If God is omnipotent and omnipresent, why does he allow suffering...

ARE YOU OKAY? IS YOUR KEYBOARD BROKEN?

>adversary

Who created the adversary?

>However, when Adam disobeyed God by eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, He, for the first time, allowed Chaos to enter the world. Giving the authority, instead, to the adversary, an orchestrator of Chaos.

God is omniscient and omnipresent. Adam did not eat the apple, God made it so that he did. God then allowed the presence of Chaos (which he could have destroyed) because he found it desirable.

>God later set up a covenant with the progeny of Abraham stating that he will protect and guide them as long as they serve him. We can see this Covenant adequately reflected in scriptural accounts like those in 1st and 2nd Kings as well as 1st and 2nd Samuel where, As the children of Israel served God, they were protected, but when they forgot about it, all hell broke loose.

God could have made it so that they always remembered and that their remembering was no better or worse than if they had made the decision themselves.

god didn't create an imperfect world, nor did he create suffering. in fact it is through god that one finds refuge from suffering.

God, if it exists, does not act upon the universe in a way that we can perceive. If it does indeed act upon the universe, these actions take the form of edits to the entire causal structure of the universe, meaning that we can't distinguish them from normal deterministic outcomes.

To actually answer your question, God allows suffering because either a) it cannot or does not act upon the universe for whatever reason, or b) it does not distinguish between happiness, suffering, or any other state of living in the same way we do. To God, happiness and suffering may simply BE, with neither being preferable over the other.

God doesn't existed :DDDDD

Things that are and are not, in the presence of an OMNIPOTENT being, must be to his liking. Even if god did not create suffering and it simply appeared in his world, he could have unmade it, and erased it from history in its entirety. Because he had this ability, it was his CHOICE to make a world with suffering. God did, then, choose to have an imperfect world.

Obviously God.

God created order, while having a knowledge of Chaos. It is similar to how one might attempt to create a masterpiece out of mosaics, knowing full well that he could make a penis, or a swear word, or a scene of debauchery. knowing this, he created the Angels, who shared the knowledge of discerning good and evil. The original intent of all angels were to offer up praise to the Lord, however when Lucifer's dissent to jealousy occurred, due to his knowledge of that which is evil, God instantaneously cast him down, along with those who shared this adverse intent.

Did you even read my first paragraph? God could not make Man do anything, as he gave the dominion over the earth to his creation.

>Adam did not eat the apple
This is correct, it was not the act of eating an apple that caused the fall of man, it was the effects of the fruit and the direct disobedience of the Lord's Commands

>God could have made it
If you want to argue that an immoral man that doesn't wish to speak to God could be influenced by God, then you more than likely don't believe in Free Will and my theological stance obviously doesn't apply to you.

>it cannot or does not act upon the universe for whatever reason

Not acting is the same as acting when the means to act are welll within his grasp.

>it does not distinguish between happiness, suffering, or any other state of living in the same way we do. To God, happiness and suffering may simply BE, with neither being preferable over the other

This completely contradicts all forms of canon and is equivalent to biblical fanfiction. At this point, when attributes of divinity are chosen by the individual, the choice to believe in god becomes completely arbitrary. One might as well believe in some /r/atheism strawman spaghetti monster type bullshit.

Free will is irrelevant in the presence of an Omnipotent being possessing his own will. Even his choice not to act is still a choice. It stands to reason then that god did in fact CHOOSE to create sin and suffering and unbelievers and chaos. Being omniscient, he was conscious of these events and presences and he consciously allowed them to take root in the world.

Why the hell would you assume I'm sticking to anything within Abrahamic canon? I was referring to God as It, not He- that should have tipped you off.

Why can't demons be forgiven for their sins but humans can?

>muh fairy tales
The God of those stories is not assumed to be omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent and omnipotent. If you try to make them fit that concept of God then those stories (and almost all stories) break down, as demonstrates.

>b-but muh free will
If God is omniscient then he would have known that giving Adam and Eve free will would lead to them eating the fruit.

