Paganism vs. Monotheism

[Mudhammam]

Read the myth of Apollo and Cassandra, and what Ajax did to her. Polytheism was/is even the ones today are full of sexism,

Is that true of Hinduism too?

[McDoogins]

Read the myth of Apollo and Cassandra, and what Ajax did to her. Polytheism was/is even the ones today are full of sexism,

Is that true of Hinduism too?

Don't mind if I butt in, but probably considering India has always had the caste system. On another note, I think Wicca is a subset of paganism, someone correct me if I'm wrong. Just trying to clarify in case the question comes up since they are different.

[Dystopia]

Arguing over or even discussing the differences between religions is like debating the differences between Star Wars and Harry Potter

All religions are nothing more than artificial human invented constructs. No religion is a requirement to live life.

Are you kidding me? I'll happily debate why I prefer HP and never got into Star wars. The fact two things have one thing in common (no evidence) doesn't mean they're equal. Everything is worth discussing. Hasty generalizations are not helpful

[Dystopia]

I guess they're less harmful because none of them have the social/political clout of the major monotheistic religions. As to credibility? No difference in my opinion. None of them have any. All the religions are clearly human-invented.

There is a great deal of difference in credibility between, say, Christianity and the ancient Greek religion.  The problem of evil proves that Christianity is a lie, but does nothing to disprove the ancient Greek religion.  In the ancient Greek religion, none of the gods are omnipotent, none are omniscient, and none are perfectly benevolent.  So the ancient Greek religion, while still implausible and not worthy of serious consideration, is more plausible than Christianity.

The problem of evil doesn't disprove Christianity - It proves god is either evil or instead has a different conception of what constitutes good, evil and suffering - This, of course, assuming a priori that Christianity is true. If you were to discover some overwhelming evidence that the Christian god exists, you could still consider him evil - I'm happy that such a deity most likely doesn't exist.

[McDoogins]

^I'm sure glad there isn't. And if there was, I would consider him evil
As, Kyle said to Cartman during the Jewish Easter episode Jewbacabra, "Sometimes god is just that way." To which Cartman responds defensively, "God is not a dick!"

[Mudhammam]

The problem of evil doesn't disprove Christianity - It proves god is either evil or instead has a different conception of what constitutes good, evil and suffering - This, of course, assuming a priori that Christianity is true. If you were to discover some overwhelming evidence that the Christian god exists, you could still consider him evil - I'm happy that such a deity most likely doesn't exist.

I'm a bit perplexed about wherein exactly lies the force of the so-called problem of evil; typically, people differentiate between human evil and natural evil. The latter is the only problematic attribute of the world that could be directly ascribed to the responsibility of a God, and yet I'm not really sure that it's appropriate to call the causes and effects of physical law good or evil in any moral sense, since morality seems to presume a rational will that is free to make moral decisions... and thunderstorms, tsunamis, earthquakes, diseases, etc. wouldn't exactly meet that criteria. So, is the blame placed upon God for not creating a sterile universe in which the laws of physics or evolution are incapable of adversely affecting sentient beings? Is that really an act - the creation of a universe that evolves according to certain laws, which resulted in this experience of life - wherein we, ignorant subjects that we are, are justified to claim the authority of moral judgment about such a being's culpability in doing so? If there is no God, is the moral quality of natural outcomes eliminated? Is it because there no longer involves a rational will? And why should we presume that such a being as God would be rational according to our axiomatic systems of logic?

[The Valkyrie]

Really depends on which "pagan" religion is being followed. It's too broad a categorization to really comment on in a short response.

Of course, as an atheist, I don't believe in any of it, but many of the "pagans" I've encountered are just harmless people going on with their lives and who happen to worship deities that, in many cases, were around long before the "modern" Abrahamic religions.

[Jenny A]

The only modern pagans I've ever discussed paganism with were really ritualists. They didn't believe in any gods at all but thought religious ritual was good for the soul. As far as I could gather they used pagan rituals because they wouldn't be confused with the Christian ones they were brought up with. I get it except for the believing in a soul part.

[Pyrrho]

The problem of evil doesn't disprove Christianity - It proves god is either evil or instead has a different conception of what constitutes good, evil and suffering - This, of course, assuming a priori that Christianity is true. If you were to discover some overwhelming evidence that the Christian god exists, you could still consider him evil - I'm happy that such a deity most likely doesn't exist.

