If God is indifferent then why should We care?

read guenon

>why would he be interested in human suffering
His omniscience necessarily places our suffering into His perspective. God is concerned with truth

There is one substance
It is infinite or finite
But not finite

>suffering is bad

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newadvent.org/cathen/05649a.htm
Pic related is a great resource on the topic.

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because what you think of as "good" and "bad" are not in accord with what God says is good and bad.

/thread

Good tru satan but I am not falling for your faggot tricks

>be god (aka you)
>have infinite power n sheet
>idunnowhattodowithit.wav
>start having the equivalent of a semi-lucid nightmare caused by forgetting how to use your special god power (waiting)

Because if you don't you gonna burn in hell?
The only way stupid ideas like this work is if you assume you're on equal footing with God. Which is dumb.

Because if he didn’t allow bad to exist you wouldn’t be here :)

what are you talking about?

>lol theodicy, hello r*ddit
this doesn't make you look cool, it makes you look totally ignorant to theology in general

>why does God give me freedom to choose?
Because he's good and wants you to make good choices freely

>why doesn't God just Mk ultra out minds?
God dont play that game

Omnipotence leads to suffering. Truth is maximized in this existence. A world without evil is severely limited and incomplete, without context, without meaning, etc.

what's the redpill on theism? if you don't consider yourself god of your own life, aren't you basically a cuck for someone else??

No because the God who created you judges you incapable of using your soul correctly and you get sent directly to hell :3

Where did God come from?

>bad
>objective morals
bad doesn't exist its how you see it

>Omnipotence leads to suffering.
okay, but do you have an argument for that?
>Truth is maximized in this existence.
okay, but do you have an argument for that?
>A world without evil is severely limited and incomplete, without context, without meaning, etc.
okay, but do you have an argument for that?

why should anyone define god by what some old orthodox jews dictated god to be?

outside of time there is no where.

Ok, so how did he became a thing?

God dictated who he was to the tribe that you call 'Jews'. Those Jews were the chosen ones for God to reveal his glory and kingdom to.

You blaspheme the name of the God who has fashioned you and your soul. I fear for where you are headed after you die. :3

how would I know?

i don't know

how do we know god chose them? if someone today were to scribble on paper saying they were being possessed by god, we would throw them in a ward.

Now you see the problem with today's society: this is a real problem indeed.

But apart from the seeming absence of any respect for God and his existence (and the seeming absent-minded belief in the ACTUAL existence of God), you've also touched upon another problem in society: the absolute rampant and unchecked growth of the mental health industry. We are literally all becoming crazy over time without anything actually changing but the number of diagnoses and prescriptions.

Perhaps, the medicine may induce effects to make individuals crazier and more dependent, so they can receive more money? The issue extends past fentanyl, but definitely starts around there, as any drug retains those addictive properties.

Obviously weed being legalized is a sign of the times with regard to this. :3

Wow you're a retard
>>Omnipotence leads to suffering.
>okay, but do you have an argument for that?
Omnipotence leads to all things, so of course it leads to suffering.
>>Truth is maximized in this existence.
>okay, but do you have an argument for that?
Trivially follows from omnipotence
>>A world without evil is severely limited and incomplete, without context, without meaning, etc.
>okay, but do you have an argument for that?
A thing can not exist without it's dual. Without the concept of pain, the concept of pleasure can't exist, etc.
I REALLY hate pseudo-intellectuals like you. You pretend you're being rational or something by posting things like "citation needed" or "where's the argument" when the concept follows trivially or the information is easily and readily available
You aren't smart and your posts aren't good. Get better, or get the fuck out of here.

obvious b8
falling for obvious b8
i love larping as a christian on my Mongolian basket weaving forum

Have you never considered the possibility that there was an actual God who wrought actual miracles within society?

Why are we running through waves with regard to this? Why do I have to be the only one who is 100% sure of God's existence? It seems many of you need to learn the principle of having faith: it really is this drastic. You need to learn how hard it is to really and faithfully believe.

Obviously faith is hard to come by in these lost times, but not impossible. Just remember, there was a tribe of slaves who God took out of their severe slavery and freed because of their faith and belief in God. :3

>he thinks it’s larping
Did your parents not take you to sunday school or something?

God doesn't respect you.

