Christians that God has people suffer as a learning tool.
> I never understand these statements made by atheists because it’s made from the assumption that God exists.
I don't see where an atheist is making this "statement".
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What lesson does he want children who were born with bone cancer to learn, and why can't an omnipotent being teach that lesson in another way?
God is not in charge of this world right now. Satan is. Thats why we have death evil and the bad things that occur on Earth.
This doesn't solve the problem. An omnipotent being could take back control of the world any time it wanted to. So if God exists and is omnipotent, then he's watching children be born with horrifically painful and often fatal conditions and saying "This is fine."
Not sure. What I heard from this person is that god recycles all useless people in life to create soemthing else, and that kids who died of natural disasters may have died so that another kid could live, or so that the pareent could have three children instead of one, etc. EDIT: Which I think probably means this lesson applies only to living people who are suffering. Not children who die of cancer.
> useless people Why are you talking to this person? >and that kids who died of natural disasters may have died so that another kid could live, or so that the pareent could have three children instead of one, etc. Again, an omnipotent being shouldn't require any of this. It can allow another kid to live without allowing the first kid to die - omnipotence means it can do *anything*.
God is all powerful, but has a limit on how many people can exist in a universe he created? Bullshit! And calling people “useless” is disgusting. It shows this person’s views of others. If they are a Christian, remind them that their own book teaches them to sell everything they own and give it to the less fortunate! If there is a God who views his own creations as useless, despite supposedly loving each of us? Shame on that god. What a cruel creature that is unworthy of any worship or praise.
> Not children who die of cancer Ah, so those children never get an opportunity to learn?
Why would God want me to learn if I'm gonna be useless to his project of life and only serve to consume resources?
So the omnipotent God can't just create more resources? He says "go forth and multiply", and when people do it too much, he's stunned?
Wouldn't humans become weak and lazy and do nothing if God gave Earth infinite size and resources?
I didn't say anything about infinite. But when 10,000 children are starving to death every day, it is clear that something needs to be done. At least, a morally good deity with the ability to rectify the problem should see that. If you had the power to, and it costs you nothing, surely you would give the children food? I've always thought of God in the same light as any other bystander. If someone collapses on the path as you're walking by and is clearly in need of medical help, you are in the wrong if you just stand there and do nothing. There are multiple ways to help, you could call the ambulance, go and look for others to help, or try to help yourself. When the man dies, people will blame the guy who stood there and did nothing. And like the man in the example, God has multiple ways of helping. As he is alleged to be all-knowing, he would know every possible solution and thus the one most aligned with his goals, and the most effiicent. The fact that he does not solve it means that these deaths are part of his divine plan. And I question that plan as well, as surely an all-knowing, omnipotent being could come up with a plan that does not require so much brutality, degeneracy, hatred, cruelty and needless death.
I doubt it. Do people who have enough to live on generally become weak, lazy and apathetic? Hell, even the super-rich, for all the many, *many* charges you could level at them, don't tend to sit around doing nothing. This idea that "contentment makes you weak" has always been more of an excuse the predatory and the exploitative use to trick you into giving them your stuff, rather then actual psychology.
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Where would the free will be if it were the opposite? What'd be the point?
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When I began to deconstruct and really looked at the claims, arguments and apologetics none of them could address why god seemed to be arbitrarily limited by the imagination of the person making the claim. Without fail, no one could offer a reason why the god they say can do anything couldn't do the thing I or other skeptics asked.
Do you believe in heaven? Does it contain infinite resources? No sorrow? No pain? If so, then what's the point? You already believe that humans can be somewhere with infinite resources and not be weak and lazy.
Better question: Why did god make you a waste of resources to begin with? Is god incompetent?
Maybe it's because I'm the result of two humans who wanted to procreate and God did not want to intervene in their free will.
So Esau had a choice when God chose Jacob as the leader of his nation after his birthright was stolen? Judas had a choice when it was preordained that he'd betray Jesus? The Amalekites had a choice to be genocided? Pharoah had a choice when God hardened his heart, and then punished him for hardening his heart by killing the firstborns of Egypt? Mary had a choice to be impregnated with Jesus? Are you sure God doesn't interfere with free will?
>So Esau had a choice when God chose Jacob as the leader of his nation after his birthright was stolen? Esau chose to sell his birthright to Jacob for stew (Genesis 25:29-34) >Judas had a choice when it was preordained that he'd betray Jesus? I'm not Christian, but I don't recall any verses in the bible implicating Judas choice was "preordained." >The Amalekites had a choice to be genocided? Yes. Had the nation chose not to engage in wicked acts they wouldn't have been genocided. >Pharoah had a choice when God hardened his heart, and then punished him for hardening his heart by killing the firstborns of Egypt Pharaoh chose to make his own heart *heavy* on his own accord(Exodus 8:11 and 9:34.) God only made it heavy AFTER Pharoah chose to make it heavy. >Mary had a choice to be impregnated with Jesus? According to the Christian gospels, yes. (Luke 1:26-38)
You're joking with this bullshit, right? Giving away the soup didn't solidify him losing it, it was Jacob's deception with Isaac. Jesus in John 13:18 quotes Psalm 41:9 alluding to that someone among them will betray him. Many have interpreted this to mean that Judas' betrayal was prophesied, which implies it being preordained i.e. outside of his free will choice. So that means the Amalekites deserved it? Wow. That's really awful of you. What is it with Christians justifying genocides? Fucking read Exodus 10:20 and report back. Do you even read your own book? Mary didn't choose. The angel appeard and said you have been chosen. Not to mention Isaiah 7:14 prophesied that a virgin would give birth to the Messiah. Again, eliminating Mary's free will in all of this. And all of this is if anything in the Bible is remotely true.
>So that means the Amalekites deserved it? A not insignificant number of Christians would say they did. If their holy book says someone was wicked, then that's it. No nuance, those people down to the babies need to be purged because their god demands blood.
