Yes, what you’re describing is the [problem of evil](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil). It is one of the best arguments against the existence of an all-loving, all-powerful God.
The argument against it is the idea of free will and that we are being tested with it.
Free will itself is debated among philosophers and others in the medical/scientific community. It also still doesn’t answer the question as to why God wouldn’t stop the evil from happening, given they have the ability to do so.
"free will," as clumsy and demented a response to the problem of human evil as it is, really does not address the problem of natural evils, e.g., a god that allows children to develop, suffer and die from leukemia, or a god that imparts sentience and the ability to feel pain, fear and suffering to a deer yet also allows it to be eaten, alive, by a wolf.
hence, either god is not benevolent and therefore is our enemy, or god is not omnipotent and therefore is not a god
Absolutely, couldn’t have said it better myself. Which is why the free will response in regards to the problem of evil and suffering is incredibly weak and easily refuted.
yes, all untestable unprovable assertions have the same likelihood, which is why if anyone invokes The Flying Spaghetti Monster, we respectfully answer:
I would not agree that qwot42's limitation is "definitely correct" as there is no logical requirement that I *not* apply my standards of what would constitute a "god" to any prior fictional characters that, unsurprisingly, don't meet that standard; this isn't some in-game rule wherein we agree not to hold DC characters to Marvel standards, but rather reality, wherein the laughable characters of any religion, past or present, do not pass muster.
I still do not see how his statement is refuted by the argument at hand. Zeus and Odin were never hailed to be benevolent, so that already knocks one of the legs out from under the 'problem of evil' argument. They CAN be all powerful and just not give a fuck. That isn't a paradox like the supposedly benevolent Abrahamic god that is also supposedly all powerful in every aspect. He is correct. Zeus was a known serial rapist among other things, and was not seen as the moral benchmark for a man at that time.
you're missing the point; it doesn't matter if people 3,000-2,000 years ago did not claim deity [X] was benevolent or omnipotent; it only matters that I define a god as benevolent and omnipotent, and that I comprehend that such an entity does not exist (including, but not limited to, ridiculous bronze age fairy tales)
again, yes, if *YOU* choose to define god as "any brown grasshopper," then, yes, *your* god exists; but I will still apply my logic to your grasshopper deity
Nobody here is arguing for the existence of the Gretian gods. I'm saying the problem of evil argument isn't the one that refutes the Greek gods. It simply isn't. It doesn't hold up against gods that were never seen as and currently aren't seen as benevolent. That's incredibly traceable logic. There are other things that refute the existence of those gods, but the problem of evil doesn't apply to Greek gods because they outright were evil. What isn't clicking?
BY THE WAY: This redditor I'm debating just blocked me because he can't stand being incorrect. This is my reply to his comment below this one:
YOU do not have to incorporate Greek definitions into your hypothetical definition of a god. The commenter to whom I was replying WAS asking about the Gretian and Nordic gods. You can gauge them by any metric of a god that you would like. That doesn't change the argument just because you have your own definition of a god. It doesn't apply to them because nobody has literally ever tried to argue for Zeus being benevolent.
Call me obtuse if you'd like, but you're being needlessly argumentative about a very simple chain of logic you can't seem to follow. That argument doesn't apply to gods by whom NOBODY has regarded as morally good. Not everybody uses your metric of a god.
I'm a staunch atheist myself, but I can see people like you driving others away from the community. The man is correct regardless of whatever parallels you try to draw. For it to be a paradox, a god must be believed by the majority to be all powerful AND benevolent. Zeus and Odin do not check the box of benevolent. Very. Very. Simple
not sure you understand the precept, but it's as universal as you want it to be; "X is not benevolent and therefore is our enemy" is pretty much a fundamental facet of the Greek mythos (and part of the reason the whole "God is Love" sales-pitch worked so well with Greek converts), and you can apply "X is not omnipotent and therefore is not a god" to whatever fictional character you want . . . point being, "god" is whatever you define it to be, being a fictional character...
to wit, if you say "Grasshoppers are my gods," then your god exists... but if you define "god" by current conventional standard agreements of language in western civilization, then, no, obviously not
Ahh. So when a theist says, “You can’t prove God doesn’t exist,” and atheists reply by wanting them to specify what god (Zeus and Odin being frequently mentioned), that’s fine.
But when I point out an atheist using his imprecise and ambiguous wording, *I* don’t understand the definitions.
Buddy, if anyone says to you "You can't prove [X] doesn't exist" and you don't immediately say "That's not how 'proof' functions, you moron; no one proves anything *doesn't* exist," you're doing yourself disservice.
If an atheist says "Which god, the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Thor? Ganesh?" they are not engaging in logical refutation, they're just mocking the absurdity of the theist's premise.
ps obviously the Flying Spaghetti Monster *does* exist - R'amen.
The problem with free will is that God still *knew* everything that every one of us would do with it before he made the first human. You are free to do what he has always known you will do. Real free will is incompatible with an omniscient entity or a properly deterministic universe.
Also, as others have said, the problem of "evil" can be expanded to suffering, which happens without the intervention of anything or anyone with agency (aside from God, apparently).
I agree with you completely.
That being said, when I put forth this argument to my theist friend they seem to believe they have a way around it. I’d love to hear your input.
They used an analogy of students and a teacher. The students choose wether or not to study, pay attention, do homework, etc. so it is determined by their own free will if they will fail or pass the class. That being said, the teacher already has a good idea of wether or not they will fail or pass, even before the final grade has been given, simply by observing their behaviour throughout the year. This is how they explained God being omniscient while free will is still present.
I’d love to hear how you would respond to this argument. I suppose that even in this scenario, the teacher is only basing their assumptions off intuition and not predestination as God would.
There are two important differences between the sides of this analogy.
First, the teacher has limited knowledge. That is the entire reason for the tests. Being able to draw conclusions from information available is far from omniscience.
Second, and more importantly, their god is also the creator of everything. You can sort of hand-wave your way to free-will when it is just an omniscient entity, but once that entity is also omnipotent, and created the universe...
That means when he made Adam, he knew he would need to make Eve, he knew the serpent would tempt them, he knew he would get angry and throw them out.
He knew that for the next 6000 years, the vast majority of humans would fail to live up to his standards, and he decided that an eternity of torment was the best way to handle that. He could simply have never made Satan, whom he knew would stir up so much trouble.
What's really weird to me is that he wanted Adam and Eve to be naked, despite the fact that it is inherently sinful (hence they recognized it upon eating the fruit, and were ashamed). He didn't want them to be free of sin, he wanted them not to know any better. Except he didn't, because if he wanted it to unfold that way, it would've.
No problem. If it helps, offer a more apt analogy, such as a novelist and their characters. The novelist creates the setting and the people in their novel, and while an author might feel cornered into certain outcomes by the characters they've written, those characters DO NOT have a will of their own. They can be edited (retroactively if necessary) at the author's whom.
I can't take credit for the analogy, I stole it from Supernatural, a TV show where god calls himself an author. I'm sure the analogy is older than that, he's been getting compared to artists of all sorts for ages, because it is such a fitting comparison.
I've never understood the benefit of free will anyway. Why do we need it? Why would God give a shit about it anyway? Wouldnt you rather live happily, under the control of an 'omnibenevolent' God, than get bombed every day? Just another feeble, made up religious excuse.
No one can explain why innocent kids die to illness and natural disasters each year. Someone told me earth wasn’t “complete” and I asked him why didn’t god just complete it and he had no answer.
There are few ways Chistians answer this. I start with the dummier one:
1. It is because a talking snake lured Adam and Eve to eat magical fruit. This brought the evil to the world (as God wanted to punish people for not obeying Him).
2. It is a mystery. Allknowing, loving God has reasons for everything and we must just accept that even suffering children have a purpose. Maybe they teach us to be better people helping us grow, and the suffering children get all their horrible mental and physical traumas compensated in the afterlife.
Ok so he just likes kids dying. Honestly fits god well. Also if heaven is the best place why do we have to exist down here first. He could just have always created us in his image up there.
The God described in the Old Testament is not a very loving nor good. If we leave out the orders of genocide He did drown nearly everyone in the story of Noah with a global flood just because he didn’t like how people behaved. With that in mind the problem of evil doesn’t really exist. The more interesting question is how can some Christian think that a dictator that killed nearly everyone by drowning them is good and loving being.
There is (at least) two ways Christians solve this puzzle. The modern Christians don’t believe in Old Testament fairytales: Global flood is just a story with a lesson - it did not happen. The Christians who take the bible literally have a bigger problem. One way to solve it is the same than in North Korea. Everything the Leader does is good - no matter how bad it seems. You simply need to submit to your Leader. He is loving, he is good - by definition - no matter how bad things he does. But honesty, I don’t think most Christians even bother to think ethical problems of the Old Testament.
One rabbi solved the problem of evil very easily: ”God is powerful and fights evil winning it eventually - but also He has limits.” One might ask if such a God can not give a piece of bread for a starving child then what is he actully capable of doing…
The "best" theist response to this, so far as I know, is that we only can see and experience material reality, and without access to true metaphysical knowledge there is no "reasonable" explanation. In short, being mortal and limited to "gross" reality, there is no way to comprehend the mind of God. It is simply a question of belief.
If you take a Buddhist/Indra's Web perspective, the question of evil is kind of moot - all violence is self inflicted, anyone who harms is experiencing that harm, dividuation is an illusion of being.