Firstly, omnipotence implies total power, it doesn't mean everything is going to or must happen, it simply means the power to make anything happen. Secondly, you are simply inserting that "something can not exist without it's dual"; it requires an argument just like any other philosophical positions. Your argument was a simple recognition of states of physical feeling which correspond with an opposite, which very well might be true (it's an ancient idea going back at very least to the Manicheans), but you haven't show how this applies then to everything. Finish the argument user. What's the opposite of a rock? Or a human? Or the Pythagorean theorems? You need to make arguments in philosophy user, otherwise it's just people saying things they think at one another. I'm sorry if that upsets you

Not the dude you're responding to, HOWEVER

The concept he is talking about is also connected to free will. God gave us free will - however if the only options laid before us are of one kind, such as only good options then we aren't actually practicing free will. In order to have true free will, we need the choice to do evil. Without evil, the choice to do good is merely a default. With evil, doing good truly is a choice.
And in terms of opposites, you really don't even need to get into philosophical terms to understand it. According to Newton's third law. for every action there is an equal, opposing reaction.

Okay then in what sense can we say that God is benevolent if we make no evaluative or normative reference to the acts of God?

You must think that God is still God even if he created nothing. It is through creation that God's omnipotence is fulfilled

>13742826

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God is good to those who seek Him and keep His commandments. You will never find anything in the Bible suggesting God loves everyone unconditionally, or that He is "all-loving," or "omnibenevolent," whatever that means

The Bible itself values suffering as primarily a bad thing. Why else would evil be condemned to suffering? Evil and suffering are almost identical. When Judah started from God, it was made to suffer until its path was righted.

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Yet humanity is condemned to suffer as a penalty for the original sin. How does man turn to God w/o the ability to contemplate his goodness?

God does care, but the mandate of heaven has shifted from the West to the Chinese Communist Party as the active agent of God's will on Earth.

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Maybe it's such a popular problem because it can't be solved as a problem of ethics without a reliance on theological propositions (e.g. notions of 'omnipotence'). You see posters in here confronting this problem with an appeal to mystery. If God's valuation of goods and bads is opaque, from whence is the concept of evil. How could scripture command followers of Christ to turn from evil if we lack the knowledge to positively identify evil when we see it?

So there's a net good? Why couldn't that good be brought about w/o the evil? Does a superlative good obtain by the existence of evil in general? Or could you give examples of particular evils that meet some good that would otherwise fail to obtain?

what if God tells us what is good for us, while even the existence of evil can be good objectively to him? What is good for humans is not what is good for animals, nor God

I thought the spirit of Christ was supposed to fill you with joy. You probably just aren't one of the elect. They seem increasingly few.

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The net good is meaning. We value fiction that includes struggle,, good and bad, etc. Try reading a book in which there is no struggle or lack of knowledge etc

maybe not

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Nostalgia :3

unironically this.
If we have free will then bad things will happen as a consequence, and the alternative, dont let bad things happen, would therefore mean we dont deserve to think.

The bible is some heavy shit when comes to tell people to fuck off and grow some skin.

The idea is that God would act only to bring about maximum good. Scripture inarguably considers suffering to be a consequence of sin/evil. So in this instance, what is the good brought about by divine retribution and damnation? Is salvation for the faithful made just that much sweeter?

Because followers of God are instructed to pursue the goodness of God, not the goodness prescribed by God.

>22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

God is good because he does what benefits himself the most. Humans are imperfect and do not act perfectly, so they are not good. The moral laws are totally dependent on the constitution of the agent and his environment

t. sheltered man-child who has never experienced real trauma

How does a freely-willed act of evil forfeit is legitimacy in the absence of consequences? According to much of scripture, evil isn't identifiable with harm to others; so couldn't we will to be evil even in a world where is impossible to harm anyone?

This is preposterous theology.

what is the endgame of good? so we become god ourselves and detrone god?

BZZZT! Wrong, Bozo. Don't let the door smack your ass on your way back to Dunceville.

Fentanyl is a huge issue. Regular heroin is bad enough but it is extremely clear that demand for opiates is only going to increase even as the ability of bemused chink scientists to create new analogues in mass quantities increases

Fuck damnation, man. Fuck redemption. We are God's unwanted children? So be it!

Not an argument.

why should we improve ourselves if the universe is a infinite resetting machine with big bangs and big crunches? we become 99.999% good/God and then shit resets

Demand necessitates supply.

So the glory of God's people is the superseding ultimate good w/r/t God's punishment of Judah's enemies? Do you think this applies nonspecifically to other examples of evil? I was looking for something a little less contingent; like damnation, envy, "natural evil," the fall of man. Maybe I'm too focused on all the platonist stuff in the New Testament.

second statement does not follow the first. God is good. Genesis is very explicit about this, and Aristotle, Plato, and the scholastics bore this out. we contemplate his goodness even as we suffer. to cast blame is absolutely the wrong move. rather, seek to do good.

