The Evil God Challenge

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Some nice shorts from Isaac Asimov, Phillip K Dick, and Stanislaw Lem:

It appears to be written by people.
Just like every other book, including the Quran and the Bible.

Believing a book was written by something other than people doesn't make it so. I can claim some book was written by an invisible pink unicorn but very few people would consider that claim to be based in reality. I can even point to where that book claims to have been written by an invisible pink unicorn and claim that as "proof" that the book was indeed written by an invisible pink unicorn, but that's just circular reasoning.

I don't believe any book that you can provide was written by anything other than humans and claims of divine authorship presuppose the existence of whatever divine entity is being claimed as the author. Treating such claims critically is a reasonable position, taking such claims at face value demonstrates a failure of critical thinking.

That's a tell me you didn't even look at it without telling me you didn't look at it situation . The book isn't written by god.

What book are you referring to? Perhaps this one, which you inconspicuously linked to way back here?

Then how does it support your claim that not all books were written by people?

It's still a silly claim even if you're trying to let someone else do the heavy lifting of making such an argument.

My take on that particular aspect is that a book actually written by God would be far better written than the Bible. If you can create the Universe, with all the planets, plants, animals and people including Shakespeare, you would surely be able to write better than any of the authors you have created.

If you want to live in a small bubble, you will win all the arguments that exist inside the bubble.

I think my favorite quote from Cersei in Game of Thrones (before the show suffered an epic fail) was when she told Sansa "The Gods have no mercy that's why they're Gods".

God or the Gods or the "Universe" are all pretty indifferemt towards all of us. And why shouldnt they be? Humanity is nothing but a bunch of specs that believe they're more deserving of importance than they really are.

^If God is indifferent towards me (and us humans in general) why should we care about God? Worshipping a non-interfering and indifferent God is like worshipping gravity. It seems kind of pointless to me.

I think of the Gods as being like our real world politicians. Sure the majority of them are self-serving sociopathic aholes, but they have all the power in the world and you do not want to cross them for any reason as they can destroy you without mercy.

Best to just let them do their own thing as they run the world. Unless one wants to have a particular deity on their side in which case you can try to appease them for personal favors (again those lawmakers in power work the same way).

But in my honest opinion if the Gods are real the stories speak for themselves. The Gods arent loving and merciful. They can be outright cruel and selfish, just like mortals. Only they're immortal and all-powerful.

This includes the Christian God so many people cling to and have burned countless people at the stake for.

I interpret it as an indifferent and non-interfering God doesn't care what you think or do. In that case there's no way for you to cross the God or get it on your side.

I see it more as the Gods being indifferent towards human suffering and our need to feel more special than we really are.

You guys can see the divine as "evil", I see them as beings of a higher level that our barely evolved ape minds will never truly grasp. They don't have to explain themselves to us because we are merely specs in this world.

I recently read that in Judiasm "God" basically created both good and evil as well as light and darkness and order and chaos. The Devil isnt so much the enemy of God as he is a servant of God who tests humanity, like a court prosecutor.

Even though I myself lean more towards polytheism in my own beliefs, the Jewish view on good and evil actually makes more sense to me than what Christians (and even atheists) try to push on the world.

Of course I'm not trying to claim to be an expert on Judiasm after learning one little fact, I'm just saying that it seems relevant to this discussion and makes a lot of sense.

But again, I believe in multiple deities in our world and not just one all-powerful creator.

People believe in a God that follows their own wants. If you want a good God, or an evil God, or a racist God, or a Trump God - that's what you get. Politics and religion are inseparable, and always have been. They use their God as an instrument of their own means - their God will strike down whoever they want to hate and justify their own wants. And if they pray to their own God enough, they will get "salvation" for whatever twisted acts they perpetrate in his name.

It's that simple.

It aint that simple. That's just you projecting your own ignorance and hatred on others.

Besides history shows us that atheists are just as capable of the same cruelty you described on others when they are given too much power. Look at the USSR or countries like China and North Korea and how they punish those who don't conform to State Athiesm in the name of building some abstract 'Utopian' society that will never happen.

The problem isnt religion, its humanity itself.

Haven't most of those states just invented their own atheistic religions? Instead of worshipping gods they worship Marx, Lenin and a handful of local ideologues.

s**t, North Korea is a monarchy LARPing as communist where the cult of Dear Leader is the state religion.

It seems to reinforce the idea that religion doesn't need gods to motivate people towards misanthropic goals.