A Divine quote?

If we abandon the notion of free will, or at least acknowledge that someone’s actions are at least, in part, a product of all their previous experiences, forgiveness, as a notion, becomes moot.

Not directly dealing with Stan's quote but related; the problem of evil is arguably the greatest excuse for not believing in a creator. But how could a creator create beings with free will, that are incapable of evil ? God (whatever that is) must have evil in him/her as well as unconditional love. I  never understood the platitudes dished out from scripture about God only being love. It can't be right.

"because when you truly understand something, you probably know why someone’s done something ‘bad’ "

'I'm not going to post examples of where that fails, Stan. It wouldn't be helpful and I'm sure you are aware anyway. (you are still fully entitled to like the quote, though)

I’d like an example of where that quote fails Tim, because I would like to know what you’re thinking. I can’t think of one, because I can see it being possible to forgive anything, if I knew the full story. Not the full story of the facts alone, but the full story excluding nothing. Real understanding of the nuances and the biases and the feelings of everyone involved, including those of God.

So because you or I can’t understand something that’s almost certainly beyond our understanding, you say “It can’t be right”?

I guess I am content and in fact do have faith, because I think it can.

Not directly dealing with Stan's quote but related; the problem of evil is arguably the greatest excuse for not believing in a creator. But how could a creator create beings with free will, that are incapable of evil ? God (whatever that is) must have evil in him/her as well as unconditional love. I  never understood the platitudes dished out from scripture about God only being love. It can't be right.

"because when you truly understand something, you probably know why someone’s done something ‘bad’ "

'I'm not going to post examples of where that fails, Stan. It wouldn't be helpful and I'm sure you are aware anyway. (you are still fully entitled to like the quote, though)

Well, if you think of evil as a thing that can be transferred, like a virus, then maybe you have a point but it is in fact a choice or a desire.  Sometimes the desire is justified, depending on context. The word evil in the bible doesn't mean the same as when we use it, as is shown by the verse that says "God repented of the evil he was going to do"  So God doesn't believe in this polarized position that we seem to believe in.  God understands things better than we do and he gave us free will because he wasn't interested in robots.  God can do harm and sometimes gets angry but he is far more forgiving and loving and patient than us because he sees further.  

As far as not believing in the creator is concerned,  there is no logic that can say there is no creator because there is evil.  That would pre-suppose far too much about what a creator would do if he existed.  Catch 22 - there is no creator because there is evil; there is no creator because he prevents free will.  Which would you have?

 God can do harm and sometimes gets angry but he is far more forgiving and loving and patient than us because he sees further.  

I don’t think you’re telling the full story here. 

1)What evidence do you really have that God sometimes gets angry?

2)Imagine that you were God, and that you have realised that there’s one way to ’improve yourself’, there may be others but this is the most effective one you’ve found. To do so you have to separate bits of yourself and give these bits free will, it has to be totally free though, to do whatever they choose. You might find it difficult to see some of the things these ‘bits of yourself’ get up to, but you cannot interfere, no matter what. Is God responsible for their behaviour? 

I can see some saying “ Yes, of course God is to blame”, he might have made it possible, but I have to disagree. As total freedom to choose was given to the individual bits, the responsibility is theirs alone.

I’d like an example of where that quote fails Tim, because I would like to know what you’re thinking. I can’t think of one, because I can see it being possible to forgive anything, if I knew the full story. Not the full story of the facts alone, but the full story excluding nothing. Real understanding of the nuances and the biases and the feelings of everyone involved, including those of God.

So because you or I can’t understand something that’s almost certainly beyond our understanding, you say “It can’t be right”?

I guess I am content and in fact do have faith, because I think it can.

""because when you truly understand something, you probably know why someone’s done something ‘bad’ "

Putting Jews (human beings) into gas ovens alive. Dismembering children (alive children). The list is endless and so utterly diabolical, I would have preferred not to make reference to them.

Could you explain how that is understandable, Stan ?

No one who did such terrible things would ever be forgivable in my opinion, from a human perspective that is. The only thing to understand is that such things are the work of monsters (and whence comes evil monsters?) What steps in reasoning can there be to arrive at a justification for such acts ? 

If one is an atheist though, things become a little simpler. (And I'm not suggesting Atheists are any worse than anyone else BTW). They don't (believe they) have a soul that faces "judgement". Their only real responsibility is to their own gene pool (firstly) and whatever they've done was done by their brain so their brain must have simply been a faulty one, or so they (effectively) think, without knowing.

I'm sure the examples I've provided are just as terrible to contemplate for you as they are for me, but we're arguing a point.

If we abandon the notion of free will, or at least acknowledge that someone’s actions are at least, in part, a product of all their previous experiences, forgiveness, as a notion, becomes moot.

What does it mean to "abandon the notion of free will"?  I mean is there any practical value to this position at all?

Well, if you think of evil as a thing that can be transferred, like a virus, then maybe you have a point but it is in fact a choice or a desire.  Sometimes the desire is justified, depending on context. The word evil in the bible doesn't mean the same as when we use it, as is shown by the verse that says "God repented of the evil he was going to do"  So God doesn't believe in this polarized position that we seem to believe in.  God understands things better than we do and he gave us free will because he wasn't interested in robots.  God can do harm and sometimes gets angry but he is far more forgiving and loving and patient than us because he sees further.  