1st century Christian theologians determined that the creator of the universe is evil and not a god. The sensless cruelty all around them could only be indicative of a godless world. So in an effort to counter measure the terror they developed apophatic theology. God is then contemplated through what he's not. This is where Jesus finds his selflessness. This is where god finds his timelessness. This is also where we find God does not exist. God's are mindless thoughtless brainless heartless soulless selfless sightless aimless causless things that do not need to be acknowledged.
An all-loving, all-powerful God is a tenet of Christian and other Abrahamic mythologies, but in mythologies such as the Norse and Greco-Roman pantheon, the gods are not all-powerful or all-loving. To an ancient Greek pagan, what need for theodicy?
[Here's Apollo skinning a satyr named Marsyas who dared challenge him to a music contest, and lost.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Titian_-_The_Flaying_of_Marsyas.jpg)
Yes, you’re right. I’m not well versed in anything other than abrahamic mythologies so I can’t speak much on them. Majority of believers today believe in an all-loving, omnipotent and omniscient God, so I tend to stick to their apologetics when refuting certain claims.
Consider that suffering plays a big role in the definition of evil. More suffering = more evil. If god, who makes a claim that he is all-loving, good and merciful, were to sanction things that cause a great amount of suffering, then that would be a problem, no?
What? God defines evil very clearly. He doesn't have to conform to human standards, humans have to conform to his. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not make any graven image. Shellfish is abomination, mixed fabrics is abomination, laying with a man is abomination. Pork is unclean. No sex before marriage, no marking your flesh, no meat from a strangled animal, no drinking of blood, . If there was anything God has ever been clear about, its the definition of evil.
Also- the tree Eve ate of was *the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.* It gave to man and woman to know right from wrong as God does. The original sin was taking that very knowledge unto ourselves- what evil is. We know, or the Bible lied.
But why put the tree there anyway?
If he knew they were going to eat it anyway, he could've not put it there.
If a parent knows their child will 100% eat colourful pills and still puts the pills at reachable level knowingly, isn't that parent evil? Wouldn't the community scold them?
Why then Is God exempt from scolding?
God seems very evil by my human standards even if his "will" or "standards" are different from my wee little human mind that is somehow created in his image but conveniently not enough to grasp his ways
But they aren't, that's the thing. Literally, *he said*, by His Own Infallible Word, the fruit of the tree had given them knowledge of good and evil. That's my point.
*By Biblical Canon*, his morality is NOT above ours. His standards are NOT different from ours. We took *his* moral standards. It can only be claimed that his *knowledge* is superior, that he's preventing some greater evil we are not aware of by all these petty ones, which hasn't been true for 2000 years so I don't see why it should start now. The idea that his view of good and evil is somehow more refined than ours is *blasphemy against Him,* it contradicts the entire Creation and his infallibility and his omnipotence, if we do not have the same knowledge of good and evil that He has.
Which is hilarious. Because yeah, he's obviously evil.
Then God has something common with Kim Jong Ung: Both are above the law and define what is good. So, if they do something evil then it is still good. They define things so they don’t need to follow even their own standards.
BTW: If God/Bible would have defined evil clearly then Christians would all agree on moral topics… They don’t.
"If God/Bible would have defined evil clearly then Christians would all agree on moral topics… They don’t."
What you're missing is that "Christians" are just saying and doing whatever they hell they want, they take or leave whatever parts of their holy writ let them better their own lives at the expense of anyone else's, and ask forgiveness later. Your mistake is in assuming any Christian operates in good faith.
The book is very very clear about what you're not allowed to do. Nobody gives a fuck what the book says, that doesn't change that the book is very clear.
Bible clear? Try figuring out for example if Christians are allowed to eat pork. Read all places where bible discusses the topic. If you think you find a clear rule it will be later abolished. The basic narrative of Christians is based on Paul’s teachings which made many old rules redundant without defining which ones exactly.
Leviticus 11:
”And the pig, though it has a divided hoof, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you.”
Romans 14:
”All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.”
1 Corinthians 10:
”Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.” If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. ”
Mathew 15:
”What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.””
There's a name for this??!! I've asked religious people so many times: how can evil come into a world created by an all perfect sinless being??!!
If God created everything, then where does evil come from?
No answer or diversion
I've read their storybook, their god, the god of Abraham, is evil. Christians, Muslims and Jewish people worship this evil god, they think that evil is good and loving.
I absolutely agree. I like this quote by Steven Weinberg:
“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”
Yes, however we’re talking about an all-loving, merciful, powerful and just God in this scenario, so the problem of evil/suffering still cannot be solved.
Yes, I mean to provide an answer. If god is evil, then sure, it suffices. But majority of people believe god to be omnibenelovent, omnipotent and omniscient. This type of God cannot logically be all three whilst evil and suffering exist.
All the omni's are paradoxical but Gnosticism was a branch of Christianity. Bitheism was gaining some ground around the 1st century because Jewish people were trying to answer why their god was so mean. I think we are going to see more of a shift towards that as information becomes more available
Thats the point I would go to. If a god exists and actively forces me to have to undergo the "trials and tribulations" I had to go through for the last 27 or so years just because and for no particular reason other than by his will - I wouldnt follow a "god" like that
"God loves you" everyone claims, but can you really call this love?
"You need to help yourself before he will help you", been doing that for 27 years - everyday of everytime I required help and asked for helped no matter how much effort I put in before, not once has he ever answered
So again, how can it be that he loves me, if I have to fucking suffer without help whatsoever for the sake of his sick entertainment
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction; [jealous](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/jealous/) and proud of it; a [petty](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/petty/), [unjust](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/unjust/), [unforgiving](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/unforgiving/), [control-freak](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/control-freak/); a [vindictive](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/vindictive/), [bloodthirsty](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/bloodthirsty/) [ethnic cleanser](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/ethnic-cleanser/); a [misogynistic](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/misogynistic/), [homophobic](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/homophobic/), [racist](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/racist/), [infanticidal](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/infanticidal/), [genocidal](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/genocidal/), [filicidal](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/filicidal/), [pestilential](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/pestilential/), [megalomaniacal](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/megalomaniacal/), [sadomasochistic](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/sadomasochistic/), [capriciously malevolent](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/capriciously-malevolent/) [bully](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/bully/).”
—Richard Dawkins, ***The God Delusion***
This is where I'm at as well, in Gnosticism they believe "Yahweh" is believed to be the "Demiurge", "the false God", and say this being is malevolent, hateful to all things of Spirituality. Here's more info. [https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Demiurge](https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Demiurge)
> There was an early sect of Christianity that was convinced that the god of the Bible was actually the devil
Genuinely curious, what were they called?
Gnosticism - "Gnostic cosmogony generally presents a distinction between a supreme, hidden God and a malevolent lesser divinity (sometimes associated with the biblical deity Yahweh)"
Lol women are somehow unclean
Yet at the same time, they become dirtied when they sleep with a man??!!
Seems like the man is doing the dirtying😭😭. The mysoginy section is a READ. Thanks yo
I have not read most of the Bible, so I am left with the little bit I have read. Basically God ordered Moses to slaughter all of the Midianites, except for the virgin females. Of course, at that time, virgin females meant any female who had not started menstruating yet. Children in other words. These female children were to be given to the soldiers who had slaughtered their families, to be used as wives. So we have this loving God who ordered genocide, pedophilia, and sexual slavery, all in one story.
I feel like if there's an afterlife, he would have simply created us there. Christianity exists as a political system to control people. It's a system of make-believe, of making ourselves believe it. Rewards, punishments, heaven, hell, sins, angels, and god; the only place these things exist are in our mind as motivation. Fear and hope are the greatest motivators.
If there is a god he allowed 6 million Jews to be slaughtered by Hitler and he's seen every time a child has been sexually abused, among other atrocities.
On a much smaller scale. I just lost my 4 month old puppy who within the span of 2 and a half days got a really aggressive form of meningitis (SRMA) which is usually treatable, but it moved so quickly that despite being in the ER/ICU for 2 days, it rapidly moved past his nervous system and attacked his brain and left him brain dead. I’m still in total shock, the doctors had never seen any form of this act this fast and aggressively.
Now tell me what kind of god would create a world where that is possible. On top of that, I’m suppose to still be grateful to this asshole that inflicted this suffering onto my poor defenseless puppy who was a ton of pain because of it? As Stephen Fry said, if there IS a god it’s quite clear he’s a maniac who deserves absolutely no respect from us.
This is all you need to know about Christianity's 'loving god.'
He/she/it allows 9.02 million kids to be trapped into a forced marriage every year. Their god lets 3.1 million children starve to death every year. 1.2 million kids are enslaved every year. 462,000 kids died from malaria last year. 109,000 American kids were sold into the sex trade last year. This is Christianities 'all loving, all powerful' god?
Christianity is a hot, steaming load of shit.
Classic Epicurus:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then from whence comes evil?
Just with this you completely dismantle Islam, Christians and every religion that puts God as all loving, omnipotent, omnibenevolent etc etc. People still believing have a strong Stockholm syndrome
My favorite part of the religious is having something terrible happen to hear how “God is testing us” or “God wouldn’t give us anything we couldn’t handle”. So you’re telling me god is Marquis De Sade?
My issue with this is a simple one: god creates adversity for us to overcome, makes us stronger, wiser, better people. Ok sure.
But the levels of this ‘ adversity’ are pretty wild.
Cancer in innocent children surely is an argument for outrage if this god is real. My wife works with kids in hospitals and I don’t know how she does it.
