Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[LuckyR]

The cause isn't down to God according to atheists.

I didn't know you were an atheist.

I know that if there is a God, Belief or Unbelief in that God is of no use to me?

Even the devil, if he exists. could believe in God.

Its not about belief or unbelief LuckR. If you think it is then you are way off mark philosophically.

It always only ever been about acceptance or rejection.

Is your first sentance a question?

What, in your usage, is the difference between belief and acceptance?

[Joshua10]

The cause isn't down to God according to atheists.

I didn't know you were an atheist.

I know that if there is a God, Belief or Unbelief in that God is of no use to me?

Even the devil, if he exists. could believe in God.

Its not about belief or unbelief LuckR. If you think it is then you are way off mark philosophically.

It always only ever been about acceptance or rejection.

Is your first sentance a question?

What, in your usage, is the difference between belief and acceptance?

Apologies, no it isn’t a question.

It is clearly possible to believe in the possibility that God exists and either accept or reject that God in every day life.

[Belindi]

I didn't know you were an atheist.

I know that if there is a God, Belief or Unbelief in that God is of no use to me?

Even the devil, if he exists. could believe in God.

Its not about belief or unbelief LuckR. If you think it is then you are way off mark philosophically.

It always only ever been about acceptance or rejection.

Is your first sentance a question?

What, in your usage, is the difference between belief and acceptance?

Apologies, no it isn’t a question.

It is clearly possible to believe in the possibility that God exists and either accept or reject that God in every day life.

Can you describe God whom you accept? How did you learn about this deity?

[Joshua10]

I know that if there is a God, Belief or Unbelief in that God is of no use to me?

Even the devil, if he exists. could believe in God.

Its not about belief or unbelief LuckR. If you think it is then you are way off mark philosophically.

It always only ever been about acceptance or rejection.

Is your first sentance a question?

What, in your usage, is the difference between belief and acceptance?

Apologies, no it isn’t a question.

It is clearly possible to believe in the possibility that God exists and either accept or reject that God in every day life.

Can you describe God whom you accept? How did you learn about this deity?

I would say that this possible God always does the right thing because he is perfect rather than imperfect.I would not describe this possible God as a good or bad God therefore.I came to the conclusion that it must be possible to communicate with this possible God and that this possible God would communicate back.After all,of what use is a God you can’t communicate with? I would say that this possible God is not against those who are not against him.He loves those who love him.I believe that this possible God does have rules.

I learnt about this possible God through inward/outward meditation.

[Belindi]

Is your first sentance a question?

What, in your usage, is the difference between belief and acceptance?

Apologies, no it isn’t a question.

It is clearly possible to believe in the possibility that God exists and either accept or reject that God in every day life.

Can you describe God whom you accept? How did you learn about this deity?

I would say that this possible God always does the right thing because he is perfect rather than imperfect.I would not describe this possible God as a good or bad God therefore.I came to the conclusion that it must be possible to communicate with this possible God and that this possible God would communicate back.After all,of what use is a God you can’t communicate with? I would say that this possible God is not against those who are not against him.He loves those who love him.I believe that this possible God does have rules.

I learnt about this possible God through inward/outward meditation.

Thanks for your explicit answer which I understand.

I applaud your reasoning as far as " this possible God always does the right thing because he is perfect rather than imperfect.I would not describe this possible God as a good or bad God therefore.I came to the conclusion that it must be possible to communicate with this possible God and that this possible God would communicate back.After all,of what use is a God you can’t communicate with? "

However this possible God cannot love all of those who love him, because of the reasons made clear in the Book of Job. I don't need to quote the Book of Job as it's one of the most familiar books in the Bible.

I also disagree that this God has fixed and explicit rules of moral behaviour. This God obviously has natural rules such as we must breath, eat, and drink(and a million more natural rules).True, Genesis has a list of rules ,The Ten Commandments, which need to be re-interpreted for each age, more so in the twenty -first century when the rate of scientific and social change is so very rapid.
Wise men such as Jesus and Socrates have explained more detailed rules of good behaviour and we here on this little discussion group try to answer the everlasting question "How should I live?"
Learned men of Academia also tried, and still try, to answer that question "How should I live?"

