Discussion To Atheist and Theist, do you think this is the best argument against the existence of god? (abrahamic religion theists specifically)

[uwushhdjwiio]

Im sorry to literate mfs i only made this with chatgpt, i dont have enough words in my vocabulary and im not very articulate, but i made this idea, chatgpt just helped me formulate it

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The Formal Argument from Suffering in a Designed Moral System

Premises:

1. If God exists, He is traditionally defined as omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omnibenevolent (all-good).
2. An all-powerful God could create any possible world — including one without brutal suffering, without violating free will.
3. An all-knowing God would foresee the exact consequences of every possible world He could create.
4. An all-good God would prevent unnecessary or unjustified suffering, especially among innocents.
5. God allegedly designed our minds — including our moral intuitions and emotional responses — to see suffering as evil, and pleasure as good.
6. The actual world contains widespread, extreme, and unjustifiable suffering — both moral (caused by agents) and natural (caused by design).
7. Therefore, God intentionally created a system where:
   • He programmed us to feel suffering as evil,
   • He populated the system with it anyway,
   • And He expects us to trust Him based on a morality He himself designed — while violating it constantly.

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Conclusion:

Therefore, the traditional concept of God is either:

• Logically incoherent (self-contradictory),
• Morally indefensible (cruel or manipulative),
• Or nonexistent.

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Bonus Observation:

If believers claim "we can't understand God's plan", they cannot also claim "God is good."
Because "goodness" itself was designed into our brains — by the same God who now tells us not to trust it.

That collapses the entire moral framework of theism.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I absolutely agree with your arguments and conclusion. It's what makes me hope sincerely that there isn't a God. I simply can't square this world with a good God being responsible for it.

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!

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.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

Atheism and theism =/= gnosticism. There are many atheists and theists who acknowledge that there isn't actually any feasible way to know for sure if there is or isn't a God. It's just that they choose to believe in whatever despite this. Even though I identify as an atheist I also acknowledge the fact that a lack of evidence of there being a God doesn't in of itself mean that the atheistic position is all of a sudden correct. Failure to reject the null doesn't mean that the alternative isn't true. It could just be that there currently is just not enough evidence to conclude that the alternative is true. I don't believe in God, but logically I understand that I can't say that I know for sure whether they exist or not. It's just something that is not falsifiable.

I also don't get the point of using ChatGPT, especially when the arguments being used are very basic ones that you probably could have gotten from a quick Google search.

Also, if an all-knowing God would foresee the exact consequences of every world he creates, then couldn't it be argued that the reason why he made this world the way it is today is because this world (despite how things seem right now), was determined to be the one that would most likely end up with the best outcome?

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. People are biased and oftentimes struggle to recount things with one hundred percent accuracy. The degree to which any of those texts are accurate representations of God could be argued to be questionable. Statements revolving around God being all-loving, all-good, all-knowing, etc, could be just exaggerations made as a result of bias in favour of our supposed creator. None of this AI slop is that good of an argument against the existence of God. It arguably comes off more as an argument against God being morally good.

 

[EternalShore]

Just as easily as you can create an argument using ChatGPT, you can create a counterargument using ChatGPT~ it's up to you whether you wish to believe your argument or the counterargument~ That kinda nullifies AI, since it doesn't actually get down to what the people in the conversation actually believe and address the reasons for their faith or lack of faith directly~

 

[ImnotCTB]

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

 

[Carrot]

The best:
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.

There is no proof that god doesn't exist. So one logically shouldn't be an atheist.

I prefer agnoticism. Until proven, let's not speak confidentely about the existance or lack or a god. Belief can be different from facts.

 

[Akashaaa]

Im sorry to literate mfs i only made this with chatgpt, i dont have enough words in my vocabulary and im not very articulate, but i made this idea, chatgpt just helped me formulate it

---

The Formal Argument from Suffering in a Designed Moral System

Premises:

1. If God exists, He is traditionally defined as omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omnibenevolent (all-good).
2. An all-powerful God could create any possible world — including one without brutal suffering, without violating free will.
3. An all-knowing God would foresee the exact consequences of every possible world He could create.
4. An all-good God would prevent unnecessary or unjustified suffering, especially among innocents.
5. God allegedly designed our minds — including our moral intuitions and emotional responses — to see suffering as evil, and pleasure as good.
6. The actual world contains widespread, extreme, and unjustifiable suffering — both moral (caused by agents) and natural (caused by design).
7. Therefore, God intentionally created a systemwhere:
   • He programmed us to feel suffering as evil,
   • He populated the system with it anyway,
   • And He expects us to trust Him based on a morality He himself designed — while violating it constantly.

---

Conclusion:

---

Bonus Observation:



That collapses the entire moral framework of the

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.

Evil here is reduced to a relational property with no foundation of its own. From god's perspective, everything is moral as a perfect being is only capable of creating perfect universes, but this perfection requires his puppets (us) to play their roles.

He is the stage setter and the referee. He has divided us into two groups. One with his approval and sanction, and the other with his condemnation. His will (the game) is moral, but relationally he has a side he likes and has rigged the game to win.

I'm not a theist, only parroting their position.

 

[sickofwaiting]

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. if god is truly omniscient then he would have created me already knowing i wouldn't believe which begs the question: why? just to send me to hell? what kind of perfect being would create someone knowing they are destined for eternal suffering? what kind of being would need worship from finite creatures to begin with? these aren't the traits of a morally perfect or emotionally whole deity. they resemble human flaws: pride, ego, and insecurity. not divine perfection.

i was raised muslim but even as a kid it never felt real to me. the stories felt no more believable than the tooth fairy and that was before i could even articulate the logical or moral problems i would later recognize. the more i learned the more i realized my instincts weren't off. i just couldn't accept the idea of a god who demands love but threatens eternal torture for disbelief. that's not divine. that's masochistic.

if god is real and truly perfect then he would know that i do my best to be a good person. he would see my intentions, my efforts, and my values and that should be enough. a perfect god wouldn't punish someone for using the mind he supposedly gave them. that's why i feel completely at peace being agnostic. i don't pretend to have all the answers but i know that if there is something greater out there it wouldn't demand fear, submission, or blind faith. it would understand.

to me being a good person means being loving and considerate, serving the less fortunate, seeking knowledge practicing self-discipline, and using whatever gifts i have to make life better for the people around me. these values feel real, meaningful, and self-evident not because a scripture told me so but because they make the world more humane. i don't need the threat of hell to want to do what is right.