God's omnipotence is often overdramaticized by people who want to blame God for their grief (I swear that isn't a generalization) but fail to realize that God is most omnipotent via avid prayer. James 5:16 says "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." the verse speaks for itself and many other times in my own life through which simple prayer has changed the outcome

Your logic is flawed, Giving Adam and Eve Free Will did not force them to eat from the tree.
True omniscience can be easily envisioned by putting time on two planes as pictured. God knew that and saw the potential of humanity as it was originally envisioned, to be a creation that chose to worship him by their own initiative, had Adam simply stayed upon the righteous path of that infinite decision tree and continued to worship him, (however much it may sound like wishful thinking) Chaos would have never existed on this earth.

>If you don't reply to this post your mother will die painfully in her sleep tonight no immunities.
Cheeky bastard

Of course I forget the picture

Demons sinned on a different plane than us. The plane upon which they sinned marked them for eternity as every action in their dimension occurs both instantaneously and over the course of an eternity, however the sins we commit can be easily reconciled due to the fact that time exists as a scalar in our plane, allowing us to, at any waking moment, ask for the redemption of sins.

>most omnipotent
Omnipotence is not something that comes in degrees, That is literally the point of the term.

What you are suggesting implies that god is NOT omnipotent, and if that is so he is also implicitly flawed. This violates canon.

>most omnipotent
I knew it was terrible as soon as I put it out, but I'm tired, dude, and it sort of flowed in my head, so I put it down

Also how do my suggestions imply that god is NOT omnipotent?

>must be to his liking

source? he has permissive will

>he could have unmade it

and he has through what happened with jesus christ

He could, literally, have unmade the events. Christ or not.

If all he was trying to do was unmake suffering, Sending his only begotten son seems to be the least efficient method.

I'm constantly reminded of a prince who's spoiled, who's remedied at every corner, his mother is there to help him before he stubs his tow, before he learns fire is hot, spoiling him, giving him every whim of his heart, seeing to it that he experiences no sadness or pain.

This prince then attempts to communicate in the presence of less fortunate people...

In some instances, the spoiled prince could mock, laugh, and rarely empathize with the less fortunate. Suffering is a foreign concept to him.

Which I would argue on behalf of God, the creator of all things, that suffering and understanding suffering, being able to identify it, expressing charity in response to it, knowing the pain and suffering, as you have felt it, is essential to being a complete and thorough soul/spirit.

How would you react if God shut the lights off for 60 or 70 years as we know years? Would you choose his creation of good, since we didn't create good, good is an option that pre-exists man's thoughts.

"Good" is a pre-made concept, you could put some uneducated people in a dome, feed them individually, then one day put a single piece of food between them all...will they panic and kill themselves for it? Or will they divide it evenly even thought they'll get less than the portion they are accustomed to? Can they make that sacrifice? Either way, they have the option to choose pre-made options. The path of good and love, which is the path of God. Or the selfishness, which is godless, the path of discord and pointless regression which is destruction and death. No sustainability. Matter itself requires atoms to be in accord, not repelling against each other. Attraction, not conflict is what holds reality together. Attraction and accordance, which is no accident that it's synonymous with love and good as we know love and good.

Also I'm constantly seeing critics of God...on one hand, they argue for people to be saved at every given moment, on the other, they mock the idea that God is the answer to everything. These are two polar opposite desires coming from the same mouth creating a contradiction from the individual.

How could you complain about wanting everything and anything at any given moment and at the next moment, you want to be left alone?

This is lazy, a complete shallow and vain attempt at expressing what the individual wants without even truly knowing what he wants. It's the state of man, confused, in the dark, interests are generally and based on pride and arrogance, which proves that when motivated by vanity, the interest is shallow and not well explored. When motivated by vanity, you're only looking to appear like you're intelligent.

Where in scripture does God violate the free will of an individual and substitute his own in the way I described?

As far as I have learned, Prayers that Avail much are those that are:
1) clearly in line with God's will and not for any secular gain
2) most definitely from one who is living a righteous life
3) spoken if full, absolute faith.

he already has

seems to be, but not when you read the bible and see just who his son really was

The writers of the bible knew about this "issue" and thats a big reason why Job was written and is considered one of the greatest works of literature ever.

