But what of existential evil? What of natural evil?
Human beings have nothing to do with producing them! Yet they are still evil.
It is an ancient and disingenuous cop-out to blame humans and their alleged free will for God’s evil, but even the great theodicists realized this perfectly well and so tried (and failed) to defend God on these other very serious charges.
No one has even tried to do that here (and I’m not directing that comment to you specifically, mhendo). All we see from the O.P. is his bald and unwarranted assertions that God isn’t evil and is not responsible for evil. We can all post unfounded assertions all day long, but that is not the purpose of this forum, is it? I was given to believe on good authority that it is to debate, not merely to make claims and duck genuine challenges.
What about statues that bleed? Paintings that cry? Phenomena that can’t be explained by science being viewed by hundreds of people at the same time? Personal testaments of visions? Personal testaments of bizare healings and happenings due to one’s religous beliefs? There is all shades of evidence available, yet people still choose not to believe. So, I guess on a more personal level, what type of evidence would God have to give YOU to make you believe? Saying “anything” doesn’t work, because there’s stuff out there that does exist, and yet appatently, it’s not good enough.
Here’s where a lot of confusion comes from. This is all religion, organizations founded on rituals and traditions established by men, not God/god/the gods. God(s) can exist without religion, and so can faith. Agnostics to my understanding differ from athiests in that they still believe that there’s something out there (a “supreme being” possibly) yet they don’t believe in the foundations of any organized religion. If I’m wrong, correct me, but this is proof that belife can come without religion. So why is it people discount God based off the innacurracies of man’s religion? God didn’t establish these, men did. Sure, God did lend a hand by speaking to the prophets and setting a few guidlines, but religion is a completely man made instrument whose initial intent and true purpose is to help bring people to God, not to take his place.
I don’t make this claim. Maybe i should have been clearer. I don’t believe in the existence of God at all, so find no need either to blame evil on God, nor to absolve God of any responsibility for evil.
I’d be interested to see examples of what you call “existential evil” and “natural evil,” as my basically humanist worldview finds little scope for understanding evil outside the choices and actions of people.
You are correct, of course, that debate is better than bald assertions. However, there are some cases where it becomes difficult. For example, having stated that i don’t believe in God, it becomes difficult for me to enter a debate on whether or not God is responsible for evil. All i could really do in this case would be to enter the debate as a type of devil’s advocate (there’s a paradoxical term for an atheist), and say that IF God existed then he/she/it would have to bear responsibility for evil (which is exactly what my postion would be in such a debate).
And to philsGT500, i did realise that you never said that your opinions were specifically Christian. I was simply making an observation about the broader applicability of what you said. And whaddayaknow? I like strawberries too, even though no god had anything to do with creating them.
I thought every ‘statue that bled / painting that cried’ had been exposed as a fraud. Do you have any evidence otherwise?
Please cite any occurence of ‘Phenomena that can’t be explained by science being viewed by hundreds of people’.
There are regular ‘reports’ of Elvis sightings, and of Paul McCartney being dead. Do you accept these?
Personal visions are fine for that person. They’re not much use to anyone else.
(Why doesn’t God give everyone a personal vision?)
Similarly some people claim that if you give them money, they will heal you. I don’t know of any such ‘miracle case’ accepted by the medical profession.
This is not ‘all shades of evidence available’!
Presumably faith can exist without God.
Agnostics don’t know if there is a God. They certainly don’t believe in one.
I don’t discount God because of religious contradictions, but it certainly doesn’t help the case for God. Which prophets did God speak to?
If God took a hand, how can religion be ‘a completely man made instrument’?
