god and his "mysterious ways"

Here's the problem with christianity or any religion. It is based on the claim that 1) god is all powerful and 2) god is all loving. And yet, we know of natural phenomena - earthquakes, tsunamis, mass starvation, diseases, etc - that have killed millions of innocent men, women and children. Given this knowledge, one could come to the conclusion that either 1) god isnt all powerful or 2) god isn't all loving. Most Christians would answer - "but god works in mysterious ways." The problem with this answer is that it can be used to justify anything. For example, suppose someone goes into a school and shoots all the teachers and children. Afterwards, he says that he did it cause god told him to do it. As a christian, how can you condemn this man for murdering all these children? After all, god works in mysterious ways, right? In the bible, god actually told abraham to kill isaac. And abraham is a hero for doing exactly as god ordered. So how can you condemn this man for murdering these people, when he was doing it clearly because god told him to do so? As a christian, are you not obligated to praise this act of mass murder, just as you are obligated to praise Abraham's near-murder of Isaac?

 

If god is so mysterious, how do they know so much about him?

meantime, yes. mysterious ways is christianese for "yeah, god can be an arsewipe sometimes, but we're not allowed to think such things, and I can't explain why he behaves that way, so I regurgitate the cover-all indoctrinated during my childhood"

 

Well, the thing is, if there is an omnipotent being, why does he have to follow modern morality? All the death and stuff would be perfectly in line with what a lot of people in history would do in God's position. And to explain the all-loving thing, if there is a God, I'd think he's kinda like an all-powerful The Sims player. He pretty much makes a bunch of stuff and sees what happens. He can still be all-loving, as in, he loves us for the entertainment value we give him. Maybe seeing us war and struggle with a crappy world he made gives him some sense of satisfaction.

 

Suppose there is such a creature as God and suppose that he really does care about a couple of people. It would then make sense that he would inflict all kinds of hardships on certain "actors" who may not really be actual real people with such things as "souls". They could just be illusions to see how the real people with "souls" react to cruel disasters. It's the Job story.

If you see someone in need and refuse to help then you are not doing what your favorite deity told you to do and you will be punished on Judgment Day. That's not to say that the person you saw in need was a real person. He could simply be an illusion, like in the Matrix.

Of course the danger with such thinking is that you end up believing that you are the one real person in the world. Suppose you are really God who thinks that he's a human who believes in God but is stuck in a dream of human existence? If God really existed couldn't he fool himself with such a creation?

 

Hard questions that have never really been answered.

 

Perhaps god just incarnates in all things, and he enjoys the excitement. And since he is just doing all of this to himself, why should you care? This is his game, not yours, you are just a part of it. You just have not found out quite yet exactly who you are is all.

 

Religion, in modern times, is a lot different than what it was in ancient times. Religion was not really about God's or Goddesses and such, but metaphors for the forces of existence. In essence, it was a science written metaphorically or poetically. Today, people have taken these metaphors to a literal interpretation. Not only that, but many parts of these old stories have been perverted, rewritten, or have spawned other types of new religions which focus more and more on the religious actors as more and more human entities with human problems, ambitions, concerns, and the like. (for instance, the many Gods of old symbolizing the many forces in existence, to the current monotheistic God which symbolizes comlete ownership and dominance of existence)

Reading some of the things presented in hermeticism, gnosticism, and such (NOT that they are truth) you can see that the early focus of the early religious figures was not the study and worship of dieties, per se, but the study of the forces of existence both observable and unobservable. Today, science is preoccupied with the study of the physical, definite structures of existence, but back then, they were more concerned with the spiritual, mental forces behind life and existence. This is my own intepretation of it, so you'd have to look for yourself, but in the end, the religions today are just caricatures of what they once were, overtly designed to host an administration bent on control rather than exploration and education of the human mind and soul.

I mean...ask yourself. What knowledge of the soul or the human soul has come out of the Church recently...or at any point? What revelations about how and what you are have been discovered? Little if nothing. They say the very same thing they have always been saying, and are more defensive of their legitmacy than acutally students of the mind, the heart, or the soul.

 

To me "God works in mysterious ways" is akin to confirmation bias because frankly, who knows for sure what God wants or is involved with? We can read ancient books written by men that claim to contain the word of God, but I think it more likely that said books contain mans interpretation of God.

 

When we use the terms "good" or "evil", we're talking about modern human morality. If god isn't "good" according to modern human morality, then he is evil. It doesn't matter that he doesn't follow human morality. The terms "good" and "evil" exist only in the context of human morality, and so to even use those terms is to reference human morality. So if god isn't good according to the principles of human morality, then he is evil. He can't be anything else.

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If that is the case, then he is just playing with us - causing us suffering for his own entertainment. In that case, he would be an evil god.

