“Prophet...” asks Morbid Neko in reply to my post Love your enemies, “if God had wanted infallible people, why didn’t He make humans that way?”
Sometimes we fail because we are fallible, but that is part of the growth process. For example a child often falls when learning to walk. We do not scold it for falling. We encourage the child’s attempts at walking. In fact we actually praise it! Other times we fail because we are sinful. Such failures we consider morally wrong and these we usually do not encourage, nor praise.
So Morbid Neko, your question should rather be “if God had wanted sinless people, why didn’t He make humans that way?” And my answer to this question is, He did. It was Man, not God, that made himself sinful.
8 comments:
Then, who created sin?
Sin (selfishness) is the opposite of love (unselfishess).
To love, we must be free to choose to love or not to love. (Love cannot be forced.) God created us with the freedom to choose. This ability to choose is fundamental to existence of love.
We selfishly misused our freedom and chose sin.
God did not create sin, however God did allow it.
There are a number of things that God didn't create, but which God allowed, e.g. nonsense.
God often allow things in order to ensure freedom of choice - the foundation for love. If he negates everything contrary - it would be negating freedom of choice.
I wanna bother you. :)
How do you explain about a consequence of sin? For instance, if I got fatal hurts by someones's misused freedom, why should I feel pain regardless of my will? Who compensates me for the hurts?
Hi, Prophet.
Wow, a whole post for ME.
** blush **
That's an excellent point. Various excellent points, really.
My husband and I had some interesting discussions over this weekend. We were talking about Marilyn Manson's (i love that band, btw) lyrics.
I am a strong believer in being able to choose for yourself, dealing with the consequences, and coming to my own conclusions.
that said, i'd like to ask you, mr. Prophet sir, what are your thoughts on Marilyn Manson - the band, the lyrics, the world-wide response, etc?
some examplary lyrics for your consideration:
"I never really hated the one true God, but the god of the people I hated"
"god is in the tv."
"I'm not a slave to a god that doesn't exist. I'm not a slave to a world that doesn't give a sh*t."
"The death of one is a tragedy, the death of millions is just a statistic."
"I went to god just to see. and i was looking at me."
What do YOU suppose it all means, Prophet?
And is it all blasphemy?
My husband is Catholic. He had some interesting insights, which made me think thrice.
For example - if you use God's name NOT in praise - the name is used in vain. That's a sin.
A sarcastic tone in a song is also blasphemous.
He said the cynical views are very one-sided, and there is more to life than misery.
oh yeah --
regarding this post,
the cynicist inside me wants to ask:
So, are we all just hamsters in a cage for God's amusement?
Dear The-same-person-said,
I can’t pretend to have all the answers but this is my understanding...
God gave us all free will so that we can live in a relationship with each other. Only if we have free will can we live in a loving relationship with other people. But unfortunately the same free will also gives us the ability to not-love. . . to hurt. It is God’s intention that we should use our free will to love one another, not to hurt each other. Unfortunately the choice is still ours. It is our responsibility to choose whether or not we want to use our freedom of choice to love or to hurt. If God manipulate our freedom of choice / free will, so that we can only love (and never hurt each other) – then we do not have real free will anymore, and we cannot really love anymore.
If I program my computer to tell me that it loves me every time it boots up, it is not real love, because it has no choice in the matter.
You ask “Who compensates me for the hurts?” I don’t have an answer. However I have to ask why do you think we *have* to get compensation? Do you think we *ought* to get compensation? Why? Because it is right? Why is it right?
In any case, some religions believe that we are compensated in the “after-life”. And some religions believe that those that hurt us will get punished in the "after-life".
But that is what some religions believe. I'm not so sure.
Admittedly, I’ve heard some pretty negative stuff about Marilyn Manson. However, I’m not too quick to shoot ‘em down as most of what I heard about them was hearsay. Reading the parts of the lyrics you posted I agree with some of his sentiment. I also do not believe in the god that most of the Christian world upholds. I don’t believe that that picture of God represents the real God and therefore I can probably sing with Marilyn: “I’m not a slave to a god that doesn’t exist.” I’m also in agreement with his existential question about how the deaths of few are tragic, but the deaths of many mere statistics.
Years ago I used to be into New Age, so then I probably would have agreed with his pantheistic idea that when I look within myself I see God. In the meantime I’ve become a theist, and do not believe that I am God – or part of God in any pantheistic sense. Yes, we can see aspects of the Artist in his artwork, but we shouldn’t mistake the artwork for the Artist.
I have one Marilyn Manson album and although I listen to it seldom, I think it is a brilliant album.
My kid brother thinks Marilyn Manson is of the devil and that I should destroy the album.
Reading the quotes from the lyrics you supplied, I definitely see Marilyn Manson making serious social comment – for instance how television has become a god. There are many such gods, i.e. sports, politics, etc. I appreciate social comment – even if I disagree with the views presented; I believe that social comment is valuable. Isn’t that part of what the prophets of old did? They made serious social comment. Isn’t that also what Jesus did when he confronted the hypocrisy of the Pharisees?
A sarcastic tone in a song aimed at God is blasphemous, yes. But that is probably the question one should ask: Is Marilyn Manson sarcastic towards God? Or is he busy with social comment aimed, not at God, but at those that pretends to represent God, like the Pharisees in the time of Jesus? I’m not familiar enough with Marilyn Manson to know the answer.
As for blasphemy – how is it defined? In the Bible Jesus was accused of blasphemy every time He alluded to his divinity, i.e. when He forgave sins. (This is ironic because even though He was human, he was also divine and actually able to forgive sins.) Since this is one of the clearest depictions of what blasphemy is in the Bible, a person pretending to have the power to forgive sins is probably being more blasphemous than someone talking about God – although not in praise.
I don’t think it is blasphemous to talk about God (and actually use the word: “God”) when one discusses the idea of God. Surely a philosopher discussing the ideas of theism, pantheism, atheism, etc. and using the term “god” in such a discourse cannot by default be declared blasphemous.
I would concur that it is disrespectful (and therefore probably blasphemous) to use the name of God willy-nilly, as is often the case on television. I flinch every time I hear people shout “OMG” on TV. It has become such a sordid norm.
“So, are we all just hamsters in a cage for God's amusement?”
I don’t think God is amused, MorbidNeko. Not that God cannot be amused – God probably can, but if God is by God’s very nature Perfect, God cannot be amused with the things us humans are doing to each other, to other creatures on this planet, and to the planet itself.
Think of something you are really good at – for instance spelling and grammar. It must irritate you when you see spelling errors in magazines, doesn’t it? Now imagine God, Perfect – seeing what we have done to his perfect creation!
I do believe that God created us for his enjoyment – but not in a selfish sense, ‘cause that would be impossible. Since God is self-sufficient God doesn’t “need us”. C. S. Lewis writes that whatever God lavishes on us, is not because God needs it, but because we need it. God is perfect. God doesn’t need our adoration. God doesn’t need our love. If God requires it, it is because we need to adore God, we need to love God, in order to be perfectly happy.
Btw, if we merely keep pets (i.e. hamsters in a cage) for our selfish amusement, rather than for loving it, then I would say we are being cruel to it.
Well, that's just my opinion for what it is worth...
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