Why do/don't you believe in a higher power? (Any HP)

[Thermodolia]

This presumes one believes that the biblical stories are 100% true. Which I do not. Every little story and miracle has a physical explanation. For example nobody was raised from the dead. They either had a heart attack or fell unconscious.

No it doesn't, it does not even require the god be the god of the Torah.

I didn’t say that it did

Oh, so how did you decide the nature of your god?

The rabbinical teachings, along with study of the Torah and our natural world. As for that example I gave once you die you are dead. You can’t come back to life. Not going to happen. Those people who were “raised for the dead” had other physical issues that could be proven by medical Science if it existed.

[Salandriagado]

Nor did I say that you did.



If you created nature, then the results of all natural processes are entirely and completely your fault.

Okay, I suppose this discussion is going to go in circles, so I'll take it in another direction: What do you define evil as?

Knowingly causing suffering is a good working definition. You might want to amend that to "knowingly causing suffering to innocents", if you're inclined to think that making people who "deserve" it suffer isn't evil. Or even "knowingly violating the deontological protection of innocence", if you want to get fancy. Take your pick, really: it doesn't matter as long as your definition of "evil" includes "torturing children". If it doesn't, then (a) we can't have a reasonable conversation; and (b) I urge you to turn yourself in to the police immediately.

And we're back to the "torturing children for the greater good" argument.

And there are opportunities for cures at the same time with time.

You're just repeatedly saying "torturing children isn't evil if you're doing it for the greater good". It doesn't sound any less sociopathic now than the first time.

"Outside the physical universe" is literally the exact same statement as "doesn't exist".

That's not how monotheism works.

Monotheism doesn't get a say in the matter. This is a statement about reality.

[Thermodolia]

Apparently you can’t read.

SO why are you talking about a chair when the person you where talking to was talking about a universe?

It was an allegory.

[Salandriagado]

I would say ">1nb4" but i'm too late

(Image)

There are answers to that as well.

God, being the unchanging being that he is won't change his natural laws just to wipe out the moral bad from the earth with the snap of a fingers as it goes completely against his nature.

He doesn't need to. He could have simply set up those natural laws right the first way. If he didn't, he's either evil, or incompetent. Which is it?

[Neutraligon]

SO why are you talking about a chair when the person you where talking to was talking about a universe?

It was an allegory.

So is the medicine. Your allegory is that people are not responsible for the consequences of the things they make, at least not always. I pointed that they often can be, like in medicine...or in making cars....
Oh and there is indeed a time when you build a chair and the consequences of the build are something you can be blamed for, namely if you make a chair that causes injury to a person when it is not strong enough to hold a person.

[Thermodolia]

There are answers to that as well.

God, being the unchanging being that he is won't change his natural laws just to wipe out the moral bad from the earth with the snap of a fingers as it goes completely against his nature.

He doesn't need to. He could have simply set up those natural laws right the first way. If he didn't, he's either evil, or incompetent. Which is it?

Well I take the position that the Jewish god is indeed a bit of a dick. He’s not the warm and cuddly being of Christianity. I mean how else do you explain a creator who puts the prostate in a man’s butt and says that you can’t enjoy it?

[Thermodolia]

It was an allegory.

So is the medicine. Your allegory is that people are not responsible for the consequences of the things they make, at least not always. I pointed that they often can be, like in medicine...or in making cars....
Oh and there is indeed a time when you build a chair and the consequences of the build are something you can be blamed for, namely if you make a chair that causes injury to a person when it is not strong enough to hold a person.

for the chair I would say it depends on your jurisdiction. In some places existing laws will not allow you to hold a creator responsible

[Jolthig]

Okay, I suppose this discussion is going to go in circles, so I'll take it in another direction: What do you define evil as?

Knowingly causing suffering is a good working definition. You might want to amend that to "knowingly causing suffering to innocents",

I see you love strawmanning.

if you're inclined to think that making people who "deserve" it suffer isn't evil.

Strawman again.

Or even "knowingly violating the deontological protection of innocence", if you want to get fancy.

