Why God can't be real

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That just goes to show that religion isn't for everyone. Would a merciful God force himself on those who don't believe they need him?


That's not a very nice thing to say. How does saying that make you any better than those people?

That doesn't answer the question. The same concepts still exist regardless. If they're so primitive, why are they so persistent?


Agreed, and I think anyone who promote them should be applauded as well. Religious people often fall into that category.


Irrelevant. "Eye for an eye" as defined by the Old Testament is the foundation for western justice. If you actually read the Old Testament, "eye for an eye" is more accurately reflected in our belief that "the punishment must fit the crime."


OK, but all this is mostly irrelevant. Still doesn't answer the question…what's wrong with any of those things?


Irrelevant. I asked "What's wrong with being nice to people?"

People still believe in astrology, still hold séances, still believe in magic, etc. That has nothing to do with accuracy. People like imagining they have secret knowledge that will give them an advantage.



That's Christian apologetics, sure. But we don't follow the Jewish law and the 10 commandments are largely concerned with things that are not laws today. It's not illegal to worship idols, disrespect parents, work on the Sabbath, etc. Only two involve modern law and they don't require divine intervention to figure out. Not many of us would want to live under an ancient Israelite legal code. It's pretty brutal and simplistic.

And you may not get this but, see, I don't believe the Torah was handed to Moses by Yahweh. Right? So non-believers think these earlier codes influenced the later Israelites to write their own. There is an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth section of the code of Hammurabi for example. Right? So it's all the same idea to me. I also think you've missed what was original about the Jewish Law. Legal codes were not new. What seems to have been new was the moral aspect of unenforceable behavioral codes. Things that no legal authority could discern such as what you were thinking.



I said it can be useful. My point is that there is no need to believe in a complicated mythology to hold similar values. I get to make points too. The internet works both ways.



Oh, so your comment had nothing to do with Christianity at all. My mistake. Well, I agree then, there is nothing wrong with being nice to people. I'm glad we cleared up such a controversial subject.

Last edited by simon_says on 22 Apr 2014, 11:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I am not a very good person, I admit that. But I just wanted to argue your points 1) you said that if religion was a primitive concept it would not be alive in this age as we are more civilized now. Which I think is not true because largely (because of huge population boom and wars) we are not civilized at all. 2) As I understand you say that religion is necessary in order for a society to practice moral behavior and hence to be happy. I think that religion and good behavior does not necessarily (and in my experience at all not) correlate. Thus I conclude that religion isn't needed and is a primitive concept; and where it is needed, such as underprivileged bottom layers of society, it is often than not mispractised and causing a great deal of harm. I will go even further to say that it probably holds back our advancement as a society. q.e.d.

Its all fairytales and if someone has to believe in a magical make believe being that has no proof at all of its existence to have sympathy and compassion for others and not kill people they are weak minded and easy to brainwash.

That wasn't my point, exactly. The argument was made that BECAUSE religion is such a primitive concept, it's doomed to die or is in the process of dying in our present-day civilized world. My point was that it is NOT even remotely dying, though it has been in vogue for "bright" people to denounce it ever since the early Enlightenment days. It comes and goes, but it's certainly not going away despite our best efforts to kill it.

I have three alternatives for why this is: 1) It's really not that primitive; 2) It IS primitive, but only in the sense that it is too ingrained into our collective consciousness and/or genetics (?) for us to get rid of it, i.e. we depend on it more than we like to admit; 3) We really aren't all that civilized, as you suggested.


No. I'm not arguing that religion is necessary. And I'm not really arguing anything. I want to know why it is espousing religious ideals is necessarily always a bad thing. Religions, or mine at least, often call for people treating each other with the utmost dignity and respect. They call for a lot of things that most of us, religious or not, hold in high regard…charity, helping people, searching for wisdom/truth, etc. If religion is, in part, a quest for ultimate truth or to seek the best in all for the good of all, why is that a bad thing?

Oh, and entirely beside the point, I'm not pretending that, for instance, that these things are the MOST important things in Christianity or any other religion. I believe the Bible informs us that these things will become important to those who believe, but they are the result of achieving an ultimate goal rather than the means to that goal or a goal in and of themselves. But they are nonetheless expected behavior that all Christians ought to aspire to. So if you have religion done RIGHT, what's wrong with all that?


That may or may not be true, and like I said, not what I was getting at.


Is it necessarily mis-practiced? Does it ALWAYS cause a great deal of harm? Groups of people at my church regularly go out and build houses for people who can't afford a place to live, or they repair houses. Groups of us will go out once a year or so and deliver bags of grocery staples to families for whom public assistance barely gets them by. We host sports events/programs for kids in the community (we're a predominantly affluent church historically located in the inner city). We have teams that go to central America and repair school buildings and give out food staples.

So I suppose I'm curious exactly where all this mis-practising happens. I'm curious as to exactly where all this "great deal of harm" is happening.

Mornin', I'm just going to piece through the video and explain everything from a Catholic perspective, hope no non Catholics mind.

First up, why does pain exist:
Quite simple actually, it's a consequence of our mistakes. God loves us, and it's his love that allows us to feel the consequences of what we've done wrong. That way we can learn from them. For example what if you put your hand on a heated stove, but didn't feel anything? You would still hurt your hand, but you wouldn't realize it. If you kept it there long enough you might even be able to maim it beyond recovery. If you didn't realize it was causing harm then you wouldn't have any reason to move it. That's why suffering is important. So that we can realize that we're causing damage.

Next up, why did God create free will?
Quite simple really, God wanted to be loved. But what's the use of being loved by robots? If a person doesn't have a choice is it really love? So God gave us a choice.

