The Son of God:

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bwam wrote:

Satan was trying to prove something about Job to God; God permitted him to attempt to, knowing Satan would fail. This is completely different from the narrative MonstaMunch fabricated.

So you accept that God allowed/instructed the killing of Job's children and the infliction of pain and suffering upon him to prove a point to Satan, just you want to point out it was Satan who did the actual killing. I don't see how that makes anything a fabrication. More interestingly, you haven't had any issues with anything else I've pointed out. Nice God you got there....

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Wittgenstein wrote:

Here is my thing, not going to claim I read all the posts on this so if this was covered then just go on with your life.

1. In the beginning there was God (nothing else)
2. God created the angels
3. Certain angels decide to sin by attempting to overthrow God - lets not even look at what a stupid idea that is, like me walking up to Superman and smacking him in his face but anywho:

Now... how can 3 even happen? If Angels could choose to sin, then sin must have existed but it couldn't have existed because God cannot sin or be in the presence of sin (according to at least some interpretations of the Bible). So basically God created the Angels with a capacity to do something that He himself cannot do or be in the presence of and that didn't exist because only God existed.

This is a problem no? It's not? Okay lets go on

It's only half the problem. The bigger problem with that narrative is that it forgets the biblical claims of God being all knowing. He knew when he created the angels (and Lucifer in particular) what would happen, yet he did it anyway.

Same deal with the snake in the garden of Eden, he created a talking, manipulative snake along with a set of rules about not eating fruit. He knew exactly how the entire scenario would play out, yet he did it anyway and held us responsible. We get to burn for all eternity for the theft of a single piece of fruit, and what was the snake's punishment? To spend the rest of it's life crawling on it's belly. Literally. That was God's punishment for the snake, to crawl on it's belly. Is he fucking stupid? Did he think the snake would otherwise have been driving around in a Bentley?

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MonstaMunch wrote:

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bwam wrote:

Satan was trying to prove something about Job to God; God permitted him to attempt to, knowing Satan would fail. This is completely different from the narrative MonstaMunch fabricated.

So you accept that God allowed/instructed the killing of Job's children and the infliction of pain and suffering upon him to prove a point to Satan, just you want to point out it was Satan who did the actual killing. I don't see how that makes anything a fabrication. More interestingly, you haven't had any issues with anything else I've pointed out. Nice God you got there....

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Wittgenstein wrote:

Here is my thing, not going to claim I read all the posts on this so if this was covered then just go on with your life.

1. In the beginning there was God (nothing else)
2. God created the angels
3. Certain angels decide to sin by attempting to overthrow God - lets not even look at what a stupid idea that is, like me walking up to Superman and smacking him in his face but anywho:

Now... how can 3 even happen? If Angels could choose to sin, then sin must have existed but it couldn't have existed because God cannot sin or be in the presence of sin (according to at least some interpretations of the Bible). So basically God created the Angels with a capacity to do something that He himself cannot do or be in the presence of and that didn't exist because only God existed.

This is a problem no? It's not? Okay lets go on

It's only half the problem. The bigger problem with that narrative is that it forgets the biblical claims of God being all knowing. He knew when he created the angels (and Lucifer in particular) what would happen, yet he did it anyway.

Same deal with the snake in the garden of Eden, he created a talking, manipulative snake along with a set of rules about not eating fruit. He knew exactly how the entire scenario would play out, yet he did it anyway and held us responsible. We get to burn for all eternity for the theft of a single piece of fruit, and what was the snake's punishment? To spend the rest of it's life crawling on it's belly. Literally. That was God's punishment for the snake, to crawl on it's belly. Is he fucking stupid? Did he think the snake would otherwise have been driving around in a Bentley?

Totally agree. the only way out for theists that I have heard - beyond Alvin Plantinga's modal Ontological Argument which isn't very satisfying and really only can get so far as to say God exists but not the Christian God - is to say that God by necessity *needs* to create, like in order for God too God He *must* create and that life is an intrinsic good which counter balances the pain and suffering caused by, well, life in general. I believe that this could certainly be true but even then it doesn't justify Him sending (guessing here) over 80% of the total humans ever born to Hell.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

God by necessity *needs* to create, like in order for God too God He *must* create and that life is an intrinsic good which counter balances the pain and suffering caused by, well, life in general.

