Quote:Could these be possibilities?

Only if your god exists. Got any actual evidence?

Quote:What if death were an exit and not an ending?

It wouldn't improve the case one whit. The death of a child is an enormous bereavement to a family, so I don't see that the false comfort of, 'Little Mikela has gone to a better place' alters the case that God bears the ultimate responsibility for human suffering.

Quote:What if God places more value on character than on circumstances?

Again, it is hard to see how that matters. If God valued character all that much, why doesn't he remove the impediments in the human character which prevent food, meds, etc from benefiting the people who need them the most? If you're talking about the character of the victims of disease and starvation, shame on you. What possible 'character' could God value in a three months old child dead of malnutrition? Of an infant born without a brain? In the Christian paradigm, God clearly does NOT place value on character as many of his victims never have a chance to develop any character at all.

Quote:Could these be possibilities?

Of course they could. ANYthing could be a possibility. But a much stronger possibility than the two you offered is this one: Gods do not exist. Suffering and death is the result of human fallibility, cruelty, and the pitiless indifference of the universe.

Boru

(September 1, 2013 at 2:19 am)Undeceived Wrote:

(September 1, 2013 at 12:21 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: One infinitely small act of will on God's part would save millions of people every year. And THAT is why God gets the blame. Human beings clearly can't solve this problem. That means some humans are arrogant, willful, and heartlessly cold. God, on the other hand, COULD solve this problem. There is no logical reason for him not to do so.

What if death were an exit and not an ending? What if God places more value on character than on circumstances? Could these be possibilities?

Because according to your own theology, god doesn't care how good you are, only that you believe in him.

When a convivted serial killer can repent before being executed and get into heaven yet a good man can be sent to hell for the monstrous crime of not believing.

How can god seriously care about character?

(August 31, 2013 at 11:18 pm)ronedee Wrote: Last I checked... men are the ones causing all evil in the world. Also, man in his infinite wisdom, and resources is quite able to stop babies from starving to death in Africa! A recent purification invention sponsored by Coke has the potential to wipe out draught in the world.

As a matter-of-fact...there aint much man can't do, or hasn't done on his own to fix, or in most cases hurt the world!

So....why is it God's fault?

Oops. Little fly in your holy ointment.

Quote:Deka’s Slingshot water purification system (pictured) uses a vapor compression distillation system that runs on low levels of electricity.

Trouble is - there is no electricity in most of these places. Hell, we spent billions and couldn't reliably restore the electricity in Baghdad.

The "devil" is in the details, huh?

(August 31, 2013 at 7:29 am)genkaus Wrote:

(August 31, 2013 at 7:21 am)Brian37 Wrote: Skip the damned labels, this is the problem with all claims of all god/s in human history.

I used to be a huge fan of Plato until I read Dawkins's criticism of Platonic idealism. Plato stupidly postulated that if you simply "thought" about something you could find it's "essence" which lead to the popular idea of perfection. Dawkins blames much of modern religion on this stupid chase of utopias because of Plato's ideas.

To be fair, modern religion's theology is a childish version of Plato's philosophy.

I know, and if I could invent a time machine and go back and kill Plato for the poison he infected humanity with, I would.

Dawkins burst my bubble with Plato. I used to be a huge fan of Plato until I read the opening of "The Greatest Show On Earth". In which Dawkins, and rightfully so, places blame on human thought squarely on Plato.

It isn't that theology is a childish version of Plato, Plato himself lacked modern science and technology himself.

Plato can only be given credit for valuing thinking for yourself. Where he failed was that the intent of "thinking" was not about testing, merely mentally masturbating. It is why his idea of "essence" has fucked up humanity since.

Plato was as childish, not that he could have known better, as the spawn of theism he gave rise to.

Plato could not have known back then anything about evolution so he could not see slow changes over long periods of time. So his core mantra was to simply "think" about the "essence" or "perfection".

He certainly was a skeptic, but he had no knowledge, nor could have known the importance of quality control.

Plato, certainly cannot be blamed for all modern social ills. But he was the first to popularize the idea of "essence".

(August 31, 2013 at 3:00 am)Beta Ray Bill Wrote: Everyone has wondered about this: why is there so much evil and suffering in the world if God is supposedly loving and able to stop it?

