Category: philosophy/religion topics
Hey all I know I don't usually get into religious discussions and all but I've always been curious about the question of why god would let innocent children die or suffer. I found an answer with some points that I disagree with yet they all seem to be contradictions and no straightforward answer. While I’ve previously touched on the problem of evil, I wanted to focus a bit more on what is perhaps the most heinous evil one can possibly imagine: the suffering and death of innocent children.
Each year, approximately 10 million children will die from causes such as birth defects, malnutrition, accidents, disease, SIDS, cancer, starvation, homicide, war, etc. The literal torture that some children must endure is absolutely unconscionable.
When children suffer and die, it forces us to ask some difficult questions:
1. If God creates life for a purpose, why end it before it can accomplish that purpose?
2. Why should an innocent child suffer for crimes it didn’t commit?
3. Why should children suffer pain that they cannot understand or comprehend?
4. Why make a child suffer and die when they can’t possibly learn from the experience?
If there is no God, then the suffering and death of children is just a cold fact of nature. Our brains perceive these events as sad and unfortunate, but nature is unthinking and indifferent.
But, if a moral God exists, then why do these tragedies continue as if there were no God? Why do children continue to suffer and die as if God is indifferent to the situation?
There are numerous explanations attempting to maintain God’s innocence in this case, so let’s take a quick look at each of them.
1. “God allows evil, but does not cause it.”
God always had the opportunity to say, “I refuse to create mankind, because it will result in the creation of evil and suffering.” By choosing to create us, God chose to create suffering where none previously existed. An all-good God should’ve chosen not to create us, since this would allow him to keep the amount of suffering in the Universe at absolute zero, and our uncreated souls would’ve been none the wiser.
2. “The natural world is under the curse of sin.”
In order to excuse God from the suffering he created, we sometimes try to place all the blame on man or Satan, saying, “It’s not God’s fault man sinned and let evil into the world!” But who defines the limits of mankind’s punishment? God! So why didn’t God just design a punishment that didn’t involve punishing innocent children?
2004-tsunami
For example, why not just kick Adam and Eve out of Eden and allow their sinless children to remain? Or allow Adam and Eve to stay, but punish them in the afterlife (instead of punishing them in this life and the next)? Or why not give children a greater level of protection outside of Eden? Or not allow them to feel serious pain until they’re older, or after they’ve sinned?
“If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
— Luke 11:13
Even we who are evil recognize that children should not be punished for sins they didn’t commit. And yet… they are.
3. “If God did not allow evil, then he would have to destroy everything that is evil.”
This all-or-nothing fallacy says that either all evil must exist, or it all must be destroyed — but surely there must be some middle ground.
polio
For example, when Jonas Salk discovered a vaccine for polio, he lessened the number of suffering children in the world. He didn’t end all suffering, just some of it. Likewise, God could eliminate some kinds of suffering without eliminating all suffering, such as the suffering of children.
In fact, if God were truly benevolent, he would see to it that only the absolute minimum amount of suffering existed. Anything beyond that would be, by definition, unnecessary, and God would be malevolent for allowing it.
So was polio absolutely necessary? As believers, we have to say yes, or admit that it was totally unnecessary and that God is malevolent. But if polio was necessary, then why have we been allowed to eradicate a necessary evil? The fact that we can eliminate it suggests it was never necessary.
Similarly, thanks to improvements in science and education, the childhood mortality rate has been greatly reduced over the past 20 years. Was it really absolutely necessary for millions more children to die 20 years ago than today? If we can save them today, why didn’t God just spare them 20 years ago? These deaths appear unnecessary, because if we had these cures 20 years ago, they wouldn’t have all died.
4. “God rarely interferes with His creation.”
polly-s-poster-cropped-irfan-480
We Christians give thanks to God for every small thing. Why is it that God can help us with so many little things, but he can’t (or won’t) stop lunatics from raping and killing children?
If God and 99.99% of mankind are opposed to such behavior, why would God even allow it? If we’re all in agreement that we don’t need or want this much freedom, why does it exist?
Clearly, God offers us NO protection if he refuses to spare even the most innocent from the most evil. Does it stand to reason that God would want to save guilty sinners in the next life, when he won’t even save the most innocent in this one?
The Bible tells us we can identify a tree by its fruit (Luke 6:44). If God allows such atrocities against children, isn’t this evidence of bad fruit?
5. “If God stopped people from harming children, this would restrict our free will, and it might even prove the existence of a God.”
Most of the harm that befalls children comes from disease and environmental factors, not from malicious humans. Man did not design harmful viruses, bacteria, and natural disasters. Would it really destroy our faith or free will if we lived in a world without these things? Wouldn’t we still be free to lie, cheat, steal, assault, kill, destroy, and reject God without these things?
Consider the other natural limitations that God has placed on our free will. For example, we do not have the free will to live underwater. If we try, there are immediate and deadly natural consequences: we can’t breathe and we die! But there are no such natural restrictions on things like abusing children. Why not?
Why would an intelligent, loving God design a world that naturally prevents us from doing things that don’t matter, and then not protect the things that do? Is God more concerned about our going underwater than he is about protecting children?
6. “These children may have turned against God at a later date, so he took them early.”
If God put them here to make a choice, what good does it do to take them out before they make it? Why not take out every person before they turn against him?
7. “God is able to bring a greater good out of tragedy.”
No one ever says, “Boy, it sure is a good thing our son died!” or “It’s a good thing those 10 million babies died last year!” By all appearances, it’s a sad and unfortunate loss without recompense. While some good can come out of tragedy, it rarely seems enough to make up for the loss.
As a Christian, I may have been able to rationalize such loss if it always resulted in other people becoming saved; but it’s hard to imagine that such a scheme would work, or that God would kill children just to bolster salvation rates. (Why not just kill off vocal atheists?)
Child victim
8. “The death of a child allows the parents to help others in a similar position.”
But if no children died, there wouldn’t be any parents in a similar position.
9. “God gives these children an eternity in heaven, which makes up for any and all suffering.”
In 1996, eight-year-old Michael Lyons was walking home from school when he was abducted by Robert Rhoades. Rhoades raped and tortured Michael for ten hours, stabbing him 70 times before slitting his throat and dumping him in a bush by a river. Now, I have to ask, what was God doing during those ten hours? Was he watching silently, more concerned about protecting his own identity and Robert’s free will than answering the terrified pleas of an eight-year-old? (Would anyone have noticed if Robert just died of a heart attack the day before? Or if he was never conceived?)
Rhoades
Maybe God did say to Michael later that same day, “Welcome to paradise! It’s all bliss from here on out!” And maybe Michael replied, “Yes Lord, but where were you just then? Why didn’t you stop him?” What could God possibly say? “Well… it won’t happen again, so that makes it okay.” How could someone who truly loves you allow for such a thing?
Saying that heavenly compensation magically turns a wrong into a right is like saying if Rhoades paid Michael’s parents one billion dollars, it would justify the crime. But it doesn’t. It still happened, Rhoades is still a child killer, and there will always be a time when God could’ve prevented it, but didn’t.
“You either have a God who sends child rapists to rape children or you have a God who simply watches it and says, ‘When you’re done, I’m going to punish you.’ If I could stop a person from raping a child, I would. That’s the difference between me and your God.”
