OUR FEATURED MEMBER ARTICLE: The Evidential Problem of Evil by Jin Roh

[Trout]

Jin Roh

The Evidential Problem of Evil

God and the Problem of Definitions

What are the stronger forms of the problem of evil placed before the theist? The logical problem is indeed dead and deservedly laid to rest. The evidential problem is different. Like Voltaire, we recoil at moral evils and ask if it is really likely whether or not God exists at all. Rowe has one specific approach to the argument: he asks, in effect, how is it possible that a supremely powerful and a supremely good God can co-exist with all kinds of evil? His answer is that that it is not likely that God would exist at all. His argument depends on “restricted theism” as opposed to “expanded theism,” advocated by any world religion. I contend that it is inappropriate for Christians to respond to the problem of evil in terms of “restricted theism.” Additionally, expanded Christian theology, specifically that of Jurgen Moltmann, dramatically changes the question of God’s relationship to moral evil (the evil caused by human activity) as well as weakens many of Rowe’s points. For the sake of brevity, I will limit my responses to suffering under moral evil only.
Rowe’s Restricted Theism

Rowe frames his argument with a clear question: “[other] grounds for belief in God aside, do the evils in our world make atheistic belief more reasonable than theistic belief? ” In other words, Rowe wants to (and correctly, I think) deal with the problem of evil by itself, rather than wandering off into peripheral arguments. Given no arguments or issues at all, the probability of God’s existence is 0.5. Given evil, the probability is lower. Certainly, other arguments could shift the odds in favor of theism, but these are arguments placed aside while dealing with evil.

Rowe continues to frame his argument within “restricted theism.” He contrasts this with “expanded theism.” This framework, he explains, is used to avoid confusion of what he means by the term “theism”:
Theism is the view that there exists an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good being (God). We can call this view restricted theism. It is restricted in that it does not include any claim that is not entailed by it. So, theism itself does not include any of the following claims: God delivered the ten commandments to Moses, Jesus was the incarnation of God, Muhammad ascended into heaven. These are claims made in specific theistic religions; thus they are expanded theism.

Rowe does this for two reasons. First, he wants to set up the argument in the most generous way possible. With restricted theism in mind, theism is more likely because it does not depend on the truthfulness of many of the claims of expanded theism. Secondly, he wishes to make clear the terms of a fair response: “philosophers who wish to defend theism ought not to suppose that the assumption of theism entitles them to assume any of the special claims associated with their own particular theistic religion.” I will argue later why these terms are not fair.

Rowe’s Argument

Rowe presents his argument very simply with three propositions:

(1) There exist horrendous evils that all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good being would have no justifying reason to permit.
(2) An all-powerful, all knowing, perfectly good being would not permit an evil unless he had a justifying reason to permit it. Therefore,
(3) God does not exist.

Rowe then explains the conditions in which a theist may respond to this argument. No one, whether non-theist or theist, denies (2). Most theists will attempt to refute (1). In arguing such, Rowe very quickly places the burden of proof on the theist. He sharpens his argument with vivid examples of evil. We can all imagine Rowe’s example of a brutally raped and murdered girl. Rowe wants us to wonder how God can co-exist with this. What great goods demand that God permit these kinds of things to accomplish them?

The majority of Rowe’s argument is an evaluation of responses to the evidential argument. His initial argument depends primarily on God’s all-loving characteristic and God’s all-powerful characteristic. In reply, the theist appeals to the third “omni”: God’s all-knowing and infinitely surpassing intellect. The argument says, “Given that God’s mind infinitely transcends ours, is it really at all likely that the goods for the sake of which he permits much horrendous suffering will be goods we comprehend?” God, like a good parent, permits his children to suffer a painful , but necessary, surgery. The child does not and cannot completely understand why. Yes, we do not know the reasons (I will call these “noseeum” reasons), but it seems likely given, God’s all-knowing characteristic and his all-loving characteristic, that they are there.

Rowe finds this very unconvincing for several reasons. First, he finds noseeum reasons problematic, perhaps even offensive. If we don’t know those reasons, then they cannot be included in our evaluation of “rationality.” Secondly, he judges the good parent analogy unsatisfactory. Certainly, a good parent will allow a child to suffer a painful surgery, but only after exhausting every other option. For an all powerful being, there is no such thing as exhausting every other option. “The theistic God has unlimited power and knowledge,” Rowe writes. Therefore, there is simply no such “necessary evils.” Finally, even if there is some necessary evil for the theistic God, this God would comfort his children in times of this great suffering. God’s children would experience special assurances of love and concern. This is not the picture that Rowe sees:
But since countless numbers of human beings undergo prolonged, horrendous suffering without being consciously aware of God’s presence or any specials assurance of his love and comfort, we can reasonably infer either that God does not exist or that the good parent analogy is unable to help us understand why God permits all the horrendous suffering.
Rowe’s belief that “God,” if he exists, is apparently unsympathetic towards his creation cannot be emphasized enough.

Rowe’s argument is best summed up into these steps. (1) We should define “God” as the supremely powerful, loving, and knowing being with nothing else added to it. (2) It seems unlikely that God would exist given the amount of evil he apparently permits. (3) God could have justifying reasons for evil, but these are irrational noseeum reasons, and (4) the “good parent analogy” is insufficient due to God’s infinite resources and apparent indifference. I will now begin my response to Rowe.
Rowe’s Wrong God

The lynch-pin of Rowe’s argument is “restricted theism.” Is it appropriate or even possible for Christians to respond in terms of “restricted theism”? It is certainly possible, but I think it is a mistake for Christian philosophers to do so. Rowe, and presumably many Christians with him, believes that this is the central definition of God shared by all three of the great monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). To argue against this definition of God is to argue against God in any expanded, robust, theology. I disagree and think that Rowe sets up something very close to a straw man in doing so.

Strawmen are results of misunderstanding definitions, so one should be clear about the definition of “God” in Christianity. An ancient Christian concept is “the law of praying is the law of believing.” Thus, a church service in any traditional, liturgical, setting might give someone a clue to what sort of God Christians believe in. When in such a church service, people do not say “we believe in the three omnis” and then go home. Instead, one of the famous creeds might be recited –such as the Apostle’s, Nicene, or Athanasian Creed.

Emphasized, often to the point of repetitiveness, is the idea the Jesus is the human incarnation of God. Jesus Christ is both God and human. This is something that Rowe excludes explicitly. The Athanasian Creed states, “what the Father is the Son is” and the Nicene creed states that Jesus is “one in being with Father.” St. Athanasius himself made clear how close the connection between “Word of Wisdom” (Jesus Christ) and “God” must be understood:
When, then, the minds of men had fallen finally to the level of sensible things, the Word submitted to appear in a body, in order that He, as Man, might centre their senses on Himself, and convince them through His human acts that He Himself is not man only but also God, the Word of Wisdom of the true God.
For Christians, whatever can be said about the human being Jesus, can also be said about God. It is not enough to state that Jesus is God’s fleshy avatar, God’s human puppet, or the first literal child born from God. Christians must believe that Jesus is God. Rowe fails to understand the implications of asking Christians to suspend this creedal belief. In doing so, he asks Christians to caricature their own position. Christians do believe in the three omnis, but if “God” is reduced to those three things and nothing else, it is not the God that Christians recognize.

Another critical point of understanding is the Trinity. Christians normally accept this concept as beyond the scope of human understanding, which is why it is notoriously difficult to talk about. This doctrine means that Christian believe, as the old hymn puts it, God in three persons. God is often referred to as “The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.” This should strike people as strange. Skeptics often wonder if Christians are really monotheists, after all is it one or three?
The best way to explain this is to say that “three persons” and “one God” are two different referents. The former refers to distinctions in God and the later refers to unity. This is something like describing a cube’s (the unity) length, width, and height (the distinctions). However, any analogy feels vulgar, and I must reiterate that the Trinity is properly called a mystery, an aspect of God that goes well beyond human understanding.
The phrase “Jesus is God” is best understood in this context. Jesus is as divine as the Father and the Holy Spirit, but is distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit. He is not the same is person as the Father or the Holy Spirit. Thus, there are relations in the Trinity. This is important to note, because the God-the-Son (Jesus) interacts with God-the-Father in a way that analogous to human relationships. How this happens becomes clearer later in this paper.
Passus Sub Pontio Pilato

The Incarnation and Trinity have serious implications for the problem of evil. Much of the problem of evil assumes that God passively watches suffering, but is untouched by it and cannot experience it as we do. Yet given the incarnation, we find that God suffers horrendous evil via the crucifixion. If Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate, than God suffered under Pontius Pilate. God became a victim. There is indeed great suffering in world history, but God is not detached from it. “God brought suffering history into his own history.” Thus God cannot be understood (as the restricted theism might lead us to believe) as aloof and dwelling where suffering cannot touch him.

One can even go further: through the distinctions and relations of the Trinity, God-the-Son suffers an abandonment from God-the-Father. Jesus’ last words were “my God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Moltmann explains, “we shall never be able to get used to the fact that at the centre of the Christian faith there is this cry of the God-forsaken Christ for God .” As mysterious and unexpected as this is, it illustrates God’s intimate connection with any of those who suffer moral evil:

At the centre [of Christianity] is the experience of God of the God-forsaken Christ…The passionately loving Christ, the persecuted Christ, the lonely Christ, the tortured Christ, the Christ who suffers under God’s silence –this is our brother, the friend to whom we can entrust everything because he knows everything and has suffered everything that can happen to us.
In short, because of the incarnation and the crucifixion, God not only willingly experiences suffering, but suffers under moral evil with his creation. A God who suffers cannot be understood within restricted theism, for this goes far beyond the three omnis, but this is the God of Christianity. Because of this, the entire argument of God and the problem of evil must be reframed.
Signs of Noseeum

Recall Rowe’s initial argument. Rowe argued that most theists hold that “God has a justifying reason for permitting each and every horrendous evil.” Theists appeal to God’s omniscience in order to argue that those justifying reasons may exist, but are so far beyond us that we do not know them. Rowe rejects this because an omnipotent God never runs out of resources, and an all loving God would surely give us some kind of sign of comfort if that were the case.

What a theist needs to show is that there may be an unknown necessity of evil to achieve greater goods that God could not have accomplished any other way. The theist can never point to a specific noseeum reason, but can at least find ways to show that they are probable. This is similar to how an Astronomer may never see a planet outside our solar system, but can observe stars that seem to be affected by the gravity of an orbiting object. First, we should get clear about the kind of evils we see. Rowe submits two things (raped girl and a burned deer) as examples of the phenomena of evil in this world. Further examples could provide us with a list. Now given robust Christian Theology, we add something to the list of evils: the crucifixion and suffering of God. If God himself took upon suffering, would he not have incredibly good, though perhaps incomprehensible, reasons for permitting the moral evil that caused it?

This presents a much stronger version of the good parent analogy; one that implies a necessity of evil. Instead of the analogy of a child undergoing an incomprehensibly painful surgery and the parent permitting it, we now have both the child and the parent undergoing the painful surgery. It is now as if the parent undergoes surgery, without anesthesia, to remove a kidney for the child, and then nearly dies in the process. The parent will go through such great lengths only when there is no other option. So it is with God. An omnipotent being would not have suffered evil unless there was no other way, thus evil must be kind of noseeum necessity for God’s good.

But what about the parent comforting the child? Rowe stresses this point more than once. Because there are so many people who suffer without a sense of God’s presence, Rowe writes, “I suggested that we have further reason to doubt God’s existence.” The theist, in his view, can only reply that there are still further noseeum reasons for God not being consciously present to everyone.

