Re: The Flat Earth? - Conclusion
Matthew Scott (scott@informatik.hu-berlin.de)
4 Jul 1995 10:46:51 GMT
srussell@ix.netcom.com (Sandra Russell) writes:
>In <3t98t2$t4v@hahn.informatik.hu-berlin.de>
>scott@informatik.hu-berlin.de (Matthew Scott) writes:
>Comment: I'm not sure that all the murdered people and their families
>would be very happy about the theory that God allowed them to suffer in
>order to correct "critical flaws in German character." This idea is so
>macabre it borders on black commedy. Der Herr Gott does seem to move
>Heaven and Earth in quest of the eternal prefection of Germany, does he
>not? <g> Give us break, Scott-from-Berlin.
not just germany was perfected, but the entire world learned (once again,
it seems that just about each generation has to learn it anew) how important
it is to watch out who gets power. I'll take back the entire world thing
some people are still willing to support Hussein. I guess there will have
to be more trouble before some others that learn a little too slow catch
on.
>> Similar flaws can be >observed again and again in different times and
>nations because it is a typical >flaw of human nature to give power to
>tyrants. Your emergency was..people >being tortured and dying. God saw
>this emergency, but he also saw one much >much more significant. He saw
>that the people would have to learn what a tyrant >is, and learn how to
>keep such from power, or else, the trend would continue >even in the
>afterlife, and jeopardize the stability of God's own kingdom.
>ROFL! Even funnier. God didn't act because he didn't want fascism to
>spread to Heaven?!? You've got to go on the road with this stuff. You
>could earn big money in the Catskills...
you make fascism seem bigger than it is. Wherever there has been government,
there has been the possibility that someone abuses it for his own purposes.
This includes the heavenly kingdom. God has to deal with this possibility
in some manner.
By the way, don't you think your responses are getting a
little abrasive? I don't really have the need to discuss with
overly critical people. I don't enjoy it.
>> And don't >think God's kingdom is completely immune to such problems.
>May I refer you to >Satan (the dragon) and the war in heaven
>(revelations). God has to deal with all >of the same kinds of political
>situations that we experience here.<
>Oh no doubt. I'll bet that election nights are not much fun for Him,
>though, knowing how it's all going to come out.
Unfortunately, you understood this statement more literally than it was
intended.
You can bet at any rate, that if no one liked God, his kingdom wouldn't
be much if any more than that of satan. Voting in the kingdom of God means
adding yourself to the kingdom, or going and adding yourself to some other
system. God is quite concerned with his name (reputation) for this reason.
That's why one of the ten commandments is not to abuse his name. Few want
to join a kingdom who are convinced that the leader is a tyrant, and having
had quite a lot of experience talking to people about God, I can verify that
there are a lot of people who believe approximately that. They have become
afraid of organised religion (and in many cases of God himself) because so
much evil has been done in the name of God. (for example thirty years of war
here in germany)
>> One of his >ways of dealing with them is letting people learn in a
>sphere of mortality where >everything is just for a little while anyway.
>>
>Thanks, Scott. You've made a great argument for allowing criminals and
>evil people to keep working instead of resisting or neutralizing them--
>they are actually performing a needed teaching chore. No electric chair
>for Ted Bundy-- he's helping us by serving as a bad example....
I don't quite see it this way. If bundy wasn't punished, he would be an example
of evil without punishment. That would teach people to be evil, not to be good.
His example is first valuable when people see what unpleasant consequences he
experienced for his mistakes. Please think a little harder before you jump
to this kind of conclusion.
>The problem, Dr. Pangloss, is that you've now come to the Harris
>Goldilocks Theodicy Problem: if the amount of evil in the world is not
>too little, and not too much for our eternal good, but JUUUUST right
>(as you argue), then does it not follow that God has to balance with
>evil each good dead we do in the world, and balance with good each evil
>deed, just to keep the mix right? So why get up in the morning? And
>why worry about the choice between good and evil if you can't change the
>world either way for the better, and can't change the world either way
>for the worse?
The doctor gives you shots consisting of weakened bacteria. They are there
because your body can't learn to recognise them without first experiencing them.
If they were too strong, you would die, and the purpose of the shot would be
defeated. The situation is calculated, and don't think God didn't calculate
our situation. He knew there would be sin. At the same time, he didn't need
to give the world a shot. Evil came on its own in this case. In the case
where the situation gets too bad, God is likely to clean the earth and start
afresh (like in the example of the flood), and in the case that evil is really
well overcome, ther is no reason more for the people in question to remain on
earth, and they are taken into heaven (like in the case of the city of enoch)
Furthermore, Good and evil tend to balance themselves out to a large degree.
In places where there isn't much evil, there is less immunity, and evil can grow
more easily. In cases where there is too much evil, there is not enough good to
support the existance of the evil, and the evil must usually convert itself to
good or die. Australia was built out of criminals.
The relationship between evil
and good is a typical logistical relationship like that between wolves and rabbits,
or disease and prey.
(at least in this sphere. the relationship changes slightly in the afterlife) Even
Jesus Christ compared evil to a wolf, and good to a sheep. Take a look at what
we consider to be evil. Theft, rape, organised crime ect. these are really cases of
parasitism. Can your body become immune to a good parasite without experiencing it?
I am slightly concerned that this discussion maybe doesn't fit in this
newsgroup. If no one complains, I'll go ahead and continue it. But in any case,
maybe we aught to make a little effort to include a viable quantity of physics,
or at least science in the subject matter.
scott@informatik.hu-berlin.de
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