The Evil God Challenge

Post Reply New Topic

Good points here. "Good" and "evil" are relative to what kind of being you are. For example, if you are a mouse, then cats are evil, but not if you're a human with a pet cat.

I disagree with your example. Your moral judgement shouldn't depend on how something affects you personally. It would be stupid to argue: "Violence against women, hate crimes against muslims - I have no problem with that! I am neither a woman or a muslim. That fellow bought me a beer. I think he's a nice guy!" And most people oppose cruelty against animals and think that is evil.

Unfortunately a lot of people do reason like that. There are always categories of people that are deemed by large numbers of people to subhuman and okay to be thrown under the bus.

A more universal sense of human rights can be based on the principle expressed in the famous Niemoller quote. Essentially, it is in the best interests of all of us for human society as a whole to have a universal sense of human rights.


Yes, but most people do not believe that non-human animals should have the same rights as humans. The interests of humans are always more important when push comes to shove.

Most people do not have much empathy for cockroaches, for example (beyond being wary of a person who deliberately tortures them).

Not many people are Jainists.

I think that we have a good God. I look at the world and see beauty still in the world, like little children, animals, nature and the sea. I see the children and know that there is beauty in the world and it is God who has created this. I think that he created all humans to.
As humans we were given the world to take care of it and animals to, but haven’t taken care of it properly. Things are planned to come to an end all suffering at end times at the Second Coming of Christ I believe when there will be no more suffering in the world. God may be does not intervene like in the days of the 40 years war anymore, but he can still help with peoples personal life if it is in his will and timing.
I believe that there is evil in the world as people make bad choices and also because of evil from demons like fallen angels who actually do evil and God spends time trying to uproot beings like fallen angels.

I don't really see how beauty requires a good creator.

Are we to operate under the assumption that what is beautiful must consequently be good?

Is a demiurge required to either be good or to create ugly things?

I often see these sorts of leaps of logic made by believers, but rarely encounter any supporting arguments so I'm hoping you can explain it in more detail instead the handwave that believers often employ.

A bad world is seen as a fallen world. You need to look around to discern that here if is all things in it are evil and bad in this world. Around COVID I was thinking what is going on in the world and children were passing primary age very young. I looked at them and they was laughing and pure in the heart and you could tell that goodness was still in the world from children. Beauty does not mean somebody looking good but pure in the heart where a person is concerned here. Also, much of it like nature can be described as good intentioned and wonderful to that came from someone with a good mind.

I was thinking may be some of you i don't know where you live. Where I live though if someone does not work they can get benefits relatively easily and also free hospital treatment to. May be some people have harsher lives than others in different parts of the world that make the world seem harder to live and the world seem more difficult.

The proper way to deal with how God is to a believer is through the information from the religion. Skipping to that step is bypassing the strong arguments for an existence of a God and critical evaluation of revelation to determine what is true and accurate. As God is outside of time and space, as well as the ability of humans to fully comprehend, the only real information that we can have about God is what God has chosen to tell us. If you're interested in earlier steps, I find this book interesting: The divine reality.

All religious books are written by humans. These writers clame divine inspiration but if "God is outside of time and space, as well as the ability of humans to fully comprehend" these books doesn't bear much weight. And I find it odd to believe that God could create the world but found it too hard to write a book.

That's a bold claim on the books. You've read them all and proven that?

Its possible to have enough understanding of a concept without fully understanding it. Like saying God is the most just. We have an understanding of justice, but not to the full degree that it applies to God. Or we can say God is all hearing. We know what hearing is, and from descriptions we can have a better understanding of what all hearing is, ex: God can hear everything, everywhere no matter how quiet or loud. Although we don't experience hearing that way, we can understand through the description.

Are you suggesting that religious books were written by something other than humans?

If that's what you're claiming, that's the truly bold claim.

Fallen implies the world is somehow less perfect than it once was, which seems at odds with everything we've been able to learn about the world in earlier times.

If the world has always been imperfect, it's not fallen, it's operating as expected.
If the world was once perfect we have no evidence for it having been that way. Believing this to be the case on faith alone doesn't make it true.

Its a bold claim to make broad sweeping and absolute claims about a lot of things. Stating that every religious book is written by man is an example. There are a lot of them, and many have been lost to time. Many religious books are written by man but some are not, and there are ways to evaluate them. Its also covered in the book I sent. I know that sounds like a strange claim to an atheist, but being an atheist itself is intellectually problematic.

In the context I was writing about people being less obedient to God may lead to more difficult things happening which wouldn't be the fault of God. God tells us not to murder..but people do and things like this growth in murder my faith sees this behaviour as being part of a fallen world sinful behaviour and not the fault of God.

I understand that; I'm pointing out that obedience to any gods hasn't actually appeared to alter the human experience of the world in any meaningful way so your premise that the world has fallen at some point appears to be false.

Humans are going to behave like humans, but no supernatural explanations are needed for that.

A case can be made for no god, a case can be made for a disinterested and/or uninvolved god, but the case for an involved god that is all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing and all-present doesn't seem to hold water. At the end of the day, apologetics for such a god is bound to fail and that belief is left standing on faith and presupposition alone.

I accept that faith and presupposition are enough to support many people's faith, but that doesn't make what they have faith in true even if they're deeply invested in it being true.

I mean, if you've got evidence of books being written by things other than people and chatbots, I'd love to see it.

Stating that every book was written by man is only as problematic as saying the daytime sky on a sunny day is blue.

You're welcome to believe otherwise.
You're welcome to insist otherwise.
But you're incapable of proving otherwise.

I already sent you the arguments that are available in a book. You can check it out if you want, or not.