The design of things

It has suddenly occurred to me that how people were designed, and what they are meant to do, is two different things.

If you design a car, you design it to do certain things, and other things which you have not designed are not there.

People have fought each other since there were people. So war is designed in there.

People have killed others for many different reasons, so evil is designed in there.

So Jesus comes along and says love others and do not kill?

Uh oh, design flaw.

As a believer in Jesus I am having a hard time trying to reconcile this difference.

I know life was meant to be a test - but an impossible test? That is not fair at all.

Is it all a big cosmic joke? If so, it sucks.

reply to post by catwhoknows


Say I put my 3 year old in the car that is standing in my driveway.... He will be preoccupied with making all the lights blink and honking the car horn. He will not be able to utilize this machine with optimum efficiency because he has not learned how to use it....

(Hey, it's your metaphor!!)

It is not so much a test, it is a lesson......learn!!

Peace

reply to post by operation mindcrime


But, op,

It is not a fair lesson if the outcome is you fail regardless!

reply to post by catwhoknows


So your saying that death is failing?
In my oppinion, death is the start of something great. Freedom.

reply to post by GetRadNZ


No, I am not saying death is failing.

I am saying having a fair start in this world would be a good and fair thing.

Originally posted by catwhoknows
reply to post by operation mindcrime

 

But, op,

It is not a fair lesson if the outcome is you fail regardless!

How can one fail at receiving a lesson??

You can fail a test, true. But, if you ask me, life is merely a construct for teaching something. How fast you pick up the material is entirely up to you. If not in this lifetime then the next...

Your teacher and your soul are not limited by time.

Peace

reply to post by catwhoknows


But we do have a fair start in the world. We are all born equal.
Can you explain more about what you mean by a fair start?

Cheers
Brady

reply to post by catwhoknows


read Mothers and Others by Hrdy. Human beings are not 'designed' nor have they 'evolved' to war. Our evolutionary capacities for sharing with and caring for each other are much stronger than our drive to kill each other. Like most social problems this one probably started from the top-down with the building of agricultural societies ruled over by violent and ruthless individuals that infected most the rest of society. That last sentence isn't Hrdy's argument by the way.

Only in a society that values inequality and individual advancement is there an incentive to kill one another. In nature, early man and even proto-man created vast geographic sharing networks long before we ever had 'empires.' I'm not saying that violence isn't in our nature at all or that its some kind of government-conspiracy. I'm just saying we are much more hardwired in nature to be loving and caring, and that the unnatural world we've created has deemphasized the traits we had to evolve to survive, emphasizing competition and other incentives to bring out the dark side.

Where did Jesus say you should never kill?
He says He comes to bring a holy sword that will turn son against father (Jesus on family values - Luke 14:26-27, Matt 10:34-39).
He also tells His followers to sell their clothes for weapons: Luke 22:35-38.
I've argued that the Ten Commandents forbid killing, but then religious right-wingers argue it actually says you shouldn't murder.
Not that it matters to me as a non-believer.
But He doesn't say don't kill, free the soldiers, prisoners and slaves.
In fact if those things are our designs, He re-inscribes it and instead promises pie in the sky for quiet obedience.

However, as a postmodernist I'd say we are not designed - we are the product of our current discourse.
In fact, everything mentioned hasn't proven an "I", just opposed discourses.

Originally posted by catwhoknows
It has suddenly occurred to me that how people were designed, and what they are meant to do, is two different things.

If you design a car, you design it to do certain things, and other things which you have not designed are not there.

People have fought each other since there were people. So war is designed in there.

People have killed others for many different reasons, so evil is designed in there.

So Jesus comes along and says love others and do not kill?

Uh oh, design flaw.

As a believer in Jesus I am having a hard time trying to reconcile this difference.

I know life was meant to be a test - but an impossible test? That is not fair at all.

Is it all a big cosmic joke? If so, it sucks.

Take the word 'design' out of your reasoning and it all crumbles.

You base your reasoning on a supposition that you have no proof of, only your conviction.

Secondly, you subscribe to a value system in which killing is wrong, and therefore evil,

Have you ever considered the fact that in nature, organisms kill each other without remorse, in fact they have to kill each other to maintain the evolutionary system, in which the only the fittest survive.

Your 'right and wrong' 'good vs evil' reasoning is but a human belief system which has nothing to do with how the Universe works.

I dare say that the arrival of Jesus was a minor event on a cosmic scale, so what he said or did had but a minor impact on things.

You are right about one thing though, that things rarely pan out once you think you have it all figured out.

reply to post by catwhoknows


What do you mean when you say life is supposed to be a test? that makes no sense life just is and everything and everyway human's are, and do, in life simply is how they are...There is no test....it just is a mirror into your soul.....Every war and every murder and every tyrant and every evil in this world is there because of the created concious of humanity because in nature things just exist, and what lives and dies or does so and so while alive is of no consequence to the scope of nature... but all human concepts are for the human world, which humans created, like an expanding bubble in another bubble we all call the universe and life. So when so and so says something is good or evil it's just opinion, and if you dig a little deaper into the why and how you will see it more clearly, or when your so called leaders say you must do so and so or go to war for something or other...... its an opinion to, dig a little deaper and you will find the why and even a more broader truth, and the only reason you would even believe anybody on anything is because they mirror what you want to see or know..... The design for human's are many so there is no one fixed design....They were designed for war, and peace, for love and hate, to create and to destroy and many other things and ways...........If you believe life is a test, then yes it will be a test....If you believe its an impossible test, and not fair.....Then yes the cosmic joke is on you, ......because there is no test, but there are other humans and creatures which all will believe that they are the center of there universe....And the joke is that yes we all are the center of our own universe, in this universe.

reply to post by catwhoknows


Life is not a test.

Get over everything you think you know.

The world is a reflection of an internal conflict in the mind of god. Thats it. Resolve the conflict and all is good.