169 replies to this topic

[Jerry_Lundegaard]

Let me begin by saying I am not writing this to knock Christianity, but to better understand it. Let’s also assume a couple more things: God is all knowing, all powerful, and God will send me to hell because I don’t believe in Jesus.

My question is this: What is the point of all this? Why did God create me if he knew I would eventually make the choices that would send me to hell? (Lets leave the issue of free will aside for the moment.)

God did not have “hope” that I would turn out OK. “Hope” implies uncertainty and an all-knowing God has no uncertainty. In fact he knew, from the moment he created the universe, that poor little Jerry Lundegaard was bound for hell. So why does he bother? Why play this little game with our souls when he knows the outcome?

I have a feeling what you will say: “The Lord works in mysterious ways, and we
can’t hope to understand.” Fair enough, certainly that is a statement that can end all discussion. But, if God is all powerful, couldn’t he have set up the universe in some other way? In a way that does not require myself and every other non-Christian in the world to go to hell? An all powerful being is bound by nothing. So he CHOSE a plan where some people have to go to hell.

Maybe he did it so I could experience life on Earth. Well, OK. I think life is at times very very good, and at times very very bad, and the rest of the time pretty boring. Why not make life on Earth better? You may say “We have to experience the bad times, so that we can experience the good times. Good has no meaning without bad.”

But is that really true? Couldn’t an all-powerful being create a universe where is WAS possible to experience good feelings without also feeling pain? Again, this God CHOSE to make things this way, it may be a “mysterious plan we cant understand” but he intentionally chose to put pain in it for some reason.

I’ll stop now. Sorry this is so long. Looking for all perspectives on this issue.

[brvheart]

Romans 9

14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to Moses,
"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."18Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

19One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" 20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' " 21Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

22What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? 25As he says in Hosea:
"I will call them 'my people' who are not my people;
and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one," 26and,
"It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them,
'You are not my people,'
they will be called 'sons of the living God.' "

27Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:
"Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,
only the remnant will be saved.
28For the Lord will carry out
his sentence on earth with speed and finality."

29It is just as Isaiah said previously:
"Unless the Lord Almighty
had left us descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
we would have been like Gomorrah."
30What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. 32Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the "stumbling stone." 33As it is written:
"See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall,
and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame."

[Mattnxtc]

well the short answer is we dont know why God did what He did but since that isnt enough for you or really anybody else lets get to the longer version

If you create something that isnt capable of disobeying you then what have you done? You have created robots. they cant truly love, cant truly hurt, cant truly do many things mainly b/c they dont have that option. To create something that could not sin is to create something without free will.

by creating something that does have the ability to do something wrong, yo uhave also given them the ability to understand what it means to do the right thing. What it means to love, what it means to actually have a choice.

Is it a risk from our standpoint? Sure it is. But by having the choice, we exist with the passion and desires that we have. Without it, we are just robots

[crowTrobot]

same point in different forms has been raised in at least 6 threads since this forum expanded. an all-knowing god is logically incompatable with anything resembling what we define as free will, making the whole christian "plan" of salvation pointless.

[brvheart]

Since when is knowing that someone will chose something, choosing it for them?

To steal from SNL:

If I could offer to make you the leading scientist in your field or give you mad cow, I know you're not gonna choose mad cow

... and I'm not even God. Just because God knows you're gonna choose something, does NOT mean he's choosing it for you. How is this not obvious?

[fckthis]

cruel experiment? Asking why God does anything is useless, as we assume he has a higher thought process than humans.

[Loismustdie]

The real question is why make right and wrong? What if you could do literally anything you wanted with no shame, guilt or consequence?Go crazy with it- anything that could possibly jump into your head is all good. You could walk into A KFC, pull down your pants and doodie in grandmas 3 piece special and nobody would even blink. Or, you could just grab her keys and take her car- it would not even be stealing, that would not exist, at least not as we know it, there would just be action and reaction, unfettered.


See how smart God is?

[fckthis]

The real question is why make right and wrong? What if you could do literally anything you wanted with no shame, guilt or consequence?Go crazy with it- anything that could possibly jump into your head is all good. You could walk into A KFC, pull down your pants and doodie in grandmas 3 piece special and nobody would even blink. Or, you could just grab her keys and take her car- it would not even be stealing, that would not exist, at least not as we know it, there would just be action and reaction, unfettered.
See how smart God is?

So your saying God "invented" morals and values in order for life to have a point?

[Loismustdie]

So your saying God "invented" morals and values in order for life to have a point?

No, I am saying that in the midst of chaos, there is still order, by design- without an innate sense of morality we truly would be nothing more than talking meatsticks.

[BuffDan]

Since when is knowing that someone will chose something, choosing it for them?

To steal from SNL:

If I could offer to make you the leading scientist in your field or give you mad cow, I know you're not gonna choose mad cow

... and I'm not even God. Just because God knows you're gonna choose something, does NOT mean he's choosing it for you. How is this not obvious?

There is knowing and then there is knowing. In your example, you think very strongly that the person isn't going to choose the mad cow, but they might; maybe they have a death wish or something, or a curiosity about the illness, or a desire to prove you wrong, whatever... the point is you do not know what they will do, just you can guess with high probability what their choice is going to be. Constrast this with an all-knowing God who absolutely knows every choice we will ever make. Then, whether or not God actually is making the choices for us, he is making us suffer through them all with the exact knowledge of what the end result is going to be.

