WHY do we assume the GOD IS GOOD ??

[DaFoxx]

Why Do we always assume / state that god is good ?

if she were good, why is there so much pain, misery, disease, warfare going on, on this, her creation ?

I suggest god is evil / indifferent
and that the entity we call 'the devil' is, in actual fact, the good guy ..............

god is omnipotent, she gets everywhere, at all times
the devil is just a guy, doing what he can

might just explain why evil gets eveywhere
and why good is so rare ???

thoughts

[Egaladeist]

Well I don't think god has anything to do with what goes on...either way...bad things happen for a variety of reasons...

sometimes it's just human stupidity ( build your home on a flood plain or in tornado ally or on a hurricane coast or on a fault line you gotta expect bad things are going to happen )...

sometimes bad things happen by accident ( usually, but not always, caused by someone not paying attention )...eg. if you trip on the sidewalk and break your ankle is that the sidewalks fault?

sometimes bad things happen because of nature ( disease, illness, genetics, etc...if you know you have a genetic disposition to down syndrome don't be surprised if your kid comes out looking like Mr. McGoo )...

and sometimes bad things happen because of people...not necessarily bad people ( although there's a lot of them too )...

no where in there is ' god made this happen '

if anything at all you might ask why doesn't god do something to fix this...why does god allow these things to happen.

[keezel]

Interesting debate titled "How can a loving God send people to hell?"

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcrai ... dley0.html

I haven't read it in awhile, but iirc, I don't think the Christian apologist won. Pretty tough topic for Christianity.

Reguardless of who "won", they both make some of the best points I've ever come across.

[Elsparrow]

I personally don't believe in God, partly cos I was taught as a kid God was all loving.

There's just too much proof that there is no all loving God for me. Besides, if it turns out there is, I am playing the free will card.

[Egaladeist]

God really would not be the issue in this case...god would be virtually irrelevant.

There is no such thing as evil...itself...as a thing...it is an effect. All things are either good or amoral ...when you take something good or amoral and mis-use it you in effect cause bad/evil to come into existence.

eg. knowledge is in itself good...and the proper application of it is good...no bad/evil can from knowledge except in it's mis-use.

Free Will is nothing more than the ability to make the wrong choice.

[Elsparrow]

You say there is no such thing as evil.

Then surely there is no such thing as good either?

Good and Evil are purely human creations.

[Egaladeist]

Then surely there is no such thing as good either?

Good and Evil are purely human creations.

Actually....they are human concepts.

[SirDice]

I don't even think God exists, therefor Satan cannot exists either because God sent Satan to hell. In my view heaven and hell was created by man, dreamed up, thought out and passed down, to explain good and bad. Moral standards, the early years, when people started interacting more.

You always need a reference point to explain one way or the other. If there's no bad, there will be no good either. How could you tell the difference if you have never experienced either one? Why is it, when something really bad happens to a person they all enjoy the simpler things in life much more afterward? Things people, who never experienced such bad things, take for granted.

I believe in a natural balance. Light and dark, good and bad, right and wrong, prey and predator, life and death. One cannot exist without the other. Equal and opposite. Natural balance will always be restored.

[|3lack|ce]

Living in the land of religious freedom as I do, I believe that our greatest, most absolute freedom in regards to religion is the freedom to keep our mouths shut about our own beliefs.

That being said, don't fob your beliefs off on me, or take potshots at my beliefs simply because they're in disagreement with your own, and I'll agree to do the same.

Nuff said,
|ce

[Elsparrow]

Yet no matter your views, you should of been taught, even by parents, to tolerate other people's views

Just don't have to agree with them.

[SirDice]

I agree on the not having to agree part

I'll respect anyone's religion but PLEASE don't start yapping to me about yours being the ULTIMATE truth. There's no such thing as absolute truth. Truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

[Vorlin]

I definitely agree that religion is a very volatile topic and has to be handled "with kid gloves" which doesn't work if it's only one-sided.

It seems like most religions, it's stated in their documentation somewhere that to "go to heaven", you have to do X, Y, Z and not do A, B, or C... And since there's so many religions and differentiating things, who's right from wrong, especially considering if it's been thousands of years since all these began and how much has been changed for some kind of good thing, altered for negative connotations?

I learned to respect the true islamic religion when I was in SA, down to observing their Ramadan, their trip to Mecca each year, the whole thing. I can only hope that they would do the same thing in light of my religion but I seriously doubt it.

[SirDice]

IIRC the Qu'ran even tells you to respect other religions..

That whole wiping out the infidels/non-believers bullshit those extremist keep reciting like a broken record is taken totally out of context and used (I should say abused) for their own purposes.

[Aspman]

< non-believer.

God/gods are human artifices. Thought up to explain the unexplainable, what is the sun, why is there day and night, what happens when you die? And to control populations. A good deal if you are a witch doctor, get all the young daughters sent to you for 'blessings'.

The Abrahamic religions might have a 'good' God now but it wasn't always like that. The God of the old testament was a bit of bastard. All fire and brimstone. Gods of older religions tend to be nastier.

The Gods seem to 'civilise' with their followers. Strange that for an infinite being that they would change over such a short period of time.

[keezel]

God really would not be the issue in this case...god would be virtually irrelevant.

There is no such thing as evil...itself...as a thing...it is an effect. All things are either good or amoral ...when you take something good or amoral and mis-use it you in effect cause bad/evil to come into existence.

eg. knowledge is in itself good...and the proper application of it is good...no bad/evil can from knowledge except in it's mis-use.

Free Will is nothing more than the ability to make the wrong choice.

Just to add to what you already said:

I once had a philosophy professor who defined evil as the absence of good - just as darkness is not itself a substance, but is the absence of light.