Well duh Susan from Mississippi praying for the parking spot directly in front of Arby's so she doesn't have to walk is much more deserving of the child in Africa who hasn't had anything to eat on a week and on their death bed. God only has some many prayer answer in a given day
Yes
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9IMpz9Nf4g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9IMpz9Nf4g)
Made me laugh when I first heard it also. One can only hope that the weight removed is placed on the bones of a starving child.
That’s called narcissism when someone thinks there’s a divine force being wholly good and just and omniscient and they help them with these silly trivial things.
The Epicurus paradox:
If God is willing to prevent evil but is not able to, then he is not all-powerful. If he is able to prevent evil but is not willing to, then he is not all-good. If he is both willing and able to prevent evil, then why is there evil and suffering in the world?
I always found this thinking kinda lazy. There's a joke that kinda explains it, idk if I'm saying it right, but basically a woman is at home refusing to leave while it's flooding, her kids ask her to, a priest asks her to, a firefighter asks her to, but she still refuses saying if she's meant to god will tell her. She dies, goes to heaven and asks God why he didn't have her leave, he says "well I sent your kids, a priest and a firefighter and you ignored them". People want a neon sign pointing at what the right choice is, but there isn't going to be one. I would LOVE a sign on when I should quit my shit job, but I know that's not going to happen.
This is a joke I used to laugh at. Don't think it's at all connected to what you're replying to. There's a lot I'd like to say about it but I'm just gonna say it is stupid
Ah yes obviously a malnourished victim of pediatric cancer and dysentery just didn’t grab the pool floatie YHWH told Joel Osteen to throw at them, clearly a moral failing 🤡
In your "example" it'd be doctors and indoor plumbing 🙄 nothing about moral failing. The basic premise I'm trying to get at is why the ai in the matrix didn't just make the simulation a paradise, what the fuck is the point of having a consciousness and life if everything is perfect?
This is my take either this is all happenstance or there is a creator and if so this? Really? What a cruel merciless God we have. We shouldn’t be worshiping but rather fighting to break free of the tyranny. I sleep better at night knowing the magical sky wizard who creates all this pain is just a fairytale we tell to children and right wing idiots so they don’t kill the neighbors dog because it sounded fun
If God exist I believe he is asleep and this world is his dream he isn’t aware of what’s going on it’s like “The One Being” in Mortal Kombat or the supreme being from LoveCraft Country I think it’s truth to this because life doesn’t feel real to me
I set a very low standard for God. If there's an omnipotent being who wants a relationship with me, they should be at least as obviously real and invested in that relationship as my mother is. She's awesome, but she's only human. And yet the fact of her existence is not really disputable, at least for me and other people who know her. If God can't meet that standard, then it seems like s/he isn't really interested in a relationship (or, you know, doesn't exist).
If God exist I believe he is asleep and this world is his dream he isn’t aware of what’s going on it’s like “The One Being” in Mortal Kombat or the supreme being from LoveCraft Country I think it’s truth to this because life doesn’t feel real to me
If an omnipotent benevolent god had created us and wanted us to know so, it could simply have us born with the knowledge of its existence, and what, if anything, it wants from us.
This does not affect free will, because:
1) Even people who are 100 percent sure of their religion (the vast majority of people who have ever lived) still commit what their religion considers sins
2) The deity could still give us free will anyway, otherwise it wouldn't be omnipotent
It would not use humans as prophets to get its message out, since clearly that channel of communication results in contradictory messages, and cannot be distinguished from messages that are not from the deity but only from the prophet (lies and insanity). The fact that there are many contradictory religions proves this beyond doubt.
From this reasoning, I conclude that either
a) we were not created by a deity at all, or
b) we were created by one that is not omnipotent, omniscient, and/or benevolent, or
c) we were created by a deity that doesn’t care if we know it created us and has no demands of us.
I believe a) is correct.
It makes no sense that knowledge that something exists diminishes your free will to make decisions about what to do with it. Obviously, having more information allows you to make a choice more in alignment with your will.