Ambushed,
Once again I’m having words being said for me. What was the quote…something about me “getting God off the hook.” For some reason I think you believe that I am claiming God DOES NOT cause evil things to happen. My point boils down to the idea that even if God does specifically designate “evil” things to happen (or even allows for them to happen) there is absolutely no standard that supercedes him. Assuming He is the supreme ruler of EVERYTHING (not a generally accepted assumption I know, but one that I based my original statement on) then NOTHING has judgement over Him. Any concept of evil is devised by Him for us. I’m not trying to say that evil doesn’t exist, I’m not trying to say that God is not ultimately responsible for evil, my point is that nothing and no one can judge God on if He is right or if He is wrong.
And Glee,
My proof of a God (sorry for butting into this) will not be recognized by you unless you choose to accept Him into your life. But think of it this way: an athiest/agnostic/etc. can become a Christian, but the other way around is just not possible. Christians , upon accepting Christ into their life, will never be anything but Christians. I was athiest myself and have become Christian. Once one truly accepts Christ into his/her life, he will never lose that faith. How do I explain all the people who convert from Christianity? They never truly knew Christ. I just know this will spark a huge controversy (hopefully I’m wrong), but it’s what I believe and I’m sure everyone here agrees I have a right to believe it.
You can’t have it both ways.
If people who convert to Christianity never waver in their beliefs, that is an indication that there is something worth investigating.
But you say that people who leave the Church (I’m one of them, by the way) never truly knew Christ. How do you know that? Perhaps God doesn’t exist, and they’ve realised that instead. People leaving the Church are not good evidence that God exists!
Oh, and I fully support your right to believe what you want. I value free speech and democracy.
How do you fit blasphemy and fatwas into this?
Wow, you religious folks hold yourselves up to a pretty high standard of proof, don’t you? Let’s see if i can do it too.
I believe that fairies live at the bottom of my garden, and i can prove it. But you would never recognize my proof unless you actually see fairies at the bottom of my garden. Therefore, if you don’t see the fairies, it doesn’t mean they aren’t there, only that you haven’t truly known them. There we go - a flawless circle.
I fully support your right both to believe in God, and to believe that the tortuous explanation given in your post is logically sound. But don’t expect me to respect your logic as even an approximation of the proof of God’s existence.
Glee,
As always in the matter of this debate we run into the fact that it will not be resolved. However, there is a difference in converting away from Christianity than converting to it (aside from the obvious). Quite honestly it’s a lot easier for me to say that you never knew Christ than it is for you to say that you did. So in your point of ‘realizing there is no God’ I can say that you never truly were Christian. But in my point of ‘realizing there is a God’ it’s very difficult for you to argue that I was never really an athiest simply because the nature of atheism requires only the need to not believe in a God and the nature of Christianity requires you to give your life fully and completely to God. So basically I can say I’ve seen both sides of it, and I can also claim that you haven’t. And when I do make that claim it is based on the idea that anyone who truly knows Christ would never turn from Him. To sum this all up I’m making a rather “high and mighty” sounding statement of how I think I know more than you…experience brings knowledge. And because I’ve experienced the athiest side of things I know how it feels to be accosted by gung-ho Christians lacking respect for others, and I sincerely hope I am not coming across in such a way.
Mhendo,
I never said that it was proof for everyone. I’m a firm believer that no such proof will ever present itself. I was careful to place that possessive pronoun in front of “proof of God” to keep myself safe on the matter. It truly is all in the eye of the beholder.
“What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all the time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea! Look! see yon Albicore! Who put it into him to chase and fang that flying-fish? Where do murderers go, man! Who’s to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?”
If God created Man then God created our morality. Our morality tells us that God cannot be excused for his evil acts just because he gets to set the rules. God’s bullying and self-justifying rant to Job was the worst sort of craven ugliness and moral bankruptcy, an appeal to the “might makes right” school of infamy.
There is something utterly indefensible about a God who is less loving and moral than just about any mere human. Such a God is not worshipworthy.
Most importantly you’re being polite (I have met ‘eternal damnation’ fundamentalists).
But your entire post above (incidentally I tried to condense it, but there were a lot of points, so I’ve left it all) comes down to your belief that God has revealed himself to you, and that this is a powerful experience.