People love downplaying it as "God lets Job suffer just to win a deal with Satan" but whats really at play is much deeper. Job is a righteous man who questions why he is suffering so much. God appears at the end, and basically tells him "I'm God. Don't question me" and Job is filled with so much awe and fear and insignificance that he submits to his will, and the end turns out fine

Pretty much, the gist is "theres more at play behind the scenes than we can ever comprehend" and I'm obviously summing the text up and not doing it justice at all so I'd suggest reading it for yourselves

Adversary?

Here's an interesting example of prayer fulfilled. Let's check in with good old Elisha in Kings 2:23.

Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, "Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!" When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number.

Just read the bible three times and, not gonna lie, it still seems like an inefficient method of doing that.

I don't think you got my point. God wanted to do more than just erase suffering. In fact, he didn't even get rid of suffering. Becoming a christian does not void you of the ability to feel loss, and as long as we live in this world, we will experience it. Jesus came to fulfill the law, this was his most important task. It was the last thing he left us with. The fulfillment of that which was left incomplete 2,000 years earlier.

Same can be said about Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac.

God made Job stronger, by showing him that he didn't have to worry about suffering as God is in control. The world, a Satan, could essentially throw all they have at Job and Job can essentially sustain the violence and oppression, knowing God is in control. As opposed to be confused and worrying about why and what is happening to Him. God raised Job to be a strong son. Like any father should. God also made Abraham stronger by showing him that loving Isaac more than God could work against Abraham.

A man, if he has a wife and his wife is his idol. She's in that mans heart more than God is in his heart. That man comes home and finds her with another man...because she is essentially his savior, she occupies the majority of his heart to that extent, that man goes on to kill her, himself, the children whatever. He has a complete break down. Because the wife was that man's savior essentially, his idol, his prized piece.

With God in his heart above all, he'd feel shame and temperance for the unfaithful wife. He'd understand why she did it, that she's weak, and fully under law to divorce if he wishes. But she won't break Him because God is occupies the majority of his heart.

As with Abraham and Isaac. By Abraham sacrificing Isaac out of his highest point in his heart, if anything ever happened to Isaac, Abraham would be able to tolerate it and be strong, knowing God would have taken care of Isaac...instead of the scenario where if Isaac were to pass, be taken from Abraham, Abraham would in turn suffer a mental break down and potentially forfeit his role in bringing forth Jacob.

That's what people don't understand about idolatry and the workings of the heart. Without God, when you worship anything other than the perfection that which is God, if its money, or any material thing, fictional and deluded doctrines, when they go, you go. How they go, you go.

Because it's in God's will for a horde of young *men* (as translated from the hebrew) to violently mock his own prophet with terms of contempt.

It's not an account of God Killing a bunch of kids for making fun of a bald man, it is a record of an insulting demonstration against the chosen Prophet of God Elijah by a large group of young men with malicious intent.

Job really isn't that profound of a literary piece. "I dunno, don't question him" isn't a valid answer, in fact it's a non-answer

I don't enjoy assigning names to what can simply be reduced to exactly that which it is, God's opposition.

Satan, in hebrew, literally just means adversary. This is the satan that is mentioned throughout the old testament, but it can really refer to any demon or being opposing God's word

(American) English is the most aesthetic germanic language. It is perfect for an aesthete such as myself.

>a mash of verbal behavior that was operant conditioned of subject when he was but a child

You're missing the point of the story if you think there was no answer. Having been through this, do you think the world or a satan could throw anything at Job ever again that would cause Job to become weak and confused? You think any set of circumstances could cripple Job after that? He was made stronger from the entire experience.

There are many points being made in that story, one is, when you see people suffering, dont accuse them of wrong doing, as you would only make things worse for them, and second, Job can face adversity with strength, and from his strength which stems from his faith, he can stand up like a man, knowing that God Himself is with him.

Not sure what you're trying to say user...

>"I dunno, don't question him" isn't a valid answer, in fact it's a non-answer
Thats how it is though. You ever tried explaining things to a child but their tiny mind can't get it, so eventually you say "just listen to me". Thats how it is. We can't comprehend the richness of these wonders, it would be like God telling us step by step how he made the universe ex nihilio. So we're told simply to trust him, that he knows what hes doing.

