That's a question that ended with me as an atheist. That's a question that's created quite a few atheists other than me. That, my friends, is a dangerous question.
God is omnipotent and omniscient. God has a plan for everyone. Everything is God's doing . . . including a man raping a 6-year-old and then setting her on fire. Yeah, that's God's plan. Think about that for too long and you'll arrive at one of two conclusions: there is no God, or God is a vicious, sadistic psychopath- that loves you very much so get down on your knees and praise him.
John Piper has a different answer:
You hate what God wills to happen if he wills that you hate what he wills to happen. God might will something precisely so that you would hate it.
That first sentence needs a flow chart to be understood, but I think Piper said that your hatred of God's plans is also God's plan. He wants 2 year olds to die slowly and painfully of cancer, and he wants you feel strongly about it. In fact, God might very well have tortured and killed that child just so you'd be all upset when you heard about it.
. . . FUCK?!
Can you imagine being the object lesson in that situation? Can you imagine being the victim, suffering terrible pain all so some other guy can feel something about it? I don't think there's a word to describe how enraged I would be about that.
Think about that for a second. Suppose I lived on a busy street. (I do not.) Suppose my dog keeps getting away from me and running in the street. I could install a fence or something, but if I'm god, I go get another dog and then throw him out into the street in front of a car purely for the purposes of outraging my neighbors.
I would be a complete psychopath if I did that and any sane person would be perfectly justified in hating me for what I did. Not God, though. God's awesome! Everything God does is great. Including killing children and kittens and puppies just to make some guy sad.
The other way is to identify obvious commands like "Thou shalt not kill," as the will of God too. He can ordain that someone kill his son and yet still say, "Thou shalt not kill." That is not schizophrenia. God is not against himself. He has his wise and holy purposes for ordaining what he ordains. But we should govern our lives according to the revealed will of God (his moral will).
No, John, it's not schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is an illness, the word you're looking for is "contradiction". And how is that not contradictory? God says not to murder. God ordains someone to murder. Do not murder. Murder. Do not murder. Murder.
Hey, if you can find some way to resolve the contradiction, tell me all about it. (Note: simply asserting "there is no contradiction" is not enough. Anyone can assert anything. Prove it.)
When it says, "Thou shalt not kill" or "covet" then we should not kill or covet. If God gives a person up to their own covetousness as a means of judgment then you can look at that covetousness and say, according to Romans 1, that it is God's will that the person be given up into their covetousness. But still we should not covet, because God has told us not to.
Again, wtf is God's problem? Don't covet, but, you, Bob, you're going to be coveting. Everything. No, don't covet! What is wrong with you people? I am being perfectly clear.
I don't disagree that we should hate the horrific evil that is in the world. We should hate Satan's designs to destroy people, even though God could snatch Satan out of this world in a minute. He could take him away. He is clearly willing that there should be a Satan, otherwise he would destroy him in a minute. Therefore the fact that Satan is there by God's permission and design does not reduce my hatred of Satan, because God ordains that I hate Satan. In fact, one of the reasons he leaves Satan marauding in the world is precisely so that there would be an occasion for me to declare myself to be morally against evil. If there were no evil there then that kind of dynamic wouldn't even happen.
Again, bad things happen- to other people- just so you can hate them. We could live in a utopia free of hatred, pain, suffering, loss, grief, death, etc., but then you wouldn't have anything to hate. God is so good!
Honestly, I don't know why I bother. Christians do more to prove their religion ridiculous than I ever could.
He can ordain that someone kill his son and yet still say, "Thou shalt not kill." That is not schizophrenia. God is not against himself. He has his wise and holy purposes for ordaining what he ordains. But we should govern our lives according to the revealed will of God (his moral will).
ReplyDeleteThat muffled scream you hear coming from Soren Kierkegaard's grave? Feel free to ignore it. He'll stop soon...
In fact, one of the reasons he leaves Satan marauding in the world is precisely so that there would be an occasion for me to declare myself to be morally against evil. If there were no evil there then that kind of dynamic wouldn't even happen.
