Hypothetical Christian World

[BluhdoftheLamb]

Directly? You should have his number then. What is it?

876-5309.

Oh wait, that's Jenny Jenny

 

[essentialsaltes]

He is doing just that.

No, he is not calling me directly on my phone.

 

[Davian]

Get ready to use your imagination.

Ready!

Let's just say that an eternally existing, triune God really did create everything else that exists. Let's say that this God created human beings to represent him and to live in dependent relationship under him. Their job would be to rule his creation in his place like he would rule it.

Would they get superpowers like this God character has?

Let's say that these humans rebelled against God, foolishly thinking that they could become like God and live independently from him.

I could see having those superpowers going the heads of some individuals.

Let's say that God, in his mercy, chose to suspend judgment and instead of evicting these evil tenants committed himself to wooing them back into trusting dependence upon him.

What makes these tenants "evil"? You missed that part.

Let's say that as the human race multiplied and spread across the face of the earth God continued to care for them, providing rain and sun in their seasons.

As opposed to allowing this stuff to happen automatically, through naturalistic processes?

He also revealed himself to certain men and sent them into the world with words from God.

How did he do this? In some concrete, reproducible way, or just a feeling in their head, or something that might be dismissed as a hallucination?

In so doing he created a unique people who, in the middle of a rebellious world, knew and served God.

Why would only those people know God? Why would he not reveal himself to everyone?

Let's say that, in the fullness of time, God the Son (one person of the trinity) came as a man, born into this unique people. He came to teach, heal, be rejected and killed, and to raise again from death. Let's say that all of this happened.

Okay. That certainly does not appear to be a straightforward manner of dealing with the issues at hand.

Let's say that he ascended back to the Father and will come again to judge rebellion once and for all, but for now he extends mercy and forgiveness through the foolish preaching of this obscure, peculiar people who believe on him.

Foolish preaching? Like that we see in this world? I can see that that is not going to work.

What would you expect this world to look like? How would it be different from the actual world?

We certainly have the foolish preaching, right here in this forum.

Hard to say without more details.

I would hope that somewhere, somehow, there would be some objective measure that could be attributed to this deity or the 'supernatural'.

Perhaps the differences might be small. Like, the results from praying to this God might be statistically different than prayers made to a jug of milk.

I might expect far more consensus on religion, instead of the thousands (millions?) of flavours we see here.

I would like to see that clergy - 'men of God' - were more than just clerks and preachers, and be without the need for coverups for scandals like we see in our world. Our children would be safe with them.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

If people were less selfish and more selfless and self-sacrificing as Christ said they should be and even exemplified, then famine (regardless of climate conditions) would quickly be eradicated.

The God I can imagine would not limit his care and mercy to such arbitrary conditions. Per the OP, he cares enough to involve himself in the seasons and the rains, and is therefore quite willing to make it rain to alleviate famine and drought.

This goes for Christians as well as non-Christians. You have people from both camps who think more for their own welfare than for the welfare of their neighbor. This is not God's fault.

Sure it is: who made us, our brains, our psychologies, our instincts, our reflexes? If we are innately selfish, the fault lies with whomever made us.

You are right. What could be more proactive than God telling us what to do and what not to do in order to protect us from evil and suffering and giving us a clear warning as to what will happen if this proactive advice is spurned?

By proactively obliterating suffering wherever it lies. Disease vanishes, crops grow in abundance, nukes explode into nothing but marshmallows and pleasant dreams. The God I can imagine is capable of doing this, is merciful enough to want this, and cares enough to do this.

Not only that, but after our deliberate rebellion, God is still merciful in that He partook of the suffering that we all experience as humans in this life and died at the hands of sinners all the while being innocent of any crime.

That is not mercy, that is inanity. Running into a gas chamber to die alongside the Jews is not mercy. Turning off the gas at the tap, that would be mercy.

If you leave a hotplate on in front of a toddler, it is not exactly a proactive approach to simply tell the child not to burn himself. And when he inevitably does, it is not proactive to go and burn yourself - what has this accomplished? How has this helped the suffering toddler?

