Is God a malevolent being?

[Nationalist State of Knox]

I was a devout Catholic for over a decade, and "The Spirit" lead me to no such truth; it's only now that I can see the error of my ways.

I can assure you, I have felt better in my years as an atheist than my years as a Catholic.

Doesn't make you right.

I never claimed it did; he simply made a reference to "The Spirit" and I responded from my own experience.

[Mavorpen]

Nope.

You're the guy who stated that Christianity was responsible for giving rights to others. Please don't pretend you should be taken seriously when it comes to reasoning or historical accuracy.

It is. The dignity of the human being is rooted in Jesus' teachings on the Mount, as well as the Good Samaritan and other passages.

And you've still never backed this up. Ever.

[Tarsonis Survivors]

It is. The dignity of the human being is rooted in Jesus' teachings on the Mount, as well as the Good Samaritan and other passages.

Because no other culture had concepts of human dignity in them that evolved separate to Christianity?

well in actuality the idea of Inalienable Rights is a very Western Concept

[Buddha Punk Robot Monks]

No proof of that of course.

Reza Aslan is no stranger to controversy:

Iraq should look to Israel for a model that combines democracy and religious belief.

But now the Daily Beast columnist is taking on the “new atheists” and their “peculiarly evangelistic” sermons. On The Washington Post’s website he states:

There is, as has often been noted, something peculiarly evangelistic about what has been termed the new atheist movement. The new atheists have their own special interest groups and ad campaigns. They even have their own holiday (International Blasphemy Day). It is no exaggeration to describe the movement popularized by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens as a new and particularly zealous form of fundamentalism–an atheist fundamentalism.

Or look at it this way: Militant atheists (read: anti-free speech zealots) are against Christian evangelists but that’s not to suggest that they’re against all forms of evangelism (read: hypocrisy). They’re for free speech when they’re selling Darwin’s controversial theories. They’re often against free speech when they’re being challenged with alternative views that don’t compliment or fuel their zealous faith in a God-free universe.

While some softer atheists like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Camile Paglia and S.E. Cupp are exceptions to the rule – mainstream militant atheists act like rulers. Even the more likable Hitchens, who makes a good living off magazines and books in a Christian-majority nation, is happy to play the pretend victim, because he feels entitled. And why did he become a U.S. citizen? Aslan continues:

The parallels with religious fundamentalism are obvious and startling: the conviction that they are in sole possession of truth (scientific or otherwise), the troubling lack of tolerance for the views of their critics (Dawkins has compared creationists to Holocaust deniers), the insistence on a literalist reading of scripture (more literalist, in fact, than one finds among most religious fundamentalists), the simplistic reductionism of the religious phenomenon, and, perhaps most bizarrely, their overwhelming sense of siege: the belief that they have been oppressed and marginalized by Western societies and are just not going to take it anymore.

At least, middleclass professionals like Marx and Nietzsche were creative eccentrics. Today’s militant atheists, by way of contrast, look like cashed-up entitlement theologians:

This is not the philosophical atheism of Feuerbach or Marx, Schopenhauer or Nietzsche (I am not the first to think that the new atheists give atheism a bad name)…This is, rather, a caricature of atheism: shallow scholarship mixed with evangelical fervor.

http://frontpagemag.com/2010/ben-peter- ... %E2%80%9D/

New atheism, bad philosophy

If there’s one thing that distinguishes the so-called “New Atheists” from the old atheists, it’s that the New Atheists are notoriously bad at philosophy, something I’ve said before. Edward Feser writes on this topic,

Philosophers and theologians are constantly told that they need to “learn the science” before commenting on quantum mechanics, relativity, or Darwinism. And rightly so. Yet too many scientists refuse to “learn the philosophy” before pontificating on the subject. The results are predictably sophomoric. What an arrogant and clueless amateur like Hawking or Dawkins needs to hear before putting on his philosopher’s toga is this. And if he doesn’t get the message, this. Instead, the reaction from equally clueless editors, journalists, and “educated” general readers is: “Gee, he’s a scientist! He’s good at math and stuff. He must know what he’s talking about!” It really is no more intelligent than that.

The new atheists are, for the most part, scientists, or at least adherents to scientism, the thinking that science is the answer to everything. Sam Harris even claims that science is a proper foundation for morality.

Something else that I’ve pointed out before is that science, which is a great tool for studying the physical world, suffers from some philosophical problems, mostly stemming from the so-called Enlightenment. The Enlightenment turned man’s ability to reason into an object of worship, as well as doing some other things for which we are still suffering.

As an example of bad philosophy, the new atheists love to refer to David Hume’s thoughts on miracles, however they ignore his thinking on inductive reasoning and science. Hume argued, I think correctly, that conclusions of causality are inductively, not deductively, reasoned; and he went on to propose that such inductive reasoning is justified by its success (which begs the question, “how does one measure scientific success, unless we have already determined what the desired results are?”).

Hume also concluded, again I think rightly so, that such inductive conclusions are limited to past causes and effects; one cannot predict the future based on past evidence. Predictions about the future are based on faith that the past will repeat itself, not on any proof that A always results in B.