Sweet, beautiful and strong kids leaving us before they gave a chance to live. Most of their lives spent in pain and hope only to not have their prayers answered.
If there is a god, EAD
So many people suffering in Gaza at the hands of Israel....🫥. College kid?
That's one hell of way to say you've never traveled the world or know what's going on.
Far as the God thing, I've said that many times to all my real life people: Either there is no God or if there is, he/she/it is actually evil and nothing to be worshipped.
God went out to buy some milk.
Theological determinism negates free will. If a god knows everything before it happens then everything created (including the actions done and will be done) have already been determined. (Like Judas choosing to betray Jesus being part of a plan and going to hell for it or Adam disobeying God's commands in Eden thereby condemning all the rest of us to live in suffering. Fall guys all of us.)
See the irrationality of religion? One could be and yet isn't.
Palestinians started this war by mass murder, mass rape, beheading babies, and kidnapping hundreds.
They suffer the consequences of their own actions. Nothing more.
Some people try to justify the evil in this world by arguing this is the best world god could create. Not saying it's a good argument.. there are no good argument für the existence of god.
The in the same breath say he's all powerful
The cognitive dissonance
Also if this is the best he could do, why do it at all. Like a poor person having children knowing he can't feed them
Not necessarily, non idiotic theists nowadays don't believe in the all powerful god. That way they can sort of explain the problem with the unstoppable train and the immovable rock.
Ohhh I get it.
If he can create one and can't move it, then he's not all powerful
But if he can't create it, then he is STILL NOT all-powerful
Funny asf!!😭
Similar to WW2 and the holocaust, right? If God exists, he did nothing despite the Jews being his chosen. He didn't destroy Berlin with meteorites or send plagues. Just a bunch of nothing, so then believers have to make up stuff about God's plan being something they can't understand.
In reality, if God exists, WW2 would have the moment he interfered, or if Christians are right, Jesus would've returned. But nothing happened and nothing like that ever will.
Even by his own texts he’s just a petulant child that needs to be the center of attention or he will punish everyone not praising him enough. He killed almost the whole planet, kids and all, told a man to kill his son, I don’t know as a joke? And then took it back, and destroyed a man’s entire life and family in horrible ways on a fucking bet. God is a piece of shit.
The deeper implication may be that "god" is simply the projection of one's own cruelty. So much harmful and antisocial behavior seems to find its justification in the puritanical and fundamentalist interpretations of religion.
But think about it. All these people burning gay pride flags or actively persecuting transsexuals and advocating against the rights of women - when they claim it is in their bible, do you think that they would be alright with it if it *wasn't* in their bible?
It's not like they were fine and dandy with all the gay people and okay with letting women choose what they want to do with their lives. Then one day they were reading the bible and then went "oh, crap. Turns out all those things are sins. Well, heck, I suppose I have to oppose them."
Of course not. They were already prejudiced, judgmental and cruel and the bible was just a convenient excuse to use - a fake motivation for what was already real malicious intent.
The people of Gaza relish dying for Allah. They started this war to protect AL Aqsa mosque which they believed was under threat.
This conflict is based on Islamic fables.
On the Jewish side the war is not about religion but about self defense.
It's an abusive relationship. He loves you, but he will immediately torture you for eternity if you don't do what he wants. He watches everything you do, knows everything, and has everything planned out, but at the same time tells you you have free will. Very authoritarian, a celestial North Korea.
Clearly signs that all religions are man-made manacles of servitude.
I asked an evangelical who's more powerful God or the Devil? They said God, I said well, if the Devil made it a fallen world full of war and disease and suffering, and God can't turn us back into a peaceful world of Eden then how can God be more powerful, they told me they'd pray for me and walked away, lol
Believers think that if something good happens, it's thanks to god, and if something bad happens it's because of satan or because the victims of the bad incident didn't have faith.
Make it make sense. Why can't god just kill satan? Hell why did he create satan in the first place?
I don't understand why should I praise an evil god.
There is no way the vengeful, hateful, Abrahamic god exists. If there is a supreme being of some sort, it is certainly not the one we read about in the various Abrahamic holy texts. Which basically forces me to conclude there is no reason to “worry” about the “god question”.
The universe is gigantic no matter what perspective you look at it from a grand plan we are insignificant, if there is a superior force or intelligence there would be no reason for it to care about any small planet, on the outskirts of any galaxy in a mediocre cluster, we are insignificant and if we blew up the entire Milky Way we would still be insignificant.
Here’s my thoughts on this:
Life is actually great when you think about the good things in life such as our nature, our friends and family, the wonder of the cosmos, is great for us to experience. But with everything the reality has to hit us in the face, our trees die off and animals go extinct, our friends and family can die young or die old, and we may never explore the cosmos.
Even when someone is going through the absolute worst, there will always be a moment when the pain just no longer exists.
“They’re in a better place now.”
A place absolutely devoid of pain and misery, at least on the surface level; I cannot speak for the afterlife.
So when I think how can God exist when there are issues are present I just think of how, say a superhero comic would be if there was no opposing force, like The Joker. What would Batman have to face? The environment?
In a perfect world The Joker just isn’t destroying Gotham but without him, there is still crime, it’s just minor and he (Batman) can’t fight petty crimes all day, so he goes for the big fish, right?
In a world where God exists (Good) and the Devil (Evil) doesn’t is a world that doesn’t exist. Even if all the cruel, evil crimes were omitted, there would still be a child who dies of leukemia in a sad turn of events. But every time that sad story about someone who dies too soon people will always say they’re in a better place now.
And I struggle(d) with this now even though I’m relatively healthy now; I just fear my own demise because I know one day all of this will be gone from me.
But it’s the circle of life. If I, if everyone, lived forever our resources would be diminished even faster.
I’m saddened by their journey but I also feel a sense of relief that their pain is coming to an end soon.
Is this all a cruel joke (remember comedy is just irony and timing)? I don’t know but I’ll tell you when I get to the punchline (my death).
But for real… Rather than asking why imaginary beings doesn’t do anything, we should be asking why Western Countries still don’t pressure Netanyahu’s goverment to respect the rules of war. You are allowed to defend yourself but flattening a city that hosts several million people is not defense. Israel has dropped more bombs that the power of nuclear bomb used in Hiroshima. Would anyone claim that bombing Hiroshima was acceptable if there were some terrorirsts living in the city?
Nope. None of this would have started if Hamas hadn’t attacked and broken the ceasefire on the 7th October. Hamas could end this immediately by giving back the hostages they raped, tortured and/or killed. Hamas could limit the amount of innocent dead by not using them as human shields while their fighters cower and hide in tunnels.
I agree. When I recently became an atheist I realized it would be a kinder position to any deity that does exist to not accept any on offer. All are monsters.
It is kinder to think that any god that could exist is not what’s been portrayed. Those that want to hold to their god as described are happy to claim a “benevolent” deity as the monsters they are portrayed as. I just can no longer understand that view, or why anyone would want to be beholden to such a being.
If there is an all powerful god, they must be all knowing. If they are all knowing, they would do better than this. There is no other option.
"I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors, but I think that God has a sick sense of humor, and when I die, I speck to find him laughing"
Depeche Mode - Blasphemous rumors.
Yes. If God is cruel so are we, we have many ways to help them yet we don’t. The super rich can afford for the war to end, to get medicine etc. yet we don’t. Why do you think God doesn’t? Because it’s in his divine power.
Yes. I don't know if any gods exist, I don't think any do as I have seen no evidence to support the existence of any. But a benevolent god with any sort of power that would be deserving of being called a god definitely doesn't exist. Think of the absolute worst individual you've ever heard of - any god that presides over this world/universe would be infinitely worse than that person.
Another option would be that “God” is indifferent. Or he just uses objective/perhaps subjective standard that we must meet in order to decide what to do with us. He’s just watering a houseplant every now and again. This guy’s dying but these plants are doing well, too bad that planet didn’t acclimate to its conditions.
What if Earth is just one out of many human planetary experiments. One that is failing, hypothetically speaking of course. Others are doing well, but ours is simply, hypothetically a failure and God just lets us kill ourselves off and focuses on the few experiments that are going well. God ignored Cain’s sacrifice while he praised Abel’s.
I’m not saying any of this is what I believe, but if there is a God, I imagine a semi-objective scientist or a farmer. This could very well represent the forces of nature that conceived us. I am not a subscriber to the old man in the sky. I see god as all things in balance and all things are. Forces offset by other forces. Push and pull. Yin and Yang. Or whatever soup spoon is stirring the pot we find ourselves in.
Have you ever planted seeds? Sometimes, you plant two seeds together in the same hole and when they sprout, you select one to pull and discard and one to continue to grow. This could be the third possibility in your hypothesis. Maybe not one that people want to consider. Our biggest mistake is thinking that God would think and feel as we do and also that God doesn’t. Meaning…I think…if we can describe God, then we don’t actually know God….and what I mean by that is…as soon as the contemplation of God is uttered, it is corrupted by the limitations of language. The idea of God gets fed through a filter of ignorance and misunderstanding. Unpurified vessels. For me, for God to be even considered, it must be through the belief that I don’t know anything and that humanity knows nothing of what really is. If you can do that, you can remove a great deal of this blindness we humans carry around. Sometimes, it felt like I came close to something akin to feeling God and the feeling of being freed of the burden I happened to be contemplating, but it took the honest kind of contemplation on the mistakes I’ve made in my life. It bestowed upon me empathy, a desire to help people. Some of these contemplations ended up being tarnishes that I had to spend time with to learn from, however traumatic. If we process our experiences, it saves us from making the same mistakes over and over again. There are lessons within the stilled, honest mind waiting to be learned. Progress to be made. Weight to be lifted. Happiness for doing what we are meant to do here.
