God cannot exist...sue me!

[The Magic Pudding]

God does allow evil to exist for the moment in certain circumstances to help man understand his need for God.

So god uses evil to make people appreciate him, what a charmer.
I think some kidnappers do stuff like that, Stockholm syndrome some people call it, and then of course there is your run of the mill abusive husband.
But I'm sure all these guys have have our best interests at heart.
What sort of insecurity does this god suffer from that he wastes half his commandments securing his own position?
Oh ye there was a lot of godly competition back then, before followers of false gods got righteously murdered.

[Asmodean]

Oh ye there was a lot of godly competition back then, before followers of false gods got righteously murdered.

Not just "back then"...

Xenu, Cthulhu, Luke Skywalker, whatever-it-is-the-Mormons-worship... Poor Yahweh has his work cut out for him...  

[radicalaggrivation]

If we accept the Biblical narrative about the Fall, we find that evil only exists because of man.

The serpent represents the devil. He makes suggestions against Gods will before the fall. He is evil before Adam and Eve, so you are incorrect.

In fact, evil is an action, not something that happens.

If we are to believe correctly evil is more like a force. And it was already pointed out to you that an action is something that happens.

 

There are things that happen that are tragic, such as calamities, plagues, and famines and such, but in a good vs evil debate these don't rise to the level of evil.  

I never equated acts of evil with tragedies from nature. I don't know why this is necessary to comment on.

In fact, if it weren't for our fear of death (whether it's the fear of damnation, or the fear of total non-existence) events would have no sense of tragedy to them at all.

I don't agree with you. Even if we did not fear death we could still feel pain for the loss of life. I don't fear death at all but if a family member of mine died I would still feel an incredible amount of loss. You are equating the fear of death with the pain of loss and they are not the same thing.

If everyone knew for certain that after you die you go to a place even better than the one you know now (I hear there's pie) death would not be mourned, but celebrated.

This is not true but even if it was, it does not justify the harm done by believing there is another, much better, life after you die. It truly makes living the life we have meaningless and worthless when you believe you are meant to die and live a perfect life afterward. This thinking led to the extension of the Dark Ages and leads to people blowing themselves up for 42 virgins.

Evil requires an action. It takes a rather twisted humanity to turn tragic circumstances into evil circumstances.

Again, I am not really sure why you feel this necessary to say. I agree with you.

A hurricane might kill a few, a disease might cause some suffering. It takes humanity to force people to live under deprived conditions, to ensure that death involves as much suffering as possible, to send people off to gulags to wait in fear of execution.

But of course God shares none of the responsibility for this correct? Did he know it would happen before hand and still let so many innocent people suffer? Oh, I forgot. No one is innocent to your God because of original sin. That is true evil.

Animals might kill for food, or to protect territory and mating rights, it takes a human to kill for an I-pod.

If that IPod was stolen to feed a man’s family what’s the difference? We live in a world were some people own IPods and other people don't own shoes. Resources are disproportionately distributed so that a few people have so much and most people have very little. Why did God not start everyone on the same footing to be fair? Oh, that’s right, God is not a fair god and he doesn’t give a shit.

It exists because man is given the freedom to choose, he can choose God and the good and life, or he can choose evil and death. There is no other way that would allow for choice. God is good, to reject Him is evil. It couldn't be a choice between God and ice-cream, for the opposite of God is not ice-cream.

You have ignored my previous argument. You need to address the contradictions in Gods nature. Either God gave us free will to choose and does not know what our choices will be - giving up his omniscience or God knows everything and it is part of his plan, meaning that choices are illusionary and not based off of free will. Please give a direct answer for this.

The only way for God to not allow evil would be if God were to not allow humans. We could perhaps argue if it were better for God to not have created humans

Who are you to say what God is or is not capable of allowing? How do you know? If God is all powerful what would prevent him from making a world free of evil with humans? If he has the ability then why doesn't he? Does he not want to? Or can be but he refuses?

if the answer is that God is evil because He created humanity, then the only answer is mass genocide of the species. That'll show Him.

God is indeed evil and he is conducting mass genocide already. We are all forced to die because of someone elses crime against God. That is the greatest form of genocide possible. That won't show him anything but his own nature.

[Achronos]

And God let evil exist because of man.

Well, yes, otherwise there wouldn't have been any point in the whole free will exercise.  "You can choose me or something else.  Go ahead, it's your choice.  Wait, you chose something else?  Okay, show's over

Uh, an action is something that happens...

That would have probably been better stated as "Evil is an action of will, not an occurrence.

Yes, natural disasters that take potentially thousands, maybe even millions, of lives aren't evil. Not at all.

