Holy Idiocy... The Problem Of Evil Again!

[Not_Scarevangelist]

So this is what happened. My girl who is still a Christian showed me a video. The video is uploaded to a local Bulgarian website that's visible only in my Country, so I can't show it here... But here is the basic idea.

 

The pastor (who is also an apologet) says that he's often asked: "How could you believe in omnipotent and omnibenevolent God and you reconcile the problem of evil".

 

Then the pastor says that this question isn't asked properly. The proper question should be: "How could a holy and righteous God know what I did and thought and said yesterday and didn't kill me last night?"

 

?!?!?!?!?!???!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

The pastor says that until you ask the question that way you don't understand the problem... Because you, while asking te question in the first way (and not the second) accept that anyone deserve something else than the wrath of Holy God. The proper question is: why is the judgement of God delayed..

 

Because when you ask the question this way... "How could you believe in omnipotent and omnibenevolent God and you reconcile the problem of evil", you believe in the supremacy of men. The pastor says that we must turn the question upside down and believe in the supremacy of Christ. The problem is that we don't accept the supremacy of Christ. The problem is that when we start measuring the problem of evil, we start measuring from ourselves.

 

He says, our problem is that we want a God who is omnipotent and not souvereign. We don't want a God who's souvereign and this means we reign above him. But if we accept that he's both omnipotent and souvereign then we depends on his mercy...

 

?!??!?!

 

What would you say?

[Thalia]

. . . Huh?

 

[BrotherJosh]

Without going in depth since I'm at work...off the top of my head gratuitous violence and natural evil. Gratuitous violence happens to undeserving people and animals. Natural disasters wipe out entire societies. Of course, from what I can tell this person believes in the Fire and Brimstone God which in my experience means they revel and sometimes celebrate the suffering of others because it is probably deserved from their perspective. In my experience, people like that are either indifferent or ignorant of the suffering of others.

[Not_Scarevangelist]

To be honest this person completely lost me when he said: "How could a holy and righteous God know what I did and thought and said yesterday and didn't kill me last night?"...

 

This is so petty, so evil... I just can't explain the aversion...

[buffettphan]

So much for god loving his "creation" that he made in his own image, huh?

Stupid religious numnuts. I wish they'd all disappear.

[Ouroboros]

What would you say?

That it shows that God ultimately hates his own imperfect creation and likes to torture the souls yet another day for his own pleasure.

[Ouroboros]

To be honest this person completely lost me when he said: "How could a holy and righteous God know what I did and thought and said yesterday and didn't kill me last night?"...

 

This is so petty, so evil... I just can't explain the aversion...

Yup. It shows how evil, manipulative, and small minded their God is.

 

You would think that an omnipotent and omniscient being could have better solutions than that.

 

If God was and is in control of the creation, then the creation works exactly the way he wants it to. It means that we're just as evil as he wants us to be. And sure, as a creator he has the right to destroy it. But he doesn't, not because of grace, but because of the pleasure in seeing us in pain.

[Guest Valk0010]

Since other people provided betters answers then mine on the problem of evil thing I will address the second one about even asking the question. About the elevation of self over god, wouldn't the whole of apologetics be the elevation of self(remeber thomas) and god wants us all to be saved right(Said in peter iirc), so questions that make us not believe should be answered, right? Sacrificing a soul for humility would be irrational as far as I can see considering how god supposedly did thing things like made sure thomas believed.

 

Realizing I am okay with this through my own self for a loop. If say if god needed to judge me to solve the problem of evil, I am alright with that. Its better then what he allows to continue.

[Vigile]

To be honest this person completely lost me when he said: "How could a holy and righteous God know what I did and thought and said yesterday and didn't kill me last night?"...

 

This is so petty, so evil... I just can't explain the aversion...

 

The truly frightening thing is millions of people don't see why this is evil. If you put most of them on a jury to decide a case of a father who killed his son for disrespect, virtually every one of them would convict the father of murder and would be repulsed by the father's actions. Yet they find it within themselves willing to worship a father figure who takes this silly notion much further and even consider him justified. Xianity really is bizzarro world.

