I had to stop while passing this sign on the Trans Canada Highway in central Newfoundland to take this picture.
If you believe what the Bible says, then Bro. Gagnon is correct when he suggests that "God Made Hell". See Isaiah 45:7 (KJV): I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
Why don't preachers talk about this aspect of Christianity in their sermons? God (if he/she/it exists) created evil. We're just toddlers in the minefield he/she/it created: http://www.atheistmissionary.com/2009/06/just-and-loving-god-toddler-in.html
I will post the other side of this sign tomorrow. It's even more pathetic.
I hear you; it is a tricky concept. Bu the reason it is not dealth with more IMO is not that its a crazy secret. The enlightenment philosphers kinda overdid it on this and once Christianity got past the extreme solution provided Calvanism we've been okay with this.
ReplyDeleteImagine a state that makes a law and a corresponding social system that creates a social norm against the taking of human life without justification. The state and society have created the crime. It may thus be said that they bear some responsibility for administering the penalties because it is their creation. But they cannot be responsible for the choice of the murderer.
BTW states don't pretend to be omniscent, just, and merciful so there are maxims like ignoratio lex neminem excusat.
ReplyDeleteA big difference between my hypo and the problem with God creating evil (in some sense, though I do think you continue to read too much into this poetic expression by this great poet) is that the secular humanist gets hung up on how divine law can be known given the variety and disparity among theists themselves.
Theists posit that God has written the law in our hearts. God Himself teaches us his path. Not as an airtight proof, but to illustrate why I see that: the parable chooses a toddler, why? There is an inherent difference in blowing up an innocent. That is one of those points where I would say that even a devout rationalist receives truth and it is confirmed in his soul.
All that to say that God will hold us accountable to the law we have. That is just.
@quandmeme: are you deliberately writing in riddles? I can't make heads or tails of what you just wrote. I makes absolutely no sense. It is gibberish. You are writing as if we are in Jerusalem scripting Biblical passages. Write like a normal person, will ya.
ReplyDeleteOops, I was trying too hard to be brief.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to respond to the question: why don't christians talk about whether God is responsible for evil if/because he created evil. As I understand it, the reasoning usually goes something like: if we are not morally-accountable actors but merely cosmic toddlers, then how would it be just for God to create a system where the arbitrarily-fixed consequence of arbitraty actions are imposed solely on the toddler? Well that is the way the would-be believer phrases it. I guess the atheist is saying, given the ascribed awkwardness of the perfect-God-creating-the-imperfect, it would be irrational to order one's life around a system which appears unjust and thus appears by its own terms to be contradictory.
The change I would make to the framing of this would be to add the example of the state. Defining the crime of murder is not usually understood to make the state responsible for all (now criminal) acts of murder. The individual is still responsible even though the state created the evil.
Thus, because I believe that I am a moral actor and that God holds me accountable for my choices, then the fact that God has declared/created the evil of cheating or murdering does not make him unjust if I know that I should not murder or cheat and nevertheless do so.
If I choose to be unholy, should I be forced to live eternally with a holy God? Wouldn't it be more just to have a place set aside where God will not be? It is my belief that the creation of a hell was just.
Quandmeme
ReplyDeleteIs your native tongue english? I get the distinct impression you are trying to write in a level of english that is above your current personal standard. Not trying to offed, but as CKDC points out, it's somewhat difficult to take in everything you say.
Anyway, what's the point in hell when you can just repent at the final moment?
The following is off-topic,; something that sprung to mind when being told about the almighty, supremely intelligent god that so many believe exist.
I'm sure this argument will have been made somewhere else before, but isn't it hilarious that before 'the fall of man', (when god still spoke to us) he only spoke to us in one region of the planet?
I mean, fuck the millions of people in the other regions, let alone other continents. Native americans had no idea who jesus christ was when the spanish arrived.
Anyway, the point is, isn't this painfully obvious evidence that the dominant religions today were spawned from man? I've never actually posed the question to a believer, but no doubt they'll have some cop-out answer like they do for everything else.
You'd think the supremely intelligent creator would talk to all his people, not just a select few in a certain region of the planet, so that when the spanish did arrive in america, for example, the native americans would have had the exact same bible/quran - whatever.
Just a thought...