— Tracie Harris, The Atheist Experience
10. “The Bible tells us, ‘Trust in the LORD with all thy heart; and lean not to thy own understanding.'”
When all the above rationalizations fail, the last resort is often to assume that God has a reason, we just don’t know what it is. I see a few problems with this answer.
Firstly, it’s not an answer, it just defers the question indefinitely and then assumes a reasonable explanation exists, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Secondly, this is like being told: “You should just accept that God allowed your child to be raped and murdered for a good reason! And when you get to heaven you’ll say, ‘Oh! There really was a good reason! Thank you Lord for allowing my child to be raped and murdered!'” I can’t imagine any scenario in which this could ever make sense.
Thirdly, this kind of argument can be used to defend any logical absurdity from any religion. “Stop doubting Zeus/Joseph Smith/Ahura Mazda/Muhammad/Jim Jones/Marshall Applewhite/Ra/L. Ron Hubbard/etc. and just accept that all these logical absurdities will be explained in the afterlife!”
Finally, and perhaps most profoundly, the Bible tells us that God’s creation testifies to His nature (Romans 1:20). If God is benevolent and cares for children, yet His creation testifies to the contrary (by killing children through disasters and disease), then God has borne false witness against himself. How can we choose to love God when His creation testifies that he allows for unnecessary and extraneous evil? If only men did evil deeds, then we might be able to make a case for God’s innocence, but this creation as it stands speaks to either a god of malevolence, or a natural indifference.
Conclusion
Again, if there is no God, then there is no difficulty reconciling nature and suffering. Nature is indifferent and unintelligent, and that leaves no one to stop the cruel deeds of damaged minds or the devastation of natural disasters or disease.
However, if God exists, then we face a logical conundrum: why would a good God allow such evil things to happen to children? If he loves our children more than we do, why would he create a world filled with devastation and not safeguard them from it?
Would you stand idly by as someone molested, mutilated, and killed your child? If you then, though you are evil, would rescue your child, how much more should your Father in heaven if you ask him? But he doesn’t. He creates a world where it can happen, and then stands idly by as it does.
“Why should I allow that same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown His own?”
— Robert Ingersoll.
I know it is a long post but I didn't feel like going through and editing as I saw that all the points were important to my post.
I think it depends on how you view God.
Why does God allow?
I view God as nature, the things around us, why we exist and a creator.
God controls nature, or natural happenings, but not people.
We are given free will and because of free will, we allow children to starve and anything else that goes wrong and is wrong in the world.
I don’t think everyone is here for a purpose, I think we create our purpose in life.
Even if a child lives a short life, that person has affected someone in some way, so has had a purpose, but growing up to be an adult doesn’t give the child more purpose or less.
God, in my view provides. Food, water, sun, air and all other natural things humans need to survive. What we do with nature and to each other, God doesn’t control.
The bad things that happen in the world many times there is no Godly reason. A good example of that is starvation.
Unless you live in a place food can’t be taken to you, the world now has plenty of it.
Lots gets simply wasted.
Depending on the religion thought, some believe we live several lives until we learn, so maybe that is God’s control.
If that is so, a person’s death is just the next move or step in to the next phase.
That is just my thoughts.
Trisha, who are we humans to determine whether someone has fulfilled their purpose or not? Cause, sometimes when people die, be they children or adults, that's God's way of saying "Although I didn't cause harm to you, I wanna call you home to Heaven cause your time on Earth has been fulfilled in my eyes."
But, why do you single out children? Cause things happen throughout our life that God does not orchestrate, but which he ultimately uses for our good if the people involved are open to allowing him to do so.
So, just as you or others can't know whether people have fulfilled their purpose in life, you also can't know why God chooses to handle things differently than you might.
I asked about children because I've read the bible and you don't really hear in a straightforward way that children and infants go to heaven. The scriptures that you know for sure that faithful adults go to heaven are in the case of Elijah, Enoch, and Lasurus just to name a few.
If you are going on the Bible, it states specificly all children go to heaven. Suffer little children to come on to me.
But, again, all this depends on how you view God.
Wayne, that's nowhere near what that verse means. That verse was spoken
by Jesus, and it just meant that children should not be forbidden from listening
to his sermons, not that all children go to heaven. There actually isn't much
about children in the bible. But that's kinda beside the point. The simpe answer
to this question is that God doesn't do or allow any of this, because he doesn't
exist. Anything other than that requires all kinds of logical and theology
backflips and cartwheels to even make them coherent, let alone logical.
Exactly because if he did exist, then why would he allow terrible things to happen if said god is supposed to be just and all. Letting little children die and suffer doesn't sound like justice to me.
Hmmm, I hate to do this, but "stop performing abortions because we're sending those babies to heaven!"
Well Trisha, I could make the argument that the problem of evil only applies to a
few gods. Not even the majority of gods. Most gods are not meant to be taken
as all good, or all powerful. Look at the greek gods, they can easily explain why
bad things happen by simply saying that life sucks. But my question why you're
even asking this if you already have the answer. You answered your own
question in your first post.
God is mainly composed of hydrogen and helium, so yeah, I don't think he, I mean, it, gives a shit about anyone or any thing.
I have to admit I’ve been struggling with these issues myself. Unfortunately I have to say that everyone must choose his or her own answers to these questions because I certainly have none. Does a god exist? I dunno. To say that there is no god or nothing after this is frankly too stark for me to wrap my mind around. Why? Because it leaves me with too many questions without any answers. If you believe one way or the other, it’s easy to say one way or the other that there is or isn’t a god. But then, if there is, the OP has presented some very strong questions that can lead one to the conclusion that there is no god. Certainly, to say that we humans cannot possibly understand its motives for allowing the things that this god supposedly allows is to me a gigantic cop-out. In other words, if we say that who are we puny, scrawny humans to question why God does what He does (presumably there is a god and he’s a male), then we opt out of not thinking about the possibility that a god doesn’t exist. Those of us who say we can never know God’s will but that everything has a point and that there is a reason for everything have no substantial proof for these conclusions, and it seems to me they’re reaching these conclusions either because somebody else has already told them what to think, or because they don’t want to think about the stark possibility that there is no god. But then, if there is no god,, then there is no point to this entire set-up. By that, I mean that we’re sitting here having this discussion about the existence of a deity. We can all think about this. We all contemplate death and its supposed implications. There are those who believe that there is nothing after this life, and that there is no point. But then, why are we here? Why are we all of us able to communicate the way we do? Why do we believe in a god in the first place? How did it come into being? Did we create the concept of a deity, or did a deity always exist and we somehow reached this conclusion because we inherently know that such a deity exists? And if no deity exists, then again, what’s the reason for the whole entire human set-up? Assume that there is no god. So we know that when we die, we are nothing more than worm food. Then existence is pointless. That’s the stark reality. There is no point. No point to having laws that prohibit us from doing anything we want to each other. No point in reproducing future generations of children who are only going to die anyway. No point in saving this planet from ecological disaster because once all life ceases to exist, no one cares. We’re all dead. Why do we actually prohibit suicide? Why do we want to stop people from offing themselves? Wouldn’t it be better? What’s the point of curing illness since we’re all wormfood? What about mmurder? If someone commits murder, we say oh well, that’s them, and isn’t it lucky that I didn’t get shot or stabbed or tortured to death? We’re trying to stop North Korea from getting nukes. Guess I gotta wonder why. Because if there’s no point to life, then why not allow them to get the stuff it takes to blow this planet to smithereens and get the whole thing over with? No questions about life and death. No existential crisis for anyone. Since there’s no heaven, we need not fear hell. If there’s no reincarnation, there’s no reason for any of us to continue playing out this drama. Let it end. Why not? Isn’t the cruelest thing you can possibly do to another human being is reproduce more of them? Seems to me that reproducing a child is perhaps the most selfish act you can possibly perform. All this is to say That there are some real flaws in stark atheism. So,,it’s not my personal answer. Trouble is I don’t know the answer, and laugh at me all you want, but nobody else has the answer either. So, where are the answers? What are the answers? Who will answer? All any of us can do right now at this very moment is suppose, surmise and conjecture and not resolve anything. That’s my supposition, surmise and conjecture. Me? I continue to hold the matter in a sort of semi-permanent abeyance. Or, put another way, I’m taking it under advisement.