Rowe is not acknowledging the many people who do feel a sense of God’s solidarity and presence in times of great suffering. Moltmann vividly describes the horrendous evil that he suffered as a German soldier during the Second World War:
I look back to July 1943, when I lay under the hail of bombs that rained down on my home town of Hamburg, annihilating 80,000 people in a storm of fire. In what seemed like a miracle, I lived, and I still don’t know today why I am not dead too, like my companions…My question was: My God, where are you? Where is God?

It was these experiences that launched Moltmann’s theology. It was not until he was a prisoner of war and after suffering a deep depression, that he converted to Christianity. It was on upon these experiences that he later reflected later:
People who believe in a God who suffers with us, recognize their suffering in God, and God in their suffering, and in companionship with him find strength to remain in love and not become bitter, in spite of pain and sorrow.

This kind of memoir is not unique to one German theologian. Examples abound in the lives of Catholic saints, Anabaptist martyrs, imprisoned Chinese Christians, and South American priests. Rowe is correct in pointing out that this kind of feeling is not universal, but these examples do serve to weaken his point. Theists need not necessarily be on the defensive on this point. In raising the “no comfort” objection, Rowe and others should also explain the instances in which comfort is given. Surely, we should not expect people to feel closer to God after suffering moral evil if Rowe is right. Rather, we would expect people like this, who a far better acquainted with moral evil than anyone should wish to be, to support his claim.

My response to Rowe is summarized in three points. First, Christians cannot respond to the problem of evil on the basis of restricted theism, for this is not accurate and complete picture of the Christian God. Whatever can be said on those terms can only be said about some other hypothetical deity. Secondly, given robust Christian theology, the question of evil is no longer “why does an all powerful all loving ‘god’ allow such horrible evil to happen in his creation?” but rather “why did an all powerful all loving God endure such horrible evil with his creation?” With the second question in mind, noseeum reasons seem much more likely, and (in contrast to Rowe’s objection) God does provide reassurances and consolation to those who suffer.
Objections

One of the strongest objections a non-theist could raise might be worded this way: “You have done a good job in pointing out the unintended straw man of restricted theism. Yet, does not your argument depend on an equally contentious point, namely, God suffering? Your own theological tradition has long held that God does not suffer. Is it not more accurate to say the human nature of Jesus suffered, but not the divine nature which remains impassible, in other words, unable to suffer?” I reply that even though the traditions of Aquinas and Anselm hold that God cannot suffer, I must defer to Moltmann and Luther. I will argue from tradition to defend this move.

The early Christians had to oppose a standing tradition in regard to the Incarnation. Is it really true that the divinity could take the form of matter? The habitual thinking of the time held that this was a horrible confusion of category. Divine things, by definition, are never material things according to Hellenistic thought. Yet Christians felt they needed to assert incarnation –even if it is foolishness to the Greeks. To this end, they said that Mary was “theotokos” –the bearer of God. This was strange, but it follows logically. Christ was born. Christ is God. Therefore God was born. Why then do Christians (of any stripe) try to preserve God’s impassibility? If it is correct to say “Mary; the mother God” because Jesus was born, than it seems equally accurate to say, “God suffered” because Jesus suffered –regardless of how controversial this may be.

Objectors may insist that I am being far too flippant with long standing dogma. After all, part of the idea of impassibility is to preserve omnipotence. The Christian God is supposed to be all-powerful. Now I assert that he suffers at the hands of his enemies –who he created. Have I not lost omnipotence? Surely, the creator and sustainer of the universe cannot be beaten or harmed by the termites of his creation.

Marilyn McCord Adams has an interesting response. She carefully examines and divides out many different views about God’s omni’s. One view, from Rolt, affirms omnipotence in a nuanced way. He states that God can conquer evil by absorption rather than imperviousness. God is so infinitely powerful, that he can suffer evil without losing integrity. So it is not that God is immune to harm or is feels it as deeply as we do, but that all the horrendous evil that humans can heap onto God will never diminish him. Adams seems to affirm this view. Yet at the same time, Adams also judges that God does possess the ability to create something out of nothing and annihilate anything that exists. God need not use this power to annihilate. Having it is enough to be omnipotent.

Another strong objection might be that if God truly feels the pain of humanity, would not that motivate him to end it by his great omnipotence? Simply put, why is pain continuing to persist? I believe that there are several lines of response to this objection. First, no defense on this issue has ever claimed that God is not motivated already. If he was not, he would not be all loving. The defense I am presenting is that the noseeum reasons for God’s co-existence with moral and evil is far more likely to be present if God took suffering on himself. Secondly, God’s all loving characteristic may restrain his omnipotence. God could smite every last torturer, rapists and murder, but God’s infinite love may prevent him from doing so. Such a smiting may cause an uprooting of the wheat with the tares. Finally, Christianity may recognize that suffering and pain exist now, but not believe that it is permanent, essential, aspect of the human condition. Besides the Creedal statements about Jesus, the Christian Creeds all contain an affirmation of the perfect world to come.

I must now move on to the more powerful objection –the lack of a sense of comfort from God. Even if there are examples of many people experiencing God’s comfort, why not everyone? This is indeed an interesting question. Consider Jurgen Moltmann and Jean Paul Sartre. Both were influenced by Hegel and similar German thinkers. Both experienced the violent and horrific epicenter of World War II. Moltmann was a German soldier imprisoned by the Scottish. Sartre was a French soldier imprisoned by the Germans. Their very similar experiences profoundly affected their later thought. Why then did one become a deeply committed Christian, and the other an atheist’s atheist? The problem of moral evil is now shifting towards a problem of hiddeness.

This problem of divine hiddeness goes well beyond the scope of the paper, but I can give two possibilities that could be worked out further. First, experiencing the Christian God’s comfort necessitates a conversion, and conversions involve a subjective human response. Innumerable psychological and sociological aspects will either encourage or impede a conversion. So what makes a Sartre or a Moltmann involves much more than suffering and God’s existence. There can be no universal explanation of why one person may experience God and another does not. This objection can only be really approached on the subjective, existential, level.

Secondly, divine hiddeness could also be explained by noseeum reasons. While it appears that I am playing into Rowe’s hands, a similar argument against the divine hiddeness problem could be fleshed out within Christian tradition. Recall the last words of Jesus that were mentioned earlier, “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?” With an understanding of Incarnation and the Trinity, Christians can reply that God too, understands and undergoes human loneliness and distance from God. For God-the-Son feels a great distance from God-the Father. This would give us signs of noseeum reasons for divine hiddeness in the same way we see signs of noseeum reasons for moral evil and suffering.
Conclusion

In this paper I have argued for two main things. First, I have argued that those who believe in the “expanded theism” of Christianity should not be expected to shrug off their creedal commitments when dealing with the God and the problem of evil. Rowe, while being generous and doing so in good will, still expects theists to re-define their own God when in philosophical court. Secondly, the evidential problem of evil must be reframed in light of the Christian. Any apologist or detractor must deal with the suffering God among the list of evils and suffering. This fact weakens many or Rowe’s arguments and strengthens the objections against the evidential argument. However this line of reasoning leads us beyond the evidential problem and into the problem of hiddeness. Such a discussion requires another paper in itself.



Works Cited
Adams, Marilyn McCord. Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God. London: Cornell University Press, 1999.
Athanasius. On the Incarnation. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1996.
Jaeger, John David. "Jurgen Moltmann and the Problem of Evil." The Asbury Theological Journal, 1998: 5-14.
Moltmann, Jurgen. Jesus Christ for Today's World. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994.
Rowe, William L. "An Exchange on the Problem of Evil." In God and the Problem of Evil, by William L. Rowe, 124-158. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2001.

[Mattmulligan]

The problem of evil is not ruly a problem in the sense that it only exists within human psyche. And in the case of a theist what we may consider as evil God may consider as good in some way, we canno clearly define what is mean by good and evil.

[freeksngeeks]

Given no arguments or issues at all, the probability of God’s existence is 0.5.

I disagree. The probability that an all-knowing, all-powerful being exists, and that that being has always existed is so fantastic that the probability of it being true approached zero.

You might as well say the same about fairies and Santa Claus.

[Religion=Cult+]

Given no arguments or issues at all, the probability of God’s existence is 0.5.

I disagree. The probability that an all-knowing, all-powerful being exists, and that that being has always existed is so fantastic that the probability of it being true approached zero.

You might as well say the same about fairies and Santa Claus.

Exactly; or zombies, the Easter Bunny, and the Irish Bloody Bones Bogeyman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Bones. :lol:

[tomsawyer25]

That's an excellent essay. I have a few thoughts on the subject of divine hiddeness that you mentioned at the end. I have heard this frustration from my brother, who is an atheist. He seems to sincerely demand that God, if He exists, ought to make himself known clearly to us. Like perhaps a sign by the side of the road. My response is generally along the lines of -- Perhpas God already has. Please keep your eyes out.

There really is something relational going on in how much we can "see" God. Afterall, doesn't some part of divine hiddeness relate to our own love of the carnal and our own depravity? Wouldn't we be much more aware of the signs, so to speak, if we were not focused on ourselves? There could also be a purposeful level to divine hiddeness also. Afterall, as a people who have at some times known God, we can tend to take His existence, His care and His blessings for granted. Hiddeness, in a sense, demands that we are not so selfish. That we honestly seek God and yearn for Him. Therefore, how can we complain that God is "absent", when it is really our own hearts which are?

[tomsawyer25]

Exactly; or zombies, the Easter Bunny, and the Irish Bloody Bones Bogeyman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Bones. :lol:

Do you really believe that? Isn't it equally as odd to believe that everything came from nothing? Show me a person who really believes that everything came from nothing and they seem just as odd in my eyes as someone who believes in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. What makes that belief rational, afterall?

[Religion=Cult+]

Do you really believe that? Isn't it equally as odd to believe that everything came from nothing? Show me a person who really believes that everything came from nothing and they seem just as odd in my eyes as someone who believes in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. What makes that belief rational, afterall?

I know some here will flame me, accusing me of utter ignorance. I'm used to it now; but again, how do you explain God's existence? Because the Bible says so? What about the Koran? That he must be the uncaused "first cause." That's as irrational as saying that at some point approximately 15 billion years ago, all the matter and energy in the universe existed in one point, and a tremendous explosion, the Big Bang, caused the beginning of the universe. To say God caused the Big Bang is as irrational as saying that it just happened. WE DON"T KNOW HOW IT HAPPENED. Perhaps some day we will know, and the mystery will be solved. It is simply my position that we don't know, and the Christian God is a poor answer to the question.

What existed prior to the Big Bang is a completely unknown and a matter of utter speculation. I'm very willing to concede that it's possible that some higher power caused the universe, I just think the evidence for a Christian God unreliable at best, and completely loopy at worst.

[freeksngeeks]

Do you really believe that? Isn't it equally as odd to believe that everything came from nothing? Show me a person who really believes that everything came from nothing and they seem just as odd in my eyes as someone who believes in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. What makes that belief rational, afterall?

This is an example of the excluded middle. Just because we do not believe in the Christian god, and in an unlikely story about original sin and a god sending his son to be murdered so as to appease himself does not mean we believe that we know how "we" all happened.

We just do not accept your explanation. It's just too fantastic to believe.

[Jin-Roh]

Given no arguments or issues at all, the probability of God’s existence is 0.5.

I disagree. The probability that an all-knowing, all-powerful being exists, and that that being has always existed is so fantastic that the probability of it being true approached zero.

You might as well say the same about fairies and Santa Claus.

Talk about missing the point. This hardly deserves a reply, but I think you missed the "Given no arguments or issues at all" clause in the sentence.

[freeksngeeks]

Talk about missing the point. This hardly deserves a reply, but I think you missed the "Given no arguments or issues at all" clause in the sentence.

Well that's just nonsense! Cloaking the claim in a shroud of caveats makes the claim a nonsense.

[tomsawyer25]

This is an example of the excluded middle. Just because we do not believe in the Christian god, and in an unlikely story about original sin and a god sending his son to be murdered so as to appease himself does not mean we believe that we know how "we" all happened.

