Rock Beyond Belief

[Spademan 94]

You're also making this connection of "God's plan" with "making them pay," which just isn't the same thing. Obviously if you believe that people deserve it, then you won't feel compassion for them. I'm saying that only ridiculous people believe that.

Well, first of all, that is a lot of ridiculous people. The amount of people who believe that a man who hasn't hurt anyone in his life, who may volunteer at charities, is a fireman who's saved a dozen lives, loved his family and his children and helped out his friends in need... that believe this man is going to be tortured and burned in hell for all eternity, because he doesn't believe in a particular Zombie... the number of people who believe this is staggeringly and disgustingly high. As a society, we have decided that torturing and burning a serial murderer and rapist for a minute and half would be cruel and unusual punishment. As a society we find the idea reprehensible. Now, these people, these fucking sick pieces of shit, these stupid ass delusional, compartmentalizing dumbfucks, who understand with their rational brain that torturing and burning a man who may have stolen a bike and done drugs is a disgusting concept... these dumbfucks are perfectly fine with the idea that excellent and compassionate human beings, who might have cured cancer in their lifetime or solved world hunger, it wouldn't matter, are going to be tortured and burned for ALL enternity by a loving and wrathful god, because they never accept a 2000 year old zombie "into their hearts".But ya, a lot of ridiculous people.I'm not understanding, however, the distinction you are making here. So, people who think god is punishing dead 9 year old's are ridiculous. Sure, agreed. Where are you drawing the ridiculous line? People who just sort of moderately believe that Xenu are going to take them away in a spaceship someday? On which side of the line do they rest? Christians who don't read the bible too much, go to church every once in awhile? Is simple prayer spared from the bin of the ridiculous? Personally, I think praying to invisible and intangible people, particularly since every time we try to test the effect of prayer it shows no effect, is ridiculous. Since I was 8 or so, in that short time I was forced to attend church on the occasional Sunday, I thought it was ridiculous. "Why is everyone holding up their hands and mumbling?" They're praying to god. "Why are they holding their hands up?" To receive god. "God is invisible?" Haha. Kind of. Hush. "Is he shooting invisible rays into their hands?" Be quiet, you're making a scene."This is stupid, can we go?"

[vbnautilus 48]

Do you think what he said is interesting or thought-provoking in any way? It seems like a pretty stupid argument in my opinion.

Holy crap, he does have his own opinion!On further reflection this is till a comment about the validity of a particular argument.

Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn’t care to, or he doesn’t exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely.The first and third options make no sense. By definition God can never be impotent. The third option, imaginary, is only there as a way to say that if you don't think God is evil, then he doesn't exist because he must be evil if he does exist...wait, I think I passed my starting point.So what about that second option, that God is evil because he allows something like this to happen? "Dear God, stop telling me how to live my life, but could you go ahead and make sure nothing really bad happens to me?" Anyway, the formula seems to be "God allows X people to suffer = evil." What is X? Is God evil because anything bad happens? I'd like to understand this point better.

If we take the God idea seriously then option 2 is really more than he "allowed" X to happen. Given that he created everything with foresight, he actually caused X to happen. Even if we give him the out of our free will to absolve him of responsibility for the crap we do to ourselves, when it comes to natural disasters its all him. He is fully responsible for the tsunami. He actually must have wanted it to happen, otherwise he would have created things such that it didn't happen. It's not much of a jump to calling that evil.

[Skeleton Jelly 2]

But Harris point is simple enough, when you are busy making excuses for disastor as God's will it takes away from being compasionate in alot of cases. He is not saying that it will in every case. From an athiest perspective that it was simply a terrible disaster there really isn't a question and compassion is the only real "moral" emotion to have, because if you don't you're pretty heartless and have problems.

But that simply isnt true. I've heard people I know say just that. Either they deserved it, or it's all a part of god's plan comes out of the mouth of christians all the time. And the problem is that they refuse to acknowledge how utterly ridiculous such statements are.

