I am not sure how to describe my religious leanings, or general lack of. I can’t say that I would prefer that a god exists, al;though this raises the interesting point as to whether or not I have any say in what this god is and does. At any rate it would be nice to know that a god actually exists, if he/she/it actually exists, and this beats out belief, which always struck me as somewhere between self-deceptpon and wish fulfillment. In short, I prefer certainty to belief. And by that I mean: certainty either way. If there is no god, then I suppose we all to get along with that, unless some nut decides that a god needs to be invented to fill some intellectual or emotional void. And what would all the holy warriors say when they found they were fighting about nothing? And no 72 virgins either.
If god does exist… that reminds me of the song. "if god had a face, what would it look like?"Assuming that there really is a Hairy Thunderer and I get to meet him in person, my first question (and perhaps only question, before being zapped for gross lese majeste) would be: if you are so #$%@ing omnipotent, what is with all the evil and the bad things in the world?
“You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.”
–Marcus Cole, Babylon 5
It’s perfectly possible that humans are just unable to understand the universe, whether or not there’s a god involved.
But, in addition to how multiple others have answered this, that doesn’t “solve The Problem of Evil” because “We don’t and can’t know what the answer is” is not an answer.
And if our understanding is that poor, we can’t possibly understand what any god means us to do, or if that god means us to do anything in particular at all, or if that god has even noticed us. Anything we take for instructions might equally well have been meant for some other purpose altogether. There isn’t anywhere I can see* to go from ‘god’s purposes are ineffable’ other than ‘there’s no possible way to tell what god might want, so we may as well act as if god’s not there’.
*obviously, mileage varies.
Nah. I consider raw capability regardless of intention to be what omnipotence talks about. Wouldn’t ≠ can’t, in other words.
Similarly I don’t require an omnipotent entity to be able to satisfy both A and ¬A simultaneously. If the definition required that it could be proven to be impossible handily, which isn’t the point of the term.
I was going to say these things. One cannot answer this question without agreeing on these assumptions.
Given these statements, I vote that I prefer there be no god. If there is a Christian-type god, a personal god who is omniscient and omnipotent, and given our experience of the world, then this Christian-type god would have to be a malevolent being.
The only reason I don’t square the circle is that I don’t want to.
Omnipotence doesn’t fail by not doing the logically impossible - so the inability of god to make a taco too big for him to eat isn’t a problem. That he might not want to do this isn’t the reason that it is not a problem.
What God wants to do has nothing to do with this issue. We are being theoretical here. Omnibenevolence isn’t a choice by god, it is a part of his nature. Ditto for omnipotence.
Say we have God A and God B. God A is tri-omni, God B is just omnipotent and omniscient. I include omniscience so that they know the consequences of their actions. Gods A and B, if both omnipotent, should be able to do exactly the same things. God B challenges God A to do something that would decrease the happiness of the world.
If God A does this, he is no longer omnibenevolent. If God A cannot do it, he is no longer omnipotent, and God B, who can, is more powerful. The question of can God A do it or not has nothing to do with if God A wants to do it.
You might as well say that God is omnibenevolent, that God knows that earthquakes increase unhappiness, but chooses not to do anything about it.
Omnibenevolence is a statement about choice. It’s a statement about how the god chooses to act. Omnipotence, on the other hand, is about how the god could act, absent him choosing to act otherwise. It’s not reasonable to say that because somebody chose not to do something, that means that they didn’t have the physical capability to do other things.
I’ll just note here that I’m a compatiblist regarding free will, which is relevant - I choose to use common-sense definitions of ‘choice’ and ‘ability’ (and ‘will’ and ‘free’) which just so happen not to be troubled by the fact that when all is deterministically said and done, choice still happened and alternatives could still have been considered possible prior to the choice. Applying such definitions to the omnipotence/omnibenevolence discussion causes conflicts to dissolve there too.
There are other mythological figures that would be awesome if they were real. Santa Claus, for instance; how much more joy there would be in the world!
But God? Nah. I don’t want anybody that moody, vindictive, and judgmental in charge of anything, let alone the entire universe.
Same here. What the fundamental nature of reality should be with regard to supernatural entities is not a matter I waste time having an opinion about.
I do have an opinion (because I’ve had it ever since it emerged in my early adolescence, not because I thought I should have one) about what the fundamental nature of reality is with regard to supernatural entities. Namely, I believe that there aren’t any.
But I don’t have a specific preference about the desirability or otherwise of their existence, and I wish that this somewhat ill-thought-out poll included an option for indicating my views.