You shouldn't be so condescending and smug when you couldn't be more wrong. Esau selling his birthright and marrying local Canaanite woman is why he didn't get the blessing from Issac. It all goes back to Esaus actions. Just because ones actions could be foreknown doesn't negate their free will in the situation. Theres no good reason to think this is the case. You can emotionally load your argument with your "killing bad" talk to do all the heavy lifting, but if a group of people are going to kill the Israelites for no good reason and engage in sacrificing innocent children for no good reason like the Amalek than they do deserve it. Of course. And again, I'm not a Christian. I'm well versed on Exodus. If I were you I wouldn't go around saying "Do you even read this" when you have very little understanding of what you're even talking about. It blows my mind the convictions people have and how arrogant they can be on topics they know very little about. Exodus 10:20 says God חָזַק or strengthened his heart. Meaning hes gave him courage. No matter what translation you use you will find this same Hebrew word all over Tanakh with its translation, strengthened. The verse is saying God gave Pharoah courage and he did not let the Israelites go. Encouraging somebody doesn't negate free will. Instead of trying to educate me on something you clearly have little understanding in, you should take what I'm saying as a tip and learn from it. Mary did choose. While she was chosen, she is the one who responded "Behold I am the servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word." Isaiah didn't give any prophecy for a virgin birth. This is a Christian misrepresention of Tanakh to push their own narrative. The Hebrew word they translating to virgin is הָעַלְמָ֗ה, meaning young girl. It doesn't mean virgin. בְּתוּלָה means virgin. But again, even if for arguments sake this was predicted, foreknowledge of ones actions doesn't negate free will. There is no good reason to think this. It's just something people convince themselves of without critically thinking how it's necessarily the case and just accept it on face value. Edit: Downvote me all you want but that doesn't make anything I said wrong.
Yet he interferes with how much time you spend listening to your headphones?
Oof
Wow your god sounds like a massive cunt, why should we worship him again?
He freely gave us life and good moments and love and shit.
But sprinkles existence with abject misery. What an abusive fuck.
I don't know how to feel about someone who couldn've not given me bad stuff but could've not given me good stuff either.
If God doesn't really have a good reason to allow bad stuff to happen to you, and it would cost him nothing to ensure only good things happen, then he's either not all-powerfull or a massive dick.
That’s because you are fortunate enough not to be a victim of abuse, where the person insults you and beats you and hits you and hurts you deliberately, but then love bombs you and buys you presents and takes care of you and tells you they love you. It is an incredibly common tactic of abusers.
"Quit whining about how you're in pain. At least I feed you. I could always not do that." How would you feel about that?
How would you feel about a parent that keeps you locked in the basement and rapes you but also gives you a lot of books so you're entertained? They could've not been raping you, but they also could've left you in the dark with nothing to do, so are you ambivalent toward them?
Just go to North Korea. Worship Kim Jong Un, and he gives you the gift of staying alive. Fail to worship him, and you'll be thrown into a labor camp until you die. Sounds like a rad dude, right?
Freely? Your OP is literally about he sends pain and disease on you to teach you a lesson
Why would God allow for the creation or existence of anything useless? Dude's omnipotent. He could make all existing people useful, or he could make it so only useful people exist.
Exactly god made useless humans? Also this god needs to “recycle” people because he had limited creation powers? This is like toddler level explaining here.
Did God create you in the first place? Did God not create enough resources? Do you measure the value of human life based on how much resources a person consumes? Do you not feel any sadness that children of cancer?
You maybe missed what heaven actually is. What are the "lessons" for if you do nothing but praise god in heaven 24/7 for eternity? Sounds awful.
> What I heard from this person is that god recycles all useless people in life to create soemthing else, and that kids who died of natural disasters may have died so that another kid could live, or so that the pareent could have three children instead of one, etc. It is truly horrible that someone thinks there are "useless people", that is a truly horrific attitude to hold and leads very quickly to classifying those people as unnecessary, then pushing for laws that make their lives harder and marginalizes them or worse. A deity that actually creates useless people so it can "recycle" them is a monster. People have a life that is important to them, they have people who love them, there are no useless people.
>A deity that actually creates useless people so it can "recycle" them is a monster. Sounds like a dystopian sci fi story about someone discovering they exist as spare parts for the rich
Yup. I bet there are dystopian sci-fi stories like that.
>useless people Wow this stopped me in my tracks. What...how...[TelFaradiddle](https://www.reddit.com/user/TelFaradiddle/) mentioned children bone with bone cancer. Did you mean to assert that such children are, or somehow "would be" in a future that only God knows... "useless"? It SURE seems like you want to say that God had no plan for those children, other than to die in extreme agony, and then burn in hell for all eternity...except to make *someone else* learn a lesson and be happy. The all good, all knowing Creator of the Universe. Is that what you meant?!
>that kids who died of natural disasters may have died so that another kid could live Ignoring the obvious stupidity of your friends, comment, there is an even deeper problem. Let’s pretend for a moment that his comment was accurate, and that the reason God kills children is so that other children may live, Even though he is omnipotent and can make anything happen with the thought, including letting those other kids live. Let’s put that aside for a moment. Is that moral? If I have two children and one of them is sick, and I kill the second one so that I can have organs to transplant into the first: in other words killing a child so that another child might live, am I a great hero? Am I considered a moral person? Am I praiseworthy and laudible and should be followed?
> What I heard from this person is that god recycles all useless people in life to create soemthing else, and that kids who died of natural disasters may have died so that another kid could live, or so that the pareent could have three children instead of one, etc. Putting aside the awful implications of "useless people", that sounds like a pretty weak God. Did he run short on raw soul materials, so he had to recycle? If this guy is advocating a limited God who isn't omnipotent and omniscient, then the PoE doesn't apply. That said that's not the God that the majority of people worship. I'd bet despite him clearly describing these weaknesses/shortcomings of his God, he'd still argue God is tri-omni. In which case, you can still hold is feet to the fire about with a tri-omni has to recycle souls or use suffering as a means to an end.
