Christianity has never advanced an explanation to the problem of suffering that isn’t borderline insulting. Common answers, such as “It’s a mystery,” virtually shut down conversation from the outset. Other answers, such as “We wouldn’t know the good without the bad,” are just fine for those who try to make sense of out of broken arm, but are immediately and unintentionally cruel when applied to others, such as the victims of mass shootings. Finally, the uselessness of responses to theodicy is demonstrated by the fact that the particularly stupid sayings are not reserved for people who are in the immediate wake of calamity. Nobody would dare say “You need to suffer to know goodness,” to someone who just lost a toddler in a mass shooting.
>>18401663YOU. DESERVE. IT.
>>18401663What about https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YKUhD7--LKw
>>18401663>Nobody would dare say “You need to suffer to know goodness,” to someone who just lost a toddler in a mass shooting.I would.
>>18401702Sadist spotted
>>18401663I love you.
Monism answered this centuries ago and is still practically supported by science. God is a fractal. The only way you can get around this is by outright denying reality and calling people mentally ill, and making accusations that people believe in a floating sky man. Now who's embarrassed?
The world is fundamentally built of suffering, so why did anyone create the idea of a "good God" , seems counterintuitive.
>>18401737Probably because you keep wanting to frame it from the perspective of an anthropomorphic man in the sky commanding all that is. Perhaps if you could take one second of your time to consider the truth that God is the underlying metaphysical processes and makeup of All, you would not have this ridiculous qualm.
>>18401663Christians' take on theodicy in practice is also incoherent.For example, it's widely agreed upon that the existence of smallpox and other debilitating, deadly infectious diseases is bad if not evil, and its eradication is good. This poses little issue. But when Christians need to explain why such diseases existed in the first place it gets confusing.>God created diseases so we can learn to endure afflictions/take care of each othersIn that case, isn't it going against God's will to eradicate diseases instead of merely providing relief and treatment for the afflicted? Are we denying future generations this necessary moral training? Why shouldn't infectious diseases just affect everyone equally or randomly instead (like aging and many afflictions not caused by microbes)>Diseases are needed to teach us about the importance of purity and so onAs above, are we following God's will by eradicating them instead of taking preventative and cleansing measures for eternity? If we eradicate STDs, are we dooming future generation to engage in carefree promiscuity that we were conditioned to avoid? >it's fine to eradicate smallpox and such, there are plenty of other diseases to fulfill that roleThen why did those diseases we eradicate specifically need to exist in the first place? Can we eradicate every disease that's more than a mild inconvenience without running into the problem above?>diseases are a consequence of nature getting corrupted following the fall of ManWhy should mankind's sin lead to all of nature being corrupted alongside it? If this the punishment or curse for mankind's sin, is mankind allowed to return nature to an Edenic state? In general, is mankind allowed to relieve the suffering God saw fit to inflicting upon us with easy technological solutions? For example, God decreed that women shall now suffer in childbirth, are we "cheating" by giving them painkillers or essentially eliminating maternal/infant mortality and complications?
>>18401735>>18401741Your idiosyncratic and borderline heretical conception of God is not an useful representation of Christian thought, begone.>making accusations that people believe in a floating sky man.And yet they believe.
>>18401741God walks in Genesis. With legs. He's a man.