What this means is that just because A has caused B for the last 100 years doesn’t mean that A will cause B tomorrow. Science simply cannot tell us that for sure. If science is at all successful, past evidence of cause and effect should give us, at best, a probability for what could occur in the future. If a certain drug worked for these other folks, it should work for you. Maybe. However, science’s ability to replicate past results is now being challenged.
The Decline Effect

In December of 2010 Jonah Lehrer wrote an interesting article for the New Yorker discussing the so-called Decline Effect, which has been noted over the past few years. Basically, what is happening is that conclusions proven by past studies, to the extent they are considered scientific facts, are suddenly showing themselves to be not true. Drugs that worked 10 years ago show no sign of working today. He writes,

But now all sorts of well-established, multiply confirmed findings have started to look increasingly uncertain. It’s as if our facts were losing their truth: claims that have been enshrined in textbooks are suddenly unprovable. This phenomenon doesn’t yet have an official name, but it’s occurring across a wide range of fields, from psychology to ecology. In the field of medicine, the phenomenon seems extremely widespread, affecting not only antipsychotics but also therapies ranging from cardiac stents to Vitamin E and antidepressants: Davis has a forthcoming analysis demonstrating that the efficacy of antidepressants has gone down as much as threefold in recent decades.

Lehrer posits that some possible causes of this decline effect is the subjectivity of the scientists (tending to prove things they want to believe), and bias in scientific reporting. Of course, this doesn’t explain why scientists today who want to confirm past findings are suddenly unable to do so, or why the law of gravity doesn’t give predictable results.
How Firm a Foundation…

Regardless of the cause of this decline effect, the reality is that science, at least at the present time, is not able to establish sufficient causation to predict future results, or to even correctly establish past causation. Medical and pharmaceutical beliefs are suspect, as are some of the “facts” of physics.

So, while I still believe that scientific studies have value, it seems that the ability of science to serve as a foundation for morality or religion—or atheism—is quite suspect. The decline effect just re-emphasizes some of the philosophical issues of those who hold science in too high a regard, and who have put their faith in man’s ability to reason and be objective (neither of which can be reasonably shown to be exist). The New Atheism—holding itself out as the pinnacle of reason and objectivity—suffers from bad philosophy, and a resulting misplaced faith in science’s ability to give us answers.

http://aldenswan.com/tag/philosophy/

This latter article has been demonstrated in full in this thread, as many posters have a complete misunderstanding of even the basics of Christianity.

[Pot Island]

God doesn't exist but ponies are pretty cool though

[Mavorpen]

Because no other culture had concepts of human dignity in them that evolved separate to Christianity?

well in actuality the idea of Inalienable Rights is a very Western Concept

And?

[Individuality-ness]

No proof of that of course.

Reza Aslan is no stranger to controversy:

Iraq should look to Israel for a model that combines democracy and religious belief.

But now the Daily Beast columnist is taking on the “new atheists” and their “peculiarly evangelistic” sermons. On The Washington Post’s website he states:

There is, as has often been noted, something peculiarly evangelistic about what has been termed the new atheist movement. The new atheists have their own special interest groups and ad campaigns. They even have their own holiday (International Blasphemy Day). It is no exaggeration to describe the movement popularized by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens as a new and particularly zealous form of fundamentalism–an atheist fundamentalism.

Or look at it this way: Militant atheists (read: anti-free speech zealots) are against Christian evangelists but that’s not to suggest that they’re against all forms of evangelism (read: hypocrisy). They’re for free speech when they’re selling Darwin’s controversial theories. They’re often against free speech when they’re being challenged with alternative views that don’t compliment or fuel their zealous faith in a God-free universe.

While some softer atheists like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Camile Paglia and S.E. Cupp are exceptions to the rule – mainstream militant atheists act like rulers. Even the more likable Hitchens, who makes a good living off magazines and books in a Christian-majority nation, is happy to play the pretend victim, because he feels entitled. And why did he become a U.S. citizen? Aslan continues:

The parallels with religious fundamentalism are obvious and startling: the conviction that they are in sole possession of truth (scientific or otherwise), the troubling lack of tolerance for the views of their critics (Dawkins has compared creationists to Holocaust deniers), the insistence on a literalist reading of scripture (more literalist, in fact, than one finds among most religious fundamentalists), the simplistic reductionism of the religious phenomenon, and, perhaps most bizarrely, their overwhelming sense of siege: the belief that they have been oppressed and marginalized by Western societies and are just not going to take it anymore.

At least, middleclass professionals like Marx and Nietzsche were creative eccentrics. Today’s militant atheists, by way of contrast, look like cashed-up entitlement theologians:

This is not the philosophical atheism of Feuerbach or Marx, Schopenhauer or Nietzsche (I am not the first to think that the new atheists give atheism a bad name)…This is, rather, a caricature of atheism: shallow scholarship mixed with evangelical fervor.

http://frontpagemag.com/2010/ben-peter- ... %E2%80%9D/

New atheism, bad philosophy

If there’s one thing that distinguishes the so-called “New Atheists” from the old atheists, it’s that the New Atheists are notoriously bad at philosophy, something I’ve said before. Edward Feser writes on this topic,

Philosophers and theologians are constantly told that they need to “learn the science” before commenting on quantum mechanics, relativity, or Darwinism. And rightly so. Yet too many scientists refuse to “learn the philosophy” before pontificating on the subject. The results are predictably sophomoric. What an arrogant and clueless amateur like Hawking or Dawkins needs to hear before putting on his philosopher’s toga is this. And if he doesn’t get the message, this. Instead, the reaction from equally clueless editors, journalists, and “educated” general readers is: “Gee, he’s a scientist! He’s good at math and stuff. He must know what he’s talking about!” It really is no more intelligent than that.

The new atheists are, for the most part, scientists, or at least adherents to scientism, the thinking that science is the answer to everything. Sam Harris even claims that science is a proper foundation for morality.

Something else that I’ve pointed out before is that science, which is a great tool for studying the physical world, suffers from some philosophical problems, mostly stemming from the so-called Enlightenment. The Enlightenment turned man’s ability to reason into an object of worship, as well as doing some other things for which we are still suffering.