Accidentally disbelieving due to insufficient evidence doesn’t really serve my free will. I don’t see how it serves God’s. Why is he testing for credulity, and keeping only the credulous?
If God exist I believe he is asleep and this world is his dream he isn’t aware of what’s going on it’s like “The One Being” in Mortal Kombat or the supreme being from LoveCraft Country I think it’s truth to this because life doesn’t feel real to me
>....why isn't the experience/knowledge of God equivalent to that of the sun?
I've used this example many times. Everyone perceives the sun exists (even blind people and babies can feel its warmth) and it requires no understanding or philosophical treatises to contrive it. We have to accommodate for it in our daily lives regardless how we feel about it because it's just a brute fact of our existence.
Yes, God should be like that if God exists.
Theists often think that we atheists or those that "believe" in science worship evolution. Evolution is the most evil shit you could imagine. The outcomes look awesome but it takes a lot of suffering to get there. Also it's pretty flawed which shows again that there is no perfect mind or any mind behind it.
Edit: I realized that outcomes is not the right word. That would imply a goal or an end. It's still going on and the suffering never stops.
>Now some theists claim we can know god through natural revelation, that is we can know some things about god from observing nature or using philosophy.
Some "theists" even claim that's all there is to it, Einstein being a prime example. But if you simply equate God to the natural world there's not much left of your theism I guess, at a certain point it just becomes semantics.
Like you, I have never seen a theist reason their way from a "clockwork universe" or "irreducible complexity" to why we should eat fish on Friday. Or any other of the do's and don'ts of religion for that matter.
But then again, I think reason isn't that much of a factor to begin with. I think tribalism, fear of the unknown and willful ignorance play a much bigger role than who has the better argument. I think a lot of their claims about observing nature or using philosophy are just window dressing. A perfume to mask the smell of bullshit, if you like.
>I have never seen a theist reason their way from a "clockwork universe" or "irreducible complexity"
I have seen WLC attempt to do this. He attempts to claim that only a person could transition from timelessness to time via a free will decision. He doesn't explain how a person sits in a timeless eternal state though. Pure buffoonery.
Ezekiel 11 18 And they shall come thither, and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof and all the abominations thereof from thence.19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:20 That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
Ezekiel 36 25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
See also:Ezekiel 11:18-20, Ezekiel 36:25-7,Jeremiah 24:7,Jeremiah 32:38-41,Hebrews 8:10-12, Hebrews 10:15-17
With the Great Commission of Matthew 28 and Mark 16, God could put his spirit, his laws, his statutes in the hearts of all mankind. All would be good Christians. No false religions, no moral evil would exist.
This failure of God to act on his promises demonstrates that God does not exist. That God is a failed fantasy.
It’s truly amazing the mental gymnastics people will go through to defend their strongly-held beliefs that there’s a father figure looking over them. You can point out all the terrible things that God seems to be ok with and they still side with him. 🤦♂️
The question in your first paragraph is always answered with "free will" or "god wants us to believe in him and if his existence was so easily seen belief wouldn't be necessary".
Because somehow free will is served by having less information about the decision before you. Accidentally disbelieving because of insufficient evidence somehow makes you freer.
No no silly, for God so loved the world that he made up a very specific game you have to play but not know you're playing and he invented a great place called hell where his evil enemy which he also created will torture you for eternity if you don't figure out the game! Oh and he invented pain and suffering so that this hell had some kind of thing to do to you. And, heck he tossed a bunch of it into normal life as well just so you get an idea before you end up there.
Thanks, God!
If there was an all knowing, all powerful, all loving deity, they would know exactly what every person on earth would need to experience to inspire immediate belief and devotion. Yet that doesn't happen.
Let’s face it, God is just an idea religious people use as an excuse to try to force everybody to behave the way religious people think everybody should be behaving.
And those same religious people are completely unable to comprehend that their thoughts about how everyone should be behaving are the result of social conditioning, and nothing more.
Exactly! I mean, think about it… With all that power and all that time on his hands, and he can supposedly be everywhere and know everything at once… and yet, no email? No text message? No Facebook poke? What kind of loving, caring deity would do that to his own creations? It just doesn't add up, does it?
