To apply the notion of justice to your suffering in the absence of the presumption of an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient God would be a category error. — Janus
Atheists complaining about the God they don't believe in doing things they don't believe God ought to do. — Wayfarer
Atheists generally get their idea of God from elementary religious education, from interacting with casual believers and from listening to sermons in church directed mainly at casual believers. — goremand
one is made to focus on the Westboro's — Leontiskos
Atheists generally get their idea of God from elementary religious education, from interacting with casual believers and from listening to sermons in church directed mainly at casual believers. You can't really blame them for not appreciating these sophisticated, esoteric alternative accounts of God of interest mainly to a small number of theology-inclined people.
Maybe the actual problem is this massive conceptual gulf between the mainstream sky-daddy and the borderline Lovecraftian "higher being" of the theistic intelligentsia? — goremand
It's the turning of the theological backs on human notions of goodness and justice which I find indefensible. — Janus
That's it, in a nutshell. If our human notions of goodness and justice are so far off the mark, from God's point of view, then why call God "really" good or just at all? It's just words, at that point. I think there are ways to "get God off the hook" but this isn't one of them. It's as shameful as a parent whipping a child into the hospital while saying, "But this is just a sign of how much I love you." Yeah, with love like that, who needs hatred? — J
When someone proffers the design argument and appeals to the perfection of nature one can always argue that this perfection is dubious at best since nature is full of horrors and fuck ups and if God were a car manufacture, he would likely be prosecuted and shut down. — Tom Storm
But again this predicated on the expectation that existence ought to be a state of perfection, or a state of being where there is no suffering, predation, death or loss. What is the basis of that expectation? — Wayfarer
In my experince there is always a way for theists to get God 'off the hook.' If you are passionate about your beliefs you will find a work around. Remember the exculpatory interpretations the Communists used to provide for Stalin? Everyone likes their rationalisations - even the atheists. — Tom Storm
I'm not sure we have access to truth. — Tom Storm
I don't know if that is so, just surmising. — Janus
So, 'salvation' is an empty word, a cruel hoax on mankind. There has never been such a state, the whole thing is a monstrous lie, foisted on mankind by unscrupulous institutions bent on exploitation. Correct? — Wayfarer
That's it, in a nutshell. If our human notions of goodness and justice are so far off the mark, from God's point of view, then why call God "really" good or just at all? It's just words, at that point. I think there are ways to "get God off the hook" but this isn't one of them. It's as shameful as a parent whipping a child into the hospital while saying, "But this is just a sign of how much I love you." Yeah, with love like that, who needs hatred? — J
It would be a monstrous lie, cruel hoax, etc, if there were indeed no salvation, no possibility of an afterlife. But I believe there is, and not for nothing is this the central metaphysical tenet of traditional Christian theology. I think that when the Western tradition speaks of a god of love and justice, those words mean just what they mean to any ordinary human being. In order for God to truly deserve being described with those qualities, however, this life cannot be the end of the story. — J
The plain fact that one believes in a personal God is enough to dismiss their arguments about said God. It doesn't even get of the ground as a concept, so the arguments around what the God should or shouldn't do are basically a way of making fun of those types of people. — AmadeusD
It's the turning of the theological backs on human notions of goodness and justice which I find indefensible. — Janus
why take the beliefs of a 2.5% minority and pretend that they represent the whole group? — Leontiskos
It's the turning of the theological backs on human notions of goodness and justice which I find indefensible.
— Janus
But it works as solution to the problem, and for a philosopher that is all that matters. — goremand
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