As an example of bad philosophy, the new atheists love to refer to David Hume’s thoughts on miracles, however they ignore his thinking on inductive reasoning and science. Hume argued, I think correctly, that conclusions of causality are inductively, not deductively, reasoned; and he went on to propose that such inductive reasoning is justified by its success (which begs the question, “how does one measure scientific success, unless we have already determined what the desired results are?”).

Hume also concluded, again I think rightly so, that such inductive conclusions are limited to past causes and effects; one cannot predict the future based on past evidence. Predictions about the future are based on faith that the past will repeat itself, not on any proof that A always results in B.

What this means is that just because A has caused B for the last 100 years doesn’t mean that A will cause B tomorrow. Science simply cannot tell us that for sure. If science is at all successful, past evidence of cause and effect should give us, at best, a probability for what could occur in the future. If a certain drug worked for these other folks, it should work for you. Maybe. However, science’s ability to replicate past results is now being challenged.
The Decline Effect

In December of 2010 Jonah Lehrer wrote an interesting article for the New Yorker discussing the so-called Decline Effect, which has been noted over the past few years. Basically, what is happening is that conclusions proven by past studies, to the extent they are considered scientific facts, are suddenly showing themselves to be not true. Drugs that worked 10 years ago show no sign of working today. He writes,

But now all sorts of well-established, multiply confirmed findings have started to look increasingly uncertain. It’s as if our facts were losing their truth: claims that have been enshrined in textbooks are suddenly unprovable. This phenomenon doesn’t yet have an official name, but it’s occurring across a wide range of fields, from psychology to ecology. In the field of medicine, the phenomenon seems extremely widespread, affecting not only antipsychotics but also therapies ranging from cardiac stents to Vitamin E and antidepressants: Davis has a forthcoming analysis demonstrating that the efficacy of antidepressants has gone down as much as threefold in recent decades.

Lehrer posits that some possible causes of this decline effect is the subjectivity of the scientists (tending to prove things they want to believe), and bias in scientific reporting. Of course, this doesn’t explain why scientists today who want to confirm past findings are suddenly unable to do so, or why the law of gravity doesn’t give predictable results.
How Firm a Foundation…

Regardless of the cause of this decline effect, the reality is that science, at least at the present time, is not able to establish sufficient causation to predict future results, or to even correctly establish past causation. Medical and pharmaceutical beliefs are suspect, as are some of the “facts” of physics.

So, while I still believe that scientific studies have value, it seems that the ability of science to serve as a foundation for morality or religion—or atheism—is quite suspect. The decline effect just re-emphasizes some of the philosophical issues of those who hold science in too high a regard, and who have put their faith in man’s ability to reason and be objective (neither of which can be reasonably shown to be exist). The New Atheism—holding itself out as the pinnacle of reason and objectivity—suffers from bad philosophy, and a resulting misplaced faith in science’s ability to give us answers.

http://aldenswan.com/tag/philosophy/

This latter article has been demonstrated in full in this thread, as many posters have a complete misunderstanding of even the basics of Christianity.

One of these is a blog. The other I don't trust, it's not a reputable news source.

[Hallistar]

The Abrahamic God, assuming he were to actually exist (despite the illogicality of being a non-corporeal entity that one hand is sentient and conscious and knows everything at any time and can alter anything at will and yet on the other lacks any physical sensory organs and prone to fits of jealousy and rage), would be far worse than any individual I could ever meet.

I'm still amazed at the amount of people that defend said deity as being ever-loving and merciful. "I love you x 1,000,000, but since you watched porn (or whatever the sin is) I have no choice but to throw you over to Satan and have pitchforks shoved up your ass for ever and ever and ever and ever and ever."

Even though, as an omnipotent deity, he does have a choice to end the whole retarded rat race that would be our existence. That rat race being our existence just to worship and stroke some guy's massive ego...

Oh, and if you decide not to play the game (living at all, that is), and decide to kill yourself, you end up in hell anyways. Because how dare you try to leave the game.

For the purpose of arguing over a milennia old repeatedly retranslated and altered text, I'm going to leave out the new age "The bible has no hell" view. This is because the concept of "hell" actually being a void without said deity is inherently meaningless, since those who don't worship said deity have already been without that deity. I suppose it might apply to someone who did worship that deity, but even then, what would they do...float around in space forever?

I also don't see why the biblical heaven is any better. In the Bible, heaven is basically a place where you worship god 24/7 for the rest of forever. In the Quran, it's a very materialistic place, even though you'd assume that in a seperate altered plane of existence that since the same physical constraints don't apply, that it wouldn't make sense. (For example, drinking ever-flowing juice from chalices while on high chairs.....why would we need to "eat" or "drink" if we were in such a place anyways? Why would we need to remain in our human form, if we only were in that form due to our earth-based environment?"

You don't have to be anti-religion to be anti-theist, however.

I don't see our existence as anything divine or insanely special, we are still learning new things about the universe all the time. The combination of a heuristic neural network comprised of electrical signals and neurotransmitters to result in the instantiation of a sentient, metacognitive and sapient being is remarkable, but I don't see how that can only be made through "magic".

As far as we know, cows and donkeys are as sentient as us, since we can't prove someone else's consciousness and sentience besides our own, yet we accept it because we experience it ourselves. That doesn't mean they're near as sapient as us, so they're not going to be pondering the meaning of existence, but it shows that even a creature low on the food chain can still perceive the world.

[Lesbia]

No.

[Mavorpen]

No proof of that of course.

