God Is Impossible: Problem of Evil

Morality is a human concept, it doesn't apply to God.

We cannot apply our reasoning to how He thinks, its impossible for us to even comprehend what He does or thinks.

And God knows very well how we will choose but we don't and that's why free will exists.

I am sure God could have just worked it all out on paper and said, "ok these guys will choose me so I'll just bring them up here before they are even born".

Sure He could do that and eliminate suffering so I can only conclude that the experiences, hardships, the work we do, all plays into something when we die.

I've no idea what that may be but I've learned that God has a plan and doesn't do things for no reason.

I trust Him fully.

 

And yet religions all claim to know what he thinks. You might want to tell them they're all wrong.

By your standards, we can't tell anything about God of any sort. So, "love your neighbor" might really mean "dismember your neighbor". I don't like your standards at all.

 

Not at all.

We know what He has told us in the writings and we can understand Him to some degree through praying and our relationship with Him but we will never know exactly how He thinks.

Even if you don't believe we can just look at the concept of a God and a human. There is no way that a human could ever even comprehend what it is like to be a God. Its a completely different realm that we know nothing about. Applying our human concepts of understanding to a God is pointless since it wouldn't work that way.

It would be like an ant thinking they can understand the human thought process when we may be thinking about things they can't even imagine like running an equation for a nuclear explosion through our head.

That and could never understand how a human works or thinks just like we can't with God. Now if the ant had a smidgeon of intelligence we could give it simple command and it would follow it but that's about its limit.

So when people say that a real God would never allow suffering well maybe he doesn't think of it as suffering or maybe he doesn't think about it at all or maybe He does think about it but wants us to experience it.

We don't know.

 

But this would then mean that we can't use terms like goodness or perfection in reference to God. It would also mean that religious ethics would be, by definition, irrational.

Again why would one agree to worship one God over another? Mere cultural lottery?

But in order to rationally defend this view, you would have to explain how these elements fit together (i.e. show how suffering works to accomplish this, show why lesser pain and suffering would not have worked to achieve the necessary ends - otherwise you concede the rational/argument to the atheist - if one claims that it can't be known, or that it's a mystery, or that it's just an issue of faith, etc., then one concedes that faith is something that is non-rational, or even more extreme that one believes despite faith being decidedly irrational (see Soren Kierkegaard). Both claims are difficult to champion in light of atheistic arguments that rely on logical/philosophical argumentation. Typically theists seem to want to show why belief in God is rationally justified to avoid this, but to this you would have to present the connections and moral connections; and as you have said, it seems religious belief precludes this ("God's ways are not our ways"). Hence, the difficulty.

This is further complicated by ethical concerns regarding belief justification: if you are hunting with friends and you hear something moving around in the bushes and without looking to see what it is or where your friends are, do you shoot at the bushes? No, to do would be wildly reckless and dangerous. But beliefs about right and wrong are like that in that they lead to actions. If we aren't sure if something is true, then we act blindly and potentially put ourselves and others at risk. So it seems we have an ethical duty to be justified in what we believe.

 

But this would pose problems for traditional religion: given this analogy, how could an ant and a human have a meaningful relationship? And how much more greater is the gulf between God and humanity than between humanity and an ant?

But again how could anyone call God good then? Or say anything meaningful about God's plans? If God is the grounds of morality, how could we ever make judgments about about moral issues in everyday life - wouldn't we be crippled by an extraordinary skepticism? For example, if you saw a child being beaten senseless by a vicious criminal and you could easily stop it without risk to yourself, the child, or others, how would you know that doing so would be the right thing? If you ignore the skepticism and act on a kind of common sense approach (epistemically) in everyday cases, wouldn't those common sense approaches also govern how we ought to view religious claims as well? After all, the evidential argument asks for us to weigh the evidence and see which argument makes the best case (an inference to the best explanation).

 

The ant will consider it a very meaningful relationship.

God doesn't need a relationship with us but He has indicates that he wants one.

Our very creation, his ordering his angels to bow before us, all of this points to his desire to have a relationship with us.

He could have created minions to simply worship Him but He didn't, He gave us the option to choose to have that relationship.

The morality handed down by God is for us, its not for Him.

 

ford is a corporation, not an all knowing omniscient god.

 

You make an founded leap from God being omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient, to God being required to intervene to prevent evil in the world.

And is God omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient? You just assume it.

 

Of course it is, in any case where they are God-inspired.

What's missing is a reason to find that interesting.

One thing the rest of us can be sure of is that if whatever you experienced didn't come from God, it was fraudulent.

This makes about as much sense as asking why you should hire an attorney who never loses a case.

Either or both. You're welcome.

Of course He does: Himself. A thing is good because it serves His purpose, or bad because it doesn't.

No He couldn't, because it's not in Him to do that.

 

We have all also learned that anything you say is fraudulent, and you just gave an example.