I personally find it hard to believe in such a God, as creating all of existence just to have it follow the exact path you always knew it would follow seems pretty pointless and sadistic to me. Of course, my finding it hard to believe doesn't make it any less true if it happens to be true; however I will choose to not worship such a God, but to be fair he already knew I would make that choice anyways.

[Mattnxtc]

same point in different forms has been raised in at least 6 threads since this forum expanded. an all-knowing god is logically incompatable with anything resembling what we define as free will, making the whole christian "plan" of salvation pointless.

bolded parts what i love about you. It shows ur ignorance. You try to make sense of what is going on based on what man has defined it as. problem is we dont understand even .5% of everything yet you continually rely on man...

[speedz99]

So the final answer is, "We don't know."?

Back to Jerry's main question (from what I understand).

Let's assume God is all-knowing and all-powerful. He could have created the world however he saw fit, and he knows exactly what is going to happen.

Why would he create a world where, according to the Bible, the vast majority of people are going to hell? And the OP specifically sounds like he is going to hell. Shouldn't he be pissed at God for damning him to an eternity of fire/brimstone/etc? Why should he worship this asshole?

[natewood3]

Jerry,

brvheart posted the exact verses that I was going to post, especially since you are trying to understand the Christian worldview. God is infinitely just and righteous. For God to remain righteous and just, He must love and seek to glorify that which is infinitely valuable, namely, Himself. If God did not seek to glorify Himself, He would not be God, for it is right to glorify and magnify that which is infinitely valuable.

Therefore, He created a world in which He would ultimately get the most glory and exaltation. If He created a world without sin, many parts of God's nature would be never seen or demonstrated to the world, such as His wrath, justice, righteousness, etc. If everyone went to Hell because of their sin (which we all deserve Hell), then God's love, mercy, grace, etc. would not be seen fully. Hence, God has so designed the world in the way that it is so that His glory and excellence and magnificence will be most fully seen and admired throughout all eternity.

The death of Christ and eternal hell is God's shout of how horrible and horrendous it is to sin against God, because "all have sinned and FALL SHORT of God's glory" (Rom. 3:23). For God to be righteous, He MUST punish sin in proportion to the nature of the offense. God is infinitely righteous, and sin against an infinitely holy God deserves an infinitely long punishment. Our only hope is Jesus Christ's death and resurrection. Christ died so that all who will trust Him will be saved from the wrath and punishment of God. You were created for God's glory, and you were created to know God. You will only find true joy and happiness in fulfilling the purpose for which you were created. Jesus Christ came so that we might know God personally. God nows commands all people to turn from their sin and trust Christ alone for their salvation from their sin and from hell in order that they might experience knowing the One for whom they were created...

That is why God created you in a nutshell, according to the Bible.

[Farnan]

bolded parts what i love about you. It shows ur ignorance.

And the quoted part is what i dispise about you. It shows, yet again, your complete and total arrogance---not to mention it reveals the hypocrisy of you holding yourself out as an upstanding Christian.

Schmuck.

[speedz99]

yada yada yada...He created a world in which He would ultimately get the most glory and exaltation. yada yada yada...

That is why God created you in a nutshell, according to the Bible.

But doesn't all that make you want to punch God in the face for being such an arrogant prick?

Seriously.

[Farnan]

But doesn't all that make you want to punch God in the face for being such an arrogant prick?

Seriously.

are you saying Mattnxtc is God?

[Loismustdie]

But doesn't all that make you want to punch God in the face for being such an arrogant prick?

Seriously.

No- I would not go that far. I will say that there are times when I think of this line of thinking as well, but, it's pointless, because I did not make the rules. God did. I may or may not like them- it does not matter, I have no control over the situation. I know that doens't help you but there is not much more that I can say.

[timwakefield]

No, I am saying that in the midst of chaos, there is still order, by design- without an innate sense of morality we truly would be nothing more than talking meatsticks.

An innate sense of morality can quite plainly be ascribed to evolutionary survival.

[Mattnxtc]

So the final answer is, "We don't know."?

Back to Jerry's main question (from what I understand).

Let's assume God is all-knowing and all-powerful. He could have created the world however he saw fit, and he knows exactly what is going to happen.

Why would he create a world where, according to the Bible, the vast majority of people are going to hell? And the OP specifically sounds like he is going to hell. Shouldn't he be pissed at God for damning him to an eternity of fire/brimstone/etc? Why should he worship this asshole?

and God damned him how? You see the problem. Its like a murderer killin somebody and sayin that the TV made him do it. Its just stupid.

the real truth is this. You stand before the judge for your crimes and instead of sentencing you to hell for what you have done, he gives you a second chance. He offers you a way out....and what do you do? spit in his face and then complain hes not fair.

You have nobody to blame but yourself

[speedz99]

and God damned him how? You see the problem. Its like a murderer killin somebody and sayin that the TV made him do it. Its just stupid.

the real truth is this. You stand before the judge for your crimes and instead of sentencing you to hell for what you have done, he gives you a second chance. He offers you a way out....and what do you do? spit in his face and then complain hes not fair.

You have nobody to blame but yourself

Not true. Our OP (i think it's jerry) CAN blame God...who made him exactly the way he is, knowing that he would be a sinner going to hell.

You're still missing the question.