...it doesn't mean that he's a push over.

I was reading a section of this philosophy book on the atheist philosophy (because I am interested) and it talks a little about how "If God is a good, how is there evil in the world". They say that logically, if God is good and he is omnipotent that means that he will stop evil. Now imagine this: a child is teasing another child on the playground, the other child is getting angry, but it wont say anything. Finally, it gets fed up and punches the other child. Now, say there is a playground administrator and she knows, because she knows kids, that if that kid keeps on going on like that its going to get socked, but she lets it happen anyway. Why? Is it because she cannot stop the fight? Surely not. It's because the kid will think twice about doing it again.

The fatal flaw of humanity, of course, is that it is tremendously stupid (I know this because I am part of it). While we may 'get it' when some kid hits us in the face that maybe we deserved it and the kid might 'get it' after the playground administrator yells at him that this isn't the only way and not the most affective way to get his point across, but our creative little 'logical' minds love to squirm out of what seems harder and gravitate to what seems easier. This is why I have a religion. I know, with due humility, that I am certainly not as smart as the generations upon generations of moral founding which first layed out the consitution of my holy book. And while I do not always understand why things are the way they are, I do understand that its worked for other people and I'm not really adverse to predicting actions based on positive results. I suppose some atheist may still think that this philosophy makes me stupid and who knows, I may be, but as Socrates says, "The only true wisdom is in knowing that you know nothing." That's just a small piece of advice from a very smart guy.

How about "if God wants us to be good why didn't he make us less stupid so we'd learn the lessons he's apparently trying to teach us"?
» randomjunk on 2009-03-27 10:17:32

How about "If you do good, you feel good. If you do bad, you feel bad. God? What God?"

» L-Lawliet on 2009-03-28 05:50:14

Hey, I didn't say perfect, I just said less stupid. It doesn't seem like we're too capable of learning any "lessons" there might be.
» randomjunk on 2009-03-28 05:08:09

Perhaps what we see in humanity is not stupidity per se, but the concept of free will in action. Even though God has the power to make us understand the lessons he would like us to learn, we have the free will to choose to follow and learn more about God, or not. That is truly an example of an amazing leader. A leader that I would like to follow. Not because I have to, but because my life is more meaningful and fulfilling because I do.
» Rachel (98.245.155.196) on 2009-03-28 05:42:29

Better reason:
There is still evil in the world because evil is a direct shadow of everything God originally made. Say, God wants us to love one another. How can we be loving if there's no other way to be? Hate isn't real in the sense that Love is real; it's just the absence of love, like cold is the absence of heat and dark of light. They aren't their own things, they're...parasites that only exist because there needs to be an alternative. They're corruptions of the good things in life. Notice, evil is never for the sake of evil. It's always done as the wrong means to an end, but an end that would otherwise be pure. Without goodness, evil couldn't exist. But evil doesn't have to exist for there to be goodness, only the choice.

:)
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