It seems most folks, like the Judeo-Christian/Muslim believers, believe in God as a perfect being.
A lot of atheists often support their unbelief referencing how the God described in most holy writings does cruel things, which a perfect being would not do.
Is it a false dichotomy though? Why does it have to be either God exists and is perfect, or doesn’t exist at all? A lot of Christians on this board do not believe the Bible to be inerrant. Are there Christians who believe God is not perfect? Does the Bible even say God is perfect, for that matter? Or the Torah and Koran?
The Greek/Romans gods were far from perfect, so this would not be anything new. Why does there not seem to be anybody who believes a lot of some of the Torah/Bible/Koran but also thinks God is flawed?
Please refrain from posting the “God works in mysterious ways” chestnut in any form, that’s about as useful as posting “I don’t know” to every query in General Questions you don’t know the answer it. Save the electrons.
I think the standard reply from fundamentalists is that God cannot be flawed because, by definition, whatever God does is perfect. God is the gold standard by which we measure perfection. The fact that our human minds can’t comprehend why God has to send us to an eternal hell for not believing in him is simply because our human minds are imperfect.
I’d love to hear from a fundamentalist Christian that thinks God is in fact, a total asshole, but he has no choice but to worship him or suffer the consequences. :dubious:
You are right, God is the standard by which we measure our thoughts and deeds. God is unconditional love, something not easy to achieve. God does not send us to hell or any other place. God does not harm us in any way. It is we that harm ourselves by our thoughts and actions. Those that make a real effort to love others will also come to love themselves, because how you treat others is how you treat yourself.
Sadly this thread didn’t even get past post #2 before this came up, as it inevitably would.
So I take you are of the faggots-cause-hurricanes crew? You might also care to expound on how unborn children think and act so badly they cause themselves to get holes in their hearts, spinal bifida, and miscarriages.
No, he’s not. A great many people don’t believe in God; they believe in other religions, or none. Nor do believers agree on what God is like or wants; there IS no “standard God” that people can judge themselves or anything else against. Nor does everyone have an interest in following God even in the infinitesimally tiny chance that he actually exists.
Probably there are a number of drugs or types of brain damage that could manage it; not that hard. Again, there’s no agreement on that, any more than there’s agreement on anything else about God. Not to mention that calling God " unconditional love" is an argument against using him as some sort of standard or goal, since unconditional love isn’t desirable. It’s also insulting to God, calling him something that limited and one dimesional.
Regarding an imperfect God – the Kabbalah has a doctrine of the “breakage of the vessels” – the Vessels here meaning the structure of the mind of God.
Our brokenness and the disrepair in our universe is understood to be a reflection of the Divine brokenness, and as we repair ourselves, we repairs the Divine.
The now classic book When Bad Things Happen To Good People, which was written by a Conservative Jewish rabbi, presents the view that God is not omnipotent, and does not have the power to relieve suffering. Many people, both Jewish and Christian, have found the book to be comforting and accepted its philosophy. I would say that Rabbi Kushner and the people who follow his viewpoint (he has written a number of successful subsequent books) believe in God, but also believe that he is flawed, at least in the sense that he is not all-powerful.
I think people construct in their minds ideas of what justice ought to look like, and believe God must reflect that.
I think that’s flawed in several different ways - that our ideas of justice may be way out of whack, since as imperfect beings, we can concieve only so much, and even if we had perfect understanding, justice isn’t assured in this world according to my faith.
I don’t know if you’ll regard this as a waste of electrons, Revtim, but there you go.
I do. I believe God was still young and immature when he created the world and throughout most of the Old Testament. When he grew up the increased population of the Earth caused the world to slow down to his perception, and he lost interest, and left it to run on it’s own. Later, his son found it, put himself in it, and changed some things around.
That’s odd, because you said “God does not harm us in any way. It is we that harm ourselves by our thoughts and actions”. Sure sounds like you think everything that happens to us is our own fault, to me.
Of course, the Asatru don’t believe their gods are all powerful, they think he’s very flawed. But that’s Odin for you.
I don’t believe that there is any requirement in Judiasm to believe the Lord is not flawed. It’s a tradition, but I don’t think it’s a philosophical necessity. There’s plenty of counterexamples, from both scholarly (Kabblah) tradition to old folk tales.
It kind of depends on what you mean by “perfect”.
If you mean that a monotheistic god is not omnipotent, that it pretty much a logical impossibility - if the guy created everything, how could it be that he cannot control the “everything” that he, himself created?
If you mean that a monotheistic god is not perfectly beneficient, well that could be logically true, and the belief that he is in fact all good - “perfect love” as posited by lekatt - is one of a chosen doctrine.
Same way a chaotician doesn’t perfectly understand every detail of a fractal. Perhaps the universe is the complex result of simpler divine maths.
Although that could have the implication the rules of math are more powerful then God. Which would give [url=“xkcd: Certainty”]math teachers** more of a swell head.
Of course He’s omnipotent! But Adam and Eve fucked up, and God holds one mother of a grudge, man. His capacity for Schadenfreude, like all His other qualities, is limitless.
When it comes to the problem of evil/suffering, believers are limited in their options. “He’s not all-powerful” doesn’t wash with too many, I imagine. So you’re left with
[ul]
[li]Blame the snake! (Or Satan, his minions, evil spirits, etc.)[/li][li]Blame sin (original or New and Improved[TM])/the wickedness of man (a.k.a. “why do you make me so mad that I have to beat you?”)[/li][li]Go with “suffering builds character.”[/li][li]OK, it sucks now… but wait till you see HEAVEN![/li][li]The Lord works in mysterious ways (a.k.a. the Divine Cop-out)[/li][/ul]
This is one point on which I’m (philosophically) relieved to be a non-believer (thank God there’s no God!*) as none of those pass the smell test, as far as I’m concerned.
Fine. Let’s not blame all the trouble in this world on God. Let’s just blame him for birth defects. How, exactly, did the “child harm itself by [it’s] thoughts and actions?”