Reza Aslan is no stranger to controversy:

Iraq should look to Israel for a model that combines democracy and religious belief.

But now the Daily Beast columnist is taking on the “new atheists” and their “peculiarly evangelistic” sermons. On The Washington Post’s website he states:

There is, as has often been noted, something peculiarly evangelistic about what has been termed the new atheist movement. The new atheists have their own special interest groups and ad campaigns. They even have their own holiday (International Blasphemy Day). It is no exaggeration to describe the movement popularized by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens as a new and particularly zealous form of fundamentalism–an atheist fundamentalism.

Or look at it this way: Militant atheists (read: anti-free speech zealots) are against Christian evangelists but that’s not to suggest that they’re against all forms of evangelism (read: hypocrisy). They’re for free speech when they’re selling Darwin’s controversial theories. They’re often against free speech when they’re being challenged with alternative views that don’t compliment or fuel their zealous faith in a God-free universe.

While some softer atheists like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Camile Paglia and S.E. Cupp are exceptions to the rule – mainstream militant atheists act like rulers. Even the more likable Hitchens, who makes a good living off magazines and books in a Christian-majority nation, is happy to play the pretend victim, because he feels entitled. And why did he become a U.S. citizen? Aslan continues:

The parallels with religious fundamentalism are obvious and startling: the conviction that they are in sole possession of truth (scientific or otherwise), the troubling lack of tolerance for the views of their critics (Dawkins has compared creationists to Holocaust deniers), the insistence on a literalist reading of scripture (more literalist, in fact, than one finds among most religious fundamentalists), the simplistic reductionism of the religious phenomenon, and, perhaps most bizarrely, their overwhelming sense of siege: the belief that they have been oppressed and marginalized by Western societies and are just not going to take it anymore.

At least, middleclass professionals like Marx and Nietzsche were creative eccentrics. Today’s militant atheists, by way of contrast, look like cashed-up entitlement theologians:

This is not the philosophical atheism of Feuerbach or Marx, Schopenhauer or Nietzsche (I am not the first to think that the new atheists give atheism a bad name)…This is, rather, a caricature of atheism: shallow scholarship mixed with evangelical fervor.

http://frontpagemag.com/2010/ben-peter- ... %E2%80%9D/

New atheism, bad philosophy

If there’s one thing that distinguishes the so-called “New Atheists” from the old atheists, it’s that the New Atheists are notoriously bad at philosophy, something I’ve said before. Edward Feser writes on this topic,

Philosophers and theologians are constantly told that they need to “learn the science” before commenting on quantum mechanics, relativity, or Darwinism. And rightly so. Yet too many scientists refuse to “learn the philosophy” before pontificating on the subject. The results are predictably sophomoric. What an arrogant and clueless amateur like Hawking or Dawkins needs to hear before putting on his philosopher’s toga is this. And if he doesn’t get the message, this. Instead, the reaction from equally clueless editors, journalists, and “educated” general readers is: “Gee, he’s a scientist! He’s good at math and stuff. He must know what he’s talking about!” It really is no more intelligent than that.

The new atheists are, for the most part, scientists, or at least adherents to scientism, the thinking that science is the answer to everything. Sam Harris even claims that science is a proper foundation for morality.

Something else that I’ve pointed out before is that science, which is a great tool for studying the physical world, suffers from some philosophical problems, mostly stemming from the so-called Enlightenment. The Enlightenment turned man’s ability to reason into an object of worship, as well as doing some other things for which we are still suffering.

As an example of bad philosophy, the new atheists love to refer to David Hume’s thoughts on miracles, however they ignore his thinking on inductive reasoning and science. Hume argued, I think correctly, that conclusions of causality are inductively, not deductively, reasoned; and he went on to propose that such inductive reasoning is justified by its success (which begs the question, “how does one measure scientific success, unless we have already determined what the desired results are?”).

Hume also concluded, again I think rightly so, that such inductive conclusions are limited to past causes and effects; one cannot predict the future based on past evidence. Predictions about the future are based on faith that the past will repeat itself, not on any proof that A always results in B.

What this means is that just because A has caused B for the last 100 years doesn’t mean that A will cause B tomorrow. Science simply cannot tell us that for sure. If science is at all successful, past evidence of cause and effect should give us, at best, a probability for what could occur in the future. If a certain drug worked for these other folks, it should work for you. Maybe. However, science’s ability to replicate past results is now being challenged.
The Decline Effect

In December of 2010 Jonah Lehrer wrote an interesting article for the New Yorker discussing the so-called Decline Effect, which has been noted over the past few years. Basically, what is happening is that conclusions proven by past studies, to the extent they are considered scientific facts, are suddenly showing themselves to be not true. Drugs that worked 10 years ago show no sign of working today. He writes,

But now all sorts of well-established, multiply confirmed findings have started to look increasingly uncertain. It’s as if our facts were losing their truth: claims that have been enshrined in textbooks are suddenly unprovable. This phenomenon doesn’t yet have an official name, but it’s occurring across a wide range of fields, from psychology to ecology. In the field of medicine, the phenomenon seems extremely widespread, affecting not only antipsychotics but also therapies ranging from cardiac stents to Vitamin E and antidepressants: Davis has a forthcoming analysis demonstrating that the efficacy of antidepressants has gone down as much as threefold in recent decades.