The above is really the main thing I'm arguing against and I got drawn into the existence of God question and got hammered by Spademan."They deserved it" and "God's plan" are two completely different things. "They deserved it" will absolutely keep someone from showing any compassion. I think those people suck as much as you. (Um, as much as you think they suck, not as much as you suck.) "God's plan" does not keep someone from showing compassion. It's not making excuses. The people who say "they deserved it" are the ones trying to make excuses, the people who say "it's God's plan" are the ones who are saying I don't know why this terrible thing happened, so all I can do is show compassion.But I don't know where we go from here on this because if it's just going to be a bunch of personal anecdotes, that doesn't really get us anywhere. I'll try to address the God is evil logical contradiction later.

[vbnautilus 48]

the people who say "it's God's plan" are the ones who are saying I don't know why this terrible thing happened, so all I can do is show compassion.

I think they are saying something slightly different than that. They are saying they don't know why this terrible thing happened, but they assume there is a good reason for it.

[Skeleton Jelly 2]

I think they are saying something slightly different than that. They are saying they don't know why this terrible thing happened, but they assume there is a good reason for it.

I'll give you that, but I still don't see how that changes things.As a parent, if you know your child will have to endure something painful, but it will be for their own good in the long run, do you not feel bad about it? "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you?" I mean, how long has that idea been around? Even though I know this is for your own good and even though I know it will be painful for you, it's much harder on me to see you go through it.Does knowing there's a reason for it prevent compassion?

[Skeleton Jelly 2]

You're completely missing his point. Someone bringing up the Easter Bunny to "comfort someone's pain" is exactly the same to people who don't hold irrational and magical beliefs as using The God of Abraham, Allah, El, Zeus, Xenu, Krishna...

I think I missed this first time around. I would agree that if someone was trying to use God to comfort someone else, then that isn't really helping. That's just misguided help, not being cold-hearted. If you were to take the subset of people who actually help in time of tragedy, you guys think those numbers are going to be significantly skewed towards atheists over Christians? I tend to think it would be pretty even. I don't know that there are, or even can be, statistics on such a thing.

[Balloon guy 158]

Holy crap, he does have his own opinion!On further reflection this is till a comment about the validity of a particular argument. If we take the God idea seriously then option 2 is really more than he "allowed" X to happen. Given that he created everything with foresight, he actually caused X to happen. Even if we give him the out of our free will to absolve him of responsibility for the crap we do to ourselves, when it comes to natural disasters its all him. He is fully responsible for the tsunami. He actually must have wanted it to happen, otherwise he would have created things such that it didn't happen. It's not much of a jump to calling that evil.

So let's simplify your and Spade's position:You have determined that you are capable of making a declarative statement about how God is to conduct Himself with regards to His choices of interaction with human beings.This judgment is based on your world view, on how you think things should be. ( in reality on how you would act if you were God and a nice guy )Since God does not fit these conditions that you have decided He must; He therefore cannot exist, or He is Himself evil.Is this about right? I know you are soooo hesitant to agree, fearing the trap.

[Balloon guy 158]

1. God exists. <--Good starting point 2. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. <-- Although correct, maybe not correct in the sense that we can understand. What does perfectly good mean? It doesn't mean never allows anything 'not good' to happen, neutral things would be in the 'not good' category, and bad things like pain can obviously be good for other reasons. 3. A perfectly good being would want to prevent all evils. <--- This is the second straw man built off the notion that we have decided that perfectly good means something that it doesn't have to mean. 4. An omniscient being knows every way in which evils can come into existence. <---Agree, that is kind of what being All-Knowing means, they know it all 5. An omnipotent being, who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, has the power to prevent that evil from coming into existence. <--- Has the power is not the same as has the motive. America has the power to militarily defeat everyone in the world, but we don't have the motivation, yet. 6. A being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, who is able to prevent that evil from coming into existence, and who wants to do so, would prevent the existence of that evil. <--- The catch all is the third part: and who wants to do so, There has not been an explanation for why God would want to do so, God can place conditions that He abides by like cause and effect for mankind, and because He placed the condition, He denies Himself to interfere, does that in anyway make God unable to do something? 7. If there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good being, then no evil exists. <-----completely devoid of facts. How do we know what the make up of all things are to determine that God's existence makes impossible the existence of evil? And since there obviously is evil, and we are going off statement 1, then this statement destroys itself. There is a God, and there is evil; to say that a perfectly good being would not allow evil is circular reasoning in this format. 8. Evil exists (logical contradiction). <---a conclusion based on a straw man that we are deep enough in our wisdom and understanding to determine the make up of all creation. A tiny bit of modesty allows for the condition that we are lacking a lot of the facts to draw a conclusion about how the universe is made up and what God thinks.