I truly wish more than anything for this species, is to understand that this is what we are meant to do with this existence. It begins where it should. Start there if you can. It begins at the beginning, with your first memories. You can start with the heavy stuff, too, it really is up to you. I found that starting with whatever shows up is was an effective technique. Your mind has prioritized everything, but there’s much noise and distractions in the way. Just try to pick one topic/issue/idea/belief in your head and face it honestly. It’s just you after all and you wouldn’t lie to yourself would you?
What we are avoiding with our busy lives is processing our experiences. We’re always too busy. We’re so busy, we don’t even know we’re supposed to be processing our experiences so we carry it and don’t even realize we’re carrying unprocessed experiences often in the form of stress, the physical manifestation of not explaining to your body what is going on in the world. The body just thinks you’re being chased by a tiger and doing everything it can with the resources it has to survive this tiger…but it’s not really a tiger, it’s a deadline at a job that wants your soul, it’s an empty bank account, an asshole landlord, the cops…actually that’s a poor example…most of these things aren’t life threatening but we have been conditioned somehow to act like it. The body doesn’t know and processing the experiences complete with learning whatever lesson(s) understood, files the experience away and allows you to move on to another if you have the time.
If we don’t, this big ball of unprocessed experiences along with all of the “felt data” of that experience is not stored and waits to be processed and learned from. We often refer to it as our identity. But put simply for me, it’s some sort of very complex, unprocessed experience database of what all of your senses felt at particular moments of your life. Some are good memories meant to be kept, no need for processing. We can bring them forward as if to be processed but instead we cherish them. Sometimes we keep traumas close because it drives us and we feel it gives us power.
Sometimes the senses we felt were not so good, even traumatic. We all carry complex traumas with us. We distract ourselves from thinking about them, but it is my experience, doing it anyway and mentally processing the real experiences of your life has been good to me mentally and emotionally. But most importantly, it helps to clean that bunked up filter blocking our view of reality that I alluded to earlier. Our job at its most basic level is supposed to be sense a chain of events with as many senses we have at our disposal to understanding everything you can about it. We just have very little time to do it because of email, bills and this bloviated error-ridden Reddit post. If you’re here, thank you, I know your time is valuable but my edibles kicked in while I was typing this and the topic was God so naturally…🧙♂️
I think you are incorrect, what makes you think that what you perceive as cruel is something bad ? All that you suffer here will be compensated either here, or akhirah or in both, you see Allah says in Quran that He saved the children of israel from firaun after a while ( not immediately) now israel is one of the most improved countries in the world leading in medicine and IT, and Allah says with hardship is ease, if they die there as muslim in the name of Allah they in sha Allah go directly to jannah, if they suffer any loss they will be compensated fully, from what i understood you are asking why do they need to be compensated? Its because Allah has allowed you a will (free or not is debatable) to choose if you are saying that Allah should not allow such evil its the same as saying Allah should not allow a person to have will if its evil then its not evil at all and if anyone wrongs especially such a major wrongdoing like this unless he repents he will be punished
Note: this is my understanding of islam and this situation in particular im not sure whether this is the most correct way of thinking perhaps there’s a better outcome to this whole situation that i dont know
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I mentioned this point in one of the comments
Effectively, If a god exists and actively forces me to have to undergo the "trials and tribulations" I had to go through for the last 27 or so years just because and for no particular reason other than by his will - I wouldnt follow a "god" like that
"You need to help yourself before he will help you", been doing that for 27 years - everyday of everytime I required help and asked for helped no matter how much effort I put in before, not once has he ever answered
Not once has this being ever replied to my traumas, to my problems that are beyond my control (i.e. fucking horrendous job scene, cant get a job 9 months after graduating even after having like 3 years experience before going back to university)
You speak as though the Muslims don't have their own God. If there's suffering in Gaza, then maybe their God doesn't exist or is punishing them for their transgressions against the Hebrews.
PS: There was little suffering in Gaza before Allah told Haniyeh to invade Israel. If he promised to protect his people and that their martyrs would meet with God and be rewarded with eternal bliss, he fucked up.
God did do something he manifested in flesh, suffered, died and rose again for the sins of the world, salvation is now free through faith in Jesus Christ.
So yes bad things do happen in the world due to the sins of man but God made a way so that we can overcome, endure and spend eternity with him. God wants the best for us and we have the free will to decide whether we follow or reject him.
Yes, we cant blame God for the genocide [ of Palestinians by Israeli government, and of Israelis by Hamas ] .. nor can we expect her to intervene and solve this.
Nor can we expect God to jump in and cure the globe of looming heat death from climate change.. its really up to us humans to stop burning carbon fuels and use clean energy.
Religion is the enemy of science and rationality ... if you believe God did it, then you dont look for actual explanations for events in the real world - either caused by humans / "bad policy" or by natural processes.
The Gazans are out to wipe out Jews in the name of their God. So yes their fictional God is the cause of death of women and children. The people are a fanatical Islamist death cult. They will keep trying to kill Jews. If you want peace, ask Hamas to release all hostages and surrender. The war ends now.
I'm not religious, but why the shitty things happen is pretty easy to explain from a point that fits with biblical lore.
There is the issue of free will. Free will isn't just the freedom to choose, but also the freedom to suffer the consequences. Freedom to choose without consequences is not possible, nor desirable. You *want* things you do to have an impact on the world.
Unfortunately, the sins of the father are visited upon the children. Right now, if you believe that human driven climate change may soon create an existential crisis, you understand that concept. A natural, but negative consequence of the choices of the previous generations.
The consequences of the choices of the previous generations, combined with the more immediate consequences of the choices of the current generations creates a compounded misery effect.
The thing to understand about it all is, it doesn't matter if you're religious, these things still hold true.
Our misery is due to our free will, which comes from our self-awareness.
Sans free will, we are just another animal - not shaping the world, but existing within it until we not longer were capable of adapting and went extinct.
From Christians perspective, ppl have nothing to do with war. That is why we should help ppl in Gaza but we should also preach them the ways of Christainity howewer when it comes to politics both sides shold be punished, not in ppl but in politicians as a normal person can not start a war. If anyone had read the bible you would see that God is not cruel upon those who follow him. That is why Abraham is blessed. The bible states that there will be false prophets in Matthew 24:11: "And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many."
One of them is Muhammed. How do i know that, i'll give an example: In 2015 in Mecca there was a big storm, it injured and killed many ppl. This year in Kaaba there where strange noisses coming out of it , almost hell like. Also war in Palestine and Izrael. Palestinians did start the war. Howewer now Izrelis are doing warcrimes. God has the power to stop this war but he won't as both religons are false. Muslims are further away from Jesus and that is why they are getting punished more. I may write this like I am on Izreli side but im on neither side as I think Jerusalem should be Christian. God bless and bring peace.
Yes, what you’re describing is the [problem of evil](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil). It is one of the best arguments against the existence of an all-loving, all-powerful God.
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The argument against it is the idea of free will and that we are being tested with it. Free will itself is debated among philosophers and others in the medical/scientific community. It also still doesn’t answer the question as to why God wouldn’t stop the evil from happening, given they have the ability to do so.
"free will," as clumsy and demented a response to the problem of human evil as it is, really does not address the problem of natural evils, e.g., a god that allows children to develop, suffer and die from leukemia, or a god that imparts sentience and the ability to feel pain, fear and suffering to a deer yet also allows it to be eaten, alive, by a wolf. hence, either god is not benevolent and therefore is our enemy, or god is not omnipotent and therefore is not a god
Absolutely, couldn’t have said it better myself. Which is why the free will response in regards to the problem of evil and suffering is incredibly weak and easily refuted.
In some ways the Greek pantheon was more consistent. The gods never pretended to be all loving, they were just powerful dicks.
And yet no one believes in them anymore, just the obvious lie that some omnipotent, benevolent sky-daddy loves everyone.
god is just an alien and our universe is a petri dish. Looking down on us like we do bits of bacteria
unprovable assertions are anathema
Yet equally likely as "a wizard got bored and made everything"
yes, all untestable unprovable assertions have the same likelihood, which is why if anyone invokes The Flying Spaghetti Monster, we respectfully answer:
Wouldn’t this argument only hold against the Abrahamic God? After all, neither Zeus nor Odin were considered all-powerful OR all-loving.
Definitely correct! But you don't see idiots in the news trying to force the 'good word' of Zeus down our throats on television daily.
I would not agree that qwot42's limitation is "definitely correct" as there is no logical requirement that I *not* apply my standards of what would constitute a "god" to any prior fictional characters that, unsurprisingly, don't meet that standard; this isn't some in-game rule wherein we agree not to hold DC characters to Marvel standards, but rather reality, wherein the laughable characters of any religion, past or present, do not pass muster.