Jesus' existence is doubted only by those with an agenda of some sort. I will not even venture to get into the validity of his historicity so widely accepted is it that it is virtually undeniable as is the existence of any other notable figure of antiquity.

Incidentally, Christ came at the perfect time in history. Do some research on it. He came during the time in which the Pax Romana was pervasive over much of the known world. The Greek language was spoken by most at the time and was a wonderful means of communicating and articulating the gospel message throughout the Roman Empire. The Roman Roads allowed for relatively swift and easy transmission of the gospel to nations near and far and there was a general expectancy, and anticipation by many at that time, not only of the Jews, but for many gentiles, that life as they knew it was going to be radically altered in some unknown, yea even mysterious way. Prophecies had gradually been fulfilled and yea, even when the fulness of time had come, God sent His Son into the world as a Light shining in the darkness.

So not, say, the heart of Rome, or China, or Japan where there would be thousands more literate people working as historians and scribes?

What thousand varieties are you referring to?

1 Esdras or no 1 Esdras? What about 2 Esdras? Psalm 151? What about Psalm 152? Jubilees, Enoch?

God does not make a habit of continually suspending the laws of nature and altering climatic conditions so that certain areas of the world will not experience drought. This does not mean that He is not caring and merciful.

No, he's just unwilling to alleviate the suffering of innocents by natural causes. You might have an argument if they were suffering by their own hand (poverty following gambling, for instance, or if there was disease after eschewing medicine), but natural things like earthquakes or drought - why wouldn't the deity who brings the rain not, y'know, bring the rain?

As I alluded to earlier, people are guilty for not feeding their starving neighbors, not God. When you have roughly 50 people EACH OF WHOME are worth over a billion dollars a piece living in one small little area of land just so they do not have to pay taxes on their wealth (Monaco) and less than a mile away, you have people living in squalor, God is not to blame. Greedy and selfish men are to blame.

No one withholds rain from Africa, no one tells the mosquito to spread malaria, no one tells HIV/AIDS to cross placental blood and infect newborns, no one tells tsunamis to devastate coastal nations, no one tells earthquakes to swallow up thousands.

I agree. God does not and would not issue His wishes through Chinese whispers.

I do not believe God would use a sloppy method either. I see nothing sloppy about God inspiring godly men to write His words down and preserve them. Did not Christ Himself have disciples, men in whom He put His trust?

Sloppy Chinese whispers is what we have

And this is the real issue we are dealing with. It is not so much a matter of evidence,

No, the main issue very much is one of evidence, or the lack thereof. Please don't tell me what I believe, nor why, thank you, and I'll show you the same courtesy.

or lack thereof as it is a matter of you not liking the fact that God stands as one who makes a claim upon your very life. Christ is the only person to ever have declared that men should worship Him and owe their soul's salvation to Him and Him alone.

I'm pretty such Allah emphatically makes the same point in the Qu'ran.

He makes a claim on our lives and some reject this claim. Some refuse to kneel in reverent worship to Him. This is pride in its purest form. It is the reverencing and worshiping of oneself over God who alone is worthy. I am glad you at least were honest enough to admit this point.

I disagree that he is worthy. If God exists, then he has a lot of explaining to do before I'll worship him. Whether he deigns to answer depends on how much he craves my worship. But that's a big 'if' - at present, I see no evidence for his existence.

As long as God sees fit to allow men to believe what they find attractive, no matter how ridiculous it is, there will always be unbelievers. God loves us too much to force us to believe in or love Him.

For latter, perhaps, but not the former. If my eternal soul is at stake, if non-belief leads to an eternity of hellfire, then the onus is rather on God to make his existence known. No one denies the air we breath, yet when it comes to God's existence we see only hand-wringing, wheedling apologies, and sloppy logic (qv. Aquinus).

You equate adherence to an organized religion with acknowledging God's existence. There are many people that believe God created the world, but yet are not a part of an organized religion (deists). So this line of reasoning fails.

Please do not put words into my mouth.

