Jordan Peterson, an Uber driver, and a ex-atheist walk into a 14,000-seat arena

“He did build us perfect. Then Adam and Eve ate the apple...”

Obviously god built them with defects otherwise they wouldn’t have eaten the apple.

“And to answer the usual next question: if God forced us to be good, then we would be mere robots.”

Well is it better to be sinners or robots.

If what pleases god is for us to be good, why would he build someone who is bad and insults him, and then he has to go to the trouble of punishing him?

Doesn’t make much sense does it? Or is God a sadist?

Or maybe he created us for his entertainment?

>> Obviously god built them with defects otherwise they wouldn’t have eaten the apple. <<

He built them with free will.

>> If what pleases God is for us to be good, why would he build someone who is bad...? <<

He didn’t build us bad. He built us with free will. Some of us misuse that gift.

>> Well is it better to be sinners or robots? <<

Neither, it is better to be a saint.

>> Or maybe he created us for his entertainment? <<

Do people have children because they want to be entertained?

>> why would he build someone who is bad and insults him, and then he has to go to the trouble of punishing him? <<

God does not punish us; He allows us to experience the natural consequences of what we do. If we understand the way the world actually functions, we can avoid acting in a way that results in bad consequences, which is not to say that we will never suffer, because other people will do bad things and bad things will happen, but the difference between what happens inside to someone who does evil and someone who avoids doing evil is very great. This is why two people to whom the same thing happens may react in very different ways.

“He built them with free will.”

Why? Would you build a robot with freewill and let him run amock?

And more to the point, why did he create us in the first place? What’s in it for him?

“Some of us misuse that gift.”

Well, he knew that, so why do it? That’s like giving a gun to some hot headed punk.

“Neither, it is better to be a saint.”

OK, then build us as saints. It’s not like he couldn’t do it, right?

“Do people have children because they want to be entertained?”

Most people have children’s because they think it will provide them with joy, a sense of full financial and a connection to the future. Many do it for help in old age. God doesn’t get old.

“God does not punish us;”

Really? Eternity in hell and brimstone is not punishment?

I don’t mean to be snarky with these comments/questions, but the biggest gift whoever created us gave us was the brain and the power to reason and to question that which we find contradictory and even nonsensical, and thus make sense of the world.

And I don’t think whoever created us minds me asking these questions. What do you think?

I appreciated this comment Right Brother.

There is one supreme judge. One whose opinion is the only one that matters. That supreme judge is that woman herself and all the religions of the world, and all the ideas of the world, including Almighty God Himself must que up before her to be judged one at a time. I wonder if this God guy will be weighed and found wanting.

“And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened, and the dead were judged...”

>> And I don’t think whoever created us minds me asking these questions. What do you think? <<

While I am not sure that we can reason ourselves into belief or faith, it is very important to consider one’s doubts.

For example, the reason I believe in God Himself is that I have prayed about my questions and clarity has come — it is hard to explain how this happens but it is clearly not from me, because how could I give myself an understanding I lacked?

So, I think God is happier that you are asking the questions than if you just shrugged and gave up.

>> Why? Would you build a robot with freewill and let him run amock? <<

Would you rather be a robot? Or maybe more importantly, would you want your good friends and loved ones to be robots?

Sometimes I read so much stuff on FR and elsewhere and then I feel like the world is really in that handbasket. Then I go out and see real live people, maybe just at the store, and I remember that so many people are actually rather nice.

And if I were a robot, I would not care. I would not care if other people were nice; I would not care if people loved me or liked me for who I am, I would not be able to appreciate a sunset, or enjoy anything.

Are you friends with people who suck up to you? Who are just friends with you because of who you know or what you can do for them or because you have money? Eh, I don’t really like people like that.

God wants to be with people who love Him for Himself, who do what He wants because they love Him. And in return, what He wants us to do is what will develop us into the best possible selves we can be.

But there are people who hate God, who do not want to do what He wants us to do, and who want, in effect, to be their own gods. They are not punished by being in Hell, they choose Hell. They would be in more agony in Heaven where they would be in the continual presence of Him Whom they hate.

>> OK, then build us as saints. It’s not like he couldn’t do it, right? <<

Sure He could do it, but then we wouldn’t be saints. Would you want to marry a robot who has been programmed to say what you want to hear and can not deviate from that programming?

No... really, it all boils down to love. Archbishop Fulton Sheen said (paraphrased from memory) that the difference between communism and Christianity is that with the former we follow an idea, but with the latter, we follow a Person.

“Would you rather be a robot?”

It’s not what I would rather be. That is not my choice, what I am is what the creator created. The question is, what would serve me better as the creator. If I was creating something that I want to adore me and to fulfil my desires I would definitely create a robot that did exactly that.

And I don’t believe we have free will. we have the ILLUSION of free will, but at the end of the day we are slaves to our biology (genes) and our environment. How we behave is dictated by that, so in essence, god created each one of us as a different robot (and defective robots at that, since we often disappoint him). As an aside it makes no sense that a supreme being can be disappointed - he’s the one that makes everything happen, right?

More later...

>> The question is, what would serve me better as the creator. <<

Aristotle proposed, and the Catholic Church agrees, that we can know by our own thinking that an Intelligent Designer exists *and certain other things about the ID.*”

One thing we can know about God is that we are not Him. We do not have His point of view.

So... apparently what serves Him better as creator is different from what would serve you were you in the position of creating species.

And that’s ok... as long as we remember Who actually has the power to create universes and galaxies and stars and planets and species and people.

>> ...at the end of the day we are slaves to our biology (genes) and our environment. <<

In that case, why do we feel we have done wrong? Why do we decide to and succeed in reforming ourselves?

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