i believe that abrahamic religions often rely on the fear of eternal damnation to control their followers. while many of the good values they promote: like charity, honesty, and compassion, are genuine and valuable, those things don't need religion to exist. in fact the negative aspects of religion: fear, guilt, judgment, seem irrecoverably intertwined with religious doctrine. so it feels like religion could be removed altogether, cutting out the harmful parts without losing any of the good.

the problem of evil shows that the idea of a god who is perfect (all-knowing/all-powerful/all-good) cannot coexist with the undeniable suffering and pain in the world today. if such a god existed suffering wouldn't. but since it does at least one of those attributes must be false.

speaking from my religious upbringing, the descriptions of heaven in the quran feel incredibly man-made to me. they focus heavily on physical pleasures and desires of the flesh: gardens, rivers of milk and wine, beautiful companions. it seems unlikely that a truly greater or perfect power would be concerned with fulfilling these basic earthly desires rather than something more spiritual or profound.

even if this being did exist i wouldn't consider him god in the true sense of the word because a perfect god wouldn't behave like a tyrant. a being that punishes people eternally simply for doubting, asking questions, or being born into the wrong faith, isn't morally superior. it's authoritarian. i wouldn't worship a dictator on earth so why would i worship one in the sky? fear isn't the same as respect and obedience isn't the same as love.

edit: this was meant to be a separate reply, not sure why it merged

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.

(i want to start by saying that i'm speaking from the perspective of abrahamic religions)

i would argue that proving god is immoral, directly proves that god is not real. by definition, god is meant to be perfect. the being described in christianity and islam (i'm not very educated on judaism, but i assume it's the same) is described as THE moral judge, and therefore should meet the moral standards he demands of others. how can i, a human, be more understanding/compassionate/kind than GOD? it just doesn't seem plausible

 

[WeepingWorm]

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.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Animals live and die for the convenience of humans, and nature is there for humans to do with as they see fit.

That one's going to bite us on the arse one day... Maybe God, Jesus- whoever should have taught us that the animals are also our brothers and sisters. We need insects a whole lot more than they need us for instance. That the sea isn't our personal toilet. It plays a very big role in keeping this world alive! Maybe respect for nature would have been a better lesson- rather than- shit on, eat and destroy whatever the hell you like. You are the chosen ones! Nature will provide!

If we were created in God's image, it also follows that God has as much potential to be 'evil'. Practically speaking though, God surely set the parameters of possible behaviour- including 'evil' behaviour- knowing some of us would perpetrate evil acts on innocent victims. We can only surely do what it is in our parameters to do? So- every evil act- peadophilia, torture, genocide- God has foreseen and rubber stamped- surely?

It's like me being offered some fruit and saying- can I have a snozzberry please? Obviously I can't because, outside of Willy Wonka's fictional chocolate factory, God hasn't created a real life snozzberry- that we know of anyway. God has similarly created beings with the capability of doing horrific harm- why design them like that? Surely, you put in some parameters?!!



It's not about forcing our behaviour. If you were designing a tiger for instance but you only had a small area to put it, would you design it to be ferocious? Would it really have harmed a person not to give them paraphilia towards children? They wouldn't even know what they were missing.

God didn't only give us free will either, we were also burdened with massive temptation towards things we were then instructed were sinful! Again, if we are a mirror of God then, is God massively tempted to sin? Has God sinned? Are we their sin?

How could we perform in ways God hasn't already had foresight/ intention of? So, whether we are the mirror of them or whatever else, God knew where the potential of free will would land us.

 

[WeepingWorm]

That one's going to bite us on the arse one day... Maybe God, Jesus- whoever should have taught us that the animals are also our brothers and sisters. We need insects a whole lot more than they need us for instance. That the sea isn't our personal toilet. It plays a very big role in keeping this world alive! Maybe respect for nature would have been a better lesson- rather than- shit on, eat and destroy whatever the hell you like. You are the chosen ones! Nature will provide!

Of course respect of nature is necessary, because it would also be a creation of God and the dwelling place given to humans. That said, according to theology nature and man himself were transformed since the Fall, so the predatory dynamic and death only came into the world then. Torturing or harming an animal without good reason (survival) would be an evil act because they have a soul. People shitting on their own planet is hubristic and unwise behavior because humans can't get enough of material wealth, and in exchange they reap death. Funny enough, it also plays into other objections where people tend to ask "well why are kids sometimes born with genetic deformities and diseases? they didn't do anything, right?". While the children bear no guilt, they unfortunately bear the consequences of our predecessors actions and sins. The lead in people's bodies and the atmosphere, microplastics in their brains, the antibiotics and hormones in water, all the food on market shelves being poisoned with strange chemicals, harmful substances that were once promoted by scientists like heroin and thalidomide (which ones today?), uranium decorations, asbestos in construction, critical levels of pollution, the examples are many. Not to mention humans voluntarily ruining their bodies with addictions and unhealthy practices before conceiving. Where does human guilt begin in shooting themselves in the leg?

If we were created in God's image, it also follows that God has as much potential to be 'evil'. Practically speaking though, God surely set the parameters of possible behaviour- including 'evil' behaviour- knowing some of us would perpetrate evil acts on innocent victims. We can only surely do what it is in our parameters to do? So- every evil act- peadophilia, torture, genocide- God has foreseen and rubber stamped- surely?

No, that does not logically follow, I'm not sure why you say that. Once again, humans have the freedom to be secondary causes. Yes, if you subscribe to the idea of God, then you agree that God has seen everything through time. Yet, He is outside of time by virtue of creating it. The fact that He has observed the actions does not mean that He has approved them, He interacts with time in a different way than us. Free will is either given completely or everyone is a philosophical zombie that can't even hold any beliefs about anything because those require choice. I think maybe you haven't read into what exactly "free will" is speaking in terms of philosophy and instead speak about it in a simple way.
Within the Christian paradigm specifically, God is unchanging and the Truth. Truth states are philosophically independent of time. So no, logically he does not have the potential to be "evil" because that would mean he changes. Humans are a different, created existence that have complete control of what to choose, and they can decide to choose evil.

Again, if we are a mirror of God then, is God massively tempted to sin? Has God sinned? Are we their sin?

See, "in the image and likeness of" is not the same as "identical to". That's an important theological distinction. Specifically that means that humans inherit certain traits like being able to reason, have free will, create things, be secondary causes, etc. They do not possess the divine nature. Humans are not unchanging, infallible, omniscient, etc. A human is not a mirror of God (albeit some energies are reflected to an extent), it is a creature.
And once again, animals aren't rational, they operate on instinct. Humans have the capacity for reason and not act like a beast all the time. They can choose not to act ferocious when provoked. It's not a good analogy. Plus, remember that if you subscribe to the whole paradigm, then that comes with an acceptance that not all evil thoughts and intents originate from "you", they may also come from evil spirits that can take hold of you when you're vulnerable and lost, therefore a person needs guidance, help and medical work for his soul.
Knowing what free will would lead to is not a defeater of that whole system. It's the only possible way of having rational, thinking creatures with their own choices. Because otherwise humans wouldn't be able to exist in the first place (within the paradigm of determinism, knowledge, consciousness and the mind are not possible).

why design them like that? Surely, you put in some parameters?!!

