Why did God create Covid-19?

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Jamiet99uk
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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#21 Post by Jamiet99uk » Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:27 pm

Matticus13 wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 8:32 pm
Macchiavelli wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 7:18 pm
I think that by 2020 we all know there are no Gods of any kind.

We're not cave-dwellers trying to figure out where the sun goes at night, we're not politicians in medieval Europe trying to win popular opinion by inventing Zeus or Superman or God or Aphrodite; we've been to the heavens and there is no God there, just us. Science is real, magic is fake.
This is old news.

Zeus did not hit us with Coronavirus, nor did jesus or Allah or Iron Man.

This is science, like the plague, like everything else we've ever encountered.

Science is real, religion is a lie, we have proven this time and time again.

Science is believing because the facts prove you are right, religion is believing because the facts prove you wrong.
Wut? I don't think it's quite that simple. There are many truths in various religions; many theories and scientific *facts* will be thrown aside when new evidence/observations are made.
Would you like to try to answer my question?

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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#22 Post by Matticus13 » Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:45 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:27 pm
Matticus13 wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 8:32 pm
Macchiavelli wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 7:18 pm
I think that by 2020 we all know there are no Gods of any kind.

We're not cave-dwellers trying to figure out where the sun goes at night, we're not politicians in medieval Europe trying to win popular opinion by inventing Zeus or Superman or God or Aphrodite; we've been to the heavens and there is no God there, just us. Science is real, magic is fake.
This is old news.

Zeus did not hit us with Coronavirus, nor did jesus or Allah or Iron Man.

This is science, like the plague, like everything else we've ever encountered.

Science is real, religion is a lie, we have proven this time and time again.

Science is believing because the facts prove you are right, religion is believing because the facts prove you wrong.
Wut? I don't think it's quite that simple. There are many truths in various religions; many theories and scientific *facts* will be thrown aside when new evidence/observations are made.
Would you like to try to answer my question?
I can probably give it a shot later this evening. I doubt I will have an answer that satisfies your criteria for an answer, but no harm in trying ;)

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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#23 Post by Jamiet99uk » Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:55 pm

Matticus13 wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:45 pm

I can probably give it a shot later this evening. I doubt I will have an answer that satisfies your criteria for an answer, but no harm in trying ;)
The question is simple. Why did "God" create Covid-19? Why did "God", who is apparently all-powerful and perfect and loves us all, decide to create a universe where many thousands of people die of viruses through no fault of their own?

I'd love to hear a coherent answer.

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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#24 Post by Octavious » Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:55 pm

Perhaps it would help you to ponder different and yet fundamentally connected questions. Why did God create you with the ability not to believe in Him? If you accept that God has, for the sake of argument, the ability to turn off the virus at will, you must also accept that, for this particular view of the universe to be consistent, God also has the ability to make you believe without question.

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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#25 Post by orathaic » Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:07 am

OK Jamie, the concept of a benevolent creator god is flawed endowing this god with human traits such as empathy or love is human centric BS. The 'God' I believe in is pantheistic. As Spinoza put it, you don't pray to God putting your thoughts out their and then wait for the Universe to grant you a miracle, you study God and by understanding bring back the capacity to grant your own wishes.

The question is not why God hasn't answered our prayers and protected us from this virus. The question is why we have not done more to understand God and in doing so learned how to protect each other.

The Universe is God. God is the Universe. We can hope to understand some fraction of this splendour, but attempting to assign human traits to the Universe without first understanding we are one and the same thing as the rest of the Universe. Children of God, we represent the human-ness which exists within the Universe, we are not made in 'his'* image; we literally are the stuff of stars.

Your kind of Atheism is not 'against God', it is merely against a common and overly simplistic idea of what God must be according to *some* Christians. Baruch Spinoza came to most of these conclusions independently of me (I didn't know about his writings when I became a pantheist, in fact I don't even recall if I knew what the word pantheistic). And he did it hundreds of years ago without many of the advantages which enlightenment thinking and Scientific advancement have lead us to.

*assigning the so called creator God 'male'-ness, when many cultures ascribe 'female'-ness the creation trait, life giving women... Yeah, pretty much based on weird patriarchal BS we've developed in the last ~10,000 years, likely from a proto-indo-european religion which places a father God at the head of the universal order, reflecting the supposed ideal household headed by a father figure.

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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#26 Post by Le Plume » Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:08 am

Ah, yes, god. I like your definition of evil God. A sadistic God. In this case, the answer is easy. You already gave it. Let me give the fuller answer.
Evil God created the virus to watch us suffer for His entertainment. And He was planning this virus for awhile, to catch us while we were off guard. His plan is for the virus to trigger global instability and environmental catastrophe, at the macro level, and to fear and hatred between all, at the micro level. A very smart god is evil God.
If you are are wrong, and that if God exists, and he is good, than I don't know why there is suffering or evil, and moreover, I don't think there is an answer to your question.
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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#27 Post by Le Plume » Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:09 am

except for Orathaic's. That was pretty coherent.

