It is not the business of God to satisfy our every whim. He does however say he has a plan for us, which brings me to my current issue: If he leads us through trials that we might be refined, to what purpose is he refining us?
Is it his desire that we be constantly refined? Are the trials a sort of Sisyphusian task in which the metaphorical rock rolls to the bottom of the hill so we can push it up again?
How does agony play into the image of a loving and good God?
Perhaps it is our fallen nature that cannot understand the massive nature of God's plan. Maybe our trials serve some undocumented purpose.
However from a philosophical position it seems a conveniently unassailable position to say "if you suffer it is for the betterment of the kingdom." The same is said of waiting on the answers to prayer. We are told God will answer in his timing and it too will be good. It may indeed be! However we may pass away even this very moment. If such event were to happen, what may be said of the so called "promise"? Was it misinterpreted?
I keep running into this problem with an infallible God. He cannot be called to account when he appears apathetic to our desires. If he does something it is ipso facto correct. Which makes a realistic relationship difficult. Every fight I have with him he wins. In fact he cannot lose. Yet he repeatedly calls us to lay our cares upon him. To what end? So he can put off tending to them?
No, that is a sincere question.
"God is opposed to the proud." Indeed. It would seem he is opposed to the very free thinking people he created.
It just pisses me off to serve such a piss poor philosophy. I have read multiple existential books that make total sense logically and practically. Yet here I am dealing with the only true living deity and I am forced to contend with foolish ideology and shallow arguments.
I cannot deny that there is a God, I've met him, he lives in me. Yet when I try to reconcile the realities of faith with my developing philosophical framework I am set to a difficult task. Christians aren't called to think. They read the same verses, over and over, year after year. God has a TON to say about how we should individually conduct ourselves. We are expected to hold to this conduct as best we can. Yet we fail. And he fails repeatedly to uphold his end.
It is as this: you meet a man and he says "Bring me a cup from my cabinet and I will fill it with satisfying coffee" And that you do. The coffee instead falls through a hole in the bottom of the cup. The coffee scalds you. "Ow" you say, "You hurt me". He replies "I did not, you brought me a broken cup."
Then, when you explain how he is at the very least indirectly responsible he replies "No, you don't understand the coffee, or the cup for that matter. See, I needed you to pick that cup. You needed to be scalded. It is all for tasty satisfying coffee."
Did that make any sense? It did if you have EVER had a true burning desire that he held back. It is agony. Wouldn't it be better had he never placed the desire? Or if he would BURN THE DESIRE AWAY. It is a cancer, eating at the very soul. The doctor, however, and there is only one, says that the cure is to live with the pain. Some doctor! Some cure! (Reference to God Bless you Mr Rosewater.)
It is not even clear if to want anything is compatible with devotion to the almighty. It appears that we are to remove desire, remove pride and remove even self interest. In fact why should we eat? Eating is a carnal pleasure, giving in to our weak desire to stuff our faces. Truly the very holy are starving. Why mate or have children? Are not mates a declaration to the world that we are worthy of mating with? Are not children evidence of our skills as a parent? What vanity! Truly, the very holy deny their genetalia.
Why breath? To taste the air is to enjoy life, and joy it would appear has no place in a holy man. Truly, the very holy are dead.
Again I come back to, not that my anger is spent, why does God create such people in the first place? I asked the internet, does he enjoy my suffering?
Definitely not. He is compassionate. He loves me (paradox). It "goes against the grain of his heart". Now isn't that an interesting phrase. He actually suffers to allow us to suffer.
It is the classical Epicurian Trilemma:
If God is unable to prevent evil, then he is not all-powerful.
If God is not willing to prevent evil, then he is not all-good.
If God is both willing and able to prevent evil, then why does evil exist?
Now we all know the basic answers:
Free will
To develop us into better servants.