If you limit free will, then it's no longer actual free will. Obviously.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Of course respect of nature is necessary, because it would also be a creation of God and the dwelling place given to humans. That said, according to theology nature and man himself were transformed since the Fall, so the predatory dynamic and death only came into the world then. Torturing or harming an animal without good reason (survival) would be an evil act because they have a soul. People shitting on their own planet is hubristic and unwise behavior because humans can't get enough of material wealth, and in exchange they reap death. Funny enough, it also plays into other objections where people tend to ask "well why are kids sometimes born with genetic deformities and diseases? they didn't do anything, right?". While the children bear no guilt, they unfortunately bear the consequences of our predecessors actions and sins. The lead in people's bodies and the atmosphere, microplastics in their brains, the antibiotics and hormones in water, all the food on market shelves being poisoned with strange chemicals, harmful substances that were once promoted by scientists like heroin and thalidomide (which ones today?), uranium decorations, asbestos in construction, critical levels of pollution, the examples are many. Not to mention humans voluntarily ruining their bodies with addictions and unhealthy practices before conceiving. Where does human guilt begin in shooting themselves in the leg?


No, that does not logically follow, I'm not sure why you say that. Once again, humans have the freedom to be secondary causes. Yes, if you subscribe to the idea of God, then you agree that God has seen everything through time. Yet, He is outside of time by virtue of creating it. The fact that He has observed the actions does not mean that He has approved them, He interacts with time in a different way than us. Free will is either given completely or everyone is a philosophical zombie that can't even hold any beliefs about anything because those require choice. I think maybe you haven't read into what exactly "free will" is speaking in terms of philosophy and instead speak about it in a simple way.
Within the Christian paradigm specifically, God is unchanging and the Truth. Truth states are philosophically independent of time. So no, logically he does not have the potential to be "evil" because that would mean he changes. Humans are a different, created existence that have complete control of what to choose, and they can decide to choose evil.


See, "in the image and likeness of" is not the same as "identical to". That's an important theological distinction. Specifically that means that humans inherit certain traits like being able to reason, have free will, create things, be secondary causes, etc. They do not possess the divine nature. Humans are not unchanging, infallible, omniscient, etc. A human is not a mirror of God (albeit some energies are reflected to an extent), it is a creature.
And once again, animals aren't rational, they operate on instinct. Humans have the capacity for reason and not act like a beast all the time. They can choose not to act ferocious when provoked. It's not a good analogy. Plus, remember that if you subscribe to the whole paradigm, then that comes with an acceptance that not all evil thoughts and intents originate from "you", they may also come from evil spirits that can take hold of you when you're vulnerable and lost, therefore a person needs guidance, help and medical work for his soul.
Knowing what free will would lead to is not a defeater of that whole system. It's the only possible way of having rational, thinking creatures with their own choices. Because otherwise humans wouldn't be able to exist in the first place (within the paradigm of determinism, knowledge, consciousness and the mind are not possible).


If you limit free will, then it's no longer actual free will. Obviously.

It depends really. Take the chemicals and plastics that now pollute just about everywhere on this planet. After they were developed, were they knowingly released into the environment, knowing the damage they could do? In many cases- yes they were. The companies that made them knew the dangers from their workforce becoming ill, birth defects from their employees and wives of their employees. The scientists they employ to figure this stuff out. They knew all that but, they did it anyway because they were making lots of money. Our governments also employ ineffective regulatory boards who just accept the lies these companies feed them- yes, our product is safe. I'm sure it all boils down to money. So yes- in many cases- people are responsible.

Who made us capable of greed and deceipt in the first place though? Or, who at least knew they were part and parcel of having free will? God. So- God didn't force those people to make those choices but, I reckon 'he' made them extremely susceptible to the temptation of money and power.

Talking of temptation- why even stick a forbidden fruit tree in the garden of eden unless God wanted to test Adam and Eve? And, just to make sure they'd fail- give them temptation. Temptation isn't free will. It's surely an influence tempting us to do something we know we shouldn't. So, that's 'evil spirits' supposedly? Why does God knowingly allow them then? If they know they will lead us astray?

God sets parameters for everything else- eg. gravity, the speed of sound. Could 'he' seriously not make the effort to stamp out paedophilia for instance? Would that really be restricting our liberties? We don't sense parameters if they were there from the start.

It's 'his' f*cking design. 'He' can do whatever he likes! Therefore, all the evil that is here was foreseen and judged 'reasonable risk'- surely? That's my argument and personal perspective. None of it was/ is reasonable! Even if those evil acts were encouraged by demons, the devil, evil spirits- whatever else- God allows them to exist. God may have created them even knowing what influence they would have on us.

Clearly, it's of higher value to God to allow someone to have free will and be so corrupted by 'evil spirits' that they rape a child than it would be to just get rid of all the evil spirits and limit a person's desires just a little bit so that they don't hurt children. That doesn't seem too oppresive to me. If no one was raping others, we wouldn't even perceive it as a restriction of free will. It would just be the norm that, no one does it.

Besides- how do you even know we are truly free? What if we started out with the ability to bend the will of others for instance? How can you be certain that our 'freedom' is boundless? I can guess what's coming next- it was changed after the exhile of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

A lot of what you argue makes sense but I still feel a deep hatred towards God- if there is one. And I'm not willing to forgive them either. Even though I don't have the power or authority to judge them- there we go- I do. Even if that means I'll go to hell, I'll have to accept that.

I just hope there isn't a God because, whatever they are, I don't like their management style and I know I'll be in deep trouble if there is one! Despite likely living a very boring and more sinless life than many of the people who profess to worship 'him'.

I find it kind of weird when people describe God like they know them. How do you know they are a 'he' even? How do you know they exist outside of time? Because they created it- ok but- who created them? When they somehow sprang into existence and started creating things- was that done in a time vacuum? Or, was time created the moment they created the universe?

Truthfully, I don't even want to believe in any of it. It's monstrous to my mind that something would set this kind of world in motion intentionally. I'm far more comfortable hoping that it was all chance and simply bad luck for a lot of creatures. The biggest puzzle to me is how people can love such a God. Fear them- certainly but, love? Nah. Some of their creations are certainly beautiful but they have a very sadistic streak to my mind that is horrifically bad.