Unfortunately, and I too do not wish to be offensive, there are many people who believe passionately in something because of ‘voices in their heads’.
There are millions of people who believe passionately in a different God to you (or indeed to a different sect). Are they all wrong?
In addition I expect that both you and I would say that some people who hear voices and believe completely in e.g. fairies are confused and mistaken.
I don’t just have difficulty accepting the existence of God - which God is the correct one?
I just want to chime in here with a slightly off-topic thought, but one that I think fits.
Christians, generically, love God and have faith in Him (or at least claim to). In that context, “faith” implies “trust,” not “intellectual adherence to a proposition.”
Christians believe that a good God nonetheless allows evil to exist for His own purposes, not because they enjoy tying themselves in contradictions, but because they love Him and are confident of His goodness, and because “evil” manifestly does exist.
I have no more clue than anyone else why God allowed al-Qaeda to pull the stuff it did, allowed a kitten to suffer, or even allowed parasitic wasps with those horrifying reproductive propensities to evolve.
I trust Him to have had His reasons. And sometimes, as when our beloved elderly cat was hit by a car, I find it hard to maintain that trust, because I am hurting. As was Guin/. But I try to do so nonetheless, keeping confidence in His lovingkindness which He has proved to me (albeit in ways not subject to skeptical analysis).
This reminds me…before they ate the ‘fruit of knowledge of good and evil’ how did they know it was wrong to eat the fruit? I mean just because god said “don’t eat it”? If they didn’t KNOW it was good or evil to disobey god (because they hadn’t had that fruit yet!) then why would they get blamed for disobeying? Before they ate the fruit they didn’t know it was wrong to disobey god…right?
You are quite wrong here. I “truly” accepted Jesus into my life, was a church leader, did missionary work, took up my cross daily and all that jazz. Please do not devalue the experiences I have gone through with such an sweeping generalization. You claim to have accepted Jesus into your life and know he exists because of your experiences and emotions. I too experienced this, but after 10 years I realized that the emotions and feelings I was experiencing were not from a teacher nailed to a tree 2000 years ago. We met, had a lovely time together, and then went our seperate ways. It does not make it any less real nor does it mean I was not a Christian at the time. And I am no longer a Christian, my faith was not lost but better realized.
That is like saying a couple who gets married, has children and then divorces 15 years later were never “really” in love with each other. If they were, love doesn’t stop, so all those experience and shared events weren’t “real”.
I have no problem you prostelyzing, just don’t tell me my experiences, emotions, beliefs and faith weren’t true, because I’ll call you on it every single time.
You’ll have just as hard a time convincing me that you truly knew Jesus as I’ll have convincing you that you didn’t. I stand by my assertion, as I’m sure you’ll stand by yours. Don’t you just love how unresolved this will always be? I don’t mean to ‘trivialize’ the experiences you had with the church, but I still do not believe you completely accepted Jesus into your life.
Phil, my brother, examine yourself for arrogance. It is regrettable but true that numerous people here had what appear to be true experiences of Jesus in their lives and nonetheless lost faith in God. I have no doubt that Mayor Quimby and at least two other currently active posters and several no longer posting are giving honest accounts of their experiences.
Reread the Parable of the Sower (and Mayor and the rest of you, forgive the apparent arrogance in the implications of the form of seed that makes you).
My sense is that God is at work in everything – including apparent apostasy. Expect tough questions, Phil, and look for them to test and deepen your own faith. I know they have mine.
It’s not an assertion, it’s an assumption. And like I always say, when you assume, you make an ass out of yourself.
I really could care less what you believe about me or don’t, Philly Boy, for you know me not and my experiences, ideals and beliefs are between me and God. Remember that when it comes time for you to judge me… Oh wait, you won’t be judging me, so I suggest you stop practicing for a job that is not yours. 1 Samuel 16:7
…for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.
No forgiveness needed Polycarp. Let’s just say I believe the wind picked up my seed and blew me into a different field.