As far as not believing in the creator is concerned,  there is no logic that can say there is no creator because there is evil.  That would pre-suppose far too much about what a creator would do if he existed.  Catch 22 - there is no creator because there is evil; there is no creator because he prevents free will.  Which would you have?

Brian said > "there is no logic that can say there is no creator because there is evil"

Agreed.

Brian said > "there is no creator because there is evil; there is no creator because he prevents free will.  Which would you have?"

The second one amounts to there is a creator because he doesn't prevent free will--in other words there is a creator because we have free will.

However, whether or not we have free will is an opinion (I think we have BTW), and such an opinion cannot be used to assert the existence of a creator.

Putting Jews (human beings) into gas ovens alive. Dismembering children (alive children). The list is endless and so utterly diabolical, I would have preferred not to make reference to them.

Could you explain how that is understandable, Stan ?

No one who did such terrible things would ever be forgivable in my opinion, from a human perspective that is. The only thing to understand is that such things are the work of monsters (and whence comes evil monsters?) What steps in reasoning can there be to arrive at a justification for such acts ? 

Hi Tim,

The vast majority of human beings put countless billions of sentient beings (animal beings) through unimaginable torture, suffering and other abominations, and countless millions upon millions of sentient beings are killed every single day, just to satiate the appetites of human beings. We, as global humanity, not only do not do anything about it, we actually revel in it.

I do not consider all my family members, friends, colleagues, and other humans, to be "evil" for this horrific state of affairs. In fact, I think I "understand" how we come to such inhumane behaviours, en masse. The stories we tell ourselves are very powerful. I weep, I cry but I try to understand and forgive. I forgive myself, too, for all the horrible and mean things - which are countless - I have done in my life.

I'm really fascinated by what I think Stan is hinting at here, and I personally agree with him. What I would really like to do is discuss all the variety of deep, profound and ongoing "spiritual experiences" I, and countless others I can reference, have had, all the various ideologies, philosophies, metaphysics and as it seems like we may have followers of here, religions etc that hint at what this "Divine Love" thing is.....but that would take far too many words, I would almost certainly alienate everybody (even more than so far!  ), and I'm sure I would end up rambling incoherently (even more than so far  ).

So, I'll just be lazy and say that, at the very least, Jesus was quite fond of this "love and forgiveness" malarkey, wasn't he (should he have even existed, those are indeed his teachings, if they have been interpreted correctly etc etc) ? Having read the Bible and countless gnostic texts, it seems to me that is sum total of Jesus' teachings, though I can understand how that could be lost when read in context of a judgemental, wrathful monotheistic-demands-exclusive worship type "God" (suspiciously demi-urgic behaviour btw  ) ?

All the best all!

@manjit

Hi Tim,

The vast majority of human beings put countless billions of sentient beings (animal beings) through unimaginable torture, suffering and other abominations, and countless millions upon millions of sentient beings are killed every single day, just to satiate the appetites of human beings. We, as global humanity, not only do not do anything about it, we actually revel in it.

Hi Manjit,

The cruelty inflicted upon animals is also absolutely diabolical, I agree.  However, the vast majority of human beings do not put countless billions of animals through torture, (nor do they revel in it).  I would say it's a minority that do that whether because they're told to do it (employed) or they do it themselves for a variety of reasons.

@manjit

Hi Tim,

The vast majority of human beings put countless billions of sentient beings (animal beings) through unimaginable torture, suffering and other abominations, and countless millions upon millions of sentient beings are killed every single day, just to satiate the appetites of human beings. We, as global humanity, not only do not do anything about it, we actually revel in it.

Hi Manjit,

The cruelty inflicted upon animals is also absolutely diabolical, I agree.  However, the vast majority of human beings do not put countless billions of animals through torture, (nor do they revel in it).  I would say it's a minority that do that whether because they're told to do it (employed) or they do it themselves for a variety of reasons.

Hi Tim, thanks for your response!

I may not have made my point clearly. The vast majority of humans are complicit in the suffering and killing of millions of animals, every single day. I emphasise every single day, because that is to my mind an unimaginable level of suffering that we as humanity inflict on helpless and vulnerable animals. Any human is complicit in that suffering every single time they buy or eat a product or by-product of that industry of death of suffering.

When I say the vast majority revel in it, again perhaps I didn't make myself clear. Every time someone's eyes light up at a steak, they are reveling. Every time someone says that was lovely after eating meat, they are reveling. Every time someone looks for a sale on meat products, they are reveling. Every time an advert is shown on tv saying death and suffering is "finger licking good", we are reveling. I'm sorry, I've been around for more than 2 or 3 decades, so I know I what I meant when I said it, and I observe this complicit behaviour and reveling in the products of an industry of unimaginable death and suffering every single day and from the vast majority of people.

To imply the "vast majority" are not actually the ones inflicting the suffering and death directly, therefore not "evil" by your own definition, is in my mind no different to saying the person who hires a hit is not culpable for murder, or a despot political leader, like Hitler, is not culpable for murder because he was never at Auschwitz.

Ahh, perhaps this ties in with what Stan was getting it; "Evil" is a matter of perspective, and perhaps from a "higher" or "Divine" perspective, it simply does not exist?