Carneades is awesome for commenting so much. Thank you again for making all these philosophy videos! Please make one on David Armstrong and inactivism haha.
Thanks! I have not gotten to reply to as many comments as I would like lately because I have been working on a project that I hope to announce over the summer.... Stay tuned... Inactivism as in the performative activism of posting something on social media but not taking action? Or something else? Sounds like an interesting topic. maybe at some point in the future. So much to do!
@Unthinkable Termination What better way to celebrate a day where so many atheists and non believers are forced by their communities or by law to sit through religious ceremonies about how their God is a zombie on pain of ostracization or legal punishment than to ask the question of whether that God is evil? :)
I am misunderstanding the duplication argument. If the trickster is motivated to maximize the belief that he is good, does he not wish to minimize doubt about that by minimizing instances of evil? Isn't each particular instance of evil a potential inspiration of doubt in someone's mind? And all else being equal, won't his success in deceiving us vary according to how much good or bad his world contains? So why is it not obvious that he would want to create a world which is more good, assuming such world is possible? In fact, doesn't this example lead to the ironic result that the trickster would create the best possible world? That of course raises the question: In what sense then is he a trickster at all? If I am an evil person who wishes to fool everyone all the time into believing me to be good, it seems I will maximize my chances of success by simply mimicking the very best person, so that I am empirically indiscernible from an actually good person, even though we differ in our spirits or souls.
Here's the argument there are three possibilities: the trickster God would create a world with more good, less good, or an equal amount of good. If, as you argue, the trickster created a world with more good, in the interests of better deceiving people, then clearly if there is a God here, he is evil, because he created a worse world than the best of all possible worlds. Such a God would not create a world with more evil as he could create a world with at least as much good. If we accept that he would create a world with about the same amount of good, possibly because this is the best possible world, he might still not be good, as the video notes, because he delights in rewarding those that were good on earth with punishments in a afterlife and rewards those that were evil. The trickster God's goal of delusion is limited to this world alone. He wants to trick people into doing good, so he can find out the good-doers to punish in the afterlife. He is not good, but such an earth is indistinguishable from one created by a good God (assuming this is the best of all possible worlds).
@@CarneadesOfCyrene Well, that raises a couple more questions to me. What does it even mean for a God to be Evil? To want for their creation to be evil? Or just to want to inflict as much evil as possible? If the first one is true, then it falls into contradiction since a Trickster God would never give away the fact that he rewards evil and thus would not promote evil on earth, making earth more prone to do good. If it is the later, then why would he inflict suffer in the afterlife only to good people instead of doing it in the living world as well and to everyone? It seems that the attribute of Trickster is more of a deterrant to be an all-evil good, since its it restrains him to punish us in earth too.
@@CarneadesOfCyrene Regarding the first possibility, it is a leap to say that a God that does not create the best of all possible worlds is evil. Such a God could simply be not so good, but not so bad, as it is unclear what is the reason behind that choice. Furthermore, if we are to assume that evil and good balance each other out by essence, then it is logically impossible to create a world with any amount of good that is not identical to the amount of evil - rendering the hypothesis of the trickster God absurd. (That is, unless you take the extreme interpretation of "omnipotence" as also inclusive of logically impossible feats, in which case the whole problem goes much deeper.)
@@CarneadesOfCyrene The christian here's the thing about god favoring the skeptic, and his immediate apology is that that is Satan, and that sin is rewarded here, but punished there. Those punished here for resisting indulgence, will receive an eternity of it, on a faith based coin toss. That coin toss of course ruins your entire earthly experience in the process.
This is a very interesting topic especially since it's so divisive and people tend to avoid it for obvious reasons, so thank you for covering it. I enjoyed the video but I have a few concerns. At 1:20 for the Scriptural argument, you mentioned a couple of Quranic verses and what they contain but I think you might've misinterpreted some of them. 9:5 does order killing but its only implied in a very specific context, so using it as a blanket statement to mean genocide in general is I feel misinformation. 23:5-6 have no mention of slavery based on the translations I have of the text (a random mobile app so I could be wrong), which state, "And they who guard their private parts" "Except from their wives or those their right hands possess, for indeed they will not be blamed -" 4:24 states quite literally the opposite of rape, explicitly saying all but your wives are prohibited, the only exception being those you approach for marriage while offering them gifts and to not seek unlawful sex. That and to fulfill your obligations as a husband. Heck, the next verse goes on to say you need to marry even your slaves and give them their rights before approaching them in bed.
Genocide is killing a group of people for their race or beliefs, which is exactly what we fin at Quran 9:5 "...fight and slay the Pagans wherever you find them,..." If that isn't entreatment to genocide (killing an entire group of people for their beliefs) I don't know what is. Quran 23:5-6 tells the true believer that they are blameless if they rape their slaves. (Those your right hand possesses are slaves) Here's another translation of 23:1-6 The believers have indeed attained true success! Those who pray humbly, who shun idle talk, who pay the prescribed alms, who guard their chastity, except with their spouses or their slaves --with these they are not to blame..." This is saying that you must remain chaste except with your wives and your slaves, i.e. condoning the rape of slaves. Quran 4:24 says that you can rape your slaves. It only allows you to rape women you have enslaved, but it does sanction that (also spousal rape). "And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess." There are plenty more, such as saying you can rape anyone you take as "spoils of war" Quran 33:50 "O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful to you your wives to whom you have paid their dowries, and those whom your right hand possesses of those whom Allah has given you as spoils of war" The Qur'an devotes more verses to making sure that Muslim men know they can keep women as sex slaves than it does to telling them to pray five times a day.
Thank you for reading and the quick reply. I agree on the definition of genocide, however from a theists point of view calling someone a polytheist isn't absurd or inherently evil. It's just highlighting a fundamental difference in philosophy and using it to group a number of people together. What I meant by my original comment was that the killing mentioned in verse 9:5 was for one applicable only to the people present at the time of the prophet, and two was targeted at people who were at the time actively seeking to harm the prophet and his followers. Context is important. They weren't ordered to kill people just because they thought differently, it was because they were actively trying to kill the prophet and his followers. 23:1-6, sure when reading it in a vacuum it sounds downright abhorrent and cruel, but if you read other verses like 4:24, which again states the exact opposite of rape, you would come to the conclusion that unlawful sexual intercourse is forbidden. Period. There are no exceptions. Therefore you're forbidden from physically engaging with a slave until you marry them and give them their full rights. I fail to see what part of that counts as rape. The Quran is incomplete and misleading if you ignore other verses that discuss the same topic and provide more context for them. Even the verse 33:50 you mentioned would make more sense of you consider that 4:24 explains at least in part how a slave should be treated. As for the last part, I haven't done a word count myself so I apologize if I'm a bit skeptical. I don't agree about the sex part of slaves as per the above argument, but if even the slave part is true that sounds mighty messed up.
Sorry, should've added this for context 4:24, Sahih International: And [also prohibited to you are all] married women except those your right hands possess. [This is] the decree of Allah upon you. And lawful to you are [all others] beyond these, [provided] that you seek them [in marriage] with [gifts from] your property, desiring chastity, not unlawful sexual intercourse. So for whatever you enjoy [of marriage] from them, give them their due compensation as an obligation. And there is no blame upon you for what you mutually agree to beyond the obligation. Indeed, Allah is ever Knowing and Wise.
I guess I should assume this ends with an "agree to disagree" stalemate. Thank you for your time. One last thing if I may, could you state the source of the translations you've used? The ones I have are different so I would like to see if there are any notable changes, with translations being only approximations of the source material looking at others might give me a clearer picture, since I can't read Arabic.
Re: Trickster God: It strikes me there are 3 fair responses: (1) a parsimony response, (2) Moore-style anti-skepticism response, and (3) the linguistic turn objection to the brain in a vat problem. For (1), assuming something like Occam's Razor is reasonable, if things are consistent with an all-good God, then it is less ontologically burdensome to assume an [something] than [something pretending to be something else]. For (2), it strikes me that the standard G.E. Moore-style anti-skepticism approach against the trickster God. There exists one act of true goodness, there exists another, therefore there is an all good God. As for (3), this seems the most problematic. The easy version of this argument assumes the author (or virtue) interpretation of divine command theory, such that goodness is derived from God's genuine commandments. If God is not genuine, or there is no God, or there is a trickster God using proxies to deliver commandments/intuitions/etc.. then we simply cannot express the concept of a trickster God. (Is this satisfying? Probably not, but I'm not sure if I buy any such linguistic turn arguments.) A more robust, non-DCT version might argue that a trickster God is not a coherent concept (which is different from saying it's logically impossible). That said, if we live on the best of all possible worlds, and an all good God would not allow for there to be lesser possible worlds, then the existence of a trickster God is logically impossible. Then again, so, too, would it be logically impossible for me to have have more money at this point in time; at which point our concept of logical possibility needs to be segmented into [logically possible sans God] and [logically possible given God] and that's a pickle.
I have some basic understanding of apologetics and want to try and state a few arguments for a good God.(note:this is from a Christian perspective and assumes scripture is true;except for parts stating God is good) 1. First we must ask; what good is? It is hard to define but if God created everything then he should know what good is. God is also omniscient so he would again know what good is. So if their is objective morality which Christianity would support God knows it not us. 2. Free will. God created everything perfectly. but in this he also gave us free will so we could truly choose to follow him. This free will allows us to do bad things. Now God could stop this by punishing us but then people get angry at things such as the flood. If God doesn’t then he just lets evil go on and punishes them in the end. 3. The arguement presented in Job. We cannot understand things as God does as we are not omniscient therefore it is full ish to assume we can be as wise as God to decide good and evil. 4. Relativism. We often assume that God chose a reality with a high but not maxed amount of suffering. But God could have created reality however he willed. Because of this the evil we experience may actually be minimal but because we know nothing else it seems quite high. There are several other arguments I would love to discuss. I hope and pray many of those who read this become Christians.
In response to Relativism: as many philosophers have stated if the world was but a little worse it would not be able to survive. If people woke up in the sky was just black or there was no feeling of Love or Joy they would voluntarily go extinct. So perhaps a malevolent God would still put some good sprinkled into a world so as to not let its creatures want to willingly dissipate. This would be a perpetual motion machine. And there is no free will afforded to those who are given cancer as a child and then die or many other tragedies that happen every day every second on the planet without reason or cause just in total chaos. Also if the Bible was true how did kangaroos get all the way from Mount Ararat to Asia and then swim across to Australia without any fossils left behind?
I feel point 3 is rather lazy. Admittedly, I agree that it's foolish to assume wisdom on par with a God who knows all but to say we can't understand because of our position and we shouldn't try to begin with is demotivational. But idk, I guess I just don't like the attitude. 4 I definitely agree with. It's a problem I run into often when thinking about alternate timelines spawned from choices, how much better life would or wouldn't be if something had been different; but I can't view those "worlds" in a way allows me to compare to this one, and so I can't truly know how good or bad this world is. Of course, I can make comparisons against subsets (comparing countries, peoples, time periods etc.) or even compare to fictional worlds (Strangereal of Ace Combat, Blade Runner and so forth) but that's not totally meaningful either since someone constructed it based on our world and are arguably worse than the real one, meaning we got the long straw. I find whenever someone makes a point like the Duplication Argument I'm always wondering "but we don't have anything to compare our world against so why should I care?" About point 2, I feel that the arguments' (notably the Evidentiary Argument) demands about how a good God should act conflicts with how Christianity describes the purpose of free will. If God did truly benefit those who believed in him, that would be overt and evidence for a real God, therefore no one would need to deliberate on if there's a God or not; however, because of the demonstrated benefits of belief people would likely only believe in God for those benefits, not forming a meaningful relationship with him which - as I understand - is what he desires from humanity. And that's where free will comes in, so one can choose whether or not to approach and form such a relationship,, thus he doesn't do shit.
1. Assuming that there is an objective standard of morality, that does not mean that objective morality is the best morality. You are making the assumption that he chose the best form of morality, when there is no evidence that has occurred at all. (at the same time, no evidence it hasn't occured) 2. We haven't been given free will if we assume the Bible is true. 3. If we think in this manner, then all logic is meaningless. Because we will never, ever understand anything and we should never try to because we won't know the objective truths of the universe. You might see a problem with this, because in my belief we should continue thinking and not just jab a knife in our brain and die because we don't know. To be or not to be, that is the question. 4. Yet we are capable of conceiving a world better than the one we live in, so this world is clearly not absolutely good. You might be right in that there are far worse worlds, but there's no way to determine where on the scale we lie.
Evil is undefinable beyond some kind of integral over "I don't like {x}" throughout human history. The source of all "I don't like {x}" is entropy, as entropy determines that everything costs more than it yields. God created and sustains entropy. Therefore God is evil.
I think the evidentiary problem is answered by appeal to the fact that there are some greater goods that can only be achieved through suffering and material and sometimes even mental privation (say, the performance of heroic deeds and so, becoming a heroic person through those deeds) and that the only goods that are truly needed to religious people in order to have these goods are going to be a certain psychological hardiness to endure the suffering required to attain these greater goods, and that, psychologically speaking, religious people do seem to be much more hardy, as is arguably evidenced by how there is much lower suicide rate among the religious than the non-religious, and really, among materially unwealthy countries compared to materially wealthy ones; so that religious people as a whole just seem better and enduring hardship, which in turn would make them better suited to do those sorts of heroic acts which 'require' one to endure hardship, say, working to help the all people, non-religious and one's fellow religious, to reach a better end; for those who more quickly give up in this persuit are less apt to contribute to those ends, due to their lack of heroic virtue; so that since hardiness is a precondition of heroic virtue, and religious people seem to be quite hardy, then it seems that God gives his people all they need to achieve far greater goods than the passing material goods that you have measured things by; and more to this, in light of how suicide is higher in materially wealthy countries than not, then it is arguable that measuring what is good for humans in terms of material wealth is suboptimal, we should rather prioritize moral or existential fulfillment over material welfare, and likewise those psychological goods that are conducive to moral/existential fulfillment, over those conducive to material welfare; this is not to say that material welfare is not good, but it seems that, on a psychological level, we have a greater need for moral/existential fulfillment and the psychological traits conducive to that; so that this should be prioritized in our measuring how well off a group of people is, and in this case, it seems the religious are the most well off; so that, on this view, there simply is no evidential problem.
I mean, there's also the possibility that some religions just outright admit their followers will be persecuted because of their faith or otherwise just won't be strictly materially benefited because of it. The only example I have is Christianity, notably 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 where Paul laments his time in Turkey but I can't imagine other honest religions playing up any benefits.
Interesting however you can only ascribe "evil" to an anthropomorphic god (such as Zeus, Odin, Vishnu, the Abrahamic god) that has a consciousness and a will. But not to an non-anthropomorphic "god" like the Tao and possibly the pantheistic "god" which is the universe itself.
An interesting argument. This is definitely an argument against the types of Gods that are moral agents. A definition of a God that cannot take moral actions might be absolved, though one might ask the question framed a bit differently. It seem one could ask if the universe itself is bad or good, not from the perspective of agency, but from the perspective of the best state of affairs. In that way the universe might be "evil" in the same way that murder is evil (not as someone that does something bad, but as something that is a bad state of affairs).
The fallacy of the notion of an evil God is that one compares the real world with a hypothetically different world which actually doesn't exist. The world we have is always better than any of the hypothetical worlds because the other worlds don't exist and this one does. This is the real meaning of the ontological argument: you can't ignore the property of actually existing in measuring the goodness of worlds. Many philosophical arguments are so focussed on comparing hypotheticals that they overlook the actual existential meaning of religion: You only have the life which was given to you, so you either thankfully and optimistically embrace it, or you perish. The opposite of the statement 'God is good' therefore is not 'God is evil', but it is the mental state of depression. All people who are mentally healthy and happy live in a state of accepting their existence as a good and meaningful thing, and it is this actual attitude that the theological idea is referring to. Also, Christianity does not totally reject the notion of an evil God, for many times in the Bible the goodness of God is actually questioned, even by Jesus himself on the cross in the 'Why have you forsaken me?' Christianity eventually fights this attitude not because it is logically fallacious but because it is intrinsically undesirable for the idea that reality itself is evil is conceptually identical to unhappiness, hopelessness, despair.
