(January 6, 2016 at 3:14 pm)robvalue Wrote: The biggest assumption I find that people make about "God" is that he is automatically "good". That doesn't seem to follow at all. What's to stop a tremendously powerful thing being a douche nozzle?

The OT god is a prick and a half.

Haha yes, he certainly is. If I wanted to write the most evil character imaginable, I'd be hard pressed to compete with Yahweh.

It's incredible that he blatantly describes himself as an evil tyrant, and even explicitly takes responsibility for all the evil, yet still comes out smelling of roses. Must be some Derren Brown mind fuckery he's got going on. What does he have to do to get people to question him?

He must be laughing his non-existent arse off.

(January 6, 2016 at 3:15 pm)mh.brewer Wrote: Why did god create?

Boredom.  I mean, it's like asking "would you rather do something or nothing?"  There's a time to do nothing, but after a while you want to do something.  Of course, since God is theoretically timeless and exists at all points simultaneously, it makes this pretty impossible for me to comprehend.

Questions that always occurred to me were:

1. Are we God's first creation?
2. Are we God's final creation?
3. If God was first, where did evil come from?  It would have to come from God.
4. Could God get bored with this heaven stuff in several trillion years and just blink us all out of existence?
5. Will God eventually regret sentencing people to burn forever and decide to forgive them?
6. If God knew that Adam would fall but did nothing to prevent it, isn't it God's fault?
7. Could Got get bored with existence and commit suicide?
8. Could the reason we haven't heard from God since Jesus and the Apostles be because God got bored and just abandoned the plan?
9. If Lucifer possessed any negative attributes, from where did they come if the Creator is perfectly good?  DNA mutation?
10. Does God and his universe exist in a simulation being run by a vastly more complex alien lifeform?

Somewhat similar to my "hypothesis" when i was a christian.My hypothesis was that god created the big bang and engineered it to unravel as it did, i thought at the time that humans simply didn't have the technology to know at the time (btw, i wholeheartedly dismissed the bible and other holy books as garbage written by people that didn't understand the world).It was only later that i learned about scientific method and started questioning whether god exists or not, the only reason i had to believe in a god was because the whole idea and concept was implanted on me by my family and church.

11. Did God get so bored he blew his brains out? Is that what the Big Bang was? Are we all bits of God brain?

The thing about all the specific myths in religion is that no one would ever come to them on their own. No one would just "find out" the story of Jesus or whatever. No one would have a clue he ever existed, if he did at all. They get all their information from people and just have to believe it (or at least the bulk of it).

(January 6, 2016 at 3:29 pm)Old Baby Wrote:

(January 6, 2016 at 3:15 pm)mh.brewer Wrote: Why did god create?

Boredom.  I mean, it's like asking "would you rather do something or nothing?"  There's a time to do nothing, but after a while you want to do something.  Of course, since God is theoretically timeless and exists at all points simultaneously, it makes this pretty impossible for me to comprehend.

Questions that always occurred to me were:

1. Are we God's first creation?
2. Are we God's final creation?
3. If God was first, where did evil come from?  It would have to come from God.
4. Could God get bored with this heaven stuff in several trillion years and just blink us all out of existence?
5. Will God eventually regret sentencing people to burn forever and decide to forgive them?
6. If God knew that Adam would fall but did nothing to prevent it, isn't it God's fault?
7. Could Got get bored with existence and commit suicide?
8. Could the reason we haven't heard from God since Jesus and the Apostles be because God got bored and just abandoned the plan?
9. If Lucifer possessed any negative attributes, from where did they come if the Creator is perfectly good?  DNA mutation?
10. Does God and his universe exist in a simulation being run by a vastly more complex alien lifeform?

Did your former self have any good/plausible responses? How about:

1. Can't know.
2. Can't know.
3. Asked and answered.
4. A god with boredom? Wouldn't that blink it out of existence? Energy transfer?
5. A god with regret?
6. Asked and answered.
7. See 4.
8. A god with mistakes?
9. See 8.
10. Who created the simulation? Who created the alien life form?

Yeah, for some reason the model is always God somehow creeping around outside our reality, and then that's it. Never just this reality, and never another nested level that "God" sits in. There's something alluring about there being exactly one more layer, for some reason.

OP, I'm glad you've gotten beyond all of this nonsense, but it really bugs me that you used the word "theory" in this context. What you put forth aren't theories, rather they're loose hypotheses; "theory" would suggest they're scientifically on-par with reality.

(January 6, 2016 at 5:07 pm)The_Empress Wrote: OP, I'm glad you've gotten beyond all of this nonsense, but it really bugs me that you used the word "theory" in this context. What you put forth aren't theories, rather they're loose hypotheses; "theory" would suggest they're scientifically on-par with reality.

Yes, you're correct.  I used "theory" in its everyday language form instead of its true definition.  Should have said they were hypotheses.

(January 6, 2016 at 6:09 pm)Old Baby Wrote:

(January 6, 2016 at 5:07 pm)The_Empress Wrote: OP, I'm glad you've gotten beyond all of this nonsense, but it really bugs me that you used the word "theory" in this context. What you put forth aren't theories, rather they're loose hypotheses; "theory" would suggest they're scientifically on-par with reality.

Yes, you're correct.  I used "theory" in its everyday language form instead of its true definition.  Should have said they were hypotheses.

Sorry, but even hypothesis is being a bit charitable. 

Conjecture is more like it.