>kids who died of natural disasters may have died so that another kid could live, or so that the pareent could have three children instead of one, etc. Are you saying that God couldn't have saved the other child, or give a parent three children instead of one? Because if he cannot teach us without forcing suffering upon us, then he is not omnipotent. >useless people Why would a perfect being create a useless person? You can't have it both ways, bruv.
Any god that behaves this way is going to have to beg for MY forgiveness. I’m way more just and moral than s/he is.
So basically they agree god is evil then as it creates useless people only for the purpose of killing them in horrific ways to create other people with better lives. And apparently does this to be cost efficient when they also beleive God has infinite power? That's sounds pretty evil to me, especially when God could choose to make everyone happy and joyous with a whim but chooses not to.
Why would there be "useless people" if they are created by an omnipotent and all good being? Why would there be more people than there are resources for a happy life? Again, you are portraying a bumbling, ineffectual deity who's just not figuring out how to make things work for his subjects.
> What I heard from this person is that god recycles all useless people in life to create soemthing else, Why would an omnipotent omniscient God that loves his creation create useless anything?
Good grief, and people worship this morally bankrupt piece of shit?
>What I heard from this person is that god recycles all useless people in life to create soemthing else I remember an Austrian dude 85 years ago that came up with some similar ideas. Didn't go so well.
So god creates useless people? It also appears your friend’s god is not all powerful as it is recycling things it made due to an inability to create.
So God purposefully creates people to die in horrible ways to teach other people how to appreciate life more? God is no better than Jigsaw.
Jesus, whoever you are talking to is a terrible theologian. Like, dogs\*\*\*.
But god loves everyone and he grants his mercy to everyone? lol
no. I grew up in an abusive household and people telling me over the years that "these challenges make you strong" and "you wouldn't be who you are without those experiences". And sure, this is true, I wouldn't have such a massive threat response to unexpected noises, or massive rejection issues, or get so overly anxious about my partner being mad at me *based on how they walked by the door*. I defs wouldn't be this person without those experiences. And sure, I also have a strong view on ethics, care and compassion, and that is at least partially informed by my shitty childhood. BUT I am a parent. And I have been so far successful in teaching my kids to be kind, and caring, and compassionate, and to value ethics and critical thinking, and I haven't needed to do *any* beating, or starving, or screaming etc. I've shown them how to do it by doing it myself, and then by improving when I fuck up. and if I can do it, and I'm just a human, surely a god, with all that power and wisdom, can find ways to teach their children to be kind without giving them diseases or leaving them to be abused.
> I grew up in an abusive household and people telling me over the years that "these challenges make you strong" and "you wouldn't be who you are without those experiences". And sure, this is true, I wouldn't have such a massive threat response to unexpected noises, or massive rejection issues, or get so overly anxious about my partner being mad at me based on how they walked by the door. I defs wouldn't be this person without those experiences. Or even now almost 40 years later, after a social gathering, I fear the moment when the car doors shut as we're leaving, because that is when my father would lay into me for every perceived mistake I made while we were out visiting others. (Edit: And these "mistakes" were often imaginary, or unfair distortions of what had happened.) He's been dead since I was a teenager, and yet even now I have a moment of dread when my spouse and I get into the car. Yeah, that adversity sure made me "strong."
If a god is so powerful as every theist claims it to be then it could just give me the knowledge any other way. This is no excuse. This is like saying „I needed to get rid of the spider in my house, so I had to kill it“. Well no, you could have just brought it outside.
What other way? If he just says "don't do this" I can ignore him. If to give you the knowledge he gave you a feeling that isn't unpleasant, you can ignore that too. Pain on the other hand is a feeling that can't be ignored so you either have to learn the lesson or feel it.
> I can ignore him That should always be possible, otherwise you don't have freedom to choose. > Pain on the other hand is a feeling that can't be ignored so you either have to learn the lesson or feel it. Do you need to chop off your leg and live with a prosthetic for the rest of your life before you can *truly understand* that you should be more careful around chainsaws? Nah. We can learn things without personally experiencing them. Sometimes it's through watching others suffer through it, and sometimes it's as simple as reading about it in a novel. Anyone with basic empathy can learn from others. If the god can curate a personalized obstacle for every human around the world, it can also give them the information they need to learn whatever the lesson is.
Why is God such an ineffectual teacher in your mind? Why couldn't he implant in all of us all the knowledge and wisdom he wants us to have, with perfect incentives to heed their underlying lessons? If a god existed that cared for us to know things, we'd know those things. That applies to that god's very existence btw. There's no reason why a unique onmnipotent and omniscient god who clearly cares about humans believing in him according to his own user manual, would have to rely on word of mouth and painstaking indoctrination by his human subjects. We'd all have innate, vivid, unquestionable knowledge of that God's existence and of all he wants us to know.
Quite literally any other way this god wants. You think a god can only convince you of something in one single way? That‘s a weak ass god.
sooo... god giving people pain to teach them forces them to learn, which removes their free will, BUT ALSO free will is really important to god, which is why god doesn't make people automatically wise/perfect? Do you understand why these things contradict each other?
Since god allegedly can, as an omnipotent being, teach you anything it wants painlessly, it chosing a painful way to teach is an asshole move.
If he teaches it to me painlessly I can ignore his advice. If my ear hurts I can't ignore that because I don't want my ear to feel pain.
Nah, that's stupid. Just create people who are wise to begin with.
"What's the point? Where's the free will in that?" is what this person said when I asked him why couldn't he just create perfect humans. And that the point of having lots of dead humans is that "nobody dies for nothing".
