hey folks,
very interesting responses. i'll try to write up some replies this afternoon.

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Here's where your analogy between God and a gangster breaks down. With the gangster, you're innocent and the gangster attacks you. With God, you have been found guilty of sinning against him.

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He created you knowing you would sin against him, and having the power to stop you from sinning against him....

^^^ Precisely! Just as it says in Romans 5:8, he did this to demonstrate his love for his creation. Think of it like Christmas. At Christmas, imagine I have a family of 4 and they each spend $100 on each person. That means I spent $400 and got $400 worth of stuff. Why is that any better than just keeping the $400 in my pocket in the first place? By giving the gifts it creates a flow in the economy and demonstrates our love for one another. God's demonstration of love for us is the same way. In order to show us his love, he had to show that we needed it.

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^^^ Precisely! Just as it says in Romans 5:8, he did this to demonstrate his love for his creation. Think of it like Christmas. At Christmas, imagine I have a family of 4 and they each spend $100 on each person. That means I spent $400 and got $400 worth of stuff. Why is that any better than just keeping the $400 in my pocket in the first place? By giving the gifts it creates a flow in the economy and demonstrates our love for one another. God's demonstration of love for us is the same way. In order to show us his love, he had to show that we needed it.

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lol wut?

Your analogy makes no sense to me

I'm trying explain that in order for God to show his love to us, he had to put us in a position to need his love.

So mathematically, if 0 represents us being even with God, God could do:
a) 0 + 0 = 0 [God makes us good and we don't need any help from him]
b) -X + X = 0 [God makes us bad but provides us with the help (Jesus) to justify us]
c) +X - X = 0 [God makes us better than him and he has to do something bad to get us back to level with him...essentially an evil God]

Option A is what some people want to believe. They are good and have no need for God. If this were true we would have no need for laws and we could trust everyone.

Option B is what the Bible teaches. We need God and God helps us.

Option C is kinda weird, perhaps, but that's essentially what the OP is suggesting. We don't need God and all God does is bring us down (point a gun at our heads and say we need him.)

[This message has been edited by vm_boy (edited 4/4/2012 3:12p).]

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b) -X + X = 0 [God makes us bad but provides us with the help (Jesus) to justify us]

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So if I had a kid and cut off it legs but I would provide help so the kid need me I would be a good Godly guy?

The problem atheists have is an all knowing all powerful God creating being that are bad and then punishing eternally those that are bad and don't come to him. He made them that way knowing they would be that way. In effect with his knowledge and power he created some people to live just to eventually go to hell.

And their better solution is???

Ecc 7:29 "Behold, I have found only this, that God made men upright, but they have sought out many devices."

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The problem atheists have is an all knowing all powerful God creating being that are bad and then punishing eternally those that are bad and don't come to him. He made them that way knowing they would be that way. In effect with his knowledge and power he created some people to live just to eventually go to hell.

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Which makes no sense because an atheist has to hold that hell is actually hellfire and brimstone to believe this.

Yes, its difficult to wrap your arms around an all-knowing all powerful being creating freewill...but I think its a weak argument to just claim its impossible and give up on the whole concept. An all powerful God can do this...because he's all powerful, right?

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Which makes no sense because an atheist has to hold that hell is actually hellfire and brimstone to believe this.

Yes, its difficult to wrap your arms around an all-knowing all powerful being creating freewill...but I think its a weak argument to just claim its impossible and give up on the whole concept. An all powerful God can do this...because he's all powerful, right?

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The point is this is why atheists don't believe it. Sure an all powerful good could but you could contend it is sick and twisted to create things that you know are flawed to eventually let them burn in hell. Its a very disturbing concept.

Rocag,

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I suppose you could look at it that way. Or, if you didn't want to, there's plenty of reasons not to see it that way.

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There are no good reasons to deny what is true.

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Basically I think you can use the Bible or the Quran to reach whatever conclusion you started with (though admittedly I am much more familiar with the Bible).

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I agree and I think this is another knock-down argument. The content of the scriptures are so contradictory and open to interpretation that any one is just as good as any other, for many doctrinal issues. However, I don’t think anyone has demonstrated that the gangster analogy does not hold.

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In the end not liking what a religion teaches is a poor reason for not believing in it, just as liking what it teaches is a poor reason for believing in it.

