The book “Primary Philosophy” by Michael Scriven has a section on theology. He defines a “Basic God” – sort of Abrahamic, with the serial numbers filed off. He uses this as a starting point for talking about the Medieval “proofs” of God’s existence, and moves forward to modern theology. A pretty decent book; it’s an entry-level introduction to a whole lot of ideas in historical and modern philosophy. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t grind a lot of axes.
How about the next time someone comes up with a god they put just a little more thought into it before releasing the public version, because frankly, I can come up with a dozen authors that have created better-thought-out and more fleshed out deities than the one you are currently discussing.
You just made a claim that you think God can’t do the impossible. How do you know God’s limits?
Not true. Our laws of physics don’t require parasitic worms or cancer.
Absurd. We are material. And we could be immune to deadly sickness without altering our mental states. Since the spiritual world (if it existed) isn’t about our bodies it’s silly to assume that we need to be horribly easy to damage in order for our mental processes to continue in spirit form.
The capacity for suffering isn’t the same as actual suffering. Cancer doesn’t need to exist and choke the life from children, that’s elective.
The difference between your God and me, is that if I saw someone raping your daughter, I’d stop them.
And I’m certainly not omnibenevolent.
From the Attributes of God in Christianity as linked to earlier:
So the inability for people to describe God to you isn’t a flaw of theirs, it’s an attribute of God.
“It’s not a bug-it’s a feature!”
Good idea. If “someone” instead of thousands of people (or more) came up with Christianity, it’d probably hang together better.
Christ did not say ‘some’ or anyone would be able to offer proof - his admonition was without exception “many will come claiming to be , DO NOT FOLLOW THEM” - period.
I don’t think he quite thought of the fact that included him - since he would have to first make the claim that it is he. Of course, like you said, one would expect it to be obvious that it was HIM and not a hoaxer, but …
Also - ‘spiritual evidence’ is bunk - Thomas refused it - he required physical proof - and he was one of the 12 that should have had the most faith.
Then you should stop advocating blind faith.
Considering that we can to a degree prevent such suffering, you are now reduced to arguing that your god is less powerful than humans.
Yeah, I’m sure the people who show up in “heaven” driven mad by pain & suffering are so very grateful for the “benevolence” of your god. If suffering is so good for us perhaps we should actively try to make the world more horrible. :rolleyes:
You are advocating a “good” that is indistinguishable from utter evil.
Quick note: I was trying to demonstrate that attacking particular aspects of Christianity is ineffective at challenging the central conceit of an omnipotent God, by showing how those attacks can be rationalized away through assumptions made about the God in question. So, this is all purely Gedanken-experiment stuff.
Moving on:
Only by combining the various attributes of God, and seeing where they aren’t reconcilable. For example, how can a being be both omnipotent (able to do anything) and omnibenevolent (only able to act with good will)? There must be a limit there.
Perhaps spiritual laws do. If there are souls and a God, physics isn’t the primarily law of what is and can be.
I think it’s fair to say that an absence of all suffering would alter mankind’s mental state from what it is at present, and also possibly man’s spiritual nature. Clearly there must be a connection between mind, body, and spirit.
Without actual suffering, the capacity for same is meaningless.
But God can take the long view, and has perfect knowledge. We should do the most good we can with our limited human understanding, but know that the omnibenevolent God will do more good in aggregate than all of us.
Christ made it clear that he would be returning:
John 6:39-40: 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
He was warning of false pretenders claiming to be him before the last day.
And Christ noted that those who believed without seeing were blessed. Their faith was stronger for it.
And when did he say he was returning, again?
Ah, the “moral” code of the Inquisition. The suffering of this world is temporary, and you need to accept that I’m smashing your bones with a hammer for your own good.
From here:
Faith involving knowledge
Protestants differ on the exact relationship between faith and knowledge, although all agree that knowledge is normally involved. Roughly, the split is between paedobaptists and baptists, with paedobaptists asserting that faith means placing one’s trust in Jesus Christ according to the measure of understanding granted, and baptists asserting faith means placing one’s trust in Jesus Christ with a certain minimal core of understanding being necessary.
So, faith isn’t blind, but is combined with knowledge.
Not less powerful, just operating with different goals at different scales.
Heaven includes bodily perfection and communion with God, so they’d come around soon, I’m sure.
I didn’t say that more suffering is better, so no, we don’t need to do that.
You continue to make extra-ordinary claims for god’s benevolence. Despite evidence to the contrary. Given that god is as impenetrable to you as any human, what is your basis for this claim beyond just: trust me, it gets better…?
So you don’t actually support your take?
Of course. Which is why most Christians are wrong.
And God isn’t either? Your God is a hapless fellow, at the whims of outrageous fortune.
There is no evidence for a spiritual world, so randomly assigning it attributes to pretend God is powerless to stop evil is hardly convincing.
You don’t have to remove all suffering. There is a wide gamut of negative stimuli that a human can feel. Broken hearts and sniffles are one thing. But your God supposedly created a universe where leprosy exists.
And you are the one baldy asserting that the high capacity for human suffering is somehow magically necessary for spiritual something or other. And you haven’t even presented the slightest evidence for the existence of a spiritual world.
You are simply creating a word, spiritual, and assigning flaws in your beliefs to it.
So God is omnibenevolent, but will allow countless people to suffer for the greater good. That’s not what that word means.
Doesn’t it bug you that you have to assert such outrageous nonsense in order to bulwark the beliefs you have?
Matthew 24:36 No one knows when that day or hour will come —not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
Man shouldn’t presume to carry out judgments that are reserved for God alone.
No-it is filtered through the blind faith of previous believers.
Nonsense. You have over and over insisted that we should ignore all facts, ignore all logic and simply accept that suffering is good and according to your god’s plan. That’s blind faith, as blind as it gets.
Ah, the “we’re all mind controlled into drooling idiot slaves” version of heaven.
You are saying that suffering is good, something your god inflicts on us for our own good; and since we tend to go out of our way to reduce suffering you are indeed implying that we should increase the amount of suffering since we are by your logic working against your god’s will in reducing it.
We already have just the right amount of suffering. When more suffering is required, you’ll know it.
(sorry… couldn’t resist… 
)
I don’t think thats clear that he is returning - says he will rise up on the “last day” and those that believe in him will also be raised up on the ‘last day’ - whatever that means.
I think we’ve gone far enough away from the OP of the thread at this point - and the last few show that you are going to jump hoops to make it all seem good in the 'spiritual you don’t understand sense" - which is utter hogwash.