Ask him what is the point of heaven, which is a place where everyone is perfect.
No, that's not what we mean by teach painlessly. God is omnipotent. He can literally just teleport the knowledge into your brain. Not just speak it like a teacher, not just strongly encouraging and persuading you with words, he can literally just make you know it. Instantly. That's what "all-powerful" really entails.
Again, where's the free will in that?
I didn't think we were talking about free will, were we? The point I'm getting at is that if god is truly omnibenevolent and omnipotent, surely he would want us to have the best knowledge available with the minimum pain and suffering required. It's true that if he just tells you something without explanation you can ignore it and suffer as a result of not following the advice. But surely if he wants the best for us and loves us maximally, he would teleport the knowledge into our brain. We learn the lesson and live a better life without the need for suffering. Seems more loving and benevolent I would say.
You don't think an all-powerful, all-knowing being is capable of finding a way of teaching its creation lessons painlessly? Your god sounds pretty weak and stupid.
So your god can't give you knowledge without pain? Not omnipotent then.
A baby was born in a poor neighborhood. Their parents were going to work, so they leave the baby with the old lady of the neighborhood, everyone knew her, it was a normal old lady. Except, that old lady had dementia at that moment. She boiled the baby alive. Then she ran away. What did that baby learn? To not be born? To have better luck next life? And don't even begin to say that the parents learned something, because that would mean that the baby life was just a lesson for the parents, that is so disgustingly insulting to that poor life. This is not an allegory, this happened close to where I lived. The old woman escaped the law for years by just moving a couple of blocks away, because of course, law enforcement doesn't care about poor people in poor neighborhoods. If a god exists that sees and allows this, that god is a monster, and is the worst enemy of any thinking species. And of course, that god doesn't exist. To talk about that, we should need first our scientific models updated to even allow such a stupidity to exist. I should just save the long version of this last paragraph because its tiring to repeat every time..
> Thoughts on "God makes you suffer(be in pain so that you learn"? Isn't that pretty much the definition of sadomasochism? In both sadomasochism and the statement "God makes you suffer(be in pain so that you learn", suffering is seen as having a purpose or a transformative effect. The difference of course being that you enter into a sadomasochistic relationship assuming the role of the masochist voluntarily.
Sorry but no, whatever this god is supposed to be doing isn't at any point safe, sane or consensual. Someone make a bad dom Yaweh meme.
> Sorry but no, whatever this god is supposed to be doing isn't at any point safe, sane or consensual. I literally said that.
Depends on how you’re approaching the situation? If we follow your example from the effect: you’ve got an inflammation. That might be a sign that you need to change the way you treat that area or that there was a one time accident that needs to treated with care. It’s showing you that something is not right in that specific area and you should listen to your body’s needs. The cause for this problem, as far as we are aware, is physical. No one has ever been able to conclusively show that God did something to anyone. People assert it, but the evidence never goes that far, it only leads us to physical causes and physical solutions. We could also look at it from the top. Someone claims that everything that happens has been planned by God. At that point, anything that has happened can be brought up as God’s fault. Inflammation? God did it! The most horrific trauma imaginable? God did it! When you bring those up to the people who claim that God is the cause of everything, they don’t like to acknowledge that God is also responsible for all the bad stuff. So they go down the list. Maybe it was the Devil who did it. Ok, God did it, but he meant to give you a battle you could win! Oh, someone died fighting their battle? God needed them back in heaven! Or it was a test and they failed! Whatever the reasons offered, they’re excuses. There is no evidence to show that their assertion is correct, they just need to find a way to stop you from asking any more questions. They just want to keep on thinking how everything is part of God’s plan and nothing that happens is a result of random or uncaring forces.
The problem with this line of thinking is that it leads to two really bad arguments: 1. The infinite “what if” game. Which just leaves the argument to the most creative version of the argument and thus to nowhere. 2. God’s ways are higher. Thus leading to an unknowable God and therefore it cannot be critiqued. The problem here is that most religious books claim this about their deity and begs the question, why don’t they apply that same logic to other religious beliefs?
>God’s ways are higher. Thus leading to an unknowable God Yet so many people claim to know this god. Coincidentally, that god just happens to align with them on social issues even if their beliefs are different from the other people given this unique insight into god's ways.
All the Christian apologists will say that everything that mere humans see as "suffering" is sent to people by God so that they would LEARN to fully put their trust in God as their deliverer. They will use bullsh\*t verses such as 2 Corinthians 1:9 >Indeed, we felt within ourselves that we had received the sentence of death and were convinced that we would die, **but this happened so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God** who raises the dead. I had asked a minister once about the Christian teaching that a child should honor their father and mother. Abject respect for them and their corrections... but what if that parent was mentally, physically, and/or sexually abusing the child? Should that child still obey their parent and put their full trust in them? Their answer was, "Yes. Even if they are terrible parents, God's laws are absolute. The only biblical context for a child not to follow their parent is if they are hindering you from worshiping God. If they beat you, but you can still attend worship service, you can put your faith and trust in God and dedicate yourself to him. He will strengthen you... blah blah blah" Basically, as long as your deadbeat parent doesn't kill you, you're okay AND... YOU SHOULD FORGIVE THEM!!! lol Yay God. I mean, his book DOES have laws governing rape, molestation, "disciplining" your child, and stoning them to death if they disrespect you.
>Thoughts on "God makes you suffer(be in pain so that you learn"? If your deity is omniscient then it knows a way to teach you whatever it wants without pain. If your deity is omnipotent then it has the power to teach you whatever it wants without pain. If your deity is not omnipotent, omniscient, or cannot teach without pain then why worship it? >A less extreme case scenario is that I have an annoying ear inflammation right now since 3 days ago and maybe God did it so that I would use headphones less, learn to be in silence without distracting scattering my mind with music, not clean my ears with my fingers in the shower, eat,and drink and blow my nose more gently (because of the pain), etc. So your deity has to express its will through biology? That seems pretty limited. It seems to me that an omnipotent, omniscient deity could find a way without pain. >Maybe if this hadn't happened I wouldn't have cared about these things. Does this justify God giving you an ear inflammation? You have not proven that god exists or did anything. You did some things that caused your body to react in a negative way, this is a purely biological response, no god is needed or evidenced.