[Roll the Bones 74]

So you are saying that what Job's friends said was right, and that's what gives you an excuse to judge God's action.Even though God clearly tells Job's friends they are completely wrong.Then you say satan isn't really the devil, and there is no heaven, and no hell.And you want me to explain what the Bible says?You literally have approached the Bible completely sure that for 2,000 years nobody has been able to figure out that satan is not the devil and that God is completely trapped by a set of rules demanding He act according to your actions.You know what makes me nervous in the Christian community? When someone 'finds' something previously missed in the Bible. If you were a Christian, you would literally be forming a cult now, with the new information. All those idiots who read the original Hebrew are fools, never seeing what so plainly is clear: God rewards you and punishes you strictly based on your actions, there is no heaven or hell, and satan is not the devil, he's just some guy who apperently can troll God and make Him do bad stuff to people then mock them. He did this for no reason.

First off, while reading the OT, I was actually a little excited to get to Job since it was someone I had heard of and at leat knew a little about it. Mostly, "The patience of Job" was one of my mom's favorite sayings so I was curious as to the actual story. I thought it was God testing Job to see if he was really, you know, patient. As I found out most often though, the story you hear about the bible isn't really what the story was about. Okay on the satan thingy. I remember that satan appeared in Genesis and then wasn't heard from since. God is often mad at the Isrraelites or others for worshiping other Gods, like Baal, or using magic so I was pretty pumped to see Satan finally appear again. I thought I might get the story of Satan or something but instead he appears with the "sons of God" and is simply an "adversary" as translated from Hebrew. I had a Jewish revised bible amongst others and switched around, along with some reference books to help out. So, basically an "adversary" appeared and started teasing God saying that the people he is leading aren't all that righteous. So if you can point out the part of there being a Devil who is trying to rule the earth let me know because I didn't get that. God gets all defensive and like a little kid is all, "Yes they are!" Satan, "No they're not!" God tells satan that no matter what he did, Job at the very least wouldn't deny God's power. And he didn't in the long run. So Satan "entices" God into letting him first torture everyone close to Job, killing his wife and ten kids and all. Then he goes back and entices God again into letting him toruture Job since the family torture wasn't working. God gives "permission" for this little experiment, or wager. Job did nothing wrong.But your view of the story was the "good part" was God smiting people that accused Job of having done something wrong. I don't really get the moral of that. I mean I was thinking that God was feeling sorry for letting all this shit happen to Job, but not enough to stop it or anything. The moral to me came in the 4 chapters where God spoke, and that moral was that people shouldn't question his "power and might" and to be subservient because of that power. It had nothing to do with justice. 9:20 though I am blameless, God will declare me guilty.The moral is to be a slave to God, don't question his motives because he is all powerful. If you can show me anything different like I said, I'm open. But to say I can't understand God is lame. God talks for 4 chapters. Can't I take God at his word? It seems to me that YOU are coming up with your own version of the bible. I am simply retelling what happened (and I cited references). It is a perfect example of people making something out of the bible that isn't there. Job really didn't have patience, he whined impatiently for 36 chapters.

