If we start with this definitions for God:- conscious- unlimited power- creator of the universe and its beings- ruler and administrator of the universeWe necessarily come to this result:God tortures his creatures on purpose.Why he/it is doing this can be debated. Mentioned are testing faith, free will, spiritual growth, separation of the good and the bad etc. But the fundamental fact that God in such a scenario is causing suffering on purpose for the beings he created (humans, animals, spirits) can't be debated, its just a fact.The question is now: how could people love a God that is torturing them? Even if good intentions are assumed, like a parent beating a child and saying "I'm doing this to help you", being tortured is an experience that is so negative and traumatizing that it's not really possible to accept it as help and care.The power of God is easy to accept, he is the ruler and therefore makes the rules. But in this case it's even harder to love him. A brutal ruler is feared, not loved. So if God demands to be loved it's not really something the people can do. They can fear him, and that is also requested sometimes in religious doctrine - what leads to a cognitive dissonance, can you fear and love God at the same time?
>>42486056I believe man errors when he tries to define God. Truest blasphemy. the only real blasphemy. Not blasphemy in any specific religious context, but a man trying to define God is going to make proclamations in error 100% of the time, even if he can try to fill in the blank spaces through inference of logic, he will ultimately fail to describe what is most perfect and most high.Even if he understood God, words would fail to describe what we literally cannot comprehend in totality.>consciousThis is us, not something greater and immaterial.Consciousness is the union of spirit and matter. It does not and cannot transcend death. However, there is "mind' in a greater sense of the word, and yet it is not something embodied or limited by the constraints of consciousness and the physical form which both defines and limits it.>Reason whyPerhaps this is the only way things can be. A single expression of the universe which possesses all potentials for ordered matter and change.Perhaps conjured reality is nothing more than a shadow of our higher forms. I do not mistake myself for the form I possess in a temporary sense of the term.I realize this is a false identity. An illusion or shadow of something greater. I am one potential configuration of multiple or infinite many configurations.-Try to see beyond dogma, and other interpretations of men. that would be my advice to you, because while we may not be able to define God, we can certainly bring ourselves further into alignment with God, the source.
>>42486056Since I believe the divine are doing this to strengthen me, I love them. God favors the strong, and the weak are dishonorable and gay, and I agree with God. God looked at me before my incarnation and said that I was worth his ultimate test, and now here I am, I'm honored to be here.
>>42486124>I believe man errors when he tries to define God.probably
>>42486145Well said, Thomas. Saved.Thanks for posting, Anon. Sincerely.
>>42486156It's funny that the great medieval scholar basically said that theology is pointless and we can't know anything about God.
>>42486056>- conscious>- unlimited powerThese are a somewhat contradictory.We are limited in our awareness. We can only be ourselves. Unlimited power must mean anyone with it can be so much more then that, if it couldn't its not unlimited. But if god can then it means gods awareness and manner of existence can be in a manner that's way way different then or own to the point that saying that our conscious and gods conscious are the same/similar is a drastic simplification and undermines the true nature and complexity of god.
>>42486169And?
>>42486165I think there's a noble pursuit in trying to understand while realizing we can never fully comprehend. It's something worth studying and a struggle of the mind which yields interesting results.I think in trying to understand we get closer, even if we are only closer by a few inches compared to the scale of the universe.In fact, it's much like exploring the universe knowing we can never see it all or know it all in totality.The mystery is compelling, and it changes who you are while you pursue it.Even if we never know, the fact we want to know only draws us closer to that which we seek.
>>42486056I think what you are describing here is really just a myth spawned by the scientific age.
>>42486056From God's perspective, what the universe "is" is a fragile loophole in his various omnis-, designed to be a place where they don't apply quite as much. Free Will is an illusion, caused by an almost-isolated blob of God consciousness thinking it is truly isolated. It is less "king tortures subjects" and more "desperately lonely guy loses himself in VR so he can pretend his waifu is real, at the cost of thinking the VR is real and actually being hurt by the events."I am not sure if I forgive God for this. This is less a theodicy and more me trying to figure out the mechanics of why we are here. Should Asuka forgive Anno for working out his emotional problems with her, despite the fact that she IS Anno?
