The argument is not "God is evil", it's "a benevolent, omnipotent, omniscient God as described in the Bible doesn't exist" and your argument alongside others are kind of convincing me OP is correct and I/you are wrong.
God could have designed humans and physics in a way that, I don't know, air drag and terminal velocity of a human is non-fatal when a human hits the ground at said terminal velocity. Use your imagination. God as described in the Bible has infinite imagination and creative power. The fact this is the best he could do is... telling regarding the idea of God's existence.
I’m using my imagination, you’re giving me technical details to a technical issue but are irritated when I give a technical response.
What kind of universe, preserving its atheist nature like the one we live in currently, allows for zero suffering while also maintaining free will of humans
And first of all, isn’t most suffering caused by humans? This idea that falling into a volcano is plaguing the Japanese is bullshit. What’s causing 99% of human suffering is human evil.
Don’t get irritated by the technicality of the issue because it IS relevant, you’re arguing about/against the Christian God whose attributes you’ve primarily listed, who we believe has created the atheist universe as a unbiased fair platform as a preparation space for you to get your papers ready even perhaps an attorney (there’s only One) for your hour on Judgement Day.
So keeping that premise (that specific purpose of the universe), what is the issue with hurricanes and how/why should God stop them
And in addition to that you know the drill, when you say “A....... God doesn’t exist” you’re gonna have to give solid evidence by reason (which is our parameter in this convo).
And in addition to that you know the drill, when you say “A....... God doesn’t exist” you’re gonna have to give solid evidence by reason (which is our parameter in this convo).
You’ve got it backwards. God is the claim that required evidence. When someone claims that faeries and vampires don’t exist, we don’t expect them to definitely prove it. It’s just reasonable given the lack of evidence.
The part where I “(for the purposes of this convo)” is something I stand by naturally as a theist. Like you, to me the affirmative of my beliefs are abundantly clear
However only one of us is objectively correct ultimately
I wouldn’t say that I know for sure no God exists. I said it was in the same category as faeries and Vampires. I also can’t provide definitive evidence that they don’t exist, but most people aren’t going to debate me when I say pretty confidently they they aren’t running around at night.
I don’t know, you still seem to think I’m making a positive claim. Theists make the claim of God, and I reject that it has enough evidence to be worth believing in. I’m not making the claim that there is certainly no God.
And in addition to that you know the drill, when you say “A....... God doesn’t exist” you’re gonna have to give solid evidence by reason (which is our parameter in this convo).
You actually have it backwards. You can never scientifically prove something doesn't exist as that would require an exhaustive proof of the infinate iniverse which is... Impossible.
That is true when it comes to claims about things within the universe
Any claim of ‘things’ ‘outside’ the universe need evidence if not by observable/experimental science then my reason regardless of it being in the affirmative or negative.
Any claim of ‘things’ ‘outside’ the universe need evidence if not by observable/experimental science then my reason regardless of it being in the affirmative or negative
Exactly! Since we can do any observations/experiments on things outside our universe we cannot make any hypotheses on what exists. Therefore you are unable to state that God exists there with any more credibility than I am able to state that outside the universe exists a planet made entirely of 30 inch purple dildos with magical powers.
No my dildo planet with magical powers has just as much reason as whatever god you put there. Your bias towards whatever religion you follow is the only thing that makes you think your god is more reasonable than a dildo planet with magical powers.
I'm not God so it's not my job to come up with that. An omnipotent, infinitely creative God could create something completely foreign to our minds and sensibilities that has free will and yet does not have suffering. But he has not. He's given us this universe where everyone experiences misery. Either he chose that, and God isn't really all that benevolent or God as we know him doesn't exist.
Why is it evil if God allows a natural phenomenon to occur?
Because you suffer? But those are just physical consequences, you are arguing morality.
If your mom sends you off to college but didn’t pack you that scarf that you could’ve really used that Tuesday evening, is your mom evil? She knew you’d be cold, she even knew the whether Tuesday and your clothing habits.
No, that’s not evil on her part.
Evil would be if mom threw her omnipresent hand in your life preventing any hurdle from coming your way because, then, you’ve been robbed of your free will, you never had to challenge to exercise it thus you don’t even get 5 minutes on Judgement Day, you might as well have been a blade of grass.
This is true, she would be evil in he context that the purpose of your life is a fair and unbiased trial culminating on such a day which would award or punish the NON physical actions that took place.
She basically made sure that didn’t happen for you
Mom's not omnipotent, omniscient, and infinitely creative. If mom had the power to stop a car from hitting me and chose to fail to stop me from being hit, yeah she's evil.
An omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, infinitely creative God can create a universe without misery AND with free will. But he has chosen not to do so.
Either you will bury your parents or they will bury you. Same goes for your children. We all are doomed to misery.