I think that when so called atheists contest believing Christians , these 'atheists' are seekers after truths and they don't approve of Christians who simply and naively accept what they have been told to believe.

For this reason you are mistaken that you got your notions of God solely from meditating. You were told about God in your family and at your school or church if any, and from books, films, and pictures.

[Joshua10]

Apologies, no it isn’t a question.

It is clearly possible to believe in the possibility that God exists and either accept or reject that God in every day life.

Can you describe God whom you accept? How did you learn about this deity?

I would say that this possible God always does the right thing because he is perfect rather than imperfect.I would not describe this possible God as a good or bad God therefore.I came to the conclusion that it must be possible to communicate with this possible God and that this possible God would communicate back.After all,of what use is a God you can’t communicate with? I would say that this possible God is not against those who are not against him.He loves those who love him.I believe that this possible God does have rules.

I learnt about this possible God through inward/outward meditation.

Thanks for your explicit answer which I understand.

I applaud your reasoning as far as " this possible God always does the right thing because he is perfect rather than imperfect.I would not describe this possible God as a good or bad God therefore.I came to the conclusion that it must be possible to communicate with this possible God and that this possible God would communicate back.After all,of what use is a God you can’t communicate with? "

However this possible God cannot love all of those who love him, because of the reasons made clear in the Book of Job. I don't need to quote the Book of Job as it's one of the most familiar books in the Bible.

I also disagree that this God has fixed and explicit rules of moral behaviour. This God obviously has natural rules such as we must breath, eat, and drink(and a million more natural rules).True, Genesis has a list of rules ,The Ten Commandments, which need to be re-interpreted for each age, more so in the twenty -first century when the rate of scientific and social change is so very rapid.
Wise men such as Jesus and Socrates have explained more detailed rules of good behaviour and we here on this little discussion group try to answer the everlasting question "How should I live?"
Learned men of Academia also tried, and still try, to answer that question "How should I live?"

I think that when so called atheists contest believing Christians , these 'atheists' are seekers after truths and they don't approve of Christians who simply and naively accept what they have been told to believe.

For this reason you are mistaken that you got your notions of God solely from meditating. You were told about God in your family and at your school or church if any, and from books, films, and pictures.

-You need to be clear what you mean when you make reference to the book of Job. It was the devil that caused Job's suffering according to this book?
-You need to prove that this possible God has not got fixed and explicit rules. Why do the Ten Commandments need to be re-interpreted for each age when the possible God you mention is unchanging?
-You mention Jesus and Socrates .......Please explain what you believe Jesus mean't by what he sad in Matthew 5: 17-19
- Atheists simply and naively accept what they have been told to believe. They were told that the single big bang theory was fact and they believed it and yet we know it is proven nonsense, by observation.
-I am not mistaken that I got my notions of a possible God solely from inward/outward meditation.

[Belindi]

Can you describe God whom you accept? How did you learn about this deity?

I would say that this possible God always does the right thing because he is perfect rather than imperfect.I would not describe this possible God as a good or bad God therefore.I came to the conclusion that it must be possible to communicate with this possible God and that this possible God would communicate back.After all,of what use is a God you can’t communicate with? I would say that this possible God is not against those who are not against him.He loves those who love him.I believe that this possible God does have rules.

I learnt about this possible God through inward/outward meditation.

Thanks for your explicit answer which I understand.

I applaud your reasoning as far as " this possible God always does the right thing because he is perfect rather than imperfect.I would not describe this possible God as a good or bad God therefore.I came to the conclusion that it must be possible to communicate with this possible God and that this possible God would communicate back.After all,of what use is a God you can’t communicate with? "

However this possible God cannot love all of those who love him, because of the reasons made clear in the Book of Job. I don't need to quote the Book of Job as it's one of the most familiar books in the Bible.

