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I want to. But I can't. Maybe I am only getting the surface answers, but when I say, "Why did he create such a messed up world?" I get the same, poorly thought out answers.
The most common answer is 'Free will. It is better to love by choice.' This is illogical on so many different levels. First off, if God created the universe, that means he made all of the rules and all of the properties of it. If you are going to say 'free will is better' that is because God created it to be that way. He could have created the universe in a different way, where free will didn't matter. And on top of that, even if you give you the argument that free will is better (and the argument is fundamentally flawed) you still lose. Because not only did God give us free will, he made us really f$cked up. Study any psychology whatsoever and you'll figure that out. Humans are all messed up, its our nature, and we are filled with natural desires that are selfish, such as greed. Hitler didn't kill 6 million Jews because 'he had free choice.' That's silly. He didn't do that for the sake of having that choice. He did it because he is like other humans and wants power. And he had the ambition, charisma, and circumstances to gain it. And in order to gain power, he had to put the problems on the Jews. There are millions of examples like this. The point is the world is filled with evil, which doesn't exist only because there is free choice. It exists because humans are terribly flawed.
And then they'll answer with 'humans are evil because of Satan and original sin' or something. Then why the hell did God create Satan? Why didn't he just have paradise without him?
Some, such as C.S. Lewis, say God gave us suffering to teach us. There are so many flaws to that argument. One, it is inefficient. God is omnisicient. He could just instantly make us understand what we didn't understand before. Why would he use suffering when the other way would be so much easier? It makes him out to be real incompetent. The other problem is that it just doesn't work. Take the Holocaust. Millions of people are killed, and instead of saying to ourselves 'let's get rid of this war thing,' we build thousands of nuclear weapons. And genocide is still rampant in our world. It didn't teach us anything, and since God is omniscient, he would have known that before he let it happen and then thought 'maybe this won't work' and he'd stop it. What kind of butcher does this make out God to be? He has to allow millions to be killed to teach man a lesson? Why can't he just make the world understand? He has the power to do that. And how is that fair for all the people that died? Their lives are sacrificed to teach others so that the future world will be a better place? That isn't fair. Why can't those who are killed have the better place? Why would the future get it? And like I said before, if it takes you millions of deaths to teach people a lesson and make the world a better place, you are a crappy omniscient being.
I can believe that maybe there is a God but a God that doesn't really care about the physical world and only cares about the spiritual world, the heaven that you go to afterwards. That would explain why he allows humans to die and why he created such imperfect creatures in such an imperfect world. Because it just doesn't matter.
The first part of this problem is that in the Bible when God said his creation was good. The second problem is that if the physical doesn't matter, we might as well all kill ourselves. The third problem is then why are we here? Why did he create the physical world in the first place? Why didn't he solely create heaven? And why did he create anything at all? If he is a perfect, omniscient being, why would he need to create something? Anything he created wouldn't be as good as him.
The point is, however you look at it, the world is very flawed, the system that he supposedly created is very flawed, and if he did it for our own good, and had our good in mind, it would be better and perfect. Even to say that 'being perfect is imperfect, therefore we have to be imperfect. That is perfect.' is flawed because what you call perfect is imperfect and could be better.
This of course is just the beginning of the problems I have with the personal God. And I haven't even gotten good answers for them.
The most common answer is 'Free will. It is better to love by choice.' This is illogical on so many different levels. First off, if God created the universe, that means he made all of the rules and all of the properties of it. If you are going to say 'free will is better' that is because God created it to be that way. He could have created the universe in a different way, where free will didn't matter. And on top of that, even if you give you the argument that free will is better (and the argument is fundamentally flawed) you still lose. Because not only did God give us free will, he made us really f$cked up. Study any psychology whatsoever and you'll figure that out. Humans are all messed up, its our nature, and we are filled with natural desires that are selfish, such as greed. Hitler didn't kill 6 million Jews because 'he had free choice.' That's silly. He didn't do that for the sake of having that choice. He did it because he is like other humans and wants power. And he had the ambition, charisma, and circumstances to gain it. And in order to gain power, he had to put the problems on the Jews. There are millions of examples like this. The point is the world is filled with evil, which doesn't exist only because there is free choice. It exists because humans are terribly flawed.
And then they'll answer with 'humans are evil because of Satan and original sin' or something. Then why the hell did God create Satan? Why didn't he just have paradise without him?
Some, such as C.S. Lewis, say God gave us suffering to teach us. There are so many flaws to that argument. One, it is inefficient. God is omnisicient. He could just instantly make us understand what we didn't understand before. Why would he use suffering when the other way would be so much easier? It makes him out to be real incompetent. The other problem is that it just doesn't work. Take the Holocaust. Millions of people are killed, and instead of saying to ourselves 'let's get rid of this war thing,' we build thousands of nuclear weapons. And genocide is still rampant in our world. It didn't teach us anything, and since God is omniscient, he would have known that before he let it happen and then thought 'maybe this won't work' and he'd stop it. What kind of butcher does this make out God to be? He has to allow millions to be killed to teach man a lesson? Why can't he just make the world understand? He has the power to do that. And how is that fair for all the people that died? Their lives are sacrificed to teach others so that the future world will be a better place? That isn't fair. Why can't those who are killed have the better place? Why would the future get it? And like I said before, if it takes you millions of deaths to teach people a lesson and make the world a better place, you are a crappy omniscient being.
I can believe that maybe there is a God but a God that doesn't really care about the physical world and only cares about the spiritual world, the heaven that you go to afterwards. That would explain why he allows humans to die and why he created such imperfect creatures in such an imperfect world. Because it just doesn't matter.
The first part of this problem is that in the Bible when God said his creation was good. The second problem is that if the physical doesn't matter, we might as well all kill ourselves. The third problem is then why are we here? Why did he create the physical world in the first place? Why didn't he solely create heaven? And why did he create anything at all? If he is a perfect, omniscient being, why would he need to create something? Anything he created wouldn't be as good as him.
The point is, however you look at it, the world is very flawed, the system that he supposedly created is very flawed, and if he did it for our own good, and had our good in mind, it would be better and perfect. Even to say that 'being perfect is imperfect, therefore we have to be imperfect. That is perfect.' is flawed because what you call perfect is imperfect and could be better.
This of course is just the beginning of the problems I have with the personal God. And I haven't even gotten good answers for them.
Nor would I be suprised if eventually there is a pill that would make one more spiritual.
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