We just do not accept your explanation. It's just too fantastic to believe.

Thanks for your reply. Well, it's hard to speak of a "middle" as you call it since you haven't made clear what you believe and why. Nor does every subject really have a middle. As far as the evidence goes, even beyond any acceptance of scripture, I find that a Creator who cares for His creation is far more supported than a non-existant or uncaring one, which I find, as you say, "fantastic".

As far as sin coming into the word, do you deny that sin exists? Why? I find that most people who do deny that sin exists end up explaining something very similar using different words. So what we are left with is that either a) God made mistakes in His creation, b) sin isn't really bad at all or c) we bring sin into creation through out choice and that sin is ongoing.

Loosely speaking, it is option "c" which is something like original sin. I believe in c) and find options a) and b) bordering on ridiculous. A) and b) would force me to accept an incompetant creator or to accept the grandest amoral philosophy and also an uncaring creator. Do you really think that the first two options are superior to the third? Why?

As far as God dwelling among us, walking the walk and paying the price, understanding this demands some acceptance of revealed scripture. This I accept and you don't. However, it is not about God needing regular portions of blood. God sent His Son to dwell among us, and indeed to be murdered, because his is just, as well as because He has an enduring love for us. He gave His whole life. Which is what we should be doing. If a believer can not look at the cross and see himself, He is missing a big part of the point.

Besides, if God does not demand a price for sin, how is God good or just? Or do you believe God is amoral or unjust? You say that God was "appeasing" Himself. Alright. Well, doesn't justice need to be "appeased"? What other option is there? How does sinful humanity go to a holy God?

And I remind you again, that this is not a situation of God needing some particular quantity of blood. What came out of the death and resurrection included millions of people being brought to peace and intimacy with God. Millions of people who in experiencing this came to know the law of God. There is a multifold phenomenon going on here. I wouldn't categorize it too quickly according to one aspect.

One way that I see things, and this does require a regard for the Bible, is that God asks basically two things: the living sacrifice (our obedience to Him) and the blood of the lamb (an offering made to attone for our sin). What is interesting to me, is the Jesus, as the perfect living sacrifice, becomes the blood of the lamb. Obedience becomes the attoning sacrifice. They become merged. That's just one way of looking at things, but I think it has value.

As for myself, I can take a look at the world around me, as well as some things within me, and I know we need the blood of the lamb. Writing a check to charity and saying "I'm sorry" really isn't going to cut it. If there is peace between God and man it is through a far more profound method.

So anyway, what do you believe and why? What evidences support your belief? I strongly believe the evidence supports Biblical truth and would tell you why. What supports your belief?

Shalom

Tom

[freeksngeeks]

Tom

There are so many unsupported assertions and assumptions in your reply that I don't know where or how to start. I also suspect that the divide between us is so vast that we will never reconcile our separate views.

I know that I do not believe in the existence of a god, any god. Nothing I have heard or seen or experienced convinces me that there is a god. Do I know how we came to exist without some intervention? No. But that doesn't mean that we won't find out someday, and it doesn't mean that there was an intervention.

It also doesn't mean that I claim that there is no god, only that I don't have a belief that there is a god. In that sense I don't need any evidence because I am not making a positive claim.

Do I believe sin exists? I know that as human beings we have weaknesses and that we do don't always do the right thing. I don't call that "sin." I call that "not doing the right thing." Since I do not believe in a god I certainly do not believe I need to atone to a being for my transgressions. If necessary, I need to deal with people I have hurt, or live with my conscience, or have to answer to a court of law. I certainly find the concept of "original sin" bizarre and completely incredible.

So rather that needing support for my beliefs, rather I don't accept your evidence for yours.

Let me say finally that I find the christian god in particular to be so incredible that I can say that, more than just lacking belief in him, I strongly believe he doesn't exist. The whole concept of an interventionist god, who needed to sacrifice a human projection of himself as atonement for the sins of two people who never existed as just ridiculous.

[tomsawyer25]

If there are any unsupported claims in my letter then please mention what they are. Most of my piece was giving explanatory models and proposing questions by reason. I believe fairly few actual claims were made. Again, if they are unsupported, then mention them to me.

Perhaps there is a vast divide, and perhaps there isn't. Either way I believe in expaining my beliefs and answering your objections. Also in making objections to your claims. I think you are stepping back by refusing to take a positive position, whereby you can complain about the Biblical and philosophical things I reiterate, without ever having to make positive claims yourself. No offense instended, but I find this cowardly.

If you are "unconvinced" that there is a God, then there are really a limited number of other options. Either no creator or one who is not involved. As far as convincing evidence goes, why does not creation itself provide evidence for you? Is then matter a god? Are "laws" of nature gods?

Regarding an uninvolved creator, there are some problems: One needs some amount of involvement to create to begin with. Also, how does this hypothesis fit with the amount of peace and blessings most of us experience in our lives. Most people have comfort and even pleasure much of the time. Has your life been constant torture? Why?

Furthermore, most of our problems are either mental or manmade. We imagine them or we make them ourselves. Unloving creator? I don't think so. What about the firmly supported benefits of prayer and faith? Prayer and faith are lifegiving. Furthermore, how can our moral sense, our yearning for God and what believers call revelation fit with an uninvolved creator? If we are not built to relate to our Creator, then why these things?

You said "I don't call that sin, I call that not doing the right thing" Now, when I said that most people who deny sin simply expain something very similar with different words, this is precisely what I meant. Sin involves not doing the right thing, as well as the inner tendency to not do the right thing. As well as our choice being involved in doing it. There are several other things as well, but these are three enormous points. It appears to me that you agree with them, and hence you agree that sin exists. If you can agree with these three points, then what do you find "bizarre" about original sin?

As far as "trying" to do better and making things right that we have made wrong, you are again agreeing with the Bible on this. Somehow this uninvolved or nonexistant god that you speak of has done a wonderful job of placing some of his truth within you.

By the way, you did make a positive claim. You said "since I do not belive in a god". So I must ask: Does everything come from nothing?

It seems your comments on sin relate not to disbelieving in sin, but to our need for atonement. I want to first mention, that our need for an offering to come to God is there in the Bible from first to last. Even traditional Judaism, which strongly objects to needing Jesus's sacrifice, and which highly emphasized many and detailed life actions, also accepts that we certainly need an act of God's mercy to go to Him.

There are various angles through which to understand atonement, and if you are open to hearing them, I am happy to make a brief attempt at explaining them. Atonement, recognizes that we deserve punishment for sin, as God is righteous and holy. We could hardly expect peace with God without accepting that we deserve punishment. We can hardly accept intimacy with God if we deny who He is. Many people ask --Can't I make up for sin by writing a check to charity? Well, can a crimnal have all charges dropped if he writes such a check? Neither can we before of holy God. We are still guilty.

Atonement, is simultaniously a substitute for our life, as well as an act of intimacy with God, An act of knowing that we need mercy and an act of knowing better who God is. It seems reasonable to believe that if God is good and holy, that atonement is necessary. Mercy is an act of God and we participate in it. If God is not good or holy, of course, we are answerable to no one. I see no other options.

I don't see that your objection to Adam and Eve's existance really is an argument against atonement. Afterall, if these two primal actors in sin didn't ever exist, then you and I have done the same things ourselves. We all participate in the sin of Adam. All of us do. We are all responsible for that.

Once again, I will state that you are indeed making positive claims. You are claiming that either God does not exist, or that he is ninvolved in His creation. Can you support those claims? What parts of our lives and the natural world fit wither two of those hypothesis? If you find a lot that does not fit those claims, I would become more skeptical of them. If you find things which support the claims I am reiterating, please take those claims more seriously.

God is with you.

Regards,

Tom








Tom

There are so many unsupported assertions and assumptions in your reply that I don't know where or how to start. I also suspect that the divide between us is so vast that we will never reconcile our separate views.

I know that I do not believe in the existence of a god, any god. Nothing I have heard or seen or experienced convinces me that there is a god. Do I know how we came to exist without some intervention? No. But that doesn't mean that we won't find out someday, and it doesn't mean that there was an intervention.

It also doesn't mean that I claim that there is no god, only that I don't have a belief that there is a god. In that sense I don't need any evidence because I am not making a positive claim.

Do I believe sin exists? I know that as human beings we have weaknesses and that we do don't always do the right thing. I don't call that "sin." I call that "not doing the right thing." Since I do not believe in a god I certainly do not believe I need to atone to a being for my transgressions. If necessary, I need to deal with people I have hurt, or live with my conscience, or have to answer to a court of law. I certainly find the concept of "original sin" bizarre and completely incredible.

So rather that needing support for my beliefs, rather I don't accept your evidence for yours.

Let me say finally that I find the christian god in particular to be so incredible that I can say that, more than just lacking belief in him, I strongly believe he doesn't exist. The whole concept of an interventionist god, who needed to sacrifice a human projection of himself as atonement for the sins of two people who never existed as just ridiculous.

[freeksngeeks]

If there are any unsupported claims in my letter then please mention what they are.

1. I find that a Creator who cares for His creation is far more supported than a non-existant or uncaring one.

Even beyond scripture? Where is there any support beyond scripture? Of course, using scripture to support claims for a god is circular reasoning.

2. Loosely speaking, it is option "c" which is something like original sin.

I believe original sin is one of the more ludicrous claims arising from some forms of christianity. It assumes the actual existence of Adam and Eve, it assumes that because they ate of the forbidden fruit they were stained with "sin", and that all of mankind descending from them was marked with this sin. Then, god had to send himself in human form to earth to be murdered so that he would be appeased for all of that sin. Further, some forms of christianity claim that unless I believe in this, I will be tortured for eternity.

Some loving, some god!

3. God sent His Son to dwell among us, and indeed to be murdered, because his is just, as well as because He has an enduring love for us.

You claim this, you believe this, and that is your faith (belief without proof). As above, ludicrous. It is just to murder your son (actually yourself) as a sacrifice to yourself because two people - who never existed - ate forbidden fruit? I don't see how you translate this bizarre cult of death and human/god sacrifice into an enduring love for us. I would run a million miles from that kind of being.

4. And I remind you again, that this is not a situation of God needing some particular quantity of blood.

How do you know this? How can you claim to know the workings of the mind of a god? You can quote "revealed scripture" as much as you like, but there is no evidence that the bible is anything more than the collected works of some bronze-age goat herders. The new testament is mostly anonymous. Nobody knows who really wrote the gospels. Christianity - christ-worship - appears to be mostly the creation of Paul. What you call the bible today was the cobbled together collection of writings determined by human beings in the 4th century.

5. I know we need the blood of the lamb.

No, you don't. You believe this. Another unsupported assertion.

I think you are stepping back by refusing to take a positive position, whereby you can complain about the Biblical and philosophical things I reiterate, without ever having to make positive claims yourself. No offense instended, but I find this cowardly.

Wow! You make some claims, nearly all unsupported by any independent evidence. I say "I don't believe/accept that." That makes me a coward? I would have thought I was merely exercising my powers of reasoning and rational thought.

I believe in lots of things. I believe in the beauty of nature, I believe in the love I feel for familty and friends. I believe in science and what I can detect with my senses and by deductive reasoning. I believe in evolution which is fact as well as theory. If you merely claimed to believe in some god that we have no hope of knowing or understanding, and that this god created the universe, I would find that far less objectionable than your actual beliefs about an interventionist god and sin and sacrifice and heaven and hell.

Regarding an uninvolved creator, there are some problems: One needs some amount of involvement to create to begin with. Also, how does this hypothesis fit with the amount of peace and blessings most of us experience in our lives. Most people have comfort and even pleasure much of the time. Has your life been constant torture? Why?