 

Well whether or not this is good depends on whether or not you are innocent or guilty. If you're Hitler, it's bad. If you're are MLK, it's good. You've already contradicted yourself here though with your last statement. You say that there are certain things God wouldn't do, but your point here is that no matter what God does it's should be considered good (the lawyer that always wins no matter what the lawyer does). It's understandable how you could have missed this, you were obviously tired when you wrote your response:

Nope. They are mutually exclusive logically. One entails that morality exists separate from god, the other entails that morality is created by god. This is literally Philosophy 101. The Euthyphro dilemma has been used for over two millennia to gauge one's competency/aptitude for logical thought. Congrats.

And how do you know his purpose is good?

Oh, so now there are things that God can't make moral by command (e.g. the Holocaust)? And what makes his nature good? Are there moral reasons for why his nature is good? Or is it just good because he's powerful?

Indeed.

 

Your point? Does Ford not know that their cars will one day end up in the scrap heap?

 

It seems to me that it is mankind itself, not God, who is responsible for genocide and child starvation.
Having "faith" in mankind is foolish and where all the trouble begins.

Why people choose to cop out and blame God for their own shortcomings and evils has always been a mystery to me.
Probably because it makes it easier to deal with the guilt.

 

I don't suppose you'd care to elaborate.

Yeah, well since it's the MLK types and not the Hitler types who would naturally incline their hearts towards the Author and Defender of all that's good, I daresay it doesn't take a moment's cogitation to see which applies here. How about you, Brainiac?

Yes, because the lawyer always acts justly, and always wins. Where's the contradiction?

Yep.

Certainly you can impose such a condition for the sake of your self-esteem, but it's nothing like a necessary implication of what you said to begin with.

Then clearly that may be safely disregarded.

No doubt the gullible find that very impressive indeed.

Because it's His purpose, obviously.

Yeah. What's the problem?

The question is idiotic. You're welcome.

 

Well, this so-called god just seems completely absent. Which makes sense since he doesn't exist. He's not responsible for evil (if evil even exists), since he doesn't exist.

Faith means believing something without evidence, and it should be discarded as it is an invalid approach to understanding reality.

 

To you.

That's purely your own presumption informed by your own subjective judgements.

There is plenty of evidence for God. It's called the whole universe. It's takes a bigger leap of faith to assume the universe just happens to exist than to believe some unimaginable force was the causing agent.
Find one thing that has no cause for being.

At any rate mankind's blaming of this imaginary God, if we think like you do, for it's ills is a tremendously dishonest act of denial and evil, since it totally absolves humanity for all the ill it does.

 

It seems clear to me that the existence of the universe is not something easily understood either way, so I do not see how just assuming some kind of invisible superhuman made it all possible makes the problem any better. It's better just to accept that we don't understand, or maybe read more of whatever Hawking wrote.

It's not subjective judgement, quite the opposite. There are no objective findings to support god that I have heard of.

Humans obviously do bad things. The issue is that the pattern in which bad things happen does not support the existence of a higher power. There's a reason Christians say god works in mysterious ways. Because in reality, there is no pattern other than the universe seeming to punish those who do stupid things, or just randomly. It's all just physics, sociology, and statistics, as far as we can measure.

 

I agree the idea of some supreme Being or Force is an absurd one and likely the only thing more absurd than that is the entirety of the universe that just happens to be here for no reason at all.

It's the universe, stupid! (to paraphrase)

If you don't believe in God then you don't get to blame Him for wars, famines, etc. I believe in God because I can observe the
product of God's creation however I don't believe in religion (though I am very much sympathetic to Christianity for the most part).
I find their attempts to do good most commendable. And they do it without any government coercion or prodding.
.
But let's give credit where it is due. It is man who is responsible for the overwhelming amount of misery inflicted on his fellow beings.
Blaming God for not saving us from ourselves is a cop out though I understand how religion has created that expectation.

 

Oh, my mistake. I thought you were honestly debating. Or maybe you are and it's...beyond what you are comfortable with. Admitting that you would worship a God that could make the Holocaust moral is nothing short of shocking.

 

Certainly seems beyond what somebody is comfortable with.

Evidently you've somehow lost comprehension of your own question. Not sure I've witnessed that phenomenon before.

 

Lol. Says the guy who worships a god that could make the Holocaust moral.

 

God is only possible when you don't think about it. There is no explanation for what God actually supposedly is beyond very fuzzy ideas that lack any explanatory power and testability.

 

You sure take a lot for granted.

 

Most of these people aren't blaming god, they are using it as circumstantial evidence that there is no god. And most of misery stems from the fact that the universe is a cold uncaring place that marches along with no regard for what anybody wants. Sure wars and nazis cut lives short, but leukemia also kills children and in the end we all tragically die, it seems. I can't pretend that isn't how it seems to be. The universe is cold by default and dimly lit by human kindness, better technology, and the meaning we make of our lives.

I really can't imagine how inventing a magical sky fairy makes the universe's existence make more sense. Where would this god come from before the universe. I see a more complicated problem by adding god, not a solution.

 

my point was obvious. The comparison is invalid.

No idea. it's irrelevant to the topic though, as we are talking about a fictional imaginary all powerful god that created everything.