There are other references, but fine.
Trisha, if you don’t believe in God, any type of God, why did you ask this question?
If there is no God, then it is just humans and nature that cause little children to die early.
They are of no value unless they are worth something tangible, or of some value, otherwise they are trash just like when you eat a meal and have no more use for the packaging it came in.
If you find a child, and I mean a living child is in the way of your happiness, or getting ahead or whatever, throw it away.
No God, now there is no blame.
It is all natural, or human causes, but not God’s fault at all, sense there is no God.
You don’t need to use the reasoning God is letting you down by allowing all this bad to happen, because God doesn’t exist.
Now you’ll need to stop wasting your time reading the Bible, because it is a fairytale anyway, unless you enjoy interesting fiction.
You shouldn’t read it looking for answers, because it has no answers.
You’ll need to put your time in to investigating why a specific child died for a reason, but you can’t blame it on God’s lacking.
No God, no blame.
Sounds like a Reggae song.
It is silly to me anyway when people want to blame God for things as a reason not to believe in God.
You have already made up your mind, so why do you need a reason? Why do people need a justification?
If you have no God, you have no reason to justify why you chose not to believe. You won’t ever need to answer to any higher power, or whatever for your reasons. No God, no judgement.
I haven't read the bible since I was living with my parents and I only did it because a. I was forced to and b. I was just trying out the whole thing of their religion and when I left home at 18, that is when I gave it some serious thought and could decide for myself that god doesn't exist. I know you guys might say, I could've made my own decisions when I was younger, but they were the type of parents who said as long as you live under my roof you live by my rules so skipping church wasn't an option even though I tried. Even though I don't believe in god now, I still like to try and understand why other people like my friends believe in a god of any sort and how they could subscribe to the idea of a just god who allows terrible things to happen such as letting innocent children die for no good reason.
Ah, in that case you have to wonder why bad things happen period, not only to children.
Why do children get special looking at?
As to why your friends believe, it be best to debate the subject with them directly, wouldn't you say?
I believe in God par my first post, but that is my personal reasons.
No matter what I say to you, or even if I could take your hand and show you my reasons, you'd always have that "but."
It is personal and in your heart, mind, is the only place that will change your thinking about God.
That is why I brought the topic on here because I don't have many religious friends and the few I have are the type who believe that god's will is not to be questioned so thus they don't debate it with me or give me any type of answer and I just wanted other people's thoughts from that article I posted since I have already put my thoughts out there.
Johndy, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you said that if there's no afterlife then this one is pointless. But why? If the whole point is to get to Heaven, why waste time here? Some people believe in universal salvation. I have an especially hard time understanding why those people don't just blow up the planet. They believe that this life is hard and everyone is destined for paradise, so why waste any time getting there?
But if this life is all there is, ending it all means there's less to be enjoyed. For me, "life is pointless" doesn't necessarily follow from "there is no afterlife." There doesn't have to be a limitless amount of something for it to be valuable.
I totally agree with that post.
I’d like to extend my thought for you.
Okay, so we have no God, so no higher power to blame.
We are down to mankind.
Mankind has reason, science, and free will. We are products of nature much like trees.
Children are liability if they are of no use.
If bad things have to happen, is it not better for a child to die before it knows the wonders or what it can do or experience?
Nature causes more girls to be born then men. In China they drown the girl babies when they had enough of them for child baring and such.
They kept more male babies, because they were harder to get accept these that were deformed in some way.
Wasn’t this smart, because it made the human race stronger and more efficient?
You couldn’t blame any of this on God, because there is no God right?
Would you say it is worse to drown a baby that has no knowledge of what can be, or an adult person like yourself that has some use?
You are a mother, someone’s wife, someone’s lover and provider.
You can actually do useful things because you’ve been allowed to grow and learn how.
You can produce healthy male babies.
Aren’t you more valuable?
Would it not be more of a loss for something bad to happen to you over a new born baby?
God is messing up, so that is a valid reason not to believe in a God or higher power.
that is kind of a double edged sword when it comes to children, on the one hand one could see it cruel to let a child die and not have the chance to live at all. Then on the other hand, if someone has to die, shouldn't an adult die for the child in a sense? I mean in that theory, it would be a selfless act of the adult rather than taking away life from the child who may have a potential chance at life just my thoughts on that aspect.
No. If you lose enough adults, who's going to take care of the babies?
Why is it cruel if a baby has no information of what is lost?
True but I was thinking of those situations where people were forced to choose who would die whether it would be the adult or the child. Like I have heard of where there are people who say they would lay down their life for someone else so the parent who dies in place of their child, wouldn't that be a noble thing? I'm not saying that everyone chooses to do this, but there are those who are forced to decide in certain circumstances.
Trisha, are you specifically asking about the Christian god? And the Evangelical
Christian god at that?
I'm an atheist but I was raised through the 70s and 80s around the god of the
fundamentalist Republican Christian god.
Now, my daughter is a bisexual liberal Christian. When she speaks of god she
seems to be talking entirely about someone else. I don't know if she deals with
the threefold problem of omnibenevolence, omniscience, and omnipotence. Add
omnipresence in there too, I guess.
I have actually heard her say that such events that you're speaking of actually
makes the god sad. But she speaks of the god in a very emotional context
somewhat outside my framework of understanding such things.
I will say this as an atheist: We're usually the problem when a child dies due to
lack of food. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a genius composer, died needlessly due
to exposure. I do not see a god involved one way or the other in his
circumstances, but irresponsible humans.
I don't see the fault of a god when I contemplate the fate of six million Jews in
World War II, but the fault of a terrible regime. There is no interfering deity, not
the way I as a father would intervene on behalf of my own child if she were in
real trouble. Parents who exist will separate kids who are fighting, and punish
the child who is hurting the victim if there is such a case.
To understand the Evangelical Christian god, you must understand a very
absurd concept. You, or the child, or anyone, is mere colateral damage in
exchange for the free will of the offender. The abused is colateral damage in
exchange for the abuser's free will, such an abuser may after all later repent
and "be saved". Once you understand what collateral damage is, you
understand how the evangelical god actually works. Although they usually couch
it in nicer words, the end product is exactly as I describe it. If you take it apart,
you will find you can't put it back together because there are definitely screws
loose.
But this is not the only Christian god available, apparently. And the god of
someone like my daughter may be as foreign to you as it is to me.