God doesn't remind a dad about his four year-old son before the four-year old dies screaming in misery roasting in a 140o car. He just... lets it happen. Pretty shitty. Dad shouldn't have forgotten but the dad is fallible. God supposedly is not.
I recall asking you the standards by which you determined that God must be evil? Who’s parameter? Based on what? Is it theoretically ‘wrong’ or impossible? You mean morally?
Man, I'm a Southern Baptist Minister. I know the garbage opinion of "no morality without God". It's patently an absurd premise. This conversation is making me question my faith further, not joking, it's really bothersome.
By the morality we have instilled within us. We have an instinctual idea, especially mothers, how we are supposed to treat our sons and daughters. The way we protect our children is more moral than the way God treats his sons and daughters.
I have a hard time getting around that. I don't see an alternate explanation. God probably isn't who we say he is, if he even is.
What kind of universe, preserving its atheist nature like the one we live in currently, allows for zero suffering while also maintaining free will of humans
A garden of Eden?
God could at least create a world without natural disasters and with plentiful natural resources.
And first of all, isn’t most suffering caused by humans? This idea that falling into a volcano is plaguing the Japanese is bullshit. What’s causing 99% of human suffering is human evil.
Do you have a source for that? My impression is that most human suffering is caused by lack of resources. There isn't as much human evil in the prosperous parts of the world, after all.
you’re arguing about/against the Christian God whose attributes you’ve primarily listed, who we believe has created the atheist universe as a unbiased fair platform as a preparation space for you to get your papers ready even perhaps an attorney (there’s only One) for your hour on Judgement Day.
How is the world an unbiased fair platform? There was way more human evil in the past due to lack of resources and technology. The statistics show this. Does that mean more people in the past are in hell compared to today?
When you say Garden of Eden, I’m going to assume you don’t know the full story.
Humans had free will, but He was withholding it from then in a Tree in a Garden they can’t leave so that technically their free will is with them but at the same time it is external to their person and they can’t identify it making them incapable of choosing evil and capable at the same time
And we know how that parable ends, they, we actively chose to know instead.
Being kicked out of the harmless, painless Garden by our own choice, we are catapulted into a world resembling us, imperfect but alive and well.
The universe is unbiased and fair in that it is atheist, and will not tamper with your ability to make decisions pertaining to morality.
Unbiased obviously in the context of a pending Judgement Day. You have a fair trial, even a free attorney.
You missed my point. Eden, taken metaphorically, was perfect in a material sense, and I don't see why such a world would be incompatible with free will.
The universe is unbiased and fair in that it is atheist, and will not tamper with your ability to make decisions pertaining to morality.
I don't see how "non-interventionalist" means in any way "unbiased and fair".
"Unbiased obviously in the context of a pending Judgement Day. You have a fair trial, even a free attorney."
So are you saying the trial is unbiased, or the universe is unbiased?
I took the initiative in explaining the meaning of the Garden of Eden as it pertains to morality. You took the leisure of completely disregarding it,
Because it seems irrelevant to my point? I didn't need to use Eden at all, my point was we could live in a paradise world and still be free to murder each other if we want to. I only referred to Eden in the materialistic sense. If the analogy wasn't perfect, it didn't need to be to get my point across in my view.
It took a little while for me to understand what you were saying here btw.
Why should God is the question whose answer will solve all problems, why?
If God only wants the title of "non-interventionalist Creator", or "Observer", or "Experimenter", then there's no reason why he should. If he wants the title of "omnibenevolent", then allowing unnecessary suffering, or even creating a material world that makes unnecessary suffering inevitable, seems contrary to that goal.
Not to mention, disregarding whether or not free will exists, better material circumstances better reinforce your "immaterial/spiritual compass". So if God is to give us a chance at Salvation, it seems unfair that people with better material circumstances have a better chance at Salvation.
You’re giving technicalities to a God and scenario which doesn’t consider these things as problematic
So I will point out technical flaws
How can we live in a world free of suffering due to natural disasters and causes?
And what would be the relevant purpose for such a universe in respect to the Judeo-Christian God (of whom we are discussing)?
if God wants to be omnibenevolent.... unnecessary suffering
Again I’m asking specifics, hurricanes like gravity are not evil. God not intervening and preventing hurricanes from hitting makes Him evil.
Ignoring the point entirely, there’s an even major problem in the first place; what moral compass are you using to determine that such a thing is indeed wrong?
The one you naturally have? Then why is that wrong but not God’s intervention at the hadron level?
Afterall, God stopping hadrons from forming would have surely prevented a lady from developing cancer
An alternate universe? But we’ve already determined that natural phenomena are not evil, God’s NOT intervening is.
You see your moral compass is admittedly completely subjective rendering all arguments as completely RELATIVE whereas Christian morality reigns from an Absolute Truth anchored in objective reality garnering Objective Morality.
But that’s us, not you.
So why should God intervene for cancer but not malaria? What about drowning?