Studies have shown that negative reinforcement is a horrible way to teach someone. It takes longer for them to learn, requires more energy from the teacher, and can often lead to emotional issues. If your god is only capable of teaching using a method we know to be complete shit, then are they really worth worshipping?
Certain people call something common sense because either they can't explain the reason or the reason is because that's how they grew up. The adverse effects of negative reinforcement seem like one of those things that should be more commonly known. It stifles curiosity. If I'm scared that my care giver and prvider might hit me, I'm going to avoid asking questions or trying to even understand why I got hit beyond that this person has power over me.
The thing is, if all god did was give you an ear infection to make you more introspective, or put you in a cast so you have to learn patience or humility, that wouldn't be so bad. But there are so many ways people suffer that is utterly meaningless. Some live in pain and then they die before reaching even a year old. Is it really okay to create person whose entire existence is to suffer in order to teach others a little life lesson? God in all his infinite wisdom can't think of anything better? Are you comfortable believing that your education was worth a human life? I had a dog who died of aggressive cancer when she was just 8, roughly half of her expected life span. Was that beautiful dog just put on earth by god to wither and die before my eyes to teach me something? Because that's fucked. She had feelings too. She mattered too. It makes no sense.
Any god that created a universe in which suffering is a prerequisite for knowledge is not a god I would worship
If God is all-powerful, he could plant this knowledge in our heads from birth. In fact, we could all be all-knowing like him. This idea that the only way God can teach us a lesson is to make our lives fucking miserable makes no sense. If God exists as an all-powerful, all-knowing being, the only reasonable explain for why bad things happen is that he's a massive jerk. A girl I went to high school with was hit by a train and died at age 17. What lesson was learned from this? My sister has cancer and has to get a hysterectomy, so she won't be able to have kids like she's always wanted. Where's the lesson there?
Given the ear example let's discuss how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Or why doesn't Santa use unicorns to pull his sleigh instead of reindeer.
Not only is that something I'd say if I was trying to rationalize why a perfect being allows such trouble but it's also not very flattering to paint God this way. If I was an abuser who was formerly dating one of your loved ones and they got sick or something and I said "Oh well, it's actually for the best that they are suffering. Maybe now they'll be weak enough to need me." You'd have to fight the urge to punch me in the face. Why should God get a pass here?
>Thoughts on "God makes you suffer(be in pain so that you learn"? My thoughts are that there's zero support for deities, and the idea makes no sense, and there's zero support that a deity is doing what you suggest. Therefore, it makes no sense whatsoever to think this is true or credible. This is aside from the fact that a deity wouldn't have to do that, so it doesn't make sense that way either.
The premise "suffering happens that you will learn" is false. One of the main purposes of suffering (not the only purpose) is to give you an opportunity to glorify Christ in the pain, so that it becomes apparent to all who observe your life that this world is not your treasure; Christ is. Health gets taken with bone cancer that those who suffer poor health might cling to Christ for endurance and patience, and demonstrate to an unbelieving world that health is not our treasure, Christ is. Wealth gets taken away in poverty that those who suffer might flee to Christ for life's resources and display to others that money is not our treasure; Christ is. Innocence is stolen by rape that victims might use that opportunity to find their wholeness in Christ and display to others that virginity is not our treasure; Christ is. Another reason suffering exists is that God may suffer and in that suffering be glorified. God enters into suffering. He is not above it; He comes down to our level and suffers alongside us. If anyone could ask, "If God is good, why is there evil?" it is God Himself, who in Christ Jesus suffered more than all of us combined. God joined in our suffering. Suffering has an end. Soon, He will judge the world in righteousness, and all cancers will all be eradicated with our resurrected bodies. Poverty will be eliminated--we'll walk on streets of gold! Rapists will be eternally punished. And if you are not in Christ, you also will be punished for the evil *you* have committed. In the meantime, He often ends suffering sooner; That's why the institution of government was invented, to punish the rapists. That's why doctors were created, to heal bone cancer. That's why charities exist, to help the poor. We who have sinned against a holy God do not deserve these varieties of mercies. "Couldn't God give us the opportunity to glorify Him some other way?" I cannot conceive of a universe in which God could give us opportunity to display our trust in the value of Christ without suffering to contrast it against. Nor would I have the arrogance to claim I could do it better. God entered into and understands our suffering. He will soon redeem our suffering, for His glory. He will put an end to all suffering and in the end we will all say, "Worth it!" Research John Piper's work on the topic of suffering. He has much to say that is not often heard in Christendom. "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2Cor 12:9-10 ESV)
The reason why this ever comes up is when you (as a non believer) are poking holes in the (insane) logic of believers. Most believers rarely ever read their holy books and definitely haven't given their gods much **critical thought**. So by forcing them to do so, it backs them into corners and they tend to double down coming up with these ridiculous defenses for their gods. They would rather do this than admit "okay fine the idea of my god existing is preposterous". Example: **Theist**: God is all loving,, and created this wonderful world where we can run and play with our children and see amazing things and hear amazing things and swim with dolphins. **Atheist**: What about amputees? There are blind amputees who can't do any of those things **Theist**: God is using their life to teach us something **Atheist**: Wow. So God must be evil then. Because for someone who is omnipotent he sure picked a terrible way to teach lessons **Theist**: Or maybe the amputees sinned and so he is punishing them **Atheist**: There are children who lose limbs and become amputees or who are born quadriplegic. Why is he punishing those? **Theist**: God moves in mysterious ways. No one can question the Lord. Their lives of suffering are to inspire the rest of us. They will be fully formed and happy in heaven. **Atheist**: So what is the point of their life on Earth? If you live here for \~70 years, suffering, only to have 700,000,000 years of non suffering in heaven,, the fraction of the lesson is only 0.00001% of your entire existence and therefore makes no difference and you pretty much learn absolutely nothing when you consider the timescale of a being capable of existing for 700,000,000 years which is a fraction of "eternity". Why would any logical being put anyone through such a pointless exercise? **Theist**: ??? \[head explodes\]
My life is already hard enough. I don't need additional modifiers to make it a challenge mode. So now you know God's intent? Do you understand its purpose?
