Creation's Requirements

God's Safety Pins and Fuses

No one, even atheists, deny that humans have very special capabilities that other species don’t have. In particular the human brain and the ability to imagine and "make" new things that did not exist before. We have the ability to turn our imagination into material objects that could be touched and seen.

Over centuries, we developed this ability to a point that the items we make "out of our imagination" are durable, perform the function(s) we intended for it and do that for an extended period of time without causing major havoc in the world around us or causing harm to ourselves and others or to the items we created themselves. While doing all that we also learned that everything in this world and specially the things we make are not eternal. These things sooner or later die i.e. fail, like us and everything else around us. We learned that the hard way. And the documented histories of our inventions of things are a clear proof that there were many victims along the way who paid the price for our knowledge of how to design and build things in a way that when they fail, they don’t kill us or destroy other things connected to them.

To achieve that we learned that we MUST include in the design and building of these items what we call "safe design" features. These features are put in the design and manufactured into the items such that if dangerous conditions develop while the item is functioning they sacrifice themselves and die i.e. break in order to make the item itself stop or shutdown safely without destroying us or our properties along with it.

We don’t want our TVs or other appliances to explode or burn just because the electric voltage or current jumped to a point beyond the item's capability. Do we?

That is why we sacrifice a "Fuse" inside the item or may be in the Garage to protect the house along with the item. That is also why we sacrifice a "safety pin" inside the item and let it break if the load increased beyond what the item is designed for. Even in software, there are many many safety defaults designed to protect our hardware or the rest of our software. These defaults make the system go to a safety spot (like shutdown i.e. temporarily die) whenever a dangerous operation is about to be performed that will actually permanently destroy our system.

We really are very good at this. we just go and get and install a new fuse or a safety pin or just reboot our system after fixing whatever caused the item to destroy its fuse or pin or made it shutdown. Did we ever think after one of these things is destroyed that the designer is "really cruel" or he is "immoral" or he is "unfair" in his dealings with these "sacrificial" items. Do we ever say "what crime did this fuse commit to be sacrificed like that?". of course not. We all know it is done to protect the house or the TV set. We don’t ask for the details and even if we ask would we understand them? That is why we don’t ask. Unless we are technically qualified we will never understand what the details mean. More than that, can we even imagine that these items (the items we are protecting) ask the designer these questions? would we allow that?

Here is the amazing thing that we Humans also do. We don’t extend this same behavior and understanding to the "Omnipotent Designer", the one who not only designed us and the universe we live in, HE Created us and our universe. Most of us, Humans, believe in that but we ask questions and accuse Him of things that we don’t even think of accusing a TV set designer with.

One of God's description of Mankind in Qura'an is this "Unjust and Ignorant". It sounds very harsh but looking at what Mankind did with their "Free Will", it is a very accurate description.

In all His Books God said there are things that you think are good for you but they are in fact bad for you and there are things that you think are bad for you but they are in fact for your own good.

Did we ever remember that? not even rarely. Most of us wonder, why did God make the hurricane kill and destroy this or that or why did He allow this atrocity or that crime to occur? Or why did He make this little girl sick? Or this little boy suffers?

It is a whole Universe, full of things we don’t even know they exist but we don’t give its Creator and Designer the same understanding that we give to a toaster's designer.

Of course someone will say this: If He is that "Omnipotent Designer" why couldn't He design it in such a way that it works without a need for a "safety feature" or a "safety action"? of course He could have, and may be He did in another Universe, but that was not what He wanted to do for THIS one that we are in. Did He say that? Yes He did say "He creates what you will never know" and also He said "He is the Lord of the Worlds", not just one but it is "Worlds".

The problem with our attitude in dealing with God is that we accuse Him of doing what we do ALL the time with clear conscious and with no guilt whatsoever. Just think of this: what do we do with an old TV set that doesn’t work properly? What do we do with a laptop that hangs up all the time? what do we do with a chair that doesn't look good with the rest of furniture? We all know what we do with these items. WE DESTROY THEM. Well, we throw them away and someone else destroys them ok? Do these items understand why they were destroyed? Do they accuse us of a criminal vicious immoral behavior? Do we even care what they think or feel? I don’t think so. Sometimes We try to fix these things and give them a second and may be multiple chances to behave and when they dont, for some reason or another we just destroy them without a hint of guilt or remorse on our part.

