Interesting debate between the pair fo you. I can see the point BGF is making, without trying to force emotive black and white answers. Right and wrong is a human emotion, as scary as that may seem. Of course we would all feel it is wrong for anything to happen to the little girl, but it is not so far back in history that various seemingly abbhorent events were seen as ok, by the majority, while still to this day there are trivial things which receive heavy penalty.
It is one area that i have read around where we are all part of the ultimate whole, experiencing every possible experience. That we all do whatever, whether it's seen as right or wrong in our own terms, simply for the whole to have complete understanding of everything there could be? If that makes sense.
Just because it doesn't sit comfortably with your beliefs DHP, doesn't make it wrong i'm afraid. it may be a scary prospect, based on the conceptions of our current state in human terms, but it's not inconceivable.
The 'free will' card is always a cop out term for me - and is used to justify any corner of an argument, and saves the day whether you argue how god is all perfect, or why people have learned to do certain things, or whatever.
BGF, this isn't the god I know. You can say he's everyone's god, but he's not mine.
I hope this part of your quote actually makes you understand where myself, and probably others, come from in terms of your own belief in god?
BGF, I know these books mean a lot to you, but it sounds to me like they simply aren't grounded in the reality of this planet, and as I said before, I find the implications they have that people can do whatever they want with no sense of accountability absolutely sickening. For me, they've failed in the light of this first, very real scenario.
They shouldn't really be grounded in Human ideas, to be fair. Seeing as God has given us this 'free will' and we've sinned ever since, then we must have veered a number of degrees from what God believes is right and just? We've developed our own rules and laws, for better and worse.
The Bible talks in such human terms that it's one of the reasons i struggle to hear it as a word from an entity that's above simple human thinking.
To talk of it in personal human terms. If i was god i'd probably not be sending so called sinners to hell, as it seems like the human form of locking people up without trying to understand why something happened, just that it did happen. Rather i'd be offering the chance to try and make amends - whether that would be letting them live another life on Earth, or sending them to try in another dimension, whatever, I'm sure you're 'unlocked' to learn greater understanding in any possible 'afterlife'. Any god that doesn't think that it would be worth offering more 'chances' is no god of mine.
Also, i'd be showing any non-believers around the place to prove that it was actually 'real' - but i'd not be bothered that they hadn't believed, because i'd understood that all the religions bickering on Earth would have put them off.
