"Christians generally bury their dead, because Christians believe in the resurrection of the body."
If that's why Christians bury their dead, then they are confused about the resurrection.
If you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, then you should know the body after resurrection is only faintly similar to the body before resurrection. The resurrected body is a new body. A new, perfect, enclosure for the soul.
You should think about this question. This is a personal question. Not a hypothetical one.
Is death, accidental or otherwise, a bad thing ?
Your paragraph assumes that death is bad. What if death moved you into a life of perfect relationships with others who have died and God. Isn't perfect relationships what we all desire and work toward ?
We should NOT desire death for ourselves or anyone, now, in the past, or in the future. But for those that love God, life will be much greater after death.
Hopefully I can condense your paragraph into a single statement/question
"How do we, humanity, objectively determine if God is good or not good ?"
This is an extremely important question because it determines if we believe that God exists or not, and determines what we believe about the nature of God. These beliefs ultimately dictate how man relates to man.
Fortunately, we don't have depend on feelings or opinions. We can depend on facts to determine if God is good or not.
Here is the fact: Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
If you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, then you believe that God is good because of the implications of this fact.
You may not believe that Jesus rose from the dead. That is your choice. Belief or unbelief is a choice, but does not change the fact.
The actions of the psychopath are considered brutal by both God and man, and both condemn him/her.
You've translated my term "intended" into "wanted". God's does not want this kind of brutality. However, he does want humanity to love Him, to relate to Him. They only way to do this is to give man free will knowing that man can use the will to love Him or not. The psychopath does not love God, and we see the devestating results.
God could remove free will, but then humanity would complain about their lack of freedom and there would be no opportunity for love.
Humanity can't have it both ways. Everything perfect and freedom.
So God's does not intend directly for this brutality to occur. But God does intend to give man freedom to choose, and hopefully to choose to love Him. But man has chosen not love him. Man's intentions are to exploit other men. We see this all around us. God knew that this could be the result but provided freedom anyway because its the only way to have a relationship with God. A dictated relationship, is no relationship at all.
"I can't think of any reason that God would make the universe where bad things could happen to anyone, unless (A) he made mistakes and didn't intend for the bad things, (B) he actually wants to screw with us/watch some of us fail, or (C) he's not the only one in control."
(A) Nothing happens that God did not intend to happen. (B) God does not screw with us or want us to fail. We exist to have a relationship with Him. (C) God is in control.
God desires a relationship with us and not one where he enjoys our failures. The relationship, if it exists, is defined by love. Love is never coerced. In fact, if something is coerced, it can't be love. Thus it's our free will to love God or not to love God with the consequences for the decision. The bad that you see is the result of all of humanity choosing to primarily love themselves instead of God.
"Why God doesn't make everyone on Earth good ?"
There are a couple of answers:
1. Humanities good (individually or collectively), is not His primary goal.
2. Only God is good.
From human perspective, our good (individually or collectively) is our primary goal. When we make our good
the primary goal, then we make ourselves into gods which competes with Him, the real God.
Thus the conflict between humanity and God.
Slashdot Mirror
What is the source of the human genes in your experiment ?
Do you have to kill a human embryo to get human genes ? I don't think so.
Can't you just take a few cells from an adult human ?
I respect your desire to not read the Bible or be a Christian. The Bible
is the basis for moral choices (right and wrong) for Christians.
What is the basis for your moral choices ?
"now it appears that we can't count on the global community saving the day for rationality"
rational, huh ?
Please explain how believing that the matter/energy of the universe originated from nothing is rational.
Or, if you believe, the matter/energy has always existed, you're not far from a belief in God. Rational or not ?
"Christians generally bury their dead, because Christians believe in the resurrection of the body."
If that's why Christians bury their dead, then they are confused about the resurrection.
If you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, then you should know the body
after resurrection is only faintly similar to the body before resurrection.
The resurrected body is a new body. A new, perfect, enclosure for the soul.
You should think about this question. This is a personal question. Not a hypothetical one.
Is death, accidental or otherwise, a bad thing ?
Your paragraph assumes that death is bad. What if death moved you into a life of perfect
relationships with others who have died and God. Isn't perfect relationships what we all
desire and work toward ?
We should NOT desire death for ourselves or anyone, now, in the past, or in the future.
But for those that love God, life will be much greater after death.
Hopefully I can condense your paragraph into a single statement/question
"How do we, humanity, objectively determine if God is good or not good ?"
This is an extremely important question because it determines if we believe that God
exists or not, and determines what we believe about the nature of God. These beliefs
ultimately dictate how man relates to man.
Fortunately, we don't have depend on feelings or opinions. We can depend on facts
to determine if God is good or not.
Here is the fact:
Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
If you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
then you believe that God is good because of the implications of this fact.
You may not believe that Jesus rose from the dead. That is your choice. Belief or unbelief is a choice, but does
not change the fact.
No, I don't believe God is Sadistic.
The actions of the psychopath are considered brutal by both God and man, and both condemn
him/her.
You've translated my term "intended" into "wanted". God's does not want this kind of brutality.
However, he does want humanity to love Him, to relate to Him. They only way to do this
is to give man free will knowing that man can use the will to love Him or not. The psychopath
does not love God, and we see the devestating results.
God could remove free will, but then humanity would complain about their lack of freedom and
there would be no opportunity for love.
Humanity can't have it both ways. Everything perfect and freedom.
So God's does not intend directly for this brutality to occur.
But God does intend to give man freedom to choose, and hopefully to choose to love Him.
But man has chosen not love him. Man's intentions are to exploit other men. We see this all around
us. God knew that this could be the result but provided freedom anyway because its the
only way to have a relationship with God. A dictated relationship, is no relationship at all.
"I can't think of any reason that God would make the universe where bad things could happen to anyone, unless (A) he made mistakes and didn't intend for the bad things, (B) he actually wants to screw with us/watch some of us fail, or (C) he's not the only one in control."
(A) Nothing happens that God did not intend to happen.
(B) God does not screw with us or want us to fail. We exist to have a relationship with Him.
(C) God is in control.
God desires a relationship with us and not one where he enjoys our failures. The relationship, if it exists, is defined
by love. Love is never coerced. In fact, if something is coerced, it can't be love. Thus it's our free will to love God
or not to love God with the consequences for the decision. The bad that you see is the result of all of humanity
choosing to primarily love themselves instead of God.
"Why God doesn't make everyone on Earth good ?" There are a couple of answers: 1. Humanities good (individually or collectively), is not His primary goal. 2. Only God is good. From human perspective, our good (individually or collectively) is our primary goal. When we make our good the primary goal, then we make ourselves into gods which competes with Him, the real God. Thus the conflict between humanity and God.