This thread is about my conception of God as having an internally inconsistent nature. On a forum of this size and age, the chances are that this has been done before but since guests don’t have access to the search function I can’t confirm that, nor can I read previous threads on the subject (if indeed there are any).
The problem arises when people claim that one cannot know, that God doesn’t exist. Such a claim, these people contend, relies upon some kind of higher knowledge which I cannot possibly possess.
However, the way I see it, I don’t have to inspect every dusty little corner of the Universe to see if God is huddled there. The mainstream conception of God is so internally inconsistent and illogical that such a being simply can’t exist. Take the ‘Problem of Evil’, for example: According to theologians such as St. Anselm, God has certain characteristics. Among these are omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence. That is to say, God is superlatively powerful, knowledgeable and good. However, since evil exists in the world he can’t be all three. Since evil exists, God must allow it, in which case he is not all good, doesn’t know about it, in which case he can’t be all knowing or just can’t do a damn thing about it, in which case he is not all powerful.
Yeah there’s the whole free will defence and everything but that doesn’t account for busloads of nuns boiled alive during a volcanic eruption or such other unsavoury natural happenstances.
You don’t need to factually prove that God doesn’t exist. His nature as it is taught by religious institutions is incompatible with observable reality. He cannot exist. Unless he’s an evil bastard, of course, in which case I must wonder what all the fuss is about.
I’m perfectly willing to concede that I am speaking from deep within my most fundamental orifice. There simply has be a theistic response to this argument and I’m sure it’s a good one. However, I have not come across it.
Volcanic eruptions are only a fact of life because God has willed it so. He could have created a world with no need for them just as easily as he created this one. If one asserts a belief in an omnipotent God, one must accept that volcanic eruptions are essentially malicious booby traps. Volcanoes have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people during the course of human existence and every one of these innocent deaths was sanctioned by God billions of years in advance.
You might want to read the linked thread, there were many good arguments there. Regarding the subject of “evil”, see this post by Libertarian
Essentially, that death of the body is by itself not evil. Evil is not the inflicting of pain, or the killing of a person - it is the spirit in which it is done. The evidence of a death is not evil - why would death be evil? You will one day die. Every mortal will die, and there is nothing we can do about it. Why should death by a volcano be more evil than a death by old age, or a death in saving another life (if, indeed, saving that life can be considered good)? If I kill someone in self defence, am I then evil? Then, it is obvious that evil lies in the intent, and not the action. I can give sweets to a child, but if my intent is to lure him into an abuse sexual relationship, is the act of giving sweets evil, or good?
Then, what you are saying is that because God created life, and therefore death, God is evil? How so? Unless you claim to know God’s intention in creating death of the body, you cannot say that God is evil for creating death, which is meaningless in itself.
To put it very simply for you, death is not any more evil than life. The manner in which one lives can be evil. The manner in which one dies can be under evil circumstances, but volcanic eruptions and the black plague, lacking any mind or will of their own, cannot possibly be.
Thanks for the link. It is certainly an interesting post but I would rather not respond to it directly as Lib is not yet participating in this thread and he’s the only one who can defend his own words.
I think I agree with this…kinda. There are undoubtedly circumstances in which one can kill a person and not be committing an evil act. Self defence and assisting in acts of voluntary euthanasia are two which spring to mind.
However, in those cases the act of killing is unavoidable. If you are a small woman in an alleyway with a gun in your handbag and a 300lb knife wielding lunatic enters and starts lurching towards you screaming “DEMON” and you have no escape route you’ve really got no choice but to pop a cap in him.
If a friend is suffering from terminal cancer and is determined to die with dignity and requests your help, your act of injecting him with a lethal dose of barbituates can be construed as an act of mercy.
However, if you were imbued with magical healing powers and could cure the lunatic and shrivel your friends cancer with a click of your fingers, but chose to shoot or inject regardless, your actions would no longer be remotely moral. They’d be the acts of a capricious being with a wholly ambivalent attitude to human suffering. They would, in a word, be evil.
Knowingly allowing a person to die in the prime of their lives when you could have prevented their deaths at no cost to yourself (as God has done to everyone who has ever died in a volcanic eruption) would bespeak of a criminal ambivalence on your part. The ‘spirit’ of the act would be distinctly unpalatable.