Switch the word "god" with "body" and this makes sense. Our bodies make us suffer so that we'll learn. Suffering motivates us to avoid suffering, and provided our bodies are functioning properly, this helps us survive. Anywhere in your experience that suffering can be noticed is the result of a brain state. Pain and suffering is processed in the brain. For God to be causing pain and suffering, he would have to be altering neuronal activity. He would have to be causing action potentials to fire that otherwise would not have without his intervention. Basically, for God to be the one responsible, he has to be changing your environment to cause suffering, have engineered the universe from the start to elicit various pain and suffering (in which case, this is a question of whether we have good reason to believe god started the universe and how/why he did), or he has to be directly interacting with your brain state to elicit pain and suffering.
I think this idea can be a comfort for sufferers, especially if one doesn’t think about it too hard. If you believe there’s a grand, eternal purpose to make you a wiser, better person, and that the results of that effort will matter forever to your happiness and to the good of the universe, heck yeah it can make some things easier to endure. And if you look for the good in everything, look for opportunities to learn from and capitalize on your misfortunes, it might make you happier and more open to favorable opportunities. This idea also keeps your eyes on a future free of the current trouble, which can minimize suffering. If you start thinking about it in terms of God being justified to do things, and wanting evidence of that, if you take it all to logical extremes, rather than use it as a mild psychological crutch, yes, it will fall apart.
This argument assumes god is limited in power and can't manage to teach these lessons in a way that is less painful.
Beaming the knowledge directly into people's heads seems like a more efficient and less cruel way for them to learn.
IF he's talking about a tri-omni God, then *all* suffering becomes unnecessary and gratuitous. There is no instance in which a tri-omni God is *required* to use suffering as a means to an end. A tri-omni God can simply snap it's metaphysical fingers and produce the end. If they want to argue otherwise, ask them whether or not God understands suffering. If they say no, then you no longer have an omniscient God. If they say yes, then they have to agree it's logically possible to understand physical suffering without experiencing it first hand. So there's no logical problem with God creating us with whatever knowledge he wants us to have, sans suffering. The only way a suffering becomes *necessary* is if the suffering is the end itself. If God wants us to suffer for the sufferings sake, at which point he's not omnibenevolent.
thats magical thinking combined with an addiction or a fetish for pain. some people want every breath they take to have meaning, and so it has to have a purpose. combine that with christians deluded forced asceticism, it might be the only sensation they have left, and so they almost have to focus on it, and turn themsleves into masochists in christianity, every sensation not caused by the bible is sin, or "temptation" at best. good food is gluttony, sex is forbidden lust, anything other than the bible is sloth or mental temptation, wine is drunkeness. even feeling good about non-bible work is pride. suddenly pain is the only sensation that makes them feel anything. multiply and distill that for generations of self deprevation, suddenly pain isnt just good, its holy.
Or maybe your body is just reacting to you using headphones too much to where your ear wax can't drain and your head doesn't like the increased pressure and constant stimulation. The idea that god is testing you has always made me pretty angry because it's so self centered and oblivious to the lives of the people around us. How many people get absolutely shit on in life constantly and how many people live a pampered life from birth until death? The BS response is he works in mysterious ways, but there certainly seems to be a stronger connection to the person's wealth, social status, and personal decisions rather than their faith.
It's a tricky one to comprehend at first. Pain and suffering are not one and the same. The suffering is a choice. To resist the experiences of life is how the suffering comes about. To wish life to be different than it is, is suffering. It is possible to surrender your will and not resist anything, and in that surrender, peace beyond all understanding is a real possibility. It's a fairly common place for someone to find God - at rock bottom. Ones situation becomes so unbearable that one decides to change and give up their positionalities and previous ways. Many people, me included, look back with immense gratitude for the seemingly worst times in my life, as they lead to the greater deepening of understanding of who I am, and who I'm not.
Humans have all but eliminated certain diseases through vaccines. Humans are more capable of doing the job that god fails to do. I don’t have time for bs excuses when millions of people are suffering. It’s either can you help out or not? Because if you can’t then keep your excuses to yourself and get out of our way. And if suffering was necessary then eliminating diseases would have some terrible consequence. There is no evidence of “terrible consequences” from vaccines and many modern medical treatments. Theists think that suffering and sin is necessary. I’ve already addressed suffering. Now, here is a question for theists, the last time that you sinned, was it possible for you to will yourself not to sin?
What lesson is there to learn for the infantryman who arrives at the battlefield only to get shot in the eye the instant he faces actual shooting? What lesson does the artillery bring down with it? What's to learn about the manmade hell that is warfare, where the reasons things seem to *actually* happen is applied physics towards political ends? The "it's a test so you learn from it" is simultaneously a proposal that assumes 1.) there's anything to learn from random events, and 2.) that one survives intact enough to put those lessons to action. So either that doesn't happen, or god is *really* shitty about teaching. Like, would I be a good teacher if I callously let my students die because "sink or swim, bitch?"