Lehrer posits that some possible causes of this decline effect is the subjectivity of the scientists (tending to prove things they want to believe), and bias in scientific reporting. Of course, this doesn’t explain why scientists today who want to confirm past findings are suddenly unable to do so, or why the law of gravity doesn’t give predictable results.
How Firm a Foundation…

Regardless of the cause of this decline effect, the reality is that science, at least at the present time, is not able to establish sufficient causation to predict future results, or to even correctly establish past causation. Medical and pharmaceutical beliefs are suspect, as are some of the “facts” of physics.

So, while I still believe that scientific studies have value, it seems that the ability of science to serve as a foundation for morality or religion—or atheism—is quite suspect. The decline effect just re-emphasizes some of the philosophical issues of those who hold science in too high a regard, and who have put their faith in man’s ability to reason and be objective (neither of which can be reasonably shown to be exist). The New Atheism—holding itself out as the pinnacle of reason and objectivity—suffers from bad philosophy, and a resulting misplaced faith in science’s ability to give us answers.

http://aldenswan.com/tag/philosophy/

This latter article has been demonstrated in full in this thread, as many posters have a complete misunderstanding of even the basics of Christianity.

And neither of these articles are proof of anything. Sorry, but a conservative website and a blog aren't reputable sources.

Try again.

[Of the Free Socialist Territories]

No.

Why not?

[Nationalist State of Knox]

No.

Such a deep and constructive analysis of my points, I'm almost convinced.

[Minarchist States Of Equality]

No.

Why not?

Kind of unrelated but finally someone that knows what minarchism is.

[Wind in the Willows]

He doesn't exist. at all.

[Norstal]

So, is God loving and benevolent?
Well, ask yourself this; would you classify the sole creator of evil, the slaughterer of millions, the murder of the Egyptian firstborn children, the destroyer of cities, the self-confessed hypocrite, as benevolent?

If you would, I urge you to question your definition of "benevolence".

I'm sure that many Christians already pointed out that there are other "good" or "sympathetic" things that Yahweh did. That doesn't make him malevolent. Because if he was malevolent, he would only do the things that you listed. However, like I said, he also did other things as well. I'm pointing out that this isn't black and white.

Those other things in no way absolves His other actions, obviously. It just makes him apathetic at best. If you ever played video games, you don't eviscerate or drown people in those simulations because you hate them or that you want to specifically do evil. So, I really can't say God is malevolent.

[Tarsonis Survivors]

well in actuality the idea of Inalienable Rights is a very Western Concept

And?

western culture was influenced heavily by Christianity. So by transitive property Christianity is largely responsible for "Rights". As enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence.

[Metagnosis]

It's baffling how people defend the atrocities in the Bible and other religious texts. The only reason someone could be religious is that they were brainwashed at a young age before they had the ability to reason or have some severe loss of contact with reality(Psychosis)

If you had been told the Sumerian Creation Myth instead of the Judeo-Christian one you'd still be just as concrete about it.

Sumerian Creation of Man:

THE CREATION OF MAN

SBV Ea made his voice heard
And spoke to the gods his brothers,

'Why are you blaming them?
Their (the Igigi) work was hard, their trouble was too much.
Everyday the earth (?) [resounded (?)].
The warning signal was loud enough, [we kept hearing the noise.]
There is [ ]
Belet-ili the womb-goddess is present----
Let her create a mortal man
So that he may bear the yoke [( )],
So that he may bear the yoke, [the work of Ellil],
Let man bear the load of the gods!'
....

OBV Nintu made her voice heard
And spoke to the great gods,

'It is not proper for me to make him.
The work is Enki's;
He makes everything pure!
If he gives me clay, then I will do it.'

Enki made his voice heard
And spoke to the great gods,

'On the first, seventh, and fifteenth of the month I shall make a purification by washing.
Then one god should be slaughtered.
And the gods can be purified by immersion.
Nintu shall mix clay
With his flesh and his blood.
Then a god and a man
Will be mixed together in clay.
Let us hear the drumbeat forever after,
Let a ghost come into existence from the god's flesh,
Let her proclaim it as his living sign,
And let the ghost exist so as not to forget (the slain god).'

They answered 'Yes!' in the assembly,
The great Anunnaki who assign the fates.

Enki goes through the "purification by washing" on the first, seventh and fifteenth of the month. Nintu mixes the clay in the flesh and blood of the slain god. The clay was pinched off into fourteen pieces (for the fourteen birth goddesses). She created seven males and seven females. Then, when the time came, the tenth month, Nintu began her midwifery. She performed her tasks and was rewarded with the birth of fourteen humans, created to ease the toils of the Igigi.

Sumerian Flood Myth:

Enki and the Flood

According to the Mesopotamian's account of the Great Flood, the God of Earth, the Supreme God, Enlil/Ellil, wanted to wipe mankind out because of their growing numbers. With the growth of people came a lot of noise, and it kept Enlil up at night, it was so loud. He called an assembly of the gods and addressed his annoyance:

'The noise of mankind has become too much.
I am losing sleep over their racket
Cut off food supplies to the people!
Let the vegetation be too scant for their hunger!
Let Adad wipe away his rain.
Below (?) let no flood-water flow from the springs.
Let wind go, let it strip the ground bare,
Let the clouds gather (but) not drop rain,
Let the field yeild a diminished harvest,
Let Nissaba stop up her bosom.
No happiness shall come to them.
("Myths from Mesopotamia", translated by Stephanie Dalley, pg 20, Oxford World's Classics paperback, 1989)

He tried famine, and disease, but the people did not diminish, (his brother Enki, the God of Wisdom and Water, and one of the creators of mankind, was helping the masses via his man, Atrahasis), so he called another assembly of the gods...the God of Earth was in a devine temper. This time, the assembly made Enki swear not to tell mankind what they planned and eventually he swore. What did they plan? They planned to use Enki's own waters to destroy his creation, they decided to wipe mankind out with a flood!