Yet I add a further layer to the pie: evil is not perfect. Evil is not in fact the perfect counterbalance to good. Evil is a reaction to good, but good is not a reaction to evil. God being the beginning of all means that things have been done in a non reactionary way. In the creation story God created sea creatures. Why? Humans are not naturally capable water hunters. It did not fill some great gap. He just created, pure and complete (we won't talk about time periods or how). Why did he create the tree of good and evil and the tree of life? I do not know. I do however know that it wasn't because Satan had deforested the area first. Life came first. Death is unnatural. Which seems to bother some people. "Isn't death essential to evolution?" Nope. There is more space in the universe than there is life to fill it. Therefor overpopulation would not be a problem even if no living thing in history had ever died.
Mutation doesn't need death.
Yet how is it that Evil which is incomplete and not a counterbalance is allowed such total dominion? Further it is actually apologized for, explained, held up as a path to holy! If God cannot be evil, then though he may use what he's got he doesn't need to torture us to develop his plans. Check the manual, most film manufacturers create film they can develop apart from anyone else. They don't create film which requires a here-to-for unknown tertiary process. God created humans before evil came into the world. Therefor the holy purpose existed then as well. Therefor he wouldn't have started a project he could not complete without the snake business.
I don't mind that evil exists, I mind that God remains distant from the seeker. "Seek and you shall find" but there is no timetable. Worse, he seems so certain. Doesn't it bother anyone else that he knows how he's going to unshackle you, but doesn't even tell you? I keep returning to the coffee. It makes no sense from human perspective, and seeking out his perspective appears futile as I am in.... year 15 of THAT.
It isn't an issue of humility either, now that I come to it, because I told him I would love for him to have a better idea, and his ideas are by nature better than mine. I don't believe his better idea is this. He's good, and this.... has it's moments, but it isn't good. It is me and him making the best of it. Making the best of it is fine for a time, but I would prefer it not be my theme. It isn't the theme of the ruler to make the best of the plots of the rebellion. Lincoln didn't say "well the south is starting a war, but look on the bright side: the value of all those northern munitions plants is going to skyrocket!" He didn't sit and deal with it, he organized a strategy to destroy and demoralize the enemy. If a mere man may do such, what must a perfect being do to his enemies?
Alright, trying to stop again.
Is it his desire that we be constantly refined? Are the trials a sort of Sisyphusian task in which the metaphorical rock rolls to the bottom of the hill so we can push it up again?
How does agony play into the image of a loving and good God?
Perhaps it is our fallen nature that cannot understand the massive nature of God's plan. Maybe our trials serve some undocumented purpose.
However from a philosophical position it seems a conveniently unassailable position to say "if you suffer it is for the betterment of the kingdom." The same is said of waiting on the answers to prayer. We are told God will answer in his timing and it too will be good. It may indeed be! However we may pass away even this very moment. If such event were to happen, what may be said of the so called "promise"? Was it misinterpreted?
I keep running into this problem with an infallible God. He cannot be called to account when he appears apathetic to our desires. If he does something it is ipso facto correct. Which makes a realistic relationship difficult. Every fight I have with him he wins. In fact he cannot lose. Yet he repeatedly calls us to lay our cares upon him. To what end? So he can put off tending to them?
No, that is a sincere question.
"God is opposed to the proud." Indeed. It would seem he is opposed to the very free thinking people he created.
It just pisses me off to serve such a piss poor philosophy. I have read multiple existential books that make total sense logically and practically. Yet here I am dealing with the only true living deity and I am forced to contend with foolish ideology and shallow arguments.
I cannot deny that there is a God, I've met him, he lives in me. Yet when I try to reconcile the realities of faith with my developing philosophical framework I am set to a difficult task. Christians aren't called to think. They read the same verses, over and over, year after year. God has a TON to say about how we should individually conduct ourselves. We are expected to hold to this conduct as best we can. Yet we fail. And he fails repeatedly to uphold his end.
It is as this: you meet a man and he says "Bring me a cup from my cabinet and I will fill it with satisfying coffee" And that you do. The coffee instead falls through a hole in the bottom of the cup. The coffee scalds you. "Ow" you say, "You hurt me". He replies "I did not, you brought me a broken cup."