That doesn't work because the Bible claims that God is omnipotent. If he can't create good without creating evil then he isn't omnipotent by definition.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

Here is my thing, not going to claim I read all the posts on this so if this was covered then just go on with your life.

1. In the beginning there was God (nothing else)
2. God created the angels
3. Certain angels decide to sin by attempting to overthrow God - lets not even look at what a stupid idea that is, like me walking up to Superman and smacking him in his face but anywho:

Now... how can 3 even happen? If Angels could choose to sin, then sin must have existed but it couldn't have existed because God cannot sin or be in the presence of sin (according to at least some interpretations of the Bible). So basically God created the Angels with a capacity to do something that He himself cannot do or be in the presence of and that didn't exist because only God existed.

This is a problem no? It's not? Okay lets go on.

4. God creates man.
5. God allows fallen angel to trick man.
6. God punishes man for falling for the fallen angels trick by kicking mankind out of Eden, giving plants thorns, making animals eat other animals and makes child birth hurt.

Now. Lets pause here... why are animals punished for mankinds choice? why did God allow us to make the choice since He knew what we would choose?

7. God watches humanity spread.
8. God decides to kill off mankind with a giant flood (couldn't he just blink us out of existence? why did everyone have to drown in pain? Does God enjoy pain?)
9. God decides not to kill us all (can God really decide not to do something He already would have known he wouldn't have done because God is omniscient? Does that make God a liar?)


Time passes....

10. God decides to impregnate a woman so that she can give birth to Him so that He can die for us to save us from sin which was created by God creating the Angels.

Now... I dunno about you. But this just seems bat-fart nuts.

You forget their fail-safe catch all - God works in mysterious ways. Can't explain it or correlate with God? God works in mysterious ways.

Also I could imagine a christian saying something to the effect 'you can't possible fathom creation from God's perspective and he created sin to create a more perfect world for man and/or something like this world is with sin to test man and God trusts the righteous will find their way to heaven.'

I've argued with a lot of door to door mormans w/e they are on these exact subjects.

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GeorgAnatoly wrote:

You forget their fail-safe catch all - God works in mysterious ways. Can't explain it or correlate with God? God works in mysterious ways.

That does nothing for the point being made though. Mysterious or not, God created evil, he killed off almost all of humanity, and he commanded man inflict pain and suffering upon one another. Mysterious or not, it's fucked up. It also doesn't jive with the claims of God being benevolent and merciful.

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Also I could imagine a christian saying something to the effect 'you can't possible fathom creation from God's perspective and he created sin to create a more perfect world for man and/or something like this world is with sin to test man and God trusts the righteous will find their way to heaven.

Test? Why would someone who already knows everything need to test anything? He already knows how it will turn out, so all the pain and suffering is pointless.

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MonstaMunch wrote:

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Wittgenstein wrote:

God by necessity *needs* to create, like in order for God too God He *must* create and that life is an intrinsic good which counter balances the pain and suffering caused by, well, life in general.

That doesn't work because the Bible claims that God is omnipotent. If he can't create good without creating evil then he isn't omnipotent by definition.

Actually no. Omnipotence means that God can do whatever is logically possible to do. For example it isn't a knock against God that He cannot create a round-square or have me be taller than myself or make 1+1=3.

Similarly, the theist argues, intrinsic to the nature of God is the act of creation and therefore it is impossible for God to be God without creating. Just like it is intrinsic to being a mammal that you produce milk for your young or that it is intrinsic for a flowering plant to produce pollen.

Conceding this point to the theist isn't that big of a deal. At most it gets them God. It doesn't get them anything about God that they actually want - like that He loves you, or has a plan, or that Heaven exists or any of the rest of it.

Moreover, the theist can argue that we would have no conception of good without there being evil. If you were born blind you have no conception of sight, it is only by having sight that you can be aware of its absence. The theist argues for example that life itself is an intrinsic good which outweighs the existence of evil - this is a common tactic to get around the problem with evil - and one that cannot be readily dismissed without some serious work.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

Actually no. Omnipotence means that God can do whatever is logically possible to do. For example it isn't a knock against God that He cannot create a round-square or have me be taller than myself or make 1+1=3.

