Questions about Christians

[aiki]

So based on the core concepts I have mentioned I have some problems with this god. If he created everything, than he created pedophiles. I hope we can all agree here that the act of pedophila is bad. Well why would a good god create a situation where such an act could occur? I mean if He could not keep sexual attraction to the very young out of creation all together why could he not give children at birth some kind of defence mechanism like a stink sprayer to ward off pervs so they would never actually act on the bad urges.

This is how I think about God, and when I think about Him in that way he just seems impossible.

So how do you guys look at the big G, God. Is He Good or Evil?

God created each of us with the potential either to choose evil or to choose good. The capacity to choose between these things is essential to truly loving God which is the heart of the Christian faith. If we are to freely love God, however, then we must be able to freely choose not to love Him. And when the creatures God creates choose not to love Him, they move into darkness, and delusion, and sin. This movement is their choice, however, not God's. He is responsible only for giving each of us the capacity to choose for or against Him. What we choose is on us.

If God does not exist, on what basis do you declare that pedophilia is a universal moral wrong? Many cultures throughout human history indulged in pedophilia without compunction. Some still do today. Child brides are common in Muslim countries, for example. What makes their particular perspective on this behaviour morally inferior to yours? If you're deriving your moral standard merely from yourself and other humans, on what basis do you have any right to declare it binding or authoritative for all humans everywhere? It seems to me that without God, your moral outrage at pedophilia expresses merely a behavioral preference shaped by the norms of your particular society rather than an objective morality to which all ought to adhere.

 

[ToBeLoved]

If God does not exist, on what basis do you declare that pedophilia is a universal moral wrong? Many cultures throughout human history indulged in pedophilia without compunction. Some still do today. Child brides are common in Muslim countries, for example. What makes their particular perspective on this behaviour morally inferior to yours? If you're deriving your moral standard merely from yourself and other humans, on what basis do you have any right to declare it binding or authoritative for all humans everywhere? It seems to me that without God, your moral outrage at pedophilia expresses merely a behavioral preference shaped by the norms of your particular society rather than an objective morality to which all ought to adhere.

I wonder that to about Atheists.

In one sense they come to Christians and ask how we can love a God that would allow people through free will to express evil, but then as an atheist, what are they even basing morals or what is right and wrong on?

Like you said, with an aetheist world view, who is to say that pedophilia is even wrong or whatever the OP considers to be evil is even evil, for an atheist.

I watched a debate about this, three Christians and three aetheists back when. And one of the primary Christian points is that the aetheist world view takes from a Christian world view of what is good and bad, evil verses good because if people are just accidents then who is to say what is right or wrong.

 

[Uber Genius]

Let me first respond to your minor point regarding the immorality of pedophiles. On atheism why think there are any morals? Does the universe spit out moral duties the way it creates atoms or quarks, gravitational fields, etc.? This seems absurd. On atheism morals are just social fashion like wearing a miniskirt was popular in the 1970s.

On atheism we would say fidelity in marriage was in vogue in the US in the first half of the twentieth century.

"The position of the modern evolutionist . . . is that humans have an awareness of morality . . . because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth . . . . Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says ‘Love they neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves . . . . Nevertheless, . . . such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, . . . and any deeper meaning is illusory."
Ruse is an atheist and philosopher of ethics and morality.

* Michael Ruse, “Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics,” in The Darwinian Paradigm (London: Routledge, 1989), pp. 262, 268-9.

If God doesn't exist we have no ground for objective morals and nothing to hold us accountable to those universal standards. If he does exist we have a God who's commands reflect his good nature and grounds morals and provides reward for the righteous and justice for the evil.

 

[Uber Genius]

God created everything therefore God created pedophiles.

This is false!

God didn't create everything. Your parents created you.

He created a universe, the laws, energy, space, time. But the earth creates fruit trees in Gen. 1

So your fallacy it to equivocate on the word "everything."

Eliminate that fallacy and accurately represent the scriptural account and you will find that God creates a world that has the potential for great good but through intelligent agents rebelling, is now suffused with moral and natural evil.

A world filled with free agents free to choose to love God and serve him or reject God and refuse to serve him.

Imaging you wanted a loving relationship with a spouse, would you wait to find someone who freely loved you for who you were, or would you create a robot that was programmed to "love" you?