God is love just don't ask for the receipts

He's all powerful except for whenever

How many Jesus, the Living Embodiment of YHWH, does it take to change a lightbulb

buddy christ meme "i could definitely help you with that, i just won't"
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[+] -7 points 1 year ago (21 children)

If he created a world without the possibility of evil, when we wouldn't have free will. You can't eat the cake and still have it.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    It's always struck me personally that if there is some form of a central creating figure to the entirety of existence, the net central figure would not only have to be able to create everything that currently exists and that comes into existence but to be able to understand and plan those things. Everything from like, cosmic tidal forces down to the individual molecules that make up the molecules that make up the molecules that make up the cells of our bodies.

    And as such our attempts to try to keen any sort of understandable knowledge and measure of this sort of being would be like a flea trying to comprehend the entirety of the lunar landing.

    And if you're dealing with a being that is just that beyond even our capacity to understand the width and breadth of, do you really think of being like that would care if you touch yourself? I think it would be laughably small-minded and narcissistic to think of being of that capacity would even be ABLE to care about you individually.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I wholeheartedly agree with you. God is by definition unknowable (and doesn't care if you touch yourself or like anal stuff or like to do sexual things with consenting people of your own gender).

    But the whole point of Christianity is that this still unknowable God came to us in Jesus as we can't go to him. So knowing Jesus is to know as much as we can about God (which is not much, but still more than nothing).

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The mythos surrounding Jesus just feels like more of the same. Here we have an unknowable being sending us an envoy who is a part of them that we can have interactions with it. As a concept, it would be comforting and most likely sooth people who would be grappling with existentialistic dread, but it still doesn't make logical sense to me.

    Like I said this being would be so beyond us essentially that would be like you creating a small cell to go talk to the cells in your liver for you. But even then that's not a degree of magnitude of separation that would actually be an existence between us and any sort of central creation figure. That Central Creation figure would be so vast that there's no way their attention would even be able to comprehend the smallness of us.

    What I'm trying to argue is not that this God being chooses not to acknowledge us or chooses not to intervene in our lives but that they're so far beyond and removed from us that they COULDN'T do those things.

    And I know this is a very clunky analogy but do you care about the individual molecule on the tip of the nail of your toenail?

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago

    The problem with your analogy is that it still supposes we can make analogies. Even saying « we can't say anything about God » is saying something about God… Technically I can't even say, even being Christian, that God exists. That's why I have no problem with the existence of different religions and philosophyies, all, from gnostic atheism to the smallest and strangest cult, and including my own religious tradition, are infinitely wrong about God (but as in maths, there are bigger and smaller infinities).

    So I can't be suprised when I learn that God cares about us in Jesus. I can't be surprised about anything about God, as any surprise would be coming from a preconception of mine.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

    Thats not true.

    I lack the ability to flap my arms and fly into the air.

    Does that mean I lack free will?

    Why is the ability to do evil required for free will, when so many other abilities are not?

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    This makes no sense. To do evil is nothing like a physical ability.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Why not?

    Are not evil things a series of physical actions?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (6 children)

    Evil actions are, but not will. Will is what command the choice between different physical actions, some good, others evil. If you retire evil from the equation, you have only one option and then, no choice, and then no will, thus no freedom.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    You've not explained how... why are some actions required to be permitted for free will but not others.

    If will is what matters, what if someone was allowed to want to do evil things but not allowed to physically perform evil actions. Would that not suffice?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

    Imagine you have two meals before you, a pizza and a burger. You're free to want either of them, you're free to say what's your preference is, but I physically restrain you and force you to eat the pizza whether you prefer it or not. Would you consider yourself free?

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  • [+] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    But in reality, there can't be two perfectly good options. Without evil at all, there's always only one option. And God doesn't give options, he gives freedom. In that allegory he gives a fork and money to buy lunch. Humanity chose instead to buy rope and use the fork to kill the neighbour's child… God can't be accused for that.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    But our choices aren't the cause of all evil. It's evil to inflict painful, terminal diseases on people just because of who their parents are.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    That's an anthropocentric vision. It's hard for me to explain that in English, but what is free will essentially? The possibility for humanity to do things that God doesn't want. The nature doesn't have will of course, it doesn't choose anything, but in order to live in a world free from God, it should follow rules that God chose not to control. Thus evil is not a reality per se, but the absence of Good, which is God.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    So children have to suffer and die so that people can make free decisions? That makes no sense. They could make free decisions in a reality that isn't so harsh.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago*

    That's not what I said, and you're anthropocentric again. Could the world have been less harsh? Possibly. The truth is that we have no way to judge that.

    And we were given the means to fight evil, we could stop wars, hunger, a lot of epidemics… we choose as a species, not to. We should stop blaming God for.our shortcomings.

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