The Ultimate Question

[Rawrmander]

Not that one.

The (in)existence of God.

This thread will be set up in a specific way, and if people don't follow, I won't hesitate to close this thread.

First rule: Do not post your personal belief. The way I'm setting this up, the question of your spirituality shouldn't even be brought up. If multiple people bring up their spirituality I'll simply lock this thread and will continue with my "no religious debates" rule.
Do not mention others' spirituality eiher.

The argument will be set up as follows:

First poster will bring up some numbered premises and a conclusion.

First Wrote:Chaos Theory
1. If God exists, there is no evil
2. Evil exists
C. God Does not exist

The next poster will bring up the validity of the argument and if they please, fix the argument to reflect that.

Second Wrote:We can all agree that #2 is true, however #1 is not necessarily true. Because, evil can be "for the greater good. Thus we can say that:
1. If God exists, there exists no unnecessary evils exist
2. Unnecessary evils exists
C. God does not exist.

And you repeat the cycle:

Third Wrote:We can accept that #1 is true, but how can we prove #2 is?

fourth Wrote:If evil is done for the greater good, could God not do whatever good comes from the evil without it? Therefore all evil is unnecessary; #2 is true.

I'd like for each post to make a single move. So don't fix the argument 2 times in one post to pre-emp a counter argument. This allows for more people to join in on the argument, and for people to follow more easily.


There are still hundreds of counterarguments to every argument, so let us begin with where I stated with the example. Feel free to use my counter arguments, for these first few steps to the argument, or bring up your own.

Once we are done with a certain theory (we never will, but we'll get to a point were making a counter-response will be too difficult for people to follow/understand) we'll move on to a new theory.


Chaos Theory
1. If God exists there is no evil.
2. Evil exists.
C. God does not exist.

[Wiiwillrockyou]

We can all agree that #2 is true, however #1 is not necessarily true. Since we were given free thinking minds, we were expected to be good, and some do not follow suit in this department.
1. God has no relation to humans being evil.
2. Evil exists within human beings.
3. God does exist.

[Irony]

1. A God is generally all loving
2. AIDS, Poverty, Financial crisis, etc faces some people every day. A loving god wouldn't allow that
3. An all loving God can't exist

C. The primary god of most religions can't exist.

[Rawrmander]

Lets just limit it to "Jewdeo-Christian God"

So if you don't mind I'll follow with Dark's argument, but I'll fix it up to translate to a jewdeo-chistian God.

1. God is perfect. He is Omniscient (knows everything), Omnipotent (can do anything), and Morally perfect (self-explained).
2. AIDS, Poverty, Financial crisis, etc faces some people every day.
3. A loving god wouldn't allow that.
C. God doesn't exist.

We shall account #1 as true. However, #2 and #3 are not necessarily true,
If God can do all, knows all and is morally perfect, that would imply he would, and could stop bad things from happening, but does not imply he will.

One argument supporting why God would allow bad things to happen is they are for the greater good.

thus, to counter that we must prove that not all bad things are for the greater good.
So far we have this:

1. God is perfect. He is Omniscient (knows everything), Omnipotent (can do anything), and Morally perfect (self-explained).
2. Bad things happen to good people.
3. Bad things build character. (They are for the greater good)
C. God could/would allow bad things to happen.

(Remember, this argument is about disproving God, don't try and change it into proving God. We'll attack that argument once we're done with this one.)

Can someone fix the argument, by addressing the current counter-arguments?
(I see many ways, but remember, one step at a time people)

[Wiiwillrockyou]

My bad.

[Selk879]

1.Eve just HAD to eat that damned fruit of knowledge, didn't she.
2.It's all her fault; God only gave them that ONE rule and she denied it.
C.I blame her for the existence of sin. God didn't allow it to, he let us choose, henceforth it can't be used as an argument. Oh, and I'm pretty sure Lucifer had something to do with all of this, too. Asshole.

[Foxy]

Yeah. Old testament God was a b****.

[thecosmicfrog]

1. God knows everything, and always knew everything, even before [example] event occurred.
2. Yet somehow, god offers "free will" to everyone.
C. God knows what one will do with one's "free will" - god allowed for [example] evils to occur.

[Foxy]

God never intended to stop free will? He let Adam and Eve take the apple.

[thecosmicfrog]

If god is all powerful, then he would have always known her decision.

[Foxy]

He made humans and let them make their own future and temptation wasn't his doing.

And where is it said that God predicts the future? It's only prophecies now and again that reveal tid bits such as Jesus warning the Jews not to rebel.

[Wiiwillrockyou]

Foxy Wrote:He made humans and let them make their own future and temptation wasn't his doing.

And where is it said that God predicts the future? It's only prophecies now and again that reveal tid bits such as Jesus warning the Jews not to rebel.

Amen Foxy.

[Linker]

God exists (not really theoretically proven, but naturally, yes), but not in the way misguided religious people think. Evil exists, even if God exists. In order for there to be a balance, evil must exist.

I believe in God, and I think he is just allowing evil and crime for now.

I can't really call Atheists idiots, only the misguided religious people are idiots. They f***ing try to obligate others to believe in what they believe, and most of what they believe in contradicts the teachings of the bible.

[gft77]

God is another term for something we don't understand, and a way to explain the positive things in our existance.
Evil is only in one's perception, because what I might consider evil/bad, another person may not.

[ZooFunkyFace]

So by that logic, the question is, what is truly evil? And if god is all knowing, why does it even exist?

[LemonManX]

Without evil there can be no good, as we'd have nothing to contrast it with. I believe that could be reason alone for evil to exist.

[Rawrmander]

If the current "evil" where to disappear, what we now call "not great but not bad" would then be evil. Evil will always exist, cause as LMX said; without contrast good wouldn't exist. We don't know what's truly "right" and "wrong". We base such thing on relativism.


For all we know killing babies is what God wants us to do. But not 1 baby, 7, but not more then 7. Why? Your puny human minds would never understand!

But seriously; if evil didn't exist, then neither would freewill. They go hand in hand.
So why doesn't God stop evil? Cause that would mean he would be messing with our freewill; which somewhere in the Bible it states he would never do. Therefore, Evil and God can co-exist.

[Wiiwillrockyou]

Remon and Rawr are correct; in Biblical terms, as mentioned, is is said that God wants us to have freewill. If you are familiar with it, think back to the story of Adam and Eve; they both succumb to temptation, but God simply tells them the error of their ways and doesn't drastically punish them. Likewise, the human conscience can act as the barrier that tells us what we can and can't do.

[gwelymernans]

Foxy Wrote:Yeah. Old testament God was a b****.

exactly! most modern (last 1600 yrs or so) christians don't seem to notice this or care.

most early christians, specifically gnostics (root word gnosis refers to knowledge)- the most prominent segment of christianity for the first 400 yrs of christianity, believed there to be a lesser evil creation god and a greater good loving god.

the cainites in particular held this view, and one of their major arguments was a paradox in their god's actions: cain sacrificed his brother abel to his god b/c he wanted to give what he most loved to his god and that god punished him. abraham conversely was stopped from sacrificing what he loved most (his son... whether one believes it was isaac as the jews and christians do or ishmael as the muslims do) and his god stopped him.

[Rooster]

Isn't free will a weird concept? I mean, supposing that there is an omnipotent God, wouldn't that mean that he knows all and sees all? So even if you make a choice, he already knew what you were going to do. Does that truly mean that you have free will if everything you do is pre-determined? How can you make the other choice?