Kalestia

Jamie- Hm, yes you're right that we don't always choose to get ourselves in hurtful situations, so I'll correct myself. Indeed a child doesn't ask to be abused or people don't ask to get hit by drunk drivers... But the abusER and the drivER, etc, make the choice to cause harm, therefore exercising their given ability of free will.

God did create free will and is indeed omniscient, which means yes he knew what would happen. So why would he allow it if he's an all-good God? Because the end result is worth it, that's the only logical conclusion.

'If we weren't created with the desire to sin, we wouldn't sin'- not necessarily. Again, this goes back to the subject of Free Will. If we didn't have the option to sin or rebel against God, then we'd all be programmed robots to do exactly what he wanted us to do!! Now a loving God wouldn't do THAT o.o He put the opportunity not only to love, but to sin here on earth, but it's us who chooses to fall into it.

God's very capable of granting wisdom. Solomon asked for wisdom from God and he received it. Does just being wise mean you're sinless? Nope.

As for examples of sufficient evidence? The Bible, Creation, Morality...

And God DOES want us to search him out. But it isn't impossible, or it wouldn't be an option! It doesn't take a genious to do so. =] Plus, we aren't acting alone- God searches US out as well, through his Word.

Kalestia

Synaesthesia- (what an interesting name lol, does it mean anything?)
Quite frankly, if God was so intent on not ever making himself known to us, I don't think I would want to seek him out either!
But, of course, he has made himself known and does leave logical evidence behind, if only people are open-minded enough to pay attention. So God also must have reason to reveal himself in history and rationality. ^.^

Synaesthesia

My conception of free will is the conformation of your thoughts and actions to your expectations and desires. In this sense, if I am to freely choose god, I must be able to know about him.

I can't freely choose to believe in God when it is quite clear given my conception of the world that supernatural beings are afflicted with devastating epistemic flaws.

I think you can understand the yawning abyss between talking about a rational and evidential comprehension of God and actually producing this evidence, this logic.

I would like to see specifially what sort of hint you are talking about, what did my narrow Christian mind not see, what is it that my narrow atheistic cannot find?

Jayhawker Soule

I would be most interested in knowing what you mean by evidence and your criteria for "sufficient" evidence.

queue

Hmmmm. A hunter sets a trap. A bear minding his own business steps into the trap and gets caught. The hunter then has to drug the bear and cause more pain to free the bear from the trap that the hunter set. The hunter expects worship from the bear?

Originally posted by Kalestia:
If a parent moves the hot handle of a pot or pan out of reach of a child, does that make the child a programmed robot without any free will?

Originally posted by Kalestia:
People choose to get the Bubonic Plague, Smallpox, the flesh eating disease, and other diseases? They choose to be hit with floods, blizzards, electrical storms, tornados, hurricanes, typhoons, droughts, earthquakes, and other natural phenomenon?

A book written by man, edited by man, translated by man, and compiled by man is an example of the existance of a god? The universe existing is evidence that a god exists?

Echo

Kalestia,

This "evidence" is the subject of much debate. I personally do not see how any of the three things you mentioned above constitutes evidence for the existence of a supernatural being.

Would you care to pick one of the three and help us understand why you think it is evidence in support of the existence of a god?

(You should probably start a new thread if you do so...this one will get too unwieldy)

phlebas

The Xtian formerly known as Kally:

What is so amazing about free will that it's worth risking an eternity of torture and pain for?

If we truly did not have free will, wouldn't we be just as happy as we are with it? (Assuming we do, in fact, have it -- but that's another topic.)

AtlanticCitySlave

“This is a CHRISTIAN point of view on the existance of God and suffering. Don't attack me personally, cuz this has nothing to do with me For I am simply offering a **Christian's** answer to the question.”

