Best Theistic Arguments

[robvalue]

I wanted to say something else on the subject of "faith".

I can have faith in a person, based on my past experiences with them. If they've always shown they know what they are doing in some regard, I'll have faith in them that they'll continue to be good at that particular thing. If, however, I witness them fouling it up, causing chaos and getting awful results, I would have no faith in them in the future.

In this regard, if we assume a hypothetical creator/manager of our environment, do I have faith in them? Absolutely not. I see awful design decisions at every turn, I see mismanagement (or no management), and I see what appears to be pointless sadism.

The only thing that could restore my faith in this creator would be me finding out why the results do not match my expectations. This would necessarily require them not having total control over everything, but instead achieving some overall goal (of which we might be only a small part), using limited resources. This is contrary to what almost every religious theist tells me. Maybe, if this was the case, I simply don't currently understand how everything I am seeing fits in to this. Or maybe, I'd still think it was fucking stupid and/or sadistic. It would depend on the specifics.

One further point: poor animals. They already get the worst deal, being basically our property and foodstuff based on our God-complex over them. But from a theological standpoint, they don't generally even get to go to heaven either. So this huge mitigating factor which is meant to make everything okay in the end doesn't even apply. So their suffering is entirely pointless in this regard, except as pawns in some sick game. Women were also property in the bible, but at least society has moved on with regard to them. I hope one day the same promotion is given to animals.