Do you beleave in God(Poll)

[Big_John]

Skomatth, does one have to deterime the characteristics of a thing to believe in it? (not a rhtorical question, btw)

other than that, how do you justify (2) and (3)? why would "the world" be deviod of evil if such a god existed? and how do you know "evil" exists in the world?

[Skomatth]

Skomatth, does one have to deterime the characteristics of a thing to believe in it? (not a rhtorical question, btw)

other than that, how do you justify (2) and (3)? why would "the world" be deviod of evil if such a god existed? and how do you know "evil" exists in the world?

Big_John I take it that you mean "believe" as "believe to exist", else I don't see any other meaningful connotation. To believe in a god one does not have to determine the characteristics of it, merely the characteristic of existence. People do this in many different ways, using a variety of arguments- cosmological, ontological personal etc. If one asserts a characteristic beyond existence, there must be a reason to believe it, or I can make an assertion exactly contrary to yours and it will be equally justified. We can also rule out certain characteristics of God if they lead to a false conclusion.

I of course did not come up with the argument from evil; it is just a basic example of how to counter ah_dut's assertions. "Evil" and "good" come from the Christian connotations. (2) is justified thusly: If God is perfectly good, He
wants the best for mankind. If He is all-knowing, he knows exactly how to bring about the best for mankind. If He is all-powerful, He is able to bring about the best for mankind. It is easy to see that evil exists in the world if one takes evil to mean: "contrary to the will of a Christian God".