Posted: Sep 22, 2017 2:17 am
SafeAsMilk wrote:Anyway, if I were still Christian I would have answered the OP like this:
Because you have to pass through this life to get to where you want to go in the next, this life is critical. You might say acting good because you want to go to heaven is selfish, but God knows why you act the way you do. If you do something good because you fear punishment instead of because it's the right thing to do, this is not good behavior. Through this life, you have to learn to act rightly because it's the right thing to do, and that's what God wants -- not a bunch of fools who do good things because they're afraid of punishment, like children afraid they won't get presents from Santa Claus. If you simply disappear after you die, if the sun burns out and the Earth becomes a husk, if the universe falls into heat death where nothing survives, ultimately everything you've ever done is completely pointless, whether you act good or bad.
I know we're only playing at this.....
So if God wants people to behave in a certain way, why aren't they all born equally to parents who set good examples of how to behave well? Why are some born with more hurdles to overcome than others, such as being born with limbs missing, born deaf or blind or both? Why are some people destined to die as infants, incapable of achieving any form of understanding of good or bad? Why are some born to abusive and neglectful parents, who raise them with corrupted morals?
If the answer is that people need to overcome challenges and difficulty, why do they? Isn't there a nicer way of sussing folks out? Why do some appear to get a lifetime of adversity whilst others hardly get a moment? Does it amuse God to see his chosen creations suffer? What criteria does he use to determine what level of hardship one has to endure through life?
And the daddy of all the questions..... how do you know this?