Yeah, why would an infinite being do anything different? Why would He create a universe? Why does he need a universe now that he didn't need an infinite amount of time before now?
And if you want ludicrous, why does He need worship? Why would an omnipotent, omniscient, timeless being need to be told how great he is by His own creations?
Option one assumes an evil God. I’ve given this a good deal of thought and I can’t come up with a reason for an omnipotent, omniscient being to be evil. In our species evil always seems to spring from a need or desire. People commit evil acts because they will get, or think they will get something from the commission of that act. A person steals because she needs or wants a material thing. A bully bullies because he has low self-esteem and by making others suffer he makes himself feel more important. What can an omnipotent omniscient being possibly have to gain from the commission of an evil act? (For that matter, what can an omnipotent omniscient being possibly have to gain from the commission of a good act? But that’s a whole other discussion).
IMO, option 2 is more likely. The Deists believed in a God that set everything in motion but thereafter did not participate in the universe. If any God exists (which I doubt), this one makes the most sense.
That's an interesting way to put it. It seems undeniable to me that the vast majority of people accept the religious teachings that they received in childhood. This is evidenced by the fact that populations of one religion or the other remain that religion from generation to generation. If people thought for themselves about such matters there would be a lot more change.
So, if I understand you correctly, you are saying it's possible that an interventionist God exists but that His threshold for intervention is greater than the holocaust.
That's true, and it's a good point. But if that's so, divine intervention is so rare as to be statistically insignificant. My point in this debate is that people pray for intervention in things that are far less important than the genocide of millions of people, and we know He didn't stop the holocaust.
Yep, I agree with the above argument. Hardly surprising since I'm the one who made it.
Well, to use your example, in a democracy, either representative as practiced in the US or parliamentary as practiced in Europe and elsewhere, we wouldn't be voting for "x", "y" or "z". We would be voting for representatives who would vote on "x", "y" or "z". Presumably proponents of "x" and "y" would come to some sort of compromise and defeat "z". At least that's the way it's supposed to work.
The role that political parties would play in this scenario would depend on the ramifications of the issue on whatever binds the party together.
And, BTW, what binds the party together may not be political ideology. Today the US parties are divided along ideological lines with the Republicans representing conservatives and the Democrats representing moderates and liberals. But that's not how it always was. Up until about forty years ago, both parties had liberal and conservative wings and region played a much bigger role.
You make several excellent points. I find it ironic that many of the very same people who would criminalize the burning of the flag, are the one's applauding Joe Wilson's shameful act of disrespect.
The flag is a symbol. Physically, the flag is of no importance and of minimal value. It's importance and it's value are in what it symbolizes, not in what it is. You can burn what it is, but you cannot burn what it symbolizes and what it symbolizes is personal. To one person it may stand for everything that they perceive as being right about America, to another it may have exactly the opposite meaning. If what we call "freedom" has any meaning at all, it means that we are free to believe what we will and we are free to express our beliefs.
I may think that a person who burns the flag is an idiot, but I will stand of for his right to do it. I have no problem with that because I know that no matter how much he tries, he can do nothing to harm what that flag means to me.
A convenient argument, but completely untrue. He was Catholic, although I don't think he was a particularly religious one. Even so, he made frequent references to God in his speeches.
Of course, it could be argued that he was a secret Atheist who only used God to further himself politically, and that may very well be true. If so, it is probably equally true of many of our Bible-thumping American politicians.
If I ever go to a Bible class, I want you teaching it Hadrian, at least I won't have to worry about falling asleep.
Yes, the Confederate flag (or more precisely "The" battle flag of the Confederacy") stands for all of those things, and more. Most often, when people display it they are expressing racist, contemptible, despicable, offensive, idiotic ideas...... as is their right under the First Amendment. If the First Amendment only protected inoffensive speech, many of us would never be allowed to open our mouths.
Yes, that's exactly true. A person burning the flag is expressing an idea. It may be a contemptible idea, but the First Amendment allows us to express our ideas, not just the ones that other people like.
Hitler hated Atheists and put more than a few into his concentration camps.
While I come down on the same side of the debate as you, I disagree with virtually everything you said.
First of all, your notion that Christians generally have better morals. I strongly doubt that you have any support for that statement and frankly your caveat that that doesn't mean that Atheists are bad people doesn't carry much weight since your argument is that Christians are better.
Your statement that Christians doing bad things are not truly Christians (or are not being Christian) is a self-serving argument that is known as the Scotsman fallacy. (All Scotsmen wear kilts and eat haggis. My Uncle Angus doesn't do either. Then he's not a true Scotsman). It's an argument that can be used on any group to support anything, and it is utterly meaningless.
I agree that that Christianity should not be blamed for every evil act that is done in its name, but neither can it be absolved in every instance. The Southern branches of Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and Episcopal churches (as well as others) all came into existence through schisms over the issue of slavery and those churches found plenty of scriptural support for their position. You can argue that they misinterpreted the Scripture, and that’s fine, but the fact remains that in the area of the country that was (and continues to be) the stronghold of American Christianity, millions of passionate committed Christians lacked the moral compass to identify and oppose one greatest evils in American history.
And it didn’t stop there, these same churches, and the decedents of these same Christians championed Jim Crow and segregation and bitterly opposed integration and Civil Rights for more than a century after the Civil War. It was only a few years ago that one of these churches, the Southern Baptists, admitted that they were wrong.
Yes, there were Christians in the North who were on the other sides of these issues and we should give credit to the Christians and churches that fought slavery and segregation, but Christianity itself cannot be absolved for its part in the evil, the condoning of evil, or the ignoring of evil in this case.
No, that's way too general a statement, even when it's spelled correctly. Religion certainly has been causal to some of the most horrendous immoral acts in history, but so too has politics, philosophy and greed and none of those things (even greed) necessarily lead to immoral behavior.
Religion is very often used in an attempt to excuse or justify immoral behavior, but there again, so are a lot of other things.
There's one other way around the Epicurean argument, that is to hypothesize a God that does not interfere with the universe, or at least has not done so since setting it in motion. Such a God might even be seen as the sum total of the universe and the laws of nature. Mind you, that is not my belief, but it is the only view of God that I see as logically defensible.
Obviously, such a God is not relevant to a discussion of the evil and cruel God imagined by Christianity and Islam.
jthm39, you are engaging in a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
If you can't, or won't defend you position you shouldn't try to express it in the first place. And if the best you can do is "that's the way things are because that's the way things are", don't even bother.
Why does free choice have to include Hell? I can certainly make a choice without being punished if the choice is not the one that God prefers. In fact, since the tools that I use to make the choice (my mind and my reason) were supposedly given to me by God, it seem pretty cruel to punish me if I come up with the "wrong" answer.
And how can you say God doesn't send people to Hell? Who's in charge? Is He omnipotent or not? It's His system, not mine, it seems silly to absolve Him of any responsibility.
One can be both because "believing" and "knowing" are two different things. There is no reason at all that a person cannot believe something despite the fact that he or she cannot know it with certainty. I can believe that my favorite team will win their game next week. In fact I can believe it very strongly, since I know that their rivals are not very good and are not given much chance. But I can also believe that it is impossible to know with absolute certainty, since anything can happen in a sporting event. Believing that it is impossible to "know" a thing does not preclude a person from having a belief about that thing.
Having fun, enjoying life is a bad thing for which you must suffer eternally. Nice God you've got there.
