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File: 841ed3a22aadd55⋯.jpg (66.3 KB, 683x1024, 683:1024, 694cca00edc2735060a7ddafc1….jpg)

I need help Christanon 01/21/18 (Sun) 01:57:23 0c8fb7 No.591915

If God is all-knowing and knows what is going to happen in the future, then he knows what kind of people everyone will turn out to be before he creates them. He knows that a serial rapist/murder will do those things before he creates them. He knows the pain they will inflict upon innocent people before he creates them. He knows he will have to damn their soul to eternal hell before he creates them. He knows the being he is creating will be tortured for all of eternity for the things it will do. So why does he create them?

I know that questioning him like this is wrong but I can't help it. These thoughts will not leave my mind. I have a nature that requires me to question things like this. I've been this way since I was a kid. Why would be create me to be this way and then punish me for being what he created me to be? That seems wrong. I can't understand it.

If I create an artificially intelligent computer virus that will infect and destroy any computers it comes across and then I release it in a hospital and it results in many deaths… am I not responsible for those deaths? How is that different from creating a serial killer and releasing it in this world?

If God doesn't know these things will happen before he creates a person then he isn't all knowing. You can't know the future without seeing what people will do. I don't see how God could not know these things without him not actually being a full, true God. How can a being capable of creating life, flooding the earth, etc. not know these things? I feel like if God exists then he can't be a loving, benevolent being and create us to be what are.

I'm really struggling with my faith and going insane here anons. Can you help me?

Christanon 01/21/18 (Sun) 02:43:10 a48e5e No.591927

>If I create an artificially intelligent computer virus that will infect and destroy any computers it comes across and then I release it in a hospital and it results in many deaths… am I not responsible for those deaths? How is that different from creating a serial killer and releasing it in this world?

God didn't program people to be serial killers though like you did to the computer virus

Christanon 01/21/18 (Sun) 02:58:04 564890 No.591935

You aren't thinking enough OP. So let me add to your thoughts. Let's say God has a system where he's about to create someone and says "Well this guy's going to be a serial killer, I'm not going to create him." What if this was his system for everyone? Would there be any serial killers? Or would the circumstances created by not creating those who would be serial killers cause the right circumstances for there to be at least one, or ten, or a hundred slipping through the cracks? There's a paradox in your mind that you aren't internalizing. Now think about this, why would he create anyone knowing they would do wrong? You might say that being a serial killer is something worth punishing by God or omitting them from existence entirely, but to God, all sin is worth punishing. The price for sin is death. With that in mind, why create you? Have you not lied or stolen anything? If your sin is worth punishing why allow you into this world at all? Yet here you are. Think about that.

Christanon 01/21/18 (Sun) 03:10:57 9ca1d8 No.591940

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>If God is all-knowing and knows what is going to happen in the future, then he knows what kind of people everyone will turn out to be before he creates them. He knows that a serial rapist/murder will do those things before he creates them. He knows the pain they will inflict upon innocent people before he creates them.

>Innocent People

Isaiah 53:6

>He knows he will have to damn their soul to eternal hell before he creates them. He knows the being he is creating will be tortured for all of eternity for the things it will do. So why does he create them?

For the wages of sin is death. It's our own foolishness, we make ourselves desperate for the things of this world, for so many do not just turn to God, but rather seek vainly for things that give short term fun. He offers salvation freely, yet in arrogance do people reject him. Take Genesis 2:9 as an example. God planted two trees within the midst of the garden, one which promised peace, joy, and life everlasting, and the other which promised famine, death and sin. Yet man chose the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil while the tree of life was so close by. God, the beginning and the end knows what we will become and yet gives us the freedom to choose between coming to him and receiving rest, or being like those mentioned in Jude 1:11. But it is foolishness to blame God for our actions, or the actions of others.

Christanon 01/21/18 (Sun) 03:46:02 6d1bfd No.591963

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>>591915

>I know that questioning him like this is ~~wrong~~ lacking faith but I can't help it.