I also disagree that this God has fixed and explicit rules of moral behaviour. This God obviously has natural rules such as we must breath, eat, and drink(and a million more natural rules).True, Genesis has a list of rules ,The Ten Commandments, which need to be re-interpreted for each age, more so in the twenty -first century when the rate of scientific and social change is so very rapid.
Wise men such as Jesus and Socrates have explained more detailed rules of good behaviour and we here on this little discussion group try to answer the everlasting question "How should I live?"
Learned men of Academia also tried, and still try, to answer that question "How should I live?"

I think that when so called atheists contest believing Christians , these 'atheists' are seekers after truths and they don't approve of Christians who simply and naively accept what they have been told to believe.

For this reason you are mistaken that you got your notions of God solely from meditating. You were told about God in your family and at your school or church if any, and from books, films, and pictures.

-You need to be clear what you mean when you make reference to the book of Job. It was the devil that caused Job's suffering according to this book?
-You need to prove that this possible God has not got fixed and explicit rules. Why do the Ten Commandments need to be re-interpreted for each age when the possible God you mention is unchanging?
-You mention Jesus and Socrates .......Please explain what you believe Jesus mean't by what he sad in Matthew 5: 17-19
- Atheists simply and naively accept what they have been told to believe. They were told that the single big bang theory was fact and they believed it and yet we know it is proven nonsense, by observation.
-I am not mistaken that I got my notions of a possible God solely from inward/outward meditation.

An all- powerful deity could have stopped Job's suffering, and prevented the devil doing all other evil. Either God is all- powerful and does not care about us, or else God cares about us but is not all-powerful.

[Sy Borg]

It's amazing how much fuss is made in the modern world about one piece of ancient mythology about purported events two thousand years ago, written by people who knew less of science than many of today's five year-olds.

What of Norse myths? Or Chinese and Indian myths that long predate western antiquity? What of the even older myths of American, African, Australian, Pacific and north Asian cultures. All of these are dismissed as "just myths" while Middle Eastern mythology from two thousand years ago is Absolute Truth.

This is clearly absurd, hypocritical and naive, but most people turn a blind eye to it and pretend that Constantine's conversion did not imbue the west with a huge cultural bias - that Constantine found The Truth, and that all other cultures are wrong.

Ironic that the most fervent believers in Middle Eastern mythology are the ones who most fervently bomb the area.

[Belindi]

It's amazing how much fuss is made in the modern world about one piece of ancient mythology about purported events two thousand years ago, written by people who knew less of science than many of today's five year-olds.

What of Norse myths? Or Chinese and Indian myths that long predate western antiquity? What of the even older myths of American, African, Australian, Pacific and north Asian cultures. All of these are dismissed as "just myths" while Middle Eastern mythology from two thousand years ago is Absolute Truth.

This is clearly absurd, hypocritical and naive, but most people turn a blind eye to it and pretend that Constantine's conversion did not imbue the west with a huge cultural bias - that Constantine found The Truth, and that all other cultures are wrong.

Ironic that the most fervent believers in Middle Eastern mythology are the ones who most fervently bomb the area.

The story of Job is less an event in history than an outstanding example of injustice as built into the world as we know it.
I'm sure there are year 2023 stories of monumental injustice including the bombing by Israel of Palestinians. Al Jazeera is still to this day campaigning for justice for its journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Like Job suffered for undeserved injustice so did Abu Akleh an innocent reporter.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-63871856

For some reason The Bible is not taught from most pulpits so that it's relevant to 20/05/23: The Bible is not a Holy Book!

[Sy Borg]

It's amazing how much fuss is made in the modern world about one piece of ancient mythology about purported events two thousand years ago, written by people who knew less of science than many of today's five year-olds.