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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#28 Post by orathaic » Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:19 am

To look at the Universe and conclude it was made for us is hubris. There is so much indifference, so much wonder beyond our comprehension, so many billions of years of life before us (only on this one tiny planet). To look at all that and conclude we are the reason for existence is the most self-indulgent piece of BS you can come up with.

Comforting, perhaps. But it does lead to all sorts of contradictions, like the problem of evil, or the conflict between 'free will' and predestination.

To put it the way the (fictional) Minbari would explain it. We are the Universe consciously trying to understand itself.

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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#29 Post by Crazy Anglican » Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:36 am

Jamiet99uk wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:55 pm

The question is simple. Why did "God" create Covid-19? Why did "God", who is apparently all-powerful and perfect and loves us all, decide to create a universe where many thousands of people die of viruses through no fault of their own?

I'd love to hear a coherent answer.
Simple yes, but a strawman. As far as I know nobody believes in your idea of a God. You grant him omniscience and omnipotence but seem to implicitly deny an afterlife. If your target audience is a Christian, Muslim, or some Jews (since we attribute omniscience and omnipotence to God) then you're missing the mark by leaving out such an obvious part of the religions in your critique. If your audience is other non-believers then I think most of them can recognize a strawman when they see one.

The next objection might be "well, what about the cruelty of a God who creates humans just to throw them into Hell." (Yes, I realize that's a strawman as well. You haven't made that argument. Yet If you did my answer would be.) That one's a misrepresentation of the doctrine as well. Hell's gates lock from the inside. Hell is the logical consequence of God not forcing us to have a relationship with Him. Our choices, not God's will, lead us to Heaven or Hell. If I chose to live in the artic it would be painful, but that's not the fault of the tropics. I could move there.

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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#30 Post by Crazy Anglican » Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:44 am

To be hopefully clearer and more succinct. As a Christian, I am not concerned with your characterization of God because it has obvious flaws. It is on the level of someone showing how vicious my Labrador Retriever is by kicking a pit bull.

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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#31 Post by Le Plume » Thu Oct 22, 2020 3:58 am

Its a good question.
Consider this prayer from 1662 England.
In the Time of Any Common Plague or Sickness
O Almighty God, who in thy wrath did send a plague upon thine own people in the wilderness, for their obstinate rebellion against Moses and Aaron; and also, in the time of king David, didst slay with the plague of Pestilence threescore and ten thousand, and yet remembering thy mercy didst save the rest; Have pity upon us miserable sinners, who now are visited with great sickness and mortality; that like as thou didst then accept of an atonement, and didst command the destroying Angel to cease from punishing, so it may now please thee to withdraw from us this plague and grievous sickness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Christians at the time consider God as sending a plague to punish. This is the good God. Not the evil God. Why did Christians believe in a Good God who sent punishments from heaven, a God who sends plagues to punish?
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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#32 Post by Jamiet99uk » Thu Oct 22, 2020 8:41 am

Le Plume wrote:
Thu Oct 22, 2020 3:58 am
Its a good question.
Consider this prayer from 1662 England.
In the Time of Any Common Plague or Sickness
O Almighty God, who in thy wrath did send a plague upon thine own people in the wilderness, for their obstinate rebellion against Moses and Aaron; and also, in the time of king David, didst slay with the plague of Pestilence threescore and ten thousand, and yet remembering thy mercy didst save the rest; Have pity upon us miserable sinners, who now are visited with great sickness and mortality; that like as thou didst then accept of an atonement, and didst command the destroying Angel to cease from punishing, so it may now please thee to withdraw from us this plague and grievous sickness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Christians at the time consider God as sending a plague to punish. This is the good God. Not the evil God. Why did Christians believe in a Good God who sent punishments from heaven, a God who sends plagues to punish?
Because they were superstitious and ignorant.

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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#33 Post by Jamiet99uk » Thu Oct 22, 2020 8:46 am

Crazy Anglican wrote:
Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:36 am
Jamiet99uk wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:55 pm

The question is simple. Why did "God" create Covid-19? Why did "God", who is apparently all-powerful and perfect and loves us all, decide to create a universe where many thousands of people die of viruses through no fault of their own?

I'd love to hear a coherent answer.
Simple yes, but a strawman. As far as I know nobody believes in your idea of a God. You grant him omniscience and omnipotence but seem to implicitly deny an afterlife. If your target audience is a Christian, Muslim, or some Jews (since we attribute omniscience and omnipotence to God) then you're missing the mark by leaving out such an obvious part of the religions in your critique. If your audience is other non-believers then I think most of them can recognize a strawman when they see one.

The next objection might be "well, what about the cruelty of a God who creates humans just to throw them into Hell." (Yes, I realize that's a strawman as well. You haven't made that argument. Yet If you did my answer would be.) That one's a misrepresentation of the doctrine as well. Hell's gates lock from the inside. Hell is the logical consequence of God not forcing us to have a relationship with Him. Our choices, not God's will, lead us to Heaven or Hell. If I chose to live in the artic it would be painful, but that's not the fault of the tropics. I could move there.
We've been here before.

