Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

How does it do that?
If you know how it does it then you can recognise it and prevent it?

I recognise evil influences through prayer, and I combat them through prayer.

[Alan Burns]

Here AB have some supporting stats on me

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-happiness/200806/happiness-and-religion-happiness-religion


https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/31/are-religious-people-happier-healthier-our-new-global-study-explores-this-question/

I consider personal encounters far more meaningful than statistics.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Sorry, but it is your personal conception of logic which fails here.

No it isn’t. Logic is logic – that you have no logically sound arguments to justify your beliefs isn’t a problem of other peoples’ conceptions of what logic is

You are presuming that you know better than our Creator in how He should be running things.

No he isn’t. He’s using logic and reason to conclude that you have no sound reasons to think there to be a god in the first place.

If bad things did not happen, we would all be prone to indulging in self centred desires with no need to help each other.

That’s called a non sequitur – there’s no logical path from the conditional clause (“if” etc) to the conclusion (“we would…” etc). 

I am certain that our capacity to love and be loved is central to God's plan - but giving us all everything we need right from the start without ever encountering and overcoming hardships would not fit with God's plan for us.

Your personal but un-argued opinions about that are epistemically worthless.

If our children never experienced hardship or needed their parent's help - would there be any love between parent and child?

Yes.

We are all imperfect and live in an imperfect world, and we need to call upon God's love for us to deal with these imperfections.  We are not in heaven yet.

Your personal but un-argued opinions about that are epistemically worthless.

Yes, God could easily "win us over" if He so wished, but would we be better people for being won over in the way you conceive?

Who can say, but if finally there was any good reason to think there to be a god at all that at least wold have the advantage of converting your claims from mindless guessing to usable data.

Trouble is though, you have either no ability or no inclination ever to produce such good reasons, despite having claimed (falsely it seems) to have them. Which is odd for someone whose only interest is to evangelise: if you can think of good reasons for anyone to take your various claims and assertions seriously, why not tell us what they are? 
 

[Nearly Sane]

I consider personal encounters far more meaningful than statistics.

  A simple thank you would have sufficed

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I consider personal encounters far more meaningful than statistics.

Which would fine, but only if you could come up with sound reasons to demonstrate that you actually had "personal encounters" rather than just experiences you interpreted as such.

Good luck with that. 

[Alan Burns]

  A simple thank you would have sufficed

My apologies, NS
I was jumping to conclusions without fully reading the links.   
Thank you.

[torridon]

Sorry, but it is your personal conception of logic which fails here.
You are presuming that you know better than our Creator in how He should be running things.
If bad things did not happen, we would all be prone to indulging in self centred desires with no need to help each other.
I am certain that our capacity to love and be loved is central to God's plan - but giving us all everything we need right from the start without ever encountering and overcoming hardships would not fit with God's plan for us.  If our children never experienced hardship or needed their parent's help - would there be any love between parent and child?  We are all imperfect and live in an imperfect world, and we need to call upon God's love for us to deal with these imperfections.  We are not in heaven yet.

Yes, God could easily "win us over" if He so wished, but would we be better people for being won over in the way you conceive?

I see you succumbed to temptation, again, maybe its those forces of evil that have gotten to you. The temptation you fell to was to avoid answering the question by instead answering a similar, slighty-easier-to-deal-with question and hoping no one would notice.  You keep doing this with Stranger, it is the Motte and Bailey tactic, very popular with the chronically evasive.

The question was about the problem of evil, not the problem of suffering. Suffering is bad enough, what with bad luck, misfortune, illness, disease, but why would an allegedly benign god augment our suffering by letting the forces of evil loose in the world to create confusion and deception ?  Would a good father deceive his children with lies and undue hardship ?

[Alan Burns]

The question was about the problem of evil, not the problem of suffering. Suffering is bad enough, what with bad luck, misfortune, illness, disease, but why would an allegedly benign god augment our suffering by letting the forces of evil loose in the world to create confusion and deception ?  Would a good father deceive his children with lies and undue hardship ?

Evil is the unfortunate, but unavoidable consequence of our gift of free will.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Evil is the unfortunate, but unavoidable consequence of our gift of free will.

Can I take it that you have no argument to justify that remarkable but mindless assertion?

[torridon]

Evil is the unfortunate, but unavoidable consequence of our gift of free will.

You've got no shame have you ?  Just had to pull you up for evasiveness only to find you trying another evasive tactic.  Try again, this time with integrity : why would a benign god unleash the forces of evil on us, have we not enough problems to endure ?  If we are misled and deceived by the Devil, that is not a problem of free will, it is a problem of evil.  Know the difference, and try again.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Can I take it that you have no argument to justify that remarkable but mindless assertion?