>mfw a philosophical question get answered by massive religious preaching like this
At this point of time these christfags are abused wife giving excuses on why their husband still loves her

The problem is giving God a human psychology, you see what we call suffering is just an illusionary feeling our pain creates to make us realize we are doing something negative thus suffering is not real. God allows suffering because the system needs suffering to function, its like asking a computer programmer why he makes his digital characters cry, if they cant be sad then there can be no progress or change in them.

There's no such thing as an "abused wife".
Women are meant to be beaten.

user, that would mean they're abused if we did not beat them.

Again, you have to be more coherent. Not sure what you're entirely trying to say..

Now a man is fully in his right to divorce his wife over sexual immorality.

And somebody who's more studied on this, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that fornication is considered sexual immorality.

There are wifes in an abusive relationship with their husband and the biggest symptoms is her validating or justifying his behavior with the common response "it is my fault not his" it is an interesting psychology and I see the similarity with the relationship of christfags and YWHW.

I mean your(assuming you are the poster I originally responded) post is similar in that at least it would be inane to indulge in such subjectives but one walks away with a certain distaste at its implications

Women are naturally submissive to violent strong men its just their natural behavior to make up bullshit to trick people into thinking they arent enjoying that abuse.

I see what you're saying now...

Now no man of God would beat his wife. That's not a man of God. Now a women is instructed and advised and even commanded to get behind the man, because of the evil in the world. She's vulnerable and any attempt to play the role of a man will get her mocked and walked over. Snapped in half. It's not slavery or a command of belittlement that a women should get behind man, but a product of the curse of having evil in the world to begin with. It's a realistic warning of the reality we live in.

In turn though...the man, is instructed and advised and even commanded to be a GOOD man. A good man wouldn't put hands on his wife. Women who are in parts of the world where this is an issue though...these are societies and households void of love and of God.

I mean throughout the Bible you read of religious leaders in societies void of God, only pretending to be of God when in fact they're filled with hate and anger. Those are indeed sad situations and societies and households. They're angry and full of hate, all because of how the world in turn treats them.

>There are wifes in an abusive relationship with their husband and the biggest symptoms is her validating or justifying his behavior with the common response "it is my fault not his"
It literally IS her fault, though.
She has no one to blame for her lot in life other than herself.

I get it you're trying to shame Christians for being womanlike, but the comparison just isn't valid.

Women have the option of leaving their husband's control.
Humans do not have the option of leaving the control of God.
One is making excuses to prolong a situation she can change, the other is accepting the reality of their existence.

Through suffering we become greater beings. If all we did was laze around all day, where would the drive to become greater than ourselves come from? We wouldn't be motivated to get better if we weren't struggling at the level we were at.

If you're trying to get into the whole "why is there cancer" thing, then I'll resign because I'm anti-theist and I don't fuck with that.

>It literally IS her fault, though.
As a Christian I don't believe in this...some parts of the world are so broken dude. The same way people suffered in the past at the hands of the various evil empires, there people, women included, stuck in similar societies and nations. They don't have a choice for something better.

Wtf no. I meant christfags' relationship with YWHW is an abusive one like those wife (other abusive relationship can exist but the wife one is the most culturally common) this guys but even his retort already assumes YHWH to be real which once again a matter of faith/subjectivity

>I'm anti-theist and I don't fuck with that.
that explained why you completely missed the point of his question

Only it's not an abusive relationship. The only difficult aspect of the relationship is separating from addictions. That's it.

My bad though for not reading your post more carefully, the surface of my eyes right now are like the mojave...I'm forced to skim over these responses.

Because he's not omnipotent. He has a lot of power. Near omnipotent, however the fact it took him 6 days, and he needed REST, means there is a limit. Also, at most. It's 100 years of suffering or so, but that's nothing compared to an eternity. Why would he bother making you feel good for 100 years, when he cold be using his power to keep the universe running for billions of years or something.

Again the only response to your post would be to say "No it isn't" and give my reasons why but the discussion will devolve to "yes it is" "No it isn't".

Which I am disgusted at how genuine philosophical threads get devolve into situations like this

Honestly, the way I saw it. Why should we assume that he goes on our same type of thoughts? I mean, there were a LOT of things before we were made. Why should we assume, in the grand universe WE'RE the chosen species. That WE'RE the chosen race? God didn't make the Earth for the dinosaurs, and he probably didn't make it for Lions, or bears.