Btw, the use of reason already implies the goodness of God: in order to make an appeal to your own rational capacities, you have to belief it is good for you to use your reason and that you have the capacity to do so. The capacity to do something good means a potential to do good, this potentiality is a state, this state is existential. If you've been given the opportunity to do good, your existence is good. Therefore, also your creator is good.
@JO Talking about what God can and can not do would submit God to a set of rules and laws that would be more fundamental than God himself, which goes against the entire concept and point of God. God simply is what He is and does what He does, and what He has done is what we see everyday. The spiritual question is: what is the point of being unsatisfied with the world God created and desiring a different one? What is the point of critiquing your own existence? The sane person would always try to Love God. Would a parent stop loving their children because ‘they could’ve been better’? What does that even mean? ‘Could have’? Too many theologians try to look at God as a biologist to a creature, but God only makes sense if you look at Him as a person to a person, child to a parent, spouse to a spouse, friend to a friend. There is a reason why most children would call their parents the best in the world, and it is the same reason why most people would call God the greatest. Also, the fact that God has committed and keeps committing everyday to us and our world is actually a sign of love itself. It wouldn't be more loving to erase us because we aren't perfect and therefore it arguably also wouldn't be better. Has God made other worlds which actually are better? None in our world will ever know!
Really? If he wasn't evil, how wouldn't commit evil actions nor make peoples lives more miserable than that of people leading less miserable lives. His actions do not match his supposed nature.
@@somkeshav4143 I don't believe in God, but in the Christian narrative it is impossible for God to be evil because he is the definition of good. Good and evil are subjective. If you are a Christian he can't be evil and if you aren't then you aren't a part of the narrative anyway. If you create a universe and are the god of it then whatever you like is the moral standard.
@@abhmmh8892 the way you phrased your first comment made it sound like you were religious, but it’s interesting to know you don’t believe in him at all At least you can acknowledge how flawed the concept of God is
@@somkeshav4143 he is real to you if you believe in him. DMT and memetics have shown me that anything is possible. What came before god? What came before the big bang? What came before even that which caused those? There's probably a true God out there but it would be beyond a mere book. If you read hp Lovecraft on top of DMT and memetics it makes sense. Baptism and conversion is the spread of original sin. Also the bhagavad Gita and various other texts. Friedrich Nietzsche. It can all be pieced together. most humans can't be moral without a religious belief so religion evolved alongside civilisation to keep it together. The average person can't be "good" for the sake of it.
But I think the closest thing to objective good is the biological drive to reproduce, prosper, and care for your family. some might say objective is to do whatever you want but that's subjective. And even what I said is subjective from a specific species or genetic line.
A dystheist but not a maltheist then. Most of these arguments allow for such a viewpoint, though it seems one might argue harm is done through omission, if you could stop a genocide but don't, you seem to bear some moral fault for it. That said, it is hard to argue that God is all-evil, just as it is hard to argue for God being all good.
A certain reading of the bible would agree that god is evil or not completely good in the eyes of humans. But the caveat is that it also says that the human perspective on good and bad is wrong or irrelevant.
Yet funnily enough, upon eating the fruit in the garden of Eden it was supposed to give humans a sense of right and wrong. To say that it is irrelevant or wrong would be to imply that God changed his mind on what right and wrong mean. Meaning from the get-go he was never perfect.
@@doomakarn well, knowledge of good and evil can mean a few things. It can mean knowledge of the fact that good and evil exists, or knowledge of an absolute morality. The first case just means that humans are then aware of morality, and can decide for themselves what is right and wrong. This is the standard interpretation for many modern Christians. The second case would be a contradiction like you mentioned. Personally, I like interpreting texts as if they made sense. It's helpful in understanding how different people think. Because for most people, most of the time, they make sense to themselves.
@@andrewzhao444 The first action that Eve took was to immediately hide their genitalia in shame. I'd say they were bestowed understanding of what is right and wrong. But funnily enough, the fact humans even feel shame in genitalia is just because evolutionarily clothing was required to survive the climate and so it became rare to see genitalia.
@@doomakarn I think we looped back to the same problem again. "Understanding of what is right and wrong" can mean very different things, and the examples you gave doesn't differentiate between them. Eve can cover genitalia because she has absolute/true knowledge that being naked is wrong (is it? I'm not sure), but she can also do it just because she feels like it is wrong. I tend to think of the fruit as granting an intuition/feeling for what is right and what is wrong. What we might call our conscience. You can argue that conscience has certain commonalities across culture, which hints towards some universal standard of morality. Many Christians also take this perspective. But the Christian perspective's caveat is that while we can get a glimpse of what is truly right, we can never be completely right about everything. the theological lingo for that is sin. From some Christian perspectives, humans can't be morally perfect also because we don't have the processing power/infinite perspective to fully grasp what is right and what is wrong. This is what a lot of the later chapters of job is interpreted as.
@@andrewzhao444 There is literally no valid reason that being naked is wrong. The fact that they immediately covered themselves and exclaimed that they were 'naked', a concept they could not even conceive of before clearly indicates that they now know what is right and wrong, and not just from a subjective point of view. It is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not the tree of the capacity for good and evil.
For those who take the Duplication argument seriously. You're basically saying: 1. A hypothetical trickster God could make a world with: A) more good/ B) less good/ C) the same amount of good 2. If A), then our God is evil. 3. B) is not possible because God is omnipotent [which makes A) impossible too, as the "omnipotent argument" does cut both ways, so I don't get why adding A) and B) to the formula]. 4. [Therefore] C). Conclusion: - We can't know if God is evil because an evil trickster God would do the same as a good God. In my humble opinion, that sounds absolutely ridiculous, leaving aside the fact that A) and B) are just a decorative set to make the argument more palatable in plain sight. And for those not convinced, just for the sake of coherence, start thinking that way about everyone you know. You'll see how absurd it becomes. [I can't know if my "mother/neighbor/brother/friend" is evil and acting as good because an evil "mother/neighbor/brother/friend" acting as good would do the same as a good "mother/neighbor/brother/friend".] Living by that principle, your mental health won't last long. @Carneades.org Next vid on the channel "Is your grandma evil? (all the arguments I could find)". Tag me plz..
You are conflating can (potential) with can (hypothesis of intent). A God which could (potentially) create more good but willed it not (no intent) is arguably not so good. The wording in the video is ambiguous, I'll give you that.
@@UN-Seki That makes more sense, thanks. Still, I think the argument is just beating a dead horse. The first two arguments at least provide some evidence -be it good or bad- for an evil God. Rather than that, this Duplication argument reminds us that we can doubt God's goodness too (and I think we all already knew that we can doubt anything, including that). Also, it just occurred to me: why would a God who created a World with more evil and an afterlife of full goodness be eviler than the trickster God? Is a pedo (please bear with me) who gives candy to a boy to lure him into his van less evil than a father that doesn't give his son candy to avoid cavities (or because he's angry with the kid, idk)? I may be wrong but I believe I could keep on finding inconsistencies in this argument. But I think I'm being a pain in the arse, so I'll just shut up instead.
@@javiercanelaortiz4330 I think we can say in your hypothetical that said “good” god is atleast not all good, because they introduced pointless suffering into their world (a world that isn’t as good as it could have been). They may not be as bad as the trickster, but they aren’t good either. For your candy analogy I reply with a different one. Say there is an amputee, 2 powerful beings walk by. One sees the pain his severed leg causes the man and could heal it at no cost to them self or anyone else but chooses not to. The other powerful being heals the leg but exploits the now former amputees trust in them to take them to a place where they torture them much worse than what the leg ever did , just to see the sense of betrayal in their eyes. I’m he trickster is obviously evil. But the apathetic one is evil too for letting the man pointlessly suffer. One may say the apathetic god “had a plan” that required the amputees stay legless to achieve greater good, but since I don’t know that plan and he doesn’t seem eager to tell what it is, they are indistinguishable from just a jerk. And I’m not sure how any plan that requires abandoning someone in need can really be called fully good anyway
@@TheFatManatee I think my previous example answers your question. From our limited POV, we obviously can't see any good in an amputee's suffering, just like a kid doesn't see any good in his father denying him candy. But we know that the father has a reason, and we also know that hearing the kid scream and cry for half an hour for the denial is much more of a nuisance than just buying him the candy (that's what a jerk would do, imo). On the other hand, a Christian God (the only one I've any knowledge on, even if I don't believe in him) doesn't "walk by" anyone. They believe he's behind the creation of each and every one of us, so he would've made the amputee, not just found him in that situation: either he's evil for making him suffer, or good for making him suffer for a good case, but either way he's not "indifferent". If he was, he could just eliminate all suffering without effort, or make us disappear to avoid the annoyance of us complaining. I don't think an indifferent omnipotent God makes any sense. And lastly, when you said "I think we can say in your hypothetical that said “good” god is at least not all good, because they introduced pointless suffering into their world (a world that isn’t as good as it could have been)." This is assuming that WE define good and evil. Is the father evil, or not as good as he could be, by denying candy to the kid? I think it's the other way around. The kid doesn't know fully well what's good or bad for him: he has to trust his father for that. Of course, there's a lot more than Philosophy in these beliefs. There are faith, dogma, and teachings from saints and the Bible. And that's just how religion works. Ultimately, this video makes the mistake of treating Religion and Philosophy as equals.
@@javiercanelaortiz4330 Your analogy fails because it comes with implicit trust in god to argue that we should trust in god, which is tautological. (we trust in god because he has a plan, well why do we trust his plan, or that he even has one? We should not infantilize humanity and sweep away any criticism as "us not knowing any better" as it has no more ground to it than us knowing better and the god being evil/not caring/ being indifferent to our suffering. the only reason we feel that a kid crying is annoying is that our brains are wired to do so. A God would not necessarily have such wiring to worry about An indifferent omnipotent god can make sense if we realize that they can see our suffering, hear our cries, and not be bothered enough either to fix the issue or make us go away. Such a god could view our silence and our cries with the same degree of apathy and thus see no reason to change anything. Describing it as "walking by" makes perfect sense because the Christian god sees the amputees suffering and continuously choses not to do anything. No different from the levite who saw the jew on the side of the road after being mugged and continued on his way. Maybe he has a good reason for doing so, but him not telling us the reason in non-ambiguous terms is indistinguishable from no plan or an evil plan.
I don't think I'll have the time (or space, for that matter) to address all four of these in one comment, so I'll just do one here, and perhaps more in other comments if I have the time: The revelatory problem is arguably solved by divine pedagogy; a good society exists in the balance between truth and compassion, a good ruler does what he can to avoid forcing people to take on beliefs and actions, even if they are true and good, if those truths and goods are not yet understood to be such by the people, a ruler may push a small degree outside of the people's understanding, but going too far will do no good for the people, as they will not obey because they see the law is true and good, but only because they fear the punishment of the ruler, or desire the reward of obedience; and in such case are never changed inwardly, growing in understanding and good will, but only ever outwardly, as regards their behavior. Now while the carrot and the stick approach is not 'inherently' abusive, it can be used to some degree at least to get people into the habit of behaving the right way; none the less because humans have intellect to understand and will to choose, then it is contrary to their dignity (and so, their rights) not to also try to raise them up in an inward fashion, and so a ruler becomes abusive (and so, tyrannical) who only resolves to the carrot and the stick, and does not also try to teach their people to see inwardly the reason for the laws; and indeed, if there is no reason for their laws, then they are certainly abusive; but the point is that even when speaking of matters of moral truth, it is logically impossible for a leader to force moral development (for moral development is development of the free will, and a fully free, fully forced act is a contradiction in terms) and so likewise is it immoral for a leader to 'try' to force such an act, he must instead educate; but the people of biblical times were primitive compared to ours, both morally and intellectually; this is not to say they did not have great insights (open a single ancient book of law or philosophy and one will quickly see their insights) but it remains that, compared to our time, they were not so deeply developed; they clearly didn't see quite as clearly as we the evil of slavery, the rights of women, even human dignity itself wasn't so clear a concept to them, they thought more in terms of gifts, blood, tribe-loyalty, and such like; anything too far out of that moral horizon and the people would not understand, and their culture would not be able to grow and progress morally; as such, God had to come down to the level of the people of the time, and make compromises with them in the laws he wrote, all the while reminding them that a compromise was exactly what he was giving them; and he would do that, saying that his ways are greater than theirs, and many old testament laws came with a brief explanation, saying things like 'for you were strangers in egypt' or 'for I am the lord your God' or such like, and there were even commands to contemplate these laws, to read them aloud in certain circumstances, and such like; the aim, it would seem, was to grow their culture to prepare them for future things, in particular, for a coming Massiah, which we Christians believe has come. Thus it was not that it was permissible for God to make these laws in some absolute sense, but that it was impermissible for him to make any greater laws (since doing so would be abusive, tyranical, and totalitarian, due to not respecting the dignity and rights of the people, and how that related to the limited moral and intellectual development of mankind at the time) as such, the only laws he 'could' make were those which aimed at a future law that would free them from these more restrained laws; thus much of the new testament is a commentary on the old law, speaking of how the law was for sinners, but how love acomplishes the law, and such like; again, the point of the whole old law was pedagogical, some of the laws were eternal truths; namely what Christ called the two great commandments; the first to love God with all one is, and the second to love other's as one loves one's self; and all the rest of the laws were really just outworkings of these two laws in the limits of the culturla contexts of the time; thus of the ten commandments, the first three are about our relationship with God, the latter seven are about our relationship with one another, and so both are again, an outworking of hte two great commandments, teaching the people of the time precisely 'how' to love God and one another in the circumstances they found themselves, and all the other of the 613 mitzvot can be thought of again as just the outworking of those two and ten commandments within the context of the time; and Christ came to fulfill the law, so that the laws which were particular to the hebrews and their preisthood would no longer apply to his Church, for he instituted a new preisthood, one after malchezadek rather than levi and the levitical preisthood, for becoming the sacrificial lamb once and for all for us, the levitical priesthood would no longer be needed; and likewise the Church clarified in the council of Jarusalem in Acts 14 that the gentiles did not need to be circumsized and become jews in order to become Christians; showing the nature of the fullfilment of the old law of Christ, so that the only laws left in the old testament would be those laws given by God which transcended the needs of the cultural context at the time, and so likewise by instituting the Church, he made an institution which could both learn more about those laws which transcend cultural context, but which would also have the power to make laws, to 'bind and loose' that would be appropriate for the context of the time; thus stands the Code of Canon Law in the Roman Catholic Church; so that the Church now is an inheritor of the people of God in israel, a continuation of the developments made possible through Christ's fulfillment of the old law; in this way, by creating the old law as he did, God himself became an example for the Church heirchy in their creating of Canon law, so that it isn't even something only God can do, but rather this adjustment; this attempt to bring a culture ever higher into greater moral horizons, is something God first did through Moses, the prophets, and the other writings, was all an example for the Church to do the same thing now; to meet people where they are at, and to impose what eternal laws that can be imposed, while adjusting to what other laws must be, in light of the limits of the time; as a good King or Father might, and as God himself, the best King and Father, did do through Israel, and continues to do for all precisely through the Church.
TL;DR, if you need to write a whole novel just to disprove some paragraphs, I can imagine you are jumping through some mental hoops and/or hiding fallacies through an overload of information.