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This I find more troublesome. If I think that Islam’s (and Christianity’s) subjugation of women is wrong, that’s a great reason to reject it. Additionally, God’s sanctioning of slavery and the murder of innocents is another good reason to not be a follower.

Diehard,

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Your premise is incorrect. You have assigned heaven the value of "good" and hell the value of "bad", based on your own arbitrary definitions.

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The scriptures define it this way.

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Question 1) If you have problems believing what God says is true about him (being good, etc)...then why do you accept the Christian cultural accounts of heaven and hell as accurate?

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I don’t find them accurate and I believe they are fictions. My purpose was to demonstrate that, if they are true, then God is just as immoral as a gangster.

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Question 2) What if heaven is just "life with God", and hell is just "life without God"...and not the cultural definitions of paradise and hellfire that we have today? Then which do you choose?

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In this case, the gangster analogy does not hold, and the consequences of rejecting the God hypothesis are not quite as bad. For me, personally, it wouldn’t make a difference because there is no good evidence for the existence of the Christian god. I still reject the hypothesis.

Hawk,

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The problem with this statement is that the author isn't placing the god in question as a higher being or authoratative figure. To find a god morally reprehensible is to assume an equal footing with that deity. In Christian and Muslim faiths, God is a supreme being and his actions/rules/logic are not subject to criticism from lesser beings.

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I really appreciate this response because I think it’s the most “honest” one yet and leads to another, deeper issue of divine command theory and the Euthyphro dilemma.

Cyprian,

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The analogy in the OP fails in that robbing someone is obviously morally wrong, while worshipping and loving God is not only good, but is the highest good we could hope to achieve.

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If being robbed (as a result of denying the gangster) is wrong, isn’t spending eternity in hellfire (as a result of denying a deity) even more morally wrong? Again, I don’t think you have shown how a God and a gangster are operating differently by creating the situation.

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The rest of this topic falls mostly into a free will debate, and that choices lead to consequences. As for damnation, I think most people have that concept wrong. Not much in the way of details is honestly known about it. The passages used are often very symbolic. But, it's fair to say it's not nearly as nice as enjoying God, and becoming more like God for eternity (nothing can compare to that anyways).

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I disagree. I think we can have the same idea of free will and that has no bearing on whether or not God is acting in the same manner as a gangster: “Give me something or suffer the consequences.”

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One of my main problems with Islam and Christianity is the fact that God and Allah are basically gangsters writ large. Just as a thief or gangster will put a gun to your face and say, “Give me your cash or die,” God says, “Love me or suffer the consequences (eternal damnation).” I find the two morally equivalent and equally reprehensible.

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Your gansta scenario presents two bad potential outcomes:

1. Be robbed of your belongings.
2. Die.

Is this, in your estimation, an accurate analogue for Christian belief?

You guys can't seem to separate what you believe from what your bible says. You willingly accept any verse that supports your preferred belief but just ignore or create confused expansions for anything else.

Try and look at things from another perspective for once.

Okay, here's a different perspective.

We have a comparison between a gangster robbing you at gunpoint under threat of death to an imagined god imaginarily threatening you with an imagined hell if you can't imagine a way to love it.

I get it now.

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The point is this is why atheists don't believe it. Sure an all powerful good could but you could contend it is sick and twisted to create things that you know are flawed to eventually let them burn in hell. Its a very disturbing concept.

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I meant an all powerful God can do what we cannot: know all, but allow free will.

You know all and you bring hitler into the world.....awesome!

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Okay, here's a different perspective.

We have a comparison between a gangster robbing you at gunpoint under threat of death to an imagined god imaginarily threatening you with an imagined hell if you can't imagine a way to love it.

I get it now.

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Sarcasm to hide that you really don't get it at all.

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You guys can't seem to separate what you believe from what your bible says. You willingly accept any verse that supports your preferred belief but just ignore or create confused expansions for anything else.

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You are doing the same thing. You ignore the whole concept because it doesn't fit into your preferred belief.

Who are you to lecture us on this?

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You know all and you bring hitler into the world.....awesome!

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Without being all-knowing yourself, how can you make this claim?

Not at all. I've been a christian since I was seven but I can admit their are inconsistencies and issues that aren't easily explained away. I try and look at issues from an atheists eyes and realize more often than not you folks can't even question why you believe things. You can't even understand why some things would seem illogical.