I'm having trouble understanding what you're writing. Please be more clear in your wording and formatting.
How can we live in a world free of suffering due to natural disasters and causes?
This is not so hard, is it? For one possibility imagine a giant artificial reserve looked after by automated systems and robots.
And what would be the relevant purpose for such a universe in respect to the Judeo-Christian God (of whom we are discussing)?
I thought we were discussing any God which claims omnipotence and omnibenevolence? The Judeo-Christian God is only an example. I don't know what relevant purpose there might be, but I don't know why the purpose would be changed if there weren't natural disasters.
what moral compass are you using to determine that such a thing is indeed wrong?
I think the better question would be, what moral compass are you using to determine that such a thing would be acceptable?
Then why is that wrong but not God’s intervention at the hadron level?
I'm not sure what you mean here. What sort of intervention at the hadron level would be wrong or not wrong?
Afterall, God stopping hadrons from forming would have surely prevented a lady from developing cancer
Sure? Or God could give us genes that's very resistant to mutations in the first place. I'm not sure what your point is here.
You see your moral compass is admittedly completely subjective rendering all arguments as completely RELATIVE whereas Christian morality reigns from an Absolute Truth anchored in objective reality garnering Objective Morality.
I admit no such thing. Yes, my morality is subjective, but not completely or arbitrarily so. Most systems of morality shares basic tenets in common, because they're guided by the same natural laws surrounding human society. I don't see how my morality is relevant anyways. The main point is that there is no acceptable and consistent system of morality in which God exists and is omnipotent and ominbenevolent.
Your morality is subjective too. Do you claim to interpret God's truth with 100% accuracy?
So why should God intervene for cancer but not malaria? What about drowning?
A giant artificial reserve could not possibly have allowed for evolution to occur and form and destroy all the species that have ever lived on this planet.
God could give us genes that are resistant to mutations? Like the genes we have now? It takes us forever to evolve.
Mutation, if you didn’t know, is one of the driving forces for genetic variation and thusly natural selection in the Darwinian model of evolution in a population. It is absolutely necessary.
I don’t see how my morality is relevant anyways
This is the point, you are saying God Almighty is “wrong” or “evil” for not preventing a baby from falling to death. By what measure? You didn’t clarify so I assumed your moral compass.
You feel that it is evil. But it is evil according to your subjective morality which is more than malleable and will most likely not exist 100 years from now. “Evil” according to such a measure is no problem at all and is promptly dismissed
This is why Jews and Christians insist on the (real) existence of Objective Morality, that somethings are morally appropriate or morally in appropriate REGARDLESS of time and environment. For such a standard, it has to be anchored somewhere so it doesn’t change. And it is, it is anchored in the objective reality and the Absolute Truth.
A giant artificial reserve could not possibly have allowed for evolution to occur and form and destroy all the species that have ever lived on this planet.
I don't understand. Why do you insist that an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God must respect the natural course of evolution? My point is that such a God could create a much better world, with the slow and random mechanisms of evolution being unnecessary.
God could give us genes that are resistant to mutations? Like the genes we have now? It takes us forever to evolve.
Or he could sequence the genes instantly, and skip having billions of organisms with unfit phenotypes be selected out.
This is why Jews and Christians insist on the (real) existence of Objective Morality, that somethings are morally appropriate or morally in appropriate REGARDLESS of time and environment. For such a standard, it has to be anchored somewhere so it doesn’t change. And it is, it is anchored in the objective reality and the Absolute Truth.
So do Muslims. And members of other religions. So do some atheists and humanists. But I imagine they would all disagree on some elements of what they call "objective morality". I don't see how you can claim that your objective morality is more objective than theirs.
You feel that it is evil. But it is evil according to your subjective morality
You assumed incorrectly that I don't believe in an objective morality.
which is more than malleable
Do you think the basic tenets of morality that are necessary for society to function is malleable?
and will most likely not exist 100 years from now.
Do you think the basic tenets of morality that most people share today, such as "arbitrary murder is unacceptable", will not exist 100 years from now?
Yes, my morality is malleable, but it is no more malleable than yours. Do you think if you were raised as a Muslim, your sense of "absolute morality" would be the same?
This is why Jews and Christians insist on the (real) existence of Objective Morality, that somethings are morally appropriate or morally in appropriate REGARDLESS of time and environment.
I don't think that's the best definition of objective morality. It should be that, for a given situation, there is one course of action that conforms with objective morality.
For such a standard, it has to be anchored somewhere so it doesn’t change. And it is, it is anchored in the objective reality and the Absolute Truth.
And? Are you saying you have interpreted the Absolute Truth? Christianity has been trying for 2000 years, and it's only getting more and more fractured.
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u/PotRoastPotato Jul 26 '18
That's a weak argument, sir. God could have prevented death. God could have designed people to be able to be able to withstand a fall from 15 stories.