What would we be (or do) without pain and suffering?

This thread was never about trying to prove the existance of God. Put the goalposts wherever you want, Ill keep my target where it started.

 

So did I...


2:22 AM

 

I dont see any posts at 2:22 am.

What timezone r u in?

Or just repost.

 

DarkDaimon, Today at 2:22 AM..Post 85..a WHOLE page back (page 5)....if I was you I'd avoid addressing it, too

BTW, don't you get a notice that you have a reply??

 

Yup. Sometimes 20 at a time, and when i click 'alerts' to view them, they all un-highlight after a second or two regardless whether ive viewed them or not.

Things get missed.

 

Its true, not all discoveries are the result of necessity. Some are merely the result of curiosity. However, that curiosity itself is the result of adaptation to adversity, evolution in a cruel world. Perhaps HuffPo can help explain...

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/11984748

Exerpts:

"From an evolutionary perspective, there is a clear reason why animals would seek out information: it can be vital to their survival and reproduction."

"What drives animals’ information-seeking behaviors? One possibility is that each individual animal learns over the course of its life that a greater knowledge of its environment leads to rewards like food or other essential resources."

"Another possibility is that evolutionary pressures have made information intrinsically rewarding. The reason so-called “primary rewards” like food and sex are pleasurable is because animals that enjoy eating and reproducing are more likely to survive and produce offspring."

We may not need adversity to innovate, but adversity is responsible for making us curious and WANT to innovate.

 

A child's 'individuality' (personality, if you will) is not the same thing as the child's character. There is no real room for argument (or even any legitimacy) against which character traits most benefit an adult in the modern world. work ethic, honesty, kindness, clean-living, stability, humility, etc. These are what tabula-rasa parents 'select' for, nothing more. Personality's are simply the particular flavour of these things.

Seeking to mould good character does not in any way stifle the individuality (personality) of a child. They'll all have their interests and passions, and are given adequate (never excessive - which can lead to a breakdown in character) room and support to express these.

Of course parents seek to replicate themselves ... when the parents are of sound character. Why would a productive, clean living, decent and honourable parent seek to create a child who is none of those things? Again, I'm talking here only about character .. not personality. Parents who seek to create mirror imaged personality - down to such personal positions as religion and politics, are deeply problematic.

 

Ya get hungry, ya go find food and eat...that isn't adversity ...starvation is adversity...and starving people don't function or act well...

Nope, pain and disease were NOT necessary.....they could have been eliminated, not created at all, and humans could have been created naturally curious, inventive, inquiring, innovative, ...oh , wait, they were...

....you are just trying to justify the unjustifiable....

 

om·nis·cient
ämˈnisēənt,ämˈniSHənt/
adjective

1. knowing everything.
   "the story is told by an omniscient narrator"
   synonyms: all-knowing, all-wise, all-seeing

If God is all-knowing, then there is nothing He needs to learn. He knows it all! If He is not omniscient, then he can make mistakes and therefore, is he worthy of worship?

 

Starvation is the result of not seeking out food... If there was no starvation, there would be no seeking of food and no seeking of information that may lead to food. Likely there would be no activity whatsoever if that activity werent necessary at least to some degree. Consequences to a lack of activity are what make an activity necessary. Without the consequences that lead to our adversity/suffering, there would be no necessity for any activity.

Some people may think they would be happier as a rock without needs, but I think they're mistaken.

 

Not having the perspective of another being isnt really a 'mistake.' God created something unique with a unique perspective. How could God, an immortal being, understand the perspective of a mortal being without first becoming mortal Himself?

 

Do you really think people who are starving are doing so because they didn't seek out food ? Starvation comes about when there is NO food.

HUNGER gets people to seek food and hunger is not an adversity, it's a human condition, starvation is adversity.

No, again, Hunger leads to seeking food, starvation means there is no food.

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Good to see you hedge a bit

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Consequences wouldn't have to lead to suffering and adversity if there was no suffering or adversity....

Which people? Why can't humans have needs without suffering?

Again, you are trying to justify the unjustifiable.....and obviously haven't read my posts or anyone else's....
.

 

Uh, because allegedly he created the mortals.....

 

Obviously the seeking of food is not always successful. I meant that if one does not seek food, one will starve as a consequence, ragardless of whether food is available or not.

If there was no adversity, consequences would be meaningless. Hunger just tells you that you are beginning to starve. Do you think people could somehow get hungry but not eventually die from starvation if they dont eat?

Consequences must lead to suffering and adversity or they are not consequences. Survival is the driving force that we're talking about here. If suffering or death cease to be factors in our existance, then survival ceases to be a driving force in our nature. Then we cease to be creative, curious, driven.

