And the “answer” to that is often “it’s God’s plan”. Which I don’t understand. I know this is an incredibly basic question, but I don’t have anyone to ask.
If its God’s plan for children to suffer then I don’t really like or respect him.
However, amazing as we are here on lemmy, we are not the first people to ask this question or similar. There’s tonnes of discussion on the ‘problem of evil’ from all sides, and it makes for interesting reading ng matter how athiest/agnostic/Pagan you are.
Irenaeus claimed that we were underdeveloped to face good, and had to be exposed to evil to mature (which I don’t hate as a concept because sometimes you do have to experience suffering to understand it, but it doesn’t work if god is all powerful and created us). The free will argument puts blame back on us horrid humans and off the Shiney happy god that created the…horrid humans. There’s the concept of natural evil, of evil being a lack of good, of trickster Satan etc. Worth a deep dive if you have time.
And I recommend Dostoyevski ‘The brothers Karamazov’. I butched that spelling. However, a monk brother and an athiest brother have a great conversation about the horrific things that have happened to innocent children and how god allowed it to happen. The whole books a mission, but the recommended chapter is…seven I think? It’s near the beginning.
Maybe he never needed to plan, but always had a plan. We can argue this follows from omniscience. You don’t have to do the planning when you already know what the plan will be before you start planning. You just have a plan.
Church told me I should believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing god that’s benevolent and loving. If that’s not the standard you’re working from, then yeah, there would be issues.
My question is that if god knows everything, and has the power to do anything instantaneously, what’s the point of planning? There’s no need to use a clumsy tool like, say, an earthquake.
Don’t like the results of what you did? No problem. Rewind time and change it. It takes zero effort. From god’s perspective, that solves any problem you can think of. From a philosophical perspective, it creates a bunch of problems, though. I haven’t come across an explanation that makes sense.
Why are you assuming that an earthquake isn’t part of that plan? I agree that it if you believe in an all knowing god, it doesn’t make sense to clumsily solve problems like that. It doesn’t make sense for there to be problems in the first place, he would get it right the first time.
I’m assuming that because of omnipotence. Having fully unlimited power and knowledge would mean that problems could be solved in much more effective, subtle, and precisely targeted ways. Why cause mass destruction? Why use a nuke when all you need is a good sniper?
If you have unlimited power and knowledge, you wouldn’t make mistakes. You wouldn’t have problems to solve. If something went “wrong”, that would mean its supposed to go wrong.
Maybe that’s the answer, but it isn’t satisfying to me. Part of me recognizes that the universe is much more complex than I’m capable of understanding, and maybe that’s why things don’t seem to make sense. However, a larger part of me thinks that there’s a simpler answer: god can’t be as powerful as we’ve been taught, and maybe doesn’t exist at all.
I also think of a guy I used to work with, who we’ll call Eric. Eric lived and acted the way that I was taught a religious person is supposed to - he was kind, non-judgmental, and generally pleasant to be around. I have to constantly remind myself that the world is full of people like him, but they don’t draw attention to themselves because they’re just not like that. They don’t go on the news and yell. They don’t use religion as an excuse to be hateful.
Anyway, thank you for taking this Atheism 101 crap seriously, and for challenging my assumptions. I appreciate you taking the time.
I’m glad we could have a normal conversation about religion, that usually doesn’t happen on the internet.
I was an atheist for a long time but eventually I found a religion that actually made sense to me. The main thing that drew me to it was that I was encouraged to question things like this, and come to my own conclusions if I didn’t agree with others. Maybe there is belief system that works for you, maybe there isn’t; but regardless I think its important to try to figure those things out for yourself, so good luck.
Don’t like the results of what you did? No problem. Rewind time and change it.
That seems to assume they did not know the result in advance. This can be conflicting with the idea of omniscience. Some interpretations assume knowing everything includes knowing everything about the future. A perfect God makes no mistakes.
If god is omnipotent and all-knowing, then why would god need to plan?
If God is omnipotent and all knowing, why do children suffer?