>>18401737I think that they just tried to attribute every single positive trait imaginable to him in order to make him as Godly as possible without caring for the consequences. Its was more of a fashion statement than a explanation of reality
>Christianity has never advanced an explanation to the problem of sufferingEvery good thing that happens to us, and every second that humans get to live in their sinful state, continually rejecting what God wants without immediately being executed for it, is undeserved mercy. Humans are suffering in this world to wake them up and show them their need of Jesus Christ, because God doesn't want them in Hell, which is worse than whatever happens on earth. Despite horrible conditions on earth, humans assume that God is pleased with them, but the truth is that if you refuse to come to the knowledge of the truth by rejecting Christ you will remain to be condemned and will suffer, and eventually it will be too late to accept God's free offer of salvation. Mankind is "sold under sin" (Rom. 7:14), which is why God has delegated authority to Satan, who is in charge of this present world system. The Lord Jesus Christ came to reconcile man and God together again, He did it by bearing the judgment of the sinner in Himself on the cross. He was judged and punished for all our sins. What the sinner is asked to do is to trust in Jesus Christ, The Lord God Almighty. It doesn't matter how much faith you have, but you can't put that faith in yourself, because you can't save yourself. Trust that the work He did is sufficient to pay for you sins, and call upon Him as your Saviour, knowing that you are a sinner, and that without the blood atonement He made you would go to hell. You might not know what to say, but if you understand that you need Jesus Christ, call upon Him and let Him do the rest.www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VRT2FFXntcSalvation is by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9, given by God, Romans 10:8 & 17) only in the one, final, effectual sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ (Heb. 10:8-12) dying in your place (1 Cor. 15:3-4) as a substitutionary offering for sin (Rom. 5:1-10). (Rom. 8:38-39, Romans 4:5)https://truthischrist.com/seven/
>>18401741Does this God care if I worship him? Does he send me to heaven if I do and hell if I don't? If not he's not the Christian God.The core problem with this line of logic is that "something has to have created the universe or control the fundamental forces of the universe" but then jumping to the conclusion that said thing "sent his son who is also him to earth to die and then come back to life and then leave and has strong opinions on things like premarital sex and will torture you forever when you die unless you acknowledge that his son who is also him is real and ask for forgiveness from them/him."
>>18401787>Every good thing that happens to us, and every second that humans get to live in their sinful state, continually rejecting what God wants without immediately being executed for it, is undeserved mercyYou people are psychopaths, never ever have any children. You would end up telling them to be grateful you arent strangling them to death every time they make a mistakeWhenever someone posts about how religion is necessary for morality in society, i want them to take a look at what justifying the christian God's actions does to a persons sense of right or wrong. Does anyone want this kind of person to be the average civilian in society?
>>18401663>give me an answer to the problem of evil>NO, NOT LIKE THAT, THAT'S INSULTING
>>18401794You have an extremely small minded conception of spiritual reality, if your metric is the social utility and acceptance of an answer how would you arrive at anything novel? Ironically, you're being extremely Christian by assuming there's an inner "core" of social truth from centuries of that must be protected at all costs. >what justifying the christian God's actions does to a persons sense of right or wrong.The Christian understanding of morality orients the individual to the existence of immutable truths beyond his life experience, without which morality is reduced to a game of social function only to be followed when the "needs" of society necessitate it to be followed. There are two important premises, one, that creation and the creator are basically good, that the good creator exists beyond the individuals human experience. Two, man has a capacity to genuinely freely deviate from goodness.With these two premises, the execution of a murderer becomes a real act of justice, he has freely broken an unchanging divine law that existed before society and will exist after it is gone.Without these two, the execution of a murderer, if it even does occur, is not an act of justice, but a social expediency, if murder in a certain instance aligns with societies interests it will go unpunished.
>>18401824But Christianity—nor the Judaism that preceded it—has any answer, except “tough shit, I do what I want” (e.g. Job) or “who knows” (e.g. Jesus and the collapsed tower at Siloam). At least eastern religions believe it was because you did bad stuff in a past life. Abrahamic faiths don’t even have that excuse.
>>18401663>Nobody would dare say “You need to suffer to know goodness,” to someone who just lost a toddler in a mass shooting.Not because it isn't true, but because they are not in an emotional state to receive that lesson. Unless they are a remarkably high quality and spiritually awoken person.
>>18401663Literally no religion can answer the problem of suffering including science, because science cannot explain how qualia exists lol.
A solid fifth of the threads on this board are just fedoras being completely unaware of discussions that Christians have had for centuries, ignorantly believing they are thrusting into uncharted territory.