What of Norse myths? Or Chinese and Indian myths that long predate western antiquity? What of the even older myths of American, African, Australian, Pacific and north Asian cultures. All of these are dismissed as "just myths" while Middle Eastern mythology from two thousand years ago is Absolute Truth.

This is clearly absurd, hypocritical and naive, but most people turn a blind eye to it and pretend that Constantine's conversion did not imbue the west with a huge cultural bias - that Constantine found The Truth, and that all other cultures are wrong.

Ironic that the most fervent believers in Middle Eastern mythology are the ones who most fervently bomb the area.

The story of Job is less an event in history than an outstanding example of injustice as built into the world as we know it.
I'm sure there are year 2023 stories of monumental injustice including the bombing by Israel of Palestinians. Al Jazeera is still to this day campaigning for justice for its journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Like Job suffered for undeserved injustice so did Abu Akleh an innocent reporter.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-63871856

For some reason The Bible is not taught from most pulpits so that it's relevant to 20/05/23: The Bible is not a Holy Book!

I expect that gross injustices have occurred every since our tree dwelling ancestors formed groups. Some individuals can't catch a break. It has always been so. Once humans started forming civilisations, injustices happened on a mass scale, with women watching their families being murdered, and are then raped and forced to bear the child of their rapist. Hits heaped upon hits upon hits.

According to some, they must have deserved. Yet God lets innocent gazelles be eaten alive by African wild dogs? Were the gazelles sinners? Of course, the literal God as presented by most Christians requires needs a fair bit of cognitive dissonance to believe. Camus's philosophical suicide.

[Fanman]

If God exists, it seems to me that he is absolved from the atrocities committed by people, because we have autonomy. I would say free will, but I don’t want to start a splinter debate. But for the things that people don’t have control over, such as natural disasters etc., we can attribute blame (or responsibility) to him. I don’t believe that because bad things happen in life that means God would be evil because good things happen as well.

If we are to attribute blame to God for what is considered evil, we must also (in reasonableness) attribute to him what is good. An omnipotent being has the power to stop evil from happening, but if such a being were good or benign – it is puzzling as to why they do not do so. As a human being with limited knowledge, it is impossible to draw absolute conclusions as to why a purported omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent being does the things that they do. Therefore, ultimately, I think it would be illogical to blame God or claim that he has done things wrong in an absolute and not theoretical sense.

Nice post. But I want to comment on one thing you say, that has been said many times, by many people, over the years I have been tracking such conversations.

Why do we think that a "good" God would prevent "evil" from happening? Just what understanding lies behind this question?

Do we really believe that an omni-everything mega-being created the universe, and rules it in accordance with maximum benefit — goodness — for one insignificant simian species on one backwater planet? Really? Of all the life that exists across the entire spacetime universe, God runs it all for the benefit of homo sapiens? Again, really?

What is a "good God"? Is it a God who is 'good' to themselves? Is it a God who is 'good' to their own creations (i.e. the whole spacetime universe)? Is it a God who is 'good' to one particular species, selected from all the life in the all-encompassing spacetime universe? Again, really?

Is it a God who is willing to be 'evil' to all other life in the universe, so that monkey-men can enjoy 'goodness'?

Thank you.

I don’t know how to answer your question in a way that would be correct. The only frame of reference we have for God is the scriptures, where he is said to care for human beings. But if we consider things holistically as you have. It brings into question why such a being would care about being good to us, for which I have no answer; except to say that he is benevolent in character. However, the suffering of human beings would contradict that idea.

[Belindi]

If God exists, it seems to me that he is absolved from the atrocities committed by people, because we have autonomy. I would say free will, but I don’t want to start a splinter debate. But for the things that people don’t have control over, such as natural disasters etc., we can attribute blame (or responsibility) to him. I don’t believe that because bad things happen in life that means God would be evil because good things happen as well.

