Good and Evil

[PsychoSarah]

Why would it trouble you if people tried to present God as incapable of evil?

Because something incapable of evil shouldn't be capable or even willing to allow evil to exist.

 

[PsychoSarah]

what do you mean "logical need"?

If god is omniscient and omnipotent, it could make people with free will without evil or suffering ever happening as a consequence. So logically, if god has these qualities, there isn't any need for evil or suffering.

 

[PsychoSarah]

So you're saying there's no point in making people free?

Free to murder, rape, abuse children... Exactly what about these sorts of actions are worthwhile?

 

[GoldenBoy89]

Which is why deities like that only exist in the minds of people.

Or in books.

 

[Jeremy E Walker]

Because something incapable of evil shouldn't be capable or even willing to allow evil to exist.

Why?

 

[Jeremy E Walker]

If god is omniscient and omnipotent, it could make people with free will without evil or suffering ever happening as a consequence.

How did you come to this conclusion?

 

[quatona]

Accountable to whom?

Indeed, "accountable", "responsible" or "guilty" are unfortunate choices of words.
What, however, is undebatable (under the premise of an omiscient, omnipotent creator god): The coming into existence of evil was his intention and plan.

 

[Jeremy E Walker]

Free to murder, rape, abuse children... Exactly what about these sorts of actions are worthwhile?

Free to live as one chooses essentially.

Which is exactly the right you wish to exercise in being an atheist. You want to be free to determine what is meaningful, what is good, what is bad, and how you live without anyone being able to judge you or condemn you.

The rallying cry of this generation is: "Freedom!"

Freedom of expression
Freedom to live and let live
Freedom to marry whoever we want
Freedom to do whatever we want with out bodies
Freedom to believe or not believe whatever we want
Freedom to live according to our desires

No one marches and protests against freedom.

You will hear no one with a megaphone rallying the people to stand up for tyranny.

People like to be free. You like to be free. Now you want to act like God is evil for making people with the capacity for choosing how to live.

Stop it already.

 

[theophilus777]

Because something incapable of evil shouldn't be capable or even willing to allow evil to exist.

This isn't a logical fallacy, but it is logically flawed. One being incapable of evil does not mandate your conclusion.

Also God reveals Himself as certain to do evil, at least in the sense of causing calamity to our species, which we would perceive as an evil.

 

[theophilus777]

If god is omniscient and omnipotent, it could make people with free will without evil or suffering ever happening as a consequence.

You have more faith than I do, because I don't believe that's possible. I'm more atheistic than an atheist?!?

 

[theophilus777]

Indeed, "accountable", "responsible" or "guilty" are unfortunate choices of words.
What, however, is undebatable (under the premise of an omiscient, omnipotent creator god): The coming into existence of evil was his intention and plan.

Not so. If God exists, then not-God exists.

 

[theophilus777]

People like to be free. You like to be free. Now you want to act like God is evil for making people with the capacity for choosing how to live.

Stop it already.

I've seen the need to say this so frequently lately (and said essentially this same thing here earlier today) that I think I should use this as my tagline. Will it fit, or is it too long?

 

[GoldenBoy89]

Hi goldenboy89,......God in His love created YOU in His image, not to be a God like Him, but a being in His image to love and provide for, how is that sadistic?

That part is not particularly sadistic. I still don't believe that to be literally true but, let's continue.

God created a beautiful place, Eden, for you and I to live, how is that sadistic?

It's sadistic because he knew Eden would fall. He had to have known this or he wouldn't be omniscient. Since he knew this would happen from the beginning, he knew most (all?) humans wold never get to see the perfection of Eden. Sadism. To tell us how perfect everything was 'til we came along.

God did not create us to be robots, but created us to love Him freely, not forcefully.

Ok. But I could never love the being that is depicted in the bible. I can't love a being that promises endless pain and suffering to those who don't love that being. That is sadism.

To love your creator is to obey your creator, why, because an all mighty God knows what is best for you.

If he knows the bible is what is best for me, why doesn't he find a better way to communicate his message than through a 2000 year old manuscript from the Middle East. I would be much more convinced of his existence if he would just say it out loud instead of using a book that could easily have been corrupted by the very people who wrote it. Some people are bad, you know. They could have easily worked in verses that weren't what God said at all. We can tell because obviously, he lets people do their own thing. The authors of the bible had freewill.