I have no idea how life came to begin. I believe the theory of evolution explains how life changed over time. In the absence of any evidence, claims about gods needing to be the creator are not credible. There are billions of people on earth who have no peace and blessings. People who live with cold and hunger and disease.

Some of us have comfort and pleasure, sure. How does that become the largesse of a god? So my life has not been torture therefore there is a god? Sorry, that does not follow.

By the way, you did make a positive claim. You said "since I do not belive in a god". So I must ask: Does everything come from nothing?

Excuse me? My lack of belief in a god is not a positive claim. I did not say, nor do I believe, there is not/cannot be a god. I do not believe your claims. See above about my answer to "does everything come from nothing?"

There are various angles through which to understand atonement, and if you are open to hearing them, I am happy to make a brief attempt at explaining them. Atonement, recognizes that we deserve punishment for sin, as God is righteous and holy. We could hardly expect peace with God without accepting that we deserve punishment. We can hardly accept intimacy with God if we deny who He is.

Thanks but no thanks. Sin, original sin, virgin birth, sacrifice, atonement, god is righteous and holy, deserving punishment - all these things are so much like the ancient myths and superstitions of ancient people. There are tremendous parallels between the myths about Jesus and myths about earlier gods and personalities like Horus and Mithras and Buddha. That's all these are - elements of ancients myths. I have no time to waste on them.

We all participate in the sin of Adam. All of us do. We are all responsible for that.

No, we don't. There was no Adam, no Eve, no talking snake. Your god is a jealous god, a vengeful god, an evil god, and therefore not much of a god at all.

You are claiming that either God does not exist, or that he is ninvolved in His creation. Can you support those claims?

I do not claim that god does not exist. I do not believe he does, but I do not claim he doesn't. Therefore I can take no position about his claimed involvement in creation. You can explain about a loving god, involved in the daily lives of all of us, to people who live in squalor and misery and hunger, to children who are raped by bad people, to the 250,000 victims of the tsunamis of a few years ago, to the victims of war.

Loving? Can't see it. Involved? Apparently not.

I am very happy thank you living a fulfilling life. I have family and friends and work and music and good food and dogs and cats. And I don't need a god or a bible to tell me how to behave. My morals come from the same place everybody else's morals come from - from our participation in human society.

Cheers
Rob

[tomsawyer25]

If there are any unsupported claims in my letter then please mention what they are.

1. I find that a Creator who cares for His creation is far more supported than a non-existant or uncaring one.

Even beyond scripture? Where is there any support beyond scripture? Of course, using scripture to support claims for a god is circular reasoning.

2. Loosely speaking, it is option "c" which is something like original sin.

I believe original sin is one of the more ludicrous claims arising from some forms of christianity. It assumes the actual existence of Adam and Eve, it assumes that because they ate of the forbidden fruit they were stained with "sin", and that all of mankind descending from them was marked with this sin. Then, god had to send himself in human form to earth to be murdered so that he would be appeased for all of that sin. Further, some forms of christianity claim that unless I believe in this, I will be tortured for eternity.

Some loving, some god!

3. God sent His Son to dwell among us, and indeed to be murdered, because his is just, as well as because He has an enduring love for us.

You claim this, you believe this, and that is your faith (belief without proof). As above, ludicrous. It is just to murder your son (actually yourself) as a sacrifice to yourself because two people - who never existed - ate forbidden fruit? I don't see how you translate this bizarre cult of death and human/god sacrifice into an enduring love for us. I would run a million miles from that kind of being.

4. And I remind you again, that this is not a situation of God needing some particular quantity of blood.

How do you know this? How can you claim to know the workings of the mind of a god? You can quote "revealed scripture" as much as you like, but there is no evidence that the bible is anything more than the collected works of some bronze-age goat herders. The new testament is mostly anonymous. Nobody knows who really wrote the gospels. Christianity - christ-worship - appears to be mostly the creation of Paul. What you call the bible today was the cobbled together collection of writings determined by human beings in the 4th century.

5. I know we need the blood of the lamb.

No, you don't. You believe this. Another unsupported assertion.

I think you are stepping back by refusing to take a positive position, whereby you can complain about the Biblical and philosophical things I reiterate, without ever having to make positive claims yourself. No offense instended, but I find this cowardly.

Wow! You make some claims, nearly all unsupported by any independent evidence. I say "I don't believe/accept that." That makes me a coward? I would have thought I was merely exercising my powers of reasoning and rational thought.

I believe in lots of things. I believe in the beauty of nature, I believe in the love I feel for familty and friends. I believe in science and what I can detect with my senses and by deductive reasoning. I believe in evolution which is fact as well as theory. If you merely claimed to believe in some god that we have no hope of knowing or understanding, and that this god created the universe, I would find that far less objectionable than your actual beliefs about an interventionist god and sin and sacrifice and heaven and hell.

Regarding an uninvolved creator, there are some problems: One needs some amount of involvement to create to begin with. Also, how does this hypothesis fit with the amount of peace and blessings most of us experience in our lives. Most people have comfort and even pleasure much of the time. Has your life been constant torture? Why?

I have no idea how life came to begin. I believe the theory of evolution explains how life changed over time. In the absence of any evidence, claims about gods needing to be the creator are not credible. There are billions of people on earth who have no peace and blessings. People who live with cold and hunger and disease.

Some of us have comfort and pleasure, sure. How does that become the largesse of a god? So my life has not been torture therefore there is a god? Sorry, that does not follow.

By the way, you did make a positive claim. You said "since I do not belive in a god". So I must ask: Does everything come from nothing?

Excuse me? My lack of belief in a god is not a positive claim. I did not say, nor do I believe, there is not/cannot be a god. I do not believe your claims. See above about my answer to "does everything come from nothing?"

There are various angles through which to understand atonement, and if you are open to hearing them, I am happy to make a brief attempt at explaining them. Atonement, recognizes that we deserve punishment for sin, as God is righteous and holy. We could hardly expect peace with God without accepting that we deserve punishment. We can hardly accept intimacy with God if we deny who He is.

Thanks but no thanks. Sin, original sin, virgin birth, sacrifice, atonement, god is righteous and holy, deserving punishment - all these things are so much like the ancient myths and superstitions of ancient people. There are tremendous parallels between the myths about Jesus and myths about earlier gods and personalities like Horus and Mithras and Buddha. That's all these are - elements of ancients myths. I have no time to waste on them.

We all participate in the sin of Adam. All of us do. We are all responsible for that.

No, we don't. There was no Adam, no Eve, no talking snake. Your god is a jealous god, a vengeful god, an evil god, and therefore not much of a god at all.

You are claiming that either God does not exist, or that he is ninvolved in His creation. Can you support those claims?

I do not claim that god does not exist. I do not believe he does, but I do not claim he doesn't. Therefore I can take no position about his claimed involvement in creation. You can explain about a loving god, involved in the daily lives of all of us, to people who live in squalor and misery and hunger, to children who are raped by bad people, to the 250,000 victims of the tsunamis of a few years ago, to the victims of war.

Loving? Can't see it. Involved? Apparently not.

I am very happy thank you living a fulfilling life. I have family and friends and work and music and good food and dogs and cats. And I don't need a god or a bible to tell me how to behave. My morals come from the same place everybody else's morals come from - from our participation in human society.

Cheers
Rob


1) When I say -- support beyond scripture -- I mean our very existance. If God could be describes as anything but God and but love then I would not expect to find a creation, I would not expect to find a creation which continues to be sustained, and I would not expect to find so many people living long lives with so many blessings. The next time you eat a nice meal, please ask yourself whether God could be hatered or apathy instead. The next time you feel you are such a "moral" person, ask youself whether a God of hatred or apathy would have made you that way. God is a God of love.


2. I feel in addressing sin you are largely ignoring the points which I have made. The points which I made were to show that you yourself accept some of the main characteristics of our original sin. Afterall, do we not all do evil? Does it not continue in every generaltion?

What you are trying to do here is to say -- because there are consequences for our sin, this must argue against a God of love. But I say -- why blame our Creator for the consequences? We have done this, all of us, by our own choice. If God simply accepted this God would not be just. A righteous mand and Jeffry Dahmer could both just as easily waltz into God's kingdom.

God is just, and that is why he is repulsed by sin. People do not go away from God because they don't believe in the One God sent. They go away from God because they sin. God's Son is a chance to return.

3. Most of your words here are emotional ones, but I'll try to decipher a point. To begin with, yes it is my faith, and one based on evidence. Your belief is that no one could possibly need and offering to God, and that is also a faith, one without proof.

The problem you have with what I am saying is that you don't see that God could need an offering. Well, I would put it this way -- We owe God our lives, but we do not give them. An offering is a replecement, and it is also a powerful message to us of what we owe God and of God's mercy to us. God gave Himself as the perfect offering, one which is worthy. What you are causally referring to as murder, is the act of God taking the bullet for us. I am reminded of this Israeli professor who took a bullet for his class during the Virginia Tech shootings. Why be flippant about an act like this?

I would probably be more skeptical myself about the offering if I had not had a chance to see the enormous good that Christ's death brought to the world. It would be a mere concept to me. But I have seen the good that receiving that sacrifice has brought to countless people, including myself. So it is more that a theological concept in my mind. It is an act of God.

4. This is merely a collection of false claims. I honestly suggest you do the research. The evidence suggest that the Bible is extremely old. Some writers were clerly educated, some were simple working people. Despite its being written over many centuries and having dozens of authors, its theological consistency is enormous. Comparing the Isaaih scroll found among the Dead Sea scrolls with newer copies, one can clearly see that writings were transferred accurately over centuries. The Bible accurately decribes cultural norms, geography, battles and kings during the periods it describes. Both First Temple and Second Temple relics have been found.

The New Testament writings come from the decades after the death and resurrection. Even secular scholars would not accept the outragious claim that the NT writings come from the 4th century. It may not have been offically connonized until a later date, but the writings are early and most of the connon was accepted long before it became official. We have evidence of early Messianic Jewish and Christian communities from the 1st centry AD. Jesus as God is not merely a concept in the writings of Paul, buit are also found in the Gospels.

Please do the research.

5. My belief in the blood of the Lamb is a belief which says we do not earn our way to God. It is based on evidence, like most of our beliefs. One could not prove the claim, but neither could one prove the claim that we can earn our peace with God. Can you prove that our human goodness takes us to God?

I know we need the Lamb based on God's goodness and our sin. As well as God's revelation to us, which proves credible over and over. When something proves credible over and over, it is an authority.

My friend recently had his nephew murdered before he was even born. That is called abortion. The only people trying to stop this were believing Christians. The ones who wanted to do it were people who did not know the Lamb. I could go on and on with examples like this. God sends his righteouness to those who receive he Lamb. The cross brings atonement, it also brings light.

....what I was referring to as cowardly was your refusal to positively state your own position. It reflects a refusal to open your own beliefs up to scrutiny. None of them could you "prove" to a high degree using your cunning "rational" mind. Afterall, please prove to me that this world came from nothing. That God is uninvolved from creation. That our human goodness is all that we need. Where is the proof?

You do not follow what I am saying about blessings? My comment is that we all receive blessings. They are a sign of God's care for the world. I would surely doubt in a loving God is most of us lived in torture most of the time due to factors beyond human behavior. As it is, we all receive blessings, even despite our sometimes evil behavior. Would a God who does not care for us create a world like this? Even in poor areas of the world, people have love, forgiveness, food, a moral sense. And most of our difficulties are a result of human behavior.

To me this strongly argues for a God who cares for creation. Not one who does not. Even the intellectual sense which allows us parts of this discussion is a blessing from God. Why use it, then take it for granted? Please think of that as you enjoy your life.

The reason I continue to ask for your actual positive beliefs, is because you ought to be able to see that you have some. That you ought to be able to compare them side by side with others. Perhaps your belief is -- I don't care. But then I'd have to aks you what kind of a person wouldn't care to know who they are or where they come from. It's an odd characteristic for one portraying themselves as hightly raitional.