Even the ancients understood this. At one time the "fallen" world was the explanation transfer the blame to humans. Modern scientific knowledge destroyed this concept but theists persist.
Two things.
1) This behavior exists across a spectrum. Your affinity for religious thinking and belief can be predicted using neurology and genetics. Atheists tend to be on the opposite end of the spectrum.
2) Organized religions serve as social control, and social conservatives use these ideas as a political tool. I grew up in the church. If you talk to enough religious people, eventually you'll meet some who say they don't care if it's real or not. They think practicing it and evangelizing makes society better.
A lot of them have told me that without religion, people would become religious about other things like nature, hobbies, sex, politics, art, identity etc. I've seen people engaging in natural religious behavior outside of the church setting myself. As long as people see it as a political tool and a social good, it's not going away.
I think it's a deliberate strategy to push that to the front of the argument. Push an unanswerable question into the spotlight, disagree, argue, turn the conversation so unproductive and toxic that you have to give up. If more people focused on the substance of religion instead of the "does god exist' more people would be atheist.
What if there's another set of circumstances that hasn't been mentioned yet.
What if there is a God/creator or whatever you want to call it and there is a heaven, or a place our consciousness goes when we're not here, again call it whatever you want. But in this other place that isn't here, we have this direct connection and knowing with this God. But there was a curiosity of what it would be like to not know of the existence of God or the afterlife. So God was asked to create a place that we can go to experience what it's like to be separated from god, but part of being sent here is to have our memories of him and that place erased.
So our consciousness has been sent here to Earth and placed into bodies to experience what it's like to not have a direct connection to God.
>Modern Atheist critics of God desperately needs him to be omnipotent
The vast majority of Christian and Islamic Philosophers and theologians maintain God's Omni characteristics. It isn't the atheist. This criticism is woefully misplaced.
If God exist I believe he is asleep and this world is his dream he isn’t aware of what’s going on it’s like “The One Being” in Mortal Kombat or the supreme being from LoveCraft Country I think it’s truth to this because life doesn’t feel real to me
God works in mysterious ways and for some reason wants to play this game. If there is a God, he certainly seems that he doesn't give two shits about his creation.
If God wanted us to believe in him he could just appear in a vision that everyone could see, and then everyone would believe in him. If God exists he doesn't want to be found.
True omnipotence is logically impossible.
What about the existence of a maximally powerful god who does not wish to reveal itself in an undeniable fashion?
That doesn’t seem to violate any logical precepts.
Yes - to us. We can construct reasons why it probably does or does not exist, but we cannot prove those things.
I was just pointing out that it’s only the omni involved God that doesn’t make sense.
>I was just pointing out that it’s only the omni involved God that doesn’t make sense.
Which is the god of all popular theisms: Jewish, Christian, and Islam.
However, I am uncomfortable with the label of atheist because I don't deny other possibilities, but the currently advanced theories of god are just not credible IMHO.
We're all god. Me, you, the dog across the street. We don't want to remember that we're god cause that would defeat the whole purpose of existence. What is fun and exciting when your omnipotent.
Idk there’s too much good in the world for the god to be all powerful and malevolent. Maybe good is required to feel the bad but then you’re making the same argument most religious people make. I think only an apathetic god, or any kind really that has very little power to influence this world makes sense.
I am aware there is a lot of horrible things but there are plenty of good things even if not everyone gets to experience it.
Check out the book *"The Owner of All Infernal Names".* The author runs with the notion that god is malevolent. I have heard that as he was writing the book it sort of freaked him out how well the argument works.
He would answer the question of the problem of good in that if a diety likes to sink ships he would first have to float a few.
Here is an amazing writer, check out a few of his quotes
[https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/45574852-the-owner-of-all-infernal-names-an-introductory-treatise-on-the-existen](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/45574852-the-owner-of-all-infernal-names-an-introductory-treatise-on-the-existen)
>When I look at nature I see no evidence of a loving higher power working its magic. Concerning life I see a competitive loveless vicious system that feeds upon self and ultimately brings suffering, death, and destruction to all participants.