Then, when you explain how he is at the very least indirectly responsible he replies "No, you don't understand the coffee, or the cup for that matter. See, I needed you to pick that cup. You needed to be scalded. It is all for tasty satisfying coffee."
Did that make any sense? It did if you have EVER had a true burning desire that he held back. It is agony. Wouldn't it be better had he never placed the desire? Or if he would BURN THE DESIRE AWAY. It is a cancer, eating at the very soul. The doctor, however, and there is only one, says that the cure is to live with the pain. Some doctor! Some cure! (Reference to God Bless you Mr Rosewater.)
It is not even clear if to want anything is compatible with devotion to the almighty. It appears that we are to remove desire, remove pride and remove even self interest. In fact why should we eat? Eating is a carnal pleasure, giving in to our weak desire to stuff our faces. Truly the very holy are starving. Why mate or have children? Are not mates a declaration to the world that we are worthy of mating with? Are not children evidence of our skills as a parent? What vanity! Truly, the very holy deny their genetalia.
Why breath? To taste the air is to enjoy life, and joy it would appear has no place in a holy man. Truly, the very holy are dead.
Again I come back to, not that my anger is spent, why does God create such people in the first place? I asked the internet, does he enjoy my suffering?
Definitely not. He is compassionate. He loves me (paradox). It "goes against the grain of his heart". Now isn't that an interesting phrase. He actually suffers to allow us to suffer.
It is the classical Epicurian Trilemma:
If God is unable to prevent evil, then he is not all-powerful.
If God is not willing to prevent evil, then he is not all-good.
If God is both willing and able to prevent evil, then why does evil exist?
Now we all know the basic answers:
Free will
To develop us into better servants.
Yet I add a further layer to the pie: evil is not perfect. Evil is not in fact the perfect counterbalance to good. Evil is a reaction to good, but good is not a reaction to evil. God being the beginning of all means that things have been done in a non reactionary way. In the creation story God created sea creatures. Why? Humans are not naturally capable water hunters. It did not fill some great gap. He just created, pure and complete (we won't talk about time periods or how). Why did he create the tree of good and evil and the tree of life? I do not know. I do however know that it wasn't because Satan had deforested the area first. Life came first. Death is unnatural. Which seems to bother some people. "Isn't death essential to evolution?" Nope. There is more space in the universe than there is life to fill it. Therefor overpopulation would not be a problem even if no living thing in history had ever died.
Mutation doesn't need death.
Yet how is it that Evil which is incomplete and not a counterbalance is allowed such total dominion? Further it is actually apologized for, explained, held up as a path to holy! If God cannot be evil, then though he may use what he's got he doesn't need to torture us to develop his plans. Check the manual, most film manufacturers create film they can develop apart from anyone else. They don't create film which requires a here-to-for unknown tertiary process. God created humans before evil came into the world. Therefor the holy purpose existed then as well. Therefor he wouldn't have started a project he could not complete without the snake business.
I don't mind that evil exists, I mind that God remains distant from the seeker. "Seek and you shall find" but there is no timetable. Worse, he seems so certain. Doesn't it bother anyone else that he knows how he's going to unshackle you, but doesn't even tell you? I keep returning to the coffee. It makes no sense from human perspective, and seeking out his perspective appears futile as I am in.... year 15 of THAT.
It isn't an issue of humility either, now that I come to it, because I told him I would love for him to have a better idea, and his ideas are by nature better than mine. I don't believe his better idea is this. He's good, and this.... has it's moments, but it isn't good. It is me and him making the best of it. Making the best of it is fine for a time, but I would prefer it not be my theme. It isn't the theme of the ruler to make the best of the plots of the rebellion. Lincoln didn't say "well the south is starting a war, but look on the bright side: the value of all those northern munitions plants is going to skyrocket!" He didn't sit and deal with it, he organized a strategy to destroy and demoralize the enemy. If a mere man may do such, what must a perfect being do to his enemies?
Alright, trying to stop again.
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