Why is God evil?

[Dzhel]

I find myself asking this question to myself alot and since these are the most interesting set of forums I've ever come across, I thought it would be a good place to ask.

Why did God go through so much trouble to create a universe that is built on violence, suffering, and death?

Keep in mind I'm thinking of all living creatures and I exclude horrors that humans have invented since that's our fault and not God's.

What could be more evil than the food chain? Predator & Prey. You & your family are hunted to be eaten alive.

The environment and natural disasters. Hurricanes, tornados, volcanos, drought, floods, unbearable heat or cold, asteriods, fires, super novas, black holes, dying suns, collisions of galaxies, earthquakes, tsunamis, lethal gas vents...I think I've heard that even the moon will eventually be drawn into the earth.

Why must there be so many terrifying diseases? I know they're suppose to be some sort of population control in the grand sense, but why must the suffering be so great. What does the suffering accomplish in of itself?

Mutations & birth defects. As if we don't have enough against us already, now we can be doomed before we're born. Hell, even birth itself is dangerous.

Why can we feel so much pain? I know it's suppose to let your body know something is wrong so you can either avoid it in the future or do something to fix it. Couldn't the same goal be accomplished but with less pain?

To top it all off, you know you're going to die. All you can hope for is that there is a God and that he loves you. There's no way to know until you die so all your struggles could be for nothing.

It all sounds evil to me.

[sephodwyrm]

From what I hear from my brothers, Islam's take on this is that this world is only transient and is a blink of an eye compared to the eternity that follows. The mutations and birth defects, pain and suffering are processes that are natural. Hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and others used to be natural means that the Earth renews itself, and when humans started to build in dangerous areas as a result of ignorance then we would have the deaths, and yet with every disaster people would spring back up with renewed vigor to rebuild, rethink and requestion.

Without these suffering, I think the human race would stagnate. Natural selection is a process engineered to ensure that life would remain vigorous. Hence, God is not evil, because we'd be using our own extremely limited perspectives to judge.

[Darth Wong]

The most elegant explanation for the cruelty and suffering in the natural world is that there was no benevolent design behind it. That's one of the reasons I find Christian opposition to evolution theory so baffling; do they really want to believe that a loving God designed things this way?

[Cluny the Scourge]

Have you ever played a 'God' game like Black & White, or one of the Civilisation series? You chose the evil path first, didn't you? You conquered and slaughtered and punished instead of building things and inspiring people? Why did YOU do that? I'll tell you why - because you had the power, and it was more FUN.

What makes you think God is any different? Same deal.

[TIGERCAT]

The most elegant explanation for the cruelty and suffering in the natural world is that there was no benevolent design behind it. That's one of the reasons I find Christian opposition to evolution theory so baffling; do they really want to believe that a loving God designed things this way?

Good point. But the one question I would always ask
is if you read the two books of the Bible (old testament followed by Jews,
the old testament + new testament followed by christians), the old
testament has many instances of murder, slaughter, etc. What comes to mind
is Joshua's conquest of Palestine when he salughtered many Cannanites
(including women, children, etc.) and sacked 30 towns. The new testamnet
on the other hand is about compassion, forgiveness, etc. It is like
there are two seperate gods, the old testament-warrior god, new testament-
merciful god. Which one is the truth?

[Hodor]

If god exists, and is indeed the creator of our universe, he is a being of such complexity that compared to him, we are less than bacteria. Thus, god inflicting suffering on us is no more "evil" than a scientist killing off microorganisms in a petri dish.

[Cluny the Scourge]

If god exists, and is indeed the creator of our universe, he is a being of such complexity that compared to him, we are less than bacteria. Thus, god inflicting suffering on us is no more "evil" than a scientist killing off microorganisms in a petri dish.

Why would anyone give a **** about such a god anyway? That god is irrelevant. A god without an intimate and personal understanding human nature is worthless. The ancients understood that.

[Francisco Montana]

If there is a God, he works in mysterious ways. Pain and suffering are building blocks for growth.

Growing pains.

God hasn't allowed us to destroy ourselves.

My view of God is alot more complex than 'an all mighty being'. So mabye it's not all in the hands of God, but rather, he tries to guide us through the darkness that is life.

One night a man had a dream. He dreamed
he was walking along the beach with the LORD.

