The One they call "God"

[Bijo]

It is true that often there have been discussions and debates regarding "God", religion, science, philosophy, and so on, and this time let us do so again more or less. Only now I commence with a simple statement and an explanation for it to criticize the entity they call "God".

Statement: "If God exists, He must be a sadist or some underachiever."

Explanation: He is supposed to be all-powerful, almighty, capable of anything, for He is God, therefore since the world has been, is, and will be in such terrible state and He has ultimate divine power and is our overseer, He is evil for allowing evil to occur, for having it installed in nature, in us.
If He is NOT evil, but good, then He must not be allpowerful, almighty, and so on as He must be some kind of underachiever, for the world is in a terrible state as there's much evil.

[rvg]

He is evil for allowing evil to occur, for having it installed in nature, in us. If He is NOT evil, but good, then He must not be allpowerful, almighty, and so on as He must be some kind of underachiever, for the world is in a terrible state as there's much evil.

I disagree. Evil in nature simply does not exist, nature is neither good nor evil. As for humans, we choose to be evil, in a sense, we are abusing God's greatest gift to us, which is freedom.

Evil never comes from God.

[Lemur]

Bijo, I don't know if you're aware of it or not, but you're pounding down a well-worn path. The seeming paradox of an omnipotent, benevolent god in a world that contains manifest evil has been toyed with for millennia. Try the Book of Job, for starters.

Some theologies ascribe the existence of evil to Original Sin and the fall of man. Others theorize that God allows the world to go its own way as part of free will. Others suggest that aspects of our world shun God, and therefore fall outside his grace.

The Christian Scientists have the most logical, if hard to swallow solution: The material world is an illusion, as is all evil. Reality is pure love and God's grace, so if you can just see through the material veil, you can cause miracles to occur.

Of course, as South Park made clear, the Mormons are the only ones with the correct answer.

[Vladimir]

Those who seek to disprove God through science have only codified his laws. There is a divine being who's laws bind us all. We call it mathematics.

And that's not some scientology crap either. And stop with this endless circular debate; the only thing that matters are the actions that result from your belief.

[Ronin]

you mean Clapton(is God)?


I mean.....he sure had some tough times....with all the coke he was doing and stuff...

but I wouldn´t go as far as calling him evil....we all have our problems....

[Andres]

Most of the misery in the world is caused by us, humans. Don't blame God, blame humanity. God gave us a free will. It's up to us to do something good with it.

Would you prefer a constantly interfering God? That would mean the end of our own free will. For some of us, living a life with constant interference of a supreme being would be equal to living in hell...

Statement: "If God exists, He must be a (...) underachiever."

You are implying that if there is a God, he should be "Good". Why would you assume that if there is a God, he should be "Good"? After all, he is God. He doesn't need to respond to us, mere mortals. He can do (or not do) whatever He wants. Maybe He doesn't even know the difference between "Good" and "Evil". Maybe He doesn't even care. And if he's Evil, I wouldn't call him an underachiever. Au contraire...

[Bijo mode]Your statement is based on the assumption that God should be good. An assumption is not a fact. Discussing your statement is pointless. [/Bijo mode ]

[Bijo]

Sigurd, are you telling us to wait? Please go on and let Kukri open a debate in connection with this thread if that's to be, that's fine, but I do want to respond to Andres.

Most of the misery in the world is caused by us, humans. Don't blame God, blame humanity. God gave us a free will. It's up to us to do something good with it.

Would you prefer a constantly interfering God? That would mean the end of our own free will. For some of us, living a life with constant interference of a supreme being would be equal to living in hell...



You are implying that if there is a God, he should be "Good". Why would you assume that if there is a God, he should be "Good"? After all, he is God. He doesn't need to respond to us, mere mortals. He can do (or not do) whatever He wants. Maybe He doesn't even know the difference between "Good" and "Evil". Maybe He doesn't even care. And if he's Evil, I wouldn't call him an underachiever. Au contraire...

[Bijo mode]Your statement is based on the assumption that God should be good. An assumption is not a fact. Discussing your statement is pointless. [/Bijo mode ]

Wait a minute there, old boy. What is in question is the statement in the first post. What matters is whether the statement is true or false.

You are stating the misery and so on is caused by us humans? Are you forgetting it is the one they call God who is supposedly the Creator of us humans? Why create us in such a way that we are corrupt, evil, and so forth? Does this not testify of an evil divine entity (if He exists and how He has been, is, and will be perceived)? Why design us mere mortals with terrible flaws? He is God and supposedly almighty. It only indicates He is evil.