@@doomakarn Snark aside, the view that length indicates ignorance, error, and mistake seems unfounded; one's capacity to for brevity says nothing one way or the other as to the soundness of the argument; and sometimes it's far easier to pose a problem then the answer; so that the answer of necessity will be multiple times longer than the problem. The idea that one can always compress the information of an answer into a brief and easily understands formula seems to be something you could only know with certainty if you were omniscient, and so knew the answers to all problems, and so knew ahead of time how much the answers could be compressed, if at all. Since you're presumably not omniscient, then I'm not sure how you could justify that view. Sure, the human mind can make mistakes in reasoning, but the human mind can also correct those mistakes, which is why science and such like is valuable; and the longer a human mind has thought about a matter, the more time they've had to go over their reasoning and check for errors; as such, so long as any given human mind has thought for a reasonable amount of time on an issue, then there is a lower chance that they have engaged in error than otherwise; all the more so when they have other minds check their ideas (which is, in part, the value of conversations like this, namely, that other people should go through what we write, and check for faults); in light of tihs though, the 'longer' a text is, the more time it must have taken to write, and that is indicating that more time has been spent in thinking about a matter; (presuming they really were thinking, but it is uncharitible to assume otherwise.) On that view, one might argue the shorter a text is, the more likely it is to be in error. I think it's best (and most charitible) not to assume anything either way, and just investigate the arguments presented. [edit: fixed conclusion]
@@LOZandKHfreak You don't need to be omniscient to summarize. Took a look at your first paragraph and the crux of your argument is that God made compromises to nurture moral development. In that he allows us to scrape our shin on the playground so that we may stand back up and learn. This argument is flawed because as an omnipotent, all-powerful being he is very much capable of creating a perfect world where this still occurs. He designed logic itself, after all; and he chose to allow suffering as a concept to exist and propagate far and wide. The ultimate demiurge is no father, nor kind.
@@doomakarn I did summarize my argument, literally the first sentence summarizes everything that follows i.e. 'The revelatory problem is arguably solved by divine pedagogy'. Everything else is just an explication of what I mean by that; and since I said it was 'arguably' so resolved, it was also an explication of my argument. To summarize my arguments against your following points; Logic is about the limits of meaning, as such it is meaningless to speak of God making logic other than it is, even omnipotence cannot meaningfully be said to do such a thing; likewise, as a fully free, fully forced act is a contradiction in terms, and as that is what God would need to in order to guide us by omnipotence, then it's incoherent; so God cannot meaningfully be expected to have done this. To go into detail: Logic, as I understand it, is the field that aims to describes the limits of the meaningfulness of human terms, the conditions a term must meet to be meaningful (initially) and to remain meaningful (across inferences); thus likewise my view of validity is a kind of meaning-conservation. Thus a logician in his theorizing ought to seek those laws the violation of which result in meaninglessness in speech. This is my over-arching philosophy of logic; and how I would judge between logical systems to see which ones are worthy of the name and which are either incoherent in themselves or, barring that, which belong more in some other field outside of formal logic, like mathematics or theoretical computer science. (Naturally, as logic describes the limtis of meaningful talk, this includes talk about God and his attributes, such as omnipotence.) In light of this though, to speak of something designing something in the context of your critique is to suggest they could have done otherwise; but speaking of logic being other than it is, must be meaningless, precisely because logic 'as it is now' places hard limits on what we 'as we are now' can mean by our words, and anything contrary to logic must therefore be incoherent. So likewise is it meaningless to speak of God 'designing' logic, as though he could have done otherwise. We can say that God is in some sense prior to logic, since God created man and human nature; but though God is not limited by human nature 'we are' and so likewise is the meaningfulness is our speech (and so, our capacity to understand speech) about him; so that if our speech of this priority is meaningful, it must preserve logic. To note, even omnipotence cannot give him this ability, because omnipotence is a 'human word' used to describe God, and so, if it means anything at all, is likewise limited in what it can mean by logic; so if omnipotence means anything, it cannot imply that God has the ability to go against logic or to make logic other than it is or such like. For the same reason (and as I mentioned in my original comment) God cannot do as he will to man; for a fully free, fully forced act is a contradiction in terms, and so is not something God can do. Thus if God wishes to make free men also men of good will, he has to meet us where we're at, and do what he can to draw us into a better way of living. The alternative is simply to force us to act that way; but then either we will be puppets, and so will not reach our fullest potential (but love wills the beloved to reach their fullest potential, and so a loving God could not do this), or else, if he leaves us our free will, but acts contrary to the consent of the governed and the will of the people, that would by definition would make him a tyrant; which God will not do. Thus he must bring us to virtue rather by fits and starts; giving no more reward nor punishment than we can collectively come to understand the purpose of, namely, the purpose of growing in virtue, and in becoming loving children of his family and good citizens of his kingdom.
Of course. There are many atheists that are being forced to sit in silence through religious services today, because of oppressive countries, communities, and families that make it illegal to doubt dogma and punish skeptics. When is a better time to speak of the evil of God?
God in the Bible created us with free will and enough resources to do everything ourselves. The vast majority of problems wouldn't exist if we were perfect but we aren't. He doesn't want to intervene because that would defeat the point of us. He also refers to believers as belonging to him, meaning instances where he does something amoral are for the benefit of one of "his" people.
There is no good and evil. There is social acceptable behavior in varying degrees and socially unacceptable behavior in varying degrees. Ok, add to that natural phenomena that cause human suffering or are benevolent to human existence. You can label those as "good" and "evil" if you wish, but that still doesn't make it a force of nature. These concepts are by definition quite androcentric - and hence *not* universal.
Thanks! I'm not convinced that all theism is actively harmful (deists seem largely benign) beyond encouraging belief in unjustified claims. That said, there are many types of theism that seem deeply problematic and prone to harm and violence.
How so? How is encouraging humans to commit genocide and actively committing genocide yourself consistent to all species? Humans are the only species to commit genocide, even predators don't wipe out their entire prey, because then they would be out of food, and many humans do this only because of their belief in God.
Humans are higher than animals correct? We don’t depend on other humans as a food source? We are however subject to things we cannot comprehend nor control. Our spirit is bent on destruction and control, but also in complacency and a desire to be “led”. The “Bible” says that when ‘Adam’ ‘named’ the ‘animals’, He found none suitable. In Hebrew, it literally says that the ‘rib’ is “bentness/rebelliousness”. What is a ‘name’ but the nature of a ‘thing’? What ‘name’ have you made for yourself? When someone hears your “name”, what do they say about you? When He was “giving them names”, He was judging their ‘nature’ and found none suitable. Science even shows a change in societal grouping and movements, pushing us into agricultural communities. Then man begins becoming fruitful until the point of where we pretend we are ‘God’, creating our own ‘things’ in our own ‘image’… nothing good comes from a child with dangerous technology they are too immature for and severely lacking knowledge and understanding in. Would you not agree, with the last statement? About genocide, all things that happen in the past are for a future generations understanding. The ‘things’ of God are beyond ‘man’s’ ability to comprehend and understand, either in its fullness, at least not without the presence of the Spirit of Truth. We still philosophize on “Good”, yet all too often seem to have an ability to somehow define good in a way that explains and [falsely] “strengthens” our own ignorant thoughts, from a place of debate rather than an open field of discussion. Iraq/Afghan example: If I kill a “terrorist”, is it “good”? But, am I not the “terrorist” to them? Making it “good” to kill me? Man is responsible for their own actions, yet blame God in their ignorance in order to perceive what’s in front of them, whether true or false.
@euthyphro dilemma I agree about a few things, but I also think that you’re ‘standing’ on the ‘things’ above the surface. We, intellectually (however argumentative you want to take that, I question man’s abilities often) and spiritually are ‘higher’ than all other living things. There is both an order and balance to ‘life’, or else chaos and destruction takes place… and people then question ’God’ and ponder assumptions that evil ‘rules’ the world, rather than ‘man’ simply allows corruption and ignorance to rule over them. They give power to things that don’t deserve it. We are more in control than we comprehend. But the only way there, is by seeking and finding Truth, with an earnest desire. Man prefers to seek the easier things in life, like building their perceptions of ‘reality’ upon others ignorant ‘opinions’ without ever testing those ‘things’ for themselves. There are those with Wisdom and understanding in Truth, then those with knowledge but lacking experience: careful what you hear and chose to apply to your life/belief, and then those merely regurgitating propaganda and bias perceptions that make themselves feel ‘good’, ignorantly suffering in their same perpetual false reality, built on others ‘backs’. We should be careful with what we partake in and from whom it is coming from. Ignorance is like a dark cloud, and it seems to be covering society like a fog.
I'm not totally sold on these points, but I find #2 to be particularly erroneous from a Christian perspective; the Bible makes it clear how following God won't be easy and in fact be an avenue for others to persecute and exercise prejudice against those who do. Paul in 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 even despairs at his hardships in Turkey despite being... y'know, Saint Paul. Now I think it's another question as to whether or not this constitutes an evil god (though the fact this "nature of the disposition of faith" is upfront and blunt in his "truthful" word probably implicates the opposite; surely an evil God would play up how good life would be, right?) but as it is I find the Evidentiary Argument poor since it's supposed to point to the evidence yet it ignores the obvious.
I find this line of thinking fallacious, just because he states following God isn't easy does not mean that because it is not easy that it is not evil or malicious. A trickster god would likely play up how good life is, but just because a God may not do this does not make their actions any less evil. Given this, I'd say we can consider the Bible fallacious or deceptive in some way. An all-powerful being as described in the Bible would be able to craft the perfect deception, whereby fallacies and contradictions wouldn't even appear at all. Yet they do, implying that the God in the Bible is foolish by nature. I'd say this all leads to the possibility that in fact the Bible is not the written word of God, but crafted by man since it is subject to flaws.
@@doomakarn >just because he states following God isn't easy does not mean that... [he] is not evil or malicious. That's true, but my comment was about how the Evidentiary Argument posited a scenario wherein the god was ultimately dishonest about his insurance, which I presented evidence against. Rather, since Honesty is a virtue, the fact God maintains it indicates his goodness or close to goodness in this part. Especially considering a central Christian belief is God's inability to lie. And even though you're not interested, I will add that I read into the verse cited, and it doesn't imply that believers will be insured at all, rather the context of the chapter implicates that by giving and sacrificing oneself will be rewarded in Heaven. Especially considering God's riches are explicated to not be material. >just because a God may not do this does not make their actions any less evil. Sure, but why would this evil god not also be a trickster god? As I see it, the Evidentiary Argument and Trickster God are mutually inclusive. >Given this, I'd say we can consider the Bible fallacious I don't see the connection. >An all-powerful being as described in the Bible would be able to craft the perfect deception That's paradoxical. If an omnipotent being as described in the Bible could create the perfect deception, why create a deception at all and not the genuine article? Furthermore, a deception from a dishonest God would implicate its claims of omnipotence untrustworthy and so unlikely to even be omnipotent at all. >Yet they do [have flaws], implying that the God in the Bible is foolish by nature I'd say that it's because the Bible was ghost-written by mortal men witnessing the events. >…but crafted by man Obviously. The books didn't just manifest in the world suddenly.
This video… unless I missed it… does not give the standard for morality… if morality is not set in place by God, then by who or what sets the standard for morality?
Please pray for me and my children this passover. I’m losing hope. But my faith in Jesus won’t let me. Today is the day he rose from the dead. So I do believe in miracles. I lost my job as a social worker because I declined the vaccine. I declined due to my pre existing health condition (Lupus) and heart disease. I’m on a bunch of medications including blood thinners. I was denied my medical/religious exemption from Forsyth hospital. Since losing my job I’ve been struggling to make ends meet. I’m a single mother with two young autistic children. This month we are facing homelessness. We have nowhere to go. Struggling daily to provide groceries. I’m so ashamed and embarrassed over my situation. I am so overwhelmed, it’s so difficult on me. I am all alone no family nor friends to help me. I have been put down and mocked because of my circumstances. Please keep me and my children in your prayers this easter. Even though I’m struggling bad. I still have FAITH God will provide for me and my children abundantly. Praise Jesus
I would talk to your doctor about getting the vaccine. People who are immunomodulated are at especially high risk and should be vaccinated. Faith will not help you, but a job might.
Your story is sad, but it is even sadder that you don't realize how your dogma is the source of your pain. You are like someone in an abusive relationship that thinks the way your partner shows love is by hurting you. It is shameful that you have allowed your blind faith to hurt your children. There is no scientific evidence that someone with Lupus cannot get the vaccine (and in fact most doctors strongly recommend people in your situation you get it), it is just your dogma harming you and your children. Your story is also a great example of the second argument here. If God was good and cared about his worshipers, he would have protected you from this harm. Two better explanations for your circumstances: 1) God is evil and delights in torturing those that follow him. 2) God does not exist. Either God is evil or nonexistent. In either situation he does not deserve your faith or worship. Turn away from these lies and get your life back.
@@revan552 How about you do something useful with your life instead of insulting the faith of someone who is suffering both economically and medically. Also you atheists love to claim the lack of Burden of Proof but then make claims you could NEVER hope to back up no matter how hard you try. The cognitive dissonance is astounding. Hopefully the pathetic owner of this channel doesn't delete this comment too, if he does I know it's simply out of his concern for maintaining his ego.
I wouldn't call such a being God for the same reason I don't call a unicorn without a horn a unicorn. That's a horse, bro. If x is not a maximally great being, then x is not God.
There are two conclusions one might draw form your claim: 1) God does not exist. or 2) The Gods of the bible, quran, or torah are not actually God. Where do you land? As I have argued in my series on the ontological argument, the rub lies in your definition of "maximally great". I have yet to find a theist that can provide me the necessary and sufficient conditions for something being a "great-making property". So I'm skeptical of the definition of "maximal greatness" since it is a nonsense term with no meaning. ua-cam.com/play/PLz0n_SjOttTdnrfjO-54ZQClX1wDhOUdX.html
Like it. Concerning the scriptural argument(God did sth evil/encouraged people to commit evil), apologists like Frank Turek will say "oh you are stealing from God", as they think Evil cannot exist unless God exist. What's your view on that? Also, some theists will claim that God is by definition "Good", thus saying God is evil is like saying a triangle has four sides. To me, that's absurd, you can define everything if you will it. The problem is why should one accept a particular definition over other more reasonable ones.
Good questions. To the first, there are simply one question: Does Turak think genocide, slavery, and rape are evil? If so, God did and encouraged evil. If not, Turak has a big, swastika-shaped bullet to bite. As a skeptic, it is my job to show that your beliefs are inconsistent, I don't take a stance on the meta-ethical question of whether morality exists, the problem is the theist does, and most theists think that genocide, rape, and slavery are evil, therefore God is evil, by their own logic. It does not matter if God is the one making the rules, any more than it does if a legislator breaks a law they wrote. It just makes him a hypocrite as well as evil. The second claim, that God is by definition good, is exactly the genocidal bullet above. It commits you to the claim that slavery and genocide are good. Clearly there are people who believe in Nazism in the world, but theists usually like to hide their proclivity for the oppression of others behind lies of "love" that really mean "control". All you need to do to show the absurdity of such a conclusion, is to expose what it really means, that theists think genocide and slavery are acceptable, if not encouraged, because God does them.