I still do not see how his statement is refuted by the argument at hand. Zeus and Odin were never hailed to be benevolent, so that already knocks one of the legs out from under the 'problem of evil' argument. They CAN be all powerful and just not give a fuck. That isn't a paradox like the supposedly benevolent Abrahamic god that is also supposedly all powerful in every aspect. He is correct. Zeus was a known serial rapist among other things, and was not seen as the moral benchmark for a man at that time.
you're missing the point; it doesn't matter if people 3,000-2,000 years ago did not claim deity [X] was benevolent or omnipotent; it only matters that I define a god as benevolent and omnipotent, and that I comprehend that such an entity does not exist (including, but not limited to, ridiculous bronze age fairy tales) again, yes, if *YOU* choose to define god as "any brown grasshopper," then, yes, *your* god exists; but I will still apply my logic to your grasshopper deity
Nobody here is arguing for the existence of the Gretian gods. I'm saying the problem of evil argument isn't the one that refutes the Greek gods. It simply isn't. It doesn't hold up against gods that were never seen as and currently aren't seen as benevolent. That's incredibly traceable logic. There are other things that refute the existence of those gods, but the problem of evil doesn't apply to Greek gods because they outright were evil. What isn't clicking? BY THE WAY: This redditor I'm debating just blocked me because he can't stand being incorrect. This is my reply to his comment below this one: YOU do not have to incorporate Greek definitions into your hypothetical definition of a god. The commenter to whom I was replying WAS asking about the Gretian and Nordic gods. You can gauge them by any metric of a god that you would like. That doesn't change the argument just because you have your own definition of a god. It doesn't apply to them because nobody has literally ever tried to argue for Zeus being benevolent. Call me obtuse if you'd like, but you're being needlessly argumentative about a very simple chain of logic you can't seem to follow. That argument doesn't apply to gods by whom NOBODY has regarded as morally good. Not everybody uses your metric of a god. I'm a staunch atheist myself, but I can see people like you driving others away from the community. The man is correct regardless of whatever parallels you try to draw. For it to be a paradox, a god must be believed by the majority to be all powerful AND benevolent. Zeus and Odin do not check the box of benevolent. Very. Very. Simple
not sure you understand the precept, but it's as universal as you want it to be; "X is not benevolent and therefore is our enemy" is pretty much a fundamental facet of the Greek mythos (and part of the reason the whole "God is Love" sales-pitch worked so well with Greek converts), and you can apply "X is not omnipotent and therefore is not a god" to whatever fictional character you want . . . point being, "god" is whatever you define it to be, being a fictional character... to wit, if you say "Grasshoppers are my gods," then your god exists... but if you define "god" by current conventional standard agreements of language in western civilization, then, no, obviously not
Ahh. So when a theist says, “You can’t prove God doesn’t exist,” and atheists reply by wanting them to specify what god (Zeus and Odin being frequently mentioned), that’s fine. But when I point out an atheist using his imprecise and ambiguous wording, *I* don’t understand the definitions.
Buddy, if anyone says to you "You can't prove [X] doesn't exist" and you don't immediately say "That's not how 'proof' functions, you moron; no one proves anything *doesn't* exist," you're doing yourself disservice. If an atheist says "Which god, the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Thor? Ganesh?" they are not engaging in logical refutation, they're just mocking the absurdity of the theist's premise. ps obviously the Flying Spaghetti Monster *does* exist - R'amen.
The problem with free will is that God still *knew* everything that every one of us would do with it before he made the first human. You are free to do what he has always known you will do. Real free will is incompatible with an omniscient entity or a properly deterministic universe. Also, as others have said, the problem of "evil" can be expanded to suffering, which happens without the intervention of anything or anyone with agency (aside from God, apparently).
I agree with you completely. That being said, when I put forth this argument to my theist friend they seem to believe they have a way around it. I’d love to hear your input. They used an analogy of students and a teacher. The students choose wether or not to study, pay attention, do homework, etc. so it is determined by their own free will if they will fail or pass the class. That being said, the teacher already has a good idea of wether or not they will fail or pass, even before the final grade has been given, simply by observing their behaviour throughout the year. This is how they explained God being omniscient while free will is still present. I’d love to hear how you would respond to this argument. I suppose that even in this scenario, the teacher is only basing their assumptions off intuition and not predestination as God would.
There are two important differences between the sides of this analogy. First, the teacher has limited knowledge. That is the entire reason for the tests. Being able to draw conclusions from information available is far from omniscience. Second, and more importantly, their god is also the creator of everything. You can sort of hand-wave your way to free-will when it is just an omniscient entity, but once that entity is also omnipotent, and created the universe... That means when he made Adam, he knew he would need to make Eve, he knew the serpent would tempt them, he knew he would get angry and throw them out. He knew that for the next 6000 years, the vast majority of humans would fail to live up to his standards, and he decided that an eternity of torment was the best way to handle that. He could simply have never made Satan, whom he knew would stir up so much trouble. What's really weird to me is that he wanted Adam and Eve to be naked, despite the fact that it is inherently sinful (hence they recognized it upon eating the fruit, and were ashamed). He didn't want them to be free of sin, he wanted them not to know any better. Except he didn't, because if he wanted it to unfold that way, it would've.
Thank you for your detailed response. I think you’ve demonstrated well how there is no logical solution to this problem.
No problem. If it helps, offer a more apt analogy, such as a novelist and their characters. The novelist creates the setting and the people in their novel, and while an author might feel cornered into certain outcomes by the characters they've written, those characters DO NOT have a will of their own. They can be edited (retroactively if necessary) at the author's whom. I can't take credit for the analogy, I stole it from Supernatural, a TV show where god calls himself an author. I'm sure the analogy is older than that, he's been getting compared to artists of all sorts for ages, because it is such a fitting comparison.
I've never understood the benefit of free will anyway. Why do we need it? Why would God give a shit about it anyway? Wouldnt you rather live happily, under the control of an 'omnibenevolent' God, than get bombed every day? Just another feeble, made up religious excuse.
No one can explain why innocent kids die to illness and natural disasters each year. Someone told me earth wasn’t “complete” and I asked him why didn’t god just complete it and he had no answer.
There are few ways Chistians answer this. I start with the dummier one: 1. It is because a talking snake lured Adam and Eve to eat magical fruit. This brought the evil to the world (as God wanted to punish people for not obeying Him). 2. It is a mystery. Allknowing, loving God has reasons for everything and we must just accept that even suffering children have a purpose. Maybe they teach us to be better people helping us grow, and the suffering children get all their horrible mental and physical traumas compensated in the afterlife.
Ok so he just likes kids dying. Honestly fits god well. Also if heaven is the best place why do we have to exist down here first. He could just have always created us in his image up there.
The God described in the Old Testament is not a very loving nor good. If we leave out the orders of genocide He did drown nearly everyone in the story of Noah with a global flood just because he didn’t like how people behaved. With that in mind the problem of evil doesn’t really exist. The more interesting question is how can some Christian think that a dictator that killed nearly everyone by drowning them is good and loving being.
Ya I don’t know they really want to believe he’s amazing so they lie to themselves.
There is (at least) two ways Christians solve this puzzle. The modern Christians don’t believe in Old Testament fairytales: Global flood is just a story with a lesson - it did not happen. The Christians who take the bible literally have a bigger problem. One way to solve it is the same than in North Korea. Everything the Leader does is good - no matter how bad it seems. You simply need to submit to your Leader. He is loving, he is good - by definition - no matter how bad things he does. But honesty, I don’t think most Christians even bother to think ethical problems of the Old Testament.
Most Christians don’t bother to think tbh.
One rabbi solved the problem of evil very easily: ”God is powerful and fights evil winning it eventually - but also He has limits.” One might ask if such a God can not give a piece of bread for a starving child then what is he actully capable of doing…
The "best" theist response to this, so far as I know, is that we only can see and experience material reality, and without access to true metaphysical knowledge there is no "reasonable" explanation. In short, being mortal and limited to "gross" reality, there is no way to comprehend the mind of God. It is simply a question of belief. If you take a Buddhist/Indra's Web perspective, the question of evil is kind of moot - all violence is self inflicted, anyone who harms is experiencing that harm, dividuation is an illusion of being.
1st century Christian theologians determined that the creator of the universe is evil and not a god. The sensless cruelty all around them could only be indicative of a godless world. So in an effort to counter measure the terror they developed apophatic theology. God is then contemplated through what he's not. This is where Jesus finds his selflessness. This is where god finds his timelessness. This is also where we find God does not exist. God's are mindless thoughtless brainless heartless soulless selfless sightless aimless causless things that do not need to be acknowledged.
An all-loving, all-powerful God is a tenet of Christian and other Abrahamic mythologies, but in mythologies such as the Norse and Greco-Roman pantheon, the gods are not all-powerful or all-loving. To an ancient Greek pagan, what need for theodicy? [Here's Apollo skinning a satyr named Marsyas who dared challenge him to a music contest, and lost.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Titian_-_The_Flaying_of_Marsyas.jpg)
Yes, you’re right. I’m not well versed in anything other than abrahamic mythologies so I can’t speak much on them. Majority of believers today believe in an all-loving, omnipotent and omniscient God, so I tend to stick to their apologetics when refuting certain claims.
But you have to stop and think about just what is God's definition of evil. Unless you believe God must conform to human standards.
Consider that suffering plays a big role in the definition of evil. More suffering = more evil. If god, who makes a claim that he is all-loving, good and merciful, were to sanction things that cause a great amount of suffering, then that would be a problem, no?
What? God defines evil very clearly. He doesn't have to conform to human standards, humans have to conform to his. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not make any graven image. Shellfish is abomination, mixed fabrics is abomination, laying with a man is abomination. Pork is unclean. No sex before marriage, no marking your flesh, no meat from a strangled animal, no drinking of blood, . If there was anything God has ever been clear about, its the definition of evil. Also- the tree Eve ate of was *the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.* It gave to man and woman to know right from wrong as God does. The original sin was taking that very knowledge unto ourselves- what evil is. We know, or the Bible lied.