Everything does not come from nothing. It comes from a loving God.

The similarities between different religions means little to our discussion. There are similarities between all things in the world, yet it is the differences that count. Besides, if you have been reading from authors who promote the "similarities" ad nauseum, you are likely getting an exagerrated and distorted view of those things.

So don't refuse to deal with the subject based on so-called similarities. Either we need atonement or we do not. Either Jesus is the man He says He is, or He is not. Either we need peace with God, or we do not.

You claim that we don't participate in the sin of Adam? Honestly? Regardless of your belief that Adam does not exist, do we not all do evil? The claim that we all sin is far more supported than the claim that we do not. If God is just, sin takes us away from Him. If God is not just, then you and me and Ted Bundy all have the same relationship with our Creator.

You use the word vengeful, but don't forget the God offers mercy to all who sin. Even in the most ferocious critiques against Israel, God continually maintains the offer that Israel can come back to Him. There is a direction away from God, and a way back to Him.

You bring up murders, for example, to question God's goodness. But I would bring them up to question human goodness. God gave us a moral sense, and sent intructions on how to behave. Many generations down the line, human beings still murder. So I bring up murders to ask a different question -- Can people who do this have a right relationship with our Creator?

The number of people killed in the Asian tsunami is less that one quarter of those killed by abortion in the U.S. last year. It is a tiny fraction compared to human destruction across the globe. Perhaps it is a wave coming back at us. Head per head, it is far less than what we had coming.

I am glad that you have a happy life. Sincerely. Thank God for all of those blessings, as well as that moral sense which He gave you.

I do not accept, however, the equivalence between the general human moral sense and righteousness instilled by God. In example after example, I can see that believers in our Savior are the ones who stand by what is moral, as well as those who proactively do what is good. The good moral sense from the Bible, as wel as the proactive work done by believers, is powerful testimony for our need to receive goodness from God, rather than just relax on a few decent traits which God himself gave us. All goodness comes from God.

Take care

Tom

[freeksngeeks]

Tom

I get the strong feeling that my major talking points here are being ignored and/or misinterpreted.

When you are accusing me of being "emotional" in this discussion, it is clear that we are poles apart.

"Afterall, please prove to me that this world came from nothing. That God is uninvolved from creation. That our human goodness is all that we need. Where is the proof?"

I am not claiming that the world came from nothing, but I don't see evidence that it came from an interventionist god who is intimately involved in the second-by-second lives of some 6 billion people. That's your claim - where is the proof for that?

Let's agree to disagree. Your indoctrination does not allow you to consider the possibility you might be wrong and that you are worshipping a made up god and a man - Jesus - who never existed. Let's just leave it at that okay?

Rob

[Religion=Cult+]

Tom

I get the strong feeling that my major talking points here are being ignored and/or misinterpreted.

When you are accusing me of being "emotional" in this discussion, it is clear that we are poles apart.

"Afterall, please prove to me that this world came from nothing. That God is uninvolved from creation. That our human goodness is all that we need. Where is the proof?"

I am not claiming that the world came from nothing, but I don't see evidence that it came from an interventionist god who is intimately involved in the second-by-second lives of some 6 billion people. That's your claim - where is the proof for that?

Let's agree to disagree. Your indoctrination does not allow you to consider the possibility you might be wrong and that you are worshipping a made up god and a man - Jesus - who never existed. Let's just leave it at that okay?

Rob

Rob, probably a smart idea to say "uncle." Your points are spot on, and it is simply amazing to me to watch a christian dance around everything and completely ignore your fundamental arguments, and make counter claims based on absolutely nothing. I watched the documentary Jesus Camp recently, and it drove home for me the reason that people like Tom believe what they believe.

Religious indoctrination is so pervasive in our country, and for many people like Tom they have absolutely no chance to develop the critical thinking skills to realize that it's all made up, and no theist/christian can point to any empirical evidence of the existence of their god. From what you write, you are agnostic when it comes to the idea that we simply don't know how and why we're here, and you don't claim there is no god. I'm with you - but I am a strong atheist when it comes to the "revealed" gods of organized religion. Nice job.

[HELLBOY]

When making a secular argument on the problem of evil, one is forced to define evil using naturalistic, or at least, materialist terms.

The Theist usually has a problem with this, as they cannot imagine an "impersonal" evil (which, it is, ultimately - not).

One must define reality based on awareness. "I exist" remains the foundation of all subsequent perceptions of reality, and necessarily so. Deviating from this premise redounds to the slippery-slope of solipsism, where common ground becomes so abstruse as to make communication a veritable infinite regression of hyperbole.

If I can say with confidence, "I exist" then morality must extend from that premise.

From there, we may see that "other selves" exist, as this is commonly enough perceived as to make it a justified true belief.

How may one define evil from this starting point?

Specifically, I believe the "Golden Rule" follows: Do to others as you would have them do unto you. Far from being a dictum passed down from some transcendental deity, it is merely common sense.

I cannot come up with an instance where this would not redound to the general good - which is evolution in a nutshell. Ultimately, morality is defined by evolution and evil is anything that does not redound to the general good.

By "good" I mean, survival.

Any action that I perform that does not consider "other" is essentially an action that does not consider "self." This is evil.

...and propagation of the species, necessarily considers propagation of life in general.

I say all this to merely explain how "GOD" needn't be in the equation.

I could go further and present how any GOD who existed at all would absolutely be evil.

In pure material/natural fashion, the term "GOD" would have to be re-defined in natural terms, as supernaturalism must be rejected. Therefore, "GOD" would now be "All that is".

This of course, assumes that there is nothing "supernatural".

Living in the material World and basing all things considered "fact" on materialism, to presuppose anything supernatural will inevitably weaken the methods of the default for "fact."

Denying supernaturalism is a necessity for fact. In fact, assuming that there exists a being that is supernatural suggests that this being has no idea where it came from, where it is, and leaves it hanging as a "magic" being, whose basis is that of unknowing.

To know something is to understand it - to understand something is to be able to position it within the scientific method.

If some GOD existed, and created everything, and created beings, how could this not come from a state of dissatisfaction? If a GOD is assumed to be perfect, this GOD would do nothing, for it would be impossible for this GOD to deviate from utter perfection.

If perfection casts a wide net (with a "plan") then the problem of evil must be part of perfection. This is problematic, already on so many levels, but granting the argument, one should soon see that the collateral damage from this experiment is itself evil, which is why many Theists resort to the argument, "God created it - He can do what HE wants with it - who are we to question it?..."

Which no being should accept. This is why, I - an anti-theist, purport that even if it were true, it would be a grave injustice and humanity are nothing more than chattle, slaves... fodder, for a capricious deity's self-worship.

If a deity were true, it would be obvious on a material level, it would only be content with creating "equals" and would not hide from it's creation (excepting Aristotle's primum mobile, in which case, God is no different than those alien "seeders" who fertilized our planet and left us to fend for ourselves - making the "fact" of GOD, irrelevant.

[Paul Almond]

Talk about missing the point. This hardly deserves a reply, but I think you missed the "Given no arguments or issues at all" clause in the sentence.

As an atheist, I am actually prepared to concede the "given no arguments or issues at all" part - but only in a very shallow way which does not really help the God case. This is the only justification I can think of for the "50% probability if there are no issues or arguments at all" statement.

Imagine some statement X. Another statement can be made asserting that X is false. If X is true this statement is false. If X is false, this statement is true. This suggests that half of all possible statements are true and half of all possible statements are false. (There is, of course, an infinity of statements, but this is not an issue if we rephrase things in a more sophisticated way than I am doing here). We should expect this anyway: if we randomly select a statement, from the set of all possible statements, we should expect a 50% probability that we select a true statement, because the set of all statements is not constructed with any preference towards true or false ones.

This seems to support the idea: if we simply take the view that "God exists" is a statement, then viewing it as a randomly selected statement from the set of all possible statements means we should say it has a 50% chance of being true, in the absence of all arguments and issues. This does not mean we really think it is "randomly selected". It means we are saying we have not even looked at the content of the statement, so have no way of being able to say otherwise.

This is the important point: you can only support the "50%" idea by literally assuming that this is a statement, from the set of all possible statements, without any consideration of what it says.

Now, this is where we run into problems. It is not just a random statement, It is a statement about something that exists and something that has a specific relationship with you (it is your creator) and with everything else (it is the creator of everything else). Reality, and the relationships between us and everything else in reality is specific. The minute a statement starts to claim something specific about reality it has gone from "a randomly selected statement from the set of all possible statements" to "one of the statements saying specific things about reality". Most of the statements you could assert claiming specific things in reality, and specific relationships between those things and us would be wrong, because reality is specific. There is one specific reality here and many more imaginary realities. If a randomly selected statement makes a specific claim about reality its chances of hitting the "right" reality - the real one, are very remote.

For this reason, while we can possibly justifying starting with 50% before we consider "other issues and arguments" this is even before we consider that the statement makes a specific claim about reality and about a specific relationship between something and the rest of reality. As soon as it does this, the probability starts to drop: a lot.

This is why the examples that people gave about Easter bunnies, Santa, etc, make the idea look a bit absurd. All these claims are claims about specific things with reality, which have specific relationships with us, and the mere fact that they do that lowers their probability. Those things are not assigned a 50% probability because we have already realized that claims for their existence are not randomly selected statements. A claim for Santa Claus, for example, is a claim that there is a man with magic powers who delivers your presents, etc.

What this means is:

The writer is basically correct on the 50%, but at the same time, it may be misleading if it makes people think that God is 505 likely until you do some significant theological debate about the issue or think about God in particular. As soon as you realize that this is a claim about something in reality which has a specific relationship with you - as soon as you have done the bare minimum of consideration of issues - the 50% game is up - before you even get into any specific debate about God.

This does not, incidentally mean that God does not exist, or is unlikely - although that is my view as an atheist. You could say exactly the same thing about the claim that I have a specific genetic code (assume one is made up for me here), or that I live in the UK. If those statements were randomly asserted they would probably be false on the same basis: they make specific claims about reality and claim a specific relationship. Either claim can still have its probability altered by evidence or argument after this.

Summary: the 50% idea is valid, until you take account of the fact that the claim relates to reality, when its chances of being right drop due to the specificity of reality. This is not an issue for just the God claim, but for any specific claim about reality.

I will qfinally expand on one thing here: when I talked of "specific relationship" people may wonder what I meant. if I say "a pink unicorn exists" it may be out there somewhere - a bigger universe makes it more likely, so it could be argued that that may be a reasonably safe claim if there is enough universe for pink unicorns to turn up in. A specific claim is "Someone is living in your attic secretly" "invisible aliens rule the world" "You live in Paris" "Your house was designed by an architect called Fred". These claims are more specific in that they relate to you and your status "locally" - they don't benefit from a large universe giving a good chance of something existing "out there". I would view God as specific in this sense: the claim is that I was created by him. It is a claim about my status. It is a claim about me - not about something existing "out there" in all that reality. Having "more universe" does not make the claim more likely to be true, any more than it makes it more likely that I live in France or went shoplifting yesterday.

[tomsawyer25]

Tom

I get the strong feeling that my major talking points here are being ignored and/or misinterpreted.

When you are accusing me of being "emotional" in this discussion, it is clear that we are poles apart.

"Afterall, please prove to me that this world came from nothing. That God is uninvolved from creation. That our human goodness is all that we need. Where is the proof?"

I am not claiming that the world came from nothing, but I don't see evidence that it came from an interventionist god who is intimately involved in the second-by-second lives of some 6 billion people. That's your claim - where is the proof for that?

Let's agree to disagree. Your indoctrination does not allow you to consider the possibility you might be wrong and that you are worshipping a made up god and a man - Jesus - who never existed. Let's just leave it at that okay?