My point, is that that there would not be a multitude of religions, as there would be a God who, per the OP, is committed to wooing each of us. We wouldn't hear about his existence, his wishes, etc, from a thousand contradictory mouths - we'd hear it from the horse's mouth, as it were.

Read what Pascal wrote about God's Hiddenness. A portion is given below:

"He has willed to make himself quite recognizable by those; and thus, willing to appear openly to those who seek Him with all their heart, and to be hidden from those who flee from Him with all their heart. He so regulates the knowledge of Himself that He has given signs of Himself, visible to those who seek Him, and not to those who seek Him not. There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition."

- Blaise Pascal, Pensées

(430)

That's lovely, but it doesn't relate to the OP. You and Pascal may believe that
God have instituted such a strange vanishing act, but I see no reason that he would. Thus, per the OP, God would make his existence clear and obvious - not stand in half-shadows and coax silently at anyone who glanced his way. The God I can imagine is more proactive - not only actively demonstrating his existence (the belief in which, for some reason, is one of the criteria necessary to not to Hell), but actually doing something to alleviate the suffering of those he cares about.

The God you imagine is not God, but your misconception of God based on misunderstandings of the divine attributes.

It is not your God, no, with such malign definitions of 'mercy' and 'caring' that lead to such ethical knots as "I love, care, and am merciful towards my humans, and I bring the rain, and they're suffering because there's no rain. So here's what I'll do: absolutely nothing".

"No no, wait, what I'll do is go down and suffer with them. Yeah, that'll do it"

Of course it could be more densely packed with life. So what?

So, per the OP, that is what I imagine the universe would be like - more densely packed with life. More obviously designed, and less obviously the product of natural processes. I, for one, wouldn't place my creations on the cracked outer plates of a cooling rock, and then do nothing when the subsequent quakes kill them by the millions.

 

[Elioenai26]

The God I can imagine would not limit his care and mercy to such arbitrary conditions. Per the OP, he cares enough to involve himself in the seasons and the rains, and is therefore quite willing to make it rain to alleviate famine and drought.


Sure it is: who made us, our brains, our psychologies, our instincts, our reflexes? If we are innately selfish, the fault lies with whomever made us.


By proactively obliterating suffering wherever it lies. Disease vanishes, crops grow in abundance, nukes explode into nothing but marshmallows and pleasant dreams. The God I can imagine is capable of doing this, is merciful enough to want this, and cares enough to do this.


That is not mercy, that is inanity. Running into a gas chamber to die alongside the Jews is not mercy. Turning off the gas at the tap, that would be mercy.

If you leave a hotplate on in front of a toddler, it is not exactly a proactive approach to simply tell the child not to burn himself. And when he inevitably does, it is not proactive to go and burn yourself - what has this accomplished? How has this helped the suffering toddler?


So not, say, the heart of Rome, or China, or Japan where there would be thousands more literate people working as historians and scribes?


1 Esdras or no 1 Esdras? What about 2 Esdras? Psalm 151? What about Psalm 152? Jubilees, Enoch?


No, he's just unwilling to alleviate the suffering of innocents by natural causes. You might have an argument if they were suffering by their own hand (poverty following gambling, for instance, or if there was disease after eschewing medicine), but natural things like earthquakes or drought - why wouldn't the deity who brings the rain not, y'know, bring the rain?


No one withholds rain from Africa, no one tells the mosquito to spread malaria, no one tells HIV/AIDS to cross placental blood and infect newborns, no one tells tsunamis to devastate coastal nations, no one tells earthquakes to swallow up thousands.


Sloppy Chinese whispers is what we have


No, the main issue very much is one of evidence, or the lack thereof. Please don't tell me what I believe, nor why, thank you, and I'll show you the same courtesy.


I'm pretty such Allah emphatically makes the same point in the Qu'ran.


I disagree that he is worthy. If God exists, then he has a lot of explaining to do before I'll worship him. Whether he deigns to answer depends on how much he craves my worship. But that's a big 'if' - at present, I see no evidence for his existence.