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man continues to wander in circle

fuck you your mandate should be tanking more because of your claims on taiwan

If I was god I would just make myself a paradise and create humans in it to worship me and thank me for not putting them in a shitty world of pain like the one we are in now.

If I created the universe and had infinite power over the rules that define it, then I would create a world where we can understand pain in it's full context without suffering in it.

it's not that hard, if you have ultimate power over all things then just make it up with all the shit you want already set up.

Yes it is. I'm saying that your premises are ridiculous to any mainstream theology. It's the only thing I can say. Don't pull stuff out of your ass and then accuse me of making argument impossible. Tell me at least what kind of theology you prefer and then maybe we can get the ball rolling.

to anyone that claim free will is an answer to this. How is this remotely a valid answer when it comes to a all powerful all knowing god?
While god was creating the world he knew exactly how his decision in creation would lead the people making whatever choices they would later make. Free will at best exists as a relative concept born of our ignorance to the forces controlling us.

but you are mortal. god is not a mortal. therefore what you would do is not necessarily what god would do.

There's no evidence that I'm not actually god.
So your point is invalid.
I don't even know that I'm not god.

If there were no evil, nor lack of goodness, then this world would not exist. By taking away imperfection, and struggle, and suffering, you are left with very little. God would be less glorified, less complete, otherwise. I believe God is Truth, and Truth is only actual as a whole, when it includes not only good but also, not only light but also darkness. Punishment is a natural consequence of bad decisions, only possible in such a complex and meaningful world as this

do you have a personal recollection of the events of genesis? no?

then you're not god. this shit is too easy, but y'all want to make it complicated.

your world is boring and severely small and oddly arbitrary for a transcendent, omnipotent being. It's as if you think God only cares about human suffering

He lets bad things happen to filter out faithlet plebs from heaven, such as yourself.

This is the most important post in this thread, by the way.

how can you know what glorifies God the most?

Free will is funny because we have no free will but the natural forces that dictate how we think and feel have fabricated a concept that doesn't exist.

We are just puppets of nature that are being controlled to act as if we aren't puppets.
Even the sadness we feel over our existential dilemma is pre-determined

Fuck. Read what I was replying to. Otherwise you're just gumming up a conversation. My point is that according to scripture goodness (specifically God's goodness) can be known and pursued. Either God's goodness is inscrutable or it isn't. If you answer in the negative, you can't claim that the problem of evil is improperly or illogically constructed because of any failure to properly designate what "evil" refers to. That's what I was clearing up.

right, see Romans 9

I don't care about human suffering because I would eliminate that concept.
and I would eliminate the concept of boredom as well.

any criticism you can conceive I would just eliminate entirely, and if it results in a logical inconsistency, I would simply rewrite how logic works.

you were replying to me, dipshit.

God's goodness is intelligible, and a model for us. read scripture. read Kempis.

you weren't clearing up shit. the problem of evil isn't actually a problem unless you're a brainlet/atheist (but i repeat myself).

>Free will is funny because we have no free will but the natural forces that dictate how we think and feel have fabricated a concept that doesn't exist.
You know. I never really thought of it like that. Really is an amusing little thing huh.

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>I would simply rewrite how logic works
God is logic though. As when he said "I AM THAT I AM," and when Jesus said "I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life"

You don't need to keep reiterating an appeal to mystery. Save your fingers and assume that the rest of us have considered it and found it to be either unconvincing or theoretically unfruitful.

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if you could understand God, he wouldn't be that great

I dont see how this relates? Am I looking at the wrong thing?

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>posits a hypothesis where he guesses at divine motives by placing himself in place of the transcendent
>later says the divine does not exist and appeals to mystery are unconvincing
why the fuck are you even posting. just like to derail conversations like a retard huh?

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keep reading silly

I mean any nigger can say "i am the truth"

while simultaneously not being the fucking truth.

it's not that hard, it's called a fucking LIE.

What little are we left with? God's love and goodness? Is that very little? Does each instance of struggle generate its own superseding good? Or is the ontological possibility of struggle itself necessary to bring about "glory"? How would you define glory or meaning (it seems to me that you're using them to refer variously to the same thing – something like moral significance).

I'm this guy I'm not this guy I'm making the argument that God can simply rewrite the rules if anybody finds anything to criticize.

i see it as free will being the natural effect of introspection. The more we understand our surroundings and how we react to them, the more in control we are. Bottom of the line is that we dont have to know everything, not that we can anyways, we will never have true control, so is better just answer the questions that matters the most to each one individually, never stop learning and do what we love.

I thought God holds man in esteem even above the angels.

silly user, the rules of God are perfect.

