Tony\'s God (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Wednesday, November 23, 2011, 21:02 (4749 days ago) @ dhw

See, this is one point where I vehemently disagree with people. In general, people are very quick, when the topic of religion presents itself, to blame every bad thing in the history of the world that has ever happened at God's feet. They are quick to blame for the bad, yet slow to acknowledge the good. More to the point, no one ever acknowledges that, a) as we pointed out in the other branch of this thread, the protection afforded to man at the beginning was removed because mankind sinned. God doesn't have to cause all of these natural disasters, they were already in place. All he did was remove his protection and blessings from an ungrateful race of humans. b) God said point blank, according to Genesis, that the days of an individuals life were limited in number. i.e. People would die. Not that he would directly cause their death, but that, because mankind rejected his teachings and decided to do things their own way, the inevitable outcome was death.

The idea of sin is not one of 'offense against God', and I am not sure where people get that idea. Sin could most easily, and accurately be described as 'a mistake'. What Adam and Eve passed to their children was the ability to make mistakes, the ability to make the wrong choice, and be held accountable for those choices. Now this is not wrong in the sense of good and evil or any other such non-sense. It is wrong in the sense of peeing on an electric fence, or standing in the middle of a busy highway. Peeing on an electric fence is not evil, but it is definitely not good for you, and if the voltage is high enough, it will kill you.

In the beginning, God was protecting Adam and Eve while he taught them. Their actions said that they didn't want to be taught, and that they already knew better. So, God let them go and make their own mistakes.

To give a fatherly analogy, he gave them a helmet and pads and training wheels and offered to old the seat of the bicycle while they learned to ride. They said they already knew how, so he removed the helmet, pad and bicycle. What you are doing is blaming the dad in this analogy for the petulant child getting hurt, and possibly killed, because the child refused to listen and learn.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.