I'm just an (undergraduate level) student of philosophy and will therefore not make any attempts at rigorous responses myself here, but after listening to a few videos on his channel at Cross Examined (such as this one >>> m.ua-cam.com/video/tyM3wdbdWKs/v-deo.html, this one >>> m.ua-cam.com/video/w_Epq-KmAr4/v-deo.html, and this one >>> m.ua-cam.com/video/P0oI-eNvw74/v-deo.html) where Turek replies to objections from audience members, I would surmise that his replies to objections that challenge God's goodness would probably involve questioning the assumption that a source of moral authority and obligation according to whose moral standard the conduct of the creator of everything else in existence can be judged, can exist. For example, at the time that the universe was created (assuming that such a time in the past existed, for the sake of argument), where could the standard of moral authority and (morally obligatory) conduct that would have to be applied to God's act of creation in order to determine the moral status of God's act (i.e., it's moral "rightness" or "wrongness"[?]) come from, if not from God himself, (especially if he is capable of behaving or making decisions that can be considered, in some way, morally arbitrary)? In stating that however, I'm only trying to anticipate how Turek might reply to the kinds of objections presented in this video. As a philosophical layperson, I don't feel qualified enough to put words into his mouth. And in fact, I would be very interested in watching him respond to such objections in a formal debate. Putting all arguments aside however, I would like to say that this channel has been (and continues to be) an excellent educational resource for me since I discovered it three years ago. And I appreciate the depth of analysis provided for the subject areas that are covered in each video. I am a Christian, but I'm always glad when Christian claims and assumptions are subjected to rigorous critical inquiry. I actually anticipated the "Trickster God" objection on my own long before I learned that it already had been presented by philosophers as a serious alternative to the idea of a good God. But I didn't take my own musings on such matters seriously enough to propose possible answers to it. JPB
@@jpbrooks2 Even if the foundation/source of Morality is God, that does not say anything about his nature. it seems to me that God can be morally good by his own standard, and can also be morally bad by his own standard. So even when the existence of God is granted as the source of Morality, one still cannot really grasp the nature(whether he is good or evil) of such being. I think what Frank Turek is doing is to expose that most people, when they judge God, they are using subjective moral standard. But to me, subjective judgements will suffice to make a case against the good God theory. I mean, if a good God exists, why would he commit things that are generally considered by many of his creation as blatantly wrong and immoral and bad? If God's objective standard deviates a lot from our own subjective standard, I would expect some explanations for that. And if it's true that God's standard differs from ours, how to we know we are doing the "right things" that God pleases? I mean, that's not a deductive argument, but it makes sense to me. I don't know.
Turek's arguments are a dodge. He's trying to claim people who don't believe in or accept his version of God can't possibly have any standard to make that claim, allowing him to win by default. But even setting aside the childishness of that, all that really needs to be evaluated is the INTERNAL CONSISTENCY of a God's professed actions; that is, take as given for the sake of argument that his position is correct and judge God by God's own moral strictures. If God says "don't murder" and then orders murder, he's inconsistent by his own standards. If God says he won't lie and lies, same deal. If by God's own standards he behaves immorally, then he is "evil." My standards need not enter into it, only the standards I'm being told are the ones God approves of. Now there are ways to get out of this, such as Divine Command Theory, but that's essentially embracing either that God is arbitrary OR that many things society thinks are evil actually aren't. One could easily escape the claim that the Christian God's acceptance of slavery is evil by claiming that slavery isn't evil, or the claim of inconsistency by stating that anything God commands in a given moment is in fact the good thing to do, even if in an identical prior situation God stated that doing it would be evil. But by doing this, everything reduces to an ad baculum: God can do whatever God wants without rational justification and we ought to obey because he's more powerful than we are. Morality is a pointless illusion because it's all the bullying whim of someone who can eternally harm us, and attempting to "do good" is impossible because God can change his mind about what good is at any time without telling us. Curiously, they rarely actually will do either of these things. The escape valve for this is instead usually that it isn't in God's nature to do that, but there's no evidence that this is correct and lots of evidence that it could be in God's nature to do so (such as scriptures where God is inconsistent or arbitrary, depending on the religion). Ultimately, it appears to come down to the literalist refusing to embrace the position they know they actually should believe because they recognize that most of society doesn't like it. This is inherently a dangerous and antisocial position, because anyone who thinks the will of God is justifiable solely by power and force can be assumed to be willing to use power and force to bring about God's will. Not only would it not be evil to lie, manipulate, and abuse society's systems to obtain power and compel obedience and worship, it might very well be evil for them NOT to do this in a "godless" society in order to bring about a "godly" one!
There is another argument: omniscience is incompatible with omnibenevolence. Part of 'all knowing' is the knowledge of what it is to *be* evil - to do evil things - and knowledge of that *is* evil.
I think most theists don't believe God is omnisubjective because they view omniscience as knowledge of every true proposition. But the ones that do believe God is omnisubjective could probably attack the last part. It seems hard to defend.
The Bible says that ‘God’ told Moses to bring 7 pairs of every ‘clean’ (good) animal and only 1 pair of unclean (bad). There’s a necessity for some evil. Without the depths of wickedness and ignorance, how could we understand the heights of ‘righteousness’ and Wisdom? I have other ideas/opinions that the two are separate by masculine and feminine, one being the spirits ‘named’ “Wisdom” and one ‘named’ “Truth”. You gain Wisdom through knowledge and experience by being ignorant. It isn’t until having both that you receive understanding in a matter of Truth. We learn discernment by gaining knowledge and experience in a ‘thing’. I think ignorance and deception are feminine, and ‘light’ and ‘grace’ are masculine. Not trying to start political BS argument, just stating a balance in ‘nature’. That said, what is a ‘name’ but the ‘nature’ of a thing? What ‘name’ have you made for yourself? When someone hears your “name”, what do they say about you? IF “Christians” were truly ‘Christ-like’, would the world not KNOW? Would most not clamor to be friends with a true ‘Christian’? Do true ‘Christians’ beat people over the head with twisted words and misunderstandings, or do they love in patience and understanding? KNOWING we are ALL ignorant of Truth. Because Truth being “put to death”/“put away” means that were forgiven for our ignorance. Much the same expectations we have for our children. We are to meditate on these things day and night. God is not a religion, which are founded by ‘men’s’ own minds, but is the foundation of Truth hidden in the things unseen. It is your desire for Truth that determines whether you find it, or continue to allow ignorance to be your ‘master’ (anti christ… being sealed in your ‘thoughts’ [mind] and ‘actions’ [hand]. I also find it very arrogant to believe an ignorant man can comprehend the ‘things’ of a ‘Creator’, when they can’t comprehend the small and easy ‘things’ in and around their own lives.
A common theodicy explains evil by claiming that a certain amount of evil is needed to know good. There are reasons to doubt this argument, but even if we set those aside, it does not explain the extent of pain and suffering in the world. Every minute an American is raped or sexually assaulted. Globally, over 10 children die every minute. There is far more pain than happiness in this world. Even if you think that there is balance between good and evil, what about the world makes you think that good is the one in charge now? Present evidence seems to point to evil being the far stronger force, in other words, if there is a God in charge, the best explanation is that he is evil.
If there is a god (doubtful), and they turn out to care what happens in-universe, then my best hypothesis is a _scientist_ god - *not* all-knowing, and trying to learn: the universe is one of his science experiments. The alternative is the _child using a magnifying glass to fry the ants,_ which I'd classify as an evil god. Neither is remotely similar to, say, the Christian one.
I also believe this to be the most likely case, in that I believe we are simulation of a god; but perhaps our creator is not the ultimate god. This line of thinking has actually inspired me to become vegetarian.
Yep, exactly. The argument here is not that God exists, but rather that if he did, there would be no reason to worship him, because the evidence seems to point to, if God exists, that he is not good.
[ Quran 4:24] Where is a rape ? And [also prohibited to you are all] married women except those your right hands possess. [This is] the decree of Allah upon you. And lawful to you are [all others] beyond these, [provided] that you seek them [in marriage] with [gifts from] your property, desiring chastity, not unlawful sexual intercourse. So for whatever you enjoy [of marriage] from them, give them their due compensation as an obligation. And there is no blame upon you for what you mutually agree to beyond the obligation. Indeed, Allah is ever Knowing and Wise.
@@nandoxus why do you believe that ! imagine still using that definition of Atheism lmaaoo! It doesn't matter if Atheism is organised or unorganised.... It does not undermine the fact that many people with that worldview have killed millions in the past !
God is very evil and rotten as far as i am concerned since this world is a real mess right now and it isn't getting any better at all anytime soon, and God really needs to do something about it real soon before it gets much more worse. God never gave me a good wife and family to share my life with either.
You doesnt seem to understand the nature of god and humanity relative to god goals for us. Good and evil are 2 faces of the same coin. if bad didn't exist, good would not either. The more you fiind difficult to obtain something the more you love it. You cannot exist in a world in which there is only good or bad since you will not have any desire to do anything. Respectfully.
Like other theodicies, the claim that good and evil are two sides of the same coin provides just as much support for the evil God hypothesis as noted in the video. If good requires evil and vice versa, then an evil God would need to create a world with some good, to make the evil all that more impactful (and given so much more evil than good in the world, an evil God seems more likely).
This world has eaten up the brains of people for which they can’t practice proper knowledge and are fond of this worldly life.Your Creator knows the most because He is your creator not you are His. And of course he who practices proper knowledge and turns his life for searching the truth he will find the truth.This life is a place where you’re being examined whether you’re by truth or leaving the truth and believing what you see around and enjoy your life as you desire.This world is not of enjoyment ,the one who believes in truth will never find happiness in this world beause this world is a bauble and deception. If you don’t believe in then lead a life full of wealth and I bet you will not find satisfaction and peace at the end. This world can’t give you satisfaction the feelings it give is temporary. God the Creator is not evil and if he was evil then when you thought of saying Him evil he would instantly take your soul out from your body with pain right! Or He would stop supplying the food you have! Or he would take away all your wealth and many of descriptions could happen.So think how Merciful He is though you are talking ill of Him ,He is still supplying you Oxygen for breathing , food for your hunger and all else you have. Your everything with existing is His mercy. Use your knowledge if you have a mobile phone and if you break it then is it evil? Of course not. Here we are Creations of God and if he turns whole of us with the Angels Prophets and all his beloved servants into hell fire it will not be evil but he will never do this becuase He is your Creator He loves you more than anyone do and He is most Merciful. Now in short I’m sharing something very valuable and I hope you’ll kindly think of and use your heart to open up. Don’t you get the question in your mind who you are and why you are here and where will you go? How could this universe and everything else beyond our imagination are such arranged in a ordered manner without a Creator? Why there is birth and why there is death and why everything has destruction or why everything decays? That is becuase there is A CREATOR and it is what said by our CREATOR, ‘Indeed, We have made that which is on the earth adornment for it that We may test them [as to] which of them is best in deed.And indeed, We will make that which is upon it [into] a barren ground.’ (Sura Kahf:Quran) and in many Ayahs it is defined in Quran. We are just created to worship our creator. And here might be a question so why we have to lead a busy and tough life then? Because if foods and pleasures of your life were coming enormously and in between them your worshipping is without any challenge as like scoring goals without opponent. That’s why you have opponents which would try to derive you from your Creator but still in such critical conditions you’ll hold faith in and worship Him that is examining. Among Jinns there is Satan who is cursed by Creator who will enter hell and he wants us the humans too to enter hell with him and he promised our Creator that he will decieve us from front, back , from left and right that is he wants to derive us from the path of truth to the path of false by showing fakeness as like showing water in desert . There is only ONE CREATOR who is worthy of worship. You are given knowledge , heart , eyes and you are a human. Try to find the truth. Your Creator will ofcourse show you the path of truth Just will to see . You will able to see Insha’Allah.
Do you think keeping slaves is wrong? Do you think raping your slaves is wrong? Do you think genocide is wrong? If they are wrong, why would a good God command them (Quran 9:5, Quran 23: 5-6, Quran 4:24)? An evil God might be happy to supply people with oxygen and food for the purposes of making their suffering last longer. There is so much pain in the world, 10 children die every minute. If God exists he is happily murdering them. A woman is raped or sexually assaulted far more often than once a minute. You God joyfully allows it. How can you come to any conclusion other than that he is either evil or does not exist? The truly cruel torturer allows his victims to live longer to torture them longer. I am hopeful that you will walk away from your harmful, dogmatic, support of an evil deity that condones genocide, slavery, and rape, and see all religions for what they really are: tools to manipulate and oppress.
Brother first of all you haven’t understood the ayats of Quran properly.The Ayahs you are talking about Quran doesn’t support raping slaves but supports the security of slaves.Please try to know the ayahs in details. Secondly all of your perspect of thinking is worldly that is the thing you see that is you believe. I think you are interested in thinking. Please let yourself deep dive into thinking through your knowledge not the books written by philosophers. Think about GOD Think about CREATOR think about the reason of your creation. Isn’t it so silly to think myself as more acknowledged than my CREATOR? let’s say you made a robot and instructed it to do something then could it do anything more than that? You are a creation and this world is nothing but very very temporary state. It is just here to examine who is great in his deeds and who is addicted to this false world. One who is good in deeds and knows for Whom he is here in world will be rewarded in the actual life.This life is just like deception and without deception there is no examination. I hope you’d like to think. I just want to say a small objective that is leave your usual life usual interests of life everything that can happen that attracts you here. Just leave for some days and search newly your life and your LORD. Search your LORD being as without any religion.You’d face difficulties for sure but just try to find your LORD newly as I’ve said. I respectfully want you’d try to think newly and try to know more rather arguing on this.
You can not so callously pose such a question without knowing the Nature of God and humanity's relationship with The Almighty(s).. One must not only know this profound truth, but the purpose of the Divine Council, and what has transpired. Scripture aids, but a Gnosis is required. Without it, you are just a puny mortal attempting to define the immensity of Immortality, without the understanding of Apothesis. Without such comprehension, Nothing makes sense, even ones' definitions of good and evil.
I most certainly can, and in fact I did. You are scared of this question because in your heart you are afraid that I am right. You are afraid that the your holy text is wrong when it condones slavery, genocide, and rape. You are afraid that something you have devoted your life to is nothing but a dogmatic delusion. Don't turn away from that skepticism; lean into it. Be brave an ask those questions no one in your religion ever really answered, they just pretended to then yelled at or shamed anyone who kept asking. You don't need greater knowledge to see through this big lie, just your own eyes. Religious leaders often claim private knowledge of good and evil, not because they are particularly educated, but for the purpose of controlling and consolidating power over people. If you control what is "right and wrong" you can convince the indoctrinated that when your priest raped their son, he was doing the lord's work, part of a bigger plan and should be forgiven, but when your child questions their beliefs they should be ostracized and shunned. The argument you present is an argument to ignorance: don't try to understand anything, just blindly follow the instructions of those with power over you. The problem is that any justification for such a claim is circular, the only reason I should think that the clergy are the only ones with answers is because they told me so, and as an atheist, I have no reason to trust their word in the first place. I am hopeful that you reexamine your dogma and turn away from the system that tells you that you are not allowed to think for yourself.
A couple of days ago I was precisely looking for debates about the evil God argument. Glad to see you actually did that! Love your channel, keep it up
Check out "Descartes Evil Demon" if you haven't heard of it already. ☺
Amogus
Carneades is awesome for commenting so much. Thank you again for making all these philosophy videos! Please make one on David Armstrong and inactivism haha.
Thanks! I have not gotten to reply to as many comments as I would like lately because I have been working on a project that I hope to announce over the summer.... Stay tuned...
Inactivism as in the performative activism of posting something on social media but not taking action? Or something else? Sounds like an interesting topic. maybe at some point in the future. So much to do!
Happy Easter.
@Unthinkable Termination What better way to celebrate a day where so many atheists and non believers are forced by their communities or by law to sit through religious ceremonies about how their God is a zombie on pain of ostracization or legal punishment than to ask the question of whether that God is evil? :)
Really appreciate txt and 'simple' clips.. no harps or organs with star scapes swirling etc.. thank you carn
I am misunderstanding the duplication argument. If the trickster is motivated to maximize the belief that he is good, does he not wish to minimize doubt about that by minimizing instances of evil? Isn't each particular instance of evil a potential inspiration of doubt in someone's mind? And all else being equal, won't his success in deceiving us vary according to how much good or bad his world contains? So why is it not obvious that he would want to create a world which is more good, assuming such world is possible? In fact, doesn't this example lead to the ironic result that the trickster would create the best possible world? That of course raises the question: In what sense then is he a trickster at all? If I am an evil person who wishes to fool everyone all the time into believing me to be good, it seems I will maximize my chances of success by simply mimicking the very best person, so that I am empirically indiscernible from an actually good person, even though we differ in our spirits or souls.
Here's the argument there are three possibilities: the trickster God would create a world with more good, less good, or an equal amount of good.
If, as you argue, the trickster created a world with more good, in the interests of better deceiving people, then clearly if there is a God here, he is evil, because he created a worse world than the best of all possible worlds.
Such a God would not create a world with more evil as he could create a world with at least as much good.
