God created man in his own metaphysical image, and God is completely good and has free-will. He gave man free-will, but why didn’t he make us infinitely good?
Can you ‘make’ something with free will be good?
To force man to be good would be to abrogate their free will. However, if man is created in God’s image, and God is infinitely good, then man would do good in each and every case. He could have free will in the sense that he could choose either to commit the good or not-good, but he would always choose the good, assuming that God also has free will and yet chose to do the good as opposed to the not-good in each and every case.
03.30.07.2098
HOGWASH!
You cannot narrowly label an action absolutely good or evil. If someone kills another person, there must be some benefit that the person who did the killing got out of it. One group lies at, cheats out, steals from, and kills another group… and for doing those things, receives benefits. If you and your group survive and prosper, that is good, right? You would want to avoid the actions that would not be “good” for you and your group. So, consequences and the “greater of good in the balance” for your outcome shape your course of action…
jagermeister
I think the most you can do is say that man doing good each and every time is possible, if God created us right. You can’t say that man "must’ behave that way, or that man necessarily would have behaved that way, or else, once again, you’re contradicting the traditional understand of what free-will is. If we’re free, there is nothing that we would have done necessarily.
If we have free will, that means we can choose to do the good or non-good in any given situation. But, if God is perfect, that would mean he would choose the good over the non-good in each and every situation. And if we are made in God’s image, that would mean we would choose the good over the non-good in each and every situation as well. Not because we are forced to by God, but simply because we would.
Then how does God have free-will?
If God acts God in every situation, and he is forced to act good by his own innate goodness, then how could he have free-will?
The objections you’re making to humans being completely good and having free-will at the same time all apply to God…
And please, don’t give me any bullshit that goes like “we cant really understand what god does because he is outside of perception. like, lol” cause I don’t like that kind of self-defeating attitude.
If God is the Supreme Creator, then what does “good” really mean to Him? He can tell humans to be good based on the rules He created specifically for humans to follow based on the motivations he made them capable of acting on. Why would God have to follow such rules? He’s not human. I don’t even see how good can exist for God unless He chooses to follow the concept based on how he chooses to define it. For God to be good, He would have to be human and think and feel as humans do. It makes no sense. If God has to be good, then there’s something making Him do it. Good existed before Him.
Trying to get into god’s brain and asking why “he” does the things “he” does will get you nowhere. If this infinite being exists of which you speak, do you really think our tiny finite minds can even begin to comprehend “his” power and greatness? No one has ever had or will have the answer to these types of questions. So may I suggest you move on, stop wasting your time and just live your life.
humans are bad because we learn by association. We associate giving pain with a means to an end. It’s only when we take a closer lookthat we see we need a better way.
It’s easier to take then earn.
It’s easier to fight then reason. (al quida is unreasonable)
It’s easier to leave a person then work it out after years of neglect. Yet the problems don’t leave just cause you leave the person.
For one thing, I’m pretty god damn sure I can figure out what’s a waste of my time. If it makes me happy and it doesn’t hurt anybody else, than logical questions, no matter how hard/impossible to solve, still are worthwhile for me.
As for your statement that God is an infinite being; I disagree with a couple of things. God isn’t an infinite being, because he’s not a being, because to be a being you have to be, and if God was a thing then he would be subjected to the rules that he created, which he clearly isn’t. Again, he isn’t an infinite being. He’s just infinite.
Did you know the universe is infinite? When you look at something, you can keep on looking closer and closer to infinity. Yet you’re able to understand and accept the universe. So why the differentiation between what is good to know and what isn’t?
Then why is it that God is known as the complete and total good? I’m running this by the church-defined version of God.
First off, thanks for reminding me why I stopped coming to the religion forum. You’re getting hung up on a technicalitiy, the last thing religious arguments should come down to.
yes.
Because the universe is reality which is observable. We can base our theories on our experience with the physical world. Whereas most religious beliefs think of “god” as outside the universe. Is it really worth racking your brain over a concept that you think of as outside of reality? You can’t be more right or wrong than anyone else. It’s pointless.
Some people would say that God is observable. Metaphysically observable.
You’re right; I can’t be more right or wrong than anyone else. Since you propose that I shouldn’t “waste my time” (my decision whether or not it’s really a waste) on this one thing, and since our perception of reality is just that, our perception, does this mean that I shouldn’t waste any of my time on something I don’t even truly know (that my body exists)?
You say that the universe is reality which is observable. We don’t know that our perception is reality, and we don’t know how accurate our observations are.
That type of thinking, in my opinion, accomplishes nothing and gets us nowhere. Experience is reality. I know that I exist and I know that what I see exists. But I guess it’s all a matter of opinion, as is religion.
No, you shouldn’t waste your time on anything that is unobservable in the universe or especailly “outside” the universe.
Experience is reality
All you are is what you do in life,… every thing else is just circumstancual.
Technique is 98% of life.
The innocents and purity of a new child is nieveness.
Nieve in how to be confused. frustraition.
Nieve to hate.
Unconditional love.
Jesus said all phrophets base their teachings on love.
Jesus came to change the hearts of men.
The greatest thing Jesus did was the Holy Spirit. It heals the soul toward something simular of the innocents and purity of the new soul. The book called “Born again virgin”.
I have felt the Holy SPirit.
Ok lets look at the phrase “In God’s image” My image is opposite of me.
Your image is opposite of you. Being made in God’s image would then lead to the conclusion we are opposite God.
The word “in” gives that conclusion. The phrase is rather specific.
So being opposite of God and being given free will allows us to grow and evolve.
Your image is not opposite of you; it’s a reflection of who you are. If we are made in God’s image, than we are made to look like God, because we are made to be a reflection of God. And reflections aren’t opposite of that which they reflect; instead, they are exactly that which they reflect.
Even if we were opposite of God, however, we wouldn’t be free-willed, because God has complete free will and to have the opposite of that we would have to have complete no-free-will. We would be evil, omniweak individuals who have no control over our lives.
As the inscription at the Oracle of Delphi’s temple said, know thyself. If what I am is not real, or if what I am is made up by some god-like creature, or if what I am is simply a matter of chance, I should still attempt to understand and discover who I am and what I am made of and if there is anything I should do while here. Ascribing such a large field of topic (religion) to the description as a waste of my time is going completely and totally against the idea of knowing thyself and the world around you.
Another quote from Socrates, “An unexamined life is not worth living,” reminds me that it’s never a waste of time to examine anything, no matter how miniscule or subjective it is.
Not at all. Religion attempts to “know” the supernatural which, by its very definition, is impossible.
Ahh, a believer in Socrates…that doesn’t surprise me one bit.