Because in the great words of Run DMC: "because it's like that and that's the way it is."
Expert philosophical answer there. Explaining something of God's nature with an answer which can be summed up as "Because". Great way to inspire people that.
God can but God doesn't have to. He chose to do it that way. I can't change the Bible around what you think - I can just present it. Presentation style aside, his points are biblical. Omnipotence doesn't mean omniaction. Why would people come to faith if there was no sin present in the world? That is why heaven exists.
I'm sorry if this isn't helpful, but I can't really change the answer to make it fit your wants.
It merely points out God's lack of logic. He 'chooses' to do it...why? Why do people need faith? Heck, why did God bother creating the world in the first place again?
Most Christians state it's because he loves us, but then he creates suffering in order to get to heaven. It doesn't follow. Why not do away with the whole thing call it quits and start over? Why, precisely, do we need Sin to reach Heaven? I've never understood that. Is it so we appreciate it? Why do we need to appreciate it? Isn't it enough that we're happy and content in our blissful existence for God? He's got to make us walk over coals first to Prove Our Worth to him?
God works in Mysterious Ways is exactly what it is and unfortunately I can't seem to grasp the logic of Love=Pain that appears to be prevalent in Christian doctrine. Promising "It'll be better later" does nothing to alleviate the grief and sorrow that people are suffering right now, I assure you.
Also, please answer the question I posed at the top of the page. It's somewhat important to me.
Edit: Christ, people posted asking for my opinion while I was writing. Get to you guys in a second, I assure you.
He just happens to know which ones will say yes.
Gonna pick up on this first as it's important. It still means that God is defining which ones of us will say yes, he designed us after all and that still implies that he created us knowing we would reject him and therefore he would send us to Hell, either by our 'own' choice or by his Judgement. Your waffle analogy is no good either. That's looking back on something. In this case God is looking forward. We could pick either Waffles or pancakes, but God has already designed us to pick Waffles. That's what Max said earlier and that's precisely what I have a problem with. The idea of a God who designs us, knowing that we will choose hell is not a God I believe can be defined as omnibenevolent.
Actually, I always wanted to talk about this with strangers on the internet. I don't think Saul was actually "converted" in the way we take it. He did a 180 degree turn, yes, but when I read it, he comes off to me as trying to do God's will. The problem was he was a Jew and the people he trusted most told him God's will was to kill non-believers. The allegedly forceful conversion was more of God saying "don't trust them, trust me," which is what Saul always wanted.
He followed one doctrine of a religion, had a divine intervention moment of God blinding the poor sod and then letting him get healed and switched to a new doctrine. Call it what you want considering it's the same God but whether you like it or not that's a conversion. He directly impacted on that man's life choices and actions when he did such a thing which screams influencing his free will, something Christians are supposed to hold very dear to their religious beliefs.
The idea of free will is that God must let us make our mistakes on our own, he directly took that away from Saul when he appeared to him.
theklng said:
Amnestic said:
I gave up teaching RE because I got tired of being an apologist for the religious.
Tangential question: Teaching Religious Education (IE about religions) or Philosophy(about the philosophies of people, not just those of religions)? Having just finished a Philosophy and Ethics course, I can safely say it was one of the best classes I ever took and both my teachers professed their enjoyment of teaching my class.
We were the "Special Class" though, infamous for our...well, eccentricities would be a soft way of wording it.
care to elaborate? i'd like to hear of what people think is "weird".
Hah. It's...honestly a little difficult to put into words. It was partially the synergy the four people (including me) in my class had with each other. Myself and my best friend were firm believes in Cultural Relativism which lead to a number of interesting discussion, my best friend also being an ex-Christian who was thoroughly against the idea of God responding to prayer due to his own personal experiences. I'm an ex Cathedral Choir boy (ages 7-13) so I had a fair bit of time to absorb what a Christian church service was about as well, giving me plenty of opinion on my likes and dislikes.
My friend Larry's idea that Eternal Heaven is torture due to the fact that it's eternal, then of course was the fourth member of the class' pure cynicism with a lot of life and philosophy. We were all fairly intelligent if I do say so myself, so we not only contributed intellectually do actual class discussions, we could also slack off enough to have the more random and disturbing conversations. My discussion point that beastiality is not an inherently bad thing sparked...heated debate.
It helped that my teachers were both awesome though. Two Christians who I have nothing but respect for.
Unfortunately I'm less able to recall certain moments to relate to you, but needless to say we were what a teacher would consider one of the more unique classes they would get to teach. Alas, as with many enjoyable experiences, words can't express the joy I felt during some of those classes. I'm a little sad I'll never have them again but know that I'm a better, or at least more interesting, person for having had them.
Considering my Philosophy classes I wouldn't mind teaching them myself at some point.