 

[Dejected 55]

If God cannot be evil, then he cannot be good either. If God can only be one way, he can't actually be that way. The very nature of good and evil requires both to be present. Free will that allows us to choose between good and evil only works IF we all have both good and evil in us.

The only things any religious person "knows" of God is what is in their mind and what someone else wrote about God centuries ago. There is no actual evidence of any actual word of God being the word of God except some person at some point who said "God told me to write this." Even if there is a God, we cannot as flawed creations trust the word of man because the word of God is supposed to supersede the word of man, no?

The logic loop fails at almost every turn when it comes to man-made religion and descriptions of God.

That said... there certainly could be a God, could be a God that created everything and ignores us OR one who intercedes or variations in between. There could be a God who accidentally created us and doesn't even know we are here. My hypothetical example of this is... what we perceive as the "big bang" that created our universe could be the flashpoint of a match struck by a superior being. In the brief seconds between the striking of that match and its flames burning out, that's the span of our whole universal existence. To us, it is billions and billions of years... but to that supreme being it all started and ended in a few seconds... so that God created a universe without knowing it and it ended before he could even fathom the possibility of it.

Lots of things could be true at the same time. Always worth reminding people that the original big bang theory was posited by a Catholic Priest. So, science and religion don't have to be separate.

 

[WeepingWorm]

It's 'his' f*cking design. 'He' can do whatever he likes! Therefore, all the evil that is here was foreseen and judged 'reasonable risk'- surely?

I feel like I've sufficiently replied to these objections above, you're merely restating them. I've already replied to why it can't be limited, or why it's not feasible to eradicate certain evildoers or acts. And how it's the only way to have any kind of independent rational beings at all. I'm not sure what you're confused about.

Besides- how do you even know we are truly free? What if we started out with the ability to bend the will of others for instance? How can you be certain that our 'freedom' is boundless?

You... can bend the will of others. With persuasion or influence, or even in a cruel way with torture and abuse. Many people on this forum have received psychological trauma, so I'm not sure what exactly you mean with that question. Seems obvious.

A lot of what you argue makes sense but I still feel a deep hatred towards God- if there is one. And I'm not willing to forgive them either. Even though I don't have the power or authority to judge them- there we go- I do. Even if that means I'll go to hell, I'll have to accept that.

I just hope there isn't a God because, whatever they are, I don't like their management style and I know I'll be in deep trouble if there is one! Despite likely living a very boring and more sinless life than many of the people who profess to worship 'him'.

I know what you mean. At some point I thought this world is specifically made by some kind of evil agent. But first of all, there needs to be an objective standard for good and evil, otherwise discussing any of this doesn't make any sense. Getting into philosophy and theology really helped me get my thoughts on this in order and discover that the actual thing is completely different from how it's portrayed or what you might hear from modern society, or imagine yourself. So you'd find better answers there, I'm just showing the entry points. It also helped me see that most anything fucked up is the result of human actions, and a lot of things in my life were my own fault.
That said, I think you're better than you give yourself credit for. And the whole "you're in deep trouble and gonna go to hell" thing is an unfortunate result of fearmongering post-reformation adherents (that whole gig is completely arbitrary and made for money). You see a lot of those in the US for example. Remember how you said God should see everything in time at once? In the Christian paradigm, when God decided to take flesh and become a human to dwell among them, he indeed knew that in exchange people would spit on him, persecute him, betray him, torture and kill him. Imagine you're an all powerful God, yet you realize mere humans would do that to you. And he decided to go through it for the humans sake in the first place. Wouldn't you say that's very humble and loving? Lots of apostles did notable evil acts like murder or even essentially serial killing. It's likely that your perception of what God is (and his disposition towards you) is discolored by things you've heard somewhere.

I find it kind of weird when people describe God like they know them. How do you know they are a 'he' even?

Excellent question and insight! The way we speak about God uses words and concepts that we have in our own reality for our own understanding. Yes, indeed, if it's a being that created humans and biology in the first place and is outside of it, how can God be a "he"? How can he be a Father and have a Son that is generated by filiation? Isn't that only a human thing? And indeed, you can't even say that god "exists", because that would be a term in metaphysics. And metaphysics are for created things, so since God is uncreated he is free from the "exists - doesn't exist" dichotomy of created things. Those are just the words in our limited language and consciousness that we utilize to describe things bestowed by divine revelation.
The whole apophatic method is based on that: the divine essence is unknowable to us as created beings because it is uncreated and beyond our reason. There's no way to exactly and sufficiently say WHAT God is. We can only say what it isn't. And get closer by negation, by removing parts of what makes us up: knowledge, reason, consciousness... and it becomes a mystical experience. Yep, just like meditation and similar practices in other religions and spiritual schools. It's an ancient concept.
Does that mean that we can't know God at all? No, because humans can interact with the energies of God which are knowable (you've probably heard someone say something along the lines of "God is love, God is light, etc."). But that's a giant theological topic and nobody wants to read all that here.
Oh, and nobody "created" God, he is uncreated. A big apologetic argument is actually predicated on that, the ontological argument. In logic (and the laws of reality of course), something can't just come from nothing, so you gotta point at some kind of a starting point. In order to avoid infinite regress the only way to do that is to claim that this starting point is uncreated and eternal.
For more info about how stuff was created outside of time and what that means, refer to exegetical literature on Genesis. Time itself is a transcendental category that depends on a lot of other things to even work. And it requires a mind, time is not a physical object.

It's monstrous to my mind that something would set this kind of world in motion intentionally

Yes, I can understand that. The classic reply to that both from scripture and theology is that we as humans don't have a universal omniscient mind so we cannot comprehend and see all the causal chains and events on a cosmic scale to make a judgement why it has to be this way specifically. And that makes logical sense.
There's a more interesting take on this from St. Irenaeus if you want. One of the central concepts in Christianity is theosis (becoming one with God). This approach emphasizes that humans are created with the potential for godliness but are not fully perfected at creation; growth into likeness with God (virtue, maturity) necessarily involves a process in which evil and suffering play a role. Resisting evil is necessary for true virtue, and the development of virtue requires freedom and the reality of evil choices. Natural and moral evils exist not as creations of God but as consequences permitted so that a greater good (human participation in God's goodness through free cooperation) can be realized. So in that kind of view, those atrocious acts of evil that you described are not part of God's direct will but are there for the sake of a higher good: the maturation and salvation of human beings.

If God cannot be evil, then he cannot be good either. If God can only be one way, he can't actually be that way.

...Why? You just made a claim, but you provided zero justification.

The very nature of good and evil requires both to be present. Free will that allows us to choose between good and evil only works IF we all have both good and evil in us.

