Argument from evil, restated

[Undeceived]

One would think that being just stems from benevolence.

[dictionary.com]
justice def: the administering of deserved punishment or reward.
benevolence def: an act of kindness; a charitable gift.

Justice is receiving what you deserve. Benevolence usually has little to do with what you deserve. A just judge sentences the murderer to death, out of respect for the law. A benevolent judge gives the murderer a shorter sentence, out of sympathy for him. I know a judge who lets me go scot-free and then offers to be my friend. Would you like to meet Him, FtR?

Murderers can potentially go to heaven while their victims can potentially go to hell, depending on their beliefs before departing from this world. The entire thing is bent on benefiting the criminal, not the victim.

Which do you respect more:
1. Man who committed murder, yet feels truly sorry.
2. Man who steals small amounts of money from work every day.
Whose heart is in the right place? Which would you rather invite home for dinner?

The world is divided into two groups: criminals who try to turn from their ways, and criminals who see nothing wrong with their deeds. Imagine Jesus is a drug counselor. He accepts only patients who want to be helped. The others, by sheer force of their own will, are beyond aid.

[Godscreated]

We believe God is all good, however we are smart enough to know the difference in God's justice and what you refer to as benevolent.

What an odd statement to make. One would think that being just stems from benevolence. Apparently not for your god..?

Justice always leads out in good, without justice there would be no good.
The opposite of justice is poverty, and I do not mean monetarily.

You want to compare our liberal court system to God's court. We sentence people to a punishment considering the criminal and not the victims. God punishes with the offended in mind and gives the offended justice. This is being benevolent to the one who deserves the benevolence.

Please specify what you mean by "punish". Eternal damnation? Because in the here and now, the exact opposite is true to what you want me to accept. The victim is the last thing on God's mind because the criminal can be cleansed by God's grace, as if God speaks on behalf of the wronged party. Murderers can potentially go to heaven while their victims can potentially go to hell, depending on their beliefs before departing from this world. The entire thing is bent on benefiting the criminal, not the victim.

You want to bring grace into this argument we can, however I believe it would be better for later to keep things form getting to complicated.
The eternal for the present time, in the past here on earth. What I was trying to say was this, people use today's court system to judge God's actions in the Bible. No one who judges God's actions in scripture ever take into account what He was trying to do for Israel. When He first brought them into the land of Canaan He wanted to remove all the godless worship, well that meant removing all the people, if you would study scripture you would be able to see this. Then God brought punishment on His people because they took on what He wanted removed from the land, they practiced the pagan rituals and forgot His teachings and became, as He put it a vile people. He said this more because of the way they were treating Him and those who were less fortunate. Tell me something why do people who hate the Bible not see this, it's as plain as the nose on one's face. The judgments God made were through His omniscience and righteousness and were not meant as a guide for people to judge others by, though it happens and far to often. God's laws about people living with people are for our justice system. I'm going to stop at this point so things want get spread out in to many directions.

[Esquilax]

Which do you respect more:
1. Man who committed murder, yet feels truly sorry.
2. Man who steals small amounts of money from work every day.
Whose heart is in the right place? Which would you rather invite home for dinner?

The world is divided into two groups: criminals who try to turn from their ways, and criminals who see nothing wrong with their deeds. Imagine Jesus is a drug counselor. He accepts only patients who want to be helped. The others, by sheer force of their own will, are beyond aid.

Which would be fine, except you're completely missing the point. The original claim was that god's justice is meted out with the victims in mind, the contention to that being that it's manifestly untrue, because the offender's path into heaven bypasses the victims entirely, in favor of kowtowing to divine mandates. It's not at all required that the offender make restitution to the victims at all, and therefore god's justice, if there is any, is dependent on seeking forgiveness from somebody else.

[FallentoReason]

One would think that being just stems from benevolence.

[dictionary.com]
justice def: the administering of deserved punishment or reward.
benevolence def: an act of kindness; a charitable gift.

Justice is receiving what you deserve. Benevolence usually has little to do with what you deserve. A just judge sentences the murderer to death, out of respect for the law. A benevolent judge gives the murderer a shorter sentence, out of sympathy for him. I know a judge who lets me go scot-free and then offers to be my friend. Would you like to meet Him, FtR?

I think your view of benevolence is too narrow. Would an evil god even care about justice? Wouldn't it just want the most horrid of worlds to exist where chaos is rife? To my mind, such a world wouldn't allow the concept of justice. Only a "good" god would even consider being just.

Which do you respect more:
1. Man who committed murder, yet feels truly sorry.
2. Man who steals small amounts of money from work every day.
Whose heart is in the right place? Which would you rather invite home for dinner?

I don't see why you're bringing me into this because this is independent of me. God's justice doesn't involve me in the equation whatsoever.

The world is divided into two groups: criminals who try to turn from their ways, and criminals who see nothing wrong with their deeds. Imagine Jesus is a drug counselor. He accepts only patients who want to be helped. The others, by sheer force of their own will, are beyond aid.