Not in the same sense.  There is no malevolent intent behind a natural disaster.  Hurricanes and earthquakes happen because that is the way the world works, pressure builds and releases.  The only reason they kill thousands or even millions is because we were dumb enough to say "You know, I know that earthquakes are common in this region, but I want to live here.  This fault line looks like an excellent place for a high-rise."  Or my personal favorite: "I know this region is prone to storms with high winds and lots of water.  Let's push some water into a levy, and complain when the levy breaks."

Who gave us our fear of death?

We did.

This is demonstrably false. Christians and other theists who sincerely believe they are going to heaven when they die are just as afraid and saddened at death as anyone else.

I'm not entirely sure that's true, at least the fear part.  In our current society, where a large majority of people who call themselves Christian have separated themselves from the Church, it might seem that way.  But there's nothing like a good round of persecution to demonstrate the fearlessness of Christians in the face of death.  As far as sadness, that is only natural.  I am saddened when a friend or loved one moves far away so that I am unable to see them every days or weeks or months.

And God made humans. What does this say about him?

One of two things, which assuming a belief in the existence of God you are going to have to decide for yourself: God is good, yet humble, that His love for man drove Him to create man; basically that He chose to love man, and extends this same choice to man in regards to Him.  Or that God is neutral at best, evil at worst.

Why must he choose between these two things? Why can't he still be good without God? Why does he have the ability to reject God? Why does he have abilities that, when utilized, point towards no God?

Because trying to be good without God is like trying to fly without an airplane.  Because without the ability to reject God our love for God would mean nothing:  Some people would love nothing more than the object of their affection MUST love them.  These are never good people.  As for why our abilities allow us to believe there is no God, the human being is capable of great amounts of self deception.

Why is choice good?

I can't answer that.  I can't tell you why anything is good.  What I can tell you is that nothing but the most evil people in our world would deny choice (even, or perhaps most especially those who would deny choice in the name of good).

Why?

For the same reason that breathing needs oxygen, to reject oxygen is suffocation.

Why not?

Because God is not a warm puddle of lactates mixed with the flavoring of your choice.

Why?

Because free will is one of the defining characteristics of humanity.  Why do whales live in the ocean?  Why are cats the most annoying creatures on the planet?

Why did God have to create humans the way they are?

Why does an author write a book that, while excellent to read, has nothing resembling a happy ending?

Why?

Because we only have a finite capacity for knowing.  We can never completely know God just like we can never completely know pi.

Why can't we know more?

You can always know more.  You can know as much as a lifetime of human experience can teach you.  A saint knows more about God than he could ever hope to explain to me, the same as a biologist knows more about organic functions than I ever will.

If you accept that God is good from the start, then anything he does is good automatically, making the word "good" useless when talking about God.

From a purely etymological perspective, the word "good" is useless unless you're talking about God.  But, more to address the situation, what you just said makes no sense.  I know an airplane flies, that doesn't make flight useless when talking about an airplane.  In fact, talking about an airplane would be useless if the airplane didn't fly.

Why is faith good? Why wouldn't God prize intelligence and rationality more? Why aren't all humans equal?

First, you have to stop thinking of faith as some sort of opposite to intelligence and rationality.  You have to break out of your 20th century mindset (I say 20th century because your arguments are very modern and we are moving into the post-modern, whatever that means) that thinks it knows what a word means just because a small percentage of the population (the one with Ivy League degrees) defines it that way.  Faith is not blindly believing in something despite all rational objections.  Faith is continuing to believe despite all irrational objections.  We have faith in science, that it will explain things within the realm of the natural, not because science has never done so before, but because it has.  We demonstrate this faith in science every time we set foot on an airplane: All our irrational objections tell us that something so large was never meant to fly, that the sheer weight of it must send it hurling back to earth.  The irrational objections seem logical enough, but we know this not to be so.  Now, this faith in science is demonstrated most soundly whenever an experiment fails: those who have no faith or a weak faith in science will loudly declaim the failed experiment as an example of why those scientists never should have been trusted to begin with, those with faith in science will calmly explain that the experiment failed not because science is wrong, but because the hypothesis was faulty.  

Without faith nothing would ever get done, without faith in other people no cooperation or friendship would ever be accomplished, without faith in our observations nothing would ever be recorded.  Without faith no one would ever leave the house and the human race would have been still-born.