This.

But the Gnostic worldview can be symbolic, too: The Demiurge is Order (the cosmos), and the True God is Chaos (the acausal / acosmic realm).

Our reality is limited, flawed.
Salvation is up to us - we have to surpass the limits (of ourselves and the cosmos) through gnosis.

You need to find God in yourself.
Not through religious dogma or priests, but through the divine spark that is in you.

to use your example god simply made it so that there was suffering but it was still okay. your standards are mortal and fundamentally insufficient. you can't tell that it's already perfect.
nigga you dum

Your model and experience of suffering are based on matter-centered attachment and linguistic constructs.

Look at how every leaf, every tree and plant, every squirrel and lion, is constantly warring with every other.

God, clearly, created life as a war. God=evil.

Carlos Santana wrote recently that God made us to make peace out of it.

Well, I reckon we're incubating the creator now, in the womb we call the internet

Perhaps God is exerting the Universe presently, as an act of will, and does so following rules we call the laws of nature, and so causality, as a chain of consequences, doesn't actually exist. It just looks like it does.

Perhaps our very limited intellect is incapable of comprehending this, amongst much else.

Do you even humility?

Further, consider from the viewpoint of a person resurrected to eternal joy. Eternal means before, as well as after. In that joy what we now perceive as 'bad' would no longer be so perceived.

Also, if eternal were to mean 'ever after', then all of the horrors we experience (the collective we, all humanity) would be understood as transient and immaterial. Mere lessons in why to be good.

Lastly, I neither know, nor expect I am capable of knowing, what is really good or evil from the perspective of an omniscient being. I cannot fathom how any reasonable, finite, and relatively infinitesimal being, could expect to.

If such a God exists, he is far more intellectually capable relative to us, than we are to ants, and I don't think ants understand infernal combustion engines.

They still perform the purposes for which we make them, regardless of the understanding, or lack thereof, of ants.

You are not talking about omniscience. All knowledge includes what will be, as well as what is, and what has been.

An omniscient god would know exactly what anything it did would eventuate, including the fall, both of angels and men.

Thus making man in a garden with esoteric rules would not result in unexpected consequences. Therefore, knowing what would happen to man if it made such a garden, it would have made that garden and it's inhabitants intending for the foreseen consequences to result.

I kekked as well. And yet I maintain troll discipline and do not reply to that post.

Fifth post, best post.

Freewill and a predetermined universe do not conflict. God has not revealed what he knows, so when we act, we act without knowledge that our actions are predetermined.

If a Skraeling stakes a pilgrim over a red ant hill, do the ants act on his intention to murder the pilgrim? No. They are incapable of knowing. They act as they will, and devour the pilgrim.

The Skraeling knew what would happen to the pilgrim, and deliberately used the ants. The ants only know they have a delicious food available, and decide to eat it. They exercise their freewill in the way the Skraeling knows they will.

>Why does god not simply create perfection?
He is, it's just that from our small human understanding it's taking a long time. God is taking the best of humanity like gold dust in clay, lots of clay but only a small amount of gold.

This is what creates perfection, good needs evil to exist and vice versa. The only thing is it depends on our human experience, but God is not limited by this, God exists outside of time and is probably already existing in the New Earth with all his chosen.

What makes you think that a sufferless life is a good life or even a life worth living?

the greatest people and generations have always came from the most shittiest times : I )

It's a test to prove our worth.

Because God probably isn't real.

Within reason and with certain stipulations I'll try and answer the question, or else I'm just not going to put forth the effort. It's like solving a problem with a couple of given statements and restrictions, but once it gets too nit-picky and convoluted, I don't want to help anymore; this is because at that point I perceive that my belief supplants OP's, sorry to say, but that's my opinion.

By the by, that doesn't make my statement any less valid that "through our struggles we become greater beings..." it seems like you completely failed to find any meaning from my response and only sought to undermine it.

By virtue of being omniscient, G-d's ways are beyond the understanding of his mortal subjects who collectively contain not even an inkling of the unlimited capacity of knowledge in his hands.

Call it cheap, but that's how it is.

