Unscientific survey of 'poly religious beliefs

[Tassadar500]

Nitpicking.
Liberals.

[Nostromo]

And for people who do believe in something, especialy many from the organised religions; i guess its hard to explain why there is so much suffering in the world.
And often the suffering of clearly good and innocent people, while obvious evil-doers seem to be geting away with it.

So thats what never made me a follower of any of the organised religions - their stories of merciful gods and being good being the way, just doesn't seem to coralate with what we actualy see in the world all around us.

Ahhh, the problem of evil...

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/

Thus if, for simplicity, we focus on a conception of God as all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good, one very concise way of formulating such an argument is as follows:

1. If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
2. If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.
3. If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists.
4. If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
5. Evil exists.
6. If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn't have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn't know when evil exists, or doesn't have the desire to eliminate all evil.
7. Therefore, God doesn't exist.

[Sava]

I think that's a poor argument because it leaves out any notion of free will. Maybe God has made a commitment to not interfering with humanity's free will.

[Tassadar500]

Originally posted by Sava
I think that's a poor argument because it leaves out any notion of free will. Maybe God has made a commitment to not interfering with humanity's free will.

Exactly.

[Mr. Harley]

But then God is Deistic, not Theistic. A lot of people are going to be very upset with that idea.

[Tassadar500]

That isn't necessarily true. G-d may not want to interfere with free will, but why does that prevent Him from doing miracles or answering prayers?

[Nostromo]

I think that's a poor argument because it leaves out any notion of free will. Maybe God has made a commitment to not interfering with humanity's free will.

Good point. But what to make of natural disasters, like the recent Tsunami? What I gave you is just the basic outline of the argument. It gets more complicated than that.

[Sava]

Disasters are amoral.

Who knows, maybe God has a "prime directive" of sorts where he doesn't interfere with events in human existence.

Don't get me wrong, I lean more towards atheism then I do theism. But I'm just pointing out weaknesses in your arguments.

[Nostromo]

But then God is Deistic, not Theistic. A lot of people are going to be very upset with that idea.

Good point. I didn't know the difference between deistic and theistic. Here's what I found:

Deistic and theistic (...) describe the relationship between a god and that which it creates. A deistic god is one that would distance itself from that which it creates, one the would not get involved in the activities of the things it created. A deistic god would essentially be an "absentee father" god -- it would create a universe and then sit back and says "I made you, but I don't want to get involved. You're on your own!" The God of the Bible is theistic. He does not distance Himself from that which He creates. He gets actively involved in the activities of the things He created. In fact, the God of the Bible 'micromanages' things.

I believe that if we continue like this, confronting our concept of God with known facts, most people will come to the conclusion that they don't really care whether God exists or not, like they don't really care whether there are blackholes or not. Whether blackholes exist or not is an interesting scientific question, but whether they exist or not doesn't make a difference in your life, unless you study them of course

[child of Thor]

Interesting link nostromo

but ref: 1. If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.

I think that could be the flaw in that particular arguement.

Who knows what alignment 'God' will have? Only human desires to have a moral god creates that scenario(and different people/cultures have different morals).

Isn't it often always the human element that's involved in most organised religion that creates most of the anti-god proof that aethisits come up with?

After all in our advanced modern world surely we should be able to find holes in stuff that was written by our less knowledgable ancestors thousands of years ago or longer?

So i dont think the existence of 'evil' in the world is really a proper arguement against the existence of a 'god' or 'gods', although i can see why it might shake some people's faith.

The appeal of the norse gods for me is the fact that they dont take a moral high ground, they each have their flaws(like we do) and if they were responsible for the creation of man(they have their own creation myth as most religions do), that would make sense that we would be made with flaws also, and able to do 'evil'.

This in part is why i became a child of Thor - i liked the 'realism', and the literature is much more fun than the bible to read

Still i dont think it matters what you believe in - just believe in something that has the ability to make a better world for those that follow us and try to be tolerant of others with a different view.

If that differing view leads to less good in the world then maybe try to gently win them around to see the problem with it?

[Whaleboy]

But then God is Deistic, not Theistic. A lot of people are going to be very upset with that idea.

Absolutely, well observed. And I'm so sorry about what's happened . I think I understand now where you're coming from with regards to deism, I know I said deism = theism earlier but that's not the full picture. (theism |= deism).

I suppose in that respect I'm a fideist (arguments pro God are irrelevant to faith), since it's a very human thing.

If God exists, and engineers/allows such evils to occur in our lives, perhaps we should consider that God is the enemy of humanity, indeed there is not a single word of praise in the bible for intelligence or human endeavour, and God is represented as history's biggest serial killer. God loves us. Hitler loves us.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Lord Nuclear
Nitpicking.
Liberals.

Chabad dinners with kugel
Camp gan
reading the Tanya
reading the tanya instead of say, the Talmud
Or instead of a standard Kabbalistic text
Or instead of a standard Chassidic text
Actually believing the rebbe is moshiach
Putting up a picture of the rebbe on the eastern wall of a room where you daven
Appreciating what the rebbe did for lost souls
trying do something for lost souls ourselves
appreciating what all of judaism has to offer

you think liberals are down on Chabad??? you should see what some mainstream O jews say. Liberal Jews at least dont consider Chabad heretics

[Whaleboy]

you think liberals are down on Chabad??? you should see what some mainstream O jews say. Liberal Jews at least dont consider Chabad heretics

Liberal jews would only consider someone who posted leaflets arguing against God, Zionism and non-intermarriage, caused three Chedar teachers to leave and screwed a girl in a storage cupboard in the Synagogue to be a heretic. Fortunately, I'd accomplished all of these by the age of 16 and was duly dismissed, thus saving me an hours road trip every weekend .

[Brent]

God does not have the power to do anything ungodlike. God does not have the power to control people. The Devil wanted to control people. There must be opposition in all things. You can never know the good if you've never known the bad. People can have more influence on each other than God has on them. God wants people to find Him for themselves. The God of the Bible does not control people. Where it says God hardens someone's heart, it is a mistranslation that should say that person hardens his or her own heart. God does not engineer evil, but He does allow evil. The Devil engineers evil and is the enemy of humanity.

[Japher]

Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

I kind of think the opposite is true: man created god in his own image.