Atheist arguments and the morality of God.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

It's a funny thing. When I was a Christian I got pissed off because of weak Christian arguments. Since I started thinking of myself as an atheist, I'm sort of the other way around.

There have been a few "gods a meanie" type threads recently. Has that ever worked?

If you believe in you probably believe that he defines morality. In which case any argument that god acts / has acted in an immoral, or evil, way is De facto flawed. The epicurean paradox has been mentioned a lot. From the perspective of a good christian, this falls to the same logical fallacy as the origin argument falls to atheists.

The argument is basically, " we don't know how the universe, therefore God" . It fails because the logical position knowing that the universe clearly exists, is simply "we don't know how the universe". Accepted ignorance is the logical position.

Now put yourself in a theists shoes for a second. Pretend that you accept as absolute truth the existence of a benevolent God. Now plug in one of the "meanie" arguments. "god is a meanie therefore God can't be good." The logical position for the theist to take then simply "God appears to be a meanie, obviously I don't understand the situation well enough". After all once you've accepted as truth that God is the infinite creator of the universe, how much sense does it make for me, with my limited squashy biological brain, with its 4 dimensional limitations and it's tiny window on the world, and it's very limited information to think I know better than God.

Really, the suffering argument is as weak for the theist as the ultimate origin argument is to the atheist.

I don't view the suffering argument as weak at all. But the excuse God-knows-more-about-this-than-YOU-do is simply an argument from ignorance. It more or less translates as, 'God has good and sufficient reasons for allowing the rape and murder of children, mass starvation, genocide, rampant disease, natural disasters that kill millions of innocents and so on. Since God better understands the rationale for this, just belt up and accept it.'

What a load of pretentious shyte THAT is. We are expected to know precisely what God wants us to do in order to attain the heavenly reward, but we aren't allowed to know why God allowed the six years old girl down the block to be raped, tortured and dismembered. Oh, no - the theists want us to smile and accept 'God's will.' Fuck that.

But the above is the ONLY answer to the Epicurean paradox ever offered, and it stinks. No one is claiming we have to know better than God the reasons for suffering, but it is perfectly plausible for an omnipotent God to explain the rationale behind it in a way readily comprehensible to humans.

Hell, I'm not even remotely god-like, and I have an explanation for the existence of suffering that is readily understandable to anyone of normal intelligence. Here is it:

The universe is pitilessly indifferent to your comfort and welfare. When you suffer, you aren't being punished, you aren't being tested. You're simply in the path of natural forces that take absolutely no notice of you. Ta da.

Boru