If we did not have the capacity to choose between good and evil - we would just be God's puppets doing His will - not ours.

[Alan Burns]

You've got no shame have you ?  Just had to pull you up for evasiveness only to find you trying another evasive tactic.  Try again, this time with integrity : why would a benign god unleash the forces of evil on us, have we not enough problems to endure ?  If we are misled and deceived by the Devil, that is not a problem of free will, it is a problem of evil.  Know the difference, and try again.

You do not understand.
Evil is not God's will - it is quite the opposite.
God does not deliberately unleash the forces of evil upon us.
Evil exists in its own right.  It has its own will. - It is not God.
I believe God has allowed evil to have its freedom because ultimate good can come from it.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

If we did not have the capacity to choose between good and evil - we would just be God's puppets doing His will - not ours.

Can I take it that you have no argument to justify that remarkable but mindless assertion either?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You do not understand.
Evil is not God's will - it is quite the opposite.
God does not deliberately unleash the forces of evil upon us.
Evil exists in its own right.  It has its own will. - It is not God.
I believe God has allowed evil to have its freedom because ultimate good can come from it.

We understand what you believe - what no-one understands though is why you believe it in the absence of any sound reasons at all to justify your various claims.

[Sebastian Toe]

I recognise evil influences through prayer, and I combat them through prayer.

Are you unable to answer the specific question as to how Satan/"the powers of evil" , influence people?
What is the mechanism, method?
Surely you have at least thought about this.
Haven't you?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Just out of interest, imagine that I were to claim that leprechauns put rainbows in the sky, and that when you asked me to justify that claim with an argument I replied, “that must be true because otherwise they’d have nowhere to leave their pots of gold” would you be able to spot the flaw in my argument?

Would you for example say something like, “hang on – shouldn’t you be demonstrating that leprechauns exist at all in the first place before using their needs and wants as your justification”?

I think you might, but this is essentially what you’ve just done when asked to justify your assertions about “evil” – you’ve pointed to a supposed consequence of another unqualified guess (“God”) to make sense of the initial unqualified guess (“evil”). 

Does that now seem problematic to you in any way, because it should. It really should.

[torridon]

You do not understand.
Evil is not God's will - it is quite the opposite.
God does not deliberately unleash the forces of evil upon us.
Evil exists in its own right.  It has its own will. - It is not God.
I believe God has allowed evil to have its freedom because ultimate good can come from it.

You're right, I don't understand.

Anything that exists, exists by God's will.  Therefore if evil exists, it is because God wills it.  God is therefore responsible for evil existing, and therefore also the consequences of that.

If good comes of tolerating evil, how does that work ?  You've said in the past that you wish the Devil's veils of deceit could be lifted, that seems in conflict with the idea that good flows from evil.  How exactly does good come from his tolerating that people be misled and blinded by Lucifer ?  Siurely these people are the worse off for being deceived, no ?

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Just out of interest, imagine that I were to claim that leprechauns put rainbows in the sky, and that when you asked me to justify that claim with an argument I replied, “that must be true because otherwise they’d have nowhere to leave their pots of gold” would you be able to spot the flaw in my argument?

Would you for example say something like, “hang on – shouldn’t you be demonstrating that leprechauns exist at all in the first place before using their needs and wants as your justification”?

I think you might, but this is essentially what you’ve just done when asked to justify your assertions about “evil” – you’ve pointed to a supposed consequence of another unqualified guess (“God”) to make sense of the initial unqualified guess (“evil”). 

Does that now seem problematic to you in any way, because it should. It really should.

Firstly I must point out that your bizarre scenario offers ample evidence of your conscious freedom to think it up - a freedom whose existence you keep consciously denying.  Was it really just inevitable reactions occurring in your material brain which you could not possibly have avoided or chosen differently?  And will your conscious effort to argue against this just be another inevitable physically driven reaction?

Evil is a reality - pots of gold at the ends of rainbows are not a reality.

To consider the existence of God as an unqualified guess makes a mockery of the single most influential aspect of humanity.

[Gordon]

Firstly I must point out that your bizarre scenario offers ample evidence of your conscious freedom to think it up - a freedom whose existence you keep consciously denying.  Was it really just inevitable reactions occurring in your material brain which you could not possibly have avoided or chosen differently?  And will your conscious effort to argue against this just be another inevitable physically driven reaction?

Change the record, Alan: your mindless incredulity-laden waffle has long since become boring and irrelevant.

Evil is a reality - pots of gold at the ends of rainbows are not a reality.