 

Your English is awesome by the way. I always envy people who speak a second language so well.

[Guest Valk0010]

To be honest this person completely lost me when he said: "How could a holy and righteous God know what I did and thought and said yesterday and didn't kill me last night?"...

 

This is so petty, so evil... I just can't explain the aversion...

Yup. It shows how evil, manipulative, and small minded their God is.

 

You would think that an omnipotent and omniscient being could have better solutions than that.

 

If God was and is in control of the creation, then the creation works exactly the way he wants it to. It means that we're just as evil as he wants us to be. And sure, as a creator he has the right to destroy it. But he doesn't, not because of grace, but because of the pleasure in seeing us in pain.

Remember the toy soldier being burned by the magnifying glass bit you sometimes see in kid's shows. We are the toy soldier in the judeochristian world.

[Ouroboros]

Remember the toy soldier being burned by the magnifying glass bit you sometimes see in kid's shows. We are the toy soldier in the judeochristian world.

Yeah. Awful. Isn't it?

 

I think the idea of God as the mad scientist fits quite well too. He placed us all in this rat maze of traps and treats as a lab experiment.

[centauri]

Believers of magical skyman-ism praise their "god", and in doing so, they praise themselves because they're simply praising their ideas about the object of their worship.

They elevate themselves over others by using a surrogate called "God".

Their version of God can do no wrong and they want to align themselves with this super being.

Not surprisingly, they crave empty platitudes and feed on a self-serving loop of theology that attempts to create reality via wishful thinking.

It's also a form of fetish, in this case a Jesus fetish.

[mwc]

The OP reminds me of the religion I got through the Baptists.

 

They taught me that we should try to look at things from "god's" point of view. And from that point of view, this absolutely perfect in every way point of view, every last thing pretty much deserved to be obliterated. From this absolutely perfect point of view all things were essentially inferior and therefor evil. The only thing that deserved to exist at all was this "god" and on this "god."

 

What this meant is we should not be wondering what would be considered "evil" because all things, minus this one ("god"), are evil. But we should be wondering why this "god" even tolerates having all this evil stuff around. And when this "god" will likely go ahead and get rid of all this evil stuff cluttering up its existence.

 

For humans, and our limited point of view, the question of "evil" appears to be a relative thing. For this "god" and its absolute knowledge of everything the question of "evil" is also an absolute thing. So while we can never truly know what evil is and how to deal with it this "god" know what evil is absolutely and will deal with it absolutely. This is a key point. The concept of human evil is essentially shades of gray while the one of this "god" is purely black and white.

 

The reason is that the last point needs to be understood is that the xian religion has a singular loophole for adherents. If you join their religion and become a true "believer" then you can take part of a loophole that allows you to avoid this ultimate destruction of all things evil. It will allow this "god" to see the xian believer to as it sees itself as opposed to how this "god" sees everything else. The black and white point of view is what allows this system to function while the shades of gray system would make it too difficult, if not impossible, to ever know if any given person would escape destruction. Therefore it is vital in the functioning of the religion that evil remains black and white rather than shades of gray.

 

mwc

[Guest Valk0010]

The OP reminds me of the religion I got through the Baptists.

 

They taught me that we should try to look at things from "god's" point of view. And from that point of view, this absolutely perfect in every way point of view, every last thing pretty much deserved to be obliterated. From this absolutely perfect point of view all things were essentially inferior and therefor evil. The only thing that deserved to exist at all was this "god" and on this "god."

 

What this meant is we should not be wondering what would be considered "evil" because all things, minus this one ("god"), are evil. But we should be wondering why this "god" even tolerates having all this evil stuff around. And when this "god" will likely go ahead and get rid of all this evil stuff cluttering up its existence.

 

For humans, and our limited point of view, the question of "evil" appears to be a relative thing. For this "god" and its absolute knowledge of everything the question of "evil" is also an absolute thing. So while we can never truly know what evil is and how to deal with it this "god" know what evil is absolutely and will deal with it absolutely. This is a key point. The concept of human evil is essentially shades of gray while the one of this "god" is purely black and white.