For latter, perhaps, but not the former. If my eternal soul is at stake, if non-belief leads to an eternity of hellfire, then the onus is rather on God to make his existence known. No one denies the air we breath, yet when it comes to God's existence we see only hand-wringing, wheedling apologies, and sloppy logic (qv. Aquinus).


Please do not put words into my mouth.

My point, is that that there would not be a multitude of religions, as there would be a God who, per the OP, is committed to wooing each of us. We wouldn't hear about his existence, his wishes, etc, from a thousand contradictory mouths - we'd hear it from the horse's mouth, as it were.


That's lovely, but it doesn't relate to the OP. You and Pascal may believe that
God have instituted such a strange vanishing act, but I see no reason that he would. Thus, per the OP, God would make his existence clear and obvious - not stand in half-shadows and coax silently at anyone who glanced his way. The God I can imagine is more proactive - not only actively demonstrating his existence (the belief in which, for some reason, is one of the criteria necessary to not to Hell), but actually doing something to alleviate the suffering of those he cares about.


It is not your God, no, with such malign definitions of 'mercy' and 'caring' that lead to such ethical knots as "I love, care, and am merciful towards my humans, and I bring the rain, and they're suffering because there's no rain. So here's what I'll do: absolutely nothing".

"No no, wait, what I'll do is go down and suffer with them. Yeah, that'll do it"


So, per the OP, that is what I imagine the universe would be like - more densely packed with life. More obviously designed, and less obviously the product of natural processes. I, for one, wouldn't place my creations on the cracked outer plates of a cooling rock, and then do nothing when the subsequent quakes kill them by the millions.

All of what you have just said can be encapsulated in this:

You have a complaint against God. You think He could have done better in many things and in many ways. You think that a world in which everyone can sit back with their hands crossed and be coddled and pampered by marshmallows and sweet dreams is preferable.

In other words, you would rather have a world void of virtue.

But God is greater than you. He knows that a man who has endured suffering, pain, and affliction and has come through this furnace of trial is as gold refined in the fire. One who has exercised every virtue and has maintained his integrity and honor is greater than a lascivious, slothful, undisciplined marshmallow and sweet dream loving man.

God has provided us occasions for striving so that we may obtain the victory. All of the great saints recognize this.

But I shall ask you, since you are so concerned about famine and world hunger, how many drought and famine stricken countries have you traveled to in an effort to relate to and aid those in need? How many hungry mouths have you fed? How many children have you held and nurtured who were wasting away because the aid that had been sent was turned away by those with an "agenda"?

How many hospitals and orphanages have you visited? How many hungry families have you given your time, effort and money to?

The same Christians you deride for their beliefs are the same ones doing these very things. Atheists themselves have even written about the selflessness and self sacrificing of Christians in third world countries where atheists are conspicuously hard to be found....

 

[Wiccan_Child]

All of what you have just said can be encapsulated in this:

You have a complaint against God. You think He could have done better in many things and in many ways.

Correct.

You think that a world in which everyone can sit back with their hands crossed and be coddled and pampered by marshmallows and sweet dreams is preferable.

No. I think that suffering is unnecessary, especially in the form we see it, and so God could have done without it.

In other words, you would rather have a world void of virtue.

Art and love can still exist in a world without suffering.

But God is greater than you. He knows that a man who has endured suffering, pain, and affliction and has come through this furnace of trial is as gold refined in the fire. One who has exercised every virtue and has maintained his integrity and honor is greater than a lascivious, slothful, undisciplined marshmallow and sweet dream loving man.

What an awful way to justify the suffering that exists in the world. One wonders why you don't go around with a flamethrower - after all, won't they come out as "greater" than we lascivious sloths who had the audacity not to endure great pain?

What refinement is there in the Holocaust? What refinement is there in the Japanese tsunami? What refinement is there in the HIV/AIDS pandemic?

And for a religion that extols the virtue of free will, where is human choice in all of this? If a man is to be put through a trial of fire, it be his choice and his choice alone.