If we accept that he would create a world with about the same amount of good, possibly because this is the best possible world, he might still not be good, as the video notes, because he delights in rewarding those that were good on earth with punishments in a afterlife and rewards those that were evil. The trickster God's goal of delusion is limited to this world alone. He wants to trick people into doing good, so he can find out the good-doers to punish in the afterlife. He is not good, but such an earth is indistinguishable from one created by a good God (assuming this is the best of all possible worlds).
@@CarneadesOfCyrene Well, that raises a couple more questions to me. What does it even mean for a God to be Evil? To want for their creation to be evil? Or just to want to inflict as much evil as possible? If the first one is true, then it falls into contradiction since a Trickster God would never give away the fact that he rewards evil and thus would not promote evil on earth, making earth more prone to do good. If it is the later, then why would he inflict suffer in the afterlife only to good people instead of doing it in the living world as well and to everyone? It seems that the attribute of Trickster is more of a deterrant to be an all-evil good, since its it restrains him to punish us in earth too.
@@CarneadesOfCyrene Regarding the first possibility, it is a leap to say that a God that does not create the best of all possible worlds is evil. Such a God could simply be not so good, but not so bad, as it is unclear what is the reason behind that choice.
Furthermore, if we are to assume that evil and good balance each other out by essence, then it is logically impossible to create a world with any amount of good that is not identical to the amount of evil - rendering the hypothesis of the trickster God absurd.
(That is, unless you take the extreme interpretation of "omnipotence" as also inclusive of logically impossible feats, in which case the whole problem goes much deeper.)
I just saw it as a chaotic good char being played to foster chaos.. good makes good happen to all then goods over lap and again chaos is fostered
@@CarneadesOfCyrene The christian here's the thing about god favoring the skeptic, and his immediate apology is that that is Satan, and that sin is rewarded here, but punished there. Those punished here for resisting indulgence, will receive an eternity of it, on a faith based coin toss. That coin toss of course ruins your entire earthly experience in the process.
This is a very interesting topic especially since it's so divisive and people tend to avoid it for obvious reasons, so thank you for covering it.
I enjoyed the video but I have a few concerns.
At 1:20 for the Scriptural argument, you mentioned a couple of Quranic verses and what they contain but I think you might've misinterpreted some of them.
9:5 does order killing but its only implied in a very specific context, so using it as a blanket statement to mean genocide in general is I feel misinformation.
23:5-6 have no mention of slavery based on the translations I have of the text (a random mobile app so I could be wrong), which state,
"And they who guard their private parts"
"Except from their wives or those their right hands possess, for indeed they will not be blamed -"
4:24 states quite literally the opposite of rape, explicitly saying all but your wives are prohibited, the only exception being those you approach for marriage while offering them gifts and to not seek unlawful sex. That and to fulfill your obligations as a husband. Heck, the next verse goes on to say you need to marry even your slaves and give them their rights before approaching them in bed.
Genocide is killing a group of people for their race or beliefs, which is exactly what we fin at Quran 9:5 "...fight and slay the Pagans wherever you find them,..." If that isn't entreatment to genocide (killing an entire group of people for their beliefs) I don't know what is.
Quran 23:5-6 tells the true believer that they are blameless if they rape their slaves. (Those your right hand possesses are slaves) Here's another translation of 23:1-6 The believers have indeed attained true success! Those who pray humbly, who shun idle talk, who pay the prescribed alms, who guard their chastity, except with their spouses or their slaves --with these they are not to blame..." This is saying that you must remain chaste except with your wives and your slaves, i.e. condoning the rape of slaves.
Quran 4:24 says that you can rape your slaves. It only allows you to rape women you have enslaved, but it does sanction that (also spousal rape). "And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess."
There are plenty more, such as saying you can rape anyone you take as "spoils of war" Quran 33:50 "O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful to you your wives to whom you have paid their dowries, and those whom your right hand possesses of those whom Allah has given you as spoils of war"
The Qur'an devotes more verses to making sure that Muslim men know they can keep women as sex slaves than it does to telling them to pray five times a day.
Thank you for reading and the quick reply.
I agree on the definition of genocide, however from a theists point of view calling someone a polytheist isn't absurd or inherently evil. It's just highlighting a fundamental difference in philosophy and using it to group a number of people together.
What I meant by my original comment was that the killing mentioned in verse 9:5 was for one applicable only to the people present at the time of the prophet, and two was targeted at people who were at the time actively seeking to harm the prophet and his followers. Context is important. They weren't ordered to kill people just because they thought differently, it was because they were actively trying to kill the prophet and his followers.
23:1-6, sure when reading it in a vacuum it sounds downright abhorrent and cruel, but if you read other verses like 4:24, which again states the exact opposite of rape, you would come to the conclusion that unlawful sexual intercourse is forbidden. Period. There are no exceptions. Therefore you're forbidden from physically engaging with a slave until you marry them and give them their full rights. I fail to see what part of that counts as rape.
The Quran is incomplete and misleading if you ignore other verses that discuss the same topic and provide more context for them. Even the verse 33:50 you mentioned would make more sense of you consider that 4:24 explains at least in part how a slave should be treated.
As for the last part, I haven't done a word count myself so I apologize if I'm a bit skeptical. I don't agree about the sex part of slaves as per the above argument, but if even the slave part is true that sounds mighty messed up.
Sorry, should've added this for context
4:24, Sahih International:
And [also prohibited to you are all] married women except those your right hands possess. [This is] the decree of Allah upon you. And lawful to you are [all others] beyond these, [provided] that you seek them [in marriage] with [gifts from] your property, desiring chastity, not unlawful sexual intercourse. So for whatever you enjoy [of marriage] from them, give them their due compensation as an obligation. And there is no blame upon you for what you mutually agree to beyond the obligation. Indeed, Allah is ever Knowing and Wise.
I guess I should assume this ends with an "agree to disagree" stalemate.
Thank you for your time.
One last thing if I may, could you state the source of the translations you've used? The ones I have are different so I would like to see if there are any notable changes, with translations being only approximations of the source material looking at others might give me a clearer picture, since I can't read Arabic.
Re: Trickster God: It strikes me there are 3 fair responses: (1) a parsimony response, (2) Moore-style anti-skepticism response, and (3) the linguistic turn objection to the brain in a vat problem.
For (1), assuming something like Occam's Razor is reasonable, if things are consistent with an all-good God, then it is less ontologically burdensome to assume an [something] than [something pretending to be something else].
For (2), it strikes me that the standard G.E. Moore-style anti-skepticism approach against the trickster God. There exists one act of true goodness, there exists another, therefore there is an all good God.
As for (3), this seems the most problematic. The easy version of this argument assumes the author (or virtue) interpretation of divine command theory, such that goodness is derived from God's genuine commandments. If God is not genuine, or there is no God, or there is a trickster God using proxies to deliver commandments/intuitions/etc.. then we simply cannot express the concept of a trickster God. (Is this satisfying? Probably not, but I'm not sure if I buy any such linguistic turn arguments.)
A more robust, non-DCT version might argue that a trickster God is not a coherent concept (which is different from saying it's logically impossible).
That said, if we live on the best of all possible worlds, and an all good God would not allow for there to be lesser possible worlds, then the existence of a trickster God is logically impossible. Then again, so, too, would it be logically impossible for me to have have more money at this point in time; at which point our concept of logical possibility needs to be segmented into [logically possible sans God] and [logically possible given God] and that's a pickle.
great work and information. Love the video! so true
Thanks! And thanks for watching!
I have some basic understanding of apologetics and want to try and state a few arguments for a good God.(note:this is from a Christian perspective and assumes scripture is true;except for parts stating God is good)
1. First we must ask; what good is? It is hard to define but if God created everything then he should know what good is. God is also omniscient so he would again know what good is. So if their is objective morality which Christianity would support God knows it not us.
2. Free will. God created everything perfectly. but in this he also gave us free will so we could truly choose to follow him. This free will allows us to do bad things. Now God could stop this by punishing us but then people get angry at things such as the flood. If God doesn’t then he just lets evil go on and punishes them in the end.
3. The arguement presented in Job.
We cannot understand things as God does as we are not omniscient therefore it is full ish to assume we can be as wise as God to decide good and evil.
4. Relativism.
We often assume that God chose a reality with a high but not maxed amount of suffering. But God could have created reality however he willed. Because of this the evil we experience may actually be minimal but because we know nothing else it seems quite high.
There are several other arguments I would love to discuss. I hope and pray many of those who read this become Christians.
In response to Relativism: as many philosophers have stated if the world was but a little worse it would not be able to survive. If people woke up in the sky was just black or there was no feeling of Love or Joy they would voluntarily go extinct. So perhaps a malevolent God would still put some good sprinkled into a world so as to not let its creatures want to willingly dissipate. This would be a perpetual motion machine. And there is no free will afforded to those who are given cancer as a child and then die or many other tragedies that happen every day every second on the planet without reason or cause just in total chaos. Also if the Bible was true how did kangaroos get all the way from Mount Ararat to Asia and then swim across to Australia without any fossils left behind?
I feel point 3 is rather lazy. Admittedly, I agree that it's foolish to assume wisdom on par with a God who knows all but to say we can't understand because of our position and we shouldn't try to begin with is demotivational. But idk, I guess I just don't like the attitude.
4 I definitely agree with. It's a problem I run into often when thinking about alternate timelines spawned from choices, how much better life would or wouldn't be if something had been different; but I can't view those "worlds" in a way allows me to compare to this one, and so I can't truly know how good or bad this world is. Of course, I can make comparisons against subsets (comparing countries, peoples, time periods etc.) or even compare to fictional worlds (Strangereal of Ace Combat, Blade Runner and so forth) but that's not totally meaningful either since someone constructed it based on our world and are arguably worse than the real one, meaning we got the long straw. I find whenever someone makes a point like the Duplication Argument I'm always wondering "but we don't have anything to compare our world against so why should I care?"
About point 2, I feel that the arguments' (notably the Evidentiary Argument) demands about how a good God should act conflicts with how Christianity describes the purpose of free will. If God did truly benefit those who believed in him, that would be overt and evidence for a real God, therefore no one would need to deliberate on if there's a God or not; however, because of the demonstrated benefits of belief people would likely only believe in God for those benefits, not forming a meaningful relationship with him which - as I understand - is what he desires from humanity. And that's where free will comes in, so one can choose whether or not to approach and form such a relationship,, thus he doesn't do shit.
1. Assuming that there is an objective standard of morality, that does not mean that objective morality is the best morality. You are making the assumption that he chose the best form of morality, when there is no evidence that has occurred at all. (at the same time, no evidence it hasn't occured)
2. We haven't been given free will if we assume the Bible is true.
3. If we think in this manner, then all logic is meaningless. Because we will never, ever understand anything and we should never try to because we won't know the objective truths of the universe. You might see a problem with this, because in my belief we should continue thinking and not just jab a knife in our brain and die because we don't know. To be or not to be, that is the question.
4. Yet we are capable of conceiving a world better than the one we live in, so this world is clearly not absolutely good. You might be right in that there are far worse worlds, but there's no way to determine where on the scale we lie.
Nice timing on the launch of this video. Intentional?
I’m out of the loop, why is it good timing?
Very intentional. The fifth argument is: P1) Jesus is a zombie P2) All Zombies are Evil, C) Jesus is Evil. :)
@ ArtIsPaperView Today is Easter.
@@lemon6521 this is Easter Sunday. Some would say the most important Christian holiday of the year.
Evil is undefinable beyond some kind of integral over "I don't like {x}" throughout human history.
The source of all "I don't like {x}" is entropy, as entropy determines that everything costs more than it yields.
God created and sustains entropy. Therefore God is evil.
If you're talking about the Abrahamic God, He is prue evil. He's just like Frieza. You perish whether you obey or not.
Is it a coincidence that you uploaded this on Easter?
I'm not complaining as I'm agnostic, but I still find the timing pretty funny
Not a coincidence. What better time to ask if God is evil than a day that millions of people worship a zombie?
I think the evidentiary problem is answered by appeal to the fact that there are some greater goods that can only be achieved through suffering and material and sometimes even mental privation (say, the performance of heroic deeds and so, becoming a heroic person through those deeds) and that the only goods that are truly needed to religious people in order to have these goods are going to be a certain psychological hardiness to endure the suffering required to attain these greater goods, and that, psychologically speaking, religious people do seem to be much more hardy, as is arguably evidenced by how there is much lower suicide rate among the religious than the non-religious, and really, among materially unwealthy countries compared to materially wealthy ones; so that religious people as a whole just seem better and enduring hardship, which in turn would make them better suited to do those sorts of heroic acts which 'require' one to endure hardship, say, working to help the all people, non-religious and one's fellow religious, to reach a better end; for those who more quickly give up in this persuit are less apt to contribute to those ends, due to their lack of heroic virtue; so that since hardiness is a precondition of heroic virtue, and religious people seem to be quite hardy, then it seems that God gives his people all they need to achieve far greater goods than the passing material goods that you have measured things by; and more to this, in light of how suicide is higher in materially wealthy countries than not, then it is arguable that measuring what is good for humans in terms of material wealth is suboptimal, we should rather prioritize moral or existential fulfillment over material welfare, and likewise those psychological goods that are conducive to moral/existential fulfillment, over those conducive to material welfare; this is not to say that material welfare is not good, but it seems that, on a psychological level, we have a greater need for moral/existential fulfillment and the psychological traits conducive to that; so that this should be prioritized in our measuring how well off a group of people is, and in this case, it seems the religious are the most well off; so that, on this view, there simply is no evidential problem.
I mean, there's also the possibility that some religions just outright admit their followers will be persecuted because of their faith or otherwise just won't be strictly materially benefited because of it. The only example I have is Christianity, notably 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 where Paul laments his time in Turkey but I can't imagine other honest religions playing up any benefits.
Interesting however you can only ascribe "evil" to an anthropomorphic god (such as Zeus, Odin, Vishnu, the Abrahamic god) that has a consciousness and a will. But not to an non-anthropomorphic "god" like the Tao and possibly the pantheistic "god" which is the universe itself.
An interesting argument. This is definitely an argument against the types of Gods that are moral agents. A definition of a God that cannot take moral actions might be absolved, though one might ask the question framed a bit differently. It seem one could ask if the universe itself is bad or good, not from the perspective of agency, but from the perspective of the best state of affairs. In that way the universe might be "evil" in the same way that murder is evil (not as someone that does something bad, but as something that is a bad state of affairs).
The fallacy of the notion of an evil God is that one compares the real world with a hypothetically different world which actually doesn't exist. The world we have is always better than any of the hypothetical worlds because the other worlds don't exist and this one does. This is the real meaning of the ontological argument: you can't ignore the property of actually existing in measuring the goodness of worlds. Many philosophical arguments are so focussed on comparing hypotheticals that they overlook the actual existential meaning of religion: You only have the life which was given to you, so you either thankfully and optimistically embrace it, or you perish. The opposite of the statement 'God is good' therefore is not 'God is evil', but it is the mental state of depression. All people who are mentally healthy and happy live in a state of accepting their existence as a good and meaningful thing, and it is this actual attitude that the theological idea is referring to. Also, Christianity does not totally reject the notion of an evil God, for many times in the Bible the goodness of God is actually questioned, even by Jesus himself on the cross in the 'Why have you forsaken me?' Christianity eventually fights this attitude not because it is logically fallacious but because it is intrinsically undesirable for the idea that reality itself is evil is conceptually identical to unhappiness, hopelessness, despair.
Btw, the use of reason already implies the goodness of God: in order to make an appeal to your own rational capacities, you have to belief it is good for you to use your reason and that you have the capacity to do so. The capacity to do something good means a potential to do good, this potentiality is a state, this state is existential. If you've been given the opportunity to do good, your existence is good. Therefore, also your creator is good.