>implying it is possible for mortals to find anything to criticize -- not beyond a reasonable doubt, not with authority, but merely by their own democratic opinion-making.
Never ever gonna happen. You're forgetting God is perfect. It is impossible for him to be wrong. We can find fault, sure, but we are always *always* wrong.

Humans need to re-examine their ideals of morality and abstain from thinking in those terms when talking about God.

no one is born with respect of others, we have to earn it.

Absurd.

If God were above logic, then his existence would not be logical, even to himself. If God were below logic, then logic would precede, or cause, God. So God IS logic and truth, and this makes intuitive sense. Truth necessarily exists. Certain logical laws necessarily arise. For example, the law of NC exists because its non-existence allows it. I'm simply saying that the essence of God is truth or logic, and from there, his other qualities follow.

That's the Son of Man.

>his existence would not be logical, even to himself
the never-ending hubris of man, ladies and gentlemen.

you can't get God in an armlock with your words, fuckin retards. the more certain you are that you have "gotcha"d God, the more wrong you are.

I think it's possible to know any one thing.

or to create an algorithm / formula that can answer any question.

but yes some things are out of our control. as human beings our bodies are made up of a set number of particles, that are capable of producing a set amount of actions.

Do you think if you had the processing power to analyze the best course of action in every moment, you could accomplish any goal?

wow sorry, apparently im an idiot. So, it sounds like the bible itself doesn't really support the free will argument. More of a god does what he want, deal with it?

Not christian, but i do believe in god. This always seemed the most logic answer to me so its neat to see I just came to same conclusion that is already in the bible. But unless I misunderstood and that is not what its saying, why do so many Christians seem to use free will as a defend against the existence of evil?

You can't earn God's respect. And then you have people totally consumed by hubris who demand it. People need to learn something as basic as the difference between love and respect before they start using the existence of evil to make arguments against the existence of God.

>i'm right, you're wrong, stop being arrogamt

I don't think God loves or respects his creations.
He clearly hates us and enjoys making us miserable.

Exhibit A:
The existence of Yea Forums

Yea Forums is proof of gods love user. Why else would he sent something so truly horrendous to punish all the sinners?

free will is the easiest and laziest defense of the existence of evil.

There is no sin that justifies this punishment.

holy trips. checked.

you don't know enough about philosophy. you've proven you don't know that God is transcendent. he can be expressed in parable and myth, but trying to apply worldly logic rules or morality is as silly as trying to measure him in kg. dummy. keep reading.

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God loves us, but he doesn't respect us. I understand why.

is definetely possible if you know everything, but we really need to know everything? some people act better when they arent thinking at all. Having the complete picture at all times is ideal but is not neccesary, but hey thats my "believe in the force" mentality.
I learned working as a programmer that your users are more than happy with just "good enough".

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Who cares. There's literally zero evidence for any god whatsoever. I guess some people just can't get over the fact that we live in an indifferent universe and that it's up to you to create meaning, and not wait until someone from above imposes it onto you.

>zero evidence
>t. definitely not a philosophy major

You're asserting as much as I am. You're claiming God is above logic. How do you know that? If God is above logic and truth, then how can his existence be true or logical? Does God understand the reason for his own existence?

So how's that job at McDonalds?

>prophecies
>miracles
>personal experiences
>a huge book of wisdom and great literature
>logical arguments and proofs
>zero evidence

This. Apparently all-powerful God was unable to design a universe where free will could exist without evil. Not to mention all the horrific things animals do to each other out of dumb instinct.
youtube.com/watch?v=8iVXvAWyNBM
youtube.com/watch?v=PcnH_TOqi3I

>God is above logic and truth
it's like you are not even passing familiar with scripture

God IS truth.

I don't have a job.

There is no free will, evil or not. This idea that God loves free will so much that he allowed evil is an invention by Christians who don't read the Bible

>God IS truth
that's literally what I said

>unfalsifiable horseshit

fify

everything is unfalsifiable. what are you gonna do? sit still and do nothing all day?

You surprise me. It's almost like philosophy majors have nothing of actual practical use to offer or something

truth cannot contradict itself, as you imagined using human thought. truth is always right. God is always right.

Uhm, no. Just because you believe in bullshit, doesn't mean everyone does

I'm a theology major, philosophy minor. I don't have a job because school and 4channel demands full attention, and tuition is covered.

you have faith in many things, but you call it "confidence" instead. If you eliminated faith entirely, you would die from inaction. You're never operating on perfect knowledge. Why, then, do you blame theists for having faith?

>but do we need to know everything
>to much knowledge is bad
spare me

So you think a human could create a planet if they knew literally everything about how the universe functions? with a human body?