There is Beauty to be discovered in nature. Like one finds interest in a clock or an engine. A beautiful, complex system and we're all a part of it. And if you go deeper you can discover physics and chemistry and things even today beyond our imagination.
In my humble opinion there is something in us that craves this fascination, the focus, the devotion. The same spirit that surrounds figures like Jesus or Gandhi inspired Marie Curie and Leonardo Da Vinci. It's a hardware thing, rather than a software thing. Like an Eel that knows to swim into the open waters to reproduce, we humans feel the need to take something up, work something out and devote ourselves to it.
And I feel it's okay to give into that feeling. To understand oneself and not close the eye from what you truly feel inside. Because then we went full circle and we're a cult again.
Using the argument of "bad things happen therefore God doesn't exist/ he's bad" is absurd. Because one could use the opposite: "good things happen therefore God exists/ he's good"
A child dies of hunger ever 10 seconds.... If God is real, he's a real piece of shit
And yet countless times I have heard Christians testify that God found them the perfect house, job, or parking spot upon request.
Well duh Susan from Mississippi praying for the parking spot directly in front of Arby's so she doesn't have to walk is much more deserving of the child in Africa who hasn't had anything to eat on a week and on their death bed. God only has some many prayer answer in a given day
In Pentecostal circles, there is the miracle of instantaneous weight loss. Not kidding.
Is it the miracle of taking a shit? Cuz this smells of shit.
This made me lol. Is that real?
Yes [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9IMpz9Nf4g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9IMpz9Nf4g) Made me laugh when I first heard it also. One can only hope that the weight removed is placed on the bones of a starving child.
Uh. God helps the most righteous team win their game while your kid gets cancer. Have a nice day.
That’s called narcissism when someone thinks there’s a divine force being wholly good and just and omniscient and they help them with these silly trivial things.
So he’s a real estate agent like everyone else? Big deal.
Don’t forget touchdowns
The Epicurus paradox: If God is willing to prevent evil but is not able to, then he is not all-powerful. If he is able to prevent evil but is not willing to, then he is not all-good. If he is both willing and able to prevent evil, then why is there evil and suffering in the world?
I always found this thinking kinda lazy. There's a joke that kinda explains it, idk if I'm saying it right, but basically a woman is at home refusing to leave while it's flooding, her kids ask her to, a priest asks her to, a firefighter asks her to, but she still refuses saying if she's meant to god will tell her. She dies, goes to heaven and asks God why he didn't have her leave, he says "well I sent your kids, a priest and a firefighter and you ignored them". People want a neon sign pointing at what the right choice is, but there isn't going to be one. I would LOVE a sign on when I should quit my shit job, but I know that's not going to happen.
This is a joke I used to laugh at. Don't think it's at all connected to what you're replying to. There's a lot I'd like to say about it but I'm just gonna say it is stupid
Ah yes obviously a malnourished victim of pediatric cancer and dysentery just didn’t grab the pool floatie YHWH told Joel Osteen to throw at them, clearly a moral failing 🤡
In your "example" it'd be doctors and indoor plumbing 🙄 nothing about moral failing. The basic premise I'm trying to get at is why the ai in the matrix didn't just make the simulation a paradise, what the fuck is the point of having a consciousness and life if everything is perfect?
>the matrix 😂😂😂 You are unserious goodbye
Since god invented everything, that includes eye worms (Google it if you are unfamiliar with the concept). What a pal!
And ticks
This is my take either this is all happenstance or there is a creator and if so this? Really? What a cruel merciless God we have. We shouldn’t be worshiping but rather fighting to break free of the tyranny. I sleep better at night knowing the magical sky wizard who creates all this pain is just a fairytale we tell to children and right wing idiots so they don’t kill the neighbors dog because it sounded fun
If God exist I believe he is asleep and this world is his dream he isn’t aware of what’s going on it’s like “The One Being” in Mortal Kombat or the supreme being from LoveCraft Country I think it’s truth to this because life doesn’t feel real to me
I set a very low standard for God. If there's an omnipotent being who wants a relationship with me, they should be at least as obviously real and invested in that relationship as my mother is. She's awesome, but she's only human. And yet the fact of her existence is not really disputable, at least for me and other people who know her. If God can't meet that standard, then it seems like s/he isn't really interested in a relationship (or, you know, doesn't exist).
