From: davidch@ZIMMER.CSUFRESNO.EDU (David Choweller)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Why is Free Will so neccessary?
Date: 13 Apr 92 21:46:53 GMT
Article-I.D.: CSUFresn.9204132146.AA27492

In article <TOWFIQ.92Apr12191132@crisco.FTP.COM> towfiq@FTP.COM writes:
|  Please mail, as well as post, responses to me, as I will be gone for
|a week, and might miss what you say...
|
|>>>>> On Mon, 30 Mar 92 17:12:54 PST, davidch@zimmer.CSUFresno.EDU
|>>>>> (David Choweller) said:
|
|mt>   To appreciate Light, the *potential* for Darkness must exist.
|mt> Likewise for Hot and Cold, Strength and Weakness, and other such
|mt> concepts.  This is the concept of Free Will.  In order for a person to
|mt> do good, the potential for doing bad must exist.  You could not even
|mt> speak of "Good" and "Evil" if this potential did not exist!
|
|dc> Why is it necessary to appreciate Light, or Good? 
|
|  You are taking as an *axiom* of your inquiry this idea--you are
|asking "why did God create suffering" from the point of view that you
|would only like good things to be in the world.  I am trying to

I didn't say that I would like only good things to be in the world.
I would like the cessation of suffering.  If it is necessary for this
goal for there to be only good things in the world, then create only
good things.

|explain to you that without the potential for bad things, there is no
|such thing as "good".

I don't care about "good" or "bad."  To me "bad" is when a little child
dies of starvation, or somebody gets tortured by nazis, or the KGB.

To me, good is lack of suffering, because God created us to hurt when
we go through suffering.  It is not neccessary for bad things to exist
for me to appreciate lack of suffering.

|
|dc> Are you saying all the suffering in the world is justified by the
|dc> need to appreciate Light, or Good?
|
|  The suffering in the world is not justifiable--it is abominable, and
|must end.  You are confusing the potential for something to happen
|with its actual occurance.

If it's not justifiable, why does the creator allow it?  I'm not confusing
anything.  The suffering in this universe is actual, not potential.

|
|mt>   So, the reason for evil in the world is not God's creation of
|mt> it, but rather man's exercise of potential to do it.
|
|dc> This does not answer my question.  My question was : "Why Free Will?"
|dc> What you said in the above two lines is that the reason for evil
|dc> in the world is man's exercise of Free Will.
|
|  Yes.
|

And I'm asking why is it neccessary for man to have Free Will.  This was
my original question on this thread.

|dc> But WHY do we need Free Will?  Why is it so important?  Why is it
|dc> so important, that we must admit the possibility of horrendous
|dc> evil occurring in order to obtain it?  This is my question.
|
|  This is for God to test His servants.  God could have created
|everyone a believer, but He chose not to.  But please also note that

O.K.  You're saying Free Will is neccessary for God to test his servants.
Why is this test neccessary?

|same God insists that this world is not an end, but a beginning, and
|that upon death here we are released like a bird from a cage to a
|different plane.  Accepting only part of what God says about existance

I don't care about a different plane.  I only know that torture is going
on every day in the world, and you're saying this is because God wants
to *test* us?  Why? 

|makes for a very bleak one indeed.
|
|dc> I cannot cherish a universe which allows such horrible suffering
|dc> for some stupid ideal called Free Will.  The wisdom in the
|dc> universe as you described it escapes me.
|
|  What if you found out that God has "made abasement the garment of
|glory"?  In other words, that it is through suffering that one attains
|a higher spiritual station, and that the life we spend on this plane
|is fleeting and ephemeral?

Well, if God made that rule then I'd hate him even more.  What this
rule says is that "torture" is necessary to attain "higher spiritual
station" or whatever.  He could easily have created us as already
having "higher spirtiual station," but he has to put us through torture
by making a stupid rule like that.  The fact that someone tells me
this "plane is fleeting and ephemeral" does not convince me that the
agony that a man who's being tortured goes through is any less real.

|
|dc> O.K., now you're saying that Free will is necessary to develop the
|dc> spiritual faculties to adequately recognize God.  So basically,
|dc> God is allowing all this despicable evil so that we can recognize
|dc> him spiritually!  What a collossal waste of life and time.  What a
|dc> mean egotistical creator this suggests!
|
|  Only if you focus on this part of the message, and ignore the
|promises that this is a world of illusion, and that the real world is
|the spiritual world.
|

See above.  Torture is not illusory to me.
--
                                                 davidch@zimmer.CSUFresno.EDU
"I have feelings too - like "My stomach hurts" or "I'm going crazy!"
                -- Homer to Lisa in _Moaning_Lisa_
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc