I've been thinking about things, which is always dangerous. Feel free to poke holes in this argument. The standard christian response to people pointing out odd, irrational or downright evil acts of god can be summed up as: "God is so huge and vast and all encompassing that we puny humans can't possibly understand him." OK, fair enough. But assuming there was a god, wouldn't the reverse be true as well? Think about it:as humans, we are greater than, say, amoebas. Can we really understand what it is like to be an amoeba? To be sightless, thoughtless, our lives only directed by two things: 1) eat. 2) avoid pain. Yes, we can talk about it, but can we really understand it? And, keep in mind that the gap between god and ourselves is even wider than ourselves and the amoeba-- at least according to christians. How could there be any love from god for us? There would be no common reference. Why would such a being expect love from us? Picture John Conway, ho in 1970 created a computer game/simulation called "Life." Would he have any realistic expectations of those dots on his monitor loving him?
Well the standard Christian rejoinder would be that god, unlike us, is all knowing, all powerful, all good, all this-and-that, and so he COULD understand us widdle amoebas. Special pleading again.
All I know is this amoeba never felt understood or cared for, and so was forced to conclude god is either indifferent, impersonal, absent ... or non-existent. No way to tell any of those apart.
The standard Christian rejoinder to THAT is that god isn't my personal cosmic candy machine and never promised me a rose garden, etc. They have an answer for everything; no matter if it's self-contradictory. God was always presented to me as my personal cosmic candy machine, until it was obvious he wasn't, then it was no longer an inducement for me to believe but rather a thing to avoid thinking / talking about lest it feed doubts.
I'm so glad to be well out of that funhouse hall of mirrors.
I think that's why they throw in the "All loving" and "all knowing" parts into the definition of god in order to circumvent that argument, at least in terms of why a god would know/care about us. The other part though, the "we don't understand gods capricious behavior" part, is easier to push back against. Most christian theology puts the "all-good" nature into the definition of god, as if to say even if we don't understand it, god is doing good. Which of course has a couple horns to grab. The first being the malleable nature of good (divine command) which can be pushed back on by claiming that either good means nothing if defined by god (because it can change on a whim), or that god outsources the nature of good to something else (god has nothing to do with what is good) The second is that by doing evil acts that humans can't understand, theres not only the evil of the act, but also the evil of the obfuscation. That whole "god works in mysterious ways" stuff means more frustration and sadness as one tries to figure out why god would let something happen, which is further suffering (evil) on top of the original act. From what I remember, the whole "god works in silly ways" argument is pretty sunk regarding the problem of evil but I can't off the top of me remember which answer I liked. If anyone here knows it feel free to toss it in, or there's google. It's a really big part of the argument I'm just blanking haha
I don't understand how people can worship god and then say all the bad out there is his will. The same people think they having suffered on earth will go to some mythical place and be rewarded, how screwed up is that>
We are all different and none of us our from his image. Being an amoeba would be fun. Idk if I would want to be a a single-cell animal?
I had a biology teacher who always went back to amoebas, I have a soft spot for them -he used to say that the sound of a class full of pencils making the dots was very restful.
The problem comes with us basing the concept on how we think. You have to think beyond your concepts, allow the variables to fit into their place and wonder about the equation. It doesn't fail, it just doesn't fill out because of too many possibilities. What happens is, people who think they have a conclusion, fill those variables with their biases, and get the result they already were looking for. Which is fine for the already decided. They already know the answer, why ponder it.
I Love this post! Theamoeba comparison is Excellent! Thanks!