*fixed

< Welcome to Christian Existentialism 101, my name is Dr Job and I'll be your professor for the rest of the year. Join me in feeling my agony at God's complicity in my misery.

< Welcome to Christian Existentialism 201, my name is Dr Solomon and I'll be your professor for the rest of the year. Join me in using my book Ecclesiastes as the prescribed textbook.

< Welcome to Christian Existentialism 301, my name is Dr Kierkegaard and I'll be your professor for the rest of the year. Join me in feeling my feels.

>Why would be create me to be this way and then punish me for being what he created me to be? That seems wrong. I can't understand it.

If this is just another fedora question cleverly disguised so you can declare yourself a victorious troll to all your other fedora mates, I'm out.

Otherwise, you're drinking too much fedora juice mate. Time to switch off the computer and start reading some actual philosophy and theology books. Fedoras know less than their over-inflated egos tell you they do.

The short answer is this:

''Will the pot tell the potter, 'Why did you make me this way?!'"

Yes, God foreknew all. Yes, God knew how people would behave. But, were they coerced into making those decisions? Are you not responsible for your own decisions? Do you think just because you were made a certain way that all things were inevitable? So you believe you're an automaton, just following your programming? Curious line of thinking for an automaton to be questioning its own programmer.

Also, if you create a virus, you are responsible to others with whom you share the internet for the damage your virus inflicts (though, to be sure, driver-less car manufacturers are lobbying hard to make sure they are NOT). To whom is God responsible? You? A created being? You just announced that you were no more than a programmed virus, an automaton. How can a potter be responsible to a pot?!

Your problem is that you think too highly of yourself and not highly enough of God, who is infinite, and boundless and beyond all human comparisons. Truth is we know so little about our creator to know the "why" of much at all, and Ecclesiastes, Job and other books struggle with exactly these issues, but all come to the same conclusion: God is, so worship Him and accept that He knows better than you what He is doing.

But, do accept my empathies: you have started on the hardest path of intellectual-aspects of faith I think there is.

Christanon 01/21/18 (Sun) 03:52:02 c5c213 No.591968

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>>591915

>So why does he create them?

Because in the end God triumphs, goodness wins, all wrongs are righted, justice is served and it is perfectly right and merciful.

All evil is transient, all suffering passes, but goodness will last into eternity and joy and harmony will prevail.

Christanon 01/21/18 (Sun) 04:11:30 b8f430 No.591973

Have faith

Christanon 01/21/18 (Sun) 15:53:27 0c8fb7 No.592123

Thanks to all who replied. Some of what was said was helpful. I'm still struggling but I don't want to start arguments and I don't want to spread the thoughts that keep arising in my mind any further.

>>591963

> If this is just another fedora question cleverly disguised so you can declare yourself a victorious troll to all your other fedora mates, I'm out.

Not a fedora. The thoughts that keep haunting me are not making me question the existence of God. I am certain he exists. They are making me question his benevolence/love, perfection (all-knowing, all-powerful, timeless, etc.) and/or whether is the true creator of our consciousness. I feel like I am falling into Gnosticism not atheism. Though I didn't even know what Gnosticism was until long after these thoughts started and learning of it definitely did not help my situation. I am not questioning these things because I want to or because I enjoy doing so. I wish I could erase my memory of all these thoughts. I wish I could control my thoughts but I can't. They keep forcing their way to the top and I feel like the only way to make them go away is to confront them but I am failing to defeat them. It's causing me great anguish and spiritual torment. I'm too ashamed of the thoughts to talk to anyone I know IRL… which is why I'm posting and asking for help on an anonymous board.

Christanon 01/21/18 (Sun) 15:58:11 0c8fb7 No.592125

>>591963

>start reading some actual philosophy and theology books

Are there any you would recommend? Do you know of any that deal specifically with what is troubling me?