Is God a malevolent being?

[Hallistar]

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.

If you are omnipotent, and are the master of everything, why shouldn't you be blamed (atleast to some extent) for the miseries of the world?

[4years]

Who is to say that Jesus Christ was not fashioning God in his own image? Who is to say that the writers of the Gospels made Jesus Christ in their own image? And who is to say that yours is the one true God and every other one is a caricature?

It's like you're trying to use the "No True Scotsman" fallacy but on God.

We take it on faith that the God revealed in NT is the true God.
-snip-.

Fine, I will now demonstrate that the god of the new testament is malevolent or at least incompetent.
1. On Faith
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast."
– Ephesians 2.8,9.
"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." – Romans 3.28.

Christian orthodoxy has always had a "get out of jail card" which exonerates even the grossest of sinners, a dogma of convenience which masquerades under the anodyne label "Grace". It originated with St Paul himself. Simply put, no sin is so grave that it cannot be absolved by God's freely given Grace (approach Holy Mother Church for application form; send remittance when applying). This wonderful news means that obeying commandments is quite unnecessary – "His grace" is infinite. A "modern" Christian can get down and dirty with everyone else and still sleep happily at night knowing that salvation is assured by his intellectual belief in the godman myth. For centuries the Church waged a fierce struggle against all sects and heresies which argued for emulation of a Christ-like purity and "Works" of goodness. What triumphed was the notion of "Faith" – the simple expedient of "accepting the Lord as Saviour" and submitting to the will of the Church. Catholic orthodoxy made some pretence of "faith shown by works" (such as a crusade against the heathen), but Luther and the Protestants who followed him clarified "justification" (Heaven's entry permit) beautifully:"sola fides" – faith alone. Luther was certain that any attempt to influence God's master plan was an insult to the creator. Calvin went further, arguing the alarming notion that God had already bestowed his irresistible grace and had predestined those who would be saved and those who would be damned. Therefore do what you will, your "works" will not save you. In the asylum of Christendom, faith without goodness got you into heaven; goodness without faith damned you for eternity.

2. On Judgment
Part of the Church's arsenal of terror has always beem the threat of divine retribution. The notion of an individual judgment at the moment of death actually owes more to medieval ponderings (for example, the 1336 Bull "Benedictus Deus" issued by Benedict XII) than anything found in scripture. Theologians for centuries wrestled with the conundrum of where, precisely, were the souls of the dead before the great "universal Resurrection"? Purgatory was one solution, which opened the door to the criminal racket of indulgences.

But be assured that every thought, every deed, and every word will be judged.
"But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment." – Matthew 12.36.
The pernicious Christian sky god knows every guilty secret, every shameful sin. So surely He's watching our little sacrifices and random acts of kindness? They will all count on the day of judgment! (And if you write nasty things about Jesus you'll burn in Hell!).

3. On Love
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." – Matthew 10.34.
Oh good, all those religious wars have the stamp of approval from the Prince of Peace himself.
Now that the small issue of peace is dealt with, let's all kill our families!
"For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." – Matthew 10.35,36.
" If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" – Luke 14.26.
How far does Jesus go with this malevolent (and plainly ridiculous) dictum? Matthew provides the answer:
"And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death." – Matthew 10.21.

[Norstal]

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.

I know that.

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.

To be malevolent is to have the intent of doing evil upon others. God does not see it as evil. We do, certainly, but since this is a perfect God, we must accept his views rather than ours. To say that he is malevolent is to say that this God is not perfect and thus, it is not Yahweh.

Course, whether or not Yahweh is perfect is for another debate, but I am under the assumption this is the case due to your OP.

Even if we are to remove the perfection of God however, we can't really accuse him of intending to do evil. I certainly wouldn't accuse an obviously mental man of his behaviors as evil. I mean, the guy is mental. Yahweh is only doing these things for the good of mankind. No matter how sadistic this sounds, it's not malevolent simply because he sees his actions as doing good and thus, he does not have evil intentions.

