When Christians tell me God works in mysterious ways, I assume that’s just code for, “Our Supreme Deity is supremely lazy.”
I kid, I kid. But I do think this is a fairly common questions for those familiar with the Christian God or with any deity that claims to be all powerful and all knowing. With that kind of power, why let people suffer? Why not just fix it all if it took you no more effort than blinking or drinking a beer.
I think that’s why I draw God as a cat. Cats just seem like a perfect fit for a being of that caliber. There’s something at once indescribably alien and yet comfortably familiar about felines that I think is similar to the concept of God that I grew up with. Maybe that’s just me.
If there is a deity out there, I don’t imagine it’d make a whole lot of sense to creatures like us and I don’t imagine that going around solving everyone’s problems and setting everything to perfection would make for a very interesting universe to live in.
It’s really just sort of an idle question when it comes down to it. When we ask these questions we just think about how we’d handle all the problems of the world if we were in that position because we live here and we see it. We live with it every day and it isn’t easy. It’d be nice for us, at first, to live in a perfect world. I know I’d enjoy it. But who’s to say that perfection would last very long or that we’d benefit in the long term as a species and a universe from eternal peace and happiness?
Knowing how humanity generally works, it’s probably safe to bet that a lot of us would probably find some fault with such a state eventually. The old adage, “The grass is always greener on the other side” isn’t just about when things get tough. Even those that seem to have everything still find things to want.
Wondering whether God will come and save us or fix it all ultimately seems a little silly. We have bodies and brains and we have consciousness. We can fix our problems ourselves without help from outside. Sure, it’d be nice, but God hasn’t done much for the last 2000 years, so why sit around waiting now?
If I created beings as remarkable as ourselves, I think I’d be a little disappointed if they didn’t learn to take care of themselves.
Wouldn’t you?
You know, at first glance this one seems kinda nitpicky, but at second or third it seems deeper. I do enjoy these comics, expecially the Norse ones ^vv^
I’ve always thought it’s a cool thought experiment (if that’s the right word, not an abrahamic believer, myself) that maybe we’re still in the 6th day, and the rest of the bible is just a prophecy of things to come.
haha I like that.
Wait, so we’re currently in the Garden of Eden, and then later on someone’s going to ruin it all for us by wandering into God’s territory, taking a bite off the metaphorical tree of knowledge (maybe by taking science too far), and gets us all kicked off into space?
An interesting thought. But also so very terrible.
We wouldn’t be in the garden yet, necessarily. Adam, Eve, and the garden occurred after the 7 days of creation. Which is why when Cain went east from the garden he found a wife in Nod. Mankind had already been created when Adam was created.
While an interesting concept, your biblical details aren’t accurate. The Bible doesn’t say Cain found a wife in Nod, or even when he was married. It could have been tens or hundreds of years!
In the Bible, Adam and Eve are specifically called “the first man” (1 Cor 15:45) and “the mother of all the living [mankind]” (Gen 3:20). Adam lived for 930 years and had many sons and daughters (Gen 5:4). The early generations of mankind married siblings or other close relatives. This was possible because Adam and Eve’s genes were pure. It wasn’t until around Moses’ time that the impurities resulting from genetic mutations became such a problem that the law against close relatives marrying was made.
Jiffy, you sure that ain’t too literal? Those are not just facts to get you engaged and respectful of a spiritual story? Maybe that didn’t happen, and does not need to be accepted by science, but you could still accept the meanings and grandeur of it. You can still learn from the stories without them being true, non-contradictory, or scientifically accurate. (I hope I don’t start a fight with this, sorry, Jiffy.)
I like to think we’re the equivalent of a science experiment. “Lets build a universe for shits and giggles, structure it with these laws and make certain things work like this, and run it to see what happens.”
My guess is that he’d end up like the Master from Actraiser. if he just fixed everything then people would start forgetting about him since they didn’t need him anymore.
I love it! That’s the best solution I have ever heard to “the Problem of Evil” (how “to reconcile the existence of evil with that of a deity who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent” — Wikipedia’s summation is as good as the one in my old college philosophy book).
God is a cat. There’s no problem at all.
And that also explains the contradictory and often downright silly nature of all the various and sundry God-given holy scriptures. It’s the divine equivalent of a lolcat caption:
“I’m in ur Creation, being Supreme. Please u to stop ur sinning or feel the smiting of ur Ceiling Cat!”
There would be no mystery if we knew all the answers.
When my mom first told me that cats have “nine lives”, I thought she meant simultaneously. And I still believe that to this day.
Maybe one of them is God?
Bible is not to be taken word for word, I always wonder why so many people take god literatim out of all things. The most absurd figure in whole christianity. Well, who can be a father, son or a “holy spirit”*? Human? Who can control (and thus create) nature? Human? Who creates other humans? Umm…other humans?
Whenever I think about christian gods i always think that it’s just a metaphore for humanity in generall, all in all humans together can do pretty much everything. Would be hard to find a part in bible where using “human” in place of “god” wouldn’t give a simple metaphore.
And I would never guess your reason to draw god as a cat. I tought you do so, becouse this is internet.
*- That’s a completly different metaphore. Holy spirit sounds like some sort of a guardian over a person. So guess that’s everydays agnostic person you meet.
K, Y U SO WISE???
If anyone can propose a scenario of how a perfect world could exist with everyone having free will then we’d have a starting point to discuss.
I haven’t heard one yet.
Unfortunately it seems inevitable that free will leads to the existence of evil.
Basically idea of having free will is the same as of anarchy.
When you look at it, each single law in the world is limits your freedom. We can go as far as to say that “law” is begin bought by paying “freedom”.
Thus a free world can never be perfect and a perfect world can never be really free. (with aslo means that for a world to be perfect, freedom must be qualified as a bad thing.)
But ah, see, the phrasing on that implies that laws are good, or through them perfection can be wrought. I’m sure the argument can be made that a completely free world would be perfect, as long as we were willing to accept the particular hardships that came with it as such.
For example, in the world I live in now, my hardships involve working a shitty job for shitty pay and obeying arbitrary laws in exchange for internet, safety and easy access to food. In giving up one set, I also give up the other.
But on the whole I like what you are saying. It is a train of thought worth entertaining. Which is why I did.
This is why I’ve always liked Crom – you know where he stands.
Well, consequence is an important part of living in a world with free will. Think about it. A world where bad things are immediately fixed as if they never happened? A lot of people would abuse that as an excuse to do whatever they want without consequence. Either that or they wouldn’t even be able to think of doing such things, which takes a lot out of the free will thing.
And why is free will so important to God if he gets angry whenever we “don’t do what he wants”? Well, i think he’s not so much angry as sad or disappointed. What he wants is for people to truly love him, not by force or trickery, but fully willingly. If you have him acting in everyday life even just a little, then people would fall in line out of fear of punishment. Even more, I can imagine we’d have a new round of the dark age witch hunts with the newly justified overempowered christian organizations threatening others with divine retribution in order to get what they want. That’s the most disappointing thing I see in modern christians, they forget how much Jesus said to love others.
“A world where bad things are immediately fixed as if they never happened? A lot of people would abuse that as an excuse to do whatever they want without consequence.”
So? What’s the harm of that? You just said it. No consequences.