By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - General Discussion - So how is a said, non-existent being, God, supposed to be the greatest source of evil?

Tom3k said:
richardhutnik said:

You saw threads on here, and on the InterWebs, you also see various sites making these claims.  You have individuals, who are anti-theists, who don't believe God exists, who also claim that this non-existent being is the source of the most evil. 

Question: How does a being that does not exist, end up being a source of evil, particularly the most evil?  Anyone care to map what part of the brain that produces God concept also produces evil?

Anyone holding both these views that God doesn't exists, AND is a source of evil, care explain this?

It's actually quite simple to explain, while God doesn't exist, humans with vivid imaginations do. 

So we have Books, one called Bible written by men, compiled and canonized by Early Catholic Church (ergo more men) in 5th century, the other one being Quran written again by a guy in 7th century and canonized by another guy later in same century. 

Those books worship genocidal maniac with serious anger issues, and have set a "groundwork" for what we'll call "absolute morality" (of course from religious point of view). 

So from perspective of those books it's morally right to:

Stone your wife, if she wasn't a virgin when you married her. Beat your wife if she isn't obedient. Rape your wife. Women don't have right to "teach" or to study. Have slaves. Stone apostates... and many, many, many more absurds things. 

So while God according to scriptures has some serious issues, the true source of evil is the human invention that worships that being called religion.

 

Hello, nice to meet you.

"So we have Books, one called Bible written by men, compiled and canonized by Early Catholic Church (ergo more men) in 5th century"

This is conspiracy talk and is factually wrong. We have manuscripts(whicg collectively makes the bible) going all the way to 50-100 years after the death of Christ. Unless you can tell me that church knew how to magically change the dating of manuscripts(which scientifically not possible) to trick people thousand years later, than your argument is moot. There is hundreds/thousands of manuscripts dating before 5th century. According to scholars , Ph. D of History and Philosophy of religion Gary Habermas, Atheist Bart Ehrman New Testament scholar, of the approximately 138,000 words in the New Testament only about 1,400 remain in doubt(small potential grammar mistakes) . The text of the New Testament is thus about 99% established. Everything you read in the new testiment is exactly what they wanted to say. Just to add to that we do have earlier manuscripts check out these:Chester Beatty Papyrus II,John Rylands Manuscript,Codex Vaticanus,Codex Sinaiticus, and Paul letters. 



"Those books worship genocidal maniac with serious anger issues, and have set a "groundwork" for what we'll call "absolute morality" (of course from religious point of view). "

Not absolute morality. It teaches objective morally. Which aren't same if you look up the definition on Oxford encyclopedia. Many people who study theology will tell you that. I will address the later argument on "genocidal manic" later.



"Stone your wife, if she wasn't a virgin when you married her.Beat your wife if she isn't obedient . Rape your wife. Women don't have right to "teach" or to study. Have slaves. Stone apostates... and many, many, many more absurds things. "



1. "Stone Wife if she wasn't a virgin"

The same was applied with men, they were punished if they had sex before marriage(death). The society knew the rules because it was deem immoral to do so in the society. The reason being that it was suppose to be that two people becoming one under God. To break that for one own selfish desire was considered to say I don't care what God says is right or our society. Back in those days there wasn't prisons because if you didn't work you didn't eat. Therefor if one went against the collectivist society(depending on the crime) you would be punished in way that would make you disappear from the society. You saying "wow that's horrible....etc" isn't an argument. Well it is an argument from outrage which is fallacious because you being disgusted or disagreeing because you personally feel it's wrong isn't an argument. If I were to say abortion is murder with outrage it doesn't suddenly become an argument. I wish I could also go into it being a honor society but I don't this to be pages long. So, if you have questions just ask.

Leviticus 20:10-16

"“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. If a man lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you. ..."

2."Beat your wife if she isn't obedient"

Where does it say this? But for fun I will post some passages .

Colossians 3:19

"Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them."

Ephesians 5:28 

"In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself."

Colossians 3:8 

"But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth."

The context being  how man should treat there wife.