[Buddha Punk Robot Monks]

Also here is a bibliography for you for further reading:

A number of essays and books have been written in response to the New Atheists (see the “References and Further Reading” section below for some titles). Some of these works are supportive of them and some of them are critical. Other works include both positive and negative evaluations of the New Atheism. Clearly, the range of philosophical issues raised by the New Atheists’ claims and arguments is broad. As might be expected, attention has been focused on their epistemological views, their metaphysical assumptions, and their axiological positions. Their presuppositions should prompt more discussion in the fields of philosophical theology, philosophy of science, philosophical hermeneutics, the relation between science and religion, and historiography. Conversations about the New Atheists’ stances and rationales have also taken place in the form of debates between Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens, and Dennett and defenders of religious belief and religion such as Dinesh D’Souza, who has published his own defense of Christianity in response to the New Atheists’ arguments. These debates are accessible in a number of places on the Internet. Finally, the challenges to religion posed by the New Atheists have also prompted a number of seminars and conferences. One of these is a conference presented by the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame, entitled, “My Ways Are Not Your Ways: The Character of the God of the Hebrew Bible” ( 2009). For an introduction to the sorts of issues this conference addresses, see Copan 2008.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/n-atheis/

* Berlinski, David. The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions (New York: Crown Forum, 2008).
o A response to the New Atheists by a secular Jew that defends traditional religious thought.
* Copan, Paul. “Is Yahweh a Moral Monster? The New Atheists and Old Testament Ethics,” Philosophia Christi 10:1, 2008, pp. 7-37.
o A defense of the God and ethics of the Old Testament against the New Atheists’ criticisms of them.
* Copan, Paul and William Lane Craig, eds. Contending with Christianity’s Critics (Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman and Holman, 2009).
o A collection of essays by Christian apologists that addresses challenges from New Atheists and other contemporary critics of Christianity.
* Craig, William Lane, ed. God is Great, God is Good: Why Believing in God is Reasonable and Responsible (Grand Rapids: InterVarsity Press, 2009).
o A collection of essays by philosophers and theologians defending the rationality of theistic belief from the attacks of the New Atheists and others.
* Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
o An explanation and defense of biological evolution by natural selection that focuses on the gene.
* Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006).
o A case for the irrationality and immoral consequences of religious belief that draws primarily on evolutionary biology.
* Dennett, Daniel. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York: Penguin, 2006).
o A case for studying the history and practice of religion by means of the natural sciences.
* D’Souza, Dinesh. What’s So Great About Christianity (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2007).
o A defense of Christianity against the criticisms of the New Atheists.
* Eagleton, Terry. Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).
o A critical reply to Dawkins and Hitchens (“Ditchkins”) by a Marxist literary critic.
* Flew, Antony. There is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (New York: HarperOne, 2007).
o A former atheistic philosopher’s account of his conversion to theism (which includes a section by co-author Roy Abraham Varghese that provides a critical appraisal of the New Atheism).
* Harris, Sam. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York: Norton, 2004).
o An intellectual and moral critique of faith-based religions that recommends their replacement by science-based spirituality.
* Harris, Sam. Letter to a Christian Nation (New York: Vintage Books, 2008).
o A revised edition of his 2006 response to Christian reactions to his 2004 book.
* Hitchens, Christopher. God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York: Twelve, 2007).
o A journalistic case against religion and religious belief.
* Keller, Timothy. The Reason for God: Belief in God in an Age of Skepticism (New York: Dutton, 2007).
o A Christian minister’s reply to objections against Christianity of the sort raised by the New Atheists together with his positive case for Christianity.
* Kurtz, Paul. Forbidden Fruit: The Ethics of Secularism (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2008).
o A case for an atheistic secular humanistic ethics by a philosopher.
* McGrath, Alister and Joanna Collicutt McGrath. The Dawkins Delusion? Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007).
o A critical engagement with the arguments set out in Dawkins 2006.
* Ray, Darrel W. The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture (IPC Press, 2009).
o A book by an organizational psychologist that purports to explain how religion has negative consequences for both individuals and societies.
* Schloss, Jeffrey and Michael Murray, eds. The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
o An interdisciplinary discussion of issues raised by the sort of naturalistic account of religion promoted in Dennett 2006 and elsewhere.
* Stenger, Victor. God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist (Prometheus Books, 2008).
o A scientific case for the non-existence of God by a physicist.
* Stenger, Victor. The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason (Prometheus Books, 2009).
o A defense of the New Atheism by a physicist.
* Ward, Keith. Is Religion Dangerous? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006).
o A defense of religion against the New Atheists’ arguments by a philosopher-theologian.

