New early hominid fossil...

[Melethiel]

God shows a pattern of working through material means anyway, and we, after all, are the Body of Christ...it would be more fitting with the pattern God has shown that he would work through humans to cure disease.

 

[Melethiel]

Ok, frankly I'm becoming convinced this guy is a troll.

Oh, I don't care - this is my excuse to avoid studying for exam city on Friday - one exam on cancer pathology, another on virology...

 

[Melethiel]

"Like if Hitler had nukes?"

So we shouldnt want technology to advance for fear of the consequences?

Besides if God's real and hitler had nukes he could just take them away from hitler

"We explain that God isn't obligated to do anything to educate us when we have perfectly usable brains."

Our perfectly usable brains have yet to cure AIDS, or cancer, or end starvation. And if he can cure those with the snap of a finger he is obligated to do so.

Would you cure cancer if you could do it with the snap of your fingers?
God wouldn't

"<3 complains that Scripture has delayed scientific advances."
I can provide evidence that it has If you would like.

This is the same idea as never letting your children screw up, but always keeping them on a leash. What would be the good of God giving us free will if he didn't let us use it?

The classic free will defense is apropos here:
"a world with free creatures and more good than evil is better than a world without evil but also without free creatures. therefore, God is justified in taking the risk of creating free creatures that can do evil, while the moral responsibility of doing evil rests with the free creatures"

Why is God obligated to do anything? He's God, we're not. He would be perfectly justified in leaving humanity to rot in punishment for its rebellion.

As for the rest, we're working on it - some cancers, such as Chronic Myeloid Leukemia, can be cured. AIDS patients can live a full life due to HAART. We'll likely never prevent cancer, simply because of the biology behind it, but we'll likely develop better treatments. And the reason we haven't ended starvation is not because we can't, it's because humans are stupid and care more about their profits.

 

[laconicstudent]

This is the same idea as never letting your children screw up, but always keeping them on a leash. What would be the good of God giving us free will if he didn't let us use it?

The classic free will defense is apropos here:
"a world with free creatures and more good than evil is better than a world without evil but also without free creatures. therefore, God is justified in taking the risk of creating free creatures that can do evil, while the moral responsibility of doing evil rests with the free creatures"

Why is God obligated to do anything? He's God, we're not. He would be perfectly justified in leaving humanity to rot in punishment for its rebellion.

As for the rest, we're working on it - some cancers, such as Chronic Myeloid Leukemia, can be cured. AIDS patients can live a full life due to HAART. We'll likely never prevent cancer, simply because of the biology behind it, but we'll likely develop better treatments. And the reason we haven't ended starvation is not because we can't, it's because humans are stupid and care more about their profits.

^^This. For emphasis

 

[laconicstudent]

I was kinda talking to Mel, seriously laconic

Then you should converse exclusively via PM or email, not an open forum, if you are wanting only a single person to reply to your posts.

 

[gluadys]

@ gluadys

I dont know a tremendous amount about that dude, but it seems likely he at least saved a ton of people. I was really just throwing that out there as an afterthought. Im even willing to give up the point about that guy if you could show me some good evidence - but that's an aside, you don't need to, its not important

We don't actually know that he saved a ton of people. We know he figured out how to increase yields of rice, corn and wheat so a lot more grain was harvested. But we don't know that it went to hungry people.

As I said, anyway, it is not about him. It is about how the greed for profit and power ends up spoiling even good ideas like producing more food. He was not personally responsible for that.

 

[gluadys]

"Like if Hitler had nukes?"

So we shouldnt want technology to advance for fear of the consequences?

Besides if God's real and hitler had nukes he could just take them away from hitler

Seems to me that you want God to go around snapping his fingers and producing miracles at the drop of a hat.

Have you ever really thought about the consequences of living in a world like that?

There could be no science at all. Science depends on a stable, predictable natural world in which cause A -> effect B. Miracles disrupt that. And when you can't predict the course of nature, you can't learn to understand it. There would be no invention of high-yield wheat or rice, because there would be no impetus to study the development of plants that led to that breakthrough and no assurance that the experiment would work anyway.

There would be no consequences for irresponsibility and unjust treatment of others. People could do whatever they wanted expecting God to be so compassionate towards their victims that he will set not let them suffer. So there would be no impetus on the part of humans to develop compassionate hearts of their own and act to prevent suffering. There would be no Norman Borlaug's to admire.



There are two other facets you are overlooking.

1. God made humanity to be the steward and caretaker of the earth. God made US responsible for the things you want God to do at the drop of a hat with miracles. How could we be the people God intends us to be, if God is always stepping in to do our work for us?

2. God is one of the sufferers. In every suffering person (and animal) God also suffers. God has already taken all the pain and suffering of the world into himself when he agonized in Gethsemane, felt the whips and the thorns, and the nails in his hands and the pangs of death. Don't ever think that God does not know or understand pain or our human weaknesses. God knows them better than we do. That is why God can comfort us in our own time of distress.

 

[Assyrian]

"Like if Hitler had nukes?"

So we shouldnt want technology to advance for fear of the consequences?