Okay then, enjoy being a NEET and offering absolutely nothing of value to the human race whatsoever. I'll stick to my STEM degree, actually having a job, actually doing something useful with my life instead of wasting it on ancient sophistry

>naturally he falls back to ad hominem
enjoy living in darkness, user

i dont see why not? humans learned how to fly after all.

Again, no. I have actual evidence that jumping in front of a bus is a pretty bad idea. I could have faith that the science of getting hit by a bus isn't 100% accurate and that somehow, a bus will magically pass through me whenever I jump in front of it, but that has yet to convince anyone to try it. I wonder why, it's almost like faith isn't much of an argument in actual real life or something

>implying the bus will not stop before hitting you, revealing trueman

No, more like realistic expectations. You'll most likely waste your life on easily debunkable and failed ideas that are based on the false hope that there are ready made answers to every problem out there.

>enjoy living in darkness
wtf I love having religious shysters tell me how to live my life now!

if you have that faith in a a school bus, then what is so bad about having faith in God and heaven? What if someone criticized you for your faith? Shouldn't you rely on LOGIC and REASON only?

>implying belief in God is limited to being religious

>implying the catechism has answered every question possible

the world needs chaps like Jesus more than ever. i'm a very poor substitute, but i gladly will do my best.

>if you have that faith in a a school bus, then what is so bad about having faith in God and heaven?

One is based on actual evidence, the other isn't

Again, omnipotence doesn't imply what you do with it, it's very easy to imagine an omnipotent being who does not create free will...
>for every action there is an equal, opposing reaction
This doesn't simply mean than everything has its opposite like pain is opposed to pleasure, it relates specifically to the interaction of physical forces (e.g. when you jump, the force you exert from your legs determines the distance you leave the ground, as the ground responds with an equal opposing resisting force).
God doesn't need to create everything, he can create what he wants, and refuse to create whatever he wants, specifically because he is omnipotent. There can be no stronger will over his own by which he must create anything at, to say so would be to limit the unlimited. So yes, by the classical definitions of an omnipotent God, he wouldn't have to create anything, to say he would is an absurdity.

No, I think we need much less of people like you. I think it has been sufficiently proven by now that something like objective morality isn't just stupid, but also incredibly dangerous

what counts as evidence

>objective morality
>dangerous
No. The misuse of myth is dangerous. Counterfeit mysticism is dangerous. A sterile morality that denies human dignity is dangerous.

A carefully reasoned understanding of revealed wisdom is 100% helpful to mankind. In fact it is our only hope.

Something with actual consequences, something that can be tested and falsified by anyone, regardless of whether they believe in it or not. It doesn't matter where I am or who I am on this planet, wherever I go, I can drop something and prove that gravity exists. More importantly, I can also falsify it if I let go of something that's supposed to drop and it keeps floating in midair without any sort of explanation, but so far that hasn't happened yet

Is that the same revealed wisdom that tells you that slavery is okay?

Okay user, they took nearly a century to prove gravitational waves using mind-boggling accurate machinery, but I bet you can prove these things anywhere you go by dropping a ball. Checkmate.

not him but the alternative is no morality at all, which means human rights were a giant waste of time and the strong and loudest must eat the weak.

He's a bloodthirsty maniac and doesn't deserve respect.

That's a parable, dummy. It's not meant to be taken literally. It illustrate man's correct obeisance to God, not man to man.

>if it's wrong, it was a metaphor all along

>"if I was wrong"
ftfy. truth can't be wrong, remember.

nothing inherently wrong with slavery. it just has bad connotations

sure God was ok with slavery and had laws to protect them. You have to understand that the alternative was being alone with no land food or protection from thieves.

Why wouldn't God allow bad things to happen?
It's literally a slippery slope.

If God doesn't allow bad things to happen, things that are less good become bad, and so on so forth.

Based Reddit will seeth an this.

To be limited in anyway but have the capacity to improve, is to suffer.
To demand to be free of suffering is to demand to be a god.

>things that are less good become bad

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all these fucking religious nuts flock to this thread

there is NO proof that god exists! It is all hyperbole

>there is NO proof that god exists!

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cling to your sad delusion

You've no other choice

>delusion
user... are you saying you have proof that god does not exist?

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are you saying you have proof that god does exist?

because understanding's god contempt will help us understand our own

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are you actually saying that your philosophy works and catholic prayers prove the existence of god?

truly, truly, amen, i tell you: yes.

then you are wrong because none of them do

if I am wrong, then I am wrong. but I doubt that you are correct.

>Christ lives a pious life teaching and healing humanity above any personal interest, dies on the cross with incredible suffering
>but but I thought following Christ would be joyful

are you willfully this blind and naive?