RE: Evidence for atheist claims
May 4, 2016 at 9:45 am
(This post was last modified: May 4, 2016 at 9:46 am by Mister Agenda.)
Wryetui Wrote:"Jehovah, for instance, has the mutually contradictory qualities of omniscience and omnipotence. He is also described as a perfectly loving and moral god, which can't be possible if he, as an all-powerful being, created our Universe with advance knowledge of how badly his plan would go (sin, suffering, Hell, etc.). It means that either he wanted us to sin, die, and suffer (meaning he is not all-loving), or he could not prevent these things from being a part of his plan (meaning he is not all-powerful). For this and many more reasons, Jehovah cannot possibly have all the qualities attributed to him, therefore he cannot exist.", this is incorrect in many levels.
"Jehovah, for instance, has the mutually contradictory qualities of omniscience and omnipotence", who attributed Him these adjectives? These adjectives are a mere and poor attempt of human beings to explain the innefable. It is not that God is "omnipotent" and "omniscient" in the sense that he is bond to these adjectives and to their meanings. We have witnessed that God knows pretty much everything and that does everything He wants to do, how are these contradictory?
"He is also described as a perfectly loving and moral god, which can't be possible if he, as an all-powerful being, created our Universe with advance knowledge of how badly his plan would go (sin, suffering, Hell, etc.). It means that either he wanted us to sin, die, and suffer (meaning he is not all-loving), or he could not prevent these things from being a part of his plan (meaning he is not all-powerful).", this is just a mere product of your poor theological preparation. You have said that "created our Universe with advance knowledge of how badly his plan would go (sin, suffering, Hell, etc.)", how exactly His plan went badly? By stating that only because we have sinned His plan went badly? I will tell you the truth, His plan went exactly as He planned it. He created Adam and Eve knowing exactly that they would sin and the fact that they sinned is a part of our deification (because the Incarnation of the Word began at the start of Creation). God created man with all the spiritual and physical powers necessary for its fulfillment, but for that to happen, a moral exam had to happen, the challenge by which, in a conscious and totally free way, man could acknowledge and manifest the willing submision and gratitude towards his Creator and to win, at the same time, personal merits, comprised in perfection and to avoid, being made perfect, of the tragedy in which the devil fell by his pride, because: Sirach 34:10 People with no experience know little. So, the commandment is not a sign of tirany but the very manifestation of God's kindness and wisdom, so man can raise to its full state of liberty and perfection, because moral power grows only by exercise, man now can freely want to choose God.
"It means that either he wanted us to sin, die, and suffer (meaning he is not all-loving)" and how exactly this shows that God is not all loving?! This stupidity of "if suffering exists it is because God is not loving" is pure ignorance. As our holy father, St. Nikolai Velimirovich said: “Only the foolish think that suffering is evil. A sensible man knows that suffering is not evil but only the manifestation of evil and healing from evil. Only sin in a man is a real evil, and there is no evil outside sin. Everything else that men generally call evil is not, but is a bitter medicine to heal from evil. The sicker the man, the more bitter the medicine that the doctor prescribes for him. At times, even, it seems to a sick man that the medicine is worse and more bitter than the sickness itself! And so it seems at times to the sinner: the suffering is harder and more bitter than the sin committed. But this is only an illusion – a very strong self-delusion. There is no suffering in the world that could be anywhere near as hard and destructive as sin is. All the suffering borne by men and nations is none other than the abundant healing that eternal Mercy offers to men and nations to save them from eternal death. Every sin, however small, would inevitably bring death if Mercy were not to allow suffering in order to sober men up from the inebriation of sin; for the healing that comes through suffering is brought about by the grace-filled power of the Holy and Life-giving Spirit.”
Look, I get you are an atheist and I respect your point of view (even if you don't believe so) simply because I believe that every person is able to do the choices they want and that they are responsible for the choices they do, but I will never understand why do you theologize if you lack belief in God? Why do you envolve in theology if you have no preparation?
Of course, if you bothered to define the God you believe in for us, we wouldn't be refuting other versions. It sounds like you understand that the God of Theodicy is a non-starter because of contradictory attributes, and I admire your willingness to chop down all three legs of the theodic tripod; most people settle for one.
And could you be a little less smug about us not being experts on your take on Orthodox Christian theology? There's no reason we should be up on it. It's not like it's made headlines for proving God exists. It's like if a Hopi showed up and started putting us down for not being up on Hopi spirituality. If you've got something that makes your religion so super special that everyone ought to know the writings of your Church Fathers, present it. There are thousands of theologies, we haven't studied them all, but neither have you.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.