No, I've already stated above that evil has no ontological status within that paradigm. Please read carefully before you reply. And no, free will can absolutely exist without evil: you can choose between two goods. That's philosophy 101 and is present in most surface level theology as well.
...Maybe you're thinking of "right and wrong" from ethics? That's not the same as "good and evil".

The only things any religious person "knows" of God is what is in their mind and what someone else wrote about God centuries ago. There is no actual evidence of any actual word of God being the word of God

Yeah, you're right that it's a worldview on a faith basis. But hey, here's the thing: every single worldview is based on faith. Knowledge itself has belief as one of it's necessary components (justified true belief + gettier cases). You haven't empirically verified most things in your worldview, so you rely on authoritative sources to gain knowledge like textbooks, media, education (all of those were written by someone!). Some fundamental things can't even be verified empirically at all: logic, universals (like laws and numbers for example), induction, the self, ethics, existence of the outside world, etc. So what it really boils down to is: which one of those worldviews makes logical sense as a whole and holistic system without contradictions? I would argue that the theistic paradigm does, and that there is evidence for it. I already stated that not all evidence is empirical above.

The logic loop fails at almost every turn when it comes to man-made religion and descriptions of God.

I'd say logically the systems that really can't even stand up are those based on naive empiricism, materialism, fundamentalism, determinism, and some others. Funny enough, they have been refuted in philosophy centuries ago, yet somehow today we can still observe dedicated followers of those ("I need scientific empirical proof or I don't believe in it!!!"). Can you actually present your case on what grounds and gives an account for logic in your worldview? Then we can see if your view is more coherent.
Also yeah, there definitely are systems where god is man-made (like neoplatonism, paganism, and other "dead god of the philosophers" cases). They're different from a system based on divine revelation, where man is god-made.

There could be a God who accidentally created us and doesn't even know we are here.

Sure, there are systems like that, Buddhism for example, where the ultimate metaphysical principle is non-personal chaos. And it fails right at the outset because chaos does not create order or meaning. If a worldview has an anti-normative principle as a foundation, then normativity existing easily refutes it.

Always worth reminding people that the original big bang theory was posited by a Catholic Priest. So, science and religion don't have to be separate.

Yeah, universities came from Rome and the Byzantine empire. Catholics are responsible for "modern science". The Bible itself is what accelerated the development of the printing press. A ton of famous scientists were mystics or religious, well, it's a huge topic.
Patterns from mystical practices definitely overlap with the rest of reality and can be useful in science. But science and religion have different goals. Science does not work beyond the scope of the scientific method, so it cannot answer metaphysical questions by definition.

 

[Akashaaa]

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 think you misunderstood the intent of my message. I was explaining the classical Christian response/apologia to OP, and was not trying to impose my moral values over the Christian framework of good and evil. Personally, I am a moral emotivist, and I don't believe in morals having truth value or objectivity. There can be objectivity within moral systems, but a intergroup comparison on the basis of truth is impossible.

That one's going to bite us on the arse one day... Maybe God, Jesus- whoever should have taught us that the animals are also our brothers and sisters. We need insects a whole lot more than they need us for instance. That the sea isn't our personal toilet. It plays a very big role in keeping this world alive! Maybe respect for nature would have been a better lesson- rather than- shit on, eat and destroy whatever the hell you like. You are the chosen ones! Nature will provide!

If we were created in God's image, it also follows that God has as much potential to be 'evil'. Practically speaking though, God surely set the parameters of possible behaviour- including 'evil' behaviour- knowing some of us would perpetrate evil acts on innocent victims. We can only surely do what it is in our parameters to do? So- every evil act- peadophilia, torture, genocide- God has foreseen and rubber stamped- surely?

It's like me being offered some fruit and saying- can I have a snozzberry please? Obviously I can't because, outside of Willy Wonka's fictional chocolate factory, God hasn't created a real life snozzberry- that we know of anyway. God has similarly created beings with the capability of doing horrific harm- why design them like that? Surely, you put in some parameters?!!



It's not about forcing our behaviour. If you were designing a tiger for instance but you only had a small area to put it, would you design it to be ferocious? Would it really have harmed a person not to give them paraphilia towards children? They wouldn't even know what they were missing.

God didn't only give us free will either, we were also burdened with massive temptation towards things we were then instructed were sinful! Again, if we are a mirror of God then, is God massively tempted to sin? Has God sinned? Are we their sin?

How could we perform in ways God hasn't already had foresight/ intention of? So, whether we are the mirror of them or whatever else, God knew where the potential of free will would land us.

I'm sorry but this feels like a personal and emotional objection rather than a cohesive logical argument against Christianity. You don't have to agree with the Christian understanding of God's moral values. It is what it is. Just because he is evil according to your ethical theory doesn't mean that he cannot exist at all.

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.

.

I have two objections to this. One is purely philosophical while the other is partly theological.

Firstly, I find it challenging to conceive of 'free will' (quotations because I believe it is a vacuous term. We can explore this if you are interested) in a Christian, and in a general monotheistic context. After all, a God that is possible of seeing all possible future states due to his omnipotence entails causality and contradicts self dictation if you aren't a compatabalist. I would like to see you defend this tension.

Secondly, I would like to ask what your view on salvation is along with other theodical questions.

1. Are humans tempted in heaven, and are the capable of sin?

2. If they are tempted but are resistant to temptation (much like Jesus when he fasted), do they still have 'free-will'?
3. If they did have free will, but are incapable of sinning due to their resistance, why wouldn't a morally just god (speaking locally) just create a resistant human in the first place?

I can only envision two possible resolutions to this issue. Either you abandon the argument that God allowed evil to exist due to freedom being morally good, and a neccesary prerequisite to other virtues, or you reject the dogma that people can't sin in heaven.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I feel like I've sufficiently replied to these objections above, you're merely restating them. I've already replied to why it can't be limited, or why it's not feasible to eradicate certain evildoers or acts. And how it's the only way to have any kind of independent rational beings at all. I'm not sure what you're confused about.


You... can bend the will of others. With persuasion or influence, or even in a cruel way with torture and abuse. Many people on this forum have received psychological trauma, so I'm not sure what exactly you mean with that question. Seems obvious.