And maybe if He is NOT evil, he is not that almighty at all. Or maybe He is evil AND not totally almighty.

Bottom line: the first statement seems correct and true. You are to oppose it and counterargument it. So far it holds true.

[rvg]

Why create us in such a way that we are corrupt, evil, and so forth? Does this not testify of an evil divine entity (if He exists and how He has been, is, and will be perceived)? Why design us mere mortals with terrible flaws?

We are not born evil.

[Sigurd]

HOLD YOUR HORSES!!!

There will be a debate on this soon (I have already sent my proposition)... Kukri will be opening a moderated thread in connection with this.

[Husar]

I'm sure Sigurd's debate will be...better, longer, but here goes my short rebuttal anyway.

Well, he gave us free choice, that means if we do evil, it's us not him, what you want is no free choice, but that wouldn't be perfect.
The other thing is quite silly, if he is not all-powerful and cannot make the world better, then he isn't an underachiever as it is not possible for him to make things better, or would you consider yourself an underachiever because you cannot fly when naked without any tools?

[Ironside]

HOLD YOUR HORSES!!!

There will be a debate on this soon (I have already sent my proposition)... Kukri will be opening a moderated thread in connection with this.

Bah, you're debating whatever God exist or not, much funnier to debate whatever if it's worth worshipping him if he would exist.

Here's some nice ones:

After God decided to end his perma-ban on the whole of humanity after thier ancestors messed up (and that the all-seeing eye was obviously not seeing it...), he sent Jesus that showed some people the true path to heaven.
Of course he missed informing most of the human population on anything on the matter, condemning them all to hell, or at least limbo. If you claim that you don't need to belive in God to go to heaven, just live a fair life, then why the injustice on informing some and not the rest?

Then he goes around convincing Moses that he should say "let my people go, or I send God to kick your ass. And your subjects" to Pharao. He then proceeds to convince Pharao to say "No." And then repeats this quite a few times, all very good signs of a benevolent god.

I a child is born without evil, isn't the ultimate sacrifice infanticide? You will probably end up in hell, but your child enters heaven. I'm quite certain that a considerble amount of parents finds that a fair deal.

God work in mysterious ways you say, but then comes the question on why you should still consider him good. I mean if a leader would condemn me to eternal torture (life in a nasty prison should be quite enough) for no particular reason except that it somehow fits his plans, I might consider him competent, but there's no way I would consider that good.

And if God isn't good why worship him? He's not exactly good at punishing the disbelivers, making worship out of fear hardly worth it and worshipping someone evil that can punish you anyway is'nt a good deal. You would rather do the opposite.

And that's not even touching the questions that shows up if you go outside the Christian God and touches the more blurry God as the creator of universe etc, etc. Can put up some if anybody wants it though.

[Fragony]

Now I am no real believer or anything, but it never ceases to amaze with me how how much passion athiests want to convert those that believe in something and how they never seem to notice that about theirselves. Must be lacking something, somewhere, and they can't stand that they have to denounce it, break it.

[Crazed Rabbit]

It is true that often there have been discussions and debates regarding "God", religion, science, philosophy, and so on, and this time let us do so again more or less. Only now I commence with a simple statement and an explanation for it to criticize the entity they call "God".

Statement: "If God exists, He must be a sadist or some underachiever."

Explanation: He is supposed to be all-powerful, almighty, capable of anything, for He is God, therefore since the world has been, is, and will be in such terrible state and He has ultimate divine power and is our overseer, He is evil for allowing evil to occur, for having it installed in nature, in us.
If He is NOT evil, but good, then He must not be allpowerful, almighty, and so on as He must be some kind of underachiever, for the world is in a terrible state as there's much evil.

Free will.

To explain, if we are to have free will, than we must be free to choose the evil path.

CR

[Odin]

Statement: "If God exists, He must be a sadist or some underachiever."

God and his devine plan is a metaphor for human judgement. You see we all have the ability to make a bad decision, a failure. The metaphor in scripture is right there for all to see. I think its Isaiah(I havent brushed up on it in some time) but essentially it states the lord will provide a sign and a woman shall concieve a son.

That son was the Christ, supposedly promised to the jews to reunite judah. So what happened? Christ was not accepted by the Jews, therefore god failed.

Now some like to call it a devine plan, but its clear that this son was meant for the jews exclusively. Hence the metaphor for the human condition we are all susceptable to fail.

What greater failure has there been then god having a son to unite the israelites and him being spurrened by the chosen people?

Religion is filled with metaphor of the human condition Bijo.