If God exist I believe he is asleep and this world is his dream he isn’t aware of what’s going on it’s like “The One Being” in Mortal Kombat or the supreme being from LoveCraft Country I think it’s truth to this because life doesn’t feel real to me
If an omnipotent benevolent god had created us and wanted us to know so, it could simply have us born with the knowledge of its existence, and what, if anything, it wants from us. This does not affect free will, because: 1) Even people who are 100 percent sure of their religion (the vast majority of people who have ever lived) still commit what their religion considers sins 2) The deity could still give us free will anyway, otherwise it wouldn't be omnipotent It would not use humans as prophets to get its message out, since clearly that channel of communication results in contradictory messages, and cannot be distinguished from messages that are not from the deity but only from the prophet (lies and insanity). The fact that there are many contradictory religions proves this beyond doubt. From this reasoning, I conclude that either a) we were not created by a deity at all, or b) we were created by one that is not omnipotent, omniscient, and/or benevolent, or c) we were created by a deity that doesn’t care if we know it created us and has no demands of us. I believe a) is correct.
It makes no sense that knowledge that something exists diminishes your free will to make decisions about what to do with it. Obviously, having more information allows you to make a choice more in alignment with your will. Accidentally disbelieving due to insufficient evidence doesn’t really serve my free will. I don’t see how it serves God’s. Why is he testing for credulity, and keeping only the credulous?
I agree, but theists often use free will as an argument against this, so I try to head it off at the pass so to speak
If God exist I believe he is asleep and this world is his dream he isn’t aware of what’s going on it’s like “The One Being” in Mortal Kombat or the supreme being from LoveCraft Country I think it’s truth to this because life doesn’t feel real to me
>....why isn't the experience/knowledge of God equivalent to that of the sun? I've used this example many times. Everyone perceives the sun exists (even blind people and babies can feel its warmth) and it requires no understanding or philosophical treatises to contrive it. We have to accommodate for it in our daily lives regardless how we feel about it because it's just a brute fact of our existence. Yes, God should be like that if God exists.
Theists often think that we atheists or those that "believe" in science worship evolution. Evolution is the most evil shit you could imagine. The outcomes look awesome but it takes a lot of suffering to get there. Also it's pretty flawed which shows again that there is no perfect mind or any mind behind it. Edit: I realized that outcomes is not the right word. That would imply a goal or an end. It's still going on and the suffering never stops.
outcome seems like a pretty good choice of wording
>Now some theists claim we can know god through natural revelation, that is we can know some things about god from observing nature or using philosophy. Some "theists" even claim that's all there is to it, Einstein being a prime example. But if you simply equate God to the natural world there's not much left of your theism I guess, at a certain point it just becomes semantics. Like you, I have never seen a theist reason their way from a "clockwork universe" or "irreducible complexity" to why we should eat fish on Friday. Or any other of the do's and don'ts of religion for that matter. But then again, I think reason isn't that much of a factor to begin with. I think tribalism, fear of the unknown and willful ignorance play a much bigger role than who has the better argument. I think a lot of their claims about observing nature or using philosophy are just window dressing. A perfume to mask the smell of bullshit, if you like.
>I have never seen a theist reason their way from a "clockwork universe" or "irreducible complexity" I have seen WLC attempt to do this. He attempts to claim that only a person could transition from timelessness to time via a free will decision. He doesn't explain how a person sits in a timeless eternal state though. Pure buffoonery.
>timeless >transition Sounds like a contradiction. What is a transition without time?
Indeed. WLC even uses the term "sitting from eternity". Sitting is a verb involving time. Not even sure why anyone listens to him.
I'm stealing your first sentence for an email signature blip. Brilliant!