If we are to attribute blame to God for what is considered evil, we must also (in reasonableness) attribute to him what is good. An omnipotent being has the power to stop evil from happening, but if such a being were good or benign – it is puzzling as to why they do not do so. As a human being with limited knowledge, it is impossible to draw absolute conclusions as to why a purported omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent being does the things that they do. Therefore, ultimately, I think it would be illogical to blame God or claim that he has done things wrong in an absolute and not theoretical sense.

Nice post. But I want to comment on one thing you say, that has been said many times, by many people, over the years I have been tracking such conversations.

Why do we think that a "good" God would prevent "evil" from happening? Just what understanding lies behind this question?

Do we really believe that an omni-everything mega-being created the universe, and rules it in accordance with maximum benefit — goodness — for one insignificant simian species on one backwater planet? Really? Of all the life that exists across the entire spacetime universe, God runs it all for the benefit of homo sapiens? Again, really?

What is a "good God"? Is it a God who is 'good' to themselves? Is it a God who is 'good' to their own creations (i.e. the whole spacetime universe)? Is it a God who is 'good' to one particular species, selected from all the life in the all-encompassing spacetime universe? Again, really?

Is it a God who is willing to be 'evil' to all other life in the universe, so that monkey-men can enjoy 'goodness'?

Thank you.

I don’t know how to answer your question in a way that would be correct. The only frame of reference we have for God is the scriptures, where he is said to care for human beings. But if we consider things holistically as you have. It brings into question why such a being would care about being good to us, for which I have no answer; except to say that he is benevolent in character. However, the suffering of human beings would contradict that idea.

God as Creator is all-powerful to cause existence itself to happen, instead of nothingness or randomness. However God as creator is powerless to stop the suffering of sentient creatures many of whom want and desperately need personal non-existence.

[Pattern-chaser]

But if we consider things holistically as you have. It brings into question why such a being would care about being good to us, for which I have no answer; except to say that he is benevolent in character.

How do you know?

N.B. I don't ask this question as a challenge, as many neurotypical correspondents might do. I ask out of curiosity, nothing more.

However, the suffering of human beings would contradict that idea.

Would it? Couldn't God be benevolent, but to every type/form of life, not just one? This would mean, in practice, that most living things would experience 'good' and 'evil' at some point(s) in their lives, wouldn't it? Would you hold that against Her, that even one living thing, or type of living thing, suffered in some way, at some time? Must She make all lives perfect before the criticism stops?

I wonder if we should stop searching for questions that might catch God out. It achieves nothing that I can see. Infinite power vs. immovable object, anyone? Not for me, anyway — pointless, not 'wrong'.

[Fanman]

Pattern-chaser,

How do you know?

N.B. I don't ask this question as a challenge, as many neurotypical correspondents might do. I ask out of curiosity, nothing more.

No problem whatsoever.

I don’t. I’m just going by what the scriptures say. If we take the “evil” that people do out of the world and consider the world in its most natural state could we call anything “evil”?

Would it? Couldn't God be benevolent, but to every type/form of life, not just one? This would mean, in practice, that most living things would experience 'good' and 'evil' at some point(s) in their lives, wouldn't it? Would you hold that against Her, that even one living thing, or type of living thing, suffered in some way, at some time? Must She make all lives perfect before the criticism stops?

You make an excellent point. We cannot claim that God is not benevolent based on what you say, but if we consider the scale and depth of human suffering, I can see why people say that God doesn’t care or is not benevolent.

I wonder if we should stop searching for questions that might catch God out. It achieves nothing that I can see. Infinite power vs. immovable object, anyone? Not for me, anyway — pointless, not 'wrong'.

As you know, the nature of the debate between theists and atheists propagates that mentality. I used to be a part of that cycle. But as I’ve gotten older and hopefully wiser, it seems like a waste of time and effort because neither side can close the debate.

[Belindi]

Fanman wrote:

I’m just going by what the scriptures say. If we take the “evil” that people do out of the world and consider the world in its most natural state could we call anything “evil”?

I see you recognise moral evil , as do I. Do you not also recognise natural evil such as befell Job?