The faith of a Christian is similar.  We don't believe in God because there is no reason, but because we are fairly sure that there is every reason.  Our faith in God is based of off observation, we observe God because we use the proper tools for the observation of God.  It's all well and good for me to dismiss the existence of the microbe if I refuse to ever look into the microscope, tales abound of the Roman Cardinal who refused to glance through Galileo's telescope.  Without prayer and listening in the stillness one will never observe God.  Without the reading of Scripture and the Church Fathers I will never be able to compare my observations with others.  I would be like a staunch Luddite, looking through neither microscope nor telescope, poring through scientific journals going "Aha!  This scientist two hundred years ago tells me the atom is the smallest particle in existence.  This scientist a hundred years ago says atoms are composed of neutrons, protons, and electrons.  And now some scientist tells me that there are even smaller particles than that!  Utter nonsense!  Why, look at this biologist who tells me all life is composed of cells, now you tell me that virii are alive and composed of mere protein strands!  I bid you good day!"  This same Luddite grabs a book on quantum physics and jumps up triumphantly in the air, citing one contradiction and paradox after another, and thinks himself smart for being able to do so.

As to your question about all men being equal:  All men are equal, but all men are also different.  Take any element on the periodical table and assemble it so that each is exactly the same mass.  One will be denser and more compact, another is gaseous, and still another is a liquid.  So it is with man, everyone is brilliant, but in a different way.  For every Hawking or Einstein there's a van Gogh or Picasso or someone who is absolutely the best sheep-herder hands down.  Einstein can't paint worth squat (although I hear he was a very good violinist), Picasso could never write a theory of relativity, and neither one could convince a herd of sheep to get in it's pen.

[LegendarySandwich]

And God let evil exist because of man.

Well, yes, otherwise there wouldn't have been any point in the whole free will exercise.  "You can choose me or something else.  Go ahead, it's your choice.  Wait, you chose something else?  Okay, show's over

Uh, an action is something that happens...

That would have probably been better stated as "Evil is an action of will, not an occurrence.

Yes, natural disasters that take potentially thousands, maybe even millions, of lives aren't evil. Not at all.

Not in the same sense.  There is no malevolent intent behind a natural disaster.  Hurricanes and earthquakes happen because that is the way the world works, pressure builds and releases.  The only reason they kill thousands or even millions is because we were dumb enough to say "You know, I know that earthquakes are common in this region, but I want to live here.  This fault line looks like an excellent place for a high-rise."  Or my personal favorite: "I know this region is prone to storms with high winds and lots of water.  Let's push some water into a levy, and complain when the levy breaks."

Who gave us our fear of death?

We did.

This is demonstrably false. Christians and other theists who sincerely believe they are going to heaven when they die are just as afraid and saddened at death as anyone else.

I'm not entirely sure that's true, at least the fear part.  In our current society, where a large majority of people who call themselves Christian have separated themselves from the Church, it might seem that way.  But there's nothing like a good round of persecution to demonstrate the fearlessness of Christians in the face of death.  As far as sadness, that is only natural.  I am saddened when a friend or loved one moves far away so that I am unable to see them every days or weeks or months.

And God made humans. What does this say about him?

One of two things, which assuming a belief in the existence of God you are going to have to decide for yourself: God is good, yet humble, that His love for man drove Him to create man; basically that He chose to love man, and extends this same choice to man in regards to Him.  Or that God is neutral at best, evil at worst.

Why must he choose between these two things? Why can't he still be good without God? Why does he have the ability to reject God? Why does he have abilities that, when utilized, point towards no God?

Because trying to be good without God is like trying to fly without an airplane.  Because without the ability to reject God our love for God would mean nothing:  Some people would love nothing more than the object of their affection MUST love them.  These are never good people.  As for why our abilities allow us to believe there is no God, the human being is capable of great amounts of self deception.

Why is choice good?

I can't answer that.  I can't tell you why anything is good.  What I can tell you is that nothing but the most evil people in our world would deny choice (even, or perhaps most especially those who would deny choice in the name of good).

Why?

For the same reason that breathing needs oxygen, to reject oxygen is suffocation.

Why not?

Because God is not a warm puddle of lactates mixed with the flavoring of your choice.

Why?

Because free will is one of the defining characteristics of humanity.  Why do whales live in the ocean?  Why are cats the most annoying creatures on the planet?

Why did God have to create humans the way they are?

Why does an author write a book that, while excellent to read, has nothing resembling a happy ending?

Why?

Because we only have a finite capacity for knowing.  We can never completely know God just like we can never completely know pi.

Why can't we know more?

You can always know more.  You can know as much as a lifetime of human experience can teach you.  A saint knows more about God than he could ever hope to explain to me, the same as a biologist knows more about organic functions than I ever will.

If you accept that God is good from the start, then anything he does is good automatically, making the word "good" useless when talking about God.

From a purely etymological perspective, the word "good" is useless unless you're talking about God.  But, more to address the situation, what you just said makes no sense.  I know an airplane flies, that doesn't make flight useless when talking about an airplane.  In fact, talking about an airplane would be useless if the airplane didn't fly.