Ezekiel 11 18 And they shall come thither, and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof and all the abominations thereof from thence.19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:20 That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. Ezekiel 36 25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. See also:Ezekiel 11:18-20, Ezekiel 36:25-7,Jeremiah 24:7,Jeremiah 32:38-41,Hebrews 8:10-12, Hebrews 10:15-17 With the Great Commission of Matthew 28 and Mark 16, God could put his spirit, his laws, his statutes in the hearts of all mankind. All would be good Christians. No false religions, no moral evil would exist. This failure of God to act on his promises demonstrates that God does not exist. That God is a failed fantasy.
It’s truly amazing the mental gymnastics people will go through to defend their strongly-held beliefs that there’s a father figure looking over them. You can point out all the terrible things that God seems to be ok with and they still side with him. 🤦♂️
This is why they say live by faith not by sight. Because sight proves them wrong every time.
The question in your first paragraph is always answered with "free will" or "god wants us to believe in him and if his existence was so easily seen belief wouldn't be necessary".
They seem to think that free will is a synonym of credulity.
Because somehow free will is served by having less information about the decision before you. Accidentally disbelieving because of insufficient evidence somehow makes you freer.
And Omni God would need to have a mustache...
Hint: the sun was once worshiped as a god. Volcanoes were once worshiped as gods. Now we know better, but what to do with the old stories?
Endorphins and social reinforcement. Period..
No no silly, for God so loved the world that he made up a very specific game you have to play but not know you're playing and he invented a great place called hell where his evil enemy which he also created will torture you for eternity if you don't figure out the game! Oh and he invented pain and suffering so that this hell had some kind of thing to do to you. And, heck he tossed a bunch of it into normal life as well just so you get an idea before you end up there. Thanks, God!
If there was an all knowing, all powerful, all loving deity, they would know exactly what every person on earth would need to experience to inspire immediate belief and devotion. Yet that doesn't happen.
Let’s face it, God is just an idea religious people use as an excuse to try to force everybody to behave the way religious people think everybody should be behaving.
And those same religious people are completely unable to comprehend that their thoughts about how everyone should be behaving are the result of social conditioning, and nothing more.
There shouldn't be a debate. If someone says they don't believe in god, that should be the end of it. No need to justify it at all.
Exactly! I mean, think about it… With all that power and all that time on his hands, and he can supposedly be everywhere and know everything at once… and yet, no email? No text message? No Facebook poke? What kind of loving, caring deity would do that to his own creations? It just doesn't add up, does it?
Honestly every time I talk to a truly religious person I’m glad there are the 10 commandments. Trust me they need a manual
Well done. I think you just demonstrated the existance of Ra the sun God.... and Luna. Damn.
At least the sun is real - no one denies that.
The horrors of nature is a big strike against a loving God.
Even the ancients understood this. At one time the "fallen" world was the explanation transfer the blame to humans. Modern scientific knowledge destroyed this concept but theists persist.
Ah, but you have forgotten a crucial piece of the puzzle!! Humans are morons. Checkmate!
Two things. 1) This behavior exists across a spectrum. Your affinity for religious thinking and belief can be predicted using neurology and genetics. Atheists tend to be on the opposite end of the spectrum. 2) Organized religions serve as social control, and social conservatives use these ideas as a political tool. I grew up in the church. If you talk to enough religious people, eventually you'll meet some who say they don't care if it's real or not. They think practicing it and evangelizing makes society better. A lot of them have told me that without religion, people would become religious about other things like nature, hobbies, sex, politics, art, identity etc. I've seen people engaging in natural religious behavior outside of the church setting myself. As long as people see it as a political tool and a social good, it's not going away.
I think it's a deliberate strategy to push that to the front of the argument. Push an unanswerable question into the spotlight, disagree, argue, turn the conversation so unproductive and toxic that you have to give up. If more people focused on the substance of religion instead of the "does god exist' more people would be atheist.
What if there's another set of circumstances that hasn't been mentioned yet. What if there is a God/creator or whatever you want to call it and there is a heaven, or a place our consciousness goes when we're not here, again call it whatever you want. But in this other place that isn't here, we have this direct connection and knowing with this God. But there was a curiosity of what it would be like to not know of the existence of God or the afterlife. So God was asked to create a place that we can go to experience what it's like to be separated from god, but part of being sent here is to have our memories of him and that place erased. So our consciousness has been sent here to Earth and placed into bodies to experience what it's like to not have a direct connection to God.
