Canonically speaking, according to the lore, God is a huuuuge dick, so if you believe God exists at all, it’s not hard to believe he’s up there throwing hurricanes and fires at us just because he can. Because he’s a dick.
Because gays, duh.
god: makes people, makes some of them gay
god: “how dare they be gay!”
He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, that god fellaNot just gay people, gay animals to.
Gotta make those oil billionaires some more billions
If a god created the entire universe and even time itself, that would lead us to believe that everything is happening according to a grand plan. Fate is the ruler of the universe and every action is predetermined. If a god has the ability to create every single atom and set it in motion, it should also know the atoms entire journey through to the end of “time”.
However, if the universe is simply a metaphorical byproduct of a kid with a chemistry set, then that would explain a few things. Chaos is king. However, our true Lord and Savior, Ian Malcom, tells us that order arises from Chaos, and that every system will eventually self-arrange. Through his teachings and wisdom, we can also prove that the universe is deterministic even if it was born into Chaos.
From these points we can infer that without any doubt, Ian Malcom is the creator of the universe and all that we know. In Ian’s name we have already prayed and were always destined to pray. Ramen.
Just a nitpick from a cosmology aficionado. According to many physicists time doesn’t really exist, it’s just an emergent property of heat and laws of thermodynamics. Imagine a clock, its hands moving because there is energy stored in the clock’s mechanisms. Now, if you suddenly drop temperature to absolute zero then atoms in this clock and everywhere around it stop “vibrating” and everything just stops. You will be unable to perceive the flow of time because the system you find yourself in is completely static, there’s no change occuring in it. This doesn’t apply to relativity, if you’re interested so it looks like we are yet to discover the nature of time.
That was one of the reasons I put “time” in quotes, actually. However, I had to lean into determinism fairly hard to make a “point” about how chaos is not really chaotic and that humans haven’t created any disasters because the disasters “have already happened”. (Don’t read into that. My jumble of logical fallacies was intended to sound more like an acid trip.)
Time is a funny thing though. We perceive and experience time, but time relative to the rest of the universe is basically irrelevant. Que my rant about how our measurement systems need to have better scaling, but I’ll save that topic for the next reading from the Book of Ian.
God lol
Unless you ask as an evangelical - in which case it doesn’t even matter because the rapture is due any day now. That’s also why they’re both antisemitic and pro-Israel at the same time. They’re biblical literalists, and also crazy
If they were actual Biblical literalists, they would know that the world ended in 1844. That’s when the Torah, Bible, and Quran all pointed to, calling the guy three different things. There was a pair of guys that never met each other, who fulfilled those prophecies and everyone ignored them, or completely missed it, just like what was predicted. World ended, we have a completely different world now and we need to figure out how to not mess it up.
Not the first time one could argue that the world ended either. The Green Sahara period ended within a century or two of the Bronze Age Collapse. I’m not entirely certain that the one didn’t kick off the other. I am certain that is why the Torah was written, and why apocalyptic Jews, such as John The Baptist, existed in the first place. I’m also pretty certain that’s what caused some of the apocalyptic shit to trickle into the new testament and Quran, later.
Unless you ask as an evangelical - in which case it doesn’t even matter because the rapture is due any day now.
God is the space to do whatever you damned well please. If you think that means you should fuck shit up, go right ahead and see how that goes for you.
God clearly is not just ‘good’. God is just that which connects all things, and doesn’t require them to be anything but what they are. God is love.
A hypothetical god would have the ability to end all evil, but doesn’t. God is hate.
A hypothetical god can be anything that supports your arguments. Since your hypothetical god has the ability to end all evil, but doesn’t, your hypothetical god could potentially be hateful.
That’s not my hypothetical god, though.
All knowledge, including the knowledge of my hypothetical god, comes from experience.
Everything that can be, is, at one time and place or many. But only that which can be. And only to the degree that we live it. The thing is, there’s a lot we’re willing to live, though - and that’s kindof the saddest Que Sera Sera. Sovereignty is foundational.
But, what isn’t possible is uncreating that which already is. To destroy others, you violate sovereignty. To destroy evil, one must destroy the very consciousness of evil, because evil is fundamentally based in experience - and through destroying the very consciousness of evil, one would become susceptible to doing it unconsciously.
If, as a god, you destroy evil, you also must destroy everything that led up to it, which includes the capacity for choice. Once you remove the capacity for choice, you are simply subject to the forces of life – and evolution. Evolution works rather well, and generates the capacity for choice. Oops. There’s that naive capacity for evil again.
So, we can’t destroy what is - but we can build something better. And we do. And that is the thing that has been there the whole time, since the beginning, providing the structure along the way - for good or evil.
I’m more referring to the Christian interpretation where god is supposed to be all knowing, all loving, and all powerful.
God can only be all knowing, all loving, and all powerful if the power is distributed between three aspects that have imperfect communication. Or, if there’s atemporal consent, or the present situation for any given individual is the desired one, or that the overall situation (including lack of knowledge) is the one the person would choose, were they to have access to more information. Or any combination of the above.
So yes, while there may be aspects of truth in the all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful mythos, it isn’t internally consistent unless you assume the overall, correct picture isn’t the way people typically see the world. And the way people view god sometimes - to be able to live without the consequences of living - is less accurate even than a fairy tale.
I absolutely agree, there are a lot of problems with this and not anything that points to it being true.
So, if that is the case, then if you actually value something - love, or good, or selfishness - be that, and be it to the whole of your ability. It will fail you, and you’ll have to move on. Be it until you can let go without having to shove it away. It will be an option for you - something you’re familiar with, that you can draw upon, genuinely, when it fits.
Do this enough, and the love grows, and you see why love is. Not only that, you’ll start to see the massive impact that the mentality you project has on the actual events you run into in life - and once you see it, you gain more insight into it, and how to work with life, love, etc, including when to stand against it.
Rage on.
I don’t think I’m quite understanding what you are saying.
What exactly do you think I need to do? Let go of what? What is “it”?
“Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.”
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James 5%3A1-6&version=NIV
Yep. Love doesn’t care for good or evil, just what it takes to care for those whom it loves.
Very Unusual natural disasters doesn’t have the same ring to it
I understand and agree with the sentiment, but I mean, aren’t wild fires supposed to be an expected natural disaster? They’re just getting worse due to more ideal conditions?
Yes. And also the explanation for why they’re worsening is not exclusively because of fossil fuels/climate change. That is a factor, but others include terrible forestry practices (including, somewhat paradoxically, fire mitigation and fighting).
Not trying to let oil and gas companies off the hook. It’s just an issue that has a lot of shared blame between different industries.
You can go across the whole range of natural disasters and find that generally true. Human abuse of our environment make the disaster more likely and likely to be worse, but there’s not a direct involvement nor could you identify a singular entity as the cause.
Unfortunately it’s still all an “act of god” with regard to identifying blame
The only real solution is taxing ahead of time to mitigate an entity’s share of directly caused harm. For example oil drillers are supposed to post a bond to cap the drill site and clean up the hazard. Of course there’s another question about whether that bond is sufficient, or they are able to dodge responsibility, and why the “pro-business” politicians in charge are so ready to wreck the environment for their constituents
What about supernatural disasters?
