What's Wrong with the World

<alt>doxygen said:

God knew all of this would happen when he started the sequence. The sequence God set in motion could be different if God chose to make it so.

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God ordained the salvation of Jesus Christ - the "Lamb" of God - from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8).

<alt>doxygen said:

The suffering is his will.

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I should also point out that suffering is NOT God's will, but rather, he permits it in order to punish sin, make sinners repent, try the just and make them worthy of everlasting reward, or to be the occasion of some other greater good.

gfm7175 said:

I guess I wouldn't know how he could have created a world in which mankind had free will but yet obeyed him 100%... Maybe God created a world in which he knew that the fewest number of people would ultimately reject him, which from my human perspective would seem to be a good thing. It's impossible to have true love without the existence of free will, and it's impossible to have the existence of free will without it resulting in both acceptance AND rejection.

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Why would a god that was perfect feel the need to create imperfect beings only to test them? And this test involves a physical reality which includes pain, suffering, and death. This timeless entity must have been quite bored in order to both create time and then to create the physical universe for the sole purpose of administering a test for a select group of sentient physical beings and then not clearly make known to them why it did it when there was absolutely no need to do it. A perfect god has no needs. What is the point?

It makes more sense to realize that this god some think is a real entity is just an idea man came up with to attempt to make sense of existence. And this idea has morphed into various gods and various stories, none of which have ever really been completely satisfying, judging by how this concept finds no common agreement and is splintered into endless ideas unique to each individual.

devildavid said:

Why would a god that was perfect feel the need to create imperfect beings only to test them?

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He didn't create them imperfect...

devildavid said:

And this test involves a physical reality which includes pain, suffering, and death.

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Mankind brought those things upon themselves.

devildavid said:

This timeless entity must have been quite bored in order to both create time and then to create the physical universe for the sole purpose of administering a test for a select group of sentient physical beings and then not clearly make known to them why it did it when there was absolutely no need to do it. A perfect god has no needs. What is the point?

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To experience fellowship and love, for starters.

devildavid said:

It makes more sense to realize that this god some think is a real entity is just an idea man came up with to attempt to make sense of existence. And this idea has morphed into various gods and various stories, none of which have ever really been completely satisfying, judging by how this concept finds no common agreement and is splintered into endless ideas unique to each individual.

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If that's what you wish to believe...

Logicman said:

You didn't really answer it. "Running different scenarios" on how to create man is way too vague. Recommend you not diss the God of the Bible until you offer a better, specific scenario.

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Methinks (meknows, actually) that you'll need to do a bit of study before you can deal with these ideas. Start here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design

Note that I used a very dumbed down and abbreviated version of Engineering Design. That was just due to familiarity. Others would also work.

gfm7175 said:

I guess I wouldn't know how he could have created a world in which mankind had free will but yet obeyed him 100%... Maybe God created a world in which he knew that the fewest number of people would ultimately reject him, which from my human perspective would seem to be a good thing. It's impossible to have true love without the existence of free will, and it's impossible to have the existence of free will without it resulting in both acceptance AND rejection.

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I wasn't creating a scenario where mankind obeyed God without exception (therefore was sans free will). I was only taking a baby step for LM, so as not to blow anything beyond The Flood genocide out of the fundamentalist narrative. The idea was just to further optimize man a little before releasing him/her into the wild. One could go much farther, of course, without ditching free will.

gfm7175 said:

I guess I wouldn't know how he could have created a world in which mankind had free will but yet obeyed him 100%... Maybe God created a world in which he knew that the fewest number of people would ultimately reject him, which from my human perspective would seem to be a good thing. It's impossible to have true love without the existence of free will, and it's impossible to have the existence of free will without it resulting in both acceptance AND rejection.

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I wasn't creating a scenario where mankind obeyed God without exception (therefore was sans free will). I was only taking a baby step for LM, so as not to blow anything beyond The Flood genocide out of the fundamentalist narrative. The idea was just to further optimize man a little before releasing him/her into the wild. One could go much farther, of course, without ditching free will.

gfm7175 said:

I guess I wouldn't know how he could have created a world in which mankind had free will but yet obeyed him 100%... Maybe God created a world in which he knew that the fewest number of people would ultimately reject him, which from my human perspective would seem to be a good thing. It's impossible to have true love without the existence of free will, and it's impossible to have the existence of free will without it resulting in both acceptance AND rejection.

Click to expand...

I wasn't creating a scenario where mankind obeyed God without exception (therefore was sans free will). I was only taking a baby step for LM, so as not to blow anything beyond The Flood genocide out of the fundamentalist narrative. The idea was just to further optimize man a little before releasing him/her into the wild. One could go much farther, of course, without ditching free will.