[vbnautilus 48]

I'll give you that, but I still don't see how that changes things.As a parent, if you know your child will have to endure something painful, but it will be for their own good in the long run, do you not feel bad about it? "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you?" I mean, how long has that idea been around? Even though I know this is for your own good and even though I know it will be painful for you, it's much harder on me to see you go through it.Does knowing there's a reason for it prevent compassion?

Well I don't necessarily agree that it always prevents compassion. As usual Sam is taking the most incendiary view possible there. But I can see why people find the notion that "this is good for Japan even though it is painful" very distasteful, and that does seem to be the underlying message of "it's god's plan".

So let's simplify your and Spade's position:You have determined that you are capable of making a declarative statement about how God is to conduct Himself with regards to His choices of interaction with human beings.This judgment is based on your world view, on how you think things should be. ( in reality on how you would act if you were God and a nice guy )Since God does not fit these conditions that you have decided He must; He therefore cannot exist, or He is Himself evil.Is this about right? I know you are soooo hesitant to agree, fearing the trap.

Small but important correction. The logic is that God does not fit the conditions required for pure goodness. Since that's the version you believe in, that version doesn't exist. This argument does not rule out the possibility of a God who is a total dickhead, which would be compatible with say, the Old Testament. I thought we were all in agreement that tens of thousands of people dying in a natural disaster was a bad thing, but I guess we aren't.

[Roll the Bones 74]

From the same article, the Christian response.

The Rev. Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse, an international Christian relief organizationI don’t believe God does want this to happen. I don’t think it was ever God’s intention.We know that there are going to be storms in life. No matter what happens we need to keep our faith and trust in almighty God. And I want the people of Japan to know that God hasn’t forgotten them, that God does care for them and that he loves them.We care and God cares, and we’re standing by them.

He is saying that yes, God has the power to do this, and he might have, but he doesn't think he would do it. It's hard to tell because God did shit like this in the bible all the time and trying to figure out why he would do this is about impossible. There is no rhyme or reason, so bascially don't try to understand. Just know that God doesn't wield justice, he wields power. So it's best to simply do as he says, have faith without reason, and trust him because the consequences are pretty ugly if you don't. Act like a slave and don't question.

[SuitedAces21 2,723]

As a parent, if you know your child will have to endure something painful, but it will be for their own good in the long run, do you not feel bad about it? "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you?" I mean, how long has that idea been around? Even though I know this is for your own good and even though I know it will be painful for you, it's much harder on me to see you go through it.

We're not talking about skinned knees and vaccine shots here. We're talking death, and baby rape. Would you stop your child from being raped if you could? I think yes. To not do so would be pure evil.

[Balloon guy 158]

First off, while reading the OT, I was actually a little excited to get to Job since it was someone I had heard of and at leat knew a little about it. Mostly, "The patience of Job" was one of my mom's favorite sayings so I was curious as to the actual story. I thought it was God testing Job to see if he was really, you know, patient. As I found out most often though, the story you hear about the bible isn't really what the story was about. Okay on the satan thingy. I remember that satan appeared in Genesis and then wasn't heard from since. God is often mad at the Isrraelites or others for worshiping other Gods, like Baal, or using magic so I was pretty pumped to see Satan finally appear again. I thought I might get the story of Satan or something but instead he appears with the "sons of God" and is simply an "adversary" as translated from Hebrew. I had a Jewish revised bible amongst others and switched around, along with some reference books to help out. So, basically an "adversary" appeared and started teasing God saying that the people he is leading aren't all that righteous. So if you can point out the part of there being a Devil who is trying to rule the earth let me know because I didn't get that. God gets all defensive and like a little kid is all, "Yes they are!" Satan, "No they're not!" God tells satan that no matter what he did, Job at the very least wouldn't deny God's power. And he didn't in the long run. So Satan "entices" God into letting him first torture everyone close to Job, killing his wife and ten kids and all. Then he goes back and entices God again into letting him toruture Job since the family torture wasn't working. God gives "permission" for this little experiment, or wager. Job did nothing wrong.But your view of the story was the "good part" was God smiting people that accused Job of having done something wrong. I don't really get the moral of that. I mean I was thinking that God was feeling sorry for letting all this shit happen to Job, but not enough to stop it or anything. The moral to me came in the 4 chapters where God spoke, and that moral was that people shouldn't question his "power and might" and to be subservient because of that power. It had nothing to do with justice. 9:20 though I am blameless, God will declare me guilty.The moral is to be a slave to God, don't question his motives because he is all powerful. If you can show me anything different like I said, I'm open. But to say I can't understand God is lame. God talks for 4 chapters. Can't I take God at his word? It seems to me that YOU are coming up with your own version of the bible. I am simply retelling what happened (and I cited references). It is a perfect example of people making something out of the bible that isn't there. Job really didn't have patience, he whined impatiently for 36 chapters.