-Even though you claim this, it is hard, considering the rest of your posts on this thread, that it’s not your answer to the question. Your overall question (seems to be) is:


“~Does the presence of suffering mean the absence of God?~”


-It should be somewhat obvious the problems we, the atheists, are going to have with this initial question. (1) What do you mean by suffering? Suffering is very often defined simply as pain, and I don’t think there are too many atheists who would say that pain means the absence of God, since some pain is beneficial. For example, one often feels a slight pain after lifting weights, but I don’t think too many people would constitute that as evidence for the absence of God (although ideally it would seem God could mold our bodies however we wanted at any time). If you mean suffering as a higher order of pain (or more painful in other words), then I would think many would argue, and be justified, in saying that God is absent (or doesn’t exist), since it is hard to see how God is justified in allowing a woman to be tortured, raped, and then killed. A truly loving, all-powerful God would not allow such a thing. The majority of people in this forum, as well as in the world I imagine, would prevent such an event from occurring if they could. It is apparently easily in God’s grasp to handle such a situation, yet women are tortured, raped, and killed (not to mention the massive number of other horrors that occur in the world, like someone recently in my own state, New Jersey, burning their own child to death).
(2) What do you mean by God? Even though it’s a Christian answer, Christians very often define God very differently. As you can see, I assumed God was truly loving and all-powerful. There are now some Christians who deny that God is all-powerful, etc.


“(A metaphor, and quotes...<deleted for shortness>...because we are not God.”


-I really don’t understand this analogy at all. Bears are caught in traps by hunters, are they not? So, are we to imagine God putting us in a horrible trap and then making us feel better, even though the trap really wasn’t necessary to begin with? The point is supposed to be, I guess, that we go through hard times, God tries to help us, and we don’t realize God is helping us. I just don’t honestly don’t see how this analogy holds up. How many atheists accuse God of attacking us? Also, unlike the hunter, God is all-powerful and all-knowing (supposedly), so God could have easily prevented us from being in the trap in the first place. God also could go about helping us without making us thinking he’s attacking us. This analogy also begs many questions. (1) what justification do you, or the Christian, have for assuming we are cognitively limited as the bear is? Why would we, like the bear, think God is attacking us, or not know the overall picture? Are we limited in this respect? If so, why? (2) It begs the entire question, in that the argument ASSUMES God (the hunter) exists, which is exactly what is up for debate. (3) You’re asking us to respond to what you, or the Christian, should defend. Again, what reason do we have for thinking we are the bear?


“FAITH: We have CLUES to follow for God's existance. If there were anything more or less than clues, we woudln't really be free to make a decision about God.”


-We aren’t free to make a decision about a lot of things, but it doesn’t follow that we aren’t free overall. I am not free to convince myself I don’t exist, since convincing myself is showing me that I do exist. Does that mean I’m not free? Why, if we were 100% certain of knowing God exists would that really matter? Why do we have to be “really free” (whatever that means) to make a decision about God? Why can’t we just have all the evidence out in front of us, know he exists, and go on with our lives?
“If anything- such as suffering- can be judged as evil or simply "not good"- then we have some notion of an overall Good... "If there is no God, where did we get this standard of goodness by which we judge evil as evil?"


-We can get in from a lot of places, hence the entire area of morality in ethics. I mean, is this a joke? Tell your friends to go read a book. There is a lot of literature on objective, subjective, etc., kinds of morality all absent any appeal to a God.


“EVOLUTION: If there isnt a creator, which means no moment of creaTION, then everything's resulted from evolution. "If there's no beginning or 1st cause, then the universe must have always existed. That means the universe has been evolving for an infinite period of time and, by now, everything should already be perfect. There would have been plenty of time for evolution to have finished and evil to have been vanquished..."


-(1) If there was no creator (or moment of creation), it doesn’t follow everything resulted from evolution. Everything could simply be the same forever. Humans could keep giving birth to humans with no species change down the line, etc. (2) If there isn’t a creator, it doesn’t follow there isn’t a beginning. Many atheists, following the big bang theory, believe there was a beginning to the universe. They just don’t think it was God who brought it about. (3) Evolution is not teleological. It does not aim for “perfection”.

“Christians believe in 5 things:
1. God exists
2. God is all-good
3. God is all-powerful
4. God is all-knowing
5. Evil exists"

(Added numbers for simplicity.)


-This is false. Not all Christians believe these. Some deny (1), many deny (3), (4), and a lot deny (5).

"1) God is all-powerful
~Can do everything meaningful and possible
~Cannot make himself cease to exist
~Cannot make good evil
~Cannot make mistakes
-- You can't have free will without the possibility of evil—"

-(1)If God were all-powerful, he would be able to make himself cease to exist. Being able to do everything meaningful and possible is a limit on God’s power, and thus he is not all-powerful. He is limited by what is possible (logically). (2) Why can you not have free will without the possibility of evil?