But, Enki, Lord of the Waters and Lord of Wisdom, could not let mankind die, nor could he break his oath. What did the sly God do? He summoned Atrahasis and had him stand next to a wall (screened wall?). With Atrahasis on one side and Enki on the other, Enki started "talking to himself". He told Atrahasis, via his one-sided conversation, about the flood. Not only did he tell him about the flood, but he told Atrahasis how to make a boat strong enough to survive the Great Flood.

'Wall, listen constantly to me!
Reed hut, make sure you attend all my words!
Dismantle the house, build a boat,
Reject possession, and save living things.
The boat that you build
[ ]
[ ]
Roof like the Apsu
So that the Sun cannot see inside it!
Make upper decks and lower decks.
The tackle must be very strong,
The bitumen strong, to give strength.
I shall make rain fall on you here,
A wealth of birds, a hamper (?) of fish.'

He opened the sand clock and filled it,
He told him the sand (needed) for the Flood was
Seven night's worth.
("Myths from Mesopotamia", translated by Stephanie Dalley, pages 29 & 30, Oxford World's Classics paperback, 1989)

Atrahasis listened carefully and did as he was told. The Flood came and many people died, but Atrahasis and his friends and family, (there were quite a few, plus the animals that he saved), were tucked safely aboard the boat.

Up in the heavens, the gods had fled. They watched the destruction from up high and soon grew frantic. Many did not like what they had done, what they had voted to do, not knowing of Atrahasis and thinking that mankind was going to be wiped out. They raged at Enlil and the Great God Anu, God of the Heavens, for allowing such a thing to happen. Not only that, but they were hungry and thirsty, having been denied the fruits of the earth. The Heavens were not a happy place that week.

The Flood's torrent lasted for seven days and seven nights. When it was over, and the earth dried a bit, Atrahasis and his companions landed. He sacrificed some sort of animal (goat? sheep? cow?) and raised it up as an offering to the gods. They smelled the wonderful smell of the offering and descended. They ate the food, for they were starving, and then, after they were hungry no more.

Enlil and Anu were not present, but they spotted the boat. He became furious with the lesser gods and reminded them of the oath they all took. Anu then pointed the finger of blame at Enki, saying none but he would have defied the decision of them all. Enki did not deny this and must have swayed Enlil to his way of thinking (the text breaks and lines are missing), because Enlil allows man to live, under his conditions. Many of these conditions are missing, but what is there is not very promising. Basically Enlil creates a way to control the human numbers by having restrictions:

In addition let there be one-third of the people,
Among the people the woman who gives birth yet does
Not give birth (successfully);
Let there be the pasittu-demon among the people,
To snatch the baby from its mother's lap.
("Myths from Mesopotamia", translated by Stephanie Dalley, pg 35, Oxford World's Classics paperback, 1989)

But, in the end, it is agreed that mankind should continue and Atrahasis is raised above them all. His greatness was recorded and Atrahasis was praised. He turns up later in the Gilgamesh Epic, still alive many years later, with his wife.

Enki was not always the best of deities and as stated above, had an on-going rivalry with the Supreme God, Enlil. As in the story of the Flood, Enki took every chance he could find to give Enlil grief. But, it was not always for the benefit of mankind that he stirred up trouble with Enlil. Enki, it turns out, was the original cause of the “confusion of tongues” from which we are still recovering from today! We find reference to this from a “Golden Age” passage, which one can find in Samuel Noah Kramer’s book, “Sumerian Mythology” on page 107, note 2. It reads:

Once upon a time, there was no snake, there was no scorpion,
There was no hyenna, there was no lion,
There was no wild dog, there was no wolf,
There was no fear, no terror,
Man had no rival.
In those days, the land Shubur-Hamazi,
Harmony-tongued Sumer, the great land of the me of princeship,
Uri, the land having all that is appropriate,
The land Martu, resting in security,
The whole universe, the people well cared for,
To Enlil in one tongue gave speech.
(But) then, the lord defiant, the prince defiant, the king defiant,
Enki, the lord defiant, the prince defiant, the king defiant,
The lord defiant, the prince defiant, the kind defiant,
Enki, the lord of abundance, whose commands are trustworthy,
The lord of wisdom, who scans the land,
The leader of the gods,
The lord of Eridu, endowed with wisdom,
Changed the speech in their mouths, put contention into it,
Into the speech of man that (until then) had been one.

As we see, Enki did a lot for mankind, but it was a bit selfish. If he could thwart Enlil, he did so. Mankind was his greatest tool in this endeavor and, as with the “confusion of tongues”, he did so at the detriment of his creation. But, no one is perfect - not even the gods of Sumer.

[Norstal]

God can do anything according to the religious.

Observation: there is evil.

Should God be able prevent evil? Yes.

Does he? No.

That makes him evil.

Basically the tl;dr version of the original post, thank you.

But you realize how wrong that is, right? Not preventing evils even when you can prevent that evil doesn't make you evil. You all have the power to stop pirates in the internet, but don't. That doesn't make you pirates.

God can be blamed for the evils things he did, but not preventing evils is not one of them.

[Mavorpen]

western culture was influenced heavily by Christianity. So by transitive property Christianity is largely responsible for "Rights". As enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence.

In other words, Christianity isn't responsible for rights.

[Norstal]

And?

western culture was influenced heavily by Christianity. So by transitive property Christianity is largely responsible for "Rights". As enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence.

That's not how transitive properties work...

And you're also dismissing every other aspects of Western Culture that did not come from Christianity...