But without a god, we have the virtues of our collective ancestors, those being
love, honor and fidelity. Honor can be best described as what the Christians call
character and integrity. It does not seem likely to me that an entity would invest
itself in some elaborate designs, only to use parts of its design as collateral
damage for the idea we call free will, an idea that did not really exist as a
construct until the 10th century or so. CE.
Anyway that's not a religious answer, and certainly any religious person will
have a counter claim to what I've said. But I do believe that looking to ourselves
for answers, without excuse and with full responsibility, is an entirely reasonable
position excepting those instances where natural events do cull populations by
mere accident. Even then, some of us have been voluntarily training for some
time to assist neighbors in need if such an event were to occur. This is what life
without the worry of a god looks like. At least if one achieves morality through
reason alone.
Nobel how?
You’ve only got one life, no reward after, so why would you lay your life down for a child unless that child was worth more than you were?
If that child is a baby, it will have no feelings for you at all.
Sure, someone will tell it the story, but that story will be much like, well there use to be a tree growing here. We chopped it down, used the wood for heating.
Kept us warm for a while.
Your best gift to mankind and to keep us going is to have another healthy baby.
You are already able and proven, but that child you give your life for might decide she or he doesn’t want to have babies, or can’t for some natural reasons, so by wasting your life, you’ve not only cut your pleasure short, you’ve left mankind without the possibility of healthier offspring.
The only reason you might sacrifice is for love, but you’d have to have some time with that baby to love it right?
You would need a reason more than it is a baby.
Giving up one life for one life is statistically wrong. If you are going to give up your life, you need to do it for many lives. That way you have helped mankind.
Otherwise, a healthy woman, as I’ve said before, needs to keep living and producing babies.
Pleasant too.
Okay, so my rant is over.
The thing is, if people refuse to believe in God, you can’t blame God for things that go wrong.
You can’t start praying to God, when the shit hits the fan.
You can’t get mad at God, because things aren’t going as you feel they should be going and say, well God, you’re absolutely fucking up, so I’m not going to believe you exist. You haven’t done a damn thing for me, so never mind God.
Best to say that to the wall, because you’re talking to yourself.
No God, no blame.
Excuse the language. I forgot this was safe haven.
I think we can safely argue that for a species like ours, the end game is not mere reproduction, the proverbial spray and pray. As a complex and social species, we have a lot of reasons for aiding another person in need when it doesn't directly benefit us. People misunderstand survival of the fittest; it's not this brute concept of might makes right, not for social species like us and other primates.
We function better, are in fact a far more fit species, when we exercise indirect reciprocity and altruism. Interpersonal violence has statistically gone down over the past hundreds of years. This seems hard to believe because we always hear about violence on the news. But of course, the news reports the rare, not the mundane.
If we were more violent to one another, practiced more infanticide, we'd be less successful as a species.
So if you save that baby, and that baby grows up to assist a family member of yours, you've technically helped your own genes. But I admit this scenario may not be very probable depending on the population where you gave your life in preservation of the other.
However, a society made up of people who are statistically more likely to exercise similar altruistic techniques is a better society for any individuals living in it.
Wayne, God welcomes anyone. If Trisha wanted to commit her life to him today, he not only welcomes it, but is waiting for her, or anyone, with open arms. They don't have to love him first; he has unconditional love for everyone.
"The problem here Trisha is really as Leo put it. Which interpretation of God are we talking about? Because I can give you reasons for this, but these reasons are from a perspective of God which you may not be familiar. We as humans have a very narrow view of our own existence that the here and now, this mortal life is, "for many of us, all there is. Even much of the idea of Heaven is fragmentary for most Christians. it's a state to be attained, but to what end? Your question is an important one however, and one we've all been asking for a very long time.
To Voyager, what I’m saying is that stark atheism for me personally has some very dire implications. Perhaps this is human arrogance, but as far as I know,, we’re the only species that has the complex ability to sit here and ask the big questions of why are we here and what’s it all about, Alphie. I’m not comforted by atheism. Maybe it’s because as prickkkly and aloof as I can admittedly be, I do love extremely deeply. I feel extremely deeply. There are people that have died, or gone on, or whatever euphemism you wanna use before me, and I miss them terribly even after all these years of them being gone. So, there is a part of me that hopes for something more. Otherwise there is that part of me that wonders why. Atheism doesn’t answer that question. But then, to be fair, the typical orthodox religious views that, for instance, seem to be such the mainstay of the current iteration of the Republican party, don’t answer that question either. I think that’s largely because as I see it, to be accepted by their idea of god, you mmust first obey. If you are not absolutely obedient, the kingdom of Heaven is denied to you. But then, I gotta ask why is this so. The fundamentalist Christofascists will simply say ‘cuz the Bible tells me so, or its equivalent. But in any case, maybe if there was absolute proof that this is all there is and there ain’t no more, we could cherish life all the more for that knowledge. But I’m not so sure that would happen. I think there would be many that might lose hope. Because what’s the point, then, of going on? Life ceases eventually. Everyone would have that knowledge. If life just happens just because, then it seems to me that given the complex way we think in comparison to other species who just fuck, procreate and die presumably without any thought whatever to their eventual non-existence, then you’ve got yourself a real problem. Why propagate the species if there’s no reason to? What’s the point? That’s the big problem I see in stark atheism. But hey, maybe I’m the only one who’s bothered by that. I dunno. When I was in school I got really bad grades in mind-reading.
pretty much the crux of why I am an atheist right here. there are not any satisfactory answers to questions like these and for other moral dilemmas.
therefore, for me, there is no god.
Chelsea, she's not ainterested to be accepted by God. God is messing up.
She wants answers to why.
If God gets it together, she might allow him or her to be CEO, but not until.
God doesn't have the skills for the job.
I am referring to the Christian god in the Christian Bible which has been translated over and over again in so many ways.
