2) God is All-wise/All-knowing

[homoviator]

If this is so, He knows the present and future. Then he also knows the present good and present evil as well as the future good and future evil. Then is it not possible that God would tolerate horrible things like starvation because he foresees that in the long run that more people will be better and happier than if he miraculously intervened?

Comments

[akui_]

so by becoming christian you're done learning and changing and growing? now that you understand why the world is the way it is? i'm not clear what you're point is here, you're slipping

Part 2

[homoviator]

Part of the 3prong argument as to how an all good, all powerful God can exist if there's evil. All three arguments compliment each other.

The basic idea being we don't know everything, but God does. So what we see as evil might actually be for the good.

Re: Part 2

[akui_]

seems to me the 3 prong argument says the same thing three times. evil eventually leads to good. sure, anything leads to anything else given enough time. you can make paths between any two points and make evil good. i'm sure if you really tried you could tie the russian cannibal (killed a couple hundred people) to me and something good that's happened in my life. i guess eventually everything relates to everything, but there again is another point of christianity that i dislike intensely (i've been saying i hate things too much lately). that it's so vague. you can make a point out of anything by saying that it means something and that since you can't be disproven, that makes it proven. in my mind you have to prove something to make it true, not disprove it to make in untrue.

The proof that it isnt proof

[homoviator]

Well, it doesnt actually prove evil leads to good. It only gives a reasonable explanation as to why God might let evil happen. But yeah, i didnt mean it to sound like proof, rather than why evil is not proof of God not existing. Otherwise, i still think we dont have anything that i would define as proof for or against God.

Re: The proof that it isnt proof

[akui_]

i think evil leads to good. we as a species may be pretty fucking retarded most of the time but eventually we'll see something "evil" and go "hey let's not do that any more" or we'll learn from it and somehow turn it to good. even if it just means avoiding that in the future.

Interesting

[homoviator]

Ah, so you mean learning from our mistakes? I think generally we do, but i think there are cases where we dont. Like, obviously if we continue to pollute and deforest this planet, its going to go bye bye. And the ozone layer is still going too. But then its just inconvenient for us to actually take the steps necessary right now. We'll wait till things are even worse.

And even crime... how long will it take us to figure out a way to get rid of crime? Or do we keep crime around because it helps us? Course this begs the question if there exists a way for us to eliminate crime in an acceptable way.

Re: Interesting

[akui_]

ok this leads into a whole other debate rife with many many arguing points. i will try to sum up my feelings on it as briefly as possible with as little explanation as possible. (skipping the deforestion and polluting stuff.. by the time the earth disintegrates or whatever environmentalists think will happen [which i've read many studies on and more often than not it's environmentalists blowing things out of proportion, not advocates of logging making things seem less bad than they are] because we'll be on other planets by then.. bush wants a permanent colony on the mood by 2012 i think he said) anyway here; crime is necessary because 1) society needs bad guys to feel good. 2) we need cops for that false sense of security we all love so much 2b) we need cops because it creates a huge number of jobs, from simple cops to administration to mall cops to the fbi, the cia, csis and so on 3) to 'eliminate' crime would be dabbling in genetic engineering, which again is just a whole nother subject altogether that i'm not even going to touch

Re: Interesting

[homoviator]

I wonder what it would be like living on the moon... we'd be living on the light side of it of course, so i guess they'd have something that blocked out the light daily to simulate day and night

Re: Interesting

[akui_]

my brain doesn't reach back far enough to remember what i said and i'm trying to fire these off asap to get done with my roommates computer (i got my own recently) so i'm just going to respond to what i can see that i think i have a response to

Hmmm

[homoviator]

Or another option is to put much more money into finding a way to live on other planets (and using the resources there), or underwater even.

If i didn't believe there was a God with His Divine Will and Plan, then i'd agree that we should limit baby production and i'd probably also agree to gene altering, although i'm not sure. It seems to me every time we come up with some cure or whatnot, some new disease steps up. I would half expect something would happen like our gene altering would produce aberrations and new diseases more dangerous than the last.

Re: Hmmm

[akui_]

so you think that this overpopulation which causes starvation and poverty and all that crap is acceptible because you believe in god? or you think it's some divine plan to just fill this earth to the brim and wipe it all out because he has nothing better to do? maybe to create God: The Next Testament. make it all him and X-treme sort of

Things that make you Ouch

[homoviator]

To believe in the Christian God is to believe that He has a perfect plan within his perfect time-table

Re: Things that make you Ouch

[akui_]

we can be as perfectly evolved as we want, it's nature that's changing to try to rid itself of the virus that is man. there have been theories put forth by quite a few smarty men (if you really want a list of names i'll try to find one. but i'm not big on research) that there have been a number of incredibly catastrophic events take place in our history, so catastrophic that they essentially set our evolution back to zero. the dinosaurs disappearing is thought to be the last event of this kind. boils down to earth gets pissed off at all the crap going down and changes to try and level the playing field. if that doesn't work then it's time to push the reset button. this theory also states that we've come just as far as we have this time around, even further really and that's where all these weird "natural" monuments have come from (stone henge, the pyramids etc). they're just leftovers from when we were here last time

Re: Things that make you Ouch

[homoviator]

I dont think God tests us in that manner, but rather the catastrophes we face (both global and personal) are results of our sin. When we try to rely solely on ourselves and live by our own rules (therefore living in sin), the sin manifests into diseases and disasters. Pretty much, to me they're reminders that man isnt good enough by themselves.

The funny thing i find with George Carlin is that if i didnt believe in God i think i would believe the same things he does. It makes me wonder if he believed in God, how much like me might he have become.