If there is a god, why are some people born disabled?

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Original post by Plantagenet Crown

Again, if God is all-knowing then a test isn't possible. And this justification makes your god look even worse, giving an innocent child a horrible disease just to play out some sick, twisted test? Yuck, Allah sounds worse than Satan.

I have tried to reason with you and talk nicely but your barbaric actions are over the top. What would someone expect from people like you lol barbaric shitholes..

Reply 221

AhmedMA99

Original post by fr0sr_

Try telling cancer patients that they're led in that very hospital bed dying because "they weren't thankful enough" or "cancer is a punishment for your naughtiness" or "it wouldn't be fair to give everyone a level playing field"

If that's the case, that fictitious God you speak of is a c**t.

Thanks for showing how a well educated and mannered of a person you are. SMH...

Reply 222

brainhuman

Original post by AhmedMA99

Life would be too easy if we had everything preserved for us.
God wants us to feel thankful for what we have so he tests
us with disabilities, illness, poorness etc..
Some people have more than what we have, some have less.
That's just how life works. You have to work for your
success. Nothing is served on a golden plate.
Sometimes these disabilities are a punishment for
doing something bad or maybe just to remind us
of thanking God for what we have.
In conclusion, God wants us to work hard in our
lives and thank him for everything either it being waking up
in the morning or going to sleep in the night.
Maybe you can think about all the poor and homeless people
all over the world with no beds to sleep on.
If God gave everyone everything, no one would
thank God for what he have.
Sorry for the long post, but I had to type this.

Freak argument.

He tests YOU personally by giving others disability?

I despise religious people that try to come up with the most ****ed-up excuses just so they justify their belief.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 223

brainhuman

Original post by ChaoticButterfly

God is an ********. Why anyone would want to worship such a colossal dick head is beyond me :dontknow:

The only way I think you can believe in God alongside all the misery and pain in the world is if you believe in a non theistic omnipotent, omnipresent and omni powerful God. Deism for example fits in with the Universe doesn't care about you approach. In fact I would rather have a deist God that is indifferent to your existence, rather than a theistic maniac like most religions would have us believes exist, a god that created severely disabled children.

Do your parents give you malaria?

People who believe in God are weak. The other reason is brainwashing when growing up (Islam is particularly good at this).

That is why predominantly poor countries still believe in God and Western countries are becoming more and more atheist.

In the past, the Romans and Greeks were scared of the world so they came up with a God for everything, to try and rationalize what was happening.

Reply 224

Plantagenet Crown

Original post by AhmedMA99

I have tried to reason with you and talk nicely but your barbaric actions are over the top. What would someone expect from people like you lol barbaric shitholes..

What exactly have I said that's barbaric? And barbaric shitholes aptly describe many Middle Eastern countries, not the UK where I live.

Also, you didn't reason at all, you just replied some analogy about a video game without addressing the contradiction between omniscience and a test.

Reply 225

keturah

Someone said it was to test me... pissed me off tbh.

Reply 226

brainhuman

Original post by AhmedMA99

I have tried to reason with you and talk nicely but your barbaric actions are over the top. What would someone expect from people like you lol barbaric shitholes..

You believe in God. There is no logical reasoning whatsoever for arguing for it.

So no, I highly doubt you tried to reason with that poster.

Reply 227

RobML

Original post by keturah

Someone said it was to test me... pissed me off tbh.

You have a disability?

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 228

username2295565

Original post by AhmedMA99

Thanks for showing how a well educated and mannered of a person you are. SMH...

Don't think a religious sheep is in any place to comment on how well educated I am. You're the fool who believes in a fictitious "all knowing" invisible "God".

You're too mentally weak to question what you've been no doubt indoctrinated to believe.
I guess the fact that there's really no "all knowing" being to hold your hand throughout life scares you. :smile:

I feel sorry for you.

Reply 229

keturah

Original post by RobML

You have a disability?

Posted from TSR Mobile

Yes, although didn't cause me many problems till I was older. Now I'm pretty much in constant pain 👎

Reply 230

banterboy

Well, for the first half of this I think that the free will defence by Plantinga solves it (i'm not getting into it it's very technical). For the second part, the reasoning is just silly.

You go from:

1. An omnipotent God could create the universe immediately.

to

2. God did not.

and

3. God is not omnipotent.

Obviously 3 doesn't follow from 1 and 2 on its own. He could have like, just decided not to. For the argument to be formally valid you require something like:

1.5. If God is omnipotent, then he can create the universe immediately, and therefore he must create the universe immediately.

This is just absurd. Firstly, why does he have to? What possible justification can there be for arbitrarily taking y time to do x, where y<y2 in terms of time, and y2 represents any longer amount of time than y, to be a function of omnipotence?

Not only is that ad hoc at best, but intuitively seems inconsistent with omnipotence. If a being must do P rather than Q, where neither Q or P contradict the given definition of omnipotence, then surely that is not omnipotent? We can allow for a definition of omnipotence that doesn't allow God to, for example, lift stones he can't lift, make the number 4 an odd number, and other linguistically empty tasks, sure. But any definition of omnipotence which lets God create the universe in one second, but not five minutes, or a hundred billion years, is inadequate.

QED

Reply 231

RobML

Original post by keturah

Yes, although didn't cause me many problems till I was older. Now I'm pretty much in constant pain 👎

One of my legs is shorter than the other if that counts

Reply 232

RobML

Original post by banterboy

Well, for the first half of this I think that the free will defence by Plantinga solves it (i'm not getting into it it's very technical).