Never said that at all, I am just pointing out the flaw in your assumption that technology is an unequivocal benefit. Your argument seems to have assumed more advanced technology would have been an advantage and saved lives, while dismissing the problems early advanced technology could have brought as 'argument from an unfounded assumption'. What we need as a human race is not simply more technology, or less, but the wisdom to use the technology we have to save lives and make people's lives better, not just for our own personal greed, for death and for destruction.

Besides if God's real and hitler had nukes he could just take them away from hitler

And in using that argument you realise your advanced technology would have been a disaster you would have needed God to step in again and fix.

I prefer God's approach, to teach these resourceful creatures the morality and compassion they need to use the technology and science they will discover on their own and in their own time.

 

[Assyrian]

"God is one of the sufferers. In every suffering person (and animal) God also suffers"

Why does God want to hurt?
He could just end the hurting in us and not hurt himself and then everyone would be happier.
Dont make the free will argument - No one's will is to suffer.
God sounds like a sado-masicist.

"There would be no consequences for irresponsibility and unjust treatment of others"
Under the system of no suffering - how would u unjustly treat others? - describe a scenario.
I think its impossible but im not 100% sure.

You are probably right, the more you remove the potential for suffering the more you remove any potential for injustice, and if you consider suffering injustice as 'suffering' then by definition no one could ever treat another injustly. Then again, no one could ever learn what justice or fairness is either, no one could ever develop the character that comes from treating others justly or fairly or fighting for their fair treatment when it is at their own personal cost. Love would be no more than a warm fuzzy feeling, not the power that lays down its life for others. Courage could never exist, or moral integrity.

You think you know what eutopia is, and that God if he existed should have given us your eutopia, therefore God does not exist. But it ignores the possibility that God exists and knows better. In your eutopia the human race would be no more than happy contented lapdogs, pampered and devoid of any moral character.

 

[Melethiel]

The bible says God does this. It says If you believe in God and pray you get what you want. Of course this doesn't happen - so what you said there indicates that prayers do nothing.

It says if you pray in accordance with his will. God is not Magic Daddy in the Sky. He's not there to spoil you rotten.

Theres good reason to think that if science was 50 years more advanced hitlers ideas would have been rejected out of hand and he would never have gained power. If science was 100 years more advanced theres even less chance. Science has recently confirmed that we are all lived together in Africa, most likely all of us dark skinned, up until 60k years ago. That kind of knowledge would have made hilter's ideas look even more retarded

Argument from an unfounded assumption.

Hitler didn't come to power because of lack of science. He came to power because people were poor, desperate, and needed someone to look up to. Hitler was just that - a charismatic leader promising to bring back the lost glory of Germany. There would still have been racism and anti-semitism, just as there is still racism and anti-semitism today.

 

[Melethiel]

I never have got a good response to-
If someone else was dying of AIDS and they couldn't help themselves, but you could cure them at the snap of your fingers, would you?
God wouldn't

Same answer:
1. I'm not God, and neither are you
2. Why are you expecting God to bail people out of things they bring on themselves? Sin brought about suffering. God is not obligated to do anything at all - it is a testimony of his love for us that he does anything.

 

[Willtor]

"It says if you pray in accordance with his will."

We can never verify that his will is to cure any AIDS patient. What kind of will is that?
The will to not heal the desperately sick?
Furthermore, why bother praying at all if he's just going to do everything according to his will anyways?

//Argument from an unfounded assumption.

Hitler didn't come to power because of lack of science. He came to power because people were poor, desperate, and needed someone to look up to. Hitler was just that - a charismatic leader promising to bring back the lost glory of Germany. There would still have been racism and anti-semitism, just as there is still racism and anti-semitism today.//

I provided the foundation for my assumption, but i will further clarify- If the German people had a better grasp of, to use one example, the out of Africa theory, which is a product of further advances in science, they would have rejected one of his greatest platforms, that Aryans are superior to all the other races.
They would have realized that there is no master race - it was all just of crap hitler thought because of his misunderstanding about what evolution says. What's even more, it's reasonable to conclude that hitler would have better understood the theory of evolution with more advanced science -if we can say science would have been 60 years more advanced the internet would have been around - and wouldnt have thought it in the first place.

I contend if the internet was around at the time of hitler his stupidity wouldnt have gotten nearly as far as it did.

Could hitler have done all the stuff he did, all while the germans realized his ideas were silly and with him at the same time having to delude himself to do it? And because of the existence of the internet the world recognizing his build up to power, his evils and the existence of concentration camps. Maybe, but it would make it less likely


//2. Why are you expecting God to bail people out of things they bring on themselves? Sin brought about suffering. God is not obligated to do anything at all - it is a testimony of his love for us that he does anything.//

God set up the rules that says sin brought about suffering. It didn't have to be that way if God didnt want it that way.

Are you under the impression that the more people know about nature, the less we will hate each other? Will fewer evils be done as people become more educated? I think history shows pretty clearly that as old reasons to hate disappear, new ones are invented.

