Radorth

Well good. Somebody finally admitted they are asking the absurd.

In other words, God should let us do what ever we damn please, live on flood plains, drink and drive, have as many kids as we want, raise them stupid, and take no personal responsibility at all while he gets us out of every jam.

That is precisely what many skeptics are saying., much as they blather about personal responsibility. You are the first to admit it via another mindless presumption. You and Ciphergirl will share "Mindless Assertions of the Week" Award.

And I have the most rational arguments, save one. Be warned that thinking your assertions through can produce small wrinkles. Ask Bill.

Rad

Yellum Notnef

The Holy Spirit ain`t interested in any of that shit. The only reason it hangs around here at all is to do parlor tricks and fuck with people like Radorth by waking them up in the middle of the night babbling.
It probably had Radorth up out of bed doing the chicken dance too,but we`ll never know for sure since Rad was hypnotized at the time and doesn`t remember.

I also heard that it sometimes gets a kick out of making people jump out of their wheel chairs thinking they`re healed only to find themselves even more fucked up and in more pain just a few moments later.

That loveable little scamp.

Radorth

Guess nobody wants to deal with my scenarios, obviously because they wouldn't look as holy as they claim. Better to just insult Rad and cross some fingers.

Rad

Jack the Bodiless

Radorth:

Everything about God is absurd. I'm glad it wasn't me who invented him.

However, I also provided a much-less-absurd example, stopping just one tornado (preferably on live TV). I'm sure Superman could manage that one, so why not Jesus?

And I'm not sure how "character-building" a tornado is. It's something to do with bad parenting now?

If that's a rational argument, please keep your irrational ones securely caged.

Yellum Notnef

Who here is claiming to look "holy"?

That nonsense description is all yours my friend.

Jack the Bodiless

As for your scenarios:
Well, unless you're suggesting somewhere else I can live, I don't see what you're getting at.

Would I fear or worship this God? Insufficient data. Why does he "allow" this?
This obviously isn't the Christian omnimax God here. If God is incompetent, then at least that's an excuse, yes. This is essentially what I believe anyhow: God is omni-incompetent (being nonexistent), therefore not actually to blame.
It's simply a matter of definitions. No, a "good" God wouldn't act like that. That's inherent in what it means to be "good". It is somewhat scary to us when Christians (particularly those of the fundamentalist/inerrantist variety) say that Biblical genocides are "good" because it's God doing them.

Such people have some very serious problems.

MrDarwin

According to what Christians tell me, their god could do all of these things, he/she/it simply chooses not to. But the real point is that according to Christians, God will eventually put an end to all bad things. So why not do it tomorrow? Why not do it it right now? In fact, why not 2,000 years ago? Remind me again what the whole point of this exercise in creation was, in the first place?

To hear Christians tell, the population of Hell is growing exponentially with every generation that's born onto the earth. What supernatural plan could possibly be worth so many billions of souls suffering for all eternity? What Machiavellian end could possibly justify such means?

Jayjay

Too bad you didn't examine it very closely then.

The principle is that whatever you do, good or bad, it comes back to you five (or three? I don't remember) times amplified. Unlikely you'd like to think, God would not have to just tell everyone why something is bad (though it'd be nice if he did), just demonstrate it. So if you steal, you'll be stolen from... if you lie, you'll be lied to... and so on. Depending of course what sins are theoretically possible in Heaven.

In your above post you naively assume that God would have to allow there to be things like hurricanes at all, as if God could not create the laws of nature as he pleased. Are there hurricanes in heaven? If not, why the heck would we have to practise with them here on Earth?

I guess you confused "obedience" with "disobedience". God does not need to whack anyone on the head, just rig the world so that there is an adverse reaction to disobedience, and a positive reaction to obedience, so that the reaction has a logical connection to the action. World is not rigged in this way, as far as we can tell: evil people often get huge rewards, and good deeds go unnoticed. If the purpose of the world was to train willing and obedient subjects, why is there nothing in the world that motivates us to being such?

I don't know where you get this idea of redemption, it makes no sense at all if the world as we know it is just a training ground. You've completely (and deliberately?) misunderstood the point of everyone suffering from their own sins: if I drive over someone, it should be me who bears the consequences and not the person whom I drive over.

Maybe you are confused because this would be so far away from our present world that you cannot even imagine it? That's the whole point: the world doesn't look even remotely like it should, if your belief that we're here to become willing and obedient servants were true.

