In both Christianity and philosophy, there is some thing known as "The Problem of Evil." It goes something like this: If God exists, then misery exists either (1) because God is incapable of stopping it--therefore, He is not worthy of worship; or (2) God is indifferent to it--therefore (again) He is not worthy of worship. It is an interesting conundrum. Thoughts?
The usual dodge is that God gave man free will and that it was man that chose evil. Stupid but there it is.
Why would he have to be indifferent? Couldn't he also be for it? A non-personal god, who is more interested in upholding the laws of nature could see a merit in the suffering. Either way, he may have a different standard of good than you do. The logic that suffering is bad is only true for us humans (and other biological beings). One way of doing that is saying what CourtJester suggested, that God values free will as good (and that's not a crazy idea, even if it's not obvious) and that that trumps alleviating suffering. Either way, why wouldn't a God who is indifferent or evil not be worshipped? If there was a god whose good side I would like to get on, it'd be that god.
Except Christianity also teaches that god has a plan that you can not go against. Christian dogma contradicts the existence of free will.
I've always preferred to rephrase it as, "If God exists, all suffering is unnecessary suffering." Unless, of course, suffering is goal to begin with.
What is sin, evil? Is the way the natural world operates, evil? From an egocentric viewpoint, it looks to be evil for it causes our physical body to suffer from pain. Yet if god is consciousness, and our organism receives this consciousness, it looks to me like god is sharing in the suffering that you call your own. Why would IT do that? To experience in a physical body the universe IT created? To me this is the only thing that would make much sense. Once you die, that fragment of consciousness which you receive via your brain, metaphorically wakes up and then the joys and the suffering are over for that fragment of consciousness. Makes more sense than this idea that most people have of god. It is how I try to make sense of existence which is great pain and suffering, at least at some point. Others live in parts of the world where suffering is daily existence. And yet man puts up with it, otherwise everyone would commit suicide to escape it. Take it as you will.
According to the biblical fairy tale Yahweh = the God of the Hebrews and the God of the armies = is the source of all evil since he created evil and has a posse of evil angels to do evil things. Yahweh inflicts pain and evil on the ones he loves to see if they will abandon their faith in him.The more you suffer the more Yahweh loves you because he beats the ones he loves. Even Yeshua said that you shouldn't resist the evil man because the evil man is doing Yahweh's will to determine if you will keep faith in him. It's all biblical.
Ha, yes, there is the might-makes-right/self-interest argument. Which can and does get used by certain sects to justify terrible things, which I think is the best argument against worshipping an evil/indifferent deity. "Why does my god choose some people to know Him, and choose others to be Wrong? I don't know and I don't care, because I'm Right and He says you must die." If the consequences of an argument so easily lead to evil, the argument is wrong by virtue of being immoral.
If you look at sin, at evil, it originates from the existence of the human ego, self, and is generally indulged in pursuing pleasure, gratification. Even with murder. The gratification of the ego, the self image, what you think you are, which is a set of memories. These memories are you, for few people identify with the consciousness that one has when thought stops for a nanosecond. There is no sense of the I when this happens. And thought is the response of memory. I dunno if god has much to do with this. I think it may be the human ego which is the only originator of evil, of sin. Driven to it for both physical and psychological gratification. That is what we can observe so it has relevance over what some ancient book says.
I'm mostly saying that the argument doesn't hold together. If we were forced to reject any argument that could possibly be used for bad goals in one way or the other, we'd have to reject almost every single argument. True, it can be bad to other beings too, but it's not a given.
Actually, I think that is a very good argument--not a mere "dodge." We could have all been created morally perfect--but only as mere automatons. And I would not wish to live as a mere robot--even if I were thereby morally perfect, and all other individuals were morally perfect, too.
Nah, it is a self defeating arguement. If God is all knowing, and all powerful he could not give his creations free will without forseeing the consequences. And if you were a morally perfect robot you would not know you were a morally perfect robot so your arguement is moot.
So...you want billions of people sent to hell for eternity just so you can feel good about yourself? Hot damn...
I believe the universe just popped into existence and that there is no need for a God. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particle And maybe all those intellectual design weirdos could imagine the universe expanded and collapsed a trillion trillion times before some stability as we know it came out and Dark Energy is merely the universe catching up with a previous expansion. Am I evil - yes I am!
That has always been one of the primary marketing techniques used by Christianity. Believe, pay or be damned.
That is a mighty pregnant nothingness you are talking about. Something coming from nothing. Wonder how that works?
I'd actually argue that we are already moist robots, whether we're talking about an all-powerful all-knowing Creator or not. If a Creator created us, we are its creations down to the quark and soul -- there were no coin-flips during our creation, so to speak. We were designed to be exactly as we are, to make precisely the decisions we make, and we have no alternative means by which to do or be anything else. What we call 'free will' is an illusion resulting from our limited understanding of ourselves. Our inputs, outputs, and algorithms are too complicated for us to understand. Unlike the Creator with its perfect power and perfect foresight, our ability to predict even our own actions -- let alone the actions of others -- is extremely limited. So we are already moist robots -- just morally imperfect ones. And as such, we simply fear moral perfection due to a perceived loss of identity.
Misery has two sources: environment and human will. If God got rid of environmentally caused misery, we would have no reason to build, work, think, strive to progress. We would culturally and emotionally stagnate. If God got rid of human caused misery, we would have no choice, no free will. We would be automotons. Stop complaining and reduce misery yourself. How many miserable people have you tried to uplift lately? Are you evil?
So, you're saying the same thing as the other guy; you want billions of people be sent to hell for eternity just so you can feel good about yourself. And that isn't evil?
That all makes perfect sense if you believe in god. I choose to believe in free will and no god, or at least not the current version.
It is only human arrogance that claims certainty. But this happens when an extremely limited knowledge, writes checks its arse cannot cash. With such a limited knowledge, it is only arrogance that makes claims of certainty. Yet I think free will does exist. I choose not to believe in determinism. I do not like its implications.