[Mavorpen]

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.

It's called being "skeptical." You should try it.

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 is a blog. Not a reputable source.

This: http://www.amazon.com/God-New-Atheism-C ... 066423304X

Oh joy, a book. Let me try this: http://www.amazon.com/God-Not-Great-Rel ... 0446697966

Linking to a book is not an argument.

This (from an atheist himself): http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=8854

Another blog. Not a reputable source.

And this: http://www.amazon.com/Atheist-Delusions ... 0300164297

HURR, LOOK, I CAN THROW LINKS TO BOOKS AT YOU TOO!

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.

No, I've just found out that you aren't serious about debating and you have no clue what "reputable" means.

[Norstal]

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.

If you are omnipotent, and are the master of everything, why shouldn't you be blamed (atleast to some extent) for the miseries of the world?

If I'm omnipotent, I can do anything that I want. I can set logical truths to any shape or form. Nothing is beyond me.

Assuming that isn't the case though and not to avoid your question, I just don't think you can be evil for not using your powers. Because to be evil is to commit evil. I know this is flimsy, so go ahead and poke holes into it.

[Norstal]

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.

Oh Jesus Christ theists, stop proselytizing. This isn't the thread for it.

[Nationalist State of Knox]

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.

To be malevolent is to have the intent of doing evil upon others. God does not see it as evil. We do, certainly, but since this is a perfect God, we must accept his views rather than ours. To say that he is malevolent is to say that this God is not perfect and thus, it is not Yahweh.

Course, whether or not Yahweh is perfect is for another debate, but I am under the assumption this is the case due to your OP.

Even if we are to remove the perfection of God however, we can't really accuse him of intending to do evil. I certainly wouldn't accuse an obviously mental man of his behaviors as evil. I mean, the guy is mental. Yahweh is only doing these things for the good of mankind. No matter how sadistic this sounds, it's not malevolent simply because he sees his actions as doing good and thus, he does not have evil intentions.

Not necessarily. After all, he claims to despise sin and evil, and yet permits it to exist. Surely this means that he must have some negative intentions?

[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.

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?

Believing in something without evidence IS crazy. And this is coming from someone whose last religion believed that the Pagan Gods are all Nordic Aliens that want mankind to advance their "Psychic Powers" to become a God with them and be saved from the Greys and Reptilians whom influenced the Jews, Christians, and Muslims to create the Bible to take away our "Powers".

[Norstal]

To be malevolent is to have the intent of doing evil upon others. God does not see it as evil. We do, certainly, but since this is a perfect God, we must accept his views rather than ours. To say that he is malevolent is to say that this God is not perfect and thus, it is not Yahweh.

Course, whether or not Yahweh is perfect is for another debate, but I am under the assumption this is the case due to your OP.

Even if we are to remove the perfection of God however, we can't really accuse him of intending to do evil. I certainly wouldn't accuse an obviously mental man of his behaviors as evil. I mean, the guy is mental. Yahweh is only doing these things for the good of mankind. No matter how sadistic this sounds, it's not malevolent simply because he sees his actions as doing good and thus, he does not have evil intentions.

Not necessarily. After all, he claims to despise sin and evil, and yet permits it to exist. Surely this means that he must have some negative intentions?

Nope. Theologians can argue that this is simply his divine plan. Then this divine plan can be broken down into whether he wants to see who is "truly" good or whether it's simply practice for man to be good. This is what's called the Divine Command Theory. Of course, the alternative is, like I said, he simply cannot see that what he's doing is evil and thus, cannot have negative intentions. Mortals (or even immortals like Satan) can certainly accuse him of having such intentions, but that would be an assertion, if anything.

No matter what, God would be in the right.