“God didn't CREATE evil, he created the POSSIBILITY of evil =]”


-(1) Why would God create the possibility that a woman could be brutally raped, tortured, and murdered? Would you create that possibility for your own children if you could? (2) As someone already pointed out, God is the creator and sustainer of all things, so it follows God did create evil. (3) If God did not create evil, then God is not the creator of all things, which goes against a lot of Christian teachings.


“LOVE: Real love must involve a choice- a choice to love or to hate.”

-Why does love involve love or hate? There are plenty of things I don’t love, but I hardly hate them.


“God created the world without sin, but with the POSSIBILITY of sin... It is US who's to blame for suffering because WE constantly choose TO sin... THe majority of our suffering in this world is due to the choices to kill, slander, be selfish, stray sexually, break promises, be recklace, etc.”


-(1) What is sin? (2) Why would God create a world with the possibility of sin? God, being all-knowing, he would know we would sin. (3) Many of the things that are considered “sins” are really just natural inclinations (sex, selfishness, aggression, etc.) that we have a hard time controlling, that the church can make us feel guilty about. Guilt, often causing us to do anything to make up for it, basically makes us puppets to the church. (4) Why should I care if I sin anyway? I would much rather have sex with my girlfriend on a Sunday morning than sit in some big church listening to some boring minister babble on about how we’re all terrible sinners, we need Christ, and the rest of the nonsense.


“2) God is all-knowing”
"God, if he is all-wise, knows not only the present but hte future. And he knows not only present good and evil but future good and evil. If his wisdom vastly exceeds ours, as the hunter's exceeds the bear's, it is at least possible... that a loving God could deliberately tolerate horrible things like starvation because he foresees that in the long run that more people will be better and happier than if he miraculously intervened. That's at least intellectually possile."


-In others words, it’s okay to use humans as a means to an end.

“3) God is all-good
"Good" would be even MORE different between us and God than it is different between us and, say, animals. We don't always bail people out of their own, sometimes self-made problems. We don't to our child's homework for them. We don't wrap them in a protective bubble so they will never get hurt.”


-(1) I think a reading of the Bible will show God is hardly “all-good”. (2) Humans are animals. (3) Not doing our child’s homework is just a little different from not helping a woman who is being tortured, a baby who is being raped by their uncle, or a man who is burning to death while trying to save a young child. Praise the lord.


“courage is impossible in a world without pain.”


-No it’s not. Courage comes as a result of being scared of what may happen. You don’t have to feel pain in order to be courageous. It’s often very courageous to go into a meeting defending an issue you know the rest of the people there won’t agree with. It’s also very courageous to go into a public speaking class and give a speech, especially if you’re very nervous speaking in front of other people. Of course, maybe your friend means mental pain as well, but it seems we are limited to physical pain.


“We learn from our mistakes. Even Jesus 'learned obedience through suffering' so why should we be different?”


-Learning how to add 5+4 through mistakes is a little different from being kicked in the nuts and beaten in a bad city. Sure, we learn not to go into the city anymore, but we could have learned a little easier (you know, if someone said “dude, don’t go into that city at night, it’s a real shit hole.&#8221 Also, we should be different because pain hurts. You want me to suffer just because Jesus did? Sure, it’s sad when people suffer, but that doesn’t mean I should as well.


“Kreeft goes on to say that claims that people usually DON'T get away with evil are false. Oh the people get justice alright- maybe not right away, but they will.”


-Tell Kreeft he is wrong.


“Only AFTER our sufferings do people repent... We learn the hard way =\”

-Huh? Repent for what?


“Every evil can have the opportunity for good to come out of it- and God brings out that good.”


-What good comes out of a four month baby who is tortured and killed by her father? The baby will still have suffered greatly and be dead. The only good that could come out of it would be for other people to find some good in it. But, again, that would make the child only the means to an end.

“WE brought about the suffering, but it's God who created the world that was good.”


-How does the husband who gets call in the middle of the night saying his wife and child were murdered bring that suffering about?