In that case the answer you will probably get is that Adam and Eve sinned,
and so bad things happen to them once they ate of the tree of knowledge of
good and evil. To which al logical people ask, but who made the tree? To which
nonlogical people respond, doesn't matter, they still ate from the tree. To which
logical people ask, but if god had put that tree somewhere on pluto, or simply
not made something as stupid as a tree of knowledge of good and evil, they
wouldn't have been able to eat from it. To which nonlogical people say, but they
were told not to do it, and they believed the devil, who said that god was lying,
that they wouldn't die if they ate from it. To which logical people said, but then
why did God allow Satan to have such power, and didn't Satan actually tell the
truth? Because Adam and Eve didn't die when they ate from the tree. To which
nonlogical people say, they died a spiritual death. To which logical people say,
that's dumb, and not what the word die means, but ok, what about the satan
question. To which nonlogical people will say, we can't know the reasons god
does things, God works in mysterious ways. To which knowledgeable people will
say, but that's not in the bible, that's an enlightenment era saying which is
actually meant to criticize your god, much like god helps those who hep
themselves, its basically saying that god is so dumb and illogical that its
impossible to figure out what the fuck he's doing. To which nonlogical people will
probably say that the logical people are being rude, and attacking their religious
beliefs, and why can't they just allow people to have their beliefs without
attacking them, and they'll throw a fit because the logical people are being so
logical, and the nonlogical people just don't have answers for all these
questions, you just have to have faith, ok, blind, obedient, nonquestioning,
nonlogical, nonreasoning, all=encompassing faith. To which the logical people
will say, but how can I have faith in something that there's absolutely no
evidence of, and which I would hate if there were evidence of. To which
nonlogical people will say, faith is evidence of things unseen, quoting Paul. To
which logical people will say, but that's stupid. I could have faith in a magical
flying teapot orbiting Jupiter, full of gold coins that give men boobs with lasar
beams in the nipples, its not evidence that thing actually exists. To which the
nonlogical people will continue talking about how the logical people are
attacking their faith and being very rude, and they don't want to talk anymore,
and why can't we just agree to disagree. To which the logical people will say,
because people who believe as you do are currently raping children, and
encouraging people in Brazil not to use condoms even though their babies are
being born with tiny heads, and that's depressing, and you're causing a lot of
harm in this world by wanting your nonlogical worldview to be on par with our
logical worldview, and even be superior to it. To which the nonlogical people will
use a version of the "no true scotsman" argument, saying that those people
aren't real christians, or not christians like they are christians, or not christians
art all, and so are following a false god. They'll argue that their interpretation of
the bible is the only correct interpretation of the bible, and that's why they've
never murdered or raped anyone at all. So you're being very unfair and mean
logical people, you shouldn't bring up evils like that. To which logical people will
say, but you're covered under the same label, so how do we separate you from
the people who want bad things to happen? To which nonlogical people will say
something about, you will know them by the fruits of their labors. To which
logical people will point out that the people who want some version, even a very
light version, of the bad things to happen, even if we talk only about america,
drastically outnumber those who don't. Like the fact that more than fifty percent
of our adult population doesnt accept evolution as the scientific fact that it is,
and most of those want to have intelligent designed taugt in school. So really,
the nice and kind and noninvasive version of religion that the nonlogical people
want the logical people to believe is the one they're currently dealing with is so
rare that its actually bordering on being nonexistent, and if the nonlogical
people actually believed in it themselves they would have never had this
argument because the answer to the questions of evil would have been "I don't
know how he does it for everyone else, I can only tell you about my own
personal god and no one elses". Because any religion that encompasses more
than two people would, by its nature, be evangelical at least a little bit. To which
the nonlogical people will probably get very offended at the logical people daring
to criticize their religion, and their beliefs, and their faith, and their reasons for
all three, and they will brand the nonlogical people as mean, call them assholes
and jerk, and say that the logical people always have to be right, and always
think they know better. Even though the nonlogical people are the one making a
claim, and thus should be able to back it up, but they can't, so they act
defensively. At which point the logical people simply give up and go on about
their day, quietly wishing they could find fellow logical people like them so they
wouldn't feel quite so alone in this world, but they never show that, because no
one would care even if they did.
That's what happens when you ask questions about God. I've never once seen
it happen any differently, except maybe in tiny details.
Johndy, here's an interesting tidbit: In largely atheist countries, there is a section of the population that engages in some forms of spirituality. I don't mean orthodox, state-sponsored religions but some kind of spirituality. Why this is the case, I don't think we fully know yet.
But obviously, reasonable people can and do return differing results on the faith issue.
Trisha, in answer to your question: You said your question is about the god of the Bible. Even if you mean what many of us think you mean, the god of the conservative Christian, there are a number of responses put forth regarding its role in human suffering.
The reason you will find us atheists arguing primarily against the god of the conservatives is actually pretty easy. At least those of us with more of a hard sciences education. The conservative has presented a wonderfully elaborate schematic for how their god works, down to absolutes rendered at scale and a key of terms and definitions. The pragmatic, rational material mind can deconstruct this material god into the sum of its parts, and very quickly find that terrible accident when you take something apart and find there are parts missing. The problem with absolute parameters is not their absoluteness. It is their ability to be absolutely wrong, no questions asked. Any junior learning to write code for the first time will construct an elaborate set of functions designed to perform an action, only to find out they've some important data missing and while the system will compile, it simply will not run. Your conservative apologists are the code compiler of conservative theology, and aside from some compiler warnings which the hurried may ignore, the system compiles. But it doesn't run.
That is why the atheist will argue only against conservative religion. The Liberal Christians have not presented us such a schematic, or a material model, and so I find it totally impossible to try and debate them.
That leads me to completely disagree with the prior post: This is not some fantastical dialog between the logical ones and the illogical ones. You can, after all, be completely logical and at the same time completely wrong. My former example of the junior developer is exaggerated, but it does happen all the time in engineering. Not on purpose, but there are merely things that we did not know initially and later learn, and so are able to fix the problem. There are also the inevitable mistakes. And this is one thing the Conservative Christian just like the junior developer, cannot admit to.
There's no rational way I can back this contemporary trope of dumb religious person and smart atheist. After all, you look at everyone from William Lane Craig to Thomas Aquinas, I'm not seeing stupid. In fact, it's because they're smart and can put forth their models as they have, which is why I can find it lacking. There's a huge difference between being mistaken and stupid. One can be smart and ignorant at the same time also. None of us are without ignorance.
But I find the smart atheist / stupid religious person trope to be every bit as silly and fallacious as the "atheists just want to sin" trope of thinkers like Dr. Comings from the 19th century when he argued David Hume on his deathbed.
I strongly believe in God you know this.
What I’m going to say next is not to change your mind, convince you, or prove to you I’m more logical then you are.
Way back in that Garden, God gave humans free will. Because of free will things happened as they did.
Why did God give free will? So that mankind could live and learn.
Next, God put in protection against free will, because if you notice, the earth takes care of itself sort of.
Everyone that is born doesn’t make it, nor does everyone that lives live to old age, and we also have death preventing over population.
As to these babies, accept for nature, free will causes much of the harm that happens to new burns.
People mistreat their bodies even while pregnant, but expect to have healthy babies. It doesn’t work like that.
Medicines, although good sometimes are actually bad.
Doctors make mistakes, or flat out experiment.
I’m a product of experimentation that went wrong.
Because God has the power to recreate the babies that die, or even cause them to be healed, God doesn’t view the world’s problems in the same way we do.
If you build a Lego house, you don’t worry if it gets smashed, or whatever, because if you decide, you can put it back.
If God is love, nature, God does a wonderful job keeping this old world turning. It is humans that do the messing up, but we are learning.
It is taking a long time, but we are learning all the time.
God even allows you Atheist to live happily not believing.
Okay, so that last statement was a dig, but when I read how I’m not logical, well.
Smile.
God doesn’t get mad and wipe all the nonbelievers out. That is love.
For what it's worth, I consider you to be very coherent, even if we see the universe differently.
Thank you brother. Smile.
I say the same for you.
the god you all believe in is certainly not the one i worship. do you know that our heavenly father loves us so much that he gave us a brain to think with and the ability to make choices and mistakes? if I were in control, I'd feel so insecure that I'd make you all like my guide dog. you'd have one road to walk down. your instincts would govern you. no freedom of thought. action or deed. the deity in whom I believe also is a tough love parent. unless you ask for help and guidance he doesn't come up wipe your butt solve the problem and give you a cookie. if you want to be independent and not believe you basically kicked yourself out of his house. of course unlike many parents, as soon as you ask for help and forgiveness for your neglect he is willing to assist you. back when my kids were young I was undergoing some very trying times in my life. I asked the pastor why and he said "you baby boomers and beyond are the first generations who think you are errogant enough to deserve an answer." so I have all my questions like the one espoused at the top of this thread written down. when I get off that one way plane trip to the eternal club med in the sky, I'm asking for some one on one time for them to be answered.
