What is the point of earth (to god)?

[Learner]

Is this because your god was incapable of deleting corrupted version 1.0 and starting again with 2.0 with the bugs fixed?

The only incapability here of sorts is that you may not of realised you've been describing "revelation" in which God IS capable. The only difference is, rather than erasing the lot of us: Those who were in 1.0 can choose to be in 2.0 with the bugs fixed.

Seems like that would have been a shitload easier, more straightforward and more successful that letting the flawed version propagate.

Who says its not easy ...for God at least. Good honest people exist among the flawed.

 

[Learner]

The real problem is Why can't God force himself to be good?

Force yourself to study the bible ...you may change your mind.

I did BTW and learning from others (not the usual mainstream element)..when I was not so kind talking about and arguing against God back then.

*Edit: Learn't a lot from this forum too.

 

[Lion IRC]

...It is interesting watching you do these mental gymnastics to avoid answering a direct question.

Your question is predicated on the (false) assertion that Christians never think about theodicy. And you frame it in terms of...what would people in heaven think of evil if they never even knew there was such thing as evil.
They wouldn't think anything because they wouldn't know any different.

There is no problem of evil in heaven. ... Is there?

Yes there is.
Just because there's no evil IN heaven doesn't mean nobody in heaven knows what and where evil is.
You think God's angels happily ignore evil? That's unscriptural.

Just admit it. You're asking why does evil/suffering/hell exist.

I have nothing to "admit". I am wondering why the Christian story needs an earth.

It doesn't.
Who told you it was necessary for God to create Earth.

Why can't there just be a finish line instead of the race?

Heaven is not a finish line, is it? Aren't there beings born into it? Or is that not possible (and if not, were the angels born on earth?)

My point is that you ask God why He bothered with Earth and Eden and Adam and Eve and why not fast track everything and just skip to the happy ever after eschatology instead. And God would be entitled to ask what's your hurry?

Why can't God force everyone to be good?

How does he do it in Heaven?

Involuntary altruism would be an oxymoron.

 

[Rhea]

Is this because your god was incapable of deleting corrupted version 1.0 and starting again with 2.0 with the bugs fixed?

The only incapability here of sorts is that you may not of realised you've been describing "revelation" in which God IS capable. The only difference is, rather than erasing the lot of us: Those who were in 1.0 can choose to be in 2.0 with the bugs fixed.

I can never quite tell if you christian people are scamming us or if you really are utterly incapable of thinking outside your box.

Take the aborted fetus.
Is it in heaven enjoying itself? Or not?

 

[Rhea]

Lion. Get your head out of your circle and lsiten to the _actual_ question. Not the one that you imagine lies at the root of this that you find easy to answer because it’s not the actual question at all.

Your question is predicated on the (false) assertion that Christians never think about theodicy. And you frame it in terms of...what would people in heaven think of evil if they never even knew there was such thing as evil.
They wouldn't think anything because they wouldn't know any different.

No. My question is not predicated on that. I realize Christians think about theodicy ALL THE TIME to explain whey their god is not powerful enough to stop evil on earth.

That, however, is NOT the question here.

I know you want it to be that question, so you can answer with (quite frankly nonsensical) answer that satisfies christians, but it isn’t that question.

Although you do show quite thoroughly the method by which Christians fool themselves into think they have “correct” answers when they don’t.

Yes there is.
Just because there's no evil IN heaven doesn't mean nobody in heaven knows what and where evil is.
You think God's angels happily ignore evil? That's unscriptural.

If there’s no evil in heaven, and heaven is the only place there is, then there’s no evil. Wouldn’t that be a perfect turn of events!

So why is another place besides heaven needed?
That is the question at hand.

Just admit it. You're asking why does evil/suffering/hell exist.

I have nothing to "admit". I am wondering why the Christian story needs an earth.

It doesn't.

It really doesn’t does it. And yet it has one.
A whim?
Christianity seems to point at earth being really necessary.

Why can't there just be a finish line instead of the race?

Heaven is not a finish line, is it? Aren't there beings born into it? Or is that not possible (and if not, were the angels born on earth?)

My point is that you ask God why He bothered with Earth and Eden and Adam and Eve and why not fast track everything and just skip to the happy ever after eschatology instead. And God would be entitled to ask what's your hurry?