I know what you mean. At some point I thought this world is specifically made by some kind of evil agent. But first of all, there needs to be an objective standard for good and evil, otherwise discussing any of this doesn't make any sense. Getting into philosophy and theology really helped me get my thoughts on this in order and discover that the actual thing is completely different from how it's portrayed or what you might hear from modern society, or imagine yourself. So you'd find better answers there, I'm just showing the entry points. It also helped me see that most anything fucked up is the result of human actions, and a lot of things in my life were my own fault.
That said, I think you're better than you give yourself credit for. And the whole "you're in deep trouble and gonna go to hell" thing is an unfortunate result of fearmongering post-reformation adherents (that whole gig is completely arbitrary and made for money). You see a lot of those in the US for example. Remember how you said God should see everything in time at once? In the Christian paradigm, when God decided to take flesh and become a human to dwell among them, he indeed knew that in exchange people would spit on him, persecute him, betray him, torture and kill him. Imagine you're an all powerful God, yet you realize mere humans would do that to you. And he decided to go through it for the humans sake in the first place. Wouldn't you say that's very humble and loving? Lots of apostles did notable evil acts like murder or even essentially serial killing. It's likely that your perception of what God is (and his disposition towards you) is discolored by things you've heard somewhere.


Excellent question and insight! The way we speak about God uses words and concepts that we have in our own reality for our own understanding. Yes, indeed, if it's a being that created humans and biology in the first place and is outside of it, how can God be a "he"? How can he be a Father and have a Son that is generated by filiation? Isn't that only a human thing? And indeed, you can't even say that god "exists", because that would be a term in metaphysics. And metaphysics are for created things, so since God is uncreated he is free from the "exists - doesn't exist" dichotomy of created things. Those are just the words in our limited language and consciousness that we utilize to describe things bestowed by divine revelation.
The whole apophatic method is based on that: the divine essence is unknowable to us as created beings because it is uncreated and beyond our reason. There's no way to exactly and sufficiently say WHAT God is. We can only say what it isn't. And get closer by negation, by removing parts of what makes us up: knowledge, reason, consciousness... and it becomes a mystical experience. Yep, just like meditation and similar practices in other religions and spiritual schools. It's an ancient concept.
Does that mean that we can't know God at all? No, because humans can interact with the energies of God which are knowable (you've probably heard someone say something along the lines of "God is love, God is light, etc."). But that's a giant theological topic and nobody wants to read all that here.
Oh, and nobody "created" God, he is uncreated. A big apologetic argument is actually predicated on that, the ontological argument. In logic (and the laws of reality of course), something can't just come from nothing, so you gotta point at some kind of a starting point. In order to avoid infinite regress the only way to do that is to claim that this starting point is uncreated and eternal.
For more info about how stuff was created outside of time and what that means, refer to exegetical literature on Genesis. Time itself is a transcendental category that depends on a lot of other things to even work. And it requires a mind, time is not a physical object.


Yes, I can understand that. The classic reply to that both from scripture and theology is that we as humans don't have a universal omniscient mind so we cannot comprehend and see all the causal chains and events on a cosmic scale to make a judgement why it has to be this way specifically. And that makes logical sense.
There's a more interesting take on this from St. Irenaeus if you want. One of the central concepts in Christianity is theosis (becoming one with God). This approach emphasizes that humans are created with the potential for godliness but are not fully perfected at creation; growth into likeness with God (virtue, maturity) necessarily involves a process in which evil and suffering play a role. Resisting evil is necessary for true virtue, and the development of virtue requires freedom and the reality of evil choices. Natural and moral evils exist not as creations of God but as consequences permitted so that a greater good (human participation in God's goodness through free cooperation) can be realized. So in that kind of view, those atrocious acts of evil that you described are not part of God's direct will but are there for the sake of a higher good: the maturation and salvation of human beings.


...Why? You just made a claim, but you provided zero justification.


No, I've already stated above that evil has no ontological status within that paradigm. Please read carefully before you reply. And no, free will can absolutely exist without evil: you can choose between two goods. That's philosophy 101 and is present in most surface level theology as well.
...Maybe you're thinking of "right and wrong" from ethics? That's not the same as "good and evil".


Yeah, you're right that it's a worldview on a faith basis. But hey, here's the thing: every single worldview is based on faith. Knowledge itself has belief as one of it's necessary components (justified true belief + gettier cases). You haven't empirically verified most things in your worldview, so you rely on authoritative sources to gain knowledge like textbooks, media, education (all of those were written by someone!). Some fundamental things can't even be verified empirically at all: logic, universals (like laws and numbers for example), induction, the self, ethics, existence of the outside world, etc. So what it really boils down to is: which one of those worldviews makes logical sense as a whole and holistic system without contradictions? I would argue that the theistic paradigm does, and that there is evidence for it. I already stated that not all evidence is empirical above.


I'd say logically the systems that really can't even stand up are those based on naive empiricism, materialism, fundamentalism, determinism, and some others. Funny enough, they have been refuted in philosophy centuries ago, yet somehow today we can still observe dedicated followers of those ("I need scientific empirical proof or I don't believe in it!!!"). Can you actually present your case on what grounds and gives an account for logic in your worldview? Then we can see if your view is more coherent.
Also yeah, there definitely are systems where god is man-made (like neoplatonism, paganism, and other "dead god of the philosophers" cases). They're different from a system based on divine revelation, where man is god-made.


Sure, there are systems like that, Buddhism for example, where the ultimate metaphysical principle is non-personal chaos. And it fails right at the outset because chaos does not create order or meaning. If a worldview has an anti-normative principle as a foundation, then normativity existing easily refutes it.


Yeah, universities came from Rome and the Byzantine empire. Catholics are responsible for "modern science". The Bible itself is what accelerated the development of the printing press. A ton of famous scientists were mystics or religious, well, it's a huge topic.
Patterns from mystical practices definitely overlap with the rest of reality and can be useful in science. But science and religion have different goals. Science does not work beyond the scope of the scientific method, so it cannot answer metaphysical questions by definition.

I just find other people and myself tie themself in knots trying to figure out what God might be. Why all this obviously heinous stuff isn't their fault. I appreciate you know a lot and can reason thoroughly and I appreciate your time in discussing it but, it hasn't shifted anything for me. I think we're both going to stay in our own lanes ultimately. So, I would like to respectfully leave the discussion and, wish you all the best.

I'm sorry but this feels like a personal and emotional objection rather than a cohesive logical argument against Christianity. You don't have to agree with the Christian understanding of God's moral values. It is what it is. Just because he is evil according to your ethical theory doesn't mean that he cannot exist at all.

Oh- I agree- and, that's my fear- that a God does in fact exist because, I can't see how they are good. Absolutely my own opinion, maybe not my right to criticise etc etc. I still maintain that it's ultimately logical to blame the bad stuff on God. I doubt I'll be dissuaded from that.

Do I have to accept it- if the Christian God even exists? (There are many thousands of others claiming to also be the one true God.) Of course I have to accept it. I'm a mere mortal. I don't have to like it though or, even adhere to it. Even if that means very negative consequences, I'll have to accept them. Better to be true to myself I think, rather than pretend to worship what I fear to be a monster. Each to their own though. I think we all have the right to follow our own heart.