<alt>doxygen said:

I wasn't creating a scenario where mankind obeyed God without exception (therefore was sans free will). I was only taking a baby step for LM, so as not to blow anything beyond The Flood genocide out of the fundamentalist narrative. The idea was just to further optimize man a little before releasing him/her into the wild. One could go much farther, of course, without ditching free will.

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Oh, alright... so man would still have free will, but man would just be "optimized" a bit further before even being created?

I guess I'd need more specifics to visualize this...

And if you're instead referring to creating mankind, but running "test trials" on them to weed out the bad ones before releasing them into the Garden of Eden, wouldn't that be similar to what God did and has been doing? Could God not be "optimizing" mankind at this very moment, separating out the "wheat" from the "tares" (believers from unbelievers).

I guess without specifics, I'm not really sure what you are getting at and can only speculate...

gfm7175 said:

Oh, alright... so man would still have free will, but man would just be "optimized" a bit further before even being created?

I guess I'd need more specifics to visualize this...

And if you're instead referring to creating mankind, but running "test trials" on them to weed out the bad ones before releasing them into the Garden of Eden, wouldn't that be similar to what God did and has been doing?

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I don't think I mentioned any test trials outside of simulation. That could be done without using the real thing. God could do it in his mind.

Could God not be "optimizing" mankind at this very moment, separating out the "wheat" from the "tares" (believers from unbelievers).

I guess without specifics, I'm not really sure what you are getting at and can only speculate...

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Certainly, I thought that what Christians (many, anyway) believed?

My idea was really intended have a slightly pre-optimized version of man created in the garden. It's just a thought exercise, the point being that the suffering, death and destruction the world has undergone since the beginning wasn't all necessary. You could change the OT script quite a bit and still wind up at the same place. God can do anything, by definition.

<alt>doxygen said:

I don't think I mentioned any test trials outside of simulation. That could be done without using the real thing. God could do it in his mind.


Certainly, I thought that what Christians (many, anyway) believed?

My idea was really intended have a slightly pre-optimized version of man created in the garden. It's just a thought exercise, the point being that the suffering, death and destruction the world has undergone since the beginning wasn't all necessary. You could change the OT script quite a bit and still wind up at the same place. God can do anything, by definition.

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For the unbolded, I guess who's to say that God didn't already do that and what we know and experience is the result of that? ---- Taken in the whole scope of existence, I think that we can only view things from a small perspective of the full picture... we don't know every single little intricacy involved with a single event (and how changing a single one of them would affect countless events down the road). In short, I don't think we're even in the place to question God's actions because we don't operate under the same scope as him.

As to the bolded, that's where you lose me. The first bolded sentence because of all the countless "intricacies" that I mentioned above (and the effects of changing even one extremely minute detail), and the second sentence I flat out disagree with. For example, God can not create a stone that he can not lift. He can not create a square triangle. ... etc. etc. ...

gfm7175 said:

Oh, alright... so man would still have free will, but man would just be "optimized" a bit further before even being created?

I guess I'd need more specifics to visualize this...

And if you're instead referring to creating mankind, but running "test trials" on them to weed out the bad ones before releasing them into the Garden of Eden, wouldn't that be similar to what God did and has been doing? Could God not be "optimizing" mankind at this very moment, separating out the "wheat" from the "tares" (believers from unbelievers).

I guess without specifics, I'm not really sure what you are getting at and can only speculate...

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Great point...any way you look at it a free moral agent would have to prove their worthiness first, and that is what we all became when man separated himself from God's love through disobedience...

gfm7175 said:

He didn't create them imperfect...


Mankind brought those things upon themselves.


To experience fellowship and love, for starters.


If that's what you wish to believe...

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Why would a perfect entity that needed to create fellowship and love not simply create fellow entities who shared fellowship and love with it? And if this entity is perfect, it has no need for such things. Needing something is a sign of something lacking, thus imperfection.

A need is not the same thing as a desire...

gfm7175 said:

For the unbolded, I guess who's to say that God didn't already do that and what we know and experience is the result of that? ---- Taken in the whole scope of existence, I think that we can only view things from a small perspective of the full picture... we don't know every single little intricacy involved with a single event (and how changing a single one of them would affect countless events down the road). In short, I don't think we're even in the place to question God's actions because we don't operate under the same scope as him.

As to the bolded, that's where you lose me. The first bolded sentence because of all the countless "intricacies" that I mentioned above (and the effects of changing even one extremely minute detail), and the second sentence I flat out disagree with. For example, God can not create a stone that he can not lift. He can not create a square triangle. ... etc. etc. ...