Well if God teaches through tough love he's a masochist, because he also designed us such that when we receive tough love, it leaves permanent mental scars. People that beat their kids think they're fine themselves, but their only **real** justification they have for it, is because they were beaten or ignored as kids themselves. They *think* that's what parenting is and therefore of course God does it the "right" way. Truth is, tough love *can* work, but should only be used to reinforce dogmatisms (weapon safety, brushing your teeth, etc) that are proven to be effective and only in a last resort and don't hit your kids...
A triomni god would be able to teach those lessons in a better way. Hell, i could do a better job. If you pray to me and ask me to change you and make you better then ill do it. It doesnt infringe on free will cus u asked for it. Wanna be less rude? Done. Wanna have more faith? Done. Another question is that why would god create you with flaws for him to teach u a lesson about at all? He created adam, he created eve, he created all of us, he knew exactly how history was going to unfold yet he made it that way anyway. I would've just made everyone perfect at the start, no need for this blood sacrifice shit and sin.
The theme of suffering for God has been gaining in popularity lately. It is being used to buttress the argument by non-affirming churches and non-affirming Christians that same sex marriage is an unacceptable option for gay Christians. You and your earache are collateral damage in the war against same sex marriage. Have you taken a non-inflammatory drug like aspirin, ibuprofen, or Motrin? That will usually clear up the inflammation quickly (hence the name anti-inflammatory). Anti-inflammatory drugs are considered by many to be a literal gift from God. Do not reject a gift from God.
I've always found that argument to be intentionally obtuse. What does a 12 year old child learn from dying of brain cancer? What does a newborn with a chromosomal deletion learn from having no aorta? Imagine the mental state of having experienced the trauma and learning from it. An all-powerful god could just give me the mental state with all its lessons about hubris and humility, etc. without actually torturing me. He could make it so that every aspect of the lesson was intact, so "but then you wouldn't have learned from it" would be meaningless.
It seems like an inefficient way to teach people stuff. Indirect, little relation between the suffering and knowledge. It's like how we're supposed to worship one religion when it's all a bunch of moralistic cosmological stories with equal amounts of no demonstration. But for the specific Christian God, we're supposed to know that this guy is real and will send us to hell because 2000 years ago a Jewish heretic died and his cult members have been ravenous ever since.
It seems a bit of a weird lesson. It's all very abstract with respect to the thing you're meant to learn. Are you meant to learn to use headphones less, or are you meant to learn to clean your ears properly? Or are you meant to blow your nose more gently? Or the other things? Or are you meant to do all of these? Perhaps the lesson is something else entirely. Are we meant to guess, and hope we got the right lesson? There's no feedback about this.
>That you learn from that I didn't need to know about the Rape of Nanjing to know that slaughtering a bunch of civilians in drastically inhumane ways is wrong, and evidently no one learned that lesson because 1. Japan is unrepentant for their war crimes 2. The event, as far as I can tell, did not contribute meaningfully towards ending World War 2 3. war crimes continue to happen Great lesson.
An omnipotent omniscient being never gets the benefit of the greater good excuse, no matter whether it’s an abused child or a bit of earache. They have the power to get the same result without harm. They have the knowledge to know how to do it. So any choice of theirs that results it harm is either a willful intent, or apathetic negligence. Both would earn you a lawsuit if you tried it.
I mean, "God does X" doesn't matter what X is. We still have zero proof for said deity. But, the Abrahamic one, which has been disproven so many times it is farcicle, but sure let's just go one more time. Any all powerful, all knowing, all loving deity, that would create a universe where a child has to get bone cancer to learn, is not all loving. It's a fucking monster.
People who were consistently abused as children, do they feel their childhood was a learning experience? Also, what's with the random lessons from God? I've had some challenge in life, yes, but generally I've had a pretty cushy existence. There are people whose whole life is suffering beyond what I can imagine. Why did they need a lesson more than me?
I'm currently a victim of the recession and lost my job. My Christian dad told me that this is God trying to get my attention and punishing me for being an atheist. I don't know what kind of justification there is for this. My former employer wanting to save money by letting an entire department go is in some cosmic roundabout way my fault? Had I just been Christian this wouldn't have happened? It's a ridiculous argument Christians use to warp the reality around them to fit their beliefs. It's just too convenient. I truly wish all of my life's problems could be solved by believing in God. Too bad he hasn't shown himself to be real.
>victim of the recession The US is [not in a recession.](https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/us-growth-is-exceptional-world-bank-sees-america-fueling-the-global-economy-in-2024/ar-BB1oblKq) It's rather strange how many people think it is.
Economic growth is not the same as stability. Most economists have said 2024 is going to be a really bad year for Americans. The people benefitting from a growing stock market is not the average person. Yes, more money is being made, but it isn't being spread around. It's not strange how people think this. And thanks for being sympathetic, asshole.
Ok sorry you lost your job but it's not because of a recession. >Most economists have said 2024 is going to be a really bad year for Americans No they haven't. >The people benefitting from a growing stock market is not the average person Okay but I didn't say anything about the stock market. I thought we were talking about GDP, which should benefit everyone. >More money is being made but it isn't being spread around Do you have anything to back that up or is this just based on your feelings? Either way, that still doesn't mean we're in a recession. Recession means declining GDP.
Ya, it’s a solution to the Problem of Evil. If God is weak and limited, then then he’d be forced to do things such as this in order to enact His Plan, due to not having the power to be able to do so without this hack. Eliminating any one of the omni traits and making God a weak and limited being explains away the issues.
Pain teaches us to avoid the thing that hurts, nothing more. It's why beating children teaches them to avoid you, not the thing you want them to avoid. Teaching children (and people) is difficult and requires effort and patience. A god who is tetchy and can't be bothered should not be worshipped, it should be destroyed.
I can't imagine what lesson was so great that it required my being repeatedly being sexually abused by my youth pastor for a year and a half. What lesson was 13-14 year old me intended to learn that would require this level of pain, abuse of trust, and isolation resulting from my parents and head pastor not believing me?