When an atheist brings up a contentious verse you throw out another verse counter to it which just illustrates to assn atheist that the bible is contradictory. You guys serk to prove everything about christianity when something that requires faith cannot be proven. It's like all analytical thought disappears the second christianity comes up or you believe the other person is an atheist. You shut yourself down preferring the intellectually lazy path of assuming the other is wrong. I've never seen more illogical, random arguments than on this board.

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I don’t find them accurate and I believe they are fictions. My purpose was to demonstrate that, if they are true, then God is just as immoral as a gangster.

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Imo, you are just trying to establish intellectual superiority over theists by even playing this game. You move away from your strongest position (an empirical evidence-based one) just to play a game with subjective boundaries and moving goalposts.

No theist has an argument against the empirical.

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You know all and you bring hitler into the world.....awesome!

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Without being all-knowing yourself, how can you make this claim?

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Perfect example of nonsensical argument.

Under the christian assumption that god is all knowing and all powerful, he knows hitler will be born, what he will do, and had the power to stop it. He created what he knew would eventually do this. Its a problem for atheists.

Cue up the uncompelling free will argument.

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Not at all. I've been a christian since I was seven but I can admit their are inconsistencies and issues that aren't easily explained away. I try and look at issues from an atheists eyes and realize more often than not you folks can't even question why you believe things. You can't even understand why some things would seem illogical. When an atheist brings up a contentious verse you throw out another verse counter to it which just illustrates to assn atheist that the bible is contradictory. You guys serk to prove everything about christianity when something that requires faith cannot be proven. It's like all analytical thought disappears the second christianity comes up or you believe the other person is an atheist. You shut yourself down preferring the intellectually lazy path of assuming the other is wrong. I've never seen more illogical, random arguments than on this board.

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I can see how trusting in God can seem like the intellectually lazy path, but I think it's also the lazy path to give up on the whole thing because you can't rationalize some concepts.

It's also one thing to say "you know, this seems illogical to me. What does this mean in the context of God?"...and another to claim authority and declare something illogical, and therefore somehow invalidate a deity concept.

As an aside,I too see the folly in using a book that someone doesn't believe in to prove someone wrong...and grow tired of constant out-of-context verse quoting to prove a point.

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Perfect example of nonsensical argument.

Under the christian assumption that god is all knowing and all powerful, he knows hitler will be born, what he will do, and had the power to stop it. He created what he knew would eventually do this. Its a problem for atheists.

Cue up the uncompelling free will argument

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how nonsensical? without you yourself being all-knowing..as in knowing God's thoughts/motivations, you can't possibly determine that Hitler being born is a "problem". You also cannot call the free-will concept and how it works with an all-knowing god concept uncompelling either.

Anyway...good discussion, but I must sleep.

You guys can't seem to separate what you believe from what your bible says. You willingly accept any verse that supports your preferred belief but just ignore or create confused expansions for anything else.
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Good summary of denominations as well as subjective experience of the text. Many Christians place alot of emphasis on being fallen and sinful, yet assume their intellect is unfallen and unsinful enough to correctly interpret the Bibical text.

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You know all and you bring hitler into the world.....awesome!

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And he also brought Pharaoh into the world who enslaved the Jews...why?...so that he could deliver them out and demonstrate that the Jews need God. (All of this foreshadowing their need for salvation which is given to us through Jesus.) But what do the Jews do, they consistently reject God's provision and go it alone until they're punished again and then they whine to God about how cruel he is. That's why the Bible (God for that matter) says they are a stiff-necked people.

This is another example supporting my argument (and Paul's) that in order for God to show us his love he had to make us dependent upon him, and therefore sinful.

Maybe God used Hitler as a way to deliver the Jews and remind them who they really need. But because we are not God and cannot fully understand his will and purpose, we have a limited perspective on the issue.

and atheists may consider that sadistic. when a god with all knowledge and all power tortures people to prove he is needed it sounds a lot like a criminal minds episode

diehard

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Imo, you are just trying to establish intellectual superiority over theists by even playing this game. You move away from your strongest position (an empirical evidence-based one) just to play a game with subjective boundaries and moving goalposts.

No theist has an argument against the empirical.

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the point isn't to establish any kind of intellectual superiority. the point is to demonstrate the moral equivalence of the two and show a perspective that many theists willingly disregard.

could you explain how i've moved from an "empirical evidence-based" position to a subjective one and "moved the goalposts"? i didn't intend for my argument to be empirical, rather, hypothetical. the argument still stands regardless of whether God, the gangster, or any conception of hell does or does not exist.