So...we've tackled the issue of theodicy. Now how do we tackle the issue of idiocy? Because...wow. Just wow.
"In fact, one of the reasons he leaves Satan marauding in the world is precisely so that there would be an occasion for me to declare myself to be morally against evil. If there were no evil there then that kind of dynamic wouldn't even happen."
ReplyDeleteSo the war in Heaven and the ongoing conflict between Good and Evil on Earth is a false-flag operation for the sake of divine PR and the self-esteem of his mortal cronies.
John Piper makes my head hurt...
ReplyDeleteHe should really bounce these ideas off of someone before he says them out loud. Or maybe he does and that person is so brainwashed at they agree.
My prayer:
Thank you God for the wonderful opportunity to hate. Without Satan in the world I would have no reason to declare myself against evil. And I really need to do that for my own benefit. You work all things to my good. Therefore I will hate and it will be good for me to do so. Thank you for wrapping yourself in flesh, climbing up on that cross and committing suicide.
Amen
The more I hear christians trying to justify omnipotence and omnibenevolence, the more I think they think that their deity is an author and that reality is a work of fiction.
ReplyDeleteAuthors deliberately put their characters through hell, because they want the audience to see those characters at the worst moments of their lives, so they can see what sort of people they are. And they do this in spite, or even because, they love those characters and want the audience to love them.
The problem is, reality isn't a work of fiction. Tradgedies usually aren't followed by triumph: they're followed by grief and pain, which only begats more grief and pain. The good guys don't win, except in rare cases: it's part of the reason we love stories so much, because they reflect what aught to be, not what is.
If God is an author, he's a cynic of Lovecraftian levels and nowhere near as imaginative. And prone to indulgent self-inserts.
Why jump from a rejection of one aspect of Christian theology all the way to atheism?
ReplyDeleteBecause it's faster and more efficient?
ReplyDeleteChristians have simply created a tautology by saying that God is all good, thus, cannot by definition commit evil acts. It would supposedly be logically impossible (ignoring of course that an idea can also be incoherent and rejected). Then they go even further to say that God does not owe us any moral duties, like we owe him and each other. So, God could kill every baby on the planet and be perfectly justified (and it wouldn't be the first time). Why can't everyone recognize this as pure nonsense?
ReplyDelete"Why jump from a rejection of one aspect of Christian theology all the way to atheism?"
ReplyDeleteBecause it's not that big a jump? The old "one more god than you" line.
Because multiple aspects of Christian theology are flawed? What makes you think the problem of evil is our only gripe?
Because no theistic religon has yet been able to provide any empirical evidence for their beliefs? Being skeptical and logical by nature kinda pushes one towards atheism.
Because agnostism is on a seperate axis from atheism? One can be an agnostic atheist, by claiming not to believe in God without claiming they KNOW there is no deity-like entity in the whole of reality.
Because we never made that jump in the first place? Some of us grew up in an environment where "GOD TOTALLY EXISTS DUDE" wasn't shoved in our faces throughout our childhood, and only learned after our most vulnerable ages that some people believe in supernaturalism and omnipotent father-figures.
[final snarky comment withheld on the basis that the question may have stemmed from legitimate interest, as opposed to being an immature bit of rhetoric]
Wait - PF, you haven't been told that you're that person?
ReplyDeleteyou know, the person who's disability is there so that OTHERS can learn from it? learn how to be "humble" and "thankful/grateful" and learn how to "preservere" and i don't even remember what all the fuck?!
i thought you had - i have, and pretty much every disabled person i've ever met has [maybe not DIRECTLY told, like i was, arguing with a random asshole pastor who tried to use my disability as a wedge to force me into christianity - but almost everyone i know whose disabled has been told by SOMEONE that they're "grateful to know such a strong person, able to fight for a normal life while they're "like that"" or somethiing similar...]
honestly, with bullshit like that, the REAL miracle is that there are ANY disabled and/or ill people who still WANT to be Christian!