My strawman radar system is going off the edge right now.

Take your pick, really: it doesn't matter as long as your definition of "evil" includes "torturing children". If it doesn't, then (a) we can't have a reasonable conversation; and (b) I urge you to turn yourself in to the police immediately.

Well as long as you keep strawmanning my arguments, I agree we can't have a reasonable discussion and no, I will not turn myself to the cops because I didnt do anything wrong in this thread.

And there are opportunities for cures at the same time with time.

You're just repeatedly saying "torturing children isn't evil if you're doing it for the greater good". It doesn't sound any less sociopathic now than the first time.

You're also repeating yourself a lot in this thread. Repeatingly shouting like Mermaid Man says in spongebob: "Evil! Evil! Evil!"

That's not how monotheism works.

Monotheism doesn't get a say in the matter. This is a statement about reality.

No dude. That's not how argumentation or dialogue works.

You do realize not everyone in here in an atheist right? You're talking to a guy who is a monotheistic and Muslim.

[Salandriagado]

He doesn't need to. He could have simply set up those natural laws right the first way. If he didn't, he's either evil, or incompetent. Which is it?

Well I take the position that the Jewish god is indeed a bit of a dick. He’s not the warm and cuddly being of Christianity. I mean how else do you explain a creator who puts the prostate in a man’s butt and says that you can’t enjoy it?

Fair enough. "God's evil" is a perfectly valid consistent answer to the question. Congratulations on being the only person to give one.

[Neutraligon]

So is the medicine. Your allegory is that people are not responsible for the consequences of the things they make, at least not always. I pointed that they often can be, like in medicine...or in making cars....
Oh and there is indeed a time when you build a chair and the consequences of the build are something you can be blamed for, namely if you make a chair that causes injury to a person when it is not strong enough to hold a person.

for the chair I would say it depends on your jurisdiction. In some places existing laws will not allow you to hold a creator responsible

Oh, so let us say a highchair is made, and the people who made it paid no attention to ensuring it was strong enough to hold an infant. The chair breaks when an infant is put in the chair, injuring the infant. You think the company cannot be held responsible for the piss-poor design?

[Neutraligon]

He doesn't need to. He could have simply set up those natural laws right the first way. If he didn't, he's either evil, or incompetent. Which is it?

Well I take the position that the Jewish god is indeed a bit of a dick. He’s not the warm and cuddly being of Christianity. I mean how else do you explain a creator who puts the prostate in a man’s butt and says that you can’t enjoy it?

The entire idea of using a scapegoat like Jesus is itself an evil idea. The God of Christianity is no less evil than the God of Judaism.

[Salandriagado]

Knowingly causing suffering is a good working definition. You might want to amend that to "knowingly causing suffering to innocents",

I see you love strawmanning.

if you're inclined to think that making people who "deserve" it suffer isn't evil.

Strawman again.

Or even "knowingly violating the deontological protection of innocence", if you want to get fancy.

My strawman radar system is going off the edge right now.

No part of this makes any claims about what your claim is. Kindly go and look up what "strawman" means before using it again. You asked for a working definition of "evil", I gave you three options.

Take your pick, really: it doesn't matter as long as your definition of "evil" includes "torturing children". If it doesn't, then (a) we can't have a reasonable conversation; and (b) I urge you to turn yourself in to the police immediately.

Well as long as you keep strawmanning my arguments, I agree we can't have a reasonable discussion and no,

Cut the bullshit. Answering your questions is not strawmanning.

I will not turn myself to the cops because I didnt do anything wrong in this thread.

If your English is sufficiently poor that you actually misunderstood what I said to this degree, please let me know, and preferably include your preferred language, and I will simplify my language and translate as best I can. If, as I suspect, you're just bullshitting, fucking quit it.

You're just repeatedly saying "torturing children isn't evil if you're doing it for the greater good". It doesn't sound any less sociopathic now than the first time.

You're also repeating yourself a lot in this thread. Repeatingly shouting like Mermaid Man says in spongebob: "Evil! Evil! Evil!"