Across the sky flashed scenes from his life.
For each scene he noticed two sets of
footprints in the sand: one belonging
to him, and the other to the LORD.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him,
he looked back at the footprints in the sand.

He noticed that many times along the path of
his life there was only one set of footprints.

He also noticed that it happened at the very
lowest and saddest times in his life.

This really bothered him and he
questioned the LORD about it:

"LORD, you said that once I decided to follow
you, you'd walk with me all the way.
But I have noticed that during the most
troublesome times in my life,
there is only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why when
I needed you most you would leave me."

The LORD replied:

"My son, my precious child,
I love you and I would never leave you.
During your times of trial and suffering,
when you see only one set of footprints,
it was then that I carried you."

When is the last time any of us tried to do something to change the world around us?

Smiling at a stranger.
Helping an older lady with her groceries.
Opening a door for strangers.

One thing that has always stuck in my mind is the fact that, "Satans 1st step in corrupting man is to convince him he deosn't exist."

Looks like Satan has been winning lately.

[TIGERCAT]

One thing that has always stuck in my mind is the fact that, "Satans 1st step in corrupting man is to convince him he deosn't exist."
Looks like Satan has been winning lately.

Don't tell that to the secular western continental Europeans,
God has been dead there for decades. (example - Netherlands)

[Darth Wong]

One thing that has always stuck in my mind is the fact that, "Satans 1st step in corrupting man is to convince him he deosn't exist."

Looks like Satan has been winning lately.

Generally speaking, if something is corrupted, it doesn't work properly. So by this logic, one would have to conclude that atheists should be dysfunctional because Satan "corrupted" them, but there is no evidence that atheists are more dysfunctional than anyone else. Barna Research Group is a Christian advocacy group that tried to find such evidence for years, eventually giving up and concluding that there is no difference in moral behaviour between atheists and Christians.

Of course, you might argue that this is a special kind of "corruption" which produces no observable ill effects, in which case you merely have one imaginary phenomenon causing another.

In any case, if there's an evil being in the Bible, and you take its stories seriously, it would be God. God is the Osama Bin Laden of the Bible, complete with rampant terrorism and massacres of innocent civilians. And even in the New Testament, he promises to come back and do it again. The Book of Revelation is all about the ruthless slaughter of the heathens after the Rapture. As one teenaged fan of the Left Behind books put it, "my favorite part is when Jesus pulls the heathens' guts out"; it's outright hate literature.

[Ó Cathasaigh]

Don't tell that to the secular western continental Europeans,
God has been dead there for decades. (example - Netherlands)

Perhaps a dose of plague or war is in order to revive their spiritualness?

[Darth Wong]

Perhaps a dose of plague or war is in order to revive their spiritualness?

So you're saying that religion thrives on misery? That's an odd thing to admit to.

[Francisco Montana]

Generally speaking, if something is corrupted, it doesn't work properly. So by this logic.

The word generally pretty much killed the rest of your post for me, my friend.

I'm not here judging you or any other athiest. That's not my style, and it's not my job. But, if you want to deduce everything down by logic, generally, doesn't cut it.

Satan can pull the wool over one's eyes, and they can still appear and function perfectly normal.

Again, I'm not here pointing fingers at anyone, and I was never refering to anyone in particular, or in general for that matter. I started my whole post with, "If there is a God" and then preceded to share my feelings on the matter.

[Ó Cathasaigh]

So you're saying that religion thrives on misery? That's an odd thing to admit to.

No, I'm saying that human beings tend to forget about God when all goes their way. That Humans are incredibaly selfish strange creatures who could beg for scraps one instance, and totaly deny the existance of their provider the next. Hardship tends to remind one of you're true place in the entire God>Human relationship.

[Darth Wong]

The word generally pretty much killed the rest of your post for me, my friend.

I'm not here judging you or any other athiest. That's not my style, and it's not my job. But, if you want to deduce everything down by logic, generally, doesn't cut it.

The fact that I try to speak in a qualified manner does not impugn the validity of my argument, my friend. Show me examples of harmless corruption and then you might have a point; otherwise it's pretty clear you just looked for an "escape route" from the argument without having to deal with it.

Satan can pull the wool over one's eyes, and they can still appear and function perfectly normally.

If the wool is pulled over your eyes, it must not be harming your vision if you can still appear and function normally.

Again, I'm not here pointing fingers at anyone, and I was never refering to anyone in particular, or in general for that matter. I started my whole post with, "If there is a God" and then preceded to share my feelings on the matter.

Fair enough; I'm simply pointing out that if something is corrupted, there should be some kind of negative effects, and you can't find any.

No, I'm saying that human beings tend to forget about God when all goes their way. That Humans are incredibaly selfish strange creatures who could beg for scraps one instance, and totaly deny the existance of their provider the next. Hardship tends to remind one of you're true place in the entire God>Human relationship.

Isn't that just a flowery way of saying that God thrives on misery?

[Hyungoku]

sometimes the easiest way to find an answer to a difficult question, is not to think too much.

[Francisco Montana]

So you're saying that religion thrives on misery? That's an odd thing to admit to.

The new and the old testimants were both written by men. I feel God is a one-on-one sort of fellow, as I have said in the past. I'm too humble to believe there isn't a 'higher being', but then, maybe it's just to get by in life. Who knows. Or more importantly, who cares. The fact is, it works for me and gives me comfort. I don't bother others with it. To be sure, sometimes I feel some athiests are reminicant of those pushy Christians always trying to convert people. Both irritate me, and both are intrusive.

I just wanted to further clearify my feelings on this whole matter.

[Darth Wong]

The new and the old testimants were both written by men. I feel God is a one-on-one sort of fellow, as I have said in the past. I'm too humble to believe there isn't a 'higher being', but then, maybe it's just to get by in life. Who knows. Or more importantly, who cares. The fact is, it works for me and gives me comfort. I don't bother others with it. To be sure, sometimes I feel some athiests are reminicant of those pushy Christians always trying to convert people. Both irritate me, and both are intrusive.

The day we start seeing churches of atheism, atheism channels on TV, atheism gospel songs, and radio stations devoted to the broadcast of atheist propaganda, you might have a point there. But until then, I don't see how any halfway honest person can seriously claim that atheists are anywhere near as pushy as Christians. Sure, we'll stand up for ourselves when someone brings up the subject or tries to use our tax dollars to support religious activities, but how does that make us pushy?

[bdh]

Religous questions get releigous answers. Reasonably, it would be easier to blame people for causing the misery, even natural disasters. Consider God makes the universe. God is the alpha and the omega, the universe ends in absolutes. What is the variable? Humanity is the variable. By human action(sin), the "balance" is put out of wack. What happens, bad stuff of course. The world naturaly responds to all human action (including time considerations, so the sum total through time with events today occuring with respect to the future) such that it ends with the intended result. Simply put, the natural world is a dynamic equilibrium as it attempts to return to harmony. For all those who beleive in the bible, the founding cause for chaos in the world could be directed at original sin (literal or metaphorical as you please) which would cause a large disruption leading away from the proper "end" and resulting in more human choices that lead to sin. Thus you have all sources of suffering for all time and its everyone's fault because nobody is in proper harmony and the system must repair itself. Thats why God's plan causes suffering, because it often has to deal with human action.

[Francisco Montana]

The day we start seeing churches of atheism, atheism channels on TV, atheism gospel songs, and radio stations devoted to the broadcast of atheist propaganda, you might have a point there. But until then, I don't see how any halfway honest person can seriously claim that atheists are anywhere near as pushy as Christians. Sure, we'll stand up for ourselves when someone brings up the subject or tries to use our tax dollars to support religious activities, but how does that make us pushy?

It's the 'in your face' part that seems pushy to me. Maybe it's because I keep my spituality to myself outside a forum discussion, or if I'm asked. As for the athiest channel, etc, I'm tempted to list the NYTimes, the LATimes, MTV, VH1, so on and so forth. But I know you would just laugh, and in all honesty, I'm half kidding myself.

I really wanted to get back to the 'wool over the eyes' bit, though.

If the wool is pulled over your eyes, it must not be harming your vision if you can still appear and function normally.

You do know I was using a metaphore, so we'll skip a detailed description of what I really meant. To address the point itself though, of 'can you be corrupt and still operate and appear normal', I would still assert, yes. Especially if we are dealing with someone as coniving or slick as Satan would have to be as described. He wouldn't want to tip his hand, after all.

Anyway, I'm not here to defend God, or condemn athiests. Just sharing my feelings.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

And Happy Holidays.

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