[Nationalist State of Knox]

Basically the tl;dr version of the original post, thank you.

But you realize how wrong that is, right? Not preventing evils even when you can prevent that evil doesn't make you evil. You all have the power to stop pirates in the internet, but don't. That doesn't make you pirates.

God can be blamed for the evils things he did, but not preventing evils is not one of them.

God also commits "evil", as shown in the OP.

In response to your previous post, the creation of sin and death make him irredeemable, and thus why I would class him as "malevolent".

And also, God has the ability to stop evil with no effort at all, and yet he allows it. That's the point I think he was making.

[Tlaceceyaya]

So, is God loving and benevolent?
Well, ask yourself this; would you classify the sole creator of evil, the slaughterer of millions, the murder of the Egyptian firstborn children, the destroyer of cities, the self-confessed hypocrite, as benevolent?

If you would, I urge you to question your definition of "benevolence".

I'm sure that many Christians already pointed out that there are other "good" or "sympathetic" things that Yahweh did. That doesn't make him malevolent. Because if he was malevolent, he would only do the things that you listed. However, like I said, he also did other things as well. I'm pointing out that this isn't black and white.

Those other things in no way absolves His other actions, obviously. It just makes him apathetic at best. If you ever played video games, you don't eviscerate or drown people in those simulations because you hate them or that you want to specifically do evil. So, I really can't say God is malevolent.

No. If a sadistic serial killer is an amazing parent, community leader and philanthropic, they're still malevolent.

Having or showing a wish to do evil to others.

He's doing evil to those people he's killing sadistically. Doesn't matter that he donates millions to the Unicorn Protection Fund, he's still malevolent. And the example is even more clear cut with Yahweh.

[Tarsonis Survivors]

It's baffling how people defend the atrocities in the Bible and other religious texts. The only reason someone could be religious is that they were brainwashed at a young age before they had the ability to reason or have some severe loss of contact with reality(Psychosis)

If you had been told the Sumerian Creation Myth instead of the Judeo-Christian one you'd still be just as concrete about it.

Sumerian Creation of Man:

THE CREATION OF MAN

SBV Ea made his voice heard
And spoke to the gods his brothers,

'Why are you blaming them?
Their (the Igigi) work was hard, their trouble was too much.
Everyday the earth (?) [resounded (?)].
The warning signal was loud enough, [we kept hearing the noise.]
There is [ ]
Belet-ili the womb-goddess is present----
Let her create a mortal man
So that he may bear the yoke [( )],
So that he may bear the yoke, [the work of Ellil],
Let man bear the load of the gods!'
....

OBV Nintu made her voice heard
And spoke to the great gods,

'It is not proper for me to make him.
The work is Enki's;
He makes everything pure!
If he gives me clay, then I will do it.'

Enki made his voice heard
And spoke to the great gods,

'On the first, seventh, and fifteenth of the month I shall make a purification by washing.
Then one god should be slaughtered.
And the gods can be purified by immersion.
Nintu shall mix clay
With his flesh and his blood.
Then a god and a man
Will be mixed together in clay.
Let us hear the drumbeat forever after,
Let a ghost come into existence from the god's flesh,
Let her proclaim it as his living sign,
And let the ghost exist so as not to forget (the slain god).'

They answered 'Yes!' in the assembly,
The great Anunnaki who assign the fates.

Enki goes through the "purification by washing" on the first, seventh and fifteenth of the month. Nintu mixes the clay in the flesh and blood of the slain god. The clay was pinched off into fourteen pieces (for the fourteen birth goddesses). She created seven males and seven females. Then, when the time came, the tenth month, Nintu began her midwifery. She performed her tasks and was rewarded with the birth of fourteen humans, created to ease the toils of the Igigi.

Sumerian Flood Myth:

Enki and the Flood

According to the Mesopotamian's account of the Great Flood, the God of Earth, the Supreme God, Enlil/Ellil, wanted to wipe mankind out because of their growing numbers. With the growth of people came a lot of noise, and it kept Enlil up at night, it was so loud. He called an assembly of the gods and addressed his annoyance:

'The noise of mankind has become too much.
I am losing sleep over their racket
Cut off food supplies to the people!
Let the vegetation be too scant for their hunger!
Let Adad wipe away his rain.
Below (?) let no flood-water flow from the springs.
Let wind go, let it strip the ground bare,
Let the clouds gather (but) not drop rain,
Let the field yeild a diminished harvest,
Let Nissaba stop up her bosom.
No happiness shall come to them.
("Myths from Mesopotamia", translated by Stephanie Dalley, pg 20, Oxford World's Classics paperback, 1989)

He tried famine, and disease, but the people did not diminish, (his brother Enki, the God of Wisdom and Water, and one of the creators of mankind, was helping the masses via his man, Atrahasis), so he called another assembly of the gods...the God of Earth was in a devine temper. This time, the assembly made Enki swear not to tell mankind what they planned and eventually he swore. What did they plan? They planned to use Enki's own waters to destroy his creation, they decided to wipe mankind out with a flood!

But, Enki, Lord of the Waters and Lord of Wisdom, could not let mankind die, nor could he break his oath. What did the sly God do? He summoned Atrahasis and had him stand next to a wall (screened wall?). With Atrahasis on one side and Enki on the other, Enki started "talking to himself". He told Atrahasis, via his one-sided conversation, about the flood. Not only did he tell him about the flood, but he told Atrahasis how to make a boat strong enough to survive the Great Flood.

