Quote:
Originally Posted by Letum
I would imagine a theist might argue that for the concept of good to have
any meaning, there must be an alternative to being good.
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LaoTse surely was no theist, but said the same (TaoTeKing, No 2).
Quote:
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If no one has the choice but to do good, have they really done good?
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They would have done what they would have done, and at least they would be in heaven instead of hell. And it does not answer why God made man such as that some of his designed creaturess will be punished and others reside in the president suite in the afterlife. If God is almighty and infinite and eternal, he must have formed Good and Evil himself, else how could Good and Evil have been there since before him - and then he would not be infinite and eternal!? So if God is the creator of this duality, designing creatures to suffer at least is a perverse hobby, I would say: willing to create suffering and eternal hellfire - by the hand of God. Does an all-loving, all-forgiving God do so?
and this gift of free will - what meaning could that have for a being as great and grandious as God? If he intended to plan and mean well for his creation, wouldn'T it have made more sense to create creation in such a way that there would be no suffering and imperfection - and no humans failing and burning in hell? Accepting to create Evil just to form "free will" - what interest could He have in such a bagatell (from his perspective)? And what with all the other life forms, animals? Are they all doomed to end in hellfire? Or heaven? What for? For God having refused them a free will, as to be found in man? And Aliens on another planet, whose characteristics may be beyond what we can even imagine - what about them?
From a medical and psychological point of view some may even question that a free will in humans even exists.
One could also argue that Christian Mystics as well as Buddhists and Taoists have another ideal than just "doing good" - and that is to go beyond the duality and diversity of creation, and realise "one-ness" again where dualistic polarisation does not exist and all perceived universe collapses again into just one point, one moment, one everlasting present, one complete and whole space-time. Mystics called that "being united with God". To lend from their terminology: why has God formed diversity then in the first, instead of leaving things as they were: a singularity, a single point, a one-ness: that is himself? Or in other words:
if God exists, why does a separate universe exist, then? Or: if a universe exists, why needing to assume that a God exists who has created it?
To me, assuming a creator who is separate form his creation, makes no sense. Only a creator
who is his creation - and thus necessarily is men like you and me, too - makes sense: and speaks against the image of a perfect, all knowing god. Either we all and everything that is, is God, or no god does exist. Compare to buddhism: every thing has buddhanature, every leaf, every stone, every dog, every man and women, every cloud, every moment of time, every piece of dogsh!t on the street. And there is no different Buddhanatures, like there is no different gods.
Maybe this is the original meaning of "sin" - to start thinkling that we are separated from everything, and to assume that what is essentially one actually is many, and that by that separation of god and nature we distance ourselves from our own divine essence and divine nature. Becasue what God is and what Buddha-nature is, is looking through our eyes, is reflecting on our minds, and is us asking questions about ourselves. And maybe that is the meaning of life, existence and cosmos: this one mind that you may call god or buddhanature becoming aware of itself, understanding itself, and understanding that beyond itself there is nothing else, for it is one in all, and all in one.
This is also an implicit primary argument in Buddhism and Taoism. I would even say that if you understand him not literally, but as speaking in metaphors, Jesus said the very same.
Nobody of us needs to reach anywhere. We are all - if only we knew - already there.