Is God Good?

[DGS49]

The toughest question Religious folks must answer of skeptics is, "Why does God allow this to happen?"

Whether you are talking about human-engineered genocide, natural catastrophes, mass murder, or some other apparent injustice, "God" appears to have permitted it to happen (or commanded it to happen), and Why does God allow it to happen?

On the other side of the coin, we have evil people who are born wealthy, talented, beautiful, handsome, or are wildly successful - sometimes BECAUSE they are evil. They live their entire lives in the lap of luxury and die happy. How does God allow THIS to happen?

The core of the response is in life after death. We are taught to believe that the totality of human existence is not bounded by conception and natural death; that in some vaguely-defined way Evil is punished in the afterlife and Virtue is rewarded. The balancing effect of the "just desserts" of the afterlife excuses the obvious injustices (and this word is insufficient, certainly) of the life that we see.

If there is no afterlife, then God, if he does exist, is Evil.

Manifestly.

 

[Tijn Von Ingersleben]

God is Great!

 

[Crepitus]

The toughest question Religious folks must answer of skeptics is, "Why does God allow this to happen?"

Whether you are talking about human-engineered genocide, natural catastrophes, mass murder, or some other apparent injustice, "God" appears to have permitted it to happen (or commanded it to happen), and Why does God allow it to happen?

On the other side of the coin, we have evil people who are born wealthy, talented, beautiful, handsome, or are wildly successful - sometimes BECAUSE they are evil. They live their entire lives in the lap of luxury and die happy. How does God allow THIS to happen?

The core of the response is in life after death. We are taught to believe that the totality of human existence is not bounded by conception and natural death; that in some vaguely-defined way Evil is punished in the afterlife and Virtue is rewarded. The balancing effect of the "just desserts" of the afterlife excuses the obvious injustices (and this word is insufficient, certainly) of the life that we see.

If there is no afterlife, then God, if he does exist, is Evil.

Manifestly.

Neither good nor bad, rather non-existing.

 

[CarlinAnnArbor]

God is Great!

Let us thank Him for our food

 

[Tijn Von Ingersleben]

God is Great!

Let us thank Him for our food

We should thank him for everything.

 

[rightwinger]

God is Great!

Jesus is just all right with me

 

[Auld Phart]

I like the way the script writer put in in Oh God part 2

Quotes from "Oh, God! Book II"

"God: [answering Tracy's question about why there is so much suffering in the world] I know this sounds like a cop-out, Tracy, but there's nothing I can do about pain and suffering. It's built into the system.

Tracy Richards: Which You invented.

God: Right. But my problem was I could never figure out how to build anything with just one side to it.

Tracy Richards: One side?

God: You ever see a front without a back?

Tracy Richards: No.

God: A top without a bottom?

Tracy Richards: No.

God: An up without a down?

Tracy Richards: No.

God: OK. Then there can't be good without bad, life without death, pleasure without pain. That's the way it is. If I take sad away, happy has to go with it. "

 

[BULLDOG]

Just a couple of questions
1. If God hates gays, why does he make so many of them?
2. Why does he tell so many competing right wing politicians he wants them to win and then sit back and laugh when they each claim he is on their side? That sounds like something an ass hole would do.

 

[rightwinger]

Why did God stick us with Trump?

Is God testing us?

 

[shockedcanadian]

The toughest question Religious folks must answer of skeptics is, "Why does God allow this to happen?"

Whether you are talking about human-engineered genocide, natural catastrophes, mass murder, or some other apparent injustice, "God" appears to have permitted it to happen (or commanded it to happen), and Why does God allow it to happen?

On the other side of the coin, we have evil people who are born wealthy, talented, beautiful, handsome, or are wildly successful - sometimes BECAUSE they are evil. They live their entire lives in the lap of luxury and die happy. How does God allow THIS to happen?

The core of the response is in life after death. We are taught to believe that the totality of human existence is not bounded by conception and natural death; that in some vaguely-defined way Evil is punished in the afterlife and Virtue is rewarded. The balancing effect of the "just desserts" of the afterlife excuses the obvious injustices (and this word is insufficient, certainly) of the life that we see.

If there is no afterlife, then God, if he does exist, is Evil.

Manifestly.

Who knows? It's why it's Faith I suppose. I can only assess how my own logic works.

First and foremost, I figure "I can't understand Gods logic, so, I have to be the best I can be, and fight the urge to not be a good human being." Hopefully in the end I will be rewarded. If not, and there is no God, I lived a reasonable existence. I simply refuse to roll the dice and go full on evil, not that it's in me anyways, but if I did and I was wrong, is the cost of hell worth it? Of course not. Call it hedging my bets.

Also, following my experiences in life, I've noticed something that is just as un-scientific, in so much in life there is an action and reaction, ying/yang. Some say "karma", but that invokes another religion and I'm not sure I agree with it, so let's just say, at the end of the day ones debts are paid and it's all zero sum. All things in the universe seem to work this way. It's uncanny. Like the Conservation of Mass. It's just a constant balance in some shape or form.

Thus, someone does evil, it will be repaid. Ditto for good. It may not even be in this world. Maybe a guy is a real SOB, lives a great, long life, makes billions. Seemed like a great guy, except he engaged in evil, exploiting others, demanding power and wielding it. Not being honest with intentions, sinning and never repenting with full heart and action. Well, he will pay. Worse for him, it will be in the next life. God isn't evil, he is balancing justice in this life and the next.