The Bible says that God is all-powerful and all-knowing. Doesn't he know about every act of evil that ever was and ever will be? Why does he allow this suffering to happen? Doesn't he care?

No, he doesn't. Please let me explain.

Some Christians say that God allows evil into the world because he has a master plan. So, basically, every murder, rape and abortion that has happened and ever will happen was by His design. He allows us to do these horrible things, so basically we are doing his will, and have not sinned in any way, or ever can.

Another defense is that God is God, and he is allowed to do anything he wants and so whatever we want is irrelevant. That again falls back onto the murder, rape and abortion atrocities. Does a god that does these things because he wants to sound like a good one?

What about free will? Doesn't God give us that? Of course not. He knows everything, and is planning every second of our existence. We are all merely pieces of his puzzle. Satan was his design. So was the Holocaust. What about the 2.4 million deaths in the Bible? God did all those, and quite often, if you research the OT, you'll see that he is quite pleased with himself.

But, as many of you are already thinking, the real answer is that there is no God. If there truly was a God that "loves love and hates hate" then existence would be a lot more pleasurable than it is. Following reasoning and study, we can obviously see that existence has no guiding force. Our fates are not decided. If they were, I would want nothing to do with so evil of a God as the one in the Bible.

It is great that you bring this up. I was reading Genesis today, and I came across a stupid passage concerning God's disgust with all the corruption in the world:

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the lord said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry I have made them." But Noah found favor in the eyes of the lord.

Genesis goes on to say that the flood wiped out all humans except for those who rode on Noah's Ark. But why didn't God just kill all the corrupt people? He's God, remember; he's omniscient. Why did he make Noah and the animals go through all that trouble to build the ship?

Better yet: Why did the corrupt people back then have to die in the flood (which there is not geological evidence for)? Why do the many corrupt people today get off scott free? It sure would be nice if all the Wall Street bankers who illegally foreclosed peoples' homes would die in a flood.

God loves blood and death. He requires blood sacrifice for his creations to atone for their sins, and he required his son to give himself up as the ultimate blood sacrifice. Maybe he was grooming Abraham to be more like him by trying to get him to kill Isaac, as god would one day kill Jesus?

Read here
http://www.evilbible.com/
Read my sig too

(September 1, 2013 at 4:20 pm)Zen Badger Wrote:

(September 1, 2013 at 2:19 am)Undeceived Wrote: What if death were an exit and not an ending? What if God places more value on character than on circumstances? Could these be possibilities?

Because according to your own theology, god doesn't care how good you are, only that you believe in him.

When a convivted serial killer can repent before being executed and get into heaven yet a good man can be sent to hell for the monstrous crime of not believing.

How can god seriously care about character?

I agree with this and its one of the corner stones that started my de-conversion. You take something as simple as the unforgivable sin - The people who are most likely to be afflicted and troubled by this are Christians.

Why? Because everyone else doesn't read the bible and so have no knowledge of this sin so have no fear of accidentally committing it. Or being tormented when they think they have done it.

E.g. You take a Good honest Christian Man who believes in God - He gets into a theological debate with an Un-Believer and ends up inadvertently blaspheming the holy ghost. This Christian will go to hell for eternity.

Yet the person he was preaching too still has the opportunity to repent and goto heaven.

That is seriously Unfair!

Like you said - Take one of the 9/11 Terrorists what Christians are saying is if they repent they will goto heaven despite the fact that thousands in that building may have died without being Christians all for un-belief! Just to goto hell. Where is fairness in that!

The strangest thing is that why does God require belief - Surely if he wanted to save us why would he require us to believe in him. Seams strange that a God who created everything cannot save people who don't believe in him when these same people have searched for him.

(August 31, 2013 at 3:00 am)Beta Ray Bill Wrote: Everyone has wondered about this: why is there so much evil and suffering in the world if God is supposedly loving and able to stop it?

The Bible says that God is all-powerful and all-knowing. Doesn't he know about every act of evil that ever was and ever will be? Why does he allow this suffering to happen? Doesn't he care?

Romans 9

22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory,

I.e., God wanted to make a more complete revelation of himself in order to have a deeper relationship with the "vessels of mercy."