3."Rape your wife"



No where does it say rape is allowed as there is passages I mention that's against sex before marriage where you can die for doing that. On to the point though I think your arguing that passages where it could suggest rape of a woman and that they had to be married after the woman is rape. The problem is this a punishment on the man as he must support her for life. The woman if pregnant would have no way of helping her father and vise-visa that father couldn't afford to keep the daughter. Resources at that time were not much and as previously mention if you did not work you didn't eat. That would have put the woman in a situation where she couldn't eat or have anywhere to to live. She obviously couldn't do labor and finding a different husband would have been fruitless as she became undesirable after not being a virgin. This is a common case of the better of two evils. If the man had tried and failed to rape he would have been stone. But if he did somehow succeed to rape he would have to forever support the woman doing everything like labor and many other things.



4."Women don't have right to "teach" or to study"



You need to be specific when you say things. Are you talking about Paul passage where it says

"Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission,as the law says . If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church."

Many people don't know that Paul was actually quoting a Corinthians position in which he later refutes. For more proof of this check out 1 Corinthians (14:26, 31) where he refers to all people speaking and doesn’t restrict women. Paul was known to praise the work of fellow women for there work for Christ! According to Atheist Bart Ehrman New Testament Scholar  , Paul praises Junia as a prominent apostle. (Source below)

(Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend. Oxford University Press. )

Just to add, when Paul refers to Priscilla Aquila,Priscilla is usually listed first, suggesting to some scholars that she was the head of the family. (Bible Dictinary(revised ed.). HarperCollins. p. 882. ) For context sake, they were missionary partners of Paul.

 

5."Have slaves"

Are we talking about slave servants? They had protection laws and they were slaves because of debt which they had to pay off. This wasn't your 1800's slaves you had to treat them well.

"If I have denied justice to any of my servants, whether male or female, when they had a grievance against me," Jobs 31

"And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him." ◄ Ephesians 6:9 ► 

"Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns."  Deuteronomy 24:14

"Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise they may cry to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin." Deuteronomy 24:15

These people were servants that were treated perfectly human. Compare this to slavery in America and you will see there is no comparison. 

6."Stone apostates"

Quote, what exactly your saying as there is no context to which you speak. Can you give me a passage to work with?

7. "Many absurd things?"

What are they?

"So while God according to scriptures has some serious issues, the true source of evil is the human invention that worships that being called religion"

You didn't prove anything(basing this on the way you worded as you sayed he has "serious issues"). Buzzwords doesn't prove the bible is evil or God(or people who worship). How much did you research beyond looking at one passage and claiming full knowledge? What scholars do you read? This is important because went dealing with the bible to you have to understand how everything connects and background information because if not your just running blind.You want to prove my points are wrong or that your correct, please respond back.

Thank you for your time I hope to enjoy your future discourse and criticism of my points. Have a nice day.

(Please forgive my grammar and spelling mistakes as I typed this basically on my Ipad.)



"Excuse me sir, I see you have a weapon. Why don't you put it down and let's settle this like gentlemen"  ~ max

Around the Network
DevilRising said:
ultima said:
DevilRising said:
Claiming you know for a fact that god doesn't exist, that NO form of "god" or "gods" or "spirits" exist, is just as ignorant and small-minded as trying to claim that any other spiritual beliefs one might have, are "FOR SURE" the only correct beliefs. You can't "prove" there is a god, any more than you can "prove" there isn't. Making these kinds of arguments and sparking these kinds of debates......really serves no good purpose.

So do you keep your mind open to the possibility of an omnipotent teapot with an infinitely long spout floating around somewhere in space?

 

Sure why not. I have my own beliefs, and I do personally happen to be a spiritual person. But I'm not religious, in any way shape or form. I think taking "belief" and turning it into "mass religion", especially of the "One God, One Truth" variety, has been one of the most horrific ideas mankind has ever had.

I take it by your tone and the jest in your comment, that you somehow think I'm ignorant or naive for being open to the idea of spiritual entities existing? If you believe they don't, that's fine. But true ignorance is claiming you know the only "Truth", and that anything anyone else believes that is different must be moronic drivel. I hope that's not why you said what you said, but if you were basically taking a crack at me for daring to suggest that there is no merit in saying one "knows" there is no "God", well.............that was pretty childish and ignorant itself, wouldn't you say?

 

As a bunch of grown, mature, intellectual adults, it would be pretty tragic indeed if most of us were too high handed enough to simply allow varying beliefs to co-exist. Atheists running around screaming at religious folks that "MAN YOU'RE A MORON, THERE IS NO GOD", is just as belligerent, ignorant, and destructive as it is for religious nuts to run around screaming at anyone with differing beliefs "MAN YOU'REA MORON, MY GOD IS THE ONLY GOD". It's two sides of the same, counterproductive and uncivilized coin.