 

The reason is that the last point needs to be understood is that the xian religion has a singular loophole for adherents. If you join their religion and become a true "believer" then you can take part of a loophole that allows you to avoid this ultimate destruction of all things evil. It will allow this "god" to see the xian believer to as it sees itself as opposed to how this "god" sees everything else. The black and white point of view is what allows this system to function while the shades of gray system would make it too difficult, if not impossible, to ever know if any given person would escape destruction. Therefore it is vital in the functioning of the religion that evil remains black and white rather than shades of gray.

 

mwc

My thoughts on that MWC.

 

As I said previously the logical and mental me would be more happy with even my own destruction as compared to some of the evil god allows. But also the whole black and white thing, doesn't really answer the question. It isn't a matter of god knowing more then us, because there are some moral actions that wouldn't just be relative, like say raping a child, or worse allowing a child to be raped for any reason. Black and white, there are still black and honestly I can't see how a all powerful god, no matter what good that comes in the end, will allow certain evil to happen. Especially when supposedly you can think of or create any scenario of your choosing being all powerful. I don't know how it could be more then evil or at least negligence.

[Overcame Faith]

By phrasing the question the way he did, this pastor is avoiding the real issue. As others have said, he views everything except for god as evil and in so doing tries to argue for a merciful god (who does not destroy this pastor and, of course, everyone else as well for what he (all of us) is/are thinking even though we all deserve to be destroyed for our "evil" thoughts). But what this pastor fails to do (and I'm sure he does so purposefully) is to reconcile the notion of a loving god with the evil in the world. For if everything except god is evil as he obviously believes and if god created all things then his god is the author of evil and so is himself evil.

 

The only way to reconcile the issue is to eliminate the heart of the problem. And the heart of the problem is the existence of bible god. When we recognize that bible god does not exist, then there ceases to be any divine reconciliation required at all and we see "evil" as something that just is and against which we, as human beings, must fight.

[mwc]

As I said previously the logical and mental me would be more happy with even my own destruction as compared to some of the evil god allows. But also the whole black and white thing, doesn't really answer the question. It isn't a matter of god knowing more then us, because there are some moral actions that wouldn't just be relative, like say raping a child, or worse allowing a child to be raped for any reason. Black and white, there are still black and honestly I can't see how a all powerful god, no matter what good that comes in the end, will allow certain evil to happen. Especially when supposedly you can think of or create any scenario of your choosing being all powerful. I don't know how it could be more then evil or at least negligence.

I don't know the mind of any imaginary gods so I can't say why they do exactly what they do. I was only speaking on what I was taught.

 

But if I had to speculate I could say that I don't know the mind of ants either. I can't understand why they perform the horrible actions they perform whether they be a form of ant "war" or a form of ant "rape." I've no wish to understand ants in shades of gray but maybe if I were an ant this would be something I might want from my ant god? An ant god that just sees ants in black and white and wants to obliterate them really has no understanding of any nuance at all. What type of ant god is that when you think about it? Shouldn't an any god truly understand all the shades of gray that come along with being an ant? Wouldn't ants want this from their ant god?

 

Actually, ants probably want nothing from any "gods" at all. We're just capable of such thoughts and so we tend to dwell on these types of ideas.

 

mwc

[Guest Valk0010]

 

I don't know the mind of any imaginary gods so I can't say why they do exactly what they do. I was only speaking on what I was taught.

True, i was just thinking about the situation within the context of what is generally taught(as far as I can tell) as being biblical sound. And then after doing that, taking things to there logical conclusion.

[AlphaToOmega]

Well its like this.

I created ants but that was no fun. I wanted to burn them forever and ever and ever. I love the smell of burning living things. I write about that all the time.

But, I knew I would be a sick psychopath if I did that for no reason.

So I made up a reason to burn them forever and everyone is happy...except you ants.