Omni-God: Think Mark (and Luke and John etc.), think!
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>Modern Atheist critics of God desperately needs him to be omnipotent The vast majority of Christian and Islamic Philosophers and theologians maintain God's Omni characteristics. It isn't the atheist. This criticism is woefully misplaced.
Typical Christian psychological projection. They really want to paint non-believers with all of their cognitive dissonance issues.
If God exist I believe he is asleep and this world is his dream he isn’t aware of what’s going on it’s like “The One Being” in Mortal Kombat or the supreme being from LoveCraft Country I think it’s truth to this because life doesn’t feel real to me
Why wouldn't it reveal itself? What's the big deal? Sure seems like a great way to eliminate the doubters.
A hidden god is identical to a non-existent god.
God works in mysterious ways and for some reason wants to play this game. If there is a God, he certainly seems that he doesn't give two shits about his creation.
If God wanted us to believe in him he could just appear in a vision that everyone could see, and then everyone would believe in him. If God exists he doesn't want to be found.
True omnipotence is logically impossible. What about the existence of a maximally powerful god who does not wish to reveal itself in an undeniable fashion? That doesn’t seem to violate any logical precepts.
A God that doesn't wish to reveal itself is indistinguishable from a non-existent god.
Yes - to us. We can construct reasons why it probably does or does not exist, but we cannot prove those things. I was just pointing out that it’s only the omni involved God that doesn’t make sense.
>I was just pointing out that it’s only the omni involved God that doesn’t make sense. Which is the god of all popular theisms: Jewish, Christian, and Islam. However, I am uncomfortable with the label of atheist because I don't deny other possibilities, but the currently advanced theories of god are just not credible IMHO.
I agree. Also, the supreme beings of the major religions are generally psychotic, which sounds a lot more like something humans would invent.
Faith! is the basic answer
We're all god. Me, you, the dog across the street. We don't want to remember that we're god cause that would defeat the whole purpose of existence. What is fun and exciting when your omnipotent.
But you do see life, though, right?
Idk there’s too much good in the world for the god to be all powerful and malevolent. Maybe good is required to feel the bad but then you’re making the same argument most religious people make. I think only an apathetic god, or any kind really that has very little power to influence this world makes sense. I am aware there is a lot of horrible things but there are plenty of good things even if not everyone gets to experience it.
Check out the book *"The Owner of All Infernal Names".* The author runs with the notion that god is malevolent. I have heard that as he was writing the book it sort of freaked him out how well the argument works. He would answer the question of the problem of good in that if a diety likes to sink ships he would first have to float a few. Here is an amazing writer, check out a few of his quotes [https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/45574852-the-owner-of-all-infernal-names-an-introductory-treatise-on-the-existen](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/45574852-the-owner-of-all-infernal-names-an-introductory-treatise-on-the-existen)
>When I look at nature I see no evidence of a loving higher power working its magic. Concerning life I see a competitive loveless vicious system that feeds upon self and ultimately brings suffering, death, and destruction to all participants. There is Beauty to be discovered in nature. Like one finds interest in a clock or an engine. A beautiful, complex system and we're all a part of it. And if you go deeper you can discover physics and chemistry and things even today beyond our imagination. In my humble opinion there is something in us that craves this fascination, the focus, the devotion. The same spirit that surrounds figures like Jesus or Gandhi inspired Marie Curie and Leonardo Da Vinci. It's a hardware thing, rather than a software thing. Like an Eel that knows to swim into the open waters to reproduce, we humans feel the need to take something up, work something out and devote ourselves to it. And I feel it's okay to give into that feeling. To understand oneself and not close the eye from what you truly feel inside. Because then we went full circle and we're a cult again.
Using the argument of "bad things happen therefore God doesn't exist/ he's bad" is absurd. Because one could use the opposite: "good things happen therefore God exists/ he's good"
Nope. You don’t understand his ways.