In our church, this was handwaved away with, "God will figure something out."
Well, yeah. I mean, there's, who was it, Augustine, who said only 144,000 people would ever get into heaven, and then Julian of Norwich, whose visitation sort of did a wink and nod and seemed to imply that it might be everyone ever? And the "except through me" is lovely and vague and says, basically, you won't know until you get there. Just do your best, and have faith. Which argues strongly against a checklist -- we've got no way of knowing what'll actually get us in, but we can know generally good and bad and how to do it.
That's my best attempt at what I take to be my mother's belief -- I'm still an agnostic, except that the God I'm not sure I believe in is pretty clearly a Christian God, and I'd sort of like for him to exist so he could answer some questions. Boy will I be disappointed if I die and turn up before Iffler the Crocodile God. I'd be all, "Okay, I want to see who's in charge here, I've got some que... oh. Damn. Okay, never mind."
Hey, Aimee... how are you doing? Are you at work?
I am exhausted but otherwise doing alright. And I am at work, which sucks.
And launch.com won't give me love.
Bastids.
Why do you think it remarkable that God (Christian God, often portrayed as loving) would be anti-cruelty, brenda?
Well, presumably the whole thing would be more coherent if you didn't assume omnibenevolence. Cause that's the tricky part. It seems to me.
Blanket and warm drink and hugs for the Empress.
Why do you think it remarkable that God (Christian God, often portrayed as loving) would be anti-cruelty, brenda?
Seems like more effort, therefore requiring more explanation. No, seriously, it does seem like a more active choice, while non-intervention seems like a more logical default. I'm not coming at this from a Christian God perspective, though (for the purposes of this conversation). I think Betsy's original statement (speaking hypothetically, and also drawing on the earlier conversation) was that having logically proven the existence of God, you're left with the challenge of then logically explaining why there's evil in the world. And to me, that doesn't seem like a necessary inference, because I don't see how a proof that "God exists" necessarily also implies "God is benevolent," or even raises that question. It sounds to me like Betsy perspective on that is different, but I'm not sure at what stage our interpretations are diverging. And I'm finding it really interesting that they do, and curious as to why and how much.
Hmm. Fair point.
I can certainly imagine proving that God exists and is a right bastard, but I'm betting that a book entitled "...and the Baha'i revelation" isn't going to take that tack.