If you actually answered the fucking question, I wouldn't have to repeat myself. Also, repeating "torturing children is evil" is the only reasonable response to someone who keeps claiming that it isn't.

Monotheism doesn't get a say in the matter. This is a statement about reality.

No dude. That's not how argumentation or dialogue works.

Irrelevant. Your religion has no bearing on the fact that the physical universe, by definition, is everything that exists.

You do realize not everyone in here in an atheist right? You're talking to a guy who is a monotheistic and Muslim.

It's irrelevant. You don't get your own version of reality. Nor do you get your own language. In the reality in which we live, and in the language that we are discussing in, it is a factually true statement that "is outside the universe" is semantically identical to "does not exist".

[Jolthig]

I see you love strawmanning.


Strawman again.


My strawman radar system is going off the edge right now.

No part of this makes any claims about what your claim is. Kindly go and look up what "strawman" means before using it again. You asked for a working definition of "evil", I gave you three options.

Well as long as you keep strawmanning my arguments, I agree we can't have a reasonable discussion and no,

Cut the bullshit. Answering your questions is not strawmanning.

I will not turn myself to the cops because I didnt do anything wrong in this thread.

If your English is sufficiently poor that you actually misunderstood what I said to this degree, please let me know, and preferably include your preferred language, and I will simplify my language and translate as best I can. If, as I suspect, you're just bullshitting, fucking quit it.

You're also repeating yourself a lot in this thread. Repeatingly shouting like Mermaid Man says in spongebob: "Evil! Evil! Evil!"

If you actually answered the fucking question, I wouldn't have to repeat myself. Also, repeating "torturing children is evil" is the only reasonable response to someone who keeps claiming that it isn't.

No dude. That's not how argumentation or dialogue works.

Irrelevant. Your religion has no bearing on the fact that the physical universe, by definition, is everything that exists.

You do realize not everyone in here in an atheist right? You're talking to a guy who is a monotheistic and Muslim.

It's irrelevant. You don't get your own version of reality.

Before this turns into a flame war and we both get hammered by the mods, I'll be departing this conversation seeing how we cannot agree on our views. And I know what strawmanning is and that's exactly what you're doing. Now that you're swearing a lot, I'm pretty convinced you're not interested in a decent discussion of dialogue. Not unless if you want a flame war.

And all my last points were relevant. You just simply refuse to listen.

As the Quran commands me when discussion with those who have ignorant views and refuse to listen, Peace. Because I wish that upon you whatever is going on in your life. I will refuse to debate you after this and probably add you to my ignore list.

[The Free Panama Commune]

Here are my reasons for Belief in God (Ironically my nation is Atheist) :

-The bible is too unique to have been made up, although it can be interpreted to be aligned with scientific fact. For example, the bible says that the world was created in 6 days and on the 7th day God rested. Our vision of a 24 hour day could be a lot different than those who actually wrote those accounts. Those "days" could be a multiple millenniums.

-There is tons of archaeological proof of a prophet who came to save sinners

-It is not possible for the universe to spontaneously explode through the "Big Bang" without something triggering it

[Crylante]

I do not think that there is enough evidence for or against a God existing, although I do not feel that the Abrahamic god exists, nor do I feel that the question of belief is a particularly important one; I would argue that it matters more what we do when we are here rather than why we are here.

[Neutraligon]

Here are my reasons for Belief in God (Ironically my nation is Atheist) :

-The bible is too unique to have been made up, although it can be interpreted to be aligned with scientific fact. For example, the bible says that the world was created in 6 days and on the 7th day God rested. Our vision of a 24 hour day could be a lot different than those who actually wrote those accounts. Those "days" could be a multiple millenniums.

-There is tons of archaeological proof of a prophet who came to save sinners

-It is not possible for the universe to spontaneously explode through the "Big Bang" without something triggering it

The bible is hardly unique. Many fo the stories are based on legends that have long since existed (look at Noahs flood). Second your saying the day was different so it could mean millenia is simply interpretation, it is not what the bible actually says, and so it cannot be said to be scientifically accurate.