 

Right, but what I'm trying to say is, good and evil differ from culture to culture. Why does a being who suffers no repercussions with almost limitless power need to worry about doing what a few of his creations think is "wrong?" Some cultures think death is good, and that suffering is a normal part of life. One of the core ideas of Buddhism is that life is suffering, for example. And in medieval Japan, suicide and killing others in duels was considered an honorable and good thing to do. And in some areas of Liberia, eating people alive is considered good and imbues you with invincibility. If even some human moralities can say these things are good, then God's actions can't be universally evil, just to modern Western cultures like ours.

 

What is love without hate?
What is mercy without punishement?

 

Your concern is likely influenced by your belief system. If you believe we are merely products of random colliding space dust, then your Earthly life consumes your philosophy of what God is and what His purpose is. We do not know what His purpose is, therefore, we can only answer your question from the human perspective.

 

I have never really liked this argument against God/religion. If I were religious I would probably explain it as, God created life, and he feels he should not intervene just as humans don't like intervening when they see the beautiful cruelty of nature being acted out (a predator catching it's prey, chimps ripping the faces off babies of other chimp families).

It's just most religious people don't think of it that way, they prefer to say "it's God's 'plan'" or something of that sort when something utterly atrocious happens. Then, completely change face and say that God intervened and saved someone when a miracle happens. That's an incredibly cheap and crappy way to think about it. That God would periodically decide to save some people sometimes, then let others suffer as the framework for a "plan".

Of course, I'm not religious so I know that it is silly to even think about this concept at all. Everything just happens, then humans fabricate meanings for it.

 

Free will is also an argument, but at the end of the day, we can only guess at God's will. The whole topic is pointless though, there is no way for us to understand God's will. I see no wrong in thanking God when his will grants a favorable outcome for somebody. I do believe it's misguided to think He grants favor based on faith or request. I could be wrong, but that's not exactly how I believe it works. But again, there is no way for us to understand God's will, anyone's guess is as good as my own. My guess is based on my relationship with God.

 

At what point do you believe people lose the ability to control a situation with their own free will, and it becomes 'God's will'? Or do you believe it is a 50/50 situation the whole time?

 

Excellent post!

I would add that those who claim that post-event thanks don't breech idea of a plan, are obfuscating for convenience. It's a fundamental of Christianity to request (via prayer) pre-event. I don't know how many times I've heard Christians say "we must pray for X to happen/not happen". This is patent evidence that those doing the praying believe they are able to alter the plan (a plan they evidently don't like).

 

Ah, but JESUS would know the answer, if he was real....and if he was moral he'd have explained them to us in the last 2000+ years.

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But the Bible says that we do NOT have free will:

O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. Jeremiah 10:23

And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Acts 13:48

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.... Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Romans 8:29-30

For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. .... For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? ... Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. Romans 9:11-22

He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. Ephesians 1:4-5

God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned. 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12

Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. 2 Timothy 1:9

For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation. Jude 4

 

......"dashing babies against rocks", and other such atrocities that primitive animals do. Can we all agree that ripping faces off babies is on par with dashing babies against rocks, so therefore god is no more moral than chimps are?

 

BIGFOOT also works in mysterious ways.....so what does that maybe tell us?

 

What is an immorality, in its simplest form? Or, what is sin in its simplest form? It is something that isn't that hard to come to an agreement on. If in self gratification, I hurt another person, that is the basic definition of sin, of immorality. For it involves hurting someone else. So, if I steal, rape, lie, kill, and it directly harms another person, that is an immorality. For another person is harmed by me pursuing self gratification. If you extend it beyond this, you are just indulging in something else, cultural preferences perhaps. If we were not driven by incessantly self gratifying the ego, the self image, this world would be a much different place entirely. It would even solve the age old problems afflicting humanity since we first became self aware.

 

"God works in mysterious ways" is indistinguishable from a godless world. It is a less profane way of saying (*)(*)(*)(*) happens.

 

You are leaving out the idea of free will. True freedom is also the freedom to experience the consequences of our actions.

Also, you are applying human moral ideas to a being which is not human. The rules we set for our dogs, for instance, are not appropriate for humans because humans are higher orders of being than are dogs. The rules we live by may not be appropriate for God.

 

So we have 'higher' rules for dogs than we do for ourselves because we are higher beings (according to you - I'm not convinced) but LOWER standards for the highest being in the universe?

I find it hard to believe you typed that out without realising what you were saying, so I'm going to assume it was tongue in cheek.

 

Neither higher nor lower. Different.

This is what comes of having one idea, seeing it won't work, then editing the sentences to fit a second idea. Pure laziness on my part.

 

In order to answer this question accurately we would first need to know what God's will is, an obvious impossibility. Therefore, all I know, is my free will, which very well may be God's will, who knows?