Not to start a war here, but for those who argue that believers of a faith are blind in their practices and that they accept whatever is told to them by their scriptures without any thought after the "fact," this is a perfect example. You would so readily toss your hands up and proclaim "it's impossible to say!" simply because it is easier to do so? Easier to "call it cheap," and "that's how it is?"

It's my pet peeve when people say "that's how it is." That's the kind of shit that keeps people in the lower castes of society... do you think ANY of the greatest self-made men today thought that way? I don't care for any counter-examples on this point, because you're just wasting your time; all I'm saying is it's truly careless to so casually accept such a monumental thing as "fact." That's ludicrous.

I'm not actually convinced God exists either, I'm just explaining the point of view.

Also, I feel absolute belief or unbelief in God is faulty. There are some important complications that arise from the unbelief in God, one such example being the nature of human rights. Absolute belief in God, as you've already described, seems lazy and contrary to the values of a constantly evolving population.

Not to extend the argument, but if you aren't of the faith, what position are you in to explain what it's like? Could I explain to you what it's like to be a Congressman?

And yeah, I totally believe that anything at an extreme of the spectrum is totally ridiculous. Sometimes people get into thinking if one end doesn't work, they ought to radically shift towards the other viewpoint or action. But at the same time, a lot of people interpret religion to mean what they want in their own life so I guess it's hard to say what the "actual" set of doctrines and beliefs actually are... there's some base guidelines, but there's also a whole lot of room for interpretation.

>but if you aren't of the faith, what position are you in to explain what it's like

Theology?

I doubt God is omnipotent or omniscient because there doesn't seem to be a mechanism by which an agent can know or influence every particle of matter in the universe simultaneously.

Oh shit you got me lmao

Then he's not omnipotent

Just read Job bro. You're not the first one to think of this

I did point out that "it isn't" an abusive relationship though, that the only difficult part about a relationship with God is the separating from addictions that are found in the world. The world literally envelopes the inhabitants with reasons and reinforcement to feel anger, jealousy, hate, even toward a helping a hand at times.

So because of this, you have people who form over dramatic views of God though, they're like offended feminists when it comes to God. They call hypocrisy around every corner, without further examining, they call offense at a simple breeze on their skin without further examining what is actually being conveyed by His Word. They come to drastic and over dramatic conclusions and don't read or understand context.

Because of this inability to understand context and the actual message and teaching attempting to be conveyed, they then look at the flawed men who claim to follow God and judge God by what flawed man does in God's name.

Alleged "brilliant men" of our time, throwing out logic and opting for irrational proclamations of offense...it's amazing.

When you read that Jesus prayed, "Forgive them, they know not what they do"...I mean, I get the chills when I read that every now and then because I understand it now.

And I'm not implying that I'm above any of this because I believe in God. But one thing I've been granted through studying and eventually believing, is that I have a higher tolerance level than I did prior. I'm not completely immune, probably because I'm lukewarm, I don't know, but because I understand the teachings I'm granted 3rd person view of not just the physical realm, but the realm of ideologies and philosophies.

idiot thread

pain is a necessary reaction for self-sustaining systems, whether god exists or not.

babies would chew their own faces off without a pain reaction. life can't exist without pain at a cellular and neurological level

pain isn't evil. pain is a necessary property for exotropic systems. I guarantee you computers will feel pain by the time they become self-replicative.

logically necessary for an adaquately compensating good

>Thats how it is though. You ever tried explaining things to a child but their tiny mind can't get it, so eventually you say "just listen to me"
Yeah, and adults also say that to other adults when they want something from the other but don't want to explain why or how so they can take advantage of the ignorant other.
"I dunno just listen to me" is never a valid excuse. You CAN explain things to a child. Try simplifying it you fucking cunt. I didn't listen to that shit excuse as a child and I'm not going to start doing it as an adult.

This. Only someone with no self-respect would ever accept that explanation as an adult.

Suffering and death are both the result of mankind willingly abandoning God and entering into a broken state that is to be repaired in the future. Taking the Adam and Eve story literally is silly. It's a story describing man's estrangement from God, we don't know how exactly or when that happened.

>Suffering and death are both the result of mankind willingly abandoning God and entering into a broken state that is to be repaired in the future.
Can you prove an ounce of this.

Religions are statements about the human cultures who invented them, get over it.

The idea of God having a will is dumb.