>>18401847Nothing that happens to humans in the natural world is "evil". Evil is a qualifier attached to actions by free agents, If I murder someone, I've committed an evil action, but losing everything I own or having a tower falling on me is not "evil". Animals can't be evil because they have no free will and can't accept or reject goodness.What I think you're implying is that because God orders everything about existence, and because you perceive certain aspects of the human experience to be evil, that God must have created evil. But evil literally does not exist, if you assume being and creation to be good (which is the Christian understanding) evil is just a permitted response by a free agent to the circumstances of his existence, there is no "absolute evil" that exists somewhere metaphysically, although God is absolutely good.So, your argument seems to amount to "If an absolutely good and all-powerful God exists, he shouldn't permit humans to have free will and should give humans a guarantee that nothing unpleasant should happen to them ever. If he does not do that, I don't respect him and won't worship him".
>>18401842Yeah, you see the problem with those "immutable truths" is that they lead to batshit crazy conclusions by people with zero heart like you. Who cares if he tortures you forever? He is good because thats simply the truthIll take my flimsy social morality with no grounding because that still somehow derails less than the trainwreck of worshipping a torturer
>>18401702And I hope the dad kicks your shit in after
>>18401887Why would a good God torture you forever anon? Do you think about getting tortured forever a lot?
>>18401892I rejected his invitation to his social circle, its an unforgivable crime that he made an eternal gulag for
>>18401898Would you prefer nonexistence or eternal torture? Which seems fairer to you? Or would you like God to make you your own little reality where everything as is what you would like it to be? Instead of having to deal with him why don't you ask him to put you in a world where your deity of choice rules over you?
>>18401908I would but he has been leaving everyone on read for the past 2000 years. If you would be so kind, please tell him i would be very happy living in any world thats not ruled by Ultra Stalin. Nonexistence is fine too if the custom deity machine is broken
>>18401910If God said you would have to suffer for a thousand years and you would live in the paradise of your choosing unbound by time, so that one thousand years of suffering would look like nothing in comparison, would you do it? You have a signed guarantee from God>What does this say about the character of GodYou won't have to deal with him ever again and you can slander him as much as you like in your self defined paradise.
>>18401741The problem with the Christian conception of God being the absolute principle of reality is that in the Old Testament, he acts far too personally and far too emotionally to be equated with the Monad of Platonic philosophy.Now, if the events of Old Testament were treated as allegories rather than literal historical events, I wouldn’t have an issue with this portrayal of God. But it isn’t treated as an allegory, Christians genuinely believe that the events of the Old Testament really did happen as described, even though in reality the Old Testament is at best equivalent to the Song of the Nibelungs—a bunch of scattered myths and unrelated historical events all conflated together due to society being semi-illiterate and nobody at the time of its composition could dispute it because of said semi-illiteracy.
>>18401735It's funny how these Christians always appeal to an abstract Platonic-Aristotelian god when the YHWH of the Bible is clearly an old man who came from a mountain and sits on the clouds (Mark 16:19).He is a concrete man who molded a clay figure in a magical garden and breathed life into it as if it were Pinocchio, who shared a meal with Abraham, who got angry because his soldiers were defecating inside the military camp, who was defeated by the enemy god because his soldiers had chariots.He is, literally, an anthropomorphic god of antiquity.It's not a Platonic idea during 90% of the Bible.He only assumes this more abstract Platonic-Aristotelian character from the Gospel of John onwards.