The bolded is why I said the book was mostly boring.We'll have to have the satan's existence part another time, it honestly seems kind of argumentative for the sake of being argumentative, but I will admit I have not ever looked at it from your perspective so I will give you the benefit of the doubt for now that there is a reasonable argument that satan is not the devil, and doesn't show up much and why.The exegesis of what the interaction between satan and God means is deeper than just God saying: "What's up?" And satan saying: "Nuttin. Was up dog?"There was a reason for God asking satan where he had been. God already knew where satan had physically been, and He knew what satan thought about his position in the earth. So why else would God ask satan this? That is the reasoning behind exploring deeper the meaning of what God's question meant. When you see God's promise to Abraham in Gen 13:17

14 The LORD said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. 15 All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring[a] forever. 16 I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. 17 Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”

Once you establish that satan was laying claim to the world because he was now walking all over it, then you see what satan was implying, that he was now the ruler of the earth.Why God allowed Job to suffer is one of the many great theological debates about the existence of evil in the world.But Job's friends are a great example of man trying to make the case that he knows the mind of God. This is folly, man does not know what God thinks, nor is he privy to enough information to judge God's plans and actions.It gets back to the ethical dilemma question: If you can go back in time and kill Hitler as a child, would you?"From a person in the 1910's perspective, your actions are evil, from a person with our knowledge, it would be good because of how bad Hitler was. From God's perspective it would be ? He knows how Hitler affected every single person from the moment he was born till the end of all time. How every single action changed things for every one, and how those changes changed things etc. That amount of info kind of makes our info seem a bit weak sauce to go tossing around like we are logic studs. I guess it gets back to humility for me. God has a plan and I am not worthy to dissect His plans and judge the methods He chooses to employ. Therefore I accept that God's plan is perfect and that following His plan for me is the best I can hope to accomplish in this world.Yes, it allows all God's actions to be looked at with a positive spin, when there are times I have no possible justification from my perspective ( tsunami ), but I am not basing this on my desire to be ignorant, I am basing it on my acknowledgment on my ignorance. I see this as a critical difference.

[Skeleton Jelly 2]

Well I don't necessarily agree that it always prevents compassion. As usual Sam is taking the most incendiary view possible there. But I can see why people find the notion that "this is good for Japan even though it is painful" very distasteful, and that does seem to be the underlying message of "it's god's plan".

You need to take out the "for Japan" part; that's not known. I don't know if that makes it any less distasteful.But, again, whether you like that notion or not has no bearing on whether someone can still be sympathetic and want to help.

I thought we were all in agreement that tens of thousands of people dying in a natural disaster was a bad thing, but I guess we aren't.

Yes, it's a bad thing from our point of view. Would you at least grant that someone who has lived forever and who will live forevermore and who sees the entire universe might view things differently than we do? (I don't want to get into the Biblical God; I'm more interested in a theoretical God.) Do we mourn for our skin cells as they die? Couldn't God view us in a manner similar to that? (I suppose the difference is that we don't have any control over whether our skin cells die.) But it's this issue of scale that always sticks in my craw whenever certain traits are assigned to God. It just doesn't feel right to me, but I haven't really spent a lot of time thinking about it or reading into it.