The correct answer I was looking for to all of my why questions is that God made it that way. He could have made things differently, in a way where evil is not a requirement. But he didn't. That is evil.

[Achronos]

The correct answer I was looking for to all of my why questions is that God made it that way. He could have made things differently, in a way where evil is not a requirement. But he didn't. That is evil.

You say that, yet what would you prefer?  God could have done it differently?  How so?  He could have created the world out of nerf balls and fluffy down pillows, perhaps, made us into rejects from Hello, Kitty, living our lives as one continuous Precious Moments or Family Circus strip.  Perhaps He could have created us by the rules of some bowdlerized mid-80's cartoon, a GI Joe universe where the pilot always ejects as the plane explodes and the machinations of evil men are incompetent to the point of being laughable.  Or like the Care Bears!  

Talk about hell on earth.  That would be an evil God.

[LegendarySandwich]

The correct answer I was looking for to all of my why questions is that God made it that way. He could have made things differently, in a way where evil is not a requirement. But he didn't. That is evil.

You say that, yet what would you prefer?  God could have done it differently?  How so?  He could have created the world out of nerf balls and fluffy down pillows, perhaps, made us into rejects from Hello, Kitty, living our lives as one continuous Precious Moments or Family Circus strip.  Perhaps He could have created us by the rules of some bowdlerized mid-80's cartoon, a GI Joe universe where the pilot always ejects as the plane explodes and the machinations of evil men are incompetent to the point of being laughable.  Or like the Care Bears!  

Talk about hell on earth.  That would be an evil God.

A world where there is no evil, for starters.

[Achronos]

A world where there is no evil, for starters.

I'm going to have to go back to one of your earlier questions:

Why wouldn't God prize intelligence and rationality more?

The answer is, of course, that He does prize these highly, otherwise we wouldn't have them. What you seem to have a problem with is the fact that we have a choice how to employ this intelligence and rationality.

I'm guessing what you would prefer, since you prefer a world without evil, is for all of us to walk around like computer programs, fulfilling our designated functions and tasks. The problem with this is it would be a world without evil, but it would be a world without any good, either.

[LegendarySandwich]

I'm guessing what you would prefer, since you prefer a world without evil, is for all of us to walk around like computer programs, fulfilling our designated functions and tasks. The problem with this is it would be a world without evil, but it would be a world without any good, either.

Why?

[Achronos]

I'm guessing what you would prefer, since you prefer a world without evil, is for all of us to walk around like computer programs, fulfilling our designated functions and tasks. The problem with this is it would be a world without evil, but it would be a world without any good, either.

Why?

Because "good" requires a choice.  My computer might run well or it might not, depending on the programs it picks up.  Sometimes a program might not execute to my liking, but the program is not being evil or bad, it's behaving perfectly in accord with it's code.  Sometimes a program executes exactly as to my desired wishes, but the program is not being good, it is again behaving exactly as it's code defines it.  Now, if upon the execution of a program it could decide (let's say it's a music recording program) whether it wants to record my guitar track, or if it wants to reproduce Jay-Z instead, or if it wants to destroy all other programs and corrupt the operating system, then I could label the program as being good, or bad, or wicked.  But when the only thing it's capable of is doing what I tell it to, all it is being is "functional".

[LegendarySandwich]

I'm guessing what you would prefer, since you prefer a world without evil, is for all of us to walk around like computer programs, fulfilling our designated functions and tasks. The problem with this is it would be a world without evil, but it would be a world without any good, either.

Why?

Because "good" requires a choice.

Why?

This line of questioning will inevitably lead to my point all along. It's good to have a choice because god made it so.

[Sophus]

I'm just annoyed by when the freewill argument is reduced to "choice" when the real issue is much more complex than that.

It is ridiculous to say that good and bad can't exist without freewill though because that would mean the existence of "good" and "bad" are evidence of freewill.  

[gsaint]

Well I think this will be my last post on this thread. I see that you would rather bash than discuss I hope that you will one day understand the nature and the Love of God.

Peace
(becasue I like the dancing banana)

[LegendarySandwich]

Well I think this will be my last post on this thread. I see that you would rather bash than discuss I hope that you will one day understand the nature and the Love of God.

Peace
(becasue I like the dancing banana)

I think that we gave great responses to your posts, ripping them into shreds (though it was mostly radicalaggrivation). If you can't handle this, then you're right -- it's probably best for you to leave. I have no foul intent when I say this; it's simply true.

Goodbye.

[radicalaggrivation]

Well I think this will be my last post on this thread. I see that you would rather bash than discuss I hope that you will one day understand the nature and the Love of God.

Peace
(becasue I like the dancing banana)

To whom is this comment directed. I certainly did not bash you, even if I did not agree. Are you refusing to respond to my points? We were just getting to the good parts.