Do you believe in God? Why/Why not?

[WolfpackN64]

Torillian said:

WolfpackN64 said:

Down syndrome is an evil? I think your sense of morality on the matters of genetics are a bit twisted. These are things atheists like Stephen Fry don't get. Nature in itself, and certainly in biology are morally neutral. Morality springs forth from interaction between beings, one of which must have at least primitive reasoning or social skills. There is nothing moral about Down, or kids getting cancer. It's a tragedy, but in itself it has no overlap with the field of morality.

I've written a paper on the ontological, teleological and cosmological argument and I can assure you they're not synonymous. Intelligent design implies teleology, teleology doesn't imply intelligent design.

The cosmological argument eventually boils down to: the inference to the best explanation is that only God could have done it.

Out of curiosity, how do you view natural disasters then? I mean an all-loving god shouldn't allow people to be killed by random natural disasters that have nothing to do with maintaining their free will right? One could easily imagine a world where people are allowed to be evil but there aren't earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes. Or what about disease, why is that necessary for there to be free will?

We have free will, nature doesn't. Nature acts on it's own accord. Even then disasters can have purpose (like forrest fires spreading certain trees or refertilising regions). But in general, nature acts on it's own precarious balance. The only effect of free will on nature is us not exercising caution or haste in dealing with climate change, leading to more disasters. As for disease, it's hard to imagine a biological system in which we have decay, but not disease.