Death in itself is not evil but life is precious. Every single second is an immeasurably priceless gift. When a person dies in such natural disasters as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, disasters which an omnipotent being could prevent as easily as cause, they are robbed of their future experiences. If I had the ability to selectively erase people’s memories at will and chose, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, to erase your memory of…say, your childs graduation, you’d be pretty pissed at me. Unnecessarily killing someone is the equivalent of that on an almost immeasurably grand scale. So is letting someone die through your own ambivalence.
Well, first of all dying to save another is an act of your own free will and consequently doesn’t come under the rubric of this discussion. Secondly, a 21 year old being boiled alive by molten rock is more evil than 90 year old dying peacefully in his sleep is more evil for two reasons. The first is that the former never has a chance to really experience life and is robbed of all the experiences he would otherwise have had. The second is that being burned to death is an unnecessarily painful way to go. The unnecessary infliction of excruciating suffering is always evil. It doesn’t matter in what ‘spirit’ it is performed, it is always evil.
Think back to the lunatic. If you shot him in self defence and he died instantly you would not have acted evilly. If, however, you had incapacitated him with your first shot and then went over and shot him in the balls and he consequently bled to death I would pronounce you an evil person without hesitation. By your logic as I understand it, I would have no right to do that since we’re all going to die anyway.
It’s evil, obviously. I have no problem accepting that it is the intent which determines the moral value of the act, however I don’t see that such a concession necessarily dents my argument. I’m sure I’m being hopelessly dense but I just don’t see it.
As I hope is clear now, that is something of an oversimplification. It is not death itself which is evil but unnecessary death, death caused by heartless indifference. If a volcano fires a molten rock into my head then you can bet your life I’d spend my last moments of consciousness being pretty pissed at God. Well, that and cursing myself for not bringing out an umbrella
EsotericEnigma
You’re simply restating your first post. I acknowledge that death itself is not evil. I acknowledge that volcanic eruptions in anod of themselves are not evil. Unnecessary death, however, is. Volcanic eruptions and the black plague are not evil but the being that created them is. The lion is not acting evilly when it mauls the Christian but the Roman Emperor who slung them both into the arena for his own amusement most definately is.
Put another way, if I were a microbiologist and I found a way to cross AIDS with the flu and then released it into the general population just for the sheer fun of it, who would you blame for the inevitably catastrophic pandemic? The bug, or me?
Surely you would blame me. Surely you would have no problem whatsoever in denouncing me as the most evil son of a bitch who ever walked the earth.
Assuming that to be the case, why do you not denounce God as evil for creating such diseases as smallpox or the black plague? He, essentially, is the brains behind the bug. VertexShader
Abortion is OK regardless, IMO. I’d rather not drag the thread down an abortion tangent, however.
Essentially, you’re saying that if an omnipotent, benelovent God existed, it would not be possible for anyone to die in the prime of their lives from something like cancer or a natural disaster. It’s hard for me to imagine how such a world would work, but it would have to be quite different from the one we actually live in. Physical laws would have to work differently, and perhaps inconsistently. Would it be possible for elderly people to die in natural disasters? Could people die at the hands of other people? And no matter how long people lived, you could still fault God for not letting them live even longer, and giving them the health and strength and appetites and so forth to enjoy it.
And what about non-lethal pain and/or suffering? Would you have that be impossible? Or how much would you allow, and still believe in a good God?
Basically, you’re faulting this world for not being Heaven. The majority of people who believe in a good and powerful God also believe in an afterlife, in which the ills and injustices of this life get remedied. If there weren’t any such thing, your arguments would be far more convincing.
The next logical question might be, why did God make this imperfect world instead of just sending us all straight to Heaven in the first place? The standard answers are that this life is a period of learning or growing or testing or soul-making, and that there are things that we could experience here that we could not in a “perfect” world. (Free will, for instance; we couldn’t choose between good and evil if there were no evil.)
i used to have a great essay about the existance of god, but have long lsot it. it used logic to deny existance. you can pick it up at akpress.org for 2.50. i’m getting another copy. called: Does God Exist? FAURE, Sebastian. there is also another book that does a complete demolition job on the subject(300+ pages) by george smith.
just some info
God is omnipotent, remember? He can create a world where laws works differently and are consistent. Actually, he doesn’t have to do so. Why should these laws be consistent?