The preacher ants are very happy. For a while anyway. They get to play with the little sugar ants all they want. Then I burn them for it.

 

I hope that makes sense. Its very hard to understand such complex when you're a little soon to be smoking ants.

[mwc]

True, i was just thinking about the situation within the context of what is generally taught(as far as I can tell) as being biblical sound. And then after doing that, taking things to there logical conclusion.

I don't know. These types of discussions confuse me. They're religious, practically sectarian, arguments that aren't really that biblical at all. If they were truly biblical then Jews should also be talking about this same Hell in a very serious way. And that Hell would be more than Sheol but the fiery hellfire torture pit that xians talk about and it would be based on the the Hebrew bible as opposed to a bunch of other texts and midrash. But it seems xians, and not even all xians at that, are the ones that are pushing this.

 

So was a hell created to torture the evil people? It doesn't seem so. It seems that's an evolved idea. As is the whole concept of the "fallen" and "evil" type of people that get tossed in there. So these two tent poles are difficult in the whole of the Hebrew bible. So why should I worry about them then?

 

What is it we're actually discussing? Why didn't the characters in the story behave differently? Ask the authors (good luck with that). Because this "god" (and others) is just a character in some fan-fictions created over hundreds of years and since their quality control wasn't all that great it doesn't behave in a way we consider to be consistent. Or are we asking why people can't see "good" and "evil" as purely relative to one another as opposed to "good" being more like an absolute value, say 100%, and all things that are less than this value are considered "evil" (even 99.99999% to infinity) and must be destroyed.

 

What seems strange to be discussing is why this "god," the character in the stories, doesn't see "good" and "evil" in this relative way. The answer is, obviously, because the authors didn't write it that way. Their "god" didn't see it that way. Not because a real live GOD didn't see it that way and passed that on to them but because their culture worked in such a way that they created a god that reflected that way of thinking and wrote it as such. Gods don't think or talk. People do. And they put those words and ideas into their "gods" mouths.

 

So why does hell exist? It doesn't. But why did "god" create it? It didn't. Who created it then? People did in their minds. Who goes there? No one. People just tell other people they don't care for that they will go there if they don't do what their "god" says. What does their "god" want us to do to avoid hell? Nothing. Neither "god" nor "hell" exist. People say this to make people they don't care for do things they want.

 

mwc

[mwc]

Well its like this.

I created ants but that was no fun. I wanted to burn them forever and ever and ever. I love the smell of burning living things. I write about that all the time.

But, I knew I would be a sick psychopath if I did that for no reason.

So I made up a reason to burn them forever and everyone is happy...except you ants.

The preacher ants are very happy. For a while anyway. They get to play with the little sugar ants all they want. Then I burn them for it.

 

I hope that makes sense. Its very hard to understand such complex when you're a little soon to be smoking ants.

I talked about some of this in my last post.

 

Little Jew ants didn't seem to talk about this. Yep, there was lots of killing and lots of burned sacrifices but not a lot of talk about a little ant fire pit. Those little sacrifices are how those little Jew ants avoided that whole mess so as long as the little priest ants did their job they were good to go.

 

Xian ants have a different take on the whole thing and that's another issue but even they can't agree.

 

mwc

[Mike D]

 

the pastor says that this question isn't asked properly.

 

Always be wary of someone who says you can't question them.

[★ Citsonga ★]

There have been some really good replies so far. I'll throw in just a little bit more.

 

Maybe this pastor is also asking the wrong question. Maybe it really should be: "How could Allah know what I did and thought and said yesterday and not kill me last night?"

 

In other words, people of any religion can make any claim they want, but without evidence to back up their claims, they are nothing more than empty claims.

 

This pastor implies that those who don't agree with him are arrogant. Could it not be the exact opposite? Could it not be that HE is the arrogant one in suggesting that HE has the absolute correct view of god, good and evil? Could it be that HE is the arrogant one for thinking that helpless little children who have never harmed anyone actually DESERVE to STARVE to death?

 

His argument is extremely twisted!