Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[deadlycairn]

There is a difference between omni-benevolence and benevolence.

benevolence (countable and uncountable; plural benevolences)

   1. (uncountable) disposition to do good
   2. (uncountable) charitable kindness
   3. (countable) an altruistic gift or act


Omni-benevolent
From Latin omni- meaning 'all', and benevolent, meaning 'good'. This may be a recent creation, extrapolating the contextual meanings of 'omniscient' and 'omnipotent' to describe, in a consistent manner, this third divine quality.

   1. All-loving, or infinitely good, usually in reference to a deity or supernatural being, for example, 'god'. Its use is often with regards to the divine triad, whereby a deity is described to be simultaneously omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent. This triad is used especially with the Christian god, Jehovah.

          The omnibenevolent God, by definition, was unable to withhold forgiveness from his people.

As I see it, omni-benevolent means being unable to refuse help, unable to not do good things. An omni-benevolent being would be shackled by the need to do good things. And God doesn't like being shackled, by anything - he deliberately goes out of the way to avoid being stuck in a box or defined by us humans. He's benevolent, sure. (See my earlier quote. 1000 generations = ~20,000 years of blessing) But not omni-benevolent - and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Some things need to be punished. Actions have consequences, and we'd never learn from our mistakes if God just made the consequences 'go away'.

[Neruz]

So in other words God is threatening us to get us to worship him.

I don't particulary care for threats, and i'm sure as hell not going to worship such a petty being.

[deadlycairn]

Where did I say that? Where?

Anyway, I'll contribute no more to this thread. I am NOT going to start a flamewar.

[Neruz]

Right there when you said 'some things need to be punished.'

[Strife26]

Where did I say that? Where?

Anyway, I'll contribute no more to this thread. I am NOT going to start a flamewar.

Strife here. Ready to continue.


Some things DO need to be punished.

Primary assumption is that humans have free will.

Imagine the Heart of Nature. This is the hypothetical time before recorded history when man hasn't yet developed culture or government. Most people live their lives nicely, but in a few cases you get whack jobs who enjoy hitting people with clubs and taking their stuff. So the community beats down the whack jobs.

Likewise, in my fish tank, when my jewel chiclid (nasty fish, avoid like the plague) is trying to kill my Raphel catfish, I take actions to prevent that.

[deadlycairn]

Exactly (Ok, I know I said I'd stop, but one more. Probably my bad for poor choice of language. Should have stuck with all actions have consequences.)

If someone does something, they need to be prepared to face the consequences - that's just how life works. God isn't being cruel when the parachuter who packed his parachute incorrectly splats on the ground - God simply isn't interfering with our lives. Now, he COULD save the jumper, but, human nature being what it is, they'd probably jump again. And quite possibly make the same mistake, or even deliberately choosing to go poorly-equipped, to try and get saved again.

Maybe not the best metaphor, but there it is. We can't just rely on God to save us from the consequences of all our actions, and we certainly don't have the right to call him out for 'punishing' us with the results of our actions (that's like the parachuter blaming God for creating gravity). We can point out that God did a lot of smiting back in the Old Testament, but, as with all the Bible, there's generally more to the stories than meets the eye. And when's the last time you saw Joe Blogg struck by lightning for taking God's name in vain?

In short, there's a long jump from 'not omni-benevolent' to 'threatening/cruel/evil/not worthy of worship/not benevolent'

[Neruz]

But God is Omnipotent remember? And Omniscient, he not only knows the best course of action, but he can take it. It takes no effort at all on his part to fix all those problems in the most perfect way.

And yet he has to resort to such a primitive and childish concept as 'punishment' in order to get his point across? I think not. We're talking about the ultimate being here. Is this really the best he can come up with?

[Leafsnail]

And is he "punishing" new born babies for being so stupid as to have slightly different genes than everyone else by giving them Cystic Fibrosis?

[Fieari]

Darkflagrance and Fieari's rebuttal is a common one too: that evil is okay if it's for the greater good.