[Hallistar]

If you are omnipotent, and are the master of everything, why shouldn't you be blamed (atleast to some extent) for the miseries of the world?

If I'm omnipotent, I can do anything that I want. I can set logical truths to any shape or form. Nothing is beyond me.

Assuming that isn't the case though and not to avoid your question, I just don't think you can be evil for not using your powers. Because to be evil is to commit evil. I know this is flimsy, so go ahead and poke holes into it.

But if you set up the universe so that such evils could happen in the first place, wouldn't you have some part in it?

For example, making humans (and other animals) reliant on shoving edible food and liquid products down a giant orfice (our mouths) (And when you have droughts or famines or lack of access to them, you can die out), or making us having to excrete feces/urine (A leading cause of cholera, etc. as well as the reason why many in underdeveloped countries die, due to poor sanitation, etc.), or the tons of genetic diseases, deletions and insertions in our specific human genomes that cause us to have a much greater risk for alzheimers or obesity or insulin resistance, etc.

Or just the fact that we are corporeal in the first place.

The other thing is the idea that said deity would have no power to stop you from being tortured far worse than you could ever be tortured on earth, for all eternity, at the hands of Satan, if you didn't worship said deity constantly and follow all sorts of rituals and rules, seems illogical.

[Nationalist State of Knox]

Not necessarily. After all, he claims to despise sin and evil, and yet permits it to exist. Surely this means that he must have some negative intentions?

Nope. Theologians can argue that this is simply his divine plan. Then this divine plan can be broken down into whether he wants to see who is "truly" good or whether it's simply practice for man to be good. This is what's called the Divine Command Theory. Of course, the alternative is, like I said, he simply cannot see that what he's doing is evil and thus, cannot have negative intentions. Mortals (or even immortals like Satan) can certainly accuse him of having such intentions, but that would be an assertion, if anything.

No matter what, God would be in the right.

Not necessarily. Being omnipotent, he doesn't require a plan. In fact, his all-powerful nature dictates that he can deduce who is righteous and who isn't, and the unrighteous wouldn't even exist had he not created the conditions to be unrighteous, ergo he is solely responsible for allowing evil when there is no need for it to exist.

[Buddha Punk Robot Monks]

Ooh and one more time! These articles about the bad philosophy of new atheism are all over the interwebs!

http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-At ... ow/126027/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-wr ... 30448.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-wr ... 41217.html
http://udini.proquest.com/view/partners ... 371439721/
http://scienceblogs.com/evolution/2012/ ... volutiona/
http://www.theaunicornist.com/2012/05/n ... cated.html
http://www.choosinghats.com/2012/06/the ... he-masses/
http://www.memoriapress.com/articles/To ... Logic.html
http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo7/7prior.php

[Arium]

Sorry if this is wordy... I wrote this reflectively, thinking outloud more than anything (or thinking in writing).

God, as defined by the Abrahamic religions, is very much in the image of how things are, rather than how things ought to be.

For sheep, lions. For wolves, cattle. For dolphins, sharks. Things in nature are not always very pretty, neither kind, gentle, or compassionate, although the soft and the warm does exist as well. Nature has some pretty harsh rules, and the cosmos is a deadly place (just ask any star being eaten by a black hole). Good does not always win, and the meek and the sweet (wonderful people though they may be) are not realistic about life and the world, or even about the future of humanity. Moreover, what mankind defines as "good", is not always good for the whole of the earth. A God that creates humans one way, then demands that they overcome their programming (their instincts) and say no to base impulses, could simply be trying to teach discipline and make us "sentient." Indeed, it might be said that the universe does not display a concern with good and evil, and that nature is rather neutralistic and indifferent, which would speak to the nature of its creator.

Moreover, believing in something greater than ourselves, some higher cause and purpose, or just believing in something other, could be viewed as trying to teach humans to dream and to think abstractly (outside the box). One could argue that the God of the Bible (Jews, Christians, Muslims, Bahai) is merely employing tough love, for our greater good as a species. Tough moral laws may be created to inspire self-control and elevation above the mere animal drives and thinking processes. On the otherhand, there are plenty of people who believe in God as something other than that which is defined by Orthodox Abrahamic Monotheism, including (my personal favorite) the mystical approaches to the Abrahamic God as contained in Gnosticism, Sufism, Kabbalah, and other similar schools of thought.