It would be interesting to pose the same question to theists. I wonder if anyone said that they are so terrified by the god(s) they were told about/believe in that they rather wish that gods didn’t exist. Or would be horrified by the thought that after 3x10[sup]27[/sup] or so years of eternal bliss, they’d go mad from boredom.
Cite? What I’ve seen says that omnibenevolence is moral perfection. An entity which can do evil, but chooses not to, is not morally perfect. Certainly the concept of salvation involves that a person who chooses to never do wrong still must be saved because that person is not morally perfect.
Human free will is not relevant. An omnipotent god must have free will - the problem arises not from omnipotence per se but restrictions from other characteristics.
An omnipotent god can make any choices and change them at any time. However an omniscient god knows what choices are ultimately made and when they are changed, so changes are constrained by foreknowledge that they will be changed. We also have the problem of when the knowledge and the choices start. If God is eternal it is -infinity, but are the choices made before or after the knowledge of them?
You talk of prior to the choice, but this is a meaningless term for an omniscient deity. Works fine for a non-omniscient entity.
Human free will, if it exists, is not an issue since the human can make a decision and god know which decision the human makes. Since god’s knowledge is not an input to the decision, it is not really constrained.
Why isn’t there an option for “no preference”? I would prefer that there is a benevolent god, but since I don’t know anything about our hypothetical deity I can’t say if I would rather have one just to have one.
I didn’t say “human free will”. I said “free will”. You adding “human” to the term is you setting up a strawman to knock down - can’t you see that?
You are deciding which definitions you want to use, which is fair - you do you. I’m just saying that I recognize definitions of “free will” and “choice” which are compatible with determinism. Which, if you’ll think about it for a moment, you’ll realize also automatically makes them compatible with both omniscience and also omnibenevolence. And, since I assess omnipotence through the lens of those definitions, means that just because I don’t choose to swear at you, doesn’t meant that I’m not capable of swearing at you.
As an atheist, I necessarily hold that no god(s) exist in this current reality. That’s the definition. So the OP query necessarily implies some other, putative reality in which I hold that some god or another exists – not “this reality we’re in, but plus a god.” Right? We’re necessarily speaking of a thought experiment. If things were different, … things would be different.
(my emphasis in Roman bold, bold italics in original)
And the OP also specifies, explicitly, that it’s not necessarily the Abrahamic god, nor any other hitherto described anywhere:
Coming from that standpoint, sure, I’d like to see what a universe with a god in it might be like. I’d probably enjoy hanging out with a god like the Big Lebowski. Down a couple oat sodas, maybe roll a string or two.
But would I prefer that the universe I’m in actually contain the Abrahamic god, contrary to my belief? Nope. That wasn’t the question, though.
Most atheists allow for the possibility that they’re wrong. (Moreso than any theist that I’ve met, even.) I myself don’t believe in any* god, but it’s theoretically possible that there are all sorts of gods out there that I’m unaware of or haven’t been given reason to believe in. (“All sorts” clearly not including triomni ones or anything similar, obviously.)
Right. I’m as fallible as anyone, and more so at times. But by addressing the query specifically and exclusively to those who are convinced that this reality is deity-free (inexplicable “I am not an atheist” poll-response option notwithstanding), OP is posing a thought experiment.
“Atheists: Would you prefer that a god exist contrary to your conviction, here in this Universe or not?” would be a different question. It may in fact have been the question OP intended to ask, but once we get the explicit invitation to define such a god according to our own whims, we’re clearly in the realm of Speculative Fiction.
Not that any of that really matters all that much. <shrug>
I assumed that the OP is a theist, and thus that when he thinks about gods existing he thinks of them as existing concurrently with known reality, so I did interpret his question as “Atheists: Would you prefer that a god exist contrary to your conviction, here in this Universe or not?”
I didn’t think he was asking anything like, “Atheists, imagine up a perfect utopia of endless happiness that is exactly what you want in every way, and which happens to have a deity curating it to continue to perfectly satisfy your desires and preferences. Would you like that?”
For clarification: It was hard to set the parameters in my OP. I wanted atheists to be able to define a god as they wanted (i.e., “I want a god who operates according to my ideas of justice and what is fair and right,”) but at the same time, I wanted to filter out the sillier posts such as “I want a god who gives me the winning Powerball numbers, caters to my whims, gives me yachts and legions of fans, makes me the best martinis, etc.”
Edit: Basically, you are free to define such a god as you like, in this thread, but don’t turn the thread frivolous.