First of all, my comment in no way tried to paint you as ignorant or naive. I just wanted to know if you keep your mind open to all unprovable ideas or just this god phenomenon. I know now what the answer to that is.

I see what you're saying. It's kind of like philosophy versus organized religion. One considers and ponders, the other corrupts and tries to push its agenda forward.

But I disagree with your last paragraph. I personally don't care if people want to believe in their fantasies in the privacy of their own home. But I cannot stand organized religion. An atheist yelling at a passive religious person who keeps his beliefs strictly to himself is certainly messed up. But I don't think that's happening. The atheists that speak up against religion speak up against the establishment. They speak up because religion spreads hatred and ignorance.



           

Jay520 said:
DaRev said:
Jay520 said:
Darev. Do you know the difference between

(a) creating rules against already existing bad things.

and

(b) willfully creating bad things, and then later making rules against them.

Human rulemakers represent (a). God represents (b). They are different.

There, now stop with your flawed analogies.

 

1. In response to your comment, you’re going backwards here, since I’ve already supposed that god is evil, just for argument sake of course.

2. But my contention to that is, the fact of creating something evil doesn’t mean that you yourself are evil.

3. For example, are saying that the people that created the A-bomb are evil? Is the guy that created the gun evil? What if creating that evil thing you saw it was in fact evil and decided that it shouldn’t be used for evil?



4. By the way, what is your definition of evil? Oh, and do you believe in God? Short answers, without your particular brand of BS will do please.

 

 



First of all, I never said that God was evil, or that if you create something evil, that makes you evil. I just pointed out your flawed analogies.

1. Okay the. Don't see why it matters though.

2. I can see that

3. Objects aren't evil (not sure what an "A bomb"is), as they can be used for evil or good purposes.

4. You know I don't believe in God. I would say evil describes an action that causes unnecessarily extreme suffering and pain. Or it describes a person who chooses to cause unnecessarily extreme suffering and pain. God causes unnecessarily extreme suffering and pain (babies born with aids and other diseases, natural disasters killing innocents, not giving everyone a fair opportunity to heaven, etc.). Therefore, God is evil.

Here’s what tickles my goat about you, how can you NOT believe in God, but then believe that God causes evil? How does that work – please explain?

In any event, there is nothing flawed about my analogy, and it does still apply.

1.      1. ?

2.      2. ?

3.      3. Is this your brand of BS raising its ugly head? Dude, I’m talking about the people, the creators of the thing, as oppose to the thing. Please don’t start wasting my time.

4.     4.  First, you’re right that action causes evil. Secondly, you’re right that evil also could be equated to a person that causes evil. Where you’ve made an error I think, is ASSUMING that God CAUSES evil. Again, you’re assuming that simply because God made a world where evil is possible then he must be evil as well – wrong! God causes evil no more than he causes good. Both choices are laid before us, and it is us Humans that chose to do good or evil.

I honestly think your examples of pain and suffering are rubbish. For if you assume God causes major evil, you must also assume he causes smaller evils or all evils. Therefore, you must also think e.g God caused the economic downtown that the wolrd is going through, people losing homes, jobs, etc, or maybe when you cut your finger did God cause your pain? Pain and suffering, or even evil, are simply a part of the world we live in – get use to it.

Another question for you, are you Good or are you Evil? And depending on what you are, i.e Good or Evil, how do you suppose you got that way?



Nintendo Network ID: DaRevren

I love My Wii U, and the potential it brings to gaming.

The Fury said:
Screamapillar said:
The Fury said:
If God exists, why does he let many suffer so?

Because people have free will, and are allowed to make choices, whether they are good or poor choices.  People are also a product of their environment.

Yeah, because sometimes it's a choice to live in a earthquake/tsunami zone or get cancer. Free will is great like that.

What point are you trying to make?  That nature is a peaceful force and should never harm any animals, humans included?

Suffering isn't merely because of natural disasters, it's also because of what people do to themselves, whether it be directly (obesity,  drug abuse, etc) or indirectly (electing politicians that destroy a society incrementally over a long period of time, that leads to severe conditions that ultimately lead to disasters beyond our control).