However, when the Omnipotent Designer sees that things are not right somewhere with Humans and they needed to be destroyed or to be dealt with in a severe manner for the Safety of the Whole System or because they no longer fit within the system, He Actually give them multiple chances to behave and correct whatever is wrong with them before he takes these actions and He Actually cares and feels sorry for them that they didn’t use his guidelines and their Free Will to make the right choices and He allows us to repent and He will forgive us for our misbehavior and He doesn’t forget about us after we are destroyed, if that is what happened, and He treats us after destruction with the utmost justice and mercy by resurrecting us in another world for a trial in which we can present our case and if our account is not in debt He certainly rewards us even for the pain we suffered here on Earth otherwise we must pay our debt first then we will then join the others where we would enjoy ourselves with no cares or worries. Do we do that with the things we destroy? not even close.

Of course the BIG question that I can see coming now is this: How in the world do you compare us to a chair or a TV set or even to a computer? well, let's take a computer as an example and see:

1- We (not one but in effect all humans) designed and built the Computer and its Universe (may be the web?

). We did not Create it or its Universe. Creation is when you start from NOTHING. We used materials and knowledge given to us by God to design and build that computer along with its universe. God (Just one not even two) on the other hand Created Us and Our Universe from NOTHING.

2- We and the computer share many things in common: The materials we are made of, we both are destructible, we both have limited knowledge, we both need things to function, we both get affected by outside environment, we both were created by others, etc. WE have major differences too. Specially our Brains and our Souls. WE and God on the other hand don’t share much at all. The only thing we have that is similar to His is our soul and even that is infinitely tiny compared to His.

Considering those two points above it is clear that the differences between us and the computer are infinitely smaller than the differences between us and God. Accordingly, comparing our relationship with God to the relationship of a computer with us is really a stretch to our advantage. The computer's ability and nature is infinitely closer to ours than ours to God's. In fact the computer can do certain things BETTER than we do. There is no way we can say that about us and God.

We, with no hesitation, give ourselves more power and control over the computer's fate and function than God with His Grace and Generosity exercises over us. And He gave us "Free Will", did we give that to the computer? Would we ever do? I don’t think so.

With all that, and we still think we have the right to argue with HIM and Object to what He does do or what He doesn't do?

So, let us be less "Unjust" and little less "Ignorant" especially when we think of accusing Him of something that is not really nice.

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Thanks for bringing this to my attention, and sorry for completely missing it back in Feb of 2007...

Questions like this are from one person to anohter. Usually (it seems) by someone challenging someone else's belief in God, but also by people who sincerely wonder why or how "a loving God" can be how we believe him to be.

In either case, the answer can only be a matter of the answerer's own set of beliefs. The asker can argue the points made in the answer all they want, but all they are doing is asking more questions of the believer.

It's like the question, "does an ant walking across your arm believe in arms?" After all, an ant doesn't arms, nor does anyone the ant knows. I doubt an ant can see far enough to know that the arm they are walking on is part of an organism, nor is it likely that an ant cares.

When I've posed that question to atheists, they scoff and say, "we're not ants". Apparently our "unjust and ignorant" state also includes a boat load of arrogance. If God has the ability to create the universe, then what separates us from the ants is far smaller a chasm than what separates us from God. But the atheist will recognize our superiority over ants, but fail to acknowledge that anything could be that superior over us.

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Apparently our "unjust and ignorant" state also includes a boat load of arrogance.

Surely it does. In Qura'n God also states that Mankind "argues a lot ... in Arrogance and disbelief".

It is truely amazing how these descriptions fit what humans do.

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The problem with our attitude in dealing with God is that we accuse Him of doing what we do ALL the time with clear conscious and with no guilt whatsoever. Just think of this: what do we do with an old TV set that doesn’t work properly? What do we do with a laptop that hangs up all the time? what do we do with a chair that doesn't look good with the rest of furniture? We all know what we do with these items. WE DESTROY THEM. Well, we throw them away and someone else destroys them ok? Do these items understand why they were destroyed? Do they accuse us of a criminal vicious immoral behavior? Do we even care what they think or feel? I don’t think so. Sometimes We try to fix these things and give them a second and may be multiple chances to behave and when they dont, for some reason or another we just destroy them without a hint of guilt or remorse on our part.

We should open our compassionate hearts to all beings and things, including the Omnipotent Creator. We all make mistakes. From ParaTed's blog, I sispect, TA, that you think I "accue" God. Not really. I do not see God as an Omnipotent Creator or Designer, but I will use these metaphors to untangle things in theological discussion. When we look st the long, long chain of intimate cause and effect, we see that there could not be a Creator God. As infinitity has no beginning or end. So, there never was a time when God was not, when creation was not, and so on.

Our Torah begins the story of this incarnation of sentient existance. But I do not for a moment assume it is the only one and since matter and energy can neither be created or destroyed, it is certain that the matter and energy of all creations in all universes are a constant.

It makes no sense to blame God for when bad things happen, nor should we think that He should somehow intervene. This said, it is equally true that God is a part and parcel of all of creation including all things good or bad.

Be well.

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