Rob

I have addressed each and every of your points, and when I went off on side points, they were for the purpose of making clear one of the main ones. If I have misunderstood, I always invite you to explain how. You yourself have managed to avoid addressing a large portion of what I have said.

It is fairly clear that you are avoiding making any positive assertions about your own beliefs, as your own indoctrination would not be very defensible if you actually did. I repeat my assertion that that is cowardly. If you wish to discontinue for this reason, that's fine. If you wish to continue to think that you don't really need the blood of our Savior, well, that's not fine, but there is little I can do about it. I hope you continue to honestly search the subject, and use all the gifts given to you by a holy God.

[tomsawyer25]

Rob, probably a smart idea to say "uncle." Your points are spot on, and it is simply amazing to me to watch a christian dance around everything and completely ignore your fundamental arguments, and make counter claims based on absolutely nothing. I watched the documentary Jesus Camp recently, and it drove home for me the reason that people like Tom believe what they believe.

Religious indoctrination is so pervasive in our country, and for many people like Tom they have absolutely no chance to develop the critical thinking skills to realize that it's all made up, and no theist/christian can point to any empirical evidence of the existence of their god. From what you write, you are agnostic when it comes to the idea that we simply don't know how and why we're here, and you don't claim there is no god. I'm with you - but I am a strong atheist when it comes to the "revealed" gods of organized religion. Nice job.

Yes, that was "crying uncle". It won't do very much for you intellectually to call everyone indoctrinated who rejects the atheistic philosophy of our society and believes in the God of Abraham and Jesus. Afterall, if you keep calling everyone "indoctrinated", you can actually keep believing that you, yourself, are not.. That of course is false.

I have never been to a Christian camp of any sorts. However I have been indoctrinated by agnostics, atheists and mushy Christians for plenty of years, including during my youth. Over time, my critical thinking skills started to reject this nonesense, and I became more open-minded toward the possibility of our Creator and the truth of the Bible. Basically, God's truth knocked my previous indoctrination right out of the water. It is far better.

[Drewski]

First, I think we need to look at what exactly evil is or rather what it is not. I believe that evil is the absence of good and therfore has it's inherent limitations. Our world points to this in profound ways. For example look at absolute zero. There is a point when absolutely all heat and energy is removed from a space and therefore it has reached a point where it can't get any colder. It is the absence of heat, but you can always go infinitely hotter. Also look at darkness, it is the absence of light, but you can always add infinitely more light. Secondly in regards to evil's existance, as a Christian, I believe that God is love, and we are made in God's image. So in order to make us in his image we have been given free will. Which is the ability to accept or reject good thing. Sin is an archery word that means to miss the mark and essentially in the Christian view it's choosing a lesser good over a greater good. Pleasure in and of itself is good, but to choose pleasure at the expense of another human being is a sin. God became man and took on our sins, the evil that we brought upon Jesus was suffered in his humanity, while at the same time glorified in his divinity. What greater evil can man do then do kill his creator? and yet God brings a greater good out of it. Evil has its limitations good does not.

[freeksngeeks]

I have addressed each and every of your points, and when I went off on side points, they were for the purpose of making clear one of the main ones. If I have misunderstood, I always invite you to explain how. You yourself have managed to avoid addressing a large portion of what I have said.

It is fairly clear that you are avoiding making any positive assertions about your own beliefs, as your own indoctrination would not be very defensible if you actually did. I repeat my assertion that that is cowardly. If you wish to discontinue for this reason, that's fine. If you wish to continue to think that you don't really need the blood of our Savior, well, that's not fine, but there is little I can do about it. I hope you continue to honestly search the subject, and use all the gifts given to you by a holy God.

Oh dear Tom, you have clearly read my posts through the filter of your christianity.

Rather than "avoiding making any positive assertions about your own beliefs", let me once more tell you that I have NO beliefs about a god or gods. I see NO evidence or compelling argument that an interventionist god exists. So I don't have beliefs", I have an absence of such beliefs. This is not as a result of "indoctrination" but rather a dawning realization, after being raised and educated as a catholic, and after reading the bible all the way through 3 times, that it is all obvious nonsense.

I certainly don't "need the blood of our Savior." I don't believe your savior ever existed, and as I have explained to you, the whole concept of original sin, the sacrifice and redemption by Christ, seems to me hopelessly archaic and invented by humans.

It is difficult for me to engage in any serious attempt to have a meaningful conversation with you since much of what you say and argue is based on the premise that your beliefs are valid. Since I reject the fundamental basis for your arguments, there is little in common for us to have a debate about.

But I hope it works for you.

Rob

[tomsawyer25]

Oh dear Tom, you have clearly read my posts through the filter of your christianity.

Rather than "avoiding making any positive assertions about your own beliefs", let me once more tell you that I have NO beliefs about a god or gods. I see NO evidence or compelling argument that an interventionist god exists. So I don't have beliefs", I have an absence of such beliefs. This is not as a result of "indoctrination" but rather a dawning realization, after being raised and educated as a catholic, and after reading the bible all the way through 3 times, that it is all obvious nonsense.

I certainly don't "need the blood of our Savior." I don't believe your savior ever existed, and as I have explained to you, the whole concept of original sin, the sacrifice and redemption by Christ, seems to me hopelessly archaic and invented by humans.

It is difficult for me to engage in any serious attempt to have a meaningful conversation with you since much of what you say and argue is based on the premise that your beliefs are valid. Since I reject the fundamental basis for your arguments, there is little in common for us to have a debate about.

But I hope it works for you.

Rob

I appreciate your letter and your forthrightness. Again, if you really don't wish to have a debate, of course I respect that. However, I don't see that having different "filters" so to speak means that we have no ground to debate on.

To begin with, countless people have found God to be self-evident, without the Christian perspective at all. Secondly, using my perspective to talk about the blood of the Savior may be out of your territory, by I feel it important to communicate it, because I believe your conception of it as "archaic" is based on seriously misunderstanding it.

Hence, though I know some of my commentary is strongly Christian, I do want to get that across anyway. I once had no understanding of it myself, then I had a very weak understanding, and with time a better one. I think if we see what it means through the Bible, and in the lives of believers, we can glean much more.

To put it this way, I believe your disapproval of the blood of atonement is based on the "God wants blood" view of things. I admire that you have read through the entire Bible, however, this is not really a correct view. Naturally I wish to explain more.

You seem to say that you have no view at all in the existence of God, but that you don't believe in an "interventionist" God. I would continue to say that this itself is a positive belief, an assertion that God may exist but apparently cares little for this world. Not being interested in answering the question is as well a belief, one which says it doesn't really matter either way.

My own experience with faith and with understanding the teaching of the Bible versus the philosophies of man, say that yes, there really is a difference, and yes, it really does matter. My common sense nudges me in that direction as well. It's something I have seen in theory and in practice.

I know sometimes these websites are enormously combative, but you know that can get counter-productive a lot of the time. I write to you not to bash heads with you (though I do get an occasional inkling that way), but to really explain myself and my perspective, as well as to answer your serious objections.

I hope that counts for something.

Take care

Tom

[freeksngeeks]

Hi Tom

Appreciate your perspective. Let me comment on one of your statements.

You seem to say that you have no view at all in the existence of God, but that you don't believe in an "interventionist" God. I would continue to say that this itself is a positive belief, an assertion that God may exist but apparently cares little for this world. Not being interested in answering the question is as well a belief, one which says it doesn't really matter either way.

Tom, I feel this doesn't quite summarize my view. I lack belief in god(s) - not quite the same as "have no view." I feel strongly that an interventionist god who cares about each of us individually is so improbable that it might as well be impossible. You can call this a positive belief but I don't think it is. Our life would be the same whether there is or isn't a god. This mitigates strongly against the existence of a god.

Even if you believe in a god, who is to say that the christian god is the correct one? Other religions have scripture and longevity going for them too.

Cheers
Rob

[tomsawyer25]

Hi Tom

Appreciate your perspective. Let me comment on one of your statements.

You seem to say that you have no view at all in the existence of God, but that you don't believe in an "interventionist" God. I would continue to say that this itself is a positive belief, an assertion that God may exist but apparently cares little for this world. Not being interested in answering the question is as well a belief, one which says it doesn't really matter either way.

Tom, I feel this doesn't quite summarize my view. I lack belief in god(s) - not quite the same as "have no view." I feel strongly that an interventionist god who cares about each of us individually is so improbable that it might as well be impossible. You can call this a positive belief but I don't think it is. Our life would be the same whether there is or isn't a god. This mitigates strongly against the existence of a god.

Even if you believe in a god, who is to say that the christian god is the correct one? Other religions have scripture and longevity going for them too.

Cheers
Rob

Hi Rob,

Nice to get your letter. It is good to boil down the questions to a few simple ones, though I suspect eventually they might multiply.

My reason for repeatedly asking you for positive beliefs, is that you are demanding a certain level of proof for Biblical belief. I believe that if you look at your own, you will find an abundance of beliefs which are held without absolute proof. They are held because of faith plus evidence. I believe that if you recognize this in yourself, you may not be so quick to call Christain belief irrational.

Does God care for us is an important question. You suggest that this is "so improbable that it might as well be impossible". Ok. But why is it improbable? Based on what? My own belief that God cares for us yesterday and today and tomorrow is based on various things, one of the most basic is simply that God is Creator, has formed us, has provided for us, and has done this for thousands of years. I also see that God's word in the Bible includes messages that are essentially for our benefit, including God's wilingness to have us return despite our sin. I also see our inner nature as showing that God is concerned for His creation, such as our moral sense, our yearning for God, forgiveness. Having personally experienced faith, I can see this living thing God has given us being "good' and "caring" on a visceral level and a regular basis.

Although I do understand how someone who has gone throuh Job-like tortures might cry out in question of God's love for us, I find it confounding that so many people who have received countless blessings wish to deny God's goodness and care for us.

Furthermore, I also wish to express that God's care for us stands up well in comparison to the possible alternative. I question whether a detached and uncaring God would provide so much for us, not only in creation, but also in our inner being and in teachings which are positive to our life. Again, just as you yourself would throw out the question of pain to those who proclaim a loving God, I naturally throw out the question of love and hope, goodness and forgiveness in question of the alternative, which is that God is so distant as to be asleep.

Your second question is also a good one. Why the Bible? Why the Chrisitan faith? I guess my answer to that is to honestly seek an answer. All religions are not the same, and if you really don't know, please examine their claims and results. To compare to Hinduism, should we care for the poor and needy as the Bible teaches us, or should we accept that they are suffering for past-life sins and treat them like dirt? Should we accept that God can redeem the deeply sinful among us, or accept that they must go through innumerable reincarnations? Can truth be known, or is the universe an illusion? I know you do not believe in the Bible, but they are fair questions, so why not study them?

Faith in Jesus is often called "the crede", in an apparent opposition to "the deed". Somehow it is based upon an act of belief in one thing rather than another thing. However, I would point out the millions of Christians who have been transformed in their life through that act of "belief" that Jesus came from heaven and the Jesus rose from the grave, and who consider it a virtual obligation to build schools, feed the hungry, cure the sick, live in obedience to God. This "belief" is fundamentally connected with actions. So I naturally encourage you, in exploring that question, to compare faiths in theory and in practice.

Shalom and Blessings

Tom

[ShawnPSmith]

It seems clear to me that 'evil' is a tool used by the Father, one of many tools He uses to mature His offspring.

As a tool, 'evil' is not inherently morally evil. No tool is 'good' or 'evil' -- tools are just tools. God is using 'evil' for good ends (where have I heard that before?), but it has no inherent moral value of itself. Let me be clear, moral evil exists -- and when it is used as a tool by God, the use of it is not morally evil. If anything, as it is intended for our ultimate good, it will be seen as beneficial in the long run (though this does not make it morally 'good').

