# Is God Evil? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 12, 2010, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-evil/528668 "2010-02-12T05:33:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Camus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ba8739/32.png) [@Camus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Camus)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-evil/528668/101 "2010-02-17T11:40:18Z")
> [@Tibbytoes](#): > > I think the whole whiny,\* “God’s a big meanie cause he smites us with famine, pestilence, war, death and whatnot”\* is just a red herring. You know how it sometimes feels good when your tooth aches a little and you wiggle it with your tongue to get that ol’ pleasurable-pain thing going? Well God’s like your tongue, only acting on a much grander scale. What? A red herring is a distraction from an argument, in this case an argument no one has made. Instead, one of the arguments in the thread is that God INVENTED famine, pestilence, war, death and whatnot. Your argument is an analogy that makes no sense in this context. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-evil/528668/102 "2010-02-17T13:16:24Z")
> [@Camus](#): > > Your argument is an analogy that makes no sense in this context. Gotta remember to put emoticons (e.g. :D) in my tongue-in-cheek posts…thought it was obvious. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-evil/528668/103 "2010-02-17T13:21:12Z")
> [@Tibbytoes](#): > > I think the whole whiny,\* “God’s a big meanie cause he smites us with famine, pestilence, war, death and whatnot”\* is just a red herring. You know how it sometimes feels good when your tooth aches a little and you wiggle it with your tongue to get that ol’ pleasurable-pain thing going? Well God’s like your tongue, only acting on a much grander scale. But you (or your brain is the driving force…not the tongue! ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-evil/528668/104 "2010-02-17T13:27:26Z")
> [@Camus](#): > > A red herring is a distraction from an argument, in this case an argument no one has made. But thanks for the definition clarification of “Red Herring”, I was using the term literally, then I remembered the allusion of fish to Christianity is with mackerel not herring. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2010, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-evil/528668/105 "2010-02-17T13:36:05Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > But you (or your brain is the driving force…not the tongue! I suppose we must presuppose a predeterministic universe for the analogy to work, then. (Gosh, when you’ve got to dig this deep to make a joke work, it must not be a very good joke to begin with…I hereby retract my red herring) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-evil/528668/106 "2010-02-18T15:52:06Z")
The **Bible’s** God, judging by the things He is recorded as having done and said, certainly is psychotically evil. There is no other name for a being who created Hell. That has nothing to do, however, with any philosopher’s God, posited independently of any tradition of religious revelation. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-evil/528668/107 "2010-02-25T12:58:50Z")
> [@Oveja\_Slayer](#): > > If you were talking to someone who believes the Bible is literally God’s word spoken from heaven on high to our ears, then you’d have really good questions that would require that person to soul search, or just ignore the issues you’ve raised and live in their blissful bubble. > > I think the flood story was an account of a large catyclysmic flood (that there is some archeological evidence for…as well as flood stories from many many ancient cultures) that was given meaning by making it a spiritual story - a morality lesson. Looking that the OT from a socio-historic perspective, God’s “chosen people” were likely pagans, worshipping gods of the sky, the trees, the animals, etc. They attributed everything to deity because that was the best explanation they had. So was that really “God” or did it just happen and people built a story around it? > > Again, we assume “bad things” are punishment, or that God should save us from everything bad. What do we stand to learn, gain, develop or grow from if everything is happy and “good” all the time? Maybe periodic cleansings are needed to spur evolution? There could be macro-purpose in such events, and people, who are quite self-centered and think on a rather small scale overall, thought it was “all about them” like we usually do and applied a meaning that is flawed and faulty. > > Or maybe this God character is just a vindictive bastard. > > Lot’s of people are mono-theistic and don’t view God as viciously as the OT portrays him. The flood story( like many stories in the Bible) are exaggerations of the facts. Yes, there were floods, and there were cities that were destroyed by nature, so people were probably taught that it was God being angry about something. It helped to keep them in line. Just like Pat Robertson does today, to try to keep his followers in line as if he knows it all! ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-evil/528668/108 "2010-02-25T14:27:05Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The **Bible’s** God, judging by the things He is recorded as having done and said, certainly is psychotically evil. There is no other name for a being who created Hell. > > That has nothing to do, however, with any philosopher’s God, posited independently of any tradition of religious revelation. “God” is an idea that only exists due to the “tradition of religious revelation” in the first place. There’s no way it could be “wholly independent” - it’s not like there’s any evidence for gods of any kind. And how many people believe in the kind of “philosopher’s God” you are talking about, anyway? I mean, really believe, and not only bring him up in religious discussions to defend God from an accusation like being evil or logically inconsistent, then forget about him otherwise? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-evil/528668/109 "2010-02-25T18:24:01Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > “God” is an idea that only exists due to the “tradition of religious revelation” in the first place. There’s no way it could be “wholly independent” - it’s not like there’s any evidence for gods of any kind. See [Natural Theology.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_theology) > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And how many people believe in the kind of “philosopher’s God” you are talking about, anyway? I mean, really believe, and not only bring him up in religious discussions to defend God from an accusation like being evil or logically inconsistent, then forget about him otherwise? Plato and Aristotle and Spinoza did. The only living example I can think of (but not, I am sure, the only example now living) is the famous skeptic [Martin Gardner,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_gardner) a self-identified “philosophical theist” who considers in depth the questions of God’s existence, free will, the efficacy of prayer, and the problem of evil in his book [_The WHYs of a Philosophical Scrivener._](http://www.amazon.com/Whys-Philosophical-Scrivener-Martin-Gardner/dp/0312206828) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-evil/528668/110 "2010-02-25T23:46:08Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > See [Natural Theology.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_theology) People can go through the motions of pretending to look, but that doesn’t mean that evidence for gods actually exists. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Plato and Aristotle and Spinoza did. The only living example I can think of (but not, I am sure, the only example now living) is the famous skeptic [Martin Gardner,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_gardner) a self-identified “philosophical theist” who considers in depth the questions of God’s existence, free will, the efficacy of prayer, and the problem of evil in his book [_The WHYs of a Philosophical Scrivener._](http://www.amazon.com/Whys-Philosophical-Scrivener-Martin-Gardner/dp/0312206828) Notably, those are all individuals; the vast, vast majority of believers don’t believe in anything like Gardner’s generic God. Which even he admits is an irrational thing to believe in, with no evidence for it; I’ve read _The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener_. He believes in it ( or says he does ), because he wants to believe in it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-god-evil/528668.md?page=5)