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And he also brought Pharaoh into the world who enslaved the Jews...why?...

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This litterally did not happen.

That's fine. They can think whatever they want to think about God (or lack thereof). You can either believe in the God of the Bible or you can go to Hell. If you don't like the nature of God, that's fine, you're still going to Hell. That's how I see it.


****Just to be clear, I'm not intending this to be an attack on anyone. I'm just trying to make the argument that just because you don't like some aspect of God or the Bible doesn't mean it's not true. And if you want to believe something different, the end result is the same.****

[This message has been edited by vm_boy (edited 4/5/2012 9:49a).]

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the point isn't to establish any kind of intellectual superiority. the point is to demonstrate the moral equivalence of the two and show a perspective that many theists willingly disregard.

could you explain how i've moved from an "empirical evidence-based" position to a subjective one and "moved the goalposts"? i didn't intend for my argument to be empirical, rather, hypothetical. the argument still stands regardless of whether God, the gangster, or any conception of hell does or does not exist.

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First paragraph: moral equivalence cannot exist, as it requires us to agree on what moral is. This is a long debate that never gets anywhere. You have an arbitrary (or societal based) morality and I have a deity-based morality.

Second paragraph: my point was merely that these hypothetical gymnastics distract from your strongest case as an atheist. There's no reason for even entertaining this line of proof for your beliefs. Also, I did not mean that you are moving the goalposts...but that this argument leads to this because we don't agree on the field dimensions.

Let's also be honest...many many Christians just aren't good at making an intellectual argument, but they feel they need to defend their beliefs (bc Jesus will be happy with them or something). This leads to silly arguments.


[This message has been edited by diehard03 (edited 4/5/2012 9:27a).]

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Well, that is effectively what atheists do. They come to the opposite conclusion. Nevermind that this statement is worthless rhetoric. Just flowery church language with no reason to believe there is any truth in it at all.

I think the most frustrating thing for Atheists is that they understand the Christian perspective but Christians seem overwhelmingly unable to look at their own faith from any other perspective.

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Try exactly the opposite. What if it is true that the religious have their mind open to the possibility that science cannot prove all things, and cannot even make the prmise that it can. There must be a leap of faith at some point or another...so you choose to believe in science. Whether or not it is true of all christians or muslims, or even myself (this is not why I personally came to be a believer), I want to present the argument that the atheist is violating his own code, by putting his/her faith in science, when science cannot even prove itself to have all of the answers. So those which believe that things can only be true if validated by the scientific method, should understand that science itself has limitations as a function of its own rules. Science is a very coo tool, yes. But to say that science can give you all of the answers is scientifically wreckless. Therefore, religious faith is more logical, from a scientific perspective.

Atheists are the closed-minded. They simply discount something, because it cannot be proven, when the turth is that science cannot possible have all of the answers. So if science cannot provide us with the most basic of answers to the universe, yet you still have faith in it, how is this more justified than the Christian perspective which gives an method for explaining those things. That it is not capable of scientific observation using your closed-box scientific method, is irrelevant.

The real issue with your statement is this...Christian generally believe that science is EXTREMELY useful, as a tool, but accept the limitations of it, and accept an out of the box approach to arrive at the ultimate conclusion. Who is without perspective again? Open your mind and allow the answers to come to you...you will not find them in science...and that is a scientific certainty.

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That's fine. They can think whatever they want to think about God (or lack thereof). You can either believe in the God of the Bible or you can go to Hell. If you don't like the nature of God, that's fine, you're still going to Hell. That's how I see it.

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Check yourself. You don't own the interpretation of scripture either, and have zero knowledge of who will and will not be in heaven.

Secondly, its foolish to make statements that just exist to enflame the other position.

[This message has been edited by diehard03 (edited 4/5/2012 9:31a).]

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That's fine. They can think whatever they want to think about God (or lack thereof). You can either believe in the God of the Bible or you can go to Hell. If you don't like the nature of God, that's fine, you're still going to Hell. That's how I see it.

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All that has been done in this thread is using common accepted christian precepts a different story has been told. A different characterization of good based on the same criteria. Rather than challenge yourself and try and see it from another perspective you dodge and run away.