We tend to dislike the use of the tool of 'evil' on us by God. We tend to think of the neutral tool of 'evil' as being, well, morally evil. The Scripture is clear that God causes evil, and it is used to teach us our proper relationship to God:

"It is an experience of evil God has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it." Eccl. 1:13

"And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow . . . the tree of knowledge of good and evil." Gen. 2:9

"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." Is. 45:7

It is evident that 'evil' is manifestly NOT a problem. It is a tool used by God, part of His plan from the beginning, and the solution to the pain it causes Man was provided before the world began . . . .

[Drewski]

Shawn, I'm going to have to disagree with your understanding and interpretation of evil.
In Genesis everything that God created he said was Good. Evil is the absence of good, in the sameway that darkness is the absence of light and cold is the absence of heat. If evil is understood in this context then it can never be "created". It would be nonsense to take the literal interpretation of Is 45:7 and believe that God created darkness, since it is the absence of light.
There are two aspects to God's will, his ordaining will and his permissive will. All things exist only because God wills them. God permits man to do evil and turn away from him because God ordained man to hava a free will and permits man to choose evil over good. The deeper lesson of Genesis is that man "grasped" at knowing what is good and what is evil, rather than allowing God to give him this knowledge as a gift. The antithesis of this can be found in Philippians 2:5-8;
"Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."
Our choice to reject God's plan brought evil and death into the world. It caused a great rupture, so to speak. Man from God, man from nature, man from woman, and body from soul. God didn't create these evils, but he permitted them to happen and with all evil he permits it to happen to bring about a greater good.
In Eccl 1:13; "It is an experience of evil God has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it."
God permits evil to happen to bring about the greater good of humility. Jesus, who is God, permitted man to torchure and kill him to bring about the greater good of redemption. Man tends to do the opposite, we choose a lesser good over a greater good. Pleasure is a good given from God, but when we choose to use others for our own pleasure we choose to do evil. We turn our backs on God and push his "light" from our hearts.

[ShawnPSmith]

Drewski, thanks for your thoughts. Adam did not suprise God with his choice; God created the conditions in His creation, and as He intimately knows His creation, He knew Adam would sin when presented with the opportunity to do so -- hence, He provided Christ as the solution to sin before there ever was sin. Man does not have a free will, in that man's will is subject to the circumstances he finds himself in, his prior experience, and so forth. God is controlling all these circumstances, therefore, God is controlling the will of man. This is clear in the Scripture, but the church has diverged from this clear teaching during the past 150 years or so. It is evident that Adam's sin had evil consequences. It is equally evident that God caused -- not 'allowed' -- that sin for His own reasons. God has a 'will' and an 'intention'. Men act contrary to God's will all the time, but no one has ever gone against His intention: "But you will say to me, Why does he still make us responsible? who is able to go against his intention?" Rom.9:18.

[freeksngeeks]

Tom

"My reason for repeatedly asking you for positive beliefs, is that you are demanding a certain level of proof for Biblical belief. I believe that if you look at your own, you will find an abundance of beliefs which are held without absolute proof. They are held because of faith plus evidence. I believe that if you recognize this in yourself, you may not be so quick to call Christain belief irrational."

To the best of my knowledge, I have no "belief" that I hold on "faith". Just as you are atheistic - you lack belief in - Allah, Odin, Loki, Buddha and so on, I lack belief in all those gods, plus yours. Just one more than you!

"My own belief that God cares for us yesterday and today and tomorrow is based on various things, one of the most basic is simply that God is Creator, has formed us, has provided for us, and has done this for thousands of years. I also see that God's word in the Bible includes messages that are essentially for our benefit, including God's wilingness to have us return despite our sin."

You believe that your God cares for us because he created us and provides for us. But fundamentally, I don't believe he exists, so the creation and care and providing and so on are really kind of moot. To me, you might as well be saying that there is a little invisible genie that lives in a bottle in your room who does all these things: I would have the same difficulty accepting these statements if you attributed them to the little genie.

As to viewing the bible as anything more than a series of myths, folktales and letters of questionable authorship, I simply cannot. The old testament describes a violent, angry god and the new testament was cobbled together from a much larger collection of "books" which were whittled down to what we see today. It essentially wasn't settled until the 4th century and not even finally "finalized" as canon until the 17th century.

"I find it confounding that so many people who have received countless blessings wish to deny God's goodness and care for us."

I find it confounding that somebody needs to attribute what simply happens to an invisible bearded man in the sky. Some of what happens to us is beneficial, some is not. Why aren't you blaming god for when something bad happens to us?


As to comparing Christianity to other religions, consider this: your Christianity is most probably the accidental outcome of the country in which you were born and the parents who raised you.

Cheers
Rob

[Drewski]

Shawn, your beliefs would imply that God has predestined some men to hell. Just because God knows the choice that we will make doesn't mean that he ordained it to happen. Man must have free will in order to love as God loves. Love is an act of the will or it simply isn't love. The greater your ability for holiness, than the greater your ability for evil. A cow can be no more evil then it can be holy, but a man is a different story and an Angel even more. God created Lucifer as the angel of light and the highest of all Seraphim's. There's an interesting Franciscan theory, which may or may not be true, but makes sense and either way shows my point. They believe that that the book of Revelation isn't just about things to come, but things that have already past. God revealed in an instant his plans for humanity to the angels, and seeing the woman clothed in the sun with the moon under her feet, pregnant with God himself, Lucifer announced that he would not serve and fell like lightning from the sky taking a third of the Angels with him. Michael stood up for God, by saying, "who is like unto God?" Which is what his name means. This is why the greatest virtue against the devil is humility. When we empty ourselves we allow God to fill us with himself. God is love, light and goodness and to have free will is to have the ability to reject his goodness and that rejection is evil, the absence of good. The greatest evil we could ever do is diocide, creation killing its creator, but God took our evil and brought about the greatest good. This was foreshadowed in the desert when Moses was told to put a Seraph serpant on a staff. The serpant was the greatest symbol of evil, but the people where told to look upon the serpant and they would survive there bites. He did not say that they would not be bitten, just that they would live. Likewise, if we look upon a crucifix we see the means to redemption. God did not end our suffering and death, he gave new meaning, redemptive power to our suffering and death. Suffering and death where a result of the evil that we chose and now they can be a means to our salvation. This is the parodox that Simeon spoke of at the temple. Even after all this we still need to accept God's grace and allow it to transform our lives in order to be saved. The sermon on the mount is Jesus' clarion call to transformation. "Blessed are the pure for they shall see the face of God."

[ShawnPSmith]

Hi Drewski, thanks for your thoughts. My beliefs do not imply that God predestines some for hell. Rather, your interpretation of my beliefs calls for a hell to exist, and God to predestine men for it. I don't believe the hell of the church is found in the Scripture, so I don't believe God sends anyone there. Your arguments kinda cancel themselves: we commit deicide, we sin, but God provided for our sin before we ever existed. He knew it was going to happen. He is not the 'Allower', He is the Creator -- again, see Is. 45:7, "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

It is difficult to wrestle with the problem of good and evil when one believes in the unScriptural zero-sum game of eternal torment. I have been studying the issues involved for some while now, and I can tell you that eternal torment or annihilation are not Scriptural teachings. They can appear to be, but some minor study of Greek and Hebrew, and even a clear study in English about the saving work of Christ shows the truth of the salvation of all men:

1 Cor. 15

20 "But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. 21 For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming, 24 then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. 25 For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. 26 The last enemy that will be abolished is death. 27 For HE HAS PUT ALL THINGS IN SUBJECTION UNDER HIS FEET. But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. 28 When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all. "

1 Tim. 4:10 For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God who is the Savior of all men, especially of those that believe.

Evil is much easier to understand and bear when seen in its proper place as a tool God uses to mature His offspring.

[tomsawyer25]

Tom

"My reason for repeatedly asking you for positive beliefs, is that you are demanding a certain level of proof for Biblical belief. I believe that if you look at your own, you will find an abundance of beliefs which are held without absolute proof. They are held because of faith plus evidence. I believe that if you recognize this in yourself, you may not be so quick to call Christain belief irrational."

To the best of my knowledge, I have no "belief" that I hold on "faith". Just as you are atheistic - you lack belief in - Allah, Odin, Loki, Buddha and so on, I lack belief in all those gods, plus yours. Just one more than you!

"My own belief that God cares for us yesterday and today and tomorrow is based on various things, one of the most basic is simply that God is Creator, has formed us, has provided for us, and has done this for thousands of years. I also see that God's word in the Bible includes messages that are essentially for our benefit, including God's wilingness to have us return despite our sin."

You believe that your God cares for us because he created us and provides for us. But fundamentally, I don't believe he exists, so the creation and care and providing and so on are really kind of moot. To me, you might as well be saying that there is a little invisible genie that lives in a bottle in your room who does all these things: I would have the same difficulty accepting these statements if you attributed them to the little genie.

As to viewing the bible as anything more than a series of myths, folktales and letters of questionable authorship, I simply cannot. The old testament describes a violent, angry god and the new testament was cobbled together from a much larger collection of "books" which were whittled down to what we see today. It essentially wasn't settled until the 4th century and not even finally "finalized" as canon until the 17th century.

"I find it confounding that so many people who have received countless blessings wish to deny God's goodness and care for us."

I find it confounding that somebody needs to attribute what simply happens to an invisible bearded man in the sky. Some of what happens to us is beneficial, some is not. Why aren't you blaming god for when something bad happens to us?


As to comparing Christianity to other religions, consider this: your Christianity is most probably the accidental outcome of the country in which you were born and the parents who raised you.

Cheers
Rob

Hi Rob,

My purpose in bringing up your positive beliefs is not to say you don't hold negative ones, but simply to point out that you must necessarily believe something else, even if only on the practical level. I am unclear on this idea of having no beliefs at all unless one is entirely unknowing on a subject.

For example, I know that when I did not conscientiously believe in God, I felt, though not always clearly, that whatever is out there, it couldn't really matter too much. I also felt that as long as we aren't really really evil, our behavior doesn't matter too much. Hence though I didn't believe in God, I certainly held beliefs. Those are both positive beliefs. Thus I naturally think you must hold positive ones as well, regarding God, or our possible relationship to Him, or the good.

I would suggest to you that you have numerous beliefs that you take one faith. In fact when you claim that the NT wasn't agreed upon until the 17th century, you heard something false, and then took it on faith. If you say it is inconsequential to know God, that is taken on faith as well. Almost all beliefs are related to faith, as we see some evidence, learn from some authority, and at some point choose to believe. This must be true of Rob also.

Clarification: You say that "fundamentally I don't believe he exists". You mean God as presented in the Bible, is that correct? Or are you stating another general opinion on a creator?

A comparison with belief in mythologic creatures is really an unfair one. God has been self-evident to human beings through creation itself for ages and still is today. Mythological creatures are not self-evident. The revelation in the Bible can not be re-witness on the historical level, but a very good amount of it can be confirmed from other sources, and its spiritual truths are consistent, reasonable and can even be experienced. For example, the transformation that goes along with faith is not in the realm of the fairie tale. We can experience that and even witness it in others. The effects of prayer is not a mere claim either, but something one can experience personally. If you think I mislead you, please check it out for yourself.

Despite your pointed words, God's love for humanity is there throughout the Bible, and if indeed God were truly cruel, I am not sure what God would be doing working to redeem humanity. God is working for our redemption from nearly the moment after the Fall. As far as violence, Rob, this is something we have chosen for ourselves. We chose rebellion, we chose murder. God as shown in the Bible has given us enormous chances to return to Him. God as desribed in the Bible, even suffered for those who waged war against Him. I highly doubt that either you or I are as forgiving as the God of the Bible.

