Author Topic: The god of suffering  (Read 29302 times)

floo

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The god of suffering
« on: December 29, 2016, 09:15:05 AM »
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« Last Edit: June 08, 2018, 01:56:49 PM by Nearly Sane »

Anchorman

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #1 on: December 29, 2016, 09:17:46 AM »
Define your term 'suffering', floo.
"for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."

Khatru

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #2 on: December 29, 2016, 10:24:12 AM »
Define your term 'suffering', floo.

May I provide my definition?

Look around our world and watch the news - you'll see plenty of examples of human suffering.  From natural disasters to those inflicted by other humans - it's everywhere.

All this suffering and yet no sign of this god who we are told is positively bursting with love for his creation.



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Anchorman

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #3 on: December 29, 2016, 11:05:21 AM »
May I provide my definition?

Look around our world and watch the news - you'll see plenty of examples of human suffering.  From natural disasters to those inflicted by other humans - it's everywhere.

All this suffering and yet no sign of this god who we are told is positively bursting with love for his creation.





Given your definition, I'd say that there are many signs of God in those situations.
Committed workers, motivated by faith, giving humanitarian and medical aid in situations of the greatest danger.
Do you expect God to stop the natural disasters?
Why?
Wouldn't that contravene way nature works - and the way the planet keeps on working?
Or stop the wars?
Why?
Wouldn't that impinge on the whole free will thing again - which I'm not dipping my toes in on this thread ?

"for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."

Hope

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #4 on: December 29, 2016, 11:29:08 AM »
If god exists and is responsible for creation including humans and their nature, it is responsible for causing all the suffering there has been in this world. If god is omnipotent, as is claimed by believers, it must have known exactly what would happen when it invented badness as well as goodness. That being the case why did god want humans to suffer, does it get a perverted thrill when observing human distress?
Good to see yet another of your repeat threads, Floo.  I appreciate tyhat you don't like some of the responses you get every other time you run the subject past us.
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floo

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #5 on: December 29, 2016, 11:32:40 AM »
Good to see yet another of your repeat threads, Floo.  I appreciate tyhat you don't like some of the responses you get every other time you run the subject past us.

To which you cannot given any credible answer.

Shaker

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #6 on: December 29, 2016, 11:53:05 AM »
Given your definition, I'd say that there are many signs of God in those situations.
But no sign whatever of a god willing and able to prevent the causes of suffering in the first place. I don't mean mopping up after the fact, but not allowing it to occur to begin with.
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Committed workers, motivated by faith, giving humanitarian and medical aid in situations of the greatest danger.
Those are human beings doing human things out of our natural and inherent empathy, founded ultimately on a theory of mind. No gods involved.

The more important question is, which is the better scenario: to give help, aid, succour and comfort to someone after a terrible experience - or to prevent the terrible experience occurring at all in the first instance, so that the tea and sympathy are superfluous?
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Do you expect God to stop the natural disasters?
Why?
The god of traditional monotheism is an omnimax god - all knowing, all powerful and perfectly good. Such a god would:

(a) be aware of suffering (all knowing);
(b) would wish/desire to prevent suffering (all good);
(c) would know how to be able to prevent suffering (all knowing);
(d) would actually prevent suffering (as per the properties of being all good and all powerful).

Yet this is not what we see.

Of course you may not believe in a god who is all-powerful, all-knowing and entirely good. Hope for example is notoriously slippery, slimy and evasive about the attributes of the deity he purports to believe in. Start to chip away at any one (at least) of those attributes and that opens up a different kind of conversation altogether, which is probably why he won't go there.
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Wouldn't that contravene way nature works - and the way the planet keeps on working?
Or stop the wars?
Why?
No. If you believe in a god who is the designer/creator/author of nature in the first instance, nature can be whatever that entity desires it to be. Paradoxically enough, the suggestion that these actions would contravene the known workings of nature holds only from the viewpoint of an atheist, not a theist.
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Wouldn't that impinge on the whole free will thing again - which I'm not dipping my toes in on this thread ?
Free will is something which has never been demonstrated to exist, and I'd say based on recent developments in neuroscience is looking increasingly untenable.