I'm a bit perplexed about wherein exactly lies the force of the so-called problem of evil; typically, people differentiate between human evil and natural evil. The latter is the only problematic attribute of the world that could be directly ascribed to the responsibility of a God, and yet I'm not really sure that it's appropriate to call the causes and effects of physical law good or evil in any moral sense, since morality seems to presume a rational will that is free to make moral decisions... and thunderstorms, tsunamis, earthquakes, diseases, etc. wouldn't exactly meet that criteria. So, is the blame placed upon God for not creating a sterile universe in which the laws of physics or evolution are incapable of adversely affecting sentient beings? Is that really an act - the creation of a universe that evolves according to certain laws, which resulted in this experience of life - wherein we, ignorant subjects that we are, are justified to claim the authority of moral judgment about such a being's culpability in doing so? If there is no God, is the moral quality of natural outcomes eliminated? Is it because there no longer involves a rational will? And why should we presume that such a being as God would be rational according to our axiomatic systems of logic?

You think of natural occurrences as being amoral because you view them as natural.  But if they were occurring by design, then it would be an entirely different matter.  Since many people seem confused by the subject being God, imagine how things would be if I could control the weather.  Suppose I cause a flood, and a few dozen people drown in it.  Is what I have done amoral?  And before you tell me that it may depend on the particulars, let us say, like God, I know in advance that it will kill those dozens of people (remember, God is supposedly omniscient, so he knows what the effects are of his actions).  So, in other words, I drown people with the weather.  In this imaginary scenario, am I an okay guy?  If not, then neither is God.

We can also view the matter in reverse.  Suppose I can control the weather, but I refuse to do so, and just let the flood kill the dozens of people.  I could have effortlessly (God is supposed to be omnipotent, so every action is effortless for such a being) prevented their deaths, but instead, I willfully and knowingly let them die.  And I let all of the people starve from droughts who 'naturally' starve, and etc.  In this imaginary scenario, am I an okay guy?  If not, then neither is God.


Also, for the actions of other people, it sounds like you are bringing up some form of the "free will" defense for God.  I have dealt with this before:

http://atheistforums.org/thread-34461-po...#pid984651

Here is some of it again (the fourth point is most relevant to your present post):

First of all, much of what is wrong with the world has nothing to do with humans having free will.  Think of all of the diseases, earthquakes, etc.  So free will does not explain away evil.

Second, it is not entirely clear that we have free will, nor is it entirely clear that having free will is a good thing.  I will set this aside for the moment, but it needs to be established for it to be reasonable to believe your story.  (That would involve explaining what, exactly, "free will" is.)

Third, is there free will in heaven?  If so, does that mean that evil will exist in heaven?  If so, how is heaven different from life now?  And if there is free will in heaven, without evil, then having free will does not explain the existence of evil here and now.  And if there is no free will in heaven, then it must be better to not have free will, since heaven is better than here.  Isn't it?

Fourth, imagine that you and I are having a picnic together in a large park.  We are conversing agreeably, having some wine and good food.  In the distance, we observe a group of people attacking another person, raping and beating the person.  You say, "hey, we should do something" like call the police on your cell phone, go get help, go and directly help the person, whatever.  I say, "no, we can't do that!  We can't interfere with their free will!"  Now, if that really happened, what would you say of me?  Would you regard me as moral or immoral?  Well, I would be doing what God does.  So are you saying it is right to not help others?  Furthermore, we can see that this does not work anyway as an excuse, because us interfering would not affect whether they have free will or not.  We would only be affecting the outcome, not their ability to make choices.  Likewise, God interfering with outcomes would not affect anyone's free will at all.  They could still will to rape and beat and kill, without succeeding.  So this "free will" excuse really excuses nothing whatsoever.


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Returning to your present post, in which you ask:

"And why should we presume that such a being as God would be rational according to our axiomatic systems of logic?"

In what sense would "god" be anything other than just an unthinking force of nature if god has no rationality?  You have taken the god out of "god" and are describing natural forces.


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For Dystopia, the problem of evil shows that there is no omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly benevolent being.  Any form of Christianity or Islam or other religion that affirms the existence of such a being is proven false.  Of course, it does not prove that there is not an evil god of some sort.

If the god has a different conception of good and evil, that makes absolutely no difference for the argument.  The god is evil by our standards.  We only have our standards, and it is senseless to pretend that we should be using terms to mean the opposite of what they mean.

[The Grand Nudger]

The only modern pagans I've ever discussed paganism with were really ritualists.  

Probably describes a hefty number of "christians" just as well, eh?