Ok, so he gave you a brain to think with and the ability to make mistakes. he
apparently did not supply you with a brain capable of not believing in him
without suffering consequences, even if you came to that conclusion by use of
the brain he gave you. Lets face it, if God were even a minuscule fraction of
what he is described as being in the bible, he would be able to make himself
known to us. we'd still have the free will to worship him or not. After all, I know
queen elizabeth exists, but I don't honor her. But God can't even be bothered to
do that. Some God you worship.
And the phrase "tough love" is pretty much always used by abusers to excuse their despicable behavior.
This morning during my workout, got to keep the temple, you understand, I was indulging in some of that illogical thought.
All the bad that happens gets blamed on God, even though God gave us free will.
Back in that garden God said, look it here, don’t eat the apple. You can eat anything else, but I tell you that apple will cause you some problems if you do.
What happened? The apple got ate. Was that God’s fault?
All the other stuff, like the children in the desert, and you name it, God probably told willful people, don’t be fooling around, because when you do, I’m going to let you, then I’ll clean up after you do and of course forgive you.
Like the poster said before me, God doesn’t step in and correct everything for you, but when humans mess up, who they blame?
Ah, morning reverie.
(Laughing)
Does one choose to believe? How does that even work?
I'm not convinced that Christians "choose to believe" any more than we atheists "choose to not believe."
Either something is believable to you or it isn't. And that, of course, can change with time.
I guess one question we could ask is: How likely is it that a super-intelligent designer would bank your eternity in bliss or torture, all based on the precarious state of belief at the moment you die?
I've had Christians tell me there's no way I, an atheist could make them disbelieve. They're usually surprised when I wholeheartedly agree. Not just the moral obligation to leave others' beliefs alone. But if they're Christians, they cannot just "choose to stop believing". The best one can get is convinced by evidence or lack of it, or in the case of some less dogmatic types like I've mentioned earlier, allied with experience.
In the case of blame here, why should we take the fall for Adam and Eve if such characters exist? I mean what they did was forever ago and should not have impact on us. Shouldn't they have taken the responsibility for their mistake instead of making future generations suffer because of their stupid mistake? Obviously the Christian God is holding some kind of grudge again everyone else if he let adam's and eve's sin affect the rest of humanity. Why couldn't god say that yes, humans sin but that it had nothing to do with Adam and Eve because wouldn't we do wrong in his eyes with or without them? I'm just basing it all off of what I've read in the bible long ago.
The big problem I have with the whole apple story is why? Why did he put the tree in the garden in the first place and then tell Adam and Eve not to eat of that tree? Could've just as easily not done it and allegedly we wouldn't be in the mess we're in around the world today. Basically the game was rigged, at least as I read or interpret the story.
I tend to think the stories are just examples, but not punishment.
I don't think Adam and Eve have anything to do with what happens to us now, we do.
Free will.
Nudist run around without fig leaves all the time, and everyone isn't having sex with everyone just because they don't have a fig lief.
The stories are meant to be object lessons.
Yes, but then there are the literalists who swallow it all hook, line and sinker. In their minds it all must be literally true. Ask the intelligent design folks. As for my liberal Christian friend, he believes as you do – that the story of Adam and Eve is an allegory or lesson. I can buy that. It makes far more sense than it being the literal truth. In any case, the current theory I’m working on is this:
My assumption is, at least for the sake of argument, that there is some sort of deity. There mmay even be more than one. I’m basing that on an admittedly great leap of logic. To wit, as I said earlier, how did the whole god concept develop in the first instance? Did the human species itself invent it, or at some point in time did it somehow become innately natural to believe in a god or series of gods because somehow they already existed and we were perhaps closer to that reality as a younger species than we are now? We can’t answer these questions conclusively or prove either contention. After so many tens of thousands of years of existence, perhaps some knowledge gets lost along the way and has to be rediscovered. But even if we assume the existence of only one master of ceremonies, as it were, I believe that it is not yet in our nature to completely understand its workings, its reasons for doing A, B or C, or its very nature. I’ll set forth the proposition that the Bible, the Khoran and all other holy scriptures that came before, during or after these books’ compilations, are attempts at understanding that supposed godhead. Since we don’t understand at present what the set-up may be, I’ll put forth another proposition: That it’s silly to claim religious superiority. The Christians, in other words, are no more right than the Jews or the Muslims or the Buddhists. So, too, perhaps all of them are at least a little bit right in their own ways. Or maybe they’re all right in different areas of understanding. We don’t know because we can’t prove it. Staunch fundamentalist Christians will, of course, endeavor to say that only the Bible is the literal truth of God. But the problem is that their greatest evidence is the Bible, and more specifically that portion of it called the New Testament. Perhaps orthodox Jews will say that their Bible is the literal truth, but their greatest proof is also in their Bible that does not take account of the New Testament. After all, Judaism does not teach that Christ is the Messiah, am I right? And fundamentalist Muslims will say that the Khoran is the literal truth of God, or Allah. They have the same problem as the fundamentalist Christians and orthodox Jews. It’s all only in their scriptures, and all of them rely specifically on those scriptures. I submit that the Khoran, the Christian Bible and the Jewish Bible are no more and no less correct than each other or, for that matter, the Book of Mormon. Or the Tibetan Book of the Dead. They are attempts at understanding a supposed deity or deities, but they don’t prove anything conclusively.
In that event, Leo, your earlier observation about spiritual practices in predominantly atheistic countries doesn’t really surprise me. I think it’s inherent in the nature of humans to question why we’re here and what comes after this life. I also suspect that in large sections of the earth’s populace there is a sort of spiritual hunger, for lack of a better word. Given all the craziness going on right now, we really do wonder why things happen as they do. Some of us crave some sort of justice against those who commit injustices. We hope that if it doesn’t happen on this side of the veil, perhaps it will happen on the other. And many people at least wish for something more because perhaps we really do want to see our deceased loved ones again, if only we could know it were possible. We don’t want to simply blink out of existence. We don’t want to think about people being mmurdered and not having had a full life with nothing for them after the pain of their dying has ceased. The thought that an innocent victim is tortured and killed by another human being for mere pleasure, only to die and blink totally out of existence, does not comfort. The thought that we will never see a cherished loved one again because they absolutely no longer exist after they’ve gone away is hardly a comfort for the living who are left behind. Such thoughts fill many of us with despair, if the truth be told. So, gravitating toward the spiritual is not surprising in light of the admittedly quite real possibility that there may well be nothing more after this life. It’s the hope of something more based on the proposition that since we don’t know, hope is better than despair. Is it Heaven? Is it reincarnation in another body? Is it dying and being born into an alternate universe? I dunno. None of us knows. But in my view, it explains why so many people lean toward the spiritual, even if it’s not necessarily the orthodox views imposed on us in former days by priests and kings. In my better, happier mmoments I do lean toward hope. But then, some of you might argue that maybe I’m not strong enough to face the other alternative. Frankly, though, I hope my better nature is right.
Certainly spiritual practices take different forms. Some would call it spiritual when I admire the birds and trees in my neighborhood, or play contemplative music on the recorder or another of my folk flutes.