Malevolent vs. Beneficient: as in this game, these are rather absolute choices. A democracy can easily degenerate into idiocracy and mob rule; even as theocracy might be a rather fair and kind form of government if motivated/inspired by a moderate and/or compassionate ideology. We tend to define things by the standard Judeo-Christian concepts, and there are other approaches.

The human tendency toward the lowest common denominator, and lowering the moral bar as it were, in my opinion, leads us toward a Lord of the Flies society, or a society where anything goes, which is basically just a nasty and lawless vision of earthly hell. I mean, is it really so wrong to actually expect people to keep vows, to believe in the virtues of honor and personal responsibility, to strive to obey the ten simple commandments of the Bible? Taking God completely out of the picture, a society needs a common moral standard (whatever that standard may be) that is generally agreed upon by the majority of its people, to create a sense of cultural identity and social unity. A common general religious/cultural/linguistic and moral/ethical consensus promotes the health and strength of the nation.

For myself, I often contemplate the Gnostic concept of God, known as Abraxas, which was a unity of contradictions or an undivided unity of opposites (harmonious division), so that God was an integrated wholeness of apparent oppositions, which, when viewed in the totality, was the highest good in a sense (all things working together for the greater good as it were).

The Biblical God, similarly, seems like a union of apparent contradictions, harsh but kind, loving and judgmental, stern father and compassionate son, etc... etc.

When Moses asks the Voice from the burning bush, "By what name....." The voice says, "I AM THAT I AM." It strikes me as similar to saying, "I am God, and I will be whatever I want to be. I don't answer to you or anyone else about who and what I am or will be." God simply IS WHATEVER GOD IS (or whatever God feels like being). This seems like it would be a fairly standard God-perk.

It seems truly arrogant of mankind to say to God, "You will be what we want you to be, AND you will not outlaw any behavior we like to engage in, or we will hate you and/or we will not believe in you." And would God even care? I mean, there are certainly a couple billion people on earth trying to do what they think God wants them to do. If belief in a God-being is found throughout the universe, then there are untold souls striving to be God's servants/friends/children (what have you), even as there are likely untold numbers declaring, "My way or the highway, God!"

Peace From the Nation of Arium (a rant/speech truly worthy of a psychotic theocratic priest-king)

[Primordial Luxa]

I'll withdraw from this, I'm not really argumentative to hammer away for either side.

Im with you man,
Ia Cthulhu

[Mavorpen]

Ooh and one more time!

So you're basically admitting you're spamming?

These articles about the bad philosophy of new atheism are all over the interwebs!

http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-At ... ow/126027/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-wr ... 30448.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-wr ... 41217.html
http://udini.proquest.com/view/partners ... 371439721/
http://scienceblogs.com/evolution/2012/ ... volutiona/
http://www.theaunicornist.com/2012/05/n ... cated.html
http://www.choosinghats.com/2012/06/the ... he-masses/
http://www.memoriapress.com/articles/To ... Logic.html
http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo7/7prior.php

Congratulations on providing us with blogs that prove absolutely nothing.

Now kindly stop spamming.

[Hallistar]

Sorry if this is wordy... I wrote this reflectively, thinking outloud more than anything (or thinking in writing).

God, as defined by the Abrahamic religions, is very much in the image of how things are, rather than how things ought to be.

For sheep, lions. For wolves, cattle. For dolphins, sharks. Things in nature are not always very pretty, neither kind, gentle, or compassionate, although the soft and the warm does exist as well. Nature has some pretty harsh rules, and the cosmos is a deadly place (just ask any star being eaten by a black hole). Good does not always win, and the meek and the sweet (wonderful people though they may be) are not realistic about life and the world, or even about the future of humanity. Moreover, what mankind defines as "good", is not always good for the whole of the earth. A God that creates humans one way, then demands that they overcome their programming (their instincts) and say no to base impulses, could simply be trying to teach discipline and make us "sentient." Indeed, it might be said that the universe does not display a concern with good and evil, and that nature is rather neutralistic and indifferent, which would speak to the nature of its creator.