Here's a short and simple, fairly well known internet image that quickly summarises much of the preceding:

http://iwastesomuchtime.com/73685
« Last Edit: December 29, 2016, 12:21:43 PM by Shaker »
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

ad_orientem

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #7 on: December 29, 2016, 11:54:40 AM »
If god exists and is responsible for creation including humans and their nature, it is responsible for causing all the suffering there has been in this world. If god is omnipotent, as is claimed by believers, it must have known exactly what would happen when it invented badness as well as goodness. That being the case why did god want humans to suffer, does it get a perverted thrill when observing human distress?

Yes, God knew exactly what would happen. Yes, he knew Adam would sin bringing suffering and death into creation. In an Orthodox hymn we say "Glory to God for all things". Do you feel sufficiently scandalised now?
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Shaker

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #8 on: December 29, 2016, 12:02:29 PM »
Yes, God knew exactly what would happen. Yes, he knew Adam would sin bringing suffering and death into creation. In an Orthodox hymn we say "Glory to God for all things". Do you feel sufficiently scandalised now?
Only by the fact that people who presumably can dress themselves, can tie their own shoelaces and are allowed to use sharp implements unsupervised can believe such tosh.
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

floo

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #9 on: December 29, 2016, 12:14:01 PM »
Yes, God knew exactly what would happen. Yes, he knew Adam would sin bringing suffering and death into creation. In an Orthodox hymn we say "Glory to God for all things". Do you feel sufficiently scandalised now?

If god is responsible it is a psycho, as I have said many times previously!

SwordOfTheSpirit

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #10 on: December 29, 2016, 12:14:26 PM »
If god exists and is responsible for creation including humans and their nature, it is responsible for causing all the suffering there has been in this world. If god is omnipotent, as is claimed by believers, it must have known exactly what would happen when it invented badness as well as goodness. That being the case why did god want humans to suffer, does it get a perverted thrill when observing human distress?
But you are always questioning the existence of God Floo, e.g.

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=13124.msg653326#msg653326
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It is highly unlikely the god of the Bible, who reads like a bad fairy tale, had anything to do with creating the universe!


http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=13093.msg652293#msg652293
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I too have said many times, there is no evidence to support the existence of any god, you haven't come up with any. Until there is definitive proof, the human imagination has to be a strong contender for their creation.


http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=13001.msg652183#msg652183
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You have not one shred of evidence to prove a god exists, let alone it wrote the Bible as you claim!


Therefore, where's your evidence for this claim?
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If god exists and is responsible for creation including humans and their nature, it is responsible for causing all the suffering there has been in this world.
I haven't enough faith to be an atheist.

Shaker

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #11 on: December 29, 2016, 12:17:12 PM »
But you are always questioning the existence of God Floo, e.g.

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=13124.msg653326#msg653326

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=13093.msg652293#msg652293

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=13001.msg652183#msg652183

Therefore, where's your evidence for this claim?
It isn't a claim - it's a question. It starts with "If ..." so is a conditional statement ("If X, then Y" - where, I might add, Floo doesn't even recognise the validity of X any more than I do, although you're supposed to).

Knock off the first word - then it's a claim.
« Last Edit: December 29, 2016, 12:20:54 PM by Shaker »
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

floo

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #12 on: December 29, 2016, 01:30:37 PM »
But you are always questioning the existence of God Floo, e.g.

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=13124.msg653326#msg653326

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=13093.msg652293#msg652293

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=13001.msg652183#msg652183

Therefore, where's your evidence for this claim?

I haven't made any claims I am asking questions about god, for which no one can provide any verifiable evidence.

Hope

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #13 on: December 29, 2016, 01:31:56 PM »
To which you cannot given any credible answer.
Yet, that is yopur opinion - and that of some others here.  There are many who - without being believers - regard them as credible.  Therefore that's your look-out, not mine.
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ad_orientem

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #14 on: December 29, 2016, 01:37:54 PM »
If god is responsible it is a psycho, as I have said many times previously!