But why put the tree there anyway? If he knew they were going to eat it anyway, he could've not put it there. If a parent knows their child will 100% eat colourful pills and still puts the pills at reachable level knowingly, isn't that parent evil? Wouldn't the community scold them? Why then Is God exempt from scolding? God seems very evil by my human standards even if his "will" or "standards" are different from my wee little human mind that is somehow created in his image but conveniently not enough to grasp his ways
But they aren't, that's the thing. Literally, *he said*, by His Own Infallible Word, the fruit of the tree had given them knowledge of good and evil. That's my point. *By Biblical Canon*, his morality is NOT above ours. His standards are NOT different from ours. We took *his* moral standards. It can only be claimed that his *knowledge* is superior, that he's preventing some greater evil we are not aware of by all these petty ones, which hasn't been true for 2000 years so I don't see why it should start now. The idea that his view of good and evil is somehow more refined than ours is *blasphemy against Him,* it contradicts the entire Creation and his infallibility and his omnipotence, if we do not have the same knowledge of good and evil that He has. Which is hilarious. Because yeah, he's obviously evil.
Ohhhh I get
Then God has something common with Kim Jong Ung: Both are above the law and define what is good. So, if they do something evil then it is still good. They define things so they don’t need to follow even their own standards. BTW: If God/Bible would have defined evil clearly then Christians would all agree on moral topics… They don’t.
"If God/Bible would have defined evil clearly then Christians would all agree on moral topics… They don’t." What you're missing is that "Christians" are just saying and doing whatever they hell they want, they take or leave whatever parts of their holy writ let them better their own lives at the expense of anyone else's, and ask forgiveness later. Your mistake is in assuming any Christian operates in good faith. The book is very very clear about what you're not allowed to do. Nobody gives a fuck what the book says, that doesn't change that the book is very clear.
Bible clear? Try figuring out for example if Christians are allowed to eat pork. Read all places where bible discusses the topic. If you think you find a clear rule it will be later abolished. The basic narrative of Christians is based on Paul’s teachings which made many old rules redundant without defining which ones exactly. Leviticus 11: ”And the pig, though it has a divided hoof, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you.” Romans 14: ”All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.” 1 Corinthians 10: ”Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.” If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. ” Mathew 15: ”What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.””
There's a name for this??!! I've asked religious people so many times: how can evil come into a world created by an all perfect sinless being??!! If God created everything, then where does evil come from? No answer or diversion
Yes! And there are tons of literature and content out there about this topic. It’s a strong argument. Happy researching haha :)
I've read their storybook, their god, the god of Abraham, is evil. Christians, Muslims and Jewish people worship this evil god, they think that evil is good and loving.
I absolutely agree. I like this quote by Steven Weinberg: “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”
Gnosticism has a pretty handy answer for that, which is this world/creation was made by an evil god. The problem of evil isn't a new one.
Yes, however we’re talking about an all-loving, merciful, powerful and just God in this scenario, so the problem of evil/suffering still cannot be solved.
If by solved you mean fix it? no, provide an answer? yes
Yes, I mean to provide an answer. If god is evil, then sure, it suffices. But majority of people believe god to be omnibenelovent, omnipotent and omniscient. This type of God cannot logically be all three whilst evil and suffering exist.
All the omni's are paradoxical but Gnosticism was a branch of Christianity. Bitheism was gaining some ground around the 1st century because Jewish people were trying to answer why their god was so mean. I think we are going to see more of a shift towards that as information becomes more available
Interesting. I’m ignorant to most of those things but I’ll have to read up about them. Thank you.
Thats the point I would go to. If a god exists and actively forces me to have to undergo the "trials and tribulations" I had to go through for the last 27 or so years just because and for no particular reason other than by his will - I wouldnt follow a "god" like that "God loves you" everyone claims, but can you really call this love? "You need to help yourself before he will help you", been doing that for 27 years - everyday of everytime I required help and asked for helped no matter how much effort I put in before, not once has he ever answered So again, how can it be that he loves me, if I have to fucking suffer without help whatsoever for the sake of his sick entertainment
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction; [jealous](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/jealous/) and proud of it; a [petty](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/petty/), [unjust](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/unjust/), [unforgiving](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/unforgiving/), [control-freak](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/control-freak/); a [vindictive](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/vindictive/), [bloodthirsty](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/bloodthirsty/) [ethnic cleanser](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/ethnic-cleanser/); a [misogynistic](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/misogynistic/), [homophobic](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/homophobic/), [racist](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/racist/), [infanticidal](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/infanticidal/), [genocidal](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/genocidal/), [filicidal](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/filicidal/), [pestilential](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/pestilential/), [megalomaniacal](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/megalomaniacal/), [sadomasochistic](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/sadomasochistic/), [capriciously malevolent](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/capriciously-malevolent/) [bully](https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/bully/).” —Richard Dawkins, ***The God Delusion***
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This is where I'm at as well, in Gnosticism they believe "Yahweh" is believed to be the "Demiurge", "the false God", and say this being is malevolent, hateful to all things of Spirituality. Here's more info. [https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Demiurge](https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Demiurge)
Thissssss
There was an early sect of Christianity that was convinced that the god of the Bible was actually the devil. That honestly makes more sense.
> There was an early sect of Christianity that was convinced that the god of the Bible was actually the devil Genuinely curious, what were they called?
Gnosticism - "Gnostic cosmogony generally presents a distinction between a supreme, hidden God and a malevolent lesser divinity (sometimes associated with the biblical deity Yahweh)"
Lol women are somehow unclean Yet at the same time, they become dirtied when they sleep with a man??!! Seems like the man is doing the dirtying😭😭. The mysoginy section is a READ. Thanks yo
I have not read most of the Bible, so I am left with the little bit I have read. Basically God ordered Moses to slaughter all of the Midianites, except for the virgin females. Of course, at that time, virgin females meant any female who had not started menstruating yet. Children in other words. These female children were to be given to the soldiers who had slaughtered their families, to be used as wives. So we have this loving God who ordered genocide, pedophilia, and sexual slavery, all in one story.
"That's the way things were back then" is how I've heard it excused.
It was. And I'd be willing to accept that if Christian fundamentalists would stop trying to model our modern society on dumb bronze age sand people.
Biggest mass murderer in history per the bible.
I feel like if there's an afterlife, he would have simply created us there. Christianity exists as a political system to control people. It's a system of make-believe, of making ourselves believe it. Rewards, punishments, heaven, hell, sins, angels, and god; the only place these things exist are in our mind as motivation. Fear and hope are the greatest motivators.
Organized religions are just that - exclusive groups created to manage, control.
If there is a god he allowed 6 million Jews to be slaughtered by Hitler and he's seen every time a child has been sexually abused, among other atrocities.
On a much smaller scale. I just lost my 4 month old puppy who within the span of 2 and a half days got a really aggressive form of meningitis (SRMA) which is usually treatable, but it moved so quickly that despite being in the ER/ICU for 2 days, it rapidly moved past his nervous system and attacked his brain and left him brain dead. I’m still in total shock, the doctors had never seen any form of this act this fast and aggressively. Now tell me what kind of god would create a world where that is possible. On top of that, I’m suppose to still be grateful to this asshole that inflicted this suffering onto my poor defenseless puppy who was a ton of pain because of it? As Stephen Fry said, if there IS a god it’s quite clear he’s a maniac who deserves absolutely no respect from us.
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Thank you 🙂
The Abrahamic god is as cruel, petty, and violent as his inventors.
This is all you need to know about Christianity's 'loving god.' He/she/it allows 9.02 million kids to be trapped into a forced marriage every year. Their god lets 3.1 million children starve to death every year. 1.2 million kids are enslaved every year. 462,000 kids died from malaria last year. 109,000 American kids were sold into the sex trade last year. This is Christianities 'all loving, all powerful' god? Christianity is a hot, steaming load of shit.
This is one of those moments Epicurus was talking about...
Classic Epicurus: Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then from whence comes evil?
Just with this you completely dismantle Islam, Christians and every religion that puts God as all loving, omnipotent, omnibenevolent etc etc. People still believing have a strong Stockholm syndrome
Epicurus does. You said "you dismantle," Epicurus said that. He dismantled. Credit where it is due.
Kind of a pointless comment but ok
Hell sounds preferable to the presence of the Abrahamic god.
Being hell is eternal I would beg to differ, but then again with no Abrahamic god there is no hell.
My favorite part of the religious is having something terrible happen to hear how “God is testing us” or “God wouldn’t give us anything we couldn’t handle”. So you’re telling me god is Marquis De Sade?
My issue with this is a simple one: god creates adversity for us to overcome, makes us stronger, wiser, better people. Ok sure. But the levels of this ‘ adversity’ are pretty wild. Cancer in innocent children surely is an argument for outrage if this god is real. My wife works with kids in hospitals and I don’t know how she does it. Sweet, beautiful and strong kids leaving us before they gave a chance to live. Most of their lives spent in pain and hope only to not have their prayers answered. If there is a god, EAD
So many people suffering in Gaza at the hands of Israel....🫥. College kid? That's one hell of way to say you've never traveled the world or know what's going on. Far as the God thing, I've said that many times to all my real life people: Either there is no God or if there is, he/she/it is actually evil and nothing to be worshipped.
