Whenever a christian tries to prostelytize (sp?) I ask them this question and havent yet gotten a good answer. If your god is supposed to be all-knowing, just and merciful why did he put two fallible humans in a booby trapped garden of eden? If he is indeed all knowing then he knew that the result of the booby trap he set would be thousands of years of suffering and agony. If he was ok with that then he couldnt be just and merciful. Explain please.
I don't believe in God, but I'll try to answer it in the spirit intended. God created man in his image, God gave us free will. The tree of life is Gods way of giving mankind a decision, it did NOT make mankind degenerative or cruel. it 'Allowed them the knowledge of God.' i.e. The apple allowed Adam and Eve to understand the nature of evil and cruelty, thus blessing them. For how could mankind ever know what true happiness is without anything to compare it against. God gave Adam and Eve the practical means with which to display human choice and decision. IMO it harks forward to the Wizard of Oz. the lion already had courage etc. Adam and Eve defied God, thus displaying the very traits that the apple allowed them in the first place. God either allowed mankind to choose its own path, or educated mankind in the path it had already taken.
Yes, but God made Adam and Eve to Defy "Him" "God" already wrote the plan so to speak. So basically they obeyed "Him". Without the Fall of Man, there would be no religion, no need for redemption, no need for a Saviour. This was their Fate. There was no choice involved.
By this reckoning, his plan continues to this day, and each and every one of us are his puppets. God did not write a plan, he put us here and gave us choices. Without the tree of life there would be no choice, just constant, blissful, unaware existence. You say that because Adam and Eve are fallible they must pick the apple...or God KNEW or PROGRAMMED them to eat the apple. Fallibilty is basically choice in itself...just because Adam and Eve had the ability to eat the apple, does not mean that this was always a 'given.' Damn... I'm killing myself trying to think of an arguement now against 'everything is fate.' I guess that one is just pure speculation.
So god made them fallible knowingly, then let them screw up with all of the consequential suffering, knowingly, to demonstrate a philosophical point? Seems mean and arrogant. A parent who treated a child that way would be locked up. Being all powerful, all knowing, just and merciful youd think he could have found a better way to demonstrate the consequences, unless of course hes also all incompetent Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I'm speaking Biblically ofcoase. I do not believe most of the stories in the Bible. But for arguement sake I'm saying Adam and Eve had to eat the fruit in the Book of Genesis to proceed with the rest of the story.
I think its timne to fall back on stock theist answer #3. "The ways of god are damn mysterious we can't understand them, so what looks like mind-boggling stupidity on the part of the all-powerfull one is acftually bloody smart but were too dumb to understand." I hope that answers your question.
Almost, but not quite. One of the questions I put to Christians, also without much of a good answer so far, comes in terms of good and evil, and is thus a peripheral issue of the topic question. One of the paradoxes of the Devil arises because God is supposed to be "good". This isn't so difficult an issue as Christians make it out to be. Simply, who is to say that what we perceive as "good" has anything to do with what God perceives as good? The Bible? Ha. The whole of goodness has been reduced to that? In terms of the mysterious ways of God, though I agree that Eden makes the whole thing into a racket. However, if that God exists and is such a ludicrous tyrant, what does answer #3 amount to? Nothing. Take God out of it: Saddam Hussein. Just because it's stupid doesn't mean it's not reality. However, I think we all can agree for the moment that Saddam Hussein exists. To leave the mysterious ways of God at such a simplistic interpretation as we would have to apply to the ways of the Biblical notion of God and its religious heritage would, however, seem to be pretending that life in moral terms is supposed to make any sense whatsoever. And the presupposition that life should make any sense whatsoever in moral terms is quite irresponsible. thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Stock Theist Answer #3? Is there a book of stupid theist answers to normal questions I can buy? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Oh wait, I have it. The bible.
============================================== Morlock wrote: If your god is supposed to be all-knowing, just and merciful why did he put two fallible humans in a booby trapped garden of eden? ============================================== They had free will and they had the ability to choose right and wrong. They chose wrong. The term booby trapped is an odd way of saying that there were choices in the garden. ============================================== Morlock wrote: If he is indeed all knowing then he knew that the result of the booby trap he set would be thousands of years of suffering and agony. ============================================== Perhaps we're on the "negative prong" of a two-pronged simultaneous cosmic reality. Perhaps the other, "positive prong" is what happened when Eve and Adam DID NOT eat the fruit. Eden grew until it covered the whole Earth and became a paradise. Perhaps it is to this "positive prong" of reality that believers in God cross over into after we die. What is called "Heaven". These two realities may have "forked" in the main road of time at the moment prior to Eve's decision to eat (or not to eat). And will return to being one road of time once this "negative prong" runs its course and is destroyed. -Mike
Let me see if I understand this? God put A & E in the garden, gave them the choices and let them go to it. OK, but if the 'choices' are between a perfect paradise and a not-quite-so-perfect one then wtf is the deal with the choices? OK, I'm god. I make everything, set it down in front of me, talk to it and say 'hey, I created paradise, look around you, nice innit? But here's a tree, try not to eat the fruit or you'll fuck it up for everyone and we'll all have to live in B World for the forseeable, OK?' Same as telling your 5 year old, 'don't look behind you', but not why. God?, more like a practical joker. I DO NOT SEE THE POINT if religion is not there for the positive benefit of everyone. If you believe the moon is cheese and the Zeta Reticulans are coming on the next bus then wahey, good luck to you. Couldn't give a shit my friend. But there's always a payoff. Something to tie you into your religion so that you are unlikely to try to look beyond it for anything. Saw that much from Christianity before I went to big boy's school, sorry. The stories just sounded funny to me, which would have been OK if I were not expected to believe them wholesale. Now that was where I got off...
