Benevolent Creator God?

[pocaracas]

Why do I get caught up in these huge replies that need me to set aside some time to type up?

Well then, if it wasn't a psychopathology, the alternative makes us lean towards the deceit hypothesis.
Personally, I'm fine with that and it is very consistent with the developments during the man's lifetime.

Can you be a bit more specific about "the developments during the man's lifetime" and discuss some actual instances of deceit? 

You can easily find scholarly assessments of the Islamic prophet's career as a social reformer, statesman,etc. being one of the most documented people in history. You won't find any modern orientalist scholar defending your thesis above. The only way to explain Islam's initial explosive expansion is Muhammad's sincere devotion to his message (regardless of the theological question: is he a prophet from God or not) and his ability to stand firmly in the face of armed opposition and prosecution, to suppose otherwise renders Islam's entire development completely incomprehensible. These are not my personal ideas and biases, but actual excerpts from Montgomery Watt's biography of Muhammad.

Benevolent god provides message to Muhammad, apparently, in a continuous fashion for years.
Muhammad gets transformed from an illiterate merchant into a " social reformer, statesman", and military leader who eventually conquers the whole Arabian Peninsula.
Obviously, Arabia was taken by the power of illiterate merchant's diplomacy, not military might, right?
So, what is it, benevolent or military? You can't have it both ways.

It matters because it represents what those people very likely are.

No, it doesn't. That's a sad instance of an argumentum ad populum. So, you're fine with joining the masses if they consider some prophet insane?

Insanity is a medical term, and as such, requires professional assessment of the patient, and a full diagnosis of his symptoms. Who cares if people think x is insane or deluded.

You're the one using the word insane.
The masses you speak of are the ones I said did not accept as miracles those actions which have since been written down as miracles.
Given the education level of those masses, I would expect them to be dazzled by any miracle, but you tell me that they weren't fazed and even turned their backs on the man. This leads me to conclude that those miracles were very weak (at best), just parlour tricks, or downright inclusions in the text (falsehoods). In either case, not the display one would expect from a god.

I'm saying the story portrays a god who chooses a poor messenger resulting in a schism shortly after relaying the message which leads to centuries of suffering.
That can't be the work of a benevolent creator god, can it?

Unless this creator entity is consistent and actually passes on its message to everyone, those who claim to have received any such message are probably not portraying reality.

Well, again. Islam tells you just that, the Qur'an is the message and is open to everyone, it's even miraculous on its own - I discussed this point in length above in my response to M. Agenda - regardless of the transmission process.

Come on, when you require people to interpret a poetic text in a completely different language from the one they know, you are obfuscating the message.
Damn, even if it was a poetic text in my own language, it would be difficult to interpret.

Again, not the work of a benevolent god.

Imagine a world where there is no Islam. A world where there is no religion. A world where there are no prophets. Also a world wehre there is no science.
This would be the world of our far far ancestors. Our tree dwelling ape-like ancestors.
How does the notion of the divine appear in the ape mind, if that brain can't assume the existence of god?

You seem to argue from the present-day point of view, but I'm concerned with how these things appear in the human psyche.
Remember that I've laid out a rough notion of how it may have happened in a previous post.
You are free to disagree with my hypothetical.

No, actually it's a very good hypothetical.  Our ancestors can surely think a planet or a star are God, but why is this a problem? If we're talking about a just God, God doesn't punish people who made a genuine mistake and were honest. The Qur'an itself recounts how Abraham thought the Moon was God, then turned to the Sun, before finally embracing monotheism.

And those who thought the Moon is God are not really insane ignorant people, a Moon -if God exists- is an instantiation of God's omnipotence, it warrants admiration in its own merits. Our ancestors went a bit too far and worshipped these instantiations instead of the instantiator. A lightning strike is a -vivid- instantiation of God's ability to intervene in the world, or, say, reach any point in the universe, our ancestors posited some God as the agent behind this natural phenomenon -they are not entirely wrong, because even if we managed to explain this phenomenon, there can stll be a supernatural intent behind it.

You are not starting at the point I mentioned in the hypothetical.
You seem to be already at ancient Egyptian level of gods, Amun, and Ra.


The only way to take your view here seriously is if I take it all the way down to the philosophical conclusion of a metaphysical plane where god operates which underlies all of the physical reality. This way, you have a god that influences the whole of reality while not being part of it.
This is the god of the philosophers.