Maybe someone who suffers greatly in this life will be greatly rewarded in the next. Again, zero sum game. The person responsible for that suffering will pick up the tab.

 

[MeBelle]

Jesus is just all right with me

 

[MeBelle]

Why did God stick us with Trump?

Is God testing us?

The same way he tested us with Obama

 

[MarathonMike]

God is Great!

Jesus is just all right with me

Doobie Brothers reference?

 

[Weatherman2020]

I like the way the script writer put in in Oh God part 2

Quotes from "Oh, God! Book II"

"God: [answering Tracy's question about why there is so much suffering in the world] I know this sounds like a cop-out, Tracy, but there's nothing I can do about pain and suffering. It's built into the system.

Tracy Richards: Which You invented.

God: Right. But my problem was I could never figure out how to build anything with just one side to it.

Tracy Richards: One side?

God: You ever see a front without a back?

Tracy Richards: No.

God: A top without a bottom?

Tracy Richards: No.

God: An up without a down?

Tracy Richards: No.

God: OK. Then there can't be good without bad, life without death, pleasure without pain. That's the way it is. If I take sad away, happy has to go with it. "

Or like Bruce Almighty answering everyone’s prayers in the positive.

 

[Blackrook]

God is good but the only way to know that is because the Bible says he is.

 

[Weatherman2020]

The toughest question Religious folks must answer of skeptics is, "Why does God allow this to happen?"

Whether you are talking about human-engineered genocide, natural catastrophes, mass murder, or some other apparent injustice, "God" appears to have permitted it to happen (or commanded it to happen), and Why does God allow it to happen?

On the other side of the coin, we have evil people who are born wealthy, talented, beautiful, handsome, or are wildly successful - sometimes BECAUSE they are evil. They live their entire lives in the lap of luxury and die happy. How does God allow THIS to happen?

The core of the response is in life after death. We are taught to believe that the totality of human existence is not bounded by conception and natural death; that in some vaguely-defined way Evil is punished in the afterlife and Virtue is rewarded. The balancing effect of the "just desserts" of the afterlife excuses the obvious injustices (and this word is insufficient, certainly) of the life that we see.

If there is no afterlife, then God, if he does exist, is Evil.

Manifestly.

Is God evil for creating Satan even though he knew what Satan would do?

The angels had free will. 1/3 chose to rebel. God knew they would. And look at the havoc they bring every day.

What’s Gods options?

1. A perfect world where no one can do evil because they’re mindless robots.

2. A world filled with choices and contrasts.

God chose #2.

 

[Auld Phart]

Why did God stick us with Trump?

Is God testing us?

He knew if he backed Hillary, she'd want his throne next.

 

[MeBelle]

God is Great!

Jesus is just all right with me

Doobie Brothers reference?

post #11

 

[sparky]

God is Great!

Jesus is just all right with me

~S~

 

[MisterBeale]

. . . and so it was, Socrates was just condemned for "corrupting the youth." As I suppose many would have me so done, as well, if it would be allowed in this nation at this particular point in history, if it could be so. Or many of us, and things seem to be getting out of hand these days.

And as it comes to pass, the court prepares his sentence, he parts with a few final words to is supporters and friends;

". . .Friends, who would have acquitted me, I would like also to talk with you about this thing which has happened, while the magistrates are busy, and before I go to the place at which I must die. Stay then awhile, for we may as well talk with one another while there is time. You are my friends, and I should like to show you the meaning of this event which has happened to me. O my judges - for you I may truly call judges - I should like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance. Hitherto the familiar oracle within me has constantly been in the habit of opposing me even about trifles, if I was going to make a slip or error about anything; and now as you see there has come upon me that which may be thought, and is generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. But the oracle made no sign of opposition, either as I was leaving my house and going out in the morning, or when I was going up into this court, or while I was speaking, at anything which I was going to say; and yet I have often been stopped in the middle of a speech; but now in nothing I either said or did touching this matter has the oracle opposed me. What do I take to be the explanation of this? I will tell you. I regard this as a proof that what has happened to me is a good, and that those of us who think that death is an evil are in error. This is a great proof to me of what I am saying, for the customary sign would surely have opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good.

Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: - either death is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king, will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world, and finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus and Triptolemus, and other sons of God who were righteous in their own life, that pilgrimage will be worth making. What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again. I, too, shall have a wonderful interest in a place where I can converse with Palamedes, and Ajax the son of Telamon, and other heroes of old, who have suffered death through an unjust judgment; and there will be no small pleasure, as I think, in comparing my own sufferings with theirs. Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. What would not a man give, O judges, to be able to examine the leader of the great Trojan expedition; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or numberless others, men and women too! What infinite delight would there be in conversing with them and asking them questions! For in that world they do not put a man to death for this; certainly not. For besides being happier in that world than in this, they will be immortal, if what is said is true.

Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth - that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that to die and be released was better for me; and therefore the oracle gave no sign. For which reason also, I am not angry with my accusers, or my condemners; they have done me no harm, although neither of them meant to do me any good; and for this I may gently blame them.

Still I have a favor to ask of them. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing, - then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, I and my sons will have received justice at your hands.

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows."


The Internet Classics Archive | Apology by Plato