@JO Talking about what God can and can not do would submit God to a set of rules and laws that would be more fundamental than God himself, which goes against the entire concept and point of God. God simply is what He is and does what He does, and what He has done is what we see everyday. The spiritual question is: what is the point of being unsatisfied with the world God created and desiring a different one? What is the point of critiquing your own existence? The sane person would always try to Love God. Would a parent stop loving their children because ‘they could’ve been better’? What does that even mean? ‘Could have’? Too many theologians try to look at God as a biologist to a creature, but God only makes sense if you look at Him as a person to a person, child to a parent, spouse to a spouse, friend to a friend. There is a reason why most children would call their parents the best in the world, and it is the same reason why most people would call God the greatest. Also, the fact that God has committed and keeps committing everyday to us and our world is actually a sign of love itself. It wouldn't be more loving to erase us because we aren't perfect and therefore it arguably also wouldn't be better. Has God made other worlds which actually are better? None in our world will ever know!
@JO According to what I've read on Christian doctrine, he already has.
@JO Because we don't inhabit that world, we occupy this one.
@JO Okay.
It is impossible for God to be evil regardless of your hurt mortal feelings
Really? If he wasn't evil, how wouldn't commit evil actions nor make peoples lives more miserable than that of people leading less miserable lives.
His actions do not match his supposed nature.
@@somkeshav4143 I don't believe in God, but in the Christian narrative it is impossible for God to be evil because he is the definition of good. Good and evil are subjective. If you are a Christian he can't be evil and if you aren't then you aren't a part of the narrative anyway. If you create a universe and are the god of it then whatever you like is the moral standard.
@@abhmmh8892 the way you phrased your first comment made it sound like you were religious, but it’s interesting to know you don’t believe in him at all
At least you can acknowledge how flawed the concept of God is
@@somkeshav4143 he is real to you if you believe in him. DMT and memetics have shown me that anything is possible. What came before god? What came before the big bang? What came before even that which caused those? There's probably a true God out there but it would be beyond a mere book. If you read hp Lovecraft on top of DMT and memetics it makes sense. Baptism and conversion is the spread of original sin. Also the bhagavad Gita and various other texts. Friedrich Nietzsche. It can all be pieced together. most humans can't be moral without a religious belief so religion evolved alongside civilisation to keep it together. The average person can't be "good" for the sake of it.
But I think the closest thing to objective good is the biological drive to reproduce, prosper, and care for your family. some might say objective is to do whatever you want but that's subjective. And even what I said is subjective from a specific species or genetic line.
Evil, I don't think so
Bored/Doesn't care etc., seems likelier to me
A dystheist but not a maltheist then. Most of these arguments allow for such a viewpoint, though it seems one might argue harm is done through omission, if you could stop a genocide but don't, you seem to bear some moral fault for it. That said, it is hard to argue that God is all-evil, just as it is hard to argue for God being all good.
For humans being able to chose evil is often regarded as the precondition of free will. So I wonder: Can an all-good god have free will?
I made a similar argument in a very early video on the channel. ua-cam.com/video/iSwkBsBARwM/v-deo.htmlsi=HgmGSglP2PjL7HsQ
A certain reading of the bible would agree that god is evil or not completely good in the eyes of humans. But the caveat is that it also says that the human perspective on good and bad is wrong or irrelevant.
Yet funnily enough, upon eating the fruit in the garden of Eden it was supposed to give humans a sense of right and wrong. To say that it is irrelevant or wrong would be to imply that God changed his mind on what right and wrong mean. Meaning from the get-go he was never perfect.
@@doomakarn well, knowledge of good and evil can mean a few things. It can mean knowledge of the fact that good and evil exists, or knowledge of an absolute morality. The first case just means that humans are then aware of morality, and can decide for themselves what is right and wrong. This is the standard interpretation for many modern Christians. The second case would be a contradiction like you mentioned.
Personally, I like interpreting texts as if they made sense. It's helpful in understanding how different people think. Because for most people, most of the time, they make sense to themselves.
@@andrewzhao444 The first action that Eve took was to immediately hide their genitalia in shame. I'd say they were bestowed understanding of what is right and wrong.
But funnily enough, the fact humans even feel shame in genitalia is just because evolutionarily clothing was required to survive the climate and so it became rare to see genitalia.
@@doomakarn I think we looped back to the same problem again. "Understanding of what is right and wrong" can mean very different things, and the examples you gave doesn't differentiate between them. Eve can cover genitalia because she has absolute/true knowledge that being naked is wrong (is it? I'm not sure), but she can also do it just because she feels like it is wrong.
I tend to think of the fruit as granting an intuition/feeling for what is right and what is wrong. What we might call our conscience. You can argue that conscience has certain commonalities across culture, which hints towards some universal standard of morality. Many Christians also take this perspective. But the Christian perspective's caveat is that while we can get a glimpse of what is truly right, we can never be completely right about everything. the theological lingo for that is sin.
From some Christian perspectives, humans can't be morally perfect also because we don't have the processing power/infinite perspective to fully grasp what is right and what is wrong. This is what a lot of the later chapters of job is interpreted as.
@@andrewzhao444 There is literally no valid reason that being naked is wrong. The fact that they immediately covered themselves and exclaimed that they were 'naked', a concept they could not even conceive of before clearly indicates that they now know what is right and wrong, and not just from a subjective point of view.
It is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not the tree of the capacity for good and evil.
For those who take the Duplication argument seriously. You're basically saying:
1. A hypothetical trickster God could make a world with: A) more good/ B) less good/ C) the same amount of good
2. If A), then our God is evil.
3. B) is not possible because God is omnipotent [which makes A) impossible too, as the "omnipotent argument" does cut both ways, so I don't get why adding A) and B) to the formula].
4. [Therefore] C).
Conclusion:
- We can't know if God is evil because an evil trickster God would do the same as a good God.
In my humble opinion, that sounds absolutely ridiculous, leaving aside the fact that A) and B) are just a decorative set to make the argument more palatable in plain sight.
And for those not convinced, just for the sake of coherence, start thinking that way about everyone you know. You'll see how absurd it becomes. [I can't know if my "mother/neighbor/brother/friend" is evil and acting as good because an evil "mother/neighbor/brother/friend" acting as good would do the same as a good "mother/neighbor/brother/friend".] Living by that principle, your mental health won't last long.
@Carneades.org Next vid on the channel "Is your grandma evil? (all the arguments I could find)". Tag me plz..
You are conflating can (potential) with can (hypothesis of intent). A God which could (potentially) create more good but willed it not (no intent) is arguably not so good.
The wording in the video is ambiguous, I'll give you that.
@@UN-Seki That makes more sense, thanks. Still, I think the argument is just beating a dead horse. The first two arguments at least provide some evidence -be it good or bad- for an evil God. Rather than that, this Duplication argument reminds us that we can doubt God's goodness too (and I think we all already knew that we can doubt anything, including that).
Also, it just occurred to me: why would a God who created a World with more evil and an afterlife of full goodness be eviler than the trickster God? Is a pedo (please bear with me) who gives candy to a boy to lure him into his van less evil than a father that doesn't give his son candy to avoid cavities (or because he's angry with the kid, idk)?
I may be wrong but I believe I could keep on finding inconsistencies in this argument. But I think I'm being a pain in the arse, so I'll just shut up instead.
@@javiercanelaortiz4330
I think we can say in your hypothetical that said “good” god is atleast not all good, because they introduced pointless suffering into their world (a world that isn’t as good as it could have been). They may not be as bad as the trickster, but they aren’t good either.
For your candy analogy I reply with a different one. Say there is an amputee, 2 powerful beings walk by. One sees the pain his severed leg causes the man and could heal it at no cost to them self or anyone else but chooses not to. The other powerful being heals the leg but exploits the now former amputees trust in them to take them to a place where they torture them much worse than what the leg ever did , just to see the sense of betrayal in their eyes. I’m he trickster is obviously evil. But the apathetic one is evil too for letting the man pointlessly suffer.
One may say the apathetic god “had a plan” that required the amputees stay legless to achieve greater good, but since I don’t know that plan and he doesn’t seem eager to tell what it is, they are indistinguishable from just a jerk. And I’m not sure how any plan that requires abandoning someone in need can really be called fully good anyway
@@TheFatManatee I think my previous example answers your question.
From our limited POV, we obviously can't see any good in an amputee's suffering, just like a kid doesn't see any good in his father denying him candy. But we know that the father has a reason, and we also know that hearing the kid scream and cry for half an hour for the denial is much more of a nuisance than just buying him the candy (that's what a jerk would do, imo).
On the other hand, a Christian God (the only one I've any knowledge on, even if I don't believe in him) doesn't "walk by" anyone. They believe he's behind the creation of each and every one of us, so he would've made the amputee, not just found him in that situation: either he's evil for making him suffer, or good for making him suffer for a good case, but either way he's not "indifferent". If he was, he could just eliminate all suffering without effort, or make us disappear to avoid the annoyance of us complaining. I don't think an indifferent omnipotent God makes any sense.
And lastly, when you said "I think we can say in your hypothetical that said “good” god is at least not all good, because they introduced pointless suffering into their world (a world that isn’t as good as it could have been)."
This is assuming that WE define good and evil. Is the father evil, or not as good as he could be, by denying candy to the kid? I think it's the other way around. The kid doesn't know fully well what's good or bad for him: he has to trust his father for that.
Of course, there's a lot more than Philosophy in these beliefs. There are faith, dogma, and teachings from saints and the Bible. And that's just how religion works. Ultimately, this video makes the mistake of treating Religion and Philosophy as equals.
@@javiercanelaortiz4330 Your analogy fails because it comes with implicit trust in god to argue that we should trust in god, which is tautological. (we trust in god because he has a plan, well why do we trust his plan, or that he even has one? We should not infantilize humanity and sweep away any criticism as "us not knowing any better" as it has no more ground to it than us knowing better and the god being evil/not caring/ being indifferent to our suffering. the only reason we feel that a kid crying is annoying is that our brains are wired to do so. A God would not necessarily have such wiring to worry about
An indifferent omnipotent god can make sense if we realize that they can see our suffering, hear our cries, and not be bothered enough either to fix the issue or make us go away. Such a god could view our silence and our cries with the same degree of apathy and thus see no reason to change anything.
Describing it as "walking by" makes perfect sense because the Christian god sees the amputees suffering and continuously choses not to do anything. No different from the levite who saw the jew on the side of the road after being mugged and continued on his way. Maybe he has a good reason for doing so, but him not telling us the reason in non-ambiguous terms is indistinguishable from no plan or an evil plan.
I don't think I'll have the time (or space, for that matter) to address all four of these in one comment, so I'll just do one here, and perhaps more in other comments if I have the time:
The revelatory problem is arguably solved by divine pedagogy; a good society exists in the balance between truth and compassion, a good ruler does what he can to avoid forcing people to take on beliefs and actions, even if they are true and good, if those truths and goods are not yet understood to be such by the people, a ruler may push a small degree outside of the people's understanding, but going too far will do no good for the people, as they will not obey because they see the law is true and good, but only because they fear the punishment of the ruler, or desire the reward of obedience; and in such case are never changed inwardly, growing in understanding and good will, but only ever outwardly, as regards their behavior. Now while the carrot and the stick approach is not 'inherently' abusive, it can be used to some degree at least to get people into the habit of behaving the right way; none the less because humans have intellect to understand and will to choose, then it is contrary to their dignity (and so, their rights) not to also try to raise them up in an inward fashion, and so a ruler becomes abusive (and so, tyrannical) who only resolves to the carrot and the stick, and does not also try to teach their people to see inwardly the reason for the laws; and indeed, if there is no reason for their laws, then they are certainly abusive; but the point is that even when speaking of matters of moral truth, it is logically impossible for a leader to force moral development (for moral development is development of the free will, and a fully free, fully forced act is a contradiction in terms) and so likewise is it immoral for a leader to 'try' to force such an act, he must instead educate; but the people of biblical times were primitive compared to ours, both morally and intellectually; this is not to say they did not have great insights (open a single ancient book of law or philosophy and one will quickly see their insights) but it remains that, compared to our time, they were not so deeply developed; they clearly didn't see quite as clearly as we the evil of slavery, the rights of women, even human dignity itself wasn't so clear a concept to them, they thought more in terms of gifts, blood, tribe-loyalty, and such like; anything too far out of that moral horizon and the people would not understand, and their culture would not be able to grow and progress morally; as such, God had to come down to the level of the people of the time, and make compromises with them in the laws he wrote, all the while reminding them that a compromise was exactly what he was giving them; and he would do that, saying that his ways are greater than theirs, and many old testament laws came with a brief explanation, saying things like 'for you were strangers in egypt' or 'for I am the lord your God' or such like, and there were even commands to contemplate these laws, to read them aloud in certain circumstances, and such like; the aim, it would seem, was to grow their culture to prepare them for future things, in particular, for a coming Massiah, which we Christians believe has come.
Thus it was not that it was permissible for God to make these laws in some absolute sense, but that it was impermissible for him to make any greater laws (since doing so would be abusive, tyranical, and totalitarian, due to not respecting the dignity and rights of the people, and how that related to the limited moral and intellectual development of mankind at the time) as such, the only laws he 'could' make were those which aimed at a future law that would free them from these more restrained laws; thus much of the new testament is a commentary on the old law, speaking of how the law was for sinners, but how love acomplishes the law, and such like; again, the point of the whole old law was pedagogical, some of the laws were eternal truths; namely what Christ called the two great commandments; the first to love God with all one is, and the second to love other's as one loves one's self; and all the rest of the laws were really just outworkings of these two laws in the limits of the culturla contexts of the time; thus of the ten commandments, the first three are about our relationship with God, the latter seven are about our relationship with one another, and so both are again, an outworking of hte two great commandments, teaching the people of the time precisely 'how' to love God and one another in the circumstances they found themselves, and all the other of the 613 mitzvot can be thought of again as just the outworking of those two and ten commandments within the context of the time; and Christ came to fulfill the law, so that the laws which were particular to the hebrews and their preisthood would no longer apply to his Church, for he instituted a new preisthood, one after malchezadek rather than levi and the levitical preisthood, for becoming the sacrificial lamb once and for all for us, the levitical priesthood would no longer be needed; and likewise the Church clarified in the council of Jarusalem in Acts 14 that the gentiles did not need to be circumsized and become jews in order to become Christians; showing the nature of the fullfilment of the old law of Christ, so that the only laws left in the old testament would be those laws given by God which transcended the needs of the cultural context at the time, and so likewise by instituting the Church, he made an institution which could both learn more about those laws which transcend cultural context, but which would also have the power to make laws, to 'bind and loose' that would be appropriate for the context of the time; thus stands the Code of Canon Law in the Roman Catholic Church; so that the Church now is an inheritor of the people of God in israel, a continuation of the developments made possible through Christ's fulfillment of the old law; in this way, by creating the old law as he did, God himself became an example for the Church heirchy in their creating of Canon law, so that it isn't even something only God can do, but rather this adjustment; this attempt to bring a culture ever higher into greater moral horizons, is something God first did through Moses, the prophets, and the other writings, was all an example for the Church to do the same thing now; to meet people where they are at, and to impose what eternal laws that can be imposed, while adjusting to what other laws must be, in light of the limits of the time; as a good King or Father might, and as God himself, the best King and Father, did do through Israel, and continues to do for all precisely through the Church.
TL;DR, if you need to write a whole novel just to disprove some paragraphs, I can imagine you are jumping through some mental hoops and/or hiding fallacies through an overload of information.
@@doomakarn I guess it's fortunate I didn't write a novel then, but just a few paragraphs.
@@doomakarn Snark aside, the view that length indicates ignorance, error, and mistake seems unfounded; one's capacity to for brevity says nothing one way or the other as to the soundness of the argument; and sometimes it's far easier to pose a problem then the answer; so that the answer of necessity will be multiple times longer than the problem.
The idea that one can always compress the information of an answer into a brief and easily understands formula seems to be something you could only know with certainty if you were omniscient, and so knew the answers to all problems, and so knew ahead of time how much the answers could be compressed, if at all. Since you're presumably not omniscient, then I'm not sure how you could justify that view.