"And if he did that and then just sat back and said, 'Well it's your fault after all'- although he'd be perfectly justified in doing that- I don't see how we could love him. The fact that he went beyond justice and quite incredibly took all the sufferings upon himself, makes him so winsome that the answer for suffering is how could you not love this being who went the extra mile, who practiced more than preached, who entered into our world, who suffered our pains, who offes himself to us in the midst of our sorrows? What more could he do?"


-Oh gee, this is a tough one. He could, you know, STOP people from being tortured, suffering, etc.

"It's the Answerer. It's Jesus himself. It's not a bunch of words, it's THE Word. It's not a tightly woven philosophical argument; it's a person. THE person. The answer to suffering cannot just be an abstract idea, because it isn't an abstract issue. It requires a person response. The answer must be someone, not just something, because the issue involves someone- 'God where are you?' "

-Christian babble. Ask your Christian friend to speak with some clarity.
The rest of your post isn’t worth responding to. It’s just the typical question begging rhetoric of Christian dogma.

DarkBronzePlant

Again, I think it goes back to the idea of some people that evolution is a competing theory to god; thus the tendency by said people (apparently including you) to insist that evolution provide the same answers that god is said to provide. In other words, unless "morality" is somehow a survival trait (which in some senses it might veyr well be, especially for social animals like humans) then trying to tie morality and evolution is fruitless and pointless.

My opinion? It's not that hard to explain. Humans developed the ability to empathize, to feel for others. They also recognize that, in general, if something bad happens to someone else, it could happen to them as well. And they recognize that to best survive, people need to look out for each other. The combination of these elements leads to a general code of morality which, though it may vary somewhat from person to person and region to region, tends to be fairly consistent.

Kalestia

~Syn- Please explain what the epistemic flaws, in your view of the world, you see being afflicted on these 'supernatural beings'- I need some clarity.

~ReasonableDoubt- What do YOU think would be sufficient evidence to convince you that God exists?

~Queue- No, it's not. What point are you trying to make with the pot handle/child metaphor?
- Then how do you explain a book written by scores of men over thousands of years with a common theme and a record of accurately predicting the future?

~Echo- I would rather you, for now, tell me what you think would be sufficient evidence as well. How much evidence do you need?

~Phlebas- It sounds asif you think happiness is the number one goal in life. If I am correct, what makes you think so?

~Atlantic-
1) How does an athiest explain so much goodness in the world? How do you explain love, self sacrifice, etc?
2) I am referring to the God that the Christians worship- the loving, unchanging, creator who had compassion for our suffering and sent his son to redeem our sins and will come back to undo the corruption we inflicted on his creation. That God of hope

-No we got caught in the traps we make. We created those traps, and we woudln't turn to him if we didn't suffer and if he didn't open our eyes for us to see those traps. Assuming this is all true

- You may think faith is unecessary... But God values faith. He created a world where faith is possible and necessary so we would trust in him

God did not create this fallen world- he created it perfectly, but it's us who corrupted it. God is simply offering to help us!

1) Are you saying man is not cognitively liited? It's pretty self-evident that we don't know everything o.o;;
2) I'm giving a what-if scenerio of how God can exist.
3) Don't you agree that this could be a possible scenerio about how suffering can be used by God for good?

Morality-
~No, you didn't answer my question. What is the source we use to judge good as good and evil as evil?

- If Christians deny those 5 things, they sure don't sound like Christians to me

1) "He is limited by what is possible (logically)"- That's not a limit. That's like trying to say 'God can't make a stone too heavy to lift'. God is true to his character- that's why he won't make evil good or good evil.

~Evilness
- He gave us free will as a gift. We abuse it. I could put my child in a cage and let him not ever see anyone or anything, or I can let him drive a car and associate with people because there is goodness in that risk.
2) No. God created teh possibility of evil. He didn't create evil.
3) Again I say, evil is rebellion against God.

~Love
-Yeah, I should've said that love involves "loving or not loving" rather than "love and hate".

1) Sin is rebellion against God.
2) God gave us the gift of free will.
3) It's only when those qualities are misused that it is sin. Selfishness is wrong, but so what? What's your point?
4) That's too bad you think that way- it's exactly why we need Christ

1) Have you ever read the Bible?
2) What's your definition of an animal?

~Do you think God should take away all possibility of sin?~

[ July 22, 2002: Message edited by: Kalestia ]</p>