The real purpose is what you yourself stated: to create willing and committed servants in heaven. If there's no random suffering in heaven, there's no point to have random suffering on Earth either. I don't know why you'd say that removing random suffering would be "unforgivable", if that's supposed to be God's plan all along.

Yeah, I'd choose to live in a world where there was no random suffering. But it wouldn't really be my choice anyway, it would be God's. What I might want is irrelevant.

To train those servants that you say God wants to hang around in heaven, for whatever reason.

Where did God say this? Oh I know, in one of the millions of so called holy books that are indistinguishable from ramblings of madmen and liars. You seem to have trouble grasping the idea of God actually providing us with knowledge of the supernatural rules of this world, rather than just vague hints hidden in thousands of contradicting religions.

Out of curiosity, would this be the same kind of humility you have when you're challenged to consider that your religion is bunk? Oh yeah right, when atheists poke holes in your religion it's "pride", but when you try to find contradictions from the atheist point of view, you're being "humble"...

Another christian brainwashing technique of yours?

In any case, either you were deliberately misrepresenting my points about what world would be like if its purpose was what you claim it was, or you were unable to really tell us what exactly is it that God uses this world for. I can't blame you for trying though: you must be pretty desperate to justify its sensibility, considering how convinced you are that it's religion that has made you the good person you are (not being sarcastic, honest). It's interesting to see how religious indoctrination can make a person think that everything bad is your own fault, but everything good is attributed to the religion...

Bumble Bee Tuna

In my response, I meant that I actually attempted to engage in your topic without bringing in grudges from other threads and hatred towards you for past transgressions.

I also had some trouble finding out exactly what it is you wanted, because your post was sort of all over the map and further discussion only spread it out more. So, I was sort of hoping for a concise recap of the scenarios you want us to describe and I'd be happy to oblige.

I will attempt to answer the parts of your post that seemed to be actual attempts at discussion or questions and not just insults towards atheists.

I don't know my bible, being a born-and-raised atheist, so I don't know the exact story you refer to. What I tend to complain about is when God does things like killing innocent children, or punishes people for the crimes of their ancestors. Of particular interest is where God "hardens Pharaoh's heart", thus punishing Pharaoh and all of his people for doing something that God essentially forces him to do. I think God could have done better than that. If free will truly exists I'm sure there are instances where someone just won't listen and God must take punitive action, but killing children doesn't fit the bill, nor does altering someone's temperament so that they do something wrong merely so you can punish them.

I would fear God if it was demonstrated that he existed and that he would inflict punishment upon me for doing things. Same reason I would fear anything else. However me fearing him hinges on him actually existing, so if fear of God is a necessary aspect of His grand plan, he would need to show some evidence.

I don't know why fear of God is necessary, though. Fear as a motivation not to sin is a good thing. But God could accomplish that a whole lot better than his current punishment scheme. How about every time someone sins, their soul is punished in the fires of hell...for a finite period of time, fitting to the gravity of the sin. THAT would instill fear that would prevent us from sinning, though we would still have the free will to choose to. Instead, of course, God chooses a punishment that is completely useless. In Psych 101 you learn that punishment needs to be immediate, consistent, on the first offense, and severe enough to be aversive in order to be effective. God's punishment is severe enough to be aversive but not definite enough to be aversive. It is also definitely not occuring consistently, immediately, or after the first offense. It is completely ineffective.

The key part of my "benevolent designer god" that I think would be better than Yahweh is that he would be a good enough designer to design us with a propensity NOT to sin instead of the other way around. If this gets rid of free will, then we shouldn't enjoy sin, either. If making sin unpleasant eliminates free will, then making sin pleasant eliminates it as well. Sin should either be unpleasant or completely neutral if God were truly omnibenevolent.

Hope I answered your question, though you mention "scenarios" so let me know if I missed any.

-B

Radorth

Thank you for your post BBT and I think you answered the questions pretty well. (not that there was necessarily a "right answer.") However in a recent reply Bill Sneddin, I presented three scenarios and asked whether he and other skeptics would still choose to live on this earth if God were like such and such. I suspect they have been rather studiously avoided because they get to the heart of the matter.

And Jayjay is still asserting God should have "rigged" the world with no comment at all on how free will would be maintained. Yada yada.

Rad