Moreover, believing in something greater than ourselves, some higher cause and purpose, or just believing in something other, could be viewed as trying to teach humans to dream and to think abstractly (outside the box). One could argue that the God of the Bible (Jews, Christians, Muslims, Bahai) is merely employing tough love, for our greater good as a species. Tough moral laws may be created to inspire self-control and elevation above the mere animal drives and thinking processes. On the otherhand, there are plenty of people who believe in God as something other than that which is defined by Orthodox Abrahamic Monotheism, including (my personal favorite) the mystical approaches to the Abrahamic God as contained in Gnosticism, Sufism, Kabbalah, and other similar schools of thought.

Malevolent vs. Beneficient: as in this game, these are rather absolute choices. A democracy can easily degenerate into idiocracy and mob rule; even as theocracy might be a rather fair and kind form of government if motivated/inspired by a moderate and/or compassionate ideology. We tend to define things by the standard Judeo-Christian concepts, and there are other approaches.

The human tendency toward the lowest common denominator, and lowering the moral bar as it were, in my opinion, leads us toward a Lord of the Flies society, or a society where anything goes, which is basically just a nasty and lawless vision of earthly hell. I mean, is it really so wrong to actually expect people to keep vows, to believe in the virtues of honor and personal responsibility, to strive to obey the ten simple commandments of the Bible? Taking God completely out of the picture, a society needs a common moral standard (whatever that standard may be) that is generally agreed upon by the majority of its people, to create a sense of cultural identity and social unity. A common general religious/cultural/linguistic and moral/ethical consensus promotes the health and strength of the nation.

For myself, I often contemplate the Gnostic concept of God, known as Abraxas, which was a unity of contradictions or an undivided unity of opposites (harmonious division), so that God was an integrated wholeness of apparent oppositions, which, when viewed in the totality, was the highest good in a sense (all things working together for the greater good as it were).

The Biblical God, similarly, seems like a union of apparent contradictions, harsh but kind, loving and judgmental, stern father and compassionate son, etc... etc.

When Moses asks the Voice from the burning bush, "By what name....." The voice says, "I AM THAT I AM." It strikes me as similar to saying, "I am God, and I will be whatever I want to be. I don't answer to you or anyone else about who and what I am or will be." God simply IS WHATEVER GOD IS (or whatever God feels like being). This seems like it would be a fairly standard God-perk.

It seems truly arrogant of mankind to say to God, "You will be what we want you to be, AND you will not outlaw any behavior we like to engage in, or we will hate you and/or we will not believe in you." And would God even care? I mean, there are certainly a couple billion people on earth trying to do what they think God wants them to do. If belief in a God-being is found throughout the universe, then there are untold souls striving to be God's servants/friends/children (what have you), even as there are likely untold numbers declaring, "My way or the highway, God!"

Peace From the Nation of Arium (a rant/speech truly worthy of a psychotic theocratic priest-king)

I agree that said deity wouldn't care whether humans choose not to worship them, which is why I also wonder why they feel the need to punish those who don't worship them. Why would a deity so omnipotent and omniscient go out of their way to make themselves so unfalsifiable, and then be appalled at how dare humans (which would be the equivalent of lesser than ants compared to said deity) not worship them?

I find it likelier to believe in a deity that doesn't give a rats ass/doesn't do anything to those who don't worship them, and those who don't have some kind of eternal heaven where you're going to praise them 24/7 for eternity, and who don't have some kind of hell where non-believers and sinners will be tortured forever.

[Dillah]

Im a atheist myself but why are u other atheist trying so hard to fight against someone u do not believe exists???

[Norstal]

If I'm omnipotent, I can do anything that I want. I can set logical truths to any shape or form. Nothing is beyond me.

Assuming that isn't the case though and not to avoid your question, I just don't think you can be evil for not using your powers. Because to be evil is to commit evil. I know this is flimsy, so go ahead and poke holes into it.

But if you set up the universe so that such evils could happen in the first place, wouldn't you have some part in it?

