The clock doesn’t need to adjust itself. You just need to recognize it for what it is an adjust yourself accordingly.
We are constantly receiving feedback on our behaviors. So we are without excuse if we keep doing the same wrong things and don’t learn from our mistakes and behaviors.
So to say we do what we were made to do is incorrect. Not only is it incorrect it is a cop out. One that literally transfers your power to an external source and removes your ability to control your destiny.
If you are expecting utopia you will be sorely disappointed. But let me offer a different perspective, it is the downs in life that make the ups sweeter. Utopia would be a boring existence. We have literally won the cosmic lottery and many of us complain about it because it is not good enough? How silly is that?
I have given you plenty of feedback but you are still making the same mistakes. What gives?
I’m not really sure what you are talking about here. I wasn’t discussing feedback from you. The discussion was about whether or not the clockmaker is to blame for a faulty creation. Your position is that he is. But if there is indeed a creator you will have to acknowledge the flaw in your logic for blaming him. So really your argument is that since you believe the clock is faulty there can be no creator, right? That is what you are trying to get at, right? To that I say it is illogical for you to have won the cosmic lottery and complain it isn’t good enough.
So you don't believe in original sin then?
Not in the way you'd like me to believe in it. The Bible has several literary types; allegorical, historical, law, poetic, prophetic, epistle and proverbial. I'm sure others may add or subtract to this list, but this is a pretty good start. When trying to understand the meaning of passages it is helpful to understand which literary type one is reading and also to place or read the passage in the proper historical light. So let's talk about the allegorical account of man's fall from grace; the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Genesis starts with the allegorical account of Creation. After every step God would say "and it was good." So basically everything God created was good. Which makes sense because things like evil, darkness and cold are not extant. They don't exist on their own. They exist as the absence of something else. Cold is the absence of heat. Darkness is the absence of light. And evil is the absence of good. Man knows right from wrong, but when he violates it, rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong, he rationalizes that he didn't violate it. After Adam and Eve had sinned and realized they were naked, they hid when they heard God coming. They hid because they knew that they had done wrong. Then when God asked point blank if they had done it, they rationalized that it wasn't their fault. Adam, did you eat the apple? The woman you made gave it to me. Eve did you eat the apple? The serpent deceived me. Man is the only animal capable of knowledge of good and evil. No other creature has this concept. Sure animals can have empathy, but not like man. Animals function on impulse and instinct. Man functions on these too, but in man's case he has the unique ability to override his impulses and instinct for the sake of good. That is free will. It's a choice. Everything is choice. I don't believe that Genesis is implying that had Adam and Eve never committed the original sin, we would live in paradise forever. I believe Genesis is saying that man has the capacity to do good and evil. So then the question begs why did God create such a world. I believe that that is an artifact of life. In other words, I don't believe God had a choice. It is part and parcel of the extant nature of good. I know people will howl that I said God had no choice but the reality is there are things God can't do. For instance, God can't oppose Himself; He can't go against His own nature. So there are two very interesting things which come out of free will. One is that evil has the effect of making good better. It's like salt and sugar. Salt makes sugar taste sweeter. We are told elsewhere that He uses all things for the good of those who love Him. Among other things the Jews discovered is that there is meaning in suffering. The other interesting thing is that good has no meaning unless there is evil. In other words, it is not virtuous if you are forced to be virtuous. In closing, man prefers good over evil. We don't do evil for evil's sake. We do evil for the sake of our own good and when we do, we rationalize that we didn't do evil. But from these acts, goodness will arise and we will be stronger for it. It is a self compensating feature whose sole purpose is to propel consciousness to the next rung in the anthropological ladder.
Who gets to control their destiny? Did you choose your parents or your country? Do you choose which birth defects you'll get or which illnesses? Do you choose your sex or personality? We may have some free will but you overestimate its significance. You don't seem to be a very empathetic person.
Everyone who doesn't transfer their power or control to external sources controls their own destiny. To not believe you control your destiny would be the definition of fatalism. That nothing you do matters because things will turn out beyond your control. You seem to believe that things like not be able to control who your parents are or which country you were born in or which talents or obstacles you were born with or your gender means you don't control much of your destiny. Is that correct? Because I wholeheartedly disagree. The number of things that are in your control are orders of orders of magnitude beyond the things you don't control. Not only that but you can adapt, improvise and overcome the things you don't control as well.
How sweet is it to lose your family to a terrorist bomb or a plague? How sweet is it to starve or be abused? How sweet is it to suffer with a birth defect or chronic illness? You may have won the lottery but not everyone is so fortunate.
That's called life. Life happens. I submit that everyone has won the cosmic lottery because they are literally the pinnacle of creation. Would you rather that you were never born? Would you rather that the atoms in your body make up a rock instead of a being who can create and know?
You are literally proving my point that people without faith are prone to complaint when life gives them lemons.