I don't *have* an idea of a God. The concept is nonsense. It's gibberish. Every time I try to parse what people who believe in God are talking about when they say "God", they always respond like this, "oh no that's not what He is like".

I cannot imagine God. It is not possible for me to conceive of him / it / she / that. It's compete nonsense from top to bottom. You're mad.
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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#34 Post by orathaic » Thu Oct 22, 2020 8:49 am

Why did Christians believe in a Good God who sent punishments from heaven, a God who sends plagues to punish?
in the proto-indo European sky father analogy, the father of the household is good (by his own definition) and sometimes has to punish his children in order to ensure the correct functioning of the family unit.

The god which Christians believed in has taken many of these attributes (even if modern Christians don't subscribe to this model, as CA describes above). This God may not have all the attributes you I clude when you consider omnipotence, it does not have hypothetical powers to do anything (like create a world without evil) beyond the imagination of the audience (under educated bronze and Iron age peasants). When we look specifically at the Flynn Effect, we can see the improvements in education systems (worldwide) have drastically increased IQ scores for well over a century, and specifically studies of under-educated individuals in the present show they are unable to countenance hypotheticals. You can imagine a people to whom this question (and indeed this entire conversation) makes no sense.

The wrathful God of the old testament (and indeed other older religions) is not omnipotent as you or modern Christian readers would understand. It is inherently limited to the imagination of what the believer can conceive.

(i can provide sources if anyone would like to more deep background on a few of these items, of particular interest to Christians may be the book of Enoch, the fallen angels mating with human, making some kind of demi-gods (akin to Greek heroes like Heracles) and the implicit polytheism in very early Judaism.)

All of this being a longwinded way of saying, the God being discussed is not a literal entity which exists independently of the people who believe in it. To understand what the writer of a certain medieval pray meant you must understand the context of the people who wrote it.

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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#35 Post by orathaic » Thu Oct 22, 2020 8:51 am

*And you have to go back to early Judaism to get something close enough to the Proto-Indo-European Sky Father for the analogy to really make any sense.

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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#36 Post by Jamiet99uk » Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:19 pm

orathaic wrote:
Thu Oct 22, 2020 8:49 am
When we look specifically at the Flynn Effect, we can see the improvements in education systems (worldwide) have drastically increased IQ scores for well over a century, and specifically studies of under-educated individuals in the present show they are unable to countenance hypotheticals. You can imagine a people to whom this question (and indeed this entire conversation) makes no sense.
Are you mocking my intelligence?

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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#37 Post by Jamiet99uk » Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:46 pm

orathaic wrote:
Thu Oct 22, 2020 8:49 am

All of this being a longwinded way of saying, the God being discussed is not a literal entity which exists independently of the people who believe in it. To understand what the writer of a certain medieval pray meant you must understand the context of the people who wrote it.
If that is so, why do so many Christians behave as though they do believe God is a literal entity, and why is a book which speaks of "Him" as such still their principal point of reference?

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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#38 Post by orathaic » Thu Oct 22, 2020 1:51 pm

No, I am not mocking your intelligence, what makes you think so?
If that is so, why do so many Christians behave as though they do believe God is a literal entity, and why is a book which speaks of "Him" as such still their principal point of reference?
How Christians conceive of God today, and how they did (say) 800 years ago reflect more on themselves, and the context of the societies and norms of their times than they do of an actual creator God. They may believe, but I see no good reason you should think the God written about in the Old testament and the concept you hold of an Omnipotent, Omniscient being which created the world.

Also you deny having any such concept. So you fully admit that what you actually believe is that any concept you can come up with is inconsistent, and that anyone who you discuss the nature of God with recoils at any inconsistencies and reformulated their God to suit the needs of the conversation. That is a huge advantage of never actually meeting someone. Without solid facts to question, you can never pin anything to them (hence Trump's constant vagueness, but let's not digress).

Saying (as above) the mediaeval Christians believed X, may tell you a lot about medieval christianity and culture, and nothing whatsoever about the true nature of God.

I for one can tell you that in my conception of God, my puny human brain is not capable of comprehending the vastness, complexity and totality of it. And that anyone trying to tell you God is male clearly has very small or anthropocentric view of the Universe, which really fails to come close to understand the nature of reality.

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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#39 Post by peterlund » Thu Oct 22, 2020 1:54 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:21 am
Genuine question for anyone who believes in "God".

Why would he/she/it create the Covid-19 virus?
Well I am a believer in science and Charles Darwin instead of that crappy idea one or more gods, so I guess that I do not need to answer this question, but anyhow....

The answer is obviously that something mutated maybe due to exposure to background radiation.

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Re: Why did God create Covid-19?

#40 Post by Jamiet99uk » Thu Oct 22, 2020 2:16 pm

orathaic wrote:
Thu Oct 22, 2020 1:51 pm
I for one can tell you that in my conception of God, my puny human brain is not capable of comprehending the vastness, complexity and totality of it.
Then how do you believe you know anything about "God" at all?

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