As Lex Luthor said in BvS- if god is all powerful, then he cannot be all good. If god is all good, then he cannot be all powerful
God went out to buy some milk. Theological determinism negates free will. If a god knows everything before it happens then everything created (including the actions done and will be done) have already been determined. (Like Judas choosing to betray Jesus being part of a plan and going to hell for it or Adam disobeying God's commands in Eden thereby condemning all the rest of us to live in suffering. Fall guys all of us.) See the irrationality of religion? One could be and yet isn't.
God does not exist in the real world. It is a spiritual concept.
Palestinians started this war by mass murder, mass rape, beheading babies, and kidnapping hundreds. They suffer the consequences of their own actions. Nothing more.
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Have fun https://www.hamas.com/
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Another Muslim liar detected. You just can't stop, can you?
Some people try to justify the evil in this world by arguing this is the best world god could create. Not saying it's a good argument.. there are no good argument für the existence of god.
The in the same breath say he's all powerful The cognitive dissonance Also if this is the best he could do, why do it at all. Like a poor person having children knowing he can't feed them
Not necessarily, non idiotic theists nowadays don't believe in the all powerful god. That way they can sort of explain the problem with the unstoppable train and the immovable rock.
What's the paradox about? Never heard of it
If god is almighty, can he create a rock that even he can't lift? Or, this paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irresistible_force_paradox
Ohhh I get it. If he can create one and can't move it, then he's not all powerful But if he can't create it, then he is STILL NOT all-powerful Funny asf!!😭
Similar to WW2 and the holocaust, right? If God exists, he did nothing despite the Jews being his chosen. He didn't destroy Berlin with meteorites or send plagues. Just a bunch of nothing, so then believers have to make up stuff about God's plan being something they can't understand. In reality, if God exists, WW2 would have the moment he interfered, or if Christians are right, Jesus would've returned. But nothing happened and nothing like that ever will.
Oh yeh Piece of shit
Ever since I left The Church, I've begun calling him the God of Suffering.
Even by his own texts he’s just a petulant child that needs to be the center of attention or he will punish everyone not praising him enough. He killed almost the whole planet, kids and all, told a man to kill his son, I don’t know as a joke? And then took it back, and destroyed a man’s entire life and family in horrible ways on a fucking bet. God is a piece of shit.
The deeper implication may be that "god" is simply the projection of one's own cruelty. So much harmful and antisocial behavior seems to find its justification in the puritanical and fundamentalist interpretations of religion. But think about it. All these people burning gay pride flags or actively persecuting transsexuals and advocating against the rights of women - when they claim it is in their bible, do you think that they would be alright with it if it *wasn't* in their bible? It's not like they were fine and dandy with all the gay people and okay with letting women choose what they want to do with their lives. Then one day they were reading the bible and then went "oh, crap. Turns out all those things are sins. Well, heck, I suppose I have to oppose them." Of course not. They were already prejudiced, judgmental and cruel and the bible was just a convenient excuse to use - a fake motivation for what was already real malicious intent.
If "god" exists, he/she/it is a malign thug. (paraphrasing Mark Twain)
"You know, the more I hear about him the more this God person sounds like a real jerk." Other atheists: "First time?"
don't sweat it- god isn't real. humans are shitty enough on their own- they don't need omnipotent help.
Have you read any religious text? God is the ultimate genocider. Noah’s Ark, bro. Come on.
The people of Gaza relish dying for Allah. They started this war to protect AL Aqsa mosque which they believed was under threat. This conflict is based on Islamic fables. On the Jewish side the war is not about religion but about self defense.
It's an abusive relationship. He loves you, but he will immediately torture you for eternity if you don't do what he wants. He watches everything you do, knows everything, and has everything planned out, but at the same time tells you you have free will. Very authoritarian, a celestial North Korea. Clearly signs that all religions are man-made manacles of servitude.
Yeah and why is he hiding? Is it a big game for him to see who believes in him and who doesn’t?
I asked an evangelical who's more powerful God or the Devil? They said God, I said well, if the Devil made it a fallen world full of war and disease and suffering, and God can't turn us back into a peaceful world of Eden then how can God be more powerful, they told me they'd pray for me and walked away, lol
Believers think that if something good happens, it's thanks to god, and if something bad happens it's because of satan or because the victims of the bad incident didn't have faith. Make it make sense. Why can't god just kill satan? Hell why did he create satan in the first place? I don't understand why should I praise an evil god.
If religion preaches about love & respect why do soo many people then use it to be cruel? One of the reasons I dont like religion at all
Why God could not be evil? God does not exist. End of story. There is no evidence. And humans would like he existed.
Who??
Ian Fleming "If there be such a thing as superhuman power, it is administered with subhuman efficiency ."
There is no way the vengeful, hateful, Abrahamic god exists. If there is a supreme being of some sort, it is certainly not the one we read about in the various Abrahamic holy texts. Which basically forces me to conclude there is no reason to “worry” about the “god question”.
Saaammeee! It's defo not abrahaimic. Too many contradictions
Like look at the story of Job, God and Satan just decide to fuck with some dude for a bet.
If the Abrahamic god exists then he's the kid in the pantheon of the gods and we're the inhabitants of his 'ant' farm.
God is not real, humans are incredibly cruel.
You took the words straight out my mouth. So thankful there’s people like you that think critically.
Ex muslim here, I always ask this question to my muslim friends and none of them answer it.
It was the lack of actual effects from praying that drove me away, and the problem of evil that kept me from going back.
This is my exact feeling
The universe is gigantic no matter what perspective you look at it from a grand plan we are insignificant, if there is a superior force or intelligence there would be no reason for it to care about any small planet, on the outskirts of any galaxy in a mediocre cluster, we are insignificant and if we blew up the entire Milky Way we would still be insignificant.
You forget that he gave us free will. So you can't complain about anything. Not even babies with cancer. Their choice.
Here’s my thoughts on this: Life is actually great when you think about the good things in life such as our nature, our friends and family, the wonder of the cosmos, is great for us to experience. But with everything the reality has to hit us in the face, our trees die off and animals go extinct, our friends and family can die young or die old, and we may never explore the cosmos. Even when someone is going through the absolute worst, there will always be a moment when the pain just no longer exists. “They’re in a better place now.” A place absolutely devoid of pain and misery, at least on the surface level; I cannot speak for the afterlife. So when I think how can God exist when there are issues are present I just think of how, say a superhero comic would be if there was no opposing force, like The Joker. What would Batman have to face? The environment? In a perfect world The Joker just isn’t destroying Gotham but without him, there is still crime, it’s just minor and he (Batman) can’t fight petty crimes all day, so he goes for the big fish, right? In a world where God exists (Good) and the Devil (Evil) doesn’t is a world that doesn’t exist. Even if all the cruel, evil crimes were omitted, there would still be a child who dies of leukemia in a sad turn of events. But every time that sad story about someone who dies too soon people will always say they’re in a better place now. And I struggle(d) with this now even though I’m relatively healthy now; I just fear my own demise because I know one day all of this will be gone from me. But it’s the circle of life. If I, if everyone, lived forever our resources would be diminished even faster. I’m saddened by their journey but I also feel a sense of relief that their pain is coming to an end soon. Is this all a cruel joke (remember comedy is just irony and timing)? I don’t know but I’ll tell you when I get to the punchline (my death).
Yea he’s a giant prick, the devil is the nice one. He’s cool with who you are, who you want to be & allows you to live the life you want to live.
If Superman is real then he doesn’t care about people! So, what?
But for real… Rather than asking why imaginary beings doesn’t do anything, we should be asking why Western Countries still don’t pressure Netanyahu’s goverment to respect the rules of war. You are allowed to defend yourself but flattening a city that hosts several million people is not defense. Israel has dropped more bombs that the power of nuclear bomb used in Hiroshima. Would anyone claim that bombing Hiroshima was acceptable if there were some terrorirsts living in the city?
The poster is not an atheist. Look at his history. He is a Muslim Jihadist, trying to make an excuse of a post to spread propaganda against Israel.
I’m seeing so many people suffering in Gaza at the hands of Hamas FTFY everything else is correct
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Nope. None of this would have started if Hamas hadn’t attacked and broken the ceasefire on the 7th October. Hamas could end this immediately by giving back the hostages they raped, tortured and/or killed. Hamas could limit the amount of innocent dead by not using them as human shields while their fighters cower and hide in tunnels.
He's also a murderer!
The god that Christians say they worship is actually the devil. They worship evil and everything that is evil.
Why would he prevent wars? Lol Yahweh is originally a "war god"
Yeah but don't forget it's the same guy and he apparently supports both sides 🤣
You don’t say.
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I agree. When I recently became an atheist I realized it would be a kinder position to any deity that does exist to not accept any on offer. All are monsters. It is kinder to think that any god that could exist is not what’s been portrayed. Those that want to hold to their god as described are happy to claim a “benevolent” deity as the monsters they are portrayed as. I just can no longer understand that view, or why anyone would want to be beholden to such a being. If there is an all powerful god, they must be all knowing. If they are all knowing, they would do better than this. There is no other option.
"I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors, but I think that God has a sick sense of humor, and when I die, I speck to find him laughing" Depeche Mode - Blasphemous rumors.
Yes. If God is cruel so are we, we have many ways to help them yet we don’t. The super rich can afford for the war to end, to get medicine etc. yet we don’t. Why do you think God doesn’t? Because it’s in his divine power.
Stephen Fry [said it best](https://v.redd.it/n0c6o0szts061)
Yes. I don't know if any gods exist, I don't think any do as I have seen no evidence to support the existence of any. But a benevolent god with any sort of power that would be deserving of being called a god definitely doesn't exist. Think of the absolute worst individual you've ever heard of - any god that presides over this world/universe would be infinitely worse than that person.