But I shall ask you, since you are so concerned about famine and world hunger, how many drought and famine stricken countries have you traveled to in an effort to relate to and aid those in need? How many hungry mouths have you fed? How many children have you held and nurtured who were wasting away because the aid that had been sent was turned away by those with an "agenda"?

How many hospitals and orphanages have you visited? How many hungry families have you given your time, effort and money to?

I aid humanity through my research into nuclear and particle physics. Quantify that how you will.

The same Christians you deride for their beliefs are the same ones doing these very things. Atheists themselves have even written about the selflessness and self sacrificing of Christians in third world countries where atheists are conspicuously hard to be found....

Once again you're putting words into my mouth. Where, specifically, did I deride anyone, Christian or otherwise?

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

What an awful way to justify the suffering that exists in the world. One wonders why you don't go around with a flamethrower - after all, won't they come out as "greater" than we lascivious sloths who had the audacity not to endure great pain?

Next time I run into a three year-old girl in a devastated New Orleans ghetto who's slowly dying of juvenile diabetes because her single mother can't afford insulin, I'll be sure and tell here it's all for the better of her integrity.

 

[Elioenai26]

Next time I run into a three year-old girl in a devastated New Orleans ghetto who's slowly dying of juvenile diabetes because her single mother can't afford insulin, I'll be sure and tell here it's all for the better of her integrity.

Why not just show them both compassion and love and come up with a way to get her the insulin?

Instead of complaining about their suffering, do something to alleviate it. See it as an opportunity to deny yourself and love your neighbor as yourself. This is what Christ asks of you.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Why not just show them both compassion and love and come up with a way to get her the insulin?

Ah, but don't you see? It's good the girl suffers! It refines her and makes her greater - you said so yourself Why would we deprive her of this, when it's what God wants - for humans to suffer so that they can be refined.

 

[Freodin]

Their job would be to rule his creation in his place like he would rule it.

Excuse me, I could not quite parse that.

Just WHAT are they supposed to do?

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

Why not just show them both compassion and love and come up with a way to get her the insulin?

Instead of complaining about their suffering, do something to alleviate it. See it as an opportunity to deny yourself and love your neighbor as yourself. This is what Christ asks of you.

What, and make her into an undisciplined marshmallow? I wouldn't dare.

 

[Elioenai26]

What, and make her into an undisciplined marshmallow? I wouldn't dare.

I wouldn't call saving a life making the one who was saved into an undisciplined marshmallow. I would call it saving a life.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

I wouldn't call saving a life making the one who was saved into an undisciplined marshmallow. I would call it saving a life.

So if humans alleviate suffering, it's a good and moral thing, but if God alleviates suffering, it's turns people into marshmallows. Hmm.

 

[brightlights]

Excuse me, I could not quite parse that.

Just WHAT are they supposed to do?

Fill the earth and create culture that is good for human flourishing. Rule the earth in God's place as God would rule it.

 

[Freodin]

Fill the earth and create culture that is good for human flourishing. Rule the earth in God's place as God would rule it.

Rule the earth in God's place?
As God would rule it?

You mean, just like God? Not depending on him to do the ruling instead?

Don't you think that just a little contradicts the next sentence?

 

[The Engineer]

Get ready to use your imagination.

Let's just say that an eternally existing, triune God really did create everything else that exists. Let's say that this God created human beings to represent him and to live in dependent relationship under him. Their job would be to rule his creation in his place like he would rule it.

God would be setting them up for failure. Of course humans can't run the world as God could. They are imperfect, he is perfect.

What would you expect this world to look like? How would it be different from the actual world?

For one, we would have definite evidence for the existence of a great flood, for the exodus and for Jesus, and for other miracles and biblical events.

Let us just say, that if there were no God, there would be no world for you to observe, which means there would be no "you" to do the observing.

What's your reasoning behind this argument?

He is doing just that. Through people like myself, and the billions of other Christians who have cellphones.

Then he's not doing it directly, but by proxy. Not by good proxies, either, if you ask me.

 

[Elioenai26]

So if humans alleviate suffering, it's a good and moral thing,

That's right.

but if God alleviates suffering, it's turns people into marshmallows. Hmm.