[JimBob]

Bijo, did your father stop you from making every mistake you ever made? Did he constantly hover over your shoulder and correct you and stop you from failing at every turn? Did he help you when you came to him for help? Or when you'd made a mistake?

[Geoffrey S]

Besides, who are we to judge what is good or evil to God?

[rvg]

Besides, who are we to judge what is good or evil to God?

Well, the 10 commandments come directly from God, so we do have some idea regarding what God approves or disapproves.

[caravel]

Fear the camel god, fear him as do the horses!

[Geoffrey S]

Well, the 10 commandments come directly from God, so we do have some idea regarding what God approves or disapproves.

That depends on how much faith you put in reliability of development of the Bible, which was written and passed down by man.

[master of the puppets]

A human is not evil, you would be very hard pressed to find an utterly evil person among the masses, and most of us realise we could not stomp a baby or blow up a building. Neither is humanity good. as a whole we are panicky, stupid, ill-tempered and vain. But this does not stem from evil.

We Are SELFISH!

to our very core every human desires foremost in there hearts to be, comfortable, loved, and honored. Whether you choose to attribute this to the flaws imbued in man when he took the apple in the garden because he and eve were convinced they desired it. or whether biosocialogicly speaking we are all still animals who care only for ourselves and our offspring. Either way this selfish desire to be rich(theres a war), powerful (a couple of wars i think), correct (2 crusades and a jihad), are what is running the world. Those who ignore these desires and suffer to bring them to others are what we call heroes and inspirations, there not inherently good, they just care about others more than themselves

and don't say that the world is in bad shape, come on, the world has always been in bad shape. For as long as man has attributed might to right there have been wars, famine, religious wars, greed. the only thing that is changing is the numbers. the numbers born, the number killed, the number lost, the amount gained. thats it.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Bijo, have you considered that perhaps humans are neither good nor evil, only corruptable, and God and the Trinity are the only good and Satan the only evil?

[AntiochusIII]

I think one trait in these discussions is to go into either the Judeo-Christian tradition of God ("Bible") or a philosophical "Aristotelian" one. Why must those two be the only choices when it comes to discussing the nature of the Divine, when there are so many cultures in human history and so many of them have many many ways of defining the nature of their Deity(ies) as such?

[Incongruous]

To me, a Christian, any attempt to claim a great understanding of God is futile. For God is God, our creator and thus above the rules which govern us, God is something of such magnitude and perfection that no man may ever truly contemplate God's meanings and wills. To claim that one has found out through the use of one's great intelligence is hubris and vanity.
However we can be sure that we have free will, to what end? I don't know.
But that is what I know and must accept, God does not give us a guiding hand through life, he has laid out his rules or peace and acceptance. It is for us to adhere top them. Simple.

My beleifs.

[Navaros]

The original post is logically put.

I would submit that there is another alternative possiblity to the premises it suggests: there are good reasons for why God allows evil to occur on Earth, and human beings are incapable of understanding what those reasons are. Because God chooses to leave them incapable to, for good reasons.

[CountArach]

The original post is logically put.

I would submit that there is another alternative possiblity to the premises it suggests: there are good reasons for why God allows evil to occur on Earth, and human beings are incapable of understanding what those reasons are. Because God chooses to leave them incapable to, for good reasons.

Of course, it would seem unlikely to me that God would allow us to comprehend that he may not allow us to comprehend evil and yet not in turn allow us to comprehend evil.

Unless I am unable to comprehend why he is not letting me comprehend why he is not letting me comprehend evil.

My head hurts.

[Ironside]

I think one trait in these discussions is to go into either the Judeo-Christian tradition of God ("Bible") or a philosophical "Aristotelian" one. Why must those two be the only choices when it comes to discussing the nature of the Divine, when there are so many cultures in human history and so many of them have many many ways of defining the nature of their Deity(ies) as such?

Home grown issues? I'm not sure how many people on these boards that can refer to the downsides of Kali worshipping neighbours. Side effects includes sudden cases of strangulation.
But I agree that these "lesser" dieties or sources of divine power can be quite interesting to debate, more so than the omnipotent God that can create a universe, yet is supposed to give extreme care to some humans compared to anything else that he have created.

Now I am no real believer or anything, but it never ceases to amaze with me how how much passion athiests want to convert those that believe in something and how they never seem to notice that about theirselves. Must be lacking something, somewhere, and they can't stand that they have to denounce it, break it.

Faith?

What would you do on a debating forum if theres a quite interesting subject were you well lack the thing that makes your opponents arguments make sence and all the other things you see indicates the opposite?