Searching for GOD...

[Shaker]

You must be so pleased that your God has managed through 'careful nurturing' to create and preserve all those lovable little things (Ebola, HIV etc etc) that have threatened our survival, both individually and as a species - while at the same time your God, no doubt, is behind the skills and expertise of those who seek to find solutions to these problems: you must be especially thrilled to read about, say, new strains of drug-resistant bacteria!   

If I didn't know better, Gordon, I'd almost think that you were sarcastically suggesting that God creates something really nasty and then creates a means of dealing with it ... but only in some places some of the time, occasionally and partially thereby inevitably creating horrendous and wholly avoidable suffering.

If a human being behaved that way I'd think they were a right twat. But then, God's ways are not our ways, are they?

[Gordon]

If I didn't know better, Gordon, I'd almost think that you were sarcastically suggesting that God creates something really nasty and then creates a means of dealing with it ... but only in some places some of the time, occasionally and partially thereby inevitably creating horrendous and wholly avoidable suffering.

If a human being behaved that way I'd think they were a right twat. But then, God's ways are not our ways, are they?

Yep - all that 'moving in mysterious ways' is clearly a hopelessly inconsistent approach to running a railroad.

Why it's almost as if it wanted us to think it didn't exist! 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

If I didn't know better, Gordon, I'd almost think that you were sarcastically suggesting that God creates something really nasty and then creates a means of dealing with it ... but only in some places some of the time, occasionally and partially thereby inevitably creating horrendous and wholly avoidable suffering.
?

Is that the same as the antitheists favourite description of God.

A tyrannical controlling fascist monster who is completely fails to control .....or however many contradictory ideas you guys can hold at one time?

[Shaker]

Is that the same as the antitheists favourite description of God.

No. It naturally comes out of the mish-mash mush of contradictory ideas we hear when theists attempt to talk about what they reckon they believe in.

[Shaker]

A tyrannical controlling fascist monster who is completely fails to control .....or however many contradictory ideas you guys can hold at one time?

It's not the atheists holding the contradictory ideas though Vladdychops. Atheists don't believe a word of this. That's theism through and through - I call it the incredible shrinking deity phenomenon. Thus we have a god powerful enough to magic an entire universe out of nothingness, but whose powers suddenly evaporate when it comes to doing something useful such as preventing suffering and misery and pain (preventing the Holocaust, for example, or eradicating leukaemia, especially in children, or creating a world without a predator-prey system as any omnimax deity worth its salt would do).

Supernaturally powerful one minute, incapable of running a whelk stall where it actually matters - that's theism, top and bottom.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It's not the atheists holding the contradictory ideas though Vladdychops. Atheists don't believe a word of this. That's theism through and through - I call it the incredible shrinking deity phenomenon.

I don't think that can be anything other than based on your faulty utilitarian view which has a God which is for stuff rather than the fuller picture of theism and Christianity in particular. You also have a faulty picture of nature but we shall come on to that as well.

The universe is not all bad in fact there is much which can be enjoyed and even adversity can bring us onward. Again the pessimism of antitheism about the universe contradicts the impression of happiness humanists seem to want give out.

Christianity teaches that God is with us in Christ, that he identifies with us it also teaches us that we are more to God than just clever protoplasm indeed clever protoplasm is a mere phase. So you see not a shrunken deity but a deity within and behind and the essence of being.

[Shaker]

That's a remarkable amount of words to use to say absolutely nothing of any actual substance or meaningful content, Vladster.

Love the usual deepities about the "within and the behind the essence of being", though. It wouldn't be a proper Vlad post without at least one.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

That's a remarkable amount of words to use to say absolutely nothing of any actual substance or meaningful content, Vladster.

Which part of ''your faulty utilitarian view that God is for something'' are you having trouble with.

[Shaker]

Which part of ''your faulty utilitarian view that God is for something'' are you having trouble with.

The part which is the opposite of everything I've ever heard theists say about the god they purport to believe in, mostly.

[Gordon]

You also have a faulty picture of nature but we shall come on to that as well.

I've always thought nature to be, well, natural - perhaps you can demonstrate where I'm going wrong.

The universe is not all bad in fact there is much which can be enjoyed and even adversity can bring us onward.

Super - good to know!

Again the pessimism of antitheism about the universe contradicts the impression of happiness humanists seem to want give out.

Or put more eloquently in the words of an old song (written by C. Chaplin no less) 'Smile though your heart is aching'.

Christianity teaches that God is with us in Christ, that he identifies with us it also teaches us that we are more to God than just clever protoplasm indeed clever protoplasm is a mere phase.

Why not give it a try then, Vlad: a new phase would do you good.

So you see not a shrunken deity but a deity within and behind and the essence of being.

Don't see that at all - perhaps you could lend me your rose-tinted glasses.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The part which is the opposite of everything I've ever heard theists say about the god they purport to believe in, mostly.

I see that you are going to have to go back to first principles here.

If you look at the Westminster Confession we start with what is the aim of man.

The idea that man gives God a job description is completely ludicrous. So you see God is not a job description.