>>42486208I'm just thinking about the concept of God.This is not an empiric thing, I have no way to find out if there is a God or not, all I can do is to apply reasoning to the concept.As it seems to me there are basically 4 possibilities:- a good God- a bad God- a God that is totally different so that we can't even imagine it- no GodWhat I'm doing now is to compare this concepts to the reality I'm experiencing.The problem with the good God is the suffering in the world. All explainations I heared are not really convincing. To justify the horrors in this mundane world there must be a very good reason for it, and I never heared one.The bad God would easily explain the suffering in the world as we see it. Gnosticism has this view: the creator and ruler of this world is a powerful but ignornt being and has no mercy with us. But then we wonder about the good in the world. It has a side of light, love and divine too, and it's hard to imagine that an ignorant/evil deity would be able to create that.The incomprehensible God just avoids the question. People say we can't understand Gods ways and the divine plan. But why should we even care about God then? To believe that it all makes sense in the end, even if we don't see a sense, is a hard case of "just trust me bro". As a spiritual path that won't work for most people.And the problem with the view of no God is of course the question: where does the universe come from? Who made the design? To believe that a complexity like this came out of nothing with no intention is the hardest stretch for our reasoning.So every view has its difficulties.
>>42486056surprisingly good post. though the cope would still simply be that he just has to torture you because he loves you too much not to torture you because of free will or something
>>42486263>All explainations I heared are not really convincingi think the "axiological expectation mismatch" line of reasoning is most interesting, though still of course unconvincing>But why should we even care about God then?"ignosticism" is correctwe can also rule out the bad god because morality is a made up concept which would not apply to god or applies but still falls within the category of "a God that is totally different so that we can't even imagine it" by proxy
>>42486124anon, you give a whole new meaning to stockholm syndrome
>>42486390You clearly don't know what that term means. I think you're that ignorant antagonist who starts fights over his own inability to comprehend the English language.Even if you are not him, your post doesn't make sense, and demonstrates your own ignorance all the same.
>>42486263That is pretty much the options we got with the whole concept, yes. But this could be due to limitations imposed by the terms themselves ... good, bad, god ... how do you even properly define these? Good for one is already bad for another in all too many cases. Neither the perfect optimizer nor the demiurge that accidentally produces some "good" too would fit entirely. Both would at least require us to add some dualistic jury rigged addendum to the whole bloody god concept. So ... our "god" is then either incomprehensible or indifferent. Funny, then we end up with the problem if this all could simply *be* quite ex nihilo and if it will ever make any sense in the long run. We kinda loop back here then to the first two considerations ... can a "flawed creation" ever achieve a final optimized state? A god that asks itself that very same question for all eternity ... now that would be some cosmic horror! But as I said, perhaps we are simply trying to answer this using inadequate terms ... ^^
>>42486414>good, bad, god>how do you even properly define these?I see it from a human perspective. Good is what feels good and what leads to progress, and bad is what is painfull and leads to a more primitive state of beings. Of course not everything that feels good is helpful and not everything that feels bad is pushing you down, and that's the first problem: is the suffering that leads to progress good or bad? But that's a question for philosophers.I see the whole thing more in general, like the average life of humans and the things they have to go trough. And I can say: it's a lot of shit and I just can't see how all of that would be necessary, in a spiritual sense. Yes I learned things through suffering, but is it worth it? Is all the terror in this world justified as a process we just need? I can't see how.If the deal would be that we all go through 90 years of suffering, and then we will live for all eternity in paradise in a state of freedom, joy and happiness - ok, that would be acceptable. Not really reasonable but acceptable. But a cosmic system where only the few ones who do it "right" go to heaven, and all the others end up in hell with even more suffering, or are just reborn again and again in the human world (for what reason?), that's a bad deal from my view. I can't think of a purpose that justifies such a system, and a reason why God should create it that way.
>>42486056There has to be both sides for anything to exist. You have to take the bad with the good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZOM6hOnEBE
>>42486412>You clearly don't know what that term meansit's easyyou sympathize with your captor and rationalize it by going "muh limited comprehension" and "god works in mysterious ways"no matter how you dress it up it's the reasoning of a medieval peasant and you're not as smart as you think
>>42486482I have no captor, and our source of creation is a mystery. I think you mistook words which I used as something other than descriptors used in order to try to convey a message relative to the thread's topic of discussion.Study the language you are trying to interpret so you don't make errors in translation. If you are a native English speaker, then try to train yourself to think more clearly, and more rationally so you may understand others implicitly.In attempting to understand others, you may find yourself realizing more than if you project your own biased interpretation of their words onto them.What you think I said is not what I actually said. Others understood me perfectly.You? No such luck. Why is that I wonder...
>>42486478>in order for you to enjoy the smell of a flower, i guess i the all loving creator MUST create peter scully....no way around it guys sorry...