Humans cannot have needs without suffering because suffering is the result of not fulfilling a need. If we didnt suffer as a result of not fulfilling a need, then it was never a need, but rather something we can do without.

 

You're quibbling......why would one starve if food was available? WHY wouldn't food be available if your god loved his creatures?

Why do consequences have to mean something?

No, it tells you you are hungry.

So you think if early humans got hungry they had to invent MacDonald's to survive? Hilarious!


IF there was NO suffering or adversity that would mean NO STARVING

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How asinine, your rule or god's? So if searching for food produces the consequence that one finds food you are saying that must lead to suffering and adversity. Weird.

Baloney....many people invent, create, explore with no hardships...

That's a crock.

Bleh! Just a bunch of gobbledegoop to justify the unjustifiable.

You NEVER addressed the FACT that humans would NOT need advancements in medicine IF they never got disease....

 

Advancements in medicine have thus far only been used in a reactive manner. But research is being done even now into medical technology that could make humans smarter, faster, more resilient and even more creative than we are naturally. These advancements are built upon our experience fighting disease, repairing trauma and battling mental illness, and they would not even be conceivable, much less already in developement if there were no disease or injuries to address. In short, our past experience battling disease will likely make us better than we would be without it.

It doesnt seem like you're really paying attention to anything Ive said... You contradict my individual statements without any consideration to previous or ajoining concepts I already mentioned, and you keep repeating questions I already answered.

I may stop responding to you altogether.

 

You moved the goalposts when you made this allegation;

"...this new convenant between God and Man..."

Kindly refrain from accusing others of your own actions.

 

So your god lacks empathy?

That common trait that enables someone to put themselves in the shoes of another?

Obviously your god cannot be omnipotent if he lacks something as common as empathy.

 

Arrant nonsense!

Consequences are the result of an earlier action or inaction but to ASSUME that they MUST lead to "suffering and adversity" is a fallacy. It is only when there are NEGATIVE consequences that "suffering and adversity" MIGHT occur. If someone is out hiking and decides not to pitch their tent for the night there MIGHT be NEGATIVE consequences if it rains. However if it does NOT rain there are POSITIVE consequences in the form of less energy expended pitching and then taking down and repacking the tent that wasn't needed.

 

Overcoming adversity is our attempt to overcome the chaos and randomness that reality produces. If adversity is simply the result of a unnecessarily cruel creator then it is all on it.

 

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What your god made isn't good enough for you?

Why do we have to be smarter, faster, more resilient and more creative....?

Why do you think more is always better?

Ya knw, this is getting ridiculous.

You claim we need adversity, disease and horrible suffering

SO

we can find a cure for them....and you don't find that ridiculous?????

THAT is because it IS NOW, at the present time, our "past experience"....if we didn't have that experience we wouldn't need to "battle diseases"...

How odd, that's the same feeling I get about you.

At least three times I've said we wouldn't need medical advancement IF THERE WAS NO DISEASE...and you just keep repeating we need medical advancement..

Yes, and you can never contradict my individual statements, you just repeat the errors in your statement.

What questions? You repeat the same thing but haven't answered questions like:

Why would we need medical advancements if there was no disease?

You have never answered that , you segue off into "hunger and starvation" when that's mentioned.

That's a sure sign of surrender

 

Referencing the New Testament of The Bible in a thread discussing God is not 'moving goalposts.'

 

OK, forget goalposts.

Now explain:

In WWI Jews were murdered and tortured. Things were done to them that were so terrible that some people never had never heard of such torture and inhumanity.
That's the "adversity" you keep referring to as if it's only being hungry or having a cold, as if you have no idea of what some people's "adversity" truly consisted of.



Did that stop them from being murdered and tortured in WWII ?

Did humans advance after that and it stopped?

Millions of children face "adversity" in the sex slave trade every day and have since humans began.

Why hasn't it stopped? Why didn't we "ADVANCE" and learn from it and stop it ???????


NO, children STILL are tortured in the sex trade ...STILL.


Did torturing people in the Inquisition to make them become Christian stop torture?


Why do you post something but then not answer questions about it??

 

You came up the term "a new covenant" so yes, that is moving the goalposts.

 

Its not so common a trait as you infer. We can only emmulate empathy, given that its impossible to actually 'walk in anothers shoes' or know all their feelings, history and actually know their perspective because each of us has our own individual perspective. We can merely try to look at others situations and presume how they might feel based on how we would feel.

God knows our history, the severity of our emotional states and the thoughts we have about our situations, better than any of us could know anothers, but prior to the NT, He had not experienced life as a mortal, and I suspect His empathy was lacking that critical perspective. As I said, I dont think this qualifies as a flaw. I suspect God didn't need our perspective to rule us as a Lawgiver. But He did need it to determine if we would benefit from self rule and blanket forgiveness.