Who is responsible?

[Peds nurse]

Imagine that a car manufacturing company, made the standard cars that we all drive today. It is equipped with a manual that tells the driver how to use the car efficiently. Although the car is equipped to engage in speeds of 120 miles per hour, the manual cautions the driver of the hazards of driving at such speeds.

Question for debate. Should the manufacturing company be held liable for people getting into accidents and sometimes causing death by driving at speeds not recommended?

I think we can translate this to the spiritual realm. Why should God be held accountable for people who make faulty decisions with their life, sometimes hurting or killing others?

[William]

[Replying to post 20 by bluethread]

You can blame me for any number of things. However, if you can't hold me to account, what is the point?

Being able to hold you to account or not does not in itself mean that you are not responsible for whatever it is you did.
Any more than holding someone accountable is going to get a confession out of them.

Should I refuse to engage in charitable activities, simply because I can blame a deity for situations people find themselves in?

It would be far better to align the deity with the reality, as this would naturally increase one's ability to not become a victim of that reality. Part of the reason why people think they can blame a deity is because the deity is being presented as blameless, but that doesn't always appear to be the case in the stories. The deity himself appears to accept his part in the process...albeit further down the track...

The story of the Garden shows that the deity doesn't punish because the pair had knowledge of good and evil, but that the pair used their knowledge to blame others while ignoring their own part they played.

Had they accepted responsibility for their individual choices, the story would have been different.

[bluethread]

[Replying to post 20 by bluethread]

You can blame me for any number of things. However, if you can't hold me to account, what is the point?

Being able to hold you to account or not does not in itself mean that you are not responsible for whatever it is you did.
Any more than holding someone accountable is going to get a confession out of them.

I didn't say it did. I asked what is the point. What is the purpose of saying I am responsible?

Should I refuse to engage in charitable activities, simply because I can blame a deity for situations people find themselves in?

It would be far better to align the deity with the reality, as this would naturally increase one's ability to not become a victim of that reality. Part of the reason why people think they can blame a deity is because the deity is being presented as blameless, but that doesn't always appear to be the case in the stories. The deity himself appears to accept his part in the process...albeit further down the track...

The story of the Garden shows that the deity doesn't punish because the pair had knowledge of good and evil, but that the pair used their knowledge to blame others while ignoring their own part they played.

Had they accepted responsibility for their individual choices, the story would have been different.

That is what I am saying. Why blame someone or something else for one's situation. Whay not accept the situations and work on a solution.

[ttruscott]

A creator can and should be blamed for the existence of human evil if only because - if the creator is all-powerful / and / all-knowing / and all-loving - then "He" could easily have designed a world whose conditions excluded moral evil.

Of course HE could have, no doubt!

But why create anything? At the end of this world when evil is banished from this reality, all things culminate in the wedding of the Lamb to His holy Church. There is nothing left to do so I suggest that this is the purpose of our creation, a heavenly marriage based upon love and holiness.

Since neither love nor a true marriage can be forced, to achieve this end GOD had to give us all a free will, that is, an ability to choose whatever we wanted without being forced to choose any option. This includes the option to reject HIM and to choose evil, to be evil, as being a real and obtainable option by whoever wanted it.

So, HE could have avoided moral evil by not giving us a free will but then HE could never have achieved HIS purpose for our creation.

No free will: no love, no true marriage, no possibility of evil.
Free will: love and true marriage with the possibility of the creation of moral evil.

[ttruscott]

My problem with the Eden story is that the serpent is the real hero. He explains that if A&E ate the forbidden fruit, they would be like God, knowing good and evil.

OR rather:
- Adam and Ever were already sinners by befriending the serpent and forcing the postponement of the judgment as written in the parable of the good seed and the tares.

- Since they rebelled out of love for their friends which rebellion they thought was righteous as they thought the call for judgement was too harsh, GOD had to open their eyes to their shame, their sinfulness at the same time as HE enticed the serpent to give away his game and prove that he was eternally evil and his banishment to the outer darkness an absolute necessity. So HE set up for the first time the method HE has used ever since to open people's eyes and convict them of sin...HE commanded them to not do one simple thing: Romans 3:20 For the Law merely brings awareness of sin.

Gal 3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. The law is NOT given to the innocent to instruct them on how to proceed; it is given to the guilty, the sinful who are not ashamed yet so their shame in not being able to keep a simple law will bring them to look for a saviour.

- so HE set up the law, allowed the serpent access to them and watched them blunder into eating themselves out of paradise so they could be brought to redemption and Eve, for one, would never follow the serpent again.

[steveb1]

Yes, that's somewhat true and I did not mean to identify all war protesters as violent. Still, none of that changes my contention that IF God is a creator, God is the source to be blamed for worldly suffering.

What does that mean? You can blame me for any number of things. However, if you can't hold me to account, what is the point? Should I refuse to engage in charitable activities, simply because I can blame a deity for situations people find themelves in?

Simple: I blame no creator because I deny that a creator exists. IF a creator exists I would blame the creator and hold It responsible, on the Gnostic principle that there is a true God above the paltry creator, to whom I would pledge myself. Obviously a creator who can be held to account is not all-powerful. Which is exactly what Gnosticism and some forms of Kabbalah state.

It's not a matter of avenging oneself upon the corrupt creator, it's a matter - if one so chooses - to bypass that Demiurge and ascend to the true, high God.

You can indulge in all the charitable activities you want, and as I mentioned earlier, you could use those very activities as protest demonstrations against the Demiurge.

[steveb1]

[Replying to post 24 by ttruscott]

How could they already be sinners when they listened to the serpent? YHWH had supposedly created them "innocent". If, in their "innocence", they already had a propensity to sin, then YHWH must have installed it. The serpent was only manipulating a factor that "the creator" had already embedded in A&E.