>>18401914No, what kind of rock brain would trust a deal from someone who offers to make you suffer for 1000 years? Is lying really off the table for someone that sadistic? Even if it were true, its still a hard no, 1000 years is far too long for something you would regret in the first minute
>>18401921So, we've established that even with your own conception of paradise, and even if you have an absolute guarantee that it would be given to you, past a certain threshold of suffering measured in either length time or intensity of pain you would say no. Obviously, you'd take one second of mild suffering or even a longer length of time but not a thousand years of intense suffering. You freely admit then that what matters for you in accepting the moral legitimacy of a being is not in fact if the suffering is worth it but if they permit you to suffer pain past a certain threshold. So then, is Christian morality moral for suggesting that much less suffering than a thousand years is moral because it is worth it? If it is a fact of existence, and rejecting reality entirely results in further suffering because of a being's own permanent rejection of the source of good, it is the most moral thing possible to say that suffering is worth it given certain conditions. Your solution is to reject that suffering is even worth it in the first place, which makes no sense, and to espouse such a morality to other people would be less moral than to say it was worth it.
>>18401935If, and this is a big if, tolerable suffering was the only way to reap the source of good, then what you say is completely correct and Christian morality is righteous.However, there are two gigantic problems that completely ruin it. Firstly, that suffering doesnt necessarily lead to reward and could instead lead to a far more intense suffering for an indefinite time. This is what we call gambling and its typically not seen as a good thingSecondly, its completely unnecessary. Only reason why it works that why is because your God decided it must work that way, he could have easily removed the suffering part of the equation. He deliberately added it in for what i can only conclude is sadistic pleasureThese problems are what twist your morality into a pretzel, a disfigured disgusting thing that is as ugly as your God
>>18401918Also, the concept of the Logos is not Christian innovation, it’s actually a Stoic concept which predates Christianity and the Stoics identified the Logos not with some 1st century Judean preacher, but with the Greco-Roman god Zeus. While Zeus does frequently engage in questionable behavior in the myths, the Stoics viewed them not as literal historical events, but as allegories. The traditional anthropomorphic depiction of Zeus as a bearded man was also viewed as symbolic rather than a literal depiction of what Zeus actually looked like as they believed Zeus to be an abstract metaphysical spirit.
>>18401872Okay, what about when demonic spirits possess, afflict and lead people to sin? Are those evil?
>>18401752Heretical? That conception of God is directly from Christ Himself. The Kingdom of Heaven is within. Israel, Jerusalem, these are the kingdoms of spiritual and internal insight. These are the kingdoms of mind, and truth. Babylon is the kingdom of things. Material patterns begetting material patterns for the sake of such. You simply view things from a literalistic, Babylonian perspective and refuse to acknowledge anything contrary because you allow yourself to be comforted by the reductive narratives created by the same Babylonian families you and I both take issue with. Did not He say, "Take heed of the levin of the Scribes and the Pharisees," for this exact reason? I believe you, sir, are the Heretic.
>>18401790Your issue is of your own perspective of mind, as well as this being the case for many others (if not most).>If God, why bad?God is the makeup of existence as well as all fundamental, metaphysical creative energies... and whatever inconceivable to us, as of yet, may have been underlying to those forces. >If God this way, why Bible say this?Because humans lie, humans think from simplistic and reduced perspectives for the sake of personal convenience, and because a clean religious doctrine is convenient for control. The teachings of Christ and the philosophies of mind are not only mutually exclusive from the currently presiding systems of control; they are almost wholly juxtaposed to the represented actions and values of said system. The Christ taught hellenistic Monism and introspection, and basic selflessness as the core values for the stability of mankind. The only kinds of people who disagree with those extremely simple and short asks are the selfish and the unwise.
>>18401966You misunderstand. All of you do. I am not speaking from the mind of the gentile. I am speaking of the mind of a third party attempting to breach this discussion with intrepid honesty. I don't care to represent the core narrative values of the modernist Christian system. I care to represent the core values of the Christ and the culture in which His ideas were rooted. I care not for dogma whatsoever. That is not heretical, arrogant, misplaced, or unwise. It is honest.
>>18401919YHWH and Eheieh are both symbolic Hebrew terms for existence. I don't need to entertain the rest of this silly post.