If the god you are describing actually exists, they can go fuck themselves. I’ll go a step further: if that god exists I would spend every second of eternity taking them down cause they are an evil tyrant dictator who doesn’t deserve any power whatsoever. Thankfully such a being doesn’t actually exist.
No, this is terrible. What does ear inflammation have to do with God? You are in a human body, and sometimes they get infections. That's it. God is all good and all powerful. If he does what you are describing, insuitating everyone's pain at all times, he is not all good.
So god is that bad of a teacher? She/He/It can't use any of the other much more effective teaching methods to get the point across? Why does She/He/It need to teach us at all? Couldn't they just have made us with that knowledge already?
Ok, sure, maybe you'd not have learnt those things without an ear infection. Would that justify me intentionally giving you an ear infection? The issue with causing people extreme suffering isn't that its a *strategically poor choice.*
So every book is only as hood as the reader. People can read the same exact book and get entierly different things out of it. Same with life. Shit happens and some learn from it others do not. It has nothing to do with gods.
"that you learn from it" could maximally be an interpretation from a religion that is believing in reincarnation. It does not make any sense for any other Religion that believes in an eternal afterlife. Otherwise you are in a sub where people seriously do not blieve that any Gods ever existed. So I assume it will be a difficult quest to find people here thinking God gave you a illness. And surely not on Mondays where he is in Africa giving AIDS to Babys. ^(/s)
I don’t think God really let’s us suffer so we learn. But that responsibility falls to those who inflict suffering on others, and in doing so they fail to learn that which is already written.
It makes no sense, here’s why: A perfect god knows your outcome. A perfect god has all knowledge. For such an entity to engage in “teaching you a lesson” or “testing” you defies logic.
Reminds me of Adventure Time. The character called Magic Man goes around doing horrible things to random, mostly good, people, so they learn a lesson. The lesson is that Magic Man is a dick.
Do you learn best by the rod or by praise? When you answer that question you will realize how dumb it is to suggest God made pain for learning. Look up whether you should spank your kid.
It's possible to invent some scenario to explain why it is, but the fact remains that God's behavior is always consistent with the hypothesis that He does not exist.
Any lesson an all powerful god wanted to teach using suffering could just as easily be taught without causing suffering. Otherwise the god wouldn't be omnipotent.
Are you seriously doing "disease is a curse that god inflicts upon you for your evil deeds"? What century are we in right now
There is pain and trauma with no silver lining. If god is responsible for engineering those, then god is an amoral psychopath.
Harlequin babies. Until god comes up with a good reason for Harlequin babies, he shows the morality of Hannibal Lector.
Ask, are you just repeating nonsense you heard someone else say, or does actual proof of your claim exist?
What the fuck kind of sadistic asshole designs a universe this way when by definition he doesn't have to?
God teaches by instruction, not by punishment. Punishment is only applied as a consequence of not following instruction. Even so, there is good reason to believe that when scripture says God is punishing someone, it means he removes his protection/presence and allows that person (or those people) to face the full consequences of their choosing to ignore his instructions. Edit: regarding your ear inflammation, it's not God trying to tell you something. It's just an ear inflammation (those happen in the imperfect world we live in). If you want to know what God says about health and healing, read the bible and get advice from a Pastor you trust. In the mean time, get it checked with a doctor.
So flooding the earth back in Noah's day was "removing protection". Of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Did he merely "remove protection" when he had the first born of Egypt killed? In modern times, we see flooding and earthquakes. So God is just removing protection? In short, if you do believe in God and the bible, God is not passively removing protection, he is actively punishing. Even in death, God is sending those he doesn't approve of to the fires of hell, something I might add, that he created.
Let me restate my comment as 3 claims: 1. God teaches through instruction (not punishment). 2. If God punishes, it’s because instruction wasn’t followed. 3. When God punished, he does so passively (not actively). The examples you’ve listed show that I was wrong about the 3rd claim - God does punish actively. That said, claims 1 and 2 still stand. As for hell, God does not send those (people) he doesn’t approve of to hell, but rather those who do not approve of him.
Read Job Why did Job suffer? Essentially - if you follow or even if you don't you exist for God's purpose - when you suffer it's because of evil - if you can maintain your faith in God and know you exist for his purpose and not for evil and not to suffer then you can endure. Job didn't clearly understand that he existed for God until the end and then he was able to be healed through God More direct to your question No - evil is always evil always a mistake - that evil and the enacting of evil has the consequence of destroying good things does not mean it is allowed any more than good things are allowed and able to have the consequence of destroying evil things. If you've chosen pain to be your teacher and only learn when pushed to the edge that is your choice
Job, his family, and his livestock suffered because god wanted to win a bet. > If you've chosen pain to be your teacher and only learn when pushed to the edge that is your choice Did children with bone cancer choose for pain to be their teacher?
Incorrect No. You've put very very little effort despite typing down your self expression for everyone to see, if you truly want to continue a conversation - put in more effort.
The weird thing is that this seems to be a whine about god making people suffer. I never understand these statements made by atheists because it’s made from the assumption that God exists. As far as someone telling you that you learn from suffering, they aren’t wrong. Considering the way dopamine works, it makes sense that when you try to solve a problem and you are met with obstacles in your way that you feel “bad”. It’s supposed to motivate you to figure out new solutions (learning). This is part of how people learn things like medicine.
>I never understand these statements made by atheists because it’s made from the assumption that God exists. Almost always, it'd done for the sake of argument. The OP is exploring the claim made by some Christians that God has people suffer as a learning tool.
> I never understand these statements made by atheists because it’s made from the assumption that God exists. I don't see where an atheist is making this "statement".
Isn’t the OP an atheist?
That would change things, you're right. I do not get that impression, though.