Is God Good?

[ding]

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.

The question presupposes that "God" exists in the first place, and thus has the wherewithal to "allow" anything.

If that premise is not assumed, then by definition "God" cannot be either 'good' nor 'evil'.

This will probably go over your head but evil is not extant. So no, God must be good. That or God must be evil and good is not extant.

 

[Disir]

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.

And then no one is responsible. People are rendered an excuse.

Justice is rare. It is easier to believe that someone will get their just desserts in the afterlife when justice fails here

It's easy to talk about the great injustices like genocide in an abstract way--a philosophical pov. Not so easy on a daily basis or even when you break mass genocide down with names. These things occur because of humans with names. Placing some divine being into the picture is a distraction.