Does a Good God Exist?

[wyguy]

Sure, but in my example the analogy is that God wants us to choose fruit X but not fruit Y. If we have a choice as to whether we obey God or not, then there is a logically possible world where people always *choose* to obey God (which is obviously not the same as the world which does exist). The idea being that God could have chosen to actualise that world (to bring it into being) rather than this one, which would have resulted in a sinless world without the loss of free will.

God wants us to choose Heaven over Hell. To choose good over evil. You can speculate about another world where everyone has chosen to obey, but the Bible doesn't even hint at there being another planet where this spiritual war is being fought.

It looks like a double-edged sword to me- If I think I am worthy, then the danger is that this would be mere pride and arrogance on my part. On the other hand, if I think I can never be worthy, this might be a demonstration of a profound lack of respect for myself. Neither option looks particularly appealing, to be perfectly honest.

You are not worthy and can never be. Lack of respect has nothing to do with it. That's like a murderer saying he can't respect himself if he doesn't keep murdering.

This could be pretty problematic, for obvious reasons. If you were in my position you can imagine how the claim would look to me:

[doubting_tommy]

Out of interest, why do you think Hawking doesn't believe God was necessary to create the universe?

Speaking for myself and not Joe: In his book "The Grand Design" he states so.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean?

[doubting_tommy]

God wants us to choose Heaven over Hell. To choose good over evil. You can speculate about another world where everyone has chosen to obey, but the Bible doesn't even hint at there being another planet where this spiritual war is being fought.

I didn

[doubting_tommy]

True. But you are then placing your faith in something that is even more untenable. If matter and energy cannot be created naturalistically, then you must then explain how they came to be without invoking supernaturalism. Good luck with that.

Well, there is another option- one could abandon naturalism while retaining atheism. If naturalism alone could not explain the origin of the universe, then you could add some degree of supernaturalism to the extent that you would need in order to offer an explanation. But this would not necessarily entail adding a God into the theory. But, if the laws of nature worked differently at the beginning of the universe (and there is some evidence that the laws of physics do strange things when you go really small or really far back in time), this would still be naturalism, just of a different sort to what we have at present.

Also, as I have shown, the idea of an eternal universe is false, based on the second Law of Thermodynamics which proves it's eventual heat death. And if there was a "previous Universe," you have offered zero scientific proof for it.

I

[wyguy]

I didn

[enoob57]

One of the best things one can do to discover if the Christian God is the actual Creator, is to study the creation accounts of other religions. It will become crystal clear soon enough.

The world riding on the back of a turtle... that's possible, that's believable, whats wrong with that! Love Nutty

[wyguy]

One of the best things one can do to discover if the Christian God is the actual Creator, is to study the creation accounts of other religions. It will become crystal clear soon enough.

The world riding on the back of a turtle... that's possible, that's believable, whats wrong with that! Love Nutty

[MorningGlory]

One of the best things one can do to discover if the Christian God is the actual Creator, is to study the creation accounts of other religions. It will become crystal clear soon enough.

The world riding on the back of a turtle... that's possible, that's believable, whats wrong with that! Love Nutty

[Guest]

You are not worthy and can never be. Lack of respect has nothing to do with it. That's like a murderer saying he can't respect himself if he doesn't keep murdering....

Well, it's more like a person who has never murdered and generally abides by the law and tries to treat other people with dignity and respect thinking "well, I'm not such a bad guy, I'm certainly not as bad as a murderer, and I think I have some pretty good qualities and, while not perfect, I think I do a reasonably good job of living a decent moral life." So that's where I'm at at the moment, more or less. I don't want to be arrogant and prideful, but I also don't want to think of myself as worthless if I'm not- both views seem distorted from my current vantage point.....

Why

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,

Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. Psalms 2:1-3

Would A Smart Fellow

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Ecclesiastes 8:11

Claim Robes Of Self Righteousness

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. Jeremiah 17:9-10

In The Face Of A Just

The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD's throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men.

The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.

Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup. Psalms 11:4-6

And Merciful

For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright. Psalms 11:7

God

See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.

For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever. Deuteronomy 32:39-40

It's Just Not Rational

But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:

In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4

>>>>>()<<<<<

Believe

That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:9-13

And Be Blessed Beloved

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6

Be Very Blessed

Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place?

He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.

He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Psalms 24:3-5

Love, Joe

[doubting_tommy]

Second, just because you claim another world where John McCain won the election, etc, doesn't make it so. Once again, what the idea lacks is one shred of proof. Without proof, I could just as plausibly claim there is an actual "Planety of the Apes" out there somewhere.

I think you’ve misunderstood my point here. I’m talking about logically possible worlds, not actual worlds. There is (setting aside some of the stranger theories about parallel universes) only one *actual* world, as far as we know- i.e. this one. (by ‘world’ here I refer to the universe and everything that it contains.) A logically possible world is a world which could have happened or might happen. So for example, it was possible that, had humans exercised their free will in a different way, John McCain could have won the election. That makes the universe where John McCain won the election a logically possible world, but the universe where Barack Obama won the election is the world we actually live in. In contrast, there is no logically possible world where the three angles of a triangle add up to 181 degrees, or where 2+2=5. No amount of exercising our free will could change such fundamental facts.

