Gonna attempt to reply to some of these in short because a longer reply would require a big theological conversation. For fun, because why not. Maybe I can point someone to an interesting direction where they can read further if they actually care about the topic. I'm most well-versed in Christian theology compared to Islam, Hinduism etc. so I'll do it from that ground. Most objections are also usually towards that theology .
To OP: formulate your own position if you want a reply.
I know one counter argument is the existence of choice and free will. I think freedom is incredibly important in a 'good' world. However, I agree with you. Why even create the possibilty that an adult could feel sexually attracted to a child for instance? Just to see whether they can resist it? That's a huge risk with a possibly catastrophic outcome!
Correct, humans have free will. Created in the image of God means, among other things, complete free will, and the ability to create and to be a secondary cause of something. Complete means complete, so yes, people can choose to use it for evil of all kinds. So that person is the cause of those acts and is responsible for them. If you propose to negate free will, then what's the worth of anyone's actions? If God forces your mind to love him, is that really love? Moreover, proposing to somehow annihilate those who do evil to eradicate it entirely will result in the destruction of all humanity because everyone has done an evil deed or harbors evil thoughts. Instead, we each have a responsibility for our own actions.
As for "why couldn't God just create a world with no possibility of evil" question: that's exactly what happens in Christian eschatology. After Judgement, death will cease to exist and there will be no possibility of committing evil. That's what Christians hope for and await: the perfect, transformed world where every tear will be wiped away from their eye and they will be able to choose between good and good.
Plus, some creatures literally have no choice. Parasitical creatures have been designed so that, the only way they can survive is to feed off another- often maiming or killing the other. It's surely a special kind of evil that comes up with that. Forcing one creature to hurt, maim and kill another in order to survive.
Animals are sentient, but not rational (they do not grasp concepts or beliefs) so they are ontologically different from humans. According to theology, they will be transformed, and they do have a soul, but they do not need redemption. Animals live and die for the convenience of humans, and nature is there for humans to do with as they see fit.
My big issue here is that all of these arguments seem to revolve mostly around the moral character of God, rather than actually addressing whether or not God actually exists. The Bible, the Quran, and the Torah were all written by mankind.
Good outlook in your post, and a reasonable position. I'm just going to say that agnosticism isn't an "epistemically neutral" position and is an incoherent one because of the things it presupposes while denying knowledge claims at the same time.
Correct, the scriptures were written by men, but theologies have differences on that. In Islam it's mostly claimed that the Quran is uncreated, but some aqidahs take the created position. If you're talking about the Bible (which canon?), then historically it is the most verifiable source that has ever existed, especially compared to other writings around the same age, for example the Greek philosophers. But the Bible is a book compiled by the Church for liturgical purposes: it was presented at councils of Carthage and Trullo and then affirmed at the 7th ecumenical council. It's part of a system and must be used along with tradition and the church, it didn't magically drop into existence on its own. Many people who aren't familiar with this topic fall into confusion because they think the Scripture is the end all be all, when it is just a part of a system which must be taken together.
Whenever I hear a story about the bible, I get the impression that god is not good. Instead god is playing nice, the only good I can't deny is the existence of his apostles and Jesus, who in my opinion, are the ones that are truly good
See above: it's a holistic system that necessarily exists together. You can't pick and choose. If you accept Jesus, you also accept that He is consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is the central aspect of the faith, defended for centuries by church fathers and theologians. The whole point of the Old Testament is presenting the hyper specific prophecies of the coming of Christ and Him becoming the second Adam.
There are so many religions that contradict each other, at least one of them has to be wrong.
There is no proof that god exists, so one logically shouldn't be a theist.
True, speaking logically, not every religion is going to be the truth! I would argue that there is proof, first and foremost philosophical proof. It's a long topic, but it has to do with preconditions for having knowledge in this world.
By the way, different kinds of things require different kinds of proof. Not all proof can be empirical, especially when we're talking about universal or immaterial things. For example, you don't prove that water boils at 100c in the same way that you would prove a mathematical theorem. In the first case you can take water and boil it which results in an empirical observation, in the second case you need to prove it within that abstract system and then, if you wish, try to map it to reality in certain usecases. And some things from these systems can't be instantiated in reality at all, yet we can think of them so they have some kind of status. For example, square root of -1 isn't instantiated in reality, yet it exists since we can think of it and use it. Where is it? What is it?
So, when we're talking about a being that does the work of grounding metaphysics, we're going to need to work within the field of philosophy. Asking something like "okay point with a finger exactly to where God is" is at odds with logic in this way, as well as the theological systems themselves which state that God is immaterial.
The theist can say that we don't really know what God's will is, but whatever it be, it is ontologically 'good'. Suffering, murder and depraved acts which maybe locally immoral is totally permissible and 'good' if he is the cause of it. The commandments he issued are only applicable in human-human relations.
Here's the thing: if you attempt to do an internal critique of a position, you must subscribe to it for the sake of the argument, else it becomes incoherent and arbitrary. So, within the Christian paradigm (I assume you refer to that one) God created good and evil in the first place. He is outside of those categories, if we're talking about the essence of God. Logically, you cannot apply created terms to an uncreated essence, or try to confine it into those boundaries. Also, evil does not have ontological existence (it is not a "thing that exists" but a privation of good. Very dumb example but think of a slider of "good" going from 0% to 100% - that's what's going on).
And of course, good and evil philosophically do not exist in secular worldviews, so the only way you could make judgements about what's good and evil is to subscribe to a religious position in the first place. And if you subscribe, you take all of it, else it's arbitrary. The book of Job works with this objection: do you as a human have a universal mind to make a better judgement of good and evil than the one who has created that whole system and everything that exists in the first place including you? No, that is logically incoherent.
The whole "can suffering be good" question among others is another can of worms. Yes, it can be. Starting with physical pain which is necessary to realize that something is wrong - congenital insensitivity to pain is an extremely dangerous illness to such an extent that those people don't even chew for the fear of eating their own tongue. So is mental pain, it has the capacity to make us think about our judgements and choices, or educate others. Pain is not "bad" per se, it depends on the context.
i don't believe in the abrahamic concept of god because the idea of an all-powerful being demanding worship while refusing to offer concrete proof of his existence strikes me as both narcissistic and deeply flawed.
And nowhere is that postulated, you imagined that. Once again, free will, remember? It's entirely your choice, no one is demanding anything of you. The people who fearmonger using hell are a symptom of ignorance of theology and modern TV, as well as Renaissance literature. There are four terms in Scripture that are translated as "hell" and they mean different things: hades, sheol (both literally mean grave, a place underground where
everyone goes), Gehenna (a literal geographical place where people burned trash and the outcasts of society lived that's used allegorically as hitting the bottom), and tartarus which is a more of a verb and is applied to angels, not humans. The whole funny red guy with pitchfork thing that roasts you is a more modern invention that has nothing to do with the actual belief system. Hell is a state of separation from God and it's entirely voluntary, you can achieve it just fine in life at any point.
That said yes, I agree with you, the Quran in my opinion is entirely incoherent. It's reasonable that you have come to hold your opinion. The Hadiths are even more so.
