Garrett

Maybe things would have been worse, and they did the best they could. It's hard to stop disasters when you have to use fingers!

Big G God usually has omnipoweritis, but those little g gods are limited in power, have a shorter reach, get distracted easily, and so on. They're gods, that doesn't make them perfect!

I think it's unfair discrimination to hold lesser gods to the High and Mighty Standard.

Free trade or black market?

Samwise

My problem with statements like this is that if we lived in an idyllic wonderland where nobody ever died or suffered real hardship, there'd still be someone saying "There is plenty of evidence God doesn't exist. Just the other day my neighbor stubbed his toe on a rock." And relatively speaking, it'd be every bit as valid a complaint.

Like Garrett said, you could just as easily say that if there were no gods things would be worse (how many nuclear winters or major volcanic eruptions or Ice Ages have taken place so far in 2005?) as you can say that if there were gods things would be better. If you posit that the function of a god is to alter the world to your benefit in ways that are beyond your direct perception, i.e. by altering the probabilities of certain natural phenomena occuring, you have to accept with that ridiculous belief that you have no way of verifying whether that is in fact happening or not. It's always possible for things to be either better or worse.

BlessNot

Fingers are just a figure of speech just like God is a figure of speech whether it's with a capital G or lower case, doesn't make any difference, all gods are myth anyway. Have you seen any lately? even the high and mighty one you claim exists? the God of the bible with the impossible and contradictory attributes: omnipotence and omniscience?

:devil3:

NZSkep

I think its less irrational to believe in non-omnipotent gods (such as Zeus or the egyptian gods etc) than it is to belive in God of the bible. At least these gods are more like real people. Zues appeared in a Golden Shower ffs. How cool is that. (obviously these gods are still non-existant, but at least they aren't logically inconsistant when compared with bible god AFAIK)

Thief of Time

Mmm, yeah, and IMO, greek mythology is more interesting that Bible mythology.

NZSkep

definitely - and it makes for much more interesting epic old films such as clash of the titans (even though it wasn't completely faithful to the 'myth' of perseus) etc. one of my favourite old films of all time is Jason and the Argonauts. The skeletons fight scene is still one of the best special effects ever. (next to who framed roger rabbit)

Yahzi

But most Christians assert God makes morality absolute.

You can't excuse evil by making it relative while asserting that morality is absolute.

NZSkep

maybe we should rephrase it:

absence of positive evidence for X can be evidence of abscence of X, when you should otherwise expect to find the aformentioned positive evidence.

Does that satisfy everyone?

kennethamy

"Positive"?

UncleJim

This requires that you know how X would be known by its positive presence in-order to know that evidence of its positive presence is absent; but doesn't that defeat any claim of its absence.

If a thing has a positive presence then it does. And any claim that is does not have such a presence is invalid. It may not be present within ones sensual range but it still possess positive presence – does it not?