Still has the issue of which came first, the reality, or metaphysics?
In my view, metaphysics is just mankind's pattern seeking brain categorizing reality. This categorization then got hijacked by philosophers over the years as an underlying conceptual physics from which actual physics arises. Who can say?

I thought you said the Qur'an wasn't compiled until years after the man died.... how are you now saying that he dared others to come up with something better?
Anyway, I can give you a pass, assuming that you mean individual texts within the Qur'an.

Concerning witnessed miracles, if people would still not accept them as miracles, then even those unsofisticated people were aware that they were being deceived... probably by some form of illusion.
It's amazing how far the ignorant and gullible have managed to take a deception... to the point of building theocracies that have lasted to the information age.

I discussed the miraculous nature of the Qur'an above, you can check it out if you are interested. Suffice it to say that an illiterate merchant just can't spontaneously utter the finest piece in Arabic literature (and, on the side, leaving a vast collection of highly eloquent hadiths significantly different from the style of the Qur'an), while founding an islamic state, an army, and managing daily political and social problems, in addition to his personal life.

If only you could take this to its logical conclusion...

I'll nudge you>>> the illiterate merchant didn't do all that.

Don't you think that, if that was the case for any prophet, all of mankind would follow it?
Don't you think that the fact that many people at the time of each prophet chose to ignore that prophet's message is a hint that the messages from all prophets have been less than clear and unequivocal? Note that I'm talking about people who were local and contemporaries to the so-called prophets, so culture differences and translation details would not be an issue at all.
If so, then it follows that they are not real prophets, but rather, like I stated in my very first post on this thread, delusional (at best) or deceitful (at worst).

What can possibly be unclear about "worship one god and accept me as a messenger"...........? You forget that most people in history believed in God, they only rejected the prophets for dishonest reasons or because they perceive prophets as a threat to their cultural heritage/social status, etc.
Again, this is an outright argumentum ad populum: if people didn't accept them, then they aren't prophets.............. seriously? Can't people be the problem.....?

If people are a problem in the prophet scenario, wouldn't the benevolent god find some other way to communicate with them all so as to not have his message be ignored, shunned, and rejected?


"What can possibly be unclear about "worship one god and accept me as a messenger"...........?"
Let's speak of probabilities.
What do you think is more likely, the creator god talks to person who then goes on to pass on the message to the rest of the people; or the person comes up with a message he thinks the people should follow and then passes it on as if it came from god in an attempt to more easily convince the people (who are already believers in this god)?

In your experience of people and messages from the divine, which happens more often? God messaging someone, or a person lying?

Oh wow! Did you really say that the requirement of Islam is "to believe there is one god and that Muhammad is a messenger"?
Can you not see how so self-serving that is for Muhammad?? (and all the priesthood that followed him)

This is exactly the kind of message I would expect from humans wanting to rule over other humans.
Definitely NOT the kind of message from a God who cares about clarity.

And what exctly did Muhammad get because of this requirement? You perceive it as self-serving, I say there is not a single instance in his biography that backs up your assessment.
We know that many members of his family turned against him because of his prophecy, both his parents are condemned to hell (can you imagine a charlatan condemning his own parents to hell), 70 of his most important converts died in a single battle, we also know that many clans of Quraysh ended up issuing a banishment against him and his followers, they were forced to leave to an isolated area where they suffered hunger, some time after, came the Year of Sorrow;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_Sorrow

I can keep going on and on to show you that he didn't personally get anything by claiming prophethood. So how is this self serving in any way??

Didn't get anything?
From "illiterate merchant" to (let me copy from above) "social reformer, statesman", and military leader who eventually conquers the whole Arabian Peninsula?
Not to mention the whole entourage of people who would gain from leading such an empire.


Can you imagine having such a reputation among your own family that many members turn against you when you say something grandiose?

If I can imagine someone condemning his parents to hell? pfft, mon ami, Portugal was founded after its first king went to war against his own mother (who wanted what was then the county to be subservient to Leon - present-day Spain - because she was the daughter of Leon's king).
So yeah... I can easily imagine power being more alluring than family ties.

Because it's the lazy approach?
Because it's way easy for someone (or some group) with ulterior motives to convince the populace of their contact with the pre-believed-in divine.

Well, Muhammad spent 13 years in Mecca without any sort of popular acceptance, I wouldn't personally call his efforts a "lazy approach". And he kept receiving verses and foundaing the Islamic faith alongside reforming the state way after he got to Medina'h.

I guess he got there as a military leader and not a prophet. People don't usually like being conquered.