>>18401824I fucking hate atheists. No matter what solution you propose to them, they shoot it down because in their mind they've already determined that are 100% wrong and there's nothing you can do to change it.
>>18403726Its your fault that your answers cant satisfy the human heart. Perhaps if they were any better, Christianity wouldnt be rapidly declining. You only have yourself to blame
>>18401735>centuries ago>fractalFractal wasn't even a concept until 1918, you lying retard.https://www.britannica.com/science/fractal
>>18401741Perhaps if you took one second of your time to consider that all doesn't need to be personified as a lord king, so god isn't really a sensible way to describe it when more inert words that don't presume personification are much better descriptors of the sum total of reality than god.
>>18401663Victims of mass shootings are the same as personal broken arm. You just don't trust other people to have the same capacity to persevere. So you think it's cruel because you think others are lesser. They are just as capable.>someone who just lost a toddlerYeah key word is "just", they're overwhelmed with emotions. Fast forward two weeks, the Christian is coping fine that the toddler is in Heaven waiting for them and it was God's will, while an atheist is now addicted to gooning, opiates and writing dumbshit philosophy.>so Christians just accept that people die and suffer while atheists improve ppls lives???No, Christians have a moral obligation to help others. Atheists, buddhists, taoists, whatever, don't.
>>18401735>Behold G-d!!!!!
>>18403726Seems like you described your kind
>>18401748Paradox of Tolerance
>>18401787>God doesn't want them in HellThen why did he create hell to send people to if he doesn't want that to happen? He lacks the omnipotence necessary to realize his wants or he simply uses omnipotence for BDSM games?
God isn't real and only low IQs believe in God at this point in our species history
>>18404038>Then why did he create hell to send people to if he doesn't want that to happen?Because the holiness of God demands the death penalty for sin. God destroying His enemies is exactly what He wants, but He would prefer if you weren't His enemy. The enemies of God are sent to Hell, a place of torment originally created for Satan and his ally angels. Now, when things happen to an unsaved man, whether those things are good or bad, they happen because God doesn't want the fellow to end up in the Lake of Fire. He is trying to get the unsaved man to seek His face and surrender to Him. If that is not the case, then you can't call God a good God or a God of love.Just because God lets you choose doesn't mean He lacks omnipotence, He could brainwash you to do exactly what HE wants but He instead lets you use your own free will that He gave you.Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”Romans 10:9-10 "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."Rom 5:8-9 "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him."
>>18401702no you wouldn't
>>18401663We shouldn't have to answer anything, in fact any questions regarding faith should be met with lawyers. Christians should just act like Scientologists and just sue people who try and challenge us.
>>18401663>“It’s a mystery,”Isn't this what atheists say about everything? What is their explaination?
The most convincing form of theodicy that I've heard of, mostly from muslims, is that both god uses suffering as a way to test people, and that suffering is "balanced out" by the afterlife. E.g. a guy born into wealth with perfect health and an amazing life needs to basically be a saint to get into heaven, whereas a homeless cancer patient is basically guaranteed to get into heaven as long as they don't kill anyone
>>18405711Atheists don't pretend objective reality is conscious, deliberate and revealed.
>>18401663Not a problem for animist societies
>>18405739If i were in their shoes, id be very embarrassed to say that my omniscient God has a need for testing people. It doesnt make him sound like he knows everything desu
>>18405761You are conscious and deliberate and a part of objective reality.Religion does believe in revelation. There is a whole book about it.
Jews and christians invented space, time and consciousness to give their God the right to judge you
>>18401663Atheism has no answer for why suffering is wrong or what good and bad are.
>>18406085It should be immediately obvious that suffering is wrong if you aren't so doped out of your mind that you can't feel a thing. No one needs an old book or a divine intermediary to inform them about it. The whole reason hell works as a threat (at least against children and pascal's wager-fags) is that you don't need to agree with God's alleged moral opinions to know that burning alive forever isn't a desirable scenario.
>>18401663how's the weather in Mumbai?
