How can there be a loving God?

Whatsisface

Whatsisface

Well-known member

“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”​


Richard Dawkins. River out of Eden, a Darwinian view of life.

That this is true on naturalism is no surprise, but that it's true there being a loving God beggars belief as none of this is necessary to an omnipotent God.
 
Whatsisface said:

“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”​


Richard Dawkins. River out of Eden, a Darwinian view of life.

That this is true on naturalism is no surprise, but that it's true there being a loving God beggars belief as none of this is necessary to an omnipotent God.
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Hmmmmm ...
 
I've often found that religion - at least in the Western tradition - is basically a wish for things being the opposite of the way they actually are.
  • In a universe without Justice, God defines right & wrong, and rewards & punishes accordingly.
  • In a universe without purpose, God provides a meaning / purpose for our lives.
  • In a universe that is largely cold and indifferent, God is Love.
It's quite obvious that the only love living beings experience is the love of/from other living beings.
 
Whatsisface said:

“........... thousands of animals are being eaten alive,........​

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While Dawkins eats his animals dead, leaving others to kill them alive for him, while he feasts on their tasty cooked carcasses in his palatial mansion, bitching about how life sucks, oblivious to all the blessings he enjoys. What an ungrateful poser! Nobody is asking him to be a glass-half-filled kind of fake philosopher, but if his own glass is so full of hemlock, maybe he should do himself a favor and imbibe it to its fullest. What a insufferable boor!
 
Whatsisface said:

“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”​


Richard Dawkins. River out of Eden, a Darwinian view of life.

That this is true on naturalism is no surprise, but that it's true there being a loving God beggars belief as none of this is necessary to an omnipotent God.
Click to expand...
Easy.
Richard wouldn't be complaining about it if YHVH hadn't written his righteousness on our hearts, and minds.

You would not be able to love without the freedom to do incredibly hateful things.


In order to love, you have to have the ability to choose.

As I recall, you have been explained this before.
 
mikeT said:
I've often found that religion - at least in the Western tradition - is basically a wish for things being the opposite of the way they actually are.
  • In a universe without Justice, God defines right & wrong, and rewards & punishes accordingly.
  • In a universe without purpose, God provides a meaning / purpose for our lives.
  • In a universe that is largely cold and indifferent, God is Love.
It's quite obvious that the only love living beings experience is the love of/from other living beings.
Click to expand...
Interesting, thanks.
 
SteveB said:
Easy.
Richard wouldn't be complaining about it if YHVH hadn't written his righteousness on our hearts, and minds.
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That this is so needs support. You have effectively committed the fallacy of circular reasoning or begging the question because of it.
SteveB said:
You would not be able to love without the freedom to do incredibly hateful things.
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I don't see why not, and you haven't said why. Most people don't commit incredibly hateful things, but do love.
 
John 1:10

He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and the world did not know Him.
 
Whatsisface said:

“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”​


Richard Dawkins. River out of Eden, a Darwinian view of life.

That this is true on naturalism is no surprise, but that it's true there being a loving God beggars belief as none of this is necessary to an omnipotent God.
Click to expand...
Have you read theists' replies to the problem of evil?
 
mikeT said:
In a universe without Justice, God defines right & wrong, and rewards & punishes accordingly.
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And very tellingly has to do that outside the witness-able reality of the world we inhabit and defer it to some other world we can’t tangibly reproach. How convenient for them, eh?
 
SteveB said:
Easy.
Richard wouldn't be complaining about it if YHVH hadn't written his righteousness on our hearts, and minds.

You would not be able to love without the freedom to do incredibly hateful things.


In order to love, you have to have the ability to choose.

As I recall, you have been explained this before.
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LoL... not like heaven though, where all is love without such distinctions. Your religious philosophies are like scorpions that run around stinging themselves in their own foreheads. You can’t love if hate did not exist, except of course in a place and paradigm where hate does not exist. Please...., give yourself a break from this contradictory stupidity.
 
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Photine said:
John 1:10

He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and the world did not know Him.
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Well, when your PR man is a god that is indifferent to getting his own message to the world don’t expect too much.
 
Lucian said:
Have you read theists' replies to the problem of evil?
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Yes, but I don't find them convincing. However, a lot of them are based on the need for free will, but Dawkins point is more about animals than humans so the free will argument doesn't apply.
 
5wize said:
Well, when your PR man is a god that is indifferent to getting his own message to the world don’t expect too much.
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A God Who has providentially presided over the printing and publication of 7 billion Bibles full of that "message." Some "indifference," eh?
 
stiggy wiggy said:
A God Who has providentially presided over the printing and publication of 7 billion Bibles full of that "message." Some "indifference," eh?
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Correct. Stuff them in unopened drawers of hotels across America when the need is elsewhere. Oh, he’s a brainiac alright. Bill Gates is doing more effective work in his reach of the world and the assistance it actually needs. We’re better than just loading up hungry diseased people with more superstition aren’t we?
 
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The Pixie said:
And yet he could not get Mat 25:46 translated to say "ages" rather than "eternity".
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Yeah, I thought he was supposed to divinely protect his word from such issues through the divine inspiration of its handlers. There seems to be little power in the word itself.
 
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