Eve and Adam chose to obey a fallen angel called Lucifer, disguised as a serpent Eve and Adam believing God did not really know what was best for them, and was deceived by evil temptation.

And where did this evil temptation come from if they were in Perfectville? How did God not see this coming? Did he want that to happen?

And sense that time God has always provided a way out of our sinful nature, how sadistic is that? It's not sadistic......its pure Love, pure grace, pure mercy.

Maybe to you but I'm looking at this from the perspective that a being with infinite power, wisdom and resources could have done a much better job at not letting things get out of hand in the first place. The fact that God had to create a way out for us shows limited foresight.

Otherwise, Christ was the plan from the beginning and God knew Adam and Eve would fall into temptation. Which means that the whole serpent and forbidden fruit thing was all part of God's plan all along. Essentially, he lied to Adam and Eve because he knew already what they would end up doing. The commandment to not eat from the tree was pointless.

If you have not chosen Christ as your savior...well, you have chosen the sadistic one, Satan, The Lord of all that's evil.

I don't choose Satan. To me he is just as imagined as God, angels, demons, unicorns, Santa Claus, leprechauns, and the tooth fairy.

And my main point is that all these characters and stories all come from a book that was written by people. People who were no different than you or I in their understanding of the world, perhaps even more limited than us.

 

[quatona]

So you're saying there's no point in making people free?

"Freedom" and "freewill" aren´t synonyms, to begin with.

Secondly, seeing how God created us with limited freedom (e.g. we aren´t free to flap our arms and fly), anyway, even with freedom as a positively connotated term you don´t get to appeal to unlimited freedom as the intention behind creation.
Thus, "free vs. not free" (in the absolutely dichotomic way your question suggests) can´t be the question here.
"Free from what (specifically)...?" and "free to what (specifically)...?" would be better questions. Or, IOW, the issue is the very balance of the freedom that we do have and that we don´t have (in the huge spectrum of possibilities of distributing freedom).
And, yes, I would say there isn´t a point for an Omni-God to give us certain "freedoms to..." and "freedoms from" that we do have (unless said God is interested in seeing It´s creatures suffer unnecessarily), and possibly there isn´t a point for an Omni-God to deny us certain freedoms that we don´t have.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

Let me also add that if there is a real God, then I doubt he is as bad as the bible portrays him to be. I don't find God to be sadistic, I think the character in the Christian bible is sadistic. Which I don't believe actually exists, so I don't worry about it.

 

[quatona]

Not so. If God exists, then not-God exists.

That´s complete nonsense, of course, but I´ll play anyway for the fun of it:
And non-God (whatever entity this is supposed to be) was the omnipotent omniscient creator of everything?

 

[PsychoSarah]

How did you come to this conclusion?

By the definition of what omnipotent and omniscient mean

 

[theophilus777]

Let me also add that if there is a real God, then I doubt he is as bad as the bible portrays him to be. I don't find God to be sadistic, I think the character in the Christian bible is sadistic. Which I don't believe actually exists, so I don't worry about it.

Ya gots lots of misconceptions, based on reading your longer post just prior. You got those from Church teaching I take it?

 

[quatona]

People like to be free. You like to be free.

No, there definitely are freedoms that I´d prefer to not have, such as the freedom to rape, murder, etc.
On another note, appealing to the status quo within a system wouldn´t make a cause for creating the system as it is, anyway. IOW: Even if people were happy to have the freedom to rape, murder etc. and Omni-God could have created them so that they are not happy to have that freedom.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

Ya gots lots of misconceptions, based on reading your longer post just prior. You got those from Church teaching I take it?

I'm not really concerned if I have misunderstood Christianity. Christians don't concern themselves with properly understanding anyone else's religion. Why should I concern myself with properly understanding theirs?

To me, it's not a big deal which religion I choose to follow or if I choose to follow none. To me, they're all bad. To me, the basic gist of the story is ridiculous. So I dismiss it.

If God wants me to know or understand something, he knows where to find me. I'm not hiding.