(October 27, 2017 at 8:40 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote: To clarify though, I don't believe God "causes" any of those things you mentioned, Possi. They are caused by human beings using their free will to hurt others, or they are caused by nature. God allows those things to happen by not divinely intervening in our world or in our actions to stop them, but He doesn't cause them.
Hi there CL
I believe you when you say you don't believe that god causes these things, of course you don't no rational person would. My argument was more based on the free will argument, free will does not preclude a sovereign god interfering, avoiding or stopping some circumstances, especially ones that lead to suffering. For instance if a parents see the children fighting, and they pick up weapons to use on one another then you and I would of course intervene, we would no longer think that the individuals right and freedom of expression was more important than stopping injury.
It's at this point that the theist interject arguments along the line of 'his ways are not our ways' or 'it's all part of the big picture' or it's all about free will' which at least to me is nonsense, otherwise why have a justice system at all? The bible, theists say is god's revealed word and it contains many laws that interfere with what we call free will from the very sensible rule not to murder, to the absurd rule about not rubbing sticks together on a Sabbath.
When you bring a child up 'in the way he should go' or the secular equivalent to teach a kid to be good you are also indoctrinating a child and interfering with free will.
Of course if someone decides to do something evil, then that's down to them, but which one of us would not love for that to be stopped by law enforcement of some kind, or at least arrested after the event? For a god who can see all these things and still does not interfere is about as good as no god at all, why instil a sense of justice in his word (in the Christian case the bible) while at the same time acting as if he does not exist in these matters.
As for natural disasters, that's a perfect case in point, god could simply stop those without interfering with anyone's free will.
Regards
possibletarian
'Those who ask a lot of questions may seem stupid, but those who don't ask questions stay stupid'
