Why did God give our universe a design that permits us to build nuclear weapons?

[Boojatta]

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I suspect there is no God; shit just happens.

OTOH, if there is a God he's kind of a dick.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Because we have free will. nt

[Marie Marie]

6. Free will - exactly!

And every day, we take that free will and inflict all kinds of atrocities on one another. Wars, torture, murder, rape, starvation, theft, pollution, corruption, greed and on and on. And then, the religious zealots want to shrug the consequences of these actions off as: "Well, it was God's will" or "This was what God had planned". Sorry, but I don't blame God - I blame mankind. God gave us brains and free will. What we choose to do with those tools is our individual responsibility.

[dmallind]

18. Free will?

Appendicitis
Blizzards
Childhood cancers
Dysentery
Earthquakes
Floods
Gallstones
Hurricanes
IPF
Juvenile Diabetes
Kidney stones
Leukemia
Malaria
Necrosis
Osteoporosis
Polio
QPD
Rheumatoid arthritis
Schizophrenia
Tornadoes
Ulcers
Volcanoes
West Nile Virus
Xerophthalmia
Yellow fever
Zellweger syndrome


.....But he loves us, right?

....And ALL the bad stuff is our fault?

How, exactly?

[Boojatta]

9. Free will operates within the limits of what is possible.

My question is about God's choice of what is possible for us. We have dishwashers for plates and bowls, but if you want pots and pans to be cleaned, then you need to wash them by hand. Meanwhile, you can blow up an entire city with one bomb.

[Deep13]

19. That rather begs the question...

Why did god give us free will to do horrible things?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

22. If god gave us that...

To see what we would do with it.

I don't know.

[rug]

3. The same reason it permits us to sell McRibs.

[Goblinmonger]

20. Or create Twilight novels and movies. n/t

[virgogal]

4. Silliest question ever.. eom

[gejohnston]

5. Why not?

[NYC_SKP]

7. She did it for her own entertainment?

We might seem pretty boring without dangerous playthings?

:shrug:

[RKP5637]

11. It's a reality TeeVee show for the aliens. "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" Twilight Zone! n/t

[MannyGoldstein]

8. Our civilization had to start harnessing obliterative power at some point.

Since we're sentient it was likely to happen. Probably nobody better-equipped to lead that effort than the US in the the 1940s.

[spin]

10. To me a civilization has to develop technology in order to advance to a high level ...

and in order to develop that technology there must be a driving force such as warfare.

But the final test of an advancing civilization is to journey to the stars. In order to accomplish that goal, it is necessary to gain control over the competitive instinct that enabled the civilization to develop the science that would enable it to destroy itself.

[napoleon_in_rags]

14. +1 very smart. nt

[baldguy]

12. Because we needed stars in this universe also.

[napoleon_in_rags]

13. Pressure in the barrel of a gun propels the lead out...

...pressure in the cylinder of an engine drives the piston so the lifesaving car can move. But either way, everybody dies in the end.



Religions don't claim that life doesn't suck. "Life is suffering" say the Buddhists. What they do is put the suffering of life in a bigger context.

[saras]

15. So that we, as a species, have a fair chance to earn a Darwin award.

He promised us that He wouldn't kill us off again, but he's just the kind of Father to give loaded guns to His kids to play with.

"Hey, kid. Didn't like that snake thing out? Well, check THIS stuff out. Infinite power - the power to dismantle the very universe. It's free, the first time."

[Jim__]

16. Can you conceive of a universe that contains within itself the capacity to do work ...

... and the capacity to evolve consciousness that lacks the capacity for building massively destructive weapons?

[Boojatta]

23. If universe design were profitable, then I imagine that some people would solve the problem.

Unfortunately, we have no way to convert a universe design into a real place that we can inhabit. So designs for universes don't seem to be of much use or value.

I suspect that it would be relatively easy to toggle between universe designs that allow massively destructive weapons and universe designs that don't allow for it. I suspect that it is much more difficult to design a universe so that consciousness will evolve in it.

[Kurmudgeon]

17. Physics that allow the Sun to shine allow nuclear weapons. It's human misuse that's the problem

[LeftishBrit]

21. I remember in my younger days...

telling someone that I wished that some Higher Power would change people's voting habits so that they wouldn't vote for people who wanted to blow the world up (I was thinking of Reagan at that time). The reply was indeed, 'No, most importantly, they should make the world such that no one could blow it up!'