Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!topaz!christian From: pez@mit-eddie.UUCP (Paul Zimmerman) Newsgroups: mod.religion.christian Subject: God's use of his power Message-ID: <6488@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Fri, 24-Oct-86 19:16:42 EDT Article-I.D.: topaz.6488 Posted: Fri Oct 24 19:16:42 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 25-Oct-86 06:46:57 EDT References: <5962@decwrl.DEC.COM> Sender: hedrick@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Organization: M.I.T. EE/CS Computer Facility, Cambridge MA Lines: 102 Approved: christian@topaz.UUCP [This article showed up with a subject "subject varies according to context." This appears to be added by some news system. If you submit things other than by directly mailing them to topaz!christian, you might want to tell me what title you intend. Otherwise, I'll make one up, or reject the article if I can't figure out what it is about. --clh] Jim Baranski wrote an article describing his problems with my views on God. He holds certain premises which I take issue with, and I will attempt to clarify my reasons for taking issue with them here. Jim feels that, since God ultimately ``created each human,'' this gives Him the right to use us as He pleases. I fail to understand this premise at all. I drew the analogy of God's relationship to humans in general as compared to a parent's relationship to a child, and showed that, just as most reasonable people would agree that it is wrong for parents to feel that they can use a child merely because they are his parents, it is equally wrong to assert that God can use humans as He chooses simply because He is God. Jim takes issue with this, claiming that He ``has the power and right to order our lives as He sees fit FOR OUR BENEFIT.'' In turn, I take issue with Jim's claim. First, I don't see how God's creating us (and I take issue with the ultimate truth of this as well, but that's another matter) gives Him this right. Furthermore, Jim uses the words ``for our benefit'' to describe how God is supposed to exercise this power and right. But certainly He has deliberately exercised it in other ways, to HIS ends and benefits, in fact, AGAINST our own benefit, to our detriment. For example, He deliberately instigated race hatred at the Tower of Babel, fomenting divisive groupings of people who had until then worked together, simply because they were working towards finding out more about Him! He slaughtered people and destroyed cities just because they interfered with His plans for Himself. The fact that He exercises His power against us proves His evil intent and nature. You also say that ``the reason that none of us has the right to judge God, is because none of us *knows* the *whole* story, except God. The only people with the right to judge a person, are God, and the person herself; and the only one with the right to Condemn, is God.'' You seem to take everything God says as true, and this of course is a great mistake. You would doubtless question the wisdom of someone who believed everything that Hitler said, everything that Nixon said, everything that their parents said, everything that any particular person did. Yet YOU accept at face value everything that God says! Think about that! If I am right about the nature of God, you have been doing much the same thing as someone who blindly accepted the words of people like Hitler and Nixon. But what is your ``proof'' that God is NOT that way? His own word! That puts you in an ethical bind, because your only proof of God's trustworthiness is His claim that He is trustworthy. To claim that the solution is simple and cut and dried, that it is obvious that God is simply the ultimate good and not worth questioning, is a philosophical nightmare. It seems to me that, given the way indoctrination towards belief in God takes place, the way it parallels the nature of fascist brainwashing that ``teaches'' citizens that the state is always right and never should be questioned, coupled with the way God behaves (and proudly boasts about it all in the Bible), we can come to no other conclusion other than God being evil. Even if God was the only one who ``knew the whole story,'' why does that give Him the right to do what He wants? You are assuming that omniscience and omnipotence can only be present where there is omnibenevolence, or else you are equating the former to the latter. But that's not necessarily true. Jim, you seem to misinterpret my points about ``sins of omission.'' We are often condemned for our sins of omission, for our failure to do good where we could have done so, according to the Bible. We are scolded by others for this behavior, this failure to do good, where ``good'' is often defined by the scolders. Yet God often deliberately fails to do good. Where is HIS punishment? Why isn't He as accountable for His sins as He would hold us to be? I have to wonder what motivates people who believe in the benvolent God to rationalize so elaborately and extensively for God and His behavior. Out of nowhere, you state that you ``don't feel like getting into the Salem witch Trials, as they have little to do with God, or Christianity.'' I and others before me have shown that the attitudes that led to the murdering of people by God whorshipers are rooted in the religion. I contend that God deliberately foments such hatred of those who are different for the purpose of creating an atmosphere of violence. But whether or not you agree with that, certainly the religion itself has taught people to fear and hate those who are different. Certainly this is a crucial issue regarding the nature of God and religion. If God deliberately foments race hatred and violence towards other groups of people than your own, while at the same time He tells each of the various groups of people the same story, that THEY have got it right and the others are misled, then we have on our hands a God worth despising. Certainly you are free not to discuss this issue if you do not want to, but please don't claim that your reason for not doing so is based on the issue not being related to God or Christianity. --- Be well, Paul Zimmerman (pez@mit-eddie.UUCP, pez@unirot.UUCP) [I do not want the entire, unedifying discussion between Christians and maltheists to restart on this group. However the above is a moderate restatement of an issue that I think is a serious one for anyone who takes God's responsbility for the world seriously. I advise anyone thinking of responding to pause very carefully to consider whether you are dealing with the real issue, which I take it is the basic one of theodicy: If God is responsible for the world, why is there so much evil in it, particularly among God's followers and in things that God is reported to have done or commanded others to do. By the way, in any future submissions, I will consider the word "whorship" to be a misspelling and correct it, unless someone can give me a definition that does not turn it into an ad hominem attack. I do not, as I have said before, accept submissions containing ad hominem attacks. --clh]