I found your later ideas about heaven and the capability to sin in heaven very interesting. In a fairly shallow way, when I started to reject Christianity, I began to really think about it all realistically. If we are truly ourselves when we (if we) get to heaven, will it really be all that great? As much as I love my family, they have faults just the same as I do. Beyond the initial hugs, kisses, tears of joy, how long would it be before they started criticising my life choices? Expecting things of me in the afterlife? But then, I wondered- will we have all our 'bad' bits removed? But in that case- will we really be authentically us anymore? I imagine a lot of the things people enjoy on earth are at least borderline sinful. So, if all that's gone, how fun would heaven even be? Plus- whatever it is lasting for eternity certainly doesn't sound fun. So, truthfully, I hope it's all fabricated. That's my hope- not my belief. I'm undecided on the belief side of things. Not open to conversion but not confident about atheism either.

 

[Amviii]

Im sorry to literate mfs i only made this with chatgpt, i dont have enough words in my vocabulary and im not very articulate, but i made this idea, chatgpt just helped me formulate it

---

The Formal Argument from Suffering in a Designed Moral System

Premises:

1. If God exists, He is traditionally defined as omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omnibenevolent (all-good).
2. An all-powerful God could create any possible world — including one without brutal suffering, without violating free will.
3. An all-knowing God would foresee the exact consequences of every possible world He could create.
4. An all-good God would prevent unnecessary or unjustified suffering, especially among innocents.
5. God allegedly designed our minds — including our moral intuitions and emotional responses — to see suffering as evil, and pleasure as good.
6. The actual world contains widespread, extreme, and unjustifiable suffering — both moral (caused by agents) and natural (caused by design).
7. Therefore, God intentionally created a systemwhere:
   • He programmed us to feel suffering as evil,
   • He populated the system with it anyway,
   • And He expects us to trust Him based on a morality He himself designed — while violating it constantly.

---

Conclusion:

---

Bonus Observation:



That collapses the entire moral framework of theism.

What concerns me about this argument, is that if there is an all-knowing God, that could be wrong. The human brain and our logic is not an accurate method of gathering true information.

Look at it this way: How many of the world's greatest minds have different opinions about things?

Now, we can look at us thinking God is being illogical. In the chance that there is a God, God is not being illogical; We would be the ones with flawed logic.

 

[WeepingWorm]

I don't believe in morals having truth value or objectivity. There can be objectivity within moral systems

What? So can or cannot be? Make up your mind.

I am a moral emotivist

Emotivism as any other non-cognitivism is self-refuting which can be demonstrated by making a second-order reflexive truth statement, and on the definition of those views you can't make truth statements, demonstrating that these views contradict themselves or reduce all the talk about it to meaningless noise. Why ought you believe in emotivism? Is emotivism the case? What does it mean to say that emotivism is true? There's no possibility of expressing any propositions or assertions at all, anything you may say within that framework to answer these questions is meaningless babble according to that view itself. If this is new to you, you gotta read what emotivism actually is and entails.
Comparison of meta-ethical systems is absolutely possible, and doing internal critique even more so. In any case, discussion of any of this is completely useless and irrelevant to you on your own terms since beliefs about "rights and wrongs" do not exist in your worldview. Or anything in ethics being "true" or "correct", including your own view. You cut the legs out from your own position.

After all, a God that is possible of seeing all possible future states due to his omnipotence entails causality and contradicts self dictation if you aren't a compatabalist.

Wrong claim without any justification. Once again, someone observing your actions does not rob you of your free will. It's not a hard concept to grasp at all. For an easier example imagine there was a spy watching you all day long through a camera and you didn't even know, does that mean you didn't have free will that day? Within the Christian paradigm God observes your actions, he does not interfere with your decisions or pre-write your "destiny". Unless it's something absolutely insane like Calvinism, but that has no legs to stand on.
Causality in philosophy has nothing to do with this, it's a presupposed category altogether that cannot be proven logically or formally, just like induction. In theology, God is the first cause, and humans have the freedom and power to be second causes. Determinism is a false conclusion from the fact that actions have consequences. Once again, you can't even predicate of determinism from within determinism. Or believe in anything at all.

Secondly, I would like to ask what your view on salvation is along with other theodical questions.

1. Are humans tempted in heaven, and are the capable of sin?

2. If they are tempted but are resistant to temptation (much like Jesus when he fasted), do they still have 'free-will'?
3. If they did have free will, but are incapable of sinning due to their resistance, why wouldn't a morally just god (speaking locally) just create a resistant human in the first place?

Okay, so according to the doctrine:

1. There are no humans in heaven, that comes after the Judgement and the restoration. No, humans would not be capable of "sin" because the possibility to commit evil deeds will be removed and death will cease to exist. There will be a new world and humans will have new, transcendent "bodies" with restored human nature. This does not contradict free will: you can choose between two goods.
2. Consequently, there will be no temptation. That said, Jesus was not tempted at all because of His divine nature, the devil only dared to try it.
3. It's not going to be a "resistance" but complete removal of sin and the possibility of evil in the first place. Ontologically. Yes, in the eschaton humans become just what you describe: a perfect creation with no sin or evil.

Well, the "problem" of evil is really one of the least potent objections, if an objection at all, it mostly stems from lack of reading of the source material and not actually looking at explanations of that "problem".
I'm answering in very short replies, so of course just this isn't going to make perfect sense. Take it from theologians and church fathers to give an in-depth exploration of this.
A decent book on this is written by Saint John of Damascus, here are some good and very short chapters for you which comment on exactly what you asked:

From here you may be interested in chapters: Concerning Prescience and Predestination, Concerning Providence, Concerning what is not in our hands, Concerning the reason of our endowment with Free-will, Concerning Man, Concerning Paradise, Concerning the devil and demons, Concerning the creation.

And here you can find also find good chapters on: The purpose for which God in His foreknowledge created persons who would sin and not repent, That there are not two Kingdoms, That God is not the cause of evils.

 

[ElTopo]

Im sorry to literate mfs i only made this with chatgpt, i dont have enough words in my vocabulary and im not very articulate, but i made this idea, chatgpt just helped me formulate it

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The Formal Argument from Suffering in a Designed Moral System

Premises:

1. If God exists, He is traditionally defined as omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omnibenevolent (all-good).
2. An all-powerful God could create any possible world — including one without brutal suffering, without violating free will.
3. An all-knowing God would foresee the exact consequences of every possible world He could create.
4. An all-good God would prevent unnecessary or unjustified suffering, especially among innocents.
5. God allegedly designed our minds — including our moral intuitions and emotional responses — to see suffering as evil, and pleasure as good.
6. The actual world contains widespread, extreme, and unjustifiable suffering — both moral (caused by agents) and natural (caused by design).
7. Therefore, God intentionally created a systemwhere:
   • He programmed us to feel suffering as evil,
   • He populated the system with it anyway,
   • And He expects us to trust Him based on a morality He himself designed — while violating it constantly.