You're going off on a tangent. The subtle point I made was that God's justice isn't something practical between humans. The wronged party is not involved in the process. It's merely the criminal and a butt hurt god who knew his creation would go against him, and yet the criminal can potentially walk away while the wronged party hasn't benefited in any way. It's a ludicrous concept that's devoid of any substance, just like most things in Christianity e.g. a sacrifice which was undone by the sacrificed reclaiming what he sacrificed. Everything revolves around your god basically interacting with itself.

[Neo-Scholastic]

It's merely the criminal and a butt hurt god who knew his creation would go against him

All-knowing does not include knowledge of indeterminate choices. The future does not yet exist, so it cannot be known. At the same time All-loving is when he provides his love to anyone willing to accept it. Some do not accept. That is not the fault of the giver or the gift. The sun shines on both the righteous and the wicked alike. The righteous grow gardens the wicked sow weeds.

[Ryantology]

All-knowing implies knowledge of all possible outcomes. All-loving is loving everyone regardless of whether they love you back. If either is less than that, the all- is the wrong prefix to describe God's capabilities.

[The Grand Nudger]

All-knowing does not include knowledge of indeterminate choices. The future does not yet exist, so it cannot be known.

Good, so "all-knowing" is out the window. God has no fucking clue whats going to happen in the next few moments, let alone what I might do with this wonderful power he saw fit to infuse me with. Brilliant.

At the same time All-loving is when he provides his love to anyone willing to accept it. Some do not accept.

I see no examples of love to accept - I see one horror after another paraded about and -called- love. It's sickening. In any case "all-loving" comes with conditions? The prefix "all" seems horrendously out of place if this is so.

That is not the fault of the giver or the gift. The sun shines on both the righteous and the wicked alike. The righteous grow gardens the wicked sow weeds.

The giver chose the gift Chad, no getting around that. In fact, you seem positively hostile to any suggestions the proposed receiver of any such "gift" might offer. So trying to get your fairy off the hook for something that is entirely and solely it's own responsibility seems pointless.

Ever notice how many weeds there are as opposed to gardens on this rock? Does this mean that your cosmic cultivator is wicked, or are we going to give yet another special pass to a special friend? The only gardens to be found -anywhere- are those that we have created. So perhaps man, with all his faults, wasn't such a bad idea after all. We seem to have a knack for fixing your gods screw-ups. Flesh eating bacteria? Probably a monday detail-gone-wrong that god couldn't be bothered to iron out - no worries - we'll handle it.

[John V]

You're going off on a tangent. The subtle point I made was that God's justice isn't something practical between humans. The wronged party is not involved in the process. It's merely the criminal and a butt hurt god who knew his creation would go against him, and yet the criminal can potentially walk away while the wronged party hasn't benefited in any way. It's a ludicrous concept that's devoid of any substance, just like most things in Christianity e.g. a sacrifice which was undone by the sacrificed reclaiming what he sacrificed. Everything revolves around your god basically interacting with itself.

The problem is that you're trying to mix god's mercy and grace into his justice. The resulting system does of course seem ludicrous, as justice is deserved, while mercy and grace are undeserved.

[Ryantology]

No system of justice is just if the legislator is, himself, not subject to his own rules.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

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I believe through the scriptures and reasoning that God did not create evil, Lucifer brought evil into existence by living outside the will of God. This makes Lucifer responsible for the evil in the creation. I could plant and grow a beautiful garden, which I'm responsible for and then some crazy comes along with a truck and drives through the garden and mess it up.

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The difference being that you didn't create the truck with the foreknowledge that it would one day crash into your garden and mess up your tulips.

How do you know I did not fix-up the truck and sell it to him, knowing he was a very bad driver who could possibly run through my garden. Does this mean I should forego my garden, I hardly think so. I should do just as God did, have a judgement brought upon the driver and then fix what he destroyed.

Missed the point.

You didn't create the driver with the propensity to destroy something you created. You also didn't create the driver with that propensity and simultaneously create an eternal punishment for that propensity using the same rules.

The whole perspective you've taken puts you in a box. You can't get around it by saying "but Satan!" when satan was a creation of god, you know, the all powerful, all knowing being that, by definition, must have known already what would happen the moment he 'created' satan (it would have actually known it in time immaterial if it's omni-faceted, but w/e).

What I explained above destroys the box you want to put me in. By the way God created Lucifer, it was Lucifer who made himself into Satan.

Copout.

Your god created lucifer with the foreknowledge he would become satan (using the idea that it's omni-faceted).

You haven't destroyed your box, you've just imagined it away, which is entirely expected

What's the difference between "I desire to have sex with my wife" and "I want to have sex with my wife"?

There is no difference between a desire and a want, nether are absolute for your personal survival. Gees.

Sorry, I misread thinking you'd written desire and want Implying no synonymous link.

But again, I know this will just go entirely over your head, but an omni-faceted god is by definition perfect, it would want/need/desire for nothing. The idea that a perfect being would create something and desire their worship is, well, quite sickening really.