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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I always wonder about people that believe that their god is so good, has created this loving world just for us, etc.   I would love to take a survey of religious and non religious people and ask how THEY would have designed a world/people if they were god. would it look anything like this?  Would it be on a rock that inherently contains features that will occasionally kill thousands or more, inhabited by beings that have such a drive for survival as to be cruel to one another and to other creatures on this planet, where 99.99% of species have already become extinct?  I could go on, but I think you get my drift. Would this be anything like what a loving god would create?   I'm an imperfect human and I can think of millions of better ways to design a world and beautiful creatures to inhabit it. 
[/quote]

This is a naive take. Humans have indeed had their own visions of utopia and have tried to act on it and it has always turned into a nightmare. See communism as one example, which is actually quite nice in theory if you read Karl Marx.

So I guess the answer is, I am not God. You are not God. By definition, our minds cannot comprehend God's plan. Your mistake is the age old mistake of trying to fit God into your own brain, to judge God by human experience and intellect.

While on this earth, God only reveals to us what is necessary for our salvation. We have enough capacity to develope a relationship with God and to walk with him through this life. He shows us that he loves us and that we can trust him absolutely through the life and death of Jesus. Everything else, he promises we can see clearly in heaven.

The age old mistake is to say this is not enough. I must be fully told of your plans God, and it must all make sense to me in my human judgment. That was Adam's original sin, eating that fruit of knowledge. Again you might totally disagree but how do you not see that conceptually it would be ridiculous if we can understand and dissect God's plan? Surely such a being would not be worthy of being God.[/quote]

How did you learn so much about what God wants for us? How do you know it's accurate and is from a reliable source?[/quote]

I think everything I said is a combo of logic (that God by definition is greater than our minds since he is the creator), introspection (that the God of Christianity through the figure of Jesus tells the most compelling story of God's love for us among the religions I have studied), and basic Christian theology (original sin, us seeing clearly in heaven).

Answering the original question about why God's plan seems so dumb only requires logic though. [/quote]

DP - I think PP's main question, and certainly mine, is: How do you know it's accurate and is from a reliable source?[/quote]

How do I know what is accurate? The logic part or the introspection? I believe we can all arrive at the conclusion of theism based on reason alone. Which particular religion you adhere to will take some introspection and...faith. [/quote]

What I meant was:  How do you know the sources of "what God wants for us" are reliable and accurate?  And what are those sources?[/quote]

Once again, a reasonable, sensible question, and crickets in response.[/quote]

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