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Conclusion:

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Bonus Observation:



That collapses the entire moral framework of theism.

I'll take time to read the replies to the thread if I can but for now I'll stick to the main thread.
There is ample theological literature debating these points, which while not at all superficial, are quite common in anyone approaching religions from the outside and have as such been tackled on many times but philosophy.
I'm not an expert of any kind but I will do my best.

For a start I think religion shouldn't be approached in an objective way, it is a deeply intimate thing, which is to be approached subjectively, through ones experiences. I think it is common to imagine religious people as some kind of naive, blindfolded, paupered-by-life kind of archetype, and it makes sense given the image of religious people we have today, churches are corrupted systems who often mistranslate teaching, and have throughout history bended scripture to their own will, while people who go around waving their faith as a banner are often enamored of its superficial image, many are born already inserted in that "culture" so to speak and fail to grow in search of it I think.
Soul should be searched for and studied in its deepest, most niche questions, even those that make us uncomfortable, while many choose to ignore the problematic "holes" of faith and simply put on standard answers to complicated questions that require listening.
So it should be approached with humbleness and sincerity (both towards ourselves and outside)

I think your questions can be summarized in "why is the world the way it is? And why God has made us suffer in it?"
I have my own answers to that but I'll stick to Abrahamic scripture since that's what you are interested in.
Imagine that you could live in a perfect garden of sorts, with no worries or pain, responsibility, wrongdoing and so on.
That's the garden of infancy to say, or the state before the consciousness of men, it's like an animal kind of state, except it misses the violence and brutality of natural animal life.
I imagine it as a metaphor for a paupered person living in comfort without knowledge of anything else.

Now Dostoyevsky said once (I think The Brothers Karamazov but I'm not sure), if you put men in a perfect garden where everything is perfect you'll soon enough come to find them having set fire to something just for the sake of it.

It's not that we have an instinct for wrong and evil (maybe we do tho), I think it's about humans having a deep craving for experiencing.

Now a snake is in the garden, mind that most people tend to have this naive idea of God v Satan when they read scripture, I think it's different, snake are a powerful archetype in humans, they might be the reasons why we developed consciousness, at some point we figured out that we couldn't only kill the snake that came near our pack, we could have gone and searched for the source of all snakes and eradicate them so that we could live in peace, that's where myths of men fighting dragons come from, if you think of it dragons are a summary of the attributes of different predators, and they are definitely the reason our sight is so advanced, if you ever find yourself in the proximity of a snake even if you just catch it with the tail of your eye you'll jump away without even realizing, that's how ingrained they are in our psyche.
The snake drives the woman to the apple of Knowledge of Good and Evil (mind snakes often cause miscarriages in pregnant women, I have personal experiences in this, I was born in the countryside and my grandmother aborted twice because of seeing a snake, she is terrified to this day every time she sees one) and she convinces her husband to bite and as soon as they do they are self conscious and ashamed of being naked, so they cover themselves. We are very strange creatures, walking upright and all that, it's weird that all of our vital spots are so exposed and we are so easy to hurt, and upon realizing that you also realize it very easy to hurt others...

In the Islamic myth the sacred fruit is not an apple but a seed of wheat, life got real hard for people after we started cultivating instead of gathering-hunting, the diet was way worse, they had to work a lot more, they fell ill more often, they couldn't move the way they did, so why did we do that? I think the main answer is because we learned to see the future ahead of us, we stopped living day to day, to become this conscious means also to be able to love, have dear ones, friends, to mourn the dead, to have hopes and dreams, that's being human.
So after that we get shunned by our dream of infancy, to suffer on the earth until we can atone for our sins. You can't go back to good old unconscious life after becoming aware, it's good and evil, and you see the kind of people who want to retreat in an unconscious life everyday, and it's a heartbreaking sight to see. Jesus also advised against living lives of unconsciousness.

Why do we suffer in this world? Why is there evil and disasters?
Well it is an integral part of feeling. If we want to have a world where there are good feelings then we need bad feelings so that we can tell darkness from light, heat from cold and so on. And isn't pain liberating sometimes, doesn't crying at a funeral make you feel a deeper kind of connection to others, isn't sad music nice because we have those feelings of pain we can relate too.
Even more why do we admire athletes or people of success? I think they went through a great deal of pain and suffering to achieve a good physique, or a good guitar technique, or being able to draw hands. Would we admire them all the same if it wasn't painful at all to lift a weight or to take a punch to the chin?
Now of course a lot of pain and suffering and useless deaths are manmade and that goes without saying, you probably heard the whole spiel about how it's evil humans making evil etc... I think it should also be tackled why humans are evil and why innocent are dragged in between the gears of depraved people, but it's a longer discourse.

And the same goes for disasters, although many natural disasters cause more victims because of the inadequacy of man, corrupted government and uncaring people often lead to greater tragedies, but tragedies do happen and they are a part of existing on this earth just like pain and suffering, and maybe they give us a reason to reflect on our situation, to do better in our lives, and of course it's horrible the invaluable lives are lost but I don't know the reason for it, if there is any reason, but it happens and the truth is simply the one manifested before our eyes, that's the world we live in, earthquake happen and so do storms and so on...
I think God wanted us to part with the world, to become beings of spirit instead of being of the matter, at least in the new testament. Judaism is a deeply carnal and material religion and while I don't want to be offensive or anything you can kinda see where that brings you.

I think it's incredibly long to get into the nick and crevices of all these points but I'll leave it simple.
God isn't apparent, you should look at the world with the view of an atheist and you'll soon realize it is there (and please not one of those reddit atheist who are just angry at religion and want to feel smart, look at the world as if you knew nothing).
We are ultimately light seekers and there is reason something inside of us calls us to explore the side of our being that reaches upward.
Religion means to form a relationship with God, a true personal relationship, I think this is a cardinal point of the discussion, you can't look at the life of someone else and use it as proof of the inexistence of God or that God is evil and so on, you can only look at yourself.

Most of all if you ask this questions it's because you aren't uninterested in God and you don't really think it's made up nonsense, if you did you wouldn't take a second guess at the why and how of it, so I advise you too look into it for yourself, no one else can do justice to your own path into religion or into whatever spiritual path you will choose.