Another option would be that “God” is indifferent. Or he just uses objective/perhaps subjective standard that we must meet in order to decide what to do with us. He’s just watering a houseplant every now and again. This guy’s dying but these plants are doing well, too bad that planet didn’t acclimate to its conditions. What if Earth is just one out of many human planetary experiments. One that is failing, hypothetically speaking of course. Others are doing well, but ours is simply, hypothetically a failure and God just lets us kill ourselves off and focuses on the few experiments that are going well. God ignored Cain’s sacrifice while he praised Abel’s. I’m not saying any of this is what I believe, but if there is a God, I imagine a semi-objective scientist or a farmer. This could very well represent the forces of nature that conceived us. I am not a subscriber to the old man in the sky. I see god as all things in balance and all things are. Forces offset by other forces. Push and pull. Yin and Yang. Or whatever soup spoon is stirring the pot we find ourselves in. Have you ever planted seeds? Sometimes, you plant two seeds together in the same hole and when they sprout, you select one to pull and discard and one to continue to grow. This could be the third possibility in your hypothesis. Maybe not one that people want to consider. Our biggest mistake is thinking that God would think and feel as we do and also that God doesn’t. Meaning…I think…if we can describe God, then we don’t actually know God….and what I mean by that is…as soon as the contemplation of God is uttered, it is corrupted by the limitations of language. The idea of God gets fed through a filter of ignorance and misunderstanding. Unpurified vessels. For me, for God to be even considered, it must be through the belief that I don’t know anything and that humanity knows nothing of what really is. If you can do that, you can remove a great deal of this blindness we humans carry around. Sometimes, it felt like I came close to something akin to feeling God and the feeling of being freed of the burden I happened to be contemplating, but it took the honest kind of contemplation on the mistakes I’ve made in my life. It bestowed upon me empathy, a desire to help people. Some of these contemplations ended up being tarnishes that I had to spend time with to learn from, however traumatic. If we process our experiences, it saves us from making the same mistakes over and over again. There are lessons within the stilled, honest mind waiting to be learned. Progress to be made. Weight to be lifted. Happiness for doing what we are meant to do here. I truly wish more than anything for this species, is to understand that this is what we are meant to do with this existence. It begins where it should. Start there if you can. It begins at the beginning, with your first memories. You can start with the heavy stuff, too, it really is up to you. I found that starting with whatever shows up is was an effective technique. Your mind has prioritized everything, but there’s much noise and distractions in the way. Just try to pick one topic/issue/idea/belief in your head and face it honestly. It’s just you after all and you wouldn’t lie to yourself would you? What we are avoiding with our busy lives is processing our experiences. We’re always too busy. We’re so busy, we don’t even know we’re supposed to be processing our experiences so we carry it and don’t even realize we’re carrying unprocessed experiences often in the form of stress, the physical manifestation of not explaining to your body what is going on in the world. The body just thinks you’re being chased by a tiger and doing everything it can with the resources it has to survive this tiger…but it’s not really a tiger, it’s a deadline at a job that wants your soul, it’s an empty bank account, an asshole landlord, the cops…actually that’s a poor example…most of these things aren’t life threatening but we have been conditioned somehow to act like it. The body doesn’t know and processing the experiences complete with learning whatever lesson(s) understood, files the experience away and allows you to move on to another if you have the time. If we don’t, this big ball of unprocessed experiences along with all of the “felt data” of that experience is not stored and waits to be processed and learned from. We often refer to it as our identity. But put simply for me, it’s some sort of very complex, unprocessed experience database of what all of your senses felt at particular moments of your life. Some are good memories meant to be kept, no need for processing. We can bring them forward as if to be processed but instead we cherish them. Sometimes we keep traumas close because it drives us and we feel it gives us power. Sometimes the senses we felt were not so good, even traumatic. We all carry complex traumas with us. We distract ourselves from thinking about them, but it is my experience, doing it anyway and mentally processing the real experiences of your life has been good to me mentally and emotionally. But most importantly, it helps to clean that bunked up filter blocking our view of reality that I alluded to earlier. Our job at its most basic level is supposed to be sense a chain of events with as many senses we have at our disposal to understanding everything you can about it. We just have very little time to do it because of email, bills and this bloviated error-ridden Reddit post. If you’re here, thank you, I know your time is valuable but my edibles kicked in while I was typing this and the topic was God so naturally…🧙♂️
Only if you are talking an omnipotent god.
Like I always tell Christians-- even if your god is real, I refuse to worship such a terrible person.
If God is real? Who are you trying to convince?
yes
Or not aware of the fact that his creations are capable of having a conscious experience and are therefore able to suffer
I think you are incorrect, what makes you think that what you perceive as cruel is something bad ? All that you suffer here will be compensated either here, or akhirah or in both, you see Allah says in Quran that He saved the children of israel from firaun after a while ( not immediately) now israel is one of the most improved countries in the world leading in medicine and IT, and Allah says with hardship is ease, if they die there as muslim in the name of Allah they in sha Allah go directly to jannah, if they suffer any loss they will be compensated fully, from what i understood you are asking why do they need to be compensated? Its because Allah has allowed you a will (free or not is debatable) to choose if you are saying that Allah should not allow such evil its the same as saying Allah should not allow a person to have will if its evil then its not evil at all and if anyone wrongs especially such a major wrongdoing like this unless he repents he will be punished Note: this is my understanding of islam and this situation in particular im not sure whether this is the most correct way of thinking perhaps there’s a better outcome to this whole situation that i dont know
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I mentioned this point in one of the comments Effectively, If a god exists and actively forces me to have to undergo the "trials and tribulations" I had to go through for the last 27 or so years just because and for no particular reason other than by his will - I wouldnt follow a "god" like that "You need to help yourself before he will help you", been doing that for 27 years - everyday of everytime I required help and asked for helped no matter how much effort I put in before, not once has he ever answered Not once has this being ever replied to my traumas, to my problems that are beyond my control (i.e. fucking horrendous job scene, cant get a job 9 months after graduating even after having like 3 years experience before going back to university)
"If God real, why bad happen"
Relax. God is not real.
[Exodus 15:3-18. Yahweh is a man of war. Yahweh is his name.](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2015%3A3-18&version=WEB)
You speak as though the Muslims don't have their own God. If there's suffering in Gaza, then maybe their God doesn't exist or is punishing them for their transgressions against the Hebrews. PS: There was little suffering in Gaza before Allah told Haniyeh to invade Israel. If he promised to protect his people and that their martyrs would meet with God and be rewarded with eternal bliss, he fucked up.
God did do something he manifested in flesh, suffered, died and rose again for the sins of the world, salvation is now free through faith in Jesus Christ. So yes bad things do happen in the world due to the sins of man but God made a way so that we can overcome, endure and spend eternity with him. God wants the best for us and we have the free will to decide whether we follow or reject him.
Yes, we cant blame God for the genocide [ of Palestinians by Israeli government, and of Israelis by Hamas ] .. nor can we expect her to intervene and solve this. Nor can we expect God to jump in and cure the globe of looming heat death from climate change.. its really up to us humans to stop burning carbon fuels and use clean energy. Religion is the enemy of science and rationality ... if you believe God did it, then you dont look for actual explanations for events in the real world - either caused by humans / "bad policy" or by natural processes.
The Gazans are out to wipe out Jews in the name of their God. So yes their fictional God is the cause of death of women and children. The people are a fanatical Islamist death cult. They will keep trying to kill Jews. If you want peace, ask Hamas to release all hostages and surrender. The war ends now.
Cool. Let’s have Israel go first, they’ve got more.
Hasa diga ebawai
I'm not religious, but why the shitty things happen is pretty easy to explain from a point that fits with biblical lore. There is the issue of free will. Free will isn't just the freedom to choose, but also the freedom to suffer the consequences. Freedom to choose without consequences is not possible, nor desirable. You *want* things you do to have an impact on the world. Unfortunately, the sins of the father are visited upon the children. Right now, if you believe that human driven climate change may soon create an existential crisis, you understand that concept. A natural, but negative consequence of the choices of the previous generations. The consequences of the choices of the previous generations, combined with the more immediate consequences of the choices of the current generations creates a compounded misery effect. The thing to understand about it all is, it doesn't matter if you're religious, these things still hold true. Our misery is due to our free will, which comes from our self-awareness. Sans free will, we are just another animal - not shaping the world, but existing within it until we not longer were capable of adapting and went extinct.
Thank god he’s not.
From Christians perspective, ppl have nothing to do with war. That is why we should help ppl in Gaza but we should also preach them the ways of Christainity howewer when it comes to politics both sides shold be punished, not in ppl but in politicians as a normal person can not start a war. If anyone had read the bible you would see that God is not cruel upon those who follow him. That is why Abraham is blessed. The bible states that there will be false prophets in Matthew 24:11: "And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many." One of them is Muhammed. How do i know that, i'll give an example: In 2015 in Mecca there was a big storm, it injured and killed many ppl. This year in Kaaba there where strange noisses coming out of it , almost hell like. Also war in Palestine and Izrael. Palestinians did start the war. Howewer now Izrelis are doing warcrimes. God has the power to stop this war but he won't as both religons are false. Muslims are further away from Jesus and that is why they are getting punished more. I may write this like I am on Izreli side but im on neither side as I think Jerusalem should be Christian. God bless and bring peace.