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So tell me. What did this do to Mo's free will? And to Moses'? and all the others?
Not to mention to the free will of the people who followed them?
Assuming, for a small moment, that the god of the Abraham really appeared to these prophets intending for them to pass on the messages we all know, what sort of effect do you think that had on everyone's free will when they have this prepackaged message almost forcing them to behave in a particular way?
If people are free to believe either way, then why do believers place such emphasis on bringing children up on their parents' faith? To erase free will before any critical thinking skills arise, knowing well that children are far more gullible than adults.

It gets worse when the ruling religion takes it upon itself to actually impose the message, squashing free will. See the now infamous Talibans or the Saudis.
Any god worthy of that name and worthy of being considered benevolent would be able to predict the problem with such an approach and go at it differently. And if I, who am most definitely not a god, can imagine a better way, then I'm pretty sure a god would too.

Well, actually, the Qur'an itself tells us that Muhammad did have free will, he was capable of corrupting God's message:
"And if Muhammad had made up about Us some [false] sayings, We would have seized him by the right hand; Then We would have cut from him the aorta. And there is no one of you who could prevent [Us] from him." [69-:44-48]

As you can see, Muhammad received a warning, just like any prophet or scribe, that corrupting God's message is a grave sin that warrants punishment. This entails that he actually is capable of doing so.
the examples of Taliban or the Saudi government are not very helpful, politics is so closely intertwined with religion that it's hard to learn much. 

Isn't that the very same Qur'an that Muhammad recited?
He himself says that if he had corrupted it, he would have suffered dearly??


Just another instance of "May God strike me dead if I lie!" which, in the absence of a god, means that there will be no such striking, so lying is a total possibility.
Considering that at least some people would believe that the god is not absent, then the lie would be accepted as true by those people.
Self-serving at its finest.

And you are proof that, still to this day, it works.

If the physical Universe behaved differently in some way, then life would never appear. No one would ever appear in it to make any arguments.

If the physical Universe behaved in such a way that made life a possibility, without being tuned in any way, do you suppose someone could make the case in favor of the fine-tuning argument?
If yes, then I propose that it is a useless argument to make as there is clearly no way of knowing if that Universe is indeed fine tuned.

Although this is a good objection to fine-tuning, for it to have any value, you should first show that the set of  non-fine tuned universes that permit life is not empty. I doubt anybody can do that, until this difficulty is circumvented, my response would simply be: there can't be a physical universe that both permits life AND is not fine-tuned.

This really depends on how many Universes are you willing to concede that exist.
Given infinite non-overlapping Universes, at least some could have such conditions.

I can't prove that there are any other Universes. Nor can you show me any non-fine tuned ones. So we are left with what we think is more likely.

The random multiverse notion seems to me to be more likely than the existence of a conscious entity that can create Universes with just the right set of conditions that he/she/it decides.

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Extra Extra, read all about it

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporte...ic-church/

"
The Pillar, a conservative Catholic news blog, claimed that an analysis of cell phone data showed Catholic priests using Grindr, despite taking strict vows of celibacy when they enter the priesthood and the Church’s stance that homosexuality is a sin.
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So much for that ban...

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Wait. Wait.  Wait.   You leftwingers have been telling us homosexuality and pedophilia are unrelated,  that the church didn't have a 'gay' problem.   Now it turns out the liberal wing of the church,  the ones who say Joe Biden is a swell Catholic,  has gays using Grindr.

Kind of flushes the 'gays don't molest boys' meme down the toilet, doesn't it?

You're the one who said that the Catholic Church wasn't taking in gays. Clearly it is.
I mean, how would they know if a given potential priest is gay or straight?

The molestation of minors is a different subject.
The problem with this subject is that, when it happens for normal civilians they go to jail and get registered, for clergy the Church just takes away the ability to have public speeches and makes them pay some fine.
What I think should happen is, as soon as an allegation comes up, the Church should hand over the process to the authorities and have the person be tried as any other normal civilian and go to jail as a result of a guilty verdict.

So tell me, why does the RCC not do that?
Why does it have this power that stands above the rule of law?
Why does it keep these known child molesters free to do it again?

I don't think it matters here if I'm leftwing, or rightwing, or centrist. Why does the law of the land not apply to Catholic priests?

If you are a believer, why not take your own bible's advice?
Romans 13:1-2 says: "Obey the government, for God is the One who has put it there. There is no government anywhere that God has not placed in power. So those who refuse to obey the law of the land are refusing to obey God, and punishment will follow."