So let's look with man's job description i.e. all that the universe has to which leads to enjoymentor should we say fulfilment. Being the pampered robot of some cosmic sugardaddy doesn't lead to that.

I other words whichever much derided apologist who accused antitheists of wanting complete freedom from God while hating him for that very freedom was on the mark.

Finally Christianity does not have a much curtailed God but a huge, comprehensive God.

[Shaker]

Fluent Vladese, I'll say that much.

Execrable English (i.e. making sense with well-constructed sentences of substantive content forming a coherent train of thought).

But excellent Vladese, as I said.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The part which is the opposite of everything I've ever heard theists say about the god they purport to believe in, mostly.

I see that you are going to have to go back to first principles here.

If you look at the Westminster Confession we start with what is the aim of man.

The idea that man gives God a job description is completely ludicrous. So you see God is not a job description.

So let's look with man's job description i.e. all that the universe has to which leads to enjoymentor should we say fulfilment. Being the pampered robot of some cosmic sugardaddy doesn't lead to that.

I other words whichever much derided apologist who accused antitheists of wanting complete freedom from God while hating him for that very freedom was on the mark.

Finally Christianity does not have a much curtailed God but a huge, comprehensive God.

[Shaker]

It was incoherent arse-gravy the first time round two minutes ago, Vlad.

[Gordon]

Finally Christianity does not have a much curtailed God but a huge, comprehensive God.

That seems incapable of doing anything that can be unequivocally attributed to it!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

That seems incapable of doing anything that can be unequivocally attributed to it!

That's the same for any philosophy of causation.

[Gordon]

That's the same for any philosophy of causation.

You are evading again - we are talking about your 'huge' God.

[Rhiannon]

And as has been pointed out, this huge god can't prevent suffering, can't forgive unconditionally. So quite a small god really.

[Shaker]

He wasn't the first by any means but perhaps the most recent and best known - Carl Sagan (of blessed memory) talked about the small, pocket battleship, hole and corner god of theism.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

And as has been pointed out, this huge god can't prevent suffering, can't forgive unconditionally. So quite a small god really.

Can't or won't? Are you after the elimination of all suffering or that which can and ought to be? I think you have a small conception of the categories you are talking about here.

I think you are after a God like nature or the gods you have......ones which can be subjugated.

God identifies Himself with the human condition in Christ.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

He wasn't the first by any means but perhaps the most recent and best known - Carl Sagan (of blessed memory) talked about the small, pocket battleship, hole and corner god of theism.

That's the same Carl Sagan who could not be an atheist?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You are evading again - we are talking about your 'huge' God.

Why then are you so concerned that God prevents suffering when you technically accept suffering in nature? What is the problem with suffering? Do you know?

[Gordon]

Why then are you so concerned that God prevents suffering when you technically accept suffering in nature? What is the problem with suffering? Do you know?

I'm not concerned about suffering in nature, since in that sense it is natural - for example the prey/predator system, although I dare say a 'huge' creator God could have done better.

The suffering that people do to each other is another matter though, since presumably a 'huge' God with all the 'omni's' who we are told, and I'm paraphrasing here, 'loves us so much he sent his only son, yada yada, yada' could fix: for instance bone cancer in children causes suffering that I'd imagine we'd both agree the world would be better without, but your 'huge' God does nothing.

Throughout history it couldn't even stop its own fans (in the form of various shades of Christians) from inflicting suffering on each other.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I'm not concerned about suffering in nature, since in that sense it is natural - for example the prey/predator system, although I dare say a 'huge' creator God could have done better.

The suffering that people do to each other is another matter though, since presumably a 'huge' God with all the 'omni's' who we are told, and I'm paraphrasing here, 'loves us so much he sent his only son, yada yada, yada' could fix: for instance bone cancer in children causes suffering that I'd imagine we'd both agree the world would be better without, but your 'huge' God does nothing.

Throughout history it couldn't even stop its own fans (in the form of various shades of Christians) from inflicting suffering on each other.

Gordon. Either there is a problem with suffering or there isn't. If you find it a problem you are acceding that it should be alleviated. So why should it be alleviated? Do you know?

If there is no God then you should not technically be finding suffering a problem.

[Alan Burns]

You must be so pleased that your God has managed through 'careful nurturing' to create and preserve all those lovable little things (Ebola, HIV etc etc) that have threatened our survival, both individually and as a species - while at the same time your God, no doubt, is behind the skills and expertise of those who seek to find solutions to these problems: you must be especially thrilled to read about, say, new strains of drug-resistant bacteria!   

We live in a world of opposites. 
For love and compassion to exist, there must be anger and hatred.
For beauty to exist, there must be ugliness.
For light to exist, ther must be darkness.
For life to exist, there must be death.
For good to exist, there must be evil.
For Heaven to exist, there must be hell.
For God to exist, there must be a devil.
For good health to exist, there must be disease.
For everything that is created, there is unwanted waste.

There seems to be a universal law of reality that everything must be balanced in some way.

By sacrificing Himself on the cross, God has tipped the balance in our favour.
To accept this favour, we need to use our God given gift of free will.