>>42486056>- creator of the universe and its beings>- ruler and administrator of the universeHe created his fair share and his creations also created beings until our material universe was created by one of the subsequent creation hence your conclusion is null and void.monad - sophia - the demiurge
>>42486464>But that's a question for philosophers.Or for biologists.>it's a lot of shit and I just can't see how all of that would be necessary, in a spiritual sense.Well, if you see it from an average human perspective then the problem might be that in most cases of suffering exactly little to nothing is ever learned. There is no positive effect derived from it in any sense. That we might draw a comparison here to "cruel nature" is perhaps flawed however. Nature might be blind to suffering but it is at least quite efficient in producing outcomes ... but if we rather think in human terms about suffering here then we rather mean cases where that does not even serve any natural mechanism, where it might even go quite against natural interest. That would then be truly pointless suffering, so I would think we are talking about that.>I can't think of a purpose that justifies such a system, and a reason why God should create it that way.Well, there seems to be none, obviously we either see the whole thing as pointless or as a pointless delusion which has served unnatural interests. Pointless would then mean we are back to some demiurge, yet certainly not any we could in any sense consider "divine".
bump
why do you assume the creator of this decaying backwater reality is the supreme godstupid hylics I swear
>>42492525
>>42486145This is basically /thread
>>42492603walk into a forest without anythinggo on. enjoy the "good" creationyou'll probably die shitting yourself drinking untreated water while getting torn apart by a wild animal lmao
>>42486056I don't think we'll be able to confirm anything about God until we die and meet Him.
>>42492731there are no forests left. but they are cool when you're allowed to just stay there forever. garden of eden type beat. sumerians enslaved the natives and imposed grain and taxes. romans chopped down the trees. now the world is a concrete wasteland. i wont drink piss water, i will drink the blood of hunted prey and i wont die from it because if living in the wild was so deadly, then all the animals wouldve went extinct by now. me randomly walking out into the forest alone is obviously not the way by which creation is enjoyed. rather you live in a community
>>42486056God did not create the universe; God created the demiurge, and the demiurge created or co-created the universe.
A kind being does not torture humans, nor does it enslave humans.
>>42486056he is a non omnipotent bitch and were all uncreated energy with no godheadhe is the lowest spark and is buying time to keep running his child rape dungeon party tmfuck jesus for doing this shit its such a cringe loser
>>42486056Hence why once of the first developments in the early Christian movement was Gnosticism. Broken world implies broken creator, as above so below. It's why the material is seen as the lowest form of being, and the goal is to return to the higher forms.Buddhism also parallels this with the 4 noble truths and attempts end suffering and free you from the reincarnation loop.There's not need for a hell in these traditions because you're already here.
>>42486238You should think more about this.
>>42493287humans are the bad guys and lemuria was perfectly chill before the atlantean and hyperborean warlords conquered the whole world and started torturing all animals and deforesting landscapes and waging nuclear wars. then they were obviously reset during the flood and now god is trying to make amends because he is still ultimately a kind being and wants to give them a second chance or whatever. but humans are still evil tho so they get punished for ruining all the beautiful nature. something like that. i think its fair to torture humans if they keep misbehaving and they are literally the only ones who ruin the party for everyone, even for a kind being. obviously thats all hypothetical but the more straight forward explanation would be that humans are simply bad and deserve to be tortured outright. nonetheless, the most likely explanation is that humans were indeed created as a slave race by enki and the anunnaki as described in most stories where humans are made from clay after a series of failed creation attempts. so most likely they are not kind but indifferent or outright evil. but its plausible that a kind being would torture and enslave humans if humans are evil or severely misbehaving
>>42486238>lonelydoes not apply outside the simulation>his various omnisthose are made up. if i play minecraft, calling me (the player) "omnipotent", "omnipresent" and "omniscient" would be a poor description at worst and flat out false at worstyou will never accurately describe "god" by only relating him to our reality using terms that apply only to our reality. the majority of motives by which he operates are entirely foreign to the simulation
Your premise assumes that a world with suffering is incompatible with a good God. The classical theist response is that suffering is the necessary byproduct of a world where free creatures exist and genuine love is possible. Remove the possibility of evil and you remove freedom. Remove freedom and you remove love. A world of automatons who cannot choose wrong is a world where love is meaningless. But that only covers moral evil. Natural evil is harder. The Christian answer is not that God explains the suffering. It is that God enters into it. The crucifixion is God experiencing the worst of what creation can do. Whatever the answer is, it includes a God who did not exempt Himself. He is not torturing from a distance. He is on the cross.
>>42486056But God does create beings who can't feel suffering. They are psychopaths.