We all know what you think, Floo. ::)
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Hope

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #15 on: December 29, 2016, 01:53:50 PM »
But no sign whatever of a god willing and able to prevent the causes of suffering in the first place. I don't mean mopping up after the fact, but not allowing it to occur to begin with.
Well, that would have required God to have creatyed us all as robots, rather than human beings with freedom to choose.  Is that what you would have preferred (by the way, we've been over this multiple times since I've been a member of the board, and neither you nor anyone else has managed to answer that question in a way that would allow God to have acted in any other way than he did 'in the first place'.  It would also have required God to craete a planet that isn't dynamic, and therefore a planet that would necessarily fail to support life.

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Those are human beings doing human things out of our natural and inherent empathy, founded ultimately on a theory of mind. No gods involved.
But for many of us, our very humanity is predicated on the existence of a loving and caring God; not simply on a 'theory of mind'.  Seems to me that you are effectively replacing one theory with another.

Quote
The more important question is, which is the better scenario: to give help, aid, succour and comfort to someone after a terrible experience - or to prevent the terrible experience occurring at all in the first instance, so that the tea and sympathy are superfluous?The god of traditional monotheism is an omnimax god - all knowing, all powerful and perfectly good. Such a god would:

(a) be aware of suffering (all knowing);
(b) would wish/desire to prevent suffering (all good);
(c) would know how to be able to prevent suffering (all knowing);
(d) would actually prevent suffering (as per the properties of being all good and all powerful).
See my response to your first point.

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Yet this is not what we see.
So giving his human creation the ability to think and choose their own future isn't 'good'?  Sorry, I doubt whether you would accept that.  Of course God knew that these would be the consequences of his creative action - he prefers to allow us to suffer the consequences of our choices (something that Floo is uber-hot on, by the way) than to make us as robots.

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Of course you may not believe in a god who is all-powerful, all-knowing and entirely good. Hope for example is notoriously slippery, slimy and evasive about the attributes of the deity he purports to believe in.
What a joke; Shakes.  Just because you can't (or choose not to) understand the complexity of God, you have to make out that believers who try to understand that complexity but don't fully understand it are automatically slippery, etc.  I suppose one would have to define all believers in this way, since none of us fully understand that complexity, not do we have the huge vocabulary that would needed to express it in its totality. 

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Start to chip away at any one (at least) of those attributes and that opens up a different kind of conversation altogether, which is probably why he won't go there.
Not really, Shakes.  I have simply learnt that if I was express it in as best a way I can, you would simply not understand it, and why repeaqt something that others don't understand - ad infinitum.?

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No. If you believe in a god who is the designer/creator/author of nature in the first instance, nature can be whatever that entity desires it to be. Paradoxically enough, the suggestion that these actions would contravene the known workings of nature holds only from the viewpoint of an atheist, not a theist.Free will is something which has never been demonstrated to exist, and I'd say based on recent developments in neuroscience is looking increasingly untenable.
I'd disagree with this highglighted statement, Shakes, and would also suggest that the subsequent comment has little or no substance since (neuro)science doesn't deal in the areas that freewill acts in - namely the spiritual realm.

Quote
Here's a short and simple, fairly well known internet image that quickly summarises much of the preceding:

http://iwastesomuchtime.com/73685
It sums it up very well, Shakes - the speaker would clearly prefer a world of robots.
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Hope

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #16 on: December 29, 2016, 01:54:40 PM »
Only by the fact that people who presumably can dress themselves, can tie their own shoelaces and are allowed to use sharp implements unsupervised can believe such tosh.
Well, its either that or a world of mindless robots.
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Hope

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #17 on: December 29, 2016, 01:55:47 PM »
If god is responsible it is a psycho, as I have said many times previously!
And your 'said so many times' has been challenged and shown to be lacking in validity 'many times before', Floo.
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Hope

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #18 on: December 29, 2016, 01:57:30 PM »
It isn't a claim - it's a question. It starts with "If ..." so is a conditional statement ("If X, then Y" - where, I might add, Floo doesn't even recognise the validity of X any more than I do, although you're supposed to).

Knock off the first word - then it's a claim.
Sorry, its a claim hidden in a question, and not very well hidden.  Its a common linguistic format.
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floo

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #19 on: December 29, 2016, 02:30:18 PM »
And your 'said so many times' has been challenged and shown to be lacking in validity 'many times before', Floo.

I am going by what is said about god in the Bible, which does give the impression it is a psycho, if it exists.