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If you are arguing that God had no idea his design (man) would be so screwed up that it would need to be purged in mass with the exception of Noah and his boatful, I guess we have different takes on God's ability to foresee things. God (supposedly) wrote of dictated to John where this is all headed in Revelation, correct? God was sure enough of the outcome of all of the coming interacting intricacies that he could set that up for us to read 2000 years ago.

On the latter point, you are correct. I didn't think that one through.

gfm7175 said:

For the unbolded, I guess who's to say that God didn't already do that and what we know and experience is the result of that? ---- Taken in the whole scope of existence, I think that we can only view things from a small perspective of the full picture... we don't know every single little intricacy involved with a single event (and how changing a single one of them would affect countless events down the road). In short, I don't think we're even in the place to question God's actions because we don't operate under the same scope as him.

As to the bolded, that's where you lose me. The first bolded sentence because of all the countless "intricacies" that I mentioned above (and the effects of changing even one extremely minute detail), and the second sentence I flat out disagree with. For example, God can not create a stone that he can not lift. He can not create a square triangle. ... etc. etc. ...

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Deleted duplicate...

<alt>doxygen said:

If you are arguing that God had no idea his design (man) would be so screwed up that it would need to be purged in mass with the exception of Noah and his boatful, I guess we have different takes on God's ability to foresee things.

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I can't imagine a way to argue in support of God having no idea about needing to purge mankind (except Noah). My belief is that he was aware of the necessity of that event.

<alt>doxygen said:

God (supposedly) wrote of dictated to John where this is all headed in Revelation, correct? God was sure enough of the outcome of all of the coming interacting intricacies that he could set that up for us to read 2000 years ago.

On the latter point, you are correct. I didn't think that one through.

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Yes, I'd assert that God was sure enough of the outcome to establish it in Revelation through the penman John. He did so in the OT, and the NT will be the same.

I think of it like watching a movie that I have already seen 100s of times (for me, that would be "School of Rock")... From inside the movie, Dewey Finn (the main character) doesn't know what's going to happen to himself... He goes through each event not knowing what the future holds... From outside the movie, and viewing it from "a different dimension", I know all the details of the movie to where I can basically recite every single line of the movie from beginning to end. I know the life story of Dewey Finn from beginning to end. I know he will have hard times right away, take a substitute teaching job in place of the real person who was contacted for the job, teach those school kids about rock and roll (and recruit them to be his band members and crew) after hearing them play in band class... etc. etc. etc>. all the way until they lose "Battle of the Bands", but the crowd chants for them to come back onstage for another song because his band was the crowd favorite. In short, I know from the beginning of the movie that Dewey Finn is going to end up owning his own "School of Rock" music tutoring studio and lead an "after school" program while his life-long friend teaches the beginner's course for the younger kids. I see the end from the beginning; Dewey Finn doesn't...

In the same (or at least in a similar) way, God sees the end from the beginning; You and I don't...

devildavid said:

Why would a perfect entity that needed to create fellowship and love not simply create fellow entities who shared fellowship and love with it? And if this entity is perfect, it has no need for such things. Needing something is a sign of something lacking, thus imperfection.

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As Elvira said, "need" and "desire" are two different things.

I would suggest increased precision of language, as these conflations have been happening fairly often and have been misguiding your reasoning.

<alt>doxygen said:

Methinks (meknows, actually) that you'll need to do a bit of study before you can deal with these ideas. Start here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design

Note that I used a very dumbed down and abbreviated version of Engineering Design. That was just due to familiarity. Others would also work.

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Nice try. You're living in a universe God designed. Your dumbed down design might appeal to the cosmic-challenged, but not to the Sons of God.

Logicman said:

Nice try. You're living in a universe God designed.

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You gave me the ability to play God in the original request to "do better". Just accepting that I "needed to make mankind and give him free will" was a concession. As God, I would not have to do either thing. Now you are trying to tell me that you made me God but that God had already made the universe?

Okay. Was I required to be a trinitarian construct of God? You didn't specify.

Your dumbed down design might appeal to the cosmic-challenged, but not to the Sons of God.

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It was dumbed down on purpose. It's obvious I needed to dumb it down some more. Not bothering...

You're the/a son of God? Good luck...

gfm7175 said:

I can't imagine a way to argue in support of God having no idea about needing to purge mankind (except Noah). My belief is that he was aware of the necessity of that event.

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God wanted to largely (almost completely) wipe the slate and start over. My point was that the need to do that indicates to me that God made some level of error.

Yes, I'd assert that God was sure enough of the outcome to establish it in Revelation through the penman John. He did so in the OT, and the NT will be the same.