Actually, I may have misrepresented the position.  It's more a case of "G-d is Good.  Completely Good.  Wonderfully magnificently Good.  His highest goals are Good, his plans are Good, his desires are Good.  But he's not necessarily good to everyone, or at all times.  In fact, he's also Evil too.  Furthermore, all Evil in the world comes from him too."

The jewish position is less figuring out how G-d allows evil to exist, and more trying to figure out how G-d can simultaneously be Good and Evil at the same time, which scripture says he is.

But then, Kabbalah says he's also Male and Female, making up the 10 Sephirot.  And then there's his 13 attributes... and those imply more attributes... and then there's the 70 or 72 names... and so on and so on.

Judaism doesn't mind dealing with opposites contained in one being.  In fact, there's the argument that G-d doesn't "exist", because G-d is that FROM which all things exist.  But doesn't NOT-exist.  Instead, G-d meta-exists.  It's interesting stuff.

[deadlycairn]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I DIDN'T MEAN TO SAY PUNISHING! GAH!

God is omniscient, and omnipotent. That means he can take the 'best' course of action. First problem - define the 'best' course of action. What we imperfect humans might see as the 'best' course of action is almost definitely not what God would see as the best course of action. Maybe everything that happens really IS the best alternative. God's end goal isn't the same as our end-goal. He values the component parts of our lives differently than we do. Maybe everything that happens is the best, for the fate of our eternal souls. Generally that doesn't come into our consideration very often. Anyway, there's no way of knowing, as we're not omniscient, we're not omnipotent, we're not God, and a big part of religion is just letting go of what YOU think should happen, and accepting that God has things under control, and he definitely knows what he is doing.

I was going to include an example here, but I'm not skilled enough to do so without possibly getting the wrong thing across, again. Suffice to say that although bad things can happen, they can lead to greater good.

And that's me done. I'm neither old enough, nor learned enough, nor pious enough to continue this argument, and if this post manages to get the wrong point across as well I'm gonna RAEG.

[Neruz]

Anyway, there's no way of knowing, as we're not omniscient, we're not omnipotent, we're not God, and a big part of religion is just letting go of what YOU think should happen, and accepting that God has things under control, and he definitely knows what he is doing.

The problem is, by all indications he does not have things under control and has no bloody clue what he's doing, assuming he exists at all. There is no rhyme nor reason to the world, and throwing your hands up into the air and going "It's ineffable!" is not an answer. A child knows that it's not an answer.

[Strife26]

Anyway, there's no way of knowing, as we're not omniscient, we're not omnipotent, we're not God, and a big part of religion is just letting go of what YOU think should happen, and accepting that God has things under control, and he definitely knows what he is doing.

The problem is, by all indications he does not have things under control and has no bloody clue what he's doing, assuming he exists at all. There is no rhyme nor reason to the world, and throwing your hands up into the air and going "It's ineffable!" is not an answer. A child knows that it's not an answer.

By our indications. How much do we really know? I'd put forward my fish again. A catfish doesn't always get why the big pipe thingie is blowing water all over the tank, but that doesn't mean that it isn't good.

[Neruz]

Anyway, there's no way of knowing, as we're not omniscient, we're not omnipotent, we're not God, and a big part of religion is just letting go of what YOU think should happen, and accepting that God has things under control, and he definitely knows what he is doing.

The problem is, by all indications he does not have things under control and has no bloody clue what he's doing, assuming he exists at all. There is no rhyme nor reason to the world, and throwing your hands up into the air and going "It's ineffable!" is not an answer. A child knows that it's not an answer.

By our indications. How much do we really know? I'd put forward my fish again. A catfish doesn't always get why the big pipe thingie is blowing water all over the tank, but that doesn't mean that it isn't good.

The people who own the tank aren't omnipotent and omniscient. If they were they could tell the catfish that the pipe is good and it shouldn't worry about it.

[deadlycairn]

God has a big thing for people choosing to follow him, and do the right thing, of their own free will. If he just appears in front of people and tells them exactly what they need to do to live the perfect life, there's little choice, because, after all, you're not gonna argue with God.

[Neruz]

Sure i am. I'm doing it right now, if God himself descended from the heavens and demanded that i worship him i would promptly ask "Why?"