Your attacks on the cannon of the New Testament are really unfounded, and I hope you'd check up on those things before you repeat them. The New Testament was agreed upon as a cannon within several centuries, and most of that time most of the books were already agreed upon, just not yet oficially. Even from a purely historical perspective, it is amazing to have the Gospel accounts, produced so near to the events which they describe. The letters, also on the purely historical level, give incalculable insight into the early congregations. Not only that, but some great examples of diatribe.

Although I appreciate that you have read the Bible before, I'm going to hazard a guess and suggest that some of the enormously negative attitudes and innacurate beliefs you communicate here were there as you read. Is that correct? Because it doesn't do much to study the Bible with that attitude and with those falsehoods. If you are really are not sure, simply read with the attitude of -- maybe this is true and maybe it isn't. Or to see it on another level -- is God's truth communicated here?

I am unsure on who believes in a "bearded man in the sky", although perhaps if you go into antiquity you might find some who do. That's probably just one of the comments it's best to ignore.

Why do I not blame God for something bad that happens? That's a good question. Fundamentally, I do not blame God because I know that God is good. I am in no position to judge God or what he allows to happen. God is the ultimate authority, and even my ability to find that experience unpleasant, and to want something different, was itself given by God. My desire to experience the good, rather than the evil, itself was given by God. So what precisely should I blame God for? For giving us freewill? For our own choice to sin? For the ability to suffer?

So to ask the natural question back: why do you not praise God for all the good that you have? Not just the pure pleasures, but even the existence and even the desire for the good. Why don't you praise Him for all those things?

I fully respect open-minded questioning of what I believe to be God's word to us, though unfortunately a portion of your statements are merely broad-based attacks. I hope that you can express precisely what the difficulties you see there are. I am happy to talk about any of them. If you really do not know how God could care about the world we live in, please explain why that presents a problem for you.

By the way, have you ever prayed Rob?

Hope you're doing well.

Tom

[tomsawyer25]

Shawn, I'm going to have to disagree with your understanding and interpretation of evil.
In Genesis everything that God created he said was Good. Evil is the absence of good, in the sameway that darkness is the absence of light and cold is the absence of heat. If evil is understood in this context then it can never be "created". It would be nonsense to take the literal interpretation of Is 45:7 and believe that God created darkness, since it is the absence of light.
There are two aspects to God's will, his ordaining will and his permissive will. All things exist only because God wills them. God permits man to do evil and turn away from him because God ordained man to hava a free will and permits man to choose evil over good. The deeper lesson of Genesis is that man "grasped" at knowing what is good and what is evil, rather than allowing God to give him this knowledge as a gift. The antithesis of this can be found in Philippians 2:5-8;
"Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."
Our choice to reject God's plan brought evil and death into the world. It caused a great rupture, so to speak. Man from God, man from nature, man from woman, and body from soul. God didn't create these evils, but he permitted them to happen and with all evil he permits it to happen to bring about a greater good.
In Eccl 1:13; "It is an experience of evil God has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it."
God permits evil to happen to bring about the greater good of humility. Jesus, who is God, permitted man to torchure and kill him to bring about the greater good of redemption. Man tends to do the opposite, we choose a lesser good over a greater good. Pleasure is a good given from God, but when we choose to use others for our own pleasure we choose to do evil. We turn our backs on God and push his "light" from our hearts.


Right on.

[ShawnPSmith]

Tomsawyer & Drewski, how can you reconcile the alleged free will of man to choose Christ -- aside from the fact that the Scripture nowhere says men must call Christ their savior in order to be saved, and can't be saved if they don't do so -- in light of these Scriptures:

Rom. 8:28-30 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

Eph. 1:11 In him we were also chosen having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will

Phil. 2:13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

I Cor. 4:7 Why, who gives you your superiority, my brother? Or what have you that you did not receive? And if you really did receive it, why boast as if this were not so?

There are many more such verses, but let's just cut to Paul, chief sinner. He was Saul, he made havoc of the church, consented to Stephen's stoning -- and was converted AGAINST HIS OWN WILL IN ONE SECOND FLAT by Christ on the road to Damascus. No free-will, here, no consent. Paul accepted Christ AFTER Christ saved Saul, NOT BEFORE.

Take a few deep breaths . . .

Proverbs 16:9 In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.

Proverbs 20:24 The LORD is the one who directs a person's steps. How then can anyone understand his own way?

Jeremiah 10:23 I know, O LORD, that a man's life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps.

Romans 9:16 Therefore, God's choice does not depend on a person's will or effort, but on God himself, who shows mercy.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God

John 6:44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day."

[Drewski]

ShawnPSmith, this may be better to debate on a new thread, but reconciling free will with Divine providence and predestination is a mystery that may not be revealed until the day we're in heaven beholding the beatific vision, although many a theologian has tried.
It is true that some are predestined for heaven. Mary the mother of God would be a perfect example, but even she had to give her fiat, "May it be done unto me, according to your word" (Luke 1:38) freely. Did God know how she would answer?.... of course, but it was still her free choice.
We simply would not love if we weren't given the free will to choose. Love, at its very essence, is an act of the will. We don't have control over the environment around us, but we do have a choice on how we act.
Saul could have freely walked away from God, after being knocked off his horse, blind and bitter if he freely chose, but God knew in advance the choice Saul would make.
In the book of Matthew Jesus says; "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter." (Matthew 7:21)
In the book of John Jesus says: "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil."
Also in 1 Peter : "Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil" (1 Peter 2:16) and also : "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9) and last: "Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position." (2 Peter 3:17) which shows that we are capable in our free will to turn our backs on Jesus and fall from grace.

[ShawnPSmith]

Drewski, I truly appreciate your thoughtful, mature discussion of the issue with me, rather than allowing the discussion to descend into juvenile catcalling. However, I disagree with your perspective on the issue. I find that men do more to try and reconcile the Scripture to their own preconceptions about heaven/hell/salvation/free will, than they do to discover what the Scripture really says. I'd leave you with this: God's ways are greater than ours, much of what we believe is based on human tradition not Scripture, and the alleged distinction of free will being necessary for love is open to debate -- whereas there is no debating that the affirmation of man's free will utterly denies the Sovereignty of God. Thank you, Shawn --

[tomsawyer25]

Tomsawyer & Drewski, how can you reconcile the alleged free will of man to choose Christ -- aside from the fact that the Scripture nowhere says men must call Christ their savior in order to be saved, and can't be saved if they don't do so -- in light of these Scriptures:

Rom. 8:28-30 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

Eph. 1:11 In him we were also chosen having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will

Phil. 2:13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

I Cor. 4:7 Why, who gives you your superiority, my brother? Or what have you that you did not receive? And if you really did receive it, why boast as if this were not so?

There are many more such verses, but let's just cut to Paul, chief sinner. He was Saul, he made havoc of the church, consented to Stephen's stoning -- and was converted AGAINST HIS OWN WILL IN ONE SECOND FLAT by Christ on the road to Damascus. No free-will, here, no consent. Paul accepted Christ AFTER Christ saved Saul, NOT BEFORE.

Take a few deep breaths . . .

Proverbs 16:9 In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.

Proverbs 20:24 The LORD is the one who directs a person's steps. How then can anyone understand his own way?

Jeremiah 10:23 I know, O LORD, that a man's life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps.

Romans 9:16 Therefore, God's choice does not depend on a person's will or effort, but on God himself, who shows mercy.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God

John 6:44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day."

Hi there,

That's a really good question to bring up: God's election vs. freewill. However first, I want to mention that your letter contains some innacuracies in the questions themselves. You say that Scripture in no place says that we must call on Christ to be saved. However the New Testament affirms multiple times the saving power of Christ's name, and in a more general sense, of faith itself by God's grace.

Romans 10:1-13 powerfully states the saving nature of belief and profession.

John 1:12-13 also talks about the same thing.

John 6:29 -- "The work of God is to believe on the one he has sent."

Galatians 2:11-21 is another passage communicating our salvation in our faith in Jesus

Calling on the name of Jesus is a saving act.

The necessity of something more than our attempted obedience is there in the Tenach (OT) as well. The need for a life for life atonement is stated as clearly as possible. Israel is commanded to make numerous sacrifices at the tabernacle and temple despite the fact that this is hardly in the category of "ethical" behavior. Doing these sacrifices is naturally founded on a trust in God, on a trust that these are commands of God and even a trust in their atoning nature. Would Israel have done them if not for this faith?

Furthermore, the importance of faith which transcends our individual observances is communicated in the Tenach multiple times. This is why the NT frquently brings up moments in Israel's history such as the blood of the Passover lamb, the bronze serpent, the faith of the two good spies and Israel's belief in the bad report of the other ten spies.

These moments are very applicable to faith in Jesus as they show how at times belief itself is like a form of obedience, and how deliverence, or lack of deliverance comes from these acts. Believe, and put the blood of the lamb over your lintel, and you are delivered. Gaze on the bronze serpent and you are healed. Believe in the false report of the spies, and you fail to come into your rest in Israel. Only the two trusting spies (Joshua and Caleb) entered the land among all who had been born in Egypt. Why? Faith.

Though we are taught many practices on how to live our lives and how to honor God, faith has always been at the root of it.

Freewill

In discussing Paul, you say he was converted "against his will". Again, I believe this phrase is incorrect. It is obvious that God acted in a powerful way with Paul, but how can we truly say that his walk with God was "aginst his will"? Afterall, and this ties into the whole question of freewill vs. election, God calls us to be obedient over and over, including in the NT. Doesn't this presuppose freewill? If this presupposes freewill, then we must not take passages which show God's power in our life and claim that they prove we have no freewill.

I believe you are actually affirming this when you say "Paul accepted Christ AFTER Christ saved Saul" Basically, I agree with you here. God's act was primary, Paul's choice of acceptance, faith and obedience came afterward. I see no difficulty. Rather I see this as the way things generally work.

In other words, when Scripture shows God acting on people, why assume that those people have no choice to accept or not accept? I can say that someone came and delivered a letter to my house, but don't I still have the choice to open it or not? To tear it up? To shoot the messenger? I hope you see the angle I am presenting.

If I say to you "God has been ordering my steps", am I also telling you that I have no choice or that God is controlling me completely? If I say "God has provided our food today" am I also denying the existance of farmers? So naturally I do not accept those passages you mention as a refutation of freewill.

When I see passages, whether in Scripture or from theologians, which talk about the power of God being what provides salvation, I do not suppose this necessarily means a lack of human choice at all. That grace to us is surely a pure gift, God has acted first, but we still must respond to that gift. He has provided it all. I have just sat at the table and eaten.

[Drewski]

ShawnPSmith, I agree with you that men do reconcile scripture to their on preconceived notions, but there in lies a new question. Who has the proper interpretation? I am Catholic and believe that when Christ said to his apostles "what you loose on Earth, will be loosed in Heaven, what you bind on Earth, will be bound in Heaven" he was giving them authority an authority that has been passed down through the years by the laying on of hands. There are over 30,000 protestant denominations, all with there version of the correct interpretation of Scripture and as you said it is very easy to justify and manipulate the meaning. It is the Church that guards the Truth. In 1 Timothy, Paul says, but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth." The question than is which Church would that be?

Regarding interpretation of free will, I find there are more Men who want to take responsibility out of there own hands by rejecting the idea of free will then those who believe we share in that responsibilty. I would invite you to look at Christ's encounter with the crippled man at the pool at Bethesda: "When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, 'Do you wish to get well?'" (John 5:6) I would also invite you to look at choices made by Peter verses Judas, both turned their backs on Our Lord, but Peter chose to repent and "wept bitterly". Judas believed that his sins where greater then God's mercy and fell into despair and hung himself. It would be very easy to excuse horrific things like abortion, suicide, and so much more if we disregarded our own free will and considered it all out of our hands. Grace is an act of Mercy from God and an oppurtunity to participate in the very life of the Trinity!! God pours out his Grace, but it's up to us to cooperate with that Grace.