[shnarkle]

A creator can and should be blamed for the existence of human evil if only because - if the creator is all-powerful / and / all-knowing / and all-loving - then "He" could easily have designed a world whose conditions excluded moral evil. ("He" could also have designed a world that excluded natural evils such as forest/grass fires, plagues, earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches, landslides, disease, harmful bacteria, disease, injury, aging and death. But that's a separate but related topic.)

Playing "angel's advocate" as it were, I take it the Christian would respond in this kind of manner:

Mankind has been begotten in the Original Sin of our First Parents; thus hopelessly Depraved. And therefore, whatever the state of Nature might be, it is much less than we deserve due to our Inherent Depravity.

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23

I'm wondering how you would respond as a former Christian....

I really can no longer respond in any Christian way, former or current, since I'm now a Buddhist. Buddhism does not offer liberation from sin, but rather from attachment to things and to one's own ego. The cliche is that Western therapy offers freedom of the self, but Eastern religions offer freedom from the self - self defined as "ego", and ego defined as "the anxious, grasping self".

In Buddhism, human depravity is thought to derive from the unenlightened, unregenerate ego and its range of wrong thinking and wrong behavior. Thus Buddhism has no divine saviors who redeem us from sin.

As a Jodo Shinshu/Shin Buddhist, I do have a "savior" of sorts - not a God or a God-man, but rather a primordial being called Amida Buddha. In Shin there is almost a Pauline reliance on Amida Buddha for salvation and enlightenment. The salvation is not from sin, but from our native condition of avidya or spiritual ignorance which in Shin is ignorance of our own innate Buddha Nature. The Buddha grants us the unearned, free gift of Shinjin (perfect faith) which in this life functions as Buddha Nature and which after death blossoms into full Buddhahood as a product of Amida's store of grace. This is "Pauline" in that Shin says that works cannot save us. We are utterly reliant on Amida Buddha for salvation and enlightenment.

So I could only reply to the putative Christian that there is no creator deity to be offended by sin, there is no sin that cuts one off from the creator's presence and grace, and there is no salvation by a creator or a creator's "son", but only through the Buddha's gift of adamantine faith. Humankind is not fallen, but simply exists in this imperfect world of Samsara, from which the Buddha Dharma can rescue us.

Other than the nomenclature, I don't really see that you're effectively saying anything different than what the bible suggests.

[steveb1]

[Replying to post 26 by steveb1]


On the contrary, I am opposing what Genesis suggests, namely that an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful God did the world favors via creation. The serpent is the hero of the Eden story. He spoke the truth about the Tree of Knowledge, which A&E accepted and became godlike via knowing good and evil. YHWH's immediate response was to curse both the serpent and the couple. Then his next act was to kick them out of the garden because he was alarmed that if they stayed there any longer, they would eat of the Tree of Life, thereby acquiring immortality, another godlike trait. The Bible portrays YHWH as a good guy while I identify him as a cosmic creep. Therefore my conception is the exact opposite of Genesis's point of view.

[shnarkle]

[Replying to post 26 by steveb1]


On the contrary, I am opposing what Genesis suggests,

Sorry, my bad. I was a bit sloppy with my post. What I meant to say was that Buddhism isn't effectively really any different than Christianity.

namely that an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful God did the world favors via creation.

I don't recall the texts talking about God doing anyone any favors in the Genesis accounts.

The serpent is the hero of the Eden story. He spoke the truth about the Tree of Knowledge, which A&E accepted and became godlike via knowing good and evil.

So far so good.

YHWH's immediate response was to curse both the serpent and the couple.

It is quite evident that the serpent was cursed, but not the couple; at least the texts don't characterize it as curses.

Then his next act was to kick them out of the garden because he was alarmed that if they stayed there any longer, they would eat of the Tree of Life, thereby acquiring immortality, another godlike trait.

The alarm was in the fact that they were ashamed, and so intensely self aware that they could no longer handle to even be around God anymore. They were running and hiding from God. That's no way to go through eternity.

The Bible portrays YHWH as a good guy while I identify him as a cosmic creep. Therefore my conception is the exact opposite of Genesis's point of view.

Got it.

[ttruscott]

[Replying to post 24 by ttruscott]

How could they already be sinners when they listened to the serpent? YHWH had supposedly created them "innocent". If, in their "innocence", they already had a propensity to sin, then YHWH must have installed it. The serpent was only manipulating a factor that "the creator" had already embedded in A&E.

Well, steveb1, I am the one who thinks that every person created in HIS image was created long before the creation of the physical universe. We all had free will and an equal ability and opportunity to be eternally good or eternally evil. During that time we heard the gospel preached as per Col 1:23. We all made the free will decision about whether to believe / accept this gospel or to reject it for ever.

This decison separated all of creation into two parts; those who accepted HIS deity and salvation in HIS Son whom HE chose to be in heaven with HIM as HIS bride. These elect were separated from those who rejected HIS deity, believing HE was a false god, and HIS offer of salvation and heaven, believing them to be the lies of a false god.

Since YHWH is a GOD of righteousness who cannot abide by evil, as soon as the time of decision making was over and everybody's eternal relationship with YHWH was final and set, some as HIS family and some as HIS eternal enemies, HE called for all the elect to come out for among these who were condemned so as to not be contaminated by their sin but some of HIS elect listened to HIS enemies and fell under their spell, idolizing the reprobate over HIS call. This made them evil in HIS sight so HE postponed the judgement until HE could fulfill HIS promise of election in HIS now sinful elect.


Then HE sent all sinners to prison earth to Sheol, slowly sowing them into the earth for the redemption of the sinful elect, starting with Adam and Eve in the garden, as Matt 13:36-39 tells us.

Believing that the story starts in the garden really ends up in confusing blasphemy...