[Balloon guy 158]

Well I don't necessarily agree that it always prevents compassion. As usual Sam is taking the most incendiary view possible there.

I think the fact that this is the tact he employes shows more of his lack of compasion that anything he is accusing us of being/having.

But I can see why people find the notion that "this is good for Japan even though it is painful" very distasteful, and that does seem to be the underlying message of "it's god's plan".

I do not know one person who thinks this is good for Japan. I am sure there are people who believe that Japan deserves this for x, but I cannot imagine why anyone would say that this is good for them.

Small but important correction. The logic is that God does not fit the conditions required for pure goodness. Since that's the version you believe in, that version doesn't exist. This argument does not rule out the possibility of a God who is a total dickhead, which would be compatible with say, the Old Testament.

You ever stop to wonder what you are going to do if you find that this jerk God you think exists is actually the one that does and He has complete and total control over you and your opinion of Him is completely meaningless? Cause I don't think the comfort of 'Hey, I was right this guy is kind of a jerk' is going to be as satisfying as you are thinking it will be.

I thought we were all in agreement that tens of thousands of people dying in a natural disaster was a bad thing, but I guess we aren't.

Again, a straw man that since God can stop this, He must stop this or else He is evil.Conditions from your perspective that honestly doesn't even remotely fit in your own confessed world view that natural death is good death.

[Balloon guy 158]

From the same article, the Christian response.He is saying that yes, God has the power to do this, and he might have, but he doesn't think he would do it. It's hard to tell because God did shit like this in the bible all the time and trying to figure out why he would do this is about impossible. There is no rhyme or reason, so bascially don't try to understand. Just know that God doesn't wield justice, he wields power. So it's best to simply do as he says, have faith without reason, and trust him because the consequences are pretty ugly if you don't. Act like a slave and don't question.

I don't get how you get that from what Graham said.Billy is saying that God doesn't like bad things to happen, but that bad things do happen. The bad things happening are not directed at the individuals, they are just consequences of conditions. In this case, the condition of two plates having built up a lot of pressure and needing to release it.

[Skeleton Jelly 2]

We're not talking about skinned knees and vaccine shots here. We're talking death, and baby rape. Would you stop your child from being raped if you could? I think yes. To not do so would be pure evil.

You keep intertwining two separate arguments.

[vbnautilus 48]

Yes, it's a bad thing from our point of view. Would you at least grant that someone who has lived forever and who will live forevermore and who sees the entire universe might view things differently than we do? (I don't want to get into the Biblical God; I'm more interested in a theoretical God.) Do we mourn for our skin cells as they die? Couldn't God view us in a manner similar to that? (I suppose the difference is that we don't have any control over whether our skin cells die.) But it's this issue of scale that always sticks in my craw whenever certain traits are assigned to God. It just doesn't feel right to me, but I haven't really spent a lot of time thinking about it or reading into it.

The difference is not just that we don't have control over whether or not our skin cells die... it's also important that our skin cells are not capable of suffering. They don't deserve any more sympathy from us than other particles of dust do. Certainly god might be as unsympathetic towards the japanese as we are towards our skin cells.. but doesn't that still leave him unsympathetic? The humans living there are actually suffering, and God wants it that way. Yes, he might be unsympathetic for good reason, because destroying japan ultimately through an elaborate butterfly effect leads to the second great renaissance which he deems more important that a few hundred thousand lives. But even that perspective seems to be pretty callous towards the suffering of the tsunami victims.

You ever stop to wonder what you are going to do if you find that this jerk God you think exists is actually the one that does and He has complete and total control over you and your opinion of Him is completely meaningless? Cause I don't think the comfort of 'Hey, I was right this guy is kind of a jerk' is going to be as satisfying as you are thinking it will be.

I spend at least an hour each day carefully considering all of the various deities I might be offending by my lifestyle. It's exhausting, but hey, better safe than sorry, right?

Again, a straw man that since God can stop this, He must stop this or else He is evil.