When have you verified any of your claims?

Shaker

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #20 on: December 29, 2016, 02:40:05 PM »
Well, that would have required God to have creatyed us all as robots, rather than human beings with freedom to choose.  Is that what you would have preferred (by the way, we've been over this multiple times since I've been a member of the board, and neither you nor anyone else has managed to answer that question in a way that would allow God to have acted in any other way than he did 'in the first place'.  It would also have required God to craete a planet that isn't dynamic, and therefore a planet that would necessarily fail to support life.
This desperate tripe is simply making a virtue out of necessity, i.e. retrofitting the notion of a god onto the planet as it is because you have to shore up the idea on no grounds whatever. A god both all-knowing and all-powerful would by definition know and be able to create a planet which is both "dynamic" yet does not create suffering. This stems from the very meanings of the terms all-powerful and all-knowing - which is to say, if you think otherwise, you're demonstrating that you don't actually understand what those terms mean. Is this the sort of god you claim to believe in or not?
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But for many of us, our very humanity is predicated on the existence of a loving and caring God; not simply on a 'theory of mind'.  Seems to me that you are effectively replacing one theory with another.
How tragic.

And, by the way, a god is a hypothesis at the outside; theory of mind is supported by abundant evidence from sundry disciplines but the most important of them being psychology, ethology and primatology.

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So giving his human creation the ability to think and choose their own future isn't 'good'?  Sorry, I doubt whether you would accept that.  Of course God knew that these would be the consequences of his creative action - he prefers to allow us to suffer the consequences of our choices (something that Floo is uber-hot on, by the way) than to make us as robots.
That's self-suffering based on one's own choices/actions. Where does the totally unjustified suffering of innocent parties come into this picture of yours? A raped child suffers on account of the actions of another, and has nothing to do with their own choices. Explain.
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What a joke; Shakes.  Just because you can't (or choose not to) understand the complexity of God, you have to make out that believers who try to understand that complexity but don't fully understand it are automatically slippery, etc.
I am stating as a matter of fact that you are slimy, slippery and evasive when it comes to answering questions about what you take to be the attributes of the god you allege that you believe in.

Although I've posed the question before many, many times (indeed, I've just done so) and you have ignored it every time, I shall do so here once again for you to ignore yet again (which, of course, you will):

Is the god that you purport to believe in all-knowing, all-powerful (either literally so, taken at face value meaning able to do absolutely anything, or all-powerful within the limits of logic) and all good?

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Not really, Shakes.  I have simply learnt that if I was express it in as best a way I can, you would simply not understand it, and why repeaqt something that others don't understand - ad infinitum.?
How do you know that you understand it? Perhaps if you explain something to others that you claim to understand but they can't understand it, actually it's your "understanding" which is deficient.
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I'd disagree with this highglighted statement, Shakes
Couldn't give two shiny ones about your disagreement. If, as are you implying, you think that free will has been shown to exist, provide the evidence from the credible and reputable sources where this has allegedly taken place.

Not that you will, obvs.

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and would also suggest that the subsequent comment has little or no substance since (neuro)science doesn't deal in the areas that freewill acts in - namely the spiritual realm.
Something else never demonstrated to exist in itself, of course.
« Last Edit: December 29, 2016, 02:44:15 PM by Shaker »
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Shaker

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #21 on: December 29, 2016, 02:41:23 PM »
Well, its either that or a world of mindless robots.
Big fan of C. S. Lewis, are we?

He was tremendously fond of quickly reaching for the false dichotomy/excluded middle as well.
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

trippymonkey

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #22 on: December 29, 2016, 03:52:03 PM »
Doesn't this thread so very easily link in with mine on 'Christian Mythology' in the Bible ?????

Nick

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #23 on: December 29, 2016, 04:52:07 PM »
I knew my three children would face suffering in their lives before bringing them into the world. Does that make me a psycho?
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Shaker

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Re: The god of suffering
« Reply #24 on: December 29, 2016, 05:00:19 PM »
I knew my three children would face suffering in their lives before bringing them into the world. Does that make me a psycho?
Psycho? No. Though there are quite a few philosophers who would very seriously question your moral sense, for sure. David Benatar, for example.
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.