So the question is, why did God choose to actualise a world where humans would choose to sin, rather than a world where they would not? It’s not a case of needing to preserve free will, since the people in the sinless universe would still be choosing not to sin.

From man's perspective, you may be a "good" person. But from God's perfect, holy and just viewpoint, which judges even your thoughts and the intent of the heart, you have broken every single one of His Laws, and your guilt is without question.

It's like a man standing in front of a human judge and saying, "I know I broke the law, judge, but I washed your car on the way into court today - that has to count for something."

All you are doing is attempting to bribe the judge of the Universe with your so-called good deeds. God makes it clear that every single one of those deeds are "filthy rags" to him. (Isaiah 64:6)

I only have one perspective- my own. It is not physically possible for me to see the world as God does, so I must make my own judgments about the information I have before me (and bear the responsibility for these decisions, of course). I have in front of me claims which are made by my fellow humans, about words they claim were authored by the creator of the universe. I think it’s only fair to ask for good reasons before believing such claims. The fact that this God is supposed to be perfectly moral and just, and yet is described in such a way as to seem not merely mysterious but downright malevolent, naturally adds to my suspicion over these claims.

The language the Bible uses when it describes Heaven as a physical place is nowhere near metaphorical. Have you ever actually read the Bible?

I doubt that (well I guess I would, wouldn’t I?). Do you have specific verses in mind which unambiguously refer to Heaven as a physical place? Regardless, I don’t think it’s terribly important to the substance of the discussion at hand since neither of us think that Heaven is some place ‘within’ the universe (I assume). What you mean by ‘physical place’ might well be covered under what I would call a non-physical place, in this context, so I think this is more of a mix up of language between us than a genuine disagreement.

I have no idea. But one thing I know I wouldn't do; I wouldn't just ignore it, roll the dice on the possibility of an eternity in Hell, and hope for the best.

This sounds suspiciously like an appeal to the logic of Pascal’s Wager, which has been pretty thoroughly discredited. Since there are an infinite number of possible gods, whatever way I live my life risks upsetting as many gods as it pleases. If I have no way of knowing which of these infinite possibilities is actually correct, then it hardly matters how I live my life with regard to what happens after- since I have more or less an equal chance of having a good outcome as a bad one.

To abandon naturalism and inject even a little supernaturalism into the mix, you could no longer claim to be an intellectually honest atheist.

Of course you could; atheism does not necessitate naturalism (though naturalism does seem to necessitate atheism). One could believe that the universe had supernatural origins, but that whatever created the universe bears no resemblance to what human religions have referred to as ‘God’. Or, one could believe that a God created the universe, if one believed that naturalistic accounts cannot explain the universe’s origins, but that this god no longer exists.

And even if the laws of physics acted in a strange way far back in time, or on a small scale, you are still left with the foundational question of how nothing created something. Even a particle of anti-matter needs a corresponding particle of matter to exist.

Causality as we understand it (which is not very well, when you get down to it), has a temporal structure such that the cause always precedes the effect. However, when physics starts to behave strangely, so does time, and when time behaves strangely, so may causality. When we are dealing with the origins of the universe we are dealing with physics which is as strange as it gets. It could be the case that causality’s temporal component doesn’t behave in quite the same way- an effect may precede a cause, for example, or may occur simultaneously. In this sense, it could be the case that something in the future causes something in the past, or that something in the present causes something else in the present. Weird stuff, and highly counterintuitive, but so is the idea that there exists an omnipotent supernatural being who simply willed the universe into being. And at least we have evidence for strange causal interactions (see for example, the phenomenon of quantum entanglement).

Claiming another Universe as a "birthing" Universe just pushes back the problem. You would then have to explain where that Universe came from. An infinite regress cannot be logically or scientifically supported.

Well, we wouldn’t be able to observe such a universe (and whatever laws it might operate under) so that might be difficult if not impossible task. In any case, I think the best answer probably lies in the investigation of non-standard causality.

Of course we need to know, because one of the first things an atheist will ask when confronted with the scientific impossibility of a Universe creating itself from nothing is, "well, where did God come from, then?"

First of all, it’s not a scientific impossibility- the link I posted previously demonstrates that. In any case, the reason the atheist asks where did God come from, is because the theist has brought up the question in the first place. So, since we are discussing the origins of the universe, where *did* God come from?

All atheists are actually agnostics.

I think that’s probably true for most atheists. Richard Dawkins came up with a helpful way of conceptualising it, actually. I’m sure there are some atheists who believe with 100% certainty that there is no manner of God whatsoever, but I don’t think this is true of most. In any case, the best way to explain it I think is this: The atheist attitude towards the Christian God is identical in kind to your attitude towards the existence of Zeus.

Edited January 2, 2011 by doubting_tommy