If a parent keeps their child locked in a padded room from birth until they are 30 years old or walks around with their child and holds their hand and wipes their nose and bottom their whole life, beats up all the mean bullies at school, goes to job interviews with the child, drives the child around wherever it needs to go, is continually standing there saying wash your hands, cover your mouth, always plugs the child's ears before a harsh word is uttered, gives them sweet delights to eat, reads nursery rhymes and sings songs to them so they can go to sleep every night and the child grows and becomes an adult while all of this coddling is taking place and never experiences what it is like to be among other children or to help someone in need, or to give their ham sandwich or tater tots to their classmate whose parents cant afford to give them lunch money, or to pick their classmate up when he or she falls down and scrapes their knee, then the child would be severely disadvantaged on several levels when compared to a child who was allowed to experience life as it is. The child would never experience what it is like to be in love with a member of the opposite sex and go on dates. The child would never know how to take heart and move on after a breakup. The child would never know the satisfaction of being able to help a co-worker get to work whose car just broke down. I can list a virtually infinite number of experiences that would be beneficial to the development of moral character and integrity of the child that the child would never have if it was coddled and pampered and not given the chance to stand on its own and make its own decisions.

As I said, this hypothetical child in your hypothetical candy land dream world where God kept everyone from experiencing any hardship or suffering would give rise to humans without virtue, character, compassion, and sympathy. Ask any person who has been alive for 60 or 70 years. They will tell you that the most enduring, most longest lasting, and most meaningful life lessons that they learned were learned during times of difficulty, suffering, and trial, not during times of pleasure and ease.

You also have yet to provide me with an answer regarding how many starving children you have fed in famine stricken lands. You mentioned something about you being a physicists and your work contributing to humanity in some round about way. This suggests to me that you really are not concerned as much as you try to pretend to be about famine or hunger or human suffering. If you were, you would be about alleviating it instead of using it as an argument in an internet forum.

 

[Loudmouth]

If people were less selfish and more selfless and self-sacrificing as Christ said they should be and even exemplified, then famine (regardless of climate conditions) would quickly be eradicated.

If we were cared for by an omnipotent God then there is nothing we could do to create famine. Are you saying that humans are so much more powerful than God that all it takes is a little selfishness on our part to overcome the power of God?

Read what Pascal wrote about God's Hiddenness. A portion is given below:

Read what Carl Sagan had to say about invisible fire breathing dragons that live in garages:

The Dragon In My Garage

Or read what Bertrand Russell had to say about teapots orbiting the Sun:

Russell's teapot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Wiccan_Child]

If a parent keeps their child locked in a padded room from birth until they are 30 years old or walks around with their child and holds their hand and wipes their nose and bottom their whole life, beats up all the mean bullies at school, goes to job interviews with the child, drives the child around wherever it needs to go, is continually standing there saying wash your hands, cover your mouth, always plugs the child's ears before a harsh word is uttered, gives them sweet delights to eat, reads nursery rhymes and sings songs to them so they can go to sleep every night and the child grows and becomes an adult while all of this coddling is taking place and never experiences what it is like to be among other children or to help someone in need, or to give their ham sandwich or tater tots to their classmate whose parents cant afford to give them lunch money, or to pick their classmate up when he or she falls down and scrapes their knee, then the child would be severely disadvantaged on several levels when compared to a child who was allowed to experience life as it is. The child would never experience what it is like to be in love with a member of the opposite sex and go on dates. The child would never know how to take heart and move on after a breakup. The child would never know the satisfaction of being able to help a co-worker get to work whose car just broke down. I can list a virtually infinite number of experiences that would be beneficial to the development of moral character and integrity of the child that the child would never have if it was coddled and pampered and not given the chance to stand on its own and make its own decisions.

Humans are not omnipotent, and so are limited in their ability to alleviate their children's suffering - this leads to the absurd scenario you described above. Human parents can only teach and hope for the best.

But God is not human. God is omnipotent and omniscient, and so necessarily knows of a way to allow humans to enjoy character growth without ever suffering.

