How do you explain that?

[Belle Rose]

@Reg but even moreso, it has an air of entitlement attached to it, with the presumption that “If god existed he should do ___________(insert your Christmas list here) sort of mentality. As if we know exactly what God SHOULD do….No? Well then he mustn’t exist. I find that sort of argument full of entitlements and ultimately flawed.

[Davis]

I find that sort of argument full of entitlements and ultimately flawed.

That’s the funniest thing I’ve read this year. The only reason we are talking this God bullshit remotely seriously is because people like you keep insisting the invisible man in the sky exists. And you keep claiming God has these qualities and when we respond by showing the fallacies in that thinking, people like you call out “no fair” and ask us “how dare we claim to know God”. That is such nonsense, it’s the words of someone who cannot possibly defend an incredible ridiculous claim. No one (except unseen) here makes the claim that God musn’t exist. You did that putting words in our mouths, and perhaps you could stop doing that. At best, most of us have said it’s absurd to take God seriously, cause it’s a huge pile of trash-bin nonsense. It doesn’t matter if God purportedly does or says or thinks something, because it’s still a pile of time wasting garbage. His numerous contradictions (a fatal impossible flaw) are irrelevant cause he is a figment of human’s imagination. Him being a cruel psychopathic monster (numerous times) is not even pertinent, cause it is all an absurdity. The fact that Catholic priests rape boys is relevant to the horror those children live the rest of their life, but of no consequence to whether he exists or not, because one should already dismiss God’s existence when you get to the “…what’s that…no evidence…”? part. I think most people point out the contradictions and stupidities in the bible, not to demonstrate the impossibility of his existence, but because they are helarious.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by Davis.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by Davis.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by Davis.

[_Robert_]

Invariably you get the “free will” argument from the theist to defend the all powerful/all knowing god. Allowing free will somehow overcompensates for the evil in the world. That could explain Hitler but what the hell does free will have to do with a hurricanes drowning thousands of people or a baby with a fatal brain tumor?

[jakelafort]

Ivy, you’ve managed to duck, dodge and evade once again.  I have no argument with the 30-50 yr apocalypse…who knows how long it will take but it seems probable. I have a problem with the magnification of your importance and the minimization of 7 plus billion non-Ivy.  If god intervenes or interacts in your life but refuses to do so for the sake of the species he created how dafuq do you  explain that? You simply refuse to think or let on that you have done so.

Your problem of evil position suggests that your standards are  lower for your god than for people. I see how you  condemn and hate certain people.  I have no problem with that. Abusive assholes, ya hate em. Trump…certain workers…whatever.  You judge them and rightly so. But your god gets a pass. You say who are we to question? How are we to know what god should do.

In so many instances it is powerfully obvious what any decent entity would do who has unlimited power.  Stop the bubonic plague. Stop the Hutus from raping and murdering the Tutsis. Stop the Germans from murdering Jews, Gypsies, political dissidents, gays et. al.  Stop the Turks genocide against the Armenians. Stop the tsunamis.  You could go on for hours. Failing to question or curb the power of tyrants because they know best is tantamount to tacit approval of evil. (you can insert a less provocative word for evil if you wish)

Also, and this expands on the issue raised by Robert-namely free will does not apply to natural disasters-free will does not exonerate the ARCHITECT of the universe. If there is free will and it causes humans to act badly it is a design flaw.  We hold manufacturers liable when their design flaws cause harm. Ought we have a lower standard for the grand architect?

[PopeBeanie]

Ivy wrote:

As if we know exactly what God SHOULD do….No?

I would never want this topic to be about “the problem with what Ivy believes”, but an attempt to gain a dispassionate understanding of why human beings believe these things. That said, I cannot remain dispassionate about the lengths to which some humans take their belief in their God. My observations:

1. Most people default to believing in a God or version of transcendentalism or philosophical “explanations” that their culture traditionally perpetuates.
2. Perhaps most importantly, all evidence points to these religions and philosophies being invented by man, and no evidence points to any specific existence of a god or spirit or consciousness that can explain everything.
   • Attempts to “explain everything” are just attempts. Even science is still trying to work out how the universe began, and psuedo-scientists capitalize on the gullibility of people willing to land on some single, passionately explained theory, willingly blinding themselves to other explanations or theories.
3. Today’s major religions and philosophies–e.g. Buddhism represent the persistent efforts of writers and elites (e.g. kings, queens, popes, imams) and other “academic” and cultural leaders who have taken or been assigned authority to solidify and perpetuate those religions and philosophies, to the extremes sometimes of serving to perpetuate a working form of governmental authoritarianism.

I was going to list some responses to 1, 2, and 3 above, but to just propose a workable summary here:

• What humanity still needs is to reform itself, with creativity. Evil exists because human beings invent evil behaviors, and human beings evolved subconsciously and later culturally to demonize or otherwise characterize the forces of nature or other human beings as some kind of sole cause of all tragedy and angst.

Most importantly, the various culture-derived/invented explanations–especially the attempts to explain everything with some particular dogma or permanently written and perpetually knowable cause–are the bane of human existence. They are all artificial/invented explanations, even the few of them that are based on actual evidence and can be shown (as in working science) to have demonstrably repeatable cause and effect, i.e. can be universally agreed upon to be at least somewhat provable.

Does all this sound like a rant? In my opinion, it’s an anti-rant. I just get really tired sometimes of people–even people calling themselves atheists–defining and decrying what God is. All such declarations and explanations are merely human inventions.

As for an attempt to directly answer this topic, I can now only say, get more creative and invent the most plausible explanation, without just falling back by default to previous/traditionalized inventions.

[jakelafort]

But Beanie, isn’t it an issue when Ivy asserts that she knows it is god …KNOWS IT IS GOD…won’t critique the reasons given why it might not be god?

And then she is sure we are going to end up extinct.  After god’s involvement in her life why wouldn’t she assume god will make an appearance or take the necessary steps to arrest the trajectory towards annihilation? It is like she does not really believe in god even though she KNOWS it is god.

[PopeBeanie]

jakelafort wrote:

But Beanie, isn’t it an issue when Ivy asserts that she knows it is god …KNOWS IT IS GOD…won’t critique the reasons given why it might not be god?

And then she is sure we are going to end up extinct. After god’s involvement in her life why wouldn’t she assume god will make an appearance or take the necessary steps to arrest the trajectory towards annihilation? It is like she does not really believe in god even though she KNOWS it is god.

Perhaps you have valid issues there, but I choose to emphasize issues that I feel, in the bigger picture are more relevant (e.g. to include the larger set of theists and woo-laden transcendentalists) to a possible, overall solution, especially in my last paragraph:

As for an attempt to directly answer this topic, I can now only say, get more creative and invent the most plausible explanation, without just falling back by default to previous/traditionalized inventions.

Persevering on the smaller point by point issues just seems to me to be more like trying to emphasize or treat (unsuccessfully) symptoms rather than the underlying cause. Perhaps we just differ in which battles we choose.

[Author]

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