[Neo]

I have several books on philosophy, but my favorite it probably the most simplistic one. It's called "Conundrums" and it contains a series of questions on various subjects that are designed to make you think. The reason I love this book is because you can spend hours thinking about a single question. I thought I would post a few of the questions from the chapter on God that are interesting:


1) Is God changing or unchanging? He must be unchanging because if he is perfect, then any change from a state of perfection would make him imperfect. But isn't thinking itself a form of change? So if God is unchanging, then how can he think about a changing world? How can he act on one? If God is changing, how can he be perfect? Doesn't change imply incompleteness? And incompleteness, imperfection?

2) Isn't to think about a thing, to become a little bit like it?

3) Is God proved because the Bible speaks of him? And the Bible proved because it is the word of God?

4) Did the universe have to come from somewhere? If so, would not the same hold for God? And who created him? Super God?

5) Is God the self-caused being? But if God could be the self-caused being, why can't the universe be that thing?

6) Is the fact that almost everyone, everywhere, believes in God, evidence for the existence of God? Was the earth really flat when almost everyone, everywhere, believed that it was?

7) Is God all-powerfull and all-good? If he is all-powerful, then he would be able to prevent evil. If he is all-good, then he would want to prevent evil. But are not pain and suffering woven into the very fabric of our life? Why is there pain and suffering?

8) Does God allow evil so we can develop good characteristics? Does he permit pain and suffering so we can become better? Is it owing to poverty that we become charitable, owing to cruelty that we become kind? Does evil build souls? But why are built souls a virtue? Why are the traits of charity and kindness good? Isn't that they help us prevent evil, pain, and suffering? But if there was no evil in the first place, why would we need these traits? Would they still remain virtues?

9) Does God permit evil so we can develop characteristics worthy of entering heaven? But why do we need those characters in heaven? Is there poverty and cruelty in heaven too? If not, why did we suffer to develop these characteristics? What good would they be in heaven?

10) Doesn't evil destroy character more often than building it? Do not abused children themselves abuse children?

11) Must we have pain so we can know joy? Must we suffer in order to know what happiness is?

12) Does pain and suffering come from the misuse of our freedom? If God is all-powerful couldn't he have made us both free and so that we always did good?

13) If a parent gives a child freedom to roam in the street and child gets injured, is it the child or the parent who is guilty?

14) Are we punished for inherited sin? Did Adam and Eve start the whole problem? What would you think of a people that forced its criminals to reproduce so it could then punish their children?