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What you could do better than god

HansMustermann said:
Sorta. Actually his point is that it SHOULD be optional, not that it already is and his kids chose that. His point, way I understand it, is that if a schizophrenic hearing voices shanks me, I SHOULD be able to choose the no pain option.
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It's turtles all the way down. "Why did you let someone shank me? Sure, I choose no pain, but why let it happen in the first place? You had the power to stop it."
 
That's a different issue than his.

But yes, it's an equally valid question. The "free will" excuse has a whole bunch of problems, including the one that, yes, where is MY free will if I have to just accept the pain for someone ELSE's choices.

But nevertheless, it's a whole other issue than his. I trust you can do better than do a SECOND dumb strawman while addressing his point. Like, literally, even not addressing it is a peg or two smarter than doing a SECOND dumb apologetic strawman :p

Address the next turtle when/if it actually comes up, not when you run out of arguments for the current one.
 
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GDon said:
Well, no it's not. Your conclusion doesn't follow. If it is possible to say that one universe is better than another, then why would God make an inferior one? He would make the best one. Can you explain why God would make an inferior universe?
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Your claim is that God + 1 person is better than God + nothing else. If that's the case, it applies every single time. Not making something would always be the inferior option, and God, as popularly understood, wouldn't be constrained in this regard.

You speak of "better" as if God were playing some sort of video game, when the only question that could possibly arise is "Why should I create something?", and the only possible answer is "Because something is better than nothing."
 
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Olmstead said:
Your claim is that God + 1 person is better than God + nothing else. If that's the case, it applies every single time. Not making something would always be the inferior option, and God, as popularly understood, wouldn't be constrained in this regard.
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God wouldn't be constrained in creating an inferior universe? Then a universe in which there is suffering must exist because God wouldn't be constrained in making such a world? That does solve the Problem from Suffering, at the least.

Olmstead said:
You speak of "better" as if God were playing some sort of video game, when the only question that could possibly arise is "Why should I create something?", and the only possible answer is "Because something is better than nothing."
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I agree that my logic is based that there are different states and one state can be considered better than another. That's consistent with the topic, which is "what you could do better than God".
 
HansMustermann said:
That's a different issue than his.
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No, it's not. If you say that a world without menstruation (as per your OP) is better than a world with it, and someone complained that they could have created an even better world than that, how would you decide otherwise.

HansMustermann said:
But yes, it's an equally valid question. The "free will" excuse has a whole bunch of problems, including the one that, yes, where is MY free will if I have to just accept the pain for someone ELSE's choices.
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No, it's not about free-will necessarily. Just questioning how "better" can be determined.

If you had the power of God, would it be possible to create a world in which people couldn't say "I could do better than god"?

HansMustermann said:
But nevertheless, it's a whole other issue than his. I trust you can do better than do a SECOND dumb strawman while addressing his point. Like, literally, even not addressing it is a peg or two smarter than doing a SECOND dumb apologetic strawman :p

Address the next turtle when/if it actually comes up, not when you run out of arguments for the current one.
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:rolleyes: Thanks Leumas. You forgot the QED. Back onto the Ignore list you go!
 
GDon said:
God wouldn't be constrained in creating an inferior universe? Then a universe in which there is suffering must exist because God wouldn't be constrained in making such a world? That does solve the Problem from Suffering, at the least.
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Sure, this "solves" it by making God a worthless personification of universal chaos. We've been over this.


GDon said:
I agree that my logic is based that there are different states and one state can be considered better than another. That's consistent with the topic, which is "what you could do better than God".
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Don't circle back again:

"There is no reason for God to do anything at all."

Do you have another refutation than "God + something" is better than "God + nothing", or are you just going to try to dance your way around it?
 
novaphile said:
Kudos to you for remembering that!

I would have thought that you were too young to have seen 'Superstar'. whereas, I'm so old, I've seen two different versions on stage. (As well as the movie, which was brilliantly done).
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Carl Anderson was a great Judas, but I think Tim Minchin was an even better one.
 
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
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Genesis 3:16-19
I don't know what sort of world God created in the beginning so it is impossible to tell if anybody could have done a better job.

However, it is apparent from the bible that after Adam and Eve ate the fruit, God made the world much less of a paradise.
 
Olmstead said:
Sure, this "solves" it by making God a worthless personification of universal chaos. We've been over this.
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:thumbsup:

Olmstead said:
Don't circle back again:

"There is no reason for God to do anything at all."

Do you have another refutation than "God + something" is better than "God + nothing", or are you just going to try to dance your way around it?
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No, I think my conclusion -- based on the premise that "God + good people" is better than "God + nothing", which is an old philosophical idea -- adequately explains why there is a reason for God to do something. It's logically valid. It's soundness depends on whether the premise is accepted.
 
arthwollipot said:
Depending on who you talk to, before the Fall, everybody on Earth was vegetarian. Even the lions.
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That came up in the very last Seventh-Day Adventist Sabbath School I attended back in the early '80s.

So, someone pointed out how well built the Lion was to support being a carnivore: teeth, musculature, claws, etc.

The leader of the class then pronounced that God had not made lions such, but that Devil had redesigned them. Apparently Satan made major modification on a very great number of the kinds God had created.

This raises some questions. Why didn't God drown all these wicked lions in the flood, so that there would be none of these Satan designed animals post flood? What, if any, alterations did Satan make upon human beings?
If Satan has such power of creation, is he a god?

And a suggested thread topic:
What could you do to be more wicked than Satan?
 
Apathia said:
The leader of the class then pronounced that God had not made lions such, but that Devil had redesigned them. Apparently Satan made major modification on a very great number of the kinds God had created.
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He might think that he is being imaginative but this displays poor imagination.

For all we know, it could have been God Himself who introduced carnivores into the world after the fall as part of the deparadisation of the planet.
 
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