Why is there natural disasters at the first place? What purpose do they serve, if they are intended by god? (and they necessarilly intended by him, since he created the world and is omnipotent and omniscient).
Essentially, the mere existence of evil is a big dent in the belief in an all powerful and benevolent god. Dualism gives a much more apt answer to the existence of evil than a religion like christianism.
Yes, indeed, if this world was heaven-like, it definitely would be much easier to make a case for an all powerful benevolent god. And there would be not need to remedy to injustices, since there wouldn’t be any at the first place.
Indeed.
Why so? Why would we need to have a knowledge of evil? And if we really needed it for some mysterious reason, why can’t god just grant us this knowledge innately?
Why should we be “tested”? Why should the failure at the test makes any difference? Anyway, if we’re tested and faills, it necessarily implies it’s a failure of our creator too, since he made us this way. Is it like quality testing in a factory, to discard the products which haven’t been properly produced?
Concerning free will :
why do we need to know what evil is at the first place, and why do we need the ability to commit evil?
If your god is all-powerful, how comes he wasn’t able to conciliate free will and the lack of evil?
Finally, if there’s an afterlife, will it be possible to commit evil actions up there? If yes, it won’t be heaven. If not, we won’t have free will any more. And if free will can be denied to us for the eternity in the afterlife, why is it so important that we had them during this incredibly short life on earth?
An interesting link to throw into the mix is The Do-it-yourself God - by the same people who did Battleground God, it measures the “internal consistency” of your God-meme. I scored an 0.8
Actually, it doesn’t seem to be working at the moment…
Well, I’ll post it anyway - perhaps it will work later.
You whole basis for your argument is that life is somehow inherently good, and that cutting it short is somehow inherently evil, if there are no qualifiers. I’ve already registered by disagreement.
As with the self defence and mercy killing examples, causing death and cutting short life are not always considered evil. If you mean to say why didn’t God heal the terminally ill instead, considerthe giving of sweets by the child molester - what you might consider a good thing may not be good.
Again, it is reduced to intention. If you don’t know why God killed the nuns, or why he did it in that manner, you cannot know if it were evil or not. As for the nuns, I’m sure they’re much happier in heaven than on earth.
You don’t need it, certainly. Evil came about when Adam disobeyed, and ate the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. In heaven, there will be no evil, so you certainly don’t need it.
Why, of course he can. Adam had free will, and there was no evil in the Garden of Eden. And pre-empting your question: if you asking about the present, then again, unless you somehow know the reasons and intentions of God, there is no way of telling if God allowing evil to exist is in itself evil.
Why wouldn’t it be heaven if the ability to commit evil actions existed? I would argue the opposite, that if evil actions existed, it wouldn’t be heaven. What ARE evil actions? Again, the intent to do evil, to harm someone. Would you commit evil actions against someone you loved? Of course not. In the light of God, and in our perfect bodies without the taint of the world, we would love each other, as we try to do on this earth. Why would there be a need, or even a desire for evil actions?
To give an example: Would you commit an evil action towards your son, or someone that you truly loved? Do you have free will to do so?
I think he was saying that *nuns dying * in a volcanic eruption could be considered evil by some. Certainly no more evil than a million other unfortunate things that happen to all sorts of people…It all depends on where you’re standing.
On second thought, there’s something else here. Adam sinned, sure, but that’s not what (well, not the only thing) that damns us. What he did actually gave us an ability, the knowledge of good and evil. And so we went on with this new ability, the ability to do evil, and have damned ourselves ever since.
For example, Jesus was of the line of Abraham, anf fully man as well as God. If Adam’s sin continued on to his decendants, then he wouldn’t be sinless, could he? And he sure had the knowledge of Good and Evil, I mean, he’s Da MAN. But in the end, he was sinless, and was not damned by himself, and would be pure if not for choosing to take our sins onto him (if you don’t believe that, well, you talk about God, you follow what he says).
Therefore, the sins of Adam don’t really damn all of us (God did say that he was a jealous God, and punished down 3 generations, but we’re far removed from that), he just gave us the ability to do it. And BOY have we used and abused it.
Anyway, IANGod, Jesus, or Holy Ghost, this is just my interpretation. You want the answer, shuffle off this moral coil and ask him yourself.