I can understand where you're coming from, Johndy. For my part, I think I'm still celebrating the fullness of understanding that my friend who died of AIDS is not now burning in hell, that my two coworkers who died are not burning in Hell right now, that many others who have died "outside the faith" are not now burning in Hell. This affected me far more deeply than I ever anticipated. In the past five years, I've been trying to sort all this stuff out, ironically pushed into doing so by the fundamentalists in my sphere of influence who found me unorthodox.
I will say this though: I told my cousin I'm an atheist. I did so because she follows me on Twitter and I thought it fair I be clear first, rather than assumptins being made. She had lost her father due to a very unfortunate incident brought about by extreme depression and heart medications, he ultimately committed suicide. Now he was a Baptist preacher. I had not worried he might be in Hell, I for several years found the heaven and hell concepts to be untenable. That is a reasoned conclusion, not the "I don't like it!" sort of response the evangelicals usually accuse us atheists of having. Totally different conclusions. But far back in my mind, further back than I realized, I must have been afraid their family thought he was in Hell. After all, I'd been up late nights in my younger days, after someone died, petrified by the notion. Not only afraid a friend of mine was in Hell, but I was supposed to love the abuser who put him there. Speaking from experience here, I knew it far easier to take the abuse than to be forced to sit by and watch someone else take it. And be forced to support the abuser.
This is the position I thought she, her sisters, her brothers, her mother were all in. I didn't realize this until she came out and told me they believe he is with Jesus. Even though I'm not sure the middle-eastern personage technically existed as advertised, I could not have been more relieved. I don't know hw they arrived at this conclusion, what with the Church's unanimous prohibition against suicide and euthanasia.. But I could not be bothered to ask: I was privately overjoyed! The relief was so staggering I didn't realize you could feel something like that.
Recently, my father in law passed on. My Wife's family are Methodist. She came out of that and turned to other forms of Christianity in finding Her path. I will admit I was glad to not have that particular fear of whether he "made it" or not in the back of my mind. I only noticed it by its absence. I don't know if Methodists have a Hell or not as part of their understanding of things. Though the minister did reference Heaven frequently, so presumably they have some kind of antonym to that. But I don't know, and have never asked. I actually thought my father in law as atheist as I am, but apparently I was wrong. Again, not clear on how Methodism works per se. But whatever spiritual beliefs he had he was on our side as scientificc / technological people, and on the side of the LGBT and other groups. Many an evangelical would probably find him on the outside, and the more frank would have hazarded a guess on their idea of an ultimate destination. Untenable and irrational as that might be to some of us.
So compared to the doctrines of the typical American upbringing, blinking out of existence is still for me a vast improvement. It surprises me how long it took to divest myself of some rather deep-seated fears revolving around Hell. I had thought, once rationally deconstructed, the Hell concept would dissipate as the heaven and god concepts had already done years ago. Once the mythology was understood from whence it came and who created it and why, one would think its effects would dissipate. But Hell was honestly the last thing to go. It doesn't make sense to me now, nor did it make sense to me then. But I rode it out and ultimately feelings, as flimsy as they are at times, caught up to my rational self. Someday, when I sto being completely overwhelmingly grateful that my friends and coworkers are not now being tortured, perhaps then I will have room to be discontent enough to look for something more. Only a few have died that I was certain were in heaven, a brother and some grandparents.
The rest, while one could not technically know, their odds left devastating possibilities.
I can't lie: obviously our experiences color the perceptions we have. But I don't find it plausible that perception is reality or any of that. More like, objective evidence for and against things exists or it doesn't. And how we perceive things depends on us I guess, or things we've observed / been participants in in the past. But reality and objectivity stand alone and unique, unpenetrable by perception. Gravity is gravity. One's fear of heights does not make it more or less gravity. Sound is sound; one's love of music and birdsongs does not make it any more or less a physical reality. And both gravity and sound can be objectively measured, regardless of the measurer's emotions surrounding their effects.
I like what Leo said about faith and choice. I suppose there's certainly choice involved. A Christian, as they often tell us, makes a choice every day to choose God. They choose to overcome doubt and uncertainty. They choose to keep looking heavenward for guidance even when things seem hopeless. Yet, I'm not sure a person can just force themselves to believe something, and I think it might also depend on the person's life circumstances when they convert. I wasn't raised overly religiously, so when I was introduced to fundamentalist Christianity at a young, vulnerable age, I went for it because it made me feel less alone. I loved the collectivism of it--the fellowship I wish atheists would work harder to find. I liked being part of something bigger than myself. I liked, most of all, the idea of someone out there who loved me for who I was. I faced a lot of abuse as a kid--not physical, but emotional--so that I felt unworthy to just about everyone who mattered to me. However, as I grew older, learned more about the world, and gained confidence in my worth as a human outside of the automatic worth bestowed upon us as humans by God, I just couldn't make myself believe anymore. I tried so damn hard, but it just didn't add up anymore and eventually I had a bit of an epiphany and realized I just didn't buy it anymore. How much of that was choice? I don't really know, but it certainly didn't feel like a choice. It felt, actually, like falling out of love.
When I stopped seeing God as a punisher, hell, heaven, and started to see God as love, nature, all around us and in me, I stopped calling myself Christian, but gained a deeper love or respect.
Wayne is right. People need to stop seeing the "negative" aspects of God, if they wanna learn who he truly is. If they're closed off, it's a given that they'll see what they wanna see, rather than what's actually there. Because, God is love. God doesn't orchestrate the bad things that happen in the world; he simply uses them for good, if, as I said, people are opened to allowing him to do so.
Except that in another posting on another board topic you specifically state that god detests the perversion of homosexuality. I detect contradiction.
It's impossible to stop seeing the negative aspects of anything, or the positive for that matter. We see what is.
"People need to stop seeing the negative aspects of Uranium 238 and ..."
and yes, I know, people like my daughter would say but God is different.
Even Adolf Hitler was a loving and devoted son, Ted Bundy helped out in his community. Almost everybody / thing has some aspects of itself one could name positive. That doesn't change the counter claim.
It's impossible for both gods to simultaneously exist as one; the god of the liberal Christians like my daughter, and the god of the evangelicals who has sentenced most of the people I know who died to an eternity in an eternal flame, to be artificially sustained against nature for the express purpose of constant torment.
Seems like a precarious situation to have selected the wrong one, batted for the wrong team, as it were.
And yes, Chelsea, I have read Leviticus, and all the remaining books ascribed to said sand-personage.
From a design perspective, does any of it make sense? I see a mismatch of parts, among other things.
The thing is though, does God have positive attributes? He loves, but not
enough to not throw you in a lake of fire. he created you, but did such a shitty
job of it that he then had to kill millions to start again, and still fucked up.
Honestly, where is the positive in God. What would we lose if he didn't exist,
assuming he were a real thing and not a mythical creature.
We'd lose these debates, man. And a laugh now and again at Ken Ham if you happen upon one of his vids when stoned.
I've heard nonebelievers say that god is ll about using people, that's why we're around. Have you noticed he is always sending people to tell us about him or we exist because he needs people to other things? Yeah that's kind of selfish of whatever god there is.
Ah, but you are still finding fault with a God you say doesn't exist.
How can God use people if we have no God?
As to what we'd not have if we didn't have God lots of mankind would have no guide.
Even Atheist have guiding rules and these rules are based in religion or a higher force rule, frame work.
Who can say how the rules all started?
Science doesn't produce sociological wrule.
But that isn't what I'm going to get in to.