I'm actually interested. Is it posssible you could sum it up for a dummy?
Agree with you on the second part though.

Ok, apart from the transworld depravity bit which I haven't yet wrapped my head around, I've three issues

1. "A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all." Why?
Regardless, a God can be omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient without there being free will.

2. Why are creatures that perform both moral good and evil more free than those who only peform moral good?

3. God could create a world where moral evil is impossible, and not being able to peform the impossible does not violate free will

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 233

username2295565

Original post by RobML

One of my legs is shorter than the other if that counts

As is mine, but only marginally.
My third leg. :awesome:

In all seriousness though that must be a little odd, walking I mean.

Reply 234

Drax101

Original post by fastandfurious

In Hinduism, disabilities are believed to be linked to “karma”, sins that have been committed in past lives.

I know a Hindu friend and I've just text him this which he finds this very insulting.

Do you believe the wealthy, capable, intelligent, people with good jobs, good partners and the beautiful committed good deeds/were saints in their previous lives?

It could be anything, maybe the disability is a test for them, maybe they wanted to experience this life, maybe they are seeking to progress spiritually.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 235

RobML

Original post by Drax101

lol.

Do you believe the wealthy, capable, intelligent and beautiful committed good deeds/ were saints in their previous lives?

It seems like a horrid philosophy that suggests people always deserve their suffering

Reply 236

champ_mc99

Ok just making sure. But why does God have to create the universe instantaneously?

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 237

mariachi

Original post by davidguettafan

Title

Posted from TSR Mobile

because God/Allah/JHWH/ etc is a well-known sadic

he/she enjoys seeing us squirm and struggle : after a long life of difficult challenges and "tests", he positively relishes confronting us with our errors on theological subtleties : "I`m so sorry; but you got 903:245 completey wrong (you really should have studied Aramaic) ... it's off to eternal torture for you" (evil snicker)

and the blessed ones, reclining on their cushions with their plastic fantastic virgins, will root, applaud and laugh

best

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 238

brainhuman

Original post by keturah

Yes, although didn't cause me many problems till I was older. Now I'm pretty much in constant pain 👎

Sorry to hear that. Don't let idiots fool you (in case you are, I don't know hard to tell online sometimes).

Reply 239

banterboy

Original post by RobML

I'm actually interested. Is it posssible you could sum it up for a dummy?
Agree with you on the second part though.

I'll try, i find some parts confusing myself. In the book i have by him (The Nature of necessity) it's like a 20 page argument.

Well, basically, there's an atheistic argument that goes roughly like this:

1. God is omnipotent.

2. God is omni-benevolent

3. Evil exists in the possible world A.

4. 3 contradicts one or both of 1 or 2.

5. So God cannot exist in A.

6. A is the actual world.

7. God does not exist in the actual world.

(btw possible worlds are just complete sets of non contradictory propositions which account for each other, so there is a possible world which is exactly the same apart from I have blue not brown hair. There are no possible worlds where I dye my hair blue successfully but have entirely brown hair.).

When the theist points out that evil is required for free will, the atheist tends to say

"God could have made some possible world P where free will exists and no evil occurs, otherwise he wouldn't be omnipotent".

Plantinga therefore says that any morally relevant definition of free will has to include the ability to do evil on every possible world (Call this def.1). Plantinga calls this Transworld Depravity.

So suppose I can choose to kill someone or not to kill someone on world A at time t, and i can't kill someone and not kill someone at t. I will use this as an example, but the point extends to the moral decisions of everyone in a possible world.

Call the world in which i choose not to A1, the one where i do A2.

Suppose God could instantiate possible world A1.

Then by def.1 and def.2 "I do not have free will with respect to the fact I did not kill someone at t in world A1. As By def.1, free will requires my ability to make the morally relevant choices P and not P in the same possible world. So, if God creates a world in which not P must obtain, and therefore P is impossible, I have no free will to choose P or not P. So I am not free on world A1.

Therefore, if God creates a world A1, where it is impossible that i choose to kill, God has on that world removed evil by removing free will.

In A1, therefore, God has not "created a world in which myself and everyone else freely chooses not to do evil", he has simply attained the world in which moral evil does not occur.

Now imagine I am on A2, and that God's will does not enforce my murderous choice on A2. Also suppose that on A2, up until time t when i actually kill the bastard, the proposition I could choose not to kill him, is true. Universalise this to everyone on A2, and we have it that:

For all morally evil choices on world A2, it is possible that they could have been avoided.

As a crucial consequence of that, however unlikely; on a world like A2, it is possible that humans have free will and always choose the morally good option.

Now make one final assumption. God prefers his children to have free will than for them to lack free will but have no evil in their lives. Given an even elementary understanding of Christian theology, this assumption is surely desirable.

Now we have established the premises we need to make the following argument:

1.The best possible world for an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God is one where free will exists and evil does not occur.

2. Morally significant free will requires that on every world one has free will, one can choose between a moral and immoral action.

3. It is impossible for him to actualise a world like A1 where "everyone freely chooses good all the time", because on that world no one can choose evil, and by 2. this world does not contain free will, making it an impossible world.

4. If God actualises a world like A2, then it is possible but not necessary that everyone freely chooses good.

5. Given 1, 2 and 3, this is best possible world even an omnipotent God could create.

6. Therefore, there is no contradiction between evil occurring on a world like A2 and God's omnipotence/omnibenevolence.

7. Our world is like that of A2 in the relevant respects.

8. Therefore, and omnibenevolent and omnipotent God can exist in the actual world.

I hope that explains the core of the argument somewhat.