I'll rephrase this again for the proper perspective. He desired it and caused it to happen.

Conditions from your perspective that honestly doesn't even remotely fit in your own confessed world view that natural death is good death.

huh?

[SuitedAces21 2,723]

You keep intertwining two separate arguments.

One springs from the other.How can we talk of god allowing evil in the world without making a claim on whether by allowing evil, god is evil?

[Skeleton Jelly 2]

One springs from the other.How can we talk of god allowing evil in the world without making a claim on whether by allowing evil, god is evil?

Right, that's one argument. That's not what I was talking about.

[Roll the Bones 74]

You need to take out the "for Japan" part; that's not known. I don't know if that makes it any less distasteful.But, again, whether you like that notion or not has no bearing on whether someone can still be sympathetic and want to help.Yes, it's a bad thing from our point of view. Would you at least grant that someone who has lived forever and who will live forevermore and who sees the entire universe might view things differently than we do? (I don't want to get into the Biblical God; I'm more interested in a theoretical God.) Do we mourn for our skin cells as they die? Couldn't God view us in a manner similar to that? (I suppose the difference is that we don't have any control over whether our skin cells die.) But it's this issue of scale that always sticks in my craw whenever certain traits are assigned to God. It just doesn't feel right to me, but I haven't really spent a lot of time thinking about it or reading into it.

I think the point is that if this is the way God is, a non-interfering god then why would you worship him? There would really be no reason if you are nothing more than skin cells to him and mass destruction doesn't seem to be a big deal to him.

[Balloon guy 158]

I spend at least an hour each day carefully considering all of the various deities I might be offending by my lifestyle. It's exhausting, but hey, better safe than sorry, right?

Must be that wife of yours keeping you on your toes

I'll rephrase this again for the proper perspective. He desired it and caused it to happen.

I can see why you like Sam now...

huh?

All deaths in evolution are a good thing. They weed out the unfit, they reduce the demands o resources, and they are equal in their purpose to everything else.In fact without death, evolution would fail.

[Roll the Bones 74]

I don't get how you get that from what Graham said.Billy is saying that God doesn't like bad things to happen, but that bad things do happen. The bad things happening are not directed at the individuals, they are just consequences of conditions. In this case, the condition of two plates having built up a lot of pressure and needing to release it.

'Well, I obviously ad libbed but I like my version better.

[Skeleton Jelly 2]

The difference is not just that we don't have control over whether or not our skin cells die... it's also important that our skin cells are not capable of suffering. They don't deserve any more sympathy from us than other particles of dust do. Certainly god might be as unsympathetic towards the japanese as we are towards our skin cells.. but doesn't that still leave him unsympathetic? The humans living there are actually suffering, and God wants it that way. Yes, he might be unsympathetic for good reason, because destroying japan ultimately through an elaborate butterfly effect leads to the second great renaissance which he deems more important that a few hundred thousand lives. But even that perspective seems to be pretty callous towards the suffering of the tsunami victims.

But isn't that still applying our own sensibilities to God? That's my main issue in trying to use something like good or evil to disprove the existence of God.

I think the point is that if this is the way God is, a non-interfering god then why would you worship him? There would really be no reason if you are nothing more than skin cells to him and mass destruction doesn't seem to be a big deal to him.

Well, that's why I made the distinction between the Biblical God and simply a God.

[Balloon guy 158]

I think the point is that if this is the way God is, a non-interfering god then why would you worship him? There would really be no reason if you are nothing more than skin cells to him and mass destruction doesn't seem to be a big deal to him.

What if you accept that you are in a world with pain and suffering and bad things will happen at times.But there is a God who wants the best for you and will filter all things that happen to you with a couple of conditions:1. He will make sure that the end result of all these things is good for you. ( Romans 8:28)2. He will allow nothing to happen to you that you cannot handle. ( 1Cor 10:13 )But the condition for the above is that you must accept His death on the cross to cover your sins.Otherwise you are 100% on your own.