I'm hear to defend God against blame. No God, no blameing God.
You need another source to blame, right?
That is of course technically correct.
I don't think you'll find an honest atheist blame a nonexistent god. You may have some who have claims about the character as portrayed in dominant mythologies. After all, people weigh in on the relative merits of Dumbledore and Voldemort even though Harry Potter does not exist.
I'm not sure our original poster is such, but has she even claimed to be an atheist? She raises questions I think, has not presented cogent arguments for or against a particular deity.
Ah. Right.
Non believers. That is a better term applied here.
I should have stuck with it.
I don't believe in any god, I just like to understand why people believe what they believe well minly the Christians because I grew up with a Christian family who also had a little catholic and Protestan believes.
That's an entirely different question than the one you originally posed.
Typically, people believe one or another variant of the religion they were raised with, or if not that, the culturally dominant religion. Follow the money and tell me why most in the west are Christian.
The Christians aren't following the money or doing it for money, that's not what I'm saying. But the apologists for their religion in the west are smart educated people who have sold compelling works many have read, including many of us atheists.
Now, you can't really distill people to statistical averages, so ask a Christian why they are a Christian and you will get that particular Christian's answer. It will look different depending upon the Christian, and upon the brand of Christianity.
But here's something secular people usually don't acknowledge. And by secular, I mean the big-time players like Dawkins.
Christians in the West are Christians because their faith went through a revolution in the last few centuries. These are reasonable people who are told their faith is entirely reasonable. Why do you think apologists like William Lane Craige of ReasonableFaith.org are so popular? They don't believe they're checking their brain at the door -- because they aren't checking their brain at the door. I believe their conclusions are quite mistaken, but underpinning this entire faith system in the West is the notion faith can be reasoned. In fact, a Western-raised Christian, even a Biblical literalist six-day Creationist, would openly welcome your question about "bad things happening to good people". Their literature is pretty replete with hypotheses as to why this is. As untestable and unprovable as those hypotheses may be, they are a testament to the marriage between faith and reason in the west.
Interestingly enough, my daughter will tell you straight out that faith cannot be reasoned. The writer and former nun Karen Armstrong would argue the same thing, she even claims this coupling of faith and reason has caused it ultimate undoing.
But, it's this coupling of faith and reason which provides the greater preponderance of fundamentalism in the West. And yes, of course, one can be reasonably entirely mistaken. It doesn't even mean that all their conclusions -- notably the creation myth -- are even reasonable at all. But the *methods* they subscribe to are entirely Western, entirely reason-based.
So you have a culture where in many of the existing states one cannot run for office being an atheist, one cannot be on the PTA as an atheist or any number of other situations. But you have a predominant faith who has successfully coupled itself with both western notions of reason / rhetoric, and the most successful economic system ever to have been invented -- Western capitalism, and backed by the most technologically efficient military ever to have been created. I don't know how you're going to beat that for dominance; they won. But like the modern identity politics kids, these fundamentalists have been able to maintain a victim mentality, formerly known as a persecution complex.
Now, talk to a libby like my daughter, you hear a different story. But first, a fundamentalist would probably not contend the libby is a "true Christian", and second no matter how much Ayn Rand / Jonathan Edwards / Gary Bower / name your favorite pundit you've read, you probably won't fully get what the libby is saying. They're an entirely different group.
As to the more fundamentalist breed? Pretty dog simple to follow the money and politics, and see how they're predominant. Many of my fellow secularists do not describe this situation properly. But if you really want an inside-out look, get and read everything Karen Armstrong has written, they're all on Bard. Karen Armstrong is still a believer in some form, at least she's come out and said she's not an atheist. Her books are historically and anthropologically sound.
Start with A short History of Myth, and then I'd say proceed on to A History of God, and from there A Battle For God, the work which describes the rise and preeminence of modern fundamentalism. If what you want is to understand, the toolls and resources are there. Careful where you may end up though ;)
I say that people believe in what they do for many reasons.
You can't pen it down to one absolute.
Some need something, others study, and believe through that. Others are based in terdition.
Some people like to belong to something, a group.
My question is why any god would not want his, her or its children to know the difference between good and evil. I'm also not a fan o the concept of infinite punishment for finite crimes.
I don't think most Western Christians are a "fan" of such a punishment either,
they simply conclude that the punishment exists whether they believe it or not.
The Christian does not "choose to believe" any more than the atheist "chooses
not to believe. This stuff gets hotly debated among skeptics, some of who
refuse to acknowledge that the Christian, through whatever means, finds with
the predominant mythology. But at the same time want Christians to
acknowledge that the atheist does not "choose to disbelieve" but finds
insufficient evidence of the specific god-concept of our upbringing.
So I'm calling out my own kind here, it's not fair of us to claim Christians "want"
or "like" a particular aspect of their deity, including its bronze-age desert
behaviors. They simply find most plausible the texts they've been given. It's
unfair of us secular types to claim Christians "want" or "wish" people would go
to hell. They simply believe, I would say mistakenly, that the Hell monster is
under the proverbial bed. Anyone who has been a parent understands this
entirely. My daughter didn't "want to believe" that monsters would eat her feet
from under the bed, nor did she "choose to be scared of the dark". It would be
unfair of me to claim otherwise and so I see it as unjust for us skeptics to claim
this of the Christians.
Might we drop hints? Sure. I asked my daughter over breakfast one morning
where the monster's poo was. She was a bit surprised, so I said, "Well baby, if
there's a monster under the bed, it's got to do a pooh somewhere. I checked
your room this morning to make sure your clothes were picked up. But I found
no pooh. Have you ever seen any monster pooh?"
Just dropping a subtle hint, rather than tell her she "chose to believe" there
were monsters, or "wanted her feet to get eaten."
I understand what I'm saying here is probably offensive to some Christians, and
I believe I understand why, at least to a point. But many of my fellow skeptics
are wrong when they claim the Christians "want to believe" in a god who
punishes eternally. They merely find with the texts, and are often traumatized
by what they find when an unbelieving friend of theirs dies. I, for one, as
offensive as this probably is, will occasionally ask them for signs of monster
pooh. Maybe it's being in an inter-faith marriage, who knows. But I openly
challenge my own kind to do better. We're the ones after all, whose sole appeal
is objective reality and ethics brought about by reason. I hold no quarter with
the new subjective realists, IMHO the classic enlightenment rationalists seem to
have the best model we could work with. Sort of an upgraded Greek stoicism.
I view this from the other side.
I say Christians, or Atheist choose to or not to believe.
Some Atheist disown God, or pretend not to believe in God, because it is fashionable, or cool to say so.
If you put them in a fox hole or a stressful situation, they pray, and such things.
Sometimes it is rebellion against parents.
Christians go through the same things and choose to believe as well for all the same reasons.
If this was based on facts, science, why do we have some scientist that strongly believe in God?
They study, they are taught to deal with facts, but yet, they believe.
We have priest, and other high church officials turning away from God, because of whatever reasons, even though they were thought to be strongly tethered to the church.
So, I say one’s belief or lack of it is a choice, not some magical things were you have no choice.
Some Christians say they get the holy spirit, but you have to be open to it.
An Atheist person is not going to suddenly believe in God even if you show them something they can’t explain. They’ll just say, well, there has to be a reason for that, and soon science will find out.
They are not open to it, so they are choosing.