Sure, the human mind can make mistakes in reasoning, but the human mind can also correct those mistakes, which is why science and such like is valuable; and the longer a human mind has thought about a matter, the more time they've had to go over their reasoning and check for errors; as such, so long as any given human mind has thought for a reasonable amount of time on an issue, then there is a lower chance that they have engaged in error than otherwise; all the more so when they have other minds check their ideas (which is, in part, the value of conversations like this, namely, that other people should go through what we write, and check for faults); in light of tihs though, the 'longer' a text is, the more time it must have taken to write, and that is indicating that more time has been spent in thinking about a matter; (presuming they really were thinking, but it is uncharitible to assume otherwise.)
On that view, one might argue the shorter a text is, the more likely it is to be in error. I think it's best (and most charitible) not to assume anything either way, and just investigate the arguments presented.
[edit: fixed conclusion]
@@LOZandKHfreak You don't need to be omniscient to summarize.
Took a look at your first paragraph and the crux of your argument is that God made compromises to nurture moral development. In that he allows us to scrape our shin on the playground so that we may stand back up and learn.
This argument is flawed because as an omnipotent, all-powerful being he is very much capable of creating a perfect world where this still occurs.
He designed logic itself, after all; and he chose to allow suffering as a concept to exist and propagate far and wide.
The ultimate demiurge is no father, nor kind.
@@doomakarn I did summarize my argument, literally the first sentence summarizes everything that follows i.e. 'The revelatory problem is arguably solved by divine pedagogy'. Everything else is just an explication of what I mean by that; and since I said it was 'arguably' so resolved, it was also an explication of my argument.
To summarize my arguments against your following points; Logic is about the limits of meaning, as such it is meaningless to speak of God making logic other than it is, even omnipotence cannot meaningfully be said to do such a thing; likewise, as a fully free, fully forced act is a contradiction in terms, and as that is what God would need to in order to guide us by omnipotence, then it's incoherent; so God cannot meaningfully be expected to have done this.
To go into detail: Logic, as I understand it, is the field that aims to describes the limits of the meaningfulness of human terms, the conditions a term must meet to be meaningful (initially) and to remain meaningful (across inferences); thus likewise my view of validity is a kind of meaning-conservation. Thus a logician in his theorizing ought to seek those laws the violation of which result in meaninglessness in speech. This is my over-arching philosophy of logic; and how I would judge between logical systems to see which ones are worthy of the name and which are either incoherent in themselves or, barring that, which belong more in some other field outside of formal logic, like mathematics or theoretical computer science.
(Naturally, as logic describes the limtis of meaningful talk, this includes talk about God and his attributes, such as omnipotence.)
In light of this though, to speak of something designing something in the context of your critique is to suggest they could have done otherwise; but speaking of logic being other than it is, must be meaningless, precisely because logic 'as it is now' places hard limits on what we 'as we are now' can mean by our words, and anything contrary to logic must therefore be incoherent. So likewise is it meaningless to speak of God 'designing' logic, as though he could have done otherwise. We can say that God is in some sense prior to logic, since God created man and human nature; but though God is not limited by human nature 'we are' and so likewise is the meaningfulness is our speech (and so, our capacity to understand speech) about him; so that if our speech of this priority is meaningful, it must preserve logic.
To note, even omnipotence cannot give him this ability, because omnipotence is a 'human word' used to describe God, and so, if it means anything at all, is likewise limited in what it can mean by logic; so if omnipotence means anything, it cannot imply that God has the ability to go against logic or to make logic other than it is or such like.
For the same reason (and as I mentioned in my original comment) God cannot do as he will to man; for a fully free, fully forced act is a contradiction in terms, and so is not something God can do. Thus if God wishes to make free men also men of good will, he has to meet us where we're at, and do what he can to draw us into a better way of living.
The alternative is simply to force us to act that way; but then either we will be puppets, and so will not reach our fullest potential (but love wills the beloved to reach their fullest potential, and so a loving God could not do this), or else, if he leaves us our free will, but acts contrary to the consent of the governed and the will of the people, that would by definition would make him a tyrant; which God will not do. Thus he must bring us to virtue rather by fits and starts; giving no more reward nor punishment than we can collectively come to understand the purpose of, namely, the purpose of growing in virtue, and in becoming loving children of his family and good citizens of his kingdom.
Did you have to drop this on Easter....
Why not?
Of course. There are many atheists that are being forced to sit in silence through religious services today, because of oppressive countries, communities, and families that make it illegal to doubt dogma and punish skeptics. When is a better time to speak of the evil of God?
God in the Bible created us with free will and enough resources to do everything ourselves. The vast majority of problems wouldn't exist if we were perfect but we aren't. He doesn't want to intervene because that would defeat the point of us. He also refers to believers as belonging to him, meaning instances where he does something amoral are for the benefit of one of "his" people.
There is no good and evil. There is social acceptable behavior in varying degrees and socially unacceptable behavior in varying degrees. Ok, add to that natural phenomena that cause human suffering or are benevolent to human existence. You can label those as "good" and "evil" if you wish, but that still doesn't make it a force of nature. These concepts are by definition quite androcentric - and hence *not* universal.
Great video yet again. Theism is, I think, truly pernicious; and deserves a good fight against it on the intellectual front.
Thanks! I'm not convinced that all theism is actively harmful (deists seem largely benign) beyond encouraging belief in unjustified claims. That said, there are many types of theism that seem deeply problematic and prone to harm and violence.
How can you even prove the existence of good and evil in a secular way?
It may be evil toward humans, but objectively or logically consistent towards all species
How so? How is encouraging humans to commit genocide and actively committing genocide yourself consistent to all species? Humans are the only species to commit genocide, even predators don't wipe out their entire prey, because then they would be out of food, and many humans do this only because of their belief in God.
Humans are higher than animals correct? We don’t depend on other humans as a food source? We are however subject to things we cannot comprehend nor control. Our spirit is bent on destruction and control, but also in complacency and a desire to be “led”. The “Bible” says that when ‘Adam’ ‘named’ the ‘animals’, He found none suitable. In Hebrew, it literally says that the ‘rib’ is “bentness/rebelliousness”. What is a ‘name’ but the nature of a ‘thing’? What ‘name’ have you made for yourself? When someone hears your “name”, what do they say about you? When He was “giving them names”, He was judging their ‘nature’ and found none suitable. Science even shows a change in societal grouping and movements, pushing us into agricultural communities. Then man begins becoming fruitful until the point of where we pretend we are ‘God’, creating our own ‘things’ in our own ‘image’… nothing good comes from a child with dangerous technology they are too immature for and severely lacking knowledge and understanding in. Would you not agree, with the last statement?
About genocide, all things that happen in the past are for a future generations understanding. The ‘things’ of God are beyond ‘man’s’ ability to comprehend and understand, either in its fullness, at least not without the presence of the Spirit of Truth. We still philosophize on “Good”, yet all too often seem to have an ability to somehow define good in a way that explains and [falsely] “strengthens” our own ignorant thoughts, from a place of debate rather than an open field of discussion. Iraq/Afghan example: If I kill a “terrorist”, is it “good”? But, am I not the “terrorist” to them? Making it “good” to kill me? Man is responsible for their own actions, yet blame God in their ignorance in order to perceive what’s in front of them, whether true or false.
@euthyphro dilemma I agree about a few things, but I also think that you’re ‘standing’ on the ‘things’ above the surface. We, intellectually (however argumentative you want to take that, I question man’s abilities often) and spiritually are ‘higher’ than all other living things. There is both an order and balance to ‘life’, or else chaos and destruction takes place… and people then question ’God’ and ponder assumptions that evil ‘rules’ the world, rather than ‘man’ simply allows corruption and ignorance to rule over them. They give power to things that don’t deserve it. We are more in control than we comprehend. But the only way there, is by seeking and finding Truth, with an earnest desire. Man prefers to seek the easier things in life, like building their perceptions of ‘reality’ upon others ignorant ‘opinions’ without ever testing those ‘things’ for themselves. There are those with Wisdom and understanding in Truth, then those with knowledge but lacking experience: careful what you hear and chose to apply to your life/belief, and then those merely regurgitating propaganda and bias perceptions that make themselves feel ‘good’, ignorantly suffering in their same perpetual false reality, built on others ‘backs’. We should be careful with what we partake in and from whom it is coming from. Ignorance is like a dark cloud, and it seems to be covering society like a fog.
praise bunnies and candy!
KEvron
And zombies. :)
God is good but must exercise His justice against sin and evil
How do u want him to do it ?
@@meerabkhurshid1187 look around you and past history, he’s already done it
Would say god if his there, his both the good and the bad, as there need to be balance ⚖️
I'm not totally sold on these points, but I find #2 to be particularly erroneous from a Christian perspective; the Bible makes it clear how following God won't be easy and in fact be an avenue for others to persecute and exercise prejudice against those who do. Paul in 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 even despairs at his hardships in Turkey despite being... y'know, Saint Paul.
Now I think it's another question as to whether or not this constitutes an evil god (though the fact this "nature of the disposition of faith" is upfront and blunt in his "truthful" word probably implicates the opposite; surely an evil God would play up how good life would be, right?) but as it is I find the Evidentiary Argument poor since it's supposed to point to the evidence yet it ignores the obvious.
I find this line of thinking fallacious, just because he states following God isn't easy does not mean that because it is not easy that it is not evil or malicious.
A trickster god would likely play up how good life is, but just because a God may not do this does not make their actions any less evil.
Given this, I'd say we can consider the Bible fallacious or deceptive in some way. An all-powerful being as described in the Bible would be able to craft the perfect deception, whereby fallacies and contradictions wouldn't even appear at all. Yet they do, implying that the God in the Bible is foolish by nature.
I'd say this all leads to the possibility that in fact the Bible is not the written word of God, but crafted by man since it is subject to flaws.
@@doomakarn >just because he states following God isn't easy does not mean that... [he] is not evil or malicious.
That's true, but my comment was about how the Evidentiary Argument posited a scenario wherein the god was ultimately dishonest about his insurance, which I presented evidence against. Rather, since Honesty is a virtue, the fact God maintains it indicates his goodness or close to goodness in this part. Especially considering a central Christian belief is God's inability to lie.
And even though you're not interested, I will add that I read into the verse cited, and it doesn't imply that believers will be insured at all, rather the context of the chapter implicates that by giving and sacrificing oneself will be rewarded in Heaven. Especially considering God's riches are explicated to not be material.
>just because a God may not do this does not make their actions any less evil.
Sure, but why would this evil god not also be a trickster god? As I see it, the Evidentiary Argument and Trickster God are mutually inclusive.
>Given this, I'd say we can consider the Bible fallacious
I don't see the connection.
>An all-powerful being as described in the Bible would be able to craft the perfect deception
That's paradoxical. If an omnipotent being as described in the Bible could create the perfect deception, why create a deception at all and not the genuine article? Furthermore, a deception from a dishonest God would implicate its claims of omnipotence untrustworthy and so unlikely to even be omnipotent at all.
>Yet they do [have flaws], implying that the God in the Bible is foolish by nature
I'd say that it's because the Bible was ghost-written by mortal men witnessing the events.
>…but crafted by man
Obviously. The books didn't just manifest in the world suddenly.
Yes for sure
Is one argument particularly convincing to you?
I didn't find any of the arguments convincing
The short answer is No! What about all the good things in the Bible and good things He had done?
This video… unless I missed it… does not give the standard for morality… if morality is not set in place by God, then by who or what sets the standard for morality?
Please pray for me and my children this passover. I’m losing hope. But my faith in Jesus won’t let me. Today is the day he rose from the dead. So I do believe in miracles. I lost my job as a social worker because I declined the vaccine. I declined due to my pre existing health condition (Lupus) and heart disease. I’m on a bunch of medications including blood thinners. I was denied my medical/religious exemption from Forsyth hospital. Since losing my job I’ve been struggling to make ends meet. I’m a single mother with two young autistic children. This month we are facing homelessness. We have nowhere to go. Struggling daily to provide groceries. I’m so ashamed and embarrassed over my situation. I am so overwhelmed, it’s so difficult on me. I am all alone no family nor friends to help me. I have been put down and mocked because of my circumstances. Please keep me and my children in your prayers this easter. Even though I’m struggling bad. I still have FAITH God will provide for me and my children abundantly. Praise Jesus
I would talk to your doctor about getting the vaccine. People who are immunomodulated are at especially high risk and should be vaccinated. Faith will not help you, but a job might.
Your story is sad, but it is even sadder that you don't realize how your dogma is the source of your pain. You are like someone in an abusive relationship that thinks the way your partner shows love is by hurting you. It is shameful that you have allowed your blind faith to hurt your children. There is no scientific evidence that someone with Lupus cannot get the vaccine (and in fact most doctors strongly recommend people in your situation you get it), it is just your dogma harming you and your children.
Your story is also a great example of the second argument here. If God was good and cared about his worshipers, he would have protected you from this harm. Two better explanations for your circumstances: 1) God is evil and delights in torturing those that follow him. 2) God does not exist. Either God is evil or nonexistent. In either situation he does not deserve your faith or worship. Turn away from these lies and get your life back.
I'll pray for you Mousey
@@revan552 How about you do something useful with your life instead of insulting the faith of someone who is suffering both economically and medically.
Also you atheists love to claim the lack of Burden of Proof but then make claims you could NEVER hope to back up no matter how hard you try. The cognitive dissonance is astounding.
Hopefully the pathetic owner of this channel doesn't delete this comment too, if he does I know it's simply out of his concern for maintaining his ego.
@@CarneadesOfCyreneexactly
I think that the choice to have an impact in our lives and afterlives is an argument for an evil god.
To do anything he wants with us? 😐
evil god challenge!
Yes he is
I wouldn't call such a being God for the same reason I don't call a unicorn without a horn a unicorn. That's a horse, bro.
If x is not a maximally great being, then x is not God.
There are two conclusions one might draw form your claim: 1) God does not exist. or 2) The Gods of the bible, quran, or torah are not actually God. Where do you land?
As I have argued in my series on the ontological argument, the rub lies in your definition of "maximally great". I have yet to find a theist that can provide me the necessary and sufficient conditions for something being a "great-making property". So I'm skeptical of the definition of "maximal greatness" since it is a nonsense term with no meaning. ua-cam.com/play/PLz0n_SjOttTdnrfjO-54ZQClX1wDhOUdX.html
Like it. Concerning the scriptural argument(God did sth evil/encouraged people to commit evil), apologists like Frank Turek will say "oh you are stealing from God", as they think Evil cannot exist unless God exist. What's your view on that?
Also, some theists will claim that God is by definition "Good", thus saying God is evil is like saying a triangle has four sides. To me, that's absurd, you can define everything if you will it. The problem is why should one accept a particular definition over other more reasonable ones.
Good questions. To the first, there are simply one question: Does Turak think genocide, slavery, and rape are evil? If so, God did and encouraged evil. If not, Turak has a big, swastika-shaped bullet to bite. As a skeptic, it is my job to show that your beliefs are inconsistent, I don't take a stance on the meta-ethical question of whether morality exists, the problem is the theist does, and most theists think that genocide, rape, and slavery are evil, therefore God is evil, by their own logic. It does not matter if God is the one making the rules, any more than it does if a legislator breaks a law they wrote. It just makes him a hypocrite as well as evil.
The second claim, that God is by definition good, is exactly the genocidal bullet above. It commits you to the claim that slavery and genocide are good. Clearly there are people who believe in Nazism in the world, but theists usually like to hide their proclivity for the oppression of others behind lies of "love" that really mean "control". All you need to do to show the absurdity of such a conclusion, is to expose what it really means, that theists think genocide and slavery are acceptable, if not encouraged, because God does them.