Similarly, the theist argues, intrinsic to the nature of God is the act of creation and therefore it is impossible for God to be God without creating. Just like it is intrinsic to being a mammal that you produce milk for your young or that it is intrinsic for a flowering plant to produce pollen.

I don't see the relevance. Are you saying that in order to create something good he has to create something bad? He can't just create healthy people, he also has to create parasites that literally eat through baby's eyeballs and into their brains? I don't follow the logic.

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Moreover, the theist can argue that we would have no conception of good without there being evil.

So God could just give us the conception.

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The theist argues for example that life itself is an intrinsic good which outweighs the existence of evil

Again, look at the example of babies born with parasites that slowly and painfully start killing them before they are even born. There is no intrinsic good behind that, and we can conceptualize the difference between good and bad without it.

It all boils down to this; If the world could be better (and I don't see how anyone could argue that it couldn't) then either God isn't capable of making it better, or he has chosen not to. Either of those options contradict claims made of the God of Abraham.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

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MonstaMunch wrote:

"

Wittgenstein wrote:

God by necessity *needs* to create, like in order for God too God He *must* create and that life is an intrinsic good which counter balances the pain and suffering caused by, well, life in general.

That doesn't work because the Bible claims that God is omnipotent. If he can't create good without creating evil then he isn't omnipotent by definition.

Actually no. Omnipotence means that God can do whatever is logically possible to do. For example it isn't a knock against God that He cannot create a round-square or have me be taller than myself or make 1+1=3.

Similarly, the theist argues, intrinsic to the nature of God is the act of creation and therefore it is impossible for God to be God without creating. Just like it is intrinsic to being a mammal that you produce milk for your young or that it is intrinsic for a flowering plant to produce pollen.

Conceding this point to the theist isn't that big of a deal. At most it gets them God. It doesn't get them anything about God that they actually want - like that He loves you, or has a plan, or that Heaven exists or any of the rest of it.

Moreover, the theist can argue that we would have no conception of good without there being evil. If you were born blind you have no conception of sight, it is only by having sight that you can be aware of its absence. The theist argues for example that life itself is an intrinsic good which outweighs the existence of evil - this is a common tactic to get around the problem with evil - and one that cannot be readily dismissed without some serious work.

First, let me start by saying theism is silly and I have little interest in unironic discussion of a literal interpretation of the Bible.

That said, I do not consider religion to be a waste of time, providing that by "religion" I mean not occultism — that is, the worship and/or service of the supernatural — but instead a set of attitudes, beliefs and practices characterized by faithful devotion. The context of concepts such as faith, worship, sin, prayer, sainthood and desecration do not necessarily require the existence of God or the supernatural.

So regarding your last point, on good and evil — the context of these concepts is choice. Good and evil do not relate to the actions of a programmed computer, as its behavior is predetermined; however, if the programmer of said computer has free will, then choice-driven actions that drive towards the optimal are good, and those away from optimal evil. In this way, it is possible for such a computer to be a vessel for either good or evil, despite its lack of choice; as a tool, it is imbued with the good or evil of the choices that formed it.

The context of "optimal" also varies. We can easily understand how a choice that is not our own is good for us or bad for us. Therefore, even if we do not have free will, there would still be good and evil relative to us in the choices made by any entity that does have free will.

Therefore, the only framings of reality in which good and evil do not exist are:
1. Full determinism — that is, wherein no entity at any time has ever possessed free will, or
2. Full moral nihilism — that is, wherein all choices that have ever been are equally optimal, thus rendering choice meaningless.

A precondition of full moral nihilism is full value nihilism, ex: pain and pleasure are equally valuable and therefore it matters not which occurs. I find this position untenable. I also find that I can behave unpredictability within a certain range of possibilities, therefore full determinism is untenable. Therefore, good and evil exist.

This is far too high-level of a conversation for a thread about an unironic Abrahamic God.

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To be useful ITT, I'll say that I care not what fairy tales people believe in as long as they uphold existing social contracts. Pay your taxes, follow the law, and the rest is up to you.

Also, ascribing sentience to something unobservable is about as sane as giving it a name, a face, or anything else. It's unknowable, so there's no point in trying to anthropomorphize the "reason" for existence. In fact, it actively harms discussion about it.