Still confused why you think “happily ever after” is an “end” that isn’t worth having.
Does the idea of going to heaven for eternity really repel you because it doesn’t involve any pain?

Why can't God force everyone to be good?

How does he do it in Heaven?

Involuntary altruism would be an oxymoron.

I repeat. How does he do it in heaven?

 

[abaddon]

The answer is post hoc reasoning; mythtellers saw how hard life was for people and tried to explain why, because in myth everything's got a reason. The earth and their not-so-happy lives were first; and their story about it came second.

But the believer is inside the myth, where the story comes first and earth's just a prop inside it. So, how it's post hoc cannot even register on their brains.

I don't think the story has a "why" for the earth. It had to come from somewhere, so the story starts with how chaos was given order (including an earth as the backdrop to the human drama). And entropy was introduced into order by disobedient behavior.

So the mythtellers were explaining their lives in a harsh world. They cannot have written a tale about their lives in heaven, since that's not what they're explaining. It's just a hope they eventually included into the story.

 

[Horatio Parker]

The answer is post hoc reasoning; mythtellers saw how hard life was for people and tried to explain why, because in myth everything's got a reason. The earth and their not-so-happy lives were first; and their story about it came second.

But the believer is inside the myth, where the story comes first and earth's just a prop inside it. So, how it's post hoc cannot even register on their brains.

I don't think the story has a "why" for the earth. It had to come from somewhere, so the story starts with how chaos was given order (including an earth as the backdrop to the human drama). And entropy was introduced into order by disobedient behavior.

So the mythtellers were explaining their lives in a harsh world. They cannot have written a tale about their lives in heaven, since that's not what they're explaining. It's just a hope they eventually included into the story.

This is good stuff, but I think you may be missing something essential. The believer is not in the myth, the myth is in the believer. The myth represents archetypal behavior. Creation myths e.g. are typically about awakening consciousness; the primordial state such as the still waters represent the unconscious. So we live the creation myth every day, every day the universe is created.

But the real meat is the process, not the structure. The dreamlike senselessness in the stories is provocative, stimulating, and that induced contemplative state is the real goal and purpose of these stories.

 

[Lion IRC]

Why can't God force everyone to be good?

How does he do it in Heaven?

Involuntary altruism would be an oxymoron.

I repeat. How does he do it in heaven?

He doesn't do it - we do.
That's my point. If it's involuntary 'goodness' it's a pointless waste of time.

Listen, pretend you are God.
You could, if you wanted, create an army of robotic wind-up dolls to put on your mantelpiece that do nothing but praise you all day. You could sit and listen to their fake praise and kid yourself into believing that you were actually loved.

But deep down you would know that real reciprocal love is voluntary and given with informed consent by autonomous beings with free will.

And being God you might get pleasure out of sharing your heavenly happiness with other creatures you made.

So you would want to harmonise the two objectives of having your love freely reciprocated (instead of pre-programmed robotics) and sharing heavenly existence with like-minded beings - as opposed to lucifer types.

So you give humans the option of free will (eat or don't eat the forbidden fruit) and you give them a place of their own (Earth) and you give them an internship.

Guess who wants God's creatures to flunk their internship? (See the book of Job)

Now, that's my serious answer to your previous post which I took as an improved version of the original Op. And I apologise if I was mistaken in thinking the Op was a run of the mill, polemic, counter-apologetic.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

But if you give them the option of free will so that they choose to eat or not eat the forbidden fruit, but don't give them the ability to distinguish right from wrong until after they eat the fruit, what would be the rationale they'd use to decide whether or not to obey you?

 

[Lion IRC]

Their deliberate disobedience WAS them choosing that they wanted to decide for themselves what was good or evil.
They could have (blindly) just done what they were told - like sheep.
But they were free to choose - to learn - for themselves.

ETA - sometimes it takes some people longer to 'distinguish' right from wrong. Often we learn the hard way.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Their deliberate disobedience WAS them choosing that they wanted to decide for themselves what was good or evil.
They could have (blindly) just done what they were told - like sheep.
But they were free to choose - to learn - for themselves.

ETA - sometimes it takes some people longer to 'distinguish' right from wrong. Often we learn the hard way.

