This is an interesting discussion. I hope that throughout it, none of you take any of my vitriol personally; I certainly don't mean it so. (I'll let you know if I do
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Originally Posted by Phage
Ok, God makes the world and plops us in it, but what is the point of the world? Is it to make us happy? Do you think that is what it should be for?
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If you're asking my opinion, why do you assume that I think the world
should be for anything?
Of course, even if I were to believe in God (I don't, but am still assuming He exists for the sake of argument), it doesn't _necessarily_ follow that our lack of happiness is incompatible with whatever other purpose the world has (although it might). More on this later.
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Originally Posted by Phage
From what I understand, heaven is the place designed to make us happy. Hell was designed to make people sad. Earth, that is to say the universe we know, was designed to have us figure out which we want.
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So I need to go through some kind of litmus test in order for God to find out something that He should already know having created me, not to mention that I could probably just tell Him... but no, we have to do it
His way. Seems kind of silly to me. Why must God put such flimsy conditions on part of His love? If He does, He's not omnibenevolent, is He?
And anyway, hell seems like a terrible thing to slap onto us just because we (theoretically) wanted it. God seems to be making a choice about the rest of our eternity based on the blink of an eye (relatively speaking) spent here in the world. I'm reminded of a parent saying "You won't eat your broccoli? Then you'll be spending the rest of your life in your room! Muhahaha!!!" The punishment just doesn't seem to fit the crime, and the punishment is of God's making. Ergo, God is not omnibenevolent (heck, He doesn't even seem
benevolent here).
To take another tack, posit that one or more newborn babies were killed in that earthquake (I'm sure it's happened at one point or another). Do you think their time on earth really could have been used to determine anything? If not, why were they killed so quickly? If so, it seems to me like a stupid thing to have to learn, especially the death part. One would have thought He would spare them so that He could get a better picture of what they wanted before forcing His choice on them so quickly. (If He couldn't, then He's not all-powerful -- I'm sure the laws of physics/nature could have been amended for this purpose. I dunno -- make babies earthquake-resistant or something. We wouldn't have noticed the difference. Honest.)
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Originally Posted by Phage
Suppose God made a universe where people were never sad, were incapable of being hurt or feeling bad. What is the point?
Suppose God made a universe where people were always sad, were incapable of not hurting or feeling good. What is the point?
In both of these cases there is no choice in the matter, you just are the way you were destined to be. Your actions have no bearing on what you feel or what happens to you.
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Right, so presumably this destiny thing is bad because there was no free will involved in choosing it. But we do not always choose our suffering. Rather, it is sometimes inflicted on us despite our best efforts to stave it off. Sometimes we spend our whole lives suffering despite the fact that we have done nothing to earn it. What is the point of such suffering? Why is the world that God created not different in that it would prevent such needless suffering?
And anyway, if God created us and the world, what point could He possibly have to prove that He doesn't already know (being omniscient), and that we would have any hope of appreciating through suffering, with no other more benevolent course of action that God could take to teach us? Suffering is not an ennobling experience, as anyone who has suffered greatly can attest; if He is omnibenevolent, why would He want us to learn anything that
requires suffering in order to be taught? If this isn't the case, why doesn't He ditch that portion of the suffering?
For example, if God created us, and loves us, why should we suffer His (relative) absence? What lesson should we learn from this other than that God can torture us if He feels like it?
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...Just as it would be cruel to create a being only capable of pain, it would be useless to create a being only capable of feeling pleasure. What are you going to do, prop it in a corner and watch it burble happily?
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Yes.
Do you have a compelling reason why God should not have done this instead, barring just getting His jollies watching us and slapping down the ones that didn't please Him? See above point about abuse.