For example, making humans (and other animals) reliant on shoving edible food and liquid products down a giant orfice (our mouths) (And when you have droughts or famines or lack of access to them, you can die out), or making us having to excrete feces/urine (A leading cause of cholera, etc. as well as the reason why many in underdeveloped countries die, due to poor sanitation, etc.), or the tons of genetic diseases, deletions and insertions in our specific human genomes that cause us to have a much greater risk for alzheimers or obesity or insulin resistance, etc.

You're going too far ahead here. Certainly, humans, if one would make a program and that program has bugs or if one makes a lock and it doesn't work, they would fix it. They would HAVE to do it because of market forces, angry mobs, or just because they want to.

God...what does God have to lose? He can be as sloppy as He wants to. He's not a human. If he says what he made is perfect, then it's perfect because no one else is qualified to say that it's otherwise. Maybe this is the best that he can do. Maybe this is "perfect."

Or just the fact that we are corporeal in the first place.

The other thing is the idea that said deity would have no power to stop you from being tortured far worse than you could ever be tortured on earth, for all eternity, at the hands of Satan, if you didn't worship said deity constantly and follow all sorts of rituals and rules, seems illogical.

See, this is the problem that I've been trying to point out throughout this thread. As an atheist, I have to think as a Christian for just one second. Put my feet in God's shoes. Why would He torture people in hell (which, coincidentally, doesn't exist in the Hebrew bible mind you; hell as a concept is relatively new; hell as a torturous place is even recent)? Perhaps I want to show them the errors of their ways. That would be a good thing, would it not? And I certainly don't think burning humans on fire is bad. I mean, I get caught in a fire and I don't feel a thing.

This issue is something most Christians themselves don't understand either, but again, I'll save that for later since this is not the thread for it.

[Mavorpen]

Im a atheist myself but why are u other atheist trying so hard to fight against someone u do not believe exists???

Poe.

And a bad one at that.

[Tarsonis Survivors]

This argument is still rooted in arrogant perspective. God's evil because the world has strife. Even though it is said in the bible that this will always be so. Mainly because this isn't Heaven.

[Nationalist State of Knox]

Im a atheist myself but why are u other atheist trying so hard to fight against someone u do not believe exists???

Hypothetically speaking, I'm trying to hypothetically show that if God hypothetically existed he would be hypothetically evil.

I'm speaking hypothetically here, by the way.

[Buddha Punk Robot Monks]

Ooh and one more time!

So you're basically admitting you're spamming?

These articles about the bad philosophy of new atheism are all over the interwebs!

http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-At ... ow/126027/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-wr ... 30448.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-wr ... 41217.html
http://udini.proquest.com/view/partners ... 371439721/
http://scienceblogs.com/evolution/2012/ ... volutiona/
http://www.theaunicornist.com/2012/05/n ... cated.html
http://www.choosinghats.com/2012/06/the ... he-masses/
http://www.memoriapress.com/articles/To ... Logic.html
http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo7/7prior.php

Congratulations on providing us with blogs that prove absolutely nothing.

Now kindly stop spamming.

Not spamming. You asked for proof of my argument that there was a lot of bad philosophy in New Atheism and that atheists don't take the time to learn philosophy or anything about Christianity before opening their mouth. I gave it to you.

Any ways Luke Muehlhauser sums up this entire thread:

The second problem is that Dawkins [and the people in this thread] is trying to disprove a God that almost nobody believes in.

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=8854

[Tlaceceyaya]

Im a atheist myself but why are u other atheist trying so hard to fight against someone u do not believe exists???

Hypothetically speaking, I'm trying to hypothetically show that if God hypothetically existed he would be hypothetically evil.

I'm speaking hypothetically here, by the way.

Hypothetically, of course. At least, that's my hypothesis.

[Mavorpen]

This argument is still rooted in arrogant perspective. God's evil because the world has strife. Even though it is said in the bible that this will always be so. Mainly because this isn't Heaven.

"You were born in Africa instead of the United States? Oh well, fuck you! Shouldn't have been born there assholes!"

Your post doesn't address anything.