Right, but for that to make sense, they would have needed to understand that one choice was good and the other was bad. Punishing them for making a bad choice which they made before they were given the ability to distinguish between good and bad choices is like a business having a corporate policy that you can be fired for opening a file which was emailed around but not mentioning that policy anywhere except within the file.

Eating the apple is what gave them the means to distinguish between good and evil, so they had no tools before that to allow them to come to the conclusion that obedience to God was good and disobeying him was evil.

 

[Opoponax]

Their deliberate disobedience WAS them choosing that they wanted to decide for themselves what was good or evil.
They could have (blindly) just done what they were told - like sheep.
But they were free to choose - to learn - for themselves.

ETA - sometimes it takes some people longer to 'distinguish' right from wrong. Often we learn the hard way.

That's a valuable lesson, and also what makes for a good Bible story. It's when people start taking the story as literal truth that it becomes a problem. When taken literally, God looks like a negligent parent who not only doesn't keep an eye on his kids, but also sets them down in the middle of a dynamite factory with a flamethrower. Sooner or later, shit's gonna go sideways.

But if taken as the parable it's meant to be, it provides a life lesson and provides insight into the human condition (particularly that we're no different now than 10,000 years ago).

When taken literally, all the great Genesis stories are boiled down to one thing: don't piss God off or really bad shit's gonna happen to you. And if that's the only lesson to be learned, then Adam and Eve already took care of that message, thereby making Jonah and the Whale, the Great Flood, etc. merely redundant rather than having further/new teachings and insight.

 

[Learner]

I can never quite tell if you christian people are scamming us or if you really are utterly incapable of thinking outside your box.

I was outside the box myself like many others (agnostic if you will)but there could be the scam : telling us there's nothing inside ...(for lack of better articulation)

Take the aborted fetus.
Is it in heaven enjoying itself? Or not?

What may seem to you as one question actually has several defined angles. The poor simple church goer (who need not know the details apart from the Teachings of Jesus) that could be mislead by what you're asking.

1. Do you consider first a fetus as an entity in itself as you ask the question?

2. Is it because to you that a fetus itself as an unlikely to enjoy itself in the world i.e. that a character not yet developed or not yet a person identity ; that you ask the question?

3. Are you asking rather ...from the perspective of the "consistency" of the bible that it may contradict itself within the gospel ?

I take the cue from what God says "HE knew each of us before we were born"!

As I understand it ... its a YES.

 

[Learner]

Right, but for that to make sense, they would have needed to understand that one choice was good and the other was bad. Punishing them for making a bad choice which they made before they were given the ability to distinguish between good and bad choices is like a business having a corporate policy that you can be fired for opening a file which was emailed around but not mentioning that policy anywhere except within the file.

Eating the apple is what gave them the means to distinguish between good and evil, so they had no tools before that to allow them to come to the conclusion that obedience to God was good and disobeying him was evil.

I've watched a few vids about "salemen" going into homes of vunerable people, especially the old gentle folk, being "persuaded and pressured" to part with thousands of dollars for a service or home appliance that is so much less in its actual cost or value.

The saleman in the garden of Eden in this case is Satan. The "strong" persuasive influence in Eve's bad choice.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Right, but for that to make sense, they would have needed to understand that one choice was good and the other was bad. Punishing them for making a bad choice which they made before they were given the ability to distinguish between good and bad choices is like a business having a corporate policy that you can be fired for opening a file which was emailed around but not mentioning that policy anywhere except within the file.

Eating the apple is what gave them the means to distinguish between good and evil, so they had no tools before that to allow them to come to the conclusion that obedience to God was good and disobeying him was evil.

I've watched a few vids about "salemen" going into homes of vunerable people, especially the old gentle folk, being "persuaded and pressured" to part with thousands of dollars for a service or home appliance that is so much less in its actual cost or value.

The saleman in the garden of Eden in this case is Satan. The "strong" persuasive influence in Eve's bad choice.

Whether or not Satan influenced her choice, Woman was STILL getting punished for making a decision she wasn't equipped to make. Your effort to shift the blame to Satan does not make it any less of a dick move on God's part.

 

[Learner]

Whether or not Satan influenced her choice, Woman was STILL getting punished for making a decision she wasn't equipped to make. Your effort to shift the blame to Satan does not make it any less of a dick move on God's part.

She made the wrong decision twice. First by persuasion (perhaps forgivable i.e. blame on Satan) then she again by her-self had persuaded Adam ...and .. they were both punished.