'Wall, listen constantly to me!
Reed hut, make sure you attend all my words!
Dismantle the house, build a boat,
Reject possession, and save living things.
The boat that you build
[ ]
[ ]
Roof like the Apsu
So that the Sun cannot see inside it!
Make upper decks and lower decks.
The tackle must be very strong,
The bitumen strong, to give strength.
I shall make rain fall on you here,
A wealth of birds, a hamper (?) of fish.'

He opened the sand clock and filled it,
He told him the sand (needed) for the Flood was
Seven night's worth.
("Myths from Mesopotamia", translated by Stephanie Dalley, pages 29 & 30, Oxford World's Classics paperback, 1989)

Atrahasis listened carefully and did as he was told. The Flood came and many people died, but Atrahasis and his friends and family, (there were quite a few, plus the animals that he saved), were tucked safely aboard the boat.

Up in the heavens, the gods had fled. They watched the destruction from up high and soon grew frantic. Many did not like what they had done, what they had voted to do, not knowing of Atrahasis and thinking that mankind was going to be wiped out. They raged at Enlil and the Great God Anu, God of the Heavens, for allowing such a thing to happen. Not only that, but they were hungry and thirsty, having been denied the fruits of the earth. The Heavens were not a happy place that week.

The Flood's torrent lasted for seven days and seven nights. When it was over, and the earth dried a bit, Atrahasis and his companions landed. He sacrificed some sort of animal (goat? sheep? cow?) and raised it up as an offering to the gods. They smelled the wonderful smell of the offering and descended. They ate the food, for they were starving, and then, after they were hungry no more.

Enlil and Anu were not present, but they spotted the boat. He became furious with the lesser gods and reminded them of the oath they all took. Anu then pointed the finger of blame at Enki, saying none but he would have defied the decision of them all. Enki did not deny this and must have swayed Enlil to his way of thinking (the text breaks and lines are missing), because Enlil allows man to live, under his conditions. Many of these conditions are missing, but what is there is not very promising. Basically Enlil creates a way to control the human numbers by having restrictions:

In addition let there be one-third of the people,
Among the people the woman who gives birth yet does
Not give birth (successfully);
Let there be the pasittu-demon among the people,
To snatch the baby from its mother's lap.
("Myths from Mesopotamia", translated by Stephanie Dalley, pg 35, Oxford World's Classics paperback, 1989)

But, in the end, it is agreed that mankind should continue and Atrahasis is raised above them all. His greatness was recorded and Atrahasis was praised. He turns up later in the Gilgamesh Epic, still alive many years later, with his wife.

Enki was not always the best of deities and as stated above, had an on-going rivalry with the Supreme God, Enlil. As in the story of the Flood, Enki took every chance he could find to give Enlil grief. But, it was not always for the benefit of mankind that he stirred up trouble with Enlil. Enki, it turns out, was the original cause of the “confusion of tongues” from which we are still recovering from today! We find reference to this from a “Golden Age” passage, which one can find in Samuel Noah Kramer’s book, “Sumerian Mythology” on page 107, note 2. It reads:

Once upon a time, there was no snake, there was no scorpion,
There was no hyenna, there was no lion,
There was no wild dog, there was no wolf,
There was no fear, no terror,
Man had no rival.
In those days, the land Shubur-Hamazi,
Harmony-tongued Sumer, the great land of the me of princeship,
Uri, the land having all that is appropriate,
The land Martu, resting in security,
The whole universe, the people well cared for,
To Enlil in one tongue gave speech.
(But) then, the lord defiant, the prince defiant, the king defiant,
Enki, the lord defiant, the prince defiant, the king defiant,
The lord defiant, the prince defiant, the kind defiant,
Enki, the lord of abundance, whose commands are trustworthy,
The lord of wisdom, who scans the land,
The leader of the gods,
The lord of Eridu, endowed with wisdom,
Changed the speech in their mouths, put contention into it,
Into the speech of man that (until then) had been one.

As we see, Enki did a lot for mankind, but it was a bit selfish. If he could thwart Enlil, he did so. Mankind was his greatest tool in this endeavor and, as with the “confusion of tongues”, he did so at the detriment of his creation. But, no one is perfect - not even the gods of Sumer.

interesting, I came to religion later in life. And Baptists don't let you join until you're of a coherent age. Does that make us all crazy?

[Buddha Punk Robot Monks]

This latter article has been demonstrated in full in this thread, as many posters have a complete misunderstanding of even the basics of Christianity.

And neither of these articles are proof of anything. Sorry, but a conservative website and a blog aren't reputable sources.

Try again.

And as expected you dismiss it instead of engaging with it. The possibility that these articles raise valid points must not be entertained. Thus proving my point about bad scholarship.

Those two articles represent a larger critique of new atheism. Here are some more:

There's also this: http://chronicle.com/article/Does-Relig ... on/133457/
This: http://www.amazon.com/God-New-Atheism-C ... 066423304X
This (from an atheist himself): http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=8854
And this: http://www.amazon.com/Atheist-Delusions ... 0300164297

There, I've given you plenty of reading material. You can find out for yourself all the logical fallacies and historical inaccuracies in popular atheism.

[Tarsonis Survivors]

But you realize how wrong that is, right? Not preventing evils even when you can prevent that evil doesn't make you evil. You all have the power to stop pirates in the internet, but don't. That doesn't make you pirates.

God can be blamed for the evils things he did, but not preventing evils is not one of them.

God also commits "evil", as shown in the OP.

In response to your previous post, the creation of sin and death make him irredeemable, and thus why I would class him as "malevolent".

And also, God has the ability to stop evil with no effort at all, and yet he allows it. That's the point I think he was making.

what good is heaven if earth is perfect?