But then why did God create the tree?
Because of free will. What the use of having free will if there's no choice to be made? What if I said you can have a candy bar? Then you could have a candy bar. But what if I said you could have a candy bar or a some gum? Then you would have a choice. You could either have a candy bar or some gum. Now I guess Man could still not choose God without the tree. But then Man wouldn't no of sin, and so he wouldn't realize he could choose it.

And why the idea that God's omniscience and perfection prevent free will is totally ridiculous.
Simple really the entire section was based from the perspective of time. God's outside of time. For example imagine seeing a film strip for a movie. You can see the characters doing things as they do them. God doesn't say make you wear blue tomorrow by knowing that you will. Instead he sees you wearing blue tomorrow, and there it is. If you wore green, that doesn't make him wrong. He'd just see you wearing green instead.

Anyways hope it helps. I'm not trying to prove that God is real here. I'm just trying to prove that he CAN be real. And sorry this is mainly philosophical, not much of a scientist. (Not that it matters, but I'm not a creationist necessarily. the book of genesis was probably figurative. God could've created the world how ever he wanted)

Well said. I like it.

I find the problem of pain and the problem of sin to be related. Pain/suffering is a consequence of living within a fallen creation. Where I think I'd disagree with you mildly is that those things are a consequence of the mistakes we make now. Those things were there before we could be reasonably held accountable for any wrongs we committed. We have no control over that.

Before the fall, Adam and Eve existed in a state in which evil was not part of human nature. They didn't know right from wrong. Ignorance of sin does not make one innocent of wrongdoing. The difference between Adam and Eve before and after was that they didn't HAVE to know the difference…they were humanly incapable of doing anything wrong. The only choice they had was to remain as they were or to alter their existence with the added responsibility of discerning right from wrong and paying the penalty for sin.

I don't think death was the real punishment for sin. I think of death as the severance of the soul from an eternally unlivable world. If we were to go on living, we'd be living in a perpetual state of disease, aging, and decay. The only decision that really matters is whether we want the freedom God offers from the world as we know it.

Thanks!

I agree with both actually. I believe that we do suffer from sin, but I also agree that suffering isn't always a product of sin anyone's sin. Personally I think there might still be pain in Heaven. Because in my mind pain isn't evil. Suffering can be quite Beautiful. Like sacrificing one's life for a friend. Or being killed attacked for what you believe in.
I would have to disagree with that last sentence. To an extent. If someone doesn't know they are doing wrong, they are of course still doing wrong. But they're aren't culpable/guilty for their mistakes. In the Catholic Church we have three basic ways of classify a sin. (Knowledge) Does the person know they're doing wrong and how wrong it is? (Will) Does the person intend to do what they're doing? (Gravity) How bad are their actions? If any of these are nil they aren't sinning. If they are completely ignorant then they aren't guilty. If the are being mind controlled they aren't guilty. And if there is no gravity to their actions(basically anything that isn't a sin) they aren't sinning.

Sorry I'd also have to disagree with this. Because in the words of Christ "Behold, [He] makes all things new." I don't know, I feel like by Christ sacrifice and death, he has made this world livable once more.

But I defer, I don't really want to hijack this thread. If you want to keep discussing it, would you mind sending me a message or making a new thread?

God cannot have all the attributes that Christian theologians claim for It.

Epicurus once give this riddle.

If god can prevent evil but does not, then god is capricious or malicous.
If god can't prevent evil then It is not omnipotent.

So either God is malicious/capricious or God is not omnipotent.

ruveyn

Sorry, but I'm going to have to dispute that. Evil is a consequence of free will. God chooses the good of free will even though it requires the possibility of evil. God could choose to prevent us from choosing evil, but then he would violate our free will. In a way good requires evil. If we can't choose then our actions have to meaning. But if we can choose our actions are that much more heroic.

Human evil is not the only cause of suffering. How does free will cause a tsunami, earthquake or virus? In a monotheistic religion you just have to say "god works in mysterious ways", "who are we to question...", etc. There is no pat answer and it's silly to pretend otherwise.

False dilemma. It is not necessary for God to be capricious or malicious if God can prevent evil but does not. It could be God has every reason to allow the current state of affairs; He is certainly not subject to our approval.

It could very well be that because God is omnipotent, He already knows that the progression of humanity towards the elimination of evil requires our current state of affairs. An omnipotent God would already know all possible alternatives and their outcomes and would choose the path that would give the best possible outcome.

Good question. Which is why I said those things are part of the world we live in and have nothing to do with anything WE did. A perfect creation would be free of such things. It is the introduction of evil that allows for such things to become part of our reality. All we can do is try our best at making the world livable as-is, and fix what we can.


In what monotheistic religion is that all you have to say? What is wrong with a religious person questioning things?

Well, anyone can have their own views but biblically it's not answered very well. Job suffers with no hope of afterlife or reward for his virtue and Yahweh answers his questions with a long winded brag that essentially boils down to, "don't question my ways". And notice that while Job is whining Yahweh never says, "it's because Adam ate the fruit you dummy! He ruined the whole thing". That story is not such a big deal in Judaism.

It's a monotheistic problem because one god has fewer ways to shirk responsibility. Polytheism is chaotic and there is plenty of room to shift blame. You can say that all suffering is about fruit in a magic garden but who made the garden? Why put two trees there? Going by the internal logic of the myth he knew what would happen. Yahweh doesn't escape responsibility even if you believe that eating magic fruit causes hurricanes.

I don't deny that it IS God's responsibility.

How do you know that either or both 1) The fall of man, which God knew would happen, wasn't part of God's plan, or 2) God doesn't view the perfection of creation as a work in progress? Is it possible that God's will cannot be achieved any other way?