 

[Lion IRC]

Their deliberate disobedience WAS them choosing that they wanted to decide for themselves what was good or evil.
They could have (blindly) just done what they were told - like sheep.
But they were free to choose - to learn - for themselves.

ETA - sometimes it takes some people longer to 'distinguish' right from wrong. Often we learn the hard way.

Right, but for that to make sense, they would have needed to understand that one choice was good and the other was bad. Punishing them for making a bad choice which they made before they were given the ability to distinguish between good and bad choices is like a business having a corporate policy that you can be fired for opening a file which was emailed around but not mentioning that policy anywhere except within the file.

Eating the apple is what gave them the means to distinguish between good and evil, so they had no tools before that to allow them to come to the conclusion that obedience to God was good and disobeying him was evil.

God warned them that actions have consequences.
They didn't believe (in) Him. They didn't trust (in) Him.
They wanted to see for themselves. That was their free will choice before they even touched the so-called apple.

Rabbi Sacks has a beautiful piece here.

"...Since this is a religious gathering, let me, if I may, end with a piece of biblical exegesis. The story of the first family, the first man and woman in the garden of Eden, is not generally regarded as a success. Whether or not we believe in original sin, it did not end happily. After many years of studying the text I want to suggest a different reading.
The story ends with three verses that seem to have no connection with one another. No sequence. No logic. In Genesis 3: 19 God says to the man: “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Then in the next verse we read: “The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all life.” And in the next, “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”
What is the connection here? Why did God telling the man that he was mortal lead him to give his wife a new name? And why did that act seem to change God’s attitude to both of them, so that He performed an act of tenderness, by making them clothes, almost as if He had partially forgiven them?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

God warned them that actions have consequences.
They didn't believe (in) Him. They didn't trust (in) Him.
They wanted to see for themselves. That was their free will choice before they even touched the so-called apple.

But the notion of an action having consequences necessitates the people involved having a comprehension of those consequences. If I tell you that if you do A, I'll kerfluff you and if you don't do A, I'll verklow you, the idea that you're freely choosing the consequences of doing or not doing A is as meaningless as the nonsense terms being used. God was very clear about the fact that before they ate the apple, the terms good and evil made as much sense to Adam and Eve as kerfluff and verklow.

The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.

That means that it's nonsensical to say that they were somehow aware that believing and trusting in Him was good and not doing so was evil, since he had not programmed a comprehension of those terms into their neural architecture when designing them. He had not given them the ability to make any sort of moral judgement about what was a right or wrong action and then punished them for making the wrong judgement. It's no different than if I got angry at a computer program I'd written for not creating a file in the correct folder when I hadn't included any code to have it put a file into that folder.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Whether or not Satan influenced her choice, Woman was STILL getting punished for making a decision she wasn't equipped to make. Your effort to shift the blame to Satan does not make it any less of a dick move on God's part.

She made the wrong decision twice.

Yes, she did. And WE know that because we have the ability to tell good from bad.
She did not, for at least one of those decisions. So it's dickish to judge her state of mind in comparison to a completely different state (to wit: having knowledge of good and evil).

It's also not clear that the knowledge was instantaneously transmitted upon partaking of the fruit, though.

She bit, she talked Adam into it, he bit, THEN the Books says that they were aware they were naked....
So maybe there was some time delay? Digesting the fruit?

...and .. they were both punished.

Yep. But for shit neither one was competent to decide at the time.

You haven't yet changed facts in the story to where Woman or Adam could be credibly held responsible for eating the fruit.

 

[ronburgundy]

The reason that most theists don't ponder this question is the same as why theistic evolutionists don't ponder why God bothered to use the very indirect and haphazard method of evolution to create humans. It's because their is no answer that is intellectually honest and satisfies the whole point of inventing a monotheistic human-loving God in the first place.

It's the reason why theism is generally incompatible with being an honestly rational person or with science. Not only evolution and countless other scientific facts, but the very existence of the material world makes little sense in light of the basic God concept that motivates theism in the first place. Only via convoluted intellectually dishonest apologetic can the facts of reality be mashed together to resemble something that seems coherent as long you don't poke it. Which is of course why theism has always tended to promote violence against those who merely doubt and question, because those ideologies cannot withstanding such "poking".