Thanks for your response, it was more thorough than I expected. Hope you got a good rest.
Nuclear weapons are one of the most obvious parts in this story. Secound the most obvious part are serious and dangerous diseases , because their only purpose is to kill the person and make many people unhappy that were close to that person.
I do need to point out that it is already clear that you are operating backwards -- i.e., you're starting with ideals of your own that have yet been unargued, then drawing your conclusions from them.
1. A good god would not allow nuclear weapons.
2. A good god would not allow serious/Dangerous diseases.
3. If God exists, he is not a good God.
A forward (not backward) assess would say:
1. The potential for nuclear weapons exist.
2. Serious/Dangerous diseases exist.
3. What is the full range of possibilities in regards to God for such things existing? [What purposes would #1 and #2 serve? Are they residual of good things or wholly evil? And so on.]
These are actually two very different approaches. The first one includes an inherent ideal/non-ideal (or even good/evil) moral judgment.
Someone could say that it is only the gods call after him to come on the trial of his existance. But that would mean that god desides when is it enough and the person has no time to redeem oneself in this life or prove that he is good.
So God is not loving (i.e., evil, I think, in how you're discussing this) because if he was, he would give people more time to redeem themselves but sometimes calls the game early.
Possible punishment for doing bad things does not fit the crime at all.
Specialy if you add the fact that personality is created more of less in the first few years when the person is completly dependent on the others.
Someone could go even further and bring genetics into the picture. If you want I could even add determinism in this but that would take too long and I think that many people here know what determinism is.
It's inevitable that they would.
So you're saying that behavior springs from inborn forces that God is conjectured to place there anyway, which means he's punishing people for them partly behaving as he created them to behave. (JUst asking for clarification.)
I think that determinism is one of the best arguments against religion.
Determinism to me partly removes the NEED for religion. i.e., if the machine runs all by itself and outcome is predetermined based on the earlier state of the system, then moral values seem to have no place.
Although it still does not explain why the system exists in the first place.
Also if determinism is driving force in this reality (and I don't see reason why it would not be) would mean that real love never existed becuse then everything is one big chain reaction that was started by god.
I think our concept of love is based on choice, yes.
Love is a choice to do what is best for someone else or to accept/trust them into a relationship, when there is no compulsion or need to do so. If you have no choice, you can't really choose to love.
If god really loves us so much why is he/she/it playing so many games with us. Why does not he/she/it just show itself and end all this storys that are going around and that are creating many serious emotional problems to people all around the world.
Surely you have read one of the zillions of fantasy novels out there where the characters spent their lives unsure of what was going on, but afterwards discovered that if they had been told the truth up front, they would not have persevered to the end and benefited from things.
Even apply it to psychology. People don't change and grow unless they have to. If they knew what was going on, they might not change. Change is very desirable as part of life.
Now applying this very broad concept to religion. You can see lots of reasons why a loving God might not just spill the beans up front. I can't say which is true; I'm simply saying there are scenarios that make the "not knowing" reasonably understandable.
And creating large amout of fear ,doubt and moments of despair. If you do that to one person you are awfull person but if you do that to billions of people you are antichrist behind any doubt. Becuse god is almighy I don't see what could be his/her excuse for doing this.
God creates fear, doubt, and despair? Those are feeling states -- possibilities inherent in the human system (i.e., biology). We choose whether or not to give into them and indulge them, and even act on them. Just because they exist really says nothing about God; it matters only what the overall intent of having such a system was in the first place, and if that system enables us to reach pinnacles of growth, then now it is a person's choice that determines the value of having the potential for despair -- not any sort of "God." God would have just created the machinery, but not how it was used.
This is the worst possible way of manipulating peoples feelings you can imagine.That is because it looks like the only goal is that someone should feel bad. From what I know about you Jennifer I think that you can relate to this part of the post.
...sorry, but not really.
I identified with the earlier things more.
I do wrestle with the thought of "Why so much pain in the world?"
But I live within the system. I can't evaluate it from the outside. From a personal standpoint, I can despise the pain and be angry at a God figure. From an impersonal standpoint, trying to use my mind and imagination, I can visualize why that sort of experience might be necessary in order to spur growth.
A book I was recently reading talked about overcoming childhood pains, especially with disappointment in the parents, and the author made the point that usually people who have undergone those terribly emotionally painful childhoods are also highly sensitive, empathic, broad/far-seeing... and have a sense and longing for beauty, goodness, and joy that others who had better childhoods do not. They can find beauty in everything.
So he advises to accept the experiences for what they were, true, but also to not hold bitterness over them and to see them in some ways as a gift that brought "goodness" and the desire for it into clearer focus.
Just another idea for you to consider.
One more example could be that in this world homosexuality should have different status. Is it fair to create humanity with homosexuality and then accuse that individuals for many bad things in this world and then presecute them as sinners? Sorry, but this sounds like one really bad joke.
Oh, there's lots of bad, B-rate movies out there.
If you want a personal opinion, that's why I think the conservative religious stance on homosexuality (and similar things) is crap. Especially if you look at what gets said by Jesus. But that's another issue.
If you say that Satan corrupted them, then why does not the almighty simply breake the curse. Why creating Satan at all?
Does Satan actually exist in the way you bring him up, or is that just partly another part of the "Paradise Lost" myth read back into modern Christianity? I don't know.
Why would you create world that can be polluted by people who just want to be happy or the world that can support much larger amount of people.
With limited resources, any world fills up and/or gets polluted. Everything is fighting for the same living space, with different needs.
Why main energy source must be huge termonuclear reactor that can even kill you I you are not carefull. I am talking about the Sun here.
What other energy source options are palatable to you? Do they have no flaws in them either?
If love is so important why did it take billions of years to create it.
We are talking about almighty here.
That's sort of a pointless question. You might as well judge an artist for taking 2 hours to paint a picture you think might have been painted in half an hour. He chose to take that long. *shrug*
Why create reality where love can be so easiliy destroyed, by this I mean civilization that has those feeling.
etc...
I wish I had time to read Owl's stuff, but I have to run. Thanks for your post.