If there was really a God, bad things wouldn't happen.

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Referring to the Thread-Title, the fact that there IS a God is exactly why Bad Things Happen, and it is primarily due to that God's STRICT rule...: «All that you or your servants do unto others is done unto you»

Everybody needs to stop paying taxes/fines/etc for it is no different than funding the iniquity of a terrorist-organisation.

When someone hires a hit-man to assassinate another, the employer then becomes guilty of complicity to murder, even if said employer did not kill the victim/target with his own hands personally. A murder is still the crime of murder.

What if the employer were to have the assassin wear a costume, such as a ninja-outfit, does the costume negate the assassination from being a sinful-activity? For there are costumes work by police & military called uniforms.

How about if the employer gave the assassin a shiny badge and a uniform? Does it suddenly change the assassination into a non-murder or non-killing of whomever is being targeted for assassination? Of course not!

What if the employer scribbled down words on a piece of paper in addition to the shiny badge and costume?
The paper says that it is legitimate to go ahead and carry out an activity called assassination.

One man wrote onto paper that it's okay, due to calling it legitimate, combined with giving a shiny badge & costume called uniform, when calling it an assassination. Does it change the activity into a non-murder now? No?

How about if the employer got a few of his friends together to sign their names onto that paper in agreement that they all believe that the writings on the piece of paper is legitimate for carrying out an assassination. Does it suddenly change the act of hiring an assassin to assassinate somebody into a non-murder and is no longer a killing? No?

Well how about if the piece of paper was not only signed by a bunch of the employer's friends, but the piece of paper was then also framed with a border, and a «ritual» of «voting» was performed where the employer and all of his friends decided that it's legitimate to carry out an assassination? Does assassination now become a non-murder? No?

What if we take all of the above and then add the word «Lawful» or «Legal» into these pieces of paper in addition to claiming that the «assassination» is for «security» purposes? Does it suddenly turn a killing into a non-killing?

Any «sane» people would see that a killing is a killing, regardless of whether the act of murder has been re-named to capital-punishment or otherwise, and this is the same with any and all of the other crimes that are carried out in the name of whatever false-idol that people worship (such as the «fictitious» gods known as Zeus or Athena, but in modern-day vocabulary, they are now called State of [what-ever-state-here]).

Essentially, a kidnapping is still a kidnapping, even if re-named into an arrest or detainment.
Essentially, trafficking of persons is still human-trafficking, even if re-named in taking someone to be jailed.
Essentially, hostage-taking is still the holding of hostages, even if re-named to keeping one jailed.
Essentially, extortion is still extortion, even if re-named into bail-bonds.
Essentially, embezzlement is still larceny, even if re-named into following a court's orders.
Essentially, domestic-terrorism is still domestic-terrorism, even if re-named into being a law-suit.
Essentially, criminal-activities are still criminal-activities, even if it is called doing one's job (Hello Nazi-America!).
Essentially, a cult-religion is still a cult-religion, even if it is given names like States or Governments.

Why then does the world seem to think it is any different from some employer hiring a hitman to cause terrible pain and suffering unto another when tax-payers do exactly the same thing in funding the wages of police & military & politicians & lawyers (i.e.: liars) who engage in daily acts of kidnapping, human-trafficking, hostage-taking, extortion, larceny/embezzlement, money-laundering, perjury, frauds, concealment-of-frauds, violations of human/civil/natural-rights, domestic-terrorism, international-terrorism, invasions, interference, cruel-and-unusual punishments, persecution, etc? For there is NO difference.

I will pose the exact same questions unto the Prosecutor at my next court-hearing in order to prove that he is NOT a «sane» man (and is therefore not «legally competent» to testify against my person).

You can say yes if you want.

But logically speaking you could not be omnipotent and omniscient because of that paradox.

My point was, it would be impossible for a creator, say a programmer, to know exactly how the programme is going to respond and "think for itself", even if the programmer knew the programming language and all the input He entered, very well.

In other words, yes, it would be impossible for *any* being to be omniscient, though as you stated before, it does not disprove the existence of a god.

I don't know if that's strictly speaking true. Since we are talking about an entity that transcends the limitations of the material universe, perhaps it has a mind with sufficient storage space to simultaneously hold all possible states that the program could produce. You could extend that and imagine a mind of sufficient capacity to contain a completely accurate internal model of the phase space of the universe.

We can't imagine holding that much information in our minds, but that doesn't make it theoretically impossible. Even totally randomized output is still going to be in some of range of possibilities described by points in that phase space.

Such a mind would be omniscient as viewed from the perspective of a being within the phase space of that universe.

Doesn't that extend from knowledge into creativity? I guess from a programming POV, the number of outcomes is limited.

What if the same thing was applied to a human mind? Rather than a programme with limited outcomes, would it still end up with limited outcomes, but with far more outcomes? Or is it impossible for even a mind with limitless memory to predict?

The possible configurations of the physical substrate of a human mind, in terms of action potentials in neurons and neurotransmitters in the vicinity of synaptic clefts is very, very large. You have something on the order of 100 billion neurons in your brain, many of these have multiple dendrites and the levels of neurotransmitters at each synapse can vary greatly. Large numbers of these neurons are occupied with task specific functions like interpreting sensory input from the eyes or managing motor neurons to control locomotion, etc. but even with all those dedicated networks taken out of the system, there are an enormous number of permutations of the components in a human brain.

But not an infinite number.

So if we take as axiomatic that the mind is a function of the brain and the brain has a finite number of possible states, then we can imagine a supernatural entity with a mind capable of modeling a phase space representing all possible permutations of that brain.

Such a mind would know every thought and emotion a person has had and every thought and emotion a person could ever have.

On the other hand, we might propose a human mind that works in some mysterious way not limited by the physical substrate of the brain and CNS. Because we don't have any information about how such a mind might work, there is nothing much that can be said about that possibility.