I wasn't sure with your original post if you were being serious or not.  I see that you are.  Most people who believe in God do not believe that he should stop all suffering of all humans.  Free will to live our lives as we choose is mankinds' greatest gift.  Otherwise, what point is there to life in the first place?



The Screamapillar is easily identified by its constant screaming—it even screams in its sleep. The Screamapillar is the favorite food of everything, is sexually attracted to fire, and needs constant reassurance or it will die.

Why are people still using the free will argument?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1BzP1wr234 (already posted this)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSZqH0Ms4ds



Around the Network
DaRev said:

1. Here’s what tickles my goat about you, how can you NOT believe in God, but then believe that God causes evil? How does that work – please explain?

2. Is this your brand of BS raising its ugly head? Dude, I’m talking about the people, the creators of the thing, as oppose to the thing. Please don’t start wasting my time.

4.     3.  First, you’re right that action causes evil. Secondly, you’re right that evil also could be equated to a person that causes evil. Where you’ve made an error I think, is ASSUMING that God CAUSES evil. Again, you’re assuming that simply because God made a world where evil is possible then he must be evil as well – wrong! God causes evil no more than he causes good. Both choices are laid before us, and it is us Humans that chose to do good or evil.

4. I honestly think your examples of pain and suffering are rubbish. For if you assume God causes major evil, you must also assume he causes smaller evils or all evils. Therefore, you must also think e.g God caused the economic downtown that the wolrd is going through, people losing homes, jobs, etc, or maybe when you cut your finger did God cause your pain?

5. Pain and suffering, or even evil, are simply a part of the world we live in – get use to it.

6. Another question for you, are you Good or are you Evil?

7. And depending on what you are, i.e Good or Evil, how do you suppose you got that way?

1. It's called assuming things for the sake of argument, a tactic which you just used. Please stop playing ignorant and wasting time/bandwith.

2. The answer should be obvious enough. If an object isn't evil, then why would the creators of that object be evil? Use your brain. Since it seems you need everything spelled out, I'll just answer you: No, creating a nonevil object does not make a person evil.

3. Let's assume free will exists, for the sake of argument. If that were the case, then yes, some evil would be caused by humans. But some evil would also be caused by God. Let me prove it here:

1. An evil being is one that intentionally causes unnecessary and extreme suffering & pain (you agree with this).
2. Natural disasters, babies born with deadly diseases, etc. cause unnecessary and extreme suffering & pain.
3. Humans can't choose to have natural disasters and babies can't choose to be born with deadly diseases.
4. Natural Disasters and deadly diseases cannot choose to force themselves onto humans, obviously.
5. From 3 & 4, God must be the one that causes natural disasters & babies born with deadly diseases
6. From 2 & 5, God intentionally causes unnecessary and extreme suffering & pain.
7. From 1 & 6, Therefore God is an evil being.

4. Firstly, There is no such thing as a "smaller evil" since evil only describes things that cause extreme suffering and pain (based on the definition you agreed with). Secondly, every single one of those examples were caused by humans anyway, so God wouldn't be responsible for them anyway (if we assume free willl exists). Lastly, even if I were to agree with you that God causes these "smaller evils". how would that help your argument?

5. Yes, I know pain and suffering exists in our world. Another useless sentence. What does this have to do with justifying God creating it?

6. *sigh*. I don't intentionally cause unnecessary and extreme suffering & pain, so no. 

7. Ask  a psychologist. What is your point?



Screamapillar said:

What point are you trying to make?  That nature is a peaceful force and should never harm any animals, humans included?

Suffering isn't merely because of natural disasters, it's also because of what people do to themselves, whether it be directly (obesity,  drug abuse, etc) or indirectly (electing politicians that destroy a society incrementally over a long period of time, that leads to severe conditions that ultimately lead to disasters beyond our control).

I wasn't sure with your original post if you were being serious or not.  I see that you are.  Most people who believe in God do not believe that he should stop all suffering of all humans.  Free will to live our lives as we choose is mankinds' greatest gift.  Otherwise, what point is there to life in the first place?

Let's assume that every natural disaster of modern times were, in some way, caused by humans. Even if that were the case, it wouldn't explain all the natural disasters that occured before politicians or even humans could have possibly had any impact on the environment. Those natural disasters were caused by God, since Nature doesn't have free will. Which means God causes extreme pain and suffering for no reason....also known as: EVIL