As I said, this hypothetical child in your hypothetical candy land dream world where God kept everyone from experiencing any hardship or suffering would give rise to humans without virtue, character, compassion, and sympathy. Ask any person who has been alive for 60 or 70 years. They will tell you that the most enduring, most longest lasting, and most meaningful life lessons that they learned were learned during times of difficulty, suffering, and trial, not during times of pleasure and ease.

What about people who don't make it that long? What about the children who die after a lifetime of agony? What wonderful lessons of virtue and character have they learned?

You also have yet to provide me with an answer regarding how many starving children you have fed in famine stricken lands.

The answer is zero.

You mentioned something about you being a physicists and your work contributing to humanity in some round about way.

Not some round about way, no. Nuclear physics has direct medical benefits. Ever heard of MRI?

This suggests to me that you really are not concerned as much as you try to pretend to be about famine or hunger or human suffering. If you were, you would be about alleviating it instead of using it as an argument in an internet forum.

Whoever said I can't do both?

 

[The Engineer]

If a parent keeps their child locked in a padded room from birth until they are 30 years old or walks around with their child and holds their hand and wipes their nose and bottom their whole life, beats up all the mean bullies at school, goes to job interviews with the child, drives the child around wherever it needs to go, [...] and the child grows and becomes an adult while all of this coddling is taking place and never experiences what it is like to be among other children or to help someone in need, or to give their ham sandwich or tater tots to their classmate whose parents cant afford to give them lunch money, or to pick their classmate up when he or she falls down and scrapes their knee, then the child would be severely disadvantaged on several levels when compared to a child who was allowed to experience life as it is.

Yes, the child would be disadvantaged, but only if the parents suddenly stopped caring for it. If they didn't, the child would never be worse off than everyone else.

Obviously, parents can't help their children, 24/7, as long as the child is alive. They are mortal and will likely die before the child does. They have to sleep and eat, so they can't care for the child all day long. God doesn't have those limitations.

The child would never experience what it is like to be in love with a member of the opposite sex and go on dates.

If the parents were somehow able to grant the child said experiences, the child could have them. If the parents were God, for example.

The child would never know how to take heart and move on after a breakup.

It would, if the parents taught it. Obviously, that's quite hard to do for a normal human being, but for God? Not so much.

The child would never know the satisfaction of being able to help a co-worker get to work whose car just broke down.

I don't think the child would mind. Helping those in need is not among my top ten list of things I find fun to do. Doesn't mean I'm not trying to help other people, but it's certainly not because I find the act of helping them particularly satisfying.

I can list a virtually infinite number of experiences that would be beneficial to the development of moral character and integrity of the child that the child would never have if it was coddled and pampered and not given the chance to stand on its own and make its own decisions.

I don't see what's wrong with lacking a sense of morality, if no one suffers as a result from it.

As I said, this hypothetical child in your hypothetical candy land dream world where God kept everyone from experiencing any hardship or suffering would give rise to humans without virtue, character, compassion, and sympathy.

And that's bad because...? If no one needs morality and compassion, why invent it?

Ask any person who has been alive for 60 or 70 years. They will tell you that the most enduring, most longest lasting, and most meaningful life lessons that they learned were learned during times of difficulty, suffering, and trial, not during times of pleasure and ease.

So? You only need life lessons when there's a need to learn something. When you're in absolutely no danger of anything, you don't need life lessons, period.

You also have yet to provide me with an answer regarding how many starving children you have fed in famine stricken lands. You mentioned something about you being a physicists and your work contributing to humanity in some round about way. This suggests to me that you really are not concerned as much as you try to pretend to be about famine or hunger or human suffering. If you were, you would be about alleviating it instead of using it as an argument in an internet forum.

Yes, Wiccan_Child is a bad person because he's visiting an internet forum instead of helping little starving children in Southern Nigeria. Tell me, what does this make you? A good person? Does your talking on the internet somehow help those little starving children?

More importantly, what does this have to do with anything? This sounds like a cheap setup for an ad hominem to me.