Thought Provoking... God Made Everything

[Dante]

He means that even without evil to compare good to, we should still be able to understand the concept because god is supposedly all-knowing.

And philosophically, Caid, nothing exists except that inside our brains. What if our senses are being fooled into thinking that something (eg, the feeling of cold) is there when really it isn't? In that case cold does not exist, but the feeling of cold, the electrical signal, does exist. And that is cold. Because that is the only definition of 'cold' that we can prove.

To put this in the context you used,

Things around us don't exist only in our brain,

"Things around us do exist only in our brain because that is the only place where we can prove it. I may be feeling cold, but that could be just my senses lying to me. In which case the cold is just an electric signal, whether it is 'there' in reality or not.

And finally, we don't need to say that god is a tyrant because he/she/it created pain. We can say that anyway.

Or at least we would if he/she/it existed...

[Acriku]

Isn't that called solipsism?

[Scrinlord]

He means that even without evil to compare good to, we should still be able to understand the concept because god is supposedly all-knowing.

God can understand good without experiancing bad, but that does not mean that we can. We were created in Gods image, we are not created gods ourselves

[Acriku]

Who says we need to be god to do that?

[Seal89999]

That story is really cool.

LOL show up that cocky prof. :D

[Scrinlord]

Just think about it. If you have never experianced anything bad, or even heard about anything bad, how would you know that what you DID experiance was good? You couldnt do it.

[Dante]

Yes, it is a part of solipcism. A rather depressing, but difficult to refute, philosophical concept.

And surely the only reason that we were created in god's image is so that we could become god-like? I heard that once (could have been here) but I can't remember where.

That story is one of the most predictable, pointless, unrealistic, egotistical thinly-veiled religious rants I have ever come across. It sucks, big time.

You couldn't do it accurately, but it could be done. Just use the concept of opposites, and the concept of good, and put them together. Everything has an opposite, so it would be inevitable that sooner or later a concept of evil would be reached.

[HasimirFenring]

I agree with Dust Scout... The professor sounds more like a heavily indoctrinated 10 year old from the soviet union and the student makes the kind of predictable and simplistic arguments I'd expect from a little kid...

[Scrinlord]

Ya, both parties in the argument were sounding pretty stupid, but then again, it wouldnt really suprise me to hear stupid people discussing religion, it happens all the time.

And as far as becoming gods, I dont think that God ever intended that. If you have friends who are mormon, you may have heard it from them, because that is what they believe, that you become a god after you die, but according to the bible we were never intended to be gods.

[Acriku]

My mormon teacher doesn't believe that Scrinlord. But anyways, you have no idea if we need to be a god to experience good and be able to appreciate the bad without doing the bad. A way to know bad without doing it is to experience it, from nature. Or bad luck. But you would only be able to do good, still.

[Scrinlord]

Actually, it IS in the mormon doctrine that if you do good on earth, you are made into a god of your own seperate world. Trust me on this one, I live in a town that is about 75% mormon, and I have held more religious discussions about mormonism than I can remember.

I didnt say anything about doing bad. I just said that without knowing what bad was, and without ever experiancing it, you would not know good, even if it was right in front of your face.

[Acriku]

So, an omnipotent god cannot allow us to know good without meddling with the bad?

[Scrinlord]

He could if He chose to do so, which originally is how we were made to be, to live in a perfect world. But then man sinned, and seperated himself from God, and so there is bad in the world.

[quoudam72]

There never was anything perfect about the world it was just that Adam and Eve were ignorant. Their ignorance comes from the fact that they were not told all the details by god (like there is another being here who is my adversary and he will attempt to deceive you). God created this world but he made it with what we call flaws it never was perfect it was suppose to be exactaly what it is at this present moment.

[Acriku]

Quondam must be correct, otherwise we'd have to accept that perfection can beget imperfection. Try figuring out that paradox :P