 

[Willtor]

I think history shows pretty clearly that as old reasons to hate disappear, new ones are invented.//

Yup, to some extent - but I would contend and i doubt you would object that there is less hate, in for example, the USA now, than 100 years ago. I would further contend in another 100 years, there will be even less hate than there is now. I doubt you would object.

It's not a perfect correlation, but it's a strong 1

I would strongly object. We (generally speaking) hate different people than we used to do, and hate groups are far less well-organized, but my experience is not that there is any lack of hate.

 

[Hentenza]

I think history shows pretty clearly that as old reasons to hate disappear, new ones are invented.//

Yup, to some extent - but I would contend and i doubt you would object that there is less hate, in for example, the USA now, than 100 years ago. I would further contend in another 100 years, there will be even less hate than there is now. I doubt you would object.

It's not a perfect correlation, but it's a strong 1

**From now on, i wont call things logical fallacies, even when they are - it's kinda insulting to you guys. Ill just explain why i think they are a wrong basis of arguing**

There is as much hate now as there was 100 years ago. The only difference is how is expressed and the recipient of the hate.

 

[Melethiel]

Japanese weren't rounded up because people didn't know how similar they were. They were rounded up because Japan was the enemy in WWII, and they were afraid that Japanese Americans might have ties to Japan. Misguided, perhaps, but not everything is based on science.

 

[Melethiel]

Because there were also episodes in history where foreign people living in a country DID try to take it down from the inside. It goes both ways. And, studying history is NOT science.

I don't accept very many friend requests. Don't take it personally.

 

[Willtor]

Racial Hate -

KKK Membership in 1920 was about 4 million, as of 2008 it was about 6,000.

Authored in 2001:

"Last year's census, for the first time, allowed Americans to classify themselves as belonging to more than one race. By and large, the public approves of this change -- half believe it is a good thing, while 27% view it negatively."
http://peole-press.org/report/13/no-consensus-on-the-census
-This is an ok indicator for racial tolerance I would say.
What would you guess the numbers would have been like around 100 years ago?

* This isn't the most powerful thing in the world, but its difficult to quanitify amounts of hate in a country and this is a servicable benchmark for racial tolerance *

This article contends our cultural racial differences racial differences are fading away
"But another reason for the erosion of black racial solidarity could be the increasing numbers of mixed-race people like Obama and Tiger Woods. Such people, as David Hollinger noted in his superb book "Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism," undermine the very idea of rigid racial categories and the identity politics based on them."
Pew poll: Black Americans and beliefs about race | Salon

Where as 100 years ago segregation was not just common place, but the law in many places and there would be few if any tiger woods's

Even if you contend that hate is equal compared with 100 years ago this would be despite scientific advances, not because of them

I was not arguing that hate was comparable because of scientific advancements. Rather, I don't think science has anything to do with it.

 

[Assyrian]

It would have been great for God to tell us we all came out of Africa 60,000 years ago. It would give people less reason to hate each other for being different when you know you're not that different at all.

How many lives would this have saved?

Instead the bible tells us dark skin is a curse from God

how many lives did that destroy?

Except the bible never says that, poeple who hated and exploited their fellow man made it up as an excuse for their behaviour. Which it why it is much more important to sort out our hear attitudes and behaviour than supply technology and scientific information. I am not sure the relevance of precisely where and when the human race originated, but the bible does teach we are all share a common humanity Act 17:26 And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation.

"Courage could never exist, or moral integrity."

we would just be good to each other and live wonderful lives. moral integrity would be perfect because we couldnt do harm to each other. Perhaps other virtues such as the desire to understand the universe perfectly could take the place of the courage.

Where is the moral integrity in just being nice to people who are nice to us?
Luke 6:32 "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.
33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.
34 And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish.

You don't even have curiosity left in your eutopia because you also think the bible should reveal all the scientific secrets of the universe.

"But it ignores the possibility that God exists and knows better. In your eutopia the human race would be no more than happy contented lapdogs, pampered and devoid of any moral character."

We would still have free will, because no 1 chooses to suffer.
Describe for me a good plan where people have to suffer to make it work. It has to be reasonable too.

We have courage, sacrificial love and moral integrity in this world, we would not have in you eutopia. I think this world is a plan that works. You free will is pretty limited, a choice of whether to stroke a puppy or a kitten, not the choice of whether to run into a burning building to see if anybody is trapped.

My goal in life is to prevent the suffering of as many people as i possibly can. I wish no 1 suffered so I didnt have to prevent it. I dont know why you think we can only have morals through suffering. I don't even have to see suffering to want to help people.

I don't know if you have kids or not, but there is a word for when parents give their children everything they demand and never deal with their selfish behaviour, the kids are called 'spoiled'. Your world without suffering sounds good on the surface, but we would lose too much of what makes us truly human. It is not so much that we need other people suffering to inspire our compassion so much as the what it costs us to help them, or it costs us to keep our word or be honest. It is when we see people helping their fellow man when it costs them a lucrative career, or even cost them their lives, that we see humanity truly at its greatest.

 

[Ave Maria]

Pretty cool. I am always fascinated to read of such things.