I'm just an (undergraduate level) student of philosophy and will therefore not make any attempts at rigorous responses myself here, but after listening to a few videos on his channel at Cross Examined (such as this one >>> m.ua-cam.com/video/tyM3wdbdWKs/v-deo.html, this one >>> m.ua-cam.com/video/w_Epq-KmAr4/v-deo.html, and this one >>> m.ua-cam.com/video/P0oI-eNvw74/v-deo.html) where Turek replies to objections from audience members, I would surmise that his replies to objections that challenge God's goodness would probably involve questioning the assumption that a source of moral authority and obligation according to whose moral standard the conduct of the creator of everything else in existence can be judged, can exist. For example, at the time that the universe was created (assuming that such a time in the past existed, for the sake of argument), where could the standard of moral authority and (morally obligatory) conduct that would have to be applied to God's act of creation in order to determine the moral status of God's act (i.e., it's moral "rightness" or "wrongness"[?]) come from, if not from God himself, (especially if he is capable of behaving or making decisions that can be considered, in some way, morally arbitrary)?
In stating that however, I'm only trying to anticipate how Turek might reply to the kinds of objections presented in this video. As a philosophical layperson, I don't feel qualified enough to put words into his mouth. And in fact, I would be very interested in watching him respond to such objections in a formal debate.
Putting all arguments aside however, I would like to say that this channel has been (and continues to be) an excellent educational resource for me since I discovered it three years ago. And I appreciate the depth of analysis provided for the subject areas that are covered in each video. I am a Christian, but I'm always glad when Christian claims and assumptions are subjected to rigorous critical inquiry.
I actually anticipated the "Trickster God" objection on my own long before I learned that it already had been presented by philosophers as a serious alternative to the idea of a good God. But I didn't take my own musings on such matters seriously enough to propose possible answers to it.
JPB
@@jpbrooks2 Even if the foundation/source of Morality is God, that does not say anything about his nature. it seems to me that God can be morally good by his own standard, and can also be morally bad by his own standard. So even when the existence of God is granted as the source of Morality, one still cannot really grasp the nature(whether he is good or evil) of such being.
I think what Frank Turek is doing is to expose that most people, when they judge God, they are using subjective moral standard. But to me, subjective judgements will suffice to make a case against the good God theory. I mean, if a good God exists, why would he commit things that are generally considered by many of his creation as blatantly wrong and immoral and bad? If God's objective standard deviates a lot from our own subjective standard, I would expect some explanations for that. And if it's true that God's standard differs from ours, how to we know we are doing the "right things" that God pleases? I mean, that's not a deductive argument, but it makes sense to me. I don't know.
Turek's arguments are a dodge. He's trying to claim people who don't believe in or accept his version of God can't possibly have any standard to make that claim, allowing him to win by default. But even setting aside the childishness of that, all that really needs to be evaluated is the INTERNAL CONSISTENCY of a God's professed actions; that is, take as given for the sake of argument that his position is correct and judge God by God's own moral strictures. If God says "don't murder" and then orders murder, he's inconsistent by his own standards. If God says he won't lie and lies, same deal. If by God's own standards he behaves immorally, then he is "evil." My standards need not enter into it, only the standards I'm being told are the ones God approves of.
Now there are ways to get out of this, such as Divine Command Theory, but that's essentially embracing either that God is arbitrary OR that many things society thinks are evil actually aren't. One could easily escape the claim that the Christian God's acceptance of slavery is evil by claiming that slavery isn't evil, or the claim of inconsistency by stating that anything God commands in a given moment is in fact the good thing to do, even if in an identical prior situation God stated that doing it would be evil. But by doing this, everything reduces to an ad baculum: God can do whatever God wants without rational justification and we ought to obey because he's more powerful than we are. Morality is a pointless illusion because it's all the bullying whim of someone who can eternally harm us, and attempting to "do good" is impossible because God can change his mind about what good is at any time without telling us.
Curiously, they rarely actually will do either of these things. The escape valve for this is instead usually that it isn't in God's nature to do that, but there's no evidence that this is correct and lots of evidence that it could be in God's nature to do so (such as scriptures where God is inconsistent or arbitrary, depending on the religion). Ultimately, it appears to come down to the literalist refusing to embrace the position they know they actually should believe because they recognize that most of society doesn't like it. This is inherently a dangerous and antisocial position, because anyone who thinks the will of God is justifiable solely by power and force can be assumed to be willing to use power and force to bring about God's will. Not only would it not be evil to lie, manipulate, and abuse society's systems to obtain power and compel obedience and worship, it might very well be evil for them NOT to do this in a "godless" society in order to bring about a "godly" one!
let's say there argument [There is No God] is true then why there is evil in the world exist?
No people are and those who support martial law
There is another argument: omniscience is incompatible with omnibenevolence. Part of 'all knowing' is the knowledge of what it is to *be* evil - to do evil things - and knowledge of that *is* evil.
I think most theists don't believe God is omnisubjective because they view omniscience as knowledge of every true proposition. But the ones that do believe God is omnisubjective could probably attack the last part. It seems hard to defend.
what is with the face made of ed
E.D. is shorthand for Evil Deceiver, Descartes's evil deity that has the ability to manipulate your perception.
The Bible says that ‘God’ told Moses to bring 7 pairs of every ‘clean’ (good) animal and only 1 pair of unclean (bad). There’s a necessity for some evil. Without the depths of wickedness and ignorance, how could we understand the heights of ‘righteousness’ and Wisdom? I have other ideas/opinions that the two are separate by masculine and feminine, one being the spirits ‘named’ “Wisdom” and one ‘named’ “Truth”. You gain Wisdom through knowledge and experience by being ignorant. It isn’t until having both that you receive understanding in a matter of Truth. We learn discernment by gaining knowledge and experience in a ‘thing’. I think ignorance and deception are feminine, and ‘light’ and ‘grace’ are masculine. Not trying to start political BS argument, just stating a balance in ‘nature’. That said, what is a ‘name’ but the ‘nature’ of a thing? What ‘name’ have you made for yourself? When someone hears your “name”, what do they say about you? IF “Christians” were truly ‘Christ-like’, would the world not KNOW? Would most not clamor to be friends with a true ‘Christian’? Do true ‘Christians’ beat people over the head with twisted words and misunderstandings, or do they love in patience and understanding? KNOWING we are ALL ignorant of Truth. Because Truth being “put to death”/“put away” means that were forgiven for our ignorance. Much the same expectations we have for our children. We are to meditate on these things day and night. God is not a religion, which are founded by ‘men’s’ own minds, but is the foundation of Truth hidden in the things unseen. It is your desire for Truth that determines whether you find it, or continue to allow ignorance to be your ‘master’ (anti christ… being sealed in your ‘thoughts’ [mind] and ‘actions’ [hand].
I also find it very arrogant to believe an ignorant man can comprehend the ‘things’ of a ‘Creator’, when they can’t comprehend the small and easy ‘things’ in and around their own lives.
A common theodicy explains evil by claiming that a certain amount of evil is needed to know good. There are reasons to doubt this argument, but even if we set those aside, it does not explain the extent of pain and suffering in the world. Every minute an American is raped or sexually assaulted. Globally, over 10 children die every minute. There is far more pain than happiness in this world. Even if you think that there is balance between good and evil, what about the world makes you think that good is the one in charge now? Present evidence seems to point to evil being the far stronger force, in other words, if there is a God in charge, the best explanation is that he is evil.
If there is a god (doubtful), and they turn out to care what happens in-universe, then my best hypothesis is a _scientist_ god - *not* all-knowing, and trying to learn: the universe is one of his science experiments. The alternative is the _child using a magnifying glass to fry the ants,_ which I'd classify as an evil god. Neither is remotely similar to, say, the Christian one.
I also believe this to be the most likely case, in that I believe we are simulation of a god; but perhaps our creator is not the ultimate god. This line of thinking has actually inspired me to become vegetarian.
God might not even exist, probably not.
Yep, exactly. The argument here is not that God exists, but rather that if he did, there would be no reason to worship him, because the evidence seems to point to, if God exists, that he is not good.
[ Quran 4:24] Where is a rape ?
And [also prohibited to you are all] married women except those your right hands possess. [This is] the decree of Allah upon you. And lawful to you are [all others] beyond these, [provided] that you seek them [in marriage] with [gifts from] your property, desiring chastity, not unlawful sexual intercourse. So for whatever you enjoy [of marriage] from them, give them their due compensation as an obligation. And there is no blame upon you for what you mutually agree to beyond the obligation. Indeed, Allah is ever Knowing and Wise.
Islamic perspective is God Is wise
Quran is the most peaceful book.
*I'm being sarcastic*
You know, as long as you label a religion "Peace" it must be peaceful.
(I'm being sarcastic too).
Atheism never killed anyone, And Atheists 😍, they have always been peaceful throughout the history !
( I'm being sarcastic tooooo)
@@tahaAFK Islam is inherently violent and oppressive. Atheism is the lack of belief in God. It's a not an organized religion.
@@nandoxus why do you believe that !
imagine still using that definition of Atheism lmaaoo!
It doesn't matter if Atheism is organised or unorganised.... It does not undermine the fact that many people with that worldview have killed millions in the past !
@@tahaAFK you're just escaping the fact that u worship an imaginary psychopath created by a real psychopath named Muhammad.
God is very evil and rotten as far as i am concerned since this world is a real mess right now and it isn't getting any better at all anytime soon, and God really needs to do something about it real soon before it gets much more worse. God never gave me a good wife and family to share my life with either.
You doesnt seem to understand the nature of god and humanity relative to god goals for us. Good and evil are 2 faces of the same coin. if bad didn't exist, good would not either. The more you fiind difficult to obtain something the more you love it. You cannot exist in a world in which there is only good or bad since you will not have any desire to do anything. Respectfully.
Like other theodicies, the claim that good and evil are two sides of the same coin provides just as much support for the evil God hypothesis as noted in the video. If good requires evil and vice versa, then an evil God would need to create a world with some good, to make the evil all that more impactful (and given so much more evil than good in the world, an evil God seems more likely).
This world has eaten up the brains of people for which they can’t practice proper knowledge and are fond of this worldly life.Your Creator knows the most because He is your creator not you are His. And of course he who practices proper knowledge and turns his life for searching the truth he will find the truth.This life is a place where you’re being examined whether you’re by truth or leaving the truth and believing what you see around and enjoy your life as you desire.This world is not of enjoyment ,the one who believes in truth will never find happiness in this world beause this world is a bauble and deception. If you don’t believe in then lead a life full of wealth and I bet you will not find satisfaction and peace at the end. This world can’t give you satisfaction the feelings it give is temporary. God the Creator is not evil and if he was evil then when you thought of saying Him evil he would instantly take your soul out from your body with pain right! Or He would stop supplying the food you have! Or he would take away all your wealth and many of descriptions could happen.So think how Merciful He is though you are talking ill of Him ,He is still supplying you Oxygen for breathing , food for your hunger and all else you have. Your everything with existing is His mercy. Use your knowledge if you have a mobile phone and if you break it then is it evil? Of course not. Here we are Creations of God and if he turns whole of us with the Angels Prophets and all his beloved servants into hell fire it will not be evil but he will never do this becuase He is your Creator He loves you more than anyone do and He is most Merciful.
Now in short I’m sharing something very valuable and I hope you’ll kindly think of and use your heart to open up.
Don’t you get the question in your mind who you are and why you are here and where will you go? How could this universe and everything else beyond our imagination are such arranged in a ordered manner without a Creator? Why there is birth and why there is death and why everything has destruction or why everything decays?
That is becuase there is A CREATOR and it is what said by our CREATOR,
‘Indeed, We have made that which is on the earth adornment for it that We may test them [as to] which of them is best in deed.And indeed, We will make that which is upon it [into] a barren ground.’ (Sura Kahf:Quran) and in many Ayahs it is defined in Quran. We are just created to worship our creator. And here might be a question so why we have to lead a busy and tough life then? Because if foods and pleasures of your life were coming enormously and in between them your worshipping is without any challenge as like scoring goals without opponent. That’s why you have opponents which would try to derive you from your Creator but still in such critical conditions you’ll hold faith in and worship Him that is examining. Among Jinns there is Satan who is cursed by Creator who will enter hell and he wants us the humans too to enter hell with him and he promised our Creator that he will decieve us from front, back , from left and right that is he wants to derive us from the path of truth to the path of false by showing fakeness as like showing water in desert .
There is only ONE CREATOR who is worthy of worship. You are given knowledge , heart , eyes and you are a human. Try to find the truth. Your Creator will ofcourse show you the path of truth Just will to see . You will able to see Insha’Allah.
Do you think keeping slaves is wrong? Do you think raping your slaves is wrong? Do you think genocide is wrong? If they are wrong, why would a good God command them (Quran 9:5, Quran 23: 5-6, Quran 4:24)?
An evil God might be happy to supply people with oxygen and food for the purposes of making their suffering last longer. There is so much pain in the world, 10 children die every minute. If God exists he is happily murdering them. A woman is raped or sexually assaulted far more often than once a minute. You God joyfully allows it. How can you come to any conclusion other than that he is either evil or does not exist? The truly cruel torturer allows his victims to live longer to torture them longer.
I am hopeful that you will walk away from your harmful, dogmatic, support of an evil deity that condones genocide, slavery, and rape, and see all religions for what they really are: tools to manipulate and oppress.
Brother first of all you haven’t understood the ayats of Quran properly.The Ayahs you are talking about Quran doesn’t support raping slaves but supports the security of slaves.Please try to know the ayahs in details. Secondly all of your perspect of thinking is worldly that is the thing you see that is you believe. I think you are interested in thinking. Please let yourself deep dive into thinking through your knowledge not the books written by philosophers. Think about GOD Think about CREATOR think about the reason of your creation. Isn’t it so silly to think myself as more acknowledged than my CREATOR? let’s say you made a robot and instructed it to do something then could it do anything more than that? You are a creation and this world is nothing but very very temporary state. It is just here to examine who is great in his deeds and who is addicted to this false world. One who is good in deeds and knows for Whom he is here in world will be rewarded in the actual life.This life is just like deception and without deception there is no examination. I hope you’d like to think. I just want to say a small objective that is leave your usual life usual interests of life everything that can happen that attracts you here. Just leave for some days and search newly your life and your LORD. Search your LORD being as without any religion.You’d face difficulties for sure but just try to find your LORD newly as I’ve said. I respectfully want you’d try to think newly and try to know more rather arguing on this.
Praise God! Jesus is Amazing!
horrific video
It is horrifying to think that so many people might be worshiping an evil deity.
You can not so callously pose such a question without knowing the Nature of God and humanity's relationship with The Almighty(s).. One must not only know this profound truth, but the purpose of the Divine Council, and what has transpired. Scripture aids, but a Gnosis is required. Without it, you are just a puny mortal attempting to define the immensity of Immortality, without the understanding of Apothesis. Without such comprehension, Nothing makes sense, even ones' definitions of good and evil.
Theist
I most certainly can, and in fact I did. You are scared of this question because in your heart you are afraid that I am right. You are afraid that the your holy text is wrong when it condones slavery, genocide, and rape. You are afraid that something you have devoted your life to is nothing but a dogmatic delusion. Don't turn away from that skepticism; lean into it. Be brave an ask those questions no one in your religion ever really answered, they just pretended to then yelled at or shamed anyone who kept asking. You don't need greater knowledge to see through this big lie, just your own eyes.
Religious leaders often claim private knowledge of good and evil, not because they are particularly educated, but for the purpose of controlling and consolidating power over people. If you control what is "right and wrong" you can convince the indoctrinated that when your priest raped their son, he was doing the lord's work, part of a bigger plan and should be forgiven, but when your child questions their beliefs they should be ostracized and shunned. The argument you present is an argument to ignorance: don't try to understand anything, just blindly follow the instructions of those with power over you. The problem is that any justification for such a claim is circular, the only reason I should think that the clergy are the only ones with answers is because they told me so, and as an atheist, I have no reason to trust their word in the first place.
I am hopeful that you reexamine your dogma and turn away from the system that tells you that you are not allowed to think for yourself.
thinking about it, i just realized how many genocides allah did. like the quraan puts all other books to shame. i can count 10 off the top of my head.