There really isn't

Show that something is a god, show that it could not have happened spontaneously.

[Normund]

I personally don’t have any belief in the divine or supernatural. I lack any sort of faith, and it simply doesn’t suit me. I’ve grown up in a somewhat superstitious household, which has included my intermediate and somewhat my extended family. I grew out of the beliefs held by them, and I find stuff like tarot cards, fortune tellers, ghosts and so on to be nonsense. Hence, I’m an atheist.

I have a particular dislike of the Abrahamic deity, and from what I’ve read or heard of the Bible and Qur’an, I could never bring myself to worship or like such a being - if it even existed. The bigotry and hatred proported by these three religions dissuade me from liking them as well. I know the phrase the "bad apple spoils the bunch", but a lot of these bigoted things have support in the scriptures.

I’m far more interested and intrigued by the Asian religions such as Shinto and Hinduism, though I am not a believer in them - as I am an atheist. I also like deity-less religions like Buddhism, and my most-liked religions are either from the Indian subcontinent or East Asia. I generally am more favourable to the implementation of Buddhist, Sikh and Taoist religions philosophies and customs in government and on a nationwide scale than the ratification of Abrahamic-inspired law.

Edit: oh, and I really like the aesthetic of European pagan or native faiths, like Suomenusko and Hellenism, or Norse Paganism and Slavic native faiths.

[Salandriagado]

No part of this makes any claims about what your claim is. Kindly go and look up what "strawman" means before using it again. You asked for a working definition of "evil", I gave you three options.



Cut the bullshit. Answering your questions is not strawmanning.



If your English is sufficiently poor that you actually misunderstood what I said to this degree, please let me know, and preferably include your preferred language, and I will simplify my language and translate as best I can. If, as I suspect, you're just bullshitting, fucking quit it.



If you actually answered the fucking question, I wouldn't have to repeat myself. Also, repeating "torturing children is evil" is the only reasonable response to someone who keeps claiming that it isn't.



Irrelevant. Your religion has no bearing on the fact that the physical universe, by definition, is everything that exists.



It's irrelevant. You don't get your own version of reality.

Before this turns into a flame war and we both get hammered by the mods, I'll be departing this conversation seeing how we cannot agree on our views. And I know what strawmanning is and that's exactly what you're doing.

Strawmanning is claiming that your opponent supports a position that they do not. That hasn't happened.

Now that you're swearing a lot, I'm pretty convinced you're not interested in a decent discussion of dialogue. Not unless if you want a flame war.

Linguistic puritanism has no correlation with good discussion.

And all my last points were relevant. You just simply refuse to listen.

No, they weren't.

[Salandriagado]

Here are my reasons for Belief in God (Ironically my nation is Atheist) :

-The bible is too unique to have been made up,

No it isn't. It's fairly similar to a whole bunch of other books, and absolutely could have been made up.

although it can be interpreted to be aligned with scientific fact. For example, the bible says that the world was created in 6 days and on the 7th day God rested. Our vision of a 24 hour day could be a lot different than those who actually wrote those accounts. Those "days" could be a multiple millenniums.

That still doesn't match up to scientific fact, at all, in any way, shape, or form. In particular, the order is wrong (in both contradictory orderings).

-There is tons of archaeological proof of a prophet who came to save sinners

No there isn't.

-It is not possible for the universe to spontaneously explode through the "Big Bang" without something triggering it

Yes, it is.

[Jakker]

I would say ">inb4" but i'm too late

(Image)

I'd recommend adding more substance in the discussion. Posts like this can constitute as spamming. Keep that in mind moving forward.

[Forestavia]

I see a lot of people asking the question about childhood cancer. Hmmmm. How to begin?

Whatever God is, whatever you conceive God to be, God is beyond "good" and "evil". God is one. Humans however, have ego and therefore are not one. We have been shattered into tiny little pieces of consciousness and therefore will never understand God in totality. God is not good. God is not evil. God is not both. God is a total mystery. But I'm not going to give you the "God works in mysterious ways" line.