Could a supernatural human mind have states a supernatural God couldn't imagine or know? Who could answer such a question? Insufficient data.

If the infinite cycles of the Hindu multiverse is the most accurate cosmological model, then there are multiple beings with infinite lifespans and existence across infinite universes. Omniscience doesn't seem a logical possibility in such a cosmos.

But getting back at the OP statement. If there is no God, there would not be things that are 'bad'. Let me explain. If God didn't exist the things we perceive as bad are completely formed by our environment. This also means what we see as 'bad' differs from person to person. Some may argue that the things you call 'bad' are actually 'good'. This means there is no such thing as good or bad if there was no God. It are only things you perceive as being bad and will change based on your emotions, environment and a whole lot of other factors. And this also means you that as an atheist you can't lash out at the Christian God. Because if there is no God there is no such thing as cruelty, or bad things happening. Rather this is how you perceive it. And your perception is of no worth if you don't believe in God because it will be gone if you are dead. And if it for some reason passes on it won't matter neither since you won't be there because you are dead. Can someone tell me what a human life is worth if there were no God?

No. No. No.

That's a terrible argument. It comes down to "things are only bad because God says so."
Infanticide? Good if God says so, bad if God says no.

Also you get this weird consequence of thinking good=compliant. I heard this lady on the radio who was just fine with sexually assaulting kids using objects of various kinds, because it wasn't proscribed in the Bible. Two gay man making out though? Stone 'em to death. It's good because God says so. All you have to do is comply and you are a good person, no matter how nasty your actions and how much suffering you cause.

Sounds immoral at best, or even evil to me.

A utilitarian morality that seeks to minimize suffering ends up with all sorts of things being defined as good or bad because of the impact they have. You can take a few basic axioms and build a complex ethical system based on first principles, rather than arbitrary "will of god" statements.

Also, when you reject your own god-given faculty for moral reasoning and go into absolute unthinking obedience to God mode, you have the problem of knowing which version of God to obey. What's the authoritative source for information about what God defines as good and evil?

Do you trust and obey the Koran? The Torah? The Bible? The Noble 8 fold path? The guy who sleeps in the bushes behind the Metropolitan museum who is in constant dialog with a God only he can hear?

Having a book that says "you can trust me because I say so" is not very compelling.

Take a few basic principles:
Human life is immeasurably valuable. Inflicting suffering is bad. Alleviating suffering is good. Promoting misery is bad. Creating joy is good.
Build from there.

You'll end up with a large and complicated ethical system and set of laws. You don't need God for this.

Human is life valuable? You can compare this to gold. The reason gold has worth is because we decided to give it worth, right? But does gold actually have worth without humans? No. Because without humans gold would have no purpose, right? It would just be laying there doing nothing. The only reason human life has worth is because God gave it worth. If there was no God who said you are worth something people come up with their own ideas about how much a human life is worth. And how much it's worth differs from person to person. And nobody would be right or wrong, since what everyone accepts as right or wrong is based on it's own perspective meaning nothing is necessarily right or wrong, am I right? A famous example is Stalin, why are the things he did wrong? Well in his own eyes they aren't necessarily wrong. In my and your eyes he propably is. But who is right in the end? Who decides you and me are right, and he is wrong?

As for your basic principles you can just throw them right out of the window. Nobody does these things, not even you. And you are now trying to say that's how people should life. Funny, because these things are exactly the things Jesus said we should do. Yet, we don't do them. Why? Well that's a whole different story

Why do you say that?

Do you need to believe in a deity to know that forcing others to do your will is wrong?

And so what if this where true? If you unsupported assertion where true, that does not prove that a deity exist, it would just show that you would want one to exist.

It indeed doesn't prove that such deity exists. God already proves himself by His creation. And according to God that already leaves you with no excuse. God’s amazing creation becomes more and more impressive as we learn more about it.

(Atheistic approach) 'Bad' is a concept of the human mind. It's not absolute since the things we perceive as bad differ from person to person. Not only this, it is highly situational. 'If there was really a God, bad things wouldn't happen', is a contradiction since there is no absolute thing that is 'bad'. Rather you should rephrase it to. 'Personally I think if there were a God, the things I perceive as bad wouldn't happen'. But then again the things you perceive as bad don't necessarily mean they are 'bad'. And I don't see how your perception of 'bad' apply to the existence of a God. So if I'm not mistaking, if God doesn't fit your perception of what a God should be therefore no such thing as God exists? No, that only means what you think what a God should be doesn't exist not the existence of God as a whole. We are crossing different territory here.

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are not purposefully lying about atheist positions on morality.

Believe it or not but I am a philosophy major in epistemology and ethics and I do believe in objective morality provided that we start from basic human empathy.

Also, I do not care if your book says that you should believe in your deity because of his creation, looking around how many cultures do you see that believed in your religion before it was brought to them?

Basic human empathy is limited. Since people only naturally do good when it doesn't require real sacrifice. Your opinion about this?

As for the whole atheistic point of view on morality. I wasn't implying that's what atheist's though about morality rather questioning wether morality is really a thing when there is no God. Because morality would be a human concept and the problem with this is that a human concept isn't objective but subjective. So this means there can not be an absolute 'right' or 'wrong'. Always when I take this what I call 'atheistic approach' ,I always get stuck in a paradox. Which makes everything feel so meaningless. Then again thats just subjective.

Divine command theory seems totally immoral to me.

Every evil thing is good if God says it is. No, that just can't be right, in any sense.

A good read on this:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/divine-c/

And what do you see as evil?

Quite a few things. Murder. Torture. Cruelty. Sadism. It's actually based in the principles you rubbished earlier, while noting that they were wholly compatible with Christian ethics.