If by 'evil' you mean some kind of supernatural agency - that is just superstitious woo that dates from more credulous times.

To consider the existence of God as an unqualified guess makes a mockery of the single most influential aspect of humanity.

As usual you over-egg your preferred pudding (not to mention begging the question): the most 'influential aspect of humanity' is, of course, best seen in the wide range of stuff that people get up to - and that includes making up a plethora of religions and other types of superstitions beliefs.

[torridon]

Evil is a reality - pots of gold at the ends of rainbows are not a reality.

If evil was a reality, then god, being defined as good, would eliminate it, or not tolerate it.  A God that tolerates evil to exist is itself evil.  They say that God cannot lie, but it seems he tolerates the Devil to spread lies, deceiving the hearts of men.  This does not add up.

[torridon]

Firstly I must point out that your bizarre scenario offers ample evidence of your conscious freedom to think it up - a freedom whose existence you keep consciously denying. 

Nobody denies that we can think, and the freedom to think without coercion can be correctly described as 'free'.  What is denied is your absurd conceptualisation of freedom, as in random-but-not-random freedom. But I'm sure you already know this, it has been explained to you ad nauseam, and yet here you are again using sleight of hand and misdirection to give the impression that you have a valid point of view.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Firstly I must point out that your bizarre scenario…

It’s not bizarre at all – it’s precisely analogous to the answer you attempted. You used one unjustified faith claim to validate another unjustified faith claim.

…offers ample evidence of your conscious freedom to think it up - a freedom whose existence you keep consciously denying.

Except is does no such thing for the reasons that have been given to you probably thousands of times here but that you resolutely ignore nonetheless.

Was it really just inevitable reactions occurring in your material brain which you could not possibly have avoided or chosen differently?  And will your conscious effort to argue against this just be another inevitable physically driven reaction?

Wrong terminology, but as that’s what reason and evidence tells us essentially yes.

Evil is a reality - pots of gold at the ends of rainbows are not a reality.

First, you’ve missed the point – it was an analogy to make an argument.

Second, you have no argument at all that I can see to justify your pre-Enlightenment notion that “evil” is “real”. You’re aligned here with a child who, when a branch flicks in his face, says “that tree hit me”.   

To consider the existence of God as an unqualified guess makes a mockery of the single most influential aspect of humanity.

First, so what?

Second, it’s “gods” plural as there have been countless beliefs in countless gods held over the centuries and believed to be true every bit as strongly as you believe yours to be true.

Third, in the absence of a coherent or cogent argument to justify the claim “God”, of course it’s an unqualified guess. What else could it be?

[Spud]

That would suggest, from my experience, that kids don't have souls until somewhere around 3 or 4, and that some autistics never do?

I maybe should have said that they become aware of their freedom to choose between right and wrong at a certain age.

That's quite an unwarranted leap - matter is evidence of order, arguably, which resolves this into a single point: is 'order' evidence of God?  Order is evidence of an underlying consistent ruleset, but it doesn't go any further than that to show whether that's an unthinking, unknowing manifestation of nature or if it's the deliberate 'gift' of a conscious creator - it doesn't rule it out, at all, but it doesn't necessarily lead to 'a god'.

There are two possibilities: either the universe made itself, or it was made. Some people would say 'order' points to the latter.
 

Presumably, if God is real, that power is available regardless of conscious awareness or belief - I presume you God, in your estimation, could influence me even though I don't believe?  That's neither a point for or against, but if it's not the case and God can only influence the believers then we get the possibility that the effect derives not from the god, but from the belief.

By 'something else' I meant that if God is real, he might have instructed us to do or not do something that conflicts with what the strongest physical stimulus is telling us to do. So yes he could influence you, but you would still be the one that decides what you do.

I'm not sure I understand how you can 'consciously suppress' what you believe - my beliefs aren't a conscious choice, they're the result of my interpretation of the available data.  I can't 'choose' to revert to a Newtonian understanding of gravity, I can't 'choose' to believe that the Crimea is legitimately part of Russia and I can't 'choose' whether or not I believe in any gods.

O.

I wasn't talking about what you believe, but what you know. Like you can know that smoking is bad for you but still smoke.

[Nearly Sane]

...
There are two possibilities: either the universe made itself, or it was made. Some people would say 'order' points to the latter.
 ...

No, you could say either the universe was made or it was not made but your formulation is incorrect in looking at that as the two possibilities and includes a begging the question in the assumption of made with its idea of agency.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No, you could say either the universe was made or it was not made but your formulation is incorrect in looking at that as the two possibilities and includes a begging the question in the assumption of made with its idea of agency.

That sounds as though it is easily sorted.