A Benevolent God

[jomifl]

Having taken heed of some of the arguments in support of their benevolent god and Kromovacorum's posting on another thread, what are your suggestions for this benevolent god's mightiest works?
Here is mine:-

The boxing day tsunami

[jim360]

I looked it up Chris and it also specified that an Apologist was someone who believed in the faith they were defending. This possibly doesn't help me much, but either way I still don't see what is the problem of trying to think about these questions.

[jim360]

I should also add Naomi that I don't particularly like the "choice" bit of what wiki defines as inherent Omniscience, but then both included the "that can be known" part of the definition, which is what I have been trying to drive at.

[LazyGun]

@Jim - Benevolent god or not - The abrahamic god - the one believed by the faithful of most of the worlds religious people is fundamentally a binary question, with implications and consequences for the foundations of physics, chemistry and biology.

If you have arrived at a rational conclusion, based upon the sum of the evidence to date that god does not exist, then the consequence is that those who do believe have an irrational belief. This is not subject to compromise or accomodation.

Some very well known scientists profess a profound faith, but by and large the only way they can justify that to their own scientific understanding is to say, in essence, that god exists but his impulses are actioned by naturalistic mechanisms - like evolution being gods design, for instance. And actually, that is an unarguable position in the sense that it cannot be disproved.

That is the only way a scientist can avoid the cognitive dissonance of holding 2 otherwise profoundly contrary views.

As for family and friends and so on - your attempts at finding some sort of accomodation or compromise between atheism and theism - in order to retain respect or friendship or love or all of the proceeding for family and friends is always going to fail in such a binary situation. You are trying to change the universe for your own personal situation :)

Recognise that it is just one issue, and that people are more than just one issue. They are the sum of and source for love, respect, aid, comfort and more. You just need to move past the one issue.

Its not necessarily easy, but for family and friends you can overlook one facet of who they are, rather than agonise over some non-existent compromise :)

[jim360]

I think it's most acute with my Godmother as she also in principle rejects everything else I've been taught. For the other two it's less of a problem, except when I was explaining that part of the reason I didn't believe was because I'd never had any sort of "religious experience" and was mildly surprised to hear that they hadn't either. I still love them all, and for 2/3 of the main cases I'm thinking of it doesn't matter to our relationship.

Though yes, I may very well be trying to bend the Universe to suit me! I expect that it will continue that way for some time, but perhaps I'll grow out of it. In

[jim360]

In the meantime people reading what I have to say may sometimes just have to "bear with me". Well that's a bit selfish. But hopefully at least some of what I say makes sense, and if some of it doesn't then you know why. I feel at times that I'm being nitpicked even when I'm making a reasonable point, though.

[Khandro]

LG; Your self-assured patronage is amusing when considered in the light of the fact that atheists represent only 2.35% of humanity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions
Returning to the OP //what are your suggestions for this benevolent god's mightiest works?// Look around you.

[Kromovaracun]

Jim, if you don't mind me saying so, your recent postings have been a bit incoherent for me.

So far as I can tell, you are questioning the arguments being made by myself and others in this thread, which are essentially that the callousness of the natural world is impossible to reconcile with an all knowing/powerful/good god. That's fine - all beliefs should be questioned.

But I really, really don't understand the actual points you're making.

Re: "inherent omniscience" - this would suggest that God chooses not to know everything, because this would violate free will. But if you choose to believe in a God like this, the Epicurean problem still stands because he still cannot really be considered moral.

The reason is that for this to be true, he would have to have created tiny amoebas that devour the brains of children, given the peoples of the Americas unequal immune systems which guaranteed the deaths of millions, and set up plate tectonics in a way that guaranteed mass suffering and death. And then, after doing all this, simply choose not to know anything about the consequences. If this happened, it would be at least incredibly callous or at most downright evil.

So if a theist wants to claim that God is "inherently" rather than "totally" omniscient, and also able to intervene in the world, he has not escaped the trap pointed out by Epicurus - the God that emerges still can't by any serious reckoning be considered morally good.

[LazyGun]

@Khandro As is your continuous smug interjections, bereft of much in the way of logic and rationality.

[LazyGun]

@Khandro - Cling to the idea that somehow truth and fact is actually decided by a popularity contest.No more deluded than most of your observations though, I suppose...

[Kromovaracun]

Now, you might say, "Well, perhaps God is evil or amoral then." Some very minor denominations do this (e.g. the Westboro Baptist Church). But you'd be hard-pressed to find many people willing to worship a god defined as such.

[Kromovaracun]

Khandro

Please explain why being in a minority means that someone is wrong.

[Kromovaracun]

"Look around you. "

How does N Fowleri feature in a benevolent God's design? Or the disparity in antibodies that resulted in the slow and horrible death of hundreds of millions of people in Latin America 500 years ago?

[ludwig]

Eat sh1t. 5,000.000,000,000 flies can't be wrong.

[mibn2cweus]

//Eat sh1t. 5,000,000,000,000 flies can't be wrong.//

To a religious fly, it must appear to be manna from heaven.

[naomi24]

Jim, Apart from saying that piece you’ve hooked from Wiki is contradictory nonsense, I can’t add anything to the excellent posts here – particularly Ludwig’s and Mib’s – very astute … ;o, but I would like to join Krom in asking Khandro why being in a minority means you’re wrong? Does that confirm what I’ve always suspected - that a cult only becomes a religion when the number of people hoodwinked by it swells to significant proportions?

[Kromovaracun]

"It's just another example of theologians trying to weasel their way out the amoral morass they find themselves in whenever the argument about the omniscience of God crops up. It's a pathetic attempt to justify why God stands idly by while natural disasters kill countless innocent people and why God never intervenes to stop madman with murderous intent. "

^ Pretty much sums it up perfectly.

[naomi24]

Jim, // it also specified that an Apologist was someone who believed in the faith they were defending. //

‘Apologist’ doesn’t necessarily refer to someone who believes in the faith they’re defending.

From here:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/apologist

//A person who argues in defense or justification of something, such as a doctrine, policy, or institution.//

I hope you don’t mind me asking what might be a rather personal question, but I’m getting the impression that you have some sort of inner-struggle going on with religion. Do you?

[jomifl]

Khandro, I do look around me which is why I was able to give you the link to the picture by Dali 'Woman at a window in Figueras' which depicted a wave cloud, a phenomenom of which you were blissfully unaware. If you can only answer the question with 'look around' you perhaps your efforts are misplaced.

[jomifl]

Jim, your efforts to compromise reality with belief are doomed to failure as reality will still exist, even after the holders of beliefs have been snuffed out by their benevolent creator.