And the “answer” to that is often “it’s God’s plan”. Which I don’t understand. I know this is an incredibly basic question, but I don’t have anyone to ask.
If its God’s plan for children to suffer then I don’t really like or respect him.
However, amazing as we are here on lemmy, we are not the first people to ask this question or similar. There’s tonnes of discussion on the ‘problem of evil’ from all sides, and it makes for interesting reading ng matter how athiest/agnostic/Pagan you are.
Irenaeus claimed that we were underdeveloped to face good, and had to be exposed to evil to mature (which I don’t hate as a concept because sometimes you do have to experience suffering to understand it, but it doesn’t work if god is all powerful and created us). The free will argument puts blame back on us horrid humans and off the Shiney happy god that created the…horrid humans. There’s the concept of natural evil, of evil being a lack of good, of trickster Satan etc. Worth a deep dive if you have time.
And I recommend Dostoyevski ‘The brothers Karamazov’. I butched that spelling. However, a monk brother and an athiest brother have a great conversation about the horrific things that have happened to innocent children and how god allowed it to happen. The whole books a mission, but the recommended chapter is…seven I think? It’s near the beginning.
I’ve heard of that book, but never knew that’s what it was about. Sounds interesting. Thanks!
Enjoy!
An overview about answers can be found in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil
Maybe he never needed to plan, but always had a plan. We can argue this follows from omniscience. You don’t have to do the planning when you already know what the plan will be before you start planning. You just have a plan.
I don’t see how those are mutually exclusive.
Church told me I should believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing god that’s benevolent and loving. If that’s not the standard you’re working from, then yeah, there would be issues.
My question is that if god knows everything, and has the power to do anything instantaneously, what’s the point of planning? There’s no need to use a clumsy tool like, say, an earthquake.
Don’t like the results of what you did? No problem. Rewind time and change it. It takes zero effort. From god’s perspective, that solves any problem you can think of. From a philosophical perspective, it creates a bunch of problems, though. I haven’t come across an explanation that makes sense.
Why are you assuming that an earthquake isn’t part of that plan? I agree that it if you believe in an all knowing god, it doesn’t make sense to clumsily solve problems like that. It doesn’t make sense for there to be problems in the first place, he would get it right the first time.
I’m assuming that because of omnipotence. Having fully unlimited power and knowledge would mean that problems could be solved in much more effective, subtle, and precisely targeted ways. Why cause mass destruction? Why use a nuke when all you need is a good sniper?
If you have unlimited power and knowledge, you wouldn’t make mistakes. You wouldn’t have problems to solve. If something went “wrong”, that would mean its supposed to go wrong.
Maybe that’s the answer, but it isn’t satisfying to me. Part of me recognizes that the universe is much more complex than I’m capable of understanding, and maybe that’s why things don’t seem to make sense. However, a larger part of me thinks that there’s a simpler answer: god can’t be as powerful as we’ve been taught, and maybe doesn’t exist at all.
I also think of a guy I used to work with, who we’ll call Eric. Eric lived and acted the way that I was taught a religious person is supposed to - he was kind, non-judgmental, and generally pleasant to be around. I have to constantly remind myself that the world is full of people like him, but they don’t draw attention to themselves because they’re just not like that. They don’t go on the news and yell. They don’t use religion as an excuse to be hateful.
Anyway, thank you for taking this Atheism 101 crap seriously, and for challenging my assumptions. I appreciate you taking the time.
I’m glad we could have a normal conversation about religion, that usually doesn’t happen on the internet.
I was an atheist for a long time but eventually I found a religion that actually made sense to me. The main thing that drew me to it was that I was encouraged to question things like this, and come to my own conclusions if I didn’t agree with others. Maybe there is belief system that works for you, maybe there isn’t; but regardless I think its important to try to figure those things out for yourself, so good luck.
That seems to assume they did not know the result in advance. This can be conflicting with the idea of omniscience. Some interpretations assume knowing everything includes knowing everything about the future. A perfect God makes no mistakes.
You’re right. I was thinking of omniscience only including the past and present, not the future.