Childhood cancer exists (like all other suffering) because it exists. It just is. There's your answer. The answer is so simple it almost sounds stupid. Doesn't it? It sounds stupid because we don't like that kind of simplicity. We like to add our own meanings to things. We can't accept that kind of simplicity because we can't accept God as God really is. So what if the consciousness of God decides to experience life through the eyes of a child cancer patient! Why should we judge God for this?

The problem here is that we are looking at God as being separate from the child cancer patient. That is the assumption we need to question.

[Erythrean Thebes]

https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=35164055#p35164055

Apologies, I missed your post before. (I DID reread the debate, as I felt there was a lot of value in the points on both sides.) Perhaps it's not timely anymore, but I feel that I ought to respond to a particular thread of your argument.

In regards to this particular point, your quote above, the Bible accounts for different types of people, some of whom are good, and some of whom are evil. Figures such as Noah, Esau, Joseph, and Christ, adhere to the original code of conduct which humanity observed in the perfect world of Eden.

So that includes getting drunk and getting angry at your son for not covering you and making him into a basic slave?

You will see, God doesn’t punish those people. He gives them assistance throughout their lives and he ultimately repays them for injuries they suffer.

Tell that to JOb who lost all his children

It may be debatable whether or not that is fair, but if you are accepting the premise of the Bible in the first place, it is fairly clear how it would be justified to punish a person for doing wrong.

Given that god created people the way they are, no it really isn't

Do you think that the notion that evil people deserve punishment and good people deserve assistance requires justification?

Not when there is collateral damage. not when the reason people are evil is because of the god who is punishing them. Not when it would be entirely possible that no evil exist in the first place but the god's decisions means it did.

It is not my opinion that it is fair for one evil act at the beginning of time to have ruptured our relationship to God, such that he gives us no succor on Earth and only offers a certain reward for good character after death. I will not make that claim. However, I do contend that it is not illogical, and I claim that it is consistent with the premise of the Bible that mankind was corrupted by sin forever because of the treachery of Eve and Adam.

Except it wasn't treachery, tell me, how are two people who do not know good from evil supposed to be tracherous, they do not even understand the idea. How are they supposed to know they should obey god, they do not know the concept of good or evil. Your God punished all of humanity because he placed a brightly colored very delicious cookie in front of children, told them not to eat it, and then got angry when someone convinced them to eat it.

These examples of God's law you may feel are evil, although - truly - the only logical way to conceive of metaphysics under a Christian scheme is that God is not totally omnipotent, he's not omniscient, he didn't preordain all terrestrial events, and he doesn't impede the free will of living things, and any Christian who tries to claim such will never have a logically coherent view neither of their own religion nor of the observable universe. To be honest, and to answer Salandriagado's earlier demands, the religion is not sensical nor consistent unless you use a weaker definition of God's power and role than the one normally claimed by Christian theologians - one which can actually accord with the condition of the material universe as we observe it. I don't see it is a serious problem that God has a limited sphere of oversight, related to retribution according to what we would call karma, or right and wrong.

But returning briefly to the real point I originally wanted to make - which was, ultimately, that the best atheist arguments are that there is no compelling evidence for God, whereas arguments that the religion is illogical are weak and ultimately false - if you buy into the premise of the religion and accept (a) God's existence, and (b) some truthful content, whether literal or metaphorical, within the Bible, then God's actions in the Bible are not eligible for critique in the sense as if we could say, "this is wrong, and so its not true." If you start from the premise of the religion, then God's actions in the Bible are fait accompli. Just as colonialism was unambiguously wrong, recognizing that and calling it out today has the function of clarifying what is right and what is wrong, but it has no potential to rewrite history or change what is 'purported' to have happened. Just in the same way, for an active Christian person, like history the Bible is illustrative of what has occurred in the past, and it teaches through example (really, through case study) how we ought best to act and how best we ought to conduct ourselves in life.

