When did we outgrow God? And if we've out grown him, does that mean He no longer cares what we do or what happens to us?
When did we outgrow God? And if we've out grown him, does that mean He no longer cares what we do or what happens to us?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_EnlightenmentQuote by: tinybear
good link morgan.
The phenomena we call God in whatever form we think of it, does not have feelings eihter way. It is simply energy of some form. What we have outgrown for the most part is the old version that we have all been taught about. The Tyrannical, Egotistic one in the bible and many other religeous texts. A being such as God is meant to be if it wereconscious would not require worship. That is the requirement of man.
So going to church is unnecessary?
That's right, tinybear. No matter what they tell you.
Oh, OK. I don't go anyway.
Cuz God doesn't like Asians and Africans, so he causes all these disasters. But many Asian Gods are also fighting back, so now its like a war between gods.
Ideological loyalty is the act of giving your soul to a vague concept, to be manipulated by people smarter than you.
More like Christianity vs. Islam now.
Yes, God also hates Muslims (and black people). But I guess the tsunami was just his way of saying "I still hate Asians too, and this is just a reminder".
Hopefully the Asian gods will cook something up for Christian countries. I was recently in a council with Jia Men, god of fire, and suggested maybe a major forest fire in Canada. But he said nobody cares about Canada, so I'm out of ideas.
Ideological loyalty is the act of giving your soul to a vague concept, to be manipulated by people smarter than you.
Hmm Castille i don't know what kind of God you are working with Castille but he sounds like he needs locking away.
This is a spiritual conumdrum. The very argument that causes many of the religious 'faithful' to 'lose' their faith. It's a complex issue by its very nature. It's all to do with this whole 'omnipotent-benevolent' thing. The Bible describes God as an omnipotent and benevolent deity. Simply meaning that God is both all-powerful AND well-meaning.
The idea of 'omnipotent-benevolent' collapses as soon as we introduce starvation, disease, war, the Tsunami etc. Human tragedy appears like proof that God could not be BOTH all-powerful AND well-meaning. Because if He loves us and has the power to change our situation He would prevent our pain .... wouldn't he? (otherwise it would be 'pretty perverse' as Morgan_Freeman suggests)
Surely if God loves us and He can protect us, he would HAVE to. And as He clearly doesn't, we can assume that God is EITHER omnipotent and uncaring OR benevolent and powerless to help.
Imagine you have an 8 year old son. Would you do everything in your power to prevent pain in his life? (I would hope the answer to that would be "yes"!) Would you allow him to skateboard? ... of course you would! But you would tell him to be careful. You would give him some basic good advice and then let him go off and make his own mistakes. So what if he fell and grazed a knee!?! Well he would learn to be more careful!
So even though you have the power to intervene and prevent your childs' pain, you would choose to show your love by letting him learn his own lessons. Pain is part of growing up. It is exactly the method through which we learn. Without pain we would not remember our lessons from youth.
So there you have it. The answer is a choice.
Either - choose to believe that God is an all-powerful and benevolent being who has given us that basic good advice and is allowing us to make our own mistakes in a world of both wonder and danger (for without evil there could be no measure for goodness)
Or - choose to believe that God is EITHER omnipotent OR benevolent and accept that you have lost your faith in a Christian God and go look for the one/ones you do believe in.
Orgaelin said .. "however bad the Tsunami is there will be good to balance it out, even if not for some time" - in a world that has been divided and bitter over war after war, culminating in Iraq - maybe this 'reminder' from 'God' has done it's job. Whether you believe in God or not, by reminding us all about our own individual mortality we have come together to help others less fortunate and there is more community spirit now than there has been in years.
I know there is temptation to bash the religious (especially when they say something as dumb as the quote moorecomission found "The people who survived the Tsunami had faith in God, those who didnt survive did not have enough faith" !) and I agree that the media frenzy of people and groups 'cashing-in' on the publicity generated by helping is wrong. But personally I think offering publicity is a great way of getting people to help out, especially those people who are mercenary and wouldn't help otherwise.
faith summed it up best in his/her post "i believe it was nature's way of keeping the population down!!". The idea that the planet itself is running to some pre-programmed emergency reaction to global warming is very plausible to me. My own beliefs follow a more spiritual relationship with the planet itself. A belief in which scientific and spiritual study are not at odds and one actively leads to better understanding of the other. I find the whole issue comes down to this ...
We must remember that whether you believe in God or not, when we as a species abandon our trust in a power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faith ... ALL FAITHS (even science) are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable. With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Yes religion is flawed, but only because MAN is flawed. Look beyond the ritual and see a brotherhood of simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control.
Assuming God exists the answer is:
Because without the ability to feel relatively good or bad, without a difference between pleasure and pain, there is no significance to our actions. Imagine if you were in a universe without suffering. You could neither harm somebody nor heal them. You couldn't make some happy for their birthday because they'd already be perfectly happy. None of your actions would have any effect on your own life or anybody else's. So what would be the point of having free will? Free to do what? For a free will to have a point you have to be able to choose good or evil.
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