I think of it like watching a movie that I have already seen 100s of times (for me, that would be "School of Rock")... From inside the movie, Dewey Finn (the main character) doesn't know what's going to happen to himself... He goes through each event not knowing what the future holds... From outside the movie, and viewing it from "a different dimension", I know all the details of the movie to where I can basically recite every single line of the movie from beginning to end. I know the life story of Dewey Finn from beginning to end. I know he will have hard times right away, take a substitute teaching job in place of the real person who was contacted for the job, teach those school kids about rock and roll (and recruit them to be his band members and crew) after hearing them play in band class... etc. etc. etc>. all the way until they lose "Battle of the Bands", but the crowd chants for them to come back onstage for another song because his band was the crowd favorite. In short, I know from the beginning of the movie that Dewey Finn is going to end up owning his own "School of Rock" music tutoring studio and lead an "after school" program while his life-long friend teaches the beginner's course for the younger kids. I see the end from the beginning; Dewey Finn doesn't...

In the same (or at least in a similar) way, God sees the end from the beginning; You and I don't...

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Right. The request LM made to me was for me to write a sequence of events that got to the same story ending, but had less suffering on the part of mankind. I assumed that I needed to keep "free will". In your analogy it would be rewriting the beginning or middle of the movie but having the plot end the same way. Not that I would change that movie, it was enjoyable. The sequel is another matter...

<alt>doxygen said:

God wanted to largely (almost completely) wipe the slate and start over. My point was that the need to do that indicates to me that God made some level of error.

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Seemingly it is, from a limited perspective, but I still hold that humanity just doesn't have the perspective to criticize in any way. All the actions of all the angels and etc. needs to be taken into account also, and there are differing interpretation theories of Genesis 6, one of which could make this discussion a bit more interesting. If the more mainstream "Sons of Seth" theory is false, and the lesser mainstream "Nephilim" theory is true, then we begin to discover a human DNA purity issue at that time (Noah was noted as being "perfect in his generations" [meaning that he was "pure human", per this Nephilim theory]... In the Sons of Seth theory, it would presumably be speaking of Noah's character, that he was "in accord with truth and fact" unlike the rest of humanity at that time).

I'm getting into deeper stuff here, stuff which is part of an "in-house interpretation disagreement" between Christians, but the gist of it is, if the Nephilim theory is true, then a human gene pool (DNA impurity) issue would be a good reason (and explanation) for The Flood (to preserve the human DNA purity that would be necessary for Jesus to redeem mankind). Under the Sons of Seth theory, The Flood would instead be a matter of mankind being overly wicked (to where everyone but Noah's family were wicked) and the wickedness needed to be cleansed, resulting in a "re-boot" of sorts.

In other words, I've always found Genesis 6 to be rather interesting reading and I need to keep prayerfully reading it.

<alt>doxygen said:

Right. The request LM made to me was for me to write a sequence of events that got to the same story ending, but had less suffering on the part of mankind. I assumed that I needed to keep "free will". In your analogy it would be rewriting the beginning or middle of the movie but having the plot end the same way. Not that I would change that movie, it was enjoyable. The sequel is another matter...

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The part that's very difficult with "changing the beginning/middle but keeping the end the same" is that, changing the beginning changes everything else from that moment on, and will alter the end... Would it even be possible to get to the same end if details before that end were changed? It's getting into things that, from our limited perspective of time (and cause/effect), we just can't really assert "this would be better" or "this would be worse", etc. etc.

gfm7175 said:

As Elvira said, "need" and "desire" are two different things.

I would suggest increased precision of language, as these conflations have been happening fairly often and have been misguiding your reasoning.

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Figures...par for the course...not with just him, either...

Angel said:

Jai Guru Deva Om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world


Chesterton wrote the book.
https://www.amazon.com/Whats-Wrong-World-G-Chesterton/dp/0898704898

You write the post.

Like Chesterton writing a hundred years ago, I think I know what's wrong with the world.

How about you?

Do you think you know what's wrong with the world?

In a post of 25 words or less tell us what's wrong with the world.

Then in 25 words or more tell us what's wrong the other posts telling us what's wrong with the world.

The top five answers win prizes.

Namaste​

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In my opinion the worst thing wrong with the world at this time is that people are judged by the words they use and/or the beliefs they hold and/or who they are affiliated with instead of judging people by the content of their character, what warms their hearts, and how they treat others. It matters not whether we are looking at it from the secular world or the religious world, the tendency to judge and condemn people who are different from ourselves takes the same ugly forms.

And what is wrong with the world is also that humankind sins, i.e. wittingly or unknowingly does what is harmful to themselves and/or others. The cumulative effect of that is to spoil the perfect creation God intended for us.

Kristen Stewart movies! And the Twilight Saga has been used as a forum of torture