I don't miss your real point. You don't care about that, you're saying "this definition of right and wrong (and justice) in the Bible is unfair." (However, understand that, if I were the credulous adherent some have accused me of here, the fact that God is supposed as point of fact to have enforced these laws is the end of the debate - my personal sentiments wouldn't matter.) But you know what, Neutraligon, according to the same logic as:

"Given that god created people the way they are, no it really isn't"

That would open the door to saying also:

- it's not fair to introduce toddlers and children, at their young age, to adult standards of decorum and behavior. Better to wait until they're further developed, since as youths, they have no ability to fight their more selfish inclinations

- it's not fair to enforce our society's laws on sociopaths and psychopaths; they were born that way, and they can never acclimate themselves to share the empathy and reciprocity which is the foundation of our ethical and moral code

- it's not fair to ask people to pay taxes. Human beings are made to look out for themselves, and they will always be reluctant to part with what's theirs to support the welfare of their fellow citizens.

- it's not fair to back down from having sex with a person you've intrigued, one way or another. They have a deep and psychologically profound natural desire to consummate that relationship, and terminating it will inflict a tangible and serious blow to their mental health.

In any one of these hypotheticals I invented, the nature of the person in question is in conflict with conventional rules of Western society - but if any one of these scenarios were actually allowed to transpire, it would redound to the harm of numerous other people solely because of the whim of a single individual. However, I recognize that you were in particular concerned with the paradox of God's omnipotence. He could have prevented these conflicts by creating human nature differently. All I'll say to that, is that I am not a typical proponent of the religion. I believe you will confound many credulous and dogmatic believers through such a point. But I am not afraid to admit that, in order for the image of God in the Bible to be coherent, I strongly believe that he is not omnipotent as conventionally defined.

[Salandriagado]

I see a lot of people asking the question about childhood cancer. Hmmmm. How to begin?

Whatever God is, whatever you conceive God to be, God is beyond "good" and "evil". God is one. Humans however, have ego and therefore are not one. We have been shattered into tiny little pieces of consciousness and therefore will never understand God in totality. God is not good. God is not evil. God is not both. God is a total mystery. But I'm not going to give you the "God works in mysterious ways" line.

Childhood cancer exists (like all other suffering) because it exists. It just is. There's your answer. The answer is so simple it almost sounds stupid. Doesn't it? It sounds stupid because we don't like that kind of simplicity. We like to add our own meanings to things. We can't accept that kind of simplicity because we can't accept God as God really is. So what if the consciousness of God decides to experience life through the eyes of a child cancer patient! Why should we judge God for this?

The problem here is that we are looking at God as being separate from the child cancer patient. That is the assumption we need to question.

That's not an answer. That's a cop out. Good and evil are descriptions of actions. Entities are evil if they intentionally perform evil actions. Causing childhood cancer is evil. If you claim that your god (a) is omniscient; and (b) created the universe, then your god necessarily intentionally created childhood cancer. Thus, your god, if your claims are true, is evil.

So what if the consciousness of God decides to experience life through the eyes of a child cancer patient! Why should we judge God for this?

Because torturing children so you can experience something is evil. Any entity that does so is evil, and given that he's supposed to be unchanging, irredeemably evil. Thus, if your god exists, we absolutely should not worship it, and should instead devote all of our efforts to figuring out how to kill it, or at least prevent it from influencing the universe.

[Woudlora]

I do not currently believe in a God. If I had to choose a God, however, it would be the God of the Old Testament. If I had to choose a religion, it would probably be Sedevacantist Catholicism. I think the lack of ritual and general looseness in more recent iterations of Christianity has thoroughly turned me away from ever even considering practicing the religion.

[Godular]

Here are my reasons for Belief in God (Ironically my nation is Atheist) :

-The bible is too unique to have been made up, although it can be interpreted to be aligned with scientific fact. For example, the bible says that the world was created in 6 days and on the 7th day God rested. Our vision of a 24 hour day could be a lot different than those who actually wrote those accounts. Those "days" could be a multiple millenniums.

-There is tons of archaeological proof of a prophet who came to save sinners

-It is not possible for the universe to spontaneously explode through the "Big Bang" without something triggering it

The big bang was not an explosion. Try not to place too much stock in the semantics of the event.