NonHomogenized

So, I was reading http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=57744 , and something occurred to me whilst reading Trillian1's post, which goes as follows:

Well, let's say, hypothetically speaking of course, that there is a god. Further, let's make this god one similar to the one that many christians espouse, in that it is all-good, perfectly moral, incapable of evil, etc.

So, by not worshipping (or, indeed, believing in) this god, we atheists attract its' ire, right? Wait, that's not very moral, is it? Getting pissy at people for not worshipping oneself doesn't sound like something an "all-good" being would do.

So, we attract it's attention, then. And because we're wrong in this hypothetical situation, it feels that the right thing to do would be to let us know that we're doing something wrong. So, what does it do? It can't punish us; by definition, punishment is not good (even if the desired results are). So instead, being all good, it does nice things to/for us.

Then, we die. Time to burn in hell, right? Nope. This sugar-coated softie can't punish people. That wouldn't fit with the "perfectly good" being, remember? ^_^ So, what does he do? Well, I guess he'll have to treat us as well as anyone else (or better, since we'd be more likely to attract his attention during our time on earth, and so that would be better).

So, although this is mainly in jest, I'd like to hear what people think about my idea (especially as a response to people trying to threaten hellfire whilst talking out the other side of their mouth about how "perfectly moral" their god is supposed to be).


Edited to add smileys as appropriate. It just looked too drab and serious, otherwise.

Nowhere357

I guess you mean because of his omnipotence - he could achieve the results w/out the bad stuff.

It seems to me like the Christian God is good - to Christians. To everyone else he certainly is not good (assuming an eternal hell). The whole mythology is perverse and illogical. It's incredible to me that this book of nonsense has value and merit to people. It's like I live in a world where no-one makes any sense.

Thank God for the IIdf.

NonHomogenized

Actually, I was thinking that, even without omnipotence, punishment isn't "good". If it were, it wouldn't be punishment. Punishment is the intentional infliction of suffering as a method of behavior correction. Since god is supposed to be "perfectly moral", he obviously can't do anything bad, even for a good cause.

But your point adds weight to what I was thinking.

Yes, according to christian mythology, god is only good to christians. However, I took an aspect of christianity (the claim of perfect morality and an omnimax deity) and a real world observation (the rates of non-theist divorce, imprisonment, generally higher levels of education, etc. And yes, I'm aware that the whole problem of evil is still a glaring flaw in my idea.), and came up with a silly idea that I thought christians (other than certain ones that ignore any facts presented to them, and plow ahead bullheadedly) might have some difficulty refuting, if used properly. Even if it doesn't give them problems, I thought it an entertaining mental exercise.